The 800 office-technical and administrative-technical employees in Tulsa, Okla., now have a voice on the job after joining AFSCME Local 1180.

Says Laureen Gilroy, who works in the city’s Public Works Department:

Forming a union is our legal and democratic right, and we decided to exercise that right. Having a union means that we can work to improve conditions on the job and give employees a voice at work.

A majority of the employees submitted union interest ballots to the state’s Public Employees Relations Board this month. State law allows municipal employees in Oklahoma cities with populations of more than 35,000 to form unions.

Local 1180 President Mark Stodghill said he is proud to have the employees join the union.

They have gone much too long without a strong, organized voice in the workplace. Now it’s time that the union members of this new unit all roll up their sleeves and get their first contract to cement their rights as employees represented by a union.

The new union members join the city’s 911 operators, airport police and municipal labor and trades employees as members of Local 1180.

(crossposted from the AFL-CIO Now Blog)

You’ve heard the union slogan, ‘the folks that brought you the weekend.’ Well, the labor movement has helped make possible not just a few days off, but a wide range of benefits and rights that we all too often take for granted.

A clever blog post illustrates what unions and their allies have done through the eyes of an average guy somewhere in America. It’s worth a read:

Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised. All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry. …

Real the full story at Union Review.

If given the chance, says the AFL-CIO, 60 million American workers say they would join a union. Now we have unbiased evidence of just how true this is: Union membership in the United States grew – overall – by 311,000 members last year, according to this report by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As noted in Think Progress, this is the first increase in 25 years and the largest single-year increase in overall membership since 1979 – a jump from 12.0 percent in 2006 to 12.1 percent in 2007. That growth – led by health services – happened despite significant employer opposition. That’s what happened to employees of Walker Methodist Health Center in Minnesota, as reported last year in this AFSCME WORKS cover story.

Last year, 48,000 workers chose AFSCME as their union. In a statement, AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee says:

“AFSCME’s growth, which has been consistent even during challenging times, is now part of a broader trend that’s spreading throughout the union movement.”

We’re reassured that workers are organizing in ever-greater numbers, but we’ve got to end the harassment. We need to keep up the pressure on Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which will makes it easier – and more fair – for workers to form and join unions. Read more about this great news at the AFL-CIO blog.

Richard Womack, an assistant to AFL-CIO Pres. John Sweeney, is the latest recipient of the Bill Lucy Lifetime Achievement Award.

As Womack said:

“I was surprised and honored that they were considering me. I consider Bill Lucy to be the consummate labor statesman because of the stands he has taken over the years to enhance the lives of working people both in this country and around the world.”

Named after AFSCME International Secretary-Treasurer and Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) Pres. William Lucy , the recognition is given to a trade unionist whose life work demonstrates a commitment to activism and engagement on behalf of working people. It is presented by the Memphis, Tenn., regional chapter of the CBTU .

To read more, see the post on the AFL-CIO blog.

Corrections officers, child care providers, first responders, health care workers and now bank employees. That’s right, bank employees. Meet the new members of the 1.4 million AFSCME family in one of our latest Online Xtras detailing how 500 tellers and other white-collar employees of U.S. Bank in Milwaukee voted overwhelmingly to join AFSCME Council 48.

While you’re at it, check out the latest on AFSCME members in action as corrections officers from Local 3361 (Council 75) in
Oregon fight to secure safer conditions at work – and win.

Over the past few years, the misleadingly-named National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has made sure to let workers know which side its bread is buttered on. Officially charged with governing relations between unions and employers, the NLRB has all too often stacked the deck in favor of management. That’s why some people think a better name for the NLRB is the “No Labor Relations Board.”

With four of its five members appointed by President Bush, the board has made it harder for workers to join unions but easier for employers to block unions and fire workers for organizing. In one of its more infamous rulings, the NLRB reinterpreted the definition of “supervisor,” expanding the number and type of workers who could be barred from joining a union. The decision affected thousands of workers, including the nearly 60,000 nurses represented by AFSCME in 35 states and the District of Columbia.

Today, Nov. 15, thousands of workers, union leaders and activists in over 20 cities will rally at NLRB offices to protest the board’s egregious actions. Participants will call for the board to be “closed for renovations” until it is capable of operating in an unbiased and responsible manner.

The rallies are part of a nationwide week of action to raise awareness of the NLRB’s assault on workers’ rights. More than 1,000 people are expected to converge in front of the NLRB headquarters in Washington, D.C. For more information on events in your area, contact your central labor council.

It was only a year ago that the Bush-appointed and Republican-dominated National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) denied millions of men and women the chance to bargain for a better future. The infamous party-line vote on the so-called “Kentucky River” cases reinterpreted the definition of “supervisor,” expanding the number and type of workers who could be classified as such – and be barred from joining a union.

The decision affected numerous workers, including thousands of nurses who coordinate the work of other employees to deliver services. According to NLRB-speak, they are now “supervisors,” a decision that does not bode well for the nearly 60,000 nurses represented by AFSCME in 35 states and the District of Columbia. The sheer absurdity of the situation prompted this outrageous spoof by comedian Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.”

Enter the RESPECT Act, a bipartisan initiative to redress the NLRB’s decision and allow more than eight million workers to regain their right to join a union. The Re-Empowerment of Skilled and Professional Employees and Construction Tradeworkers Act was recently passed by the House Education and Labor Committee and is now headed for debate in the full House of Representatives. It presently has 149 co-sponsors (and counting).

It’s time to restore the American Dream for working families. After all, it’s just a matter of RESPECT.

More and more workers want to assert their right to bargain for a better future. Like the song says, “Who you gonna call?” The answer, for many companies, is simple: Union busters!

As the cover story of the latest issue of In These Times reports, union busting “has become a multibillion-dollar industry encompassing more than 2,500 lawyers and consultants offering their services.”

One such outfit is Jackson Lewis, which Steve Perez describes in his Daily Kos diary as “one of the go-to law firms” in the blossoming field of “union prevention” (a.k.a. denying workers their right to organize).

To find out more about Jackson Lewis and the dirty tricks of union busters, check out this must-read In These Times article.

Never mind the doomsayers. In spite of the Bush administration’s repeated efforts to undermine union membership, the labor movement remains strong.

According to documents filed with the U.S. Labor Department, between 2004 and 2006 AFL-CIO unions grew by a combined 1.42 percent, a net growth of 136,000 members. Leading the pack is AFSCME, which gained more than 120,000 members. Numerous workers joined AFSCME during the period, including child care providers in New York, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin, bus drivers in Indiana and thousands more across the country.

Imagine what would happen if workers were actually free to join unions and didn’t have to fight tooth and nail to assert their right to bargain for a better future. Just take a look at some examples of organizing amid employer intimidation from this recent issue of AFSCME WORKS magazine. Remember that over 60 percent of Americans approve of labor unions and some 60 million workers say they would be part of one if they could.

This is why we support the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), an initiative to allow people to join unions – either by ballot elections or majority sign-up – without employer interference. This is also why supporting a candidate that’s friendly to working families will be so important in ’08.

We’ve come to expect greedy execs at for profit corporations (Home Depot, Enron, etc.) but you’d expect better from a Catholic non-profit hospital.

Unfortunately, Resurrection Health Care, a Catholic hospital system in Chicago, seems to be taking on the worst traits of corporate America. Read all about it in the report “Coming Up Short: Resurrection Health Care’s Distorted Pay Priorities.”

Released by AFSCME Council 31 last week, the report documents the stark disparity between the compensation of top executives and the low wages paid to patient-support staff on the frontlines of hospital health and safety.

You can listen to a story about the report and Resurrection workers’ struggle on the Workers Independent News radio network.

Father Larry Dowling, a supporter of the workers trying to form a union at Resurrection and interviewed in the WIN story, said it well:

Catholic social teaching is very clear about the need for employers to pay a living wage and respect workers’ rights to organize a union. These low wages are an embarrassment - an embarrassment - for a Catholic institution.