The Miami Herald (Florida), March 14, 2006, Tuesday

Copyright 2006 The Miami Herald
The Miami Herald (Florida)

Distributed by Knight/Ridder Tribune News Service

March 14, 2006 Tuesday

SECTION: BUSINESS AND FINANCIAL NEWS


HEADLINE: UM strike lands at MIA: UM workers take their strike to Miami International Airport today as their labor dispute enters its third week. At the heart of the issue is a fight over

BYLINE: Niala Boodhoo, The Miami Herald

BODY:
Mar. 14--University of Miami janitors plan to expand their strike to Miami International Airport today, after plans for a meeting between the groups involved in the labor dispute broke down.
The contract workers are to set up a picket line at the airport this morning, where other janitors also employed by Unicco Service Co. are expected to show solidarity with university workers and not cross the line.
As the strike enters its third week, all sides appear to be digging in.
In a letter to Miami-Dade County Commission Chairman Joe Martinez, who had offered to broker the meeting, the university reiterated its view that it was not involved.
"This is a matter to be settled between Unicco Service Co., their employees and the Service Employees International Union," UM said in the letter. A school committee is expected to file a report on the pay and benefits for all contract workers to President Donna Shalala next week, the letter said.
Company spokesman Doug Bailey said Unicco officials had been waiting for the meeting, but then heard it was canceled. "I'm not sure why," he said.
Now that the meetings are off, picket lines will be set up at the airport early this morning and continue throughout the day, said Jill Hurst, deputy director of the property services division for the union.
At the heart of the strike is not only the issue of pay and lack of benefits but also the method the Service Employees' International Union wants to use to organize the workers. The process, often called a card check, requires a majority of the workers to sign pledge cards saying they support the union.
The union says the card-check election is key to improving working conditions. "Fundamentally, we're trying to improve the healthcare and wages for the worker at the University of Miami," Hurst said.
Unicco opposes that method, saying the union could intimidate workers into signing pledge cards. It says it welcomes the more traditional secret-ballot election administered by the National Labor Relations Board.
The fight over the unionization process has reached Washington. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., and Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., are co-sponsoring a law that says a union would be recognized once 50 percent of the workers signed petitions or pledge cards in favor of it. There is another opposing bill, introduced by Rep. Charles Norwood, a Georgia Republican, which seeks to eliminate the card check process entirely.
The current NLRB election system has so many checks, balances and rights to appeal that it is clearly "in the management's advantage," said Richard Hurd, a Cornell University Labor Studies professor. With the card check process, although there may be "some fears that it is in the union's advantage, it's not as much as the company has in the NLRB process."
James Canavan, Unicco's vice president for labor relations, said an NLRB-run election is still the way to go. "Many of our workers have come to us and said they don't want a union," he said.
Inda Aguilar, who has worked for Unicco for six years, says she is not on strike because that isn't the right way to solve problems.
"Yes, I've got the same complaints," said Aguilar, who makes $6.50 an hour cleaning buildings a the university and gets one week of vacation. But "what would happen if everybody went on strike?" she asked.
Copyright (c) 2006, The Miami Herald Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.