BIG WIN ON CAMPUS — The 1,600 graduate employees at the University of Californias Berkeley campus chose overwhelmingly to join the UAW-affiliated Association for Graduate Student Employees May 13. This follows the decision by UCLA graduate employees in March to choose the union. The victory is part of a "nationwide trend in which overworked and underpaid graduate employees are improving their lives through unionization," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said.

CHECKING IN — After a hard-fought recognition battle, 387 workers at the New Yorker Hotel are the newest members of Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Local 6, New York City. Nearly 80 percent of the workers signed cards asking for union recognition, which the hotel honored May 6. In another card-check win, 200 workers at the W Hotel in San Francisco joined HERE Local 2.

HAIL COLUMBIA (WORKERS, THAT IS) — In Olympia, Wash., 360 health care workers at Columbia Medical Center recently voted to join Food and Commercial Workers locals 141 and 1001. RNs at the center voted by a better than 2-1 edge in favor of Local 141, while technical, service, maintenance and clerical workers selected Local 1001 as their union.

NO OBJECTION HERE — Minnesotas public defenders voted 217-17 to join Teamsters Local 320 in recent balloting. Along with caseload and pay equity problems, the attorneys chose Local 320 because "we will have an opportunity to participate in the management of the public defender system," said Northfield assistant public defender John Fossum.

HEADS UP — A unit of 185 Head Start teachers, assistant teachers, family service workers, cooks, drivers and other workers at Community United Head Start in the Cleveland area voted overwhelmingly April 23 to join SEIU District 925. This was the third group of Head Start workers in Ohio to choose the union in less than a month.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY — Just two days before Mothers Day, 125 van drivers at Laidlaw Transit in Milwaukee joined Transit Union Local 998. Most of the employees, who drive vans for the elderly and disabled, are single mothers who wanted a voice to negotiate with Laidlaw for more affordable family health insurance benefits.

SUNNIER TIMES IN FLORIDA — Citing short staffing and racial discrimination, a unit of about 70 aides and maintenance workers at the Clewiston (Fla.) Health Care Center, owned by Beverly Enterprises, voted April 23 (with just six dissenting votes) for SEIU District 1115.

BUG IN MICROSOFTS PROGRAM — A federal appeals court slapped Microsoft twice last week. The Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals ruled that the companys long-term temporary employees—perma-temps—have a right to participate in the companys Employee Stock Purchase Plan. It also overruled an earlier decision that had reduced the number of perma-temp workers in the class action suit against the company to only pre-1990 workers. Now all past and present agency perma-temps can be included in the suit. Microsoft employs thousands of workers through temporary agencies who perform the same jobs as permanent employees, sometimes for years, yet are denied equal pay and benefits. For a closer look at their struggle and the Washington Alliance for Technology Workers (a Communications Workers affiliate) fight for justice for perma-temps, see the May issue of America@work.

ON BROADWAY— About 50,000 New York union members marched down Broadway May 12 and rallied near City Hall to demand "A Fair Share for Working Families" from Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and  Gov. George Pataki. The city has a $2 billion surplus, while the state sports a $3 billion surplus. The rally urged lawmakers to use the surpluses for education, health care and other pro-working family programs—including pay raises for city workers whose wages have been frozen for two years—rather than for tax cuts for the rich. The New York Central Labor Council sponsored and organized the rally that brought together teachers and construction workers, cops and civil servants, firefighters and health care workers in one of the citys biggest labor turnouts in years.

WAGE WINS — In Miami-Dade County, Fla., and Cambridge, Mass., working families have a better chance to move their families up from poverty with passage of living wage laws in both communities last week. Unions, working with community, civil rights and religious groups in both locales, laid the groundwork for the new wage laws. The Miami-Dade ordinance mandates an $8.56 hourly wage plus benefits for county and county contractor workers. The morning of the 12-0 vote, the Board of Commissioners heard testimony from workers who will be able to improve their families lives with the new wage, along with South Florida CLC President Cindy Hall, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson, three Florida congressional representatives and other Living Wage Ordinance Coalition members. The Cambridge City Council voted 9-0 to set a $10 an hour wage—one of the top living wages in the nation—that any contractor doing $10,000 or more per year in business with Cambridge must pay its workers.

SUCH A DEAL — The 3,300 UNITE members at National Linens 38 facilities overwhelmingly ratified a precedent-setting first contract last week. The new three-year deal includes pay hikes and increases in pension and health benefits (including family coverage for the first time). Because of a large immigrant workforce, the contract calls for training and other materials in a workers native language and development of onsite English classes; it also allows workers to request a translator to communicate with supervisors when needed.

SHAM UNION TOSSED AT COASTAL — The California Agricultural Labor Board threw out last years election of a sham union at Coastal Berry and ordered new balloting for the 1,500 workers. The ALB said the results should be set aside because of the exclusion of a group of workers from the earlier election. "We are pleased but not surprised by the decision....Even one of [former Gov. Pete] Wilsons appointees went along," said Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez. A date for a new election has not been set.

THE KILLING FIELDS — Seven Toledo high school students traveled to San Luis Potosi, Mexico, earlier this month and gave nearly $2,000—collected from students lunch money and other contributions—to the family of Raymundo Hernandez. Hernandez died in a North Carolina tobacco field in 1995 after exposure to pesticides, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee said. He was one of thousands of so-called "guest workers" allowed under the immigration laws H2A provisions. FLOC President Baldemar Velasquez said such workers face risks harvesting other farm products, including the cucumbers used by Mt. Olive Co. to make pickles. Mt. Olive is resisting bargaining with its workers who have chosen FLOC.

LITTON BIDS FOR SHIPYARDS — Litton Industries, which owns unionized Ingalls Shipyard, has bid to buy both Avondale and Newport News shipyards. "A positive outcome of such a restructuring must include justice, dignity and economic security" for workers at all three locations, said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. Steelworkers Local 8888 was forced  to strike at Newport News, and Avondale has waged a years-long campaign against its workers choice to join a union.

RAVENSWOOD REVISITED — It was a 20-month struggle for 1,700 Steelworkers Local 5668 members—one that spanned from the Ravenswood (W.Va.) Aluminum Corp. plant to international centers of high finance. That story is now told in a fast-moving and compelling book, Ravenswood: The Steelworkers Victory and the Revival of American Labor, by Tom Juravich and Kate Bronfenbrenner. The book, published by Cornell University Press, traces the fight from the November 1990 lockout and hiring of permanent replacements to the workers victorious return to their jobs in June 1992. USWA President George Becker, who said the Ravenswood win "proves that determined workers and their union can overcome the entrenched, bitter resistance of a rich, global corporate empire," will host a reading by the authors Monday, May 24, 1:30 to 3 p.m. at USWA headquarters, 5 Gateway Center, Pittsburgh. The public is invited.

ESOPS NO FABLE — More than 2,000 PACE and UAW members at seven Champion International Co. paper plants have a new title: owner. The workers agreed to a new contract April 29 and to an employee stock ownership plan that grants them 40 percent of the company and includes profit-sharing payments. The facilities in Georgia, Iowa, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas produce envelopes, milk and juice cartons and other paper products.

HELP COLUMBINE VICTIMS — The Colorado AFL-CIO has established an emergency fund to help support the families and victims of the tragedy at Columbine High School, where two students gunned down 13 at the school last month before killing themselves. To make a donation, send checks payable to Labors Community Agency, 360 Acoma St., Denver, CO 80223. Note on the check or in a cover letter that the donation is for the Columbine Emergency Support Fund. For more information, call Dwayne Adkins or Terri Kuehn at 303-744-6169.

$32 MILLION AIMED AT NURSING HOMES — Unite for Dignity, the joint project by UNITE and SEIU to provide quality care for Florida nursing home residents and respect and dignity for workers, scored a big win when the Florida House and Senate passed nursing home reform legislation to provide $32 million for increased staffing and fairer wages and benefits. Working with allied lawmakers, the coalition was able to derail a move to provide millions in a windfall to the nursing home industry.

LAWYERS MEET — About 600 union lawyers met in New Orleans last week at the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee annual conference. The theme of the conference was "Worker Rights and Corporate Responsibility." In addition to workshops on a range of legal topics and a colloquium on workers freedom to choose to join a union, participants heard from National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Fred Feinstein, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and author Barbara Ehrenreich.

TEN YEARS AFTER — The AFL-CIO is backing a petition drive calling on the Chinese government to reassess its verdict on the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy demonstrations and to release all prisoners of conscience jailed for those activities. The campaign, put together by recently released student leader Wang Dan and timed for the events June 4 anniversary, also seeks an immediate end to Chinas human rights violations. To sign the petition or for more information, visit the website at www.june4.org.

IN LIKE FLYNN — John J. Flynn, secretary-treasurer of the Bricklayers, will become the unions president June 1, filling the remaining term of President John T. Joyce, who is retiring to become president of the International Trowel Trades Council. Joyce, who led the union for 20 years, also will head a joint international housing project with the United Nations Commission on Human Settlements. Executive Vice President James Boland will be the unions new secretary-treasurer.

A JOB WITH PRIDE — Pride at Work, the AFL-CIOs constituency group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers, is seeking an executive director. For more information, contact National Co-Chair Nancy Wohlforth at 415-777-3444; send a cover letter and risumi to Wohlforth, C/O OPEIU Local 3, 340 Brannan St., #400, San Francisco, CA 94107; fax to 415-777-9650; or e-mail denice@slip.net. The application deadline is May 28.