People Before Profit blog

Union members march on Koch billionaire secret meeting

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:20:00 +0000

Hundreds of union members joined environmentalists and community activists who marched Sunday Jan. 30 on a secretive gathering of billionaires near Palm Springs, Calif., that constitutes the core financial support for numerous right-wing causes.

The marchers, hoisting signs blasting "corporate greed," were met at the entrance to the Las Palmas Rancho Mirage by a line of helmeted police who arrested 25 of them. Inside billionaires Charles and David Koch were holding a "retreat" for prominent conservative elected officials and right-wing political donors and strategists, among them House Republican leader Eric Cantor of Virginia.

Among those participating in the march were unions including the California Nurses Association and the United Domestic Workers of America. Common Cause and MoveOn.org were the main initial organizers of the protest at what has become an annual "Billionaire's Caucus" put on by the Koch Brothers, other corporate entities and a variety of right-wing think tanks. The groups involved have been celebrating the recent Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited corporate campaign contributions.

The two brothers control Koch Industries, the nation's second-largest privately held company. They have funded groups pushing "limited government," "libertarianism," and have helped organize major tea party groups. Other recipients of their money include the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The unions participated in a Sunday morning panel discussion that focused on the Supreme Court decision, Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission. That ruling permitted corporations to pour unlimited amounts of money into political campaigns.

President Obama himself has criticized the decision and Americans for Prosperity, a group that David Koch helped found. Obama has cited the group for spending $40 billion in special interest money in the 2010 election campaigns.

Earlier this month Common Cause sent a letter to the Justice Department saying that Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas should have disqualified themselves from the Citizens United Case because they had attended a meeting the Kochs sponsored.

A Supreme Court spokesman has told the press that neither justice actually participated in the meeting but said Thomas "dropped by."

"This is a fight for the heart and soul of America," said Bob Edgar, president of Common Cause.

"We cannot have democracy unless everyone has a voice," Cathy Riddle, a website developer at the demonstration, told the L.A. Times. "Corporations are not people. Donors like the Koch brothers are drowning us out. Their voices are louder."

Nancy Pfotenhauer, a spokesperson for Koch Industries, sent out a press advisory that described the closed-door meeting, whose list of attendees was kept secret, as a gathering that "brings together some of America's greatest philanthropists and job creators who share a common belief that the current level of government spending in our nation is simply unsustainable."

A printed invitation to the event that made its way to the press said the purpose was to "develop strategies to counter the most severe threats facing our free society and outline a vision of how we can foster a renewal of American free enterprise and prosperity and review strategies for combating the multitude of public policies that threaten to destroy America as we know it."

Those who attend the Koch gatherings, according to numerous sources, see themselves as 'doers,' as men and women willing to fight the Obama administration and its perceived attack on U.S free enterprise and unfettered wealth.

The Kochs bought out the entire Las Palmas resort for Saturday and Sunday. Some of the demonstrators who stayed at the resort Friday night and booked dinners at their restaurants on Saturday had their reservations canceled by the resort.

Image: Matt Leonard // CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Officials use budget woes to attack public unions

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 06:00:00 +0000

SACRAMENTO - State officials around the country are using state and local budget woes as a smokescreen for campaigns against public unions and their workers, a top California state official says.

In a telephone press conference, hosted by the Economic Policy Institute, California Treasurer Bill Lockyer (D) said if those pols succeed, the cuts would devastate not only workers but services. EPI scholars added the devastation would spread to the private sector, imperiling the fragile recovery from the Great Recession.

Budget data show states face cumulative deficits of $235 billion combined in 2011-12, with the biggest problems in California and Illinois. Since states, except Vermont, must balance their budgets yearly, governors of both parties have been eyeing public workers' salaries and pensions for cuts.

Lockyer says that's wrong: The two big drivers of state deficits, he said, are escalating health care costs and what analysts say is a 31percent collapse in state revenues due to the recession. And many of the officials who are campaigning against public workers' pay and pensions - he didn't name names - really have an anti-union agenda.

Several right-wing think tanks have also suggested states declare bankruptcy, as yet another way to escape obligations - including union contracts. Lockyer turned that down flat. "Behind that is an attack on state workers," he said.

"This is all fiction and all speculative," he said of the right-wing arguments.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and other unions that represent public workers are responding by citing the need for state and local services, especially in a recession, where the unemployed turn to states for aid. They also point out those services - schools, hospitals, fire departments, police, corrections officers, road work - are not only essential but put money in workers' pockets.

That led EPI analyst Ethan Pollack to agree that advocates of cutting state and local workers' pay "are more about scapegoating state and local government workers," and unions than about cuts. "Studies show state workers, with comparable education and experience and in comparable jobs, earn 6.8 percent less than their private counterparts. Local workers earn 7.4 percent less," Pollack said.

Still, with the state governments facing the budget crunch and with tax revenues
still far below their levels of several years ago, legislatures and governors - though not in California, Lockyer hoped - often look solely at budget cuts to balance the books. That would include worker cuts, pension cuts and program cuts, he said.

"It's not like you're cutting one account and X number of jobs," if that happens, he elaborated about his state's looming $28 billion deficit, which Gov. Jerry Brown, D-Calif., and the legislature are tackling.

"It's a question of do you cut the $9.50-an-hour home health care aides" - who are now unionized in California - "who help keep people in their homes and out of nursing homes." Other questions include whether the University of California system would lay off workers or impose another huge tuition hike and what would happen to education aid to local governments, which is roughly half the state budget.

"If that gets cut, maybe 40,000 teachers get laid off, the schools shut down for several weeks and the cafeteria workers go home without paychecks. It's a question of cutting 500,000-600,000 state and local jobs, and that's a lot in California," he said.

U.S. union leader jailed in Mexico for supporting Sonora miners

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 17:24:00 +0000

The United Steelworkers has condemned the Jan. 24 arrest of Manny Armenta, one of its international representatives, by customs officials in the northern Mexican state of Sonora.

Armenta, a USW sub-district director in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was arrested while on his way to meet with attorneys for Los Mineros, the Mexican Mineworkers Union.

USW International Affairs Director, Ben Davis, told the Peoples World, Jan. 27, that the union has been supporting the Mexican mineworkers who have conducted a four-year strike against Grupo Mexico, owner of a copper mine at Cananea, Sonora.

The nightmare began for Artmenta at about 2 p.m. (MST) when a customs officer, accused him of driving a stolen car. Armenta, according to Davis, showed the officer documentation proving that his vehicle was legally leased by the union.

The officers ignored the documentation and proceeded to use dogs to search the vehicle.

When the search turned up nothing they demanded Armenta pay a fine of $15,000 on the spot. When he refused to pay the "fine" he was arrested and jailed overnight and released Jan. 25 only after posting a bond of $7,750.

Davis also said the police impounded the car and are still holding it. They returned Armenta's wallet minus the $700 in cash he was carrying.

Davis said it was clear the authorities are looking for ways to harass the union for the fund raising and political backing it gives to the Mexican miners.

He explained that Armenta's entire trip was well within the sections of Sonora that are regularly traveled by many Americans and clearly marked off on maps that indicate where drivers are exempt from regulations that require special registrations when they go further than 20 miles into Mexico.

He said that leaders of the Mexican mining industry are not happy about the solidarity and cooperation that has developed between miners there and their U.S. counterparts.

Earlier this month, on Jan. 17, Mexican mineworker leaders joined USW copper miners who work for Asarco, a copper producer near Tucson, Arizona, that is also owned by Grupo Mexico, the Mexican company.

The U.S. workers were holding a "sound-off" to which they had invited their Mexican counterparts. The contract with Asarco in Arizona expires in June.

"By arresting Manny, the Mexican government is trying to intimidate the USW copper miners from exercising our right to collective bargaining here at home and showing solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Mexico," said Leo Gerard. President of the USW.

"This outrageous treatment by Mexican federal authorities shows the extent of the government's corruption," Gerard said, adding, "We demand that these bogus charges be dropped with the immediate return of the union property along with what belongs to Manny."

Gerard said the speed with which Mexican officials arrested and jailed the U.S. labor leader was "ironic."

"The Mexican courts have issued 20 warrants for German Larrea, the owner of Grupo Mexico but the government has never been able to arrest him. Yet they can arrest Manny because he is in Mexico helping the mineworkers defend their rights."

The USW says it will file a formal complaint with the U.S. State Department.

On the day of Armenta's arrest U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Mexico in support of that country's law enforcement actions on illegal drug activity.

"I hope the U.S. State Department will put as much energy into seeking justice for Manny and for the rights of workers at Cananea as they have in praising the Mexican government," Gerard said.

Photo: Cell phone photo of Armenta in Sonora jail, taken by a union lawyer. www.usw.org

California's paid family-leave a success

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 05:52:00 +0000

California's landmark Paid Family Leave (PFL) program has produced substantial "economic, social, and health" gains for workers and their families. It has had "an equalizing effect" regarding gender, racial and income disparity. And, it did not turn out to be the "job-killer," costly and easily abused program the business community claimed when it was fighting the now six-year-old program before it became law.

These are the conclusions of a study recently released by co-authors Eileen Applebaum, senior economist at the Center for Economic Policy and Research, and Ruth Milkman, professor of sociology at the University of California in Los Angeles and City University of New York.

California is the first of two states to offer paid family-leave, New Jersey is the other.

The California program allows private-sector workers to take up to six weeks a year off at 55 percent of wages to care for a newborn, a newly adopted child or a sick family member. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) law allows up to 12 weeks off, but it is unpaid.

In comparison with workers not utilizing PLF, those using the program were able to greatly increase the amount of wages replaced while on leave, took longer leaves, and were more satisfied with the length of their leaves.

Many workers were able to supplement their earnings and time off under the PFL program with other paid benefits, such as sick leave and vacation, if they chose to do so.
Those without alternative benefits - more common among low-wage workers, women, people of color, and immigrants - could at least rely on the income from the PLF program while on leave.
Nearly all respondents (93.5 percent) with higher paying jobs had access to employer-provided paid sick leave and/or vacation, compared to only 62.1 percent of those with low-paying jobs.
The program enhanced workers' ability to care for their new children and sick family members.

For example, PFL use doubled the median duration of breastfeeding for new mothers while new fathers have been taking more and longer leaves to "bond" with their new child.
The study revealed that the proportion of "bonding" claims filed by men has gone up "steadily and substantially" over the life of the program.
The PLF helps lessen the negative impact of child rearing and other family responsibilities on women's earnings, but also can increase men's role in care giving and "thus contribute to gender equality," the researchers concluded.

Interestingly, the "vast majority" of employers after nearly six years of the program reported "positive effects or no effect at all on their productivity, profitability, or performance," according to the study.
The program has no direct costs to the employer: the benefit is funded entirely by an employee payroll-tax (currently a 1.2 percent tax that finances both SDI and PFL), one of the factors which most likely accounts for the favorable ratings by employers.

Furthermore, the "vast majority" of employers reported they knew of "no cases in which their employees had abused the program." For workers in low-paying jobs, the program increased their likelihood of returning to work with the same employer, according to the study.

While those aware of the program remains limited, the study shows that among "those Californians who need the program most - low-wage workers, immigrants, and Latinos (groups that overlap significantly) - are least likely to be aware of it." The report calls for improving the program in the following areas:

Expand outreach.

Increase benefit provided by the program from the current 55 percent of weekly earnings to two-thirds (66.7 percent), to match that which is provided by New Jersey. (Currently California beneficiaries are receiving $488 a week on average).

Extend job protection to everyone who takes a PFL leave so that all beneficiaries, regardless of whether or not they have protection under other laws, will have a job to return to.

Extend the PFL program to cover all California public employees, not just private-sector employers.

Labor supports president’s vision but warns of challenges

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 16:00:00 +0000

The labor movement is reacting positively to the vision of the future put forward by President Obama in his State of the Union speech, particularly his calls for job creation, strengthening of the middle class and rebuilding the nation's crumbling infrastructure.

"We strongly support the President's vision on infrastructure to create good jobs and succeed in a global economy, and working people are ready to work with him and hold him to his promises," declared Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, the country's largest labor federation.

"The president and Congress must act now or millions of Americans could lose their jobs in the months ahead," said Gerald McEntee, President of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. "To this point, the president reminded the Democrats of their obligation to lead and served notice to Republicans that 'just say no' is not an option."

"We are thrilled to see President Obama embrace an argument we have been making for years," declared the Laborers' President Terry O'Sullivan. "Building America's roads, bridges, rails and runways is not only our best option for getting people working again, but also is essential to America's long-term future. If we do not address our ailing basics and outbuild other nations, we cannot compete economically."

Labor reaction to the President's emphasis on the need for a strong government role in fixing the economy was also positive.

"We agree that federal action is needed to keep our economy from slipping back into the ditch," said McEntee. "AFSCME will fight for investment in vital public services which must be part of federal jobs legislation."

"We firmly believe that we should not be cutting government spending when the economy is so weak," said Trumka. "The economy is failing to create jobs at an adequate pace to dig us out of the hole we're in, and a spending freeze at this time will slow down job creation and growth - further worsening the deficit.

There is already evidence that emphasis on investment, innovation and infrastructure are resonating with large numbers of voters.

Pollster Stan Greenburg found that after Obama delivered his speech, GOP-leaning swing voters were among those who gave Obama positive assessments on each of the three themes he emphasized.

Greenberg noted that voters were saying 'the future belongs to the people who make the what and the how." According to the Greenberg poll President Obama's overall job approval among GOP-leaning swing voters jumped by 26 points after his speech.

Politico said the speech was designed to pressure the GOP to cough up specifics on how it would deal with the economy. "It was laced with meaty proposals designed to smoke out the GOP - to force Republicans to reveal plans of their own. Obama threw down the gauntlet on several monster issues that are likely to be furiously fought, and have lobbyists licking their chops."

While the labor movement was positive about the speech, it intends to keep the pressure on both Congress and the president.

"We need to know how the broad vision President Obama outlined last night will become a concrete plan to strengthen the government's role in creating fairness in our economy," said Amy Dean, the well known labor writer and journalist.

While Trumka was strong in his praise for the president for "understanding our need to be competitive in manufacturing, new technology and skills," the labor leader also said that Obama "must also understand that last-century trade deals that reward and encourage corporations that outsource American jobs will do little to generate new jobs in the United States or raise living standards here or abroad."

Trumka said there is a need to "move boldly" to put 15 million Americans back to work and rebuild bargaining power and good jobs for our middle class. We believe the President is headed in the right direction," he said, "but as he outlined tonight, the yardstick must be the health of the middle class and the American economy."

Image: WhiteHouse.gov

Shop Talk: saving jobs, preventing disasters and more

Sat, 22 Jan 2011 19:27:00 +0000

Not paid at all for three pay periods

Ryszard Abucewicz of Chicago wasn't paid at all for three consecutive pay periods.

He is in a new video by Interfaith Worker Justice that zeroes in on wage theft, a national epidemic that isn't getting the media's attention.

IWJ notes that every day across the country, millions of workers in low-wage jobs are being robbed of billions of dollars they are owed by their employers.

A study released by the group says 60 percent of nursing home workers, 100 percent of poultry plant workers and 90 percent of restaurant workers are denied their fair pay at some time.

Kim Bobo, IWJ executive director, says wage theft is "the crime wave no one talks about. It's really all around us. There are workers who are not getting paid minimum wage, not paid overtime, are misclassified as independent contractors so employers can avoid having to pay benefits, who don't get all their tips. Some get laid off and don't get their last paycheck. For some workers, they work all day and don't get paid at all."

To learn more about IWJ's campaign against wage theft, click here.

3,750 jobs saved at Kansas City plant

The United Auto Workers praised Ford Motor Co's announcement Jan. 18 that it will invest $400 million in its Kansas City, Mo., assembly plant over the next two years, which will save at least 3,750 jobs at the plant plus thousands of other supporting jobs.

Ford says it will produce a new line of next-generation vehicles at the plant.

This plant investment was part of strategic economic incentives created by the Missouri Manufacturing Jobs Act, passed during a special legislative session called by Democratic Governor Jay Nixon last summer.

Coal mine disaster 'preventable'

The April coal mine explosion at the Massey Energy Co.'s Upper Big Branch (W.Va.) mine that killed 29 miners "was preventable" if the mine had been in compliance with federal safety rules. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) officials told families of the victims Jan. 18.

MSHA officials briefed the families on its findings in a closed-door meeting, but family members spoke with reporters later and said MSHA coal administrator Kevin Strickland said the blast could have been prevented if a coal cutting machine had been properly maintained and if highly explosive coal dust had been controlled.

Without working water sprayers, investigators said, a small methane ignition grew into a huge one. Floating coal dust fueled it, and when it finally blew, the resulting blast was fed by coal dust spread throughout the mine, which explains an explosion that turned corners and killed along a two-mile path.

So far, no one has been jailed for criminal neglect regarding conditions at the mine. Federal prosecutors continue their criminal investigation.

Massey says it does not believe faulty equipment played a part in the disaster and that coal dust in the mine had been properly maintained.

Union credited with saving 700 jobs in Indiana

Workers at a General Electric refrigerator plant in Bloomington, Ind., have been fighting to keep the facility open in the cutthroat global economy. Now, two years after the company said it was going to shutter the plant, workers are celebrating. Instead of closing the plant, GE has announced it will invest $93 million in upgrades and begin to produce energy-efficient refrigerators at the plant.

Not only will that save the jobs of the plant's 700 workers, most of whom have 20 years or more experience, it will create 200 new jobs, which GE will move back to Bloomington from Mexico.

Workers credit their union, Electrical Workers IBEW, Local 24449, for much of the turnaround. Tammy Gilstrap, one of them, said, "We have a great union that is willing to go out and do what it can to save our jobs. We have a lot of dedicated employees in here and if we can get new technology, that'll be a good future for us."

He wants working families to pay

If new House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) gets everything on his budget-cutting wish list, it would be, says a news analysis from the Economic Policy Institute: "A massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to wealthy Americans and corporations and a wholesale dismantling of the social programs that all Americans rely on, including Medicare and Social Security."

Republican leaders are pushing to slash federal discretionary spending by 20 percent, including job-creating infrastructure programs, education, health, housing, workplace safety and other vital family support programs.

In "Paul Ryan's Plan for Millionaires' Gains and Middle-Class Pain," EPI analyst Andrew Fieldhouse says Ryan's roadmap is: "riddled with policies that ignore the lessons learned from the Great Depression and underscored by the Great Recession. Ryan's plan still swears by the failed Bush-era economic policies of cutting taxes for the wealthy while neglecting the middle class and national investments.

"It even proposes the partial privatization of Social Security, an increase in taxes on the middle class, the elimination of corporate taxes and the privatization of Medicare."

The Ryan plan would raise taxes on most Americans earning less than $200,000 while cutting millionaires' taxes in half. Fieldhouse says the wealthiest 0.1 percent of taxpayers - families making $3 million or more - would see an average yearly tax cut of $1.7 million.

In addition, the plan would replace the corporate income tax with an 8.5 percent business consumption tax, which Fieldhouse says, "would be passed on to consumers in the form of a value-added tax (that would fall heavily on low and middle income people)."

Health reform begins to affect union members covered on the job

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 15:20:00 +0000

PORTLAND, Ore. - The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act, signed into law March 23, 2010, by Democratic President Barack Obama, is starting to affect health insurance plans that union members and their families are enrolled in.

So far, the two biggest changes are that children will be able to stay on their parents' health plans until they turn 26, and that plans won't be allowed to impose lifetime dollar limits on claims for essential services.

Those changes must take effect whenever a union health trust's "plan year" begins - and no later than Sept. 23, 2011.

If an employer-paid health plan previously covered employees' children, those children will now be able to stay enrolled until their 26^th birthday - even if they're not living with their parents, are not in school, are not claimed as dependents on a tax return, and even if they are married.

However, until 2013, health plans may refuse to cover children who can get health coverage through their own employer or a spouse's employer.

Gene Mechanic, a Portland, Ore., attorney who advises union health trusts about the new law, says both requirements will cost money.

Plan administrators are estimating that covering kids through age 26 will increase overall costs 2 percent to 5 percent, and eliminating lifetime coverage limits will increase costs 0.5 percent to 1 percent.

The new legislation also phases out annual coverage limits over the next three years, but plans can request a waiver of that requirement and 222 plans had received waivers as of Dec. 3, Mechanic said.

Typically, union-affiliated health trusts are funded by an employer contribution negotiated as part of a collective bargaining agreement. So the additional expenses the new requirements bring on could lead health plan trustees to impose a surcharge on employers, or they could dip into reserve funds to cover the added costs.

One thing trustees probably won't do to make up for the extra expense is substantially reduce members' health benefits.

That's because if trusts do reduce benefits, they would lose their status as "grandfathered" health plans. A grandfathered health plan is basically any employer-paid health plan that existed before the new law passed and that provides a certain minimum level of coverage.

Grandfathered health plans aren't subject to some other new insurance requirements, such as: Providing preventive care without any co-pay or deductible, out-of-network emergency care be charged at the same rate as in-network care, and patients have direct access to obstetric and gynecological care without referral from a primary care physician.

Union members may have heard about several other insurance regulations that are part of the new law, but those don't tend to affect union health plans directly. For example, if insurance companies sell individual policies that cover children, they may no

longer exclude or deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions.

And insurance companies can no longer drop patients after they get sick, a practice known as rescission.

One other change may affect some union health trusts: As of Jan. 1, at least 85 percent of premiums collected for large-group insurance policies must be spent actually paying health care claims. In other words, insurance profit and administrative expenses can't be more than 15 percent.

That could result in rebates to union health trusts that purchase group health policies in states where administrative costs have been over 15 percent..

"Union health plans are living with these changes, and figuring out ways to lessen the cost as much as possible," Mechanic said. "What they're more concerned about is what's going to happen down the road."

So far, the changes are small and technical; the bigger, more noticeable changes will all take place three years from now - if the law hasn't been overturned by the Supreme Court or repealed by Congress.

Starting Jan. 1, 2014, everyone with earnings below the poverty level will be eligible for Medicaid. The uninsured will be required to buy health insurance through newly established state exchanges, or pay a tax penalty.

Households with earnings up to four times the poverty line will get some amount of subsidy to purchase the insurance. Small employers will also be able to buy

insurance in exchanges. Large employers will pay a penalty if they don't provide

insurance.

Many of the precise details will be worked out by state governments and federal agencies in the next year or two.

That means a lot of unanswered questions about how the new law will affect a complicated health care market.

For example, will employers that currently provide health coverage be more likely to drop it once their employees can get affordable, government-subsidized insurance through the state exchanges?

Large employers that don't provide health insurance will pay less than $2,000 a year penalty. How much of an incentive will that be to provide insurance for employees when employee-only insurance premiums can easily top $6,000 a year?

If more people are insured, and insurance is more standardized, will health insurance premiums decrease?

"I believe that if the law is really implemented the way it was intended to be, it could provide more affordable quality health care across the board," Mechanic said. But he added it's going to require a lot of work to make sure the reform accomplishes this goal, and unions need to be in the room, and at the table.

For union health plans, the law imposes short-term costs, but also provides long-term opportunities, Mechanic says. For example, if unions are involved when states set up the exchanges, the exchanges could operate in ways that level the playing field for union employers.

States are required to set up exchanges for individuals and small employers, but they could set them up for large employers (including union employers) as well.

Unions could negotiate contracts in which, instead of employers providing health care, employers could pay part or all of the premium for insurance bought though the exchange. It's even conceivable that union health plans, individually or in groups, could open themselves up to all comers, maybe becoming cooperative health insurers that sell insurance to individuals or employers on the exchanges.

Unions could play a role as "navigators" helping individuals or employers choose among insurance plans offered on the exchanges.

"All unions need to realize that the act is going to greatly impact them," Mechanic said, "and they need to start thinking about how they'll be impacted and what they can do as the law is being developed."

Don McIntosh is Associate Editor of The Northwest Labor Press

Photo: Outside the Racine office of Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., Jan. 18, demonstrators show their opposition to possible repeal of health care reform. Ryan opposes the healthcare reform. (Scott Anderson/Journal Times/AP)

AFL-CIO prez: Labor must reach out to survive

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 13:56:00 +0000

DETROIT - Saying the labor movement has become too small and too inward-looking to defeat corporate power by itself, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told the Auto Workers legislative conference that unions must build wider coalitions to achieve their legislative and political goals.

Trumka was one of a parade of speakers at the Jan. 17-20 confab to emphasize the coalition-building theme. Others included new Service Employees President Mary Kay Henry, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and pro-worker analysts such as Thea Lee of the AFL-CIO and Larry Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute.

Speakers also laid out the goals such coalitions should aim for. They include restoring the middle class, preserving health insurance reform unions helped push through the last Congress, and the right to organize.

But Trumka was the bluntest about admitting labor's weakness, decrying corporate power and suggesting what to do about it, in his Jan. 18 speech.

"After the year we've just had - and with the year we're facing - we have to be broader and stronger," he said, referring to successful GOP blockades of pro-worker legislation in the last Congress and the GOP House sweep in last fall's election.

Despite "I-don't-know-how-many phone calls," letters, marches and rallies that "pushed and prodded Congress to pass historic health care reform-and Wall Street reform," corporate America fought back tooth and nail, and won in the election, Trumka said. He said the Chamber of Commerce alone spent more than $150 million.

"Corporate CEOs dumped millions into the elections to defeat our working family candidates. Last summer and into the fall, we watched an unprecedented flood of corporate cash wash over our system - a billion dollars, most of it spent behind veils of secrecy."

Despite labor's mobilization - a mobilization Trumka took pride in - the corporate interests won, and will use their new power, in Washington and the statehouses not just to defeat the union movement, but to destroy it, he said. So labor must look at itself in considering how to combat the corporate aggression.

We're not as big as we used to be; our corporate opponents are bigger and we've become too insular - too inward-looking," Trumka said.

"So we've got to look honestly at ourselves, at the roles we play in our communities, at what's happening to all working people, and we have to ask ourselves: What more can we do to build the America we want to be? We have to reach out and solidify new strength in numbers.

"We have to build alliances and real partnerships with brothers and sisters in other unions, with members of our communities, with small businesses, with the faith community, with anyone else who shares our collective values and is willing to work for them," he declared.

Delegates, by and large agreed with Trumka.

"The economy matters and politics matter, and there is a need for our union and working people to all stick together," delegate Becky Ervin of the UAW's Local 160 said.

"Here we heard the truth - not like on TV when you only hear part of the story. That's enough to inspire all of us to work together," said Dereck Moczulski, another delegate.

Henry agreed with Trumka, urging labor to build coalitions around specific "flashpoint issues: good jobs, instead of tax cuts for the rich, quality public services and

comprehensive immigration reform."

Henry said such coalition building to "fuse labor and social justice causes" will get media notice - and hostility from labor's foes. But it will also be key in the run-up to the 2012 election, she said.

Pelosi urged the delegates to push preservation of health insurance reform as they lobbied lawmakers and when they returned home to build coalitions.

Her address came just before the newly GOP-run House passed a two-page bill repealing health insurance reform on a virtually party-line 245-189 vote. Three conservative Southern Democrats, who voted against health insurance reform in the last Congress, voted for repeal, as did all Republicans.

"We call on the UAW again: Make your voice heard. Join us as we stand against repeal and for creating jobs," Pelosi said. "This will be a long-term effort, and we need you to be the cavalry, storming Capitol Hill."

Preserving the health insurance reform was one of six legislative topics the 1,000 UAW delegates discussed with lawmakers.

Others included: Job creation by investing in infrastructure, strengthening the right to organize, and creating a $75 billion state and local jobs program; rejection of Social Security cuts; creation of one national standard for fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions so auto makers and workers can successfully re-tool and re-engineer cars; comprehensive immigration reform, and; passage of the reworked U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, which UAW and UFCW back and the Steelworkers, CWA and other unions, plus the AFL-CIO, still oppose.

Colombian labor leader seeks trade pact delay

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 13:44:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - Congress should delay the proposed U.S.-Colombia "free trade" agreement until a key Colombian law that leads to workers' oppression changes and law enforcement there improves, a top Colombian union leader says.

In a Jan. 19 session at the Washington Office on Latin America, Javier Marrugo, president of the Union Portuaria, the nation's port workers union, explained those workers handle 95 percent of cargoes to be imported and exported under the trade deal and that Colombian labor law is written to let so-called "cooperatives" ruthlessly exploit workers.

Marrugo's visit was sponsored by the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center.

Port workers, most of whom are Afro-Colombian, have suffered reprisals, fear for their safety and face indiscriminate firings for even thinking of joining the union, Marrugo said. Some do not even earn Colombia's minimum wage.

Most work under repeated four-month contracts signed with the cooperatives' middlemen. The pacts, by Colombian labor law, prevent unionization and deny the workers basic benefits, Marrugo added.

Given those conditions, Congress should refuse to even consider the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement until conditions change, Marrugo said..

U.S. unions, led by the Communications Workers and Steel Workers, are strong advocates of Colombian workers' rights and outspoken foes of both the FTA and the exploitative cooperatives. The cooperatives are often run by relatives of business owners, in the ports and elsewhere.

The Colombian law allowing such cooperative arrangements is so widespread and covers so many workers, says CWA President Larry Cohen, that Colombia is the only nation in the Western Hemisphere with a lower unionization rate than the U.S.

The AFL-CIO has campaigned against the U.S.-Colombia FTA, citing the Latin American nation's paramilitaries and their murderous record - thousands of deaths in the past decade - against unionists. Colombia has long been the most dangerous nation on the globe for union members. Most of the murders are unsolved.

In response, past Democratic-run Congresses pigeonholed the U.S.-Colombia FTA, despite an aggressive business campaign for it and other "free trade" treaties. This Congress, with a GOP-run House, may be more susceptible to business lobbying.

Conditions may change in Colombia, Marrugo said. The new elected government there is more committed to workers' rights. New vice president Angelino Garzon is a former union member and journalist who has already spoken out for changing the law establishing the cooperatives. Garzon will visit Washington Jan. 26 to discuss workers' rights and the FTA, among other issues.

Marrugo said there is already legislation before the Colombian Congress to curb the exploitative cooperatives. But even so, he warned, the U.S. Congress should not act on the FTA until Colombia actually changes its law and improves its enforcement.

The Afro-Colombians, who are concentrated in the ports, sugar cane fields and banana plantations, are particularly vulnerable, he added.

Photo: Demonstrators bleed and shout after being attacked by police at the Labor Day march in Cali, Colombia, May 1, 2010. Christian Escobar Mora/AP

Honeywell lockout threatens thousands in Illinois and Kentucky

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 11:16:00 +0000

United Steelworkers local 7-669 and the Steelworkers international Union issued a well researched report this week outlining the health and safety hazards posed by the use of scab replacement workers to operate Honeywell's Metropolis Illinois plant. The report, entitled," Communities at Risk," documents substantial threats to tens of thousands of residents in Illinois and Kentucky. The plant is located in southern Illinois near the Kentucky border.

The Honeywell plant processes uranium to make nuclear fuel. The process requires the use of some of the most toxic materials known to humankind. It requires a highly skilled and safety conscious workforce. Steelworker members of local 7-669 have been locked out by Honeywell since June 28, 2010.

During the six-month lockout there have been two major scares at the plant. On September 5, 2010 the accidental recombination of hydrogen and fluorine produced an explosion that shook the plant and scared nearby residents. Fortunately no one was hurt.

Then on December 22, 2010 a release of hydrofluoric acid triggered emergency sirens and activated the facilities emergency mitigation towers. The towers spray water in an attempt to knock down the escaping gas.

Honeywell later acknowledged that the dangerous gas leaked for nearly 2 hours before it was stopped. Again, fortunately, no one was hurt. Honeywell uses over a million pounds of hydrofluoric acid in the various processes in its Illinois plant.

According to their figures the release of just 16 percent of this amount of hydrofluoric acid could impact as many as 128,000 people in the surrounding 25 mile radius.

Both accidents are scary reminders of the dangers of using untrained, or poorly trained and inexperienced replacement workers.

At a press conference to release the report, Illinois State Rep. Brandon Phelps joined with USW 7-669 President Darrell Lillie in calling on federal regulatory agencies to order a safe shutdown of the plant until a new labor agreement is negotiated and the skilled union workers can return to their jobs. They urged immediate action by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

"In light of the community safety report, it is irresponsible for Honeywell to keep operating," said Rep. Phelps. "The warning signs were made clear in the report. It's not a question of if, but when a disaster will occur."

The Steelworkers were locked out six months ago, when negotiations on a new contract reached a deadlock. The local union proposed to keep working without a contract until negotiations could be settled, but Honeywell locked them out and brought in scabs instead. The union represents about 230 workers in the plant.

Negotiations deadlocked on the issues of healthcare and pensions, another indication of Honeywell's callous approach to health issues. This in the face of the fact, that some 42 workers from the plant have died of cancer and another 27 are struggling with the disease.

At the press conference local union president Willie said, "inside the plant, our union members are guardians of safety. At the present time, the inexperienced temps are in the Honeywell metropolis plant and under the thumb of management without the needed training and without a commitment to community safety." While pledging to continue efforts to bargain in good faith, Willie vowed, "We will not bargain away worker safety, or safety of the community."

Photo: Support for Honeywell Workers-Metropolis, IL Facebook page

Workers celebrate victory over Starbucks

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 16:25:00 +0000

NEW YORK - Members of the Starbucks Workers Union held demonstrations at branches of the coffee shop giant across Manhattan on Jan. 17, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, as they've done for years.

This year, however, the union had something to celebrate. This was the first King Day that Starbucks treated as an official holiday. Members of the union had been pushing for Starbucks to take such a step for years, and the corporation finally agreed in November, 2010.

Because of the designation of the day as a holiday, employees, who make slightly more than minimum wage, were paid time and a half for hours worked on King Day.

"The move comes after a spirited three-year initiative of the IWW's (Industrial Workers of the World) Starbucks Workers Union, which made public the company's second-class treatment of Dr. King's birthday and called on the coffee giant to pay the same (time-and-a-half) premium that it pays workers on six other federal holidays," said the union via a statement on its website.

Not recognizing King Day was particularly offensive, union members argued, as Starbucks promotional material often portrays a company that celebrates diversity. The union also pointed out that there is a far higher percentage of minority workers in the lowest retail positions than in the company's management or the corporate office.

The SWU has a different model than more traditional trade unions. While it has tried to organize certain locations, its membership is made up of several hundred at-large Starbucks employees, and works to pressure the company into granting more rights and better working conditions for all "partners," as the workers are called in the chain's corporate language.

Still, the old methods of organizing are put to use, and the King Day demonstrations were a prime example. At the Astor Place, Manhattan, location, several workers publicly presented a letter to the store's management, demanding a $1-per-hour pay rise, monthly meetings for workers to air complaints and the rehiring of two workers at other locations. The union claims the workers were fired unjustly.

The SWU says that it will continue to push Starbucks for more rights, including full unionization of the workforce.

Image: James Callan // CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Mortgage bankers flee as workers march into meeting

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 16:14:00 +0000

Several hundred workers from the Painters Union and the Sheet Metal Workers union marched Jan. 19 into a crowded Washington, D.C., conference room where the nation's mortgage bankers were gathering.

The protest was aimed at PulteMortgage, whose CEO, Debra Still, was chairing the meeting.

The bankers' summit was interrupted after the workers, who overwhelmed security guards with their sheer numbers, marched into the room, passing stunned bankers and chanting, "Where is the money? Where are our jobs?" Many of the bankers fled the meeting as the workers, some wearing their construction helmets, entered the room.

Homebuilding giant PulteGroup, the parent of PulteMortgage, received $800 million in public funds last year under terms of the Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act of 2009. The intent of the law was to provide money companies would use both to create jobs and assist workers they were laying off.

Angel Rangel, one of the workers who interrupted the meeting and an organizer for the Sheet Metal Workers, said, in a phone interview, "Pulte has received a billion dollars to put people back to work. But we haven't seen those jobs. Isn't someone accountable?"

The only report from Pulte indicating that it was spending any of the billion it got on job creation or aid to the jobless came last year when the company said it had spent $8 million on employee severances.

Soon after that announcement the company announced plans to cut hundreds of jobs and shut its plant in Tolleson, Ariz. The plant made doors, frames, trusses and other things for the company's new homes.

Pulte has made no mention to its investors, according to Rangel, of any plans for job creation.

When discussing the company's cash reserves, he said, Pulte's Chief Financial Officer, Roger Cregg, mentions only land acquisition and debt restructuring.

"Wherever Pulte's executives go, we will follow," said Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO president Saundra Williams, "until there is accountability for those taxpayer dollars. It is time for Pulte to show us the money that was supposed to create jobs."

Reports from the site of the protest indicate that many bankers fled as soon as the protest began.

One banker told the press, "We would have listened to the protesters if they had worn suits and asked questions without making a scene."

Photo: At a Troy, Mi. protest by trade unionists and the faith-based community in December. PW/John Rummel

Unions benefit Asian Pacific American workers

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:37:00 +0000

When it comes to wages, health insurance and workplace retirement plans Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) enjoy major benefit advantages if they belong to unions, according to a new report.

The study, "Unions and Upward Mobility for Asian and Pacific Islander Workers" was released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research this week.

It notes AAPIs are, with Latinos, the fastest growing ethnic group in the U.S. workforce. In 2009 AAPIs were one of every twenty U.S. workers, up from one-in-forty only 20 years earlier. They are also the fastest growing ethnic group in organized labor, accounting for just under one-in-twenty unionized workers in 2009.

After controlling characteristics such as age, education level, industry, and state, unionized AAPI workers earn about 14.3 percent more than non-unionized AAPI workers with similar characteristics. This translates to about $2.50 per hour more for unionized AAPI workers.

Unionized AAPI workers are also about 16 percent more likely to have health insurance and about 22 percent more likely to have a retirement plan than their non-union counterparts.

Union benefits are also greatest for AAPI workers in the 15 lowest-paying occupations. Low-wage workers earn about 20.1 percent more than non-union AAPI workers in low-paying occupations. Those in unions are also about 23.2 percent more likely to have employer-provided health insurance and 26.3 percent more likely to have a retirement plan through their job.

In conclusion authors of the report say AAPI workers who are able to bargain collectively earn more and are more likely to have benefits associated with good jobs. They add the data strongly suggest that better protection of workers' right to unionize would have a substantial positive impact on the pay and benefits of AAPI workers.

Gregory Cendana, executive director of the Washington D.C.-based Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance says the report "validates the work we do and shows why unions are extremely important and a vital part of the economic security for Asian and Pacific Americans."

Cendana notes it's important to share the findings in the report and inform people about their rights when it comes to joining unions. He said his group has been holding local workers' rights hearings in the D.C. area within the Asian Pacific American community. Similar forums are also being planned in different cities and towns nationwide, he said.

"The hearings are an opportunity for Asian and Pacific American workers to share struggles and engage community members in order to strengthen labor-community partnerships for a broader economic justice agenda," he said.

Cendana adds his group plans to continue working with the AFL-CIO and Change To Win federations and other labor groups to advocate on behalf of all workers to join and support unions.

"While unions benefit Asian Pacific American workers, it is far too hard for them to join unions due to our outdated labor laws," said Cendana. "We have to think pro-actively and creatively about addressing those."

Building stronger labor-community alliances and student-labor partnerships is something Cendana says his group is also committed to. "At the same time it's also critical to strengthen the labor movement's ties to the broader civil rights movement," he said.

For example the labor movement played an important role in helping students lobby for the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which Congress eventually passed and President Obama signed into law, he says.

Photo courtesy of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (AFL-CIO).

NLRB tells states they can't ban card-check unionization

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 11:55:00 +0000

The National Labor Relations Board, in a letter dated Jan. 13, has told Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah that their recently passed amendments banning the card check method of union recognition are null and void.

Amendments to the constitutions of those states conflict with federal labor law, says the NLRB and are automatically pre-empted by the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The attorneys general of the four states were also told the Board has authorized the filing of lawsuits in federal court, if necessary, to prevent them from enforcing the illegal amendments to their state constitutions.

The NLRB reminded the states that under the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, private sector employees have two ways to choose a union: They may vote in a secret ballot election conducted by the NLRB, or they may persuade an employer to recognize a union after showing majority support by signed authorization cards or other means.

"The state amendments prohibit the second method and therefore interfere with the exercise of a well-established federally-protected right," the Board wrote in its letter to the states. "For that reason, they are pre-empted by the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution."

The amendments have already taken effect in South Dakota and Utah, and had been expected to become effective soon in Arizona and South Carolina.

An excerpt from the NLRB letter to Tom Horne, the attorney general of Arizona, underlines the apparent high level of determination by the Board to use the power of the federal government to protect the rights of workers:

The NLRA, enacted by Congress in 1935, is the primary law governing relations between employees, employers and unions in the private sector. The NLRA implements the national labor policy of assuring 'full freedom' in the choice of employee representation and encouraging collective bargaining as a means of maintaining industrial peace.

Section 7 of the NLRA guarantees the right of employees to organize and select their own bargaining representatives, as well as the right to refrain from all such activity.

This Section 7 right of employees is a fundamental right.

Congress could have conditioned that fundamental Section 7 right on the employees' choice 'surviving the crucible of a secret ballot election.' But Congress did not do so.

The section of the law that defines the conditions under which a union may obtain the status of 'exclusive representative,' requires only that the union be 'designated or selected for the purposes of collective bargaining by the majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for such purposes.' As a result, 'almost from the inception of the Act it was recognized that a union did not have to be certified as the winner of a Board election to invoke a bargaining obligation.

The NLRB letter to the four states also criticizes the state amendments because "the inevitable consequence is that employers are placed under direct state law pressure to refuse to recognize - or withdraw recognition from - any labor organization lacking an election victory."

The Board also noted that a small disgruntled minority of workers would find it easier to take away the right of an overwhelming majority of workers to continue to be represented by their union:

"In addition, employees unhappy with a union designated by the majority of their fellow employees and recognized by their employer in accordance with federal law could bring state court lawsuits against both their employer and union claiming a violation of their constitutional rights."

Labor Department drafts rules to protect more health care workers

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 12:42:00 +0000

The Obama administration's Labor Department will propose new rules in October to bring more home healthcare workers under protection of federal minimum wage and overtime laws.

But even while the department's Wage and Hour Division is working on the proposal, the very idea of paying the workers a decent wage is already catching flak from home healthcare companies.

The rules, part of DOL's proposed regulatory agenda for 2011, were unveiled Jan. 5.

If adopted, the new rules could lessen the impact of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling several years ago.

In a case from Long Island, an underpaid and overworked home healthcare aide, with legal help from the Service Employees, sued to get the minimum wage and overtime pay. The aide got differing decisions in lower courts.

The Supreme Court justices, citing a 1974 exception in labor laws covering home health care workers, turned her down. But DOL says the home health care industry has changed so much in the last 36 years that the exception should be narrow - and Wage and Hour wants to design rules to accomplish that goal.

"DOL intends to consider whether the current exemption of companions working for a party other than the family or household using the companionship services is consistent with the status of a companion in light of significant changes in the home care industry," Wage and Hour's notice said.

After Congress exempted most "companions for the aged and the infirm" from minimum wage and overtime pay in 1974, DOL wrote rules the next year defining which workers are in or out under the law. The rules have changed little since, DOL said.

Wage and Hour will consider changing the rules "in light of the changed nature of the employment relationship for the majority of companions to the aged and infirm, the increased formalization of this sector of the labor market, and to reflect the secretary's strategic objectives" of providing good-paying jobs, Wage and Hour's notice said.

In the Jan. 5 online chat on the rules, Wage and Hour officials repeatedly deflected questions about the substance of DOL's proposal for the home care workers' wages and overtime by saying they're still drafting the language.

That didn't stop several commenters from opposing the idea, arguing it would force seniors into nursing homes.

"Has the DOL considered the barrier related to the cost of services to individuals that changing the companionship definition may pose, and that the change may necessitate some individuals accessing nursing facilities at an expedited rate with a spend-down to Medicaid when services in the community are not affordable?" one unidentified commenter asked.

A commenter identified as "Brandi" declared that, "I hope the DOL will seek input from the billion-dollar domestic worker industry about the costs if the companionship exemption is lifted, as most of the care received at a person's home is paid privately. The DOL will drive this industry underground if this is lifted, as seniors will be forced to move to facilities."

Added commenter Frank Price: "Our industry does not have large margins. Any increase in our labor (the lion's share of our cost) will directly affect our ability to offer services affordably. This will cause more individuals to be placed in nursing homes sooner. We allow our employees to choose to work under the exemption. Can this be included in any changes as an option?"

The Wage and Hour staff replied those issues - and others that were raised - would be addressed in the proposed rule itself. That proposal "is under development, so it's premature to discuss its content," the division staffers kept repeating.

Image: Several homecare workers. Courtesy SEIU Local 1199P // CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Shop Talk: Freelancers go union, paid family leave a success

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 11:17:00 +0000

Wages drop through the floor
Wages have fallen lower and stayed lower than in any recession since the Great Depression.
The Wall Street Journal reports that 54.9 percent of unemployed people lucky enough to find new jobs are making less than they did before and almost 40 percent took a 20 percent cut in pay.
The paper interviewed Dale Szabo, a Wisconsin manufacturing manager with two master's degrees who took a job as a janitor: "It's very hard work. I never dreamed I would be doing it. But I have to pay the bills."

Freelancers gain union representation
The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) has brought union representation to a growing group of workers outside the traditional union model: freelance writers and producers who work on nonfiction TV shows.
WGAE won two difficult National Labor Relations Board elections covering 150 workers at ITV Studios and Atlas Media, companies that contract workers for such popular nonfiction TV shows as "Dr. G: Medical Examiner" and "The First 48." Another election is set for workers who help create "Cash Cab" and PBS's "History Detectives."
Unions see helping freelance workers join a union as particularly important these days in an economy where 25 percent of those employed have temporary jobs and that percentage is rising. "Freelancers want the same as do other workers: fair pay, good benefits and respectful treatment on the job," says Justin Molito, WGAE's organizing director. Molito says the freelance economy is being used intentionally by multinational corporations to extract the maximum profit from people's labor.

"Let them eat tort reform!"
He billed it as a special session on job creation, but at the special legislative session Wisconsin's Republican Governor Scott Walker unveiled a "tort reform" package that, according to the states' AFL-CIO President Phil Neunfeldt, had nothing to do with jobs.
Some likened it to Marie Antoinette's famous "Let them eat cake" response to statements that her people were hungry.
"The special session on job creation," the labor leader said, "is being used as a cloak for corporate interests to achieve a long-desired goal - to deny access to the courts for workers who are injured or killed on the job, as well as consumers and other victims who have been harmed."

Thousands to gather for good green jobs
From Feb. 8 - 10 in Washington D,C, thousands of union, environmental, business, community and elected leaders will discuss how to create millions of good green jobs across America. The conference is the leading forum for sharing ideas and strategies to grow a green economy that creates good jobs, addresses global warming and other environmental problems and preserves America's environmental and economic sevurity.
On Feb. 10, Green Jobs Advocacy Day, hundreds of green jobs advocates will head to Capitol Hill to lobby lawmakers about the necessary tools to build a green economy.
The conference is being coordinated by the Blue Green Alliance, a coalition of labor and environmental organizations, which includes the United Steelworkers, Communications Workers of America, the American Federation of Teachers, the Utility Workers, the Amalgamated Transit Union, the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Paid family leave law is working
California's paid family leave law "has been remarkably successful" and received high marks from both employers and workers, according to a new study released Jan. 11 by researchers from UCLA/City University of New York (CUNY) and the Center for Economic Policy Research.
Study co-author Ruth Milkman, a professor of sociology at UCLA and the CUNY, says the law, "has helped hundreds of thousands of workers - especially in low-wage jobs - balance the costs and challenges of tending to family and work and it has begun to close the gap in access to paid leave benefits."
The business community vigorously fought against the now six-year-old law, claiming it would be costly and easily abused. But paid family leave has disproved opponents' claims that the program would be a "job killer," says Eileen Applebaum, the other co-author and senior economist at CEPR. "Almost all the employers found the program had positive or neutral effects on areas such as productivity, morale and turnover."
The law allows private-sector workers to take up to six weeks a year off at 55 percent of a worker's wage to care for a new child or a sick family member. The Federal Family and Medical Leave Act law allows up to 12 weeks off, but it is unpaid.

Court stops anti-labor practice at world-renowned Mayo Clinic

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 14:10:00 +0000

In a unanimous ruling Jan. 11 the Supreme Court rejected a claim by the famous Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. that its resident medical graduates were actually students not entitled to the protection of regular labor laws, even though they work more than 40 hours a week.

The ruling has major ramifications that will prevent hospitals from misclassifying medical residents as students, rather than employees. The Mayo Clinic and other hospitals and clinics have been trying to get a green light from the government to do this so they can avoid paying Social Security, Medicare and workers compensation on the residents' earnings. The Mayo clinic, by going to court, wanted to save millions of dollars each year by not paying taxes on many thousands of hours of labor put in by its medical residents.

Tens of thousands of medical residents would have to work long hours, often double and triple shifts, in the nation's hospitals with even less protection against employer abuse than they now have.

The clinic was challenging the Internal Revenue Service's policy of treating the residents as employees for tax purposes, requiring the medical facilities to pay taxes.

"Because residents' employment is itself educational, Mayo argues, the hours a resident spends working make him 'more of a student, not less of one,'" Chief Justice John Roberts noted in his ruling. "Mayo contends the Treasury Department should be required to engage in a case-by-case inquiry into what each employee does in his service and why he does it.

"We disagree. Regulation, like legislation, often requires drawing lines. Mayo does not dispute the Treasury Department reasonably sought a way to distinguish between workers who study and students who work. Focusing on the hours an individual works and the hours he spends in studies is a perfectly sensible way of accomplishing that goal.

"The Department explained an individual's service and his 'course of study are separate and distinct activities in the vast majority of cases,' and reasoned that 'employees who are working enough hours to be considered full-time employees have filled the conventional measure of available time with work, and not study."

While the court decision is a victory for the tens of thousands of medical residents laboring in the nation's hospitals and clinics, it represents only a small step in the long-term effort to improve working conditions for the medical school graduates.

The High Court ruling does not cover, for example, the question of whether a medical resident is an employee for the purposes of U.S. labor law. If residents were deemed to be such employees they would be able to organize and form unions at their hospitals and clinics.

Bitter chocolate: Hershey’s candy closes a plant

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 13:10:00 +0000

HERSHEY, Pa. (PAI) - The next time you buy a package of Hershey's candy kisses, take a good look at where they're made before you put your money down.

Chances are, the answer is Mexico, not Hershey, Pennsylvania.

That's because the iconic candy company closed its historic Hershey's East plant in its namesake Pennsylvania town, idling some 600 Bakery Workers (BCTGM) members. There's still another Hershey's plant there, BCTGM researcher Matthew Clark, who tracks the candy company, told Press Associates.

"But the exodus from Hershey has been going on for a long time," he adds.

Hershey's departure from Hershey - a company town dominated by the candy firm and Hershey Park - is a symbol of the increasing trend of the outsourcing and offshoring of U.S. factory jobs. That trend has been increasing in the last decade, according to a new report, Outsourced: Sending America's Jobs Overseas, published last month by Working America, the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO.

"They want to outsource, build plants in Mexico, shut down American factories and move stuff around," Chocolate Workers Local 464 Business Manager Dennis Bomberger told a British newspaper, quoted in the report.

The irony of the candy company's plan to move operations from its Hershey's East plant to Mexico, while still keeping the Hershey's West plant open - and even pumping money in to modernize it, Clark says - is that candy isn't the most-outsourced or offshored manufacturing sector in the U.S.

That title, the report says, goes to furniture. Where workers in the Carolinas used to make our tables and chairs, by 2007 93.5 percent of furniture came from overseas, says the U.S. Business and Industrial Council, four times as much as a decade before.

And in 2007, more than 70 percent of nine other manufactured products came from overseas, USBIC added. They included some very technologically sophisticated goods, such as medicinals (86 percent), industrial valves (78 percent) and machine tools (77 percent). Also imported: Two-thirds of the nation's computers.

In some cases, multi-national firms first outsource jobs to other manufacturers - who then offshore the jobs to take advantage of cheap labor abroad, the report adds.

The outsourcing and offshoring situation is getting worse and it's hitting more than just factories, the report notes. It even hits state and local government workers.

The Government Accountability Office reported in 2006 that 43 states had offshored some jobs, such as running food stamp programs. And sometimes when they didn't, the firms they outsourced the jobs to did.

For example, Ohio got stimulus law funds for the EnergyStar program, encouraging people to retrofit appliances to make them energy efficient. Then-Governor Ted Strickland, Democrat, banned use of such money for jobs offshore. But Ohio selected a Texas firm, Parago, Inc., to handle calls from consumers about EnergyStar rebate checks - and Parago subcontracted that task to a call center in El Salvador.

"As the Great Recession has worn on, outsourcing American jobs to foreign locations generated enormous corporate revenues," the Working America report points out. "Between 2007 and 2009, off-shoring yielded $30 billion in revenues worldwide and grew by 25 percent, according to data compiled by IDC, a market intelligence firm.

"Many large multinational corporations remain committed to shifting production overseas. A 2008 survey of 66 large multinationals by Watson Wyatt found 42 percent were likely to offshore their production to low-cost countries, in addition to reducing their human resources head count in their headquarters (26 percent) and chopping the cost of administering employee benefits through outsourcing (22 percent)," the report added.

"Back-office jobs in finance, information technology, human resources and procurement are increasingly popular targets for off-shoring by global companies. After surveying the largest Global 1000 corporations, the Hackett Group predicted in 2009 that companies would shift more than 350,000 back-office positions overseas at the same time as those firms acted to limit new employment and dismiss domestic workers.

"By 2010, acceleration in off-shoring would bring the total number of such back-office jobs to 800,000 and allow companies to save nearly $30 million per year. By 2010, Hackett expected one in four IT jobs in global corporations to be offshore."

Hackett Chief Research Officer Michael Janssen added, "For most companies, if and when they do start to restaff in IT, finance and other functions coming out of this recession, the large majority of the jobs they create will be in India and other low-cost labor markets." (The report can be found on Working America's "Job Tracker.")

That's already happened in Hershey, which saw the jobs at Hershey East move to Mexico, while the company's CEO raked in $4.7 million in salary. Overall, the BCTGM's Hershey local has lost more than 1,000 members' jobs, says Clark.

And Hershey, which BCTGM's predecessor unions first organized during World War II, now has only two unionized plants in the U.S., one in Hershey and the other, in Hazelton, Penn., with the United Food and Commercial Workers. There's even a non-union Hershey's plant in Hershey, making Reese's peanut butter cups. "But at least at that plant, they kept wages at par with wages in our plants," Clark adds.

BCTGM, like other unions, has fought back against Hershey's outsourcing and offshoring. Its tools include publicity and raising quality questions with federal officials. Clark noted the union disclosed "a fly-by-night chocolate operation in New Jersey" to which Hershey's subcontracted work - until a worker, at a plant lacking proper safety guards, fell into a vat of chocolate and died.

The report points out that Hershey's move of its Hershey's East operations to Monterrey, Mexico, hasn't exactly helped the company, either: the Food and Drug Administration had to seize shipments of Monterrey-made Hershey's Kisses. They were contaminated with salmonella.

With few exceptions, politicians have generally ignored the outsourcing and offshoring issues, the report adds. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., tried to push through legislation yanking U.S. tax subsidies for firms that shift jobs overseas, but he lost to a GOP filibuster. Other lawmakers say China manipulates its currency and encourages firms to offshore U.S. jobs there, which is why they pushed legislation against China's tactic.

"With public officials stung by incidents such as Ohio's accidental allocation of public funds to offshoring and the continued slow 'jobless' recovery from the Great Recession, controversy over offshoring may be expected to continue," the report adds.

"While government action and tax policies will have some effect on the extent of offshoring in the future, the future of this business practice may ultimately depend on the strategies adopted by corporate leaders and their willingness to recommit themselves to retaining jobs in their U.S. facilities. In this regard, there are glimmers of hope, with some corporations announcing plans to maintain U.S. production."

Ironically, one glimmer is in Hershey. It's investing $200 million to modernize the BCTGM-represented remaining Hershey West plant. And in one move to raise visibility of the issue, the union ran a campaign during Halloween urging parents to check where the chocolates they were buying came from.

It's also lobbying the FDA, after the salmonella was found in the candy from Monterrey, for country-of-origin and plant-of-origin labels on candy.

Still, those moves are after the fact. For the residents of Hershey, a classic company town, the job cuts of past years were "very devastating," says Clark.

Image: Ernie Bello // CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

“Thank God for the union”: Labor leads on community aid

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 12:14:00 +0000

With the increased attacks on unions from the right wing, it is more important than ever to remember everything that organized labor does for the community.

In fact, while unions' primary role is to defend and fight for the interests of dues-paying union members, it does much more. Not only in the realm of wages and benefits, but in everyday life, organized labor is leading by example.

To their credit, unions have set the bar pretty high when it comes to helping those in need. From passing the collection jar to helping locked-out or striking workers, to volunteering for the Salvation Army, organized labor is there. Below are a few examples from the St. Louis region of unions' good works during the recent holiday season:

* Unions in the St. Louis Building and Construction Trades set local records when they mobilized union members and families to help the Salvation Army. In one day, union members raised $23,207 for families in need.

* Members of Sprinkler Fitters Local 268 donated video games, board games, puzzles, dolls, stuffed animals, DVDs, CDs, sports equipment, bicycles, wagons and over 70 gift cards to two area children's hospitals.

* International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1 and Machinists District 9 hosted free flu shot days for area union members and their families. The shots were provided by the Visiting Nurses Association and the Greater St. Louis Central Labor Council.

* Electrical Connection, a partnership between IBEW Local 1 and the National Electrical Contractors Association, donated $20,000 to the UJAMMA Cultural, Arts, Education and Wellness Center.

* At the St. Louis Central Labor Council's annual Christmas gathering over $5,710 was donated to "$5 for the Fight," a local fund set up to help union families pay their mortgage, buy medicine and keep the electricity on.

* IBEW Local 649 and Laborers Local 338 donated $1,800 to the nearby Alton, Ill., Children's Home.

* The Egyptian Building and Construction Trades Council in southern Illinois helped 230 locked-out Steelworkers Local 7-699 members with a donation of turkeys to every union family and a $2,500 check for children's clothing. Additionally, Steelworkers Local 550 and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees each gave $5,000 to Local 7-699 families.

These are just a few examples of organized labor's good deeds in the St. Louis region during the holiday season. I could have listed many, many more.

Throughout the year and all over the country, unions go above and beyond the call of duty. Union members volunteer as Little League coaches; they organize neighborhood trash pickup days; they are active in their churches and other places of worship; they organize blood drives at worksites; they mentor kids in after-school and drug prevention programs.

In other words, unions and union members give!

As my grandfather, a lifelong union autoworker and World War II veteran, used to tell me, "Thank God for the union!"

Photo: St. Louis union members march in the 2010 Labor Day parade. Greater St. Louis Labor Council

Internet organizing brings on the ground victory

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:17:00 +0000

Laptops might forever replace leaflets as the way people get the word out when they want to form unions at their workplaces.

A union organizing campaign at a can plant north of New York City finally succeeded this year after workers at the Anheuser-Busch InBev Metal Container Corporation in Newburgh had failed twice, in recent years, to form a union.

The workers at the plant attribute their victory to a totally new form of union organizing. It involved no leaflets, no T-shirts, no secret meetings in people's homes, no bosses singling out the individuals responsible for the organizing drive, no fear of talking among themselves on the shop floor and a company management unable to harass or fire a single worker.

Did the city of Newburgh pass its own private version of the Employee Free Choice Act in order for this to happen?

No.

The organizers from Local 363 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers decided to scuttle the traditional methods of organizing and set up a slick, anonymous website with a special blog for the 164 employees to debate, strategize, and ask questions. The website then served as the vehicle for the workers to come together and eventually win their battle.

Sam Fratto, the local's assistant business manager who served as lead organizer, filled the Peoples World in on the details:

"We responded to their call for help," Fratto said. "Previous attempts to organize with the Steelworkers and the Teamsters had failed. The told us how afraid they were to even talk to one another on the shop floor. Some remembered how the company retaliated against previous organizers, even firing some of them.

"So, we said, 'Okay, get us signed pledge cards and we're going to do something completely different this time. They got 100 out of 163 to sign, more than enough. We immediately set up an anonymous blog.

"It was basically a 24-hour-a-day union and campaign meeting. The workers got involved and it allowed people to weigh in with concerns and issues before and after their shifts. 2 a.m. in the morning, if they wanted to. Gone was the fear they had, like the last two times, to speak their minds."

Rick Lewis, a 20-year veteran at the plant who had been through the previous union election defeats, said, "the blog made the impossible possible."

He said that it didn't even matter when workers realized the company was monitoring the website. "What mattered was that workers felt comfortable coming forward with their ideas about how to build a better workplace."

The company tried to counter with its own website, but it lacked two-way communication and fell flat on its face, according to Fratto.

"The beauty of what we did," the organizer said, " is that the company couldn't stop it. They had their captive audience meetings. On the website, the workers had already discussed what they would do: go to the meetings and remain silent. They tried to get people to spill the beans about the campaign. But we had already planned our response on the website. The workers remained silent. And since nobody wore any T-shirts or carried any fliers or stickers - who could they put the pressure on? No one."

The blog started one night last June with a direct, dramatic posting: "Fellow Can Plant Workers: Follow Us Here. In these tough economic times, it is very stressful for every middle-class family when it comes to worrying about work or what will happen at work. It is less stressful when you work under a written contract. This election will be successful because it is being handled by the workers themselves - as a group."

Workers were anxious for union representation because InBev, the Belgian company that took over Anheuser-Busch in 2008, has been pushing for reductions in wages, benefits, for larger health care co-pays and for numerous other concessions.

Now that negotiations are underway, workers are continuing the website where they discuss issues such as overtime, disciplinary procedures, scheduling and medical leave.

"This site is great," said 22-year veteran Joe DeStefano. "There's been a significant improvement in company/worker relations since it started."

"We need a safe place away from work to share our thoughts," another worker wrote anonymously."

Image: An IBEW sticker sits atop the table used for contract negotiations. Courtesy of the workers' blog.