Wednesday, April 26, 2006

The Dirty Dozen. And guess what....

The National Council on Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) released a report today listing twelve companies -- a dirty dozen -- whose reckless disregard for their employees’ safety and health has had tragic consequences for workers and their families. And guess what. UNICCO is among them.

Coinciding with Workers Memorial Day, April 28, the report announces a new National COSH campaign, “Stop Corporate Killers,” which calls for an overhaul of the regulatory system to ensure that workers realize the right to a safe and healthy workplace that the Occupational Safety and Health Act promised.

Read about UNICCO's negligence in the death of a worker here. The full report is available here.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

A covert union organization - The National Council on Occupational Safety and Health - releases a report blasting a bunch of non-union and "not-union friendly" companies... boys and girls, the propoganda machine is now running full tilt!

This is beyond crazy - now it's just plain stupid.

Anonymous said...

You mean this is not a government agency? How slimy is this.

Anonymous said...

"Covert union organization"? Prove it. Hell, you're more likely to be a shill or troll from UNICCO than the National Council on Occupational Safety and Health is to be pro-union.

Anonymous said...

COSH is not a government agency, and it is pretty clear if you check their own website that they are a covert union organization. If the big deal about not having an election is that it can take too long and the company can manipulate the process then why not have some type of expedited process where appeals are waived? It seems like the union can manipulate the card check... why not a third option?

Anonymous said...

When we talked with President Shalala during our occupation of the Admissions Office, we expressed our grave concerns about the ability of the NLRB secret ballot process to fairly serve the democratic choice of UNICCO workers, because of the failings you mentioned. She mentioned another thing you said, that a union may be able to manipulate employees to sign cards in card check ballot. Still, it is important to remember that 1) an employer always has vastly greater access to employees than a union has, and 2) a union has very little with which to coerce workers, since the union obviously doesn't have control over workers' jobs, livelihoods, vacation time, the general atmosphere of a working environment, etc. I'm not saying that union coercion of workers is out of the question by any means, I'm only saying it makes sense for it to be less common than employer coercion, especially since unions have little to gain and much to lose by treating workers inappropriately. NONETHELESS, I absolutely agree with you that a third process may be the best one, and in fact President Shalala herself brought up that possibility in our negotiations on March 28. However, since then she seems to have forgotten, and does not mention that possibility in her rhetoric.

Anonymous said...

The government agency is OSHA, not NCOSH. There's no such agency as NCOSH.

What's next, The Organization for General Reform and Emancipation?

Good luck getting that permit renewed for "Freedom City".

Pardon the pun, but Shalala just had you guys for dinner.

faculty for workplace justice said...

Most recent anonymous,

NCOSH is not a government agency at all (and not to be confused with the government agency OSHA). That, however, hardly means that it doesn't exist.