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News :: Labor |
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Labor Headlines 4-26-03 |
Current rating: 0 |
by Peter Miller
(No verified email address) |
26 Apr 2003
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Headlines broadcast during the Illinois Labor Hour, Saturdays at 11 am on WEFT 90.1 FM, Champaign. ISU Non-Tenure Track Faculty Vote to Join Union, American Airlines CEO Bites the (Gold) Dust, Peoria Approves Human Rights Ordinance, Courts Uphold NLRB: Spying on Employees is Subject to Bargaining, AFL-CIO Urges Action Against Super-NAFTA |
ISU Non-Tenure Track Faculty Vote to Join Union
In balloting counted on April 23, non-tenure track faculty at Illinois State University in Normal voted 131-79 to be represented by the Illinois Education Association. During the year-long effort, the union charged ISU with two unfair labor practice charges including making last-minute changes in employment conditions that interfered with the union vote, and blacklisting a leading union activist. Nontenure track faculty comprise 40 percent of ISU's classroom instructors, and until now, they have all been hired semester-to-semester as temporary employees, despite the fact that some have worked at ISU for more than 30 years. Pay equity and respect were also major issues during the campaign. A schedule for negotiations on a first contract has not yet been established.
http://www.dailyvidette.com/news/424586.html
American Airlines CEO Bites the (Gold) Dust
Don Carty, the CEO of American Airlines resigned from his leadership position on Wednesday last week, following outrage that erupted after the public learned that Carty and small group of executives planned on taking 100 percent pay bonuses at the same time that they were demanding nearly 2 billion dollars in concessions from pilots, flight attendants, and ground workers. They pay bonuses were retracted, but a special bankruptcy-proof executive retirement plan remains in place. Details about the terms of Carty's resignation were not available. The three major unions at American responded positively to Carty's departure, and by the end of the week, all had formally accepted dramatic contract give-backs which company executives and union leaders claim are essential for keeping the company out of bankruptcy. The dishonesty of top managers did allow unions to win back some ground--each was given the option to make one unspecified change in their concessionary agreement, and the length of the new contracts was shortened from six to five years.
http://www.sunspot.net/business/investing/bal-bz.amr25apr25,0,6575652.story?coll=bal%2Dbusiness%2Dheadlines
http://www.apfa.org/press/press_0425.html
Peoria Approves Human Rights Ordinance
On April 22, the Peoria city council voted 8-3 to amend the city's human rights ordinance to prohibit discrimination against persons based on their sexual orientation. The ordinance now protects such persons from discrimination in housing, employment, or public places. Other Illinois cities with similar protections include Springfield, Decatur, Normal, Bloomington, Champaign, Urbana, DeKalb, Evanston and Chicago.
http://www.pjstar.com/news/topnews/g159592a.html
Courts Uphold NLRB: Spying on Employees is Subject to Bargaining
Secret cameras spying on workers are a working condition that must be bargained, according to a US appeals court. According to the Daily Labor Report, on April 7, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that National Steel Corp. in Granite City violated the law by not bargaining with its 10 unions over the use of hidden surveillance cameras at the plant. Since 1987 the company has had over 100 video cameras mounted in plain view in the plant, but it also sometimes used hidden cameras. When an employee was fired on the basis of evidence from a hidden camera, the unions wrote the company requesting information on hidden cameras and saying their use was a mandatory subject of bargaining. In 2001, the National Labor Relations Board decided for the union and issued an order to bargain, and the company appealed.
Daily Labor Report, #68, April 9, 2003, p AA-1
AFL-CIO Urges Action Against Super-NAFTA
The United States' largest federation of labor unions is taking action to stop the next wave of corporate globalization. This week, the AFL-CIO began urging people around the world to oppose the Free Trade Area of the Americas, an expansion of NAFTA to all of North and South America. The AFL points out that NAFTA has cost the United States 750,000 actual and potential jobs. In central Illinois, casualties of NAFTA include Eureka Vacuum in Bloomington, the Revere Ware cooking equipment plant in Clinton, and Zenith TV in Indianapolis, among others. The FTAA—covering 34 nations with a population of 800 million—would trade away even more U.S. jobs. The FTAA is being negotiated now behind closed doors—Congress will have only a “yes” or “no” vote on the whole agreement. That’s why working families and other activists are coming together to Stop FTAA—it is the wrong choice for working families, says the AFL-CIO. This fall will be a busy time for rulers of the global empire. In September, our corporate world government will meet in Cancun, Mexico for a ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization, and in November, trade ministers and corporate executives will meet in Miami to take the next planning steps for the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/globaleconomy/ftaamain.cfm
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See also:
http://www.ilir.uiuc.edu/lii/
http://www.labourstart.org
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