Labor Union Blog

With Bell Helicopters production staff still on strike for more than 15 days, the office workers have approved a contract agreement with the company. The white-collar workers are represented by United Auto Workers local 317 and they voted overwhelmingly in favor of the new three-year contract. Workers represented by UAW Local 218 remain on the picket lines, but returned to the table yesterday with a federal mediator. It is the first strike by the workers in more than 20 years. Part of the strike is to protect the jobs of 44 janitors who they are concerned will lose their jobs under new job descriptions in the contract proposal.

With Bell Helicopters production staff still on strike for more than 15 days, the office workers have approved a contract agreement with the company. The white-collar workers are represented by United Auto Workers local 317 and they voted overwhelmingly in favor of the new three-year contract. Workers represented by UAW Local 218 remain on the picket lines, but returned to the table yesterday with a federal mediator. It is the first strike by the workers in more than 20 years. Part of the strike is to protect the jobs of 44 janitors who they are concerned will lose their jobs under new job descriptions in the contract proposal.

One category of workers that often isn’t noted when talking about unemployment numbers is the underemployed. According to Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute, in May around 26 million workers were underemployed. During a press call on Tuesday Shierholz explained what it means to be underemployed:

[Shierholz]: Underemployment is a term that includes not just the unemployed, but also the so called marginally attached….

Shierholz said that because underemployed tracking numbers only go back to 1994 those numbers can’t be compared to the recession in the 80s.

[Shierhol

Lede: Now that the Obama administration has officially created a White House Council On Automotive Communities and Workers, some labor leaders would like to see a White House committee for manufacturing renewal. Doug Cunningham has more.

By Doug Cunningham

United Steelworkers Vice President Vice-President Tom Conway says the Obama administration needs to get serious about a national industrial policy to revive not just auto, but the entire U.S. manufacturing sector.

[Conway]: “We think that this administration ought to strike itself a standing permanent committee right now about American manufacturing renewal – and the value that’s there and the long term value it brings to communities.”

In a great new op-ed in Minnesota’s Bemidji Pioneer, Richard Levins, a professor emeritus of applied economics at the University of Minnesota, says the Employee Free Choice Act gives workers in rural economies the ability to bargain for a better life and restore the economy in their communities. 

He says the race to the bottom in wages isn’t working anymore for our economy and calls the Employee Free Choice Act a “much-needed stimulus” for rural economies. 

Levins writes: 

Corporate opponents of the act know that when workers do the same job for less, the rich get richer at everyone else’s expense. Supporters of the act know that healthy rural economies need middle class wages. Stronger labor unions will help get us there. 

Read the whole thing here.

The AFL-CIO today applauded rules proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to give shareholders better information about the potential conflicts of interest of compensation consultants who help set pay for senior corporate executives. 

A December 2007 congressional report found that CEOs of companies that use compensation consultants who have potential conflicts, such as providing management with other services, received considerably higher pay than CEOs of companies that used independent compensation consultants.

In a statement, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said “better disclosure is needed to bring these conflicts of interest out of the shadows.”

Outsized compensation packages for senior executives hurt shareholders, including pension plans investing the retirement savings of America’s working families.  Labor union members participate in pension plans with more than $4 trillion in assets.  Union-sponsored pension plans hold about $450 billion in assets.  Excessive pay packages for top executives are a giveaway of our members’ money. 

The proposed rules, developed under the leadership of SEC Chairwoman Mary Shapiro,  will be open for comment for as long as 60 days.

CEOs of Standard & Poor’s 500 companies were paid an average of $10.4 million in 2008. To learn more about excessive executive pay, visit our Executive PayWatch website.

Sweeney also voiced support for the SEC’s decision to require companies to disclose information about directors’ skills and experience on issues ranging from pay to accounting, so shareholders can make better choices among nominees for company boards of directors. 

The SEC also has moved to eliminate broker discretionary voting for directors when shareholders fail to give them directions on how to vote.  Sweeney said the AFL-CIO is “heartened” by the decision.

This rule is long overdue and will ensure that votes for shareholder proposals are not unfairly skewed in favor of management.

Finally, we are pleased that the SEC is proposing giving shareholders an advisory vote on the pay of senior executives of companies that received taxpayer assistance, as required by the law.

Read Sweeney’s statement here.

Here’s another example of why the Employee Free Choice Act is so important. The National Labor Relations Board this week issued a comprehensive complaint charging Covanta Energy Corp. and all of its U.S. subsidiaries with violating federal labor law.

More than 130 workers at Covanta’s Southeastern Massachusetts (SEMASS) facility in West Wareham, Mass., voted to join Utility Workers (UWUA) Local 369 in May 2008. The facility converts solid waste into energy by shredding and burning the trash. The employees have been trying to negotiate a first contract for more than a year.

If the Employee Free Choice Act were law, this dispute would have been over months ago. The legislation provides the mediation and arbitration assistance to help settle a contract when a company and a newly certified union cannot agree on a contract after three months.

The Covanta dispute also points out the need to ensure that the new wave of green jobs are good jobs. Green jobs, like those at the SEMASS facility, can help rebuild the middle class if they include union representation to help secure decent wages and benefits for the workers.

The complaint issued June 30 by NLRB Region 1 in Boston consolidates a previously issued board complaint regarding illegal work rules in Covanta handbooks at all of its U.S. facilities.  The new complaint also charges that Covanta committed numerous other unfair labor practices at SEMASS.

 Says Local 369 President Gary Sullivan:

The board’s action confirms our first-hand experience that Covanta is a rogue employer with no respect for the rights of its employees.  This is another step in our continuing struggle to win justice for these workers.

The complaint charges Covanta with withholding performance bonuses, safety bonuses and annual wage increases because workers voted for the union and that the company refused to allow a union steward to serve on another employee’s Peer Review Committee because he was a steward.

According to the complaint, the company announced it would refuse to negotiate until the union stopped publicizing the dispute at SEMASS.  The NLRB region said Covanta changed work rules and employee health insurance without negotiating with the union, refused to provide information necessary for the union to represent employees and engaged in other illegal conduct.

The NLRB hearing on the complaint is scheduled for October 19 in Boston. To download the complaint, click here.

Richard N. Brown

Richard N. Brown, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), died yesterday in Arlington, Va.  He was 47 years old.

Brown served as president of the 100,000-member NFFE  since 1998. The union represents blue- and white-collar federal workers in more than 30 federal departments and agencies. The NFFE was founded in 1917 and affiliated with the Machinists (IAM) in 1990.

NFFE Secretary-Treasurer Bill Dougan says Brown was “a strong leader, a dedicated trade unionist, and a friend.”

Rick was a trade unionist at heart.  He came from a union family and maintained membership in NFFE-IAM and the Laborers Union (LIUNA), the latter being a membership he maintained after leaving construction to become a machinist.  Rick was a strong advocate for federal employees.  Never one to back down, Rick was a strong presence in the fight against several federal workforce initiatives aimed at contracting out federal government jobs and eliminating federal employees’ unions.

In his passing, we have lost a strong voice and champion for working men and women.  We will mourn his loss greatly.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called Brown

A strong and tenacious voice for federal employees, Brown will be missed by the members of the union he led and by all those who fight daily for working Americans.

Says Ron Ault, president of the AFL-CIO Metal Trades Department who served with Brown on the United DoD Workers Coalition, which was formed during the Bush administration to fight attempts to end collective bargaining rights for Defense Department workers:

Federal employees have lost a great spokesman who’s going to be difficult, if not impossible, to replace.

Prior to taking office as president, Brown served as NFFE vice president and also president of NFFE Local 2109 in Watervliet, N.Y. He was a machinist at Watervliet Arsenal, which manufactured ordnance for the U.S. Army.

The Washington Post reports that Brown was survived by his father, two siblings and their families. He was engaged to Cate McGregor of Albany, N.Y.