INK: June 11, 2009

Labor Relations INK

Download a PDF of this issue with links here.

In This Issue:

• Insight from Phil Wilson
• EFCA Update
• Internicine Battle Rages On
• Organizing Campaign Moves To Public Square
• and more…

Labor Relations Insight from Phil Wilson

Baby Boomers the Secret Key to Engagement?

A recent study by Boston College’s Sloan Center on Aging & Work, researchers found that employee engagement among younger workers has dropped significantly during this recent economic downturn. That’s not really surprising – as I discuss in my book The Next 52 Weeks, job security is one of the keys to job satisfaction.

What is surprising is that the engagement of older workers has hardly budged during this economic downturn. Read the rest of the article here…

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EFCA Update

Big Labor ratcheted up their pressure tactics, finding a creative point of leverage to intimidate fund managers on Wall Street from speaking out against the Employee Free Choice Act. In a questionnaire, managers were asked such questions as, “Has your company made any public statements in support or opposition to EFCA?” The implied threat is that unions will move their pension monies out of these fund managers’ hands, which is basically an illegal act of coercion. Read a letter sent by one Teamsters local to their fund managers.

We’ve already written about the stacking of the National Labor Relations Board with pro-labor appointments. Meet Craig Becker in this 6 minute video to get a sense for the radical pro-union flavor these appointments will bring to the board.

Some are wondering if the 3-way conflagration between the SEIU, UNITE-HERE, and the fledgling breakaway union Workers United will hamper the efforts of Big Labor to push the EFCA forward. Not likely, but it does make for high entertainment value (see story below)!

Investors Business Daily, meanwhile, points us to a fascinating National Bureau of Economic Research study that concludes that companies typically lose 10% of their stock value after being unionized. The study found the average loss per company was $40,500 in 1998 dollars for each worker eligible to vote.

Another group of business leaders, this time an Hispanic organization in Colorado, has weighed in to lobby their senator to oppose the bill, and another Wall Street Journal editorial points to additional problems caused by binding arbitration provisions in the EFCA: union leaders will be harder to hold accountable, and it will be even harder than it is now to get rid of a union once it is in place

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FREE! EFCA Strategy Review & Vulnernability Audit

This has quickly become one of our most popular programs, in light of upcoming labor law changes. It is more important than ever to assess both the internal and external factors that contribute to your company’s vulnerability to union penetration, and formulate action plans to shore up any uncovered weaknesses.

• What are the most likely labor law changes, and how will they impact my vulnerabilities?

• What are the six strategies I can implement to strengthen my defense against union encroachment?

• When do I talk to my employees about unions? What do I say about unions?

CLICK HERE to schedule your free 30-minute consultation with Phil Wilson, LRI’s President and General Counsel.

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Internecine Battle Rages On

You will not find better soap opera on TV. As UNITE HERE begins to crumble with the recent leadership split, one former co-leader (Bruce Raynor) charges the other with tactics “more reminiscent of the Sopranos than anything I’ve ever seen in my trade union career,” then resigns, while the other side charges Raynor with using internal resources to organize a breakaway faction intending to join the Service Employees International Union, and claims to have been planning to boot him anyway. Meanwhile, it appears John Wilhelm (the surviving head of UNITE-HERE) is attempting to use the affair to combat his arch enemy, Andy Stern and the SEIU, by planting stories in the media accusing Stern of directing the entire affair as a way to sabotage Wilhelm’s union.

As the drama unfolds, Raynor and his new Workers United union are pleading to SEIU for financial assistance, claiming they are running a deficit of $300,000 a month. Raynor is also besmirching the reputation of Amalgamated Bank, whose holding company is his former union, claiming that UNITE-HERE is in “total chaos.”

SEIU continues with its own troubles. As its largest local seceded to become a separate union (the NUHW), other SEIU officials have either been indicted for fraudulent activity (we’ve covered in detail over the past year), or have resigned in disgust at SEIU practices.

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Follow The Money, Or Lack Thereof!

We’ve  reported before some of the troubles that union pension plans are having, and why this is one of the driving factors in the desperate push for the EFCA by Big Labor. Some have done the math, and calculated that the enactment of some EFCA-type bill would put upwards of $637,500,000 per year into union coffers, equating to over $35 billion in the next 10 years for Big Labor to meddle in politics and the continued degradation of Americas businesses. Additionally, the poor state of union pension funds could be turned around as fresh dues payers/pensioners pay in for the benefits of already retired workers.

Pension funds are a big issue. A recent report indicated almost half of the nation’s 20 largest unions have pension funds that federal law classifies as “endangered” or in “critical” condition due to being underfunded. In a vile travesty of moral failure, union officer pension funds remain in top shape despite this erosion of employee funds. One researcher, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, lamented, “Unions attract members by telling them they will look after them and that these plans are fully funded but they are not. Yet they are fully funding their own officer pensions. What we have are new members joining up so they can guarantee that the officers will have a secure retirement. In some cases they are giving up existing 401k pensions that do better than these underfund Ponzi schemes. The membership dues are not being used to build up assets they are being used to fund the officer’s retirements and to cover current retirees.”

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Only In A Union

Shortly after members of IBEW Local 459 went on strike near Reading, Pennsylvania, specialized electrical equipment belonging to the Pennsylvania Electric Company was vandalized, creating a minor emergency and initiating the response of crisis repair crews. The company was forced to increase security measures, and contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security to apprise them of the situation.

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Pro-Company Workers Take Action

A chain of grocery stores in Arizona has been fighting a long-running battle with the United Food & Commercial Workers, including the filing of a defamation lawsuit, and defending Unfair Labor Practice charges before the National Labor Relations Board. In a recent development, fed-up Bashas employees joined the fray and began a series of protests outside the UFCW Local 99’s Phoenix offices.

The group hopes other employees will join in the grassroots effort to protect their company against deceitful UFCW organizing and corporate campaign tactics.

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Internal Finger Pointing, Ad Naseum

Tom Buffenbarger, president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and a member of the AFL-CIO’s finance committee, stated that the AFL-CIO has used “creative accounting” to mask its dismal financial position.

The largest U.S. labor organization in the country has seen its assets decline to a negative $2.3 million as of June 30, 2008, from a $66 million surplus on July 1, 2000. “If we are not careful, insolvency may be right around the corner,” Buffenbarger’s report said.

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Organizing Campaign Moves to the Public Square

Typical scenario:

• Union wants national company to allow the organization of its employees via card check rather than secret ballot.
• Company says no.
• Labor federation begins corporate campaign against company to bring public pressure to bear.

Recently, Change To Win played this well-worn card in a 9-city “protest” against CVS Pharmacy, claiming that the company was selling products past their expiration dates. CVS is a constant target of both the SEIU and UFCW, both members of Change To Win. Change To Win denies the allegation, but an employment lawyer familiar with corporate campaigns said, “I’d be amazed if this is purely a coincidence.”

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SEIU vs. NUHW

As SEIU continues to battle the newly formed National Union of Healthcare Workers, companies currently represented by SEIU are being dragged into the fray. In the latest episode, employees of a Kaiser Permanente facility in Stockton, CA, picketed on behalf of the NUHW. Kaiser claimed neutrality, but protesters disputed the claim. “We strongly disagree that Kaiser is neutral in this. We are forced to pay dues – $72.90 a month – to SEIU, a union that is not working in the best interest of the worker. We’re here to make sure everybody knows about it,” said one protester, Robert Nevarez. Protesters want the opportunity to oust SEIU in favor of NUHW, but is claiming Kaiser is working to prevent the action because SEIU won’t push for raising wages.

Across the state in Fresno, the SEIU is working to quash a move by Fresno home health care workers to elect out of SEIU and into NUHW. At a rally held on Sunday May 31, SEIU-UHW Trustee Dave Regan told SEIU staff to “administer an old-school ass-whipping” to NUHW supporters. “In other words, what we gotta do here, my old-school friends, is we have to administer an old-school ass-whipping over the next two weeks,” he said. “I know everybody knows what that means. We gotta give a butt-whipping they will never forget,” he added. “We gotta put them in the ground and bury them.” Watch the video here.

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Transform Your Workplace!

A step-by-step guide on how to dramatically improve employee engagement at your company. Includes checklists, action-planning guides and more.

• How to determine your company’s internal and external vulnerability – and why you have to deal with both kinds of vulnerability.

• Critical training for your first-line supervisors, and how you can turn them into a key to your employee engagement strategy.

CLICK HERE to find out more about The Next 52 Weeks: One Year To Transform Your Work Environment by Phillip B. Wilson

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UAW Tanks General Motors

If you’re still wondering exactly how much GM’s high labor costs played into its demise as a viable auto manufacturer, read this quick report. Robert Dewar, author of a recent book about the auto industry debacle, in a recent visit to China shared compelling data to back his claim.

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Danger In The Shadows

In another example of the many back-channel means that Big Labor supporters are looking to reward their union funding sources, New York state legislators recently tried to slide two new labor-friendly bills quietly past the public. One bill would force employers to pay up to 50% of a union’s lost dues if “extreme provocation” led to a strike, and the second makes it easier for unions to block public employers from imposing new rules. The legislation would lead to illegal strikes by public employees.

The Mayor of New York City got wind of the ruse. “Rather than rewarding illegal behavior, our Legislature should make sure that these potentially life-threatening events never happen again,” a spokesman for the mayor’s legislative office said.

On the opposite side of the country, Oregon is attempting to become the first state to pass an employer gag law that would severely restrict what employers could say to their employees during union organizing campaigns. Washington state just defeated such an attempt, and despite the bills dubious legality, Oregon legislators seem bent on pressing the matter home.

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Win for Right-To-Work

A field-tech with Verizon, located in Tampa, FL, was part of a team assembled to work in California, but was sent home by the CWA because she was not a member of the IBEW in her home state, a right-to-work state. When she applied for a similar second work team headed to that state, she was again denied. The National Right to Work Foundation assisted the employee in a filing a suit against the company and both unions for discrimination based on union membership, in which she won compensation for lost time, and an agreement that the unions will post notices that such discrimination is illegal.

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Labor Relations INK is published semi-weekly and
is edited by Labor Relations Institute, Inc. Feel
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INK: April 9, 2009

Labor Relations INK

Download a PDF of this issue with links here.

Labor Relations Insight from Phil Wilson

Reading The Tea Leaves on EFCA

In the couple of weeks since Arlen Specter’s blockbuster announcement that he would vote against cloture and (maybe) vote against EFCA, quite a few pundits have claimed the so-called “Free Choice” Act is dead for the near future. I’ve already argued that news of EFCA’s death is greatly exaggerated, but I’d like to point out a couple of observable facts that I think are worth considering as we handicap the future of EFCA.

It’s been interesting to observe how unions have responded to Specter’s announcement. Most interesting to me was that there wasn’t much of a response to the initial story at all.

read the rest of the article here…

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EFCA Update

The ground seems to be shifting almost daily beneath the feet of those on both sides of the EFCA battle. Specter – the “rogue” Republican that all thought would tip the hand in favor of EFCA supporters, has come out against the bill in current form, as have other Democrats. Some Republicans are beginning to feel they will have enough strength to filibuster the bill. Ripples went through the business community when Fed Ex announced that if Congress changed laws making it easier to unionize their business, they would cancel billions of dollars worth of aircraft orders. And as Representative Joe Wilson has pointed out, the health care industry could be negatively impacted where it matters most – at the level of patient care. All of this seems to bode well for opponents of the bill.

However, as we’ve been warning, there is more than one way to skin a cat. Even though Big Labor is still strutting about on the public front saying that they want the whole package as is, there have been many discussions of compromise, and alternative methods proposed of getting similar results through different means. This article is an example of 16 different steps that could be taken to mute the opposition voices to the current EFCA bill, while doing an end run to accomplish close to the same objectives.

This battle is far from over, and is now entering the creative phase. It is imperative to stay abreast of developments. One great way to do so is to check back regularly to Workforce Fairness Institute’s new EFCA news site. In addition to our regular updates, WFI’s effort is laudable for attempting to stay as “real-time” as possible.

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Do They Practice What They Preach?

We have seen this countless times, and often include similar circumstances in our ULP Charge of the Month: a labor union that supposedly fights for the rights of it’s members, doesn’t apply the same guidelines to it’s own staff and employees.

This recent incident involves members of the Air Line Pilots Association Professional and Administrative Employees (UALPAPAE), who are employees of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA). Remarked Jay Wells, president of United’s unit of UALPAPAE, “when it comes to the well-being and welfare of its own staff, ALPA management seems to adopt a different set of labor union principles.”

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UAW: The Good Life!

If you have any doubts about whether or not UAW officials (members) are feeling the strain in Motor City, check out their recently filed financial statement (known as the LM-2). LaborPains.org sifted through the details in a recent post to find that
every UAW officer made in excess of $141,000 in total compensation in 2008, and that over half of the staff made more than $100,000 in total compensation.

Additionally, the union expensed $98,775 on golf courses, another $75,492 at casinos, and over $150,000 at resort conference centers.

Even as UAW members of the Detroit Big Three (and other parts suppliers) are fearing for their very jobs, the UAW staff doesn’t seem to feel the strain.

Read over the LM-2 for yourself here.

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SEIU Hardball

What happens if a businessman stands up in opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act? The SEIU demands his head on a silver platter. SEIU has found a new tool in it’s tool box for extracting legislative action on it’s behalf – government bail-out money.

If a company has received any government help at all, SEIU seems to believe that the leadership of such companies must be compelled to fall in line with the Big Labor viewpoint. One of the commentators on this Lou Dobbs news segment calls it “organizing legislatures.”

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Slush Fund Kick-Backs

According to the Associated Builders and Contractors, George Mason University’s John M. Olin Institute for Employment Practice and Policy recently completed a new study showing that from 2000 to 2007, construction labor unions spent more than $1 billion in union wages to underbid nonunion contractors in a practice called “job targeting.” The practice negatively impacts the economy in many ways, including artificially inflating the cost of public construction projects, and diminishing the tax revenues collectible my municipalities.

It is also vastly unfair to non-union competitors. Current law allows a union to pay money to a company for the purpose of putting another company out of business. If a nonunion construction company engaged in the same conduct as a labor union, it would be prosecuted for violating antitrust laws.

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Hatfield vs. McCoy Truce?

In a move that shocked the world of labor relations, two unions that have long held a high degree of animosity toward each other seemed willing to bury the hatchet. According to the official SEIU blog, “In a dramatic agreement likely to accelerate the drive to pass the Employee Free Choice Act and rapidly promote unionization in the healthcare sector, the Service Employees International Union and the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee today announced the signing of a transformative cooperation agreement.”

Under the pact SEIU and CNA/NNOC, the largest unions in the nation representing healthcare workers and registered nurses, respectively, will work together to bring union representation to all non-union RNs and other healthcare employees and step up efforts to enact Employee Free Choice.

The 1.8 million strong SEIU currently represents about 80,000 nurses, and the CNA/NNOC will be at 150,000 after it’s recently announced merger with two other nurses’ unions. The unions have said they will target the nations largest hospital systems in a concerted effort to unionize the nations nurses.

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APRIL SCOREBOARD

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.

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Employee Relations tip-of-the-month

Hiring good people is a key to a positive work environment. Resist the urgency to fill a position “quickly. “ Rather, hire deliberately, scrutinize attitude, and dig into why this person is looking for work. It often takes several interviews to get beyond the prepared answers to the real issues.

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Tough Dose of Reality for Strikers

At a small plywood plant in North Carolina, a protracted strike ended in a new contract, but only 25 of the 110 strikers getting their jobs back.

After 8 months on the picket line living on $150 per week of strike pay, most of those former employees are only now eligible for unemployment benefits. Some will hang on, hoping that the company will regain the market share it lost while the workers were on strike, and be able to afford them. Others will take a severance package and begin looking for employment elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the company, already down by almost half of it’s workforce since the inception of the strike, will attempt to claw it’s way back into competition.

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Sticky Fingers!

Current charges or sentences of embezzling union officials:

Paul S. Peters II & Brian Armentrout - WGA: $300,000

Jeffrey C. Harris – GMP: $5,048

Deborah Chichick – CWA: $1,440

Keith H. Cook – UTU: $47,079

Harry Keil - IAM: $55,000

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Labor Relations INK is published semi-weekly and
is edited by Labor Relations Institute, Inc. Feel
free to pass this newsletter on to anyone you
think might enjoy it. New subscribers can sign up
by visiting:

http://lrionline.com/free-stuff/newsletter-signup

If you use content from this newsletter please
attribute it to Labor Relations Institute and
include our website address: www.LRIonline.com

Contributing editors for this issue: Phillip Wilson, Greg Kittinger

Labor Relations Institute
7850 South Elm Place – Suite E
Broken Arrow, OK
74011
US

INK: January 22, 2009

Labor Relations INK

Download a PDF of this issue with links here.

Labor Relations Insight from Phil Wilson

Online Organizing

A really interesting article in The Nation about the promise – and perils – of online organizing. Among the most interesting things it discusses is how the web 2.0 world is actually a threat to unions in the traditional sense of the word.

The “distributed” nature of the web can destroy hierarchical structures (just as it has in the business world). Where a group of workers can self-organize around a problem, why do they need to fund and deal with the politics of a super-structure with its own agenda? They don’t.

read the rest of the article here…

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SEIU Meltdown

The SEIU International Executive Board approved plans to split apart one of it’s largest locals, United Healthcare Workers-West. The rift between UHW and SEIU international goes back to April of 2007, when the local’s leader, Sal Rosselli, questioned SEIU practices that were aligning the union against groups advocating for better patient care. In response to the IEB vote, UHW’s executive board notified SEIU President Andy Stern that rank-and-file members are calling for a disaffiliation referendum for the entire local.

SEIU has repeatedly used strong-arm tactics to replace leaders of dissident locals with those loyal to Stern. Three such Stern allies, Annele Grajeda, Tyrone Freeman, and Rickman Jackson, have all been implicated in corruption scandals involving millions of dollars of union funds.

Since the vote, tensions have increasing. In Oakland, and off-duty policeman apparently hired by SEIU as a private investigator aggressively photographed members of the local union and assaulted a UHW staff member.

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UFCW Pension Woes Stacking Up

Ron MacDougall, a former employee of a pork plant on Prince Edward Island in Canada, received a letter informing him that the pension benefits were being cut in half. The UFCW-run plan had been seriously underfunded, and serious problems came to light several years ago about the way union heads mishandled investments.

Another pension run by the UFCW for the Dunsmore, PA, Department of Public Works, was announced to be insolvent. The pensions of other public service workers of the borough remain intact, as they were not handled by UFCW. The DPW’s involvement in the UFCW pension “was a decision by whomever was running DPW at that time, and I mean on the union side. It’s their call,” said Jerry Hart, borough council vice president.

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Big Labor Consolidating Power

David Bonior, a former Michigan congressman and a member of President Barack Obama’s economic-transition team, facilitated a meeting of members of the AFL-CIO and breakaway rival Change To Win. The presidents of twelve unions representing most of the unionized workers in the country met to discuss how to reunite the labor movement.

According to a released statement, “The goal of this meeting is to create a unified labor movement that can speak and act nationally on the critical issues facing working Americans.” The real target is to capitalize on the opportunity presented by the new alignment of the Congress and White House with pro-union issues. “Political action on the national level may be enhanced,” said Gary Chaison, a labor expert at Clark University in Worcester, Mass.

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Only In A Union

A teamster organizer broke into a youth camp run by the rival Fraternal Order of Police and installed surveillance equipment, purchased with Teamsters funds. He was attempting to catch Metro police officers working at the camp who he believed were drinking after hours.

At the time, the Teamsters Union was locked in a struggle with the FOP for the right to represent Metro police officers in negotiations with the city.

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UAW “Roach Motel”

A machine operator at an automotive parts plant gathered signatures of more than half of the 150 workers seeking to drop their representation by UAW Local 19. However, the UAW fought back, stating that the multi-plant local would have to be decertified not just at this plant, but at all 12 plants now operated by the owner of this particular plant.

“The issue is that they make it very easy to get into the union but they make it very difficult to get out. It’s sort of like the roach motel,” said Glenn Taubman, the attorney representing the employee’s petition.

Unions want to have their cake and eat it too. Although it is possible to organize distinct units within one facility, as long as it can be shown that they have some commonality that qualifies them as a “bargaining unit,” the unions will throw up any smokescreen to impede such a unit being decertified.

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Teamsters: Strike vs. Talk

Rather than do their research prior to entering negotiations, the Teamsters allowed 2 votes & 10 weeks of a strike before submitting an information request to the employer. In a statement released to a local paper, Metalworks President and CEO Tom Paine asserted, “the union is just now asking the company for negotiating information, a process that should have been done months ago…The union leadership has caused a severe economic hardship to all members because of a strike that they initiated and continue to promote. Instead of working through the economic and competitive challenges, the Teamsters union instructed their membership to walk off their secure jobs.

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JANUARY SCOREBOARD

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.

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Employee Relations tip-of-the-month

Know your HR law! The more competent HR personnel are at their job, and the more the better job they do at answering employee questions in understandable language (sans jargon), the more confidence your employees will have in their opportunity to flourish.

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Top Ten for 2008

National Legal Policy center’s top union corruption stories of last year.

10) Senate appointment scandal has union connections.

9) ACORN is knee-deep in voter-registration and internal fraud.
Los Angeles SEIU chieftain is exposed, dismissed.

7) Law enforcement agents arrest Operating Engineers local thugs.

6) Union investments fuel progressive activism.

5) Mexican unions are bastions of government favoritism and corruption.

4) Labor Department puts more teeth into financial reporting rules.

3) Federal prosecutors expose New Jersey construction locals.

2) Five dozen Gambino family mobsters plead guilty.

1) Barack Obama is elected president.

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Labor Relations INK is published semi-weekly and
is edited by Labor Relations Institute, Inc. Feel
free to pass this newsletter on to anyone you
think might enjoy it. New subscribers can sign up
by visiting:

http://lrionline.com/free-stuff/newsletter-signup

If you use content from this newsletter please
attribute it to Labor Relations Institute and
include our website address: www.LRIonline.com

Contributing editors for this issue: Phillip Wilson, Greg Kittinger

Labor Relations Institute
7850 South Elm Place – Suite E
Broken Arrow, OK
74011
US

INK: November 18, 2008

Labor Relations INK

Download a PDF of this issue with links here.

Labor Relations Insight from Phil Wilson

Why Campaigns Matter

I received the following email today from someone who got my “Unions: The 7 Lies You Must Know” email series. I thought I would share it. My response follows. Here was the email from “localunion21″:

Hello Philip
I have read your seven lies and have a question for you. I work non-union in Omaha Nebraska making $17.00/hr with no health benefits for my family and no plan for retirement.

I was approached by a union organizer and he did use some of the info you provided.

read the rest of the article here…

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Boeing Strike The Last Straw?

In 1991, former Boeing Chairman Frank Shrontz warned civic leaders in a speech to the Seattle Chamber of Commerce that aircraft could be built in other parts of the country for 30-to-40 percent less than Washington State. “Could Puget Sound turn into an aerospace rust belt of the 21st century, complete with padlocked factories, unemployment lines and urban blight?” Shrontz asked then. “It certainly could.”

We soon may add to Shrontz’s titles that of prophet. The recent plight of the Big Three automakers, Boeing’s loss of 200 production days over the last two decades due to strikes, and the hardships to parts suppliers across the country impacted by the latest strike, have many industry analysts predicting Boeing will move out of state at the first opportunity.

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Strike Forces Jobs Out

Striking employees at an American Standard plant in New Jersey didn’t make out as well as the Boeing machinists. The company eliminated 20-30 jobs and moved a bathtub production line to another plant. The line being moved is a high-volume sales item and the company said keeping the supply of products open to customers was critical. Said plant manager Paul Lee, “We will do whatever we must to ensure we continue to meet our customers’ needs.” When asked if other work might be moved from the plant, Tracy Benson Kirker, a spokesperson for the company, reiterated that the company would keep all of it’s options open.

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OLMS Busy Last Year

During the fiscal year ending in September 2008, the Office of Labor-Management Standards obtained 102 convictions and 130 indictments, with restitutions totaling more than $3.2 million. Since 2001, the OLMS has secured court orders of more than $91.5 million. That’s a lot of union dues!

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Only In A Union

Employees of UPS who are members of Teamsters Local 804, filed a report charging that union officials colluded with UPS management to divert almost $18 million from the local health fund to the union pension plan, while raising member health care co-payments. The amount represents more than half of the health plan assets.

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Grocery Union Picking Up Steam

In 2003/2004, a 141-day strike and lock-out seemed to shatter the back of the United Food and Commercial Workers union in southern California. With a resurgence of energy and a more coordinated strategy, the UFCW is back on the prowl. “We are coming back,” said Jennifer Riddagh, who works at a Vons store in Thousand Oaks. “Things are pretty good right now.”

The UFCW has set it’s sights on the rapidly growing Fresh & Easy grocery chain. The company has opened 48 stores in Southern California and 49 in Phoenix and Las Vegas, with plans to expand to 200 stores by early next year.

Rick Icaza, president of UFCW Local 770 in Los Angeles, said “We realize that Fresh & Easy will be a major problem for us if we don’t do something about organizing it.”

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NOVEMBER SCOREBOARD

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.

**********

Employee Relations tip-of-the-month

Adopt a park close by your place of work and get a crew together to clean it up and maybe even add some new feature (playground equipment, flower garden, trees, etc.).

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Sticky Fingers!

Current charges or sentences of embezzling union officials:

Kevin Sherlock – NALC: $45,000

Krista Yeatts – IAM: $47,746

Kathleen Kordish – USW: $2,500

Eugene Huss – USW: $2,000

Grace Gaines – AFT: $15,597

Janet Johnson – AFGE: $11,251

Glenroy Richards – AFGE: $11,243

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Labor Relations INK is published semi-weekly and
is edited by Labor Relations Institute, Inc. Feel
free to pass this newsletter on to anyone you
think might enjoy it. New subscribers can sign up
by visiting:

http://lrionline.com/free-stuff/newsletter-signup

If you use content from this newsletter please
attribute it to Labor Relations Institute and
include our website address: www.LRIonline.com

Contributing editors for this issue: Phillip Wilson, Greg Kittinger

Labor Relations Institute
7850 South Elm Place – Suite E
Broken Arrow, OK
74011
US

INK: October 21, 2008

Labor Relations INK

Download a PDF of this issue with links here.

Labor Relations Insight from Phil Wilson

EFCA: No Time To Lose

We are only 2 weeks away from what at this point looks like a big win for Barack Obama and a substantial – perhaps filibuster-proof – Democratic majority in the Senate. Many people we’ve talked to over the last several months about the Free Choice Act have told us they are waiting until after the elections before they do anything. I have a feeling many of those will say that they are going to wait until the legislation passes before they take action after the election.

These “conservative” strategies seem logical. After all, why prepare for a change in the laws when you don’t even know what the rules are going to be? But the strategies are not logical. And they’re not conservative. They are reckless. Companies who aren’t fully engaged in devloping an action plan and educating new and incumbent employees right now about union cards are going to be sorry.

read the rest of the article here…

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Boeing Strikers Should Take Note

Daimler Trucks North America has scheduled a closure of a Porland, OR plant. The closure will send 900 machinists looking for jobs, as the production work is be shifted to climates with less union encumbrances in the Carolinas and Mexico. Striking Boeing machinists, represented by the same union representing the Freightliner employees, could drive Boeing to a similar move once production on the 737 comes to an end.

In a related reinforcement of the point, Boeing executive Fred Kiga, speaking at a Washington state aerospace industry conference, warned of the northwest becoming known as a “strike zone.” “I don’t think anyone would call this region an aerospace rust belt today,” he said. “But we cannot afford to become known as the strike zone either. The stakes are much too high.”

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McCain vs. Obama: Labor Policy

The Alliance for Worker Freedom has release a chart comparing the two presidential candidates on labor positions, including right-to-work, card check, and other key issues. Check it out!

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UFCW vs. Business Reality

The six Wal-Mart employees of a Tire & Lubrication Express department in a Canadian store probably thought they had finally cracked open the “evil empire” when they won a 3-year court battle over representation by the United Food & Commercial Workers union. Business realities soon hit home when the Express was closed due to the unprofitability of the venture adjusted for the new wage hikes. The employees were offered employment – non-union – at other Wal-Mart locations.

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More Cash from the UAW

Piling on to the huge Big Labor financial commitment to sway the November elections, the United Auto Workers launched a $3 million ad campaign in the manufacturing states of Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The campaign, supporting the Obama ticket, is targeting active and retired members of the UAW, of which more than half of the total of one million live in one of those four states.

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Former Union Organizers Expose “Psychological Battery”

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Big Labor has been spouting about the supposed coercive tactics that empoyers use during organizing campaigns to intimidate employees into voting in favor of the company.

We’ve put together a three-minute video of several former union organizers exposing the truth about the tactics used by unions during such campaigns. This “insiders view” highlights the dangers of the horribly mistitled Employe Free Choice Act, and indicates what the American workforce should prepare for should this legislation pass, and exposes who the real culprits are of coercive tactics.

Watch the video on YouTube at this link:  http://www.youtube.com/v/Y1b2UtZ2S6Q&hl=en&fs=1

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If you missed this – here it is again!

An Interview with Don Wilson: The EFCA. This is a complete interview with the CEO of Labor Relations Institute on the Employee Free Choice Act and its impact on American businesses.

Pre-Election Special! There is still time to educate your employees about the dangerous impact of the Employee Free Choice Act prior to the November election. We are offering the About the EFCA module from our EFCA Tool Kit for only $895. You still have time to make a difference! Review
the details and preview the videos here.

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 OCTOBER SCOREBOARD

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.

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Employee Relations tip-of-the-month

Ask for employees who are “subject matter experts” at something outside of work (fishing, hunting, crafts, cooking, etc.) to do a “brown bag lunch” presentation on the topic – ask for volunteers to cover topics. Remember how excited you got for show and tell when you were in school? It’s still pretty fun.

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Sticky Fingers!

Current charges or sentences of embezzling union officials:

Kenneth Campbell – IUOE: $270,000

Carol Bruno – CSEA: $16,000

Charles Bohanon – BLET: $18,074

Donna Roles – USW: $60,000

Kenneth Saltz, Jr. – USW: $15,809

Betty Wing – USW: $6,600

Michael LaPorte – USW: $20,000

Jeffrey Granberg – BAC: $2,500

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Labor Relations INK is published semi-weekly and
is edited by Labor Relations Institute, Inc. Feel
free to pass this newsletter on to anyone you
think might enjoy it. New subscribers can sign up
by visiting:

http://lrionline.com/free-stuff/newsletter-signup

If you use content from this newsletter please
attribute it to Labor Relations Institute and
include our website address: www.LRIonline.com

Contributing editors for this issue: Phillip Wilson, Greg Kittinger

Labor Relations Institute
7850 South Elm Place – Suite E
Broken Arrow, OK
74011
US

INK: October 7, 2008

Labor Relations INK

Download a PDF of this issue with links here.

Labor Law “Change”

The ruckus over the Employee Free Choice Act is only the tip of the iceberg of Big Labor legislative objectives. Beyond eliminating secret ballot elections, they also seek to:

• put an end to state right-to-work laws

• enforce a gag rule on truthful and non-coercive speech about the downsides of unionization

• prohibit permanent replacement of striking workers

• force state and local governments to collectively bargain with union officials over all contracts involving police officers, firefighters, and paramedics

Close your eyes for a moment and imagine what this country would look like under “union rule.” Not a pretty picture.

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Economic Assault on Secret Ballot Process

According to a recent UNITE HERE email communication, the Public Employee Federation of New York (PEF) canceled a reservation of 100 rooms at the Rochester Plaza Hotel, while hundreds of delegates from the PEF demonstrated outside. The boycott was called when hotel management refused to succumb to card check union recognition instead of the NLRB private ballot process.

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The “Governator” Shoots Down EFCA-Like Bill

With all the discussion about the Employee Free Choice Act looming at the national level, the fight against traditional monitored secret-ballot elections is being fought on other fronts as well. In California, Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have allowed the unions to have a role in collecting “secret” ballots directly from workers, including an option to elect for “direct representation” without any additional balloting process. This was a slick move by the unions to once again violate a worker’s right to a protected, private ballot-box experience when casting their vote, in the same way that a simple card check scheme violates those rights.

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Right To Fire

In the aftermath of what may have been the largest political strike in history last May, an NLRB directive gave employers the right to terminate workers who engaged in such activity on company time. The directive, posted on “political advocacy” by Ronald Meisburg, the National Labor Relations Board general counsel, enables bosses to immediately fire employees who participate in work stoppages of a political nature. The ruling occurred when immigrant workers skipped work to attend a protest against immigration legislation.

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Businesses Cave

Businesses in Colorado recently struck a bargain to spend up to $3 million to defeat 3 measures on a current ballot that would limit certain union activities. In exchange, Labor agreed to pull 4 measures that were not favorable to business.

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New! Interview Transcript

An Interview with Don Wilson: The EFCA. This is a complete interview with the CEO of Labor Relations Institute on the Employee Free Choice Act and its impact on American businesses.

Pre-Election Special! There is still time to educate your employees about the dangerous impact of the Employee Free Choice Act prior to the November election. We are offering the About the EFCA module from our EFCA Tool Kit for only $895. You still have time to make a difference! Review
the details and preview the videos here.

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ULP Charge of the Month

Pot calls the kettle black in this one. This SEIU local told their staff, organized as the Brotherhood of Support Staff, that their union no longer existed and that the BUSS organizers were racketeers.

Download a PDF of the ULP here.

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Union Loses Big

An arbitrator awarded a construction contractor $10,000,000 in damages against the Chicago Carpenters Union. The award sustained a grievance alleging that the Union engaged in a course of conduct designed to put the contractor out of business.

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Sticky Fingers!

Current charges or sentences of embezzling union officials:

L. Mark Hurley – CT Assoc. of Prosecutors: $80,000

Thomas Leonard & Steven Thomas – LIUNA: $30,000

Scott Gehringer & Alex Margaritis – IAIW: $16,000

Jeanette McFarland – GMP: $7,604

Kathleene Bigham – BMWE: $15,000

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Labor Relations INK is published semi-weekly and
is edited by Labor Relations Institute, Inc. Feel
free to pass this newsletter on to anyone you
think might enjoy it. New subscribers can sign up
by visiting:

http://lrionline.com/free-stuff/newsletter-signup

If you use content from this newsletter please
attribute it to Labor Relations Institute and
include our website address: www.LRIonline.com

Contributing editors for this issue: Phillip Wilson, Greg Kittinger

Labor Relations Institute
7850 South Elm Place – Suite E
Broken Arrow, OK
74011
US

INK: September 11, 2008

Labor Relations INK

Download a PDF of this issue with links here.

The Stench of Scandal

In a new attempt to shape up the SEIU ship, president Andy Stern has requested the help of two labor reform groups, both of which are skeptical of Stern’s proposal. The SEIU placed Tyrone Freeman, a senior manager at its biggest California local, on leave and two lower-ranking staffers lost their jobs, because of allegations that other employees were retaliated against in connection with a widening spending scandal. Disclosure of their conduct has launched a federal criminal investigation and a congressional inquiry. Part of Stern’s plan involves a new “ethics code” and an internal watchdog commission, but as Herman Benson, founder of the Association for Union Democracy said, “Why does he need a new code of ethics? People didn’t know that what they were doing was wrong? It’s preposterous.” Ken Paff of the Teamsters for a Democratic Union chastised the SEIU for not taking action sooner on the misdeads of an LA-based local. “How could they not know?” Paff said of the SEIU’s national leadership.

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$100 Million Per Day Flushed

The 27,000 plus striking workers at Boeing will cost the company $100 Million of lost revenue for every day the strike lasts. It will also disrupt the already-behind-schedule of the new 787 Dreamliner, perhaps exposing the company to demands for compensation from airlines frustrated by further delays. Scott Carson, Boeing’s head of commercial aircraft, said: “Over the past two days, Boeing, the union [International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers] and the federal mediator worked hard in pursuing options that could lead to an agreement. Unfortunately, the differences were too great to close.” In 2005, the Machinists struck for 24 days, and this is the second strike in as many contract negotiations with Boeing. The 2005 strike caused the delayed delivery of over two dozen airplanes. Thirty-year Boeing employee Ed Zvonik, said of the expected length of the strike, “It could be a couple of days, or three months. It depends on whether the company wants them to go back to work,” he said. As of July, Boeing reported a backlog of airplane orders totaling $346 billion.

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Republicans Respond to EFCA Threat

The GOP is adding a plank to their policy platform that safeguards a workers right to unionize through secret-ballot elections and protects them from corruption and intimidation. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said of the move, “I think that it’s just a principle of American democracy that you should be able to choose to be a member of a union or not be a member of a union, and you should be able to make that choice without anything rigged either way.”

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Only In a Union

Staff members of the SEIU Florida Public Service Union were forced to file a petition to gain recognition of their collective bargaining agent, the Communication Workers of America (CWA). Apparently, although Big Labor would like to force card check recognition on the rest of the country via the Employee Free Choice Act, they do not believe in giving the same opportunity to their employees.

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SEIU Sabotages Student Efforts

Andy Stern’s union torpedoed the efforts of students attempting to aid in the organizing of service workers on four campuses. In an open letter to SEIU, the students complained of being treated as “pawns.”

An agreement signed by SEIU and service employers caused the ruckus. The agreement, grants those companies the right to determine where SEIU will organize. Interesting that SEIU is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to promote the Employee Free Choice Act, stating the need for workers to have the right to individually choose whether or not they desire a union, while at the same time entering into master agreements that insure workers at certain company locations will never even have the opportunity to choose.

Nelson Lichtenstein, a professor of history at the University of California at Santa Barbara and director of the UC-Santa Barbara’s Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy, said of the agreement, “It does have a bad odor to it, absolutely.”

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ULP Charge of the Month

Concerned about mismanagement by his Steelworkers Local 386 officials, this member was forced to file 3 different ULP Charges to review phone and credit card records.

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Most Decertified Union Award

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is the winner of Union Free America’s 3rd Annual award, given to the labor union that lost the most decertification elections during the preceding 12 months.

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Sticky Fingers!

Current charges or sentences of embezzling union officials:

Donna Simpson – USW: $87,823

Kenneth Saltz – USW: $15,809

Jamie Solis – USW: $15,000

Katherine Leese – FOP: $87,000

Amy Cross – Utility Workers: $31,886

Brian Dolney – IAM: $11,565

Gerald Conaway – FOP: $5,500

Willie Chambers – Int’l Guards Union: $6,805

Rebecca Montgomery – IAM: $508

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Labor Relations INK is published semi-weekly and
is edited by Labor Relations Institute, Inc. Feel
free to pass this newsletter on to anyone you
think might enjoy it. New subscribers can sign up
by visiting:

http://lrionline.com/free-stuff/newsletter-signup

If you use content from this newsletter please
attribute it to Labor Relations Institute and
include our website address: www.LRIonline.com

Contributing editors for this issue: Phillip Wilson, Greg Kittinger

Labor Relations Institute
7850 South Elm Place – Suite E
Broken Arrow, OK
74011
US