The Virginian-Pilot, April 30, 2006, Sunday

The Virginian-Pilot
April 30, 2006

When Ford goes, blue-collar institution likely to go with it: UAW Local 919
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=103699&ran=173663

By JEREMIAH MCWILLIAMS, The Virginian-Pilot © April 30, 2006

NORFOLK –– United Auto Workers Local 919 is fighting for survival.
“If there’s no Ford, there’s no union here, because there’s no one here to represent,” said Doug Porter, who has worked at the union hall as a bargaining committeeman since 1995.
Local 919 dates to World War II at Ford Motor Co.’s Norfolk Assembly Plant, which the company plans to close in 2008.
The local represents about 2,600 hourly workers at the 81-year-old plant and at the local facilities of three parts suppliers. Local 919 is the second-largest industrial union in Hampton Roads, behind the United Steelworkers of America Local 8888 in Newport News, and had more than $1 million in assets last year.
Local 919 added 444 members between 2001 and 2005 on the strength of organizing drives at companies doing business with Norfolk Assembly, which produces the F-150 pickup truck, Ford’s hottest-selling product.
But workers and union officials seem uncertain on how much the union local can do – if anything – to reverse Ford’s decision to idle the plant. Representatives from the international union, rather than local officials, will take the lead in crucial contract negotiations with Ford next year. Uncertainty also swirls around the benefits packages Ford may offer its idled employees at Norfolk Assembly.
“Ford’s got the basketball in their court,” said Chris Kimmons, president of Local 919. “We’re still saying we’re trying to turn this around.”
The strategy of the Local 919 leadership is to make the plant as indispensable as possible. Tommy Schuster, a Local 919 bargaining committeeman, said that means improving the quality of the F-150 built in Norfolk, even as Ford moves ahead with its closing plans.
“The fight’s going to be at the 2007 negotiations,” Schuster said. “The more we’ve improved on quality, the more leverage we’ll have, the better bargaining position we’ll have to keep our plant open.”
Until then, Kimmons said, he plans to persuade workers to refuse buyout or incentive packages that Ford may offer them. Ford has not disclosed when it will unveil those programs.
“If we take packages and accept them, it says we accept what you’re doing to us,” Kimmons said. “I don’t know how strong our bargaining power will be – maybe it will be worse than it is now.”
Across the country, unions in general and the UAW in particular have lost members and influence in recent years. The UAW’s membership rosters have shrunk by 1 million members – to a post-World War II low of 557,000 – since its peak in 1970. Membership fell nearly 10.6 percent last year alone.
“That extra million gives you a lot more clout in politics and the economy,” said Harley Shaiken, a professor specializing in labor issues at the University of California at Berkeley. The UAW “remains a strong force, but weaker politically and in the economy.”
Virginia has a reputation as rocky ground for unions. Only 4.8 percent of workers in the state were members of unions last year, down from 5.3 percent in 2004, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“It’s difficult for us, because the companies have the right to fire people for no reason at all,” said Alton Glass Sr., president of the steelworkers’ Local 8888, which represents more than 5,700 workers in Hampton Roads. “It’s tough when state laws give employers the right to do that. ... Especially when you want a union but you need your job.”
In the auto industry, “union membership is dropping because Americans are buying fewer American cars,” said Lee H. Adler, who teaches labor and employment law at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations in Ithaca, N.Y. “They’re also losing membership in the parts companies, which send almost all their business to the Big Three.”
With Ford set to lay off as many as 30,000 workers and close 14 North American plants by 2012, the UAW has been playing defense, forced to cope with what the company dictates, said David Litt­mann , senior economist at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland, Mich.
The union is “definitely terribly reactive – that’s the problem,” Littmann said. “Whenever you’re in defense rather than out in front of the eight ball, you’re going to keep getting hit.”
In interviews last week, a number of union members shared that view.
“I agree with that 100 percent,” said Webster G. Clarke II, a team leader in the quality department at TDS/US , a parts transporter for Norfolk Assembly that employs about 160 UAW members at its Chesapeake facility. “If we don’t become proactive and continue to be reactive, then we’re going to face extinction.”
The UAW, which also represents hourly workers at General Motors and Chrysler, has not unionized Nissan, Honda or Toyota, except for a joint venture between Toyota and GM in California. Those “transplant” companies are some of the fastest-growing in the U.S. automobile industry.
“The power of the union is greatly diminished because it’s been unable to organize the transplant factories,” said Peter Morici, a professor of international business at the University of Maryland.
Two weeks after Ford announced that Norfolk Assembly would close, a mixture of resignation, frustration and confusion runs high among union members.
Ford workers are “quiet, upset, shocked – you name it, it’s in there,” said Kevin Rowe, a trim technician at Norfolk Assembly, as he took a lunch break in the union hall. Outside the break room, a faded paper sign reading “America works when you buy American” graces an RC Cola vending machine.
Local 919 members’ frustration is not only directed at Ford, but at their international union leadership as well. Thomas Quick, an 11-year veteran of the trim department, expressed a common sentiment that union leaders were caught unprepared for Ford’s announcement.
“The disappointment is that the decision was made, and now we’re being reactive,” Quick said. “It’s harder to stop an object in motion. They’re supposed to keep us informed.”
Kimmons, who returned nine days ago from a previously scheduled union conference in Chicago, also was disappointed by the international’s initial response. On April 12, the day before the Ford announcement, he called top union leaders after hearing rumors of the closing. His calls were not returned until the next day, he said.
Some union members speculate that contract negotiations next year could lead Ford executives to change their minds on at least some plant closures. That happened in 2003, during the last full round of Ford-UAW negotiations. The company temporarily reversed its decision to close a Hazelwood , Mo., plant that built the Ford Explorer and Mercury Mountaineer and instead closed a plant in Lorain , Ohio.
Still, the last sport utility vehicle rolled off the Hazelwood assembly line in March.
Local union leaders “keep saying they want to do something, but it’s out of their hands,” said Calvin Williams, who installs speakers in F-150 trucks and battled Kimmons in last year’s presidential election at Local 919. “There’s not a lot we can offer to change Ford’s mind.”
News researchers Kimberly R. Kent and Maureen Watts contributed to this report.
Reach Jeremiah McWilliams at (757) 446-2344 or jeremiah.mcwilliams@pilotonline.com.

The New York Times, April 30, 2006, Sunday

The New York Times
April 30, 2006

Marla Kameny and Daniel Sage
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/fashion/weddings/30kame.html

Marla Marlene Kameny and Daniel Simon Sage were married last night at Temple Society of Concord in Syracuse. Rabbi Sheldon Ezring officiated.
Ms. Kameny, 35, is keeping her name. She received a doctorate in business administration from the University of St. Gall in Switzerland this month. She graduated from the State University of New York at Binghamton and received both an M.B.A. and a master's in industrial and labor relations from Cornell.
The bride is the daughter of Margie M. May and Dr. Ronald M. Kameny, both of Syracuse. Her father is a family physician at the North Medical Center, a group practice in Liverpool, N.Y. Her mother retired as the secretary in the humanities department at Syracuse University.
Dr. Sage, 37, is an associate professor of mathematics at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard and received a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago.
He is the son of Gloria and Martin Sage of Syracuse. His mother retired as a senior scientist at the Syracuse Research Corporation, a nonprofit defense and intelligence research organization for federal agencies.
His father, also retired, was a chemistry professor at Syracuse.

The Houston Chronicle, April 27, 2006, Thursday

Copyright 2006 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company
All Rights Reserved
The Houston Chronicle

April 27, 2006 Thursday
3 STAR EDITION

SECTION: BUSINESS; Pg. 1

HEADLINE: Protesters target health coverage;
Union members urge Wal-Mart to offer workers a better deal

BYLINE: L.M. SIXEL, Staff

BODY:
Protesters gathered outside a Wal-Mart in Pasadena on Wednesday as part of a national campaign to pressure the retailer to offer employees a better deal on health insurance.
The Houston-area effort, in which about 40 union members passed out leaflets, was part of an effort in 35 cities across the country by the new labor federation Change to Win.
Labor organizers chose to focus on Wal-Mart to draw attention to the nation's health crisis, said Miles Anderson, an organizer with the United Food and Commercial Workers local 455 union in Houston and local coordinator of WakeUpWalMart.com.
Forty-three percent of the 1.4 million Wal-Mart employees have health insurance, Anderson said, adding that in a typical company with 200 or more employees, 68 percent would have health insurance.
Wal-Mart responded that it has made changes to offer health coverage for more workers, by expanding the availability of the plan costing $11 per month to half of its work force and offering a more affordable drug benefit.
"America's working families are struggling to deal with the soaring cost of health care. At Wal-Mart, we're offering solutions," according to a prepared statement from the retailer. "Sadly, these rallies are more about politics and publicity stunts than health care."
While Wal-Mart allows its employees to buy insurance after just one year on the job, it's still too expensive for those employees who earn $7 an hour, said Chris Kofinis, communications director for WakeUpWalmart.com.
More events ahead The seven unions make up Change to Win, which was formed last year as a rival to the AFL-CIO. They say the Make Work Pay effort is the first coordinated national action by the group, which represents more than 6 million workers.
At noon today, Change to Win representatives including the Teamsters are expected to meet at the Port of Houston as well at ports in Los Angeles, Oakland and Miami to rally behind port drivers.
According to the labor federation, the drivers earn substandard fees for hauling loads for companies moving cargo through the port.
And on Friday, protesters are expected to march in front of the offices of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas in Houston to call attention to the lack of benefits for office cleaners in that building who are employed by a private cleaning service.
"It's ironic that the janitors who clean the offices of the largest health insurer in Texas don't have health insurance themselves," said Lynda Tran, spokeswoman for SEIU's Justice for Janitors campaign.
Margaret Jarvis, a spokeswoman for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, responded that "We do care about the uninsured."
But the cleaning company is hired by the building's owner.
"We're really the innocent bystander in this dispute between the union and the owner of our building," Jarvis said. The landlord has the contractual right to select its own cleaning contractor.
The cleaning company is PJS Services.
" To our knowledge, no contract cleaning company in Houston is providing health insurance benefits to their part-time employees including the national cleaning companies," PJS president Floyd Mahanay said. "We are confident that, when given all of the facts regarding union membership vs. nonunion, our employees will make the decision that is right for them, and we will respect their decision."
Focusing on health benefits Kofinis said the UFCW union isn't leading an organizing drive at Wal-Mart. Instead, the union is building a campaign to pressure companies to offer better health benefits for workers.
"Our effort is to build the largest grass roots in America so the company can't ignore the political pressure," he said.
The Change to Win coalition is picking locations across the nation where it already has a foundation for building an organizing program, said Richard Hurd, a professor of labor studies at Cornell University.
But it isn't a typical organizing campaign, he said, adding that it is using the giant retailer as a symbol of what's wrong with health care.
It's a long-term strategy. The UFCW doesn't have an organizing campaign going on against Wal-Mart - that would be too expensive, Hurd said.
Instead, it's a way to make a public stand on an important issue in an untraditional way instead of just going to Congress to lobby, he said. And it shows people that someone is standing up for them, which may well make union organizing easier later on.

NOTES: lm.sixel@chron.com

GRAPHIC: Photo: PASADENA DEMONSTRATION: Connie Guinn of Pearland shakes her sign at a motorist during a rally Wednesday to demand better health insurance from Wal-Mart outside the retailer's store in Pasadena.
BILLY SMITH II : CHRONICLE

Mount Kisco (AmericanTowns.com), April 27, 2006, Thursday

Mount Kisco (AmericanTowns.com)
April 27, 2006

Pamela and Paul Salvatore Selected for Clubs' John Beach Charity Award http://www.mountkisco.americantowns.com/servlets/WebPage?actionid=1720&eid=27037&aid=59677

Pamela and Paul Salvatore, residents of Bedford, NY have been selected to receive this year's John Beach Charity Award. The award, named for one of the Clubs' foremost supporters, was created in 1995 and is given to an individual, business or organization for generosity and commitment to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northern Westchester.
Paul Salvatore currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northern Westchester, where he sits on two committees, Human Resources and Campaign for Kids Steering committee. A partner in the law firm Proskauer Rose LLP, Paul was instrumental in securing Proskauer's support of the Club as a Gold Sponsor.
As a member of Proskauer's Labor and Employment Law Department, Paul represents employers in employment law and litigation, as well as union/management relations and collective bargaining. His work is often in the news; recently, he represented the New York City real estate industry in successfully averting a strike by 28,000 doormen resulting in an innovative, new collective bargaining agreement. He has been named among "America's Leading Lawyers for Business" in the employment law field, and is listed in Best Lawyers in America and the Global Counsel Handbook, as a leading labor lawyer worldwide. Paul is an honors graduate of Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) and The Cornell Law School. For the past two years, he has served as Chair of the ILR School, and as a member of the governing board of the Cornell University Council. In 2002, ILR awarded Paul the Judge William B. Groat Distinguished Alumni Award, the school's highest honor.
Pamela Fontaine Pobrislo Salvatore heads her own interior design and decorating practice, Fontaine Inc. A native Coloradan and graduate of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the Parsons School of Design, Pamela worked for the design/shelter magazines of Fairchild Publications and Hearst Magazines prior to founding her firm 15 years ago. Her charitable activities include Learning Through Art/The Guggenheim Museum's Children's Program, Caramoor Center for the Arts, and The Katonah Museum of Art, in addition to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Northern Westchester. She is also active in bringing art enrichment to her children's school, Rippowam Cisqua. Pamela served as co-chair of last year's Humanitarian dinner which raised more than $800,000 for "The Positive Place for Kids."
"Pamela and Paul Salvatore have been outstanding supporters of the Boys and Girls Clubs from day one," said Brian Skanes, The Club's Executive Director. "They contribute their own time and talents, as well as inspire others to become supporters of the Clubs. They are highly deserving of the John Beach Charity Award."
The Salvatores will be formally recognized for their many years of service to the Clubs at the 12th annual Humanitarian Award Dinner on Saturday, May 20, 2006, at the Saw Mill Club in Mt. Kisco.
The Humanitarian Awards Dinner is open to all by advance reservation. The cocktail reception, which begins at 6:30 p.m., will be followed by a sit-down dinner. There will be an award presentation and dancing. A silent and live Auction will also be featured. The Auction is online this year and bidding is open through May 14 (visit http://www.boysandgirlsclubnw.cmarket.com/ to bid or donate items). Individual tickets are $350; sponsorship tables are also available. For further information regarding tickets and/or donations, contact Jean Skanes at 666-8069.
About the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northern WestchesterThe Boys & Girls Clubs of Northern Westchester was established in 1939 as a place for "boys to get off the streets." It is a non-profit organization dedicated to the service of all youth with a primary focus on children with special needs. The main unit in Mt. Kisco, NY is a 36,000 square-foot facility featuring an 8-lane pool, Child Care Center, gymnasium, games room, two computer labs and an additional 1,600-foot Teen Center facility. The Club has two satellite programs: a youth and teen center in the Yorktown Community Center; and a full service program at The Community Opportunity Center in Tarrytown, NY. The Boys & Girls Clubs of Northern Westchester serves more than 6,000 youths, boys and girls ages 6 months to 18 years, from more than 60 Northern Westchester communities. The Club has been ranked among the outstanding Clubs in the national network of Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
This article was originally published in Boys & Girls Club Of Northern Westchester.

Univision (Spanish TV) (Aqui y Ahora), April 27, 2006, Thursday

Maria Figueroa
Director, Labor and Industry Research
Cornell University - ILR Extension Office
16 East 34th Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10016

was interviewed by Univision (the Spanish TV network) on the significance of the immigrant rights demonstrations. The interview was aired 27 April 2006 in the show "Aqui y Ahora," which is the equivalent of 20/20 or 60 Minutes for the Spanish TV.

http://www.univision.com/content/channel.jhtml?chid=6&schid=1363&secid=1372

Workforce Management, April 26, 2006, Wednesday

Workforce Management (News Brief)

April 26, 2006

GM Might Face Tough Sell With Union Buyouts http://www.workforceonline.com/section/00/article/24/34/61.html

General Motors has offered a deal to shed itself of much of its union-represented workforce, but it’s only the first of many steps the company must make to become competitive, observers say.
Last month, GM worked out a deal with Delphi and the United Auto Workers that allows the automaker’s113,000 UAW-represented hourly workers and 13,000 of Delphi’s 23,000 UAW workers to receive $35,000 to $140,000, depending on their seniority, if they retire early. But it remains to be seen how many workers will take the company up on the offer.
"I hope GM is better at selling buyouts than they are at selling cars," says Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.
The buyout’s success will depend on how risk-averse the workers are, Chaison says. "The fact is, they don’t know what they will get if they reject it," he says.
Assuming that many workers accept the offer, GM still runs the risk that its best workers, who are more mobile, will be the only ones to leave, says Gregory Homer, a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of law firm Drinker Biddle & Reath.
"There is a huge risk of brain drain," he says. "Then GM ends up with a workforce that is less productive than it was before."
The bigger question is what will GM do with the workforce that remains after the buyouts are over.
The company has a big challenge ahead in "repairing the relationships with the workforce," Chaison says. The employees feel that they have been making lots of sacrifices, and those who stay may suffer from "survivor’s guilt," he says.
"The workers now feel like there is no plan other than cutting costs," he says. "The company has to communicate a plan to these workers so they feel encouraged."
GM might actually get a morale boost in its workforce. Under the agreement with the UAW, the company will bring back 5,000 Delphi workers by September 2008.
"These people never wanted to leave GM in the first place," says Arthur Wheaton, a workplace and industry education specialist at Cornell University. "So they may have a better attitude and be excited about turning the company around."
On a broader level, GM needs to completely rethink how it wants its workforce to act, says Mark Neuberger, head of the employment law group of Buchanan Ingersoll in Miami. This means identifying the skill sets that are vital to compete and developing training and incentives to encourage those skills, he says.
GM has to become less bureaucratic, says Robert Chiaravalli, a labor lawyer and a principal at Strategic Labor and Human Resource in West Bloomfield, Michigan.
"They need to get lean quickly to make up for the potential skills gap created by workers leaving," he says. This doesn’t just mean becoming smaller, Chiaravalli says. "They need to figure out how to inspire creativity and innovation to introduce better cars."
—Jessica Marquez

Regional Network News (Richard French Live), April 25, 2006

Ken Margolies
Director of Organizing Programs
ILR Extension, NYC
Cornell University
http://www.rnntv.com/NewsChooser/pages/multi_column/rnn_live.html

On Tuesday, April 25, 2006, Regional Network News -- a cable station in the tri-state area(NY/NJ/CT) -- interviewed Ken Margolies on the Richard French Live show which ran around 8 pm (the show runs from 7 to 9 pm). The topic was the jailing of the president of the TWU.

Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia), April 23, 2006, Sunday

Copyright 2006 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)

April 23, 2006 Sunday
Final Edition

SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-4

HEADLINE: Is 'The Jungle' history?

BYLINE: By Sharon Cohen

DATELINE: OMAHA, NEB.

BODY:
Martin Cortez works in a world of long knives and huge saws, blood and bone, arctic chill and sweltering heat on the line as a meatpacker. It's no place for the squeamish, and it can be very dangerous. Cortez has been at it more than 30 years. He's seen workers slashed, burned or scarred. He doesn't recommend the backbreaking work. "You know what I like to say to newcomers?" he says. "They don't kill cows. They kill people." This, some would say, is The Jungle of 2006.
LOOKING BACK
It's not anywhere near as horrible as the world that muckraker Upton Sinclair surveyed 100 years ago in his sensational book "The Jungle." A harrowing portrait of an immigrant's oppressive life in meatpacking, the novel angered President Theodore Roosevelt, sent meat sales into a tailspin and inspired landmark consumer-protection laws.
Even the harshest critics acknowledge government regulations and inspectors have made meatpacking far cleaner and safer than it was when Sinclair described rats scurrying over piles of meat and sick animals stumbling to slaughter.
SOME SIMILARITIES
In 1906, there were accusations the meatpacking giants exploited immigrants, battles over unions and complaints of paltry pay for hazardous work.
In 2006, those problems persist - though the names have changed. The eastern Europeans who flocked to Chicago's bustling stockyards 100 years ago have been replaced by Mexican and Central American immigrants chasing their own dreams in the remote reaches of the rural Midwest and Southeast.
"It's not as bad as it was in the sense of the sheer brutality of 100 years ago - before labor laws and food safety laws," says Lance Compa, a Cornell University labor law expert who wrote a stinging Human Rights Watch report on the meat and poultry industry last year. "But for the times we're in now, the situation is much in line with what it was 100 years ago."
INDUSTRY CITES PROGRESS
The American Meat Institute, the trade group founded the same year Sinclair's book was published, dismisses those claims. It says wages (about $25,000 a year) are competitive, turnover is wildly exaggerated and safety has dramatically improved in recent years.
Institute President J. Patrick Boyle says in the last 15 years, there has been a new emphasis on partnerships - the union, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and companies collaborating to improve ergonomics and equipment and share ways to make the job safer.
It appears to have paid off: Federal figures show illnesses and injuries in the meat and poultry industry fell by half from 1992 to 2001 - from 29.5 to 14.7 per 100 full-time workers, according to a 2005 Government Accountability Office report.
A DANGEROUS WORKPLACE
Still, the number of workers injured in meatpacking is among the highest of any industry, and the GAO cautions injuries and illnesses still appear to be underreported. Immigrants may fear retaliation or job loss.
The risks are many: cuts and stabbings, burns, repetitive stress injuries and amputations. Hours are long, lines move fast and floors can be dark, loud, slippery or extremely hot or cold.
Turnover can exceed 100 percent in a year, the GAO said - a number the industry disputes.
ONE WORKER'S STORY
Jose Maria Montoya lasted just a year in his first stint in a plant. He deboned meat and says the repetitive cutting motions made his hands ache so badly, he lost all sensation in his fingers.
"I didn't say anything," he explains. "When you need something [money] for your family, you don't ask questions. You just do it. I don't have many choices. I don't speak English very well. I don't have much education."
His words are reminiscent of Sinclair's days when Lithuanians, Poles and other eastern Europeans crowded into the shadow of big-city slaughterhouses in hopes of building a better life. Their schooling counted for less than a strong back, a weak nose and willingness to sweat.
HARD WORK PAYS OFF
After he quit meatpacking, Montoya stayed in the Omaha area, working in a garment factory that, ironically, later moved to Mexico to take advantage of low wages. Montoya picked up new skills, learned to drive a forklift, then returned to the same meatpacking company - this time in the shipping department.
At 37, Montoya has a mortgage, a stack of bills, a $12.50-an-hour wage and eight kids to feed. Though his wife works, their combined dollars only go so far.
"My dream now is for my kids," he says. Montoya says he urges his children to study hard and become teachers and doctors, lawyers and judges. And when they whine about school, he firmly silences them:
"You have no choice," he says. "You want to be like me and work like a donkey?"
BOOK PROVOKES A CENTURY LATER
In 1906, "The Jungle" shocked the nation - and President Theodore Roosevelt - with its depiction of meatpacking as a filthy, unsafe and grueling industry.
Its author, Upton Sinclair, was a young Socialist who came to Chicago in 1904 to write an exposé of abysmal working conditions in the stockyards. He lived among immigrant meatpackers and made clandestine visits to plants.
Within months after "The Jungle" was published, two landmark measures became law: the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. More legislation and improved technology followed over the decades.
A century later, scholars still debate the message of "The Jungle."
Christopher Phelps, an associate professor of history at Ohio State University in Mansfield, said Sinclair's words still resonate.
"Today, the meatpacking work force once again consists largely of vulnerable new immigrants, arriving from Latin America, Asia, and Africa, in contrast to the Eastern Europe of Sinclair's time," wrote Phelps, editor of a 2005 edition of the novel.
"Were 'The Jungle' written today, the name Jurgis Rudkus would have to be replaced by Jose Ramirez. Would much else need to be changed?"
But others have argued that Sinclair's Socialist politics colored his message.
In a February book column in The Wall Street Journal, John J. Miller, a National Review writer, said the descendants of Sinclair's "exploited workers" no longer are in meatpacking plants.
"Instead, they occupy better jobs as fully assimilated Americans," he wrote.
"They also eat safe meat, processed for them by a new generation of immigrant laborers from Latin America and Southeast Asia - people whose lives are no doubt challenging, but also full of the realistic optimism that one day they will be no longer tired, no longer poor, and breathing free."
INSIGHT
Hispanic workers in the meat industry - including poultry - account for about 35 percent of the work force, according to federal statistics. One federal official estimated as many as one in four workers in meatpacking plants in Nebraska and Iowa might be illegal immigrants.
VIRGINIA FACILITIES
The USDA conducts inspections at five Virginia poultry plants and two pork plants. Another 44 meat-processing establishments are inspected by state inspectors under a cooperative program with USDA.
Another 17 establishments are under state inspection but cannot ship meat out of state, according to the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
- Greg Edwards

NOTES: A CLOSER LOOK . . . MEATPACKING NOW AND THEN 100 years ago, "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair exposed horrible conditions in American meatpacking plants. A century later, much has changed, but dangers remain.

GRAPHIC: PHOTO

National Review, May 08, 2006, Monday

Copyright 2006 National Review
National Review

May 08, 2006

HEADLINE: Illegal Immigrants, Unite! - And under the union banner, too.

BYLINE: Byron York

BODY:
At the big pro-illegal-immigration rally on the Mall in Washington on April 10, thousands of demonstrators held aloft dark blue signs that read, "We Are America." Below those words, in smaller letters, was the name "New American Opportunity Campaign," and below that was a web address, www.cirnow.org.
Although not obvious at first glance, the small print on the signs said something important about the aggressive new drive to win acceptance of illegal immigrants. A visit to the website www.cirnow.org -- those letters stand for "Comprehensive Immigration Reform Now" -- leads to a site for the New American Opportunity Campaign, which in turn leads to a request for donations to an organization called the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. "Opportunities should be provided for undocumented immigrants currently living in the U.S. to receive work permits and travel permission and access educational opportunities once they undergo background and security checks," says the groups' platform. "Those who want to settle in the United States should be eligible for permanent residence and citizenship." Both organizations list the same address: 1775 K Street NW, Suite 620, in downtown Washington.
As it happens, that is the Washington headquarters of UNITE HERE, the labor union formed a few years ago by the merger of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees, and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union. UNITE HERE -- which represents about 460,000 workers in the U.S. and Canada but hopes to unionize millions of newly arrived, low-paid, unskilled immigrant workers -- played a major role in organizing the Washington rally, as well as other pro-illegal-immigration events across the country.
Joining UNITE HERE in the immigration fight is the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents about 1.8 million workers in the U.S. and Canada. "You need to legalize the 11 million people who are here on an undocumented status," a top SEIU official told the liberal Air America radio network recently. "Many of them are our members." The chief organizer and spokesman of the Washington rally was a man named Jaime Contreras, who heads the local SEIU chapter and is also in charge of what is called the National Capital Immigration Coalition, a mix of labor, business, church, and civil-rights groups that staged the event.
In fact, SEIU and UNITE HERE, along with a few others like the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, are key sources of money, talent, and organization in the nationwide campaign to legalize illegal immigrants. "The leadership of organized labor is one of the reasons these marches have been so big," says Mark Krikorian, executive director of the pro-enforcement Center for Immigration Studies, "because there is [a union] infrastructure everywhere to get people mobilized, to rent the buses, to print the signs. All that stuff is important, and that's the advantage that organized labor still has."
The involvement of major unions represents an extraordinary change from just 20 years ago, when labor, embracing the generally accepted proposition that importing millions of low-wage workers would drive down the wages of American workers, still played its traditional role of working to limit illegal immigration and to punish employers for hiring illegal aliens. "Historically, American labor unions have defended the American worker, and immigration has been secondary," says Vernon Briggs, a professor of labor economics at Cornell University. "The labor-union movement was founded mostly by immigrants -- Samuel Gompers was an immigrant -- but it never confused the immigrant agenda with the interest of American workers."
Why the change? It's all about political power -- a labor movement on the decline hoping that a growing immigrant population will help it reclaim the political clout of years past. As recently as the 1980s, the portion of the American workforce that was unionized stood at about 20 percent. Now, it's 12.5 percent. With that decline has come declining political influence; the plain fact is that union leaders cannot deliver the votes they could in the past. Even with high voter turnout among union households, the unions' clout is disappearing. To regain some of their old influence, they must have new members.
And where to find those new members? Among the ranks of illegal, unskilled, low-paid immigrants. "This is something where the unions were affected by their shifting base, by the composition of their own memberships," says the liberal, pro-union writer Harold Meyerson. Looking around at the big crowd on the Mall, Meyerson adds, "That's what drove this, I think, more than anything else -- and the realization that if they are going to continue to grow, given the sectors they've targeted, there are lots of immigrants in those sectors. So it's why Willie Sutton robbed banks. If there are new members to be had, that's where they are."
And, should the unions' program be enacted into law, new members will ultimately mean new -- and overwhelmingly Democratic -- voters. "Today we march," Jaime Contreras told the rally in Washington. "Tomorrow we vote!"
The rallies in Washington and Los Angeles and Chicago and Dallas and dozens of other cities -- each attended by tens of thousands of people waving American flags -- presented a picture of a unity. But that unity does not extend to the entire labor movement, because what is good for unions like SEIU and UNITE HERE is not necessarily good for all unions. Has anyone seen the United Auto Workers at the forefront of the pro-illegal-immigration movement? No, and it's not likely to happen anytime soon. But the fact is that the UAW is losing influence in the labor movement. In mid-April, the Labor Department announced that the union lost more than 65,000 members in 2005, bringing its total membership to about 557,000 workers -- a figure far below its peak, in 1970, of 1.6 million workers. With fewer jobs to protect, and dramatic downsizing among its workers at General Motors and Ford, the UAW -- along with other old-line groups like the miners -- has little influence on the direction that organized labor is taking on the immigration issue. "They are yesterday's unions," says Mark Krikorian. "The membership is older, they are in industries that are having real problems. They are not going to have the same kind of pull within the councils of organized labor."
So organized labor has moved on. The key event in its evolution came in 2000, when the AFL-CIO executive council abandoned its support of employee sanctions and instead voted in favor of giving amnesty to all illegal immigrants (about 6 million at the time). "The world has changed, and it hasn't just changed for unions," John Wilhelm, president of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (before its merger with UNITE), told the Los Angeles Times in February 2000. "I'm not so sure people aren't rethinking earlier views. From a cold political perspective, if the labor movement and the immigrant communities and churches can generate sufficient momentum, I'm not so sure that we can't be successful."
They have not yet reached their goal -- amnesty -- but there's no denying that they have made significant progress. And for unions like SEIU and UNITE HERE, more members will likely mean more progress. "They really do believe that this is their ticket to increased numbers in the future," says Vernon Briggs. The formula is simple: More immigrants means more members means more influence and, ultimately, more voters. So far, it's working.

City News Service, April 24, 2006, Monday

Copyright 2006 City News Service, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
City News Service

No City News Service material may be republished without the express written permission of the City News Service, Inc.

April 24, 2006 Monday 8:16 AM PST

DATELINE: LOS ANGELES

BODY:
An advocate for the homeless who organized an anti- illegal immigration protest in Leimert Park that turned into a shouting match and scuffle apologized today.
"I blew it and I apologize for my actions," Ted Hayes said in an interview with CNS. "I have no excuse."
The anti-illegal immigration rally yesterday drew about 100 people, including counter protesters who tried to drown out those who had a city permit to be in the park, Hayes said.
As Hayes tried to talk to reporters, an unidentified man pushed through the crowd and began heckling.
"That person was wrong, no question about it, but my response was even worse," Hayes said.
Hayes said he asked the man to leave, and the man threw his hands up in the air and said that if Hayes touched him he would sue.
"And like a dummy, I said 'yes, I will touch you,' and gently put two hands on his chest," Hayes said.
With news cameras recording the moment, the two men briefly scuffled, but no punches were thrown.
"I apologize to him, to the Latino community, I apologize to the black community, to the Minutemen," Hayes said. "I behaved out of policy."
The scuffle overshadowed the message Hayes was trying to send, he said, which is that most homeless people in Los Angeles are black and that illegal immigration compounds the problem.
"And that's one reason why black people are living homeless in the condition that we are living in right now, because we refuse to work for slave wages," he said.
A 2004 book, "The Impact of Immigration on African Americans," found that immigration has led to lower wages for less skilled and less educated blacks and their substantial displacement from the job market, according to the Los Angeles Times.
"In this era of mass immigration, no group has benefitted less or been harmed more than the African American population," one of the book's authors, Vernon M. Briggs Jr., a Cornell University labor economist, told The Times.
Hayes said he supports legal immigrants but resents the fact that immigration activists compare their movement to the black civil rights movement. He said they should wage their fight south of the border.

Furman Paladins (Furman University), April 24, 2006, Monday

Furman Names Jeff Jackson Head Basketball Coach
New Paladin Mentor Spent Last Seven Seasons At Vanderbilt
April 24, 2006
http://furmanpaladins.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/042406aad.html

GREENVILLE, S.C. -- Jeff Jackson has been named Furman's new men's head basketball coach, director of athletics Dr. Gary Clark announced today at an 11:00 a.m. press conference at the Younts Center on the University campus.
Jackson, a native of New York, N.Y., who served as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Vanderbilt University for the past seven seasons, becomes Furman's 16th head coach and succeeds Larry Davis, who accepted an associate head coaching position at the University of Cincinnati on April 3.
"This is a signal moment in the history of Furman basketball," said Clark in making the announcement. "In Jeff Jackson we have secured an accomplished recruiter and experienced floor coach who will be an outstanding leader of our basketball program. He is also a gentleman of the highest integrity who will be an ideal ambassador for Paladin basketball."
During his tenure at Vanderbilt under head coach Kevin Stallings, the Commodores made one NCAA Tournament appearance and participated in four National Invitation Tournaments. In 2004 the Commodores posted a 23-10 record and advanced to the NCAA "Sweet 16" with wins over Western Michigan and N.C. State before falling to eventual national champion Connecticut. That same year he was named one of the top 25 college basketball recruiters in the country by rivals.com after Vanderbilt's 2005 freshman class garnered national recognition by the service.
Vanderbilt followed up its stellar 2004 campaign with a 20-14 season in 2005 and trip to the NIT, where the Commodores advanced to the quarterfinals with victories over Indiana and Wichita State. This past season Vanderbilt finished 16-13 season and registered its fourth NIT appearance this decade.
Jackson made his head coaching debut at New Hampshire in 1997, taking over a program that had only twice registered more than 10 wins in a season since 1984. In his first season the Wildcats won seven games and the next year improved to 10-17. His 1998-99 recruiting class was ranked 15th by Mike Sheridan of Eastern Basketball Magazine, marking the first time in school history a New Hampshire recruiting class had ever been ranked by any magazine.
Jackson's coaching worksheet includes four seasons at Stanford, where he served as recruiting coordinator under head coach Mike Montgomery from 1994-97. During his stay in Palo Alto, the Cardinal won 20 games twice and made the school's first back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances.
The 1995-96 Stanford squad was ranked as high as No. 15 in the USA Today Coaches Poll. In the NCAA Tournament, the Cardinal, a No. 9 seed, defeated Bradley in the opening round before falling to eventual Final Four participant Massachusetts.
Prior to his move to Stanford, Jackson served in assistant coaching capacities at Colorado State (1989-92), and St. Bonaventure (1986-89). He began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Southern California in 1985 after serving as a student assistant coach his final two years at Cornell.

Jackson graduated from Cornell in 1984 with a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial and labor relations. He and his wife, Carolyn, have three children: Xavier (16) Jenai (13), and Taylor (9).
THE JEFF JACKSON FILE
PERSONAL
Full Name: Jeffrey Gerard Jackson
Born: May 1, 1961 in New York, N.Y.
Wife: Carolyn Michelle Jackson
Married: December 12, 1983
Children: Xavier (16), Jenai (13), Taylor (9)
EDUCATION
High School: St. Francis Prep `79
College: Cornell 1984, B.S. Industrial & Labor Relations
PLAYING CAREER
Year School Responsibility Record Record Finish Conf.
1983-84 Cornell Assistant Coach/Asst. JV Coach 16-10 9-5 Ivy
1984-85 Cornell Assistant Coach/Head JV Coach 14-12 8-6 Ivy
1985-86 Southern California Graduate Asssistant 11-17 5-13 10th PAC 10
1986-87 St. Bonaventure Assistant Coach 5-23 3-15 10th Atlantic 10
1987-88 St. Bonaventure Assistant Coach 13-15 7-11 T6th Atlantic 10
1988-89 St. Bonaventure Assistant Coach 13-15 7-11 T6th Atlantic 10
1989-90 Colorado State Assistant Coach 21-9 11-5 1st WAC
1990-91 Colorado State Assistant Coach 15-14 6-10 7th WAC
1991-92 Colorado State Assistant Coach 14-17 8-8 7th WAC
1992-93 Stanford Assistant Coach/Recr. Coordinator 7-23 2-16 10th PAC 10
1993-94 Stanford Assistant Coach/Recr. Coordinator 17-11 10-8 T4th PAC 10
1994-95 Stanford Assistant Coach/Recr. Coordinator 20-9 10-8 T5th PAC 10
1995-96 Stanford Assistant Coach/Recr. Coordinator 21-8 13-5 3rd PAC 10
1996-97 New Hampshire Head Coach 7-20 5-13 T9th America East
1997-98 New Hampshire Head Coach 10-17 6-12 8th America East
1998-99 New Hampshire Head Coach 4-23 2-16 10th America East
1999-00 Vanderbilt Assistant Coach/Recr. Coordinator 19-11 8-8 4th SEC
2000-01 Vanderbilt Assistant Coach/Recr. Coordinator 15-15 4-12 6th SEC
2001-02 Vanderbilt Assistant Coach/Recr. Coordinator 17-15 6-10 T5th SEC
2002-03 Vanderbilt Assistant Coach/Recr. Coordinator 11-18 3-13 6th SEC
2003-04 Vanderbilt Assistant Coach/Recr. Coordinator 23-10 8-8 T3rd SEC
2004-05 Vanderbilt Assistant Coach/Recr. Coordinator 20-14 8-8 3rd SEC
2005-06 Vanderbilt Assistant Coach/Recr. Coordinator 16-13 7-9 4th SEC
WHAT THEY'RE SAYING ABOUT JEFF JACKSON
"This is a tremendous personal loss for me because Jeff Jackson is one of the finest coaches I've been around in college basketball. I will miss him dearly. That said, this is a fantastic choice for Furman because of Jeff's background and all around outstanding ability as a leader, recruiter, and tactician. He is also extremely organized and possesses a tremendous capacity for work that I'm convinced will assist him in raising the competitive level of Furman's program. I want to congratulate Furman and Gary Clark for making this choice, and I'm very happy for Jeff and Carolyn."
Kevin StallingsHead Basketball Coach, Vanderbilt
"I've had the pleasure of knowing Jeff over the last five years and from the start thought he was an outstanding person. He is an excellent recruiter who represented Vanderbilt with total class, and I have no doubt he will do the same for Furman. He and I had an opportunity to talk many times, and I know he wouldn't have left Vanderbilt except for a great situation, and Furman affords him that opportunity. He's a perfect fit for Paladin basketball and the Furman community, and he is well prepared to handle the university's academic challenges and competition he will face in the Southern Conference."
Bobby JohnsonHead Football Coach, Vanderbilt (2002-Present)Head Football Coach, Furman (1994-2001)

"Jeff Jackson is uniquely qualified to lead our men's basketball program and represents the very best qualities we were searching for in a head basketball coach. His broad coaching experience and proven recruiting ability at schools that share the same academic and athletic values we embrace made him very attractive. He also possesses a strong commitment to student-athletes and a level of professionalism that will represent Paladin basketball and the university in a distinguished manner."
Dr. David E. ShiPresident, Furman

Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, April 25, 2006, Tuesday

Hillel to Honor Abby Joseph Cohen, David M. Cohen at New York Gala
April 25, 2006
http://www.hillel.org/Hillel/NewHille.nsf/0/8935A03C91E2AFE78525715B006187B9?OpenDocument

Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life will honor Abby Joseph Cohen and David M. Cohen at a June 6 New York gala that will highlight their long-time dedication to Hillel and higher education. The event will take place at The Pierre Hotel and will feature Nobel Laureate Professor Elie Wiesel as the keynote speaker, with the klezmer group the Klezmatics providing entertainment. Information on the event may be obtained from Robert Katz at 212-279-6300 x16.
"Strong believers in the preparation of the next generation of leaders, Abby and David have each given the tremendous gift of their time and energy on behalf of Jewish college students around the world," said Hillel International President Avraham Infeld. "We are excited for the opportunity to salute their devotion to Hillel, their alma mater, Cornell University, and higher education as a whole."
David M. Cohen is chair emeritus of the Cornell University Hillel Board, where he led the effort that has made Cornell Hillel one of the organization's strongest foundations, for which he received Hillel's Exemplar of Excellence Award. He also serves on the Cornell University Council and the School of Industrial and Labor Relations Dean's Advisory Council. David is a vice chair of the Board of Directors of Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, previously chaired two board committees and consults with local Hillel boards and staff who are seeking to transform their Hillels.
Abby Joseph Cohen, a managing director at Goldman Sachs, is a trustee of Cornell University and the Jewish Theological Seminary and a member of the Board of Overseers of the Weill Cornell Medical College. She is a frequent guest lecturer at premier universities and business schools around the world and is widely quoted in the financial press. Abby is a former chair of the CFA Institute, which sets standards of ethics, education and professional excellence for the global investment community.
Both Abby and David will also be honored tomorrow by Cornell Hillel with its second annual Tanner Prize for their significant contributions to the Jewish people and to Cornell.
The dinner is co-chaired by Scott Black, Josephine Linder, Esta Stecher and Harold Tanner. The event Honorary Committee includes Barbara and Peter Bernstein; Hillel International Board of Governors Chairman Edgar M. Bronfman; Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.); New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine; Yeshiva University President Richard M. Joel; Cornell University Interim President Hunter R. Rawlings III; Cornell Hillel Executive Director Rabbi Ed Rosenthal; Ambassador Dennis Ross; Jewish Theological Seminary Chancellor Rabbi Ismar Schorsch; Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.); Hillel International Board of Governors Co-Chair Lynn Schusterman; Barnard College President Judith Shapiro; Israel Museum Director James S. Snyder; Hillel International Board of Governors Co-Chair Michael Steinhardt; George Washington University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg; New York Councilman David Weprin; Elie Wiesel; and Bernard Yudowitz.

YAHOO! Finance, April 24, 2006, Monday

YAHOO! Finance

Press Release Source: eCornell

eCornell Provides Discounted Ivy League Training to Government Employees
Monday April 24, 9:30 am ET
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060424/nym030.html?.v=51

ITHACA, N.Y., April 24 /PRNewswire/ -- eCornell is pleased to announce the signing of a distribution agreement with the National Technical Information Service to provide discounted tuition for online management training and executive development to government employees at the federal, state, and local levels. Courses and certificate programs from Cornell University are now available at preferred government rates as part of an initiative to provide a rigorous, scalable, and cost-effective learning solution to almost 10 million government employees.
eCornell's highly-regarded content and its innovative Structured Flexibility(TM) model of course delivery are designed to focus on skill development with a direct emphasis on improving workplace performance and building organizational capability. Developed by faculty authors from Cornell's highly-rated Johnson Graduate School of Management, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and School of Hotel Administration, eCornell courses are led by instructors well-versed in the subject matter who personalize the learning experience for each participant. Through NTIS, government employees and agencies can take advantage of these programs at almost 25 percent below eCornell's published course prices.
"eCornell is excited about its agreement with NTIS. We appreciate the opportunity to honor the dedication of our public-service employees by offering them reduced tuition so they can more readily afford the same executive education and professional development that has proven so effective in the private sector," says Chris Proulx, eCornell's President and CEO. "Discounted tuition will be available to individual employees as well as to government agencies that want to purchase these courses for their employees. This initiative provides a great opportunity for government employees at all levels to engage in a collaborative and personally engaging learning experience that will be timely and relevant to the challenges they face in the government sector."
eCornell's course completion rate of more than 90% and consistently high student ratings make it one of the most effective training options available to the government. Available to all federal, state, and local government employees and the military, eCornell's programs target mid- and senior-level leadership, emerging managers and other high-potential employees, and human-resources professionals in five key content areas: leadership and strategic management, financial management, management essentials, human resources, and hospitality and foodservice management. These highly engaging and interactive learning experiences revolve around authentic workplace scenarios that reflect the challenges learners are likely to face on the job. By combining collaborative discussions, course projects, interactive simulations, assessments, and job aids, eCornell courses help participants learn and apply the skills they need to meet those challenges, providing a deeper learning experience and improving workplace performance.
Government employees also will benefit from the new programs eCornell will be adding to its course catalog each quarter, providing agencies with the most current and relevant management and leadership education available. To learn more and to enroll, government employees and HR officials can visit http://www.ntis.gov/ecornell/ecornell.asp.
About eCornell:
eCornell provides many of the world's leading organizations with online, asynchronous, professional and executive development in the areas of strategy, leadership and management development, human resources, financial management, and hospitality management. Its patent-pending course development model and proven instructor-led course delivery provide engaging, rigorous, and interactive learning. eCornell is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cornell University. For more information about eCornell, please visit http://www.ecornell.com.
About NTIS:
The National Technical Information Service is an agency of the Department of Commerce that serves our nation as the largest central resource for government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business-related information available today. For 60 years NTIS has assured businesses, universities, and the public timely access to well over 3 million publications covering over 350 subject areas. Its mission supports the nation's economic growth by providing access to information that stimulates innovation and discovery.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Source: eCornell

The New York Times, April 24, 2006, Monday

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
The New York Times

April 24, 2006 Monday
Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section B; Column 5; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 5

HEADLINE: The Long March to Jail

BYLINE: By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

BODY:
When Roger Toussaint, the transit workers' union president, leads a procession of chanting union members and labor leaders across the Brooklyn Bridge today on his way to a jail cell in Manhattan, it will be only the latest bizarre twist in a contract fight that never seems to end.
''We've seen some of the most complex and strange events that anyone has ever seen in a labor dispute,'' said Mr. Toussaint, who headed a 60-hour transit shutdown in December that forced many cold, disgruntled New Yorkers to walk across bridges themselves.
In January, subway and bus workers rejected a 37-month deal by a razor-thin margin of 7 votes out of 22,461 cast. But in a revote announced last Tuesday, members overwhelmingly approved the exact same deal, 71 percent to 29 percent.
Meanwhile, leaders of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, who once urged the union to hold a revote after members first rejected the deal, have called the new vote ''an empty gesture.''
Just days after the two sides reached the original agreement, Gov. George E. Pataki, who controls the authority, denounced it for being too generous to workers who had engaged in an illegal strike.
About the only thing clear is that Mr. Toussaint will head today to the Tombs, the jail in Lower Manhattan. But first he will have quite a send-off -- a 4 p.m. march across the Brooklyn Bridge with union members and labor leaders, including the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s president, John J. Sweeney. And transit workers are planning to hold vigils outside the Tombs for a few hours each day.
In sentencing him to 10 days in jail, Justice Theodore T. Jones of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn said Mr. Toussaint had shown contempt for the law by heading an illegal strike.
But the jail stay, some labor experts say, could end up helping Mr. Toussaint by turning him into a martyr. The sentence, they said, could help clinch his re-election later this year in a fractious union where dissidents have repeatedly edged out embattled leaders in elections.
In an interview on Friday, Mr. Toussaint said his jailing was ''stupid politically.''
''It's one thing if you threaten a jail sentence while a strike is on,'' he said. ''It's another thing to send someone to jail three months afterward.''
Insisting that the state's Taylor Law, which prohibits strikes by public employees, was biased against labor, he said authority officials had engaged in illegal behavior but were not being punished. Even though the Taylor Law bars public-sector employers and unions from insisting on pension changes in contract talks, the authority's negotiators demanded that the union agree to a far less generous pension plan for new transit workers.
Last Monday, Justice Jones fined the union, Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, $2.5 million and suspended its ability to collect members' dues automatically from paychecks, a move that will cost it millions. These moves, union officials said, could bankrupt Local 100.
''It's a pretty high penalty,'' said Harry C. Katz, dean of the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations. ''It will make unions in the city think twice about striking. Some people say this will make unions more compliant. But unions will just look for other ways to exert influence -- and that might take the form of exerting more political influence.''
Mr. Toussaint voiced little concern about going to jail. ''I'll deal with it,'' he said. ''To me, the drama is the contract and the ratification.''
After announcing that union members had ratified the deal, Mr. Toussaint said Local 100 would go to court if the authority's board does not vote on it at its regular meeting this Wednesday. Authority officials have said there will not be a vote.
The authority asserts that the original deal was rendered moot as soon as union members voted it down in January. Seemingly eager to walk away from the deal, the authority petitioned for binding arbitration, saying the dispute had reached an impasse, and the state's Public Employment Relations Board agreed.
The union argues that now that it has carried out its legal responsibility to do its utmost to get its members to ratify the deal, the authority must do its best to get its board to approve it as well.
The deal called for raises averaging 3.5 percent in each of three years and for the workers, who previously paid no health insurance premiums, to pay 1.5 percent of their wages toward premiums.
The union opposes arbitration, partly because it would deny transit workers a vote on the outcome and partly because an arbitration panel cannot include in its ruling two provisions of the original deal that union members hailed: an improved health plan for retirees and the repayment of about $130 million to 20,000 members who had made excess contributions into the pension system. Under state law, arbitration panels in public employee disputes cannot make decisions regarding pensions and retirees.
''It's too bad the M.T.A. doesn't just ratify the agreement,'' said Dean Katz. ''You basically have them grinding the workers' face into the ground when these workers already have morale problems. I can't imagine that bodes well for the quality of service.''
Several labor experts said they believed the authority's strategy was to wait until the arbitration panel was about to issue a ruling -- which could take months -- and then resume negotiations to press the union to accept changes in the original deal.
''I don't think it's possible without the structure of the arbitration in place to get a deal done,'' said Barry Feinstein, a member of the authority's board.
Authority officials say they hope the union will agree to drop the provision that Mr. Pataki denounced most vigorously, a side agreement in which the authority promised to repay the $130 million in pension contributions even if lawmakers in Albany blocked that provision.
Union officials oppose such a concession, fearing that Mr. Pataki will prevent the transit workers from ever receiving the $130 million. But some are looking to a possible Democratic successor to Mr. Pataki to make good on the deal.
It was Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, as the state's chief legal officer, who asked Justice Jones to fine the union and jail Mr. Toussaint. But now the union might look to a future Governor Spitzer to make good on the $130 million pension deal that the authority's board seems eager to turn its back on.
Yet another strange twist.


URL: http://www.nytimes.com

GRAPHIC: Photo: Roger Toussaint, transit union president, is to head to jail today. (Photo by Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times)

AM New York, April 24, 2006, Monday

AM New York

Toussaint marches off to jail
BY CHUCK BENNETTSTAFF WRITER
http://www.amny.com/news/local/newyork/am-transit0424,0,844119.story

April 24, 2006

Transit union chief Roger Toussaint wants all of New York to know he's going to the clink
Monday.
The president of the Transport Workers Union Local 100 will lead a boisterous 4 p.m. labor
rally outside King's County Supreme Court, where Toussaint was sentenced, followed by a
march over the Brooklyn Bridge to the jail, where he will report for his 10-day sentence.
Supporters, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, will hold overnight sit-in outside the lockup while
Toussaint does time for ordering the illegal transit strike last December.
"He knew this would potentially happen, and he is more than willing to serve the time," said a
union source. Toussaint spent Sunday in meetings planning the rallies and the day-to-day
logistics of managing his union from jail.
His jail sentence and surrounding hoopla is meant to put pressure on the MTA board to ratify
its post-strike contract offer. The union rank-and-file voted for the contract last week after
initially rejecting it in January.
The MTA board is scheduled to meet Wednesday but chairman Peter Kalikow has repeatedly
said that offer is no longer valid because binding arbitration has already begun.
The union's public demonstrations -- which will include teachers, cops, firefighters and other
city workers -- along with Toussaint's jail sentence are part of the union's strategy to sway
the MTA board to reconsider.
"There is a lot of evidence the union is being severely punished," said Ken Margolies, a collective bargaining expert at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, referring to Toussaint's jail sentence, the union's $2.5 million fine and the suspension of its automatic dues collection.
"They are not rewarding workers for striking so its seems like rubbing it in to not accept [the contract]," he said.
The Rev. Al Sharpton said he will spend Monday night in a tent outside the Bernard B. Kerik
Complex, aka "The Tombs", where Toussaint will serve his sentence. He promised members
of his National Action Network will be camping out each day of the sentence out of
solidarity.
Daily vigils will follow with each transit union division asked to show up on a certain day.
On Saturday Toussaint is asking the 33,700 transit workers to join the United for Peace and
Justice march against the Iraq war.
Once inside jail, the Corrections Officers Benevolent Association publicly promised to ensure
his "safety and security" and make sure his stay is as comfortable

Telegraph Herald (Dubuque, IA), April 23, 2006, Sunday

Copyright 2006 Woodward Communications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Telegraph Herald (Dubuque, IA)

April 23, 2006 Sunday

SECTION: FEATURES; Pg. b3

HEADLINE: Meatpacking still 'jungle' of controversy?;
Critics of industry see improvements since 1906, but they say safety remains an issue

BYLINE: SHARON COHEN

DATELINE: OMAHA, Neb.

BODY:
He works in a world of long knives and huge saws, blood and bone, arctic chill and sweltering heat. For Martin Cortez, this is life on the line as a meatpacker.
It's no place for the squeamish. Some workers can't stomach the gore - chopping up the meat and bones of hundreds of cattle, day after day. Cortez has been at it more than 30 years. It also can be very dangerous. Some workers have been slashed, burned or scarred. He has not.
Even so, Martin Cortez, a soft-spoken man with sad eyes, doesn't recommend the work. The thrashing animals, the heavy lifting ... all that goes into putting steak and hamburger on America's dinner tables, he says, makes for a backbreaking day on the killing floor.
"You know what I like to say to newcomers?" he says. "They don't kill cows. They kill people."
This, some would say, is The Jungle of 2006.
It's not anywhere near as horrible as the world muckraker Upton Sinclair surveyed 100 years ago in his sensational book "The Jungle." A harrowing portrait of an immigrant's oppressive life in meatpacking, the novel angered the president, sent meat sales into a tailspin and inspired landmark consumer-protection laws.
Even the harshest critics acknowledge government regulations and inspectors have made meatpacking far cleaner and safer than it was when Sinclair described rats scurrying over piles of meat, sick workers spitting into processing vats and diseased animals stumbling to slaughter.
But 100 years later, the industry that produces the meat for America still faces some of the same tensions and troubles that Sinclair exposed.
In 1906, there were accusations that the meatpacking giants exploited immigrants. There also were battles over unions and complaints of paltry pay for hazardous work.
In 2006, the problems persist - though the names have changed. The eastern Europeans who flocked to Chicago's bustling stockyards 100 years ago have been replaced by Mexican and Central American immigrants chasing their own dreams in the remote reaches of the rural Midwest and Southeast.
"It's not as bad as it was in the sense of the sheer brutality of 100 years ago - before labor laws and food safety laws," says Lance Compa, a Cornell University labor law expert who wrote a stinging Human Rights Watch report on the meat and poultry industry last year. "But for the times we're in now, the situation is much in line with what it was 100 years ago."
"It's extremely dangerous when it shouldn't be," he says. "Workers are exploited when they shouldn't be. The companies know it."
Others also say even with better regulation, if the meatpacking industry is judged against other workplace progress, it falls short.
"It's a new 'Jungle,' measured not against the standard of yesterday, but the standard of today," says Lourdes Gouveia, director of the Office for Latino/Latin American Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
The American Meat Institute, the trade group founded the same year Sinclair's book was published, dismisses those claims. It says wages (about $25,000 per year) are competitive, turnover is wildly exaggerated and safety has dramatically improved in recent years.
"It's a new world," says J. Patrick Boyle, the institute's president. "If Upton Sinclair walked through our plants today, he'd say he was a successful reformer. He'd be astonished and, I think, impressed with the changes that have occurred."
Some of those changes came soon after "The Jungle" was published. President Theodore Roosevelt dispatched investigators to Chicago and their report - detailing filthy conditions on the killing floors - was sent to Congress. Within months came two major reforms: the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. More legislation and improved technology followed over the decades.
Still, some people continue to draw parallels to "The Jungle." "I think they're living in a time warp," Boyle says.
Boyle says in the past 15 years, there has been a new emphasis on partnerships. The union, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and companies have collaborated to improve ergonomics and equipment while sharing ways to make the job safer, including more power tools, fewer knives and better-designed work stations.
It appears to have paid off: Federal figures show illnesses and injuries in the meat and poultry industry fell by half from 1992 to 2001 - from 29.5 to 14.7 per 100 full-time workers, according to a 2005 Government Accountability Office report. (Still, that is among the highest of any industry.)
The GAO also cautions that progress might not be that dramatic because injuries and illnesses still appear to be underreported. Immigrants could fear retaliation or job loss, and supervisors might not report the problems or encourage workers to avoid doing so because some plants have incentives, such as money or other prizes, for maintaining a safe workplace.
Numbers aside, the GAO also says the industry still is plenty dangerous with knife-wielding workers standing long hours on fast-moving lines. Chemicals and animal waste also can lurk, with factory floors often being dark, loud, slippery or unbearably hot or bitter cold.
The risks are many: cuts and stabbings, burns, repetitive stress injuries, amputations and worse. Knife accidents blinded one meat worker and disfigured the face of another, the GAO said, citing OSHA records.
Oscar Montoya lost most of his left index finger in a 1999 accident using a huge split-saw to divide cattle carcasses. He had three operations, returned to meatpacking, then finally quit.
"It was just a lot harder than I thought it would be," he says. He's now a heat and air-conditioner repairman.
Turnover can exceed 100 percent in a year, the GAO said - a number that Boyle, the institute president, says is greatly overstated. He says meatpacking companies spent much time and money on training to ensure workers will stay.
Jose Maria Montoya (no relation to Oscar) lasted just a year his first time around at Nebraska Beef. He deboned meat and says the repetitive cutting motions, hour after hour, made his hands ache so badly, he lost all sensation in his fingers. He had night sweats. But he never complained.
"I didn't say anything," he explains, his voice rising with surprise by any suggestion that he would. "What can I do about it? When you need something (money) for your family, you don't ask questions. You just do it. I don't have many choices. I don't speak English very well. I don't have much education."
His words are reminiscent of Sinclair's days when Lithuanians, Poles and other eastern Europeans crowded into the shadow of big-city slaughterhouses in hopes of building a better life. Their schooling counted for less than a strong back, a weak nose and willingness to sweat.
The character who symbolized the struggle in "The Jungle," was Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant whose life was a nightmare. He was injured, lost his job, went to jail, his house was repossessed, his wife and son died.
"The Jungle" paints the most gut-wrenching possible portrait of those desperate times - designed to touch the nation's conscience. Today's real-life meatpacking story is far from that fictional horror, but parts of the book's message resonate in the here and now.
Thousands of immigrants still come, as they did a century ago.
Some are refugees from countries such as Somalia, Sudan and Vietnam; many more journey across the Mexican border and find their way to Nebraska, Kansas or other states where giant meat plants seem to have an inexhaustible need for labor.
Jose Maria Montoya left Mexico as a teen, hoping to make good money, then return home. It didn't turn out that way.
After he quit meatpacking, he stayed in the Omaha area, finding work in a garment factory. He says he was so good at cutting cloth, he more than doubled his $8-per-hour salary.
But the job fizzled out when, ironically, the company moved to Mexico to take advantage of low wages. Montoya picked up new skills, learned to drive a forklift, then returned to the same meatpacking company - this time in the shipping department.
At 37, Montoya has a grand ambition: He wants to start his own business making heavy-duty work uniforms. His slender, boyish face lights up just talking about it. "I love this kind of work," he says. "It's what I really want to do in my life."
He even has a name for his company: Del Valle Apparel.
But Montoya also has a mortgage, a stack of bills, a $12.50-per-hour wage and eight kids to feed. Though his wife works, their combined dollars only go so far.
"My dream now is for my kids," he says. Montoya says he urges his children to study hard so they can become teachers and doctors, lawyers and judges. And when they whine about school, he firmly silences them.
"You have no choice," he says. "You want to be like me and work like a donkey?"
Juan Valadez understands. When he arrived from Mexico 30 years ago looking for work, most doors were not open to him. Meatpacking was. He needed the check. The company needed him. It was a match.
Now, he says the rigors of the job have caught up with his 50-year-old body.
"The line never stops and you keep working and working and you get tired," he says. "You sometimes hope the line breaks so you can rest a little bit."
"It's the easiest job to get, but the hardest job to do. It kills you little by little."

Topeka Capital-Journal (Kansas), April 23, 2006, Sunday

Copyright 2006 The Topeka Capital-Journal
Topeka Capital-Journal (Kansas)

April 23, 2006 Sunday

SECTION: MAIN; Pg. 6

HEADLINE: Jungle a little tamer a century later

BODY:
By Sharon Cohen
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
OMAHA, Neb. He works in a world of long knives and huge saws, blood and bone, arctic chill and sweltering heat. For Martin Cortez, this is life on the line as a meatpacker.
It is no place for the squeamish. Some workers cant stomach the gore chopping up the meat and bones of hundreds of cattle, day after day. Cortez has been at it more than 30 years. It also can be very dangerous. Some workers have been slashed, burned or scarred. He hasnt.
Even so, Martin Cortez, a soft-spoken man with sad eyes, doesnt recommend the work. The thrashing animals, the heavy lifting, all that goes into putting steak and hamburger on Americas dinner tables, he says, makes for a backbreaking day on the killing floor.
You know what I like to say to newcomers? he says. They dont kill cows. They kill people.
This, some would say, is The Jungle of 2006.
It isnt anywhere near as horrible as the world muckraker Upton Sinclair surveyed 100 years ago in his sensational book The Jungle. A harrowing portrait of an immigrants oppressive life in meatpacking, the novel angered the president, sent meat sales into a tailspin and inspired landmark consumer protection laws.
Even the harshest critics acknowledge government regulations and inspectors have made meatpacking far cleaner and safer than it was when Sinclair described rats scurrying over piles of meat, sick workers spitting into processing vats and diseased animals stumbling to slaughter.
But 100 years later, the industry that produces the meat for America still faces some of the same tensions and troubles that Sinclair exposed.
Chasing dreams
In 1906, there were accusations the meatpacking giants exploited immigrants battles over unions and complaints of paltry pay for hazardous work.
In 2006, the problems persist though the names have changed. The eastern Europeans who flocked to Chicagos bustling stockyards 100 years ago have been replaced by Mexican and Central American immigrants chasing their own dreams in the remote reaches of the rural Midwest and Southeast.
Its not as bad as it was in the sense of the sheer brutality of 100 years ago before labor laws and food safety laws, says Lance Compa, a Cornell University labor law expert who wrote a stinging Human Rights Watch report on the meat and poultry industry last year. But for the times were in now, the situation is much in line with what it was 100 years ago.
Its extremely dangerous when it shouldnt be, he says. Workers are exploited when they shouldnt be. The companies know it.
Others also say even with better regulation, if the meatpacking industry is judged against other workplace progress, it falls short.
Its a new Jungle, measured not against the standard of yesterday, but the standard of today, says Lourdes Gouveia, director of the Office for Latino/Latin American Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
The American Meat Institute, the trade group founded the same year Sinclairs book was published, dismisses those claims. It says wages (about $25,000 a year) are competitive, turnover is wildly exaggerated and safety has dramatically improved in recent years.
Its a new world, says J. Patrick Boyle, the institutes president. If Upton Sinclair walked through our plants today, hed say he was a successful reformer. Hed be astonished and, I think, impressed with the changes that have occurred.
Government action
Some of those changes came soon after The Jungle was published. President Theodore Roosevelt dispatched investigators to Chicago and their report detailing filthy conditions on the killing floors was sent to Congress. Within months came two major reforms: the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. More legislation and improved technology followed over the decades.
Still, some people continue to draw parallels to The Jungle.
I think theyre living in a time warp, Boyle says.
Boyle says in the past 15 years, there has been a new emphasis on partnerships the union, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and companies collaborating to improve ergonomics, equipment and share ways to make the job safer, including more power tools, fewer knives and better designed work stations.
It appears to have paid off. Federal figures show illnesses and injuries in the meat and poultry industry fell by half from 1992 to 2001 from 29.5 to 14.7 per 100 full-time workers, according to a 2005 Government Accountability Office report. (Still, that is among the highest of any industry.)
The GAO also cautions progress may not be that dramatic because injuries and illnesses still appear to be underreported immigrants may fear retaliation or job loss, and supervisors may not report the problems or encourage workers not to because some plants have incentives, such as money or other prizes, for maintaining a safe workplace.
Still dangerous
Numbers aside, the GAO also says the industry is still plenty dangerous with knife-wielding workers standing long hours on fast-moving lines, chemicals, animal waste and factory floors that can be dark, loud, slippery or unbearably hot or bitter cold.
The risks are many cuts and stabbings, burns, repetitive stress injuries, amputations and worse. Knife accidents blinded one meat worker and disfigured the face of another, the GAO said, citing OSHA records.
Oscar Montoya lost most of his left index finger in a 1999 accident using a huge split-saw to divide cattle carcasses. He had three operations, returned to meatpacking, then finally quit.
It was just a lot harder than I thought it would be, he says.
He now is a heat and air-conditioner repairman.
Turnover can exceed 100 percent in a year, the GAO said a number that Boyle, the institute president, says is greatly overstated. He says meatpacking companies spent much time and money on training to ensure workers will stay.
Jose Maria Montoya (no relation to Oscar) lasted just a year his first time around at Nebraska Beef. He deboned meat and says the repetitive cutting motions, hour after hour, made his hands ache so badly, he lost all sensation in his fingers. He had night sweats. But he never complained.
I didnt say anything, he explains, his voice rising with surprise by any suggestion that he would. What can I do about it? When you need something (money) for your family, you dont ask questions. You just do it. I dont have many choices. I dont speak English very well. I dont have much education.
Grand ambitions
His words are reminiscent of Sinclairs days when Lithuanians, Poles and other eastern Europeans crowded into the shadow of big city slaughterhouses in hopes of building a better life. Their schooling counted for less than a strong back, a weak nose and willingness to sweat.
The character who symbolized the struggle in The Jungle, was Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant whose life was a nightmare. He was injured, lost his job, went to jail, his house was repossessed, his wife and son died.
The Jungle paints the most gut-wrenching possible portrait of those desperate times designed to touch the nations conscience. Todays real-life meatpacking story is far from that fictional horror, but parts of the books message resonate in the here and now.
Thousands of immigrants still come, as they did a century ago.
Some are refugees from such countries as Somalia, Sudan and Vietnam. Many more journey across the Mexican border and find their way to Nebraska, Kansas or other states, where giant meat plants seem to have an inexhaustible need for labor.
Jose Maria Montoya left Mexico as a teen, hoping to make good money, then return home. It didnt turn out that way.
After he quit meatpacking, he stayed in the Omaha area, finding work in a garment factory. He says he was so good at cutting cloth, he more than doubled his $8-an-hour salary.
But the job fizzled out when, ironically, the company moved to Mexico to take advantage of low wages. Montoya picked up new skills, learned to drive a forklift, then returned to the same meatpacking company this time in the shipping department.
At 37, Montoya has a grand ambition. He wants to start his own business making heavy-duty work uniforms. His slender, boyish face lights up just talking about it.
I love this kind of work, he says. Its what I really want to do in my life.
He even has a name for his company, Del Valle Apparel.
But Montoya also has a mortgage, a stack of bills, a $12.50-an-hour wage and eight kids to feed. Though his wife works, their combined dollars only go so far.
My dream now is for my kids, he says, sitting in the family living room, his squirming 2-year-old, Emanuel, in his arms.
Montoya says he urges his children to study hard so they can become teachers and doctors, lawyers and judges. And when they whine about school, he firmly silences them:
You have no choice, he says. You want to be like me and work like a donkey?
Hispanic workforce
Juan Valadez understands. When he arrived from Mexico 30 years ago looking for work, most doors werent open to him. Meatpacking was. He needed the check. The company needed him. It was a match.
Now, he says the rigors of the job have caught up with his 50-year-old body.
The line never stops, and you keep working and working and you get tired, he says. You sometimes hope the line breaks so you can rest a little bit.
Its the easiest job to get, but the hardest job to do, he adds. It kills you little by little.
Over three decades, Valadez, a father of five, has doubled his pay to more than $11 an hour and witnessed a changing population in the factory.
Back then, it was Mexican, black and white. Now, its only the people you see here, he says, motioning to other Hispanic workers sitting around a table at the union hall. Maybe the others have better opportunities.
From 1980 to 2000, the number of Hispanic workers in the meat industry including poultry increased more than fourfold to 35 percent, according to federal statistics, says William Kandel, a sociologist at the Economic Research Service of the Agriculture Department.
The industry is believed to have large numbers of undocumented workers one federal official said it may be as high as one in four in meatpacking plants in Nebraska and Iowa, the GAO said, referring to its own 1998 report.
Federal agents have raided plants and taken other steps to crack down on undocumented workers over the years, but it isnt difficult to buy fake identification cards.
Both the meatpacking companies and the United Food and Commercial Workers union which says it represents more than 50 percent of meat and poultry workers nationwide have adapted to the reality of large numbers of foreign-born workers, offering, among other things, classes in English.
Any time the workers can communicate, they know theyre not being exploited, the supervisor cant say it was miscommunication, says Donna McDonald, president of the unions Local 271 in Omaha.
The union, fighting to bolster its ranks, also is making its pitch on a different landscape. In places such as Omaha, it has joined with community activists and church leaders including priests and nuns who have leafletted at plants to organize workers.
It gives us credibility, McDonald says. Theres a level of comfort.
New day, new place
Decades ago, the meatpacking business was centered in labor-friendly urban areas. But the giant stockyards of Chicago, Fort Worth and Kansas City are long gone. The industry built huge plants closer to the livestock and in right-to-work states, where unions are far less popular.
If Sinclair were to write his book today, he would not go to Chicago. Hed go to Garden City (Kan.) or Lexington (Neb.), says Roger Horowitz, a historian and author of three books on the industry, including Putting Meat on the American Table.
In the new meatpacking capitals, he says, paychecks have been shrinking. In 2004, the average annual wage for a worker in a slaughtering plant was about $25,000 compared with $34,000 for manufacturing, according to federal figures.
It wasnt always that way.
The workers had their heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, when the union flexed its muscle and helped push up wages, turning meatpacking into a stable, middle-class job.
For blue-collar people without much education, packinghouse workers were able to have second homes, send their kids to college so they dont have to do (the same job), Horowitz says. It became the American success story.
Shrinking wage
It didnt last.
In the late 1970s into the 1980s, big changes came. A new tough breed of competitors, mostly nonunion, led by Iowa Beef Processors now part of Tyson Foods emerged. Old-line companies went bankrupt. The master contract, one that covered several plants with a standard wage, vanished.
Meatpacking wages that were 15 percent above the average manufacturing salary in 1960 dropped to 20 percent below by 1990, says Don Stull, a University of Kansas anthropology professor and industry expert.
Longtime workers such as Martin Cortez are stoic about all these ups and downs.
At 55, he isnt about to shift jobs. This is what he knows. But he tells newcomers at the plant to get an education and do something else. He tells his two daughters (ages 16 and 20) to go to college.
Everybody says theres an American dream. Some people get it. Some people dont, he says.
Im not complaining, he adds. We survive here. I dont know how. But we do.

National Law Journal, April 17, 2006, Monday

Copyright 2006 ALM Properties, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL

April 17, 2006

SECTION: FRONT PAGE; Pg. P1 Vol. 27 No. 83

HEADLINE: Justices may hash out the 'R' word;
FRONT PAGE;
Retaliation cases split lower courts.

BYLINE: Marcia Coyle; Staff reporter

BODY:

Alito? Worker friendly?

Three standards

One test

Apply text
Washington--For more than four decades, federal law has barred employers from retaliating against employees who complain of workplace discrimination. This year, the U.S. Supreme Court may decide what exactly retaliation is under that federal law.
The lower federal courts have split in multiple ways over what legal standard should be used in judging an employer's liability under the anti-retaliation provision in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits job discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex and national origin.
How the Supreme Court resolves that conflict in a challenge arising out of a railroad worker's sexual harassment complaint will have significant implications not just for Title VII cases but for cases under the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and other civil rights statutes, according to legal scholars and others. Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Co. v. White , No. 05-259.
"Lots of other statutes have [anti-retaliation] provisions written in the exact same language," said civil rights scholar Eric Schnapper of the University of Washington School of Law, who has assisted the employee in the high court case. "The implications here are very broad."
Statistics from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) show that Title VII retaliation complaints nearly doubled between 1992 and 2004--from 10,499 claims to 20,240, noted Allan Weitzman of the Boca Raton, Fla., office of New York's Proskauer Rose who filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Society for Human Resource Management and others supporting Burlington Northern.
"A primary reason for this is confusion as to what does and doesn't constitute employer retaliation," said Weitzman. "The risk of even more litigation is real and there is an urgent need for clarity in this area."
The high court case, which will be argued on April 17, also could open an important window on the newest justices' approaches to interpretation of a major civil rights statute, a context unlikely to produce the kind of unanimity that the high court enjoyed earlier this year in several decisions.
In fact, in what was likely his last decision as a circuit court judge, now Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote what some employment law experts say was a surprisingly worker-friendly ruling in a case involving retaliation and sexual harassment. But few are willing to predict how he will decide White now that he is no longer bound by the law of his circuit.
Not surprisingly, the high court case has queued up as a classic standoff between management and worker interests.
Burlington Northern is supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Equal Employment Advisory Council, the Association of American Railroads and the National Federation of Independent Business Legal Foundation, among others.
Employee Sheila White is backed by the National Employment Lawyers Association, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the National Women's Law Center, the AFL-CIO and others.
The Bush administration also has entered the case, but takes a somewhat unusual stance: It is supporting the worker, but rejecting her arguments as well as the EEOC's generally worker-protective position.
The government criticizes the arguments of both White and Burlington Northern and crafts its own standard.
"Its position is somewhere in between and where it is I couldn't tell you for sure," said Schnapper.
Because much of the government's brief was an attack on the arguments of the party it was supporting, Schnapper said, "We took what I think is the unprecedented step of filing a supplemental brief to respond to those arguments. When the company filed its reply brief, it relied heavily on the government's brief.
"It was an unusual situation."
Neither side in the case was willing to divide its 30-minute time with the government when it sought argument time. The court ultimately took five minutes from each side for the government, whose lawyer will argue second instead of last--its usual position when supporting the respondent in oral arguments.
For White, the only woman to work in the Maintenance of Way division in Burlington's Tennessee Yard in Memphis in 1997, a high court victory would sweeten a bitter irony of the almost last 10 years.
Although she prevailed in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, her reinstatement to her original job as a forklift operator was stayed pending the high court appeal. She returned to the yard job --track laborer--to which she had been reassigned after complaining of discrimination, was injured and is now on disability, according to Schnapper.
White's retaliation claim is based on two separate incidents: her transfer from her job as forklift operator to track laborer--at same pay and benefits--after she complained to company officials about harassing and discriminating treatment by her co-workers and supervisor; and her suspension without pay for 37 days for alleged insubordination, shortly after filing an EEOC charge.
A grievance committee held that the insubordination charge was unfounded, and she later received full back-pay for the suspension.
After receiving a notice to sue from the EEOC, White filed a Title VII suit in federal court and won her retaliation claim and $43,500 in compensatory damages, plus $54,295 in attorney fees. Burlington appealed and prevailed, 2-1, before a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit.
The panel held that there was no "materially adverse" change in the terms and conditions of White's employment--the circuit's standard for weighing retaliation claims. The en banc 6th Circuit disagreed, holding that the transfer and the 37-day suspension were materially adverse changes.
Besides barring job discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin (Section 703), Title VII contains a separate provision (Section 704) making it illegal for an employer to discriminate against any employees because the employee made a discrimination complaint, or testified, assisted or participated in a Title VII proceeding--the anti-retaliation provision.
The lower courts essentially have been using three different standards to judge whether an adverse employment action was taken in retaliation against an employee:
Ultimate employment decision: This is considered the most employer-friendly standard and holds that only final employment decisions, such as firing, failing to hire and failing to promote, are adverse employment actions. A majority of circuits has rejected this test.
Materially adverse change: This standard holds that the employee must have suffered a materially adverse change in the terms and conditions of employment, not necessarily an ultimate employment decision.
Reasonably likely to deter: This standard, adopted by the EEOC, is considered the most worker-friendly test. It holds that an adverse employment action is any action that would be "reasonably likely to deter employees from engaging in protected conduct."
In the high court, Burlington, represented by veteran Supreme Court litigator Carter G. Phillips of Sidley Austin's Washington office, argues that the 6th Circuit decision "dramatically expands without warrant" the scope of Title VII's anti-retaliation provision.
And, he argues that White is proposing a standard more protective of retaliation victims than of discrimination victims.
Phillips relies heavily on Burlington Industries v. Ellerth , 524 U.S. 742, a 1998 decision in which the justices defined "tangible employment action" for determining when an employer is vicariously liable for sexual harassment by a supervisor under Section 703.
Ellerth , he notes, requires an "official act of the enterprise" that constitutes a "significant change in employment status."
The standard for Section 703 claims should be the same for Section 704 claims, he argues, and neither of White's retaliation claims satisfies the Ellerth standard.
A supervisor's "alteration of the mix of duties that an employee performs within her existing job classification," said Phillips, simply is not an official act of the enterprise constituting a "significant change in employment status."
"The Sixth Circuit's contrary rule would enmesh the courts in review of minor, commonplace supervisory task assignments, contrary to the Title VII policy against interference with traditional management prerogatives," he writes in his brief.
And the suspension without pay, he argues, was an "interim measure designed to allow [Burlington] to determine if it would approve or disapprove the supervisor's acts."
Holding otherwise, he adds, would undermine Title VII's fundamental purpose of encouraging voluntary compliance if employers could not avoid liability "by reviewing supervisory discipline and making reasoned and informed decisions after investigation."
Proskauer's Weitzman agreed, explaining that if employers have procedures in place to deal with these types of complaints, they should be given the opportunity to deal with the complaint before an employee has an actionable claim.
"I think there's a good chance the Supreme Court will like this idea because it is consistent with what it has done previously and it helps with the courts' crowded dockets by keeping cases [that could be resolved internally] out of the courts," said Weitzman, who also believes only final tangible employment decisions should be the basis for actionable retaliation.
But that's not consistent with the text of Section 704, argue Schnapper and White's high court counsel, Donald A. Donati of the Donati Law Firm in Memphis.
They argue the justices should apply Section 704 as written "to forbid any retaliatory act taken against an employee who engaged in protected activity."
In the alternative, Donati said, the EEOC's "reasonably likely to deter" standard should apply because it too is consistent with the intent of Congress in drafting the provision.
"The text of section 704(a) addresses quite specifically the issue raised by petitioner's brief--the type of impact which a retaliatory act must have on the plaintiff in order to support a section 704 claim," writes Donati.
"What the statute requires--all that the statute requires--is that the retaliatory act be 'against' the plaintiff. The suggestion that the courts fashion some additional limitation on the statutory elements of a section 704(a) claim is inconsistent with the considerable precision with which Title VII as a whole is written," he wrote.
Employers always want the "ultimate decision" test, said employment litigator Debra Katz of Washington's Katz, Marshall & Banks.
"Why would we want to give employers a free pass if they retaliate just under the screen, say they give negative performance appraisals but don't cut pay, or stigmatize and shun someone in workplace, but don't cut their pay?" she asked. "Employers should not be given a free pass for engaging in retaliation that is enough to undermine the basic purposes of this statute."
The government, like Burlington, appears to argue that the court should adopt a "materially adverse change in the terms and conditions of employment" standard, and also relies on the Ellerth precedent.
But even though it agrees with Burlington on the standard, it disagrees with the company that the 6th Circuit's result was wrong.