Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Walmart Workers Stand Up to Live Better
You won't see a better explanation for why workers want to organize. This is a campaign worth supporting for the long term.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Walmart Workers Protest For Better Wages And Benefits On Black Friday
Think Progress
By Igor Volsky on Nov 23, 2012 at 12:18 pm
Workers at Walmart stores across the country are walking off their jobs to protest the national retailer’s low wages and poor working conditions in an effort to raise public awareness about how the company treats its employees on the busiest shopping day of the year. The strikes, which began earlier this month, are the first in the 50 year history of the company and come just as Walmart reported a 9 percent increase in third-quarter net income, earning $3.63 billion.
Workers are also opposing Walmart’s poor benefits, alleged systematic discrimination against women, and its decision this year to kick off Black Friday on Thursday night. As Fox News reported today, many employees say they fear retaliation for speaking out against the company’s policies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INh0syM0G0o&feature=player_embedded
Walmart filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board in an effort to stop the walk out last week, accusing protesters of violating a law “which prohibits picketing for any period over 30 days without filing a petition to form a union.”
The walk out is being organized by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and its subsidiary OUR Walmart. Walmart’s 1.4 million workers in the U.S. are not unionized.
Kansas City area workers rallied outside a Roeland Park Walmart. They even sang a song for the occasion. Check it out on the KMBC blog: http://20poundsofheadlines.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/wal-mart-protest-in-song-at-roeland-park/
About two dozen protesters holding signs outside the Roeland Park Walmart on Black Friday. (Thanks to Micheal Mahoney, a very good reporter for KMBC).
By Igor Volsky on Nov 23, 2012 at 12:18 pm
Workers at Walmart stores across the country are walking off their jobs to protest the national retailer’s low wages and poor working conditions in an effort to raise public awareness about how the company treats its employees on the busiest shopping day of the year. The strikes, which began earlier this month, are the first in the 50 year history of the company and come just as Walmart reported a 9 percent increase in third-quarter net income, earning $3.63 billion.
Workers are also opposing Walmart’s poor benefits, alleged systematic discrimination against women, and its decision this year to kick off Black Friday on Thursday night. As Fox News reported today, many employees say they fear retaliation for speaking out against the company’s policies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INh0syM0G0o&feature=player_embedded
Walmart filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board in an effort to stop the walk out last week, accusing protesters of violating a law “which prohibits picketing for any period over 30 days without filing a petition to form a union.”
The walk out is being organized by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and its subsidiary OUR Walmart. Walmart’s 1.4 million workers in the U.S. are not unionized.
Kansas City area workers rallied outside a Roeland Park Walmart. They even sang a song for the occasion. Check it out on the KMBC blog: http://20poundsofheadlines.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/wal-mart-protest-in-song-at-roeland-park/
About two dozen protesters holding signs outside the Roeland Park Walmart on Black Friday. (Thanks to Micheal Mahoney, a very good reporter for KMBC).
Monday, November 19, 2012
Boonville Hostess Bakery Prepares to Close
KOMU
Posted: Nov 16, 2012 by Stacey Kafka
http://www.komu.com/news/boonville-hostess-bakery-prepares-to-close/
Vulture Capitalism Ate Your Twinkies
What happens when vulture capitalism ruins a great American company?
The vultures blame the workers.
The vultures blame the union.
And vapid media outlets report the lie as “news.”
That’s what’s happening with the meltdown of Hostess Brands Inc.
Americans are being told that they won’t get their Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Ho Hos because the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union ran the company into the ground.
But the union and the 5,600 Hostess workers represented by the union did not create the crisis that led the company’s incompetent managers to announce plans to shutter it.
The BCTGM workers did not ask for more pay.
The BCTGM workers did not ask for more benefits.
The BCTGM workers did not ask for better pensions.
The union and its members had a long history of working with the company to try to keep it viable. They had made wage and benefit concessions to keep the company viable. They adjusted to new technologies, new demands.
They took deep layoffs—20 percent of the workforce—and kept showing up for work even as plants were closed.
They kept working even as the company stopped making payments to their pension fund more than a year ago.
The workers did not squeeze the filling out of Hostess.
Hostess was smashed by vulture capitalists—“a management team that,” in the words of economist Dean Baker, “shows little competence and is rapidly stuffing its pockets at the company’s expense.”
Even as the company struggled, the ten top Hostes executives pocketed increasingly lavish compensation packages. The Hostess CEO who demanded some of the deepest cuts from workers engineered a 300 percent increase in his compensation package.
“Wall Street investors first came onto the scene with Hostess about a decade ago, purchasing the company and then loading it with debt. All the while, its executives talked of investments in new equipment, new research and new delivery trucks, but those improvements never materialized,” explains AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka.
“Instead, the executives planned to give themselves bonuses and demanded pay cuts and benefit cuts from the workers, who haven’t had a raise in eight years,” said the AFL-CIO head. “In 2011, Hostess earned profits of more than $2.5 billion but ended the year with a loss of $341 million as it struggled to pay the interest on $1 billion in debt. This year, the company sought bankruptcy protection, the second time in eight years. Still, the CEO who brought on the latest bankruptcy got a raise while Hostess demanded that its workers accept a 30 percent pay and benefits cut.”
When BCTGM workers struck Hostess, they did not do so casually.
They were challenging Bain-style abuses by a private-equity group—Ripplewood Holdings—that had proven its incompetence and yet continued to demand more money from the workers.
“When a highly respected financial consultant, hired by Hostess, determined earlier this year that the company’s business plan to exit bankruptcy was guaranteed to fail because it left the company with unsustainable debt levels, our members knew that the massive wage and benefit concessions the company was demanding would go straight to Wall Street investors and not back into the company,” recalled BCTGM president Frank Hunt, who described why the union struck Hostess rather than accept a demand from management for more pay and benefit cuts.
“Our members decided they were not going to take any more abuse from a company they have given so much to for so many years,” Hunt explained. “They decided that they were not going to agree to another round of outrageous wage and benefit cuts and give up their pension only to see yet another management team fail and Wall Street vulture capitalists and ‘restructuring specialists’ walk away with untold millions of dollars.”
On November 6, American voters rejected Mitt Romney and Bain Capitalism.
But that didn’t end the abusive business practices that made Romney rich. They’re still wrecking American companies, like Hostess.
Instead of blaming workers, we should be holding the incompetent managers to account and cheering on any and every effort to rescue Hostess from the clutches of the vulture capitalists.
The vultures blame the workers.
The vultures blame the union.
And vapid media outlets report the lie as “news.”
That’s what’s happening with the meltdown of Hostess Brands Inc.
Americans are being told that they won’t get their Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Ho Hos because the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union ran the company into the ground.
But the union and the 5,600 Hostess workers represented by the union did not create the crisis that led the company’s incompetent managers to announce plans to shutter it.
The BCTGM workers did not ask for more pay.
The BCTGM workers did not ask for more benefits.
The BCTGM workers did not ask for better pensions.
The union and its members had a long history of working with the company to try to keep it viable. They had made wage and benefit concessions to keep the company viable. They adjusted to new technologies, new demands.
They took deep layoffs—20 percent of the workforce—and kept showing up for work even as plants were closed.
They kept working even as the company stopped making payments to their pension fund more than a year ago.
The workers did not squeeze the filling out of Hostess.
Hostess was smashed by vulture capitalists—“a management team that,” in the words of economist Dean Baker, “shows little competence and is rapidly stuffing its pockets at the company’s expense.”
Even as the company struggled, the ten top Hostes executives pocketed increasingly lavish compensation packages. The Hostess CEO who demanded some of the deepest cuts from workers engineered a 300 percent increase in his compensation package.
“Wall Street investors first came onto the scene with Hostess about a decade ago, purchasing the company and then loading it with debt. All the while, its executives talked of investments in new equipment, new research and new delivery trucks, but those improvements never materialized,” explains AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka.
“Instead, the executives planned to give themselves bonuses and demanded pay cuts and benefit cuts from the workers, who haven’t had a raise in eight years,” said the AFL-CIO head. “In 2011, Hostess earned profits of more than $2.5 billion but ended the year with a loss of $341 million as it struggled to pay the interest on $1 billion in debt. This year, the company sought bankruptcy protection, the second time in eight years. Still, the CEO who brought on the latest bankruptcy got a raise while Hostess demanded that its workers accept a 30 percent pay and benefits cut.”
When BCTGM workers struck Hostess, they did not do so casually.
They were challenging Bain-style abuses by a private-equity group—Ripplewood Holdings—that had proven its incompetence and yet continued to demand more money from the workers.
“When a highly respected financial consultant, hired by Hostess, determined earlier this year that the company’s business plan to exit bankruptcy was guaranteed to fail because it left the company with unsustainable debt levels, our members knew that the massive wage and benefit concessions the company was demanding would go straight to Wall Street investors and not back into the company,” recalled BCTGM president Frank Hunt, who described why the union struck Hostess rather than accept a demand from management for more pay and benefit cuts.
“Our members decided they were not going to take any more abuse from a company they have given so much to for so many years,” Hunt explained. “They decided that they were not going to agree to another round of outrageous wage and benefit cuts and give up their pension only to see yet another management team fail and Wall Street vulture capitalists and ‘restructuring specialists’ walk away with untold millions of dollars.”
On November 6, American voters rejected Mitt Romney and Bain Capitalism.
But that didn’t end the abusive business practices that made Romney rich. They’re still wrecking American companies, like Hostess.
Instead of blaming workers, we should be holding the incompetent managers to account and cheering on any and every effort to rescue Hostess from the clutches of the vulture capitalists.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Twinkie-Maker Hostess Fires 18,000 People: Blames Long-Suffering Workers
We hate to see this happen to our brothers and sisters across Missouri and the country.
Working In These Times
Friday Nov 16, 2012 8:50 pm
Friday Nov 16, 2012 8:50 pm
Hostess
Brands is blaming its liquidation on this week’s strike, by workers
such as these in Schiller Park, Ill. The company’s financial woes,
however, are years old. (Photo by Scott Olsen / Getty Images).
Today, the owners of Hostess Brands—the company that makes widely recognized baked goods such as Twinkies and Wonder Bread—made good on a longstanding threat to close down operations, eliminating as many as 18,000 jobs.
Company spokesperson Lance Ignon told Working In These Times that some 22 bakeries around the nation completed their last production runs early on Friday morning, while delivery drivers finished their final routes this afternoon. The company has no plans to resume operations.
In a statement, Hostess CEO Greg Rayburn blamed the shutdown on a strike this week by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM).
However, his scapegoating of the union obscures a larger and more complicated story of corporate mismanagement and naked greed. In fact, the company has been in severe financial distress for more than a decade, management has been in disarray, and vulture capitalists have been circling in search of financial prey.
BCTGM President Frank Hurt was not available for comment on today, but told Working In These Times earlier this week that the BCGTM strike was the “tragic” result of the company’s ill-conceived plan to bust the unions, dismember the company and sell off the pieces to highest bidders. Hostess managers have made clear that they care little for the hardships imposed on the workers, Hurt said, leaving the union no choice but to strike in hopes of the bringing the company back to the bargaining table.
Hurt has made other comments over the last three months in which he made clear that he believes the owners of the company have no real desire to return the ailing Hostess to profitability. Rather, they want to strip the company of its valuable assets while discarding the long-term employees and financial liabilities.
Hostess confirmed at least part of Hurt’s analysis on Friday when the company also announced it wants to move quickly to sell its bakeries, distributions facilities, retail outlets and “popular brands.”
According to an article in Friday’s Kansas City Business Journal, that means the company will sell brand names such as Hostess, Twinkies, Wonder Bread, Ding Dongs and Ho Hos. Food industry analyst John Stout Jr. believes such sales would allow other businesses to resume profitable manufacturing of these products in other facilities.
Such a plan will require the approval of Judge Robert Drain of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Hostess filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition in Judge Drain’s court early this year, and under bankruptcy law most major business decisions at Hostess require his approval. Indeed, the imposition of the brutal wage and benefit cuts on BCTGM members was specifically approved by Judge Drain in October.
Hostess spokesperson Ignon said the company plans to be back in Judge Drain’s court next week to seek his okay for measures to further wind down operations. Hostess will not seek a formal conversion to a Chapter 7 liquidation proceeding, but rather a continuation of the status quo, in which the current owners and managers maintain control of the company, he said.
Whatever happens in Judge Drain’s bankruptcy court next week, an estimated 18,000 Hostess workers will have no job to return to Monday.
The company has been maintaining a payroll of 18,300 to 18,500 workers, Ignon says, and most were laid off Friday. An undetermined number of managerial and administrative workers will be retained for the immediate future, he adds, but it is too early to give exact numbers.
About 5,000 BCTGM workers will lose their jobs, along with 7,500 members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and hundreds of members of ten other unions representing smaller sectors of the Hostess workforce.
CEO Rayburn’s Friday statement made no mention of any assistance that the company plans to offer the newly jobless employees.
Company spokesperson Lance Ignon told Working In These Times that some 22 bakeries around the nation completed their last production runs early on Friday morning, while delivery drivers finished their final routes this afternoon. The company has no plans to resume operations.
In a statement, Hostess CEO Greg Rayburn blamed the shutdown on a strike this week by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM).
However, his scapegoating of the union obscures a larger and more complicated story of corporate mismanagement and naked greed. In fact, the company has been in severe financial distress for more than a decade, management has been in disarray, and vulture capitalists have been circling in search of financial prey.
Hostess might be considered an "old economy" company in the sense that
it manufactured, produced and marketed popular cakes to a mass market.
In its newest incarnation—under the slicker, greedier sensibility of Wall St.—it is something else altogether.
Hostess claims that a BCGTM strike begun on November 9 was the
company's undoing. The strike started at four scattered Hostess
plants and spread across the country, forcing 11 bakery closures,
according to Ignon.
The union, however, notes that the strike came only after months of
fruitless contract negotiations and the imposition by Hostess of
“draconian cuts” to wages and benefits. Prior to that, employees of
Hostess were working under reduced incomes for almost 10 years. From
2004 to 2008 the company, then called Interstate Bakeries, went through a
Chapter 11 bankruptcy in which all union workers took forced cuts.BCTGM President Frank Hurt was not available for comment on today, but told Working In These Times earlier this week that the BCGTM strike was the “tragic” result of the company’s ill-conceived plan to bust the unions, dismember the company and sell off the pieces to highest bidders. Hostess managers have made clear that they care little for the hardships imposed on the workers, Hurt said, leaving the union no choice but to strike in hopes of the bringing the company back to the bargaining table.
Hurt has made other comments over the last three months in which he made clear that he believes the owners of the company have no real desire to return the ailing Hostess to profitability. Rather, they want to strip the company of its valuable assets while discarding the long-term employees and financial liabilities.
Hostess confirmed at least part of Hurt’s analysis on Friday when the company also announced it wants to move quickly to sell its bakeries, distributions facilities, retail outlets and “popular brands.”
According to an article in Friday’s Kansas City Business Journal, that means the company will sell brand names such as Hostess, Twinkies, Wonder Bread, Ding Dongs and Ho Hos. Food industry analyst John Stout Jr. believes such sales would allow other businesses to resume profitable manufacturing of these products in other facilities.
Such a plan will require the approval of Judge Robert Drain of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Hostess filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition in Judge Drain’s court early this year, and under bankruptcy law most major business decisions at Hostess require his approval. Indeed, the imposition of the brutal wage and benefit cuts on BCTGM members was specifically approved by Judge Drain in October.
Hostess spokesperson Ignon said the company plans to be back in Judge Drain’s court next week to seek his okay for measures to further wind down operations. Hostess will not seek a formal conversion to a Chapter 7 liquidation proceeding, but rather a continuation of the status quo, in which the current owners and managers maintain control of the company, he said.
Whatever happens in Judge Drain’s bankruptcy court next week, an estimated 18,000 Hostess workers will have no job to return to Monday.
The company has been maintaining a payroll of 18,300 to 18,500 workers, Ignon says, and most were laid off Friday. An undetermined number of managerial and administrative workers will be retained for the immediate future, he adds, but it is too early to give exact numbers.
About 5,000 BCTGM workers will lose their jobs, along with 7,500 members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and hundreds of members of ten other unions representing smaller sectors of the Hostess workforce.
CEO Rayburn’s Friday statement made no mention of any assistance that the company plans to offer the newly jobless employees.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
School board votes down plan to outsource Battle janitors
The custodian & maintenance staff of the Columbia Public Schools won an important victory when the school board voted not to outsource the staff for the new Battle High School. The result would have been lower pay and loss of their state pension, in addition to probable future outsourcing of the staff district wide. Not to mention the inevitable turnover and low morale that would result. Kudos to those district workers who bravely stood up for themselves and the CMNEA President Susan McClintic, who spoke publicly and privately to the board and administration in opposition to the outsourcing.
Columbia Tribune
By CATHERINE MARTIN
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
The Columbia Board of Education last night rejected a proposal to outsource maintenance staff at Battle High School after hearing concerns from Columbia Public Schools janitors.
Administrators first asked the board to consider outsourcing to GCA Education Services, based in Knoxville, Tenn., at a meeting last month. The proposal was sent back to the administration after some board members voiced concerns about pay and benefits. A revised proposal, with increased pay and benefits, went to the board last night, but members agreed it still wasn't up to snuff. The measure was defeated 6-1, with Tom Rose casting the only vote in support of outsourcing.
In the initial proposal, pay from GCA started at $8.50 for custodians and topped out at $13.50 for hourly supervisors. District pay ranges from $9.15 to $16.05. A revised proposal changed the GCA pay range to $9.15 to $14.50. Employees for GCA also would have 20 fewer sick days or paid holidays.
Longtime janitor Alvin Sweezer said custodial employees who have been with the district for 10 to 15 years were worried about what the proposal would do to their jobs, and some even discussed early retirement.
The proposal was presented as a cost-saving measure — the initial plan with GCA would have saved the district $298,792, and the revised planned would have saved $240,756. Battle, the district's newest school, would have served as an experiment for outsourcing custodial staff, Superintendent Chris Belcher told the finance committee last week.
If it went well, the district would expand the plan. If it didn't go well, it would be a learning experience, Belcher said.
But custodians saw it differently, district custodial employee Jeff Hempstead said.
"This is being called a pilot program," he said. "Most custodians think it's the beginning of a program to eliminate our jobs within Columbia Public Schools."
Board member Jim Whitt said although the plan was just for Battle, the next logical step on many people's minds would be expanding it to the rest of the district.
"Everybody is going to look at this and say, 'This will cost me to lose 20 days,' " he said, referring to benefits. "At this point in time, I'm a little uncomfortable with that."
One of the biggest reasons for the cost savings was that the GCA plan only called for 12.5 full-time equivalent positions at Battle, while the district's plan called for 19. Some board members proposed bringing in a consultant to work on having a more efficient in-house system districtwide.
"What I'm struggling with now, I've heard enough from employees and community members that maybe now is just not the right time for this," board member Christine King said, pointing to recent board approval to outsource substitute teachers.
"That might have rubbed some people a little wrong. … My personal feeling is to see us say 'no' to this and say, 'Let's regroup and get a consultant and look at it in more detail.' "
Deputy Superintendent Nick Boren said he wasn't aware of such services but `would look into it.
Sweezer said "it was nice" that the board rejected the proposal, and he said he hopes the district provides more training to make sure its employees are working efficiently.
Reach Catherine Martin at 573-815-1711 or e-mail cmartin@columbiatribune.com.
Columbia Tribune
By CATHERINE MARTIN
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
The Columbia Board of Education last night rejected a proposal to outsource maintenance staff at Battle High School after hearing concerns from Columbia Public Schools janitors.
Administrators first asked the board to consider outsourcing to GCA Education Services, based in Knoxville, Tenn., at a meeting last month. The proposal was sent back to the administration after some board members voiced concerns about pay and benefits. A revised proposal, with increased pay and benefits, went to the board last night, but members agreed it still wasn't up to snuff. The measure was defeated 6-1, with Tom Rose casting the only vote in support of outsourcing.
In the initial proposal, pay from GCA started at $8.50 for custodians and topped out at $13.50 for hourly supervisors. District pay ranges from $9.15 to $16.05. A revised proposal changed the GCA pay range to $9.15 to $14.50. Employees for GCA also would have 20 fewer sick days or paid holidays.
Longtime janitor Alvin Sweezer said custodial employees who have been with the district for 10 to 15 years were worried about what the proposal would do to their jobs, and some even discussed early retirement.
The proposal was presented as a cost-saving measure — the initial plan with GCA would have saved the district $298,792, and the revised planned would have saved $240,756. Battle, the district's newest school, would have served as an experiment for outsourcing custodial staff, Superintendent Chris Belcher told the finance committee last week.
If it went well, the district would expand the plan. If it didn't go well, it would be a learning experience, Belcher said.
But custodians saw it differently, district custodial employee Jeff Hempstead said.
"This is being called a pilot program," he said. "Most custodians think it's the beginning of a program to eliminate our jobs within Columbia Public Schools."
Board member Jim Whitt said although the plan was just for Battle, the next logical step on many people's minds would be expanding it to the rest of the district.
"Everybody is going to look at this and say, 'This will cost me to lose 20 days,' " he said, referring to benefits. "At this point in time, I'm a little uncomfortable with that."
One of the biggest reasons for the cost savings was that the GCA plan only called for 12.5 full-time equivalent positions at Battle, while the district's plan called for 19. Some board members proposed bringing in a consultant to work on having a more efficient in-house system districtwide.
"What I'm struggling with now, I've heard enough from employees and community members that maybe now is just not the right time for this," board member Christine King said, pointing to recent board approval to outsource substitute teachers.
"That might have rubbed some people a little wrong. … My personal feeling is to see us say 'no' to this and say, 'Let's regroup and get a consultant and look at it in more detail.' "
Deputy Superintendent Nick Boren said he wasn't aware of such services but `would look into it.
Sweezer said "it was nice" that the board rejected the proposal, and he said he hopes the district provides more training to make sure its employees are working efficiently.
Reach Catherine Martin at 573-815-1711 or e-mail cmartin@columbiatribune.com.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Get Out the Union Vote
How did labor fare on Tuesday?
HAROLD MEYERSON NOVEMBER 9, 2012
Despite setbacks in several states, the American labor movement came out a clear winner in Tuesday’s elections. Most important, they played a key role in ensuring the re-election of President Obama, and contributed significantly to Democratic Senate victories in hotly contested races in Massachusetts, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Virginia.
How effective were the unions’ massive voter-education and mobilization programs in the swing states? This year, for the first time, the network exit polling didn’t ask whether respondents were union members, though it did ask if there was a union member in their household. Historically, while union-household voters are more pro-Democratic than voters with no union members at home, the gap is smaller than that between actual union members and non-members. Also historically, union membership doesn’t make much of a difference among, say, African-American women, who are going to vote Democratic at a 95-percent rate whether or not they belong to a union. Where membership matters is among white working-class voters. (Pollsters don’t ask voters if they’re working class—that’s a pretty subjective assessment—but they do ask if they went to college, so non-college-educated voters are the designated stand-ins for working-class voters.)
Nationwide, the exit polls showed only a small difference between the votes of white working class voters with a union member in their household and those with no union members—indeed, a rate just 2 percent higher. But in the swing states that the unions flooded with volunteers and money, the differences were far greater. In Ohio, non-union household, white-collar voters favored Mitt Romney over Obama by 59 percent to 39 percent. Such voters with a union member in the house, however, favored Obama by a 54 percent to 44 percent margin—a 15 point swing. Among white working-class men, the swing was even greater: 21 points. The numbers for Wisconsin tell a similar story: White working-class voters from non-union households preferred Romney by a 57 to 42 percent margin, while those from union households preferred Obama by 60 percent to 38 percent—an 18 point swing.
The one poll of union members (not just voters with union members in their households) was conducted by Hart Research for the AFL-CIO. Nationally (the poll doesn’t have state-level results), all union voters went for Obama over Romney by a 66 percent to 34 percent margin, while non-union voters backed Romney, 52 percent to 48 percent—an 18-point swing. Among white working-class men, union members voted for Obama at a 54.5 percent rate while non-members gave the president just 27.5 percent of their votes—a monumental swing of 27 points. Among white working-class women, who gave Obama 62.5 percent of their vote if they were union members and just 35.5 percent if they weren’t, the swing was also 27 points.
But union efforts weren’t confined this year just to getting out the vote of their own members. For years, the AFL-CIO has been building its Working America program in such key swing states as Ohio, using door-to-door canvassers to enlist residents of largely white working-class neighborhoods who aren’t union members into the AFL-CIO’s political program. This year, Working America members—of whom there were nearly 2 million in Ohio—voted for Obama at the same rate as union members: 66 percent. As well, the Citizens United decision enabled unions to contact all voters, even without enlisting them in any program at all. In Ohio, while the AFL-CIO was focusing on swing white working-class voters, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) undertook a massive voter-registration and turnout program of its own among African-American and Latino voters. With more than 2,300 volunteers working full time during the last four days of the campaign, the SEIU helped raise the African-American share of the vote in Ohio from 11 percent in 2008 to 15 percent this year. Nationally, the SEIU-funded Mi Familia Vota employed 600 organizers to mobilize Latino voters across the Sunbelt. The rising number of pro-Obama Latino voters in such key regions as California’s Inland Empire (where the Democrats picked up two Congressional seats from the Republicans), central Florida (where Osceola County has gone from providing 54 percent of the vote to George W. Bush in 2004 to giving Obama 54 percent in 2008 and 62 percent this year), and Colorado testify to the success of SEIU’s Latino election programs.
The unions’ record on ballot measures this week was mixed. They won very big in California, where they not only defeated a Republican-backed measure that would have restricted their ability to deploy their treasuries in election campaigns, but, by virtue of their intense door-to-door get out the vote efforts, also helped pass a measure backed by Governor Jerry Brown that raised taxes on the rich to fund California’s schools, and contributed to down-ticket victories that produced four more Democratic congressional seats and two-thirds Democratic supermajorities (the level required to raise taxes) in both houses of the state legislature. (Indeed, labor’s victories in California this year recall the similar spillover effects of their successful 1958 campaign to defeat a “right-to-work” ballot measure, when their turnout effort also helped put a liberal Democrat—Pat Brown, Jerry’s father—in the governor’s office and turned the legislature Democratic for the first time in many years.)
Labor also suffered some defeats on Tuesday’s ballot measures, notably in Michigan, where a union-backed initiative to enshrine collective-bargaining rights in the state constitution went down to a thumping (58 percent to 42 percent) defeat. Comparing the fate of this measure to the success unions had last year in Ohio, persuading voters to repeal the suspension of public employee collective-bargaining rights enacted a few months earlier by the Republican legislature and governor, suggests that voters are uneasy at rewriting the social contract in either direction. Moreover, there’s ample evidence both from polling and election results that voters are more inclined to favor worker rights than union power, however contradictory that sentiment may seem.
On the whole, however, Tuesday was a very good day for America’s unions, which demonstrated yet again their power at the polls. How much that power will carry over to the battle brewing on the grand bargain—whether they can keep Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid intact – remains to be seen.
HAROLD MEYERSON NOVEMBER 9, 2012
Despite setbacks in several states, the American labor movement came out a clear winner in Tuesday’s elections. Most important, they played a key role in ensuring the re-election of President Obama, and contributed significantly to Democratic Senate victories in hotly contested races in Massachusetts, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Virginia.
How effective were the unions’ massive voter-education and mobilization programs in the swing states? This year, for the first time, the network exit polling didn’t ask whether respondents were union members, though it did ask if there was a union member in their household. Historically, while union-household voters are more pro-Democratic than voters with no union members at home, the gap is smaller than that between actual union members and non-members. Also historically, union membership doesn’t make much of a difference among, say, African-American women, who are going to vote Democratic at a 95-percent rate whether or not they belong to a union. Where membership matters is among white working-class voters. (Pollsters don’t ask voters if they’re working class—that’s a pretty subjective assessment—but they do ask if they went to college, so non-college-educated voters are the designated stand-ins for working-class voters.)
Nationwide, the exit polls showed only a small difference between the votes of white working class voters with a union member in their household and those with no union members—indeed, a rate just 2 percent higher. But in the swing states that the unions flooded with volunteers and money, the differences were far greater. In Ohio, non-union household, white-collar voters favored Mitt Romney over Obama by 59 percent to 39 percent. Such voters with a union member in the house, however, favored Obama by a 54 percent to 44 percent margin—a 15 point swing. Among white working-class men, the swing was even greater: 21 points. The numbers for Wisconsin tell a similar story: White working-class voters from non-union households preferred Romney by a 57 to 42 percent margin, while those from union households preferred Obama by 60 percent to 38 percent—an 18 point swing.
The one poll of union members (not just voters with union members in their households) was conducted by Hart Research for the AFL-CIO. Nationally (the poll doesn’t have state-level results), all union voters went for Obama over Romney by a 66 percent to 34 percent margin, while non-union voters backed Romney, 52 percent to 48 percent—an 18-point swing. Among white working-class men, union members voted for Obama at a 54.5 percent rate while non-members gave the president just 27.5 percent of their votes—a monumental swing of 27 points. Among white working-class women, who gave Obama 62.5 percent of their vote if they were union members and just 35.5 percent if they weren’t, the swing was also 27 points.
But union efforts weren’t confined this year just to getting out the vote of their own members. For years, the AFL-CIO has been building its Working America program in such key swing states as Ohio, using door-to-door canvassers to enlist residents of largely white working-class neighborhoods who aren’t union members into the AFL-CIO’s political program. This year, Working America members—of whom there were nearly 2 million in Ohio—voted for Obama at the same rate as union members: 66 percent. As well, the Citizens United decision enabled unions to contact all voters, even without enlisting them in any program at all. In Ohio, while the AFL-CIO was focusing on swing white working-class voters, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) undertook a massive voter-registration and turnout program of its own among African-American and Latino voters. With more than 2,300 volunteers working full time during the last four days of the campaign, the SEIU helped raise the African-American share of the vote in Ohio from 11 percent in 2008 to 15 percent this year. Nationally, the SEIU-funded Mi Familia Vota employed 600 organizers to mobilize Latino voters across the Sunbelt. The rising number of pro-Obama Latino voters in such key regions as California’s Inland Empire (where the Democrats picked up two Congressional seats from the Republicans), central Florida (where Osceola County has gone from providing 54 percent of the vote to George W. Bush in 2004 to giving Obama 54 percent in 2008 and 62 percent this year), and Colorado testify to the success of SEIU’s Latino election programs.
The unions’ record on ballot measures this week was mixed. They won very big in California, where they not only defeated a Republican-backed measure that would have restricted their ability to deploy their treasuries in election campaigns, but, by virtue of their intense door-to-door get out the vote efforts, also helped pass a measure backed by Governor Jerry Brown that raised taxes on the rich to fund California’s schools, and contributed to down-ticket victories that produced four more Democratic congressional seats and two-thirds Democratic supermajorities (the level required to raise taxes) in both houses of the state legislature. (Indeed, labor’s victories in California this year recall the similar spillover effects of their successful 1958 campaign to defeat a “right-to-work” ballot measure, when their turnout effort also helped put a liberal Democrat—Pat Brown, Jerry’s father—in the governor’s office and turned the legislature Democratic for the first time in many years.)
Labor also suffered some defeats on Tuesday’s ballot measures, notably in Michigan, where a union-backed initiative to enshrine collective-bargaining rights in the state constitution went down to a thumping (58 percent to 42 percent) defeat. Comparing the fate of this measure to the success unions had last year in Ohio, persuading voters to repeal the suspension of public employee collective-bargaining rights enacted a few months earlier by the Republican legislature and governor, suggests that voters are uneasy at rewriting the social contract in either direction. Moreover, there’s ample evidence both from polling and election results that voters are more inclined to favor worker rights than union power, however contradictory that sentiment may seem.
On the whole, however, Tuesday was a very good day for America’s unions, which demonstrated yet again their power at the polls. How much that power will carry over to the battle brewing on the grand bargain—whether they can keep Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid intact – remains to be seen.
Friday, November 2, 2012
Missouri Home Care Workers Prepare For Collective Bargaining After Decisive Legal Victory
Here's the AFSCME statement on the court victory for home health care workers. AFSCME and SEIU are working together. It's great to see workers winning some victories in Missouri - first the 1300 Columbia teachers voted for MNEA and now this.
MISSOURI HOME CARE WORKERS PREPARE FOR COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AFTER DECISIVE LEGAL VICTORY
State Supreme Court Rebuffs Union Foes' Last Request for Appeal; Sets Stage for Negotiation Over First Contract to Begin
In a climactic victory in their four-year struggle to improve their working conditions and strengthen the quality of care for the people they serve, 13,000 Missouri home care workers Tuesday cleared the last legal obstacle delaying negotiations on their first contract with the state.
The milestone came when the Missouri Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal to a lower court decision upholding a 2010 election in which the state's home care workers voted to form union. The ruling represents the legal end of the line for the union's opponents who had sought to invalidate the results of the election and obstruct collective bargaining on behalf of the workers who provide vital home care to the state's seniors and people with disabilities.
Home care workers perform essential services for their consumers such as bathing, cooking, cleaning and emergency response. They're also instrumental in curtailing costs the state would incur in nursing home expenditures if home care wasn't available.
"This ruling is a huge relief to people like me who rely on home care providers to help us live independently and stay out of nursing homes," said home care consumer Edna Austin of Crystal City. "The union will give them the resources they need to improve their working conditions, reducing turnover and providing more security for the consumers that hire them."
In May, the Court of Appeals for the Western District unanimously reversed a lower court ruling that had blocked state officials from certifying a 2010 election in which a majority of Missouri home care workers had voted to unionize, setting the stage to negotiate for stronger consumer protections, higher wages and professional training. By rebuffing the request to hear an appeal in that case, the Supreme Court Tuesday effectively squelched the last gasp effort by opponents to derail those negotiations.
The state's home care workers won the right to form a union after Missouri voters approved the Missouri Quality Home Care Act passed 2008 by a resounding 75 percent majority. Since the act's inception, home care providers around the state have worked to build a union that will protect consumer-directed, in-home care programs from cuts, and ensure providers working in those programs have the wages and training that will allow the programs to thrive and grow. Consumer-directed programs allow seniors and people with disabilities and individuals to live and receive care in their own homes from an attendant of their own choosing.
"Since 2008, Missouri voters and Missouri in-home care providers have spoken repeatedly in favor of allowing providers to organize themselves to protect the consumers who rely on these programs and improve training and wages," said Elinor Simmons of Moline Acre. "Thousands of caregivers are vindicated today, now that the courts have recognized the validity of the democratic choice they made to be represented by the Missouri Home Care Union."
The Missouri Home Care Union is the voice for home care attendants in Missouri. We are a joint local union, combining the strength of the nation's largest home care unions - AFSCME and SEIU. With a long track record for winning better wages and benefits for workers and protecting hours for consumers, our organization is poised to join with senior and disability allies in our state to improve home care services and ensure seniors and people with disabilities get the quality in-home care they need to maintain their independence.
MISSOURI HOME CARE WORKERS PREPARE FOR COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AFTER DECISIVE LEGAL VICTORY
State Supreme Court Rebuffs Union Foes' Last Request for Appeal; Sets Stage for Negotiation Over First Contract to Begin
In a climactic victory in their four-year struggle to improve their working conditions and strengthen the quality of care for the people they serve, 13,000 Missouri home care workers Tuesday cleared the last legal obstacle delaying negotiations on their first contract with the state.
The milestone came when the Missouri Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal to a lower court decision upholding a 2010 election in which the state's home care workers voted to form union. The ruling represents the legal end of the line for the union's opponents who had sought to invalidate the results of the election and obstruct collective bargaining on behalf of the workers who provide vital home care to the state's seniors and people with disabilities.
Home care workers perform essential services for their consumers such as bathing, cooking, cleaning and emergency response. They're also instrumental in curtailing costs the state would incur in nursing home expenditures if home care wasn't available.
"This ruling is a huge relief to people like me who rely on home care providers to help us live independently and stay out of nursing homes," said home care consumer Edna Austin of Crystal City. "The union will give them the resources they need to improve their working conditions, reducing turnover and providing more security for the consumers that hire them."
In May, the Court of Appeals for the Western District unanimously reversed a lower court ruling that had blocked state officials from certifying a 2010 election in which a majority of Missouri home care workers had voted to unionize, setting the stage to negotiate for stronger consumer protections, higher wages and professional training. By rebuffing the request to hear an appeal in that case, the Supreme Court Tuesday effectively squelched the last gasp effort by opponents to derail those negotiations.
The state's home care workers won the right to form a union after Missouri voters approved the Missouri Quality Home Care Act passed 2008 by a resounding 75 percent majority. Since the act's inception, home care providers around the state have worked to build a union that will protect consumer-directed, in-home care programs from cuts, and ensure providers working in those programs have the wages and training that will allow the programs to thrive and grow. Consumer-directed programs allow seniors and people with disabilities and individuals to live and receive care in their own homes from an attendant of their own choosing.
"Since 2008, Missouri voters and Missouri in-home care providers have spoken repeatedly in favor of allowing providers to organize themselves to protect the consumers who rely on these programs and improve training and wages," said Elinor Simmons of Moline Acre. "Thousands of caregivers are vindicated today, now that the courts have recognized the validity of the democratic choice they made to be represented by the Missouri Home Care Union."
The Missouri Home Care Union is the voice for home care attendants in Missouri. We are a joint local union, combining the strength of the nation's largest home care unions - AFSCME and SEIU. With a long track record for winning better wages and benefits for workers and protecting hours for consumers, our organization is poised to join with senior and disability allies in our state to improve home care services and ensure seniors and people with disabilities get the quality in-home care they need to maintain their independence.
Spence cites Chrysler closing as Nixon's failure; unions note decision made under Blunt In Backroom
Why can't this Spence guy get his facts straight? It's a good thing some UAW members attended this photo op to provide the facts to the media.
St. Louis Beacon
By Jo Mannies, Beacon political reporter
4:58 pm on Mon, 10.29.12
Dave Spence, the Republican nominee for Missouri governor, stood on a bluff Monday overlooking the empty site of what used to be the north Chrysler plant in Fenton, part of a complex that – with suppliers – employed 45,000 people.
A businessman, Spence said the lost jobs reflected the bad governmental policies that he contended are to blame for Missouri's economy lagging behind.
“We’ve got to lower the cost of doing business,” said Spence. “We’ve got to get factories in our state. … We’re simply losing jobs every single day.”
Among other things, Spence called for lawsuit reform and for changes in Missouri’s labor laws to make it a "right-to-work" state, which bars closed-union shops, in which all workers must pay union dues if a majority vote to join a union.
Standing with Spence were several area legislators, including state Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Glendale, and state House Speaker Tim Jones, R-Eureka. Schmitt praised Spence’s success as a businessman.
“We need a governor who understands what this site could be, emblematic of a new economy,’’ Schmitt said. “We need a governor who will not ignore the St. Louis region.”
Spence said he offered “real world common sense leadership.”
Spence also said that Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, deserved some blame for Chrysler’s closing in early 2009, throwing 6,300 people out of work. Spence asked why Nixon hadn’t been as active in protecting the Fenton operations as he was in providing state tax breaks that encouraged General Motors and Ford to remain and expand their operations.
Several union members standing nearby provided the answer: The first phase of the plants’ closings were announced in February 2007, almost two years before Nixon took office. The next round was announced by 2008. The governor at the time? Republican Matt Blunt.
Darin Gilley, former union president at a now-defunct firm supplying parts for the Chrysler plants, blasted Spence for “empty photo ops” and getting his facts wrong.
“It’s Matt Blunt’s failure,” Gilley said. “All of this happened long before Jay Nixon came in. Ford (in Hazelwood) closed under Matt Blunt’s leadership.”
Gilley, who now works at the GM plant in Wentzville, also cited statistics showing that many "right-to-work" states have higher unemployment rates than Missouri. Nixon has highlighted the state's unemployment rate, which is under 7 percent.
https://www.stlbeacon.org/lantern/public/resources/content/27773/images/IMG_6553_14831.60.JPG
Nixon is campaigning Tuesday in Wentzville and Liberty to promote his actions in expanding the Ford and GM operations.
“On his first full day in office, Gov. Nixon made clear that rebuilding the automotive industry would be a top priority by signing an executive order to establish the Missouri Automotive Jobs Task Force,” his campaign said in a statement. “Over the next two years, he made multiple trips to Detroit to meet with senior leaders from major automotive manufacturers and suppliers and the UAW. In 2010, he called a special session of the General Assembly to pass the Missouri Manufacturing Jobs Act, which provided innovative tools to attract next-generation manufacturing jobs to Missouri.
“As a result, Ford and GM are investing nearly $1.5 billion in Missouri and bringing 3,200 new automotive jobs to the state. In addition, major automotive suppliers, such as Magna, are investing in new technology and jobs.”
St. Louis Beacon
By Jo Mannies, Beacon political reporter
4:58 pm on Mon, 10.29.12
Dave Spence, the Republican nominee for Missouri governor, stood on a bluff Monday overlooking the empty site of what used to be the north Chrysler plant in Fenton, part of a complex that – with suppliers – employed 45,000 people.
A businessman, Spence said the lost jobs reflected the bad governmental policies that he contended are to blame for Missouri's economy lagging behind.
“We’ve got to lower the cost of doing business,” said Spence. “We’ve got to get factories in our state. … We’re simply losing jobs every single day.”
Among other things, Spence called for lawsuit reform and for changes in Missouri’s labor laws to make it a "right-to-work" state, which bars closed-union shops, in which all workers must pay union dues if a majority vote to join a union.
Standing with Spence were several area legislators, including state Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Glendale, and state House Speaker Tim Jones, R-Eureka. Schmitt praised Spence’s success as a businessman.
“We need a governor who understands what this site could be, emblematic of a new economy,’’ Schmitt said. “We need a governor who will not ignore the St. Louis region.”
Spence said he offered “real world common sense leadership.”
Spence also said that Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, deserved some blame for Chrysler’s closing in early 2009, throwing 6,300 people out of work. Spence asked why Nixon hadn’t been as active in protecting the Fenton operations as he was in providing state tax breaks that encouraged General Motors and Ford to remain and expand their operations.
Several union members standing nearby provided the answer: The first phase of the plants’ closings were announced in February 2007, almost two years before Nixon took office. The next round was announced by 2008. The governor at the time? Republican Matt Blunt.
Darin Gilley, former union president at a now-defunct firm supplying parts for the Chrysler plants, blasted Spence for “empty photo ops” and getting his facts wrong.
“It’s Matt Blunt’s failure,” Gilley said. “All of this happened long before Jay Nixon came in. Ford (in Hazelwood) closed under Matt Blunt’s leadership.”
Gilley, who now works at the GM plant in Wentzville, also cited statistics showing that many "right-to-work" states have higher unemployment rates than Missouri. Nixon has highlighted the state's unemployment rate, which is under 7 percent.
https://www.stlbeacon.org/lantern/public/resources/content/27773/images/IMG_6553_14831.60.JPG
Nixon is campaigning Tuesday in Wentzville and Liberty to promote his actions in expanding the Ford and GM operations.
“On his first full day in office, Gov. Nixon made clear that rebuilding the automotive industry would be a top priority by signing an executive order to establish the Missouri Automotive Jobs Task Force,” his campaign said in a statement. “Over the next two years, he made multiple trips to Detroit to meet with senior leaders from major automotive manufacturers and suppliers and the UAW. In 2010, he called a special session of the General Assembly to pass the Missouri Manufacturing Jobs Act, which provided innovative tools to attract next-generation manufacturing jobs to Missouri.
“As a result, Ford and GM are investing nearly $1.5 billion in Missouri and bringing 3,200 new automotive jobs to the state. In addition, major automotive suppliers, such as Magna, are investing in new technology and jobs.”
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Missouri Home Care Workers Prepare For Collective Bargaining After Decisive Legal Victory
Sacramento Bee
By SEIU Healthcare Missouri and Kansas
Published: Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012 - 1:39 pm
ST. LOUIS, Oct. 30, 2012 -- State Supreme Court Rebuffs Union Foes' Last Request for Appeal; Sets Stage for Negotiation Over First Contract to Begin
ST. LOUIS, Oct. 30, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is being released by SEIU Healthcare Missouri and Kansas:
In a climactic victory in their four-year struggle to improve their working conditions and strengthen the quality of care for the people they serve, 13,000 Missouri home care workers Tuesday cleared the last legal obstacle delaying negotiations on their first contract with the state.
The milestone came when the Missouri Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal to a lower court decision upholding a 2010 election in which the state's home care workers voted to form union. The ruling represents the legal end of the line for the union's opponents, who had sought to invalidate the results of the election and obstruct collective bargaining on behalf of workers who provide vital home care to the state's seniors and people with disabilities.
Home care workers perform essential services for their consumers, such as bathing, cooking, cleaning and emergency response. They're also instrumental in curtailing costs the state would incur on nursing home expenditures if home care wasn't available.
"This ruling is a huge relief to people like me who rely on home care providers to help us live independently and stay out of nursing homes," said home care consumer Edna Austin of Crystal City. "The union will give them the resources they need to improve their working conditions, reduce turnover and provide more security for consumers who hire them."
The state's home care workers won the right to form a union after Missouri voters approved the Missouri Quality Home Care Act passed 2008 by a resounding 75 percent majority. Home care workers subsequently voted to form their union, and opponents sought to stymie them in the courts.
"Since 2008, Missouri voters and Missouri in-home care providers have spoken repeatedly in favor of allowing providers to organize themselves to protect the consumers who rely on these programs and improve training and wages," said Elinor Simmons of Moline Acre. "Thousands of caregivers are vindicated today, now that the courts have upheld the validity of the democratic choice."
The Missouri Home Care Union is the voice for home care attendants in Missouri. We are a joint local union, combining the strength of two national unions -- AFSCME and SEIU.
SOURCE SEIU Healthcare Missouri and Kansas
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/10/30/4949360/missouri-home-care-workers-prepare.html#storylink=cpy
By SEIU Healthcare Missouri and Kansas
Published: Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012 - 1:39 pm
ST. LOUIS, Oct. 30, 2012 -- State Supreme Court Rebuffs Union Foes' Last Request for Appeal; Sets Stage for Negotiation Over First Contract to Begin
ST. LOUIS, Oct. 30, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is being released by SEIU Healthcare Missouri and Kansas:
In a climactic victory in their four-year struggle to improve their working conditions and strengthen the quality of care for the people they serve, 13,000 Missouri home care workers Tuesday cleared the last legal obstacle delaying negotiations on their first contract with the state.
The milestone came when the Missouri Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal to a lower court decision upholding a 2010 election in which the state's home care workers voted to form union. The ruling represents the legal end of the line for the union's opponents, who had sought to invalidate the results of the election and obstruct collective bargaining on behalf of workers who provide vital home care to the state's seniors and people with disabilities.
Home care workers perform essential services for their consumers, such as bathing, cooking, cleaning and emergency response. They're also instrumental in curtailing costs the state would incur on nursing home expenditures if home care wasn't available.
"This ruling is a huge relief to people like me who rely on home care providers to help us live independently and stay out of nursing homes," said home care consumer Edna Austin of Crystal City. "The union will give them the resources they need to improve their working conditions, reduce turnover and provide more security for consumers who hire them."
The state's home care workers won the right to form a union after Missouri voters approved the Missouri Quality Home Care Act passed 2008 by a resounding 75 percent majority. Home care workers subsequently voted to form their union, and opponents sought to stymie them in the courts.
"Since 2008, Missouri voters and Missouri in-home care providers have spoken repeatedly in favor of allowing providers to organize themselves to protect the consumers who rely on these programs and improve training and wages," said Elinor Simmons of Moline Acre. "Thousands of caregivers are vindicated today, now that the courts have upheld the validity of the democratic choice."
The Missouri Home Care Union is the voice for home care attendants in Missouri. We are a joint local union, combining the strength of two national unions -- AFSCME and SEIU.
SOURCE SEIU Healthcare Missouri and Kansas
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/10/30/4949360/missouri-home-care-workers-prepare.html#storylink=cpy
Missouri Home Care Union hopes for first contract
Yes! Finally.
Kansas City Star
JEFFERSON CITY -- A union representing 13,000 workers who provide in-home care to the disabled says it hopes a decision by the Missouri Supreme Court can clear the way for negotiations with the state on a contract.
The Supreme Court declined Tuesday to hear an appeal of a May ruling upholding a vote by the workers to be represented by the Missouri Home Care Union. The union says that clears the “last legal obstacle delaying negotiations” on its first contract.
The workers are paid by the state to help the disabled in their homes with daily tasks such as bathing and cleaning.
They were given the right to unionize under a 2008 ballot initiative approved by voters. But the certification of a subsequent unionization vote was tied up in court.
| The Associated Press
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/31/3893998/missouri-home-care-union-hopes.html#storylink=cpy
Kansas City Star
JEFFERSON CITY -- A union representing 13,000 workers who provide in-home care to the disabled says it hopes a decision by the Missouri Supreme Court can clear the way for negotiations with the state on a contract.
The Supreme Court declined Tuesday to hear an appeal of a May ruling upholding a vote by the workers to be represented by the Missouri Home Care Union. The union says that clears the “last legal obstacle delaying negotiations” on its first contract.
The workers are paid by the state to help the disabled in their homes with daily tasks such as bathing and cleaning.
They were given the right to unionize under a 2008 ballot initiative approved by voters. But the certification of a subsequent unionization vote was tied up in court.
| The Associated Press
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/31/3893998/missouri-home-care-union-hopes.html#storylink=cpy
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