Channel: Organizing & Bargaining
Hundreds in Airline Industry Gain a Union Voice on the Job
More than 400 flight attendants and 170 pilots now have strong union voices after voting to join the Flight Attendants-CWA( AFA-CWA) and the Air Line Pilots (ALPA) in three elections, recently certified by the National Mediation Board (NMB).
In the latest victory for airline workers, the 300 flight attendants at Compass Airlines voted 2-to-1 for AFA-CWA representation. Compass flight attendant Catriona Bagley, temporary president of the Compass local, says she and fellow flight attendants
look forward to negotiating a contract that will provide security, as well as advance our careers. As AFA-CWA members, we will have a voice at the bargaining table and work alongside management in creating a leading regional airline contract that recognizes our role as safety professionals.
UNITE HERE Fighting for Hotel Workers Across Nation
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Members of UNITE HERE are walking out and digging in to fight for fair contracts at hotels across the country. Some 650 workers at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco went on strike this morning and will remain out until the first shift on Saturday morning.
Members of UNITE HERE Local 2 voted by a 92 percent to 8 percent margin to authorize strikes at any of the 31 upscale hotels in San Francisco. Despite earning record profits over the past five years, the hotels are using the recession as an excuse to demand changes in eligibility for the employees’ health care plan that would eliminate coverage or put it out of reach for many workers.
UNITE HERE contracts covering some 7,500 workers at 37 hotels in Chicago and 9,000 at 31 San Francisco hotels expired in August. Talks are continuing with the largest employers in each city. The hotel management companies are pressing for contracts that would slash health and retirement benefits and would increase workloads.
Illinois Grad Employees Win Key Contract Demand, Return to Jobs
More than 1,100 graduate student employees at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) won protection of their tuition waivers and other key improvements in a tentative deal reached with the university last night following a two-day strike.
The Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO/UIUC), an AFT affiliate, says in a statement the three-year agreement secures the “four pillars” of the union’s contract demands and “represents a major victory for labor in the state of Illinois and the United States.”
Graduate student Sarah Hennebohl told the Daily Illini, the school newspaper:
Without a tuition waiver, I can’t pay for anything. I can’t even apply for a credit card. I don’t want to have to discontinue my education.
CWA, German Telecom Union Create Alliance to Help T-Mobile Workers
To better fight the inequity between T-Mobile employees in the United States and those who work in Germany, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and ver.di, the German telecommunications workers union, announced today they are forming a special alliance to create TU—a union for T-Mobile workers.
CWA President Larry Cohen told a press conference in Washington, D.C., this morning unions must develop unique partnerships like this one to operate in a global economy dominated by multinational companies. TU will give T-Mobile USA employees, who do not have a union, greater strength to fight the company’s anti-worker practices.
Aldo Wilhelm, the ver.di employee representative on T-Mobile’s supervisory board in Germany, said the company operates differently in Europe than it does in the United States. T-Mobile’s parent, Deutsche Telekom, respects workers’ rights and collective bargaining in Europe, he said.
Student Anti-Sweatshop Activists Score Big Win for Honduran Workers
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In what is being hailed as the biggest victory ever by student anti-sweatshop activists, Russell Athletic, the largest supplier of team uniforms and logo-wear, has agreed to reopen a Honduran factory shut down in January shortly after its workers formed a union and will rehire the 1,200 union members.
When Russell shut the factory and moved production to cheaper nonunion plants, United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) mobilized on college and university campuses across the country. Their actions persuaded nearly 100 schools, including Harvard, Michigan, Miami, North Carolina and Stanford universities, to end their agreements with Russell for violating the workers’ rights.
Shaft Workers, Get an Award for Corporate Social Responsibility
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Five months after Roger Agnelli, CEO of Vale Inco, provoked a strike by nearly 3,500 miners, mill workers and smelters at three mines in Canada, an employer group is honoring Agnelli—for demonstrating corporate social responsibility.
Brazilian-based Vale, the second-largest mining company in the world, recorded $13.2 billion in profits last year. But the company is demanding the workers, who are members of three United Steelworkers (USW) locals, give back hard-earned benefits and accept an inferior defined-contribution pension plan and take cuts in profit-sharing.
USW President Leo Gerard says the striking workers and their families have struggled since the strike began July 13. One of the mines is located in Sudbury, Gerard’s hometown.
U. of Illinois Grad Employees Strike to Save Tuition Waivers
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More than 1,100 graduate student employees, who teach nearly a quarter of the undergraduate classes at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), went on strike today after the university refused to guarantee continuation of the teaching and grad assistants’ tuition waivers.
The members of the Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO)/UIUC, an AFT affiliate, say the school’s refusal to include the waivers in bargaining agreement is a precursor to eliminating the tuition waivers that allow most teaching and grad assistants to afford a graduate education. In a statement, the GEO says:
The administration’s refusal to guarantee the continuation of its current tuition waiver practice not only means that the majority of graduate employees could be forced to pay thousands of dollars in additional tuition charges, but also indicates its plans to implement such a change.
By making graduate education untenable for all but the most affluent students, the administration is abandoning its responsibility to ensure access to the highest level of public education for all.
Carwash Workers’ Message Hits Sunset Boulevard
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Chloe Osmer of the Clean Carwash Campaign in Los Angeles reports on a new way the workers are delivering their message across the area.
Last week, the message that carwash workers are organizing for justice reached new heights—above L.A.’s famous Sunset Boulevard. The billboard, which reads “Wash Away Injustice: Boycott Vermont Hand Wash,” stands out starkly among the sea of corporate advertising signs that line the popular strip.
Vermont Hand Wash, owned by brothers Benny and Nisan Pirian, has been at the center of an organizing campaign and currently faces charges by the Los Angeles city attorney of criminal misconduct.
Two months ago, carwash workers and their supporters were shut down when they tried to send a public message about their struggle by renting a billboard near Vermont Hand Wash calling on consumers to boycott the carwash.
The boycott message was considered too radical by corporate advertising executives, so the CLEAN Carwash Campaign agreed to a billboard message that read, “Support Carwash Workers: Wash Away Injustice.”
26,000 CWA Members Approve Pact with AT&T—and More Bargaining News
Some 26,000 CWA members ratify pact with AT&T in the Southwest, and more 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
CWA, AT&T: AT&T workers in the Southwest ratified a new four-year contract. The 26,000 members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) District 6 had been working under a contract that expired April 4.
IUE-CWA, Dresser Rand: After nearly two years without a contract, workers at Dresser Rand’s Painted Post facility in New York ratified a contract, effective through March 1, 2013. The contract covers 340 members of IUE-CWA Local 313.
Asian Pacific Americans Tell Their Stories at First National Workers’ Rights Hearing
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Ricky Lau, an electrician with the Electrical Workers (IBEW) and a Chinese immigrant, worked for 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week for his former employer, a contracting company. He and his mostly immigrant co-workers, many of whom did not speak English, were ripped off, he says. While they worked 60 to 70 hours, their weekly time cards read 16 to 20 hours. They had no benefits and no health care coverage.
Fed up, he and three other co-workers left the company and joined IBEW. With the help of his union, Lau and the other workers have been able to assert themselves. Now the four workers are suing the company in a class-action suit for back wages.
