Women at summer school that won an '09 grant

Women's Institute for Leadership Development (WILD)

 

Eleven groups & organizers win $84,496 in ’09 grants

You might benefit from their work

We were delighted to find out about so many exciting union organizing projects involving women from the grant proposals submitted to us via this web site. We wish we could fund every worthwhile project and organizer.

Many of the projects we funded this Spring are for innovative training that can benefit hundreds of women and many organizing campaigns. Many focus on new strategies to bring unorganized women, especially immigrants and community leaders, closer to the labor movement. Some might help you and the campaigns you’re involved in. And check out the new ”Can my Boss do That?” web site that reads you your specific, targeted workplace rights – including key women’s rights.

We’re also supporting three women organizers. One is an award-winning journalist who just won a first contract after the company thought it got rid of her with a layoff.

Read all about the new grant winners.

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Labor organizing is not a crime

Judge blasts Cintas for phony lawsuit

The company’s lawsuit against two unions and their federation is "sprawling" and "larded" -- "a manifesto by a Fortune 500 company that is more a public relations piece than a pleading." With such scathing words, Judge William H. Pauley dismissed Cintas's complaint that UNITE HERE union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and the Change to Win coalition had violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law.

"Cintas does not have the right to operate free from any criticism, organized or not" Pauley continued, as he threw out the lawsuit.

A victory for everyone's free speech

Eleazar Torres Gomez, Cintas worker who died

"This is a victory not only for Cintas workers—and all working families—across the country, but a victory for free speech," said UNITE HERE General President Bruce Raynor. "This decision will hopefully end the absurd practice of using RICO lawsuits to try to criminalize worker organizing."

Cintas, which provides laundry, uniforms and other business services to 800,000 customers, is an infamous violator of worker rights. Since workers began organizing in 2003, the company has harassed and intimidated them -- an NLRB complaint last year said a manager even threatened to kick workers' teeth with steel-toed boots. The labor board upheld a decision this year that Cintas management unlawfully interrogated, discriminated against, and threatened to fire workers for standing up for safer jobs and better pay. The company earned the biggest proposed health-and-safety fine ever in the service sector for the death of an Oklahoma worker.

"They have failed again," said Cintas worker Eleuteria Mazon of Schaumberg, Ill. "We will keep telling the world about Cintas, and we will win our union."

Exposing union-busters’ big lie:

Unions don’t cause job losses

Taken in part from WINS union radio service

Union float at presidential inauguration

Contrary to what many companies claim in anti-union campaigns, unionized companies " do not go out of business or grow more slowly in terms of employment than their non-union peers," says Economic Policy Institute researcher Josh Bivens.

A new report from the University of Michigan’s John DiNardo clearly debunks the management argument that if more workers unionized we’d have more unemployment or business failures.

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Special report on women's union leadership:

How can we close the Gender Gap?

Taken from an article in the WorkingUSA Journal

Susan Tindall

"There is a saying in the labor movement: The leadership should look like the membership." That’s how Michelle Kaminiski and Elaine Yakura begin their article, "Women's Union Leadership: Closing The Gender Gap."

Now that 44% of union members are women, the old myths about how it’s hard to organize women are dead. These days it’s also not unusual to also see women and people of color in union leadership positions – but if you start counting, chances are you won’t find 44% women.

The article pieces together a picture of how many women have moved into leadership at all levels of American unions, and it's clear we've made progress. But it's also clear that we have a long way to go, and the authors feel that we won't get there without "specific strategies" to guide us.

They give three good reasons why it matters to unions as well as women that more women take on leadership posts. How do women become leaders? They identify four helpful stages from "finding one's voice" to being someone who sets the agenda. And finally, they suggest strategies that make tremendous sense. You're bound to find some new ideas here.

Read our complete summary.

School bus drivers across nation join Teamsters

"Drive up Standards" campaign on a roll

Since the Teamsters launched their Drive Up Standards campaign in 2006 to improve conditions in the private school bus and transit industry, more than 16,200 workers have joined the Teamsters.

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Equal Pay Day is April 28

We won the Equal Pay Act in 1963, but is pay really equal?

cluw.org

In 2007 pay for women inched up another penny an hour, compared to men. Women who worked full-time year-round made almost 78 cents an hour for every dollar men made, up from 77 cents in 2006. That’s mighty slow progress.

On April 28, dubbed Equal Pay Day, women around the nation will rally for more equality. Why April 28? Because starting at the beginning of last year (2008), that’s how far a woman worker must keep working into this year to earn as much as a man earned by the end of last year. Women are also urged to wear red on April 28, to symbolize how far women and minorities are "in the red" with their pay.

In Michigan, where the pay gap is even worse, the National Organization for Women and other groups are sponsoring a noon press conference to draw attention to the problem at the state capitol in Lansing.

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Extraordinary Women Working for Change

9to5 Annual Leadership Conference is May 1-4

It’s the 35th anniversary of 9to5, a union-friendly group dedicated to winning rights and respect for women in the workplace. They are one of the big forces behind the drive for paid sick days. Membership is open to all working women, and their toll-free Job Survival Hotline (1-800-522-0925) offers information on legal rights, strategies to win fair treatment on the job, and ways to get involved locally. 9to5 has local chapters in Atlanta, California, Colorado, and Milwaukee.

9to5’s upcoming leadership conference in Washington, DC is open to all members and activists, and scholarships are available if you apply right away. "This is your opportunity to learn and share skills, to create the change we need to see, and to organize working women for economic justice. We will also meet with administration and elected officials about our working women’s agenda," says their web site. Registration and more information.

Child care workers in Kansas get their first contract

Don Zavodny

Seven-thousand registered or licensed home child care providers, who came together in 2007 to form Child Care Providers Together Kansas (CCPT) /AFSCME, celebrated another milestone this February by signing their first contract with the state.

The contract puts forth a list of provider rights and sets guidelines for licensing, professional development and the payment process. The state agencies involved in overseeing child care agree to work with CCPT to gain support in the Legislature to increase the rate of subsidies, which have not been raised since 2002.

"As we move forward and the membership continues to grow, we will have an impact on important regulatory and legislative issues," predicted Scott Keller, the new president of CCPT Local 644. The union had won recognition in 2007 after Gov. Kathleen Sebelius signed an executive order giving them collective bargaining rights.

Nurses get strong new union

SEIU & nurses uniting, not fighting

Taken in part from PAI information

California Nurses Association/NNOC

Registered nurses are forming a national union with the goal of united organizing and giving nurses more political clout. In February three major unions for nurses agreed to merge into one big union, the United American Nurses-National Nurses Organizing Committee. They will be part of the AFL-CIO but other details are still being worked out. The unity pact will go to members of each union for ratification.

Then in March, the Service Employees International Union and the California Nurses Association called a halt to the bitter feud over organizing turf and strategies that had threatened to undermine the credibility of both unions.

The California Nurses Association/NNOC represents 85,000 registered nurses and has expanded into other states. The planned merger with United American Nurses and the Massachusetts Nurses Union will create the largest nurses’ union in American history, with 150,000 members.

The Service Employees International Union represents two million workers, including 80,000 nurses.

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Millions of jobs lost, men hit harder

Others forced to work part-time

Taken in part from WINS news radio service

AFL-CIO blog

For 15 straight months we’ve been hemorrhaging millions of jobs, as the unemployment rate was pushed well beyond 8 percent. The only bright spots so far have been in government work, health care and education, where we gained 35,000 jobs from October through February, 9000 of them in government.

A year ago both men and women suffered unemployment rates that were almost identical, at around 4.5%. While women suffered early job losses, four out of five workers laid off since the recession began are now male. That’s because construction and manufacturing have been so hard hit. By March, unemployment among men was 8.8%, 1.8 points above the 7% jobless rate for women.

Hardest hit, as usual are African-Americans, suffering 13.3% unemployment.

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Nine years later

Wal-Mart forced to bargain with union

After the members are gone

Nine years after meat cutters at a Texas Wal-Mart store voted for union representation, the company and the union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, are sitting down at the bargaining table. There are no longer pay and benefit issues to discuss, however. Half a year after the workers voted 7-3 to be union in early 2000, Wal-Mart decided to get rid of in-store meat cutters and move to prepackaged meats.

An administrative law judge with the NLRB later ruled that Wal-Mart didn’t have to negotiate a contract with the workers, but it must negotiate over effects of the new meat program on them. The two sides finally met on that issue for the first time on March 12, 2009, but only one of the original 12 meat cutters remains at the store. One has since died.

"Wal-Mart fought us very hard to keep us from going through this process," said UFCW vice president Johnny Rodriguez. "Nine years is a long time. The system is broke and we ought to fix it."

Inspiration for today's hard times

The woman who demanded a New Deal

New book reveals powerful role of Frances Perkins

With the economy in shambles many of us are looking for inspiration at New Deal programs President Franklin D. Roosevelt launched to help countless workers survive the Great Depression of the 1930s. Many, such as Social Security, continue to this day. But few realize that the first woman to ever serve in a presidential cabinet, FDR Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, was the force behind those programs.

When FDR approached Perkins about the cabinet job, she pulled out a list of measures she wanted the president-elect to back once he took office, says Kristin Downey, author of The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience. Perkins insisted Roosevelt back the 8-hour day and 40-hour week, with overtime pay for extra hours worked, the minimum wage, unemployment compensation, Social Security, revitalized public employment services, and universal health insurance.

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Federal pension protectors go union, 242-7

Taken from PAI information

It makes sense that the workers at the agency that guarantees pensions are now unionized. After all, many of the pensions covered by the Pension Benefits Guaranty Corp. (PBGC) are negotiated in union contracts.

On Feb. 24, PBGC workers voted overwhelmingly – 242-7 – to join the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers. The IFPTE is on a roll – last year it organized the Government Accountability Office, where it now represents 1,800 workers.

Concerns around benefits and professionalism convinced the workers to unionize, the union said. "Professional employees are increasingly looking for a collective voice on the job and a union such as ours guarantees them greater influence in decision-making," explained union President Greg Junemann.

AFL-CIO, Change to Win launch unity talks

Taken from PAI article by Mark Gruenberg

"Now is the time to bring the union movement back together," said the AFL-CIO when it gave the green light to unity talks with the Change to Win federation of seven unions that split from the AFL-CIO four years ago. The AFL-CIO’s 56 unions represent 10 million members, while Change to Win has 6 million members.

The unaligned National Education Association, whose 3.2 million members make it the nation’s biggest union, has also joined the talks. And three more NEA locals affiliated with the AFL-CIO under the two groups’ Labor Solidarity Partnerships program. Together they are determined to fight for quality education in the nation’s schools, said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.

David Bonior, the former House Democratic Whip who now heads American Rights at Work, has actively pushed the union groups to unite. They are already cooperating on shared legislative goals, and worked together with great success around the 2008 elections. They are now trying to hammer out some of the issues that led to the split -- including governance, jurisdiction, organizing responsibility, finances and priorities.

Will you stand with Diane?

Online video campaign helped union win

Danny Glover

Diana Barnim, a hotel worker, became star of a creative "I stand with Diane" campaign after she was fired while trying to get a union at the Canadian Holiday Inn, St. Catharines.

Diane was returned to her job by the labour board and the employer eventually agreed to certify her new union, Workers United Local 2347 (formerly part of UNITE HERE). How did it happen?

The company felt the heat from a celebrity-studded "I Stand With Diane" campaign joined by actors Sarah Polley, Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte, along with politicians MPP Peter Kormos, and MP Malcolm Allen. More than 500 people registered their support for Diane by adding their name on to the website. You can see the videos of supporters on the www.IStandWithDiane.ca site.

Do unions hurt competitiveness? No way!

Countries with stronger trade balances have stronger unions

One way our tragic loss of jobs and competitiveness can be measured is that we’re buying much more from other nations than they buy from us. Our "current account balance" that measures imports vs. exports has long been in a huge deficit – we don’t sell enough exports to cover the imports we buy.

If unions actually are hurting our competitiveness, wouldn’t we expect to see the "current account balance" get much better over the 1980s and 1990s when unionization plunged? Actually, the opposite happened. Researchers at the Economic Policy Institute uncovered another little secret that anti-union forces would rather we didn’t see: Many countries that have much healthier "current account" balance sheets (they export more to other nations than they import) are much more highly unionized than we are. This chart tells the story:

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Grant requests from 18 groups
met March deadline

But there's no deadline for grants to organizers

When our March 31 deadline arrived for grant applications to support groups and research projects, we were delighted to find that 18 groups applied for such grants this year. That’s an all-time high!

The Berger-Marks Board is looking forward to reviewing the applications, and finding out about the exciting work unions and other groups are planning, to help women organize. We only wish we had enough funds to back every worthwhile project.

The board will be making a decision over the next several weeks. If you submitted a grant request to us, we’ll notify you about whether we can fund your project as soon as we can. If you haven’t heard from us yet, it’s because we don’t yet have an answer. Since our funds are limited, we’re going to have to make some very hard choices.

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Union woman named to top mediation board

Taken from AFL-CIO blog by Mike Hall

President Obama chose Linda Puchala, former president of the Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA), for a seat on the three-member National Mediation Board (NMB). She currently serves as a senior mediator and was AFA-CWA president from 1979 to 1986.

Current AFA-CWA President Patricia Friend says Puchala’s consensus-building skills and commitment to the collective bargaining process will be valuable to the agency, which plays a critical role in labor relations in the aviation and railway industries.

The NMB oversees collective bargaining and representation under the Railway Labor Act. But for the past eight years, the Bush-dominated NMB has repeatedly failed to fulfill its mission to promote collective bargaining and protect the rights of workers trying to join a union.