(The AFL-CIO issued the following on October 4.)
A SPECIAL WIN—Some 2,134 New York City home care workers employed by Special Touch voted Aug. 31 to join SEIU District 1199NY. Meanwhile, the majority of 280 workers at Tenet’s Western Medical Center in Anaheim, Calif., voted for Local 399, and 150 Holman building service workers in Oregon won employer recognition for Local 49.
NEW SCHOOL, NEW UNION WIN—The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Sept. 27 ended the employer’s delay tactics and certified the vote by adjunct professors at the New School University in New York City to join UAW. A majority of the 1,600 part-time faculty members voted to form ACT-UAW (Academics Coming Together-UAW) union in February. For more information, visit www.newschooluaw.org.
MAJORITY RULES—Some 195 workers recently won a voice on the job with UNITE HERE, including 90 workers employed at American Apparel in Roanoke, Ala.; 80 employees of the Kellwood distribution center in Summit, Miss.; and 25 Barney’s retail store employees in New York City after a majority verification campaign. In majority verification, workers win their union when a majority signs authorization cards indicating the desire to join a union.
SETTING THE PACE—The majority of 90 production and maintenance employees at Smurfit-Stone’s corrugated box facility in Fargo, N.D., voted to join PACE International Union on Sept. 15. “I felt that organizing with PACE and gaining a voice and vote in important decisions were important for all of us at Smurfit-Stone Container,” said Rick Kraft, a 20-year maintenance employee and member of the organizing committee. Workers at 92 other Smurfit-Stone facilities also have a voice on the job with PACE. Meanwhile, the majority of 27 workers at a South Brunswick, N.J., Air Products & Chemicals Inc. facility voted to join PACE in August.
SWEET VICTORY—Although Hurricane Ivan forced organizers to postpone the union election, the 95 workers at the Tate and Lyle Sucralose plant in McIntosh, Ala., voted for a voice on the job with the Machinists in late September. The workers make Splenda sweetener.
GETTING ON THE UNION TRAIN—Building on a victory among 60 train crew members at the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway in July, the 37 train and engine workers at the New England Central Railroad joined the Locomotive Engineers-Teamsters on Sept. 22. Meanwhile, 22 workers at Synergy International in Easton, Md., and Bridgeville, Del., voted to join Local 355, as did the majority of 17 drivers at R-Max Services in Bridgeville. The 24 workers at Big Foot Express joined Local 505 in Huntington, W.Va. The companies are independent contractors that deliver packages for DHL.
GET INVOLVED IN ELECTION EFFORT—With Election Day only a month away, thousands of union members are working daily in phone banks, door-to-door neighborhood walks and other actions in an unprecedented mobilization to get out the working family vote. Working families can be the decisive factor in this very close election. Find out how you can get involved by calling your local union or central labor council, watch for e-mails from the AFL-CIO Working Families e-Network or volunteer online at www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/politics/volunteer_main.cfm. To sign up for the Working Families Network, visit www.aflcio.org.
HOTEL WORKERS STRIKE—Some 1,200 members of UNITE HERE Sept. 29 launched a two-week strike against four San Francisco hotels. Members of IBT and the Operating Engineers agreed to honor the hotel workers’ picket lines. Meanwhile, 10 other San Francisco hotels responded to the strike by locking out their employees on Oct. 1. San Francisco is one of three cities—Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., are the other two—where more than 10,000 hotel workers have banded together to fight for better working conditions, employer-paid health care benefits and better pensions. They are seeking two-year contracts that will expire at the same time as hotel contracts in other major cities such as Boston, Chicago, New York and Toronto. The workers believe that by joining with hotel workers in other cities they will gain equality with the global hotel industry. In Atlantic City, N.J., 12,000 hotel workers walked out at seven hotels Oct. 1. The workers have agreements with five other hotels in the city. The Atlantic City workers’ major issue is the hotels’ increasing use of nonunion subcontractors. For more information, visit www.hotelworkersunited.org.
KERRY SHOWS STRONG LEADERSHIP—Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) showed during the first presidential debate Sept. 30 that he would be a decisive and strong president, capable of leading the nation’s war against terrorism and restoring fairness to the economy, union members and leaders say. Kerry, the clear winner in the debate according to post-debate polls, presented a plan to secure democracy in Iraq and fight terrorism. He also hammered away at the consequences of President George W. Bush’s “colossal error of judgment” on Iraq, which has led to massive spending on a war going badly at the expense of education, health care, roads and bridges. As president, Kerry said he would strengthen the nation’s borders and fund programs to hire more firefighters and police that the Bush administration cut. The AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department praised Kerry’s pledge to plug the gaping security holes Bush has left in our transportation system.
KEEP THE CARD—A Republican proposal to prevent workers from using majority verification, also known as card-check, to gain a voice on the job would inflict serious harm on workers’ freedom to form unions, Brent Garren, UNITE HERE’s senior associate general counsel, told a House subcommittee Sept. 30. The Secret Ballot Protection Act (H.R. 4343), introduced by Rep. Charles Norwood (R-Ga.), would require workers seeking union representation to hold NLRB-supervised secret ballot elections. Majority verification levels the playing field by averting the delaying tactics employers commonly use during the NLRB election process, Garren said. The Employee Free Choice Act (S. 1925, H.R. 3619), which has gained bipartisan support from 245 members of Congress, would ensure when a majority of employees in a workplace decides to form a union, they can do so without the debilitating obstacles employers now use to block them.
RINGING IN BELLSOUTH DEAL—Members of the Communications Workers of America in nine states last week overwhelmingly ratified a new five-year contract with Bell-South Corp., covering some 44,000 employees. Under the new deal, workers will receive pay increases totaling 10.5 percent over the five-year term. Job security was a major issue, and BellSouth agreed to return some new technology services work that had been performed by contractors to the bargaining unit.
CHINA CURRENCY PETITION—The White House should accept a petition filed Sept. 30 by several members of Congress to “end China’s illegal manipulation of its currency, which has made America’s trade deficit unsustainable and our manufacturing job loss unbearable,” AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka said. The petition, filed Sept. 30 by 22 representatives and eight senators, including Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) and Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), would require the administration to challenge China’s currency manipulation at the World Trade Organization. Unless China revalues its currency, sanctions could be imposed. The United States has a record $140 billion trade deficit with China. The Bush administration rejected within three hours a similar petition filed Sept. 9 by the China Currency Coalition, a broad-based coalition of businesses, unions and agricultural and service organizations.
NLRB ISSUES QUEBECOR COMPLAINT—The NLRB issued a complaint Sept. 30 accusing Quebecor World Inc., the world’s largest printer, of intimidating, threatening, coercing, spying on and illegally firing union supporters in Mississippi and Tennessee. Graphic Communications is assisting Quebecor employees in the United States who want to form a union. For more information on the campaign, visit www.justiceatquebecor.org.
NMB TRIES TO RAILROAD COMPLAINTS—In response to a Bush administration move to suppress rail workers from speaking out on critical issues of working conditions, safety and pay, AFL-CIO rail unions and their members have launched a national grassroots mobilization that has generated thousands of protest e-mails to the Bush administration and Congress. The National Mediation Board are proposing fees to file grievances—which would apply to workers but not to management. For more information, visit www.ttd.org.
REPORT: FEWER HAVE INSURANCE—The number of uninsured Americans younger than 65 shot up by 5.1 million between 2000 and 2003, according to a new report by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. The spike was mostly due to a drop in employer-sponsored health care coverage, the report said. Download the full report, The Economic Downturn and Changes in Health Insurance Coverage, 2000–2003.
WINDFALL FOR WALL STREET—If President Bush succeeds with his plan to partially privatize Social Security, Wall Street firms would enjoy a whopping $940 billion windfall over 75 years. Meanwhile, retirees would suffer benefit cuts, according to a new report, The Fees of Private Accounts and the Impact of Social Security Privatization on Financial Managers, by Austan Goolsbee, an economics professor at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Download the full report at http://gsb.uchicago.edu/pdf/ssec_goolsbee.pdf.
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 at www.workingfamiliestoolkit.com; compare President Bush and Sen. Kerry on the issues at www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/politics/kerry_compare.cfm; get voter registration, early vote and absentee ballot deadlines at www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/politics/voterreglist.cfm; download a Voters’ Bill of Rights at www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/politics/takeaction.cfm; and order mobilizing gear at http://unionshop.aflcio.org/shop/category.cfm.
ROCC AGAINST CANCER—The Coalition of Labor Union Women and Working Women Reaching Out Against Cervical Cancer (ROCC) have joined with musician Christine Blaze to support her nationwide Yellow Umbrella tour in October. Blaze, a cervical cancer survivor, hopes her tour will raise awareness about the disease. Every year, about 10,520 women in the United States get cervical cancer and about 3,900 women die from it. For more information on the tour, visit www.cluw.org/cervcancerYUT.html.
SAG HONORS GARNER—The Screen Actors will bestow its highest honor, the Life Achievement Award, to James Garner, best known for his role as a wry detective on “The Rockford Files.” Garner will receive his honor at SAG’s 11th annual award program on Feb. 5, 2005, which will broadcast on Turner Network Television.