COBB, Calif. – On Thursday evening a former U.S. secretary of labor came to Lake County to visit with Calpine workers who are on the verge of voting to join a union.

Robert Reich, who served as President Bill Clinton’s secretary of labor and now teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, met with about 60 Calpine workers, organizers and members of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 1245 at the Little Red School House.

Approximately 219 workers at Calpine’s Geysers operations are eligible to take part in an election to join IBEW 1245 Jan. 25-26, according to the union.

Reich's visit follows a meeting several Calpine workers held with Gov. Jerry Brown about their efforts to unionize on Dec. 9.

In addition to getting the chance to hear from Reich, Calpine employees who came to the Thursday night meeting were able to ask questions of union organizers about the process and find out how contract negotiations could benefit them.

The union organizing committee asked the men and women who attended to introduce themselves and share how long they had been at the company.

There were many longtime employees, some who had worked more than 20 and sometimes 30 years as techs, in the steamfields, in maintenance and other areas.

 

The process of organizing the election to join the union has been a divisive one.

IBEW has accused Calpine – one of the county's largest employers – of fighting the organizational process, which Calpine has denied.

 

The union also has alleged that sick time and staffing levels have been reduced, while health premium offsets and choice of health plans has been eliminated, while at the same time executive pay has gone up.

For its part, Calpine maintains that its workers enjoy one of the best compensation and benefits packages in the industry – including annual raises, cash bonuses and 401k contribution matches – and are in the United States’ top 20 percent of wage earners.

One Calpine worker at the meeting Thursday evening acknowledged that pay rate, and questioned why they should ask for more from the company, which he felt treated them well.

Organizers urged workers to stand with the union, and emphasized that Calpine is not the enemy. They reported receiving support and attention from around the country.

Reich, who has openly supported unions, also encouraged workers to unionize.

“What you’re doing is really important,” Reich told the group.

He said wages and benefits for workers grew for decades after World War II, which he credited to the efforts of the labor movement.

But that’s stopped now, and Reich said the country is still in the grip of the “Great Recession” because American workers can’t afford to buy the goods the United States is producing.

Better wages and working conditions benefit everyone, Reich said.

“We’re all in this together,” he said. “It’s not a zero sum game.”

He emphasized that workers need a voice at the table. That’s especially important, he said, because the United States is the richest country in the world – it’s richer than ever before – but some are getting richer than everyone else.

“Everybody should get part of the pie,” he said.

Unions, said Reich, have historically had an important impact on the overall U.S. workforce. He said in 1955, 35 percent of U.S. workers were in unions, which was enough to influence the prevailing wage. Today, only 7 percent of the private sector workforce is unionized.

Reich told Lake County News after the meeting that he believes there is an opportunity for a resurgence of union representation in light of the current economic stresses, and as more people come to understand the country's economic disparities.

He said people are fed up with economic stresses and insecurities. “They're feeding a new populist movement.”

That movement, he said, takes the form both of the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movements.

Similar social movements in the first decade of the 20th century, the 1930s and 1960s resulted in important developments for workers, Reich said.

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