Labor Union Blog

Economic Report:

Twenty-nine states will see their minimum wages increase to $7.25 on July 24. That’s the date the federal minimum will increase causing those states to join 21 other states that already pay $7.25 per hour or more. Congress passed a bill in 2007 that would increase the minimum from $5.15 per hour over two years. The government sets the poverty level at $10,830 for a single person. A normal $7.25 per hour full time work week would earn $15,080 per year.

A plan to slash thousands of jobs and freeze wages at British Airways in an attempt to cut costs hit turbulence on Monday. Jesse Russell reports:

On Monday, workers for British Airways rejected a proposal to cut thousands of jobs and freeze worker pay for two years. The airline is trying to bridge losses amounting to the equivalent of $658 million U.S. dollars. The proposal to cut jobs and freeze wages comes on the heels of another request by management that staff voluntarily take unpaid leave or work for no income for up to a month. According to the airline 800 workers have agreed to clock hours for up to a month without pay and 7,000 have agreed to voluntary pay cuts. The workers rejecting the proposal are baggage handlers, cabin crew, and other ground staff. Pilots at the airline agreed to a 2.6 percent pay cut in June. British Airways CEO Willie Walsh has agreed to work without pay for the month of July. Walsh earns the equivalent of nearly $100,000 per month.

By Doug Cunningham

The approval of GM’s assets sale to the government Sunday came with a stay that allows for appeals and at least one group is appealing. GM had argued it would be liquidated if this sale of assets were not approved. The United Auto Workers supports the reorganization plan, and if it survives appeals the plan will implement the UAW Retiree Health Settlement Agreement. Two other unions – the IUE-CWA and the United Steelworkers – objected to the assets sale because they said it would strip GM of assets needed to continue to pay for health care for 50,000 IUE-CWA and USW GM retirees and dependents. IUE-CWA said a three-day hearing leading up to the judge’s decision to approve the assets sale “clearly demonstrated that the U.S. Treasury Department decided to strip more than 50,000 GM retirees of their right to health care”. Those non-UAW retirees are not covered by a health care trust fund as UAW members are. IUE-CWA attorney argued that GM was subverting bankruptcy law protections by selling assets before it engaged in a process called 1114 over GM’s right to cut retiree health care. If the GM assets sale goes forward the U.S. government will own about 60 percent of the new company in return for providing $60 billion to the new GM.

Here are four great op-eds from around the country that explain why we need the Employee Free Choice Act.

In Pennsylvania’s Centre Daily Times, Penn State professor Paul Clark looks into the history of workers’ freedom to form unions over the past several decades and concludes that the Employee Free Choice Act is critical to restoring balance in the workplace and a healthy economy:

This legislation is designed to reform our nation’s primary labor law and re-establish the system of checks and balances between unions and management that historically has proved so beneficial to our nation…

Its passage would move us closer to economic recovery and toward a more equitable society.

Ron Hemingway, a member of the United Steelworkers (USW), a veteran organizer and the vice president of the Maine Labor Council, has first-hand experience of the process for forming unions and writes in an op-ed in the Lewiston Sun-Journal that the system is broken:

Our local union in Rumford recently tried to organize a satellite wood operation in South Paris. The employer hired a lawyer from Portland who muddled the process, delayed bargaining and dragged his feet every way he could. We did win the election, but lost the union there, as the contract process was dragged out for more than a year.

Several workers were fired and others were intimidated. By the time we were done, union supporters were gone due to the company’s interference. There is no union there now. Wages are low, safety is dismal and working conditions horrid.

They needed a union to represent them. The system failed them, as it has in other locations I have been involved with….

Robert Bruno, the University of Illinois professor who’s written an important study on the majority sign-up process, writes in the Northwest Indiana Times that workers, not corporations, must have the freedom to choose how to form a union. He quickly cuts through corporate spin to explain why we need Employee Free Choice:

It is simply intellectually dishonest to portray this new workers’ rights legislation as not promoting “free choice.” Contrary to claims that the act would strip the right of workers to vote in a union election, this bill restores workers’ choice to join a union and bargain with their employer.

Public policy honestly arrived at requires that if a majority of workers want a union, they should get a union.

In the Bangor Daily News, Jack McKay, president of the Eastern Maine Labor Council, reflects on the Fourth of July and the need to let workers have the freedom to bargain for a better life:

Workplace democracy isn’t revolutionary. It isn’t anti-business. It is commonsense. Workers are entitled to have a say on the job, and the most common means of doing that is through unions.

Some 43,000 New Jersey Communications Workers of America ratify a revised contract—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 1,100 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.

SETTLEMENTS
CWA, New Jersey: More than 43,000 workers in the largest union representing New Jersey state workers, the Communications Workers of America (CWA), ratified a revised contract that defers a raise and swaps furloughs this year for future vacation days. “During these hard economic times, nothing is more important than protecting vital public services and the jobs of working people,” said Hetty Rosenstein, CWA’s New Jersey area director. 

AFT, Providence Schools: Providence, R.I., teachers, represented by AFT, ratified a three-year contract, retroactive to Sept. 1, 2007, that contains modest wage increases and requires teachers to pay more for their health care. 

MULTIPLE, Michigan: Michigan state workers, represented by AFSCME Council 5 and the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (MAPE-Ind.), have a new contract that helps the financially struggling state by suspending raises for years of service in the first year but reinstating those increases in the second year. 

IATSE, New York Metro Opera: The stagehands of the New York City Metropolitan Opera, represented by Local 1 of the Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), agreed to forgo a 3 percent increase in salary for the 2009-2010 season in exchange for extending the contract an additional year when the full pay raises will take effect.

AFSCME, Hartford, Conn.: In Hartford, Conn., city workers, represented by AFSCME, have a new contract that helps the financially struggling city in exchange for greater job security. 

IAFF, Fitchburg, Mass.: Fitchburg, Mass., firefighters, represented by the IAFF, voted in favor of a 3 percent concession to avoid major reductions in the city’s fire services. 

WORK STOPPAGES AND JOB ACTIONS
UAW, Bell Helicopter: Striking Bell Helicopter workers, represented by UAW Local 317, ratified a new three-year agreement. Details were not released. 

IBEW, Penelec Energy: More than 500 striking Penelec/FirstEnergy workers in Erie, Pa., represented by the Electrical Workers (IBEW), agreed to federal mediation in contract negotiations. The union’s last contract expired May 14. Workers went on strike May 21. The company is asking for major concessions—despite making $55 million in profit last year. 

IBEW, Denali National Park: Bus mechanics, radio technicians and warehouse workers at Denali National Park, represented by IBEW Local 1547 in Anchorage, Alaska, have authorized a strike after negotiations for a new contract stalled over the past six months. 

MULTIPLE, Colorado: In Ludlow, Colo., members from various unions that include the Fire Fighters (IAFF) and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) turned their backs to Gov. Bill Ritter (D) in protest at an event commemorating the site of the 1914 Ludlow massacre as a historic landmark. He recently vetoed bills that would have advanced collective bargaining rights.

NEGOTIATIONS
MULTIPLE, BART: Two of the larger BART unions, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) and SEIU Local 1021 agreed to extend their labor contracts beyond the June 30 expiration through July 9 at midnight.  AFSCME, which represents BART white-collar workers, signed a similar extension. You can get real-time updates on Twitter at https://twitter.com/realbartworkers.

LEGAL DEVELOPMENTS
BCTGM, Stella D’Oro: Stella D’oro bakery workers, represented by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union (BCTGM) Local 50, have been on strike since August 2008 in New York. Now the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled the company illegally refused a return-to-work offer for the 134 strikers and ordered Stella D’oro to reinstate the workers and pay back wages to May.  In a 32-page ruling, Steven Davis, an administrative law judge with the NLRB in Washington, D.C., found the company had improperly refused to bargain with the union by declining to give the union a copy of its 2007 audited financial statement. BCTGM issued this press release in response. 

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.

Discovery Channel reenactment shows pirate takeover of the Maersk Alabama.

For several days in April, the nation waited for the latest news from a U.S. merchant ship off the coast of Somalia, where the captain of the Maersk Alabama was being held hostage in a small lifeboat by Somali pirates.

The bare-bones news reports said pirates armed with AK-47s boarded the ship—which was carrying food relief supplies to Kenya—capturing Capt. Richard Phillips and several other crew members. The rest of the crew managed to evade the pirates and eventually capture one.

We learned Phillips brokered a deal allowing himself to be taken hostage April 8 in exchange for the pirates leaving the ship. On April 11, Navy Seal sharpshooters killed the trio of pirates holding Phillips and rescued the captain.

Now, thanks to an in-depth look at the drama’s first day—from pirate sightings to the launch of the hostage lifeboat—we get the firsthand story from the 20-man union crew.

In the latest edition of the  “Marine Journal” published by the Marine Engineers (MEBA), members of MEBA, the Masters, Mates and Pilots (MM&P) and Seafarers (SIU) unions tell their story.

In the storty headlined “Don’t Give Up the Ship: Quick Thinking and a Boatload of Know-How Saves the Maersk Alabama,” the crew members say security training at union schools, plus Phillips’ emphasis on shipboard security drills, helped prepare them for the real thing.

When the pirates were first sighted, Chief Engineer Mike Perry set in motion plans to route the ship’s steering and power controls away from the bridge that pirates normally target to capture a ship. The crew also began to fortify a secure location on the ship.

When it was clear the next day that the pirates were still intent on capturing the Maersk Alabama, the 500-foot ship, with a top speed of 17 knots, began evasive maneuvers.  But, eventually, thanks to a calm sea and a faster vessel, the pirates were able to get close enough to use grappling hooks to scramble aboard.

The pirates quickly captured the bridge where Phillips and three other crew members were taken prisoner. But by then the ship’s controls had been rerouted, much of the crew was safely hidden, and Perry and First Mate Shane Murphy were quietly tracking the pirates’ moves around the ship.

Click here to read this absolutely riveting account of the union crew’s quick thinking, bravery, capture of one of the pirates and, by the end the day, having full control of the ship.

Says Third Assistant Engineer John Cronan:

We maintained our discipline and we stuck together. We didn’t have to retake the ship, because we never surrendered it. We’re American seamen. We’re union members. We stuck together, we did our job.