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In this issue:
Union Bailout Update Bill Would Permit Merit Pay in Union Shops Machinists Striking Once a Member Always a Member Labor Relations Insight, Sticky Fingers and more…
NOTICE: You can make a PDF of this issue of INK directly from the post. Click here for instructions on how to do so.
http://lrionline.com/easy-way-to-make-our-posts-and-ink-issues-into-pdfs
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Labor Relations Insight by Phillip Wilson
What have we learned in the first week of the “ambush election” rules?
There are two questions I’ve been asked a lot over the last couple of months, and especially in the last week:
Will petitions increase after the new “ambush election” rules go into effect? How far will election times decrease under the new “ambush election” rules?
Here’s what we’ve seen
Continue reading INK May 10, 2012
 Union pickets could spoil the grand opening of Revel, Atlantic City’s newest casino, on Memorial Day weekend. The Teamsters, the UAW and UNITE HERE are ready to carve up the spoils claiming Revel workers need a union before any of them has spent even one real day on their job.
UNITE HERE has been chest-bumping the new casino since it was in the planning stages over tax breaks the casino has received and a plan to “term limit” all customer service employees to five years. And all three unions are pressuring Revel for recognition without the messiness of an election or workplace democracy.
“Revel has received a proposal from the three unions to hand Revel professionals over to these unions without an election,”
Continue reading Unions Gang Up on Revel In Atlantic City
 Actor/Producer Mark Walberg and the A&E Network have begun filming of a new reality show that will “focus on the lives and struggles of members of Boston’s Teamsters Local 25.” The union’s president Sean O’Brien, told reporters the show’s crew filmed Local 25’s membership meeting just over a week ago, (now there’s some riveting television) and that they’ll come back to get more footage as soon as all parties involved “tie up some legal issues.”
According to A&E, the show is “set in the real-life world that provided such color to films as The Fighter and The Departed.” The network says the show will also give viewers “a first hand glimpse of the most legendary union in the most aggressive and territorial city in America:
Continue reading Filming Starts on “Teamsters” Reality Show
 Labor Notes is now reporting that Teamsters bosses are telling their members at Hostess that it may be better to “remove” their bankrupt employer with a strike this spring than continue to negotiate with “a company set on destroying union standards.” Killing off the Twinkie would also presumably “clear the field” for unionized competitors to “pick up the pieces” and play nice with Teamsters. (Or else.)
A strike would “almost certainly put Hostess’ Brands out of business,” read a memo from the union’s bakery division director. “We wish we had better alternatives—but we do not.” The union is negotiating for “significant governance” and “significant equity” in Hostess should it survive and claims Hostess is not seeking substantial enough concessions from its lenders
Continue reading Confirmed: Teamsters Have a Hit Out on the Twinkie
 Current charges or sentences of embezzling union officials:
Natasha Bever CWA
$117,378
Pamela Hinzman APWU
$26,261
Joseph Ray Gonzalez, Jr. IGUA
$13,800
Amy Pullen NALC
$4,876
Kenneth Schmidt BLET
$1,373
Federck Petro AFGE
$100,000
Graven Townsend USW
$100,000
Gerardo and Vincent Fusella, Jr. IBT
$1,000,000
Kenneth Aurecchia UA
$125,000
Joseph Meizlik SPFPA
$9,122
http://www.nlpc.org/union-corruption-update
  
 The Red Cross of Northern Ohio was forced to cancel its single biggest blood drive of the year this week when (coincidentally) Teamsters Local 507 took 250 blood collection workers out on strike on Tuesday. The Red Cross has been in negotiations with the union since August and talks with a federal mediator broke down last week.
The union has rejected the identical offer accepted by 14 other collection worker locals around the country. That offer includes the same healthcare benefits package the Red Cross offers all its non-union employees.
A spokesperson for the Red Cross said negotiations stalled only on the healthcare issue although the union is now making claims of short staffing that they say threatens the safety of the blood supply. (If
Continue reading Teamsters Strike Halts Ohio Blood Drives
 should a bankruptcy judge allow the company to abandon current collective bargaining agreements. The company has said it needs out from under prohibitively expensive union pension plans and onerous union work rules in order to emerge from bankruptcy.
The union has refused to budge since September on allowing Hostess to pull out of several Teamsters’ multi-employer pension plans that transfer the cost of retirements from companies driven out of business onto the backs of those “Teamsterized” companies that are still managing to survive. Hostess has repeatedly said it is willing to assume the cost of all of its own employees’ retirements as promised but they need out of the legacy plans to survive. Hostess is now well over a billion dollars in debt to upside-down IBT and Bakery union pension funds.
“This
Continue reading Teamsters Authorize Twinkie Strike
 Confirming what we already knew, Hostess has asked its bankruptcy judge to rewrite its collective bargaining commitments and modify its pension obligations. The company claims labor costs, “arcane work rules” and union pension plan debt load put Hostess at a “profound competitive disadvantage.”
The company says it is going through a “cash burn” of $2 million per week, and that the competitive burden of its multiple convoluted collective bargaining agreement obligations has “never been meaningfully addressed.”
The Teamsters responded, as one would expect, with the usual union blubbering, even as the union still demands that Hostess and Wonder products be delivered on separate trucks and Teamsters truck drivers never be required to touch product. And, per usual, the union confuses blaming the union with blaming the workers who
Continue reading Twinkie Demise Update
 Since 2009, a Change to Win campaign, Warehouse Workers United, has been running attacks on employers in California’s “Inland Empire.” WWU is a joint venture of SEIU, UFCW, and the Teamsters. This week, Labor Notes gives us a glimpse into how corporate campaigns are built and, more importantly, why certain employers and not others are in the crosshairs.
In what is certainly no coincidence, the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement has been investigating cases of wage theft by employers who just happen to employ WWU activists. The campaign has also solicited workers into class-action lawsuits against those same employers to collect “stolen” wages. (Suits are based on the charge that workers paid by the piece were
Continue reading A Peek Into Inland Empire Corporate Campaign Tactics
 Union propaganda. There’s an app for that!
A quick search of the Apple app store has turned up five interesting union related apps.
Most intriguing, an app called “Labor News” does not appear sponsored by any one union entity and much of its content seems to come straight from the Department of Labor. However blog posts read like union press releases and the news feed seems to pull from a range of sources nothing but positive stories about unions, in both English and Spanish. And yet there is no logo, other than that of the app developer. We are slowly reaching right now for our tin foil hats.
The “UFCW 5” app allows members access to union news stories, job postings, enrollment cards, negotiation updates, ways
Continue reading Social Media Spotlight
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