Labor Union Staff

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Comment by Denise Doherty on February 4, 2011 at 17:01

CEP 3011, of which I am a member, voted strongly in favour of a strike mandate against our employer PIPSC, a union itself. Now we are on strike watch: CEP 3011/PIPSC conciliation failed, mediation is scheduled for Feb 17^th, 2011. We will be in a legal right to strike position as of February 26th. Our awesome team is prepared to continue discussing all outstanding issues; a new classification scheme by the employer, loss of terminable allowances, economic increases, and pensions.

Comment by Lorenzo Canizares on January 19, 2011 at 14:36

I am in PSEA. I fully understand the predicament of the colleague at CSEA.

Comment by Blaine Donais on December 19, 2010 at 19:14

Hi Ken:  would the union sponsor a Canadian to do the work?  I ask because I have a friend in mind who might be interested.  He lives in Toronto but might be prepared to move.

Comment by Ken Margolies on December 19, 2010 at 19:02

Job announcement:

Member Programs & Participation Department, includes teams for: leadership development programs , collective bargaining/employer relations, field canvass (a member internship), member communications , data systems , and the Member Resource Center: . The Department is innovating new ways to increase rank-and-file union participation and leader roles.

Salary range is $65,000 to $75,000 annually, depending on experience. Benefits include fully employer-paid family benefits (includes domestic partner) for health, dental, pharmacy and vision coverage, fully employer-paid defined benefit pension (SEIU), disability and life insurance, a generous leave package, car allowance, an optional 401(K) plan, and other benefits

contact Ken Margolies kam47@cornell.edu 845 809 5591 for more information or to apply

Comment by John Pietaro on November 17, 2010 at 15:04

Hey all-----my piece JOHN REED: THE WRITER AS REVOLUTIONARY was just published in 'Political Affairs'. If you are an artist of conscience involved in any genre, I urge you to check it out. We need to reconsider our roles as movement cultural workers, the model of which John Reed helped to create so many years ago.
jp--
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/john-reed-the-writer-as-revolutionary/

Comment by Carlo Tarantola on November 11, 2010 at 22:54

This to me is another example of the stunning hypocrisy demonstrated by the Management of Labor/trade unions, NGO’s and nonprofits.
It seems that because these organizations (my own, CSEA, included) attract dedicated employees that are passionate about their work, they feel they can exploit and abuse them.
The rallying cry should be “Walk the Talk”

Comment by Christopher Land-Kazlauskas on November 9, 2010 at 20:06

Thought this might be of interest to this group. We're not technically "Labor Union Staff" but I thought the struggle of the ILO Staff to ensure respect for collective bargaining and freedom of association might be of interest here:

International Labour Organization staff demand decent working conditions

ILO workers take historic global job action

(Geneva, Switzerland) Workers at the United Nations agency responsible for ensuring that governments and employers uphold international labour standards say that their own employer is not abiding by the decent work principles it espouses.

Staff at the Geneva headquarters and more than 50 field offices of the International Labour Organization will begin a global job action on Wednesday 10 November to press their demands that management comply with freedom of association and collective bargaining rights, and ensure fair hiring processes and job security for employees. The start of this first worldwide staff action in the ILO’s 90 year history will coincide with an ILO Governing Body meeting that brings together country government, worker and employer representatives.

One of the pillars of the ILO’s flagship Decent Work campaign is to address the increasing demand of employers for flexible working conditions “while responding to the legitimate demands of individuals and of societies for security, in terms of access to employment, working conditions, pensions and other forms of social protection.”

However, the ILO Staff Union charges that the ILO itself refuses to enter into good-faith negotiations and has not respected the legally-negotiated rules governing recruitment and selection processes and the use of precarious contracts. The use of precarious work contracts within the ILO system has increased sharply in recent years, while pressures to reduce operating budgets continue.

“As international civil servants, we see first-hand what is happening in our member states. We are not immune to these global realities, and by no means do we expect to be,” says Christopher Land-Kazlauskas, chairperson of the ILO Staff Union Committee. “However, at a time when the ILO is called upon to respond to the global financial crisis, and is promoting international labour standards and social dialogue as a means to finding solutions, we believe it is hypocritical that the ILO cannot apply inside its own walls the policies that it promotes to the G-20, to the International Monetary Fund and to governments, employers and workers the world over.”

Further, the Staff Union alleges that the ILO has violated freedom of association rights, including censoring the union’s communications and interfering with it’s right to hire its own staff.

“Under such conditions, true collective bargaining cannot exist,” Land-Kazlauskas says. “And under these circumstances the very real problems affecting our workforce globally, from security concerns for our field-based staff, to discrimination and an explosion in precarious employment, cannot be resolved.”

As a result, the ILO Staff Union has called an Extraordinary General Meeting on Wednesday, 10 November 2010 at 14:00 in Room IX of the ILO Headquarters Building to take decisions on the industrial action to be carried out during the Governing Body and beyond.

The ILO is a tripartite organization representing governments, workers and employers of 183 member states. Its work is founded on principles of social justice, social dialogue and promotion of decent working conditions. It has adopted 188 conventions on all aspects of employment and work, including fundamental Conventions on Freedom of Association and the right to collective bargaining. Approximately 3000 employees work in ILO offices around the world.

ENDS

Media, please contact:
ILO Staff Union, Geneva
Tel. +41 22 799 79 58
Email: syndicat@ilo.org

Please note that due to UN employment restrictions, individual staff may not be able to comment publicly on these issues.

Comment by Carlo Tarantola on November 5, 2010 at 6:26

Aussie members, I will be in Melbourne over Christmas (to visit my Mum) Dec. 24 to Jan 4. It would be great if we could meet up one day touch base and say hello.
Carlo.

Comment by Richard D'Loss on September 29, 2010 at 3:33

As a former union president (a small 225 member union called ATSA at the former Northwest Airlines) I now find myself in the role of Borough Councilman, and negotiating with our borough employees. At the moment we are negotiating the Teamsters contract for the Public Works Dept. This is not the first time, last year I was negotiating with the USW, and I'm a USW Auxiliary member! It's a tough spot to be in. I am representing local taxpayers, many of whom are unemployed, and senior citizens who did not get a Social Security COLA. The biggest issue is, not surprisingly, the cost of health care. Overall, I think we've managed the situation pretty well. We have good relations with the employees. We have fair agreements and we honor them. I think it's appalling that some of you work for unions that don't respect the Agreement.

Comment by Carlo Tarantola on September 19, 2010 at 20:32

In this country (USA) there seems to be two visions of how Labor Unions should operate.
The first and to my mind the more traditional centers around providing service to our members, representing them at the workplace, defending them against the caprice’s of management AKA ‘the bosses’ and negotiating good contracts for them. This is where CSEA grew and built it’s strength and density. CSEA has always been active in the political arena, most of the legislation passed that protects ‘Classified Employees’ was passed as a result of CSEA action. But that has never been the main focus, to the detriment of the protection of our workers at the worksite.
We are a Labor Union and we know that our strength lies in the Value of Our Labor.

The second vision springs more from ‘community organizing’ where the constituency groups have no natural and obvious leverage, e.g. withdrawal of their labor, and so have to rely on gaining political power thru the mobilization of huge numbers of their members and the influence those members may have on the community.

So the dilemma becomes do we turn CSEA into a huge ‘political machine’ with the primary focus on electing politicians, or do we continue our representational vision, the one that made CSEA the largest, and to my mind, the best, Classified Employee Union in the Nation?

We do not seem to have the resources to do both.
In the 2008 elections SEIU’s Andy Stern spent, by some reports, hundreds of millions of dollars, the exact figures will never be known, to gain political influence. What seems to be generally acknowledged is that when he “retired” he left SEIU $85 Million in debt.
Let us just hope that CSEA is not going to repeat that on a Statewide level.

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