The story was invented by the bosses at UIC (University of Illinois at Chicago) as an excuse to privatize the custodial work in three buildings on campus. But after workers rallied and lobbied their representatives in the state legislature, management had to agree to a one-year moratorium on outsourcing. This freeze on outsourcing will include existing buildings and those scheduled to open, notably the new College of Medicine Research Building.

State Budget Crisis Forms Backdrop to Contracting Out

The state budget is tight again this year, and the administration at UIC looked to balance their books on the backs of workers. The bosses in Facilities Maintenance know they can pay private cleaning workers $9.00 an hour with few benefits. Building Service Workers at UIC, after years of struggle, make over $14.00 an hour. Already, in a number of new buildings that have opened in the past 9 years on the Chicago campus, outside companies are being used. When they threatened to contract out the existing buildings, English, who is also a union steward with Local 73 SEIU (Service Employees International Unions), said, “It was the foot in the door for privatizing all our jobs. We had to stop it.”

Bill Silver, Division Director for Higher Education for Local 73, explained, “Since 2001, at least 75 positions have been cut from Building Services. Everyone left has been doing two or three peoples’ work. UIC has saved several million dollars a year from these cuts. That’s bad enough. Now they’re threatening the jobs of the people that have already given extra. It’s just not fair.”

In March, management announced their intent to contract out three existing buildings. The announcement came as a surprise to the union. “We had never received any indication from management that there was any problem with the work in those buildings,” said Silver. By late May, the workers had scored a victory by beating back this attack. This came about when Local 73 President Christine Boardman and Bill Silver met with University of Illinois president James Stukel.

That meeting resulted in an agreement to work together to win more money from the state for UIC. One effort will be an amendment to restore funding cut from the previous year’s budget.

The moratorium on outsourcing came because of the strength of the union, shown last year in its efforts to cut bloated administrative salaries; and shown this year in the unity of the workers in opposition to the privatization threat. Local 73 also laid the groundwork when they helped launch a coalition with the Illinois Federation of Teachers to fight for more money for higher education.

Workers and Allies Rally Together

The unity needed to win this agreement came through mass protests by Local 73 workers, together with allies that included other unions. SEIU allies in the state Senate also introduced a bill to ban privatization at state universities.

On April 14, over 120 workers and students marched to the office of UIC Chancellor Manning to deliver a letter opposing the privatization move. Most of these workers were from the second shift, who came in hours early to march. The spirited march gathered strength as it moved across campus, right as students were spilling out of classrooms. An entire writing class fell in line behind the marchers and interviewed dozens of workers about the reasons for the protest.

At the same time, on the Medical Center campus, over 100 Building Service Workers, hospital housekeepers, transporters and other workers showed their solidarity through a ‘Purple Day,’ by wearing purple armbands. “Purple is SEIU’s color, and Purple Day was a big success,” reported Greg Hardison, a steward in Hospital Housekeeping and one of the organizers.

The plan for the armbands was hatched by lunchtime meetings in the hospital cafeteria. “We met right where management could see us,” said steward Randy Evans, after 65 workers finished conferring. “The workers needed to be informed about the union’s efforts against contracting out our jobs.”

Other Unions Under Attack

Mike Malone, business agent for Local 726 of the Teamsters was among those who joined the Local 73 rally and march. Local 726 represents movers and drivers at UIC, and they have been threatened with outsourcing as well. Two weeks earlier, Local 726 workers had joined a picket line called by Teamsters Local 705 to protest scab movers handling UIC work. Local 705 had called an unfair labor practices strike against UIC for contracting out to a private firm that was unionized, which then subcontracted to a scab outfit. As a result of the Teamsters joint picket, UIC has backed off, and the departments that were using the outside movers are having the work done in-house.

Over 50 Teamsters on campus signed a petition in support of Local 73’s fight against privatizing, as did 65 members of the skilled trades unions. They too are being kept out of the new buildings that are going up on campus.

“We Can’t Rest.”

Local 73 steward Tawanda Vaughn addressed the rally at University Hall to, “Thank the students, graduate employees and the other unions that have rallied with us today. We will remember and support you in your struggles as well.”

Jeff McCaster, also a steward, spoke at a lunchtime meeting to report back to workers on the west side of campus. “We can’t rest. We got people moving, we have to keep them moving.” Looking ahead, he went on, “We should bring the work back in-house that has been privatized already. And we should demand they hire back more people.” This idea was warmly received by the second-shift workers in the lunchroom.

#ChicagoIL #News #SEIULocal73 #privatization #outsourcing #UniversityOfIllinoisAtChicagoUIC

Less than one year after the Teamsters struck UPS, another giant strike has shaken U.S. capitalism. With 180,000 workers, the battle at GM was the biggest strike in 20 years. More than 190,000 more workers were idled when two parts plants in Flint, Michigan, struck for 54 days and won, the first major auto strike since 1970. These strikes show the worker's movement continues to build in strength. Workers are on the move again!

Fight Back! interviewed Wendy Thompson, an activist in the New Directions movement in the UAW. She works at American Axle, a company that used to be part of General Motors, but that was sold off. She was the shop chair there, the top union officer in the plant.

Fight Back!: How did the nationwide GM strike start in Flint, Michigan?

Wendy Thompson: After many years of concessions, outsourcing, and downsizing, finally you had a group of workers who said they had enough. They decided to draw a line in the sand.

The corporation had made an agreement in writing for a large investment in the plants in Flint, and then reneged on it. If they don't invest in your plant, you know your plant is slated for closing.

The incident that caused the strike was the removal of dies on some machinery in the plant. The international union had been told by the corporation that they were going to remove these dies. But when it happened, the anger of the rank and file workers was so enormous, it forced the international to go along with the strike.

Fight Back!: What was the role of the national leadership of the UAW?

Thompson: No local union can go out on strike, even after the membership has voted to do so, without the international giving the OK. The international did so after seeing the anger from the ranks.

Fight Back!: Most of the workers that stopped work during this strike were 'downstream' from Flint. That is, their factories were closed because strikers in Flint stopped making parts for them. How did the workers 'downstream' react?

Thompson: The new system, called 'just in time,' means that workers that make parts only make them just before they are to go on the assembly line. They are not storing any parts anywhere in the system. They've closed a lot of warehouses, eliminated a lot of jobs, and saved a lot of money with this system. But, it makes the company very vulnerable to the workers. A parts plant, like the metal fab plant in Flint, can shut down the system almost immediately. They have built a system that depends on the workers going along. Now, that's not happening.

The other workers were very supportive because everybody has been facing the same thing – concessions, outsourcing, speed up in the plant.

Fight Back!: What do you think should be the lessons that unionists learn from this strike?

Thompson: The most important thing about this strike is it showed how much power workers have. Auto workers for years have been thinking, 'We don't really have the ability to change the situation of concessions and job loss.' Now that is changing to where people think, 'Maybe we can accomplish something.'

GM was also saying, 'We will not let workers have any say in our investment decisions.' And yet they agreed to a settlement in the strike that brought the dies back to the first plant. That got them to agree to the investment they had previously agreed on, and, at least for a while, take the one plant off the market. This is something that never happened when my plant was put on the market. The union just totally went along with it. A lot of people were upset with it at that time.

Finally, in the 1970s you had 75% of parts plants organized into the union, whereas today you have only 12%. What has caused that change? Outsourcing or plant closings. They'll sell a plant in one place and then they'll open it down South in a non-union environment, or in Mexico. Unless the plants in the South are organized into the union, we're going to continue to have a problem. That is a part of the solution. Organize the plants where the work moved to. Bring those workers into the union, bring their wages up to the level of the Big 3, and then there's no motivation for them to continue to move the work. [Similarly], we have to throw our support, including resources, to organize the plants in Mexico.

#UnitedStates #Interview #Interviews #AutoUnitedAutoWorkers #NewDirections #WendyThompson #GMStrike #outsourcing