International Operating Engineer - Winter 2019

Politics & Legislation
Federal Shutdown Leaves IUOE Members Locked Out of Work
Labor Notes
IUOE Grows, but Overall Union Membership Dips Slightly
ON JANUARY 25TH, the White
House and Congressional leaders
agreed to end the longest government
shutdown in U.S. history, which
dragged on for 35 long days. The
temporary agreement only keeps the
government open for three weeks until
February 15th when another shutdown
could possibly occur.
The shutdown affected
approximately 800,000 federal
employees. Nearly 500,000 contract
workers of the federal government
were also unable to work, including
hundreds of Operating Engineers.
Part way through the shutdown,
direct federal employees were given
assurances that once the government
was reopened, they would receive back
pay. Workers for contractors however,
were not given a similar assurance,
and they are unlikely to get any
remuneration for that lost time on the
job. It was essentially a lockout by the
federal government.
Workers unexpectedly without work
had to figure out how to pay their bills
and provide for their families while
missing two consecutive paychecks.
Many federal employees, from the
FBI to the TSA, were still required to
report to work as they were designated
essential workers.
IUOE members were not immune
from the shutdown. Local 99
(Washington, D.C.) members felt the
brunt of the dysfunction in the federal
government. The Local had members
laid off in workplaces across their
jurisdiction, with the biggest unit being
affected at NASA complexes.
The shutdown had other unintended
consequences as well. While the
government was shut down, permitting
agencies did not have staff to issue
permits on many construction projects
which employ Operating Engineers.
For example, the Draft Environmental
Impact Statement (DEIS) for the
Jordan Cove LNG project in Coos Bay,
Oregon is likely to be delayed, further
delaying work for Operating Engineers
and other craft workers. It was due in
mid-February but will likely miss that
timeline now.
Another example of how the
shutdown will have a ripple affect on
IUOE members and everyone else
building the nation’s transportation
infrastructure is the fact that the
Federal Transit Administration (FTA)
furloughed 88 percent of its workforce.
The highway program is funded by
“contract authority” in the FAST Act
— America’s surface transportation
law — and doesn’t depend on annual
appropriations.
That means the Federal Highway
Administration (FHWA) is still fully
funded and busy processing grants to
states to build roads and bridges, which
is such a huge employer of Operating
Engineers. But transit still depends
on annual funding, which resulted in
massive layoffs of FTA employees. The
problems would’ve rippled through the
whole surface transportation program
had it gone on any longer.
About halfway through the
shutdown, thousands of union
workers rallied alongside furloughed
federal workers outside the AFL-CIO
headquarters in Washington, DC,
just down the street from the White
House. Speakers shined a light on
the harm the government shutdown
caused to families across the country
and the negative consequences for
our economy and country. Unions
will continue to fight until Congress
and the White House pass a long-term
funding bill and provide back pay to
every single worker and contractor
who was forced to go 35 days without
a paycheck.
THE BUREAU OF LABOR Statistics
(BLS) recently reported that the
percentage of U.S. workers who were
part of a labor union fell slightly in 2018
to 10.5 percent, from 10.7 percent of
the workforce in 2017.
In both 2017 and 2018, there were
approximately 7.2 million public sector
union members and 7.6 million private
sector union members.
Union membership in the
construction industry dropped to 12.8
percent in 2018 from 14.0 percent in
2017.
In the face of unprecedented
attacks, it is surprising that overall
union membership only decreased by
a 0.2 percentage point. These attacks
include so called “right-to-work”
taking effect in Kentucky and West
Virginia in 2017; the Supreme Court
ruling in favor of business in Janus v.
AFSCME, making it unconstitutional
to require public sector employees to
pay “fair share” fees to cover the cost
of collective bargaining; and public
sector union members in Wisconsin
must recertify every year and win by
a simple majority of bargaining unit
members, not actual votes cast.
Despite the overall decrease in union
membership in the labor movement
last year, the IUOE welcomed over
6,000 new members and the total
International membership reached
395,000. A big part of that increase was
a direct result of the IUOE successfully
winning 75 percent of its 2018 NLRB
elections.
Looking back at 2018, the Operating
Engineers successfully grew the union
and strengthened our position with
a state-of-the-art training facility
in Texas and by getting more union
friendly candidates elected at the local,
state and federal level.
The IUOE is optimistic about
growing even more in the future as more
people realize the value of employing
skilled union members. Furthermore,
a 2018 Gallup poll showed that 62
percent of Americans approve of labor
unions, a 15-year high. The tide might
be finally turning.
12 INTERNATIONAL OPERATING ENGINEER
WINTER 2019 13