Labor Union Blog

On Wednesday Wisconsin’s South Central Labor Federation held a panel featuring local small business owners discussing the Employee Free Choice Act. Two of the business owners run union shops while the other two, a coffee chop owner and reastaurant owner, don’t have union representation in the work place due to their size. Lindsay Lee, owner of Madison, Wisconsin’s Ground Zero Coffee, said he took part in the panel because he believes the bill will help lift up workers and will be good for business.

[Lee]: It hasn’t been good for business. I talked to a lot of business owners who tell me they don’t want to continually go out and find cheaper labor, but because of competition they are being pushed…you know…its a race for the bottom and they recognize its not good for business.

On Wednesday Wisconsin’s South Central Labor Federation held a panel featuring local small business owners discussing the Employee Free Choice Act. Two of the business owners run union shops while the other two, a coffee chop owner and reastaurant owner, don’t have union representation in the work place due to their size. Lindsay Lee, owner of Madison, Wisconsin’s Ground Zero Coffee, said he took part in the panel because he believes the bill will help lift up workers and will be good for business.

[Lee]:

Larry Statz of Statz Printing said his workers have been organized for 50 years and he benefits from what the union offers in terms of apprenticeships and training. He said once the act passes it will help level the playing field.

Lede: As Chrysler’s bankruptcy unfolds, workers at a Kenosha Wisconsin plant set to close wonder why tax dollars are financing the transfer of their 800 jobs to Mexico. Doug Cunningham reports.

By Doug Cunningham

From the auto shop floor at a Chrysler plant in Kenosha, Wisconsin closing U.S. plants to transfer the work to Mexico during the Chrysler bankruptcy looks and feels like betrayal. Glen Stark is President of UAW Local 72.

[Stark]: “We feel it’s a betrayal. I mean, you’re asking U.S. taxpayers to float loans to the automobile industry but yet they’re gonna shut six U.S. plants down and not any of the four Mexico plants. To me that’s just unacceptable. It’s a betrayal to the Wisconsin taxpayers and it’s a betrayal to this country as a whole.”

Lede: As Chrysler’s bankruptcy unfolds, workers at a Kenosha Wisconsin plant set to close wonder why tax dollars are financing the transfer of their 800 jobs to Mexico. Doug Cunningham reports.

By Doug Cunningham

From the auto shop floor at a Chrysler plant in Kenosha, Wisconsin closing U.S. plants to transfer the work to Mexico during the Chrysler bankruptcy looks and feels like betrayal. Glen Stark is President of UAW Local 72.

[Stark]: “We feel it’s a betrayal. I mean, you’re asking U.S. taxpayers to float loans to the automobile industry but yet they’re gonna shut six U.S. plants down and not any of the four Mexico plants. To me that’s just unacceptable. It’s a betrayal to the Wisconsin taxpayers and it’s a betrayal to this country as a whole.”

Workers mount solar panels on the roof of IBEW Local 113 in Colorado Springs.

The members of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 113 in Colorado Springs, Colo., are living the union movement’s commitment to creating good green jobs and protecting our environment.

In late March, union members completed installing rooftop solar panels at the union hall. The all-union project will provide about 80 percent of the local’s electrical needs for the next 25 years.

The project will help save the environment and put money back into the union’s coffer. With an average of 330 sunny days a year in Colorado Springs, Local 113 expects to recoup the photo voltaic system’s $164,000 cost in short order. The solar energy system, which consists of 144 union-made panels, is a direct use system—meaning power is used as it is generated. And whatever surplus energy is generated can be sold back to the local utility company.

Local 113’s project highlights the commitment of union members to transform the struggling economy through a range of environmental investments in green technology, energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Charlie Johnson, president of Local 113, told the Colorado Labor Advocate:

The idea came from the floor. Our members wanted this. I think we all realize the importance of being on the forefront of any new electrical technology, and our members understand that the best way to lead is by example. It proves we’re not just talking when we claim that the IBEW sets the standards in the electrical industry. Besides that, it’s also about doing the right thing. You don’t get any greener than this. I think we can take a lot of pride in the fact that we’re also doing something that’s good for the environment.

The union estimates that over the next 25 years, the solar energy system, one of the largest in Colorado Springs,  will offset some 1.8 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions. That is the equivalent of taking 10 cars off the road for 25 years or planting 14.7 acres of trees, says Local 113 member Joe Collins.

In addition to the energy savings, the highly visible project—the union hall sits on a heavily traveled highway—could generate interest in solar energy and create jobs for IBEW members who install the panels. To help spur enthusiasm for solar energy, the local is building a stairway to the roof, so anyone interested in solar energy can take a close look.    

Local 113 is just one of many unions that is working to create good green jobs and clean up the environment. Read about other union efforts to go green here, here and here.

On Earth Day, the AFL-CIO, in conjunction with its Center for Green Jobs, announced an initiative to reduce energy consumption, cut waste and reduce the carbon footprint of its national headquarters. Read more here.

Strong-arm tactics by the Central Michigan University (CMU) administration—including a last-minute letter filled with anti-union rhetoric and innuendo—couldn’t sway graduate assistants from exercising their freedom to form a union and bargain for a better life.

On Monday and Tuesday, the CMU graduate assistants voted overwhelmingly to join the Graduate Student Union/AFT. The 450 teaching and administrative assistants teach, grade, tutor and perform administrative duties on the university’s Mt. Pleasant campus.

Also last week, graduate assistants at Florida State University (FSU) voted to join FSU Graduate Assistants United (FSU-GAU), a Florida Education Association/NEA/AFT affiliate. The new union will represent 2,800 graduate employees.

At Central Michigan, Barbara McKenna reports on AFT’s FACE Talk blog:

The strength of the vote was a repudiation of the strong-arm tactics of the administration, which raised the heat in the final days of the organizing drive by sending a letter urging the GAs to vote no on the question of union representation.

The letter from Roger Coles, interim dean of the College of Graduate Studies, not only urged graduate assistants to vote “No” but also alluded to union threats, intimidation and coercion that never happened in the campaign.

That letter caught the attention of the Michigan State AFL-CIO, which was holding its biannual meeting as the letters arrived in student mailboxes. AFT Michigan President David Hecker says that twice during the daylong meeting, delegates went their phones to protest the use of taxpayer money to fight the students’ desire to join a union.

That message, coming from a taxpayer-subsidized university that gets the rest of its money from tuition paid by working class families, is abhorrent.

Meanwhile the graduate assistants were hearing quite a different story from the state’s elected officials. Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) sent the students a letter urging them to decide for themselves, but to vote in the election.

Unions are an integral part of life in our nation, our state and on our university campuses….I know that many of the administrators who lead our universities value the role that labor unions play, particularly when it comes to winning public support for higher education. In my own experience, unions have been important and constructive members of the higher education family in our state.

In addition, several members of the state Senate and House higher education appropriations subcommittees wrote to the graduate assistants, describing how graduate assistant unions at several other state universities in Michigan have enhanced quality at those schools

by working to not only improve pay and working conditions, but by giving graduate assistants a collective voice at the university.

In her blog, McKenna writes:

In the end, however, it was how the grad assistants weighed in that counted. By voting for the union, they affirmed their right to negotiate health insurance, salary, tuition waivers, and other conditions of employment with the university administration. Overall, however, the central issue for the GSU was recognition.

“We need a union to advocate for our rights,” said Shelley Leininger, a GA in Clinical Psychology and a member of the union’s organizing committee. “A union will give us a voice at the university.”

At Florida State, FACE Talk’s Craig Smith reports the graduate assistants voted by a nearly 4-1 margin to join FSU-GAU. He says the key issues centered on increased workloads, substandard and inadequate pay, expensive health insurance that employees had to purchase and a lack of input on any of those working conditions.

Says FSU-GAU Co-President Danielle Holbrook:

We teach a majority of the classes at FSU. We are the largest group of employees on campus, but we have been working without job security or health insurance. Our workloads have been increasing while our salary remains the same, which means in this economy we’re being paid less each year.

Without our labor, the university could not function, but we’ve had no legal voice in how we are treated, so we organized a union and are ready to negotiate with the university.

Boston Globe workers rallied late last month to save the newspaper.

After weeks of intense negotiations, including a 10-hour session last night, The Newspaper Guild-Communications Workers of America (TNG-CWA) and the Boston Globe reached a tentative agreement early this morning that, if approved, would prevent the closure of one of the nation’s oldest newspapers. Meanwhile, in testimony today in the Senate, media unions highlighted strategies for addressing the industry’s finanical crisis.

The New York Times Co., which owns the Globe, had demanded a 23 percent pay cut and changes in job-guarantee language. Details of the tentative deal were not released, pending a meeting with Guild members scheduled for tomorrow.

The Globe deal comes as newspapers across the country are struggling through the recession, which has caused sharp declines in circulation and advertising revenue. Newspapers have laid off staff, eliminated sections, entered into bankruptcy or shut down.

Just last week, the Baltimore Sun, whose parent Tribune Co., has filed for bankruptcy, laid off 61 newsroom employees, one-third of its news-gathering operation. Some employees were fired while they were in the midst of writing and editing stories. Others were told to pack up their belongings immediately, and others were escorted out of the main newspaper building by security guards.

Writing on the Nieman Journalism Lab website, Mathew Ingram says Tribune owner Sam Zell and other big newspaper owners ran up huge debts to purchase newspapers and now their workers are paying the price:

In the case of Tribune Co.—acquired by corporate raider Sam “Grave Dancer” Zell—and several other major newspapers as well, acquisitions and corporate financing have created the conditions that led to much of the pain they have inflicted on the papers they own. Tribune Co. has built up a staggering debt load of $13 billion, and [other] chains… have accumulated their own unwieldy debts over the past few years by acquiring newspapers from family firms and smaller chains.

As the economy has weakened and advertising in particular has declined, however, newspaper owners have found it harder to meet their debt obligations. That doesn’t mean their papers aren’t healthy, just that they aren’t profitable enough to make the payments on all that debt.

In response to the layoffs, more than 50 Baltimore Sun newsroom staffers—including reporters, photographers and others—conducted a “byline strike” today protesting the layoffs and heavy-handed tactics used by the Tribune Co.

“The Tribune’s tactics are deplorable,” said Cet Parks, executive director of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild.

Employees who poured their hearts and souls into putting out a great newspaper every day were told to get out and stay out. No fanfare, no thank you, no outplacement help, just hit the streets. Maybe that’s Big Business Tribune way, but it isn’t right. Through its actions, Tribune has demonstrated that it has little regard or respect for its employees.

This week, Guild members at both New York Times units, newspaper and digital, voted overwhelmingly to ratify a 5 percent pay cut through the end of the year. Chicago Sun-Times newsroom employees voted to accept a temporary 9 percent pay cut, and the Allentown (Pa.) Morning Call announced it will eliminate more than 70 positions—more than 10 percent of its workforce.

The loss of so many newspapers represents a great threat to the nation, TNG President Bernard Lunzer told a Senate hearing today on the future of journalism.

In written testimony, Lunzer says:

The net effect is a huge loss of information that normally feeds the news cycle across all platforms, including radio, television and the Internet. We have already seen a decline in investigative reporting and an even steeper loss of local and government coverage.

There is a legitimate public interest in maintaining a level of quality journalism within the U.S. A democracy is not possible without a substantial sharing of information amongst its citizens.

TNG and CWA are working to solve the current newspaper crisis, Lunzer says, by:

• Seeking alternative ownership models such as employee-stock ownership, cooperative ownership and improved corporate structures. TNG also is pursuing legal changes that would allow for mixing nonprofit foundation money with for-profit companies.
• Pushing for broadcast, print and Internet companies to legally share information. While TNG-CWA opposes relaxation of anti-trust laws for existing media companies, the union believes there should be ways to share information without diminishing journalistic quality.
• Urging Congress to provide tax credits for subscriptions to media and the creation of tax credits to offset the cost of employing journalists.

Click here to read Lunzer’s testimony.

Union veterans in Arkansas talk about why they support the Employee Free Choice Act.

Military veterans in Maine, Arkansas and around the country are calling for quick passage of the Employee Free Choice Act this week. In cooperation with national veterans groups, these veterans are holding meetings, writing letters and speaking about the need to restore the basic freedom to form a union and bargain for a better life. 

Stephen Jackson, a Vietnam veteran from North Carolina who is both the commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 4312 and a member of Steelworkers (USW) Local 1283, took to the pages of the Roanoke Rapids Daily Herald in a great op-ed on the Employee Free Choice Act:

The men and women who put their lives on the line to protect our country deserve a chance to be a part of the American dream. They deserve a job that puts food on the table and a roof over the family’s heads. They deserve benefits so that they and their families can be healthy and thrive. They deserve the right to join any organization that will help improve their situation. They deserve to have the chance to be a part of the middle class and help rebuild our economy…

The Employee Free Choice Act will give veterans a better chance when they get back home to get better jobs with better benefits, and a better shot at the middle class. I support the Employee Free Choice Act. It’s my way of honoring those who served our country.

Small business owners are stepping up their support of the freedom to form unions, with the latest small business roundtable in Booneville, Ind., yesterday. 

In key states around the nation, union members are taking part in “working lunches,” writing letters to members of Congress urging them to support the Employee Free Choice Act. In Sacramento, union members will hold a vigil, starting this afternoon and continuing overnight, to support the Employee Free Choice Act; they will use the time to write letters to members of Congress. 

In Virginia, Working America is adding thousands of new members and has collected more than 1,500 letters in support of the Employee Free Choice Act. Rachel Coyler, who directs Working America’s canvassing in Northern Virginia, says she and her staff are finding Virginians concerned about the economy and interested in making it work for everyone: 

We’re out every day talking to people about the bill and dispelling some of the misinformation and giving them the facts. We’re finding that once people understand the legislation, most people are behind employees’ right to choose how to form a union, and a lot of our members are willing to tell Sens. [Mark] Warner and [Jim] Webb so by writing a brief letter to them. 

People believe that the middle class needs a fairer shot and now’s the time to give it to them. 

Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO’s tireless Stewart Acuff is traveling in support of the grassroots campaign for Employee Free Choice, from Alaska to Arkansas to Massachusetts. It’s an exciting time and a real opportunity for new labor law that respects and protects workers and makes the economy work for everyone.