1,800 Boeing Workers Ratify Pact with Pay Increases—and More Bargaining News
Some 1,800 Boeing workers ratify pact with pay increases, 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
UAW, Boeing: Members of UAW Local 1069 at Boeing’s Rotorcraft plant near Philadelphia ratified a new five-year contract yesterday, after their contract expired Oct. 1. The new pact covers nearly 1,800 workers and includes annual raises between 2 percent and 4 percent and improves pension benefits.
Holt Baker in New Mexico: Protect the Most Vulnerable
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Around the country, states are getting squeezed by the economic crisis, and state budgets are feeling the pressure. It’s imperative that we fight to make sure state budgets are not balanced at the expense of children and the services they need.
Today, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker is in New Mexico, leading a rally of more than 2,800 people to ensure a just budget that protects children and vital public services.
Standing with New Mexico Federation of Labor president Christine Trujillo, Santa Fe Mayor David Coss and four state legislators, Holt Baker said the proposal for big cuts in the education budget will cost the state jobs and competitiveness in the future.
New Mexico’s schools, universities and state agencies could face 3.5 percent cuts in funding, and employees could face pay cuts as well, as legislators seek to avoid a $650 million deficit. Holt Baker said the cuts to education will fall most heavily on families already reeling from the economic crisis.
Working America: Mobilizing and Winning
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As AFL-CIO President John Sweeney noted yesterday, one of the most important developments in the union movement over the past few years is the introduction of Working America, the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO that organizes, educates and mobilizes people across the country who don’t have a union at work.
Today at the 2009 AFL-CIO Convention, union members honored Working America and thanked Working America staff for their tireless efforts to reach out and sign up—in less than six years—more than 3 million members, who are getting critical education on the issues that matter.
Working America regional director Jenn Jannon and assistant national field director Tahir Duckett led a delegation of Working America staff onto the convention stage and explained the great successes they’ve had across the country. Said Duckett:
Working America organizers fan out in working class neighborhoods across the country every single night. And in those neighborhoods, we talk one on one to every household that doesn’t have the benefit of a union on the job, and we give them an alternative point of view on the economy—one that is not shaped by right-wingers or the corporate media.
Obama, Union Members Nationwide Focus on Employee Free Choice
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Yesterday, at a town hall meeting in New Mexico, President Obama reaffirmed his support for the Employee Free Choice Act, capping off a busy week of grassroots activity around the country in support of this critical bill.
Obama acknowledged there’s a tough fight ahead, but expressed his concern that current labor law isn’t fair to workers and needs to be changed if we’re going to rebuild the middle class.
…the scales have been tilted to make it really hard to form a union. So a lot of companies, because they want maximum flexibility, they would rather spend a lot of money on consultants and lawyers to prevent a union from forming than they would just going ahead and having the union and then trying to work with—and collectively—allow workers to collectively bargain.
So there’s a bill called the Employee Free Choice Act that would try to even out the playing field. And what it would essentially say is, is that if a majority of workers at a company want a union then they can get a union without delay—and some of the monkey business that’s done right now to prevent them from having a union.
