(The AFL-CIO circulated the following on June 27.)
A VOICE, PART TWO—More than 320 workers at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant in Asheboro, N.C., once again chose to join the United Steelworkers. Last year, workers chose the union through a majority sign-up, in which employers recognize the union after a majority of workers signs cards authorizing union representation. But the rabidly anti-union National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation filed an objection on behalf of a few workers. In a settlement, the union agreed to a new secret ballot election, which was held June 14–15.
WORKERS VOTE IAM—In Port Angeles, Wash., 179 workers at the K Ply plywood plant voted to join the Machinists. In Jolon, Calif., 32 workers voted for a voice at work with IAM Local 83 and six workers at American West Chrome in Portland, Ore., chose IAM District Lodge 24.
A GRAPHIC VICTORY—Workers at Standard Registry in Salisbury, Md., voted to join Graphic Communications Conference/Teamsters Local 582M recently. The 119 workers print business forms. In Stockton, Calif., 45 workers at the DHL-contracted Jetsetters Express voted to join IBT Local 439 and 21 school bus drivers at First Student Inc., in Seattle, voted for IBT Local 117.
WINNING AT LINEN—At the Linens of the Week, Colonial Heights, Va., plant, 84 workers recently won a voice at work with UNITE HERE. Meanwhile, 56 sample room workers at Halmode Apparel in New York City also won recognition through UNITE HERE Local 89-22-1. The company designs and manufactures women’s suits and dresses under several well-known labels. The victories came through majority sign-up.
HIT THE STAGE—In New York City, the 50-worker production crew at Comedy Central’s cable show, “Stella,” won recognition with the Theatrical Stage Employees. At the George E. Fern Co. in Columbus, Ohio, 65 part-time and on-call workers who set up and take down trade shows and other events voted unanimously for representation with IATSE Local 12. Also 15 workers at Lennie Marvin Enterprises Inc., a prop rental company in Burbank, Calif., voted to join IATSE Local 44.
HEALTH WORKERS CHOOSE AFT—Teachers, educational assistants and school clinicians at Natchaug Hospital in Mansfield Center, Conn., voted to join AFT June 22. The 69 workers provide mental health and drug intervention and rehabilitation services to a number of area school districts.
AN INTELLIGENT CHOICE—At the National Ground Intelligence Center in Charlottesville, Va., seven base operations and maintenance workers voted to join Electrical Workers Local 26 this month. Also, 40 workers at All Electric in Las Vegas have a voice on the job after the company agreed to recognize IBEW Local 357.
STEPPING UP CAFTA FIGHT—With Congress poised to take up the proposed Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) as early as this week, working families and their unions have stepped up the effort to defeat the flawed trade deal. The leaders of state labor federations and local labor bodies will lobby their representatives and senators this week to vote against CAFTA. If approved, CAFTA would cut tariffs among the United States, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. But the agreement, which is modeled after the North American Free Trade Agreement, does not contain adequate environmental protections or enforceable protections for such core workers’ rights as the freedom to form a union. For more information on CAFTA, visit www.aflcio.org/cafta.
EC MOVES ORGANIZING, POLITICAL PLANS—The AFL-CIO Executive Council during its June 27 meeting in Washington, D.C., overwhelmingly approved two key proposals to improve workers’ lives and strengthen the union movement. The first increases resources and capacity for organizing and member mobilization for politics and legislation, while strengthening state and local union movements. “America’s working people need strong and united unions now more than ever—that’s why this plan encourages increased organizing and mobilization for politics among all unions,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. The second proposal the council approved will increase leadership diversity in the movement. Council approval of the plans—based on the Winning for Working Families (for more information, visit www.aflcio.org/ourfuture) proposal by the Sweeney administration—sends them to the AFL-CIO Convention, which begins July 25 in Chicago, for a final vote. If approved, the resolutions would create a $22.5 million Strategic Organizing Fund, establish industry coordinating committees to focus on strategic organizing, promote strategic union mergers, build year-round capacity for member political and legislative mobilization and ensure representation of women and people of color on AFL-CIO governing bodies. The Executive Council also approved a two-year budget that funds the organizing and member mobilization programs.
SPOTLIGHT ON HIDDEN HEALTH COSTS—New federal legislation would make public the extent to which large corporations, such as Wal-Mart, shift their employee health care costs onto taxpayers. Introduced June 22, the Health Care Accountability Act would require states to disclose which employers have a high number of employees on public health care assistance, such as Medicaid. The federal legislation is modeled on similar measures the AFL-CIO has worked to introduce in state legislatures. Some 30 states have introduced or plan to introduce such legislation. In 12 of the 13 states where data have been released and analyzed, Wal-Mart workers are at the top or near the top when it comes to relying on public health programs. The Senate and House bills were introduced by Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) and Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.). For more information on Wal-Mart, visit www.WalMartCostsYou.com and www.WakeUpWalMart.com.
FAMILY LEAVE UNDER ATTACK—The Bush administration’s Department of Labor plans to issue new regulations revising the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and Big Business groups are urging drastic rollbacks of the leave law. Since the law was enacted in 1993, more than 50 million workers have used the unpaid leave it provides to take care of newborn or newly adopted children, seriously ill family members or themselves. “It was a godsend,” Patti Phillips of Atlanta told a Senate roundtable discussion June 23. Phillips used small portions of the allowed 12 weeks of leave to take her 12-year-old daughter, who was battling bone cancer, to chemotherapy sessions. “In the last two months of her life, I was able to be there 24-7,” Phillips said. Witnesses from business groups said the law should be narrowed. But currently it covers only about 40 percent of the private-sector workforce. “Instead of scaling back worker protections in the FMLA, Congress should expand the FMLA to enable more workers to meet their families’ needs without compromising income or job security,” said AFL-CIO President Sweeney.
UNIONS SUE TO HALT DHS RULES—A coalition of five unions, including AFGE, filed suit in federal court June 22 to stop the Department of Homeland Security from implementing new personnel rules that gut the collective bargaining and civil service rights of the department’s 170,000 workers. The department announced it would begin implementing the new rules in August. The suit asks for a preliminary injunction to stop the department from moving ahead until the court rules on a case filed earlier this year that challenges the legality of the new personnel system. The Department of Defense plans to implement a similar system, and the Bush administration has called for similar rules throughout the federal workforce. For more information, visit www.afge.org.
LABOR COLLEGE GRADUATES 123—Some 123 union members, activists, leaders and staff received their degrees from the National Labor College (NLC) during graduation ceremonies on the Silver Spring, Md., campus June 25. In addition to those receiving bachelor’s degrees in such fields as labor studies, labor education and political economy, 16 received master’s degrees through the NLC’s partnership graduate program with the University of Baltimore. For more information on the NLC, visit www.georgemeany.org.
GOLDEN PARACHUTES’ STRINGS CUT—A federal bankruptcy judge backed objections by four unions and rejected a plan to pay exorbitant severance packages for top US Airways executives after the company cut some $1 billion a year in pay and benefits for workers. In a June 15 ruling, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Stephen Mitchell disallowed executive “retention” contracts valued at $14.3 million for the company’s 23 top officers. The Air Line Pilots, Communications Workers of America, Flight Attendants-CWA and IAM had objected to the golden parachutes.
FORCED LABOR PACT NOT WORKING—The United States should end two agreements reached with China in the 1990s and instead enact new laws to block imports made by prison labor, Jeffrey Fiedler, president of the AFL-CIO Food and Allied Service Trades Department, told a Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) roundtable June 22. Fiedler and Harry Wu, a former Chinese dissident who now heads the Laogai Research Foundation, told the panel that products made in China by forced labor continue to be exported to the United States and bilateral agreements to stop such goods are ineffective.
RECORD COLLECTION—The Letter Carriers’ annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive netted a record 71.3 million pounds of donations in the nation’s largest one-day effort to fight hunger. “This generosity will help needy families—many from working households—obtain sufficient food,” said NALC President William Young. Millions of families made donations and the letter carriers, rural carriers and other postal employees and volunteers helped collect and process the donations.
A REAL PLUS—The Union Plus scholarship program awarded $150,000 in scholarships to 120 students from 40 unions earlier this month. The scholarships range from $500 to $4,000. Cutbacks in federal grants and scholarships, coupled with tuition hikes and larger loan burdens for students, make the awards more needed than ever. Since 1992, the program has awarded more than $2 million in scholarships to some 1,300 students. For more information, visit www.unionprivilege.org.