(Washington, D.C.) – School bus drivers and monitors with First Student in South Holland, Illinois, have voted to join Teamsters Local 777 in Brookfield. The 215 workers are looking forward to improving their working conditions, including gaining fairness and respect from their employer. 

“I feel I’ve been mistreated. There is so much favoritism here,” said Gwen Macek, a driver. “I’m happy about our vote because I wouldn’t have stayed here if we didn’t get our union.”

“We need management to follow some core values, like respecting us,” said Argentry Dean, a driver. “I’ve been loaned out to other First Student locations, like Crest Hill, which is a Teamster yard, and it’s much better there. I’m glad we voted Teamsters.”

According to Local 777 President Jim Glimco, the new members were determined and worked hard to gain Teamster representation.

“They did a great job,” Glimco said. “Thanks to the workers, our local, Joint Council 25 and the International Union coming together, the Teamsters are on the map in Illinois in terms of raising standards in the school bus industry.”

“Congratulations to the workers for their victory. This shows that when we all work together, great things can happen and we look forward to more school bus workers joining the Teamsters in Illinois,” said John T. Coli, International Union Vice President and President of Joint Council 25.

The victory is the latest in an effort to organize private school bus and transit workers across the country. Drive Up Standards is a national campaign to improve safety, service and work standards in the private school bus and transit industry. Since the campaign began in 2006, more than 26,200 drivers, monitors, aides, mechanics and attendants have become Teamsters.

For more information on the Drive Up Standards campaign, go to: www.schoolbusworkersunited.org

Founded in 1903, the Teamsters Union represents more than 1.4 million hardworking men and women in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

As a native New Yorker who was fortunate enough to live in a building with a doorman, I know the work these men and women put into their jobs. The personalities of the tenants alone is a thankless gig … Now, according to a press release SEIU32BJ, put out yesterday (their union), the members voted to empower the bargaining committee with the authority to call a strike if needed. 

Aside from checking out the press release, below, go visit the site the campaign is running at http://www.standwithbuildingworkers.org

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Nurses and health professionals demonstrate how Temple’s proposed “gag clause” would silence them.

Today, 1,000 nurses and 500 health care workers at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia set up a picket line that eventually grew to more than 1,200 for a noon-time rally.  

Members of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP), an affiliate of national Nurses United (NNU), have been without a contract since September.

 Maureen May, president of the nurses union, told the crowd:

 We will be on strike until Temple is ready to begin a relationship of cooperation and respect. This strike is about our fundamental rights as workers and healthcare professionals, which the hospital seeks to undermine with their ‘best and final’ offer. Their offer has not changed for months, despite the union’s commitment to good faith bargaining. 

Under Temple’s last offer, individual nurses and healthcare professionals could be disciplined or fired if the hospital believes he or she made a publicly disparaging comment about the hospital. Management also is demanding a huge increase in health care costs and has refused to discuss nurses’ concerns over staffing levels.

Jackie Silver, president of the healthcare professional and technical union, told the rally:

We make Temple look good every day when we are delivering patient care. We know the patients and take care of them and their families. Temple’s bargaining posture and proposals would harm, not improve, patient care, and we cannot accept that. This is the reason we are on strike-our patients, our professions, and our fundamental right to stand up to keep Temple a safe, quality hospital.

You can send Temple a message here. Follow the Temple workers on Twitter and Facebook.

A little more than a year after taking office, the Obama administration and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis have taken significant steps to repair the damage to workplace safety and health left behind after eight years of the Bush administration.

With Workers Memorial Day (April 28) approaching, this is a good time to look at the progress made since the “the new sheriff” hit town. (Click here for fact sheets, fliers, posters, stickers and other Workers Memorial Day materials.)

As Esther Kaplan writes in the Nation:

During the Bush years, the Department of Labor became a cautionary tale about what happens when foxes are asked to guard the henhouse.

For eight years under the Bush Administration, corporate officials and management representatives headed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). Bush’s first MSHA head, David Lauriski, was chief safety officer at Emery Mining’s Wilberg, Utah, mine in 1984 when an explosion killed 27 coal miners. The blast,  says Kaplan, “was later attributed to numerous violations at the mine.”

The owners, it turned out, had been trying for a one-day production record…Seventeen years after the disaster, Lauriski became George W. Bush’s first mine safety chief, a perch from which he halted a dozen new safety regulations initiated under [the] Clinton [administration], advocating instead a more “collaborative” approach with industry.

Today, MSHA is headed up by Joe Main who began work in the mines when he was 19, became a local union safety committeeman, a safety inspector in the Mine Workers (UMWA) Safety and Health Department and eventually is director.

At OSHA, Bush’s last administrator, Edwin Foulke, was former partner at the notorious anti-union law firm Jackson Lewis. He so strongly opposed workplace safety and health laws The New York Times labeled him “an antiregulatory ideologue.”

Contrast Foulke with David Michaels, Obama’s choice as OSHA administrator. Michaels is an occupational safety and health expert, co-founder of the New York Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) and epidemiologist at George Washington University.

Under Bush, OSHA and MSHA emphasized voluntary compliance programs over strong enforcement of workplace safety and health regulations. When they issued penalties, the employers often negotiated down the fines, which were negligible to begin with.

Now, both OSHA and MSHA have stepped up enforcement, assessing large penalties against employers with serious, repeated and willful violations. In October, OSHA levied the largest fine in its history-$87 million against BP Products for failing to correct the safety problems that caused a 2005 explosion that killed 15 workers and injured another 170 people at a Texas City oil refinery.

OSHA also is strengthening its enforcement program to focus more on repeated violators and to develop corporate-wide approaches to enforcement.  It’s launched a national investigation in the under reporting of injuries and employer practices that discourage workers from reporting job injuries.

During the eight-year run of the Bush administration, not only did OSHA and MSHA put the brakes on new safety and health rules laws in the pipeline when they took office, neither agency issued any new standard unless forced by the courts or Congress. OSHA is now moving forward with rules on silica, cranes and derricks, hazard communication, combustible dust and other workplace hazards.

The Bush administration presided over the repeal of the nation’s first ergonomics standard and made it so that OSHA’s hands tied to set a new ergonomics rule. But the agency now has proposed changes in the injury recordkeeping rule to reinstate a requirement, repealed by the Bush administration, for employers to identify musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) on the workplace injury log.

At MSHA, new rules to limit exposure to coal dust and silica and to address increases in lung disease among miners are top priorities. Main also told Kaplan that MSHA will identify the top risk factors  that lead to mining deaths and injuries and help educate mining companies on how to eliminate them, but not as a substitute for enforcement.

We’ll provide assistance to the mine operators who do need it, .but never as a replacement to the enforcement tools. There was some confusion about that in recent years. I’m not confused about that.

Both safety agencies suffered drastic cuts in budget and personnel (especially in inspection and personnel) under the Bush administration. The Obama administration has restored those cuts and its FY 2011 budget includes some modest increases.

Employers’ rights appeared paramount in the Bush OSHA and MSHA. Today both agencies have established programs focusing on workers’ rights, including whistleblower and anti-discrimination protections and better worker access to fatality and injury information.

The Obama administration also is backing congressional efforts to improve workplace safety and health laws, including the Protecting America’s Workers Act (H.R. 2067 and S. 1580), which toughens penalties, expands OSHA coverage to public-sector workers, strengthens anti-discrimination protections and expands workers’ rights.

It’s likely the same corporate and Republican forces that blocked improvements in workplace safety and health will fight this legislation and each and every new safety initiative.

So this Workers Memorial Day, along with honoring workers killed and injured on the job and demanding good, safe jobs with decent wages, health and retirement security and a voice on the job, workers will continue the fight for strong new safety and health protections.

(Washington, D.C.) – International Brotherhood of Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa today announced the appointment of Brian Buhle and Stan Hennessy to General Executive Board as Vice Presidents.

Hennessy, who will serve as Vice President for Canada, is the president of Teamsters Local Union 31 in Vancouver, Canada and serves on the Western Transportation Advisory Council. In addition to his new role as Central Region Vice President, Buhle is the Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local Union 135 in Indianapolis, Ind. and is Vice President of Joint Council 69.

“These two men are outstanding additions to the General Executive Board,” Hoffa said. “Throughout their careers, they have shown an unwavering dedication to furthering the cause of working families. I look forward to having their counsel on the issues that face our union.”

Buhle grew up a Teamster, working for Local 135 for more than 20 years and learning what the true meaning was to be a union member from his father Ken Buhle, who served as President of Local 298.

“This is truly an honor,” Buhle said. “I have dedicated my entire career to fighting for working men and women in Indiana. I look forward to working with President Hoffa and the General Executive Board to help rebuild the middle class and grow our union.”

Hennessy began his career as a Teamster in 1972 working as warehouseman. He has served as president of Local 31 since 2002 where he has represented the interests of a membership that covers a wide array of industries, including freight, courier, cartage, warehousing and the public sector.

“I find it an honor just to serve in this capacity,” Hennessy said. “I look forward to working with the General President and the General Executive Board to help address all the issues that face our international union.”

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents more than 1.4 million hardworking men and women throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

This morning, 1199SEIU delivered a letter to Massachusetts lawmakers advocating for the expansion of pending legislation to toughen penalties for anyone who assaults on-duty healthcare workers. According to BLS, workers in the healthcare indus…

Tomorrow is National Census Day and thousands of U.S. Census workers will hit the streets to make sure you and yours are counted–particularly in traditionally hard to count areas. If you haven’t mailed in your form yet, today’s the day to do…

NLRB Region Says Hugo Boss Failed to Bargain in Good Faith

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“F…

Wall Street got $700 billion in our taxpayer bailout dollars after fueling an economic disaster that has left America’s workers without jobs and communities without hope, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka writes today at the Huffington Post.

Now the financial industry is mounting a public relations campaign instead of supporting new rules for Wall Street to prevent a repeat of this disaster.  

Trumka spells out a three-point plan for the banks that used and abused taxpayer bailout money.

First, Big Banks must resume lending to help credit-starved communities create jobs.

Next, they must embrace a small tax to curb destabilizing short-term speculation and pay for the jobs they destroyed.

Finally, Congress also must reform the rules for Wall Street, including creation of an independent consumer agency that will crack down on abuses by big banks and their CEOs and credit card companies to protect working families and small businesses.

Read the entire post here.