People Before Profit blog

Obama administration plans to push organizing rights

Wed, 29 Dec 2010 18:02:00 +0000

Private employers will be required to post large signs informing workers about their right to form unions under a new rule the Obama administration plans to institute by executive order.

The plan received less than the amount of publicity that might have been expected because it was announced the week before Christmas when the main focus of the news was on the legislative battles in Congress.

The National Labor Relations Board plans to issue a rule requiring almost all employers to post notices in employee break rooms or other prominent spots that explain workers' rights to bargain collectively, distribute union literature or engage in other union activity without reprisal.

In the past the NLRB usually made policy on a case-by-case basis during labor-management disputes.

The decision to issue the new order steps up even further the more aggressively pro-labor role the board has played during the Obama administration.

The president first signaled his determination to strengthen the board's role in protecting organizing rights when he made several recess appointments to give the NLRB its first Democratic majority in ten years.

The recess appointments were made because because the presiden't candidates were held up for months over GOP claims that a former AFL-CIO lawyer, Craig Becker, would be too pro-union.

The administration's new rule is opposed by big business which sees it as an attempt to achieve, by executive order, some of what labor and its allies have not been able to achieve on the legislative front. Republican filibusters have blocked passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier to form unions. The EFCA would allow workers to form a union as soon as a majority sign cards expressing their desire to be in a union.

Others who oppose the rule see it as a step in the direction of reversing a long-term decline in union membership. Only 7.2 percent of the natioon's work force is now unionized. Anti-union forces fear that widespread knowledge of union organizing rights will begin to reverse that trend.

The rule will not take effect until late February. From now until then, the NLRB is taking comments.

In a statement last week the NLRB said, "Many employees protected by the National Labor Relations Act are unaware of their rights under the law."

The posters private employers will be required to display are similar to those already required in the offices of government contractors and subcontractors ever since a June executive order issued by the Obama administration.

Michael Eastman, executive director of labor policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is already leading the charge against the rule, telling the press that the NLRB lacks the "legal authority" to issue such a rule.

Attorneys for the chamber and for companies opposed to the rule are telling their clients that the regulation amounts to "government sanctioning" of unions.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the rule is "a common-sense policy necessary because there is widespread lack of understanding of the law and because many workers are justifiably fearful of exercising their rights."

Defend unions at those holiday parties!

Mon, 27 Dec 2010 14:12:00 +0000

"Those unions have a lot of nerve asking for more money and more benefits. Don't they know the economy is in bad shape?"

"Anyhow, unions are just out for themselves - and they are undemocratic outfits run by big bosses who don't let the workers have any say."

"Union workers are lazy and bad for business."

"Cities and states are broke because the public worker unions got too much."

You will be hearing a lot of this stuff not just from political enemies but from family members, friends, co-workers and associates at parties and other gatherings this holiday season.

They will say these things because they don't understand that unions are actually the key to fixing the economy and rebuilding a strong "middle class."

And there are some easy and quick responses you can give that will go a long way to changing their minds on these important issues.

American Rights at Work, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, put together a guide to counter commonly held misconceptions about unions and to help you, the pro-union activist, clear up popular misconceptions. Here's a summary of the most important points:

Are union workers really lazy? Are they bad for business?

The truth: Unions and profitable business go hand-in-hand. Unions raise productivity by 24 percent in manufacturing, 16 percent in hospitals and 38 percent in construction. Unions raise professional standards because they make it easier for members to get training, something which many unions actually offer themselves.

Are unions asking for too much? Shouldn't people be thankful these days for any job?

The truth: Good paying jobs mean a stronger economy, and that, in turn, means even more jobs.

The notion that unions are asking for too much is being pushed by the same bankers and corporate leaders who ruined the economy. Now they want to take advantage of the weak economy and our fears to give themselves even more money than they have already grabbed. The proof: They are sitting on trillions of dollars in profits - the biggest ever and they are not using it to create good-paying jobs.

Why should the people pay the bill for a Wall Street party to which they were not invited? If people cannot afford to buy the things they produce the economy will get only worse.

Unions can make our salaries and benefits grow, enabling us to spend more and strengthen the economy, creating more jobs.

Do unions really only care about their own members?

The truth: Unions improve the lives of all workers. Unions are the reason for many of the things we take for granted at our work places every day: the minimum wage; the eight hour day; child labor laws; health and safety standards; and yes, even the weekend itself.

"That may be true," some will say, "but what do we need them for now?" Well, the fact is that today unions are on the front lines to defend all of these gains and to fight for more basic reforms including paid sick leave for all and increases in the minimum wage.

Aren't public unions to blame for the budget crises in the states and cities?

The truth: Public workers actually earn less in salary than private-sector workers in similar jobs. On the question of benefits, private sector workers should be angry about the inadequate benefits they receive. The solution is not to take benefits away from the people who keep our communities strong (teachers, firefighters, police) but to improve benefits for everyone else, and that's where unions come in.

What's bad for public workers is bad for the entire economy.

The Center for Economic Policy Research reports that freezing federal workers' pay will mean a loss of 2.5 billion dollars in consumption by 2012. 18,000 private sector jobs will be lost as a result.

Aren't unions just like companies - outfits that are run by overpaid bosses?

The truth: Unions are run by workers. A union is a group of workers who get together to deal with workplace matters so they can improve their lives.

Unions are democratic institutions. At all levels - local, state, and national - leaders are elected by majority vote.

Photo: Ed Yourdon CC 2.0

Steelworkers tell feds about oil industry safety woes

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 11:55:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - The rampant safety hazards exposed by the fatal, catastrophic fire, explosion and sinking of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year unveil a catalogue of wide-ranging problems in the oil industry, the Steelworkers say. And they're safety problems industry executives ignore, downplay and refuse to deal with, the union adds.

Details presented by USW witnesses to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, an independent agency investigating the blast, show problems are not just at drilling rigs but occur at refineries, pipelines and virtually all other areas of the oil industry. And accidents in oil affect not just those facilities but surrounding areas as well.

The board spent a whole day Dec. 15 hearing testimony from outside experts, industry reps, the union and a unionist USW brought from Norway. His union represents rig workers there and Norwegian job safety and health laws are strong. The hearing came the same day the Justice Department sued BP for problems at Deepwater.

USW represents 30,000 oil refinery and pipeline workers, but no drilling platform workers, "and the industry is determined" to keep the platforms union-free, USW health and safety director Mike Wright said. The Deepwater Horizon disaster killed 11 men.

Still, the USW told the board, lessons learned elsewhere, including those detailed by USW Local 4959 leaders Glenn Trimmer and Fritz Guenther, from the Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska, can be applied to the platforms - and indeed to the entire industry.

But Congress or the board will have to force the industry to comply, Wright said. "I've worked on safety [issues and investigations] in nuclear power, steel, forestry, rubber and plastics" and elsewhere, the union veteran said. "I know of no industry where the gap between the hazard and the progress to address it as wide." But when USW brought safety and health up in nationwide pattern bargaining with the oil majors, he said, the industry has flatly refused to address the issue, claiming a great safety record and that accidents are the workers' fault. In the last bargaining, the industry's "pattern" company "threatened to take a strike" over safety, Wright added.

Instead, he said, the majors, led by their lobby, the American Petroleum Institute, write voluntary safety regulations for themselves - often full of holes - don't follow them, and say BP is an isolated case. Wright, citing accidents nationwide, disagreed.

"After the 2005 Texas City blast" which killed at least 15 people at BP's USW-

represented Texas City, Texas refinery, "We got a federal grant to develop a process safety curriculum," he explained. "It was approved by OSHA and we offered it, for free, to the companies," where USW would train workers in safety, "if they would just pay the salaries of workers to come to it" for 3-day sessions, he added. They turned it down.

The industry's attitude extends down to the local level, the two Alaskans said. At Prudhoe Bay, until local management changed last year, bonuses depended on how few accidents managers reported.

Health and safety data was "manipulated" and workers did not report accidents "for fear of being disciplined," Trimmer, Local 4959's secretary-treasurer, said. BP has "a safety matrix" for each pipeline work area, with standards set for how few accidents are allowed. Report more, the 30-year veteran said, and supervisors lose bonuses.

"One guy had a bad vehicle accident. He had a broken leg and didn't report if for three hours. When he finally had to and we asked him why he delayed, he responded that he feared being fired," Trimmer said. Overtime and fatigue are also problems: 18-hour days for 2-week stretches are technically banned, so workers toil 16 hours.

Guenther, a 25-year chief steward at Prudhoe, said that from 1979 to 1994, management emphasized preventive maintenance on the pipeline, but things have gone downhill since. Workers left and were not replaced, while the oil field he worked at doubled in size. Only recently has new hiring exceeded retirements, Guenther added.

"We went from preventive maintenance to running around fixing problems at all hours of the day and night," even in Alaska's sub-zero cold, Guenther said. Problems pile up and are shoved into "a backlog." Structures at the pipeline are reaching the end of their useful working lives, 15-25 years old, developing cracks that are patched. And BP rejected the local's contract proposal for a full-time health and safety specialist.

"We have to fundamentally change how we regulate this industry - and there's an even wider gap between regulation and the industry" than elsewhere, Wright told the CSB. "What we need are effective management programs, with strong regulation, backed by strong unionization and strong worker involvement" in safety.

Unions can protect workers and whistleblowers, have the clout to bring up safety problems and the engineering expertise to tackle them, Wright added. Otherwise, "something fails at three in the morning and you throw workers at it - and people die."

The workers recommended giving regulators more power over the oil industry, and more people and money to do their jobs, but Wright admitted that's unlikely given the coming composition in Congress.

Trimmer had another idea for CSB: "Maybe it would help if Congress gave you guys the power to put some people in jail."

BP workers used propane torches to burn off oil from a leak from an oil transit pipeline at the Prudhoe Bay oil field on Alaska's North Slope in this Aug. 18, 2006 file photo. Al Grillo/AP

Where are the jobs? Angry workers put Pulte CEO on the run

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 11:38:00 +0000

TROY, Mich. - PulteGroup CEO Richard Dugas ran for cover.

Who can blame him when 300 trade unionists, including laborers, sheet metal workers, painters, autoworkers, steelworkers and teachers, the faith-based community and more were shouting, "We are union," and demanding to know, "Where is our 900 million?"

Michigan-based PulteGroup is the nation's largest homebuilder. It received $900 million last year from the Worker Home Ownership and Business Assistance Act of 2009. Pulte had lobbied for the bill's passage. The act was intended by Congress and President Obama to be a job-creation measure. One year later, workers in this high-unemployment state are still waiting for those Pulte jobs. And they are riled up about it.

Dugas was to be the keynote speaker at the Detroit Economic Club's luncheon here last week. However when word got out that labor and community folks were going to be there to greet him, he "ran" and the whole luncheon was cancelled. But the workers and their supporters showed up nonetheless.

"This is truly a victory," said rally chair Saundra Williams, president of the Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO. "It is obvious he did not want to answer our questions. This is wonderful and we are going to shout it from the rooftops."

Michigan Congressman John Conyers, in a statement read at the rally, said the Worker Home Ownership Act "was designed to stimulate the housing industry, help homeowners keep their homes, and to avoid increasing the ranks of the unemployed. One year later Pulte has not indicated how the company has spent such funds on creating jobs or if any jobs were ever created. It's time we hold Pulte Group, the largest residential construction company, accountable. The company needs to be investigated."

Reports of Pulte's earnings show the company spent $8 million dollars between July and September of 2010 for employee severance and related costs. People at the rally said this is an indication of job-reduction, not job-creation.

Ben Horowitz from Painters Union District Council 15, traveled here from Arizona to join the rally. Unemployment is high among his membership, he said. "Our members and their families have been hit hard."

Horowitz also noted that the construction industry is one of the most dangerous industries in our country, and the workers building those homes have no union protection. A fact-finding delegation from Interfaith Workers for Justice reported that Pulte workers labor under unsafe conditions, are not paid for overtime, work 60 to 70 hours a week to make ends meet and lack health care and other benefits.

The labor movement and its supporters are holding Pulte accountable for a long list of wrongs. The Metro Detroit AFL-CIO's Williams said Pulte must be held accountable to homeowners for construction defects, to the community for its environmental practices, and "accountable to the nation" for pushing adjustable rate mortgages that contributed to the economic and foreclosure crisis. "We are going to make them be a good corporate citizen," she said.

David Eckstein, an organizing director for the national AFL-CIO, told the rally, "Stimulus money shouldn't just be free money. There should be a plan to pay it back. GM and Chrysler are paying the money back." Pulte, he said, "should be held accountable in the same way. There is no evidence they did anything smart with this money, none. And nobody is asking why."

Angel Rangel, a construction worker from Phoenix, traveled to winter-cold Michigan to ask where the money and jobs are. He wanted to know how the public money has been spent. "The public invested in Pulte Homes," he said. "Now it is time they invested in us."

Photo: PW/John Rummel

Locked out workers give traditional posada new twist

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 15:00:00 +0000

PLEASANTON, Calif. - The late afternoon light was fading fast and the air was heavy with approaching rain as dozens of locked-out Castlewood Country Club workers and their supporters, led by a banner proclaiming "Castlewood, let us work!" and each bearing a glowing candle, began their long procession up the hill to the club's front door.

On this evening, Dec. 18, they were embarking on a posada - a traditional Mexican procession reenacting the Biblical story of Mary and Joseph's search for shelter and their rejection at the inn. Along the way marchers raised their voices in traditional carols in Spanish and English - some with new words: "Joy to the world, we're organized ..."

The symbolism of the posada was apt, because 57 janitors, cooks and other support workers have been locked out by the club's management since Feb. 25, after negotiations for a new contract stalled when the club insisted the workers must pay $739 each month toward family health care costs, or nearly 40 percent of their average take-home pay.

In response, the workers offered to pay $225 a month (they had paid nothing before) and to restrict health benefits to full-time workers. They also said they would accept a wage freeze in the first year of the contract and very low raises thereafter.

UNITE HERE Local 2850, the union that has represented Castlewood workers for over 30 years, says those concessions would have more than offset the costs of keeping the family medical benefits.

As the marchers emerged from the now-dark night and approached the brightly lit, decorated entrance to the club, they serenaded the members inside, but once more - as happened in the traditional Christmas story - they were turned away, empty-handed, and began their long procession back down the hill.

A number of area elected officials support the workers. Earlier this year, the Pleasanton City Council voted to ask the club to end the lockout while it continued talks. Support has also come from area state Democratic Assembly Members Alberto Torrico, Mary Hayashi and Tom Torlakson, as well as Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty.

The state Employment Development Department has ruled the lockout is an offensive action and the locked-out workers have been receiving unemployment benefits.

On Aug. 30, the National Labor Relations Board's general counsel issued a complaint against the club for "interfering with, restraining and coercing employees" and failing and refusing to bargain collectively and in good faith.

As the procession prepared to climb the hill, janitor Francisca Carranza told the crowd, "We're doing this action today because in this holiday season, we should be treated with more respect and more care." She added, "We're going to show them a little care, and that the workers are here, united. And thanks to your support, we'll show them we are not alone."

Union organizer Sarah Norr said although regular bargaining has continued during the lockout, two big hurdles remain: the club's demand concerning health care, and its insistence on eliminating seniority rights. Norr lauded the workers' "courage and resilience," and said support is growing from the community, some Pleasanton political leaders "and even some club members."

At the close of the procession, as marchers regrouped at the bottom of the hill amid pattering rain, it was announced that United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5 has donated a truckload of Christmas toys for the workers' children. The San Mateo Labor Council has also sent toys. The Alameda Labor Council's hardship fund and Local 2850 are continuing to support to the workers during their long fight.

To follow latest developments, see www.endthelockout.org.

Union catalogue highlights books for the holidays

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 11:35:00 +0000

ANNAPOLIS, Md (PAI) - Puzzled by what to get relatives in last-minute holiday shopping? Annapolis-based Union Communication Services has some great new answers for you, in its new winter books - and other products - catalogue.

New titles in the free volume from the all-union shop include "A New New Deal: Regional Activism And The Labor Movement" in its gifts for activists and organizers and the "Keys To Healthy Computing," which deals with carpal tunnel syndrome - a common job health and safety complaint among those who type at computer keyboards.

For kids, union-steward-turned-detective Lenny Moss gets pulled into a murky murder investigation in "Slim to None," and the harrowing life of a Chinese factory girl is exposed in a diary named "Chicken Feathers And Garlic Skin." Historians will glory in "There Is Power in a Union: The Epic Story Of Labor In America."

The catalogue is available from UCS at 1-800-321-2545 or their website.

Image: Union Communication Services

Hilton unionists rock San Francisco

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 14:38:00 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO - "San Francisco's a union town!" and "San Francisco, escucha: ¡estamos en la lucha!" - these are some of the chants that resounded throughout downtown San Francisco on Dec. 16 as about 150 members of UNITE HERE Local 2 and their supporters marched around the entrance to the San Francisco Hilton, close by the city's famed Union Square.

The union is calling for a boycott of the Hilton, owned by the Blackstone Group, which recently announced it has $28 billion in spare cash to invest - while demanding that Hilton workers give up their health care, living wages, and retirement benefits.

Stephen Schwarzman, Blackstone's chairman, stated this past April that "we can feel this turnaround in the economy" - but apparently he doesn't want the workers who produce his profits to feel it. In response, Local 2, which represents workers at many hotels around the Bay Area, has called a boycott.

Today's action was one of many that have drawn spirited crowds and let not only the Hilton management but also the whole community of San Francisco - which has a strong labor tradition going back to the 19th century - know that this is indeed a union town.

Image: Henry Millstein/PW

AFL-CIO head: Unemployment benefits fight just opening shot in long battle

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 14:12:00 +0000

In an e-mail message to millions of union activists today, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the $858 billion tax deal that extends emergency unemployment benefits for millions of jobless workers is only the first of many challenges America's workers will face over the next two years.

Slamming congressional Republicans for what he termed their "moral bankruptcy," Trumka said, "While desperately poor families are forgoing Christmas this year - prompting children to pen 'Dear Santa' letters that ask for basics like boots, coats and money for electricity bills - Republicans fought tooth and nail for a gilded gift basket of income tax cuts worth $120 billion for America's super-rich, and a new estate tax exemption that would let off all but America's 50 wealthiest families so their pampered children can keep more of their millions."

"Let's call these the cut-and-run Republicans," he declared, "who cut taxes and run from responsibilities."

The tax deal, passed by Congress last night, is "a huge relief for the more than 1.4 million long-term job seekers who already have lost their emergency unemployment benefits," but it "comes at a terrible price," Trumka said, "because it rewards obstructionists with huge tax breaks for the nation's richest and throws away precious resources we could use to revive our economy."

The AFL-CiO leader warned: "Soon, the same lawmakers who fought to get tax cuts for millionaires will come after Social Security and Medicare in the name of deficit reduction and 'shared sacrifice.' But they won't ask Wall Street and the moneyed interests to share sacrifice. Instead, they'll come after working people."

The labor movement and its allies among civil rights and community organizations oppose what they see as a stepped-up drive by Republicans and the right wing generally to solve the country's long-term financial problems on the backs of working people.

They point to opinion polls that indicate the public is behind them on this issue, noting that even majorities of registered Republicans oppose cuts in Social Security and Medicare and that most oppose rolling back health care reform.

In his e-mail to union members Trumka admitted that the labor movement is struggling to come up with a strategy that can succeed in creating the millions of jobs he says are needed for the country to move forward.

"How do we use our power to escape caving in to Wall Street and moneyed interests? And how do we create the millions of jobs we need now and move forward toward a future of broadly shared prosperity? I don't have all the answers today," he said. "But I do know we can't keep doing what we're doing now. I know we have to fight harder and louder and more creatively - and I know we can only win together."

Trumka urged everyone to pull out their mobile phones and text the word DEAL to 225568. "We'll keep you updated on our fight to stop deficit hypocrites from stealing our hard-earned Social Security and Medicare benefits," he said.

Bakers enlist international backing for locked-out Iowa members

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 11:40:00 +0000

KEOKUK, Iowa (PAI) - Trying to repeat their success in a contract fight with the makers of Dannon Yogurt, members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union have turned to national and international unions and invoked international human rights standards to garner support for 240 locked-out workers from the Roquette corn-milling plant in Keokuk, Iowa.

Joining the crusade: The International Union of Farm, Food and Hotel Workers (IUF), the AFL-CIO, the LabourStart website and others. Their target: Roquette Frères, which IUF calls "a French-based manufacturer of starch and sugar derivatives" used in foods, beverages and manufacturing applications.

Its U.S. subsidiary, Roquette America, locked out the Bakery Workers on Sept. 28 after they rejected the latest contract offer from the very profitable firm - whose CEO in 2009 signed a social compact promising to respect worker rights.

"Management at Roquette America apparently hasn't been brought up to speed on this," IUF commented laconically.

"BCTGM Local 48G represents 240 workers at the Keokuk plant, which manufactures starches, including the high fructose corn syrup used by companies including Coca-Cola and Heinz," IUF said in a world-wide alert.

When bargaining for a new pact began Nov. 14, Roquette demanded "among other reductions and concessions," the right to hire temps at half wages and no benefits, an end to seniority, no overtime for weekend work and elimination of sick, personal and maternity leave. Roquette America also wants to eliminate the company pension plan, load high increases in health care costs on the workers, and freeze wages for four years. When the workers understandably voted "no," Roquette gave them a 24-hour take-It-or-else ultimatum before locking them out on Nov. 28. They've been walking picket lines in Iowa's cold ever since.

Local 48G and BCTGM overall turned to the the AFL-CIO in the fight. The fed cited the Roquette CEO's agreement to international worker standards. BCTGM asked the IUF to bring pressure on the firm, in France. That's how BCTGM won a similar contract struggle before with French-based Groupe Dannone, the parent firm for Dannon Yogurt, which was trying to jam a concessionary contract down the throats of its workers in Ohio.

"Roquette workers are the latest union workforce to be attacked by a vicious corporate offensive to profit from high unemployment by rolling back wages and conditions at a time of healthy profits and cheap credit," IUF said. "The union has two demands: an immediate end to the lockout, and an unconditional return to negotiations."

The AFL-CIO took the Roquette workers' plight to the United Nations. "In Sept. 2009, the CEO of Roquette, Guy Talbordet, signed...and committed to support the principles of the UN Global Compact which apply to respecting human and labor rights, the environment, and fighting corruption," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka wrote to George Kell, who heads the UN body overseeing it. Roquette's actions in Keokuk "directly violate" it, and "undermine its legitimacy."

Image: This small city has become the site of a heated international labor battle. Jimmy Emerson // CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Unions differ on Korea trade pact

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 15:24:00 +0000

DETROIT - The United Auto Workers union support for the U.S. Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) has received a lot of "ink" in recent days as a number of unions have criticized the deal.

The UAW and all of labor opposed the 2007 U.S.-Korea trade pact that was negotiated by President George W. Bush. At that time the U.S. ran a $12.8 billion trade deficit with Korea, of which $10.3 billion was concentrated in the auto and auto parts sector. Almost 90 percent of Korea's auto exports to the U.S. would have received immediate duty-free access on the day the agreement became law. The unions' concern, of course, was the disastrous effect this would have on American workers' jobs.

The UAW argues that the 2010 version of the pact is an improvement. In a statement released yesterday the union says the agreement extends the number of years the U.S. can impose tariffs on imported vehicles, and also opens the South Korean market to U.S. cars by eliminating and reducing Korean tariffs on vehicles and trucks coming from the U.S.

The union's statement notes, "For the first time ever, the UAW was consulted and played a meaningful role in the negotiations and was able to successfully influence the process and secure significant improvements to the automotive provisions in the trade agreement."

The statement also expresses concern about the changed balance of forces in Congress as a result of the November 2010 elections, saying "The incoming Republican majority would have advocated for the 2007 Bush-negotiated agreement with no safeguards for our members."

In addition, the UAW says, the KORUS FTA includes labor and environmental commitments, as well as important enforcement mechanisms.

On the other hand, many unions and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka oppose the agreement. (It should be noted the United Food and Commercial Workers has also expressed support for the pact.)

Trumka in a released statement said he "welcomes the tremendous efforts by the Obama administration to address the urgent concerns of autoworkers and auto companies with respect to market access, safeguard provisions and some non-tariff barriers."

However he added that "the labor movement's concerns about the Korea trade deal go beyond the auto assembly sector to a more fundamental question about what a fairer and more balanced trade policy should look like."

In particular Trumka said the labor movement worries that provisions in the Korea deal will encourage off-shoring of jobs.

While the labor movement is divided on this issue, they are united on the need to build global solidarity.

For many, more significant than the trade pacts being negotiated by governments are the ties and solidarity being built by workers and their unions across the globe. Worker solidarity is what can eventually bring relative equality in wages, working conditions and stronger environmental standards. It can also end the ability of corporations to whipsaw workers in one country against those in another.

Last Friday, UAW President Bob King led a delegation of UAW leaders on a visit to Korea to meet with the Korean Metal Workers Union. Several days earlier the United Auto Workers demonstrated outside the Hyundai America Technical Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., to show support for striking Hyundai workers in Ulsan, South Korea.

The Korean Hyundai workers are classified as "temporary." At the Ann Arbor rally King called that a "global problem."

He said, "We have to build a global movement for social and economic justice. What we confront today is a global problem for workers. Bosses all over the world, even tremendously profitable corporations like Hyundai, are trying to reduce the number of permanent workers, and expand the number of temporary workers."

Global solidarity can trump the interests of the corporations, the labor movement is increasingly agreeing. That solidarity is built by workers of one nation reaching out to another because of their common interests. On this score the UAW and the rest of labor are united.

Photo: UAW members carry U.S. and South Korean flags, Dec. 6, at a rally at the Hyundai America Tech Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., to show their solidarity with Korean Hyundai workers. PW/John Rummel

Demonstrators to Rite Aid: Respect workers, respect communities

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 14:33:00 +0000

CLEVELAND - Hundreds rallied in some 45 cities Dec. 15 in a national Day of Action to protest efforts by Rite Aid to slash health coverage for its low-paid clerical and warehouse employees. The actions were organized by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, the AFL-CIO, Jobs with Justice and United Students against Sweatshops.

In Cleveland, nearly 50 public officials, union and community activists and Rite Aid workers braved freezing winds at a rally in Public Square.

"A frigid wind is now blowing across the entire country," said Cleveland Councilman Jay Westbrook. "The aim is to take every last dime from the pockets of working people." The City Council, he said, unanimously passed a resolution condemning Rite Aid's announced plans to slash health care when the current contract with the UFCW expires Jan. 1.

"Rite Aid is doing the wrong thing," he said.

State Representative Mike Foley also charged that Rite Aid's actions were part of a broad corporate attack.
"They want to socialize health care," he said, "by forcing workers to go on Medicaid." Foley said he and other state legislators sent a letter of protest to the company.

"They refuse to negotiate," said Tanya Mahoney, a clerk with 13 years at the company. "We gave up wage increases in the past so that we could have health insurance." She said wages are generally between $8 and $9 an hour.

"We try to serve the community and they are trying to take away our rights," she added. "They don't care about the workers any more."

"They never cared about us," said Reatha Tolliver, who has worked for Rite Aid for 20 years. "Each contract they take more away. They are constantly increasing our workload. I work in a high crime area and there is no real security."

Both the UFCW and the ILWU charge that Rite Aid is seeking to pay for serious errors of top management by cutting employee health care costs. Since 2008 the company has had to pay millions to settle charges it sold expired products and violated customer privacy rights. Nonetheless multimillion dollar salaries for top executives have escalated. President and CEO John Standley receives $4.5 million in total compensation, the unions said.

Local 880 has called for a boycott of Rite Aid until the health care issue is resolved. It is calling on customers to move their prescriptions to unionized pharmacies owned by CVS, Giant Eagle and Dave's Supermarkets.

Debbie Kline, director of Cleveland Jobs with Justice, urged people to "friend" Rite Aid's Facebook page and send messages of protest. "They have already censored their wall, but you can add comments," she said.

In Oakland, Calif., chants of "Rite Aid, Rite Aid, you're no good - treat your workers like you should!" rang out through the heart of downtown as dozens of pickets from the ILWU and other area unions and community organizations demonstrated at a Rite Aid store a block from City Hall.

Solidarity with 550 workers at Rite Aid's Lancaster, Calif., warehouse was uppermost in participants' minds as they marched bearing signs calling on Rite Aid to "respect workers, respect our communities."

Two years after the Lancaster workers voted to join the ILWU, they are still negotiating for a first contract and facing heavy pressure from their employer, including efforts to burden the workers with a big increase in health care costs, ILWU International Organizing Director Peter Olney told the pickets.

Calling Oakland "a union town," Mayor-Elect Jean Quan pledged the city's solidarity with the southern California workers' struggles.

A highlight, courtesy of the theatrical union AFTRA-SAG, was a special appearance by Rite Aid CEO Standley, arm-in-arm with Ebenezer Scrooge. After Jacob Marley's ghost intervened, both saw the light and joined the pickets.

A delegation led by ILWU International Vice President Ray Familathe then entered the store and presented a petition to a startled-looking manager, who promised to pass it on to company headquarters.

Marilyn Bechtel contributed to this article.

Photo: Workers brave the cold and wind to speak out at Cleveland's rally Dec. 15. (Photo by Debbie Kline)

Obama Labor Dept. acts against wage and benefit theft

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 14:40:00 +0000

The Department of Labor took action this week to recover almost $1 million in back wages for construction workers in New York and forced a Georgia company to pay restitution for improper investment of union pension funds.

"The department will not hesitate to pursue legal action, including debarment, to ensure employees are properly paid under the law," Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said Dec. 13 after her department announced its legal action in New York.

An investigation by department's Wage and Hour Division District Office in New York City revealed that subcontractors that employed 32 workers at public housing projects funded by the federal government violated wage and benefit requirements of the Davis-Bacon Act and the Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards Act.

The investigation found that two construction demolition companies in Brooklyn and Queens - Enviro & Demo Masters Inc. and Gladiators Contracting - had failed to pay prevailing wage rates and fringe benefits to 32 demolition workers employed by them. The companies also failed to pay the workers time-and-one-half their basic rate of pay for hours worked over 40 in a week, and submitted inaccurate certified payroll and time records.

The Department of Labor is seeking not only full restitution of all back wages due to the employees but also the debarment of Enviro & Demo Masters Inc., Gladiators Contracting Services and the owner and president of both companies, Jover Naranjo and Luperio Naranjo, preventing them from working on future federally-funded contracts for a period of up to three years,

The Davis-Bacon Act requires all contractors and subcontractors performing work on federal projects to pay their employees the proper prevailing wage rates and fringe benefits as determined by the secretary of labor. The Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards Act requires contractors to pay employees one and one-half times their basic rate of pay for all hours worked over 40 in a week.

"Wage theft is a national epidemic that robs millions of workers of billions of dollars they've worked for but never see," said Kim Bobo, executive director of Interfaith Workers Justice, which ran a National Day of Action Against Wage Theft last month.

As part of the National Day, workers in Houston drove a "justice bus," stopping at workplaces where employers engage in wage theft.

Also on that day the city of Grand Rapids, Mich., set up a new task force against wage theft, and workers in many other locations around the country filed lawsuits.

In New York State alone, employers steal more than $18.45 million a week, almost $1 billion each year, from their workers by cheating them out of minimum wages and overtime pay, according to a recent study by the National Employment Law Center. Both the New York State Assembly and the State Senate have passed the Wage Theft Prevention Act, which increases penalties for violations of state laws on wage theft. In July, Illinois enacted a similar law.

Showing it is determined to protect more than just the wages workers have coming to them, the Department of Labor also moved this week to force restoration of a pension fund that it said had been endangered by a Georgia investment company.

The department announced it had secured a court order against the Georgia firm and its owner to restore more than $1 million to a plumbers' pension plan.

C.S. Capital Management Inc. of Atlanta, Ga., and its owner, Paul Saylor, were ordered to restore $1,090,000 to the Plumbers and Pipefitters National Pension Plan as restitution for improperly investing $25 million in risky private placement bonds. The company was also ordered to pay the same amount in fines to the federal government.

"We have adamantly denied that we have done anything that is wrong," said Saylor, in a phone interview. "And we continue to deny that we have done anything wrong. All we were doing is managing an investment everyone knew about. This whole thing is outrageous and the only reason we are paying this money is that it is better to do that than have to fight the U.S. government."

Photo: www.iwj.org, Interfaith Worker Justice

Pratt & Whitney workers make gains despite plant closing

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 15:56:00 +0000

EAST HARTFORD, Conn. - Machinist union members at Pratt & Whitney ratified a new contract last weekend, following a valiant fight on the shop floor, in the street and at the bargaining table to stop plant closings and save job security language. Their tactics preserved the unity of the workforce and retained job security language in the union contract, although the company will now proceed to close the Cheshire plant and the CARO repair department in East Hartford, displacing 500 workers. An "early out" benefit package won by the union is expected to create job openings for most of the affected workers.

From the start the company, which produces, overhauls and repairs commercial and military jet engines for United Technologies Corp (UTC), made it known that they anticipated workers were too divided to stop the elimination of contract language requiring "every reasonable effort" to keep jobs in Connecticut. However, that language remains, a tribute to the unity that the workers were able to maintain around the slogan "Don't screw with letter 22."

The closings are bad news for the current and future workforce in Connecticut. UTC is the largest private employer in the state. There are 3,400 workers at Pratt & Whitney plants in Middletown, Cheshire and East Hartford. At the time of the last contract there were over 5,000 workers and the North Haven plant was still open.

During the week leading up to the contract vote, union members wore their special t-shirts, rallied outside the main plant, and carried out full preparations for a strike. At the last moment the company made an offer incorporating enough of the union concerns for the negotiating committee to recommend a "yes" vote. When the members gathered at Oakdale Theater in Wallingford, they listened to the terms of the agreement, and, in an hour, voted overwhelmingly to accept.

IAM chief negotiator Jim Parent emphasized that in the 16-month fight over the Cheshire and CARO closings, which included two court cases won by the union, "our members never gave up, gave in or stopped fighting. We have had a lot of support along the way from elected officials, the labor movement, many local businesses and others."

Parent pointed out that "the company had originally dismissed us as too old and tired to put up a fight. But our members raised hell in every shop, and convinced the top brass at UTC and Pratt that they were looking at a strike. That's when management really began to negotiate and address our concerns."

The contract includes a Special Separation Program that pays a week of severance pay for every year of service on the job, paid medical and dental for one year and a lump sum payment of $20,000. The company and the union will work jointly on job placement, training and reducing vended-out work. Under a new F-135 military production contract, the company will add 75 new jobs.

The contract also includes signing bonuses of $3,00 to $4,000, annual wage increases of 3 percent, 2.5 percent and 2.5 percent, pension increases and a renewed apprenticeship program.

The contracts won by workers at Pratt & Whitney are used as a standard by other employers in the state, who consider Pratt wages and benefits as top of the line.

"The same vigilant membership will ensure that Pratt lives up to its commitments now. And we will expect that the commitments made by company negotiators are sincere and will be honored. If not, our members are prepared to do whatever it takes to protect their rights, and their jobs," said Parent.

According to John Harrity, in charge of communications for IAM District 26, "The fight of Pratt & Whitney workers demonstrates too vividly the tremendous pressures under which organized workers operate against decreasing union density in the US and the globalization of manufacturing. We need trade policies that raise global standards instead of dragging workers down, and laws that encourage organizing rather than stripping workers of their right to a voice on the job. Without those changes, even militant workers like those at Pratt will be faced with fighting for the best out of terrible options."

Updated 12/15/10.

Photo: At a plant gate rally before the contract expiration, union workers say "Don't screw with letter 22," referring to the contract provision which restricts outsourcing. PW

On Human Rights Day, caregivers celebrate a victory

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 13:25:00 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO - For two hardworking women, International Human Rights Day 2010 was an occasion to celebrate. Victoria Aquino and Lourdes Torres, who came to the U.S. from the Philippines in recent years and worked as caregivers in a San Francisco rest home, have won a settlement from their employer totaling over $70,000 in unpaid wages and penalties.

The occasion was also a springboard for the launch of a Global Campaign for Decent Work and Rights for Domestic Workers, and for the unveiling of a new report on the organizing struggles of workers not protected by existing labor law.

The two women told their stories to a rapt audience of fellow caregivers and members of organizations campaigning against wage theft and for full labor rights for all workers.

Aquino said her work as sole caregiver for six elderly and disabled patients involved shifts of 14 or more hours, seven days a week, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, dispensing medications and helping to maintain the facility. And then she was on call at night. Torres, who later joined Aquino as relief caregiver for part of the week, worked similar hours.

The two turned to the Filipino Community Center for help, and the Center, together with the Women's Employment Rights Clinic at Golden Gate University, launched a campaign to support Filipino caregivers and their workplace rights. In April, Aquino and Torres won an 8-hour workday. After long negotiations, they also won all back wages they were owed.

"This is not only a victory for me, but a victory for all caregivers who have had their wages stolen by an employer," said Torres.

And that was the theme of the day, with speakers emphasizing that workers across the spectrum of racial and ethnic backgrounds, and employed in many industries, share the onerous burdens of wage theft and lack of labor rights.

Aquino and Torres were eloquent in expressing their appreciation for the work of the FCC, the Women's Employment Rights Clinic and its director, attorney Marci Seville, and other organizations that backed their struggle.

Seville, in turn, emphasized the two womens' courage in coming forward, and the importance of their insistence that the settlement must be made public. She also praised the work of the half-dozen law students who negotiated the settlement.

"When you have conditions like these two caregivers worked in, you have both a workers' rights issue and a patient care issue," she added. "We need to reach out to the families of these patients and to people in the disability community and make staffing standards a big issue."

The Filipino Community Center and other organizations are members of the Progressive Workers Alliance, formed earlier this year, which is calling for a Low Wage Workers' Bill of Rights.

A related international effort, highlighted by Guillermina Castellanos of La Raza Centro Legal's San Francisco Day Labor Program, is the Global Campaign for Decent Work and Rights for Domestic Workers, officially launched Dec. 10. The campaign aims to achieve an international convention on domestic work at the forthcoming conference of the UN's International Labour Organization in June 2011.

Introducing the new report, Unity for Dignity: Expanding the Right to Organize to Win Human Rights at Work, Kimi Lee of the Excluded Workers Congress emphasized that farm workers, domestic workers, day laborers, formerly incarcerated workers and many others experience problems comparable to those of the two victorious caregivers.

The report, available at www.excludedworkers.org, analyzes the ways millions of workers are excluded from the right to organize and highlights the ways in which these workers are asserting their rights against enormous odds. The Excluded Workers Congress was founded in June, at the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit.

Also participating were legislative aides to San Francisco Supervisors David Campos and John Avalos, who presented certificates from the Board of Supervisors, honoring Aquino and Torres for their courage and fighting spirit.

Photo of Victory Aquino by Marilyn Bechtel/People's World

Justices tackle if states can use business licensing laws vs. undocumented workers

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:39:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - Can states use their own licensing laws to crack down on businesses that hire undocumented workers?

The Supreme Court wrestled with that question on Dec. 9, dealing with a 2007 law from Arizona - a measure that presaged the tougher anti-Hispanic law the same state passed two years later.

At issue in Chamber of Commerce vs. Whiting was whether Arizona could go beyond the 1986 federal immigration control law and pass its own law, yanking business licenses from those firms that hire undocumented workers.

The case is important because if the High Court lets states yank such licenses workers will get hurt, even if they are legally in the U.S. The case also produced an amalgam of "strange bedfellows" on the same side: Unions - led by the Service Employees - sided with the chamber, although for different reasons, against Arizona.

SEIU pointed out that Arizona forces business to use the federal "E-Verify" system to check if a worker is legal, even though the feds say E-Verify is only voluntary - and though SEIU, in another court, has shown the system is shot through with errors.

That compulsion is illegal, SEIU says.

The Obama administration also sided with the chamber, but for another reason: That federal immigration law pre-empts state laws. But early in the court's session, Justice Sonia Sotomayor got Carter Phillips, the chamber's attorney, to admit that Congress wrote that exception for state licenses into the federal immigration law.

"You don't disagree that Congress at least intended that if someone violated the federal law and hired ... undocumented aliens and was found to have violated it, that the state can revoke their license, correct, to do business?" Sotomayor asked. "Yes. I don't disagree with that, Justice Sotomayor," Phillips replied.

"So it really doesn't matter whether they are revoking their right to do business in the state. And they can only revoke their charter or their articles of incorporation if they were filed in that state," Sotomayor said.

But she then added that Arizona "wouldn't have the power to revoke" the charter of a Delaware-based corporation to do business in Arizona even if it hired undocumented workers. "They can't do it in Delaware, right," Phillips replied.

Phillips pointed out that Congress intended the licensing exception to be very narrow, citing the friend-of-the-court brief - on the government's side - that SEIU filed.

"The SEIU brief does a very nice job of explaining the particular focus of Congress, obviously, on the Agricultural Workers Protection Act - which has tremendous significance in terms of narrowing the state's authority here," Phillips told Justice Antonin Scalia.

That prompted a testy Scalia to retort that Congress "could have named that particular licensing scheme, if that's what it meant."

Justice Department attorney Neal Katyal, speaking for the Obama administration, stuck to the theme that federal law pre-empts all state and local immigration laws.

"State adjudication of a federal violation is expressly preempted as well as impliedly so for three reasons. The first is that Congress in developing IRCA in the comprehensive scheme set out a series of procedures, Federal adjudication with an ALJ, all sorts of different regulations to the jot and tittle. And what Arizona does here is what 40,000 different localities can do if this law is upheld," Katyal told the court.

Arizona Solicitor General Mary E. O'Grady kept emphasizing the licensing exception Congress wrote into the 1986 immigration act.

"Through their police powers, states traditionally have the authority to regulate the conduct of employers...to determine what conduct warrants issuance of a state license and to determine what conduct justifies suspending or revoking such a license. Although Congress preempted some of our traditional authority when it enacted IRCA in 1986, it preserved significant state authority through the clause that permits a state to impose sanctions through licensing and similar laws," she said.

SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Eliseo Medina, the son of immigrants, says the Arizona case, and the state's use of E-Verify, once again shows the urgent need for Congress to step in and fix the broken U.S. immigration system.

"Our broken immigration system is a national problem that needs a national solution. Arizona's mandatory E-Verify law is yet another costly and ineffective band-aid," Medina said. "A 50-state patchwork of regulations hurts communities, workers and is bad for business. The E-Verify program has been plagued with flaws and errors from the beginning...We hope the Supreme Court will recognize Congress intended the federal government to govern immigration policy. Fifty states acting alone cannot do it."

Job safety-mine safety bill fails in House

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:24:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - In a vote that was strictly for show, the Democratic-run House still failed on Dec. 8 to pass a major job safety-mine safety bill.

The legislation, which would have vastly increased fines the Occupational Safety and Health Administration could levy against wrongdoers and which would make a job safety violation that killed a worker into a felony punishable by jail time, needed a two-thirds vote for approval under special fast-track rules short-circuiting debate.

It didn't get close: 213 Democrats and one Republican voted for it, and 27 Democrats and 166 Republicans opposed it.

House Democrats brought it up, along with other legislation, knowing full well it was going nowhere in the Senate.

The job safety bill wasn't the only one that went down in flames in the House. Another piece of Democratic-sponsored legislation, to award a $250 payment to Social Security recipients, railroad retirees and others who will not see a cost-of-living increase next year, also flopped.

It, too, needed a two-thirds majority. It garnered votes from 228 Democrats and 26 Republicans, and opposition from 12 Democrats and 141 Republicans.

Defeat of the job safety-mine safety bill disappointed Obama administration Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, a former California congresswoman.

"This commonsense legislation would be an important step forward in strengthening safety laws for our nation's miners," she said. It "would compel the worst of the worst in the mining industry to change how they treat their miners...The tremendous need for this legislation continues. Every day, the lives of miners are needlessly being put at risk. That should be unacceptable to every single member of Congress. All workers deserve to come home safe at the end of a shift."

UAW: Korean workers’ fight is our fight

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 11:43:00 +0000

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - The movement for global justice got a big lift this week, when Hyundai Motor Co. found out its unjust treatment of autoworkers in South Korea will not go unnoticed in the U.S. That "lift" came on a bitterly cold Michigan day, when the United Auto Workers and a host of supporters demonstrated outside the Hyundai America Technical Center here, in support of striking autoworkers at the Hyundai Motor Company in Ulsan, South Korea.

Known around the world as "precarious" workers but in the U.S. as temporary workers, the Korean autoworkers have been waging a sit-down strike since Nov. 15. The strike began after company thugs attacked protesting workers and prevented them from going to their workplace. Hyundai insisted the workers withdraw their membership in the Korean Metal Workers Union (KMWU) if they wanted an opportunity to continue working.

The Dec. 6 UAW demonstration took place on short notice, on a windswept country road where the Hyundai Tech Center is located. Still, a hundred strong showed up to express their solidarity.

UAW President Bob King, who along with three other UAW leaders will be leaving this Friday to travel to South Korea to meet with the Metal Workers Union, said, "What we confront today is a global problem for workers. Bosses all over the world, even tremendously profitable corporations like Hyundai, are trying to reduce the number of permanent workers, and expand the number of temporary workers."

King noted that the UAW along with other manufacturing unions built the middle class in the United States. "When autoworkers, steelworkers, machinists and teamsters got good wages, public employees were able to demand and win good wages, service sector employees were able to demand and win good wages," King said.

"We have an unbelievable disparity between the very wealthiest in society and the working and poor class in society," the UAW president said. "The only way we are going to win justice for American workers, for Korean workers, for Chinese, Japanese, Mexican and Bangladesh workers, and workers everywhere, is through global solidarity."

Walking in the demonstration were father and son Chris Michalakis Sr. and Jr. Chris Michalakis Jr. is a leader in the United Food and Commercial Workers union and is secretary treasurer of the Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO. He cited the importance to the people of Detroit of supporting autoworkers across the world. "If we raise their standards in Korea, we will raise the standards of autoworkers, like my father here, in Detroit."

Also participating was a contingent of musicians from the world renowned Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) who themselves have been on strike more than nine weeks. Gordon Stump, president of the Detroit Federation of Musicians, said, "We have a common commitment to support strikers around the world. We thought it would be appropriate to bring some musicians on strike."

Korean DSO violinist Eun Park read a statement in Korean that was then read in English by another symphony musician. Park said, "Throughout history, workers everywhere have struggled for their basic rights. Nothing has ever been won without great effort."

"We have been on strike for more than 9 weeks against huge pay cuts and other demands," said Park. "We have been great strengthened and encourage by the wonderful support we have received from professional musicians all over and workers in other fields. Quite simply, it can mean the difference between success and failure. Together we can send a message to those who wish to exploit us that they cannot simply travel the world to seek the most vulnerable workers. So we are happy to lend our voice to those who are calling for fairness for the Hyundai workers. May they reach a speedy resolution to their just claims."

The Korean autoworkers will have a chance to hear Park's message. The demonstration was filmed by the UAW, and union leaders will take the video along on their trip to South Korea in order to show it to the workers there.

King expanded on Park's remarks. "We have to build a global movement for social and economic justice. When workers in the DSO are being treated unfairly and unjustly, we have to stand with them. When workers in Korea are being treated unfairly and unjustly, we are going to stand with them."

King and UAW Vice President Cindy Estrada then led a delegation to the Hyundai offices where they delivered a picture of an abused Korean worker, told company representatives the conditions for "precarious" workers are intolerable, and said, "We are going to help Korean unions expand the fight if the company doesn't recognize those temporary workers as full -ime workers."

Meanwhile, the UAW has thrown its support behind the just-announced U.S.-South Korea trade pact. A U.S.-Korea trade agreement was first put forward by President George W. Bush. The UAW says changes to the initial proposal have lessened its negative impact on autoworkers. However AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has so far withheld comment, while a number of other unions have criticized the pact, saying it will further erode our manufacturing base.

What all of labor can agree on, and unions like the United Auto Workers and Steelworkers are in the process of building, is more solidarity and ties between unions and workers throughout the world. In an era of globalization, there is no other way for workers to win.

Photo: UAW members hold up photos of abused South Korean Hyundai workers, at the Dec. 6 solidarity rally in Ann Arbor, Mich. (PW/John Rummel)

Dallas stands for jobs and retirement benefits

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 15:51:00 +0000

DALLAS - Fifty North Texans, primarily retirees, added their voices to the general outcry against plans to cut retiree benefits at a meeting in the Communications Workers of America Local 6215 Hall December 2. Most of them had already called their congresspersons to protest earlier in the week. On December 3, activists were relieved to learn that the so-called the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform had failed to get enough members behind the proposals of the two committee chairs. If the report had been approved, it had been expected to "fast track" for a vote in Congress.

Communications Workers of America Retired Members Council 6290 President Larry Laznovsky opened the meeting and called for introductions. Leaders of his own union from Tarrant and Dallas Counties were joined by retiree leaders from the Steelworkers, Teachers, and Auto Workers.

The secretary of the Texas Alliance for Retired Americans, Gene Lantz, opened the discussion by pointing out that every attack against retiree benefits would make the unemployment crisis even worse.

"After they drew blood this week by cutting off unemployment benefits, this committee is trying to slam the door on the slaughterhouse by cutting retirees," said Lantz. The AFL-CIO had estimated that the committee's proposals would cause another 4,000,000 job losses, he added.

CWA leader Jim Rivers went over the proposal in detail. Among the grim features were:

- A 15 percent increase in our gasoline taxes

- Dramatic reductions in corporate taxes and taxes on the wealthy

- Repeal of the alternative minimum tax

- Chopping Medicare payments

- Give up on long-term care for seniors

- Increase the retirement age

Rivers also summarized a much better proposal by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., who is a dissenting member of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

Rosemarie Rieger of North Texas Jobs with Justice pointed out that the overall problems of unemployment and retiree benefits are the concern of everyone, young and old. A great deal of the ensuing discussion had to do with recommendations as to how to spread the word and fight the general attack against active and retired working people. Several pointed to the powerful street actions recently reported in Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Greece, France, and Great Britain.

Labor Deptartment zeroes in on women's issues

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 12:54:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - The Labor Department's Women's Bureau, faced with small size, a budget freeze and potential cuts, will emphasize research on working women's issues, outreach to workers and - despite a potentially hostile GOP House majority - paycheck fairness, the agency's director says.

Speaking Nov. 23 to the Clearinghouse on Women's Issues, Director Sara Manzano-Diaz added, ruefully, that she frequently finds the agency tackling the same issues it did when it was created 90 years ago.

One of those is equal pay for equal work, she notes. "I'm a little disappointed we didn't get the Paycheck Fairness Act passed" in the Senate, where lawmakers failed, by two votes, to halt a planned Republican filibuster against the legislation. "But we'll keep trying," Manzano-Diaz added.

The Women's Bureau was established in 1920, just after women won the right to vote in all elections. Over the years, it has tackled issues such as equal pay, work-life balance, the Equal Rights Amendment, child care on the job - and tax credits for child care - and the Family and Medical Leave Act.

But with 58 workers, down from 100 in its heyday years ago, and a program budget that, after salaries, totals $1.2 million, the Women's Bureau must turn to the private sector to help it advance the rights and economic prospects of female workers.

It's also making the case to companies that the issues it tackles and the causes it champions are good business sense, too, Manzano-Diaz told the Nov. 23 meeting.

"We're making the case in business-to-business discussions, especially with small businesses," at regional conferences that both the bureau and its parent agency, the Labor Department, have hosted around the country.

Workplace flexibility is an advantage to business short-term and to the society long-term, the bureau tells companies. The issue, which the bureau pushes, lets workers, both men and women, adjust their schedules to family needs, such as caring for sick children and elderly parents.

The advantage to business, Manzano-Diaz says she tells businesses, is that they don't have to train replacement workers and that they get higher productivity from present workers whose minds aren't distracted from their jobs by worry.

The advantage of flexibility to workers is they get time to retrain themselves for jobs in the 21^st century workforce, thus increasing their earning and income capacity while becoming more valuable to employers, or that they get time to take care of loved ones

"It even leaves less of a carbon footprint," she added, because flexible hours mean workers can avoid sitting in traffic jams during rush hour.

Some companies get it, Manzano-Diaz said. "There are 100 CEOs who understand the workforce of tomorrow is the young girls and women of today," she said.

But not all do. Corporate attitudes towards women at work, polls show, still penalize women in the workforce, even those without families. A young woman college graduate with identical credentials to her male counterpart, and taking the same position in the same field, still faces a starting salary penalty of up to 5 percent and the gap only widens as the two move up the corporate ladder.

Polls and intensive surveys by both the Women's Bureau and think tanks also show women pay a large wage penalty when they take time off from work to care for families.

To overcome these obstacles, and its small staff, the Women's Bureau is intensifying its outreach to workers, especially to tell them about their rights to equal pay and treatment on the job. It's also reaching out to the private sector groups as partners in the information effort.

But the bureau's efforts aren't all carrot and no stick, Manzano-Diaz said. Her bureau, the Justice Department, other sections of the Labor Department, the federal Office of Personnel Management and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission established a joint task force to pursue equal pay violators.

Outreach to the private sector may become even more important for the Women's Bureau. Democratic President Barack Obama, who appointed Manzano-Diaz, has already announced a two-year freeze on spending for so-called "domestic discretionary programs," including those at the Labor Department. And the last time the Republicans ruled the House, they tried to eliminate the Women's Bureau entirely.

"We'll figure out now how to be partnering with as many of you as possible," she told members of the women's groups and unions gathered around the Nov. 23 luncheon table. "We've built goodwill and good relationships within the women's community. So we'll use them to leverage our research and work together with you for the right reasons."

Photo: "These are the hands that built America"

Shop Talk: Faith groups join jobs campaign

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 12:32:00 +0000

Faith groups join jobs campaign

In tough times many turn to their religious faith for hope. During this jobs crisis much of the nation's faith community, which includes many union members, is moving to provide hands-on aid to families, in addition to the usual spiritual solace.

Under the leadership of Interfaith Worker Justice they launched the Faith Advocates for Jobs Campaign on Dec. 1 at a Capitol Hill meeting.

In its mission statement, the campaign says:

"As people of faith, we call for an economy that provides a job for everyone who wants and needs one. We affirm that all jobs should be good jobs, paying living wages and benefits, allowing workers dignity and a voice at the workplace, ensuring workers' health and safety, and guaranteeing their right to organize unions."

The campaign will organize 1,000 congregation-based unemployed worker support committees in 2011. The committees will support working people and families economically, emotionally and spiritually, while also educating members about the unemployment crisis and advocacy avenues available to them.

82 raids that unions backed

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service has a reputation for raiding factories and rounding up undocumented workers just when unions at the places succeed in organizing. Unions, of course, have long opposed those raids.

On Nov. 29, however, ICE raided 82 websites that it says were engaging in intellectual piracy of the performers' films, music and other creative works - raids the performers' unions say they support.

ICE grabbed and shut down domain names whose websites sold counterfeit goods, said the agency's director, John Morton. "Sale of counterfeit U.S. brands on the Internet steals the creative work of others, costs our economy jobs and revenue and can threaten the health and safety of American consumers," he said.

Supportive of the raids were the Screen Actors Guild, the Television and Radio Artists, the Directors Guild and the Theatrical and Stage Employees. Those unions, and the Musicians, have complained for years about intellectual copyright theft, which deprives their members of income.

Deficit cutter's conflict of interest

The president's deficit panel includes Honeywell CEO Davis Cote, who has plenty of reason to slash deficits by cutting benefits - unemployment benefits. He is counting on no benefit extensions so he can push more of his own workers out of the middle class.

Cote's minions have told 230 Steelworkers at his uranium processing plant in Metropolis, Ill., that Honeywell will sit tight and not bargain with them as their lockout continues into its sixth month. The firm figures that if they run out of money faster they will cave into company demands.

Officials at USW Local 7-669 tell us that Cote hired replacement workers to take the union jobs and is seeking to axe pension plans.

AFSCME goes after the Glenn Becks

AFSCME is launching an aggressive new "Stop the Lies" campaign to fight back against lies about public workers by radical right talking heads like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and John Stossel.

The campaign will use social media, videos, paid advertising and ground events across the country to get the truth heard amidst the din from Fox News, loudmouthed TV and radio talkers and their attacks blaming public workers for the financial crisis cities and states are facing.

Says AFSCME President McEntee: "Public workers have become the scapegoats for the far right. We're not going to sit around and let corporate CEO's define the debate. After all, it was their greed and incompetence that drove this country's economy into the ditch."

A powerful five minute video by Brave New Films calls out right wing lies about pensions, wages and state budget cuts. The voiceover says:

"When Wall Street tanked and 15 million Americans lost their jobs, the billionaires decided they had to blame someone else. Instead of accepting responsibility for their greed-fueled actions, Wall Street and the corporate giants blamed librarians, corrections officers, nurses, teachers, firefighters, cops and public service workers. Right wing talking heads have been only too happy to join the attack."

New York State protects workers against wage theft

Workers in New York State soon will be protected against wage theft by a new law. The State Assembly Dec. 1 passed the Wage Theft Prevention Act, which will increase penalties significantly and improve enforcement of state laws on wage theft. The State Senate passed the bill in June and Gov. David Paterson has vowed to sign it into law.

Unions launch ad for Dream Act

On Nov. 30 the AFL-CIO, SEIU, the Campaign for Community Change, the Reform Immigration for America Campaign and America's Voice launched a six-figure advertising campaign aimed at Republican senators whose votes will be crucial to passing the Dream Act during the current lame-duck session of Congress.

The ads are running on radio and in print publications in Portland, Maine; Boston; Miami; Houston; and Las Vegas.

The Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors (Dream) Act, which polls say is backed by 66 percent of Americans, would allow undocumented students who have lived in the United States for at least five years and have graduated from high school or received a graduate equivalency diploma to legalize their immigration status by pursuing a college education or serving in the U.S. military.

AFT links good health and learning

If a child goes to school hungry, with a toothache or unable to see the board clearly, his or her learning suffers. Good health, most agree, is critical to children doing their best in school.

The American Federation of Teachers has launched a new website, Linking Children's Health to Education , which provides practical advice to parents on ways to keep their children healthy and at their best in school.

In the section on hunger and nutrition, AFT points out that nearly 17 million children face hunger each day. Their limited access to nutritious food impairs their physical and mental development. The site links to sires with information on ending childhood hunger and providing good nutrition.

Pilots demand fair deals

The pilots for Continental Airlines and United Airlines, which merged last month, conducted informational pickets in Chicago, Houston and Newark this week to inform passengers of management plans to expand the practice of outsourcing flying to other airlines.

The pilots, who are in contract negotiations with the newly merged airline, say management wants to use outsourced 70-seat jets and nonunion pilots on some regional flights from Continental hubs, a practice the union says violates the Continental pilots' current contract.

"Management's concept of using outsourcing is based on outdated business models that simply fail to recognize that the business of an airline is to fly - not to outsource flying to the lowest bidder or to merely act as a ticket agent," said Capt. Wendy Morse, chairman of the United unit of the Airline Pilots Association.

Photo: Steve Rhodes, cc 2.0

Shop Talk is compiled by People's World labor editor, John Wojcik.

jwojcik@peoplesworld.org