People Before Profit blog

Workers Correspondence Candidates who value families will win in November

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 06:55:00 +0000

The candidates who demonstrate to voters that they value families will win in the November elections. That’s quite a reversal from the 1980s, when the conservative agenda began to be packaged as “family values.”

Until the Bush administration’s sixth year, the Republican Party had patent protection on “family values.” If a distraught (and uninsured) single mom holding her sick child would appear in a TV political ad, it was to deliver “family values” like a sucker punch to the American people — evoked just to change the subject.

I’ll offer an acknowledgment where it’s due. Since 1994, when the Grand Old Party captured the House of Representatives and the Senate, its leadership dictated the political priorities in the United States. Its monopoly rule was interrupted by the midterm elections in ’06. Until then, you could ask a proud “neo-con” about priorities and she/he would answer confidently that whatever the public sector can do, the private sector can do it better. After all, they would explain, everybody knows that the global marketplace, when left alone to do its magic, will shower prosperity upon the land.

Yet in 2008, this discontented and war-weary nation has been set in motion. Working class voters — saddled with debt, hounded by inflation, cast off by recession and cast out by foreclosure — are far less likely to be detoured by Karl Rove-style tactics such as pressing the “family values” hot button. This change in attitude is evidenced by comments made on call-in programs like C-Span, by steadily increasing numbers of swing voters — Reagan Democrats and lifelong Republicans.

If the high turnout in the Democratic Party primary elections is an indicator, it appears that voters will play an active role in the general election, too. But don’t take my word for it. Ask your neighbors and co-workers.

Workers and their families are angry about jobs going overseas. A 2007 Rockefeller Foundation survey of American workers found that nearly 1 in 3 were worried about losing their jobs and nearly 1 in 2 worried about the prospects of finding a new job.

They want a solution to the health care crises. According to the same Rockefeller survey, 1 in 5 used their savings at least one time during the last year to pay for health-related expenses. Nearly 40 percent were worried about losing health care coverage and 45 percent worried about paying more for health care and getting less coverage.

They want to preserve the American Dream, a vision where conditions improve — not worsen — for all families with each succeeding generation. However, according to the 2005 Principal Financial Well-Being Index, 70 percent of American workers think that realizing the dream has been or will be harder than it was for their parents.

They still believe in trading honest labor for honest pay, but they have seen too many hard-working people go under-rewarded or get kicked to the curb, while the rich get richer. As activist/writer Holly Sklar reported in 2005, median household income has suffered in this first decade of the 21st century, even though Americans work an average of over 200 hours more per year than workers in other wealthy industrialized nations.

Workers and their families want a government that is truly on their side. The politicians who don’t value families but think they can fake us out again with the “family values” shtick are in for a rude awakening on Nov. 4.

— Tim Mills, chairperson of the Jobs Campaign / UAW Local 592, in Rockford, Ill.

Labors historic 08 election drive means TV, money and troops

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 10:49:00 +0000

A mother holds a baby boy on her lap. She says: “Hi, John McCain, this is Alex, he’s my first.

“So far, his talents include trying any new food and chasing after our dog.

“That, and making my heart pound every time I look at him.

“So, John McCain, when you said you would stay in Iraq for 100 years, were you counting on Alex?

“Because if you were, you can’t have him.”

The powerful TV ad just described is now being viewed by millions across the nation and is the result of a joint effort by the 1.4 million member AFSCME, the largest union in the AFL-CIO and MoveOn.org, the 3 million member progressive grassroots internet organization.

On June 18, a day after the ad was viewed by millions, AFSCME announced its endorsement of Barack Obama for president. Gerald McAntee, the union’s president who also chairs the AFL-CIO’s political committee, said during the press conference where he announced the endorsement, that he expects a federation-wide endorsement of Obama shortly.

The joint ad with MoveOn reflects what McAntee described as “labor’s deep concern about the legacy of John McCain’s reckless foreign policy. Union members are frustrated that we’re still in Iraq five years after Bush and McCain said it would be quick and easy and they see first hand the war’s toll in blood and treasure.”

Dramatic TV ads are only part of what AFSCME has in its arsenal for the election battle. The union plans to mobilize more than 40,000 of its own members as activists in the fall campaign for Obama and will commit $50 million to campaign activity.

McAntee, whose union had endorsed Hillary Clinton in the primaries, explained why it was now endorsing Obama. He described an early morning June 18 meeting labor leaders held with the Illinois senator. Obama, McEntee, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, and American Federation of Teachers President Ed McElroy were at the gathering.

McEntee reported that Obama assured the group that he would be tough in negotiating trade treaties and that labor rights and environmental standards would be bottom line essentials in any deals. McEntee also said that Obama had put forth positions on universal health care and education that all the unions supported.

Obama, according to McEntee, committed not just to universal health care but to extending the health care plan that now covers lawmakers to millions now lacking private coverage if the broader health care overhaul is not immediately achievable.

Almost immediately after the June 18 endorsement by AFSCME, Mark Ayers, president of the AFL-CIO’s Building and Construction Trades Department announced his department’s unanimous endorsement of Obama.

“It came down to a choice between McCain, who embraces the disastrous economic and foreign policies espoused by Bush or the candidacy of Barack Obama, where concerns of workers are placed front and center,” Ayers declared.

At the press conference McEntee responded to reporters who questioned whether Obama could win among male blue collar workers. He pointed out that Obama had won among these workers in many states, including Oregon, and said Obama would win this group even in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and western New York where Clinton did well in the primaries.

“Given the opportunity to communicate with these voters, Obama can communicate with them,” McEntee said. He pledged that his union will work hard in all of those areas, just as it had for Clinton. “We will talk economic issues in the working class areas of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia,” he said.

To get the full AFL-CIO endorsement Obama needs the votes of unions that represent two thirds of the federation’s almost 10 million members. McEntee said that he expects Sweeney to soon call a telephone conference of the federation’s General Board for that purpose.

The nation’s largest union, the National Education Association, is slated to endorse Obama at its July 2-4 convention in Washington D.C. Reg Weaver, the union’s president, has already called upon the 9,000 delegates expected to convene there to make the endorsement. He had said, already in April, that McCain’s economic proposals would amount to a spending freeze that would harm public schools.

Backing from the NEA is coveted by candidates because the union has politically active members in each of the 50 states and it has a record of convincing voters to support education related struggles. The NEA recently played a key role in defeating a right-wing school voucher scheme in Utah, long considered one of the “reddest” of red states.

Cleveland labor: Now is the time to unite

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:38:00 +0000

CLEVELAND — Delegates to the North Shore (Cleveland) AFL-CIO Federation of Labor erupted in cheers and applause when President Loree Soggs, referring to Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, opened his report to the June 11 meeting saying, “We now have a candidate.”

Soggs, who also serves as executive secretary of the Cleveland Building and Construction Trades Council, told the delegates, “Go back to your locals. Now is the time to unite. We cannot let any bias or racial thoughts get in the way.”

In case there was any doubt, Soggs said, the building trades had learned that their longtime opponent, the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), had endorsed Republican John McCain, citing his opposition to every key issue protecting unions and working conditions including project labor agreements, the Employee Free Choice Act, the Davis-Bacon Act and occupational safety and health regulations.

“If your members have a problem with racial bias, tell them to get over it,” Soggs said. “Get over it for all time, but especially now for this election, get over it. We must put Barack Obama in the White House and, if we don’t, we are in deep trouble.”

Soggs and Harriet Applegate, the labor council’s executive secretary, outlined the council’s ambitious plans to educate and mobilize union members and their families.

“We know that once again Ohio will be critical in the national election,” Applegate said. “Cleveland is the powerhouse for the Democratic Party in the state so we need to maximize the vote.”

She said that white workers and retirees especially must be reached to vote for Obama: “They are our members, our retirees and our neighbors.”

Applegate urged the largest possible turnout for the national door-to-door labor canvas set for June 28.

“We plan to continue through the summer and, starting in September, to walk every weekend.”

Phone banks to reach union households have already started, she said, and will continue until the election. Unions, including AFSCME, the Steelworkers, and the teachers, air traffic controllers and federal employees unions, have already released members to work full-time on the effort.

At the request of the national AFL-CIO, she said, the labor council will meet in July instead of taking its usual summer recess.

A massive Labor Day action is being planned, Soggs said, for the first time uniting marches that had previously been held separately by the AFL-CIO and the African American community.

“We have good reason to believe that Sen. Obama will speak at this event,” he said.

Discussions are also under way, Soggs said, to expand the Cleveland Citizen, the oldest continuously published U.S. labor newspaper, now 118 years old and mainly a publication of the building trades, into a general labor paper.

The Plain Dealer, Cleveland’s corporate-sponsored daily, is in decline, Applegate said. “Its advertising revenues are down 20 percent and it has cut back on news coverage.”

“We hope to begin building an alternative labor-based press in this area,” she said.

World labor group hits U.S. on worker rights

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 05:35:00 +0000

The International Trade Union Congress, which met June 9-11 in Geneva, assailed the lack of workers’ rights in the United States, and called on the World Trade Organization to take up the issue at its biannual review of U.S. trade policy.

The ITUC, the world’s largest labor federation, represents 166 million workers in 156 countries and territories.

The Bush administration’s response, a few days later, to the WTO’s routine review of U.S. trade policy made no mention of that policy’s effect on workers. The questions that the WTO asked the administration to answer did not include any of the workers’ rights concerns raised by the ITUC. Moreover, the WTO ignored a mandate from the foreign ministers of member countries who, in 2006, had insisted that the review include labor standards and workers’ rights.

In its report, the ITUC noted that the U.S. has yet to ratify key International Labor Organization planks on the right to organize unions and the right to bargain collectively.

The group also noted that the U.S. has failed to ratify an ILO plank calling for equal pay for equal work, and pointed out that there is still rampant pay discrimination in the U.S. based on sex.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in Geneva on June 10 that the U.S. refusal to ratify these items is “clearly shameful.” He said he is hoping that the November elections will provide a vehicle to change the situation.

Describing the status of labor rights in the U.S., the ITUC report charged, “The right to strike and the right to collective bargaining are severely restricted, in particular for public service workers and for certain groups of private sector workers.”

The report also noted that at least 32 million workers, 25 million of them in the private sector, are not covered by U.S. labor law. “These figures do not include many more who have lost the protections of U.S. labor law as a result of decisions by the National Labor Relations Board,” the report said.

The ITUC document also took issue with the extent to which employers in the U.S. are permitted to interfere with union organizing drives.

“Employers have a statutory right under the National Labor Relations Act to express their views during a union campaign so long as they do not interfere with their employees’ free choice,” the report said. “In practice, however, employers have a legal right to engage in a wide range of anti-union tactics that chill exercise of freedom of association.”

The ITUC also cited “captive audience meetings” where firms that propagandize against the union “can fire workers who refuse to attend them.” The report criticized laws that allow employers to “predict,” although not “threaten,” that a workplace will be shut down if workers vote for a union.

The ITUC findings were particularly harsh in the area of rights for public sector workers:

“In the public sector, 40 percent of workers are still denied basic collective bargaining rights. While the federal Labor Relations Act covers over two million federal employees, the statute outlaws strikes, proscribes collective bargaining over hours, wages and economic benefits, and imposes extensive management rights that further limit collective bargaining.

“Only a little more than half the states allow for collective bargaining in the public sector; several more allow it only for narrow categories of workers. Even where the public sector workers have the right to bargain, they generally do not have the right to strike.”

The report noted, “In North Carolina all public employees are denied collective bargaining rights, which is in violation of workers’ fundamental rights as determined by the ILO.”

In conclusion, the report said, “The U.S. administration, rather than leading the way on protection of the rights of working people and to decent pay and conditions, has been intent on denying the freedom to join a union and bargain collectively to millions of Americans. This hurts America’s working people and has a negative impact on workers’ right in other countries as well.”

When he spoke in Geneva, Sweeney said, “Independent polls show 44 million more workers would join a union if they were not intimidated by employers. We intend to do something about that this year in the election.”

jwojcik@pww.org

PAI contributed to this story.

Latino workers die on the job at higher rates than others

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 07:10:00 +0000

Latino workers die from on-the-job injury at higher rates than all others, with 33 percent of the deaths happening at construction sites, a government report noted June 5.

One of the main causes cited in the report is that they hold more high risk jobs than those in other groups. The largest number of construction industry deaths result from falls and another major cause of death among these workers is highway-related deaths, according to the report.

The study was done by health researchers in Massachusetts and New Jersey gathering information in those states and at the Centers for Disease Control and prevention. It was published in the June 5 CDC Morbidity and Mortality Report which is issued weekly.

The study was based on information about 11,000 Latino workplace deaths in the United States between 1992-2006. The researchers looked at death certificates, police reports and workers’ compensation documents.

The study calculated an annual death rate of five per 100,000 Latino workers in 2006. The rate for those who were immigrants, however, was six per 100,000. far higher than the 3.5 for those born in the U.S. The rate for non-Latino white workers was 4. For African-Americans it was 3.7.

“The burden of risk is primarily on foreign-born workers,” said Scott Richardson, a Bureau of Labor Statistics staff member, in a June 5 telephone press conference on the report. He said that a review of the most recent deaths, from 2003-2006, found that two of every three Latino workers who died on the job were foreign-born. That’s up sharply from 1992, when immigrants accounted for half of Latino work-related deaths. In the last few years 70 percent of the immigrant workers killed were from Mexico.

From 2003-2006, the highest numbers of Latino work-related deaths were in California, with 773 deaths; Texas, with 687; and Florida, with 417.

The highest death rate for Latino workers, however, was in South Carolina, at about 23 per 100,000. There has been a recent influx of immigrant workers in that state.

The influx of immigrant workers into the country is driven both by U.S. employers looking for the cheapest possible labor and by horrific conditions created by multi-national corporations in their homelands. More than half the undocumented workers in the U.S. are from Mexico where corporate activity has undercut and destroyed the economy.

“Does anyone want to pay $400,000 for their $300,000 house?” asked Mike McNeil, a construction contractor who regularly hires undocumented workers for a tiny slice of what he says full-time U.S. workers would cost him. McNeil hires the immigrants to do the dangerous work of building home additions, garages and swimming pools in towns all over northwestern New Jersey. He said, “These people work hard, they’re honest and I can trust them to take good care of my tools. I even send them on jobs with cash. I can trust them with my money.”

Workers at sites like his are often the most vulnerable when it comes to life threatening injuries. Because they are undocumented they often don’t even report what they consider “routine” injuries.

Even at jobs not usually considered “dangerous,” Latino immigrant workers become more vulnerable to injury because of low pay and lack of benefits. For a documented worker or a U.S. citizen, falling on a wet or greasy floor or sustaining a cut from a slicing machine in a deli might involve filling out an incident report and getting free care in an emergency room. For an undocumented worker it might be an entirely different story.

Father Ricardo Hernandez of Sts. Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church in Rockford, Ill. knows these different stories.

He says the immigrants will keep coming in spite of dangerous jobs in construction, meat packing plants, restaurants and retail businesses because they are lured by “employers who only want cheap labor and because things are so bad in Mexico that they have to do this to survive.”

He said there is an undocumented couple at his church who work at a restaurant in nearby Belvidere, Ill., for $3.50 an hour and no benefits of any type. The state minimum wage in Illinois is $6.50 an hour.

This Week in Labor

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:06:00 +0000

This Week in Labor for 6/21

Most unions now back Obama

Unions that were neutral or backing Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primaries are quickly lining up in the Obama camp.

Among those that have just endorsed the Illinois senator’s presidential campaign are the United Auto Workers, the United Transportation Union and the Sheet Metal Workers. Also signaling that their unions will endorse Obama are Ed McElroy, president of the American Federation of Teachers and Gerald McAntee, president of AFSCME.

The UAW was neutral during the primary contests. The Steel Workers and the Mine Workers originally backed former Sen. John Edwards.

The latest moves bring the AFL-CIO very close to being able to make a federation-wide endorsement of Obama. The Change toWin federation has already done so. To endorse, the federation must have the votes of General Board members representing two thirds of its 9 million members.

Labor to Senate: “Don’t undermine health care'

The fight for national health care should result in universal, comprehensive and affordable heath care care for all without destroying the better aspects of the present employer-based health care system, the AFL-CIO says.

Speaking for the federation in early June in one of a series of Senate Finance Committee hearings on the state of U.S. health care, federation Executive Vice President Arlene Holt-Baker reminded lawmakers the present employer-based system covers the majority of U.S. residents.

While she advocated the solution the federation backs – a mixed private-public system with government regulating costs and providing insurance for those who can’t get private insurance – Holt-Baker said the present system should not be arbitrarily junked.

“As we work towards lowering costs and covering everyone, we must be sure reforms do not undermine employer coverage, which is the backbone of our health care system and covers 160 million Americans.”

Still no first responder plan

Seven years after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that destroyed New York’s World Trade Center the federal government still has no plan for even registering, much less treating, workers rushed in to handle disasters.

The finding was included in a Government Accountability Office report issued in early June.

The GAO report says that the first thing the government must do when it sends first responders to a disaster is to register and count them. This was not done for workers at the World Trade Center who were exposed to toxic fumes, jet fuel, noxious gases and debris. The report also said the federal government must bear the main responsibility for the follow up monitoring and medical care of the workers.

U.S. trade unionists meet Chinese counterparts

Rank-and-file union leaders from Guangzhou in southeast China met recently with rank-and-file union leaders of the San Mateo, Calif. Airport Labor Coalition. The meetings were the first between rank-and-filers of the two countries. Last year a delegation of international union presidents from Change to Win, headed by Service Employees President Andrew Stern, met leaders of the All China Federation of Trade Unions.

The Chinese talked about recent developments in the Chinese labor movement including the new Labor Contract Law that took effect Jan. 1 and the new Labor Arbitration law that took effect May 1.

The Labor Contract Law requires firms to negotiate with their workers on a range of issues including wages and overtime. The Chinese government approved the measure despite opposition from U.S. multi-nationals, including Wal-Mart, that operate in the country.

The Chinese workers noted that they face problems connected with the move towards more of a market economy in their country and that during the past 30 years of economic reform workers have had to make great sacrifices. They said that the Communist Party is rethinking the balance between capital and labor and that the enactment of new labor laws was part of that change.

The Chamber is afraid!

Two top Chamber of Commerce officials were quoted in a recent issue of The Politico as saying their group will pump record amounts of money into the 2008 election campaign – more than the $73 million they spent in 2006. “We fear the impact of increased Democratic majorities in the next Congress and the effectiveness of labor’s drive in the elections. They are bolder, more aggressive, and more efficient than ever before,” said the Chamber’s general counsel.

Imagine how frightened they’ll be if their worst nightmare, the Employee Free Choice Act, becomes law.

A small picket line turns into a mass outpouring

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 08:14:00 +0000

CHICAGO – 60 workers who have, for five years, been taking turns to march the picket line in front of the Congress Hotel here could not conceal their joy June 11 as thousands of trade union and community activists joined their ranks. The first to arrive took the picket signs from the strikers and told them to rest on chairs they set up near a makeshift podium.

As the weary workers rested they watched wave after wave of trade union and community supporters arriving on foot, by car, by bus and by train fill first the sidewalks in front of the hotel and then the sidewalks of the entire city block on which the structure sits.

They watched as the band from the musician’s union disembarked from its van and as an 18 wheeler from the Teamsters pulled up along Michigan Ave., blowing its horn in support.

They watched and listened as the endless trail of city buses passing added the honking of their horns to the sounds of the musicians and the Teamsters.

Dolores Contreras has been out on that picket line through five cold winters and five blazing hot summers. Wiping away a few tears, she said, “This makes it all worth it. We will do this. We will win this.”

Jose Sanchez, another five year veteran of the longest lasting strike in America, said, “With all this I can go on forever.”

The strike began five years ago when the Congress Hotel cut wages by seven percent to less than $8 an hour, slashed health benefits and hiked mandated employee contributions to the health care plan.

The hotel has refused to talk to the union since last August. Workers inside the hotel say they are getting only $7.50 an hour. The hotel claims it is paying $8. The prevailing wage for similar hotel jobs in Chicago is $13 an hour.

The striking union, Unite Here, says it will continue the fight to boost wages and working conditions to levels it has won at other city hotels and says the strike at the Congress Hotel has benefited other workers all over Chicago.

Mike Ortiz, who was among the thousands marching around the hotel, said that, for him, it was a “coming home” experience.

He had worked 15 years at the hotel before the strike and has since had numerous low paid jobs from which he has been laid off because of company cutbacks. He’s been out of work almost half a year and his unemployment benefits are about to run out. “I have some deep troubles and I get depressed,” he said, “But I had to come out here today to support this strike. This crowd fills my heart up with joy.”

The hotel and some Internet travel sites say the strike has little or no effect on hotel profits or customer service.

A current hotel worker leaving the building after his shift said that for a year now the hotel has rarely been more than one-third full. Most hotel managers consider a 33 percent occupancy rate to be well below what they need to maintain an acceptable profit level.

Many guests at the Congress complain about customer service.

The World found unsanitary and even dangerous conditions at the hotel in June 2007 when it inspected several floors – including no electricity or lighting on the 7th floor which was fully accessible to customers by both elevator and stairs.

Nine months later, on March 15, a hotel guest submitted an entry to the Unite Here Web site which said, “There was no lighting on the 7th floor. It was very scary. There was a crack in the ceiling of our room and mold in the shower.”

Long denied their rights, domestic workers find their voices

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 07:58:00 +0000

WEST MILFORD, N.J. — She came from Guatemala and landed a job as a live-in housekeeper here.

Her workday started at 5:30 a.m. and ended at midnight, seven days a week. She cooked, cleaned, watched children, made home repairs and did yard work. At first she earned $150 a month but after a while her employers started paying her no money at all.

They made sure one of them was with her whenever she left the house. That included trips to the local ShopRite supermarket, the dry cleaners and fruit and vegetable stands.

Even with her pay discontinued she stayed with the family because she had nowhere else to go. They told her, she says, that if she left them she would be arrested and shipped back to Guatemala.

“I really didn’t know any better,” she said in a recent interview. She asked the World not to use her name because she is undocumented.

A Guatemalan carpenter with a green card talked with her at the supermarket one day. Moved by her predicament, he and his American-born wife helped her find a better job in a home where she says she is now being treated fairly. Her new employer, a family of Indian immigrants in Wayne, N.J., pays her $15 an hour. She works an eight-hour day, six days a week with one day off.

Domestic workers have no legal right to overtime pay, sick time, vacation, health care or workers’ compensation in most states, and the immigrants among them often end up as underpaid or even unpaid indentured servants trapped in their employer’s household.

Increasingly, these workers are pushing aside their fear and mounting an impressive fightback. It includes filing lawsuits against abusive employers, forming groups to demand fair wages, and even lobbying elected officials to change laws that don’t give household workers the labor rights taken for granted by much of the nation’s workforce.

Last June, at the United States Social Forum in Atlanta, immigrant household workers formed the National Domestic Worker Alliance to push for state and federal laws granting them basic labor rights.

This month, the alliance, made up of more than 20 organizations from across the country, held the first-ever national convention for domestic workers, June 5–8 in New York City.

Domestic Workers United, a New York organization that belongs to the alliance, is pushing state lawmakers to sign a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. Domestic workers travelled to the state Capitol in Albany on May 20 to push for the new law.

The legislation would require for the first time anywhere in the United States that domestic workers receive overtime pay, a guaranteed day of rest each week and advance notice of termination.

“What this law will do is put in place a few basic things. What we are talking about is respect,” said Ai-Jen Poo, lead organizer for Domestic Workers United which includes many Caribbean, Latin American and African workers.

Organized labor backed the May 20 action. Calling for passage of the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, himself the son of a domestic worker, spoke of what workers like his mother experienced, telling the hundreds who gathered in Albany:

“Then as now, domestic workers were mostly women, isolated in the homes where they worked, not covered by most major worker protections, vulnerable to minimum wage and overtime violations. Then as now, domestic workers were legally excluded from the right to collectively bargain. Then as now, domestic work was at best a form of genteel slavery, in many cases not so genteel at all.”

According to government figures there are 1.5 million domestic workers in the U.S. An accurate count is impossible because many of the workers are here without documents and many collect income that goes unreported on tax records.

Domestic workers are building support groups to help themselves overcome fear and to mount a fightback. One such group meets at La Raza Centro Legal, an immigrant rights center in San Francisco.

The group also helps women find new jobs through a labor center it operates. Employers call the labor center and workers registered there are sent to places where they receive hourly wages of $11 to $17 an hour, with a three-hour, $42 minimum. They also get legal support when needed.

Women who were once frightened and powerless now learn English, invite speakers who discuss their legal rights and even organize marches and protests, the center’s organizers say.

jwojcik@pww.org

Colorado and around the U.S.: Workers hit streets vs. Big Oil & McCain

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 07:34:00 +0000

Unions begin big election effort

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 06:02:00 +0000

Targets include South, Midwest and ‘Ohio, Ohio, Ohio’

With the primary season over, labor is wasting no time jumping into the fall campaign.

The 10-million-member AFL-CIO is expected to endorse Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, shortly. The Change to Win federation has already endorsed him.

One of the opening shots in the expected AFL-CIO push to elect Obama was fired June 5 by the Communications Workers of America. The union’s executive council voted to recommend endorsement of Obama to the full CWA convention which meets June 23.

CWA President Larry Cohen, a Democratic Convention superdelegate, has already been backing Obama. His union remained uncommitted through the primary season because its members were evenly divided between Obama and Hillary Clinton and, earlier, Sen. John Edwards. The decision to endorse is key to the overall federation endorsement of Obama because the CWA is one of the last big unions to remain uncommitted. For the federation to endorse, it needs agreement from unions representing two-thirds of its total membership and the CWA move brings it much closer to that total.

Cohen explained that one reason it has taken a while for the full federation to make an endorsement is that pro-Clinton unions, notably AFSCME, needed time “to come to terms with the fact that their favorite lost.”

Once the AFL-CIO officially endorses Obama, it is expected to deploy large numbers of ground troops for the election. It has already budgeted $54.3 million for its own get-out-the vote drive and may, according to its political committee chairman, AFSCME President Gerald McEntee, spend as much as $60 million on the effort.

The CWA, according to Cohen, will concentrate its efforts on six or seven states including, significantly, Louisiana and Mississippi. The union has a big membership in those states and has previously worked with the Steelworkers in both to successfully elect Democrats to Congress in long-time Republican districts. In large sections of Louisiana and Mississippi the combined memberships of the two unions constitute a majority of the voters who are union members.

The other states that the CWA will focus on are Virginia, Ohio, Michigan and Kentucky.

The Steelworkers have already begun what they say will be 30,000 or more worksite visits by union activists, talking directly to workers about Obama’s positions. They’re emphasizing his proposals for fair trade policies and for creation of millions of good paying “green” manufacturing jobs. The jobs they are talking about include production of solar cells, industrial-sized windmills to power electric turbines, and hybrid automobile engines.

The Service Employees (SEIU), the largest union in the Change to Win federation, voted at their June 2–4 convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to spend $85 million for the fall campaign to elect Obama and a bigger Democratic majority in Congress.

An additional $55 million will be spent for a legislative campaign to push for creation of a “universal, comprehensive and affordable national health care plan,” according to a union statement issued after the convention.

In a unique move, SEIU voted to spend $10 million to mount campaigns against legislators on any level who go back on promises they have made to the labor movement.

The Mine Workers have already strongly rejected any notion that Obama will run weakly among white working class men, the largest demographic group among their membership. They have announced that they have begun to reach, by mail and on the job, every one of their 105,000 members and retirees. The effort aims to show the members how all of Obama’s major positions, particularly those on health care, agree with positions put forward by the union.

The Teamsters, another big Change to Win Union, announced June 4 that they have already begun a “key state” strategy for the Obama campaign. When asked to name the states, the union’s president, James Hoffa, said, “Ohio, Ohio and Ohio.”

The Teamster effort is actually a national one with, like the Steelworkers, a special focus on the Midwest and Northeast industrial states. The Teamsters say they will make a particularly strong effort in Missouri, an important swing state.

Talking about the Teamster drive for Obama, Hoffa said, “We’ll motivate our members, we’ll motivate their wives, we’ll motivate their families, we’ll motivate their grandmothers and we’ll motivate their grandfathers to get out and vote for Obama and all our candidates. I tell them, ‘You’re not voting for Obama, you’re voting for yourselves’.”

jwojcik@pww.org

GOP blocks jobless benefit extension

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 04:53:00 +0000

Congressional allies of President Bush scraped up just enough enemies of workers on Capitol Hill June 11 to ensure that a Democratic move to extend unemployment benefits fell short by three votes.

Democrats brought the measure to a vote under a special format that required a two thirds vote for passage. They used the procedure because passage would have prevented a veto by Bush.

Although a huge majority in Congress approved the measure with a 279-144 vote, the tally was three short of the 282 votes needed to make Bush administration opposition irrelevant.

The vote followed an unprecedented effort by the nation’s unions and their members including millions of e-mails and phone calls to members of the House, urging them to extend the jobless benefits. The bill would have extended benefits from their present 26 weeks to 39 weeks in most states and to 52 weeks in states where the official jobless rate is 6 percent or more.

Sources on Capitol Hill say the bill could be introduced again as early as June 12 or June 13.

Supporters in Congress say the jobless benefit extension is by no means a dead issue.

The extension is still included in the bill that funds the war in Iraq although Bush has already vowed to veto any Iraq War bill that includes funding for anything other than the war.

Bush said that joblessness is not high enough to justify extending unemployment benefits and, like Republican presidential candidate John McCain, contends the economy is basically healthy.

Critics point out that last month’s jump in the unemployment rate was the worst in more than 20 years and that the increase in joblessness comes on top of evaporating wages, inflationary price hikes for food and fuel, a credit crisis, declining value of homes and an affordable housing and mortgage crisis.

PAI contributed to this story

Labor and lawmakers unveil new trade bill, take steps to undo years of 'SHAFTA'

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 03:30:00 +0000

Union and congressional leaders announced June 5 that they are backing a new trade bill that works for workers, not just for giant multinationals.

If it becomes law, the president will be required to review all existing trade deals against new criteria that address workers’ rights and environmental protection. The legislation was introduced by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who does not expect it to pass this year.

If the bill passes next year, a possibility if Barack Obama becomes president and there are large Democratic majorities in Congress, any existing trade deals that fail to meet the criteria would have to be renegotiated. Any new trade pacts would have to meet the same criteria.

“Our nation can’t survive in a global economy without a different set of trade rules that protect workers here from the race to the bottom and workers abroad from exploitation by drug companies and energy companies,” Brown declared.

Backers of the bill, the Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment Act, also called the Trade Act, say it is designed both to set new trade policy for the United States and to remove control of the issue from the White House by returning it to Congress and the people.

Passage of the bill would mean a permanent end to “fast track” for trade pacts. Under “fast track,” presidents send proposed trade deals to Congress but legislators vote up or down only on implementing legislation. They have no right to change the deals, including making changes to guarantee workers’ rights are written into the pacts.

Under the new law, once passed, the new criteria that all trade bills will have to meet will be drafted by a joint congressional-White House commission. The bill requires that lawmakers on the commission must represent groups other than the financial and business interests that currently dominate congressional trade policy.

Brown said the practical effect of passage of the bill would be a two-year moratorium on all trade pacts.

He said he is hoping for an Obama victory in November because “McCain would have to be dragged by the public, kicking and screaming, into supporting a new trade policy.”

The entire labor movement is united behind the bill. Communications Workers President Larry Cohen and Teamsters President James Hoffa spoke in support of it at the Washington ,D.C., unveiling of the legislation June 5. The Steelworkers announced their support the same day as did the nation’s two labor federations — the AFL-CIO and Change to Win.

“It’s time for fighting for our jobs, for a vision of the future of America,” Cohen said. “We can’t be the last country in the world to focus on what trade means for our workers.” Cohen pointed to the recent announcement by General Motors that it will close three plants in the U.S. and another in Mexico. “We need to do something to bring back our auto industry, not just watch it go down one plant at a time,” he said.

Hoffa said the new bill, unlike past trade pacts, will be pro-worker. “Investors got NAFTA, billionaires got CAFTA and workers got the SHAFTA,” he declared, describing treaties with Canada, Mexico and Central America signed by both GOP and Democratic presidents.

To illustrate the negative impact of trade deals on U.S. workers, Hoffa talked about Fig Newtons, cookies made by Nabisco. The company closed profitable U.S. plants that made the cookies and, except for one plant in Chicago, it now produces most Fig Newtons in Mexico. Hoffa warned that Peppermint Patties, now manufactured in York, Pa., may be next.

The Bakery, Confectionery and Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union represents 9,000 Nabisco workers in the U.S. It had 1,000 more members, Nabisco workers, before the closing of the Fig Newton plants. Peppermint Pattie workers belong to the same union.

jwojcik @ pww.org

Worst jobless stats in 20 years only the tip of the iceberg

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:03:00 +0000

The announcement June 6 that the jump in the unemployment rate is the worst in more than a generation resulted in a few corporate analysts admitting we are now in an economy that has probably “stalled.” Workers know that what Wall Street apologists are describing as a stall is nothing less than a disaster.

Jobs fell by 49,000 in May after a 28,000 drop in April, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The unemployment rate increased to 5.5 percent, the fifth straight month in a row that jobs decreased. Keep in mind that it takes 130,000 or more new jobs a month just to absorb new people into the labor market.

The government figures admit to 7,626,000 “unemployed.” That’s where they get the 5.5 percent figure. They don’t include in that percentage the 5,220,000 they admit are “underemployed,” the 1,414,000 they admit are “discouraged” and no longer seeking jobs or the 6,634,000 who are underemployed, discouraged and out of the pool of those eligible for unemployment insurance. That brings the total unemployment figure to 14,260,000 according to figures compiled by the House Ways and Means Committee. Even the 14 million plus figure doesn’t tell the real story because there are many millions who have never found a first job and are not included in any of the above categories.

Among African Americans, unemployment rates are even worse. There is one job for every two people who are seeking work. Again, that figure only applies to all those who are still eleigible to collect unemployment insurance.

The corporate analysts might be able to get away with describing the disaster as only a “stall” in the economy if jobs was the only issue involved. In reality it is only one of the more visible aspects of the crisis workers face.

The second part of the disaster is that for 30 years wages have been evaporating. They have not kept pace with productivity. “Salaries continued to shrink in May,” the New York Times reported, “after adjusting for inflation.”

The third part of the disaster is the out-of-control increases in everyday costs of everything from basic foodstuffs to fuel.

The fourth part of the disaster, as if tanking jobs, shrinking wages, and spiraling costs were not enough, is the home equity and affordable housing and mortgage crisis. That worsens daily. Is this a temporary “stall” or is this a “disaster?”

Republican presidential candidate John McCain answered the question this way on June 6: “I have a great belief that the fundamentals of the economy are very strong. Very strong.”

He said this despite the fact that only a day earlier the Federal Reserve said home equity dropped to 46.2 percent in the first quarter of this year, a level not seen since World War II. While this is going on, homeowner mortgage debt is rising through the ceiling.

The Associated Press reported last week that homeowners have lost almost half-a-trillion dollars in home equity over the last quarter and that this has been going on for four quarters. Mortgage debt has risen by coorespondingly similar amounts.

While the Republicans would like us to believe all of this is due to “cyclical” or “random” events workers know better.

The upsurge we see around the elections is because millions understand the disaster is the result of failed policies by the Bush administration obeying its corporate bosses and funders – the very same people who are telling McCain what to do and who are funding his campaign.

Millions of workers understand that since Bush took office the country has lost 3.3 million manufacturing jobs. It would have taken the addition of 10 million jobs just to keep pace with the growing workforce.

Millions of workers understand that since the late 1990’s incomes fell by 2.5 percent for those in the bottom fifth of the income scale and rose almost 10 percent for those in the top fifth. Meanwhile, the rich in the top 1 percent got half of the overall economic growth between 1993 and 2006. (AFL-CIO figures)

Still, after all this, McCain is offering only the following two part economic plan: First, he wants a massive corporate tax cut from 35 percent to 25 percent, with 58 percent of the benefits going to the top 1 percent of taxpayers – an even larger tax cut for the rich than Bush gave them. Second, he proposes to tax health care benefits received by workers. Its almost as if he lives on another planet and needs a reality check.

For him, the reality check should come in November.

Labor mobilizes to extend jobless benefits

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 08:57:00 +0000

Labor leaders held an emergency telephone press conference June 10 and are appealing to everyone to call or e-mail their Congressional representatives on June 11 and 12 to urge them to vote for a new bill that will extend unemployment benefits.

The AFL-CIO has directed its state and local leadership to issue immediate appeals to every union member in the country to participate in an unprecedented e-mail and phone blitz of all members of Congress. The bill would increase jobless benefits from their present 26 weeks to 39 weeks in most states and 52 weeks in states where the unemployment rate is over 6 percent.

SEIU, a Change to Win union is also part of the effort.

“The economy is in free fall and working people are struggling. The share of all the unemployed who are jobless more than 6 months is 18 percent, and there are two jobless workers searching, per every job available,” said AFL-CIO Legislative Director Bill Samuel during the press conference.

He described the economy as it stands now a “toxic brew” for workers and their families.

The bill will come to a vote either on June 11 or 12. If it becomes law the extension would be retroactive for all workers who exhausted their benefits as far back as last November. Samuel said that each month since January 200,000 additional workers have lost their benefits by reaching the end of their 26 week periods.

The unions have set up a toll free numbers for activists to call. Members of the public should call 1-888-460-0813. Ask the Capital operator who answers to connect you with your Congressional representative.

Long denied rights, domestic workers find their voices

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 08:55:00 +0000

WEST MILFORD, N.J. — She came from Guatemala and landed a job as a live-in housekeeper for a family here.

Her workday started at 5:30 a.m. and ended at midnight, seven days a week. She cooked, cleaned, watched children, made home repairs and did yard work. At first she earned $150 a month but after a while her employers started paying her no money at all.

They made sure one of them was with her whenever she left the house. That included trips to the local ShopRite supermarket, the dry cleaners and fruit and vegetable stands in nearby Warwick, N.Y.

Even with her pay discontinued she stayed with the family because she had nowhere else to go. They told her, she says, that if she left them she would be arrested and shipped back to Guatemala.

“I really didn’t know any better,” she said in a recent interview. She asked the World not to use her name because she is undocumented.

A Guatemalan carpenter with a green card talked with her at the supermarket one day. Moved by her predicament, he and his American-born wife helped her find a better job in a home where she says she is now being treated fairly. Her new employer, a family of Indian immigrants in Wayne, N.J., pays her $15 an hour. She works an eight-hour day, six days a week with one day off.

Domestic workers have no legal right to overtime pay, sick time, vacation, health care or workers’ compensation in most states, and the immigrants among them often end up as underpaid or even unpaid indentured servants trapped in their employer’s household.

Increasingly, these workers are pushing aside their fear and mounting an impressive fightback. It includes filing lawsuits against abusive employers, forming groups to demand fair wages, and even lobbying elected officials to change laws that don’t give household workers the labor rights taken for granted by much of the nation’s workforce.

Last June, at the United States Social Forum in Atlanta, immigrant household workers formed the National Domestic Worker Alliance to push for state and federal laws granting them basic labor rights.

This month, the alliance, made up of more than 20 organizations from across the country, held the first-ever national convention for domestic workers, June 5-8 in New York City. Domestic Workers United, a New York organization that belongs to the alliance, is pushing state lawmakers to sign a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. Domestic workers travelled to the state capital in Albany on May 20 to push for the new law.

The legislation would require for the first time anywhere in the U.S. that domestic workers receive overtime pay, a guaranteed day of rest each week and advance notice of termination.

“What this law will do is put in place a few basic things. What we are talking about is respect,” said Ai-Jen Poo, lead organizer for Domestic Workers United which includes many Caribbean, Latin American and African workers.

Organized labor backed the May 20 action. Calling for passage of the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, himself the son of a domestic worker, spoke of what workers like his mother experienced, telling the hundreds who gathered in Albany:

“Then as now, domestic workers were mostly women, isolated in the homes where they worked, not covered by most major worker protections, vulnerable to minimum wage and overtime violations. Then as now, domestic workers were legally excluded from the right to collectively bargain. Then as now, domestic work was at best a form of genteel slavery, in many cases not so genteel at all.”

According to government figures there are 1.5 million domestic workers in the U.S. An accurate count is impossible because many of the workers are here without documents and many collect income that goes unreported on tax records.

Domestic workers are building support groups to help themselves overcome fear and to mount a fightback. One such group meets at La Raza Centro Legal, an immigrant rights center in San Francisco.

The group also helps women find new jobs through a labor center it operates. Employers call La Raza’s labor center when they need help. Workers registered at the center are sent to places where they receive hourly wages of $11 to $17 an hour, with a three-hour, $42 minimum. They also get legal support when needed.

Women from Mexico and Central America who were once frightened and powerless now learn English, invite speakers who discuss their legal rights and even organize marches and protests, the center’s organizers say.

In March, 50 women marched through the streets of Atherton, Calif., chanting as they passed the homes of Silicon Valley billionaires, to support a domestic worker who was suing a couple who had employed her for four years.

Local media reported that the marchers came out to support Vilma Serralta, 68, whose former employers made her work 14 hours a day, six days a week, as a nanny, cook and housekeeper at their $17.9 million home, for less than the minimum wage. Serralta, a U.S. citizen, was fired after her employer found chicken bones left in an otherwise empty trash can overnight.

One of the most active members of the group is Maria, who wanted the press to use only her first name because she is working to secure legal residency. She moved to San Francisco from Mexico to work as a caregiver for a family that paid her way to enter the country without documents. They kept her as a virtual prisoner in a house for a year where she cared for a 78-year-old woman in a wheelchair. They paid her only $300 per month but sent the check directly to her family in Mexico so she never had any money.

Maria said she used to be ashamed to talk about her first year in the United States. “Now I know this is the real story of so many women,” she said, “and we are fighting to put a stop to that story.”

jwojcik @ pww.org

Fast-buck construction behind crane disaster

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 07:29:00 +0000

NEW YORK — A crane collapse here May 30, killing two construction workers, brought the total of construction-related deaths in the city since January to 19. There have been 31 deaths of construction workers on the job here in the last seven months, a big increase over previous years.

This latest dramatic accident, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, has drawn the attention and conversation of New Yorkers to the crisis brought about by out-of-control for-profit development in the city.

A previous crane collapse on Manhattan’s East Side in April killed seven people and injured several more, leading to the forced resignation of New York City Building Commissioner Patricia Lancaster. But sacrificing Lancaster as a scapegoat has not freed Mayor Michael Bloomberg from blame.

Bloomberg has been the architect of the construction boom in the city, which has emphasized for-profit residential and commercial development through tax and other incentives, rezoning and public financing of massive building projects.

High-rise building construction in particular has been growing exponentially, but not without problems. High-rise buildings require special cranes and equipment that are dangerous and require specialized training and safety measures. But city oversight offices may not be up to the challenge.

According to the Department of Buildings, the number of complaints has increased to 140,000 a year from 38,000 in 2002.

Bloomberg and acting Building Commissioner Robert Li Mandri planned to hire 63 additional inspectors for building sites, bringing the number of inspectors to 461. It was too little too late for the workers who died May 30.

Hundreds of worksites and dozens of cranes are in operation in the city. The Department of Buildings is evaluating conditions at sites across the city.

Louis Coletti, president of the Building Trades Employer’s Association, a trade organization of unionized construction contractors, who was on a taskforce created by Lancaster earlier this year, said many small firms that use non-union labor openly flout laws and regulations. “They don’t file building permits,” said Coletti. “They don’t care about their workers. They don’t care about public safety. They want to get in, get the job done, go to the next one and put the money in their pocket.”

Of course, the contractors are not the only ones to blame. The various city agencies mandated with oversight of construction and buildings often look the other way or aid in substandard, unsafe or overtly illegal construction. After the crane collapse in April, Lancaster revealed that the high-rise being built was erroneously granted a building permit in violation of zoning laws. A complaint at the site went uninvestigated. The inspector admitted to signing off on the crane without actually visiting the site.

The site where the crane fell last week had a slew of violations and complaints against it, some related to the crane’s use. It appears that workers, nearby residents and passers-by were at risk long before the crane fell.

Local construction workers marked Workers Memorial Day (April 28) this year by mourning the loss of the many coworkers who have died in the past few months. At a service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Edward Malloy, president of the New York Building and Construction Trades Council, said, “No one will forget the fallen workers because the legacy of all construction workers ... is the skyline of New York.”

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) called for an investigation by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Gov. David Paterson announced a state investigation into the latest accident. Bloomberg was angered by both initiatives, insisting that the Department of Buildings was not at fault and arguing that “construction is a dangerous business and you will always have fatalities.”

Many fear that until major changes are made to slow and regulate the building boom in New York City, we are likely to have more construction workers — and perhaps bystanders — die from the construction crisis.

Libero Della Piana contributed to this article.

Farmworkers win yearlong battle with Burger King

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:52:00 +0000

Immokalee farmworkers celebrated a landmark agreement late last month, after Burger King agreed to pay them a penny more for every pound of tomatoes they pick, to improve their working conditions and to set up a new code of conduct for growers.

The May 23 agreement followed a year of escalating pressure on Burger King by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) and its allies, marked by a heated boycott and a petition campaign.

“This victory is very important because it brings us one step closer in this struggle for workers’ rights,” said Melody Gonzalez, 24, national co-chair of the Student/Farmworker Alliance and a CIW leader.

“The fight is still not over but this will allow us to ensure that these changes are applied on an industry-wide level so all workers can benefit from these gains,” she told the World. Burger King went so far as to hire an unlicensed private investigation firm known for its undercover infiltration of labor groups to spy on CIW meetings.

A corporate vice president was discovered using his daughter’s screen name to post derogatory comments about CIW on various websites. He and another executive were eventually fired for participating “in unauthorized activity on public web sites which did not reflect the company’s views.”

Burger King acknowledges it hired the private investigators but has said it severed ties with the firm. Chief Executive John W. Chidsey apologized for previous negative remarks toward CIW. “Today we turn a new page in our relationship and begin a new chapter of real progress for Florida farmworkers,” he said in a statement.

The Miami-based fast food chain, home of the “Whopper,” said it would pay tomato prices adequate to give workers a wage increase of 1.5 cents a pound. A penny will go to the farmworker and the extra half-cent is to cover the growers’ additional payroll taxes and administrative costs. The 71 percent wage increase is the first in decades.

Tomato farmworkers typically earn $10,000 to $12,000 a year. Now they could earn $16,000-$17,000. Burger King expects the deal to cost about $300,000 a year. Its 2007 profits totaled $2.2 billion.

Burger King has also promised to call for an industry-wide net penny-per-pound surcharge to increase wages for all Florida tomato harvesters. The company and the coalition have agreed on a stronger Vendor Code of Conduct requiring immediate termination of any grower from Burger King’s supply chain for certain unlawful activities. Workers will help monitor compliance.

Besides Subway, Chipotle and Wal-Mart, “We also plan to put pressure on Whole Foods who claim to be socially responsible with organic foods and fair trade,” Gonzalez said. “It only makes sense for them to come to the table as well.

“As students we play a critical role because these companies try and convince us to eat and buy from them but we cannot tolerate these abuses,” she added. “We have a responsibility to stand up for workers.”

Florida produces almost half the tomatoes eaten in the U.S., and Immokalee is the epicenter. From October to May, more than 30,000 people work in the fields.

Most southern Florida tomato workers are from Central America and are undocumented. They work under the blazing sun from sunrise to sunset, up to seven days a week. In a typical day each worker picks, carries and unloads up to two tons of tomatoes. Most are forced to live in crowded, run-down trailers. They have few benefits and no union rights. Norberto Jimenez, an Immokalee tomato worker originally from Mexico, says the Burger King deal is “about time.”

“We were disappointed with all the tactics Burger King used but we are happy that our demands will carry over,” said Jimenez. “As migrant farm workers with or without papers who work in poor conditions, it’s important for us to build unity with the broader community in this struggle for our rights,” he told the World.

“What it comes down to is human rights, dignity and respect,” he said.

The pact puts pressure on the Maitland-based Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, representing 90 percent of the state’s tomato farmers. The group is refusing to serve as a conduit for the penny-a-pound settlement, claiming the plan raises antitrust issues and that it is “un-American” for third parties to influence wages.

Meanwhile, Congressional investigators are headed for Florida to study pickers’ pay and working conditions. The growers will have to explain why they are halting a no-cost deal that big corporate buyers and the laborers who supply them are prepared to enforce.

The CIW — made up of migrant workers, student, labor, community and religious activists and lawmakers — has led nationwide marches, demonstrations and petition drives and has argued the workers’ case before legislative committees.

CIW won its first victory in 2005, after a four-year boycott against Taco Bell, owned by Yum! Brands. Since then KFC, A&W, Long John Silver’s and Pizza Hut have joined the penny-per-pound program. Last year CIW won a similar agreement with McDonald’s.

plozano @pww.org

Black trade unionists gear up for election

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 09:27:00 +0000

ST. LOUIS — Barack Obama, in a telephone hook-up May 22, welcomed the 37th annual gathering of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists here by declaring, “We need to reward labor and hard work with a few basic guarantees — health care, education and the right to form a union.”

The presumed Democratic nominee for the presidency aimed his fire at Republican presidential candidate John McCain who, he said, is running for Bush’s third term. “McCain is anti-union and pro-war,” Obama declared, warning, “He has pledged to continue the Bush tax breaks for the rich, the no-bid contracts in Iraq and to continue ignoring the health care crisis while he hangs workers out to dry.”

Over 1,000 members of the CBTU gathered at the convention where they attended workshops, plenary discussions, a town hall meeting and women’s, youth and retiree conferences. The gathering ran from May 21-26.

Lew Moye, president of the group’s chapter here, recalled the last CBTU gathering in St. Louis, 21 years ago, “when Nelson Mandela was in jail and we were fighting to free apartheid South Africa.” He noted that “today, like then, we are in serious times for working families.”

The delegates heard optimistic reports about victories won since those days.

St. Louis Central Labor Council President Robert Soutier described the “historic” defeat of the so-called Missouri Civil Rights Initiative. The initiative would have crippled affirmative action programs in Missouri and was supported by a host of right-wing groups. They wanted it on the ballot as a means of motivating and mobilizing the right in this year’s elections, and labor played a leading role in preventing that from happening.

Soutier described how the We Can Coalition (Working to Empower Community Action Now), led by the Service Employees International Union, Jobs with Justice and ACORN, mobilized hundreds of volunteers who logged thousands of hours to “defend affirmative action.”

He hailed the campaign as “a perfect example of how workers, community activists, and religious leaders can come together to defend fairness and equality.”

We Can is credited with causing the failure of “initiative” supporters to collect the required number of signatures to get the right wing measure on the ballot.

On May 23 CBTU delegates attended a women’s awards luncheon keynoted by Nicole Lee, executive director of Trans Africa, who described the coalition as “the backbone of the U.S. labor movement. While we were condemning U.S. policy in apartheid South Africa, our greatest ally was U.S. labor,” she declared.

Lee said that “the labor movement has an obligation to ensure that U.S. foreign policy is fair and just.” She talked about the negative impact unfair trade agreements have on workers in Latin America and Africa on the one hand, and on workers in the United States, on the other hand. “We live in a racist economic system of global apartheid where corporations put profits before people,” she declared.

Lee was excited about the upcoming elections, however, and told the assembled delegates that “if we get our way, Inauguration Day next January will be a day of celebration.”

CBTU President William Lucy spoke at a May 24 town hall meeting titled “Take Back America for Working People.” He called for massive rebuilding of the infrastructure and the creation of millions of jobs in a new, greener economy. “We need to build a high wage economy and usher in a new economic order,” he declared.

The town hall meeting also focused on the housing crisis.

Arlene Holt-Baker, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO, warned that “2.5 million will likely lose their homes this year.” She outlined both short and long term solutions to the crisis including:

• Legislative measures to increase government regulation of the housing industry.

• A six to 12 month freeze on mortgage foreclosures for people about to lose their homes.

• Changes in bankruptcy law that would allow home owners to re-negotiate their subprime loans.

• “Hitting the streets to build a real grassroots movement for change!”

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) urged delegates to put the housing crisis “in its proper context. We’ve had 30 years of frozen wages. However, in 1984 CEOs made 42 times more than the average worker. But in 2005 CEOs made 411 times more than the average worker. As a result we consume less and borrow more. Our wages stagnate, while the rich get richer.” Ellison called for a “grassroots movement married to legislation.”

Others spoke about the “spill-over effect.” They noted that in addition to the millions who will lose homes there could be 44 million other homes losing much of their value and then loss of tax revenue to city, state and local governments.

tonypec@cpusa.org