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Two non-union women fired for refusal to sign for UPS deliveries
December 7, 1997Carpenters' Business Agent Arrested
December 5, 1997Sparks to lose $1 million from theater construction delay
September 8, 1997K-Mart union election deadlocked 15-15-1
August 14, 1997Union picketing Sparks K-Mart Distribution Center
August 14, 1997Teamsters Local 533 gets contract for RTC/Citilift workers
July 30, 1997Labor News Roundup
September 14, 1997
U-News for the week of September
14, 1997
This week, we inaugurate a Nevada worker news
roundup. It will only be as good as the contributions it receives,
so let's start with a question: Anybody know the current status
of the contract negotiations between McDonnell Douglas and civilian
aircraft mechanics and support workers at Naval Air Station Fallon?
The International Union of Electronic, Electrical,
Salaried, Machine and Furniture Workers Local 1118 recently won
an election to represent a bargaining group currently numbering
about 250. The Lahontan Valley News reports significant worker
unrest and resignations. The employee unit has shrunk from 320
at the end of last year.
NAS Fallon contractors employ a substantial number
of unionized personnel. Teamsters Local 533 represents more than
300 DynCorp employees at the huge base.
This Nevada Labor 'Zine needs some feedback from
the Churchillians out in Swingle Bench country. Pass the word
and log in.
WENDOVER: It ain't over till it's over—Operating
Engineers Local 3's battle to organize workers at Peppermill casino
properties continues. A recent vote among maintenance workers
ended in a 13-12 union win but probably won't remain that way.
The National Labor Relations Board will probably disqualify the
decisive "yes" vote from a worker who had served tentative
notice of quitting before the balloting began.
The NLRB may well void the entire election anyway,
as it has found merit to union charges of unfair labor practices.
Practically, this means a new vote in less than a year. Rather
than wait two years ore more for an election to be voided and
a new one ordered, most unions usually withdraw their complaints
and file for a fresh vote at the legal-minimum one-year mark.
Wendover is a small gambling boomtown in Elko County on the northeastern
Nevada/northwestern Utah border.
LAS VEGAS: Silent movies and Cranky Frankie—Union
politics will probably be a snoozer at this week's AFL-CIO state
convention at the Tropicana Resort-Casino in Las Vegas. (See schedule
and speakers down the page.)
Most of the resolutions scheduled for introduction
will be the usual from the usual suspects. Collective bargaining
for state workers leads the way, as ever, followed by mom and
apple pie. No opposition to a resolution endorsing all of the
above is expected.
The real deal at the convention will be electoral
follytix. The annual labor confab has become the debutante ball
of wealthy Las Vegas businessman Kenny Guinn. Although he has
neither sought nor held public office, he has more than a million
bucks in his campaign war chest.
As the old Nevada judge told me long ago, a few
hundred grand can go a long way toward making just about anybody
a respectable citizen. By that standard, the former S&L president,
Clark County School District super and two-time-temp-UNLV president
becomes a respectable individual, indeed. Guinn's so re$pectable
that no one else in the GOP seems to have the chops (let alone
the bucks) to challenge him in their tightly controlled primary
for governor. Secretary of State Dean Heller and Lt. Gov. Lonnie
Hammargren have been conspicuous by their silence over the past
several months.
Guinn sports movie star looks but is rated a crashing
bore as a speaker. He would have been big in silent pictures.
The convention offers him the opportunity to break out of his
slump. He enoys a choice speaking slot at the AFL-CIO affair.
Originally, he was scheduled to follow keynote speaker Mark Splain,
regional director of the AFL-CIO, in the 9:00 a.m. hour Monday.
The positioning got a boost through faulty reportage
by Las Vegas Review-Journal/Reno Gazette-Journal freelance columnist
Jon Ralston. A couple of weeks ago, JR reported that Republican
Guinn would be keynote speaker at the event. It was a false rumor
and created no real stir anywhere—save at the office of the
attorney general.
Frankie Sue Del Papa, who set her sights on the
governorship at about age six in Tonopah, was aghast at Ralston's
report. She is the only Democrat in the race. Although unannounced,
she's got a staff and red-white-and-blue brochures.
My union guys tell me she was offered the primo
morning slot now occupied by Guinn but turned it down, citing
scheduling conflicts. Guinn will now follow Sens. Harry Reid and
Dick Bryan, as well as the keynoter. Pretty good showcase for
a freshman pol.
Del Papa has been busily trying to reconstruct
burned bridges with key groups she has irritated over the years.
The newsmedia chuckle about how she has been aggressively prosecuting
every cow county complaint hurled over the transom to prove to
a long-disappointed press corps that she really takes the state
open meeting law seriously.
Del Papa has also been trying to find ways to traverse
the chasm between herself and organized labor but had a disastrous
meeting with northern Nevada union leaders last week.
I've known Frankie Sue for many years. She needs
to be more forthcoming as both a candidate and public official,
while losing the adversarial attitude she has somehow developed.
People don't like voting for unfriendly politicians.
OLD HOME WEEK: The Tropicana was my first
employer when I arrived in the Silver State in the late 1960s.
Their broiler line was the hardest job I've ever worked in my
life. Just in time for the AFL-CIO convention at the Trop, the
second place I worked in Nevada, the downtown LV Four Queens,
went union for the first time in a dozen years. Somebody call
my astrologer.
RENO-SPARKS: The Washoe County School District
has decided not to cut back its custodial staff in a penny-wise
but pound-foolish attempt to economize at a time when overcrowded
schools (last year's bond issue failed) are gearing up for year-round
sessions. The review of cutbacks came after a consultant's report
advising of the wonders of subcontracting. The custodial reprieve
does not take the pressure off food service workers . Reported
nowhere but here, food service staff are justifiably fearful of
a move to subcontract to Marriott Corp. Stay tuned.
SPARKS: The million-dollar question—The Northern
Nevada Building and Construction Trades Council's campaign against
the labor practices of the Syufy/Century theater chain got a major
boost last week when the Daily Sparks Tribune endorsed the union
position on the California company's construction delays. Labor
has been beating the drum for strict enforcement of Syufy's contract
with the city of Sparks (see article elsewhere in the Nevada Labor
'Zine.) The Tribune agreed. If Syufy doesn't open its new 14-plex
movie palace by February 25 contract deadline, Sparks should take
the $1 million performance fund now held in escrow, according
to the paper.
LAS VEGAS: Shooting stars and seeing stars
- The Building Trades Organizing Project has generated more than
2,000 new union members since the first of the year. Headed up
by the estimable Jim Rudicil of the International Brotherhood
of Electrical Workers, the two-year, $6.3 million program aims
to train thousands of organizers for every community in the United
States. Booming LV was chosen as the laboratory for the program,
beating out Denver, Albuquerque, Orlando, Salt Lake City and Phoenix,
among others.
Rudicil was the IBEW's principal circuit-riding
lecturer on COMET organizing techniques. COMET is an acronym for
Construction Organizing Membership Education Training. It basically
teaches workers their rights under the 1935 National Labor Relations
Act and how to hold employers' feet to the fire for violating
same.
An informed worker is an empowered worker and COMET
spreads unionism like wildfire. One carpenters union business
agent told me that the campaign can spread so fast and ring in
so many new members that it can overwhelm a local's administrative
staff. When was the last time you heard unions complaining about
too much business?
Anti-union forces have yet to develop an effective
response to COMET because the strategy simply utilizes existing
law. We'll get into some detail as the Nevada Labor 'Zine matures.
I've described COMET in some detail in the Daily Sparks Tribune
over the past several years. Many northern Nevada construction
unions now employ COMET techniques. The best example of information
as power is happening right now in Minden.
MINDEN: The bitter fruit of principle -
As first reported here during the UPS strike, the virulently anti-union
Bently-Nevada Corp. fired two longtime workers for having someone
else sign for UPS parcels. (See the UPS archive.)
When Carlene O'Neil of Carson City and Jessica
Gomes of Gardnerville were fired, they called the Teamsters union,
which asked me if I was interested in their case. Boy, was I ever.
COMET-trained by Jim Rudicil, I recognized a blatant
violation of federal law when Gomes and O'Neil described their
firings to me. Since 1935, workers cannot be fired for union activity.
Supporting somebody else's union by not wanting to sign for a
delivery from a UPS strikebreaker constitutes protected activity
under the National Labor Relations Act.
With a little help from their friends, O'Neil and
Gomes filed charges with the feds. The National Labor Relations
Board immediately dispatched an investigator to interview the
two women. According to the Nevada Appeal, the NLRB may just let
Bently reply to the charges in writing without their executives
undergoing face-to-face interviews. This means only one thing
to a non-expert like me: the case is already so strong that almost
nothing Bently can say will prevent the feds proceeding to a full-blown
hearing. The NLRB has already told the newsmedia that they have
gathered substantial evidence in the case.
Gomes is the sole support of a disabled husband
and nine-year-old twins. O'Neil had planned to retire from Bently.
Both have had their Nevada unemployment claims rejected, although
they plan to appeal. While any union activity between two or more
people stands protected under federal law, workers have no rights
under state law. Nevada statutes bar anyone fired—legally
or illegally—in a union dispute from collecting state unemployment
benefits. Mississippi West endures and remains.
Organized labor is still raising money to help
tide over the courageous non-union workers. Labor leaders are
also seeking employment for them at signatory entitities. Donations
may be sent to the O'Neil-Gomes Family Fund at Operating Engineers
Local 3 Federal Credit Union, 1290 Corporate Blvd., Reno NV 89502.
The account number is 801-760.
RENO: Tiltin' at Hilton - The Reno Hilton
goes on trial at 9:00 a.m. on September 23 at a Sparks or Reno
location to be announced. (See the Labor Day '97 Barbwire column
for details.) Sworn depositions were taken at the Peppermill last
week. Members of United Plant Guard Workers of America Local 1010,
fired en masse by northern Nevada's largest hotel casino, are
guardedly optimistic about reinstatement.
The ray of hope was provided by what Hilton did
not do. The company did not try to delay the trial, but agreed
to the early date set by the National Labor Relations Board. Cutting
losses early is the only reason anyone can figure for such conduct
by a viciously anti-union employer. Clever lawyers can buy a year
of delay, but that would also mean another year of back pay and,
possibly, damages if workers win reinstatement to jobs taken by
$7.50 per hour temps.
Perhaps Hilton's lawyers have advised the company
to get the trial over with to minimize damages assessed against
the world's largest gambling company.
The megabucks Hilton corporation will be easily
able to afford a loss, but any relief will come too late for most
of the wrongfully terminated workers. Many have lost their homes.
Only four of the more than 60 guards fired have found new work
at hotel-casinos, and with only smaller clubs at that. Blackballing
trade unionists is illegal in America but happens all the time
in Nevada. The gambling-industrial complex finally passed the
infamous Blackball Bill earlier this year, exempting the industry
from state lawsuits arising from the sharing of information about
workers.
BUCKEYE STATE BUNGLE: All during Labor Day
week, the pedestrian TV game show "Wheel of Fortune"
originated from the Ohio State Fair with major sponsorship purchased
by the national AFL-CIO. President John Sweeney even got to schmooze
with Pat and Vanna at the end of the first program. I'm an ad
man from way back and think unions should raise a much higher
media profile. However, Sweeney and Co. could have done a better
job of screening their fellow sponsors. Every night, I was disgusted
at the spectacle of Hilton basking in the glow of organized labor's
blessing. The hotel chain apparently provided some free trips
as prizes, peanuts compared to the cost of such national exposure
bought as commercial ad time.
Hilton enjoys harmonious union relations in every
city in the country save two: Reno and Laughlin, Nevada, where
it hires predatory union busters and destroys people's lives to
keep unions out. The AFL-CIO in DC will be made aware of this
oversight just in case they get into Jeopardy next year.
UPS CONTRACT UPDATE: Teamsters I've talked
with have found two major flaws in the new national contract now
being voted up or down. Neither is serious enough to vote against
the deal, but both provisions bode ill for the future.
First, the final line of Article 22, section 3,
reads: "If there is a reduction in volume causing layoffs,
the Employer's obligations under this section shall be null and
void." The section in question contains the heralded promise
to create 10,000 new full-time jobs from part-time jobs. Should
the company come up with creative ways to show a slump, workers
will do well to keep this section in mind. Some cynics even theorized
that UPS was intentionally slow to get everyone back to work on
the huge backlog built up during the strike. This made the company
prediction of job losses come true while possibly building the
case for triggering this escape clause.
The other worry expressed by workers lies in the
treatment of new part-timers. Most observers trace the seeds of
the strike to the two-tiered wage system agreed to in the 1980s
under former president Jackie Presser. The new contract, far from
remedying the problem, creates third-class part-timers to go along
with second-class part-timers.
A savvy reporter asked Teamsters President Ron
Carey about it during his press conference the night the settlement
was announced. Carey was visibly irritated at having to answer
questions about "people not here yet."
The contract confirms that current part-timers
will top out in five years at $17.50 per hour. New part-timers
will earn $8.50 per hour, up 50 cents, the first raise for new-hires
since 1982. BUT: those new people will top out at $10.75 to $11.75
per hour, not $17.50 by the year 2002.
The above two provisions provide a predatory UPS
management with some perverse new incentives to come up with creatively
skulduggerous ways to skin their workers.
Here's an example. Last week on Tom Snyder's Late
Late Show on CBS, populist messiah Michael Moore discussed his
new documentary, "The Big One." In the motion picture,
Moore tells the story of a Payday candy bar plant which made $20,000,000
one recent year. The plant was closed and hundreds of very efficient
workers lost their jobs.
The Payday plant's profits were used to pump up
the corporate bottom line so that the company could be sold. Moore
asked some corporate weasel what would have happened if the plant
had made more than $20,000,000. Answer: they would have closed
it sooner.
Ominously, the Reno Hilton also made $20,000,000
last year, then promptly won a $450,000 property tax decrease
from Washoe County last January. The reason: not enough profit
under the tax laws. In honor of Michael Moore, the fired Hilton
security guards and a goodly number of other trade unionists (including
this editor), picketed the meeting chanting (what else?) "Reno
Hilton - Downsize This!"
Stay tuned for 2002.
COLD SHOULDERS: Teamsters on the subcommittee
negotiating the health and safety section of the UPS contract
say the company was not enthusiastic about their proposal that
UPS buildings should be heated to at least 55 degrees. The company's
response? Workers would warm up if they worked harder.
Editor's note: We owe this item to Labor
Notes, a splendid little alternative labor monthly, labornotes@igc.apc.org.
The meat-locker level 55-degree requirement didn't make it into
the final contract, but provisions were added requiring UPS to
review heating and ventilation needs "for purposes of safety
and health." Brrrr...
BLESSED BE THE PEACEMAKERS: Betty Britt
manages the offices of Teamsters Local 533 in Reno. Two days after
the UPS strike settlement, she received a desperate call from
a UPS customer. He had an $8,000 crankshaft stuck at a UPS terminal
in Sacramento, Calif. If he did not get it quickly, he would lose
a $20,000 account. He was so distraught that he said his next
call would be to the FBI, the perhaps the Russian embassy to see
if they could help.
"Well, sir, this is the Teamsters you're calling
and we're not in the habit of doing customer service for UPS,
but I'll see what I can do," said Betty.
I watched as she dropped all her other work to
call two key UPS managers. One returned her call in five minutes.
"You and I have always been friends, haven't
we?" she disarmingly asked, then described the customer's
problem and gave the executive the crankshaft's tracking number.
The UPS staffer said he would see what he could do.
The desperate engine shop got its crankshaft the
very next day.
Who says trade unionism doesn't get results—with
a little schmoozing and diplomacy from the likes of Betty Britt.
More soon.
Union Yes!
Be well. Raise hell. - AB
MESSAGES FROM MAHATMA
MOORE
"KEEP KICKIN' IT UP!" wrote Michael Moore in
response to the July 20 installment of the Barbwire (www.nevadaweb.com/dave)
which awarded the Fat 90's Downsize This! Awards. Moore's bestseller
by the same name inspired three worker marches in Reno earlier
this year. (Employees chanting "Downsize This!" really
messes with the minds of casino management types.)
"The Big One," Moore's first feature-length documentary since the critically acclaimed "Roger & Me" (the award-winning film about the downsizing of General Motors' plant in Moore's hometown of Flint, Mich.), recently premiered in Great Britain. It will be released soon stateside. We'd be happy to promote a northern Nevada premiere, but not at one of the anti-union Syufy/Century Theatres, which enjoy a near-monopoly in the Reno-Sparks market. They even own the last remaining drive-in. Consider the passion pit off limits, kids.
There's a chance "The Big One" will erupt on TV and stay out of union-busting theater owners' hands. We'll keep you posted.
MORE MOORE: Teamsters staff the picket lines, betting the union on the come line. Northern Nevada building trades workers continue to march at the Sparks Syufy/Century theater of operations. Maintenance workers at the sprawling 33-acre K-Mart Distribution Center in Sparks will vote Thursday on representation by Operating Engineers Local 3.
K-Mart has hired major league, big bucks union busters to come in and scare the hell out the workers. In this country, the average union election is about as unfair as anything can be. One side is allowed to force all the voters to listen to every one of their campaign speeches, while the other side has to knock on doors and hope somebody's home. The union-busting expenses are all tax-deductible, which means the taxpayers, including the workers who want a union, are forced to foot part of the bill for the opposition. Call it reverse forced union dues.
Wisconsin Wal-Mart workers apparently just fell prey to the the union-busting rocky horror picture show. Last Friday, by a 54-27 vote, the United Steelworkers lost an election to represent about 95 Wal-Mart associates in Merrill, Wisc. It could have been the first Wal-Mart to go union in the U.S. (The first was in Canada, where union election playing fields are a bit more level.)
Wal-Mart is a major exporter of U.S. jobs because they sell so much third-world, low-wage manufactured merchandise. They have destroyed thousands of independent retailers in every town they've entered.
Adding insult to injury, they are currently running a smugly self-serving commercial boasting of saving a handful of jobs at a U.S. fishing equipment manufacturer. The message is "don't look at reality, believe TV and go fishing."
Why anyone would want to work for such morally obtuse moguls
without a union remains a mystery. Perhaps not. Fear is a powerful
motivator. So, too, with the Sparks K-Mart workers, who fear downsizing
and outsourcing. Just for them, here's a word from Michael Moore's
"Downsize This!"
|
Wall Street Journal headline: "Everyone fired—Wall Street reacts favorably. Dow pushes past 10,000. "The tremendous surge that began this morning is believed to be in response to the news that every Fortune 500 company has fired all their domestic employees effective immediately. Nearly 10 million American workers will lose their jobs, and Wall Street reacted favorably. "'It's a win-win situation,' said Mickey Kantor, U.S. Secretary of Commerce and the man who negotiated the original NAFTA and GATT treaties and created a boom in moving American jobs overseas. "'Literally hundreds of American shareholders have become instant millionaires, and millions of workers will now be able to pursue other activities,'" Kantor said. "'We've got 40 openings at our Tijuana facility right now,' beamed a jubilant GE chairman Jack Welch. 'I'd be more than happy to accept applications from any of our U.S. workers who would like to relocate there. Just give our personnel department a call - and it will definitely help if you can speak Spanish!'" The above will be relayed to the Sparks K-Mart voters. |
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