News Watch
“Gary Rusnell will come back inside over my dead body,” Detroit Newspapers labor relations boss Tim Kelleher once vowed. That was more than a year ago. A court had reversed the firing of Rusnell, a rank and file leader of the newspaper strike, and Kelleher was appealing. But recently, the court ordered management to take Rusnell back immediately while the case proceeds. Not wanting Kelleher to have to eat his words, members of the Workers Justice Committee dusted off a papier maché Tim Kelleher head that they’d stuffed with play money during the strike. They attached it to a mannequin body and laid it at the door, where Rusnell stepped over it on his way to claim his job in the composing room.
The federal government has ended its oversight of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees. Established in 1995, the federal monitoring program claimed responsibility for expelling 17 corrupt officials and pressuring President Ed Hanley to retire. Critics described the monitorship as weak, and said it didn’t improve internal democracy. The agreement ending the monitorship requires HERE to maintain an ethics panel, and allows the government to veto any appointments to that body for six years.
In an attempt to become more inclusive and representative, the Canadian Labour Congress has added seven new vice presidents. Three represent smaller CLC affiliates; the other four represent workers with disabilities, lesbian and gay workers, young workers, and retired union members.
A researcher in Albany, New York has found that a link between low pay and heart disease--established in studies in foreign countries--also applies to workers in New York state. Professor Donna Armstrong’s research shows that workers in lower-paying jobs are more likely to die from heart disease than are higher-paid professionals.
The Executive Enterprise Institute is calling its anti-union seminars “Union Avoidance ‘War Games’.” EEI’s brochure for the $1,295 two-day program pictures a falling bomb and the warning: “Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security--this is war.”
Billboards clutter Detroit freeways announcing that the UAW and DaimlerChrysler are working together. But that didn’t stop DaimlerChrysler subsidiary Freightliner Corp. from threatening to close its Mount Holly, N.C. plant and move to Mexico if UAW members there didn’t agree to a new contract. UAW members subsequently approved a pact that raises wages but does not prohibit outsourcing.
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The University of Washington granted union recognition to the UAW-affiliated Graduate Student Employee Action Coalition in December, just before GSEAC was to begin a strike that would have disrupted final exams. The university has promised to join the union in lobbying the state legislature to legalize collective bargaining.
The Washington State Department of Labor and Industries has stripped Wal-Mart of the privilege of managing its own workers comp program. The state acted after finding that Wal-Mart was not paying injured workers the benefits they were entitled to. This is the first time that Washington State has taken a workers comp program away from a major employer.
Workers at a McDonald’s in the center of Paris won a promise of job security and better conditions after staging a 15-day occupation of the restaurant. The strikers, mostly young people, said they were tired of being treated like hamburgers. They spent Christmas in the store, and won a settlement on December 28.
Despite protests from the labor movement, the school board in Madison, Wisconsin decided to use a non-union contractor to build a new elementary school. Then the board voted to name the school after United Farm Workers founder Cesar Chavez.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed labor law changes that one critic has called “wild capitalism.” Putin’s proposals would replace collective bargaining with individual contracts between each worker and employer. Trade unions would have only a “consultative” role. In addition, the proposals would legalize the 12-hour day, cut maternity leave in half, and make it easier to fire workers. Supporters say the changes will allow Russia to compete in the new global economy. According to the Christian Science Monitor, Russia’s former official trade unions are putting up ”only token opposition.” But the new independent unions say they’ll launch open-ended strikes if the proposals are passed.
Microsoft may be the leader of the new economy, but the company has a 200-year-old “plantation mentality.” That’s the view of seven African American workers who have filed a $5 billion class action lawsuit against the company. They charge that black workers are paid less than whites, subject to more harassment, and passed over for promotions. Their attorney, Willie Gray, noted government figures that show only 2.6 percent of Microsoft’s workers--and 1.6 percent of its managers--are African American.
An important case claiming that Mexico does not enforce its workplace health and safety laws is being considered by the National Administrative Office, a Labor Department body that hears complaints under the labor side agreement to the North American Free Trade Agreement. So far, the NAO has been ineffective in getting Mexico to enforce its laws protecting union rights. Some hope this case will be different, since it involves only health and safety concerns. Workers charge that fumes from glue used at Breed Technologies’ Custom Trim plants in northern Mexico damaged their health and resulted in miscarriages and birth defects.