Labor Briefing
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4 SOCIALIST ACTION JULY 2016 • Honeywell Lockout In South Bend— On May 9, Honeywell locked out more than 300 workers in UAW Local 9 at their South Bend aircraft component plant and brought in temporary strike-breakers to assist white shirts in partial production. The main issue in dispute is health in surance. Other nearby UAW Locals have helped maintain a lively picket line and the locked-out workers have been able to collect state unemployment benefits.
• Kept From Their Appointed Rounds As we go to press, Canada Post, the crown corporation running the country’s postal services, has served the legally required notice that they will lock-out their 50,000 employees belonging to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. The dispute over the company’s “final offer” center on pensions and job security.
• Nurses In Motion—Affiliates of Na tional Nurses United have conducted two strikes of limited duration, settled one contract just before a strike deadline, and 345 SEIU ancillary workers at one of the properties where nurses were strik ing rejected a concession laden company offer.
The two strike targets that remain to be settled are about 5,000 nurses at Allina hospitals in the Twin Cities region and 1,800 at a Kaiser facility in Los Angeles. The tentative settlement was reached for 300 RNs at Watsonville, California Com munity Hospital which, according to the NNU website, “nurses were able to suc cessfully address significant staffing con cerns, and achieve economic improve ments, and protection of their health coverage.”
• Rope Line—175 workers at two Bri don American plants in Exeter and Ha nover Township Pennsylvania went on strike June 27. The company, manufactur ing wire rope used in the oil drilling and fracking industries, feigned surprise that the workers, represented by UAW Local 1612, rejected the “generous” final offer.
Union Shop Chairman Brian Rothenberg told the local paper, Citizen Voice, “We would never negotiate in the press but clearly, the men and women who work at Bridon have felt that the health care and wage issues are not sufficient.” The union is maintaining 24-7 picket lines.
• Public Service Matters—That was the slogan of dozens of Washington State Employees rallying in front of the Labor & Industries Department in Olympia. The Olympian reported, “Washington Federa tion of State Employees, the state’s larg est union, organized Tuesday’s rally—the first in a series around the state—to raise awareness about setbacks in the public sector workforce over that past decade and the importance of the upcoming la bor contract.”
The AFSCME affiliate is bargaining for 30,000 workers who have never recov ered from a negotiated cut in wages and benefits in 2010. Many fall in to the defi nition of working poor. Currently, 600 • 15 Now On Minneapolis Ballot— Both AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions backed a successful petition effort by the 15 Now Minnesota coalition to put the $15 city minimum wage on the Nov. 8 Minneapolis ballot. If approved, Min neapolis would join more than 30 cities nationwide with similar minimum wage ordinances, including Seattle, San Fran cisco, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.
• VW’s Labor Policy Like Their Emis sion Tests—Rivet reports, “Volkswa gen is being accused of going back on its pledge to recognize the United Auto Workers union at the automaker’s only U.S. plant, which is in Chattanooga, Ten nessee. The unions’ secretary-treasurer has released a 2014 document that states VW would recognize the UAW union as the representative of its members, in exchange for the union dropping a chal lenge to the outcome of a union election at the plant.
“About 160 skilled trades workers voted to be represented by the UAW during last year’s election. The union says the writ ten 2014 agreement stemmed from nego tiations at a meeting led by Volkswagen’s then-chief financial officer, who has since been named chairman amid the compa ny’s diesel emissions cheating scandal.”
• Not Just Cursing the Darkness— Nursing assistants, housekeeping em ployees, dietary workers, and laundry staff voted overwhelmingly for union rep resentation at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children and Delaware County Memo rial Hospital, near Philadelphia. They will now bargain for contracts through Local 1199C—an AFSCME affiliate. n