People Before Profit blog

Reds put jobs fight at top of to-do list

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:17:00 +0000

The fight for jobs, and for the unemployed, is central to any economic recovery and to any forward motion for a people's agenda. With this in mind, last week the national board of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) took steps to beef up its work on the economic crisis.

"Labor, civil rights, women, youth and all the progressive core forces in our country are now moving to place the fight for jobs and the unemployed front and center on their agenda," said Sam Webb, chair of the CPUSA, "We have to pay particular attention to the working-class communities hardest hit, especially African American, Latino, and immigrant communities. And unemployment for youth is staggering."

He proposed that the national board establish a jobs committee of party activists to help coordinate and develop the work at all levels with special attention to party clubs and districts. Scott Marshall, chair of the CPUSA's labor commission was asked to chair the new committee.

The board hailed the establishment the Jobs for America Now national coalition andthe AFL-CIO's five point program for economic recovery and jobs.

"This is exactly the broad national coalition framework needed for this fight," said Marshall. The board pointed out that there are literally thousands of efforts and projects at the grassroots level led by local unions and union unemployed committees, community groups, retiree organizations, churches and central labor councils around the country. These efforts include not only advocacy and legislative efforts, but also food pantries, homeless shelters and job counseling and training efforts.

In accepting the assignment for the national board, Marshall said that while working in coalitions to strengthen and expand the national fight for jobs, the new committee will work with members and clubs to help build similar broad local coalitions and actions at the grassroots. "Millions are angry and suffering. If we look around in our communities and work places we will find many opportunities to get involved and help build grassroots action and muscle behind the demands of the national coalitions," Marshall said. "We need emergency action now."

Photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/green4all/ / CC BY 2.0

Labor’s big election loss

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:46:00 +0000

The Senate Democrats loss of a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority seems almost certain to doom attempts to revive the barely functioning National Labor Relations Board, the country¹s chief labor law administrator and enforcer.

That, along with its effects on health care reform, is certainly one of the most serious consequences stemming from the election of Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown to the seat formerly held by the late Ted Kennedy.

For more than two years, the five-seat NLRB has limped along with only two members, a Republican appointee of President George W. Bush and a Democratic appointee of President Bill Clinton. The other three seats had been held by Republicans, but were vacated when their five-year terms expired. Democrats, who by then controlled the Senate, refused to confirm the anti-labor Republicans that Bush nominated to replace them.

The two-member board has decided cases involving minor, non-controversial issues, but invariably has split one-to-one on major cases or simply decided against hearing them. That¹s left many important issues unresolved, and left both labor and management frequently unsure of what they should do.

Should employers be allowed to prohibit workers from using the employers' email systems to send union related messages, for instance? Just where on an employer¹s property can union organizers be allowed to distribute literature and talk to workers? Which workers can legitimately be classified as supervisors and thus ineligible for union membership? At what point does employer opposition to their employees¹ attempt to unionize become intimidation?

Dozens of NLRB cases that the board has decided have been appealed to the federal courts, on grounds that they weren¹t decided by a full board. Which raises the possibility that at least 80 of the 480 cases decided by the two-member board may be invalidated.

Several circuit courts ruled in favor of the two-member decisions, but the Circuit Court in Washington, D.C., held otherwise. The Supreme Court has agreed to make the final ruling, but meanwhile legitimate grievances of working people and their unions remain unsettled, often at a great hardship to the workers.

Some workers have waited years for the board to act. Workers at a home for the developmentally disabled in Brooklyn, for instance, have been waiting six years for the NLRB to certify their disputed vote to unionize.

The board¹s inability to make decisions has been especially hard on workers who've been fired illegally and seek reinstatement or back pay, as the law allows.

It could be worse, though much worse, as it was when Bush appointees controlled the board. As the current NLRB chair, Clinton appointee Wilma Liebman, noted, "The board lost its credibility." The number of cases brought before it dropped by half as the Bush administration "turned labor law inside out and missed opportunities to make the law more effective."

The Bush-controlled board limited the ability of illegally fired workers to recover back pay, allowed employers to discriminate against union supporters in hiring and made it much harder to form unions.

President Obama, who appointed Liebman as NLRB chair, has moved to bring the board up to its full compliment of five. But that's been delayed because of heavy opposition from Senate Republicans led by John McCain of Arizona and two of the GOP's powerful corporate allies, the notoriously anti-labor U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers.

One of the opponents' biggest worries is that an Obama majority on the Labor Board would put into law, through its decisions, provisions of the Employee Free Choice Act that GOP lawmakers have long kept from passage because it's designed to overcome the principal obstacles to unionization.

Chief among Obama's Labor Board nominees is Craig Becker, an associate general counsel for the AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Union and American Federation of Government Employees.

Democrat Tom Harkin of Iowa, who chairs the Senate Labor Committee, ranks Becker as "one of the pre-eminent labor law thinkers in the United States."

It's highly unlikely nevertheless that either Becker or Obama's other nominees will win Senate confirmation. The GOP senators and their anti-union allies fear that Becker would join Liebman to actually carry out the stated but frequently ignored mandate of the National Labor Relations Act that unionization should be encouraged.

America's working people need and deserve nothing less. But as long as Republican lawmakers stand in the way, they aren¹t going to get it.

Photo: George W. Bush's NLRB ruled many times against workers. This photo is from a 2007 protest calling attention to such anti-worker rulings. Tim1965/public domain

Foxwoods Casino workers vote on first union contract

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:47:00 +0000

Mashantucket - After three years of organizing with the United Auto Workers (UAW), 2,500 casino workers at the Foxwoods Resort Casino and MGM Grand complex will vote on their first union contract tomorrow. It is the largest gaming complex in the country.

UAW Local 2121 said the "historic first union contract with Foxwoods" is the first in the country negotiated under tribal law. They hope that it will open possibilities across the country.

The table-game dealers had voted in favor of UAW representation in November 2007, but the company challenged the election on the basis that the casino is owned by the Mashantucket Pequot sovereign nation and not bound by National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rulings. The U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the election, but the company was continuing its appeal.
A year later, when the tribe agreed to recognize the UAW as bargaining agent, the workers agreed to negotiate their first contract under tribal law instead of the NLRB.

"This is the first union contract to acknowledge tribal jurisdiction," said a Mashantucket Pequot statement, "which was the basis on which both parties expended extraordinary efforts to reach an agreement." The casino, which opened nearly 20 years ago, has become the largest private employer in the state with over 12,000 workers. It is a multi-racial workforce including many Asian, Haitian and Latino immigrants.

The two year contract includes a 12 percent wage increase and a system of pooling and dividing tips between the casino and MGM Grand, a high end facility opened in May, 2008.

Language for job safety is considered by the UAW to be "an industry model," with prevention for repetitive stress injuries, medical leave extended from six months to a year in the case of serious illness, and a smoke free area for workers and customers. The issue of banning smoking was brought to the state legislature last year by the workers.

The workers also won a seniority clause for job protection and promotion, and a grievance procedure including arbitration.

Denise Gladue, a baccarat dealer with 15 years seniority called the contract "a great victory." She said "This preserves our basic benefits during a tough economy, provides job security and contrct improvements in so many areas. We see this agreement as a win-win for employees and for the future success of the casino."

Labor backs president's emphasis on jobs

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:01:00 +0000

Union leaders reacting last night and today to President Obama's State of the Union address praised his emphasis on job creation and made it clear that the labor movement will lead a fight for passage of a massive jobs creation bill.

"We must act on a scale that will be meaningful," AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka said after hearing Obama's approach to job creation which included tax reductions for employers who create jobs in America and imposition of taxes on employers who ship jobs overseas.
"We need more than 10 million jobs just to get out of the whole we're in and we want health care fixed," Trumka declared "We want our leaders to break the stranglehold of Wall Street and the big banks and make them pay to repair the economic damage they created."

In his speech the president proposed additional taxes on bank stock transactions as a means of curbing speculation and dampening the willingness of financiers to engage in the gambling that he said pushed the country into the current Great Recession.

Obama specifically called on the Senate to immediately pass a jobs bill and tackle longer-term jobs strategy: "Take $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid and use it to help community banks give small businesses the credit they need... a new small business tax credit to hire new workers or raise wages...let's also eliminate all capital gains taxes on small business investment; and provide a tax incentive for all businesses, large and small, to invest in new plants and equipment.

"We can put Americans to work today building the infrastructure of tomorrow," the president declared. "We should put more Americans to work building clean energy facilities. It's time to finally slash the tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas."
Obama noted that the House has passed a jobs bill that includes some of these steps and urged the Senate to do the same. "I want a jobs bill on my desk without delay," he said to a standing ovation.

The House jobs bill the president referred to was a $154 billion measure passed last December that consisted of funds for infrastructure, aid to states, extension of unemployment benefits and expansion of child care tax credits. The bill the Senate is considering is reportedly only half that size and puts a heavier emphasis on tax breaks for businesses than does the House bill.

Some of labor's allies, among them Larry Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute and the Nobel prize-winning pro-labor economist, Paul Krugman raised concerns about a portion of the president's speech that proposed tackling the federal budget deficits by freezing spending on some domestic programs.

"In all likelihood the unemployment rate will be higher in October than it is now, yet somehow the White House thinks it's appropriate to begin reducing domestic discretionary spending freeze spending next year on domestic programs," said Mishel. "Reducing overall spending when tens of millions of Americans remain out of work would be a disaster. It will condemn millions to years of avoidable economic hardships. We need the federal government to inject demand into a severely weakened economy in order to create jobs."

Krugman said this morning that "when people ask me what I think of the Obama administration, I have a stock answer: they're not stupid and they're not evil, which represents a vast improvement. I stand by that position. But it's sad they apparently feel the need to pretend to be stupid."

Krugman noted that in one part of Obama's speech, where he said government, like the people, has to "tighten their belts," the president sounded like he was repeating last year's Republican arguments against the first stimulus program.

"It was stupid then, and it's stupid now," Krugman said, the administration is "well aware that the spending freeze will make no difference to the long-run budget outlook. This is just a sop to public prejudices and /or centrist Democrats in the Senate."

Obama used his first State of the Union Address to strongly renew his call for health care reform. "Don't walk away from reform - not now, not when we are so close," the president told the members of the Senate and the House.
"Say what you will about Barack Obama," wrote John Nichols in The Nation this morning, "But don't accuse this president of veering from the course he charted at a point when his popularity ratings were high."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is reportedly backing passage of the Senate bill followed by modifications through the budget reconciliation process. Those changes would meet demands by House Democrats for elimination or reduction of taxes on the so-called "high end" insurance plans some workers now have, demands for more subsidies for low and moderate income people and demands for more funds so states could improve Medicaid.
There is resistance to these changes in the Senate and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D.-Nev., has not yet endorsed the reconciliation approach that would need to be taken to make the changes.

Advocates of strong action to deal with climate change, while they were not pleased with the president's support for various forms of what they call "dirty energy," were pleased about his reiteration of support for a comprehensive climate bill.
"The president did not soft-pedal his support for climate action and clean energy jobs, as expected," said an editorial in Climate Progress. "Quite the reverse. He could have avoided any mention of the science. He could have given climate and clean energy a cursory mention, but he went out of his way to repeat the core message again and again. Indeed he used the phrase ‘clean energy' ten times."

The president challenged the big banks and the finance industry and called for strong new regulations on Wall Street. He said he would veto any financial reform bill that he thought was too weak.

A Democracy Corp focus group found, right after the speech, that Obama regained support by standing up to the banks.
"Obama managed to decisively reverse the view that he was too close to Wall Street," the group reported.

In a Democracy Corp survey from just before the Massachusetts election the group found that a 49 to 41 percent plurality said Obama and the Democrats were more concerned with bailouts for Wall Street than creating jobs for regular Americans. Entering the evening, swing voters in this group agreed with a 48 to 16 percent plurality saying Obama "puts Wall Street ahead of the middle class." But after the speech, the number disagreeing with that statement jumped a remarkable 50 points, to 66 percent.
The president also won points for refusing to give in to the steady drumbeat of Republican opposition to almost every single one of his programs.

He said it was unacceptable for the opposition party top oppose every single measure and offer absolutely no alternative proposals. "The president was right to call out Republicans for obstructing change and putting politics ahead of progress," Trumka said, and he was right to point out how the steps his administration has taken have alleviated the economic suffering of working people." Trumka noted that the American Recovery Act has resulted in 2 million Americans working now who would otherwise be unemployed and that it is on track to add 1.5 million more jobs by the end of this year.

The president noted in his speech that "All of this was done while cutting taxes for working Americans. We cut taxes for 95 percent of working Americans. We cut taxes for small businesses. We cut taxes for first-time home buyers. We cut taxes for parents trying to care for their children. We cut taxes for 8 million Americans paying for college."

Labor struggle at Grand Hyatt is our fight too

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:10:00 +0000

"If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound with mine, then let us work together"

- Aboriginal activist group, Queensland, Australia

SAN ANTONIO, Texas - Towards the end of the Cesar Chavez march last year it was brought to my attention that workers at the downtown Grand Hyatt had signed up by a margin of 62 percent to be represented by Unite Here. Unite Here is a progressive union representing hotel, laundry and restaurant workers across the nation.

Knowing what I know about the hospitality industry in San Antonio I was elated and very proud of these workers. This show of support for the union is a good thing and has the potential to make a very positive impact on area service workers.

Then last June I received a phone call from Jay Mehta, one of the Unite Here staffpersons. Basically Jay just wanted to know if I could help out with the campaign at the Grand Hyatt from a community support perspective. I of course responded with a YES! He informed me that Grand Hyatt management had reneged on their promise to remain "neutral" in the organizing campaign, had engaged a labor relations consultant and had terminated several members of the union organizing committee. To make a long story short, I became a community volunteer to assist the union as the situation at the Grand Hyatt had become quite ugly.

Workers at the Grand Hyatt earn no less than $10.21 per hour. While no one will become wealthy on this wage it is significantly higher than what other hotel workers earn in San Antonio. The reason for this higher wage scale is due to an agreement signed between the Hyatt hotel chain and the City of San Antonio. In exchange for this higher wage Hyatt was awarded $200 million from the city to get the project off the ground and running. But the agreement does nothing to protect the rights of workers from injuries, unfair labor practices and other serious problems. In fact construction workers who helped build the hotel have yet to be paid wages owed them by Faulkner USA, a building contractor out of Austin, Texas with a notorious track record of not paying owed wages, according to a source close to this issue. At present that issue is in litigation.

A primary issue that helped motivate workers to sign up with Unite Here is the grossly inhumane work load imposed on the housekeeping staff. Workers under union contract have a workload of 12 to 15 rooms per shift. By contrast, Grand Hyatt housekeepers (primarily women of color) are expected to clean between 30 and 34 rooms in a seven-and-a-half-hour shift! Do the math. This is more than four rooms per hour, requiring not only cleaning but also changing the bed linens and making the beds. Many of these rooms are left very dirty and in disarray, forcing housekeepers to spend far more than 15 minutes per room if the job is to be done properly! Workers who don't make the quota are disciplined, including up to being suspended and or fired.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that by imposing impossible work loads and forcing workers to work rapidly, accidents are bound to occur. Housekeepers at the Grand Hyatt report injuries to their hands, wrists, arms, shoulders and backs from the heavy lifting and repetitive motion. It is not uncommon for housekeeping supervisors to demand that the injured worker continue working, thus causing further injury. A study conducted by four universities including the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health and published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine shows that Latina housekeepers employed by the Hyatt hotel chain are at higher risk for occupational injuries than housekeepers employed by any other major hotel chain.

When asked to comment on this fact, Hyatt bosses chose not to respond.

Favoritism is also an issue. Preferred work hours, assignments, scheduled time off and holidays are given by supervisors on the basis of preferential treatment. Under a collective bargaining agreement such issues are resolved solely on the basis of seniority. Bosses resent this because it takes away their power to reward their flunkies. According to a couple of Hyatt housekeepers that I spoke with, workers who are not active in the union organizing or those openly opposed to the union get smaller work loads per shift.

While this practice is probably illegal, the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency set up to enforce workers' rights has a very long history of dragging its feet and in some cases actually siding with employers rather than protecting the rights of the workers. This is one major reason why organized labor is so adamant about passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

This also why the union voted to cancel the NLRB-supervised election back in July after Hyatt management had fired workers sympathetic to the union and had begun a campaign of intimidation through the use of a notorious labor relations consultant, Hector Flores. Had the union agreed to the election with the morale of the workers down, it would have in all probability lost the election. Once a union loses an election it not permitted to conduct another election for a at least one year.

The plight of the Grand Hyatt workers is not just in San Antonio. Across the nation Hyatt has engaged in similar anti-worker activities. In Boston, Hyatt laid off around 100 housekeepers and replaced them with workers from a contractor. These workers earn only $8 per hour while the laid off housekeepers were earning $14 to $15 per hour! In Boston as in most cities across the nation, housekeepers are Latinas, African American and/or women from the Caribbean islands.

In Indianapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Francisco, Hyatt is either fighting organizing campaigns or forcing the union into strike mode with demands that the workers pay more for health care benefits! This in face of the Hyatt Corporation posting $1.3 billion in cash or its equivalent as of last September, according to E*Trade.

In San Antonio, area hotel bosses are fighting hard and counting on the NLRB to assist them in defeating Unite Here in its attempt to bring justice not only to Hyatt workers, but to workers at other hotel chains as well.

This struggle goes far beyond just being a labor dispute. It is about justice for African American, Chicano and white working class folks, many of whom are women. These courageous men and women need and deserve our solidarity in order to overcome the injustices that are currently imposed on them. People can help in the following ways:

* Get in touch with Unite Here and volunteer your time. E-mail Danna Schneider at dschneider@unitehere.org or call her at 313-510-3004, or contact Daniel Ovalle at ovalle.daniel@yahoo.com

* Contact San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro and tell him to intervene. Point out that $200 million of our city funds are invested at the Grand Hyatt! Castro can be reached at 210-207-7060, 207-4168 (fax) or by e-mail at mayorjuliancastro@sanantonio.gov

* Get the word out on what's happening not only at the Grand Hyatt, but Hyatt hotels across the country! Have your church, community organization and/or union become aware and pass resolutions in support of the workers.

* Do not use Hyatt hotels. Corporate bosses understand one thing and one thing only ... MONEY! If people withhold the cash flow, then the boss's hearts and minds will follow.

We have waited far too long in San Antonio for workers at the bottom of the economic ladder to organize and fight for what is due them! If they fail, we all fail. When they are victorious, we will all share in the victory!

Photo: PW/Jose Cruz

AFL-CIO launches online college

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:42:00 +0000

The AFL-CIO is joining the National Labor College and the Princeton Review to launch an online college to bring high-quality degree programs to the federation's 11.5 million members and their families.

The organizers of the new online college, tentatively called the College for Working Families, say they aim to expand job opportunities for union members by providing education and retraining that's affordable and accessible. The programs will combine the advantages of online learning with the resources of unions to provide services specifically suited to the needs and interests of working families, they say.

The online college will be the first and only accredited degree-granting institution devoted exclusively to the education of union members. Courses will begin in the fall and include topics such as health sciences, business, criminal justice and education.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who chairs the National Labor College Board of Trustees, said expanding good jobs is a top priority for the labor movement.

"To achieve this, workers' skills and knowledge must match the role of employers in a changing job market," he said. "This new online education venture demonstrates our strong commitment to playing a significant role in ensuring that quality education for America's workers and their families remains affordable and accessible."

Michael Perik, president and CEO of the Princeton Review, said it's critical that the American workforce be successfully educated and retained without driving tuition costs beyond the point of affordability.

"We are confident that, through this partnership, we can help ensure that the students who enroll in the college will have a successful learning experience and will contribute in important ways to the growth of the American economy," Perik said.

William Scheuerman, president of the college, said the online courses would cost about $200 a credit, competitive with community colleges and far cheaper than most four-year colleges and for-profit schools. He said the labor college chose the Princeton Review and its Penn Foster subsidiary as partners because of their expertise in distance learning.

Penn Foster, based in Scranton, Pa., first provided mail correspondence safety courses to coal miners in 1890. Today Penn Foster provides online courses to 220,000 students and a large part of its operations is unionized.

The labor college is also accepting applications from workers in unions not affiliated with the AFL-CIO such as the Teamsters and Service Employees unions. Scheuerman said such students would probably have to pay a premium above what AFL-CIO members pay.

The online college seeks to provide bachelor's degrees primarily but plans to ultimately also offer associate's and master's degrees.

The AFL-CIO first established the National Labor College as a training center in 1969 to strengthen union member education and organizing skills. The college became a degree-granting institution in 1997 and in March 2004 gained accreditation from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. The school is located in Silver Spring, Md.

Since its founding more than 200,000 union officials and members have taken one or more of the courses offered. Over 1,100 B.A. degrees in labor studies have been granted. Recipients include international union presidents and officers, local union officials and stewards and workers from virtually every national and international union.

In other news, the labor college and the AFL-CIO's Center for Green Jobs recently launched the Green Labor Journal, a monthly online journal that aims to examine issues of sustainability, energy use and climate change from a union perspective.

The journal will feature green initiatives by labor groups and provide up-to-date information on new developments in green policy, technology and work processes. The online journal will also highlight the important role of unions in environmental debates.

Each month the journal will emphasize that green jobs must pay decent wages and benefits so workers can sustain themselves and their families, labor leaders say. All green policy initiatives must include fair labor standards, they add.

The journal's current topics include an article on the recent United Nations climate change talks in Copenhagen and the NLC's Green Workplace Representative Certificate Program. The program provides working people with the theoretical knowledge and practical skills they need to conduct workplace sustainability audits, organize a "greening committee" in every workplace, and work with management to make needed changes to address climate change.

The four-week program will be spread over 12-16 months with a curriculum designed for people in every workplace and is described as not highly technical.

To learn more about the National Labor College visit its web site. Also see the Green Labor Journal web site.

Photo: National Labor College graduates receive diplomas. (www.nlc.edu)

Labor movement pressing for action on health reform

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:54:00 +0000

Some in Congress are displaying confusion or timidity on the prospects for health care reform in the wake of this week's Massachusetts Senate election. But labor movement leaders see a clear and rapid path forward to cementing reform into law.

Both houses of Congress have passed significant health care reform measures. Some unions are saying the House should pass the bill already approved by the Senate and, through a parallel process, move forward with the Senate to make changes through any means available, whether through reconciliation or other pieces of legislation.

The new 59-41 Democratic majority in the Senate, one vote smaller than the majority that existed before the GOP victory in Massachusetts, should not be any type of game changer in finishing the health care reform effort, labor leaders say.

SEIU President Andy Stern said, "There is no turning back, no running away, no reset button."

Labor's push to move full speed ahead on health care reform comes as some lawmakers in both parties are trying to use the Scott Brown victory to say that health care reform bills already passed by both houses of Congress should be scratched altogether with a new "bipartisan" piecemeal approach that begins with what "everyone can agree upon."

The AFL-CIO is calling this approach a cave-in to the insurance companies and noted today that as a result of the Brown victory the prices of insurance company stock on Wall Street are already soaring. (See People's World columnist Scott Marshall's thoughts on this.)

The International Labor Communications Association sent a communiqué to unions and pro-labor organizations all over the country this morning reminding them that it would be a defeat to have to start the battle for health care reform all over again. "The House can decide to pass the Senate's bill unchanged or begin again in committees through a reconciliation process but the main thing is that this is no time to let up," the statement read.

Only a week ago the AFL-CIO had announced that after negotiations at the White House and with congressional leaders, the labor movement had commitments for major improvements in the Senate version of health care reform. Those included better cost controls, guarantees that everyone would end up with health care plans as good or better than the ones they now have, more choice of doctors and plans, a greater government "watchdog role," more employer responsibility and a means of eventual re-opening of the public option issue.

These improvements, the federation is now saying, can be achieved with the House and Senate acting together.

But acting together is not so easy, nor is it so clear what that means. Early indications from President Obama seem to suggest he wants members of Congress to "coalesce" around items that everyone can agree on, which could mean more compromises to get at least one Republican vote.

The labor movement is also making it clear that it does not intend to allow the Massachusetts election results to dampen its electoral efforts in the coming 2010 legislative contests.

"Confusion about the Democrats' health care bill and anxiety about the economy cost the Dems their 60th vote," said Karen Ackerman, the AFL-CIO's political director.

Describing Democrat Martha Coakley's campaign Ackerman said, "She did not make the case to working people and they were not convinced that she cared enough about their issues." Ackerman said that when there is a strong pro-worker candidate who makes the case, a labor-backed effort to get out the vote and help insure victory is almost always successful. For 2010, she said, "labor plans its biggest election effort ever."

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/italintheheart/ / CC BY 2.0

Restaurant workers take fight to the courts

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:37:00 +0000

DEARBORN, Mich. - A major turning point has been reached for the restaurant workers at Andiamo restaurant here. Their fight for fairness and dignity on the job, which has won wide support from students, clergy, labor and the social justice community, is now seeking legal backing as workers from the restaurant filed a federal wage and hour lawsuit on Jan. 12 in federal district court.

They have also filed a compliant with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charging their employer discrimination on the basis of race, national origin and gender.

The workers have been organized by the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC), a national organization that fights for restaurant workers' fundamental rights to fairness, respect and dignity in the workplace.

At Andiamo, they have had no shortage of issues to organize around.

According to Minsu Longiaru, ROC-Michigan coordinator, the lawsuit is based on workers being owed "upwards of $125,000 dollars for damages, unpaid wages and legal violations they have experienced."

Longiaru said that last fall the workers had sought to talk to management about their concerns but were told, "We don't want to meet with you."

Longiaru said, "If they won't hear us on the inside, maybe they will hear us on the outside."

"Outside" has meant weekly spirited actions full of singing and chants that ROC's supporters make sure are heard loud and clear by both management on the inside and those driving by the busy avenue the business sits next to.

Present at last week's rally was Michael Morganroth, a former Andiamo server who said he was promised he would earn nearly $500 a week but was lucky to make minimum wage working six shifts a week. "Every day management would tell us we were lucky to have a job and to not complain," he said.

"After a year of making dreadful money I approached management and let them know I wasn't making enough money and I wanted more tables per day," Morganroth said. "They told me since I was unhappy to consider myself terminated."

"It took me two and one-half months to find another job. I was literally at the gas station begging for quarters, washing windows - I was just trying to pay my bills. I had no health care. They fought me tooth and nail with my unemployment."

"I teamed up with ROC to make sure nobody would have to go through that again and to make this a better working environment," Morganroth said.

Another server who was terminated is Naome Debebe-Bogale. "It was the holiday time when they let me go, right before Christmas, so it's been really, really difficult," she said.

Now she's looking for work and having trouble paying bills.

Debebe-Bogale said that when workers stood up for their rights, "We get fired, hours get cut and we're told that we are under surveillance at all times."

"I work hard, we all work hard, we play by the rules, why can't they?" she asked.

Saundra Williams, president of the Detroit Metropolitan AFL-CIO and Pastor John Pitts Jr., chairman of Metropolitan Detroit Interfaith Workers for Justice, gave greetings and encouragement to the workers and their supporters.

The workers are being represented by the Sugar Law Center for Social and Economic Justice, Working Hands Legal Clinic and Kresch Oliver, PLLC.

Photo: PW/John Rummel

Hotels may force nationwide strike, union leader warns

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:10:00 +0000

The companies that control the nation's major hotels may force the union that represents their workers into a nationwide strike, says John Wilhelm, president of UNITE HERE.

He made that prediction this week as he talked about hotel chains across the country. Wilhelm says these corporate giants are stalling in negotiations as they demand givebacks from their workers, who are "overworked and underpaid despite continuing high profits."

The major hotel chains and the union are in negotiations at convention hotels, among them ones where contracts have already expired, in Anaheim, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston and other cities.

Some cities have seen major civil disobedience actions by hotel workers and their supporters. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka was arrested recently at a sit-in and demonstration in San Francisco.

Despite these actions, Wilhelm says the hotels remain intransigent. "We still have contracts we can't settle," he said, and answered "no" when asked whether the action in San Francisco had produced any movement in the bargaining there.

"The Chicago contract's already expired and the big Los Angeles contract will expire this year," Wilhelm said. "They won't move. They've figured out how to lay off enough staff to remain profitable even in this economic crisis. Meanwhile, they are attacking our health benefits."

The process of strike authorization by the union's workers is well underway.

The membership of Chicago's UNITE HERE Local 1 voted by an 89-11 percent margin, Oct. 28, to authorize a strike at five convention hotels. The vote came after contracts covering 6,000 workers at 30 hotels had expired Aug. 31.

While health care is a major issue for the Chicago workers they are also angry because the hotels laid off hundreds of housekeepers and are forcing the remaining workers to work overtime.

"Starwood and Hyatt sought to use the economy as an excuse to cut benefits," says an official statement released by the union in Chicago. "Under their current proposal as many as half of all workers at current staffing levels would lose existing health care coverage. If adopted, the proposals threaten to set a standard that would affect health care for thousands of workers and their families."

Chicago is already the scene of a historic strike by hotel workers. A Local 1 strike at another convention hotel, the Congress, is now in its sixth year. That strike was forced by management when it cut both wages and health care benefits.

It is the Hyatt hotel chain, however, that has come to represent for the labor movement everything it is up against.

On Jan. 7, a day after his arrest in San Francisco, Trumka led the picket line and addressed a rally at the Hyatt Century City in Los Angeles. Hyatt's contract in Los Angeles with the union, which covered two hotels with 800 workers, had expired last November.

"The Hyatt has not behaved responsibly," Trumka said. "First, the company fired 98 experienced housekeepers in Boston only to replace them with $8-an-hour staffing agency employees. Next, a study in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine found housekeepers working at the Hyatt have a higher injury rate than housekeepers at other top hotels. It's time for the Hyatt to clean up its act."

The fired Hyatt housekeepers in Boston have won massive support from all over the North American continent. Demonstrations and civil disobedience actions have taken place not only in Boston but at Hyatt hotels in Los Angeles, Chicago, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, Santa Clara, Calif., Toronto and Vancouver, British Columbia.

"Hyatt is making many millions for the hotel owners but that isn't stopping them from trying to make it impossible for me to get decent health care for my children and myself," said Carolyn Wilson, who has worked for four years as a housekeeper at the Hyatt in Chicago. "How can they sleep at night? How can they do this? What they did to those women in Boston is unforgivable and if they think that the workers are going to take this, they have another thing coming."

"We will end up with a good contract," said Amanda Sanchez, a restaurant worker at the same hotel. "They want to make billions and they want to move forward by expecting us to move backward. It's not going to happen."

Photo: San Francisco hotel workers demonstration Sept. 24, 2009, by Marilyn Bechtel/PW

Honor Dr. King and boycott Bissell products, workers say

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:49:00 +0000

JOLIET, Ill. - As a way to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., religious and labor leaders here announced a boycott of Bissell products after 70 workers were fired last year.

The workers and their supporters say they were fired en masse after they blew the whistle on several violations at the company's warehouse. They filed legal complaints over several violations of state and federal law and after the workers announced to management that they were organizing a union they were fired.

Steve Jackson is a social justice minister with Christ the Servant parish in Woodridge, Ill.

"This boycott is about bringing justice to the workers who were wrongfully fired," Jackson told the World by phone.

"We're not going to wait and we're going to tackle Bissell head-on with this boycott," he said. "As the religious community we will not tolerate abuses of human dignity."

Jackson notes, "We are also using the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday to announce this call to action because he was killed trying help sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn., more than 40 years ago."

Jackson said he and a group of other clergy leaders in the area have been trying to get Bissell and the management at the warehouse to sit down and talk. But both Bissell and management refuse to discuss the matter. They continue to claim they have done no wrong, said Jackson.

"But clearly the workers were fired due to their union organizing campaign," Jackson said.

In a press release Rev. Craig Purchase of Mt. Zion Tabernacle in Joliet said, "Dr. King called for workers to have decent wages, fair working conditions and respect."

Purchase adds, "How can we celebrate the legacy of Dr. King without addressing the injustice that exist in our backyard? As a community of faith we must demand justice for our sisters and brothers."

The only way to make them listen to us is to hurt their pocket book, said Abraham T. Mwaura with Warehouse Workers for Justice.

Speaking to the World by phone Mwaura notes, "And we can't celebrate the holiday if there is a severe injustice going on."

King was killed for helping workers organize, he said. The call for a boycott today has profound meaning and it's our responsibility in understanding what celebrating King's life is all about, said Mwaura.

Boycott leaders say King fought for justice such as: decent wages; fair working conditions; livable housing; old age security; health and welfare measures; and conditions in which families can grow with quality education for their children and respect in their community.

Many of the 30,000 warehouse workers in Will County, where the Bissell warehouse is, work in sweatshop conditions, with low wages and few benefits, they say.

Some of the violations filed by the Bissell workers include:

Discrimination against women including earning up to $2.50 per hour less than men doing the same job even with more time at the company;
Targeting and discrimination of a pregnant woman to do the heaviest jobs in violation of her doctor's restrictions;
The use of unregistered temporary employment agencies, which is a violation of Illinois state law;

Also, Bissell workers charge they received unfair pay, including pay cuts and paying workers less than minimum wage, with some receiving wages as low as $2 per hour. Workers also received threats of retaliation from management for standing up for their rights and filing charges, organizers said.

The firing of the 70 warehouse workers took place after the workers decided to form a union and file charges on the company's illegal practices, also a labor law violation, organizers charge.

Leaders of the action are calling on congregations and people of faith to join them in boycotting all Bissell products such as vacuum cleaners, deep cleaners, mops, brooms, brushes, hard surface cleaners, cleaning formulas and sweepers.

The religious leaders are urging supporters to sign a letter to be sent to Bissell and the warehouse management calling on them to restore the workers their jobs back and to respect their legal right to organize.

Photo: www.warehouseworker.org.

Video: Boycott Hyatt

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:48:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES -- At a rally Jan. 7 labor leaders and activists here, including AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and LA County Federation leader Maria Elena Durazo, told the Hyatt Hotel Corporation, "Enough! It's time to take on the Hyatt Hotel Corporation!"

The AFL-CIO blog reports, "The Hyatt is one of several national hotel chains that are using the recession as an excuse to demand cuts in health care benefits and other concessions in contract talks. In Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago, some, 20,000 UNITEHERE! members since last year have been working without contracts, while contracts for hotel workers in a half dozen other cities are set to expire soon."

Autoworkers find little comfort in industry show

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:28:00 +0000

DETROIT - The Ford Motor Company is celebrating the fact that its Fusion Hybrid was named "car of the year" by Motor Trend. But the award will bring little comfort to unemployed autoworkers. The Fusion is not made in the United States.

"What's ironic to me, as the years go by, there's less and less union production on the cars being exhibited in the center of this union industry," said United Auto Workers retiree Frank Hammer outside the industry's annual auto show here. "All of them (GM, Ford and Chrysler) are more and more non-union."

Hammer, organizer of the autoworker caravan that traveled to Washington in 2008 to lobby for aid to the auto industry, was joined by other autoworkers and their supporters in a protest outside the North American International Auto Show. The protesters had this message: the auto industry and government must address workers' concerns on jobs, health care, climate change and the need to build the mass transit industry.

The loss of jobs, whether it be to Europe, Asia, South America, or non-union plants here in the United States, is a major reason why Detroit's unemployment rate is almost 50 percent and Michigan's is officially 15 percent and in reality much higher.

The autoworkers also came to counter "tea-baggers" who showed up to protest the appearance of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the government's intervention, and use of tax money, to save the auto industry.

"If the tea-baggers had had their way, there would have been no government loans to GM and Chrysler and where would we be? They are not speaking for autoworkers," said Hammer. But he added, loans to GM and Chrysler should be used "for a much faster transformation addressing climate change." The tea-baggers, he noted, are not talking about climate change - "they don't even know it exists."

Conversion of closed plants to other productive uses was on the minds of many. Steve Babson, retired American Federation of Teachers member and former staff member at Wayne State University's Labor Studies Center, said that former autoworkers have tremendous skills that are a valuable resource, even more so than the machinery in the shuttered plants.

"Maybe not so much the equipment but the skills of people working with metal, carbon fiber," Babson said. "That's the vital resource. There are a lot of very big buildings that are empty. But the key resource is workers."

If bailout money goes to banks, it should go with strings attached, he said. "This money should be targeted for investments that are going to rebuild the economy on a sustainable basis."

Wendy Thompson had in mind a specific plant she felt would be ideal for "green" production. Thompson, the past president of UAW Local 235 at American Axle, said axle plants and the equipment they have are suitable for production of windmills.

"Rather than there being a brain drain and everyone forced to leave the area, autoworkers should be getting those jobs," said Thompson.

Ron Lare, who retired in 2008 from the Ford Rouge plant, was particularly upset about health care. The Ford retiree, who worked on the assembly line for 11 years before getting into tool and die, warned that thousands of children formerly covered under the union's insurance program are going to lose health care coverage.

If a child has a grandparent with union retirement benefits who is the child's principal supporter (and the grandparent proves it with a 1040 tax return form), past practice has allowed the child to be covered under the grandparents' health care plan, Lare noted.

"Ford workers just voted down concessions and suddenly we get this sneak attack during the Christmas holiday that the 1040 saying you're the person supporting this child is no longer good enough."

Lare pointed out that a parent would now be forced to give up a child for adoption by the grandparent so coverage would continue.

"We don't know who made this decision - it was probably the VEBA board," he said, referring to the separate board that now manages workers' health benefits.

Contrary to what some people think, the union is a minority on the VEBA board and is not responsible for this cut, said Lare. He added, "It really makes my blood boil because somebody is sitting up in the office making decisions to cut kids off health care."

Glancing over at the tea-baggers, General Baker, longtime UAW activist, commented, "These people over here are opposing the bailout of Chrysler and GM. I think the government did the right thing. iIn fact we should nationalize GM and Chrysler. They got most of it now, take the rest of it and have the government run it because they can't do worse."

As he talked autoworkers were chanting, "Union jobs for you and me, not some lousy cup of tea."

Photo: PW/John Rummel

Rite Aid workers fight for first contract

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:20:00 +0000

When it comes to union busting, the retail drug giant Rite Aid is the "poster child" for why we need the Employee Free Choice Act, says Peter Olney, organizing director for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

Some 600 unionized workers at the company's southwest distribution center in Lancaster, Calif., thought they had won when they voted in the union but soon learned that fighting for their first contract would continue their struggle.

EFCA would let workers form a union by signing cards authorizing union representation, mandate arbitration to prevent employers from stalling in first contract negotiations, and increase penalties for violating the rights of workers supporting unionization.

Three years into a vicious anti-worker campaign by the nation's third largest retail drug chain, "the workers remain solidly behind the union," Olney said, "but they've been through hell and back."

Speedup, mandatory overtime, mistreatment and arbitrary dismissals were among the working conditions that motivated the workers to first reach out to the ILWU in 2006.

In an election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board, the workers voted to join ILWU in March, 2008, making this "one of the largest private sector victories in California in many years, certainly in warehouse," Olney said.

But sixteen months and 60 negotiating sessions later, the workers are still without a contract.

Despite a continuing company campaign that has included harassment, intimidation, illegal threats, firings of union supporters, the use of professional union-busting consultants, and an effort to decertify the ILWU, the workers are holding firm behind their union and making gains.

In negotiations with the company, the workers won protections against dangerous indoor heat, the right to refuse dangerous work, and a process by which to deal with ergonomic problems.

As the union returns to negotiations this week, it expects to put the final touches on an agreement with the company on employee discipline and discharge policies.

The ILWU has been able to block an effort by Rite Aid to decertify the union, which Olney described as a "game that so many companies play."

After workers choose the union, he said, companies commonly engage in "surface" bargaining, they "wait out the union for a year and then decertify," a tactic facilitated under current labor law which the EFCA would eliminate.

"We of course did not lie down and allow all this to happen," Olney noted. Early on the union reached out and received widespread support from throughout the country and resorted to a series of legal actions, forcing the company to start bargaining more seriously.

Support has been forthcoming from other unions, community organizations, consumer groups, senior citizen networks, and elected officials. Some of the workers also appeared on television and radio programs.

Solidarity actions have been both varied and creative. They have included informational picketing at Rite Aid retail stores throughout the country, a postcard campaign aimed at the CEO, a confrontation with management at the annual shareholder's meeting in New York, and a spirited Halloween rally at a Rite Aid store in Portland, Ore.

Last September Rite Aid union members met with congressional representatives in Washington for a "Lobby Day" to promote the EFCA. During the AFL-CIO convention in Pittsburgh that month, Rite Aid worker Debbie Kaliff brought the house down with an impassioned speech and, later along with other speakers, shared her stories with Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

After being informed of Rite Aid anti-worker activities at their annual Employee Benefits Conference in Orlando, Fla., union benefit managers late last year expressed alarm and suggested they be included in talks to win a fair contract for the workers without further delays.

ILWU Secretary-Treasurer Willie Adams, in December 2008, told the Food and Drug Council convention in Las Vegas, "One thing they (Rite Aid) understand best is money," noting that ILWU members and pensioners had spent nearly $8 million dollars on Rite Aid prescriptions the year before.

"That kind of business isn't something Rite Aid should be taking for granted, and it isn't business they can afford to lose," Adam said. Union leaders responded by pledging to also investigate the drug business Rite Aid is receiving from their union health plans.

The union has also been aggressively pursuing the workers' case through the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

At the union's urging, the NLRB initially alleged 49 violations by Rite Aid, including illegal threats, harassment and firing of union supporters. As a result, the company was compelled to rehire dozens of employees with back pay.

Olney complained that companies like Rite Aid employ coercive measures and fire workers trying to organize. "When they're found guilty, they experience a slap on the wrist."

A million dollar settlement in back pay is "meaningless to a Fortune 500 company" like Rite Aid, Olney said. He noted that the EFCA would impose stiffer monetary settlements and fines.

Last September the NLRB issued complaints charging the company with illegally laying off workers, reducing hours, reassigning work, and failing to provide the union with information needed for negotiations. The court date with an NLRB judge is pending.

For the workers, Olney said "It's been a hell of a fight but they stick with the union." He is confident "they're going to persevere, and so is the ILWU," he concluded.

For more information and to get involved, contact Peter Olney at peter.olney@ILWU.org or (415) 775-0533, ext. 220.

Photo: Community supporters have visited Rite Aid stores, including this one in Oakland, to show solidarity for 600 warehouse workers in Lancaster, Calif., that are trying to negotiate their first contract after nearly two years of negotiations. ILWU

Challenging anti-government ideas

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:50:00 +0000

Build the fight for jobs - Part 3

Third in a series of three articles

Rick Nagin also co-authored this series.

Aside from "supply-side economics," the other pillar of right-wing corporate ideology is the false claim that "the government can't do anything successfully" or that "the government is not the solution - it's the problem."

We need to show that the American people through their struggles have established the basic institutions of democratic society including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Postal Service, safety and municipal services, the Veterans Administration, the federal highway system, the public schools, colleges, libraries and transit systems, the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, the federal and state parks, the Food and Drug Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Centers for Disease Control, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, NASA, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation etc, etc. When we bring these facts to light, we can help people understand that the "government is bad" idea is dead wrong.

One underlying factor in the anti-government ideology is racism - the idea that government programs primarily benefit racially oppressed minorities, but are paid for by white taxpayers. The fact is, government programs benefit and are paid for by all races and ethnic groups.

The claim is also made that jobs programs are unaffordable and will only increase the deficit. Of course, this claim is never made when it comes to military spending, which puts no goods in circulation, or for the bailout of the banks, which created no jobs. Nor is it made with regard to the huge increase in the deficit brought on by the Bush administration's massive tax cuts for the rich.

The fact is, after an initial investment, jobs programs will reduce the deficit by reviving the economy, expanding consumer demand for real goods and services and increasing the tax base.

The dominant corporate culture has also promoted the totally false notion that the giant public works projects of the New Deal were merely "make-work" projects that may have put people to work, but produced little of importance. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The New Deal Public Works Administration created huge transformative hydropower projects like the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Grand Coulee Dam that continue today as major nonpolluting providers of electricity.

The Works Projects Administration (WPA), established in 1935, lasted until 1943, when right-wing forces in Congress got it repealed while the U.S. was at war. During its existence the WPA employed over 8.5 million people. African Americans were employed at double their percentage of the U.S. population. WPA workers built or improved over 800 airports, 124,000 bridges and 125,000 public buildings, including schools, hospitals and post offices, and produced over 650,000 miles of roads. The WPA Federal Artists Project employed thousands of artists, writers and musicians, who produced over 10,000 arts projects. Many of these projects were murals that beautified post offices and other public buildings.

"Government has a final responsibility for the welfare of its citizens," President Franklin D. Roosevelt told Congress in his annual message in 1938. "If private cooperative effort fails to provide work for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate, those suffering hardship through no fault of their own have a right to call upon the government for aid. And a government worthy of the name must make a fitting response."

Now, just as during the Great Depression, the private sector will not and cannot produce the jobs needed to rebuild our nation's crumbling infrastructure, and the new green energy projects, and revitalize our nation's economy. There is simply no market. Working people have been impoverished and cannot buy the goods and services to revitalize the nation. Further, there are not sufficient profit margins for the private sector to shift and take up these badly needed projects. There is no solution without massive, direct intervention of the federal government.

Our fight can win!

The fight for jobs will be a tough one, but one we can and must win if we are to realize the rest of the reform agenda and move to the next level of struggle for a better society.

With the Obama administration and Democratic majorities in Congress a window of opportunity has opened. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this development. Instead of fighting for our lives, and facing an extremely hostile pro-corporate Republican majority and presidency, for the first time in decades we have potential allies in powerful positions. A strong fight, mobilizing millions, for jobs/relief, can be the catalyst to move the labor-led people's movement, finally, from the defensive to an offensive program for the progressive change our society so badly needs.

Part 1 of this series: Jobs for America Now can be catalyst for mass action
Part 2: Confronting corporate ideology in the fight for jobs

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/billjacobus1/ / CC BY 2.0

Tens of thousands call Washington to demand no tax on workers’ benefits

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:40:00 +0000

As phones ring off the hook in the nation's capital with calls from workers angry about a Senate health reform bill that would tax their benefits there are signals coming from both the White House and the Congress that lawmakers are scrambling for a compromise.

The AFL-CIO issued a call today for everyone concerned about health care reform to call 1-877-323-5246 and urge their representatives to support health care reform that does not tax health care benefits, that requires employers to pay their fair share and that reduces costs with a public health insurance option.

It appears the continued push by labor and its allies, coming on the heels of a White House meeting between union leaders and President Obama Monday afternoon, is yielding movement in both the legislative and executive branches of government.

Press reports late yesterday confirmed comments by union leaders earlier in the day that although Obama had repeated his support for some form of a health benefits tax he had expressed his intention to search for a compromise.

Although union leaders at first refused to comment officially on the session, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said, late yesterday, that it was "a frank and productive meeting between friends on moving forward on health care reform."

A union leader who attended the meeting at the White House said it was clear that there is a growing effort in both the House and the White House to find a compromise. Democrats in the House, analysts note, are fearful of how a health care tax would play out in the 2010 elections. Truthout.org reported that it was told by a labor lobbyist that "Freshman and sophomore representatives, the front-line Democrats who are most vulnerable, are freaking out about this."

Reliable sources say the compromises discussed at the White House meeting included such steps as drastically raising the minimum value of health plans that could be taxed, increasing the inflationary index covering the taxed plans so middle-class families don't get included and ending the discrimination based on age that's now permitted.

Among other compromises reportedly under consideration is one that would involve adopting the approach of the House bill that would tax the rich - although at smaller rates than proposed in that body's bill.

Opposition to the tax on workers' health care plans runs well beyond the ranks of union members. Rasmussen's tracking poll on health care reform shows 60 percent of all registered voters opposing the tax and only 32 percent supporting it.

If workers going home during the rush hour last night in Chicago are any indication, the anger is as deep as it is widespread.

Harry Turner, 45, does data entry for Bank of America. At the Van Buren St. Metra station he said, "Now I'm going to be required to carry private health insurance just like I'm required to carry private car insurance. And then, they are telling us that we have to pay more for it. That we have to pay new taxes on it. And they call it health reform? How damn stupid do they think we are?"

Wilma Mason, 37, a librarian, was headed home to the South Side. "I voted for the first time for Obama last year and now I see we are being sold down the river by the big insurance companies and Joe Liebermans and all the rest of them in Washington. I'm beginning to think there is no use. I'm mad as hell about this. If they tax our health benefits they deserve to die."

It was noted in the Daily Kos today that the first U.S. politician to propose a health benefits tax was Ronald Reagan, when he was president of the United States. He dropped the tax "like a hot potato," wrote Paul VA, "right after he found opposition to it was almost unanimous. The dream died until later on when conservative hopes for a regressive tax like this would fall on a Democratic President who could carry the ball for them instead."

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/labor2008/ / CC BY 2.0

Confronting corporate ideology in the fight for jobs

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:37:00 +0000

Build the fight for jobs - Part 2

Second in a series of three articles

Rick Nagin also co-authored this series.

The struggle for jobs and relief, spearheaded by a broad labor-led coalition, must take on corporate economic ideology. In particular, it must address the dual political paradigm of privatization/market supremacy - downgrading everything public, and "supply side" economics, meaning the more money is accumulated at the top, the more will then paternalistically "trickle down" to the working class in the form of jobs and benefits.

These two ideological points are closely tied together, two sides of the same class coin. Both are conceptual products of the "Reagan revolution" of the 1980s. They represent a complete reversal of the previous model of New Deal "bottom up" economics. When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Congress, with the help of a huge labor/people's movement, passed Social Security, the Wagner Act, unemployment compensation, the progressive income tax and the public works programs of the New Deal, a new view of economics was put in place, recognizing that the working class must have power to buy goods and services and that the government had the responsibility to make that happen.

The movements that emerged from the Great Depression of the 1930s were fueled by intense anger at the massive accumulation of wealth at the top and the impoverishment of working people. The Depression was the result of this massive redistribution of wealth upwards, from the working and middle classes to the capitalist ruling class. The late 1920s saw the widest disparity in wealth between rich and poor ever seen - that is, until the present.

The redistribution of wealth upward in the recent period has resulted in the widest gap in wealth between classes in history. In the 1970s the average CEO made 12 times the income of the average worker. Today the ratio is over 300 to one. This reflects the widest gap between classes anywhere in the developed world.

This massive impoverishment of working people has reduced the buying power of all but the wealthiest in our society and, consequently, has wiped out "the market" for goods and services produced. When workers don't have money, they can't buy anything. The result is layoffs, cuts in wages and benefits and the entire economy grinds to a complete halt! That is where we are now.

Unfortunately, the "supply side" economic model continues to have too much clout. The bank bailout, much of the stimulus money, even the proposal for a "jobs package," have funneled or propose to funnel federal funds to the top, to the bankers, contractors and capitalists, in order to "stabilize the economy" and "create jobs." While certainly some jobs have emerged, the programs so far are limited and the results are very difficult to quantify. The jobs are often untargeted, temporary or part-time, lacking in benefits as well as affirmative action, safety, prevailing wage and labor law guarantees, and have insufficient oversight, opening the door to corruption.

The current outlook of the business community was bluntly stated by William J. Dennis of the National Federation of Independent Business, in a front page New York Times article Dec. 21: "When a job comes open now, we fill it with a temp, extend a part-timer's hours, or bring in a freelancer, and then wait to see what happens."

This is hardly a solution to the crisis. It only gives more reason to believe that the great bulk of the stimulus funds has ended up in the pockets of contractors, not workers. The end result of both the bailout and stimulus programs is that massive sums of public dollars have gone to the very class of individuals that created the disparity in wealth and, thus, the economic depression. That is why unemployment continues at double-digit levels and anger on the part of working people is growing. They don't see the promised jobs or income, and resentment is epidemic at the giveaway of federal dollars to billionaires.

"There are those who choose not to speak about African Americans or the working class," Rep. Maxine Waters stated on behalf of the Congresssional Black Caucus in December. But, she added, "we can no longer afford for our public policy to be defined by the worldview of Wall Street."

A new model - a must!

In order to sink roots among working families, and to address the massive economic crisis, the labor-led movement needs to recognize and take on this ideological issue and develop a new, bottom up, economic model. We need to fight for direct payments of federal dollars to distressed working class communities, families and individuals through central administrative agencies to guarantee oversight and compliance with labor, civil rights and health and safety regulations. Only in this way will working people see the creation of family-supporting jobs and will federal spending result in creation of a market for goods and services produced in our nation.

The creation of a new industry based on green energy will take a huge targeted, federally owned, public jobs program. While there are some, generally small, businesses geared to make green energy products, this has not been an area where capitalists have been able to make massive profits, and thus, capital continues to be concentrated in old polluting energy industries. It will take direct federal spending and a publicly run program to assure that this new industry can emerge and help save our planet, as well as our economy.

Similarly, it will take direct federal intervention to meet the $2.2 trillion deficit in the existing infrastructure of bridges, dams, water, sewer and electric systems, parks, roads and mass transit, and to retool the auto industry for mass transportation, green energy and fuel efficiency. Only the federal government can address these needs, which will create millions of jobs and get the economy moving.

The ideological side-effects of a successful fight on this issue can help produce a pro-union culture, recognizing that the more workers make, the better the overall economy will be. This fosters understanding that when companies cut workers' pensions and benefits, everyone's living standards decline. This fight pushes us in the direction of a solidarity society, where workers understand that their personal well-being is directly tied to the well-being of their entire class.

Tied to a militant labor-led people's movement for jobs and relief, the ideological struggle can help create the political space for the movement to push towards a broader program for the progressive changes that our society so badly needs.

Part 1 of this series: Jobs for America Now can be catalyst for mass action
Part 3: Challenging anti-government ideas

Photo: High schoolers learn job and safety skills in a union-city program in Philadelphia. PW/Ben Sears

Jobs for America Now can be catalyst for mass action

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:16:00 +0000

Build the fight for jobs - Part 1

First in a series of three articles

Rick Nagin also co-authored this series.

In the name of a wide coalition of people's organizations, Richard Trumka, the new president of the AFL-CIO, has called for a massive campaign to fight for jobs. This effort, to be kicked off in January, is badly needed and long overdue. It brings the power, resources and fighting experience of the labor movement, both the AFL-CIO and Change To Win, together with the NAACP, National Council of La Raza, the United States Student Association, Jobs with Justice and other major civil rights, religious, environmental, women's, youth and other people's groups, to bear on this critical issue and can be the catalyst to mobilize millions of suffering and angry people into needed action. This should be the center of activity in the coming period for the entire labor and people's movement.

Fight for jobs and relief

The new coalition, called Jobs for America Now, has issued a five-point program, aimed at shifting the nation's priorities toward creating millions of jobs, relieving suffering and revitalizing our economy. It calls for the federal government to:

* Extend expiring unemployment, social service and continuation of health benefits for another year.

* Rebuild the nation's infrastructure and schools. Invest in mass transportation, green technology and energy efficiency.

* Provide aid to state and local governments and school districts to maintain vital services and jobs.

* Directly fund federal employment with competitive wages targeting distressed communities when the private sector fails to provide necessary jobs.

* Use TARP funds for Main Street to create jobs with loans to local banks and businesses.

This is a solid progressive program that would turn our nation around if enacted. However, programs mean little unless translated into mass movements to win their enactment. It is urgent for union activists and their progressive allies to begin organizing grassroots committees in every community to support the goals of this broad, labor-led coalition.

With organized labor in the lead, efforts are needed to involve local public officials, leaders in the faith and academic communities, community organizations and local businesses. This is especially the case in communities of the racially oppressed where the unemployment and despair are the greatest. The Congressional Black Caucus has already served notice it will make jobs the top priority in 2010.

Environmentalists can play an important role, identifying green energy projects that can be carried out with union labor. Peace forces can also help in showing how much more productive it is to fund jobs instead of war.

It is critical that the unemployed themselves are integrally involved at all levels. That will assure that this becomes a self-sustaining movement, where the direct victims of the crisis can express their experiences and concerns, voice their anger and help organize the fight. Social service agencies should be brought into the campaign to help involve the unemployed.

The campaign needs to be flexible and comprehensive in its tactics, including town hall meetings, lobbying, phone campaigns, petitions and, especially, mass public protests to develop a new level of militancy and reflect the anger people feel toward the corporate criminals that created this depression. Local coalitions can not only promote the five-point program but also monitor the scope and integrity of whatever stimulus programs are currently under way.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of such a movement at this time. After over a year of obstruction by congressional Republicans and conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats, with corporate-funded right-wing thugs attacking health care meetings, and with insufficient mobilization by labor and its allies, the progressive agenda that swept the Obama administration to power is largely unfulfilled. There is growing anger, cynicism and frustration. There is justifiable concern that the stalemate could lead to a setback in the 2010 midterm elections.

In fact, building a mass movement for jobs could be decisive in preventing this from happening. Generating street heat on this issue will dramatically expose the dangers of a Republican resurgence and mobilize positive election results. It will encourage Democratic candidates to voice the desperation of their constituents. The Jobs for America Now campaign can be the catalyst to turn our political fortunes around and get the progressive agenda back on track.

Part 2 of this series: Confronting corporate ideology in the fight for jobs
Part 3: Challenging anti-government ideas

Photo: PW/Jose Cruz

Union leaders remain strongly opposed to health tax

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:32:00 +0000

President Obama tried yesterday to convince 11 major union leaders meeting with him at the White House to end the labor movement's opposition to the tax on workers' benefits that is part of the Senate bill.

Indications are that the labor leaders remain opposed to the tax but that a compromise on the issue could be gaining ground. One of the labor leaders at the meeting outlined the shape of a compromise he said is under consideration.

Rather than taxing the benefits of individual plans that cost $8,500 per year or more, for example, the tax would be levied on only those plans that are significantly more expensive than that, the leader said. Also part of the compromise, according to the union official, would be a tax on the rich, although the amount of the tax would be lower than what had been proposed in the House bill.

Obama hosted Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO and 10 other labor leaders at a late afternoon meeting at the White House to discuss the tax. At issue was a key provision in the Senate's version of health care reform, taxing 40 percent of the value of workers' health insurance above minimums of $8,500 yearly for an individual and $23,000 for a family.

While union leaders present issued no statement after the meeting, the White House called the session "an exchange of views" and a "productive discussion about a shared goal, health reform." Machinist Union President Tom Buffenbarger did announce the union's executive committee voted it would not back any health bill that was financed by taxing workers' health plans, and the International Association of Fire Fighters President Harold A. Schaitberger said in a statement that the president was abandoning his campaign promise. Buffenbarger and Schaitberger were not at the White House meeting.

Trumka repeated the labor movement's strong opposition to the tax in a speech to the National Press Club just hours before the White House meeting. He warned that the Democratic Party risked losing seats if the final health care bill that is passed is watered down.

Determined to fight to the last minute for improvements in the health care reform package moving through Congress, the AFL-CIO has called for a national call-in day tomorrow, Jan. 13.

All indications are that a national phone blitz on Congress will virtually tie up the lines in the nation's capital tomorrow.

Typical of the mobilizations across the country is one being mounted by the North West Indiana Federation of Labor which sent e-mails to every union member in the state who is on line.

"As we reach the finish line in our fight for national health care reform, we are calling on union members nation-wide to deluge members of Congress with phone calls demanding reform that works for working families," the federation's call reads.

Unions are asking everyone to call a free number, 1-877-3-AFL-CIO, with the brief message: "We need you to stand strong for working families by voting for health care reform that does not tax our benefits, requires employers to pay their fair share and includes a public health care option."

Union leaders meet with White House on health reform

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:28:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI)--Democratic President Barack Obama tried Jan. 11 to convince top union leaders to drop labor's opposition to taxing workers' health care benefits. But if remarks on the issue earlier in the day by AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka are any indication, Obama may not get very far.

Obama was scheduled to host Trumka and nine other leaders at a 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time meeting at the White House to discuss the tax. Labor has other problems with the Senate-passed health care revision, too, Trumka said. They include its lack of a public option to compete with the private insurance companies.

At issue is a key provision in the Senate's version of health care revision, taxing 40% of the value of workers' health insurance above minimums of $8,500 yearly for an individual and $23,000 for a family. Labor has been dead set against that, a stand Trumka repeated in a nationally broadcast speech Jan. 11 at the National Press Club.

"Thanks to the Senate rules, the appalling irresponsibility of the Senate Republicans and the power of the wealthy among some Democrats, the Senate bill drives a wedge between the middle class and the poor," he said. "Instead of taxing the rich" -- as the House-passed health care revision does -- "the Senate bill taxes the middle class by taxing workers' health plans."

And it's "not just union members' health care. Most of the 31 million insured employees who would be hit by the tax are not union members," he added.

In Q-&-A after the speech, Trumka went even farther. "The Senate bill is inadequate and does not deserve the support of working men and women," he stated, before adding the union leaders "are meeting with the president as friends to try to solve matters.

"But we aren't going to accept a bad bill just to get an agreement," he declared.

The "bad bill" Trumka cited is presumably the basis for the final version of health care revision. That's because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had to make many compromises -- including taxing workers and dumping the public option -- to get the 60 Senate Democratic votes he needed to halt a GOP filibuster and pass the bill.

Besides Trumka, the other union leaders at the White House meeting -- no staff were allowed -- included Change To Win Chair Anna Burger, Steel Workers President Leo Gerard, Communications Workers President Larry Cohen, Teachers President Randi Weingarten, AFSCME President Gerry McEntee, Laborers President Terry O'Sullivan, Teamsters President James Hoffa and SEIU President Andrew Stern. The identity of the tenth leader was not immediately available.

The AFL-CIO is sponsoring a National Call-In Day, Wednesday, Jan. 13, urging everyone to call toll-fee 1-877-3-AFL-CIO and urge their representatives to support the changes it is seeking in the health care legislation moving through Congress.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nostri-imago/ / CC BY 2.0

Political courage to create jobs is lacking, AFL-CIO’s Trumka charges

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:58:00 +0000

Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, in a major address today at the National Press Club in Washington, said the jobs crisis "cries out for political courage but that courage is not much in evidence. Too many people in Washington seem to think that now that we have bailed out the banks, everything will be okay."

The president of the 12-million-member labor federation called for re-making and building a new economy and reversing the fundamental changes in the nation's economic structure and rules "that for the past decade-plus have celebrated private greed over public service."

Working members of the press at the gathering applauded repeatedly, despite having been asked by the moderator to withhold that applause in the interest of "objectivity" and "saving time."

Trumka told the nation's leading journalists about his recent jobs-focused barnstorming tour of California, where he was arrested at a sit-in demanding fair treatment for hotel workers.

"Everywhere I went, people asked me, why do so many of the people we elect seem to care only about Wall Street? Why is helping banks a matter of urgency, but unemployment is something we just have to live with? And why is it so hard to pass a health care bill that guarantees Americans healthy lives instead of guaranteeing insurance companies healthy profits?"

He said there were major policy areas where things went wrong during the Bush years including institution of rules that boosted corporate empowerment, trade policies that encouraged shipping U.S. jobs overseas, financial deregulation that promoted speculation and the systematic dismantling of the nation's pension and health care systems.

"These policies culminated in the worst economic decade in living memory," he declared. "We suffered a net loss of jobs, the housing market collapsed, real wages fell and more children fell into poverty. This is not a portrait of a cyclical recession, but of a nation with profound, unaddressed structural economic problems on a long-term, downward slide."

The new economy needed, he said, must include creation of millions of new jobs, genuine health care reform, re-regulation of the banks, and the restoration of the freedom of workers to form unions. The working reporters applauded the point on unions and Trumka predicted that the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would make it easier to unionize, will pass in 2010.

On job creation, Trumka said the AFL-CIO's five-point program would be of immediate use in creating 4 million jobs. In addition, more long-term initiatives are needed to build a lasting and job-filled recovery, he said. "Yet too many lawmakers and policymakers are urging a 'go slow' approach and displaying an unwillingness to spend the money needed to fix the foundation of the economy - job creation."

Trumka stated that "these voices are harming millions of unemployed Americans and their families - but they are also jeopardizing our economic recovery. It is responsible to have a plan for paying for job creation over time," he said, "But it is bad economics and suicidal politics not to aggressively address the jobs crisis at a time of double-digit unemployment."

On health care, Trumka blasted the Senate bill's tax on workers' health care benefits that he said would hit 31 million workers.

"The tax on benefits in the Senate bill pits working Americans who need health care for their families against working Americans struggling to keep health care for their families," he declared.

Trumka warned lawmakers who "may try to hide behind insufficient and small gestures to create jobs, fix the economy and protect the middle class while continuing to give Wall Street a free ride.

"The reality," he said, "is that working people will not stand for tokenism. We will not vote for politicians who think they can push a few crumbs our way and then continue the failed economic policies of the last 30 years."

Photo: Newly-elected AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka outlines major legislative initiatives for the organization. Terry Hill/National Press Club.