(The AFL-CIO circulated the following on August 16.)
New members reported in this week’s WIP: 1,275
New members reported in WIP, year to date: 77,363
JOINING UP IN NEW MEXICO—Using a majority verification process, some 1,000 state workers in New Mexico have joined the Communications Workers of America this year. The latest group to join includes the deputies of the Socorro County (N.M.) Sheriff’s Department who chose the New Mexico Coalition of Public Safety Officers/CWA Local 7911 on July 28. In a majority verification process, workers win their union when a majority signs authorization cards indicating the desire to join a union. Gov. Bill Richardson (D) restored collective bargaining rights to public workers last year.
WORKERS WIN AT WINCO—Some 200 workers at a Winco Foods warehouse in Ceres, Calif., won a voice at work with Teamsters Local 386 recently. The warehouse workers and drivers gained union recognition through a majority verification process.
JOB SECURITY—Seventy-five employees at the Houston Housing Assistance partnership, a private program of the city’s Housing Authority, voted Aug. 6 to join SEIU Local 100. The program, which aids low-income individuals in finding housing, is operated by Quadel, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting company. The workers cited job security and improved workplace rules as their top concerns.
TAXES, TRADE: WORKERS’ DOUBLE WHAMMY—The Bush administration’s trade and tax policies provide a one-two punch to the nation’s middle class, according to two new reports. The U.S. Commerce Department reported Aug. 13 the nation’s trade deficit soared to a record $55.8 billion in June. Running such a huge trade deficit means the United States is undercutting domestic manufacturing by importing products that are cheaper than those produced here. Since President George W. Bush took office in 2001, the United States has lost 2.7 million manufacturing jobs. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported the Bush tax cuts have increased the tax burden on the nation’s middle class. Since 2001, the tax rate for the middle 20 percent of taxpayers dropped by 9.3 percent and the rate for the wealthiest 1 percent of American fell 20 percent, the CBO found. For a copy of the report, Effective Federal Tax Rates Under Current Law, 2001 to 2014, visit www.cbo.gov. “We simply cannot grow a strong economy that benefits all working families with trade practices that siphon off good jobs from America’s workers…nor can we provide economic security for working families with tax policies that shower those least in need with the greatest benefits,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said.
EC FOCUSES ON ELECTION STRATEGY—The AFL-CIO Executive Council focused on the union movement’s efforts to educate and mobilize working families for the November election—including plans for nationwide precinct walks Sept. 2, the same night President Bush makes his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. Thousands of union members will knock on the doors of hundreds of thousands more making sure union members know what’s at stake for working families in this election. Vice presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) outlined the steps a John Kerry administration would take to halt the flow of U.S. jobs overseas and protect the rights of workers to form unions in an Aug. 9 meeting with the council in Chicago. Union leaders also were briefed on the union movement’s My Vote, My Right program, which has established voter advocacy teams in 32 communities in 12 battleground states to ensure all votes are counted Nov. 2. The council issued a statement addressing the failure of Bush’s economic policies to solve the nation’s job crisis, urged the Federal Reserve Board not to increase interest rates and met with Democratic Illinois U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama. Visit www.aflcio.org for more information on the council’s actions and to access a special Working Families Vote section about political action and how you can get involved.
PROTEST BUSH’S OT GRAB—Millions of workers could lose their overtime pay protections beginning Aug. 23, when the Bush administration’s new overtime rules go into effect. Workers around the country are planning to protest the Bush overtime pay take-away at rallies, meetings and more, including an Aug. 23 Washington, D.C., rally and demonstration outside the U.S. Department of Labor. The AFL-CIO’s community affiliate, WORKING AMERICA, will post online answers to workers’ questions starting Aug. 19 to help workers determine whether they are at risk of losing overtime pay. The website, www.workingamerica.org, also will launch an Ask a Lawyer About Overtime Pay feature with advice on the implications of the new regulations. To learn more about President Bush’s overtime pay cuts and to send him a message, visit www.aflcio.org.
BELLSOUTH AGREEMENT—CWA and BellSouth Corp. reached a tentative agreement on new contracts Aug. 7 that would cover 44,000 workers in nine states. Ratification voting should be completed by mid-September, the union said. The proposed accords provide a 10.5 percent pay increase over five years, a one-time lump-sum bonus of 4 percent of annual base pay and eligibility for incentive awards of 2 percent a year in the first three years and 3 percent in the final two years of the contracts. The pact also maintains employer-paid health care premiums.
UNITED’S PENSION TAKE-AWAY—Three unions—the Air Line Pilots, Flight Attendants-CWA and Machinists—last week objected strenuously to United Airlines’s motions in bankruptcy court to continue making pension plan contributions as is required by statute and collective bargaining agreements. Last month, United deferred a $72.4 million contribution to its pension plans and announced it would forgo any further pension contributions until it emerges from bankruptcy. The federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. on Aug. 13 filed an objection to the plan saying United could not legally ignore its pension obligations. The IAM is suing United and its top officers, seeking to force the carrier to continue contributing to the pension plans. The AFL-CIO Executive Council adopted a statement Aug. 11 insisting United meet its responsibilities to its employees.
JUDGE VOIDS MINERS’ CONTRACTS, BENEFITS—A federal bankruptcy judge allowed Horizon Natural Resources to void its contract with the Mine Workers and cancel health care benefits for active and retired miners Aug. 6. UMWA President Cecil Roberts called the action “a complete and utter travesty of justice.” The judge’s action affects about 800 active miners and 2,300 retirees, some suffering from black lung disease.
SUPERMARKET BARGAINS—Members of the United Food and Commercial Workers ratified three new contracts recently that raise wages and maintain health care benefits. Workers at 39 Shaw’s Supermarkets in Massachusetts and Rhode Island and a warehouse in Maine, members of Local 791, ratified new four-year deals Aug. 7. The contracts cover 6,160 employees. The 3,000 employees at Tyson Foods Inc.’s Dakota City, Iowa, beef plant, members of Local 222, approved a five-year pact on Aug. 9. On Aug. 11, members of Local 227 approved a four-year agreement with Kroger Co. that covers 10,000 Louisville, Ky.-area workers. Pay for Shaw’s and Tyson workers will grow about $2.50 an hour over term, while the Kroger employees will receive 8 percent across-the-board wage increases.
MAKING OUR VOICES HEARD—African American union members came to Washington, D.C., to plan strategies and mobilize their communities to make sure their voices are heard and protected in the 2004 election. During the A. Philip Randolph Institute’s national education conference Aug. 11–14, delegates discussed the impact of the election on working families and developed strategies to ensure voters of color are not denied the right to vote, as many were in the 2000 elections through voter registration purges and intimidation.
CWA SENDS WIRELESS MESSAGE—Employees at Verizon Wireless are mobilizing to demand the company live up to its majority verification and neutrality agreement with CWA and the Electrical Workers. The agreement expires Aug. 17. Verizon Wireless has conducted an anti-union campaign, holding closed-door meetings and illegally firing union activists, the unions said.
UNSECURE BASES—The U.S. Army has hired anti-union Wackenhut Services Inc. to help protect dozens of American military bases. Two five-year contracts worth nearly $200 million were awarded to two small Alaska Native firms under a special no-bid program for minority contractors. The firms then subcontracted part of the work to Wackenhut and another firm. Wackenhut has come under fire from unions and politicians for its hiring practices, lack of training for guards and poor working conditions. Wackenhut workers are seeking a union with SEIU. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (Mass.) recently wrote Wackenhut management, urging the company to work in partnership with the union to elevate the working conditions of America’s security officers. For more information, visit www.EyeonWackenhut.com.
OLYMPIC CAMPAIGN—The AFL-CIO and the global union movement have launched a campaign to ensure companies using the Olympic logo do not use sweatshop labor. A new report by the international agency Oxfam, Global Unions and the Clean Clothes Campaign, a coalition of unions and anti-sweatshop groups, shows serious violations of workers’ rights at the PT Tae Hwa Indonesia factory, which supplies between 70 percent and 90 percent of sports shoes for FILA, one of the Olympic suppliers. For more information, visit www.aflcio.org. Meanwhile, the Play Fair at the Olympics campaign staged a sew-in in Athens, Greece, site of the games, on Aug. 10. Twenty women operated sewing machines on a rooftop to dramatize the appalling working conditions of hundreds of thousands of workers in the sportswear industry.
LACOUR NAMED TO EXECUTIVE COUNCIL—AFT Secretary-Treasurer Nat LaCour was named to the AFL-CIO Executive Council during the council’s Aug. 9–11 meeting in Chicago. The council also recognized two retiring members, former AFT President Sandra Feldman and Mac Flemming, former president of the Maintenance of Way Employes.
NEW LEADERS—John Ryan, secretary-treasurer of the Glass, Molders, Pottery, Plastics and Allied Workers, recently assumed the office of president, succeeding Joseph Mitchell Sr., who stepped down July 1. Mitchell will serve as assistant to the president until his retirement on Sept. 1. Ryan named vice president Bruce Smith to serve as the union’s secretary-treasurer.
COLOMBIAN UNIONISTS KILLED—Global unions and human rights activists are asking the Colombian government for a fair and thorough investigation of the murder of three union activists in Saravena, Colombia, on Aug. 5. In an Aug. 16 letter to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and its Latin America affiliate, ORIT, demanded that independent human rights groups be allowed to investigate the murders. The Colombia Solidarity Campaign, a human rights group based in England, says a battalion of the Colombian army assassinated Alirio Martinez, Leonel Goyeneche and Jorge Prieto and detained two other activists, Samuel Morales and Raquel Castro. The killings bring the number of unionists murdered in Colombia this year to more than 30, the ICFTU reported.