Labor Headlines
Friday, August 17, 2007
International Worker News
African Municple Unin Draws Battle Lines
IOL.CO.ZA - The South African Municipal Workers' Union (Samwu) was on Friday due to send the City of Cape Town a seven-day notice stating its intention to go on strike. Samwu's branch executive committee on Thursday decided to embark on a strike action "as 90 percent of polled members felt a strike action was necessary".
Samwu provincial secretary Andre Adams said their 10 000 members would embark on strike action in a week's time if the council hasn't met their demands.
Samwu provincial secretary Andre Adams said their 10 000 members would embark on strike action in a week's time if the council hasn't met their demands.
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National Worker News
Card Check, Majority Rules, Forget That!
NAM.COM - Organized labor seems to be covering all its anti-democratic bases as it attempts to impose union membership on unwilling employees. Action on the Employee Free Choice Act has been blocked this year (prevented by tough Senate opposition), so now Big Labor is essaying a different approach. Several major unions want the National Labor Relations Board to require employers to negotiate if even only a minority of employees ask. The New York Times reports:
The unions involved in the bid, including the United Steelworkers and the United Auto Workers, say the labor board should return to a largely forgotten practice, prevalent in the 1930s, in which companies often bargained with unions representing only a minority of workers who had joined them.
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State Worker News
Union Calls Federal Immigration Raids "Increasingly Militant"
AP TEXAS NEWS - OMAHA, Neb. — The president of the Food and Commercial Workers union on Thursday called for congressional hearings into tactics used by federal officials during immigration raids last year at six Swift & Co. meatpacking plants. Union officials heard complaints from Swift workers in plants raided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in December.
"No water, no food for hours standing up there together. Worse than the animals that are sacrificed there every day," said Delphina Arias, 44, who works at the Cactus, Texas, Swift plant. "It was depressing as a U.S. citizen and as a human being."
