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Bargaining Digest Weekly |
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The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 800 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
Still no concrete news from Pittsburgh on the Goodyear talks, but negotiations that began Dec. 18 are continuing. Nearly 16,000 United Steelworkers (USW) members were forced out on strike Oct. 5 by the giant tiremaker.
In the meantime, we have to keep the pressure on. If you live in the area around Akron, save Jan. 19 to take part in a huge rally at Goodyear headquarters.
Also, let’s keep barraging the company website with this question: “When are you going to respect your obligation to fully fund retiree health care and to protect the jobs of 1,100 families in Tyler, Texas?”
The strikers also need your help this holiday season. You can make a contribution to the USW Strike Fund—all money goes directly to striking workers. Another way to take action: Contact solidarity@usw.org for details about how your local can adopt a USW local.
Dealers are feeling the pinch in supplies and independent dealers are buying other brands to sell to customers. Goodyear sells tires through 11,000 company owned outlets and 6,900 independent dealers.
In a related story, USW filed a class-action lawsuit against Continental Tire for unilaterally shifting costs to retirees for their health care in violation of the last contract they worked under that promised lifetime benefits under specific terms.
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Mining: The Mine Workers (UMWA) have reached a five-year contract settlement with the Bituminous Coal Operators Association.
UMWA members approved the new contract by an 80 percent margin. The wage increase is the largest since the 1974 agreement. The contract also improved pensions and maintained health care benefits.
This contract is the first major agreement to be settled in a long list of major contract expirations expiring by the end of 2007.
Meanwhile, UMWA members protested in Harlan County, Ky., to urge the employer to extend the medical benefits to the families of five miners killed in an explosion in May.
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Automaking: The UAW is taking another look at Chrysler’s books with and eye toward making some health care benefit changes. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger says the union is taking a long-range view and not ruling anything in or out.
At Delphi, the IUE-CWA has filed objections with the bankruptcy court demanding release of details of the $3.4 billion Appaloosa/Cerberus offer for reorganization funding.
Appaloosa/Cerburus has a rival, $4.7 billion offer from major hedge fund shareholder Highland Capital to reorganize Delphi. Highland says it also will file a protest of the Appaloosa/Cerberus offer in court. Delphi’s reorganization plan calls for closing 21 of 29 plants in the U.S.
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Newspapers: In Philadelphia, The Newspaper Guild-CWA (TNG-CWA) and the Teamsters ratified new contracts with the Inquirer and the Daily News. But Guild members expressed their displeasure with management by passing a resolution expressing “no confidence” in management’s goals for labor relations, particularly the plan to move pensions into a multi-employer plan.
In Boston, the TNG-CWA ratified a contract with the Boston Globe covering 1,000 full- and part-time workers. The contract also brings workers at the paper’s website into the bargaining unit.
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Airlines: The bankruptcy judge in the Comair case says the airline can impose wage cuts and other changes on pilots. Comair says they will do so Dec. 30. Air Line Pilots (ALPA) leaders say that Comair pilots will not work under imposed conditions.
US Airways and Transport Workers Union reached a pact with dispatchers that includes dispatchers from the former America West Airlines that merged with US Airways.
Northwest Airlines shows it is returning to financial health. The company will pay up to $27 million in profit-sharing to workers by the end of the year.
Delta Airlines has filed a reorganization plan with the bankruptcy court based on keeping US Airways hands off its assets.
Continental joins the airline merger mania, saying it is engaged in talks to buy United Airlines. And fearing being left behind, the Northwest-American merger resurfaces as a possibility next year. The two airlines failed to reach agreement on a merger in 2000.
SkyWest pilots are looking to organize. More than 100 pilots have formed a bargaining committee and are working with ALPA to launch an organizing drive that would unionize SkyWest’s 2,500 pilots nationwide.
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Manufacturing: The UAW has been on strike in Cleveland against Alcoa for six weeks. The union says severe injuries have increased at the plant since the strike began, and that picketers have counted seven ambulances coming out of the plant.
In Indiana, UAW workers at Fairfield Manufacturing approved a four-year contract proposal after working without a one since October and rejecting two prior proposals.
The Machinists local representing members at AK Steel in Middletown, Ohio, where workers have been locked out since February, says it may take a fresh look at the lockout and try to rebuild the union’s relationship with the company.
Gerdau Ameristeel and the Steelworkers have agreed to a new contract in Perth Amboy, N.J., that runs through 2009
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Public workers: In Pennsylvania, Centre County correctional workers won a 4.75 percent raise each year of a new three-year contract.
Kansas City deputies and park rangers have a tentative contract that would net them three annual 4 percent increases.
Strike plans at two Alameda County jails by health care workers at were called off as a last-minute tentative settlement was reached.
Duluth police reached deal with the city, leaving AFSCME city administrators as the lone unit in town without a contract.
In Akron, Ohio, city workers will get raises of 2 percent, retroactive for all of 2006.
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In New York City, an arbitrator ruled on the contract between the Transport Workers Union and the MTA, saying both sides will have to accept the last offer that was on the table before the strike a year ago. The MTA had said the deal was no longer on the table.
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In Minnesota’s Twin Cities, Caribou Coffee store managers have filed a lawsuit that will test the “Kentucky River” ruling by the National Labor Relations Board limiting the freedom of as many as 8 million workers to form or join unions. Some 300 Caribou managers have said they were “more barista than boss.” If a judge agrees with this argument, they would be entitled to overtime pay.
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