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Past
Issues
April 2004
May 2004
State
by State Breakdown Of Job Loss
FTAA Facts
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June 2004
New members reported in this week's WIP; 2,248
New members reported in WIP, year to date: 61,929
TEAMING UP--Some 798 employees of Caesars Indiana Riverboat
Casino and Hotel in Elizabeth, Ind., won a voice on the job with the Teamsters,
Operating Engineers and Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees in a
joint organizing drive through a majority verification or card-check process,
in which an employer agrees to honor the workers' choice after a majority
indicates the desire to form a union by signing authorization cards. IBT
Local 87 will represent 198 workers, and the other two unions will represent
about 600 workers. In Chicago, some 581 employees of 14 landscaping companies
voted May 14 for representation by IBT Local 703 and the IUOE. Nineteen
train and engine service employees of the Louisville & Indiana Railroad
Co. voted May 7 for representation with the Locomotive Engineers/IBT.
AFSCME'S HOT WINS--By an overwhelming margin, 250 service employees at
the University of Central Florida voted to join AFSCME Council 79. The
university is the sixth of 11 state campuses to organize and restore collective
bargaining rights since Gov. Jeb Bush (R) eliminated those rights in 2003.
In North Kansas City, Mo., a unit of 148 school district bus drivers and
aides voted to form a union with Council 72 on May 3. And in Washington
County, Fla., 50 bus drivers won a voice on the job with AFSCME Council
79 after the school board voted unanimously to accept their majority verification
campaign.
HEAD START TO RESPECT--In New York state, 190 Head Start
workers joined SEIU Local 200United for a stronger voice in advocacy as
part of the local's Campaign for Action, Respect and Equality (CARE).
On May 12, the majority of about 80 staff members at the Early Childhood
Learning Center in Cairo, voted to form a union. Six days later, a unit
of some 110 workers at the Broome County Child Development Council in
Binghamton achieved voluntary recognition from their employer. Meanwhile,
the majority of 70 patient care technicians, licensed practical nurses,
aides, secretaries and other employees of New York Dialysis Services Inc.
voted May 26 to form a chapter of SEIU District 1199NY. The company operates
five dialysis centers in the Rochester area.
STICKING WITH PACE--A total of 95 workers recently voted to join
PACE International Union, including 63 workers at H.B. Fuller Co., which
makes adhesives and other chemicals in Paducah, Ky.; 27 workers at Azon/InteliCoat
Technologies in Torrance, Calif.; and five workers at Cemex/Mineral Resources
Technologies in St. Louis.
AFT WINS FOR STUDENTS--The majority of 47 lay faculty members
at the LaSalle Institute, a Catholic school for boys in Troy, N.Y., voted
in late May for a voice on the job with New York State United Teachers,
an AFT affiliate.
WALK TO VICTORY--In June, working family activists in
battleground states will go door-to-door to get the word out about America's
real priorities: good jobs, overtime pay, affordable health care and other
critical issues in this election year. The massive labor-neighbor mobilization
will put thousands of union members on their communities' streets to talk
to their neighbors about the Bush administration's failed policies--lost
and exported jobs, unaffordable health care, job safety rollbacks and
attacks on overtime pay and workers' rights. The battleground states,
where union household voters can make a big difference on Election Day,
are Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New
Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington,
West Virginia and Wisconsin. There's plenty of work to be done in all
50 states, so visit http://www.aflcio.org
to sign up to join the fight for America's working families in your community
and to find out how you can reach out to your friends, family, colleagues
and neighbors to urge them to join in, too. After you sign up, you will
be contacted about specific activities you can join in your community.
CWA WINS CONTRACT AT SBC--More than 100,000 members of
Communications Workers of America in 13 states reached a tentative five-year
contract with SBC Communications May 25 that strengthens employment security,
protects health security and improves wages and pensions. Following three
months of contract talks and a four-day strike, CWA and the company agreed
to the pact, which also gives union workers access to new Internet and
DSL broadband jobs at SBC as new technologies continue to grow. CWA and
SBC agreed to work together to bring back tech support jobs from overseas
when the current outsourcing contract expires. SBC has sent 29,000 U.S.
jobs overseas in the past three years. "This agreement helps ensure
that American workers and their communities benefit from the promise of
new information technology jobs," said CWA President Morton Bahr.
Under the tentative contract, SBC will continue to pay for health care
benefits.
WALL STREET RECOVERS--FOR BUSH--The nation's financial
and insurance industries have funneled more than $12 million to President
George W. Bush's campaign war chest, and many of those contributions came
from firms that have cashed in on Bush's tax cuts and other policy changes,
according to a May 24 story in "The Washington Post." "Such
measures were explicitly designed to encourage investment, thus channeling
billions of dollars through Wall Street investment banks." At the
same time, the "Post" reported Bush's elimination of the estate
tax and big reductions on capital gains taxes will cost the U.S. treasury
about $248.5 billion in revenue through 2010. The article also notes Bush's
plans to privatize parts of Social Security "are potentially even
more lucrative for the securities industry."
PRICE HIKES NEGATE DRUG CARD SAVINGS--Soaring prices
for prescription drugs drastically undercut the small savings seniors
might see with new Medicare prescription drug cards, two new studies found.
The studies, by Families USA and AARP, found drug prices are climbing
at up to four times the rate of inflation. "It's the functional equivalent
of going to a used car salesman and being told you're getting a good deal
because you got a $3,000 discount. Only before you came, he raised the
price by $4,000," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families
USA. The drug discount cards, offered through Medicare-endorsed private
companies as part of the Medicare prescription drug law signed by President
Bush, were supposed to reduce drug costs before the Medicare drug benefit
takes full effect. But the law benefits drug companies and leaves seniors
with huge gaps in coverage. For more information on the studies, visit
http://www.familiesusa.org
and http://www.aarp.org
. For more information on the Medicare drug law, visit http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/medicare
or http://www.retiredamericans.org
.
SPECIAL INTERESTS WIN INFLUENCE--Bush administration
actions have fueled a corporate-backed dismantling of public safeguards,
a new report revealed. "Special Interest Takeover: The Bush Administration
and the Dismantling of Public Safeguards" outlined how the Bush administration,
with the strong backing of the corporate community, has rolled back workplace
safety, environmental, public health and other protections and reveals
that many former business executives have won appointments to regulate
the same industries in which they formerly worked. The report, released
May 25, was prepared for the coalition Citizens for Sensible Safeguards,
the Center for American Progress and OMB Watch. To read the report, visit
http://www.sensiblesafeguards.org
.
NATIONAL WORKERS' RIGHTS BOARD LAUNCHES--Workers struggling
to form unions at Wackenhut, a security company, and cable television
giant Comcast will speak out about the obstacles they face at the inaugural
hearing of Jobs with Justice's national Workers' Rights Board in Washington,
D.C., June 2. In more than 20 communities, religious leaders, elected
officials, lawyers and academics on Workers' Rights Boards use their stature
to make sure employers honor workers' rights. The national group will
take on multistate campaigns. For more information, visit http://www.jwj.org
.
ONLY HALF HAVE RIGHTS--The United States is one of several
large countries that has not ratified important international standards
to uphold workers' rights, denying half the world's workers fundamental
rights on the job, says a new report by the International Labor Organization
(ILO), a United Nations agency. Released May 24, "Organizing for
Social Justice" said lawmakers in Brazil, China, India and Mexico
also have not ratified ILO conventions protecting workers' freedom of
association and right to collective bargaining. The report can be found
at http://www.ilo.org
.
CAFTA IS A 'DISASTER'--Union activists and allies protested
in Washington, D.C., as the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)
was signed May 28 by the foreign ministers of the CAFTA nations and U.S.
trade representative Robert Zoellick. CAFTA would extend to Central America
the disastrous job loss and environmental damage caused by the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The deal eliminates tariffs from the United
States, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua and
is a "disaster for working people in both the United States and Central
America," said AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson.
BUSH GETS AN 'F'--The Bush administration's inadequate response
to the nation's transportation security threats and its gross neglect
of the needs of frontline workers has earned it a failing grade, said
Edward Wytkind, president of the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department.
The administration, while great at photo opportunities, comes up short
on follow through, providing little more than "press releases and
vague warnings" to protect passengers and workers, he said. Wytkind
urged full funding of security programs and federally mandated worker
training, as well as rigorous whistle-blower protections, closing security
loopholes and requiring inspections of container seals and empties at
U.S. ports.
ARTS, ORGANIZING AND POLITICS--The Labor Heritage Foundation's
annual Great Labor Arts Exchange and the Conference on Creative Organizing
are set for June 20-22 at the George Meany Center for Labor Studies in
Silver Spring, Md. Union members, staff, officials and activists will
join labor educators, artists, retirees and youths to celebrate the cultural
heritage of working people through songs, art, poetry, theater and other
media. The Conference on Creative Organizing incorporates these cultural
tools into union organizing, with special emphasis on using creativity
in political campaigns. For more information, visit http://www.laborheritage.org/glae04p1.html
or call Peter Jones at 202-974-8040. To register online, visit http://www.laborheritage.org/glae02p4.html
.
Work in Progress is also available on our website at http://www.aflcio.org/aboutaflcio/wip
.
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