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.
Chicago Charter School Teachers Join Union
Teachers at three Chicago charter schools voted overwhelmingly last week to join the Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff (Chicago ACTS), an affiliate of the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT) and AFT.
The 73-49 vote at the Civitas Schools sets a precedent for teachers at other charter schools whose staff want to organize, union leaders said.
Laura McMahon, an eighth-grade reading teacher at the Civitas Wrightwood campus, said:
Today’s historic victory sends a strong and clear message to Civitas school officials about our desire to have a say in our schools and work collaboratively. We expect Civitas will recognize the union now and begin the collective bargaining process.
Labor Board Charges California Carwash Owner
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The owner and a manager of a Los Angeles carwash where workers were harassed, intimidated and fired by management more than year ago when they tried to form a union now face charges from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
In a complaint issued May 28, the NLRB charges that when workers at Vermont Hand Wash began organizing with the Carwash Workers Organizing Committee (CWOC), they were met with threats, unlawful interrogations and surveillance. CWOC joined with the United Steelworkers (USW) last March as part of the CLEAN Carwash Campaign.
CLEAN Carwash is leading a major citywide effort by unions, community and religious leaders and others seeking to eliminate abuses and uphold standards in the carwash industry. Click here to learn more about the campaign and how you can help the “carwasheros,” as the workers are known.
Frances Perkins: The Woman Behind the New Deal
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On March 25, the AFL-CIO will host author Kirstin Downey who will discuss her new book, The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience. The event, at 12:30 p.m., includes a light lunch. Copies of the book will be available for signing. If you’re in the area and can stop by, please RSVP to 202-637-5297. As the review below points out, Perkins’ role in the New Deal has too long been underplayed.
When Frances Perkins stepped into her office as labor secretary, the first-ever woman in a presidential Cabinet, her welcoming committee consisted of this:
A huge cockroach.
It’s a fair guess few had a rougher welcome to a high Washington position than Perkins did in 1933. In a splendid new biography of Perkins, The Woman behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience, Kirsten Downey writes:
Some male Labor Department staffers threatened to resign rather than report to a woman.
In Rare Move, NLRB Takes Hospitals To Court
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is asking a federal court to force Fremont-Rideout Health Group to recognize the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) as the representative of RNs at two of its hospitals and return to the bargaining table to negotiate in good faith.
For three years, management has worked to thwart the nurses’ choice to join a union and bargain collectively at hospitals and clinics in Yuba City and Marysville, north of Sacramento.
The NLRB court filing, known as a “10(j) petition,” is rarely used, except in cases the board considers to be the most egregious violations of federal labor law, according to the union.
Beware of the Big Lie Bill
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Opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act in Congress made their Big Lie into a bill Wednesday, when Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.) and Mike Enzi (Wyo.) introduced the so-called Secret Ballot Protection Act.
Before we go further, let’s clear up the bill’s false implication right now:
The Employee Free Choice Act would not—repeat after me—would not, take away the secret ballot National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election process if workers seeking to form a union wanted to use it. The Employee Free Choice would ensure workers made the decision of whether to select a union via majority sign-up (card-check) or via ballot process. Choice is good. That’s one reason why we called it Employee Free Choice—because it would enable employees, not management, to make the decision of how to form a union.
The alleged goal of S. 478 is to:
amend the National Labor Relations Act to ensure the right of employees to a secret-ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board.
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.
NLRB Rules Trump Casino, Intimidated Workers Seeking to Join UAW
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Looking for another reason workers need the Employee Free Choice Act? Read on.
In May 2007, when some 400 dealers at the Trump Marina Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, N.J., voted on joining the UAW, they already had experienced the full weight of employer harassment.
During the course of the campaign, management suspended Mario Spina, a 20-year veteran casino dealer and union activist. Management had interrogated workers about their support for the union and their organizing activities. Also weighing heavily on their minds that day were threats from Trump Marina managers that they would lose their jobs if they voted for a voice at work with the UAW.
That’s a lot to think about, and on May 11, the fear created by the casino’s anti-union campaign carried over to the balloting, with the result that by only eight votes, 183-175, the workers voted against joining the union.
New NLRB Chairwoman Liebman a Welcome Change
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The union movement is praising President Obama’s nomination of Wilma Liebman as the next chairwoman of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
As an NLRB member over the past eight years, Liebman has challenged the Bush administration’s war on workers. The board’s Republican majority made it harder to form unions through majority sign-up, limited the ability of illegally fired workers to recover back pay and allowed employers to discriminate against union supporters in the hiring process.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says Obama made the right choice.
America’s working men and women will finally have the fair and committed leader they deserve with Wilma Liebman as chair of the National Labor Relations Board. What a refreshing change it will be to have a labor board that aims to safeguard rather than blockade workers’ rights. Liebman will work to help the NLRB serve one of its key missions–to undergird all workers’ right to collective bargaining as a cornerstone of our economy and democracy.
BushWatch: The Final Frontier
Eight years ago, President George W. Bush took office and we started what was to become one of the most popular stops on www.aflcio.org: BushWatch.
Over the years, we’ve chronicled the Bush administration’s executive orders, vetoes, policy decisions, legislative initiatives, regulatory actions and inactions that have had a direct impact on working families—none of it good.
We limited our scope to areas like job safety, health care, workers’ rights to form unions, jobs and the economy, civil rights and other real-world worker issues. It would take a superhuman effort to keep track of the Bush assaults and misdeeds on the environment, foreign policy, privacy rights and more.
With Barack Obama moving into the White House next week, we bid farewell to BushWatch as Bush heads back to Texas to lie about his legacy.
In the meantime, let’s look back at some of his more memorable, outrageous or evil actions—take your pick, depending on your indignation threshold. Today, we’ll revisit eight painful years of attacks on workers’ freedom to join a union.
