In addition, please consider making a donation (or asking your union organization to make a donation) to help fund a Children's Holiday Party for families of striking newspaper workers which will be held following the Dec. 16 rally at 3:30 p.m. at the Seattle Labor Temple.  Hundreds of children are expected to attend for food, gifts, music and a visit from Santa.  Make a donation to help this important event happen by sending a check to the King County Labor Agency, 2800 First Ave. #115, Seattle, WA, 98121.  If you can donate food or volunteer to help in some other way, call the KCLA at (206) 448-9277.

The following information comes courtesy of Suzanne Wall, an organizer with Seattle Union Now, a cooperative project of the national AFL-CIO and the King County Labor Council.  (For more information, contact here at (206) 956-0494 x14.)

There's good news and bad news for workers who are organizing with SEIU 1199NW at Seattle's Northwest Hospital. The good news is that workers have an election date: the NLRB will conduct on-site secret balloting on January 4 and 5th. Workers will vote in three bargaining units, in occupational groups defined by the NLRB: service/maintenance, technical, and professionals. More than 800 workers will be voting for a voice at work, and they are confident they will win their union. While workers and organizers are pleased that the election will come quickly, the bad news is that the anti-union campaign is already starting, with threats and intimidation from supervisors. Your help is needed to contact CEO Bill Schneider and urge him to adopt a principled code of fair conduct.

The hospital has hired as labor consultant the law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine, which conducted intensive training sessions for managers this week. In the experience of health care organizers, this training is generally used to drill supervisors on what actions to squash unionization are required of them to keep the union out. The training will most likely be followed by a program of mandatory or "captive audience" meetings with employees, the scheduling of one-on-one meetings with supervisors designed to initimidate workers, along with a barrage of anti-union literature.

Several members of the organizing committee have already reported unusual meetings with their supervisors, where the supervisor "shared" his/her opinion about why he/she was personally opposed to unions. These conversations have followed a classic anti-union script. The other shoe dropping is the hospital has sent email to all employees saying that Northwest is in dire financial straits- and to prove it, Northwest has laid off two top administrators (combined salary of something like $600,000). Regardless of the veracity of the claim, the timing of these lay offs results in increased  job security fears for workers. We must send a strong message that wasting precious patient care dollars on trying to coerce  workers is WRONG.

The support from  you and other leaders in our community is critical to ensure that these workers get a fair opportunity to vote for the union. We believe that your  letters helped stop the endless legal stall and delay tactics, and helped win a fast election.  In our town, with our proud tradition of unions fighting for living wages and democratic opportunities for all, we must be able to exert enough moral pressure to stop union-busting. Even if you have already written, please take a moment to write or call Northwest CEO Bill Schneider, and tell him we're glad there will be an election without unnecessary delay, but let's make it FAIR, too.  "Not in our Town".

CEO/President Bill Schneider
Northwest Hospital
1550 N. 115th Street
Seattle, WA 98133
(206) 368-1700 admininstrative offices
(206) 368-1481 administrative office fax
bschneid@nwhsea.org

Thank you for all your efforts to defend the right to organize, on behalf of the 800 workers at Northwest Hospital.  Please contact me should you need any other information.

It’s no mystery. The state Department of Labor and Industries' new and improved ergonomics website, and its Safety and Health Video Library can help you and your employer learn about ergonomics.

Ergonomics is the science and practice of designing jobs or workplaces to match the capabilities and limitations of the human body.  Ergonomics also helps employers identify jobs and tasks in the workplace that may pose a hazard for injuries such as back strain, tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome.

Ergonomics is also the subject of a rule recently issued by L&I to protect workers from these debilitating injuries.  The rule, being phased in over six years, will require employers to identify jobs at high risk for repetitive-stress injuries and then take steps -- from buying new equipment to offering ergonomic-training programs -- to lower the risk for such injuries.

The same business coalition that tried unsuccessfully to derail L&I's promulgation of this model ergonomics rule aren't giving up now that it has been issued.  Among their arguments against the rule is that it is too confusing and employers don't have enough information about how to address ergonomic hazards.  L&I's ergonomics website and videos offer exactly what employers need.

"The key to preventing these painful and costly injuries is finding the hazards that cause them," said L&I Ergonomist Rick Goggins.  "The next step is to eliminate or reduce those hazards."

Information by videotape might be a good place to start.  The video collection at L&I includes more than two dozen titles on ergonomics.  Here is a sampling of the titles recommended by L&I ergonomists.

Return shipping by traceable carrier is the only cost of borrowing safety and health videos.  Borrowers may schedule the use of videos by mail, fax or telephone, and borrow up to two videos on ergonomics at one time.  For more information, click here.

While these videotapes provide useful information about ergonomics, they do not explain the requirements of Washington’s workplace ergonomics rule.  If you want to know more about the rule and what it requires, view the WISHA ergonomics rule here.

The Washington State Court of Appeals issued a strongly worded decision Monday upholding the right of workers who have not been given the paid 10-minute rest breaks guaranteed to them under Washington law to sue their employers for money damages.

The decision, which came in the case of Wingert v. Yellow Freight Systems, arose out of a lawsuit filed in 1998 by approximately 60 unionized Yellow Freight Systems employees.  The lawsuit, which was funded by Teamsters Local 174 on behalf of its members, alleged that Yellow Freight Systems worked these employees up to two hours of overtime, on top of eight-hour or 10-hour shifts, without providing them with a third paid 10-minute rest period.  The employees argued that Washington Administrative Code provision 296-126-092(4), which prohibits any employee from being worked "more than three hours without a rest period," was being violated by this practice.

The lawsuit was initially dismissed, in 1999, by King County Superior Court Judge Richard A. Jones, on the grounds that (1) workers are not entitled to a third paid rest period until they have worked three hours of overtime, and (2) workers’ only option, even if their rest period rights are violated, is to file a complaint with the Department of Labor and Industries.  This latter principle -- that Labor and Industries provides the exclusive remedy for violations of the right to rest and meal breaks -- has generally been accepted to be the law in Washington state.

The Court of Appeals, however, in a carefully reasoned decision, reversed Judge Jones’ ruling, holding that the right to have a rest break after three hours of continuous work is "clearly and unambiguously" set forth in the regulation.

The Court of Appeals strongly disagreed with Yellow Freight’s attempt to argue that these workers, because well-paid under the terms of their Teamsters contract, were not entitled to these rest breaks.

"Reduced to its essence," the Court explained, "Yellow Freight asserts that well-paid workers do not need periodic rest breaks.  Yellow Freight’s argument misses the point of the industrial welfare statutes."

The Court then held that employees have standing to sue for these rest break violations, and are entitled to compensation (at their overtime wage rate) for the value of the work they provided to the employer, i.e., the ten minutes worth of work they provided while they should have been resting.  The Court stated:

Yellow Freight wants two hours of work performed at the end of its employees’ regular workday. If its employees are provided with the required 10-minute rest period, their workday will be extended by 10 minutes. Thus, they should receive compensation for two hours, 10 minutes. That the employees work through their break, leaving after two hours, does not relieve Yellow Freight of its obligation to pay for the additional 10 minutes of labor it receives when its employees are legally entitled to a rest break.

Employees are also entitled to recover back interest on the amounts they are owed, court costs, and reasonable attorneys’ fees incurred in pursuing this back pay, and may also be eligible to receive punitive damages in amount equal to the amount of wages they were deprived of.

Finally, the Court of Appeals explained that the employees’ right to sue stemmed from the legislative intent underlying all of Washington’s industrial health and safety statutes.  The Court’s reasoning clearly applies, therefore, to any violation of Washington’s rest and meal break requirements (such as that there be meal periods every five hours, or that employees go no more than four hours without a paid rest break), and should also apply to provide an individual cause of action with regard to many other health and safety violations.

Yellow Freight now has the right to seek review by the Washington State Supreme Court of this decision.  Until and unless that review occurs, however, this decision is the law of Washington state, enabling individual employees to sue employers directly for money damages for these, and other, violations of the Washington Administrative Code.

The Yellow Freight employees were represented by Dmitri Iglitzin, Esq., and the law firm of Schwerin Campbell Barnard LLP.

Following is an open letter from Rick S. Bender, President of the Washington State Labor Council, to union members, elected officials and all other interested parties:

In "Be wary of labor’s information blackout" (Dec. 2), Seattle Times Editorial Page Editor Mindy Cameron raises demagoguery to a new level by suggesting that refusing interviews with the Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer during the strike is "interfering with the free flow of public information," and therefore somehow dangerous.

That this skewed revelation ranks high enough among the "lifetime of lessons" she has learned during the strike that it merits an entire column of animosity directed at me personally, makes clear she has yet to learn the lessons that really matter.  Here are a few she could start with:

Refusing interviews with the Times and P-I is far from an "information blackout."  Rather than spell out the public’s list of information sources -- which is considerable (and growing, thanks to the strikers’ wonderful Seattle Union Record) -- it should suffice to say that choosing to temporarily remove from the list two newspapers that are fractions of their former selves, in size and in quality, is neither a personal "blackout" nor much a sacrifice.

Cameron may not believe this, but many of us have managed to read, watch and hear voluminous coverage of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Transportation’s recent report, and many other issues of public interest without the help of her now second-rate newspaper.

The Times can and does still print the superior Associated Press stories.  Even in Cameron’s fantasy world where people use the Times as their only source of information (and my fantasy world where all elected officials take a stand against the Times and P-I by refusing interviews), readers still managed to become informed on the Commission’s report.

If reports by its "replacement staff" lack sufficient detail and comment to meet the Times’ revised standards of excellence, the paper is free to run the wire service reports which will include comment from folks who choose not to talk with the Times.  I am told the Times is doing this… extensively.

Cameron’s accusation that I "cavalierly risk" public understanding of the Commission’s transportation report by refusing interviews or encouraging others to do the same is so fraught with delusions of grandeur and self-importance that it insults not just me, but the readers’ intelligence.

Elected officials don’t report to any newspaper. Believe it or not, being elected to public office does not include the responsibility to be at any single newspaper’s beck and call.

Yes, elected officials have a responsibility to keep people informed.  But it is a considerable stretch to say that temporarily refusing to conduct personal interviews with the Times and P-I abdicates that responsibility.

Apparently, Cameron feel the Times deserves special consideration and privilege for being the largest newspaper in Seattle.

Well, I feel the Times deserves special scorn for forcing the people responsible for its good fortune out on strike with a contract offer its employees consider "an insult and embarrassment," and then refusing to negotiate further.

I feel the Times deserves special contempt for erecting barbed-wire fences around its building and hiring jack-booted security thugs to film and intimidate its employees for peacefully exercising their rights.

Contrary to Cameron’s assertion the "real story is that this strike… is barely a blip in the life of the community we serve," there are many of us out here in the community who take very seriously the issues of this dispute.  We choose to support these workers who are making untold sacrifices because they want respect and fair treatment.

We may choose to cancel our subscriptions.  We may join them on the picket lines.  We may donate to their Strike Hardship Fund this holiday season.  We may do all three, and then visit the Guild’s website (www.nwguild.org) to find out what else we can do.

Personally, I have chosen to do all these things.

In addition, I will refuse interviews with the Times and P-I for the duration of the strike.  And again, I call on everyone else (including elected officials) who wishes to show solidarity with the striking workers to do the same.

Sincerely,

Rick Bender, President
Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO

Eleventh-hour negotiations Sunday night yielded a "win-win" agreement as the graduate student teaching assistants at the University of Washington finally achieved official recognition without resorting to a strike.

The Graduate Student Employee Action Coalition/UAW is now recognized as the majority representative for those teaching assistants, readers, graders and tutors who signed authorization cards, and the UW administration has agreed to meet and confer with the union over terms and conditions of employment.

The administration's concerns regarding the protection of their interest through collective bargaining legislation have also been met as GSEAC and the administration agreed jointly to draft and lobby for legislation.

"(We have a) huge victory under our belt but we still have a fight ahead of us," declared teaching assistant Maureen Boyd at an impromptu celebration Monday morning.  "This administration has moved 30 years in three weeks. We have won the right to meet and confer over the conditions of our labor."

Karen Kavanagh, UW Assistant Vice President of Human Resources, said: "The University is confident that together union and management can work productively to move legislation and create a positive relationship."

Last spring, 84 percent of TAs signed union cards requesting GSEAC representation.  After months seeking voluntary recognition from the administration, 86 percent of 1,148 TAs voted last month in favor of a strike should the university decline to officially recognize their union.  There are a total of about 1,600 TAs.

Several other labor unions, which represent employees who provide vital services to the university had announced they would not cross GSEAC picket lines.

"It's obvious that (this agreement) met what the university was looking for and all of the objectives the workers were looking for," said Steve Williamson, executive secretary of the King County Labor Council.  "The university is now poised to go forward with its mission."

Since we have repeatedly requested that people to send emails to UW President Richard McCormick (rlm@u.washington.edu) and the UW Board of Regents (regents@u.washington.edu) requesting voluntary recognition.  Please take a moment to send one thanking them for their principled agreement with the union.

While you're at it, email GSEAC (c/o spokesperson Melissa Meade meademd@yahoo.com and offer your congratulations.)  Also make sure you thank KCLC Executive Secretary Steve Williamson stevekclc@igc.org for his outstanding leadership in this effort.

State mental health workers will take the closest step short of striking when they publicly picket and rally at Western State Hospital tomorrow to protest the hospital's bad management and budget cuts they say will harm patient care.

The rally, sponsored by the 1,900-member Local 793 of the Washington Federation of State Employees/AFSCME, will run from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., tomorrow, Tuesday, Dec. 5, outside the Administration Building near the main entrance to the hospital campus at 9601 Steilacoom Blvd. in Lakewood.

The hospital workers, including mental health technicians, psychiatric security attendants, licensed practical nurses, physicians, custodians and trades workers, will take action demanding that the state overhaul the management at the hospital. The Western State Hospital union members will ask Gov. Gary Locke and Dennis Braddock, secretary of the Department of Social and Health Services, to even fire top managers.

The workers say their bosses are covering up incompetence by targeting individual line workers for discipline. At the same time, the administration has closed wards, including the hospital's infirmary, and shipping those critical care patients from the hospital that should care for them to community hospitals.

The workers also demand that the state react sensibly to the budget-restricting initiatives passed by voters in November. DSHS is recommending closing additional wards at Western State Hospital and closing the Program for Adaptive Living Skills, laying off hundreds of staff, and jeopardizing the care clients receive. At the same time, a special management pool called the Washington Management Service has continued to mushroom.

For more information, contact the WFSE's Tim Welch at (360) 352-7603.