People Before Profit blog

Fall of “la Maestra” not good news for Mexican workers

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 13:12:00 +0000

On Tuesday Feb. 26 Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo announced the arrest of the head of the country's most powerful teachers' union and two colleagues, on charges of embezzlement of union funds to the tune of $160 million. But the real target of the government's action may be the working teachers.

Elba Esther Gordillo, known as "La Maestra" or "The Teacher" was until this incident the national president and former secretary general of the 1.5 million-member National Education Workers Union (SNTE), one of the largest labor unions in Latin America. She has also played a very visible role as a political power broker and kingmaker.

That there have been irregularities and corrupt practices in la Maestra's tenure as teacher's union head surprises nobody. However, it is also no coincidence that her fall comes after the passage, in November of last year, of an anti-worker labor reform, and the signing last month of another reform crafted by President Enrique Peña Nieto of the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) and aimed at the educational system.

This may be a case of history repeating. In January 1989, then President Carlos Salinas de Gortari (also of the PRI) announced a right turn in labor relations policy by ordering the sudden arrest of the head of the then-powerful petroleum workers' union (STPRM), Joaquin Hernandez Galicia, known as "La Quina", and several associates under the pretext of illegal possession of firearms.

"La Quina" got a long jail sentence but the oil workers were not by any means freed from the clutches of a corrupt union boss. The Salinas government simply installed its own puppet, Carlos Romero Deschamps, as head of the union. He "served" in this post for 23 years and remains so even though he was made a PRI senator in last year's elections.

He has been a compliant yes-man for both the PRI and National Action Party presidents, going so far as to voice support for schemes aimed at privatizing PEMEX, the Mexican national petroleum company.

"La Quina", on the other hand, had spoken out strongly against privatization, and had supported leftist candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas against Salinas in the 1988 presidential elections.

In a nutshell, this expresses how the former PRI governments handled labor dissent, at it seems things have not changed. With the exception of a valiant few, loyalty is expected to the PRI and not to either the workers or the nation. If that loyalty is forthcoming, it is rewarded by, among other things, the government turning a blind eye to all kinds of abuses and corrupt practices. But if the thread of loyalty is broken, the roof caves in on the offending party.

In the case of "La Quina", the fact that he channeled votes of his members to the opposition was the cause of his downfall, the illegal weapons only a pretext. In the case of "La Maestra", the fact is that the PRI simply could not trust her. In 2006, when she was not chosen as the PRI's presidential candidate, she threw her support and that of her union to the PAN's Felipe Calderon. Last year again, she did not support the PRI candidate and now President Peña Nieto but started her own National Alliance Party, whose candidate (Gabriel Quadri) did poorly, getting only 2.34 percent of the vote.

It was probably these actions, and not the fact that she had a lifestyle far and away more luxurious than her official salary could support, which doomed her. Her own union has now abandoned her, immediately naming a new national president, Juan Diaz de la Torre, and making it clear that it will not help her out with her criminal trial.

There is dissent against PRI-style corporate unionism within the Mexican teaching profession. Opposition to oppressive rule in the southern state of Oaxaca, for example, has been led by left-wing unionized teachers in section 22 of Gordillo's own former union.

It remains to be seen if, with "La Maestra" behind bars, any more progressive trend can make itself heard in the union's councils, or if De La Torre will play, in the Teachers' Union, the same supine role that Romero Deschamps has played in the oil workers' union.

Anybody who wants to fight for the rights of teachers and the improvement of education (which is in bad shape) in Mexico will have their work cut out for them. The educational reform which president Peña Nieto signed almost simultaneously with the crackdown on Gordillo is presented as a necessary measure to put an end to the kind of corrupt practices and clientelistic control of which she is accused. It reduces the power of the union and moves control of the educational system into the hands of the Ministry of Education in Mexico City. But this is under a PRI government, and such governments have been famous for their own corrupt clientalist practices.

Acting labor secretary links wage hikes to unions

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 12:58:00 +0000

ORLANDO - U.S. workers' wages rise when U.S. unions thrive, the temporary top man at the U.S. Labor Department, acting Secretary Seth Harris, says.

Harris made the remark Feb. 22 to the executive board of the AFL-CIO Maritime Trades Department. The board met in Orlando, Fla., just before the federation's full Executive Council convened there. Harris did not address the full council.

Harris succeeded Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, who resigned in early January and returned home to Los Angeles. President Obama has yet to nominate a permanent successor to head the agency.

The executive council praised Solis' service in a Feb. 27 statement, saying "she always put the values of working families at the center of everything she did." It called her "a leading voice in the administration for the idea that a strong middle class depends on a strong and independent trade union movement." Harris, in his remarks, agreed.

"Any strategy that talks about American workers' wages must begin with every worker's right to organize and bargain collectively," Harris said, according to excerpts posted on the Maritime Trades website.

"It's very simple: Unions raise wages. Unions assure workers have pensions. Unions win workers health insurance. Unions give workers a voice in their workplace. Unions guarantee fairness and fight discrimination. Unions win paid leave for workers when they're sick or must care for their family members. Unions are a central pillar of the American middle class."

Harris said his former experience as a field representative for the Seafarers and the Maritime Trades Department inspired his continued commitment - which he has brought to the Obama administration - to workers.

"That is the simple idea that American families should be able to get good jobs; they should be paid a living wage; they should have a voice in their workplaces; they should arrive home safe and healthy after the job is done." Obama, he said, agrees the economy must be strengthened "from the middle out." That means attracting high-paying jobs, making sure "hard work leads to a decent living wage" and rewarding firms that create jobs here while penalizing off shoring, he said.

Photo: Flickr

Co-workers support threatened Walmart worker

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:44:00 +0000

ORLANDO, Fla. - The Organization United for Respect at Walmart - OURWalmart - and community supporters stood up for one of the company's workers at five Orlando-area Walmart stores on Feb. 28.

The actions were in solidarity with Lisa Lopez, a Walmart associate who has experienced retaliation from her bosses for her involvement in OURWalmart, which is supported by the United Food and Commercial Workers union.

The retaliation has, say Lopez's supporters, included excessive work, surveillance on the job and disciplinary write-ups for frivolous reasons, which have put Lopez in danger of being fired. Lopez, a single mother who is also raising grandchildren, joined OURWalmart on Black Friday--Nov. 23, 2012--walking off the job with Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla. Lopez was unable to attend the action due to illness.

A small delegation of OURWalmart members and community supporters attempted to enter the store where Lopez works in order to present her store manager, Terry Wilson, with a letter in support of Lopez signed by community members.

However, before they reached the entrance they were stopped by Walmart managers and Orange County sheriff's deputies. Wilson listened as the letter was read to him, but refused to take it.

The letter stated: "We, the community of Orlando, feel that Lisa Lopez's recent coachings or disciplines [write-ups for alleged infractions of work rules] are a direct result of her actions taken on Black Friday when she went on strike to protest Walmart's unfair labor practices.

"Retaliation against associates who stand up is not only unfair, it's against the law. We would like to see 1) Lisa's coachings removed; 2) Retaliation in your store to stop immediately."

Members of the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP) at the University of Central Florida and Central Florida Jobs with Justice fanned out across the store's parking lot to hand out fliers in support of Lopez. The flier urged customers to call the store manager "and demand that Lisa not be fired for speaking out."

At the request of managers, deputies issued trespass warnings to two members of the delegation: Angela Williamson, a former Walmart worker from Florida who is now an organizer with OURWalmart, and DeWitt Pollard III, a Walmart worker in Aurora, Co.

"I'm a fired worker now and they're still trying to shut me up," said Williamson, who also has been barred from two other Walmarts. "They're still trying to control me and intimidate me into not speaking out. And I'm just not going to stop.

Pollard said being trespassed "just adds fuel to the fire, as to why we need to unite and why we need to organize and to take these tyrants on." Pollard said that after two-and-a-half years on the job he is paid just $9.20 an hour (after starting at $8.40).

Small groups of SLAP and OURWalmart members, many of them clad in bright green T-shirts, also fliered customers at four other Walmarts in the vicinity of the store where Lopez works.

The actions were a culmination of a multi-day training held in the Orlando area and attended by more than a dozen OURWalmart members from around the country.

Walmart's heavy-handed tactics against OURWalmart helped spark the wave of strikes at Walmarts around the country in October, 2012 and on Black Friday, and have continued to spur the growth of the group which was launched in 2011.

Karen Aubrey, an OURWalmart member who recently retired on disability after having worked at a Walmart in Merritt Island, Fla. (about 50 miles southeast of Orlando), said that the group's members want "respect first and foremost" along with better wages and benefits.

"We want Walmart to take responsibility for their employees--get them off the welfare rolls," said Aubrey.

Because of the company's failure to pay living wages and to provide decent benefits to its workers, "every taxpayer in America is supporting Walmart workers," she said.

The Daily Kos website reported that "Walmart has become the number one driver behind the growing use of food stamps in the United States with 'as many as 80 percent of workers in Walmart stores using food stamps [citing a study from the group Good Jobs First].'

"Walmart's employees receive $2.66 billion in government help every year, or about $420,000 per store. They are also the top recipients of Medicaid in numerous states."

For its fiscal year ended Jan. 31, the company reported total revenues of $469 billion. Walmart has 2.2 million workers worldwide, including 1.4 million in the U.S., making it the country's largest private employer.

Participants in the Orlando actions were unable to hold signs or do anything else that could be considered picketing. As a result of an unfair labor practice complaint that Walmart filed with the National Labor Relations Board about the Black Friday strikes, the UFCW and OURWalmart agreed not to engage in any "recognitional" picketing for at least 60 days. (This is picketing meant to get an employer to recognize a union.)

OURWalmart maintains that its activities are legally protected, and UFCW has said that it will continue to support the group. The agreement will expire at the end of March.

Photo: Florida OurWalmart members (L to R): Vanessa Ferreira (St. Cloud), Lisa Lopez (Orlando), Karen Aubrey (Merritt Island) at a Black Friday (Nov. 23, 2012) action. Ben Markeson/PW

Detroit needs jobs, not emergency managers

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 15:03:00 +0000

DETROIT - Republican Governor Rick Snyder's decision today to appoint an emergency manager for Detroit is a serious blow to equality, fairness, and democratic governance.

Emergency managers have failed to solve financial crises in Pontiac, Benton Harbor and other Michigan cities because they do not deal with the overwhelming cause of the problem: growing poverty and joblessness.

The City Council is considering challenging the move in court.

Alarmed the Governor would make such a decision, the NAACP issued a statement this past Tuesday at a press conference inside the organization's headquarters.

"Democracy should not be taken from the city of Detroit, or any other city in the state of Michigan, simply on the basis of economic distress," said NAACP President Rev. Wendell Anthony.

The threat of an emergency manager grew after a state review team concluded the city has a financial crisis.

However Anthony said there is no way an emergency manager is going to come into the city and fix in 18 months "what has taken 50 to 100 years to develop."

Over the span of many decades, Detroit's economy became auto dependent as automotive companies made the city the center of the industry. Globalization and outsourcing of jobs has eliminated hundreds of thousands of those jobs. In addition, this largely African American city faced racial and economic segregation, a "redline," that Anthony said cuts the city off from surrounding suburbs and strangled its economic growth.

Anthony called on the state to be a "partner" in helping to solve its problems not an "overseer" that wipes out duly elected officials, a power emergency managers have.

Emergency managers can also nullify union contracts and outsource many services. The city's public workers have already been subjected to deep pay cuts and huge increases in their health care costs.

Anthony noted that Detroit is not the only community under financial distress. Recent news reports have documented communities in Oakland County, one of the wealthiest counties in the state, being forced to layoff police and fire personnel and cut back other services. Bad as the cuts are, the higher incomes of many residents in those communities make it easier to survive.

Many residents in Detroit have few resources to fall back on. There are now whole areas of the city where the median family income is less than $16,000. More cuts in income and jobs are unfathomable.

"We don't need an emergency manager; we need someone to help manage our emergency," Anthony said. He cautioned against looking for "easy" and "half-baked" solutions and called on the state to instead do serious thinking on how to solve the economic problems the city faces.

Photo: palsule_mahendra // CC 2.0

Unions to focus on dumping GOP governors

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 12:56:00 +0000

ORLANDO - The 2012 election is barely in the books, but the AFL-CIO is already starting to think about the next round of polling, in November 2014.

And its top races there, say both federation Political Committee Chairman Lee Saunders and federation Political Director Michael Podhorzer, will be the nation's governors. Plus, they added when meeting this week with reporters during the AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting in Orlando, Fla., a key theme will be accountability.

Labor is coming off a political cycle where its virtual voter-by-voter precinct operation and its new ability to reach non-union voters - thanks, ironically, to a pro-business U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2010 - produced huge union turnout for President Obama and other pro-worker politicians in 2012.

Estimates of labor's share last year are around 24 percent, with much more than that in key swing states, such as Ohio. That's more than double the proportion of union members in the U.S. workforce (11.3 percent).

The high turnout produced success at the polls last November. Obama soundly trounced anti-worker GOP nominee Mitt Romney - whom labor successfully cast as a job-destroyer - and Democrats gained two U.S. Senate seats, even though they had 23 seats to defend, compared to 10 held by the anti-worker GOP.

Pro-worker Democrats also gained U.S. House seats, but not enough to flip it. Podhorzer says GOP-run redistricting after the 2010 census netted the Republicans 15 House seats nationwide. The GOP controls the House 231-200, with four vacancies.

But with more than half of the nation's governors up next year, and with past battles in the states showing the importance of those seats, labor is turning its focus there, Saunders and Podhorzer say.

Topping the agenda will be the ouster of Right Wing Republicans such as Scott Walker of Wisconsin, John Kasich of Ohio, Rick Scott of Florida and Rick Snyder of Michigan. All used their posts to kill workers' collective bargaining rights, push anti-worker so-called "Right to Work" laws, or both, plus other anti-worker measures.

"2014 will be a very, very important year. The Radical Republican governors elected in 2010 - Scott, Kasich, Walker - will be a priority. They're pushing the country rightwards," Podhorzer said.

Democrats, too, will be under the federation's political microscope. For example, Saunders, AFSCME's national president, told reporters on Feb. 27 his union is still bargaining with Gov. Pat Quinn, D-Ill., over a wide range of issues, such as underfunded pensions. AFSCME members in Illinois have been at loggerheads with Quinn for more than a year. He also wants to yank union recognition for 1,900 workers.

"We cannot just elect these folks and then forget about it until the next election, when they come around asking for money," Saunders said. Instead, labor will conduct a "24/7" political operation to hold officeholders accountable on many issues, he noted. And "we'll have to do what we did in 2012: Match the other side's spending with our foot soldiers," Podhorzer added.

Two other issues where labor will demand accountability are spending - speci-fically the "sequester," the Washington term for rampant budget-cutting - and immigra-tion. The sequester would cut $85 billion from federal spending, starting March 1.

The federation has campaigned against the sequester. It calls the spending cut damaging to the still-fragile economy and warns the slashes could put up to 1 million people out of work.

A federation statement called the GOP advocates of spending cuts and sequestration "hostage takers" who must be disarmed before they further harm the economy and cost jobs.

If the budget must be trimmed and federal red ink lessened, Policy Director Damon Silvers said, labor prefers a different mix: A combination of tax increases on the rich, closing corporate tax loopholes and administrative reforms to produce lower spending growth rates for federal health care programs - measures that would not hurt workers or beneficiaries.

And politicians would be held accountable for their votes and stands on the sequester, too, said Silvers and others.

They'll be held accountable on immigration reform, too, says Maria Elena Durazo, Executive Secretary of the L.A. County Federation of Labor and chair of the AFL-CIO Immigration Committee.

"Members of Congress have to remember who went to vote, and why," she said at a Feb. 27 press conference on immigration reform. The electorate "did not vote for a second-class program with worker exploitation, but for a program that lets people come out of the shadows."

Photo: It's not just Republicans who the unions plan to pressure. Democrats like Illinois Gov. Quinn, who got elected with union support, will feel the heat if they double-cross workers. AFSCME Local 31 Facebook page

Missouri may become latest Right-to-Work (for less) state

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 15:22:00 +0000

If Republican lawmakers get their way, Missouri may become the 25th state in the nation to impose a so-called 'Right-to-Work' law.

The House Workforce Development and Workplace Safety Committee debated the issue in early February, with hundreds of union members and their supporters packed into the Committee hearing room and surrounding hallways to voice their opposition to the legislation.

House Bill 77, the RTW bill sponsored by Eric Burlison (R-Springfield), would weaken unions by allowing freeloaders - people who don't pay union dues - to benefit from a union negotiated contract, grievance procedure, health and pension benefits, and higher wages all without paying their fair share.

Supporters of HB77 disingenuously call it the 'Freedom to Work' Act. They claim, baselessly, that RTW will create jobs in Missouri.

The facts, however, paint an entirely different picture, as two-thirds of the states with the highest unemployment rates are RTW states.

'Right-To-Work' states not only have a higher unemployment rate, but workers in those states are also paid about $1,500 less per-year than their counterparts in non-RTW states.

Additionally, workers in RTW states are less likely to have health care, pensions, sick leave and paid vacation. Furthermore, the rate of workplace deaths is 52.9 percent higher in RTW states, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

At the hearing, Missouri AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer, Mike Louis, said, "'Right-To-Work' does not guarantee any rights or any jobs."

"In fact, by weakening unions and collective bargaining, it destroys the best job security protection that exists - a union contract."

Furthermore, most economists argue that our fragile economy and hopeful recovery is being stymied by a lack of consumer purchasing power. Union workers making higher wages spend more of their disposable income thereby creating more demand and stimulating the economy.

Lower wages and higher unemployment caused by RTW would hurt the economy. RTW is bad for Missouri's economy generally, not just for union workers, as it drives down wages and spending power.

While a majority of Missourians have repeatedly rejected RTW legislation, Republicans continue to re-introduce it into the legislature every year, like ALEC sponsored puppets.

ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, is a right-wing corporate funded front group with millions of dollars at its disposal to re-write state laws with cookie-cutter anti-worker legislation.

In fact, ALEC member, Bill Lant, chairs the Workforce Development and Workplace Safety Committee - which lead many people in the hearing to wonder if he supports HB 77 because his constituents support it or because ALEC and its big business funders support it.

State representative, Jake Hummel (D-St. Louis), grilled Lant on the subject and said, "I'm just trying to figure out if your constituents asked for this bill, or if a company in your district asked for it, or if the republican leadership asked for it."

Hummel, who is also a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1, was first denied his right to speak at the hearing by the Committee chair; it was only after Hummel got the rule book that Lant consented.

Dave Cook, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers' Union (UFCW) Local 655 called the committee and its chair "disingenuous."

He said, "You've created a new tagline - 'Freedom to Work' - in an outright effort to trick the public. Why don't you have the guts to call it what it is - a freeloader bill."

While Republicans to have a veto-proof majority in the Missouri legislature, many union members believe enough Republicans - if contacted enough times by their constituents, many of whom are union members - will distance themselves from the RTW legislation denying them a veto proof majority, which will give democratic governor Jay Nixon an opportunity to block the law if it does pass the House and Senate.

There is currently an alphabet soup of RTW, and other anti-worker laws, being proposed in the general assembly; HB 77 isn't the only one. Republicans have also introduced RTW bills HB91, HB95, SB76 and SB134, as well as, two bills on prevailing wage, SB68 and SB30 and one bill on paycheck deception.

The labor movement here is gearing-up for a fight back. Meetings have been held on RTW at the St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo Central Labor Councils, and the MO AFL-CIO is planning a two-day labor legislative conference in Jefferson City - our state capital - in late March, among numerous other activities.

All union members and their supporters are being asked to call and write their representatives to let them know that 'Right-to-Work is WRONG for Missouri.'

Photo: Paul Sancya/AP

Union leaders: Time is now for immigration reform

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:12:00 +0000

ORLANDO - The executive council of the AFL-CIO unanimously passed a resolution here Feb. 27 demanding that the Congress of the United States immediately pass immigration reform.

"In November, American voters soundly rejected the pro-corporate and anti-immigrant agenda advanced by those who have stood in the way of comprehensive immigration reform," the resolution said. "President Obama enters his second term with a mandate to fight for and pass immigration reform. Members of our unions, like the rest of the American public, strongly support reform that includes a road map to citizenship for aspiring Americans who love this country and call it home."

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, has been one of the most consistent voices in the trade union movement calling for immigration reform.

She discussed her opinions on the issue during a break in the executive council session yesterday.

"No matter how you look at this, it just makes sense," she said.

"First, the current immigration system adversely affects both native and foreign born workers in the United States.

"Whether its the realization that a nation made great by immigrants has a moral imperative to live up to our American values of democracy and opportunity, or because it's sound economic policy, or because it's just the right thing to do for hardworking families, reforming our immigration system makes sense."

Weingarten argued strongly for laws that protect immigrant workers in the United States. "When immigrant workers are paid below the markets rates, it drives down wages for all workers with similar skills," she said. "The best way to protect the jobs and wages of all workers is to apply strong labor standards equally. A worker's immigration status should be irrelevant."

She described how her union, three years ago, brought to light and helped end threats, extortion and other abuses of 350 Filipino teachers recruited to work in post-Katrina Louisiana.

"The AFT helped these teachers win a $4.5 million settlement against the unscrupulous recruitment agency. I shudder to think what would have happened to them without their union."

"Comprehensive immigration reform is a top priority for America's unions," said AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka in a sit-down with reporters at the executive council meeting yesterday.

"We've built a mobilization structure and we're out in force like we were in the presidential election and the health care fight," he added, "with one message - immigration reform now."

Maria Elena Durazo, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor executive secretary-treasurer, said the AFL-CIO is going to hold major "launch events" over the next few weeks to "get the word out in every part of the country whether that be Miami, Chicago, or Seattle."

"Let no one doubt this, " she said. "I remind everyone about what unions did to pass health care reform and about what we did to first elect and then re-elect President Obama. Well that's what we will do to get this done." She said that the campaign for immigration reform will be " a major reflection of how we have transformed from an election to election mode to a year-round continuing campaign operation."

Trumka assured reporters who wanted to know whether there was any dissent among unions on immigration reform that "American's unions are all in on this." Only National ICE Council 118, an AFL-CIO affiliate which represents federal immigration agents, has called for expanded authority for its members to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants.

Non-traditional labor organizations which are representing undocumented workers and are affiliated with theAFL-CIO are also mobilizing for immigration law reform.

These include the National Domestic Worker Alliance, the National Day Labor Organizing Network and the National Guestworker Alliance. These groups organized demonstrations in Washington on the day of the State of the Union message.

Photo: AFL-CIO/Flickr

Trumka: AFL-CIO to undergo wide-scale revamp

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:09:00 +0000

ORLANDO, Fla. - The AFL-CIO will examine and create a new and different internal and external structure, to be considered at its convention in Los Angeles in September, federation President Richard Trumka says.

The revamp is necessary, he added, to meet the conditions of changing workplaces, extend labor's reach to allied and community groups, and to shift its emphasis within the federation to more inter-union and regional cooperation.

"We'll use our sessions" in meetings nationwide "to see how we need to change to meet the needs of today's and tomorrow's workers," Trumka told reporters covering the federation's Executive Council meeting in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 26. "We have to be honest with ourselves." The revamp meetings will be open to all.

Since its founding with the merger of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1955, the nation's largest labor group has been an amalgamation of unions - now 57 after Actors Equity received a charter on Feb. 25 - state federations, central labor councils and specific departments.

Some departments and unions have come and gone, notably those that left in 2005 to form Change To Win. Constituency groups became part of the federation. But until recently, the AFL-CIO has not had ties to non-union worker and community groups, though several have joined the federation in coalitions.

Trumka says the fed will hold open community meanings, inviting unionists, non-AFL-CIO unions, youth, academics, community allies and others to discuss ways to change that structure and to more widely represent workers.

"The AFL-CIO was designed to prevent us from hurting one another, not necessarily to help one another," Trumka explained. Now its leaders want to reach out beyond unions themselves to appeal to workers, as workers, on a wider scale. "We have to design new forms of representation," Trumka said.

Those new forms include chartering more worker centers, expanding Working America - the fed's 3.2-million member community affiliate for workers who can't or won't join unions - and other "non-collective bargaining forms of representation."

But the ideas won't be top-down, and the federation wants to integrate legislative, collective bargaining, politics and organizing all into one process. "The state feds and central labor councils will change and there'll be one strategic plan," not 50, Trumka stated.

Photo: Jobs with Justice // CC BY-NC 2.0

Labor leaders demand Senate action on NLRB

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:46:00 +0000

ORLANDO, Fla. - As expected, the AFL-CIO Executive Council issued a statement yesterday on the ongoing attempt by anti-worker politicians and their corporate sponsors to destroy the National Labor Relations Board.

"Our nation's economic health depends on the ability of workers to join together and collectively bargain with their employers over wages and working conditions," the statement read. "Yet instead of supporting workers and their collective bargaining rights they have engaged in an attempt to derail the key agency - the National Labor Relations Board - charged with enforcing these rights in the private sector."

The statement goes on to list some of the tactics, including delay of Senate confirmations, to hobble the NLRB.

Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham said last year, "I will continue to block all nominations to the NLRB. The NLRB as inoperable could be considered progress."

The AFL-CIO statement says the worst attack on the NLRB came in a recent federal court of appeals decision to block three recess appointments - two Democrats and one Republican - made by Pres. Obama in January to guarantee that the board could function. The court said that the president did not have the right to make the appointments because they were made when the Senate was in "recess."

"By the court's logic," said the AFL-CIO statement, "more than 300 recess appointments made by Presidents Reagan, Clinton, Obama and both Presidents Bush were invalid."

Meanwhile, the NLRB remains in operation with the appointees trying to carry out their jobs. Republican senators are demanding that they resign and they are introducing legislation to eliminate their pay.

As long as the appeals court ruling stands any employer can challenge NLRB rulings with which they disagree, meaning that the NLRB will be unable to enforce the law effectively for workers.

"This is an intolerable and unacceptable situation," said the AFL-CIO statement. "Working people deserve a functioning NLRB that will enforce workers' rights."

The federation statement concluded by demanding the following course of action: "The president must immediately nominate, and the Senate must quickly confirm, a full package of nominees to the NLRB - five board members, including Chairman Mark Pearce, members Griffin and Block, two Republican members, and Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon.

"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid must use every means available to win confirmation of this package of nominees. If Senate Republicans exploit the Senate rules and try to filibuster the president's nominees, Senator Reid should take all necessary steps to overcome the filibuster, and if not successful, lead an effort to change Senate rules so the President's nominees cannot be blocked by the minority.

"The Obama administration must continue to stress the importance of collective bargaining rights."

Photo: Peoplesworld.org

AFL-CIO: Unions decline tied to attacks on democracy

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:07:00 +0000

ORLANDO, Fla. - Recent reports showing union membership at an all-time low are of enormous concern at a gathering here of the nation's labor leaders. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported just over 11 percent of the workforce is unionized. Members of the AFL-CIO executive council say the BLS report is much more than just numbers. They see it tied to attacks on democratic rights.

"These figures must be seen as one part of an overall decline in democracy in our country," said Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America, when he came out of a closed session of the council for a break this morning.

"The rights of workers to organize in this country are on par with Mexico and Colombia. When you try to organize, when you try to exercise that right guaranteed by law you are confronting the corporate world. Your job and livelihood are on the line," he said.

"In politics, money has supplanted democracy and the right to vote. If you are an immigrant dreamer you have to go before a Senate that will kill the Dream Act. The lower numbers of union members are just one part of an entire attack on democracy."

Union leaders are anything but content with the idea of letting such attacks stand.

"We are taking a new approach to organizing that involves reaching out to others not in the labor movement," said Elizabeth Bunn, the AFL-CIO's director of organizing.

"This is why labor is so strong on immigrant rights. No worker in this country can hope for justice on the job when you have 11 million immigrants who can be abused by having all their human rights taken away from them. Unless we have comprehensive immigration reform, we cannot have workers' rights on the job."

"Part of reversing the membership decline," said Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles federation and chair of the AFL-CIO's immigration committee, "is working with workers' centers. They are not official unions but they bring in potentially millions of restaurant, domestic, car wash workers, workers in shipyards and elsewhere into a working alliance with the traditional labor movement. We must become a bigger and broader movement."

Another approach talked about here is for community organizations, elected officials and local groups to be encouraged to organize workers themselves.

"This is what the United Auto Workers is doing in Mississippi," said the union's president, Bob King. "Community groups, religious leaders, workers themselves and others in the Canton, Miss., area formed a coalition that is leading the effort to unionize Nissan workers. They reached out to us, not the other way around, and we are working in alliance with them. We want to see more and more of this."

Union leaders here say public awareness campaigns about the effects of attacks on public workers, for example, are still another part of their overall fight back and plan to reverse declining membership figures.

"When people understand," said chief AFL-CIO economist Bill Spriggs, "that the attacks and the resultant cuts in union jobs mean longer lines at airports, less police protection on rough street corners in their neighborhood and larger class sizes in their schools, they will see that this is something that effects a lot more than just unions and their membership rolls."

Photo: Restaurant workers in Dearborn, Mich., have forged an alliance with students, clergy, labor and the social justice community to win their rights on the job. (PW/John Rummel)

AFL-CIO to squeeze Senate Dems on NLRB

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:30:00 +0000

ORLANDO, Fla. - In a closed sessionof the AFL-CIO executive council today, union leaders are drafting, a resolution to Senate Democrats that will involve holding their feet to the fire until the impasse in Washington over the National Labor Relations Board is resolved.

"We have decided," said Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America during a break in the sessions, "that in today's America it is unacceptable that we cannot fill the position on a labor board designed to protect the rights of American workers, and we will no longer accept the argument that nothing can be done because the Republicans are filibustering. I want you to quote me on that."

Cohen's union has been active in a coalition to reform Senate rules which he says are used to stand in the way of democracy in the country; "They (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Democrats) had the chance to change the rules and they didn't" Cohen said. "Now we demand that the President name all five people to fill those NLRB positions and that the Senate vote promptly. We expect the Democrats to use every option, including the talking filibuster or rules changes to prevent the Republicans from blocking this. If they don't, they can expect us to go after them like we never have before -- in the nation's capital and in their districts - wherever they go."

The details of how the unions plan to pressure Democrats on fixing the problem with the labor board are going to be included in a special statement on the NLRB that is being drafted today in the closed session. Cohen said that what is unique about the coming statement is that it will hold Senate Democrats, who have been the beneficiaries of labor support in the elections, responsible for helping to lead a fight on the issue.

Photo: Larry Cohen. Teresa Albano/PW

Labor rolls out plan to defuse fiscal time bomb

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 13:04:00 +0000

ORLANDO, Fla. - Just 48 hours before the $85 billion budget cut time bomb was set to explode, the leaders of the nation's unions are not only bracing for layoffs of a million or more workers but also hammering out details of a program they say will prevent those job losses and restore the economy for the working-class majority.

AFL-CIO political and policy leaders took time out here from their executive council session this morning to discuss the 12-million-member labor federation's approach to fixing the economy.

'"The Republican policy of cuts is destroying the recovery," said Damon Silvers, the federation's director of policy. "The discussion going on is upside down. We've already cut $1.9 trillion and we are approaching a sequester that will slash $85 billion more. We've only gotten $600 billion in income tax increases on the rich. Based on this, we say cancel the sequester altogether.

"On top of that we need to close loopholes in taxes that the rich take advantage of.

"Under no circumstances should there be any cuts to benefits such as Social Security or Medicaid.

"We will give no cover to anyone who supports these things."

The layoffs could begin happening when the scheduled sequester cuts go into effect this Friday.

"We are less than 48 hours away, every union will be affected, none as harshly as those in federal government," said Bill Samuel, director of the AFL-CIO's government affairs department. Over one million workers could be furloughed because of a crisis manufactured by a Republican Party that refuses to tax Wall Street and wants working families to pay for cuts. Democrats are not blameless. Too many speak approvingly of Simpson Bowles."

Silvers said that the Simpson-Bowles plan is not the "balanced approach" it is touted to be. "It would radically alter the nature of life in our country and it is unnecessary to do that to achieve long term debt stabilization

Mike Podhorzer, director of the AFL-CIO's political department said that "more than 100 members of Congress have written President Obama" regarding this issue.

As the union's policy directors spoke with the press, leaders of more than 50 unions were meeting in closed session to map plans to support labor's allies in Congress and to punish those who don't hold firm. "If our allies don't stand up it won't end well. We know that hostage takers like the Republicans only take more hostages when you let them get away with it," said Geri Prado, deputy director of the AFL-CIO's campaign department.

"Two days after the election we had hundreds of events around the county. The push will continue to look like that, calls letters, emails, staying strong on the issues."

Mike Podhorzer, director of the AFL-CIO's political department said that "GOP gerrymandering secured them their extra 15 or so seats in Congress but the public is blaming Congress by a 2-1 margin, blaming Republicans."

Photo: December 10, 2012 protest, one of 100 across the United States, calling on elected representatives to reject benefit cuts for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and to stop tax giveaways for the rich. AFL-CIO Facebook page.

New consumer campaign: higher minimum wage for restaurant workers

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:33:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Can you imagine trying to live on $2.13 an hour, with no sick days, a 1-in-10 chance of having health care coverage, and paychecks that sometimes declare "this is not a paycheck" and come with a figure of "$0.00?"

Well, welcome to the world of restaurant workers - all 10 million of them.

Those are conditions a typical restaurant worker often faces, as described by Saru Jayaraman, head of the union-supported Restaurant Opportunities Center. This organization of restaurant workers that started in New York has spread to other cities, including Washington, Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles.

That's because those workers exist on what's called the "tipped minimum wage," of $2.13 per hour, far below the current federal minimum wage of $7.25. Tips, given to servers and distributed among all staff, are supposed to make up the difference, and more. Except they don't.

Restaurant managers skim off excessive sums, and the biggest chain is the worst at enforcing the tipped wage rules, Jayaraman said. She spoke to a crowd at the AFL-CIO on Feb. 20 who gathered to hear her talk about her new book, Beyond The Kitchen Door, telling the stories of those workers and backing them with data.

Video book trailer (article continues after the video)

Many of the workers get most of their pay in cash, and that depends on customers' generosity. "In no other industry are the workers directly dependent on customers for their pay," Jayaraman added.

Pay isn't the only problem the restaurant workers face. Vickie Lewis, head of the ROC's D.C. branch, used to work as a bartender, until she got fired for being sick. The firing happened only after she came to work for days with contagious conjunctivitis - "pink eye" - before her doctor ordered her to stay home. Her bar lacked sick leave.

"Would you want somebody sick like me mixing your martini?" Lewis asked.

Restaurant workers, many them immigrants, women and single mothers, are among the lowest-paid groups of workers in the U.S., federal data show. The restaurant owners lobby, the National Restaurant Association, is not only trying to keep them that way here, Jayaraman added, but lobbies to extend U.S. "standards" abroad.

Her group is fighting back with the aid of videos and films, including some produced by noted activist Danny Glover. It's also issued a guide to "best practices' restaurants should use to raise their workers' standard of living. Jayaraman's book is another tool, as is mobilization not just of the restaurant workers, but of consumers, too.

The owners' lobby, which Jayaraman compared to that other powerful D.C. "NRA" lobby-the National Rifle Association-is fighting back by tailing her public appearances and campaigning against raising the minimum wage, not just for tipped workers, but for all workers. The tipped minimum hasn't been raised in 22 years, but legislation introduced in Congress would increase it to 60% of the regular minimum.

"$7.25 an hour? Who can live on that?" Jayaraman says of the national minimum wage, which Democratic President Barack Obama wants to raise to $9 and index to inflation. "But $2.13 is beyond the pale."

The owners' lobby is also fighting its own workforce in the states. Its Florida affiliate tried to cut the state's tipped minimum of $4.65 hourly down to $2.13. ROC and its allies raised so much uproar that a leading restaurant chain quit the Florida group and the GOP-run legislature defeated the cut.

This year, the fight is in Illinois. The legislature is considering raising the state's minimum wage, and leaving the tipped minimum workers out. "The NRA is at its loudest there. If we lose in Illinois, it could be terrible nationwide," adds Jayaraman.

By contrast, in seven states, including California and Alaska, the tipped minimum wage is equal to the national $7.25 hourly minimum. The cost? "About a dime a day" per diner, Jayaraman says.

Consumers can also act individually to support the workers, who are deliberately not trying to organize into a union, given the hurdles they face in U.S. labor law. One is to use the resources of ROC's website, including its videos and films. Another is to purchase Jayaraman's book. And don't forget to leave good tips, she says.

But the most powerful, she adds, is to buy and use the ROC best practices guide, exercising the consumers' power of the purse. Go to a restaurant, have a meal, pay the bill, leave a nice tip, then ask to see the manager or owner.

Say you enjoyed the meal and would like to come back again, and will - if the restaurant treats its workers right. Then show the guide, with its program of a decent wage, health insurance, paid sick leave, a seniority ladder and no discrimination in promotions. Because racial discrimination is yet another problem restaurant workers face: Too many minorities as dishwashers and cooks, too few as hosts and hostesses.

"We don't want you to stop eating out or even boycott," Jayaraman says. "We want you to have a fun time, enjoy your meal, and use your power" for the workers.

Photo: ROC flashmob at NRA conference as NRA members boarded buses to lobby congress on anti-worker agenda. ROC Facebook page.

Today in black history: Ali becomes heavyweight champion of the world

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 13:07:00 +0000

Today in 1964, Muhammad Ali became the heavyweight boxing champion of the world.

Ali, who won the title under his given name, Cassius Clay, converted to Islam a few year later and changed his name. An activist, showman, and cultural icon, Ali was stripped of his title a few years later for refusing to fight in Vietnam. At the time, he was quoted as saying, "No, I am not going 10,000 miles to help murder, kill, and burn other people to simply help continue the domination of white slavemasters over dark people the world over. This is the day and age when such evil injustice must come to an end."

He won his right to fight back in 1970 and then went on to win two consecutive championships - the only person to do so. Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson's syndrome in 1984, as a result of being hit too many times in the ring. He currently lives in Arizona.

Photo: Flickr

Janitors, security officers vote to authorize strike

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 13:11:00 +0000

MINNEAPOLIS - In back to back votes, SEIU Local 26 security officers and janitors voted unanimously to authorize their respective bargaining committees to call a strike at any time.

Both groups of workers have been working under expired contracts since Dec. 31. The votes were Feb. 9. The workers are among the lowest-paid in the metro area.

The 6,000 janitors and security officers work for many of the same contractors, providing services at downtown and suburban workplaces for many of the Twin Cities' largest corporations.

"Never before have janitors and security officers been negotiating a contract at the same time," said Javier Morillo-Alicea, president of SEIU Local 26. "We have a common goal - to move our families and our community forward... Our employers have a common goal - they want to move us backward."

Security contractors' proposals include moving hundreds of full-time positions to part-time, eliminating all benefits and access to health care. Janitorial contractors' proposals include cuts to more than 50 percent of janitors, including pay cuts as high as 40 percent.

Before the strike votes, the janitors and security officers who filled an auditorium at the Minneapolis Convention Center heard from their bargaining committee members, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and labor and community allies.

Brahim Kone, a janitor at Flint Hills Refinery, and member of the janitors' bargaining committee, reported: "The companies want to take us 10 years backwards... They want all the buildings in the suburbs to go from full-time to part-time." That would mean a pay cut from $13.42 per hour to $10.00 per hour. Going to part-time, he added, also meant that "the health benefits will be cut."

"We are being treated unfairly," Kone said. For Kone, the stakes are very real and very personal. He and his wife, who is in school, have two children. "I am the only one working," he said. "My income is everything... My house is on the line for this... Going part-time would be suicide."

Gene Worley, SEIU Local 26 member and security officer at Town Square, is a member of the security officers' bargaining committee. "We've bargained in good faith but we have received unrealistic counter-offers," he said. "Now is the time to make a stand... We've had enough of their stalling."

Worley noted the gains that security officers won from a one-day strike five years ago. They won modest wage increases, a health plan for individuals, and two sick days. "Really?" Worley asked. "What about the rest of the flu?" He said he worked while sick recently because he had used up all his sick days. The time is now, he added, for security officers to get affordable family health care coverage.

Speakers were flanked by posters showing the sky-high salaries of the corporate CEOs whose offices are cleaned and kept safe by SEIU Local 26 members, low wage workers who are being asked to take wage cuts. One poster noted that U.S. Bank CEO Richard Davis earns the equivalent of $6,500 per hour.

"It's morally wrong," said Ellison, who addressed the SEIU Local 26 janitors and security officers before the vote. "Today is a very serious moment in the lives of everyone here. We know it is a big deal...I am so proud of you and your courage.

"Right now you are fighting for your individual families and for your union," Ellison said. "If you will fight here, working people all over America will fight."

Bill McCarthy, president of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation pledged the support of the federation's 125 affiliated unions and 75,000 members. "Your fight for justice is our fight," he said. Minnesota AFL-CIO president Shar Knutson also offered the support of the state labor federation and its 1,000 affiliated unions and 300,000 members. SEIU, including Local 26, is a member of Change To Win.

"Don't be bullied," urged Anthony Newby, director of Neighborhoods Organizing for Change. "These people are trying to take away your ability to provide for your family."

Holding aloft "Yes!" signs printed in five languages, first the SEIU Local 26 security officers and then the SEIU Local 26 janitors stood to vote to authorize their bargaining committee to call a strike. After the strike votes passed unanimously, Local 26 president Morillo-Alicea had a message for the cleaning contractors and security contractors: "We are ready and willing to negotiate. Nobody wants to strike. If you're going to continue to disrespect us at the bargaining table, then we will strike."

To SEIU Local 26 members, Morillo-Alicea said: "This concludes our vote - but not our work."

Steve Share is the editor of Minneapolis Labor Review.

Letter carriers to protest postal service Sat. shutdown

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 10:53:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Stepping up their grassroots lobbying of lawmakers, the Letter Carriers will stage a nationwide protest on March 24 against the Postal Service's Saturday service shutdown scheme. In addition, they're already urging carriers and constituents to write and call their lawmakers in protest.

NALC members plan to hit the streets on what would ordinarily be their day off to tell citizens and customers about the negative impact of USPS plans to cancel Saturday pickups and delivery, starting on Aug. 5, except for parcels.

The NALC's national mobilization accompanies a similar effort for several days in February by the other big USPS union, the Postal Workers.

NALC and other workers also want to drum up support for legislation by Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind.-Vt., and Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., to keep Saturday delivery while offering other solutions to the Postal Service's financial ills.

But lawmakers are apparently splitting along partisan lines when it comes to USPS' plan to save $2 billion yearly by eliminating Saturday service - a move that unions, citing USPS studies, add would actually lose at least $5.2 billion in revenue.

USPS says it needs to kill Saturday service, eliminate overtime, cut the equivalent of 22,500 fulltime jobs, close thousands of facilities and hire more part-timers at low pay and with no benefits - among other ideas - to close a $16 billion deficit.

Sanders and DeFazio would ensure continued Saturday service, plus other comprehensive reforms to put the USPS on a sound financial footing and let it enter new lines of business. Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., also introduced a non-binding "sense of Congress" resolution putting lawmakers on record for saving six-day delivery. He took the lead in challenging if the Saturday shutdown plan violates federal law.

But the top two Republicans on panels that write Postal Service laws, House Government Affairs Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., stuck by the postmaster general's Saturday shutdown. Last year, Issa wanted to impose a financial czar on USPS. The czar could unilaterally fire workers, cut pensions and trash union contracts. Issa's scheme went nowhere.

The grassroots lobbying precedes a financial deadline, on March 27, for lawmakers to approve a money bill to keep the government going. That measure is an opportunity to stop the Saturday service cut in its tracks, says NALC President Fredric Rolando. The money bill includes federal subsidies for free postal service for the blind.

"The day of action on Sunday, March 24, will mobilize public support for Saturday delivery service," he said. "The timing will allow us the perfect opportunity to remind our representatives in Washington to maintain the six-day mail delivery language in the continuing budget resolution," the March 27 money bill, the NALC adds.

"We want to make this fight about the cost of losing Saturday mail delivery and how it would affect people in each and every state," Rolando explained.

"Letter Carriers are encouraged to gather friends, family, co-workers and community coalition partners at specified post offices in major media centers with signage and T-shirts that reflect the feelings of the citizenry, such as 'Virginians for Saturday delivery' or The people of California want six-day delivery,'" NALC elaborated.

But the unions want to do more than just halt the Saturday shutdown and other moves Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe plans. They worked with Sanders and DeFazio on bills (HR630, S316) to turn the USPS finances around. Their bills include:

Ending the requirement, imposed on the Postal Service by a GOP-crafted 2006 law, that it prepay future retirees' health care benefits, covering the next 75 years, in 10 years. The first two prepayments each cost the USPS $5.5 billion yearly and the health care fund is overpaid. Donahoe wants to curtail, not end, the health care prepayments.

Ordering the government to calculate the amount USPS overpaid in the past to federal pension funds and having the feds return that money to the Postal Service.

Banning closing post offices without advance notice, thorough investigation, and a 90-day comment period after the USPS' decision. DeFazio's legislation says the probe must include "the effect closing or consolidation would have on the community ... on employees of the Postal Service at the postal facility, and whether the closing or consolidation would be consistent with the policy ... that the Postal Service shall provide a maximum degree of effective and regular postal services to rural areas, communities, and small towns where postal facilities are not self-sustaining."

Letting the Postal Service sell other products or services "consistent with the public interest." That would specifically include check-cashing services, technology and media services, warehousing and logistics, renting out excess space, public Internet access, drivers licenses, car registration, hunting and fishing licenses, notary public services and voter registration. DeFazio's legislation says.

Connolly took the lead on the legal issue. In a letter to Donahue, he said the corporate chieftain is acting illegally in killing Saturday pickups and delivery.

"Based on your own comments, USPS clearly recognized this provision contained in annual appropriations acts for nearly three decades prohibits the agency from administratively transitioning to a five-day delivery mail schedule," his letter said.

He also noted that even the agency admits it needs Congress' OK to shut down Saturday, citing past presidential budget requests to do so and USPS testimony.

"Logic dictates that when USPS and the administration repeatedly request that Congress explicitly provide USPS the authority to reduce mail service from six days to five, it is clear acknowledgement that, absent congressional action, USPS lacks the statutory authority to do so," Connolly wrote.

Connolly added that killing Saturday pickups and delivery will hurt, not help, USPS finances. "Six-day delivery remains a critical strength and competitive advantage for USPS that will enable it to grow business and bolster revenue over the long run. Accelerating a decline in mail volume by moving to five-day delivery could result in further steep losses, wiping out any operational cost-savings," he elaborated.

Connolly too cited the USPS study showing that killing Saturday pickups and delivery would cut mail volume by 7.7 percent and revenue by $5.2 billion in the first year alone, far exceeding Donahue's claimed savings. "USPS has failed to account for revenue losses when pursuing so-called cost savings and consistently failed to provide Congress with any substantive empirical data to make its case," he wrote.

Photo: U.S. Postal Service letter carrier of 19 years, Michael McDonald, gathers mail to load into his truck before making his delivery run in the East Atlanta neighborhood, Feb. 7, in Atlanta. David Goldman/AP

Intl. union leader: “Conditions bad for workers”

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 10:34:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - A top international union leader has a grim message for the leaders of world financial institutions: Things are bad for the world's workers, they're getting worse, and the institutions must act decisively to change that picture.

That was the message Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the al International Trades Union Confederation (ITUC) and 40 other union leaders took to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in long closed-door meetings in .D.C. on Feb. 15.

"The world of work is very bleak," Burrow said in a telephone interview with Press Associates Union News Service after the meetings.

ITUC has been sounding that message even before the Great Recession began. Whether financial institution leaders are listening is another matter, but her observations to them were particularly gloomy. They included:

84 percent of the additional workers who lost jobs during that crash have not found new employment.

Worker productivity isn't benefiting the workers. Instead, it's going to the corporate executives and shareholders. "In the U.S., you have the lowest share of worker productivity" going to employees "in six decades," Burrow warns.

Youth unemployment is high, including jobless rates in high double digits in several developed nations, such as Spain, Italy and Greece. Another 5 million people worldwide are expected to join the jobless rolls this year, ITUC says.

Companies that sign social compacts, and obey them, in Europe, turn anti-union and retaliate against their workers when they operate in the U.S.

Burrow underlined that point by leaving Washington, after the meetings, to join Communications Workers members at a T-Mobile call center in Charleston, S.C. Deutsche Telekom, which has good relations with its unions in Germany, owns T-Mobile. And T-Mobile has a consistent record of labor law-breaking against CWA organizing in the U.S.

"This is a European company going offshore" from its home country "and behaving worse than any American company does," Burrow told PAI before leaving D.C. She said she told the international financial officials that "the American corporate model," which includes "refusal of collective bargaining rights," driving down wages and working conditions "is being aggressively exported around the world."

That only makes conditions worse for workers, she adds. "It's threatening the social contract" that has held societies together, both in the U.S. and Europe, she explained. And European efforts at austerity only aggravate the workers' ills.

Burrow declined to describe the exact reactions of the IMF and World Bank officials, saying their consultations with ITUC and other union representatives "are ongoing.' In the past, unions and workers have sharply and justly condemned the two institutions for paying too much attention to financiers' needs and not enough to the workers whom the financiers' actions impact.

But she noted before the talks in D.C. began that least the World Bank, in its latest report on world development prospects, realized that lack of jobs was a top problem.

At the community labor rights session in Charleston on Feb. 18, Burrow made it clear the international union movement strongly supports the T-Mobile workers at the call center there - as well as other T-Mobile workers nationwide - in their right to organize. German Deutsche Telekom call center workers, unionized with ver.di, CWA's German union partner, also came to Charleston for a week-long visit and the hearing.

"The multinational communications company negotiates with the German union for workplace conditions with union representation a key part of the company culture, but the management does not allow the same practices in the U.S.," says an ITUC statement released at the Charleston hearing.

Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Oberman should reverse course and order his U.S. managers to follow the firm's own labor rights standards, Burrow said in Charleston. If he doesn't, the German government should step in and pressure Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile to change their anti-union anti-worker attitude in the U.S. Oberman "has a responsibility to fix abuses" by his company, she added.

"There are companies respected in Europe, behaving badly right here in the U.S. German people need to know what is happening to workers in the U.S. They would be appalled to think the company they are so proud of, that bears the German name, could be treating workers to fear and intimidation. Workers rights don't stop at the German border, they're for all people."

Photo: Sharan Burrow speaks at a Labor Day event in Queensland, Australia. Wikipedia

After three-year struggle, country club workers win big

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 15:29:00 +0000

PLEASANTON, Calif. - After a nearly three-year struggle during which workers were illegally locked out for over two-and-a-half years, food service workers at Castlewood Country Club last week voted 44-1 to approve an excellent contract that provides job security, affordable family health coverage, raises and a substantial signing bonus.

"So many people told us that dishwashers and waitresses couldn't win against millionaires," said server Jeanette Cardenas. "But we've learned that it doesn't matter who you are, if you stay strong and you're on the side of justice."

Under the new contract, workers will pay $225 per month for family health care, the same amount the union proposed before the lockout began. Workers' contribution will go down to $150 per month in the contract's final year.

"This isn't just our victory," said janitor Francisca Carranza. "So many people in the community, political leaders, pastors and other workers marched with us. Now we hope workers everywhere see this and understand that you don't have to give up everything you've worked for. You can stand up for your family and win."

Castlewood's food service workers, members of UNITE HERE Local 2850, had enjoyed stable jobs with free family health care for many years. But in fall 2009, the country club sought to raise workers' share of family health coverage costs to $739 a month - over 40 percent of the average worker's pay.

The workers countered by offering to pay $225 per month for family health care. They wanted to continue negotiating, but Castlewood locked them out on Feb. 25, 2010.

The workers then voted defeated, by a 41-17 vote, the country club's efforts to get them to decertify the union.

After Castlewood made new proposals to strip workers of seniority and job security protections, allow unlimited subcontracting of workers' jobs and increase family health care even more, the union filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board.

Throughout the lockout workers kept up daily pickets in front of Castlewood's golf course and coordinated dozens of larger actions. They were joined by members of UNITE HERE and other unions, political leaders, local clergy and community members.

Several workers celebrated Mothers' Day 2010 by going on a hunger strike.

The workers also organized a successful boycott of the country club and a high-profile civil disobedience action. Their story drew national attention.

On Aug. 17, 2012, an NLRB administrative judge found Castlewood's lockout illegal, and said the club had bargained in bad faith and its proposals were motivated by hostility toward the union.

On Oct. 16, 2012, Castlewood ended the lockout, and 46 of the 61 locked-out workers returned to their jobs. Meanwhile, bargaining continued for a new contract.

On Feb. 13, the workers voted to ratify the new three-year contract.

Now UNITE HERE Local 2850 and the Castlewood workers have ended their boycott of the club and are calling on people who had called off events there to return. They have also asked the NLRB to drop its prosecution of Castlewood.

Photo: Workers and supporters picket Castlewood Country Club's golf course.

Right to work for less amendment blocked in Virginia

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 18:16:00 +0000

RICHMOND -- The radical right, big business and GOP coalition that pushes right to work for less legislation suffered a setback in Virginia in late January.

In Virginia, as elsewhere across the country, unions oppose right to work for less laws because they allow workers who benefit from union contracts, bargaining and defense to get those services for free. In practical terms, that robs unions of funds they need to defend all workers - union and non-union.

The Old Dominion already has long had a right to work for less law on its books. And the GOP controls the governorship and the state assembly. Thanks to the GOP lieutenant governor's tie-breaking presence, it also runs the Virginia senate, which is split 20-20.

Not satisfied with having a right-to work for less law on the books in Virginia, Republicans tried this year to cement that law into the state constitution. But when they tried to write the law into the constitution they lost on their straight party line 20-20 vote because the lieutenant governor can't vote to break a tie on a constitutional amendment. In Richmond, Virginia AFL-CIO President Doris Crouse-Mays and her staff lobbied hard to make sure all the state senate Democrats understood "the negative impact" of right to work for less, said Northern Virginia Labor Council President Dan Duncan.

They also made sure all 20 Democrats were there. State Sen. Henry Marsh, D-Richmond, a veteran of the civil rights movement, skipped a session day on Jan. 21 - a week before the right to work for less vote - to attend Democratic President Barack Obama's inauguration. When he did, the GOP jammed through a partisan redistricting plan, 20-19. But Marsh, and all the other Democrats, were present for the Virginia right to work for less showdown.

Photo: At Virginia AFL-CIO 2013 legislative conference in January. Bernard Pollack, Flickr.

Michigan unions battle private sector right to work law

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 13:26:00 +0000

DETROIT - Disregarding a move by Michigan's GOP governor to take the issue straight to the state Supreme Court, Michigan unions sued to overturn the state's so-called "right to work" law affecting private sector workers.

Left unchallenged - at least so far - was Michigan's other right to work statute, covering public sector workers. The lame-duck GOP-run legislature rushed both laws through on Dec. 11 and GOP Gov. Rick Snyder signed them immediately.

Then, trying to pre-empt the union coalition, Snyder asked the state Supreme Court in early February to rule on the constitutionality of right to work (for less), especially for public workers.

Right to work, which both unions and Democratic President Barack Obama call "right to work for less," has been a favorite radical right-big business cause for decades. It lets workers covered by union contracts escape paying dues or fees for the union's services, including bargaining and worker protection in conflicts with bosses. But the unions still must foot the bill for such "free riders."

"Right to work" is designed to break unions financially, thus depriving them of power to defend workers and raise their standards of living.

The state Building and Construction Trades Council, the state AFL-CIO, Change To Win and the Service Employees are among the unions that sued Michigan in federal court in Detroit on Feb. 11. No trial date was set. Right to work (for less) is scheduled to become law on March 27.

Andrew Nickelhoff, an attorney for the firm that represents the unions - and has represented the state labor federation for decades - told Reuters the Michigan law is illegal because it includes a $500 fine and jail terms for violators, in other words for unions that sign contracts which mandate collection of dues or representation fees. The Michigan right to work for less law also, illegally, throws out an entire union contract with a company if the contract has a dues collection clause, court papers add.

"Our position is that so many parts of the right-to-work law are unconstitutional, that the court should strike down the law in its entirety," Nickelhoff added. The Michigan right to work law violates the National Labor Relations Act, he said.

Unions had planned to challenge both right to work for less laws in state courts, arguing the legislature illegally passed them. They said lawmakers violated the state's Open Meetings Law by barring the public from the state capitol in Lansing. Passage, on virtual party-line votes, occurred during a tumultuous scene: At least 12,000 unionists descended on the capitol, demanding to be heard. But state troopers, at Snyder's command, barred their way. And the legislature's GOP majority locked the capitol doors.

Photo: Michigan AFL-CIO Facebook page.