New Members reported in this week's WiP: 2,749
New Members reported in WiP, 1999: 129,748

BACK TO SCHOOL — The Los Angeles Unified School District this month granted card-check recognition to SEIU Local 99 for 1,800 playground aides and helpers. The school district also agreed to add this group to the 4,300-member supervision unit that was recognized last year. An agency shop election for the combined 6,100 member unit should take place before the end of the school year. Meanwhile, 23 LPNs at Shorewood Heights, a Beverly Enterprises nursing home in Milwaukee, are the newest members of SEIU District 1199WI, which already represents 115 aides and maintenance workers at the facility.

FULL MEMBERSHIP, FULL PROTECTION — The 240 administrative assistants working for the City of Chicago have joined AFSCME Council 31. Before joining, they had some of the benefits of union representation, such as the same wage increases and benefit levels negotiated with the other 7,000 Council 31 members in city government. But when the threat of privatization of white-collar city services emerged, the administrative assistants realized they needed the job security that AFSCME members have. Stewards spearheaded the organizing effort at 75 sites throughout the city. AFSCME also gained three recent health care wins. In Michigan, 223 technical employees at McLaren Regional Medical Center are now part of Council 25 after a card-check victory April 9. In Illinois, Council 31 continues its drive to organize state-funded private mental health agencies. On April 7, workers at PARC, a Chicago area provider of services to the developmentally disabled, voted 126-17 for the union, bringing in 200 members. And after an April 8 vote, 80 workers at Southern Seven Health Department also became members of Council 31.

TEAMSTERS STITCH UP A WIN — Nearly 150 workers at Sol Frank Uniform Company in San Antonio are the newest members of Teamsters Local 1110. The early April victory came in a card-check recognition campaign.

MAKING MUSIC — The 33 musician instructors at the Guitar Study Center at the New School voted to join Musicians Local 802 in New York City. They join the jazz instructors who voted to join the local last year. The local represents musicians who play part-time in symphonies, jazz bands and other groups.

HEAVY LIFTING PAYS OFF — The National Mediation Board certified some 2,000 baggage and cargo handlers at America West Airlines as members of the Transport Workers. The action overcame management challenges to a representation election last January in which 53 percent of eligible voters went with the union.

RETURNING TO RMI — The Steelworkers ended a 193-day strike at RMI Titanium Co. after ratifying two four-and-a-half-year contracts affecting 513 workers at the company's Niles, Ohio, plant. The pacts feature wage, pension and job security improvements as well as strengthened successorship language.

BILLION HERE, BILLION THERE — Wells Fargo/Norwest Bank's financing of the lockout at Oregon Steel's Pueblo, Colo., plant has cost nearly $1 billion in union deposits, including $3.5 million in the past three months from Minnesota unions. The unions withdrew that much from the bank to support the more than 1,000 Steelworkers who have been on strike or locked out for 19 months. If Norwest Bank chooses to "take on working families, you will be held accountable by working families and organized labor everywhere," said Mary Rosenthal, Minnesota AFL-CIO state director.

MESSENGERS DELIVER LAWSUIT — More than five dozen messengers and the Longshore and Warehouse Union sued three San Francisco employers over alleged wage and hour violations. The messengers claim they are not paid the minimum wage or overtime pay as required by law and are not reimbursed for using their own equipment. ILWU organizers are working with messengers in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Portland, Ore.

YALE GOES CORPORATE — One of the most prestigious universities in America is using the same techniques as greedy corporations, say union leaders: shifting good full-time jobs to part-time work with no benefits. A new study shows that Yale University is relying more heavily on graduate students and adjunct teachers and less on tenure track faculty. The report indicates the number of graduate student teachers rose to more than 1,000 in 1997, up from 778 in 1980, but the number of tenure track faculty dropped from 688 to 653. Last weekend, union leaders, including AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson, SEIU President Andrew Stern and Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees President John Wilhelm, kicked off a teach-in at Yale focusing on workers rights and supporting Yale graduate employees efforts to organize. The Yale teach-in occurred as teaching assistants around the country lead drives to form unions and students on campuses step up activity around workers rights.

CLEAN UP YOUR ACT — AFL-CIO President John Sweeney joined 8,000 marching and whistling union members and supporters in New York last week to protest nonunion contractor Laro Service Systems, unfair labor practices and the Port Authoritity's treatment of security guards. Members of SEIU Local 32B-32J have been on strike for more than two years against Laro, which has resisted unionization and has refused to keep on staff janitors who worked at the bus terminal before the company got the contract.

CSU WORKERS POISED FOR STRIKE — More than 1,800 student service professionals have begun preparations for a possible strike against California State University. The workers are members of the Academic Professionals of California, an affiliate of the Laborers, and have been working without a contract since June 1998. CSU has threatened to impose its last offer, which the union overwhelmingly rejected. Last month, the school imposed a contract on its faculty.

FRIENDS IN STRANGE PLACES — When 100 delegates to the Steelworkers civil rights conference began demonstrating in support of locked-out workers at the Kaiser Aluminum plant in Gramercy, La., somebody called the sheriff. When the sheriff arrived, he called for backup, not to arrest the demonstrators but to protect them from ongoing traffic on the busy four-lane highway. It seems that the sheriff in that parish is a former USWA member who once served as grievance chair at that same Kaiser plant, according to Local 5702 member Harry Pergue.

CONNECTING IN THE TWIN CITIES — The Teamsters pledged to boost efforts to secure a fair contract for flight attendants at Northwest Airlines. IBT plans to expand strategic communications, comprehensive campaign and community outreach efforts and mobilize support from locals throughout the country. "The expanded assistance from the international will help win our demands at the bargaining table," predicted Local 2000 President Billie Davenport.

THE HUDSON DIVIDE — Faced with the prospect of losing two of their biggest employers, thousands of members of the International Longshoremen's Association rallied in front of New York's World Trade Center to protest the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's failed lease negotiations with Sea-Land Service and Maersk Line. The union says workers' jobs are being used as a bargaining chip in a dispute between the two states over apportionment of port revenues.

A LITTLE LIGHT — Electronic Workers at a Phillips Lighting Co. plant in Fairmont, W.Va.--a facility spotlighted in last year's March for Appalachia that focused on the loss of good paying jobs and economic injustice in the region--approved a new three-year contract that guarantees their 124 jobs for the contract's term. The loss of good paying, unionized industrial jobs to overseas and nonunion factories was a key issue in the march.

STICKING TO THE POINT — Tennessee Gov. Don Sundquist (R) last week signed into law an SEIU-backed measure to protect health care workers from needlestick injuries by requiring the state to develop standards for employers on safe needles. Thanks to a lobbying campaign by SEIU, California also has a similar law. Meanwhile, more than 700 SEIU members converged on Harrisburg, Pa., last week to lobby members of the state legislature on a variety of working family issues, including safe needlesticks for health care providers.

SOMERS FIGHT SIMMERS DOWN — The long, bitter dispute between SEIU Local 1877 and Somers Building Maintenance, the largest cleaning contractor in Sacramento, Calif., ended March 30 with a contract covering some 200 downtown janitors. The workers voted to organize in 1995, but Somers engaged in a vicious anti-union campaign. Although workers were fired, intimidated and harassed, they stuck together and built strong community support through four years of demonstrations, rallies and marches. Janitors will receive a raise of 45 cents an hour over the next two years.

SHINING A (CANDLE)LIGHT — Registered nurses at Englewood Medical Center in Emerson, N.J., held a candlelight vigil last week, shining a light on mandatory overtime and the need for safer needlesticks as they begin contract negotiations with management. The 550 nurses, who are members of Health Professionals and Allied Employees/AFT, also want safe staffing levels and public disclosure of staffing and quality in hospitals and nursing homes.

GOING WITH THE FLOW — In a first-of-its-kind union agreement in Georgia, AFSCME Local 1644 and a private sector water company, United Water Services Atlanta, signed a three-year contract providing wage increases and additional leave and security for 290 public service workers, who haven't had a raise in six years.

LOUISVILLE SLUGGERS — Louisville's University Medical Center Inc. was cited by the National Labor Relations Board with seven unfair labor practice charges based on complaints filed by the Nurses Professional Organization/AFSCME, which is organizing the hospital's 1,600 workers. Hospital management allegedly threatened to retaliate against workers participating in a petition and letter-writing campaign aimed at restoring the jobs of two longtime workers who were fired. The union and several members recently testified before the city's Board of Aldermen regarding actions by management, which receives city and state funding.

REEBOK'S BIG STEP — Reebok International Inc. paired with the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center in a pilot program in five Indonesian plants that manufacture Reebok footwear and apparel to instruct workers about their trade union rights. Factory workers and union representatives participated in two intensive four-day training sessions where they learned about the right to organize and bargain collectively. Three additional training sessions are scheduled for this summer, focusing on negotiating, union finances and shop steward leadership.

QUILT HONORS THE DEAD — AFGE will unveil a quilt at the Great Labor Arts Exchange in June at the George Meany Center in Silver Spring, Md., to honor the 168 persons killed in the terrorist attack on the Oklahoma City Federal Building four years ago today. "On the fourth anniversary of this tragic event, we are once again reminded of the daily risks government employees face on the job serving our nation," AFGE President Bobby Harnage said. Most of the 58 squares on the 12-by-15-foot quilt were handmade by AFGE members.

A FRIEND IN CITY HALL — Workers are closer to gaining "2000 in 2000" with the election of John Franiuk as mayor of Tonganoxie, Kan. Franiuk serves as a delegate to the Tri-County Labor Council of Eastern Kansas, on the executive board of the Kansas State Council of Machinists and on IAM Local 1650's Legislative Committee.