Publications

May 10, 2005

 

Wave hello

Ohio Council 8 won election for three units in the City of Waverly Police Department. The vote involved 17 sergeants, patrol officers and dispatchers

Waterworks

Eighteen water and wastewater workers in Waterton, Wis., voted to affiliate with Council 40. The election followed a state-agency decision granting the workers the right to organize.

Settle or else

Ohio Local 469 of OAPSE/AFSCME Local 4 has voted to authorize a strike on May 16 against the Otsego Local School District in Wood County. The contract covering the 75 school employees represented by the union expired last Dec. 31. The workers -- aides, bus drivers, cashiers, cooks, custodians, food service workers, mechanics, secretaries and crossing guards -- are frustrated by the lack of progress over a new agreement.

Sooner becomes better

The collective bargaining pot continues to boil in Oklahoma, but lately the good guys have been adding most of the spice. The issue: attempted repeal of a law giving bargaining rights to employees of the state's largest municipalities and the Oklahoma City Zoo. AFSCME has all but succeeded in stopping repeal of the law in the Senate for this session; and the Tulsa city council passed an ordinance that gives 80-plus 911 operators bargaining under the current law, with the mayor indicating his willingness to add all other city workers to the eligible group. On the legal front of the tangled case, the state supreme court will hear overall arguments on May 10.

Dissing the union

As many as 3,000 Wisconsin employees, mostly members of Council 24 and AFT-Wisconsin, recently held a rally at the state capitol in Madison to pressure Governor Doyle (D) and lawmakers over job cuts and stalled contract negotiations. Agreements for about 24,000 state employees expired in July 2003. The Doyle administration is offering union members no raise in the first year of the bogged-down contract and just 1 percent in the next. Doyle has refused union requests for voluntary mediation.

The dirty near-dozen

The AFSCME Employees Pension Plan will withhold votes from directors of 11 public companies during annual shareholder meetings in the coming weeks. As the Plan sees it, the executives are receiving excessive pay, have conflicts of interest or are otherwise unresponsive to the needs of their shareholders. The "no" votes are based on current AFSCME proxy-voting guidelines for annual meetings. The 11 targeted companies: Honeywell International, Cendant Corp., VF Corp., General Electric Company, Kohl's Corp., Colgate-Palmolive Co., Union Pacific Corp., Qwest Communications International, Hilton Hotel Corp., Home Depot and Lowe's Companies.

Outsourcing takes a hit

New York City Local 375 and DC 37 won a recent lawsuit that at least temporarily bans layoffs and outsourcing at the School Construction Authority (SCA). The ban lasts until the agency assigns 40 percent of its design, drafting and inspection work to its own employees. The ruling could bring additional funding for in-house staff because the judge backed the union's position that the authority erroneously counts supervision of consultants by SCA staff as part of in-house work.

Honors

Sue A. Freno, a CO at the Belmont Correctional Institution in St. Clairsville, Ohio — and a member of OCSEA/AFSCME Local 11 and AFSCME Corrections United (ACU) — was recently named Officer of the Year by the International Association of Correctional Officers. Among the Freno achievements cited: outstanding contributions to a project assessing the effectiveness of the prison's maintenance department. Two other ACU members were finalists: Kirk Daniels of Local 1644 (Atlanta); and Paul Coombs of Maryland Local 1319 (Maryland Council 92).

Take another bow

More honors for the "Hope and Vote Campaign," the 2004 AFSCME PEOPLE drive to persuade 1 million single women voters in battleground states to vote for John Kerry. The Advertising Club of Metropolitan Washington recently awarded the campaign two "ADDYs" for excellence in advertising: one to the "Hope and Vote" brochure, which targeted unmarried women between 22 and 45 in 12 states); the other to the "Political Collateral" brochure.

In memoriam

Miguel Contreras, executive secretary/treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, died of a heart attack at 52. The son of farm workers, he began his labor-movement career at 17 by leafleting during a United Farm Workers' grape boycott. He became an organizer and then staff director for HERE in San Francisco. In 1996, he was elected the first Latino leader of the 107-year-old L.A. federation. He also was a vice president of the California Labor Federation. "Miguel was a true genius of the labor movement," says Cheryl Parisi, executive director of Council 36.

Lori Ann Sandoval, 38, a member of New Mexico Local 624 (Council 18), was killed April 13 in a traffic accident while driving to a union class for member-educators who'll provide shop-steward training to other members. A new activist and a mother of three, Sandoval was one of 25 participants in the weeklong program. An article in the Albuquerque Journal said Sandoval (a resident of Tijeras) lost control of her vehicle, and when it hit an embankment, it rolled over.


 

 

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