(The AFL-CIO distributed the following on December 8.)
New members reported in this week’s WIP: 2,397
New members reported in WIP, year to date: 135,197
WINDY CITY WINS–More than 1,000 building service workers, including janitors and security guards employed by numerous contractors in the Chicago area, formed unions with SEIU Local 1 during October and November under a card-check recognition process. Under card-check, an employer agrees to recognize the union after a majority of the workers indicates a desire for union representation by signing authorization cards. Meanwhile, the majority of 172 aides and other service staff at the Berkshire Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in West Babylon, N.Y., recently voted to join SEIU 1199NY.
CHOOSING A VOICE–A total of 436 workers voted recently for the United Food and Commercial Workers. In Chicago, 300 workers at Wexler Meat Co. voted Nov. 14 for Local 1546. At Tappahannock Manor in Tappahannock, Va., 58 certified nursing assistants and dietary, housekeeping and maintenance workers chose Local 400 on Nov. 17. In North Brunswick, N.J., 44 crossing guards voted for Local 108 of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, a UFCW affiliate. In Great Falls, Mont., 34 workers at Montana Pasta voted for a voice with UFCW Local 8 on Nov. 6.
MASS TRANSIT(ION)–The 417 bus drivers at the Charlotte (N.C.) Area Transit System voted Dec. 2 for a voice at work with Teamsters Local 71. Community, religious and student groups and other union members helped the workers win their union.
A CHOICE AS CLEAR AS GLASS–Seeking an end to favoritism and reeling from a 300-percent increase in their health care premiums, a majority of 213 workers at the Osram Sylvania Glass plant in Versailles, Ky., voted Nov. 26 for Electrical Workers Local 92. The workers manufacture light bulbs. IBEW President Edwin Hill said the victory “demonstrates that news of our demise in the manufacturing sector has been greatly exaggerated, despite the plans and policies of the present administration.”
NEUTRALITY VIOLATION–An arbitrator awarded immediate union recognition for 103 workers at AT&T Local Network Services in Orlando, Fla., after finding the company guilty of violating its neutrality and consent agreement with the Communications Workers of America. A majority of the workers had shown support for the union through a card-check prior to a July 17 election in which the union lost.
COMMON BONDS–A 56-member unit of correctional officers at the Fayette County Prison in Uniontown, Pa., voted last month for the Mine Workers. The officers cited the need for better wages, health care benefits and an improved grievance procedure as their reasons for choosing the union.
DEC. 10 ALMOST HERE–There are only two days to go before tens of thousands of union activists and their allies mark International Human Rights Day on Dec. 10. The rallies, marches, hearings and teach-ins in dozens of cities will rev up the union movement’s campaign to assert that workers’ fundamental right to form unions is violated routinely in the United States and that action is needed now to restore that freedom. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney plans to lead a march from Wall Street to the New York City office of the National Labor Relations Board, while AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka will rally in Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions adopted on Dec. 8 a resolution singling out the United States as one of the worst violators of workers’ rights. To check out events in your area or to add your union’s event to an online calendar, visit http://www.aflcio.org/aboutunions/voiceatwork/d10.cfm . For more information, e-mail dfenwick@aflcio.org .
O.T., JOBLESS BENEFITS AT STAKE–In an abbreviated congressional session this week, two key pieces of legislation for workers are at stake: overtime pay protections and unemployment insurance (UI) benefits. The House convened for one day, Dec. 8, while the Senate convenes Dec. 9. Before a 242-176 vote passing the omnibus appropriations package, H.R. 2673, House Republican leaders would not allow a motion to block the Bush administration’s attempt to take away the right to overtime pay from up to 8 million workers. Earlier this year, both the Senate and House voted in favor of an overtime pay guarantee in an amendment, introduced by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), to the fiscal year 2004 Labor, Health and Human Services appropriations bill. But Bush administration veto threats and House Republican leaders’ strong-arm tactics killed the amendment. The Senate may vote on the omnibus bill this week or wait until Congress reconvenes in January. The AFL-CIO is urging the Senate to reject H.R. 2673 if it does not include the overtime protections. On the unemployment front, if Congress fails to act this week, the current federal unemployment benefits program will expire at the end of December and each week 90,000 unemployed workers who have exhausted state benefits will be denied federal UI aid. Last year, Congress did not renew the program until returning after the holidays in January. Also, the House and Senate will take up pension plan funding legislation. The benchmark interest rate that employers use to fund defined-benefit plans is set to expire Dec. 31. The federation is urging Congress to set a new rate and to provide funding relief for multiemployer pension plans and plans hard hit by poor stock market performance and historically low interest rates.
TARIFF DECISION ‘AN AFFRONT TO WORKERS’–President George W. Bush’s decision, announced Dec. 4, to rescind all tariffs the administration launched in 2002 to prevent surging imports of cheap, subsidized steel “is an affront to all American workers” but is especially insulting to workers whose companies have gone bankrupt while the tariffs have been in place, Steelworkers President Leo Gerard said. Since 1998, 42 steel companies have filed for bankruptcy and more than 50,000 steelworkers have lost their jobs. During the crisis, 17 of these companies have liquidated, wiping out the health care benefits of more than 208,000 retirees. “Failure to stand by our trade laws will throw open the door for more American manufacturing jobs to take a hit–on top of the 2.4 million that have already been wiped out,” Gerard said.
MEDICARE BILL SIGNING ‘A SHAME’–The signing of the recently passed Medicare prescription drug bill by President Bush Dec. 8 “brings a mark of shame on the federal government,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said. “While the lobbyists and large corporations win today, many others are being left out in the cold,” he said, including tens of millions of retirees who will be worse off than before. Several members of Congress, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), also denounced the bill at a Capitol Hill rally Dec. 8. A new study shows the Medicare prescription drug bill will fail to help half of Medicare recipients when it goes into effect in 2006, according to a new study by the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute. For more information, visit http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_archive_11262003 .
AFL-CIO SEEKS PROBE OF MIAMI POLICE–The AFL-CIO is asking the U.S. Justice Department and the state of Florida to conduct separate, independent investigations of the “massive and unwarranted repression of constitutional rights and civil liberties” by Miami police Nov. 20-21 during peaceful protests by more than 20,000 people against the Free Trade Area of the Americas. “Our right to deliver this message in a peaceful environment was systematically thwarted by police in Miami,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in letters to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R). The massive police presence in Miami–which included 2,500 officers from some 40 jurisdictions clad in riot gear with batons and armored personnel carriers–was financed in part by $8.5 million in anti-terror federal funds passed by Congress in its $87 billion appropriation bill to rebuild Iraq. The USWA also called for a congressional investigation into the police actions.
GOOD JOBS NOT IN SIGHT–Unemployment remained essentially unchanged at 5.9 percent in November, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Dec. 5. The economy generated 57,000 new jobs last month–more than 46,000 of them were temporary jobs or positions in the usually low-paying health care, social assistance, food services and accommodations sectors. The economy again lost manufacturing jobs–17,000–for the 40th consecutive month.
JUSTICE@QUEBECOR–Workers from 11 countries launched a Justice@Quebecor campaign Dec. 5 to win a global agreement on labor standards from the company. Quebecor World, the world’s largest commercial printer, has facilities in 17 countries and repeatedly has violated workers’ rights, especially the right to form a union, according to Graphic Communications President George Tedeschi. As part of the campaign, GCIU, which represents 7,000 Quebecor workers, is helping company employees at nonunion plants gain a voice at work.
WITH HELP FROM FRIENDS–The combination of organizing and politics helped 13 employees of WMUR-TV in Manchester, N.H. Although workers voted for IBEW Local 1228 in January, management resisted negotiating a contract until the state AFL-CIO and all the Democratic presidential candidates got involved, the union said. The New Hampshire AFL-CIO sponsored a march and convened a worker’s rights panel on the right to organize. The Democratic presidential candidates sent a letter to the station’s general manager, urging settlement, and some threatened to pull out of a Dec. 9 debate sponsored by the station.
STARS ON THE LINE–Screen Actors President Melissa Gilbert and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists President John Connolly, along with 1,000 members of several unions, showed solidarity with striking and locked out UFCW members in Los Angeles, walking the picket line Dec. 4. Some 80,000 grocery workers, who are on strike and locked out in California, West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio, are holding the line for health care and good jobs. Union members are encouraged to contribute to a strike fund to help the striking workers and their families. To donate, visit https://secure.ga3.org/08/holdtheline or mail a check, payable to AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer, to Hold the Line for Health Care Strike Fund at 815 16th St., N.W., Washington, DC 20006.
WELCOME ABOARD–Members of two transportation unions recently approved mergers with larger unions. The Flight Attendants approved a merger with the Communications Workers of America with 57 percent voting in favor. The AFA-CWA merger takes effect Dec. 31 and preserves AFA’s identity and autonomy. Meanwhile, members of the Locomotive Engineers overwhelmingly voted to merge with the IBT. The merger becomes effective Jan. 1, 2004, when the BLE is renamed the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, a division of IBT’s Rail Conference.
STOPPING THE TERMINATOR–Home care workers, people with disabilities and elderly persons living at home, along with their family members, met with California state legislators Dec. 3 to oppose a plan by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) to eliminate funding for in-home supportive services that help keep 75,000 Californians out of institutions. Schwarzenegger also has proposed eliminating the Institute for Labor and Employment (ILE), the parent organization of Labor Centers at the University of California at Berkeley and Los Angeles. To fax letters to five key legislators in a position to block the ILE cuts, visit http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/uclaborcenters .
Work in Progress is also available on our website at http://www.aflcio.org/aboutaflcio/wip .