Immigration workers vote yes for union

On Feb. 1 contract workers employed by Northrup Grumman at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in St. Albans, Vt., voted overwhelmingly to be represented by the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE). This followed on the heels of a vote the day before when contract workers employed by Choctaw Archiving at the same USCIS service center voted in UE.

Workers celebrate UE union victory in St. Albans Feb. 2 Photo: UE

These workers, almost all women, on top of not seeing a cost-of-living wage increase in over six years, had recently suffered pay cuts of $1.70 per hour along with ineffective health insurance during the month of December and loss of five paid personal days after the new contractors took over the USCIS Vermont Service Center on Dec. 3.

This is part of a national trend to privatize public-sector jobs in order to combat higher unionization rates in this sector. The most recent Bureau of Labor statistics show that unions represent 35.9 percent of public-sector workers and only 7.5 percent of private-sector workers.

The USCIS has four service centers throughout the country, which are rewarded as political plums to senior legislators, ostensibly to bring more jobs to an area. Sen. Patrick Leahy is responsible for bringing the service center to Vermont. Workers at the California service center are employed by the same prime contractor, Stanley & Associates. They too received hefty pay cuts and a slash in benefits when Stanley took over and are also currently being organized by the UE.

The other two service centers, one outside Dallas, and the other in Lincoln, Neb., are currently being contracted out to SI International and are undergoing similar cuts. Until December, all four service centers were controlled by one prime contractor, but recently, in a classic move to divide and conquer, not only are there many subcontractors at each site, there are now two prime contractors, each in charge of two service centers.

Excited about the union election victory, Choctaw worker Sharon Bigelow stated, “Ever since these subcontracted jobs have been put out to the ‘best bid’ it has only been the big businesses that have profited from it. Each time the contract changes the workers get less and less.” She continued about the drive for profits, stating, “These big companies say they care and want to work with us. ... They only care about the multimillion dollar contracts and how much can be made.”

The three-year, $225 million contract awarded to Stanley was given on the basis that they subcontract part of the work to a small business and another small part to an oppressed-nationality-owned business, thus Choctaw Archiving and Federal Working Group.

Yet the lion’s share of the booty is being kept for Stanley and Northrup Grumman, reaping the surplus value from the labor of a large majority of the contract workers in both Vermont and California. Both companies are multimillion dollar, transnational corporations run by ex-Navy and ex-Air Force brass.

Last year, CEO of Stanley & Associates, Philip Nolan, cashed in on salary, bonus and stock options worth more than $7 million by slashing the wages and benefits of contract workers. Stanley workers at the Vermont Service Center have finally stood up and said NO MORE!

Citing the hardship workers are facing due to the rising cost of living and the need for justice, Northrup Grumman worker Nadene Wetherby told the local newspaper, the St. Albans Messenger, “Someday soon, you will see a workers’ revolution in this country if the government continues to allow big business to bully employees. We live in a state that ranks dead last in the economic scale [referring to ratio of cost of living to wages]. We face rising costs for everything—groceries, gas, home heating fuel, electricity—all of which are essential for our well-being.” She continued about her efforts to unionize, stating,  “We cannot tolerate the fact that multimillion dollar companies get richer while we are getting poor and working harder than ever. ... We can do something about it. There is power in numbers!”

Now that 200 of the 350 workers at the Vermont Service Center have voted in the union, workers for the prime contractor, Stanley, will be voting in a few weeks, the exact date yet to be determined by the National Labor Relations Board. Meanwhile, more than 600 workers in California are waiting their turn to vote in the union. Their election date is set for Feb. 27.

Northrup Grumman worker Laurie Gadaous comments, “As Martin Luther King Jr. stated, ‘I have a dream,’ of wages restored, some personal time, vacation time, 401K and all other benefits having this union will bring. We must stand united to win.”