Tulsa Workers Win the Right to Organize

Congratulations are in order to AFSCME Tulsa local 1180. They pulled it off. The local has worked very hard since late September to get an ordinance that recognizes all Tulsa City Employees currently recognized through OMECBA’s right to have a union and requires the City to collectively bargain with employees. On January 12th, 2011, “the City Council voted “unanimously” to pass the new ordinance” according to Mike Rider, AFSCME local 1180 president.

Previously, language existed in the City Ordinance recognizing employees including LT (Labor-Trades) and EC (Emergency Communications). This language has been in the ordinance since the 80’s.

The new ordinance language adds employees classified as AT (Administrative and Technical), OT (Office and Technical), AO (Airport Safety Officers), IT (Information Technician), IS (Information Systems). Paul Woodard pointed out, “the new ordinance covers everyone that was covered by OMECBA, and no one is being left out.”

The 9 – 0 vote was a surprise to everyone. “We knew going into the council meeting that there were had enough votes to pass the ordinance, but the 9-0 vote was a wonderful surprise”, said local 1180’s political chair John Vaughn. One of the surprise votes came from councilor G.T. Bynum who had been opposed to the ordinance until that night of the council meeting. Bynum queried Interim City Attorney, David Pauling as to the legitimacy of the ordinance. Pauling said that the ordinance “merely complies with the Municipal Employee Collective Bargaining Act (MECBA). Bynum changed his vote to yes.

Vaughn further pointed out, that “we have been in constant contact with City Council members most of the last three months” as they worked to achieve this victory.

Mike Rider was quick to share credit for the victory with everyone in the local saying, “Everyone helped. This has been an across the board effort.”

GREAT JOB TULSA.

Matthew E Jordan
Labor Omnia Vincit
AFSCME Field Staff/Western Region
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Martin Luther King, Jr. Supported Public Employees Right to Unionize

Memphis sanitation workers strike of 1968
Today is the national holiday honoring the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. All across our nation, elected officials will be participating in various activities to mark the occassion. They will seek to honor King's memory. But many will be dishonoring his work by their attack on public employee unions.ll

Dr. King was in Memphis, Tennessee when he was assasinated on April 4, 1968. King was in Memphis supporting a strike by the city's sanitation workers. Many of the politicians who will be praising Dr. King today, are trying to eliminate public workers right to unionize and collectively bargain for good wages and safe working conditions. In other words, they seek to destroy the very thing King gave his life to defend.

If these officials want to truly honor the life of Dr. King, they should support public employees' right to organize rather than simply ring a bell or march in a parade.Dr. King marching with striking Memphis sanitation workers

Public Employee Unions are not the Problem: The Super Rich getting tax cuts is.

Great blog by Robert Reich. Republicans are trying to use the recession they created to attack public employee unions.
Among the best passages:

It’s far more convenient to go after people who are doing the public’s work - sanitation workers, police officers, fire fighters, teachers, social workers, federal employees – to call them “faceless bureaucrats” and portray them as hooligans who are making off with your money and crippling federal and state budgets. The story fits better with the Republican’s Big Lie that our problems are due to a government that’s too big.

Above all, Republicans don’t want to have to justify continued tax cuts for the rich. As quietly as possible, they want to make them permanent.