AFL-CIO Hit with 3rd ULP
On July 1st, OPEIU Local 2 filed its third Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) against the AFL-CIO. In the course of contract negotiations, we believe that the AFL-CIO has:
- Unilaterally changed wages, terms and conditions of the bargaining unit employees participating on the Local 2 bargaining committee without notice and bargaining with OPEIU Local 2.
- Refused to schedule and canceled scheduled bargaining meetings with the Local 2 bargaining committee.
- Failed and refused to provide relevant collective bargaining information requested by OPEIU Local 2.
Local 2 SEIU Employees Prepare for
Potential Strike
From the press release:
"Local 2 has seen its membership of SEIU employees drop from 133 in 2009 to 55 today. The sharp decline is a direct result of the misclassification of new hires as “managers” and outsourcing work to non-union consultants. SEIU staff is now made up of 70% managers as SEIU’s leadership has systematically cut the number of union staff positions in favor of at-will managerial bloat and consultants in order to circumvent placing positions in the bargaining unit. According to financial disclosures with the Department of Labor, SEIU has spent almost $45 million combined on outsourcing work in the last two years."
Check out the full press release here, and hear from a few of our dedicated Local 2 members who work at SEIU by watching their inspiring videos here.
"Local 2 has seen its membership of SEIU employees drop from 133 in 2009 to 55 today. The sharp decline is a direct result of the misclassification of new hires as “managers” and outsourcing work to non-union consultants. SEIU staff is now made up of 70% managers as SEIU’s leadership has systematically cut the number of union staff positions in favor of at-will managerial bloat and consultants in order to circumvent placing positions in the bargaining unit. According to financial disclosures with the Department of Labor, SEIU has spent almost $45 million combined on outsourcing work in the last two years."
Check out the full press release here, and hear from a few of our dedicated Local 2 members who work at SEIU by watching their inspiring videos here.
May Day Rally in Support of AFL-CIO
Employees
Local 2 members from all over showed up to support our Brothers and Sisters working at the AFL-CIO on May Day (May 1st), rallying to end the imposed contract. AFL-CIO has given itself the management right to furlough any of our employees for any number of days. This is added to working more hours with no proportionate compensation and 7 years of wage freezes. And management? They just gave themselves $4,000 bonuses in December. Stay strong!
ULP filed against Kelly Press
OPEIU Local 2 has filed an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) against Kelly Press. View ULP here. Located in Cheverly, Maryland, Kelly Press provides printing and convention services to several area unions and pro-labor organizations. Kelly Press markets itself as a unionized and pro-union company.
OPEIU Local 2 is alleging that Kelly Press management is discriminating against one of its shop stewards and attempting to exclude him from the unit. Ask management at your organization if you use Kelly Press. If you do, think twice.
OPEIU Local 2 is alleging that Kelly Press management is discriminating against one of its shop stewards and attempting to exclude him from the unit. Ask management at your organization if you use Kelly Press. If you do, think twice.
PartnersGlobal employees join Local 2
|
Fifteen employees at PartnersGlobal joined Local 2 as a newly organized unit on Monday, March 11th. The unit, comprised primarily of program officers and finance staff, spent months building up power among their colleagues before making a request for voluntary recognition in January. PartnersGlobal, based in Washington, DC, works internationally with grassroots organizations to fund sustainable peace-making efforts and to support local democratic initiatives. The unionizing campaign follows in the footsteps of recent organizing successes at the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI), represented by the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union and Local 2, respectively.
|
|
As staff at other DC-area nonprofits and social service organizations begin to recognize the value of forming a union and the empowerment gained from bargaining a first contract, we expect to see more employees attempting to do the same. With the support of other union members and the expertise of Local 2 staff representatives, the new members of PartnersGlobal are working hard to gather input from everyone in the unit before they bargain in the coming months.
Wall Street Journal captures Local 2's
fight for union workers
Are Unions Exploiting Their Employees?
Workers have authorized strikes against both SEIU and AFL-CIO.
By The Editorial Board
March 18, 2019 7:20 p.m. ET
One of America’s largest unions is facing its own labor pains. SEIU, the Service Employees International Union, represents nearly two million workers. It’s the muscle behind the “Fight for $15” campaign to raise the minimum wage. Yet staff at SEIU’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., could soon be going on strike.
Employees at SEIU are organized by two unions: the Union of Union Representatives and the Office and Professional Employees International Union. Last week, after a breakdown in talks with the bosses, OPEIU’s Local 2 announced that workers had authorized a strike, with 92% voting in favor. Mediation is in progress.
The union accuses the other union of persistent union-busting. “Over the last five years,” Local 2 says on its website, “union jobs at SEIU and its pension fund have been cut in half: from 283 to 149.” It blames this trend on “managerial bloat” and outside contracting: “SEIU spent $21.6 million outsourcing work to non-union consultants in 2017, much of which should have been done by union workers.”
Tenure protections are also at stake. “They want to make unionized workers less secure and give them less job security,” David Hoskins, an SEIU researcher and OPEIU organizer, told the Huffington Post. Today, he said, if SEIU wants to get rid of a position held by a staffer with five years of tenure, it must offer him or her a new job. Management wants to end that provision, though SEIU says the change would apply only to new hires.
“SEIU is proud of the contract offer it made to staff represented by Local 2,” a spokeswoman said Monday, “which includes an 8% raise, improved health benefits, and preservation of the job guarantee for all current staff. SEIU has been strongly committed to reaching a negotiated settlement that allows our union to meet the daunting challenges that SEIU members are up against and provides a workplace that is aligned with our values.”
This is hardly organized labor’s first dose of its own medicine. In 2015 field workers on the “Fight for $15” complained that they weren’t making $15 an hour—and that they couldn’t unionize, since SEIU didn’t claim them as employees. An organizer with the Union of Union Representatives lamented then that “SEIU has been fostering anti-union sentiment for months.”
Meanwhile, OPEIU’s Local 2 is in heated negotiations on behalf of the accountants, janitors and so forth that it represents at AFL-CIO. Those employees authorized a strike last October, while making formal complaints of unfair treatment to the National Labor Relations Board.
Local 2 agreed not to strike in early November, its says, “in order not to compromise AFL-CIO’s campaign to elect pro-labor candidates.” But the contract dispute grinds on. In a January letter, 51 workers complained that “AFL-CIO is seeking the right to unilaterally impose up to 24 furlough days over a two-year period.”
With all this heavy bargaining, one question is whether OPEIU’s and UUR’s negotiators are being treated fairly for their hard work. Is there a union for the Union of Union Representatives’ representatives?
Appeared in the March 19, 2019, print edition of the WSJ.
Learn more about our fight against SEIU management.
Learn more about our fight against AFL-CIO management.
Workers have authorized strikes against both SEIU and AFL-CIO.
By The Editorial Board
March 18, 2019 7:20 p.m. ET
One of America’s largest unions is facing its own labor pains. SEIU, the Service Employees International Union, represents nearly two million workers. It’s the muscle behind the “Fight for $15” campaign to raise the minimum wage. Yet staff at SEIU’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., could soon be going on strike.
Employees at SEIU are organized by two unions: the Union of Union Representatives and the Office and Professional Employees International Union. Last week, after a breakdown in talks with the bosses, OPEIU’s Local 2 announced that workers had authorized a strike, with 92% voting in favor. Mediation is in progress.
The union accuses the other union of persistent union-busting. “Over the last five years,” Local 2 says on its website, “union jobs at SEIU and its pension fund have been cut in half: from 283 to 149.” It blames this trend on “managerial bloat” and outside contracting: “SEIU spent $21.6 million outsourcing work to non-union consultants in 2017, much of which should have been done by union workers.”
Tenure protections are also at stake. “They want to make unionized workers less secure and give them less job security,” David Hoskins, an SEIU researcher and OPEIU organizer, told the Huffington Post. Today, he said, if SEIU wants to get rid of a position held by a staffer with five years of tenure, it must offer him or her a new job. Management wants to end that provision, though SEIU says the change would apply only to new hires.
“SEIU is proud of the contract offer it made to staff represented by Local 2,” a spokeswoman said Monday, “which includes an 8% raise, improved health benefits, and preservation of the job guarantee for all current staff. SEIU has been strongly committed to reaching a negotiated settlement that allows our union to meet the daunting challenges that SEIU members are up against and provides a workplace that is aligned with our values.”
This is hardly organized labor’s first dose of its own medicine. In 2015 field workers on the “Fight for $15” complained that they weren’t making $15 an hour—and that they couldn’t unionize, since SEIU didn’t claim them as employees. An organizer with the Union of Union Representatives lamented then that “SEIU has been fostering anti-union sentiment for months.”
Meanwhile, OPEIU’s Local 2 is in heated negotiations on behalf of the accountants, janitors and so forth that it represents at AFL-CIO. Those employees authorized a strike last October, while making formal complaints of unfair treatment to the National Labor Relations Board.
Local 2 agreed not to strike in early November, its says, “in order not to compromise AFL-CIO’s campaign to elect pro-labor candidates.” But the contract dispute grinds on. In a January letter, 51 workers complained that “AFL-CIO is seeking the right to unilaterally impose up to 24 furlough days over a two-year period.”
With all this heavy bargaining, one question is whether OPEIU’s and UUR’s negotiators are being treated fairly for their hard work. Is there a union for the Union of Union Representatives’ representatives?
Appeared in the March 19, 2019, print edition of the WSJ.
Learn more about our fight against SEIU management.
Learn more about our fight against AFL-CIO management.
Local 2 Union Workers at SEIU
Headquarters Authorize a Strike
In the face of continued attacks against their labor rights, SEIU Headquarters union workers vote overwhelmingly to authorize a strike. The strike authorization vote comes after years of union-busting attacks by management at SEIU and its pension fund stalling bargaining over attempts to remove job security for workers.
WASHINGTON, DC – In a significant show of strength and unity, 92 percent of OPEIU Local 2 members who work at SEIU headquarters authorized a strike after rejecting management’s best and final offer. The vote reveals the extent of labor unrest inside SEIU’s own office as management has eliminated the majority of union jobs in favor of outsourcing the work to non-union consultants.
WASHINGTON, DC – In a significant show of strength and unity, 92 percent of OPEIU Local 2 members who work at SEIU headquarters authorized a strike after rejecting management’s best and final offer. The vote reveals the extent of labor unrest inside SEIU’s own office as management has eliminated the majority of union jobs in favor of outsourcing the work to non-union consultants.
AFL-CIO charged with 2nd ULP
March 6, 2019 - OPEIU Local 2 has filed a second Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) against the AFL-CIO with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Charges against the AFL-CIO include: (1) unilaterally changed terms and conditions of the bargaining unit driver and other unit employees without notice and bargaining with OPEIU Local 2; (b) discriminated in the assignment of work because OPEIU Local 2 bargaining unit members exercised their rights under Section 7 under the Act; (c) imposed terms seeking unlimited managerial discretion over workforce numbers, hours and days of operations without a good-faith impasse in negotiations; and (d) since September 11, 2018, failed and refused to provide relevant collective bargaining information requested by OPEIU Local 2. View ULP charge here. Read more.
One job should be enough: Support
OPEIU members in Nashville
March 12, 2019 - Our sisters and brothers at OPEIU Local 182 in Nashville need your help! They are fighting for a fair contract at the United Steelworkers Pension and Benefits fund (PIUMPF). More than 50% of the members who work for the fund need to work a second job and/or take in roommates to afford living in Nashville. 50% report that if they did not have a spouse, they would also need to take a second job.
Click here and sign this petition in support of Local 182 members’ struggle.
Click here and sign this petition in support of Local 182 members’ struggle.
|
The Trans Visibility Community Festival is an annual event, held for the first time in 2019. It is an inclusive festival for the local community to come together and celebrate the journeys of trans folx. Join us for an open mic, film screenings, art exhibitors, trans organization exhibitors, food, and a raffle.
|
Saturday, March 30, 2019
1-5pm Spaces NoMa 1140 3rd St, NE Washington, DC 20002 |
Notice: nomination and election of
delegates and alternates to the OPEIU
2019 Convention
Pursuant to the OPEIU Local 2 Constitution, the nomination and election of delegates and alternates to attend the OPEIU 2019 convention will take place at the Local 2 Quarterly Membership Meeting to be held on April 2, 2019 at 5:30 pm at the Capital Hilton (1001 16th Street NW, Washington, DC 20036).
Rally to End the Government Shutdown
|
Workers from all across the area rallied on Thursday, January 10th and marched to the White House to end the government shutdown. Politicians and labor leaders joined impacted workers to pressure GOP congresspeople and to put people back to work.
A reminder that the AFL-CIO has imposed a contract on Local 2 members in their downtown office. Their contract includes forced furloughs, much like what the government is doing now, and much like what the AFL-CIO claims to rally against. We will not back down on this issue. Wear your Local 2 shirts to show the AFL-CIO that we will not stand for those kinds of management tactics. |