Michigan Utility Workers Help Kids Ward Off Winter Winds
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Michael J. Smith, AFL-CIO Community Services liaison for United Way of Monroe County (Mich.), sends us this report.
Kids in Monroe, Mich., will be able to bundle up against the cold Michigan winter with new coats, thanks to Utility Workers (UWUA) Local 223 and DTE Energy. The workers and management at the Monroe Power Plant raised $1,600 to purchase coats that were then donated to the Salvation Army’s Coats for Kids program.
During the 11 years that the local union has taken part in the program, it has donated more than 1,000 coats, says Pete Burkit, co-chair of Community Action Committee.
In addition to collecting donations from the workers, including onsite Building Trades workers, the committee works with local merchants to get a discount, “so we can stretch our dollars,” says Linda Schmidt, the other co-chair of the committee.
Along with the new coats, 21 “gently used” were donated and then cleaned free of charge by a local dry cleaner.
Public Employees Aiding Residents Throughout Irene
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From the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), whose employess are represented by AFGE, to local workers answering emergency calls, government workers have been playing a major role in the cleanup effort of Hurricane Irene. Two of those workers, one in Rutland, Vt., and one in Princeton, N.J., lost their lives while trying to help keep their communiteis safe during the storm.
State and local officials throughout the East Coast are praising public employees as they spearhead the cleanup after the massive storm and return communities to normal as soon as possible.
Consumers Win as Rialto Council Rejects Water Privatization Scheme
Consumers and the working men and women in Rialto, Calif., won a major victory last night as the City Council rejected a proposed 30-year lease of the c ity’s water and wastewater system to American Water. The Utility Workers (UWUA), which represents 2,500 American Water employees across the country, mobilized community opposition to the proposed scheme.
More than 300 Rialto citizens packed the City Council chambers and two overflow rooms to speak out against the deal, which would have increased water rates in the city by more than 84 percent in only two years. The defeated proposal also would have required the city to pay American Water more than $23 million every year in service fees and capital charges.
“This is a huge victory for Rialto ratepayers,” said UWUA President Michael Langford.
We believe that turning over the community’s public water system to American Water would clearly have been a bad deal for working families in Rialto.
The UWUA worked with Rialto residents over the past month to mobilize opposition to the privatization scheme. Many UWUA members live in Rialto and in nearby communities.
The action in Rialto is part of a major commitment by the union members at American Water to partner with community groups and others to oppose company conduct that is harmful to consumers. UWUA members and community activists have helped defeat the company’s takeover of a suburban system in Trenton, N.J., and blocked the layoff of 10 percent of the water workforce in West Virginia.
French Water Company Problems Highlight What Happens Under Privatization
The Utility Workers (UWUA), along with the safe food advocacy group Food & Water Watch, this week filed a complaint with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), over the labor and environmental practices of United Water, a U.S. water utility and a subsidiary of French multinational Suez Environment.
Yesterday, the AFL-CIO met with the labor attaché from the French Embassy to raise concerns about Suez Environment and to discuss the OECD compliant.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has issued complaints charging United Water with illegal bargaining tactics. As UWUA President Michael Langford says:
Utility workers have been astonished at the bad faith conduct of United Water in labor negotiations in the U.S.
Dying to Work
This is a cross-post from The Huffington Post by Stewart Acuff, Utility Workers (UWUA) chief of staff and assistant to the president.
It is 9 p.m. on a very cold Philadelphia night as I sit down to write this. I’ve just returned from a closed casket viewing of my 19-year-old union brother Mark Keely who was blown up in a gas main explosion three nights ago. Three other union members of his work crew were burned from head to toe.
Brother Mark was 19 and had been on the job just five months.
Death and horrible injury is a daily possibility for members of the Utility Workers Union of America. Our members are the first of the first responders cutting off the electricity and gas so firefighters and police officers can do their jobs.
No one knows how many lives Brother Keely and his crew saved with their ultimate sacrifice.
From D.C. to San Diego, Workers Choose Unions
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Capitol Hill tour guides, power plant workers, law enforcement and municipal employees and auto and jet mechanics all won a voice at work with AFL-CIO unions recently.
In Montgomery County, Pa., 245 county employees voted to form a union with AFSCME Council 13. The workers include deputy sheriffs and administrative support personnel in the sheriff’s department, clerk of courts, district attorney’s office, public defender, coroner and other offices.
In Washington, D.C., workers at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center voted overwhelmingly to join AFSCME Council 26. Carl Goldman, Council 26 executive director, says the 140 tour guides and visitor assistants are
very dedicated to serving Congress and the public. They want their views to be taken seriously by management. They want to be given the tools to do their jobs.
Oklahoma Laborfest Conquers All
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Stuart Elliott from the Wichita/Hutchinson Labor Federation of Central Kansas reports on the Oklahoma Laborfest, Aug. 26-28 in Oklahoma City.
Oklahoma City rocked for three days with the sounds of a celebration of working people. The big show: the premiere of “Oklahoma Speaks,” a performance that brought the state’s dramatic labor history to life.
The production spotlighted the tremendous impact of the union movement in Oklahoma. The state’s motto is ‘Labor Omnia Vincitÿ”—“Labor Conquers All”—a phrase commonly used by former AFL President Samuel Gompers. Union members, in alliance with tenant farmers, won majority support for 24 demands at the state’s constitutional convention in 1906. Oklahoma’s legislature eventually passed laws prohibiting child labor and mandating compulsory school attendance, established state mining and factory inspectors, regulated the use of strike breakers during labor disputes and outlawed the blacklisting of union sympathizers by employers.
The dramatic readings in “Oklahoma Speaks” were matched by musical selections and featured the voices of both leaders and everyday people who lived through powerful historic changes.
UAW Joins Blue Green Alliance
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Citing its commitment to energy-efficient transportation, the UAW today announced it’s joining the Blue Green Alliance. The Blue Green Alliance is a partnership among nine unions and two major environmental groups dedicated to expanding the number and quality of jobs in the green economy.
The Alliance last week launched “The Job’s Not Done Tour,” a three-week, 17-state, 30-city bus tour to remind lawmakers that Congress has stalled on legislation to create and save millions of jobs across the country through a clean energy economy. The tour began Aug. 16 in Los Angeles and will end Sept. 3 in Richmond, Va. For more information and a tour schedule on the bus tour, click here.
In addition to the UAW, members of the Alliance include AFT, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), Communications Workers of America (CWA), Laborers (LIUNA), Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), SEIU, Sierra Club, Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA), UAW, United Steelworkers (USW) and the Utility Workers (UWUA).
Union Members Help Keep Daimler Plant Open—and More Bargaining News
Union members negotiate a contract that keeps an Oregon Daimler Trucks plant from closing, 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 1,300 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
SETTLEMENTS
Multiple, Daimler Trucks North America: Good news in Portland, Ore., where a Daimler Trucks North America plant slated for closure will remain open after union members ratified new three-year contracts with the company. Most of the nearly 700 workers are members of Machinists (IAM) Local 1005, and others are represented by Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) Local 1094, Teamsters Local 305 and SEIU Local 49.
Trenton Voters Say ‘No’ to Private Water
Union and community activists in Trenton, N.J., rallied voters with door-to-door campaigning to beat back the New Jersey American Water Company’s nearly $250,000 advertising and mail blitz to privatize a prized and profitable part of the city’s water system.
In a referendum yesterday, voters rejected, 6,968 to 1,812, a proposal to sell to American Water the city’s municipally owned Trenton Water Works suburban infrastructure—pipes, water towers and tanks. Said Bob Houser of the Utility Workers (UWUA):
Selling off one of the community’s most valuable assets—its public water system—to a profit-driven corporation is a bad deal for Trenton.
