Published 22 Nov, 2013
Thursday night, 20 Rail Car Cleaners employed by Harvard Services Group voted to join TWU Local 229 in Hoboken, NJ. The win marks the Local’s second representation election victory this month, coming on the heels of a yes vote from 47 Car Mechanics at ALL-TECH, also a subcontractor for Hudson-Bergen Light Rail.
“They were being abused and underpaid,” said Local 229 President Joe DelliSanti. “I expect that we’ll get them more money in the contract negotiations. But I don’t think money was the underlying reason down here — it’s the way they were treated. One of the guys after the election told me, ‘They ‘re finally going to treat me like a human being.’ That’s what they want — to be treated with respect and dignity like they should be.”
Almost every worker in the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail system (HBLR) is a member of TWU Local 229, from Train Operators to Maintenance of Way. “I’ve been trying for 13 years to bring the people who fix the rail cars into our union. But with the car shop, whenever management got wind of the fact that the workers were about to organize, they’d switch over the contract to a different car company. People on the outside need to realize what employers do just to keep the union out. This is what we’re up against.”
The ALL-TECH election win on November 12 puts an end to management’s campaign of worker intimidation, which spanned more than a decade and three TWU organizing campaigns. “Every other time we tried to organize, they fired the people trying to get cards signed. That scared off the rest of the workers. This time, we managed to get it done. We had a couple principal organizers down here, guys who put their jobs on the line.”
While Local 229’s work with ALL-TECH and Harvard Services Group employees has shifted gears with contract negotiations on the horizon, the Local’s organizing work is far from over. There are still workers at the car shop without union representation — employees of another HBLR subcontractor. “Like anything else, with these elections behind us, we’re thinking we might be seeing the domino effect. This might be the final thing that will get everyone downstairs [in the car shop]. We think it’ll be a union shop before long.”
“The members we just unionized, they stuck their necks out,” said Joe. “They’d had enough of the conditions of working as at-will employees. We promised them only two things: right to self-determination and a collective bargaining process. At ALL-TECH, management would just go down there and if they didn’t like you, they would tap you on the shoulder and lay you off. And the next day they’d have someone else in your place. We told them that’s what the union puts an end to.”
In every shop where workers go head to head with their management, leaders emerge who put their livelihoods on the line and are ready to take the fall if the organizing campaign proves unsuccessful. At ALL-TECH, a number of workers displayed tremendous courage and fortitude. “I want to talk about John Moore,” said Joe. “He’s an ALL-TECH mechanic that we just unionized. Since we started to get cards signed in August, he stayed late into the night and got there early in the morning. He was there spotting for us and sticking his neck out. He would have been the first one they axed if we didn’t win. I’m proud of what he did for his brothers and sisters.”
“This is a great example of the type of grassroots effort talked about at the Convention,” said Transit Division Director Jerome Lafragola. “Local 229 saw workers who needed help. They did the research, worked with the International, and went out with their own officers and volunteers. In the end, those elections were won through determination and volunteerism.”