(The AFL-CIO circulated the following on August 9.)
New members reported in this week’s WIP: 1,832
New members reported in WIP, year to date: 76,088
HOT SUMMER FOR SEIU—Nearly 1,000 aides, LPNs, dietary workers and other support and service workers in nursing homes and rehabilitation centers across the country have joined SEIU locals this summer, including locals 113, 285, 1199E/DC, 1199NE, 1199NY, 1199WOK, 2000 and 2020. Meanwhile, the majority of the more than 400 counselors and teaching assistants employed by Community Services for Autistic Adults and Children in Montgomery County, Md., last month voted to join SEIU Local 500 for a voice at work.
QUEBEC WAL-MART WORKERS WIN—In a first in North America, about 170 workers at a Quebec Wal-Mart have joined United Food and Commercial Workers Canada Local 503. The Quebec Labour Relations Board certified the victory Aug. 2 after a majority of workers signed cards expressing the desire to form a union. In Quebec, workers form unions using a majority verification process, also called card-check. “The Quebec certification shows that when workers’ rights are protected, Wal-Mart workers will exercise those rights for a voice at work,” said Joseph Hansen, UFCW international president. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., a majority of 33 LPNs at Northwest Health Care voted to join UFCW Local 400 on July 29.
CWA RINGS IN A WIN—Some 179 sales, technical and administrative workers at 39 Cingular locations in Eastern Pennsylvania are the newest members of Communications Workers of America Local 13000. On July 23, the American Arbitration Association certified that a majority of workers signed cards expressing the desire to join the union. Cingular has an agreement with CWA to remain neutral during organizing campaigns and allow workers to choose a voice via card-check.
PACE HAS CHEMISTRY—A desire for job security and respect on the job motivated the majority of 36 production and maintenance employees at II-VI Inc., a chemical facility in Saxonburg, Pa., to join PACE International Union on July 8.
OPEIU CAN DRIVE MY CAR—The majority of 14 clerical workers at DeLon auto dealerships in Salem, Ore., voted in May to join Office and Professional Employees Local 11.
WHAT CORNER?—Despite President George W. Bush’s claim on recent campaign stops that the economy “has turned the corner,” the latest unemployment figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other economic news show the economy’s still on mean streets. Just 32,000 new jobs were added in July, far short of economists’ predictions of 200,000 to 300,000 and the White House promise of 306,000 jobs. Some 8.2 million people remained out of work in July, and unemployment remains essentially unchanged at 5.5 percent, compared with 5.6 for the past three months. The economy has lost 1.1 million total jobs since Bush took office.
EXECUTIVE COUNCIL FOCUSES ON ELECTION—Mobilizing union members for the November election is the main item on the AFL-CIO Executive Council’s agenda for its Aug. 9–11 meeting in Chicago. The council will examine the union movement’s political mobilization efforts that began in February and map out the strategy for the final three months of the campaign to take back the White House and Congress for working families. Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards (N.C.) spoke to the council Aug. 9. Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama, Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate and keynote speaker at the recent Democratic National Convention, is set to address the Executive Council Aug. 10.
NEW BUSH PAYCHECK GRAB—Just weeks before new Bush administration rules that could take overtime pay protections from 6 million workers go into effect, workers face another threat to their paychecks. At a campaign stop in Minnesota Aug. 5, President Bush called for new rules to allow employers to replace overtime pay with unpaid compensatory time off. Bush wants to let employers substitute time off at some undetermined future date in lieu of overtime pay. Currently, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) says eligible workers must be paid time-and-a-half for any hours they work beyond 40 in a workweek. Bush claimed his proposal is “flextime,” but the plan “is really about giving America’s corporations the flexibility to cheat their workers out of overtime pay after 40 hours a week,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said. The proposal also would allow employers to pay overtime only after employees work 80 hours in a two-week period. That would mean an employee could work 50 hours one week and 30 the next and not receive any overtime pay. Backers of the plan claim it would be voluntary for workers. But Sweeney said it’s far likelier employers would pressure workers into agreeing to accept compensatory time instead of being paid overtime. Bush’s proposal is similar to legislation that failed to win support in Congress last year. The Bush-backed changes in the FLSA that could cost millions of workers their overtime pay eligibility take effect Aug. 23.
PLAY FAIR AT THE OLYMPICS—The AFL-CIO and the international agency Oxfam are supporting a bill in Congress that would instruct the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) to require companies making products with the U.S. Olympic logo to observe international labor standards. The Play Fair at the Olympics Act, introduced by Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and George Miller (D-Calif.), would oblige the committee to publish the names of all companies that produce goods under USOC license and set up a fund to investigate allegations of workers’ rights violations at those companies. Meanwhile, a joint report by the National Labor Committee (NLC) and China Labor Watch has exposed the conditions under which Chinese workers toil to make sneakers for Puma, including mandatory 16-hour shifts six to seven days a week and pay of 31 cents an hour. The NLC and China Labor Watch are calling on Puma to pay at least subsistence wages, respect the workers’ right to form unions and freedom of association and to end the climate of fear created by sweatshop managers. For a copy of the report, visit www.nlcnet.org/campaigns/puma04/puma.current.asp.
IAFF SAYS BUSH AD CREATES A ‘MIRAGE’—Fire Fighters President Harold Schaitberger said a new television ad for President Bush’s re-election campaign featuring images of firefighters “creates a mirage” that the administration has given first responders the support they need to protect communities. Bush has not supported adequate funding for frontline emergency workers, and his ad is “yet another example of his misleading the American people,” Schaitberger said Aug. 4.
JOB-BASED HEALTH INSURANCE DROPS—The share of people who get health insurance through their employers fell to 63 percent in 2003 from 67 percent in 2001—resulting in 9 million fewer people with employer coverage, according to a new report by the Center for Studying Health System Change. Trends in U.S. Health Insurance Coverage, 2001–2003 says job losses and a 28 percent spike in premiums contributed to the drop. For more information, visit www.hschange.org.
BCTD ASKS CHAO NOT TO DESTROY DOCUMENTS—Important Department of Labor documents assessing the quality of nonunion, open-shop apprenticeship programs have been ordered destroyed just months after similar documents were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department. BCTD relied on those documents, from the Office of Apprenticeship Training Employer Labor Services, to file a petition alleging the agency does not adequately monitor the quality of apprenticeship programs. In a letter to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, BCTD President Edward Sullivan urged her to rescind the order to destroy the documents. “It appears that rather than set higher standards and tougher monitoring for these for these failing programs, the Labor Department may have decided it is easier to destroy the records,” Sullivan wrote.
CHILD CARE WORKERS’ WAGES STALL—Wages for child care workers went up a mere 0.6 percent last year and have actually dropped in 12 states, despite growing recognition of the importance of early childhood education, according to the Center for the Child Care Workforce, a project of the AFT Educational Foundation. The mean hourly wage for child care workers is $8.32 and $10.67 for preschool teachers.
THE PRICE OF EVERY DAY LOW WAGES—Wal-Mart’s “every day low prices” are made possible, in part, by low wages that force the retail giant’s employees in California to use public assistance at a higher rate than the average for families of all large retailers, costing taxpayers an estimated $86 million a year, according to a study by the University of California, Berkeley, Institute of Industrial Relations and Center for Labor Research and Education. Based on 2001 wages and benefits of Wal-Mart’s 44,000 California employees, the study found Wal-Mart workers earned 31 percent less than the average wages and benefits for employees of large retailers. For the full report, visit http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/lowwage/index.shtml.
IBEW SETTLES AT SBC—Members of Electrical Workers Local 21 in Chicago ratified by a 4-to-1 margin a new five-year contract with SBC Communications Inc. that covers some 11,300 workers. The accord provides across-the-board wage increases of at least 12 percent over the term. The contract terms are similar to those reached May 25 in a settlement between SBC and CWA. The pact also maintains health insurance with premiums fully paid by the employer. Some medical co-payments, however, will increase. IBEW Local 21 members are guaranteed access to a wide range of jobs as the company implements new technologies.
TAKING THE LEAD WITH TWU—Transport Workers Local 556 flight attendants ratified a new six-year contract with Southwest Airlines the union says will boost their pay to the top in the industry by 2007. Other improvements include better productivity pay, per diem pay matching that of Southwest pilots and the introduction of a stock-option plan.
NO MORE CINTAS—After a month-long organizing effort by union members, living wage advocates and students, the Madison (Wis.) Common Council voted unanimously Aug. 3 to rescind the city’s award of a five-year, $350,000 uniform contract to uniform and laundry giant Cintas. Instead, the work will be done by members of UNITE HERE Local 229 at Aramark’s Madison facility.
THE GALL OF GALLO—Farm Workers members at Gallo in Sonoma, Calif., who have been working without a contract since November, are mobilizing to win a fair deal. After a news conference with UFW President Arturo Rodriguez Aug. 3, the Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution calling on Gallo to bargain a just contract. Rodriguez and Gallo workers delivered petitions with more than 25,000 signatures demanding Gallo settle with the workers. Supporters can still sign the online petition on UFW’s new website about the workers’ struggle to gain a new contract with Gallo, www.gallounfair.com.
