Union Labor News: May 2008

• Local 39’s Contract Halts CUNA Layoffs
  Labor relations between CUNA Mutual and OPEIU Local 39 took an unexpected turn for the better leading to a new four-year contract with improved job security language which union members approved by a 382-171 vote, April 21. Until the recent turn of events, job cuts and outsourcing had been spiraling out of control at the company, one of Madison’s largest employers. The new agre... [More]
• Woodman’s Strategy: More Fear and Deceit
  Editor's Note: Previous issues of Union Labor News have described how Woodman's Food Stores has hired a unionbusting firm out of Vermont in an attempt to decertify UFCW Local 1473 as the representative of its employees. Here's the latest report from UFCW Local 1473. Our Union Sisters & Brothers employed at Woodman's Food Markets in Janesville, Beloit and both Madison st... [More]
• More ULP Charges Piled Upon Superior Linens
  Another round of unfair labor practice charges have been filed against Superior Linen, adding to its extended record of denying workers their organizing rights at two industrial laundries in Madison and Cudahy. The new charges allege that the employer held captive audience meetings where workers were threatened with the loss of wages and benefits because several had provided previou... [More]
• Labor Scores Local Wins in April 1 Vote
  Despite a major disappointment in the statewide race for Wisconsin Supreme Court, organized labor fared well in local races in the spring elections, April 1. Justice Louis Butler lost his bid for reelection to a ten-year term on the bench, the first time an incumbent Supreme Court Judge was defeated in an election since 1967. While Butler garnered 72 percent of the votes in Dane Coun... [More]
• SCFL’s Dodge & Jefferson Chapters Growing Labor
  BY JIM CAVANAUGH, SCFL PRESIDENT The merger of the South Central Federation of Labor with the labor councils in Dodge and Jefferson Counties is off to a promising start. Early on, delegates to the Dodge County Central Labor Council determined that creating a Dodge County Chapter of SCFL, as provided by the SCFL Constitution, was the best way to maintain and increase labor&rs... [More]
• Konopacki Book Depicts History of American Empire
  By Al Hart and Gary Huck, UE News Madison-based labor and political cartoonist Mike Konopacki – close friend and collaborator of United Electrical's cartoonist Gary Huck – has produced a brilliant book-length graphic adaptation of a major portion of Howard Zinn’s classic A People’s History of the United States. Created in collaboration with Zinn and e... [More]
• Corporate Tax ‘Heaven’ Hurts State’s Workers
  By Phil Neuenfeldt, Wis. AFL-CIO Sec.-Treas. Wisconsin has many traditions that we enjoy – tailgate parties, Labor Day picnics, community festivals and fish fries. But there’s a new tradition that we don’t enjoy at all: the state budget debates that ask which public services to cut and by how much... [More]
• McCain Revealed: Not Ready To Fix Our Economy
  Working men and women across the country will tell you that our economy is in trouble. The mortgage crisis has resulted in record foreclosure filings, health care costs are skyrocketing and families are working harder than ever to make ends meet. It’s a widely accepted fact that we’re headed into a recession. But John McCain has not shown any real interest in correcting... [More]
• AFL-CIO Responds to McCain Economic Plan
  AFL-CIO President John Sweeney made the following statement in response to Sen. John McCain's economic proposals unveiled in Pittsburgh, April 15. –ed. BY JOHN SWEENEY, AFL-CIO PRESIDENT Sen. John McCain's economic proposals badly missed the mark, offering little more than a repackaging of President Bush's failed economic agenda. For months, Sen. McCain has ig... [More]
• Medical Tourism?! Let’s Get Serious!
  “Outsourcing Health Care May Be a Thrifty Alternative” was the headline in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s business section, April 5, above a column by John Torinus, CEO of Serigraph Inc., a specialty printer based in West Bend, WI. Evoking exotic fantasies of patients recuperating from surgery in high-class resorts, Torinus reported that Serigraph&rsq... [More]
• Labor News in Brief
  African Trade Unions Stop ‘Shipment of Death’ A Chinese cargo ship packed with rocket grenades, mortar rounds and 3 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition destined for strife-torn Zimbabwe is reported to have returned its cargo to China. South African trade unionists refused to unload the ship April 18, and other African unions have made similar vows in other... [More]
• AFL-CIO Links CEO Pay With Mortgage Crisis
  Brand new CEO pay numbers released by the AFL-CIO last month on its Executive PayWatch website, (www.paywatch.org) show how pay packages for top executives at financial companies helped create the sub-prime mortgage crisis. The PayWatch website includes a comprehensive database of scandalous overall CEO pay figures at American companies. These findings drive home how outrageous CEO... [More]