INK: August 26, 2010

by | Aug 26, 2010 | Labor Relations Ink

inkquill22 Labor Relations INK   In this issue:

  • EFCA Update
  • Facts Refute CNA Smokescreen
  • Ghost Of Sherman Marching On Atlanta?
  • Scoreboard, SEIU Watch, Only In A Union and more…

EFCA Update Washington’s pro-Big Labor officials handed the unions their third reprieve from transparency rules since taking over in November 2008. This time the focus was on the Form LM-30, which was intended by the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) to require labor organization officers and employees and their spouses and minor children to publicly disclose certain financial interests held, income received, and transactions engaged in to prevent any conflicts of interest. The proposed changes would accomplish the following:

• Return to the pre-2007 practice whereby union officers and employees were not required to report compensation they received under union leave and “no docking” policies established under collective bargaining agreements or by custom and practice of the workplace. • Exclude union stewards and similar union representatives, such as a member of a safety committee or a bargaining committee, from having to file Form LM-30. • Create an administrative exemption whereby union officials would generally need to report only loans – such as home mortgages – from bona fide credit institutions if the terms of such loans are on terms more favorable than those available to the public. • Limit the reporting obligation with respect to interests in and payments from employers that compete against employers represented by the official’s union or that the union actively seeks to represent, modify the scope of reporting with respect to payments from certain trusts and unions, and exempt union officials from reporting payments they receive from trusts or, as a general rule, from unions. • Hold union officers and employees to the same reporting obligations under the LMRDA.

Two Democrat Senators are attempting to secure another taxpayer-funded bailout for Big Labor, this time in the form of a $34 billion rescue plan for the failing Teamsters pension fund. Government handouts to Big Labor (funded by taxpayers) are likely to continue. As the American public animosity is growing against free-spending elected officials, unions are planning to spend furiously to keep their “bought and paid for administration” in place. In an interesting move, there is discussion of unions pooling their spending for key midterm elections later this year. ********** Don’t Shout Me Down! When UAW International representatives showed up at a plant in Indianapolis this month to try to encourage the acceptance of a contract, they were booed and kicked out of a meeting. As the representatives were packing to leave, the standing-room-only crowd told them to take the local president with them. Seems the union members don’t feel that their union is representing their interests, but instead is focused on the 17% stake the union has in GM. Back in October, current UAW president (then vice president) Bob King was met with the same reaction when he tried to force an International-negotiated contract upon Ford UAW members. It appears that there is a growing awareness among union members that the unions they belong to don’t necessarily have their interests at heart, and in fact may be holding them back. In California, 3 Boeing workers filed labor charges against the United Aerospace Workers union. When the three workers crossed a picket line during a recent strike and resigned their union membership as required, the union attempted to force them to pay fines. At Pocono Medical Center in Pennsylvania, employees have filed a deauthorization petition, claiming the SEIU has not done anything for them. “They negotiated the contract and told us they could get certain things, but we didn’t get them — raises and bonuses, better health care — none of that ever happened,” dietary worker Steven VonCrep said. In Washington state, AT&T employees initiated a decertification petition when their company voluntarily recognized the CWA based on a showing of union authorization cards at 11 AT&T Mobility locations. At Citrus Valley Medical Center in San Gabriel Valley, CA, nurses have filed a decertification petition to oust the CAN, citing failure to live up to promises made almost 4 years ago. “Hundreds of nurses … are tired of paying dues to a union that has not been able to deliver on its promises and that is trying to break up our family,” stated one of the petition organizers. In Arizona, SEIU-member city employees in Chandler, Gilbert and Tempe have quit the union to protest the SEIU’s “Arizona boycott” of the controversial immigration law. Chandler SEIU membership is down by about 30%, Tempe by 10%, and Gilbert by 16%. Finally, in Waterford, NY, employees at Momentive Performance Materials are gathering signatures to void a contract secured by the IUE-CWA. “We’ve had it with them,” said John Phelps, who is organizing the petition drive. “We don’t think they’re working on our behalf. Somebody’s got to stand up to this stuff. This has got to stop.” ********** Runaway Returns To The Fold As of October 1, the Laborers (LIUNA) will once again be a part of the AFL-CIO. The union had disaffiliated in June of 2006. Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO, and Terry O’Sullivan, President of the union, both reiterated the need for combined political action as a motivation for the move. ********** SCORE BOARD Who are the winners (and losers) of the labor movement? Don’t guess, just check the LRI Scoreboard

View this month’s scoreboard (archives also located here).

Download a PDF of this month’s scoreboard

 ***********

Facts Refute CNA Smokescreen

 In an apparent attempt to deflect attention from their inability to secure a contract after 3 years of negotiations, the CNA accused Sutter Health and their San Francisco hospitals of discrimination.

The union made claims in a press conference that the hospital had placed a quota on hiring Filipino nursing staff. Management countered with an effective rebuttal of the accusations, and charged the CNA with trying to cover up their failure to come to a contract. “We pride ourselves on our diverse hiring policies and our longstanding commitment to promoting equal opportunity employment,” said Dr. Warren Browner, CEO of California Pacific Medical Center. “The allegations of discrimination made by the California Nurses Association (CNA) are dishonest and without merit.”

“The claims made by the California Nurses Association are ridiculous” said Dr. Browner. “In 2007, 63% of our nurses at St. Luke’s were Asian. Today that number is 66%. We do not have any way of identifying what percentage of our nurses are Filipino because we don’t break down these categories by ethnicity or country of origin. In fact, the only data we have on ethnicity are self-reported by our employees using categories approved by the Federal government such as Asian, Hispanic or Latino, Black or African American or White (non-Hispanic)”

“I have worked at St. Luke’s for 19 years and no one has ever told me not to hire Filipino nurses,” says nurse Emilia Maninang, RN, Clinical Nurse Manager. “I’m Filipino and if I had heard anyone say that I would’ve been appalled. I think the claims are part of CNA’s agenda to try and make CPMC look bad.” ********** SEIU Watch As SEIU’s showdown with NUHW at Kaiser Permanente nears, SEIU stewards continue to resign their positions in order to support NUHW. Among the latest defections, two former stewards wrote a stinging open letter to Dave Regan (SEIU Trustee) and Mary Kay Henry, stating some of their reasons for resigning:

Kaiser

We are appalled at SEIU’s past and continuing use of mass firings and purges and of loyalty oaths as prerequisites for past and future participation in union activities and labor-management committees. We are outraged at SEIU’s passing along to Kasier for termination the names of IBHS workers who, out of conscience, refuse to pay SEIU dues. At the same time SEIU is using millions of dollars of those same dues for mass mailings, consultants, robocalls and polling to assure its victory in the upcoming election. We are outraged at SEIU’s cooperation with management in eviscerating our pension plan and then trumpeting the new contract as “No Take aways” while including formation of a committee in which SEIU and Kaiser “experts” will work together once again to reduce our health care and other benefits… We have come to believe that SEIU does not represent labor’s interests at Kaiser. We cannot continue to support SEIU and are resigning to promote the election of NUHW, a union whose leadership will serve labor’s interests. Another resigning steward, fed up with SEIU’s refusal to debate (when NUHW is quite willing), included this list of questions employees are eager to pose to SEIU:

1. With so many SEIU staff here, why can’t we get grievances processed or find anyone when we need representation? 2. Why are managers letting SEIU interrupt our work, while they try to stop us from talking to NUHW supporters? 3. Why is SEIU allowing management to subcontract in Dietary? 4. Why didn’t SEIU tell us their contract had a health benefits takeaway committee? 5. Why is SEIU threatening we’ll lose our benefits when federal law says all our raises and benefits stay the same? 6. Why do workers at LAMC make 15% less than workers at Kaiser Fresno, and why isn’t SEIU doing anything about that? 7. Why does SEIU charge us 25% more dues than NUHW just to send all the extra to Washington, D.C.?

More questions than answers, it appears. ********** FREE 2009 NLRB Elections Report With the NLRB bending over backwards to make it easier for unions to attack your company, now more than ever it pays to have solid intelligence about what unions are up to. LRI has created a new NLRB Elections Report that will provide a bird’s-eye view of union activity. Filled with colorful, easy-to-read charts and graphs, and broken out in a variety of ways, the information is easy to digest. We want to send you this free 22_ page report for 2009 as a thank you for being an LRI INK subscriber. Head to this page to see more details, and to download your free report. https://lrionline.com/elections-report ********** Nine Pins Down…One to Go The ninth official of the incorrigibly corrupt Carpenters Union in New York has pleaded guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy, leaving just one defendant left to face the music. Brian Hayes, former Business Agent of the District Council of New York City and Vicinity of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, faces up to 20 years in prison each for the two counts. The only official left to face the jury in this long-running FBI racketeering case, Joseph Olivieri, is scheduled to begin on Oct. 18. In a related story, another Carpenters official, Joe Firth, president of Carpenters Union Local 608, has been stripped of his job as president and banned from holding office for 10 years. Firth has been charged with rigging hiring lists in his former post as Business Agent for the union in its work at the World Trade Center Ground Zero site. ********** Ghost Of Sherman Marching On Atlanta? Georgia has one of the lowest rates of unionization in the country, (only 4.6 percent as in 2009). A coalition of forces has arrayed itself against the prime target of Atlanta in an effort to crack open the state to union influence, and they seem to be pinning their hopes on upcoming efforts to unionize employees at Delta Airlines, and Coca Cola Enterprises. “We need to make a breakthrough and establish a beachhead of union support right here in the Deep South,” state Sen. Nan Orrock, D-Atlanta, said at an ATL Solidarity committee event last month. The ATL Solidarity committee is a coalition of unions, community organizations, politicians and clergy formed to campaign for the union elections at Delta and the Transportation Security Administration. “Delta and Coca-Cola have tremendous influences throughout our city and region,” said Ben Speight, organizing director for Teamsters Local 728. “I think it will have a large impact.” The Teamsters are seeking to organize the CCE employees. Patrick Scott, who works with the AFL-CIO-organized ATL Solidarity Committee, said Delta’s marquee value is immense. Wins could lead other unions to consider how to “come down to the South and work with community allies and community organizations and organize workers.” ********* Only In A Union Jim Callaghan used to work for the United Federation of Teachers. That is, before he attempted to organize the non-unionized workers at the UFT headquarters. For his stellar commitment to the concepts espoused by Big Labor around the world, he was quickly canned. This hypocritical act would be comical, if it were not so common! ********** SEIU to Spell Death of Nursing Home? Connecticut nursing home Courtland Gardens has lost almost $4 million in each of the last two years, and is close to having to close its doors. A buyer from Michigan is poised to take on the ailing facility, but may be forced to walk away from the deal because the union, SEIU Local 1199, is not willing to accept the needed concessions. Paul Fortier, vice president of the SEIU local, said even with the heightened stakes of the home potentially closing, the union would not negotiate concessions based on a motive of fear. The owner of the home had asked the Department of Social Services to be allowed to close the home, but the DSS insisted that a buyer be sought instead. Although Ciena Healthcare Management has stepped to the table willing to buy, the company refuses to move forward with the purchase with a union contract guaranteed to cause continued financial difficulties. It appears the union would just as soon kick the Courtland Gardens employees out of their jobs than face reality. ********* Tankhaul Companies Beware! The recent Teamsters win with tankhaul drivers at Kenan Advantage Group (KAG) West in Southern California has apparently sparked a new drive at the Teamsters International headquarters. “Tankhaul is a core Teamster industry, which makes this such an important organizing victory,” said Jim Hoffa, Teamsters general president. “We will build on this victory and organize more professional tankhaul drivers across the country.” The Teamsters believe that this victory, coupled with the implementation of the Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010 program, will provide huge leverage for the union in its organizing efforts. The program is expected to force a significant number of current drivers off the road, turning a current driver shortage into a crisis. ********** Sticky Fingers Current charges or sentences of embezzling union officials: Patrick James Brennan                    IUPAT                        $25,000 Kathy Oatman                                    SEIU                           $4,000 http://www.nlpc.org/union-corruption-update

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