Union groups to host Labor Summit in
Portland April 16 to explore job outlook
A “Workforce Development Labor Summit” for the Portland-Van-
couver region will be held Monday, April 16, from 9 a.m. to noon at
the NECA-IBEW Training Center, 16021 NE Airport Way, Portland.
The event, co-sponsored by the Northwest Oregon Labor Council,
Labor’s Community Service Agency and regional Workforce Devel-
opment Boards, is geared toward union leaders, apprenticeship coor-
dinators, regional workforce board members, policymakers and em-
ployers to gain an understanding of strategies being designed as they
relate to publicly-funded workforce and economic development.
The keynote speaker will be Allen Alley, deputy chief of staff to
Gov. Ted Kulongoski. Panels comprised of key players in the manu-
facturing sector will talk about labor markets and economic outlooks.
The summit is free of charge. To register, call 503-231-4962.
California Nurses Association to
affiliate with national AFL-CIO
OAKLAND, Calif. (PAI) — The
Oakland-based California Nurses As-
sociation (CNA) and its affiliated Na-
tional Nurses Organizing Committee,
a 75,000-member union concentrated
in California, Maine and Chicago, will
receive a charter to join the AFL-CIO,
the federation’s Executive Council de-
cided on March 8.
The charter will take effect May 1
after several details have been worked
out, notably agreement by CNA to
obey the federation constitution and
Circuit City axes
3,400 top-paid
hourly workers
Tel: 503-645-5400
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— Eric Brending, Owner —
Circuit City Stores Inc., the second-
largest U.S. electronics retailer after
Best Buy Co., fired 3,400 of its highest-
paid hourly workers and will hire re-
placements willing to work for less, re-
ported Bloomberg.com.
The company said it’s eliminating
jobs that paid “well above” market
rates. Those who were fired can apply
for their jobs at the lower pay, company
spokesman Bill Cimino told
Bloomberg.com.
Circuit City, based in Richmond,
Virginia, pays about $10 to $11 an hour,
on average, said Rick Weinhart, an ana-
lyst with BMO Capital Markets Corp.
in New York. Entry level pay probably
is close to $8 for inexperienced work-
ers, he said.
Meanwhile, Circuit City CEO Philip
Schoonover was paid $8.52 million in
fiscal 2006, including a salary of
$975,000. Best Buy CEO Brad Ander-
son received $3.85 million, including a
$1.17 million salary.
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agree to “no-raiding” conditions that
were set to satisfy the federation’s cur-
rent registered nurses affiliate, the
United American Nurses.
The delay will also give United
American Nurses time to enact “inter-
nal actions” it says it may need to pro-
tect itself. The union objected to
granting an immediate charter for the
California group.
CNA will join other AFL-CIO
unions representing nurses around the
country, including the American Fed-
eration of State, County and Municipal
Employees, Communications Workers
of America, the Steelworkers, and the
American Federation of Teachers, who
told the AFL-CIO panel considering
the application that they did not object
to bring the union on board.
But the United American Nurses
initially did object after the California
group raided its unit at Chicago’s
Stroger (Cook County General) Hos-
pital several years ago. Thus the condi-
tions were set.
CNA Executive Director Rose Ann
DeMoro welcomed the federation’s
decision, just two days after the AFL-
CIO, in a major policy break, decided
to campaign for “Medicare for all,” ex-
panding Medicare to cover the entire
country. That would replace the cur-
rent insurer-dominated, expensive
company-based private health care
system. DeMoro praised the
Medicare-for-all policy as a way “to
end the national health care night-
mare.”
Indeed, the federation’s health care
campaigns were one reason the CNA
sought to join the AFL-CIO.
Ironically, the California group is
campaigning for even more dramatic
change: Government-run single-payer
health care.
The union backs House Resolution
676, the national single-payer bill
sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-
Mich.). More than 240 labor organiza-
tions, including four international
unions, back Conyers’ bill.
DeMoro said her union would add
to the 325,000 registered nurses whom
AFL-CIO unions represent as “a
prominent voice in that effort” to re-
form health care.
“RNs, who are at the heart of our
health care system, have an especially
unique role to play ... to transform our
current dysfunctional system to
achieve guaranteed, universal health-
care for all, based on an improved and
expanded Medicare” system, she said.
Bill seeks to overturn NLRB’s
‘workers are supervisors’ ploy
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a
move to protect workers from being ar-
bitrarily deprived of their right to join a
union, three lawmakers introduced a
bill March 23 to overturn last year’s
National Labor Relations Board’s
“workers are supervisors” ruling.
The bill by House Employer-Em-
ployee Relations Subcommittee Chair-
man Robert Andrews (D-N.J.), Rep.
Don Young (R-Alaska) and Sen.
Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), states
simply that a worker cannot be a super-
visor unless “for a majority of the
working time” he or she is “acting in
the interest of the employer” in hiring,
firing, disciplining or otherwise man-
aging workers. It also says a worker
cannot be named a supervisor just for
“assigning” other people to tasks on
occasion.
The legislation is designed to nullify
last year’s NLRB ruling in what were
known as the Kentucky River cases.
The Board ruled that workers can be
deemed supervisors if they spend a
portion of their time — as little as 10
percent — in such “supervisory” duties
as telling orderlies to change bedpans.
U.S. labor law does not allow super-
visors to belong to a union.
Estimates of the number of workers
impacted by the NLRB’s Oakwood rul-
ing range from 8 million by the Eco-
nomic Policy Institute to 34 million by
the NLRB’s two dissenting members.
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