By TOM TIMBERLAKE, Standard-Times correspondent

New Bedford Standard Times

As America prepares to celebrate Labor Day, the president of the Greater Southeastern Massachusetts Labor Council says SouthCoast unions are alive and well.

 
Unions continue to play an import role by giving employees a voice in the workplace, said Cynthia Rodriques, 62, president of the council for eight years.

She grew up in a union household and has spent her life around union people. Her mother, a textile worker, and her father, an electrical worker, were active union members.
"In those days, we talked union business at the dinner table," she said.

The Greater Southeastern Massachusetts Labor Council is the central labor council of the AFL-CIO for SouthCoast, Cape Cod and the Islands. Its offices are located in New Bedford.

The council represents 42 affiliate unions, including public employees, teachers, healthcare workers, postal workers, truck drivers, laborers, firefighters, electrical workers, painters and many others.

The AFL-CIO — American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations — established in 1955, is a voluntary federation of 53 national and international labor unions.
The organization represents almost 9 million working women and men of every race and ethnicity and from every walk of life, according to officials.

Today's union membership reflects a substantial decease from the numbers of workers once employed in SouthCoast's many textile factories, Mrs. Rodriques said.

 
"Overall, textile union membership is down over the last 20 years because many jobs have moved overseas," she said.
Still, the outlook for organized labor is optimistic, she said, because union organizers have kept pace with and responded to the changing work environment.

As examples, Mrs. Rodriques points to how unions are organizing other industries, such as the rapidly growing health care sector.

"Statewide, home health care workers are being organized," she said. "The Service Employees International Union is just starting that program."

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers is in talks with electrical contractors who hope to organize workers from non-union companies.

AFL-CIO officials point to statistics that indicate that workers are better off belonging to a union.

For example, median weekly earnings for unionized workers are 28 percent higher than those of non-unionized employees. That figure jumps to 34 percent for women.

Union members also enjoy advantages in contractual wage increases and benefits, such as health care coverage, retirement plans and paid vacations. Mrs. Rodrigues said.
Along with negotiating on the behalf of workers for better contracts and workplaces, unions also play an active role in the community.

"The public thinks we're a bunch of gangsters that does what they want, when they want," Mrs. Rodriques said.
"That's not what we're about. That doesn't exist."

To illustrate her point, Mrs. Rodriques pointed to how unionized electricians from the IBEW recently donated their time to Fall River Celebrates America.

"Those guys went down there and wired that whole thing at no cost, and then when it was over, went back and took all that wiring down for free.

"They also wire baseball fields for free in Southeast Massachusetts," she said.

The central labor council and some union affiliates also sponsor annual scholarships worth thousands of dollars for SouthCoast children.

Additionally, the council sponsors an annual program that donates books to area schools, such as the Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School and the Potter School in Dartmouth, Mrs. Rodriques said.

The Greater Southeastern Massachusetts Labor Council and affiliate unions are also working on the push to bring rail service to the SouthCoast.

Council and union officials said they are currently involved in meetings with state and local officials and community leaders in hopes that the rail service will create more and better jobs for area workers.

Date of Publication: September 03, 2006 on Page D02