People Before Profit blog

California labor thunders, 'No recall!'

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 03:45:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES – In a display of unity and fighting spirit, 600 union leaders from across the Golden State met at a special convention here Aug. 26 and voted unanimously to mobilize a huge vote Oct. 7 to defeat the recall of Democratic Gov. Gray Davis.

Davis fired up the crowd, receiving 16 standing ovations at the Manhattan Beach Marriott Hotel as he pledged to sign a driver’s license bill for immigrant workers and to protect labor rights. “I will not let them recall one benefit for working families,” Davis said.

Holding placards that read “Labor Says: STOP the recall,” scores of union members flanked Davis at a packed press conference held after the convention, chanting, “No recall! No recall!”

“I am proud that organized labor is standing with me and I am proud of standing with working people,” said Davis. “We will make history together [on Oct. 7] by my becoming the first governor to be elected three times.”

Art Pulaski, executive secretary-treasurer of the California AFL-CIO, agreed, telling reporters Davis is the “best governor for working people we’ve had in 100 years. Each day, we become more and more convinced that this recall is going to go down to defeat.”

Pulaski held up a black and white photo of the despised former GOP governor Pete Wilson fondly embracing Republican candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger which brought boos from unionists. “We see Schwarzenegger embracing the man we thought we had run out of town,” Pulaski said. The crowd chanted “No re-Pete!”

Pulaski unveiled the mobilization plan approved unanimously by the meeting, which includes targeted direct mailing to every union household, three million phone calls, and 700,000 one-on-one meetings with union members in a massive “get out the vote” drive. The AFL-CIO and its affiliates will spend $5 million in the effort, he said.

Pulaski said the delegates also overwhelmingly approved a call for a “yes” vote for Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante as an “insurance policy” to keep the Republicans from seizing control of the governorship.

Miguel Contreras, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, told the media that labor is confident that the recall can be defeated, but he said that many rank and file members, especially Latinos, asked for the back-up strategy of supporting Bustamante to increase voter turn-out. “We do what is best for our rank and file,” he said.

A just-released Los Angeles Times poll showed Bustamante surging to 35 percent compared to Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 22 percent. Latinos polled both against the recall of Davis and for Bustamante. The announcement that former governor Wilson is chairing the Schwarzenegger campaign is credited with that result.

United Farm Worker co-founder Dolores Huerta told the World, “I can’t remember attending a convention with this much excitement and enthusiasm. This campaign is going to bring everyone together. It will energize the base. Gray Davis is 100 percent right on women’s issues. When he took office, only 50,000 children were enrolled in the Healthy Families program. Now it is almost a million children, and 70 percent are Latino youngsters.” As people become more informed about the forces behind the recall, “they will see a pattern,” Huerta added. “This is a repeat of Florida. The right-wing Republicans can’t win in a fair election so they resort to all these dirty tricks. I think it is going to backfire on them.”

At the press conference, Davis charged that the ultra-right’s agenda in the recall is to “strip away” the gains labor has won in his five years in office, including prevailing wages, health care for poor children, and reduced class size in the public schools. “People have written me off at their peril. This is a very powerful alliance you are looking at,” he said, gesturing toward the multiracial crowd of men and women surrounding him.

The AFL-CIO constituency groups, representing African American, Latino, women and others, had special caucus meetings to mobilize their members into coalition efforts with community forces. President of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists William Lucy, who traveled from Washington, D.C., to attend the meeting, told the media that the attempt to recall Davis “becomes the spearhead of rollback of the progressive agenda. We cannot take this lightly.”

Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.), told the World, “We are all united against the recall. The recall was not meant to be used and manipulated in this way.” Solis denounced Ward Connerly’s anti-affirmative action Proposition 54, also on the Oct. 7 ballot, which would forbid collection of data based on race or ethnicity. She pointed out that data on racial background is essential to enforcement of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. “Prop. 54 could be used to disenfranchise us,” she said. “This is a sham that Connerly is perpetrating against us.”

Unanimous support for Davis by unionists was undeniable. When a reporter asked at the press conference, “What is labor’s message to voters this Labor Day?” the crowd roared, “No recall!” Pulaski grinned. “To quote George Bernard Shaw,” he said, “‘Let the masses speak!’”

Tim Wheeler can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com, Evelina Alarcon at

Verizon negotiations heat up

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 03:28:00 +0000

As of this writing negotiations are continuing between the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), representing almost 80,000 workers, and telecommunications giant Verizon Communications.

Focus has shifted to national negotiations in Washington, D.C., where intense bargaining continues under an information blackout imposed by mediator Peter Hurtgen. Talks were reconvened Aug. 19 after an 11-day recess. Bargaining at regional tables resumed on Aug. 22.

Despite the information blackout, there have been unofficial reports that progress has been made in some areas. Health care, job security and work rule issues remain the major stumbling blocks. Management continues to demand concessions that CWA and IBEW consider to be unacceptable. Verizon is asking the workforce to bear the burden of health benefit cost increases, and is demanding the elimination of job security provisions in the previous contract.

Verizon also wants to increase by more than ten-fold the number of jobs that it is permitted to shift to low-wage states or countries. The fact that Verizon has previously outsourced work to India, and that another carrier, Bell South, is planning to move 900 jobs to India within the next five years, has caused serious concern.

Management introduced an additional road bump on Aug. 18 when it sued CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen for violating the company’s trademark by using the phrase, “Verizon, can you hear us now?” during a conference call with journalists. CWA responded by filing a lawsuit in federal court, charging Verizon and two top officers with violation of federal wiretap laws for eavesdropping on the invitation-only call.

Verizon’s lawsuit may be an indication of the intense pressure now felt by management. The union has stepped up this pressure by initiating a “Community Campaign Against Verizon Corporate Greed.” This campaign, a joint effort of the Verizon unions, the AFL-CIO, Jobs with Justice, and religious and political leaders, is organizing consumers to switch their phone service from Verizon to AT&T if the union calls for it. CWA International President Morton Bahr has called this campaign a “virtual strike” that “would directly impact the company’s revenue stream, which is what a traditional labor walkout is meant to do.”

Management has been coming under political pressure as well. In a recent letter to Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, 11 U.S. senators from northeastern states expressed their concern over the social and economic impact of Verizon’s drive to transfer and lay off workers and to shift health care costs onto workers. The senators also took issue with Verizon’s attempts to interfere with ongoing organizing efforts at its wireless division.

Meanwhile, workers remain on the job, although a strike has been authorized. According to an official statement by three CWA district vice presidents, the union’s tactics have left management in disarray: “Their year-long strategy … is not working … because we did not act as [they] predicted we would. We did not strike, costing the company $5 million each day to maintain the scab standby workforce. They believed the unity of CWA and IBEW would fall apart. It is stronger than ever. They believed our unity would weaken; that longer service employees would abandon less senior workers; that techs wouldn’t worry about service rep and operator services work being consolidated anywhere management saw fit; and no one would care about retirees. ... They do not have the slightest understanding of trade union solidarity.”

The author can be reached at

Church worker dispute resolved

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 02:56:00 +0000

Almost two months after five south Texas church workers were fired for unionizing, the ensuing dispute between the United Farm Workers (UFW) union and the Catholic Diocese of Brownsville has been partially resolved.

On June 18 church workers Ann Cass, Edna Cantu, Martha Sanchez, Rosario Vaello and Bonifacio Quintero were fired in a case of what they and hundreds of parishioners characterized as an act of union-busting. While at least one of the two churches involved cited a plan to use volunteers in place of salaried employees, many of the local faithful accused Bishop Raymundo Pena of having been responsible for the firings.

The bishop openly opposed contracts that five parishes in his diocese had signed with the UFW in 2002, and the firings, many believe, were an effort on his part to break the contracts. He had already declared them “invalid in church law.”

Ironically, and, perhaps in a case of telling defensiveness, Pena claims he supports organized labor and was a friend of Cesar Chavez, the late founder of the UFW.

The unionization drive was the result of Bishop Pena’s abolishing a pension plan for the 1,100 paid lay workers, a decision that Rebecca Flores, Texas state director of the UFW, says was “for no reason. There was no reason to do it.”

After the diocese offered an ambivalently received alternative plan, the five parishes signed union contracts with the UFW, which established pension plans and – for the first time – grievance procedures.

After two months of court-mandated mediation, the parties have arrived at an agreement which includes the implementation of a UFW contract with two of the churches, back pay and lost medical benefits, a diocese-wide exhaustive grievance procedure to protect workers from arbitrary termination, and a provision that prevents pastors from terminating workers within 90 days of having assumed their offices.

Resolution is still being sought regarding the three remaining union contracts signed in 2002.

The author can be reached at

New landmark honors workers dignity

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 02:54:00 +0000

DETROIT, Mich. – With its gleaming stainless steel arches reaching toward each other 63 feet in the air, a monument to Michigan’s working class, the Michigan Labor Legacy Project, was unveiled Aug. 20 in downtown Detroit.

Several hundred people gathered in Detroit’s Hart Plaza for the unveiling. Speakers included local, state, and national union leaders, members of the Michigan Labor History Society, the artists who designed the monument, and local elected officials.

Members of the Carpenters, Laborers, Ironworkers, Operating Engineers, Cement Masons, Electricians, and other Detroit-area unions cleared the land in front of Hart Plaza, installed steel rods, set the foundation for the circular base, built two “walls of honor,” and pieced the steel monument together. The arch is made of 30 tons of steel, and weighs even more with concrete poured into its hollow interior.

David Barr and Sergio De Giusti are the Michigan artists who collaborated on the project. They were chosen in a national competition of more than 120 artists in 2001. According to the artists, the sculpture is meant to look like “an elegantly stylized gear that bursts from the earth.” At night, a bright light arcs between the tops of the two sides of the open arch to symbolize labor’s energy.

At the base are 14 bronze reliefs mounted on six-foot-high granite boulders, which “describe labor history in Detroit and project labor’s hope for a better world,” according to the project’s prepared statement. These bronze reliefs include monuments to the struggle for living wages and the fight against racism and sexism.

There is also a section called “Labor’s Achievements are America’s Strengths.” Here a dozen marble plaques remind us of labor’s major victories, including ending child labor, free public education, and paid pensions and health care. Still another aspect of the project was the burying of a time capsule containing records of Michigan’s great labor battles from the sit-down strikes of the 1930s to the Detroit newspaper strike in the 1990s.

Near the monument are two walls of honor. One lists the unions who participated in funding and building the monument. The other lists the names of union men and women who fought to organize, build, and preserve their unions.

The speakers who presided over the unveiling spoke of labor’s past, present, and future. United Auto Workers International Vice President Gerald Bantom remarked that Detroit, as the nation’s premier union town, “should be blessed with such a powerful monument.” He said, “Our landmark honors the workers who struggled for dignity.”

Metro Detroit AFL-CIO President Donald Boggs described the monument as a symbol of continuing struggle. Though circular in shape, it doesn’t quite meet at the top, representing a continuing battle for justice, Boggs said.

“We are faced with rising unemployment and downsizing, and we haven’t rid ourselves of a health system that puts profits before people’s needs,” Boggs continued. We are also faced with an administration that is the most anti-worker we have experienced in decades, he added.

But, the monument, Boggs concluded, reminds us that “workers triumph when we stand together.”

“Our movement has always been about moving forward, not moving back,” stated Ken Terry, director of UAW Region 1. Terry predicted a future in which the labor movement would win universal health care, equal pay for equal work, a living wage, an end to sweatshops, and “the most magnificent achievement of all,” world peace.

Michigan Labor Legacy Project Co-coordinator David Elsila told World, “It’s art for the people, not for the aristocracy.”

Readers can financially support the monument by sending donations to Michigan Labor Legacy Project, c/o Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, 5401 Cass Ave., Detroit, MI 48202. People who donate $100 or more can still have their names inscribed on the wall of honor.

The author can be reached at

The business of union-busting

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 02:52:00 +0000

From Blackjacks to Briefcases: A History of Commercialized Strikebreaking and Unionbusting in the United States, by Robert Michael Smith, Ohio University Press, 197 pp., $16.95 (paperback)

Strikebreaking and union-busting has taken many shapes and forms over the years, but the goals haven’t changed. While the “profession” started as an obvious, and usually violent, infringement upon workers’ rights to organize, it soon metamorphosed into something much more subtle and insidious.

As someone who has participated in organizing campaigns, I can confidently say that Robert Michael Smith’s From Blackjacks to Briefcases: A History of Commercialized Strikebreaking and Unionbusting in the United States, stands as a welcome contribution to the historiography of American labor/management relations.

Smith begins by chronicling the beginnings of the first professional strikebreaking agency, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. By providing “guards” to “protect” replacement workers from striking Illinois miners in 1866, the Pinkertons’ first foray into strikebreaking proved very profitable. Even today, the Pinkertons probably remain the best known strikebreakers.

While their methods were brutal and primitive (and only partially successful) the Pinkertons quickly grew to be respected by industrialists and robber barons. Armed Pinkerton guards would escort scabs into a factory, plant or mine, all under the eye of watchmen in towers with machine guns fixed on the strikers.

After the success of the Pinkertons, hundreds of strikebreaking agencies sprung up across the nation. The Baldwin-Felts Agency “provided labor discipline services” to mine owners in West Virginia, instituting “feudal-like control over their workers ... harass[ing] union organizers from the time they stepped off the train until the time they left.”

The labor movement in the United States continued to advance, however, and by the early 20th century workers had achieved minimum governmental protections. Strikebreakers now had to look for new and subtler ways of influencing the outcome of strikes. Smith tells us that beyond simply providing “guards,” professional strikebreakers now made it their business to employ an army of replacement workers, skilled in whatever trade was needed, and ready to travel to any location at any time.

James A. Farley, who became known as the “King of the Strikebreakers,” boasted to the New York City Interborough Rapid Transit Company of his roster of 35,000 transit workers. “I will send for these men wherever they happen to be, and pay their fare to the strike center. I can reach them at a minute’s notice at any time,” he told the IRT.

During the labor upsurges of the Depression era, strikebreakers and union-busters began to rely more heavily on spies and espionage. With emphasis being placed on “undercover work, which being secret, created less antagonism,” the Pinkerton National Detective Agency became the “most important supplier of industrial spies in the country.”

By providing “undercover men skilled at destroying unions from within” the Pinkertons were able to sabotage many organizing campaigns, and weaken rank and file support in many already established union locals.

Smith writes that when the Western Federation of Miners walked out of the mines, A.W. Gratias, the union relief administrator and secret Pinkerton stool, pared down relief expenditures “to cause disaffection and get the men against the union.”

Although the Pinkertons dominated much of the union-busting industry, they were not alone. One competitor bragged in an industry journal, “We are prepared to place secret operatives who are skilled mechanics in any shop, mill or factory, to discover whether any labor organizing is being done.”

Another union-busting company announced to prospective clients that it would have several delegates at the annual American Federation of Labor convention, adding, “for the sum of 15 dollars” they would provide “a full and complete report of the entire proceedings.”

While spying and collecting information on employees has continued, and in many ways intensified, union-busting and strikebreaking agencies have also refined additional, subtler techniques. By the 1960s, agencies began hosting monthly seminars designed to educate employers about their “rights” when they are faced with an organizing campaign.

Today, instead of thugs armed with rifles, modern agencies use technology to videotape, photograph and even wiretap union members and supporters.

While many of us think of union members as blue-collar employees, professional white-collar workers are also joining unions. These doctors, nurses, technicians, and many other job classifications have also had to deal with the professional union-buster and strikebreaker. A major flaw in Smith’s book is its lack of information on union-busting and strikebreaking in the white-collar workforce.

Strikebreaking continues to be a lucrative profession. From Blackjack to Briefcases should be read by anyone interested in economic and social justice.

– Tony Pecinovsky (tonypec@pww.org)

Texas labor fights back

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 02:48:00 +0000

Bloodied but unbowed after a terrible state legislative session, Texas labor is laying plans to continue fighting. At the AFL-CIO convention in Austin July 24-26, over 400 delegates applauded the “Killer-D” state representatives who fled the state in May (and again in late July) to thwart a redistricting power grab by their Republican opponents. They endorsed the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, a national Cesar Chavez holiday, and dozens of other progressive proposals.

One important battleground will be the Texas constitutional elections scheduled by the Republican legislative majority for Sept. 13. One of the amendments up for vote, known as Proposition 12, would diminish the right of juries to set the amount of damages awarded in civil lawsuits. It would thereby limit the average person’s ability to legally hold people or companies accountable for wrongdoing.

The election date was deliberately isolated from local elections in November and is set for a Saturday during football season. Speakers pointed out that the amendment’s big-business sponsors were hoping for the lowest possible voter turnout. Attorney Dan Lamb of Texas Watch told the convention, “We know the other side is trying to keep this issue below the radar.” The state federation offered anti-Prop. 12 literature to all.

Coalition of Black Trade Unionists President Bill Lucy gave one of the most dramatic speeches at the convention. Most of the speakers criticized President Bush on civil liberties, economic issues, and his attacks against working people, but Lucy distinguished himself from the other speakers by not being afraid to criticize Bush’s aggressions overseas.

On the invasion of Iraq, he asked, “What’s it all about? And if you tell me it’s to bring democracy to Iraq, I will ask the same question: What is it all about? I would suggest it is about some folks getting richer at the expense of others.”

Lucy spoke directly against President Bush’s new and aggressive “pre-emptive strike” foreign policy. He said, “The question becomes, ‘Are we going to go to war with every country that we disagree with?’” Lucy received a very warm reception from the Texas delegates.

Another highlight was a workshop organized by national leaders of the Jobs with Justice organization. The workshop organizers were surprised by twice the turnout they had expected.

The author can be reached at

Stop the FTAA, On to Miami!

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 02:38:00 +0000

Thousands will be marching in the streets of Miami, Florida, during the week of Nov. 17-21, protesting the proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA). They will pour into Miami from all over the country and from all over the world. The protesters will be trade unionists, anti-globalization activists, environmentalists, family farmers, religious activists, civil and human rights activists. Thousands will come to Miami to make their voices heard at a meeting of trade ministers from around the Americas.

This, the eighth trade ministerial meeting to discuss the FTAA, is widely viewed as a critical step toward its creation. The official proceedings will take place on Nov. 20-21. The ministers plan to make Miami the permanent headquarters of the FTAA bureaucracy.

The FTAA is a North and South American hemispheric trade agreement that will enhance the influence of U.S. monopolies and corporate economic domination on both continents. The proposed agreement involves 34 countries. Cuba is the only country in the hemisphere not participating. The U.S. aims to have a treaty in place by January of 2005.

‘NAFTA on steroids’

The proposed FTAA trade agreement has been described as “NAFTA on steroids.” NAFTA, the existing North American Free Trade Agreement, has so far resulted in the loss of over one million jobs in the U.S., mostly in manufacturing. In Mexico NAFTA has driven an additional eight million people into poverty. An estimated 28,000 small businesses in Mexico have folded due to unfair competition from huge transnational corporations. Since NAFTA, over a million additional workers in Mexico now make less than $4.60 a day, the minimum wage in that country.

FTAA will accelerate and geometrically increase this “race to the bottom” for all workers in the hemisphere. FTAA will extend the reach of NAFTA (read U.S. and other multinational corporations) to cover 800 million people. This is double the number covered by NAFTA. The FTAA’s expansion will mean about a 400 percent increase in the number of low-wage workers competing for jobs.

If approved, the FTAA will become the world’s largest “free trade” zone. The FTAA will greatly increase the potential power and scope of corporations and banks over local and national economies. The FTAA proposals now being negotiated will extend pro-corporate “free trade” rules to cover many service and financial interests. These include things like the insurance industry, health care, energy, education, transportation, and construction.

Just as NAFTA has been devastating to manufacturing in the U.S., FTAA will accelerate this “race to the bottom” effect by greatly increasing the mobility of capital in the service industries. In fact, with new technologies like the internet and advanced communications, FTAA will mean much quicker and greater job loss for U.S. service workers. And, as has been the case with manufacturing under NAFTA, it will mean even greater poverty and misery for those in areas where work is shifted in pursuit of low wages.

Needless to say, FTAA will not expand labor rights and environmental standards. Both labor and the environmental movement fought long and hard to build a vast coalition to defeat NAFTA. While NAFTA was ratified, it was by a slim majority. Even so, the anti-NAFTA coalition had grown to include most mainstream civil rights, human rights, women, youth, religious and even many small business groups.

Sham ‘side agreements’

This broad people’s coalition forced side agreements to the NAFTA treaty that were supposed to deal with labor and environmental standards. But these side agreements turned out to be a total sham. As of this writing very few labor or environmental violations have been resolved. In most cases, complaints have resulted in stonewalling because there are no mechanisms for forcing companies to comply with labor or environmental standards.

For example, Sony workers in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, brought complaints against Sony and the Mexican government for conspiring together to deny workers the right to organize an independent union at the plant. The company fired workers trying to organize and worked with the government to guarantee that the company union won the election in violation of Mexican labor law. They also used police violence to break up a peaceful picket by the independent union. Even though the NAFTA officials who heard the case agreed that there were serious labor violations, no workers were reinstated, no penalties were assessed, and no independent union was allowed to be organized.

The FTAA negotiators have already made it clear that the new treaty will also have no enforcement power on labor and environmental standards. Meeting in Quito, Ecuador, in 2002, the treaty negotiators set forward a pious sounding set of “principles” on labor and the environment. But number eleven from their statement says it all: “We reject the use of labor or environmental standards for protectionist purposes. Most Ministers recognized that environmental and labor issues should not be utilized as conditionalities nor subject to disciplines, the non-compliance of which can be subject to trade restrictions or sanctions.”

Disaster for agriculture, immigration

NAFTA has been a disaster in agriculture and FTAA only promises to make matters worse. NAFTA has made it easier for large agribusiness to control prices and markets across all borders. Both U.S. and Mexican farmers have seen their incomes decline.

NAFTA has also aggravated immigration issues. The continued impoverishment of Mexican workers and farmers has forced thousands more to leave home in search of jobs to support their families. NAFTA and FTAA are all about freedom of capital to migrate without any barriers, but labor is not allowed the same rights. Instead, these treaties have contributed to new levels of immigrant bashing, racist hysteria and anti-foreign sentiment.

‘Free trade’ and sovereignty

Another key issue that has emerged from bad experience with NAFTA is violations of local and national sovereignty and democracy. The most famous case involves the Canadian postal system. In 2000, United Parcel Service (UPS) sued the Ottawa government for $230 million in damages under provisions of NAFTA. The suit claimed that Canada was hurting UPS’s business with its national postal service monopoly, Canada Post. UPS is suing for damage to future profits claiming that the postal monopoly has an unfair advantage in its express package service. The case is still pending.

Another case involved Canada and its ban on the carcinogen MMT, a gasoline additive dangerous to the human immune system. Ethyl Corporation, a U.S. chemical giant, successfully sued Canada under NAFTA. The Canadian government had to pay $13 million U.S. dollars and drop the ban on MMT.

Switching the players, a Canadian chemical company, Methanex, is suing the state of California because it outlaws another gasoline additive, MTBE, demanding that the state rescind the law or pay damages for lost profits.

Yet another well-known case involves a suit against a local Mexican government in the state of San Luis Potosi by Metalclad, a U.S.-based company. When the Mexican government dared to insist on a regulatory process for Metalclad to reopen a toxic waste dump, the company sued, stating that its right to make a profit had been infringed upon. Metalclad won in a secret three-person tribunal, and was paid $17 million U.S. dollars.

These examples also illustrate the “free trade” attack on basic democracy and the destruction of the people’s right to demand government protection of their interests. It has long been the social compact of this country, and most others, that the government acts for the people to protect citizens against unbridled corporate monopolies and power. This democratic and protective role of government is deeply embedded in the U.S. Constitution. Yet NAFTA provides companies the mechanism to challenge and even overthrow this government function. FTAA would even go further by expanding the use of secret tribunals and mechanisms now in place under NAFTA.

Corporations vs. the public

Another anti-democratic feature of the FTAA is the secrecy surrounding the negotiations. The original talks between trade ministers were begun in deep concealment in 1994. As word leaked out, public demands for transparency, especially from labor and the anti-globalization movement, forced them somewhat into the daylight. Nevertheless, the actual language of the agreement was long shrouded in secrecy and only belatedly published due to intense protest.

While there are no labor, environmental or civil society representatives at the negotiating table, 500 corporate representatives have the necessary secret clearances to read all documents and to participate in deliberations of FTAA drafting and working committees.

Growing movement against capitalist globalization

American labor has been in on the ground floor of raising the alarm on FTAA. The AFL-CIO, working with ORIT, a regional labor organization that includes most of the major labor federations in the hemisphere, held the first labor forum and demonstration against FTAA at the Denver, Colorado, trade ministers meeting in 1995. American labor and the AFL-CIO have increased their participation in FTAA protests exponentially ever since.

The Seattle demonstrations against the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1999 marked a new stage in opposition to corporate controlled “free trade” in the United States. The labor movement was the critical force around which such a broad coalition of forces gelled in Seattle. Many observers remarked on the “Teamsters and Turtles” phenomenon representing the impressive new unity of labor and the environmental movements in opposing corporate controlled globalization. But the coalition was much bigger and broader, including farmers, women, civil rights and all manner of nationally and racially oppressed people’s organizations, youth, and religious activists.

The Miami protests are shaping up to be even bigger than Seattle, not only in size, but also in their breadth and potential impact. Already the AFL-CIO, and the industrial unions in particular, are working hard to mobilize for Miami. The AFL-CIO has initiated an “I vote no on the FTAA” campaign in the U.S.: www.unionvoice.org/campaign/ftaaballot. The initiative comes out of the Hemispheric Social Alliance, a coalition of unions and community allies from all of the Americas. Plans are to deliver millions of ballots and postcards opposing the FTAA from all around the hemisphere.

The newly formed Industrial Union Council of the AFL-CIO has an ambitious plan of mobilization for Miami. It includes targeting key cities in “battleground” states and designating key unions that are strong in each area to head up the efforts.

Both the Steelworkers and the Teamsters, big participants in Seattle, are hitting the ground running. The Steelworkers have scheduled their executive board meeting and are also calling a conference of their Rapid Response activists at the same time in Miami, just prior to the demonstrations.

The 2004 U.S. presidential elections will figure large in deliberations about the FTAA. George Bush accelerated the FTAA talks after taking office and many consider him vulnerable because of the bad economy and the worsening trade imbalances.

Let’s go to Miami!

Already an exciting mixture of marches, demonstrations and educational activities are being planned for the entire week of Nov. 17-21 in Miami. The week will feature a “People’s Gala,” an evening of speakers, entertainment and cultural presentations.

Many interesting workshops, seminars, and forums are being planned through out the week. And of course there will be a massive march and rally now planned for Nov. 19. Local coalitions are forming all over the place to mobilize for Miami. For a preliminary list of sponsoring organizations see: www.citizen.org/trade/ftaa/TAKE_ACTION_/articles.cfm?ID=10098

Look them up and join the action in Miami!

Scott Marshall is a vice-chairman of the Communist Party USA and serves as chairman of the Party’s National Labor Commission. He can be reached at scott@rednet.org

Steel companies slash retiree benefits

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 02:33:00 +0000

DETROIT – Thirty thousand retired steelworkers from bankrupt National Steel are seeing their worst nightmare become reality after a bankruptcy judge ruled earlier this month that they are no longer eligible for health care coverage.

For many of these industrial workers, mill work has played havoc with their health and chronic illnesses require regular care.

In May, the bankruptcy judge agreed to allow U.S. Steel to purchase the bankrupt company over a competitive bid by AK Steel. U.S. Steel offered less money, but assumed the debts of National Steel, and negotiated a labor agreement with the United Steelworkers of America (USWA). The National Steel buyout made U.S. Steel the world’s fifth largest steel producer.

According to a USWA statement, the labor agreement “reduced management staffing, provided workers a stronger voice in productivity improvements, secured industry-leading wages and incentives,” and committed the companies to strengthen their investments in steel production in the U.S.

Additionally, the companies agreed to secure defined benefit pensions for union members, protect the benefits of current U.S. Steel retirees, reduce outsourcing to non-union contractors, and provided a buyout for retirement-eligible workers still in the plants. U.S. Steel also promised to keep other areas of production open that are organized by the USWA. Some plants, such as the Great Lake Works near Detroit, were expected to return to near full capacity.

Steelworkers involved in ratifying this agreement expected that retirees, who have long fought for such protections, would receive company-paid health and prescription drug coverage.

The union supported consolidation as a way to save jobs and pensions lost due to a wave of steel company bankruptcies. Some 36 companies have filed for bankruptcy since 1998.

Most retired steelworkers cut off from health care benefits because of National’s bankruptcy do not qualify for Medicaid or drug discount card programs. Many aren’t old enough for Medicare. Temporary coverage under COBRA can cost retirees and their families hundreds of dollars a month and is only temporary. USWA Local 1299, near Detroit with 9,000 retirees, is doing everything it can to help retirees get into whatever program they qualify for, though clearly there are major gaps.

Indiana steelworker union activist Paul Kaczocha, an employee of bankrupt Bethlehem Steel where retirees also lost pension and health care benefits, told the World, “These maneuvers by bankrupt companies to cut off retirees’ medical care is another broken promise made to workers over the decades. They worked at lower wages for a promise of lifetime healthcare.” Kaczocha says something needs to be done nationally to correct this injustice. He called for a better protected national pension program for all workers, and “labor’s holy grail: a national health care plan that will cover all workers and their families.”

The author can be reached at

Ironworkers ring doorbells against recall

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 02:31:00 +0000

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Ironworker Ray Trujillo is on a mission: to reach every union family in California and convince them to vote “no” on the recall of Gov. Gray Davis Oct. 7.

An outgoing and energetic man nearing retirement, Trujillo is the Northern California regional director of the Building & Construction Trades, AFL-CIO. We met at the headquarters of the Sacramento Central Labor Council on the far outskirts of the city one Saturday morning where 25 or so union activists had gathered to go door to door urging voters to vote against the recall. The labor movement here is phone-banking evenings during the week and canvassing door to door on weekends to mobilize the 120,000 union households in the Sacramento region.

Trujillo invited me to join a team of ironworkers in canvassing a neighborhood in Sacramento. “Our democracy is at stake,” he said as we drove with ironworkers Brian Tracy and Mike Berry to our assigned precinct. “This governor was fairly elected by the people eight months ago. Eight million voted. Now you have the extreme right-wing Republicans in California trying to overturn it, trying to buy the governorship with 20 percent of the vote.”

He linked it to the Bush-Cheney theft of the 2000 election. “The Supreme Court shouldn’t have stepped in. Every vote should have been counted,” he said. Support for the recall has crested, he said. “Now we are getting our message out and opposition to the recall is already going up. This is a fight we can win.”

A couple of years ago, Prop. 226, the misnamed “Paycheck Deception Act,” had 76 percent support in the polls, he said. “We went to work and it was defeated by about 76 percent.”

Davis is California’s most pro-labor, pro-working families governor in decades, he continued. The monied interests have shifted blame from themselves to Davis for the energy crisis and rate-gouging that is the fault of his Republican predecessor, Pete Wilson.

“Davis brought us through the energy crisis. The lights never went out,” he said. “Davis built 26 power plants, every one of them under a Project Labor Agreement. Davis went up against Enron and Ken Lay and tried to get back the billions gouged from consumers in the energy crisis.” With their crony connections to Bush and Cheney, “not a one of those Enron executives has gone to jail.”

Billionaire Warren Buffett, who is bankrolling Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger for governor, vowed that a power plant he was building on the Salton Sea would be constructed without union labor, Trujillo said.

“Davis sent the Director of Industrial Relations down and we came out with a Project Labor Agreement” guaranteeing union wages and benefits. That by itself was enough to enrage Buffett and the energy brokers into a drive to remove Davis, Trujillo said.

We arrived at our assigned neighborhood and fanned out on Sawtelle Street. A young mother with a baby on her hip answered the doorbell. “I haven’t thought about the recall yet,” she said. “It’s a waste of taxpayer money.”

“Yes,” Trujillo replied. “Whose paying for it? Taxpayers. This recall is not about Gray Davis. It’s about you.” He held up an AFL-CIO flyer with Pete Wilson’s head grafted on to Schwarzenegger, the “Terminator,” armed with an AK-47, hand grenades dangling from his bulging chest. She smiled and took the leaflet. “Do you remember Pete Wilson?” Trujillo asked. “He took away the eight hour day. Now he’s back. He’s the head of Schwarzenegger’s campaign. He wants to terminate the prevailing wage, terminate Family Leave.”

On Salmon Falls, a few blocks away, a woman who belongs to the Teamsters answered the doorbell. “The real recall is recalling our benefits,” Trujillo told her. “They want to recall prevailing wages, the minimum wage, health care.”

“That would mess me up real bad,” the woman said. “I always thought this recall was crazy. It’s costing a lot of money. I work for the Welfare Department. It’s going to affect a lot of the people I work with.” Trujillo nodded. “It could set a very bad precedent. Anybody with a million dollars, they don’t like who was elected governor, they just recall him.”

In a cul-de-sac, in a one-storey cottage with blossoming flower beds, we spoke with Stephen Smith, a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers. “I’m a union man. Pete Wilson? He sucks. I’ll vote against the recall and so will my wife.”

Trujillo handed him a fistful of the Terminator leaflets. “Pass these out to your fellow workers. If you want to volunteer, there’s a phone number at the bottom.”

Trujillo was fired up. “You want to go with me to Contra Costa after lunch? We can work another precinct,” he said as we speeded back to headquarters. “You can see there are a lot of undecided. But the people are receptive too. We’ve got to reach all of them.”

The author can be reached at

Miamians protest detention of Haitians

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 02:30:00 +0000

The Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride is going to put the unfair treatment of Haitian asylum-seekers on the national agenda, said Winie Cantave, co-director of the Miami-based Unite for Dignity. According to Cantave, hundreds of Haitian refugees, including entire families with small children, have been kept in indefinite detention after being apprehended on Florida’s shores.

Miami Freedom Ride coordinator Anna Fink says that while immigrants from other countries are usually allowed to remain with family or community members while awaiting asylum hearings, in the case of Haitians, many have been kept in custody even after having been granted asylum. In April, Attorney General John Ashcroft, citing national security concerns in the wake of the Sept. 11 events, issued an executive ordering allowing the indefinite detention of Haitian asylum-seekers.

A highlight of the Miami bus’s thousand-mile route will be a stop at Savannah, Ga., where 500 free Haitians fought in the Revolutionary War. Haitians are the only one of the international brigades with no memorial. The Haitian-American Historical Society is working with the city of Savannah to erect a monument recognizing the Haitian brigade’s contribution, according to Fink.

On board the Miami bus, which departs Sept. 27 following a prayer breakfast at the Toussaint L’Ouverture Middle School, will be immigrants from Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba, El Salvador, Mexico, Jamaica, Honduras and their supporters. Members of the service employees (SEIU), hotel workers (HERE), longshoremen (ILA), postal workers, garment workers (UNITE), laborers (LIUNA) and ironworkers as well as students and church activists will be among the 55 riders.

A Florida law which restricts immigrants’ access to driver’s licenses by requiring proof of legal residency is a question of great urgency to all immigrant groups, said Fink, and “all immigrants are concerned with the establishment of a path to citizenship.”

The Florida Freedom Riders’ route will includes stops to meet with farm workers in Immokalee, Fla., to support their boycott of Taco Bell, whose tomato suppliers impose slave labor conditions on their workers, and Wilson, N.C., where the Farm Labor Organizing Committee is calling for a boycott of Mt. Olive Pickles in support of cucumber harvesters.

In Orangeburg, S.C., riders will pay tribute to the three African American students massacred and 27 wounded by state police in a desegregation struggle in 1968. In Fayetteville, N.C., riders will meet with some of the 6,000 workers from Smithfield, the world’s largest pork processing plant, who are organizing with the United Food and Commercial Workers to combat poverty wages and brutal working conditions.

Florida organizers hope that the activities around the Freedom Ride, which include a music and dance-filled Immigrant Workers Freedom Festival community send-off on Sept. 21, will raise awareness of the importance of voting among the state’s many naturalized citizens. “Participation in elections is a crucial matter in Florida,” Fink told the World.

The author can be reached at

Cintas workers protest poverty wages

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 02:08:00 +0000

DETROIT – “We want a living wage!” shouted 100 people conducting an informational picket line and rally at the Cintas industrial laundry plant here July 31. The line included workers from the plant, members of United Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) Local 129. The Detroit facility is one of the few organized Cintas facilities in the country.

Cintas, which made $290 million in profits last year, has offered the workers an 85-cent raise over three years. Since the average wage is $6.60 an hour, most workers will still be below a living wage. The company has also proposed some takeaways in the workers’ health insurance. A UNITE organizer estimated that Cintas made $10,000 profit from each worker at the Detroit laundry and therefore “can easily afford to pay its workers a living wage.”

UNITE has launched a nationwide campaign to organize workers at Cintas, which is the largest supplier of industrial uniforms in the U.S. and Canada.

Unions represented at the rally included UAW, Teamsters, SEIU, Machinists, IBEW, PACE, Operating Engineers, Newspaper Guild, and Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO. Community support came from Gray Panthers, Pax Christi, ACORN, Jobs With Justice, and St. Leo Roman Catholic Church, which is across the street from the plant.

A representative of Teamsters Local 51, which represents the Detroit plant’s drivers, pointed out that Teamsters International President James Hoffa has thrown the full support of the Teamsters behind the drive to organize these workers across the country and will stand with the Detroit laundry workers.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Total Recall

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 02:06:00 +0000

Workers’ correspondence

Sitting at breakfast with a couple of union buddies, talking about the California recall, we recalled defeating the 1998 effort to gag labor’s voice in our state known as Prop. 226.

“It was right-wing shot across the bow,” said John, a shipyard worker.

“Yeah, and we met it with a broadside!” laughed Scott, an ironworker and Navy veteran, too.

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“Well after (then-Gov.) Pete Wilson took away our daily overtime, raided the state workers’ pension funds, blocked increasing the minimum wage and cut back on prevailing wage laws, he hooked up with out-of-state right-wingers to finance an initiative which would cut our unions out of the (political) system.”

“But broadside?” “We did everything to fight back. And I don’t just mean flyers and rallies, but worksite meetings, precinct walks, phone banks, lawn signs, buttons, and stickers everywhere … on your hardhat, your lunch bucket, your tool bucket, your truck, heck, even on the mirror of the restroom in this restaurant!”

“You put it there, Scott!” John interrupted. “But seriously, Dan, you remember all the grassroots stuff we did as well. Letters to the editors, calling in to radio talk shows, neighborhood committees, going to the Democratic Party clubs and all kinds of activist groups we built solidarity with.”

“With Pete Wilson back on the scene we’re going to need that kind of unity or it’s ‘Hasta la vista, unions!’” I said.

“Yeah, what’s up with that?” asked Scott. “I saw it on a worksite flyer.”

“We forget that Prop. 226 was in the primary election of 1998. Winning meant political momentum for our movement. It gave Gray Davis the boost he needed to win the general election, and the coattails to restore daily overtime, enforce prevailing wage laws, implement family leave, create union agreements, improve job safety and protect health care.

“Pete Wilson is Ahnold’s campaign co-chair. Ahnold’s is the velvet glove over the iron fist of those same union-busters behind Prop. 226. A kinder/gentler right-wing programmed cyborg that’ll terminate all the gains working families have made in this state! Like it said, ‘I’ll be back.’ It’s a shape shifter too. Appearing as anything in order to getcha!”

“Are you Sarah Conner?”

“OK you guys, knock it off! This is serious business and we’ve got a lot of work to do to defeat this recall.”

“Yeah, lets go to work.”

“Let’s go to work!”

Danny Morales is a shipyard worker and PWW reader. He can be reached at pww@pww.org

Auto workers say open the books

Fri, 15 Aug 2003 07:21:00 +0000

DETROIT – As the U.S. economy lurches toward the end of its third year of recession, workers everywhere are struggling to keep ends together, autoworkers no less than anyone else.

Contract talks between the United Auto Workers and General Motors started on July 16, and negotiations with Ford, DaimlerChrysler, and major parts suppliers Delphi and Visteon will follow. The UAW typically focuses its bargaining on a “lead company” to win a contract that sets the pattern for the industry. The 1999 contract expires Sept. 14.

Over the last 10 years, autoworkers have seen a modest increase in wages. While the typical assembler earns about $25.63 per hour, this represents an annual increase of only 1.28 percent since 1992, after adjustments for inflation. While the current contract restored annual increases over the cost of living, workers’ wages are not keeping pace. Workers want a contract that preserves annual wage increases.

Meanwhile, the wages and compensation of the top executives at the auto and parts companies continue to skyrocket. According to the UAW, top executives at these companies received $1.5 million on average last year. The top five executives at GM alone took in $43 million in salary and compensation in 2002. Ford’s former president, Jacques Nasser, took nearly $20 million in his last year, and is still “owed” over $4.5 million.

The average value of bonuses for top executives was over 1,600 times more than the measly $200 average profit-sharing for workers in the Delphi and Visteon plants. It’s the same picture when it comes to pensions and health care: the bosses have no worries, but the workers certainly do.

Now that it is contract time, the Big Three claim that profits have declined from over $18 billion in 1998 to $1.3 billion last year. They and the corporate media blame workers for the losses, although it is clear that huge compensation deals for executives, bad investments (often with pension assets invested in “Enron-type” firms), ballooning health care costs, and the Bush recession are the real underlying causes.

The auto companies tell Wall Street one thing, but workers another. For example, GM has told investment firms that it will sell more cars in 2003 than in 2002, and is predicting increases in profits from its automotive sector. At the same time, the company is handing out late summer production schedules that show increased layoffs. Auto companies play up the strength of their financial positions to investment brokers but talk doom and gloom to the workers.

According to a recent Reuters report, GM may be gearing up for a potential work stoppage. Last spring, GM sold nearly $13 billion in bonds in order to compensate for an increase in pension liabilities. Wall Street investors don’t lend so much money to a company that is supposed to be doing so badly.

At the same time, in early July, company executives announced they won’t make payments on the pension bonds until after the contract negotiations. This suggests that they are stockpiling cash in the event of a work stoppage.

But that is not all they are stockpiling. While production schedules seem to be easing now, GM has been increasing its inventory of vehicles since January. The plan is to build an inventory in case production stops altogether this fall. They want to be able to cushion themselves in the event of a strike.

Higher inventory and the extra cash on hand allow the auto executives greater leverage during the talks. They are quietly saying to the union, “You’d better not go on strike. We can survive.” If true, their financial scheme is an attempt to influence the outcome of the current negotiations.

With nearly $800 billion in combined assets among the five companies bargaining with the UAW this summer, the workers’ demand to “open the books” remains as pertinent as ever.

The author can be reached at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net

Wal-Mart campaign tops UFCW agenda

Fri, 15 Aug 2003 05:29:00 +0000

Organizing Wal-Mart, dealing with the crisis in U.S. health care, and defeating George Bush in 2004 were recurring themes in the international convention of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) held in San Francisco July 31 to Aug. 3.

An unscheduled speaker, California Gov. Gray Davis, won an enthusiastic response from the 5,000 delegates when he described the right-wing recall attempt in that state as an effort by super-wealthy Republicans to overturn the will of California’s people by rolling back recent gains for working families in family leave, minimum wage and workers’ compensation legislation.

Five Democratic candidates participated in a presidential forum focused on health care. All called for expanded programs to cover more uninsured Americans. Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean called for tax incentives to employers to implement their proposals, while Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun advocated doing away entirely with private health care plans and implementing a Canada-style single-payer system.

“Every single employer health care program is under stress right now,” said UFCW spokesman Danny Beagle. The union says the health care cost crisis, along with competition from employers who do not provide insurance, threatens to destroy the employment-based health care system.

Besides its legislative focus, the union is waging a massive effort in 26 states and Canada to organize the retail giant Wal-Mart, which has 1.1 million employees in the U.S. With low wages and high insurance premiums, few Wal-Mart employees can afford the company’s insurance program, while the enormous cost of medical insurance puts unionized retailers at a tremendous competitive disadvantage, the union says.

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest employer, racked up a quarter trillion dollars in sales last year and will account for one-half of the U.S.’s retail food sales by 2008, the union predicts. The fact that Wal-Mart is planning to open 300 new stores in 2004 – many of them in urban locations with high union density – sets the stage for fierce struggles with the union, which is encouraging resistance to the anti-union giant’s expansion.

The UFCW has 1.4 million members in supermarket, food processing, meatpacking, garment, health care and retail industries.

Labor revs-up to show Bush the door in 2004

Fri, 08 Aug 2003 02:06:00 +0000

CHICAGO – The one candidate who wasn’t there and wasn’t expected was the focus of the AFL-CIO’s National Candidates Forum Aug. 5. “Show him the door in 2004!” was the message for George W. Bush, the missing candidate, chanted by a group of retirees to the delight of the 2,500 union members and leaders waiting for the program to begin in Navy Pier Auditorium here.

The fast-moving 90-minute program featured a video collage of hard-hitting questions posed to the nine candidates by nurses, laundry workers, fire fighters, laid-off factory workers, and retirees about jobs, health care, overtime pay, pensions, and freedom to organize unions.

“This is the only forum bringing the issues working families talk about at the kitchen table right to the candidates,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.

Diverse approaches to health care included advocacy of a single-payer, Canada-style program by former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich and New York community activist Rev. Al Sharpton. Other candidates proposed a range of employer tax credits and government-subsidized insurance programs to address the crisis, which leaves millions uninsured and union contract negotiations under increasing pressure for concessions due to skyrocketing costs.

Speaking of jobs, David Bevard, union president from the soon-to-be-shut down Maytag plant in Galesburg, Ill., said free trade agreements like NAFTA and FTAA are “premeditated murder of communities like ours.” Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri reminded the audience of his leadership in the fight against NAFTA.

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, who had voted in favor of NAFTA, said he would now oppose FTAA without worker rights and environmental protections, adding – in reference to the president’s trickle down economic policies – that “every worker in America is tired of being trickled on by George Bush.”

A Cintas laundry worker described in one of the video clips how she was fired for her union organizing activities. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean responded with a proposal for a federal law change to declare the establishment of a union when a majority of workers have signed cards. Other candidates weighed-in in favor of “card check,” although Kucinich trumped them all with a pledge to repeal the infamous Taft-Hartley legislation.

Kucinich was the most combative candidate of the evening, directly challenging his competitors’ records and programs, vowing to cancel NAFTA, FTAA, WTO, and the Bush tax cuts, and to “staff the Department of Labor from top to bottom from the house of labor.”

The biggest cheers went to Rev. Al Sharpton for statements like, “We have an attorney general who can’t find corporate greed criminals, but can put every labor leader under investigation,” while Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman drew the only boos of evening with his advocacy of “experimental” school voucher programs.

As the crowd of workers filed out of the auditorium at the conclusion of the program one electrical lineman told the World, “I’m not looking for a president right now, I’m looking to see who is the one who can beat Bush.”

Dozens of attendees interviewed after the event also seemed to be sizing up the candidates from the same viewpoint, but were surprisingly unanimous in their non-committal stance. They were impressed with Sharpton for the wit and insight he wields in favor of working people, with Dean’s accomplishments in Vermont, Kerry’s veteran’s record, Braun’s health care commitment, North Carolina Sen. John Edward’s folksy manner, Kucinich’s bold program, and Gephardt’s long history in support of organized labor.

The Steelworkers and Teamsters Union endorsed Gephardt this week, but Steelworkers President Leo Gerard made it clear that his union’s endorsement was in no way a rejection of the other candidates.

It appeared unlikely that the AFL-CIO would be making an endorsement soon, according to AFL-CIO Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson, who told a press conference earlier, “We don’t think it will be hard to rally around the candidate – anybody but Bush.”

The author can be reached at rwood@pww.org

Rally at Cintas supports workers rights

Thu, 07 Aug 2003 10:01:00 +0000

BRANFORD, Conn. – Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro often speaks about growing up when her mother worked in a sweatshop, bent over her sewing machine. But on July 29, standing on the platform of the Teamsters’ truck outside the Cintas Corp. plant here, the story brought the crowd to a hush.

Decrying the sweatshop conditions at Cintas all these years later, and calling on the company to agree to allow the workers to organize free of harassment and intimidation, DeLauro’s message for respect and workers’ rights was unmistakable.

The plant gate rally, held after the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined Cintas over $10,000 for violating safety and health standards, was attended by a wide array of unions and supporters. The violations included blocked fire exits, unmarked fire doors and failure to provide required vaccinations for workers exposed to blood-borne pathogens.

“They call us ‘partners,’ but when we speak up, they don’t listen. Fire exits are blocked, we aren’t given the protection we need at work, and we are sick of it,” said Amanda Roldan, who works in the folding department of the uniform and laundry facility. Most of the workers are recent immigrants from Latin America.

State Rep. Juan Candelaria, addressing the workers in Spanish, pledged his commitment to their cause. “It is your right to choose unionization free from harassment, firing or threat of job loss,” he said. “Together we are strong and we will make these goals a reality.”

The rally was held three weeks after Reps. DeLauro and George Miller (D-Calif.), joined by over 90 members of Congress, issued a letter to Cintas’ CEO urging the company to remain neutral and allow workers to freely choose union representation.

“I stand here today in solidarity, and in support of the hard fought and hard won rights of American workers to organize in the workplace – to fight for a fair wage and the opportunity to share in the American dream,” said DeLauro. “These workers are asking only to be treated fairly … they deserve our support.”

UNITE and the Teamsters union have joined together in the effort to organize all 300 Cintas plants in the U.S. and Canada. Cintas, the leading employer in the uniform and laundry industry, boasted $249 million in profits in fiscal 2003. The 17,000 workers they employ are subjected to substandard wages and unsafe working conditions.

The company is currently under investigation for over 100 violations of federal labor law. In March, Cintas drivers filed a national class action lawsuit alleging that Cintas intentionally refused to pay drivers up to $100 million in overtime pay.

The author can be reached at joelle.fishman@pobox.com

Texas unionists join Season of Struggle

Thu, 07 Aug 2003 09:21:00 +0000

AUSTIN, Texas – About 50 Texas trade unionists, fed up with pay cuts, give backs, and concessions, came to a Jobs with Justice workshop at the recently concluded state AFL-CIO convention to make plans for the upcoming “Season of Struggle.”

The Season of Struggle consists of three mass mobilizations that will take place this fall: the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, the Nov. 20-21 demonstrations in Miami during the Free Trade of the Americas Agreements (FTAA) meeting, and the Dec. 10 Human Rights Day actions aimed at exposing the failures of the business-dominated National Labor Relations Board.

Mary Beth Maxwell, a national leader of Job with Justice, told the audience that the actions are being called because “the law doesn’t serve us. What we need is a huge outcry from the community.”

The Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, which begins in late September, is being called because U.S. laws discriminates against immigrant workers, denying them basic civil and human rights. Because they lack legal protection, they often must work for low wages with no benefits, a situation that harms the interests of all workers.

The Freedom Ride will demand legalization, family reunification, and respect for worker rights without regard to legal status. Legalizing undocumented workers will protect their civil rights, especially their right to join union, and make them eligible to vote, which will swell the pool of potentially progressive voters.

Paul Vasquez, national representative in Texas of the AFL-CIO, compared these freedom rides, which will begin in different cities across the country and end up together in Washington D.C. and New York in early October, to the Freedom Rides of the 1960s when African Americans and their supporters rode through the South challenging Jim Crow laws. “We have the opportunity to be part of another historic event,” Vasquez said.

A Freedom Ride bus will leave Houston on Sept. 26 and begin its journey eastward. Another one originating in Los Angeles will make stops in El Paso, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas. Support rallies will be held in all these cities. Workers at the workshop signed pledge cards and began making plans to build local rallies.

On Nov. 20-21, finance ministers from all over the Western Hemisphere will meet in Miami to discuss the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. The FTAA would extend the protocols of NAFTA throughout the hemisphere, except, of course, for Cuba. As one participant put it, FTAA is NAFTA on steroids.

Jobs with Justice and the AFL-CIO will be in Miami to tell the ministers and the world, “No to FTAA” because FTAA will spread the job losses and community devastation caused by NAFTA throughout Central America, South America, the Caribbean, and the U.S. Jobs with Justice and the AFL-CIO will be holding mass demonstrations in Miami during the sessions, and support demonstrations will take place in cities throughout the U.S.

Those in attendance at the workshop filled out mock “No to FTAA!” ballots, which along with hundreds of thousands of others will be presented to the ministers in Miami.

The last event of the Season of Struggle will be held on Human Rights Day on Dec. 10 when workers across the country will confront the National Labor Relations Board, which has become so pro-business and anti-worker that some have quipped that it should be renamed the “National Anti-Labor Union Board.”

The message at these actions will be that the government has become the biggest obstacle to workers joining unions and winning collective bargaining rights. The AFL-CIO and Jobs with Justice will organize large, militant, and nonviolent actions to confront the NLRB and its corporate masters.

Layoffs, pay cuts, and the bosses’ never-ending demand for more worker concessions have made the Season of Struggle necessary. “The labor movement is under attack,” said Rudy Anderson, the Texas organizer for Jobs with Justice at the workshop. “For us not to realize that, we have to be sleeping.”

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Auto talks and the Medicare drug bill

Fri, 01 Aug 2003 03:22:00 +0000

DETROIT – Union leaders, rank-and-file members and retirees have pledged to hold the line on the health care issue during this summer’s contract talks with the Big Three auto companies and related parts suppliers. A recently released UAW report, titled “Bargaining for America,” highlights the challenges confronting the auto union’s bargaining teams.

Much of the corporate media has focused on the issue of health care. The auto companies hope to use this hot button issue to control the bargaining and force the union into other concessions. Reports in Automotive News and the Detroit Free Press hint that the union will make concessions on plant closings and layoffs in order to preserve the status quo on the health care plan. Union officials have repeatedly denied these reports to the World. The current contract limits layoffs and has a moratorium on plant closings.

As talks began, a flurry of reports from the corporate media played up the financial difficulties of the U.S.-owned auto companies. They cited a declining market share, rising pension liabilities, and growing health care costs. But the corporate media coverage ignored the decade-long financial success of the Big Three and the big gains in worker productivity, which the auto companies squandered on huge bonuses and other financial perks for executives.

The existing health care plan is considered one of the best in any industry in the country. According to the UAW’s report, “Covered services for active and retired members include hospital, surgical and medical services … dental care, vision care, and hearing aids.” One of the most popular features of the plan is its prescription drug coverage. A growing number of active members are closing in on retirement and consider retiree benefits to be crucial. Over half of the costs covered under the agreements go to retirees and dependents.

The auto companies will save $150 million in health care costs if the Bush-backed version of a Medicare drug bill is passed. Calling the bill a payoff for the auto companies, some in the corporate media have pointed to the legislation as a way to sidestep the health care issue in the bargaining sessions.

But thousands of UAW retirees could lose coverage or see their coverage reduced under this law. According to the union’s report, “The benefits are much too modest, would leave seniors with large out-of-pocket costs, and are delivered through unreliable private insurance carriers. Worst of all, the bills discriminate against retirees who already have prescription drug coverage through an employer-sponsored plan, providing them with less benefits than other retirees.”

Ultimately, such a law would not reduce health care costs. A short-term financial boon for the auto companies would quickly turn into higher premiums and other costs that the companies would have to pick up, as the union has pledged to fight the shifting of higher costs to workers. The solution to this impasse requires comprehensive health care legislation. Comprehensive reform would help save the auto industry.

The UAW calls for a universal, single-payer health care plan. Will the auto companies support this call?

The author can be reached at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net