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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Illinois Labor Hour Headlines: May 19, 2001 |
Current rating: 0 |
by Mike Lehman, Urbana-Champaign IMC
(No verified email address) |
19 May 2001
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Illinois Labor Hour Headlines for May 19, 2001 as read on WEFT 901. FM |
About 200 Bunge Lauhoff Grain union workers walked off the job in Danville this week after rejecting the company’s attempt to force an inadequate contract on the union. The union had been working under a contract extension since March 31 in an attempt to settle a new contract without a strike. Bunge Lauhoff had demanded concessions including a 4-year wage freeze for some, a wage cut for others, and a 2% increase only for skilled maintenance workers. The company also wants to increase contracting out, create new job classifications and wage rates, the ability to ignore seniority in making layoffs and transfers, flexibility in work rules and safety codes, and the removal of the successor clause from the contract. Steve Eversole, chair of the union’s bargaining committee was quoted in the News-Gazette as saying, \"There’s no way we can live with the economic concessions.\" Rising prices for home heating and gasoline reinforce the union’s argument that the offered contract was unacceptable to it’s members, who voted 184-3 against it. Following a day of picketing Thursday a federal mediator was called in and workers returned to the job pending further negotiations.
A study conducted by the New York-based nonprofit Families and Work Institute found that 46 percent of U.S. workers felt overworked in one way or another. According to the survey, 24 percent of U.S. workers said they spent 50 or more hours on the job each week. Twenty-two percent said they worked six to seven days a week, and 25 percent said they don\'t use vacation time to which they\'re entitled. They are more likely to look for a new job, to feel angry with their employers and to make mistakes. Seventeen percent of respondents who said they felt overworked said they often made mistakes at work, compared with only 1 percent of those who said they did not feel overworked. Overwork tends to raise the cost of health care because of stressed workers. Employees who quit or are dismissed because they are burned out force businesses to spend more money to train replacement workers, the study said.
The News-Gazette reported this week that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has joined a lawsuit against Rent-A-Center, which has a number of local stores. A district court in East St. Louis granted a motion from the EEOC to join a sex discrimination suit filed last August by 21 women employees at Rent-A-Center facilities in 9 states, including Illinois. The suit alleges that the company forced women employees to quit or refused to hire them and did not keep employment records required by law.
The Springfield State Journal-Register reported that members of Carpenters Local 16 at Kwik-Wall in Springfield, who have been on strike for 10 weeks, rallied on May 12 to call attention to their situation. The main issue in the strike is the restoration of a $1.50 pay cut the union took in 1995 in order to help Kwik-Wall\'s financial position. The current wage rate is still 50 cents below 1995. Workers also want improvements in mandatory overtime and seniority benefits. The company has refused a union offer to return to work under the terms of the 1995 contract.
Members of the Urbana Education Association and the Urbana Educational Support Association voted on May 9 to merge into one bargaining unit. Union officials feel this will strengthen their position in negotiations. Ahead lies the process of bridging the two contracts, one of which expires this year and the other next year.
Unhappy shareholders at many corporations are taking a closer look at how much executives are pocketing in salary, stock options and other compensation. In annual meetings this spring, resolutions regarding excessive executive compensation were introduced by shareholders at 113 companies. About one-third of the proposals aimed to link executive pay to a company\'s performance. Others sought to cap executives\' pay, tie salaries to environmental or social criteria, or put limits on the extravagant ``golden parachute\'\' severance packages some executives have negotiated for themselves. ``What happened with the market destroyed any illusion about pay linked to performance,\'\' said Bill Patterson, director of the AFL-CIO\'s office of investment. ``Here you have a situation where pension fund savings, retirement savings, 401(k) savings dropped 10 percent, 20 percent, even 30 percent, and CEO pay kept soaring.\'\'
Global Exchange has released a new report that indicates that Nike has failed to live up to promises to improve working conditions for workers that make its shoes and athletic gear. Famous for its \"swoosh\" which appears prominently in many sports, including the athletic teams of the University of Illinois, Nike’s chairman had promised to take a number of steps to improve working conditions after activists brought pressure on the company three years ago. The report said that ``Nike workers are still forced to work excessive hours in high pressure work environments, are not paid enough to meet the most basic needs of their children, and are subject to harassment, dismissal and violent intimidation if they try to form unions or tell journalists about labor abuses in their factories.\'\' The report concluded that ``the projects Knight announced have been of little benefit to Nike workers,\'\' or ``have helped only a tiny minority, or else have no relevance to Nike factories at all.\'\'
On Wednesday, May 9, the City of Ottawa became the twentieth municipality in Canada to pass a resolution against the FTAA, GATS, and similar trade and investment agreements. Ottawa is Canada’s fourth largest city and the nation’s Capital. The resolution passed easily, 17 to 2 votes, in spite of representation from Canada’s Minister of International Trade, Pierre Pettigrew. Many municipalities are concerned because provisions contained in the NAFTA agreement have allowed companies to sue governments who try to protect their citizens labor and environmental rights for alleged loss of profits caused by such regulations.
Illinois has a great opportunity to help make a dent in the 1.8 million people uninsured throughout the state. House Bill 23, or Family Care, would expand KidCare, the Illinois health insurance program for children. Family Care would raise KidCare eligibility from 185% of the federal poverty level to 200% (or from about $33,000 annually for a family of four to $35,000). It would also cover the parents of enrolled children. It is estimated that 200,000 working mothers and fathers could receive coverage from this program. Family Care passed the House unanimously and while it has tremendous bi-partisan support in the Senate, it has been stuck in the Rules Committee since late March. The governor never wrote Family Care into the budget and because of this legislators claim the money is not available. Health care activists say that this can be changed. Next week, budget negotiations will be taking place between the governor and caucus leaders. It is still possible for Family Care to be written into the budget if the governor and caucus leader believe it is important enough. On Monday, May 21, supporters of Family Care urge citizens to call into the governor and legislative leaders to urge them to \"Put Family Care in the budget. Don’t come home without it!\"
The Champaign County Living Wage Association proposed Living Wage for workers paid with public money in Champaign County has risen to $8.50 an hour or $17,650 annually, based on recently updated federal poverty figures. The CCLWA bases its Living Wage demand on the federal poverty level for a family of four. If adopted, it would ensure that workers would have enough income to meet family obligations. About 20% of direct employees of the county make less than a Living Wage. The Living Wage campaign will meet today at noon at the Illinois Education Association offices, located on the second floor above Pard’s Western Shop on North Maple Street behind the Urbana Schnuck’s.
Labor hour headlines can be found posted at the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center website, urbana.indeymedia.org
We’d like to acknowledge the assistance of the University of Illinois Institute for Labor and Industrial Relation’s \"Illinois Labor in the Press\" website for some of these stories.
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Additional ILH Headlines From Omar Ricks |
by Omar Ricks
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
19 May 2001
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Today is the 76th anniversary of the birthday of radical black activist Malcolm X. He was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. One common theme throughout his life was that he sought to be a leader, mentor, and friend to working class African Americans who were alienated by the moderate politics of middle class southern civil rights leaders. He made greater use of his Muslim name, El-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, after making his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964. He said that experiencing this most quintessential of Islamic pillars had shown him the potential for human unity, and he began to distance himself from his previous separatist and racialist politics. While never completely advocating integration, in his later years his politics became increasingly socialistic and focused on the struggles of Africans and African Americans as part of the worldwide struggles for human rights. He began to align himself with international labor and socialist activists and leaders. At the age of 39, he was assassinated while speaking in New York’s Audobon Ballroom on February 21, 1965.
Teamsters Expressing Support for Republican Administration Associated Press sources say that this week International Brotherhood of Teamsters president James Hoffa continued his efforts to find "common ground" with the Bush administration and the GOP. On Monday, Hoffa said that Bush’s energy plan, which seeks to increase exploitation of fossil and nuclear energy resources, will benefit workers. Hoffa gave his "State of the Union" speech this Tuesday before the Washington Press Club and softened the Teamsters’ resistance to fast-track trade authority for negotiating the Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement. Additionally, the Teamster president tried to get President Bush to end ongoing federal investigations into the Teamster’s mob ties. He said that new monitoring and election practices within the union make federal oversight, which was initiated in 1988, no longer necessary. Only eight months ago, Hoffa endorsed then-candidate Bush’s Democratic rival Al Gore. Even after attacking Gore for his support of trade with China, Hoffa said the choice was an easy one. Still, Hoffa has previously gone on record endorsing several Republican candidates and trying to get unions to embrace bipartisanship. For example, earlier this year the Teamsters negotiated with Bush to make temporary exceptions to his ban on federal project labor agreements. These agreements required union standards in federal contracts, whether or not the contractors are unionized. In exchange for this temporary reprieve, Hoffa offered a strike moratorium.
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