My Take

the klass heart of the strike brake

gale o gram


 herb

" they "
  never lisp better 
   then when they cry

"t'ain't  fair...
to other woikahs" 

 nyt op ed:


"THE Transport Workers Union,
 representing the city's nearly 34,000 subway and bus workers,
 is threatening to call a strike this Friday 
if the Metropolitan Transportation Authority
 doesn't sign a contract to its liking.

 Such a strike would be illegal: 
public employees in New York State 
are forbidden from walking out on the job. 

And not only would a strike be illegal,
 it would be unjustified. 

The authority is a generous employer by any standard. 

Its employees take home bigger paychecks 
and more lavish benefits 
than most of the city's private employees.

 The authority is not looking to drastically slash 
those salaries and benefits.

It is merely proposing to increase worker productivity 
and to cut back modestly 
on its own pension and health-benefit obligations 

Subway operators and token clerks 
are blue-collar workers,
but their paychecks match those of middle-class workers
 even ones in New York City. 

According to the authority, 
the average subway or bus operator
 earns nearly $63,000 per year.

 The average subway conductor
                         earns about $54,000.

 The average station agent earns about $51,000.

 A subway cleaner earns about $40,000.

Compare these numbers with salary figures
 in New York's private sector.
 According to the state comptroller
 the average New York City worker
 earns about $60,000 a year.

 This number includes workers
 on Wall Street, whose six-figure salaries
 distort the picture.

 Take out well-paid finance-industry workers,
 and the average worker in New York 
earns just $49,000.

 What about workers without a college education?
 Most factory workers, health care employees 
and restaurant and retail workers in the city
 earn under $35,000. 

And the transit union workers 
have one thing most people 
in the private sector don't: job security.


 the authority isn't proposing layoffs.
 It is asking only for the kind of flexibility that private-sector employers demand.

 .


 Most union members are now eligible
 to retire, at age 55, after 25 years
 on the job, at half their annual pay;
 the authority wants to raise the age
 to 62 for new employees. 

WHO'S STUPID ENOUGH TO THINK LIKE THIS

WHAT DUMBO WIL READ GUFF LIKE THIS AND COME AWAY THINKING


 " THEY'RE ALL A BUNCH OF
 SPOILED  OVER PAID 
    NASTY 
       LITTLE JOB FRAUDS "

 " IF THEY STIKEI SAY
  BOOK EM JAIL EM  
 SLAM EMGOOD
SCAB AWAY THEIR JOBS "ETC ETC ETC 

 "MAKE EM LIVE LOW LIKE THEY DESERVE "


WHO ?

WHILE THE GENTEEL MERIT KLASS READERS OF THE GRAY HARLOT 

smash NY taylor law

gale o gram


herb :

   friday it may happen .....



=====================================

 daily news 
 monday 


" Brian McLaughlin, president of the New York City
Central Labor Council,
 a group of 375 local unions,
 pitch a  transit union solidarity fund  proposal 
  to other labor leaders today"

His show of support came with the

" bus and subway
workers' contract is set to expire
 at 12:01 a.m. Friday"

" workers have authorized 
 an illegal strike--
 which could mean huge fines  
         for
employees and the union"

------------ under the state's
  "infamous"
  pub sec anti  strike law 
a bum called " taylor " -----------------

"If they decide to have a work stoppage, there would be
fines and other monetary repercussions," McLaughlin
told The News. "The solidarity fund would go a long way
as far as the labor movement saying to transit workers
that, 'Your struggle is our struggle.'"

"We just want them to be treated fairly," he said.
"Their success or failure impacts on millions of other
workers."

"A hearing was set for today 
on a state bid for an order
prohibiting the union 
from instigating, planning or
waging a strike"

"The biggest hurdle in the contentious talks
, meanwhile,
seems to be pensions"

"Union leaders have insisted they won't agree to
diminished benefits for future workers"


"The MTA has offered 
the more than 33,000
 bus and subway workers 
a two-year pact, 
with a 3% raise in the first
year. A 2% raise would follow--
but only if total sick
days used drop "

"The MTA wants new hires
 to contribute 3% 
of their
earnings toward pensions 
granted at age 62. 
Current
employees contribute 2% toward pensions 
they can
collect at 55 "

"Pension costs have tripled 
in the past three years
 to
$450 million"

But Transport Workers Union Local 100 President
 Roger
Toussaint 
said the union  won't 'sell out the unborn'"

"Union officials say workers shouldn't have to suffer
given the MTA's year-end $1 billion surplus"



==========================================

* TWU Local 100 
 http://twulocal100.org/?q=node/409

TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint


                 

best buy ??? fuck the galz

  gettin gal sued...

why ??

for an employment pattern
that "  steers women into lower-paying cashier jobs 
and minorities into the warehouse"


================================ 

usa today:

"The civil complaint,
 filed in a San Francisco federal court Thursday,
 seeks to be certified as a class action 
so it can potentially represent thousands 
of women, blacks and Hispanics 
who work in Best Buy's 731 stores nationwide.
 The Minneapolis-based company 
currently employs about 114,000 workers"

 retail is detail galz 

    took years to goose walmart hard enough
to produce an ouch ....

 good luck 

remember hit below the belt 


 my take ....
don't wait on the courtz

 org  job total staff  brake out 

ie everyone take a brake 
in each unit
 at precisely the same time 
            across the country 
announce it to the press 
the day before 
make it a couple days before xmas 

and  gals for heaven sacks
   bring the av eqipment

get the ......"management freak off"
                                on video  

left windbags

  hey can't you 
anti corporate empire guys
take this stretch limo
of a credo 
back to the shop
and turn out a compact

this is not portable fellahs 

the blurb....



"In Chicago, on December 3-4,
 the USLAW Steering
Committee met to map out strategies for 2006.
 More than
forty SC members and guests participated"

"Below is the major political statement
 adopted by the
Steering Committee"
              -------------------

   " Labor and Popular Opposition
 to the War in Iraq
and the War on Working People at Home 

(Statement of the
USLAW Steering Committee, 
        adopted 12/3/05)"

"
  From its very beginning, USLAW has publicly opposed the
war in Iraq.  We stated that Bush was lying, that we
had no right to invade Iraq, that oil was more the
issue than weapons of mass destruction.  We predicted
that war with Iraq would lead to a prolonged and bloody
guerrilla war, while encouraging terrorism in the
Middle East and elsewhere in the world.  We warned the
war would divert our nation from the essential tasks
needed to provide for our own people.

Since February 15, 2003, when more than 10 million
people across the globe went out into the streets to
say much the same thing, it has been clear that the
people have been smarter than our political
representatives.  If members of Congress and leading
opinion makers in the United States wanted to believe
the Administration's lies, it was not because the truth
was not there for all to see.

Almost three years after USLAW was founded, the peace
movement has resoundingly won the public debate. Most
polls now show more than 60% of all Americans and more
than 73% of Democrats want the U.S. military to leave
Iraq as soon as possible.  A November 2005 New York
Times/CBS news poll found that more than 8 in 10
Americans are concerned that the $5 billion spent each
month on the war in Iraq is draining away money that
could be used in the United States.  Only 19% of
military-related people polled in the heavily
militarized state of North Carolina said the war was
"worth fighting."

In the labor movement the USLAW-initiated effort to
call for rapid withdrawal from Iraq passed
overwhelmingly at the July convention of the AFL-CIO,
and many of the largest national unions are on record
against the war.  Such opposition to a war in progress
within the U.S. labor movement is unprecedented and
bespeaks the depth of antiwar sentiment among working
people.

This of course is a reflection of the disastrous
effects of the war: more than 2,100 U.S. soldiers dead,
more than 10 times that number wounded, many seriously
scarred or maimed for life. More than 100,000 Iraqis
are dead, much of Iraq has been destroyed by U.S.
military actions, and most of the Iraqi people are
still without jobs, water, electricity, basic sewage
services, health care and any minimal sense of personal
security. Meanwhile our money pours into Iraq at $8
million an hour, much of it directly to the coffers of
corporate cronies of the Bush Administration.

U.S. policies in the Middle East, and the war and
occupation of Iraq in particular, have made our country
and the world more vulnerable to terrorism, not more
secure.  The occupation is fueling the violence in Iraq
and has turned Iraq into a school for terrorism.
Attacks there are up from 150 last year to 700 per week
today. Polls in Iraq show 80% of Iraqis want U.S.
troops out. It was recently reported that after almost
3 years of training Iraqis to serve as U.S. proxies in
this war, less than 1% of Iraqi military units can act
independently of the U.S. military. In desperation the
United States is bringing back Saddam loyalists to run
the army, the very brutal enemy we claim to have gone
to war to eliminate. Many of the Iraqi military units
are under the control of religious and sectarian
militias. At home, military recruiters are in a panic
and despite all their rosy promises, inducements and
monetary incentives, young Americans are refusing to
enlist.

The use of torture against Iraqi prisoners, the use of
chemical weapons like white phosphorous on cities like
Fallujah, the U.S. refusal to permit international
monitoring of detention camps and operation of secret
CIA prisons, our government's flouting of international
law - all these have turned international public
opinion against the United States and have destroyed
any claim our government might make to the moral high
ground.

Congressman John Murtha (Dem-PA) made it clear: the
occupation is the problem and can't be the solution. As
the Iraqi trade unionists said in the joint statement
they signed with USLAW at the end of a 25-city USLAW-
sponsored tour in June:  "The principal obstacle to
peace, stability and the reconstruction of Iraq is the
occupation. The occupation must end in all its forms,
including military bases and economic domination."  The
Iraqis cannot work out their differences under
occupation.  It must end now!

Those politicians who claim to support the troops yet
call for "staying the course 'til victory is won" are
compounding the tragic and needless slaughter that has
already occurred there by adding still more lives to
the tragic cost the Iraqis and we have borne.  A failed
policy cannot be made right by doing it longer, harder
or better.

It is important to realize that the essential goals of
the war were in fact to secure control over Iraq's oil
reserves, take out a leader who had slipped from under
the thumb of the United States, and strengthen U.S.
military presence in the Middle East.  The Bush Neocons
also seek to make Iraq into an unregulated free market,
privatizing the large public sector industries and
opening the economy to foreign corporate control, just
as they seek to use the disaster in the Gulf Coast to
privatize the schools and remake New Orleans and the
Gulf Coast in their corporate image.  None of these
"alternatives" has anything to do with democracy or the
genuine interest of Iraqis.  They are more about
preserving prerogatives for U.S. power abroad and
greater corporate domination at home.

The most serious threat to the real security of the
American people today comes from the White House and
its Congressional supporters. With the 2006 elections
looming, we need to seize the opportunity  to move
members of Congress and all elected officials to
publicly and decisively oppose the war and occupation.

For too many political leaders, "victory" means having
the Iraqis fight as our proxies while U.S. troops
remain in permanent military bases and the Pentagon's
control over reconstruction funds and armed forces
results in a compliant Iraqi government.  We reject and
must oppose such phony schemes for ending the war.  The
challenge before us is to escalate the demand for
immediate withdrawal within the labor movement, to join
forces with the growing opposition to the war across
the county to force our political leaders to remove all
U.S. troops, to provide the Iraqis with the funds they
need to reconstruct their country, and to redirect our
tax money to taking care of the serious social problems
we face at home.

Our labor movement is fragmented and divided over
organizing and politics, power and leadership.  Despite
these divisions, in 2005 USLAW made dramatic strides,
mobilizing for national demonstrations, organizing the
discussion that led to an historic resolution at the
AFL-CIO convention, touring Iraqi trade unionists to 25
U.S. cities, spawning large Educators to Stop the War
conferences, and holding numerous union educational
events around the country.  Though most unions are
caught up in a fight for survival against hostile
employers and a hostile government, the struggle to end
the war and to reorder national priorities can be a
unifying force between the AFL-CIO and Change to Win,
both of which have affiliates in USLAW.

USLAW has grown to over 125 affiliates representing
millions of workers. Today we have an opportunity,
given the climate and the success of our work in 2005,
to double the number of our affiliates. Our support and
credibility in the labor movement are much greater than
our affiliations - many labor organizations are working
with us that are not officially part of USLAW. Many
more share our goals but are not yet in our network.
USLAW provides the vehicle for the labor movement to
effectively fight against the war in Iraq and to link
it to the war against working people at home. It is a
vehicle through which organized labor can break with
decades during which it blindly followed Cold War
foreign policies that were crafted in the interests of
global capital, not the interests of American or
international labor.

Local, regional and national sectors of the labor
movement, as well as the AFL-CIO and Change to Win,
need to step forward in 2006 to make this effort
effective. We must move the antiwar message and
conversation down from the leadership level of our
organizations to the rank and file, and then move our
members into action for a new foreign and domestic
policy agenda.

The labor movement is in a position not only to be an
integral part of the antiwar movement, but to actually
lead the movement. That is the role that unions and
workers should play; it is the role that unions in many
other countries do play. We in the labor movement
should be the conscience of U.S. workers on the war. We
must make our voices heard.

Why should labor lead the movement against the war?

* This is not an "extra issue."  This issue is at the
center of the national crisis our nation is in. We
cannot achieve any of labor's goals such as major
health care and pension reform, the government-funded
rebuilding of the Gulf Coast and the strengthening of
our endangered public services, without ending this
war.

* It is a budget issue, a Patriot Act issue, it is tied
to the political club called the "War on Terrorism"
that is used to attack labor rights and much that we
hold sacred, and it is the horse that many right
wingers in office have ridden for political gain.

* Our credibility as a labor movement in the rest of
the world is at stake. As we strive to organize
multinational corporations across borders, we cannot be
for U.S. aggression and the domination of U.S. capital
and claim to be in solidarity with workers in
developing countries or even in Europe-no one will
believe us.

* Defeating the U.S. policy in Iraq must be accompanied
by a new vision of genuine solidarity, based on the
mutual interests of workers, and on respect for
international law and national sovereignty. .

* We can no longer let the issue of war and the false
patriotism of tyrants and demagogues be used to drive
an anti-worker agenda, as has occurred since 9/11.

In consideration of all of the above, USLAW calls for:

*  Expanding the USLAW Network

Doubling the number of USLAW affiliates to 250 labor
organizations. Working to deepen the participation of
International Unions, the AFL-CIO and Change to Win.
This work will culminate in a National Labor Leadership
Assembly on December 2nd, 2006.

* Legislation to End the War

Put the issue of the war at the center of the political
agenda for the 2006 election year. This includes a
broad based effort in the labor movement, in
conjunction with the peace movement, to promote
federal, state and local legislative initiatives aimed
at ending the war and occupation and to ask political
candidates to take these positions.

* Massive Spring 2006 Anti-War Demonstration

A massive broadly based national demonstration in
Washington DC in April 2006, with labor playing a major
role along with a wide ranging coalition of national
organizations.

* Union-Sponsored Vet-Military Families Forums

A nationally coordinated series of forums to be held at
union-sponsored events to include Iraqi vets, Military
Families Speak Out representatives and members of Iraqi
Veterans Against the War in order to engage rank and
file members in anti-war education and activities.

* Iraqi Labor Solidarity

Continue to work in support of labor rights for Iraqi
workers and unions and explore sending delegations of
US trade unionists to Iraq and bringing Iraqi trade
unionists, including women, to the US.

By mobilizing the labor movement at every level to end
the war in Iraq, with an informed membership, we set
the stage for labor to play a stronger role in the
future in setting our nation's priorities at home and
abroad.

it ain't the job opportunity

  its the wages stupid 

 yup

illegal mexicans come here 

for the higher pay

 surprise surprise 

not the  bland cooking 

not the air con 

no 
not  even the stadium seating 
           in the multiplexes

and least of all
 cause their  jobless landless and nearly starving 

thats for a  very different section 
of the beaner humanscape
       down there
              in another  world 
                       just south of here 
  

 

=================================

lat :


"  Mexican nationals
 who crossed into the United States illegally
 in the past two years 
left behind paying jobs that
 in most cases
 are similar to the agriculture,
 construction and manufacturing work
 they find north of the border,"


 
"There's one very clear finding 
and that's that unemployment per se
 is not a very large factor
 in determining whether people migrate or not," 

" Unemployment is not pushing people out. . . . "




"undocumented Mexican immigrants earn
 about twice as much  as they did 
working south of the border"

okat so cut the dollar's value 
    in half 
we'll pay i bit more
for our hotel rooms
and tomatos 
but 
 pancho will stay home 

--------------------------

one nice stat :

"After arriving in the United States
 82 percent of the illegal immigrants
 lived with relatives"

 most of the banana brains round
  here  wish THEY  had relatives 
        that would take THEM  in 


 but here's a hideous one  

" 40% said those here over two years
 said they were unemployed 
for a large PART 
       of  the previous year"

and their playin 
with 
no  net under em 


thats when family  really comes in handy 

runnin an indy driver scam -- beware or not ????

 here's a press hash for ya 



see if you get the real deal
after reading this ....

take it from an ex teamster
   it ain't headed back to hoffa ville boys
 no matter what happens

 take this as a state rip back 
by the usual anteaters up in sacremento 


============================

 if you hate reading side ways tough shit 

i got a meeting with a brewery representative 
in 15 minutes 

 so okay heres the poop sheet

the delivery biz has esqueezed out the unions
    and created these indy driver scalps
  
  here's .....my take

the drivers are hardly caring 
if the tax man gets skunked here  

and 
workmen's comp  ???

 shit that  gauntlet 

for the honest anyway 
  a  bare foot cesspool  race
            worse then 
                    fat wife 
                   three muzzler  matrimony 



  so whats  the pointof socialization of your  risk

if you only want your  reward
 

  if  you'd rather take cash 
           indy may be the way u go 
      
  but hey guys organize 

  u need to make sure this is the best deal u all can get here 
  
owners and "their " state
may battle over the  filtched 
                 share of your days reward
  but fuck em both

   they ain't either of um in bidnizz for your sake 



lat:

"California is stepping up its campaign against delivery companies that avoid an array of payroll taxes by classifying their drivers as independent contractors.

Since early 2003, state regulators have assessed more than $37 million in back taxes and penalties against 153 courier services and delivery companies, ranging in size from a subsidiary of United Parcel Service Inc. to companies with only a few dozen drivers. 


Now, the Department of Employment Development said it planned to pick up the pace by completing audits on 450 more delivery companies by the end of next July. The state's crackdown targets a growing effort by delivery companies to cut labor costs by shedding hourly workers and then hiring them back as commission-only contractors who deliver packages in their own vehicles.

That leaves the employees responsible for making state-mandated unemployment and workers' compensation insurance contributions, as well as shouldering Social Security and other payroll taxes. 

In California, employers that switch to the independent contractor model can lower their labor costs by 30% to 40%, unfairly under-cutting competitors with conventional employees, regulators said. 

Enforcement actions to date have identified about 15,000 drivers as being incorrectly classified as independent contractors. Regulators estimate that tens of thousands more could be working illegally as contractors for employers who are failing to pay the state over $100 million in back payroll taxes and workers' compensation premiums. 

"Companies have found a way to pass on the cost of having employees down to the drivers," said Walter Branam, head of the state task force that is auditing courier services and delivery firms.

"They call them independent contractors and tell them they are responsible" for paying all taxes, including Social Security contributions and workers' compensation insurance premiums.

State auditors contend that most delivery drivers who are paid as independent contractors are illegally classified because the companies they work for maintain almost complete control over their routes, schedules and working conditions, Branam said.

In October, California insurance fraud investigators, accompanied by Massachusetts State Police officers, served a search warrant on the offices of NICA Inc., a Braintree, Mass., company that provides services for courier firms that convert their drivers to independent contractors. NICA said it does 30% of its business in California.

The search warrant remains under seal and the state Department of Insurance declined to comment on the investigation.

However, NICA, as part of its program, sells "group occupational accident insurance" to drivers in lieu of state-required workers' compensation coverage, a practice that California regulators in the past have identified as potential insurance fraud.

NICA defended its business as legal and dismissed the dispute as "a difference of opinion with state regulators."

The company, which has worked with 400 companies employing 16,000 drivers in 42 states, said its strategy could be good for drivers as well as its clients.

Contract drivers, if they hustle and are truly independent, can cover more territory and make more money than hourly workers, argued Tim Bergin, NICA's western region sales director.

"You can double your income," said Ty Conley, a NICA-affiliated driver in San Bernardino. "I can work for myself and have so much more freedom."

But owners of traditional, employee-based companies say the independent contractor strategy gives an unfair advantage to competitors who use it. Fred Sardella closed his Riverside-based Intra County Business Mail in February after losing a large contract to deliver pharmaceuticals to a competitor using independent contractor drivers.

"You going to beat them? You can't, not when 50% to 60% of your operating expense is drivers," Sardella said.

As complaints have grown, so have the legal challenges to the practice, including high-profile cases involving subsidiaries of UPS and FedEx Corp. Complaints filed by California regulators and private lawsuits filed on behalf of drivers are now pending in 24 states against companies that use contractor drivers.

"We don't want low-income people in the state of California to not have the safety net that the state intended for them," said Deputy Atty. Gen. Steven Green, who represents the state in a case involving UPS-SonicAir Inc., a unit of Atlanta-based UPS.

SonicAir, which specializes in same-day deliveries of urgently needed goods, relied on contract drivers even before UPS acquired the company in 1995. The state Department of Employment Development found that SonicAir had improperly classified its drivers as independent contractors and owed the state $625,000 in back payments for payroll taxes and insurance premiums.

The California Unemployment Insurance Appeals board twice upheld the decision and Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Patricia C. Esgro later denied a SonicAir appeal, saying its drivers were independent only in the terms of the "take-it-or-leave-it" contracts they signed. 

The company's drivers "were performing an integral and entirely essential aspect of Sonic's business, which is inconsistent with independent contractor status," the judge wrote. "Sonic's drivers' income was simply not dependent upon any initiative, judgment or managerial abilities demonstrated by a driver."

Sonic is appealing Esgro's ruling. 

"We believe very strongly that our evidence is clear in terms of why these men and women are independent contractors," said UPS spokesman Norman Black. He argued that Sonic contractors are independent because they are "not required to wear a uniform; own and drive their own vehicle … and they are free to accept work any time from any other company." 

As UPS battles regulators in California courts, rival FedEx Corp. is engaged in a legal fight with current and former drivers at its FedEx Ground Package Systems Inc. subsidiary.

Last year, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Howard J. Schwab ruled in a class-action lawsuit that FedEx Ground drivers, who are required to buy their own trucks, should be deemed employees because the company has "close to absolute actual control" over them.

Last week, Schwab ordered FedEx Ground to pay $5.3 million in damages to drivers and $12.4 million in attorneys' fees.

FedEx Ground plans to appeal Schwab's ruling and is contesting 31 similar suits that have been consolidated in U.S. District Court in South Bend, Ind. 

"We have always operated with independent contractors," said spokesman David Westrick. "We intend to defend that as much or as far as we need to."

FedEx Ground could be in for a tough time convincing more judges that its drivers truly operate independently, said John Kirkwood, a former FedEx Ground independent contractor driver. Kirkwood, who now drives a cement truck in the Sacramento area, said he had landed a $1.7-million-a-year contract to make FedEx deliveries for a large stationery dealer, but FedEx management yanked the business from him and gave it to other drivers.

"We had no say so. They told us what to do," Kirkwood said. "What they do is take advantage of the workers. It's a way of getting out of paying stuff." 

andy wins one

Union organizers have obtained what they say is
majority support in one of the biggest unionization
drives in the South in decades, collecting the
signatures of thousands of Houston janitors.

In an era when unions typically face frustration and
failure in attracting workers in the private sector,
the Service Employees International Union is bringing
in 5,000 janitors from several companies at once. With
work force experts saying that unions face a slow death
unless they can figure out how to organize private-
sector workers in big bunches, labor leaders are
looking to the Houston campaign as a model.

The service employees, which led a breakaway of four
unions from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. last summer, has used
several unusual tactics in Houston, among them lining
up the support of religious leaders, pension funds and
the city's mayor, Bill White, a Democrat. Making the
effort even more unusual has been the union's success
in a state that has long been hostile to labor.

"It's the largest unionization campaign in the South in
years," said Julius Getman, a labor law professor at
the University of Texas. "Other unions will say, 'Yes,
it can be done here.' "

Mr. Getman predicted that the Houston effort would
embolden other unions to take their chances with
ambitious drives in the South, although success could
prove difficult because many companies will continue to
fight unionization efforts, and many workers still shy
away from unions.

"This could be important to build momentum in the
South, but it's still an incredibly hard task to
organize" there, said Richard W. Hurd, a professor of
labor relations at Cornell. "One big problem is there's
not a base of union members in the South to use to do
organizing. And employers in the South have
demonstrated a very strong antiunion bias and a
willingness to go to great lengths to avoid
unionization."

The service employees' success comes as the percentage
of private-sector workers in unions has dropped to 7.9
percent, the lowest rate in more than a century.

With its campaign to organize the janitors, the union
has focused on two groups it says are pivotal if labor
is to grow again: low-wage workers and immigrants. The
janitors, nearly all of them immigrants, earn just over
$100 a week on average, usually working part time for
$5.25 an hour.

Some of Houston's business leaders oppose the
unionization drive, saying its pledge of higher wages
may hurt business.

"I don't see how it's going to help Houston from a
business standpoint," said Mark Jodon, a Houston lawyer
who represents employers. "It has the potential of
raising the cost of doing business."

The union has trumpeted the Houston effort - which cost
more than $1 million - as part of its Justice for
Janitors campaign, billed as an antipoverty movement.

Flora Aguilar, a Mexican immigrant who cleans an office
tower for $5.25 an hour, volunteered to help the
organizing drive as soon as the union gave the janitors
questionnaires asking what aspects of their jobs they
thought needed improvement.

"The wages are terrible, there are no benefits, there's
nothing," Ms. Aguilar said. "I have to stretch myself
like a rubber band to make ends meet. I want a union
because it will give me a better life."

In recent days, the union has collected cards signed by
about three-fifths of the workers at four of Houston's
biggest janitorial companies. An agreement signed in
August calls for the American Arbitration Association
to inspect the cards and certify when the union has
received majority support. The janitorial companies
have promised to recognize the union once that happens.

Even if the union is recognized, it still faces a big
obstacle in negotiating a contract that delivers some
of the hoped-for improvements in wages and benefits.

Yet the union's Texas achievement stands in stark
contrast to the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s failed drive in the
early 1980's, which sought to recruit tens of thousands
of Houston workers. Known as the Houston Organizing
Project, that $1-million-a-year effort faltered along
with the economy, as unions retreated and focused on
holding onto the workers they had, and as Texas
companies fought hard against unionizing.

Despite the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s anger at the service
employees' union, which in breaking away had accused
the federation of doing too little to organize workers,
Stewart Acuff, the federation's organizing director,
praised the Houston janitors' campaign, saying more
such drives were needed.

In the current campaign, the service employees urged
several public-employee pension funds to press building
owners and janitorial companies not to mount hard-
hitting anti-union campaigns to defeat the organizing
drive. To step up the pressure, the union called a
strike at one building in Houston and then arranged
sympathy strikes by janitors at 75 office buildings in
four other states.

Because the union had no office or local in Houston,
its giant local of building-service workers in Chicago
oversaw the recruitment drive. That local dispatched a
top official to Houston to run the campaign and flew in
25 Spanish-speaking janitors for weeks at a time to
talk to janitors at their homes and workplaces.

Workers were told of the union's success in New Jersey,
where the salaries of 4,500 recently organized janitors
had risen to $11.90 an hour from $5.85 an hour three
years ago, and where many part-time workers had been
converted to full-time status with health benefits.

The union announced its campaign last April, but two
years earlier, it sent a community liaison to Houston
who helped line up backing from the city's mayor,
several congressmen and dozens of clergymen, including
the Roman Catholic archbishop, Joseph A. Fiorenza. The
archbishop even celebrated a special Mass for janitors
in August and spoke at the union's kickoff rally,
telling the janitors that God was unhappy that they
earned so little and did not have health coverage.

"They work for the same companies that are in Chicago,
New York and Los Angeles, and their counterparts there
are getting much higher salaries," Archbishop Fiorenza
said in an interview. "It's just basic justice and
fairness that the wages should be increased here."

Office building janitors average $20 an hour in New
York City. They make $13.30 in Chicago and
Philadelphia, cities with office rents comparable to
Houston's and a cost of living about 40 percent higher.
Janitors in Houston typically earn $5.25 an hour, 10
cents more than the federal minimum wage. But business
leaders say the wages are consistent with what other
unskilled workers earn.

"The wages that are paid in Houston to janitors are
generally above minimum wage," said Tammy Bettancourt,
executive vice president of the Houston Building Owners
and Managers Association. "Their wages are very much in
line with every other part-time job and with the city's
retailers. That's what the market dictates."

Ercilia Sandoval, who cleans offices in a prime office
tower, says she has not had a raise in eight years and
does not have health insurance. A school dentist
recently found that her 7-year-old daughter had six
cavities, and fillings will cost $750, when her weekly
take-home pay is $91.50.

"Everything has gone up except our wages," Ms. Sandoval
said. "If we ask for a raise, they say, 'Anyone who
doesn't like it here, there's the door.' "

The union and the janitorial companies declined to
discuss details of the drive because of a
confidentiality agreement. The service employees have
pressured the companies to accept majority support
based on the number of workers who sign cards saying
they want a union.

Convinced that it is easier to unionize workers through
card checks, the union has shunned the typical process
of having an election run by the National Labor
Relations Board.

Even before the confidentiality agreement was signed,
cleaning company officials were reluctant to discuss
the janitors' wages and why they had agreed to card
checks and arbitrators' oversight.

OneSource, one of the nation's largest cleaning
companies, said, "OneSource, along with every other
major contractor in the Houston area, made a business
decision to remain neutral in this process."

The company said it was premature to discuss wage
levels while workers were considering whether to join
the service employees' union.

Union leaders said the cleaning companies had agreed to
remain neutral because of pressures from building
owners and pension funds, and because the service
employees had threatened to pressure operations
elsewhere, as it did with the sympathy strikes in
California, Illinois, New York and Connecticut.

Many unions hope to copy the Houston effort, but that
could be difficult because many do not have the skilled
organizers that the service employees have. Moreover,
not all other industries are as vulnerable to union
pressures.

Expanding on the Houston effort, the service employees
hope to unionize 4,000 janitors in Atlanta, 2,000 in
Phoenix and tens of thousands of shopping mall janitors
nationwide. But even the service employees have
encountered problems. For instance, their effort to
organize 7,000 condominium workers in Miami has stalled
because of opposition from the largest property
management company there.

Still, the Houston effort has gone more smoothly than
union officials had expected.

"We decided that Houston would be the place to bring to
bear everything we've built in the last 15 years," said
Stephen Lerner, director of the Justice for Janitors
campaign. "That would allow us to organize a whole city
at once

delphi update

"The UAW and five other unions  announce 
the formation of the Mobilizing@Delphi Coalition"

 
" The UAW joined the Steelworkers,
Machinists,
 Operating Engineers,
 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers,
 and IUE "

"The brief statement listed no specific actions,
 but focused on the need to 
"fight for fairness for all Delphi stakeholders."


-----------talk about getting  out ahead of the curve -------

                     --------  ahhhh 
                      what  music
                    a few sticks of dyno  could make --------

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	Posted by herb jr. jr. at 11:37 AM
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