Graduate Assistants Fight to Save Their Profession
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| Tina Collins says the freedom of graduate assistants to form unions is critical to saving higher education. |
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For Tina Collins, the freedom to form a union means more than a pay raise. It’s the key to her being able to protect a profession she loves: higher education. That’s why Collins, 29, a research assistant at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) in Philadelphia, is in the thick of the fight by graduate assistants at the school to join AFT.
“The issue is whether we will be able to do our jobs right and that Penn does not have an incentive to keep hiring low-wage teachers with no job security,” says Collins, a Ph.D. candidate in both history and education. “We need to make sure we do our part to save our profession.”
When the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled in 2000 that graduate teaching and research assistants at private universities are employees and have a right to form unions, graduate students across the country began organizing.
In February 2003, some 1,000 graduate assistants at Penn voted on whether to join AFT. The union estimates 60 percent of the assistants voted for the union. But the university filed suit, claiming the graduate assistants were not employees and the votes were sealed and never counted. In 2004, the Bush NLRB reversed the 2000 rule, saying Penn and other private universities do not have a federally required obligation to bargain with teaching assistants, research assistants and other academic student employees.
As a result of that ruling, Penn’s administration is refusing to recognize the union, even though nothing in the NLRB decision prevents university administrators from respecting the majority of Penn’s teaching assistants who have expressed their desire for union representation.
The problems the Penn graduate assistants face are not unique. Some 1,000 members of the Graduate Student Organizing Committee/UAW Local 2110 at New York University walked out Nov. 9 to protest the university’s refusal to bargain a second contract. More than 500 professors have joined the graduate employees’ protest by teaching classes off campus during the strike. The school announced Aug. 5 it no longer would recognize the union and let the contract lapse.
Despite not being recognized, the Penn graduate assistants are still acting like a union, Collins says. They are working hard to change university policies that affect graduate students, especially the school’s health care coverage. Grad students lose their coverage after five years and are forced to pay the premiums out of very small stipends.
Ironically, Amy Gutmann, Penn’s president, is considered a top expert on democracy. In 1998 she edited a book on the value of freedom of association in a democracy.
“It is crucial that people who perform the critical work that makes the university what it is—teaching and research—have a voice on working conditions,” Collins says.
Direct Care Workers Determined to Join Union
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| Natasha James is determined to keep fighting until she has a union. |
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Since January, Natasha James and her co-workers at Lifespire, a New York City nonprofit agency serving people with developmental disabilities, have been trying to form a union with Civil Service Employees Association/AFSCME Local 1000.
In the 10 months since January, according to unfair labor practice charges filed by the union, management has been holding captive audience meetings, mandatory meetings for all employees at which managers often try to coerce workers not to join a union. “They told us the union would take a lot of our salary in dues and we could lose our benefits,” says James, 24, a senior development aide at Lifespire’s Park Slope Center in Brooklyn, one of the 54 facilities owned by the agency. The average wage for a direct care worker is $7 to $10 an hour and most of the 1,300 employees can’t afford the premiums for health care coverage.
The charges also claim managers harassed and intimidated union supporters. James, a member of the committee working to organize a union, says she has been harassed and written up for minor offenses, such as having a cell phone in her hand while on the job. Workers are encountering problems with paychecks, getting paid the wrong amount or not at all for overtime, which often is mandatory, the union claims in a complaint filed with the state attorney general’s office, which is investigating the charges.
Working conditions are terrible, James says, with only two bathrooms for 115 clients and 40 staff members.
Workers at some of the other Lifespire facilities have been fired or suspended for trying to form a union and others have been disciplined without due process, according to NLRB charges filed by Local 1000.
The quality of patient care often suffers, the union charges in a complaint to the New York State Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, because of high turnover of staff members and inadequate training.
“They continue to send out memos and hold meetings telling us not to join the union, but they won’t listen to our concerns,” James says. “That just pushes me to fight even more.”
Baggage Screener Fired for Speaking Out
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| Baggage screener John Summerour says unions are needed to ensure managers respect workers. |
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Baggage screener John Summerour, 59, was fired two weeks after he won a citywide award as a screener. Summerour, who had been on the job for three years, spoke out in favor of forming a union with AFGE at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, where he worked for the federal Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
Summerour says he was fired after he and his co-workers wrote a letter to their congressional representative about the lack of training and poor working conditions at TSA. “We weren’t properly trained to do the job we were hired to do,” Summerour says.
According to an appeal filed by AFGE with the TSA Disciplinary Review Board (DRB), Summerour was fired in retaliation for union activity and exercising his freedom of speech. The DRB is an internal TSA board that reviews terminations. Although firing employees for exercising their freedom to join a union is illegal in the United States, in 25 percent of organizing campaigns, private-sector employers illegally fire workers because they want to form a union, says Cornell University scholar Kate Bronfenbrenner.
Even as TSA fired Summerour, AFGE and other unions representing federal workers have been seeking to stop the Bush administration’s implementation of new personnel rules in the Defense and Homeland Security departments. Announced in January 2004, the rules would allow managers to bypass union contracts and unilaterally control hirings, firings and promotions. TSA is part of the Department of Homeland Security(DHS).
Writing that “the regulations fail in their obligation to ensure collective bargaining rights to DHS employees,” U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer halted Homeland Security’s attempt to implement portions of the personnel system, in a ruling on a lawsuit filed by AFGE and other federal employee unions. In October, Collyer declined the government’s request to go ahead with the new work rules. TSA is appealing.
“We have got to have a body to represent us,” Summerour says. “The federal government has guidelines. Somebody has got to force [TSA] to live up to them.”
Engineers Keep Faith They’ll Get a First Contract
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| Larry Tougas has not lost his faith in unions despite working without a first contract for three years. |
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More than three years after engineers at United Airlines Oakland (Calif.) hanger voted to form a union with the International Federation of Professional and Technical Employees Local 20, the workers still do not have a contract. The company, which has union contracts in most of its other divisions, continues to drag out negotiations and keeps refusing to make a pay offer the engineers can accept, union officials say.
“We voted for the union because we realized that negotiating one-on-one with management was not working,” says Larry Tougas, one of the leaders of the 2002 campaign to form a union. “We knew we were suffering by not being in a union and we thought that by being organized we would enjoy the same benefits as United’s other union workers,” he says.
Pay is the key issue stalling the talks, says Tougas, 41, a single father of three and a 14-year veteran at United. The engineers, who direct mechanics on how to repair or modify equipment from new seats to instruments in the cockpit, are leaving at a rate of 20 percent a year, he says, because they can get substantially higher pay with other aerospace companies in the area.
It’s very hard to replace the brain drain that eventually will have an impact on United’s ability to maintain the safety of its planes and to serve the flying public without unnecessary delays, Tougas says. Since the engineers voted for IFPTE, the workforce at the Oakland facility has dropped from some 800 to nearly 250 today. “Unless something changes, we’re going to keep losing people,” he says.
With several of the nation’s airlines, including United, US Airways and Northwest Airlines filing for bankruptcy, Tougas says, “It is essential for airline workers to have a strong contract that protects their rights.” The airlines claim they suffered severe losses after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and cannot keep up with increasing costs of fuel, pensions and salaries. As part of the bankruptcies, United and US Airways have terminated their pension plans and turned them over to the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC), which insures private pensions. But PBGC does not pay as much to each pensioner as he/she would receive if the pension were solvent. Although the workers lost much of their pension, the other portions of their contracts remain in force.
Tougas admits he sometimes gets discouraged with the situation at United, but that hasn’t shaken his faith in unions. “Unions are irreplaceable in today’s business climate,” he says. “Any employee who thinks a union is not in his best interests is kidding himself.”
New York City Child Care Workers Are Organizing with UFT
New York City child care provider Bridget Carruth laughs when asked about her workday. “Day? It’s more like 24 hours,” she says. It starts when she makes breakfast for the kids before they arrive at her home at 8 a.m. and continues long after they’re picked up at 6 p.m. In between, she acts as teacher—with lesson plans around science, reading and nutrition—personal trainer, dispute mediator, cook, cleaner and caretaker of five who range in age from two to six.
Over the past 15 years, Carruth has taught and cared for many children, 15 of whom have gone on to be identified as gifted and talented. But for all of her love, skill and long hours, a combination of state and city authorities pay her just $150 per week, per child. She receives no pension, no vacation days and no health care.
The Queens borough provider is one of 6,000 child care workers in New York City who have signed cards authorizing the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) to represent them. On top of being expected to provide supplies out of their meager pay, snafus in the bureaucracy mean they often can wait months to be paid at all.
Carruth, a former teacher, immigrated to New York from the Carribean island of St. Vincent in 1983. Though she’s passionate about her work, she says that headaches around getting paid were making her consider leaving her job.
This summer, thousands of women like her began to overcome years of struggling alone, thanks to the UFT. The UFT, its state affiliate New York State United Teachers and the community group ACORN launched a drive in July to organize the New York state’s 52,000 home-based child care providers, including more than 20,000 in New York City. The providers are now uniting behind a clear and fair way to resolve disputes involving licenses, inspections and payments. Legislation also is being introduced at the state level to give the child care providers the right to bargain for higher wages and benefits.
“It’s a relief to go to the meetings and hear everybody with the same problems—thank you Lord! With a union, we will have a voice because they have us isolated in our homes,” Carruth says. “Then we can have the union to bargain for us.”
North Carolina Freightliner Workers Join UAW
Rita Chitwood has worked as a spot welder at the Freightliner plant in Gastonia, N.C., for more than 20 years. Rita and her co-workers make parts for the truck manufacturing industry.
They wanted to form a union to gain better health benefits, wages and a pension plan. The workers had not had a raise in five years even as their health care premiums were increased. Further, they were seeking job security as the company continually threatened to move the plant to Mexico.
In response to the workers’ efforts to form their union, the company began an anti-union campaign, holding mandatory anti-union meetings. Supervisors pulled workers into intimidating one-on-one meetings and interrogated them about their support for the union. The day before their election, the company's CEO came to the plant and threatened to send their jobs to Mexico.
The workers narrowly lost the election but challenged the outcome, charging that the company tried to rig the election by putting supervisors in workers’ positions. After a year and a half of waiting for a decision from the NLRB, the company eventually settled with the workers and agreed to a majority sign-up procedure. Under the agreement, Rita and her co-workers were able to form their union without the campaign of fear and threats and without the long delays of the current NLRB election process.
Subsequently, Rita and her co-workers bargained a contract that includes a grievance process, increased health benefits, wage increases, a pension and a 401(k). Rita is now her shift’s shop steward.
Under the Employee Free Choice Act, Rita and her co-workers would not have had to wait several years for the right to form a union through a simple majority sign-up. The Employee Free Choice Act provides for certification of a union if the NLRB finds a majority of employees has signed authorizations designating the union as the collective bargaining representative.
Ed Martin, former Comcast technician, Beaver Falls, Pa.
Ed Martin was a Comcast service technician in Beaver Falls, Pa., for seven years until he was fired by the company in September 2004 while he was fighting for union representation.
Martin says unreasonable productivity demands on technicians fueled the organizing drive. They saw their heavy workload as leading to rushed jobs and safety problems. And like millions of other American workers, the technicians were concerned about their pensions and affordable health care.
Three times Martin and his colleagues worked with the Communications Workers of America to form a union. The first was in 2001. “Immediately, the company began promising us the stars and the moon, that things would change, and that conditions would drastically improve,” he says. “They offered us a modest raise and promised to loosen productivity requirements that were so outrageous that some employees, to save time, didn’t even use required safety equipment.”
The technicians decided to take the company at its word and dissolved their campaign. But soon they realized the “promises were empty.” The demands on their time didn’t change and their small raise didn’t cover the drastic raise in employees’ share of health care costs. “In fact, family health care costs more than quadrupled, from $40 to $180 dollars a month, far outpacing any modest raise in wages,” Martin says.
Comcast is the nation’s leading cable and broadband communications provider, with customers in 35 states and Washington, D.C., and is poised to become one of the country’s largest phone companies as well. In 2003, Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts and his father, Comcast founder Ralph Roberts, received $20.3 million in compensation and an additional $34.2 million in exercised stock options.
The technicians began organizing again in 2002. “We had a lot of momentum and informed the company that we had signed cards representing a majority of employees,” Martin says.
Under a pending federal law, the Employee Free Choice Act, Comcast and other companies would have to recognize a union when a majority of workers sign cards seeking representation. The companies would have to bargain in good faith, or an arbitrator would step in.
But no such law exists now, and Comcast refused to acknowledge the organizing drive or even offer to improve working conditions. “Comcast used a different approach this time: fear and intimidation,” Martin says.
Managers held anti-union group and one-on-one meetings, effectively shutting down the campaign. Then in late 2003, the company overplayed its hand: It took away workers’ pension benefits. The technicians began organizing again.
Martin says Comcast responded by “pitting the younger workers against the older ones,” requiring new computerized tests to weed out older workers and threatening layoffs under a seniority system to scare younger union supporters.
“After several weeks, once again, our campaign fizzled under the intense pressure,” Martin says. But Comcast wasn’t finished. Despite his promotion to the top level of technician, Martin was fired a short time after the third campaign, about a month after a colleague warned him that he “was being watched.”
Managers accused him of refusing work and made other claims that Martin says simply weren’t true. He and the CWA took his case to the National Labor Relations Board but Comcast settled with him privately before the board could rule. Today, Martin, a 36-year-old husband and father of two, spends long days pouring concrete.
Martin says he’s appalled at the vast gulf between the rights American workers have on paper and the reality. “The companies have all the power,” he says. “They change the rules to how it suits them. You’re just a number to them. We had managers tell us all the time, ‘If you don’t like it, there’s the door. Wal-Mart’s hiring.’”
Vacuum Feeler Attendant for Blue Diamond Growers
Larry Newsome, 49, is a vacuum feeler attendant for Blue Diamond Growers. His job is filling 25- and 50-pound boxes of almonds and making sure each has the right amount of nitrogen and oxygen to preserve them and keep them fresh. He has worked for Blue Diamond for 19 years.
Blue Diamond Growers’ Sacramento, Calif., facility is the largest almond processing plant in the world, handling roughly one-third of California’s billion-dollar almond crop. Blue Diamond employs more than 600 workers at the Sacramento plant. In 1996, the almond plant received a $21 million incentive package from the city. The plant’s profits have continued to boom.
Like many other Blue Diamond workers, Larry has been very dissatisfied with the mistreatment of employees by management and is trying to form a union to gain a voice at work. For example, the workers have no paid sick days at all. Moreover, if a worker is sick for three or more days, she or he must bring in a note from their doctor. Another problem is that the company requires workers to work overtime, often with little or no notice. “We can’t plan for time with our own families and when we do, sometimes we have to cancel all our plans,” says Larry, “because they tell us at the last minute that we’ll have to work on the weekend.” Yet another more serious problem is that in some work areas, he says, workers working with chemicals break out in rashes and purple skin blotches.
According to Larry, it is typical of Blue Diamond management to not only make its own unfair rules but also to use them to exploit workers. One example Larry cites is a company rule that when a worker performs a task that is supposed to earn higher wages, which happens very often, she or he won’t get those higher wages unless they’re doing the task at least three days; Larry says that the company frequently pulls workers away from higher-paid tasks after two or two-and-a-half days, just before the three-day deadline. The result is workers get only their regular pay, not the higher pay they’ve earned.
All of this happens in an atmosphere where some of the bosses humiliate and degrade workers. “They try to take your dignity, they scream and holler at you, including the elderly workers,” Larry says. “They show you no respect.” Earlier this year, Larry and other workers tried to meet with Kim Kennedy, the vice-president of the plant, to talk about some of these problems. Larry says, “He’d set appointments and he never showed up. It happened four times.”
“We have a lot of workers who are from Asia and Mexico. They don’t know a lot about what our laws are here. Blue Diamond told them that if they vote for the union, they’ll lose their benefits. It also told them they wouldn’t have medical and dental insurance and a pension.”
Larry says management also threatened immigrant workers by telling them if they supported the union, the plant could close down,.
Despite Blue Diamond’s numerous attempts to discourage union supporters, Larry and other plant workers have not given up on organizing and earlier this year filed official National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) charges against the almond plant for gross workers’ rights violations. After a three-month investigation, NLRB Region 20 issued an eight-page complaint against Blue Diamond on Oct. 27. The NLRB complaint alleges the company committed 28 violations of the law involving 14 managers, supervisors and leads. The violations include illegally threatening, interrogating and firing workers seeking to organize a union. A hearing date has been set for Dec. 5.
Larry says he wants a union so he and the other Blue Diamond workers “will have someone directly to speak for us. We’ll have a direct line.”
