In late August, members of UE Local 1008 employed by federal government contractors Northrop Grumman, Studley Professional Services (SPS), and Stanley Associates at a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service Center overwhelmingly ratified their first union contracts. The three-year contracts bring pay raises, establishment of basic union rights, better working conditions, and protection against future changes whether or not there are changes in the contractors operating the center.
After several days of discussion and debate, workers voted on August 26 and 27 to ratify the companies’ “last, best and final” contract offers. Over 80 percent of members participated in the contract votes. Among Northrop Grumman workers the vote to ratify was 90 to 5. Stanley workers voted yes by 112 to 35, and the SPS vote was 31-4. Through nine months of intensive struggle – including a difficult organizing campaign and extremely tough negotiation – members of UE Local 1008 recaptured much of the ground lost when the new employers imposed draconian cuts immediately after arriving last December. Despite ratifying the agreements by a margin of more than five to one, many members are looking ahead at continuing the fight to reclaim the rest of what was lost when Stanley and its subcontractors began operating the center.
The new agreement provides wage increases of as much as $1.91 over three years, depending on the worker’s classification. However, some workers who will receive raises totaling 17 percent still fell short of fully restoring the wage cuts made when Stanley took over last December. The agreements will protect workers from going through this again – should a new contractor take over one of the unionized facilities in the future, it would be required to continue the wages, benefits and conditions in the UE contract for at least a year following the change of employer.
For the largest classification of workers (General Clerk I), the contract provides a 10 percent wage increase ($1.07 more per hour) in the first year. For Data Entry Operator I, another large classification, the initial raise is 4.26 percent (48 cents.) For the other three classifications, the first-year raise is 3 percent. In both the second and third years, all bargaining unit employees will receive raises of 3.5 percent.
Workers gained union contract language that gives them the ability to build a strong organization that can fight for them every day in the workplace. These include a workable grievance procedure, no discipline without just cause, recognition by the employers of UE stewards, and union shop. The new contract guarantees existing benefits, and for Northrop Grumman workers, improves the 410(k).
“These workers can be proud that they fought hard and achieved much,” said UE Director of Organization Bob Kingsley. But while their new contract is better than many first union contracts nationwide, the workers still deserve much more he said. ”There is still work to do to win justice at USCIS,” he added. ”Our new members should view the new contract as a tool for continuing the fight for fairness at work and a stepping stone toward full restitution of the wages and benefits stolen from them before they had a union.”
Workers at the center – like the one in Vermont – are employed by private contractors doing federal government work processing citizenship and legal status papers for immigrants. Many of the California workers are immigrants themselves. They overcame nasty anti-union campaigns to vote their way into the union by big margins, in NLRB elections in February and March. Since then they have fought courageously for union contracts that would provide them a measure of justice and security. They have picketed, worn buttons, marched, signed petitions, sent delegations to management, met with members of Congress, and coordinated their actions in solidarity with their fellow workers in Vermont. One day after overwhelmingly rejecting the companies’ first “final offer” on July 30, workers walked off the job and conducted a six-hour strike.
Charlie Ith, a data entry clerk employed by Stanley, has been at the USCIS Center for five years, says some members “don’t feel that good” about the amount of raises or the fact that the raises are percentages rather than “a fixed number.” But he tells people, “If you don’t have a contract things can be much worse. You are dangling up in the air” and the employer can take more from you. “I tell people that you now got money that we didn’t have before, plus the freedom of speech inside the building that we never had before. You could not say anything bad about management, and you could not resist them. You could be fired the next day. Now, I can say what I want about Stanley, as long as it’s the truth. People might not realize this, or they might forget how it was before.
“Some people said, ‘Give Stanley a chance,’” before the organizing campaign got fully underway, recalls Laura Guzman, an SPS employee who’s been at the service center since March 2000. “But I said, no, they had their chance, and they took away our personal time and knocked down our salaries. People with five years and less, they demoted them. How can you take away a person’s pay who’s been there five years, and tell them they have no experience?”
Chau Bui, who works for Stanley Associates, recounts the militant action that workers undertook together. “We had T-shirt days, button days, we picketed and we had a work stoppage. On days of negotiations, we chanted loudly in the plant. We are well organized. Although it’s not as much as we expected, it is a victory. We have established the concept of human rights.”
“The most important thing we gained is the union shop, says Quy Ngo, who’s worked for Northrop Grumman for the past year and is a veteran of the South Vietnamese army. “We have to be strong to pressure the company in the future.” He recalled a Vietnamese proverb, “You have to run forwards, you cannot run backwards.”
Workers are continuing to build their union, and on September 24 overwhelmingly voted to approve their local constitution. Soon they will elect local officers.
The Stanley bargaining committee consisted of Sarah Beard, Chau Kim Bui, Daphne Carreon, Elena Cortez-Smith, Luan Dang, Joel Faypon and Chhay (Charlie) Ith. The bargaining committee at Northrop Grumman was Quy Ngo, Cornelio Padilla and Henri Tran. The union committee for SPS was Adam Chacon, Noemi Dickerhoff and Blanca Esposito. They were assisted by UE International Reps. Leanna Noble and Kim Lawson, Field Organizers John Thompson and Alexandra Huerta Camacho, Project Organizer Rafal Dobrowolski, Western Region Pres. Carl Rosen, UE Director of Organization Bob Kingsley and Secretary-Treasurer Bruce Klipple.