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Largest Union Decides to Bolt AFL-CIO
By RON FOURNIER, AP Political Writer 42 minutes ago
CHICAGO - The AFL-CIO succumbed to division Sunday, with its largest union deciding to bolt the 50-year-old federation and three others poised to do so in a dispute over how to reverse organized labor's long slide.

The four unions, representing nearly one-third of the AFL-CIO's 13 million members, announced Sunday they would boycott the federation's convention that begins Monday. They are part of the Coalition to Win, a group of seven unions vowing to reform the labor movement — outside the AFL-CIO if necessary.

The Service Employees International Union, with 1.8 million members, plans to announce Monday that it is leaving the AFL-CIO, said several labor officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the developments.

The Teamsters union also was on the verge of disaffiliating, and would likely to be the first to follow SEIU's lead, the officials said. Two other boycotting unions were likely to leave the federation: United Food and Commercial Workers and UNITE HERE, a group of textile and hotel workers.

"Our differences are so fundamental and so principled that at this point I don't think there is a chance there will be a change of course," said UFCW President Joe Hansen.

"Our differences have become unresolvable," said Anna Burger, chairman of the Change to Win Coalition which is setting itself up to be a rival of the AFL-CIO. "Today will be remembered as a rebirth of union strength in America."

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, expected to easily win re-election over the objections of the dissidents, said his team "bent over backward" to appease the dissidents "until it's given us a pain in the you-know-where." SEIU president Andy Stern, leading the breakaway effort, is a former protege of Sweeney's.

"It's a shame for working people that before the first vote has been cast, four unions have decided that if they can't win, they won't show up for the game," Sweeney said.

Gerald McEntee, president of a government employees' union with more than 1 million members, accused his boycotting colleagues of aiding labor's political foes. "The only people who happy about this are President Bush and his crowd," the Sweeney ally said.

Rank-and-file members of the 52 non-boycotting AFL-CIO affiliates expressed confusion and anger over the action. "If there was ever a time we workers need to stick together, it's today," said Olegario Bustamante, a steelworker from Cicero, Ill.

The boycott means the unions will not pay $7 million in back dues to the AFL-CIO on Monday, an act that some labor officials consider tantamount to quitting the federation. If all four boycotting unions quit the federation, they would take about $35 million from the AFL-CIO, which has already been forced to layoff a quarter of its 400-person staff.

Two other unions that are part of the Change to Win Coalition did not plan to leave the Chicago convention: the Laborers International Union of North America and the United Farm Workers. They are the least likely of the coalition members to leave the AFL-CIO, though the Laborers show signs of edging that way, officials said.

The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, the seventh member of the coalition, left the AFL-CIO in 2002.

Leaders of the dissident unions say the AFL-CIO leadership has failed to stop the steep decline in union membership. In addition to seeking the ouster of Sweeney, they have demanded more money for organizing, power to force mergers of smaller unions and other changes they say are key to adapting to vast changes in society and the economy.

Globalization, automation and the transition from an industrial-based economy have forced hundreds of thousands of unionized workers out of jobs, weakening labor's role in the workplace.

When the AFL-CIO formed 50 years ago, union membership was at its zenith with one of every three private-sector workers belonging to a labor group. Now, less than 8 percent of private-sector workers are unionized.

The dissidents largely represent workers in retail and service sectors, the heart of the emerging new U.S. economy. Sweeney's allies are primarily industrial unions whose workers are facing the brunt of global economic shifts.

A divided labor movement worries Democratic leaders who rely on the AFL-CIO's money and manpower on Election Day.

"Anything that sidetracks us from our goals ... is not healthy," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (news, bio, voting record), D-Ill., chairman of the House campaign committee.

In the 2004 campaign, unions ran nearly 260 phone banks and mailed out at least 30 million pieces of political literature in 16 states, mostly on behalf of Democrats.

Experts said the split might deepen labor's woes.

"Employer opposition to organizing might increase and I think that political opponents might feel emboldened, because they would see it as a sign of weakness," said Gary Chaison, industrial relations professor at Clark University in Worcester, Mass.

Others said competition might be good for the labor movement.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050724...FlI2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
 
Int'l unions to strategize in Chicago

Int'l unions to strategize in Chicago
By Alonso Soto Sat Aug 20, 8:33 AM ET

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Union leaders from around the globe gather in Chicago next week to craft a joint strategy to boost unionization in the developing world, and especially to target the U.S.-based retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Union Network International's annual convention will gather 1,500 delegates from some 150 countries in Chicago to share labor strategies and discuss ways unions can collaborate over international borders.

"We want more organizing initiatives on a global scale," UNI spokesman Noel Howell said. "We want global rules and global standards for workers everywhere."

The convention comes only a month after a schism in the American labor movement where three unions formally split from the umbrella American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations.

The AFL-CIO lost one-third of its membership, or 4.6 million members, with the disaffiliation of the Service Employees International Union, International Brotherhood of Teamsters and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).

All three disaffiliated unions will participate in the meeting of UNI, which is in its fifth year and represents 15 million workers, most from service industries.

Union leaders said their decision to leave the AFL-CIO was the culmination of years of complaints that too few resources were spent on organizing efforts to arrest a decades-long decline in U.S. union membership.

GLOBAL CAMPAIGNS

While increasing organizing efforts in the United States may be a priority for the three giant U.S. unions, coordinated global campaigns are also on the horizon.

"We think that this is an important moment in history and a terrific opportunity to act globally," said Stephen Lerner, a director at the Service Workers union. "They are global companies and we need to be global unions."

Among topics to be considered will be whether to channel resources to unionization efforts in the developing world, where Wal-Mart and other multinationals have operations, Howell said.

UNI officials have spoken with Wal-Mart workers in Argentina and Brazil, and will continue organizing efforts in India, considered a likely future destination for the retailer.

"Wal-Mart and other multinationals better be worried," about union organizing in Asia, Latin America and the rest of the developing world, said Bill Adams, a labor relations consultant with Adams, Nash, Haskell & Sheridan.

Other companies expected to be discussed as union targets are T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE) and Britain's Group4 Securicor (GFS.L) (GR4SEC.CO).

LOW PRICES

Beloved by shoppers for its low prices, Wal-Mart maintains that unions are unwanted and unnecessary for its 1.6 million workers -- who are referred to as "associates" and says it is unfairly stigmatized because it is such a large employer.

"In many of the countries in which we operate we are considered one of the best places to work. You'd have to ask the union why they would pick Wal-Mart as their target," said Bill Wertz, a spokesman for Wal-Mart's international operations.

The world's biggest retailer has become a lightning rod for critics who say it mistreats workers, pushes wages down throughout the industry and that its poverty-level wages force employees to rely on public assistance to support their families, in the form of Medicaid health insurance for the poor, food stamps for groceries and state housing subsidies.

In April, the retailing behemoth closed a store in Quebec, Canada after its workers voted to join the UFCW. In 2000, it eliminated all U.S. meatpacking positions after meatpackers in Texas voted to unionize.

Philip Jennings, general secretary of the Switzerland-based UNI, appealed in a letter to Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott for a meeting to discuss its workers' rights. Jennings said in the letter that he would welcome Wal-Mart's "active participation" in the discussion.

The same week in Chicago, delegates from the United Auto Workers that represent unionized workers at car maker General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM - news) and auto parts supplier Delphi Corp. (NYSE:DPH - news) will meet to discuss such issues as company demands for changes on health coverage and pensions.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050820...0dZ.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
 
In globalization twist, unions target Wal-Mart worldwide

In globalization twist, unions target Wal-Mart worldwide
Sun Aug 21, 3:56 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A global coalition of unions is launching an unprecedented campaign to organize workers around the world at US retail giant Wal-Mart, seeking to bring a new level of globalization to the labor movement.

The Wal-Mart campaign was set to be officially launched at a meeting in Chicago Monday of Union Network International (UNI), a group that includes 900 unions in some 140 countries.

The campaign aims to draw from labor organizations around the world to pressure Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer and largest private company in terms of revenues, and a frequent target of unions for driving down wages as well as prices.

Union leaders said they hope to bring collective bargaining or other improvements to the estimated 1.6 million Wal-Mart employees around the world -- possibly even in countries such as China, where western-style unions are non-existent.

"Our message is that unions are adapting to a borderless world," says UNI general secretary Philip Jennings.

UNI said it "wants to stop the Wal-Martization of the world by bringing together unions in different countries to organize the retail giant's workers and bring them the benefits of collective organization."

The global effort on Wal-Mart escalates a longstanding feud with the retailer and the US-based United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), which has accused the retailer of "union-busting" efforts to keep US stores from unionizing.

Wal-Mart maintains that it has no official ban on unions, but in a statement on its website argues that in the United States, "we simply do not believe that unionization is right for Wal-Mart."

Globally, Wal-Mart spokeswoman Beth Keck said, Wal-Mart "is seen as a model and premier employer in many of the countries around the world."

She added: "Our policy is to operate within regulatory and customary business practices everywhere we operate. Our employees can choose whether they want to be union members or not, and overwhelmingly they have not."

The union gathering comes as UNI is currently presided by UFCW chief Joe Hansen, who has led campaigns against Wal-Mart in the United States.

According to a statement from UFCW, Wal-Mart "pays poverty wages, ships jobs to countries where sweatshops are prevalent and, in the US, shifts enormous health care costs onto taxpayers."

Additionally, the union said that because of its size, Wal-Mart is able to drive down wages and benefits, which "has become the new global economic model" followed by many other firms.

"This meeting is about creating more effective global unionization," UFCW spokesman Jim Papian said earlier. "It's the only answer to meeting the challenges of the global economy."

"We reject the Wal-Mart way and, at Chicago, UNI will be imagining a better future for working people everywhere," added Jennings. "We will work with the UFCW and those unions already established in Wal-Mart in Europe and elsewhere to stop a damaging race to the bottom."

According to UNI, Wal-Mart employees have formed unions in Germany, Japan, Brazil and other countries.

UNI and the UFCW said they have started a "dialogue" with unions in China on organizing western multinationals there and have set up a liaison office in India, even though there are currently no Wal-Mart stores in that country.

Dan Cornfield, a Vanderbilt University professor of sociology, says the plan is a bold effort to reinvigorate the labor movement, and is reminiscent of the 1930s, when unions took on the growing manufacturing sector in the United States.

"UNI taking on Wal-Mart is also the classic showdown between David and Goliath," he said.

"Wal-Mart is a savvy and resourceful corporation, and its employees represent the type of low-wage workers labor unions have gone after to increase their dwindling membership. Post-World War II, recruiting low-wage workers in the corporate service sector has been where the action is for labor unions."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/2005082...puFOrgF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
 
Re: In globalization twist, unions target Wal-Mart worldwide

Greed said:
In globalization twist, unions target Wal-Mart worldwide
Sun Aug 21, 3:56 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A global coalition of unions is launching an unprecedented campaign to organize workers around the world at US retail giant Wal-Mart, seeking to bring a new level of globalization to the labor movement.

The Wal-Mart campaign was set to be officially launched at a meeting in Chicago Monday of Union Network International (UNI), a group that includes 900 unions in some 140 countries.

The campaign aims to draw from labor organizations around the world to pressure Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer and largest private company in terms of revenues, and a frequent target of unions for driving down wages as well as prices.

Union leaders said they hope to bring collective bargaining or other improvements to the estimated 1.6 million Wal-Mart employees around the world -- possibly even in countries such as China, where western-style unions are non-existent.

"Our message is that unions are adapting to a borderless world," says UNI general secretary Philip Jennings.

UNI said it "wants to stop the Wal-Martization of the world by bringing together unions in different countries to organize the retail giant's workers and bring them the benefits of collective organization."

The global effort on Wal-Mart escalates a longstanding feud with the retailer and the US-based United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), which has accused the retailer of "union-busting" efforts to keep US stores from unionizing.

Wal-Mart maintains that it has no official ban on unions, but in a statement on its website argues that in the United States, "we simply do not believe that unionization is right for Wal-Mart."

Globally, Wal-Mart spokeswoman Beth Keck said, Wal-Mart "is seen as a model and premier employer in many of the countries around the world."

She added: "Our policy is to operate within regulatory and customary business practices everywhere we operate. Our employees can choose whether they want to be union members or not, and overwhelmingly they have not."

The union gathering comes as UNI is currently presided by UFCW chief Joe Hansen, who has led campaigns against Wal-Mart in the United States.

According to a statement from UFCW, Wal-Mart "pays poverty wages, ships jobs to countries where sweatshops are prevalent and, in the US, shifts enormous health care costs onto taxpayers."

Additionally, the union said that because of its size, Wal-Mart is able to drive down wages and benefits, which "has become the new global economic model" followed by many other firms.

"This meeting is about creating more effective global unionization," UFCW spokesman Jim Papian said earlier. "It's the only answer to meeting the challenges of the global economy."

"We reject the Wal-Mart way and, at Chicago, UNI will be imagining a better future for working people everywhere," added Jennings. "We will work with the UFCW and those unions already established in Wal-Mart in Europe and elsewhere to stop a damaging race to the bottom."

According to UNI, Wal-Mart employees have formed unions in Germany, Japan, Brazil and other countries.

UNI and the UFCW said they have started a "dialogue" with unions in China on organizing western multinationals there and have set up a liaison office in India, even though there are currently no Wal-Mart stores in that country.

Dan Cornfield, a Vanderbilt University professor of sociology, says the plan is a bold effort to reinvigorate the labor movement, and is reminiscent of the 1930s, when unions took on the growing manufacturing sector in the United States.

"UNI taking on Wal-Mart is also the classic showdown between David and Goliath," he said.

"Wal-Mart is a savvy and resourceful corporation, and its employees represent the type of low-wage workers labor unions have gone after to increase their dwindling membership. Post-World War II, recruiting low-wage workers in the corporate service sector has been where the action is for labor unions."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/2005082...puFOrgF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
Click to expand...
so the unions want to bust into Wal-Mart because the Wal-Mart way is to pay poverty wages and ship jobs overseas to countries with sweatshop labor. But if they have unionization and collective bargaining, wages and benefits will go up which gives Wal-Mart much more incentive to ship more jobs overseas and use more sweatshop labor.

isn't the endgame more outsourcing in the US and another loss for the unions? if so, why waste time doing this? if not, what do they really expect the unionization of Wal-Mart to result in?
 
Re: In globalization twist, unions target Wal-Mart worldwide

Labor Day Bump.
 
Detroit bankruptcy another setback for unions

Detroit bankruptcy another setback for unions
By SAM HANANEL | Associated Press
Sat, Jul 27, 2013

WASHINGTON (AP) — Detroit's historic bankruptcy filing is a major setback for public employee unions that have spent years trying to ward off cuts to the pensions of millions of government workers around the country.

If the city's gambit succeeds, it could jeopardize an important bargaining tool for unions, which often have deferred higher wages in favor of more generous pensions and health benefits.

It also could embolden other financially troubled cities dealing with pension shortfalls to consider bankruptcy, or at least take a harder line with their unions in negotiating cuts.

"This is essentially the union's worst nightmare, said Gary Chaison, professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. "It means that the most sacred of sacred things they've negotiated for, the pensions of their retired members, are going to be severely cut."

Detroit's bankruptcy filing comes on the heels of some public unions losing most of their collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin. At the same time, the unions have shed thousands of members as state and local governments shrink public payrolls. The crisis of underfunded public pensions could further erode union clout.

From Chicago to Cincinnati to Santa Fe, N.M., dozens of cities and counties are struggling with massive debt linked to pension liabilities. Critics say state and city employees won generous defined benefit pensions and lifetime health care from elected officials trying to curry favor with public sector unions.

Unlike private employers that must fund such defined benefit pensions under the Employee Retirement Security Act, government employers are not covered by that statute. As a result, many elected officials approved such plans, leaving the financial consequences for future leaders to handle.

If cities such as Detroit can use bankruptcy or other tactics to reduce pension obligations, government employees could become less interested in union membership, said Charles Craver, a George Washington University law professor specializing in labor relations. That would be another dose of bad news for the steadily shrinking labor movement, especially because public employees now make up over half of all union members.

"Union leaders should go to the bargaining table and try to address this issue through negotiations, but they fear being thrown out of office if they agree to any cutbacks," Craver said, referring to pensions.

Detroit's financial woes were aggravated by widespread corruption, financial mismanagement, the auto industry collapse and a dramatically shrunken tax base as people moved out. The city has long-term debts of at least $18 billion, including $3.5 billion in unfunded pensions and $5.7 billion in underfunded health benefits for about 21,000 retired workers. The rest is owed to bondholders and other unsecured creditors.

About 7.3 million government workers belong to a union. The union membership rate for public sector workers is about 40 percent, much higher than the 6.6 percent rate in the private sector.

The fallout from Detroit could lead to more acrimonious contract negotiations between cities and union, said John Beck, a professor of labor relations at Michigan State University.
"If I'm a union and bargaining, where I used to be willing to defer wages in form of pensions, I'm going to bargain for what I can get right now because I can't be sure whether those future wages are going to be protected," Beck said.

Unions, led by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, have launched a furious legal challenge to the Detroit's bankruptcy petition, arguing that Michigan's constitution law does not allow public pension obligations to be diminished. But a federal bankruptcy judge dealt a blow to that tactic last week, halting any state lawsuits that would interfere with the bankruptcy proceeding.

"Government entities declaring bankruptcy, it's really a government going to war with its own people," said Steven Kreisberg, director of collective bargaining for AFSCME. He said trying to reduce pensions is unfair to those who worked for years in good faith and expected to depend on those benefits in old age.

The average pension for retired city employees other than firefighters and police officers is quite modest, Kreisberg said, at about $19,000 annually. Retired fire and police get about $30,000 in pension benefits, higher since they are not part of the Social Security system.

While other cities in financial trouble might be willing to follow Detroit's lead, Kreisberg said the stigma of bankruptcy and its long-term damage to a city's financial future make that unlikely. But if there is a national epidemic of pension defaults, it could change what unions would demand in terms of funding levels.

"We may seek legislation to guarantee that employers are making their payments," Kreisberg said.

The AFL-CIO has called on President Barack Obama and Congress to offer immediate financial aid to Detroit. The labor federation also wants any federal aid to be matched by the state of Michigan.

"As the nation emerges from the worst of the Great Recession, it is time for Congress and the White House to make it clear they will not turn their backs on our urban centers," said Lee Saunders, president of AFSCME and chairman of the AFL-CIO's political committee.

But the White House appears reluctant to intervene. White House spokesman Jay Carney has said the city's insolvency should be resolved by local leaders and creditors and that the Obama administration has no plans to provide a federal bailout.

Carney said the administration was ready to provide other forms of assistance, such as investment opportunities or help for blighted neighborhoods hit hard by the recession.

http://news.yahoo.com/detroit-bankruptcy-another-setback-unions-141802566.html
 
60495_10151579758376275_1839235797_n.jpg
 

The United Auto Workers may well be on the verge
of accomplishing a longstanding and elusive goal:
organizing a foreign car maker on American soil.

Tennessee Republicans are blowing a gasket at
the possibility of the UAW gaining
a toehold in their state

​

​





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<A HREF="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/09/why-a-foreign-car-maker-might-be-about-to-say-yes-to-a-us-union/279657/">link</A>

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Wis. labor panel won't stop union restrictions

Wis. labor panel won't stop union restrictions
Wisconsin labor panel refuses to stand down on union restrictions, risks contempt of court
By Todd Richmond, Associated Press | Associated Press
23 hrs ago

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Wisconsin labor relations officials refused a demand Monday to stop enforcing provisions of Gov. Scott Walker's contentious public union restrictions against local government unions, brushing aside allegations they're violating a court order.

Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission Chairman James R. Scott said the panel is working to set up hundreds of union certification elections as prescribed in the restrictions and hasn't defied any order. Union attorneys vowed to file a court motion on Tuesday asking a judge to hold the panel in contempt.

The Republican-controlled Legislature in 2011 passed a Walker proposal that stripped almost all public employees of nearly all their union rights. The plan also requires unions to hold annual elections to avoid decertification.

A federal judge in Madison and a federal appeals court have upheld the restrictions in separate lawsuits. But Dane County Circuit Court Judge Juan Colas ruled last year that the restrictions were unconstitutional as applied to two unions representing Madison teachers and Milwaukee public workers.

It's unclear whether the ruling applies to local government unions across Wisconsin, though. The state Supreme Court has agreed to take the case. WERC, the body that oversees labor relations with municipal public employees, has been preparing to hold annual certification elections for more than 400 unions in November regardless.

The Madison teachers and Milwaukee workers unions asked Colas for an injunction blocking WERC from holding the elections. Colas issued a ruling last week saying his decision applies across the board but stopped short of issuing an injunction, creating more confusion.

Attorneys for six unions that weren't involved in the Madison-Milwaukee lawsuit, including the state's largest teachers union, sent WERC a letter Friday warning the commission that continuing to prepare for the elections violates Colas' order. If the panel didn't stop its work by Monday the attorneys promised to seek an order holding it in contempt of court.

WERC met in closed session Monday morning to decide its next move. Scott sent a terse, two-sentence letter to the unions' lead attorney, Timothy Hawks, Monday afternoon saying more than 400 unions have asked for re-certification elections and panel members don't believe proceeding with them puts them in contempt of any court order.

Peter Davis, the commission's chief counsel, didn't immediately return a message seeking elaboration on the panel's position.

Hawks said in a statement that the unions gave WERC a chance to "correct their behavior" and now will file a motion asking Colas to hold the panel in contempt.

Lester Pines is an attorney representing both the Kenosha Education Association, one of the six unions that demanded WERC stop the elections, and the Madison teachers. He said WERC is essentially arguing it's merely doing what the unions asked. But the unions had no choice but to ask for the elections, he said; if they hadn't asked for them by Aug. 30 they would have been decertified automatically.

"That is chutzpah," Pines said of the panel's response.

http://news.yahoo.com/wis-labor-panel-wont-stop-134033456.html
 
US auto union close to big win thanks to Germany's VW

US auto union close to big win thanks to Germany's VW
By Joseph Szczesny | AFP
Sat, Feb 1, 2014

Detroit (AFP) - American labor leaders are closing in on a decades-long goal of organizing a factory run by a foreign automaker, thanks to a bridgehead opened up at Germany's Volkswagen.

While a vote has not yet been scheduled, the United Auto Workers says that a majority of the 1,700 workers at VW's plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee have signed cards asking for union representation.

A win at VW would increase pressure on fellow German automakers BMW and Daimler AG to open the door to unionization efforts at their US facilities.

It could even boost the union's claims for recognition at factories run by Japan's Nissan, Honda and Toyota and South Korea's Kia and Hyundai.

Despite strong traditions of organized labor in their home countries, German, Japanese and South Korean automakers have strongly resisted unionization efforts in the United States.

Most of their plants are located in southern states where anti-union sentiments run high and 'right to work' laws make it difficult for unions to get a foothold.

The foreign carmakers have also kept workers satisfied by offering wages and benefits that are in line with, or even exceed, those won by unions at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler plants.

But European unions -- facing plant closures at home amidst a deep and lengthy downturn -- have been pressuring VW and other German carmakers to give US workers a seat on their global works councils, which gives employees a say in the management of the company.

"The German unions want to see those plants unionized," said John Russo, a labor specialist at Virginia Tech University.

"They think it is important to their future. They don’t want labor relations in Germany to follow an American model."

Convincing southern workers to pay union dues isn't easy, especially after the United Auto Workers was blamed for the downfall of the Detroit Three carmakers.

The layoff of 500 temporary workers as a result of slowing sales of VW's Passat has increased job security concerns.

Improved labor relations as a result of the major concessions the UAW made to help GM and Chrysler emerge from bankruptcy protection have also helped.

But the UAW has VW management to thank for much of its success.

The German automaker opened talks with the union in September to find a way to get its workers in Tennessee a seat on the German automaker's global works council.

Such councils are only allowed in the United States if they include union representatives.

Then in December, VW abruptly ousted Jonathan Browning -- who had spoken publicly about his opposition to the UAW -- as head of US operations.

While the personnel move was prompted by disappointing sales, which stalled VW's expansion in the key US market, the union is certainly grateful that Browning's replacement is seen to be a friend to labor.

"People have to be able to choose which way they want to go," Volkswagen Group of America chief Michael Horn told reporters in his first visit to the Detroit auto show since taking the helm.

VW's decision to sit down with UAW ignited a political controversy in Tennessee that spilled over into neighboring states such as Mississippi and Alabama.

Conservative politicians from governors all the way down to local county commissioners have denounced both the UAW and Volkswagen -- and warned that they will have trouble attracting new businesses if the union gets a foothold.

The possibility of a historic win for the UAW comes as the American labor movement is fighting for its survival.

The rate of unionization in the United States has dropped to its lowest since the 1930s: a paltry 11.3 percent.

The UAW alone has seen its membership rolls plummet from a peak of 1.5 million in 1979 to 383,000 today.

UAW President Bob King has repeatedly praised VW's global management team for dealing fairly with the union issue.

“We had some issues with the local management but those have been resolved,” King said in a recent speech in Detroit. "The notion that Southern workers do not want a union is false.”

Bringing German-style labor relations to the United States could change labor dynamics across the entire auto industry, said Harley Shaiken, a labor expert at the University of California Berkeley.

"They view the relationship with employees as critical," he told AFP. "The relationship is more important than the anti-union ideology harbored by local political figures around the Chattanooga plant."

http://news.yahoo.com/us-auto-union-close-big-win-thanks-germany-034945292.html
 
Anti-union groups worries of VW recognition of UAW

Anti-union groups worries of VW recognition of UAW
Anti-union group raises concerns that Volkswagen could recognize UAW without vote
April 7, 2014 5:40 PM

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- An anti-union group on Monday raised concerns that Volkswagen could move to recognize the United Auto Workers at its Tennessee plant without a vote.

The Center for Worker Freedom said in a release that it would be a "betrayal" of the workers at the Chattanooga plant to recognize the UAW even though they voted 712-626 against the union in February.

The National Labor Relations Board is scheduled to hold an April 21 hearing on the UAW's challenge of the union vote on allegations that Republican politicians interfered with a fair outcome.

"If the company lets the union walk in anyway, it will have made clear its contempt not only for its workers and the state of Tennessee, but the democratic principle itself," Matt Patterson, the group's executive director, said in the release.

A Volkswagen spokesman did not return a message seeking comment. Gary Casteel, a regional director for the UAW, said he would not respond to "idle speculation by anti-union groups."

"The UAW has a good relationship with Volkswagen and its works council leadership. Volkswagen operates with a high level of integrity and has deep respect for workers' rights," Casteel said in an email.

Volkswagen wants to establish a works council at the plant, which would represent both hourly and salaried employees. But the German automaker has said U.S. law requires the company to work with an independent union to represent the blue collar employees.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/anti-union-groups-worries-vw-214021723.html
 
The Supreme Court Just Dealt a Devastating Blow to Public Unions

The Supreme Court Just Dealt a Devastating Blow to Public Unions
By Sam Baker and Emma Roller
June 30, 2014

The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision on Monday that mandatory public union dues violate some members' First Amendment rights.

In the ruling on Harris v. Quinn, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the precedent that had upheld the state of Illinois' right to require membership dues was shaky.

The issue at hand in Harris v. Quinn involves Pamela Harris, a home caregiver in Illinois who takes care of her disabled son. Harris is among home caregivers who have decided not to unionize through the Service Employees International Union, opting instead to bargain directly with the Medicaid recipients who decide how much money to allocate to their caregivers.


The case posed a challenge to so-called "fair-play fees," which allow unions to collect dues from employees who aren't in the union but who still benefit from the bargains unions strike with employers.

In the case of public-sector unions, though, the employer is the government. And for that reason, the challengers in Harris argued, the unions' collective bargaining is inherently a political activity—they're essentially lobbying the government.

The challengers said allowing public-sector unions to collect fair-play fees is therefore requiring non-union employees to support political activities they don't necessarily agree with—a violation of their First Amendment rights.

Monday's ruling means that hundreds of thousands of home caregivers—in Illinois and in other states—will be free to stop paying membership dues, as they are effectively no longer considered public employees.

As The Washington Post's Lydia DePillis explains, GOP backers were friendly to Harris' cause:

Preserving her own right to not support a union, though, wasn't enough for Harris. With the help of the National Right to Work Coalition, an anti-labor group backed by large donors like the Koch and Walton families, she challenged the state's right to designate a union of public employees as their their sole representative. The right has been well settled in case law stretching back to the 1970s, and Harris lost in lower courts. But the Supreme Court took the case, indicating it might be willing to revisit the precedent.​

Public sector unions have suffered many setbacks over the past few years—right-to-work laws in states like Michigan and Indiana have drastically limited unions' ability to require members to pay dues. And in 2011, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker set off a political firestorm when he stripped state workers of their right to bargain collectively.

However, there may be one silver lining for public unions. The Harris v. Quinn ruling is somewhat narrowly tailored to home caregivers, known as PAs.

"PAs are much different from public employees," Alito wrote. "Unlike full-fledged public employees, PAs are almost entirely answerable to the customers and not to the State, do not enjoy most of the rights and benefits that inure to state employees, and are not indemnified by the State for claims against them arising from actions taken during the course of their employment. Even the scope of collective bargaining on their behalf is sharply limited."

The Harris decision is more than just another instance of union setbacks, though. It's also yet another win for conservatives who have been trying to use the First Amendment to push their causes.

From campaign finance law (Citizens United) to the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate (Hobby Lobby), the First Amendment has become the GOP's ironclad defense against government regulations. The Harris v. Quinn ruling just added another plate to the GOP's armor.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/poli...-a-devastating-blow-to-public-unions-20140630
 
Unions representing government workers are gaining

Unions representing government workers are gaining
By TOM RAUM
2 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Unions representing government workers are expanding while organized labor has been shedding private sector members over the past half-century.

A majority of union members today now have ties to a government entity, at the federal, state or local levels.

Roughly 1-in-3 public sector workers is a union member, compared with about 1-in-15 for the private sector workforce last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Overall, 11.3 percent of wage and salary workers in the United States are unionized, down from a peak of 35 percent during the mid-1950s in the strong post-World War II recovery.

The typical union worker now is more likely to be an educator, office worker or food or service industry employee rather than a construction worker, autoworker, electrician or mechanic. Far more women than men are among the union-label ranks.

In a blow to public sector unions, the Supreme Court ruled this week that thousands of health care workers in Illinois who are paid by the state cannot be required to pay fees that help cover a union's cost of collective bargaining.

The justices said the practice violates the First Amendment rights of nonmembers who disagree with stances taken by unions.

The ruling was narrowly drawn, but it could reverberate through the universe of unions that represent government workers. The case involved home-care workers for disabled people who are paid with Medicaid funds administered by the state.

Also in June, a California judge declared unconstitutional the state's teacher tenure, dismissal and layoff laws. The judge ordered a stay of the decision, pending an appeal by the state and teachers union.

"The basic structure of the labor union movement has changed, reflecting changes in the economy," said Ross Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University. "Manufacturing is a diminishing segment of the economy. Also, a lot of the manufacturing that's being done today is being done nonunion."

Union members continue to be a powerful political force in politics, and Baker said he didn't see the role of unions diminishing. "I just think the colors of the collars are changing," Baker said.

In 2013, 14.5 million workers belonged to a union, about the same as the year before. In 1983, the first year for which comparable figures are available, there were 17.7 million union workers.

The largest union is the National Education Association, with 3.2 million members. It represents public school teachers, administrators and students preparing to become teachers.

Next is the 2.1-million Service Employees International Union. About half its members work in the public sector.

The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees has 1.6 million, followed by the American Federation of Teachers with 1.5 million and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters with 1.4 million.

There are 1.3 million members in the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

Until four years ago, the unionization rate was far higher in the private sector than in the public sector. Now the roles are reversed.

But it's been a bumpy road for public unions in some Republican-governed states.

In 2011, Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis., took on public sector unions forcefully soon after he was swept into office. He got enacted a bill effectively ending collective bargaining for most public workers in the state. He withstood huge labor demonstrations at the state Capitol and then became the first governor in U.S. history to defeat a recall attempt. The law has been challenged in court, and continues to be. But its main thrust so far has been upheld.

A sign of the decline of traditional labor unions came in May when the United Automobile Workers raised its membership dues for the first time in 27 years to help offset declining membership. Also, the defeat in February of the UAW's effort to unionize workers at Volkswagen's Chattanooga, Tennessee, plant was a setback to labor.

A 2013 Gallup poll showed that 54 percent of Americans said they approved of labor unions, down from the all-time high of 75 percent in both 1953 and 1957.

"Labor unions play a diminishing role in the private sector, but they still claim a large share of the public sector workforce," says Chris Edwards, director of tax studies at the libertarian, free-market Cato Institute.

"Public sector unions are important to examine because they have a major influence on government policies through their vigorous lobbying efforts. ... They are particularly influential in states that allow monopoly unionization through collective bargaining."

Since 2000, factories have shed more than 5 million jobs. Five states — Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina Georgia and Texas — ban collective bargaining in the public sector.

http://news.yahoo.com/unions-representing-government-workers-gaining-145020781.html
 
source: Huffington Post

Republicans Formally Oppose A Union For College Athletes


After holding a hearing to air their concerns over college football players unionizing, congressional Republicans took their opposition to the idea a step further on Thursday, filing a brief with the federal labor board against collective bargaining for college athletes.

The brief, submitted by six Republicans who help oversee the National Labor Relations Board, took aim at the decision by the agency's regional director in Chicago to allow a union election for athletes at Northwestern University. The lawmakers argued that the ruling "artificially conflated and improperly applied" labor law in determining that the players were employees of the school and therefore covered under the law.

"As a matter of policy and law, this is wrong: scholarship football players are not and should not be treated as ... employees," they wrote. "The inevitable conclusion from the [regional director's] analysis in this case would lead to countless undergraduate students -- in a variety of extracurricular activities -- being considered employees of their colleges and universities."

With the backing of the United Steelworkers, Northwestern players had presented the labor board with a petition earlier this year seeking an election for their would-be union, the College Athletes Players Association. The players' case rested on the argument that college scholarships constitute a form of payment for services rendered and that Northwestern controlled the terms of those services.

The players cleared the first hurdle to their potentially historic unionization effort in March, when Peter S. Ohr, the board's Chicago regional director, issued a ruling letting the election proceed.

That decision, however, has been appealed to the five-member labor board in Washington, which can affirm or overturn Ohr's ruling. (Even if the board sides with the players, Northwestern can still take its case to federal court.) The election went ahead, but the ballots have been impounded until the board makes its determination.

The brief from the six Republican lawmakers was one of a batch of amicus filings in the case on Thursday by interested groups. These include the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which isn't a formal party in the case but could see its entire model shaken by the outcome. In its brief in support of Northwestern, the NCAA contended that letting players unionize would lead to "significant and irreversible, negative impact on the future of intercollegiate athletics and higher education in the United States."

The congressional Republicans on the filing were Rep. John Kline (Minn.), who chairs the House Committee on Education and the Workforce; Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; Rep. Virginia Foxx (N.C.); Rep. Phil Roe (Tenn.); Sen. Johnny Isakson (Ga.); and Sen. Richard Burr (N.C.).

Unions representing athletes in five pro sports -- MLB, MLS, NBA, NFL and NHL -- filed a joint brief in support of the college athletes on Thursday.
 
Michigan unions brace for teacher opt-out decision

Michigan unions brace for teacher opt-out decision
By DAVID EGGERT
August 25, 2014 1:09 PM

NOVI, Mich. (AP) — Organized labor and pro-business groups are waging an intense lobbying campaign directed at school teachers who are deciding this month whether to remain in their union, in the first real test of the state's new right-to-work law.

Many of the 112,000 active educators and school workers in the Michigan Education Association can now leave the union and stop paying fees under the law that took effect last year. Other major unions, covered by multi-year contracts, won't reach the opt-out point until 2015 or later.

With the teachers given a 31-day window in August to decide, representatives for the state's largest public-sector union are imploring them to stay or risk losing their clout in how schools are operated.

"If I don't stand up and stay in my union, then we don't have a voice," said Chandra Madafferi, a high school health teacher and president of a 400-member local in the Detroit suburb of Novi.

Meanwhile, conservative groups are running ads and publicizing the chance for teachers to "grow your paycheck and workplace freedom."

A significant number of dropouts would deliver a financial blow to labor in a state where it has been historically dominant. Previously, employees in union-covered jobs were required to pay fees for bargaining and other services even if they didn't want to belong.

"There is a lot at stake," said Lee Adler, a lawyer who teaches labor issues at Cornell University and represents firefighters' unions in New York. Public-sector unions, he said, "don't have a history of being able to do massive recruitment of members who will voluntarily pay dues."

In the past two years, Republican-controlled legislatures in Michigan and Indiana have passed laws making union membership and dues voluntary, and other Midwestern states are considering the idea. Proponents say the right-to-work laws, which are in effect in 24 states, help attract business.

But the impact is often difficult to determine. Michigan's law hasn't yet affected the union representing the Detroit Three automakers' employees, who have contracts running until September 2015.

Organized labor, with 633,000 members, remains a powerful political force in Michigan. But unions' share of the workforce fell from 16.6 percent in 2012 to 16.3 percent in 2013.

With contracts covering roughly three-quarters of the 1,100 school workers' bargaining units expiring, the Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity bought a full-page ad in the Detroit Free Press with a form that teachers could send to their union to drop out. A free-market think tank has mailed reminder postcards about the Aug. 31 deadline.

"We are making sure that every eligible member who wants out of the union has the ability to do so," said Vincent Vernuccio, director of labor policy for the Mackinac Center, which has worked in the Legislature to limit collective bargaining and promote charter schools.

Union officials charge that the group's "desperate" campaign is aimed at union busting, not worker freedom.

"This is an organization bent on the destruction of not just this union but frankly of the public education system we all believe in," said Doug Pratt, the state education association's director of member and political engagement.

About 1,500 members, or 1 percent, left the union last August during an early opt-out period that wasn't well known.

In Novi, Madafferi, 40, said she's worried that some younger teachers won't see the value of union membership. She said she has worked to explain the problem with "freeloading," or benefiting from union negotiations without paying dues. Members pay up to $640 annually to the state union and $182 to the National Education Association, along with local dues.

Novi special education teacher Susan Bank, 60, said she plans to save the money, having gone several years without a raise.

"What am I getting for the over $1,000 in union dues I'm paying?" Bank said. "Now that we have the new law, the rules of the game have changed."

Labor experts say Michigan unions will have to find other ways to demonstrate their value even though they still have collective bargaining power. In neighboring Wisconsin, more than one-third of teachers dropped their union membership after a 2011 law effectively ended collective bargaining for most public employees. But in right-to-work Alabama, nearly 80 percent of teachers voluntarily belong to the union and pay dues, said Adler.

http://news.yahoo.com/michigan-unions-brace-teacher-opt-decision-170456196.html
 
Michigan teachers can resign from union any time, judge rules

Michigan teachers can resign from union any time, judge rules

Members of the Michigan Education Association should be able to resign from the union at any time, and not just during the month of August, an administrative law judge ruled this week

....

They also said that despite an aggressive campaign by conservative groups to let MEA members know they could have resigned last month, 95% of the members stuck with the union.
Click to expand...
 
source: Huffington Post


America's 'Job Creators' Would Rather Do Anything But Create Jobs: Survey


America's capitalists take every chance they get to remind us that they are our "job creators," but it turns out that their least-favorite thing on earth to do is create jobs.

Most U.S. business leaders would rather build robots, outsource work or use part-time employees than hire workers full-time, according to a new Harvard Business School survey. Here's a nice infuriating graphic from the smarty-pantses at Harvard Business School, who are educating all of our future non-job-creators in the art of not creating jobs:

original.jpg


As you can see from the chart, 46 percent of our job creators would rather spend money on technology than employ humans, compared with a sad 26 percent who prefer people to robots, and another 29 percent who were confused or indifferent about the question or fell asleep while the survey taker was talking. Forty-nine percent would rather outsource than hire, compared with 30 percent who'd rather hire.

Ever notice how the stock market and corporate profits are at all-time highs, while our wages are flat and roughly half of us still think the economy is in recession? This chart helps explain it, and helps explain why workers' share of those corporate profits is near its lowest since the Truman administration.

This is also bad news for the future of the economy because it means fewer workers are getting the training they need for our super-awesome, high-tech, no-job economy, Harvard pointed out:

"Firms invest most deeply in full-time employees, so preferences for automation, outsourcing, and part-time hires are likely to lead to less skills development," the study authors wrote.

This will give business leaders, who already think we lack the necessary skills for their precious jobs, even less reason to hire us in the future.

Hooray.
 
Labor board OKs personal use of company e-mail

Labor board OKs personal use of company e-mail
Associated Press
By TOM RAUM 12 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a victory for unions, the National Labor Relations Board ruled Thursday that employees can use their company email accounts for union organizing and other workplace-related purposes, if they do it on their own time.

Once an employer gives an employee access to the company email system, then the business cannot restrict what the employee emails, so long as it is generally workplace-related and isn't during working hours, the NLRB ruled. The NLRB is a government agency that investigates unfair labor practices.

The ruling said that "the use of email as a common form of workplace communications has expanded dramatically in recent years." The ruling could give unions a powerful organizing weapon.

The three Democrats on the five member board voted "yes," while the two Republicans abstained.

The ruling reverses a 2007 board decision that employees don't have a legal right to use their employers' email for union activity or discussing wages or other workplace issues.

It also upholds an opinion by the NLRB's general counsel, who suggested that workers had a presumed statutory right to use company email to discuss a range of workplace issues — so long as they did it on their own time and unless an employer could demonstrate that doing so would hurt productivity of office discipline.

The decision was a victory for the Communications Workers of America, which brought the case in 2012 after it was unable to use company email to organize employees of Purple Communications in Rocklin, California, a company that provides interpreting services for the deaf and hard of hearing. The union contended that prohibiting Purple workers from using company email for to organize interfered with its efforts.

Bernie Lunzer, president of the Newspaper Guild-CWA and a vice president of the Communications Workers of America, called the ruling "a big victory for workers in general. Basically the board is saying that there is a wide berth for that kind of discussion, that it can't be prohibited. There are limitations. This is something where people are supposed to be doing this not on the work time. And they can't be obstructive to the productivity of the company. But the flat-out prohibition of any discussion of forming a union or acting collectively, basically to board has said that's fair."

Joel Barras, a lawyer who represents employers in collective bargaining and labor arbitration matters, said that the NLRB in its ruling "once again elevated employee protected activity over employer property rights. Not only will employees now have the ability to use their work emails in their efforts to unionize or discuss terms and conditions of employment with co-workers, an employer's communication system may also become an incredibly effective tool used to recruit members to form or join class-action cases."

In Thursday's ruling, the board majority said the earlier decision "was clearly incorrect. The consequences of that error are too serious to permit it to stand."

"By focusing too much on employers' property rights and too little on the importance of email as a means of workplace communication, the Board (in its earlier ruling) failed to adequately protect employees' rights ... and abdicated its responsibility 'to adapt the Act to the changing patterns of industrial life."

A number of weighty issues have yet to be decided by the board, and it seems likely to tackle some of them before the Dec. 16 departure of one of its Democratic members, Nancy Schiffer, when her term expires.

There will still be a 3-2 majority on the board with the GOP takeover of Senate control next year after the Senate voted 54-40 earlier this month to confirm Lauren McGarity McFerran, a Democrat, to fill the vacancy.

Pending decisions include whether college athletes on scholarships have the right to unionize. The case stems from an effort by Northwestern University scholarship football players to organize.

http://news.yahoo.com/labor-board-oks-personal-company-e-mail-190927158--finance.html
 
The labor unions, the actual officials, are no different than welfare recipients. They are either too stupid or lazy to get a real job so they rely on other peoples paychecks to pay their salary. Unfortunately, the union worker is not pushed to better themselves, they are content working the same job for three years then protest for a wage increase. The problem is they are acquiescing their responsibility as an American to obtain the skills and education necessary to obtain a better job to a bunch of socialists. Unions served a purpose 100 years ago, but no now. Now it is the privileged greedy officials who want to keep the unions workers dependent on them for their pay and benefits...no different than the democrat leaders who want to keep blacks dependent on them for their benefits. The democrats wanted to keep slavery in place in the 1800s and they still do today...:dance:
 
desideratum said:
The labor unions, the actual officials, are no different than welfare recipients. They are either too stupid or lazy to get a real job so they rely on other peoples paychecks to pay their salary. Unfortunately, the union worker is not pushed to better themselves, they are content working the same job for three years then protest for a wage increase. The problem is they are acquiescing their responsibility as an American to obtain the skills and education necessary to obtain a better job to a bunch of socialists. Unions served a purpose 100 years ago, but no now. Now it is the privileged greedy officials who want to keep the unions workers dependent on them for their pay and benefits...no different than the democrat leaders who want to keep blacks dependent on them for their benefits. The democrats wanted to keep slavery in place in the 1800s and they still do today...:dance:
Click to expand...



Welfare?


As Oil Industry Fights a Tax, It Reaps Subsidies
 
US reports slight decline in union membership during 2014

US reports slight decline in union membership during 2014
Associated Press
By TOM RAUM January 23, 2015 1:54 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) — Union membership in the United States is down slightly, accounting for just over 11 percent of the workforce last year, the Labor Department reported Friday.

That's just a fractional drop from the year before.

The department's Bureau of Labor Statistics said public-sector workers have the highest union membership rate at nearly 36 percent. That's more than five times higher than membership of private-sector workers at less than 7 percent.

Workers in education, training and library jobs and in protective service jobs have the highest unionization rate, at 35 percent.

Earnings were higher for union members last year, at $970 a week versus $763 a week for non-union members.

With 58 months of consecutive job growth, the report shows that "workers made great strides and confronted great challenges" during 2014.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka cited "major organizing wins" last year, including one at American Airlines. Trumka also cited "multiple state victories on (raising) the minimum wage and innovative campaigns conducted by carwash workers, among others."

Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez said the report demonstrates that "the economy is resurgent, with an unemployment rate well below 6 percent and job growth we haven't experienced since the late 1990s."

"When unions are strong, working families thrive, with wages and productivity rising in tandem. But when the percentage of people represented by unions is low, there is downward pressure on wages and the middle class takes it on the chin," Perez said.

The percent of workers who were members of unions in 2014 was 11.1 percent, down from 11.3 percent each in the two preceding years.

One of the sharpest year-to-year drops in union membership came in Michigan: from 16.3 percent in 2013 to 14.5 percent in 2014. The decrease came in the first full year under the state's right-to-work law.

Among states, New York continued to have the highest union membership rate, at 24.6 percent while North Carolina once again had the lowest rate at 1.9 percent.

In raw numbers, 7.2 million employees in the public sector belonged to a union in 2014, compared with 7.4 million workers in the private sector.

Within the public sector, the union membership rate was highest for local government at 41.9 percent of the workforce, "which includes employees in heavily unionized occupations, such as teachers, police officers and firefighters," the report said.

Black workers had a higher union membership rate in 2014 (13.2 percent) than workers who were white (10.8 percent), Asian (10.4 percent) or Hispanic (9.2 percent).

North Carolina's 1.9 percent membership rate was followed by South Carolina, 2.2 percent, and Mississippi and Utah, each with a 3.7 percent rate.

New York had the highest unionization rate at 24.6 percent, followed by Alaska (22.8 percent) and Hawaii (21.8 percent)

http://news.yahoo.com/us-reports-slight-decline-union-173932897.html
 
If This Case Heads to the Supreme Court, Unions Could Be Over

If This Case Heads to the Supreme Court, Unions Could Be Over
By Joseph Williams | Takepart.com
January 28, 2015 7:41 PM

For years, Rebecca Friedrichs, a veteran teacher in Buena Park, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, had monthly union dues docked from her paycheck, even though she didn’t like the union’s positions on school choice and other education reforms. What she theoretically got in return—collective bargaining for pay raises, benefits, and job security that comes with representation by one of the most powerful unions in her profession—wasn’t a selling point; her three years as a full-fledged board member, trying to work within the system, was more frustrating than empowering.

That’s why, in a real-world civics lesson, this week she and nine other teachers petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their arguments against the law and overturn it.

More is at stake than just the $600 to $1,000 Friedrichs and her colleagues paid in union dues each year. If the court agrees with them and overturns the law, the ruling would deal a crippling blow not only to the 295,000-member California Teachers Association but also to the national organized-labor movement; 26 states have similar laws for public-employee unions.

Friedrichs believes teachers should have the freedom to decide for themselves if they’ll join the union, especially if its positions cut against what she thinks most teachers want.

“When unions use our dues money to block sensible reform and protect teachers who clearly do not belong in the classroom, it’s time to say enough is enough,” Friedrichs said in a statement .

At issue is California's "agency shop" law, which forces members of a unionized profession to pay dues even if they don’t support or have membership in the union. Teachers in California can opt out of paying CTA dues spent on political efforts, like lobbying, by asking for a refund, but they can't opt out of dues used for collective bargaining.

Friedrich and her colleagues, however, argue that the opt-out process is so complex they end up contributing hundreds of dollars to political activities with which they disagreed.

“The gist [of the petition] is claiming that compulsory union dues violates the First Amendment right for employees to decide for themselves what causes to support,” said Terry Pell, president of Center for Individual Rights. The conservative-leaning organization is backing Friedrichs and her co-plaintiffs, along with Christian Educators Association International, in the court challenge.

“We’re not challenging the union’s authority to be the collective bargaining agent” for teachers, and CTA could still do that even if the Supreme Court ruled against it, Pell said. The problem, he said, is CTA takes “very political positions” on education issues—school choice, for example, or teacher tenure—that some of its members don’t like and spends dues backing partisan election campaigns.

“The First Amendment doesn’t allow the state to compel speech. It can’t force individuals to speak out, and it can’t prevent individuals from speaking when they do want to speak,” Pell said. “The only question is whether the union fairly and accurately represents the interest of its members.”

The high court has heard a case like this before. Last year, the justices ruled on Harris v. Quinn, which challenged Illinois’ version of California’s “agency shop” law. The court upheld the Illinois law, but just barely: It declared unions couldn’t collect dues from employees who didn’t want to join and signaled it was open to another, more focused challenge to the law.

Last year, a federal court in California rejected Friedrichs’ lawsuit against the CTA, setting up the Supreme Court appeal. In a statement afterward, union president Dean E. Vogel praised the ruling and, referencing the Quinn decision, said his organization works tirelessly to improve working conditions for all teachers, even nonmembers.

“Because nonmembers benefit from this work to ensure they have quality teaching and learning conditions, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled it is only fair that they contribute toward these expenses,” he said. “We are confident that this attempt by forces to use the courts to gravely diminish the voices of CTA and other unions will not succeed if appealed, as we expect this case will be.”

Nevertheless, if the law is overturned, it would be a devastating, if ironic, strike against the labor movement at a time when income inequality is a hot topic among politicians in Washington.

Statistics show that unions helped build and sustain the middle class. As membership increased in the early part of last century, wages for all workers climbed upward. Yet as right-to-work laws have been enacted across the nation over the last few decades, union membership has dropped, and overall wages for American workers have barely kept pace with inflation or even have declined.

Friedrichs believes a greater principle is at stake.

“At the turn of the 20th century, unions provided a collective voice for the good of employees, but today, many employees feel trapped within public sector unions,” she wrote in an editorial letter published in the Orange County Register last summer. “The California Teachers Association has gotten so out of touch that union officials bully teachers (like the plaintiffs in our case) who dare to question union politics and policies.”

If the Supreme Court takes the Friedrichs case, Pell said, it will likely schedule it for the term beginning in October. A decision would likely be handed down by June 2016, and he's optimistic the justices would see things their way.

Still, "you never know what the court will do,” said Pell, "until it does it.”

http://news.yahoo.com/case-heads-supreme-court-unions-could-over-004120621.html
 
Why Can't Unions Keep Up With the Economy?

Why Can't Unions Keep Up With the Economy?
The Atlantic
By Russell Berman
January 23, 2015 4:59 PM

Last year may have been a banner year for job creation in U.S., but it was not a banner year for unions. The percentage of union members among workers nationwide dropped to a new low of 11.1 percent in 2014, extending a decades-long decline for the labor movement.

For union supporters, the new data released Friday by the Labor Department tells a familiar but dispiriting story that illuminates the national debate over slow wage growth and income inequality. A generational shift in the labor market that eliminated U.S. jobs in union-dominated industries has been exacerbated in recent years by assaults on public-sector unions in Republican-led states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana.

Yes, the U.S. created some 3 million jobs in 2014—the most since 1999—but too few of them paid well, and those that already had jobs saw little increase in their salaries. "That's a fundamental consequence of the inability of workers, through collective bargaining, to negotiate for higher wages as the economy improves," Larry Mishel, president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said in an interview Friday. Or, as Jonathan Schmitt of the Center for Economic and Policy Research told The Wall Street Journal: “The overall workforce is growing faster than the union workforce."

In 1983, the first year the Bureau of Labor Statistics conducted its annual survey, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent. By 2004, it had fallen to 12.5 percent, and with the exception of a slight bump in 2006 and 2007, it has slipped even more since. The plunge has been steepest in the private sector, where mid-20th century union members comprised more than one-third of the workforce. That rate has dropped all the way to 6.6 percent after falling again in 2014. The percentage of unionized public employees actually ticked up, to 35.7 percent, but the much faster growth in private jobs during the economic recovery helps explain why the overall union membership rate has declined.

In a response to the report, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka did point to a few bright spots. Membership rates grew among the youngest workers (although the highest percentages are still found among employees closer to retirement). And membership rose among Latino men, African-Americans, and Asians, as well as in the leisure and hospitality industry. Among the states, New York continued to lead with nearly a quarter of its workers unionized, while some states in the south had barely any union membership at all. In two states—Wisconsin and Michigan—that passed "right-to-work" laws making it harder for unions to organize, the union membership rate fell significantly, while it actually rose slightly in a third state, Indiana.

Despite their shrinking membership rolls, labor unions remain powerful political forces both nationally within the Democratic Party and even more so in big cities. "The labor movement is still winning elections," noted Gene Carroll, director of Cornell University's Union Leadership Institute. And, he noted, the labor movement has finally entered a needed period of introspection and retooling. But as states and municipalities slashed budgets during the Great Recession, contract negotiations that focused largely on how much unions would have to give up also sapped the allure of a union job—better pay and solid benefits. "Workers will say, 'Gee, can labor win?'" Carroll said.

With the decline in membership rates continuing even in a good year for the economy, the more pertinent question is, will the labor movement's plunge ever bottom out?

http://news.yahoo.com/why-cant-unions-keep-economy-215915495.html
 
VW recognizes anti-UAW worker group ACE at Tennessee plant

VW recognizes anti-UAW worker group ACE at Tennessee plant
Reuters
By Bernie Woodall
February 16, 2015 7:04 PM

DETROIT (Reuters) - Volkswagen AG said on Monday it had recognized a new group called the American Council of Employees to represent workers at its auto assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in addition to the United Auto Workers.

Each worker group will represent workers in an unconventional manner set up by VW that allows more than one group to meet with plant management.

The ACE is an alternative to and has campaigned against the UAW union, which a year ago lost an election to be the sole representative of workers at the plant.

The ACE proved to an outside auditor it had achieved support from at least 15 percent of the plant's hourly and salaried workers, VW said. The UAW two months ago proved support from at least 45 percent of hourly workers at the plant and also represents workers there.

The VW policy allows increasing levels of access to plant management based on a group's support level. The UAW at 45 percent has more access to management than the ACE at 15 percent.

Sean Moss, president of the ACE, said an advantage of his group is that it is locally based. The UAW is based in Detroit, but it says that its union local in Chattanooga handles issues at the plant there.

Moss said that the inclusion of salaried workers as well as blue-collar hourly workers is closer to the VW works council representation present at the company's plants worldwide.

"I’m not anti-union," Moss told Reuters on Monday. "I understand that a properly run union can benefit people. We will be that union."

Moss was among VW workers who fought the UAW in the run-up to last February's election, which the UAW lost by 712-626 vote of hourly workers. Last August, the anti-UAW workers said they would form the ACE.

Moss on Saturday was elected president of the ACE, along with five other officers.

In a statement, Mike Cantrell, president of UAW Local 42 at the plant, said his group represents "in excess of 50 percent of the blue-collar workforce" and that the UAW continues to work toward establishing collective bargaining at the plant for hourly workers.

Neither the ACE nor UAW has collective bargaining rights for workers at the plant.

Moss said he hopes the ACE can convince anti-UAW workers who are anti-union to join his group. But, he said, it is difficult to convince anti-union workers to join any worker group.

http://news.yahoo.com/vw-recognizes-anti-uaw-worker-group-ace-tennessee-000454775--sector.html
 
Right-to-work court battles look tough for unions

Right-to-work court battles look tough for unions
Associated Press
By TODD RICHMOND
February 23, 2015 6:46 PM

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin union leaders may not get much help from judges if they file a legal challenge to Republicans' right-to-work provisions, as courts have done little to weaken similar measures in other states.

The proposal, which prohibits unions from reaching deals with businesses that require workers to pay fees to the unions as a condition of employment, is on a fast track for approval in the Republican-controlled Legislature, with Gov. Scott Walker promising to sign it. That leaves the courts as a last-ditch option for unions and other opponents.

But legal challenges to recently enacted right-to-work laws in Indiana and Michigan have lost in both state and federal courts. The Wisconsin proposal — which is up for a public hearing Tuesday— closely mirrors laws in those states, making a successful lawsuit here unlikely, said Paul Secunda, a law professor who coordinates Marquette University's labor and employment law program.

In fact, no one has ever successfully won a legal challenge against right-to-work, Secunda said.

"These laws have existed for over 60 years," he said Monday. "You can file all the lawsuits you want but the presumption is going to be that the law is going to be good."

Twenty-four states already have right-to-work laws. Supporters see them as a way to help the economy, spur business and give workers the freedom to choose whether they want to pay union dues. Opponents, including public and private-sector unions, say the laws are just another way for Republicans to weaken unions that favor Democrats and help businesses reduce salary and benefit expenses.

For organized labor in Wisconsin, the new bill marks the second blow of a one-two punch that began with Walker's plan to strip nearly all public workers of their union rights. Republicans passed that measure in 2011 despite massive, round-the-clock demonstrations at the Capitol that attracted tens of thousands of people and went on for weeks. The protests and an ensuing recall attempt helped Walker become a national conservative star who is now likely to run for president.

Union leaders planned rallies Tuesday and Wednesday at the Capitol to protest the right-to-work bill. It's unclear how large these protests might be, but Secunda said he doesn't expect the same energy demonstrators displayed during the public union restriction protests. Only 11.7 percent of Wisconsin workers belonged to unions last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. A nationwide Gallup poll done in August showed 71 percent of respondents said they would vote for a right-to-work bill; 22 percent said they would not.

With passage all but certain, unions' only recourse would be lawsuits. But that looks like a losing proposition, too.

Last year the Indiana state Supreme Court rejected two challenges to that state's right-to-work law that alleged the law unconstitutionally required labor unions to provide services to nonunion workers without compensation. The 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals last year also rejected arguments that federal labor law pre-empts Indiana's law.

A state judge in Michigan earlier this month dismissed a union lawsuit alleging that state's right-to-work is invalid because state police temporarily closed the Capitol while the Legislature debated the bill in 2012.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Murphy III last year ruled federal law doesn't trump that state's right-to-work law in a challenge from the Michigan AFL-CIO, calling right-to-work a valid exercise of state power. Murphy refused to dismiss other parts of the lawsuit, however; a hearing is set for July.

Myranda Tanck, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said Wisconsin Republicans modeled their bill on Michigan's and Indiana's laws to ensure the legislation would withstand legal muster.

"Right to Work is not an idea that is untried or untested," Tanck wrote in an email.

Phil Neuenfeldt, president of the Wisconsin state AFL-CIO, said Monday that he didn't know what legal options may be available for right-to-work opponents.

Secunda said that short of massive strikes unions have no way of stopping the bill from becoming law.

"It's looking very bleak," he said. "... States that have gone right-to-work have never gone back. Labor's last shot, as far as I can see, is just pulling out the stops and withholding their work from their employers."

https://news.yahoo.com/court-battles-look-tough-unions-210613138.html
 
It's not just right-to-work: Bills targeting unions multiply

It's not just right-to-work: Bills targeting unions multiply
Associated Press
By JONATHAN MATTISE and NICHOLAS RICCARDI
March 10, 2015 9:12 PM

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — It's not just Gov. Scott Walker.

Republican lawmakers in statehouses nationwide are working to weaken organized labor, sometimes with efforts that directly shrink union membership. Walker's signing of right-to-work legislation in Wisconsin on Monday puts his defiance of organized labor even more at the center of his nascent presidential campaign. And the inability of unions to exact a price for the first round of legislation targeting them in 2011 is encouraging even more proposals to limit their power.

The Republican wave in the November elections left many unions nationwide looking exceptionally vulnerable. In West Virginia, a union PAC spent $1.4 million trying to keep the statehouse in Democratic hands but couldn't reverse the cultural trends turning the state red. Exit polls found that even union members were almost evenly split between the Republican and the Democrat in the major statewide race for U.S. Senate.

Now Republicans, in control of the state legislature for the first time since 1931, are taking advantage of their opportunity, pushing measures to expand non-union charter schools and scale back requirements that public projects pay higher, union-scale wages.

In Wisconsin, Walker beat back attempts to recall him after he signed a law limiting collective bargaining by public sector workers in 2011. His signature on the right-to-work law now makes Wisconsin the 25th state to ban contracts that force all workers to pay union dues. Both he and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, who signed a right-to-work law in 2012 and was also opposed by unions, won re-election in November.

"Their examples were inspiring," said Victor Joecks of the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a conservative think tank whose ideas for limiting labor power have been embraced by Republicans who have taken over that state's legislature for the first time since 1929. The message, he said, was, "Hey, this is possible, and it's better for the state, and the taxpayers appreciate it."

With many legislative sessions just beginning, nearly 800 union-related bills have been proposed in statehouses, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

President Barack Obama expressed his concern about the latest Wisconsin move and the general assault on unions.

"It's inexcusable that, over the past several years, just when middle-class families and workers need that kind of security the most, there's been a sustained, coordinated assault on unions, led by powerful interests and their allies in government," Obama said in a statement Monday. "I'm deeply disappointed that a new anti-worker law in Wisconsin will weaken, rather than strengthen workers in the new economy."

A right-to-work bill passed the lower house of the Missouri Legislature, though it's likely to be vetoed by the state's Democratic governor. Indiana is also moving to eliminate requiring union-level wages on public projects. Nevada is considering a wide range of proposals, including legislation that would let local governments dissolve collective bargaining agreements in times of economic hardship. Illinois' new Republican governor, Bruce Rauner, signed an order prohibiting government unions from automatically collecting dues from nonmembers.

Even local governments are getting in on the action — several Kentucky counties are implementing right-to-work measures even though the state, with its House still controlled by Democrats, does not have such a law.

The proposals' sponsors say they want to save taxpayers money and create jobs. There is also a political consequence.

Labor provides Democrats with crucial cash and volunteers in campaigns, but its political value to the party extends even farther. Belonging to a union increases the odds of a voter supporting Democrats, and labor increases the participation of lower-income voters who tend to back Democrats, said Roland Zullo of the University of Michigan's Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations. "If you have more unions, you have higher rates of voting, especially in places that are poor," he said.

Much of the impact of new laws has come in the vote-rich rust belt, where Republicans hope states with whiter and older populations, such as Wisconsin and Michigan, will eventually side with them in presidential elections to counter the loss of states in the South and West with younger and more diverse populations. In Wisconsin, public-sector union membership shriveled after Walker's 2010 law and the proportion of workers in unions shrank from 14 percent to 11 percent. Hundreds of union members protested against the right-to-work legislation in the state capitol recently but admitted most were demoralized.

"People have lost faith," said Eric Gates, a union member from the town of Menasha, 35 miles southwest of Green Bay.

Michigan experienced the sharpest loss of union members in the nation in the last two years, when its right-to-work law went into effect, according to federal data. But union officials also trace the loss to another 2012 measure, which received less attention: a law declaring that 42,000 in-home health care workers were no longer eligible to be represented by a union. Unions were unable to overturn the measure at the ballot box.

"They're decreasing our ability to back supporters of our issues, whether they're Democrats or Republicans," said Marge Robinson, president of SEIU Health Care Michigan, which lost four-fifths of its membership as a result but still tries to communicate with many of the aides. "Even though we try to keep them as much engaged as possible, they're all on their own, they're not in an organization that works together."

In Ohio, where unions reversed an effort to eliminate collective bargaining by government workers, GOP Gov. John Kasich still cruised to re-election last year.

Union membership has been steadily declining since the 1980s, when it measured at 20 percent of all workers. In 2014, only 11.1 percent nationally belonged to a union. James Sherk, a labor economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the shrinkage in membership in Michigan may be due to trends other rather than the recent legislation. He noted that Democrats have joined Republicans on some measures that unions oppose, like pension reform and tougher standards for teachers.

If there's a bright side for labor, it's that things could be even worse. Given how many states Republicans control, Sherk said, there could be many more challenges to labor than have emerged.

http://news.yahoo.com/not-just-bills-targeting-unions-multiply-065308007--finance.html
 

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