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.
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.
Workers Join AFSCME, Machinists and IUE-CWA in Recent Campaigns
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Some 2,600 family child care providers in New Mexico recently voted to join Child Care Providers Together (CCPT)/New Mexico, an AFSCME affiliate. Meanwhile, aerospace workers in Georgia voted for Machinists (IAM) representation and car rental workers in Boston chose IUE-CWA.
In New Mexico, the child care workers—who care for children whose parents are eligible for state child care assistance—topped off their three-year fight for a voice at work last week when their vote to join CCPT was certified.
In April, Gov. Bill Richardson (D) signed legislation the workers had fought for since 2006 to win the right to join a union to improve their lives and the quality of home child care services in the state.
Mediation Board Proposes Changes to Democratize Union Elections at Airlines, Rail
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.
Union Movement Rallies in Solidarity with Puerto Rican Workers
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| Thousands of workers rallied in Puerto Rico against the governor’s drastic layoffs. The sign says “Give me back my job.” | |
In states across the country, working people marched and rallied in solidarity today with their Puerto Rican brothers and sisters against draconian budget cuts and cancellation of their collective bargaining rights.
As 200,000 people march in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to protest Gov. Luis Fortuño’s plan to slash the budget deficit on the backs of workers, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka sent a letter of support and solidarity and rallies were held in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities.
In his letter of support, which was read at the San Juan rally, Trumka said:
We are fully aware of the attacks being afflicted on the workers and their families on your island and we will do whatever we can to stop them. We are completely committed to bringing the full force of the AFL-CIO to fighting for the rights and well being of our affiliated unions, their members, and the people of Puerto Rico.
Red Cross Workers Fight for Safe Blood, Fair Contract
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At the American Red Cross headquarters in Farmington, Conn., the 225 AFSCME Local 3145 members—front-line blood services workers who make sure the blood supply is safe and sound—have been working without a contract since April.
Around the country, several bargaining units are in the same situation. They say the Red Cross is seeking to replace nurses with unlicensed supervisors, force employees to work unrealistic schedules, make workers bear the increased costs of an inferior health care plan and turn blood collection into an assembly line process.
AFSCME Local 3145 is part of a national coalition of unionized Red Cross workers who have united to improve working conditions, along with donor and blood safety supply at the Red Cross.
In Farmington, the nurses, laboratory technicians, phlebotomists, drivers and other workers are engaged in a campaign raising public awareness about how Red Cross puts profits ahead of safety. Says Local 3145 President Debra Lenentine:
The Red Cross is all about big money and bigger profits at the expense of donors and workers.
NLRB Orders Coal Co. to Rehire 85 Mine Workers
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ordered Mammoth Coal Co., a subsidiary of Massey Energy, to recognize and bargain with the Mine Workers (UMWA) as the exclusive representative of the workers at its Mammoth Mine in Smithers, W.Va.
The Sept. 30 ruling also orders Mammoth to rehire 85 former workers at the mine who were not hired when Massey bought the operation in 2004. Says UMWA President Cecil Roberts:
This tremendous victory affirms what we have been saying all along. Mammoth Coal had an obligation to recognize the union when it bought this mine out of bankruptcy, and it had an obligation to rehire the miners who were working there at the time the board found were discriminated against because of their union membership.
