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Retirees in Pierce County Evicted for Home Depot - Call for a Moratorium on Mobile Home Park Closures Now!
Centoilia Maldonado Vasquez, Oaxaca Community Leader
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Laundry Drivers Strike Tomlinson Linen To Defend Healthcare and Pensions
This contribution was compiled from Washington State Jobs with Justice files by Jacob Carton. It details Tomlinson Linen's attacks on their own workers. Other local businesses, including Anthony's, the Western Hotel, and Tom Douglass and Blue Water Restaurants have been notified of the problems with Tomlinson's treatment of their workers, and have thus far failed to support the effort for fair wages and working conditions. A boycott has been focused on Anthony's restaurants - for a listing of the affected locations, see the link at the end of the article.
Barbara Fullmer, 44 years of service at Tomlinson
Barbara Fullmer of Tacoma is not sure how she will afford an extra $300 per month in healthcare costs added to her fixed-income budget. Although retired now, Ms. Fullmer is publicly supporting her former co-workers’ strike at Tomlinson Linen to defend her healthcare plan, reflecting national healthcare crisis tensions becoming widespread at the local level.
After decades of continuous service, Tomlinson Linen workers who are members of Teamsters Local 117 declared an unfair labor practice strike the Day after Thanksgiving. At stake are pensions, family healthcare plans, and a union contract that new owners Gary and Tim Tomlinson threaten to replace with unspecified plans. Once known as the Tacoma family-owned Peerless Laundry on 12th Street and Pine, Tomlinson Linen serves an upscale clientele of Anthony’s Homeport chain, the Western Hotel, and Tom Douglass and Blue Water Restaurants.
Creative Union Strategies
Rather than picket the facility, striking workers are pursuing an innovative strategy, asking Tomlinson clients to stand with the workers, and if not, the patrons of these clients. The Teamsters have now enlisted Washington State Jobs with Justice (JwJ) to support a community campaign to expose Tomlinsons’ practices. JwJ, a coalition of over 150 local community groups and labor unions and 5000 pledged activists, in turn is mobilizing the broader community to hold dialogue with Tomlinson clients and client patrons. In an interesting flip to offense, Jobs with Justice’s Pierce County Grinch of the Year contest resulted in a community delegation to Gary and Tim Tomlinson’s holiday party to present an award, a cake, and sing, “You’re a Mean One, Gary & Tim (Mr. Grinch).”
While Tomlinson client establishments have yet to show solidarity with strikers, client patrons have. Much to the chagrin of Tomlinson clients and especially when union members draw connections between clients’ health department reports and Tomlinson’s healthcare position, diners exchange inquiries with leafleting strikers. Two-story inflatable rats and CEO puppets create a festive atmosphere to greet diners. What diners learn about the Tomlinsons is a snapshot of what is wrong at anti-worker corporations across the US and why the House of Representatives has already passed the Employee Free Choice Act.
Labor Relations Went Bad at Tomlinson Linen
In August 2005, Gary and Tim Tomlinson took the helm of this once community-friendly family business that caters to an upscale clientele. Shortly thereafter, employee relations soured leading Tomlinson workers, members of Teamsters Local 117, to the current unfair labor practice strike. Stimulating the break from labor harmony, the Tomlinson owners hired a notorious local union-busting firm, the appropriately named "Grimm and Paine". Grimm and Paine advised Tomlinsons on ways to squeeze higher profits out of workers’ modest pay and undercut worker bargaining power.
In legal labor negotiations, employers are required to show good faith by sharing details of how changes would be implemented. But in Tomlinson-Teamster bargaining, management came to the table with many takeaways without the details. Tomlinsons also had been replacing long-time workers with family members to change the union composition of the workplace. Teamster union leaders allege that Tomlinson owners illegally bargained in bad faith and wrongly assumed they would not need to bargain with a busted union.
The Tomlinsons' Proposals
The Tomlinsons’ proposals include taking pensions away from many long-term workers, such as Bruce Roberts with over 40 years of service and needing only 3 more years to lock in. Tomlinson owners also propose to eliminate a full family healthcare plan and replace it with an unknown company plan. If the Teamsters don’t achieve a new contract, retirees including Ms. Fullmer, face increases of monthly healthcare payments from about $150 to about $450. Another proposal is to eliminate drivers’ guaranteed weekly pay and replace it with sales commissions over which they have minimal control. Drivers already are working up to 16 hours per day and are required to work Christmas Eve just to complete route work that does not include sales work. The day workers went on strike was the first day-after-Thanksgiving ever that some drivers had not worked.
Strikers at Tomlinsons say they are not surprised by the anti-family proposals. They recount the story of when a former plant manager’s father died. The grieving manager with many years of service went on bereavement leave. He then tried to fly back to work but couldn’t get a flight and called in. He missed a workday handling funeral arrangements. The Tomlinsons fired the manager upon return.
Gary and Tim Tomlinson have massive real estate and investment holdings through out Western Washington and are prominent in civic organizations such as Issaquah’s Village Theater.
Anthony's Pier 66 and Bell Street Diner and Anthony's Harbor Lights rents Tomlinson linen for an upscale dining atmosphere. The Anthony's chain has been asked nicely to support this struggle but have so far refused. This struggle is very important to all workers toiling in the Northwest linen and laundry industry who have organized to raise the standards of their jobs to livable levels despite the race-to-the-bottom mentality in this service industry. Click here for a complete list of Anthony's Restaurants - the boycott is on!
Jobs with Justice Grinch Contest
This year’s South Sound JwJ contest had three very competitive candidates. Gary & Tim Tomlinson beat out two other South Sound Finalists: Wal-Mart Bully - Fircrest Mayor David Viafore and Irresponsible Developer Mike Cohen Construction. A total of 995 votes were cast. ‘Grinch of the Year’ candidates are nominated for doing the most harm to working families in our community. Previous winners of the award have met an untimely demise, such as former Tacoma Macy’s Store Manager Carol Lorton, former Tacoma City Councilmember Kevin Phelps, former Darigold CEO John Mueller, former US Senator Slade Gorton, former UW President Richard McCormick, and former Congressperson Newt Gingrich.
Tomlinson Linen
I have know the Tomlinsons for years as one of their employees, this article and its accusations are BS. I suggest the teamsters and jobs with Justice people get a life.
Bill
Amazing
Here’s What’s Really Amazing…
Come out from behind your rocks
Tomlinson Linen workers have taken a public stand for justice in our community: for living wages, for family healthcare, for retirement with dignity, for respect and a voice on the job. They have sacrificed their incomes; they have exercised free speech against corporate greed at a time when corporate owners have extreme power and advantage; they have stood up for all of us and put their futures on the line.
Can we believe “Bill” and “June?” Who are “Bill” and “June?” Bill says he is “an employee.” June says she knows “what the drivers truly work.” Are they high-paid Tomlinson managers, relatives of the wealthy owners? They give us no reason or context to trust their accusations. When JwJ activists wrote to Tomlinson, it was Tomlinson’s marketing director who responded as “A Very Happy Employee,” without his title. Why should we expect anything different in this case? Since Gary or Tim are now driving the trucks to replace the strikers, “June” could “have it so good” by simply relieving the owners of this exhausting job. Why hasn’t she? They cowardly hide behind first names as they throw rocks at Tomlinson workers, the real heroes. “Bill” and “June,” come out from behind your rocks.
This strike is about all laundry workers
What Jobs with Justice wrote came from accounts of real Tomlinson frontline workers. Yes, it is true that Gary and Tim forced the 3 drivers on strike. That’s the size of the drivers’ bargaining unit and they are unified. Tacoma’s sweatshop laundry workers organized in the 1930s first through the mostly male drivers who stood in solidarity with the mostly female workforce when they organized. No laundry worker wants to go back to those sweatshop days.
The number of workers on strike does not lessen Gary and Tim Tomlinson’s race-to-the-bottom impact on the entire laundry industry. Gary and Tim are expanding market share by offering discounts financed by undercutting the worker compensation standards of their rivals in the laundry industry. In other words, Gary and Tim are making more money on the backs of sweaty back-breaking laundry workers and their mission is to convert our local industrial laundries back to sweatshops. We call that bottom-feeding. We call that greed. The Tomlinson clients that turn their cheek to this struggle and benefit are just as responsible for playing in this system.
Hot Air
Slander? Why is it that Tomlinson managers only responded with claims of trespass (ridiculously) and not slander if what we wrote was “slander?” Over a month has passed since we visited Gary and Tim at the plant, and a true legal trespass charge has yet to be pressed.
“Bill” also tries to suck us into his confusion about the difference in “locking in” to a pension and “earn retirement.” It’s because company owners like Gary and Tim have so obliterated our pensions that “Bill” is trying to prey on the public’s lack of knowledge. Locking in refers to reaching full pension payment rate without paying a penalty for early retirement. This is the difference between living a dignified retirement versus scrimping by, which is what all of us can count on if the Tomlinsons of the world continue get their way.
A Life of Justice is the Highest Form of Human Life
It’s mysterious when anti-worker people shout “get a life” or “get a job” at working people exercising democratic rights to stand for justice in the face of undemocratic corporate power. We can only guess these people want to see workers chained to their machines with a muzzle. They want to see workers measuring our lives by the trips to Wal-Mart we amass before we pass. No thanks to that life and no thanks to that job. The world’s greatest philosophers, every religious text, this nation’s founders, the people we celebrate with national holidays - they all said no thanks too. Humans can and will do better than that. “Bill” and June” and the bilking CEOs and the George Bushes of the world will always be sniping at us to live a subhuman and sub-animal life. At least animals know when they are sated and it’s time to share with the pack. Humans can create justice and unfortunately humans can create greed. What will we choose?
Healthcare and Pensions
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/washington/27retire.html?ex=1199422800&en=db7fb71c091ca559&ei=5070&emc=eta1