In Covanta Struggle, Utility Workers Go Global
In 2008, after some 140 workers at Covanta Energy Corp.’s Rochester, Mass., plant voted to join the Utility Workers (UWUA), the “green” energy company started a two-year-long campaign of delay, “intolerable” contract demands and other bargaining table stalls. As UWUA President Michael Langford says:
They thought we’d just go away.
Well, they didn’t go away. They went global. Now, UWUA Local 369 members in Rochester have a contract signed just last week and the union may be on the verge of winning an agreement that would allow Covanta workers at its 30 U.S. facilities, as well as its overseas operations, to choose to join a union without management interference (more below).
Covanta Complaint Shows Need for Employee Free Choice Act
Here’s another example of why the Employee Free Choice Act is so important. The National Labor Relations Board this week issued a comprehensive complaint charging Covanta Energy Corp. and all of its U.S. subsidiaries with violating federal labor law.
More than 130 workers at Covanta’s Southeastern Massachusetts (SEMASS) facility in West Wareham, Mass., voted to join Utility Workers (UWUA) Local 369 in May 2008. The facility converts solid waste into energy by shredding and burning the trash. The employees have been trying to negotiate a first contract for more than a year.
If the Employee Free Choice Act were law, this dispute would have been over months ago. The legislation provides the mediation and arbitration assistance to help settle a contract when a company and a newly certified union cannot agree on a contract after three months.
NLRB Backs Utility Workers, Ruling Covanta Energy’s Work Rules Illegal
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The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has authorized a complaint charging Covanta Energy with violating federal labor law at more than 50 locations across the United States. The complaint is based on charges filed by Utility Workers (UWUA) Local 369, which challenged Covanta work rules as illegal, including rules that employees would be fired for providing any information about the company to government investigators, the news media or other “outside representatives.”
Gary Sullivan, president of Local 369, says:
The Board’s decision to issue a nationwide complaint against Covanta confirms our charge that this renegade company runs roughshod over workers’ rights. We intend to challenge Covanta’s illegal conduct at every turn.
