Labor Union Blog

Last week, leaders from labor, business and politics came together in Washington, D.C., at the Building the New Economy conference, sponsored by the Alliance for American Manufacturing and the Campaign for America’s Future. A new video shows some highlights from the conference and discussions on the need to rebuild manufacturing in order to strengthen our economy. 

Here’s what AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka had to say in his address to the conference: 

Our goal must be to develop the best technology and industries that will convert our economy into a greener future, fueled by good jobs right here in America. 

The one good thing about the economic collapse is that it lets us—quite frankly, it requires us—to think big. 

You can see more comments here from conference attendees like Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Gov. Ed Rendell (D-Penn.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.).

The state of Wisconsin is one of the first states in the country to make the teaching of labor history a mandatory part of public education. Wisconsin AFL-CIO President David Newby said it makes sense because Wisconsin has always been at the forefront of fighting for the rights of working people.

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Lede: A long-simmering competition over a multi-billion dollar military air refueling tanker contract is heating up again. Doug Cunningham has more.

By Doug Cunningham

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Bt a 2-to-1 margin, the National Mediation Board (NMB) says it’s time to bring democracy and majority rule to rail and airline workers voting whether to join a union.

The NMB today proposed changes to airline and rail election rules to mirror the rules that govern every other democratic election—the outcome is decided by the side that receives the majority of votes cast. Under current rules, every worker who does not cast a vote is counted as a vote against forming a union.

Edward Wytkind, president of the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department (TTD), says the NMB’s proposed changes are “fair and sensible.”

The deck is currently stacked against airline and railroad workers. The NMB is proposing new rules that would finally permit airline and rail workers to vote for unions under the same standards found everywhere else in our system of democracy. With this change, never again will workers in these industries seeking to form a union be thwarted by such un-democratic rules.

In its notice of the proposed change in the rules, the NMB says change to majority rule will

provide a more reliable measure/indicator of employee sentiment in representation disputes and provide employees with clear choices in representation matters.

In September, the TTD requested the board reform the election procedures, noting that just because a worker does not cast a vote, it doesn’t mean he or she does not want a union. It just means a worker didn’t vote. In many cases, pressure from company management keeps workers from the polls.

In a recent column on Huffington Post, Wytkind says the airline industry uses the current non-democratic voting rules to thwart workers’ choice to form a union and bargain for a better life.

Unionization in the airline industry has slowed in recent years. Why? Union-busting campaigns are alive and well—because the current election policy encourages and rewards employer-run voter suppression campaigns. For example, almost 100 percent of Delta flight attendants voted in favor of unionization in 2008. But thanks to Delta’s campaign to discourage its employees from voting (the company called it “Give a Rip” and was essentially instructing employees to destroy government-issued ballots), turnout was below 50 percent and the overwhelming support for a union was nullified.

The NMB says it will make a final decision on the rule change after a 60-day comment period. Comments may be submitted by mail or hand delivery to the National Mediation Board, 1301 K St., N.W., Suite 250E, Washington, D.C. 20005; by fax to 202-692-5085; by e-mail to legal@nmb.gov; or through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at www.regulations.gov.

Says Wytkind:

The NMB majority has demonstrated its commitment to fair union election procedures. Airline and rail workers are seeing their government take steps today to ensure that union elections are run under American norms and standards that have stood the test of time for more than 200 years.

New Jersey voters are heading to the polls today in a critical and tight race for governor between AFL-CIO-endorsed Gov. Jon Corzine, a supporter of working families, and his opponent, former George W. Bush political appointee Chris Christie.

It’s a fight that will determine whether New Jersey will move forward with Corzine’s agenda that helps working families, or whether New Jersey will be taken backward with Christie’s failed ideas on health care, education and workers’ rights.

Meanwhile, even more ethics questions are emerging about Christie. An investigation at the blog Blue Jersey—complete with phone records—into Christie’s conduct as U.S. attorney, suggests that Christie used his position to aid his political party, including

slipping information damaging to Democrats to the press while holding tight to information that could hurt Republicans.

Christie has not been directly implicated in the wide-ranging questions about political activity by Bush-era U.S. attorneys, but he has acknowledged his relationship with Bush as a major fundraiser helped him get the job, and he may have planned his eventual run for governor with Bush administration allies while still in office.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and other union leaders will pay a visit to New Jersey tomorrow, accompanying Corzine as he goes on an Election Day get-out-the-vote bus tour. In addition, union member-to-member outreach tomorrow will involve 15,000 volunteers reaching out to some 225,000 union household voters through 500 phone banks, door-to-door canvassing and 125 worksite leafleting visits. This final push builds on several weeks of volunteer effort by union members educating other union members about Corzine, Christie and the stakes in tomorrow’s election.

If you’re a union member in New Jersey, make sure to get to the polls tomorrow. To learn more, visit The Real Chris Christie.

A new agreement between the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) and Catholic Healthcare West sets a national benchmark for containing the spread of pandemics such as H1N1 (swine flu) and protecting patients and workers. Says CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro:

With this historic agreement, we are charting a new course for limiting the spread of not only swine flu but all other dangerous pandemics that are yet to come, We are pleased that Catholic Healthcare West is joining with us to set the highest possible hospital safeguards for patients and nurses and creating an innovative model that every hospital in America should follow.

The agreement creates a new system-wide emergency task force, comprised of CNA/NNOC RNs and hospital representatives following the declaration of pandemic emergencies.

The task force will monitor system-wide preparedness and set uniform standards on full implementation of federal, state and local guidelines, availability of the property safety protective equipment, communication and training policies for all hospital personnel and other needed steps, such as consideration of off-site emergency triage and treatment.

Carol Koelle, RN, at St. Bernardine Medical Center in San Bernardino, says the agreement goes a long way

to making our hospitals safer and better prepared for containing the spread of H1N1 and stop the unnecessary exposure of fragile patients, their family members, or nurses and other staff to the virus.

In addition to the H1N1 standards, CNA/NNOC and the hospital chain settled other outstanding issues, including assuring adherence to safe staffing standards, reducing the assignment of RNs to areas outside their clinical expertise or orientation and preventing management’s proposed reduction in nurses’ health care coverage.

The settlement, which averted a strike that had been set for Oct. 30, covers 13,000 registered nurses in 32 Catholic Healthcare West facilities in California and Nevada. Talks covering pandemic standards and patient and worker safety are continuing at two other California hospital chains where some 3,000 CNA/NNOC RNs work.

For information on H1N1 and teachers and students, visit AFT’s special H1N1 Web section. Also AFSCME has an extensive H1N1 site that includes fact sheets, a resource page and other information. Also see the United American Nurses (UAN) for more information on the H1N1 vaccine and health care  workers.

Don’t forget to check out the AFL-CIO’s pandemic flu site, which includes vital resources for health care workers, firefighters, educators and more. For even more information, go to www.flu.gov.

The U.S. House’s historic health care reform legislation—which would dramatically improve health coverage in this country while cutting the U.S. budget deficit in the long term—is headed to the House floor today for debate. The vote on H.R. 3962 will happen later this week or early next week.

This comprehensive, fairly funded bill will provide millions of uninsured people with affordable coverage and put tough new rules in place on insurers to protect consumers who already have insurance. The bill includes real responsibility for employers, subsidies for low- and middle-income families to help pay for insurance and a public health insurance plan to compete with insurance companies.

Here’s more news from the fight for health care reform:

• According to a letter sent by five committee and subcommittee chairpersons in the House, H.R. 3962 has at least 30 new tools to save billions by fighting fraud in the health care system.
• A new Johns Hopkins study estimates that over the past two decades, children without insurance were 60 percent more likely to die during a hospital stay than children with insurance—leading to 17,000 unnecessary deaths. The fight for health care reform has real life-and-death stakes, and the current system is failing.
• Big pharmaceutical companies are spending $2 million this week on an ad that uses misleading scare tactics to frighten seniors and senators about health care reform.
• Speaking of scare tactics, Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield is the latest insurance company to contact its customers and threaten that health care reform will increase rates, relying on a flawed study.
• Finally, irony of the day: Douglas Holtz-Eakin, formerly an economic adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), is coming up on the end of his COBRA eligibility, and he’s nervous about entering the individual insurance market—the same market that millions would have been forced into under McCain’s health care proposals.

Some 22,000 Los Angeles workers win pact with city that prevents layoffs—and more bargaining news from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 1,200 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.

SETTLEMENTS
Multiple, City of Los Angeles: The Los Angeles City Council on Friday approved a pact with the Los Angeles Coalition of City Unions, a group made up of AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions and representing 22,000 city workers. The agreement avoids layoffs and furloughs and will save the city more than $77 million by offering an early retirement plan, reducing the number of hours worked and postponing pay raises until after 2011. A deal with the Los Angeles Police Protective League/IUPA also was approved Friday and will save the city $63 million.

IAFF, City of Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh Fire Fighters (IAFF) voted to ratify a five-year contract that protects workers’ pensions and helps the city deal with the budget shortfall. 

WORK STOPPAGES AND ACTIONS
AFSCME, City of Detroit: AFSCME Council 25 filed a lawsuit against Detroit Mayor David Bing on Tuesday for unilaterally terminating a contract with city workers. AFSCME is seeking expedited arbitration and an order that would prevent any city official from terminating a collective bargaining agreement until the arbitrator has issued a decision on the merits.

NEGOTIATIONS
AFSCME, Dane County: In Wisconsin, five AFSCME county unions reached a tentative contract that would promise no layoffs for 1,500 workers in exchange for a 3 percent pay cut. 

IUE-CWA, Behr Thermal Products: In Ohio, 800 IUE-CWA Local 775 workers overwhelmingly rejected a contract proposal from Behr Thermal Products. Behr, which makes automotive heating and air conditioning units, is threatening to close the plant. 

USW, Carquest: Carquest warehouse workers in Michigan, represented by the United Steelworkers (USW) and locked out by management since Sept. 25, rallied with other unions before they returned to the bargaining table Oct. 28.

UNITE HERE, Multiple Hotels: In San Francisco, 9,000 UNITE HERE Local 2 members authorized a strike by their local. Negotiations with more than 60 hotels have continued past the Aug. 14 contract expiration. 

ALPA, Hawaiian Airlines: Pilots for Hawaiian Airlines last week requested that the National Mediation Board (NMB) end its mediation efforts. The members of the Air Line Pilots (ALPA) believe negotiations are at an impasse and hope the NMB will issue a Proffer of Arbitration, which opens up the possibility of a strike should either party decline binding arbitration.

UNITE HERE, Multiple Hotels: UNITE HERE members at five Chicago-area hotels on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike. Contracts covering the 1,200 workers expired Aug. 31, and the hotels have continued to ask for cuts to workers’ benefits while hotel profits climb.

SAG, Video Game Companies: Screen Actors (SAG) members on Wednesday rejected the offer by video game companies, approved by SAG’s national board just a few days prior. The deal would cover actors who provide voices for video games. Some SAG members were particularly disappointed with the provisions covering “multiple voices” and are encouraging AFTRA members, who are to vote on the deal by Nov. 12, also to reject the offer.

TWU, SEPTA: A strike by Philadelphia transit workers was avoided during the World Series, as talks continue between Transport Workers (TWU) Local 234 and Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA). Willie Brown, TWU local president, said the two sides have agreed to not increase health care payments by workers and are close to striking a deal on wages. 

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.