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June 1 Rally at the Port of Vancouver For Locked out Longshore Workers of  ILWU Local 8 and the Striking Hong Kong Dockers
https://www.facebook.com/events/319695108159593/

June 1 Rally at the Port of Vancouver For Locked out Longshore Workers of  ILWU Local 8 and the Striking Hong Kong Dockers

Public · By Occupy St. John's Portland, Oregon

Saturday, June 1, 2013

10:00am
           Liberty Park West Mill Plain Blvd and West 20th Street Vancouver Wa. http://maps.google.com/maps?q=West+...
           Let's celebrate the courage of striking Hong Kong Dock Workers and show support for local locked out Longshore workers!

June 1st
Rally at the Port of Vancouver

Meet at Liberty Park on the corner of W Mill Plain Blvd and W 20th St. Vancouver, WA
10am Saturday June 1st
Parking on Simpson Street

Dockworkers in Hong Kong have lead an effective strike against horrible working conditions. Here is a video, it's very inspirational and shows that they are fighting the same struggle against the exploitative corporate greed that we are here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx-lCMZNZq0

Here is the May Day event lead by the Dock Workers

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1227766/may-day-marches-draw-thousands

Here is two links that you can use to donate to the Hong Kong Dock Workers strike fund.

http://www.longshoreshippingnews.com/2013/04/ilwu-longshore-division-sends-20000-to-hong-kong-dockworkers-support-each-other/

http://hkstrikes.wordpress.com/support-the-strike/

Longshore workers in Vancouver have been locked out by Mitsui, going under the name of United Grain since 2/27/13. Two other grain companies, Marubeni (owner of Columbia Grain in Portland), Louis Dreyfus Commodities (owner of two elevators in Seattle and Portland) are enforcing their last contract offer. United Grain has hired JR Gettier a armed union busting firm which not only preforms security but is also preforming the Longshoremen and women's jobs. They are an armed and trained scab labor! United Grain is pushing hard to replace living wage union jobs with benefits with part-time employment. This would create and extra burden on our communities. Our Ports are public, we own them. Our taxes built the Ports, are taxes are given to these companies to operate at our Ports and now these Grain Companies are seeking to destroy the benefits we do get in return, GOOD JOBS!
OUR PORTS ARE SUPPOSE TO BENEFIT OUR COMMUNITIES, LET'S REMIND THE PORT AND GRAIN COMPANIES OF THAT!

http://www.longshoreshippingnews.com/2013/04/longshoremen-to-community-mitsui-is-hurting-northwest-economy-with-its-illegal-lockout-at-united-grain/

“The right to act together is the right on which all other workers’ rights depend. It is the enforcer, the working person’s First Amendment.”

RECENT POSTS
Occupy St. John's Portland, Oregon
Today ILWU Local 8 has been locked out of Columbia Grain at T5. The Grain mobsters are increasing their attack on Longshore workers. This will be discussed at that next OSJ meeting to see how we should respond to our neighbors, friends, or family being treated this way.
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Occupy St. John's Portland, Oregon
Please help us make this rally HUGE!
Please invite your friends and share generously.Like ·  · Follow Post · Share · Friday at 8:07am near Portland, OR

https://www.facebook.com/events/319695108159593/
 
 

Portland ILWU Dockworkers protest Columbia Grain lockout in Oregon
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/04/usa-ports-lockout-idUSL2N0DL0G...
Columbia Grain locks out dockworkers in U.S. Pacific Northwest
Sat, May 4 2013
Analysis & Opinion

Sat May 4, 2013 4:49pm EDT

By Teresa Carson

PORTLAND, Oregon, May 4 (Reuters) - Grain shipper Columbia Grain on Saturday locked out longshore workers in the U.S. Pacific Northwest in the latest escalation of a simmering labor dispute.

The company, owned by Japanese trader Marubeni Corp , said it took action because members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) were purposefully slowing operations at its terminal at the Port of Portland, a key outlet for exports to Asia.

Columbia Grain said it had contingency plans to keep operations running during the lockout.

At least 50 workers gathered in front of the terminal gates on Saturday afternoon in a peaceful protest against the lockout. Some carried blue and yellow picket signs that blasted Columbia Grain as "UNFAIR."

The protesters set up canopies for shade during an unseasonably warm day and were distributing supplies of bottled water, snacks and fried chicken.

"We've been locked out," Bruce Holte, president of ILWU Local 8, told Reuters at the protest.

A contract between the union and the Pacific Northwest Grain Handlers Association, a collective negotiating group that includes Columbia Grain, United Grain Corp, Louis Dreyfus and TEMCO, expired in September.

The two sides were unable to come to a contract agreement so terminal operators declared an impasse late last year, and imposed the terms of their final contract offer.

TEMCO, a joint venture of U.S. agribusinesses Cargill Inc and CHS Inc, said in February that it reached a tentative agreement with the ILWU on its own. ILWU-represented employees at the Columbia Grain facility and the two Dreyfus elevators continued to work under the company's final contract offer terms.

BARGAINING STALLS

Columbia Grain said on Saturday that bargaining has stalled.

Longshore workers are "engaging in 'inside game' tactics, including slowdowns, work-to-rule, and demands for repeated inspections of the same equipment - all designed to negatively impact Columbia Grain's operations," according to the company.

The region's nine export terminals are a critical outlet for U.S. grain exports. Nearly half of U.S. wheat exports and about a quarter of all U.S. grain and oilseed exports leave the country via the Pacific Northwest.

Columbia Grain has 42.5 million bushels of storage capacity and exports nearly 160 million bushels of wheat, barley, corn and soybeans through a state-of-the-art grain elevator at Terminal 5 in Portland, according to owner Marubeni.

The union on Saturday said Columbia Grain never wanted to reach an agreement with the longshore workers and had hired replacement workers last fall while negotiations were still in their early stages.

"Marubeni is hurting the Northwest's economy by putting local union workers out on the street instead of allowing us to go to work," Holte said in a statement.

The union in March filed an unfair labor practice charge against United Grain Corp, a unit of Japanese trading company Mitsui & Co, after its members were locked out of the company's Vancouver, Washington, grain export terminal.

On Thursday, May 2 the Sisters' Camelot managing collective posted a long public statement on the internet addressing the current standoff between them and our striking union of canvass workers. Their statement is full of inaccurate information. Below are the most egregious inaccuracies, each with a concise explanation of the truth.

1. Sisters' Camelot: “We operate as an egalitarian democracy where no one member has a larger voice than any other, and all participate equally in the decision-making process. Anyone in the in the community – including the canvassers – can become a member of our collective and therefore have a full voice in its operations.”

THE TRUTH: The collective has refused to allow some canvassers to join the collective when they showed interest. Other canvassers have decided the collective has been hostile towards them and the canvass in general. Many canvassers who have tried addressing canvass-related grievances through the collective process equate it to banging their head against a brick wall. Some canvassers are unable to attend Monday morning meetings because of obligations as parents, students, and workers at other jobs. The 6 collective members have hiring and firing power over us and the collective process has failed to address the grievances of canvassers, so we unionized to bring balance to the power dynamic in our workplace. Telling us to use the collective process is classic boss speak for telling workers they should go through pre-existing channels instead of unionizing.

2. SC: “After the group gave a list of demands (some, but not all, being reasonable), they gave the collective one hour to meet their demands. If not, they declared they would strike.”

THE TRUTH: In our first meeting with the managing collective after unionization, we (the union) carefully went through our demands and allowed them an hour to ask any clarifying questions about them. They chose to only ask a couple questions, using about 5 minutes worth of their allotted hour. Then we gave the collective another hour to discuss in private and expected negotiation to begin after that. We stated very clearly that we did not expect negotiations to finish that day; we just wanted them to move forward in good faith. We stated that we did not expect to get all of our demands; that many of them were flexible, and as long as negotiations went ahead in good faith we would not strike. The managing collective simply refused to negotiate with our union.

read more

ILWU Retirees Stop Port Of Tacoma To Protest PMA's Refusal To Pay Medical Bills
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/04/30/2579508/retired-workers-picket-port-terminal.html
Port of Tacoma terminal reopens after picket
An arbitrator said that a picket line of retired longshore union workers that closed a key Port of Tacoma container terminal early Tuesday was not allowed under the provisions of the longshore contract, according to the group that was the subject of the protest.
JOHN GILLIE; STAFF WRITER
Published: May 1, 2013 at 9:13 a.m. PDT — Updated: May 1, 2013 at 2:51 a.m. PDT
Retired longshore workers picket Tuesday at the Port of Tacoma's Washington Union Terminal, a container terminal where Grand Alliance ships call. The picket shut down operations on Tuesday. (LUI KIT WONG/The News Tribune)
An arbitrator said that a picket line of retired longshore union workers that closed a key Port of Tacoma container terminal early Tuesday was not allowed under the provisions of the longshore contract, according to the group that was the subject of the protest.

The Washington United Terminal was reopened Tuesday afternoon after the retirees removed pickets from the facility on Port of Tacoma Road.

The pickets were trying to force action on their complaints regarding the Pacific Maritime Association’s alleged failure to pay retiree medical bills. The PMA represents waterfront employers including shipping lines and terminal operators.

The retirees, an arbitrator and officials from the longshore union and the PMA scheduled a meeting Tuesday afternoon after the picketing had halted activity at the terminal.

“The picket line was unfortunate, and ruled non bona fide by an arbitrator under the terms of the ILWU-PMA Agreement,” according to a news release from the PMA.

Some three dozen trucks were lined up along Port of Tacoma Road and in a nearby holding lot at midday Tuesday, awaiting the terminal’s reopening.

Port of Tacoma spokeswoman Tara Mattina said the port and the terminal operator were working late Tuesday afternoon to clear up the backlog of trucks.

Active longshore union workers had turned back after encountering the picket lines. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 23 provides workers who operate the container cranes, gatehouses and container carriers at the terminal.

Union members who had honored the picket line returned to work as a result of the arbitrator’s ruling, according to the PMA.

The Washington United Terminal is the Puget Sound area home of the Grand Alliance, a four-shipping-line consortium that moved last year from the Port of Seattle to the Port of Tacoma.

According to a leaflet being distributed by the pickets, they were protesting the failure of the Pacific Maritime Association to pay medical bills they and their family members have incurred since their retirement.

The PMA contracts with the ILWU on the West Coast to provide a waterfront workforce.

“PMA employers are taking away medical insurance from ILWU pensioners, their surviving spouses and children,” said the retiree group, the Pacific Coast Pensioners Association.

“Medical claims are being denied or reimbursements delayed unfairly,” the group said in its printed statement. “The problem is getting worse by the day.”

In its statement, the PMA said the ILWU-PMA health care plan has not changed since 2008, but the third-party administrator was replaced in January.

“Frustrations of some ILWU members stem from delays in processing claims due to the transition to the new third party administrator, to a backlog of over 100,000 unprocessed claims left over from the prior administrator, to medical providers misdirecting their claims, and to the receipt of more than 20,000 claims coastwide every week since the first of the year,” the statement read.

The port itself is not directly involved with the dispute. It leases the terminal to a third-party operator. Nonetheless, several port police officers were monitoring the picketing Tuesday from cars parked near the terminal gate.

The 10 or so pickets declined to discuss their dispute or why they chose to shut down the terminal, instead referring to the printed handout.

“As the independent organization for all ILWU retirees, the Pacific Coast Pensioners Association says we will not let this stand without a fight,” the handout declared.

“We pensioners have earned medical coverage from our lifetime work for the PMA employers. We retired with PMA’s commitment that we would have our medical bills paid fully and timely by the industry health plan,” the group said.

The pickets said some retirees are now being pursued by collection agencies to pay medical bills that PMA employers should be paying.

“This is causing our retirees, spouses and widows great fear and grief, pushing some into poverty,” the handout said.

One ship, the Hyundai Shanghai, was calling at the terminal Tuesday.

The terminal on the Blair Waterway serves the Grand Alliance, a consortium of four containership lines that share transpacific capacity. Those four shipping lines, OOCL, NYK, Zim and Hapag-Lloyd have helped raise Tacoma’s container business by more than 25 percent this year.

The port has encountered an unusual number of work interruptions in the past several weeks.

Two were caused by the deaths of two longshore workers on the docks. One was killed in an accident at Pierce County Terminal while maintaining a container crane. The other died, apparently of a heart attack, while working at the port’s APM Terminal.

Longshore union members traditionally halt operations after one of their members dies while working.

John Gillie: 253-597-8663

john.gillie@thenewstribune.com

Staff writer Alexis Krell contributed to this report.

UBT Teamsters persist in drive to unionize truckers at L.A. and Long Beach ports
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_23173821/teamsters-persist-drive-unionize-truckers-at-l-and

By Brian Sumers, Staff Writer
Posted:   05/04/2013 05:03:07 PM PDT
Updated:   05/04/2013 05:04:28 PM PDTTrucks back up into a virtual parking lot on the westbound Gerald Desmond Bridge in this 2009 file photo due to a new toll system that some drivers had not yet signed up for and were then turned away from terminals until they got the proper card (Brittany Murray/Press Telegram)
For decades, the docks at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have been organized labor strongholds, dominated by the powerful International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
But as dockworkers have negotiated lucrative contracts, other workers handling imports and exports have mostly been left out. That includes most of the truck drivers who haul goods to and from port terminals to rail yards, stores and warehouses, many of them in the Inland Empire.

But that may be changing. For six years, officials with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters have been quietly laying the groundwork for an ambitious truck driver organizing campaign, one that could change the economics of the industrial supply chain.Trucks wait during the lunch hour at the California United Terminal at the Port of Long Beach for the gates to open at 1 p.m. in this 2000 file photo. (Jeff Gritchen/Press-Telegram)
And recently, in part because the union agreed to its first contract with an employer in January, officials have become more open about their intentions.
"These are going to be nasty campaigns," said Fred Potter, a Teamsters vice president based in New Jersey. "Workers are going to be challenged, and we want to make sure they are up for the challenge. This is no different in many cases than preparing soldiers for war. "

Bravado aside, organizing drivers is a lot more complicated than simply persuading 51 percent of employees to side with the union.

Teamsters officials estimate as many as 90 percent of drivers are considered independent contractors - not company employees - and federal law makes it impossible for contractors to form a union. (A spokesman for the trucking industry called that estimate high, saying 70 to 80 percent of drivers are contractors.)

That means before the Teamsters can achieve success, they must persuade trucking firms to change how they conduct business. Trucking companies have balked at that, with many executives saying the independent contractor model - in which drivers own or lease their trucks - is more appropriate. Teamsters officials insist most of the contractor relationships are illegal.

The Teamsters have responded by pressuring state and federal regulators to audit port trucking firms. The law requires contractors to have considerable control over when and how they work, but Teamsters officials say most drivers are not "independent" at all and can only drive for one company. They say trucking companies are willfully misclassifying workers and should be prosecuted.

"It's pretty unprecedented what they're trying," said Victor Narro, project director for the UCLA Labor Center and an organized labor ally. "This industry has been so entrenched. It has a 30- or 40-year history of misclassification.

"It's a tough battle,Truck driver Tony Melendez hooks up an empty container at California Cartage in Wilmington in this 2011 file photo. (Jeff Gritchen / Long Beach Press-Telegram)
but one thing I admire is unions that stay in these fights for such a long time. "
Alex Cherin, executive director of the Harbor Trucking Association, an industry group, said the government audits have been disruptive, especially to smaller trucking firms. He said both California and federal investigators tend to a use a "shotgun" approach in which they blindly investigate firms, many of which have done nothing wrong. (Neither the U.S. Department of Labor nor California Division of Labor Standards Enforcements will discuss ongoing audits.)

The Teamsters also have encouraged drivers to file administrative wage actions against companies, accusing them of not paying them proper legal wages. A state deputy labor commissioner has the power to issue rulings in the cases, though trucking firms can appeal findings to state court.

"The Teamsters have been aggressive and relentless," said Cherin, adding that the trucking association does not condone illegal business models. "It's typical Teamsters tactics. "

This was not the Teamsters' first approach for this campaign. In 2008, the union backed a Port of Los Angeles policy to require drivers accessing the port to be considered employees. A federal appeals court found that provision, tucked in an environmental regulation, to be unconstitutional and the port subsequently dropped it.

But the Teamsters have persevered. The union made a strategic decision last year to engage in an organizing campaign at Toll Group, an Australia-based logistics giant. The company was a strong target for two reasons: It already considered its drivers employees and it had a long, mostly cordial relationship with unions in Australia.

In January, the Toll drivers were awarded some of the best pay and benefits in the industry, union officials say. But, more importantly for the organizing campaign, the victory has shown other drivers that it is possible to create a union. This is particularly important for port truck drivers who are already classified as employees and could form a union with a simple vote.

"Drivers want to organize," Narro said. "Once you get in the door - once you get this first union - it creates a ripple effect. "

James Love, 47, who drives for non-union American Logistics International in Carson, said news of the contract - workers at Toll now earn about $6 an hour more than before and have heavily subsidized health insurance - traveled quickly throughout the trucking community.

"It went through the ports like wildfire," said Love, a union advocate. "You see what has happened with Toll and you realize it can happen anywhere. And right now, Toll is a better company for it. "

Potter, the union vice president, said he did not want to divulge too much of his strategy. But in a recent interview, he said the Teamsters employ eight full-time organizers for the port trucking campaign, and he said they plan to lead campaigns at more trucking firms soon. He also said the campaign has plans for two or three more organizers.

But other companies may fight back harder than Toll. According to union officials, many have already hired so-called persuaders - or professional consultants who speak to drivers about the perils of unions at captive audience meetings.

Cherin, who speaks for the roughly 70 licensed trucking firms, said companies are prepared for the onslaught. He said unions have been trying to organize drivers ever since Congress deregulated the industry in 1980.

"This is just the latest chapter," Cherin said. "At some point you need to ask yourself, 'Why are they having such a hard time organizing?' "

Cherin also said member businesses stand by the legality of their independent contractor models. And he said firms will fight to maintain their business models, though he declined to compare what is happening at the ports to war.

"I don't know if it's war," Cherin said. "It's a strong difference of opinion on who determines how a business should be run. "

brian.sumers@dailybreeze.com | @briansumers on Twitter

United Grain Union Busting Expands In NW-Columbia Grain export terminal locks out longshore workers at the Port of Portland
Columbia Grain export terminal locks out longshore workers at the Port of Portland
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2013/05/columbia_grain_export_terminal.html#incart_more_business
Richard Read, The Oregonian 
on May 04, 2013 at 4:25 PM, updated May 04, 2013 at 4:36 PM

Picketers protest outside Columbia Grain on Saturday at Port of Portland's Terminal 5.
Drew Vattiat/The Oregonian
A bitter labor dispute on Northwest docks escalated Saturday as Columbia Grain Inc. locked out Portland longshore workers, accusing them of obstructing exports by gaming the system.
The lockout, which began at 6 a.m. at Columbia's Port of Portland grain elevator, compounds a similar action at United Grain Corp. in Vancouver, where dockworkers have been shut out since Feb. 27.

Columbia Grain accused members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union of slowing operations at its terminal, where wheat, corn, soybeans and other U.S. commodities arrive by train and barge for loading on ships bound for Asia and beyond. On Saturday the company, owned by Japan's Marubeni Corp., employed managers and temporary workers to load a vessel as union members picketed outside.

More
Continuing coverage of the contract negotiations between longshoremen and Northwest grain terminal operators."With bargaining stalled and the longshore workers engaging in 'inside game' tactics, including slowdowns, work-to-rule, and demands for repeated inspections of the same equipment – all designed to negatively impact Columbia Grain's operations – we have decided that a lockout is our best alternative," the company said in a written statement.
Columbia Grain and United Grain are members of a bargaining group pushing the longshore union for concessions to match employer-friendly working conditions at competing terminals in Longview and Kalama, Wash. Members of the Pacific Northwest Grain Handlers Association say that union perks, featherbedding and foot-dragging cost millions of dollars a year in a low-margin business, threatening the survival of their terminals.

By contrast, longshore union leaders depict the companies as highly profitable, foreign-owned ventures trying to squeeze local workers.

Bruce Holte, president of ILWU Local 8, said Columbia Grain hired replacement workers last fall, when contract talks were in early stages, showing that the company never intended to reach agreement.

"Unfortunately, Marubeni-Columbia Grain has done what it's wanted to do all along, and locked out local workers who have made this company profitable for decades," Holte said in a written statement. "Rather than reach a fair agreement, the company has hired an out-of-state strike-breaking firm, attorneys and a publicist to make allegations against local workers who simply want to do our jobs and support our community."

More than 50 protesters picketed Saturday at the Port of Portland, where Portland police officers stood by along with security guards contracted by the Port and others hired by Columbia Grain. Adding to the conflict, Port of Portland security guards represented by the longshore union accused the Port of improperly displacing them.

"We have filed a grievance and are seeking comparable hours to what the Port is paying its contracted security," said David Vale, steward for the ILWU Local 28 security officers, in an e-mail. "That could eventually amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars, some of which is taxpayer provided."

A contract expired Sept. 30 between the union and the grain handlers, a negotiating group that includes Columbia Grain, United Grain and Louis Dreyfus Commodities. The terminal operators declared an impasse late last year and imposed terms of a final contract offer that union members had rejected in a vote.

But Temco, another member of the negotiating group, defected from the association and reached its own tentative contract with the union.

In Vancouver, United Grain has continued operating during its lockout, using managers and non-union workers to unload train cars and load ships. Columbia Grain used a similar approach Saturday, as managers and temporary workers loaded grain into the Yu Hong, an 82,000-ton Panama-flagged bulk carrier.

SF TWU250 A Transit Worker Dorian Maxwell On 2013 Workers Memorial Day & The Fight For Health & Safety
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zquP57iENNE&feature=
SF Muni TWU 250 A Osha whistleblower Dorian Maxwell 
talks about his fight for health and safety, workplace
bullying  and the role of  Cal OSHA, the SF City officials 
and TWU 250 A union  officials in his continuing fight for justice 
and health and safety for the workers and the public.
He spoke at 2013 SF Workers Memorial Day in San Francisco on April 28, 2013.
For more video go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdasgUPBzAE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLc5D-tgm5o&feature=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0MoBGqiDOY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ93jlQ6aKA
For more information:
http://www.sfweekly.com/2012-06-13/news/muni-sfmta-buses-public-transportation-maintenance-accidents/
This forum was sponsored by California Coalition For Workers Memorial Day
www.workersmemorialiday.org
Injured Workers National Network www.iwnn.org
Production of Labor Video project

Western Refinery Employee handbook at oil refiner violated labor law, judge finds company retaliated against drivers supporting IBT
http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2013/05_-_May/Employee_handbook_at_oil_refiner_violated_labor_law,_judge_finds/
5/2/2013

By Amanda Becker

(Reuters) - A crude oil refiner that operates hundreds of service stations violated federal labor law and retaliated against employees who engaged in protected union activity, an administrative law judge has found.

In a sweeping decision released this week, Judge John McCarrick concluded that multiple provisions in Western Refining's employee handbook violated the National Labor Relations Act.

It also broke the law by threatening its employees with discipline, plant closure, discharge, loss of wages and litigation during a unionization campaign, McCarrick found, concurring with the bulk of 116 labor-violation counts in a complaint by an NLRB regional director.

The case is the latest of a string in which the board has focused on employee handbooks at non-unionized companies that are subject to the NLRA.

"The board is really making a special effort to investigate charges and then go beyond the immediate scope of the charges and find whether policies comply with the act," said Jonathan Fritts, a partner in Morgan Lewis's employment practice.

Fritts was commenting on the board's general focus on employee handbooks, not the specifics in the Western Refining case.

Western Refining, which is based in El Paso, Texas, did not respond to a request for comment.

RULES AND PROHIBITIONS

The dispute between Western Refining and its employees began when employees decided that one of the company's drivers had been unfairly suspended for receiving a traffic citation. They reached out to a local affiliate of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to begin a second organizing effort, after a previous election had not resulted in unionization.

Managers at Western Refining became aware of the effort in the summer of 2011, and began asking its drivers about union meetings and other activities during company picnics. Various managers discussed specific pro-union employees in email exchanges and steps that could be taken to discourage their involvement in union activity.

In his opinion, McCarrick concluded that many of these exchanges could be viewed, from an employee's perspective, as interrogations designed to discourage unionization and evidence of surveillance that could lead to retaliation.

McCarrick also found that provisions in the Western Refining employee handbook prevented workers from engaging in protected unionization activities. These provisions included rules preventing solicitation; the sharing of confidential information; the presence of off-duty employees in company break rooms; and unionization discussions on company time.

"This provision is broad and vague enough that a reasonable person could believe such provisions apply to employee solicitation in the sense normally associated with union solicitation and distribution," McCarrick wrote of Western Refining's no-solicitation rule.

Fritts said the "reasonable person" standard is typically used in handbook cases before the board and its administrative law judges.

"These handbook cases are cases where the board is saying 'how would a reasonable employee interpret this policy?'" Fritts said.

In a similar but unrelated case, DirecTV earlier this year appealed a board decision. In that case, the board found that rules barring employees from talking to the media and coordinating with law enforcement could be interpreted as prohibiting discussion about labor disputes with reporters and working with NLRB investigators.

"It's something the board has much more aggressively sought to examine and enforce," Fritts said.

The case is Western Refining Wholesale Inc, an affiliate of Western Refining Inc, and Giant Industries, a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Refining Inc, and Chauffeurs, Teamsters and Helpers Local Union 492, International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

For Western Refining: Charles High of Kemp Smith.

For the Teamsters: Jeff Farmer of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Follow us on Twitter @ReutersLegal | Like us on Facebook  
http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/New

TWU 250 A Muni drivers win ruling on Prop. G Pushed By Former Mayor Gavin Newsom Attacking Transit Worker Rights
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Muni-drivers-win-ruling-on-Prop-G-4487856.php

By Michael Cabanatuan

May 4, 2013

Officials for the union representing Muni drivers hailed a ruling Friday that struck down sections of a Muni reform measure designed to curb costly work rules.

Donn Ginoza, administrative law judge for the state Public Employment Relations Board, ordered San Francisco to rescind two portions of the City Charter that were part of Proposition G, which city voters approved in 2010.

The sections in question gave the agency the discretion to make staffing and scheduling decisions in the contract unless the union could show "clear and convincing" evidence that their interests outweighed the public interest, and prohibited any past rules or practices from continuing unless favored by the agency.

Prop. G eliminated a City Charter guarantee that Muni operators would be paid the second-highest salaries in the country and changed or eliminated a number of work rules and practices. It also created an arbitration process that favored "public interest" and gave the city considerable leverage.

The Municipal Transportation Agency, using those new terms, negotiated a contract with Transportation Workers Union Local 250-A, which represents its operators, in 2011. Agency officials said then that deal would save Muni $41 million over the three-year life of the contract. The contract was overwhelmingly rejected by operators but imposed on them by an independent arbitrator using the Prop. G rules.

Challenge to Prop. G

Local 25o-A sued in state court, challenging the legality of the negotiations under Prop. G and also sought to have the federal government withhold funds for the Central Subway because of the dispute. Both efforts were unsuccessful. The union joined with other unions that represent Muni workers to file an unfair labor practice complaint with the Public Employment Relations Board, which administers collective bargaining laws for unionized workers in state public agencies.

Ginoza's proposed decision, which can be appealed, found that the requirement to prove drivers' interests outweighed the public's illegally interfered with the union's right to bargain on behalf of its employees. Eliminating past agreements and practices had the same effect, he ruled.

Neither the union, the transportation agency nor the city attorney's office were clear about the implications of the ruling, which was issued April 30 but received late Thursday. Officials with the operators' union said the decision supported their contention they were illegally targeted in Prop. G.

"It was a calculated attack on our members, the people who make the system work day in and day out," said Eric Williams, president of Local 250-A.

Kenneth Absolom, an attorney for the union, said the ruling would definitely affect the union's next negotiations, which will take place in 2014. But he was uncertain of their effect on the current labor agreement.

Union gains leverage

"At the very least," he said, "this gives the unions some leverage in their dealings with the city."

City officials said they were still reviewing the decision and considering their options.

"The ruling only dealt with a limited portion of Prop. G," said Paul Rose, a spokesman for the MTA. "We expect to proceed as normal as we determine how the agency will proceed with the ruling."

Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan

Read more: http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Muni-drivers-win-ruling-on-Prop-G-4487856.php#ixzz2SKX8tkO3

Thursday, October 14, 201030 Comments
Proposition G and the Fix Muni Syndrome
http://sf.streetsblog.org/2010/10/14/proposition-g-and-the-fix-muni-syndrome/
by Matthew Roth

As the November election draws near and the bunkers are dug on either side of San Francisco’s Proposition G, the Fix Muni Now ballot measure spearheaded by Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, the rhetoric is escalating, with Mayor Gavin Newsom, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Editorial Board and Elsbernd on one sidedecrying Muni operators for taking raises during a recession, while the San Francisco Bay Guardian and the Muni operators union have focused on Elsbernd, implying he’s a racist pawn of downtown business interests on a mission to erode the power of unions.

While the acrimony is likely to increase, it is unclear just how far Proposition G will go toward “fixing” Muni. If the measure passes, it will eliminate the City Charter provision guaranteeing Muni operators’ salary and benefits are pegged at the average of the top two transit agencies in the country. It would also compel Transit Workers Union (TWU) Local 250-A, which represents Muni operators, to re-write its memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the agency, likely removing a number of work rules and side letters, or components of a contract agreed to by both sides that make stipulations for parking perks, absenteeism and sick-day policies, among others.

“I think that it’s plain good governance to not have a minimum salary set in a charter,” said Dave Snyder, organizer for the Muni Transit Riders’ Union, which has not taken a position on the measure. Snyder noted that even a competing Muni ballot measure proposed by some on the Board of Supervisors and supported by the TWU eliminated the charter provision. That measure never made the ballot, though, as Board PresidentDavid Chiu voted against it in a compromise with Mayor Gavin Newsom on the city’s budget.

Snyder cautioned against believing that the ballot measure would transform Muni overnight. “Taking the salary calculation out of the charter is not going to make sure all the buses leave the yard on time, all the time,” he said. Though he stopped short of saying the phrase “Fix Muni Now” was misleading, he said the public shouldn’t be confused about the limitations of the measure.

Even one of Proposition G’s co-sponsors acknowledged the measure wouldn’t fix Muni. “It’s important not to oversell Prop G. Yes, it’s absolutely necessary, but it won’t fix Muni,” said Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR), which also helped pass Propositions E and A to merge Muni with the Department of Parking and Traffic to create the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) and then to increase its autonomy from the Board of Supervisors.

Metcalf said Proposition G was merely one part of SPUR’s larger SFMTA reform agenda, but a necessary step toward delivering better transit service. “Prop G is not the first step in improving Muni and it’s not the last step either,” he said. “We have in the last 10 years done a long list of things to try to get San Francisco the kind of transit system it deserves.”

Supervisor Elsbernd disagreed, saying the measure would fix Muni and arguing management at the SFMTA has its hands tied because of the charter guarantees. “I think that [Proposition G] will absolutely improve Muni and free up dollars that are currently not going to service,” he said. Elsbernd noted If the measure passes, negotiators with the SFMTA would likely start preparing for collective bargaining for a new contract with the TWU, given that the current contract expires at the end of June, 2011.

Without the charter rules, said Elsbernd, the SFMTA would immediately save $16 million if it eliminates the trust fund it has set up to pay drivers when their benefits don’t meet the second highest national benefits package and it doesn’t have to give the operators the scheduled raise next year. He also estimated eliminating a number of work rules would save the agency at least $10 million more annually.

Elsbernd highlighted language in Proposition G that he said “was one of the best parts of the measure,” where in the case of arbitration over contract impasse, the arbitrator would be required to consider how the contract would impact Muni service. If the SFMTA felt the arbitrator had not sufficiently addressed the impact of a work rule or salary provision on Muni’s service, the SFMTA could take the issue to court, where a judge would preside over the dispute.

“This should be about making service better, not about making a union happy,” said Elsbernd. “Why in the world should we provide transit service where service is not the most important priority? [Proposition G] gives the riders a seat at the table and the city is there to defend them.”

While TWU President Irwin Lum said the charter provision for their salary had been “working well since 1968,” he said the union supported removing it and bargaining collectively. He bristled, however, at the arbitration language and said it handicapped the union from the start in any negotiation, tipping the balance to management before they’d even sat down at the table. “No other city employee union has it where it tells the negotiator or arbitrator” to account for how the contract would affect the service the membership provides, such as police officer pay tied to crime reductions.

Lum said the ballot measure was little more than “a blame game,” that it deflects attention away from failures at the management level. He also said it wouldn’t compensate for the lack of political will from the SFMTA Board and the Mayor’s Office to come up with a dedicated funding stream for Muni, such as transit tax assessment district. “All it will do is make drivers seem like the only reason why Muni doesn’t perform better.”

He said the SFMTA could stop paying work orders to other agencies, which have increased significantly since the passage of Proposition A in 2007, and the agency would save over $60 million a year, far more than would be saved if Proposition G passes.

Lum also criticized SFMTA CEO Nat Ford’s salary, which, at more than $300,000 base, is the highest of any city official, and compared it to the salaries the operators receive. “At $27.91 an hour, that wage is not over and above Bay Area transit wages,” said Lum “We’re not overpaid and we’re not underpaid. It’s a living wage.” He lamented that voters didn’t have the same opportunity in the measure to vote on Ford’s salary or other members of his executive staff and assumed the public would not pay them as much if they had the option.

According to SFMTA figures, Muni’s 2,000 operators make a combined $200 million in salaries and benefits, while the 100 managers that make up the Municipal Executive Association make $20 million in salaries and benefits. The agency’s annual operating budget this fiscal year is approximately $750 million.

Metcalf declined to say what he thought the senior executives should make, but he noted current salaries are comparable to the industry standard. Dorothy Dugger, BART’s General Manager, made nearly $350,000 in 2009, while John Inglish, head of the Utah Transit Administration, which is much smaller than the SFMTA or BART, made the same last year. Metcalf also said he didn’t think the operators’ salaries would plummet if Proposition G passed.

Metcalf and Snyder argued once the contract was negotiated, the real work would begin, both to improve cooperation between management and the operators’ union, and to identify a steady source of funding for Muni over the long run. There are numerous revenue generating actions the SFMTA board of directors could take to bring in more money, but the body has so far not pursued them. Extending parking meter hours on evenings and Sundays, for instance, was projected to generate $10 million annually, but the board has dropped the idea.

While Sacramento appears willing to leave the state diesel tax alone this year [pdf], sending hundreds of millions in money to transit agencies across the state instead of using the money to backstop the general fund, there is no guarantee the raids won’t resume under a new governor (unless state Proposition 22 passes). The SFMTA had been deprived of nearly $180 million in state money over the past three fiscal years.

“[Proposition G] is necessary, but a lot more is going to have happen. Management and workers are going to need to work together to create a culture where everyone is working toward the same goals of providing great transit service,” said Metcalf. “We’re going to have to do a lot of hard stuff after this, too.”
 

Argentine court sentences rail union officials in the murder of Mariano Ferreyra
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/05/03/arge-m03.html
By Rafael Azul 
3 May 2013
In a contradictory and politically tainted decision, Jose Pedraza, former president of one of the Argentine rail unions (Unión Ferroviaria, UF), was sentenced on April 19 to a 15-year prison term after being convicted as an accomplice in the killing of Mariano Ferreyra, a 23-year-old member of the left-wing Workers Party (Partido Obrero, PO).
Pedraza’s second-in-command in the union, Juan Carlos “El Gallego” Fernandez, also received a 15-year sentence.
Ferreyra was shot and killed in the Buenos Aires suburb of Barracas on October 20, 2010 during a demonstration of outsourced workers. The workers, known in Spanish as tercerizados, were demanding the rehiring of 117 sacked workers and the re-integration of all of them back into the Roca train line as regular employees, with full wages and benefits.

The sequence of events that led to the Ferreyra’s assassination and to the wounding of the other protesters was itself the result of decades of betrayals by the mafia-like trade unions that in Argentina collaborate with the government and corporations in the exploitation and repression of the working class.
Pedraza, a millionaire many times over, is typical of many Argentine trade union leaders, who are thoroughly integrated into the apparatus of the ruling Peronist party, owing their jobs to the government and their fortunes to the corporations whose interests they represent.
Pedraza became active in the union in late 1960s and early seventies, when key sections of the working class in Argentina engaged in tumultuous struggles that were ultimately crushed by a military-fascist regime that took power in 1976, kidnapping, torturing and murdering militant workers and atomizing the working class on behalf of imperialism and transnational capital.
In Argentina, the repression predated the military coup. José López Rega, Minister of the Social Welfare between 1973 and 1976 organized the notorious Triple A death squads (Alianza Anticomunista Argentina, AAA) with the help of many in the Peronist trade unions, including the UF—at that time one of the most powerful in the General Labor Confederation (Confederación General de los Trabajadores, CGT).
Pedraza has been described as a “survivor” who laid low during the dictatorship —a period in which scores of militant rail workers were being disappeared. He emerged as UF president in 1985 as a staunch Peronist, loyal to the Justicialista (Peronist) Party machine.
In the 1990s, the UF bureaucracy supported president Carlos Ménem in the dismantling and privatization of Argentina’s state-owned rail system and the firing of over 80,000 railroad workers. What emerged from that gigantic betrayal was the destruction of tens of thousands of kilometers of track, and of passenger rail service between cities.
Along with the privatization of rail transport occurred a massive destruction of jobs that were then subcontracted out to so called labor cooperatives (cooperativas truchas, or seudocooperativas) that forced workers—independent contractors, so called—to sign away their rights, accepting substandard rates of pay, with no benefits or job security.
For his services, in 1998, president Ménem awarded the UF the Belgrano Cargas railroad concession. The government retained a one percent interest and the UF 99 percent; what followed was the scrapping and looting of that railroad line. By 2006 the freight line had only 20 locomotives, down from 120, and transported 600,000 tons of cargo, down from 3.2 million in 1998. In connection with this affair, Pedraza was accused of siphoning off US $34 million into personal accounts.
In 2009, Argentina’s current president, Cristina Fernandez, warmly applauded the UF’s collaboration at the inauguration of new UF offices. In that ceremony Fernandez shared the podium with the CGT’s Hugo Moyano and with Pedraza. She congratulated the UF as “an exemplary labor organization.”
Moyano himself, a Pedraza ally who heads the truck drivers union, had been a close collaborator of the AAA during his days in the Peronist trade union youth movement (Juventud Sindical Peronista).
The Belgrano concession was renegotiated in 2006. It went to Macri Group, which includes the UF, Moyano’s truckers union, and La Fraternidad—the train operators’ union—and Buenos Aires financiers. Pedraza and and the UF bureaucracy also have interest in the “Unión Mercosur Limitada” labor “cooperative.” All of them profit handsomely as brokers of labor paid a third or less than what they would have earned before their jobs were contracted out.
These organizations have a direct financial interest in keeping workers atomized and unorganized, often through the terror of goon squads, conscripted, not unlike their AAA predecessors, out of the most backward elements of Argentine society.
It was such a UF goon squad that attacked demonstrators on October 2010. Ferreyra, who was in charge of political work for the PO in the industrial suburb of Avellaneda and was said to be gaining influence among rail workers, would have been singled out for elimination.
Ferreyra was shot in the stomach and died in the ambulance on the way to a hospital. Three other protesters, Elsa Rodriguez, Nelson Aguirre and Ariel Pinos were injured and survived the attack. Rodriguez, who was shot in the head and left disabled, attended the sentencing.
Members of Ferreyra’s family, his comrades and friends, objected to the court’s determination that neither Pedraza nor Fernandez had instigated the attack and killing. In truth, the court’s position that the murder had resulted from “simple recklessness” is a verdict that does not correspond to the reality of the evidence, presented at trial, of a cabal between the UF bureaucracy, the rail bosses, and the administration of Cristina Fernandez.
As the verdict was being read, the judges ordered the audience evicted to forestall protests.
While both UF leaders were found innocent of the main charge of instigating the murder, they were convicted of being accomplices, for providing “moral and objective support”—though there was clear and convincing evidence that Fernandez, accompanied by Pedraza, had been on the phone with the leader of the UF demonstrators, delegate Pablo Díaz, who, in turn, directed the hired gang of armed football hooligans.
The triggermen, Christian “Harry” Favale, and Gabriel “Payaso” Sánchez, were each sentenced to 18 years in prison.
The judges’ statement includes and admission that both Favale and Sanchez understood that the police would allow them to act with impunity and not detain them. That conclusion was unavoidable, given the ample evidence presented of Favale’s close relationship with the police.
The totality of the evidence left no doubt the crime was planned, carried out with impunity, in daylight and in front of witnesses by politically well-connected elements that considered themselves above the law.
An account of the battle, with the UF forces holding the high ground from the railroad tracks, forcing the protesters down an embankment, while police fired rubber bullets from below, strongly demonstrates that the protesters were deliberately set up, while the armed hired hooligans led by Favale arrived on the scene.
The UF bureaucracy, the government and the rail corporations undoubtedly intended to intimidate and punish those who would oppose attacks on workers’ living standards and living conditions. The goon squad was merely enforcing the government’s corporation’s will. By some accounts, the hooligans had been promised jobs on the railroad in exchange for their services.
However, the panel of judges turned away from drawing any conclusions about the role of the government or of the railroad companies in this political crime. It accepted the government’s claim that it had no relationship with the UF leaders.
Mass protests in November 2010 organized by the PO, and supported by the CTA union federation (Confederación de Trabajadores Argentinos, a federation of public employees) followed Ferreyra’s assassination. Another mass protest took place in Buenos Aires a year later, in October 2012.
In the words of one observer, the Cristina Fernandez administration, faced with the protests and the public outcry, engaged in a damage control operation, by arresting the culprits in order “to save the system.”
Pedraza and Fernandez were arrested in February 2011 and held for trial. Such was the nature of the evidence and the political climate that at that time that the court decided to detain both defendants with no bail.
At the time of his arrest Pedraza was central figure and a collaborator of both Nestor Kirchner and his wife and current president, Cristina Fernandez. The former president left office in 2007, and died on October 27 2010.
Highlighting the trial, were recorded telephone conversations between Pedraza and Labor Minister Carlos Tomada three months after Ferreyra’s death. The recordings clearly demonstrate a crony relationship between theKirchnerista official and the union leader.
In these recordings, both men discuss how to handle the tercerizados. Tomada reminds Pedraza that they are not all PO or PTS (Partido de los Trabajadores Socialistas, or Socialist Workers Party) members and must be handled politically. They specifically discussed the Ferreyra killing and a series of bribes that were being offered to “lobby” court and government officials on the railroad leader’s behalf.
In a conversation a month later between Pedraza and Noemí Rial, Tomada’s second-in-command at the Labor Ministry, the official expressed her solidarity with the FU president and placed herself at his service.
The author also recommends:
Top Argentine union leader arrested in murder of left-wing worker
[25 February 2011]