Village Voice (New York, NY), August 9, 2005, Tuesday

Copyright 2005 VV Publishing Corporation
Village Voice (New York, NY)

August 9, 2005, Tuesday

SECTION: CITYSTATE; Pg. 14

HEADLINE: UNION GAP

BYLINE: Tom Robbins

BODY:

On the same hot summer day last month that the AFL-CIO was splintering apart in Chicago, a pair of men trying to organize a non-union demolition firm received a vicious beating in a Queens equipment yard. These days, organizers are more likely to get fired for their efforts than beaten, but the incident is a dramatic reminder of what unions are up against, even in labor-friendly places like New York.
Ironically, the beating of Otto Montenegro and Luis Guanoquiza, members of Laborers Local 79, stemmed from a renovation job at a formerly city-owned building that was once a proud citadel of unionism, the Board of Education's old headquarters at 110 Livingston Street in downtown Brooklyn. Two years ago, Mayor Bloomberg approved the building's sale to a developer named David Walentas, despite Walentas's years-long record as a non-union builder.
According to union officials, the attack came after the two men had spent more than a week working undercover as union "salts" for the firm doing the interior demolition there. One of the dirtiest and most dangerous occupations, demolition has long been dominated by corner-cutting firms. To concentrate resources and clout, the Laborers union merged several smaller locals a few years ago and began signing up many contractors, while bird-dogging those that remained non-union. Montenegro and Guanoquiza, both originally from Ecuador, agreed to shoulder the risky task of going inside non-union jobs to contact workers and spot violations ("No Hard Hats Worn Here," April 19).
On Livingston Street, workers were being paid $9 an hour cash, they reported. Also, asbestos was "flying out the windows"--a health hazard cited by city inspectors. Someone, however, spotted the organizers' hidden tape recorder. When the two men went to the firm's Queens plant on Friday evening, July 22, to collect their pay, a gang, allegedly led by supervisor Steven Russell, was waiting for them. Russell allegedly ripped the tape wires off of Montenegro, shoved him and said, "We're going to kill you. We're going to put your body in a dumpster and you'll never be found." Others in Russell's gang allegedly poked the men in the face with pins. "If this was a knife, you'd be dead. We know where you live, we know where your family is," Russell yelled.
Both men were badly roughed up; Montenegro was later treated for cuts at the hospital. Russell, 52, was arrested, charged with assault and harassment. He spent the night in jail and was released the following day. Russell later told the Daily News' Hugh Son he was acting in self-defense.
That's the same motive driving the debate raging within organized labor these days. In self-defense, labor must grow--or die. Currently, some 15.5 million workers belong to unions. But factory shutdowns and other shrinkage cause unions to shed members at a faster rate than new ones have been organized.
In 2003, points out Jeff Grabelsky, director of Union Building Strategies at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, unions had their best recent year in terms of organizing, bringing in 500,000 new members. But overall numbers still declined. Unions would have to organize at least 10 million new members, Grabelsky told union officials in Chicago last week, just to get back to the same 22 percent level of density that labor enjoyed in 1981 when Reagan fired the striking air traffic controllers.
Andrew Stern, president of the 1.8 million-member Service Employees International Union, set off the current storm by saying that he'd concluded that the AFL-CIO, under the leadership of his former ally John Sweeney, isn't up to that job. Along with Teamsters president Jim Hoffa, Stern announced last week that the two giant unions are leaving the federation. The Food and Commercial Workers followed a few days later. It may be only a matter of time before they're joined by other members of their "Change to Win Coalition," including the garment and hotel-restaurant unions, UNITE HERE, the Laborers, and the Farm Workers. The carpenters' union, which bolted the AFL-CIO in 2000, is also part of the coalition.
The departures infuriated many of the officials Stern and Hoffa left behind, not least because of the publicity spin that Stern, subject of a laudatory New York Times Magazine profile, has managed to put on it. Change to Win, headed by one of Stern's oldest allies, SEIU's Anna Burger, has sought to place itself on the same historical track as Mine Workers leader John L. Lewis, whose dramatic exit from the old AFL in 1935--he literally slugged one old-guard official as he walked out--sparked the mass organizing campaign that soon became the CIO, the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
The comparison has evoked skepticism. "This isn't the 1930s," said Bob Master, political director of the Communication Workers of America in New York. "There are some differences on organizing strategies, but it doesn't add up to a need for a split. This is not a positive step."
Others say the would-be rebels have a credibility problem. "I don't think it is going to lead anywhere," said Herman Benson, founder of the Association for Union Democracy, which aids union dissidents. Benson questioned one of Stern's most controversial demands, that unions should be boiled down to a few, non-overlapping organizations that in turn focus their energies solely on their "core" industries. "It will never take place," said Benson. "The Teamsters are a general union. They're not about to give up any members."
Also, while the SEIU has had major organizing successes, its new partners boast far fewer accomplishments. In 2002, Hoffa was forced to pull the plug on a three-year campaign to win union representation for 8,000 employees at Overnite, a non-union trucking company. In New York, the carpenters' union has tried to target non-union firms but has been steadily hobbled by corruption charges. The union recently added to that reputation by taking in a rogue plasterers' union, Local 530, that law enforcement officials have long described as a low-wage, sweetheart union controlled by the Genovese crime family. The move came after the plasterers' local was put out of business by a federal court injunction that found it was stealing work from a legitimate tapers' union local.
But there's probably enough dirty laundry on both sides of the union dispute to cancel out such charges and countercharges. The more immediate issue is whether the new split helps--or hurts.
Michael Fishman, president of SEIU's Local 32B-J representing building service workers in the metro area, said the break was inevitable. "If you don't make a change you are going to end up with no labor movement," he said.
Still, he cautioned that it may be five years or more before the breakaway faction can measure its successes. "I'm hoping we can look forward to a campaign to unionize Wal-Mart and its 1.5 million workers," he said. Notoriously anti-union Wal-Mart is a tough nut to crack, however, and the new coalition may have to settle for lesser achievements. "Even if the result is just that Wal-Mart starts paying a little more, that would be a real accomplishment," said Ken Margolies of Cornell's labor institute. "If you can close the gap between Wal-Mart and the unionized stores, that helps even the playing field."
There are still other measures of success, said Larry Hanley, a labor activist from Staten Island, who is a vice president of the Amalgamated Transit Union. "There's no question but that there's been a malaise in the ranks of labor that needs to be shaken up and to the extent [the new coalition members] are doing that, it's to the good," he said. "Regular union members are suddenly reading about the labor movement in the press, something they usually only read about with strikes or corruption cases. It is awakening an interest in labor and making people aware of our imminent demise, if we don't do something different."

GRAPHIC: Teamsters president Jim Hoffa and Service Employees chief Andrew Stern annouce decision to leave AFL-CIO.
Credit: AP/ wide World

Buffalo News (New York), August 7, 2005, Sunday

WHY NOT BUFFALO?A blueprint for growth
What Buffalo needs to do to attract employers and create jobs
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20050807/1065189.asp
By DAN HERBECK and MATT GLYNN News Staff Reporters 8/7/2005
Robert Kirkham/Buffalo News

NanoDynamics, a high-tech firm on Furhmann Boulevard, will add hundreds of new jobs to its existing baase. Here, technician Curtiss Boyd Jr., left, and Yanhai Du, a senior fuel cell engineer, test a solid oxide fuel cell. Airbus, the French aircraft manufacturer, will build its new American factory in Mobile, Ala. Toyota will open an automobile plant next year, creating 4,000 new jobs in San Antonio.
The same Japanese company will spend $650 million to build a plant in Woodstock, Ont. - two hours from Buffalo - where 1,300 will be employed.
The Buffalo Niagara region had little chance of landing these big employers. Airbus looked only briefly at Western New York before heading south.
Why not Buffalo?
Why can't a community with well-educated people and a strong work ethic find the right formula to attract the Toyotas, the Hondas and the Airbuses of the corporate world?
Too many companies still perceive the Buffalo area as unattractive for expansions or relocations, based on its weather, taxes, and, more recently, its fiscal problems, said Dennis J. Donovan, who is principal in a New Jersey-based firm that helps businesses scout locations.
"We still have that image problem," said Donovan, a local native and principal in the Wadley-Donovan Group.
But the situation is not hopeless. Some see in Buffalo Niagara a land of opportunity with bargain home prices, many colleges, few traffic jams and an array of culture, sports and entertainment.
Definity Health, NanoDynamics, Bass Pro Shops and GEICO Direct have made commitments over the past two years that will bring about 3,600 new jobs to the Town of Tonawanda, Buffalo and Amherst.
"We have a good work force that is high quality and affordable," said Tim Godzich, a former Definity Health executive instrumental in convincing the Minnesota-based company to expand into the Town of Tonawanda.
Business recruiters who promote Buffalo Niagara as a place to expand or relocate are trying to spread that message.
What issues need to be addressed before the community can attract more big employers? Turn to page AXX for six suggestions to expand jobs in Buffalo Niagara.
One. A new community spirit
Many Buffalo Niagara residents are their own worst enemies when it comes to selling their community to outsiders.
According to recruiters, visitors who are considering taking jobs or starting businesses here are often surprised by the community's low self-esteem.
"One of our biggest challenges in recruiting people to work here is the pervasive lack of confidence our community shows in itself," said Thomas M. Pleban, executive vice president of the Calspan research firm in Cheektowaga.
It's understandable to get upset over high taxes and mismanaged government, Pleban said, but people also need to remember the region's natural beauty, its rich history, colorful people and cultural treasures.
Two new GEICO workers are Carl DeSiena and Kelly Toovey, both in their 20s. They moved here from San Diego, one of the nation's fastest-growing cities.
"People told me I was crazy. It would be cold and snowing all the time, and there wouldn't be much to do," said DeSiena, sales performance manager for GEICO. "I got here, and everything was so green. We bought a house near the (Erie) Canal in Lockport that would cost us four times as much in San Diego.
"We ride our bikes along the canal. We go to Bills games, Thursday at the Square, Shakespeare in the Park ... People here are bothered by politics, but they don't realize how good they have it here," he said.
Buffalo Niagara supporters need to keep telling the rest of the country about the region's assets, said Donovan, the site selector. That includes the quality and size of its available work force, its good network of highways, its low occupancy costs, its universities and colleges and the availability of electrical power.
"We have developed this very negative view of ourselves," said James W. Pitts, the former Buffalo Common Council president, now a developer with Norstar Development USA. "We need to develop a new community spirit."
"This is a great place to live, and to run a business. The educational institutions and the work force are exceptional," added John J. Zinno, general manager of the new GEICO operation in Amherst. "It's so obvious to me, I don't understand why other people don't get it."
Two. Make unions a partner
Buffalo Niagara has a high rate of union membership - and some companies won't consider locating here because of that.
Thomas A. Kucharski, president of the Buffalo Niagara Enterprise, believes that is unfair. Unions have helped save some employers here, he says.
"The private sector union guys are friends of ours," Kucharski said. "They are very responsive to us."
High union membership is a reality: about 18 percent of the region's private sector workers belong to one, compared with 8 percent nationally, according to data compiled by two college professors, Barry Hirsch and David Macpherson. Can that fact be used as a selling point, instead of a turnoff, to employers?
Lou Jean Fleron, director of economic initiatives at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, believes it can. She sees value in promoting the skills unionized workers possess, and the active role unions have taken in promoting development.
"I think people are beginning to get a bit of understanding you don't have to be embarrassed of it," she said of the region's union population.
Fleron a few years ago led a study of union-management cooperation at employers like General Motors' engine plant. Such examples can counteract negative stereotypes employers might have of a union town, she said.
Kevin Donovan, Buffalo area director of the United Auto Workers, said he welcomes the chance to talk with business prospects about their perceptions. Union members have a personal stake in their employers' success, he said.
"We don't negotiate contracts to put people out of business," he said.
And a union reputation isn't necessarily a dealbreaker. Woodstock has a sizable union presence, too, but Mayor Michael Harding said that issue "never came up" during his city's quest for Toyota.
Three. Preserve low cost power
Some recent moves in Albany on low-cost electrical power are good news and bad news for businesses in Buffalo Niagara.
In late June, state lawmakers agreed to continue allowing local businesses to buy electricity at bargain rates from the Niagara Power Project in Lewiston. Those businesses employ more than 43,000 people.
The power authority also can continue selling another 42 megawatts of low-cost electricity - enough to power about 59,000 homes - to businesses in the region.
But an additional 70 megawatts of power that had been set aside for expansion of local businesses must now be shared with the rest of the state.
The region's leaders must do everything they can to preserve the low-cost power they now have, and they need to find more flexible ways of putting it to good use, said Buffalo businessman Louis P. Ciminelli, former chairman of the New York Power Authority.
"I'd like to see state legislation that would allow us to sell power into the wholesale market and use the money for economic development."
Selling the 42 megawatts could bring in $12 million a year, Ciminelli said.
Businesses' need for low-cost power is one of the most important issues facing Buffalo Niagara today, said Rep. Brian M. Higgins, D-Buffalo. He has proposed a federal bill to keep more low-cost power in Western New York.
"We generate the cheapest, cleanest and most plentiful electrical power in the country. We need to retain the value of that asset for Western New York," Higgins said. "Help companies cut their power costs, and we'll be protecting and expanding the job market here."
Four. Look North
According to the Buffalo Niagara Enterprise, 64 Canadian firms now have offices or facilities in Buffalo Niagara. The marketing group says it is working to recruit more Canadian firms to start operations here.
The Niagara County IDA recently sent Buffalo Niagara sales teams to Toronto, Hamilton, St. Catharines and other Ontario cities, trying to persuade business people to establish offices in the county.
"Our goal is to contact 200 Canadian businesses by the end of this year," said Samuel M. Ferraro, commissioner of economic development for Niagara County. "It's old-fashioned salesmanship. We have people knocking on doors, spending a day with the presidents or vice presidents of these companies."
Ferraro said a number of the Canadian executives told his sales teams that this is the first time they've ever been approached by business recruiters from New York State.
"Why wasn't it done before? I don't know," Ferraro said. "So far, we've closed deals with six Canadian companies. We're negotiating with two others."
Development agencies need to make it an "absolute top priority" to create better business ties with companies in Ontario, said Kenneth M. Franasiak. He heads Calamar Development in Wheatfield, the home of the $100 million Woodlands Corporate Center II, a business park that is actively seeking Canadian occupants.
Stop looking at businesses in Canada as competition and start finding ways to partner with them, Franasiak urges.
"Toronto is growing exponentially." Franasiak said. "We've got to work with them. Quite honestly, Toronto doesn't need us. We need them."
Five. Businesses need sites
Businesses decide where to go based on a variety of factors. In some cases, connections bolster Buffalo's pitch. Warren E. Buffett urged GEICO to consider the Buffalo area for a customer service center; he is chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, which owns both GEICO and The Buffalo News.
Robert Rich Jr. talked up Buffalo for a Bass Pro store to his Florida neighbor, Bass Pro founder and chairman Johnny Morris.
But land is another consideration: If a region doesn't have readily available land, businesses go somewhere that does, regardless of what connections opened the door.
Amherst met GEICO's land needs for a customer service center, and Woodstock had all the property Toyota could want for its auto plant.
The Buffalo area has many unmarketable properties: brownfields, former industrial sites that are a costly legacy of Buffalo's heavy-industry past. In many Southern states, companies build on "greenfields" without worrying about previous owners.
"We have always had, and continue to have, problems with cleaning up brownfields," said Luke Rich, a local business consultant and formerly an Empire State Development Corp. official.
Solving that problem would open up old sites to growth. For developers, it is difficult to demolish old buildings, clean up sites, and rebuild on them - and still make a profit. Rich suggests that setting up a state-created "demolition fund," to help renew the sites, could make redevelopment more appealing and cost-effective.
Lakeside Commerce Park in South Buffalo - a former Hanna Furnace site - demonstrates the potential. CertainTeed has relocated a plant there, making plastic fences. Delaco Steel Corp. might move in, and additional phases of the park are planned.
There is another element to site availability: having top-shelf office space ready for expanding companies. City View Properties bucked conventional wisdom when it started overhauling the Larkin at Exchange building at the edge of downtown without a major tenant. The complex is now mostly full. Uniland Development took a similar approach with the Sheridan Meadows North office complex in Amherst. It is now full.
It might seem risky, but some local experts see value in having new properties ready, even if an anchor tenant isn't immediately in sight.
Six. Retain and expand
Don't forget about the businesses that are already here.
Existing companies can add jobs, too, and they don't need to be sold on the idea of coming here. The challenge is finding ways to help them remain competitive and expand.
"Retention has become every bit as important as attraction," said Randall L. Clark, chairman of the Buffalo Niagara Enterprise.
Buffalo Niagara might envy the Deep South or Canada for getting new auto plants. But Rich, the business consultant, said the region should focus on keeping the auto industry plants it already has, like Delphi's Lockport plant.
Incentives can help plants upgrade and stay competitive, but risk takers also make a difference. That was true at Calspan.
When General Dynamics decided to sell Calspan, local Calspan executives and a developer acquired the operations and kept the business here. The research company has hired 19 people this year, bringing its employment to 250, and plans more growth.
Other regions would love to attract a company such as Calspan. When Calspan was still under outside ownership and planning a $13 million flight research center, some other cities dangled free land.
"They were saying, "Bring the jobs here. We have a closed air base you can use,' " said John Yurtchuk, senior vice president.
The $13 million center was instead built in Niagara County, supported by a $3 million Empire State Development grant. Calspan, a company started here in 1943, is staying local.
e-mail: dherbeck@buffnews.com
and mglynn@buffnews.com
If you'd like to comment on today's Why Not Buffalo? stories, e-mail your thoughts to whynotbuffalo@buffnews.com. Please include your name and address. Previous stories from the year-long series can be found in the Living Here section on the Buffalo.com home page.

National Law Journal, August 1, 2005, Monday

Copyright 2005 ALM Properties, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
National Law Journal

August 1, 2005

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. P25 Vol. 27 No. 46

HEADLINE: Movers

BYLINE: George Szamuely

BODY:

New Arrivals
Drinker Biddle & Reath (Philadelphia): Ronald L. Grudziecki is a new partner in the firm's intellectual property practice group, resident in the Washington office. He has extensive experience performing patent and trademark litigation before federal district courts, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the International Trade Commission.
Foley Hoag (Boston): DeAnn Foran Smith is a newly arrived partner in the firm's life sciences and patent practice groups. She has 15 years of experience in obtaining worldwide patent protection in her particular areas of expertise, including immunology, genomics, gene therapy, proteomics and drug development.
Fulbright & Jaworski (Houston): Charles D. Schmerler has come aboard as a New York-based partner. Previously, he was the chairman of the litigation department in the New York office of Seyfarth Shaw. He represents foreign and domestic clients in finance matters and dispute resolution.
Goodwin Procter (Boston): Allan S. Brilliant has joined the firm's insolvency and business reorganization practice in its New York office. He will co-chair the practice with Emanuel C. Grillo. Brilliant comes aboard from New York-based Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy.
Jenner & Block (Chicago): The firm's public policy and appellate and Supreme Court practices have been bolstered by the arrival of new partner Mark Heilbrun, former deputy staff director and general counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Kirkland & Ellis (Chicago): Christopher G. Colbridge is a new partner in the firm's London office, having joined the international litigation and arbitration practice group. Colbridge has represented multinational corporations, governments and government-owned entities worldwide.
Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham: Four former assistant United States attorneys-John A. Azzarello, Jeffrey L. Bornstein, Michael D. Ricciuti and John A. Wortmann Jr.-and former New Jersey Attorney General John J. Farmer Jr. have joined the firm's white collar and internal investigations practice group. The practice has represented clients in such high-profile matters as the WorldCom bankruptcy and the investigation into the 60 Minutesreport on President George W. Bush's controversial service in the Texas Air National Guard.
McGlinchey Stafford (New Orleans): Harry B. Dollar is a newly arrived staff attorney in the firm's Houston office. His practice will focus primarily in the areas of real estate, construction law and trusts, estates and wills.
Reed Smith: Partner Andrew E. Paris has been added to the firm's Southern California business trial group, litigation department. He will be based in Century City, Calif., having made the jump from Kirkland & Ellis' Los Angeles office.
Seyfarth Shaw (Chicago): The corporate practice group has been bolstered by the arrival of new partner Charles M. Modlin. Modlin, resident in the New York office, focuses his practice on transactional matters, including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, public offerings and private placements.
Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton (Los Angeles): Litigator Neil A. Smith has joined as a partner in the intellectual property practice group, based in the firm's San Francisco office. He arrives from that city's Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin, for which he was a litigation director.

New Counsel
Buckley Kolar (Washington): Robert B. Serino has joined the financial services law firm as counsel. His expertise encompasses a range of issues impacting national banks, including money laundering, the Bank Secrecy Act and the USA Patriot Act. Previously, he was deputy chief counsel of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary: Nicolas Morgan has joined the firm's securities litigation practice group as of counsel, resident in Los Angeles. He is a former senior trial counsel in the enforcement division of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Pacific regional office.

In-House
Edison International (Rosemead, Calif.): J.A. "Lon" Bouknight, a Washington-based partner at Steptoe & Johnson, and the immediate past chairman of the firm, has been elected to serve as executive vice president and general counsel of major utility company Edison International. Bouknight was an electric power practitioner while at his firm.

Elected
John Neil Raudabaugh, a shareholder at Detroit's Butzel Long and a federal law expert, has been elected to serve a three-year term on the alumni board of trustees of the Cornell University School of Labor and Industrial Relations. Previously, he served as a member of the National Labor Relations Board.

Appointed
Tom Christina, a shareholder in the Greenville, S.C., office of Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, has been named to the employee benefits committee of the United States Chamber of Commerce. He represents employers in employee benefits plans matters.

New Offices
Bird & Bird: The firm has opened a new office in Rome, its 12th international location, and second in Italy along with Milan. Eutimio Monaco, a specialist in regulatory and telecommunications work, and Osvaldo Lombardi, a commercial and litigation attorney, have been placed in the office.
Cooley Godward (Palo Alto, Calif.): The firm is opening an office in Washington, its second on the East Coast. Three newly elected partners-Margaret H. Kavalaris, Michael X. Marinelli and Tami J. Howie-will be based there, accompanied by several members of the firm's Reston, Va., operation.
Movers is compiled and written by George Szamuely. Please send material to him at The National Law Journal, 105 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016, or gszamuely@alm.com.

Newsday (New York), August 2, 2005, Tuesday

Copyright 2005 Newsday, Inc.
Newsday (New York)

August 2, 2005 Tuesday
ALL EDITIONS

SECTION: BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY; Pg. A37

HEADLINE: Is flex time in decline?;
Flexible scheduling still draws praise, but fewer U.S. workers now have it

BYLINE: BY CARRIE MASON-DRAFFEN. STAFF WRITER

BODY:
When baby-sitting problems beset new mom Kelly Gregory four years ago, her employer, CPI Aerostructures in Edgewood, agreed to a flexible work schedule to help her cope.
Gregory, a bookkeeper, was able to shrink her five-day workweek to three days with expanded hours.
"The company was willing to work with me," said Gregory, 34, who has worked at CPI for seven years. "It meant a lot."
Though flexible scheduling is widely regarded as a premier recruiting and retention tool, the latest federal statistics show that use of this workplace perk declined nationally from 2001 through 2004.
While the report doesn't break out regional statistics, interviews with local businesses and employees suggest not a decline in flex time but a continuing love affair with it. Flexible schedules allow employees to vary the time they start or end their workday or the number of days they work in a week.
Nationally, the number of flex-time workers declined slightly, to 27.5 percent of the workforce last year, from 28.6 percent in 2001, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this month. Flex time is used the most among workers in management, business and financial operations, with nearly 45 percent of that group varying their hours.
Tina Wells, the chief executive and founder of Buzz Marketing Group, a youth-marketing agency in Manhattan, believes flex time and creativity work in tandem. She allows the company's creative director, for example, to decide what time he hits the office in the morning because he often works into the wee hours to avoid distractions.
"In offering this type of freedom, I see this amazing product," said Wells, who has 10 employees.
That's exactly the point, said Peter Handal, president and chief executive of Dale Carnegie Training, which is based in Hauppauge. "For many, flex time can make you more productive and help generate a more positive attitude toward work," he said.
Flexible schedules also help to retain talented people. The flex-time option allowed CPI Aero, an aircraft-parts manufacturer, to keep Gregory on board. Gregory, whom president and chief executive Edward Fred called a great employee, "would have been out of work if she had to work 40 hours," Fred said. The flexible scheduling "provides a benefit to both of us."
With so many benefits associated with flex time, why the slight decline in the numbers?
Many traditional jobs, such as 9-to-5 customer service positions, don't lend themselves to flexible scheduling, said Bradford Bell, professor of human-resource management at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
"Offering it might not be realistic," he said.
In addition, he said, many workers may want a flexible schedule but hesitate to ask because their company's culture doesn't encourage it.
Handal said concerns over job security in the past few years may have dampened some employees' interest in flexible scheduling.
"If they are perceived as different from everybody else, they might fear for their jobs," he said.
Even companies that endorse flex scheduling may have pulled back because they're operating with leaner staffs, said Lorri Zelman, president of the Human Resources Association of New York in Manhattan.
"Companies just are not able to fully staff up yet to allow for creativity like flexible scheduling," she said.
On flex time
Percentage of U.S. workers with flexible scheduling.
1985 12.4%
1991 15%
1997 27.6%
2001 28.6%
2004 27.5%
Who got flex time last year
Men 28.1%
Women 26.7%
White 28.7%
Asian 27.4%
Black 19.7%
Hispanic 18.4%
SOURCE: BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS

PR Newswire US, August 2, 2005, Tuesday

Copyright 2005 PR Newswire Association LLC.
All Rights Reserved.
PR Newswire US

August 2, 2005 Tuesday 8:22 AM GMT

HEADLINE: Sahara Petroleum Exploration Corp., Appoints VETRA to Project Manage the Building of 70,000 Barrel Per Day Oil Refinery in Nigeria

DATELINE: NASSAU, Bahamas Aug. 2

BODY:
NASSAU, Bahamas, Aug. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Global Environmental Energy Corp. (OTC Bulletin Board: GEECF; FWB: LFT) confirmed today that its subsidiary Sahara Petroleum Exploration Corp., a Corporation registered in the Commonwealth of the Bahamas will retain the services of the Vetra Group A.V.V. (VETRA) to project manage SAHARA's 70,000 barrel per day oil refinery in Nigeria.
VETRA personnel have extensive experience in all aspects of building, operating and managing refineries having done so on Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A., Venezuelan Oil Refining assets worldwide. VETRA's experience has been focused on the design, engineering and operation for projects having completed the following projects:
1). PAEX - El Palito Refinery Expansion - (800 MM $) Refining pattern
change in order to be able to process heavy crude oil into unleaded
gasoline.
2). VALCOR - Puerto La Cruz Refinery - (600 MM $) Facilities for unleaded
gasoline and low sulphur diesel production.
3). Strategic Heavy Oil Belt Associations in East Venezuela(12,000 MM$)
Integrated production, transportation, refining and upgrading
facilities including Delayed Coking plants as well as all auxiliary
equipment.
4). PARC (2,500 MM $) - Cardon Refinery MPRA (1,200 MM $) - Amuay
Refinery Refining pattern changes to process more heavy crude oil
into unleaded gasoline and low sulphur diesel.
5). CRP Integration (300 MM $) Interconnection and processes integration
and optimization between Cardon and Amuay Refineries, developing one
of the world's major refinery complexes capable of processing 1
million barrels of oil per day.

Sahara's approximately USD$2 billion investment in the project is to be partially financed from the proceeds of Sahara's loan commitment from financier Diamond Ridge, will further enhance Sahara's position as vertically integrated oil and gas company. On March 9, 2005, Sahara signed an Alliance Agreement with Quickflow, S.A., for the development of specific oil and gas rights in Africa. The new Sahara refinery will refine 25 million barrels of Nigerian oil in Nigeria per year, representing a cashflow at today's market process of approximately USD$1.5 billion per annum. It is Sahara's intention to refine a large portion of its own oil at the new Nigerian refinery.
In March 2005, Sahara appointed Mr. Humberto Calderon Berti & Mr. Karl Mazeika, Mr Alfredo Gruber, and Mr. Iker Anzola, from Vetra to its advisory board. Mr. Calderon Berti is former President of OPEC, President of Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A., Minister of Energy and Mines and Minister of Foreign Relations. Mr. Karl Mazeika is former Vice President of Pequiven and member of the Board of Directors of several of its joint ventures. He has also acted as Executive Director of Exploration, Production and Upgrading, and Vice President of Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A.
Nigeria has a population of over 110 million people and an abundance of natural resources, especially hydrocarbons. Nigeria is a member of OPEC. Its crude oils have a gravity between 21 API and 45 API. Its main export crude's are Bonny Light (37) and Forcados (31). About 65% of Nigeria's oil is above 35 API with a very low sulphur content. Nigeria's OPEC quota is 1.89 million bbl/d. It is the 10th largest oil producer in the world, the third largest in Africa and the most prolific oil producer in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Nigerian economy is largely dependent on its oil sector, which supplies 95% of its foreign exchange earnings. In January 2005 Oil and Gas Journal estimated that Nigeria contains proven oil reserves totaling 35.2 billion barrels. The Nigerian government plans to expand its proven reserves to 40 billion barrels by 2010. The upstream oil industry is the single most important sector in the country's economy, providing over 90% of its total exports. The country has four main refineries with a nameplate capacity of 438,750 bbl/d and there are eight oil companies and 750 independents all active in the marketing petroleum products.
Sahara Petroleum Exploration Corp., was initially formed as a subsidiary of Global Environmental Energy Corp, (OTC Bulletin Board: GEECF; FWB: LFT). Global Environmental Energy Corp. maintains a web site at http://www.globalenvironmentalenergy.com/index.htm .
Sahara Petroleum Exploration Corp., intends to become a fully reporting and trading company in the future if accepted by the SEC and the NASD for trading. Sahara Petroleum Exploration Corp., is becoming a fully integrated energy company whose interests include traditional oil and gas exploration and development.
About Vetra Group AVV.
VETRA was incorporated in 2003 as a private initiative of a group of professionals with proven experience in the national and international Oil & Gas business. In February 2004 "VETRA Colombia" was created in Bogota to attend local businesses. In April 2004, in order to leverage Exploration and Exploitation specialized services worldwide, VETRA signed a strategic alliance with "Tecnicas Reunidas", the most important engineering and construction company in Spain. VETRA and its allied companies have more than 2000 specialized professionals with 20 years average experience in the Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Business, Engineering and Projects.
Mr. Humberto Calderon Berti President is the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of VETRA. Mr. Calderon Berti is former President of OPEC, President of Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A., Minister of Energy and Mines and Minister of Foreign Relations. His other responsibilities have been: Deputy and President of the Energy and Mines Commission in the Venezuelan Congress, and Executive Director of various hydrocarbon companies in Europe. At present, he is a consultant on strategic global issues for institutions and companies in the energy sector worldwide. Mr. Calderon Berti is a geologist from Universidad Central de Venezuela with a MSc. in petroleum engineering from Tulsa University.
Mr. Karl Mazeika is Vice President and Vice Chairman of the Board of VETRA. Mr. Mazeika is former Vice President of Pequiven and member of the Board of Directors of several of its joint ventures. He has also acted as Executive Director of Exploration, Production and Upgrading, and Vice President of Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. Other positions include former President of Interven, President of the Board of Directors of Ruhr Oel and Nynas, President of joint ventures with BP and Fortum of Finland, respectively. Mr. Mazeika is a chemical engineer from Universidad del Zulia.
Mr. Alfredo Gruber is a Director, Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer of VETRA. Mr. Gruber is former President of Palmaven, S.A. and Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana (CVG). Other responsibilities have been: Executive Director of Corpoven, Maraven, Intevep and Bariven, all subsidiaries of Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. At present times, he is advisor to the Board of Directors of "Tecnoconsult Ingenieros Consultores," President of "Tecnopetroleo" and member of the Board of Directors of "Cavenal" and of "Asociacion Pro-Venezuela". Mr. Gruber is civil engineer from Davis and Elkins College of West Virginia, USA with specialization in Construction Management from IESA-Georgia University and Production Management from Penn State University.
Leopoldo Aguerrevere is a Vice President of VETRA. Mr. Aguerrevere is former Vice President of Engineering and Projects, and Corporate Managing Director of Engineering and Projects in Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. He has served as General Manager in the Cardon refinery. Currently acts as a consultant in engineering management and professor of Project Management in the Central University of Venezuela and Metropolitana University. Mr Aguerrevere is industrial engineer from Universidad Catolica Andres Bello with a MSc. in industrial engineering from Stanford University.
Mr. Francisco Javier Larranaga is a Director and Chief Commercial Officer of VETRA. Mr. Larranaga is former General Manager in the Cardon refinery as well as Technical Manager in the Isla refinery. At present, Mr. Larranaga is the Executive President of Laya Profesional, C.A., a Management Consulting Company and professor in various universities: Simon Bolivar, Francisco de Miranda, and Andres Bello Catholic University. He has obtained the Vicente Lecuna Prize, given by the Venezuelan Society of Engineers in recognition of his meritorious professional trajectory. Mr. Larranaga is industrial engineer with a doctorate in chemical engineering from the Paul Sabatier University.
Mr. Alberto Quiros Corradi is a Director of VETRA. Mr. Quiros Corradi is former President of Shell de Venezuela and Coordinator of the Central America, Mexico, South America and Caribbean Shell Group, former President of Maraven, S.A. and Lagoven, S.A., subsidiaries of Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. He served as Director of various newspapers and as President of C.A. Editora El Diario de Caracas. He acts as advisor to national and international business groups and as member of national and international organizations: Oxford Energy Policy Club, Grupo Santa Lucia, Club of Rome in Venezuela, Caracas Chamber of Commerce and President of the Caracas Press Club. Mr. Quiros Corradi is economist from La Universidad del Zulia and the London Polytechnic Institute, with master degrees in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University.
Mr. Arnold Volkenborn is a Director of VETRA. Mr. Volkenborn is a former President of Maraven, S.A., President of Pequiven, Director of Petroleos de Venezuela, Vice President of Corpoven and of Interven, Chairman of the Board of Nynas Petroleum, Sweden and of Champlin Refining, USA; and several petrochemical joint ventures in Venezuela and Colombia. Currently member of the Board of Directors of Sivensa S.A. and of IBH, Director of IESA (Business Scholl) and of CEDCA (Center for Arbitration), and also achive as a consultant / advisor to business. Mr Volkernborn is petroleum engineer "Summa Cum Laude" from Zulia University with a MSc. from Penn State.
Mr. Renato Urdaneta is a Director of VETRA. Mr. Urdaneta has wide experience in the oil sector, he is former President of Pequiven, President of Meneven, President of Lagoven, all former subsidiaries of Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A., as well as General Manager of Amuay refinery, the world's then largest capacity refining complex. He also led and negotiated the construction of a Liquefied Natural Gas project in Venezuela in alliance with Shell, Exxon and Mitsubishi. He was International Advisor for Fluor Daniel, one of the world´s leading engineering and construction firm. Mr. Urdaneta is chemical engineer from Syracuse University.
Mr. Carlos Jorda is a Director of VETRA. Mr. Jorda is former President of the Board of Directors of Citgo and President of PDV America. He has also been member of the Board of Directors of Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. At present times, he is an independent consultant in the energy sector. Mr. Jorda is chemical engineer from Michigan Technological University.
Mr Iker Anzola is a Director of VETRA. Mr. Anzola is former member of the Board of Directors and Commercial Vice-President of Inelectra. He has held various positions as Executive Vice-President of Inepetrol, Commercial Vice-President of Tecnoconsult, and General Manager OPSIS (Coordination Group for Venezuelan Electric Power System), President of Cavecon and Vice-President of International Oil Committee of Venemcham. Mr. Anzola is electrical engineer from Universidad Central de Venezuela with a MSc. in Power Systems from the Imperial College of London University
About Global Environmental Energy Corp.
Global Environmental Energy Corp., is a Corporation registered in the Commonwealth of the Bahamas and Publicly Traded on Stock markets both in Germany and the United Sates (the Corporation). Global Environmental Energy Corp., intends to become a fully integrated energy company whose interests will include traditional oil and gas and alternative energy sources, environmental infrastructure and electrical micro-power generation.
Note to Investors
This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of the 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is subject to the safe harbor created by those sections. The forward-looking information is based upon current information and expectations regarding Global Environmental Energy Corp. These estimates and statements speak only as of the date on which they are made, are not guarantees of future performance, and involve certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results could materially differ from what is expressed, implied, or forecasted in such forward-looking statements.
Global Environmental Energy Corp. assumes no obligation to update the information contained in this press release. Global Environmental Energy Corp.'s future results may be impacted by risks associated with rapid technological change, new technological developments and implementations, execution issues associated with new technology, manufacturing production to meet demand, litigation, media publicity and the negative impact this could have on sales, competition, financial and budgetary constraints of prospects and customers, international order delays, dependence upon limited source suppliers, fluctuations in component pricing, government regulations, dependence upon key employees, and its ability to retain employees. GEEC's future results may also be impacted by other risk factors listed from time to time in its SEC filings, including, but not limited to, the Company's Form 10-QSBs and its Annual Report on Form 10-KSB.
CONTACT: Dr. C. A. McCormack of Global Environmental Energy Corp.,
Tel/Fax, +852-3010-3838, global@coralwave.com
Web site: http://www.globalenvironmentalenergy.com/
SOURCE Global Environmental Energy Corp.

Chicago Tribune, July 31, 2005, Sunday

Copyright 2005 Chicago Tribune Company
Chicago Tribune

July 31, 2005 Sunday
Chicago Final Edition

SECTION: BUSINESS ; ZONE C; Pg. 1

HEADLINE: Architect of rebellion;
Stern led defectors from AFL-CIO, which has led to more stern detractors

BYLINE: By Stephen Franklin and Barbara Rose, Tribune staff reporters

BODY:
Several years ago the Service Employees International Union, a giant union that does not like to lose, approached Advocate Health Care, the Chicago area's largest health-care chain, with a deal. They would become Advocate's partner in helping hospitals fight for better health care.
But they also wanted to sign up Advocate's 24,000 workers without a battle.
Advocate wasn't interested, however, and war ensued.
The union issued damning reports, picketed executives' homes, got sympathetic legislators to launch investigations and turned out at hearings to oppose initiatives ranging from bond offerings to new buildings. Advocate's officials were upset by the union's tactics.
They shouldn't have been surprised.
The 1.8 million-member SEIU is not your standard union. It is the union that led last week's boycott by dissident unions of the AFL-CIO during its Chicago convention and then quit the federation along with the Teamsters and United Food and Commercial Workers union in a mark of labor's division.
The rival coalition it has inspired is also certain to bear the stamp of the SEIU and its president, Andy Stern, who favors big, new ideas and says labor has to be in a hurry because of its rapidly sinking fortunes.
"People think of unions as old-fashioned, inflexible--male, pale and stale," Stern said last week in Chicago. "They [unions] should be elastic and expandable to meet different employers' needs. Unions created barriers to change as the world changed. We became a drag on change. Now the question is how do we become strong voices for workers. We need a new set of ideas that aren't going back 70 years."
Under Stern the SEIU has added 700,000 members in the last 10 years, which is a feat since most unions are shrinking. It has opened six international offices and launched talks with unions globally so it can confront global companies. It has thrown more money into organizing and politics than other unions. Union members have also seen their dues doubled.
Across the U.S. the union has booted local leaders either for corruption or because they didn't go along with the union's new game plans. And it has merged small locals with others, sometimes far away.
Not all that the SEIU does is new. "But they put it together better than anyone else," said UCLA labor expert Ruth Milkman.
The force behind most of these moves is Stern, 54, a former Pennsylvania welfare worker who became a local president at age 27. He was a protege of AFL-CIO and former SEIU head John Sweeney, whom he turned against this year, accusing him of lacking the guts for the decisions labor needs.
Stern is a loner, who was deeply moved by the death several years ago of a teenage daughter. As Stern explains it, he realized life is brief and people need to act on what matters. Soon after that his marriage also ended. Ever since, he has been almost obsessed with his union work, colleagues say.
Recently he turned daily operations over to Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger, allowing Stern to step back and think about larger issues.
"What's different about him is that he looks for what's bigger and better," said Cornell University labor expert Rick Hurd.
In March, for example, Stern spoke to an audience of chief executives and venture capitalists at the PC Forum, an annual gathering of tech luminaries organized by writer Esther Dyson.
Stern made a pitch for the industry to form a joint venture with the union to invest 10 percent of the money saved through outsourcing to provide services for people who lost jobs.
"A bunch of people said, `Why this guy?'" Dyson recalled. "By the end of it, I wouldn't say they were convinced and ready to sign up, but several said, `This guy's amazing.' He was very impressive. He plays well outside his home turf."
But praise is not universal.
Foes at other unions accuse him of raiding them and, most recently, of betraying labor solidarity to go it alone.
Within the SEIU there is an undercurrent of gripes, said Steve Early, a Boston-based official for the Communications Workers of America.
"The issue of high dues, forced mergers and the kind of high-handed way that SEIU national staff conduct themselves has triggered a backlash," Early said.
Bill Fletcher Jr., a former high-ranking SEIU official, said sometimes Stern is in such a rush that he lacks patience.
"Andy's view of change was you set a standard and enforce it," he said. "It assumes that workers are objects, and they are not."
All of the Chicago area locals "were restructured and people were fired," said Bob Bruno, a labor expert at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Newly merged locals had to be big enough to hire political and communications directors and put at least 20 percent of their dues into organizing, said Tom Balanoff, the SEIU's Illinois Council President. Locals then would get a portion of dues rebated to spend on organizing.
Stern urged his union's leaders to think globally, as in a campaign to organize security officers. After two years of talks with Securitas, a Swedish firm and one of the industry's biggest players, with 200,000 workers in 20 countries, Stern and Balanoff were frustrated by the lack of progress.
"We want to create a crisis here, some action, some pressure," Balanoff recalls telling a union official in Sweden.
The result was a "fact-finding" mission to the U.S. by European Securitas workers which unleashed a spate of bad publicity about how poorly U.S. workers fared in comparison to their European counterparts.
Stern, meanwhile, contacted a Securitas board member he knew.
The double squeeze--union pressure from below and board pressure at the top--helped win a national recognition agreement with Securitas three years ago, said Balanoff.
Stern wanted the union to wield the clout that local bosses once held.
In Illinois, the union had been trying for years to organize home care workers who contract with the state, but the Republican-controlled state house balked.
"There's this congressman, Rod Blagojevich," Balanoff recalled telling Stern. "I don't know if he can be elected but maybe if we could help him in a big way," he would help the union.
"Andy just pushed me," Balanoff said. "`You gotta take the risk. We gotta figure out how to use politics to allow workers to raise themselves.'"
The international kicked in about half of the nearly $1 million SEIU contributed to Blagojevich's successful election campaign. And the payoff was big--recognition of 49,000 child-care workers and 20,000 home health-care workers.
At Advocate, hospital officials question the sincerity of SEIU's accusations.
"Since we weren't willing to deliver our workers, suddenly we've become racists, deliverers of bad care, and misers," said spokesman Tony Mitchell. "It's become a relentless attack."
But Balanoff makes no apologies for the heat.
"Advocate is the biggest chain in this city, certain responsibilities come with being the biggest," he said.
sfranklin@tribune.com
berose@tribune.com

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri), July 31, 2005, Sunday

Copyright 2005 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)

July 31, 2005 Sunday
FIVE STAR LIFT EDITION

SECTION: BUSINESS; Pg. E1

HEADLINE: Split may not help labor unions halt membership slide

BYLINE: By David Nicklaus

BODY:
It sounds counterintuitive, but disorganized labor may do a better job representing workers than organized labor ever did.
The last time workers had two big labor federations competing to represent their interests was in the 1930s, '40s and early '50s, when the upstart Congress of Industrial Organizations was vying with the established American Federation of Labor. Unionization rose rapidly during that period and hit a high-water mark in 1955 at about one-third of the private-sector work force.
The AFL and CIO merged that year and, as is inevitable when competition is eliminated, big labor became more bureaucratic and less successful. Just 8 percent of private-sector employees belong to unions now.
Last week, the Service Employees International Union, Teamsters and United Food and Commercial Workers set out to restore competition by bolting from the AFL-CIO.
The split is over priorities more than principles. Andrew Stern, head of the Service Employees, wants to spend more money trying to organize nonunion workers. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney claims to recognize the importance of organizing, but doesn't want to divert money from political efforts.
Stern can claim to be building on success: His union has added 900,000 workers in the last nine years, while total AFL-CIO membership has shrunk.
Meanwhile, political action has come to seem futile: Union campaign contributions overwhelmingly favor Democrats, but the Republicans have firm control of Congress and the White House. Nor has labor had much success fighting globalization: Congress' approval of the Central American Free Trade Agreement was only the latest of many defeats.
In short, a shakeup was long overdue. "Something's got to happen or labor is going to become irrelevant," says Jefferson Cowie, associate professor of labor history at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "You can't just be a club that services existing members, or you're eventually going to be driven out of business."
If Stern's Change to Win Coalition spends more money on organizing, it may persuade some low-wage service workers to join unions. But Marvin Finkelstein, a professor of sociology at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, thinks big labor needs a new vision, not just a better budget.
"They need to make a more compelling case to both prospective members and to employers about why unions can be a positive thing," Finkelstein said. In this era of job insecurity, a union that educates and trains workers for their next job might be more appealing than one that fights in vain to protect existing jobs.
Finkelstein doesn't believe the decline of unions is irreversible, but other scholars disagree. "Emphasizing organization could slow the decline, maybe even lead to a plateau level, but I don't think it's going to turn it around," said Ohio University economist Richard Vedder. "I just don't think the American public sees much value in unions."
The work force, after all, has changed since labor's heyday. The average worker is more educated and likely to toil in a clean office rather than a dangerous factory. Unemployment is relatively low, and our society is more mobile than ever. If you don't like one job, it's easier to find a new one than to band together and fight the boss.
Even the spread of 401(k) plans may be undermining the union message. "As you become a capitalist, even a small one, you start to look at capitalism and employers less as the enemy and more as the people who are going to provide me my retirement," Vedder said.
In an earlier era, a slogan such as "Workers of the world, unite!" might energize the masses. Today's worker responds simply, "What's in it for me?"
At the moment, unions don't have a good answer.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri), July 31, 2005, Sunday

Copyright 2005 Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Copyright 2005 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

July 31, 2005, Sunday

HEADLINE: St. Louis Post-Dispatch David Nicklaus column

BYLINE: By David Nicklaus

BODY:

SPLIT MAY NOT HELP LABOR UNIONS HALT MEMBERSHIP SLIDE: It sounds counterintuitive, but disorganized labor may do a better job representing workers than organized labor ever did.
The last time workers had two big labor federations competing to represent their interests was in the 1930s, '40s and early '50s, when the upstart Congress of Industrial Organizations was vying with the established American Federation of Labor. Unionization rose rapidly during that period and hit a high-water mark in 1955 at about one-third of the private-sector work force.
The AFL and CIO merged that year and, as is inevitable when competition is eliminated, big labor became more bureaucratic and less successful. Just 8 percent of private-sector employees belong to unions now.
Last week, the Service Employees International Union, Teamsters and United Food and Commercial Workers set out to restore competition by bolting from the AFL-CIO.
The split is over priorities more than principles. Andrew Stern, head of the Service Employees, wants to spend more money trying to organize nonunion workers. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney claims to recognize the importance of organizing, but doesn't want to divert money from political efforts.
Stern can claim to be building on success: His union has added 900,000 workers in the last nine years, while total AFL-CIO membership has shrunk.
Meanwhile, political action has come to seem futile: Union campaign contributions overwhelmingly favor Democrats, but the Republicans have firm control of Congress and the White House. Nor has labor had much success fighting globalization: Congress' approval of the Central American Free Trade Agreement was only the latest of many defeats.
In short, a shakeup was long overdue. "Something's got to happen or labor is going to become irrelevant," says Jefferson Cowie, associate professor of labor history at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "You can't just be a club that services existing members, or you're eventually going to be driven out of business."
If Stern's Change to Win Coalition spends more money on organizing, it may persuade some low-wage service workers to join unions. But Marvin Finkelstein, a professor of sociology at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, thinks big labor needs a new vision, not just a better budget.
"They need to make a more compelling case to both prospective members and to employers about why unions can be a positive thing," Finkelstein said. In this era of job insecurity, a union that educates and trains workers for their next job might be more appealing than one that fights in vain to protect existing jobs.
Finkelstein doesn't believe the decline of unions is irreversible, but other scholars disagree. "Emphasizing organization could slow the decline, maybe even lead to a plateau level, but I don't think it's going to turn it around," said Ohio University economist Richard Vedder. "I just don't think the American public sees much value in unions."
The work force, after all, has changed since labor's heyday. The average worker is more educated and likely to toil in a clean office rather than a dangerous factory. Unemployment is relatively low, and our society is more mobile than ever. If you don't like one job, it's easier to find a new one than to band together and fight the boss.
Even the spread of 401(k) plans may be undermining the union message. "As you become a capitalist, even a small one, you start to look at capitalism and employers less as the enemy and more as the people who are going to provide me my retirement," Vedder said.
In an earlier era, a slogan such as "Workers of the world, unite!" might energize the masses. Today's worker responds simply, "What's in it for me?"
At the moment, unions don't have a good answer.
E-mail: dnicklaus@post-dispatch.com Phone: 314-340-8213

The Times (Shreveport, Louisiana), July 31, 2005, Sunday

Copyright 2005 The Times (Shreveport, LA)
All Rights Reserved
The Times (Shreveport, Louisiana)

July 31, 2005 Sunday

HEADLINE: Survey finds high turnover 'a vicious cycle' for call centers

BYLINE: Melody Brumble, mbrumble@gannett.com

BODY:
By Melody Brumble
U.S. Support Co. and its workers represent almost every statistic a team of Cornell University professors found in a national study of call centers in 2004.
Rose Batt and her colleagues, Virginia Doellgast and Hyunji Kwon, surveyed managers at 472 call centers about human resources practices, performance and business strategies. Outsource call centers account for 14 percent of those in the study.
Along the way, Batt, Doellgast and Kwon found that call center workers are older and better educated. That's despite a perception that the employees are younger and without much attachment to the work force.
They could be talking about Penny Page, 58, and Terrance Chambers, 39. Both had retail customer service experience before starting work at U.S. Support. Both ran into the company's strict expectations about productivity and inflexible attitude toward independent thought. Page lasted about six weeks, Chambers about six months.
"You just can't make a wave. Just be invisible," Page said. "It was my worst employment experience ever."
Chambers believes U.S. Support targeted him for firing because he spoke out about a critical e-mail from quality control to employees. The message came after the company decreased the call handling time from seven minutes to four minutes on one account.
"I had suggestions about increasing employee morale and asked them to look at the handle time," Chambers said. "I got back a pretty scathing e-mail that was copied to all the managers at U.S. Support."
Batt is the Alice H. Cook professor of women and work at Cornell's Industrial and Labor Relations School. She and colleagues are working on a long-term study of the U.S. call center industry.
Because of her research, she's familiar with the focus on productivity that dominates many call centers.
The study notes that call center workers generally have little discretion over daily tasks and the pace of work.
But that kind of approach can lead to poor customer service, which affects a call center's business, Batt said.
That's especially true of outsource call centers like U.S. Support, which contracts with companies to provide customer service.
"The centers that perform best are the ones that focus on customer service quality and overall revenue generation as opposed to focusing on minimizing cost and such metrics as the average call handling time," Batt said.
More successful call centers take time to actually address customer needs, she said. They also let workers take the lead in handling some problems instead of locking them into a cookie-cutter approach.
Empowering employees to make some decisions also reduces turnover. Firings, layoffs, retirements and dismissals can lead to an outsource call center replacing up to 51 percent of its work force every year.
The attrition rate may be even higher at U.S. Support. Page estimates that only 45 of 200 people hired when she was at the company were still there when she was fired.
She and other employees recalled that a particular training room seemed to be the "firing room," where managers called groups of people targeted for termination.
Chambers said seven of 69 people in his training class were still there when he was fired. "They tend to hire families, but they also tend to fire families together."
Outsource call centers like U.S. Support included in the national study had almost two times as many dismissals and layoffs as in-house call centers. In-house centers are operated by the company for which they provide support. An example would be the BellSouth small business sales call center in Shreveport.
Batt and colleagues are studying dismissal patterns at call centers. She speculates that firing and dismissal rates are tied to "the very rigid work environment, where the company demands high levels of handling calls, low discretion, kind of this production line idea."
High turnover causes "a vicious cycle" for companies, no matter what the cause. That's because it takes three to six months for someone to become proficient at the work, Batt said.
"With call centers that don't even pay a living wage or don't provide benefits or health care, people think, 'Why should I even stay with this employer?'" Batt said. "What that means is the company is in a treadmill. Every time they get someone trained and about ready to do the job, they're out the door."
Turnover at centers where workers belong to a union is lower than at nonunion centers, the study found. That translates into a more stable and experienced work force, according to the study. The report found absenteeism rates run about the same at union and nonunion centers.
"We strongly advocate that a company makes money," said Dugg Harrison, president of Communications Workers of America Local 1134 in Shreveport.
"We'll go and encourage the employees to work safely, to work smart. We encourage them to have good attendance. We know the company's got to make money for us to make money."
In Shreveport, only two call centers, BellSouth's small business sales and national directory information units, have union representation. Communications Workers of America represents about 425 people in the area. That group includes service and repair technicians, Harrison said.
"We have had people who worked out at U.S. Support come to work for us. They have heavily enlightened us as to the conditions out there," Harrison said.
"One of the things that I've heard is that they're promised up front a certain wage per hour. Once they get in there, that wage is only guaranteed while they are actually talking to a customer. That's very deceptive."
Harrison said he's also heard negative things about pay differences and practices at the CenturyTel call center. In the past, CenturyTel workers approached CWA about holding a union vote. The vote never occurred.
U.S. Support employees haven't approached the union about a vote, he said. "I don't want to go anywhere we're not welcome."
By the numbers
A nationwide call center study in 2004 includes the following information about outsource call centers like U.S. Support Co.
51 percent: average turnover.
27.8 percent: average quit rate.
10 percent: absenteeism.
$25,529: typical worker pay.
$49,884: typical manager pay.
2.4 weeks: average amount of training.

GRAPHIC: U.S. Support Co. pay chart; Source: U.S. Support Co. The Times; Mugs: Page; Chambers

Buffalo News (New York), July 30, 2005, Saturday

Copyright 2005 The Buffalo News
Buffalo News (New York)

July 30, 2005 Saturday
FINAL EDITION

SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. D12

HEADLINE: COMING UP

BODY:
REGATTA: The Western New York Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Foundation will host its 10th annual sailboat regatta from noon to 10 p.m. today featuring kayak and canoe paddles, rock climbing, and entertainment by the Toy Box Heroes. Cost is $10 with proceeds benefiting MS.
The event is at The Pier Festival Grounds, 325 Fuhrmann Blvd. For details, call 882-0555, Ext. 311 or visit watersportexpo.org.

INFORMATION SESSION: Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations on Tuesday will offer two forums on the benefits of earning certification in the field of human resources. They will be held from 9 to 10:30 a.m. at Cornell's Workplace Education Center, 237 Main St., Suite 1200, Buffalo, and from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Canisius@Amherst campus, 300N Corporate Parkway, Amherst. For more information contact Cynthia Price at 852-4191.

BOOK SALE: Sponsored by the Friends of the Richmond Library, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday at the library, 19 Ross St., Batavia. Large selection of mysteries, cookbooks, children's books and novels. For details, call 343-9550.
WILD ABOUT CLASSICS: The SPCA will present an "evening of wildlife and vintage cars," featuring cocktails, dinner, classic car show, and the release of wild animals that have been rehabilitated by the SPCA's Wildlife Department at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at Skibbereen Farm, Orchard Park. For further details, visit www.SPCAEC.com.
OPEN HOUSE: Trocaire College is hosting a session for prospective students from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday on its campus at 360 Choate Ave., Buffalo. Faculty and staff will lead campus tours and discuss academic offerings and financial-aid programs. For details, call the admissions office at 827-2545 or visit www.trocaire.edu.

Chicago Tribune, July 30, 2005, Saturday

Copyright 2005 Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Copyright 2005 Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune

July 30, 2005, Saturday


HEADLINE: Labor union pushes for change in organizing workers

BODY:

Several years ago the Service Employees International Union, a giant union that does not like to lose, approached Advocate Health Care, the Chicago area's largest healthcare chain, with a deal. They would become Advocate's partner in helping hospitals fight for better health care.
But they also wanted to sign up Advocate's 24,000 workers without a battle.
Advocate wasn't interested, however, and war ensued. The union issued damning reports, picketed executives' homes, got sympathetic legislators to launch investigations and turned out at hearings to oppose initiatives from bond offerings to new buildings. Advocate's officials were upset by the union's tactics.
They shouldn't have been surprised.
The 1.8-million member SEIU is not your standard union. It is the union that led last week's boycott by dissident, reform-minded unions of the AFL-CIO during its Chicago convention and then quit the federation along with the Teamsters and United Food and Commercial Workers union in a mark of labor's division.
The seven-union rival coalition it has inspired is also certain to bear the stamp of the SEIU, and its president, Andy Stern, someone who favors big, new ideas and says labor has to be in a hurry because of its rapidly sinking fortunes.
"People think of unions as old-fashioned, inflexible---male, pale and stale. They (unions) should be elastic and expandable to meet different employers needs. Unions created barriers to change as the world changed. We became a drag on change. Now the question is how do we become strong voices for workers. We need a new set of ideas that aren't going back 70 years," said Stern last week in Chicago.
Under Stern the SEIU has added 700,000 members in the last 10 years, a feat since most unions are shrinking. It has opened six international offices, and launched talks with unions globally so it can confront global companies. It has thrown more money into organizing and politics than other unions. Union members have also seen their dues doubled.
Across the U.S. the union has booted local leaders either for corruption or because they didn't go along with union's new game plans. And it has merged small locals with others, sometimes far away.
Not all the SEIU does is new. "But they put it together better than anyone else," said UCLA labor expert Ruth Milkman.
The force behind most of these moves is Stern, 54, a former Pennsylvania welfare worker, who became a local president at age 27. He was a protg of AFL-CIO and former SEIU head John Sweeney, whom he turned against this year, accusing him of lacking the guts for the kind of decisions labor needs.
Stern is a loner, who was deeply moved by the death several years ago of a teenage daughter. As Stern explains it, he realized life is brief and people need to act on what matters. Soon after his marriage also ended. Ever since he has been almost obsessed with his union work, colleagues say.
Recently he turned the union's daily operations to Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger, allowing him to step back and think about larger issues.
"What's different about him is that he looks for what's bigger and better," said Cornell University labor expert Rick Hurd.
In March, for example, Stern spoke to an audience of chief executives and venture capitalists at the PC Forum, an annual gathering of tech luminaries organized by writer Esther Dyson.
Stern made a pitch for the industry to form a joint venture with the union to invest 10 percent of the money saved through outsourcing to provide services for people who lost jobs.
"A bunch of people said, 'Why this guy?'" Dyson recalled. "By the end of it, I wouldn't say they were convinced and ready to sign up, but several said, 'This guy's amazing.' He was very impressive. He plays well outside his home turf."
But praise is not universal.
Foes at other unions accuse him of raiding them and, most recently, of betraying labor solidarity to go it alone.
Within the SEIU, there's an undercurrent of gripes, said Steve Early, a Boston-based officials for the Communications Workers of America.
"The issue of high dues, forced mergers, and the kind of high-handed way that SEIU national staff conduct themselves has triggered a backlash," Early said.
Bill Fletcher Jr., a former high-ranking SEIU official, said sometimes Stern is in such a rush to get things done, he lacks patience.
"Andy's view of change was you set a standard and enforce it," he said. "It assumes that workers are objects and they are not."
All of the Chicago area locals "were restructured, and people were fired," said Bob Bruno, a labor expert at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Newly merged locals had to be big enough to hire political and communications directors and put at least 20 percent of their dues into organizing, said Tom Balanoff, the SEIU's Illinois Council President. Locals then would get a portion of dues rebated to spend on organizing.
Stern urged his union's leaders to think globally, as in a campaign to organize security officers. After two years of talks with Securitas, a Swedish firm and one of the industry's biggest players with 200,000 workers in 20 countries, Stern and Balanoff were frustrated by the lack of progress.
"We want to create a crisis here, some action, some pressure," Balanoff recalls telling a union official in Sweden.
The result was a "fact-finding" mission to the U.S. by European Securitas workers which unleashed a spate of bad publicity about how poorly U.S. workers fared in comparison to their European counterparts.
Stern, meanwhile, contacted a Securitas board member he knew.
The double squeeze-union pressure from below and board pressure at the top-helped win a national recognition agreement with Securitas three years ago, said Balanoff.
Stern wanted the union to wield the clout that local bosses once held.
In Illinois, the union had been trying for years to organize home care workers that contract with the state, but the Republican-controlled state house balked.
"There's this Congressman, Rod Blagojevich," Balanoff recalled telling Stern. "I don't know if he can be elected but maybe if we could help him in a big way," he would help the union.
"Andy just pushed me," Balanoff said. "'You gotta take the risk. We gotta figure out how to use politics to allow workers to raise themselves.'"
The international kicked in about half of the nearly $ 1 million SEIU contributed to Blagojevich's successful election campaign. And the payoff was big--recognition of 49,000 child care workers and 20,000 home health care workers.
At Advocate, hospital officials question the sincerity of SEIU's accusations.
"Since we weren't willing to deliver our workers, suddenly we've become racists, delivers of bad care, and misers," said spokesman Tony Mitchell. "It's become a relentless attack."
But Balanoff makes no apologies for the heat.
"Advocate is the biggest chain in this city, certain responsibilities come with being the biggest," he said.
By Stephen Franklin and Barbara Rose

The New York Times, July 30,, 2005, Saturday

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
The New York Times

July 30, 2005 Saturday
Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section C; Column 2; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 1

HEADLINE: SPLINTERED, BUT UNBOWED

BYLINE: By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

DATELINE: CHICAGO, July 28

BODY:
Even as he was leading the revolt this week that has divided the labor movement into warring camps, Andrew L. Stern was wasting no time in trying to demonstrate that unions are capable of a resurgence.
Mr. Stern's union, the Service Employees International Union, kicked off an effort to unionize 8,000 janitors in Houston, even though the state of Texas is particularly hostile to organized labor. In one of the most ambitious organizing drives in the South, the service employees have set their sights initially on the Houston operations of ABM, the nation's largest cleaning contractor.
If the service employees can unionize the biggest cleaning company in the city, Mr. Stern argues, other companies will quickly follow.
For all their ferocious infighting, labor's chieftains agree on one thing: labor can rebound in the new economy because there still are plenty of opportunities for old-fashioned organizing.
Millions of workers, they say, are ripe for labor's message because of stagnating wages for ordinary workers, declining benefits, growing insecurity on the job, and a sense that the haves are leaving the have-nots further behind. Moreover, workers in the low-wage service sector are disproportionately women, immigrants and members of minority groups that have all been traditionally more open to unionization.
But there are cross-cutting trends that undermine labor's hopes. Workers in industries that face global competition -- from manufacturers to high-tech service companies -- fear that if they unionize, that may just hasten their companies' decision to ship their jobs overseas.
And as the House's narrow vote in favor of the Central American Free Trade Agreement showed, even though labor retains clout among Democrats, it cannot overcome a determined drive by the White House and a Republican Party that is not inclined to do unions any favors.
For all the obstacles, said Mr. Stern, whose union is the fastest-growing in the nation -- having jumped to 1.8 million members from 1.1 million a decade ago -- ''there are a series of things that make a revival possible.''
''First is the environment that Alan Greenspan talked about recently -- the growing disparity between the wealthy and other Americans,'' Mr. Stern added in a telephone interview from his office in Washington. ''A second factor is the category of jobs that are going to remain in this country, that can't be sent overseas: trucking, janitorial, hospitals, supermarkets. A lot of these workers aren't paid well, and they need a voice at work.''
In Houston, the service employees union certainly appear to have a strong selling point: ABM's janitors in Houston earn $5.25 an hour and have no health benefits, while its unionized janitors in Chicago, San Francisco and New York earn $15 or more an hour and have health benefits.
It is a classic, sophisticated service employees' campaign: a two-week strike, full-page newspaper ads, the city's Roman Catholic archbishop and several members of Congress decrying the janitors' wages and lack of benefits. Not only that, the union has staged support strikes by ABM workers from California to Connecticut.
But despite such tactics, the labor movement's vital signs have grown weaker by the decade. Half a century ago, the union movement was a behemoth, representing 35 percent of private-sector workers. Now it represents less than 8 percent.
But Mr. Stern -- who is widely viewed as the man who will spearhead a resurgence in labor, if there is going to be one -- prefers to focus on another, more encouraging statistic: 52 percent of nonunion, nonsupervisory workers say, according to polls, that they would vote to join a union today if they could.
Counterintuitive though it may be, Mr. Stern says the growing size of American corporations is another factor that may help labor.
''Employers are larger, and in the end that may be an advantage,'' he said. ''When we organize, it's easier to organize one huge retailer like Wal-Mart or Home Depot than 100 smaller companies that are totally disaggregated.''
Reversing labor's decline is a tall order. To increase the percentage of the work force that is unionized would require unions to recruit one million new members a year, more than twice the current rate of recruitment. Meanwhile, companies have grown far more sophisticated, and aggressive, in beating back unionization attempts.
Unions also face huge hurdles getting their message through to millions of young workers and high-tech workers, who tend to be independent-minded and often entrepreneurial and look solely to their own drive and talents, rather than unions, to help them climb the economic ladder.
''Unions have to find a new message,'' said Randel Johnson, vice president for labor, employee benefits and immigration at the United States Chamber of Commerce in Washington. ''Stern keeps putting more troops on the ground to organize workers, but it's more troops with the same message.''
On Monday, the service employees and the Teamsters quit the A.F.L.-C.I.O., saying it has done to little to reverse labor's slide. [On Friday, the United Food and Commercial Workers also quit.] A fourth union, Unite Here, which represents hotel, restaurant and apparel workers, also plans to quit.
Those unions are cooperating with three other unions -- the laborers, farm workers and carpenters -- to develop ambitious, multi-union organizing drives at Cintas, the laundry company, as well as at FedEx and Wal-Mart.
Richard Hurd, a labor relations professor at Cornell University, says the most likely way for the labor movement to grow again is to focus on low-end service-sector workers.
''There's an opportunity for unions to build some kind of momentum by focusing on workers who are the most oppressed,'' he said. Harley Shaiken, a labor expert at the University of California at Berkeley, added, ''They need a message that resonates not that you have it bad, but that we can help make your life better.''
In the Houston campaign, the service employees union, which spends more than half its budget on organizing, is using several new strategies. For one thing it is trying to organize 8,000 janitors at once, rather than 20 at a time in individual buildings. The union is also using its pension power and political connections, getting public pension funds in California and New York to pressure Houston building owners to urge their cleaning contractors to pay better.
''Sometimes this can be done with the power of persuasion,'' Mr. Stern said. ''Sometimes it takes the persuasion of power.''
Union leaders agree that for the labor movement to revive, the turnaround must come in the private sector. Among government employees, unionization is expected to remain relatively easy even though the governors of Indiana and Missouri recently stripped state workers of the right to unionize. Because states and cities rarely go to the mat in fighting unions, 36 percent of the nation's public employees are unionized.
Factory workers were once the heart of the labor movement, but employment in many former labor strongholds -- steel, rubber and autos-- has plunged because of automation and imports.
''Our organizing efforts are not able to keep up with the loss of manufacturing jobs,'' said R. Thomas Buffenbarger, president of the International Association of Machinists. Mr. Buffenbarger said his union organized 5,000 workers a year, while losing 15,000 a year to factory closings and downsizings.
The United Auto Workers has recently organized several auto parts plants, including a 220-worker Dana auto parts plant in Virginia and a 1,200-worker Thomas Built bus plant in North Carolina. But noneof those successes have proved big enough to reverse the union's slide.
''The U.A.W.'s membership seems preordained to decline unless they make a breakthrough at the transplants,'' Professor Hurd said. ''That is hard because the transplants provide union wages and benefits. They're in regions not friendly to unions and use Japanese culture that gives workers a modicum of voice and feelings of belonging. They're very hard to crack.''
Professional and technical workers may be even tougher to organize. Despite years of trying, unions have failed to crack even one Silicon Valley company.
''Unions have to adapt to the changing economy in order to succeed,'' Professor Hurd said. ''A new model needs to be developed that provides these workers with an opportunity to take their benefits with them and provides them with a voice at work that may be outside of collective bargaining.''
One such model may be the Communication Workers of America, whose executive vice president, Larry Cohen, said his union is succeeding with a number of innovative approaches. At I.B.M., for example, 3,000 employees have joined a union-sponsored group, Alliance at I.B.M., that provides an advocacy forum for workers on pensions, career and job security.
The communications' workers, after persuading Cingular Wireless not to oppose unionization efforts, has organized 22,000 Cingular workers. And while the union expects to add new AT&T members now that Cingular has acquired AT&T Wireless, it is making little progress with Verizon Wireless, which is vigorously fighting unionization.
''When you take away the terror,'' Mr. Cohen said, ''workers are eager to sign up.''
But not many unions are organizing so aggressively. A decade ago, John J. Sweeney, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s president, urged unions to spend at least 30 percent of their budget on organizing. Stewart Acuff, the federation's organizing director, said that only five of the federation's 54 unions had met that goal.
''If we're going to turn this around,'' Mr. Acuff said, ''it's going to take more than a handful of unions.''


URL: http://www.nytimes.com

GRAPHIC: Photos: Andrew Stern, right, president of the Service Employees International Union, says millions of workers would like to unionize. (Photograph, right, by Nam Y. Huh/Associated Press
illustration by The New York Times)(pg. C1)
Members of the Service Employees International Union rallied Thursday in Houston at the end of a strike against a cleaning company. (Photo by Michael Stravato for The New York Times)
John J. Sweeney, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., has watched his labor group steadily shrink. (Photo by Frank Polich/Bloomberg News)(pg. C13)Chart: ''Waning Membership''Percent of U.S. workers who were union members from 1948 to 2004.In 1948, membership was at 31.8% . . .. . . while in 2004, it decreased to 12.5%Graph tracks membership since the 1950's.(Source by Bureau of Labor Statistics
Leo Troy, author of Union Sourcebook, 1975)(pg. C1)Chart: ''Union Work Force''Percent of each U.S. sector or industry that was represented by a union in 1975 and 2004.Though overall membership has declined, the number of unionized government employees has risen.1975: 25%2004: 36Membership in the private sector, however, has decreased.1975: 21.52004: 8The industries below have had sharp declines.CONSTRUCTION1975: 352004: 16MANUFACTURING1975: 362004: 13TRANSPORTATION1975: 472004: 27(Source by Bureau of Labor Statistics
Leo Troy, author of Union Sourcebook, 1975)(pg. C13)

The Times Union (Albany, New York), July 30, 2005, Saturday

Copyright 2005 The Hearst Corporation
The Times Union (Albany, New York)

July 30, 2005 Saturday
3 EDITION

SECTION: MAIN; Pg. A7

HEADLINE: Labor movement is in deadly spiral

BYLINE: By MARIE COCCO

BODY:
WASHINGTON - Choose your cliche: A house divided itself cannot stand. United we stand, divided we fall. Solidarity forever - not.
The rift that has sundered organized labor is a dire omen. It foretells a period of turmoil among those who would claim leadership of stressed and strained workers at a moment when more stress and strain are not what workers should be forced to endure. At worst, it could be the death rattle of American organized labor, already at its weakest since before the Depression.
I do not know whether Andrew Stern of the Service Employees International Union and James Hoffa of the Teamsters are motivated by ambition or personality conflicts or by a genuine desire to do something - anything - to stop labor's slide. Whatever is animating them - and the leaders of the other unions who are poised to follow them out of the AFL-CIO - there are predictable certainties in the short term.
The split will not save the pensions of older workers who are increasingly likely to learn that after a lifetime on the job, the benefits they've earned are being slashed unilaterally, and with little notice. It won't stop the next crafty corporate operator from dumping a pension plan on the government's insurer, a maneuver that is supposed to be a fail-safe but has become a calculation to secure the bottom line.
It will not keep employers from raising health insurance premiums, co-payments and deductibles to shift the burden to workers. It won't stop jobs from moving offshore, or keep Congress from approving trade deals that make it easy for American companies to continue their quest for the cheapest possible labor, performed under conditions that would be illegal here at home.
It will not change the ideological bent of the National Labor Relations Board, which has amassed under President Bush's appointees a near-perfect record of siding with employers at the expense of employees who try to form unions. The board, says an article in the New York State Bar Association's labor and employment law newsletter, appears "headed toward the most radical non-legislative contraction of employee rights in the agency's history."
The right of various employees to representation - graduate teaching assistants, handicapped janitors, temporary workers - has been denied. The rules on union elections are being narrowed to suit management.
Approximately three fourths of employers, when confronted with a union organizing drive, hire anti-union consultants, according to research by Cornell University labor scholar Kate Bronfenbrenner. Most companies require workers to attend anti-union meetings, often one-on-one. Most manufacturing employers threaten to close a plant if the workers choose a union. Data compiled by the labor relations board shows that more than 20,000 workers each year are fired or somehow retaliated against for trying to form a union.
"It's hard for me to see that the problem of organizing is the percentage of money the AFL-CIO spent on it," says James Green, a labor historian at the University of Massachusetts.
This is, nonetheless, the chief complaint of Stern and his dissidents. They say that under John Sweeney, the AFL-CIO has failed to stem labor's erosion and has not organized enough workers in enough workplaces. Sweeney, a secondary charge goes, has spent too much time and money on electoral politics at the highest levels, instead of at the grass roots. The grievance echoes those of Democrats who were drawn to Howard Dean in the 2004 primaries, as Stern was. In his bid to be a kingmaker then, Stern broke with most of organized labor to provide Dean with the SEIU's early endorsement, in November 2003.
The press made much of the labor leader's supposed political prowess at the time. Soon after came Dean's spectacular fall. But Stern wasn't humbled. He sniped at Democratic nominee John Kerry even as the Democratic National Convention opened in Boston, claiming in an interview with The Washington Post that labor and the Democratic Party might be better off if Kerry lost the election.
Well, Stern got what he wanted. Did average workers?
Stern's vision of a broader, bottom-up movement is in the long term the only antidote to labor's death spiral. But the crisis for working people is also cultural, the product of a national sentiment that seems to accept pre-Depression weakness for workers alongside a Gilded Age concentration of wealth and power.
Transforming this ethos requires a marriage of many strategies. It is hard to argue the challenge is best met by a bitter divorce.
Marie Cocco's e-mail address is mariecocco@washpost.com

The Daily Record of Rochester (Rochester, NY), July 29, 2005, Friday

Copyright 2005 Dolan Media Newswires
The Daily Record of Rochester (Rochester, NY)

July 29, 2005 Friday

SECTION: NEWS

HEADLINE: LaMarr J. Jackson joins Harris, Chesworth, Johnstone, Welch & Leone, LLP. in Rochester, NY

BYLINE: Staff

BODY:
LaMarr J. Jackson, has joined Harris, Chesworth, Johnstone, Welch & Leone, LLP. as of counsel effective Aug. 1.
Jackson is a graduate of the University at Buffalo School of Law. She is currently an adjunct professor at Keuka College and the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
She is an arbitrator in the Rochester area serving on public and private panels to settle disputes between labor and management. She was the affirmative action/minority business coordinator for the Rochester area for many years.
Jackson is experienced in the areas of matrimonial and family law, business law, labor relations, arbitration, criminal law, trust and estate administration and education. Prior to joining the firm, Jackson had her own practice.
She is a member of the Monroe County Bar Association, the Attorney Grievance Committee Fourth Department and is also licensed to practice in Connecticut.
Presently she is on the faculty of the United Way of Greater Rochester for the African-American Leadership Development Program, Board of Directors of the League of Women Voters and Board of Directors of the School of the Arts.

Chicago Tribune, July 28, 2005, Thursday

Copyright 2005 Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Copyright 2005 Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune

July 28, 2005, Thursday

HEADLINE: John J. Sweeney wins new term as AFL-CIO president

BYLINE: By Stephen Franklin

BODY:

On the walls of the AFL-CIO's executive offices in Washington, there's a small painting that clashes wildly with the upbeat, modern decor. It's a dark, gloomy Depression-era portrait of three raggedy guys.
The first time John J. Sweeney saw it, he recalls doing a double take, and insisting that it stay. He liked it because it stirred memories of decades ago when he was starting out as a union worker in New York City.
"I said, 'Oh, my, they reminded me of the people sitting outside of my office,'" Sweeney recalled recently. "And it reminded me of how much I was able to do for some of them."
Now the question is how much he can do for the AFL-CIO.
On Wednesday, Sweeney, 71, won another four years as president of the labor federation that now appears to be a deeply wounded institution besieged from within and without.
Four unions boycotted the convention in Chicago while two of them, in dramatic fashion, quit and will form their own group, the better, they say, to deal with the challenges facing a labor movement that appears in inexorable decline.
From stepping up the federation's fight against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to finding money to help local labor groups hurt financially by the unions' departure, Sweeney vowed Wednesday to keep his organization moving forward and described the dissidents' effort as a failed "power grab."
Ever the optimistic mediator, however, he hoped that they would return. And he predicted that the 54 unions in the loosely linked federation would embrace the reforms laid out this week.
"We are very enthusiastic about implementing the changes we've talked about," he told reporters. "I think we really have to think positively about building a stronger labor movement."
Times, indeed, may be different for organized labor since Sweeney's first union days. But he remains, say those who know him, the same soft-spoken, unruffled conciliator, someone who more resembles a cuddly grandfather with a soft Bronx Irish accent.
Even during this week's convention, when the AFL-CIO's 50th anniversary turned into a divorce proceeding, Sweeney seldom stoked the sense of betrayal that hung over the sessions at Navy Pier.
His acceptance speech barely touched on the exit of the Teamsters and Service Employees International Union, and their 3.1 million members. Several other like-minded unions, which have set up a rival organization to the federation, are expected to also quit the AFL-CIO.
"Through all the harsh words and the turmoil, I was actually thinking how very lucky I am, not only to have my supportive family at home, but also to have the support of my union family," he told the delegates.
The reluctant candidate
Such a crisis might have seemed unlikely 10 years ago when Sweeney took office.
He was a reluctant candidate in a palace coup of union leaders who said labor badly needed to change and oust AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland.
It was the federation's first contested election ever. Until then all of its leaders had died or retired from office. This week, too, Sweeney did not face a challenger.
Sweeney, who was the head of the SEIU, was portrayed by foes as a radical who would plunge labor into nasty street battles. With unions deeply divided, he barely won.
His strength as SEIU president, said Cornell University labor expert Rick Hurd, was building bridges between old and new labor leaders and opening the way for young militants like Andy Stern, the SEIU's current president, to bring new ideas to the union.
So, too, after his AFL-CIO victory, Sweeney laid out ambitious organizing and political plans, hired staff to carry them out and opened federation meetings to workers, something never done before. A deeply religious man, he urged unions to work closer with clergy on workers' issues.
Ironically, Sweeney was a reluctant candidate again, agreeing to stay in order to keep the federation together, according to those close to him.
As unions bucked or sidestepped some of Sweeney's efforts in the late '90s, he pulled back, say critics like Anna Burger, a longtime SEIU official, who ran Sweeney's 1995 campaign. Today, she heads the seven-union dissident coalition.
Another critic is Stern, who sparked the dissident unions' rebellion and several months ago said Sweeney had to step down so reform could take place in the AFL-CIO.
"[Sweeney's] personality and style isn't suited to anything other than managing success," Stern said this week.
The two had not talked privately since Stern called for Sweeney's ouster, and Stern said he tried to call him Monday, just before announcing the SEIU's departure. But they never connected. "I felt I owed him a call," Stern explained. "There is no person who loves his family, his God, and his union as much as he does."
A union man from the start
Unions clearly have been stepping stones in Sweeney's life. The son of Irish immigrants--his mother was a maid and his father a New York City bus driver--he often tagged along with his father to union meetings as a youngster, and once stepped in for him at a union-sponsored street political rally.
He got involved in local Democratic Party politics, and that is how he met his wife, Maureen, a former New York City schoolteacher. She had volunteered to help with a campaign, and they spent their first date, according Ray Abernathy, Sweeney's longtime speechwriter, at a union dinner. The night Sweeney became AFL-CIO president, they went to a union dinner too.
Sweeney, who picked up the nickname "the Pope" at the SEIU local in New York where he built his power base, has few close friends, preferring to spend time with his family and to golf with his daughter, Trish.
"He is the most self-confident man I've ever met in my life," said Abernathy.
Asked about his mood late one day in Washington several weeks ago as the federation seemed headed for collision with his one-time protege and union, Sweeney calmly shook his head.
"As I used to tell my kids, there has hardly been a day for the past 48 years that I wasn't happy to go to work."
JOHN J. SWEENEY
- Born May 4, 1934, the Bronx, N.Y.
- Economics degree from Iona College, New Rochelle, N.Y.
Married, two children.
- First union job was working with the International Ladies Garment Workers union as a researcher in New York.
- President of the Service Employees International Union from 1980 to 1995.
- President of the AFL-CIO since 1995.