|
First Posted On: Jan 15, 2008 www.hawaiiteamsters.com Honolulu -Unionized workers at Times Supermarkets rejected the company's latest offer over the weekend and is asking the public to boycott Times Supermarkets in protest of the company's unfair labor practices, the Hawaii Teamsters and Allied Workers Union Local 996 announced today. "Times talks about 'Ohana, but the union and its members are now questioning whether Times even knows what 'Ohana means," said Ron Kozuma, president of the 6,000-member Hawaii Teamsters. "Many of these people have been loyal Times employees for 20 or 30 years. They have dedicated their working lives to this company and built a loyal customer base in their communities. They deserve much more respect than what they're getting." The company's latest proposal would have given less than 25 percent of the union's 116 Times meat department workers their job back while permanently eliminating deli clerk positions, the guarantee of a 40-hour work week and the employees' retirement plan. The company also significantly cut its contribution to individual or family medical coverage for employees on long-term medical leave. Quinn Supers, Inc. acquired Times in 2002 from the kama'aina Teruya family, who had founded Times in 1949. QSI is a subsidiary of PAQ, Inc., which operates a chain of Food4Less stores in Northern California. All PAQ stores are non-union. "The actions taken by John Quinn, the owner of Quinn Supers, are a stab to the heart of all working people in Hawaii," said Kozuma. "These are threats not just to Teamsters at Times but to every employee in the state whose employer puts profits before our local people. "We had hoped the new owner of Times would understand the local culture and take care of his workers, which is what our union and community would expect from any employer," Kozuma said. "Instead, this company seems hell-bent on taking more and more benefits away from its employees. "Management explains that it wants to be competitive. We understood the company's position and had proposed no pay increase for our members for one year. We only asked that the company maintain the employees' benefits. However, management flatly rejected our offer." As the labor dispute entered its fourth week last Monday, the union gave the company an unconditional return to work offer to halt the company's hiring of permanent replacement workers. The company only recalled 26 meat managers, assistant meat managers and several journeymen meat cutters over the weekend. However, Times management refused to specify whether the other employees were terminated or laid off, the union said.
Still Waiting for Justice Under Bush Labor Board
Wanted to point out some great video clips from the House Education and Labor Committee from last week's dynamic House and Senate hearing on the Bush National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and its routinely anti-worker rulings. The clips include testimony from one of the two Democrats on the Bush NLRB, Wilma Liebman (bottom), who decried the ideological extremism of the Bush board, noting: Virtually every recent policy choice by the board impedes collective bargaining, creates obstacles to union representation, or favors employer interests. There's also great testimony from Feliza Ryland (top), a housekeeper at a Florida hotel who was fired after going on strike when contract negotiations stalled. In 2001, before Bush stacked the NLRB with anti-worker members, the NLRB agreed the workers were illegally fired and entitled to back pay.
Since its installation by the Bush administration, this National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has systematically dismantled decades of worker rights' protections, especially the freedom to form a union. Thousands of workers across the country are taking to the streets to say "No More!" On Nov. 15, in more than 20 cities, workers will march and rally at NLRB offices to protest the board's anti-worker decisions and push for an end to the Bush Board's reign. In fact, the NLRB should be "Closed for Renovations" because the nation's workers would be better off without the NLRB until a president who doesn't side with Big Business is elected and can appoint new members.
This is a cross post from the Firedoglake blog. October 12th, The Wall Street Journal reported the "richest Americans' share of national income has hit a postwar record," and "the rich last had this high a share of total income in the 1920s." The report is the latest evidence of the consistently widening income gap between America's super-rich and working poor. With impeccable timing, economist Paul Krugman leaps into the debate with The Conscience of a Liberal, a necessary book describing the causes of, and possible solutions to, today's growing income inequality. And in the book, Krugman rightly argues that "revitalizing unions should be a key progressive goal" because a strengthened labor movement will lead to greater economic fairness.
Now that a handful of obstructionist senators have blocked a vote on the Employee Free Choice Act, it's time to give workers some respect -- the RESPECT Act that is.
So writes Rick Bender, president of the Washington State Labor Council. In his weekly column, Bender points out that President Bush and the Republicans have taken every opportunity to bat down workers' free choice to join a union.
Bush even went so far as to deny Homeland Security Department employees the right to a union because amazingly he argued unions are an impediment to national security. But the Bush administration's most sweeping attack on working people came last year when the Republican-led National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) redefined and expanded the category of "supervisor." Supervisory workers are not eligible to form unions. Under the NLRB's new definition, supervisors now include a broad array of "skilled" or "experienced" workers--nurses, construction workers, painters, welders, electricians and other workers in nearly every industry--who occasionally assign tasks to or direct the work of less-skilled or less-experienced workers.
The RESPECT Act (S. 969 and H.R. 1644) introduced in March would restore the freedom to form unions to workers harmed by the NLRB's ruling. More ...
This opinion article originally appeared at WashingtonPost.com on March 20 and is reprinted here by permission of the authors. By Steven Hill and Dmitri Iglitzin The top priority of pro-labor members of the U.S. Congress is passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, a law that would make it easier for workers to organize a union in their workplace and negotiate a contract with their employer. This legislation has been the subject of vigorous public debate among labor organizations and business lobbyists, yet it only scratches the surface of a badly needed overhaul of U.S. labor law. Currently, labor law is stuck somewhere in the mid-20th century instead of in the 21st century. It has yet to catch up with a new era where the basic relationships between workers, employers, government and the global economy are changing before our eyes. Read More |
From Justice At The Beach, September 15, 2008: After eight long months of investigating, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a formal complaint against HTH Corporation for its illegal acts, including:
