AFSCME Members Rally to Save Public Services
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While state and local governments and school districts across the country struggle with budget deficits, AFSCME members are standing up to tell their elected representatives that raising revenues is the best solution to a budget crisis instead of cutting critical public services just when they are needed the most.
State and local governments and school districts have a $178 billion budget shortfall this year alone.
In Illinois, more than 3,000 activists, including hundreds of members of AFSCME Council 31, rallied at the state Capitol rotunda in Springfield this month to demand that lawmakers pass legislation to increase the individual income tax rate and expand the state’s sales tax base.
Grad Students’ Struggle Shows Need for Employee Free Choice
In a big victory last week, more than 1,000 graduate students at the University of Illinois exercised their freedom to bargain and won a contract that includes what all workers deserve: fair wages and better working conditions.
Unfortunately, too many employees around the country are denied the freedom to bargain. Trying to come together with your co-workers, to form a union and fight for a better life, can get you threatened, harassed and even fired. In a new piece at the Huffington Post, Robert Naiman says the graduate students’ win shows that all workers need the Employee Free Choice Act, to make sure everyone has the chance at a voice on the job:
…there’s a political barrier that obstructs many private-sector workers in the United States from being able to taste the victory that GEO [Graduate Employees Organization] members tasted: the need for labor law reform. If the Employee Free Choice Act were law, currently unorganized private-sector workers from Miami to Fairbanks would have the same ability as GEO members to advocate collectively and effectively for their interests, largely free of the fear of retaliation.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case today.
Vigil Participants to Resurrection: ‘Respect Workers’ Rights’
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| Laura Buenrostro, a registered nurse, is one of many workers seeking to form a union at Our Lady of the Resurrection Medical Center. |
Robert Malgieri of AFSCME Council 31 reports on Resurrection Health Care workers’ ongoing fight to form a union.
For 36 hours non-stop, Resurrection Health Care workers and their supporters kept a spirited vigil outside the giant health care system’s headquarters to press Resurrection to end its aggressive anti-union campaign and follow new guidelines for fair union organizing in Catholic hospitals.
Vigil participants came in waves beginning at 6 a.m. on Friday morning, Sept. 25, and continuing until 6 p.m. on Saturday evening, all the while holding candles, singing songs, joining in prayers led by area clergy and marching in processions.
After 3 Years, Illinois Mental Health Workers Get a Contract
They fought for more than three years through a strike, a lockout and unfair treatment by management, and now mental health care workers at Heartland Human Services finally have a union contract.
The ordeal these workers went through to get their union contract is another example of why workers need the Employee Free Choice Act. If workers choose a union, they should get a fair first contract.
AFSCME reports that workers at Heartland, based in Effingham, Ill., formed a union with AFSCME Council 31 in February 2006. More than a year passed as workers tried to bargain for a fair first contract, and they finally decided to go on strike in July 2007. After a year on strike, workers tried to return to the bargaining table, but they were locked out by management, who refused to let them return to work. Finally, thanks to the hard work by Council 31 and action from the state of Illinois, which contracts with Heartland, Heartland and its workers have reached agreement on a contract that will let these hardworking mental health care workers get back to serving those in need.
New Study: You Won’t Face Coercion if You Sign up for a Union
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If you sign up to join a union, you won’t face coercion or intimidation from your co-workers—or employers. Despite dire warnings by corporations against the majority sign-up process, a new study shows majority sign-up (card-check) protects workers and gives them the chance they need to form a union. It’s another critical point in favor of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would give workers across the country the choice about how to form a union and bargain for a better life.
The study, “Majority Authorizations and Union Organizing in the Public Sector: A Four-State Perspective,” written by top labor policy scholars under the direction of Robert Bruno of the University of Illinois, looks at the experience of four states (New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Oregon) where public-sector workers have the freedom to form unions through majority sign-up. If passed, the Employee Free Choice Act would give millions of workers the option of using either majority sign-up or a National Labor Relations Board election to form a union.
30,000 Workers at AT&T Reject Company’s Final Offer, and More Bargaining News
Some 30,000 workers at AT&T reject what company is calling it’s final offer, and more updates from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 900 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
WORK STOPPAGES AND JOB ACTIONS
CWA, AT&T: Some 30,000 AT&T workers in five states, represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), have rejected what the company declared to be its ”best and final” offer to resolve a nearly three-month contract dispute. Union leaders repeatedly have said they are optimistic a deal can be reached before workers walk off the job.
New Resources for Low-Wage, Immigrant Advocates
Our friends at the National Employment Law Project (NELP) just released several great new resources for advocates who fight for low-wage and immigrant workers.
The resources include ways to protect the rights of low-wage and immigrant workers. They also provide strategies to combat anti-immigrant legislation and arguments to support economic development that works for all people.
Click on the title to link to a resource.
Study: Majority Sign-Up Works, Without Coercion, for Thousands of Workers in Illinois
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A new study shines an important light on what the process for forming a union could look like under the Employee Free Choice Act—and cuts through misleading, baseless corporate spin claiming the majority sign-up process exposes workers to coercion or intimidation.
“A Study of Illinois’ Majority Interest Petition Provision,” authored by Robert Bruno, a professor of labor policy at the University of Illinois, is based on Bruno’s in-depth analysis of every majority sign-up petition filed in Illinois since the passage of a 2003 law allowing workers in state, local and educational institutions the right to choose to form unions through majority sign-up. Under the Employee Free Choice Act, workers around the country would be able to choose majority sign-up as a process to bargain for a better life, so the experience of Illinois workers is a real-world test that offers critical data to the debate over Employee Free Choice.
Moyers Highlights Jobs with Justice Organizer, Employee Free Choice
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On this past week’s “Bill Moyers Journal” on PBS, Moyers took a look at the battle for worker freedom during our current economic crisis. It’s a great segment that highlights James Thindwa, head of the Chicago chapter of Jobs with Justice (JwJ), and the fight to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
The segment follows Thindwa, a Zimbabwe-born community organizer who has worked for years to help workers in his community—from the nurses of Resurrection Health Care to the sit-in strikers at Republic Windows. He helps community members get involved in rallies, contact their elected leaders and participate in campaigns to improve their lives and those of their neighbors. As Moyers says, Thindwa’s tireless efforts are:
All in a day’s work for a man who spends his days organizing people to tackle issues they face in the workplace, from low wages and meager benefits, to corporate behavior.
Rally in Pittsburgh, Roundtable in Madison and More Action on Employee Free Choice
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This week, state and local unions around the country mobilized to pass the Employee Free Choice Act to restore the freedom to form unions and bargain and make the economy work for everyone.
In Pennsylvania, workers gathered in Pittsburgh to support the Employee Free Choice Act and highlight a new report that shows how much workers in each state would stand to gain in wages if the act passed and how more workers could form unions. In Pennsylvania, an increase in the rate of union membership of just 5 percent would increase total wages by $852 million.
Economist Mark Price spoke at the Pittsburgh rally, where he pointed out that restoring bargaining power to workers was essential to creating a balance between workers and corporations and rebuilding the middle class. During the midcentury expansion of the U.S. economy, Price said, strong levels of union membership ensured that ”when workers were more productive,” their work generated more wealth, that wealth would show up in their paychecks.
The Pittsburgh rally also featured workers like Keli Vereb, a member of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 1408, who talked about what union membership has meant to her family: a fair wage, good benefits and the opportunity to send her daughter to college.
