Budget Rent-A-Car workers vote to unionize

LYNN ? Sixty employees from the Budget Rent-A-Car office at Logan International Airport have voted to unionize by joining IUE-CWA Local 201.The vote was 2-1.Jeffrey Crosby, president of Lynn-based Local 201, said the vote succeeded despite the company’s pleas for a second chance to satisfy worker demands. “Budget also made individual promises to workers, warned about the ‘high dues’, and claimed that the Budget workers receive everything that their unionized fellow workers at Avis have,” said Crosby, adding that top managers from Budget Rent-A-Car’s New York flew to Boston to try to turn workers against the union. “The Budget workers didn’t buy it,” he said.Budget employee Miriam Flores of Lynn, a member of the union organizing committee, said workers were looking for parity. “We want equal treatment, not favoritism”, she said “I work hard, and they leave us outside in the rain and the cold while managers are inside taking a break.”Emmanuel Chery, another Lynn resident, Budget employee and union organizing committee member, said, “We want respect on the job.”Budget Rent-A-Car workers earn less money for the same work as Avis workers, and want a voice on the job if they are mistreated, Crosby said.”The workers at Budget are like workers anywhere”, said Sheila McGillicuddy, a Local 201 organizer. “They want decent wages and benefits and fair treatment. Our job now will be to get them up to a fair standards and treatment. That’s what we’ll do.”Budget is owned by Avis. The two companies are merging operations.According to Crosby, U.S. Reps. John Tierney and Michael Capuano wrote letters to the car rental company, asking for a fair and swift election. Local 201 members organized a three day stand-out at the airport facility to welcome Budget workers before the vote, he said.”Local 201 will always be known as a strong GE union, but since our national union merged with the Communications Workers we are reaching out to build strength in the area. We now have the Saugus librarians and the Avis and Budget workers, as well as the Lynn Waste Water Treatment Plant and Ametek Aerospace, which was formerly a GE plant in Wilmington. It’s in all of our interest to grow and help each other,” said Crosby.The Budget workers will soon begin negotiating their first contract.”Since we already have a relationship with Avis, we hope that it will go smoothly,” Crosby said.Budget is 26 percent union organized nationally. Avis has similar membership.