April 4, 2007

We’d like to welcome the staff of SEIU Local 880 as
the newest unit of the Chicago Newspaper Guild

Guild executive director Jerry Minkkinen successfully negotiated an initial two-year contract agreement for the 27 employees of the SEIU after a protracted period of organizing  in which the SEIU scarcely acted like a labor union in the treatment of its own employees.

It’s sometimes a sad fact that sometimes labor unions treat their own employees worse than the employers they contend with on a regular basis.

During the Guild’s organizing drive with SEIU (Service Employees International Union), assisted by Guild attorney Craig Rosenbaum, organizers and interns from Local 880 lodged a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) stating that Local 880 violated the federal wage and hour laws by failing to pay organizers and interns overtime when they routinely worked over 40 hours per week. Organizers and interns regularly worked between 55 and 80 hours per week.

The DOL investigation will cover interns and organizers for only their first year of employment. The DOL told the Guild that its investigation involves approximately 180 employees. There are three possible scenarios involving the investigation, Rosenbaum said.  First, more often than not, the DOL will reach a settlement agreement with the employer, which includes a negotiated monetary remedy for employees who should have been entitled to overtime pay. Second, it is also possible that the DOL and SEIU Local 880 will not reach a settlement agreement, and the DOL will file a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of the employees who were denied overtime pay. The third scenario is if SEIU Local 880 provides the DOL with additional information absolving Local 880 from any wrongdoing. The DOL informed the Guild that it is hoping to reach a resolution by the week of April 16.

The DOL thought that organizers who worked for at least one year exercised sufficient discretion and independent judgment to be excluded from the overtime regulations. However, the DOL’s decision to limit its investigation to organizers and interns’ first year of employment is not determinative. Interns and organizers, who have worked more than one year, and other employees not included in the DOL’s investigation, also have a right to overtime pay and are now considering the option to file a private lawsuit to obtain lost overtime wages. A judge could rule that SEIU Local 880 also violated the overtime regulations for workers not included in the DOL’s investigation.

The SEIU was one of the international unions that pulled out of the AFL-CIO and formed their own coalition, called Change to Win, that also included the Teamsters, Carpenters, Laborers, Farm Workers, Food Workers and UNITE HERE.