Ask the Jobless If Marx Is Relevant

Grabelsky29_Ask_the_Jobless_If_Marx_Is_Relevant.pdf: 120 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

ILR Impact Brief - Transcending Free Market Unionism: A New Alliance for New York State Unions

[Excerpt] In the few years since the AFL-CIO consolidated 25 of the 31 central labor councils in New York State into five area labor federations (ALFs), local union affiliates have begun to transcend the narrow interests that long divided one union from another. ALFs have begun to embrace new and more diverse leaders, strengthen their functional capabilities, forge coalitions with community groups, and help elect politicians who are more responsive to the concerns of working families. Whether the restructured labor movement has a greater ability to affect organizing drives and contract negotiations is still unclear

Unions Impose Stability on a Turbulent Construction Industry

Grabelsky31_Unions_Impose_Stability_on_a_Turbulent_Construction_Industry.pdf: 133 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Serving the Public Interest: Preventing Double-Breasting in the Construction Industry

Excerpt] But the immediate question I am addressing is how the practice of double-breasting undermines the stability of collective bargaining in the construction industry. The simple answer is that it is not exceedingly difficult for a unionized contractor to operate a double-breasted nonunion firm and, given the increasingly intense competitive pressures to cut labor costs (given rising land and material costs), employers have a strong incentive to double-breast. To the extent unionized contractors have pursued that business strategy, how has it impacted the system of collective bargaining in the construction industry

Bottom-Up Organizing in the Trades: An Interview with Mike Lucas, IBEW Director of Organizing

[Excerpt] Like the bottom-up organizers who built the IBEW 100 years ago by traveling from city to city, working at their trade and preaching the union creed, Lucas has been around the block. From Florida to Oklahoma, Indiana to Tennessee, he worked from 1954 to 1959 as a member of the Laborers and Teamsters unions. He began his organizing career in the utility construction industry, and first volunteered his talents to the IBEW in 1960 by organizing the manufacturing workers at a new Studebaker plant in Bloomington, Indiana, which he had recently helped build as a union electrician. He served as a shop steward, local officer and international rep, before becoming IBEW Local 429 in Nashville, Tennessee

Lighting the Spark: COMET Program Mobilizes the Ranks for Construction Organizing

This article describes the COMET (Construction Organizing Membership Education Training) program. Faced with declining membership and market share and an erosion of bargaining strength and political influence, building trades unions have undertaken a number of Initiatives to reverse their fortunes. COMET, an educational program that generates membership support and participation in organizing, has emerged as one of the most noteworthy of these new initiatives. Before COMET, organizing efforts were stymied by the reluctance of many union members and leaders to recruit into membership the large nonunion workforce. COMET appears to have transformed the political culture within those local unions that have utilized it by placing organizing on the top of their agendas. Although organizing activity and effectiveness are growing, it may be too soon to tell if construction unions can use COMET to successfully re-unionize the industry

Reinventing an Organizing Union: Strategies for Change

[Excerpt] Confronted by declining membership and market share as well as an erosion of bargaining strength and political influence, a sense of crisis now pervades many international unions. Some labor unions continue to adhere to programs and practices they have pursued for several decades. But others, faced with challenges so fundamental that their viability is at stake, have chosen to reexamine their basic policies and performance and to reorient their essential course. This paper evaluates the experience of four such international unions, all of which have recently embarked on strategic planning initiatives. Three of the unions – the Electrical Workers (IBEW), Carpenters (UBC), and Painters (IBPAT) – operate primarily in the private sector, representing workers in the construction industry but serving significant branches in other industrial sectors as well. The fourth is a large public –sector union, the Government Employees (AFGE). The membership rolls range from about 100,000 members to more than 700,000 members

Standing at a Crossroads: The Building Trades in the Twenty-First Century

American building trades unions have historically played a critical and stabilizing role in the nation’s construction industry, establishing uniform standards and leveling the competitive playing field. Union members have enjoyed better than average wages and benefits, excellent training opportunities, and decent jobsite conditions. But in the last thirty years the industry has undergone a dramatic transformation. This article describes the decline in union density, the drop in construction wages, the growth of anti-union forces, the changes in labor force demographics, the shift toward construction management, and the emergence of an underground economy. It also analyzes how building trades unions have responded to these changes, identifies structural impediments to union renewal, and proposes strategies for building trades unions to reassert their presence and power

Community Workforce Provisions in Project Labor Agreements: A Tool for Building Middle-Class Careers

[Excerpt] Project Labor Agreements are comprehensive contracts between a construction client and a consortium of unions. They have been used in the construction industry for over 60 years to achieve uniform labor standards, stability and high quality for large construction projects, and are currently evolving to address broader social and community issues. Community Workforce Agreements are PLAs that contain social investment or targeted hiring provisions to create employment and career path opportunities for individuals from low income communities. Pioneering examples of CWAs included the Los Angeles Community College District PLA (signed in April of 2001), providing for 30 percent of local resident workforce (20 percent of which should be individuals from economically disadvantaged and at-risk populations); and the Port of Oakland (California) PLA (implemented from 2001 to 2008), setting goals for employment of disadvantaged populations and utilization of minority-owned businesses. The first agreements on the West Coast were developed in response to communities’ demands for increased opportunities in the construction industry. To address these demands Building Trades Councils began negotiating PLAs with local hiring provisions. Other successfully implemented CWAs in the West include the Los Angeles Unified School District PLA (2003) and the City of Los Angeles Public Works construction projects (2006). Studies by the Partnership for Working Families and by UCLA found that these CWAs resulted in increased employment and retention of local workers, middle-class career paths and poverty reduction in Los Angeles communities, and that they currently constitute “the basis on which the city can monitor and assess the number of local residents working on its projects.” This report profiles the wide range of PLA/CWA provisions that have been designed and implemented during the last 15 years to establish goals and structures that assist in the creation of new standards and the implementation of new and existing laws and regulations related to the labor and employment rights of low income communities, women, and minorities

Star formation in Carina OB1: Observations of a giant molecular cloud associated with the eta Carinae Nebula

A giant molecular cloud associated with the eta Carinae nebula was fully mapped in CO with the Columbia Millimeter-Wave Telescope at Cerro Tololo. The cloud comples has a mass of roughly 700,000 solar mass and extends about 140 pc along the Galactic plane, with the giant Carina HII region situated at one end of the complex. Clear evidence of interaction between the HII region and the molecular cloud is found in the relative motions of the ionized gas, the molecular gas, and the dust; simple energy and momentum considerations suggest that the HII region is responsible for the observed motion of a cloud fragment. The molecular cloud complex appears to be the parent material of the entire Car OB1 Association which, in addition to the young clusters in the Carine nebula, includes the generally older cluster NGC 3325, NGC 3293, and IC 2581. The overall star formation efficiency in the cloud complex is estimated to be approximately 0.02