(The AFL-CIO distributed the following on October 25.)
BEEFING UP WITH UFCW—The 125 workers at Minnesota Beef in Buffalo Lake, Minn., won a voice on the job with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 789 in a rerun election on Sept. 24, while the majority of 100 workers at Homasote, which manufactures building materials in Trenton, N.J., overwhelmingly voted to join UFCW Local 56. Other recent UFCW organizing wins include 56 Spring Lake Nursing Home workers in Winter Haven, Fla.; 50 Doane’s Pet Care workers in Clinton, Okla.; 45 workers at the Carteret Senior Living home in Carteret, N.J.; and 55 workers at the Mivila Foods Corp. in Paterson, N.J.
NEW AFT WINS IN NEW MEXICO—The 216 workers at Belen (N.M.) Consolidated School District won a voice on the job Sept. 21 with the Belen Federation of School Employees, an AFT affiliate, when the school board voted to verify the union’s status after a majority signed cards expressing the desire to join the union. Last year, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) signed a law reinstating public employees’ right to form unions and bargain collectively and providing for majority verification so workers can win their union when a majority signs authorization cards indicating the desire to form a union. In Dulce, N.M., the majority of 56 teachers, counselors and librarians voted to join AFT Oct. 7.
GETTING A HEAD START WITH AFSCME—Last month, 66 Head Start workers employed by the city of Rockford, Ill., won a voice on the job with AFSCME Council 31 after a successful majority verification process, as did 38 attorneys who work for the state of Illinois in the departments of Revenue and Professional Regulation.
PACE BOXES UP A WIN—The majority of 43 workers at PCA, a box-making facility in Mascot, Tenn., voted to join PACE International Union recently.
IAFF: BUSH UNDERFUNDS HOMELAND SECURITY—The Fire Fighters are blasting President George W. Bush’s cuts to homeland security programs. Earlier this month, Bush signed a bill appropriating funds for the Department of Homeland Security in fiscal year 2005 that cuts money from first responders, grants to states, urban search and rescue programs—even grants for local fire departments to buy new equipment. “To ignore Bush’s record on these critical homeland security concerns ensures that we just keep getting more of the same rhetoric without real action,” said IAFF President Harold Schaitberger.
HOTEL WORKERS STAY STRONG—As San Francisco hotels continue to lock out 4,000 workers at 14 properties, hotel workers in Los Angeles, members of UNITE HERE Local 11, are preparing to boycott nine luxury hotels there. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors held a hearing on the lockout, listening to hotel workers and community leaders describe the disruption to people’s lives, to the community and to the tourism industry. In negotiations with UNITE HERE Local 25 in Washington, D.C., managers are threatening workers with higher health care costs unless workers accept the contract hotels are offering. Local 25 plans to subsidize the additional health care costs management is forcing members to pay as negotiations continue. On Oct. 20 in Boston, 85 members of UNITE HERE Local 26 held a sit-in at a Hyatt Regency downtown to show solidarity with their locked-out union brothers and sisters in San Francisco. Hotel workers in three cities are trying to win fair contracts that would all expire in 2006, giving workers parity to negotiate with the increasingly global hotel industry. In Atlantic City, N.J., 10,000 members of UNITE HERE Local 54 remain on strike against seven casinos. The Rev. Jesse Jackson and Sen. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) joined activists on the picket lines last week. For more information, visit www.hotelworkersunited.org.
ONE MORE WEEK—With only one week before the Nov. 2 presidential election, union activists are working intensively to reach out to union voters, highlighting Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) strong stands on creating and keeping good jobs, expanding access to health insurance and protecting retirement security. There are 257 phone banks running in 16 states. “Everywhere I visit, I find that union members are motivated as never before to bring about a change in affordable health care and a real future for their families,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney on a precinct walk in Orlando, Fla., “and they’re willing to walk in the cold and spend their evenings phone calling in order to secure a better future.” More than 113,000 volunteers have participated in the union movement’s voter education and mobilization program so far, a number expected to double by Election Day. Union members have passed out more than 32 million leaflets at their workplaces. AFL-CIO officers and union presidents are hitting the streets and the phones all over the country as well. This election season, more than 90 percent of union members will receive issue education and voter information from their unions. For political resources you can use, see “POLITICAL RESOURCES ONLINE,” below.
CWA RALLIES AGAINST AT&T—Members of the Communications Workers of America rallied in communities nationwide Oct. 19, focusing the public’s attention on AT&T’s decision to lay off more than 1,500 union workers from locations across the country. “AT&T is rapidly getting rid of workers and managers, outsourcing those jobs and sending more work overseas to India, Mexico and other low-wage countries,” said Ralph Maly, CWA vice president for communications and technologies.
FAMILIES HAVE LESS CASH IN THEIR POCKETS—Fewer family-supporting jobs and skyrocketing health care costs last year left America’s middle-income families with less cash in their pockets than in 2000, according to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Although President Bush says his tax cuts have helped the middle class, the EPI report found job losses and rising health care costs far outweigh any benefits from the Bush tax cuts, which heavily favor the wealthy. Download the report, Less Cash in Their Pockets: Trends in Income, Wages, Taxes and Health Spending of Middle-Income Families, 2000–03, at www.epinet.org/content.cfm/bp154.
STATE JOB LOSS REPORTS—The AFL-CIO’s Industrial Union Council recently released reports detailing job loss due to trade in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. In the past three years, the proportion of jobs lost because of trade ranged from 52 percent to an astonishing 90 percent in those four states. Wisconsin lost one of every nine manufacturing jobs, Ohio lost nearly one of every six and Pennsylvania lost more than half its computer and electronics products workforce. Washington’s aerospace industry shed more than a quarter of its workforce since January 2001. Download the reports at www.aflcio.org/yourjobeconomy/jobs. Meanwhile, a new report from the U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission, The Changing Nature of Corporate Global Restructuring: The Impact of Production Shifts on Jobs in the U.S., China and Around the Globe, shows U.S. companies will send some 406,000 American jobs overseas this year compared with 204,000 jobs three years ago. Download the report at www.uscc.gov/researchreports/2004/cornell_u_mass_report.pdf.
SOLIDARITY CENTER STAFF DETAINED IN NIGERIA—In an unprecedented incident, Nigerian State Security Services (SSS) arrested the staff of the Solidarity Center’s office in Abuja Oct. 15 after searching the premises and seizing documents. The SSS refused to allow staff members to contact an attorney or the U.S. Embassy and held them—along with a Catholic priest and a staffer’s five-month-old baby—at SSS headquarters for several hours before releasing them. “Not even under the harshest military regime did the international labor movement come under such assault,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. “This behavior is entirely unacceptable in a democratic government.”
SAG WINS DIVERSITY AWARD—Honored for its work in seeking more racial and ethnic inclusion in movies and television projects, SAG on Sept. 22 won a Diversity Achievement Award from the American Advertising Foundation.
POLITICAL RESOURCES ONLINE–As Election Day gets closer, use
these online resources to help educate and mobilize union
members to vote.
***Customize and order political fliers:
http://http://www.workingfamiliestoolkit.com
***Compare President Bush and Sen. Kerry on the issues:
http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/politics/kerry_compare.cfm
***Get early vote and absentee ballot deadlines:
http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/politics/voterreglist.cfm
***Download a Voters’ Bill of Rights:
http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/politics/takeaction.cfm
***Order “I’m Union and I Vote” buttons and other mobilizing
gear: http://unionshop.aflcio.org/shop/category.cfm
***Encourage union veterans to join the Union Veterans Network
and share what union vets have to say about John Kerry:
http://www.unionveterans.com
***Add fun to voter education with the online candidate
comparison game, Whaddya Do If:
http://www.aflcio.org/familyfunresources/games/game_presidentialroulette.cfm
***Send online Vote! cards:
http://www.aflcio.org/familyfunresources/ecards
***View a cool Flash animation on Bush’s disastrous record:
http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/politics/fourmoreyears_flash.cfm