A Quarterly Newsletter

Local 1999, Unit 09

Spring 2006 March 20, 2006 Volume 1, Issue 1

Steelworkers Rally at Indiana Statehouse

Steelworkers from District 7 on the steps of the Indiana Statehouse.

T he United Steelworkers 2006 Lobby Day was held February 7th downtown at the Statehouse.

Members from across the state were in attendance to be heard by their legislators. The day was kicked off by a morning briefing on the issues, held at the Westin Hotel. At Noon the group marched to the Statehouse to speak with their repre-sentatives. Some of the bills that were discussed included (House Bill) HB1144 Corporate Manslaughter Act, HB1307 Worker’s Compensation, (Senate Bill) SB370 Workforce Development System, SB245 and HB1279 Telecommunications.

HB 1144 the Corporate Manslaughter Act would hold Companies and Supervisors accountable for causing injury and death to employees because of their negligence. Those that cause serious bodily injury to an employee as a result of a reckless viola-tion or as a result of a knowing or intentional viola-tion of certain administrative rules commit a Class A misdemeanor. Those causing the death of an em-ployee as a result of a reckless violation of certain administrative rules commit corporate manslaughter, a Class D felony. Companies and Supervisors who cause the death of an employee as a result of a know-ing or intentional violation of certain administrative rules commit corporate manslaughter, a Class C

See Lobby Day, Page 10.

INFORMER

2 Spring 2006

Your Union Leadership

Dist. 7 Director: Jim Robinson

Sub-Dist. 3 Director:

Randy McKay

Int. Staff Representative: James Adcock

District 7 Sub-District 3

President: Chuck Jones

Vice President:

Steve Davis

Local Union Rep. Bruce Reed

Financial Secretary:

Allen Johnson

Recording Secretary:

Markeya McDaniel

Treasurer: Pat Baker

Trustee:

Linda Bennington

Trustee: Larry Silcox

Trustee:

Mike Biggs

Inside Guard: Greg Rippy

Outside Guard: Maurie Wilkerson

Guide: Bruce Reed

Legislative Com-mittee Chairman:

Allen Johnson

Safety Committee Chairman: Steve Davis

Civil Rights Committee

Co-Chairmen: Dewayne Graham

Bill Ford

Local 1999

Unit President: Kelly Ray Hugunin

Unit Vice President: Bill Ford

Grievance

Committee: Kelly Ray Hugunin

Bill Ford Andy Engle Stan Perkins

Mike McDonald

Stewards: Jason Benge

Derrick Morris Tony Phillips Curtis Rainey Mark Schulz

Safety Committee:

Bill Ford Randy Coombs Leroy Robinson

Chris White (alt.)

Civil Rights Committee:

Kelly Ray Hugunin Bill Ford

Stan Perkins Andy Engle

Legislative Committee:

Kelly Ray Hugunin Bill Ford

Unit 09

Kelly Ray Hugunin, Editor

USW Local 1999

218 South Addison Street Indianapolis, Indiana 46222

Phone: 639-1479 Fax: 639-1138

E-Mail: uswa1999@iquest.net

The Local 1999, Unit 09 Informer is an official publica-tion of the United Steelworkers,

Local 1999, AFL-CIO, CLC.

Submissions from members are always welcome.

To Submit:

Mail to: PO Box 79 Clayton, Indiana 46118 Phone: 317-539-4698 Email: hugunin@tds.net

Local 1999, Unit 09

INFORMER

USW UNION LABEL

AFL-CIO-CLC

1999

Informer 3

United Steelworkers Unveil New Logo On February 28th United Steelworkers International President Leo Gerard unveiled the new logo for the USW in a video broadcast on the International web site. The United Steelworkers Executive Board unani-mously passed a resolution approving the new logo; the letters “USW” with the letter “S” portraying ab-

stract hands joining together. The words “United Steelworkers” appear directly above the letters; the slogan “Unity and Strength for Workers” appears directly below it. The logo for the USW was designed to embody our mission and values. The first letters of the key words in the tagline “Unity and Strength for Work-ers” spell out “USW.” The USW is a dynamic and diverse union of 1.2 mil-lion working and retired members throughout the United State and Canada working together to im-prove jobs, our workplaces and provide a better fu-

Above: The new logo for the United Steelworkers. The official full color version of the logo presents the let-ters in navy blue with the “USW” outlined in gold. The letter “S” is a steel gradient color.

ture for our families and society as a whole. The USW has grown strong through organizing and mergers and with the recent merger with PACE is now the largest industrial union in North America, representing workers in almost every sector of the economy: from metals and mining to health care and other services.

The United Steelworkers have also retired the “Steelabor” magazine and have replaced it with “USW@Work”. The new publication was designed with the style of the new USW logo. The Winter 2006 edition which was published at the beginning of March was the first new edition. Union apparel and other materials at the Steelwork-ers store online will also be redesigned to reflect the new logo. Local 1999 is also working to make avail-able new shirts incorporating the new design. As you can see the new USW logo has already been incorporated into this newsletter.

4 Spring 2006

Sheriff Frank Anderson and Other Candidates Speak at

Local Union Meeting

Above: Marion County Sheriff Frank Ander-son Below Left: Candidate for Indiana House of Representatives, District 88, Susan Fuldauer. Below Right: Melina Kennedy, candidate for Marion County Prosecutor.

At the Local 1999 Union meeting held on Sunday February 19 there were some special guests. Marion County Sheriff Frank Anderson addressed the mem-bers at the meeting. The Sheriff is running for re-election this fall and asked the support of all the Steelworkers from Local 1999. Melina Kennedy also was in attendance at the meet-ing and spoke with members. She is seeking election to the Marion County Prosecutor’s office. She re-cently resigned as Deputy Mayor of Indianapolis to run for the office. Susan Fuldauer received a standing round of ap-plause after she spoke to the membership. Susan is a candidate for the Indiana House of Representatives in District 88. District 88 takes in parts of northeast-ern Marion and southeastern Hamilton counties in central Indiana. She is a public relations director for Indiana-based American Income Life, which is a Un-ion shop. She serves on the boards of several labor organizations and is on the National Executive Board of the Coalition of Labor Union Women. She spoke of how the majority of the current legislature is not looking out for the interests of working people and that we need to elect candidates from our own rank and file such as herself, a Union member.

Informer 5

Union Leaders Eulogize Coretta King WASHINGTON (PAI)--Union leaders eulogized civil rights leader Coretta Scott King, who died Jan. 31 at 78, as an activist for workers, minorities, the poor and those who faced discrimination and segre-gation. King, widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., took up the civil rights torch after her husband was assassinated in Memphis in 1978, starting with her leadership of a 50,000-person march there--in the days between the murder and the funeral--for Mem-

phis sanitation workers who were striking to form their union and gain recognition. “King was a woman of brilliance, grace and deep belief in the mission of social justice and racial equality in a world that could be violent, unpredict-able and unfair. she devoted her life to helping those most in need. We are committed to carry forward the unfinished work and fulfill her dream in the 21st century,” AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney said. AFSCME President Gerald McEntee, who noted the Memphis strikers were AFSCME members, made a similar promise. Teamsters President James R. Hoffa said unionists “mourn her death and will continue to strive to up-hold the values she courageously championed through volatile times in our nation’s history.” He added that King backed Teamsters in their fights for fairness on the job “and I am proud to have marched with her as my father”--the late Teamsters President James P. Hoffa--“marched with her husband” for civil rights. Press Associates, Inc. (PAI)

6 Spring 2006

Soco Corp. to Tabulate Election

At the December Local Meeting the membership approved contracting with the Soco Corporation, election specialists from Carmel, Indiana, to provide complete election tabulating services for the upcoming election. This is the same company that was used three years ago to tabulate the results of the last general election. There will be separate ballot sheets and ballot cards for each Unit in the Local. The ballot cards given to the voters will be premarked to indicate which Unit it is for. The Local Executive Board candidates will be the same in all of the Units, only the Unit candidates will be different on the ballot sheets. Each voter will mark a ballot card or “sense” card. Numbers corresponding to candidates are blacked out using a pencil. After the polls are closed, the ballot boxes will be returned to the Union Hall where they are opened and the ballots will then be tabulated using a card reader that processes at a speed of about 150 cards per minute. Since the ballot cards were premarked the card reader knows which Unit the card came from and who to calculate votes for. Results are guar-anteed to be accurate because there is no chance of human error in counting. The Local 1999 Election Committee and Tellers are completely responsible for the election. They will verify the eligibility of all candidates and ensure that vot-ing is done only by eligible members on Election Day. The Soco Corporation will only tabulate and certify the election results. They will also provide ballot sheets, ballot cards, customized reports, and training to the tellers on using the ballot cards. Soco has extensive experience with Union elections. Many USW and UAW Locals contract with them to tabulate their elections.

Local 1999 General Election

April 19th, 2006

Polls will open at 6:00 AM and close at 6:00 PM.

Unit 09 will vote in the room at the Guard Shack

Deadline for requesting an Absentee Ballot is 12:00 PM, April 11, 2006

To qualify for an absentee ballot you must either: 1) be on vacation; 2) be as-signed to work 50 miles from your poling place; 3) be on active duty for the United States Armed Forces. To receive an absentee ballot you must make a re-quest in writing to Steve Morton, Chairman Election Committee at the Union Hall, 218 South Addison Street Indianapolis, Indiana 46222.

Informer 7

How the Voting Will Work

In this example, Andrew Jackson, Aaron Burr, I.M. Literate, and Joe Abacus received one vote each. And since the "office use only" box was pre-marked for Unit 09, Hugh Gotacase received a vote.

Sample Ballot Sheet

President 1) Andrew Jackson 2) Richard Nixon

3) Bill Clinton Vice President 4) Aaron Burr 5)Spiro Agnew

Recording Secretary 6) Nom DePlume 7) I. M. Literate

Financial Secretary 8) Dewey Cheatum

9) Joe "Digits" Abacus Unit 09 Grievance Committee

26) Will Gebaktuya 27) Hugh Gotacase

Ballot Instructions Please read the following instructions before marking your ballot. 1) Check the ballot sheet and decide which candidates

you wish to vote for. 2) Fill in the number on the ballot card that reflects your choices. A proper mark should look like this: (be sure the numbers are covered). DO NOT PLACE ANY IDENTIFICATION MARKS ON EITHER THE BALLOT CARD OR, if using a challenged ballot, THE BALLOT ENVE-LOPES. A. Be sure to use either #2 pencil or a pen (blue or

black ink). B. Vote for only one candidate for each office unless otherwise indicated. 3) When you have completed all of your selections: A. Place ballot card in ballot box; DO NOT FOLD BALLOT CARD. B. For challenged ballots, place the ballot card in the ballot envelope and seal. DO NOT FOLD BALLOT CARD OR ENVELOPE. Drop in ballot box.

8 Spring 2006

From the desk of Chuck Jones.

Dear Brothers, I would like to start by congratulating your Unit President Kelly Hugunin. Kelly has been ap-pointed by the Sub-District Director, Randy McKay to be one of the Rapid Response Coordi-nators for Sub-District 3. Rapid Response is a system that has been established within the UNITED STEELWORKERS that allows us to receive viable information in a very short pe-riod of time. Information on such issues as a plant closure or a lockout or our need to write or make phone calls to our Government Representatives in order to pass or stop a Bill, which could affect us, working class people. It is an important position and once again I want to con-gratulate Kelly. I also want to encourage everyone to get out and vote on May 2, 2006. I know because it's a Primary Election that a lot of people don't bother. But it is not in our best interest to avoid this election. We need people in these positions that have an interest in us. People that want to keep our manufacturing jobs here in Indiana and in the USA. The lower levels of government are just as important as the higher ones. The AFL-CIO has endorsed the following candidates here in Marion County, and I would appreciate you voting for Julie Voorhies for Marion County Recorder and Judge Barbra Collins for Superior Court Judge. Just remember it's not only our responsibility it's our right, So Vote! And talking about voting, the UNITED STEELWORKERS General Election for Local and Unit offices will be held April 19, 2006. Polling sites will be posted prior to the election. And again exercise your right to Vote. I would like to thank everyone that attended the Sub-District Fundraiser, January 21, 2006. We had a good turn out and everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves.

Solidarity Forever,

Chuck Jones

Charles J. Jones

President

Informer 9

CWA, AFL-CIO Blast IBM Pension Freeze, Switch Bush administration claims the pending pension leg-islation will help preserve such traditional pension plans, but other analysts disagree and say more com-panies will instead switch to 401(k)s or drop pen-sions entirely. “This downhill sled ride for U.S. workers will con-tinue until the United States joins the mainstream of global democracies and ends the attack on workplace democracy and workers' rights,” Cohen continued, drawing the contrast with overseas. “When IBM makes this kind of announcement in Europe, and now much of South America and Asia, it must negotiate with employees. Contrast that to the U.S., where IBM employees have no bargaining rights and therefore no voice.” AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney was also caus-tic about IBM and the general trend away from tradi-tional defined benefit pension plans, which now cover fewer than one-fifth of U.S. workers, accord-ing to the PBGC. He said IBM’s decision “fuels a devastating trend of large, profitable employers choosing to retreat from their commitments to work-ers.” Press Associates, Inc. (PAI)

• Since 1978, the number of defined-benefit plans plummeted from 128,041 plans covering some 41 percent of private-sector

workers to only 26,000 today.

• Only 21 percent of workers in the private sector have defined-benefit pensions.

• Since 1978, the number of defined-contribution plans has more than doubled from 314,592 to 840,301, now covering some 42

million workers.

• A 2004 survey of corporate financial officers found that fully one-third of chief financial officers intend to close their defined-

pension benefit plans to new plan participants within the next year.

Source: Employee Benefit Research Institute

ENDICOTT, N.Y. (PAI)--The Communications Workers and the AFL-CIO are blasting a decision by the again-profitable computer giant IBM to save $3 billion by 2010 by freezing its $48 billion traditional defined-benefit pension plan for 120,000 U.S. work-ers and switching them into more-risky and less-costly-to-IBM 401(k)s. IBM’s Jan. 5 announcement came just after the GOP-run Congress moved close to passing a bill to shore up the financially ailing Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. PBGC takes over traditional pensions when firms go broke, but which pays less. The bill orders firms PBGC covers to contribute more money, and to tell workers more of the risks. "IBM, like so many other companies, is either elimi-nating or not offering the stability of a pension plan, or even basic benefits. The next generation of work-ers will be in worse shape financially than this one. It is obvious that corporations of today do not value the work employees do," said Lee Conrad, national coordinator of Alliance@ IBM. The alliance, CWA Local 1701 in Endicott, N.Y. is trying to organize IBM workers. “If a union contract was in place, changes as signifi-cant as this to employee retirement would have to be negotiated,” added Local 1701 President Linda Guyer. The local has 6,000 members, but no repre-sentation rights at IBM. CWA President Larry Cohen noted that overseas, IBM must negotiate the pension change with its un-ions, unlike in the U.S. “If Congress is interested in real pension reform, it will begin by encouraging establishment of defined benefit pension plans that provide true retirement security for working families,” Cohen said. The

10 Spring 2006

Lobby Day, From Page 1. felony. Although this bill was already dead at the time of the Lobby Day the Steelworkers spoke with their legislators to make sure that it was introduced again in the next session.

USW, District 7, Rapid Response Coordinator Brett Voorhies lobbying at the Statehouse. Brett’s home Local is Local 1999.

Although the Worker’s Compensation bill, HB 1307, does provide an increase in the weekly amount an employee would receive while on Worker’s Com-pensation, the Steelworkers apposed it due to the fact that it would also force injured employees to live with bad medical advice from their employer’s doc-tors. Employees would not be able to have further medical treatment paid for by the employer, even if it was effective, if the Company doctor had determined that there was no further treatment that would im-prove their condition.

From Left: Dan “Boonie” McCormick (Rexnord), Local 1999 Trustee Larry Silcox (Rexnord), Interna-tional Staff Representative Jim Adcock , Local 1999 Financial Secretary Alan Johnson (Carrier), and Lo-cal 1999 President Chuck Jones (Rexnord) wait to speak with their representatives in the House.

Curtis Jones (Sumco) and Local 1999 Vice Presi-dent Steve Davis (Carrier) have a discussion while waiting to speak with their representatives.

The Steelworkers apposed SB370 the Workforce De-velopment System. The bill would allow for the contracting out of family services from Workforce Development. This would cause a private company to control family services and those services would suffer. A private company would only be interested in making a profit and would deny services to people in need to protect that profit. SB245 and HB1279 are both communications bills. The Steelworkers support both bills because they would open up the cable market to the phone compa-nies. This would create more jobs for the phone companies of which most are Union employers. The 2006 Steelworker Lobby Day was a success. The Steelworkers look forward to visiting their legis-lators again next year if not sooner.

Local 1999 Inside Guard Greg Rippy (Carrier) speaks with his legislator.

Informer 11

Baring Breast Earns Higher Fine Than Endangering Workers’ Lives math of the coal mine explosion in Sago, West Vir-ginia, on January 3, 2006. We also must all send our thoughts to the sole survivor and his family, as they pray and work for a full recovery.

But as trade unionists, we must also stop to observe what the tragedy teaches us about our society. You decide what is wrong with the following picture.

On January 2, 2006, the mine operated by Interna-tional Coal is Sago, West Virginia, rocked with ex-plosion. Then the news came that thirteen miners were unaccounted for and the rescue attempt got un-derway. Tragically, three days later we would learn that all but one miner had perished in the explosion or in the hours they remained trapped afterward.

All of us pause to honor the lives lost in the after-Total fine levied against CBS for showing Janet Jackson’s breast during Superbowl

$550,000.00

Total of fines leveled against the coal mine in Sago for 276 violations in 2004 and 2005

$33,600

Individual station fine levied for showing Janet Jackson’s breast

$27,500.00

Highest individual fine leveled against the coal mine in Sago for any “significant and substan-tial” violation in 2005

$445.00

Total length of Janet Jackson’s breast exposure 7.5 seconds Total length of surviving miners’ interment in Sago coal mine

44 hours 43 minutes

Number of Janet Jackson’s breasts exposed 1 Number of miners interred in Sago mine explo-sion

13

Mine Disasters Prompt Safety Shutdown, Legislation WASHINGTON (PAI)--Three coal mine disasters in West Virginia in January, which killed 16 miners there and exposed numerous safety problems, prompted a nationwide safety shutdown of U.S. mines on Feb. 6 and mine safety legislation by West Virginia’s lawmakers. The Mine Workers, who are in the forefront of the issue--and who are now investigating the worst dis-aster, in Sago, after a federal judge ordered the mine owner to let UMWA in with federal inspectors--praised both the legislation and the closures. The Bush Mine Safety and Health Administration sought and got the voluntary closures on Feb. 6, with owners using the time for hour-long safety seminars and lessons for each shift, then reopening the mines that day after the training sessions. UMWA President Cecil Roberts, himself a West Vir-ginia miner, also applauded Gov. Joe Manchin (D-

W. Va.) for demanding a statewide moratorium on coal mining pending further probes. The legislature rushed through tougher mine safety regulations, at the governor’s request, to cover mines in the #2 coal-mining state nationwide. If operators of UMWA-represented mines do not co-operate with the inspection, the Mine Workers “will consider taking further action under the authority of the union’s collective bargaining agreements with the operators,” Roberts added. “It is almost inconceivable there can be so many fatal accidents happening so quickly on the heels of each other. There have now been 18 coal miners killed in the U.S. in the first 32 days of 2006. That’s outra-geous, and we must take all steps necessary to look at the condition of the coal mines right now, to iden-tify potential problems and act on them before they cause an accident that could add to this tragic toll.”

See Mine, Page 12.

12 Spring 2006

I know a lot of people aren’t too thrilled with the recent 30 cent raise we received. With the rising cost of living i.e., higher gas prices, higher heating bills, etc…, it doesn’t seem like much. Our last raise was negotiated two years ago. At that time the negotiating committee accepted a smaller raise for the last year of our contract to keep our weekly insurance contribution lower. Also at that time no one could have an-ticipated that the price of lead would see the increases it has for as long as it has. One thing I have heard from mem-bers is that when the weekly insurance contribution goes up in April that it will take all the money we are now getting from our raise. This simply is not the case. Let’s do some calculations to see what the story is. We received an addi-tional 30 cents per hour, so 30 cents times 40 hours equals $12 . In April the weekly insurance contribution for a family plan will raise to $30 from $28.50 a dif-ference of $1.50. So we will be receiving $12 more a week and paying $1.50 more a week for insurance. We will still have $10.50 a week left from our raise after we pay our insurance contribution. And since we figured the increase on a 40 hour work week any overtime that you work will increase the gain from the raise. Although it is not a lot you can see that we are still coming out ahead even though the weekly insurance contribution goes up.

In Solidarity

Kelly Ray Hugunin

Kelly Ray Hugunin USW, Local 1999

Unit 09, President

Mine, From Page 11. Sixteen of the 18 died in West Virginia. That led the state delegation to introduce new mine safety legisla-tion, following a hearing on MSHA’s performance there. The bill orders owners to establish a rapid no-tification and response system to alert MSHA about problems. They also must “store additional emer-gency breathing caches underground, and require emergency communications equipment for surface rescue efforts to locate and communicate with miners underground,” a fact sheet says. “The Sago miners had only one hour of oxygen to last through a 40-hour rescue operation, and that no communication was possible with the trapped miners at both Sago and Alma,” added Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.). The bill also creates a mandatory minimum penalty of $10,000 for mine owners who show “negligence or reckless disregard” for safety standards. Sago had 276 safety violations, and paid fines as low as $99 for “significant and substantial” violations. Press Associates, Inc. (PAI)

Informer 13

Jury To Wal-Mart: No Such Thing As A Free Lunch Hour

Wal-Mart In The Soup Again: Class Action Suit In PA., Racist Comments In DVD Mapping System

By Mark Gruenberg, PAI Staff Writer PHILADELPHIA (PAI)—Wal-Mart is back in the legal and moral soup, again, facing a class action suit in Pennsylvania for denial of meal and rest breaks to its workers—and for racist comments on its DVD “mapping system.” The mapping system, where the Arkansas-based anti-union retail behemoth likened African-American leaders to “Beyond The Planet Of The Apes,” out-raged Paul Blank, executive director of WakeUp-WalMart.com. The suit may cost it millions. The suit, filed in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, was certified as a class action Jan. 10 by Judge Mark Bernstein. It said Wal-Mart not only denied meal and rest breaks to 150,000 Pennsyl-vania workers, but never paid them for the time they worked through those breaks. Wal-Mart lost a similar case in late December: An Oakland, Calif., jury ordered it to pay $172 million in back pay and damages to 115,000 workers. Bernstein said Wal-Mart's computerized time sheets showed about 40 percent of its workers were forced to routinely skip breaks and weren’t paid when they did. Wal-Mart called its own time sheets unreliable. Bernstein scheduled a trial for September. Wal-Mart faces similar suits in Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada and South Dakota. A federal court panel will decide Jan. 26 whether to centralize them

in Nevada. Wal-Mart’s DVD movie “mapping” system is an-other matter. “For Wal-Mart’s website to associate movies about prominent African American leaders with ‘Planet of the Apes: The TV Series’ is offensive and insensitive,” Blank said. He added that top Wal-Mart officials “owe all of America, and especially every African American, not only an apology, but a detailed explanation of how and why Wal-Mart’s DVD ‘mapping system’ would ever make such racist recommendations. “Was the software programmed to do this or was this just some racist joke? In light of recent accusations of racism at a Wal-Mart store in Florida, as well as Wal-Mart’s history of using a Nazi image in its ad-vertising last year, Wal-Mart owes America a more detailed explanation of how and why this could ever happen,” Blank added, The Florida incident occurred around Thanksgiving, when Wal-Mart managers in Brandon had local sher-iff’s deputies arrest an African-American GAF man-ager on alleged felony “bad check” charges when he, using a corporate check, tried to buy $13,600 in holi-day gift cards. The deputies’ investigation showed the check was legitimate. Prior purchases, by a white woman, were never turned down. Press Associates, Inc. (PAI)

Wal-Mart has 2,263 factories in one Chinese Province alone. OAKLAND, Calif. (PAI)--There’s an old Right Wing economists’ saying that “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Well now, an Oakland, Calif., jury turned that around and told Wal-Mart that there’s no such thing as a free, i.e. unpaid, lunch hour.

In a Dec. 22 decision in Alameda County Superior Court, jurors ordered the anti-worker behemoth to pay 116,000 present and former workers $57 million in back wages they lost, plus $115 million in dam-ages, because it refused to give them paid time for

See Wal-Mart, Page 15.

14 Spring 2006

Sub District 3 2006 Dates of Events

April 22 and 23 --- Bass Tournament

June 9 -------------------- Golf Outing

June 17 and 18 ---- Bass Tournament

October 7 and 8 -- Bass Tournament

Sub-District 3 Bowling Tournament

The Sub-District 3 Bowling tournament was held last weekend (March 18th and 19th) at Clancy Bowl in Muncie, Indiana. Unit 09 had two teams competing in the event. Results from the tournament were not available at the time of publication.

Sub-District 3 Bass Fishing Tournament

The Sub-District 3 Bass Fishing Tourna-ment will be held April 8th and 9th at Mill Creek Park, in Marshall Illinois. Registra-tion will be on Friday between 6:00 PM and 7:00 PM. Fishing will be from 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM on Saturday and from 7:00 AM to 1:00 PM on Sunday. Deadline for entries is Noon, Friday, March 24th, 2006 at the Local 1999 Union Hall. See Kelly Ray Hugunin for an entry form.

Pictured at right; Top: The team of Andy Engle, Carl Bendler, William Coo-ley, Scott Wagner, and Robert Apple. Bottom: The team of Michael Jackson, Charles Kinchelow, Curtis Rainey, Don Talley, and Robert Trotman. Both teams represented Local 1999 and Unit 09 in the Sub-District 3 Bowling Tournament in Muncie.

Informer 15

Wal-Mart, From Page 13. lunch, as California law requires. The workers toiled there from 2003-2005. The ruling was applauded by WakeUpWalMart.com, but set off a long debate among bloggers to the web-site, complete with invective by Wal-Mart support-ers. “Current and former Wal-Mart workers will finally get the justice they deserve and rightfully earned. It is a sad day when Wal-Mart provides these so-called low prices by exploiting their workers and even the law,” said Paul Blank, executive director of Wake-UpWalMart.com. “The size of this verdict speaks loudly to the disdain Americans have for multi-billion dollar company’s needlessly exploiting their workers. Furthermore, this lawsuit is just the beginning of other class action lawsuits highlighting Wal-Mart’s practice of unfairly or illegally exploiting their workers.” The jurors decided Wal-Mart broke a 5-year-old state law that requires employers to give 30-minute unpaid lunch breaks to workers who work at least six hours a day. But if they missed lunch--as they often were forced to do--they were supposed to get a full hour’s

pay. They never got it. Wal-Mart claimed they had to ask for it, first, and didn’t. Wal-Mart settled a similar suit in Colorado last year, paying workers $50 million. The lawsuit in Oakland, which took four years to get to trial, isn’t the only legal hot water Wal-Mart faces in the Golden State. Even Wal-Mart admits, in a fil-ing with the federal Securities and Exchange Com-mission, that federal prosecutors and a grand jury in Los Angeles launched “a criminal investigation” in October on how it is handling hazardous waste shipped from Los Angeles stores to its Las Vegas return center. Wal-Mart said it usually moves hazardous materials to return centers, then takes them to sites approved for hazardous waste disposal. But the prosecutors told Wal-Mart it potentially violated the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which requires haz-ardous waste to be shipped straight to a disposal site via a certified hazardous waste carrier. "The com-pany cannot predict the outcome of this matter or the amount of any possible loss or range of loss which may arise from this matter," Wal-Mart told the SEC. Wal-Mart refused to say what the hazardous waste is. Press Associates, Inc. (PAI)

Lose your job for America The issue: America's free-trade myth Our view: Middle-class America has paid a high price for these policies, but where's the payoff? When President Bush visited India three weeks ago to strike a deal expanding that country's nuclear ca-pability, he couldn't avoid questions about the esti-mated 162,000 U.S. workers who lost their jobs to overseas outsourcing in 2004 alone, with the bulk of those jobs going to India and China. But you could bet your unemployment check that he wasn't backing down on his policy of allowing U.S. companies to profit off of cheap labor, even as U.S. manufacturing workers in places like Freeport, Rock-ford and Peoria struggle to make ends meet with one or more low-paying service jobs.

“People do lose jobs as a result of globalization,” he said. “And it's painful for those who lose jobs.” Painful, indeed. But of course he didn't say it was painful for every-one. Wall Street and wealthy investors, the driving force behind the globalization/free-trade push that began in the 1990s, love the cheap labor and lax regulatory policies that exist in China and India. It is, however, a one-way street - how many Chinese com-panies do you see hiring workers in Freeport? And how many U.S. companies can compete in those Chinese markets when the Chinese manipulate their currency and pay workers pennies on the dollar? Back in 1991, when NAFTA was negotiated under the first President Bush - and approved under Clinton - the free-trade, snake-oil sales people promised that even if the U.S. economy took a hit in the short term, eventually, the companies making all of the profit

See Free Trade, Page 19.

16 Spring 2006

Edwin Johnson tries to beat Staff Rep Chris Bolte as Kevin Moore observes.

Phil Scott says 21 is his lucky number.

Informer 17

Kevin Moore, Frank Benge, Derrick Morris, and Leroy Robinson play poker.

Donnie Burton tries his luck at the Hi - Lo table run by Local 1999 Business Rep. Bruce Reed.

18 Spring 2006

INDIANA AFL-CIO E-ACTIVIST NET-WORK!

The Indiana AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions along with the independent unions have joined forces to fight back damaging legislation against Indiana's working families. Therefore, they have created an E-Activist network that allows them to directly communicate with union mem-bers about possible damaging legislation or other vital labor union news.

Members who register for the Indiana AFL-CIO E-Activist network can update their profiles, access the tell-a-friend web page, locate their legislators and send them an email, and check on any email alerts or advocacy campaigns. Through the E-Activist Network you can watch and listen to the Indiana General Assembly.

To sign up, go online and visit the IN AFL-CIO website at www.inaflcio.org. Bookmark the site in your web browser to stay informed and prepared to take action. Please sign up today! And, tell a friend so they can sign up and be informed!

Daylight Savings Time

Love it, hate it, or otherwise indifferent Daylight Savings Time will soon be upon us. At 2:00 am on April 2 time will move forward in Marion County as well as most of Indiana. How will we handle the time change at the plant? Most of us will not notice much of a change at the plant. The change for most of us will occur at home when we set our clocks up before going to bed and then get up an hour earlier the next morning. For those who will be affected at the plant the Union and the Company have discussed and agreed on how this will be handled. First shift employees will be affected at the plant since they will be on the clock when the time change occurs. This will result in a short shift for them. Since the time clock will be set up one hour during their shift, when it is their normal clock out time they will only have physically worked a seven hour shift. On April 2 those employees will work an hour past their normal clock out time and will be paid for eight hours. In the fall on October 29 at 2:00 am the reverse will occur. We will turn our clocks back one hour. For first shift employees this will create a long shift. Since the time clock will be set back one hour dur-ing their shift, when it is their normal clock out time they will have physically worked a nine hour shift. All affected employees will be paid eight hours straight time and one hour of overtime on that day. Anyone who is working a split shift should pay close attention to the time change. On April 2 the clock moves up at 2:00 am so effectively if you are sched-uled to start at 3:00 am you will need to be ready to be clocked in at 2:00 am. If you are not sure about what time you need to be clocked in ask your super-visor a day or two before. Daylight Savings Time always starts and ends on a Sunday. This will help to limit the number of af-fected employees to those who work weekends. Our sister plants in California and New York have had Daylight Savings Time for many years and have not had any problems with it. We will be making the switch in the same manner as they are.

Informer 19

Free Trade, From Page 15. from cheap labor would pour it back into plants and equipment that would eventually produce jobs here. They also told us that the risk to our manufacturing economy was a small price to pay for access to those billions of Asian consumers. So far, the promised payoff hasn't materialized for anyone but the shareholders of multinational corpo-rations, most of whom seem to have reinvested their profits elsewhere. While the administration says it created nearly 5 million jobs since 2003, the vast ma-jority of those jobs were in the low-paying service sector. At the same time, U.S. manufacturers have shed 2.9 million jobs from 2001 to 2006 - jobs such as the ones that used to exist in abundance here in Freeport, jobs that had benefits and paid enough to actually support a family on. Companies that aren't shedding jobs are paying less and eliminating pensions. Real wages have declined across the board, even as the costs of healthcare and energy skyrocket. Speaking of health care, isn't it ironic that the free-trade gospel doesn't seem to apply to the purchase of Canadian prescription drugs, which for some reason cost half as much or less than

they do here? Such realities, along with record trade and budget deficits, are a big part of why, despite steady growth in traditional measures like GDP following the last recession, employment has remained stagnant, caus-ing the public to feel insecure about the future. Free trade sounds good on paper, but the results for the American middle class have been catastrophic. Yet the U.S. is back at it, negotiating a trading pact with Malaysia, another top producer of cheap goods using sweat-shop labor. Defenders of such trade poli-cies like to label critics as “protectionists,” as if it were an ethnic slur. But if protecting U.S. jobs and demanding a level playing field is what they mean by that, consider us guilty as charged. Using a carrot-and-stick approach to trade, tax and regulatory policy, U.S. companies could be encour-aged to keep jobs at home with tax breaks and incen-tives. A policy is needed that would help reverse the competitive metrics that have made outsourcing so attractive. Instead, the same broken “free-trade” record gets played over and over again.

Global Economy: The Real Story

World Population: 6.2 Billion

6% - Own 59% of all the wealth. 70% - Unable to read and write. 80% - Live in substandard housing. 30% - White. 50% - Suffer from Malnutrition. <5% - Have a college educa-tion.

U.S. Worker Average Wage $16.01/Hour

CAFTA Worker Average Wage

$0.68/Hour

20 Spring 2006

Delphi Puts Off Demand To Dump Union Pacts; Workers Rally WARREN, Mich. (PAI)--Executives of bankrupt Delphi Auto Parts again put off their demand to a bankruptcy court to let them dump their six union contracts. Meanwhile, outraged workers staged ral-lies against Delphi in Troy and Warren, Mich. The United Auto Workers, the lead union in the Del-phi coalition, welcomed the firm’s Feb. 18 decision. But that Delphi maneuver came shortly after the fed-eral bankruptcy referee in New York City, over UAW’s objections, agreed to a modified Delphi plan for distributing $21 million in pay and bonuses to so-called “key executives” later this year. And if Delphi and the unions don’t agree by March 31 on revised pacts, Delphi threatened to go back to court to kill its present contracts with UAW, the Communications Workers/IUE, the Steel Workers in Toledo, and the others. “We have said consistently that the only basis of finding satisfactory resolution to these matters is through the use of the collective bargaining process with Delphi, GM and the UAW at the bargaining ta-ble. In recent weeks the parties have held several such meetings,” UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and Vice President Richard Shoemaker said in a pre-pared statement. “While there are many significant issues to be re-solved Delphi’s decision to delay the filing” of its

request to end the union contracts “provides the op-portunity for that process to work and is certainly a positive action,” they added. Ending the union contracts, with court approval, would let Delphi dump health care and life insurance for retirees and drastically cut present workers’ pay. And Delphi still wants to fire 18,000-24,000 of its U.S. union workers. It originally wanted to cut the pay of the rest to levels equaling those of Wal-Mart managers, but has since backed off. Delphi still wants to cut an average worker’s pay from $27 hourly to under $15. Meanwhile, Delphi workers, led by UAW local presidents and CWA President Larry Cohen, rallied in Warren on Feb. 18 to protest the company’s plans. It was the latest in a series of demonstrations against Delphi. A previous Jan. 23 rally outside Delphi headquarters in Troy drew more than 100 picketers, the Metro De-troit Labor News reported. Workers and their allies, including Delphi and other auto company retirees, marched and chanted: “We’re not meek, we’re not mild, we’re the voices of the rank and file,” in bitter cold outside the building. “I don’t have to be here, but I’m afraid they’re going to cut our health care,” said Walt Austin, a 78-year-old UAW retiree from GM’s Pontiac plant. GM, cit-

ing its own billions in debt, con-vinced UAW late last year to forgo wage increases so that Aus-tin and other retirees could keep their health care. In return the GM retirees had to start paying co-pays and deductibles. “If they let this company go, they’re just going to hit everyone. They let the work go overseas and we get nothing,” Austin said. GM, which is Delphi’s largest customer, recently announced would buy $1 billion more in auto parts from GM India. Press Associates, Inc. (PAI)

Informer 21

Analysis: A Bankruptcy Bonus Bonanza By Sam Pizzigati, Special to PAI

NEW YORK (PAI)--Executives at auto parts giant Delphi are pressing for over a half billion dollars in bonuses. They think they can get it. This month, before a federal court in New York, the bankrupt auto parts maker Delphi will begin making the case for $531 million in bonuses for 600 of the company's top executives and managers. The Auto Workers are contesting Delphi’s claim. Delphi, its officials claim, desperately needs bank-ruptcy court approval for this incredible bonus blitz to “motivate and reward high performance” and “retain executives during a period of volatility.” Its claim comes in a splashy, 35-page, 4-color booklet it produced to sell the broke firm's proposed “Key Em-ployee Compensation” plan. Key Employee Compensation Programs--KECPs as they're known in corporate circles--have become a fixture in bankruptcy situations. Bankrupt compa-nies file them regularly, whenever they want to get a legal green light to lavish extra pay on top execs. For people who don't spend much time hanging out in corporate boardrooms, the logic behind the typical “Key Employee Compensation” plan can be difficult to understand. How can top executives at a bankrupt company deserve big bonuses when everyone else in the company is getting asked to swallow pay cuts and pink slips? That doesn't seem to make much sense--and, indeed, KECPs only make sense in the context of the mas-sive shift in how bankruptcy business gets done in modern corporate America. A generation ago, going bankrupt used to be--for corporate executives--a shameful admission of fail-ure. In today's business landscape, bankruptcy has become just another profit opportunity. Delphi’s ex-ecs are simply seizing that opportunity. They're play-ing the bankruptcy game, by today's business rules, and they think they can win. Here's how that game works: A reeling company goes into bankruptcy. Its executives use the bank-

ruptcy law to shed their wage and pension obliga-tions to the company's workers. With these obliga-tions gone, the company suddenly starts looking at-tractive on Wall Street. At that point, the company share price usually starts soaring--and that's when the real money starts flow-ing. Executives at the bankrupt company start cash-ing out, either by exercising their generous stock op-tion bonuses or unloading the company to “vulture investors” and bailing out with a golden parachute severance package. Robert S. Miller, Delphi's CEO, knows this drill well. He learned it at the feet of the original master, as an underling to ex-Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca in the early 1980s. Twenty years later, as CEO at the troubled Bethle-hem Steel, Miller ran the game himself. At one point, he axed health coverage for 95,000 Bethlehem Steel retirees to help pretty the company up for sale. At Delphi, Miller upped the stakes. The executive bonus plan he wants approved amounts to the biggest and most nonsensical “Key Employee Compensa-tion” plan ever to come before a federal judge. What's so illogical here? Just this: Steve Miller has been traipsing around the country, ever since he be-came Delphi CEO last summer, demanding deep pay cuts for Delphi workers because, Miller argues, they make more than their foreign counterparts. But Delphi's executives make far more than their for-eign executive counterparts than Delphi workers make compared to theirs. And for the Delphi execu-tives, Miller wants not pay cuts, but over half a bil-lion dollars in bonuses. U.S. corporate executives, as a group, take home considerably more than foreign executives. Con-trasts within the global auto industry stand in particu-larly sharp relief. Americans first saw just how sharp eight years ago

See Bonanza, Page 22.

22 Spring 2006

Bonanza, From Page 21. when Chrysler merged into the German carmaker Daimler-Benz. At the time, Daimler-Benz bestrode the world auto market as a much more successful company than Chrysler, with higher sales than Chrysler, higher revenues, and higher profits. Yet in the year before that merger, the Chrysler CEO took home six times more pay than the Daimler-Benz CEO, and the top five Chrysler executives col-lectively took home five times more than the top 10 executives at Daimler-Benz. Overall, according to the latest figures from the Towers Perrin research group, German executives now take home 42 percent of U.S. executive pay, Japanese executives only 20 percent. Delphi and Miller never talk about executive pay dif-ferentials like these, of course. They base their case for a half-billion-plus in executive bonuses on the same faulty assumptions that encouraged the explo-sion of executive pay in the U.S. over the last three decades. The two most basic of these assumptions are: First, that within the modern corporation only executives create value; and, second, that executives only create this value if they get awarded enough incentives to do so. In Delphi’s proposed “Key Employee Compensa-tion” plan, the only “key” employees happen to be executives. Nobody else at Delphi apparently mat-ters to the company's future. Outside of the 600 executives the Delphi plan ear-marks for bonuses, none of the 24,000 workers the UAW represents at Delphi—and none of the workers in Delphi’s five other unions--will get to share in the bonus bonanza the company has proposed, no matter how well Delphi should do. Indeed, Miller wants to fire thousands of Delphi workers and cut the pay of the rest to just above that of the average Wal-Mart worker. But doesn't Delphi, as a struggling bankrupt com-pany, need “high performance” from its workers? And if it does need “high performance” from all its employees, not just those who sit in executive suites, how will rewarding executives with multi-millions while penalizing workers with pay cuts encourage

that needed “high performance”? In fact, Delphi's bonus plan isn't going to encourage “high performance” from anyone, even executives. Delphi’s proposed bonuses don't give them incentive to help it survive and thrive. The bonuses, instead, give executives an incentive to cut and run. Under the Delphi bonus plan, for instance, CEO Miller's top four deputies will receive $3.1 million in annual salary, plus another $8.9 million in what Del-phi calls “emergency cash bonuses” should the com-pany's assets get sold. That gives the four a powerful incentive to sell Delphi fast--and no incentive to try to drive a hard bargain. Delphi’s plan also promises company executives ad-ditional bonuses in the form of stock shares and op-tions. Delphi's chief operating officer, Rodney O'Neal, is slated to receive $1.15 million in basic salary. If Delphi's stock price should triple, he'll take home an additional $17.5 million. That gives Delphi execs like O'Neal an awesome in-centive to make only those moves likely to fatten the company's quarterly bottom line, the short-term number that determines how Wall Street feels about a stock. This same stock bonus gives Delphi executives a powerful reason to avoid making the investments that could help make Delphi a viable company down the road. Why, after all, invest in employee training or R&D--investments critical to Delphi's long-term prospects--when these investments will just mean lower quarterly profits, and a lower share price, in the here and now? UAW attorneys, in their legal brief to the federal court, dubbed Delphi's “Key Employee Compensa-tion” plan “grossly excessive” and an “imprudent use” of company assets. Delphi’s plan certainly mer-its both those appraisals, and even other voices in the business community -- most notably JP Morgan Chase Bank--are crying foul. The federal bankruptcy court no doubt will take all these objections into account before reaching a final decision on the Delphi bonus plan. The court also figures to pay attention to a little-known provision in

See Bonanza, Page 23.

Informer 23

Bonanza, From Page 22. the new bankruptcy law that took effect Oct. 17. That provision, authored by Sen. Edward M. Ken-nedy (D-Mass.), bans companies in bankruptcy from lavishing on executives any retention or severance bonuses are more than 10 times the average bonus that company employees received the year before. Delphi filed for bankruptcy last Oct. 8, just over a week before this new bonus limit went into effect. Interestingly, Delphi is arguing the new law wouldn't torpedo its bonus plan, even if the law had gone into effect before it filed for bankruptcy. Will Delphi get away with that argument? Corporate America will be watching to see. Press Associates, Inc. (PAI)

Veteran labor writer and editor Sam Pizzigati is the editor of Too Much, an online weekly on excess and inequality, and author of Greed and Good: Under-standing and Overcoming the Inequality That Limits Our Lives. This and other analyses can be found at www.toomuchonline.org.

Pension Struggle Forces 3-Day Nyc Transit Workers’ Strike NEW YORK (PAI)--A struggle over management demands that New York bus and subway workers wait more years to retire and get pensions, and that new workers pay more for their pensions beforehand, forced 34,000 members of Transport Workers Local 100 into a 3-day strike at the height of the holiday season. Though GOP Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the forced walkout “illegal, selfish and unnecessary,” among other epithets, the workers made clear they were forced to strike the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) not just for themselves but to pro-tect colleagues in other public services nationwide. But after a court order telling them to return to work, plus talks with a mediator, plus the threat of $1-million-per-day fines against TWU Local 100, Local President Roger Toussaint announced enough pro-gress was made in the discussions with the MTA to send the workers back to their jobs on Dec. 22. “Local 100 had to walk out to stop the MTA’s 11th-

hour pension ambush. We walked out strong, and we walk back stronger,” it said on its website. De-spite “an “unprecedented media assault” from the city’s two tabloids, “The average New Yorker sup-ported the TWU and blamed the MTA. Our riders knew we did not abandon them, and they did not abandon us. Public support from unions, communi-ties, clergy and elected officials helped create the atmosphere for an end to the strike,” it added. TWU workers picketing in the cold at the Coney Is-land subway terminal told the People’s Weekly World they were there for themselves, for future transit workers and for all working-class families. The workers, mostly members of minority groups, added they had to resist an MTA that treats them with contempt. Their rallies drew workers from a wide socioeco-nomic and racial range, with unions ranging from the Teachers to UNITE HERE to the Building Trades and the Screen Actors Guild all rallying to the side of Local 100. AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney, a New Yorker, sought strike fund donors. “We depend on the New York transportation system as one of the finest in the world, and the people who run it each and every day deserve our full support,” he explained. Despite a $1 billion surplus, the MTA demanded a two-tier pension system, where new workers would pay more toward their pension than current workers for their first 10 years of service. “It’s a divide-and-conquer strategy that (the MTA) is pulling,” subway motorman Daryl Ramsey said. “How can you have a worker paying 6 percent of his salary to his pension, while another worker, hired only two months before, is paying only 2 percent? That’s going to be divisive.” The MTA also wanted to raise the retirement age for new hires--including bus drivers, subway motormen and cleaners and maintenance workers in the line’s old and dirty tunnels--from the present age 55 to age 62. A typical New York subway maintenance worker has to deal with everything from rats roaming

See Strike, Page 24.

24 Spring 2006

Steelworkers Blast Bush Pipe Trade Ruling PITTSBURGH (PAI)--GOP President George W. Bush delivered “yet another stunning blow” to U.S. workers by refusing to impose tariffs on dumped im-ported pipe from China, the Steel Workers said. Overruling the U.S. International Trade Commission, which found the dumped pipe could drive the last U.S. producers out of business and cost thousands of workers their jobs, Bush turned down the tariff rec-ommendation on Dec. 30. USW President Leo Gerard was upset, but not surprised. “It’s clear Bush has told American workers he’s not on their side when it comes to ad-vocating a message of fair trade with China. Con-

gress passed the Section 421 provision of our trade law in 2000 in direct response to the accession of China to the World Trade Organization as a message that America expects all member countries to play by the rules. Bush’s “refusal to implement a reasonable quota on a tidal wave of standard pipe imports from China rein-forces the administration’s lack of response to China’s currency manipulation and the record trade deficit,” he added. He said USW members would remember Bush’s action--at the polls this coming November. Press Associates, Inc. (PAI)

Bush Backs Outsourcing U.S. Jobs WASHINGTON (PAI)--GOP U.S. President George W. Bush is apparently backing outsourcing of U.S. jobs. He says U.S. companies use such outsourcing to increase their efficiency. In a speech Feb. 22 to the Asia Society, a week be-fore his trip to India and Pakistan, Bush admitted outsourcing costs U.S. workers jobs. But he said the solution to that, long-term, is to increase the quality of education in the U.S. He did not discuss any methods of helping those white-collar workers--X-ray techs, computer pro-grammers and the like--whom U.S. companies first force to train their Indian colleagues, and then fire in favor of the people they trained. Instead, he accused those who complain about outsourcing of being “protectionist.” “The area of America's relationship with India that seems to receive the most attention is outsourcing.

It's true that a number of Americans have lost jobs because companies have shifted operations to India. And losing a job is traumatic. It's difficult. It puts a strain on our families. But rather than respond with protectionist policies, I believe it makes sense to re-spond with educational polices to make sure that our workers are skilled for the jobs of the 21st century,” Bush stated. To buttress his point, Bush praised U.S. firms that establish research centers for white-collar work in India. He said doing so “makes them more competi-tive globally.” Such “research centers are good for India, and they're good for workers here in the U.S.,” Bush added, be-cause they create “new opportunities” for U.S. busi-nesses, farmers and workers to export U.S. goods to India’s growing middle class, he declared. Press Associates, Inc. (PAI)

Strike, From Page 23. the tunnels, to homeless people camping out in them, to leaky, stopped up and overflowing toilets, to years of dirt, grime and debris, while avoiding stepping on the high-voltage third rail. Subway motorman Edwin Kippins said this strike, if successful, would benefit all workers. “They are slowly chipping away at the benefits of everyone,

especially public employees,” he said. “The fire de-partment, the police department--If we lose, they’re the next to get hit, and they know that.” The New York Times made the same point in its wrap-up of the strike, but extended the issue of cut-ting pension benefits to public workers nationwide. Press Associates, Inc. (PAI)

Informer 25