Online Organizing Key to Workers’ IBEW Win

by Mike Hall, Jan 4, 2011 AFL-CIO News

When workers decide they want to come together and form unions, it’s a well-documented fact that management is none too happy about it.

Talk with your fellow workers in the lunchroom, speak out at a forced, closed-door meeting with the boss, or—heaven forbid—wear a pro-union shirt, hat or sticker and you’re sporting a bull’s-eye for retaliation. In more than one-third of organizing campaigns, pro-union workers are fired.

In Newburgh, N.Y., last spring, workers at an Anheuser–Busch InBev’s Metal Container Corp. plant—where a previous organizing attempt drew intense management harassment and the firings of some workers—employees reached out to Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 363.

But as the IBEW Now News Blog reports:

The fear of captive-audience meetings, harassment and other actions by the employer left many at the plant wary of how to press forward without management sidelining their efforts.

So organizers got crafty and set up a special blog strictly for the 164 employees to debate, strategize, air concerns and ultimately come together for victory, all while avoiding many of the union-busting tactics so common in most campaigns.


IBEW Local 363's Sam Fratto says the blog was like having a “24-hour-a-day union and campaign meeting. Because of their past experience, workers were afraid to talk among themselves on the floor. But this time with the blog, nobody’s jobs were in jeopardy because management couldn’t single out who was for or against the union."

Over the course of the summer, the blog became an online meeting spot for the 164 workers, who knew plant management was monitoring the blog.

We knew they were monitoring the blog and we didn't care. It didn't matter. In fact, we used it to our advantage.

The blog was also being watched from 9 different countries including England, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, China and Japan.

Despite management’s efforts to hone in on pro-union workers, captive-audience meetings couldn’t refute what the workers were reading and commenting about on the blog. Says Fratto:

The company tried to get people to spill info about the campaign, but the workers just stayed silent. And since nobody’s wearing T-shirts or handing out stickers or fliers, who could they put the pressure on? Nobody.

In August, the workers voted overwhelmingly to join IBEW and are now in contract talks. Visit the can plant blog here: www.canplant.blogspot.com

Happy New Year To Everyone!

Happy New Year to the hard working people who make up the shrinking middle class.

Happy New Year to the hard working employers too, the ones who treat their employees fairly.

Happy New Year to all of the people who support labor and understand the vital need for American labor to be organized.

We need to set the standards in the world. We ended 2010 down at number FIVE - not good.

Have a safe and prosperous New Year.

Congratulations To Employees Of Deb-El On Settling Their First Union Contract

The employees of Deb-El, a Sullivan County company that manufactures and processes egg products have unanimously votes yes for a union contract. The 57 employees of the Thompsonville company had to fight a long battle to get that contract because management of Deb-El foods, Inc. did not want them to become unionized.

Workers finally have clear, written rules to follow in regard to their employment with the company.

Prior to having a contract, rules were a one way street - without a contract, an employer can make and change any rule or procedure at will and at any time - without any regard to how it affects the employees. This is very frustrating to workers who have things changed on the fly that can adversely affect them and their families without so much as a discussion.

The contract, approved this week by a unanimous vote of the workers, is a five year pact.

Represented by Local 342 of the United Food and Commercial Workers,the workers have benefits they never had before, said union spokeswoman Kate Meckler.

“It provides for guaranteed wage increases over the course of the contract. It provides for benefits they never had before like real vacation pay and real time off,” she said. They also have access to union funds and access to the 401K and annuity plan, which they never had before, Meckler said.

Congratulations to the Deb-El workers! Now show the company that there was really no need to fight it and prove how a unionized plant can be an advantage for both the workers and the company.

Powerful Speech - Open Your Ears And Your Mind To The Truth

This is a powerful speech that can just stand on its own. This is the 800 pound gorilla in the country. All of this goes on while they have us enthralled with reality shows and Snookie.

It's more like Snookered.

Pass this around for people to see because it is something we never hear or get breaking news on......the truth.

The Cut List Starts At The End Of The Line

Whether you are working or not - you know the economy is a mess. You know jobs are hard to come by. You know there is and has been for a long time, terribly high unemployment.

Congress is debating whether to extend emergency unemployment checks for more than 6 million Americans who are approaching the 99-week limit, some four million others are facing the certain end of their benefits over the next year.

The President's Council of Economic Advisers said "the exhaustion of unemployment benefits for so many will curb spending power enough to significantly impede an already weak economic recovery."

The typical household would see their income fall by a third should they lose their checks, according to the report. For the sole breadwinner, income would fall by 90 percent.

Multiply that number by 4 million and climbing for those who would have nothing. That is not a good situation for anyone.

Say what you want about lazy people and pulling yourself up - easy for you to say if you are one of the employed. The fact is that there are not 4 million jobs for those curently unemployed and we all know it's getting worse.

These are not the people you fear that DO NOT WORK. These are people that are very unfortunately BETWEEN WORK that are the subjects here. This is not about LAZY.

And here is a news flash: If they keep letting companies go offshore, taking our jobs with them and coming back here to sell it all back to us at nice high inflated American prices - the job mess will continue....and it will infect and affect everybody - working or not.

To think of letting our countrys people whither away and at the same time give out financial support to other coutries and THEIR people is mindboggling.

If we really can't afford to take care of someone - shouldn't AMERICANS be the last on the cut list?

The unemployment benefits need to be there for these Amercican Workers who are STUCK BETWEEN jobs.

The cut list starts on the other end of the line.

Poll: Majority of Americans Say Health Care Law Should Stand or be Expanded

Fifty-one percent of registered voters say that Congress should let the new health care reform law continue as is or change it so that it does more, according to a McClatchy/Marist Institute poll conducted Nov. 11-15. Thirty-three percent want to repeal it completely, 11 percent want it changed so that it is less sweeping and 5 percent are undecided.

Among those who support the legislation, 16 percent are in the "let it stand" camp while 35 percent believe it should be changed to do more.

You wouldn't think that was the case by reading the papers, watching TV or listening to the radio - they made it seem that everybody thought it was a bad idea.

I often wondered, what part of the law don't the middleclass people like?

Is it that insurance companies cannot drop you or refuse you coverage for pre-existing illnesses? Do they not like that?

Is it that now your insurance covers your children up to the age of 26 if they do not have access to insurance?

Or do the middleclass people not like that their lifetime medical expenses CANNOT have a cap or maximum anymore?

The Republican congressional leadership included a vow to repeal health care in its pre-election "Pledge to America".

Many GOP candidates ran on a promise to work towards scrapping what they dubbed "Obamacare." Read between the lines folks - it's POLITICAL.

That is in the Pledge To America???
REVERSING THOSE BENEFITS FOR THE MIDDLECLASS?? What the heck else is in there?

No matter what party is in they all pull the same tricks - give a catchy "nice sounding" name to a bill or law that actually screws the middleclass people.

When they do that, a large number of those same middleclass people trust it by the name it's called and end up supporting it. Nice trick that works over and over.

Former Anheuser Busch Workers, Now Known As ABINBEV Vote YES To Join IBEW Local 363

The workers at the ABINBEV Metal Container Corporation in Newburgh have chosen IBEW Local 363 to represent them in collective bargaining.

The workers at the ABINBEV Metal Container Corporation have chosen IBEW Local 363 to represent them in collective bargaining in an election that was held on Friday August 27 and Saturday August 28 by the National Labor Relations Board.

These workers manufacture the cans for Budweiser Beer and other beverage companies affiliated with the company which is now called ABINBEV after the sale of the Anheuser Busch Company to INBEV - a Belgium owned company.

This campaign started approximately 6 months ago and there was a tremendous amount of work put into this effort by countless workers at the plant and by IBEW Local
363.

A group of workers came to IBEW Local 363 in early February and spoke about how much they were losing with the new foriegn owned company. Soon after and through much effort, Local 363 began to increase the number of employees involved and held numerous small meetings with the workers on each shift.

Through their own efforts, the workers themselves brought more than double the amount of authorization cards required by law to file for the election to the union.

At that time, Senior Assistant Business Manager Sam Fratto became involved and suggested that they try a new way to organize the workers throughout the process – by using the electronic media and creating a blog that all of the workers could have access to 24 hours a day. The theory was that the blog would equalize the captive audience meetings and the fact that physical access to the workers was limited. It worked great and is still being used today in this next part of the election / negotiation process. The blog address is www.canplant.blogspot.com.

On Saturday night, August 28 the majority of workers chose to have IBEW Local 363 as their collective bargaining agent.

There was much pressure applied by the company and many veiled threats were levied at the people. This is a solid group of workers who are very proud to become members of the IBEW and especially of Local 363 and they held strong. After the election there were workers who voted no calling the union everyday stating that they would be supporting the union and that they were sorry they voted no because of immense pressure from the company.

They understand the power associated with having a written contract to work under. With the sale of AB, the workers knew they had to take steps of their own to protect themselves and they contacted Local 363 to make that happen. They picked the right union to do that!

There are now 164 NEW IBEW 363 union members in the Hudson Valley because of their courage and effort to band together to join the union and to speak with one voice.

Hopefully, more workers in the Hudson Valley will see that there is a choice available when it seems that everything is being taken from them - call in the IBEW or any other union in the area. Organize.

Now the ABINBEV workers have a voice at the table with the multi-billion dollar company from Belgium that owns the former AB Budweiser Brand.