NAME: Ira Grupper
EMAIL: irag@iglou.com
DATE: 02/10/2008
TITLE: Labor Paeans
LABOR PAEANS—February 2008
by Ira Grupper
(published by FORsooth, newspaper of Louisville, Kentucky chapter of F.O.R. [Fellowship of Reconciliation] )
Let’s talk about business ethics. “(In December) the European Commission fined DuPont, Dow Chemical Co. and other global chemical producers for fixing prices in Europe related to production of chloroprene rubber. The Commission alleged the companies engaged in a price-fixing cartel between 1992 and 1993.” (Louisville Courier-Journal 12-13-07). This wasn’t the first time DuPont has been accused of wrongdoing.
PACE International Union represented workers in the oil, chemical, pulp and paper, pharmaceutical, atomic, kaolin, auto parts and corn milling industries (It has since merged with the United Steelworkers). It issued a press release almost five years ago (March 17, 2003): “Members of (PACE) Local 1-6992 at DuPont’s Yerkes Plant in Buffalo, New York were shocked to learn that the company-sponsored training program they recently completed was not state certified. Even worse, DuPont awarded the workers forged copies of the New York state certificates in a sham ceremony.
" ‘Obviously, we are disappointed in DuPont’s actions, but really this is just part of a bigger trend regarding DuPont’s ill-treatment of its workers, regardless if you are a in a union or not,’ said Gary Cook, PACE Region I Vice-President and co-chair of the union-affiliated DuPont Council. ‘It has been PACE’s experience that as workers gather the courage to gain a voice at work, DuPont management grows increasingly hostile towards them.’…
“The Yerkes workers joined the company’s training program for electricians and millwrights in 1998…Graduates are considered skilled craftsmen with licensed credentials on which employers can depend…DuPont lost its state certification in 1999, but kept operating the programs. The value of state certification for a marketable skill was not lost on the worker- participants. The workers sacrificed their family’s income as they took eight dollar-an-hour pay cuts and were not allowed overtime opportunities.”
The News-Journal (Wilmington DE) reported on January 20, 2005: “DuPont Dow Elastomers LLC (DDE) pleaded guilty to a felony antitrust charge and agreed to pay an $84 million fine for price fixing of the synthetic rubber Neoprene, the U.S. Department of Justice announced...
“The Wilmington-based rubber company also disclosed…it had agreed to a $25.4 million settlement of a civil class action suit charging price-fixing for another form of synthetic rubber, known as EPDM…
“DuPont and Dow joined forces in 1996 to create DDE, but its rubber sales were slower than expected.” Dow pulled out.
And, now, Louisville, where, at one time 2,400 people earned their livelihoods at DuPont, will see 226 jobs disappear by March, as the company “move(s) its synthetic rubber production operation to a non-union facility in LaPlace, La…DuPont will continue operations of a separate factory that employs about 180 making Freon gas.” (Louisville Courier-Journal 12-13-07).
The jobs to be eliminated paid $25-$29 an hour, and these workers now join the 15,000 Louisville industrial workers thrown out in the cold in the last ten years. This number swells when added to the huge number of displaced victims of rust-belt capital accumulators fleeing union towns, who have already been forced into the growing numbers of working and non-working poor.
Your humble correspondent covered extensively the wall the United Auto Workers (UAW) has been put up against (see October 2007 column). The UAW is allowing GM, Ford and Chrysler to pay it a lump sum, and then dump health care coverage for hourly employees and retirees on the union (the so-called VEBA health care trusts). It is also permitting a two-tier wage system, with new hires getting lower wages than in times past.
“…Labor experts say the four-year contracts with General Motors, Ford and Chrysler are indeed transformational. And they could reverberate throughout the manufacturing sector and even into the public sector as companies and government bodies look for ways to alter cost structures.” (Louisville Courier-Journal Dec.16, 2007).
Since contracts with auto are often copied by other unions, this does not bode well. The “alter cost structures” part of the above quote effectively means working class folk having to alter life structures, like balanced meals, new clothing for our children and more.
In fairness, the UAW was in a terrible dilemma. Sign the contract and Ford says it will keep Explorer SUV production in Louisville. Don’t sign it, and Ford will not keep it here. The union signed it. Let’s see if the jobs situation improves, or even stays the same.
. . . . . . . .Are you ready for some good news? The Kentucky Nurses Association and the West Virginia Nurses Association won a bitter strike lasting almost three months against the hospitals owned by ARH (Appalachian Regional Healthcare).
A KY AFL-CIO press release comments: “Like the black veins of coal that course beneath the surface of Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia, the roots of trade unionism run deep within the veins of the workers and the communities of the region. The depth of these trade union roots were measured (by the strike).”
Your columnist called Dale Martin of West Virginia Nurses Association, to ask what the most significant gains were that this strike won. “We won an increase in staffing levels, elimination of mandatory overtime, and we strengthened seniority rights. If (ARH) decides to sell its assets, the contract we negotiated will follow thru to the new (owner). All nurses will return to work by March.”
With about 4,000 employees, ARH wields significant influence on employment opportunities in the region and, if successful at union-busting, would have severely undermined the influence of organized labor in the region, a region considered to be a crucible of the American labor movement.
This may well have a good effect on Norton Audubon Hospital here in Louisville, which will face a court-ordered union representation election in the near future.
Remember when nurses, and other hospital workers, were brainwashed to think they were well-taken-care-of-professionals, and not workers? Whose first duty was to their patients, not to themselves? The times, they are a-changin’, with assaults on patient care and union rights being vigorously resisted.
Not only are people’s common humanity trod upon by vested interests, but discrimination is, alas, still alive and well. Kentucky State House Bill 4 will prohibit employers from paying employees different wages for "equivalent jobs" based on sex, race, or national origin. The bill provides exceptions for jobs whose pay differentials are based on seniority or merit systems, or systems that measure wages by quantity or quality of production, and factors other than sex, race, or national origin.
A second piece of legislation, House Bill 274 will prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Both bills were introduced by Rep. Mary Lou Marzian (D-Louisvile).
But isn’t mistreatment based on gender really a thing of the past? Courtney Prince, former captain of the Ranger City Skaters, filed suit in 2004, claiming New York City’s Madison Square Garden “was a virtual frathouse where male executives treated cheerleaders like sex objects.” (NY Daily News, Dec. 27, 2007).
Both sides gave the identical information to the press: "We resolved this matter with no admission of wrongdoing on the part of any party." Your scribe, in the 1980’s, chaired the Anti-Discrimination Panel of the Louisville and Jefferson County Human Relations Commission. The prized “conciliation agreements” we won basically had an offending company saying: we haven’t done anything wrong, but we promise not to do it again. And here’s some money, back pay, etc. And, with this agreement, you can’t sue us in court!
“The Garden vigorously fought the allegations, rejecting an $800,000 deal proposed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and questioning Prince's mental health in court papers.”
The agreement came soon “after the Garden agreed to pay $11.5 million to settle a suit by former Knicks exec Anucha Browne Sanders…By settling, the Garden avoided a public trial that would have been chock-full of explosive testimony about sexually charged shenanigans off the ice.”
In the Prince case, The N.Y. Daily News continues, “The Rangers launched a vicious counterattack, alleging in court papers that Prince suffered from bipolar disorder and was prone to ‘hypersexuality.’ "
Contact Ira Grupper: irag@iglou.com
March, 2007 Newspaper
http://www.ccds.org/newsletters/labor_paeans_Mar07.html
February, 2007 Newspaper
http://www.ccds.org/newsletters/labor_paeans_feb07.html