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Sotheby's: Record profits--union busting
Posted: Nov 10, 2011
What is wrong with this picture? Class warfare? Just plain old greed. Sotheby's is in a labor dispute with the unionn that represents the art handlers working at the New York City auction house. The contract between the two parties expired on July 1st, 2011, and despite ongoing negotiations, there has been no agreement on a new contract. Local 814's stance is that because of Sotheby's record profits for 2010 (over $680 million), Local 814 should not be giving in to any of Sotheby's concessions. Meanwhile, Sotheby's is bargaining for replacing full-time union jobs with 24 temporary workers, waiving the union's rights to litigate in State or Federal court, reducing work-week hours, and eliminating seniority. Sotheby's hired Jackson Lewis, a "preventive labor relations" law firm, for the negotiations, which are still ongoing. Due to disagreements over a new contract, on July 29, 2011, Sotheby's imposed a lockout on the Local 814 art handlers. The dispute remains unresolved.;
I think it's a case of both class warfare AND greed! - (sm) - ProOccupy
[ In Reply To ..]If all or most employers treated & paid their workers fairly, there never would have been a need for unions in the first place.
Unless something drastic changes, I don't see anything good at all happening for American workers, only more paycuts, offshoring, job loss and despair.
BTW - did you watch Berkeley last night? (Not on the whitewashed network news, but on streaming live video?) They showed the world how it's done... peacefully. For once they were not infiltrated by the anarchists that plagued Oakland. The only violence last night was cops hitting students in the stomach with their batons.
Occupy UCB stood their ground, remained peaceful, and once the police were satisfied that there weren't any of those "scary" tents left anywhere, they left the area.
The most intriguing part of the night for me was watching an impromptu General Assembly take place last night, and seeing the simple, yet brilliant way they kept proposed actions, discussions about those actions and votes on those actions, civil & under control. (SO unlike our Congress!) ;D
Everybody had a voice, and had a chance to express their ideas. The vote was slow in coming, but it was orderly, nonviolent, thorough, and intelligent. The way a democratic government SHOULD be!
Yes, and then, on the other side of the spectrum, - is Joe Walsh. nm
[ In Reply To ..]
You mean the deadbeat dad FRC True Blue honoree - who had to apologize for
[ In Reply To ..]showing the vast extent of his TP freshman ignorance in front of live cameras? In his rush to defend Wall Street and banks upon routine questioning during a stopover at Gurnee's Uno Chicago Bar & Grill, he launched a full-blown in-your-face screaming tirade at a Chicago postal worker/constituent about how pissed off he gets when people don't listen to him rant about how much he doesn't care about the loss of public sector jobs. He made a complete fool out of himself simply by showing his "true blue" colors. Way to go, Joe, way to go.
Quiet for a minute or I’m going to - ask you to leave!!!
[ In Reply To ..]I wonder if this TP classic would work on the RW troll posters who frequent this board.
Go Sotheby's!! Unions have become scary and - intimidating....basically criminal !! nm
[ In Reply To ..]nm
I would rather have 680.25 million than 680 million - Job creators!
[ In Reply To ..]Just think of all the jobs I could create by saving about .25 million bucks by replacing those 24 union employees with 24 temporary employees without benefits. Yay, job creators!
Sotheby's is more than willing to drop a $0.25 million down payment - on a preventive labor law firm
[ In Reply To ..]rather than pay a somewhat decent wage to art handlers who have been employed by them for between 10 and 45 years. The law firm has built its reputation on being hostile to unions. They employ 650 attorneys in 47 US cities, so my guess would be they plan to pick Sotheby's pockets clean before exiting the scene.
The locked-out art handlers currently make $16/hr plus benefits. Temporary workers would make a whopping $13.25 with no benefits. A little perspective is in order here. We're talkin' New York City. For a 40-hour week (assuming they work a full week, which I highly doubt) @ $16/hr, gross annual income would be $33,024 before taxes. In the Bronx, NYC's most impoverished borough, median income is $34,156 and mean income is $46,298.
According to Shane Caffrey, founder of the Art Handlers Olympics, $25/hr is low pay for skilled experienced art handlers, and freelance handlers earn between $30 and $40 per hour. Sotheby's union workers are asking for a raise to $20/hr, which would still put them well below mean income FOR THE BRONX.
Aside from trying to gut their own workers and shave another 2.5 hours off their work week, Sotheby's aims to completely eliminate retirement benefits, have teamsters waive their rights under federal law (including the right to sue for discriminatory practices), and hire the additional 24 inexperienced non-union temp workers (they are chronically understaffed). Sotheby's has rejected union requests to hire 10 more union workers (which would still leave them understaffed), despite the fact that, even with benefits, this offer would be less costly to Sotheby's than the 24 temps.
From where I sit, the scarey part is a company willing to dump hundreds of thousands of dollars on "preventive labor" attorneys in lieu of paying loyal experienced workers (who have made substantial contributions toward that $680 million in profits) LESS THAN WHAT THEY ARE WORTH, all the while engaging in hostile negotiations void of all reason and inflaming the situation further by instituting a worker lock-out.
yea get rid of the unions!!! We can bring back slavery or child labor---Wooohooo!! nm - minimum wage worker
[ In Reply To ..]nm
I think we've already descended into the slavery part.. - its called "medical transcription". Pro
[ In Reply To ..]"But they pay us!", the anti-change MTs will wail.
Hmm. Yeah, I do get a check in the mail every 2 weeks. And at the end of the month, both checks added together only pays my rent. Just BARELY. There's nothing else left over. So do I consider that "pay"?
No. Not by a long shot.
The difference between what you do and slavery - is that you are free to do something else.
[ In Reply To ..]If this field is such a waste, do something else. To compare this to slavery is offensive.
Perhaps working from home is the only - sm
[ In Reply To ..]work this person can do for medical or other reasons (no transportation to and from work or medical problems, for example).
I agree that MTs are being paid slave wages, especially with the advent of voice recognition. Many times, they have to wait all day for work to come flowing in, or they're doing voice recognition and find they practically need to rewrite an entire post because of the errors given to them to clean up, and they're willing to work weekends for the tidbits they're being paid.
And there you go. You said "willing." - Again, it is offensive to
[ In Reply To ..]compare transcription to slavery. Shame on you!
The GOP wants to roll back child labor laws! - sm
[ In Reply To ..]Just another example of how the GOP is dangerous to the benefit of children (and for everybody's benefit, except the richest of the rich.
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/capitol-report/article_77bf08b2-93c5-11e0-8876-001cc4c03286.html
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