Labor Union Blog

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lia href= http://www.laborradio.org/node/10371Teamsters Vice-President Jim Santangelo: Solis Nomination, Delayed By GOP, Will Go Througha//li
lia href= http://www.laborradio.org/node/10372Bloody Monday For Workers As More Than 71,000 Job Cuts Are Announceda//li
lia href= http://www.laborradio.org/node/10373United Healthcare Workers West Presses SEIU To Allow Its Members To Vote On Union Reorganizationa//li
lia href= http://www.laborradio.org/node/10374Economic Report: Existing Home Sales Rose In Decembera//li
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pEconomic Report:/p
pAs housing prices continued a downward trend, bargain hunters snatched up deals sending sales of existing homes up in December. Six-point-five percent more homes were sold in December of 2008 than were sold in November. While that may be a nice change of pace concerning the rest of the year, in comparison to a year prior homes sales were still down by 3.5 percent. On average prices are down 15 percent from a year prior./p

pBy Doug Cunningham/p
pUnited Healthcare Workers-West President, Sal Rosselli is calling on SEIU President Andy Stern to compromise and reconcile with the large local on the forced moving of 65,000 UHW members into another local. /p
p[Roselli]: “Our members have repeatedly instructed us in no uncertain terms to resist the forced, undemocratic transfer of our long term care members out of the UHW without a free choice.”/p
pSEIU International’s Michelle Ringuette says the reorganization has already been decided through democratic means abiding by the SEIU constitution in the wake of findings from former Labor Secretary Ray Marshal./p

pMonday More than 71,000 job cut at U.S. companies – including 26,000 at Pfizer – were announced. Jesse Russell reports:/p
pMonday turned out to be another day of lay off announcements. Ohio and Michigan, two states already suffering from high unemployment rates due to the downturn in the auto industry, will see 2000 jobs slashed at GM plants in March and April. The company also plans to idle nine manufacturing plants several weeks during the next six months. Overall production will be cut at 13 of the company’s plants. The biggest job cut announcements came from Caterpillar. The heavy equipment maker announced it would be slashing 20,000 jobs. Based in Illinois, the company also has offices in three major Ohio cities. Home Depot also plans to cut 7,000 jobs and close its 34 Expo Design Stores. Last, but likely not least, Sprint Nextel said it would be cutting 15 percent of its workforce, the equivalent of 8,000 jobs. /p

pBy Doug Cunningham/p
pPresident Obama’s Labor Secretary nominee, Hilda Solis, is being blocked by Republicans. Solis’ father was a Teamster and she is the most pro-worker labor secretary nominee in many years. Jim Santangelo is President of Teamsters Joint Council 42 in southern California./p
p[Santangelo]: “This nomination is gonna go through. There’s nobody that’s gonna be able to stop this. They’re just playin’ their little Republican game, that’s all this is about. Corporate America has had their way too long and now is the time to give the people the right to choose a union. /p
pRepublicans are anonymously using a Senate “hold” to block Solis’ confirmation until she spells out where she stands on the Employee Free Choice Act labor law reform – a reform that candidate Barack Obama fully supported. That reform would make it easier for workers to join unions free of employer intimidation./p

For several months, members of the Utility Workers (UWUA) have been holding the line on givebacks and demanding a decent contract at Southern California Gas Co. (SoCal). But rather than recognizing the value of its workers, management is trying to lower pensions, jack up health care premiums and cut sick leave.

It’s not that SoCal, a subsidiary of Sempra Energy, can’t afford to treat its employees well. In 2007, Sempra had more than $11 billion in revenue and its CEO Donald Felsinger raked in more than $14 million in salary and benefits.

Yesterday, thousands of SoCal workers rallied in Pasadena, Calif., and voted by a four-to-one margin to authorize union leaders to call a strike if necessary. The 5,000 workers are members of four UWUA locals and four locals of the International Chemical Workers (ICWUC), an affiliate of the United Food and Commercial Workers.

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, who spoke at the rally, said the workers sent a message to SoCal and Sempra:

You may own the gas company. [You] may own the tools I use, the truck I drive and the phone I answer. From the moment I clock in to the moment I leave you may own my time.

But you don’t own my union. You don’t own my family. And you will never own me. 

And if you don’t want to settle this contract at the bargaining table that’s fine—we’ll just settle it on the picket line.

UWUA Vice President John Duffy, the lead negotiator, says the SoCal fight is critical in today’s economic environment:

There is a lot at stake here. We are trying to preserve our members’ opportunity to stay in the middle class. These kinds of radical changes to the contract would shut out any chance for them to stay there.

After workers rejected the company’s last offer in October, both sides extended the contract—which was set to expire Sept. 30—until Jan. 31, 2009. Duffy says for the past three months the company has been “trying to scare people” about the impact of a strike and sending workers copies of the last proposal.

Trumka says the AFL-CIO will help the UWUA members in any way it can because:

the bottom line is that it doesn’t matter whether your job is reading meters in California or digging coal in Pennsylvania, the simple truth is that there’s only one way working people have ever won in the past or are ever going to win in the future:  It’s by organizing and mobilizing together.

That’s what it takes to win together. We will do whatever it takes to win and when we do, Felsinger and Sempra and SoCal will have learned that when you pick a fight with any union, you’ve picked a fight with every union and when you push us, you better run because we’re pushing back.

You can read Trumka’s entire speech here.

The range of speakers at the rally demonstrated the strong support SoCal workers have gained throughout the union movement and the community. In addition to UWUA President Mark Langford, speakers included Duffy, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor Executive Secretary-Treasurer Maria Elena Durazo, three ICWUC officials, President Frank Cyphers, Executive Vice President Steve VanSlooten and Vice President John Lewis, and Southern California radio host Margaret Prescod.

Wilma Liebman

The union movement is praising President Obama’s nomination of Wilma Liebman as the next chairwoman of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). 

As an NLRB member over the past eight years, Liebman has challenged the Bush administration’s war on workers. The board’s Republican majority made it harder to form unions through majority sign-up, limited the ability of illegally fired workers to recover back pay and allowed employers to discriminate against union supporters in the hiring process.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says Obama made the right choice.

America’s working men and women will finally have the fair and committed leader they deserve with Wilma Liebman as chair of the National Labor Relations Board. What a refreshing change it will be to have a labor board that aims to safeguard rather than blockade workers’ rights. Liebman will work to help the NLRB serve one of its key missions–to undergird all workers’ right to collective bargaining as a cornerstone of our economy and democracy. 

In a statement, Liebman says:

The Board’s work matters, just as it did when the National Labor Relations Act was passed in 1935. Democracy in the workplace is still basic to a democratic society, and collective bargaining is still basic to a fair economy. The statute we administer is the foundation of America’s commitment to human rights recognized around the world.

Liebman was first appointed to the NLRB by President Clinton in 1997. Her current term expires in 2011. Before joining the NLRB, Liebman served from 1994 to 1997 at the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, first as special assistant to the director and then as deputy director. She began her legal career as an NLRB staff attorney in 1974, then served on the legal staff of two unions: the Bricklayers and the Teamsters.

AFT members are mobilizing in the union’s just-launched campaign, Fight for America’s Future: It’s Dollars and Sense, to build support in Washington and back home for the far-reaching economic recovery plan making its way through Congress that helps rebuild the nation’s schools, roads, bridges and more, and protects vital services threatened by shrinking state budgets.

AFT President Randi Weingarten says the campaign

isn’t just about dollars, but about the kind of smart investments that will help slow the economic free-fall and strengthen education, healthcare and public services in order to preserve opportunity in this country.

In addition to urging their lawmakers on Capitol Hill to craft a substantial recovery plan, AFT members also are working at the local level where, says Weingarten, essential services are “too often the first on the chopping block.”

This fight must be waged not only in the nation’s capital, but in every state legislature, every city hall, every county council and every school board. There are no do-overs for students—a child is only five once; patients can’t wait for a better economic climate; and our country’s crumbling infrastructure must be modernized sooner rather than later.

The new campaign’s website includes a section where AFT members tell their stories about how the economic crisis is affecting their students, patients or clients and what they say should be the focus of a recovery package. Debra MacDougall, an early childhood educator from Washington State writes:

Our teachers are already seeing aberrant behavior in young children whose families are stressed by home foreclosures and the financial strains of not being able to put wholesome food on the table, seek needed medical attention, pay for heat, and provide the basic tools necessary to help kids be prepared to learn and to thrive in general.

Jeremiah Bain, a member of the New York State Public Employees Federation, says:

As our federal government bails out failing corporations, most Americans would benefit more from government spending that addresses decaying infrastructure, renewable fuels, and environmental protection.

AFT members can submit their comments here. The site also includes a quick poll, a video message from Weingarten, links to send a letter to lawmakers, to volunteer to take action and to support the Employee Free Choice Act.

Weingarten compares Fight for America’s Future: It’s Dollars and Sense to the union’s successful mobilization in last year’s presidential campaign.

Just as we came together to help elect Barack Obama president of the United States, we will once again unite in one clear voice for support of the America we know is worth fighting for. This campaign will decide our country’s future. Victory will take not only dollars, but the good sense to use those dollars wisely.

Former New York senator and presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has been confirmed as secretary of state, and tomorrow, Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand will take the oath of office as New York’s newest senator.

With Clinton, New York’s working families had a strong advocate for good jobs and the freedom to form unions and bargain, so Gillibrand has big shoes to fill. Although she hasn’t been in Congress long, she’s been a strong supporter of the needs of working families.

In her first term in Congress, Gillibrand signed on as a co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act and voted to pass it in March 2007.

In addition to her support for the Employee Free Choice Act, Gillibrand earned a 98 percent rating from the AFL-CIO in  2007 and 2008, backing working families with her votes on children’s health care, fair pay, unemployment benefits, workplace safety and other critical issues. At the press conference where Gov. David Paterson announced Gillibrand’s appointment Friday, she was introduced by New York State AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes, who said he looked forward to working with Gillibrand in the Senate.

The new senator-designate takes office amid an economic crisis that has resulted from the collapse of a balance of power in the workplace, leaving workers unable to fight for the benefits, fair wages and security they need. We’re hopeful that Gillibrand will continue to fight for working families and the freedom to form unions.

Hold the press—much needed good news at a daily paper, the Long Beach Press-Telegram, and more updates here from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 900 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.

SETTLEMENTS
TNG-CWA, Long Beach Press-Telegram: In California, newsroom and circulation workers at the Long Beach Press-Telegram, represented by The Newspaper Guild (TNG-CWA) Local 9400, reached a pact on a 30-month contract that offers layoff protection for a year and boosts pay by 2 percent after two years of bargaining.

AFSCME, Wexford Health Sources: Health care workers at 27 Illinois corrections facilities, represented by AFSCME Council 31, reached an agreement with their employer, Wexford Health Sources. Details pending ratification.

AFSCME/AFT/CSEA, San Jose Unified School District: San Jose Unified School District workers, represented by unions, including AFSCME, AFT and the California School Employees Association (CSEA), voted for two furlough days to help close the district’s budget gap.

IAFF, Montgomery County: Some 1,000 Montgomery County, Md., firefighters, represented by Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 1664, agreed to at least $8 million in wage concessions to help the county close a $450 million budget gap. The deal still needs to be finalized.

LEGAL ACTION
UAW, Tropicana: In Atlantic City, the UAW has filed an unfair labor practices complaint against the Tropicana Casino & Resort, contending it unilaterally hiked the price of health care coverage without negotiating it. The UAW is attempting to negotiate a contract with Tropicana, which is in the process of being sold. 

WORK STOPPAGES AND ACTIONS
BCTGM, Stella D’Oro: Striking workers at the Stella D’Oro Biscuit Co. factory in the Bronx, represented by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) Local 50, continue their struggle, five months into the strike. The work stoppage began after the owners, Brynwood Partners, a private equity firm based in Connecticut, walked out of contract negotiations. Brynwood bought the factory from Kraft Foods in 2006 and demanded drastic wage cuts and other concessions.

AFSCME, Innova Hospitals: Nurses at Innova Deptford and Innova Hammonton in New Jersey, represented by AFSCME, went on strike to protest working without a contract since last April.

Disclaimer: This information is being provided for your information only. As it is compiled from published news reports, not from individual unions, we cannot vouch for either its completeness or accuracy; readers who desire further information should directly contact the union involved.