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The Gangbox - Assorted News & Notes

Date Posted: September 30 2005

Saying its efforts to reform the AFL-CIO from within have ended, UNITE HERE, which represents 441,452 textile, clothing, hotel and restaurant workers, became the latest union to leave the labor federation.

UNITE HERE's decision was by a unanimous vote of its 72-member Executive Board, meeting in St. Paul, Minn., on Sept. 14. The AFL-CIO had no comment.

UNITE HERE, formed from a merger last year of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees and the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, is also a member of the "Change to Win" coalition, along with four other big unions that have left the labor federation.

The departed unions are UNITE HERE, the Service Employees, Teamsters, United Food and Commercial Workers and the Carpenters. All, along with the Laborers and the Farm Workers, who are still in the AFL-CIO, were slated to meet in their first-ever Change to Win convention on Sept. 27 in St. Louis. Together, Change to Win says it has 6 million members, compared to, now, 8.5 million-plus for the AFL-CIO.

"Workers are in a crisis - a crisis of low wages, plant closings, lost pensions, lost health care and a loss of rights on the job," said UNITE HERE General President Bruce Raynor in a prepared statement. "Low-wage workers are simply being left behind.

"Workers want to fight back, and they deserve institutions and leadership willing to get serious about organizing and increasing worker power, to rebuild the middle class and restore dignity on the job," he said.

Departure from the AFL-CIO is "not from a desire to leave," UNITE HERE spokeswoman Anastasia Ordonez said in a telephone interview. "It's from continuing to follow the principles that we laid down in the merger" of UNITE and HERE last year. "There's no hidden agenda or taking over the labor movement here." (PAI)

Edward C. Sullivan, President of the Building & Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO announced Sept. 22 that Secretary-Treasurer Joseph Maloney will resign his position in October. "It is with the deepest regret that we will lose Joe Maloney's dynamic leadership here in Washington, but he will continue to be a force in the Building Trades. Serious family health issues require his return home to Toronto at this time and we respect his decision."

Maloney was elected Secretary-Treasurer of the Department in January, 2000, and was re-elected to 5-year terms in July, 2000, and August, 2005. Born and raised in Toronto, Joseph Maloney has been a labor leader and activist for nearly 30 years.
Maloney, a boilermaker, received national attention this year when Engineering News-Record (ENR), McGraw-Hill Construction's publication, presented its 2005 Award of Excellence to Maloney for his extraordinary effort to form Helmets to Hardhats, a web-based recruitment program for returning and unemployed military veterans to fill a skilled labor shortage and launch new careers.

The Building and Construction Trades Department's Governing Board of Presidents will meet on Oct. 27 to elect a new Secretary-Treasurer who will serve out the remainder of Maloney's five year term.

President Bush has selected Edwin G. Foulke, Jr., former chairman of a federal safety review panel, to be the head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. In a Sept. 15 announcement, the White House said that Foulke now is a partner in the Greenville, S.C., office of the law firm Jackson Lewis LLP. The firm represents corporations in labor and employment cases.

From 1990 to 1994, he was chairman of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission and also served as a panel commissioner in the following year.
According to the Republican National Lawyers Association web page, Foulke also was a member of the Bush-Cheney transition policy advisory panel for the Dept. of Labor.

West Michigan Mechanical Services (WMMS) is participating in the nationwide Project Home Again program with the intent of locating missing, kidnapped, and runaway children.

The program is sponsored by the Mechanical Service Contractors of America (MSCA), a national trade association. This program will assist the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in its nationwide search for missing children.

WMMS will be displaying posters of missing children from the local area on its service vehicles. Since the service vehicles are highly visible and travel around the community frequently, it is hoped that many people will see the poster and the missing child will be recognized and found. Each poster includes a photo of the child at the time he or she was first reported missing, biographical information, and numbers to call if the child has been seen or if anyone has information.

The West Michigan Mechanical Contractors Association has elected, Jim Cox, President of Pressures and Pipes, Inc. Vice-President of the WMMCA Executive Board. Tom Jasper President of Andy J Egan Co. Inc. and Brett Lascko, Owner of Lascko Plumbing and Mechanical were elected General Board Members.

The WMMCA was established to represent and service West Michigan Mechanical Contractors. Association members dedicate themselves to quality, dependability, safety, and education as they serve as the primary liaison for labor relations and multi-employer collective bargaining with the West Michigan Plumbers, Fitters, and Service Trades.