By Doug Cunningham

The Service Employees International Union scored an organizing victory in the south this week. The HCA hospital chain in Florida has agreed to a contract for 4,000 workers. Monica Russo, President of SEIU’s Florida Healthcare union. Says this is the biggest organizing win ever in private sector health care in the south. Workers will get an increase in wages and committees will be created for worker input on staffing for patient care.

By Doug Cunningham

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers deals with Taco Bell and McDonald’s to pay workers more money for harvested tomatoes could be in trouble. The Florida Tomato Exchange, a grower group that controls 90 percent of tomatoes shipments from Florida, is urging its members not to honor the labor deal that puts a penny more per pound of tomatoes harvested into workers’ pockets.

By Doug Cunningham

Miami’s City Council has passed a resolution urging Congress to enact the Employee Free Choice Act. The labor law reform allows workers to join unions by signing NLRB-certified cards, neutralizing the campaign of fear and intimidation employers often mount in traditional union elections. Miami’s is the 41st resolution passed by a state or local government this year in support of the Employee Free Choice Act.

By Doug Cunningham

The AFL-CIO and allied groups are calling on Florida’s Attorney General – who is now running for governor - to investigate and prosecute widespread police brutality and civil liberties abuses during the 2003 Miami protests against the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement. Rich Templin of the Florida AFL-CIO says two independent panels investigated and found that civil liberties were clearly trampled and there was department-wide police brutality against the working families protesting the trade agreement. Templin says the paramilitary police attack on the Miami FTAA peaceful protest was an appalling assault on the constitutional right of the people to peaceably assemble and protest.

By Jesse Russell

A concrete contractor in Miami is being targeted for allegedly violating numerous labor laws. The South Florida Carpenters Regional Council alleges that Capform has violated labor laws ranging from unfair hiring practices to evading federal taxes during construction of a new downtown courthouse. At the union's behest, four congressmen have requested an investigation into Capform by the General Services Administration. The contractor has also been bringing in workers from Texas instead of utilizing local labor.

By Jesse Russell

Nearly 100 striking workers at the University of Miami have called off a two-month long strike. The workers have come to an agreement with their employer, UNICCO Service Company. The university had agreed to the janitor’s original demands to raise the minimum wages of contract employees nearly a month ago, but the strike continued on allegations of unfair labor practices and a desire to have union representation. Unico has agreed to allow the janitors to choose whether or not they want to form a union. The workers return to work this morning.

By Doug Cunningham

[Rev. C.J. Hawking 1]: “This is the moment for Miami, for the south, for immigrant workers to stand up and be counted and get out of the apartheid system that we seem to have adopted, especially in Miami. This is the beginning of a social movement. It’s a very, very exciting time and people are drawing a line in the sand here.”

The Reverend C.J. Hawking of the South Florida Interfaith Alliance for Worker Justice. As janitors at the University of Miami continue their struggle to have their union recognized through a card check, the university
Administration is cracking down on students and others on campus who support the workers. Reverend Hawking says the faith community is an important pillar of support for the justice these workers seek in organizing.

By Doug Cunningham

Miami’s faith community is holding a rally and prayer vigil on the University of Miami campus to support striking janitors. Sara Shapiro of the South Florida Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice.

[Sara Shapiro]: “This is really an issue of human rights. If they decide that they want the union and they want to organize and this is something that they so desire, who are we to say that they can’t have it in that way? Who are we to stand up to what the workers have voted in?”

The janitors want their card check unionization with SEIU recognized by the University of Miami.

WIN's Doug Cunningham stumbles into a "vast liberal conspiracy" on the Thom Hartmann program as listeners are urged to call University of Miami President and former Clinton cabinet secretary Donna Shalala about the janitor's strike at UM. Cunningham expresses moral outrrage that there are still working poor people in a 21st Century America that pays an oil exec $400 million in retirement. (Go to WIN's Raw Audio page - upper left corner of home page - to listen)

By Doug Cunningham

University of Miami janitors are continuing a hunger strike, with four of them sent to the hospital as a result of the strike. Janitors on campus work for UNICCO and the SEIU is trying to get UNICCO to agree to a card check for union representation for the janitors. The hunger strike continues to draw support from around the country, but so far UNICCO won’t agree to the card check. UM President Donna Shalala has also refused to insist that UNICCO agree to the card check, even though UNICCO has agreed to card checks in other places around the country. On Wednesday Charles Steele Junior, head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, came to support the striking janitors – some of whom are paid less than 7 dollars an hour.

By Doug Cunningham

Pressure is mounting on University of Miami President and former Clinton administration cabinet member Donna Shalala to intercede with a campus contractor on behalf of striking janitors. Some two hundred janitors employed by UNICCO are on strike. Some of the janitors employed by Unicco continued a hunger strike through the Easter weekend. Former Congressman David Bonior, who now heads American Rights At Work, went to Miami on Good Friday to call on Shalala to support the striking janitors. Over the Easter weekend, a fourth hunger-striking worker was hospitalized. Janitors at the University of Miami are fighting to form a union and improve their wages and working conditions. Janitors on that campus make as little as $13,000 a year with no health benefits, according to the Service Employees International Union. SEIU says other janitors working for UNICCO –at Harvard for example – earn between $13 and $14 an hour and have fully paid health insurance. The janitors on a hunger strike to win justice on the job are at a critical stage risking their health as the struggle for basic workplace justice continues at the University of Miami.

The SEIU is in the midst of a major organizing campaign to represent thousands of condominium workers employed by Continental Group in Miami. Rob Schuler, President and Organizing Director of SEIU Local 11, says Continental is running an aggressive anti-union campaign trying to intimidate workers into rejecting the union.

[Rob Schuler 1]: "They've reacted by, you know, in typical fashion. By firin' people, threatening people, intimidating, transferring them, finding excuses to get rid of 'em."

Employees at a major sugar producer went on strike yesterday after contract negotiations stalled. Nearly 650 Florida Crystal Corporation workers in Palm Beach County walked off the job over proposals to outsource the companies hauling jobs, eliminate overtime pay and raise copays for health benefits. Represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, striking employees watched from the picket lines yesterday as nonunion employees were bussed in to keep the plant running. The company says that the market is uncertain and in order to remain competitive it has to make some unpopular decisions. Both sides say they wish to return to the negotiation table as soon as possible.

As Ohio and New Hampshire prepare for a vote recount, a research team at University of California - Berkeley has turned its attention to studying voting results in the state of Florida. According to sociology professor Michael Hout, who headed the research team, the study reveals that electronic voting machines in Florida may have awarded between 130,000 and 260,000 excess votes to George W. Bush.

[Hout 1] : Discrepancies as large or larger than the ones we observed could occur by chance less than one time in a thousand.

The three counties where the anomalies were most prevalent are also traditionally the most Democratic : Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade. Based on statistics gathered from other counties that do not use electronic voting, the statistical pattern predicted a decrease of more than 18,000 votes in those counties combined. But in the end, Bush received a net gain of 159,000 votes. Hout says his team isn't calling the anomalies in Florida voter fraud, but for the sake of the future of voting something needs to be done. He says that with no paper trail, the statistical approach is the only way to determine if something is wrong with the electronic voting machines.

[1 sec. of sorting machine sound - fade]

Many out-of-state Florida voters are out-of-luck. After losing 56,000 absentee ballots, Broward County and West Palm Beach elections officials dropped off 8,000 replacement ballots to postal workers on Saturday. Many of the ballots arrived unsealed and had to be taped by hand.

Postal employees scrambled to get the ballots in mailboxes by Nov. 1st, leaving state residents until 7 pm today to return them to elections offices.

Gerald McKiernan, spokesperson for the US Postal Service.

[McKiernan1] "Some of these ballots are going to Atlanta, Georgia. This one's going to Little Rock, Arkansas - I'm not sure we can do this. We'll deliver the local ones. We'll do the best we can. We'll get out the local ones and hopefully we'll get them returned."

Locating the owner of a glass slipper in not the most pressing matter in the Magic Kingdom these days. At the grand opening of a new World of Disney store in New York City, more than 60 members of the Service Trades Council Union that represents workers ranging from ticket-takers to costumed characters at Disney parks and hotels in Florida, handed out leaflets complaining of drawnout negotiations with park officials. Negotiations have been going on for more than six months. The employees are concerned as the contract eliminates some overtime benefits, increases health care costs and eliminates a pension plan for new hires.

Contract negotiations are preventing work crews from Alabama Power from assisting in the Florida clean-up in the aftermath of Hurricane Charley. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers have voted to give the power company 48-hours notice if a breakdown in negotiations lead to a strike. A representative of the company said it would be unfair to Floridians if they sent workers that may be affected by a work stoppage.

Walt Disney Entertainment, with total profits over $1 billion, was fined $6,300 for the death of Javier Cruz. Cruz was crushed under a float in the Magic Kingdom parade as the foot of the Pluto costume he was wearing got caught between the second and third sections of a three-part float. Disney's spokesperson said the company would review its safety procedures.