There has been an organizing drive by the SEIU to organize the janitorial workers at the University of Miami. The organizers succeeded in getting a majority of workers to sign representation cards but rather than agreeing to negotiate with the union the Board of Trustees and its President Donna Shalala decided to give a unilateral raise and demand a secret ballot on recognition.
Now technically the janitors work for an outfit called UNICCO, but when it came to this union fighting raise Donna and the board took credit for it in the local news. The workers and organizers are demanding that the University not demand a ballot but rather give them their union. They have started a hunger strike on campus.
The latest on this according to a thread by Nathan Newman on TPMCafe is this
Here's the press release on SEIU President Andy Stern and SEIU Vice President Eliseo Medina joining the University of Miami hunger strikers on day seventeen of the action.
With five hunger strikers sent to the hospital, with large number of the local community supporting the fasters, and the leader of one of the largest unions in the country joining in, I am curious if the national media will actually start following the story.
There was a little flurry of national attention when the Donna Shalala connection to the story popped up at the very beginning of the strike, but it's been pretty non-existent during the whole hunger strike. So we'll see if this escalation of the fight will break through the usual media indifference to labor stories.
Well it looks like there is more action brewing in this fight. I was just told this by someone who ought to know
. . UM has filed a complaint for injunctive relief against the SEIU in state court; I think there will be a hearing on a motion for temporary injunctive relief tomorrow. UM wants a ban on trespass, mass picketing at entrances to campus and adjoining areas, disruption, abusive language, interference with entering or leaving the campus, threats, intimidation, harassment, etc. of anyone who works for or does business with UM. As I understand the NLRA, the primary labor dispute is between SEIU and UNICCO, not between SEIU and UM, and therefore federal labor law does not preempt state law or forbid state courts from entering injunctive relief in a suit by UM.
So it looks like after themselves giving the workers a unilateral raise, no doubt on the advice of their union avoidance consultants, Donna and the UM Board are again going to hide behind the thin skirts of UNICCO so that they can get a local state court to order the strikers to back off. This could turn into a big fight. The SEIU means business and UM seems to have already admitted that they call the tune on how their janitors are treated. The union's lawyers might be able to try to "pierce the corporate veil" and show that this is really a dispute with between the workers and UM and so federal labor law controls. But I don't know if a state judge would really listen to such an argument.
We may see people being dragged off the campus by the state police before long. It sounds like those janitors and the SEIU are ready to fight on this.