Image provided by: SEIU Local 503; Salem, OR
About The Oregon public employe. (Salem, Oregon) 1981-???? | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 1981)
A FILM FESTIVAL A three-part labor film series, featuring six movies, will begin Friday, October 23 in Eugene. The films will be shown every other Friday at 7:30 p.m., in Harris Hall, 8th and Oak Streets, Eugene. Admission is free and child care will be provided at no charge. O CTO BER 23 U nion Maids—Through the memories of three women, the birth of the CIO and the labor movement in the thirties is tracked. This academy-award-nominated movie clearly illustrates the contribution of women and minorities in the labor movement. B read & Roses, Too—Through the eyes of two nurses and one nurse’s aide, this film looks at the struggle workers engaged in to organize their hospital. NOVEMBER 6 Controlling In terest—This thoroughly researched documentary looks at the impact multinational conglomerates have on international economic and social development. A natom y of a Lie—This film was produced to set the record straight on some of the information being distributed by the anti-labor National Right to Work Committee. By using clips of a NRWC film on a strike and following those dips with interviews with the strikers, this film provides an interesting study in propaganda techniques. Reagan Cuts Federal Pay Increase to Less Than 5% President Reagan has slashed a scheduled 15.1 percent comparabil ity pay raise for federal government workers to 4.8 percent and has asked Congress to permanently hold federal pay below the private sector. Reagan’s substitute pay plan, which took effect Oct. 1, is based on the budget he drew up last winter and ignores the government’s own finding that the accumulated lag in federal government salaries justifies a catch-up raise of over 15 percent. Kenneth Blaylock, president of the American Federation of Govern ment Employees, charged that Reagan has shown himself “totally insensitive to government workers, who suffer from inflation like everybody else.” Other Presidents have trimmed back the supposedly automatic annual salary adjustments provided by the 1970 pay comparability law, but none so drastically as Reagan. The last time Congress rebuffed a president seeking to hold down federal pay was during the Nixon Administration. Last year, when the government’s pay comparability formula showed a 13.5 percent catch-up raise would be needed to regain parity with private sector jobs, President Carter’s original budget had projected a 6.2 percent raise. But he raised this amount to 9.1 percent. The 4.8 percent raise for the federal government’s 1.4 million salaried employes also will serve as a ceiling for nearly 500,000 hourly paid blue-collar workers, whose pay scales are supposed to be adjusted annually on the basis of local prevailing wages. Congress imposed the same limit on their pay raises during the fiscal year that started Oct. 1. The administration has proposed a permanent change in the com parability formula that would hold the federal salary level to 94 percent of the rate for comparable private sector jobs. According to an Office of Management and Budget “fact sheet,” the subpar pay level is in recognition óf “aspects of federal employment that make it more attractive than many non-federal jobs.” The original intent of the com parability law was to provide a fair and automatic adjustment of government salary scales, without the political battles that used to occur regularly when salaries could be increased only through legisla tion. Lincoln City Employes Settlement Lincoln City Employes accepted a contract which calls for a 7 percent cost of living increase in the first year of the contract and a 4 percent, plus one-half the per centage increase in the Portland Consumer Price Index in the second year of the contract. In addition, dispatchers will receive a two-step pay raise and all other employes, whose salaries do not fall exactly on a pay step, will be advanced to the next pay step. In the September 1981 issue of The Oregon Public Employe, this settlement was inadvertantly listed as negotiated for Lincoln County Employes. OPEU does not rep resent Lincoln County employes, but does represent employes for Lincoln City. NOVEMBER 20 Willmar 8—This is an inspiring story of eight bank workers from the small town of Willmar, Minn. In low paying jobs, denied promotion opportunities and respect, these eight workers took the most unexpected step in their lives—they formed a union and started the first bank strike in the history of Minnesota. Nine to Five (a docum entary)— Secretaries and clerical workers talk about their desire for respect due them as skilled workers. They recognize that only through organi zation will they achieve the wages, dignity and working conditions they deserve. Union Dissidents Have Rights Too Members of a Steelworkers local in Birmingham, Ala., who were subjected to ridicule and harass ment when they sought a secret ballot vote on whether to end a strike, have been awarded $45,000 in damages. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit cited the Landrum- Griffin Act’s guarantee of the right to participate in union “deliberations and voting,” as including the right to be recognized at union meetings and to have those meetings conducted in an orderly fashion. The dissident members were not permitted to speak at the meetings and were threatened with bodily harm if they crossed the picket line. Union leaders publicly berated dissidents and the union treasurer struck one in the jaw during a strike vote meeting. Unions Unhappy With Reagan’s Labor Appointees President Reagan has nominated an anti-union management con sultant and the Senate staff member most responsible for the defeat of a major package labor law reform legislation to fill the two vacant seats on the National Labor Relations Board. John R. Van de Water, who has headed a Southern California con sultant firm since 1949, was nominated to chair the NLRB, According to Business Week, he “advises companies that want to resist union organizing campaigns” and prepares audiovisual aids to that purpose. Van de Water served as a management representative for North American Aviation and Ford Motor Co., and has been a member of the labor relations committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber of Commerce had earlier tried to rally support for Robert P. Hunter as chairman— Reagan's nomination to fill the other vacant seat. Hunter is currently chief of staff of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, headed by Utah Republican Orin Hatch. As Hatch’s legislative director and labor committee counsel in the late ’70s, he played a major role in the filibustered defeat of “Labor Law Reform," AFL-CIO supported amendments to the National Labor Relations Act. Hunter set forth his views on labor relations in “Mandate for Leadership: Policy Management in a Conservative Administration.” In it he criticizes the NLRB for an “activist stance, manifested by a pro-labor bias.” With a third seat on the five member board opening up in December of 1982, Reagan is looking forward to right wing majority. Such a board, predicts Business Week, “will make it harder for unions to organize workers and easier for companies to decertify unions," especially in banks and hospitals where the board “has been permitting workers to vote for narrower units than proposed by management.” Are You Moving Or Changing Agencies? / / you have moved or changed agencies—or are about to do either—you must let us know. I f you don't, your membership may not be transfered or you may not receive your subscription to The Oregon Public Em ploye or to Citizen Action. Name Old Agency , New Agency . (if applicable) New Address. (if applicable) city zip Page 3
