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Carl Biers

$100 Plus Story

  • On the Mob-controlled waterfront: at the Waterfront Commission's public hearings
     
  • Unionists gather to discuss union democracy, meet LMRDA experts

    (Part Two of a $100 Plus Club News Special Report on a University of Illinois Forum on Union Democracy & Effective Union Leadership)

    By Helena Worthen and Joe Berry

      Helena Worthen and Joe Berry were coordinators of an event on Nov 14, 2009 designed especially for elected officers of labor unions. It was sponsored by the University of Illinois School of Labor and Employment Relations Labor Education Program. Worthen and Berry are holding a similar event on March 13, 2010. Here is their perspective on the November forum.

UDR Story

  • Mob ousted, reformers win in ILA Local 1588

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    On April 19, the election of officers in the 450-member Longshoremen's Local 1588 in New Jersey --- the first since it came under federal court trusteeship --- brought into office an executive board and top leaders without mob ties. A group of eight reformers, running unopposed on a "Unity, Power, Respect" slate, take over a local union that, just six years ago, was called "corrupt from top to bottom" by Assistant U.S. Attorney V. Grady O'Malley.

  • The RISE program: trying to discuss the future of Teamster Reform at a Cornell University Forum

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    In 1999 Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa Jr hired Edwin Stier, a former federal prosecutor credited with ridding NJ Teamster Local 560 of mob influence, to develop an internal ethics program that would convince the Justice Department to end its oversight of the union.

  • Victory for union democracy: Carpenters win right to elect regional council officers.

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    (See the Judge's order, signed November 25, 2003)

    In a major victory for union democracy, New England carpenters have won the right to directly elect the officers of their regional council. On October 8, federal judge Richard Stearns in Massachusetts directed the U.S. Department of Labor to order the New England Regional Council of Carpenters (NERC) to hold officer elections. The NERC represents 27,000 carpenters in 26 locals from Connecticut to Maine.

  • SAG members nix merger with AFTRA

    Screen Actors, TV and Radio Artists get all the news: SUBSCRIBE to Union Democracy Review!

    Officers of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists campaigned hard among their respective memberships for a merger of the two unions. AFTRA members approved the merger three to one. But despite a lopsided and heavy-handed campaign by the SAG leadership, when the count was in on July 2, approval of the merger fell 2% short of the 60% required by the SAG constitution. And so, although 33,626 voted for and 24,550 against, the merger went down to defeat.

  • ILA report: Baltimore local threatened with trusteeship for resisting concessions

    Longshore workers, get all the news: SUBSCRIBE to Union Democracy Review!

  • Nine years without a contract in Lake Charles longshore local

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    ILA members: contact AUD to get the new Manual on Running for Delegate to the 2003 ILA convention.

    (In February, Carl Biers was invited to Lake Charles, Louisiana by a group of rank and file longshore workers to conduct an AUD workshop. Below is his report.)

  • New Voices at AUD construction trades conference, and Workshop Reports

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    Fair hiring, fighting pension abuses, and a Bill of Rights for Building Trades Unionists were up for discussion at AUD's national conference of construction workers in Brooklyn, November 8 and 9.

  • Locomotive Engineers: suspect referendum blocked by federal court and AAA stumbles on election rules.

    Keep AUD on the job: SUBSCRIBE to Union Democracy Review! Call 718-564-1114.

    [Click here to download and print the PDF version with the cartoon.]

    by Carl Biers

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