Peckham boasts to low-paid staff of 2011 profits: over $15 million!

Huelga General

Informational Picket at Dominos Farms, Ann Arbor, Saturday, Sept. 15 1-3pm

The Dominos Workers Solidarity Campaign (North America), in solidarity
with the Australian General Transport Workers Association and the
Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation-IWA, is appealing to you and your
members to support the delivery drivers employed by Domino’s Pizza
Enterprises in Australia on Saturday, September 15th.

Since the Ann Arbor, MI is Dominos world headquarters,
North Americans can play a key and important role in
helping our sister and fellow Australians work out.

The Issues:

The Domino’s drivers have been engaged in a dispute with management
since 9th of April. The key issue in this struggle has been an
overnight 19% wage reduction. Meanwhile, the drivers have been sold
out by their current union, the SDA, which has done nothing to fight
the cuts. The GTWA and the ASF-IWA are calling for an International
Day of Solidarity with the Domino’s Drivers on Saturday, September 15,
2012.

The Aim:

The aim of the Day is to alert Domino’s management that workers and
members of the community in North America and elsewhere stand in
solidarity with the Australian delivery drivers in their struggle
against the wage cut and in support of their right to organize under
the banner of the General Transport Workers Association (GTWA). The
GWTA Facebook page can be viewed here:
http://www.facebook.com/GeneralTransportWorkersAssociation

What shall we be doing that day?

The Australian friends are asking that folks engage in peaceful
Informational picketing, informational leafleting and other peaceful
Activities aimed at informing local management and workers about the Australian
dispute. It is hoped that the local stores will report to corporate
headquarters about the informational activities and this would put
pressure on the company.

The informational picketing can be both large and small.

Some other ideas which have been discussed are:

– Outreach to workers at local Domino’s location a few days in
advance, let them know you will not be protesting them.

– Informational Picket outside of Domino’s locations, hand out
available solidarity fliers. Team up with local workers and activist
organizations like Occupy.

– Make sure if you do an informational picket to start up a tip jar
for the workers.

– You could also have a DJ or Dance party as part of picket to make it
fun. Cook up pizzas.

– Participate in a Phone Zap to every single Domino’s store, personal
cell phones of executives, home phones, management training centers,
etc (Coordinate this with a Text Loop/Spredsheet)

In the end:

The goal is informational actions with the main point to have Domino’s
restore the 19% wage reduction and recognize the GWTA as the drivers
union. Please contact us if you are interested in participating with
us in a coordinated effort to support the Brisbane and Adelaide
drivers.

We look forward to your positive reply and cooperatively working
together to make this Domino’s Drivers Solidarity Day a success here
in North America.

Yours in solidarity,
Dominos Workers Solidarity Campaign

dominosworkersolidarity@gmail.com
http://www.facebook.com/dominos.workersolidarity

Peckham involved in scandal that caused a complete overhaul of the federal voc-rehab programs

In the course of our investigation of Peckham Vocational Industries we discovered that Peckham was prominently feature in the series of scandals that prompted a complete overhaul of the federal programs designed to provide employment help for people with disabilities. The following is from a series of articles published by the Oregonian that brought the wrongdoing to the attention of the authorities.

Published: Friday, November 17, 2006, 12:27 PM
Updated: Wednesday, August 15, 2007, 12:27 PM

Mark Friesen, The Oregonian

Congress is moving to overhaul the nation’s leading job program for Americans with severe disabilities amid an investigation of financial fraud at its top
Contractor and the discovery of violations at other charities.

A U.S. Senate committee is drafting bipartisan legislation to overhaul the $2 billion-a-year Javits-Wagner-O’Day program, while the tiny government agency
that oversees it has already enacted some reforms and intends to propose tougher measures in coming months to protect the program’s 48,000 workers and
taxpayers from abuses.

The changes follow an investigation by The Oregonian into the program, which was designed to create jobs for blind and severely disabled workers. The newspaper in March reported skyrocketing executive pay at major charities in the program at the same time they increasingly hired workers with only mild disabilities or none at all.

Since then, the former president of a Texas charity that was the federal program’s top contractor is under criminal investigation. His nonprofit has sued him for $30 million, alleging embezzlement.

The presidentially appointed committee that oversees the program has adopted a new strategic plan that calls for accountability in the wake of the problems. It also launched audits to determine whether other big charity contractors were using enough workers with severe disabilities to qualify for the government contracts.

Under the 35-year-old program, charities can get guaranteed contracts to provide such things as janitorial or food services, military clothing or other goods to federal agencies. To be eligible, 75 percent of the labor must be performed by people with severe disabilities. More than 600 nonprofits from Oregon to Maine participate.
The oversight panel for the program, now being renamed AbilityOne, elected two people with disabilities to its top leadership slots.

“This program is now under public scrutiny,” said Jim Omvig, the new vice-chairman, who is blind. “The press is watching. That’s going to mean Congress
is watching more closely than it ever has.”

In Congress, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., the incoming chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said he intends to introduce reform legislation next year. The bipartisan measure would be an extension of a proposal that the outgoing chairman, Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., has been working on for more than a year.

Series uncovers problems

The bulk of changes came after publication of The Oregonian’s two-part series showing how surges in military contracts had doubled program sales in recent
years. Chief executives at the top 50 contractors had seen their pay and benefits increase an average 57 percent to $248,287. Yet many workers at their nonprofits earned less than the minimum wage.

The stories also showed how workers with mild or nonexistent disabilities –such as nasal polyps and poor English –got jobs intended for people with severe disabilities, such as cerebral palsy and mental retardation.

The program’s two-year strategic plan, adopted in October, cites “increasing emphasis on governance, effective stewardship, and accountability, resulting
from negative media attention and critical scrutiny (to some extent warranted). . . . Both policy change and remedial public relations are necessary.”

For years, the agency has shared oversight with two nonprofit trade associations, one for blind workshops and a far larger group called NISH, formerly known as the National Industries for the Severely Handicapped. The groups take a commission on contracts and monitor disability compliance, a potential conflict of interest.

Recently, the program’s board voted to reduce maximum commissions paid to the groups. And NISH adopted new compliance practices, saying it would visit the
top 25 producing nonprofits annually instead of every three years and will increase the volume of records it reviews to verify the percentage of workers
who have severe disabilities.

After problems with disability ratios emerged at the biggest contractor in El Paso, the program dispatched auditors to other top contractors.

A Kentucky nonprofit was for a time the program’s second largest contractor with $100 million in business last year. In April, officials suspended Southeastern Kentucky Rehabilitation Industries after company officials acknowledged that only 54 percent of its federal contract work was performed by people with severe disabilities.

Tom Fields, the charity’s chief executive, said last week that his company has quit making chemical protective suits for the military under the program
because the job proved “too complex for our work force.”

Fields’ board of directors voted in recent months to reorganize the charity into two nonprofits and hired consultants to help document the disabilities
of its workers. The company’s current work force of nearly 600 people with severe disabilities performs 78 percent of the work on federal contracts, Fields said.

Fields said he recently imposed a companywide salary cap of $125,000. Many in Southeastern Kentucky criticized the charity after The Oregonian reported Fields’ pay and benefits in 2004 totaled nearly $500,000.

Michigan charity broke rules

The program also sanctioned another of its leading nonprofits, Peckham Vocational Industries, a Lansing, Mich., charity that projects $57 million in apparel revenues this year. (2007)

Peckham acknowledged violating rules in recent years by subcontracting production of military underwear. The move took 146,588 labor hours away from workers with severe disabilities, program officials calculated. Peckham has since ended the subcontract, instituted in-house training and hired a corporate lawyer to assist in contract reviews.

This summer, Advocacy and Resources Corporation, a Tennessee charity that packaged cooking oil and other food for the government, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Its former chief executive, Terri McRae, partly blamed ARC’s collapse on The Oregonian’s reports that she and Chief Operating Officer Tim Durm had together earned pay and benefits totaling more than $1 million in 2004.

McRae contends that news of their pay, which included retirement bonuses, prompted Department of Agriculture officials to contest the charity’s bid for
a higher cooking oil price. She said an impasse in negotiations caused credit problems, layoffs and the forced resignations of her and Durm.

A group of investors recently put down $1 million in hopes of keeping ARC afloat, according to Michael E. Collins, a Nashville lawyer who is the nonprofit’s federal bankruptcy trustee. The nonprofit has put more than a dozen people back to work in hopes of regaining some of its former food contracts.

“It will be a leaner, meaner ARC,” said Michael Barrett, a businessman helping to restore the nonprofit. Barrett, who uses a wheelchair, said he hopes to provide others with severe disabilities a chance to work.

Monitoring stepped up

For the first time in five years, the program’s oversight committee requested a budget increase from the Bush administration and received approval for $372,000 to hire compliance staff. The agency also drafted a guidebook that instructs charities how to document the disabling conditions that make them eligible for the program.

“We’re really going to tighten that up and have a much closer monitoring mechanism,” said Omvig, the committee’s vice-chairman.

In January, the agency plans to issue new nonprofit governance rules based on findings of coast-to-coast hearings held earlier this year that focused on
executive compensation limits, accuracy of their financial reports, board of director membership and conflict of interest policy.

The timetable for congressional action is unclear. The Senate committee last held a hearing about the program in October 2005 under Enzi’s chairmanship.
With Democrats taking over control of the Senate, Kennedy will be in charge.
Earlier, his staff issued a statement saying there is “a bipartisan agreement, that is supported by the advocacy community, that this program needs to be revamped and updated.”

On Thursday, Kennedy reiterated in an interview that he remains committed to reforms.

“We’ll get to it,” he said.

Bryan Denson: 503-294-7614;

bryandenson at news.oregonian.com

The Class War is underway, which side are you on?

NLRB Issues Charges Against Peckham Vocational Industries Inc.

On July 19, the National Labor Relations Board issued formal charges against Peckham Vocational Industries for their violations of workers legal rights. The charges specifically allege that Peckham managers spied on union organizers and threatened closure of the facility if workers decided to join the union. Fifteen (15) Peckham managers are mentioned by name in the charges.

 Peckham doesn’t bother to deny that they committed most of the acts referenced in the charges, instead they claim that the laws in question to do not apply to them. From their response: They “deny as untrue that these allegations relate to or that the acts involve any person who was or is an employee…” 

Their claim that no one involved is an “employee” is only further evidence of the cynicism of Peckham managers. The men and women involved are paid an hourly wage, are subject to the same federal, state, and local deductions as any other worker, can receive workman’s comp if injured on the job, can receive unemployment if laid-off…how can people who aren’t “employees” receive “unemployment”? Why does the company have workman’s comp insurance if they don’t employ anyone? How could a boss fire or lay off someone who isn’t an employee?

 

In fact there is no question that the workers at Peckham are employees. The NLRB clearly recognizes this or they wouldn’t have bothered to issue these charges. Peckham managers are pretending they aren’t for the sole purpose of denying Peckhamn workers the same rights as any other worker. It is just a continuation of the policy of segregation and exploitation that has made Peckham so very wealthy over the last few years, and has been a cornerstone of the sheltered workshop system since its beginning.

 It has to stop. We ask that you call, email or fax Peckham Vocational Industries CEO Mitchell Tomlinson and demand that he make a settlement of the charges, rehire terminated union organizers, and allow United Peckham Employees Association to represent the workers at Peckham Vocational Industries!

 Email: info@peckham.org

Phone: 517-316-4000

Fax: 517-316-4490

 

United Peckham Employees Association is an independent union of hourly workers at Peckham Vocational Industries. 

Together, no power on earth can stop us!

From National Guestworker Allaince

Louisiana guestworkers expose forced labor on Walmart supply chain
Crawfish workers report forced labor, discrimination, wage & hour violations to Dep’t of Labor

NEW ORLEANS, LA—Walmart supplier C.J.’s Seafood has subjected 40 Mexican guestworkers on H-2B visas to forced labor, wage and hour violations, and discrimination, according to a worker complaint to the Department of Labor to be filed on June 6. The workers detailed their charges and called on Walmart to eliminate forced labor among its crawfish suppliers at a press conference at a New Orleans-area Sam’s Club at 12pm CT on June 6.

The workers went on strike from Breaux Bridge, Louisiana-based C.J.’s Seafood on June 4, reporting that the employer and supervisors have forced them to work up to 24-hour shifts with no overtime pay, locked them in the plant, threatened them with beatings to make them work faster, and threatened violence against their families back in Mexico after workers contacted law enforcement out of desperation.

C.J.’s Seafood sells an estimated 85% of its crawfish to Walmart’s Sam’s Club stores.

While C.J.’s Seafood general manager Michael Leblanc has subjected guestworkers to forced labor, he has also helped drive an industry-wide effort to block new Department of Labor rules for the H-2B guestworker program that would protect guestworkers and U.S. workers alike. Leblanc is director of the Crawfish Processor’s Alliance, which sued the Department of Labor to block the new rules.

The workers are calling on Walmart to:

Cancel its contract with C.J.’s Seafood to show that it won’t profit from forced labor in Louisiana.
Reveal all the guestworkers on its Gulf Coast supply chain so the National Guestworker Alliance can ensure they are safe.

Sign the petition here:
Walmart Petition

Class War at the Country Club!

United Pecham pickets the Peckham Golf Outing

Bust the Union Busters! Picket the Peckham Golf Outing

Tuesday June 12, 8am-noon, Hawk Hollow and Eagle Eye golf courses on Chandler Road (between State and Stoll Rd)