Global Labor Leaders Ask University President Donna Shalala to Intervene
MIAMI, April 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, a group of labor leaders from Brazil, Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Nicaragua, Jamaica, St. Marten, Chile, and Costa Rica visited with strikers at the University of Miami who are protesting violations of their civil rights. The leaders, whose unions are affiliates of Public Services International (PSI), met with strikers to express their support for the stand they've taken and to discuss what they can do to assist strikers once they return to their home countries.
"It's time for University President Donna Shalala to do what's right and just," said Leandro Avila from the Panamanian union, the Federation of Public Employees (FENASEP) and a member of the Panama National Congress.
An international spotlight is shining on a strike by immigrant janitors, housekeepers and groundskeepers at University of Miami, which recruits students from countries as diverse as China, Venezuela, Colombia and India. The strikers and many of the campus service workers are immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica and Peru, and other countries, reflecting the international flavor of Miami.
International pressure is increasing on University President Donna Shalala, a former Clinton administration official, to intervene in the strike now entering its eighth week.
Trade unionists from across the globe have sent more than 4,000 email messages to Shalala urging her to tell campus maintenance contractor UNICCO to stop breaking the law. The campaign was spearheaded by a website based in the United Kingdom, http://www.labourstart.org.
In a recent letter to Shalala, Philip Jennings, president of the global union, Union Network International, reminded her, "UNICCO is your contractor. It's your responsibility to resolve this situation."
4 comments:
"UNICCO is your contractor. It's your responsibility to resolve this situation."
Well that settles it for me.
"UNICCO is your contractor. It's your responsibility to resolve this situation."
UNICCO is an independant company with a contract to provide a service. It's internal matters are really non of UM's business, as long as it is living up to whatever contractual commitments were that were made. If UM dosen't like the service provided - it's option is to find another company to replace UNICCO (this would however put the UNICCO janitors out on the street for good). Is this the SEIU's new goal - to get these janitors fired? Perhaps the SEIU is betting a new bunch of janitors might accept paying the SEIU fees instead?
With the amount of money Andy and the SEIU has in this investment - he needs to make a profit badly, even at the expense of the current workers.
Complaints filed in bus drivers’ walkout
By JOE ROBERTSON
The Kansas City Star
Kansas City school bus drivers and monitors who staged a one-day walkout Wednesday were supposed to return to their buses as usual Thursday morning.
But not all of them made it.
Union organizer Mike Blain said that a dozen drivers were suspended for participating in the one-day strike. He said the union has filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board.
An official with Durham School Services — one of two companies affected by Wednesday’s walkout — said no drivers were suspended Thursday.
But the company did, at the advice of lawyers, require employees who were absent Wednesday to fill out a form stating why they missed work, said Scott Bruegge, Durham’s regional vice president.
Five or six drivers and monitors refused to fill out the form, he said.
“We told them we needed the documentation, and they left,” Bruegge said.
Employees who wrote that they had participated in the strike will not be punished, he said.
But the company doesn’t ordinarily ask employees to document why they were absent, Blain said.
“They are applying a discriminatory policy against a legally protected workplace action,” he said.
Barbara Jones, 65, was one of the employees who refused to complete the form. Her bus left with someone else serving as its monitor, meaning Jones earned no wages for the day.
“I wasn’t signing anything,” she said. “They know why we were out. We were picketing right out there in front of the place.”
It doesn’t matter whether Durham is calling it a suspension, she said. “Whether or not, it’s a day without pay.”
The union — the Service Employees International Union — also filed for an election Thursday, Blain said. The National Labor Relations Board will review whether at least 30 percent of the employees at both bus companies, Durham and First Student, signed union authorization cards.
Blain said the union turned in more than 300 cards, which would be more than 50 percent of the work force.
He expects the labor relations board to set an election date in May or June.
See anything familar here??? All the allegations the SEIU are making are THE SAME!!! Only difference - these workers might actually have a chance to vote... until the SEIU tries to take that away from them...
SEIU - The AMWAY of all unions!
Well this event was a bust.
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