Many of the estimated 10,000 workers in the business here are illegal immigrants, who are too scared to speak out or give their bosses any excuse to fire them. Many carwash companies have just two or three outlets, not 20 or 30, requiring scores of separate organizing efforts. And carwash owners, who invest a million dollars or more in each facility, are fiercely resisting the prospect of being tied down by collective bargaining and union rules.

Nonetheless, labor organizers have set out to unionize this city’s carwash workers, hoping to improve their paltry pay and end widespread abuses. The unions, led by the United Steelworkers, acknowledge that it is a struggle, but they voice confidence that they can organize the first carwashes in the next few weeks or months, and that this will start a domino effect once other owners realize that unionized businesses can survive and even thrive.

As organized labor’s ranks continue to decline, unions are looking increasingly to low-wage service workers as a source of growth, convinced that these workers — car washers, janitors, nursing home aides, security guards and pharmacy clerks — will be eager to join. In some ways, union leaders say, this campaign parallels previous ones in which unions organized thousands of immigrant janitors in Houston and Los Angeles and substantially lifted their wages.

In addition to adding members, the carwash campaign hopes to send a strong message to employers to stop taking advantage of workers in an industry where it is common practice.

California officials have estimated that two-thirds of the 500 carwashes in Los Angeles violate workplace laws. Many workers say they are paid just $35 for a 10-hour workday — less than half the minimum wage — and some say they are not paid for time during which no cars go through the wash. Others complain that they are not given gloves or goggles even though they often use stinging acids to clean tire rims.

“These are the farm workers of today,” said Peter Dreier, a professor of urban policy at Occidental College in Los Angeles. “They’re nearly invisible, even though they work in a highly visible industry.”

After two years the organizing drive, which has involved billboards, lawsuits and a candlelight vigil outside one carwash owner’s home, has made important strides.

Most notably, the campaign helped to get two carwash owners, brothers Benny and Nisan Pirian, sentenced to a year in jail for minimum-wage violations, sending shock waves through the industry.

Some Pirian workers had complained that they received no wages — only tips — and were not given lunch breaks, causing some to wolf down their food while soaping and scrubbing cars. Prosecutors accused one Pirian manager of brandishing a machete to threaten pro-union workers.

“They exploited and took advantage of the workers just because we were immigrants,” said Pedro Guzman, a Honduran-born former employee at the Pirians’ flagship, Vermont Hand Wash. “We want to change the bad conditions inside the carwashes.”

In addition to support from the steelworkers, the effort has received financial backing from the national A.F.L.-C.I.O. and many foundations, including the Ford Foundation. It has also attracted support from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Cardinal Roger Mahony, the city’s Roman Catholic archbishop.

California is often described as the trendsetting car capital of the world, and for many Californians, getting their car washed every week or two is as important as having their hair or nails done.

“The carwash fight is about a core L.A. industry,” said Rabbi Jonathan Klein, executive director of a clergy group who has often picketed alongside the carwash workers. “It’s an industry built on the backs of cheap labor.”

One day last week, 20 union supporters picketed outside Robertson Car Wash on the west side of Los Angeles, chanting, “No justice, no peace.” They protested what they said was the use of tips-only workers. They also demanded that the owner sign an agreement allowing unionization through card check and pledging not to speak out against unionizing.

A young man drove up in his black Honda Accord and opened his window to hear them out. The pickets burst into cheers when he backed up and drove away.

One customer, Aimee Neufeld, said she knew little about the dispute. She said she was sorry to hear the workers claim minimum-wage violations, but added, “In this neighborhood, people tend to be generous tippers, and that should supplement their income.” Several workers said their tips ran from $40 to $80 a day.

For eight months, union activists have picketed Robertson Car Wash, hoping to pressure its owner, Ilya Bershadsky, into becoming the first one to sign a pro-union agreement. He has resisted.

“This carwash has been unfairly singled out,” said Mr. Bershadsky’s lawyer, John A. Lawrence. “They don’t have the interest of any of the employees working inside. One picket told us, ‘We don’t care if we put you out of business.’ ”

Randy Crestall, owner of Autospa Chevron Hand Wash in Valencia, a Los Angeles suburb, said that law-abiding owners resented their scofflaw competitors.

“They’re a blight on our industry,” said Mr. Crestall, a former president of the Western Carwash Association. “As good operators, we don’t like them to be on the same playing field as us.”

He said 95 percent of California’s car washes were law-abiding, although he acknowledged that many in Los Angeles flout the law.

Mr. Crestall said the unionization push would hurt everyone. “Having a union will mean higher wages, and that will lead to higher prices,” he said. “That will mean fewer consumers coming to carwashes, and fewer jobs for these workers.”

The leaders of the unionization drive acknowledge that success will be difficult. “These immigrant workers are being beaten down by the system,” said Leo W. Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers. “They deserve a chance of having a voice at work, and we are good at helping people do that.”

The unionization drive calls itself the Clean Carwash Campaign and has created a brigade of former carwash workers, many of whom had been fired for backing a union.

“This is not the type of campaign you win overnight,” said Chloe Osmer, the campaign’s strategic coordinator. “It’s the type of campaign where you have to bring the floor up in the industry before you can really have some unionization success.”

Although no carwashes have gone union, the campaign helped persuade city officials to investigate the Pirians’ carwashes. Last year, the city attorney charged them with a total of 220 misdemeanors that could have meant 120 years in jail. In mid-August, the brothers pleaded no contest to six charges, including grand theft and conspiracy. They were ordered to repay $1.24 million to 54 underpaid workers.

“This is an area where wage theft is particularly prevalent in L.A.,” said Julia Figueira-McDonough, a deputy city attorney. “This was a very strong case.”

Mark Werksman, the Pirians’ lawyer, said the two brothers had done nothing wrong and had accepted a one-year sentence only because they faced a six-month trial and perhaps dozens of years behind bars.

“They were prosecuted because they were successfully resisting the unionization drive,” he said. “The union will drive the carwashes out of business, and everyone in L.A. will have to wash their own car.”

Source: New York Times

More information.

CoincidentIndexes0710.pdf

2 Labor Dept. rules for employers justifying worker classifcation

3. New OHSA plan forcing employers to track injuries

4. Federal agencies to union-only labor agreements

The Employee Free Choice Act—better known as card check—could be making a comeback. In a recent interview conducted by the Oregon Business Report, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said, “I think you’ll see the Employee Free Choice Act come up again. I think you’ll see it, probably, before the end of the year.” If Trumka’s prediction comes true, it couldn’t happen at a worse time. With unemployment at 9.5%, it makes absolutely no sense to enact job-killing legislation that will also take away workers’ rights to a secret ballot in unionization votes.

But card check isn’t the only item on Labor’s wish list that should be of concern to business owners—it’s just the most visible one. In fact, many of the changes that will affect employers are taking place under the radar through the federal regulatory process. Let’s take a look at some of these rules and the impact they could have on your business.

First, is an anticipated Department of Labor regulation that would require employers to submit written analyses justifying worker classifications, such as eligibility for overtime, under the Fair Labor Standards Act. These analyses would be made available on demand both to employees and government investigators. Not only will this lead to additional paperwork for employers, but it could open the door to lawsuits based upon the alleged misclassifi cation of employees.

Second, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is moving forward on a rule that would require employers to keep track of work-related injuries associated with ergonomics risks. This regulation is viewed as the precursor to a broader effort on ergonomics, such as a regulation mandating safety and health programs according to OSHA’s standards, rather than practices that will work or are working for employers. This regulation will cost employers time and money to implement, and it is highly questionable that it would result in any workplace safety improvements.

Finally, federal contractors should brace themselves for change. The administration has already finalized rules strongly “encouraging” federal agencies to require union-only labor agreements on large construction projects. This creates a significant disadvantage for nonunion contractors to bid on federal projects and will decrease competition and raise procurement costs for the government—and ultimately for the taxpayer.

Unfortunately, labor regulations are only the tip of the iceberg. The administration has unleashed a regulatory avalanche across a range of issues—health care, financial markets, and the environment, among others. This creates tremendous uncertainty for businesses and slows job creation. Let’s make American jobs—not new regulations—our top priority.

Source: Oregon Business Report and US Chamber Of Commerce

The Laborers joined the AFL-CIO splinter group Change to Win in 2005 and left AFL-CIO in 2006. The union joined with two other basic trades that had left the AFL-CIO’s Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD), the Carpenters and Operating Engineers, to form the National Construction Alliance (NCA). However, in 2008, the Laborers left the NCA to rejoin the BCTD, without officially rejoining the larger AFL-CIO organization until now.

As of now, the AGC does not see this development to have a direct and significant impact on GBCA businesses. O’Sullivan’s membership on the Executive Committee and Executive Council means he will have greater influence in the federation, and it might portend greater union political aspirations, but how that will develop remains to be seen.

Hopes for a resolution were running high among contractors, represented by the Mid-America Regional Bargaining Association (MARBA), and the estimated 15,000 strikers, represented by the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 and the Laborers District Council of Chicago. At the same time, comments from the leaders of MARBA, which represents nearly 300 contractors, and from the unions suggested that the two sides remain far apart.

Unions Announce Pacts with Smaller Associations

The two unions tried to ratchet up pressure on the contractors’ association last week, announcing tentative agreements with three separate, but smaller, contractor associations.

Local 150 and the Laborers on July 14 struck a three-year agreement with the Chicago Area Independent Contractors Association. The next day the two unions reached tentative agreements with the Illinois Valley Contractors Association, which represents contractors in LaSalle, Putnam, Bureau, and Livingston counties in Illinois. Finally, on July 17 the unions reached accords with the Contractors Association of Will and Grundy Counties.

The tentative three-year deals announced with the three contractor groups promise annual total wage and benefit improvements of 3.25 percent. In comparison, MARBA is offering the two unions a 4.25 percent bump in total compensation over three years.

MARBA officials were dismissive of the tentative pacts and called on the unions to bring realistic expectations to the July 19 negotiations. MARBA accused the unions of “creating a distraction’’ and suggested that the three contractor groups were “being used as tools’’ by the unions.

“It is unfortunate that the locals are attempting to pit companies against each other, but it is transparent and does not weaken our resolve one bit,’’ MARBA Chairman Tom Nodeen said in a statement released July 15. “In fact, it unites us even stronger.”

The previous three-year pacts between the unions and MARBA expired on May 31. After a one-month cooling off period, approximately 7,000 laborers and 8,500 operating engineers walked off the job, halting construction in 10 counties in Northern Illinois

Steve Tondi, president and chief executive officer of AGC Quad Cities, said he is hopeful the two sides can come to an agreement, since summer is a bad time for construction workers to be on strike.

According to Tondi, Carpenters from Locals 4 and 166, out of Davenport, Iowa, and Milan, Ill., respectively, walked off their jobs July 20 in protest of not having a new contract despite having 15 negotiation sessions since late March. He said the Carpenters are seeking a $1.25 per hour increase in their wage and benefit package in each year of the next three years.

AGC has offered a 90 cent per hour increase in the contract’s first year, he said, plus $1.10 per hour increases in the second and third years of the contract.

The Carpenters have continued to work under a contract that expired April 30. It pays them $26.38 per hour in wages, $6.71 toward health and welfare, $4.30 toward a defined benefit pension, $2 toward a defined contribution pension, 60 cents toward their apprenticeship fund, and 22 cents toward miscellaneous. The total package is $40.21 per hour.

That’s because a battle over jurisdiction and work issues has erupted between the Carpenters’ District Council of St. Louis and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1 in St. Louis, the AFL-CIO’s longtime electricians union.

Earlier this year, electricians union officials in Kansas City voiced concerns over the St. Louis carpenters union forming its own electricians union in direct competition with IBEW Local 1. Those worries probably heightened when the Carpenters’ District Council of Kansas City was dissolved last week.

The United Brotherhood of Carpenters, the union’s national organization, ordered that the 14,000-member Carpenters’ District Council in Kansas City be parceled out to three other districts, with St. Louis receiving the greater share. About 9,000 of the Kansas City district’s union carpenters living in western Missouri and Kansas now belong to the St. Louis council.

About three years ago, the carpenters and electricians unions in St. Louis feuded over which group should do a certain job on a big casino project in downtown St. Louis, according to a recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch article.

The bad blood escalated to the point that in late 2008 the carpenters union formed Associated Electrical Contractors Local 57 of St. Louis, becoming a union alternative to IBEW Local 1, which has about 4,000 members.

Associated Electrical Contractors Local 57 has made inroads in St. Louis, signing up 200 contractors. But that has furthered the tension with IBEW Local 1, whose leaders have questioned the legitimacy of the rival electricians union.

The Post-Dispatch reported that vandals had destroyed property at the firms signed by AEC Local 57 in three separate incidents.

The national organizations of the two unions have asked their St. Louis units to resolve their differences.

But the conflict does not appear to be over. The carpenters union in St. Louis has been successful in signing up non-union electrical contractors that allow union carpenters to do electrical work, said Mike Damico, financial secretary of IBEW Local 124 in Kansas City.

“We’re afraid that could also happen on our side of the state,” Damico said at a labor/media meeting in early June, weeks before the St. Louis carpenters council took over the Kansas City membership. “We call them ‘carpentricians.’ ”

Damico and other Local 124 officials could not be reached last week following the announcement regarding the St. Louis Carpenters’ District Council taking over the Kansas City area.

A St. Louis carpenters council officer last week said he did not expect the battle with the IBEW in St. Louis to spread to Kansas City.

“AEC Local 57 is a St. Louis union, and I don’t think they plan on expanding into Kansas City,” said Dave Wilson, assistant organizing director for the St. Louis carpenters council. “We will continue to have the same relationship with the construction trades in Kansas City that we had under Terry Davis.”

Davis was the longtime carpenters union leader in Kansas City before last week’s developments.

While the union under Davis had its share of jurisdictional work disputes with other construction unions in Kansas City, labor observers agreed that they have not escalated to the levels currently seen in St. Louis.

Local labor leaders will see what happens now that Terry Nelson of St. Louis is responsible for the direction of the carpenters union in Kansas City. Bitter labor fights like the one in St. Louis are harmful in attracting new businesses to the area, Jim LaMantia, a St. Louis labor leader, told the Post-Dispatch.

“Anything that is a negative like this can have an impact on development,” he said.

Despite widespread, long-term use of PLAs, studies can be difficult to conduct and have shown mixed results on the economic effects of PLAs.

The report (R41310), prepared by Gerald Meyer, an analyst in labor policy, notes that PLAs have been around for more than 75 years. “PLAs have been used in the US since at least the 1930′s,” according to the report. “… [the Government Accountability Office's] research concluded that most PLAs are in the private sector and that they have been used in all 50 states and the District of Columbia on both private and public projects.”

According to the report, “to some extent, projects that use PLAs may be different from projects that do not use them, which can make it difficult to isolate the effects of PLAs.”

COMPARATIVE RESEARCH STUDIES

Recent studies conducted by the Beacon Hill Institute, the fiscally conservative research arm of Suffolk University, concluded that PLAs raise the cost of construction, CRS found. A 9 year study of Boston school construction projects led BHI researchers to conclude that PLAs raised the cost of construction by $16.51 per square foot. A 2004 BHI study of Connecticut school construction projects attributed a $30 per square foot rise in costs to PLAs.

However, a 2003 study of new school construction projects in Mass, Conn, and Rhode Island, conducted by researchers from Michigan State University, concluded that “PLAs did not have a statistically significant effect on the costs of construction,” according to the report.

STUDIES ON INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS

Research on individual projects was just as ambiguous, the report found.

A study conducted by the ABC concluded that PLA raised bids on two NY state projects by 26%, while a consultant hired to negotiate a PLA on a different NY state project concluded that the PLA reduced the cost of the project by $6 million, or 4.6%.

QUALITATIVE STUDY

In a qualitative study conducted by the ELECTRI International, the Foundation for Electrical Construction, interviewees cited both advantages and disadvantages of PLAs. Though a PLA can lead to “timely completion of the project” and provide a “steady flow of qualified labor,” interviewees were concerned that PLAs “increase the bargaining power of construction unions.”

“In areas where a large share of jobs are covered by PLAs, construction unions may make greater demands during negotiations over the new union contracts. If one union is successful, other unions may make similar demands,” according to the report.

Though the report pointed out that the final regulations concerning Exec. Order 13502, regarding PLAs, went into effect May 13 (56 CLR 197, 4/15/10), it drew no conclusionsabout their effects. The EO encourages federal agencies “to consider requiring” the use of PLAs on large-scale construction projects (54 CLR 3194, 2/11/09).

The regulations include general requirements for PLAs, stipulating that they must bind all contractors and subcontractors, contain guarantees against strikes and locouts and provide binding procedures for resolving labor disputes, among other things.

The report’s author was not immediately available for comment.

The high court, in a 5-4 ruling in which the court’s leading liberal — retiring Justice John Paul Stevens — sided with the court’s four most conservative members, said the law does not allow the National Labor Relations Board to operate while it is short-staffed because of political arguments.

“If Congress had intended to authorize two members alone to act for the Board on an ongoing basis, it could have said so in straightforward language,” Stevens said. “Congress instead imposed the requirement that the Board delegate authority to no fewer than three members, and that it have three participating members to constitute a quorum.”

Allowing two members to run the agency because Congress and the White House can’t agree on new members would be letting the board “create a tail that would not only wag the dog, but would continue to wag after the dog has died,” Stevens said.

The decision means that more than 500 of employee-employer cases decided by the NLRB while its membership had dropped to two must now be reopened by the board, which currently has four members.

“Now hundreds of decisions in cases already decided by the NLRB will have to be reopened, needlessly delaying finality for workers who were led to believe they already had it,” said Kimberly Freeman Brown, executive director of American Rights at Work.

Stevens wrote the court’s opinion, and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

The NLRB is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1935 to administer the National Labor Relations Act, the primary law governing relations between unions and employers. The five members are nominated to five-year terms by the president and must be confirmed by the Senate.

But it has operated with only two members for more than two years because Democrats refused to confirm President George W. Bush’s nominees because of complaints that they were pro-business. Republicans then blocked President Barack Obama’s nominees, complaining that some of them favor union interests.

Before the board dwindled to two members, the three-member board delegated the entire group’s authority to the chairwoman, Democrat Wilma Liebman, and Republican board member Peter Schaumber, who made more than 500 decisions.

“Nothing in the statute suggests that a delegation to a three-member group expires when one member’s seat becomes vacant,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the dissent.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined with Kennedy’s dissent.

Obama gave temporary appointments to two new board members earlier this year over GOP’s objections, giving the current board four members.

The case is New Process Steel v. NLRB, 08-1457.

Source: ABC News

THE past few months have produced so many examples of corporate incompetence—think of BP or Goldman Sachs or Toyota—that it almost comes as a relief to discover incompetence on the other side of the class struggle. Unite, the British union representing British Airways’ cabin crew, is providing a textbook example of how not to handle an industrial dispute.

The crew’s protracted series of strikes has been doomed from the start. BA has plenty of cash on hand and the support of the only employees who can instantly bring an airline to its knees, the pilots. The cabin crew, in contrast, are easily replaced. But the union is responding to growing setbacks by raising the stakes: complaining bitterly about “scabs” and, having already disrupted holiday after holiday, planning to organise another set of strikes over the summer.

With luck other union bosses will at least learn something from this dismal saga. They will come under intense pressure to mount the barricades in the coming months. Discontent is already rife throughout the rich world. It will become rifer still as governments cut jobs in the heavily unionised public sector. But unions need to ask themselves some serious questions before they give in to their instincts. How should they respond to the straitened circumstances of most Western countries? Can they protect their members without inflicting intolerable harm on the public, and thereby undermining their cause in the long run? Above all, how should they adapt their organisations to a world in which the majority of workers are not unionised?

The unions need to start by taking a cool look at their prospects. These are not quite as grim as is widely assumed. It is true that union membership has fallen precipitously across the rich world, from a third of America’s workforce in 1950 to just over a tenth today, for example. But such figures conceal some strengths. The proportion of unionised workers is edging up in the swollen American public sector. Schools and railways are not going to disappear in the way that mines and steelworks have. Many European countries accord unions a prominent, formal role in the regulation of working life. Barack Obama is America’s most pro-union president since Jimmy Carter.

However, the public has no appetite for a public-sector intifada. Most public-sector workers have done well over the past decade. Some have done ridiculously well: Californian police officers can retire at 50 on 90% of their salaries. Governments have no choice but to cut public-sector debt, which is ballooning across the rich world. Mighty private-sector unions were destroyed when they tried to take on elected governments in the 1980s. The same thing could happen to the survivors if they overplay their hands.

The unions need to work harder at presenting themselves as champions of public services rather than simply as defenders of their own members. This requires more than lofty words. It involves trying to improve the quality of schooling or policing, say, rather than being endlessly obsessed with “wages and conditions”. It also means making an effort to communicate with people outside the unionised ghetto. Talk of “fighting” may appeal to professional activists, but it offends those who are more interested in getting on than getting even. Generating fresh ideas in conjunction with policy wonks and NGOs would help make unions look like a constructive force, rather than sullen revanchists.

Two American trade unionists—one dead and one living—provide examples of how this might be done. The dead one is Al Shanker, the president of the American Federation of Teachers from 1974 to 1997. He was such a fierce negotiator that Woody Allen based a film, “Sleeper”, on the conceit that civilisation had been destroyed when “a man by the name of Al Shanker got hold of a nuclear warhead”. But he also saw that blind resistance to reform would destroy America’s schools. He made no secret of his belief that many teachers were incompetent, arguing in favour of testing them as well as pupils and of linking pay to performance.

The living one is Andy Stern. Mr Stern has dramatically increased the membership of his union, the SEIU, at a time when others are contracting. He has purged corrupt chapters and eliminated lavish perks for the top brass. Mr Stern has also been a frequent visitor to the Oval Office since Mr Obama moved in. He worries that a bunker mentality will consign the unions to irrelevance. He has argued that unions need to be more sensitive “to what employers are dealing with in their own industries” and made overtures to big thinkers on the right such as Newt Gingrich. During the health-care debate he tried to recruit America’s bosses to his campaign to replace the country’s system of employer-based health care.

Such radical thinking about how unions can best look after their members is rare. Many offer training for workers who are in danger of losing their jobs and advice on new careers. But unions may well discover that their future lies in rediscovering their old role as “friendly societies”, providing their members with the support they need to confront inevitable changes rather than trying to defend jobs for life.

Unions, in short, should be willing to reinvent themselves as dramatically as companies have in recent decades. In particular, they need to get serious about good management. The deck may always have been stacked against Unite in its battle with British Airways. But the union has not been helped by comically bad management. It has lumbered itself with two bosses, Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley, who are not on the best of terms. Mr Simpson provoked ire, from both BA’s management and fellow unionists, when he spent a tense meeting sending out messages on Twitter. The cabin crew fighting a losing and dispiriting battle deserve better.

The Economist