NLRB says temps can organize
Building trades organizing efforts were bolstered by an Aug. 30 National Labor Relations Board ruling that said temporary workers no longer need permission from either the employment agency that assigned them or the client company to join a union.

The NLRB reversed its previous rulings and said that temporary workers have the right to join labor unions if their work closely resembles work undertaken by permanent workers. The three-to-one decision allows the temporary workers to be included in collective bargaining if they have similar job characteristics.

The board majority wrote that temporary workers "are being effectively denied representational rights guaranteed under the National Labor Relations Act."

The ruling, said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, "is an important step in addressing the rights of contingent workforce employees, who have too often been relegated to second-class status and rights - if any."

Work in the construction trades now rivals clerical work as the number one industry in temp work. Each day nearly 250,000 construction workers are on the job as temps. More than 400 temporary agencies are trying to land work in construction for their employees, and they're finding takers: temporary agencies are providing an astounding 35 percent of all workers in the industrial/construction sector.

"If we do nothing, in 10 years as many workers will be referred to construction sites from temporary agencies as from union hiring halls," said Jeff Grabelsky, the Building Trades Department's director of organizing. "They (temporary agencies) are a growing cancer in our industry."

Bone marrow donors sought
Dianne Fazzio, wife of Operating Engineers Local 324 member Pete Fazzio, needs a bone marrow transplant.

If you aren't in the bone marrow transplant registry program, doing so can help give Dianne and other auto-immune or cancer patients a new lease on life.

Dianne, 52, was diagnosed with Lupus in 1993. It is a disease of the body's auto-immune system where the body turns on itself. Last year, it was discovered that Diane had also developed scleroderma, another auto-immune disease that affects the skin, connective tissue and organs.

Bone marrow transplants have been used in such cases with a fair degree of success, but first a suitable match must be found. Local 324 is encouraging anyone who hasn't had their blood type entered into the national bone marrow registry program to do so - it is an easy procedure that requires little time.

For more information, contact Local 324 at (734) 462-3665.