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Workers' Rights Board Mission Statement The Kentucky Jobs With Justice Workers Rights Board unites community leaders, religious leaders, business leaders, and other community members to enhance and ensure the democratic rights of all workers. The board will provide a moral voice for economic issues concerning justice for working men and women. The Workers Rights Board strives to provide a community-based alternative to the National Labor Relations Board, to ensure workers with safe working conditions, fair treatment of all employees, the right to organize unions, bargain collectively and to create a community that will not tolerate the denial of workers’ rights. The Board includes a former State legislator, a former Congressman and representatives from the Jefferson County Teacher’s Association, Catholic Conference of KY, Rubbertown Emergency Action Network, Democracy Resource Center, Eastern Star Baptist Church and Metropolitan Housing Coalition. Workers Rights Board Activities æ Investigate complaints of unfair treatment, discrimination, and suppression of democratic collective activity in the workplace æ Upon confirmation of above activity, attempt to utilize community voices to exert moral and political pressure to correct the problem. æ Encourage democratic and fair behavior from employers and raise public awareness of the lack of workers rights under the law æ Develop public statements of principles that will foster community support for labor issues, the right to organize and bargain collectively æ Work to encourage the strengthening of legal and democratic rights for working people Toyota Hearing On Sunday, June 10th, 2007 folks came to hear about "The Real Cost of Toyota’s Success" In February, two employees at the Toyota plant in Georgetown were fired after finding a secret company report that exposed Toyota’s plans to hold down the wages and benefits of their U.S. workers. One of the fired employees was a 16-year veteran of the Georgetown plant. There is growing concern among Toyota employees and community members about workers’ rights at the Toyota plant. In addition to the firing of veteran employees, folks are concerned about the treatment of injured workers, who seem to disappear and the extent to which Toyota relies on long-term temporary workers -- many of whom receive little to no benefits. There is also concern about the millions of dollars in tax incentives Toyota receives yearly. The Kentucky Workers’ Rights Board is made up of about 70 community leaders and elected officials from around the state. About 10 of these board members will serve on the panel for the June 10th hearing. The panel will receive testimony from workers and other community members and will then issue a report to Toyota that will include recommendations for improving conditions and worker relations. Panelists include: --Reverend Cynthia Cain, Pastor, Unitarian Universalist Church of Lexington --John Fisher, Northern Kentucky Director, Kentucky Human Rights Commission --Tony Opplegard, Employment, Health & Safety lawyer, Lexington --Mahjabeen Rafiuddin, Director, Student Diversity Engagement, UK --Father John Rausch, Glenmary priest, Catholic Committee of Appalachia --State Rep Reginald Meeks, Louisville, KY House of Representatives --State Rep Jim Glenn, Owensboro, KY House of Representatives Presenters include: --Manual Eads, terminated Toyota worker --Cornelia James, current Toyota employee --Dr. William Maloney, Director, Center for Labor Education & Research @ UK --Sean Naylor, Berea Chapter member, Kentuckians For The Commonwealth --Noel Riddell, terminated Toyota worker --Steve St. Angelo, President, Toyota Motor Manufacturing of Kentucky (invited) Kentucky Jobs With Justice will convened its Workers’ Rights Board to hear about concerns regarding the Toyota Plant in Georgetown KY at 3:00 PM on Sunday, June 10th 2007 at The Leadership and Conference Center, Georgetown College. Click on the link to see a full report. Action Update: Toyota refuses meeting with religious, community leaders on working conditions at Georgetown plant Representatives of the Kentucky Workers’ Rights Board today attempted to meet with managers of the Toyota plant in Georgetown, Ky., to make recommendations for improving working conditions and addressing other issues of concern to Toyota workers. The board members sent a certified letter to Steve St. Angelo, president of the Toyota Kentucky facility, on Wednesday requesting today’s meeting. Toyota initially indicated they would make arrangements for a meeting, but then failed to do so. The Workers’ Rights Board representatives – the Rev. Cynthia Cain, Father John Rausch and State Rep. Reginald Meeks – visited the plant at 10 a.m. today in an effort to meet with managers. After the community leaders waited 40 minutes and made several requests to speak with top managers, Toyota spokesman Rick Hesterberg went down and accepted a copy of the board’s recommendations. He declined to meet with panel members or discuss the issues raised in their report, but said it would be reviewed by management. “The issues at Toyota concern the workers, Toyota and the greater community,” said Cain at a press conference following the Toyota visit. “The big issue is the lack of response from the corporation to the workers who have raised concerns, and when they do respond it is punitive.” “Toyota represents what we are seeing worldwide. They are global players and don’t really care about the workers or the community,” said Rausch. “Somehow we have to get to a state where we, the community of faith and the body politic, really start getting serious about holding these corporations accountable.” “I believe Toyota has the opportunity here to do the right thing by its workers, to do the right thing by Kentucky and to respond to the needs of the workers to clean up some of the issues that have been raised with them,” said Meeks. “I was surprised by today’s events and see it as an education,” said Attica Scott of KY JWJ. “When I witnessed the lack of respect for community leaders, I thought about what workers put up with every day.” The panel of Kentucky state legislators and religious and community leaders heard testimony from current and former Toyota workers and community representatives on June 10. Toyota management was invited to participate, but chose not to attend. Following testimony from workers and other concerned citizens, the Workers’ Rights Board issued recommendations for Toyota to implement, including: Hire temporary workers with full benefits and wages after they complete a 90-day probationary period. Reinstate with back pay and benefits workers who were terminated unjustly. Address workers’ claims of sexual harassment in accordance with federal law. Treat injured workers fairly by allowing them time to recover and return to suitable work without repercussions. Board members who served on the June 10 panel were: Father John Rausch, Glenmary priest, Catholic Committee of Appalachia The Rev. Cynthia Cain, pastor, Unitarian Universalist Church of Lexington State Rep. Reginald Meeks of Louisville State Rep. Jim Glenn of Owensboro Tony Oppegard, employment, health and safety attorney John Fisher, Kentucky Human Rights Commission Click on the link to see a full report from the Toyota WRB. Peabody Energy Hearing On Sunday, September 17th, 2006, the Kentucky Workers’ Rights Board heard testimonies from workers in Peabody Energy’s non-union mines. Miners there are struggling for the right to better benefits, increased safety standards, respect for seniority. The Hearing is part of the United Mineworkers’ of America and AFL-CIO’s campaign for justice at Peabody Energy. The panel for the hearing included a Labor Law Attorney, Indiana and Kentucky State legislators, and representatives from Holy Name Parish and the Webster County NAACP. Join the Workers’ Rights Board as a witness to the struggle for mineworkers’ rights! Did you know? Peabody’s 7,900 employees mine 227 million tons of coal every year, and the company’s annual revenue is $3.6 billion making it the world’s largest private sector coal company. CEO Greg Boyce was compensated $2,295,806 in 2004. Read the full report for details. Yum! Brands Hearing The following is a summary from the March 8, 2005 Workers Rights Board Hearing. You can also read the full report. In response to complaints brought by tomato pickers in Immokalee, Florida, who work for farm owners that supply tomatoes to Yum! Brands-owned Taco Bell, the Kentucky Workers’ Rights Board (a project of Kentucky Jobs with Justice) conducted a public hearing on Tuesday, March 8, 2005, at the Watterson West Building in Louisville, KY. Approximately 135 people attended the program which was covered by Louisville-area ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox affiliates. Yum! Brands management, farmworkers from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a local youth activist and the Florida Director of the National Farm Worker Ministry were all invited to testify before the Kentucky Workers’ Rights Board. Yum! Brands did not send a representative. Testimony was provided by: Michael Duncan, youth activist, BlackOut Media Roberta “Bert” Perry, Florida Director, National Farm Worker Ministry Gerardo Reyes Chavez, Coalition of Immokalee Workers Rolando Sales, Coalition of Immokalee Workers Yum! Brands, headquartered in Louisville, KY. Yum! is the world’s largest restaurant company and is made up of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC, Long John Silvers and A&W Restaurants. Taco Bell directly profits from farmworkers’ sub-poverty wages and substandard working conditions; including sub-poverty annual wages, no right to overtime, no right to organize, a per bucket piece rate that has not changed significantly since 1978, no sick leave, no health insurance and no benefits whatsoever. Summary of Issues Raised in the Testimony Affected workers and supporting testifiers, presented the panel with many issues of concern for tomato pickers, including: Modern-Day Slavery, Farmworker Poverty and Organizing and Collective Bargaining Rights. Read the full report for details. Quebecor Hearing On July 1, 2004, over 200 people gathered for a Kentucky Workers’ Rights Board Hearing on worker abuse at Quebecor World, the world’s second largest commercial printer. Workers at the Quebecor plant in Versailles (formerly Rand McNally) have joined Quebecor workers around the U.S. in trying to organize a union with the Graphics Communications International Union to improve conditions in their workplace. Quebecor has responded by harassing and intimidating union supporters. At the Workers’ Rights Board Hearing, Quebecor worker Dean Comphor testified that “I feel like because I have a union logo on my shirt, I have a target on my back. People are afraid to speak out because they fear they could lose their jobs.” Quebecor workers and GCIU approached the Kentucky Workers’ Rights Board (WRB) about conducting a public hearing on the situation they are facing. The WRB is a project of Kentucky Jobs with Justice that brings together prominent community leaders to listen to workers’ stories and issue recommendations to employers. The WRB seeks to be a community-based alternative to the National Labor Relations Board, which is too often too slow to act in cases of worker abuse. The event was a huge success for the Kentucky Workers’ Rights Board and for Kentucky Jobs with Justice! Check out news articles from the hearing: Lexington Herald-Leader Leo Weekly Peoples Weekly World Read the Findings of the Quebecor Workers Rights Board Hearing. |
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Kentucky Jobs with Justice
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