New Members reported in this week's WiP: 5,886
New Members reported in WiP, 1999: 124,781

VICTORYS IN THE BAG — In Massachusetts largest organizing win this decade, some 2,000 workers at Shaws Supermarket chain won card-check recognition with Food and Commercial Workers Local 1445 March 29. Local 1445 President Paul Dufault said both workers and management will benefit. "Its been proven time and time again that in union workplaces, labor-management relations are more stable, morale is higher, productivity is higher and workers are more fairly compensated," he said. The cashiers, customer service workers, baggers and clerks work in the chains central Massachusetts stores.

HEALTH WORKERS PRESCRIBE AFGE — Some 1,900 doctors, dentists, nurses, pharmacists, therapists and other professional employees at four Veterans Health Administration medical centers voted to join AFGE in March. Workers cited decreasing job security, poor pay, increasing workloads and reduced staffs as some of the reasons they sought a voice in the workplace. The wins came at VHA medical centers in Palo Alto, Calif. (1,300 workers); Dayton, Ohio (250 workers); Lake City, Fla. (200 workers); and Pittsburgh (150 workers).

ORGANIZINGS GOOD THERAPY — More than 700 psychologists, social workers and mental health counselors at Kaiser-Permanente mental health facilities in Northern California won voluntary recognition with SEIU Local 535 last month. In other SEIU wins, 550 Santa Clara County, Calif., courthouse workers chose Local 715 representation, while 130 group home workers at Fidelity House in Lawrence, Mass., voted for Local 509. Also, 100 aides and service workers at Grand Park Nursing Home in Los Angeles voted for Local 399, and a unit of 70 subcontracted dietary workers employed by Hospital Dietary Services at Crittendon Hospital in Rochester, Minn., voted for Local 79.

THE UNION SIDE OF SEARS — More than 200 workers at Focus Distribution Center in Olive Branch, Miss., are now members of Electronic Workers Local 282FW following a March 24 election. Abusive supervisors and complaints about managements attitude toward the workers at the Sears Roebuck Co. subsidiary were the workers main concerns, said Willie Rudd, president of IUE Furniture Workers Division.

UNITE FOR DIGNITY — The joint UNITE-SEIU Florida nursing home organizing campaign--Unite for Dignity-- scored a pair of late March wins. Workers at Avante Nursing Home in Lake Worth voted 56-13 for SEIU, and Titusville Nursing Home workers voted for UNITE by a 50-13 margin.

SWEET VICTORY — Maybe they were trying to change their image, but the union busters hired by Sodexho Marriot at Grossmont Hospital in San Diego, Calif., couldnt sway workers with an ice-cream social or with the cookies, muffins and other treats offered at captive meetings. Hungry for justice, not sweets, the 130 service workers voted Feb. 26 to join United Health Care Employees, NUHHCE 1199/AFSCME.

UNION BUILDING IN N.Y. — One of the first priorities of Denis M. Hughes, newly elected president of the New York State AFL-CIO, is the Solidarity Project, a new organizing program. "The initiative will bring together all of the organizing directors of all our affiliates to plan and implement a cooperative, coordinated and integrated organizing strategy to bring the benefits of union membership to working men and women in our state who are currently unorganized," he said. The 48-year-old Hughes, an Electrical Worker, was elected by the state feds executive council March 23 to replace Ed Cleary, who retired in March as leader of the 2.5 million-member New York AFL-CIO.

CAR HAULERS RALLY — Growing rank-and-file unity is the key element in the campaign for a good contract for some 12,000 Teamster car haulers who deliver new cars and trucks from the manufacturers to the dealers, IBT President James Hoffa told more than 500 rallying union members and their supporters in Detroit March 28. "The industry is making money. They should share the wealth with those who do the heavy lifting--the car haul drivers, mechanics, office workers and yard workers," he said. UAW President Steve Yokich and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) also addressed the crowd. The car haulers contract with 17 companies expires May 31.

JOB SECURITY TOPS UAW AGENDA — Job security and outsourcing, especially at General Motors, will be the major issues in bargaining later this year between the UAW and the Big Three automakers. Delegates to the unions bargaining conference approved resolutions to expand and extend previous job security protections. UAW President Stephen Yokich said job security at GM is threatened by the giant automakers plan to use  "modular assembly" techniques, in which outside companies construct modules and ship them to GM for assembly. Yokich said it is "just another word for outsourcing."  Some 400,000 UAW members are covered by the contracts with Ford, GM and DaimlerChrysler that expire in September. The 2,000 conference delegates also set bargaining goals for UAW contracts outside the auto industry.   

WAGING JUSTICE — A two-and-a-half-year campaign by labor unions, religious groups and community activists for a living wage in Madison and Dane County, Wis., paid off for thousands of workers last month when city and county lawmakers passed new wage laws. Jim Cavanaugh, president of the South Central Federation of Labor, said the county law provides a $7.91 an hour wage (or 100 percent of the federal poverty level for a family of four) for county and county-contractor employees. Madisons wage law begins at 100 percent of the poverty level and increases to 105, then to 110 percent the following two years.

MINERS MEMORIAL DAY — On April 2, tens of thousands of coal miners represented by the Mine Workers honored the 100,000 coal miners who have lost their lives on the job and focused attention on serious issues that jeopardize todays coal miners. UMWA President Cecil Roberts also called the special Memorial Day to highlight several issues that threaten jobs, including the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for huge U.S. greenhouse gas emission reductions--costing as many as 1.3 million jobs, some studies show--while allowing other large polluting nations off the hook. A proposed ban on certain types of mining under consideration in West Virginia also threatens miners jobs, Roberts said. At events across the country, miners called for stronger action on black lung disease, which kills 1,500 miners a year, and the protection of pensioners health care benefits, which recently have come under attack from coal companies.

UC DAVIS VOTES NEXT — Following an overwhelming win at UCLA late last month, teaching assistants at the University of California at Davis will vote May 25-27 on representation by the Student Association of Graduate Employees, a UAW affiliate. Meanwhile, the California Faculty Association, affiliated with the NEA, the California State Employees Association and SEIU, authorized a strike unless agreement is reached over the issue of merit pay at schools in the California State University system. "We are moving in the direction of a statewide walkout if we dont get a contract, but wed rather have a contract than a strike," union spokesperson Jim Smith told the San Francisco Chronicle. The union also is exploring other possible nonstrike job actions. CFA represents 20,000 Cal State faculty members.

WHO GOT RICHER? — When the Dow Jones industrial average closed at more than 10,000 last week, guess who got richer? The rich, a new study shows. Almost 90 percent of the value of all stocks and mutual funds owned by households are held by the wealthiest 10 percent. But the inflation-adjusted net worth of the median household (half are above, half are below the median) fell from $54,600 in 1989 to $49,900 in 1997, and 20 percent of households have more debt than in years past. Shifting Fortunes: The Perils of the Growing American Wage Gap, a new study by United for a Fair Economy, provides an up-to-date look at the worsening distribution of wealth and income, home ownership, pensions, savings and debt and offers recommendations for action. The report is available for $6.95. Call 617-423-2148 or e-mail to stw@stw.org. Excerpts from the report are on the UFE website at http://www.stw.org/.

SAFE NEEDLE BILLS MOVE — The campaign to win safe needlestick laws to prevent the spread of HIV and hepatitis gained momentum earlier this month when both houses of the Tennessee legislature, the Washington State Senate, Maryland House of Delegates and the Illinois House of Representatives passed SEIU-backed bills calling for safe devices. About one million health care workers a year are accidently stuck by outdated, unsafe needles, putting them at risk of contracting deadly diseases. Like Californias landmark law, the bills call for the use of safe devices that automatically retract or cover the needle as it leaves the body.

HITTING HOME — Las Vegas residential construction workers took their fight for on-the-job respect and dignity to Kaufman and Broads Los Angeles headquarters last week. The press conference and rally highlighted the workers struggle for justice and the problems many home owners have had with construction defects. The company bills itself as "the largest home builder west of the Mississippi." But Roofers Local 162 says its workers are denied their legally protected rights by some of the contractors Kaufman and Broad hires to build homes and, along with low wages and poor benefits, workers have not been paid for all their work and have been denied meal breaks and water or provided with dirty water. See http://www.kaufmanandfraud.com/ to see how you can help.

CHÁVEZ REMEMBERED — Farm Workers, other union members and Latino groups honored the memory of UFW founder César Chávez last week. He would have been 72 March 31. "The greatest tribute to my father is seen in the continuing work of the movement he founded," said his son, Paul Chávez. The younger Chávez noted that since UFW President Arturo Rodriguez launched a major organizing drive in 1994, the union has won 18 straight elections, signed 22 new contracts with growers and has seen its membership jump by 7,000, to 27,000 members. More than 1,000 union members, Latino activists and community allies led by UFW Secretary-Treasurer Dolores Huerta staged the third annual César Chávez March for Justice to benefit the UFWs Scholarship fund in San Antonio March 27. In Austin, on Chávezs birthday, marchers rallied on the steps of the state Capitol to urge the Texas House of Representatives to pass a bill (already approved by the state Senate) declaring March 31 a state holiday. That action would "say we are going to make a state and a nation that live by the values of César Chávez...a land where everyone is treated with respect and fairness, regardless of how they look, the language they speak, the dreams they dream," AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson told the crowd.

PERSEVERANCE PAYS — The mostly immigrant workforce--they speak six different languages-at Townsend Culinary voted to join Food and Commercial Workers Local 400 more than two years ago. But the company dragged the election through the court appeals process until late last year, when a federal district court upheld the National Labor Relations Board and ordered the company to recognize the union and bargain. The new contract calls for wage and benefit improvements, signing bonuses and a successorship clause protecting jobs if the company is sold. The 200 workers are employed at the companys Laurel, Md., plant.