WSLC Reports Today -- June 21, 2007

June 21, 2007

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WSLC Reports Today
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Links are functional at date of posting, but sometimes expire. Some links require free registration. WSLC Reports Today links to stories of interest to organized labor; some positive, some negative. The intention is to inform.

THURSDAY, JUNE 21 ▪ Grocery workers' Share the Success campaign kicks off today -- Grocery employees in the Puget Sound region will hold five simultaneous "Share the Success" kickoff events today in Auburn, Bellingham, Bremerton, Mill Creek and Seattle.
▪ In today's Bellingham Herald -- Union to protest at Albertson's -- UFCW members will be in front of the Northwest Avenue store in a campaign to get the stores to share more profits with workers.
▪ In the June 10 Seattle P-I -- Best contract or worse? Grocery union to decide -- So far, grocery contract talks for more than 20,000 Safeway, QFC, Fred Meyer and Albertsons employees in the Puget Sound area -- which began in mid-March -- have been cordial. However, there are differences -- some significant -- on proposed wages, health care, sick leave and scheduling.
▪ In today's LA Times -- Grocery contract appears remote in Southern California -- With a union deadline looming today at noon, talks between the UFCW and the big supermarket chains in Southern California are at a standstill and prospects for a quick agreement look remote.
▪ In today's LA Times -- The key issues in the grocery talks -- Both sides say they don't want a work stoppage like the 141-day strike and lockout in 2003-04, and for good reason. The last dispute cost the employers an estimated $1.5 billion and was catastrophic to workers. About half of the employees of the three big chains at the time of the dispute have left the business.

Local news:
▪ In yesterday's (Longview) Daily News -- Drywallers end 20-day strike -- Locally, painter, mason and iron worker union members were crossing the picket lines because they claimed the contractor's contract contained language to expand drywallers' duties to jobs already done by other trades. The approved contract does not change the types of trades covered by the Carpenters union.
▪ In yesterday's Columbian -- Union drywallers OK contract, end strike -- The new contract will give 1,300 Carpenters union members a 4.5% pay raise this year and a 5.6% raise next year.
▪ In today's (Everett) Herald -- Everett transit union, city finally agree on contract -- After more than a year of stalled talks, the 3-year contract is retroactive to 2006 and includes across-the-board pay raises over the next two years, an extra vacation day and changes how health benefits are paid.
▪ In today's Yakima H-R -- Critics say pesticide panel's too political -- State Agriculture Director Valoria Loveland wasn't pleased that panel members sent letters to legislators recommending bills to increase the monitoring and regulation of growers and pesticide applicators.
▪ In today's Seattle Times -- State may audit Valley Medical Center spending -- The Renton hospital is defending itself against charges that it misspent tax money to promote ballot measures.
▪ In today's News Tribune -- Some Boeing Wichita workers vote to kick out SPEEA -- Learn more.
▪ In today's Seattle P-I -- Two-Newspaper Town group drops JOA suit, but "stands ready" to act

Oregon news:
▪ In today's Oregonian -- New state retirees in Oregon to pay for old mistakes -- About 200,000 Oregon public employees will get reduced pensions when they retire because the state has no other legal way to recover $800 million worth of overpayments made to about 38,000 former public employees who retired in 2001 through spring 2004, a judge rules.
▪ In today's Oregonian -- Health care bill goes to the House -- The Senate-approved bill offers a conceptual framework for building a health care system that would control costs through bulk purchasing, cost comparisons, research-based practices, electronic records, selective use of technology, chronic disease management and market incentives.
▪ In today's Oregonian -- Portland-area ambulance workers OK strike -- Unionized workers for the American Medical Response reject a contract offer and authorize a strike, but set no date yet.

Political news:
▪ In today's Seattle Times -- 8th District Democratic field may get crowded for primary -- Two state legislators -- Sen. Rodney Tom and Rep. Christopher Hurst -- are thinking about getting into the race against fellow Democrat and online political activists' favorite Darcy Burner.
▪ In today's Olympian -- Think tank's win lessened by lawmakers (editorial) -- EFF wins, WEA loses, but then WEA wins. (The bottom line is that the Right-to-Work (for Less) Foundation and their local counterparts at the Evergreen Freedom Foundation have spent millions of dollars trying to stifle union political activity, to little avail. That money comes from right-wing conservatives with very specific agendas, like privatizing our education and Social Security systems, and they see union political strength as an impediment to their agenda. If they really cared about dissenting nonmembers and other little guys as they pretend, the EFF would fight to give corporate shareholders the right to prevent their investment from being spent on political causes they don't support. But that won't happen because their corporate funders would stop writing their checks.)

Airline industry news:
▪ In today's Seattle Times -- Downturn may not deflate Boeing -- How would Commercial Airplanes boss Scott Carson respond? "I would hope the customers we have are strong enough to weather (it). And we would produce and deliver to them and maintain a stable work force in Seattle."
▪ In today's News Tribune -- Some Boeing Wichita workers vote to kick out SPEEA -- Learn more.
▪ Today from AP -- American Airlines pilots outs union leadership in election -- The pilots, unhappy over pay and angry at company management, ousted their union's top officers and elected a slate of newcomers who promised to take a harder line against the nation's largest carrier.
▪ In today's NY Times -- Pension relief for airlines faulted by some lawmakers -- A pension measure tucked into last month’s Iraq war spending bill is causing some leading members of Congress to complain that American Airlines got a break worth almost $2 billion without proper scrutiny.
▪ In today's Wash. Post -- Labor dispute delays Air Traffic Modernization bill -- A lingering dispute over a contract imposed on air traffic controllers last year is delaying the bill's introduction.

Charleston fire:
▪ In today's NY Times -- Charleston mourns firefighters; 9 fathers, mentors, friends lost on the job -- After one of the deadliest fires in a century for America’s firefighters, the firehouse becomes a center of gravity in a stricken city, its normal camaraderie stretched far beyond brotherhood... Jonathan Tyrrell III, the furniture repairman who had been pulled from the inferno by ax-wielding firemen, paid a call on the firehouse with his wife, Toni, and 5-year-old daughter, Alexis, who carried a hand-lettered card reading, “Thank you for saving my daddy.”
▪ In today's Seattle Times -- Difficult questions mount in wake of fatal South Carolina fire -- How did a trash fire in an outdoor bin spread to a furniture store and explode into a deadly inferno? And why were up to 16 firefighters inside the place Monday night when the roof came down?
▪ In today's Seattle Times -- Fallen Charleston firefighter had lived in Tacoma -- Melvin Champaign lived in Tacoma for 10 years before moving to South Carolina in 2003 to pursue firefighting.

Other national news:
▪ In today's LA Times -- Supreme Court has been good for business -- A dozen recent rulings in the past year have been a boon to corporations. (Who could've predicted this would happen?)
▪ In today's Wash. Post -- Supreme Court hurt home care workers (op-ed) -- The Supreme Court made a baffling and regressive decision when it ruled that federal minimum wage and overtime laws do not protect home-care workers who assist people with disabilities and the elderly.
▪ In today's Wash. Post -- Immigration lifts wages, White House report says -- Report: Immigration has a positive impact on the U.S. economy and boosts wages for the vast majority of native workers, though there are "small negative effects" on the earnings of the least-skilled Americans.

"Free" trade news:
▪ Today from AFP -- U.S., South Korea start trade negotiations -- A deal was reached on April 2 after 10 months of tough negotiations, but Seoul accepted the U.S. request for renegotiations to reflect the guidelines. The U.S. wants changes after Congress and the White House agreed in May on a bipartisan accord that sets labor and environmental standards for such agreements.
▪ Selling Our Sovereignty update in today's NY Times -- WTO sanctions against U.S. are urged -- The U.S. could face commercial penalties worth more than $3.4 billion each year for its failure to comply with a WTO ruling that Internet gambling restrictions approved by Congress are illegal.

Last Throes update:
▪ Today from AP -- 14 more U.S. troops dies in Iraq
▪ In today's Wash. Post -- Top Iraqi officials growing restless -- Iraq's vice president, a senior Shiite politician often mentioned as a potential prime minister, tenders his resignation in a move that reflects deepening frustration inside the Iraqi government.
▪ Of the 3,545 U.S. troops killed in Iraq so far, 3,406 have died (see a list) since President Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" and an end to major combat operations in May 2003; 3,084 have died since Saddam's capture. Five-and-a-half years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden is at large.
▪ The WSLC's affiliated unions have called for an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 2007
Grocery workers' Share the Success campaign kicks off today

As United Food and Commercial Workers members in Southern California prepare for a key vote this Sunday and workers in Texas get set to strike, grocery employees in the Puget Sound region will hold five simultaneous "Share the Success" kickoff events today in Auburn, Bellingham, Bremerton, Mill Creek and Seattle.

The Seattle event, Thursday, June 21 at 10 a.m. at Safeway on the top of Queen Anne Hill, 2100 Queen Anne Ave. N., will feature grocery workers from Texas, Southern California and the Puget Sound region. The other four events will be in Bellingham at Albertsons, 3210 Northwest Ave.; in Mill Creek at Fred Meyer, 12906 Bothell-Everett Hwy; in Bremerton at Safeway, 900 N. Callow Ave.; and in Auburn at Albertson's, 1347 Auburn Way N.

“The over 20,000 Puget Sound UFCW grocery and retail workers are a critical part of our communities and the reason Safeway, Albertson's, QFC and Fred Meyer are earning record profits,” says Jackie O’Ryan, UFCW spokesperson. “It’s time these profitable companies share the success.”

The three national chains involved in the contract talks rank among the top 50 richest companies in the nation, according to Fortune Magazine, while a quarter of their workers here in the Puget Sound make less than $10 an hour and their average work week is only 26 hours. During these contract negotiations, UFCW is focusing on wage increases to meet the cost of living, affordable health care, sick leave and family-friendly scheduling.

A "Share the Success" fact sheet prepared by UFCW also includes the following information:

CORPORATE PROFITS...

Kroger (QFC and Fred Meyer) produced a net profit of $1.1 billion in 2006, up 16% over 2005 net income. Net profit margins went up from 1.6 in 2005 to 1.7 in 2006. Over the past two years, Kroger shareholders saw their holdings jump 80 percent. A $10,000 investment in Kroger two years ago would be worth about $18,000 today. The same investment in a Dow Jones or S&P index would have earned about $2,000.

Safeway reported a net profit of $870 million in 2006, up 56% over 2005. With a net profit margin of 2.2 in 2006, compared to 1.5 in 2005, Safeway was the strongest and most profitable. Safeway shareholders saw their holdings rise 50% over the past two years. A $10,000 investment in Safeway two years ago is worth about $15,000 today.

SuperValu (Albertson’s) reported a net profit of $452 million in 2006, a nearly 250% jump over 2005. Net profit margins increased from 1% in 2005 to 1.2 percent in 2006, below industry average but still respectable. SuperValu stock has performed exceptionally well. In the past 6 months, its share price shot up by at least 50%. An invested $10,000 in SuperValu stock 6 months ago would have realized a $5,000 gain.

Corporate CEO 2006 salaries: Kroger, David Dillon, $8.2 million; Safeway, Steve Burd, $7 million; Albertson’s, Jeffrey Noddle, $11.8 million.

In the Puget Sound region these three profitable chains command 80% of the market share. Competition with non-union stores is not an issue.

SHARE THE SUCCESS...

A fourth of Puget Sound UFCW grocery workers are making less than $10 an hour.

The average work week for a grocery worker here is 26 hours.

It takes 10 months on the job before a worker can get family health care coverage. 2000 of Washington ’s grocery workers resorted to state subsidies for health care in 2006.

Puget Sound grocery workers are given three day’s notice on what their week’s work schedule will be.

The top rate of pay at 26 hours a week is only $23,592 a year (barely above the Federal Poverty Level for a family of four).

For more information, visit www.sharethesuccess.org, or contact Jackie O'Ryan, Communications Director for UFCW Local 21, at 206-436-6549.

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