PREZ REPORT 7/7/99

CONTRACT BOOKS ARRIVED

Enough contract books for every Local member arrived yesterday by mail.  
Today we're going to label each book with individuals' names and distribute 
them.

There are also spiral bound contract books for stewards and officers -- one 
per steward/officer please.

I will be taking contract books to Dickson Street and Annex today.  Donny 
Tisdale, please help distribute them the next day.  (They will all have names 
on them.)

Please study your contracts; highlight important parts to you.  Keep them in 
your lockers in easy grasp when incidents occur.  We leaders and stewards 
don't know it all; we need checked by the members.  Please help us monitor 
contract compliance.  The more we know, the more we grow.....  The atmosphere 
can only be improved by more knowledge of our rights.


Had conversation this morning with Rev. Rhett Baird, pastor, Unitarian Church 
in Fayetteville, who's helping movement to restore 31 University jobs lost 
last month.

University supposedly is giving press conference today to report 31 jobs have 
been restored (we shall see).  The scene was this:  31 people were terminated 
at the University because of a "budget crunch" in the physical plant.   
University Administration (Chancellor White) claimed budget for physical 
plant had gone up 20% in 10 years (wow!) and therefore they had to "trim" 
somewhere.  (It's not like they increased building square footage 100% in 
that time-frame or anything like that.  Right!)  So, they chose axing the 
workers who'd been there for years.  Meanwhile they gave the boss of the 
physical plant a huge raise and bonus at the same time they threw the workers 
out on the streets.  Get the picture?  (America the Pitiful!  Where wealth is 
more & more concentrated in the hands of few.)

So, people all over town were up in arms, held rallies and pickets, etc.  
AFL-CIO got involved and teachers' unions.  We're the johnny-come-lately of 
the pack, obviously.  So, the state legislature caught a whif of what's going 
on and pressured Chancellor White to do something.  Today supposedly the jobs 
will be reinstated.  But it should have taught the workers a valuable lesson: 
 UNITE!  The people that do the work and keep things running need to always 
be on guard against the so-called privileged class who are bent on exploiting 
the worker so they can pad their own salaries, receive extravagant bonuses 
for cutting the working man/woman, then claiming they're the sole proprietors 
of efficiency.  How deceitful and warped their minds!

University employees (physical plant) are trying to form a union that will 
become bargaining unit as a result of these unjust firings.  There are some 
obstacles in their situation, namely they are STATE employees with limited 
bargaining rights.  National Labor Relations Act of 1932 doesn't fit much of 
states' jurisdiction.  However, there ARE laws out there to protect......  
Workers just need contact with sources of information, such as labor attorney 
for AFL-CIO, who knows lots more than we do on how to deal with this.

I asked Rev. Baird how we could help as APWU, he suggested we attend meeting 
of JUSTICE FOR JOBS (might have got this title backwards) next Tuesday at 
5:30 pm at Jones Center in Springdale.  He said David Garcia and Steve 
Richey, organizers of the campaign, will be there.  As many of as can need to 
be there to show our solidarity and lend our support in the way of organizing 
tools & skills.