(The AFL-CIO circulated the following on March 1.)
New members reported in this week’s WIP: 4,356
New members reported in WIP, year to date: 23,996
A VOICE AT HOME—A total of 3,415 workers joined SEIU local unions last month to achieve a voice on the job. In New York, the 2,675 workers employed by Best Care voted to join SEIU District 1199NY. In California, 440 employees at Tenet Healthcare’s Lakewood Regional Medical Center voted Feb. 19 to join Local 399. The employees include clinical lab scientists, pharmacists, radiology technologists, pharmacists, respiratory therapists, certified nursing assistants, business office staff and others. In Illinois, a near-unanimous group of some 300 caregivers at Help at Home voted for Local 880.
WIN IS IN THE CARDS—With support from community allies and elected officials, about 400 workers at Quality Services for the Autism Community in Queens, N.Y., joined Civil Service Employees Association/AFSCME Local 1000 after a Feb. 18 card-check. Under card-check, the employer agrees to recognize the union if a majority of workers expresses a desire for a union by signing authorization cards. Meanwhile, 146 workers in the Washington state Department of Social and Health Services and the Department of Ecology voted to join the Washington Federation of State Employees/AFSCME Council 28 recently.
MINE WORKERS’ WIN UPHELD—Coal miners at Rockspring Development’s Camp Creek/Ben Haley Mine in East Lynn, W.Va., won a voice on the job when a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) hearing officer certified a November 2003 election that had been in dispute over challenged ballots. The mine and preparation plant employ about 230 miners.
PRACTICING WHAT THEY TEACH—A majority of the 70 adjunct faculty members who teach for Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations at locations across the Empire State voted late last month for a voice on the job with New York State United Teachers, an AFT affiliate. Their local is the Cornell University Adjunct Faculty Federation, and their employer agreed to allow a neutral third party to count the ballots.
POWERING UP—Managers at Power Up Staffing, a broadcast integration firm, voluntarily granted union recognition to 40 workers in New York City who want a voice on the job with NABET Local 51011, a Communications Workers of America affiliate. Also, 55 workers at Intellicoat Technologies’ plant in Matthews, N.C., voted recently for CWA Local 3603. Intellicoat is a global leader in the manufacture of coated paper, film and specialty materials for imaging technology.
PAIGE CONDEMNED FOR ‘TERRORIST’ REMARK—Union leaders are condemning Education Secretary Rod Paige’s characterization of the National Education Association (NEA) as “a terrorist organization.” Paige made his remarks at a private meeting with governors Feb. 23. Like many other education advocates and elected officials from both parties, NEA has criticized the Bush administration for failing to fund adequately the No Child Left Behind education reform law. “Many have given their lives to preserve our freedom to speak out,” said Baxter Atkinson, president of the School Administrators. “To characterize the NEA for exercising that right as a ‘terrorist organization’ goes against everything the United States stands for.” According to AFT Secretary-Treasurer Edward McElroy, “There is no excuse for such crude and inflammatory hate speech.”
JOBLESS HELP BARELY BLOCKED—Pro-worker senators came within two votes of extending the federal Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation (TEUC) program, which provides additional weeks of unemployment benefits to long-term jobless workers who exhaust their state benefits. The senators voted 58–39 on Feb. 26 to attach Sen. Maria Cantwell’s (D-Wash.) amendment reviving the TEUC to a gun liability bill. But because a procedural objection was raised, 60 votes were needed for passage. The TEUC expired in January, and Republican congressional leaders, with the backing of the Bush administration, twice blocked action to revive it. Democrats forced a Feb. 4 House vote approving an extension, but the Senate must approve the extension and Bush must agree to sign it rather than veto it. Unless this happens, more than 2 million jobless workers will run out of state unemployment benefits by June, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
GROCERY WORKERS SAVE HEALTH BENEFITS—Members of the United Food and Commercial Workers overwhelmingly ratified a new three-year agreement with three California grocery chains. Under the agreement, reached late Feb. 26, workers save affordable health care benefits, the key issue in the dispute. The ratification ends a five-month strike and lockout of 59,000 workers, who were fighting to save affordable health care. The workers could be back at work on March 3. The grocery owners, led by Safeway, were seeking to slash health care and pay for new hires. “The men and women on the picket lines are genuine heroes,” UFCW President Douglas Dority said. “They have sounded the alarm for all of America—your health care benefits at work are at risk. If the supermarket giants—profitable, growing Fortune 50 mega-corporations—can launch an attack on health care benefits, then every employer is sure to follow.” Meanwhile, health care costs will be a major issue in contract talks beginning March 1 between UFCW Locals 400 and 27 with three major grocery chains in the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore areas. The talks cover some 28,000 employees of the Safeway, Giant Food and Super Fresh chains. Safeway and Giant will bargain jointly, while Super Fresh will bargain separately with the two locals. For more information, visit www.ufcw.org.
FLIP THIS—How do you gloss over a major loss of manufacturing jobs? If you’re the Bush administration, you cast doubt on the definition of “manufacturing.” A special section of the administration’s Economic Report of the President opens the door to defining fast-food employees as manufacturing workers. “When a fast-food restaurant sells a hamburger, for example, is it providing a ‘service’ or is it combining inputs to ‘manufacture’ a product?” the report asks. The Feb. 9 report, signed by President George W. Bush, said the current system of defining manufacturing jobs “is not straightforward.” According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, some 2.2 million food-preparation and serving workers, plus another 421,000 counter attendants, were at work in 2000––just 179,000 short of the 2.8 million manufacturing jobs lost since the Bush administration took office. For more on this and other actions by the Bush administration, visit www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/bushwatch.
SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT—AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Richard Trumka joined union members, retirees, students and community allies March 1 at a Civilian Investigative Panel hearing on police conduct in Miami to set the record straight about the Miami Police Department’s violent tactics against peaceful participants in the mass protests against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) last November. In a recent report on the incidents, the Miami police blamed union members and their coalition partners for inciting violence. In December, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney asked U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) to launch independent investigations of mismanagement by top Miami police department officials that led to abuse and intimidation during the FTAA demonstrations. So far neither has begun an investigation. For more information, visit www.aflcio.org.
NEW DEAL AT COSTCO—Members of the Teamsters ratified a new three-year contract with Costco Wholesale Corp. by an overwhelming margin Feb. 24. The accord, covering nearly 12,000 workers at 39 warehouses in California, raises hourly wages by $1.50 over term, increases annual bonuses and boosts company pension payments by 12 percent.
WELCOME TO PENN-MART—University of Pennsylvania graduate student employees handed out fliers at the campus’ seven entrances during a two-day recognition strike Feb. 26–27. The fliers said, “Welcome to Penn-Mart. We’re rolling back educational quality,” a reference to the anti-union Wal-Mart’s ads about rolling back prices. The workers voted a year ago to join Graduate Employees Together–University of Pennsylvania/AFT. Those ballots were impounded after the university appealed to the NLRB. The workers want the university to drop its appeal.
DISNEY HOTEL PACT RATIFIED—Members of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 681 members ratified on Feb. 19 a new four-year contract for some 2,200 workers at three Walt Disney Co. hotels in Anaheim, Calif. The agreement allows all workers to choose health coverage either with the union or the company, provides wage increases and lightens housekeepers’ workloads.
PAY UP, WAL-MART—In the first ruling among the 38 wage and hours cases pending against Wal-Mart, a U.S. District Court jury in Portland, Ore., on Feb. 17 found the giant retailer owes 83 current and former workers damages for working off the clock. Judge Garr King will determine what penalties, which may exceed wages owed, apply under state and federal law.
UNITE HERE—The executive boards of UNITE and HERE unanimously agreed in principle last week to merge the two unions. Members of both unions will vote on the merger at a special joint convention in Chicago in July. If the merger is approved, the new union would be called UNITE HERE. UNITE President Bruce Raynor would be president of the new union and HERE President John Wilhelm would become president/hospitality industries. The unions have collaborated most recently in the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, the successful struggle for a fair contract for Yale University workers and the current fight to organize H&M retail and distribution workers.
NO TO CAFTA—Unions, religious leaders and community activists are mobilizing to stop the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which could come up for a vote in Congress this spring. President Bush officially notified Congress on Feb. 20 that he intends to sign CAFTA, which means the lawmakers could take up the treaty as early as late May. If approved, CAFTA would eliminate tariffs between the United States and five Central American countries, without providing any workers’ rights or environmental protections. To learn why CAFTA is a bad deal for workers, visit www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/globaleconomy/caftamain.cfm.
NLRB SLAPS DUANE READE—An administrative law judge on Feb. 18 ruled that Duane Reade stores in New York City committed several unfair labor practices, including implementing a “last and final offer” before reaching a good-faith bargaining impasse. Nearly a year ago, workers at Duane Reade voted to join Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union Local 338, a UFCW affiliate. For more information, visit www.dwaynegreed.com.
MARCHERS SET TO JAB JEB—Union members, civil rights and community activists and others will march on the Florida state capitol in Tallahassee March 2 to protest the economic, education and health care policies of Gov. Jeb Bush (R). The march will coincide with Bush’s annual State of the State address. State Rep. Ed Jennings (D) said the march will remind Florida voters that “The Bushes are simply out of touch. We will be heard first with our voices, then with our votes.”
STAPLETON TAKES OFFICE—The Postal Workers executive board selected Terry Stapleton as the union’s new secretary-treasurer, succeeding Robert Tunstall, who retired Feb. 4. Tunstall held that post since 1988. Prior to his selection, Stapleton served 10 years as APWU’s southern region coordinator.