People Before Profit blog

Today in Labor History: 12,000 on strike in Texas

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 17:42:00 +0000

On this day in 1938,12,00 pecan shellers in San Antonio, Texas, went on strike in 400 locations.

Conditions in the factories were notoriously bad. Dust from the pecans turned the air a brownish color. These conditions partially caused a high tuberculosis rate in the area, at 148 deaths per 100,000 people. The national average was then 54 per 100,000.

The strike, mostly of Latino women over wage cuts, went on for three months. The leader of the strike, Emma Tenayuca, was a leader of the Communist Party USA. Her work even inspired a children's book.

The bosses' reaction was fierce: in a single week alone, nearly 300 demonstrators were imprisoned in a county jail that was designed for a maximum of 60 inmates. However, then-Gov. James Allred pressed the Texas Industrial Commission to investigate civil rights violations. The commission found police actions unjustified.

Both sides eventually agreed to arbitration, and the workers won a wage increase of 7-8 cents.

This labor action was part of Texas's long, but relatively unknown, progressive history.

Photo: Mural dedicated to Tenayuca's struggles.

Mississippi Nissan workers "honor democracy" with fight for union

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 17:17:00 +0000

JACKSON, Miss. - Autoworkers at Nissan's Canton, Miss., plant are "patriots" who "will shoot a sound heard across the world," says Pastor C. J. Rhodes of the Mount Helm Missionary Baptist Church in Jackson. It is the city's oldest historically Black congregation.

The campaign to organize autoworkers at the nearby Canton plant is expanding. On Jan. 29, more than 400 members of the Mississippi Alliance for Fairness at Nissan (MAFFAN), a group representing clergy, elected officials, civil rights activists, the Mississippi Student Justice Alliance, actor and activist Danny Glover and other community leaders, held a press conference at Tougaloo College here to affirm their support for the workers' efforts to organize a union without intimidation and threats from the company.

Also present were a large group of workers from the plant and a delegation of Brazilian union leaders, including Vagner Freitas de Moraes, president of CUT (Central Unica dos Trabalhadores), the largest trade union federation in Brazil, and Joao Cayres, international affairs secretary of Brazil's metalworkers union, the Confederacao Nacional dos Metalurgicos da CUT (CNM/CUT).

Rev. Dr. Isiac Jackson Jr., president of the General Missionary Baptist State Convention of Mississippi and chair of MAFFAN, told reporters the campaign will be going worldwide. "We are taking Nissan's story about how it treats workers to Mississippians, throughout the U.S., and throughout the world," he said.

In a telephone interview, Pastor Rhodes, who is a MAFFAN activist, noted that Tougaloo students have produced a video about the fight to organize Nissan and are taking the campaign to many of the 115 other historically Black colleges and universities in the country. The Tougaloo students, he said, are continuing a proud history of civil rights activity going back to the 1950s and '60s when the college was considered the "intellectual cradle for the civil rights movement in the state." The South has a tradition of people standing up for themselves, he noted.

That civil rights history looms large in today's organizing efforts here. Nissan's Canton plant has approximately 4,500 employees, the majority of whom are African American.

Rhodes said the United Auto Workers union organizing campaign at Nissan is not about "some disgruntled workers who want more pay" but rather about workers appreciating their dignity as workers and human beings.

Based on the South's long history of exploiting working people, Nissan thought people would simply be grateful to have any job that pays more than minimum wage, Rhodes observed.

"I don't think they [Nissan] expected people to rise up and believe they are worth more than how they are treated," Rhodes said.

The Nissan autoworkers in Canton value their jobs, he said. But they want some changes and some rights.

Currently, the workers don't know from day to day what their schedule will be, how many days they will work, or for how long, making it impossible to have a family life outside of work, Rhodes said.

They also are concerned about "scaled back" health care benefits that are not on the level Nissan provides workers in other countries.

A majority of the company's worldwide plants are unionized. "Why treat these workers in Canton as second-class global citizens?" Rhodes asked.

He pointed to the presence of Brazilian union leaders at the Jan. 29 press conference. Nissan wants to build a new plant in Brazil, he noted, but Brazilians are saying, "You can't build this plant until you do right by our brothers and sisters in Mississippi."

Nissan could be getting pressure from others to oppose unions, Rhodes said. Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant recently said that "many organizations" would help marshal troops to stop union organizing at Mississippi's auto plants.

For Nissan workers to have a fair union election under such conditions, the union needs to have "equal access" to speak to the workforce, Pastor Rhodes said. When management can constantly show anti-union PowerPoints, bring people in for anti-union meetings, threaten that the plant will close and workers will lose their jobs if the union comes in, it "creates an unfair advantage."

"It's kind of like a presidential election but you only got to hear from one candidate. Every time the other candidate went on the TVs go out."

What workers have asked for is: if you are going to devote seven hours a day to show why unions are bad, we want seven hours to show our grievances and rationale for wanting the union.

Respect the intelligence of the workers to make their own minds up. "If we won't honor that, we won't honor democracy," Rhodes said.

This Mississippi pastor believes the effort to honor democracy at Nissan can reverberate throughout the nation the same way that, half a century ago, the civil rights movement in Mississippi impacted the entire country.

Organizing Canton could be a stepping-stone to organizing the South's growing auto industry. Toyota has a plant in Mississippi. Nissan has two in Tennessee and Volkswagen also has one there. Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai and Honda are in Alabama, Kia is in Georgia, and BMW is in South Carolina.

"This particular campaign is beneficial both for the nation and for the world," said Rhodes. "That's another reason why the community has rallied around it. If we win, and we will win, it benefits Detroit; it will benefit other places around the nation and the world. America will be true to what it says on paper."

The public can learn about and support the Nissan workers' struggle on the web and on Facebook. The Mississippi Student Alliance for Justice is also on Facebook.

Photo: Nissan worker James Brown addresses the packed news conference, Jan. 29 at Tougaloo College. Courtesy of Chris Todd, UAW.

CPUSA leader turns up the volume on labor’s future

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 14:11:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. - A crowd filled the Niebyl-Proctor Library here Jan. 26 to hear union and community activists tell about local struggles and achievements and to hear Communist Party Labor Commission Chair Scott Marshall's take on how he sees these issues fit into the macro-challenges facing labor movement today.

The Oakland gathering, and the Labor Commission conference which brought people from all over the U.S. to Los Angeles the previous weekend to discuss the shifts facing labor unions and the strategies with which they are responding, are precursors to further discussions slated to take place all around the country in the coming year.

A key to understanding this time of transition, Marshall said, is to look at the phases that labor struggles have gone through in U.S. history. Just as Eugene Debs took labor to a qualitatively different form by organizing the railroad workers, and William Z. Foster in his turn transformed labor unions with the formation of the T.U.E.L. and the T.U.U.L., eventually bringing the force of industrial unionism to the C.I.O., likewise labor is now looking toward a new form, which Marshall refers to as "big-picture unionism."

In beginning to talk about a changing phase for labor, it is necessary to look at the weakened position of labor, as part of its objective conditions. Offshoring, automation and other changes in manufacturing have put traditional industrial unions at a disadvantage in pursuing tried-and-true methods of bringing improvements to the lives of rank-and-file workers. The old ways of applying pressure to monopoly's profit-seeking have diminished in effectiveness, while the bread-and-butter issues that union members face have hardly diminished.

In "big-picture unionism" the issues that each union faces need to be seen in the context of a global system. Unions must, meanwhile, also look at how forming coalitions with other affected groups outside of their membership can bring wins not only for labor, but also for the local communities affected by the vagaries of capitalism.
This local vs. global approach has the advantage of accumulating force both horizontally and vertically: horizontally along the net of communities that live alongside the union and struggle alongside union families and also vertically along the length of the production supply chain.

Church groups, civil rights groups, community organizers and their coalitions are forming permanent ties with labor to press not just on working-place issues, but also on problems that affect democracy in the entire community. An example of this is found in the present AFL-CIO program that will take up three points this year: 1) sequestration, 2) voting rights, and 3) immigration reform.

Vertically, labor is looking across the globe to organize throughout the supply chain for a product. In "big-picture unionism," labor would look not just at the workers in the factory making tires, but also at the farmers who harvest rubber for the tires. While Walmart workers have been organizing domestically, textile workers in Bangladesh, making garments to be sold in Walmart stores, suffered through a terrible factory fire. Now Walmart workers in the U.S. are in solidarity, and fact-finding talks, with the surviving textile workers in Bangladesh. Wage workers in different industries but working for the same corporation transnationally can better lock together to bring increased pressure on access to raw materials, and the supply and distribution of products.

Bread-and-butter issues for labor are still important, and not to be underestimated in the fight to bring forward more space to struggle for democratic advances. However, it is time to go beyond the "circling the wagons" mentality of the last 30 years and to bring the unorganized, the unemployed and the oppressed international workers along in our labor struggles. It is time to provide for an extended, permanent, fortified role.

The old model of short-term alliances for immediate goals is giving way to a new model: one which focuses on relationships that carry on after one victory is achieved.

Photo: Scott Marshall speaking at the West Coast forum. Michelle Kern/PW

Germans say Americans need “attitude shift” about work

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 12:24:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Remaking the U.S. workforce to make it more competitive in the 21^st century will take an attitude shift by companies, students and their parents, participants at a seminar on advanced worker training said this week.

The panel and the audience, at a Jan. 29 symposium sponsored by the German Embassy, said the object is to raise the standing of non-academic vocations, including those for which U.S. unions train workers.

Germany now undertakes such training, with unions there playing a leading role with companies in constructing and implementing training programs for workers in both technical fields and in trades. And "trades" there have a high social status and broader definition than they have in the U.S. They're also viewed as first-choice careers.

Germany can help the U.S. shift its emphasis by exporting its worker training methods via U.S. subsidiaries of German firms, the speakers said. But the shift will need more than that example, they admitted.

U.S. unions can help reverse the low perception of such non-academic careers, the panelists agreed when AFL-CIO workforce policy specialist Dan Marschall brought the issue up. But they said such a shift also requires an attitude change by firms.

In contrast to Germany, where both law and custom force firms to respect and work with unions and even unorganized workers, U.S. worker-management relations are bitter. Cooperation is minimal, even when union contracts mandate it. Firms invest most retraining money in skills of supervisors and executives, not on-the-line workers.

And the U.S. education system, speakers said, is geared towards 4-year college degrees in non-vocational areas that often don't lead to jobs. That's what parents and students want and that's what U.S. government policy and spending encourages, too.

Apprenticeship programs are the exception to the rule, but they're underfunded by the federal government, added American University economist Herbert Lerman.

As a result, speakers said, U.S. firms often find themselves short of highly trained skilled workers, even as the nation's jobless rate remains stuck at 7.8 percent.

"At the AFL-CIO, we are always interested in advanced job training" because it helps workers acquire better skills which in turn make them more attractive and higher paid, Marschall told reporters after the seminar. The German embassy's labor attaché and the U.S. federation already meet regularly to discuss innovative training, he added. "This could be the basis for extensive discussions" if there is an attitude shift.

Photo: German Audi R8 V10 M 93/Flickr

Single-payer health care advocates plan new campaign

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 11:21:00 +0000

CHICAGO - Saying that President Barack Obama's 2010 health care revision law doesn't go far enough to eliminate the main problems with the U.S. health care system - its high cost and high profits for insurers - some 200 union advocates of single-payer government-run national health care met in Chicago in mid-January to plan their next moves.

But how far their campaign will proceed, or whether it will get official organized labor support, is yet to be determined. Their group, www.unionsforsinglepayer.com, asked the AFL-CIO Executive Council last February for a $20,000 grant, plus publicity for the cause - and got neither.

During controversy around Obama's health care law, 21 unions, led by National Nurses United (NNU) and the Steelworkers, campaigned for Medicare for All (HR676). That single-payer government-run health care bill would abolish the insurers, their high co-pays and premiums, denial of care and 88,000 annual deaths such denial causes, according to the Harvard Medical Journal. Members of 50 unions were in Chicago.

But most of Congress ignored the unionists' single-payer campaign. And single-payer's weaker cousin, the public option, ended up excluded from the final bill.

That history didn't subdue the delegates and speakers at the Chicago confab.

"With government officials from both major parties contemplating cuts in Medicare as part of a 'grand bargain,' delegates resolved to stand up to any cuts in this cornerstone social insurance program," the group said.

They also heard stories about grass-roots organizing to garner public support for three recent successes: The recent Chicago teachers' strike, a win in a California tax hike referendum and defeat of a Right Wing initiative to throw unionists out of political giving in that same state.

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis drew parallels between the struggles for quality public education and quality universal health care.

The teachers "confronted an arrogant and entrenched political machine headed by Rahm Emanuel," the single-payer group reported. "They stood firm against the bipartisan steamroller that blames public workers for the fiscal crisis and teachers for the failures of our underfunded educational system." The CTU also won by strong community mobilization in back of the teachers' campaign for improved schools.

"Their victory was a model of community outreach and member-driven activism. These are the organizing principles that labor must adopt if we are to lead the way to winning single-payer, Medicare for All for everyone in America," the conference delegates decided. The unionists will emphasize the importance of building coalitions with medical providers, community groups and the disabled.

Veteran Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., vowed he would again push HR676, drawing a standing ovation. "Health care is a right, not a privilege," he said.

"We don't have a budget crisis; we have a jobs and inequality crisis," said Washington State Labor Council President Jeff Johnson. "We could solve our fiscal problems if we cut out private insurance and pay far less for health care like any other industrial country."

Photo: Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has reintroduced a bill that would create a unified single-payer health insurance program across the nation. Carlos Osorio/AP

Harkin, Senate Labor Committee chairman, to retire

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 10:51:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Senate Labor Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the son of a coal miner and a determined supporter of workers and their rights, said on Jan. 26 he would not seek re-election next year.

Harkin, 73, took over the committee after the death several years ago of its late and longtime chairman, labor champion Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. As panel chairman, Harkin sponsored high-profile hearings on workers' causes, including the Employee Free Choice Act and strengthening job safety and health laws.

Harkin's panel, formally the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, also was involved, as was he, in drafting the 2010 health care revision law. Harkin also chairs the Senate appropriations subcommittee that helps disburse funds for health, education and labor programs.

But the fate of health care ideas Harkin championed, with labor's support, mirrored the fate of much of his other legislation. The Employee Free Choice Act, to help level the playing field between workers and bosses, his Rebuild America Act last year and job safety laws fell victim to business lobbying, GOP filibusters and threats, or both.

Harkin, who served for a decade in the U.S. House before winning his Senate seat in 1984, said it was time for someone younger to represent Iowa. Its senior senator, Republican Charles Grassley, in his sixth 6-year term, will turn 80 this year.

"After 40 years, I just feel it's somebody else's turn," Harkin said in his hometown of Cummings, Iowa. "I don't by any means plan to retire completely from public life at the end of this Congress. But I am going to make way for someone new in this Senate seat. I think that is right not just for me, but for Iowa, as well."

He also said the Labor Committee priorities during his final years as chairman include "moving forward with bills to ensure all Americans are able to achieve the promise of a quality education - beginning in early childhood, continuing through elementary and high school, and culminating with higher education."

Harkin also wants to increase employment of people with disabilities. And Harkin will push for a new pension plan, which he calls the USA Retirement Fund, "to provide Americans with a secure source of retirement income for life."

Photo: Tom Harkin Susan Walsh/AP

Unions and allies to GOP: Stop holding Americans hostage!

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 16:17:00 +0000

CHICAGO - The two top Illinois labor leaders were joined here today by lawmakers, consumer and senior advocates, and policy experts to demand closing tax loopholes for Wall Street and the richest two percent of Americans instead of cutting Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security benefits in the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations.

This was the third time since the November elections that labor unions and their allies here have joined their counterparts across the country emphasizing that the real deficit facing the nation is a jobs deficit, not a budget deficit.

"House Republicans should stop holding the economy hostage to push a radical agenda that decimates our most vital family protection programs," said Jorge Ramirez, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor. "Voters rejected those ideas in the last election. Drastic cuts that will weaken our economy are not the path to recovery. Only by focusing on jobs and economic development will we achieve a full recovery and start rebuilding the middle class."

Today's "day of action" came one month into the second year in a row that Republicans have threatened everything up to and including making the U.S. government default on its obligations in order to make drastic cuts to Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare while protecting corporations and the richest two percent.

"We need to address the real causes of our long-term budget imbalance - wasteful cuts for the wealthy, tax loopholes for corporations and rising costs throughout our health care system - and not use the national debt as a pretext to pursue unrelated agendas," said Michael Carrigan, president of the Illinois AFL-CIO.

Congress has passed a temporary deal to extend for three months, until mid-May, the federal government's borrowing authority. Unions and their allies are stepping up their actions during this period to build support for what they believe is a viable long-term solution to the nation's economic ills.

"All of us who believe in restoring the middle class and helping all Americans climb out of poverty need to make sure that the decisions that are made are the right ones," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill. "We need to create good jobs, protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and make investments in education, infrastructure and research that strengthen the middle class. We need to raise more revenues from those who can afford to pay, including the wealthy and rich corporations shipping jobs overseas. And we need to stand strong against Republicans who are openly threatening to hold the full faith and credit of the United States hostage."

Rep. Bill Foster, D-Ill., said that, as a businessman, he knows that it is customers, "more than anything else," that create jobs. For the economy to recover, he said, the focus has to be on making sure the income of the middle class goes up, not down.

Workers and seniors, in particular, would pay heavily if any or all of the "big three" are cut. In Illinois alone, government figures show, 2.033, 345 people receive monthly Social Security checks, 1,789,800 get their health care coverage from Medicare and 2,698,787 get their health care coverage from Medicaid, including 1,469,950 children. The three programs combined, the Chicago Federation of Labor says, pump almost $60 billion a year into the state's economy.

"We are proud to stand with our allies on this national day of action to call for fair taxes on corporations, not cuts in vital middle class programs," said William McNary, co-director of Citizen Action/Illinois. "It is wrong to reduce the deficit on the backs of the middle class by cutting vital programs."

"Once again, Republicans are ignoring the real problems facing our economy and demanding cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. But retirees and working families need more economic security, not less," said Katie Jordan, treasurer of the Illinois Alliance for Retired Americans. "Seniors greatly depend on their monthly Social Security check to pay for groceries, housing, gas and basic needs. And Medicare helps seniors afford to see their doctor and fill their prescriptions. Many seniors simply cannot go without these basic and moderate benefits."

Damon Silver, the policy director for the AFL-CIO, said, "The real issue as we approach yet another round of hostage taking is not the deficit but the issue of jobs and growth. We are having a national conversation that is upside down."

Silver said, however, that as long as the "accepted idea on how to cut the deficit is to do it not by creating millions of jobs but by balancing cuts and tax hikes it is important to note that there have already been 1.7 trillion in spending cuts but only 600 billion in tax hikes on the wealthy. To get to balance we need to raise 1.2 trillion in additional revenue."

Damon explained that by closing tax loopholes for the wealthy and corporations, by taxing capital gains as regular income, by taxing profits made off shore at the same rate as those made at home, by adding a tiny Wall Street transactions tax and by adding a public health care option, $2 trillion would be raised, "more than enough to get to balance," he said.

Photo: Chicago Federation of Labor

Today in labor history: Gravediggers’ strike ends

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 13:04:00 +0000

On this day in 1992, the gravediggers' union - Local 106 of the Service Employees International Union - ended their 43-day strike in Chicago, after reaching a contractual agreement with the Cemeteries Association of Greater Chicago. They had been striking over starting pay and health care after the old contract between workers and the association expired on Dec. 1 1991.

Subsequently, nearly 1,100 burials were delayed after negotiations between the two groups broke down and workers were locked out of the association's 26 cemeteries.

The association's labor committee and the union officials eventually worked out a three-year contract with the help of a federal mediator.

Photo: Deseret News/Google News

Public pressure stops Walmart land purchase

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 10:49:00 +0000

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. - Walmart lost a major battle last night to build a 130,000 square foot supercenter in Southfield, a Detroit suburb, as the City Council voted 5 to 1 to not rezone a land parcel the big box giant desperately wanted.

The vote took place after 70 plus residents patiently waited their turn to address the council - with some not speaking until well past midnight - to voice concerns with the traffic congestion, increased accidents, reduced pedestrian safety, and much more the store would bring.

The project is "too intense, too dense and destroys neighborhood structure" said Ken Whittaker, the community liaison for the Metro Detroit AFL-CIO.

Contrary to Walmart's claim its bringing new jobs to the city, Southfield resident Barbara Selden said full time jobs will be lost as "small businesses are pushed out."

A big box store also causes money to flow away from the community said Danielle, who spoke on behalf of her father who owns a small grocery store near the proposed project. She said for every $100 spent in locally owned stores, $68, stays in the community; while in a big box store, only $43 remains.

A Walmart representative addressing the council said the global chain provides good entry level retail jobs that can quickly lead to much higher paying full time jobs.

That assertion was questioned by Rainbow PUSH Detroit coordinator Pastor D. Alexander Bullock who said there were "moral implications" with the Walmart model for doing business. Because of their record with workers and minorities, "Walmart is not a win for Southfield" said Bullock.

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has said the average pay of a Walmart worker is $8.81 an hour.

Council members said they had received hundreds of phone calls, emails, petitions and text messages urging them to reject the rezoning. The council listened and those attending felt democracy came out a winner.

Photo: Walmart workers with organization United for Respect at Walmart protest the retail giant's vicious anti-labor policies and tactics.

Union leaders endorse immigration reform framework, but devil is in the details

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 10:15:00 +0000

LAS VEGAS -Top union leaders, including AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Service Employees President Mary Kay Henry, joined Democratic President Barack Obama in Las Vegas on Jan. 29 to endorse an immigration reform framework that a bipartisan group of eight senators unveiled the day before.

But despite that breakthrough, the "devil is in the details," as AFL-CIO spokesman Jeff Hauser told Press Associates Union News Service - especially on the issues of what would be sufficient protection of U.S. borders and the rights available to the 11 million currently undocumented workers.

And even Trumka, in a prepared statement, recognized there could be a big roadblock: How could undocumented workers, many of whom now toil "off the books" in the so-called underground economy, prove they've worked in the U.S.?

Immigration reform is important to all workers, not just the undocumented ones. That's because the undocumented workers lack any labor law protections. So venal and vicious employers - from construction companies to Wal-Mart - not only low-ball, underpay or don't pay the undocumented, but use the threat of hiring them to drive down the wages and working conditions of other workers, too.

The 4-1/2-page outline of the immigration reform framework calls for a path to citizenship for the undocumented workers, but only after the borders are secure and strong sanctions are put in place against employers for hiring workers who are not legal.

It also says that before any measures legalizing the undocumented workers start, immigrants who overstayed their visas must leave the country. And senators left details about creating a "guest worker" program to the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce, who have strongly differed on the issue in the past.

All the holes and vagueness did not stop several union leaders from issuing prepared statements backing the immigration overhaul principles even before leaders joined Obama on stage in Las Vegas to tout it and launch a pro-immigration campaign.

After Latino voters backed Obama by a 3-to-1 ratio last year, he put the issue atop his agenda. And the Republican negotiators want to see the issue solved so their party can appeal to Latinos without being perceived as racist.
"President Obama 'gets it' - he gets that a rising tide lifts all boats and that empowering immigrant workers is a win for all working people," Trumka said as the two stood on the stage. "The president clearly shares the AFL-CIO's commitment to a viable pathway to citizenship, meaning that seemingly innocuous conditions cannot be allowed to get in the way of a roadmap for citizenship that encompasses the dreams of 11 million people."

Trumka said unions would "undertake a national campaign to support the aspiration of 11 million immigrants to become citizens because we understand that a more equal America is a stronger America."

Legalizing the undocumented workers is the fed's top priority in immigration reform, the AFL-CIO leader added. The senators back legalization, but behind everything else.

"But much remains to be seen on the details of that path, and each detail can have significant consequences. For instance, we are concerned that making the citizenship path consistent on proof of employment at the time enforcement measures are deemed completed could be problematic," he warned.

"Depending on implementation, the principles could potentially exclude millions of workers-those who care for our children and our elderly, mow our lawns and repair our homes, drive taxis-who cannot prove employment because they have been forced to work off the clock or have no employer by virtue of being independent contractors. It would also exclude immigrants who are employers themselves."

SEIU posted a blog calling immigration reform a civil rights issue. The union's general counsel, Judy Scott, previously said it's SEIU's top legislative priority this year. SEIU represents hundreds of thousands of Hispanic-named workers.

"Immigrants should no more be relegated to second-class social standing because of their birthplace than should any native-born person because of the color of his or her skin," SEIU blogged.

"Through immigration reform, we have an opportunity to confront shared struggles such as boosting working people's wages. Together we have the opportunity to lift up all communities and push policies that address the social and economic concerns that affect all working families."

AFSCME President Lee Saunders and Secretary-Treasurer Laura Reyes agreed. "Immigrant rights are worker rights," they said. Reyes was in Las Vegas. 'While many important policies and details remain to be debated, the framework release is an important first step in moving forward on fixing our broken immigration system." It also supports citizenship for undocumented workers.

Miners arrested in protest against coal company

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 16:04:00 +0000

ST. LOUIS - Nine miners, including their union's president, were arrested in protests against the nation's largest coal company here today.

"I didn't come here today as the President of your union. I came here as a representative of our retirees and our widows, " United Mine Workers' of America (UMWA) international president, Cecil. Roberts, told over 1,000 miners, union supporters, community and faith leaders, as they rallied just steps away from the St. Louis Federal Court House here January 29.

The arrests took place after a march that followed the rally when those arrested took part in a civil disobedience action.

According to the union, Peabody Energy and Arch Coal - the nation's largest coal companies - created the spin-off company, Patriot Coal, in a scheme to rob thousands of union members and beneficiaries of their pensions and health care benefits.

Patriot Coal filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in July 2012.

In 2007, Peabody Energy created Patriot Coal, and in 2008 Patriot bought Magnum, a spin-off of Arch Coal. Accumulatively, Patriot Coal inherited over $1 billion in retiree pension and health care obligations from Peabody and Arch.

Patriot Coal now wants to be released from its pension and retirement obligations covering more than 20,000 UMWA retirees and beneficiaries in West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Ohio.

And it was from out of the mines and towns in those states that miners and their supporters came here today, some in wheelchairs and others wearing the oxygen masks that give black lung disease victims the ability to breathe, a few minutes at a time.

Peabody Energy and Arch Coal are both headquartered in St. Louis and about 50 percent of Patriot's unionized retirees live in the Illinois Basin coalfields.

The bankruptcy case was moved to St. Louis last November.

According to Roberts, "This is nothing but a scheme to rob and steal from us, to take our benefits, benefits we've already paid for."

"What we have here is a company reneging on its promises."

"This is just a scam by Peabody. They are trying to bamboozle us," Roberts continued. "They may have $1,000 an-hour attorneys, but they've got $1 an-hour morals."

According to fairnessatpatriot.org - a website set-up by the union - "Over 90 percent of the retirees Patriot provides benefits for today never worked a single day for Patriot."

"We believe this company was established to fail, and that the spin-offs of Patriot and Magnum were fraudulent transactions."

Lew Moye, president of the St. Louis chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU), called Patriot's actions "despicable and criminal."

UMWA international secretary-treasurer, Daniel Kane, told the assembled union members, "There are two groups of people in this world: those who earn their living by what they do, and those who earn a living by what others do."

He said the pension and health care obligations owed to mineworkers "aren't just a promise. You've already paid for them."

According to UMWA District 12 vice president, Steve Earle, "As far as they are concerned, we are expendable labor - without rights, without benefits."

District 17 vice president, Joe Carter, agreed and added, "They want to throw us aside like a piece of trash."

Missouri state representative, Karla May, Dem.-84, a member of the Communications' Workers of America, Local 6300, said, "I stand with you. We know their real goal isn't just to get rid of your health care and benefits. We know their real goal is to destroy all unions."

May, who is also a member of CBTU, also told the assembled union members about attempts "here in Missouri, and across the country, to impose so-called right-to-work, which would weaken all unions."

Roberts closed the rally with a childhood story. He said he had heard the old Biblical passage, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven," but never quite knew what it meant "until now."

He added, "I know what it means. There will be justice done. We'll be judged by how we treat the least among us."

He concluded, "Our pensioners, our widowers, they are just as good - if not better - than those millionaires and billionaires. They deserve dignity and respect. And we will fight for our members and their families in the courts, in the coalfields and in the streets of St. Louis."

After the rally union members marched through downtown St. Louis to Peabody Energy's headquarters where nine UMWA members and Roberts were arrested as they peacefully sat in at the company building.

Photo: Cecil Roberts and other UMWA members, several of whom were black lung victims, engage in civil disobedience, arrested for sitting in at the coal company office.

Today in labor history: Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" tops charts

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:26:00 +0000

Today in labor history, Jan. 29, 1981, singer-songwriter Dolly Parton hits number one on the record charts with "9 to 5," her anthem for working women (see video below). The song was written and originally performed by Parton for the 1980 film comedy Nine to Five, starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Parton in her film debut.

In addition to appearing on the film soundtrack, the song was the centerpiece of Parton's 9 to 5 and Odd Jobs album, released in late 1980. The song was released as a single in November 1980 and reached number one on both the Billboard Country Chart and the Billboard Hot 100 in January and February 1981, respectively. For a time, the song became something of an anthem for office workers in the U.S., and in 2004, Parton's song ranked number seventy-eight on American Film Institute's "100 years, 100 songs".

The song-and film-are the same title as an organization, 9to5.org, founded in 1973 with the aim of bringing about better treatment for women in the workplace.

It is one of the few Billboard chart songs to feature the clacking of a typewriter. Parton has stated in a number of interviews through the years that when she wrote the song, she devised the clacking typewriter rhythm running her acrylic fingernails back and forth against one another.

With "9 to 5", Parton became only the second woman to top both the U.S. country singles chart and Billboard's Hot 100 with the same single (the first being Jeannie C. Riley, who had done so with "Harper Valley PTA" in 1968).

Also on Parton's "9 to 5 and Odd Jobs" album was her cover of Woody Guthrie's protest song "Deportee (Plan Wreck at Los Gatos)."

Also today in labor history in 2009, newly-elected President Barack Obama signs the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, making it easier for women and people of color to win pay discrimination suits.

Photo: Cover art for Dolly Parton's "9 to 5." (CC)

Labor board chief: We'll enforce labor law, despite court ruling

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:18:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) -- The National Labor Relations Board will continue to issue rulings enforcing the nation's labor law, despite a Jan. 25 federal appeals court ruling saying Democratic President Barack Obama illegally appointed three of its members and thus that a case they ruled on should be thrown out.

The judges, all Republican appointees, also ruled the NLRB doesn't have a quorum. Their decision, if it stands, tosses the agency into a legal limbo where it can't decide worker-boss disputes because it lacks a majority to do so.

NLRB Chairman Mark Pearce responded that the judges' ruling applies to just one case. The NLRB will consult with the Justice Department about whether and where to appeal the court ruling, but that decision "may be up to the Justice Department," adds NLRB Communications Director Nancy Cleeland.

"The board respectfully disagrees with the decision and believes the president's position in the matter will ultimately be upheld," Pearce said. "This order applies to only one specific case, Noel Canning, and similar questions have been raised in more than a dozen cases pending in other courts of appeals.

"In the meantime, the board has important work to do," he added. Unions, workers and companies "who come to us seek and expect careful consideration and resolution of their cases, and for that reason, we will continue to perform our statutory duties and issue decisions."

Union leaders backed the board's stand that the recess appointments are legal, and that the board is acting legally. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the court's ruling is "radical." Change To Win Chairman Joe Hansen called it "misguided."

"The real issue here is the Senate's inability to confirm qualified nominees," Hansen added. "Senate Republicans, aided by a broken rules system, are carrying the water of big business and denying workers and unions a fair shake" by filibustering NLRB nominees, forcing Obama into recess appointments.

Both the Senate and House Republicans, as groups, filed friend of the court briefs on the side of the company and challenging the NLRB.

"The case itself pitted Noel Canning, a Coca Cola distributor, against the board. The NLRB said the firm broke labor law in declaring an impasse in 2010 bargaining with Teamsters Local 760, and wanted to enforce its bargaining order. But the basic case got lost in the constitutional issue of Obama's recess appointments to the NLRB.

The firm, joined by House and Senate Republicans and business groups, argued the appointments were illegal, and the board didn't have a quorum and thus could not decide the case. The 3-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for D.C. - the court that handles almost all federal agency cases - agreed.

The judges said Obama named three NLRB members, using his power to fill agency positions when the Senate is in recess, when it wasn't in recess. The Senate had been meeting in 1-minute-or-less sessions at the time, every three days. That means it was technically not in recess, appellate Judge David Sentelle, a GOP appointee, wrote.

Thus, Obama's appointments were not constitutional, the NLRB didn't have a quorum and it could not decide the case, Sentelle added.

"Noel Canning asserts the board did not have a quorum for the conduct of business on the operative date, Feb. 8, 2012," because three of its five members were Obama's recess appointees. "We agree the appointments were constitutionally invalid and the board therefore lacked a quorum."

Trumka believes higher courts will overturn Sentelle's ruling.

"We strongly disagree with the court's reasoning and decision. We fully expect this radical decision to be reversed, and that other courts addressing this issue will uphold the president's recess appointment authority. In the meantime, the appointees to the National Labor Relations Board remain in their jobs and the NLRB remains open for business," he added.

The National Consumers League also criticized the court's ruling. Executive Director Sally Greenberg said the judges' decision not only would disable the NLRB but also the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the watchdog over the big financial institutions that caused the Great Recession. Its director, Richard Cordray, is a recess appointee, too.

"With only three current seats filled on the five-member NLRB, and two of those seats filled with members appointed under the questioned recess appointments, the court is trying to shut down the cop on the beat charged with safeguarding employees' rights to organize and addressing unfair labor practices," Greenberg said.

Photo: Peoplesworld.org

Today in labor history: Jackson uses troops vs. workers

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 14:12:00 +0000

On Jan. 28 and 29, in 1834, Andrew Jackson became the first president to use federal troops against protesting workers. The workers were protesting not just their low pay but also the intolerable working conditions on an important canal construction project.

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal was intended to facilitate the shipping of goods from the Chesapeake Bay to the Ohio River Valley.

Barges on the Potomac River, the main way of shipping goods from Chesapeake Bay to the inland waterways, had to contend with dangerous rapids that meant limits to commerce critical to the development of the United States.

In 1823 legislators, business leaders and engineers held a gathering in Washington to develop a massive project that would result in a safe inland waterway route to the Ohio River. The newly chartered Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company began construction in 1828.

President John Quincy Adams ceremoniously broke ground on the project, which was to become a particularly difficult one. The rocky ground proved nearly impossible to excavate and years of slow progress sent costs soaring well above original projections. Property owners along the route also fought the passage of the canal through their lands.

The construction teams, made up of Black, Irish, German and Dutch workers were equipped with primitive tools and forced to work long hours in dangerous conditions.

Finally, by Jan. 28, they began rioting and on the following day were put down by federal troops.

The use of federal troops to break up labor unrest then became something companies would increasingly rely upon in their battles with workers. As the years went on in the 1800's business leaders became confident that they could count on the support of the government whenever they were faced with labor protests.

After the riots were put down by the troops Jackson sent in, work on the project continued. The project was finally abandoned, however, in 1850, with the farthest reach of the canal ending at Cumberland, Maryland.

This was a far cry from today, when we have federal government agencies like the National Labor Relations Board acting in support of workers' rights with some sections of big business viewing the federal government itself as the enemy.

Photo: Drawing of the building the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. National Park Service.

New York’s school bus strikers gaining public support

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 14:06:00 +0000

NEW YORK -- It was a very cold, windy morning January 23 here in Manhattan. About a hundred school bus drivers and attendants demanded job security outside Mayor Bloomberg's Department of Education at 52 Chambers Street, located behind City Hall. (Bloomberg moved to the "Tweed Courthouse").

Mayor Bloomberg's anti-worker, anti-union bias again reared its ugly head when he and his DOE appointed head attacked school bus drivers and their union, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181, Bloomberg has regularly attacked transit workers, teachers, day care workers, and many others and the unions to which they belong.

The form of the attack on the school bus drivers and attendants is the City's refusal to include Employee Protection Provisions (EPP) in new contracts. Such provisions would guarantee job protections for the workers even if the city hires new or different contractors to provide transportation services.

Support for school bus workers has grown throughout the labor movement, spurred by the knowledge of how little these workers are paid -- bus attendants make $11 and change per hour, The plight of low wage workers and the Mayor's lack of concern for the lives of working people has shown other workers the importance of their solidarity role.

The teachers union (UFT) Delegates Assembly passed a resolution of support for the school bus drivers the previous Thursday. They encouraged members to reach out to parents of students in their schools. Since more than 152,000 students ride school buses, the teachers' work is cut out for them.

An attendant on a Bronx bus, who has worked on school buses for 23 years, pointed out the need for public support for bus drivers and attendants. She said that the strike was not against the children, but for job security. Having experienced drivers and attendants on the buses will also benefit the children and their parents.

Central Labor Council President Vincent Alvarez skipped a speaking engagement because he was needed at the meeting with strikers that followed the picketing.

On Staten Island, Sam Pirozzolo, Community Education Council 31 president, said thousands of Island parents are coping as best they can. Mary Bretney has to take two MTA buses to get her special needs granddaughter to PS 811X in Crotona Park East, a special education school. In all, it's a three-hour round trip from her home at the Leland Houses on Story Ave. She wakes up at around 5 a.m, bracing herself for the of the travel nightmare. "Just give (the employees) what they need and end the strike, because this is too difficult. Too many people are suffering."

Pirozzolo said he is skeptical of the mayor's money-saving claims of bidding out the new contracts without the EPPs added. He said in 2010, there was a large disparity over how much could be saved by elimination of the yellow school bus service on the Island. Original reports had it around $6 million, but it was later found to be around only $1.5 million.

City officials claim the city is paying $6,900 annually per child for busing, compared with $3,124 in Los Angeles. The bids, they claim, will save the city money. "This arrogance and attitude of the mayor, this 'my way or the highway' has to stop for things to progress, for things to get better for New York City," said Pirozzolo.

Since 1979, following a 14-week bus strike, the city's bidding specifications has included the EPP clause. The Education Department has solicited bids from companies interested in transporting special-education students on roughly 1,000 routes. These require winning bidders to hire workers off a "master seniority list," meaning essentially that every bus driver and worker employed by one company today would be hired by the next winning company tomorrow.

Local 1181 argues that doing away with this provision will essentially break the union. And this will lead to an economic "race to the bottom" for the experienced drivers and matrons.

Local 1811 is understandably concerned that long-time drivers, matrons and mechanics could lose their jobs if the companies they work for do not win contracts. A new firm could hire all new employees.

The union also points out that parents and children might suddenly be served by "low paid, inexperienced" replacements. Those are strong arguments and must be faced squarely by school officials. But the union's claim that the Court of Appeals gave the department wiggle room to maintain Employee Protection Provisions conflicts with a plain reading of the decision.

The Labor Relations Board heard arguments on January 22, but no decision has been issued. If the strike is ruled illegal, the Labor Relations Board could order drivers and matrons back to work, a decision which could be enforced by court order.

Photo: New York City school bus workers help a student in a wheelchair. Experienced drivers and matrons are in danger of losing their jobs. Seth Wenig/AP

Today in labor history: People's poet Robert Burns is born

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 15:41:00 +0000

Scottish people's poet Robert Burns was born Jan. 25, 1759. He is widely regarded as Scotland's national poet and is a cultural icon worldwide. Along with memorable love poems - he was quite a ladies' man - Burns celebrated the lowly and downtrodden. A pioneer of the Romantic movement, he was a also a social and political critic. His poems have provided inspiration for socialists in his home country, in the English-speaking world and in revolutionary Russia and the USSR.

Burns was born into a poor family of tenant farmers in South Ayrshire, Scotland. From an early age he endured the hardship of grueling manual labor as a tenant farmer himself. It gave him a premature stoop and health problems that undoubtedly lead to his early death, at age 36, in 1796.

Burns wrote both in English and, famously, in the Scots language and Scottish English dialect.

His themes included republicanism (he lived during the French Revolutionary period) and Radicalism, which he expressed covertly in "Scots Wha Hae," Scottish patriotism, anticlericalism, class inequalities, gender roles, Scottish cultural identity, poverty, sexuality, and the beneficial aspects of popular socialising such as carousing, Scotch whiskey, folk songs.

A great admirer of the egalitarian spirit of the American and French Revolutions, Burns expressed his own egalitarianism in poems like "Birthday Ode for George Washington" and "Is There for Honest Poverty" (commonly known as "A Man's a Man for a' that").

John Steinbeck took the title of his 1937 novel Of Mice and Men from a line in Burns' "To a Mouse": "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley." Bob Dylan, when asked for the source of his greatest creative inspiration, named Burns' 1794 song "A Red, Red Rose." J. D. Salinger got the title of his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye from Burns's poem "Comin' Through the Rye."

The towns of Burns, New York, and Burns, Oregon, are named after Robert Burns.

And a crater on Mercury is named after him.

Photo: Wikipedia

Janitors and security guards getting hit in Twin Cities

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 15:27:00 +0000

MINNEAPOLIS - Negotiators for Twin Cities janitorial contractors and security contractors are seeking deep contract concessions from SEIU Local 26. Both the janitorial contract, which covers 5,200 workers, and the security contract, which covers 1,300 workers, expired Dec. 31, 2012.

To inform the public, the union marched today through downtown Minneapolis skyways to highlight the workers' struggle for a fair contract. Hundreds of SEIU Local 26's janitors and security officers had marched through the skyways on Dec. 17, calling on the 1 percent to support living wage jobs and health care for their families.

The janitorial contractors seek wage cuts for more than half their workers, Local 26 reported. The contractors' proposal includes moving all suburban janitors to part-time status, which would mean significant cuts in wages and benefits.

Three years ago, union janitors won minor wage increases. With the latest proposal, even full-time janitors will need to rely on public assistance, the union warned.

The security contractors, meanwhile, have not yet offered a wage and benefit proposal. However, they have proposed contract language changes that the union says would wipe out worker gains achieved over the past decade.

"The proposals from the employers are moving the workers backward and locking them into poverty, rather than helping them move forward," said Javier Morillo-Alicea, president of SEIU Local 26.

The unionized janitors and security officers work for contractors servicing buildings that house the Twin Cities' largest corporations and government offices.

"I'm fighting for my family, green jobs, and the 99 percent," said Katra Arale, a Somali immigrant who works as a janitor at the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis. Arale was one of hundreds of Local 26 janitors and security officers who marched with community allies through the downtown Minneapolis skyways on Dec. 17.

Their message: "We aren't just fighting for janitors and security officers, we're fighting for the whole community."

The janitors' and security officers' contract campaign's slogan is "unlock our future." They're calling on the 1% who lead Twin Cities corporations to unlock a better future for working families in Minnesota. They're demanding that the 1% be held

accountable for locking workers and their families into privation.

"The explosion of low-wage jobs is locking our communities into poverty," said Morillo-Alicea. "We need jobs to pay living wages so they can support their families, pay their mortgages and save for a better future."

In addition to these expired contracts, 1,200 security officers who work in suburban office buildings are negotiating for their first contract with subcontractors who provide services to Twin Cities office buildings.

Photo via Facebook.

Today in labor history: Jackie Robinson inducted into Baseball Hall of Fame

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 12:18:00 +0000

On this day in 1962 Jackie Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Robinson was the first African American to play major league baseball. A monumental civil rights struggle was undertaken on Robinson's behalf, in which the left, the Communist Party, and then Daily Worker sports writer Lester Rodney, played a significant role.

Paul Robeson lent his reputation and voice to the campaign. Robinson had an outstanding career in baseball and won many awards including the Most Valuable Rookie (1947) and Most Valuable Player award (1949). Lester Rodney speaking at an Oakland People's World banquet in 2006 called Robinson a "great American hero."

"Jackie Robinson changed baseball, and when you've changed baseball in this country, you've changed this country!" Rodney said.

Teamsters forced to authorize bus driver strike

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 11:28:00 +0000

CHARLESTON, S.C. - The unyielding bargaining stance of a private school bus company in South Carolina forced two groups of Charleston-area school bus drivers, represented by Teamsters Local 509, into unanimous strike authorization votes.

The situation has become so alarming that Charleston County's school superintendent openly appealed to the bus company to settle with the drivers and avoid a strike, local media add. The workers are mostly African-American.

Intransigence by Durham School Services, the bus company, forced drivers and monitors in Summerville's Dorchester School District 2 to vote 77-0 on Jan. 22 to authorize a strike. Precisely one week before, Charleston County's Durham-employed drivers voted 186-0 to authorize a strike. A vote is expected soon in a third school district, in Beaufort near the Georgia line, Local 509 said.

Besides respect on the job, key issues include wages and Durham's plan to end company-paid health insurance this year, Teamsters spokeswoman Kara Deniz said.

Durham School Services is a private for-profit school bus company whose parent firm is headquartered in the United Kingdom. The parent firm, National Express, is the second-largest provider of school bus transportation in the U.S.

That reflects an increasing trend among local school districts of contracting out their duties to private for-profit companies, at the expense of workers. In response, the Teamsters and their allies in Change To Win have launched a multi-state, multi-year organizing drive among school bus drivers and monitors the private firms employ.

Local 509 President L.D. Fletcher says Durham does not respect its workers. "Big, unanimous votes show the kind of treatment that these workers are getting from the company," he told the Teamsters. "They want to be treated with respect." Added Dorchester driver Annette Hill: "We want to be treated fairly and to work in an environment that is not hostile to us. We care about the children we transport."

Durham and the local have yet to reach a new contract, despite 35 bargaining sessions since July. The tension prompted Charleston County Schools Superintendent Nancy McGinley to urge Durham to settle "and take whatever steps deemed necessary" to settle and avoid a strike. She called the drivers loyal workers who deserve to be treated fairly and with dignity and respect, the Charleston Post & Courier reported.

I would hate to see you bring in replacement drivers if a fair settlement can be reached with drivers who are loyal and care about children," McGinley wrote to Durham's CEO.

Photo: cvogle // CC 2.0

Target endangers workers by locking them in at night

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 11:28:00 +0000

MINNEAPOLIS - "Sometimes I am told to work cleaning the store all night long," said Marco Tulio Perez, an employee of Carlson Building Maintenance who cleans a Twin Cities Target store. "When that happens, the doors are locked and we cannot get out unless we call someone to come and let us out. I don't know what would happen if there was a fire or some other emergency. That's really dangerous. What if I can't reach that person? I guess that would be the end of us!"

While Target locks workers in at night on Jan.17, during the day here, it locked workers out. The retail giant locked the doors to its corporate headquarters in downtown Minneapolis on January 17 rather than allow representatives of a workers' organization to hand-deliver a letter outlining concerns about health and safety issues for the workers who clean Target stores. A security guard in a red winter coat stood outside the locked doors to Target's corporate headquarters, keeping an eye on the dozens of workers who gathered in protest outside.

"For a long time, workers have been cleaning Target stores in conditions they find unsafe, unhealthy and even dangerous," said Veronica Mendez, an organizer for CTUL, the Centro de Trabjdores Unidos en la Lucha.

CTUL announced that two dozen employees of retail cleaning companies who work at cleaning Twin Cities metro Target stores had filed complaints that same day with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

"I worked cleaning for Target for three years," said Honorio Hernandez. "In that time I never received any training for how to work safely with the chemicals..."

Mendez said about 150 workers employed by three different cleaning companies clean Twin Cities area Target stores.

CTUL has asked for meetings with Target for the past two years, Mendez said. "They refuse to meet with us, saying they aren't the direct employer."

The OSHA complaints filed by workers include Target and the cleaning companies, Mendez said. In addition to advocating for safe working conditions, CTUL also has been calling for improved wages for the workers cleaning retail stores.

Steve Share is editor of The Minneapolis Labor Review which, like the Peoples World, belongs to the International Labor Communications Association. Photo: Wayan Vota // CC 2.0