(Portland, Oregon) State Senator Chip Shields chaired a public hearing on February 21st, on the problems besetting the U.S. Postal Service in the Portland area. Over one hundred people crowded into the Augustana Lutheran Church in Northeast Portland to hear testimony from customers, mailers, and postal employees. Speakers revealed a postal service in crisis: deteriorating customer service, substandard working conditions, threatened post office closures, and financial debt. Notwithstanding the doom and gloom, many of those at the microphone brought forward ideas for positive change.
Portland Area Workers Rights Board
“The issues facing the public postal service are of deep concern to all community members,” said Senator Shields. “I found particularly troubling certain management practices, especially with regard to under-staffing and “transitional” employees, but I also came away with a sense of hope because of some great ideas for the future.”
Jim Cook, president of the local National Association of Letter Carriers, a 33-year year postal employee, declared that “National postal management has refused to allow local hiring of career letter carriers for more than three years resulting in chronic mandatory overtime, late, irregular
Portland Area Worker Rights Board hear testimony from Securitas worker and community members
Portland Jobs with Justice has been working hard to support Securitas workers who are organizing with Service Employees local 49. Since July we have helped organize for and participate in three delegations to management and organized a Workers’ Rights Board hearing and follow up from it.
Securitas,a multi-national corporation headquartered in Sweden, has signed a global agreement with UNI, the international union federation. This agreement commits them to remain neutral when workers organize and to recognize unions when workers organize. When presented with copies of the global agreement, local management didn’t know anything about it. Requests to discuss the situation were met with encouragement to call a phone number in Chicago.
In September, the 600+ workers in Portland reached majority support for their union and went back to local management asking that they recognize the union. Local management has thus far not recognized the union.
On December 9th, workers testified before a Workers’ Rights Board panel about their wages and working conditions and why they need a union. They also presented testimony about the
Congressman Stephen Lynch, Fall River Mayor William Flanagan and community leaders representing the Massachusetts Workers’ Rights Board reviewed a list of employees at Comcast’s Fall River and Fairhaven locations and then checked it against union authorization cards voluntarily signed by employees at the same locations requesting IBEW Local 2322 to represent them.
Based on their card count, an overwhelming majority of Comcast employees in the above named locations desire to unite in IBEW Local 2322.
Rep. Lynch and Mayor Flanagan sent a letter immediately afterwards, “urging Comcast management to respect the employee majority and voluntarily recognize IBEW Local 2322 as their representative and begin collective bargaining for an agreement covering their wages, benefits and working conditions.”
“We requested the certification because we wanted to prove beyond a doubt to management that a genuine majority of our co-workers want to form a union and begin collective bargaining,” said Brian Almeida, a Comcast technician from the Fall River office who stared with the company in 2001.
Almeida was accompanied at the certification event by about 25 other Comcast employees
Think about working in temperatures, upwards of 100 degrees on hot days. Finding used hypodermic needles; human body parts, fluids and excrement; umbilical cords and other biohazard material from the Cleveland Clinic hospital system. No safety harnesses for workers climbing over 10 feet in the air on scissor lifts. Nonexistent water breaks and a minimal amount of fans to cool the facility on extremely hot days. Now think about enduring all of this while earning $8.34 an hour. Think I am talking about a sweatshop located in a third world country? Well, think again.
I have just described some of the horrible conditions Sodexo Laundry workers in Cleveland, Ohio face on a daily basis. It doesn’t stop there either. Poor ventilation and circulation of the air causes oppressive heat inside the plant, even during cold weather. One worker described going in and out of the plant like, “going from a stove to a refrigerator.” Doors are thrown open in the winter, sending bone chilling drafts into areas of the facility, just increasing the uncomfortable surroundings the workers have to face. Machines are overloaded and workers are expected to meet production by any means possible.
National Workers’ Rights Board hearing exposes wage theft, safety violations; highlights need for collective bargaining for car wash workers in Los Angeles, Nation.
Yesterday at Los Angeles City Hall, members of the Jobs with Justice National Workers’ Rights Board (WRB) were joined by other distinguished guests to hear gripping testimony about the hazards facing car wash workers. Over 250 union and community members packed the room to overflowing to hear from workers, consumer, health and safety advocates, and United Steel Workers President Leo Gerard.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa addressed the panel and the audience, thanking the WRBs’ leadership for protecting workers, and praising the courage of the workers who are speaking out. The Mayor pledged to remain engaged in this fight. “We look forward to reviewing the recommendations from this board for addressing abuses in this industry,” said the Mayor. “It’s important the public understand what’s going on at car washes in Los Angeles.”
Car wash workers reported being paid less than half of California’s $8 an hour minimum wage and some reported they are
Tennesseans, like others around the country, have watched in horror as the effective enforcement of labor standards dramatically declined. Many employers in the state have been quick to take advantage of a climate that has privileged business interests over workers and their unions. Meanwhile, many agencies charged with upholding workplace standards have lacked the resources, or in some cases the political will, to firmly and consistently enforce the law. And it’s workers and their families that have paid the price!
This fall, Jobs with Justice of East Tennessee (based in Knoxville), Middle Tennessee Jobs with Justice (based in Nashville), and the Worker Interfaith Network of Memphis joined forces in a statewide effort to bring to light some of the worst cases of abuse, such as wage theft and violations of workplace health and safety.
Targeting primarily the Tennessee Department of Labor and the Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration (TOSHA), the 3 groups are gearing up for a statewide series of workers’ rights board hearings to receive testimony from immigrant workers who have had their pay withheld for no reason, sheet-metal workers who have had to work in unsafe conditions, and a number of other worker stories.
The Missouri Jobs with Justice Workers’ Rights Board released a report today on the steps of the Red Cross Blood Services headquarters in St. Louis that raises concerns about donor safety and the security of the nation’s blood supply at the country’s largest supplier of blood and blood products.
The investigative report, which also details the treatment of Red Cross employees and the impact this has on the organization’s work, underscores the need for a new round of reforms at the troubled organization.
“Few national institutions have a prouder name or a more storied history than the American Red Cross,” writes Philip Dine, an award-winning labor reporter and the author of the report. “But many frontline blood workers see the Red Cross as an employer that is increasingly determined to cut expenses and increase revenues, even to the potential detriment of donor safety, employee wellbeing and the security of the nation’s blood supply.”
Among the practices detailed in the report that jeopardize donors’ safety and the integrity of the blood supply detailed are:
