(The AFL-CIO circulated the following on August 23.)
New members reported in this week’s WIP: 3,507
New members reported in WIP, year to date: 80,870
BIG WIN AT AMERICA WEST–After a hard-fought struggle, the nearly 3,100 customer service employees at America West Airlines nationwide are Teamsters. The National Mediation Board announced Aug. 17 the workers had voted for the union during three weeks of telephone balloting. “The company has taken us for granted for too long, and now that will change,” said Tracy Biles, an America West customer service representative at Dulles International Airport in Sterling, Va. The new union members work in 50 airports and two reservations call centers for the Phoenix-based carrier.
UNIONS PREFERRED–Some 256 workers joined UNITE HERE this month, including 231 workers at Preferred Meals who prepare school lunches in the Chicago area. They chose the union through a majority verification, in which workers win their union when a majority signs authorization cards indicating the desire to join a union. In San Jose, Calif., 25 employees at Montgomery Hotel chose Local 19 via majority verification.
FLEET VICTORY–The 113 registered and licensed practical nurses, industrial hygienists and clerks at the U.S. Navy Fleet Industrial Service Center in Cherry Point, N.C., are members of Machinists Local 2297 after a 10-month battle with the U.S. Navy. The Federal Labor Relations Authority this month certified the union, which also represents workers at the Naval Air Depot in Cherry Point.
GAINING A VOICE–The 38 workers at Patio.com in Westport, Conn., voted Aug. 6 for a voice on the job with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 371. The company manufactures patio furniture.
GROUPS SUE OVER PROVISIONAL BALLOTS–In an effort to ensure every ballot is counted in the 2004 election, the Voter Protection Coalition, which includes the AFL-CIO, AFSCME, SEIU and civil rights allies, last week asked the Florida Supreme Court to overturn a state law requiring destruction of provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct. Provisional ballots, a key component of national election reform laws passed in 2002, are given to voters whose names do not appear on the local precinct’s rolls. The provisional ballots are meant to be reviewed and ballots of eligible voters counted. But at least 16 states, including Florida, passed legislation restricting access to these ballots. The Florida suit asks the court to instruct Florida’s election officials to count provisional ballots as long as they are cast in the county where the voter lives.
BUSH’S PAYLESS RECOVERY–President George W. Bush’s economic policies have led to an unprecedented decline in real earnings and continued high levels of unemployment and underemployment, according to the Labor Research Association. The group reports new data that show wages will not increase in 2005 despite a boom in productivity and profits. For a copy of the report, Bush’s Jobless, Payless “Recovery,” visit http://www.lraonline.org. Meanwhile, the U.S. Census Bureau reported the income gap between the nation’s richest citizens and those in the middle and lower ends of the scale has risen steadily over the past 20 years. In 1973, the wealthiest 20 percent of households accounted for 44 percent of total income. Their share jumped to 50 percent in 2002, while the share for the bottom fifth dropped from 4.2 percent to 3.5 percent.
WORKERS TO BUSH: ‘STOP, THIEF!’–Thousands of workers in several cities rallied Aug. 23 to tell President Bush to stop his overtime pay cut rules. New Fair Labor Standards Act rules that could cost as many as 6 million workers their overtime pay rights went into effect Aug. 23. At a rally and press conference outside the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C., AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told the crowd Bush’s overtime plan is based on “changes in the law that giant corporations have fought for years to win.” At events in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio; Des Moines, Iowa; Lansing, Mich.; Miami; and St. Louis, workers also called on Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives to allow a vote on a measure to block rules that take away overtime pay rights but allow changes that expand eligibility. In the past year, the House voted once and the Senate three times to block the overtime pay cut, but House Republican leaders have maneuvered to block final action and keep the Bush overtime pay take-away alive. Among the workers who could lose overtime pay are nurses, some police officers, chefs, team leaders, some supervisors, assistant managers and financial services workers. Speakers at the rallies said presidential and vice presidential candidates Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John Edwards (D-N.C.) have fought against the pay grab and vowed to restore overtime pay rights if elected. WORKING AMERICA, the AFL-CIO community affiliate for nonunion workers, launched Ask a Lawyer About Overtime Pay, an online feature (http://www.workingamerica.org/issues/ot_askalawyer_main.cfm) enabling website visitors to e-mail questions concerning the new overtime pay regulations and read answers from a wage-and-hour attorney. Also at http://www.workingamerica.org is a survey that helps workers see whether their overtime pay could be at risk under Bush’s new regulations.
BUSH’S CHRONIC INACTION–The Bush administration “has an all-talk, no-action approach to transportation security, a policy of chronic inaction that is failing to protect the traveling public, workers and homeland security,” said Edward Wytkind, president of the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department. The administration missed a second congressionally mandated deadline to eliminate the safety and security loopholes in the repair of U.S. aircraft at unsafe and uninspected foreign repair facilities. The Transportation Security Administration ignored an Aug. 8 deadline to issue new security procedures for aircraft repairs at Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-licensed facilities in other countries, and the FAA is five months past its deadline to make sure foreign repair stations meet the same safety standards required of U.S. facilities and their employees.
PROTECT RESERVISTS’ JOBS–Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) called on the Bush administration to formally investigate complaints from Army reservists and members of the National Guard who have lost their civilian jobs or benefits after returning from duty. Under federal law, employers are required to re-employ reservists and National Guard members who return after active duty in the same or similar jobs with equivalent pay and benefits.
CONGRESSIONAL BLACKOUT–On the first anniversary of the largest electrical blackout in North American history, the United States is no closer to making the changes needed to improve the reliability of its electric grid, Electrical Workers President Edwin Hill said. The Electric Reliability Improvement Act of 2003 is stalled in Congress. The bill is a vital first step to increase accountability and give federal regulators real authority to oversee the system, Hill said. He also called for improved maintenance of the grid, increased employee training and upgraded transmission capacity for the grid. The Aug. 14, 2003, grid failure shut down more than 100 power plants in eight states and Canada within a few minutes, plunging most of the Northeast into darkness.
POOR RESULTS FOR SCHOOL PLAN–A study by AFT shows students in charter schools scored worse in reading and math skills tests than students in standard public schools. Charter schools are touted as alternatives to public schools and are a key part of the Bush administration’s education program. The findings on student achievement are based on an analysis by AFT of the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test. As part of the No Child Left Behind Act, public schools can be shut down and converted into charter schools if they do not meet certain goals of the act. But because the Bush administration has refused to fully fund the No Child Left Behind Act, public schools are hard-pressed to meet those goals. The Bush administration released the NAEP results for all schools in November 2003 but buried the charter school information inside the overall results. AFT obtained the data and released the results Aug. 17. For more information, visit http://www.aflcio.org or http://www.aft.org.
FEWER HAVE HEALTH CARE–The percentage of workers with job-based health insurance dropped from 70.1 percent in 1987 to 64.2 percent in 2002, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). The drop was even bigger for workers in firms with more than 500 workers. EBRI said several factors contributed to the fall in health coverage for workers, including the rising cost of health care benefits; workers moving from manufacturing to service-sector jobs; the increased use of part-time, temporary, contract and contingent workers; and the lack of union representation.
HARVESTING DEATH–Even after a grape picker died from heat exposure last month, not one grape grower has responded to a letter from the Farm Workers urging them to take voluntary steps to protect workers from extreme heat, including training on emergency procedures, the UFW says. Asuncion Valdivia, a grape picker and UFW member at Giumarra Vineyards Corp., near Bakersfield, Calif., died from heat stroke July 18 after his foreman canceled the ambulance that had been summoned. Valdivia, 53, had spent 10 hours in a field with temperatures above 100 degrees with no respite from the sun, the union says.
‘NAFTA HURTS LATINOS’–The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) set off a race to the bottom for Latinos on both sides of the U.S.–Mexico border, according to a report issued Aug. 16. The report, Another America Is Possible, finds in the decade since NAFTA was enacted, Latinos living in the United States lost their jobs while workers in Mexico saw their wages drop. The report was released by Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch and the Texas chapter of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, an AFL-CIO constituency group. For a copy of the report, visit http://www.citizen.org/documents/LatinosReport.pdf.
WORKERS’ ADVOCATE FORD DIES–Former Rep. William Ford (D-Mich.), who served 30 years in Congress and chaired the House Education and Labor Committee, died Aug. 14 in Ypsilanti, Mich. He was 77 years old. He had close ties to the union movement and fought for workers’ freedom to join unions. “He was a protector of working people,” said former Rep. William Clay (D-Mo.), who served with him in the House for 25 years. Ford worked to pass legislation requiring employers to notify workers before a plant shutdown (known as the WARN Act), strengthening safety laws for migrant workers and ensuring rights for federal employees.
FILM FEST–The fourth annual D.C. Labor Film Fest will take place Sept. 10–12 at the American Film Institute’s (AFI’s) Silver Theatre in Silver Spring, Md., featuring new films about workers and workers’ issues. Films include “Take Out,” about an undocumented Chinese immigrant; “Human Error,” about workers who leave their families behind to take jobs in a strange factory; and “Mondays in the Sun,” about laid-off shipyard workers in northern Spain. To mark the 15th anniversary of its release, Michael Moore’s “Roger and Me” will kick off the film fest and the classic Marlo Brando film “Burn” screens on Sept. 12. The film fest is sponsored by the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFI and the Debs-Jones-Douglass Institute. For more information, visit http://www.djdinstitute.org or call Chris Garlock at 202-857-3410.