People Before Profit blog

Hold Wal-Mart accountable

Fri, 31 Oct 2003 08:33:00 +0000

Opinion

All across the country Wal-Mart is cashing in on family tragedies.

After Doug Sims, a Wal-Mart employee in Plainview, Texas, died of a heart attack in 1998, his wife, Jane, found out exactly what Wal-Mart means when it describes its employees as “valuable assets.”

When Doug was hired, Wal-Mart purchased a $64,000 dollar life insurance plan on him. Wal-Mart routinely buys life insurance policies on its employees – without their consent – and then cashes in, tax-free, when the employee dies. Wal-Mart currently maintains around 350,000 of these “Dead Peasant” insurance policies.

Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world, employs over 1.4 million “associates” in 3,400 shopping centers and earns $130 billion in yearly sales revenue. The colossus controls more wealth than 90 percent of the countries across the globe. Wal-Mart’s sales for the first quarter of 2003 were $56.7 billion. While a $64,000 insurance policy doesn’t seem like a lot when compared to such staggering numbers, the betrayal felt by the families involved has no price tag.

According to the United Food and Commercial Workers union, Wal-Mart not only makes money off of dead employees; it also makes profits off the backs of its living workers. On the average, Wal-Mart “associates” are paid $3 less per hour than employees in union stores.

According to a 2002 Institute for Women’s Policy Research report, union-represented supermarket workers earn 31 percent more than their nonunion counterparts. Union supermarket workers are two-and-a-half times as likely to have pension coverage and twice as likely to have health insurance coverage as employees who aren’t represented by a union.

Also according to the report, the average wage in retail shopping centers for union members is $10.35, while the average wage for workers not represented by a union is $7.62.

As one of the largest unions in the country, the UFCW has won living wages, better health and vacation packages, and standardized grievance procedures for its members, ensuring employees a voice in their workplace and job security. In supermarket chains like Schnucks and Dierbergs in St. Louis, where the UFCW represents employees, living wages, retirement and health care plans are the norm.

At Wal-Mart, on the other hand, nearly half of all employees earn poverty wages. Thirty-five percent have no retirement plan, and 700,000 of Wal-Mart’s 1.4 million workers have no health care.

But that’s not all! Former Wal-Mart employees have sued the retail giant for forced unpaid overtime. Many more are suing because of color and racial discrimination. And hundreds of women are suing Wal-Mart over promotion and pay inequality.

All across small town America, where Wal-Mart stores are mostly located, community businesses have been forced to shut down. Wal-Mart’s purchasing power, which equals 56 percent of the entire retail industry, enables it to buy and sell its products at lower rates than competitors – usually family run stores – and grab a disproportionate share of the local consumer market. Small businesses just can’t compete.

Wal-Mart hurts local economies in other ways also. Many small town merchants deposit their holdings in local banks. Their deposits, and interest from these deposits, usually stay within the community through loans or other local investments. Wal-Mart, on the other hand, deposits its holdings in out-of-state banks, keeping the money from circulating in the local economy.

According to John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, “Wal-Mart is a corporate outlaw.”

Jane Sims agrees. The pain and betrayal she felt after her husband’s death cannot be mathematically formulated or equated. She can’t have her husband back. But something can be done.

The UFCW says Wal-Mart should be held accountable for its actions.

Which is why the union has called a National Day of Action against the retailer Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2004.

Now is the time to start planning local activities educating consumers and employees alike about Wal-Mart’s anti-union policies.

UFCW members and supporters held actions outside of hundreds of different Wal-Mart stores during last year’s National Day of Action. They demanded that Wal-Mart respect employees’ right to unionize, pay living wages, provide affordable quality health care, treat injured workers fairly, end discriminatory practices, respect the environment and stop destroying small businesses.

Contact the UFCW (www.ufcw.org) to find out how you can help during this year’s National Day of Action.

Tony Pecinovsky is a labor activist in St. Louis, Mo. He can be reached at tonypec@pww.org

History-makers reflect on Salt of the Earth: Even more relevant now

Fri, 31 Oct 2003 06:09:00 +0000

Anita and Lorenzo Torrez were a young married couple thrown into the midst of the Empire Zinc strike in Hanover, N.M., in 1950. They were radicalized in the course of the strike and became members of the Communist Party USA. They went on to become involved in the historic film, Salt of the Earth, with both having small parts. Lorenzo speaks a few lines in one of the union hall scenes. This year marks the 50th anniversary of that classic labor film.

Lorenzo worked as a miner for 25 years. The couple later left New Mexico and became active in labor and people’s struggles in California. They eventually settled in Arizona, where, among other things, they helped to found the Salt of the Earth Labor College in Tucson in 1992.

Lorenzo and Anita Torrez have been speaking throughout the country about their roles in the strike and the movie during this anniversary year. They will be honored at PWW/NM banquets in San Francisco on Nov. 9 and Chicago on Nov. 15. We had an opportunity to interview them during their recent visit to New York.

World: What was the political environment of the strike at Empire Zinc?

Lorenzo: The conditions were harsh. Zinc mining is underground mining. The miners were Mexican Americans. We came back from World War II with the idea of democracy in our heads, and we found the same discrimination we faced before. We rebelled against it. We used the union to break the discrimination that had existed all along. We were determined to break through and be treated equally.

This was a fight against racism and for equality. The union had 5,000 members. It was an amalgamated local of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers at six mines.

Even the pay lines were segregated, one for the Anglos, the other for the Mexicanos. Housing was segregated. The movie theaters were segregated, with Mexicanos on one side and Anglos on the other. We couldn’t sit together. The swimming pool was segregated. There was one day a week that the Mexicanos could go swimming, and then they would drain the pool and refill it.

The Mexicanos were fed up. The Anglos were in the skilled jobs. The underground work was for the Mexicanos or African Americans – the dirtiest, the roughest jobs. Native American Indians, who had been brought in by the company to work the mines during the labor shortage of World War II, had been forced to move back to the reservations. The company pushed them out and tore down their housing after the war.

World: Tell us about the women’s role in conducting the strike, and more specifically in staffing the picket lines.

Anita: There was no other way it could be done. There was a Taft-Hartley injunction. It meant they couldn’t picket anymore, and if there was no picket line, the strike would be lost. There was a lot of discussion within the union. Someone said the women were not the ones on strike, so they could take over the picketing. Either you give up the strike or bring the women in. Some thought it was the only way, but others were opposed. The word leaked out that the women were going to picket, so we, the women, said, why not? A lot of them came to the picket line out of curiosity. Once they got there, they decided to join the picket lines. In those times, women stayed home. Very few women were out working. The husbands went out to work. Women stayed home with the kids.

World: What was the response of the company?

Anita: The law and the company were surprised and shocked that this was happening. They thought these women were crazy, that they can’t survive, they can’t last, it’s not the proper thing for women to be doing. They took us to jail. As time went on, the company tried to start a “back to work” movement. They hired people from out of town to cross our lines. That created violence. It had been decided that the men would not get involved, so women were going to fight it, the best way they knew how. When the women wouldn’t get up, the police arrested them, but more women came to take their places. The jail was full. They didn’t know what to do.

World: What was the effect of this on the miners?

Lorenzo: When they saw the women standing up, when they saw that they were fighting back, it encouraged the miners to stand strong too. They saw these women are fighters, standing up to save our union. The men came and sat on the hillside and watched, but they were concerned not to give the cops the pretext they wanted to break up the line. They disciplined themselves.

World: What was the result of the strike?

Anita: Finally, the company called the union and proposed a settlement. Most of the demands were met. There would be equality in housing, sanitation. After the strike, the company put in running water to our houses. The pool and the theater were desegregated. Segregation was done away with. The workers came back to work. The strike had gone on month after month. Some miners had gone out to look for new jobs, especially those with the largest families. But even those who got new jobs were always supporting the strike, sending money back. But some of these workers were not called back.

Lorenzo: We broke through on the housing. It affected all mining camps in the region. The local law enforcement authorities told the companies that [labor relations are] a problem between you and the unions, and they would not get involved. There was another result. Previously the sheriff was always an Anglo. We ran a Chicano, a member of our own union local, for sheriff. We elected him and kept him there for years.

World: Where did the idea of this movie come from?

Lorenzo: Hollywood had a number of progressive writers and producers. Some had been in the [Communist] Party, and they defied the courts and were put in jail. They refused to answer the questions of the investigators. They decided to form their own company, and they were looking for an interesting film to make. They discovered the strike. So these blacklisted writers and directors came and shot it in Grant County. They expected trouble. They shot as much of it as they could on location, but other scenes were shot in Mexico and Los Angeles, and then it was pieced together. It was too dangerous to shoot the whole film in New Mexico.

World: Who were the actors?

Anita: The actors were almost all miners, workers. There were only a few professional actors.

World: Were you in the film?

Anita: Yes. At the time we had two kids, and all four of us were in it. I was interviewed for a role as one of the leading ladies.

World: Tell us about Juan Chacon.

Lorenzo: They couldn’t find a Hollywood male star. They went to Mexico searching for a leading male actor. They couldn’t find one. Biberman, the director, came to New Mexico and said the only chance was to interview the miners themselves. That’s how he found Juan Chacon. He was a natural.

Anita: Juan was a member of the Communist Party. We went to Party meetings at that time. It was very hard to meet. I didn’t know there was such an organization, but little by little I learned that it was Communist meetings that I was attending, and I told myself, if this is what you call a Communist, then that is what I am, because they were fighting for equality.

World: The film was blacklisted.

Lorenzo: Yes, the Hollywood monopolies would never allow it to be shown. They said it would cause “racial disturbances.” But it was shown throughout Europe and won prizes. It was premiered in New York a year after it was made. The union flew the cast in to New York for this premiere.

World: It’s been 50 years since Salt of the Earth was produced. How do you explain its influence, particularly on young people?

Anita: Young people today are going through the same struggles we went through. The struggles are not ended. It’s even more relevant now than when it was made. It’s important to show it again and again. Back in those days, the whole family – grandfathers, fathers and sons, would work in the same mines, but those jobs are lost now. Many young people take the benefits for granted, and they don’t know the struggle that it took to win those benefits, but now the corporations are taking those benefits away. That’s why seeing this movie is so important. They have to understand that these benefits were not given easily. We had to fight for them. And this film shows what it takes to fight and win.

Lorenzo: You have to unite. You have to have a union to win. If you are alone, you have no power. That’s why this film is so popular. There is also a change in the atmosphere. A lot of progressive people went through the struggles of the 1930s. Then came the McCarthy period. And a lot of people are realizing what a big mistake it was to retreat in the face of the witch-hunts. They see this movie and they say, here were women who stood up to the police and to the courts.

There are a lot of lessons for today. This was not simply a strike between one corporation and its employees. It was a corporate attempt to destroy a militant, progressive union.

We’re not going to get rid of this right-wing Bush administration if we all go in different directions. This film shows the strength of multinational and multiracial unity, and the unity of women and men.

I spoke to students at Northridge College in California about the film. One student said to me, “You’ve been in the movement a long time. Others get in for couple of years and get burned out. What keeps you going after all these years?” I told him I belonged to a Party, the Communist Party USA. That keeps me going.

The author can be reached at Tim Wheeler contributed to this story.

(See related story below)

* * * * * *

50 years of Salt of the Earth

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the making of the film Salt of the Earth, the only movie banned during the McCarthy-era anticommunist witch-hunts in Hollywood.

Salt of the Earth is based on the actual events of the Empire Zinc miners’ strike. It depicts the successful struggle of Mexican American miners and their families in a hard-fought, two-year strike for better wages, working conditions, and justice, with women playing a critical role – a remarkable story, particularly for the 1950s.

The movie was directed by Herbert Biberman, one of the Hollywood Ten defendants who spent six months in jail for refusing to “name names” before Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s committee.

James J. Lorence documents the right-wing campaign against the film in his book, Suppression of the Salt of the Earth. Lorence details how Hollywood studios, Congress, film critics and reactionary-controlled film unions all conspired to stop Salt of the Earth from ever reaching the screens. The filmmakers were barred from using Hollywood crews, equipment or post-production facilities. Rosaura Revueltas, the then-famous Mexican actress who plays the movie’s protagonist Esperanza, was deported in the middle of the filming.

However, when the film premiered in San Francisco and New York City, it received critical acclaim and garnered international awards.

Salt of the Earth is a landmark film. First of all, it was shot on location in New Mexico just months after the strike. Second, it used actual striking miners and their families as the cast of the film, and they decisively shaped the script, correcting initial drafts that underplayed the leadership of Mexican Americans. Lastly, the film was groundbreaking in its focus on the intersection of race, class and gender in the U.S.

After 50 years, the film is almost universally recognized as a classic of U.S. cinematography and has been chosen as one of only 100 films to be preserved by the Library of Congress for posterity.

Recently an opera entitled “Esperanza” was made based on the film and plans are in the works to remake Salt of the Earth, starring the children and grandchildren of the original cast. Moctezuma Esparza, producer of the film The Milagro Beanfield War, hopes to produce the remake. VHS and DVD versions of Salt of the Earth may be purchased from Harbor Electronic Publishing (www.hepdigital.com) or a number of other sources.

– Libero Della Piana

Steelworkers support college athletes

Fri, 31 Oct 2003 05:35:00 +0000

“Professional athletes had to fight for the rights we now have. We’ll stand by the collegiate athletes in their struggle for justice until they win,” Daylon McCutcheon, defensive back for the Cleveland Browns, told a recent meeting in Strongsville, Ohio.

McCutcheon was one of a dozen Browns players at the event, attended by hundreds of steelworkers and their friends. The event was a fundraiser in support of a new organization of college athletes, the Collegiate Athletes Coalition (CAC).

While many lined up for autographs and pictures, the underlying theme was serious. “There is a real rivalry between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Browns,” Steelworkers Union President Leo Gerard said, acknowledging that the USWA office is in Pittsburgh. “But there is no rivalry between workers. We all stand united for justice and solidarity. We are here to stand 100 percent with the college athletes in their fight for dignity.”

Ramogi Huma is the chairman of the CAC, formed a year ago to fight for the rights of college athletes. “We’ve just been around a year, but we’ve already won victories,” he said. “We pushed the National Collegiate Athletic Association to adopt real safety standards for college football players that include a medical exam before and after all summer workouts. This is just part of the new standards the NCAA was forced to adopt, but not before three college football players died in those practices this past year.”

Players died after “voluntary” summer workouts at Northwestern, Florida State and Florida University.

Huma said the CAC is demanding full health care for all college athletes, scholarships to be kept by athletes in case of injuries, and improved safety standards.

The USWA intends to fully support this drive, according to Dave McCall, district director of the USWA.

“The NCAA made millions of dollars for those on top of college sports, but most athletes go home without the dollars or the glory,” Gerard said. “This is a question of justice, and we’re here to support these young folks, we don’t have any other goal. It will bring no new members to us. An injury to one is an injury to all.”

To contact the CAC or Ramogi Huma, e-mail info@cacnow.org.

The author can be reached at bruce@admiral.cc

Retirees step up fight for health care, pensions

Fri, 31 Oct 2003 05:07:00 +0000

If the recent conferences of the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR) and the Alliance of Retired Americans (ARA) are any indication, senior militancy is definitely on the rise. Both of these union-based organizations, meeting back-to-back in Columbus, Ohio, in late October, focused on the developing fight against the Bush administration, the fight for genuine prescription drug coverage, and the fight to preserve pension rights.

“We must make the fight for national health care the defining issue of the 2004 elections,” SOAR Director Jim Centner told the cheering delegates.

The fight for health care and prescription drug coverage were the key issues at the SOAR conference. Connie Engholm from the ARA reported on the victory in forcing pharmaceutical companies to negotiate lower drug prices for Ohioians.

Almost every speaker slammed Bush’s war in Iraq. “Bush wants $87 billion for his Iraq war while he cuts pensions and health care for retirees here. That $87 billion would make a tremendous health care system for Americans,” said Bill Luoma, a SOAR leader from Warren, Ohio.

“The key to everything is unity to defeat Bush and the ultra-right next year,” Dave McCall, USWA district director, told the delegates. “To win we’ve got to start now.”

The Ohio ARA conference showed the remarkable growth of the organization in its first year of existence. Engholm reported that there are now 110 chapters of the ARA in Ohio.

Reports of militant actions marked the conference. ARA organized a successful sit in at Sen. Mike DeWine’s (R-Ohio) office in Cleveland, protesting his support for the Bush administration’s bill to privatize parts of Medicare. Reports were made of militant ARA-led actions in Chicago and Phoenix protesting the phony prescription drug bill.

The ARA was alone among national organizations in opposing the administration’s prescription drug bill, calling it a “ploy to privatize Medicare.” After the ARA actions, it was reported that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) withdrew his support for the bill. It was reported that the conference committee is now so divided that the bill may be dead.

After a series of reports, the conference went into closed session in order to discuss building an organization to defeat Bush and the ultra-right in the 2004 elections.

The author can be reached at bruce@admiral.cc

Free trade not what it seems

Fri, 31 Oct 2003 04:02:00 +0000

If you are a Kmart shopper or a rancher in Montana; a mom and dad wondering about what the kids will do once they finish school; or a retiree, worried about pension and health care, the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is not for you.

Trade is not one of those issues folks talk about during the commercial breaks of Monday Night Football, but it affects everything from clothes to prescription drugs to the frustrating phone menus encountered when tracking down a manufacturer’s warranty.

“Negotiated behind closed doors with little citizen input but plenty of suggestions from corporations, FTAA is yet another example of the kind of free market fundamentalism that has created a global race to the bottom that erodes environmental protection, workers’ livelihoods and human rights,” according to San Francisco-based Global Exchange, founded in 1988 to monitor and organize around international trade and environmental issues.

Since 1988, fair trade coalitions have popped up across the country. Most are union-based and bring together environmentalists, small businesses, farmers and elected officials. In 1999, the streets of Seattle, then hosting the World Trade Organization meetings, saw thousands of “turtles and Teamsters” demanding fair trade, not free trade.

Last February, the AFL-CIO called on workers to oppose FTAA and urged their participation in demonstrations against the FTAA meeting in Miami on Nov. 20-21. “The ministerial in Miami (the FTAA meeting of representatives from all Western Hemisphere countries, except Cuba), and the elections in 2004 provide important opportunities to defeat the flawed FTAA,” the 13-million-member organization said.

The Northern American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) lifted many trade restrictions between the U.S., Canada and Mexico and has been in effect since 1993, so critics of FTAA are not just studying the fine print of a complicated trade agreement. FTAA is based on NAFTA and it expands the treaty across the entire Western Hemisphere.

FTAA is just another way to spell layoff and plant closing for working families. NAFTA cost the jobs of 765,000 working US families. When workers found new jobs, they earned 2 percent less than their previous jobs. In Mexico, workers’ wages fell by 21 percent and, according to a study at Cornell University, the jobs of 280,000 Mexican workers vanished. The treaty not only left unemployment and wage cuts in its wake, it left toxic waste and pollution along the US/ Mexico border where hepatitis and birth defects have skyrocketed.

Bethany Weidner is part of a caravan that left Washington State in September. In her online journal, she reports an interview with a rancher in Meadows, S.D. In a video, planned for showing in Miami, the rancher says as a result of NAFTA, the price of beef dropped from 87 cents a pound to 38 cents, far below the cost of production. FTAA, he says, will only benefit corporations, drive ranchers off their land, and destroy small farming communities. Steelworkers are on the bus making its way to Florida, as are human rights activists and environmentalists. There are rallies, meetings and potluck suppers all along the 3,000-mile trip.

In its current form, FTAA contains language that would “liberalize” services, including public schools, energy, health care, postal delivery and water utilities. “Liberalize” in this context means privatization. Whereas NAFTA only applied to three countries, FTAA would allow private corporations to raid public services in 34 countries.

The Rainforest Action Network, Global Exchange and the Student Environmental Coalition left George Washington University in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 25 in a “Stop FTAA/On to Miami” roadshow. Their 10 scheduled stops, from New England to Pennsylvania, are aimed at building understanding of a complicated issue and mobilizing students and professors to come to Miami.

Rev. Lucy Hitchcock Seek, 62, of the Unitarian Church in Miami is one of hundreds organizing to greet activists as they roll into Miami. “We don’t have economic democracy in this world,” she told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, “because corporations have taken more and more of the power to the point where, in some cases, they have more power than nations. Join the march in Miami. It’s our chance to say: ‘This needs to change. It’s affecting our lives, our children, our land and our souls.’”

Homeland Security arrests workers in raids

Fri, 31 Oct 2003 03:45:00 +0000

Under the cover of darkness, in well-synchronized raids, scores of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents took the night shift cleaning crews into custody at 60 Wal-Mart stores across the United States. In what The New York Times called the largest immigration crackdown in years, Homeland Security arrested 250 mop- and broom-wielding janitors. Homeland Security spokesman Garrison Courtney could cite no link between those arrested and security issues, although he told the World the department’s first priority is national security.

In response to the raids, one labor union official charged, “They should be looking for terrorists, not hard-working immigrants.”

The Bush administration “is trying to keep people scared, worried about national security,” said Kat Rodriguez, organizer for Tucson-based human rights group Derechos Humanos. “They want to justify this department’s massive spending.”

In response to the raids, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called for changing the nation’s immigration laws that “encourage the exploitation of workers,” making them “easy prey for Wal-Mart and other companies bent on exploitation.”

Last month, thousands of Freedom Riders, undocumented immigrants and their supporters filled the Capitol, just blocks from DHS headquarters, demanding legalization and a path to citizenship for precisely those hard-working immigrant workers like the ones caught in DHS’s net. The Freedom Riders won the support of millions of people across the country.

The arrested workers, including Mexican, Eastern European, Mongolian, and Brazilian immigrants, now await deportation hearings.

Meanwhile, in 3,474 Wal-Marts and millions of workplaces across America, immigrants and others returned to their jobs in stores, factories and fields in spite of news of the raids. “There are a lot of people worried,” about being arrested and deported, an undocumented New England Wal-Mart employee told the World. But, he explained, they all came back to work because they need their jobs.

Reports stated that all but 10 of those arrested were employees of companies contracted to do cleaning by Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest employer. But Wal-Mart spokesperson Sharon Weber told the World that cleaning crews in most Wal-Marts are direct employees, not contractors. She declined to give their wages, insisting, however, they are “competitive with the local economy.” Arrested employees report working for $6 an hour. “The ‘Wal-Martization’ of our economy is driving down wages and workers’ rights through a relentless search for the cheapest labor,” said Sweeney in a prepared statement.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union, representing the nation’s grocery workers, have blamed the proliferation of Wal-Mart stores and its standard of meager wages and benefits for the current strike and lockout of 70,000 retail workers in Southern California.

DHS’s Courtney had no explanation why the arrestees included only workers, not managers or Wal-Mart executives.

The author can be reached at rwood@pww.org. Jose Cruz contributed to this article.

click here for Spanish text

Marching to Miami: Stop the FTAA!

Fri, 24 Oct 2003 03:21:00 +0000

PITTSBURGH – As far as working families are concerned, nothing good came out of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The Economic Policy Institute estimates that NAFTA has cost 765,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs since 1993.

“The fact is,” says Jim English, secretary-treasurer of the United Steelworkers of America union (USWA), “NAFTA has been a disaster for workers on both sides of the border. It has reduced wages by 22 percent for Mexican workers and at the same time it has cut by more than half the number of successful organizing campaigns in this country when employers threaten workers with moving their plants out of the country.”

On Nov. 20, trade ministers from 34 Western Hemisphere countries will meet in Miami to create the world’s largest “free trade” zone under the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) pact – “NAFTA on steroids,” according to steelworkers.

In September a caravan departed from Seattle for Miami. On board are union leaders, workers, environmentalists, clergy, farmers and human rights activists. The March to Miami has a single message, “Stop the FTAA,” and it is taking that story directly to the American people, especially in the politically volatile and vote-rich states of the West, Mid-West and South: Spokane, Wash.; Coeur d’Alene and Kellogg, Idaho; Missoula and Billings, Mont.; Bismarck, N.D.; East Grand Forks, Eveleth and St. Paul, Minn.; and on to Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Illinois where riders held rallies and dialogued with a mosaic of heartland families.

Under the umbrella of the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment (ASJE), steelworkers have forged a coalition – one that George Becker, former USWA president who was on the bus as it rolled into Des Moines, Iowa, predicts will stop FTAA. “I think we can stop this,” Becker said. “There’s a movement of people out there who understand something is wrong.”

And they are talking with their elected officials, running for public office and making arrangements to get to Miami in November. Even in municipalities and cities not on the caravan route, steelworkers are building coalitions, and holding rallies and town hall meetings to get the FTAA story out to the people and bring the other side of the trade debate to Miami.

John Campbell, an executive board member of USWA Local 310, has 15 years of service in the Firestone plant in Des Moines. He is on a mission to take back his country and build a kinder, gentler nation for all people.

Campbell helped organize the Oct. 13 Stop the FTAA rally in Des Moines that drew 300 people. He worked with George Naylor, a farmer who has taken time off from the harvest, to build the Blue/Green coalition.

“I think the spirit of democracy is alive and well and that spirit is not consistent with these trade agreements,” Naylor told the rally. “My message is that corporate trade agreements are not good for family farmers.”

In a telephone interview with the World, Campbell said, “Cheap Iowa corn goes to Mexico and runs Mexican farmers off the land. They cannot compete. But Iowa farmers aren’t getting any more for their corn. Only the corporations are getting fat off of this deal.”

A group of Mexican farmers, visiting Iowa under the auspices of the Catholic Conference on Rural Life, also spoke to the rally and met with Iowa farmers and workers.

“This is what we do,” says Campbell. “Dialogue. Open up and bring people together to challenge how the right-wing, conservative faction dominates and destroys people’s lives. Together, we can redefine a world view.”

Campbell said the “important thing is we are not going away. It is like the Civil Rights Movement that started with a committed core who were no longer willing to accept injustice. The Blue/Green coalition is taking workers, farmers and environmentalists to Miami. Believe me, no one knows better than an industrial worker, like me, about dirty air, asbestos, disease because of our working conditions. Our needs are the same as any other human being. That is why, coming together, we can defeat greed and make our lives safe and secure.”

The caravan rolled out of Des Moines, headed to St. Louis, Granite City, Kansas City and Chicago.

The road to just trade agreements, like the trek from Seattle to Miami, is long. It requires determination, compassion and humanity. Is it worth it?

“You betcha,” say Campbell, Naylor, Becker, English and the thousands from Washington State to Florida who will be in Miami’s streets on Nov. 20.

The author can be reached at dwinebr696@aol.com

Solidarity urged for S. Korean unionists

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 11:05:00 +0000

Unionists seeking to organize South Korean construction workers are facing a concerted campaign of harassment including “unwarranted and unjust” police investigations of the organizing drive, the Korean Federation of Construction Industries Union (KFCITU) said in a solidarity appeal issued Oct. 16.

“These investigations are an attempt to stop the KFCITU from organizing the more than two million blue-collar workers in various construction sites all across South Korea,” the union said. It said eight unionists have already been arrested in Daejeon and Chunahn, and more are expected to be detained in other cities as the police continue their harassment.

The KFCITU, an affiliate of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, is asking that letters be sent to President Roh Moo Hyun, demanding the immediate release of the eight organizers and union officials who have been arrested so far, and an end to the continuing witch-hunt police probes.

Although South Korean construction companies appear to have fully recovered and in some cases have gained significant profits since the IMF crisis of 1997, the union said, building trades workers at thousands of construction sites across the country are barely able to survive. “In fact,” the union added, “the success and rebirth of South Korean construction companies is due to the hard work of these workers.”

Organizing of blue-collar construction workers has been a major priority for the KFCITU since the merger of Korean Federation of Construction Trade Unions and the Korean Federation of Construction Workers Union in 2001. The merged union “recognized that only by organizing these workers can the union truly change the standards of the construction industry so that workers can have a livable wage, benefits such as health insurance, safe and decent working conditions, and dignity in the workplace,” the KFCITU said.

Construction companies were becoming concerned that the union’s efforts were slowly starting to pay off, with recent successes in various cities, the union said.

The police have accused union officials and organizers of using force or coercing construction site managements to sign collective bargaining agreements, and of receiving payments as a result of those agreements. “These charges are baseless and without any real merit,” the KFCITU said. “The police have refused to name sources or reveal the names of those who brought the accusations.”

The union added that it is clear from the line of police questioning and the so-called evidence gathered by police and prosecutors, that construction companies are behind the probes, and are in collusion with police and prosecutors to stop the KFCITU from continuing its organizing drive.

The KFCITU also pointed out that South Korea has ratified the International Labor Organization’s Conventions 87 and 98, which uphold the right of freedom of association and the right to a collective bargaining agreement. These are internationally recognized core standards which should be respected, the union said.

The KFCITU is urging supporters to write to President Roh Moo Hyun demanding the immediate release of the eight union officials and organizers who have been arrested as a result of the witch-hunt investigations, and an end to the probes that are an attempt by police and construction firms to undermine trade union and worker rights in South Korea.

Messages may be sent to: Hon. Roh Moon Hyun, President, Republic of Korea, Blue House, Seoul, South Korea, at the following fax number: 011-82-2-770-1690, or e-mail: president@cwd.go.kr.

Please send copies to KFCITU at fax: 011 82-2-843-1436 or e-mail:or jinsook57@hotmail.com.

S.F. Labor urges AFL-CIO to speak out on Iraq

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 10:44:00 +0000

A resolution adopted by the San Francisco Labor Council calls upon the “House of Labor” to oppose “the foreign policy disasters led by the most right-wing president in memory.” The resolution also calls for end to the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, the return of our troops, and relinquishing U.S. power to the United Nations.

In its three operative paragraphs, the resolution outlines its concerns about the reluctance of the AFL-CIO Executive Council to “address the interconnection between U.S. expenditures for a disastrous foreign policy and … the under-funding of all public services,” adding that the council’s “failure to criticize the Bush administration’s reckless, militaristic empire-building is to ignore the huge fat elephant in our living room.”

While recognizing that the council “apparently” made its decision as a way of preserving unity, the resolution points out that many labor unions gave decisive support to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and are currently giving support to the rights of immigrant workers, even though some sectors of labor were initially hostile to these efforts.

“Therefore be it resolved,” the resolution concludes, “that the House of Labor oppose the foreign disasters policy led by the most right-wing president in memory.”

“The Bush administration doesn’t have a foreign policy that makes any sense,” Walter L. Johnson, secretary-treasurer of the San Francisco council, told the World in a telephone interview on Oct. 21. Although stopping short of accusing George W. Bush of deliberately lying, Johnson, using what he called “the language if diplomacy,” said, “The picture we were given was in marked contrast to the picture that was there.”

As for the need to speak out on the Iraq situation, Johnson quoted from a cover story of the magazine of the former Retail Clerks union: “To sin by silence when we should speak out is to make cowards of even honest men and women.”

Johnson said he thinks the AFL-CIO is “coming around” and pointed to its opposition the Free Trade Area of the America. “Look at their recent brochure on the issue.”

The author can be reached at fgab708@aol.com

U of M clerical workers strike

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 10:40:00 +0000

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – Eighteen hundred clerical employees of the University of Minnesota, members of American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 3800 at the Minneapolis, Duluth, Morris, and Crookston campuses, went out strike on Oct. 21. Eighty-eight percent of the members voted for the strike when the university refused to back off from its contract proposal that sharply increases the health care payments for university workers.

The university’s contract proposal provides for a wage freeze this year, a 2.5 percent increase next year, but eliminates step increases. Union officials say the university’s proposed increases in health care costs would amount to a 4 to 10 percent cut in real wages and would be a severe hardship for workers with dependents that would not in any way be compensated by the $200 lump-sum payment offered by the university.

According to Local 3800 President Phyllis Walker, “Clerical workers have said loudly, again and again, that they cannot accept the university’s wage package and health care cuts, and our lack of job security in our contract.”

Faculty and student strike support committees have been formed. Some 100 teachers have announced that they will not cross picket lines and have made arrangements to hold their classes off university grounds. The Minnesota AFL-CIO is expected to provide strong solidarity support for the strike, as is the state’s AFL-CIO State Retirees Council.

University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks justified the university’s harsh bargaining position by citing the cuts made to its budget by the state Legislature. However, the union, pointing to the excessive growth in salaries and numbers of high-level administrators, maintains that there is a distribution crisis, not a budget crisis. An information sheet issued by the union notes that in the past 14 years the number of administrators have doubled, while the number of clerical workers decreased by 30 percent, and that a 25 percent cut in administrator positions would save more than enough to cover the workers’ heath care needs.

Union members have turned out in big numbers for picket duty at the entrances of the large number of buildings throughout the university grounds. The union has appealed for donations of food for the strikers and their families. The phone number for information of on food needs and other strike support is 612-331-6420.

The author can be reached at marqu002@umn.edu

New rights bill for immigrant farmworkers

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 10:34:00 +0000

While 900 immigrants and their supporters were making their way through the United States towards Washington and New York, a bill was being filed in Congress that would legalize the immigration status of undocumented farm workers. The bill is the culmination of a long negotiations between the United Farm Workers (UFW) union and agricultural employers.

The bill, HR 3142, titled the Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits and Security Act, “would create an earned adjustment program for undocumented farm workers who would be eligible to apply for temporary immigration status based on their past work experience, and who could adjust to permanent resident status upon satisfaction of the program’s prospective agricultural work requirement,” said Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), who cosponsored the bill with Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah).

An identical bill has been filed in the Senate by Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Larry Craig (R-Idaho).

The bill would permit undocumented farm workers who have worked in the U.S. prior to Aug. 31, 2003, to apply for temporary resident status. If they continue to work in agriculture they would qualify for permanent resident status by 2009. The law would also amend the H-2A agricultural guest worker programs, reducing “much of the ‘red tape’ ... while preserving and enhancing key labor protections,” according to Berman.

The UFW agreed to the compromise even though the union has opposed “guest worker” programs in the past, saying there are enough unemployed farm workers in the U.S. to fill the need. Agricultural employers must “certify” that there is a lack of workers willing to work in agriculture before they can hire the foreign temporary workers. The new bill gives “guest workers” the right to take their employers to federal court for violations of wage and other laws.

The undocumented spouses and children of these farm workers would also be permitted to remain in the U.S., though they would not be able to work legally. Once the covered farm worker gains legal resident status, his or her family members will be eligible for the same.

UFW Vice President Lupe Martínez told the World, “We have been working for three years on this proposal.” He said he hoped there would be a law to cover all undocumented immigrant workers.

Martínez said that “the word has gotten out” among farm workers about the bill and many are excited about the bill. Martínez said it was the first time that he remembers that pro-farm worker has bipartisan support.

UFW organizers told this reporter that they are educating workers about the bill and making sure that they keep all paperwork from years past through the present for proof. Guadalupe Quintero, speaking to this reporter while on his lunch break from picking grapes, said, “If it becomes law it will help a lot of the people that work in the fields.”

National Council of La Raza President Raul Yzaguirre hailed the proposal, saying it “is important because it allows us to focus on the status of farm workers in America, 70 per cent of whom are Latinos.” He warned, however, that this is only one step and that “no one should confuse this bill with the more comprehensive reforms that are needed in the broader immigration system.”

An estimated 500,000 farm workers could stand to gain legal resident status if the bill becomes law.

Rogelio, an undocumented Mexican worker from one of the New England states participating in the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride rally in New York, said he welcomed the law, but hoped it could be extended to all workers. His wife, María, echoed his feelings, adding, “We need legalization, especially for those with children in school ... they need their papers so that they can progress.”

The author can be reached at j.a.cruz@comcast.net

Aluminum unions form global network

Fri, 17 Oct 2003 05:25:00 +0000

MONTREAL – Pledging “our full support to help other unions across the globe that represent workers in the aluminum industry when they are in need of our solidarity,” 160 delegates from 17 nations at the International Metalworkers Federation (IMF) World Aluminum conference addressed growing dangers being posed by global aluminum corporations Oct. 6. At the conference, co-chaired by IMF General Secretary Marcello Malentacchi and United Steelworkers of America President Leo W. Gerard, the unions resolved to create an Aluminum Industry Working Group and IMF Global Company Councils.

“We’ve succeeded in creating a network of unions pledged to global solidarity in the aluminum industry,” said the USWA’s Gerard. “That means that if violations by any company result in a union losing its right to representation or having that right undermined, then unions across the globe are going to challenge that company’s oppressive approach to labor relations.”

American delegates to the IMF world conference expressed grave concerns about the impending purchase of Pechiney by Alcan, a company that has increasingly invested in the less developed world to the exclusion of U.S. and Canada, where the USWA represents the lion’s share of organized aluminum workers.

Rally for jobs says Stop the FTAA

Fri, 17 Oct 2003 05:23:00 +0000

PARMA, Ohio – At a town hall meeting held in the community center of this Cleveland suburb, Tom Frisbie, president of Cleveland’s AFL-CIO, denounced the loss of 766,000 jobs since the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

“This loss of jobs will escalate many times if the Free Trade Area of the Americas is passed,” said Frisbie, who is also district president of the Machinists Union. The FTAA would cover 34 countries, causing further bleeding of jobs in the machine tool and other industries, he said. Corporations move to Mexico only to leave for greener pastures in other countries. “There is no end to corporate greed,” he concluded.

Amy Hanauer, from Policy Matters Ohio, a non-profit policy research organization, reported that 185,000 Ohio jobs were lost between March 2001 and March 2003, including 118,000 in manufacturing. “Unemployment spiked more than 51 percent in Ohio since Bush took office,” she said.

In January, 600 Ohio machinists lost their jobs when their plant closed and moved out of the country.

Tony Panzo, a third-generation LTV steelworker from Parma, said he and his brother both lost their jobs in November 2002 when their mill closed down. “We cannot give up. We can and are fighting back,” Panzo said, describing the fight which led to saving 33 percent of the jobs at the former LTV plant. The entire community rallied around those not called back to the steel plant in a “largely successful fight to find jobs for our people. We must continue to carry on that fight until we turn this loss of jobs around,” he said.

John Jamison, from Parma’s Tax Collection Department, detailed the devastation suffered by whole communities when manufacturing plants move out. “Wealthy people vote to elect people who work in their interests. Workers must vote to protect their jobs and families,” he said.

Ohio State Representative Gene DePiero (D-Parma) lauded the unions and their coalition partners who forced the Ohio Prescription Drug Fair Pricing Act on an otherwise hostile Republican-controlled state government. The drug bill is the best in the country, and “the first thing we won for a long time” from a “government working for a right-wing program,” he said.

Rally speaker Anna Carney, a high school student, said she hopes for a future where she and her generation can find work. Bruce Bostick, USWA staff and organizer for the town hall meeting, said, “President Bush is trying to jam through FTAA. The best solution for the FTAA problem is to put Bush on the unemployment line in 2004!”

In a written message, local congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich described NAFTA, FTAA, and the WTO as “beyond improvement or amendment. They should all be scrapped.” The message continued, “Saving jobs and the economy is not possible as long as these statutes and corporate organizations exist.”

According to literature distributed at the rally, busloads of workers will be transported to Miami to give the WTO a “proper greeting” on Nov. 20.

The rally was called by a coalition that includes the newly-created Industrial Union Council, and the Cleveland chapters of the Fair Trade Coalition, AFL-CIO, Jobs With Justice, United Labor Agency, Americans for Democratic Action, Inter-Religious Task Force for Central America, Women Speak Out for Peace and Justice, Peace Action, and the Northeast Ohio Sierra Club. Fifteen members of the United Auto Workers were also in the standing room only crowd, brought to the meeting by Linda Romanek, their assistant sub-district director.

The author can be reached at wallyk@ncweb.com

Wal-Mart, corporate outlaw

Fri, 17 Oct 2003 04:07:00 +0000

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), which represents the nation’s grocery and retail clerks, has set Jan. 14 as a National Day of Action against Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer.

Last year UFCW held actions outside hundreds of different Wal-Mart stores during the first National Day of Action demanding that Wal-Mart respect the right of its employees to unionize, grant living wages, provide affordable quality health care, treat injured workers fairly and end discrimination.

Wal-Mart says its 1.4 million “associates” are “valuable assets” and has a unique way of showing it’s appreciation: It buys life insurance policies on its employees without their consent and then cashes in – tax-free – when the employee dies. The company currently maintains 350,000 of these “Dead Peasant” insurance policies.

According to research done by the Institute for Women’s Policy Studies, Wal-Mart workers are paid $3 per hour less than employees in union stores. Nearly half of the company’s employees earn poverty wages, 35 percent have no retirement plan and 700,000 have no health care.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney has called Wal-Mart a “corporate outlaw,” a charge well documented by the record:

• Wal-Mart was sued 4,851 times in 2000, about once every two hours, every day of the year.

• Wal-Mart faces 38 lawsuits in 30 states accusing the company of forced – and “off the books” – overtime.

• In a class-action lawsuit in Texas on behalf of 200,000 current and former employees, statisticians estimate that Wal-Mart underpaid its employees by $150 million over a four-year period.

• In a Colorado lawsuit Wal-Mart paid $50 million to 69,000 former and current employee for unpaid forced overtime.

• From 1998 through 2000 the National Labor Relations Board filed more than 40 complaints accusing Wal-Mart of illegal practices, including firing union supporters, threatening bonuses, spying and coercing employees.

Although wages and benefits are its chief concern, the UFCW charges Wal-Mart with driving smaller competitors out of business and causing job loss in communities where its stores exist. According to the union, “three existing jobs are destroyed for every two jobs created at Wal-Mart.”

Although Wal-Mart is still king of the hill in the retail world, public opinion is slowly shifting against it, a shift that reaches into the business community.

In the cover story of its Oct. 6 issue, Business Week asks, “Is Wal-Mart too powerful?”

“Low prices are great,” the story begins. “But,” it continues, “Wal-Mart’s domination creates problems – for suppliers, workers, communities, and even American culture.”

The article says 30 supermarkets closed since Wal-Mart move into Oklahoma City and that the annual turnover rate among Wal-Mart’s hourly employees is 44 percent.

The authors can be reached atand tonypec@pww.org

Labor women chart fightback

Fri, 17 Oct 2003 03:41:00 +0000

“We’re going to use our saw to trim that shrub,” vowed carpenter Pat Stell, using the tools of her trade to describe the role of union women in next year’s presidential campaign. “He is not of sufficient stature to qualify as a bush,” she added to cheers. The vice-president of Washington State Coalition of Labor Union Women welcomed the 800 delegates from local chapters and national unions to that organization’s biennial convention in Seattle, Oct. 9.

In a meeting infused with the warmth and power of working-class sisterhood, CLUW President Gloria Johnson set a tone of determined defiance to the Bush administration “running roughshod over our schools and reproductive rights, invading our privacy, and other nations.” Taking on the Patriot Act and its assault on civil liberties, Johnson challenged the assembly, “Do we want to go back to the days of McCarthyism?” “No!” they roared back. “Hell no!” Johnson added.

CLUW’s role in the 2004 elections is to make the women’s vote the decisive one, said Johnson, who is also a member of the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO. CLUW’s officers represent 17 international unions and the striking diversity of the organization’s membership.

Health care was a major focus of the delegates, with five chapters introducing resolutions in support of HR 676, Rep. John Conyers’ (D-Mich.) bill that would provide expanded and improved Medicare-type coverage for all Americans. “We should put the politicians’ feet to the fire on this,” said an AFT member who is a school nurse. “It will get people out to the polls like other things won’t.”

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson put aside formality and her prepared speech to speak to her union sisters “from the heart.” As an overburdened mother and union activist, she said, she had sometimes been discouraged, but it was her anger that kept her going. “As union people, we talk about justice, solidarity, and equality,” said Chavez-Thompson, who started her work life picking cotton in Texas, “but we can’t leave out hope.”

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) declared that in her state “we don’t just encourage and empower women, we elect ’em.” Both of that state’s U.S. senators are women, as are a majority of its supreme court justices and a larger percentage of state legislators than any other state in the U.S. Murray announced plans for legislation to expand the Family and Medical Leave Act so that parents could take time off work to attend school conferences.

Murray pointed to the convention’s theme “Vision, Voices, Votes” as the same plan of attack that led to victory recently in stopping the Bush administration’s attack on overtime pay. “We need to give people the vision, make their voices heard, and count the votes,” she said.

“In the scheme of things, there are them and us,” said Coalition of Black Trade Unionists President William Lucy, going on to describe “all-out class warfare between those who have the power to make the rich richer and the rest of us who just want a good life.” In the light of 3.1 million jobs lost under Bush, “the stock market going up has nothing to do with you and me,” he added. Lucy asked CLUW members to be recruits in an army to educate the labor movement on the value of labor’s constituency groups. Lucy said these organizations will meet in coming weeks to organize local issue forums and policy seminars. “We need to take the offensive against those who would take us out. We can’t let them pick us off one by one. We are intending to educate this nation about critical issues facing working people. All we have to do is tell the truth.” Lucy called for the rejection of Bush’s $87 billion Iraq fund, calling it merely a down payment for what will be a tremendous financial burden to come.

Christina King, 22, called the convention “an eye-opening experience.” The third-year sound and communications apprentice, a member of IBEW Local 11 in Los Angeles, told this reporter, “I knew what was going on in the world, it was out there, but I didn’t know how it impacted us, things like health care.” King describes herself as shy and “pretty laid-back, someone who would never complain,” but now she plans to start her activism by making sure her employer meets the requirement for the women-only porta potty with locking door now missing from her job site. “Even if it doesn’t bother me,” she explains, “I have to speak out for the good of the next girl.”

The author can be reached at

(See related story below)

* * * * * *

Canada Labour's New VP

Thousands of Canadian men and women have taken to wearing woven cloth bracelets declaring “No on FTAA,” according to Marie Clarke Walker, the newly-elected executive vice president of the 2.5 million member Canadian Labour Congress. Walker says Canadians are particularly concerned that the health care system they have fought so hard for could just be negotiated away. “Labor needs to be more pro-active and globalize solidarity,” she says.

Walker’s election in June 2002 was a result of pressure from women labor activists to make the culture and structure of the labour movement more effective in carrying out its work, the former education worker told the World in an interview at the CLUW convention Oct. 11. In reality, “all issues the trade union movement deals with are women’s issues,” but rank and file women don’t always see them because “we don’t do a good enough job talking to them as individuals, making them take them personally.” The Jamaica-born activist’s election also reflects a change in the Canadian workforce, which, according to Walker, is approaching 50 percent people of color, including large numbers of South Asian, African, Caribbean and Latino immigrants as well as aboriginal people.

The introduction of Walker as one of Canada’s four top labor officers, brought CLUW convention delegates to their feet and dancing in the aisles, joined by the dynamic 39-year-old labor leader herself.

– Roberta Wood

Labor 2004: Theres a new kid on the block

Fri, 17 Oct 2003 03:12:00 +0000

The movement to defeat George Bush in November 2004 got another boost on Oct. 6 when the Voices for Working People Coalition (VWPC) announced its arrival on the electoral battlefield.

“We will provide an opportunity to raise a unified voice for social and economic justice,” Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers, told reporters at a press conference announcing the formation of the coalition.

McEntee said the coalition would concentrate on 16 “battleground” states that are decisive in the 2004 elections. “We will work in congressional and local elections,” he said, “But most of our effort will be directed at getting George Bush out of the White House.”

Voices for Working Families is a 527 organization – the tax code designation for organizations that are sprouting like spring flowers now that campaign finance reform has banned the GOP and Democratic Party from collecting soft money to fund voter registration and mobilization campaigns. It is also one of three groups – the others are Partnership for America’s Families and Grassroots Democrats – that enjoy the support of the AFL-CIO.

In addition to McEntee, the coalition’s board members include Myrlie Edgar-Williams, NAACP president emeritus; Bill Lucy, president of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists; Gloria Johnson, president of the Coalition of Labor Union Women; the presidents of a dozen unions and several public figures, including New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson; Geraldine Ferraro, Democratic vice presidential candidate in 1984; and Bill Lann Lee, former attorney general for civil rights. Linda Chavez-Thompson, AFL-CIO executive vice president, is the group’s treasurer.

AFL-CIO participation in these coalitions has its roots in a statement adopted at the February meeting of its Executive Council: “[W]e recognize that in addition to mobilizing union households and making broad appeals to the public we must directly engage millions of people who have not been able to secure union recognition. … The labor movement intends, through both proven means and new initiatives, to restore government that reflects the aspirations of working people and respects their contributions.”

McEntee said the coalition would work to register and educate voters

in working families whether they belong to unions or not and, as Election Day nears, will mount a massive get-out-the-vote campaign. He said coalition partners plan to reach households in targeted communities with at least 10 personal contacts. Particular emphasis will be put on people of color, working women and young workers who, McEntee said, are being “disproportionately hammered” by the economy.

“This is America,” McEntee said, “where every man and woman is entitled to the power of the vote and where every voter carries the possibility of change.”

Earlier McEntee laid out the coalition’s bill of particulars on the impact of the Bush administration’s assault on working families: Among the long list of charges. The loss of 3.3 million jobs since George Bush moved into the White House, 11 million workers without jobs, 43 million people uninsured, 49 states forced to raise college tuition fees.

Both McEntee and Richardson spoke of the growing importance of what they called “communities of color” who, they said, “make up larger and more influential segments of the voting public.”

Richardson, a leader of the Moving America Forward Coalition, said, “No party can take the Latino vote for granted. It will take more than the ability to speak a little Spanish for candidates to win their vote.” He added the coalition had set a goal of registering a half-million Latino voters in the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Florida and Nevada.

McEntee declined to give a direct answer to a reporter’s question about the coalition’s choice for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. “We think all of the candidates have cleared a substantial bar on issues of importance to working families such as universal health care, minimum wage, trade, Medicare, education. Working families believe that any one of them would be better than the man who is in there [the White House] now.”

The author can be reached at fgab708@aol.com

Health care costs spark Calif. strikes

Fri, 17 Oct 2003 02:43:00 +0000

VAN NUYS, Calif. – Daniel Lucra, 19, just wants to keep his health care in case he gets sick or hurt on his job behind the deli counter at Albertson’s, where slippery floors and sharp blades can cause injuries. Cashier Linda Young, who has worked 10 years for Albertson’s, has two kids, 8 and 10, and will have to pay $40 for every doctor visit if the company succeeds in cutting health benefits. “I work for my benefits, that’s it,” says Lupe Ascencion, 21, who bags groceries for $7 an hour.

Lucra, Young and Ascencion are three of the 70,000 Southern California retail food workers forced on the picket lines this week. Workers at Von’s, which is operated by Safeway Inc., walked out last week, rejecting management’s demands for deep cuts to health care and pension benefits, a wage freeze and a scheme to pay new hires $2 hour less. United Food and Commercial Workers had limited the strike to one chain “to minimize inconvenience to customers.” But, Von’s biggest competitors, Albertson’s and Ralph’s, locked out UFCW members as part of a joint negotiating strategy. All workers are covered by the same contract.

Seven UFCW locals filed a lawsuit against Albertson’s and Ralph’s Oct. 14, charging that the lockout amounts to a mass layoff, requiring 60 days notice under a 2002 California law. The suit seeks back pay, health care and pension benefits.

The UFCW workers are feeling the corporate squeeze. According to the union, the giant supermarket corporations which control 60 percent of the Southern California retail food market are using the real challenge of nonunion Wal-Mart as an excuse to gut their union contracts and weaken the union’s strength. Each worker earned 39 percent more profit for the three companies in 2002 compared to 1998, adding a total of $2.7 billion in operating profits, says a UFCW statement.

At the Van Nuys store, with 160 workers locked out, customers were few and far between. The seafood section and Starbucks were closed, fall produce boxes sat in empty aisles, and only three cashiers were on duty – with not much to do.

Shopper Shelly Cosby, accompanied by her young daughter, Joy, said it’s a matter of integrity not to cross a picket line. Another customer, Kay M. Lewis, brought bottles of water to the union workers. “I know them. They’re my friends standing behind the counter. Management could certainly afford to pay for the current health care and pension benefits,” she said.

On the picket line, the young union members talked about going the extra mile to maintain a clean store and help customers. “They come in tired, so you try to present a happy face to try to make their day better,“ said deli worker Lucra. “You give the customers ‘quality’ service,” meat department worker Thomas Powers chimed in.

The youthful work force at the store is also concerned about the older workers’ pensions. Lucra said one of his co-workers is two years away from retirement. “And now they are talking about taking away pensions? That’s not right.”

Across town, bus and train mechanics at the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority were forced out on strike Oct. 14, also over issues of health care costs. The nation’s third largest mass transit system is shut down as union workers honor the mechanics’ picket line.

And the struggle over who pays ballooning health care costs is also at the heart of the L.A. County Sheriff’s deputies’ contract battles.

“It’s at the core of every major contract struggle,“ Kate Bronfenbrenner, Cornell University’s labor education research director, told the Los Angeles Times, “And it’s going to be an issue until we see some national solutions.”

The author can be reached at talbano@pww.org. Jarvis Tyner and Roberta Wood contributed to this story.

(See related story below)

* * * * * *

‘We’re fighting for everyone’

VAN NUYS, Calif. – Determined, united, militant and optimistic are words that describe the UFCW members locked-out at the Albertson’s supermarket here.

Demonstrating solidarity, Teamsters have refused to cross the picket lines, parking their trucks on the street far from the store. Scabs have to manually unload and move stock from the trucks.

In a dramatic show of militancy, ten workers ran after a truck driven by a scab and surrounded it – virtually stopping it in back of the store. The driver, who refused to give this reporter his name, called for help on his cell phone. During the standoff, the picketers waved their signs and placed them on the truck’s mirrors.

Within minutes a corporate big shot came out, accompanied by the store manager, to announce that the police had been called. The workers returned to the picket line. The big shot flipped over her nametag and refused to talk to a reporter, but the store manager admitted there was nothing illegal about surrounding a truck

These workers – young and old, men and women, Latino, white, Black, Asian and American Indian – are on a righteous mission to save their jobs, health care and pensions, and their families’ well-being.

“This is about democracy,” Daniel Lucra shouted to passing drivers, many honking in solidarity. When one lady yelled, “You’re lucky to even have a job,” he replied, “This is a democracy. I can stand up for my benefits. This isn’t about selfish motives – we’re fighting for everyone.”

The UFCW issued a list of union stores, encouraging shoppers to honor their picket lines. Support actions can be found on www.saveourhealthcare.org.

– Terrie Albano

Congress vetoes Bush attack on overtime

Fri, 10 Oct 2003 03:34:00 +0000

The House of Representatives dealt the Bush administration a stinging rebuke Oct. 2 by approving a measure that could lead to the reversal of the president’s move to strip overtime pay protections from as many as eight million workers. President Bush will now have to decide whether to withdraw the parts of his proposal that would take away overtime protection or to defy the votes of both houses of Congress.

The 221-203 vote was the second congressional setback in little more than three weeks for Bush’s plan to gut Fair Labor Standards Act protections for workers’ overtime pay. The Senate voted Sept. 10 on the fiscal year 2004 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill to which a provision had been added barring the U.S. Department of Labor from implementing the attack on working families’ paychecks. The House passed its version of the bill in July, but did not include the prohibition.

The Oct. 2 House vote, on what is termed a “motion to instruct,” called on House members of the conference committee merging the Senate and House versions of HR 2660 to go along with the provision in the Senate bill that bans the overtime-takeaway scheme.

“Both houses of Congress have now spoken – and they have directed President Bush not to take away overtime pay from working families,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. “America’s workers and their families hope the president is listening.”

If the Senate ban on the overtime attack does prevail, the Bush administration has vowed to veto the entire appropriations bill. But Bush faces intense political pressure not to follow through on his veto threat.

A recent survey shows how far out of step with the public Bush’s efforts to gut overtime pay are. Three in four Americans oppose the proposal to eliminate the right of several million employees to overtime pay. Opposition is overwhelming regardless of political affiliation, race, income or geographic region, according to a national survey conducted by the independent polling firm Peter D. Hart Research Associates. The survey, commissioned by the AFL-CIO, was conducted among 862 adults from Aug. 26-31. By 17 to 1, the public believes federal laws governing overtime should be changed to cover more employees (52 percent) rather than fewer employees (3 percent). Thirty-eight percent support retaining current levels of coverage.

Court upholds pension rights

Fri, 10 Oct 2003 03:23:00 +0000

RTI steelworkers won a major victory when Judge Peter Economus ruled Sept. 30 that the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC), the federal agency set up to protect worker’s pensions, illegally refused to pay pensions when RTI shut down.

“This ruling just gives those workers some small bit of the justice that they deserve,” Steelworkers President Leo Gerard said.

The decision culminates a 15-month battle. RTI had been operating for over a year in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Under the existing labor agreement, workers who had 20-30 years of service would receive immediate pensions (termed “shutdown benefits”) if the company shut down. The PBGC had done just that at nearby LTV Steel in Cleveland when that company faced the same situation.

All that changed, however, when President George Bush fired the director of the PBGC and appointed right-wing ideologue Steven Kandarian to head the agency.

When RTI shut down in August 2002, Kandarian’s first official act struck steelworkers, in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, New York and Hamilton, Ontario, like a terrorist blast. Instead of receiving the pensions that their contract guaranteed them, the PBGC declared June 2002 the “official” shutdown date. This action was unprecedented, taken only to deny pensions to workers with between 20-30 years’ service.

The USWA launched a campaign to fight for the workers’ pension rights. A lawsuit was filed against the theft of the workers’ pensions. A series of local rallies was organized, culminating in an angry demonstration of 1,000 steelworkers at the federal courthouse in Youngstown, Ohio, when the lawsuit was introduced. That demonstration included hundreds of motorcyclists who roared around the courthouse, stopping all traffic.

Hundreds of resolutions were passed by city councils supporting the workers, and local representatives sent letters to the PBGC demanding the workers’ pensions be paid. Members of Congress organized hearings to support the workers.

The court’s ruling finally answered the workers’ call for justice. “The judge ruled that our members’ strong reliance on the shutdown benefits that were due them outweighed the PBGC’s bottom line,” Steelworkers attorney David Jury said.

It has been an extremely difficult 15 months for the RTI workers. Five RTI workers committed suicide after the PBGC stole their pensions. The first worker to do so, Jay Schoeder, had 29 years of service. He was the brother of the Schoeder boy who had been killed by the National Guard at Kent State in 1969.

Auggie Waldron, 28-year steelworker, fell dead in October 2002 after reading his mail, which stated the company was cutting off his medical benefits. He had been slated to testify at a special hearing with Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).

Gary Schmitz, Lorain steelworker who was burned over 60 percent of his body in a blast furnace explosion, and then had his pension and medical benefits stolen, was happy for the victory, but cautious. “I just don’t get excited anymore,” he said, “I’ve been screwed too much. I know this is a victory and I’m happy, but I don’t trust the courts. The main thing is we’ve got to get rid of Bush!”

“I’m extremely happy. Just tickled pink,” said Dash Sokol, president of USWA Local 1104 in Lorain, Ohio. “Our members have had a long fight. It’s just great to win round one.”

The joy is tempered with concern, since the PBGC, an arm of the Bush administration, has already stated that it intends to appeal the decision. “Still, it’s a big victory,” said Jim King, a 28-year Lorain steelworker. “This shows that workers fighting for a just cause can win, even in this negative political climate.”

Local papers in the steel towns were reporting that an appeal could take another year and a half to reach resolution, making the issue of pension rights a major issue in the upcoming presidential election. “What really angers me,” said Patti Reich, 26-year steelworker from Canton, Ohio, “is that Bush wants $87 billion for his war in Iraq while we starve here. Most of us are running out of all benefits and those pensions are ours, not his. We have to fight to get him out.”

“Our commitment to our members remains the same,” said Dave McCall, Director of Steelworkers District 1, “We’ll see this fight through to final victory!”

The author, a steelworker who had 29 years, 11 months service when the PBGC stole his and others’ pensions, is now working for the USWA on special projects. He can be reached at bruce@admiral.cc

Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride: A new movement is born

Fri, 10 Oct 2003 02:42:00 +0000

QUEENS, N.Y. – Over 100,000 people greeted the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride (IWFR) here Oct. 4, celebrating the birth of a new movement with its sights set on making the 2004 elections a battle for immigrant rights. The dynamic, coordinated effort of unions, immigrant and civil liberties groups, clergy, and elected officials was initiated by HERE, the hotel and restaurant employees union, and sponsored by the AFL-CIO. Local labor-community coalitions organized 900 riders from ten cities who traveled 20,000 miles carrying the campaign to 103 events, in the tradition of the 1960s Freedom Rides for civil rights in the South.

On Oct. 1, the Freedom Riders lobbied 120 members of Congress for legislation to create a path to legalization and citizenship for all immigrants, to allow for the reunification of families and for protection of rights in the workplace. “We need to organize and use the power of our vote. That’s the next step in the struggle,” Eliseo Medina, vice president of the Service Employees International Union told the World. “It’s not just about immigrant workers rights, but about living wages, about decent education. This is the beginning of us taking back America.”

Congressman John Lewis (D-Ga.), a Freedom Rider in the 1960s, declared, “Martin Luther King would be very proud. We are white, Black, Hispanic, Native American – we are one family, in one house, and we are not going to let anybody turn us around.”

The new movement for civil liberties includes elected officials responding to post-9/11 injustices, according to Hiram Monserrate, a city councilman from New York, where 37 percent of the population is made up of immigrants. Monserrate successfully fought Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s move to force city workers to report undocumented immigrants to the INS. He told the World, “The stripping away of civil rights

and liberties is a wake-up call to all of us to get out the vote, to send a message to the right-wing that you can not just run amok.”

“Bush lied about what he was going to do with immigration and naturalization,” making demagogic appeals to Latino and other immigrant communities during the 2000 elections, charged State Sen. Tom Duane from Manhattan, N.Y. “Bush ran on a platform of speeding up the immigration process and making it more efficient,” Duane said, but “in fact, it’s gotten worse.”

No issue is more heartfelt in the immigrant community than keeping the family together. Joaquin Zivera’s wife and children were terrified when he was arrested and threatened with deportation, the California Freedom Rider told the World. He has lived in the U.S. since he was seven and worked as a county counselor for ten years. “At the time of my arrest I’d been living an above-average life, a homeowner, paying taxes, contributing to my community. The way I was rewarded by the government was by them trying to deport me,” he continued. “During that time, the community backed me up. There are other people out there who are facing deportation, or they’ve already been deported. That’s why I’m here.”

Bruce Raynor, international president of UNITE, the garment and textile workers union, was met with cheers of agreement from the crowd when he declared, “We have liars in the nation’s capital who say they’re for family values but will not support reunification of families.”

The labor movement and immigrant communities have changed with the experiences of organizing the Freedom Rides, said IWFR National Director Dave Glaser. “Employer resistance to organizing is going to have to reckon with the deep passion for justice we saw as we traveled across the country,” he predicted, with immigrant workers seeing unions as a vehicle for achieving that justice.

Some of the riders already had tested the new movement’s power to influence public policy. Christine Newman-Ortiz, of Voces de la Frontera in Milwaukee, described how a demonstration forced Wisconsin GOP State Assemblyman Frank Lasee to change his position on allowing in-state tuition for undocumented students at state colleges. At first he was opposed to it, but after there was a public protest, she reported, Lasee agreed to put the question before his Government Operations and Spending Limitations Committee.

“The Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride was not an event, but the creation of a new movement,” Maria Elena Durazo, IWFR national chair and general vice president of the HERE told the World. “Immigrants now understand we are not alone, we have allies.” As the crowd left, she urged them to become freedom fighters, “Whether you are second generation, or 14th,” she said, “we have to build a new movement in the United States of America.”

The author can be reached at jleblanc@pww.org. José A. Cruz, Dan Margolis and Elena Mora contributed to this article.