UFCW Delegates Approve Plans for Recruitment To implement the union's unity agenda adopted in August, delegates to the convention of the United Food and Commercial Workers approved plans to develop and maintain a "strategic organizing focus." They also adopted other organizing resolutions that deal with the importance of young workers in organizing efforts, recruiting members to be organizers, and organizing around the issue of safety and health. In recommending adoption of the resolutions, Jennifer Christensen of Local 789 in Minnesota, a co-chair of the convention's organizing committee, said one of the fundamental principles of organized labor is "there is strength in numbers," and the union must unite to "take on the challenges brought by non-union employers who want to drive down standards, wages, and benefits for workers." The resolution calls for locals with common employers to join together, dedicate resources, and organize through "strategic planning, implementation, and progress evaluation." It also calls on the international to assist each local in attaining these goals. Noting young workers have a union density of only 5 percent and UFCW has "significant potential for growth" among these workers in its core industries, the delegates approved a resolution calling on locals to recruit and train young members as shop stewards, union representatives, and organizers, and create incentive programs for young workers to sign up their peers. Currently, workers under age 35 make up the majority of the union's membership. Delegates also called on the international to establish programs to recruit and develop members to be volunteer organizers to support nonunion workers who are employed by the same company. In asking delegates to approve two resolutions calling on the union to continue to organize workers to help address health and safety issues at the workplace, Christensen said that UFCW's core industries include some of the most dangerous in the United States and Canada. "Workers in these industries suffer amputations, debilitating repetitive strain injuries, and hearing loss," she said. "By joining together to form a union, workers can have a powerful voice to end these serious problems."  | |
Blogs, Networking Sites Drive Workplace Privacy Disputes The volume and variety of workplace privacy disputes continues to grow as workers experiment with Web-based tools such as blogs, MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube, while employers experiment with technologies that permit remote monitoring of their employees, employment and privacy law attorneys.
Christine E. Lyon, a partner with Morrison & Foerster 
LLP in Palo Alto, California, said workers' professional and personal lives traditionally have been viewed as separate and distinct, but innovations in the way work
is being structured and the emergence of new technologies have blurred these lines. While new work structures and technologies have benefits for workers and employers, Lyon said they also create problems, as can be seen in the current crop of privacy disputes between workers and employers. "Employers have greater ability than ever to monitor what their employees are doing at work, what they are doing after work hours, and even where they are physically located through GPS [global positioning systems] and other location monitoring devices," she said. To avoid such disputes, employers should establish formal privacy policies and notify workers of the policies. Such policies should include a notification that employees' computers, e-mail systems, telephones, and Internet accounts will be monitored on certain occasions.
Another common privacy dispute involves employees' off-duty conduct. With employees increasingly using social networking pages such as My Space and Facebook, blogging about their personal and professional lives, and loading videos about themselves on YouTube, employers potentially can learn a lot about employees and job applicants. Lyon said she is continually surprised that people using these online tools are unaware of the downside potential. "I saw a study recently indicating that something like 70 percent of workers thought it was illegal for their employer to look at their blog or their publicly posted Facebook or social networking page," Lyon said. "That is clearly not the case, but there is a perception that employers are not allowed to do this." Lyon cautioned that there are limits on employers' responses to information gleaned from a blog posting or a YouTube video. She specifically suggested employers study the statutes effective in their jurisdictions. Employers also should consider any public policy implications for penalizing an employee for his or her off-duty conduct. In some circumstances, there could be adverse consequences for the company. "You can't necessarily act on certain types of information" discovered from electronic sources, Lyon said. "For instance, you might learn about an employee's sexual orientation and that is completely protected in a lot of states. They may be engaged in union activities or political activities. There are many laws protecting such activities." | |
FEMA Close to Adopting Standard for Emergency Alerts A new report says the Federal Emergency Management Agency is planning to adopt a common alerting protocol as a national emergency warning and alert system as early as next year. In an article on the Federal Computer Week website, Alice Lipowicz says FEMA recently announced it is expecting to adopt the Common Alerting Protocol 1.1, which would create a national infrastructure so digital messages could be sent seamlessly to televisions, radios, and computers. "The protocol is an open-source technical standard developed by volunteers seven years ago. It was accepted by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) in 2004, and later refined by that organization. It has been widely adopted among emergency managers and broadcasters as well as disaster managers at FEMA. It has long been anticipated that FEMA would make it an official standard." Lipowicz says. Under law, participants in the Emergency Alert System (EAS), including broadcasters and emergency managers, will be required to be in compliance with the CAP 1.1 standard in 180 days after FEMA makes the standard official. FEMA officials will work over the next six months with its industry partners to iron out interoperability issues. During that time, FEMA and its partners will be developing specific formats, or profiles, for messages to be shared in the EAS. You can read the full article by clicking here. ASIS 2008 Hot Topic: SVA Deadlines Approaching Many ASIS 2008 participants stopped by Huffmaster's booth to talk to our experts about the impact of the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) on their company. Many visitors have discovered they must adhere to these standards despite not being a traditional "chemical company" due to maintaining certain thresholds of chemicals on their s ites. Huffmaster has been trusted with the completion of
dozens of DHS SVA's. Our experts know how CFATS has affected agriculture, food and beverage, manufacturing and many other industries which utilize chemicals on-site. The big questions asked to our representatives at ASIS involved the Security Vulnerability Assessment (SVA) and the subsequent steps in the process. The Department of Homeland Security has set the following SVA deadlines for tiered facilities: Tier One: Deadline was September 25th Tier Two: October 24th Tier Three: November 24th Tier Four: December 31st.
Your SVA submission becomes the foundation of your Site Security Plan (SSP), which is the standard you will be audited against. DHS has made it clear that the audit process will not be a casual review and this makes your SVA responses a critical part of your strategy for compliance. If you have any questions about the current CFATS regulations, please feel free to visit Huffmaster's Chemical Security page on our website or call our representatives at 800.446.1515. We have CVI-cleared staff available to confidentially discuss your needs accordingly. Workplace Violence Continues Downward Trend Workplace homicides and assaults are continuing a downward trend according to NCCI Holdings Inc., a provider of workers' compensation and injury data. Homicides dropped 25 percent between 2000 and 2006 and are down 61 percent since 1992, Boca Raton, Florida-based NCCI said. Workplace assaults have been more volatile on a year-to-year basis. Assaults that resulted in injuries causing lost time from work declined 18 percent in 2005 but increased 10 percent in 2006. But for 1999 through 2006, the assaults declined at an annual average rate of 0.6 percent, NCCI said. Crime-related claims have higher medical and indemnity severity than other claims because injuries stemming from crime tend to be more serious, NCCI said. Robberies are connected with 70 percent of workplace homicides, with victims tending to work primarily in jobs that involve direct customer contact and easy access to valuables such as cash. | 
