The recent New York City transit strike has proven that some unions no longer value the well-being of their fellow citizens.
While the strike was ostensibly against the Transit Authority, it was – in fact – a strike against the people of New York as well as against retail merchants.
Hourly workers were forced to pay extraordinary sums to get to work, which significantly reduced their take-home pay. In addition, retailers depend on the enormous sales volume of the Christmas buying season. Having eliminated three-days of that shopping season just prior to Christmas, the striking transit workers were the cause of a dramatic fall-off in sales. Merchants simply did not ring up the sales they needed.
As if all that were not sufficient damage, the tax payers of New York will now have to pay for the increased wages of the transit workers, all of whom receive generous health care benefits as well as pensions that they can begin collecting at age 55! How many working class New Yorkers would like to change places with the transit workers and receive those generous wages, benefits and pensions?
The New York City transit strike has fully demonstrated the bankruptcy of civil service unions, of their contempt for the public’s well-being!
After seeing the chaos and enormous economic dislocations caused by the New York Transit Workers strike, municipalities are considering the effects of privatizing public transportation.
If such a movement gains momentum, it would mean that cities would have different privately or publicly held transportation companies, so that if the workers at one company went out on strike, it would not affect competitive companies. Indeed, it might even serve to reduce the possibilities of strikes. Furthermore, if individual companies controlled public transportation, as in the airline industry, municipalities and tax payers would no longer bear the burden of funding enormous pension plans and the high cost of medical insurance.
Privatizing public transportation companies would place them within the structure of a free-market economy, where they would have to operate as do other companies.
And, by the way, when the New York City subway system began, it consisted of several different companies that owned different subway lines, such as the BMT, IRT, and IND, and they operated efficiently and profitably.
Citizens Financial Group Inc., which is based in Providence, Rhode Island and is the second-largest bank in New England, has lost its appeal of an NLRB ruling. A federal appeals court in Washington, DC found that the bank had illegally fired a Dreyfus Investment Services employee, Christopher Haywood, who had organized gatherings where attendees complained about their wages. Citizens had acquired Dreyfus in 2001, and fired Haywood in 2002.
The court stated that the bank had acted illegally by firing Haywood for promoting “concerted activities” to discuss compensation. The court denied the petition for review with the words, “there was substantial evidence to support the board’s finding that Hayward’s protected concerted activity was a motivating factor in the company’s decision to discharge him.” The court further affirmed that Haywood be reinstated, his termination be removed from his personnel records, and that he receive full compensation for time lost.
All corporations, whether dealing with blue collar or white collar employees, must have a labor relations action plan in place so that terminations will be successfully upheld and so that management can deal with labor relations problems before they arise.
In New Jersey a group of janitors, who had been fired from their jobs at Linens ‘n’ Things after the company hired Janitorial Environmental Services, were re-instated following a ruling by the National Labor Relations Board.
An administrative law judge ruled that Janitorial Environmental Services of Morris Plains, New Jersey had terminated the janitors’ employment because they were members of the Service Employees International Union.
Now the company must not only reinstate the janitors, but it must also pay them their contractual wages, pay them for their lost wages, and renegotiate a new contract. The janitors currently earn $7.75 an hour and their pay will rise to $10 an hour before their contract expires in 2007.
Management should take actions that are based only upon an effective and well-crafted labor relations action plan. Such a plan would minimize the chances of litigation.
Miners at the Peabody Energy Corporation want to join a union without going through the NLRB and without holding representation elections at individual mines. The United Mine Workers of America apparently has no faith in the NLRB. Only 35% of the Peabody’s workforce is unionized, yet 85% of Peabody’s production is from non-union mines. Obviously, miners feel they can be more productive without a union in place, which must frustrate organizers. In a recent vote, in fact, miners at Peabody rejected union representation.
The AFL-CIO is supporting the tactics of the UMWA because it believes that by excluding the NLRB from the process, it will succeed in finally unionizing all the miners at Peabody.
Corporate America needs to be alert to tactics that undermine the National Labor Relations Act as those tactics are being used by ever more desperate unions who find themselves out of the mainstream.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has charged Starbucks, the 10,550 espresso bar chain, with violations of the federal law.
In response to complaints leveled by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which has been assiduously working to unionize stores in New York City, the NLRB asserted that the chain has violated federal law by engaging in unfair labor practices. It noted that employees had been fired for pro-union activities, and managers had conducted surveillances of employees.
It is odd that a sophisticated company would run afoul of the National Labor Relations Act. Large companies that are the targets of union-organizing efforts have labor-relations experts to guide them through the intricacies of staying union free without violating local and federal labor laws.
A three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ended Milwaukee County’s five-year old labor peace ordinance, overturning a lower court decision.
The Ordinance, which was passed in 2000, required written agreements from businesses that provide more than $250,000 in service contracts to county departments.
The agreements were to allow labor unions to organize a contractor’s employees without the employer interference. In addition the agreements prohibited employers from disseminating misleading information. For unions and workers, the agreement prohibited union organizers from striking or promoting slowdowns during the organizing drive.
The Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce argued that the agreements favored the union’s side and obviated the authority of the National Labor Relations Act. The National Labor Relations Board agreed with the business group.
Judge Richard Posner of the Court of Appeals wrote that the county’s claims are “a pretext to regulate the labor
A three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ended Milwaukee County’s five-year old “labor peace ordinance,” overturning a lower court decision.
The Ordinance, which was passed in 2000, required written agreements from businesses that provide more than $250,000 in service contracts to county departments.
The agreements were to allow labor unions to organize a contractor’s employees without employer interference. In addition the agreements prohibited employers from disseminating misleading information. For unions and workers, the agreement prohibited union organizers from striking or promoting slowdowns during an organizing drive.
The Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce argued that the agreements favored the union’s side and obviated the authority of the National Labor Relations Act. The National Labor Relations Board agreed with the business group.
Judge Richard Posner, of the Court of Appeals, wrote that the county’s claims are “a pretext to regulate the labor relations of companies that happen, perhaps quite incidentally, to do some county work.”