People Before Profit blog

Baseball sluggers say: Pass Employee Free Choice

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:20:00 +0000

As the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies battle each other in this year's World Series, 12 members of the Major League Baseball Players Association have announced their support for the Employee Free Choice Act.

Three of the players endorsing the worker rights bill are currently in the World Series: Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino with the Phillies and Mark Teixeira with the Yankees. Ball players Heath Bell, Dave Bush, LaTroy Hawkins, Torii Hunter, John Lannan, Andrew Miller, J.J. Putz, Justin Verlander and Adam Wainwright have joined them. The players signed a joint statement released Oct. 28.

In the statement the players and their union said:

"All Americans should have the same opportunity we've had - to be able to join a union without being fired and to negotiate with their employers without being penalized. Today, our country is facing some tough times. Health care costs are skyrocketing. Families are losing homes. Savings and retirement income are disappearing overnight."

They continue, "Now more than ever, we need a strong union movement to protect our jobs, our pensions, and our future. The Employee Free Choice Act simply guarantees a level playing field for all workers. It makes sure everyone plays by the same rules. That's as important in the workplace as it is in baseball."

Whether you're a bus driver, a journalist, a teacher, health care worker or a major league baseball player the choice to have a union on the job and bargain for better working conditions matters to all workers no matter what kind of work they do, Free Choice supporters note. The right to bargain along with your co-workers for fair wages, good benefits and safe working conditions is a fundamental right that will ensure a stronger economy for all, they say.

Meanwhile the World Series is on and baseball fans throughout the country are watching every game as the Yankees and the Phillies go head to head. As of Oct. 30 the series was tied 1-1. The Phillies are trying to maintain their glory - they were crowned World Series champions last year.

Photo: Phillies' Shane Victorino hits a run scoring single during the ninth inning of Game 1 of the Major League Baseball World Series, Oct. 28. (AP/Eric Gay)

Supreme Court upholds striking workers' rights in 10-year battle

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:06:00 +0000

HARTFORD, Conn. — After a 10-year battle, including a two-and-a-half-year strike, current and former Avery Heights nursing home workers won a U.S. Supreme Court ruling this week upholding the responsibility of the corporation to pay nearly $3.5 million in lost wages, interest and pensions. The ruling is being hailed by labor lawyers as precedent setting.

"We've waited a long time for justice," said Herman Davies, Jr., who has worked in the Avery Heights housekeeping department since 1991. "Of course the money is important to us after all these years, but it's even more important to see right win out over might."

According to the National Labor Relations Board's estimate, Herman Davies' share of that justice now comes to more than $75,000 in back pay and interest.

In November 1999, more than 180 members of District 1199, the health care workers union, went on strike against Church Homes, Inc., owner of Avery Heights, a 154-bed nursing home and affiliated assisted living facility with 500 residents.

During the strike, Church Homes secretly and illegally hired permanent replacement workers, deliberately concealing their intentions during contract negotiations. In response to charges filed by the union, the NLRB ruled that Church Homes had "an independent unlawful motive in hiring" the permanent replacements and ordered that strikers be rehired with back pay.

Church Homes refused to comply, and the strike and picket lines continued for two and a half years. This was the longest strike in District 1199's history. The labor action disrupted traffic at the busy intersection of New Britain and Newington Avenues, and drew national attention.

This week the sidewalks were filled again, as current and former Avery Heights workers gathered to announce their final legal victory. On Oct. 13, the U. S. Supreme Court declined to overturn the NLRB decision that had twice been upheld in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Church Homes has already paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to three certified nursing assistants (CNAs) who were found to be illegally fired during the strike. On April 27, 2007, the NLRB ordered the corporation to pay a total of $286,411 in back wages and interest, and to make $45,459 in pension contributions on their behalf. Checks were issued to the workers and to the union's Pension Fund on June 15, 2007.

"We knew that if we persisted, we'd prevail," said Carmen Boudier, president of New England Health Care Employees Union, District 1199. "Justice is finally being done here but it took ten years to arrive - this country's system of labor law is truly broken."

The ruling underscores the significance of the labor movement's campaign to win labor law reform including the Employee Free Choice Act, which would protect workers' right to organize.

Labor law scholar Michael Wishnie, a professor at the Yale Law School, said, "This decision has broad implications for national labor law. For years, employers have used their power to hire permanent replacements as an excuse to try to destroy unions. This decision means that when permanent replacements are hired as a pretext for union busting, they must be displaced by returning strikers, and that employers abuse this law at their real financial peril."

Photo: seiu1199ne

Labor, progressives, manufacturers meet: ‘Think big & bold’ to rebuild economy

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:04:00 +0000

WASHINGTON — Hundreds of labor leaders, elected officials and progressive activists packed a conference here Oct. 29 to demand a new, green manufacturing economy to bring the United States out of the recession and restore the nation's industrial might.

The conference, entitled "Making It In America: Building the New Economy," was organized by the Institute for America's Future, a progressive think tank, and the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a partnership of the United Steelworkers union and leading manufacturers.

Conference attendees called on the Obama administration to use stimulus funds to rebuild the decimated manufacturing sector. They also proclaimed their support for a new national industrial policy to guide the nation through the 21st century.

"The Obama administration must direct resources to the industrial heartland," said Richard Trumka, newly-elected resident of the AFL-CIO. "We need to think big and think bold," he continued.

Speakers from academia, manufacturing, the media, politics and labor presented their thinking.

John Surma, chairman and CEO of the United States Steel Corp., called on labor and manufacturers to "work together" to come up with solutions to the manufacturing crisis.

Citing the negative effect free trade agreements have had on American manufacturing, Surma also called for a retooling of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements to prevent a continuing "race to the bottom."

"We need to improve our trade policy," said Surma. In addition, the Obama administration must "reduce incentives for taking production offshore," he commented.

Kate Gordon, of the Center for American Progress and the labor-environmental Apollo Alliance, stressed the need for a "green manufacturing revolution" that combines industrial expansion with environmental protections and strong labor rights.

"We are on a path that's taking us to unemployment, income inequality and environmental degradation," she said. "We need to have an actual strategy that builds a clean manufacturing economy."

Speaker after speaker highlighted the key role that labor played in the creation of a prosperous American working class, and the role that it must play in any future industrial expansion.

"We need the Employee Free Choice Act to make this [green industrial revolution] happen," Gordon said.

Praising labor as "the single ongoing progressive force in America," Sen. Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, called for a broad-based, labor-led coalition to fight for a unionized, green manufacturing economy.

He vowed that he would do the same from within the halls of government.

"Progressives need to pursue this inside/outside strategy," Brown said. "There are frankly too many people who are elected who are lapdogs of corporate America," he added.

Conference attendees, many of them union members, expressed their support for the proposals put forward by the speakers.

Calling the conference "wonderful," Stan Johnson of the United Steelworkers said that "the fact that we are here having a progressive dialogue shows a lot of where we came from and where we are headed."

In an interview with the People's World, United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard emphasized that the conference provided an important opportunity to "rebuild our echo chamber about the importance of manufacturing."

Gerard also expressed great hope for the future of the labor movement under Trumka's leadership.

"I think Richard Trumka is the right leader at the right time," Gerard said. "Most important is that with Richard at the helm we are going to win the right of employee free choice," he concluded.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/green4all/ / CC BY 2.0

“No contract, no work,” says Philadelphia transport union

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:32:00 +0000

PHILADELPHIA - Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 234 has voted to authorized a strike at the end of this week, if continuing negotiations do not result in a contract by October 31. The union has worked without a contract for 8 months. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) had insisted on no pay raises for TWU workers for 5 years even though SEPTA has received increased funding from both the state and federal governments and ridership has increased by 30%. SEPTA wants to increase worker contribution to worker health coverage from 1% to 4% and freeze the level of pension benefits.

Local 234 President, Willie Brown said, "This is the last week of working without a contract. We will negotiate as long as we can."

TWU Local 234 represents 4,700 SEPTA employees in the city, those who drive the buses and trolley cars and operate the subway trains and those who maintain the transportation system. Local 234 wants a 4% salary increase each year and an increase in SEPTA's contribution to its members' pension fund. Local 234 also wants SEPTA to stop contracting out maintenance and repair work and allow its employees to do the work.

By coincidence 2 weeks after Local 234 announced the strike authorization vote, the Philadelphia Phillies Baseball team won the National League Pennant and is now a participant in the World Series, beginning October 28th in New York. The World Series games will be played in Philadelphia this weekend. Neither SEPTA nor the city would like to see negative publicity and the disruption a strike would cause for the 5,000 - 8,000 fans expected to attend.

SEPTA spokesman, Richard Maloney said , "Our focus is on the 1 million riders who go to work daily not the baseball fans." Local 234 also represents more than 600 SEPTA workers in the surrounding counties of Philadelphia, but their contracts do not expire until April 2010.

The last time TWU Local 234 went on strike was in 2005. "SEPTA ran a campaign against the union in 2005" said Local 234 president, Willie Brown. "The inconvenience a strike creates is not the fault of the hard working bus drivers and subway workers, but rather the greedy management."

"Like everyone else, we're hoping they reach an agreement," said Rina Cutler, the city's Deputy Mayor for transportation.

Photo: Lhoon http://www.flickr.com/photos/lhoon/153134223/ Creative Commons 2.0

Coming back to the NLRB’s core mission

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:24:00 +0000

The son of an Iowa coal miner is pleased that the United States, as he sees it, has moved closer now to enforcing a piece of the law that has too often been ignored in recent American history. That law reads: "It is the policy of the United States government to encourage the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and to protect the exercise by workers of full freedom of association."

The coal miner's son, now the chair of the Senate's powerful Health Education and Labor Committee, is celebrating that body's approval last week of all of President Obama's three nominees to fill three vacant seats on the five-member National Labor Relations Board which, when it was run by a Bush-named GOP majority, says Sen. Tom Harkin, D- Iowa, pulled away from its mission of enforcing the workers' rights provisions of U.S. labor law.

"In today's challenging economy," said Harkins, "when workers are vulnerable and worried about the future, it is critically important to have strong leadership at the board to guide the agency in its core mission."

Harkin noted that in recent years the Board did little to inform workers of their rights and failed to punish many employers who repeatedly violated labor law.
"I am also concerned about the excessive delays - justice delayed is justice denied, and all too often these delays mean there is no real penalty for violating workers' rights. It will be a serious challenge to restore the core mission of the NLRB, but I think the nominees we approved are up to the task," said Harkin.

Under the law the president appoints three of the five members from his party and the remaining two from the other political party. For almost two years now the board has operated with only two members, one Republican and one Democrat. They have only decided cases on which they could both agree using a phantom third member to form a quorum of three. All of those decisions have been put in legal limbo by conservative appeals judges ruling in favor of employers resisting pro-worker decisions.

The full Senate must approve the president's nominees for the three vacancies. A pro-worker majority is important to the labor movement because the NLRB often decides whom unions can represent and even who is the actual victor in a representation election.
Two of Obama's nominees for the three vacancies, pro-labor Democratic lawyer Mark Pearce of New York and Republican Brian Hayes of Massachusetts, were unanimously approved by the Senate Labor Committee on Oct. 21.

The third, Harold Becker of Illinois who serves as counsel for several unions, drew sharp opposition from Republicans on the panel. He was approved, however, 15-8.
Senators who oppose a nominee do not have to give specific reasons. The committee's top r\Republican, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, would only say he had "some questions about Becker's previous writings."

It is believed that Enzi took issue with several scholarly articles written by Becker when he was in private practice. In those articles Becker advocates for taking the strongest possible pro-worker position when interpreting various aspects of labor law.
Approval of Becker, Pearce and Hayes by the full Senate, which is not scheduled yet, is important for legal reasons because a federal court ruling earlier this year threw all the Board's powers into question.

The problem arose because, since Dec., 2007, the NLRB has operated with only two of its required five members, Democrat Wilma Liebman and r\Republican Peter Schaumber. Obama has appointed Liebman the board's chair.

The two, relying on a legal interpretation from the Bush administration, have decided almost 400 cases by 2-0 votes, with a third "phantom" member, who would always presumably vote "no," providing a "quorum" and letting the Board issue final rulings. Many federal appeals courts agreed with that interpretation.

The highest federal appeals court in D.C., however, overturned the arrangement earlier this year. The court said the board needed a real quorum of three people to decide anything. It also ruled that all the 2-0 cases might have to be decided all over again.
At the request of Liebman and Schaumber the Obama administration has appealed the "real quorum" decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/labor2008/2713906873/sizes/o/#cc_license Creative Commons 2.0 Generic

Labor hits union busting by immigration agency

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:16:00 +0000

An important report by the AFL-CIO, American Rights at Work and the National Employment Law Project paints a shocking picture of how, under the Bush administration, ICE, (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) ran roughshod over the rights of immigrant workers and blocked enforcement of labor law.

The authors of the report, "ICED OUT: How Immigration Enforcement has Interfered with Workers' Rights", are Rebecca Smith of the National Employment Law Project, Ana Avendaño of the AFL-CIO, and Julie Martinez Ortega of the American Rights at Work Educational Fund. It can be read online at www.americanrightsatwork.org.

The 44 page report is based on a detailed examination of the experience of immigrant workers around the country, whose vulnerability caused by their undocumented status was used by employers as a pretext to violate wages and hours and occupational health and safety laws, as well as break up union organizing drives.

In too many cases, ICE not only failed to respect the rights of workers, but actually targeted worksites where union organizing or labor disputes were going on. Workers who stood up for their rights found themselves arrested by ICE, or by local police and handed over to ICE. The authors claim this is part of an anti-union strategy on the part of employers and of the Bush administration.

Undocumented workers whose rights have been violated on the job or who have been victims of human trafficking are supposed to be eligible, in some cases, for special visas which would allow them to stay in this country and testify against their employers. But ICE often hustles people out of the country before they can be helped to get such visas. Also, ICE is not supposed to carry out raids in the context of a labor dispute, but the report lists case after case in which it has done precisely that. In other cases, immigrant workers injured on the job have been arrested and whisked out of the country by ICE, letting the employer and the workers compensation insurance carrier off the hook for paying for medical treatment.

In 2006 Latino immigrant workers at the Woodfin Suites Hotel, in Emeryville, California went public with a complaint that the hotel was not obeying a local living wage law. The management fired 21 workers, ostensibly because they had received "No-Match" letters from the Social Security Administration questioning the authenticity of these workers' Social Security numbers. But the workers went to state court and got their jobs back.

Then the management got in touch with U.S. Representative Brian Bilbray (R-CA), an ultra-right, anti-worker and anti-immigrant congressman. Bilbray "sicced" ICE on the workers. This resulted in the firing of 12 workers and the harassment of workers at their homes by ICE agents.

In 2008, the Iron Workers Union was trying to organize residential construction workers employed by subcontractors of Sun Coast-Gold Canyon. A union organizer was driving a group of five Latino workers to a picket line, when four patrol carloads of Pinal County Sheriff's deputies stopped him and demanded to see the IDs of the workers. The deputies told the organizer that they were there to check immigration status because of the labor dispute. All five workers were arrested, and four were processed for deportation.

The report summarizes a number of other such incidents.

The incidents cited occurred in the last years of the Bush administration. Since the Obama administration came in, there have been far fewer big workplace raids and some other improvements, but a number of Bush-initiated practices have continued and the number of people deported so far continues to be very high. For example, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, though she has ordered a tightening-up of the 287 (g) program which involves local police in immigration enforcement, has added eleven new police departments to the program. This is worrying, because the report shows clearly that local police sometimes collude in union busting activities, especially when immigrant workers are concerned. The targeting of employers is also disturbing because when a major employer is busted for employing undocumented immigrant workers, the workers do not benefit and like as not end up working for even lower pay and under even worse conditions.

The report adds a valuable list of recommendations to the Obama administration, too long to be summarized here. The gist is if you don't want unscrupulous employers of undocumented workers to keep on their abuses, enforce labor law but protect immigrant workers from persecution.

If you’re sick, come in anyway!

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:52:00 +0000

The return of the swine flu, this time with a vengeance, has officials bracing for a flu season much worse than the normal ones when 5 percent to 20 percent of the population gets sick, with some ending up in hospitals and others even dying.

Last week's declaration of a national emergency by the president, after a panel he appointed projected that the H1N1 virus could infect half the U.S. population this fall and winter, has resulted in a new push by labor and its allies for guaranteed sick days.

At a rally backing a paid sick days measure in New York City, Mike Fishman, president of 32BJ Service Employees International Union (SEIU), said, "When union doormen get sick, they can take off because they have sick days. But if you are a security officer in the city you are going to be at work if you are sick, because you cannot afford to take the day off without pay."

Unions see the fight for paid sick days as integral to any national strategy to protect public health during the swine flu epidemic.

Federal statistics show that almost 40 percent of all flu cases are transmitted in schools and workplaces. The Centers for Disease Control says sick workers should stay home and remain there for 24 hours after their fever subsides.

Unions are quick to point out, however, that the CDC recommendation is impossible to carry out because half of all workers in the nation are not able to take even one paid sick day when ill. Only a third of all workers who have sick children are able to take a paid day.

"I see it all the time," an emergency room nurse at Cook County Hospital in Illinois said. "Mothers and fathers are worried to death when they come here, not just about the fever their child has but about how much pay they are going to lose and whether they might lose their job altogether because they have to take care of that child."

Last May President Obama said, in one of his weekly radio talks, "We urge employers to allow infected employees to take as many paid sick days as necessary."

Unions believe that with the lack of state and federal standards mandating paid sick days, the president's good intentions will not go far enough to solve the problem. They are coming forward with solutions on various levels.

Cincinnati Federation of Teachers Local 1520 recently won a contract that allows members to take sick time for exposure to contagious disease and use five days of sick time in advance in any given pay period.

Unions say, however, that regulatory changes are needed.

Such changes in regulations were proposed recently to protect federal workers from the spread of communicable diseases by expanding sick leave.

Under the proposed changes, federal workers could use sick time to care for themselves or a family member due to exposure to a communicable disease, whether or not they display symptoms.

Federal employees would also be able to use in advance up to 30 days of sick time due to their own exposure, or 13 days for a family member's exposure.

The proposed policy is the type of policy unions all over the country will begin bargaining for, say officials at the AFL-CIO.

San Francisco guarantees paid sick days for its workers, and unions, like SEIU in New York, are joining with community allies to fight for similar policies elsewhere.

The Labor Project for Working Families has set up a web site to help unions get involved in local campaigns for paid sick days, at www.working-families.org.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vocesdelafrontera/ / CC BY 2.0

Congress Hotel strikers set record

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:43:00 +0000

CHICAGO - "This is an embarrassing day for the city of Chicago," declared Guadalupe Perez a striking Congress Hotel worker at an Oct. 26 action honoring the strike. "This is now the longest hotel strike in US history. For over 6 years the Congress has brought this city down. But we'll be here for as long as it takes to get justice."

The Congress Hotel strike officially surpassed the Frontier Hotel strike in Las Vegas that lasted 6 years, 4 months and 10 days and ended Feb. 1, 1998. Workers went on strike after the Congress unilaterally broke with the master agreement between the union and city hotels and imposed a lower wage scale.

"The torch has been passed from one group of heroic workers in our union to another group of heroes," declared John Wilhelm, Unite Here international president, the union representing the Congress strikers.

Veteran union members of the Frontier strike brought solidarity greetings and praised the strikers for their courage. Joe Daugherty, now president of Unite Here Local 24 in Detroit, told the Congress strikers, "while it's a long time it's a short time in the fight for justice."

"You never know when you will make history," said Gloria Hernandez of Unite Here Local 165 in Las Vegas. "They know they can't defeat us when we're together. This is the only way they'll respect us. You're fighting for the future of Chicago and the next generation."

As strikers, hotel workers and their supporters marked the occasion, others prepared to take a strike vote in response to demands for concessions by big hotel corporations.

Under light rain, hotel workers and their supporters took the "tour of crummy employers" down Michigan Avenue past the Hilton, Blackstone and ended at the Congress Hotel. Union contracts covering over 6000 workers at 30 downtown hotels expired on August 31. Three major hotel corporations employ most: Hyatt, Hilton and Starwood. Workers at five hotels are taking strike votes.

Hitting hard at the greed of hotel owners, Unite Here Local 1 President Henry Tamarin said, "We're not going to settle for standing still, we won't move back either. We're only moving forward."

"Malos, mucho malos, (bad ones, very bad ones)" cried the crowd in reference to the greedy hotels.

The Hilton Hotel is one of the big chains driving wage-and-benefit concessions. They are using the economic crisis to cut jobs and demand concessions in health care benefits and impose speed up. But when economic times were better they were just as stingy.

"The Hilton is not making this any easier," said Eddie Simms, a worker at the Hilton Hotel. "Each day I feel like fighting somebody. I know what I have to do and each of us has to fight and not give up."

Like the Boston Hyatt Hotel, the Hilton wants to subcontract out parts of their operation to lower paid workers. But shop steward Sherry Stevenson said workers are fighting any subcontracting along with the proposal for a five-year contract with no raise for the first 2 years.

The workers led by Unite Here have fought hard to raise wages and benefits in the hospitality industry in Chicago. Average housekeeper wages have risen from $8.83 an hour in 2002 to $14.60 today.

What galls the workers is the hotels are making profits even in the economic downturn. In the last three months, hotel company stocks have soared 20-30%. On Oct. 22, Starwood (which operates some of the hotels taking the strike vote) announced profits of $180 million for the first three quarters of 2009. Evidently, these profits are not big enough for greedy hotel owners, say the workers.

The protesters moved on to the Blackstone Hotel, a landmark that had been closed but was refurbished and re-opened with $47 million of taxpayer money. The hotel showed its gratitude by resisting a union organizing drive and after the union won by refusing to settle on a contract.

The Blackstone fired Renee Walker for her strong union support. "They ‘laid off'12 workers from the Room Service Department," Walker told the People's World. "We were the strongest union supporters. They said it was because the economy was bad. Then they had a job fair to hire our replacements and none of us were considered. We were essentially fired."

Walker and her co-workers have filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) against the Blackstone to regain their jobs. "We're going to continue to fight," said Walker.

Imelda Martinez embodies the connection between the Congress strike and the fight at the other hotels. Martinez has been on strike at the Congress Hotel and now works at the Sheraton Hotel as a housekeeper, where a strike vote is being taken.

"Right now, two hotels are trying to cut my benefits and my rights. Today more than ever we have to fight. We'll continue fighting in the path of Cesar Chavez and for wage and benefit justice. I am not afraid."

Workers win biggest back pay award in history!

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:42:00 +0000

The Fluor Daniel Corp. has agreed to pay $12 million to 167 workers it denied jobs 15 years ago because they belonged to or were organizing for one of four different unions.

The company dragged its feet for the 15 years since the organizing drives through hearings before the National Labor Relations Board and three federal appeals court rulings in favor of the workers.

The settlement, announced last week by the Boilermakers, the Electrical Workers, the Plumbers and Pipefitters, and the Carpenters, gives each of the workers an amount ranging from $8,000 to $217,000, Boilermakers attorney Mike Stapp said.

The company, a non-union subsidiary of the Fluor Corp., agreed to the settlement after the third ruling from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in favor of the NLRB, the union and the workers.

The settlement ends a case that began in 1994 when the four unions started to jointly organize refinery building construction workers in Baton Rouge, La., and nuclear plant maintenance workers at the Palo Verde reactor outside Phoenix.

The four union presidents, IBEW President Ed Hill, Boilermakers President Newton Jones, Carpenters President Doug McCarron and Plumbers President William Hite praised the settlement in a joint statement, calling it “unprecedented,” and “a large victory for the construction trades.”

“It’s the largest in terms of back pay – and also the longest,” their statement read. “The combined cases took nearly 20 years to litigate through the board and the appeals process. The cases dragged on so long that 13 of the union organizers died while awaiting justice.”

The union presidents said, “Their deaths illustrate the need for labor law reform in the U.S., starting with passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. It should never take two decades for workers to receive justice under the law.

The unions claimed and the courts agreed that Fluor Daniels deliberately discriminated against pro-union workers by changing its hiring rules and by announcing a new policy that it would openly hire non-union workers, regardless of the qualifications that a union worker might have for the job.

Many of the union members who were denied jobs, particularly at Palo Verde, had, in the past, worked for Bechtel, the previous contractor overseeing maintenance. Bechtel is unionized at Palo Verde, with its employees belonging to Ironworkers Local 75, Boilermakers Local 627 and Millwrights Local 1914.

Judge R.J. Cole of the 6th Circuit Court, ruled, “Fluor Daniel intended both projects to be ‘open shop,’ i.e., employees at the sites would not be part of labor organizations and there would be no union labor contract between Fluor Daniel and the hired employees.

“The NLRB found 892 deviations from Fluor Daniel’s hiring protocol at Palo Verde, all in favor of nonunion activists. Analyzing the company’s own data through Nov. 1, 1994, the NLRB found: nine journeymen were hired before they applied, two journeymen were hired after their applications expired, 88 journeymen were hired with less than the required 42 months of craft experience, and over 700 applicants were considered for crafts other than those for which they applied.”

None of those hired were union members, Cole said, even though the union workers who applied met both the company’s technical requirements and passed company administered exams.

The judge also said that Fluor Daniel arbitrarily discriminated against the unionized former Bechtel employees who had applied for their old jobs at Palo Verde. He called that group “an obviously well qualified and available pool of potential employees.”

Cole also wrote that “NLRB’s evidence showed other instances where Fluor Daniel acted in contravention of the act (National Labor Relations Act) in Palo Verde by treating discriminatees differently. Fluor Daniel allowed several discriminates to apply for nonexistent job classifications, while allowing other applicants to apply for comparable work with different job classifications. Fluor Daniel invited non-union applicants to check back in the case of no-shows but did not invite the alleged discriminatees to do the same.

“And Fluor Daniel never referred any of the discriminatees to its Wolf Creek nuclear project, as it did for non-union applicants.

“All this and more,” the judge said, as he agreed with the unions, “showed Fluor Daniel acted out of illegal anti-union animus.”

Asked why Fluor Daniel, after fighting the case for 15 years, finally decided to settle with the unions, Stapp, the Boliermakers’ attorney, would not speculate. He said, however, that the total cost to the company of its union-busting effort was $30 million.

(People's World photo by James Thompson)

Unions confront insurers as they plot to block reform

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 07:00:00 +0000

Insurance company CEOs meeting in Washington Oct. 22 hid from 600 angry trade unionists who tried to get them to listen to people victimized by their companies.

As the CEOs talked inside the Capitol Hilton about how they plan to kill health care reform, union members outside marched and chanted in protest.

Members of seven families from across the country, all victimized by the insurance companies, were outside with the union members. They had planned to tell Karen Ignani, CEO of the insurance lobby, how her member companies denied care, forced people into bankruptcy - an, in one case, killed a family member by denying payments for treatment.

A recent Harvard Medical School report, using federal data, found that lack of health insurance caused 44,780 deaths in 2008, up from 18,000 six years before.

Ignani, who earns $1.6 million a year as CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry lobby, ducked meeting the families.

The labor action came as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., tried to cobble together a unified bill from competing versions approved by two Senate committees. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., meanwhile, continued negotiating details with three House committees that have approved draft bills.

Speakers told the angry crowd outside the Hilton that the health insurers have hired 1,796 lobbyists to squash health care reform.

The unionists pushed hard for a strong "public option" in any final health care bill. The public option would be a government-run competitor to the health insurance companies, open to the self-insured and to workers in small businesses, and a competitor to the private insurers.

Only one or two private firms control up to 94 percent of the insurance market in most states, giving them unlimited freedom to raise rates and deductibles, hand select members and cut customers off the roles when they become ill.

"This health care reform legislation is about making the American people healthy, not about making insurance companies money," declared Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, at a kick-off rally prior to the action at the hotel.. "Trade unionists and the American people," he said, "Are not going to let them get away with this anymore."

He said that, in addition to the public option, "there must be no taxation of workers' present insurance and all employers, even Wal-Mart, must pay their fair share for health coverage."
He also announced, without giving a specific date, that the AFL-CIO will sponsor a national day of action on health care in the coming period.

"We're here to say to the insurance companies that it is not OK to block health care reform, that it is not OK to control 94 percent of the market, and that it is not OK to deny care by declaring virtually everything a pre-existing condition," Trumka said. "Call your senators and let them know it is not OK to have the insurance companies happy unless the American people are healthy."

The union members outside the hotel called upon Ignani to come out and meet with them as they chanted and waved signs.

Women who participated in the labor action had a lot to say about the discrimination women suffer when dealing with health insurance companies.

Some carried signs that read, "I am not a pre-existing condition."

They were referring to a study released Oct. 20 by the National Women's Law Center about insurance company practices that rule out treatment for women strictly because they are female.

"I don't deserve health care that meets my needs. I shouldn't demand fairness in my health care coverage. I can't do anything about it anyway. That's what the health insurance profiteers want you to think," said NWLC Vice President Judy Waxman, in a statement accompanying the study.

"They aren't thinking about the mother who is struggling to find insurance because she had a Caesarean section. Not the woman who survived domestic violence and now must face rejection by an insurance company for having a so-called pre-existing condition. Not the woman who pays more than the man for the same health coverage, even when maternity care isn't covered. Being a woman is not a pre-existing condition," Waxman declared.

Photo: AP

Hotel workers overwhelmingly authorize a strike

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:02:00 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO - With an overwhelming strike authorization vote Oct. 22, workers are ratcheting up the pressure on the city's top hotels to end their stalling, drop demands for takeaways and agree to a fair contract. Many of the city's most prominent hotels are among the 31 affected by the vote.

With more than 3,000 workers casting ballots, over 93 percent voted to authorize Unite Here Local 2's bargaining committee to call actions up to and including strikes, if necessary. In the meantime workers are remaining on the job. The union is calling a "day of action" from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Oct. 27, at an as-yet-unspecified hotel.

Speaking to reporters as the vote was in progress, Local 2 President Mike Casey said employers are proposing "deep, unjustifiable and impossible cuts" in bargaining ongoing since mid-August, when the previous contract expired.

The union has proposed two options: a one year contract keeping affordable family health care and making "extremely modest" adjustments to wages and pensions, and a three year pact addressing core issues including continued affordable family health coverage, better dental and retirement benefits, fair wage increases and guarantees of reasonable workloads.

Though the corporations "may be crying the blues right now," Casey said, "all the analysts indicate that in 2011-2012, we're going to see a rebound" in the hotel industry as well as in the economy generally, and hotel workers must also benefit from the upswing.

Meanwhile, he said, the hotels are "seeking to use the economy as an excuse to combine jobs, shorten shifts, require workers to pay for health care, and reduce pensions," in the hope of accomplishing what they could not during talks for the previous contract in 2004-2006.

As in most contract talks throughout the country, health care tops the list of issues. Though negotiations are taking place separately with the various hotel corporations, overall the union says they are trying to cut health care contributions, putting workers on a path to huge monthly copays and/or drastically reduced benefits. Several are also proposing combined job classifications, new four-hour shifts, and cuts in starting rates.

Addressing the reporters, Ringo Mak, a server at the Hilton Hotel, underscored the health care issue's seriousness: "If they don't give us the health benefits, we will have to go to San Francisco General Hospital [the city's public hospital] and the burden will fall back on the city. I don't think anybody should want that. The hotel is making a profit every year, and that makes what we're asking for affordable."

The union points out that in the "boom period" of 2004-2008, hotel corporations made record profits of over $110 billion in North America, and that they remain profitable even under current conditions.

Workers participating in the strike authorization vote included room cleaners, dischwashers, cooks, bell staff, servers, bussers, bartenders and others. Their earnings average $30,000 to $35,000 annually. About 40 percent are of Asian/Pacific Island descent and another 30 percent are Latino. The average Local 2 member has worked at the same hotel for more than a dozen years.

Labor: ‘It’s jobs, not the deficit, stupid!’

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:45:00 +0000

"The need for massive job creation should trump fear of large federal budget deficits expressed in opinion polls," declared a top AFL-CIO analyst this week.

Thea Lee, the labor federation's policy director, recently named deputy chief of staff by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, said the deficits are actually necessary now because only government spending can provide the short term boost in demand and the job creation that results from it since the private sector has yet to increase its demand for goods and services.

She made her remarks at the Oct. 21 conference of the new America Foundation in Washington D.C.

Speakers at the gathering said 27-29 million new jobs must be created in the next decade to make up for the 8-million jobs lost during the current crash and to absorb young people coming into the labor market.

Lee and others who spoke said that a single-minded focus on simply reducing the deficit would prevent addressing the "abysmal labor marker," the $12-14 billion housing bust," "sky high bankruptcies," and "30 years of stagnating real wages."

Given the gloomy economic picture, Lee called for a second stimulus package on top of the $787 billion stimulus law signed earlier this year by the president.

She rejected the argument that since most of the money in the first package has yet to be spent, it is too early for a second stimulus. "Given the economic disaster workers face, that is not a reason to wait," she declared.

Lee said she "would put state and local spending high in a second stimulus package because it acts quickly and saves jobs quickly and because it helps clients of state and local governments - people who need it the most.

States, unlike the federal government, must balance their budgets every year. Combined, they face a $578 billion deficit, by 2012. Without a second stimulus, Lee noted, there will be severe cuts in the number of police, firefighters and teachers. "These are the cuts that hurt people at the bottom the most," she said. "There are a lot of teachers who taught summer school these past months or who have smaller class sizes now because of that first stimulus."

Almost all the speakers at the conference said a top priority for the second stimulus package should be increased spending on infrastructure including roads, schools, bridges, railroads, airports, broadband and modernization of the electrical grid.

Gov. Ed Rendell, D-Pa., and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., pushed long-range infrastructure projects while Lee emphasized more immediate construction.
"We need 2-year construction projects that can be started tomorrow," she said.
DeLauro urged formation of a National Infrastructure Bank to float billions in bonds for construction.

Lee suggested taking the remaining $200 billion from the bank bailout and putting it into immediate infrastructure repair projects.

She said that the best way of creating a long range boost in demand and ensure that the economy keeps moving is to increase the purchasing power of workers. (Many speakers noted that consumer purchases account for 70 percent of the economy.)

"The best way to boost worker buying power," Lee declared, "is to increase worker bargaining power through labor law reform, specifically passing the Employee Free Choice Act."

Lee said she rejects the argument of "those who claim that the economy is not strong enough to do labor law reform, health care reform, et., etc., etc. I turn that around. How the hell do you think we got into this mess in the first place?

"The crash happened because private enterprise ran amok with no counterveiling check from worker power and because the health insurers are little r3egulated and can raise rates, co-pays and premiums and deny care at will.

"We ended the post-2001 recovery with lower wages than when it started, less health care and anemic growth. We need labor law reform so that workers can gain their fair share of economic output," Lee declared.

Afraid no more: Domestic workers fight back

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:36:00 +0000

She became the child's nanny when the little girl was 18 months old. For the next seven years she nurtured and guided the girl through all the typical milestones of childhood - growing out of and into new clothes, toileting, walking, playing, meeting new friends, pre-kindergarten, first grade and more.

Haitian immigrants don't have a wide variety of employment choices when they arrive in New York - that's how Patricia Francois ended up working as a nanny for the child of a millionaire couple. She hadn't planned on loving someone else's child as if it were her own. That, and her limited employment options, she says, is why she put up with regular beatings she received from the girl's father and with the failure of the girl's mother to intercede on her behalf.

Francois is one of 200,000 nannies and other domestic workers - housekeepers and home health care aides - who serve wealthy families for long hours at low pay in the New York City area.

One day, when the girl was eight years old and the girl's father was again beating Francois, she begged him to stop but then, out of both fear and anger, threatened to call the police. "He then had the nerve to ask me, ‘Do you have the money for a lawyer?' when he knew that I live from paycheck to paycheck," Francois said.

She called the cops anyway but when they arrived she was afraid to file a complaint. "I was with this little girl all her life," she explained. "I couldn't stand her having to see her daddy in handcuffs."

Eventually Francois and thousands of other domestic workers in similar situations got the help they needed by turning to Domestic Workers United, a nine-year-old group of activists categorized as one of many "non-traditional" labor organizations sprouting up all over America. The organization helped get her into a program that assisted in improving her job skills, and it filed a lawsuit on her behalf.

Domestic Workers United has fought for and won $450,000 in back wages that wealthy employers owed to their live-in workers With help from the AFL-CIO, it is close to winning passage in New York state of a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.

For all of these accomplishments it received the Letelier-Moffitt Award on Oct. 15 from the Washington-based Institute for Policies Studies, which also gave the award that same day to a group of Salvadoran workers whose struggles have stopped two multinational corporations from conducting exploitative and environmentally destructive gold mining in that Central American nation.

Domestic Workers United, now a group of 2,300 of the nation's most exploited non-union workers, joins a distinguished list of past winners of the award including AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, Jobs with Justice, and folk singer Pete Seeger.

The awards, which honor human rights crusaders, are named after former Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and his aide Ronnie Moffitt, who were murdered by the secret police of U.S.-backed Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in a 1976 bomb explosion in Washington D.C.

Symbolic of the sweeping changes that have taken place since then was that this year Domestic Workers United received its award at an event where Labor Secretary Hilda Solis was the featured speaker. Solis is the daughter of a domestic worker.

A day before they received their award, members testified at a special Department of Labor hearing where they told their stories.

Bertha Dumuville, a nanny for five years, said, "I did not have bad experiences myself bit I know co-workers who did and who were fearful of losing their jobs or being deported. One family, on top of all her other duties, asked my friend to wash their car. When she didn't, they fired her."

"Another, who came from an agency from my country, St. Lucia [in the Caribbean], was not paid for three weeks - and the family wouldn't let her out of the house," Dumuville said. "When she finally could call the agency, they didn't return her calls."

Delores Wright, a Jamaican who has been a nanny for 21 years, said, "I am not afraid to speak up for my colleagues. Some cannot even eat food in the house they work in though they are there all day. Others work long hours with no overtime pay. And still others can't even get time off to go to the doctor."

Some of the Labor Department officials seemed surprised at the revelations. They took notes and promised further communications.

Domestic Workers United wants the department to put forward federal domestic worker regulations in areas such as meals, time records and sleeping arrangements.

"Like many others, I work in isolation and the working conditions are deplorable," said Lois Newland from Jamaica. "The hours are so long that the pay often works out to 50 cents an hour - far below the minimum wage. Live-in workers are sleeping on the floor or in the garage and have inadequate meals. Many of those who care for the elderly or children often sleep in the same room as the people they care for 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

Labor Department officials admitted that, prior to the arrival of the group from Domestic Workers United, they had known very little about the conditions faced by such workers.

Ai-Jen Poo, the group's founder and organizer, and herself the daughter of Chinese immigrants, says her organization also engages in intensive lobbying which has brought closer than ever the passage of the bill of rights in New York state.

If it becomes law, domestic workers would be covered by the state overtime pay law, would be guaranteed at least one full day off per week, would be covered by the state's anti-discrimination and human rights laws, and even part-time domestic workers would be covered under state disability laws.

"Right now," said Poo, "Some 2 million domestic workers nationwide are exempted as a class from virtually every federal labor law protection. If we pass the bill in New York it could be a model for the rest of the country."

Poo is pleased about the growing cooperation between the mainstream labor movement and non-traditional organizations such as hers.

Domestic Workers United, she said, has joined a coalition of 18 groups operating in 10 cities. She said the AFL-CIO was instrumental in helping build the coalition.

She also said she was excited about the major role the AFL-CIO has played in building for the first-ever international conference of domestic workers which will be held next year in conjunction with meetings of the International Labor Organization.

When she accepted the award for her group, Poo said: "Workers all over this country are facing the same thing as the domestic workers. It's brutal out there for everyone. The good news is that we are building solidarity with one another. The better news is that we're organizing. The best news is that we're going to win a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights and we're going to win passage of the Employee Free Choice Act."

Photo: nyc.indymedia.org/or/2009/09/107252.html

Support the union label on Halloween

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:07:00 +0000

"When those little ghosts and goblins come collecting on Halloween," a leading labor journalist declared on Oct. 21, "make sure you have a full supply of union made goodies to hand out."

Clarifying his statement further, International Labor Communications Association Vice President Randy Lyman, a member of the Service Employees International Union, said, "No, not our latest flyers on the economic crisis. We mean candies made by union workers."

Asked to list some of his personal favorites, Lyman mentioned Jelly Bellies, Red Vines, Sunkist Fruit Gel Slices, Abbazabbz and Sweethearts, which he described as "those crunchy little hearts with sweet nothings stamped into them."

Researchers at the Peoples World turned up a larger list of union-made goodies, however, including Snickers, Skittles, M&Ms, Butterfingers, Kit Kats, Twix, Mound's, Almond Joy, Nestles Crunch, Milky Way, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

UnionPlus has issued comprehensive lists of candy products made by members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, snack foods made by members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and fruits and nuts packaged by members of the United Farm Workers of America.

"Please support our union brothers and sisters when you shop for Halloween treats this year," Lyman urged.

Nurses ready to strike over swine flu safety

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:41:00 +0000

“When nurses are exposed to tuberculosis, the hospital notifies us. When nurses are exposed to head lice, the hospital notifies us. Why then are we not told when we are exposed to H1N1? Staff need to know if they have been exposed in order to keep our patients from further unnecessary exposure,” said Carol Koelle, an RN at St. Bernardine Medical Center in San Bernardino, Calif.

“We can’t get enough masks, patients are not being properly isolated, and nurses are not informed of the latest guidelines. Last time I worked it took me more than four hours to get masks when we ran out. If we don’t put the proper precautions in place now before flu season peaks we will be in serious trouble,” said Kathy Dennis, a registered nurse at Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento.

These concerns, voiced by nurses this week, follow months of warnings by the nation’s RNs about inadequate swine flu hospital safeguards. In California alone, more than 3,000 people have been hospitalized and over 200 have died, including a nurse infected on the job.

Some 16,000 registered nurses from three large Catholic hospital chains in California and Nevada will do more than just continue their warnings this weekend when they stage a one day strike and picket Oct. 30 to dramatize the lack of readiness by hospitals to confront the swine flu pandemic.

The strike will affect hospitals throughout California from San Bernardino and Long Beach in the south to Eureka and Redding in the north, and include major facilities in Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, Bakersfield, Stockton and the Central Coast. Nurses will also picket major facilities in Las Vegas and Reno, Nev.

Nurses at almost all the hospitals involved agree with Koelle and Dennis that hospitals are doing a poor job at isolating patients with swine flu symptoms and are not taking other steps necessary to limit contagion, including provision of masks and safety gear for workers and patients.

As late as last week the Centers for Disease Control confirmed that it had re-issued guidelines for isolation and safety equipment and had urged hospitals to stop encouraging employees to work when sick, another problem cited by many nurses.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration confirmed, also last week, that it plans to issue a compliance directive to ensure uniform procedures “to identify and minimize or eliminate high to very high risk occupational exposures” to H1N1.

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee issued a statement Oct. 19 urging incorporation of all CDC and OSHA guidelines into its existing contracts with hospitals.

In August CNA/NNOC released the findings of a survey of 190 hospitals in the U.S. where nurses cited major problems with poor segregation of patients, lack of sufficient masks, numerous cases where nurses were infected, inadequate training and punitive sick leave policies. The union says that substantial problems remain all over the country.

Making the swine flu issue even more serious, many nurses say, is the failure of hospitals to assure proper staffing.

“Our hospitals are not adhering to the safe staffing ratios law,” said Allen Fitzpatrick, a nurse who works at St. Mary’s Medical Center in San Francisco. “Nurses are being harassed by supervisors to accept unsafe assignments and not to take any breaks. Bedside nurses are busy enough trying to provide care to our patients. We need someone to stand up for safe RN-to-patient staffing.”

“We have a comprehensive staffing proposal on the table because no matter how much care a patient requires our hospital won’t add nurses and has eliminated our aides,” said Susan Johnson, an Obstetrics RN at St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka. “We work 12 hour shifts, often without a break, and are assigned to work outside our area of expertise. We have proposed a break relief nurse on every unit and a safe “floating” policy, all essential patient care protections.”

Additionally, the RN’s are insisting that hospitals stop their efforts to reduce healthcare benefits by shifting more costs to nurses and reducing coverage options. In some cases, hospitals are also demanding a wage freeze.

“As nurses, we see the consequences when employers reduce coverage, it’s disgraceful to see our hospitals taking the same step,” said Debra Amour, a registered nurse at Seton Medical Center in Daly City.

(Photo: AP)

Labor coalition pushes for financial reform

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:48:00 +0000

CHICAGO - Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition of almost all the nation's unions and more than 200 other organizations, is stepping up efforts this week to push for strong re-regulation of the finance industry.
They will descend on the Oct. 25-27 convention of the American Bankers Association here and "It'll be a wild fight ahead," says Heather Booth, the coalition's director.

Labor and its allies are supporting a financial reform package unveiled by President Obama earlier this year, in response to last September's financial collapse, which worsened sharply the recession that was then already nine months old.

The president's package is designed to curb some of the financial practices that led to the crash and to the subsequent onslaught of joblessness and foreclosures.
A key part of the Obama package, as far as the coalition is concerned, is the establishment of a new Consumer Finance Protection Agency that would have the power to stop bankers, brokers, derivative traders and hedge fund managers from repeating practices that the coalition says "pushed the economy into the dumpster, and threw millions out of work or into foreclosure or both."

Creation of such a consumer protection agency is fiercely opposed by the banking and securities lobbies but public opinion is on the side of tougher regulation of the finance industry.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka denounced the financiers in a rousing speech this month on Wall Street. Change-to-Win Chair Anna Burger did the same when she testified, also earlier this month, before the House Financial Services Committee. The committee began its own deliberations on the issue of financial re-regulation last week.

"We can begin to address the irresponsible practices of the banks and the others that led to the financial collapse," Booth said in a phone interview. "Voices for new transparency and regulation have strong support among the American public. They want their representatives to stand up to the big banks."

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., was one of the few lawmakers who resisted ten years ago when a bipartisan consensus steamrolled financial deregulation through a then-GOP-run Congress. He warned last week that "financial regulation is critical because the financiers are repeating all their excesses."

Dorgan wrote a much ignored magazine article in 1994 in which he predicted that financial disaster would be the result of deregulation, particularly rules that permitted the sales of derivatives and other "financial gimmicks."
At a meeting of the New America Foundation, one of the groups in the coalition, Dorgan said, "We've extended something like $11 trillion or $12 trillion of taxpayer dollars to right Wall Street since last September, preventing the system from collapsing. But the culture that produced the crash remains the same and must be changed, reined in or both.

"Business is not what it used to be and the financial wreckage has put us in great peril," he said, as he discussed the de-regulation laws pushed through in 1999. The laws were pushed by the GOP but supported by then-President Clinton and his Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin.

In his speech Dorgan said things happened that should have alerted the government to the crash before things finally came to a head last fall.
"Ads appeared with messages like ‘even if your credit's in the tank, we specialize in getting you the money you need,'" he said.

Then, he said, there was an explosion in the amount of securities backed only by other pieces of paper. Faced with this, the Federal Reserve and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, agencies that had the responsibility to act, "instead looked the other way."

Then, he said, came "the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market that triggered the fall of the rest of the financial dominoes."

Dorgan said that radical steps must now be taken.
He called upon the Obama administration to move against "the large institutions that conventional wisdom says are too big to fail.

"Those insitutions include JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citibank - all recipients of the federal bailout funds last September. Those insitutions and others just announced a record $140 billion in bonuses. Some of it, I'm sure, went to people who got us into this mess."

He advocated, as has the AFL-CIO, regulations that would totally separate retail banking from investment banking, as was the case from the time of the New Deal until 1999.
"The retail bankers, most of them small, are relatively safer," Dorgan said. "Investment bankers got us in the soup. The collapse was the result of unbelievable ignorance and greed."

Dorgan emphasized that "all trades involving derivatives and all other financial instruments must be open and transparent, as stock trading is supposed to be."

Young workers are the future of America, says new labor official

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:37:00 +0000

Speaking at the “A Better Deal 2009” Demos conference Oct. 15, Liz Shuler, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer, said fixing the economic crisis and the future of America depends on the leadership and active involvement of young people.

Shuler, 39, the youngest person ever elected as secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, said she is making it her personal mission to engage young people to become new leaders in the U.S. labor movement.

Shuler’s remarks highlighted the fight for new “green” union jobs with benefits, financial reform, health care, student loans and passing the Employee Free Choice Act. She stressed the way out of the economic crisis facing so many these days will be based on fundamentally rebuilding the nations economy so it works for young workers and future generations.

“I don’t need to tell you that we’re in an economic crisis,” said Shuler. “Your generation is living it,” she told the young crowd.

Shuler noted the economic crisis exposes the bankruptcy of ideas that have prevailed for a generation or more, which were built to work only for the wealthy.

Profit-driven corporations and speculators who end up begging for bailouts lead the failed economy, she said.

What we have now is the best opportunity to create a new economy that works for young people and all who work for a living, she said.

“And when crisis comes, it’s young people who drive change,” added Shuler.

Shuler noted it was young people who lead the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, women’s equal rights, the environmental justice struggle and the rights of the LGBT community. She said Martin Luther King Jr. was 26 years old when he led the Montgomery bus boycott and Cesar Chavez was only 25 when he registered Mexican Americans to vote. It was Walter Reuther who headed the strikes at age 30 demanding GM recognize workers’ rights and Elizabeth Cady Stanton was only 33 when she drafted the declaration of women’s rights, said Shuler.

“When the labor movement really grows, it’s because of young people and America needs you,” said Shuler.

Job security, health care security and retirement security are all very important issues to young people today and their future, said Shuler.

In the last 10 years, young workers have suffered disproportionately due to the downturn in the economy, she said.

One in three young workers is worried about being able to find a job, let alone a full-time job with benefits, said Shuler.

She pointed out that only 31 percent make enough money to cover their bills and put some aside – 22 percentage points worse than it was 10 years ago. Shuler said 31 percent are uninsured, up from 24 percent 10 years ago and nearly half worry about having more debt than they could handle. Less than half have retirement plans at work and one in three still lives at home with their parents.

Shuler said, “it was a union job that put me on the path to a better life and future.”

“My job now is to make sure the labor movement makes a difference in the lives of your generation – for students, for young workers and for young activists looking to build the kind of country you want to live in,” she said.

Shuler said today’s young people are facing an economic crisis that has resulted from a 30-year experiment in corporate greed, irresponsibility, deregulation and the dismembering of the social contract. This mess all started with the assault on workers’ essential freedom to bargain for a better life, she said.

The anti-government era of deregulation began with Ronald Reagan that imposed privatization and the refusal to invest in infrastructure and communities. Small government policies were responsible for sending good U.S. jobs overseas, notes Shuler, and globalization was designed only to grow corporate profits.

“When unions are strong, paychecks grow and workers have benefits like health care and pensions. When unions are under attack, paychecks shrink. Pensions vanish and health care becomes the emergency room,” said Shuler.

Despite the reality of these issues it’s young people who emerged as new voters to turn the country around following the 2008 election of Barack Obama, said Shuler.

Today young people are becoming well-informed and are following government and policy news, she said.

Young people “believe in collective action, and understand the power of having a union,” she said. “You have hope for the future, and the vision of a savvy, diverse movement to bring about progressive change.”

“We must create a new national economic strategy for a globalized world – with rules that reflect the priority we place on workers and the environment, here in the U.S. and everywhere,” said Shuler.

Next steps and the first five items on my priority list are, “JOBS, JOBS, JOBS, JOBS and JOBS,” she said.

We also need to win the fight on Capitol Hill for comprehensive health care reform that includes a strong public option in order to control costs and end abusive insurance company practices, said Shuler.

“No one in America should go without health care,” she said. “No one should choose between food and medicine.”

Student loan reform and making higher education accessible and affordable is also a must that includes increasing Pell Grants, cutting the wasteful subsidies to student loan companies and expanding the Perkins loan programs, noted Shuler.

Shuler urged young people to get active in coalitions of community, student, environmental, faith and civil rights organizations that offer great opportunities to win change at every level.

“The AFL-CIO has the strength of 11 and half million members and our strength brings a unique asset: We are everywhere,” said Shuler.

And young people need to know they have a partner in the labor movement, she said.

“Our commitment is to social and economic justice for all.”

Following her remarks, Shuler took questions from the audience who wanted to know what the union movement had to offer on issues of racial equality, education, training and apprenticeships for young people entering the job market. Members of the audience wanted to know how the union engages with low-income communities.

Shuler encouraged those who don’t have a union to stay active with politics in 2010 as they were in 2008 – and to join Working America, the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate.

The conference was organized by Demos, an advocacy organization that focused on building a fairer economy for youth and young workers. The event was sponsored by a variety of groups.

(Photo courtesy AFLCIO.org)

Houston janitors rally for union contract

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:24:00 +0000

HOUSTON - About 1,500 janitors, labor activists and supporters gathered for a "contract convention" on Oct. 10 here. The meeting was exuberant with a number of rousing speeches in Spanish and English. Following the meeting was a spirited march to the Williams Tower office building, about two miles away.

There was a great show of union solidarity with members of the American Federation of Teachers, AFSCME, United Auto Workers, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Houston Organization of Public Employees, as well as, the Harris County AFL-CIO all present.

Service Employees International Union activists from Chicago were also present and provided a great deal of support. SEIU represents 3,200 janitors in Houston. The contracts are due to expire on Nov. 20 and the union is seeking to reopen negotiations.

Richard Shaw, secretary-treasurer of the Harris County AFL-CIO, addressed the crowd, "I want to congratulate you, you got a union, you got a contract, got some health care.

"You're here today because you care about each other and you want a new contract."

He continued, "The AFL-CIO was there on your first march ... we were on the street with you when you were fighting for your first contract ... the unions of AFL-CIO have been behind you all the way."

Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, gave a rousing speech in which she urged people to "continue the fight to organize." She expressed her opposition to the legislation seeking to tax health benefits. She urged people to support President Obama's efforts to "fight for health care for all Americans. That is, everyone who lives and works in this country."

A slide show outlined workers' "top priorities," like, "win fair wage increase, protect and improve our health care, strengthen contract language to guarantee maximum hours."

The janitors have been subjected to oppression in their organizing drives in New Orleans and Houston. Police have used horses to intimidate marchers in both cities, injuring janitors.

Other dignitaries present included Houston City Councilwoman Jolanda Jones and mayoral candidate Annise Parker. There was a video message of support from Rep. Al Green, D-Texas.

SEIU led a month long strike in Houston three years ago over the right to form a union and to engage in collective bargaining. Labor agreements were reached with office buildings that house some of the richest corporations in the world.

Prior to the contract reached three years ago, Houston janitors made about $20 per day and had no benefits for health care or retirement. They are now making $7.75 per hour.

Janitors today are demanding increased wages and benefits so that workers can have a better life and contribute fully to the local economy. When workers are forced to live in abject poverty they are less able to contribute to the local economy. This severely weakens the Houston economy, local labor activists say.

Archbishop Emeritus of Houston Joseph Fiorenza also backed the rally. He said, "Whatever shape the economy might be in, people of good will are still called upon to ensure the well-being of every member of our community - especially the poor and vulnerable...This fall, janitors again will sit down with their employers to negotiate terms which, I pray, will ensure justice for all. Again we will be faced with a moral test...As people of faith, we know what our answer cannot be. It cannot be, we can love our neighbors 'if unemployment is low, and the stock market is above 10,000,' or 'but I can find somebody else to do the job for peanuts'...A weak economy is no excuse. Houston's wealthy building owners and cleaning contractors have the means to do what is right in the eyes of our Lord."

Many other organizations were there to provide support and express solidarity to include CRECEN, America Para Todos, and LULAC. In all there were 70 organizations supporting the effort.

Fired workers say, ‘Not so fast!’

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:47:00 +0000

Companies that terminate workers in questionable ways are finding themselves in court, facing not just the employees they terminate but also the unions that represent them.

Five Chicago bus drivers are learning first hand the importance of the court battles as they fight to get their jobs back. They were fired for allegedly failing criminal background checks without a chance, as the law requires, to defend their records.

Elizabeth Hunter, William Garraughty, Michael Yurkowski and Debbie Goin have gone to court where they are being represented by their union, the Amalgamated Transit Union.

The five bus drivers filed a class action suit, through the ATU, on Oct. 5 in U.S. District Court. The union says two school bus firms, First Student and First Transit, fired them illegally because they were not given a chance to contest allegations by an outside background check agency that they had criminal records.

Union President Warren S, George said that "under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, employers must notify employees of any adverse actions anticipated as a result of a background check and give employees a reasonable opportunity to dispute the accuracy of the information.

"First Group has been trampling the rights of workers," said George. "That's why the ATU has retained counsel to represent the legal rights of not just our members but all employees and job applicants at the company."

While the Chicago case is a new one there have been numerous recent decisions by courts on a wide variety of worker rights issues all over the country.

A ruling that unions see as possibly having major implications nationally, was handed down in Eugene, Ore.

Nine years ago, Suzi Prozanski, former president of the Newspaper Guild in Eugene, sent two union related e-mails to her union colleagues on company computers when she was a copy editor at the Register-Guard. The newspaper disciplined her, arguing that it alone was entitled to control e-mail messages.

Years later the GOP Bush-appointed majority on the National Labor Relations Board agreed but, on appeal, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. did not.

The appeals judges favored Prozanski because, they said, the company had not been following its own rules by allowing workers to send out all kinds of non job-related e-mails. It was wrong, the judges said, to enforce policy only against the union.

The court said: "Throughout the relevant time period, the Register-Guard was aware employees also used e-mail to send and receive personal messages, e-mails such as baby announcements, party invitations, and the occasional offer of sports tickets or requests for services such as dog walking." No workers were disciplined for any of those e-mails, the court noted.

Disabled workers figure prominently among those often forced to take their employers to court.

Such was the case with Kris Indergard, a 22 year veteran worker at Georgia-Pacific, also in Oregon.

Indergard had to have extensive knee surgery in 2003 after an on-the-job injury and was out of work for two years.

Before allowing her to return as either a napkin operator or a napkin adjuster in its mill, the company, according to Indegard's court testimony, gave her an extensive "physical competency exam" including stress tests, lifting 45-lb. bags of sand from the floor to the table, kneeling, squatting and crawling. She failed the test and the company, claiming it had no "alternative" positions for her, fired her in 2006.

She sued, claiming the exam was illegal and in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act because it tested her ability to perform tasks that were not job-related. Indergard lost in lower courts but won in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The ruling read, in part: "Physical agility tests must be given to all similarly situated applicants or employees regardless of disability. If the test screens out or tends to screen out an individual with a disability the employer would have to demonstrate the test is job related and consistent with business necessity and that performance cannot be achieved with reasonable accommodation."

In a victory for women's rights, another court ruled recently that it is illegal to pass over a female officer for promotion simply because she is a woman.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the police department in Royal Oak, Mich. did precisely that.

The department has 14 women among its 60 members and one woman among its 16 supervisors. The judges said that the department illegally passed over Karyn Risch for a promotion three times in five years.

Risch's 17 years on the force placed her ahead of male applicants for openings as lieutenant and detective, even though she finished slightly behind them on tests. The department chief passed over her three times.

During the trial she showed how that move hurt not only her but convinced other female officers not to try for promotions.

The appellate judges ruled in her favor and sent the case back down to lower courts for retrial under federal discrimination laws.
Their ruling read, in part: "Evidence that the plaintiff was more qualified than the successful applicant can in some circumstances be sufficient to raise a genuine issue of material fact."

A recent court ruling in Missouri ended in victory for an older worker.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said, essentially, that a company was wrong to fire an older supervisor because she refused to fire older workers whom she supervised. The court called it a violation of federal age discrimination laws.

Administrators at the Silver Oak nursing home in Nevada, Mo. fired Kathy Baker, 53, in 2005 because she refused to fire some of the older workers in her department.

Baker testified that administrators had told her the company needed people who were "young and vivacious," not "slow and old." and that Baker needed to "get rid of the dead wood." They also told her, Baker testified, that she should change her own appearance, saying Baker "dressed like an old lady."

When she refused to fire the other older workers, Baker, herself, was terminated. A lower court supported the company but the appeals court, on Sept. 14, ruled that Baker had been fired illegally and ordered a new trial for her.

PAI contributed to this article.

AP photo

Quilt dramatizes housekeepers’ stories

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:16:00 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO - Held aloft by hotel workers and community supporters, the Hope Quilt stretched down the block from the Grand Hyatt hotel's entrance on a sunny October afternoon. Its colorful squares carried the stories of the housekeepers - mostly women - who clean and prepare the country's myriad hotel rooms every day and the struggles they face as they lift heavy mattresses and cope with growing mounds of fancy bedding, often suffering crippling injuries in the process.

Though San Francisco hotel workers and their union, Unite Here Local 2, are negotiating with several hotel chains for a new citywide contract covering some 9,000 workers, hundreds of them gathered at the Grand Hyatt Oct. 7 for a reason.

"At our daily morning meeting Aug. 31 they told us to come to a mandatory meeting that afternoon," Gisela Romero, a former housekeeper at the Hyatt Harborside at Boston's Logan Airport, told the World. "There, the general manager and other managers said that because the economy was so bad, they were eliminating the entire housekeeping department. We said, you can't do that! Everyone started to cry; a pregnant woman almost collapsed."

Earlier in the summer, Romero said, the hotel chain had told housekeepers at three Boston-area Hyatts to start training workers the hotel had contracted through Hospitality Staffing Solutions of Georgia. Management said the new workers would be their vacation replacements.

Then 98 workers - non-union and mostly immigrant women - discovered their jobs, paying up to $16/hour, were being taken over by workers paid half that much.

Though Unite Here has no contracts with Boston-area Hyatts, it immediately offered help, organizing demonstrations in Boston and Chicago. Other Boston unions, and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, declared their support for the workers.

Hyatt later offered the housekeepers jobs with another staffing company at their old rate of pay through the end of next year, or six months of job retraining. But the workers overwhelmingly turned the offers down, and now the union is calling for a nationwide boycott of the chain.

As Romero and other former Boston Hyatt housekeepers told their stories, a wave of support arose from their San Francisco brothers and sisters, who before winning their last citywide contract in 2006, experienced two years of difficult negotiations, a two-week strike, 53 days of employer lockout, and a union boycott.

The crowd also heard from workers at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara in the South Bay, who are seeking to organize with Unite Here.

The Hope Quilt symbolizes Unite Here's Hope for Housekeepers campaign, initiated by Hyatt housekeepers across the country to stop the abuse of women in the hotel industry, including job insecurity, excessive workloads and the rampant incidence of work-related injuries. During the rally, San Francisco housekeepers added their squares, and their stories, to the quilt which is growing rapidly as it tours seven cities, from Long Beach, Calif. to Chicago