Help NC End International Law Violations
Submitted by Blue South on Mon, 05/14/2007 - 1:35pm
Under North Carolina state law it is currently illegal for workers to engage in collective bargaining.
This law was given a legal challenge in late 2005, under a suit by the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America. Local UE 150 filed a suit with the International Labor Organization stating that North Carolina state statute 95-98 violated international law.
The ILO is an agency of the United Nations, and its history can be found here.
The ILO is the global body responsible for drawing up and overseeing international labour standards. Working with its 178 Member States, the ILO seeks to ensure that labour standards are respected in practice as well as principle.
In April of this year, the ILO ruled on the suit by the UE, and declared
The Committee[CFA] requests the [United States] Government to promote the establishment of a collective bargaining framework in the public sector in North Carolina – with the participation of representatives of the state and local administration and public employees’ trade unions, and the technical assistance of the [ILO] Office if so desired – and to take steps aimed at bringing the state legislation, in particular through the repeal of NCGS §95-98, into conformity with the freedom of association principles, thus ensuring the effective recognition of the right of collective bargaining throughout the country’s territory. The Committee requests to be kept informed of developments in this respect.
The best summary of this ruling comes from the national Director of Organization of UE, Bob Kingsley, who said,
This decision is an international wake-up call to state lawmakers in North Carolina. The world is watching. It’s time to change the law and erase the disgraceful human rights deficit in the state today.
Thankfully, the UE is not alone in this issue. The NAACP added collective bargaining to its 14 point public policy proposal unveiled during their "Historic Thousands on Jones Street" march.
There is also a movement within the legislature to bring our state into compliance with international law. On April 18th, Rep Dan Blue, former House Speaker and candidate for US Senate filed HB 1583
He has been joined by Representatives Lorene Coates, Bruce Goforth and Larry Brown as primary sponsors. Bill Faison, Susan Fisher, Ty Harrell, Grier Martin, Ray Rapp and Michael Wray have all joined as Co-Sponsors.
The last action taken on this bill was referral to the committee of Judiciary II, and if it is passed it will go to Appropriations.
Today, I would like to ask that you first contact the legislators listed above with a thank you note. They need to know that we support their efforts. The second action, is to contact members of the committee to encourage them to move this legislation forward.
One of the nice details is that the chair of this committee is also the author, Dan Blue. Ty Harrell, another sponsor, is also a member of the committee. The info for the committee is available here.
Please send a quick note of thanks to:
Dan Blue, Lorene Coates, Bruce Goforth, Larry Brown, Bill Faison, Susan Fisher, Ty Harrell, Grier Martin, Ray Rapp, Michael Wray
Then, send a quick request that this bill be voted on soon to the three vice chairs of this committee:
Rick Glazier, Jimmy Love, and Jennifer Weiss.
Thanks for helping to restore labor rights in North Carolina, and thank you for helping to ensure that we follow international law.
(Front paged by Anglico. Looks like an "action" kind of day.)
A quick note
Im sure it will shock some people to see me write about something other than Brad Miller or Elizabeth Dole, but I really care about this issue.
And, it is marginally related to the Senate race, since our good friend Grier Martin (and possible successor to Brad) is a cosponsor.
Draft Brad Miller -- NC Sen ActBlue :::Liddy 44 Brad 33
"Keep the Faith"
Thanks for the heads-up. Done
n/t
A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
Mohandas Gandhi
Need clarification
I thought the NC law allowed collective bargaining but was a right to work state that did not allow a closed shop where only union members could work. I am not challenging your statements just inquiring for clarity.
no problem
For the private sector I think that you are right, but any company that does any business with the state is required by law to refuse collective bargaining.
Draft Brad Miller -- NC Sen ActBlue :::Liddy 44 Brad 33
"Keep the Faith"
Thanks
I was confusing the right to work with public employees right to collective bargaining. Two different things. I think public and privates employees should have the same rights.
absolutely
How can we expect the government to protect our rights if its employees dont have the rights they are supposed to protect?
Draft Brad Miller -- NC Sen ActBlue :::Liddy 44 Brad 33
"Keep the Faith"
Emails
Both Grier Martin and Ty Harrell have responded. I asked Grier to let us know if he heard of any opposition by people that we might be able to contact and influence. Ty was appreciative of the thank you.
Draft Brad Miller -- NC Sen ActBlue :::Liddy 44 Brad 33
edit- Legislators do read emails! Add Michael Wray to the list of responses to my, albeit short, email.
"Keep the Faith"
What is collective bargining?
and why is it bad? 22 years in the Navy, always had congress voting for my 2.2 payraise and other benifits.
Do not understand this term. Give me some jets to fight, sure, I am on that, money issues? clueless.
I thought of including
something about this, but didnt. The short and the simple is that collective bargaining is when a union, or any other group of workers, bargains for a contract with an employer as a group.
This is vital in jobs where an employee has little to no leverage to ask for things like health care or better workplace safety. The idea is that a single worker can be hired or fired and it only affects him, but you cant fire every worker, so collective bargaining gives unions the ability to say, "give us x or we shut your business down."
Without collective bargaining it is every worker for him or herself.
Draft Brad Miller -- NC Sen ActBlue :::Liddy 44 Brad 33
"Keep the Faith"
While I am not all that happy
with unions (Rome, NY was devistated due to unions and BRAC removing Griffis AFB) people should have a way to as a shop or group of people defend themselfs and to ask for benifits etc.
I hope that is what this thread is after. In all the jobs I have had since leaving the military, noone was suppose to know how much I made. That was a deal tween me and the company. However, I sure hope we can as a group legally group up and try to work for better something. Wages, benifits, etc. across the board.
Without this, it will be easy for simon lagrees of the world to take us back to the 1900s with the company stores, etc.
Not sure how the right to work law works while folks are picketing, and I hope that when being picketted, folks are not allowed to cross the line to work. I am assuming that with NC as a right to work state, the bosses can hire in folks to work while I am on strike or protesting, or negotiating utilizing the passive approach to production?
Because I positioned myself with a nice military retirement, going on strike for a cause would be ok for me, but some folks, it would be desasterious. I hope folks have the ability to take the company to task if warrented.
I just dont want the unions in here mucking up everything with stupidly high wages requiring the company to find a cheaper place to set up. Rome lost Revere ware copper and brass in the late 70s because of unions. Revere made rifle barrels as well as had massive forges and presses to make 5" shells. When Revere moved the plant to Tenn(?) the presses to perform this where left behind. Revere was a contractor making these rounds for WW2, Korea and I think Nam. Now that is gone. Thanks unions.
I will never be a fan of unions. They had their place in the late 1890s - 1940s. Now I question their viability or usefullness in making a workplace that is condusive to production and a fair wage. Today, the market will do that in my opionion.
I am a fan of collective bargining.
You arent alone
in your skepticism. I used to agree with your statement that unions have lost their viability and usefulness. But, I dont anymore.
I definitely disagree with this statement. The reason is that there are absolutely no market incentives to provide a safe workplace and a fair wage. Ok. Thats not entirely true. There are many consumers that reward companies that make good decisions. Look at the explosion of the organic food market in recent years. But, at the same time, look at Walmart, and how well they are doing.
When consumers are informed its possible that they will make good decisions. But that is not certain. And, informed consumers are rare. Informing them is not cheap, and there are few groups interested in doing it.
The bigger problem though is that in the meantime there must be certain protections for people. This is especially true in the cases of companies such as Smithfield Pork that operate largely as a monopoly.
Draft Brad Miller -- NC Sen ActBlue :::Liddy 44 Brad 33
"Keep the Faith"
But, but, but
I too have a problem with unions. My Step-dad use to work for National Airlines....never heard of them? That's because the unions struck them out-of business. I understand the need to protect the workers, but shouldn't that be regulated through the government?
Also every time workers unions succeed in getting higher wages or better insurance or retirement plans, that the company just packs their toys and move overseas. It just seems that we need to change NAFTA and CAFTA first so that this is not an option for companies.
Oh, got this email from Flip-floppin Hayes the other day, he's now concerned that the military is buying uniforms for the troops from Communist China, so he's
Of course the problem with this is that there ARE NO MANUFACTURING COMPANIES LEFT in America to buy from, thanks to his vote on CAFTA!
No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.
Progressive Discussions
I know there are a lot of times when collective bargaining
and unions seem to work against the worker - and certainly there has been corruption in the unions just as there has been in corporations - and dare I say it - political parties. However, I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, here. There are several industries that need the power of collective bargaining and are denied it. Did you know that the average child care teacher in Moore County makes about $8.00 an hour? That's for full-time work, with full certifications, no sick pay, no vacation pay, and no benefits. In some parts of the state it's higher, and in some, believe it or not, it's lower. They are mostly working more than 8 hours a day, because their lunch break is taken with the children, and their rest period is taken with the children, and their planning period is non-existent.
_____________
The Den
It's your democracy; use it.
From my rudementary understanding of collective bargining
this is where this would help. all the child care providers work togather, to increase their pay to be on par with maybe teachers, etc.
I kinda understand the rationale behind this. To many folks belief child care providers are fancy named baby-sitters. With an indistry with no voice, $8 an hour seems good to the avg worker. Remember, most workers are not getting to much more then that.
With gas prices going thru the roof, and critter care is at $85 - $100 a week/critter, your spending one working day/kid for day care, and then another day just to gas up the car. If a two kid family, your basically grossing 2 workdays. Where is the benifits of that? You still have to eat lunch on the job and any other ancilary item to support work.
It is going to be hard to get day care folks above the $8/hour payroll and have clients for these folks to watch.
This arguement can be placed against almost every second job (or third for some families).
This is a problem.
This is a problem
it sure is.
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
It is a problem indeed
and yet the demand is there. And you're right -- parent fees alone cannot pay the full cost of teacher salaries, or all of the other overhead associated with child care costs. But that's an entirely different issue than collective bargaining.
According to the State of Child Care Report for North Carolina prepared by the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies, (PDF)there are approximately 10,600 teachers employed in child care centers in NC. (This does not include self-employed teachers who provide care in their own homes. If you count those individuals, the total is closer to 30,000.) The average salary for these teachers is $17,910. Compare that to the starting pay for a public school teacher (who is still not paid enough!), which is, $28,510(also a PDF). So, even if I have the same education, if I'm teaching 3 year olds, I can expect to make $10,600 a year less than someone who is teaching 5 year olds. And I probably won't have any benefits. (And I'll have to work 12 months to do it, instead of 10.)
The thing is, my job can't be outsourced, because you can't ship a three year old overseas to India to be cared for.
Of course, parents could make other choices, but child care providers, and vital to the economy low income service workers should have the opportunity and ability to group together and bargain collectively.
With whom would they bargain? Ah - there's the rub. Because you're right, parent fees alone cannot pay the cost of child care. If parents had to bear the full brunt of the cost, the result would be substandard child care happening in illegal situations because no one would be able to afford the "legal" child care. But no school has ever been supported soley by tuition. Even private schools have endowments and legacies that help support them. Universities public and private depend on donations from alumni and other supporters. Public schools and universities depend on tax funds. And then of course there are the grants and grants and grants that get written.
Early Education is way behind all of this. Even though so many people are dependent upon child care, the industry itself is rarely supported by anything other than parent fees, or in the case of low-income families, subsidies that pay the parent fees. However. Yet a study done funded by the Kellogg Foundation in 2005-2006 discovered that in NC, the economic impact of child care is about 1.7 billion dollars annually. Nearly 51,000 families in NC use child care in order to get to work or school.
So what would happen if one day - all of those low-paid child care teachers decided, "I'm not going to go to work today. I'm not going to change one more dirty diaper. I'm not going to wipe one more snotty nose. I'm not going to read one more book or sing one more song. Not until I get a paid vacation and a health plan."
How many businesses would come to a halt? How many "bring your child to work days" would you have?
_____________
The Den
It's your democracy; use it.
Great write up
on the difference that unions make at dailykos. I highly recommend that anyone who is on the fence on this issue read this diary.
Draft Brad Miller -- NC Sen ActBlue :::Liddy 44 Brad 33
"Keep the Faith"