You may not have noticed it in the major news outlets, but it sure seems to have been a rough couple of weeks of subdued headlines for big labor in the Big Sky state. You’ve had professors from Montana State University vote to leave the state’s most powerful labor union, MEA-MFT. Then, after hundreds of jobs were lost following a labor union protest in Billings, the Twinkie is now eyeing a comeback- but so far it appears the box will hit the shelves without a union label. And, whether union jobs or not, it certainly had to be disheartening when news came out that the liberal-leaning newspapers of Lee Enterprises, which dominate the state’s print media, are outsourcing jobs overseas.
Breitbart.com: No Union Label on Twinkie Return
Hostess Brands, the venerable 86-year maker of Twinkies, Zingers, Ho-Hos and other popular snack cakes closed its doors last November. The company had said it needed wage and benefit concessions from its largely unionized workforce in order to survive. The Teamsters, the union representing the largest number of Hostess workers, agreed to the concessions and urged other unions to join them. A little known union, the Bakers and Confectioners workers, however, refused to accept the modest compensation cuts. As a result, the company shuttered its doors, throwing all of its workers into the unemployment line.
The Wall Street Journal had the story:
Chief Executive C. Dean Metropoulos said the company will pump $60 million in capital investments into the plants between now and September and aims to hire at least 1,500 workers. But they won’t be represented by unions, including the one whose nationwide strike sparked the 86-year-old company’s decision to shut down in November.
To view a WSJ discussion on the topic, click the video below:
As for the former Hostess bakery in Billings– it will soon have the Franz name attached to it, but it sounds like at this point, the union label is still a question mark according to Jan Falstad with The Billings Gazette:
Before the Billings bakery closed, Sweetheart employed more than 200 workers in Montana, including some Wyoming drivers, said Eusebio Diaz, business agent for bakers’ Local 466. About 100 Billings workers belonged to the local, he said.
About 150 people, including Diaz, applied for jobs with Franz during a Billings job fair last month. Company officials are in Billings conducting interviews, but the union question remains open, said spokeswoman Jessica Larson in Portland.
Meanwhile, it doesn’t seem clear if these jobs were union or not, but the liberal-leaning newspapers which dominate Montana’s print media appear to be outsourcing jobs to India, as The Missoula Independent reports:
As part of an ongoing effort to cut expenses, the Missoulian’s parent company, Lee Enterprises, has notified at least eight employees at three of its Montana newspapers that their jobs are being terminated because the company is shipping a portion of its graphic design work overseas.
“Those jobs have been outsourced, I believe it was to India,” says Kathy Yankoff from the Montana Department of Labor, which helps people who have lost jobs to outsourcing find new employment and access training programs.
And, if you missed the news from last week, here’s a prior post with news from Bozeman:
In a stunning blow to one of the state’s most powerful lobbies, professors from Montana State University voted to leave the powerful MEA-MFT public employees union.
KGVO’s Jon King has this:
In a very close 190 to 185 vote, The tenured faculty at Montana State University have decided they no longer want to be represented by MEA-MFT, Montana’s combined teachers union.
Professor Gary Brester from the Agricultural Economics Department was one of the petitioners in favor of leaving the union. Brester says it was not just a vote about personal finances.
Here’s more from The Bozeman Daily Chronicle:
Montana State University’s four-year experiment with a faculty union for tenured professors ended this week, when the state’s largest union decided not to challenge a decertification election that it lost by five votes.
“The majority wins,” said Eric Feaver, president of the MEA-MFT, the parent union for the Associated Faculty of MSU. The deadline was Tuesday if the union was going to contest the election, he said, and it didn’t see any election irregularities.
Feaver said he felt “very disappointed,” because the union would have been a positive force for the future. “I think tenured faculty will realize in time that maybe it wasn’t the smartest decision,” he said.