Labor Guild Fall Semester Begins Sept. 18th

School starts Monday evening September 18th at the Labor Guild in Weymouth and continues Monday evenings for nine weeks, ending November 20th. The first period is from 7 PM to 8:10 PM and the second period is 8:20 PM to 9:30 PM. Tuition is $100 for either one or two periods. Course include Steward's Job, Parliamentary Procedure, Economics of Collective Bargaining, Health, Safety, and Workers Compensation, Communications and the Media, Roots of Labor Law, Negotiating Workshop, Public Speaking, Justice, Justice, Justice, Law for the Lay-Person. For more information or to register contact laborguild@aol.com or (781) 340-7887.

Wages drop more in Mass. than any other state

The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center found that median hourly wages dropped more in Massachusetts 2003-2005 than in any other state. The state's median wage dropped from $17.19 per hour to $16.35 per hour. Massachusetts was also found to have the 11th highest wage inequality ratio of all 50 states.

New Contract at Springfield Day Nursery

United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2322 members at Springfield Day Nursery ratified a new contract in August that included • 3% raises each year • Improved health insurance contributions • One more holiday each year • Agreement to write a joint Union-Management policy on Dignity and Respect • Reimbursement for $11,000 underpayment from last year’s health insurance • Union meeting time at each staff day or training, • Improvements to Funeral Leave, Paid Time off, the vacation request process and course reimbursements.

UMass Memorial's Million Dollar Man Wants to Take Away $8,000 a Year From Nurses

From the Mass. Nurses Association: "CEO John O’Brien of the UMass Memorial Medical Center (UMMC) will make $1,270,000 this year, a 38 percent increase in just one year. The increase included $372,000 in deferred compensation and other benefits. This news comes at the same time that O’Brien, through his negotiators, continues to demand an unprecedented 50 concessions from the registered nurses at the University campus of UMass Memorial Medical Center; concessions that would dismantle or degrade nearly every provision, right or benefit in the nurses’ hard fought union contract."

In other MNA news, state-employed health care professionals represented by MNA Unit 7 ratified a contract that includes pay increases of 11 to 18 percent for RNs and other members. Unit 7 members had been working without a contract for 1,085 days.

Globe union runs radio ad

The Boston Newspaper Guild has produced a radio ad calling on the New York Times to negotiate a fair contract with 1,200 workers at the Boston Globe. “A lot of (Boston-based) companies know to treat workers with dignity and respect. That’s why it’s disappointing that. . . The Boston Globe and its corporate parent, The New York Times, are pushing an unfair contract with employees,” the ad says. “Here in Boston we don’t stand for greedy New York companies, or the Yankees.” The Times seeks to freeze its health-insurance contributions at current levels for union employees for the next four years and to continue outsourcing of rank-and-file jobs while adding highly paid management positions. To hear the radio spot, visit http://www.bgol.org/audio/CWA-BELOVED.mp3 .

Union asks FERC to delay National Grid-KeySpan deal

The Utility Workers Union of America is asking federal regulators to hold up the National Grid PLC takeover of gas utility KeySpan Corporation, warning that the deal could lead to poorer service and staffing cutbacks. National Grid, parent company of Massachusetts' biggest electric utility, has said it expects to cut the combined staff of the two companies by 10 percent after they are merged, but only by attrition and voluntary retirements. UWUA officials want the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to put conditions in any merger approval that mandate safe staffing levels and reliable electric and gas service.

Contract at Haskon Aerospace

Workers at Haskon Aerospace in Taunton ratified a new contract that calls for a three percent increase in wages over the next two years, but increases worker contributions toward health insurance. "We've had better contracts in the past, but this is the best we could get at the time," commented finishing department worker Raymond Dreis. "We pushed them as far as we could, but we knew we weren't getting any farther - we hit the end of the rope," said United Electrical Workers (UE) Local 204 president John Fernandes.