People Before Profit blog

Labor leaders to focus on 2012 election

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:00:00 +0000

ORLANDO, Fla. - As might be expected in a presidential election year, politics will take center stage when the AFL-CIO Executive Council meets Mar. 13-15 in Orlando, Fla.

With the Auto Workers becoming the latest AFL-CIO union to endorse President Obama for re-election, the entire council will likely make the labor federation's endorsement formal. It may not be unanimous, however:

Machinists President Thomas Buffenbarger has already said his union will hold off on any endorsement until its own convention, this fall in Canada. In monthly polls of its own members, IAM says it has found dissatisfaction with the Obama administration.

The distance between IAM and the White House is mutual. Buffenbarger is one union leader routinely left out of presidential meetings, and his union backed Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primaries - something Obama campaign officials may remember.

The National Nurses Union may also cast a skeptical eye. Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro has said in the past her union will not support any politician, from Obama on down, who proposed cuts in Medicare, Social Security, or both.

Obama floated both ideas during deficit-cutting talks last year with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. The talks broke down over the GOP's adamant stand for permanently preserving former GOP President George W. Bush's tax cuts for the rich.

Besides the national political endorsement, the union leaders will also discuss the AFL-CIO's new political strategy, which federation President Richard Trumka insists will be year-round.

That strategy calls for pressuring politicians to take specific pro-worker stands during campaigns and back them up with action after the election. Labor would call out those who defect instead, and either walk away from them, or find and fund foes.

Unions did so in 2010, backing Arkansas' lieutenant governor in a Democratic primary against then-Sen. Blanche Lincoln. Despite the state's low union density (four percent that year), they almost defeated her. She then lost the general election to the GOP.

Labor's new accountability strategy may get put to the test again in an upcoming Pennsylvania congressional primary. GOP redistricting there threw Democrats Jason Altmire and Mark Critz into the same western Pennsylvania district.

Local unions have already made clear their displeasure with some of Altmire's stands, notably his opposition to Obama's health care law. Many back Critz.

U.S.-Mexico labor alliance calls for end to persecution of Mexican workers

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 13:28:00 +0000

Meeting on January 21 at the Mexico City headquarters of the Mexican Electricians' Union (SME), trade unionists from Mexico, the United States and Canada swore mutual support and solidarity for the struggle of Mexico's workers to fight neoliberal economic policies and government repression.

The event was sponsored by the Trinational Solidarity Alliance (ATSA), founded in 2011. Participating labor organizations from Mexico included, besides the SME, the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic ("los Mineros"), the National Union of Petroleum Industry Professionals and Technicians, and the National Workers' Union. Others include the Authentic Labor Front (FAT), the United Union of the Autonomous University of Mexico City (SITUCAM), the Telephone Workers Union of the Mexican Republic (STRM), and SUNTBANOBRAS, which represents workers of the National Bank and others.

Major U.S. labor has signed on to this alliance, including the AFL-CIO, the Communications Workers of America, the United Auto Workers, the Transport Workers Union, the United Mine Workers, the United Steelworkers, the Utility Workers of America, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, USLEAP, UNITE HERE and the independent United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers.

Canadian labor is also well represented in the Trinational Alliance, with the Canadian Labour Congress, the Canadian Auto Workers, the Office and Professional Workers' Union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, and numerous others.

International labor organizations participating include the hugely significant International Metalworkers Federation, the International Trade Union Confederation, the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers Union, and others.

The Mexican ATSA unions have broken away from the country's traditional "corporativist" tradition and moved in the direction of "class struggle" ("clasista") unionism. Their independent stance has put them in the crosshairs not only of employers and the right-wing government of President Felipe Calderon, of the National Action Party (PAN), but also, in some cases, of the leaders of unions which have stuck with the corporativist model.

The corporativist concept originated with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, but was popular in Latin America during the 1930s with many non-fascist politicians, as a way of balancing conflicting demands among industrial workers, peasants and independent small producers. In Mexico, it became a mainstay of the long ruling Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) which made sure that within its structure it enveloped the major worker, peasant and business-professional organizations. Results have included subordination of unions to the ruling party and state, and the idea that the proper role of unions is to keep workers' wages down. Mexican workers seeking democracy in the workplace often find themselves up against a united front of employer, government and official union.

Two of the independent unions present on January 21, the SME and the Mineros, have had to carry on a titanic battle against not only Calderon's government, but also the mining industry and venal and irresponsible national media. The leader of the Mineros, Napoleon Gomez Urrutia, who addressed the meeting by a long-distance hookup, is in exile in Vancouver, Canada, while a series of spurious corruption charges against him are thrown out of court, one by one. Calderon tried to destroy the SME by closing down the government electrical generation company of Mexico City and central Mexico, Luz y Fuerza del Centro (Central Light and Power), for whose workers SME was the bargaining agent, in October 2009, and has been harassing them every since. But neither Mineros nor SME nor the other independent unions are giving up.

The demands, directed at the Mexican government, that came out of the June 21 meeting reflect the current struggle priorities of Mexican independent unions:

*The mining conglomerate Grupo Mexico and the government of the state of Coahuila must be made to assume responsibility for an explosion in the Pasta de Conchos coal mine on February 19, 2006, in which 65 miners were killed due to unsafe conditions.

*The government must stop the violations of workers' rights, including employers' protection (i.e. "sweetheart" contracts) and cease its interference in the internal affairs of unions (the government claims veto power over the results of union elections, a move it has tried with both the SME and the Mineros).

*The government should "stop the use of violence, by the state or by the bosses" against workers who are struggling for their rights.

*And the campaign of persecution against the SME and the Mineros must be ended.

There are moves to change Mexican labor law in an anti-worker direction. Both the government and the opposition Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) have put forth labor law "reform" plans, which would, in the name of "labor market flexibilization", undermine job security and labor rights.

Mexico will have a general election on July 1.Given the anti-labor policies of the PAN and the PRI, Mexico's independent "class struggle" unions will not sit on the sidelines, but will be going all out for Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leader of an alliance centered on the left-center Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD), who has been vocal in defending them against government attacks, and who has already been endorsed by the SME. Meanwhile, member unions of the Trinational Solidarity Alliance have been picketing Mexican consulates worldwide, including a lively rally in front of the Chicago consulate by U.S. steelworkers and others.

Workers who staged second plant takeover face new challenge

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

CHICAGO - A group of determined Chicago workers who captured the attention of a nation three years ago when they took over their plant, disempowered its runaway owner, shamed a huge national bank and, in the process, won the battle to keep their jobs, are at it again.

Last Thursday, when the owners of Serious Energy, the company that took over from the runaway Republic Windows and Doors, announced they were shutting the place down and that all employees had to leave immediately, the workers went into action again. In defense of their jobs as makers of energy-efficient windows, for the second time in three years, they took over the plant and locked themselves in.

The occupation ended in the early hours of the next morning with the company's top management backing down and agreeing to keep the plant open for 90 days, giving the workers time to come up with a permanent solution.

The occupation of the plant back in 2008 was triggered by the financing giant Bank of America, when it suddenly pulled the plug on funds for the plant's previous owner. His response was to announce a plant shutdown with workers getting none of the back pay to which they were entitled, no health insurance continuations and no severance pay.

The workers, led by the United Electrical Workers Local 1110, met the dual challenge from their boss and his bank by organizing the first plant takeover in the U.S. since the 1930's. Their action, exciting and inspiring workers across the country, drew support from all over, including from then President-elect Barack Obama.

They appeared with famed filmmaker Michael Moore at the Chicago opening of his film "Capitalism" where they were cheered by thousands.

The plant takeover, the publicity, the support from unions throughout America, the backing of the President-Elect, pressure from Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and mass demonstrations at Bank of America forced the bank to reverse itself and provide bridge financing.

The former owners later sold the plant to Serious Energy.

Serious managers called in Armando Robles, president of the union local, on Feb. 23, springing on him their decision to shut down the plant.

Determined to meet the new challenge, Robles went to make the announcement to the workers, with the union, all the while mobilizing to use social media and anything else it could muster to spread the word.

After Robles broke the bad news, workers voted unanimously to immediately take over the plant, with the resulting sit-in lasting until 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 24.

As the workers sat in on the inside, supporters from other unions, community groups and Occupy Chicago massed outside the North Side plant in a show of solidarity and support.

The union urged the plant managers to give the workers time to find an alternate buyer for the facility but the managers said they weren't interested.

Robles said that he and other union officials made phone calls to Serious Energy's top management in California, warning them about the negative publicity the plant occupation would generate.

Leah Fried, a UE spokesperson, said the local plant mangers continued to say they weren't interested in the union's offer to find a new buyer and that the plant wasn't in the company's long-range plans. The plan, they told the union, was to shift production to other U.S. plants.

The top California management then surprised everyone, including the plant managers, by intervening and reversing the company's position. The final decision is to keep the plant open for another 90 days while the union searches for a new buyer.

Workers know the task they face is a challenging one. They have only three months to come up with a permanent solution but seem undaunted in their determination to fight for their jobs.

As Robles sees it, their task, essentially, is to build upon a victory already won.

"We began the day with the plant closing and ended the day with work and a chance to save our jobs," he said. "We are committed to finding a new buyer for the plant or if we can, buy the place ourselves and run it. Either way, we are hopeful."

Photo: "Signs held by workers who picket during the 2008 plant takeover at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago." M. Spencer Green/AP

Union, civil rights struggles converge in songfest

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 12:48:00 +0000

DALLAS - Union and civil rights activists came together to produce a songfest at the Communications Workers of America union hall on the afternoon of Sunday, February 26. About 75 people gathered to listen and participate in traditional bluegrass-type union songs, honored civil rights songs, and modern versions of each. One of the most outstanding performers was Tunde Obazee, who announced that he was born in West Africa. His reggae performances of his own compositions were ad-libbed with comments on current developments. The Rev. K. M. Williams presented little-known but extremely effective songs from the civil rights movement.

Among the traditional union singers were professionals Matt Taylor of New Mexico, JD Thompson of Oklahoma, and Kenny Winfree of Tennessee.

Dallas' most outstanding civil rights leader, the Rev. L. Charles Stovall, gave a short presentation on why labor and civil rights belong together. He recounted some of the history of the movement and applauded labor's role in backing civil rights struggles. A quotation was delivered from the AFL-CIO Convention in December 1961, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr said, "Negroes are almost entirely a working people. There are pitifully few Negro millionaires, and few Negro employers. Our needs are identical with labor's needs - decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community. That is why Negroes support labor's demands and fight laws which curb labor. That is why the labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth."

The printed programs for the songfest honored labor and civil rights hero Paul Robeson. It said, "When we think of the great entertainers who have helped labor and civil rights, we may look up to Leadbelly, Sidney Poitier, James Earl Jones, and Harry Belafonte. But who do they look up to? Paul Robeson was the greatest of them all. He broke color barriers all over the world as an athlete, as an actor, and as a singer."

Photo: PW

Workers ratify Cooper Tire deal, ending three-month lockout

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 15:35:00 +0000

The membership of the United Steelworkers, Local 207L, by a 2-to-1 margin, ratified a new five-year contract with Cooper Tire and Rubber Company, ending an infamous three-month lockout at the company's Findlay, Ohio plant.

Workers were shut out just after Thanksgiving, on Nov.28, despite what the union considered a generous offer to continue working under terms of the old contract while bargaining continued.

"Cooper needs to admit that its loyal and productive union workforce is the company's most valuable asset in Findlay and treat them with the respect and dignity they have earned," said USW District 1 Director Dave McCall over the phone. He said that before the lockout, "Cooper was a good example of how workers and management could work toward common goals and the greater good of the community."

Eight Cooper Tire workers and Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers locked out by American Crystal Sugar Co. just ended a 1,00 mile Journey for justice. The group travelled from American Crystal headquarters in Fargo, N.D., to Cooper Tire headquarters in Findlay.

The purpose of the journey was to highlight the corporate greed that motivates a rash of lockouts across the country recently and the determination of corporations to push down wages and benefits so that CEO's can fill their own pockets.

"We wanted to spread the message that we must stand together to make a difference, and we sent that message loud and clear. Our fight and the fight for justice for thousands of other workers continues every day after this," said Teresa Brown, who has worked 12 years for Cooper Tire.

The sugar workers are encouraged by the victory of the Cooper Tire workers.

"The support we've received over the last five days has strengthened our intention to continue our fight for a fair contract," said Becki Jacobson, a 30-year employee of American Crystal who went to work for the company when she was only 18. She and her co-workers at American Crystal have been locked out for more than six months.

Photo: A rally of support for Cooper Tire workers in Findlay, Ohio, at the Hancock County Courthouse, Dec. 19, 2011. Occupy Detroit, Occupy Toledo, and Occupy Bowling Green were there. CC by-NC-ND 2.0.

Steelworkers rally in solidarity with Mexican miners (with video)

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 11:13:00 +0000

CHICAGO - In 2006, an explosion at the Pasta de Conchos coal mine, in Coahuila, Mexico left 65 miners dead. Most of their bodies remain trapped to this day in the worst mine disaster in recent times in Mexico. Every year unions around the world rally to remember the fallen miners of Coahuila, and to demand that the Mexican government help the families reclaim their buried loved-ones.

Steelworkers led a rally including union members, along with faith-based, community and occupy activists last Saturday, Feb. 25, in solidarity with the Mexican miners.

Story continues after the video.

Solidairty with Los Mineros from Scott Marshall on Vimeo.

The group rallied at the Mexican Consulate in Chicago. In addition to demanding closure for the families of the miners killed in Pasta de Conchos, they also protested the Mexican government's attacks on unions in Mexico. These attacks included federal troops killing two striking miners in 2006, imprisonment of labor leaders without charges, and the freezing of union funds.

The United Steelworkers (USW) has developed a special solidarity relationship with the Mexican miners union, known as Los Mineros, This has included not only solidarity with the struggles of Los Mineros against government attacks on striking miners, but also help from Los Mineros in dealing with Mexican owned companies operating in the US.

Photo: Scott Marshall/PW

Florida's tipped workers could see their wages cut in half

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 07:53:00 +0000

The CEOs of restaurants like Chilis and Outback Stakehouse think that $4.65 an hour is too much for their tipped employees. A bill that was approved by the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee last Thursday, SB 2106, would allow employers like Chilis to cut their workers' pay to $2.13 an hour, the federal tipped employee minimum wage instead of Florida's $4.65, a $2.52 per hour wage decrease.

According to Tip20.com, this will result in a full-time server potentially losing over $5,000 a year in wages.

The Florida Independent reports that Carol Dover, CEO of the Restaurant and Lodging Association, supports the bill saying that "restaurants want to keep employees, but the 118 percent increase in their wage since 2004, when voters approved a constitutional amendment to tie minimum wage increases to the inflation index, is hurting the industry."

But the restaurant industry in Florida is far from suffering. A press release from UNITE HERE! Local 362 and Local 737 points out that:

Florida has the third fasting growing restaurant jobs and sales in the nation;

Restaurant jobs are growing faster in Florida than any other jobs;

Restaurant industry profits have fully rebounded from the recession and are higher in some cases.

In the same press release, a tipped restaurant worker named Heather McNally said, "As of now, my hourly wages barely cover my taxes. With my tips, I have to pay for everything my wages don't cover: student loans, health insurance, a roof over my head, a car and gas to drive to work, food, and medical and dental bills."

Erica Feliciano, a bartender, said "All our bills keep going up, so we can't afford for our pay to go down." Erica went on to say that "This proposal is outrageous and is two steps backward for restaurant workers."

FightForFlorida.com, an online action hub for working Floridians, is working to get "the word out so we can stop them in their tracks."

Fight For Florida has designed a card that activists are giving to tipped employees all over the state that reads "Here's A Tip. The Florida Legislature is trying to cut your hourly wages from $4.63 to $2.13. Tell them this wrong! Write a letter at FightForFlorida.com/HeresATip." Fight For Florida also states that, "Working families need assistance, not cuts to their basic pay. This is unfair, unbalanced and would cause economic pain in households and communities across Florida."

UNITE HERE!, along with other labor unions, Central Labor Councils, and community organizations, participated in actions across Florida last Friday to stop this anti-worker bill.

Photo: Creative Commons 2.0

Top union-hating contractor backs Romney

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 11:20:00 +0000

PHOENIX -- Specifically citing GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's anti-union stands, the nation's top anti-worker construction group, the Associated Builders and Contractors, have endorsed his candidacy - and not just for the GOP nomination, but for the Oval Office.

The group's board, meeting here Feb. 23, specifically praised Romney's opposition to project labor agreements, his backing of so-called right-to-work laws and his denunciation of President Obama's recess appointments - done after the Senate refused to act - to the National Labor Relations Board.

Romney addressed the ABC board, thanking them for their backing. His opposition to project labor agreements won him a standing ovation - which surprised him-from the anti-worker, anti-union group.

"The election of Mitt Romney as president is a top priority for the commercial and industrial construction industry and the millions of Americans it employs," said 2012 ABC Chairman Eric Regelin, an Ellicott City, Md., contractor. "He has articulated a clear position on issues important to ABC members, including opposing federally mandated project labor agreements, returning the National Labor Relations Board to a neutral arbiter of labor disputes and supporting the free-market, merit shop philosophy."

ABC is known for its vicious opposition to workers and unions. It opposes project labor agreements on federal construction contracts, hates the union shop, tries to tear down union-run apprenticeship programs in favor of its own - often mismanaged according to the feds - and has members who routinely break labor law.

In his speech to ABC, Romney pledged, among other things, "If I become president of the U.S., I will curb the practice we have in this country of giving union bosses an unfair advantage in contracting. One of the first things I will do-actually on day one-is I will end the government's favoritism towards unions in contracting on federal projects and end project labor agreements."

Besides repeating standard GOP rhetoric denouncing unions and their leaders, Romney's reference was to an Obama administration directive strongly encouraging, but not ordering, federal construction contracts to be carried out with contractors who sign project labor agreements. For workers, the agreements set specific work rules for projects and set wages and benefits. The taxpayers get a guaranteed set price and on-time completion.

"I also will make sure workers in America have the right to a secret ballot and I will fight for right to work laws," Romney told ABC. ABC is one of many right-wing groups now challenging the National Labor Relations Board's proposed rule that would remove some of the legalistic hurdles businesses use to delay and deny union representation elections. He added Obama appoints "labor stooges" to the NLRB.

Several of those groups, though not ABC, are also suing to overturn Obama's recess appointments to the board as illegal. Without Obama's three recess appointees, the NLRB lacks a quorum and can't act on labor-management issues.

And so-called right to work laws, a key cause of the radical Right and its business backers, ban unions inserting contract provisions saying they can collect dues, or equivalent payments, from workers they represent. That provision, while still leaving unions with the representation responsibility, strips them of funds to do so.

The ABC's endorsement came on the eve of the Feb. 28 primaries in Michigan and Arizona, and the day after Romney ripped into his now-main rival, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, at a GOP hopefuls' debate in Phoenix. Speaking to the contractors, Romney again criticized Santorum for the Pennsylvanian's occasional agreement with labor during Santorum's congressional career.

And the former GOP Massachusetts governor and venture capitalist again defended his call to let the Detroit Three auto companies go bankrupt when the economy collapsed in 2008. He denounced their rescue, through federal loans, as another case where Obama "bows to special interests, in this case, union interests."

Romney's latest federal campaign finance report shows contractors as a group had given his campaign $483,100 out of the $62 million he had raised as of Jan. 31. That sum does not include money given to the "Campaign for a Working America," the Romney-affiliated SuperPAC, which legally keeps its contributors hidden.

Photo: "GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has the support of a major anti-union contractor." Gerald Herbert/AP

Autoworkers say: Let Romney go bankrupt

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 09:55:00 +0000

DETROIT - Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney came to town Friday, but autoworkers were in no mood to give him a free pass.

"He assumes he's going to win Michigan just because he's from here but he was against the auto bailout and he's not for working people," said United Auto Worker member Rachael Siemen. She was holding a sign that read: "foam board: $1.00; marker: $1.68; standing united with my union: priceless."

Angering her and others is Romney's refusal to back off the "Let Detroit go Bankrupt" New York Times editorial he wrote in 2008.

She was one of several hundred workers who rallied this past Friday in wet wintry conditions across from the site where Romney was scheduled to address the Detroit Economic Club before Tuesday's Republican presidential primary.

Speaking at the rally, Stacie Steward, who works at Chrysler's Sterling Heights Assembly Plant, gave her personal story of what the loans meant. "My plant was scheduled to close. I had been laid off for 14 months.

"My daughter wanted to go to college and I didn't know if I was going to be able to pay for it. I was watching TV and it came across that Obama was saving the auto industry.

"He took a chance on us. He would not let us fail. And we are the proof that it worked. I just brought a brand new home, and my daughter is in college. Things have turned around so much. Obama saved our jobs."

UAW International President Bob King said that without the loans we would all be out of jobs. "Because of our sacrifices there will be 30 thousand additional auto jobs. And because of those direct auto jobs there will be 180 to 230 thousand steel jobs, glass jobs, tire jobs."

"Thank you President Obama" was a refrain heard frequently during the rally.

King said it's not just Romney who wouldn't have done the bailout "every single one of them (Republicans) has gone against this great American success story."

King said "good patriotic Americans" naturally join in congratulating the success of an industry that has brought back American manufacturing jobs that have helped every social sector from increasing church contributions to enabling more people to have money to spend at local businesses.

Romney's statement that autoworkers "were given something" gets their blood boiling. King continued, "Let me tell you something Mr. Romney, our members gave up from $7,000 to $30,000 a year to keep jobs in America. We revitalized and saved the companies we work for."

The UAW was not alone in supporting the aid to the auto industry. Every auto manufacturer from Honda to Hyundai supported the loans because of the disaster it would have created in the parts industry where the companies rely on many of the same manufacturers.

And to counter the Republican attack on President Obama even more, General Motors CEO Dan Akerson recently said the loans are the reason for the company's turnaround and those loans helped cities such as Detroit.

One can only wonder what Republicans are thinking.

Photo: John Rummel/PW

Workers at Republic Windows occupy again and win again (with video)

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 09:27:00 +0000

CHICAGO - In 2008, members of United Electrical Workers sat in at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago. They did so in order to stop the company from closing the plant and shipping their jobs off to a non-union plant. The worker's sit-down not only stopped the company from cheating them out of back wages, but it stopped the company from illegally moving the machinery out of the plant. The action also gave the union time to find a new owner.

This past Thursday, the workers had to do it again. The new owner, Serious Energy, told the union that they were closing the plant right away and were not interested in finding a new buyer. When the president of the local union, Armando Robles, entered the plant at shift change to tell them, they unanimously decided to sit down again.

Alerted by social media over a hundred supporters from labor community and Occupy Chicago gathered in front of the plant in support of the workers.

As a result of the action, at 2:30 am the company gave in to the unions' demands. They agreed to keep the plant open for 90 days to give the union time to look for a new owner and/or to explore the possibility of creating a worker's cooperative to own and run the plant.

The fight now continues.

UE Occupy Chicago from Scott Marshall on Vimeo.

Photo: Scott Marshall/PW

Push work sharing to soften impact of joblessness

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:55:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - A plan to promote work-sharing arrangements, where firms suffering from the recession would keep all present workers on board, but cut their hours - with unemployment benefits partially making up for lost pay - was inserted into the payroll tax cut-jobless benefits extension law that President Obama signed Feb. 22.

The job-sharing plan is another attempt to cut the impact of joblessness even in a weak recovery, say its authors, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. It's modeled on plans now operating in 23 states and a national plan in Germany.

There, in the depth of the recession, job-sharing meant unemployment stayed far lower than it did in the U.S., never reaching double-digit percentages. German workers facing layoffs instead took wage cuts, but companies paid them anywhere from half-pay - if there was a total layoff - to 67 percent, with jobless benefits topping those sums.

"Work-sharing programs provide employers with an alternative to layoffs," said Dean Baker, co-director of the pro-worker think tank, the Center for Economic Policy and Research.

Until now, Baker elaborated, laid-off U.S. workers collect up to 50 percent of their wages in jobless benefits, though the figure is far lower in some states. "Under work-sharing, struggling companies can cut back hours rather than workers and unemployment insurance benefits would pay 10 percent of their lost wages. This means that instead of a worker losing their job and receiving half their pay, they would now stay on their job after having their hours cut by 20 percent and get 90 percent of their pay," Baker said.

The worker would still take a slight cut, rather than being laid off and suffering a huge cut, Baker added. When demand resumes and lets the firm again need a full-time workforce, the workers would be there already.

"That benefits both employee and employer," Baker said. Employers "won't have to hire and train new people, they just increase hours for the existing staff."

A fact sheet from DeLauro's office says the legislation is modeled not just on the German program but on work-sharing arrangements now existing in 23 states, all of which use jobless benefits to help partially replace lost wages.

"Work-sharing is an innovative and strategic way for companies to move forward without laying off workers. It is essential that we save the jobs that we can, preserving our workforce and ensuring that our nation and our workforce will weather this tough economy," DeLauro said when she introduced the legislation in August 2011.

Reed pointed out their idea would not only keep workers on the job, and ready to resume full-time employment when demand picks up, but it would also save both states and the federal government money they would otherwise spend on full jobless benefits. Otherwise, the states or the feds would be on the hook for half the worker's pay.

The feds would pay for 100 percent of work-sharing costs for up to three years, the fact sheet on their bill says. States would also get grants to administer and promote work-sharing, and to enroll workers. And the program is targeting full-time workers facing layoff, as it bans participation by employers whose workforce is seasonal or temporary.

The measure authorizes $100 million to pay for the work-sharing program's costs.

States with work sharing laws are Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, and Washington.

The main sections of the measure extend jobless benefits and the payroll tax cut for 160 million workers through the end of this year. That means only 4.2 percent of their pay is deducted for Social Security withholding. The extended federal jobless benefits will exist for a shorter time than they do now. Workers laid off from March through May are eligible for 89-99 weeks of coverage, while those laid off from June-September can get up to 79 weeks. Those laid off after September are eligible for 73 weeks.

AFL-CIO leader champions day laborers’ quest for humane immigration reform

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:39:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES - Day laborers from 14 states journeyed by car, at times through states and communities where police double up as deportation agents, to participate in the 6th National Assembly of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) in Los Angeles Feb. 19-23.

Many, undocumented, risked arrest and possible deportation. But they would not be deterred in their quest for "Humane and Fair Immigration Reform for All, Now," as a conference banner proclaimed in Spanish and English.

In a fiery speech on Tuesday, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the national labor federation and its affiliates stand "shoulder to shoulder" with immigrant workers.

"There is power in our union, power big enough to transform this country," Trumka declared. "You are critical to the future of the American labor movement."

Last year, for the first time in recent history, the organized labor movement joined hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers around the country to celebrate May Day as immigrant workers' day.

This year, Trumka took a step closer to reclaiming U.S. labor history when he told the day laborers assembly, "We will celebrate May Day as a day to recognize the rights of immigrants and the rights of workers."

Later in the day, Trumka also spoke at a victory rally of carwash workers, members of the United Steelworkers union, who recently won contracts with Vermont Carwash and Nava's Carwash. Three union carwashes in the country are now covered by a labor agreement, with Santa Monica's Bonus Carwash becoming the first last year.

At the conference, Trumka hailed the 2006 partnership agreement between the AFL-CIO and NDLON that paved the way for AFL-CIO bodies and NDLON's day laborer worker centers to cooperate on issues ranging from workplace rights to immigration reform to health and safety and other job-related concerns.

"Turning the tide is not just about a campaign against immigration enforcement but also about day laborers leading a movement for dignity and justice," NDLON Executive Director Pablo Alvarado declared in a message to conference attendees.

Alvarado singled out several recent victories, including the passage of Illinois' Just Pay for All bill, protecting workers against wage theft particularly affecting immigrant workers. He also pointed to the defeat of the Redondo Beach, Calif., ordinance barring day laborers from gathering on busy street corners to solicit work from passing drivers.

In a significant victory, the U.S. Supreme Court this week turned down the city's appeal seeking reinstatement of the ordinance, after the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck it down on free-speech grounds.

In response to widespread criticism, the Obama administration is phasing out a program known as 287(g) that deputized local police officers to act as immigration agents.

Once involving 60 local agencies under former President George W. Bush, it now involves eight. Since August 2010 no additional agencies have signed on.

Under a separate program, however, in response to a wave of protests a number of states are reconsidering their participation in Secure Communities, a program aimed at identifying and deporting undocumented immigrants convicted of serious crimes.

Department of Homeland Security statistics show many of those deported under the program had never been convicted of a crime or were guilty only of minor offenses.

Underscoring both victories and challenges, Alvarado explained, "We've named the Asamblea 'On the Road to Justice, Ni un paso atras (Not one step back)' because we have come too far to go backwards."

Day laborers at the conference were also joined by representatives of the faith-based community, civil rights groups, academicians and other NDLON allies - a microcosm of the social movements that have come to the defense of day laborers.

Sandra Castro, reflecting the mood of conference attendees, said, "When I walked into the conference this morning, I was overcome with a gleeful feeling of power and hope. It is always great to see a room full of people that believe that together we can make a difference, and we can beat back the right-wing attack."

Photo: NDLON website.

Trumka lauds low-wage workers’ progress in self-organizing

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 13:16:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES - In yet another mark of the AFL-CIO's new emphasis on supporting low-wage workers - often those unprotected by labor law - in their campaigns to organize, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka spent a two-day February swing through California lauding car wash workers, home health care aides, domestic workers, and day laborers for their success in self-organizing, often with union help.

In Los Angeles, where the car wash workers, organized by the Steelworkers, signed two more contracts with car wash companies, and Sacramento, Trumka stressed that labor must be there with support for this new type of workforce and must accommodate itself to its needs.

"The courage of these carwash workers gives us hope and inspiration," he told an L.A. press conference on Feb. 21. "These workers have shown all working people that when we stand together for what is right, we can solve problems and secure a better life.

"And when they build a better life for themselves, they lift standards for other workers, they lift their entire communities, and their voices make their companies better. The success here today is not an end. It's one step on a journey to strengthen the voice of working people and our communities.

"This should be the headline: Carwash workers make history in L.A.," he stated.

The Los Angeles car wash workers, like other exploited worker groups whom Trumka championed on the trip - and whose groups the AFL-CIO now enthusiastically backs - share some common characteristics: They are mostly minority group members, they're immigrants exploited by employers who use their status against them, and many are traditionally not covered by federal labor law. Other such groups include taxi drivers and home health care workers.

But they're organizing despite those odds, and that's gotten Trumka enthused and he's brought the labor federation to their aid.

He also brought that message to the Domestic Workers Alliance in a rally in Sacramento for state passage of a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. If approved, it would be the second such state legislation, behind a similar law in New York - also pushed by the alliance. The federation backs the bill, he said.

The state laws provide some labor law protection for yet another group that, thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling several years ago, lacks federal worker rights.

"Like your sisters and brothers in New York, across the U.S. -- and in other countries -- when you stand up for yourselves, you lift up all domestic workers, and all working families," Trumka told the Sacramento crowd.

"What you're doing here is important in Sacramento, and San Francisco, and Los Angeles and across California, and it's important far beyond this state. It's important to every worker who has put in days that are too long to earn paychecks that are too small. It's important to every worker who has suffered disrespect, to every worker who asks only for the basics of a decent life: Fair wages, safe working conditions, the security to give hope to their children.

"When you raise your voice, you are heard. With your voice and your solidarity, you're raising standards throughout your industry, you're raising the profile of the work you do, and you're improving childcare and elder care across America. You're improving domestic work across America. And that's a good thing," he stated.

The two new contracts for the L.A. carwash workers were with Vermont Car Wash and Nava's car wash. The contracts, the second and third in L.A. - and in the country - for car wash workers, add members to Steelworkers Local 675. Provisions include a pay raise, more safety equipment, on-the-job training to prevent injury and illness, and protection from unfair and arbitrary company punishments or dismissal.

Photo: Trumka addresses thousands of union workers in California. Damian Doverganes/AP Photos

Locked-out workers and supporters converge on Minnesota town

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 12:52:00 +0000

CHASKA, Minn. - Locked out workers and their supporters from all over the Midwest were on the move yesterday.

The workers locked out from American Crystal Sugar's plant in Mason City, Iowa, traveled north to join the Journey for Justice entourage as it pulled into this Twin Cities suburb.

The rally they held here and a picket line brought together in one big crowd locked-out workers form five Crystal Sugar plants - Mason City, and four Minnesota plants: Chaska, Moorhead, Hillsboro and Drayton - as well as locked-out workers from Cooper Tire in Findlay, Ohio.

Later in the day the Steelworkers announced a tentative agreement had been reached with Cooper Tire to end that lockout. The agreement will be outlined for 1,000 members Saturday and they will vote on it in Findlay on Monday.

Michael Moore, press director for the Journey for Justice, told the People's World today that the Cooper Tire workers would continue on the 1,000-mile Journey for Justice in solidarity with the locked-out American Crystal Sugar workers.

He said that while the locked-out Cooper Tire workers "haven't yet broken out the bottles of champagne, they are guardedly optimistic." Cooper Tire workers had rejected the last contract offer in November. Terms of the new agreement won't be disclosed by the union until members have had their chance to see those terms.

Before rallying and throwing up a picket line here the eight Journey for Justice riders entered CoBank, the primary lender for Crystal Sugar.

They delivered a letter telling the institution's officers that CoBank is incurring increased risk by doing business with Crystal Sugar during the lockout. The letter explained that it is costing the company more money to transport scabs in and out of the facility, in addition to having to feed and house them. The scabs, the letter points out, are also less productive than Crystal Sugar's union workers.

Workers note that the proof is in American Crystal's profits which, according to the letter, fell 39 percent in the first quarter after the lockout began August 1.

A representative of the bank accepted the letter, promising to get it to the bank's executives.

The eight locked-out workers gave CoBank 24 hours to respond to the letter or be faced with a demonstration outside its corporate headquarters later today.

Robert Greer, one of the eight making the 1,000-mile Journey for Justice through six states, was locked out from Cooper Tire after working for the company as an electrician for 22 years. Greer, the Rapid Response Political Action Coordinator for Steelworkers Local 207L, which represents Cooper workers, says companies have what they consider good reasons for paying the high costs of lockouts.

"You have lockouts going on all over for the same reason you have right-to-work-for-less laws being pushed in the states. They want to take advantage of the economic climate and use it to cut pay and benefits and to destroy unions," Greer said.
Greer said it is important that all workers, union and non-union, see the importance of stopping lockouts and other corporate attacks on collective bargaining rights.

"We've lost 58,000 manufacturing plants during this recession," Greer said. "The attacks on unions have created a situation that in a town like mine jobs now start at $8 or $10 an hour. This hurts everyone, including the people not in unions. You can't raise a family on the kind of money they are paying. Everyone needs to see this as their fight."

Photo: Workers from five American Crystal Sugar facilities across the Midwest converge on the plant in Chaska, Minn. Photo courtesy of Bakery Workers union.

Union says collective bargaining protects pregnant women

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 12:44:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - With business discrimination against pregnant female workers still widespread - despite federal legislation outlawing it - the Service Employees contend one of the best ways to battle it is through collective bargaining and union contracts.

At a federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission hearing on the issue in mid-February, SEIU Associate General Counsel Maryann Parker said the union's aid is particularly helpful to women in low-wage jobs - the very workforce that SEIU is campaigning to organize. But union bargainers must keep the battle against pregnancy discrimination, and similar work-life issues, atop their agendas, she added.

EEOC called the session to review progress, or lack of it, in battling business discrimination against pregnant women. Peggy Mastroianni, an EEOC counsel who specializes in the issue, said pregnancy discrimination was first outlawed by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and further outlawed by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) 14 years later.

Outlawing it hasn't changed culture, though. "Over the past ten fiscal years, EEOC and state and local fair employment practices agencies received 53,865 charges alleging pregnancy discrimination, resolved 52,396 charges, and obtained $150.5 million in monetary benefits" for women who suffered the discrimination, she said.

Those women include "senior executives, managers, bookkeepers, teachers, truck drivers, bartenders, customer service representatives, exterminators, housekeepers, administrative assistants, and janitors. Respondents range from small businesses to mid-sized organizations to Fortune 500 companies, representing a wide variety of industries throughout the country and the world.

"Between 68 percent and 71 percent of pregnancy discrimination charges include allegations of discharge based on pregnancy," while another 18-25 percent "include allegations of disparate terms and conditions of employment based on pregnancy," Mastroianni said.

Parker told the commission that union contracts protecting the female workers could help bring such discriminatory practices to a halt.

"Unions actualize workplace policies and laws. They play a "facilitation" role. Much as industrial unions did in 1978 in the first wave of PDA implementation, today's unions help workers learn and insist upon their rights on the job, ensure enforcement of workplace laws and contract provisions, and protect workers from retaliation," she said.

Parker cited a recent first contract that SEIU Local 509 in Massachusetts reached in 2010 with Sullivan & Associates, a direct care firm that provides services for the disabled. The pact covers 500 workers. It includes wage increases for the low-paid caregivers - and a lot more.

Other provisions cover flexible shifts and how to cover them, work-life accommodations, a grievance procedure to sort out such issues, and a joint labor-management committee to solve the problems in advance, Parker said.

She also pointed out other forms of insidious pregnancy discrimination that unions battle.

Data from the Center for Worklife Law, Parker told the commission, included one case where "an employer lacked 'just cause' to fire a mental health aide with nine years' seniority when she refused mandatory overtime because her babysitter could not stay, and her employer would not allow her children to sleep at the workplace."

Other cases saw the EEOC "reduce a father's discharge to a suspension for declining an assignment because he had to pick up his daughter, and a third where EEOC reversed the firing of a telephone installer who left work to pick up her child rather than risk her child's safety, or jeopardize her child care arrangements," she said.

"Those workers - however difficult their family situations - are relatively lucky, because they had access to union representation and just cause provisions. Non-unionized workers in similar situations are far more vulnerable to job loss and discipline, just as the Sullivan workers were before reaching their CBA," Parker said.

"Low-wage workers and their unions may see work-life balance as a luxury issue secondary to their primary goal of improving wages and benefits. As the Sullivan experience illustrates, however, low-wage workers balance work and family responsibilities on a fine edge, and their needs for solutions are real and acute," she declared.

"The union's unique ability to deliver some measure of job security and stability should be a powerful reason for workers to join a union organizing drive."

But Parker also had a word of advice for her union colleagues. She said collective bargaining terms "that protect workers' ability to balance work and family without penalty should be top priorities for union bargaining teams," a point that has been a longtime top cause of the Coalition of Labor Union Women.

"As they did in the wake of enactment of the PDA, workers and their unions can and should facilitate implementation of best practices to accommodate the family responsibilities at all American workplaces," she concluded.

Photo: Jackson, Fla. nurses from the Women's Health Center blow whistles to show support for SEIU. Emily Michot/The Miami Herald and AP Photos

Outcry by 33,000 ignored: Sugar giant turns away petition

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:18:00 +0000

FARGO, N.D. - At the beginning of the Journey for Justice here Feb. 22, hundreds of locked-out workers and community supporters from this town and from nearby Moorhead, Minn. tried to serve a petition on American Crystal Sugar's CEO, Dave Berg.

Signed by more than 33,000 people, the petition demands that the company end the more than six month lockout of its union workforce and return to the bargaining table. The workers belong to the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International Union.

Security guards told the hundreds of protesters trying to get into Berg's corporate headquarters here that the executive wasn't taking any visitors.

Among those who attempted to get in to deliver the petitions were a variety of religious, political and labor leaders led by North Dakota State Senator Tim Mathern, who actually carried the bound signatures.

After they were barred Mathern tried calling Berg on his cell phone, but no one picked up, not even the voicemail, according to the state senator.Mathern.

"Maybe American Crystal is a little surprised on how much community support there is," Mathern told the crowd massed outside the corporate headquarters. "These petitions basically represent many honest concerned people and...should be received by this company so that they know this is not just a matter of 1,300 workers,. This is a matter of 1,300 workers, their families, their community members and their brothers and sisters around the country."

Before the crowds attempted to deliver the petitions yesterday there was a rally in Moorhead attended by hundreds of union members and their families. After the attempt to deliver the petitions the crowd was invited back to the Fargo Labor temple for refreshments. From there a delegation of four Crystal Sugar workers and four Cooper Tire workers were sent off on a 1,000mile road trip that has bben dubbed "From Fargo to Findlay: A Journey for Justice."

It was on Nov. 28, just after Thanksgiving, that Cooper Tire and Rubber Co. locked out 1,050 members of the United Steelworkers from its plant in Findlay, Ohio.

The company hired Strom Engineering to staff the plant with scabs, the same contractor that supplies the scabs for the Crustal Sugar lockout.

The lockout is a particularly bitter pill for workers to swallow because, in 2008, when Cooper Tire said it was in financial trouble, members of USW Local 207L made concessions worth $31 million to save their plant.

Cooper's CEO Roy Ames, meanwhile, more than doubled his own compensation between 2007 and 2010 to over $4.7 million per year. Workers voted down the company's unfair proposal but offered to keep working while negotiations continued. The company went ahead and locked them out, instead.

"When we heard about the lockout in Findlay, it just all sounded so familiar," said Becki Jacobson, who was locked out after 30 years on the job at the American Crystal Sugar Moorhead factory. Jacobson, who is one of the eight making the 1,000 mile journey, said, "We were looking for a way to build solidarity with the Steelworkers because their struggle is our struggle. This trip is a way to take that message beyone our own area to a wider audience."

"We're thrilled to be here in Fargo," said Therese Brown, who worked for Cooper for 12 years before they locked her out." When we talk to people they start to understand what it means to be union and what it means to fight for a voive in your workplace."

Davis Foster, a former regional director for the Steelworkers and now Executive Director of the Blue Green Alliance was among those at the protests yesterday. He warned that lockouts are spreading as a tactic employers are using, particularly during tough economic times, top force concessions on workers.

"If companies can so easily lock out experienced workers and hire replacements through a contractor like Strom," Foster dais, "then we'll see labor standards drop across the board. This just isn't about these two lockouts, this is about our way of life in this country."

Photo: Locked out workers and their supporters gather at the Labor Temple in Fargo to send off those making the 1,000 Mile Journey for Justice. Courtesy Bakery Workers union.

The farm workers' Filipino-American champion

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:38:00 +0000

The birth date of Cesar Chavez, the late farm workers' leader, will be celebrated next month, and rightly so. But it's well past time we also celebrated the life of probably the most important of the other leaders who played a major role in winning union rights for farm workers and otherwise helping them combat serious exploitation.

That's Larry Itliong. He died 35 years ago this month at age 63. Itliong got involved in the farm workers' struggle very early in life, not long after he arrived as a 15-year-old immigrant from the Philippine Islands. He was among some 31,000 Filipino men who came to California in the late 1920s.

They migrated throughout the state doing low-paying farm work, isolated from the rest of society and discriminated against because of their race. They were prohibited from marrying Caucasians, from buying land and otherwise integrating into the community at large.

The Filipinos were perhaps the most isolated of the groups of penniless workers that growers imported from abroad. That, however, caused the Filipinos to band closely together. They formed extremely efficient work crews to travel the state under the direction of their own leaders, at times even forming their own unions.

They actually struck, a rarity for farm workers at the time when grape growers in Southern California's Coachella Valley rejected their pay demands in 1965. The strike was led by Itliong, who was then working for the AFL-CIO's recently-formed Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee. The strikers got what they wanted in just ten days.

Elsewhere, however, the Filipinos were forced to accept growers' terms, initially after brief strikes at several vineyards to the north. But their fortunes changed after they struck grape growers in the Delano area of Kern County, where many Filipinos lived.

Again, they called on Itliong to lead them. He clearly understood the deep anger and frustration that motivated his fellow Filipinos an understanding based on his own long experience. Soon after he came to California from the Philippines, he turned to farm work and, while still in his teens, was involved in an unsuccessful tomato pickers strike in Washington State.

After that, Itliong traveled up and down California, trying, as he said, "to get a job I could make money on . . . Whatever money I made from one job was not enough for me to live on until I got to the next job." He barely made enough to pay for food and the cigars he seemed to be endlessly chomping. School was out of the question. But Itliong did learn plenty.

Like Chavez, he said he learned that farm workers could not improve their wretched working and living conditions, could not win any rights, if they did not band together to demand decent treatment.

Itliong did not have the intellectual and philosophical bent of Chavez. Nor did he share Chavez' deep distrust of outside unions and their orthodox tactics. But Itliong was as convinced as Chavez of the need for unionization. And the depth of his conviction made Itliong a natural leader among the Filipinos.

He was readily hired as a full-time organizer by the AFL-CIO's Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, eventually leading the strike against Delano grape growers that drew worldwide attention, much of it focused on Chavez.

The vineyard strikers were seeking no more than a pay raise of 15 to 20 cents an hour. But growers refused to negotiate with Itliong and meanwhile evicted strikers from the grower-owned camps where they lived.

Growers relied on animosity between Mexican-American and Filipino workers, caused in large part by the growers' practice of setting up separate camps and work crews for various racial and ethnic groups.

But Chavez, who was then forming a union in Delano for Mexican American workers, did not hesitate when Itliong asked him for help. Chavez felt that his group, then called the National Farm Workers Association, wasn't ready to strike itself, but would honor the picket lines of the striking Filipinos.

Yet if they were to honor the picket lines of Itliong's group, Chavez' members asked, Why not strike themselves? Why not? And so they did.

That became the grape strike of 1965 that drew worldwide attention and support and ultimately led to the unionization, at long last, of California's farm workers. It was Larry Itliong and his Filipino members who started it all, and who played an indispensable role throughout the struggle.

Without them there could not have been a strike. Without them, there could not have been the victory of unionization, without them no right for the incredibly oppressed farm workers to bargain with their employers.

Within a year of the strike's launching, Chavez and Itliong's organizations merged to form what became the widely acclaimed United Farm Workers union the UFW. Chavez was president, Itliong vice president. Chavez and the UFW's far more numerous Mexican American members were in firm control.

Itliong never really accepted this situation. He finally resigned from the UFW's executive board in 1971. He complained that the union's outnumbered Filipinos "were getting the short end of the stick" from the Anglo lawyers, clergymen and other activists who were Chavez' chief advisors.

Itliong preferred the more orthodox tactics of the AFL-CIO organizing committee, apparently not realizing it was the unorthodox tactics of Chavez' group that finally led to unionization boycotts, non-violence, use of religious and student groups and all manner of other help from outside the labor movement.

But this is not to detract from the extremely important role Itliong played in bringing farm workers a union of their own. He may not have clearly understood the need for new tactics, but he most certainly understood the paramount need of farm workers for unionization, and the great needs of Filipino Americans generally.

Larry Itliong devoted most of his life to seeing that they got much of what they badly needed.

Tulsa city workers win fight vs. privatization with creative strategy

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:26:00 +0000

TULSA, Okla. - The unionized Tulsa municipal workers of AFSCME Local 1180 chose to fight back against privatization by taking over their department in a very unusual way.

In June 2011, city operations and maintenance workers were threatened with privatization. These workers handle electrical, mechanical, plumbing and carpentry duties for the municipality. Not only could privatization of these jobs reduce quality of services and workplace safety, but also private contractors often cut jobs to lower costs, giving the appearance of greater efficiency. In reality, such cuts only intensify the exploitation of workers, making the work more taxing, dangerous and lower quality.

Union organizers and workers were confident that the employees themselves knew more about how best to run their department than their bosses, so they prepared a plan of their own outlining ways to improve services, reduce costs and save the taxpayers money.

They went directly to the city government and presented their findings and proposals. They would eliminate unnecessary expenses, relinquish two vehicles that were not regularly used, and upgrade their technology to use more efficient software and web-based solutions wherever possible. Not only did their plan save the people of Tulsa money while maintaining quality services, they included a "gain sharing" program in which unionized operations and maintenance workers would be rewarded for their extra effort.

On Feb 21, Tulsa's Mayor Dewey Bartlett met with the president of AFSCME Local 1180 and the operations and maintenance workers to recognize their efforts. The mayor announced that the workers' extra initiative not only saved their jobs from privatization, but saved the city $224,000 since July 2011. In a statement, Bartlett, who is generally anti-union, said: "Our own employees beat out local and national firms to do the job, and for the first time ever, were able to participate in the savings."

As part of the "gain sharing program" each worker in the building and maintenance department received a check for $3,863.53. The additional savings will be retained in public funds for the benefit of the people of Tulsa, instead of going into the pockets of CEOs from the private sector. AFSCME Local 1180 President Michael Rider summarized the magnitude of this achievement in a statement to the local press:

"AFSCME Local 1180 members wish to congratulate gain-sharing award recipients on the building maintenance team. In many cities and states across the country, privatization has been seen as a quick-fix solution to inefficient, government-run systems. But in Tulsa, Oklahoma, we have learned that by simply involving front-line employees in the management process, outdated and inefficient systems can be improved in a way where everyone wins: dedicated employees are rewarded for their hard work and innovative thinking ... and citizens win because profits go back to the public, not big business, keeping the local economy strong."

The seven city workers to receive the first-ever "gain sharing" award are Andre Hughes, Robert McGuire, Terry Hope, Todd Mashburn, Latysha Jackson, John Comer, and Larry Barnett.

In what appeared to be just a single elegant stroke of a worker-led initiative, the operations and maintenance workers of Tulsa disproved several anti-union myths. Rank-and-file driven unions are not a drain on municipalities. When given a greater voice in managerial decisions they can actually enhance efficiency and save taxpayers money. And unions don't simply take money from workers. In fact, union workers in Tulsa got organized and asserted their dignity, expertise and creativity in their workplace. As a result, workers found themselves with an unprecedented pay increase and the thanks of the public, management and local elected officials.

Photo: Union members with Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett at press conference, Feb. 21. PW

Six days, six states: Locked out workers launch 1,000-mile journey

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:46:00 +0000

FARGO, N.D. - Locked out workers from Cooper Tire and Rubber Co. in Findlay, Ohio arrived Feb. 21 here for the start of an historic 1,000-mile Journey for Justice that will wind its way across six states, ending up back in their home town.

The Cooper Tire workers, members of United Steelworkers Local 207L, have been locked out since Nov. 28 in what they say is part of a new wave of corporate attacks on workers and their unions.

They hooked up yesterday with four locked out workers from Fargo-based American Crystal Sugar Co., all members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union, on a six-day, six state journey to raise awareness about the new wave of corporate lockouts and the fighting spirit of locked out workers across North America.

An hour after the locked out workers gathered in the Labor Temple here, several of them called the PW to talk about their "journey."

"I'm here to stand in solidarity with my locked out brothers and sisters from American Crystal," declared locked out Cooper Tire worker John Greer. "We're sharing our stories, building solidarity and letting people know what is really going on in this country."

Greer, 55, with a wife and a 35 year-old-son, worked as an electrician at Cooper Tire for 22 years before he was locked out. Greer, along with Dave Burns, Theresa Brown and Linda Jones - the rest of the "Findlay, Four" - hit the ground running yesterday.

Almost immediately after touching down at Fargo's airport, they joined locked out sugar workers on the picket line outside Crystal Sugar's facility in nearby Moorhead, Minnesota where, with boos and jeers, they greeted replacement workers during a shift change.

The same union-busting firm, Strom Engineering, is providing replacement workers for both Crystal Sugar and Cooper Tire during their lockouts. Linda Jones, a tread trucker at Cooper Tire, said, "It's been hard watching poorly trained replacements trying to do work I've taken pride in for 36 years. It's heartbreaking to see how a company can treat their loyal employees so badly."

The union offered to work at Cooper under the old contract while negotiations continued for a new one but the company refused, locking everyone out.

Greer, who is the "rapid response political coordinator" for the union local at Findlay pointed out that it was hard to understand why the union offer was turned down and the company is now spending millions of dollars to keep workers out of their jobs.

"The only explanation." he said, "is that they are out to kill the union altogether. It's part of a coordinated anti-union effort nationwide. They used to force people out on strike, now they just lock them out," he said. Greer noted that for quite a while people in Findlay thought the workers were actually out on strike and that "we had to tell them, no, this is a lockout. When they learned that workers who wanted to work were being locked out they really came out to support us," he said.

This is not Greer's first trip across long distances to rally in the cause of his co-workers. Last month he travelled to Krucevec, Serbia, where Cooper Tire recently took over a production plant. Greer and other members of the Steelworkers union met with workers in the Serbian plant who, they said, offered their support during the lockout in America. "We learned what solidarity is all about," Greer said. "With the globalization of these companies, the only way we're going to maintain working conditions is if our unions go global too. This solidarity is what this Journey for Justice is all about."

Becki Jacobson, 48, a divorced mother of grown children, started working for American Crystal Sugar Co. 30 years ago, when she was just 18. "Loyalty didn't matter," she said "I was locked out like all the rest."

She described the sick feeling that came over workers in the last weeks before the lockout as they watched who would become their replacements enter some sections of the plant. "We knew they were our replacements but when we asked the bosses about it they denied it," she said. "One boss said, 'oh no, they're not your replacements, we're going to give you a big raise."

Jacobson added: "It's been tough but thank God in Minnesota we have unemployment benefits." Workers locked out at American Crustal in North Dakota are not eligible to collect jobless benefits.

Labor and community allies all over the Midwest have been running a major food bank operation to help locked out workers.

There will be a "rally for dignity and justice' in Moorehead today, after which the locked out workers will deliver to Crystal Sugar thousands of signatures demanding they be brought back to work. After North Dakota and Minnesota, the Journey for Justice will wind its way through Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana before getting back to Ohio.

Photo: Locket out workers are fighting back. Here, Becki Jacobson, a 30 year veteran at American Crystal Sugar, tells postal workers about her struggle. Becki Johnson // CC 2.0

Seattle port strike challenges "independent contractor" lie

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:19:00 +0000

SEATTLE - Employers say they're "independent contractors." Drivers call that a legal trick to deny them their rights-a nice-sounding label obscuring an ugly reality.

For two weeks in February, this argument raged at terminal gates in the ports of Seattle and Tacoma. Hundreds of truckers, who normally ferry huge shipping containers from dockside to waiting trains and warehouses, refused to get behind the wheel and drive. Instead, they caravanned to the terminal gates and appealed to their coworkers to climb out of their cabs and join their strike.

Port managers claimed that it was business as usual on the docks. Standing in front of the BNSF rail yard, though, the strikers could see stacks of containers that weren't going anywhere. When they wouldn't drive, the "cans," as they're called, stacked up on ships, in rail yards, and at warehouses. The port's lifeblood slowed to a crawl. Cargo has to move for shippers and trucking companies to make money. A still container, a waiting ship and an idle truck all mean lost profits. It was clear the strike was costing employers a lot of money.

Finally, after the standoff had gone on for two weeks, on February 14 the two sides basically declared a truce, and drivers went back to work. In their eyes, however, it was only a step, not yet an agreement that resolved their problems. They had made their point, however, by showing the trucking companies they work for-and the huge shipping corporations behind them-that drivers have power over the movement of cargo. And they could and would use it to bring about the changes they demanded.

The truckers came away from the strike better organized than they'd ever been before. Every morning they'd gather at the Teamsters Union hall in Tukwila before heading to the docks. Then, in the evening they'd return. The hall would fill with drivers in intense conversations in Amharic, Somali, Urdu and English as they repeated their demands and decided on tactics for the following day. After two weeks, a hardened core of 400 were veterans of the flying squads, deployed in winter rainstorms from gate to gate. They had testified in hearings and spoken to reporters.

In the end, many agreed their most important achievement was the organization that emerged strengthened from the strike: the Seattle Port Truckers Association.

Ultimately, the drivers want a change in their status, as does the union helping them, the Teamsters. "We want to be considered employees," said striker Burhan Abdi, by which he meant that the companies should assume real responsibility for the conditions they impose.

While the containers with the cargo and the trailers that carry them belong to the shipping companies, the tractors-that is, the engines and cabs that pull the trailers-belong to the drivers. In theory. In reality, ownership is a not-so-polite fiction.

To drive for the trucking companies, the workers have to lease them their trucks. "But when I need to use the truck for some other purpose, it's not mine," explained Abdi. "It's the company's. It looks like I own it, but that's not real. It's my truck but it's not my truck." Abdi said that if he even used it to move his family's furniture to a new apartment, the company would fire him for it.

That's just one reason truckers refused to haul loads for two weeks. Since the deregulation of the trucking industry in the 1970s, the fiction of ownership has been the lever the companies use to dictate conditions and prevent bargaining over them. Trucking companies pay a set amount for each load a driver hauls-usually between $40 and $48. Out of that, drivers have to pay all the costs of running their rigs-the gas, the repairs and maintenance. The trucking companies in turn get paid by the huge corporations that own the ships, railroads, container cranes and terminals.

Drivers often have to wait in long lines to pick up a load. Dozens of cabs and empty trailers stand with their big diesels running. The air turns thick and acrid from their blue smoke. In the distance, huge ships are pulled up next to the docks, containers stacked so high on their decks they seem like tall buildings. Enormous cranes stack and unstack the cans, moving them like toys from dock to ship and back.

One driver described his life: "In order to get a load, you have to get up early, at four o'clock in the morning. You pull yourself up into the cab of your truck while you're still half-awake - you don't even see your family before you leave. Then you go down to the harbor and get into the lines. And you wait. Finally, you get to the head of the line, and you get a container. Then you're on the freeway, making time as fast as you can, to deliver it to the customer. When you get there, you usually have to wait to unload as well, before you go back down to the harbor for another pick up. No one pays you for all those hours of waiting."

"When we stay at a terminal we don't get paid," said another driver, Michael Kidane, who drives for Pacer Cartage. "When we haul heavy loads or reefers (refrigerated containers), we don't get paid for that. When we return a chassis, we don't get paid. The company gets paid for all this, but we don't."

Often the trailers are in poor condition, and drivers can be cited if their brakes don't work properly. Cans are stuffed so full they weigh more than the legal limits. Starbucks, for instance, according to drivers, is well known for overweight containers. If they take on the load and later are stopped by the Highway Patrol, they're fined for excessive weight. Drivers, not companies, have to pay the fines, and if they get too many tickets, they can lose their licenses. But if they refuse the loads, the employers will punish them by denying them work for a few days.

One of the strike's demands, Kidane noted, was that companies should give them copies of the cargo manifests for the containers. They show how much the cans weigh, and even more important, how much the companies get for hauling them. Unsurprisingly, this was a demand the trucking firms resisted strongly.

'Babies' and 'monkeys'

Companies charge drivers $120 a week for liability insurance, even though the freight is already insured by the shippers. Sometimes a driver gets sick or there's not enough work, and the rig sits idle. Then drivers get the symbol they detest the most, that more than any other inspired their strike: the negative paycheck. Their employers hand them a check with a $120 charge they'll deduct from future earnings, for a week when the truck never moved. Drivers doubt that the companies actually spend that $120 on insurance, and instead believe they pocket most of it.

"They are making $120 each week, $480 per month, times 50 trucks," calculated striker Jaswinder Singh about his own employer. "There they're ripping off our money. They are robbing us, robbing us."

Sometimes, drivers said, the companies let them know their position in graphic language. According to Kidane, when truckers ask about the weight of their loads at his company, the dispatcher calls them babies. "I'm 37 years old, and she calls me a baby," he fumed. "One of my coworkers is over 50, and he's a baby too. A baby cannot drive a truck. A baby cannot get a license. I should get an award or something, instead of being called a baby."

In another company, drivers heard themselves referred to on the radio as monkeys. "There are white drivers, black drivers, Indians, Chinese, and Africans. They call all of us a bunch of monkeys," said Abdulkadir Ali, as he held aloft a sign saying "Respect Drivers' Rights!"

In every Pacific coast port, most drivers are immigrants. Seattle and Tacoma's truckers are mostly East African, from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Kenya, along with Sikhs from the Punjab region of India. As immigrants, drivers often feel vulnerable. Abdi explained that they have to learn quickly to confront racism in the U.S. in a way they didn't have to in Africa.

"We are mostly immigrants and mostly blacks," he said. "I come from Somalia. Nobody even knows the word discrimination back there. But over here, I see discrimination when something wrong is happening. And everything wrong is happening in the Port of Seattle. We may come from countries far away, but we still have rights."

About 100 Sikhs, who make up 10 percent of the workforce, met at their local church to talk about whether or not to join the strike. "We understand," Jaswinder Singh recounted, "and we are not scared." The Sikh's memory of their own history, he explained, helped them understand the issues in their conflict with the companies. "We come from India, and we fought there against the British and kicked them out. We are fighting for the same thing here-integrity and simple respect and fairness. We believe in democracy, and we will fight peacefully, the right way. But we will fight to the last breath."

The federal government says harbor truckers, and millions of workers like them, cannot join a union. They may look, think, talk and work like workers, but the government tells them they are not workers at all-they are "independent contractors."

That status is a product of the deregulation of the trucking industry. In 1973, the federal government began pulling apart the web of rules that had set prices for transporting goods from one point to another, and had provided minimum safety standards for drivers. That process was completed when President Carter signed the Motor Carrier Act of 1980. In the following era of cutthroat competition, trucking companies cut their costs to the bone. The most common method used to pare expenses was getting rid of drivers. Company after company laid off men and women who had been employees for years. Then they offered to pay a driver with his or her own truck a set amount of money to carry a load.

Old-timers remember that the companies had big lots full of used trucks, and sold them to the same people who'd been their employees. Once drivers got loans and bought rigs, though, they drove for the bank. From then on, all the expenses were theirs-gas, insurance, loan payment, repairs-everything.

Federal deregulation of the trucking industry essentially put drivers on a piece rate. For the companies, it was a good deal-they could pay by the load without assuming any of the risks. They no longer had to pay workers compensation, disability or unemployment insurance premiums for the drivers. If taxes or the price of gas went up, drivers had to absorb it. If a truck broke down, it wasn't the company's concern.

Freed of these costs, company profits went up. But truckers say as a result, their income dropped. Median income for Seattle drivers is now $28,500 per year, for an average workweek of 60 hours, but strikers on the picket line said they make as little as $15-20,000. Meanwhile, a union hourly wage in the trucking industry can reach $60,000 annually.

West coast preludes

Long before the strike in Seattle, drivers tried to change conditions, especially in North America's largest port, Los Angeles/Long Beach. In the summer and fall of 1984, drivers unhappy over declining conditions spontaneously struck and shut down the harbor. In the strike's aftermath, they tried to set up a cooperative, but it failed. After trucking companies refused to improve conditions, drivers struck again in 1988 for six weeks. Rising gas prices led to a national wildcat movement in 1993, as owner-operators refused to pick up loads until trucking companies absorbed part of the increased cost.

On Terminal Island, between San Pedro and Long Beach harbors, police drove strikers from their lines with tear gas and rubber bullets, and forced them back to work. In January 1994, Los Angeles port drivers organized the Latin American Truckers Association, and in 1996 they struck for two weeks with the Communication Workers union. They lost that one as well.

Over the last decade, the Teamsters union, environmentalists and drivers in many ports organized the Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports. Near the Seattle port, in the immediate adjacent neighborhoods of South Park and Georgetown, the EPA has found that cancer risk is 27 times higher than the national average. An estimated 95 percent of the nation's 110,000 port trucks fail to meet current U.S. EPA emission standards. To reduce the health dangers of the smoke from the long lines of waiting trucks to workers and residents, the coalition has proposed local ordinances. They would make the drivers direct employees of the companies they work for, and set up a dispatch system that wouldn't require them to wait so long in line for loads.

The trucking companies have challenged all the ordinances and legal battles continue over them. In January in Washington State, the legislature debated a bill that would hold the companies responsible for overweight loads or unsafe trailers, and another that would reinstate the employee status of port truckers. The Washington Trucking Association and the Washington Public Ports Association testified against them both.

The beginning of a new balance of power

When one came up for debate on January 30, however, more than 100 drivers took off work and showed up in Olympia (the capital) to support it. Many of those who testified were threatened. After one driver, Yared Maconnen, was fired at Western Ports Transportation, the other drivers in his company walked off the job. The strike soon spread to other companies. Work stopped at major outfits like Seattle Freight Service Inc., Pacer Cartage, Western Ports Transportation Inc., Edgmon Trucking, Elliott Bay Service Transfer and PCC Logistics. As the strike progressed through demonstrations at the terminal gates and in meetings at the Teamsters Hall in Tukwila, it gave real power to the Seattle Port Truckers Association.

On February 13, drivers and supporters mounted a big rally in the Seattle port. With the help of Local 19 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union-the workers who run the cranes and load and unload the ships-the drivers met with the port director and representatives of the trucking companies. The following day they agreed to continue talking, a de facto recognition of the power of the truckers' organization, and drivers went back to work.

As they climbed back into their cabs, some companies offered to increase the price per load by $4 if drivers have to wait more than an hour in line, and to pay for some trips taken without loads. Most of the original demands of the strike are still unresolved, but the balance of power in the port is shifting. Drivers who strike once can obviously do so again.

A similar shift may also be taking place in the tactics of the Teamsters union itself. The effort to win local and state ordinances requiring the companies to restore employee status will undoubtedly continue. But legislative efforts may now be combined with direct pressure in the terminals themselves, by drivers who undertake their own independent action to force immediate changes in conditions.

Seattle and Tacoma are no backwaters. Together they make up the third larges container port in North America, moving 1,700,000 cans a year. What happens on these Northwest docks will be felt in other ports as well, especially if drivers there adopt a similar strategy.

Whether in Seattle, Oakland or Los Angeles, the drivers' problems are the same. And the companies they "contract" for are too.

"We are considered like containers, thrown out after we're used," Kidane declared bitterly. "But I'm a human being, and I want them to see me and treat me like a human being."

This article and photo originally appeared in In These Times online.