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| Standing Together and Standing Strong — Overcoming a brutal anti-union campaign, Stanley workers in California celebrate their victory late Thursday night after voting UE! |
Overcoming one of the most intense and brutal anti-union campaigns UE has faced, workers employed directly by Stanley Associates – the lead contractor at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service Center (USCIS) in Laguna Niguel, California – today voted 103-75 for UE.
The union win is UE's sixth victory in eight elections, beginning on January 31, among the employees of contractors at the USCIS centers in California and Vermont. The six units won so far include a total of 714 workers. The win among Stanley workers in Laguna Niguel follows overwhelming votes for UE over the past two weeks by workers for three Stanley subcontractors at the same location -- Studley Professional Services (SPS), Choctaw Archiving and Northrop Grumman. "The strong union vote by Stanley workers today positions UE to make a strong move to the bargaining table with Stanley and its subcontractors," said UE Director of Organization Bob Kingsley. "We look forward to beginning the next stage of this process and we remain intent on achieving a measure of justice for workers at these facilities in both California and Vermont."
Stanley's nasty union-busting campaign included bosses taking individual workers into the back room, with security guards stationed at the door, for one-on-one intimidation sessions that in some cases lasted as long as eight hours. The company made workers attend three captive audience anti-union meetings a day, and two days before the vote, forced workers to watch a propaganda video that slandered and distorted UE's policies and record. The company told workers that union talk and activity was prohibited on the site, and earlier this week filed an NLRB charge against UE, on completely phony, trumped-up allegations, with the intent of getting the NLRB to delay the election.
Sarah Beard, whose pay was cut from $12.98 to $10.67 when Stanley took over in December, says many other workers suffered similar pay cuts. "Now we're going to get the protection that we need and deserve." Daphne Carreon has been at the USCIS Center for eight years, and says Stanley has been the worst employer there so far. "They violated the Service Contract Act by not paying us what they should. They robbed us." But with the election win, she says she is "really, really happy. We kicked butt -- big time. We have justice now. They can't do that to us again."
Blanca Esposito, an employee of SPS, was also at the Stanley workers' post-election celebration. Like many workers for subcontractors Northrop, Choctaw and SPS, she was actively involved in helping the Stanley workers win with UE, too. Now she's looking forward to one more win, when Altron workers at the Laguna Niguel center vote on March 20. "The company was offering people a lot of things to try to sway them, but here we are with another victory. They cannot get away with the way they treated us anymore," Blaca added. "We need to be treated with respect."
Several UE international reps and field organizers worked tirelessly on this and the earlier Laguna Niguel campaigns, including Mark Meinster, Leticia Prado Marquez, Alexandra Huerta-Camacho, Karen Hardin, John Thompson, Steve Bader, Leah Fried, and Leanna Noble. Kim Lawson and Dante Strobino also worked on the Vermont campaign. and UE Regional Presidents Carl Rosen, Peter Knowlton and Andrew Dinkelaker, as well as and many rank-and-file members, assisted in the California and Vermont campaigns.