(The AFL-CIO circulated the following on November 29.)
CASINO WORKERS JOIN UNION—Nearly 700 workers at the Chukchansi Gold Resort and Casino near Fresno, Calif., became the newest members of UNITE HERE Nov. 19 through majority sign-up. Under majority sign-up, workers win their union when a majority verifies the desire to join a union by signing authorization cards.
GAINING A VOICE—Some 568 workers gained a voice on the job through the Steelworkers in recent weeks, including more than 200 employees at PDC Glass & Metal Services in Cheswick, Pa. In Bay City, Mich., about 140 certified nursing assistants at the Carriage House of Bay City joined the union. The 145 Sodexho food and cleaning service employees working at City of Hope Hospital in Duarte, Calif., chose USWA, as did 83 technical employees at Grand Itasca Hospital in Grand Rapids, Minn.
A UNION EDUCATION—A strong majority of 553 professors at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, Wash., recently voted to form the United Faculty of Eastern Washington University. The union will be affiliated with AFT and the National Education Association, which campaigned together statewide to help faculty members win a voice on the job. The win came two years after workers and their unions successfully lobbied for a new state law that gave faculty members at four-year universities the right to bargain collectively. In the Chicago area, 161 members of the South Suburban College adjunct faculty voted this month to affiliate with the Illinois Federation of Teachers/AFT. The majority of 36 workers in Pipestone, Minn., on Nov. 10 voted to form the Education Minnesota Pipestone Area Educational Support Professionals, an AFT affiliate.
STUDENT SUPPORT PAYS OFF—Some 70 employees of Chartwells Educational Dining Services working at the State University of New York at Purchase are celebrating a victory after voting for Civil Service Employees Association Local 1000, an AFSCME affiliate. Several students and community supporters conducted a hunger strike and protests in May to call attention to anti-worker tactics used by the company to deny workers their right to form a union.
COMMUNICATING THE UNION MESSAGE—More than 65 workers gained a voice on the job this month with the Communications Workers of America. Despite a strong anti-union campaign by the employer, 34 warehouse workers at Alltel Communications Products Inc. in Alpharetta, Ga., voted for Local 3204. In Puerto Rico, 25 telephone installers at Prime R Construction in Caguas and Fajardo voted unanimously for Local 3010.
ANOTHER ANTI-WORKER RULING—The Republican-dominated National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) continued its string of anti-worker decisions with a major ruling Nov. 19 that overturns a key precedent and further restricts workers’ freedom to form unions. The 3–2 decision overturns the four-year-old precedent set in M.B. Sturgis, which allowed temporary workers supplied by staffing firms the right to form a combined union with employees of the company using the temporary workers. Under the new ruling, temporary workers now must have the permission of both employers before there can be a vote on whether to form a union. The board dismissed a petition filed by SEIU District 1199 seeking to represent employees at Oakwood Care Center, a nursing home in Oakdale, N.Y. The nursing home and N&W Agency Inc. jointly determine the agency workers’ pay and benefits. Oakwood supervises them, and they work side by side with workers employed solely by the nursing home. The three Republican members of the NLRB voted for the change, while the two Democrats, Wilma Liebman and Dennis Walsh, dissented strongly. They accused the majority of “accelerating the expansion of a permanent underclass of workers” and charged that the “result—which exalts business flexibility at the complete expense of employee rights—is the opposite of what Congress intended.” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said, “Despite frequent rhetoric from the Bush administration about meeting the challenges of the 21st century, this decision demonstrates an effort by the Bush board to shrink the coverage of the federal law and reverse a decision that was designed in part to recognize changing employment patterns and remove an arbitrary barrier to organizing among temporary workers.” This past summer, the NLRB, also along partisan lines, voted to deny university teaching and research assistants the protections of the National Labor Relations Act, which include the right to form unions, and restricted the rights of workers with disabilities to form unions.
NEW PACT AT DISNEY—Workers at Walt Disney World in Buena Vista, Fla., will receive wage increases of 4 percent each year under a new three-year contract ratified Nov. 18. The contract covers 22,000 workers represented by five unions—Teamsters, Theatrical Stage Employees, TransportationoCommunications Union, UNITE HERE and United Food and Commercial Workers. The first increase is retroactive to October for workers who are not receiving top-scale wages. Workers at the top of the scale with five or more years will receive a 20-cent hourly increase effective Jan. 1 plus bonuses in the first and second years and a 25-cent hourly increase in the third year.
SICK OF HOSPITAL TACTICS—Some 7,000 workers, including members of SEIU locals 250 and 707, will hold a one-day strike Dec. 1 at Northern California hospitals owned by Sutter Health. Sutter is refusing to honor industry standards regarding workers’ voice in staffing and training funds, which SEIU has negotiated with more than 60 area hospitals.
AUTO WORKERS WIN BETTER BENEFITS—The 1,300 employees at Detroit Diesel Corp., a DaimlerChrysler subsidiary in Redford, Mich., Nov. 21 ratified a new 66-month contract, which calls for two new engine platforms to be produced at the facility. The workers, members of UAW Local 163, also improved their health coverage and pension benefits.
FIRST EDITION CONTRACT—After almost two years of bargaining, some 21 Borders Books & Music workers in Minneapolis, represented by UFCW Local 789, have a first contract. The agreement, ratified Nov. 14, includes an in-store labor–management committee as well as a grievance and arbitration process. This is the second Borders store nationwide to reach a first contract.
CHARTER SCHOOLS TRAIL OTHER PUBLIC SCHOOLS—Charter schools are far less likely to meet state performance standards than are other public schools, according to a report commissioned by the federal Department of Education. The report compared regular public school and charter school performances in five states—Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Texas—and the regular public schools outperformed charter schools in all states. In Texas, 98 percent of regular public schools meet state performance standards, but only 66 percent of charter schools do. The Bush administration is encouraging states to hand over failing public schools to commercial companies and nonprofit community groups that want to run them as charter schools with public funding. The report was presented to the Education Department in June but was not made public until late November after The New York Times filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain it. For more information on charter schools, visit www.aft.org.
L.A. SUES CINTAS—The city of Los Angeles is suing giant uniform-supplier Cintas for breach of contract. Besides charging Cintas with failing to provide promised new uniforms for its Department of Water and Power, an electronic tracking system and subcontractor tracking, the suit alleges Cintas may have violated the living wage ordinance. In April, workers at three Cintas facilities sued the company, claiming it paid less than the official Los Angeles County living wage of $8.78 an hour with health benefits and $10.03 without benefits. Workers at Cintas nationwide are attempting to form a union with UNITE HERE, but the company is waging a virulent anti-union campaign.
BILLS WOULD STOP BENEFITS TAKE-AWAY—Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts praised proposed legislation that would prevent coal operators from using federal bankruptcy laws to terminate promised lifetime health care benefits. Two bills, introduced by Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), were prompted by an Aug. 31 federal bankruptcy court ruling in Lexington, Ky., allowing Horizon Natural Resources to terminate health care for some 2,000 retired miners and their dependents. Congress has not yet acted on the bills.
TOUR SPOTLIGHTS GLOBAL INJUSTICE—Union leaders from India on Nov. 28 kicked off a nine-city tour in the United States to open a dialogue drawing attention to violations of workers’ rights around the world. The activists are affiliated with the New Trade Union Initiative, a coalition of independent Indian unions. They are spreading the word that U.S. jobs destroyed by multinational companies outnumber the jobs they create in India, where workers are working harder and longer. For information about the tour, visit the Jobs with Justice website at www.jwj.org.
REWARD OFFERED IN MURDER—The IBT, in conjunction with the Longshoremen and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, posted Nov. 19 a $75,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the murderers of Gilberto Soto, an IBT organizer, who was assassinated Nov. 5 in Usulutan, El Salvador. Soto, who helped U.S. port drivers form unions, was in Central America to meet with union leaders and activists fighting to organize port drivers for Bridge International Transport, a subsidiary of A.P. Moller-Maersk, a Danish ocean carrier. IBT leaders have dismissed Maersk’s offer to independently investigate Soto’s murder. AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney and IBT President James P. Hoffa met Nov. 16 with Salvadoran Ambassador René León to insist Salvadoran authorities intensify their investigation.
LABOR ALLY GETS STATE POST—California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) appointed Patrick Henning, a Democrat and son of legendary labor activist Jack Henning, to head the state’s Employment Development Department, a $12.1 billion agency. For the past 17 years, Henning was a legislative expert for California state Assembly and Senate labor committees. He was formerly Gov. Jerry Brown’s labor commissioner and a member of the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board in the early 1980s.