LABOR BRIEFS

DC hotel workers win ‘best settlement ever’

Unions representing hotel workers in Washington, DC used a combination of persistence and traditional tactics such as picketing and the threat of an imminent strike on the eve of the presidential inauguration ceremony to win what they call a very favorable contract offer from a local hotel management group.

On the eve of a union-imposed contract deadline, UNITE HERE Local 25 and the Hotel Association of Washington DC (HAWDC) reached a tentative agreement, easing the likelihood of a hotel workers’ strike during Bush’s second inauguration. The two groups re-entered negotiations on Jan. 14 in the hopes of resolving differences over economic issues, and hammered out a contract including new worker protections, better wages and a preservation of workers’ health care benefits.

The union did give in on one of its major demands: a shorter contract to allow for greater labor unity in coming years.

A strike authorization vote taken two days before the contract ran out received overwhelming support, with 93 percent of participants voting in favor. (NewStandard)

Chile: Sex harassment law approved after 13 years

After taking 13 years to make its way through Congress, a law against sexual harassment in the workplace has been unanimously approved by the Senate in Chile, where an estimated 20 percent of working women are subjected to this form of abuse.

The law, approved by the Senate on Jan. 6, will introduce a reform to the country’s labor code, classifying sexual harassment as a misdemeanor.

SERNAM Minister Cecilia Pérez said that the law will likely be enacted in May by President Ricardo Lagos, after the lower house of Congress has ratified the modifications made by the Senate.

The Chilean legislation defines sexual harassment as a unilateral and unwelcome sexual advance or request for sexual favors, in any form, that entails a threat to the individual’s employment opportunities or adversely affects the individual’s work environment and performance. As such, it excludes relations between co-workers that arise from mutual consent.

While the specific details of a case are being investigated, during a period of up to 30 days, the employer must take steps to protect the parties involved, either through physical separation in the workplace or a change in working hours so that the complainant and the accused are not on shift at the same time. (IPS)

1000 Cone Mills union workers receive wage, retirement increases

1,000 Cone Mills hourly employees at the historic White Oak facility in Greensboro, North Carolina, have received a 2% across the board wage increase along with enhancements to retirement benefits. Employees who invest up to 3% of earnings into their 401(k) accounts will receive a 100% match from the Company. The next 2% of contributions will net a 50% match.

“It is extremely significant that Cone Mills employees have received these increases in an era when the domestic textile industry is in decline due to ill considered trade agreements,” said Phil Cohen, UNITE HERE Special Projects Coordinator. “The Union and Company have worked together to develop creative strategies to not only keep the White Oak plant viable, but to add 200 jobs in the past year, and now to increase the standard of living for employees both in the present and future.”

During the fall of 2003, Cone Mills entered into bankruptcy and was purchased by investor Wilbur Ross. Ross merged Cone Mills with previously acquired Burlington Industries to form International Textile Group. Employees at the White Oak facility are engaged in the manufacture of denim. (UNITEHERE)

Egyptian asbestos workers dying of cancer

Of 90 employees who have been laid off from Aura-Misr, a Spanish-Egyptian asbestos company, almost all currently suffer from lung cancer and asbestosis. Forty-six of them have been camped out in front of the factory since September 2004 to demand basic workplace safeguards like gloves and masks; eight have died of the diseases.

The workers are demanding their company pay for their medical care, but the company has refused. The basic medicine that allows them to continue breathing properly costs about $35 a month -- their monthly salary was just $50 until Christmas Day, 2004, when the owner of the factory shut the factory and fired all the workers leaving them unemployed.

Labor faces an uphill battle in Egypt. Under a new labor law passed last year under the guidance of the World Bank, strikes without the approval of the one, legal, government trade union were banned in Egypt. Six months ago, the country’s President Hosni Mubarak reshuffled his cabinet, bringing multinational corporations directly into the government. (CorpWatch)

Gov. Schwarzenegger’s allies put labor on the defensive

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's move to take on public-employee unions by overhauling pensions and insisting on merit pay for teachers has spawned other efforts to weaken labor's clout and has attracted a pledge of support from a conservative activist with close ties to the White House.

An initiative that would repeal a state law protecting union jobs in schools and one targeting political contributions from labor have been filed with the state attorney general, the first step to getting onto a ballot. Another proposal could end the state's public pension fund.

Meanwhile, Grover Norquist, who runs the influential Americans for Tax Reform, said his group would help promote and finance Schwarzenegger's proposal to revamp the public employee pension system once it comes up for a public vote. An affiliated group urged Republican lawmakers across the country to follow

Schwarzenegger's lead and call for pension reform in their states.

In defense, union officials this week launched a campaign-style effort to educate their members about the various proposals, complete with phone banks, mailers and door-to-door visits. They are also planning their own proposals -- an initiative to raise the minimum wage and another to reduce the price of prescription drugs will be filed with the state this week. (San Francisco Chronicle)

St. Louis nurses strike for better patient care

More than 1,500 registered nurses at St. John’s Mercy Medical Center’s hospital in St. Louis have braved subfreezing cold for nearly a month to fight for quality patient care. The nurses, members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 655, walked out Dec.15 after the hospital abandoned contract negotiations.

“[St. John’s] does not want a union in any of their hospitals because it threatens their control of nurses who, through their union, are demanding adequate staffing and reasonable work assignments, both of which directly impact patient care,” says Local 655 President Jim Dougherty.

The nurses have filed five unfair labor practice charges against the hospital with the National Labor Relations Board, including one after management refused to let a nurse work at a suburban location because she would not cross the picket line in St. Louis, where the RNs are on strike. The nurse had been working at both hospitals.

Meanwhile, St. John’s has contracted with a staffing agency, US Nursing Corp., to supply strike-breaking nurses. The agency has put out urgent notices twice seeking nurses to fill the St. John’s slots, even offering $2,000 bonuses. (AFL-CIO)

Toy council hopes to evict sweatshops

Sweatshop factories in China making millions of dollars by offering low wages and cutting costs on safety will soon be a thing of the past, the world's No2 toymaker Hasbro said.

Hasbro chairman Alan Hassenfeld said all toy factories will have to comply with the new International Council of Toy Industries (ICTI) rules if they hope to get any business at all.

The ICTI recently drew up a global standard for the ethical manufacture of toys. Firms who want to get recognition must first submit to an audit covering areas such as welfare of workers, pay and factory conditions.

There are about 4,000 to 5,000 toy factories in the Pearl River Delta. China produces 75 percent of the world's toys, according to Christian Ewert, chief executive and president of the ICTI Care Foundation. A total of 68 Chinese factories have been certified as being in compliance with the standards as of the end of last year. (Standard (China)

Two governors rescind workers’ contracts, bargaining rights

Some 50,000 state workers in Indiana and Missouri saw their rights to negotiate wages, health care and working conditions eliminated when newly elected Republican governors signed executive orders Jan. 11 unilaterally rescinding their bargaining rights and contracts.

In Indiana, Gov. Mitch Daniels (R), Bush’s former director of the Office of Management and Budget, issued an executive order that repealed 15 years of collective bargaining rights supported by the state’s past three governors.

Daniels’s action eliminated the bargaining rights of some 25,000 workers and also rescinded contracts negotiated to run through 2007. Those contracts spelled out health care benefits, grievance and disciplinary rules, seniority, bidding and transfer rights and vacation time.

In Missouri, Gov. Matt Blunt’s (R) executive order took away the bargaining rights of about 25,000 AFSCME and SEIU members, including some 9,000 who had reached contracts with the state. Blunt told reporters he believes his action also canceled those contracts, most of which were set to run through 2006. (AFL-CIO)

Uniform giant discriminating vs. women, minorities

On Jan. 13, the Teamsters and UNITE HERE released a report, “The ‘Spirit’ is the Problem,” detailing systemic race and gender discrimination at Cintas Corporation, the nation’s largest uniform provider. While Cintas claims they maintain a “zero-tolerance policy on discrimination,” the report cites numerous employee testimonies and employment statistics indicating that women, African-American, and Hispanic employees endure racist and sexist comments, are shunted into lower-paying jobs, and are blocked by glass ceilings.

Reports from employees at Cintas facilities portray a company whose employers lob crude epithets with impunity and exclude women and minority employees from all but the lowest-paying jobs.

Coretta Vick Silvers is one of several employees who in January 2004 brought a federal lawsuit against the company alleging widespread discrimination against women, African-American and Hispanic employees. Silvers, who is African-American, reports she earned fifty-cents to one-dollar less per hour than her white counterpart for performing the same work while she was employed at Cintas’ Raleigh, NC facility. (UNITEHERE)

St. Paul union takes on superstores

The union that represents 5,000 supermarket clerks, baggers, and meat-cutters in St. Paul’s east metro area wants store owners to help the union slow the expansion of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp., which employ nonunion workers.

That's one of about two dozen contract proposals the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 789 in St. Paul will present to supermarkets today.

Grocery workers at Cub Foods, Rainbow Foods, Festival Foods, Kowalski's, Lunds, and Byerly's are seeking a new three-year contract to replace the current agreement, which expires in March. They enter negotiations a few weeks after Wal-Mart said it will open its first three Supercenters in the metro area by 2006, and as Target opens more of its SuperTargets in the metro area.

In the background is last year's grocery industry strike in California. Grocers there, claiming that high labor costs made it impossible for them to compete with Wal-Mart's nonunion workforce, eventually won a two-tier salary schedule that gave younger workers less money and benefits. But that victory came after a bitter, five-month strike. (Star Tribune (St. Paul)