Electronic Newsletter of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, TNG-CWA Local 32035

Dec. 1 , 2003

• Workers’ Rights Are Human Rights!
• Help Expand And Protect Workers’ Rights To Form Unions
• Striking California Grocery Store Workers’ Battle Is Our Battle, Too
• Notable Quotes

December 10, 2003 marks the 55 th anniversary of International Human Rights Day. This year, American Labor Unions are exposing the hard fact that in the USA, employers suppress workers’ freedom to form unions.

When workers can’t form unions, we all pay a price.

More workers in more unions means a stronger economy and higher living standards. Workers who form and join unions clearly have a higher standard of living. Unionized workers:

• Earn an average of 26 percent more than workers who don’t have a union.
• 69% of union workers have guaranteed pensions compared with only 14% of non-union workers.
• 75% of union workers get health benefits compared with 49% of non-union workers.

American workers want to be union members, because union representation and collective bargaining provide clear and unmistakable advantages to workers!

But workers are NOT free to form unions in the United States.

Employers launch relentless and often brutal attacks when workers try to form unions:

Ninety-two percent of private employers, when faced with employees who want to join together in a union, force employees to attend closed-door meetings to hear anti-union propaganda (Wal-Mart, for one).

Seventy-five percent hire outside consultants to run anti-union campaigns, often based on mass psychology and distorting the law.

Half of employers threaten to shut down if employees join together in a union.

In twenty-five percent of organizing campaigns, employers illegally fire workers because they want to form a union.

Even after workers successfully form a union, in one-third of the instances, employers never negotiate a contract.

Why do bosses fight so hard to keep their employees from unionizing?

The same reason they fight so hard to weaken, and even destroy, existing unions: They want complete control over their employees, including pay, benefits, working conditions, and the ability to discipline and dismiss at will.

• That’s why the Journal Papers fired 8 pro-union employees last December, just days before the employees were to vote on whether they wanted union representation. The federal labor law did not protect these workers. It took nine months to get a

partial back pay settlement, and the employees were not reinstated. (See www.wbng.org/journal/journalntro.htm for the full story).

• That’s why The Washington Post in the 70’s foisted an open shop on its employees--making union membership voluntary; open shops undermine union bargaining power, and since the 70’s the Post pay scales dropped from number 1 to number 20 among major newspapers. That’s why The Post during the last round of contract negotiations tried to remove the remaining vestige of union security.

• That’s why Tribune, The Baltimore Sun’s corporate owner, during the 2002 contract talks, spent hundreds of thousand of dollars to import replacement workers to intimidate its employees into accepting concessions.

American workers are losing the freedom to form unions and bargain collectively. Without our unions, without MORE unionized workers in every industry, big corporations will force lower wages and benefits on their employees. Only a guarantee of workers’ rights to form and join unions without fear of retribution can stop that race to the bottom.

Striking California Grocery Store Workers’ Battle Is Our Battle, Too

Mega-corporations in California seek to drastically reduce health care benefits, establish lower wages and benefits for new hires, and toss full time workers in to poverty.

Seventy thousand members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) are on strike against Safeway/Vons grocery stores— and locked out by Albertsons and Kroger/Ralphs grocery stores in Southern California, with thousands more on strike against grocery stores in West Virginia. As the New York Times wrote (11/15/03) “The 70,000 grocery workers on strike in Southern California are the front line in a battle to prevent middle-class service jobs from turning into poverty-level ones.”

Here in DC and Baltimore, we face the same battle, as a number of major employers seek to bargain “two tiered” compensation/benefit systems—to pay new hires less than current employees in the same jobs, and to reduce health and retiree benefits as well. The UFCW strikers’ battle is our battle, too.

When big, national corporations can muscle their way to concessions, other big, national corporations become more aggressive. When workers can win a fair contract, it helps other workers win fair contracts.

The Washington Baltimore Newspaper Guild represents UFCW’s staff, head-quartered
in Washington, DC. The Guild UFCW is collecting donations to contribute to striking workers. The strike-lockout is in its second month.

Please support UFCW strikers. Their battle is indeed our battle.You can find more information about the strike at UFCW.org. Guild members can donate by sending a generous check by December 12, to WBNG (make check payable to WBNG)

1100 15 th St., NW, Suite 350
Washington, DC 20005
Write: UFCW STRIKE FUND on the memo line (Receipt will be acknowledged).

For more information, email Guild UFCW chair Jack Weberski (jweberski@ufcw.org), or vice-chair Joey Hipolito (jhipolito@ufcw.org)

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