18 - National College Players Association

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INSIDEUSW@WORK
ONTHECOVER
06
Paper Bargaining Solidarity
09
Solidarity at Gerdau
18
Pension Security Under Attack
22
Bush Backs China in Pipe Trade
U SW members forge action plan for renewed solidarity in
paper bargaining.
Steelworkers from Gerdau Ameristeel locations in North
America confront the company's renegade Tampa management.
On the cover: Paper mill Technician Nick Thompson is measuring a core at the
rewinder. Above: James Jackson. Both work for SCA Tissue North America in
Barton, Alabama. Photos by Lynne Baker.
International
Executive Board
Leo W. Gerard
International President
James D. English
Secretary-Treasurer
Leon Lynch
Vice President
Thomas M. Conway
Vice President
Ken Neumann
Nat’l. Dir. for Canada
Richard LaCosse
James E. Pannell
Ron Hoover
James H. Dunn
Lewis Peacock
James K. Phillips, Jr.
“
Labor is prior to, and
independent of,
capital. Capital is only
the fruit of labor, and
could never have
existed if labor had
not first existed. Labor
is the superior of
capital, and deserves
much the higher
consideration.
David R. McCall
Gerald P. Johnston
”
Harry E. Lester
Abraham Lincoln
Jon Geenen
in his First Annual Message to
Congress, December 3, 1861
Steve Hunt
Gary B. Cook
William J. Pienta
Michel Arsenault
Wayne Fraser
Legislation passed by Congress under the guise of shoring
up private pension protections will dismantle defined
benefit pensions.
President Bush ignores U.S. trade laws and rules against
American pipe producers and USW workers.
Features:
Speaking Out
CAPITOL LETTERS
News Bytes
Worker Economics
Union Security Notice
04
16
30
12
35
Jim Robinson
William R. Gibbons
Ernest R. Thompson
Robert Smith
Lloyd Walters
Connie Entrekin
Donald L. Langham
John DeFazio
Kenneth O. Test
David Foster
Communications Staff:
Marco Trbovich, Assistant to the President/Communications
Jim McKay, Editor
Aaron Hudson and Kenny Carlisle, Designers
Lynne Baker, Jim Coleman, John Duray, Maurice Henderson,
Gary Hubbard, Emily Jefferson, Marcia McGee, Colleen
Moore, Joanne Powers, Wayne Ranick, Frank Romano
Contributors:
Gerald Dickey, Jim Frederick, Holly Hart, Tony Montana
Volume 01/No.1
Winter 2006
Official publication of the United Steelworkers
Direct Inquiries and articles for USW@Work to:
United Steelworkers
Communications Department
Five Gateway Center
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
phone 412-562-2400
fax 412-562-2445
on-line: www.steelworkers-usw.org
Terry Bonds
Roger Heiser
Gary Beevers
USW@Work (ISSN 0883-3141) is published five times a year by the United Steelworkers AFL-CIO•CLC Five Gateway Center, Pittsburgh, PA 15222.
Subscriptions to non-members: $12 for one year; $20 for two years. Periodicals postage paid at Pittsburgh, PA and additional mailing offices.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: USW@Work, USW Membership Department, 1440 South Byrne Road, Toledo, OH 43614
Copyright 2006 by United Steelworkers, AFL-CIO•CLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written consent of
the United Steelworkers.
2
winter 2006 • USW@Work
C
oncluding a six month study of
member- and non-member views
of the newly-merged United
Steelworkers, the International
Executive Board at its January meeting
adopted a new logo for our union, fulfilling a commitment made as part of the
merger agreement reached between the
former PACE and USWA last April.
The final decision on a new logo and
slogan was arrived at following an
extensive branding study conducted by a
professional public relations and marketing firm, Washington, D.C.-based Greer,
Margolis, Mitchell, Byrnes (GMMB).
GMMB had provided similar
services to other unions seeking to re-brand. (A brand
should express, both
graphically and literally,
what an organization
stands for, and in doing
so should strengthen the
bond of the organization
with its members.)
by the membership than the current slogan, "Everybody's Union." In addition,
GMMB recommended the new name on
the cover of this magazine,
USW@Work, after the name tested
favorably among members.
Extensive E-Board involvement,
unanimous support
GMMB and the union's
Communications Department shared the
results of the extensive research on
branding, logo design and magazine
name with the International Executive
Board in three consecutive Board meet-
In depth research
The study involved extensive interviews with leaders, union staff and
members, a comprehensive review of
the union's communications, and a wide
range of research, including a poll of
members in both the U.S. and Canada
conducted by an independent research
firm, as well as six focus group interviews of the union's members and five
more of workers who were not members
of a union.
The focus group interviews were
conducted in the Akron, Ohio, Houston,
Tex., and Toronto, Ont., areas from
which the broadest cross section of
members could be drawn from the
diverse industries in which our union
was represented by both the former
PACE and USWA.
On the basis of this research, GMMB
recommended six slogans to the
International Executive Board, all of
which had been viewed more favorably
ings in November, December and
January.
In addition, two presentations on the
progress of the study were conducted for
the staff of the Canadian National Office
by the International's Communications
Director.
At each of these meetings, recommendations from Board members were
taken into consideration, which led to
modifications in logo designs and a continuing winnowing of desired slogans
until a final decision on the logo, slogan
and magazine was unanimously accepted.
Unity and Strength for Workers
The Board expressed unanimous support for the slogan "Unity and Strength
for Workers," which it felt reflected the
value of the union to our members, a
view strongly supported by member and
non-member participants in the focus
groups conducted by the consulting
firm. The first letters of the key words
in the slogan spell out "USW."
In addition, the Board unanimously
passed a resolution approving the logo
pictured on this page; the letters "USW"
with the letter "S" portraying abstract
hands joining together. The words
"United Steelworkers" will appear
immediately above the letters; the slogan will appear below it.
The Board resolution explicitly states
that identification of local union affiliates and designations of industry and
other descriptive subgroups will be permitted under, but not on or above,
the new logo.
To ensure consistency in
the brand, the Board resolution also established navy
blue as the official primary
color, to be used exclusively
throughout the union, and
further designated gold as the
secondary color to be used in
conjunction with navy blue.
By March 1, new letterhead and
other published materials will be developed incorporating the logo, slogan and
official colors into them, wherever
appropriate. A campaign will be developed for ensuring the use of these materials in each district and throughout our
union's locals.
Union apparel and other materials
online from the Steelworkers' store will
also be redesigned to reflect the changes
to the union's brand.
"We have invested significantly in the
opinions and guidance of our members
and leadership in reaching these decisions," said International President Leo
W. Gerard. "Now it's up to all of us to
make sure that we turn these decisions
into the consistent identity of the
Steelworkers at every level of our
union."
USW@Work • winter 2006
3
Speaking Out
USW active and retired members and their families are invited to
“speak out” on these pages. Letters should be short and to the point. We reserve the
right to edit for length. Mail to USW@Work, Five Gateway Center, Pittsburgh PA
15222 or e-mail to [email protected].
Perfect example of unity
On behalf of myself and your union
brothers at Local 13000-9, CII Carbons,
Chalmette, LA., I would like to thank the
International Executive Board, the Rapid
Response Network, all of the locals and
members, as well as all of the employees
of the International Union.
The hurricane relief funds were distributed at a time when most of us lost
everything we own. It is a great comfort to
know that our union brothers have extended their heartfelt sympathy. This is the perfect example of unity, the principle on
which this great union was founded.
Thank you again for your caring and
support.
I am proud to be your union brother.
Keith M. Diaz
Local 13000-9
Chalmette, LA.
Struggling with FEMA
Hurricane Katrina caused complete
devastation to St. Bernard and surrounding
parishes where all of my members live.
Most have returned to work at Murphy Oil
where they are living in company-provided trailers. Many have come back without
their families since they have no other
place to live.
You can imagine what turmoil this has
caused for our families and children. Our
hope is that all will be reunited in the near
future.
The Steelworkers' hurricane relief fund
contribution to our local has given everyone the comfort of knowing that our union
cares. While we struggle to deal with
FEMA, other agencies and insurance companies, it is a relief that the United
Steelworkers has provided assistance in
our time of need. The money received
was totally unexpected but is needed and
much appreciated by all of the members of
Local 8363.
Joseph Thibodeaux, President
Local 8363
Chalmette, Louisiana
4
USW made a difference
The 1,000 members of Local 13-447
would like to thank you for your support
through the Katrina Relief Fund.
Our members are scattered throughout
the Greater New Orleans and surrounding
areas and were all touched in one way or
another by the hurricane. More than 300
of our members experienced significant
damage from water and wind with some
houses either completely gone or totally
covered by flood waters.
It has been wonderful to see the outreach from our union brethren in this
effort to help their fellow members.
While all members may have been
affected not all had the same degree of
loss. We have set up an evaluation committee to disburse the Katrina Relief Fund
that will consider not only the damage
done but need as well. We do this to insure
that the money donated by our brothers
and sisters will go to the individuals with
the most dire circumstances.
As a new member of the United
Steelworkers Union it has been gratifying
to see that the vote we cast to merge with
the USW has truly been a blessing. While
I don't doubt that our PACE International
and locals would have responded in the
same fashion during this disaster, there is
strength in numbers and this effort has
proven that.
In closing I would like to send my sincere gratitude to the USW International,
the Executive Board, International
Officers, Regional and Sub-regional officers, staff and all of our members who
helped us in this unprecedented crisis. You
truly made a difference in people's lives.
Thank you.
Brent Petit, president
Local 13-447
New Orleans
Global economy works
against us
In my opinion, the new global economy is being created by the World Trade
Organization, Wall Street, corporate
America and the Republican Party for the
sake of making the rich richer and the
poor poorer.
We are losing our health insurance,
pensions and other benefits while the big
boys get bonuses and outrageous salaries.
Republicans won't even raise the minimum wage of $5.15 per hour. Try paying
your energy bills on $5.15 per hour.
The energy bill was created by Vice
President Dick Cheney and other energy
tycoons. Believe me, they weren't thinking of us! One more term of Republicans
running our country, future generations
will be living like it was in the 20s and
30s.
Think about it. What has the Bush team
done for the good of our country? He has
got us further in the hole than all 42 presidents before him. Nothing but lies and
mismanagement. Wake up America.
Donald Jankwietz
185 Washington Street
Manistee, MI 49660
Vote for change
I am 81 years old and I have never seen
our country in such a mess.
Very little has been done to control the
effect global warming has caused the
world and George Bush does not have a
solid program in place.
Our country has problems, concerns
and disasters to deal with and we have no
federal financial support because of
money that has been spent helping other
countries. This careless spending will
affect taxpayers today and our great
grandchildren.
Voters determine who is in office. If the
best interests of the United States has not
been taken care of "we the people" can
make some needed changes in Congress
and the White House.
Irene Stromberg
Kileen, Texas
A
bortion has gotten most of the
headlines with George W. Bush's
Supreme Court picks, but less
noticed in the mainstream media has
been the president's persistent nomination of candidates who gravely threaten
workers' interests.
Judge Samuel Alito was the latest
example of the pro-corporate bias in all
three Bush nominations to the Supreme
Court, including the earlier confirmation
of Justice John Roberts and the failed
bid of Bush aide Harriet Miers, who was
brought down by an ugly barrage of conservative criticism in the president's own
party.
Hot button social issues such as abortion are actually a minority of the cases
decided by the Supreme Court, yet they
get most of the media coverage. It's the
less explored but equally important economic issues decided by federal judges
that impact whether workers or consumers get their day in court or corporations prevail.
Alito's nomination was hailed by business groups, but a review of his lowercourt cases by the AFL-CIO led to a
scathing censure for his "disturbing tendency to take an extremely narrow and
restrictive view" of laws that protect
workers' rights. Majority opinions he
wrote favored business by a three-to-one
margin over workers and unions.
He voted against enforcement of
workplace safety standards in the chemicals industry (Aldern Leeds v. OSHA)
and against holding high-level corporate
officers responsible for unpaid
wages and benefits once their
companies filed for bankrupt-
cy protection (Belcufine v. Aloe). He
excused companies for giving WARN
Act notices when plants are ordered shutdown by the government (HERE v.
Elsinore Shore Associates) and prevented
an age discrimination trial despite evidence that a boss called a worker "too
old for the job." (Keller v. ORIX Credit
Alliance)
"It is clear that his judicial philosophy
is at odds with the interests of America's
working families,'' said AFL-CIO
President John Sweeney.
Civil rights and environmental groups
also warned against Alito's confirmation.
He was denounced by the NAACP, the
Mexican American Legal Defense and
Educational Fund and the Black
Leadership Forum.
Alito's anti-worker record ranges from
decisions that denied overtime pay to
newspaper employees (Reich v. Gateway
Press) to undermining the right of government employees to unpaid time off
for serious illnesses under the Family
Medical and Leave Act (Chittister v.
Department of Community and
Economic Development).
Business leaders also hailed Bush's
selection of Justice Roberts to the
Supreme Court, where many cases can
be decided by a one-vote margin. Before
he became a federal appellate judge,
Roberts represented business interests
including Toyota Motor
Corp. and WellPoint
Health Network,
Inc.
As a lawyer representing Toyota,
Roberts won a unanimous 2002 Supreme
Court decision putting new curbs on lawsuits by workers with repetitive-motion
injuries. As a result, workers suing under
the federal Americans With Disabilities
Act must show not just an inability to
perform their job but that they also have
problems performing daily tasks such as
brushing their teeth.
Like Justice Roberts, Miers came
from a corporate background. Although
she had no prior judicial background, her
experience as a litigator and head of a
large Texas law firm raised questions
over whether she would instinctively
support Big Business.
Miers defended Texas car dealers
against price fixing, challenged claims
that Microsoft had sold defective software and took on consumers who sued
mortgage companies for violating
debt collection laws. She also
served on the corporate boards
of a securities fund and a
mortgage company.
5
Renewed Solidar
Unanimous Support for New Strategy in Paper Bargaining
W
Photos by Hank deLespinasse
hen USW Local 13-656 member Margaret Bell tells the
story of her local’s 2003 negotiations with GeorgiaPacific, she brings to mind the difficulties paper locals
have had the past 20 years in dealing with an industry with its own
bargaining agenda.
GP wanted more flexibility, elimination of the Sunday premium
pay, removal of time-and-a-half pay for Saturday work, reduction
of overtime and increases in cost sharing for health care. Bell
estimates the concessions cost her $10,000 in pay.
“I could tell from the local management six months prior to
negotiations that they had a bargaining strategy,” Bell said.
“They brought the corporate negotiator into the plant and he
visited with workers. They started a lot earlier than we did and
they were a lot more prepared.”
Changing picture
Paper workers who belong to the USW are taking control
over the timing, tempo and tone of their upcoming negotiations
with the paper industry.
Over 750 delegates to the National Paper Bargaining conference
held Jan. 22-25 in Las Vegas unanimously reaffirmed their solidarity
and commitment to each other by adopting policies that will guide
the union’s future bargaining efforts in an industry that employs
over 150,000 USW members under 900 separate labor agreements.
In one of its first actions, the conference voted to simplify
strike vote procedures to require a simple majority instead of the
previous two-thirds majority. This was done to address the
International Vice President Dick LaCosse
addresses delegates to the National Paper
Bargaining conference
6
bargaining tactics of some employers.
Delegates also enacted a “Vision for the Future” statement that
includes flexible bargaining principles and two mandatory goals
from the council’s 2004 initial conference. Those mandatory goals
are no contract longer than three years unless it serves the union’s
interest and agenda and no contract that contains a waiver of the
right to bargain over benefits.
“We can’t fight a unified industry contract by contract,” said
Richard “Dick” LaCosse, USW international vice president. “We have
to speak with one voice and we have to have a common agenda.”
“We’re giving birth to a vision that will be practical and
sensible,” said USW President Leo W. Gerard. “The paper
companies must save the industry by being smart, not by the
exploitation of workers.”
The vision developed as a result of a series of meetings held
last fall with local union leaders from the paper industry. They
talked about the issues and challenges they faced in bargaining
and what could help them. They agreed that if they were to
succeed in restoring balance to the bargaining process, they
would have to have a common agenda and vision of their own.
“Decades ago, corporations decided to have a common
agenda and take away from us things our parents and grandparents fought for,” said USW Local 4-9 member Rod Hiltz. “Now
we’re going to use a common agenda to take back those things
for our children.”
New Bargaining agenda
The bargaining agenda rests on three clear objectives:
● Bringing contract expiration dates closer together so
locals bargain together instead of apart;
● Continuing to refuse to not give up the right to bargain
over health care and other benefits;
● Expanding the contract provisions for job security in this
time of rampant mergers and acquisitions in the paper
industry.
rity:
As a general rule, contract terms should not exceed three years in
length. Any term longer than that must further the union’s interests
and bargaining agenda and be approved by the international president.
Having common expiration dates makes it harder for the paper
companies to pit one local against each other. “If dates are the same or
close, we could get more solidarity,” said Bell. She said it also makes it
harder for companies to build a strategy against the union once
concessions are obtained from one location.
The conference agreed that any contract terms that waive a
local’s right to negotiate over benefits will not be approved for
ratification by the international president. Delegates also agreed that
it will not be acceptable for companies to substitute an inferior
health care plan that does not have the waiver.
With these objectives the union will be firm, but will be flexible
when needed as opportunities arise to improve the union’s position,
said LaCosse.
Building Economic Security
Having a successorship clause in a contract guarantees that
workers’ wages, benefits and working conditions will remain
intact if their company is sold. This was a big issue for Local 2-87
during its July 2005 negotiations with Neenah Paper, said member
Toni Denman. She said the company tried to offer the workers a
three percent wage increase if they did not agree to a successorship clause. This persuasion failed because the local educated its
members about successorship through constant meetings and
postings on the union bulletin board.
“The people in our mill wanted to have the security that if
somebody bought us, our local would be recognized and our labor
movement would be honored,” said Denman.
Delegates agreed that contracts should contain a neutrality
clause so that employers will remain neutral when their employees
at other nonunion facilities want to organize. They also said this
would be essential if a local engages in a partnership or other
employee involvement program.
Any bargaining strategy needs to emphasize length
of service and fairness over favoritism. “They
(companies) like to pick and choose the
people they want for certain things,” said
Denman. “They don’t care about
seniority.”
7
Activism increases with strategic bargaining
Rod Hiltz’s local became involved with strategic bargaining prior to
the first National Paper Bargaining conference in 2004. His Local 4-9
in Maine was battling Sappi over concessions.
“With strategic bargaining we’ve been able to hold the line,” said
Hiltz. “It’s helped us be more firm. I feel the process we’re engaging in
will educate our members to achieve the discipline necessary to be
successful at bargaining.”
Jeff Welhouse of Local 2-9 said his local incorporated the goals
from the first National Paper Bargaining conference into its bargaining docket. He said his company, Stora Enso, agreed to the goals of
having a three-year contract and negotiating over health care.
He said the strategic bargaining process has activated his membership and council. There is a network within the council to communicate as well as an international communication network.
“It drives the company crazy because they hate us talking back
and forth like that,” he said.
8
“
The paper companies must save the
industry by being smart, not by the
exploitation of workers.
“
Strike vote changes hailed
In a significant change that will greatly strengthen our
union’s bargaining power, the conference unanimously agreed
to change the strike vote from requiring a two-thirds majority
to a 50 percent plus one majority.
“Companies play on that 16 percent,” said Fernie Mirelez, a
Local 819 member. “They give you enough so that you do not
strike over it.”
“We were the victims of that several years ago,” Delie said.
“We couldn’t get a strike vote and we were backed into a
contract. Strike authority is a tool more than a reality. Sometimes you need that tool to get the best possible agreement.”
The vote on changing this policy was unanimous, and was
greeted with a long, standing ovation by the delegates.
The conference also agreed that lump sum payments and
other signing bonuses, as well as two-tier wage agreements,
should be avoided. “They (lump sums) don’t add to your
wage rate and they don’t compound with future wages,” said
Local 2-213 member Dennis Delie. “You get it, you spend it
and it’s gone. It’s a false wage increase.”
Having quality, affordable health care is a major priority.
“Outside of health care becoming unaffordable, it’s becoming
more restricted,” said Delie. “I’ve had a number of people come
to me who have a serious condition and they deal with specialists who understand their situation. But because of a change in
the health care plan, they could no longer see that doctor.”
While the delegates are not opposed to a 401k if it is
offered in addition to a defined benefit pension plan, they saw
the necessity of having a pension that is secure and backed by
the federal government.
“With a 401k, the stock market could tumble and your
retirement money would be gone,” said Delie. “It’s too risky
and that’s even if people handle it properly.”
The conference also addressed vacations, holidays, family
leave, paid funeral and jury duty leaves, disability and sickness
and accident, and life insurance.
“We’ve got to get the membership to understand the
benefits they have,” said Local 9-508 member Kim Smith.
“The way we use those benefits makes an impact on our
ability to increase benefits.”
For example, if a large percentage of workers sells back their
vacation time, it makes it harder to negotiate additional time off.
Safer working conditions
Making a living should not cost a life. Work-place safety
and health programs should focus on the root causes of
incidents, like the union’s Triangle of Prevention (TOP)
program. Partnership and employee involvement programs
should have union involvement.
Fernie Mirelez said his employer, Temple- Inland, has put
the union on notice that it wants an “employee-driven,
behavior-based safety program.”
“You know, once they (the company) put the corporate label
on it, they have little room for change. If they’re truly interested
in employee involvement, they’d be receptive to a program like
TOP that deals with root causes and not behaviors.”
Mirelez said his company also wants partnerships in other
areas. “If we’re going to be partners, we have to be partners
all the way,” he said. “It makes no sense to be partners in one
arena and be fighting in another area.”
Educate, educate, educate
The next step is for paper locals to educate their membership about the new vision and agenda for paper bargaining.
Then locals can begin to strategize how they can make
progress on these goals. Members will receive extensive
training and be on contract action teams.
“We can’t blame our members if we don’t educate them,”
said Bell. “Educate, educate, educate—that is the key.”
The delegates themselves got ample education and training
at the conference. The USW’s top bargainers, organizers and
communications professionals conducted workshops in
strategic bargaining, contract mobilization and strategic
communications.
Members see hope in this new vision and direction for
national paper bargaining. “They believe it’s very doable and
that it’s going to get us out of a cycle of lousy contracts and
continual concessions,” said Delie.
“For 20 years we’ve taught our members to bob
and weave,” said LaCosse. “From this day forward
we’re going to teach them how to punch. Anything is possible if we’re engaged.”
While the company has a reputation
in Brazil for a paternalistic approach
toward its workers, the management of
its recently acquired Tampa-based U.S.
operations is the direct opposite. It has a
30-year history of worker exploitation,
going back to its union-busting days
during the 1970s at Florida Steel.
The burgeoning pro-corporate political culture in the U.S. encourages the
radical Tampa management, which has
no respect for workers' rights, to take on
the union. The company has drawn a
line in the sand and in negotiations is
making an outright assault on union
wages, benefits and protections. The
local leaders at Gerdau facilities in the
U.S. and Canada are standing up to the
threat and taking action — mobilizing
the membership.
The company fired its first salvo
last May when it locked out members of
Local 8586 in Beaumont, Texas. It was
a blatant attempt to force agreement on
terms of a concessionary contract proposal. The workers stood firm, refusing
any givebacks. Six months went by.
Hurricane Rita hit Beaumont while they
were locked out. Our members in
Beaumont proved to be tough Texans.
Nothing was going to defeat them.
Mike Ruffley, president
Local 9473 in Perth Amboy, N.J.
9
Photos by Gerald Dickey
S
teelworker leaders from eight
Gerdau Ameristeel locations in
North America gathered in
Minnesota to draw up plans to confront
one of the most anti-union managements
that the USW has come up against in
decades.
Gerdau is a Brazilian family that has
been in the steel business for 100 years,
recently expanding globally by buying
up mini-mills, including former North
Star Steel and others, in the United
States, Canada and Spain.
Going into the seventh month of the
lockout, the company backed off and
admitted its mistake. It announced plans
to end the lockout but illegally imposed
its concessionary contract proposals
prior to any bargaining impasse. The
USW has filed charges with the
National Labor Relations Board.
It's not over yet
"Our people have not been called
back by seniority," said Local 8586 president Pete Savoy. "The company has
unlawfully and unilaterally implemented
their proposal."
Workers in Beaumont do not have a
contract. They are not working under
the terms of the previous agreement.
And there is no interim agreement.
"The company has engaged in
unfair labor practices by unilaterally
implementing their proposal and by illegally threatening our members," Savoy
said.
Workers at other Gerdau locations
are keeping close watch on what is happening there.
"Our members in Whitby, Ontario,
see the workers in Beaumont as heroes,"
said Local 6571 president Denis
Kavanagh. "If they were defeated,
eventually, Gerdau would get us all. We
will not let them beat us.
We will win by sticking
together. Solidarity will
win this for us."
Unanimous support
A strong commitment
to solidarity was reinforced by all who attended
Pete Savoy, president
the Jan. 9 and 10 meetLocal 8586 in Beaumont
ings, highlighted by
reports from members at the two other
plants where contracts have also
expired.
"The compa-
ny's economic proposal includes cuts in
overtime pay, two tier wages, cuts in
retiree health care, no pension increase,
attacks our job classifications and new
wage rates that would freeze hourly
pay," said Bill Clevenger, president of
Local 8581 in Wilton, Iowa.
"It's concessionary across the
board," he said. "Our members won't
stand for it. We will do whatever we
have to do to protect ourselves."
"They've thrown obscene concessionary proposals at us," said Mike
Wodaszewski, president of Local 7263
in St. Paul. "It's a disgrace. They want
to take away retiree health care and
reduce our standard of living. It took us
40 years to get where we are and there's
no reason for us to move backwards."
Brazilian metalworkers
pledge cooperation
"Our metalworkers confederation is
showing solidarity with steelworkers in
the U.S. and Canada, because together
we gain strength. And with globalization, unions have to show global
strength," said Nair Goulart, Vice
President of Forca Sindical. "That's the
way to achieve victory."
There are two major
metalworkers unions in
“Gerdau had a seemless transition when
they took over the plant. We have a
skilled work force that made them $40
million in their first year here. It took us
40 years to get where we are and there’s
no reason for us to move backwards.”
Mike Wodaszewski, president
Local 7263 in St. Paul
Union Leaders from the Gerdau Ameristeel North American and Brazilian plants take a
break from their meeting to welcome the street blimp to the streets of Minnesota
10
Nair Goulart,
Vice President of Forca Sindical, an umbrella organization of Brazilian labor unions
Brazil. The other is headed by Fernando
Lopes, an old friend who was featured
in Steelabor magazine during a visit to
Pittsburgh in the summer of 2002.
Together, they represent all 15,000
Gerdau steelworkers in Brazil.
"On behalf of 800,000 Brazilian
metalworkers, we support the fight of
workers in the U.S. and Canada because
the only way we can guarantee our
workers' rights are to be sure that all
workers' rights are protected around the
world," Lopes said. He is the secretarygeneral of CNM/CUT, the National
Metalworkers' Confederation of Brazil.
Since Gerdau has recently
announced acquisition of mills in Spain,
union representatives from that country
were unable to attend the meeting, but
they are hungry for information. Manny
Armenta, a USW Sub-district Director
in Arizona who speaks fluent Spanish,
will soon pay a visit to Spain to brief
them on the company's assault on our
standard of living.
All plants bringing pressure
Winning contracts with an obstinate
management takes everyone working
together. That sort of cooperation in this
battle has already begun. The Texas
lockout failed because the workers stood
their ground. Nobody faltered. They remain united.
Billboards in Beaumont pay tribute to the members of Local
8586.
A USW billboard is also
up near the plant in Wilton,
Iowa, alerting the community to what is happening.
A rolling billboard,
called a street blimp, traveled the streets of St. Paul,
Minn., where the contract
has also expired. On a quiet
Saturday morning at the turn
of the year, it went past the
plant manager's house. The
driver noted that drapes in the
front window were open wide.
Just to make sure the boss saw
it, the driver turned and went
back slowly to give him a second
look. No such luck. The drapes
were drawn closed
One look must have been
enough. After all, the message had traveled around
the plant, St. Paul and
Minneapolis all week.
With a picture of a
crocodile's mouth
wide open, the billboard read, "Gerdau
Devoured North
Star Steel. Now it
is after our standard of living.
What a crock..."
Brian Graves, president
Local 9447 in Calvert City, Ky.
Bill Clevenger, president
Local 8581 in Wilton, Iowa
11
Worker
Economics
Unions Add 213,000 Members
D
Execs Get Taxes Paid
R
ank-and-file workers must
reach into their own wallets to
pay taxes. But not Robert
Nardelli, chief executive of Home
Depot, the hardware retailer, and a
growing number of other U.S. executives.
Many corporations pick up a big
chunk of execs' federal and state
income taxes, reimbursing them for
taxes due on luxury cars, travel on
corporate jets, and forgiveness of millions in loans.
The little-known tax payments,
called "tax gross ups" seem to be
growing in popularity among execs
who are paid extra sums to cover personal tax bills and taxes on stock
grants, signing bonuses and severance
packages.
Equilar Inc., a compensation
research firm, says 52 percent of companies disclosed they paid gross-ups
to one or more executives last year,
according to a study done for The
Wall Street Journal.
espite a political climate hostile to workers' rights, labor unions added
213,000 members in the United States last year, according to the Bureau of
Labor Statistics (BLS).
The increase brought the total number of wage and salary workers who were
union members last year to nearly 15.7 million. Density stayed steady at 12.5 percent.
Full-time wage and salary workers who belonged to unions had median usual
weekly earnings of $802 last year, compared with a median of $622 for unrepresented workers.
Wage Growth Slows
H
ourly wages for most workers are not keeping pace with inflation even
though there has been strong growth in labor productivity.
Middle- and low-wage workers are being hit with a one-two punch of
slower wage growth and faster inflation, according to the Economic Policy Institute
(EPI), an economic think tank that does research on issues of concern to working
people.
The result for most workers is stagnating or falling real wages, the term used to
describe wages that have been adjusted for inflation. By comparison, high-wage
earners have seen growth over the last five years.
In addition, EPI said wage growth for middle- and low-income workers is
slowed by the fewer number of workplaces covered under union contracts, the fall
in the real value of the minimum wage, the growing imbalance in international trade
and the offshoring of white-collar jobs.
Hourly wages fell 18 of
last 20 months
Real wage changes — 2004-05
Data released in January
Low-Wage Middle-Wage High-Wage
by the BLS showed that most
Workers
Workers
Workers
workers' hourly and weekly
wages fell behind inflation in
0.6%
2005. Real hourly wages
0.5%
were down 0.5% over the
0.0%
course of the year, while real
weekly wages declined 0.4%.
-0.5%
Hourly wages fell in 18 of
the past 20 months. That's
-1.0%
hardly the "healthy" and
-1.5%
"robust" recovery that so-1.3%
called "economic experts"
-2.0%
often claim we're in.
-1.9%
-2.5%
SOURCE: Economic Policy Institute
12
American Middle Class Endangered
T
he middle class in America is in danger of disappearing because
of deliberate strategies by corporations to outsource jobs abroad
and chip away at the benefits of U.S. workers, AFL-CIO
President John Sweeney said.
"Wounded workers aren't the only casualties of the corporate jobkilling strategy,'' Sweeney told the National Press Club. "It is also a selfdestructive strategy because it leaves businesses with consumers who
don't have enough money to spend or save. It leaves government with
more demand for public services and subsidies and fewer taxpayers to
pay for them,'' he said.
Sweeney said businesses should be concentrating on creative solutions to global competition and becoming more innovative rather than
cutting benefits and laying off employees. He also called for universal
health care and blasted the trend among corporations to eliminate pension coverage.
Make Tax Time Pay
A
s the annual April 15 tax filing deadline approaches, it might pay
to check and see if you or any of your friends or family qualify
for the Earned Income Tax Credit or the Child Tax Credit.
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) reduces tax burdens and supplements wages for low and moderate income workers who qualify.
Generally, working families with children that have annual incomes
below about $31,000 to $37,000 (depending on marital status and number of children) are eligible.
The EITC is a refundable tax credit, which means that if a worker's
income tax liability is less than the amount of the credit for which he or
she qualifies, the worker receives the difference between the liability and
the credit as a refund.
An emergency tax relief act passed by Congress allows hurricane victims whose income dropped in 2005 to use their 2004 amount when figuring the Earned Income and Child Tax credit refunds.
Bush Administration Stalls on
Outsourcing Study's Release
T
he Bush Administration is refusing to provide Democratic members of Congress with
information they requested concerning a
controversial report done in 2004 on the outsourcing of U.S. jobs in the high-tech sector.
The Commerce Department cited provisions of
the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in saying it
did not have to comply with the request made by
U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), the ranking
minority member of the House Science Committee.
A 12-page version of the report was released in
September 2005, based on an FOIA request. Its
brevity and lack of original research caused some to
question whether it was a complete representation
of work done by the government's Technology
Administration, which was directed by Congress to
assess workforce globalization in knowledge-based
industries.
China's Unfair Trade Juggernaut
C
hina continued its meteoric rise as a global economic power in
2005, as its trade deficit with the rest of the world surged to $102
billion, more than triple the $32 billion gap recorded in 2004.
The trade figures intensify pressure for Beijing to loosen foreign
exchange controls that critics contend keep China's currency, the yuan,
undervalued, giving China an unfair advantage in world markets by
making its goods relatively cheap.
"What this does is just reinforce the case that China is manipulating
its currency,'' said Ernest Preeg, a senior fellow at the Manufacturers
Alliance, a Virginia-based trade group. "China is a whole cloud over
trade policy."
Minimum Wage Buys Less
I
nflation is eating away at the buying power of the minimum wage.
In the more than eight years since Congress passed the last
increase in the minimum wage, its buying power has eroded by 17
percent and is currently at its second lowest level since 1955.
The federal minimum wage, contained in the Fair Labor Standards
Act, is $5.15 an hour. Many states also have minimum wage laws. In
those cases where an employee is subject to both, the employee is entitled to the higher of the two minimum wages.
Federal inaction on raising the minimum wage has led 17 states and
the District of Columbia to increase their state minimum wages above
the federal rate.
Outsourcing Boosts Demand
for MBAs; Salaries Increase
T
he outsourcing of jobs to places like India is
helping to drive up demand for business
school graduates with MBA degrees.
The Labor Department estimates that the outsourcing industry will need 2,000 senior executives
this year and 9,500 by 2012, up from only 100 in
2000.
Salaries and signing bonuses of new MBA graduates took a double-digit jump in 2005 to a record
average $106,000, up 13.5 percent from 2004,
according to a survey by the Graduate Management
Admissions Council, a testing administrator.
13
Rx for Walgreen’s Union-Busting
W
Combatting stress
The vast majority of pharmacists
who responded to an informal Steelworkers survey said they are “always
or often” stressed and feel like they are
on an assembly line. Most of their
customers are also frustrated over the
time it takes to have a prescription filled
because of burdensome workloads,
they added.
The survey was cited in a letter from
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard
Trumka to Walgreen CEO David
Bernauer that called on the drug store
chain to reform its pharmacy and labor
practices to protect consumers.
“Working Americans rely on
Walgreen to provide quality pharmaceutical services, and the retirement
savings of America’s working families
are invested in companies like
Walgreen,’’ Trumka said.
The USW offered assistance to the
independent pharmacists’ union last
year after a brief contract strike against
Walgreen stores in Illinois and parts of
Indiana. The previous four-year
agreement expired in 2005.
Wages were not in contention. Major
bargaining issues included the
company’s decision to limit pharmacists’ input into staffing decisions, the
elimination of dues deductions from
paychecks and ending the requirement
that pharmacists join the union.
With growing diversity among our
850,000 members, the USW has some
15,000 pharmaceutical workers as
members, including about 1,400
pharmacists, most of whom work for
Medco Health Solutions, a mail-order
benefits pharmacy.
Bill Gibbons, director of former PACE Region 9, leads
pharmacy workers and USW members at a rally and
informational picket line outside a Walgreen store in
Chicago.
Photo by Tom VanDyke/ Chicago Tribune
ork speedups aren’t confined
to factories and assembly
lines. Union pharmacists at the
Walgreen Co. drug store chain are being
pushed to process more prescriptions
with less help.
Many Walgreen pharmacists sell
more than 20 prescriptions an hour, a
potentially dangerous level, according to
the National Pharmacists Association,
which has formed an alliance with the
United Steelworkers.
The alliance bore fruit in January
when Steelworkers joined pharmacists
for a day of protest at two of
Walgreen’s busiest stores in Chicago, Il.
and Merrillville, Ind. over the chain’s
refusal to bargain a new contract.
Whether you are a blue-collar worker
or a white-collar worker, the USW
recognizes that there are issues of
fairness on the job that a union can
address.
“Money is not the issue,’’ retired
steelworker Roy Collins, past president
of USW Local 1657 at Acme Steel, said
as he joined the protest. “It’s how
people are being treated.”
14
TEAMWORK
NFL Stars Join Our Union's Drive for Student Athletes
T
powerful institutions in America because
of the student-athletes who make its
sports programs so successful," president Gerard explained to those attending. "That's why it's completely unconscionable that it refuses to address the
basic health and safety needs for these
young people and their families. As long
as these inequities persist we will continue to stand with the CAC and fight to
change them."
Between the Cleveland Browns event
held in Strongsville, OH and the event
in Pittsburgh, the CAC was able to raise
nearly $250,000.
"These events give fans an opportunity to meet some of their football heroes,
but they do much more to create awareness and raise support for current and
future generations of student athletes,"
said Huma, CAC's co-founder and chairman and a former UCLA football player.
"All of this could not have happened
without the continued support of
players from the Cleveland
Browns, the
Pittsburgh
Steelers and especially Pres. Gerard and
the USW."
Since 2001, the CAC has been working to secure protections for student-athletes such as:
• Health care coverage for all
sports-related workouts;
• Safety guidelines to help prevent
workout-related deaths;
• Protecting academic scholarships
for injured players;
• Increasing scholarship money to
include basic necessities; and,
• Allowing universities to offer 5year scholarship promises in writing.
"The CAC came to the USW because
of its long history of fighting for people,
and they have done that and more on
behalf of student-athletes," Huma added
with a smile. "I'm so thankful for that."
Photos by Tom Fitzpatrick
o build on our union's drive to
secure basic protections for student-athletes that the National
Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)
does not currently require, the USW cosponsored two fundraising events for the
Collegiate Athletes Coalition (CAC).
The CAC is a non-profit advocacy
group comprised of college athletes
from across the nation that is building
support for its cause with the financial
and organizational help of our union.
The events featured players from the
NFL's Cleveland Browns and the Super
Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers who
support the CAC's efforts.
USW International President Leo W.
Gerard, Secretary-Treasurer Jim English,
Directors Dave McCall (District 1) and
John Defazio (District 10), along with
other USW staff, joined the CAC's
Ramogi Huma and hundreds of enthusiastic Browns and Steelers' fans at the
events.
Browns' cornerback Daylon
McCutcheon and Steelers' safety Mike
Logan hosted the events in their respective cities as part of the CAC's effort to
secure protections.
"The NCAA is one of the most
recognizable, well financed and
Ramogi Huma and Browns' cornerback
Daylon McCutcheon on stage at the
Cleveland fund raiser.
Right: Steelers’ players Mike Logan and
Clark Haggans sign autographs for fans.
Photo by Eustacio Humphrey
15
CAPITOL LETTERS
The inside scoop on what's going down in D.C.
T
he U.S. Congress took a long holiday rest and came back to
Washington, ready to do its job or to continue doing a job on the rights
of working men and women - depending
on your view of how things work in
D.C. these days.
Lately, most of the news has been
hard to swallow: 14 coal miners dead
from lack of funding and enforcement
while Mine Safety and Health
Administration (MSHA) officials walk
out of Senate hearings before they can
be questioned; Judge Alito rubberstamped out of the Judiciary Committee
by party-line vote — ready to breeze
through the Senate onto the Supreme
Court because Democrats likely won't
mount a filibuster; Karl Rove, Bush's
political hit man, orchestrating an
Administration PR blitz of epic proportions to justify domestic spying and
keep people from focusing on yet more
smoking guns - convicted felon and former lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, and the
President in pictures the White House
won't release and reports that the White
House knew Katrina was going to devastate New Orleans two days before the
storm hit. And that's just the regular
news - what's really happening?
Disgraceful Greed:
The $2.4 million in bribes that drove
former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke"
Cunningham (R-Ca.) to resign from
Congress in disgrace included French
antique dressers made of burled walnut,
hand-woven Persian carpets and silverplated candelabras.
The eight-term Republican pleaded
guilty to accepting bribes from defense
contractors and others in exchange for
government business and other favors,
the first in a series of corruption scandals gripping the Republicans in
Congress.
16
As part of his plea, Cunningham
agreed to forfeit $1.8 million in cash and
a 7,682-square foot, seven-bath mansion
near San Diego in Rancho Santa Fe, one
of America's wealthiest communities.
The home was sold in December for
$2.6 million. Stay tuned.
HMO Bonanza:
Before Congress ran out of town in
the dead of night for the Christmas
recess, they gave private insurers a big
present by restoring $26 billion in payments to private HMO's for incentives to
participate in Medicare in the Deficit
Reduction Act of 2005. Instead, the $26
billion will be made up by those that can
really afford it - like student's paying
more for loans, Medicaid recipients paying more and cuts in child support
enforcement. When the House comes
back at the beginning of February, they
have to try to ram this budget reconciliation bill through one more time since
changes were made in the Senate.
Hammering The Hammer:
You remember Tom Delay?
Democrats and many Republicans
heaved a sign of relief when "The
Hammer" had to give up his post as a
House Majority Leader. Even
Republicans were sick of his bullying
tactics to get bills passed. After a furious
competition, House Republicans elected
a self-proclaimed reform candidate, Rep.
John Boehner of Ohio, as their new
majority leader, to replace Delay, who is
charged with campaign finance violations in Texas. "No matter who the
Republicans elect, it's easy to show
they're supporting more of the same …
part of a pay-to-play system that's made
Washington the mess that it is right
now,'' said Bill Burton, a spokesman for
the House Democratic campaign organization.
Ignorance is Bull:
The big lobbying scandal has lawmakers frantically donating their Jack
Abramoff contributions to charities
while publicly pretending not to know
their lobbyist buddies. All are "totally
unaware" and "sincerely shocked" that
they were getting contributions, lavish
trips and parties for any particular reason. Senator Rick Santorum - who has
received more money from lobbyists
than any other congressional candidate
in the 2006 election cycle (according to
the Center for Responsive Politics) - is
the man charged by the Republican
Party with drafting the law to more
tightly regulate lobbyists. So far his bill
preserves the "K Street Project" - where
GOP-approved personnel were salted
into the lobbying community - and
merely limits gifts. Democrats have
jumped into the fray with their own
reform bill that will ban all gifts, end the
K Street Project and ban midnight legislating.
Workers Beware:
Workers really stand to lose if S. 852,
the Fairness in Asbestos Injury
Resolution Act of 2005, passes. S. 852
is scheduled for the Senate floor beginning the week of Feb. 6 and there is
nothing "fair" in this bill for victims.
There are numerous deficiencies in S.
852 that will deny fair and timely compensation to tens of thousands of victims
of asbestos related disease. The
Congressional Budget Office has raised
serious doubts that the $140 billion fund
will be enough to pay expected claims
and some estimate the potential claims
to be as high as $300 billion. USW
members need to be aware that many
employers have already asked their
workers to help get this bill passed as
they will be shielded from liability if it
does. However, we owe it to those who
have been sickened by their work to vigorously oppose S. 852.
Pension Bill in Limbo:
And pensions? Well, stay tuned now that S. 1783 and HR 2830 have
passed the Senate and House, the squabbling is just beginning on who will chair
the conference committee and who will
be part of the conference. According to
Hill sources, the pensions will likely be
addressed at the end of March or April.
Union Blasts BP’s Final Report
Independent Safety Review Panel Listens to Workers
A
lthough BP claims to accept responsibility for
the March 23 blast and fire at its Texas City,
Texas, refinery, it continues to insist that the operators’ “failure to follow procedures” was a root cause
of the explosion.
The company issued its final investigation report in
December. Ross Pillari, president of BP Products North
America Inc., told the public that the report describes
“the underlying causes and management system failures”
which contributed to the incident that killed 15 workers
and injured 170 more.
The USW says BP’s final report wrongly blames workers. Union members who were on the company’s investigative team refused to sign the final report because
they disagreed with how the findings were presented.
“They’re continuing to blame the operators and supervisors and that’s not the root cause; that’s not the bottom
line,” said Kim Nibarger, the USW’s lead investigator on the
Texas City explosion.
A key factor was the company’s continued use of obsolete equipment. U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) lead investigator Don Holmstrom told the
independent safety review panel on Nov. 10 that the equipment used was “half-century-old technology.”
BP Footdragging
“If the company had taken the union’s advice to pipe
the atmospheric vent to the flare system, there would
have been no fire and there would have been no deaths,”
said USW District 13 Director Gary Beevers.
An incident last December at BP’s Whiting, Ind., refinery confirms Beevers’ statement. While bringing a
unit back on line from a shutdown, operators accidentally
overfilled a distillation tower because a level indicator on
the tower gave them a false reading.
Instead of going to a vent, the liquid was directed toward a flare where it could be burned off. No explosion
occurred and no one was injured or killed.
Nibarger said there was a failure by the management
system to ensure that a pre-startup review and walk
through with the crew took place prior to the March 23
startup. He said that if this had happened, the operators
would have identified many of the shortcomings with the
startup methods and that the procedure was incorrect.
Some instrumentation issues also might have been identified.
“
“
“System is broken”
The independent safety review panel is visiting BP’s five
U.S. sites to talk to workers. It also has been holding public
meetings at each location. The first meeting was held in Texas
City on Dec. 22. Workers and union leaders said safety at BP
had been compromised in exchange for production and
profits. They talked about worker fatigue, deferred maintenance, employee shortages, inconsistent guidelines, the need
for more training and management’s lack of respect for their
opinions and suggestions on replacing old equipment.
“The entire system is broke out there. We have no idea
where we are going or how we’re going to get there these
days,” said Lloyd Jewell, a USW local 13-1 member. “Safety
is for sale. The only thing we do consistently is remain
inconsistent.”
The 11-member independent panel, which is chaired by
former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, has one labor
appointee. The USW selected Glenn Erwin, who directs the
union’s Triangle of Prevention (TOP) program, to be on the
panel. Prior to joining the union’s staff in 1994, Erwin was a
unit operator and instrument technician at the Amoco chemical plant in Texas City, which is now a BP facility. Neither
Erwin nor the USW will receive compensation
from BP.
How can you follow a
procedure that’s not correct?
Nibarger, who interviewed workers at the Texas City site,
said they told him that when they raised safety concerns with
management, the problem would only get fixed if the cost
was minimal.
17
L
egislation passed by Congress designed
allegedly to shore up private pension protections instead appears intended to shut down
the traditional defined benefit pension system.
As this magazine went to press, our union and its
allies were working to change in conference committee
some of the more damaging provisions of pension rule bills
passed late in 2005 by the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.
The legislation — the most extensive revamping of the federally-insured employer
defined benefit system since the 1974 passage of the Employee Retirement Income
Security Act (ERISA) — was cloaked in Bush Administration rhetoric as a plan to
strengthen retirement security and make corporations keep promises made to workers and
retirees.
But the bills' details actually revealed an effort by the Republican leadership and its corporate allies to undermine defined benefit
plans, in which retirees get a monthly check based on their pay and years of employment. The new legislation would have the effect
of shifting more of the burden of financing retirements off employers and onto their workers. That is expected to happen as dramatic increases in funding requirements simply push companies to drop their DB plans and replace them with 401(k) plans that put
investment risk entirely on the individual.
"It's the ultimate wolf in sheep's clothing," said International President Leo W. Gerard. "It's a direct assault on the retirement
security of our members and every worker in this country."
Shutdown pensions in danger
Current law, for example, provides no limits on collective bargaining for pensions or pension improvements. But both bills
18
would prohibit plans from improving benefits if they fall below
80 percent of a newer stricter definition of full funding. The
House bill would freeze the accrual of pensions once a plan
goes below 60 percent funding.
"You cease to earn any extra pension until your company
can dig itself out,'' USW General Counsel Paul Whitehead said.
"Imagine a freeze. It is really dramatic."
The House bill as originally proposed would have prohibited
the granting of any new so-called shutdown pensions to workers with long service when their factories or plants close, even
if the employer is healthy and the plan fully funded. A lastminute change to the bill, however, would allow shutdown provisions as long as the pension plan is funded at 80 percent or
more.
Currently, if a shutdown benefit has been
available under a pension plan for over five
years prior to the plan's termination, the
PBGC will guarantee it, subject to limitations
and excluding any monthly "supplements."
The Senate bill would key that five-year
phase-in to a plant's shutdown rather than how
long the benefit has been in a contract. For every
year after a facility is closed and shutdown benefits are granted, one-fifth of the benefit is covered
by the PBGC should the plan be terminated. So, if a
company shuts down totally and the pension plan is
terminated the next day, the shutdown pensions would
be zero guaranteed by the PBGC. If the plan is terminated two years after a shutdown, two-fifths of the benefit would be guaranteed. In effect, the Senate bill requires
a benefit to be in place for five years before it gets full
PBGC coverage in a plan termination, even if the shutdown
pension had been in the plan for decades.
USW legislative director Bill Klinefelter said the union is
working hard to fix provisions in the bills such as the shutdown pension issue during the conference committee proceedings. He said the legislation as currently written is another
attack on the three-legged retirement system that included company-paid pensions, Social Security, and personal savings.
"It will end pensions as we know it,'' adds pension expert
Teresa Ghilarducci, an associate professor of economics at
Notre Dame and a former advisor to the Pension Benefit
Guaranty Corp. during the Clinton Administration.
assumed responsibility for the benefits of an additional 235,000
workers and retirees, bringing the total to 1.3 million, and paid
benefits of about $3.7 billion.
Both bills would raise premiums paid by employers from
$19 a year to $30 per worker. Higher premiums would help a
financially-strapped PBGC pummeled by a perfect storm of
economic conditions that included a fallen stock market, a crisis in the steel industry marked by bankruptcies and consolidations, and another disaster in the airline industry that followed
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
But other details, professor Ghilarducci warns, could deter
corporations from offering new defined benefit plans or from
funding and keeping alive plans that are already in existence pushing corporations and their workers to rely more on defined
contribution plans, such as 401(k)s.
Worker choice short circuited
Under current law, when 401(k) accounts are offered,
employees must often elect to participate. Both bills would
encourage automatic enrollment of new hires and the Senate
bill would extend that to current employees.
Much of the horse-trading in Washington over the final legislation is expected to revolve around how companies measure
and pay for pensions, including whether employers with junkrated bonds must pay more into their plans. Under an approach
being pushed by the Bush Administration, the sicker a company
is financially, the heavier the burden it will have to carry. The
union opposes this strongly.
Klinefelter and other observers predicted that non-unionized
employers will drop defined benefit pension plans rather than
continue to maintain them under the new rules. And as the pool
of companies offering defined benefit plans continue to drop,
he predicted there will be Republican and business-led efforts
to get the government entirely out of the business of guaranteeing pensions.
"We're trying to salvage as much as we can out of a really
terrible piece of legislation,'' he said.
Defined Benefit plans undermined
The defined benefit system, which for decades represented
the gold standard in retirement benefits, covers about 44 million workers in single and multi-employer retirement programs,
or about 20 percent of the private U.S. workforce, many of
them industrial workers.
There is no quarrel with some of the legislative provisions.
Both the Senate and House bills increase the flat-rate premiums
paid by corporations to the PBGC, the government agency that
insures defined benefit plans. Both bills also increase public
disclosure of a plan's financial health.
The PBGC, which is financed entirely by those premiums
and interest on investments, reported a deficit of $22.8 billion
at the end of the fiscal 2005 on Sept. 30. The government insurance system, as many Steelworkers whose companies have
been in bankruptcy know, does not fully guarantee benefits
promised in a contractual plan. Last year, though, the PBGC
U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao says defined benefit pension plans “were
the favored retirement plans of the Ozzie and Harriet generation.” With the Bush
Administration’s blessing, employers are moving away from providing those
types of guaranteed monthly benefits. But Chao won’t have to worry. She and
her husband, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), are both eligible for traditional
defined benefit plans, including automatic inflation adjustments.
19
W
hen Alcoa idled its aluminum smelting plant near Frederick,
Md., because of high energy costs, maintenance man Phil
Wagner and many co-workers qualified for early shutdown pensions negotiated by the United Steelworkers years before.
Wagner was 51 with 32 years of service when the plant was mothballed in December, making him eligible to retire immediately with benefits from Eastalco, a joint venture of Pittsburgh-based Alcoa and a
Japanese consortium led by Mitsui & Co. Ltd.
So-called shutdown pensions, meant to help veteran workers like
Wagner who fall short of normal retirement age when a plant closes,
would be endangered and possibly left unguaranteed by the Pension
Benefit Guaranty Corp., the government insurer, under a pension reform
bill (H.R.2830) passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last year.
Several hundred Eastalco workers were laid off at Christmas by Alcoa,
which blamed the curtailment on its inability to negotiate competitive
power pricing from Allegheny Power, the utility serving the plant. By
summer only a handful of 600 employees will remain as caretakers.
Although Wagner and other Eastalco employees were able to retire, he
is well aware of the national trend away from traditional employer-paid
defined benefit pension plans to programs that shift responsibility for
retirement planning onto employees. And he has seen bankruptcies and
pension plan terminations leave workers elsewhere with reduced benefits.
"We're certainly concerned about our pensions because we see what
has happened at other places. Pensions have really come under attack,''
Wagner said. "You work hard all of your life and you think you're looking at the end of the rainbow only to have the rug jerked out from under
you as many people have. It is just wrong."
Pennsylvania retiree Richard Sterner qualified for a shutdown pension in 2000 when the
former Bethlehem Steel foundry where he was
working went belly up. Now 62, Sterner
worked in heavy construction after the foundry
closed but was persuaded to retire from that
back-breaking work last year by his physician.
As had happened to many Steelworkers in
his situation, Sterner's pension was reduced
when it was assumed by the PBGC in 2003.
He lost life insurance and medical coverage at
the same time.
Still, the pension represents half of his
income and keeps him from losing his home,
an old stone house in the small community of
Wind Gap, north of Bethlehem, Pa.
"You get your lumps and bumps in your life
but you don't expect them to keep coming.
Everybody told me don't worry, the pension is
guaranteed, you're in good shape,'' Sterner
said. "But the only thing that's guaranteed is
the rich stay rich and the poor get poorer."
20
(AP Photos/Timothy Jacobsen)
Left: Ingots at Eastalco
Right: Phil Wagner
Photo by Tse Ka Yin/EyePress News
WORLDWATCH
B
N
egotiators for World Trade
Organization countries meeting in
Hong Kong played kick the can
on important manufacturing issues during
a highly contentious week of talks marked
by movement on agriculture and demonstrations in the streets and the city's harbor.
No changes were made to WTO rules
that protect U.S. workers on dumping and
countervailing duty petitions, items of particular importance to the steel industry,
even though most other WTO member
countries would like the U.S. to eliminate
its anti-dumping laws.
There was no victory only delay. The
WTO ministers spent much of their time
in Hong Kong on agriculture and agreed
to work towards dismantling trade barriers
in manufacturing and services as part of a
plan to reach a broad and binding international global treaty by late 2006.
In agriculture, the agreement approved
by all the WTO's 149-member countries
and territories calls for rich countries to
eliminate all export subsidies on cotton by
2006 and gives the world's poorest nations
special trade privileges.
The real negotiations on dumping and
countervailing duty petitions will now
move to WTO headquarters in Geneva,
where the USW's opponents are expected
to be more aggressive than they were in
Hong Kong. The rules committee negotiations start in February and are set to run
into July.
The USW-backed Committee to
Support US Trade Laws (CSUSTL) was at
the WTO to press for the interests of labor
unions, workers, companies and trade
associations who want enhanced U.S.
trade laws to benefit domestic manufacturing, technology, agriculture, mining and
energy and service employers.
Also showing the flag in Hong Kong
was Stand Up For Steel, a labor-management coalition of the USW and the leading integrated steel producers — Mittal
Steel, U.S. Steel Corp. and WCI Steel.
SUFS works to preserve and strengthen
the U.S. trade laws and to improve health
care benefits and pension security for
active Steelworkers and retirees.
In the weeks leading up to the talks,
SUFS lobbied U.S. government negotiators not to give away current trade laws
that protect workers. Advertisements posted in Capitol Hill publications and other
inside-the-beltway media noted that three
million manufacturing jobs have been lost
over five years largely due to dumping,
currency manipulation and foreign subsidies.
"American manufacturers can win a
fair fight anywhere in the world,'' one of
the ads stated. "It's up to our negotiators to
see that they get the chance."
Past globalization meetings served as a
battleground for anti-globalization protests
and Hong Kong was no exception. But
this time police prevented eruptions from
spoiling the high-level discussions.
More than 900 people were arrested
after skirmishes on Dec. 17 when protestors broke through police cordons and
tried to storm the venue where finance
ministers and officials were holding trade
liberalization talks. Police fired tear gas to
fight off demonstrators, who then staged a
14-hour standoff with police, shutting
down sections of downtown Hong Kong.
owing to pressure from the
World Trade Organization,
the Republican-controlled
Congress repealed the "Byrd
amendment," which allowed U.S.
companies to collect revenues from
anti-dumping lawsuits filed against
foreign companies.
The repeal came when Vice
President Cheney broke a 50-50 tie
in the Senate at year's end to pass a
budget reconciliation bill that also
imposed the first restraints in nearly a decade in federal benefit programs such as Medicaid, Medicare
and student loans.
Under the Byrd amendment,
more formally known as the
Continued Dumping and Subsidy
Offset Act of 2000, the U.S. government distributed anti-dumping
and anti-subsidies duties to the
U.S. companies that brought the
cases.
Manufacturing Drought
Since the program was enacted
in 2001, U.S. companies received
more than $1.26 billion in payouts
meant to cover expenses such as
the investment in manufacturing
facilities and technology acquisition.
USW President Leo W. Gerard
said the repeal will accelerate the
predatory practices of foreign competitors who are subsidized by their
governments to unfairly dump
products in America and hurt
American workers struggling to
compete in the global marketplace.
The WTO has declared the Byrd
amendment a violation of international trade rules and authorized
$114 million in import sanctions
against U.S. companies by Canada,
the European Union, Japan and
Mexico. Our union was instrumental in winning passage of the
amendment and will continue to
work for reinstating it.
21
I
Photo by Bill Carey
n a test case of the White House's
commitment to protect American
jobs from unfair Chinese competition, President Bush ignored U.S. trade
laws and ruled for China against
American pipe producers and their
USW workers.
Bush's decision to deny relief to steel
pipe makers that had been recommended by the government's own
International Trade Commission (ITC)
was roundly condemned by the United
Steelworkers and its industry employers
now fighting for their economic lives.
"Our members are not going to
accept this presidential determination,"
USW President Leo W. Gerard said.
"We'll be raising our voices in the 2006
election to send the message that
America's fair trade laws must be
enforced. We can't afford the loss of
family-supportive jobs to
unfair trade by
China."
Without the quotas sought by our
union and the companies, industry
experts believe the volume of steel pipe
coming in to North America from China
will only increase, leading to plant shutdowns and the loss of thousands of jobs.
"We're very upset with it. Every other
elected official believes we should be
trying to save American jobs over the
Chinese. But the president doesn't
believe that," said Mickey Bolt, a lab
technician at Wheatland Tube in
Wheatland, Pa., and volunteer Chairman
of the Western Pa. Committee to Save
Our Manufacturing Industries. "He
believes we should place Chinese interests over American jobs.''
Finished standard pipe
from China is
flooding
into the U.S. at prices below the cost of
raw materials even though domestic producers are far more efficient. Domestic
plants can produce 1,200 feet of pipe a
minute compared with village-operated
facilities in China that turn out pipe at a
much slower rate of 60 feet per minute.
Chinese-made imports of these products shot up from 10,114 tons in all of
2002 to 87,890 during the first six
months of 2004 and 185,019 tons in the
first half of 2005. Full-year projections
for 2005 were 400,000 tons.
The petition to the ITC
asking for quota
relief
USW and SOAR members protest President
Bush in Chicago after he denied import relief
for domestic pipe producers.
Right, USW members and pipe producers
stood in freezing rain outside the White
House after a day of lobbying for quotas on
China pipe imports.
22
WORLDWATCH
was filed under a law enacted by
Congress in 2000 allowing industries to
ask the president to slow or stop surging
Chinese imports. The request from the
pipe industry, made by seven companies
and the union under Section 421 of the
Trade Act of 1974, was the fourth to be
made and the fourth to be rejected, all
with the same explanation from the
White House. Other industries denied
Section 421 petitions include wire gar-
represented the domestic industry and
the USW in the case.
The ITC found in October that
Chinese producers were dumping
imports of circular welded non-alloy
steel pipe on the U.S. market at unfairly
cheap prices. ITC Chairman Stephen
Koplan recommended quotas, denied by
Bush at year's end.
Standard pipe covered by the ruling is
used to carry water, steam and gases and is
typically found in plumbing, heating and
cooling systems, building fire sprinklers,
fences, sign posts and other applications.
In addition to the USW, petitioners
were Allied Tube & Conduit Corp.;
IPSCO Tubulars Inc.; Maruichi
American Corp.; Maverick Tube Corp.;
Sharon Tube Co.; Western Tube &
with us," said Steve Kramer, a pipe
worker at Allied Tube in Harvey, Ill. and
president of USW Local 9777.
Kramer said he was disappointed in
the president and some members of
Congress who did not support the initiative even though they had pipe plants in
their districts.
"We've got to put Congress on notice
this year. We support those who support
us and we're looking for them to help not
only the American worker but to help
this country. We've got to be proAmerican."
USW International Vice President Tom
Conway urged pipe workers and the communities in which they live and work to
condemn the president
for not supporting
Ted White, a mill operator
with Allied Tube in Harvey,
IL., calls a White House hotline on behalf of the steel
pipe industry.
ment hangers, iron waterworks fittings
and wheelchair parts.
In each case, Bush said raising barriers to Chinese-made goods would harm
consumers by raising prices while offering little relief to U.S. manufacturers. He
said other foreign producers would likely
step in to fill the demand.
"It's sad that an American president
cannot enforce the trade laws written by
Congress because this administration is
so beholden to foreign countries, primarily China, to finance our budget deficit
and our foreign policy," said Roger
Schagrin, a Washington attorney who
Conduit Corp; and, Wheatland Tube Co.
They operate plants in Arizona,
Arkansas, California, Illinois, Iowa,
Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.
With the denial of quotas on pipe, no
American industry or worker has yet
received any relief under Section 421,
passed by Congress in response to concerns about American jobs after China's
accession to the WTO.
"We followed the law. We followed it
step by step, used what Congress passed
to get help. We even had the ITC agree
American industry and jobs.
"We followed the rules approved by
Congress for trade law enforcement,
showing China pipe imports are unfairly
surging within the past three years, and
the U.S. government's own investigation
agreed. Yet President Bush has chosen to
support China over America's interests,''
Conway said. "How many more
American jobs will the Republican leadership sacrifice before it shows some
backbone?"
23
U.S.-China Rela
We’re Getting the
T
he 2005 trade figures released by
the Department of Commerce
paint a revealing picture: a tsunami of red ink increasingly fueled by the
skyrocketing trade deficit with China.
Year after year the
deficit
with
24
By George Becker
China has been growing at an annual
rate of 20% or more. The President and
his Administration have not been idle
during this time — far from it. Their
actions — and inactions — have actually added fuel to the fire and led to an
acceleration of offshoring, outsourcing
and the decline of our nation's manufacturing base.
Five years ago, the U.S. Congress
granted Permanent Normal Trade
Relations (PNTR) status to the
People's Republic of China, paving
the way for China to become a member of the World Trade Organization
(WTO). Central to the highly contentious debate was the question of
whether deeper economic engagement with China would result in
further democratic reform in
China, expansion of human rights
and the spread of freedom, while
also advancing the economic
interests of China and its
people.
Worker rights
trampled
Proponents of
PNTR argued that economic engagement
would lead to political
reform. There can be no
argument that China's
track record, to date,
has not lived up to
those promises.
The Chinese
government
continues to trample on human rights,
workers rights and religious freedom.
Freedom of speech is curtailed, with
countless individuals having been
imprisoned for merely criticizing the
state. China is reported to have as many
as 30,000 Internet cops, surfing the
Internet to find individuals who "threaten" the regime by talking about democracy, freedom and other similar issues.
Corruption in China is rampant, and
the mechanisms which could expose and
prevent corruption — transparency,
accountability and sunshine created by a
free and independent media — are stifled. Last year, according to Chinese
government statistics, more than 70,000
incidents of public unrest occurred
across the country. Many of these "incidents" were responded to with deadly
force by government officials. Labor
unrest is on the rise with similar
responses by the government.
Trade relations lopsided
PNTR proponents also made grand
promises about gains for the U.S. economy. But, the record of trade relations
with China continues to be severely lopsided in China's favor, resulting in a
trade deficit of more than $162 billion in
2004, a figure expected to top $200 billion for 2005. Projections of market
access for commodity after commodity
have failed to meet expectations as
China has failed to abide by its WTO
accession commitments on a broad
range of products and services.
China continues to build up capacity
in steel, autos, tires and other basic
industries, despite a glut of capacity in
these industries worldwide. China's
actions are helping to spur the layoffs
throughout the auto parts industry and
have already wreaked havoc in steel.
Other industries will soon experience
China's onslaught.
ations:
e Shaft
Violations rampant
Rampant violations of U.S. intellectual property rights have resulted in a loss
of billions of dollars per year. This is in
spite of five separate agreements signed
by the Chinese government in the past
10 years to crack down on this problem.
Interestingly, the Chinese government is
successfully protecting its interests in
the official logo for the 2008 Olympics,
of which there is virtually no piracy.
And intellectual property rights violations aren't just impacting movies, music
and software — they strike at the heart
of manufacturing. Not only does China
outright copy the basic industrial designs
of our companies, but their violations
also result in downstream damage.
Reverse engineering of production
equipment — resulting in equipment
that costs but a fraction of what our producers have to pay — leads to lower
costs for their manufacturers. Even in
industries where labor is but a small cost
of the overall cost of production, China
is finding a way to unfairly bend the
rules of competition.
Unfair competition
Here at home, our manufacturers are
finding it harder and harder to compete
WORLDWATCH
against an economic system that does
not allow workers to share in the fruits
of their labor, is built on subsidized
inputs and capital, stolen intellectual
property and other unfair advantages.
The "China Price" is a common term
used by U.S. businesses as the price
they must meet if they are going to be
able to compete, telling suppliers what is
necessary if they are to buy their products. Many have decided they cannot
compete and have gone out of business
or relocated their facilities. Other companies like Delphi, have cut the
American Dream to shreds by declaring
bankruptcy and planning on major shifts
of production and jobs to China while
they try to abandon the promise of a
safe and secure retirement and health
care for their employees.
Trend accelerates
American companies are accelerating
the trend of production moving to
China. Today, almost 60 percent of
products exported to the U.S. from
China come from foreign-invested enterprises. Rather than relocating to China
to serve the Chinese market, they have
chosen to source from China to serve
their customers here at home - accelerating the relocation of production and
fueling the high and rising trade deficit.
But, they are not stopping at moving
their factories; increasingly they are
moving their research and development
to China too. This latest trend is even
more ominous, as it will accelerate the
movement of production that is the key
to future profitability and the high end,
high paying jobs that go with it.
There is much discussion these days
about whether a rising China is a threat
Former President Becker rallying the
thousands of steelworkers whom he
mobilized to protest PNTR at the
nation’s capital.
or an opportunity. U.S. policy has
focused too much on opportunity for
some and too little on the risks for us all.
Because of this policy blind-spot, the
"threat" in terms of economic relations
with China has turned into reality. Jobs,
lives and livelihoods are being lost as
our standard of living comes under
attack.
It is not too late, however, to replace
the current approach with a clear, consistent set of policies that will ensure
that our trade laws are properly enforced
and that we begin to restore vitality to
our nation's manufacturing base. At the
same time, a comprehensive set of policies must also be advanced to promote
the interests of our service and agriculture sectors, which face similar pressures to those that the manufacturing
sector has experienced. And China is
aggressively pursuing the development
of its high tech sector resulting in the
fact that we now have a $36 billion
deficit with China in advanced technology products.
Swept under the rug
The Bush Administration continues
to try and sweep the problems under the
rug. They have virtually ignored
China's manipulation of its currency.
Only recently have they begun to
address China's rampant violations of
our intellectual property rights as the
piracy of our rights continues to exceed
90%. A trade deficit of roughly $200
billion is hard to ignore, but President
Bush is doing a pretty good job of just
that. Hundreds of thousands of good
paying jobs have been lost, and little is
being done by the Administration.
Despite the failure of last month's
WTO meeting in Hong Kong, the
President is still pushing for a multilateral trade deal. Common sense would dictate that we demand compliance with
past promises before we offer them new
benefits based on the mistaken belief
that they will live up to not only their
past promises, but the new ones they
now promise to keep. President Bush
should take to heart the Chinese
proverb, "Fool me once shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me."
Part one of a two-part series
George Becker is a commissioner on the
Congressionally-created U.S.-China Economic and
Security Review Commission and is the immediate
past President of the United Steelworkers.
25
Deaf to Workers,
Blind to Innovation
Continental's failed strategies trigger layoffs
C
ontinental Tire North America's
decision to lay off more than 500
workers in Charlotte, N.C.
revealed a company deaf to workers'
concerns and equally handicapped in
dealing with the highly competitive U.S.
consumer market.
Unlike other companies that have
worked successfully with our union to
develop strategies to win market share,
German-owned Continental appears
determined to service its shrinking
demand in the U.S. and Canada with
imports.
"Continental never developed a rational marketing strategy nor
did it make adequate investments in
product research and development the
way other successful companies have,"
said USW executive vice president Ron
Hoover.
Company repeats mistakes
"Instead of developing a constructive
dialogue with our union and pursuing
new solutions, this company keeps
repeating its mistakes while demanding
concessions from us.''
In January, Continental announced
plans to lay off 241 employees from its
Charlotte plant in March, and another
272 in late June. The plant, one of the
largest manufacturing employers in
Charlotte, employed more
than 1,000 workers
before the cuts were
announced.
Three days after the layoff announcement, Continental unveiled a plan to
invest $60 million to $70 million in a
non-union tire plant in Mount Vernon,
Ill. The tire maker said it will cut hourly
wages there by 10 percent and require
non-union employees to contribute to
health care coverage for the first time.
A few months earlier, in October,
Continental laid the cornerstone for a
new $260 million tire plant in the
Brazilian state of Bahia that will have an
annual capacity of 6 million passenger
tires and 700,000 commercial tires.
The layoff announcement followed a
warning from the company last fall that
the Charlotte plant might be in jeopardy
and would reduce production if workers
did not agree to a 35 percent cut in
wages and benefits. The company's tire
business is a unit of a German automotive giant, Continental Group.
“We never had any problem sitting
down with the company to discuss efficiencies and how the plant could become
more cost effective," said Mark
Cieslikowski, president of USW Local
850 . "But for solutions to be developed,
both sides need to share critical information and engage in meaningful dialogue.”
Layoffs will hurt community
The members of Local 850 are concerned that the layoffs, possible wage
cuts and other reductions in production
will severely impact the Charlotte community, impairing workers' ability to
purchase goods and services and pay
taxes.
"We remain open to the possibility of
investigating ways to maintain production in Charlotte,'' Cieslikowski said.
"It's up to the company to decide
whether they will disclose information
vital to generating the sincere dialogue
required to come up with real solutions."
The union's current contract with
Continental expires April 30.
If Continental's announcement is
implemented, production at the
Charlotte plant would be roughly cut in
half to 12,000 tires a day. Some production is expected to shift to the non-union
plant in Mount Vernon, or other locations outside the United States.
26
Titan Job Security
Members win protections, Titan withdraws RICO suit
B
Before Titan Tire Corp., a subsidiary of Titan International Inc.,
could close on its $100 million
acquisition of Goodyear's North American
farm tire business it had to provide USW
members with job protections.
It took some 10 months of tough
negotiations, but in the end, a 725-member
USW Local at Freeport, Ill., won enough
employment security language to allow
Titan to purchase their Kelly-Springfield
plant, which had been part of the larger
Goodyear group for 42 years.
"If you're going to leave the security of
a Goodyear, an $18 billion a year company, then you had better replace it with
something in the contract that makes job
security a priority for the members you
represent,'' Local 745 President Steve
Vanderheyden said.
In addition to the contract approval in
Freeport, some 500 Local 164 members at
Titan's large farm tire plant in Des Moines,
Iowa, also approved a new contract with
similar terms and a common expiration.
Damage claims dismissed
Soon after, Titan withdrew a civil Rico
suit it had filed in September, 2000,
against the USW, two of its local unions
and 125 individual defendants related to a
corporate campaign waged against the
company during a record 40-month strike
at plants in Des Moines and Natchez,
Miss.
Although Titan had sought $240 million in damages, the company will receive
no money and there was no admission of
any wrongdoing by any of the defendants.
"We opposed this action every step of
the way and we never gave an inch,"
USW President Leo W. Gerard said. "I'm
pleased this is finally over with absolutely
no payment of money, let alone any hint
of wrongdoing by any defendant, and we
now look forward to an improved relationship with Titan."
The sale of the Goodyear farm tire
business to Titan included the factory,
property and equipment in Freeport as
well as tire inventories. Titan will pay royalties to manufacture and sell Goodyear
and Kelly brand tires in North America.
Plant closures barred
Plant closures are barred for at least
five years and there are no possibilities of
layoffs for at least two years under the
Freeport contract, which was negotiated as
a result of a successor agreement between
the union and Goodyear. After two years,
manning levels are guaranteed at 90 percent of current levels for production work
and at 95 percent for maintenance,
Vanderheyden said.
Additionally, the contract included
wage and pension increases, maintenance
of current health care plans
and language guaranteeing that products sold
by Titan must be manufactured in Freeport or
at a sister plant in Des
Moines, Iowa.
Goodyear is covering
health care benefits for
current retirees.
Current employees
with 20 years of service will continue to
earn service credit for a Goodyear pension
when their combined years of service with
Titan and Goodyear reach eligibility
requirements. A new Titan pension plan
was set up through the Steelworker
Pension Trust for other employees.
Most new hires will start at 70 percent
of the full rate for jobs assigned and
progress to full pay over five years.
Employees currently laid off will not be
considered as new hires for pay purposes
when recalled.
"This was an extraordinarily complex
set of negotiations that involved representatives of the international union, Local
164 in Des Moines, many benefit administrators and Goodyear as well as Titan
management,'' Vanderheyden said.
"There are tons of transition issues
when you have contract changes that
relate to a change in ownership so we really appreciated the ability to access necessary resources, especially the International
Union."
27
Solidarity pays off for Rock-Tenn Council
Folding carton producer Rock-Tenn agreed
in January to maintain its existing defined
benefit pension plan at its Clinton, Iowa, plant
The company originally proposed a two-tier
pension plan: All new hires would be excluded
from the company’s defined benefit pension
plan. Existing employees would only have
received enhancements to their 401(k) plan.
“We think the coordinated efforts of the
Rock-Tenn union council and the mobilization
we engaged in contributed to the company
changing its position,” said Regional Director
Bill Gibbons.
He said local unions within the council
coordinated their mobilization efforts,
exchanged information and were in constant
communication with each other. They handed
out leaflets, wore stickers and organized
parking lot rallies.
The council is committed to three major
priorities: affordable, quality health care for
every worker; maintaining and improving a
defined benefit pension plan for all employees,
including new hires; and achieving reasonable
wage increases.
Negotiations are continuing at the company’s
other locations in Lynchburg, Va., Chattanooga,
Tenn., Dallas, Texas, and Merced, Calif.
28
A forklift operator prepares to load a semitruck with Brawny shop towels at a
Georgia-Pacific facility.
Photo by David Joles/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
T
he sale of Georgia-Pacific (GP) Corp. to Koch
(pronounced “coke”) Industries Inc. will not
affect USW contracts because of a successorship clause that is in place.
Privately-held Koch purchased GP for $13.2 billion
and will assume $7.8 billion of the company’s outstanding debt. Both companies finalized the deal on
Dec. 23, 2005. GP will become an indirect wholly
owned facility of Koch and will retain its name.
GP is the third largest pulp, paper, and forest products
company in North America and the fourth largest in the
world. With the purchase of GP, Koch becomes the largest private company in the U.S., ahead of Cargill.
Since GP agreed to a successorship clause for collective
bargaining agreements with the former PACE in June 2001, the USW’s contract
terms and provisions with GP will remain in place through the expiration of the
agreements.
Koch mostly non-union
Most of Koch’s operations are nonunion. Other than GP, there is USW representation at the company’s Flint Hills Resources refinery in Minnesota, Koch
Cellulose fluff pulp mill in Brunswick, Ga., Koch Nitrogen Company anhydrous
ammonia production plants in Sterlington, La., and Cardinal Pumps & Exchangers
facility in Salem, Ohio.
By being a privately owned company, Koch does not have to release its financial
statements or other financial data. The company says it has a historical practice of
reinvesting up to 90 percent of its earnings back into the business and that being
privately owned gives it the ability to focus on long term profits and growth.
Operating under a philosophy called Market Based Management®, Koch
considers its employees to be entrepreneurs who are expected to use their
knowledge and skills to find better ways of doing their jobs. The company says
it believes in rewarding employees based on merit, not seniority, a policy
markedly at odds with our union’s belief in the right of qualified workers to be
promoted on the basis of seniority.
Canada Honors Lynn Williams
C
anada has bestowed one of its
highest honors for lifetime
achievement, the Order of
Canada, on Lynn Williams, retired president of the United Steelworkers union.
Williams, 81, of Toronto, the first
Canadian to serve as International
President of the Union, was appointed
an Officer of the Order of Canada on
Feb. 3 with 55 others who made positive
contributions to the arts, business, education, science and social services.
Created in 1967, the Order was
established to recognize the exemplary
lifetime contributions made by
Canadians to Canada and to humanity at
large. Its motto is Desiderantes
meliorem patriam, which means,
"Desiring a better country."
Williams, who grew up in Ontario
during the Great Depression in a socially-conscious family, became president of
the USW in 1983 on the death of his
predecessor, Lloyd McBride.
Turbulent times
He led the union from 1983 to 1994,
economic turbulent times when the steel
industry was confronting unfairly priced
imported products and undergoing massive changes that destroyed tens of thousands of jobs.
Almost immediately on assuming
office, Williams had to deal with
attempts by Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel
in 1985, and then USX Corp. in 1986, to
destroy the union at both of those companies.
His innovative leadership in bargaining resulted in agreements that
empowered members to participate in all
levels of a company's decision-making.
In several steel companies, such participation extended from the shop floor to
the board of directors.
Involving workers in helping a
company run as efficiently and effectively as possible, he felt, would lead to
better jobs and better lives for workers
and their families as well as increase
productivity and profitability for
employers.
"Workers really have something to
say. But it has to be done in a way
where working people are recognized as
important in the institutions where they
work," he said.
Williams was also behind the creation of the Institute for Career
Development and Voluntary Employee
Benefit Associations (VEBAs) as well
as financing through contracts of the
Stand Up for Steel coalition with industry. VEBAs have become invaluable in
strengthening workers' retirement security.
His faith that ordinary people working together could bring about enormous
improvements in their own lives and in
society evolved during his early years in
southern Ontario.
He helped his father, a pastor for the
United Church, deliver food baskets to
the needy at Christmas time during the
Depression and participated
in family discussions about
the economic system and
how it should be changed to
put people back to
work.
Later, as a counselor at a YMCA
Camp on Lake Erie,
he learned from a
mentor, camp director
Howard
Conquergood, how a
strong labor movement could affect
social and political
change.
He joined the Air
Training Corps during
the early years of
World War II while a
student at McMaster
University. After
graduation, he transferred to the Canadian
Navy and was
assigned as a telegraph operator in
Newfoundland.
After the service, he returned to the
YMCA, doing community work and
organizing boy's clubs in Hamilton, and
studied for a Master's degree in economics at the University of Toronto.
In 1947, he took a job at John Inglis
Co., a USW-organized appliance manufacturing plant in Toronto, where he
joined the union. Within a few months,
he was recruited by the Canadian
Congress of Labour to organize depart-
ment stores in Ontario and Regina,
Saskatchewan.
In 1956, he was hired by Larry
Sefton, then a director of USW District
6. He organized new members on the
Niagara Peninsula and led major negotiations in the nickel and other nonferrous
industries in Canada.
Williams was elected director of
District 6 in 1973 and USW
International Secretary in 1977. He
became the union's fifth International
President in 1983 by a vote of the
International Executive Board following
McBride's death.
Elected by the membership to com-
plete McBride's term on March 29,
1984, he was unopposed for election to
a full term in 1985, and again in 1989.
While president, he was a member of
the AFL-CIO Executive Council and
served on the boards of the Industrial
Union Department, the International
Metalworkers Federation and the
International Confederation of Free
Trade Unions. He was a member of
many other national and international
organizations.
29
News Bytes
Decreased Tuition Available
U
nion members' immediate families and those belonging to Working America,
a community affiliate of the AFL-CIO, are eligible to pay a reduced tuition
rate of $200 per credit hour for the National Labor College's Bachelors in
Professional/Technical Studies (BPTS) degree program. Tuition had been $982 per
credit hour.
The BPTS program allows workers to get college credit for their significant technical or professional training and experience, and offers a degree completion curriculum that focuses on general studies. Students can earn their bachelors degree
without significant disruption to their work schedules and family life. Tuition for
union members remains at $150 per credit hour.
More information can be found at http://www.georgemeany.org/.
Pipe Plant Reopens, Saved From China Sale
P
Photo by Kenny Carlisle
roduction and maintenance employees of Durabond Pipe approved their first
United Steelworkers contract by a 4-to-1 margin at a Pennsylvania plant that
was nearly sold to Chinese investors before the union intervened.
The five-year agreement covers 77 production and maintenance workers at a
facility in Steelton, Pa. that was once owned by the former Bethlehem Steel Corp.
Contract highlights include wage hikes averaging 3 percent, substantial job class
increases, health care and dental coverage, a company-matched 401k plan and profit
sharing.
Bethlehem had attempted to sell the plant's equipment to the Chinese but top
union officers intervened to halt the sale, allowing Local Union 1688, plant officials,
local and state agencies and economic development groups time to make a successful offer to the bankruptcy court.
Durabond produces large diameter pipe for oil and gas transmission and also has
a pipe coating operation, and a steel structural fabricating and coating operation at
the Steelton facility. The facility produced its first commercial order of pipe in the
summer of 2005.
USW Members at
Corning Ratify
Pattern-setting Pact.
A
four-year contract covering
1,500 USW-represented workers at several Corning Inc.
plants in Corning, N.Y., is setting the
pattern for bargaining at other company
plants around the country.
The contract, ratified Jan. 20 by
members of USW Local 1000, provides
a $500 signing bonus and wage
increases of 4 percent in the first year
and 3 percent in the second, third and
fourth years. Other improvements
included gains in pensions, disability
pay and life and dental insurance coverage.
The pattern was continued in
Harrodsburg, Ky., where negotiations
were concluded on Jan. 28, said Tim
Tuttle, who chairs the USW's Glass
Industry Conference. Corning contracts
with five other USW locals at plants in
Canton and Oneonta, N.Y.,
Wilmington, N.C., and Danville and
Blacksburg Va., all expire by the end of
July.
ABG Office Closing
P
rotestors were kept at a distance when President Bush addressed business leaders and other conservative supporters at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville
on Feb. 1, the day following his State of the Union address. Labor activists
joined community groups to protest the president's policies.
30
A
s part of the ongoing consolidation of facilities related to mergers, the former ABG office headquarters at 3362 Hollenberg Drive,
Bridgeton, Mo., will close on March 17,
2006. For any assistance after that date,
contact your District Director.
OCAW Secretary-Treasurer
Ernie Rousselle Passes at 71
F
ormer Oil, Chemical & Atomic
Workers Secretary-Treasurer Ernie
Rousselle died Jan. 27 from complications of lung cancer. He was 71.
Rousselle, of Bridge City, La., joined
OCAW in 1955 when he was an employee
of the American Cyanamid Fortier plant in
Avondale, La. He served Local 4-603 as a trustee, recording
secretary, financial secretary and negotiating committee member. When Local 4-603 merged with Local 4-447, he was
elected president and District 4 alternate member of the
OCAW executive board.
In 1966, Rousselle was appointed an international representative. He was an OCAW Vice President from 1979 to
1981, and was in charge of the union's Health and Safety and
Collective Bargaining departments. He also served in the
AFL-CIO Maritime Trades department and was on the executive board of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union department.
In 1991 he was elected OCAW secretary-treasurer, a position he held until his retirement at the union's last regular convention in August 1997.
URW’s Joseph Johnson
Dies at 76
J
oseph Johnston, an International Vice
President of the United Rubber
Workers union for nine years in the
1980s, died on Jan. 30 at the University of
Penn Hospital in Philadelphia. He was 76.
Johnston, of Cape May, N.J., served as
URW vice president from 1981 to 1990.
Prior to that, he had been a director of URW District 2, headquartered in Trenton, N.J. He retired in 1993.
"He always put the plight of the working man first and was
totally dedicated to the labor movement,'' said Ron Hoover,
USW International executive vice president, R/PIC. "I learned
a lot from him."
Johnston joined URW Local 434 in 1952 at a Goodrich
plant in his native Riverside, N.J. At various times, he served
the local union as president, vice president, chief steward,
shop steward and time study representative. He was appointed
a URW field representative in 1968.
He was a vice president of the New Jersey State AFL-CIO,
an executive board member of the New Jersey State Industrial
Union Council, AFL-CIO.
Women Discuss Leadership Issues
I
nternational vice president Tom Conway attended a meeting with
Pennsylvania's District 10 Women of Steel to share information
on what is happening in their workplaces and communities.
Yvette D'Ath of the Australian Workers Union was a special guest.
She talked about the women's movement in Australia and said the
issues facing working class women there are very similar to the challenges and struggles faced by working-class women in the United
States.
Gloria Bingle, a long time activist, told Conway that he should
press to change the culture of the USW, making it more inclusive of
women and minorities from the bottom to the highest levels of the
organization.
Conway acknowledged their goals and encouraged them, saying
that they must be more involved in the collective bargaining process
because that is where new leaders can make a mark.
The Women of Steel program gives our members opportunities to
network and has helped give the union a family image. The next
step is getting more women elected or appointed to key positions.
Seated are Sandy Powell (Local 3657), Yvette D'Ath (Australian Workers Union), Tom Conway (International Vice President) and Jan Finnegan (Local 2227). Standing are
Ann Hustwit (Local 1408), Gloria Bingle (Women's Coordinator, District 10), Lee Ann Jendrejeski (Local 1196), Barbara Kuhn (Local 1196), Candace Crail (Local 1138).
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
T
hink you're getting a bargain by shopping at Wal-Mart? You might reconsider once you
see the feature length documentary about the retail giant's assault on worker rights, jobs
and community values. Producer/director Robert Greenwald takes viewers into the lives
of families, communities and businesses who are struggling to survive and fight the corporate
behemoth.
Copies of the film are available in the DVD or VHS format for $12.95 and can be obtained
by going to the movie's website at http://www.walmartmovie.com/.
31
U
SW members opened our hearts and our wallets to
the victims of Hurricanes Rita and Katrina in the
Gulf Coast and to tornado victims in southern
Indiana.
Some $1.2 million in individual contributions were
collected through the union’s Rapid Response network
from USW members and distributed to others who lost
their homes, their jobs or had substantial damage to
property. The International donated an additional $100,000
to relief efforts.
The outpouring of help came from hundreds of locals
across the country and through plant gate collections,
fund-raising raffles and donations from local unions,
which often matched individual member contributions.
Donations came from former PACE and USWA locals
alike—concrete proof that last year’s merger is proving a
success in more ways than one.
Joint effort
“This is one of the real early evidences that we had a
merger, not an affiliation,” said International SecretaryTreasurer Jim English. “No one asked how many people
were steelworkers, how many were PACE members. It
was just a joint effort.”
The USW sent the money to local unions in areas
affected by the hurricanes and the tornado, and auditors
from the International trained the locals on how to
properly distribute it on the basis of need. Preference was
given to members who lost their homes and/or their jobs.
All of the USW-represented workers at Fishking
Processors, a fish processing plant in the small
Alabama community of Bayou La Batre,
received financial aid because their
facility was entirely shut down by Katrina.
The hurricane flooded the building with
eight feet of water, knocking out refrigeration, air conditioning and electricity needed
to maintain operations.
More than 1,000 USW members had
homes that were completely destroyed and 767
reported severe damage. A first round of payouts averaged
$428 for those who lost homes and $311 for those with
serious damage; a second round of checks paid on
average $419 and $301 to homeowners with complete loss
32
and serious damage.
“You will never know how much this can help each
family,” Gailen Morrison of Wiggins, Miss., wrote in a
thank-you letter to the union and its members. “It is hard
to get back on your feet after such devastation.”
After the storms, blue tarps covered the roofs of most
of the homes in Wiggins, located 30 miles inland, and the
home of a Coastal Paper Co. plant whose members were
the first group to organize after the PACE-USW merger.
Often, the money was only part
of the effort. For example,
Local 5702 members in
Gramercy, La. donated
money from their
treasury, gathered
clothing, food and
other supplies and
helped distribute donations made from relief
organizations. Retirees
even helped cook for
those without
power.
(R
wi
Ka
at
rec
Right) USW members receive special training dealing
ith health and safety issues following Hurricane
atrina. (Bottom Left) Bessie Good, a 19-year employee
Fishking Processors in Bayou La Batre, Alabama,
ceives her Katrina relief fund check.
Hurricane Victims
Return Home Safe
Thanks to Union Training
BATON ROUGE - Not long after Hurricanes Katrina
and Rita ravaged the Gulf Coast, residents returning to their
homes and workplaces began complaining about coughs,
sore throats, breathing difficulties and skin rashes—illnesses
many doctors believe are caused by mold, dust and other
hazards left behind by churning floodwaters.
To help prevent these illnesses, a unique training program
began last November by the Tony Mazzocchi Center for
Safety, Health and Environmental Education, a project of the
United Steelworkers and the Labor Institute, along with the
Deep South Center for Environmental Justice. Grant support
came from the National Institute of Environmental Health
Sciences.
The initiative shares with the community the USW
membership’s expertise in preventing dangerous environmental
exposures—a knowledge gained over the years through the
union’s successful occupational safety and health programs.
“Tens of thousands of Gulf Coast residents survived
ferocious winds and water,” explained USW President Leo
W. Gerard. “We don’t want them getting sick or suffering
any more. We want to do everything in our power to help
them recover and rebuild their communities.”
Many homes were deemed too dangerous to enter without
protective gear, so the union provided training participants
with respirators to limit mold spore inhalation. Tyvek
protective suits, rubber gloves, boots and goggles were
distributed to provide head-to-toe protection.
“Most people don’t have the equipment or the knowledge
to properly clean up their homes and workplaces and protect
themselves from harm and the program helps to remedy
that,” said Jim Frederick, Assistant Director USW Health,
Safety and Environment Department.
More than 1,000 homes around a Murphy Oil refinery in
Chalmette, La., for example, were contaminated with oily
sludge after a storm surge from Hurricane Katrina dislodged
a storage tank from its foundation spilling its crude. Mold
was growing on walls, ceilings, furniture and fabrics.
“People have a right to return to healthy homes and
neighborhoods, and acquiring this equipment will help them
exercise that right,” added Paul Renner, Associate Director of
the Labor Institute, a New York nonprofit that developed the
curriculum.
The first training session, held at the Elm Grove Baptist
Church in Baton Rouge, alerted union members and other
hurricane victims to a range of potential hazards from faulty
electrical wiring and mold contamination to heavy metals near
Superfund sites.
Organizers were looking for opportunities to share the
union’s knowledge on preventing dangerous environmental
exposures. Two programs were held by the end of
December, with additional sessions planned for Baton Rouge,
New Orleans, Houston, Memphis and Dallas.
33
National Wire Fabric Attacks Seniority
S
ix months into their strike, National Wire Fabric
(NWF) workers stay united in their defense of
seniority rights at the Star City, Ark., plant and reach
out for support from other USW locals and international
unions.
None of the 56 strikers from USW Local 1671 have
crossed the picket line since the strike began July 23,
2005. They remain firm despite the company’s hiring of
about 35 replacement workers and insistence that those
workers stay if a contract is ratified.
Workers voted on Jan. 17 against an unconditional
return to work because they did not want to train the
replacement workers and have them try to decertify the
union a year later, said Local 1671 President Michael
McClain.
Seniority at the plant ranges from seven to 41 years.
Thirty-six employees have at least 21 years of service,
said McClain.
Despite the workers’ long years of service, NWF
proposed to eliminate seniority rights and give
management total flexibility to assign work. That would
have meant putting people into positions where they had
little experience and ignoring seniority when it came to
shifts worked.
“These are skilled jobs, they aren’t jobs you walk in off
the street and do,” said McClain.
He is concerned about how flexible work rules could
impact safety and does not have confidence in the company’s
Photo by Shawn Gilchrist
These are skilled jobs, they
aren’t jobs you walk in off
the street and do.
Dutch workers distribute flyers on National Wire
situation to employees of Vlisco, a subsidiary of
Gamma Holding, Inc., in The Netherlands.
34
“
“
ability to adequately train workers for those jobs.
“We know they’re not spending much time on training,”
said McClain. He said he also heard that the company is
not meeting its quotas and that there have been more
work injuries.
Dutch workers apply pressure
National Wire Fabric is a manufacturer of woven
synthetic and metallic screens for forming, pressing and
drying applications in the pulp and paper industry. Many of
the largest USW employers in the paper industry are its
customers: Blue Ridge Paper, Domtar, Green Bay
Packaging, Georgia-Pacific, International Paper, Potlatch
Corporation, Smurfit-Stone, Temple-Inland, Wausau
Mosinee and Weyerhaeuser.
NWF is a subsidiary of Gamma Holding, Inc., which is
based in The Netherlands. The USW contacted the major
Dutch industrial union, FNV Bondgenoten, for help in
setting up a meeting with Gamma officials. Last
November a delegation from Local 1671 traveled to The
Netherlands to meet with FNV union stewards, worker
council members and Gamma corporate executives,
including the CEO, Dr. Meint Veninga, and the head of
human resources, Fokko Keun.
Replacement workers hired
Denying that the company was engaged in union
busting, the company officials said they were not violating
any U.S. laws and would retain the replacement workers.
The company’s response surprised FNV members, but
they immediately took action. They arranged for
the USW delegation to speak at the FNV
stewards’ meeting of Gamma subsidiary Vlisco.
They translated a press release into Dutch and
obtained coverage in all of the major Dutch
newspapers. They prepared an English/Dutch
flyer and distributed it outside the Vlisco facility
and at all Gamma’s European facilities.
In addition, the International Textile, Garment and
Leather Workers’ Federation wrote a letter to Mr. Veninga,
expressing concern over the breakdown in industrial
relations at the Star City facility.
In January, the USW sent a letter to the U.S. State Dept.,
charging NWF and Gamma with violation of the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. The basis of the
complaint to the OECD is that Gamma is holding up the
settlement of the labor dispute by its refusal to reinstate
workers after all substantive issues related to the contract
were agreed upon. The union asked the State Dept. to
intervene in the dispute.
USW members are responding to the strikers, call for
help. Local 1671 members spoke to delegates at the USW
health and safety school last fall and collected over $1,000.
Delegates to the Jan. 23-25 National Paper Bargaining
conference collected over $4,000 for the NWF strikers.
Those wishing to send messages of support and walk
on the picket line can contact Local 1671 Vice President
Dan Morrison at [email protected].
NOTICE TO ALL EMPLOYEES COVERED
BY A UNION SECURITY CLAUSE
All USW represented employees covered by a union security clause have the right, under NLRB v. General
Motors, 373 U.S. 734 (1963), to be and remain a nonmember subject only to the duty to pay the equivalent of
union initiation fees and periodic dues. Further, only such non-member employees have the right, under
Communications Workers v. Beck, 487 U.S. 735 (1988), to limit payment of union-security dues and initiation
fees to certain moneys spent on activities germane to a union's role as collective bargaining representative. This
latter statutory right is embodied in the USW's Nonmember Objection Procedure.
The Procedure is available to any USW represented
employee who is subject to a union security clause but who is
a non-member and who objects to his or her union security
fees being expended on nonrepresentational activities.
Paragraph 1 of the Procedure states:
"1. Any individual, who is not a member of the United
Steelworkers of America and who is required as a condition of
employment to pay dues to the United Steelworkers of
America pursuant to a union security arrangement but objects
to supporting ... political or ideological expenditures by the
United Steelworkers of America which are not necessarily or
reasonably incurred for the purpose of performing the duties of
an exclusive collective bargaining representative shall have the
right upon perfecting a notice of objection to obtain an
advance reduction of a portion of such individual's dues obligation commensurate with expenditures unrelated to collective
bargaining as required by law."
An eligible employee who objects to the USW expending
monies for nonrepresentational activities such as charitable or
political activities may choose to perfect a notice of objection
under Paragraph 2 of the Procedure, which states:
"2. To perfect a notice of objection, the individual must
send an individually signed notice to the International
Secretary-Treasurer during the first thirty days following either
the individual's initial date of hire into the USW represented
unit or an anniversary date of such hiring: provided, however,
that if the individual lacked knowledge of this Procedure, the
individual shall have a 30 day period commencing on the date
the individual became aware of the Procedure to perfect a
notice of objection; and, provided, further, that a member who
resigns membership shall have the opportunity to object within
the 30 day period following resignation.1 Any objection thus
perfected shall expire on the next appropriate hiring anniversary date unless renewed by a notice of objection perfected as
specified above.
1 Any right of a resignee to pay a reduced amount under this
Procedure may or may not be superceded by the resignee's
check-off authorization."
1
Objectors are not USW members and have no right to vote
in union elections or to be a candidate, no right to participate
in union meetings or activities, and no right to vote on contract
ratification.
Upon perfecting properly a notice of objection, the objector
is entitled to an advance reduction of a portion of his or her
union security obligation commensurate with expenditures
unrelated to collective bargaining, as required by law.
International Secretary-Treasurer James D. English has made
the determination, based upon expenditures for the calendar
year 2003, that the reduction percentage under the Procedure
is 7.88% (25.97% if organizing expenditures were to be
included).
There are court decisions holding that organizing activities
are non-representational activities. The USW does not agree
with those rulings. However, without intending to waive its
position that its organizing expenditures are not subject to
objection and without intending to waive its right to assert its
position if there is a challenge to the reduction percentage, the
USW has deemed it expedient to apply the 25.97% figure to
most current and future objectors. Therefore, an objector will
be charged 74.03% of the regular dues amount. Each objector
will be given a detailed breakdown between representational
and non-representational activities with a report by an independent auditor.
The Procedure contains an appeals system under which
challenges to the reduction percentage determination must be
filed within 30 days of the Notice of Determination and are to
be decided by an impartial arbitrator appointed by the
American Arbitration Association. Disputed amounts are
escrowed pending appeal.
While a notice must be individually signed and timely
mailed, there is no form for a notice. Processing is faster, however, when the notice contains the objector's name, address,
local union number, and employer.
Any right of a resignee to pay a reduced amount under this Proceedure may or may not
be superceded by the resignee’s check-off authorization
35
Copyright 2006 Rob Rogers/ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Distributed by UFS. Reprinted with permission.
T
he Sago coal mine in Upshur County, W.Va., where 12
miners were killed after a Jan. 3 explosion more than
two miles in from the mine entrance, had a history of
safety violations, yet government records show the mine owners escaped significant fines.
One week later, a coal miner was killed in a roof fall in
Pikeville, Ky. Three weeks after Sago, two more coal miners
died as a result of a smoky blaze that began on an underground
conveyor belt at the Aracoma Coal Alma No. 1 mine in
Melville, W.Va. In all three cases, the fatally-injured miners
did not have union protections.
The tragedies led to Congressional hearings in Washington
and the introduction of legislation in West Virginia to speed up
emergency response to mine disasters, employ technology to
track miners and mandate reserve oxygen supplies in mines.
Since taking office in 2001, the Bush administration has cut
funding and staff at the Mine Safety and Health Administration
(MSHA), the federal agency in charge of enforcing the nation's
mine safety laws.
These tragedies, along with the March 2005 explosion at a
USW-represented BP refinery in Texas, serve as reminders of
the importance of effective health and safety programs that
include and involve workers and unions.
Have
You Moved?
Notify your local union financial secretary, or clip out this form
with your old address label and send your new address to:
USW@Work, USW Membership Department, 1440 South
Byrne Road, Toledo, OH 43614
Name
New Address
City
State
Zip

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