Facilitator Rachna Choudhry organizes participants' ideas

 

Women activists reach across generations to talk 'union'

At 'Stepping Up, Stepping Back' summit

"We're being constantly bombarded by those who say that we're seeing demise of unions," said Brenda Moon. "When I entered the meeting of younger women… It was almost as if a wind hit me as soon as I opened the door. You could literally feel the energy in the room. And I said to myself, 'This is the future of the labor movement.'"

For Brenda, her co-facilitator Rachna Choudhry and 30 other women activists from more than two dozen unions and other allied organizations, the "future" began March 14-16 in New Orleans. That’s when the Berger-Marks Foundation sponsored a cross-cultural, cross-generational two-day summit for women activists to help identify what turns young women on to unions and what turns them off.

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Meet our newest Board member!

Burton adds diversity, young perspective to Berger-Marks Board

See Kevin Burton video.

Kevin Burton , a 31-year-old instructor for IBEW Local 26's apprenticeship training program, is the first woman to fill a new Berger-Marks trustee seat reserved for young unionists. The Foundation's other trustees got to know Burton at a special Women’s Summit (see above) this March, where she made a strong contribution.

"We had talked about expanding the board to be more diverse. And our fabulous New Orleans summit presented us with that opportunity," explained Board Chair Louise Walsh. "We were all impressed with the commitment, energy and fresh perspective that Kevin Burton brought to that historic summit."

After the summit, the trustees voted to expand the board to six by creating a new 2-year-term seat reserved for a labor activist under age 35. Burton is the first to hold the position.

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12,000 Missouri Home Care Workers Win Union

With new AFSCME-SEIU alliance

Taken in part from AFL-CIO blog by Mike Hall

Clients came out to help home care workers celebrate victory

Both AFSCME and SEIU are reaching out to home care workers. So rather than compete, the two unions joined hands and formed the Missouri Home Care Union so they could organize together.
And the unity was appreciated by workers, who voted to join the Missouri Home Care Union on May 5.

"Thousands of Missouri families rely on home care workers to help their loved ones live independent lives," AFSCME President Gerald McEntee commented as he congratulated the workers. "We will use our combined voice to fight unnecessary cuts that threaten quality home care services."

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Mary Kay Henry takes reins of SEIU

Vows to organize & link with community groups

SEIU President Mary Kay Henry

Mary Kay Henry is not only SEIU’s first woman president, but also the victor in a first-ever contest between two women to take the helm of a major union. After being elected on May 8, Henry vowed to spend $250 million to recruit 120,000 new members this year. The union now has 2.2 million members.

Henry plans to reach out to healthcare, building services and public workers. In a news conference right after her election, Henry said the union will "refocus" on organizing in the private sector, especially contracted-out public jobs that have been taken over by multi-service giants, Compass, Sodexho and Aramark.

Henry plans to step up organizing of child-care workers, who could become a force to help make child care available to all working parents. Her top goals also include organizing university and health-care workers. She will explore joint organizing with other unions, including the United Food and Commercial Workers. The UFCW and SEIU now jointly campaign against the abuses of Wal-Mart.

She will dedicate $4 million to an innovation fund to encourage risk-taking in organizing private-sector employers. That should give a boost to groups currently organizing taxi drivers, freelance workers, and domestic workers and help build a broad progressive movement.

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Democracy at last for airline & railway workers

Delta still trying to block fair union vote

AFA-CWA union produced news videos to make the case for change

On May 10, the National Mediation Board issued the rule that airline and rail workers, especially at the huge Delta carrier, had been waiting for. They can now have a vote on whether to join a union, with a simple majority of those who vote deciding the outcome.

Up until now the NMB’s rules, which cover air and railway workers, held that anyone who didn't participate in a union election, for whatever reason, would be counted as a "no" vote. Union votes for most other workers are decided by a majority of those who vote, as is virtually every democratic election.

Flight attendants at Delta Airlines have paid a heavy price for the old rules. The AFA union "lost" two votes even after more than 90% of all flight attendant voters chose the union – because those who didn't cast a ballot were counted as "no" votes.

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Wal-Mart could pay big bucks for underpaying women

Court okays biggest-ever class-action suit

A massive class-action lawsuit on behalf of women who claim Wal-Mart underpaid them can go to trial, a federal appeals court narrowly ruled in April. That could cost the company billions of dollars in legal damages, says the Associated Press. It’s the biggest gender bias class action in U.S. history, covering between 500,000 to a 1.5 million women, depending on who's doing the counting.

The world’s biggest private employer now must face charges that it pays women less than men for the same jobs and that female workers aren’t promoted as quickly or as often as male workers.

Wal-Mart, which employs 1.4 million people in the United States, has been trying to make each woman sue separately. It’s been trying to kill the class-action lawsuit since 2001, when six women took their case to federal court in San Francisco, and is likely to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Chicago Nurses Join National Nurses United

Vote for union is overwhelming

NNU rally for patient care

Registered nurses at the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC) voted in May to unionize with the National Nurses United (NNU), bringing some 1,300 new members into the nation’s largest RN union. The vote was nearly 2 -1 to replace a local nurses’ union with NNU representation. Only 22 nurses voted against any union.

The nurses turned to the NNU to help solve critical patient safety issues at the medical center, including understaffing and scheduling practices that undermine patient care. Their former local union, which had refused to join its parent union’s merger into the NNU, hadn’t been able to re-negotiate the contract for nurses that expired a year and a half ago.

The RNs will try to win minimum nurse-to-patient ratios and an end to mandatory shift rotations that have forced them to alternate working days and nights. Studies have documented rotating schedules lead to performance deficits from fatigue, sleeplessness, and reduced alertness.

"It is disgraceful that the hospital continues to put patients and nurses at risk. With NNU representation, we are going to bring this practice to an end," one nurse told AFL-CIO blogger Mike Hall.

Texas Medical Centers go union

Big victories in El Paso in four union votes

Houston nurses celebrate saving union from decert

"I need more time at the (patient's) bedside, and I don't have enough time right now," explained Monica Sanchez, a registered nurse at the Del Sol Medical Center who voted to be represented by the National Nurses United this May. She believes that a union contract could reduce patient loads and improve patient care.

Up until a couple of years ago, not a single hospital in Texas was union. The first workers to go union at Del Sol were the licensed vocational nurses, custodial personnel, food-service and other workers who voted on May 18, by a 276-112 landslide, to join the Service Employees International Union.

A few days later, nurses’ aides, custodians and other workers also voted to unionize at the nearby Las Palmas Medical Center.

Meanwhile, nurses at both medical centers voted for the local affiliate of the National Nurses United union to represent the 745 registered nurses at the facilities. At both centers, the vote was better than 2-1 for the union. Later that month, nurses won yet another union election at the Rio Grande Regional Hospital in McAllen.

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Women win biggest sex discrimination Case In History

Big drug maker Navartis must pay $250 million

Taken from WIN radio news service

Five thousand six hundred women who worked for drug maker Navartis have been awarded a total of $250 million by a New York jury. They had sued for discrimination, such as being overlooked for promotions and in some cases encouraged to have abortions if they became pregnant.

There were countless abuses, dating from 2002 to the present . One worker who went on leave after giving birth to twins had been disciplined for poor sales. Another charged that a manager asked female workers to sit on his lap and watch pornography on the computer.

A judge will now determine how the settlement will be divided between the female employees, on a case-by-case basis.

Sing a Union Song, Win $2,000

Deadline is Sept. 5, 2010

Have you ever written a song for your union or a union drive? Did you ever want to? Would you like to have something new and timely to sing at your next union event?

If you’re a union member with a passion for music and the labor movement, check out the Union Plus Union Song Contest. Here’s a chance to create a new song and maybe even win $2,000 as well as recognition for you and your union.

The contest, launched this May, is looking for union-themed songs about your union, union solidarity, the labor movement or your union benefits. You have until Sept. 5 to upload your MP3 or video. Online voters will then have a month to pick a winner, who will receive a $2,000 grand prize.

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14,000 University of California workers choose Teamsters

Vote 81% to 19% to affiliate

Taken from PAI information

Members of an independent union of University of California system workers are now Teamsters, after an overwhelming 81%-19% voted on May 20 to affiliate.

The new local, called the Coalition of University Employees, represents administrative and library assistants, cashiers, public safety dispatchers and other clerical employees at 11 University of California campuses statewide. Members had previously belonged to an independent union.

"Join Us!" graphic on CWA organizing page

 

Across the Nation

More organizing gains

AT&T Mobility workers quickly sign up

In Indiana and Michigan, 315 AT&T Mobility workers who had been employed by Centennial Wireless joined the Communications Workers of America (CWA) this May. Thanks to an agreement that the CWA had won with AT&T, the company accepted the union after a majority signed union cards.

By the end of the month, more than two out of three eligible workers in Indiana had signed up as union members. In Berlin Township, N.J., workers in the town’s public workers department also joined the CWA.

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Majority of casino engineers wanted to join union

But at Foxwoods casino, that’s not enough

If workers vote 128 to 123 in favor of having a union, they get the union, right?

Nope, not if you work at Foxwoods Resort Casino and want to join the Operating Engineers union. Foxwoods is owned by native Americans, who are often treated as a sovereign nation exempt from many U.S. laws. The casino's owners insisted the elections be governed by Mashantucket Pequot Labor Relations Law, instead of the National Labor Relations Law that covers most private workers.

The Mashantucket Pequot tribe has adopted rules similar to those that are finally being updated for airline and rail workers. Unlike most elections in a democracy, a majority vote doesn’t carry the day in this case. Union supporters would have had to get a number of votes equal to a majority of all eligible workers, not just those who voted. Under that standard, it fell 9 vote short.

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Women union leaders reach across Atlantic,

British & U.S. union women find they confront similar barriers

An ocean may separate us, but for women union leaders in Britain and the U.S., the "similarity in gender union politics and relationships was striking."

That’s the first conclusion an American/British research team reached from a unique project that compared the experiences and views of women union leaders in both countries.

The project set up an exchange of ideas and experiences that include a cross-national exchange program for 20 women union leaders and an international e-network of women activists. It held 119 interviews, case studies of influential leaders, roundtable discussions, and a survey of the 2008 New Jersey WILD Conference. It will follow up with workshops and publications on what was learned.

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