New York Teacher State Edition, March 2, 2006, Thursday

New York Teacher State Edition
March 2, 2006, Thursday

Briefs: A Cingular company
http://www.nysut.org/newyorkteacher/2005-2006/060302briefs.html
March 2, 2006
In an age of corporate union-busting, Cingular Wireless is a maverick: It has relatively warm relations with unions, The New York Times reports.
While its competitors have argued that an organized labor force would hobble their ability to cut costs and make changes to compete in a high-tech industry, Cingular, with a nearly fully unionized labor force, has grown into the nation's largest wireless carrier.
"The fact Cingular does well even in the face of unionization helps rebut the argument that unions aren't viable in a technologically sophisticated and dynamic industry," said Harry C. Katz, dean of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University.
The union partnership "provides us a competitive advantage," said Lew Walker, a Cingular vice president.
About 225,000 people, including managers, work in the wireless industry; about 39,000 of them belong to a union — nearly all of them at Cingular.
Union organizing hotel workers
If you're staying at a Hilton hotel this year, brace yourself for noisy demonstrations out front.
UNITE HERE, representing hotel workers, kicked off a national campaign in February aimed at signing up tens of thousands of employees of Hilton Hotels Corp. and Starwood Hotel & Resorts Worldwide Inc., which owns the Sheraton, Westin and four other chains, reported Business Week online.
Union leaders have lined up some big names to publicize the cause, including actor Danny Glover, the son of two union activists, and former U.S. Sen. John Edwards, whose father worked in a mill.
"We're challenging our industry to make service jobs middle class," says John W. Wilhelm, president of UNITE HERE's hospitality division.
SEIU targets janitors
The Service Employees International Union hopes to organize 15,000 janitors nationwide in 2006, and the University of Miami has become an early battleground, The Washington Times reports. Union leaders are counting on support from students and community leaders to organize about 480 campus janitors and gain a foothold with the estimated 20,000 janitors in the metro area.
The Miami campaign follows the union's November victory in Houston , where 5,300 janitors agreed to join SEIU.
Character ed conference
A regional conference on character education is scheduled for March 17-18 on the Troy campus of Sage Colleges.
It is titled "Promising practices: Making a difference for building character, academic excellence fulfilling lives." For details, see www.sage.edu/resources/charactereducation, or call (518) 244-2336.