WA State JwJ Update and Local Workers' Rights Victories
November 2006
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Over the summer, many individuals made a much needed contribution to keep JwJ's critical organizing continuing. If you have already sent off your contribution, thank you!
Although we have already met 2005's mark, because of our continued South Sound expansion and increased mobilization capacity in MLK Jr. County, our goal for 2006 in much more ambitious. Please help us reach this goal by calling (206) 441-4969 to contribute via credit card, or mailing your contribution to PO Box 9662, Seattle, WA 98109-0662. You can also donate tax-deductible online through National JwJ.
Three quarters of our funding comes from local individuals like you and local democratically run organizations. We are an almost all-volunteer organization except for 3.5 full-time staff organizers for three counties, and have a small organizing expense budget. Even with these modest costs, our bills are over $100,000 per year. In the coming weeks, you should receive our fall newsletter with photos and updates about our actions this year. Please help us continue this important work by sending in your contribution.
On October 27th and 28th 550 activists and leaders from throughout the Puget Sound area joined together to support the work of WA State Jobs with Justice and to honor some of those who lead the movement for social justice. Thanks to strong support from both labor and community allies we are close to our goal of netting $35,000 income from tickets, ad books, a collection at the events, and the auctions.
In the South Sound we honored the organizers of the Hilltop "war costs" march and rally for exposing the impacts of the Iraq War on our local living wage jobs and social programs. We also honored Members of Teamsters 117 at Alan Ritchey Inc (ARI) and U.S. Rep. Adam Smith for advancing our right to organize and winning union recognition at ARI.
In the North and Central Sound, we honored Cingular Workers, members of the Communication Workers of America (CWA) for providing a model of labor relations that maintains workers' rights and dignity. Our second honoree was Martin Luther King Jr. County Executive Ron Sims for being one of a handful of elected officials to put himself on the line to support workers. The final honoree was El Comité Pro-Amnistía General y Justicia Social (The Committee for General Amnesty and Social Justice) for organizing the Puget Sound's immigrant community as well as educating the broader community about the needs of immigrant workers.
On September 11th the Bellingham City Council passed a six-month emergency moratorium on development of big-box retail stores of 100,000 square feet or greater after Wal-Mart announced plans to expand their current store into a super-center. On November 6th, the Bellingham City Council decided to retain this ban for the remaining four months despite pressure from opponents to cut it short. The purpose of the moratorium was to give city planners time to create standards for the city to prevent the many negative consequences that result from big-box retail developments.
Currently most communities only assess the environmental impacts of proposed developments but don't look at the impacts of large retail developments on net job loss or creation, the types of jobs created and their wages, the effects on destroying local businesses and whether the money from the development stays mainly in the community or whether it is sent to a large corporation in another part of the country.
Communities lack the tools to examine whether proposed large developments generate a net cost or benefit to taxpayers. Big box retail often increases traffic, necessitating more frequent road repair and possible road widening, may increase costs for police and fire and may cost taxpayers to provide publicly subsidized health care or other public benefits when employers do not provide a living wage or affordable health care. As a community we need to assess the economic and social impacts of big-box developments and decide whether those developments make good economic sense for us.
When Fircrest Mayor Viafore publicly announced that Wal-Mart was planning to build a Supercenter at the border of Tacoma, Fircrest, and UP, many questioned whether this bedroom community would roar. Over one year later:
--Streets are plastered with Fircrest Against Wal-Mart signs and the website gets about thirty thousand hits per month
--A majority of residents have canvassed each other with petitions opposing the Supercenter
block captains stand ready in a rapid response system
--Wal-Mart and the Fircrest City Council are deadly silent on the topic or pass rumors about its demise. We're still not sure if Wal-Mart is still lurking or got out of dodge.
This organizing success was no sure thing
An August 2005 TNT article quoted Mayor Viafore stating "this is exactly what the council anticipated in our vision for that site." Fircrest Council-members refused to speak about the plan or reveal their position, hiding behind a bogus legal gag order issued by themselves. Fircrest City officials made it difficult to acquire basic info about the status and Wal-Mart plans for the site. Wal-Mart mailed two postcards and conducted at least one phone poll to local residents to recruit their own "Astroturf" committee. Most worrisome, concerned residents expressed doubts that they could take on an inaccessible City Hall and fight this Wal-Mart plan. Even getting permission to discuss this issue in Fircrest facilities was an obstacle.
JwJ Launches Community Organizing
With the support of members of the retail workers union (UFCW Local 367) who live in the impacted community, our member organizations, and several courageous local elected leaders such as State Rep. Tami Green and UP Council-member Jean Brooks, Jobs with Justice then developed a plan and committed resources to build an autonomous local community-based group to fight the Wal-Mart Superstore plan. This West End group is now Fircrest Against Wal-Mart (FAW) and it has been busy as a beehive. Check out website: fircrestagainstwalmart.org. Not only has public opposition visibly galvanized, but neighboring governments such as Tacoma, UP and Tacoma Community College have challenged the impacts of the Wal-Mart Superstore. The campaign developed at least 50 coalition relationships with local civic, business, and religious entities, and assessed over 30 local elected or public official deciders. Opposition transcends political affiliation.
A local leader recently remarked, "Just saw a Fircrest Against Wal-Mart sticker on a truck with a Bush/Cheney '04 sticker. Miracles do happen...."
As Wal-Mart Superstore promotion has publicly vanished, community leaders are considering suspending FAW activity while JwJ and others look to a new phase in the Social Responsibility at Wal-Mart campaign. Wal-Mart has stirred a nest that is giving rise to an economic justice movement similar to the environmental movement that has given communities a voice in land use planning.
Days before JwJ, IFPTE 17, Communities for Public Health and other groups planned to rally outside of one of the soon to be closed public health clinics, King County government officials announced that temporary funding had been found to keep the Bothell and Northgate public health clinics open through half of 2007.
Prior to this announcement, Public Health of Seattle-King County had been proposing to close the North Seattle and Northshore (Bothell) Public Health and Dental Centers as a way to balance their budget. These clinics, along with other public health clinics in the county, provide affordable health care across King County, even for people without health insurance. Public Health provides immunizations, care for pregnant women, general family medicine, pediatric care, family planning and other critical services.
If these clinics are closed everyone in King County will feel the effects. Thousands of people will lose access to healthcare. Hundreds of workers will be laid off. With other clinics already operating at capacity, there will be no where to go but emergency rooms for these people to seek healthcare, driving up the cost of healthcare for the already insured.
After an outpouring of pressure from workers, patients and community members, King County Executive Ron Sims along with County Council Members Bob Ferguson and Julia Patterson were able to find temporary funding to keep these two clinics open. Stay tuned for upcoming actions and help make this temporary victory permanent!
When our tax dollars support mega-millionaire property deals, local workers should get good jobs and residents should get affordable housing. Unfortunately, that is not yet the case in Tacoma - until the Winthrop. Surely, this shift at the Winthrop did not arise because developers and politicians finally saw the light. It took members and allies of Jobs with Justice (JwJ) to put the light and heat on to get justice. Now we need to make this triple victory the Tacoma standard.
Here's the real story:
- It looked like the City of Tacoma would evict 200 low-income Winthrop residents right before Christmas to make way for a luxury hotel - just like what is happening to the hundreds of displaced residents in "New Tacoma." Now Winthrop residents can look forward to safe quality housing.
- It looked like another out-of-town developer would get a sweet downtown land deal only to strip good jobs from our local economy - just like other Hollander Investments projects. Now local residents can expect a fair shot at apprenticeship training programs, living wage construction jobs, and quality health benefits.
- It looked like another hotel catering to the wealthy would operate on the backs of poverty-wage immigrant labor - just like at the downtown Marriott Hotel. Now future hotel workers can get ready for full family healthcare, a pension, and a voice at work.
Last mid-December, City Manager of Tacoma Eric Anderson tried to condemn the Winthrop building and evict tenants. Word was that a poverty wage paying and anti-union developer was stalking the property to convert low-income housing into a luxury hotel.
This was an all too familiar recipe. Several years earlier, City officials had sold a million dollar prime piece of downtown for $300,000 to Hollander Investments (HI). City officials failed to require HI to develop responsibly. It was no surprise when HI construction started without hiring significantly from our local workforce, investing in training programs, and creating good jobs. Now a Marriott Hotel franchiser operates the property refusing to pay living wages and affordable family healthcare. When "New Tacoma" promoters complain of local poverty and crime impacting small business viability, we need not look any further than the business development model that prefers purging long-time low-income residents and pushing crime activity to East Tacoma rather than addressing the root causes.
Fortunately, community leadership and a better model rose up at Tacoma Catholic Worker (TCW).
Father Bichsel and Nora & Nick Leider enlisted JwJ to help organize Winthrop residents to find their public voice. JwJ Pierce County Organizing Committee co-Chair Wendy Hall helped pull together a Winthrop Town Hall meeting where City Manager Anderson had to back-pedal on the planned Christmas-time eviction when the Tacoma Fire Chief refused to show.
But City officials shifted strategies to blocking a low-income housing developer's plan to renovate the Winthrop. As the JwJ Executive Board representative to the religious community and the TCW Steering Rep to JwJ, Nick again appealed to our Organizing Committee to protest a City Council meeting. With Winthrop residents and TCW members leading the charge, we rallied at City Hall joined by several Council members, overflowed Council chambers with our red shirts during long Council delays and comments and debates and deliberation. Hotel workers union leaders (UNITE HERE Local 8) sat in the front row with bold union insignia and later spoke to the need for affordable housing and good jobs. While waiting until our issue arose last on the agenda, we witnessed the pattern of City leaders granting 10 year tax breaks to developers to build luxury homes for wealthy residents without any conditions on the kinds of jobs and substitute affordable housing this corporate welfare could create. Despite this ongoing wealth transfer practice to corporate developers, we made our point that day about the Winthrop.
The City Council has just approved a plan that will likely create substitute affordable housing for low-income Winthrop residents and create good jobs and training for local residents during the hotel conversion and operation .
We are still trying to confirm these conditions in writing and need to be vigilant that they are implemented. Vying Winthrop developers, Quig and Prium have notorious poverty-wage and anti-worker history in our state, but seem to want peace in Tacoma. We expect them to build with apprenticeship training opportunities for local residents and insure that substitute affordable housing will get built. Quig also circulated rumors about hotel operator Coast Hotels running the luxury facility. Coast has a history of recognizing workers rights even in anti-worker bastions as Wenatchee. Prium has yet to commit publicly how they would operate the hotel. The City came up with $2.5 million to help the low-income housing developer, AF Evans, to insure housing for the current residents regardless of whether the hotel deal goes through. Yet, much of these commitments are verbal for now and some of these developers have spotty track records when it comes to honoring their word. For example, AF Evans agreed to disclose to Winthrop residents any brewing developer deals but residents had to learn from the newspaper about the latest deal between AF Evans and Prium cooking since September. We will need to hold the parties to their words so expect more rockin' and rollin'.
While corporate wealth transfer continues as official City policy to this day, our challenge will be to make the Winthrop victory the standard rather than the exception in Tacoma.
See Background from previous victory emails July, 2006 and May, 2006.
(Pictured to the right: JwJ/AFGE leaders, and Rep. Inslee celebrate after the NSPS defunding vote in the House)
Our Nation is More Secure When... workers have a voice at work, earn living wages, and access affordable healthcare. After many defeats, President Bush has abandoned one main strategy to strip Homeland Security (DHS) and most other federal workers of the human right to collective bargaining. Many federal workers through their unions have teamed with Jobs with Justice (JwJ) to fight back against this slave-master model. Meanwhile, federal appeal courts have disagreed with Bush declaring unions incompatible with "national security." Recently, Bush quietly let slip the last court appeal deadline and conceded a failed tact.
The Bush-DHS Administration now hopes to achieve their goals by shifting from a dictator model to a respectful dialogue with the workforce. "We're OK with that because it allows the department to move forward in implementing our labor relations flexibilities rather than spending additional time in the litigation process? What we're going to do moving forward is sit down with our component agencies, sit down with the unions, and discuss how we move forward and where we go from here," said Larry Orluskie, a DHS spokesperson.
As Our Momentum Grows, Will the Other Shoe (NSPS) Drop?
JwJ will monitor how respectful this shift really is while we continue our campaign to defeat the parallel attack on 650,000 Department of Defense workers, an attack called the National Personnel Security System (NSPS). Tens of thousands of these workers live in our state and work at bases such as Fort Lewis, McCord, and Bremerton Naval Yard.
Washington State JwJ has played a leading national role in mobilizing support for federal workers and in helping American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) develop into a fighting force. Over 15 JwJ & AFGE local events are modeling for a growing federal worker rights national campaign. These events forced Rumsfeld to postpone the NSPS to address worker criticism and popular opinion in the "defense community." Meanwhile, the grassroots pressure has powered the House of Congress to strip funding from the NSPS, led by WA state Congressperson Jay Inslee. We do not yet know the final outcome as Congress failed to resolve Defense Appropriations before recessing until after the election.
King Rumsfeld
On the Department of Defense side, the Bush Administration still has its steamroller in full gear. The Pentagon's top personnel official, David Chu, said that Bush's battle to ravage collective bargaining rights through NSPS is far from over, despite the loss at Homeland Security. "What's at stake here is, 'What does collective bargaining mean in the federal government?' " Chu said. "What the statute invited us to do, at least as we interpret it, is to give the Secretary (Rumsfeld) the last word in terms of collective bargaining processes. The unions obviously are opposed to that system. We think it's essential for national security."
Chu has stated he might take Bush's new definition of "collective bargaining" to the Supreme Court or back to Congress. If Rumsfeld has the last word, that's not bargaining. It's not even begging according to seasoned Generals fed up with Rumsfeld's inability to listen. Stay tuned for future action to defend our democracy and worker rights.
Background and Sources
When workers at the Auburn Alan Ritchey Inc (ARI) plant started to address issues of respect back in 2004, none could guess what they might endure in the next two years. After all, the human right to a voice at work is recognized by the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights and, at one time, was enshrined in US law.
These ARI workers as members of Teamsters Local 117 just recently achieved a binding union contract for fair treatment, family-friendly scheduling, safer and healthier production speeds, and retirement with dignity (the coveted Teamster pension). Yet, no worker should have to experience what these ARI workers did to get to this great victory.
ARI workers faced attacks on livelihood and mental terrorism that reflect a national human rights epidemic. Managers regularly followed and timed workers in toilet stalls, fired and harassed union leaders, and pitted immigrant worker groups against each other. ARI's nationally notorious union-busting consultant Jackson Lewis orchestrated captive audience lectures divided by racial group but not necessarily language. Manager surveillance and interrogation on the shop floor was so intense that it physically interfered with workers' personal space and job duties. After workers won union recognition and during negotiations, managers fired two elected bargaining committee reps and disciplined many others. According to ARI's own records before its anti-union crusade, one fired union leader was the most productive in the plant and many others were model employees. Sadly, the federal Labor Board (NLRB) indicted ARI on close to 30 unfair labor practices but is powerless to stop the rampage that lasted over one year.
It took the collective courage of this special group of workers, the strategic smarts of Teamsters 117 leaders, broad community support, and an active of Congress literally to win justice. US Rep. Adam Smith helped organize every other Western Washington elected Congress leader to expose the truth about ARI, a federal contractor. Jobs with Justice helped mobilize community support to ARI workers and to shame managers for morally intolerable conduct. ARI, which exists off our tax dollars to repair US Postal equipment, had to restrain their conduct several times and only incrementally did the right thing. Now, Teamster 117 members at ARI can say farewell to an assumed-fault attendance policy that required one worker to make a daily call to ARI while on approved unpaid leave in Cambodia to see his spouse. They don't have to fear harsh discipline for injuries on the job or for seldom overtime refusal or for petty tardiness when meeting childcare needs. They can moderate sweatshop production standards that lead to significant repetitive motion injuries.
Still, something is not right when it takes nearly two years of difficult struggle to achieve a fair contract with a national employer that is directly accountable to our elected federal leaders. In fact, the ARI worker experience is part of national epidemic of human rights violations in our nations' workplaces, according to recent published reports by Human Rights Watch. At least every 20 minutes, a US worker is disciplined for organizing. When workers start an organizing campaign, 91% of all bosses force workers to attend one-on-one mandatory anti-union lectures by their managers. The good news is there is a better way and nobody should have to endure this inhumane treatment, especially in our community.
Many workers are now forming unions freely when employers agree to stay out of workers' union choices and recognize a neutrally verified majority of union cards (called "Card Check"). This is how thousands of local Cingular workers are organizing with the CWA union. We are honoring these workers tomorrow night at the Seattle dinner. In our state, US Rep. Adam Smith is helping lead efforts to implement this better way of respecting workers' human rights by reforming our broken labor laws with the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). We are a few votes shy of majority in the House. Many Republicans and every Western Washington Congress Member have endorsed EFCA except US. Rep. Dave Reichert.
US Rep. Adam Smith has also challenged other federal government anti-worker attacks and union-busting. Adam's office has stood on picket lines with federal workers protesting the National Security Personnel System. He has confronted the federal Labor Board attempt to declare 8 million workers as "supervisors" and thus without worker rights to organize. In recent years, we see Adam more involved in the nitty-gritty of local worker rallies and protests to achieve workplace respect. We look forward to an ever broader movement for worker rights with Adam as we reverse the tide of corporate union-busting lead by locally operating companies such as Wal-Mart, Quadrant, Verizon, and Marriott.
When U.S. and Korean trade negotiators arrived in Seattle in September, they were met in the streets with a protest of over a thousand workers, community activists, as well as a delegation of Korean trade unionists, farmers, and other civil society representatives. JwJ mobilized activists from two different counties for this action, as well as providing critical support for other smaller actions occurring through out the week.
Militant protests in the U.S. and Korea have helped stall negotiations, and have forced trade negotiators to conduct their talks in more remote locations in hopes of hiding from public opinion. Initial talks were held in Washington D.C., Seoul and Seattle. The latest round of talks were held in Jeju, a small isolated island province off the Korean mainland. The next round of talks in the United States will be in Big Sky, a town of 1200 people situated in rural Montana. This duck and cover mentality of U.S. and Korean government officials has failed to produce results despite holding negotiations on a rural island, talks have stalled.
Many Americans saw their jobs disappear after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed with Canada and Mexico. In Washington State alone, more than 45,000 jobs were lost due to trade after NAFTA was passed. Meanwhile, workers in Mexico were handed the hard labor without the pay or benefits. The people of Mexico have seen nothing of the economic prosperity that they were promised with NAFTA. Instead we see worsening urban poverty and a growing gap between the rich and the poor. Millions of Mexican migrant workers, facing these conditions, cross the border in search of work and face exploitation, discrimination, and marginalization in this country. This is the reality that faces the Korean people as well, along with millions of others displaced by neoliberal globalization.
The suffering of workers and farmers in other countries only makes the situation for American people worse. People whose way of life in their homeland was destroyed by corporations in pursuit of profit are forced to seek other ways to survive. If they cannot do so at home, they have no choice - if they want to feed their children, they must come to America. Once here, many employers are delighted to pay them only a fraction of what they deserve. Families are torn apart and children are forced to live without their parents. Year after year of unending work at bottom wages goes by without a father or mother being able to kiss a precious daughter or son. And their suffering makes the long struggle of American workers for decent pay that much harder and more heart-breaking.
Effects of the trade agreement on Korean Workers:
- Rice is at the heart of Korean farming and Korean culture. Many of South Korea's 3.5 million small rice farmers, already struggling, will be forced into bankruptcy by corporate agribusiness dumping their products, destroying Korea's long heritage of rice cultivation. By getting rid of tariffs in South Korea but not of US government subsidies for agribusiness here, small farmers in both South Korea and the US lose out to giant corporate agribusiness.
- The proud tradition of South Korean workers' struggle for their human rights is under sharp attack. The FTA is the latest weapon of South Korean and American corporate conglomerates to cut wages, eliminate jobs at will, and exponentially increase the numbers of temporary workers with no benefits and no security. We want to support the working people of Korea in their quest for fair wages and in their determination to live lives of dignity and peace. As the famous labor leader Chun Tae-Il said as he set his body afire in protest suicide against horrendous working conditions, "We are not Machines!" That was in 1970, and year after year Korean workers, including many trade union leaders, are still compelled to kill themselves in protest, the most recent being Mr. Lee Seung Dae in March of this year.
- Regulations that encourage consumers to buy cars with smaller engines, protecting the environment, will be abolished.
- The FTA will open the door for the dumping of US brand-name drugs, destroying the hope for affordable, life-saving medicine for senior citizens and everyone suffering from illness.
Please welcome Rachel Schwartz who will be interning with us through June 2006 from the UW School of Social Work Master program. She will be with us 2 days a week starting in January. We're so excited to have her working with us!
Finally, JwJ staff and leaders would like to wish former JwJ Staff Organizer Maya Baxter the best at her new position at Statewide Poverty Action Network (SPAN) and thank her for her many years of hard work and dedication to working towards social and economic justice for working people in Washington State. In addition to her new job, Maya will be serving as SPAN's steering committee representative to JwJ. A hiring committee is currently working to fill the staff organizer vacancy at JwJ.
We need our combined volunteer activism and funding to continue to build a better world. Please support WA State JwJ!
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