People Before Profit blog

100,000 strikers force SBC to pick up phone

Fri, 28 May 2004 02:38:00 +0000

CHICAGO – Phone giant SBC Communications got the message when 100,000 workers in 13 states put down their headsets and tool belts to hit the streets, transmitting their own powerful message. After a four-day strike, May 21-24, the multi-billion-dollar company took the call. They came back to the bargaining table with the Communication Workers of America and signed a tentative agreement, addressing the union’s job loss issues and setting aside some of the company’s demands for health care takeaways.

Steve Tescza, president of CWA Local 4250 here, explained his contract priorities. “In-sourcing, out-sourcing, off-shoring, management doing our work: The bottom line is jobs,” he told the World. In addition, he said, the union status of what are called “jobs of the future” is in contention, as the wireless and Internet transmission of both voice and data overtake landline transmission.

The proposed new agreement bars layoffs of current workers for the duration of the five-year contract and rehires 600 workers who had been laid off. New hires, however, will not be covered by the job protection. The company agreed to move technical support jobs to the U.S. when its current overseas outsourcing contract expires in the year 2007.

“Jobs I could have moved into have been outsourced,” Bernadette Lincoln, a residential service representative who is a 26-year employee, told the World from an Oakland, Calif., picket line. “If these positions had been kept, workers in my type of job could advance into them,” she added.

Telecommunications workers across the nation are also alarmed by the eagerness of greedy corporations to outsource jobs overseas. New telecommunications technology has boosted profits but eliminated tens of thousands of jobs.

The health care takeaways in SBC’s original contract proposal played a major role in precipitating the strike. Every SBC worker generated an average of $50,000 in revenue for the company in 2003, according to the CWA, but the company was insisting on imposing health care premiums for both active workers and retirees.

“The company is just being greedy,” said service representative Paula Barnes while on the picket line outside SBC’s main Oakland, Calif., office. A lively group of pickets gathered there at 7 a.m. the first day of the strike. The workers, mostly young, mostly people of color, responded enthusiastically to the many honks of support from passing cars and gave a jeering welcome to management personnel entering the building.

In a remarkable display of union solidarity, hundreds of members of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 21 in Illinois honored the CWA’s picket lines, according to the local’s communications director, Tom Hopper. In the Chicago suburb of Lake Villa, all it took was one CWA member and her son to show up with a picket sign at 8 a.m. to send the entire 100-member crew out to breakfast. Eleven thousand Local 21 members face their own contract struggle with SBC when their contract expires in June.

Some observers pointed to the extensive strike preparations as a model. For example, members of CWA in North Texas did not have to train for rallies, pickets, marches, and other solidarity activities – they had already been doing them for weeks. Workers knew the issues because the union had telephone hot lines, e-mail messaging services, and web page communications.

The tentative contract gains include a 2.3 percent average pay raise per year. For the first time, the SBC contract will include cost-of-living increases and a successor clause insuring that if any phone lines are sold, the buyer must honor the union contract.

In the draft agreement, there will be no health care premiums, but in a compromise with the union, co-pays will increase. SBC projects a $2 billion savings on health care over the course of the agreement as a result of cost-shifting to workers. The cost-shift will be partially offset by $1,000 bonuses for active employees and $2,500 for retirees.

Many of the contract’s details were still being worked out, a union spokesman told the World. While the company conceded that jobs considered extensions of traditional phone work would be union, those in other “high growth” categories would be offered to union workers at “competitive” wages. Nonunion cable technicians’ wages are 50 percent of those of union workers, or less, and “competitive” wages paid to support workers in India are even lower.

The ratification process will end in mid-June after workers vote on the contract in union meetings and by mail.

Jim Lane and Marilyn Bechtel contributed to this story. The author can be reached at rwood@pww.org.

Farm workers march for justice

Fri, 21 May 2004 03:04:00 +0000

ALBANY, N.Y. – A crowd of about 300 people with bright red shirts proclaiming “Farmworkers Deserve Justice” gathered on the west side of the State Capitol building here May 11 to celebrate the arrival of a 200-mile pilgrimage of migrant farm workers and supporters.

Stepping off from the home of Harriet Tubman, the legendary African American abolitionist, in faraway Auburn, N.Y., on May Day, the farm workers marched across the state to Albany to draw attention to their struggle for economic justice and to demand passage of the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act (S 3351) in the state Senate.

The pilgrimage wound its way through towns and villages, where churches offered accommodations and food. Meetings with the communities were held to build momentum for the bill’s passage. Upon arrival in Albany, the workers held a 24-hour “Vigil for Hope,” culminating in the rally. The pilgrimage was organized by the Rural Migrant Ministry, Justice for Farmworkers, and CITA (Centro Independiente de Trabajadores Agricolas).

Estimates put the number of migrant and seasonal farm workers in the United States at approximately 3 million. In New York State there are approximately 80,000 farm workers. About 47,000 of those workers are migratory – harvesting fruit in western New York and along the Great Lakes, planting and harvesting vegetables in central New York, trimming grapes in the Finger Lakes, working in nurseries on Long Island. Farm workers live and work in almost every one of New York’s 62 counties.

Despite their vital role, farm workers are locked out of many of the labor protections that other workers have – overtime pay, disability insurance, proper sanitation, collective bargaining rights. They are provided substandard housing and medical care, if any at all. They are often victims of discrimination and violence in the communities in which they live and work.

An atmosphere of jubilation surrounded the successful pilgrimage. Mariachis played festive music. Children, who had marched the 200 miles with their families, played in the spring breeze. Prayers commemorated the long journey. Migrant workers shared their experiences with the assembled crowd.

Rosario, a worker from Sodus, N.Y., representing a farm workers’ institute there, described how she left her home in Mexico a year ago. Her children remain in Mexico, while she works long, hard hours in the fields to support them.

Sen. Olga Mendez (R-Bronx), sponsor of the Farmworker Fair Labor Practices Act and the first Puerto Rican woman elected to a state legislature in the U.S. mainland, gave an update on the bill, which has been referred to the Labor Committee since March of 2003.

The rally was attended by many leaders from the labor movement, as well as leaders from farm worker struggles throughout the country.

Dennis Hughes, president of the New York State AFL-CIO, brought greetings on behalf of the labor movement. Remarking on the shameful fact that – in the most unionized state in the country – farm workers are exempted from basic rights, Hughes told the workers, “We in the New York State AFL-CIO will not rest until you get the full rights as any other worker in this state!”

Lucas Benitez, leader of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida, which is leading a boycott of Taco Bell because of its support for slave-like working conditions in the tomato fields, told the workers that their two struggles are going down the same path – toward guarantees of overtime pay, vacation, the right to organize, and a dignified salary.

Pointing to a fountain, glimmering in the noontime sun, Benitez said farm workers cannot rest “until justice rises up like the water of that fountain.”

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

Showdown at SBC Communications

Fri, 21 May 2004 02:36:00 +0000

At press time, over 100,000 SBC workers in 13 states, members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), were on the job but poised to strike if SBC management continued to reject the union’s demands for affordable health care and job security. The national union can call a strike on 24 hours notice.

The union says San Antonio, Texas-based SBC, ranking 33 on the Fortune 500 list with profits of $8.5 billion last year, should share the wealth. Ed Whitacre is the SBC chief executive officer and his total 2003 package alone was $24,788,875 – or 426 times the average paycheck earned by SBC workers. The union estimates that each worker produced $42,969 for SBC. That’s pure gravy, after wages, salaries (including Whitacre’s), benefits, taxes, operating expenses, debt service and other bills are paid.

But SBC wanted 150,000 retirees and their dependents to start paying a premium on their health insurance, netting the corporation at least an additional $400 million in yearly profits. Milt Kuhl, who retired in 1984 from SBC predecessor Pacific Bell, told the San Francisco Chronicle: “I don’t have a big pension. I went to work for them at $63 a week with the understanding that I would get a decent pension and they would take care of my health care. It’s an insult. These guys never climbed a pole. They never got up at three in the morning to fix a downed telephone line.”

CWA members at SBC who actually perform the wizardry that makes cell phones work and profits skyrocket are so angry at company stonewalling their current contract negotiations that when their contract expired early last month, they voted by a 90 percent margin to strike.

White and blue collar CWA members are fighting for jobs for their families and their communities. That means halting SBC from shipping their jobs to workers in as many as 26 countries who lack union wages and protections, substituting temporary workers for permanent workers, using non-union subcontractors to do bargaining unit work, and shifting work to management. As new technology creates new jobs, CWA workers, whose brains and hands created the capital investment in the first place, want access to those jobs.

Health care is a budget line item for SBC board members, but for workers, active and retired, increasing union oversight and authority over health care plans is crucial to protecting their families’ health. Controlling co-payments for retirees is key.

Workers read business publications and a wage increase commensurate with SBC profits, productivity and executive salary makes sense to CWA members.

What is probably news in the corporate boardroom are union demands for improved working conditions, including restrictions on mandatory overtime, marketing quotas and harsh discipline policies.

While negotiations are ongoing with a federal mediator in Washington, D.C., CWA members and their families are not waiting for a phone call. Their picket signs have been visible by the thousands at rallies and informational picket lines in Columbus, Ohio; Madison, Wis.; Oakland and Red Bluff, Calif.; and points in between. Local union members are reporting potential scab sightings and trainings, tracking outside contractors and supervisors.

Grassroots pressure has already forced SBC’s $24-million man, Whitacre, to join negotiators at the bargaining table. Whitacre had been flying around the country testifying at various federal and state hearings opposing government regulation of the industry.

There is no doubt shipping jobs overseas is a “good thing” – for a handful of CEOs and multinational corporations. SBC workers and all U.S. workers see their livelihood sailing away or zapped away over the Internet. Communities and cities see their tax base shrink and school systems collapse. Residents struggle to make mortgage payments, often juggling two and three low-wage jobs.

Profit drives SBC, but survival drives CWA members, their families and communities. The customer service professionals, maintenance technicians and electronic wizards are on the line for a good contract not only for their families but for towns and cities in 13 states.

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

Texas govt gets nastier

Fri, 14 May 2004 04:52:00 +0000

DALLAS – Texas government, gripped in the talons of right-wingers since before the rest of the nation ever heard of George W. Bush, has gone from dirty politics to downright nasty. Consider the following:

• The Texas Health and Human Services system is trying to replace the jobs of up to 7,500 state employees with an automated telephone system. The job loss is only the beginning of this potential tragedy because thousands of Texas’ neediest people would find themselves “on hold” or trying to deal with automated systems instead of working with professional counselors.

• The Texas Legislature is bogged down in their special “school finance” session. If they manage to get legislation passed, it will almost certainly feature big property tax cuts for rich people, tiny or nonexistent tax cuts for everybody else, and a tax system even more regressive than today’s; larger class sizes; more inequality in funding; and a “voucher program” to undermine public education in favor of elitist private schools.

• The Texas Workers Compensation Commission is holding hearings prior to changing from a system where injured workers can choose their own doctor to one like California’s new procedure, where everybody has to go to a company doctor. They are also continuing to pressure doctors out of the system. Until recently, 30,000 Texas doctors could take workers’ comp cases, but only 10,000 can now. All lawyers to defend injured workers have already been forced out.

Texans are not willing victims. The state’s workers are fighting to save jobs, the teachers are pushing a “no” vote in the Legislature, and unionized doctors are leading the fight for rights for injured workers. All of them are drawing their allies together into fighting coalitions. The end of the story will be determined by whether or not Texans come together in time.

The author can be reached at flittle7@yahoo.com.

Walk of Shame targets enemies of health care

Fri, 14 May 2004 04:49:00 +0000

Workers’ correspondence

Our April 27 “Walk of Shame” targeted the opponents of employer-paid health care, SB 2. This bill, signed by then-Gov. Gray Davis last year, will take effect Jan. 1, 2006. However, our present governor, right-wing Republican Arnold Schwartzenegger, has vowed to defeat SB 2 with a ballot initiative in the November election.

SB 2 requires employers to provide health care coverage to employees and dependents either through a plan of the employer’s choice or through a fee paid by the employer to the State Health Purchasing Program, thereby creating a “financial pool” for coverage of uninsured employees.

In 2001 over 6 million Californians lacked health coverage some of the time, while almost 4 million had no coverage.

Since Big Business is bankrolling the effort to defeat SB 2, the California Labor Federation felt it was necessary to expose them. So our “Walk of Shame” began with a spirited rally of at least 300 people – Teamsters, Communications Workers, Hotel and Restaurant Employees, UNITE, Food and Commercial Workers.

We marched to the building housing the Chamber of Commerce. “Health care is not a privilege, it is a right,” said Mercy Hospital shop steward Sharon Martinez. Gregg Ball, president of the Communication Workers, said SBC Communications is demanding its workers pay for their health benefits. The marchers cried “Shame on SBC!” and “Health care is our right – we’ve just begun to fight!”

Next was the building housing the California Restaurant Association and the California Lodging Industry Association. Assemblyman Paul Koretz said rolling back health care was like killing thousands of people in California. Art Pulaski, executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation, agreed, saying, “It’s a question of saving lives.” He vowed that SB 2 would remain the law of the land.

Chanting, “We’re in a fight, damn right!” we moved on to the California Retailers Building, housing such corporations as Macy’s and the notoriously low-wage Wal-Mart. Teamster leader Chuck Mack said, “What we must do in November is say No to Wal-Mart, No to the Chamber of Commerce, and Yes to health care!”

Incidentally, ballot initiatives, originally seen as a way “the people” could put a proposal before the voters and change the law, have too often become tools of the wealthy. They pay as much as $3 per signature to an army of petitioners to put their issue on the ballot, and then spend millions in advertising to confuse the voters. Very often the people end up screwed.

– Nell Ranta Sacramento, Calif.

Employers not paying overtime

Fri, 14 May 2004 04:26:00 +0000

Art Perlo’s article on “Getting paid for overtime” (PWW, 5/1-6) was great.

I’ve been working as a driver/helper in Pittsburgh’s retail floral industry for the past 10 years or so. Flower shops are mostly family-owned and controlled by owners who inherit the business from their parents. Paying workers overtime pay is the one thing they seem to dislike more than anything else in this tough business.

These folks seem willing to do almost anything to get around paying OT. They’ll hire a Saturday driver, not so much to provide a new job, but to prevent the weekday driver from getting overtime hours. They’ll send a driver home early just before a big flower holiday to keep his or her OT hours down for that week.

One company got an exemption from paying OT to their drivers, supposedly because the floral products come from South America. Another owner was caught using a bimonthly pay calculation to subtract OT hours from workers who were getting paid every two weeks, instead of on the 15th and 30th of each month.

I was once verbally offered a pay raise in exchange for agreeing to accept regular pay for hours worked over 40 per week. At another company, I worked 13.5 hours on Thanksgiving Eve, only to be denied holiday pay for Thanksgiving Day in a move to keep me from getting over 40 hours that week. Of course, the boss could have still paid me five-and-a-half hours OT that day, but he didn’t because the federal FSLA provides that he only has to pay OT for work over 40 hours per week, and not for over 8 hours per day.

On a big flower holiday like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day, the boss seems to have no other purpose more important than running around making sure that the workers get as little OT hours as possible!

Obviously, I and my co-workers make less than $23,660 per year [the figure below which a worker is entitled to get overtime pay regardless of their job classification, according to the new Labor Department rules]. I believe this entire floral industry is nonunion throughout the country. Very few, if any, retail floral workers make that much money per year.

– Dale Adams, Pittsburgh

The author replies: The implementation date for the new regulation denying overtime pay to millions of workers was pushed back to August, and then on May 4 the Senate voted 52-47 to approve the Harkin amendment, blocking the new rules. But they will still go into effect, unless the House also approves the Harkin amendment, and the president signs the bill.

Forum looks at high tech job flight

Fri, 14 May 2004 04:20:00 +0000

TUCSON – An attentive crowd gathered May 2 in the basement of Tucson’s public library to attend a community forum on “Globalization, High Tech and Employment,” sponsored by Jobs in Crisis, a committee of the Tucson chapter of Jobs with Justice.

Democratic state Rep. Phil Lopes (D-Tucson) was in attendance, and a letter of support was read from U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.).

Participants heard presentations on global trade agreements, disappearing jobs in the U.S. high tech industry, and the effects of these job losses on the U.S. economy. They also took part in a lively workshop on these issues.

Steve Valencia, chair of Tucson Jobs with Justice, stressed the need to defeat Bush in order to advance the struggle of all workers.

Vlad Slomberg, former economics professor, cited research that shows that when people lose jobs due to outsourcing, they almost always take a cut in income, whether they go on unemployment insurance or find another job quickly. Slomberg also gave attendees a short lesson on the gross domestic product in order to aid in the understanding of these issues.

Many solutions were proposed at the workshop, including the possibility that state agencies should not be allowed to contract with companies that outsource. Another participant suggested that companies that take advantage of economic incentives to move to Tucson, only to pack up shop and move to Mexico when the incentives run dry, should have to pay a penalty for abandoning the community.

All agreed that defeating Bush is key to advancing the struggle for jobs.

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

Arizona workers gear up for 2004 elections

Fri, 14 May 2004 03:32:00 +0000

PHOENIX – Thousands of trade union activists poured into the Wyndham Hotel in downtown Phoenix on May 6 to hear Democratic Party presidential candidate John Kerry speak and to launch the Arizona Labor 2004 Kickoff campaign to kick George W. Bush out of the White House and send him packing back to Texas.

Invited guest Joe Shirley Jr., president of the Navajo (Dine) Nation, addressed the overflow crowd. “We are registering and re-registering voters. Come election time, we intend to be there with you to get out the vote.” He said he will soon meet with more than 550 leaders from tribes across the country. “Some of us are large and some may be small. We know we can make a difference.”

Arturo Rodriguez, president of the United Farm Workers, also addressed the enthusiastic crowd. “Arizona started to change 30 years ago when the founder of my union Cesar Chavez went on a fast at the Santa Rita Church, less than two miles from this hotel.” Representatives from the local UFW field office La Union del Pueblo Entero cheered with dozens of other committed unions as he continued, “Everyone says that Arizona is a Republican state, that Bush has millions. It is often heard ‘Nothing can be done here.’ But we say, ‘Si se puede.’”

John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, introduced John Kerry. Kerry began his remarks by saying, “I am running for president because I want to create a different conversation in our country.” Referring to the lack of health care for 43 million Americans, he said, “It is time we all recognize that health care is a right for everyone and not just a right for rich people.” Regarding the recent worldwide scandal about the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners, he said, “Who is interested in an administration that doesn’t know what its own people are doing?”

Michael E. McGrath, executive director of the Arizona AFL-CIO and master of ceremonies, electrified the audience when he said, “We in Arizona will not concede our 10 electoral votes to anyone. We will leave no voter behind.” Newscasters are speculating that Arizona might be as important in the 2004 election as Florida was in the 2000 election.

While labor is gearing up to oust Bush, peace rallies in Phoenix, once small, are now in the thousands. Street heat and civil disobedience demonstrations have also taken place to protest the arrival in Phoenix of the Democratic Leadership Council, the corporate conservative wing of the Democratic Party, appealing to them not to diminish Kerry’s agenda.

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

GOP trickery in overtime fight

Fri, 14 May 2004 03:08:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) – If you can’t beat ’em, try to fool ’em.

That was the latest GOP strategy when dealing with the issue of workers’ overtime pay. Despite the Senate’s 52-47 pro-overtime vote on May 4, it could work – if voters don’t pay attention.

That week in May, Senate Republicans faced the probability that lawmakers, for the third time, would protect workers’ overtime by voting to kill GOP White House occupant George W. Bush’s latest plan to cut overtime pay.

The Republicans also knew that a third vote for Bush’s plan to cut workers’ overtime would be politically harmful in an election year. So they trotted out their own alternative.

They had two goals. One was to derail the crusade by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) to really protect workers’ overtime. The other was to give themselves a “fig leaf.” Passing their own plan would let them go home and brag that they preserved overtime.

The GOP’s first goal didn’t succeed. Harkin won. But their own plan gives Republicans something to cite through November, hoping to confuse voters and neutralize the issue. The GOP sponsor, Senate Labor Committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), claimed his plan “identifies 55 occupations that the Secretary of Labor must ensure are as protected or more protected under the new regulation in terms of overtime pay” than before.

Gregg, Bush and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao also said any worker earning under $23,660 a year is automatically eligible for overtime. Harkin at least agreed with that income figure. Now, overtime pay is automatic only for workers earning under $8,600.

Gregg said his 55 guaranteed overtime occupations included first responders, blue-collar workers, nursery school teachers and registered nurses. The Democrats promptly pointed out that his scheme left workers in 834 other occupations vulnerable.

Harkin noted that Bush’s overtime rule, as announced by the Labor Department, would put workers in all occupations – including the 55 – at risk. An overtime pay cut would unequally hurt woman workers, Harkin said. And Bush’s cuts in penalties for overtime pay violations amount to a financial slap on the wrist, the Iowan added.

Harkin cited specific sentences from the new Bush rules barring overtime pay for nursery school teachers, RNs, the financial services industry and any worker whom the boss names as a “team leader” or “a working foreman.”

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney warned workers not to be fooled by Gregg’s and the GOP’s gambit. “There is simply no reason for Bush to slash a single worker’s overtime pay, especially in this economy, when middle-income families are already so hard-pressed,” he said.

Women of steel vow to oust Bush

Fri, 14 May 2004 03:03:00 +0000

WASHINGTON – Mother Jones, the legendary labor agitator, made an unexpected appearance May 2 at the “Women of Steel” election conference here aimed at ousting George W. Bush from the White House next Nov. 2.

Peering over her spectacles and wagging her finger at the 500 labor union women in the Omni-Shoreham Hotel ballroom, she exclaimed, “I’m not here to be a humanitarian. I’m here to be a hell-raiser.”

Actually, it was Sharon Stiller, assistant to the president of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) and first woman to sit on the union’s executive board. She was dressed up as Mary Harris Jones, the Irish-born “Miners’ Angel,” the spirit of fightback for exploited workers in the early decades of the last century.

Clearly, the crowd was in a hell-raising mood. Most delegates wore lapel buttons calling on voters to dump Bush. They applauded every call for his removal.

Present were members of the USWA and the Nashville-based Paperworkers, Allied Industrial, Chemical and Energy (PACE) workers. The participants, about 90 percent women, are active in local “Rapid Response Teams” set up by the two unions across the nation to mobilize phone calls and visits to lawmakers in support of labor’s legislative agenda. Both unions see these Capitol Hill skirmishes as vital to getting out the vote in the battle in November.

At a Monday news briefing, women leaders of the Rapid Response Teams said they would be lobbying on Capitol Hill for an agenda that includes the Kennedy-Miller “Right to Choose” bill to make it easier to organize a union, an increase in the minimum wage, and a “Healthcare Bill of Rights.”

Liz Bettinger, associate legislative director of PACE, said her union has found the Rapid Response Team is the best mechanism for communicating with the membership.

Workshops during the three-day conference trained the delegates in how to organize teams in locals that don’t have them.

Anne Kurtek, a member of the PACE Local 2-719 Rapid Response Team at a plastics factory near Minersville, Pa., said they mobilized an outpouring of phone calls to Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) last winter demanding that he vote to block Bush administration plans to strip 8 million workers of overtime pay.

“His switchboard was so jammed, the receptionist gave us the senator’s personal phone line,” she said.

Sue Duffy, president of PACE Local 2-719, said the Rapid Response Teams are vital for reaching those who are not yet in unions. Asked about the 2004 elections, she said the removal of Bush “is an absolute necessity.”

“We need to get back to a situation where the president of the United States is working with us and not against us. We need to turn our country around right now!”

In his keynote to the conference, USWA President Leo Gerard noted that single women are among the lowest in voter turnout. Vast numbers don’t vote, he said, because the political system is so unresponsive to their needs. “But the only way to make the system responsive is to vote,” he said.

He decried the outsourcing of 3 million jobs since Bush took office, cutbacks in vital social programs and Bush tax giveaways to what he called “latte drinking, Gucci-shoed, Wall Street pick-pockets.”

The 47 million people without health care, he said, are victims of a “racist, sexist, class biased health system,” adding, “All rich folks have health care. … But a worker can lose his job on Monday and lose his health care on Friday.” The majority of the working poor have no health care at all, he said.

“This is the first president since Herbert Hoover to leave office with fewer jobs than when he took office,” Gerard said. “This is the most important election of our lifetime. … If this gang gets a second term, God help us!”

He added, “We want you to be politically energized after this conference. You will determine the outcome of this election in battleground states. It is going to be close and turnout is crucial. We need more women involved in this election process … more people of color.”

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com.

Workers comp law a big step backward

Fri, 07 May 2004 04:29:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES – Workers Memorial Day was observed April 28 at the UCLA Labor Center’s downtown campus as workers and labor relations professionals gathered for a comprehensive “clinic” on California’s new workers’ compensation law.

According to David Estrada, president of the Southern California Committee on Occupational Safety and Health, “Each year 60,000 people in the United States die from preventable diseases and injuries caused by exposure to workplace chemicals and other agents. California had 478 work-related fatalities in 2002, and ranked number one in penalties for health and safety violations.”

Attorney Cheryl Wallach described the changes to California’s workers’ compensation law as “dramatic and confusing.” The law includes retroactive coverage, i.e. parts of the law can be applied to injury cases that were filed before the law was signed.

“Under the old law,” Wallach said, “the injured worker was given the benefit of the doubt.” Now there must be a preponderance of the evidence that the worker’s injuries were a result of their work.

The right to choose a doctor has been restricted. The doctor you choose must agree to be pre-designated and you must have a history with that doctor. You must also go to the company doctor.

Temporary disability benefits are now capped at two years. The previous cap was five years. Now employers will receive financial incentives to take injured workers back to work while the workers get 15 percent less in permanent disability benefits.

There is no regulation of insurance company rates. Community activist Karen Bass, a candidate for State Assembly from the 47th district, said, “I have a hard time believing that the insurance companies are going to regulate themselves.”

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

Its dog eat dog in textile

Fri, 07 May 2004 04:15:00 +0000

Workers’ correspondence

I recall being told when I was very young that if I worked hard for my employer I would always have a job. This may have been true decades ago, but today it’s dog eat dog and the devil take the rest.

We at Western Textiles found out in May of 2003 that we would no longer have a job by year’s end. When the company asked for more production and set a goal for us to reach, we did so and more. We increased our productivity and earned the owners a handsome profit, but in their opinion it was not enough. They decided to transfer the production to Mexico where the labor cost is 70 cents per hour.

Most of the employees had been there for over 30 years and one nearing retirement had been there 37 years. Needless to say, the loss of our jobs caused a lot of stress and hardship as well as discouragement. Most of us stayed on the job till the end, hoping that they would change their minds, but the allure of cheap labor was too strong. One of the line workers commented, “It’s a shame that our livelihood has to depend on the stock market.” So with some worthless platitudes and a meager severance package, we were on our own.

If things remain unchanged, more jobs will be lost and the rolls of the unemployed will swell. The fault is not in the working class, but in the ruling class that makes trade agreements that sell-out the workers like they have been doing for years. We were left out in the cold by people who have no concept of what it means to earn a living.

– Frank Egger, textile worker, Millington, Tenn.

UAW Local 259 fights for dignity and respect

Fri, 07 May 2004 04:11:00 +0000

NEW YORK – Auto mechanics, members of United Auto Workers Local 259 working at New York City car dealer Star Toyota, have been out on strike for nearly eight months.

The mechanics had been working without a contract for over a year, all the while the employer repeatedly violated labor laws, using tactics of threats and coercion, even going so far as to threaten the family of a UAW delegate. Finally, after two one-day work stoppages, the Star mechanics walked, beginning an unfair labor practices strike on Oct. 8, 2003.

Led by UAW Local 259 President Bill Pickering, Second Vice President Brian Schneck and Shop Steward Rocky Joshi, the Star Toyota workers have stayed strong, and are as militant and committed to victory as they were on Day One. Pickering describes them as some of the toughest workers he has ever seen.

UAW 259 has filed scores of unfair labor practice charges against Star Toyota and its owner, Mike Koufakis. The National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint on 18 charges and has scheduled a hearing for June 7.

Star has a poor history in customer, as well as labor, relations. Recently the New York State Department of Consumer Affairs hit the troubled firm with a $60,000 fine for deceptive advertising.

At an April 17 solidarity rally, scores of UAW members picketed beneath a giant rat set up in front of the Star Toyota showroom in Bayside, N.Y.

Union members waved placards and chanted. Passing motorists, truck drivers, and bus operators blasted their horns and gave enthusiastic “thumbs up” in support of the strikers. Meanwhile, a billboard truck continually circled in front of the dealership, urging, “Boycott Star Toyota.” In a big boost to the workers’ morale, many potential customers turned away – refusing to cross the UAW picket line.

The Star workers have received strong support from other New York City area unions. The phrase that is often heard from solidarity picketers, members of other unions, is the traditional old slogan of workers solidarity, “An injury to one is an injury to all!”

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

Activists challenge U.S. border policies

Fri, 07 May 2004 03:38:00 +0000

TUCSON – Over 3,000 people have died, most of dehydration and heat exhaustion, since the implementation of tighter immigration policies in the 1990s by the U.S. Border Patrol along the Mexican border.

“In shocking contrast to the reporting of deaths in Palestine, deaths in Iraq, and deaths all over the world,” said Isabel Garcia, a human rights activist and public defender, “we have an enormous human rights crisis right on our border, only a few miles from Tucson, and people do not seem to care.”

Every new Border Patrol operation to further seal off the border has only increased the number of deaths, as migrants from Mexico have been funneled into ever harsher terrain. Over 400 migrants died in the Tucson sector alone in 2003. This year’s figure is breaking previous records, with 55 deaths recorded thus far, and the season of searing heat in the desert has only just begun.

“How many more must die?” Garcia asked.

Profits have soared for those trafficking in human beings. Migrants are now viewed as valuable human cargo to be fought over by rival smugglers, who sometimes sell them into a state of virtual slavery or press them into the sex trade. Kidnappings, beatings, torture, abuse, rapes, fatal shootings, and car crashes from high-speed chases of drivers trying to elude the Border Patrol – as well as exposure to the elements in the desert – make this a virtual war zone.

Only last week a Tucson citizen, Lisa Marie Laguna, 27, tried to flee U.S. Border Patrol agents in her car. She died in a crash after she ran over spikes on the road set out by Border Patrol agents.

Since 9/11, the Bush administration has cited the nation’s security to justify the militarization of the border. Yet even Tucson Border Patrol Sector Chief David Aguilar admits, “99 percent of all migrants are only coming here to reunite with family members already here or to find jobs.”

A “Guantanamo style” holding area, roughly 3,000 square feet, was set up by the Border Patrol in a remote part of the Tohono O’odham Nation this spring. It is surrounded by a temporary fence, and has portable bathrooms and military-style tarps for shade. The only food offered to the detainees is crackers, say officials, because detentions are supposed to be short.

In the past month, 300-500 people have been waiting for buses to ferry them 55 at a time (a minimum three-hour round trip) to detention centers in Casa Grande, Tucson, or Nogales for processing.

“Do the math,” said Sarah Roberts, a nurse with Samaritan Patrol, a human rights group. “Detainees are being held with no food for hours and possibly days in an already stressed physical condition.”

The good news, however, is that volunteers opposed to the “deaths in the desert” are at an all-time high.

• About 150 religious leaders from throughout Arizona met and denounced the current border enforcement strategy as a failure, and urged making family reunification a cornerstone of policy instead. They called for an employment-focused immigration program that allows workers and their families to enter the U.S. to live and work safely, legally, and humanely through recognized ports of entry. They said the root causes of migration lie in environmental, economic, and trade inequities.

• “Arks of the Covenant” – planned volunteer desert camps providing water, food and medical help – will be set up Memorial Day weekend and remain open at least through July. Reminiscent of the Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s, when religious groups aided refugees from war-torn Central America, this movement has spread nationwide. “All our efforts are within the federal provisions of humanitarian assistance,” said the Rev. John Fife, pastor of Southside Presbyterian Church.

• The “No More Deaths” group is supplying goods, education, and support to migrants along the border. Volunteers from throughout the U.S. participate in search and rescue patrols and work in migrant shelters. To volunteer, call (520) 909-0636 or visit www.nomoredeaths.org.

• Thirty-five members of Border Action Network conducted a vigil April 18 on the lawn of Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard’s home, urging him to take action against vigilantes who prey on immigrants. BAN has also filed two lawsuits against such vigilantes.

The author can be reached at susan@susanthorpe.com.

Justice-seekers fill St. Viators pews

Fri, 07 May 2004 03:28:00 +0000

CHICAGO – The pews at St. Viator’s church filled with health care workers, their children and supporters on a chilly May 2 Sunday. Green T-shirts of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees peeked out from the winter parkas. Beneath the church’s beautiful stained glass windows, Resurrection Health Care workers and their supporters – 1,000 strong – lifted their hearts and spirits with song, solidarity and the righteous fire of justice, as they rallied for union rights, dignity and respect. They got rousing backing from AFSCME international President Gerald McEntee.

“How in God’s name can you work in the health care field and not receive decent health care from the employer?” McEntee roared.

“May 6-12 is national nurses week,” he noted. “You might get a bagel or flowers, which is nice, but recognition of our union is even better.”

Resurrection Health Care, a Catholic-run health care provider, includes nine hospitals in the area. The web site of this “not-for-profit” corporation, sponsored by Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth and the Sisters of the Resurrection, says it is “committed to improving the health and well-being of our community.”

Yet Resurrection workers told a story of “creeping corporatization” that directly contradicts this mission.

Danuta Laboda, a cardiac unit registered nurse, told the rally that in “becoming a corporation,” Resurrection is “losing touch” with communities.

“Their obsession with the budget makes it impossible to focus on patients,” she said. “Good nurses leave the hospitals. They want to give time to patients, but it is often impossible with the current staffing levels.” Workers decided the only way to fight this was to organize a union, Laboda said. “Corporatization affects everyone – nurses, patients, food service and housekeepers.”

Father Mike Knotek cited the parable of Paul and Barnabas, who “brushed off their feet and moved on.” That was the right thing to do at the time, he said, “but not here and not now. None of us are moving on. We are here to stay and fight.” Knotek worked at Resurrection as a drug counselor and was told by management not to spend so much time with the homeless.

“Initially I came up with excuses why management acted the way it did,” the priest said. “Folks, I’ve run out of excuses.”

Invoking Catholic teachings, Knotek said it is a God-given right for everybody to have a decent job with decent pay, and to go to any institution and be treated with dignity and compassion.

Nurse Zulema Gonzalez said she had wanted to be a nurse since she was a little girl, when her parents took her to the hospital to translate for them. She said she had enjoyed working at St. Mary’s Hospital, but since Resurrection Health Care took over it is “much more corporate.”

“Supervisors make you feel it’s wrong to get paid for more than 8 hours. You punch out and then finish your work,” she said.

Housekeeper Shirley Brown has worked at Westlake Hospital for eight years. “It was like a family until Resurrection bought it,” she said. The workload was doubled and tripled with no increase in pay and not enough supplies to do the job. She said most housekeepers earn $8 per hour, and have to pay $100-$200 every two weeks for health insurance with nothing to retire on.

After union leaflets were put in workers’ mailboxes, Brown said, management removed the mailboxes. Resurrection has held anti-union meetings, bullied workers into signing anti-union petitions and “persecuted workers for having a different opinion,” she said.

AFSCME District Council 31 Executive Director Henry Bayer said Resurrection’s revenue was more than $1 billion last year and its CEO made $1 million. “Resurrection’s business profits increased 130 percent last year,” he said.

McEntee, himself a Catholic, said there are “a lot of Gospels and a lot of stories in the Catholic Church” that the workers can draw on. “Every day at battle makes workers and the union stronger. We are building power for 9,000 workers across this city.”

Also speaking were State Senator and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama, and Alderman Ricardo Munoz. Obama said Resurrection’s profit drive can only be countered by uniting and organizing. “The only way we can change that [profit] logic is working collectively together. That’s the essence of what the union movement is about,” he said.

“The least you can expect is respect. The least you can expect is access to the same health care services as you provide,” Obama told the cheering crowd.

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

ST. LOUIS Salute to working-class heroes

Fri, 07 May 2004 03:16:00 +0000

ST. LOUIS – Nearly 100 union members, community leaders, student activists and others attended the Missouri/Kansas Friends of the People’s Weekly World 12th Hershel Walker Peace and Justice Awards Breakfast here April 24.

Roberta Wood, labor editor of the People’s Weekly World, was the keynote speaker at this year’s breakfast.

“Americans have lost a lot of ground in the last three years,” Wood said. “Hundreds of thousands of workers, because of a stroke of a pen, no longer have the right to organize. Attacks on overtime, affirmative action, women’s rights and health care have all worsened since Bush took office.”

“Hershel Walker really was a working class hero,” she said. “In the next six months we are going to need a lot of working class heroes” to defeat Bush in November, she added.

The awards breakfast started in 1991 in honor of Hershel Walker, an African American trade unionist who died in 1990. Walker, who joined the Young Communist League in 1930, was a lifelong member of the Communist Party USA, a 30-year member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, a founding member of the National Negro Labor Council and the Committee on Racial Equality (CORE), and a member of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.

Former State Rep. John Bowman, a member of the United Auto Workers and the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) who is once again running for state representative, said, “I am one of the many people who have benefited from the life of Hershel Walker.”

This year’s “Peace and Justice Awardees” included Harriet Weaver, a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 655 and the CBTU, who help lead the strike/lockout against 94 St. Louis-area grocery stores last fall; Mary Watkins, who helped win the release of J.B. Johnson, who was wrongfully convicted of robbery and murder in 1970 and spent 13 years in prison; and the Washington University Student Worker Alliance, which has started a campus- and community-wide campaign to force Washington University to pay all campus employees a living wage and to adhere to an ethical code of conduct.

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

Freedom Riders take battle to Congress

Fri, 07 May 2004 03:10:00 +0000

CHICAGO – In an atmosphere charged with emotion and determination reminiscent of last year’s Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, simultaneous gatherings of immigrant workers and supporters in 30 cities announced their united support for a new immigration reform bill May 4. The legislation, introduced by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), and Reps. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), is named SOLVE – the Safe Orderly Legal Visa and Enforcement Act.

It is a “groundbreaking bill that deals with the major issues important to immigrant communities: a path to legalization, re-unification of families, and labor rights,” Juan Salgado, president of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR), told the Chicago gathering. And, he added, it brings together community, labor and church allies.

Chicago Federation of Labor Secretary-Treasurer Tim Leahy pledged the support of that organization’s half million affiliated members for the efforts to pass the bill. They would start, he told the World, with taking the legislation to the seven members of the city’s congressional delegation.

The bill lays down a path to legalization for the country’s 7 million to 11 million undocumented workers. “They have earned the right to be here,” said ICIRR Policy Director Fred Tsao. The bill would allow those with five years in the U.S. who have worked 24 months to apply immediately for permanent residency “green cards.” While their applications are pending, they could work and travel and be protected from deportation, Tsao said. Those with less than five years would have a “transitional” status allowing them to build up the two-year work history needed.

The current immigration system, which keeps parents and children, husbands and wives, separated, waiting for years and even decades for visas, “steals life,” according to Bishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller, speaking for the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago. The church is fighting for families to be together, he told the World. Family unification is an issue that can’t wait, he says.

Under the proposed legislation, spouses and minor children of permanent residents would no longer suffer heartbreaking backlogs for visas, and could immediately get papers to rejoin their family members. The bill also drastically increases the number of visas available to other categories such as brothers and sisters and adult children of U.S. citizens.

Many labor rights are protected under what ICIRR’s Tsao described as the SOLVE Act’s “break the mold” guest worker program. The bill allows for 100,000 seasonal visas and 250,000 visas for longer-term workers every year. The latter would be good for two years, renewable and with the right to apply for permanent residency. While the visa would be tied to a specific employer, after three months the worker would have the right to change employers. The immigrant workers would be covered by all current labor legislation, including minimum wage and labor laws.

“This new bill brings hope to me and our undocumented community,” Elvira Arellano said in Spanish to the gathering at the Chicago headquarters of Service Employees International Union Local 1. Arellano, a participant in last fall’s Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, told the World last October, “Justice exists only when you fight for it.” She has been fighting deportation orders since Dec. 10, 2002, when the FBI came banging on her door looking for terrorists and bombs. She had been employed at O’Hare airport, cleaning planes from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m., struggling to support herself and her 5-year-old son Saul on $6.50 an hour.

The SOLVE Act differs from the Bush administration proposal, put forward earlier this year, in that it allows immigrants to move from temporary to permanent status and eventual citizenship. According to Rep. Gutierrez, Bush’s proposal “says to immigrants you are good enough to work the worst jobs for three years and then maybe for another three years,” but then denies them the right to stay. But “our plan rewards work and welcomes immigrants’ contributions,” Gutierrez said.

The bill also restores workers’ rights lost in 2002 when a Supreme Court ruling gave employers carte blanche to violate labor laws. The Court’s infamous “Hoffman Plastic” decision eliminated penalties for employers who violate rights of undocumented workers.

Southern California Communist Party Organizer Rosalio Muñoz applauded the introduction of the SOLVE bill. “If it’s adding to people’s rights, that’s important,” he told the World. Muñoz was also heartened to see the Democrats go on the offensive on immigration issues in this period running up to the November election. “It’s a sign that they are using Congress as a battleground now,” he said.

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union President John Wilhelm were among those joining the Washington gathering. Speaking there, Raul Yzaguirre, president of the National Council of La Raza, made it clear that support for the SOLVE Act would be a litmus test for candidates seeking support from Latinos and immigrants. “We will continue to insist on action, not simply rhetoric,” he said.

The author can be reached at rwood@pww.org.click here for Spanish text