News for
the week of June 8-12, 1998If you have news related to the labor movement in Washington state that you would like to share via WSLC Reports Today, we encourage you to submit it by e-mail, by fax (206-285-5805) or by phone (206-281-8901)
News for
the week of June 8-12, 1998Friday, June 12 — Judge
rules "Paycheck Deception" in Nevada is unconstitutional
Thursday, June 11 — Contract Action Rally for USWA workers
at Bangor this Saturday
Wednesday, June 10 — Han Young solidarity demonstration Thursday
at Mexican consulate in Seattle
Tuesday, June 9 — Clinton continues to ignore
devastating impacts of "free trade"
Monday, June 8 — Wells Fargo Bank merges with AFL-CIO National
Boycott list
News from previous weeks:
June 1-5 — May 25-29 — May 18-22 — May 11-15
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Just a week after the solid rejection of Proposition 226 by California voters, a Nevada court ruled Wednesday that a similar so-called "Paycheck Protection" measure is unconstitutional. The ruling is the first of its kind against Paycheck Deception legislation being pushed by anti-union conservatives in more than 30 states and in Congress.
The Nevada initiative, like others facing Oregon and Colorado voters (among others), was scheduled to be voted upon this November and would have imposed cumbersome new administrative hurdles for union members to have collective political action. Although initiative proponents are likely to appeal the decision to the state's Supreme Court, union activists hailed the ruling validating their petition to the court.
"This is a major victory for union members all over the country," said Rick Bender, President of the Washington State Labor Council. "Although the public is beginning to recognize these Paycheck Deception shams to be unfair and unnecessary, there are so many initiatives out there, there is no question a handful will slip through and become law. Court challenges of their constitutionality are inevitable, and Nevada's is a test case that will resonate throughout the country."
In Wednesday's ruling, Nevada District Court Judge Myron Leavitt found that the initiative was unconstitutional because:
— It violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The initiative's definition of "political purposes" is so broad that it would include expenditures for activities like lobbying to improve labor laws. Interference with such expenditures would violate unions' free speech right "to petition the government for redress of grievances," Leavitt wrote. In addition, as voluntary organizations in a Right-to-Work state, Nevada's labor unions have a First Amendment right to refuse membership if the required dues, including that portion used for political purposes, are not paid. The initiative would violate that right of free association by forcing the union to accept members who do not pay full dues and do not support the union's political agenda.
— It violates existing federal law. The federal Labor Management Relations Act already governs dues checkoffs — the deduction of union dues from paychecks of union members. The state initiative would add further restrictions to this process and therefore violate the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which bars states from overriding federal laws.
— It interferes with existing contracts. The initiative unconstitutionally would change existing contracts between workers and employers by allowing workers to unilaterally decide not to honor the dues checkoff portion of their contracts, and then in turn for the employers to violate the existing contract with the union by not deducting those dues.
— It duplicates existing state law. The initiative is duplicative because Nevada law already bars employers from requiring workers to give back any portion of their earnings and from preventing workers from participating in politics.
(For more information about Paycheck Deception, check out State Senate leader vows to push "Paycheck Deception" in 1999 (June 4); California's anti-union "Paycheck Deception" proposition FAILS (June 3); and NO on "Paycheck Protection": The New York Times and Washington Post weigh in (May 29).
A Contract Action Rally will be held Saturday, June 13 at Silverdale's Waterfront Park from 2 to 4 p.m. in support of the workers at Johnson Controls at the Trident Naval Submarine Base at Bangor. United Steelworkers of America Local 9241 represents about 500 service contract employees there who are about to enter into negotiations.
Speakers will include U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, State Rep. Steve Conway and Washington State Labor Council Secretary-Treasurer (and USWA member) Al Link.
"This rally is being staged so our members can show support for our negotiations team," said Dean E. Bowers, President of Local 9241. "Our issues are simple — fair wages, fair benefits and job security. Our members have no pension plan. But an even bigger issue than that, one that many members have indicated they would be willing to strike over, is the company's proposal to allow them greater flexibility to subcontract our work and our jobs away."
For more information, please contact Bowers at (360) 698-3190.
For the first time in the history of the Mexican maquiladoras, an independent union — one controlled by the workers and not the government — has won recognition and declared a strike at the Han Young/Hyundai factory in Tijuana. But the Mexican government has mounted an aggressive campaign to destroy the union and arrest its organizers.
In Seattle, there will be a demonstration of international solidarity with the Han Young workers at noon this Thursday, June 11 at the Mexican Consulate. (Demonstrators will gather at Left Bank Books outside the Pike Place Market at noon and walk to the consulate.) Similar demonstrations will be held throughout the United States in the coming week.
The outcome of this historic struggle will determine whether the more than one million workers in the maquiladoras will ever have the right to collectively work to improve their wages and working conditions. With its aggressive response to quash the strike and bust the union, the Mexican government has ackowledged that the strike is being watched by millions of workers throughout their country and has major implications for the future of the Mexican labor movement.
In Washington D.C., House Minority Whip David Bonior declared that "Han Young management, the Tijuana labor board and the Mexican government are engaged in a systematic effort to deny Han Young workers their right to an independent union through harassment, intimidation and fraud." Bonior has called on Vice President Al Gore to communicate U.S. concern to the Mexican government. A U.S. Department of Labor spokesperson Bob Zachariasiewicz said the department was "monitoring developments very closely."Last fall, Bonior won Democratic votes in Congress against the Clinton administration proposal for fast track authority to expand NAFTA by using the Han Young conflict as an example of the failure of the agreement's failure to protect workers' rights in Mexico. Fast track was defeated, but is likely to resurface after the November election.
Bonior is calling Han Young a test case with "long-term implications for U.S. trade policy."
The Mexican government has steadfastly refused to allow unions that it does not control to function in the Maquiladora export factories, thus allowing factory owners to pay wages as low as $4 per day and to subject their workers to extremely dangerous working conditions.
The Han Young strike marks the culmination of a year-long effort by workers to organize an independent union, and win bargaining rights from their employer. Han Young is a contract plant, whose 100 employees weld truck chassis for the huge Hyundai Corp. manufacturing complex in Tijuana.
Workers complain the plant has a high industrial accident rate, and that they can't live on its wages. Striker Miguel Angel Solorzano, who earns 64 pesos (about $8) daily, says he has to spend 28 pesos just on breakfast and lunch. "I have a physically exhausting job," he explains, "and I'm always tired because I just can't afford to eat enough."
He readily rolls up his sleeves to show poorly-healed fractures in his right forearm, the result of an industrial accident. "They only gave me 10 days off when it happened," he recalls bitterly, "and then I was forced to come back to work, even though I couldn't even close my fist. My arm still hurts."
The strike has idled the factory for nearly a month and workers remain undeterred by the bribes to quit the union, threats and harassment from the government and the Tijuana community.
But recently the Mexican government has stepped up its anti-union campaign by threatening to permanently close the factory if the owners negotiate with the workers, declaring the strike illegal, and issuing arrest warrents for the union's main organizer and its lawyer. They have ordered a press blackout in Tijuana, and the city's major newspapers have reported only the government's version of the story.
The workers have asked for international support, so there will be demonstrations at many Mexican consulates in the U.S. Please take the time during your lunch hour Thursday in Seattle to show solidarity with the heroic Han Young workers by attending the protest. For more information about the demonstration, please contact Mitch Chanin at (360) 866-5271.
(For more information about the Han Young struggle, click here.)
Despite the resounding defeat of Fast Track trade negotiating authority for his administration (and overwhelming public opposition to Fast Track), President Clinton continues to pledge support for creating a hemisphere-wide Free Trade Area of the Americas by 2005. "The United States may not yet have fast track legislation, but we will," Clinton said in late April. "And I assure you that our commitment to the Free Trade Area of the Americas will be in the fast lane of our concerns."
To fully appreciate the corporate blinders now sported by our free-trader-in-chief, consider the following news briefs from the month leading up to his latest reaffirmation:
March 30: The Wall Street Journal reports that wages in Mexico are just 60% of what they were before the devaluation of the peso which followed implementation of NAFTA in 1994. Wages are finally starting to rebound, the Journal says, but at the present growth rates, "it will take several years before the average purchasing power of Mexican workers matches 1994 levels." (So much for the often-cited reason for supporting NAFTA: to create a major new market for American-made products.)
April 9: The Bloomsburg Business News reports that General Motors will double car and truck production at plants in Monterrey and Mexico City. The automaker had previously announced plans to close a car assembly plant in Flint, Mich., laying off 3,500 workers. Mexican workers, Bloomsburg reports, "receive 1/15th the pay of their U.S. counterparts." GM claims most of the cars produced in Mexico are for the Mexican market, but some will be exported to the United States.
April 24: Freightliner announces it will double the daily production of Class 8 trucks produced in Mexico. The trucks are headed for U.S. markets, the company reports, claiming increased production is necessary because its U.S plants "are operating around the clock and we still require additional production capacity."
And how, you ask, will all these new cars and trucks get into the United States quickly enough?
April 17: The U.S. government dedicates a new "state-of-the-art" border crossing at Santa Teresa, Mexico, claiming it will cut border crossing time from hours to minutes. The elimination of such border delays, said a press release, will aid "the competitive position of companies hoping to take advantage through their maquila plants of lower Mexican wages and the North American Free Trade Agreement."
And what other impacts will speeding these goods across the border have? (Besides dramatic increases in drug trafficking.)
Late April: Yet another batch of Mexican strawberries is discovered at a Battle Creek, Mich., elementary school where more than 300 children were sickened (and some hospitalized) after eating tainted strawberries illegally imported from Mexico. How could this happen? Although a recent General Accounting Office report called for strict limits on food imports from foreign countries, U.S. government food safety officials have objected: "Such mandatory authority would disrupt trade if implemented at the present time."
This report contains excerpts from National News Reporter stories.
Wells Fargo Bank, the San Francisco-based banking conglomerate that announced Monday a $34 billion merger with Minneapolis-based Norwest, is the latest addition to the AFL-CIO's National Boycott List at the request of the United Steelworkers of America. (Wells Fargo, which acquired First Interstate Bank of Los Angeles in 1996, has 132 branches in Washington, including 18 in grocery stores. Norwest has no presence here.)
The union asserts that Wells Fargo has helped prolong a contract dispute between the USWA and CF&I Steel in Pueblo, Colo. The union represents some 1,100 hourly employees at the steel mill there. CF&I (also known as Rocky Mountain Steel Mills) brought in strikebreakers when the USWA struck the mill last October 3, refused the union's unconditional offer to return to work on December 30, and continues to operate with strikebreakers.
While Wells Fargo has claimed no involvement in the Pueblo situation, the USWA points out that it is the lead bank in a consortium of financial institutions that is providing CF&I's parent company, Oregon Steel Mills, with a $125 million revolving line of credit. The union also points out that since October, Wells Fargo has extended additional credit to the company and twice extended its credit amendment with Oregon Steel to keep the company from violating its loan covenants.
The National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against CF&I Steel late in February charging the company with more than 100 illegal labor practices. If upheld in court, the finding will entitle the strikers to return to their jobs with full back pay from Dec. 30, 1997.
In addition to Wells Fargo, the AFL-CIO, at the request of various affiliated international unions, encourages union members and their families to avoid patronizing the following companies' products and services:
BUILDING MATERIALS & TOOLS
BROWN & SHARPE MFG. CO. — Measuring, cutting and machine tools and pumps. (IAM)
SOUTHWIRE CO. — Commercial and industrial wire and cable; Do-It-Yourself brand housewire. (IBEW)CLOTHING
MASTER APPAREL — Men's and boys' pants; Labels include Botany 500, Hills and Archer. (IBEW)
ENTERTAINMENT & RECREATION
BLACK ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION — BET cable television and Action pay-per-view (IBEW)
OGLEBAY PARK — Wheeling, W.Va., park/resort/recreation complex. (HERE)
REGAL CINEMAS — Chain of 250 movie theaters: "Regal Cinemas" and "Cobb Theaters" (IATSE)FURNITURE
TELESCOPE CASUAL FURNITURE — "Telescope" brand lawn, patio, other casual furniture. (IBEW)
FOOD & BEVERAGES
CALIFORNIA TABLE GRAPES — Those that do not bear the UFW label on their carton or crate. (UFW)
DIAMOND WALNUT CO. — Diamond brand canned and bagged walnuts and walnut pieces. (IBT)
FARMLAND DAIRY — Milk sold under the Farmland Dairy label in Conn., NJ and NY. (IBT)TRANSPORTATION & TRAVEL
ALITALIA AIRLINES — Air transport for passengers and freight. (IAM)
BEST WESTERN-GROSVENOR RESORT — Hotel in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., located at Disney World but separately owner and operated. (HERE)
CROWN CENTRAL PETROLEUM — Gasoline sold at Crown, Fast Fare and Zippy Mart stations and convenience stores. (OCAW)
FOUR POINTS BY SHERATON — Hotel in Waterbury, Conn. (HERE)
KAUAI RESORT — Hotel in Kapaa, Hawaii. (ILWU)
MICHELIN — Michelin brand tires. (USWA)
NEW OTANI HOTEL & GARDEN — Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. (HERE)OTHERS
R.J. REYNOLDS TOBACCO CO. — Cigarettes: Best Value, Camel, Century, Doral, Eclipse, Magna, Monarch, More, Now, Salem, Sterling, Vantage and Winston; plus all Moonlight tobacco products (BCTW)
If you have a news item regarding unions in Washington state that you would like to have posted on WSLC OnLine, please e-mail or fax a news release to (206) 285-5805.
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