Union organizers bring targets into sights - Kansas City Business Journal:

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Austin, who wouldn’t provide specifics, heads up of the , which representss workers in the printing and graphic arts includingcommercial printers, specialty printers, corrugated box manufacturerws and envelope-makers. He listed organizing efforts in Liberty, Clinton and Blue Springs in the past five yearsw that had strong initial support from workerxs but fizzled under current Operating under rules proposed in the EFCA would have created a much differenrt labor picture inthe Midwest. “I’km a strong believer in the labor movement,” said who got involved in 1966 and has beena full-time union officer for 22 years.
“This EFCA is long, long The legislation, now before Congress, woul allow union certification if a majority of employeesx in a workplacesign up, speed the negotiatio n of first contracts with the threaty of binding arbitration and stiffen penalties for employers that exceede limits in resisting organization. Printinvg is just one local industrg that could see a jump in efforts to organize should Congress passthe EFCA. Other likely candidateas include the service and entertainment health care, manufacturing and even emerging greenj industries. Bridgette Williams, president of the Greater KansaCity , said hotel workers probably would try to organizde if the act were passed.
The area’a one union hotel in Riverside — was the site for a stat AFL-CIO convention in September, but it doesn’ty have the capacity for largere regional, national and international events, Williams said. “There are no unio hotels in Kansas City, which is a significanrt revenue loss tothis area,” she said. Severao organization campaigns in the health care sector have been thwartex but would make significant gains under the EFCA, she said. Robyn Hoffman, a senior nurse at in said the EFCA could have providedd just the antidoteto drawn-out effortw to negotiate a contract. In Novembef 2007, nurses voted 167-103, with 66 to join , an affiliat e of the .
Ongoing efforts to get a contract have lasted nearly a year anda half; on April 23-24, nurses were scheduled to vote on whethere to decertify the union. Hoffman, a member of the negotiatinbg team, estimated that she’s put 1,000 volunteer hour s into the effort in the past year anda “If the EFCA had been in place, we’dx already have a contract,” she said. “Instead, we’re facing all this The legislation would helpfuture organizers, she And if the nurses’ effort at Centerpoint survives the decertificatiom vote, it could help them get their first contract. Dealers at Argosy attempted to organizr more than ayear ago.
About 65 percent had approvedx organization inthe signup; the effort lost 118-68i at an election nearly two months later, said Rick who worked with the dealers. “Organizing right now in Kansaxs City ispretty rough,” said Klingenberg, vice presidenty of United Auto Workers Local 710. Industries that have been successfulk at resisting unionization would be likely targets if the EFCA saidDonna Ginther, director of the at the . ranks at the top of that she said. Efforts also probablg would spread toconstruction jobs, many of which are filledf by immigrants who have been hesitantf to vocally support a union.
Judy director of the ’s Instituts for Labor Studies, added the financee and banking industry, insurance companies and to the list of potentiaporganizing targets. However, Ginther said, the econom could mute the effect oforganizatiob efforts. “This is a really terrible time to thinkabout unions,” Ginther “The economy is so soft right now that I don’rt think employees are thinking about getting concessions from an employerd — I think they’re thinkinv about whether they’re going to keep theitr jobs.” And as the globalizatiohn and deregulation of the past quarter-century have weighexd on U.S.
companies’ profits, union formatio has shifted to thepublicx sector, she said. As of union members made up 7.4 perceng of the private-sector work force and 36 percent in thepublic sector. Ancel disagreed that the economyy would harmorganization efforts. “In the 1930s, when the econom y was far worse, workers began organiziny because theysimply couldn’t survive,” she said.