See the AFL-CIO Gulf Coast Worker Network Hurricane Relief Update for the latest hurricane relief efforts of the AFL-CIO and affiliate unions and visit www.aflcio.org/hurricane.
VOTING FOR A UNION—The Machinists welcomed a total of 116 new members recently, including 73 employees of World Yacht in New York City who voted for District Lodge 15. A group of 31 mine workers at Feldspar Corp. in Edgar, Fla., voted for the union as did 12 flight simulator operators with L-3 Communications at Fort Rucker, Ala.
AG WORKERS GAIN VOICE WITH AFSCME—Nearly 100 workers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s operations office voted for a voice on the job through AFSCME Council 26. The office provides facilities management, building maintenance and operation, warehousing, delivery, printing and other services for agencies of the department.
DRIVERS PICK AFT—The 28 full- and part-time shuttle bus drivers at Pace University in New York City voted Oct. 20 for the Paraprofessionals and School-Related Personnel, a division of AFT.
MOBILIZING@DELPHI—Six unions, representing some 33,000 Delphi Corp. workers, have formed a coalition to coordinate their fight against Delphi’s assault on working families and their communities. Last month, Delphi filed for bankruptcy and wants to drastically slash wages and health benefits, close plants and lay off workers. Yet Delphi has announced plans to reward some 500 “key employees” with up to 10 percent of the company’s stock and cash bonuses of $87.9 million. “Delphi’s contract proposals to our unions, together with CEO Steve Miller’s public statements, clearly reveal senior management’s contempt and disdain for the hard-working people who have played a vital role in making Delphi the world’s leading automotive parts manufacturer,” the Mobilzing@Delphi coalition said in a statement. “The AFL-CIO stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the Delphi workers and their unions. Together we will fight to force Delphi management to change the company’s anti-working family strategy,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. The six unions in the coalition are the UAW, IUE-CWA, United Steelworkers, Electrical Workers, Machinists and Operating Engineers.
HOUSE TO VOTE ON HUGE BUDGET CUTS—The House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on $53.9 billion in budget cuts, mainly in programs that benefit workers, such as Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps, student loans and child support enforcement. The House bill includes a huge $12 billion cut in Medicaid over five years rising to $48 billion in a decade. The Senate on Nov. 3 passed its own version of budget cuts totaling $35 billion. Congressional Republicans claim the cuts are needed to pay for rebuilding the Gulf Coast, but in fact they would offset another $70 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy and allow the deficit to keep growing. Call your U.S. representative toll free at 1-800-393-1082 and tell him or her not to cut programs desperately needed by working families, including hurricane survivors and low-income Americans, and not to give more tax breaks to the wealthy.
NEW DAY IN PA.—In the first major restructuring of the Pennsylvania union movement in 50 years, state and local union leaders on Nov. 4 launched the New Alliance reorganization plan to help unite the grassroots power of the Pennsylvania union movement. Under the New Alliance reorganization plan, Pennsylvania’s 32 central labor councils and affiliated local unions will harness efforts by teaming up into five regional area labor federations. The primary role of each area labor federation will be to connect and steer year-round member mobilization and provide local, movement-wide support for local affiliate organizing campaigns within their regions. Area labor federations also will conduct organizing roundtables for affiliate unions and central labor councils.
NYU GRAD ASSISTANTS TO STRIKE NOV. 9—Members of the Graduate Student Organizing Committee/UAW Local 2110 voted overwhelmingly last week to strike New York University (NYU) on Nov. 9 to protest the university’s refusal to bargain a second contract. “NYU could settle this any time by agreeing to bargain in good faith,” said Local 2110 President Maida Rosenstein. The school announced Aug. 5 it no longer would recognize the union and let the contract lapse. In 2004 the Bush National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that NYU and other private universities do not have a federally required obligation to bargain with teaching assistants, research assistants and other academic student employees. But nothing in the NLRB decision prevents NYU administrators from respecting the majority of NYU teaching assistants who have expressed their preference in favor of union representation.
LABOR LAWS DON’T PROTECT WORKERS—The nation’s labor laws are a disaster and are not protecting workers’ freedom to form unions, according to Reagan- and Clinton-appointed members of the NLRB. “The law’s remedies for labor law violations are weak and ineffective. Many underlying assumptions and doctrines of the law are out of synch with changing realities, especially the changing nature of the employment relationship, the workplace and communications,” said Democratic NLRB member Wilma Liebman in her keynote address to the Robert Fuchs Labor Law Conference at Boston’s Suffolk University Law School Oct. 27. Marshall Babson, who served on the NLRB under President Ronald Reagan, spoke in favor of majority sign-up agreements, in which an employer voluntarily agrees to recognize the union after a majority of workers signs cards supporting the union. The NLRB, dominated by Bush appointees, has announced its intent to reconsider the use of majority sign-up. Seeking to ensure fairness for workers who want to form unions, working families are mounting the largest-ever mobilization to take the message of workers’ rights to the White House, statehouses and front doors of employers that deny workers’ rights. Throughout the week of Dec. 5–10, thousands of workers across the country will hold rallies, town hall meetings, candlelight vigils and teach-ins to highlight the obstacles workers face when seeking to join a union at work and showcase strategies for overcoming those obstacles. The events are part of a massive global mobilization to mark Dec. 10, International Human Rights Day, the anniversary of the 1948 ratification of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which includes the freedom of workers to form unions.
ILLINOIS PROTECTS ‘ALL KIDS’—With strong support from working families, Illinois became the first state to guarantee health care coverage for every child in the state, including 253,000 who currently are not covered. The state legislature recently passed the “All Kids” program, which will cover doctors’ visits, emergency care, dental and vision benefits, mental health services, prescription drugs and more for all children in Illinois regardless of income, health conditions or citizenship. As a safeguard to guarantee that employers will not abuse the new insurance system by immediately dropping health coverage for families with children, children must be uninsured for a full year. Union members packed town hall meetings around the state to show their support for the legislation, proposed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D). More than 2,000 union members and their allies rallied in Chicago Oct. 8 in support of the bill.
STOP SPECIAL TREATMENT FOR WAL-MART—Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and George Miller (D-Calif.) introduced a bill, H.R. 4190, Nov. 1 that would bar the Labor Department from including assurances of advance notice about workplace inspections in settlements of workplace violations before investigations are completed. The bill follows a report by the Labor Department’s inspector general, which found the agency’s Wage and Hour Division gave “significant concessions” to Wal-Mart in a January settlement of alleged child labor violation charges. The inspector general strongly criticized the agency for allowing Wal-Mart’s lawyers to write part of the settlement agreement and leaving government attorneys out of the process. “Wal-Mart’s settlement with the Department of Labor put the interests of one of the nation’s worst labor law violators ahead of the protection of America’s workers,” DeLauro said in a statement. For a copy of the inspector general’s report, click on www.oig.dol.gov/public/reports/oa/2006/04-06-001-420.pdf. Learn how we all pay the cost for Wal-Mart’s low prices at www.walmartcostsyou.com.
MACHINISTS STRIKE BOEING—About 1,500 Machinists who work for Boeing’s Space and Defense Systems unit in California, Alabama and Florida walked out Nov. 2 after contract talks collapsed. Despite reporting a net income of $1 billion last quarter, Boeing is demanding to eliminate retiree medical coverage for any future employee.
COPPER WORKERS NEED YOUR HELP—For four months, more than 1,500 striking workers have stood together against illegal threats and intimidation to seek a fair deal at six copper mining, smelting and concentrating facilities owned by Asarco in Arizona and Texas. Now they need your help. The eight unions representing the workers have provided help and support to the workers and their families, including food and cash—but strike assistance funds are running low as most members are facing their toughest financial challenges: trying to hold off foreclosure of their homes and repossession of their cars. To help the strikers, the Asarco unions established the Copper Workers Emergency Strike and Defense Fund. You can help the copper mine workers by donating online at https://secure.ga6.org/08/copperworkers or sending a check made payable to the Copper Workers Emergency Strike and Defense Fund to Emergency Strike and Defense Fund, P.O. Box 550, Kearny, AZ 85237. The unions that represent Asarco workers include the Boilermakers, IBEW, IAM, IUOE, Plumbers and Pipe Fitters, USW and the unaffiliated Carpenters and Teamsters.
GRINCH INVADES RADIO CITY CHRISTMAS—The management of Radio City Music Hall locked out its union musicians Nov. 3 and put on its annual “Christmas Spectacular” with recorded music. The members of the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada Local 802 had agreed to return to work unconditionally after walking out Nov. 2. The musicians say Radio City Entertainment, a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corp., wants to cut the musicians’ base pay of $133 per show, which is about $40 less than what standard Broadway musicians are paid.
UNIONS HEAD TO COURT OVER PERSONNEL RULES—Several unions representing federal employees plan to file a lawsuit to block implementation of a new National Security Personnel System rule that would strip away collective bargaining rights for 650,000 civilian Department of Defense employees. The labor relation’s portion of the final rule, released by the department Oct. 27, would become effective Nov. 28. The new rules, if implemented, would allow Defense officials to routinely override provisions in collective bargaining contracts.
ADJUNCTS DEMAND FAIRNESS—During the week of Oct. 31–Nov. 4, a coalition that includes AFT, the American Association of University Professors, the unaffiliated National Education Association and other groups rallied and demonstrated on college campuses across the nation calling for fair pay and benefits for college and university part-time faculty members. On some campuses, adjunct faculty members passed out peanuts and held signs that said, “What do elephants and adjunct faculty have in common? Both work for peanuts.” On other campuses, part-time instructors parked cars filled with textbooks, papers and classroom materials next to signs reading “part-time faculty office.”
HUGHES JOINS ILA LEADERSHIP—The Longshoremen’s Executive Council Oct. 20 unanimously elected Richard Hughes as executive vice president of the union, replacing Al Cernadas, who resigned. Hughes, a third-generation ILA member, has been secretary-treasurer of the union’s Atlantic Coast district since 2000. He first joined the union in 1954 as a dockworker in Baltimore.
UNION WORKERS GO ALL OUT FOR NOV. 8 VOTE—Union members are staffing phone banks, conducting neighborhood walks and holding rallies in an all-out effort to mobilize working families to vote and make a difference in critical elections in four states this year—California, New Jersey, Ohio and Virginia. California union members are turning public opinion against Proposition 75, which is being pushed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and his corporate backers. Prop. 75 would unfairly restrict political involvement by teachers, nurses, firefighters and other public employees and their unions but would do nothing to limit big corporations, which regularly spend money on politics without shareholder permission. Corporations already outspend unions in national politics by a 24–1 margin. This proposition would effectively limit the voice of workers on public issues. In Ohio, working families are building strong support for five initiatives that would bring good union jobs to the state for rebuilding roads, bridges and other important infrastructure projects. The initiatives also would restore fairness and balance in the state’s electoral politics by allowing all Ohioans to vote by mail and limiting the influence of big money in elections. In the very tight race for Virginia governor, union members—including members of Working America—have launched a massive effort to contact other union members through mail, phone calls and personal visits to support Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine’s candidacy. Working families also are working to elect U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine governor of New Jersey.
