Big Kansas City Organizing Win—First at GE in 10 Years (after seeing a co-worker die) [View all]

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.ibew.org/articles/12Daily/1202/120201_GE_Win.htm

After three failed organizing campaigns in almost four years in Kansas City, Mo., General Electric Transportation’s managers might have thought they had unions licked. That all changed on Jan. 27 when workers voted 44 to 41for representation by Kansas City Local 1464. It is the first organizing victory at GE in 10 years.

GE tapped internal and outside union busting experts to defeat the drive at the four year-old plant. But workers said the company’s own broken promises weighed more than the mud they threw. Delayed wage increases and higher co-pays for prescriptions led the list.

But, after seeing a co-worker die in 2010 after having his legs crushed on the job, the plant workers, who rebuild railroad traction motors, were just as sick of having complaints over working conditions ignored and frustrated with rampant favoritism in the plant.

Jeff Crosby is a longtime IUE-CWA leader at a large GE plant in Lynn, Mass. and an AFL-CIO blogger. Now retired, but still organizing GE plants, Crosby says: Congratulations to IBEW. This is a huge win. The last workplace organized at GE was 10 years ago—a small service shop in Florida. And the last win at a big plant was 25 to 30 years ago.

FULL story at link.

I'm home from work today sick. I'll catch hell from the cave dwellers since I said I would be away following a family tragedy yesterday.