On October 5, 1998, merger talks between the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and the United Transportation Union collapsed when the UTU officially requested that the National Mediation Board reopen its case filed in January of this year which essentially was a request to be able to raid the BLE.

On January 12 the UTU asked the NMB to rule that a "representation dispute" exists among operating employees in the class or craft of Train and Engine Service employees and to order elections. On January 13 the Rail Labor Division of the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department met and passed (with only the UTU opposed) a resolution strongly condemning and rejecting the UTU petition to the NMB "as a clear attempt to use 'back door' tactics" to raid the BLE.

On March 25, at the urging of AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, the UTU requested that the NMB holds its application for a new craft in abeyance pending talks to be undertaken between the BLE and UTU with former AFL-CIO President Tom Donahue acting as facilitator.

On May 21 the leaders of the two unions agreed to "explore the creation of a new organization, uniting the two rail operating unions" and "to exert every effort to conclude the examination of all issues and negotiations by September 30, 1998." Under an Oversight Committee composed of officers of both unions, five committees were created to examine specific details of principal union operations.

The UTU, in an October 6 press release, said the BLE "pushed for a phony federation contrary to the [May 21] agreement and attempted to stage a trumped up strike on Union Pacific to embarrass UTU." Therefore, the UTU was asking the NMB "to immediately reinstate its petition to hold representation elections on the Union Pacific and other railroads for all operating employees."

"Charlie Little and the other UTU leaders are playing a very dangerous game in seeking to rekindle hostilities between our two unions," said BLE President Clarence Monin. "Even after being threatened with sanctions by the AFL-CIO for trying to raid the BLE, and being condemned by every other rail union, the UTU is off on the wrong track again."

"None of the committees reported last month that we could not reach an agreement, although some said that we had agreed to disagree on some matters," Monin said. "The fact that UTU has now rejected this whole process suggests to me that it was their plan all along." Monin also expressed bewilderment at the UTU charge that the BLE was planning to strike Union Pacific "to embarrass" UTU.

Made In USA Fights To Stay That Way

On December 1, 1997, the Federal Trade Commission said it was abandoning its efforts to weaken the "Made in USA" label. In May of 1997, the FTC had asked for public comment on its proposal to lower the standard to allow products with 25 percent or more foreign content to be labeled and advertised as "Made in USA."

The FTC said it received more than 1,000 written comments with the majority "strongly supporting" retention of the "all or virtually all" standard now required for use of the "Made in USA" label.

"Seldom have we seen the kind of outrage that Americans expressed when they learned about the FTC's proposal to weaken the standard governing use of the label," said Charles Mercer, president of the AFL-CIO Union Label & Service Trades Department. "Unions, union members, other workers, business owners, consumers, members of Congress and others are to be applauded for letting the FTC know of that outrage in unprecedented numbers."

Now, in the most recent fight, a Senate Committee has pulled the teeth from a bill aimed at correcting widespread abuses of workers and the "Made in USA" label in the U. S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and at extending the federal minimum wage to the islands. The Union Label & Services Trades Department is campaigning in Congress to correct these abuses and needs your help. Write your Congressmen and ask them to help stop these abuses.

Dear Representative / Senator:

Once again American workers and consumers need your help with the integrity of the "Made in USA" label. As we all know, the label is widely accepted as certifying that products are free of the abuses of workers that are common in Third World sweatshops.

That is far from true, however, of the vast quantities of clothing shipped into the States from factories in the U. S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (Saipan). They are staffed by some 35,000 "guest workers" from China and other Pacific Rim countries who work for $3.05 an hour, $2.10 less than the federal minimum wage. The workers pay thousands for those jobs and pay up to $200 a month to live in fenced-in factory compounds. Factory owners, including China's government, openly ignore U. S. laws that protect workers' right to organize, to overtime pay, to safe and healthy work places, and more.

This makes a mockery of U. S. labor laws and the "Made in USA" label. It must be corrected. Please help.

Union Label Website

Since 1995 the AFL-CIO Union Label & Service Trades Department has been loading available information on union products and services on the Internet. In May of 1997, they inaugurated their own web page -- www.unionlabel.org. This is a part of the AFL-CIO's mission to improve the lives of working families and to bring economic justice to the workplace. Before you shop -- check it out.

Equal Pay Website

The AFL-CIO Working Women's Department launched its new Working Women Working Together Website -- www.aflcio.org/women/ -- at a press conference on September 1. Women can key in their age, income level and education level to find out how much they stand to lose over a lifetime because of unequal pay. With over 5.5 million women members, the AFL-CIO is the largest organization of working women in the nation. Equal pay is one of the top issues in the AFL-CIO's 1998 agenda for Working Families.

"Neediest and Greediest"

Nine U. S. companies -- Espirit, Guess, Inc., J. C. Penney, K-Mart, May Co. Department stores, Nike, Victoria's Secret, Wal-Mart and the Walt Disney Co. -- have been named to the "neediest and greediest" list issued by the National Labor Committee in Support of Worker and Human Rights.

The companies made the list for failing to effectively assure that Third World contractors they use to make goods sold under their labels pay fair wages and provide humane working conditions.

The workers in those contractors' sweatshops are the list's "neediest"; the U. S. companies are its "greediest."

The list is not a call for a boycott nor for taking jobs out of developing countries, said Charles Kernaghan, the National Labor Committee's executive director. Rather, the list is "a challenge" to U. S. corporations it names to "do the right thing," said Kernaghan.

Reprinted from Label Letter.

Hurricane Georges Causes Disaster in Puerto Rico

"Hundreds of union families in Puerto Rico were left homeless by Hurricane Georges and thousands more have no water, electricity or transportation," said John J. Sweeney, AFL-CIO President. AFL-CIO Community Services staff with the American Red Cross are working with local union leaders to help affected union families. Red Cross disaster operations in Puerto Rico are being run out of the International Association of Longshoremen's office in San Juan.

In response to union leaders from around the country who have been asking how they can help, a special AFL-CIO relief fund has been established to assist union households in Puerto Rico. Contributions can be sent to Bilbao Vizcaya Bank, Account No. 003-1010400750, Route No. 021502228, P. O. Box 19689, Fernandez Juncos Station, Santurce, Puerto Rico 00910-9689. Checks should be made payable to Disaster Fund - Puerto Rico State Federation.

March In Appalachia

"As there is trauma in the White House and the President seeks redemption, must our movement for social change to leave no one behind stop? The answer is no. As most of the nation is focused on the White House, we must remember that there are 100 million other houses in this country that demand our attention.

We do not have to wait for the White House or Congress to act. Seldom have Presidents or Congressmen been agents of change. Great movements throughout this country's history have always started with the people changing their minds and organizing.

Emancipation did not originate from the White House. It originated on the plantations with people like Dred Scott and Harriet Tubman.

In the 1920s, John L. Lewis did not ask corporate chieftains' permission for a minimum wage and a 40-hour work week. Lewis organized his fellow workers and demanded change.

Eisenhower did not order bus companies to allow African Americans to sit anywhere they pleased on the buses. Rosa Parks did.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. went to Selma in 1965 and organized people of conscience to give the President the push to sign the Voting Rights Act.

If we intend to include the urban poor (mostly African American and Latino) and the rural poor (mostly white) in the nation's economic boom, we must start from a place like Nelsonville, Ohio.

More than thirty years ago, Lyndon Johnson and Bobby Kennedy traveled to Appalachia to highlight the plight of the region and deracialize the poverty debate in America. Since that time, our political leaders and the press have ignored Appalachia, and the poverty debate has increasingly been diverted by the right-wing using race as a wedge."

That is why Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition intend to put Appalachia back at the forefront of the national consciousness. To that end, in conjunction with Cecil Roberts and the United Mine Workers of America and others, RPC planned a series of events throughout September, culminating in a rally at Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio on September 27.

Rev. Jackson said, "People of this region mined the coal that fueled the industrial revolution and fought in the wars that kept us free. They have played by all of the rules, but have been left behind in spite of their work ethic, faith and patriotism. Appalachia has the moral authority to guide the nation. The American Dream must apply to Appalachia as well."

NLRB Condemns Detroit Newspapers

"The National Labor Relations Board has dealt a serious blow to the long-running campaign by America's two largest newspaper chains to eliminate union influence at Detroit newspapers -- the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News.

"In two Aug. 27 decisions released on September 1, the Board said six union locals' strike against the Detroit dailies was an unfair labor practice strike 'from its inception' on July 13, 1995.

"The Board ordered 'immediate reinstatement' of locked-out workers, with back pay to February 1997 [when the strike turned into a lock-out]. It also told the News and Free Press to 'cease and desist' from bargaining in bad faith."

An appeal of the August 27 ruling was filed by attorneys for the newspapers on September 11 at the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

You can donate money to the Detroit Newspaper Workers Relief Fund, c/o Walter Freeman, GCIU Local 13N, 3300 Book Building, Detroit, MI 48226.

From the Metro Detroit Labor News, Sept. 16-30, 1998.

Steelworkers Struggle With CF&I Steel Continues

The United Steelworkers of America (USWA) continues to seek a fair new contract for the 1,100 hourly workers it represents at CF&I Steel and its parent company, Oregon Steel Mills.

CF&I, which does business as Rocky Mountain Steel Mills, brought in strikebreakers when the USWA struck its Pueblo, Colorado mill Oct. 3, 1997, refused the union's unconditional offer to return to work on Dec. 30, and continues to operate with strikebreakers.

On June 30, the National Labor Relations Board issued an amended complaint against CF&I for bad faith bargaining, unlawful unilateral changes, direct dealing with employees and the failure to reinstate former strikers.

Rail is CF&I's most important product -- both in volume and profitability. The company has told its scab workers that Union Pacific has increased its orders through the 1998 summer months and that it is working to secure additional orders from Burlington Northern, the Soo Line and other major railroads.

Wells Fargo, which operates in 10 states in the West, is the lead bank in a consortium of banks that is providing Oregon Steel with a $125 million revolving line of credit, which the USWA says has helped prolong the dispute. Wells Fargo, CR&I Steel, and Oregon Steel Mills are all on the AFL-CIO's nationwide boycott list.