Int'l Unions Gather in Chicago to Craft Strategy
By Reuters
Saturday 20 August 2005
Chicago - Union leaders from around the globe gather in Chicago next week to craft a joint strategy to boost unionization in the developing world, and especially to target the U.S.-based retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Union Network International's annual convention will gather 1,500 delegates from some 150 countries in Chicago to share labor strategies and discuss ways unions can collaborate over international borders.
"We want more organizing initiatives on a global scale," UNI spokesman Noel Howell said. "We want global rules and global standards for workers everywhere."
The convention comes only a month after a schism in the American labor movement where three unions formally split from the umbrella American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations.
The AFL-CIO lost one-third of its membership, or 4.6 million members, with the disaffiliation of the Service Employees International Union, International Brotherhood of Teamsters and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).
All three disaffiliated unions will participate in the meeting of UNI, which is in its fifth year and represents 15 million workers, most from service industries.
Union leaders said their decision to leave the AFL-CIO was the culmination of years of complaints that too few resources were spent on organizing efforts to arrest a decades-long decline in U.S. union membership.
Global Campaigns
While increasing organizing efforts in the United States may be a priority for the three giant U.S. unions, coordinated global campaigns are also on the horizon.
"We think that this is an important moment in history and a terrific opportunity to act globally," said Stephen Lerner, a director at the Service Workers union. "They are global companies and we need to be global unions."
Among topics to be considered will be whether to channel resources to unionization efforts in the developing world, where Wal-Mart and other multinationals have operations, Howell said.
UNI officials have spoken with Wal-Mart workers in Argentina and Brazil, and will continue organizing efforts in India, considered a likely future destination for the retailer.
"Wal-Mart and other multinationals better be worried," about union organizing in Asia, Latin America and the rest of the developing world, said Bill Adams, a labor relations consultant with Adams, Nash, Haskell & Sheridan.
Other companies expected to be discussed as union targets are T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom and Britain's Group4 Securicor.
Low Prices
Beloved by shoppers for its low prices, Wal-Mart maintains that unions are unwanted and unnecessary for its 1.6 million workers - who are referred to as "associates" and says it is unfairly stigmatized because it is such a large employer.
"In many of the countries in which we operate we are considered one of the best places to work. You'd have to ask the union why they would pick Wal-Mart as their target," said Bill Wertz, a spokesman for Wal-Mart's international operations.
The world's biggest retailer has become a lightning rod for critics who say it mistreats workers, pushes wages down throughout the industry and that its poverty-level wages force employees to rely on public assistance to support their families, in the form of Medicaid health insurance for the poor, food stamps for groceries and state housing subsidies.
In April, the retailing behemoth closed a store in Quebec, Canada after its workers voted to join the UFCW. In 2000, it eliminated all U.S. meatpacking positions after meatpackers in Texas voted to unionize.
Philip Jennings, general secretary of the Switzerland-based UNI, appealed in a letter to Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott for a meeting to discuss its workers' rights. Jennings said in the letter that he would welcome Wal-Mart's "active participation" in the discussion.
The same week in Chicago, delegates from the United Auto Workers that represent unionized workers at car maker General Motors Corp. and auto parts supplier Delphi Corp. will meet to discuss such issues as company demands for changes on health coverage and pensions.
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Strike is Called by Mechanics for Northwest
By Micheline Maynard and Jeremy W. Peters
The New York Times
Saturday 20 August 2005
Detroit - Mechanics at Northwest Airlines walked off the job early Saturday, after their union and the airline failed to agree on the company's demand for $176 million in wage and benefit cuts. The strike was the first major labor disruption in the airline industry since 1998.
About 4,430 members of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, which represents mechanics, cleaners and other employees at Northwest, struck the airline at 12:01 a.m., when a 30-day cooling-off period in the negotiations expired.
"They wanted a strike, and now they have one," O.V. Delle-Femine, national director of the mechanics union, said in a statement late Friday.
The airline's chief executive, Douglas M. Steenland, said in a statement early Saturday, "The Northwest final offer was fair to our employees while recognizing the need for equitable labor costs savings from all labor groups so that Northwest could restructure successfully."
Northwest immediately said it would replace any worker who participated in the strike, and vowed to keep flying a full schedule of domestic and international flights despite the walkout. In the last several months, the airline had spent more than $100 million to hire and train 1,500 substitutes, many of them licensed mechanics who had worked at other airlines. The airline had also hired and trained 1,100 substitute flight attendants, in case their union stages a sympathy strike.
But the Northwest's flight attendants and pilots said they would not honor the mechanics' picket lines.
Leaders of Northwest's pilots union, in a statement posted on the union's Web site, said a sympathy strike would not be in pilots' best interest.
Northwest said mechanics who crossed the picket line would keep their jobs, but would be paid under a new wage and benefit scale with significantly lower wages than the $36.39 an hour earned by union mechanics under their previous contract.
It did not specify the rates, but Northwest had proposed a 26 percent pay cut during the negotiations. The mechanics had countered with a 16 percent cut.
The labor stoppage is the first in the industry since pilots struck Northwest briefly in 1998. The airline, which is based in Eagen, Minn., is the fifth largest domestic carrier.
In Detroit, one of Northwest's three United States hubs and its most important international gateway, mechanics union members cheered when Bob Rose, the local union president, announced the strike at midnight.
"God bless all of us," Mr. Rose, visibly weary, said. Union members then boarded buses to the airport, where police had blocked off a picketing area outside Northwest's terminal.
The early morning picket line by the union, which represents more than 900 workers in Detroit, was noisy but short-lived; picketing was expected to resume at 5 a.m., when the airport reopened.
Silvio Gonzalez, 42, who has spent 17 years at Northwest, said he was prepared to be on strike indefinitely. Echoing a point made by union leaders, he went on, "They're just trying to break our union and it's a travesty for the profession," he said.
But Sarah Gondick, an airplane cleaner, appeared stunned. "I'm kind of in shock, still," said Ms. Gondick, 28, and the mother of five children. If she lost her Northwest job, "I don't know what I'll do, to be honest."
For Northwest, the strike began on an advantageous day. Its summer travel schedule ended on Friday, and the lighter fall schedule began Saturday, which is also the least-traveled day of the week.
Northwest was scheduled to operate 1,215 flights Saturday and 1,381 on Sunday and its weekday schedule for Monday called for 1,473 flights, although it is unclear how those flights would be affected. A spokesman, Kurt Ebenhoch, said a typical weekday in the summer schedule would have offered 1,600 daily flights.
The airline advised customers to check its Web site, or to call its flight information line, (800) 441-1818 in the United States, for details on individual flights.
Negotiators met until Friday night under the supervision of the National Mediation Board in Washington, which had declared an impasse in the negotiations last month, starting the 30-day cooling off period.
But by evening, the mechanics union said a strike seemed certain.
The $176 million in wage and benefit cuts sought from the mechanics is their share of $1.1 billion in concessions that Northwest has insisted its workers must grant. Otherwise, it will seek bankruptcy protection, something that has already happened at United, US Airways and several small airlines.
Indeed, Mr. Delle-Femine charged Friday night that the airline's strategy all along had been to provoke a strike and use it as an excuse for a bankruptcy filing. In the union's statement, he maintained that support for the strike would build as the walkout progressed.
The mechanics association, which calls itself a craft union rather than an industrial union, is not a member of the AFL-CIO, which may prove to be a crucial point in determining whether the walkout is successful. Without the support of pilots, flight attendants and the machinists union, which also said it would not honor the picket lines, the mechanics could quickly find themselves isolated.
There was no sign when talks would resume between the two sides. Northwest said its first priority was to ensure that its operations ran smoothly.
Although the White House has the authority to order mechanics back to work, officials said earlier this week that they would not do so because a strike at Northwest would not pose a severe threat to the nation's transportation system.
While it serves most major American cities, including New York, Northwest's routes are primarily in the Midwest and West, along with extensive international service. The airline has about 38,000 employees, including those represented by the mechanics union.
Northwest's inability to win concessions from all its unions has frustrated airline officials, who have spent the better part of three years trying to cut its labor costs to the levels of its major competitors, all of which have cut their pay rates, in some cases by filing for bankruptcy protection or by threatening to do so.
Thus far, Northwest has only obtained $265 million in cuts from its pilots and $35 million from salaried employees. But the airline's determination to withstand a strike could serve as a signal that it also is willing to risk bankruptcy in order to reduce its costs, industry experts said.
"I think they can plausibly argue, 'guys, it's we have no place to go - it's here or the courthouse," said Philip A. Baggaley, an airline industry analyst with Standard & Poor's Ratings Services.
Saturday 20 August 2005
Chicago - Union leaders from around the globe gather in Chicago next week to craft a joint strategy to boost unionization in the developing world, and especially to target the U.S.-based retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Union Network International's annual convention will gather 1,500 delegates from some 150 countries in Chicago to share labor strategies and discuss ways unions can collaborate over international borders.
"We want more organizing initiatives on a global scale," UNI spokesman Noel Howell said. "We want global rules and global standards for workers everywhere."
The convention comes only a month after a schism in the American labor movement where three unions formally split from the umbrella American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations.
The AFL-CIO lost one-third of its membership, or 4.6 million members, with the disaffiliation of the Service Employees International Union, International Brotherhood of Teamsters and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).
All three disaffiliated unions will participate in the meeting of UNI, which is in its fifth year and represents 15 million workers, most from service industries.
Union leaders said their decision to leave the AFL-CIO was the culmination of years of complaints that too few resources were spent on organizing efforts to arrest a decades-long decline in U.S. union membership.
Global Campaigns
While increasing organizing efforts in the United States may be a priority for the three giant U.S. unions, coordinated global campaigns are also on the horizon.
"We think that this is an important moment in history and a terrific opportunity to act globally," said Stephen Lerner, a director at the Service Workers union. "They are global companies and we need to be global unions."
Among topics to be considered will be whether to channel resources to unionization efforts in the developing world, where Wal-Mart and other multinationals have operations, Howell said.
UNI officials have spoken with Wal-Mart workers in Argentina and Brazil, and will continue organizing efforts in India, considered a likely future destination for the retailer.
"Wal-Mart and other multinationals better be worried," about union organizing in Asia, Latin America and the rest of the developing world, said Bill Adams, a labor relations consultant with Adams, Nash, Haskell & Sheridan.
Other companies expected to be discussed as union targets are T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom and Britain's Group4 Securicor.
Low Prices
Beloved by shoppers for its low prices, Wal-Mart maintains that unions are unwanted and unnecessary for its 1.6 million workers - who are referred to as "associates" and says it is unfairly stigmatized because it is such a large employer.
"In many of the countries in which we operate we are considered one of the best places to work. You'd have to ask the union why they would pick Wal-Mart as their target," said Bill Wertz, a spokesman for Wal-Mart's international operations.
The world's biggest retailer has become a lightning rod for critics who say it mistreats workers, pushes wages down throughout the industry and that its poverty-level wages force employees to rely on public assistance to support their families, in the form of Medicaid health insurance for the poor, food stamps for groceries and state housing subsidies.
In April, the retailing behemoth closed a store in Quebec, Canada after its workers voted to join the UFCW. In 2000, it eliminated all U.S. meatpacking positions after meatpackers in Texas voted to unionize.
Philip Jennings, general secretary of the Switzerland-based UNI, appealed in a letter to Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott for a meeting to discuss its workers' rights. Jennings said in the letter that he would welcome Wal-Mart's "active participation" in the discussion.
The same week in Chicago, delegates from the United Auto Workers that represent unionized workers at car maker General Motors Corp. and auto parts supplier Delphi Corp. will meet to discuss such issues as company demands for changes on health coverage and pensions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Go to Original
Strike is Called by Mechanics for Northwest
By Micheline Maynard and Jeremy W. Peters
The New York Times
Saturday 20 August 2005
Detroit - Mechanics at Northwest Airlines walked off the job early Saturday, after their union and the airline failed to agree on the company's demand for $176 million in wage and benefit cuts. The strike was the first major labor disruption in the airline industry since 1998.
About 4,430 members of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, which represents mechanics, cleaners and other employees at Northwest, struck the airline at 12:01 a.m., when a 30-day cooling-off period in the negotiations expired.
"They wanted a strike, and now they have one," O.V. Delle-Femine, national director of the mechanics union, said in a statement late Friday.
The airline's chief executive, Douglas M. Steenland, said in a statement early Saturday, "The Northwest final offer was fair to our employees while recognizing the need for equitable labor costs savings from all labor groups so that Northwest could restructure successfully."
Northwest immediately said it would replace any worker who participated in the strike, and vowed to keep flying a full schedule of domestic and international flights despite the walkout. In the last several months, the airline had spent more than $100 million to hire and train 1,500 substitutes, many of them licensed mechanics who had worked at other airlines. The airline had also hired and trained 1,100 substitute flight attendants, in case their union stages a sympathy strike.
But the Northwest's flight attendants and pilots said they would not honor the mechanics' picket lines.
Leaders of Northwest's pilots union, in a statement posted on the union's Web site, said a sympathy strike would not be in pilots' best interest.
Northwest said mechanics who crossed the picket line would keep their jobs, but would be paid under a new wage and benefit scale with significantly lower wages than the $36.39 an hour earned by union mechanics under their previous contract.
It did not specify the rates, but Northwest had proposed a 26 percent pay cut during the negotiations. The mechanics had countered with a 16 percent cut.
The labor stoppage is the first in the industry since pilots struck Northwest briefly in 1998. The airline, which is based in Eagen, Minn., is the fifth largest domestic carrier.
In Detroit, one of Northwest's three United States hubs and its most important international gateway, mechanics union members cheered when Bob Rose, the local union president, announced the strike at midnight.
"God bless all of us," Mr. Rose, visibly weary, said. Union members then boarded buses to the airport, where police had blocked off a picketing area outside Northwest's terminal.
The early morning picket line by the union, which represents more than 900 workers in Detroit, was noisy but short-lived; picketing was expected to resume at 5 a.m., when the airport reopened.
Silvio Gonzalez, 42, who has spent 17 years at Northwest, said he was prepared to be on strike indefinitely. Echoing a point made by union leaders, he went on, "They're just trying to break our union and it's a travesty for the profession," he said.
But Sarah Gondick, an airplane cleaner, appeared stunned. "I'm kind of in shock, still," said Ms. Gondick, 28, and the mother of five children. If she lost her Northwest job, "I don't know what I'll do, to be honest."
For Northwest, the strike began on an advantageous day. Its summer travel schedule ended on Friday, and the lighter fall schedule began Saturday, which is also the least-traveled day of the week.
Northwest was scheduled to operate 1,215 flights Saturday and 1,381 on Sunday and its weekday schedule for Monday called for 1,473 flights, although it is unclear how those flights would be affected. A spokesman, Kurt Ebenhoch, said a typical weekday in the summer schedule would have offered 1,600 daily flights.
The airline advised customers to check its Web site, or to call its flight information line, (800) 441-1818 in the United States, for details on individual flights.
Negotiators met until Friday night under the supervision of the National Mediation Board in Washington, which had declared an impasse in the negotiations last month, starting the 30-day cooling off period.
But by evening, the mechanics union said a strike seemed certain.
The $176 million in wage and benefit cuts sought from the mechanics is their share of $1.1 billion in concessions that Northwest has insisted its workers must grant. Otherwise, it will seek bankruptcy protection, something that has already happened at United, US Airways and several small airlines.
Indeed, Mr. Delle-Femine charged Friday night that the airline's strategy all along had been to provoke a strike and use it as an excuse for a bankruptcy filing. In the union's statement, he maintained that support for the strike would build as the walkout progressed.
The mechanics association, which calls itself a craft union rather than an industrial union, is not a member of the AFL-CIO, which may prove to be a crucial point in determining whether the walkout is successful. Without the support of pilots, flight attendants and the machinists union, which also said it would not honor the picket lines, the mechanics could quickly find themselves isolated.
There was no sign when talks would resume between the two sides. Northwest said its first priority was to ensure that its operations ran smoothly.
Although the White House has the authority to order mechanics back to work, officials said earlier this week that they would not do so because a strike at Northwest would not pose a severe threat to the nation's transportation system.
While it serves most major American cities, including New York, Northwest's routes are primarily in the Midwest and West, along with extensive international service. The airline has about 38,000 employees, including those represented by the mechanics union.
Northwest's inability to win concessions from all its unions has frustrated airline officials, who have spent the better part of three years trying to cut its labor costs to the levels of its major competitors, all of which have cut their pay rates, in some cases by filing for bankruptcy protection or by threatening to do so.
Thus far, Northwest has only obtained $265 million in cuts from its pilots and $35 million from salaried employees. But the airline's determination to withstand a strike could serve as a signal that it also is willing to risk bankruptcy in order to reduce its costs, industry experts said.
"I think they can plausibly argue, 'guys, it's we have no place to go - it's here or the courthouse," said Philip A. Baggaley, an airline industry analyst with Standard & Poor's Ratings Services.
posted by T. Scott Brineman at 9:39 AM
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