People Before Profit blog

Oklahoma honors labor culture

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:40:00 +0000

The Central Labor Council of Oklahoma set a high cultural standard for the Southwestern states by holding its Laborfest in downtown Oklahoma City August 26-28. Brad Walker, an unemployed Jobs with Justice activist, drove 200 miles from Dallas for it, and was then surprised to meet two union sisters who had made the nearly 500 mile trip from Houston! Walker said, "It was worth it!" He'd be pleased to go again next year.

The festival was a first effort dedicated "to showing Oklahomans the rich history and future of the labor movement in our state." Indeed, Oklahomans have bragging rights. The statehood convention in 1907 proudly claimed that 70 percent of their constitution came directly from the American Federation of Labor. Corporations were prohibited under the first constitution. Their state motto, "Labor omnia vincet," means "Labor conquers all"!

A high point of the event, Walker says, was dramatic readings from Oklahoma writers interspersed with music by Oklahoman Woody Guthrie and others. The Red Dirt Rangers band was the star music attraction. In one of America's greatest literary works, "The Grapes of Wrath," John Steinbeck wrote that a large part of Oklahoma was made of red dirt, and the rest black. Steinbeck and mega-personality Will Rogers were featured in the dramatic readings. So were many notes from labor history that were accumulated when Oklahoma pulp fiction writer Jim Thompson (famous recently for the movie "The Killer Inside Me") headed the Oklahoma Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the last great economic crisis.

At least one of the presenters of dramatic Oklahoma readings has a big labor reputation nationwide. The Utility Workers' Stewart Acuff played a high-profile part in the Oklahoma Laborfest.

Photo: Dramatic readings from Oklahoma Labor History, alternating with the music of Woody Guthrie and others, were a high point of the Oklahoma Laborfest. (Stuart E., used with permission of the photographer)

Disabled workers suffer more, Labor Department says

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:12:00 +0000

Workers with disabilities face higher unemployment, earn less income, and are more likely to be forced to work part-time, says the first-ever report on the subject by the U.S. government. The study, released Aug. 25, was done by Hilda Solis's Labor Department.

Over 27 million workers in the U.S. are disabled. It is one of the largest sections of the working class facing special discrimination and needs.

Close to 40 million people in the U. S. live with a disability.

With one in every five Americans confronting a physical challenge, the disabled population comprise the nation's single largest minority group All disabled persons, regardless of income, confront unique forms of discrimination.

While unemployment hovers at 9.5 percent and threatens to go higher, over 14 percent of disabled workers are jobless, the same level as for workers without a high school degree. When part-time workers and those who have given up looking for employment are added, the percentage is much higher, reaching levels not seen since the Great Depression.

Unsurprisingly, racism adds a sharp edge to the problem. "As is the case among those without a disability, the unemployment rates in 2009 for those with a disability were higher among blacks (22.1 percent) and Hispanics (19.0 percent) than among whites (13.3 percent) and Asians (11.6 percent)," the report says.

Among full-time workers, the disabled make less than other full-time workers according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Fifty-six percent of full-time workers with disability earn less then $750 a week, versus 50 percent of workers without disabilities.

However, disabled workers also confront a sub-minimum wage sanctioned by the government allegedly to promote greater employment. Goodwill Industries is one of the largest employers to pay workers less than the minimum wage, at times under $1.50 an hour.

Describing one such situation, the Cedar Rapids based GazetteOnline reports: "Faith Millburn earns about $1.25 an hour working for Goodwill. She knows that's less than minimum wage, and she thinks it's fair. The 21-year-old with cerebral palsy, who on Thursday was typing labels at Goodwill of the Heartland in Iowa City, is at the center of a complex debate over what to pay people with disabilities for their work."

According to GazetteOnline, the sub-minimum wage is determined as each "organization measures how much work the average able-bodied worker can complete in an hour and then times its disabled employee and pays him or her according to productivity. Sometimes employees are paid according to the number of tasks performed, instead of hourly."

A former employee of Goodwill says the wage is grossly unfair. "I can assure you", he writes, "these wages ARE taking advantage of persons with disabilities. These ‘timings' are done every so often and are based solely on productivity."

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has threatened to hold hearings on the sub-mininmum wages. Harkin chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

The Obama administration has actively promoted disabled rights and has directed government agencies to take special measures for hiring, including timetables. The Washington Post reports, "President Obama signed an executive order last month ordering the government to hire more disabled people, and the Office of Management and Budget will provide tips to agencies on how to do so by November. The Labor Department also may force government contractors to set similar goals for hiring disabled workers."

Art Perlo contributed to this story.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/generativecontent/3622435331/ cc 2.0

Retirement home residents rally for workers

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:35:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. - Their hair is gray. Some use walkers, others carry canes. But that didn't stop dozens of residents of the Piedmont Gardens retirement community from coming out to clap, cheer and sing as they rallied outside the complex Aug. 27 to declare their support for 38 workers "replaced" during a long-running contract dispute.

"We, the residents of Piedmont Gardens, are here this evening to support you, the employees who have been replaced - really, fired," Dorothy Rice, a four-year resident, and current president of the Independent Residents' Council, told the gathering. "We know in our hearts that you are a very caring, very devoted and very hardworking group of people. It's unfair and inhumane that you have been prevented from coming back to work."

As residents and displaced workers alternated at the mike, one woman resident said it all: "Piedmont Gardens is our home, and everyone who lives or works here is part of a giant family. That family has now been separated. We feel very badly about that."

Thanking the residents for their support, Gloria McNeal, a certified nursing assistant at Piedmont Gardens for 21 years, told them, "We love you all. We miss you and think about you every day." The firings didn't just happen abruptly, she said, but followed prolonged problems with the administration. "We had a lot more people out before us," McNeal said. "We are working hard for them to come back, as well."

Neighbors joined in, too. Michael Scollard, a dentist whose office is across the street, said he has treated Piedmont Gardens residents for 30 years. "I've seen how hard these people work," he said. "I've seen them do the tasks that most relatives would never want to do. It really gratifies me to see all these residents come out."

The workers' union, United Healthcare Workers West, SEIU, has been in contract negotiations since February with American Baptist Homes of the West, which operates 33 retirement facilities serving some 4,700 residents in four states. The workers have been without a contract since April.

Earlier this month, after talks stalled, about 150 workers struck for five days. When they returned, 38 of the strikers, including the whole bargaining committee, were told they were being replaced. An attorney for ABHOW claimed the replacements were not permanent, but there was "no place" for the workers at present.

Union steward and bargaining committee member Sheila Nelson, a janitor at Piedmont Gardens, told the People's World that while health care and pensions are on the table, the biggest issue is job security for workers cited for disciplinary issues, including "unilateral changes in treatment over union activity. We felt like our forebears fought for us to have these rights under law," she said.

The union has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the dispute.

Piedmont Gardens and its sister facility in Oakland, Grand Lake Gardens, are the only two unionized ABHOW facilities, Nelson said. Other workers and residents have said they feel the management would like to break the union.

Residents have already conducted a letter writing campaign, and several participated in earlier protests in Oakland and in Pleasanton, where ABHOW is headquartered.

If last week's vigil is any sign, management is going to hear more, from a group of residents far from retired as activists.

Photo: Dorothy Rice, left, president of the Independent Residents' Council, listens as certified nursing assistant Gloria McNeal addresses the crowd. (PW/Marilyn Bechtel)

Muslim worker asks federal probe of Disney discrimination

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:56:00 +0000

ANAHEIM, Calif. (PAI) - The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has been asked to probe the Disney Company's discrimination against a Muslim woman worker - a Unite Here member - just two weeks after the agency settled a complaint of discrimination by 165 Muslim workers, all Machinists, in Minnesota.

Imane Boudlal, a front-desk hostess at Storyteller's Café in Disney's Grand Californian Hotel and Spa at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., asked permission, two months before the Moslem holy month of Ramadan began on Aug. 15, to wear a white hijab, a traditional Islamic head covering, during the holy month.

The white hijab would have matched the uniform Disney makes restaurant workers wear. But Disney refused, Unite Here Local 11 reported. First the company offered to send Boudlal - hijab and all - to a backroom position. Then it tried to get her to wear a large hat. Disney then sent her home for without pay each of seven consecutive days, before suspending her without pay. She filed a complaint with the EEOC on Aug. 18.

Disney said Boudlal's hat could go on top of a bonnet, but it said the hijab does not meet "The Disney Look." After trying on the hat, Boudlal, a naturalized U.S. citizen who has worked at the restaurant for two years, told managers it fails religiously.

"The hat makes a joke of me and my religion, and draws even more attention to me," Boudlal told Unite Here's website. "It's unacceptable. They don't want me to look Muslim. They just don't want the head covering to look like a hijab."

"I don't understand why I cannot wear my white scarf (hijab) that already matches my restaurant uniform, and be left to do my job," she said. "My scarf doesn't do anything to harm Disney or the guests."

Boudlal may get a sympathetic ear at the EEOC, the agency charged with investigating racial, religious and sexual discrimination on the job, and resolving conflicts if it can. On Aug. 6, the EEOC solved a complaint of religious discrimination involving Ramadan, and the 165 Muslim Machinists at the Electrolux plant in St. Cloud, Minn.

The Machinists union represents the 1,400 workers there. Before Ramadan, the Muslim workers asked Electrolux to adjust its schedule and rules for on-site meals to allow them to observe the holy month, when Muslims fast from sunup to sundown daily.

Electrolux started discussing the issue with its Machinists local. But with Ramadan fast approaching, the workers went to the EEOC.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which EEOC helps enforce, "requires employers to attempt to make reasonable accommodations to sincerely held religious beliefs of employees as long as this poses no undue hardship to the employer," the agency said.

Electrolux had introduced a new health and safety policy that barred food from plant production areas. The firm altered break times for the plant's evening shift so the Muslim workers on that shift could break their fast, but that didn't work, either.

"Electrolux agreed to further modify the adjusted break time schedule during the entire month of Ramadan," the EEOC reported. "The adjusted meal break schedule allows Muslim employees to pray and break their Ramadan fasts shortly after sunset in a safe environment, away from the production area." The firm will also train St. Cloud workers in religious accommodation requirements.

Photo: Imane Boudlal, left, in her personal headscarf. On the right is Disney's proposed substitute.

Palin is new Joe McCarthy, says AFL-CIO Trumka

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:54:00 +0000

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, speaking at a labor gathering in Alaska, said Sarah Palin's radical right rhetoric is "poisonous, dangerous and strikes of McCarthyism."

In a speech Aug. 26 to the Alaska AFL-CIO, he said that in a charged political environment, "her kind of talk gets dangerous. 'Don't retreat, reload' may seem clever, the kind of bull you hear all the time, but put it in context. She's using crosshairs to illustrate targeted legislators. She's on the wrong side of the line there."

Trumka's criticism followed by one day the victory of Palin's choice, lawyer Joe Miller, over incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Palin's support for the Tea Party was seen as a continuation of the feud she began when she beat Murkowski's father, Frank, the incumbent governor in an earlier GOP primary.

Miller, Palin's choice, has come out against any government-provided benefits for the unemployed and has called for the privatization of both Social Security and Medicare.

Trumka came down hard on Palin for quitting as governor of Alaska last year:

"What is this crazy magnet that's pulling people to the right?" Trumka asked. "Look at your former governor. Who is she, anyway? Sarah Palin? She used to have a job, your governor. You knew her. Or thought you did," Trumka said. "I know I thought I did. She seemed like a decent person. An outdoorswoman. Her husband's a Steelworker. She seemed to take some OK stands for working families.

"And then things got weird. After she tied herself to John McCain and they lost, she blew off Alaska. I think Sarah Palin quit so she wouldn't have a record that could be scrutinized.

"Instead, she's hanging out on cable TV, almost a parody of herself, coming out with conspiracy theories about President Obama and his 'death panels.' Then she goes to Texas and talks about 'union thugs.' What? Her husband's a union man. Is she calling him a thug?"

"That's the dangerous rhetoric that McCarthy, the late GOP senator from Wisconsin, who served from 1949 through the mid-50s, also engaged in," Trumka said.

"Using that term 'union thug.' That's poisonous. There's history behind that rhetoric That's how bosses and politicians in decades past justified the terrorizing of workers, the murdering of organizers."

McCarthy, to whom Trumka referred, waved sheets of papers during speeches before Congress that he often said contained lists of Communists who had allegedly infiltrated government and unions. Though none of his charges were ever proven, he succeeded in ruining many reputations and lives.

Palin responded to Trumka on Facebook and Twitter by, essentially, dodging the issues he raised altogether. She said "Rich is understandably upset" because of the state of the economy and called on her "union brothers and sisters" to join "our commonsense movement."

Unions across the country have repeatedly rejected Palin's attempts to pass herself off as pro-labor.

The Mineworkers castigated her earlier this month, for example, for supporting Tea Party leader Rand Paul in his Senate bid in Kentucky. They reminded miners in that state how the Palin-endorsed Paul had said "accidents happen" as he declared his opposition to federal government involvement in regulating mine health and safety.

"People need to come to the table in good faith," Trumka declared. But that's not Sarah Palin. She'll go down in history like McCarthy. Palinism will become an ugly word."

Photo: AFL-CIO solidarity march in Anchorage, Alaska, before Richard Trumka's speech. (ProgressiveAlaska)

Disney worker rejects employer’s substitute hijab

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:57:00 +0000

ANAHEIM, Calif. - The Muslim restaurant hostess whom Disney has prohibited from wearing her hijab, a religious head scarf, while at work has rejected as "offensive" what the entertainment giant describes as an attempt to accommodate her.

The hostess has been sent home from work without pay seven times since Aug. 15 when, just days after the Islamic holy month of Ramadan began, Imane Boudlal, 26, wore her hijab to work. She was offered a choice between working in a location out of view of customers or going home.

Boudlal had tried for two months to reach an accommodation with the company, which said it was considering her request for a "religious accommodation," requests Disney says it considers.

Disney officials yesterday offered Boudlal a hat to wear on top of a bonnet in place of her own white headscarf that the company has said doesn't meet the "Disney look."

After trying on the new uniform, Boudlal told her managers it does not meet her religious needs. Boudlal said she found the hat embarrassing, especially because she would be the only restaurant employee forced to wear it.

"The hat makes a joke of me and my religion, and draws even more attention to me," Boudlal said. "It's unacceptable."

"They don't want me to look like a Muslim," Boudlal continued. "They just don't want the head covering to look like a hijab."

Workers at Disney are represented by the union, Unite Here, Local 11, which is backing Boudlal in her fight.

"This is an important fight for all workers, regardless of their religious beliefs or background," said Leigh Shelton, a union spokesperson. "For all workers, human rights are not something that should be checked at the door. On the job, we all still have our human rights."

Shelton blasted Disney for what she called "hypocrisy."

"They boast about how they support inclusiveness and encourage of cultural diversity with all their 'It's a Small World After All' stuff and then they turn around and deny this young woman her right to wear her head scarf."

For Boudlal, the battle began more than two months ago when she requested a "religious accommodation" to the company's dress rules. She wanted to have the issue settled so she could wear the scarf during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and beyond.

Only after Disney stalled for two months did she arrive at work on Aug.15, wearing the head scarf.

Boudlal said she learned about her rights while studying to take an exam for American citizenship, which she passed, before she became a U.S. citizen in June.

"I realized the Constitution tells me I can be a Muslim, and I can wear the head scarf," she said.

"I don't understand why I cannot wear my white head scarf that already matches my restaurant uniform, and be left to do my job," said Boudlal. "My scarf doesn't do anything to harm Disney or the guests."

Boudlal has filed a discrimination complaint against Disney with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Photo: Imane Boudlal, left, in her personal head scarf and next to her is Disney's proposed substitute.

Union delegates resolve to build record voter turnout

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:02:00 +0000

HARTFORD, Conn. -- "In the next 77 days," Arlene Holt Baker, AFL-CIO executive vice president told delegates to the Connecticut convention here, "you will determine if we move forward to solutions or backward to the problems we are all trying to resolve... It is time to pull out all the stops."

The 400 delegates gathered for the Connecticut AFL-CIO's political convention and heard from candidates for governor, U.S. Senate and Congress, made their endorsements and then, enthusiastically, signed up to talk to their union sisters and brothers about the issues in this election and how to turn out the vote in record numbers.

"This election is extremely important because the economic crisis in this country is putting the American dream in jeopardy," said John Olsen, Connecticut AFL-CIO president

"Two years ago, the country was going 90 mph in reverse," AFT Connecticut president Sharon Palmer reminded the delegates. "To advance we have to go into drive. That means hundreds of one on one conversations with our members at doors and at the workplace. To drive forward 90 mph we have to go to our members."

Holt Baker came to this battleground state to address the convention, dedicated to retiring Sen. Chris Dodd who has a 96% AFL-CIO lifetime voting record, and Brian Petronella, leader of the United Food and Commercial Workers union who died suddenly at age 54, days earlier.

Calling this election an opportunity to "turn pain into promise and hate into hope," she said "your members might feel disappointment they don't have everything, but without President Obama's recovery plan we would be in a full blown depression."

With an open seat for governor and the possibility of electing a Democrat for the first time in 20 years, unity ran high. The convention was held a week after the primary elections in which labor was divided. Former Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy, who won by 15 points, was cheered by everyone. "Coming together starts in this hall on this day," he said.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, candidate for U.S. Senate, is opposed by Republican Linda McMahon of World Wrestling Enterprises fame, who did not respond to invitations to attend the convention.

"My opponent is spending $50 million. I have something money can't buy. I have you, I have friends," said Blumenthal.

Three Congressional seats, won by Democrats in the last two election cycles, are also at stake.

Keynote speaker Howard Dean emphasized the importance of this election. "We have a president we can believe in," he said. "Make sure between 2010 and 2012 he can continue to pass big pieces of legislation. He needs a Democratic majority in the House and Senate."

A diverse group of 20 local union leaders who have committed to the Labor 2010 effort gathered around the podium to tell their stories.

"In my plant, instead of hiring workers for a third shift with benefits, they have us working 12 hours a day," said Tammy Batella, a steelworker and Labor 2010 coordinator in her local. "I worked 68 hours last week," she told the convention. "I know how important it is to do the walks and get to people who aren't doing the right thing. We are the ones who have to get it done." she declared.

Everett Corey of IAM District 26 pledged that five percent of their members will talk to their union sisters and brothers and help pull out a massive pro-working family vote.

On Saturday, September 11, labor walks will kick off in each of the five congressional districts. Union members will visit co-workers at their homes. It is projected that by Election Day 36,278 home visits, 141,626 phone calls and 300,000 leaflets at work will have been completed.

Delegates voted unanimously to mobilize for the October 2 One Nation Working Together March in Washington, DC.

"We have to mend the shattered beloved community," said a teachers union delegate.

"Use this as an organizing tool to better communicate within the community," urged Olsen. "All of us are fighting for the same things, good jobs, housing, health care and peace for all."

Convention resolutions addressed a wide range of workplace issues including a call for the federal government to create a WPA type jobs program and a campaign to protect and expand Social Security.

"This is our opportunity to be concerned about our country, our dream," Olsen told the delegates. "People are angry, but they don't know who to be mad at. Commit for yourselves and for the future," he exclaimed.

Photo: Sen. Dodd meets with delegates to the Connecticut AFL-CIO convention, August 16, in Hartford. (Conn. AFL-CIO)

Justice served to restaurant workers

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 16:32:00 +0000

DEARBORN, MICH - The Restaurant Opportunities Center of Michigan (ROC-MI) won a major victory when the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued an order that Dearborn's Andiamo Restaurant illegally cut the hours of, intimidated, and retaliated against servers and other restaurant workers in seeking to squash them from participating in a lawsuit and protest against workplace violations.

Because of the order, Andiamo has to post onsite an NLRB notice that amongst other things tells workers they have a right to "form, join or assist a union, act together with other employees for your benefit and cooperation," and that Andiamo "will not do anything to interfere with these rights."

The lawsuit seeks $125,000 in unpaid wages and seeks penalties for racial, nationality and gender discrimination. This theft of workers wages was carried out through minimum wage violations, unpaid overtime, forcing workers to work "off the clock," and improper wage deductions.

The restaurant workers organization is a non-profit that seeks improved working conditions. It assists restaurant workers seeking legal redress against employers who violate their employment rights.

At a Friday night rally to celebrate the victory, former Andiamo server Naome Debebe related the extreme and intimidating conditions people worked under:"We are under surveillance 24 hours, camera and audio. We could not discuss anything that was going on with ROC-MI or the campaign with the workers inside or outside without letting them know first. If we did, we'd get fired."

Minsu Longiaru, ROC-MI coordinator recited the "dirty dog tricks" the NLRB order restrains Andiamo from engaging in. Included were surveillance of its workers and telling employees we are "infuriated with them because of their support for ROC-MI or any labor organization."

This victory comes after ten months of organizing and weekly demonstrations. It was November of last year when Debebe was fired after the first protest at the restaurant. Although a huge protest forced Andiamo to ask her to come back, harassment continued as Andiamo cut her hours and limited the tables she served. She was let go again after Christmas.

"Money, money, money, is all they care about," she said.

Longiru thinks the ruling will have implications for other restaurant workers in the area.

With over 134,000 employees, the restaurant and food service industry is one of Metro Detroit's largest private-sector employers. ROC-MI says most don't receive a livable wage. Regular raises, benefits or overtime pay, and opportunities for advancement are limited. Health, safety, and employment laws are often violated. Verbal abuse and sexual harassment are common.

Photo: John Rummel Former Andiamo server Naome Debebe.

Disneyland worker sent home for hijab

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 14:40:00 +0000

A Muslim employee in Disneyland's Grand Californian Hotel has been sent home from work with no pay for refusing to take off her hijab while working as a hostess in a hotel restaurant.

Imane Boudlal, 26, a student, filed a complaint against Disney yesterday with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission - the federal agency that enforces anti-discrimination laws in the workplace. Leigh Shelton, a spokesperson for Unite Here, Local 11, which represents workers at Disneyland, said the union is supporting her fight.

On Aug. 15, just days after the Islamic holy month of Ramadan began, Boudlal wore her hijab to work greeting customers at the Storyteller's Restaurant in Disneyland.

Disney told her that if she wanted to work as a hostess she had to remove her hijab because it did not comply with the "Disney Look." Disney further told Boudlal that if she refused to remove her hijab, she had a choice between working a "back-of-the-house-position" where customers would not see her or going home.

Since that day Boudlal made two additional attempts to work her hostess position, each time wearing her hijab. On each of those occasions Disney blocked her from working.

Boudlal said she decided to challenge the discriminatory treatment because "I understand my rights."

She said she learned about those rights while she was studying to take an exam for American citizenship, which she passed before she became a U.S. citizen in June. She said she learned, among many other things, about first amendment right to religious freedom.

"I realized the Constitution tells me I can be Muslim, and I can wear the head scarf," Boudlal said. "Who is Disney to tell me I cannot?"

Boudlal did not jump into the idea of filing a complaint lightly. At first she tried to work with Disney by requesting a "religious accommodation," something the company said it would consider. She said she waited for two months while Disney said it was considering her needs.

"Finally, I said 'enough,'" Boudlal said. "They cannot continue to violate my rights, and just string me along. Disney is not above the law."

Boudlal explained why she had refused Disney's offer to allow her to take a "back-of-the-house" position - out of sight of the customers.

"Their offer to put me in the back is humiliating," Boudlal said. "They're saying because I'm Arab, because I'm Moroccan, because I'm Muslim, they don't want to see me in the front."

On Wednesday the Council on American-Islamic Relations sent a letter to Disney demanding that the company accommodate Boudlal's request to wear her headscarf, and to amend its "look" policy to more reasonably accommodate those women who make such requests on religious grounds.

"There is no justification for Disney's refusal to allow Ms. Boudlal to wear her headscarf at work," said Ameena Mirza Qazi, staff attorney for the council. "To say that her headscarf would somehow impact guests is not only insulting to her, but is deeply offensive to the thousands of Muslims who open up their pocket-books at Disney parks and resorts every year."

Photo:Imane Boudlal

The rich are dying to avoid paying taxes

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 12:33:00 +0000

I recently read with dismay a Wall Street Journal article about the return of the estate tax. The article, titled ‘Too Rich to Live?' claimed that the federal government - if it allowed Bush era estate tax-breaks to lapse - would be "incentivizing death."

According to the authors, this presents "a bizarre menu of options for wealthy older people - and their heirs." Apparently, estate taxes "incentivize death" just like health care reform creates "death panels."

One millionaire is quoted as saying, "You don't know whether to commit suicide or just go on living and working." This particular individual - whose estate tax is $0 this year -would pay an estimated $15 million in 2011.

The article then quotes an estate-tax attorney, who said, "At least in December 2009, people wanted to keep their relatives alive." Apparently, his clients are looking for ways to pull the plug on dying relatives in order to reap the full benefit of their multi-million dollar inheritances.

According to the Wall Street Journal, this is a "surreal situation." They explain: In 2001 the Bush Congress cut the estate tax rate to 45 percent from 55 percent and increased the exemptions from $675,000 to $3.5 million per individual. In 2010 the estate tax disappeared completely. However, the estate tax is set to revert back to the 55 percent rate in 2011, thus creating the "surreal situation" many wealthy individuals fear.

Obviously, the rich - and their heirs - are very concerned about money. They don't want to see a penny go to the federal government, as the Obama Administration will likely attempt to make the tax rate permanent, and spend the revenue it generates on social programs, jobs and rebuilding our infrastructure.

Making matters even more "surreal" other Bush era tax-breaks for the rich - on income taxes and capital-gains taxes - are also set to expire. Of course, the Republicans will use this issue leading up-to the November mid-term elections. They'll claim that taxes shouldn't be increased during a recession - despite their opportunistic concerns for the deficit.

In fact, they want to "fix" our economy by continuing the failed policies that got us into this mess in the first place. They want to cut social security, Medicaid, Medicare and other social programs. They want to cut pay for public employees, defund our public schools and hope no more bridges collapse.

In what may be depicted as a nightmare scenario for the wealthy, some law-makers are pushing for the estate tax to be retroactive to the beginning of 2010 - retroactively generating billions in tax revenue.

In summary: The rich are dying to avoid paying taxes.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonathanmcintosh/3436200924/sizes/o/in/photostream/

College grad adds union organizing to job as a laundry hauler

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:25:00 +0000

IRVINE, Calif. — In a different time and place Joe Murphy might already be earning a good salary in the world of academe. Instead, the 24-year-old graduate of Notre Dame, where he earned a BA in American Studies, finds himself, by day, hauling laundry in a big hotel here for $8.85 an hour and, by night, organizing a union.

Due to his efforts and those of some of his friends history was made earlier this month when almost the entire work force walked off the job in a one-day strike August 9 to protest years of being denied the right to take breaks. It was history because organized strikes by non-union workers are rarely seen, particularly in an economy where many with any kind of employment consider themselves lucky.

How does a college grad in the middle of the country end up hauling laundry, going on strike and helping lead a union organizing drive at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Irvine, Calif.?

Murphy, who spoke on his cell phone Wednesday morning as he waited to punch in for his shift, said the answer was simple. "When there aren't enough jobs you take what you can get and then if there is injustice at the job you do get you do something about it."

He explained that he moved to California with his girlfriend a few years ago in search of opportunities not available elsewhere in the country and that, after a bunch of odd jobs, landed the full-time job as a "houseman" at the Embassy Suites.

There he delivers laundry daily to ten different housekeepers, each of whom had given him the dirty laundry from the 15 rooms she cleans. "It adds up to 150 suites full of dirty laundry. (All rooms at the Embassy Suites are actually two room suites, Murphy notes, making them more difficult to clean than rooms at other hotels.) And you often have to put the stuff in and out of the machines because the hotel has only two laundry attendants when it should have at least four."

From the $8.85 per hour salary Murphy earns the Embassy Suites deducts $142 per month for a health insurance plan that covers only himself. "Between that deduction and the rent on an apartment that I share in Santa Ana with a co-worker and gas for the ten mile drive and back I'm left with almost nothing," he said.

The one-day strike on August 9 drew the support of almost the entire workforce of 60, Murphy said, because "everyone, like me is overworked and everyone has been denied break time and that's illegal."

Murphy said that two room attendants were given verbal and written warnings when they tried to take their breaks.

The strike followed by one week the filing of complaints by the workers with the state of California saying they have been systematically denied the 10 minute breaks to which they are entitled under state law. The workers are demanding $180,000 in back pay.

Under California law, for every day that a rest break is missed the worker is entitled to one hour of back pay, and an additional hour of back pay for every day that a meal break is missed.

"What they didn't count on," Murphy said, referring to the hotel management, "is that folks who work here have relatives and friends in other hotels so they know there is a night and day difference between working here and working in a union hotel. It's why it was so easy to quickly get a majority to sign up with the union."

The Embassy Suites has said it will not recognize the union as the representative of its workers until a "secret ballot" election is held. Under current labor law even though a majority of workers have indicated by signing cards that they want the union, the company has the right to insist on that election.

"We know about how they can use that time to weaken our unity and determination," Murphy said. "But so far, they've been quiet. We haven't seen signs of anything."

Murphy said that on the day of the strike. Only two of the 60 regular employees at the hotel crossed the picket line and that since then "everyone is walking around wearing union badges and no-one from management is saying anything."

"It feels good when you see everyone with those badges," he said. "Those buttons help us feel our strength."

Murphy added, "I can't tell you how good I felt that morning of the strike. It was 4 a.m. The sun wasn't up yet and one by one they came - all my co-workers. It was 4 in the morning and already 22 had shown up! They picked up their signs and started walking the picket line. We don't even have a union yet and they are all so brave."

Photo: Joe Murphy

Dinner honors workers' ‘incredible courage'

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:12:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. - Union and community supporters from miles around flocked to a delicious gourmet dinner here Aug. 14, prepared and served by dozens of Castlewood Country Club workers who have been locked out of their jobs at the posh Pleasanton club for nearly six months.

The "Fiesta for Justice" raised funds to aid the workers, who have been represented by Unite Here! Local 2850 for over three decades.

The club "used to be a beautiful place to work, but everything changed when the new board president took office," Angel Melendez, a longtime cook at the club, told the capacity crowd. "Their first goal was to get rid of the union, because without a contract, it would be easier to get rid of us."

The 61 food servers, cooks, bartenders and janitors have been locked out since Feb. 25, after they and their union rejected management's insistence that they pay $739 per month for family health coverage. The workers, who average about $12.50 an hour, had not previously contributed to their health coverage.

Management rejected their offer to pay $225 a month for the family coverage, to limit health coverage to full-time workers, and to accept a wage freeze in the first year and very low wage hikes in later years.

"I have a wife and two children," Melendez said. "I need medical care for them. We are not going to give that up. We'll be here for a thousand years if that's what it takes!"

Calling the club's latest offer "even worse," janitor Francisca Carranza told the crowd, "Castlewood's management wasn't expecting that we are backed up by all of you. She added, "If we're not doing what we're doing today, what will the future be for our kids who come after us?"

The locked-out workers have received support from area elected officials, including Pleasanton's mayor, Jennifer Hosterman, and its City Council, as well as Assemblymembers Alberto Torrico, Mary Hayashi and Tom Torlakson, and Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty.

Among the dinner guests were some supportive country club members.

Castlewood Country Club says it has spent over $337,000 on expenses related to the conflict, including at least $35,000 from canceled events. Unite Here! Local 2850 president Wei-Ling Huber told the diners that amount far exceeds what the club would have spent by accepting the workers' proposals.

One event which was not canceled was a $2,400-a-plate fundraising dinner earlier this month for Republican candidate David Harmer, campaigning to unseat area Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney in November. Harmer has reportedly taken flak for crossing the workers' picket line.

Leadership of the Alameda Labor Council, and affiliated unions which have given generously to the workers' hardship fund, were also well represented at the dinner. Council President Dionisio Rosario told the workers they are displaying "incredible courage to stand up in the face of losing your job. Despite the difficult times, you have chosen to stand up and fight."

In addition to their regular pickets several times a week, the workers and their supporters have held a number of special mobilizations coinciding with special events at the club.

For the latest news on the Castlewood workers' struggle, see endthelockout.org.

Photo: Marilyn Bechtel

Non-union workers strike California hotel

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:26:00 +0000

In a first for their industry, workers at a non-union hotel went out on a one-day strike August 9 to protest years of being denied the right to take breaks.

Workers at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Irvine, Calif., walked off the job only a week after filing complaints with the state of California saying they have been systematically denied the 10-minute breaks to which they are entitled under state law.

Workers say 50 percent of the hotel's 60 non-management employees signed the complaint. It's an action that testifies to their militancy and courage, say leaders of the union that represents hotel workers. A group of employees at the hotel is campaigning to organize the site under the auspices of that union, Unite Here, Local 11.

The workers threw up a picket line in front of the hotel, demanding $180,000 in back pay. They returned to work after a day but have maintained a daily picket line in front of the hotel since then.

"This company has robbed us of our time in order to make higher profits," declared Joseph Murphy, a hotel houseman. "We went on strike to show them we know our rights, and we are fed up. We demand change."

Rachelle Smith, who has worked at the front desk of the hotel for more than two years, said she sometimes has to wait to take a restroom break because there is no one to cover for her. "I've had to go past my five hours to take a lunch because it was so busy and there weren't enough people," she said.

Hotel management is downplaying the significance of the job actions by its officially unorganized workers.

Tim Digby, the hotel manager, said only a few employees had walked out. "We weren't observing or head counting, but only about a half-dozen or so meant to work did not show up for work for whatever reason," he said.

Employees dispute his assessment. Smith, who has joined the picket line herself, said that "quite a few" workers were involved and photos of the picket lines sent to the People's World by the union show far more than half-a-dozen workers.

Digby said it was difficult for him to comment on the workers' demands because he had not seen the complaint they filed with the state. "We try our best to make sure we account for their ability to take breaks," he said.

Leigh Shelton, a spokeswoman for Unite Here Local 11, said that complaints were made and signed by more than 30 workers and that most of the complaints were about missed 10-minute breaks. She said there are 60 non-management workers at the hotel and some of the violations regarding denied breaks date back as far as 10 years.

"The 24 hour strike was a huge step for these non-union workers who have never done anything like this before," Shelton said. She said 70 percent of the employees have already signed cards demanding a fair process to organize a union. They want the company to remain neutral.

She also explained that the hotel has contracted out some of its work to outside agencies that pay very low wages and it does not count those workers as its employees.

Despite strong support among workers at the Embassy Suites in favor of union representation, the hotel says it opposes majority sign-up when it comes to union recognition and it will not recognize the union unless there is a "secret ballot" election. Under current federal labor law the company has the option of blocking the will of the signed-up majority by insisting on such an election. The Employee Free Choice Act would eliminate that company option, requiring the hotel to recognize the union once a majority of its workers have signed union cards.

California state law guarantees workers two 10-minute rest breaks and one 30-minute meal break per eight-hour shift.

Under that law, which is administered by the state's Department of Industrial Relations, for every day that a rest break is missed the worker is entitled to one hour of back pay, and an additional hour of back pay for every day that a meal break is missed.

"I've worked in the hotel for two and a half years, and most of the time it is unrealistic to think I'm going to get a 10-minute break because we're so short staffed," said Smith. "I can't even use the restroom when I need to - not until they find someone who can cover for me. If the hotel just scheduled more people to work, we probably wouldn't have these problems."

Workers report that, in addition to denying breaks, Embassy Suites pays poverty wages and offers only unaffordable health care benefits.

A housekeeper who says she has been an employee for 22 years said she earns only $10.85 an hour and pays $184 per month for health care benefits that cover only herself.

Photo: Workers picket outside the Embassy Suites Hotel in Irvine, Calif. (Courtesy Unite Here Local 11)

Warehouse workers suffer while Wal-Mart rakes in cash

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 10:46:00 +0000

CHICAGO - Tory Moore, 37, from Kankakee, Ill., worked as a temp warehouse worker in the southwest suburbs of Chicago for six years before he was fired in December 2009, after standing up for his rights.

Moore said he asked for a pay raise each year and noticed that his paychecks were consistently short. So naturally he complained.

"That's why I got fired," he said.

At a church in Joliet, Ill., on Aug. 16, Moore along with labor, community and religious leaders announced the release of a new study showing that 63 percent of warehouse workers in the area are temps making poverty-level wages. The study focused on Will County, which has one of the largest concentrations of warehouses in the hemisphere.

Will County warehouse workers distribute products to some of the nation's most profitable big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Sports Authority.

Workers from over 150 different warehouses were surveyed for the eight-month study, "Bad Jobs in Goods Movement: Warehouse Work in Will County." It documents low wages, few benefits and high rates of injuries and discrimination for these workers.

Moore, who is now an activist with Warehouse Workers for Justice, says it's not right the way he and his co-workers are being treated by temp agencies and companies that hire them.

"We are tired of being treated like slaves and we want to be appreciated for the hard work that we do," he said.

Many workers were not getting paid after showing up to work. He said one worker was injured after chemicals got in his eye and a doctor told him to take a few days off. He was eventually fired, said Moore.

Some temp workers have been on the job for over 10 years with no benefits, he said.

"It's hard for us to support our families or rent an apartment because most people deny housing for temp workers," he said. "We need livable wages to support our families, including vacation, holiday and sick pay."

According to the study the majority of warehouse workers made poverty-level wages, and temps had it worse than direct hires. The median hourly wage for a temp was $9 an hour - $3.48 an hour less than direct hires.

The study also found that 1 in 4 warehouse workers had to rely on government assistance to make ends meet for their families and 37 percent of current warehouse workers had to work a second job.

Temps were far less likely to have basic benefits. For example, only 5 percent of temps had sick days and only 4 percent had health insurance. And 20 percent of warehouse workers had been hurt on the job and of those, 1 in 3 were disciplined or fired when they reported their injury.

Moore said what's needed is for warehouse workers to stand together and get organized.

"Permanent warehouse workers need to get organized so they don't lose their jobs and so they can fight for what they believe in and stand in solidarity with temps," said Moore.

Moore said it's harder to organize temp workers because they're already struggling and afraid to lose their jobs. But when direct hires become unionized, it helps all workers including temps, he said.

Yet critics note many workers are not sharing in the economic benefits of the industry.

Pastor Craig Purchase with Mt. Zion Full Gospel Tabernacle in Joliet says the study shows proof that too many people are being taken advantage of.

"We found out the situation is worse than we thought," said Purchase. "Major companies are making millions of dollars, like Wal-Mart, and they're far from broke. In fact they treat their workers bad in order to increase their profits while some guy working at a warehouse can't feed his kids. It's just wrong."

Purchase continued, "We want our lawmakers and major companies to read this study and stop the lying and create a better deal for us. The key thing is to stand up for these workers and not look the other way."

Labor activists say what's needed is to create a pathway toward stable employment for warehouse workers including enacting policies that promote living wage jobs. Laws like the Illinois Day Labor and Temporary Services Act and others should be strengthened and enforced, they add. And warehouse workers including temps should not have to face barriers to their right to organize and join unions.

Warehouse Workers for Justice issued the study in conjunction with researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago's Center for Urban Economic Development. More information about the report is available at www.warehouseworker.org.

Photo: Tory Moore of Warehouse Workers for Justice. (www.warehouseworker.org)

Laborers to rejoin AFL-CIO

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 17:32:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - Change To Win will lose yet another member on Oct. 1, when the Laborers rejoin the AFL-CIO. But in a sense, they never really left.

The Aug. 14 announcement by union President Terry O'Sullivan capped months of talks between his union, which has 500,000 members, including retirees, and the larger labor federation.

But for several years, LIUNA (Laborers International Union of North America) has also been an active member of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department - even though it was a CTW union. And it has worked closely on politics with the AFL-CIO, O'Sullivan said.

Indeed, politics is a big reason it's rejoining the federation.

"Now more than ever, working people and our country need a united union movement," O'Sullivan said in a statement. "Despite the historic success of the 2008 federal elections, too much is not getting done on Capitol Hill. A united union movement can better focus Congress -- and particularly the U.S. Senate -- on helping to lead our nation, rather than being locked in inaction."

He also cited the Great Recession, which the union says "decimated the finances of millions of working men and women.

"In the construction industry alone, 2 million jobs have been lost in the current recession and nearly one in five construction workers are jobless, many going on a year," the union added.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka echoed the same themes in welcoming the Laborers back and thanking O'Sullivan.

"We are very happy LIUNA is rejoining the AFL-CIO at a critical moment for working people," Trumka said. "Union members, like all working families, have been hard hit by a brutal economy and decades of policies that undermined the middle class. More than ever, now is the moment for a unified labor movement. As we rebuild and strengthen the labor movement, we will work together to create good jobs, restore a middle-class economy, and elect leaders who stand with working people. Together, brick by brick, we will build an economy that works for everyone."

The Laborers' departure from CTW will leave only the Service Employees, the Farm Workers, United Food and Commercial Workers and the Teamsters in the smaller union group. Unite Here rejoined the AFL-CIO last year - except for 100,000 members who split off to join SEIU - and the Carpenters disaffiliated almost two years ago. CTW has named UFCW President Joe Hansen as its new chair, replacing Anna Burger, who resigned Aug. 11.

Photo: Laborers union President Terry O'Sullivan, second from right, with other LIUNA leaders at the Wisconsin AFL-CIO convention in September 2008 in Milwaukee. (AFL-CIO/Casie Yoder)

“Fun work experience” turns to nightmare at liquor superstore

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 11:56:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. - "Fun, fast-paced and constantly changing work experiences" and "an excellent benefits package" are what the self-proclaimed "leading alcoholic beverage-lifestyle" superstore BevMo! offers prospective employees on its website. But the reality at the chain's 100-plus stores in California and Arizona is far different, say workers told they no longer have full-time work or health coverage.

BevMo! workers and their union and community supporters gathered near the chain's downtown Oakland store Aug. 12 to demand restoration of their full-time positions, health benefits and 401K plans. Along with that, they called for recognition of the union they are organizing in the San Francisco Bay Area, with help from United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5 and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Rally participants later signed a giant poster listing the workers' demands.

Workers say last month BevMo! started cutting hours, and eliminating health insurance for all full- and part-time staff, with possible exceptions for management and head clerks.

Noting that the steps were taken at the same time BevMo! is hiring more part-time workers and opening new stores, Catherine Cordero, a head clerk at the Emeryville store, told the crowd the company's actions are "the latest in a despicable chain of events being carried out by BevMo's new owners," the private equity firm TowerBrook Capital Partners.

"They have continued the trend in the retail and food service industry of creating permanent part-time jobs," Cordero said, "forcing our families into crisis, creating a negative impact on our well-established customer service, and all the while expecting our local communities - we the taxpayers - to foot the bill when it comes to financial assistance."

Local 5 President Ron Lind pointed out that the BevMo! workers "are victims of an all-too-frequent example of 21st century corporate greed and arrogance" from a successful company "that sees workers as nothing more than numbers on time cards."

Barbara Baird, a cashier at another Bay Area BevMo store, spoke with the People's World after the group marched to BevMo's front door to present their demands to a startled-looking manager. Baird described her difficulties on the job.

Now eight-and-a-half months pregnant, Baird said when she asked to use a chair instead of standing throughout her shift, she was told to stack up wine boxes to sit on instead. When she requested help to move the boxes, she said she was "made to feel like I was a major inconvenience."

After Baird had to leave work twice for hospital visits because she was bleeding, she said her hours were slashed from 40 to 12 a week, "with no regard to bills needing to be paid, no regard for anything whatsoever besides their numbers."

"I can't put into words what the union means to people like me and the rest of the workers - to have someone say this isn't fair, this isn't a correct way to treat a human being, pregnant or not," Baird said.

Mario Munoz, a sales associate at the Oakland store who specializes in wines, said his former schedule of 37-40 hours a week has dropped to 29, creating hardships for his family, which has cut back on such basics as groceries, and a laptop for a college-bound daughter.

He said problems with management began to emerge over the last couple of years, accelerating in the last few weeks with across-the-boards cuts in workers' hours and elimination of benefits.

UFCW Local 5, which represents some 26,000 mainly retail workers around the Bay Area, reported Aug. 13 that BevMo! has hired a union-busting "labor consultant" to thwart the workers' efforts to form a union. Noting that the union has often seen companies hire outsiders "to intimidate and coerce their employees and lie about unionization," Local 5 President Lind declared, "We have news for BevMo! It's not going to work this time!"

Photo: PW/Marilyn Bechtel

Social Security at 75 is under attack, again

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 09:25:00 +0000

(PAI) - Social Security celebrates its 75th birthday this month, and in a familiar position: It's the most beloved federal program, and the leading source of retirement funds for millions of people. But it's under attack - again - and defended by organized labor - again.

The program, enacted by Congress as one of the capstones of the New Deal, was signed into law by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on Aug. 14, 1935. The movement for Social Security had been building for two decades, but the enormous destitution of the Great Depression pushed it over the legislative finish line.

"There is no tragedy in growing old, but there is tragedy in growing old without means of support," Roosevelt told his advisory committee on economic and social security, which was drafting the legislation, the previous November.

Social Security was a massive and fundamental change in government's role in providing for the needy. Before the Depression, in the U.S., that task was left to private charity. As the late AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland once told Congress, before Social Security, "the poorhouse" was the destination for the indigent elderly, and most elderly were poor. He asked lawmakers if they wanted to go back to that.

"We can never insure 100 percent of the population against 100 percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age," FDR added when he signed the Social Security Act.

But he also warned the Social Security law, which also included jobless benefits, aid to the blind and disabled, and what was then Aid to Dependent Children, "represents a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete."

FDR's Labor Secretary, Frances Perkins - the first woman Cabinet member - chaired the advisory panel that drafted the legislation, and she campaigned for it. Even then, she said Social Security was part of retirement, with along pensions and savings.

"As I see it, we shall have to establish in this country substantially all the social-insurance measures which the Western European countries set up in the last generation," Perkins said. "But they do not promise anything like complete economic security. More important than all social-insurance devices together is employment."

In a throwback to the 1930s, organized labor now echoes Perkins then. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka repeatedly points out Social Security's alleged looming deficits disappear when people are put back to work and pay taxes into its trust fund.

As might be expected in the 1930s, business and the right wing vehemently denounced Social Security for its threat of government intervention. Some leftist voices - such as Upton Sinclair, Francis Townsend and Sen. Huey Long, D-La. - felt it didn't go far enough. The left's opposition has stopped. The right's never has.

"Industry has every reason to be alarmed at the social, economic and financial implications," GM President Alfred Sloan said then.

"Never has any measure been brought in here so insidiously designed to prevent business recovery, to enslave workers and to prevent the possibility of employers providing work," added Rep. John Taber, R-N.Y.

They wanted to rely on charity or the private sector - which wasn't there.

"As late as 1932, only about 15 percent of the labor force had any kind of potential employment-related pension," a history of Social Security says. "Because pensions were often granted or withheld at the option of the employer, most of these workers would never see a retirement pension. Indeed, only about 5 percent of the elderly were in fact receiving retirement pensions in 1932." Another 3 percent had state-guaranteed pensions. Almost nine of every 10 in that group lived in New York, California and Massachusetts.

But there were so few Republicans in Congress and the Depression so discredited their economics that though 95 of the 96 House Republicans and 12 of 19 GOP senators voted to kill the old-age section of the Social Security Act, it - and the entire legislation - sailed through. They were overwhelmed by the Democrats.

Roosevelt did make one key concession: He funded Social Security as a social insurance program, through payroll taxes - even though his more liberal advisors pointed out the tax would fall proportionately more heavily on the poor, as it still does.

FDR later conceded the liberals were right economically, but politically the payroll tax cemented Social Security in everyone's minds. That's because all contribute, he said - and all get "a moral, legal and political right to collect their pensions ... With these taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my Social Security program."

There were other changes over the years: expansion of Social Security from just workers to their survivors and dependents, in 1939; the first-ever benefits increase, in 1950 - Congress periodically raised benefits from then until it instituted permanent cost-of-living increases in 1972; rising payroll tax rates; taxation of benefits in 1983.

In 2009, for the first time since cost-of-living adjustments began, inflation was so low there was no rise in benefits.

Labor stopped GOP President George W. Bush's partial privatization scheme in 2005.

But before that, the combination of high unemployment and high inflation hit in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Moreover, looking down the road, the "baby boomers" were going to start retiring. Social Security's reserves had to be rebuilt and bolstered.

In 1982-83, "Social Security was in crisis," says retired Rep. Barbara Bailey Kennelly, D-Conn., then a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, which crafts Social Security legislation. "We didn't know if the checks would go out the next several months. And the ‘baby boomers' were coming."

"So we had to increase payroll taxes to have people pre-fund their own retirement," adds Kennelly, now head of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. A bipartisan commission, including Kirkland, crafted the legislative solution, which also included a gradual increase in the retirement age.

In 1940, the first year Social Security started paying monthly benefits, 222,488 elderly and dependents received a total of $35 million. In 1950, when the first-ever benefit hike kicked in, 3.48 million elderly received $961 million. In 2009, more than 51 million people received $659 billion in Social Security old age and survivor payments.

With numbers like that, the right wing has raised its voice again, repeating the old argument, first uttered in the 1935 debate, that payroll taxes would not bring in enough to fund Social Security. But now they have a platform to preach to: Democratic President Barack Obama's commission charged with finding ways to reduce future federal deficits. It says "everything is on the table," including Social Security benefits..

The system shouldn't face benefit cuts, because it's part of the deficit solution, not part of the problem, reply Trumka, Service Employees Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina and other defenders of Social Security. They noted the system has $2.6 trillion in reserves. What they did not say is that much of its money is tied up in IOUs from the rest of the government, thanks to deficits mostly accumulated under GOP rule.

"There was a crisis" in 1983, contends Ed Coyle of the Alliance for Retired Americans. "There is no crisis today." But Obama's budget projections show a deficit. His budget estimates for the five years starting this Oct. 1 show Social Security would take in $3.82 trillion over that time in payroll tax receipts, and pay out $4.03 trillion.

The Economic Policy Institute retorts, in a study released July 26, that the rest of the government must pay interest to Social Security on those IOUs it holds - and that pushes the system's annual revenue strongly into the black. EPI calculates the Social Security surplus will rise to $4.3 trillion in 14 years. That keeps its benefits coming.

"We can't allow anti-worker interests to destroy the one guarantee all Americans have to provide a basic and reliable income when we retire," Medina concludes.

Letter carriers launch drive to save six-day delivery

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:30:00 +0000

ANAHEIM, Calif. (PAI)- With speeches, rallies and a massive Internet information and agitation campaign on the union's website, the Letter Carriers, starting at their convention here, launched a major ‘Save Saturday" drive to rescue six-day mail delivery across the U.S. from the jaws of Postal Service budget cut schemes.

Picking up support from two top politicians and the AFL-CIO, the National Association of Letter Carriers also drew more than 3,000 allies and backers to a kickoff campaign event in front of Los Angeles City Hall on Aug. 13.

Speakers, led by union President Frederic V. Rolando, whom delegates elected to his first full term, emphasized saving six-day service means saving jobs, and not just their own. They pointed out that many businesses and individuals depend on Saturday delivery to meet deadlines, and could lose sales or income to late fees, if USPS cuts back the mail pickup and delivery to five days a week.

They also pointed out that USPS red ink - which Postmaster General-CEO John Potter used to justify the planned mid-September service cut along with layoffs and buyouts - could be solved by Congress if it would remove the requirement that USPS pre-fund retiree health care for its current workers.

The NALC said government auditors found USPS overpaid $75 billion in pension contributions, resulting from a misguided and grossly unfair set of calculations by the Office of Personnel Management over the past 40 years, and it faces a requirement to pre-fund $87 billion in future retiree health benefits at a cost of $5.5 billion per year.

"No other government agency and no private business - none - are required to pre-fund future retiree health benefits," Rolando said. "Not one dollar - let alone $5.5 billion per year."

Besides Rolando, speakers at the L.A. rally included city Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa - who ironically forced service cuts on city unions when he had to close a $500 million budget gap, while rejecting their alternative plans - along with Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

The 295,000-member NALC faces a battle to save the six-day delivery. Opinion polls, commissioned by the Postal Service and with "loaded" questions according to the NALC, show respondents prefer keeping post offices open to continuing six-day delivery. Potter also recommends closing hundreds of post offices nationwide to help close the USPS' $7 billion annual deficit.

And Congress could step in not just to repeal the health care pre-funding but also, as it has with past money bills, writing into law a ban on cutting back delivery to five days. The point of NALC's campaign is to get Congress to undertake both moves.

"The very idea of abandoning a day of service, harming customers, forcing them to alternative delivery systems, undercutting public reliance on postal deliveries - is so wrong that it borders on the lunatic," Rolando told his union's 8,700 delegates at the Anaheim Convention Center.

NALC is speaking with major mailers and other heavy postal users on how to better take advantage of the USPS' unparalleled national delivery network. More use of the network equals more business for USPS equals more jobs for its workers. The union estimates that a cut in delivery from six days to five could cost up to 80,000 jobs.

"I am determined to break through the traditional, excessively conservative USPS style," Rolando said. "We want to invite businesses and customers - and our members - to come to us with ideas to explore. We just have to be flexible and open-minded enough to take advantage of them."

Rolando admitted the future Postal Service "must be constructed from the ashes of a great national trauma" caused by the Great Recession. He previously pointed out that USPS bases its cutback plans - including Saturday service elimination - on assuming the 12-percent-plus decline in mail volume that the recession caused will continue. He calls that assumption ridiculous.

"So as we turn this week to the troubled times we face, let us not do it with fear, nor with a sense of decline, but with a renewed sense of how strong and determined we are," Rolando told his delegates. Potter and USPS "panicked in the face of the financial troubles, choosing to eliminate Saturday mail delivery instead of finding ways to provide new services to increase revenues.

"The task for us all - employees and the Postal Service - is to act now, while we still have a big, big business, to develop the new products and new services that will take advantage of the huge network of employees and facilities still in place - and of our ‘last mile' franchise," Rolando said.

Meanwhile, four major mass mailers opposed another Potter scheme to raise money: raising the price of stamps. They said it would continue USPS' downward financial spiral. "The first priority must be to legislatively fix the pension and retiree health over-funding problems that are drowning the Postal Service in red ink," totaling $7 billion yearly, the Saturation Mailers Coalition, Valassis Direct Mail, Valpak Direct Marketing Systems and the Valpak Dealers' Association told the Postal Regulatory Commission. The commission must vote on Potter's proposed postal rate hike.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31167635@N08/3020705945/ cc 2.0

BP admits guilt in Texas City safety violations

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 10:06:00 +0000

WASHINGTON, D.C., and BEAUMONT, Texas (PAI) - After years of foot-dragging and contesting federal findings, British Petroleum agreed Aug. 12 to not contest job safety and health violations in the years after the fatal 2005 blast at its Texas City, Texas, refinery. BP will pay a $50.6 million fine, negotiate another $30 million in penalties imposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and undertake $500 million worth of repairs and upgrades at the plant.

The Steelworkers, who represent union workers at Texas City - where more than a dozen workers were killed and more than 100 people were injured - welcomed the announcement, said Vice President Gary Beevers, who leads the USW's oil workers.

But in a telephone interview from his Beaumont, Texas, office, Beevers told Press Associates Union News Service that's not enough.

He said BP "gets it" and has worked on safety and made some strides, but the oil industry "has a concrete wall around it" on safety issues, at refineries and at offshore platforms - such as the Deepwater Horizon which exploded, caught fire, and sank in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20. That killed 11 workers and spewed out millions of gallons of oil.

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and deputy OSHA Administrator Jordan Barab, a former union safety and health official, announced the settlement with BP in a telephone press conference. The fine is the largest in OSHA's history, they said. And it's for BP's repeated "failure to abate" violations, by not fixing up the plant after the 2005 disaster.

The fatal explosion there was due not just to flaws on individual machines but also to BP's failure to oversee safety in its entire oil production and refining process.

"The size of the penalty reflects BP's disregard for worker safety and also sends a message to all employers: No one should have to sacrifice their life for their job," Solis said.

Under the agreement, BP will pay the $50.6 million fine and work out with OSHA how much of an additional $30 million in fines it should pay for other violations the agency has found on subsequent inspections at Texas City. BP will also spend $500 million to fix "process safety" problems it ignored on 28 separate plant processes.

Texas City had never had a top-to-bottom OSHA "process safety" inspection before the blast, looking not just at the safety of individual machines but at overall safety of entire production lines and manufacturing processes.

Now, under the agreement, the Texas City plant supervisor meets the OSHA area supervisor every month to review progress on repairs, and OSHA gets to inspect any place in the plant at any time. There's a set schedule for improvements, with the threat of more OSHA fines, or court action, if BP flunks again, Barab said.

"At Texas City, BP is accepting an unprecedented level of OSHA oversight," Barab said. "OSHA will have full access to management systems and to verify audits" on safety progress, among other things, he added. So will the Steelworkers, he said.

Beevers praised that, but said the problem isn't just at BP and it isn't just at refineries. Pointing to 13 oil plant fires, 19 dead workers, and 25 injured in April and May - even before the Deepwater Horizon disaster - Beevers said the whole industry is a mess.

But the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's lobby, won't admit there's a safety problem. It counts numbers of violation reports and argues increased reporting - even for small events - shows it pays attention to safety. And Shell, which negotiated the industry's last "pattern" contract with the USW, last month turned the union down flat when the USW asked to reopen the pact to discuss process safety at plants and platforms.

"They certainly showed they're chronic violators of safety," Beevers said.

The Steelworkers have asked Barab, Solis and OSHA administrator Dr. David Michaels to put the oil industry as a whole on OSHA's "worst of the worst" list, along with other high-hazard industries, Beevers added.

"And we need to see OSHA's national compliance program" for bad violators "carried out at every refinery, not just those that don't join OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program," he added. The VPP, instituted by GOP President Bush's OSHA, told firms that if they accepted OSHA safety advice, they could escape its inspections. "It doesn't make sense if you have six plants overall and all but two are exempt, because the others are in VPP. You have a problem," Beevers said.

Another problem Beevers noted is OSHA's fines, which OSHA, the Steelworkers, the AFL-CIO and other unions are lobbying Congress to increase. The penalty against BP is huge because there were so many initial violations and subsequent "failure to abate" violations when BP did not fix the Texas City plant. But the maximum OSHA fine for a single process safety violation is still only $7,000, Beevers said. That's also OSHA's maximum for most other violations, Michaels has told lawmakers.

Photo: Rafael Herrera, second from left, and his wife Magdalena remember their son, Rafael Jr., who was killed in the BP refinery explosion in Texas City five years ago, while being comforted by Paul Platz, a worker who was at the refinery the day of the catastrophe, during a memorial and moment of silence at the site, March 23, 2010, in Texas City, Texas. (AP/Houston Chronicle, Michael Paulsen)

Probe of Massey mine disaster has ways to go

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 13:25:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - Top federal mine safety officials say the government's investigation of what happened - and why - at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia, where a huge explosion and fire killed 29 miners on April 5, has a ways to go.

And the probe, one of four there, lacks key evidence so far, including exactly what happened near one particular site - Tailgate 22 and Headgate 22 - where nine of the miners' bodies were found, adds Mine Safety and Health Administrator Joe Main.

"Yesterday, we met with the families" of the dead miners, "and updated them on the progress of our investigation," one of four at the Massey Coal Company's mine, Main - a former Mine Workers union safety and health official - told a telephone press conference on August 11.

MSHA's probe, so far, has covered just over half the mine, he said. But there are still some key areas unexplored, due to danger from methane gas. Other observers have speculated a massive buildup of methane - due to inadequate ventilation - contributed to the fatal explosion.

Main cautioned against jumping to that conclusion, saying testing of methane monitors recovered from the mine is continuing, and two have yet to be found.

The agency, working jointly with the state of West Virginia, has conducted 166 interviews so far, mostly of miners and other hourly workers, about events before and during the blast. The United Mine Workers is also probing the explosion, even though Massey is aggressively non-union and Upper Big Branch was a non-union mine. The UMWA was invited in to represent the miners.

Massey is also probing the explosion and putting out statements about its causes and findings that Main called inaccurate. The U.S. Department of Justice is concurrently investigating Massey to see what laws and regulations were broken, rather than waiting until MSHA finishes its probe and makes its report.

The Justice Department and the state, however, have had to move from calling witnesses voluntarily to subpoenaing them and formally taking testimony. And company executives and managers have yet to be called. Massey CEO Don Blankenship, a West Virginian who aggressively defends his firm's safety record, has contested all past MSHA citations.

It still is, drawing a sharp rebuke from MSHA Administrative Law Judge Margaret Miller on July 30. She criticized the firm's motives and said that "instead of focusing on the issue at hand and submitting legal authorities that entitle it to an expedited hearing, it uses this venue to attack the investigative techniques of MSHA."

The company's "documents exaggerate and misrepresent the facts, and make little attempt to address the legal issues that are being raised. Instead, it treats this court as a forum for grandstanding and, in doing so, attempts to interfere with the ongoing investigation" of Upper Big Branch, Miller added.

Main said, "We have not reached any conclusions about the cause of the disaster." That's because MSHA is "still testing the equipment" found in the mine, including electrical systems and monitoring devices, such as the methane-measuring meters, he added. "And parts of the mine are still inaccessible." MSHA's mapping teams still can't get to waterlogged key parts of the mine or measure coal dust levels.

The mine will be inaccessible to Massey, too, Main said. Blankenship recently said he wants to reopen the undamaged part of Upper Big Branch and resume coal extraction there, but Main made it clear MSHA won't allow that.

Main also reiterated his past contention that the Upper Big Branch blast - and other fatal coal mine blasts - are preventable.

"If you look historically, explosions at these mines are preventable," said Main, who has investigated other huge fatal mine accidents, such as the one at the Jim Walter Mine that led to strengthening MSHA. That concept of preventability "has been the underpinning of all the investigations following these explosions," he added.

Photo: AP/Jeff Gentner