(The AFL-CIO issued the following on February 17.)
New members reported in this week’s WIP: 10,282
New members reported in WIP, year to date: 18,072
GENERAL BOARD MEETING—The General Board of the AFL-CIO will meet Feb. 19 in Washington, D.C., to consider endorsing a candidate for president.
HUGE WIN FOR DEFENSE WORKERS—With proposed new personnel rules threatening to take away Defense Department employees’ collective bargaining rights, the 9,175 employees at the Defense Contract Management Agency voted for representation by AFGE.
GOLDEN STATE VICTORIES—Some 670 Tenet Healthcare workers in California formed a union with SEIU Local 399 in the past month. With Tenet seeking a buyer for Garfield Medical Center in Monterey Park, 520 service and technical employees voted Feb. 12 for the union. The overwhelming majority of more than 150 aides, technicians and other workers at Greater El Monte Community Hospital voted for Local 399 on Jan. 21. By choosing to join SEIU, workers at both hospitals were covered immediately by a union contract providing for initial salary increases. They also gained input into staffing decisions and will receive other benefits under a regional agreement between Tenet and SEIU.
DOUBLE VICTORY—A total of 140 workers in three states voted to join the Teamsters recently. Workers in New York City won a double victory Jan. 23. Fifty employees at Alliance Air Cargo at John F. Kennedy International Airport and 10 drivers at Starlite Cargo, a freight delivery company near the airport, chose Local 295. In Kentucky, 50 processors, specialists and administrators at the Metro Revenue Commission in Louisville voted for Local 783. And in Bardstown, Ky., the National Labor Relations Board after two years ruled in favor of Local 89 on a challenge to a single ballot, giving union representation to five employees of Royal Paper Stock Inc., an American Greetings facility. In another victory, 25 mechanics and warehouse workers at Southwest Ambulance, a division of Rural Metro in Mesa, Ariz., voted for Local 104.
A FIRST AT GOODYEAR—Workers at a Goodyear Tire plant in Statesville, N.C., joined the Steelworkers after an arbitrator ruled Feb. 11 a majority of the 130 workers had indicated their desire for a union by 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. This is the first Goodyear plant organized under a 2003 agreement in which the company pledged to remain neutral in organizing campaigns.
CLEAN WATER, CLEAR VICTORY—The 50 employees of Clean Water Action in Minneapolis and Duluth, Minn., voted for the Minnesota Newspaper Guild Local 37002, a Communications Workers of America affiliate, on Feb. 9.
ENTERPRISING WIN—The 45 employees of Enterprise Automotive Systems, a manufacturer of automotive components in Saginaw, Mich., voted recently to join Machinists Local 218.
LABORERS WIN AT LAMBERT—The majority of 42 workers, most of them Latino immigrants, at Lambert Furniture Corp. in Trenton, N.J., voted to join Laborers Local 734 on Feb. 6.
HITTING THE (ARA)MARK—Thirty laundry workers at Aramark in Syracuse, N.Y., voted to join UNITE Feb. 6. The victory will strengthen UNITE’s presence at Aramark—the second largest laundry company in the United States after Cintas—where 4,000 workers already have a voice with the union.
HOLDING THE LINE FOR HEALTH CARE—Safeway, the company leading the attack on workers’ health care, suffered a staggering $696 million net loss for the fourth quarter of 2003, CEO Steve Burd announced Feb. 12. Union leaders said the loss makes clear that Safeway’s misguided strategy of squeezing workers is hurting investors as well as employees. Some 59,000 United Food and Commercial Workers in California have been on strike or locked out since mid-October after refusing a contract offer from Safeway-led grocers that would slash health care and pay for new hires. Safeway’s earnings figures were announced during a week of actions Feb. 10–14 across the country to support the grocery workers who are standing up for affordable health care for all workers. Citizens for Consumer Justice joined union activists in Philadelphia for an informational picket Feb. 10 at a Safeway-owned Acme supermarket. The next day, Seattle UFCW supporters held informational pickets at two Safeway stores, rallying again at the stores over the weekend. In San Francisco on Feb. 12, about 500 workers and elected, community and union leaders, including California Labor Federation Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski and California State Controller Steve Westly (D), rallied at the Pacific Stock Exchange. They were joined by nearly a dozen religious leaders who promised to bring the “Don’t shop Safeway” message to their pulpits. Washington, D.C., activists distributed more than 20,000 “Don’t Kiss Health Care Goodbye” leaflets and Hershey’s chocolate kisses to commuters at a central downtown subway station Feb. 12. Baltimore activists rallied and held a press conference at a Safeway on Feb. 13 while Los Angeles California Democratic members of Congress, including Reps. George Miller, Linda Sánchez, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Grace Napolitano and Hilda Solis, held a public caucus to discuss the strike’s impact on workers, investors and the California economy. In Portland, Ore., union supporters rallied with Jobs with Justice activists on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14.
AT THE TABLE—Bargaining kicked off Feb. 12 for contracts covering about 102,000 CWA members employed at SBC Communications in four different regions. The talks include pacts at SBC West, formerly Pacific Bell; SBC Midwest, formerly Ameritech; SBC Southwest, formerly Southwestern Bell; and SBC East, formerly Southern New England Telephone. All four contracts expire in early April. The key issues in bargaining are jobs, employment security and maintaining quality health care benefits. The union workers want access to new jobs in growth areas of the company, which include Internet, wireless and long distance services.
WILD TALK AND NO JOBS—With 15 million U.S. workers unemployed, underemployed or too discouraged to job hunt, the Bush administration’s economic policies are dragging down wages and the jobless recovery is hitting low-income Americans hard, according to three new reports. Rather than crafting a policy that will create good-paying jobs, the Bush White House is making wildly overstated job predictions and outrageous policy statements, the reports said. Last week, in its annual economic report to Congress, the Bush administration said it backs moving U.S. manufacturing and white-collar jobs offshore. “Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade,” Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) Chairman Gregory Mankiw said. And although the administration is 1.8 million jobs short of its previous, weaker prediction, the CEA now forecasts the economy will generate 3.9 million new jobs this year. Missing the Moving Target, a new report by the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute (EPI), called the jobs prediction overly optimistic and labeled as faulty Bush administration economic policies. Another EPI analysis (www.jobwatch.org) said sluggish job growth under Bush’s economic policies is dragging down wages and incomes. Meanwhile, the National Urban League’s Jobs Report released Jan. 29 shows the jobless recovery is hitting African Americans and low-income Americans the hardest (www.nul.org/news/2004/jobless_rel2.html).
DEFENSE WORKERS FIGHT BACK—AFGE President John Gage slammed a plan by President George W. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to terminate bargaining and employee appeal rights of some 700,000 civilian Department of Defense workers. Gage told a House subcommittee Feb. 11 the proposed Defense Department personnel system is an abuse of power. “This is a union-busting approach to collective bargaining and labor relations and has nothing to do with national security,” Gage said, adding that the plan is simply “management by fear, intimidation and coercion.” More than 150 AFGE members marched on Capitol Hill Feb. 11 as part of the grassroots lobbying efforts during the union’s 2004 legislative and grassroots mobilization conference. For more information, visit www.afge.org.
EQUITY FILES CHARGES—Actors Equity stepped up its campaign against nonunion stage tours last week when it filed unfair labor practices charges with the NLRB against three companies for failing to provide requested information about their ties to non-Equity producers. The failure by the companies—Clear Channel Entertainment, the Nederlander Producing Co. of America and Dodger Stage Holding Theatricals Inc.—to provide the information Equity requested “begs the question, what are they hiding?” said Equity Executive Director Alan Eisenberg. With the number of nonunion tours quadrupling in the past decade, Equity has committed more than $1 million to fight for good union jobs.
PENSION FUND CREATES JOBS—Early this month, leaders of five building trades unions cut the ribbon on a $150 million renovation of Tysons Corner Center in northern Virginia, one of the nation’s largest shopping malls. This is the first major all-union construction project in many years in Virginia, a right-to-work-for-less state that traditionally has been hostile to the union movement. Union pension funds often invest in high-quality construction projects that produce union jobs. The National Electrical Benefit Fund, which provides retirement benefits to members of the Electrical Workers and contractors, is a major investor in the Tysons Corner project, ensuring it will be built all union—as are all real estate projects in which the fund invests.
GIVE IT BACK—The Alliance for Retired Americans last week mobilized its members to call for the Republican National Committee to repay taxpayers more than $12 million in federal funds the Bush administration has spent on a blatantly political television commercial campaign to promote the new Medicare prescription drug law. Following a bombardment of letters from Alliance activists and their allies, as well as Democrats’ demands for an investigation, the General Accounting Office announced it will investigate charges that the Bush administration is using taxpayer money for political purposes. To send a message to the White House and your members of Congress about the ads, visit www.retiredamericans.org.
LABOR CARES—The Coalition of Labor Union Women, an AFL-CIO constituency group, has launched Labor Cares, a new website designed to raise awareness and to educate union members about HIV/AIDS. The site contains facts and news about HIV/AIDS and provides resources for unions to help combat the disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates some 900,000 people in the United States are living with HIV/AIDS. The AFL-CIO, its constituency groups and affiliates represent many workers in the groups that are contracting HIV in the largest numbers: women and people of color.
SHOW TIME—Some very famous and glamorous union members will take part in the nation’s largest all-union awards show—the 10th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. This year’s presenters include SAG members Kiefer Sutherland, Michael Douglas, Richard Chamberlain, Meryl Streep, Renée Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones. The awards ceremony will be broadcast live Feb. 22 at 8 p.m. EST on Turner Network Television. Veteran actor Karl Malden will receive the 2003 Lifetime Achievement Award—the union’s highest honor.