SANDPOINT NURSES MAY LEAD
IDAHO WORKERS IN A NEW DIRECTION

By Nick Gier, President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFT/AFL-CIO

This column is dedicated to late Utah Phillips, great folk singer and union activist

I wish to congratulate the nurses at Bonner General Hospital (BGH) on the successful negotiation of their 2-year union contract.  Union membership in America last year was up for the first time since 1983, so I hope that these brave nurses are a sign that more Idaho workers will exercise their right of self-determination in the workplace.

Citing low wages and lack of job security, a majority of BGH nurses voted for collective bargaining in August of 2006.  Initially BGH administrators refused to recognize the union, Local 690 of the Teamsters, a 105-year-old labor organization representing 1.4 million workers in the U.S. and Canada.  After being charged with bad faith bargaining, the hospital administration finally sat down at the bargaining table.

Anti-union forces in Idaho have been very confident since GOP legislators overrode Governor John Evans veto of their "right-to-work" law in 1986.  I place scare quotes around "right-to-work" because its supporters are much more concerned about business rights than worker rights. It is no coincidence that wages in "right-to-work-for-less" states are the lowest in the nation.

Most states allow unions to collect dues from every worker in the bargaining unit, so I hope that the Sandpoint nurses are successful in soliciting voluntary dues. It is so tempting to be a "free rider" and enjoy the benefits of collective bargaining without having to pay for them.  We pay taxes for what our representatives in Washington do for us, so it is only fair that workers pay union dues for the benefits they receive. 

All growers in Idaho have to join their respective commodities groups, so what is good for the business goose is also good for the union gander.  As the Lewiston Tribune's Bill Hall once quipped: "What is the difference between compulsory potatoism and compulsory unionism?"

 Since my retirement from the University of Idaho in 2003, I've had more time to devote to my duties as president of the Idaho Federation of Teachers (IFT), which is affiliated with the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO.  The Idaho Education Association (IEA), with 12,230 members in 2007, is affiliated with the National Education Association, which, with 3.4 million members, is America's largest labor union.

The IEA has represented Idaho's teachers very well since 1892, so my union has chosen to focus on higher education instead.  Since 2004 the IFT has doubled its membership on all six college and university campuses. 

In contrast to Idaho's K-12 teachers, higher education faculty have no legal right to collective bargaining.  Our administrators can ignore our requests to unionize just as BGH officials tried to do with their nurses.  It's too bad that it takes the force of law to make people do the right thing.

Instead of negotiating salaries, the IFT has focused on faculty grievances, handling over 100 cases since 1974.  We settle most of the issues without having to go to court, but when we have been forced to do so, we have won 9 out of 11 major cases with settlements totaling over $2 million.

While union membership has declined among private workers, it has risen dramatically among public employees, 38 percent of whom are now union contract. That includes 75 percent of all K-12 teachers and one third of all higher education faculty. These numbers would be much higher if 27 states, Idaho among them, did not deny bargaining rights to state workers.

While union membership in Idaho's private sector is only five percent of the workforce, the IEA now represents 70 percent of Idaho's K-12 teachers. Higher education faculty are excluded from Idaho's Teachers Negotiation Act, but the IFT still maintains a 10 percent membership, which is actually a high rate when bargaining is not allowed.

In 1976 faculty on all four university campuses voted (2-1 at the University of Idaho) for collective bargaining legislation.  The IFT wrote a public employee bargaining bill and introduced it in the 1977 Idaho Legislature.  It lost on a tie vote in the Senate HEW Committee.

New faculty union members have convinced me that we should try again, so I asked Tom Trail (R-Moscow) and Shirley Ringo (D-Moscow) to introduce a bill allowing Idaho's faculty to vote on collective bargaining.  Constructive criticism from the Attorney General's office came too late for our national office to help us re-write the bill.  It will be re-introduced next year.

Idaho's higher education faculty have already expressed their opinions about the right of self-determination in the workplace. On Feb. 11 the ISU Faculty Senate voted 23-4 to support the IFT collective bargaining bill. The NIC Faculty Assembly vote was 44 in favor, none against, and 6 abstentions. The vote in the BSU Faculty Senate was 21-4, and the LCSC Faculty Association passed it 57-8.

The vote at LCSC was symbolic in two senses.  First, it was held on May 1, the international day for worker's rights; and second, one of the LCSC professors wore an IWW T-shirt.  The International Workers of the World, affectionately known as the Wobblies, was a no nonsense, hard-hitting union at the turn of the century.  With the mine owners hiring Pinkerton detectives and spies, the early unions responded in kind.  Utah Phillips' spirit embodied all that these pioneer unionists fought and stood for.

The Wobblies, along with the Western Federation of Miners, were active in the Idaho mines and established the foundation of the Idaho union movement.  Steel workers, boilermakers, machinists, operating engineers, bricklayers, and rail workers followed in their wake and built strong unions.

 We are confident that the workers of Idaho will once again unite and stop the decline of wages here and across the nation.  Each year worker productivity increases, but real income for these hard working men and women has dropped 2 percent between 2000 and 2005.

The right to bargain collectively is about dignity, respect, and self-determination.  Basically, it is representative democracy in the workplace. The greatest irony is that those who are responsible for preparing young people for life in a democracy society work in institutions that have been, before the onset of collective bargaining, thoroughly undemocratic.