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Operating Engineers

$100 Plus Story

UDR Story

  • Shorts: Kaiser vote, L.A. Operating Engineers, Respect Our Crafts, A Budget Workers Union?, Dolores Paskal, NY State Nurses
  • Resisting attack from the right; fighting the mob
    Facing the most outright attack since President Reagan broke the air traffic controllers association, unions are responding with an unusual display of labor power. Reagan destroyed the union, but he stopped short of challenging the fundamental right of unions to represent workers. The new assault goes further as the anti-union right seeks to end or drastically curb the very principle of collective bargaining itself.
     
  • Shorts: voting machines, L.A. Operating Engineers, New Mexico Machinists

    Electronic voting machines: Their use still creates problems and raises questions. The New York Times, June 28, reports on some of the latest. Represented by the NYU Brennan Center for Justice, the NAACP and the Working Families Party are in court challenging the use of new machines scheduled for the coming elections in New York State. They charge that thousands of votes could be disqualified because of ambiguous instructions on overvoting.

  • Moving slowly while opportunity knocks at IUOE L. 14

    It was back in July 2008 that the government settled its civil RICO lawsuit against International Union of Operating Engineers Local 14, the 1,600-member union of heavy construction equipment and crane operators in New York City. The government charged that Local 14 had been dominated by organized crime; the consent decree that settled the case provides for two court-appointed monitors armed with wide-ranging powers to eradicate corruption, establish a fair job referral system, require fair elections, and promote union democracy.

  • Engineers L. 98 disqualifies rivals, avoids elections

    The business manager of the 1,200-member Local 98 of the International Union of Operating Engineers in Massachusetts glided in easily to a second term this year because there was no one on the ballot against him. Todd Downey tried to run but was disqualified. No election necessary. Ken Moulton, a critic of business manager Eugene Melville, tried to run for president, the second highest spot, but he too was disqualified. Grounds for Moulton's disqualification? He was disqualified because he had been nominated by Todd Downey who was disqualified.

  • Appeals court backs union curbs on the internet

    The U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia has upheld a union rule that places new burdens on candidates who want to use their own independent web sites to campaign for union office. The court's decision gives the green light to those nervous union officials who hope to develop new ways to limit the potential of the internet as an instrument for union democracy.

  • “Clean up our union with democracy”

    Many unions, confronted by corruption, are talking about ethics. But what are they doing about it? The Operating Engineers union has just retained an ethical officer to implement an elaborate ethical practices code. The ILA has just doubled its ethical staff to two. The New York City AFL-CIO Central Trades Council, whose former president just went to jail for stealing piles of money, has amended its bylaws ethicswise. The AFL-CIO has had ethical practices codes in several versions for 50 years. Latest to mount the ethical bandwagon after some of its important officers stole over a million dollars, is the SEIU, whose ethical codes, among the most pretentious, are applied by an intricate combination of appeals and committees.

  • More on labor’s lasting quest for ethical practices: from the Operating Engineers

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  • Action and inaction in the Operating Engineers

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    Think of a town that's plagued by deaths, arson, and robberies, and yet the mayor and police don't seem to have the time or inclination to do anything about it because they are preoccupied by a campaign to stop residents from cluttering up the streets by passing out unauthorized handbills. That act of imagination could prepare you for these events in the International Union of Operating Engineers:

    Local 150: Take the 22,000-member Local 150 which represents operators of heavy construction equipment in Illinois, Iowa, and Indiana.

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