On the picket line

SAG votes to reopen negotiations

The board of directors of the Screen Actors Guild voted Oct. 19 to call in a federal mediator to jump-start negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. SAG rejected AMPTP’s final offer Aug. 21 because of two issues: use of nonunion actors on Internet productions costing less than $15,000 a minute and no residuals (payment) for work used in new media. The board also voted to send out a strike authorization referendum to members if new negotiations do not produce a fair contract. (Guild news release, Oct. 19)

Milwaukee layoffs opposed

Chanting “No more cuts,” several hundred Milwaukee County workers rallied Oct. 15 against proposed layoffs of 339 maintenance, food service, housekeeping and building trades workers. The county executive wants to replace members of State, County and Municipal Employees’ District Council 48 with lower-paid, nonunion employees of private contractors. The union vows to fight privatization. (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Oct. 15)

Workers win two settlements

What do immigrant Chinese deliverymen at Saigon Grill restaurants in Manhattan and waiters, massage therapists and yoga instructors at luxury Canyon Ranch Spa in Lenox, Mass., have in common? The workers, who were stiffed out of wages or tips, just won million-dollar settlements.

On Oct. 21 a federal judge awarded $4.6 million in back pay and damages to 38 delivery workers based on blatant, systematic violations of minimum wage and overtime laws. Workers who were paid $520 a month for 260 hours of work—less than $2 an hour—are now eligible to collect up to $382,000 each, thanks to a suit brought by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. An advocacy group for immigrant workers, Justice Will Be Served, told the New York Times, that as a result of the case, “many restaurants have already started to pay their deliverymen much better.” (Oct. 22)

In one of the largest employee discrimination cases in Massachusetts history, Canyon Ranch Spa agreed to pay $14.75 million in unpaid tips to hundreds of employees who worked there from April 2004 to October 2007. The spa, which assessed an 18 percent service charge on all bills, told patrons that meant they didn’t need to tip, but then didn’t pass even a penny on to the workers. That violates a Massachusetts law that all services charges, gratuities and tips must be distributed to employees, including those who work outside restaurants. (New York Times, Oct. 24)

CWA sues AT&T over ‘shell game’ contracts

On Oct. 23 the Communication Workers filed a lawsuit against AT&T Inc. and 29 of its major subsidiaries “in an attempt to halt the company’s use of corporate shell games to avoid contractual obligations to CWA and its members.” (CWA news release, Oct. 23) The lawsuit charges that the company is using consolidations and reorganizations to reassign workers in ways that threaten members’ contractual wages, benefits, seniority and working conditions. Charging that every major subsidiary is really an “alter ego of AT&T,” the lawsuit demands that AT&T be required to negotiate all issues that fall under its subsidiaries’ agreements.