by Mike Hall, Dec 4, 2007

What do bankers, bus drivers and aircraft workers have in common? They are all new union members who’ve recently voted for a voice at work with AFSCME, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) and the Machinists (IAM).

In Milwaukee, some 500 bank tellers and other white-collar, nonsupervisory workers at U.S. Bank voted to join AFSCME Council 48. They are the first bank workers to join AFSCME. U.S. Bank, headquartered in Minneapolis, is the nation’s sixth largest commercial bank.

Hady Bricco, the president of the new AFSCME Local 777, and who works in the bank’s fraud detection department, says:

As the bank has gotten larger, and as they’ve demonstrated less and lest respect for us as employees, we felt it was time to look at our options….It’s strength in numbers. We look forward to having AFSCME with us at the bargaining table.

In other organizing news, the ATU Organizing Department is wrapping its first year in operation. Working with local unions around the country, it has helped bring a union voice at work to more than 1,000 workers. More than 100 rank-and-file member organizers and offices have taken part in organizing campaigns, some of which are still under way.

Some of the recent victories this fall include 140 operators, dispatchers and service workers at MV Transportation in Springfield, Mass., who won a voice with ATU Local 448 after the company voluntarily recognized their choice to join the union. In Rochester, Minn., 60 transit workers at Rochester City Lines voted to join ATU Local 1005. Also, in Illinois, 57 paratransit drivers at Glenview Laidlaw voted to join ATU Local 1733, while 15 dispatchers and reservationists at MV Transportation’s office in Cincinnati won voluntary recognition with ATU Local 627.

ATU President Warren S. George told delegates to the union’s recent convention that ATU will continue to emphasize organizing and grow its scope.

Meanwhile, some 200 workers at several sites throughout the South have voted recently to join IAM. At the newly opened Vought Aircraft Industries plant in Charleston, S.C., 127 aircraft workers voted to join IAM District 96. The workers build fuselage and tail sections for the new Boeing Dreamliner.

Elsewhere, 46 warehouse workers at Genco Infrastructure Solutions in Havelock, N.C., voted for IAM District 110, and 19 aircraft maintenance workers at L-3 Communications/Vertex Aerospace in Tomball, Texas, voted for IAM representation.

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