People Before Profit blog

Right-to-work: smokescreen for corporate interests

Fri, 30 Jan 2015 15:04:00 +0000

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - The right-wing Republican-controlled Missouri legislature is at it once again. While clearly hell-bent on destroying workers' rights, they also seem determined to undermine Missouri's rebounding economy. So-called right-to-work (for less) legislation, which numerous different House and Senate bills have already been filed during the opening weeks of the 2015 legislative session, would accomplish both goals.

First, RTW is nothing more than a smoke screen for big business, anti-worker interests fixated on maximizing profits. They want to lower wages and cut benefits by weakening unions. It's as simple as that. Don't take my word for it. Compare Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports from so-called RTW states to non-RTW states.

According to the bureau, workers in RTW states make - on average - $5,500 less annually. That's not chump change. Multiplied by hundreds of thousands of workers, that's a huge shot in the arm to any state economy. That's money spent locally - at mom and pop grocery stores, restaurants, bowling alleys and movie theatres. That's money put directly back into our economy, not squirreled away in some off-shore tax haven.

Additionally, 78 percent of union work places provide health care coverage, while only 51 percent of non-union work places do. RTW would serve to weaken union negotiated employer provided benefits like health care, thereby shifting the cost of coverage onto tax payers and costing Missouri residents, and our economy, even more.

Second, $2,600 less per-student is spent in RTW states on public education. In effect, RTW would mean fewer teachers, fewer books, fewer after school programs and fewer opportunities for Missouri's children.

Undoubtedly, one of the greatest challenges facing the Show-Me State, and our country, is education. Our schools are already underfunded. RTW would only exacerbate the situation.

Arguably, most would-be employers, big businesses and corporations are more likely to shy away from Missouri due to a shrinking pool of skilled workers. In fact, when asked, most employers, cite education and job skills as the greatest obstacle to increased employment, not unions.

As one local union leader recently told me, "On many job sites it doesn't matter if you're union or non-union, if you don't have the education, training and skills, you're not getting the job. So-called right-to-work does nothing to help you get the education, training and skills. It does nothing to help you get the job." In fact, unions are usually they only place many working class folks can gain the skills, education and hands-on experience necessary in today's economy.

In short, an educated, skilled workforce is far more important to most employers, and will likely attract more good paying jobs.

The proof is in the pudding. According to the BLS the average weekly wage for the first quarter of 2014 was $866 in Missouri, while the average weekly wage was $840 in Kansas - a RTW state. That's an extra $26 a week, or an extra $1,300 a year. That's a lot of groceries.

If the right wing of the Republican Party in Missouri was serious about creating jobs they would stop attacking working families and their unions - year, after year, after year. If they were serious about creating jobs they would instead increase funding for our public schools, vocational programs and job training, not endlessly debate RTW; they would stop their phony posturing, cross the aisle and try working with unions for a change, instead of trying to destroy them.

Unfortunately, if the past is any indication, the right wing here in Missouri won't take the opportunity this legislative session to do anything that benefits working people. It's up to us, union workers, and non-union workers alike, to make our voices heard and stop this attack on unions, working families and our economy.

Photo: Darron Cummings/AP

Justices toss permanent company payment of union retiree health benefits

Thu, 29 Jan 2015 13:49:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - By a 9-0 vote, in yet another decision written by the U.S. Supreme Court's most-right-wing justice, Clarence Thomas, the High Court tossed out union retirees' right to continuing employer-paid health care benefits. Instead, the employer payment can last only during the duration of the contract that mandates them, the justices said.

The decision involved saw the Steel Workers defend hundreds of retirees from M&G Polymers, a now-foreign-owned West Virginia firm whose current and past workers are the union local's members. M&G's new owners said settled principles of contract law trumped the lifetime company payment of health care benefits. Thomas and the other justices agreed.

The case also overturns a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Yard-Man, involving the Auto Workers, which appeared to give the green light to such continuing company health care benefit payments. Thomas said the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, which handled both the 1982 case and this one, got the whole issue wrong 33 years ago.

"Yard-Man violates ordinary contract principles by placing a thumb on the scale in favor of vested retiree benefits in all collective-bargaining agreements," Thomas wrote. "That rule has no basis in ordinary principles of contract law. And it distorts the attempt 'to ascertain the intention of the parties,' " meaning the company and the union.

"Yard-Man's assessment of likely behavior in collective bargaining is too speculative and too far removed from the context of any particular contract to be useful. And the court of appeals derived its assessment of likely behavior not from record evidence, but instead from its own suppositions about the intentions of employees, unions, and employers negotiating retiree benefits.... Although a court may look to known customs or usages in a particular industry to determine the meaning of a contract, the parties must prove those customs or usages" through affirmative evidence in any given case, Thomas added.

"The court of appeals also failed even to consider the traditional principle that courts should not construe ambiguous writings to create lifetime promises," Thomas declared.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the four progressive justices, said when a "contract is ambiguous, a court may consider extrinsic evidence to determine the intentions" of the company and the union. "Contrary to M&G's assertion, no rule requires 'clear and express' language to show that parties intended health-care benefits to vest. Constraints upon the employer after the expiration of a collective-bargaining agreement may be derived from the agreement's 'explicit terms,' " Ginsburg and her colleagues said.

"But they may arise as well from...implied terms of the expired agreement," Ginsburg added. M&G's agreement with the Steel Workers, which it had inherited from the firm's former owner, Shell Oil, had expired.

When it gets the case back, the circuit court "should examine the entire agreement to determine whether the parties intended retiree health-care benefits to vest. Because the retirees have a vested, lifetime right to a monthly pension, a provision stating that retirees 'will receive' health-care benefits if they are 'receiving a monthly pension' is relevant...But the court must conduct that review without Yard-Man's 'thumb on the scale,' " Ginsburg warned.

Thomas' ruling against union retirees came a week after the justices upheld yet another whistle-blower, in this case a Transportation Security Administration officer, whom the agency fired after he disclosed that for cost reasons, TSA pulled air marshals from some long-distance flights. The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents the TSA agents, sided with the whistle-blower in a friend-of-the-court brief. So did other unions.

The TSA said its rules barred disclosing "sensitive security information" and had the same force as a law does. It also declared that exposing the lack of air marshals on some planes - without specifying which flights - was "sensitive security information."

Both the TSA officer's lawyer and AFGE said equating TSA rules with law was wrong. "A bad decision could chill important, protected disclosures from not only federal air marshals but also from AFGE's Transportation Security Officers, who provide front-line security for nearly all public air travel across the United States," the union said.

Photo A member of the United Mine Workers of America holds up a sign in a protest Feb. 13, 2013, in St. Louis. Union protesters of bankruptcy proceeding said it jeopardizes pension and health care benefits for some 20,000 retirees and dependents. | AP Photo/Jeff Roberson

Labor-backed alliance to push bold agenda in Oregon capitol

Thu, 29 Jan 2015 13:40:00 +0000

PORTLAND, Ore. (PAI) - Oregon's five biggest labor organizations have united with civil rights and community groups in a new formal coalition to back a bold agenda in this year's session of the Oregon legislature. The coalition, known as Fair Shot for All will campaign for a big minimum wage increase, a paid sick leave law, "ban the box" and racial profiling laws, and legislation to create a publicly sponsored retirement plan for workers.

The package is an attempt to make the most of November 2014's electoral gains: Democrats now have 18 of 30 seats in the state senate and 35 of 60 in the state house, so they're in a position to do something about worsening economic inequality.

The groups in Fair Shot for All laid out their agenda publicly at a press conference Jan. 10, the same day University of Oregon released a report that shows a rapid increase in the number of low-wage jobs in Oregon. "The High Cost of Low Wages in Oregon" found one fourth of Oregon's workforce - 412,000 workers - are in "low-wage" occupations with a median annual income of under $12 an hour. The report also found 197,000 working adults were receiving food stamps as of January 2014.

The Fair Shot for All coalition consists of Oregon AFL-CIO, SEIU, AFSCME, UFCW, Oregon Education Association, PCUN (the farmworkers' union), the Urban League of Portland, Family Forward Oregon, the Center for Intercultural Organizing, CAUSA, Basic Rights Oregon, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon, Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon, Oregon Action, and the Rural Organizing Project. Each member of the coalition is committing to helping pass all parts of a package of five proposals intended to counter growing inequality:

Minimum wage: The Oregon AFL-CIO is lead convener in efforts to get a big raise for low-wage Oregonians. Lawmakers may consider at least two proposals to increase Oregon's minimum wage, which is currently $9.25 an hour.

One would raise it to $15 hourly over three years. Another would raise it to around $12. Either way, it would represent a big increase for more than a quarter of Oregon workers. Advocates also want to repeal a state law that prevents local jurisdictions from setting a minimum wage higher than the statewide minimum.

To show support for the campaign, the group 15 Now organized a rally at the State Capitol on Jan. 24, co-sponsored by the Oregon AFL-CIO and over a dozen unions. The rally was followed by a statewide gathering of minimum wage advocates.

Paid sick days: Family Forward Oregon will spearhead a campaign for a statewide paid sick days law. As introduced, the proposal would go farther than the ordinances passed in Portland and Eugene in that it would apply to all employers, and would allow workers to take up to seven paid sick days per year. Workers would accrue the paid sick leave at the rate of one hour for every 30 hours worked, and could use it to recover at home from a contagious illness, for a doctor's appointment, or care for a sick child.

Union construction firms would be exempt from the mandate, because they employ workers through a hiring hall for typically short periods, and because their paid leave benefits are administered by a labor-management trust, not by the employers themselves.

Retirement savings: Employer-provided pensions are in steep decline, and around the country SEIU is taking the lead on a proposal for states to set up a kind of "public option" retirement plan. All employers that don't offer a retirement plan would be required to give employees the option of contributing by payroll deduction to a state-sponsored retirement savings plan. To encourage saving, a default contribution rate would be set at maybe three or six percent, but employees could also set their own contribution rate or opt out entirely.

To minimize administrative costs and thus maximize returns, funds would be pooled. Investment decisions would be made by a state board along the lines of the Oregon Investment Board, with the goal of assuring workers a lifetime stream of income when they retire.

The plan would have lower fees than an IRA, and unlike a 401(k), wouldn't be tied to a particular employer. The proposal has passed in several states thus far, and is backed by AARP and a variety of other groups. In Oregon, the Fair Shot for All coalition will campaign for the bill, with SEIU taking point.

Ban the box: Crime knows no class or color, but prisons and jails overwhelmingly house the poor and minorities. Upon release, they face a big barrier to going straight - the "Have you ever been convicted?" box on so many housing and employment applications.

The box is blind to circumstances, takes no account of reform, and because it makes it harder to get a job, it makes re-offending more likely. The Urban League of Portland will lead a campaign for a law to ban the box from initial applications. Employers and landlords could still do criminal background checks and discriminate based on convictions that are relevant to the job being applied for. But ex-offenders would at least get an opportunity to explain their record, and make a case for giving them a second chance.

Racial profiling: Data from Portland and Eugene show something disturbing: African-Americans and Latinos are as much as three times as likely as white people to be stopped and searched by police while driving or walking, but they're no more likely to be found with contraband. The Center for Intercultural Organizing, an immigrant civil rights group, will head up a campaign for legislation to address that, first by defining racial profiling and beginning to collect more comprehensive data on it, and then by giving the state attorney general the ability to analyze the data.

Don McIntosh is Associate Editor, The Northwest Labor Press

Photo: Joshua Trujillo/AP

Postal unions, allies go ‘back to the future’ with banking plan for USPS

Thu, 29 Jan 2015 12:39:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - When it comes to boosting revenues for the U.S. Postal Service - and offering an alternative to management's slash-and-burn schemes - the nation's four postal unions and their allies have taken at least one leaf from the movie Back to the Future.

They want the Postal Service to go back to banking, just as it did for 56 years, till 1967.

In a plan announced in January, the Letter Carriers (NALC), the Postal Workers (APWU), the Mail Handlers/Laborers, the Rural Letter Carriers, and a coalition of 15 other groups launched a campaign to get lawmakers to approve making the nation's 31,000 post offices into financial service centers, especially for underserved and unbanked areas.

The plan is to let USPS use its cash flow and national network to offer alternatives to high-interest payday lenders, check-cashing mills, pawn shops and other extortionate services that prey upon the poor and upon those who live paycheck to paycheck - or upon people with no nearby bank branch. That's an estimated 93 million people, 28 percent of the U.S. population, who pay $89 billion yearly to such shady services, the unions and their allies say.

Postal banking, also endorsed as a money-maker by the agency's Inspector General in a recent report, also could appeal to new Postmaster General Megan Brennan, NALC President Fredric Rolando told a capacity crowd in his inaugural address in mid-December. He was sworn in for a second term as president of the 126-year-old union.

"I hope we can use this transition in the leadership at both the Postal Service and NALC" - the union inaugurated a new Secretary-Treasurer and new board members - "to chart a new, more constructive course for the future" of the service, Rolando said.

"We hope to convince her to see the Postal Service's delivery, retail and processing networks as invaluable assets to be leveraged for new services, not simply cost centers to be radically minimized." Brennan started her postal career as a Letter Carrier.

Groups that created the Campaign for Postal Banking, led by labor-backed United for a Fair Economy, say consumer inability "to cash a check, transfer money or pay a bill at a reasonable fee, leaves consumers trapped in a cycle of debt.

"Some payday lenders charge as much as 400 percent in annual interest. The average low-wage worker using these 'legal loan sharks' pays an incredible $2,400 per year in fees for these services," the community-labor coalition adds.

"Much of the national debate has focused on how wages have lagged for working Americans in recent years," said Postal Workers President Mark Dimondstein at the Jan. 19 announcement of the coalition. While the U.S. must boost wages and create living-wage

jobs, "We also need to find ways to cut costs for low-wage Americans. Postal banking is a way to cut costs and put money back into the pockets of people barely getting by," he explained.

"From 1911-1967, the Post Office offered savings deposit accounts and currently sells more money orders than any other institution. Anyone who goes to a postal window and pays with a debit card anywhere also is offered the option of getting cash back," the coalition notes.

Expanding USPS banking services is just one way the NALC and other postal unions are gearing up for a renewed fight, now with a totally Republican-run Congress, over the future of the USPS. Past GOP leaders campaigned to fire 100,000 workers, let another 100,000 go by attrition, eliminate Saturday pickups and deliveries and close postal sorting centers, thus slowing the mail. The prior Postmaster General closed another 82, starting on Jan. 6.

The PMG advocated those moves and others to close a reported $5 billion yearly deficit - a deficit caused solely by a GOP-mandated $5.5 billion yearly pre-payment for future retirees' health care costs. Without it, the USPS turned a $1 billion profit. So closures are not the way to go, Rolando told the crowd. But he warned there would be fights ahead for the Letter Carriers, their allies and unionists as a whole - and not just over USPS.

"Given the results of the November election, we can expect to face continued attacks, particularly on our health benefits and pensions," he said. "Nevertheless, we have some reason for cautious optimism on postal reform, because we have had some success in changing the debate about the Postal Service and we have built an alliance with the other postal unions" in that cause. The unions' plan also centers around ending the pre-payment.

The four postal unions banded together last year in a first-ever joint alliance to defeat cuts pushed by former House Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif.-a Radical Right car alarm manufacturer-and the bipartisan Senate leaders of its Govern-mental Affairs Committee. Right Wing Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., now chairs that panel.

"The changing partisan makeup of the Congress does not alter the shift in the debate or the case for consensus reform," Rolando explained. "Nonetheless, we know the legislative challenge we face in the new Congress will be great.

"NALC and the labor movement can and must do better to mobilize working-class Americans, inside and outside our ranks, to elect a president and a Congress that will finally address the crisis of America's workers. The only way to do that is to enact policies that will help workers rebuild the labor movement," he declared.

Meanwhile, Reps. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., and Sam Graves, R-Mo., introduced a non-binding resolution to keep Saturday postal pickups and deliveries. Connolly compared USPS elimination of Saturday service to solutions favored by 18th century physicians, "who wrongly believed that bleeding patients could save them."

Photo: Tony Talbot/AP

Officials admit bosses to blame for West Coast port tie-up

Tue, 27 Jan 2015 12:48:00 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - "Longshore workers are ready, willing and able to clear the backlog created by the industry's poor decisions," said ILWU President Bob McEllrath. "The employer is making nonsensical moves like cutting back on shifts at a critical time, creating gridlock in a cynical attempt to turn public opinion against workers. This creates an incendiary atmosphere during negotiations and does nothing to get us closer to an agreement."

In contract negotiations, officials from the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) told a federal mediator and longshore negotiators that West Coast ports have reached a point where there is little space available for additional import containers arriving on the docks - and no space for export and empty containers returning to the docks.

The PMA made it clear in the negotiating session that they were not blaming union workers for the primary causes of the congestion crisis, explaining that the lack of space for returning empty and export containers was exacerbating the existing chassis shortage - because the export-bound containers are a key source of desperately needed chassis that have become the #1 choke-point, ever since shipping lines recently stopped providing a chassis for each container arriving to West Coast ports.

After explaining how the lack of dock space for containers and shortages of chassis were crippling the ports, the PMA announced an illogical plan to eliminate night-shifts at many ports. In addition to cutting shifts at major container ports, the PMA cutbacks would also apply to bulk and break-bulk operations - for no apparent reason other than as a cynical tactic to generate anxiety among workers.

The union has noted that cancelling night shifts and reducing bulk operations will do nothing to ease the congestion crisis. The PMA appears to be abusing public ports and putting the economy at risk in a self-serving attempt to gain the upper hand at the bargaining table, and create the appearance of a crisis in order to score points with politicians in Washington.

Photo: In this Jan. 14 photo, Bobby Olivera Jr., president of the ILWU's Local 13 branch, tours an unusually quiet dock at the Port of Los Angeles. Workers in his local have rallied against the management on the docks, saying they have tried to blame a crisis of cargo congestion on the workers.

McDonald’s workers sue fast food giant over racial and sexual discrimination

Fri, 23 Jan 2015 14:15:00 +0000

SOUTH BOSTON, Va. - McDonald's workers who were fired last year after being told, "There are too many black people [working] in the store," filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the company Thursday alleging a widespread pattern of racial and sexual discrimination and harassment at three stores in Virginia.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia by 10 former workers at three Clarkesville and South Boston McDonald's stores, alleges the company last May simultaneously fired more than a dozen black workers who, "didn't fit the profile" desired at its restaurants. The highest-ranking managers had told workers that it was "too dark" in the restaurants and that they "need to get the ghetto out of the store."

"All of a sudden, they let me go, for no other reason than I 'didn't fit the profile' they wanted at the store," said plaintiff Willie Betts, who was a cook at the South Boston McDonald's until he was fired last May.

"I had no idea what they meant by the right profile until I saw everyone else that they fired as well. I worked at McDonald's for almost five years, I was on time every day at four o'clock in the morning to open the store, and I never had a disciplinary write-up. They took away the only source of income I have to support my family," he said.

The suit comes as McDonald's faces increased scrutiny over its role as an employer at franchised stores and carries significant implications in the ongoing debate about whether the fast-food giant can be held responsible for the well-being of employees at its restaurants.

Despite McDonald's repeated assertions that it is not the boss at these stores, federal officials late last year filed a dozen complaints charging the company was indeed a joint employer responsible for labor violations at stores across the country. The workers' suit filed Thursday names both McDonald's Corp. and McDonald's USA and franchise owner Michael Simon and his company, Soweva Co., as defendants.

The complaint contends that McDonald's Corp. has control over "nearly every aspect of its restaurants' operations," and is therefore responsible for the harassment and discrimination workers faced. Several workers contacted McDonald's Corp. to report the discrimination, but the company did nothing.

The complaint charges that the McDonald's Corp. representative who conducted regular inspection visits at the stores had learned of the terminations soon after they occurred on May 12, but took no action. And the company did nothing after a local paper reported on the firings.

"We asked McDonald's corporate to help us get our jobs back, but the company told us to take our concerns to the franchisee - the same franchisee that just fired us," said plaintiff Pamela Marable, a crewmember at the South Boston McDonald's who was fired in May.

"McDonald's closely monitors everything we do, from the speed of the drive-through line, to the way we smile and fold customers' bags - but when we try to tell the company that we're facing discrimination, they ignore us and say that it's not their problem," she said

Highest-ranking supervisors regularly called the Clarkesville McDonald's the "ghetto store," referred to black workers as "bitch," "ghetto," and "ratchet," and disciplined them for rule infractions that were forgiven when committed by white workers, the complaint alleges.

One supervisor routinely touched female workers on their legs and buttocks, discussed sexual activities with female workers and offered better working conditions in exchange for sexual favors, according to the complaint.

Several workers contacted the South Boston chapter of the NAACP last year to report the harassment and discrimination. Leaders of the chapter met with the workers and then contacted the Fight for $15 movement for help. Both organizations are providing ongoing support to the workers in connection with Thursday's suit.

"The treatment of these McDonald's workers seems like it's out of another era, but sadly the racism is a reality they are confronting today," said the Rev. Kevin Chandler, president of the South Boston Chapter of the NAACP and vice president of the NAACP Virginia State Conference.

"The South Boston NAAACP will stand with these fired workers until McDonald's takes responsibility for the inhumane treatment these workers faced in its stores."

In response to the suit, the Fight for $15 movement launched a toll-free national hotline Thursday for McDonald's workers across the country to report incidences of harassment and abuse at the workplace. The number is (855) 729-2869.

"This is a problem that goes far beyond these stores in Virginia - it's a problem with McDonald's business model itself when workers at the company have nowhere to turn," said Kendall Fells, organizing director of Fast Food Forward.

"McDonald's has the power to fix this problem, but instead it chooses to skirt its responsibility and hide behind its franchise model."

Addressing racial and sexual harassment have been a goal for many fast food workers. "Dignity and respect is a common theme running throughout" many workers' narratives, wrote People's World reporter Tony Pecinovsky in 2013, "fast-food workers just want to be treated better. Racism, sexism, and favoritism are rampant."

The complaint filed Thursday brings harassment and discrimination claims under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and Section 1981. Soon after the lawsuit was announced Twitter activists began using the hashtag #NotLovinRacism, parodying McDonald's tagline, "I'm lovin it."

Photo: Light Brigading/flickr/cc

Unions added 48,000 members last year

Fri, 23 Jan 2015 13:46:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - Union density was 11.1 percent in 2014, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported, down 0.2 percent from the year before. Unions added 48,000 members last year, but the workforce grew even more. The agency's survey also showed the median weekly wage of union members was $207 more than the weekly median for non-unionists.

And unlike other female workers, union women again practically matched union men in weekly earnings. The median wage last year for union women was $905, or 89 percent of the $1,015 weekly for union men. The median for non-union women was $687, or 82 percent of the $840 weekly median for non-union men.

As in prior surveys, unionists were concentrated in the Northeast, the Great Lakes states and on the Pacific Coast, and were few and far between south of the Ohio and Potomac Rivers and - except for Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri - from the Mississippi to the Rockies.

More than half of all 14.6 million union members lived in New York, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jersey and California. New York was the most union-dense (24.6 percent) while North Carolina (1.9 percent) stayed in last place, and its density declined from 3 percent the year before. Two other Pacific states, Alaska and Hawaii were also over 20 percent unionized.

California had the most unionists, 2.5 million, up 42,000 from 2013. Then came New York (1.98 million, down 6,000), Illinois (831,000, down 20,000), Pennsylvania (701,000, up 2,000), New Jersey (635,000, up 24,000), Ohio (615,000, up 10,000) and Michigan (585,000, down 48,000). GOP-run Michigan enacted so-called "right to work" laws in late 2012, though unions are challenging them in court. Minnesota had 362,000 union members in 2014, down 2,000 from the year before, while Missouri had 214,000, down 5,000.

In all those states, except Missouri (8.7 percent), unionists were between one in every eight and one in every five workers. Besides California, big numbers jumps were in New Jersey, Oregon and Connecticut. Unions in each added 20,000+ members. Density rose by 1.7 percent in Oregon, to 15.6 percent, 1.3 percent in Connecticut, to 14.8 percent.

Thanks to labor laws which make it tough to organize private-sector workplaces, union density in public sector jobs, 35.7 percent, was more than five times the density in the private sector, 6.6 percent, BLS said. Both density numbers were virtually unchanged from 2013.

Unions had 7.358 million private sector workers and 7.218 million in the public sector. In both sectors combined, there were - again - almost 1.5 million workers whom unions represented, but who are not members.

The most-unionized occupations were local government (41.9 percent), utilities (22.3 percent), transportation and warehousing (19.6 percent), telecommunications (14.8 percent), and construction (13.9 percent). Agriculture, finance, professional services and bars and restaurants were the least-unionized. Not coincidentally, bars and restaurants are the lowest-paying occupation, in both this BLS survey and others.

Photo: Thousands of union members and their supporters rallied against anti-worker legislation on the Capital lawn, Jefferson City, Mo., on March 26. 2014. Photography by: Tony Pecinovsky/PW Flickr

Campaign demands more funding for reentry programs

Fri, 23 Jan 2015 13:30:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. - Supporters of the 50% for Jobs not Jails campaign rallied at the Alameda County Administration Building here Jan. 20 to urge the five members of the county Board of Supervisors to increase funding for community-based reentry programs and services for people coming out of incarceration.

The campaign, organized by the Oakland-based Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, is calling for half of state funds the county receives under 2011 Public Safety Realignment legislation to be earmarked for programs emphasizing jobs, healthcare, housing, education and restorative justice initiatives.

Under realignment, people convicted of non-violent, non-serious, non-sex related offenses now serve their sentences in county rather than state facilities, and in turn, the State of California allocates funds to each county.

As the group prepared to enter the building, organizer Darris Young told them that instead of most realignment funds going to the county sheriff's department for incarceration and correctional purposes, as happens now, the campaign wants half to be used to "help people get back into society in a good way."

Once inside, the activists sought to talk with supervisors and invite them to sign onto the campaign's petition.

Group members shared thoughts and experiences as they waited outside the supervisors' suite of offices.

Ella Baker Center's executive director, Zachary Norris, pointed out that neighboring Contra Costa County is earmarking 60 percent of its realignment funds to community-based programs and services. The number of formerly incarcerated people returning to jail there has dropped significantly.

Norris told of talking with a man who, a month after his release from county jail, had yet to receive a referral to jobs programs. Others, he said, get no help with housing, which he called one of the biggest needs of people coming out of incarceration.

Organizer Maria Dominguez stressed the need for more public information on how the realignment funds are being spent.

One formerly incarcerated member of the group spoke of his difficulties in finding housing, though he has a Section 8 voucher for federal housing assistance: "It's really hard when you don't have a job, to go out and look for a place."

After leaving jail over a decade ago determined never to go back, he said now he seeks to help others so they won't end up returning to jail.

"But it all starts with decent housing, and a decent wage-paying job. The supervisors need to know there are people out here pounding this pavement, trying to make a difference not only for themselves, but for the community at large."

The Rev. Jacqueline Duhart, of Oakland's First Unitarian Church, said that when her brother left prison after two decades, "We realized as a family that any individual reentering from prison needs to have life - a house, a job, a community."

She called the issue "urgent ... political, social, economic, spiritual, and moral."

Their patience rewarded, group members spoke directly with Supervisor Wilma Chan, who listened to their demands and promised to take action on the lack of budget transparency. Staff members with two other supervisors promised to convey the group's demands.

The group also called on the supervisors to support dropping charges against the "Black Friday 14," protesters who halted area rapid transit services Nov. 28 in protest over police killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and others.

Photo: Darris Young addresses the rally as Maria Dominguez (left) and the Rev. Jacqueline Duhart (center) listen. | Marilyn Bechtel/PW

After 26 years, government to end direct oversight of Teamsters

Fri, 23 Jan 2015 10:54:00 +0000

NEW YORK - After 26 years, the federal government plans to end its consent decree and its direct oversight governing the Teamsters. But there are still strings attached.

Nevertheless, their agreement, to be officially discussed at a Feb. 11 hearing in Manhattan before Loretta Preska, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for Southern New York, marks an historic step for the union. Objectors, if any, could also speak at the session.

The pact also achieves a goal Teamsters President Jim Hoffa stated when he took office in 1999. The government had imposed the consent decree to end mob influence in the union. Hoffa argues the decree works and should be lifted, with control returned to the union.

The George H.W. Bush administration imposed the consent decree in 1989, it said, to ensure honest elections and to root out La Cosa Nostra influence in the Teamsters. Then-U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani, a Republican, used the prosecution of the union to propel himself upwards politically.

"Now is the time to return the union's management and control to the elected leadership of the IBT and the rank-and-file members," the union's executive board declared in its resolution accepting the agreement hammered out between Teamsters General Counsel Brad Raymond and the U.S. attorney's office.

In the court papers filed with Preska, the U.S. attorney and the union jointly agree "there has been significant success in eliminating corruption from within the IBT and in conducting free, open and democratic elections for its international officers and convention delegates."

Those democratic one-unionist one-vote elections - and safeguards - will continue permanently, the new agreement says and the Teamsters board agrees.

But the union and the U.S. attorney also agree "the threat posed to the IBT by organized crime and other corrupting influences, while substantially diminished, persists." So there will be a five-year transition period, to also cover the Teamsters' next elections in 2016 and 2021, and supervisory anti-corruption structures - or variations of them - will remain in place.

And in its resolution, the Teamsters board pledges the union will "ensure the terms of the agreement are adhered to, that the members' right to vote for international union officers shall remain inviolate, and that corrupt elements will never have a place in the IBT."

The new agreement also incorporates a list of former union officials associated with organized crime, bans them from ever having any union role, and bans other Teamsters from contacting or working with them in any way, just as rulings under the consent decree did.

"By entering into this final agreement and order" the government and the Teamsters "re-commit themselves to the original objectives of the consent decree, which remain the objectives of this final order," their 27-page pact says.

"In addition to those objectives, the objectives of this final order are to reduce and ultimately eliminate the government's role in the affairs of the IBT, except as otherwise expressly provided in this order, while, at the same time, preserving the gains achieved by the consent decree."

Other objectives are "continuing to foster and promote democracy in the IBT through independent supervision of IBT elections, continuing the fight against criminal elements, organized crime, and corruption that threaten the IBT today, and preventing the re-emergence of those elements of organized crime and corruption that have been eliminated from the IBT."

And if the government believes the union is backsliding, either in open elections or in allowing returned influence of organized crime, the U.S. Attorney for Southern New York can notify the union of its concerns and then return to court to prove its case by a "preponderance of the evidence" - the lowest standard - the proposed final order warns.

The union board's resolution also agrees to the details of continued anti-corruption oversight which the final order spells out. In the first year of the transition, the independent review board and its structure stays. The IRB is a group of anti-corruption investigators and imposers of discipline the consent decree established. For the following four years, "the IRB will be replaced by two independent disciplinary officers, an independent investigations officer and an independent review officer," the Teamsters board affirms.

"The independent investigations officer will investigate allegations of wrongdoing throughout our union. The independent review officer will monitor the IBT's actions in disciplinary cases," the Teamsters board adds. That review officer must be a former federal or state judge, experienced in labor law and federal union discipline requirements or both.

And if the independent review officer finds any Teamsters body is imposing inadequate discipline on an alleged malefactor, the IRO can demand a justification within 20 days, hold a new hearing, admit more evidence and issue a final ruling in the case, with no appeals.

Photo: Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, joined with the Teamsters in asking a federal judge to terminate the consent order that had been in place since March 1989. | Richard Drew/AP

Union leaders give Obama positive reviews except on trade

Thu, 22 Jan 2015 14:14:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - Union leaders gave President Obama's 2015 State of the Union address generally positive reviews, but sounded negative notes against his call for fast-track authority to put in place what they consider job-losing "free trade" pacts.

The president spent more than half his speech on the economy, shifting from the U.S. recovery - on his watch - from the Great Recession to further measures that he demands Congress pass to help reverse the 30-year erosion of working class wages and living standards.

Those measures include taxing the rich and big banks, infrastructure investment, greater emphasis on education, free community college tuition, and more. All drew the union leaders' praise. He also included a call for the passage of a stronger labor law.

"President Obama accomplished a lot this past year," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said. "But that's not enough. After all, while President Obama is hard at work preparing his biggest speech of the year, most families are hard at work stretching their budgets to make ends meet. Working people want to hear not only what he thinks about raising wages, but what he'll do about it. That is the ultimate standard of accountability."

National Nurses United Co-President Karen Higgins hailed Obama's call for business tax reform, and used it to again push the "Robin Hood tax" on financial transactions. The tax would raise "hundreds of billions in new revenue every year to provide a critical lifeline for improving the health and safety of people in the U.S. and across the globe," to "pay for the unfinished job of healthcare for all in the U.S.," she said. NNU said the tax would also curb the financial finagling that brought on the Great Recession.

Terry O'Sullivan, president of the Laborers, praised the president for calling on lawmakers to address income inequality. He also noted that the president recognized the value unions add to our economy "by inviting one of our own - LIUNA Local 300 member LeDaya Epps - to be Michelle Obama's guest to highlight the training and apprenticeship programs of LIUNA and other construction unions."

Veronica Mendez, director of Minneapolis' Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha/ Center of Workers United in Struggle, also attended. She was hosted by Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn.

Government Employees President J. David Cox praised Obama's proposals to aid the middle-class and urged him not to forget federal workers when he does. "Like so many others, federal employees have faced stagnant wages, cuts in benefits, and reduced take-home pay," Cox said. "They must not be left behind.

"AFGE strongly supports legislation introduced to provide federal employees with a 3.8 percent pay raise next year. Federal employees have seen their standard of living deteriorate thanks to a three-year pay freeze, unpaid furloughs, and higher retirement contributions for newer workers.

"For years, federal employees have been bearing the brunt of policies that put slashing the deficit ahead of creating new jobs, and lost $159 billion in earnings because of it. A 3.8 percent increase would provide employees with their first meaningful raise this decade."

Service Employees Executive Vice President Rocio Saenz drew the sharpest political contrast between Obama and the GOP - especially on immigration. The GOP-run House passed yet another anti-immigrant bill in the first weeks of January. Saenz added a political warning:

"While the president has led us to major milestones, there is still much to achieve to strengthen and improve the lives of millions of working families," Saenz said. "From raising the minimum wage to equal pay, there are significant issues Congress needs to tackle for the good of the people, not the politics of skewed partisanship. We hope this new Republican Congress can work together with the president...2016 is not far, and there are many listening and watching - old, new and aspiring Americans - ready to deliver their own promise."

Teachers President Randi Weingarten praised Obama's plans for paid parental leave and making education more affordable. "Working families see the economy is getting better, but too many have yet to feel it. That must change," she said. "We need to ensure all families can climb the ladder of opportunity. To do that, we need our government to reinvest in public education and support our educators. The tools the president advanced - providing free community college and greater access to early childhood education, raising the minimum wage, offering child care and paid sick leave to parents - all will help if they are enacted.

Steel Workers President Leo Gerard said that "on taxes, education, infrastructure and other issues President Obama identified concrete steps he will pursue to revitalize America. The USW agrees with the president's vision on the vast majority of what he outlined. When it comes to trade, however, we respectfully and regrettably disagree. Simply, USW members, their families and their communities had to pay the price for past trade deals and today's outdated policies."

Communications Workers President Larry Cohen also said he was in support of the president overall but took issue with the "fast track" process and the president's support of the Trans Pacific Partnership. "It has much more to do with protecting the investmnent of multinational corporations and manevering around China," he said, "thant lowering trade barriers. Promoters of the TPP are again promising jobs gains through growth in U.S. exports. But we can do the Math. Any new jobs will be dwarded by the floof of jobs that go offshore."

Photo: AP

Call for stronger labor law first for Obama on national television

Thu, 22 Jan 2015 12:58:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - President Obama, for the first time since he took office six years ago, used his State of the Union Speech last Tuesday to call for new, tougher labor laws to protect worker's rights. The reaction from labor and it's lawmaker allies was, as expected, positive.

Early in the President's first term the then-Democratic controlled House passed the Employee Free Choice Act which would have required companies to recognize unions as soon as a majority of workers submitted signed cards saying they wanted a specific union to represent them. Although a majority in the then-Democratic controlled Senate supported the measure too, it fell short of the votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster.

The EFCA constituted important labor law reform because, had it passed, workers would not have to go through a long process leading up to an "election" in order to win union representation. That long process has traditionally been the period during which companies harass, intimidate and even fire union supporters.

The president's prime-time television call for stronger labor law was his first since the demise of the EFCA.

"We need laws that strengthen rather than weaken unions and give American workers a voice," Obama declared in the House Chamber last Tuesday. The demand was part of a broad progressive program to move the economy in the direction of fairness for the working-class majority which has seen its wages stay flat for 30 years.

Although Obama has backed worker rights and labor law reform before, particularly before union or friendly crowds, this time he made the demand on television for all the nation and world to hear.

Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, in a statement, applauded the president for including the strengthening of collective bargaining rights in his program for raising wages and closing the income gap.

"We applaud the president's call to strengthen, not weaken, unions," agreed Diann Woodard, president of the School Administrators. "We hope Congress will hear the president's message, and work to provide working Americans with a voice on the job, strengthen collective bargaining rights and benefits, and support policies that increase wages."

Terry O'Sullivan, president of the Laborers agreed: "We applaud the president's State of the Union remarks calling on lawmakers to address income equality, particularly by speaking out for laws that strengthen unions and give workers a voice," he said.

"We must increase the federal minimum wage, provide equal pay for equal work, and raise wages by streamlining the ability of workers to unionize and bargain collectively," said Illinois Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky.

Keith Ellison, a Democratic member of the House from Minnesota, mentioned labor law reform at a Jan.21 outdoor rally in Washington D.C. - a rally actually called to condemn the leading role of the Chamber of Commerce in "dark" corporate money politics. The hundreds of millions of dollars in dark money that business poured into campaigns helped kill the EFCA, the Minnesotan said.

None of this moves leading Republicans, however, who have in addition to opposing labor law reform, tried to weaken even the existing law. The National labor Relations Board, for example, was established by the Wagner Act in the 1930's to ensure that workers would be unhampered when they exercise their collective bargaining rights. Almost continually since then the GOP has tried to weaken the NLRB. Only in the last year, for example, was President Obama able to actually get a full board confirmed by the Senate. GOP filibusters had prevented him from doing so throughout the first half of his presidency.

Mark Gruenberg contributed to this article.

Photo: National RNs rally for the right to unionize. Nurses hold up a sign supporting the Employee Free Choice Act. | National Nurses United

Happiness is … joining a union!

Wed, 21 Jan 2015 13:33:00 +0000

Union members are happier with their lives than nonunion workers. Makes sense, right? Now comes a study that proves it.

The study, by two university researchers, concludes that "union members are more satisfied with their lives than those who are not members and that the substantive effect of union membership on life satisfaction is large and rivals other common predictors of quality of life."

Patrick Flavin, an assistant professor at Baylor University, and Gregory Shufeldt, an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock, used U.S. data relating to income, education, gender, age, marital status, self-reported health, employment status, and church attendance. The responses cover five different years between the early 1980s and mid-2000s.

The study's conclusions mirror those of Benjamin Radcliff, a University of Notre Dame political scientist who also says unions members around the world are happier, based on his study of unions in 14 nations.

"People who have union jobs like their jobs better," Radliff said. "And that puts pressure on other employers to extend the same benefits and wages to compete with the union shops."

In the United States, Flavin and Shufeldt say, "union membership boosts life satisfaction across demographic groups regardless if someone is rich or poor, male or female, young or old, or has a high or low level of education. These results suggest that organized labor in the United States can have significant implications for the quality of life that citizens experience."

In an email interview with John Guida of Op-Talk, in The New York Times, Flavin and Shufeldt said that "union membership still has benefits, and that this is true for all union members. Simply put, if one goal of labor unions is to boost the quality of life for their members, our study provides empirical evidence that they are succeeding."

Reposted from AFSCME.

Photo: The tremendous energy on display at the 41st AFSCME International Convention in Chicago, July 2014. The theme of our convention was "Brave, Bold, Determined. FSCME

Tentative pact lets 18,000 Kaiser California nurses cancel strike

Wed, 21 Jan 2015 13:14:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. - A tentative new contract between California's largest hospital chain, Kaiser, dealing with its nurses' anger over eroding patient health care, let Kaiser's 18,000 unionized registered nurses, members of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United, to call off a planned two-day strike. Instead, on what would have been strike day, Jan. 22, nurses held ratification meetings, NNU executive director RoseAnn DeMoro said.

The nurses and Kaiser agreed to establish a new joint committee of registered nurses and nurse practitioners "who will work with management to address concerns the RNs have about care standards" in Kaiser's 86 facilities throughout California, the union said.

The pact shows the chain recognizes the nurses' devotion to assuring the highest level of quality care for patients as well as protections for the nurses who deliver that care," DeMoro said. NNU co-president Zenei Cortez, who chaired the union's bargaining team, said the contract "will strengthen the ability of Kaiser RNs to provide the optimal level of care our patients deserve, while establishing additional security for nurses. I am so proud of the Kaiser RNs and NPs who worked so hard for so long for this day."

Besides the joint committee, the pact commits Kaiser to hire hundreds of new nurses to help improve quality of care - by reducing workloads - and commits the hospital chain to a new commitment to RN training and employment for new graduates. NNU said the combination could set a tone for the entire country, since California has one of every eight U.S. residents, and is a leader on health care issues. Hospitals elsewhere have frozen new RN hiring.

The tentative agreement also includes "groundbreaking workplace protections for nurses from" hazards ranging from workplace violence to infectious diseases and needle stick injuries, a 14 percent pay raise over its three years, more long-term retirement security and an increase in Kaiser's contributions to nurses' 401(k) plans and annual paid release time for 25 RNs to participate in the union's relief response network, which has sent RN volunteers to natural disaster zones worldwide.

Photo: Rich Pedroncelli/AP

Newspaper Guild changes name to NewsGuild, re-elects Lunzer

Tue, 20 Jan 2015 16:30:00 +0000

ORLANDO, Fla. --After almost eight decades as The Newspaper Guild, delegates to the union's convention voted January 17 to officially change its name to The NewsGuild. Earlier, they re-elected President Bernie Lunzer, a name change advocate, without opposition.

Most of the 88 delegates meeting in Orlando, Fla., agreed the name change would help the union, now a Communications Workers sector, appeal to a wider range of workers involved in news and communications - regardless of which medium they use to receive it.

The name change also came after an intense and intensive prior lecture from a leading financial analyst of the newspaper industry, Ken Doctor, a former manager at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, whom Lunzer jousted with years ago during his local service in the Twin Cities.

Doctor predicted printed newspapers would disappear before mid-century, but online versions would burgeon. One difficulty, he said, is garnering ad revenue for those versions. Subscribers, he noted, will pay higher prices for high-quality news feeds and analysis. But those subscribers, like newspaper readers, are older and whiter than the U.S. in general.

Delegates felt a name change would help organize news workers in a changed news-gathering environment. "Having been engaged in organizing, a name change holds onto our brand and history, while reflecting changes in the industry. It makes more sense as we explain ourselves to others," said Beth Kramer of Chicago Local 34071, the youngest delegate.

The NewsGuild represents not just newspaper workers, but union staffers, workers at non-profit organizations, translators, union organizers such as Kramer and free-lance writers.

"We have a diverse unit and it has been helpful going forward" to remove the word 'newspaper' from their local's name, said Jeff Gordon of Local 36047, the St. Louis-based United Media Guild. His local has added units at the online publication Truthout and in Peoria, Pekin, Rockford and Springfield, Ill. Added John Hill of Providence, R.I., Local 31041: "Just because we take 'newspaper' out of our name doesn't mean we take it out of our history."

The only voiced dissent came from Denver Local 37074 members. Norma Ruth Ryan rattled off a list of media firms - most of them with just the word "news" in their names and most of them held in low regard, such as Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp. Those firms produce "the kind of garbage I don't want to listen to," she said. "We have many challenges to organizing, but our name is not one of them," added Denver's Robert Lindgren.

Besides approving the name change, and hearing from Gordon and CWA President Larry Cohen, delegates approved several resolutions, including:

To "engage in the struggle to save our free press and public access to information" through both the union's righttoreport website and through members' efforts. The resolution follows government attempts - from the Obama administration down to local police forces - to censor or deny access to news and news gatherers, and to prosecute whistleblowers. The resolution also calls for a federal shield law against prosecutorial fishing expeditions that go after reporters, their sources and their notes.

Condemning the capture, killing and jailing of journalists worldwide. Between 61 and 80 were murdered last year "for doing their jobs," including James Foley, whom the so-called Islamic State beheaded. Governments jailed another 220 in each of the last three years. And the week before, Islamic terrorists deliberately murdered eight Paris journalists, the staff of Charlie Hebdo, because their satirical magazine allegedly defamed the Prophet Mohammed.

"We must loudly condemn all acts of journalistic oppression," it said, and "condemn and shame countries that permit terrorists to capture and kill journalists with impunity."

Urging law-enforcement agencies to "gather, maintain and report statistics about officer-caused deaths and injuries." The resolution cited the deaths of unarmed African-Americans as reasons to gather such data. It backed that with national statistics. The deaths have produced controversy and marches nationwide. The resolution also urges news organizations to report the data annually.

Urging President Obama to commute the life sentence of Oscar Lopez Rivera, a Puerto Rico-born Chicago community organizer convicted in 1981 of seditious conspiracy and related offenses. His co-defendants have since been released from prison, but, at 72, he's still incarcerated. His release has become a cause célèbre for elected officials from various states, international organizations, several unions and the AFL-CIO - as well as TNG-CWA Local 33225 of San Juan. The Rivera case produced the longest debate and only conclave rollcall.

Constitutional changes to reflect increased independence of TNG-CWA/SCA Canada.

Besides re-electing Lunzer, delegates elected Buffalo TNG-CWA rep Marion Needham as Executive Vice President, combining her position with that of Secretary-Treasurer. Sara Steffens, a former TNG activist who organized for the Guild in San Jose - and who was illegally fired for doing so - has been acting as Secretary-Treasurer.

Steffens stepped down from the TNG-CWA post to seek the Secretary-Treasurer's job of the parent CWA, running with union Vice President/Executive Board member Chris Shelton. He's running to succeed retiring CWA President Cohen.

Photo: Speaking at the convention, NewsGuild-CWA Facebook.

Quill Pettway, 94: A giant laid to rest

Tue, 20 Jan 2015 15:23:00 +0000

DETROIT - Quill Pettway, labor organizer, civil rights pioneer, veteran, educator and father ended his long and fruitful life on January 16, two months short of his 95^th birthday. He was part of that great generation of Communists and radicals who were witness to and a makers of Detroit's rich labor and civil rights history.

In 1940 he was hired at Ford Motor Company, the world's most powerful, and then non-union, corporation. It was there he met future Detroit mayor Coleman Young, Dave Moore, and Bill McKie (a lead union and Communist Party organizer), and became one of the organizers for UAW Local 600. He was one of the first African Americans to work in the skilled trades.

He was modest to a fault saying his contribution at Ford began because he "happened to be in the right place at the right time." Not true, according to other witnesses. Like Rosa Parks, Quill was "chosen" to integrate and then help organize skilled workers into the union.

During World War II Quill was drafted into the Navy and his skilled trades background enabled him to make record breaking grades at Great Lakes Naval, training for aviation maintenance. However, he said the discrimination and prejudice in the Navy "was almost unbearable."

In 1950 Quill, along with Moore, Young, notable Detroit activists Lebron Simmons and Rev. Charles Hill was a proud founding member of the National Negro Labor Council. The NNLC had the goal of working through unions to advance the cause of all Black people and all workers.

Though McCarthyism and HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) hearings targeted NNLC leaders and caused the demise of the organization, it won important victories against discrimination both inside and outside the labor movement and is considered the forerunner of today's Coalition of Black Trade Unionists.

In the late sixties Quill left the plant, earned his college degree and started what would become a remarkable near 40-year career as an educator.

Seeing the need for low income youth to gain access to a higher education degree, Quill, Coleman Young, and three others met with then Gov. William Milliken to win his support for the creation of Wayne County Community College (WCCC). Quill became Dean of the vocational school. He continued teaching math at WCCC into his nineties.

Dr. Todd Duncan, senior lecturer in English and Africana Studies at Wayne State University in Detroit said Quill's sense of social justice was "very strong and deep, part of who he was." Like Paul Robeson, Duncan said Quill wanted to develop himself and the society he lived in. "It was very interesting to me he could be both steadfast, believe in something deeply, and still have consideration for other people and an open mind."

Duncan remembers Quill worked hard and was very conscientious about helping young students. "Citizen Pettway" is how he thinks of him.

At the age of 93 Quill completed Detroit's 50^th anniversary two mile march to commemorate Dr. King's 1963 Detroit march, held a few months before the historic March on Washington.

Quill often spoke about the necessity to build unity between all races and nationalities. He recently said "the unity needed to organize Ford was the same unity that elected Barack Obama. This is what is necessary to move forward."

Quill is survived by daughters Sharon and Sylvia and son Quill Jr.

Funeral services will be at 11a.m., Saturday Jan. 24^h at Greater Christ Baptist Church in Detroit.

Photo: Quill Pettway, on the left, with his friend and fellow activist, the late General Baker. John Rummel/PW

To honor of King they marched for lives in Los Angeles

Tue, 20 Jan 2015 13:18:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES - Far from the glittering concert halls of Hollywood where Academy Awards will soon be handed out, the streets of Los Angeles filled Monday with over 3000 marchers and tens of thousands of observers of all nationalities and ethnic backgrounds lined up in relaxed holiday attire along Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

The parade stretched from Figueroa St. near the University of Southern California campus several miles west to Leimert Park. The smells of impromptu barbeques in residents' front yards, and the gleeful sounds of children laughing and people cheering the marchers filled the balmy, spring-like air.

Major participants in the 30^th annual King Day Parade included unions such as the Teamsters, SEIU, and the L.A. County Federation of Labor, and a number of high school marching bands performing in full regalia, college fraternities, church groups and other community organizations, an equestrian unit sponsored by a black horse riders' club, and commercial floats. Bringing up the rear were small but significant contingents of left-wing and Jewish organizations in solidarity with the underlying theme of the day, Black Lives Matter.

Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson, an African-American, served as the grand marshal. Police, who monitored the parade on almost every block, were well behaved and unobtrusive, though evident. There were no reported incidents, although the Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday that in neighboring Orange County, in the city of Santa Ana, some 40 residences were hit with flyers from the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan smearing Martin Luther King, Jr. and demeaning the King birthday holiday. Last July residents in the city of Orange also received such flyers.

Another underlying theme of the demonstration in honor of King and his message of universal love, hope and nonviolent activism was the recently released film Selma, which has been drawing good audiences in this film town. The Hollywood community has fallen under criticism this year for not including a single person of color among the Oscar nominations.

A positive mood of celebratory solemnity characterized the day.

Photo: The L.A. County Federation of Labor bus, recalling the bus Rosa Parks rode to demand an end to segregation, promotes the $15 an hour campaign. Eric A. Gordon/PW.

Grapes of Wrath: California farmworkers fight to unionize

Tue, 20 Jan 2015 12:44:00 +0000

FRESNO, Calif. - When Jose Dolores began picking grapes at Gerawan Farming in California's San Joaquin Valley in 1990, the company was paying a little over the state minimum wage of $4.25 an hour. "We just weren't making enough, and everything cost a lot. That's why people wanted the union," he recalls.

Dolores was one of over 1,000 workers at Gerawan that year, when its workers voted for the United Farm Workers union to represent them. But they didn't get any further. Mike Gerawan, one of the company's owners, repeatedly challenged the validity of the union vote. The one time he met with the UFW he said, "I don't want the union, and I don't need the union."

That effectively ended bargaining on a contract, which union reps believe would have provided better working conditions and more protection for the laborers. Mike Gerawan declined to comment, but in a statement, the company publicist, Erin Shaw, blames the union for the stalled efforts: "The UFW abandoned Gerawan employees without ever negotiating a collective bargaining agreement." Over the years, with no contract, Gerawan Farms grew to become one of the nation's largest growers, with more than 5,000 workers.

It was only in 2012, after a new state law on mandatory mediation was implemented, that the UFW was able to go back to Gerawan to demand a renewal of the talks. While the company did meet with the union, it also attempted to have the UFW removed as the representative of the workers. Even more importantly, it is challenging the constitutionality of the law in state court.

Losing this fight could have devastating consequences for the UFW and, indirectly, for farmworker unions in other states, since it would make it much more difficult for workers to get growers to agree on a contract. No real union can survive indefinitely without being able to win contracts and thus being able to gain members and make substantial changes in wages and conditions.

Federal law has never covered farmworkers, and outside of California, no state has a law giving farmworkers a legal process for recognition and bargaining. Those few union agreements that exist outside the state have been the product of yearslong campaigns and boycotts. As a result, only a tiny percentage of the nation's farmworkers have union contracts, and wages and conditions in farm labor are worse than in almost any other occupation.

California, however, has been able to use state legislation to address grower intransigence. If it works, the example may spread, which is why other growers are watching this case closely.

According to Philip Martin, professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California, Davis, workers were unable to win agreements at 253 of 428 farms where they'd voted for the UFW between 1975, when the Agricultural Labor Relations Act went into effect, and 2002. That year Democratic Gov. Gray Davis signed two bills that allow unions to ask for a mediator if a grower won't agree on a first-time contract. The mediator is chosen from a list provided by the state government. The mediator's report, once adopted by the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, becomes the contract. Growers have already challenged the mandatory-mediation law once, but lost in the state court of appeals in 2006. It is this decision that Gerawan is now trying to reverse.

Union leaders say Gerawan Farming was never neutral toward its workers' efforts to organize. After the original vote, the ALRB issued two complaints against the company for laying off workers in 32 crews to eliminate them from the list of voters in the union election and for firing one crew because its workers were UFW supporters. An ALRB hearing officer found the company guilty of tearing down six labor camps to intimidate workers.

Agustin Rodriguez, a grape picker at Gerawan, was among those elected to the union negotiating committee when the UFW renewed its demand for bargaining two years ago. But "the company was never willing to negotiate in good faith," he says.

Though the UFW was able to force Gerawan to negotiate using the state law, the company says the report issued by the mediator does not constitute a negotiated agreement. Rodriguez rejects this, saying that the company refuses to implement the contract the two sides negotiated with the help of the mediator. He believes the company made proposals designed to sabotage negotiations. For instance, it sought to exclude approximately 2,000 workers employed through labor contractors. "Right now the company pays them $9 an hour," Rodriguez explains. "In a union contract they'd earn the same wage we do - $11 for direct employees."

In addition, he says, Gerawan has a medical plan, but of the 5,000 workers only 13 actually have it. No one can afford it, but it looks good on paper.

The ALRB - which is responsible for holding elections, enforcing the union rights of farmworkers and administering the mandatory-mediation law - has issued a series of complaints over the years against Gerawan. It says the grower has "unlawfully coerced, restrained and interfered with its employees" by illegally threatening workers, changing their working conditions to discourage union activity, trying to get rid of the union, bargaining in bad faith and more.

In a formal complaint issued last October, the agency's regional director in the central valley town of Visalia, Silas Shawver, and its general counsel, Sylvia Torres-Guillén, charged that Gerawan tried "to undermine the UFW's status as its employees' bargaining representative; to turn its employees against the union; to promote decertification of the UFW; and to prevent the UFW from ever representing its employees under a collective bargaining agreement."

Gerawan has raised pay incrementally over the past two years to bring the hourly wage up from the then-state minimum of $8 (it is now $9) to $11. It was an effort "to convince people not to join the union," says Severino Salas, who has worked at Gerawan as a picker for the past 15 years. "But it's the pressure from the union that made them do it," he believes.

According to the ALRB, in June 2013, Gerawan rehired Silvia Lopez, a worker who was already involved in "anti-union activities" and whose boyfriend was a company supervisor. Almost immediately, Paul Bauer, a lawyer who frequently works for employers in labor disputes, started advising her on "how to decertify the UFW as the collective-bargaining representative at Gerawan."

Lopez began to collect signatures on a petition in an effort to remove the UFW as the workers' representative. By law a company cannot assist in such efforts. But Lopez and her associates had the run of Gerawan's vineyards and orchards and collected signatures during work hours, the ALRB says.

Salas recalls that some of the pro-company workers said that if Gerawan Farming had to sign a union contract, it would tear out some of the grapevines or trees so pickers wouldn't have any work. "Then they did uproot some of them, and a lot of people got scared," he says, "...for fear of losing their jobs."

Jose Gonzalez, an employee who did not want to reveal his identity for fear of retaliation, adds, that when the petitions were passed around, the crews that didn't sign "didn't have any more work. Or they'd put them to work in the mud, in fields they'd just irrigated."

In August the labor board issued a complaint against the company, charging it with sponsoring the signature collecting. The petition was thrown out because many signatures had been forged. Supervisors blocked workers from the fields if they didn't sign a second petition, the board says, and then took them to a grower-sponsored demonstration against the ALRB.

The ALRB finally held an election in which workers could vote to decertify the UFW, though the ballots have been impounded while the labor board investigates charges that the company illegally sponsored the decertification effort. Gerawan Farming refused to implement the mediator's report, and then asked the state court in conservative Fresno to declare mandatory mediation unconstitutional. Joining it were the state's preeminent grower organizations: Western Growers Association, the California Farm Bureau Federation and the California Grape and Tree Fruit League.

Right-wing parties, including the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a far-right legal institute, are also throwing their weight behind this appeal. Support for Gerawan is coming from the Center for Worker Freedom, a subsidiary of the conservative advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform, which is funded by Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS and the Koch brothers. The Center for Worker Freedom has helped organize publicity for the drive to get rid of the UFW and for the appeals of the mandatory mediation law.

In June 2014 former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso co-authored an op-ed with UFW President Arturo Rodriguez for the Rosenberg Foundation's website, describing the history of worker organizing at Gerawan. After seeing the op-ed, Mike Gerawan's brother Dan Gerawan sent Reynoso a threatening eight-page letter. "Many or most of our employees do not want this contract, and want nothing to do with the UFW," Gerawan wrote, demanding that Reynoso "disavow authorship of the article" or "retract these defamatory statements." In his reply, Reynoso declined politely and urged Gerawan to negotiate a contract with his workers.

Agustin Rodriguez hasn't lost faith, but he wonders why the process hasn't worked so far. "The company has a lot of money - enough to draw out the process so that people will get desperate and discouraged," he says. But Gerawan "must be made to respect the law and to give us justice."

Dolores says that despite the wage increases, the workers' situation hasn't really changed. "I went to work there when I was 30, and now I'm 54 and I'm still poor. I just have enough money to buy tortillas and pay the rent."

In the Coachella Valley, Baldemar Zacarias does the hard work of picking grapes.

Labor expects bold action from Obama tonight on overtime pay

Tue, 20 Jan 2015 11:36:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - "Later tonight, when President Obama speaks to the nation in his annual State of the Union Address, there is one thing I'll be paying close attention to: whether or not the president discusses overtime pay for workers," said Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the pro-labor Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in a statement he issued here this morning.

"President Obama needs to go bold with the upcoming revision of overtime pay rules expected shortly from the U.S. Department of Labor," said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, at a wage summit in the nation's capital last week.

Overtime pay has increasingly moved to the top of labor's agenda because millions of workers are working overtime and not getting paid for it. Between 1979 and 2013, according to the EPI, productivity in America grew by 64.9 percent but during that time wages remained flat with the median worker seeing a real (inflation-adjusted) hourly wage increase of just 6.1 percent.

"One of the reasons paychecks aren't keeping pace with productivity is that millions of workers are working overtime and not getting paid for it," Eisenbrey said.

The Department of Labor, under orders issued by President Obama last March, is expected to announce early this year its intended update of the overtime salary threshold, which currently sits at $23,660 per year, or just $455 per week. "This current threshold is below poverty level for a family of four and must be changed, " Eisenbrey said.

Under federal overtime rules, workers making less than $455 per week are entitled to overtime protection. Ever since the enactment of the first federal overtime law in 1938 the salary threshold was updated every few years. The last "routine" adjustment to the salary level, however, was made by President Gerald Ford in 1975. Overtime protections have been steadily eroded since then by inflation.

Trumka has said that just to make up for inflation the threshold should be raised to $51, 168. "The spotlight is now on raising wages," he declared. "Raising wages is the key unifying progressive value that ties all the pieces of economic and social justice together," the union leader said when he talked about wages here last week. "We think that the president has a great opportunity to show that he is behind that agenda by increasing the overtime regulations to a minimum threshold of $51,168. That's the marker."

Some 6.1 million additional people would earn overtime pay if the President goes with Trumka's figure.

There is concern that the Labor Department is looking at a lower figure, however, somewhere in the neighborhood of $42,000. Adopting the lower figure would mean that at least two of the six million that would be covered under Trumka's figure would be left with no overtime protection.

Business groups are lobbying overtime against any raises in both workers' wages and against any increase in the overtime threshold. Trumka said they will oppose any increase in the overtime threshold, wherever the President places that threshold. "Why would you settle for a figure that excludes millions of people (the $42,000 figure) when business is not going to support that either?" Trumka asked. "The President should go full throttle on restoring the 40-hour work week and not dilute this opportunity for restoring wages," he added.

While business groups and Republicans seem, at best, to be having a hard time understanding the need for raising the overtime threshold, the necessity of doing so is apparently not lost on the broad public.

A grandmother with two small children seated in her shopping cart at Save-a-lot Supermarket in the Bridgeport neighborhood this morning said, "If I pay $40 at the register I am not entitled to walk out of here with as many cartloads of stuff as I like. I'm just entitled to $40 worth of stuff. I used to work as a secretary at Citibank down the street. They hired me for a 40-hour week at a set salary but often made me work extra for the same rate. How is that fair? If you want more, you should pay more."

EPI economists note that even the minimum $51,188 figure pushed by Trumka , while it allows for inflation since 1975, would not give overtime protection to the same percentage of the workforce as had that protection in 1975. To cover 65 percent of the workforce, which was the percentage covered in 1975, the threshold would have to be raised to $69,004, according to Eisenbrey.

While a change will help all workers, minorities and women stand to benefit the most.

"The eventual change will disproportionately help women, blacks, Hispanics, workers under age 35 and workers with lower levels of education," said Eisenbrey. "While our hope is that the Department of Labor chooses a threshold of at least $51,168 to properly adjust for inflation, any significant increase will be a victory for American workers."

Photo: President Barack Obama gives his State of the Union address on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 28, 2014. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Time to close Wall Street’s “Retirement Advice” loophole

Fri, 16 Jan 2015 12:47:00 +0000

There is a loophole in the rules that govern Wall Street brokers and financial firms that provide retirement investment advice that can drain away thousands, or even tens of thousands, of dollars of hard-earned savings from a single retirement account. Today, a coalition of senior, union and consumer groups launched a new website-SaveOurRetirement.org-to mobilize support to close the "Retirement Advice Loophole" through a new rule the U.S. Department of Labor is trying to adopt.

The way workers save for retirement has changed dramatically over the past decades. With the decline in traditional pensions, more and more workers depend on 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts (IRAs), and they frequently seek investment advice from financial professionals. But the rule governing when that advice must be solely in the worker's interest, free from conflicts of interest, has not been changed since 1975-and many loopholes exist.

The "Retirement Advice Loophole" allows Wall Street brokers and financial firms with major conflicts of interest to provide investment advice that serves their own interests instead of what's best for their clients.

For example, they can sell financial products that pay large commissions but hurt their clients with unnecessary fees, poor returns or excessive risks. Millions of Americans are affected by this loophole every year without even knowing it, and it is draining away their retirement savings.

Right now, some advisers are required to put their customers' interests first while others are not-and it is often extremely difficult for workers and retirees to know which type of adviser they are dealing with.

The Labor Department rule has been under development for some time but has not been released yet. However, it is expected to require that investment advisers have no conflict of interest that might, for example, cause them to steer their clients toward investments that earn the adviser high fees but might not be in the client's best interest. The rule should require anyone who gives retirement investment advice to act solely in their client's best interest-a common sense standard known as the fiduciary duty.

Of course, Wall Street and the financial industry are adamantly opposed to reforming the rules. Two years ago they lobbied hard for a House bill aimed at derailing any new Labor Department investment advice rule, and surely they will be spending big money to do the same thing in 2015.

Be sure to visit SaveOurRetirement.org to learn more and find out how you can help close the "Retirement Advice Loophole."

The groups in the coalition are the AFL-CIO, AFSCME, AARP, Americans for Financial Reform, Better Markets, Consumer Federation of America, and the Pension Rights Center.

Photo: AFL-CIO Now blog

Union democracy preserved: Teamster members retain right to vote

Fri, 16 Jan 2015 11:13:00 +0000

Rank and file members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters have ensured that their right to vote for International Union officers will be protected under fair rules in independently supervised elections.

The International Union and the U.S. Attorney's office, after months of negotiations, agreed on Wednesday, January 15, 2015, to a joint proposal for the transition to new procedures when monitoring and investigating internal union corruption and the elections of International Union officers. The Settlement agreement summary, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, will be reviewed by Chief Judge Loretta A. Preska. With an initial hearing scheduled for February 11, 2015.

The joint proposal is the end result of a national campaign launched by Teamsters for a Democratic Union, a rank and file organization, and union members in response to the Hoffa Administration's efforts last year to dissolve the Independent Review Board and end fair election standards by returning voting power to Convention Delegates.

For the Teamsters this action marks another step members have taken to move their union away from its sordid past and towards a powerful democratic future.

Highlights of the Settlement agreement:

- The 2016 and 2021 IBT elections will be conducted under the same rules, independent supervision and procedures as 2011, with the improvement that all candidates will be entitled to a free mailing to the entire membership.

- Through 2021 a candidate for International Union office can be nominated by a vote of five percent of Convention delegates. Beginning in 2026, the threshold for nominating candidates can be changed by a vote of the delegates at the Teamster Convention.

- The Independent Review Board will continue for another year from the date the judge signs the order. Following that, the IRB's anti-corruption functions will be assumed by an Independent Investigations Officer and Independent Review Officer who are jointly-appointed by the U.S. Attorney and the Union. Five years from now, the IBT will assume the sole authority to appoint these officers.

- The government will retain the power to enforce the settlement agreement if it shows by a preponderance of evidence the agreement has been violated. The anti-corruption injunctions of the consent order are made permanent.

Photo: Kevork Djansezian/AP