New Haven, CT
Monday Afternoon, September 14
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| New UE Members: UE Director of Organization Robert Kingsley with delegates from new UE workplaces. |
President John Hovis called the afternoon session to order at 2:00 p.m. Secretary-Treasurer Bruce Klipple read the updated credentials report. Peter Knowlton then introduced Cleo Hester, Local 893, to read the "Labor Law Reform" resolution. Bryan Martindale of Local 1421 introduced Ed Scanlon, Local 222, and Sandy Colter, Local 767, to read the resolution "Organize the Unorganized."
REPUBLIC WORKERS HONORED
Hovis introduced UE Director of Organization Bob Kingsley, who began his organizing report by referring to the UE members from Republic Windows and Doors (UE Local 1110) as "proud symbols of resistance." Kingsley thanked leaders and activists across the labor movement for their support of this struggle and recognized the "first-rate" staff work of Mark Meinster, Leah Fried, Omar el-Malah, Leticia Prado, Tim Curtin, Abe Mwaura, with Carl Rosen and Armando Robles "at the helm."
After showing a video of the Republic fight (available online), Kingsley called Local 1110 leaders Armando Robles, Ricky Maclin, Raul Flores, Jose Sanchez, and Jose Manzon to the stage. Local President Robles described the events leading up to the sit-down strike, including the union following trucks to track the equipment that was being removed from the plant, and workers committing to each other that they would occupy the plant and risk arrest if necessary. Vice President Ricky Maclin spoke of his own experience in deciding what he was willing to do. He said he’d made mistakes in his youth and even gone to jail, but that this was something worth risking arrest for. He said he told his wife, "If I fight, there’s a chance I could win, but if I don’t fight, I’m sure to lose. If I fight and lose, at least I lose with my dignity."
Robles and Maclin updated delegates on the progress that's been made in reopening the plant under the Serious Materials, the California company that bought the business and negotiated a contract with the union. It is a four-year contract with essentially the same wages and benefits, and requires the new company to recall 175 Local 1110 members before hiring new employees, and to respect seniority. Maclin also spoke about Richard Gillman, former CEO of Republic, being arrested and held in Cook County Jail in lieu of $10 million bond for crimes related to the plant closing. "If there’s a God, and I know there is, I hope that he (Gillman) is in my old cell," said Maclin, to the applause of the delegates.
ORGANIZING REPORT
Kingsley described organizing as "where the fight begins, where we take the first steps to better jobs and better lives ...where we stand up for our families and for ourselves" He referred to organizing in such "uncommonly complicated times." He said that the "callous contradictions of capitalism" revealed in the financial crash underline the need for workers to organize. A recent study by a Washington think tank found that it would take 100 average American workers, working 1,000 years, to earn wages equal to "what the top bankers made while putting our economy into a wreck." In other words, said Kingsley, "They got bailed out, we got sold out," and the delegates joined in the chant made famous by the Republic workers’ sit-in.
The fight against banking giant Wells Fargo and its attack on Local 1174’s jobs continues, said Kingsley, and announced that delegate Deb Johan, an officer of 1174 and worker at Quad City Die Casting, would lead a march and rally at the New Haven branch of Wells Fargo subsidiary Wachovia, a few blocks from the convention hotel, Wednesday at noon.
Kingsley highlighted the organizing and first contract victories of the past two years, which brought 2,000 new workers in seven states under UE representation. These include two units at Ralston Foods in Lancaster, OH; employees of three contractors at USCIS in Vermont and California; two new public education units in Local 222; Ferro Pfanstiehl pharmaceutical workers in Illinois; growth in Local 150 in North Carolina, including a new chapter at Central State Hospital. Workers at Hishi Plastics in New Jersey finally achieved a first contract, and now UE has launched a new Warehouse Workers Justice campaign to organize workers in the logistics industry near Chicago.
Kingsley thanked the many rank-and-file volunteers who assisted in organizing over the past two years, listed in a brochure given to delegates, and asked all the volunteers in the convention hall to stand, to the applause of the delegates.
He reminded the delegates that we organize not only because of the moral imperative to help the unorganized to achieve their rights, but also because it helps insure the financial health and future of our union.
AFTER PICKING THE WRONG UNION:
'UE: RIGHT ... FOR US!'
Kingsley then called leaders of newly-organized UE members to the stage to report on their own struggles in organizing and negotiating contracts. He began with Local 170, the West Virginia State Workers Union, which has doubled its membership since the last convention to over 1,100, in a state that denies public employees bargaining rights. Local 170’s entire delegation marched to the stage as the convention stood and applauded. Field Organizer Karen Hardin introduced leaders of the local’s newest chapter representing Bateman State Hospital workers, Jay Miser, Jeff Watson and Keir Moorman. Miser said he was motivated to get involved when he saw union members on TV, rallying at the state capitol, and realized his was one state department that was not involved. The next day he and Jeff Watson talked at work "about how blatantly mistreated we were," and the fact that they hadn’t received a raise in over three years.
So they started to organize their co-workers into a union, but soon realized that they’d "probably picked the wrong union," since it gave them no representation and within a year doubled the dues. Feeling they had unintentionally misled some 100 workers, they contacted UE and quickly saw that it was "the right organization for us and the workers we represented." Jeff Watson said West Virginia state workers have been held captive by a "climate of fear" which he blamed on "bullies, punks and thugs" who are "part of every level of management and have kept the rank-and-file workers of West Virginia in literal poverty."
Local 170 President Bruce Dotson expressed his pride in being the first West Virginia state worker to sign a UE card. It’s been "an incredible journey" that he’s never regretted and he sees a great future ahead for his local.
Next, Kingsley called on Connecticut Local 222. International Rep. Carol Lambiase introduced Cathie Bonk, a tutor in the Farmington public schools. She said they joined UE because they were the only non-union workers in the schools and lacked seniority protection, longevity benefits, a pension, salary schedule and a grievance procedure. They now have those in their UE contract. "We feel we are in a much better place now that we are part of the UE family." Farmington sub-local President Pauline Wilson also spoke, and Field Organizer John Woodruff described how Trumbull education secretaries came into Local 222. Local President Marie Lausch said UE is growing in the Connecticut public sector on the basis of the solid, open representation we provide, and because "we’re organizing people that other unions ignore."
'IN A LANDSLIDE'
Kingsley called on International Rep. Mark Meinster, who introduced Don Revis from Ferro Pfanstiehl in Waukegan, IL. An organizing campaign two years earlier lost by two votes to the company’s union-busting campaign. But the second time, said Revis, "we knew what they were going to do – we heard it all before, so it was a landslide this time," for the union.
Nick Nichols spoke on the long struggle for a first contract at Hishi Plastics in Lincoln Park, NJ, in which workers had to wait four years for the NLRB to count the ballots after they voted 32-3 for UE in 2003, and then waged a year-long struggle with their employer – a subsidiary of the giant Japanese multinational Mitsubishi Chemical – for a first contract. Nick choked up as he recalled that his mom had always told him, "When you believe in something, stand up for it. People will follow you and help you fight that fight." Delegates responded with a standing ovation to his emotional statement of his social justice philosophy.
Nichols was not initially on the bargaining committee, but as negotiations dragged on with no progress, and after the company pressured one member of the union committee into quitting, Nick was asked to replace him. "I didn’t hesitate, because I saw so much wrong in the plant." He said he’d never in his life heard "no" so much as he did from the company in negotiations. So the committee met with Bob Kingsley and came up with a pressure campaign that included picketing Mitsubishi offices in various cities, post cards to Mitsubishi’s CEO, and help from the Zenroren labor federation in Japan. Hishi’s lawyers expressed the company’s anger at these tactics, but together with the unity in the shop and Andrew Dinkelaker’s help at the bargaining table, they led to a contract.
'FAIRNESS - THE MAIN ISSUE'
Kingsley called both groups of Ralston workers to the plant. Kathy Byers said workers were fed up with their former union, a top-down do-nothing operation. They found UE through our website and soon met International Rep. Deb Gornall, who helped them organize to vote out the old union by a more than 10 to 1 margin, go independent, and then affiliate with UE. Chief Steward Alice Dille described new Local 777’s successful first UE negotiations. With the help of UE International Rep. Dennis Painter, they were able to command respect from the company that they never received under the old union. With fairness the main issue, they made major changes to contract language, won economic improvements, reduced mandatory overtime, and reinstated a fired union activist. "We’re new, we’re still learning and struggling, and we thank you for your support," Dille concluded, and Don Wolfe seconded her sentiments.
Dennis Painter then introduced two leaders of the Ralston maintenance unit, now UE Local 718. Paul Flowers said, "UE has restored our pride to be in a union," after leaving the old union that "did nothing for us." Local Pres. Jeff Niceswanger told delegates, "Not all unions are created equal," and that representatives of the old union "wouldn’t answer the phone or call you back." he said workers are proud of their new contract, "and I mean a new contract – it’s almost entirely rewritten" and much more favorable to workers than the old agreement. "There’s no comparision between UE" and the old union, he concluded.
REVIVING ANTIOCH
Carole Braun, former Local 767 member who had served on UE’s General Exective Board, described the formation of the College Revival Fund by Antioch College alumni seeking to reopen the college after the Antioch University board shut it down.
The employees of the revival fund organized as UE Local 768, negotiated a contract and gained health insurance. But the alumni’s recent success in purchasing the college’s assets from the university has been "bittersweet" – Braun and others have been laid off, but there’s now hope that the college will reopen, with a UE-represented workforce as previously existed when Local 767 was at full strength.
Larsene Taylor of Local 150 and the GEB introduced Burnell Terry of the newest union chapter, at North Carolina’s Central State Hospital. He described the union’s struggles against unjust firings, caused by the state’s policy of blaming the workers, not its own inadequate resources, understaffing, overwork, and poor management, for patient injuries.
Finally, Kingsley invited the USCIS workers from both Vermont and California. International Rep. Kim Lawson introduced Nadene Wetherby, Jane Scanlon and Jeanette Weiland of the St. Albans Service Center, and International Rep. Leanna Noble introduced Bentley Derr of the Laguna Niguel Service Center.