People Before Profit blog

Dadle duro a Safeway

Fri, 19 Dec 2003 09:09:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES – “Vaciemos las tiendas Safeway y sus cajas de dinero” tomando acción para separarlos de la fuente de su dinero – los consumidores y las comunidades – dijo Doug Dority, presidente del sindicato Trabajadores de Alimentos y Comercio Unidos (UFCW – por sus siglas en inglés), ante una masiva manifestación aquí. Él llamó a los trabajadores y consumidores en Estados Unidos y Canadá que usen su poder de consumidor para respaldar a los trabajadores de supermercados del sur de California en su lucha por defender los beneficios médicos de las familias trabajadoras.

Más de 8.000 trabajadores de almacenes y choferes, afiliados al sindicato de los Tronquistas, se han unido a los 70 mil trabajadores haciendo piquete. La creciente solidaridad y determinación fue aparente mientras los miles de huelguistas, sus familias y partidarios voceaban “un día más, y más fuerte”, durante una marcha de una milla.

En su discurso franco ante los trabajadores y partidarios, Dority habló de lo que estaba en juego en la huelga de 66 días. Él acusó a Safeway de tomar un curso destructivo diseñado a efectivamente eliminar seguro médico en el trabajo. “El colapso de los beneficios en la industria de los supermercados creará una ola corporativa que barrería con todos los beneficios en otros convenios para los trabajadores de todas las industrias”.

El UFCW, con 1,4 millones de afiliados en supermercados a través de las ciudades, pueblos y suburbios del país, piensa usar a su red de base para hablar con el público en sus comunidades de lo que está pasando.

El reverendo James Lawson, presidente de Clero y Laico Unidos por la Justicia Económica, advirtió, “Si Wall Street puede ganar esto – el país entrará en una época oscura”. Él citó a Jesús de Nazaret de que “el trabajador merece su sueldo”.

Dority declaró que si Safeway gana, niños irán sin tener cuido médico y familias serán forzados a la pobreza. Las ganancias de Safeway brincaron un 90 por ciento desde el 1998 mientras que una madre soltera gana $19 mil anual. ¿Han visto al sueldo de una madre soltera subir un 90 por ciento? preguntó el dirigente sindical.

El sindicato internacional está proveyendo fondos para los huelguistas de acuerdo a Dority y con millones de dólares llegando al Sur de California para ganar esta lucha, “los sindicatos locales están en la posición financiera” para ganar. Cheques o mensajes pueden ser enviados al “Hold the Line for Health Care”, Strike Fund, c/o Secretary Treasurer, AFL-CIO, 815 16th NW, Washington, DC, 20006.

Vile Kyl loses out for Tucson Grinch award

Fri, 19 Dec 2003 06:22:00 +0000

Workers’Correspondence

TUCSON, Ariz. – Metric Roofing edged out U.S. Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) by a mere three votes to be crowned Tucson’s “2003 Grinch of the Year.” The competition took place Dec. 13 at a Jobs with Justice sponsored party at El Pueblo Neighborhood Center.

The annual event is both a means of raising much-needed funds and a chance to highlight those who the community regards as the most notorious enemies of Arizona working families. Workers at Metric Roofing are fighting for dignity and justice on the job and to improve their wages and working conditions. They have sued Metric alleging that the company was cheating them on their wages. Many of the workers who have demonstrated against Metric’s practices have been fired. Many of those attending the “Grinch party” have picketed Metric in solidarity with the fired roofers. The selection of Metric for the year’s Grinch designation demonstrated the support and admiration in Tucson for the Roofers Union’s strong organizing drive here.

Runner-up Kyl, pronounced, we were reminded, as in “vile,” was nominated by the Alliance of Retired Americans for his role in support of the recent congressional attack on Medicare. When Arizona retirees attempted to deliver a letter requesting a town hall meeting on the bill to Kyl’s local offices, the senator had them arrested for trespassing.

Other nominees included Steven A. Burd, president and CEO of Safeway union busting stores; Chuck Huckelberry, Pima County administrator and hospital privatizer; Taco Bell, for backing exploitation of tomato pickers; Gene Repola, asst. superintendent at Sunnyside Schools; Convergis, for moving our jobs off shore; and Tucson City Manager James Keene. The well-attended party was great fun with great food and music, and it added a few hundred badly needed dollars to the Jobs with Justice treasury.

– Joe Bernick (stelnik@webtv.net)

Xmas could come early for Tyson strikers

Fri, 19 Dec 2003 06:11:00 +0000

JEFFERSON, Wis. – Tyson workers, on strike here since February, face a winter of continued privation, forced to stretch out their strike funds to cover necessities. But as hundreds rallied at the plant gate here Dec. 13, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 538 President Mike Rice was able to cite recent victories like a series of early Christmas presents. The latest victory after 289 days: getting Tyson back to the bargaining table.

The rally began with a moment of silence for the union’s fallen fighters. The strike has drawn inspiration from the example of Gary Gilbertson, the former head of the local, who died of a heart attack during the negotiations leading up to the strike. Rice also recognized the passing of worker Mike Barkley. Signs memorialized both.

Next came the announcement of tens of thousands of dollars donated to the Tyson workers’ Children’s Christmas Fund. Rice stood beside representatives of local businesses Epic Resins and Kearn Motors, displaying large ceremonial checks for $5,000 from each company. Rice also announced an $8,000 gift from the UFCW of Canada. Its letter of solidarity stated that “kids of the Tyson workers will never forget the courage of their parents” and that the Canadian UFCW was “blessed to be in solidarity with such heroic men and women.” Rice later said that total contributions and pledges would purchase about $90 of presents for each Tyson family child.

U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) told the strikers that she had gathered 27 of her congressional colleagues from the House and Senate to join in sending a letter to CEO John Tyson supporting the Jefferson strikers. Speaking of the strikers, Baldwin said, “The line in the sand that you’ve been willing to draw is having a ripple effect for working people across this nation. Your sacrifice is helping many, many others.”

Negotiations, which ended in February, were scheduled to resume Dec. 18. Rice explained, “We are going back to the bargaining table because it’s the right thing to do.” Rice said the strike is clearly hurting Tyson, and he hoped they would be willing now to make a reasonable offer. “I don’t want to build up hopes because I don’t know what Tyson’s positions are going to be,” he said, but “we need to put this struggle to bed.”

However, Rice was not offering any concessions, vowing that the bargaining team would do what they need to do to get a fair contract. “Our ten commandments haven’t gone away,” he said, referring to the union’s 10 key demands “If we can get a collective bargaining agreement, fine; if not, we’ll come back and strategize.”

Tony Schultz, a University of Wisconsin student activist, announced that the UW regents voted Dec. 6 to divest its $200,000 of Tyson holdings. Schultz said that student activists have advocated divestment on a number of issues every year, but that this was the “first time since apartheid” that a campaign for divestment had succeeded. “Usually they just laugh at us,” he said, but this time massive community support made the difference. Schultz also led the audience in song. Because of the cold, the carols were limited to two: “God Rest Ye Weary Laborers” and “Rudolph the Union Reindeer,” and then Santa Claus took the stage to pose with strikers’ children.

Last of all, the assembled workers walked through the plant gates with signs and banners, chanting, “What’s disgusting? Union Busting! What’s outrageous? Tyson wages!”

In other news this week, Tyson announced two plant closings in New England, and a judge ruled that a class action environmental lawsuit against Tyson could go forward.

To donate to the Tyson strikers, checks should be made out to “UFCW Local 538 Strike Fund” and mailed to 2228 Myrtle Street, Madison, WI 53704.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Dec. 10 spotlights workers rights

Fri, 19 Dec 2003 05:36:00 +0000

Human rights, students and religious activists marked International Human Rights Day, Dec. 10, with events in 72 cities protesting the fact that in the United States, employers routinely violate workers’ human right to form unions. They pledged to keep workers’ rights at the center of the 2004 election efforts, step up the fight against employer interference in local organizing campaigns, and lobby members of Congress for legislation to repair U.S. labor law, which they described as a “broken system.”

Over 5,000 marched with Rev. Jesse Jackson in Los Angeles, 4,000 rallied in Boston, 2,000 hit the streets in both San Francisco and New York, while Atlanta, Cleveland, Chicago, Minnesota, and the nation’s capital each saw a thousand protesters.

The L.A. rally highlighted the case of the employees at China Daily News who still find themselves without union recognition despite the fact that 95 percent of the workers filed for representation with the CWA over three years ago.

A Workers’ Rights Board hearing in the downtown Chicago Temple of the Methodist Church heard from Transport Security Administration worker William Stevens; Curtis Mills, fired from Comcast Cable giant; Eluteria Meson, a worker at Cintas’ Chicago area facility; and several of the 700 health care workers from the Resurrection Hospital chain trying to organize with AFSCME.

According to Jeff Weiss, spokesman for the Chicago Federation of Labor, the Human Rights Day mobilization was the result of a new approach by the AFL-CIO to broaden its approach to issues that affect all working people, not just organized labor, countering corporate efforts to dismiss organized labor as a “special interest.” By focusing on workers’ rights, he said, “we bring in a coalition of groups – civil rights, Amnesty International, immigrant rights coalitions.”

Seven hundred Philadelphians packed a Workers’ Rights Board hearing there to hear workers’ personal stories of employer obstacles to organizing. The president of the city’s labor federation, Pat Eid, drew cheers when he called on the nation’s 13 million organized workers to be the “engine of the campaign” to remove Bush from the White House and replace him with “someone who cares about working people.”

Across the state in Pittsburgh, two buses of steelworker retirees formed a rolling picket line, first joining miners, electrical workers and service employees at a rally to support SEIU janitors fighting for their first contract. The buses’ next stop was a Giant Eagle grocery store, where six employees have been fired for their organizing efforts with the Steelworkers Union. Armed with a $2 bill to purchase a can of food to be donated to a local food bank, each of the protesters entered the store and took advantage of the opportunity to talk worker-to-worker with the on-the-job employees

In St. Louis, 100 supporters of organizing efforts at Trinity Cleaners got a first-hand view of the racist attitudes that workers at the city’s second largest non-union cleaners are up against. Doug and Greg Sansone, the company’s owners, told Local 50 SEIU representatives “Take your monkeys and go back to where you came from.” Organizer Mary Fox said Trinity has refused to allow the employees to unionize and the Sansones’ characterization of Local 50 members as monkeys exemplifies the racism at the company. Trinity has turned away African American workers seeking employment as part of a racist hiring policy, she said, while at the same time threatening its employees with losing their jobs if they speak to Local 50 representatives.

Season of Struggle

The Dec. 10 Human Rights Day commemoration is the last of a series of four activities in a “Season of Struggle” launched at the Jobs with Justice convention this summer. The season included a focus on health care issues, October’s cross-country Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, and November’s anti-FTAA mobilization in Miami. Each of the campaigns deliberately reached beyond labor to its allies and potential allies, according to AFL-CIO National Field Representative Renaye Manley. The Human Rights Day activities are not the culmination but the kick-off of an on-going campaign to restore American workers’ rights to organize, she said.

“Human Rights Day is a day that has meaning beyond the labor community,” said Manley, “and the link of labor and human rights is obvious. If people don’t have the right to organize and collectively bargain, it diminishes all their rights.”

Legislation co-sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the Employee Free Choice Act, will streamline the union recognition process by providing for certification when a majority of employees sign authorization forms. The bill has already won support of 125 members of the House and Senate.

Every one of the nine Democratic presidential candidates has called for this kind of “card check” recognition. When candidates Dennis Kucinich, Howard Dean and John Kerry joined several hundred workers at the New Hampshire AFL-CIO headquarters Dec. 10 at a rally to highlight local workers’ struggles to form unions, there was a victory, to celebrate, Television station WMUR had refused to negotiate with its workers even though they voted unanimously to unionize. Only after the Democratic candidates, in New Hampshire for the state’s early primary, made calls and wrote letters did the station back down and agree to recognize the workers’ union.

The author can be reached at rwood@pww.org. Ben Sears, Tony Pecinovsky, Denise Winebrenner Edwards, Jose Cruz and Gabe Falsetta contributed to this story.

Shut down Safeways profits

Fri, 19 Dec 2003 04:31:00 +0000

Workers hold the line for health care

LOS ANGELES – “Empty Safeway’s stores and cash drawers” by taking action to cut them off from the source of their money – consumers and communities, United Food and Commercial Workers President Doug Dority told a massive rally and march here Dec. 16. He appealed to workers and consumers in the U.S. and Canada to use their buying power to support striking Southern California grocery workers’ battle to defend health care for working families. “Shut down Safeway’s profits,” Dority said. They only understand money he added

Over 8,000 Teamster warehouse workers and drivers have joined the 70,000 Southern California grocery workers on the picket lines.

The growing momentum of solidarity and determination was apparent as strikers, their families and supporters, numbering in the thousands, chanted “One day longer, another day stronger,” on the mile-long march from Avenue of the Stars in Century City to the Safeway-owned Pavilions market in Beverly Hills. They were joined by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney at a Solidarity Summit preceding the march.

In a no-holds-barred speech to the gathered workers and supporters, Dority laid out the high stakes of the 66-day-old strike, charging that Safeway has embarked on a destructive course designed to effectively eliminate health care benefits at work. “The collapse of supermarket industry benefits will create a corporate tidal wave that will sweep away benefits in other contracts for all workers in every industry,” he said.

The 1.4-million-member UFCW, which includes hundreds of thousands of grocery workers in city, small town and suburban stores, calls itself “North America’s neighborhood union.” The union has moved to activate its grassroots network through local union presidents who will spread the union’s “shop out” appeal to the public through their communities.

Rev. James Lawson, chair of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, quoting Jesus of Nazareth - “the worker deserves his wages” - warned, “If Wall Street is able to win this, – it will push our land into a dark age.”

Dority charged that if Safeway has its way, children will go without medical care and families will be forced into poverty. “Who can better afford the cost of health care benefits? Safeway whose profits jumped 90 percent since 1998 or a single mom making less than $19,000 a year?” he asked. “Has the single mom’s wage rate jumped 90 percent?”

The international union is funding the basic strike benefit “well into the New Year,” said Dority. With millions of dollars of support pouring into Southern California to win this fight, “the local unions will be in a financial position to hold the line for health care,” he said.

Send checks and messages of support to “Hold the Line for Health Care” Strike Fund c/o Secretary Treasurer, AFL-CIO, 815 16th St. NW, Washington, DC, 20006.

The authors can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Why are the airline workers smiling?

Fri, 12 Dec 2003 05:43:00 +0000

DALLAS – Flight attendants at Southwest Airlines may keep on smiling for the passengers, but they have been through a grueling contract negotiation period that has already lasted more than 18 months. One of management’s main hopes when negotiations began was to gag the union so that they wouldn’t reach out to their many allies, said Transport Workers Union Local 556 President Thom McDaniel on KNON’s “Workers Beat” talk-radio show on Dec. 3. McDaniel’s statements over the airwaves and a number of pickets and activities at airports across the nation have shown how the union views management’s demand.

McDaniel invited listeners to participate in public actions that are being planned. He indicated that TWU 556 would participate with the AFL-CIO and affiliated unions to stand up for the right to organize on Dec. 10 – International Human Rights Day.

Through all the dismal pronouncements from most airline executives since 9/11, Southwest Airlines distinguished itself by continuing its profitability. McDaniel indicated that TWU 556 members take pride in the service that they offer and the contribution they make to the viability of the airline. However, some of the conditions they have tolerated would make smiling difficult for lots of us.

McDaniel explained: New flight attendants at Southwest volunteer for four weeks of unpaid training. The fortunate ones get hired at $14,000 per year. Even though they may be on the job for many hours at a time, they only are paid when the plane is in the air. While planes wait on runways, they still take care of the passengers and clean the plane’s interior, but without pay!

When the union first began organizing in 1973, no male applicants were hired. The women were forced to wear hot pants and go-go boots to work, according to McDaniel. With pride, he recounted the success of his union in overcoming management’s blatant sexism. Today, men and women flight attendants at Southwest work with pride in attractive and decent uniforms.

Flight attendants at Southwest Airlines take their unionism seriously. In Dallas, where the company began, they are active with their AFL-CIO council. TWU 556 activist Rebekkah Kelly is past president of the council. By sticking together, members of TWU 556 have made steady progress for over 30 years. In the labor movement, they have made a lot of friends who will stand by them during their negotiation ordeal. McDaniel and his members expect to win. It helps them keep smiling.

The author can be reached at http://tx.cpusa.org.

Eyewitness report Picket line drama: scab joins union

Fri, 12 Dec 2003 05:24:00 +0000

BURBANK, Calif. – Hollywood entertainment workers, all union members, joined a real-life drama when they turned out in force to support the grocery workers picket line at the Pavilions store Dec. 4, the 54th day of the strike. Nearly 1,000 workers had encircled the entire shopping center as the rally got under way, when it was discovered, unbelievably, that a scab truck delivery was going on in the back of the store.

Some 200 protesters and Teamsters converged on the driver and truck, stopping the work. A union rep told the dumbstruck driver: “Quit this job and delivery and join the union. We’ll get you a real job with union wages and benefits.” Later on, during the rally, the driver called the union rep explaining, “I dropped the truck off and left the job and I’m ready for work and to join the union” – an instant union member in the making!

President John Connolly of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and President Melissa Gilbert of Screen Actors Guild told the workers, “In our industry, actors, writers, directors, editors, cinematographers, grips, electricians, art directors, musicians, sound-recording artists, and broadcasters understand the importance of health care benefits and the union contracts that protect those benefits. “We stand here today, shoulder-to-shoulder with you, to fight against the corporate greed that drives down our standard of living.”

Mike Farrell (actor from the television series “MASH”), who is vice president of the SAG/AFTRA local, described the group of SAG members who have been visiting the UFCW picket lines in a motor home, distributing food. So many TV and movie personalities were present and mentioned I couldn’t keep track of all the names. But to me, they were all just workers out to support their fellow workers in the greatest tradition of solidarity.

The SAG/AFTRA Singers performed and their musicianship and harmony sent chills up my spine. This was just indicative of the spirit and breadth of support of the event that I will never forget. I’ve been to several of these labor rallies lately and the trend is a powerful message being sent to the bosses that we, as workers, stand together in solidarity. A friend and comrade of mine told me, “The grocery workers are not just fighting for their jobs, they are fighting for us too!” This fact was quite apparent here. Great job, SAG/AFTRA, for us working folks. We are all one with the grocery workers.

The author can be reached at kelsdrumr@webtv.net.

Pickets cross Borders

Fri, 05 Dec 2003 09:21:00 +0000

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – “We will stay on strike until Borders [bookstores] bargains in good faith,” say striking workers affiliated with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 876 on the picket line at Borders’ number one corporate bookstore here. The workers have been on strike since Nov. 8 after 11 months of negotiations for a first contract fight with the storeowners.

Borders workers are asking customers not to purchase books at Borders, Waldenbooks, or Borders.com for the duration of the strike. They are also asking consumers to call the store at (734) 477-1100 to express their support for the workers. Union members are asked to encourage their leaders to support this campaign actively.

A starting wage of $6.50 an hour, very high health insurance premiums and deductibles, and retirement packages that are generally unaffordable: these are some of the current economic conditions that bookstore workers face today. Workers have seen very little increase in wages over time, and management reserves the right to arbitrarily withdraw the few benefits they offer.

The striking workers have received a wide range of support from the local community. The Graduate Employees Organization, which represents graduate students at the nearby University of Michigan, has extended its support for the strikers. Other student organizations from the University of Michigan have frequented the picket lines, local peace organizations have encouraged their members to buy books elsewhere, and Southeast Michigan Jobs with Justice given support. Other union members and religious and community groups can also be seen on the picket line regularly.

“The community support has been invaluable,” said the union spokesperson.

The author can be reached at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.

A class approach to pensions

Fri, 05 Dec 2003 07:02:00 +0000

Opinion

One of the proudest achievements of the U.S. labor movement, the retired worker’s monthly pension check, is in deepening trouble.

Union-negotiated defined-benefit plans supposedly provide a monthly pension check for life, insured by a federal agency, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC). But with the recent rash of corporate bankruptcies, the PBGC is running short of reserves to bail out failing plans. When it does implement a bailout, it funds the workers’ pensions at a reduced level.

Since 1985, nearly 115,000 defined-benefit plans, covering 7 million workers, have been terminated. Only 32,231 mostly larger plans remain in effect. Because many are provided by major employers, these plans cover 44 million workers.

Defined-benefit plans are increasingly being replaced by defined-contribution plans, such as 401(k)s. Corporations love these plans. They shift the cost and the risk from the employer to the worker.

During the 1990s stock boom, 401(k)s were touted as the road to riches. But the stock market has lost about $4.7 trillion in shareholder value since the market peak in March of 2000. Combined with falling interest rates, this market plunge cut deeply into the assets of the 401(k) plans. Enron and WorldCom workers, for example, collectively lost more than $2 billion in 401(k) savings when their stock went in the tank.

Older companies in industries like steel and auto face the “legacy costs” of thousands of retirees with defined-benefit plans. General Motors, for example, recently ponied up $13.5 billion for its pension funds. Employers are fighting to scale back the amount they are required by law to contribute to their defined-benefit plans. But many of these plans are already under-funded. If they were to be terminated their assets would not be sufficient to pay promised benefits.

“As baby boomers near retirement, the pension system is wobbling,” warms Peter R. Orszag of the Brookings Institution. Bills now in Congress would at best patch up the existing system.

There’s still another problem. Most pensions don’t have cost-of-living adjustments. The security provided to private-sector retirees is largely illusory owing to the steady erosion of the buying power of an unchanging monthly pension check.

Thus, millions of workers live on incomes that shrivel, year by year, writes syndicated columnist Scott Burns.

“A person who retired 25 years ago with a pension of $10,000 a year would have lived through a compound annual inflation rate of 4.4 percent a year,” says Burns. “That would have reduced the original purchasing power to only $3,408.”

Labor is fighting a bruising rear-guard battle to protect and where possible to expand its defined-benefit plans.

“We have to draw a line in the sand to protect these plans’ integrity so they don’t disappear into the night,” says David Blitzstein, director of negotiated benefits for the United Food and Commercial Workers.

Unions are fully justified in defending their hard-won pension gains, which were largely bargained in trade-offs with reduced take-home pay, and upon which millions of their members depend. But in the final analysis, employer-based pensions are dependent on the uncertain economic health of the employer, which in turn is usually dependent on the health of the economy.

Even as labor defends these precious retirement benefits, how about launching a campaign to at least double the Social Security entitlement?

That would bring the “other half” of the working class – those with no pensions of any kind and with the greatest need – into the system. And it would provide an assurance of retirement income security no patchwork of employer-based plans could match.

It would also bring U.S. workers into line with their brothers and sisters in many industrial nations, where every worker is part of a national pension fund – and where the entire class benefits.

Will Parry is a retired trade unionist in Washington state. He can be reached at pscsc@qwest.net.

A tax added to attacks on unions

Fri, 05 Dec 2003 06:14:00 +0000

View from S. Halsted

Elaine Chao, the Bush-appointed Secretary of Labor, wants to “empower and protect workers” with the new “financial disclosure” requirements her department is imposing on our unions. Thanks Elaine. The administration that has put a dagger in the heart of workplace health and safety, overseen the theft of hundreds of thousands of steelworker pensions, slashed eligibility for time and a half pay, and presided over the loss of 3 million jobs is protecting us from our unions.

A tax and attacks on union membership

The labor movement estimates that the new requirements, which provide no benefit to American workers, will cost unions as much as a BILLION dollars to implement. Figure it out. That’s a new tax of $80 a year on every union member in this country. The new rules create an entirely new, impossibly complex, system of bookkeeping required of no other institution or corporation in America. Not only the national headquarters of unions, but more than 5,000 locals, will have to track and report their expenditures by categories. They must figure not only what percent of each officer’s time went to organizing, administration, political action, and how much of the copying machine’s output could be attributed to each category as well. The Department of Labor (DOL) itself estimates it will take 710 hours of work for each local to comply. Many locals do most of their bookkeeping by volunteer and part-time officers, many working out of their own homes.

In my union, IBEW Local 9, anyone who wants to know about the union’s finances goes to our monthly meeting and listens to the report of our financial secretary, Ed Hamilton. He details the money taken in and all the expenditures, then invites anyone who wants more information to make an appointment to come into the office to go over the books. The president, Fred Hince, asks for any questions from the floor, then takes a vote on accepting the report. Our international union prints detailed financial reports in our magazine, the Journal, and reports are made at the International Convention. If we don’t like what any officer is doing at any level, the members can vote him or her out of office.

Internet Public Disclosure Room

I checked out the DOL’s website to see if Secretary Chao had documented the alleged demand from the rank and file for a billion dollar tax on our unions. Financial data gathered from thousands of unions is featured in the Department’s “Internet Public Disclosure Room.” But the ominously-named site doesn’t make it to the DOL’s list of top 20 most requested items. Rather, workers come to the Employment Standards website looking for information on, more than anything else, the Family and Medical Leave Act, followed by the Fair Labor Standards Act (which enforces overtime pay laws) and minimum wage.

How about some employer disclosure?

By the way, Chao doesn’t have much to say on the issue of employers giving financial disclosure of their “labor relations” activities, even though the law requires it. On April 11, 2001, her department fashioned a big loophole to exempt most employers from reporting at all. Go to DOL’s website and check it out for yourself (http://union-reports.dol.gov/olmsWeb/docs). Less than 300 corporations in all of America have been required to file a report on their anti-union activities. Think of all the big-spending, union-busting corporations you’ve read about in the PWW this year – Wal-Mart, Comcast, Verizon, Tyson, Congress Hotel, V&V Supremo, Safeway. Why doesn’t Chao put them in the Internet Public Disclosure Room so the working people she’s so anxious to “protect and empower” can track the money trail of their employers’ anti-labor campaigns?

When former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich unsuccessfully proposed the same anti-union regulations Bush and Chao are putting into force, at least he didn’t try to pretend they were for the good of the workers. An unabashed spokesman for corporate America he told it like it is when he called it “a plan to zap our enemies.” Class war? You bet.

– Roberta Wood (rwood@pww.org)

Rally supports nurses against corporate predator

Fri, 05 Dec 2003 05:58:00 +0000

PHILADELPHIA – Several hundred members of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees District 1199C waved their yellow banners as they rallied along with other unionists and community people in solidarity with striking Medical College of Pennsylvania (MCP) Hospital nurses here on Nov. 24.

Presidents of five local unions, Rep. Robert Brady (D-Pa.) and City Controller Jonathan Saidel spoke at the rally in support of the nurses who are on strike for a fair contract with adequate staffing and without mandatory overtime. MCP Hospital is owned by Tenet Health Care Corporation.

Police held back the crowd as vans carrying scab nurses fled the parking lot. “No Scabs! No Scabs!” shouted the crowd. Tenet has flown in nurses from as far away as California and Colorado promising them a $4,000 bonus to break the strike. Said Saidel, “We’re sending Tenet a message. Their top executives are making millions on the backs of nurses.”

Patricia Donohue, president of the nurses’ union, Local 112 OPEIU, said MCP Hospital has the highest patient-to-nurse ratio of any area hospital. Nurses are forced to work overtime up to 16 hours without notice or overtime pay. “We are tired of being told to abandon our patients and our families,” said Donohue. According to MCP nurse Patricia Brooks, “We give excellent service to a diverse community regardless of race, income, ethnicity or age. When MCP Hospital succumbed to bankruptcy, we kept working.” Striking nurses told the World that Tenet has canceled their health coverage.

Thomas Cronin, president of AFSCME District Council 47, called Tenet a “corporate predator.” He added, “Tenet Healthcare Corporation has been investigated and sued for over-billing Medicare, forcing indigent patients to pay full costs and ordering unneeded surgeries and procedures.” Tenet owns six other hospitals in the Philadelphia area and a total of 116 hospitals in 17 states. Its profits increased 118 percent last year. Its administration costs average $1,059 per patient. “The establishment of a national health care, single-payer system should be the number one issue in the 2004 election,” said Cronin.

Henry Nicholas, president of 1199C, which has members at MCP Hospital, exclaimed, “Your strike is our strike.” Nicholas offered his support at the negotiations table. Support was also offered by Philadelphia Federation of Teachers’ President Ted Kirsh and Karen Bojar, Philadelphia chapter of NOW, and a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO.

“This is a perfect example of why profit and competition should not be a part of health care,” said Terri Falbo, from the Philadelphia Coalition of Labor Union Women.

The author can be reached at phillyrose1@earthlink.net.

Students rally in support of grocery strikers

Fri, 05 Dec 2003 05:48:00 +0000

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – Students from Santa Monica City College’s Progressive Student Alliance rallied with striking grocery workers Nov. 23 at a Pavilions market in Beverly Hills. Hails of support and cars honking gave the protestors encouragement during the two-hour rally. The protest emptied the store as the Beverly Hills Police Department and the store managers looked on.

“The corporations have not budged in what they call their ‘last, best and final offer,’” said Jordan Block, City College student and member of the student alliance. “We’re talking about health care in a country like the United States where 40 million people don’t have it,” said Block. “The only way to get it is through your employer and you have to fight for it.” He added, “Who wants to live in a country where 100,000 people die each year from preventable diseases and conditions?”

Recently retail workers and their unions have been protesting the construction of more than 40 proposed Wal-Mart stores in the Southern California area. Competition from the nonunion sector, which provides its employees poor or no health care, is undermining the hard-won health care coverage of union workers. Safeway Corp, the owner of Vons, used the competition from Wal-Mart as an excuse for its demand for drastic health care cuts which sparked the current strike.

The author can be reached at kelsdrumr@webtv.net.

China unions take on organizing challenge

Fri, 05 Dec 2003 05:00:00 +0000

Organizing workers in the private sector is a new challenge to the massive Chinese trade union movement, according to Zhang Hongzun, chairman of China’s 22-million-member Educational, Scientific, Cultural, and Medical Workers Union. The outspoken advocate of workers’ right to organize spoke to the World through an interpreter during a break at the annual conference of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) in Los Angeles in August.

State-owned enterprises make up the bulk of China’s economy, and workers there have many of their benefits set by the workers’ congresses. “We have a group of trade unionists in the congress,” Zhang pointed out. The work conditions set by the congress range from wages, hours, and social security to health care, maternity leave and breaks for breast feeding for new mothers. However, “in non-state enterprises,” such benefits have to be guaranteed through negotiations with corporations, much like U.S. labor management relations.

“It has been a very tough job for us to organize workers in those private and foreign-owned enterprises,” Zhang acknowledged frankly. Over the last 20 years, China has seen a rapid growth of foreign and private enterprises. Zhang said according to China’s laws and regulations, all workers – in both the state-owned and the private sector – have the right to organize into unions. But, in practice, while quite a number of workers in the private sector are unionized, many others still are not. “It has really been a problem for us,” he said. “In nonunion enterprises, workers rights can’t be protected effectively.”

Zhang feels that some local officials put too much emphasis on the growth of GDP and don’t pay enough attention to protection of workers’ rights and interests, even though, he said, the Chinese government has a clear policy and regulations in place that say where there are workers, unions should be set up.

He noted that the Chinese unions have had fewer difficulties organizing workers at joint ventures with Japanese and European companies. With U.S.-based corporations, however, “we have several hard nuts to crack,” including McDonald’s and Wal-Mart.

The well-informed trade union leader was quite knowledgeable about the U.S. labor movement and its focus on organizing at Wal-Mart. He is eager to advance the organizing of China’s Wal-Mart workers. “If we can organize the Wal-Mart in Beijing,” he said with a big smile, “it would be a way to show support for the American labor movement. They could say, ‘If in Beijing, why not here?’”

Zhang also pointed out that while Motorola corporation’s U.S. work force is not unionized, in China there are unionized workers in Motorola plants.

Zhang was impressed with the militancy and dynamism of the delegates at the APALA convention. APALA has sponsored delegations of U.S. unionists to visit their Chinese counterparts. He says he hopes more U.S. workers can come to China to get a better understanding of that country. “China is an open society,” he said, and “Chinese trade unions are open organizations.”

Zhang said the Chinese trade union movement, the world’s largest with over 100 million members, is “ready to develop relations with any trade union movement in the world on the basis of mutual respect, independence, and autonomy and non-intervention in each others affairs.” He added, “We’d like to join hand-in-hand to make common efforts for workers rights.”

The author can be reached at rwood@pww.org.

Colombian workers risk lives to organize unions

Fri, 05 Dec 2003 04:41:00 +0000

PORTLAND, Ore. – Labor organizers who think it’s tough to unionize in the United States should hear Juan Carlos Galvis. Galvis is a worker at a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Barrancabermeja, Colombia, and vice president of SINALTRAINAL, a 5,000-member union of food and beverage workers. Like hundreds of other trade unionists in Colombia, he has death threats and armed attackers to contend with.

Galvis was in Portland, Ore., Oct. 17, part of a month-long U.S. speaking tour sponsored by the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) and the International Labor Rights Fund, intended to raise awareness about conditions for unionists in Colombia.

Colombia, a nation of 41 million residents almost twice the size of Texas, has suffered through four decades of civil war. Leftist guerrilla groups control portions of the countryside, while in many cities and parts of the countryside, right-wing paramilitary groups terrorize union organizers, women’s rights groups, student groups and others, with impunity from the police and military.

It’s the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists. Of the 213 people killed worldwide last year for being involved in a union, 184 were Colombian.

According to the U.S. State Department, the right-wing paramilitaries are doing most of the killing, and almost none of the killings have resulted in anyone being charged.

“Paramilitaries’ targeting of trade unionists is in keeping with the general policy of the Colombian state, which views trade unionists as subversives,” said Dan Kovalik, assistant general counsel for the USWA, which is waging a lawsuit to try to hold Coca-Cola responsible for the violence against its union workers.

In 2001, Galvis started getting phone calls threatening his life if he didn’t resign from the union. A man on a motorcycle stopped Galvis’ wife on the street with the message that he would be killed if he continued to speak out. It’s a grave and credible threat. Since 1990, nine leaders of Galvis’ union have been assassinated, one of them at the Coca-Cola plant where he worked in Carepa, in northwestern Colombia. In that incident, after the leader was assassinated, his co-workers were gathered at the plant at gunpoint and told to resign their union membership or be killed. Paramilitaries also burned down the union hall. No one has been arrested in any of these crimes.

Because of international attention and pressure from American unions like the Steelworkers, the Colombian government assigned Galvis temporary bodyguards.

On Aug. 22, he was on his way home in the middle of the day when two men on a motorcycle pulled up alongside the car and opened fire. His bodyguards returned fire, and the attackers sped off. The day before Galvis’ Portland appearance, a member of a women’s group led by his wife was assassinated.

None of this, he says, has swayed him from his mission. Why does he remain active in the union in the face of such danger? “Because it’s a just struggle,” he answers in Spanish. “Because we want peace and social justice; because we can’t let Colombia be dominated by violence; because we love life, and believe that another Colombia is possible, that another world is possible.”

Galvis says the Coca-Cola subsidiary Pan American Beverages has violated Colombia’s labor law. As a worker in distribution, he earns $314 a month and has 15 days off a year. There’s a union contract, but Galvis says that day-to-day in the plants, managers discourage union membership. And the company is using temporary workers to push wages down.

Galvis is a plaintiff in a lawsuit in U.S. District Court filed by the Steelworkers and the International Labor Rights Fund. The suit seeks to hold Coca-Cola and two of its Colombian bottlers responsible for using paramilitaries to engage in anti-union violence. A federal judge dismissed Coca-Cola as a defendant, but is allowing the case to proceed against its Colombian subsidiaries.

The Portland talk was hosted by the Cross-Border Labor Organizing Committee and Witness for Peace. More information about the campaign is available at www.killercoke.org.

Galvis’ government-sponsored protection is due to end Nov. 30.

Reprinted with permission from the Nov. 7 issue of the Northwest Labor Press, www.nwlaborpress.org. Don McIntosh is the associate editor.

Rally urges action on jobs, education

Fri, 05 Dec 2003 04:27:00 +0000

CHICAGO – Stephen Parker, 19, was shot and killed by an unknown assailant while walking through his Uptown neighborhood Nov. 20. A student at Prologue Alternative School and aspiring rapper, Parker had organized students to protest in Washington, D.C., against the Iraq war and was slated to give the valedictory address at graduation.

In his memory, a group of Parker’s friends joined hundreds of youth and their supporters at a Federal Plaza rally on Nov. 25 demanding urgent action on the crisis facing the 5.5 million youth in the United States between the ages of 16-24 who are either out of work or out of school. This number includes 250,000 in New York and 100,000 each in Chicago and Los Angeles. Seventy percent of these youth are African American or Latino.

“We need more money for education and after school programs,” said two of Parker’s friends, Eric and Paul, both 17 years old. Parker was one of a growing number of youth murdered this year on Chicago streets.

The rally, initiated by Rainbow PUSH Coalition, NAACP, the Urban League, religious leaders and elected officials, demanded that Mayor Richard Daley and Gov. Rod Blagojevich issue a state of emergency and called for “first class schools and jobs, not first class prisons.” Speakers urged action to change the Bush policies of military spending and tax breaks for the rich.

Democratic presidential candidate Carol Mosley Braun appealed for an all-out effort to defeat Bush in 2004. “Send him back to Crawford, Texas. We want our country back. Reject their tricks. They are lying to the American people about Iraq and the economy.”

The Illinois State Board of Education said that 20 percent of African American students and 25 percent of African American males had been “pushed out” of Chicago schools last year.

According to the Justice Department, 6.6 percent of all Americans, 11 percent of men, and 32 percent of African American men will end up in prison. African American men in their early 30s are nearly twice as likely to have prison records (22 percent) than university degrees (12 percent).

“I have been looking for jobs,” said Marquis Vinson, 18. “I can’t get one. Everywhere they say you need to work to get the jobs.” Without jobs, many minority youth are forced into military service. Fifty percent of the soldiers in Iraq are Black or Latino.

State Rep. Constance Howard (D-Chicago) termed the situation an emergency and announced that 70 elected officials had joined together to lobby for more state and federal funds for job creation and job training centers, not jails. It is estimated to cost $40,000 to incarcerate and $10,000 to educate the same person.

“No jobs, no justice. No jobs, no peace,” declared Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.). “We can send money to Iraq, but nothing is left for Englewood, Lawndale, South Chicago or Humboldt Park. Bring the troops home and create jobs.” Davis called for Roosevelt New Deal-style public works jobs program. PUSH Rainbow Coalition is urging that $15 billion be targeted for jobs and education.

Alderman Joe Moore blasted the $1.3 billion in city taxes that are going to fund the occupation of Iraq. “This money could be spent to create jobs, education, and health care. We must fight for new priorities and a new agenda.”

“We all share the sense of urgency,” said U.S. Senate candidate Barak Obama, who appealed for greater unity to address the crisis. “Fifty percent unemployment is unacceptable. $87 billion in Iraq and not here is unacceptable. Let’s act together.”

The author can be reached at jbachtell@rednet.org.

Pittsburghs broke, but Bush gets cash

Fri, 05 Dec 2003 04:07:00 +0000

PITTSBURGH – Steelworkers, active, unemployed and retired, from throughout the decimated industrial valleys marched onto the blustery street in front of the Westin William Penn Hotel to join the Sierra Club, civil rights leaders, students, clergy, Kucinich and Dean supporters and peace activists to demand jobs and a Bush-free future. The president had swooped into town to pick up $1 million for his re-election campaign.

Students chanted, “Give that $1 million to Pittsburgh. We’re broke!”

Since mid-summer a budget crisis has racked the Steel City. Pittsburgh is running out of money to operate. Layoffs of police and city workers, and the shutdown of senior and recreation centers have only accelerated as the red ink continues to flow at City Hall.

Western Pennsylvania residents carried hundreds of signs demanding peace and the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Others were raised their voices for democratic rights and repeal of the Patriot Act.

Recent administration action to loosen clean water and air regulations brought out the Sierra Club in force, including their mascot. The Sierra Club Fish, who had the warmest dress of the day, confronted local Republicans and millionaires as they left the $2,000-a-plate fund-raising luncheon. Probably for the first time in his life, billionaire Henry Hillman, owner of Pittsburgh National Bank, came face to face with the “Fish” demanding only the right to swim in the famous Three Rivers.

Steelworkers had trade on their mind. Press reports surfaced Dec. 1, that Bush intended to rescind the tariffs on steel which steelworkers believe has allowed the struggling industry time to reorganize. There are 36 steel companies in bankruptcy, and hundreds of thousands of retirees at LTV and Bethlehem Steel have been robbed of their health care and pensions – their life savings.

Mark Glyptis is president of the Independent Steelworkers Union (ISU) in Weirton, W.Va. His membership is willing to accept layoffs of 950 to keep the 3,500-person steel mill operating, he told the World. “I just met with President Bush at the Pentagon last week and I think he will modify the steel tariffs, but I do not think he will end them. But he was noncommittal.” Growing angry, Glyptis added, “We have held up our end of the bargain and it is painful. We expect him [Bush] to hold up his end. If he rescinds the tariffs, I guarantee that we will end this moral decay and he will not carry West Virginia or Pennsylvania next year.”

ISU members standing around Glyptis smiled that confident smile and as one backed up their president, “We have 3,500 families in three states (Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia) who will have nothing else to do but put this cowboy on the unemployment line with us. We are ready.”

All three states are battlegrounds for the 2004 election. Bush won Ohio and West Virginia in 2000.

The Pittsburgh “welcome” for Bush ended with only one incident, when a young man knocked over one of the wooden police barriers. Police chased the young man through the crowd and slammed him to the cold concrete, then tossed him into a waiting paddy wagon.

The author can be reached at dwinebr696@aol.com.