From the summer 2008 issue of the IBEW Journal

Poor Economy Hits Cities Hard

Due to the sub-prime mortgage crisis, my county could be forced to reduce the assessed value of roughly 35,000 homes by about 35 percent.  That will remove an estimated $1 billion from the tax base used to pay public employees. Citizens who work in the private sector and who have lost, or taken cuts in, their retiree health care insurance are already balking at paying higher taxes to cover public employee’s benefits.

In nearby Vallejo, municipal workers organized by the IBEW, are facing possible bankruptcy of the city which could set aside benefits in their collective bargaining agreement and retiree health care benefits.

We need change in 2008. If everyone participated in a national health care plan, costs could come down, the playing field would be more level and everyone would benefit.

Mike Smith
Dixon City Council member
Vallejo, Calif.,
Local 180 business agent

From the summer 2008 issue of the IBEW Journal

Why Workers Need the Employee Free Choice Act

Denver Local 68 member Daniel Luevano knows firsthand why workers need the Employee Free Choice Act. Working without a raise for more than six years, Luevano and most of his co-workers at Ries Electric signed up with Local 68. The boss refused to negotiate and targeted union workers, Luevano in particular, for retaliation. “He interrogated us about who has signed cards … he became very angry and yelled at me,” Luevano said. “He threatened to fire me and all my co-workers if we formed a union.”  A week later, Luevano was fired. Local 68 managed to get him reinstated, but the scare tactics worked on his co-workers. In a National Labor Relations Board-supervised election, the vote was a tie, which meant Ries’ employees were denied representation.

Luevano left Ries and is now proudly employed in a union shop, but he knows that with fairer labor laws his old workplace would now be organized.

“We went into the situation with a majority,” he said. “With the Employee Free Choice Act we would have won representation and the boss would have bargained with us right off the bat without all the intimidation.”

Daniel Luevano
Local 68 member
Denver

From the summer 2008 issue of the IBEW Journal

NAFTA’s Legacy

I was hired at GE’s Bloomington, Ind., refrigerator plant in 1988 as an assembler. GE has announced that the plant will be shut down. My husband was laid off from GE in 2005, so this could be the finale of our way of life. I’m 40 years old with four children from seven to 14 years of age. I planned to go to school for nursing after the plant shut down, but now there are rumors that GE is selling its entire appliance division and I don’t know if I will be able to afford that.  We need to keep our jobs in America. I really believe that NAFTA hurt us. When manufacturing jobs leave, it trickles down to everyone else. Even college graduates are losing their jobs.

Lori Hollar
Bloomington, Ind.
Local 2249 member