Brothers and Sisters:

This is Bruce Hamilton with Roadkill for Tuesday, August 26.

We are finally able to say a final “good-bye and good-riddance” to the Bush Administration’s Department of Labor. Local 1700 has been notified that the government has finally ended its nearly four-year long assault on us. Their attempt to intimidate a small union, spread thin across the continent, ended in the courthouse in Salt Lake City, where they finally admitted that the election was run fairly and in accordance with the rules.

Thanks are once again due to the Local 1700 Election Committee, chaired by Elmer Taylor of Philadelphia, with Sandra Frye of Orlando and James W. Anderson of Los Angeles. The government wasted a lot of effort and expense trying to come up with something the Election Committee did wrong, but in the end, they had to admit that our Election Committee ran a completely clean election. Credit is also due to the law firm of Jacobs, Burns, Orlove, Stanton and Hernandez of Chicago. They did a superb job of countering the government’s legal assault.

Now that it’s over, let’s pause for a moment and consider the incredible waste of taxpayer money, our dues money, the waste of thousands of personnel hours, the reams of paper, the awful legal expense, the waste of court time, and the outrageous, anti-union harassment of this sorry example of the horrendous misuse of government power against a group of hard-working bus drivers and mechanics.

The resources of the government could have been put to good use, like re-building New Orleans. But the Bush government chose to waste valuable resources trying to intimidate us. And for what result? Zero. After all the years and all the money spent, the government simply issued a two-sentence verdict saying the election was run in accordance with the LMRDA and walked away.

We can all be glad they’re gone for now. But their mischief put a big hole in our financial health. When the Local 1700 executive board considered how to respond to government threats against us, we concluded that if we didn’t take a stand against this abuse of government power, they would be given a green light to pursue other small unions. It is no secret that one of the Bush Administration’s goals has been to weaken and eventually to eliminate labor unions altogether.

Because we knew that we were standing up not just for ourselves but for other unions who are targets of government intimidation, we requested aid from our International Union to conduct our defense. That financial aid has been granted. We are very grateful to the ATU International for sharing with us the burden of defending our union. Their assistance, along with the cost-cutting we have done over the past few years, should see our financial position move once again into the black.

In other news, we finally have a date for an arbitration hearing for the first of the run guarantee cases. The company has been violating the contract for way too long. Attempts to get them to settle the dispute seemed to be gaining ground, but they kept falling short of returning to the practice of paying us everything that we’re due when we’re required to spend additional time at work due to break-downs or other delays that we cannot control. The hearing date is not until January, but at least we finally have a chance to prove our case to an impartial arbitrator.

Stay safe and have a healthy and Happy Labor Day!