Rite Aid Workers Win Big Victory from NLRB
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Robert Masciola in the AFL-CIO Organizing Department writes about a victory in the three-year struggle by Rite Aid workers to join a union.
In March 2008, nearly 700 workers at Rite Aid’s distribution center in Lancaster, Calif., overcame a vicious two-year anti-union campaign to gain a voice on the job by voting for International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 26.
The workers sought union representation to put an end to punishing production quotas and mandatory overtime piled on top of 10-hour shifts. They work in hot desert summers with no air conditioning in their work areas, with no job security.
As we enter the fall of 2009, workers are still fighting hard to win a first contract. But it has been hard given the employers’ conduct.
L.A. Carwash Workers Celebrate Law Preventing Wage Theft, Spread the Word
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Chloe Osmer of the Clean Carwash Campaign in Los Angeles took part in a rally to celebrate a new law that protects workers from wage theft and later helped spread the word to carwash workers across the area.
Carwash workers and their community supporters celebrated passage of A.B. 236, a bill to renew the state’s Carwash Worker Law on Friday. Carwash workers, legal services, community organizations and unions announced the launch of an outreach campaign to raise awareness about the law to the roughly 10,000 workers in the Los Angeles-area carwash industry.
The Carwash Worker Law was one of only a handful of labor bills signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this legislative session. Manuel Zuniga, who worked at Florence Carwash in Los Angeles for more than three years, told the crowd:
Carwash workers helped pass this law, and now we want all workers in this industry to know it exists. We have found our voice and we are saying, “Ya basta” (”We’ve had enough”) to exploitation!
Red Cross Cost-Cutting Endangers Blood Supply, Workers, Donors
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Millions of Americans contribute blood and money to the Red Cross with the belief that the organization is well run and the blood supply is protected. But a new Jobs with Justice report raises serious concerns about donor safety and the security of the nation’s blood supply.
During a Jobs with Justice telephone press conference yesterday, Mary McDougal, who has worked for a decade at the Red Cross in Buffalo, N.Y., said the Red Cross must improve the way it treats workers and donors.
Red Cross headquarters in Washington, D.C., thinks it can run a blood drive like you run a McDonald’s. [They need to] hire the right people, give them proper training and listen to us.
The Missouri Jobs with Justice Workers’ Rights Board released the report, “Labor Relations at the American Red Cross and Its Impact on Employee and Donor Safety,” after hearing from front-line Red Cross workers across the country. The investigative report outlines practices that jeopardize blood donors’ safety and the integrity of the blood supply, including long work hours that lead to fatigue and mistakes; sharp pay cuts that cause dramatic increases in employee turnover and hiring non-qualified workers instead of certified nurses.
Justice Dept. Asks Supreme Court to Decide on NLRB Rulings
For nearly two years, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has been hearing cases and issuing rules with just two members. While many of those decisions were accepted by the parties involved, dozens have been appealed to federal courts citing the two-member status of the NLRB and arguing that a two member board did not constitute a quorum that could act under the National Labor Relations Act. The five-member NLRB is staffed by presidential nominees who must be approved by the Senate.
Today, on behalf of the National Labor Relations Board, Solicitor General Elena Kagan asked the U.S. Supreme Court to settle the question of whether the board is authorized to issue decisions while three of its five seats remain vacant.
Help Keep Stella D’Oro Jobs in the Bronx
It’s down to the wire for workers at Stella D’oro Biscuit Co. The North Carolina-based snack maker Lance Inc., wants to buy Stella D’Oro and move production from its 78-year home in the Bronx to a nonunion bakery in Ohio.
The sale will not be finalized until October. Jobs with Justice is urging all of us to take action now by signing an online petition urging Lance CEO David Singer to keep Stella D’oro and its good union jobs in the Bronx.
In July 2009, 136 Stella D’oro workers, members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) Local 50, returned to work after an 11-month strike to maintain family-supporting wages and health care.
Atlantic City Decert Effort to Be Dismissed
In a major boost for the casino workers’ quest for a fair contract, the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB’s) Region 4 plans to dismiss a petition to decertify the UAW as the representative of 483 dealers at the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, N.J., according to a report in the Daily Labor Report.
Under federal labor law, the union is entitled to one year of recognition as the employee representative before it can be decertified. Dealers at the casino voted March 31, 2007, for UAW.
The Trump Plaza management still refuses to bargain with the union despite an NLRB ruling last year that management engaged in unfair labor practices. The NLRB ordered the casino to negotiate in good faith, but that hasn’t happened, the union says.
Carwash Workers Win Big Victory in NLRB Settlement
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Carwash workers in Los Angeles won a major victory in their struggle for better working conditions and decent pay. Today, the workers reached a formal settlement in their National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) complaint against Vermont Hand Wash, one of the area’s most notorious anti-worker car washes.
As a result of the settlement, Vermont’s owners must pay more than $50,000 in back pay to workers who were illegally fired for union activity.
The NLRB issued the complaint in late May alleging that Vermont’s management targeted and then fired three workers because they sought to form a union. According to the complaint, among other retaliatory acts, Vermont management cut the hours of union supporters or assigned them less desirable duties and unplugged the time clock when union supporters picketed the carwash, resulting in a loss of wages to workers on the job.
The complaint identifies one manager, Manuel Reyes, who, it says, threatened employees on multiple occasions with bullets, a machete and a combat knife. The NLRB also charged Reyes with similarly threatening two union organizers with a side-handle billy club in front of carwash employees.
Atlantic City Casino Workers Authorize Strike
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Gaming workers at Bally’s and Caesars casinos in Atlantic City voted overwhelmingly over the weekend to authorize a strike if they are unable to reach a contract agreement with management.
The workers have been trying to gain a first contract for two years after voting to form a union with the UAW in 2007.
Says Ed Hendricks, a Caesars slot technician for 15 years:
Nobody wants a strike, but we’re going to stand up to enforce our rights. We have negotiated for almost two years, but instead of reaching an agreement the company keeps cutting back. Harrah’s [owner of both casinos] has cut our 401(k) match, increased our benefit costs and laid off our fellow workers.
Union Challenges Stella D’oro Announced Shutdown
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Workers at the Stella D’oro Biscuit Co. in the Bronx, N.Y., charge that the cookie maker’s decision to shutter the plant this fall is a direct retaliation against the workers striking the company in 2008.
Local 50 of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) filed charges this week with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking to block the shutdown and also demanded the company reopen negotiations.
On June 30, an NLRB administrative law judge ruled that Stella D’oro, which now is owned by the private equity firm Brynwood Partners, refused to bargain with the union, improperly declared an impasse in negotiations and illegally refused the workers’ offer May 6 to return to work. The law judge ordered the company to reinstate the 136 workers with back pay and interest.
The company reinstated the workers July 6, the same day it announced it would close the Bronx bakery in October and move production elsewhere.
43,000 New Jersey Communications Workers Ratify Pact, and More Bargaining News
Some 43,000 New Jersey Communications Workers of America ratify a revised contract—and more updates here from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The
AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 1,100 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
SETTLEMENTS
CWA, New Jersey: More than 43,000 workers in the largest union representing New Jersey state workers, the Communications Workers of America (CWA), ratified a revised contract that defers a raise and swaps furloughs this year for future vacation days. “During these hard economic times, nothing is more important than protecting vital public services and the jobs of working people,” said Hetty Rosenstein, CWA’s New Jersey area director.
