Asbestos bill still unresolved
Organized labor’s political clout may have slipped over the years, but it isn’t gone entirely.

AFL-CIO opposition is helping to hold up a bill that would create a multi-billion-dollar trust fund for workers exposed to asbestos. The federation is putting pressure on Democrats and Republicans to oppose the bill. The wide-ranging bill would allow workers harmed by exposure to asbestos to seek a remedy outside of the courts through a trust fund, probably administered by the Labor Department.

Labor and its Democratic allies in Congress oppose the trust fund proposal, in good part because they argue that the fund is inadequate to meet the needs of sick workers.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist pledged to bring the asbestos bill for a Senate floor vote by early April – a deadline that came and went. A Senate aide told the Construction Labor Report that there is little negotiation movement over compensation levels and the size of the trust fund. Frist has proposed a trust fund of $105 billion, while Democrats have maintained that that amount is woefully inadequate.

UAW Caterpillar workers OK strike
(PAI) Workers at one of the world’s largest heavy construction equipment manufacturers, Caterpillar, voted by a 96-4 percent margin to authorize a strike.

The March 21 tally does not necessarily mean the 8,000 UAW-represented workers at the big machinery maker will repeat their bitter struggle of six years ago. The UAW members’ contract expired on March 31.

If they try, Caterpillar has already ordered its rank-and-file workers, at least in Peoria, to help train management and administrative workers in the assembly plant tasks there.

With their contract expiring on March 31, UAW-represented members at Caterpillar plants in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Tennessee voted by a 96 percent-4 percent margin to authorize a strike.

UAW Vice President Cal Repson said the “vote indicates strong support for our bargaining team and for our bargaining objectives.”

The two sides are keeping a tight lid on information about the talks, which started last Dec. 10. But Dave Chapman, President of Cat’s 4,000-member UAW Local 974 in Peoria, said on his web site that health care would be the top issue in bargaining.

After the bitter 1997-98 strike, Peter Feuille, then chairman of the University of Illinois Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, predicted UAW would rebuild its strength at Cat, and would succeed in 2004 – if it sought small gains and didn’t try to reverse that pact’s two-tier wages and other give-backs.

Should unions take on marketing role?
Construction unions need to make an economic case for hiring their workers, rather than pursuing adversarial strategies like salting, picketing and legal pressure, the head of a union contractor association told the IBEW Construction Conference last month.

Mark Breslin, an industry consultant who heads a union contractor association in California, suggested trade unions should assume the role of a “marketing organization” to be successful in today’s economy. He said unions need to make the case to potential signatory contractors that it makes economic sense to hire union workers, using the argument that they can provide greater productivity and a higher skill level than the nonunion.

Breslin suggests that top-down organizing – convincing the heads of contracting firms to organize rather than the workforce – is the most effective type of organizing.

He said a new culture of younger construction workers is open to new ideas, which can make such a union transformation happen.