People Before Profit blog

Ohioans brave severe cold to back oil strikers

Fri, 27 Feb 2015 11:53:00 +0000

FINDLAY, Ohio - This northwestern town shook with chants of "Safe refineries make safe communities," and "one day longer - one day stronger," as hundreds of striking refinery workers and their supporters endured bone-chilling cold weather to march in support of the workers and their families.

"For too long, these companies have gotten public support only to have them take advantage of the workers and their families, forcing overtime and unsafe staffing levels," stated United Steelworkers (USW) District One director Dave McCall. "We're all here to let them know that no matter how cold it gets, no matter what hardships we all face, we will be here as long as it takes to win this fight for safe workplaces for our people!"

Many of the workers were members of the Steelworkers from the Toledo refinery, which had just gone out. The union now has 6,500 workers, from 16 refineries, on strike, all out over issues of forced overtime and unsafe staffing levels.

"We've turned down seven company proposals so far," said USW Local 10-1 president Jim Savage, who is representative on the National Oil Bargaining Policy Committee. "They all had wage increases, other things, but they didn't have the safety standards our people need and we're not going back until we go back safe!" His words were greeted with cheers.

Ann Longsworth-Orr delivered greetings from Sen. Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, speaking of the USW canary pin, given to him by steel workers in Lorain, Ohio, that he always wears in his lapel. It symbolizes where safety standards were for workers a hundred years ago, where a canary would be used to measure air quality; if it died, it was an indication that the air was bad. It's a time that many corporations and conservative politicians would push us back to.

She delivered a prepared statement from Sen. Brown stating his "unwavering support for the worker's struggle for safe working conditions, fair wages, and benefits. All won through collective bargaining."

The reception the strikers received put to bed stories from the corporate media of anti-union attitudes supposedly exhibited by local folks. In spite of minus-double-digit temperatures, people poured out of local restaurants to wave, give thumbs up, and pat strikers on the back as they marched down Findlay's main street, on the way to the Marathon headquarters.

Randie Pearson, who is the USW Women of Steel chair at the struck Toledo Refinery, said, "I'm so happy to be here, with everyone. But I had to be here, or I never could go home again. My grandfather worked at Toledo Refinery when it opened and helped bring the union in. My father and uncles have been, still are proud union members. It is a strong proud legacy for family that I'm on the picket line. I was able to go to college, my family has been raised on union wages. The union brought us everything we have. This struggle is the legacy that we give to our next generation!"

"This is probably the only thing that would get me out here," said Dave Bilski, vice president of Toledo Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR). "These folks are fighting for all of us. They aren't out for money or benefits, it's safety. The only way we're safe is if they are, and its our responsibility to stand up with them!"

Similar sentiments were expressed in a statement from Joe Uehlein, executive director of the Labor Network for Sustainability.

"Oil refinery workers are in the front line protecting our communities against the environmental hazards of the industry. Only their skill and expertise protects communities from devastating explosions & spills. The oil companies are creating conditions that make it impossible for the refinery workers to protect us."

"This strike is about creating conditions that are safe and healthy for workers and communities. The strikers deserve support from environmentalists and all concerned with rights of working people!"

Diane Feely was part of a carload of UAW retirees that came to the rally to support the refinery workers. "This is a no-brainer," she said. "The workers are standing up for safety. We all need to stand up with them!"

If people would like to send resolutions of support, money, or other help, they can send it to:

Wayne Ranick

USW director of communications

wranick@usw.org

Or mail to:

(same name as above)

5 Gateway Center

Pittsburgh, P.A. 15222

Photo: USW's Rapid Response Team

Roadblocks to organizing in a revived economy

Thu, 26 Feb 2015 13:32:00 +0000

Here's the good news: Union membership increased by about 48,000 last year and another hundred thousand new workers received union representation even though they aren't actual members. Now the bad news: Out of a workforce of 148 million, unions lost ground again this year, down from 11.3 percent of the workforce in 2013 to 11.1 percent. This means that even as unions gain new members, the economy creates more jobs, leaving union membership as a smaller percentage of the work force.

Dwindling union membership has far-reaching effects. The larger the share of unionized employees, the more the market feels pressure to increase wages. During the rising 1950s and 60s, working incomes increased - including minimum wages - because organized labor represented over 35 percent of the workforce. Unionized workers raised everyone's pay.

So with wages flatlining and the middle class shrinking, why is union membership in decline? "Right-to-work" advocates would have us believe it's because employees view unions as useless organizations that want to limit their choices and take a cut of their paychecks.

The reality is more complicated. Unions aren't organizing members in greater numbers because it's tedious, time-consuming and costly. Here's the way it works: A union either targets a workplace or responds to interest shown by employees. An organizer quietly and confidentially determines the level of that interest. If there is enough to get started, the organizer and interested workers name a committee and begin building more interest among a broader base of employees. One-on-one appointments or small groups of workers meet off site, maybe in someone's home. Eventually, when the organization feels strong enough, the effort goes public - both to protect active workers from termination and to gather community support. When the committee has collected at least a majority of signed pledges asking for a union, the company and the union go to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to ask for an election.

Bored yet? Exhausted? Hang on, you're barely half-way there. If the NLRB decides there is enough legitimate interest for an election, a campaign begins. Here the employer has the advantage of closed-door meetings, on-site and mandatory, while the union usually meets around the edges and employees decide if they want to show up. If the union wins the NLRB election, then the company and the workers begin negotiating a contract, which they may or may not get due to legal challenges and company resistance.

Nurses I worked with at St. John's Health Center, a hospital in Santa Monica, took four years to organize and win their NLRB election. More than a year later, they finally had a contract. That's over five years and probably half a million dollars in staff time and materials for the nurses to organize at one mid-sized hospital. During the NLRB vote, while management held mandatory closed-door meetings with employees, the pro-union nurses had to meet in the bathroom. They were banned from the premises in off-work hours. These nurses risked their jobs and endured the animosity of peers as well as management, and still they persevered. Ultimately, in this case, they won.

At Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, nurses are fighting to unionize despite fierce resistance from management. A friend passed along a letter he received from the hospital that attacked the union organizers and activist nurses for their "noise and attempted intimidation." My friend doesn't sit on the hospital's board or donate money. He received the letter because he gets medical treatment there. Struggle for a union continues while the hospital hires expensive, union-busting lawyers and spends thousands on publicity like that letter.

The risk during these efforts must feel unbearable for the families involved. In another organizing struggle, a group of Rite-Aid warehouse workers in Lancaster, Calif., were fired. Six months later, in a settlement with the NLRB, Rite-Aid agreed to rehire two of the workers with back-pay. A good ending to bad corporate behavior, but what did those employees and their families do for six months while they were without a job and an income? That's the fear that cuts through workers trying to build justice on the job.

After the St. John's nurses won their contract, I visited a friend who was in the hospital learning to walk again. While I visited, I had an opportunity to chat with the physical therapist assigned to my friend. "So now you have a union," I naively said to her. "Oh, no," she replied, "I'm a PT, not a nurse." Then she volunteered this in a hushed voice: "When the union thing started, I was against it, but then I saw how the nurses were treated by management during that whole campaign." She paused. "If I could join a union, I'd sign up today."

I think a lot of workers would say exactly the same thing. But getting there is a long and perilous path that takes patience and courage, not to mention a huge investment in organizing. No wonder unions can't keep pace with the expansion of jobs. No wonder wages aren't going anywhere fast. On the other hand, 148,000 new workers covered by a union contract isn't anything to sneeze at. I think it's a miracle.

Rev. Jim Conn is the founding minister of the Church in Ocean Park and served on the Santa Monica City Council and as that city's mayor. He helped found Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, Los Angeles, and was its second chair, and was a founder of Santa Monica's renter's rights campaign.

Photo: Striking steelworkers, 1919

Reprinted by permission of the author and Capital and Main

Restaurant workers picket for fair contract and respect

Thu, 26 Feb 2015 13:06:00 +0000

EMERYVILLE, Calif. - A lively, noisy crowd welcomed customers of Oaks Corner on Feb. 21 as they gathered for the restaurant and bar's Lunar New Year celebration. But the crowd outside wasn't there to celebrate.

Sign-carrying pickets - workers, union and community supporters, whole families - filled the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, chanting boisterously and attracting a stream of loud solidarity honks from vehicles passing on the main thoroughfare, San Pablo Avenue.

Some 65 workers at Oaks Corner have been without a contract for two and a half years, and haven't had a raise in eight years. In the new contract they are negotiating, they are calling for quality, affordable health care, a wage increase, and management's fair and respectful treatment of all workers.

The Oaks Corner workers, members of Unite Here Local 2850, proclaimed their demands on printed and hand-lettered placards: "Health and Prosperity for Oaks Corner Families." "Oaks Corner worker for 17 years, fighting for a fair contract, for better health insurance for all workers."

Julio Xilog, a cook at the restaurant, told the pickets: "I'm here because we want to talk about a fair contract. We haven't had that now for almost two and a half years." At $533 per month, Xilog said, family health coverage is eating up an unsustainable share of Oaks Corner workers' meager wages.

"We're here for respect, and for fair contracts and insurance," he said, to cheers from the pickets. "I know it will take a little while longer, but we're going to win!"

As they came off their shifts, Oaks Corner workers joined the line, chatting with labor and community supporters including participants from the Alameda Labor Council, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance and many area unions.

Among community supporters was former California Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, whose district included Emeryville.

"No worker should be without a contract for this long. That's absolutely wrong, and that's why so many supporters have joined you today," she told the pickets. "You've got city councilmembers from Emeryville and other area cities. You deserve a fair contract, a fair wage and affordable health care. We're going to be with you until that is achieved."

Also cheering the Oaks Corner workers were restaurant and fast food workers from other area workplaces.

Fast food worker Guadalupe Salazar told the crowd that she, too, is experiencing "no justice and no respect.... We are suffering the same things: We don't have health insurance, we are paid very low wages, and on top of everything, they steal our wages. Let's stand up for our rights!"

The Oaks Corner workers are not the only union restaurant workers in the area waging a struggle for a new contract. Workers at the popular HS Lordships restaurant, nearby on the Berkeley Marina, have been without a contract for nearly five years, and are at risk of losing their health coverage.

Even after workers there offered to give up sick days and vacation time, and accept a new health care plan with a higher deductible and lower benefits, HS Lordships management continues to call for drastic cuts in benefits and making it harder to qualify for coverage.

Restaurant worker leader Rocio Ibarra was suspended without pay for a day for "inappropriate conduct" after she spoke with management in December, in the presence of Berkeley community supporters, about the need for respect and justice in the workplace.

Local 2850 is asking customers of HS Lordships to call on the restaurant to settle a fair contract, and to remove Ibarra's unfair suspension.

The union is also suggesting that area residents stop in at Oaks Corner for a sandwich, and tell both owner and workers that they support a fair contract.

Photo: Marilyn Bechtel/PW

Shuler challenges labor movement on promoting women to leadership

Thu, 26 Feb 2015 12:50:00 +0000

ATLANTA - AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler, the highest-ranking woman in the U.S. labor movement, is challenging her colleagues to promote more women to top jobs.

Working women, the labor movement, the voting public and President Obama all "get it" on working women's and family issues, she told the AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting in Atlanta on Feb. 25. Those issues include paid sick days and childcare, equal pay for equal work and fair work schedules.

But "we haven't done a good job of selling ourselves as a movement that gets it," Shuler said. And that starts with a lack of leaders.

Shuler pointed out that women head only seven of the nation's 51 state labor federations, and that women hold 31 percent of "secondary offices" in those bodies. Though she did not say so, few women head the federation's unions.

The most prominent are AFT's Randi Weingarten, other AFT leaders and the four co-presidents of National Nurses United, along with its executive director, Roseann DeMoro, CWA Secretary-Treasurer Annie Hill and AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Laura Reyes.

So organized labor "has a lot of work to do" in representing women, Shuler said. She's the sole woman among the AFL-CIO's top three leaders.

"And let's just think about it," she added. "In all likelihood, for the presidential election, we'll endorse one woman or another. We need to catch up." The leader among Democratic presidential hopefuls is former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But Shuler also admitted the women's movement has a blind spot: Women of color. The labor movement can fill that gap, she said.

"We have a unique opportunity to be the place where all women - across class, race and immigration status - can come together and make the case for fair treatment and a fair economy" through collective action, organizing and winning union contracts, she said.

"So let's use our raising wages campaign to do more than message issues. Let's use it to connect with people and move them to action. Especially women. All women," she urged.

Men now head both U.S. labor federations: AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Teamsters President James Hoffa at Change To Win. Lilly Eskelsen-Garcia heads the independent 3.2-million-member National Education Association - the nation's other teachers' union - while Mary Kay Henry heads the 2.2-million member Service Employees, part of CTW. Colleen Kelley heads the independent Treasury Employees.

Photo: AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler. | Pennsylvania AFL-CIO

Labor leaders halt political contributions until after fast-track vote

Thu, 26 Feb 2015 12:26:00 +0000

ATLANTA - They didn't put it in writing but union presidents have decided to condition labor's voluntary political contributions to lawmakers on their fast-track votes, at least for now.

In an ultra-closed session here on Feb. 25, the AFL-CIO Executive Council agreed to a proposal, first advanced by Fire Fighters President Harold Schaitberger the day before, that pulled all political giving until after the fast-track vote in Congress.

Fast-track would give President Obama and any president who comes after him, regardless of party, unlimited authority to secretly negotiate so-called "free trade" pacts with other nations. The authority would apply to secret negotiations now going on with 11 nations around the Pacific Ocean. A president would be able to ram trade deals through Congress with little or no debate or opportunity for amendment - just an up or down vote. This would be the case, of course, even with trade deals that make no provisions to protect the rights of labor in the countries involved.

Organized labor is leading a huge citizen campaign against fast-track, officially called Trade Promotion Authority. That campaign was rolled out in detail at a town hall meeting on trade here last night. Big business, President Obama and most congressional Republicans are for fast track. Labor, citing past trade pacts going back to NAFTA, say the pacts fast-track would allow, with Asia, Europe and covering services and government procurement, would cost tens of thousands of U.S. jobs.

Schaitberger challenged his colleagues to put their money where their rhetoric is, by pulling political giving until after the vote, and conditioning following donations on lawmakers' fast-track stands. His union's campaign finance committee did. Several leaders told PAI after the session that the rest of the union presidents agreed.

"Not one dime will go to anybody, period, from all of the internationals (unions) and their affiliates, until we see what happens with fast-track," one leader told PAI.

The unionists' decision is particularly important because organized labor's voluntary political contributions form a huge share of the funds available to progressive political candidates. "So many of those candidates take our funds, and then don't support us," another leader told PAI.

Photo: Alex Milan Tracy/NurPhoto/AP

America’s labor movement: Time for a new track on trade policy

Thu, 26 Feb 2015 11:20:00 +0000

ATLANTA - Leaders and members of every single union in America packed a town hall meeting here Tuesday night to witness the launching of the AFL-CIO's national plan to kill both fast track trade legislation and the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal associated with it.

Robert Reich, former labor secretary during the Clinton administration and now a professor at UCLA Berkeley, declared that the trade policies of the United States are undermining the interests of workers and that these trade deals have to be stopped. "This is being done behind closed doors," he said, "and when that happens it is because the deals advance the policy interests of the economic elite, not the interests of America's workers, small farmers, small businesses and domestic producers."

Reich made the argument that the Trans Pacific Partnership trade policy and trade promotion authority, which would allow deals to sail through Congress with little or no discussion and no opportunity for amendment, are inextricably linked to economic policy.

This is because trade agreements, he noted, include provisions on environmental policy, labor rights, foreign investment, food safety, anti-trust policy, and more - all being kept away from the eyes of the public.

On the TPP in particular he explained: "From what little has leaked out (because they keep the details secret) we know that global corporations will be able to appeal to an international board made up of Wall Street appointees, outside the control of U.S. law, that allows the corporations to claim damages if their profits are hurt by regulations that protect consumers and workers."

Union leaders and workers in the hall gasped when they heard that and broke out into chants demanding that lawmakers kill the TPP and fast track.

"As a teacher I've always placed a premium on logic and what we know," Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told the crowd. "And what we know is that there hasn't been a trade deal yet that benefitted the American people. She outlined how prior trade deals, from NAFTA and CAFTA to Korea and Colombia were "a mountain of broken promises made to workers."

She explained how with NAFTA and Korea Americans were promised more jobs and higher wages because the deals would make it easier to export U.S. products. "Instead they made it easier to export American jobs," she said because they have clauses that incentivize moving production offshore.

Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, urged the crowd not to forget "our brothers and sisters in the other countries."

He explained how, despite promises that labor violations would be fixed in those countries, workers in Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Columbia have experienced repression, often in the form of threats and violence. In addition, he noted, the floods of subsidized agricultural exports from the U.S. have driven workers and farmers from their homes and into the U.S. in search of a means of survival for their families.

The AFL-CIO outlined earlier yesterday, in a special statement on trade, what a pro-worker trade deal should encompass. Any deal, the federation says, should ensure that Congress approves trade agreement partners before negotiations begin, that there is a check on the executive branch so it cannot unilaterally determine whether the intent of Congress is being met and that there is increased access to the whole process of making trade agreements to the public.

Union leaders of almost every union in the country pledged at the town hall last night to fight both fast track authority and the TPP.

They divided up all the swing districts that are represented now by Democrats and each union took responsibility for doing different work in those districts.

Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America, for example pledged that in 17 congressional districts his members will send out 50,000 emails, make 25,000 phone calls, hand write 10,000 letters and link up with allies, including civil rights organizations and LGBTQ groups in the effort.

Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers reminded the crowd that his union has a 20,000-member rapid response team. Every single one of them is writing letters, visiting lawmakers, knocking on doors and going to lobby in Washington, he said to standing ovation and cheers.

Harold Schaitberger, present of the Firefighters, pledged that his union's political action committee, which is the 35th largest among the 567 registered PACs in America, was shutting down immediately and would not give one penny to any lawmaker who does not come out against the trade deals. His announcement was followed by still another ovation and prolonged cheers.

Roseann DeMoro, president of National Nursed United, warned that the deals could result in low quality, expensive pharmaceuticals and poor quality food sickening Americans. "We nurses will never allow our patients to be abused that way," she declared to still more cheers and yet another standing ovation.

And the parade of union leaders went on and on with every one of them getting up to describe his or her part of what the AFL-CIO is calling its biggest effort ever to kill trade deals that it says will hurt all of America's workers.

Below are audio clips of the leadership of the AFL-CIO promising action to stop fast track authority:

Photo: AFL-CIO Now Blog

Wisconsin governor swings budget axe

Wed, 25 Feb 2015 11:43:00 +0000

Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican notorious for his assaults on the rights of organized labor, is now enhancing his reputation among the ultra-right and the corporate sponsors of the Republican Party by comprising a budget that calls for historic cuts and smashes what is left of people's programs.

Walker's budget has already made national headlines for its proposed history-making $300 million cut to the University of Wisconsin system, leaving the chancellor of the UW-Madison campus to conclude that she could close the schools of law, pharmacy, nursing, business and veterinary medicine and still not be able to absorb the proposed cuts without laying off employees. National commentators also took note of Walker's attempt to pull funds from Wisconsin Public Radio and Television.

Less well known, however, is how Walker's budget is crushing programs that are vital to those already at risk.

Reza Mehrparast described how his own family will suffer from the destruction of supported employment for the disabled, where Wisconsin's Dane County has been a shining example to the rest of the nation. Walker's proposal effectively moves this system toward a for-profit program. The employment support agencies are non-profit entities that help with job coaching and job retention. Walker's policy here is similar to his approach to public education, where so-called charter schools are becoming a well funded direct competitor, but are of dubious value. Walker is now trying to move the employment system into a statewide program where he and his cronies can introduce for-profit agencies to ultimately take the place of the current agencies. As a result, supported employment for current disabled workers and the supported services will suffer.

Mr. Mehrparast said he was reminded of those Republicans like Ronald Reagan who used patriotic rhetoric such as describing the USA as a "shining city on a hill." "That city is now corroded and tarnished," Mehrparast said. He also hit ultra-right politicians for their hypocrisy: "Those who speak of 'American exceptionalism' are the same ones who are making America into a third-world country, where the poor sleep on the streets, and those suffering from emotional problems or mental illness are institutionalized for corporate profit or left to fend for themselves."

A massive fight-back has already begun, and even some long-time Republican legislators are questioning the wisdom of the Walker budget. Walker is scrambling to fill a $2 billion hole left in the state's coffers thanks to his ongoing tax cuts for the one percent. Walker claimed it was cuts such as these that would spur economic growth. Yet just the opposite occurred, as layoffs persist in Wisconsin's traditional manufacturing and dairy industries. Just this month, Hampton Products, of Shell Lake, Wis., announced the layoff of 29 skilled workers, just the type Walker claimed the State was suffering from a shortage of.

Mehrparast said he fully understood what it took to win this fight. "The working class has one vital weapon at their disposal," he said. "That weapon is unity, and we are in a fight for our lives."

Photo: Scott Walker is now expanding his reputation amongst the ultra-right and calling for major cuts. | Jeffrey Phelps/AP

Nurses welcome veto of Keystone XL bill

Wed, 25 Feb 2015 11:36:00 +0000

ATLANTA - National Nurses United, one of the unions that sits on the AFL-CIO's executive council meeting here this week, has issued a statement that strongly welcomes President Obama's veto of the XL pipeline.

The president yesterday vetoed attempts by pipeline supporters in Congress to rush through approval of a measure to force construction of the 1,700-mile pipeline from the forests of Alberta, Canada, to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

"With this veto the President has made an important statement on a project that poses a significant threat to public health and the climate crisis," said NNU Co-President Karen Higgins. "That's the leadership we need from the administration. Now we urge the President to take the next step and further announce the U.S. will formally reject approval of the pipeline itself."

President Obama yesterday followed through on his promise to veto the GOP bill that would have immediately approved the Keystone XL pipeline.

When the Senate got the president's veto message Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the GOP-run Senate would try to override the veto.

The GOP bill to approve the 1,700-mile pipeline from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf Coast was designed to force immediate approval by bypassing a State Department process that will determine whether the project is in the U.S. interest.

Despite their majority in the Senate the GOP is four votes short of being able to override President Obama's veto.

The labor movement represented here at the executive council meeting has not been of one mind on approval of the pipeline with the building trades pushing hard for approval on the grounds that jobs would be created. The federation itself, two days after last November's election and under pressure from those trades, backed the project but has not really done much to push for it since.

"The miniscule number of jobs it would create are far outweighed by the enormous damage that this project creates to our health and in accelerating the climate crisis," said Higgins.

While some contend that transporting the dirty tar sands oil by pipeline is safer than shipping it by rail or tanker, there have been five pipeline explosions across the country since January. Moreover, NNU has always said the totality of the damage from the mining, refining, and transport of tar sands are all reasons for the pipeline to be rejected.

Tar sands mining pollutants have been linked to cancer, leukemia, genetic damage, and birth defects. Tar sands pipeline spills have beset local residents with cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, neurological, and respiratory impacts, as well as persistent coughs, headaches, nausea, and eye and skin problems.

Tar sands refining has been linked to ailments of the nervous and respiratory systems. Dust storms in Chicago and Detroit off piles of petcoke, the byproduct of tar sands refining, have coated homes and areas where children play and raised concerns about heart attacks, decreased lung function, asthma, already at epidemic levels in America, and premature death.

"Transporting 860,000 barrels of carcinogenic, flammable tar sands might be good for the Koch brothers," Higgins said, "but it is certainly bad for the rest of us."

Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Speaking for millions, union leaders declare “it’s our turn”

Wed, 25 Feb 2015 11:06:00 +0000

ATLANTA - A group of the nation's top union leaders, looking dead serious about something, filed silently in and up to the front of the press room at the Westin Hotel here Tuesday. They had taken time out from a meeting of the executive council of the AFL-CIO that they are attending here this week.

They had a message for corporate America and Larry Cohen, the president of the Communications Workers of America, who was in the group, came forward to deliver it: "It's great that you are making your billions in profits but we represent five million workers whose contracts are expiring this year, workers who havn't had raises in 30 years, and now it is our turn."

The press assembled in the room, who are supposed to remain "neutral" had trouble restraining themselves from applauding. The AFL-CIO unions are negotiating new contracts for a record five million workers this year in what the federation's president, Richard Trumka, described the day before as the biggest bargaining year for unions in a very long time. The unions say that success in these negotiations will go a long way to helping close what they say is an unconscionable wage gap in America.

One set of negotiations, between the Postal Workers and the Postal Service, began Feb. 19. The two sides in those talks are putting forward two competing versions of the future of the United States Postal Service, said union President Mark Dimondstein.

The prior postmaster general, he said, acceded to "the slash-and-burn strategy of Wall Street" in cutting jobs, closing postal centers, trying to cut hours and shifting to poorly paid non-union part-timers - or Staples store workers - from well-paid middle-class union workers.

Meanwhile, the APWU and its allies are campaigning for expanding service and increasing the profits at USPS by putting it into new lines of business, notably banking in underserved and unserved areas. "There are 67 million Americans who are unbanked and could benefit from an expansion into banking. We want to debunk the idea that the post office is no longer relevant" Dimondstein added.

Cohen's Communications Workers face tough talks with AT&T and Verizon (more than 200,000 workers combined), United Airlines flight attendants (20,000), American Airlines passenger agents (15,000) and at General Electric. There, CWA's 10,000 workers lead a multi-union coalition.

His New Jersey state government workers' local must also bargain with GOP Gov. Chris Christie, whom CWA defeated in a state court ruling on Feb. 23. The justices ordered Christie to live up to his previous contract with CWA and pay the full $1.2 billion the state owes its workers' pension fund.

"We're going to fight back and say that 'It's great that dividends went up and that your CEO is averaging $20 million in compensation apiece," he said sarcastically of the private enterprises. "But 80 percent of U.S. workers haven't had a raise in 30 years.

That's especially true of the airline workers, he adds. "They're making less than they did 12 years ago, even in nominal terms" before inflation, Cohen notes. "Meanwhile, airline profits are soaring."

AFSCME faces tough bargaining with GOP-dominated states, said union President Lee Saunders. His union will hold talks covering 320,000 workers in Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Oregon, and Pennsylvania. And especially in Illinois.

There "we have a governor" - new GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner, a former equity firm CEO - "who does not believe in the value of workers and who has been busy breaking laws" covering them.

And while Saunders said he expects less trouble, in general, from city governments, there are some exceptions. One, which involves the Amalgamated Transit Union rather than AFSCME, is right here in Atlanta.

Curtis Howard, president of ATU Local 587, told a rally that his local faces a battle with the city transit authority, MARTA, over plans to privatize its paratransit services for the disabled, and to outsource its bus cleaning jobs.

The French-owned firm that would get the paratransit service, Veola, is owned by the French Social Security system. "They own other bus systems" in the U.S. "and they have a rule here: No worker can have a pension," Howard said.

The union leaders also made the point that there would be unprecedented solidarity in the coming battles, in addition to huge community outreach.

"It's not just us. It's about issues that support our communities," Saunders said.

Photo: CWA

Wisconsin workers again battle Walker’s anti-labor steamroller

Wed, 25 Feb 2015 10:25:00 +0000

MADISON, Wis. - Trashing his earlier promises to provide a fair hearing, the Republican leader of Wisconsin's state Senate labor committee rammed through a bill yesterday that would make union shops illegal in the state. The bill passed in the GOP-controlled labor committee along partisan lines and moves on to the full Senate where the GOP has the votes for approval.

The AFL-CIO executive council, meeting in Atlanta, condemned the right wing steamroller in Madison, vowing to support Wisconsin workers wholeheartedly. "So-called right to work laws do nothing to create jobs or close the wage gap," former Labor Secretary Robert Reich declared at a labor-organized town hall in Atlanta as the Wisconsin workers massed in protest 800 miles away at the Capitol in Madison.

At 5:15 p.m. last night here the GOP-run state senate had finally allowed some minutes of public discussion on the latest GOP attack on labor. The angry members of the public in the senate chamber had been waiting for their chance to speak since 8 a.m. and they didn't get that chance until the early evening.

With Democratic Sen. Chris Larson of Milwaukee objecting to the obvious rush job, Republican Sen. Steve Nass of Whitewater gaveled the hearings to a close at 6:20 p.m., just over an hour after the public began testifying. So much for his earlier promises to the media that there would be fair and open hearings.

His explanation was that the police and later that a newspaper blog had warned him of impending disruption that would allegedly come from the peaceful thousands gathering to protest outside in the Capitol and from the patient but angry hundreds who were inside waiting to testify.

When a few dozen workers who were inside erupted in profanities after being denied the right to speak, Nass went on radio immediately to use their outrage to justify the cutting off of democratic discussion.

Such is the blitzkrieg citizens in the once democratic state of Wisconsin face as the Gov. Scott Walker legislative majority pushes past the citizen comments and stakes out unions as the Judas goat to herd the state's economy to slaughter.

It was a playbook taken right out of what happened in Wisconsin when the GOP killed collective bargaining rights for public employees a few years ago and out of states like Michigan where a GOP governor promised he wasn't out to kill union shops but then turned around to do just that. The real purpose Tuesday seemed to be to stir disruption so that any possible violence could be blamed on workers.

Workers were not alone Tuesday in objecting to the right-to-work-for-less steamroller. Interestingly, during the limited testimony that was allowed, some of the most powerful objections came from business interests.

Bill Kennedy, president of Rock County Companies, flew in from Florida to testify how right-to-work-for less would freeze him and all contractors into a state of uncertainty about hiring as well passing the costs of training onto the taxpayer. As it stand now, he noted, unions train his workers.

"What we need is a trained workforce not laws against that," Kennedy said, visibly angry that right-to-work-for-less forbids employers to make labor deals or allow paycheck dues deduction. Non-union workers hoping for bargaining power and hundreds of small businesses are also opposed.

As GOP senators sat stone-faced, a staunch conservative from Green Bay, Patrick Kelly of the operating engineers, blistered them by itemizing how the bill would take funding away from 5th grade baseball, Masons, food pantries, and other activities funded by union wages and fees.

"What's the hurry?" asked a Ripon resident who declared himself an agnostic on the bill. "How does this help the job situation?"

Noted a member of the Painters union, "We have not been at such a place of income disparity in this country for generations - does anything in this solve that?"

"I just heard from a colleague that North Carolina has filed for bankruptcy," testified Jeremy Waugh. "That's a right-to-work state."

"I give you guys credit for knowing how to use divide and conquer," a Pewaukee worker told the three committee GOP senators.

The Republicans tried to give time to the pro right-to-work-for-less side side, though Larson, after the first five hours, pointed out that no one had spoken for the bill who wasn't connected to the conservative Bradley Foundation. "I'm here on my own," responded an unemployed "construction worker" from Oshkosh, looking for an apology. After a phone call, Larson puckishly apologized - the speaker was actually connected to the similar Heritage group.

Union workers clearly understood the legal impact of right-to-work-for-less and expressed extreme fear for their families' future. Both sides laid on the statistics -- but that hurt the GOP worse, given enormous downsides in right-to-work-for-less-states.

John Schmitt of the Wisconsin laborers took time to praise the businesses who testified but also stunned with the most meaningful statistic - comparing how his own union's outlay of money for training was being diminished in right-to-work-for-less states.

"Congratulations," a mother from Windsor told the GOP legislators in her testimony. "You have the votes and you'll win! But just what have you won?"

Photo: Workers demonstrate against right-to-work (for less) at the state Capitol in Madison. | John Hart/AP & Wisconsin State Journal

Union not surprised by flare-up at Whiting, Ind. BP plant

Tue, 24 Feb 2015 14:49:00 +0000

ATLANTA - Leo Gerard, president of the United Steel Workers, the union that represents some 8,000 oil refinery workers on strike across America, was not surprised when he heard about the flare-up yesterday at BP's Whiting, Indiana plant.

The skies just southeast of Chicago lit up early yesterday morning as flames roared skyward out of the plant and thick smoke enveloped both the plant and the area around it. "Every eight days in this industry," Gerard said today during a break in the AFL-CIO executive council meeting he is attending, "there is either a fire, an explosion or both."

BP said in a statement that no one was killed or injured. (story continues after audio clip)

Some 1,100 union workers at the Whiting plant have been on strike for more than two weeks as part of the first major national strike against a big industry since the 1980's - a strike they, and their union leaders meeting here this week say, is about safety, not wages.

BP in Whiting, like all the oil companies being struck, is using replacement workers who the union workers on the picket line at the Indiana plant say may not be properly trained. They have told the press that alarms that are part of the regular safety procedures at the plant did not go off when the flames began to roar up through the plant's huge smoke stacks. They are skeptical about company claims that when the flare up occurred everything went by the book.

The company has issued statements that don't mention replacement workers and simply say the plant is being run by "former" and "current" workers.

Gerard answered questions during a break in the AFL-CIO executive council meeting he is attending here this week.

"They use retirees as replacement workers," Gerard said, "and I have unconfirmed reports that some of the companies have pressured some of their new and younger current workers to go in and cross the picket lines by threatening that they will not otherwise complete their probation periods." Workers on the picket line at Texas oil refineries told the Peoples World two weeks ago that they saw people being taken out of the plant in ambulances, with the company releasing no information.

"Our members realize this is a dangerous industry," said Gerard, "but they have decided to withdraw their labor and go without pay because safety and life are so important to them. They are striking not for wages but for an end to excessive overtime, insufficient training, lack of adherence to occupational safety and health standards and inadequate staffing."

"Since 2010, 27 people have been killed at these fires and explosions at these plants," Gerard said.

"I'd rather join my husband on the picket line than see him come home in a body bag," the wife of a striking USW member in Beaumont, Texas told Gerard when he visited the picket line there.

"I want my family to know I walk into a time bomb every time I go to work," a striker told the Union leader.

"It's not just the workers that are the issue here," Gerard said: "When the Chevron refinery explosion happened 15,000 community members in California were rushed to the emergency rooms of hospitals.

"We refuse to accept," he said, "that fires, explosions, and working people to the point of exhaustion are just the cost of doing this business," Gerard said. "Hours, safety, fatigue standards - these are all things that we can control."

Gerard said his union is prepared to counter arguments that the strike will cause prices of fuel at the pump to rise.

"Crude costs, the costs of the crude that comes into the refinery, are way down, there is a huge inventory of that crude and there is a big supply of fuel oil in reserve."

Gerard said unions will reach out to mobilize across-the-board support for the striking refinery workers.

Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America, also during a break in meetings here, said that his and every other union will be mobilizing support. "Every union will adopt a refinery," he said and we will go out to back up those workers and to mobilize community support for them."

Photo: USW 7-1 Strike Support page, Facebook.

Unions ride the wave of low-wage worker organizing

Tue, 24 Feb 2015 12:55:00 +0000

ATLANTA - Don't look now, but for the last two years or more, organized labor has been "riding the wave" of low-wage workers, previously unorganized, organizing themselves. And union leaders couldn't be happier.

That's because the nation's taxi drivers, fast food workers, port drivers, warehouse workers, Walmart workers, and more have caught the nation's attention by saying "Enough is enough!" to low wages, lousy working conditions and lack of rights.

The latest to crusade: Home health care workers, who kicked off a 2-week 20-city campaign on February 23 in Carson City, Nev. Their demands: A $15 hourly wage and the right to organize.

The workers "are saying 'We can't take it any more,'" AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told a press conference during the federation's Executive Council meeting in Atlanta. "So they're demanding they get their fair share."

The movement of the previously unorganized - in such groups as the Fight for 15 and OUR Walmart - began with the Occupy Movement. That movement brought the issue of income inequality to the forefront of the national conversation. The others have picked up the flag.

But they're doing so in loose associations, not unions, yet. They're getting union backing, from Trumka's AFL-CIO unions, the Teamsters and the Service Employees.

"Do we want OUR Walmart to become a union?" reporters asked Trumka in Atlanta. "It's whatever works for workers and whatever raises their wages," he replied. "If it works another way for them, we'll help."

And SEIU President Mary Kay Henry said the mostly female home care providers "don't have a stable standard of living so they can provide quality care" for their clients.

The upshot of all this ride-the-wave organizing is that 'the country is on the rise," Trumka says. "People are saying 'How do we get together to give ourselves a raise?' Because individually, they're too scared to act."

Photo: SEIU Facebook.

West Coast ports resume operations, after tentative contract is reached

Tue, 24 Feb 2015 12:08:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Loading and unloading of cargo ships resumed at ports up and down the West Coast over the weekend, after the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association announced a tentative five-year contract Feb. 20.

"After more than nine months of negotiations, we are pleased to have reached an agreement that is good for workers and for the industry," ILWU President Bob McEllrath and PMA President James McKenna said in a joint press release. "We are also pleased that our ports can now resume full operations."

The new five-year contract covers workers at all 29 West Coast ports. It was reached with help from U.S. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez and Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service Deputy Director Scot Beckenbaugh. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker also participated in talks last week.

The union and the employers said they would not now be releasing details of the agreement, which must be ratified by the full PMA and by the union rank-and-file.

The longshore workers had been working without a contract since the previous agreement expired July 1.

The new pact was reached after Perez had said he would move the negotiations to Washington, D.C. if the parties failed to reach agreement by a Friday deadline.

The endgame in the talks was complicated by the PMA's decision to suspend loading and unloading of vessels on six days during the preceding two weeks, based on its claim that a slowdown by longshore workers was behind growing congestion at the ports, and the employers' refusal to pay holiday and weekend premium pay during the alleged slowdown.

The longshore union responded that employer actions were the real cause of the congestion, a contention backed up by reports in several business-oriented publications.

The 29 West Coast ports, which together handle about a quarter of the country's international trade, or about $1 trillion a year, are crucial to the U.S. economy.

The ILWU represents some 20,000 longshore workers at the ports, and the PMA represents over 70 multinational carriers and maritime companies.

Long before talks began last May, the ports had begun to experience serious congestion, as a number of factors contributed to slower loading and unloading of vessels.

Speaking on public radio station KQED's Forum program Feb. 20, Eric Kulisch, trade and transportation editor at American Shipper magazine, cited factors including the increasing use of container ships carrying two or three times as much cargo as the previous generation of ships, and the resulting need for better pre-planning by ocean carriers, terminals, trucking companies and railroads.

"The ships are carrying in the same amount of cargo, but now less frequently," he said, "and the cargo just gets dumped all at once. And sometimes it's not being loaded or unloaded at the same regular places because there are different terminals. It's caused a lot of pain and problems in the system, beyond the current dispute."

Observers note other factors in the congestion, including changes in the ways chassis, or truck beds, are made available to move loads to and from the ports. Once owned by the maritime terminals, chassis are increasingly owned by trucking firms and third-party leasing companies that may store them away from the docks, often making it harder to make sure the right-size chassis are in the right place at the right time.

Also speaking on Forum, University of California, Berkeley professor Harley Shaiken noted that the "very skilled" ILWU longshore workers must often accommodate "a lot of less-than-perfect organization" because of the rapid increase in the size of container ships and other changes in the industry.

While details of the new contract are not yet public, Shaiken likened the gains made by the ILWU to those made by manufacturing unions in the 1950s and 1960s, which he said "spread through the entire economy and created a middle class," setting a standard for all working Americans.

Photo: Surfer rides a wave, Feb. 20, in Sunset Beach, Calif., as enormous loaded cargo ships are anchored outside the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

Wisconsin rising against right to work for less

Tue, 24 Feb 2015 09:19:00 +0000

MILWAUKEE - Interrupting the Atlanta meeting of the AFL-CIO executive council for a press release on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's remorseless special session push for the Right to Freeload (commonly mislabeled Right to Work), federation president Richard Trumka nailed the attack on Wisconsin workers as a "sham about much more than unions."

He knows Walker needs a scapegoat the right wing will accept. Even in an improving national economy, his economic policies are far behind the gains of his neighbors. His new budget based on borrowing and massive cuts in education is controversial even within his own Republican party. The brief bloom he got in Iowa is already fading. Constantly on the road raising money and publicity for his presidential quest, Walker is finding his record at home a bigger disaster than his fumbles of simple interviews. How can he keep his conservative base from running? Enter the unions and RTW.

"It's ridiculous," said one noted economist as the state AFL-CIO organized protest rallies through February 25 at the Madison Capitol, as the bill is scheduled to become law within a week. "As bad as right to work is, blaming unions is nonsense - they are only 12 percent of the workforce. Too small and weak to be blamed for his downturns."

His deception also confronts overwhelming evidence that RTW will further hurt a low-wage state that needs more buying power.

Trolling GOP districts in central and northern Wisconsin, Lori Compass wrote for the nonprofit Wisconsin Business Alliance: "I haven't found anyone who says we need the government to tell us how to run our business."

It's also a publicity trap against angry workers, noted Sheila Cochran, secretary-treasurer of the Milwaukee Area Labor Council who led a lot of the Madison protests in 2011 against Act 10's emasculation of public sector workers. She is keenly aware of how glib and slippery Walker can be in a fight. Already he influenced media coverage of an anti-RTW march on his Wauwatosa home by saying his aging parents who also live there were upset. He has tried to turn his media fumbles in London and New York into "gotcha questions from the Liberal Media." Now with a bill modeled word for word on ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council that has emerged as the right-wing's factory for state legislation, Walker hopes to so rile workers into violence over his lightning passage that he can demean them as the ugly extreme ones. Yet a few months ago before his self-engineered failures he labeled RTW as "a distraction."

The trap is already sprung. The GOP has limited access and public testimony to one session Feb. 24 knowing protests will grow afterward. Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) told the media the legislation could "lead to unsafe conditions at the Capitol." GOP Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, who is shepherding RTW through, intoned "We'll see whether the Capitol blows up. I don't know."

It's a stale ploy of bullying, noted Democratic Sen. Jon Erpenbach, who called the GOP out for "eighth-grade trickery."

Determined to maintain peace while expressing passion and reason through the rallies, state AFL-CIO leader Phil Neuenfeldt has resisted the call from several community groups and maverick unionists for a general strike. He and other actual union leaders have solid reasons. Public workers are barred by law from striking, many private unions have signed labor peace agreements - and "we're not big enough." Walker clearly wants to pretend the unions are a problem they cannot be. He doesn't realize the size of the upset. It was non-union forces and community activists, with some teachers, that led impromptu rallies against RTW in Milwaukee - one Feb. 23 closing Wisconsin Ave with signs and dozens of workers from local businesses and neighborhoods. So far they have pushed but stayed peaceful.

But where is the line between tough response and crowd discipline? Without enough votes to stop RTW, how long-term and how wide will the protests be? How deep is the gumption? What kind of national coverage will flow Wisconsin's way? The state is clearly in turmoil, but the AFL-CIO is emphasizing the larger picture. RTW is "simply the next step in the billionaire right wing's attempt to strip our freedoms to bargain with our employers," said Trumka. "We need to use this fight to help all workers - union and non-union - in their demand to raise wages throughout our country. "

Neuenfeldt detailed to a radio audience in Madison the special-interest motives of ALEC, the Koch brothers and Walker's biggest financiers. "They don't dare give the people time to understand this," he said. "They don't want to have a debate, because they know once people realize what's going on here they're really going to object."

Photo Facebook: Quickly organized rally against RTW blocked Wisconsin Ave. in Milwaukee's Downtown briefly Monday night Feb. 23.

Trumka singles out fight against racism as key to raising wages

Mon, 23 Feb 2015 12:14:00 +0000

ATLANTA - The AFL-CIO's Executive Council, at its meeting here today, established a special labor commission on race and social justice that will travel across the nation and engage unions and their members in a broad conversation about the need to put an end to racism.

"Racism and dog whistle politics are being used to keep us all divided, and that division holds back our ability to win wage increases and improve our standard of living," Richard Trumka, the federation's president, declared here today.

The announcement of the formation of the commission on race and social justice came during a press conference at which Trumka said that it will be labor's goal to insert the federation's raising wages agenda into the 2016 elections.

Members of the executive council, which consists of the federation's three top officers along with 55 vice presidents representing different unions, are in an upbeat mood here despite the fact that their unions continue to battle Republican attacks on organizing rights in many states.

Trumka explained why: "Just look at what a difference a day makes," he said. "In one 24-hour period last week Walmart workers won a raise, the communications and electrical workers striking at Fairpoint settled on a contract and the Steelworkers, in the first major strike at oil refineries since the 80s, focused the attention of the nation on how oil refineries endanger both their workers and the communities in which they are located.

He said that the victories of last week underline why "collective bargaining is the best tool for raising wages."

Unions are uniquely positioned this year, Trumka said, to raise wages for millions of workers who have not had raises in years.

"More than five million workers have contracts that are up this year - grocery workers, auto workers, steel workers, actors - and we are negotiating more contracts this year than ever. Collective action is the name of the game," Trumka reiterated.

The federation announced here also today that it will be holding special raising- wages summits in four primary election states this year - Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. "We're putting everyone on notice," Trumka said, "that raising wages is the yardstick. What candidates and policies result in raising wages - we support. Whichever ones don't - we oppose."

Elaborating on the federation's approach to fighting racism, Trumka said the executive council is hearing a special message today from Ian Haney Lopez, author of Dog Whistle Politics.

"Politicians are using coded racial language to divide us," Trumka said, singling out recent remarks by now-Fox news commentator Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York. "When he spoke about the president," Trumka said, he put out the idea that "he (the president)" is "not like us, he doesn't get it, he gets more excited about Ferguson than he does about terror attacks on the U.S. This is coded language, Trumka explained, that is designed to split white workers and African American workers. "We have to recognize it for what it is and fight it," he said.

Trumka said the raising-wages campaign that the federation launched in the nation's capital in January is politically smart, in addition to being the "right thing to do. It is a unifying progressive theme that everyone, despite other differences, can agree upon."

As for the economic necessity of raising wages he explained: "We have an economy that is 72 percent driven by consumer spending. It's an economy that can't grow unless people have more money to spend."

Photo: Collective action by Walmart workers was a key to their winning a wage increase last week, Trumka said. The AFL-CIO, he also announced, is setting up a commission on race and social justice to fight attempts to divide workers along racial lines. | Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

Obama uses Pullman monument dedication to push workers’ rights

Mon, 23 Feb 2015 10:21:00 +0000

CHICAGO (PAI) - Speaking just a few blocks from where he started his career as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side, President Obama used the Feb. 19 dedication of the Pullman Park National Historic Site to tout workers' rights.

The park is in the heart of the historic Pullman community, originally a "company town" founded by Pullman Palace Car Co., CEO George Pullman, where workers - in the words of one folk song "lived in the Pullman house, shopped at the Pullman store, worked at the Pullman plant and when they died, they went to the Pullman hell."

That song is a reference to Pullman's treatment of his workers, then virtually all white, when the 1893 recession hit: Layoffs for many, 50 percent wage cuts for the rest - but no cut in prices and no change in working conditions at the sleeping car plant.

His actions forced the strike by the American Railway Union, led by Eugene V. Debs, which spread nationwide. Conservative pro-business Democratic President Grover Cleveland, at the request of Pullman and other "robber barons" to call out troops - over the protests of pro-worker Democratic Gov. John Peter Altgeld - to bust the strike.

Obama cited that history in his speech, and added later history when the town of Pullman, and the company workforce, became majority-African American. The still-bad conditions in turn led to the formation of the first majority African-American union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, by legendary and influential labor leader A. Phillip Randolph. His union is now a sector of the Transportation Communications Union/Machinists.

After devoting only a paragraph and a half of his speech to George Pullman, Obama concentrated on the workers - and the movement for workers' rights, then and now.

"Pullman slashed his workers' pay; some saw their wages fall dramatically," Obama explained. "Pullman didn't take a pay cut himself and he didn't lower the rents in his company town. So his workers organized for better pay and better working and living conditions. A strike started here in Pullman, and it spread across the country. Federal troops were called to restore order; and in the end, more than 30 workers were killed.

"Eventually, they returned to their jobs. But the idea they sparked, the idea of organizing and collectively bargaining, couldn't be silenced. Could not be silenced," he said to applause. Six days after the strike ended, Congress established Labor Day. "And gradually, our country would add protections that we now take for granted: A 40-hour work week, the weekend, overtime pay, safe workplace conditions, and the right to organize for higher wages and better opportunities.

"So this site is at the heart of what would become America's labor movement -- and as a consequence, at the heart of what would become America's middle class. And bit by bit, we expanded this country's promise to more Americans. But too many" - the African-Americans -- "still lived on the margins of that dream."

"Rights were not extended to the black porters who worked on these cars -- the former slaves, and sons and grandsons who made beds and carried luggage and folded sheets and shined shoes. And they worked as many as 20 hours a day on less than three hours' sleep just for a couple dollars a day.

"Porters who asked for a living wage, porters who asked for better hours or better working conditions were told they were lucky to have a job at all. If they continued to demand better conditions, they were fired. It seemed hopeless to try and change the status quo."

So they organized the Brotherhood in 1925, with Randolph leading the way, the president said. Randolph said the union would make each worker "the master of your economic fate," Obama noted. And he laid out a strategy for all workers: "If you stand firm and hold your ground, in the long run you'll win."

"That was easier said than done," the President commented. "Over the years, Brotherhood leaders and supporters were fired, they were harassed. But true to A. Philip Randolph's call, they stood firm, they held their ground. And 12 years to the day after A. Philip Randolph spoke in that hall in Harlem, they won, and Pullman became the first large company in America to recognize a union of black workers." He called that one of the first great victories of the civil rights movement.

Randolph and the Brotherhood didn't stop there, the president said. They forced FDR to issue an executive order integrating the defense industry during World War II - lest FDR face a mass March on Washington. And Pullman porters provided the clout to convince President Harry S Truman to desegregate the armed forces, helped lead the Montgomery bus boycott and - thanks to Randolph and labor -- organized the 1963 March on Washington.

"We are the advanced guard," Randolph told that crowd, "of a massive, moral revolution for jobs and freedom," Obama said. "That's not just the story of a movement, that's the story of America. Because as Americans, we believe that workers' rights are civil rights," he declared, and was again interrupted by applause.

"Dignity and opportunity aren't just gifts to be handed down by a generous government or by a generous employer. They are rights given by God, as undeniable and worth protecting as the Grand Canyon or the Great Smoky Mountains.

"And that's why, throughout our history, we've marched not only for jobs, but also for justice; not just for the absence of oppression, but for the presence of opportunity. Ultimately, that wasn't just for African Americans any more than the original Pullman union was just for white workers. Eventually, that principle would be embraced on behalf of women, and Latinos, and Native Americans; for Catholics and Jews and Muslims; for LGBT Americans; for Ameri-cans with mental and physical disabilities. That's the idea that was embodied right here.

Photo: Obama speaks Feb. 19 on Chicago's South Side. | Evan Vucci/AP

Walmart’s raise for workers “proof collective action works”

Fri, 20 Feb 2015 14:27:00 +0000

Walmart announced today it was giving its lowest-wage workers a raise to at least $9 an hour by April and $10 an hour by 2016. The retailer's action comes after Walmart workers have been increasingly vocal and active over Walmart's low pay, benefits, working conditions and treatment on the job.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the announcement is "a victory for all the brave workers and activists who are standing up to the country's largest employer and demanding more. It is powerful proof that collective action is the strongest strategy available to make life better for working families," the leader of the nation's largest labor federation declared.

Christine L. Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project (NELP), also credited the workers' mobilization for finally moving Walmart to raise wages. "The announcement is clearly the result of years of organizing by Walmart employees," she said. "

Few could have envisioned a group of workers forcing Walmart, ruthlessly committed to cost-cutting, to unilaterally raise wages. But, standing together, Walmart employees have done just that, providing inspiration to worker movements everywhere."

"Stagnant and low wages have been a huge burden on working families and a drag on the economy for years," added Trumka. "For years Walmart has kicked and screamed that raising wages was not a feasible business model." But, he added further: "With one short announcement, Walmart has shown that raising wages is both possible and attainable and only the start of a long-term effort to create family sustaining jobs."

Holly Sklar, chief executive of the Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, told The New York Times;

"It's important that our nation's largest private employer is finally beginning to follow many other companies in raising starting pay. But given that the buying power of the 1968 federal minimum wage is nearly $11 adjusted for inflation, Walmart should be setting higher targets than $9 in April 2015 and $10 in 2016."

The celebratory mood over the victory does not mean Walmart workers themselves are satisfied, either. Indications are that they will mobilize perhaps harder than ever to continue their fight for $15 an hour which, they say, is closer to the living wage they need.

"We are so proud that by sticking together we won raises for 500,000 Walmart workers.," said Emily Wells, a Walmart worker who has been active with OUR Walmart, which stands for Organization United for Respect at Walmart. She said the workers "desperately need better pay and regular hours from the company we make billions for. As a soon-to-be mom making only $9.50 an hour, it's difficult to make ends meet with my part time schedule, which gives me only 26 hours per week. With $16 billion in profits and $150 billion in wealth for the owners, Walmart can afford the good jobs that America needs - and that means $15 an hour, full-time consistent schedules and respect for our hard work."

"While this news is a major victory," Trumka said in his statement, "it also shines a light on the broader problems in our economy, and the lengths we must go to ensure that all workers prosper from the wealth we create."

"Collective action must be at the heart of the growing discussion about raising wages," said Eric Hauser, the AFL-CIO's communications director. "Only when workers pool their power can they make progress that benefits not just union members but all workers and entire communities."

He said that such collective action has resulted not just in the progress at Walmart but in other victories recently. "What a difference a day makes," Hauser said. "In the past 24 hours, Walmart workers got a raise, IBEW and CWA workers settled their strike with FairPoint and the United Steelworkers made safety at oil refineries a national issue. One 24 hour period shows how much progress can be made when workers come together to speak with one voice."

Photo: OURWalmart Facebook page

Update: El Super boycott

Fri, 20 Feb 2015 11:37:00 +0000

EAST LOS ANGELES, Ca. - El Super market workers, along with 100 community organizations, endorse the call to boycott El Super. They have come together because Bodega Latina Corporation, which manages El Super, continues to refuse to negotiate in good faith. The union and the bargaining team have met with El Super numerous times, yet the multimillion-dollar Bodega Latina Corporation, which made $5.1 billion in revenues and over $131 million profit in 2013, continues to implement its last, best and final offer.

The El Super contract expired on Sept. 27, 2013. By refusing to negotiate, "El Super is creating poverty in our communities," said labor leader Maria Elena Durazo. Hundreds of picketing workers, faith leaders, United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) and community members rallied outside El Super in East Los Angeles, all supporting the boycott. Rigo Valdez, vice president and director of organizing for UFCW, asked, "Why are we here? We are here for the worker and the community. We are going to continue this fight. The workers and community are planning another rally calling for 100 more endorsements. Can we do it? Can we do it?" The group of supporters answered as one, chanting, "Sí se puede, Sí se puede!"

El Super CEO Alfredo Chedraui Obeso and Bodega Latina Corporation have fired workers, hired security guards, and placed management outside stores to spy on workers, as well as intimidate them by continued interrogations and surveillance. El Super's actions by have been challenged by the union. Calling out to El Super in response, Henry Perez, associate director of Inner City Struggle, said, "If you don't support the workers and community, the community won't support you."

One fired worker, Fermin Rodriguez, is an active union member and El Super negotiating committee member. Another El Super worker, a supporter of the union, was fired from the Inglewood El Super market. She said, "As a single mom, it's not easy making a living with the low pay. The money I make is not enough. El Super makes a lot of money. They need to negotiate a fair contract."

Firing workers is a clear case of harassment and intimidation on the part of El Super management. Union supporters have condemned this outrageous action by management. The union has filed an unfair labor practice charge challenging Fermin's termination. Martin Ayala, another El Super worker, expressed the opinion of many supporters when he promised, "We are still going to fight, we will not give up, and the community supports us because what we are doing is the right thing."

Photo: Justice for El Super Workers Facebook page

GOP House panel OK's partisan rewrite of education law

Fri, 20 Feb 2015 11:00:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - Brushing aside teachers, unions, and its Democratic minority, the Republican majority on the House Education and the Workforce Committee approved a partisan, ideological rewrite of basic federal education aid law.

The measure, approved by 21-16 party-line votes just before Congress recessed in February, rolls 65 education aid programs into a giant block grant, cuts the total money and lets states distribute the funds without regard to whether students and schools are rich or poor.

Right-wing Committee Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., crowed that his majority is overturning the 2001 No Child Left Behind Law (NCLB) - which parents, teachers and students all dislike because of its emphasis on "teach to the test" - and returning control to the states and local school boards.

"For the last 50 years, Washington has assumed more programs, more spending, and more top-down mandates will cure an ailing education system. We have doubled down on this approach time and again, and it isn't working. Federal control over the nation's schools continues to grow, while student achievement remains stagnant," Kline declared.

Teachers Union (AFT) President Randi Weingarten had a completely different take on the GOP-rammed bill and pro-worker, pro-student amendments lost in committee, also by party-line votes.

"The Student Success Act is a misnomer," she said of the House bill. "In reality, it would rob poor and struggling students of the resources, supports and funding they need to succeed. The bill pulls us further away from the core purpose of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which is to level the playing field for all kids.

"Half of public school students are poor. Thirty states are still funding education at pre-recession levels. The funding inequities we see among districts are stark. We should be addressing these challenges head on, by ensuring all kids have equal access to resources, even when their communities can't afford it. This bill takes us in the opposite direction."

And Lily Eskelsen-Garcia, president of the National Education Association, was just as scathing. "The high stakes that are tied to those tests and the lack of attention on what really matters - the opportunities we're providing our students across ALL zip codes" is "the real heart of the problem" with the GOP rewrite, she said.

Since it was converted into No Child Left Behind, education law "made no real progress in closing achievement and opportunity gaps for our students. Instead, it has perpetuated a system that delivers unequal opportunities and uneven quality to America's children.

"This system of unequal opportunity makes it impossible for educators to do what is most important: instill a love of learning in their students...to focus on the whole child."

Besides converting education aid into a block grant - which, Weingarten says, is exactly opposite of the original goal of federal education aid 50 years ago-the GOP inserts what it calls "portability," letting federal money shift from school to school, regardless of type. That drew the ire of Diann Woodard, the School Administrators president, as well as Weingarten.

Letting states "make Title I funding 'portable'...undermines Title I's fundamental purpose: To assist public schools with high concentrations of poverty and high-need students, and (it) denies districts the ability to target the funds to where they are most needed," Woodard said. Title I is the federal education law's section that channels aid to schools with high proportions of poor students, and to the students themselves.

Woodard also warned that while the House bill restricts portability, right now, to public schools, it could easily be extended to private schools. That was a key, but unstated, aim of the Bush-era NCLB: If a public school "flunked" - and standards were set in such a way to guarantee that thousands flunk - the money would flow to private schools instead.

"Many states to use the funds for vouchers, which would allow public funds to move to both public and private schools," Woodard warned. "Some Title I portability proposals have been limited to public school portability, but they are designed to make it easier for states to implement private school vouchers as a next step.

"Accordingly, AFSA opposes any attempts to include provisions supporting Title I public school portability" in a federal education aid bill, "even if it limits portability to public schools," the union said in a letter to lawmakers. Other unions, civil rights groups, the ACLU, and the AFL-CIO co-signed the letter.

Weingarten said the House GOP's portability scheme would funnel more money to well-off school districts while yanking it from districts, students and schools that really need it.

In one example, a recent study of the potential impact of portability shows it would cost the majority-minority Chicago public schools some $30 million in Title I funds. Most of the students in those schools are poor.

But the new formula for distributing money would be based on other factors. As a result, while Chicago would lose millions, the schools in its well-off suburb of Naperville would gain $184,000 under the portability sections of the House panel's bill, the study calculates.

Similar shifts in federal education aid would occur from other cities to their well-off suburbs, it adds.

"We narrow that gap" between kids from well-off households and the half of all public school kids who are from poor households "through supporting, not sanctioning, kids, teachers and schools," Weingarten added in a recent column. "We narrow that gap through teaching kids how to work with their hands, to work in teams, to solve problems-not just how to ace a test. We narrow that gap by providing early childhood education and helping all third-graders read at grade level."

Photo: Chicago demonstration and school boycott over cuts in funding and closing of neighborhood public schools, August 2013. People's World Flickr.

A first contract for Brooklyn Cablevision employees

Thu, 19 Feb 2015 11:50:00 +0000

At a meeting held Saturday night, Feb. 14 at the headquarters of Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1109 in Brooklyn, Brooklyn Cablevision workers voted by a strong margin to ratify a historic two-year contract with the company. The 262 workers covered by the agreement, the only unionized workers in the Cablevision system, had voted to join CWA in January of 2012, and negotiations on this agreement began in late May, 2012.

The ratified contract goes into effect on Mar. 1, and includes the following provisions:

* Substantial wage increases that bring Brooklyn workers to 96 percent of wage parity with Cablevision workers throughout the rest of the company. This level of parity will be maintained throughout the life of the two-year agreement.

* Employees can be disciplined or discharged only for misconduct for "just cause."

* A three-step grievance and arbitration procedure, providing for independent arbitration of disputes arising under the contract.

* Workers will receive the same health and 401(k) pension benefits provided to Cablevision workers throughout the rest of the footprint.

* The right to post materials on a union bulletin board inside the Cablevision garages in Brooklyn.

"We are looking forward to opening a new page in our relationship with management," said Chris Shelton, the CWA National Vice President for CWA District One, which covers 140,000 members in the northeast. "Our members stuck together for 3 years and in the end, persuaded Cablevision that a fair deal acceptable to management and labor was possible. This is an historic achievement at Cablevision."

"CWA members are proud of what we achieved working together, and that's reflected in today's vote," said Tony Spina, president of CWA Local 1109. "While no contract is perfect, our members will receive solid raises, a strong benefits package, and a voice on the job. This agreement begins a new chapter in the Cablevision-CWA relationship."

"Many of us never thought we'd see this night come," said Rey Meyers, one of the leaders of the organizing and contract campaign at Cablevision. "Many workers had given up hope. But we stuck together through thick and thin, and we've won a contract that gives us the biggest raises we've ever gotten, and even more important, our dignity on the job. This is a great day for the Brooklyn Cablevision workers."

Needless to say, quite a few partners of voting union members were pouting about the Saturday night Valentine's Day timing of the meeting; hopefully there'll be a makeup dinner involved.

Photo: Cablevision 99 Facebook page