Labor Briefing
2016Bill Onasch 2016-06Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 3 →
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• Nurses may strike over own health care. On June 6, nurses for five Allina hospitals in Minnesota “overwhelm ingly” voted to reject a proposed three-year contract that would have eliminat ed union-backed health insurance and switched the nurses to a corporate plan. The union estimates the move would cost their members thousands of dollars in new out-of-pocket expenses.
About 800 off-duty Allina Health Care RNs, members of the Minnesota Nurses Association, conducted an informational picket on May 18, alerting the public of a possible strike. Allina owns Abbott Northwestern Hospital/Phillips Eye In stitute in Minneapolis, Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids, United Hospital in St. Paul, and Unity Hospital in Fridley.
Close to 4900 nurses are represented by MNA at those hospitals, but the con tract also affects nurses at Allina facili ties from New Ulm to Owatonna to Buf falo, Minn., for a total of 5800. The MNA is a National Nurses United affiliate.
• More voice for low-wage workers. In an unusual move, the Service Employ ees International Union has invited Fast Food workers who have been battling for “15 Dollars an Hour and a Union” to become SEIU members even though the union doesn’t yet have certified bar gaining rights for any of them. These new members will not be required to pay dues until they have secured union contracts. SEIU has been a major backer of these struggles—and those of many other low-wage workers. This organiza tional innovation is promoted as a way for the workers to have greater partici pation in planning strategy and tactics.
• Back to the future. Also of note at SEIU’s recent convention was a unani mously adopted resolution supporting Canadian-style single-payer health care in the U.S. and Puerto Rico—a reform supported by Socialist Action as a tran sition to fully socialized medicine. That had long been the union’s position until it was arbitrarily reversed by previous SEIU president Andy Stern, who attacked single-payer in his zealous support of Obama’s Abominable Care Act. This re affirmation is particularly interesting because while single-payer has been a key plank in Bernie Sanders’ quest for the Democratic presidential nomination, SEIU backs Hillary Clinton—who dis misses it as pie-in-the-sky.
• Grads organize. Unionization ef forts among post-grad teaching and research assistants at both public and private campuses continue to show progress. The Portland Oregonian re ports, “Oregon’s Employment Relations Board certified Portland State Univer sity’s PSU’s Graduate Employees Union this week, granting 800 administrative, teaching and research assistants on the picket line alert public of possible strike action.
Park Blocks the right to join a labor union. ... PSU’s union will be affiliated with the Ameri can Federation of Teachers and the American Association of University Professors.” And the Ithaca Voice announced, “Cornell bucked a trend among private universities on Wednes day by signing an agreement that would allow its roughly 2,300 graduate students to hold an election to form a collective bargaining union.” • Remedial walking. Along with public-sector employees, and domestic-service workers, farm labor has always been spe cifically excluded from federal labor law in the United States. They also lack minimum wage and over time provisions of the Fair Labor Stan dards Act. Only a handful of states have (poorly enforced) agricultural labor laws. Last month, dozens of farm work ers and supporters began a 200-mile walk from Long Island, culminating in a big rally in Albany, demanding that the New York legislature pass a Farm Work er Bill of Rights. n
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Mark Ugolini / Socialist Action go Tribune said that for the first time since the layoffs were announced, Rosenfeld fielded questions from laid-off workers. Many of the questions pertained to the company’s massive profits and Rosenfeld’s ob scenely high compensation.
At the rally outside Jethro Head, International Vice-President of BCTGM-Midwest told the crowd: “We are here this morning to identify the core of corpo rate greed. … In essence we are here to indict Mon delez-Nabisco [CEO] Irene Rosenfeld for corporate gluttony, an obsessive and outrageous feeding at America’s economic trough. Today, Irene Rosenfeld will receive another $20 million payday. That means she will have been paid $185 million in the last nine years. That ain’t all, my sisters and brothers. In her back pocket she’s got another $35 million pension.”
I spoke briefly with 51-year-old Rodney Beas ley, one of the laid-off workers hoping his job and those of his co-workers would be reinstated. Beasley worked eight years for Nabisco, and prior to that, 23 years with Nabisco’s sister company, Entenmann’s Bakery. He told me: “They [the union] are doing whatever they can to keep our jobs. Right now they are currently in negotiations with the company … on the contract and to get as many of us back to work as possible. … That’s our hope and our prayer.”
Apparently, Rosenfeld has already dashed these hopes. The Chicago Tribune reported on her com ments during the shareholders meeting: “Rosenfeld emphasized that the jobs were cut and not coming back.”
Unfortunately, some speakers and some signs and