AFSCME and UAW join forces in New Hampshire

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/8571

Lede: Two big unions are uniting to make New Hampshire labor law reform real for university employees. Doug Cunningham has the story.

By Doug Cunningham

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is joining forces with the United Auto Workers to help workers at the University of New Hampshire form unions. Labor law reform passed in 2007 allows public employees to form unions whenever a majority of those workers at a workplace sign union cards. Lonn Sattler, a veterans’ coordinator who has worked at the University of New Hampshire for 26 years says that with two great unions working together for employees, the university will become a better place to work. This will be a coordinated effort by AFSCME, and the UAW, which together represent 2.6 million active and retired members nationwide, including 250,000 workers at 300 universities across the U.S. AFSCME will organize clerical, technical, skilled trades, administrative employees and certain supervisory workers. The UAW will focus on service and professional staff, adjunct faculty and certain supervisory employees. The UAW and AFSCME both say that by combining resources they can more effectively help workers to join unions.

[Selatius]

1. I hope when Dems win the White House, they will repeal the Taft-Hartley Act and take out...

the right-to-work laws in my state as well as in every conservative state. As it stands, it's one of the biggest things retarding organizing efforts across the heartland and the south. With fewer and fewer manufacturing jobs left, many workers are being forced into the lower-pay service sector, many jobs of which are not unionized.