People Before Profit blog

Today in labor history: Medicare and Medicaid established

Wed, 30 Jul 2014 12:00:00 +0000

The ongoing fight to protect Medicare and Medicaid today from tea party Republican "reforms" is in sharp contrast to the victory of July 30, 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation establishing Medicare and Medicaid. It came after decades of struggle, and today the struggle continues.

The movement for national health insurance dates back to the struggles of the Great Depression of the 1920s and '30s, and the New Deal. It was strongly opposed by the medical establishment, including the American Medical Association. A key turning point, according to historian Peter Corning, came in 1957 when the executive council of the AFL-CIO committed the labor federation to an "all-out battle for government health insurance."

"Government health insurance was pressed as labor's number-one legislative priority, and organized labor became the rallying point for all those who favored the measure," Corning wrote.

Medicare and Medicaid were signed into law in 1965 as an amendment to the Social Security Act of 1935. Medicare provided hospital and medical insurance for Americans age 65 or older. In 1972, eligibility for Medicare was extended to people under 65 with certain disabilities, and people of all ages with kidney disease requiring dialysis or transplant. Medicaid, a state and federally funded program, offers health coverage to low-income people.

Some 19 million people enrolled in Medicare when it went into effect in 1966. By 2010, Medicare provided health insurance to 48 million Americans - 40 million people age 65 and older and 8 million younger people with disabilities. Medicare and Medicaid serve a large population of seniors, sick, disabled, and low-income people, most of whom would be unable to afford health care otherwise. (Article continues after video.)

The AFL-CIO website provides this information on the Republican attacks on Medicare:

Because protecting and improving Medicare is critical to health care cost containment, Republican proposals to pare back Medicare actually would increase overall health care costs. For example, the Republican budget proposal for FY 2012 would replace Medicare with vouchers to purchase private health coverage. According to the Congressional Budget Office, this proposal would result in total health care spending for an average 65-year-old that is nearly 40 percent higher than under the current Medicare program. Out-of-pocket costs for a typical senior would almost double. The result of this proposal would be to simply shift costs onto seniors, not to control costs.

Similarly, the proposal to increase the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 would increase health care costs rather than reduce them. According to a recent study, the additional costs for 65- and 66-year-olds, employers and states would be $11.4 billion if the proposal were effective in 2014, twice as much as the federal government would save. For seniors who no longer qualify for Medicare, the proposal would mean an increase of $3.7 billion in out-of-pocket costs. This proposal, like the voucher proposal, would simply shift costs to seniors and other payers and would do nothing to control costs.

For information on the Affordable Care Act and Medicare, click here.

Photo: Progress Ohio/CC/Flickr

A version of this history note appeared July 30, 2013.

Union leaders and allies arrested at Capitol immigration protest

Thu, 01 Aug 2013 14:56:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - More than 40 immigrant rights, labor, faith, and other leaders were arrested today on Capitol Hill protesting against unjust immigration policies and the House GOP's inability to pass a bill that contains a pathway to citizenship and keeps families together.

The sit-in was held to send the strongest message possible to House GOP leaders that the fight for immigrant families has been escalated and will continue through the August recess and into the fall until the House produces a comprehensive bill that creates a path to citizenship for some 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Thursday's action is just the start of many nationwide activities that will be held to continue putting pressure on House GOP lawmakers.

Over the August recess, the groups will participate in "Forty Days of Action" to make sure Republicans don't forget the urgency of passing immigration reform. The actions represent an escalation in the fight for immigrant families and a pathway to citizenship for all 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

Those arrested were blocking traffic at the intersection of First Street and Independence Avenue Southeast by the House Cannon Office Building. They sat in the street chanting, singing and holding banners that demanded an end to the immoral separation of families.

House GOP members have not just failed to act on a pathway to citizenship, but have instead let the most conservative and anti-immigrant GOP members take the lead in the debate, prompting advocates to turn to non-violent direct action to address the moral crisis of the broken immigration system.

"I was arrested in an act of civil disobedience against unjust immigration policies that are tearing families apart, leaving children without their parents, wives without their husbands and brothers and sisters without each other," declared Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Campaign for Community Change.

"Speaker Boehner needs to understand the urgency for reform. Until the House passes a bill that includes a pathway to citizenship, we will continue to be in the streets, at town hall meetings and on the phones, demanding justice for the 11 million aspiring Americans in our country," added Eliseo Medina, secretary-treasurer of the Service Workers,

"With all of the talk about polling and demographics, I think too many people have lost touch with the human and moral crisis of deportations," said Arlene Holt-Baker, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President. "Every day, roughly 1,000 people are deported because the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives is denying the majority of the US Congress a chance to vote on citizenship. I was arrested today because the labor movement stands with the families tragically ripped apart by John Boehner and the House Republicans' embrace of a broken immigration system."

"All of us in the Communications Workers of America are proud to stand for citizenship and against intolerance," declared the unions president, Larry Cohen, as he was arrested. "I am proud to represent our members today as we demonstrate the broad movement that supports a citizenship path for 11 million of our co-workers and neighbors. We will support this campaign as long as it takes whether we are sitting in the streets or organizing in our communities."

Photo: PLANevada.org

Union volunteers dig up a Minnesota graveyard

Thu, 01 Aug 2013 12:35:00 +0000

WRIGHT COUNTY, Minn. - A mile or so beyond the pavement down a gravel road, the historic Kriedler Cemetery lay nestled in between farm fields and showed the wear of time. Some weathered gravestones were difficult to read. And grass was growing over gravestones which were sinking into the earth. But on a day in July when the heat index threatened 100 degrees, a team of 25 union members came for a day of community service to help restore what time hath wrought.

The Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation's North Suburban Labor Advisory Council organized the day of community service in the rural Wright County, Minn., graveyard. The team consisted primarily of Boilermakers Local 647 apprentices and instructors, joined by Tom Reger, apprentice and training coordinator for Cement Masons Local 633.

They used spades to dig up gravestones which were sinking into the ground, cleaned the stones, then placed the stones level inside wood frames which they filled with concrete. The new concrete base will keep the stones above ground longer.

"The work that they're doing for us is priceless," said Terry Walker, a fifth-generation Wright County resident who volunteers with the Kriedler Cemetery Association. "The work they're doing would be impossible" for the small nonprofit, he said.

"I could imagine three of us working for a month," said Matt Walker, Terry's son, who also cares for the cemetery.

Four years ago, Matt Walker was involved with the former Wright County Labor Council when the group was looking for a community service project. Walker proposed the council help restore stones at the Kriedler Cemetery, which contains graves for U.S. military veterans going back to the Civil War.

In 2009, a group from the Wright County Labor Council, including Boilermakers apprentices and the Cement Masons' Reger, repaired 25 gravestones. "We tried to start with veterans' graves that were in need of repair and we went on from there," Walker said. "We've wanted to get back for four years," added Carey Kowalski, coordinator and director of training for Boilermakers Local 647. "We're back to finish the job."

"I hadn't really asked again and they got hold of me," said Matt Walker, a former Wright County police officer and former Teamsters Local 320 member. The regional labor federation's community service arm, Working Partnerships, helped with planning and supplied food and water for the day while Cement Masons Local 633 provided a cement mixer and cement.

Bryan Bistodeau of Big Lake, now a welding instructor for Boilermakers Local 647, participated both in the 2009 work at the cemetery and in this year's work. "Back then I was a second year apprentice. Now I'm a journeyman," he said. "We're just giving back to the community.

"The Boilermakers always have been a strong trade as far as work ethic," he added. "This is part of our program to instill that in the apprentices."

"It feels good to be giving back, finishing what we started," said Ben Lewis of Pine City, a third-year Boilermakers apprentice. "When we heard we had the opportunity to do it again, we were all excited to do it."

Lewis used a knife to scrape moss off of a stone which read, "Little Eddie, November 2, 1895." "I'm just putting a little extra effort into this one," he said. "This appears to be a baby."

Terry Walker, 87, who spent eight years in the U.S. Marines, shared some of the cemetery lore, telling the young apprentices how some of the graves include veterans who fought with the third Minnesota Regiment in the Civil War. Gravestones also noted service in the Spanish American War, World War I and World War II.

"You get going through the cemetery, there's so much history here," Terry Walker said. "We should pay a little more attention to our history."

"A lot of these graves probably aren't visited anymore but they should still be remembered," Matt Walker concluded.

Steve Share is editor of the Minneapolis Labor Review.

Photo: Ben Lewis, a Boilermakers Local 647 apprentice, brushes a gravemarker clean with water. Minnesota Labor Review

Danny Glover blasts worker intimidation at Nissan

Thu, 01 Aug 2013 10:23:00 +0000

DETROIT - Nissan is in the news and again it's for the wrong reasons. At a July 30th press conference in Smyrna, Tenn., actor and activist Danny Glover, Nissan workers and their supporters criticized the company for taking on a high number of temporary workers at its plants in Smyrna and in Canton, Mississippi.

They are right to do so. At Canton, Nissan has received $1.3 billion in subsidies from the state of Mississippi for supposedly creating those high-wage jobs. Instead, the Kelly Agency is hiring temporaries making as little as $9 an hour, little more than what is paid in the fast food industry.

Tennessee too has lavished mega-subsidies on Nissan while a growing number of $9-an-hour temporaries work the lines.

More than low wages are motivating Nissan workers to organize. Two Smyrna workers have died on the job in the past four months. At Thursday's press conference Glover said, "It's unconscionable that a company can operate in the United States while their own workers are injured on the job and then ignore the worries of employees. It's undemocratic to prevent these workers from having a voice to express their concerns without fear of reprisal from the company."

Speaking by phone, Kimar Cain, who represented the Mississippi Student Justice Alliance at the press conference, said a moment of silence honoring the killed workers was held.

Cain is a senior at Tougaloo College in Jackson and noted students are a big part of the movement fighting for justice at Nissan. Over 200 students at Jackson State and Tougaloo College participate in the Mississippi Student Justice Alliance, and the movement is growing. He noted students from Tennessee State and Middle Tennessee State were well represented in the Smyrna press conference.

Cain said Glover called on Nissan to take responsibility for insuring workers have the right to express themselves on the job. Glover noted that workers are just as important as the corporation and without them "corporations would not stand."

Cain is involved in the campaign because he was amazed that even in his own community of Jackson, few knew of the struggles workers were going through and he doesn't want anyone, himself included, to be mistreated in the workplace. "Hearing and seeing the stories of what Nissan workers have been through motivated me to help them," he declared.

While Nissan's workforce is unionized in South Africa, Brazil, Japan, and other countries around the globe, the company doggedly fights giving workers a voice here in the U.S.

Cain said Nissan, not skipping a beat, had already planned to meet with workers the very next day to counter points made at the press conference.

For more information go to http://dobetternissan.org/ and https://www.facebook.com/MsStudentJusticeAlliance.

Photo: Danny Glover. AP

Today in labor history: Daniel Defoe pilloried for defending dissent

Wed, 31 Jul 2013 15:22:00 +0000

On or about July 31, 1703, Daniel Defoe, later the author of "Robinson Crusoe," was put in the pillory as punishment for "seditious libel," for having written a satirical pamphlet defending freedom of religion.

His pamphlet, "The Shortest Way with Dissenters," was an attack on the church and political establishment for suppressing dissent. This was an era when religious dissenters were among the "radical" protesters of their times. The pamphlet satirically suggested that instead of passing laws against all religious dissenters - including Protestant "nonconformists" like Defoe himself and many who emigrated to the New World - the easier solution would be to simply kill them.

Unfortunately Defoe's proposal was taken seriously by some of the Anglican Tories in government. Once it was realized that his pamphlet was a satire, the authorities took revenge, arrested Defoe, and sentenced him to a large fine, time in Newgate Prison, and three sessions in the pillory.

Canadian English professor Steve King notes:

"The pamphleteer William Fuller, pilloried a few weeks before Defoe, said that being 'stifled with all manner of dirt, filth, and rotten eggs' was worse than his thirty-nine lashes. Earlier Puritans convicted of stepping over the line with their writings had had their ears cut off while in the pillory, or nailed to the wood."

King, who teaches at Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland, adds that "some of those pilloried had died from the pelting of the crowd, or been permanently disabled."

Undoubtedly aware of this, while awaiting his pillorying Defoe composed a sarcastic poem, "Hymn to the Pillory," in which he wrote:

"Tell us, great engine, how to understand
Or reconcile the justice of this land..."

Legend has it that this poem struck such a chord with the public that it led his audience at the pillory to throw flowers instead of the "dirt and filth," and to drink to his health.

Defoe served his three-day sentence in the pillory at London's Charing Cross (now Trafalgar Square).

Photo: "Daniel Defoe in the Pillory," an 1862 painting by Eyre Crowe, in the collection of the Salford Museum & Art Gallery, Manchester, UK.

Palermo’s agrees to reinstate eight fired workers

Wed, 31 Jul 2013 13:53:00 +0000

(AFL-CIO NOW) In a settlement reached with the Palermo Workers Union and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Palermo's Pizza has agreed to return eight fired workers to their former jobs with back pay.

The company also has agreed to post a notice in its Milwaukee plant informing workers of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act and to hold a union election.

The workers have been on strike since June 1, 2012, to protest unfair labor violations, workplace safety and to call for a voice on the job. After the workers requested that Palermo's recognize their union and bargain with them over serious workplace problems, Palermo's fired more than 75 workers.

Raul de la Torre, an organizing committee member of the Palermo Workers Union, says:

"Palermo's Pizza repeatedly violated our rights to join a union. This agreement confirms that Palermo's used threats, intimidation, surveillance, discrimination and retaliation to deny the freedom to choose a union voice."

The United Steelworkers (USW) union has been working closely with both the fired Palermo's workers and those currently on the job who are seeking a union voice. USW District 2 Director Mike Bolton called the settlement positive but also a disappointment, and said the following:

"It took much too long to get even this small bit of justice for these workers. And unfortunately, they will be going back to jobs where union-busters have created such an atmosphere of fear and intimidation that a democratic election is not possible. So for Palermo's to claim they want a union election is a travesty of justice-they know that 75% of employees already expressed support for a union when they signed a petition calling for union representation over a year ago, and that most of those workers-more than 100 former employees-will never get to vote because they were fired for speaking out."

The Palermo Workers Union says there still are numerous issues related to the labor dispute at Palermo's Pizza that remain outstanding.

There is a pending NRLB settlement with BG Staffing, a temp agency that was the employer for numerous fired union supporters.

The NLRB is currently investigating recent charges that Palermo's illegally fired an African American employee who was engaged in pro-union activity at work.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is expected to open an investigation into Palermo's refusal to release federally mandated records of injuries, which have been requested by a lawfully designated representative of numerous employees.

Palermo's so far has refused requests from elected officials to provide evidence that they fulfilled promises to create family-supporting jobs with some of the $48 million in taxpayer money they have received in recent years, including loans they received, via the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.

AFL-CIO NOW

Photo: Support Striking Palermo Workers Facebook page.

Unionists to hit the streets in August for immigration reform

Wed, 31 Jul 2013 13:22:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - Unionists will hit the streets by the thousands in August, in dozens of congressional districts nationwide, campaigning all-out for comprehensive immigration reform, AFL-CIO legislative specialist Andrea Zuniga DiBitetto says.

DiBitetto told Press Associates Union News Service on July 30 that the fed outlined its plans in a July 23 closed-door meeting with four Democratic U.S. senators who assembled and pushed through - as part of a bipartisan 8-senator coalition - the comprehensive immigration reform plan the Senate passed last month.

But the GOP-run House doesn't intend to take up that comprehensive plan, and has deliberately avoided tackling its core issue: Legalization and eventual citizenship for the 7.5 million undocumented adults in the U.S. and the 3.5 million undocumented kids.

The point of the pressure, the federation told the senators, is to get U.S. House members, especially Republicans, to tackle the entire immigration issue, including that component. The senators "agreed to do all they could to help," DiBitetto says.

"If we can galvanize all these disparate parts of America, we can prevail," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the GOP leader among the eight, said at the AFL-CIO on July 30.

The first chance for both the senators and the fed will come August 2 in Ames, Iowa, when one of the Democrats, Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, joins longtime pro-worker Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, at a town hall meeting at the University of Iowa.

The two plan to directly challenge the nativist, racist statements of Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. In his latest statement, King charged undocumented people develop leg muscles "as large as cantaloupes" from carrying drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Unionists and their allies will campaign for immigration reform in Ames, and elsewhere, too. The senators agreed. "They said they'd do anything to win August," DiBitetto said. "We'll make sure we have a positive presence at their town halls."

The federation plans marches, rallies and visits to lawmakers' offices in the states. It also aims to be a large presence at publicized events, such as town halls, to ensure that the majority voice - for comprehensive immigration reform - gets through.

At the same time, the fed will still work Washington, meeting congressional staffers and lobbying for tackling all immigration issues, notably the path to citizenship.

The GOP House majority has been most resistant to that. And the GOP advocates giving local law enforcement officers power to demand papers from anyone they suspect of being undocumented. If the person can't produce proof, he or she can be arrested, detained and deported. Labor hates and opposes that, calling it racial profiling.

Photo: AFL-CIO Facebook page.

Senate confirms all five Obama picks for NLRB

Wed, 31 Jul 2013 12:41:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Bringing to an end years of right-wing obstruction and delay, the Senate yesterday filled all five National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seats with permanent members, ensuring the board can go ahead and govern worker-management relations for 85 million U.S. workers, most of them in the private sector.

As a result of the Senate confirmations, following a deal two weeks ago to break Republican obstruction, the NLRB has what it hasn't had in ten years: five full-term members.

Democratic NLRB Chairman Mark Gaston Pearce won a new term by a 59-38 margin, with seven Republicans joining both the Senate independents and 50 Democrats to approve his nomination.

Two strongly pro-labor Democratic nominees, Nancy Schiffer, an AFL-CIO counsel, and Kent Hirozawa, Pearce's top aide, won by 54-44 margins, with only Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, joining both independents and 51 Democrats. Murkowski also voted for Pearce. Her vote seems to be her continuing pay-back to a Republican Party that unsuccessfully backed her tea party opponent in the Alaska GOP's primary election last time around.

The two Republicans nominated by the president, management side labor lawyers Phillip Miscimarra and Harry Johnson, won by unanimous voice votes.

Angry over GOP obstructionism and under pressure from the labor movement and its allies, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., on July 11 filed a motion in the Senate to invoke cloture (in this case end debate) on the NLRB nominations Republicans were stalling and on several other stalled Obama cabinet appointments including Richard Cordroy (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau); Gina McCarthy (Environmental Protection Agency); and Thomas Perez (Department of Labor).

In addition, Reid threatened to exercise the "nuclear option," by which all nominees would be voted on in a single action. To speed things up Reid also vowed to change Senate filibuster rules, so that a simple majority of 51 votes, rather than a three-fifths majority, would be needed to invoke cloture.

"We're not interested in cutting a deal to pass one or two or three nominees," said Reid to the press at the time. "The president deserves to have his team in place, and there are no more major objections to the qualifications of any of these nominees. All we need is six GOP votes to invoke cloture. Let them vote against these people."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., flipped out, saying Reid would have "Presided over the end of the Senate" emblazoned on his tombstone if he went through with his threat. McConnell ended up yielding on the obstruction by agreeing to a deal, however, whereby Reid would call off the filibuster rule change in exchange for an end to GOP obstruction on the president's nominees.

Communications Workers President Larry Cohen, who led the grassroots fight to break the GOP filibusters that had halted prior Obama administration NLRB nominees - and that threatened Pearce, Schiffer and Hirozawa -- hailed the votes, but said the fight for democracy in the Senate and in the U.S. isn't over.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka predicted the five will "fairly and impartially oversee the workplace rights of all." Change To Win Chair Joe Hansen had no immediate comment. Both had urged senators to end the deadlock.

"Today's action is long overdue," Cohen said. "President Obama began his second term without a Democratic majority on the NLRB, and for workers that has meant continued delay in workplace justice, whether to enforce their bargaining rights or protect them from an employer's illegal action. Today's Senate action is a step toward justice for 80 million private sector workers."

Senate Democrats overcame the filibusters and obstruction of Obama's nominees, not just for the NLRB, but for other posts, too, he added. But the votes "mean this Labor Day, 80 million workers will continue to have the protections of federal law and that the only agency that can enforce workplace rights will be fully functional."

The CWA campaign for a full NLRB is actually only part of the larger Democracy Initiative" Cohen's union has joined. That initiative includes the entire AFL-CIO and more than 60 other organizations and intends, Cohen said, to continue to fight Republican obstructionism, right-wing filibusters of progressive legislation, corporate finance abuse, excessive corporate spending on election campaigns and attempts to limit the right to vote.

"We are a nation with the lowest voter registration level at just 70 percent, the lowest collective bargaining rate at just 11 percent and the highest rate of corporate spending in our election process. Members of the Democracy Initiative know that Americans are up against a right wing agenda of no voting rights, no bargaining rights and no limits on corporate spending in our democratic process. That's the fight we're in to win," said Cohen.

Pearce thanked the Senate and also praised the two departing NLRB members, Richard Griffin and Sharon Block, whom Schiffer and Hirozawa replace. Griffin, a former general counsel for the Operating Engineers, and Block were Obama's "recess appointees." The president named them during a Senate recess two and a half years ago after filibusters killed his nominees for permanent NLRB seats.

Trumka also regretted that Griffin and Block could not hold their seats, but predicted Schiffer and Hirozawa would be outstanding replacements. The recess appointments set off a firestorm of GOP reaction, bolstered by federal appeals court rulings (by GOP-named judges) saying the recess appointees were illegal and thus the board had illegally ruled on more than 1,000 cases they sat on.

All may not be lost for Griffin, one of the president's pro-labor appointees, however.

Sources in the AFL-CIO with knowledge of the situation have told the Peoples World and other news outlets that Reid has actually secured the job of NLRB general counsel for Griffin. That position, which requires Senate confirmation, has been occupied on a provisional basis, without formal approval, for the last four years by Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon.

That part of the deal has right-wingers busting a gut. Patrick Semmens, a spokesman for the rabidly anti-union National Right to Work Legal Defense Fund told the press recently that the general counsel is actually a "sixth man" on the board who "decides what gets prosecuted and what doesn't get prosecuted" when it comes to labor law violations.

The right to work for less outfits still havn't forgiven the current acting counsel, Solomon, for what he did in that post and fear that, from their perspective, Griffin may do "worse." Solomon filed a complaint against Boeing a few years ago to prevent the company from opening a second, nonunion plant in South Carolina to assemble its 787 "Dreamliner" commercial jets. In that decision the NLRB was saying it filed the complaint because the move to South Carolina was retaliation by Boeing for workers striking in Washington state. Right wingers felt the NLRB was going totally out of bounds there, claiming that the board had no right to rule the way it did because no one in Washington state had actually been laid off. The NLRB was saying, of course, that there were many ways in addition to lay-offs that a company could retaliate against workers who had exercised their rights on the job.

Right-wingers are equally unhappy about Nancy Jean Schiffer ending up on the board. Schiffer, who previously served with the NLRB's Detroit regional office, was a long-time member of the United Auto Workers legal department before becoming general counsel for the AFL-CIO.

Right-wingers see her as an outspoken advocate of workers rights and particularly hate her strong advocacy over the years for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). The EFCA would require employers to recognize a union as soon as a majority of workers sign cards indicating their desire to join one, avoiding drawn out election campaigns employers often use to harass and even fire union supporters.

Schiffer gave dramatic testimony on behalf of the EFCA before the Congress back in 2004 when she said: "The Employee Free Choice Act is needed to address a severe violation of human rights: the pervasive denial of America's workers' freedom to form unions and bargain collectively."

"When Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act, a promise was made to the American people. In the words of FDR, the board is charged with enforcing rights that reflect both 'common justice and economic advance,'" Pearce said after the Senate confirmation votes.

"The National Labor Relations Act guarantees the right of private sector workers to organize and bargain collectively with their employers and to participate in concerted activities to improve their pay and working conditions. Employers and employees alike are guaranteed protection from unfair labor practices. Employers and employees alike have an impartial forum for the resolution of disputes," he added. Obama and the Senate "have given us the opportunity to serve as members of a bipartisan board, committed to playing a vital role in defining the rules of the road for employers and employees," Pearce stated.

The Senate's action is "good news for all workers seeking to exercise the rights they are guaranteed by law," said Trumka. "Those essential rights include the ability to bargain together for fair wages and living standards, and a workplace safe from abuse, harassment, and intimidation. Obstructionism by extremist Republicans delayed...a full board and caused unnecessary anxiety and pain for working families.

Photo: CWA Facebook page

Fast-food workers super-size protests in Missouri and elsewhere

Wed, 31 Jul 2013 12:14:00 +0000

ST. LOUIS - "We deserve more. We deserve $15 and a union. We work hard. We deserve more money," Jeanina Jenkins, a McDonald's employee, told the People's World. She was among 100 low-wage fast-food workers and union and community allies who rallied outside a south St. Louis McDonald's at noontime July 29.

Jenkins, 20, has worked at McDonald's for nearly two years, and makes $7.72 an hour without benefits.

She says the recent nationwide low-wage fast-food strike wave is proving a point.

That point: "We're not alone. People support us everywhere," Jenkins said. "People believe that we deserve more, that we deserve to be treated better."

Recent reports support her conclusion. There is broad-based support for low-paid fast-food workers and their demands across the country. And there is also a growing body of data challenging fast-food corporation assertions that they simply can't afford to pay more or provide better benefits.

In fact, a recent study conducted by a University of Kansas business student, Arnobio Morelix, sheds some pretty damning light on McDonald's claims. According to the researchers, if McDonald's "doubled the salaries" of its employees to $15 an hour, the McDonald's Dollar Menu would only increase by 17 cents and the Big Mac would only increase from $3.99 to $4.67.

If wages went up by 50 percent, the study added, the Dollar Menu would cost "less than a dime more, at $1.08."

These findings are based on financial modeling with data from McDonald's own Annual Report to shareholders and investors.

McDonald's made $1.4 billion in profits last quarter.

A second rally was held around 4 p.m. Monday at another McDonald's in north St. Louis County.

On July 30, more low-wage workers and their supporters rallied in both St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo. According to Shannon Garth-Rhodes, a STL Can't Survive on $7.35 organizer, at least 150 workers walked off their jobs at over 60 different restaurants.

Strikers in St. Louis, Kansas City and New York will be joined by strikes in Chicago, Detroit, Flint, Mich,. and Milwaukee later this week, making this week's actions the largest fast-food worker mobilization in U.S. history.

Derek Wetherall, 23, a member of United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW) Local 655, supports the fast-food workers, because "everyone should have a union."

Wetherall serves coffee and runs the cash register at a union grocery store here. He told the People's World, "Since I have a union, I make $12.65 an-hour with guaranteed raises. If a local grocery store is able to pay me $12.65 an-hour to serve coffee, McDonald's can afford to pay their employee at least $15 an-hour. McDonald's is one of the largest, most profitable corporations in the world."

Wetherall, like Jenkins, is excited about the recent wave of strikes. He said, "Each time it grows. People feel empowered. They are expressing their collective strength."

"If we can raise the wage-floor for low-wage fast-food workers, it'll get better for everybody. A rising tide lifts all boats," Wetherall concluded.

Surprisingly, there has only been one documented case of a striker being fired for their activities: a Brooklyn Domino's employee.

The Rev. Martin Rafanan, a minister here, said, "Every case of possible employer retaliation in St. Louis has been met with swift and decisive action by St. Louis Jobs with Justice, local unions, community leaders and politicians. Every case so far has been resolved in favor of the workers."

Additionally, he said, "Workers are beginning to reach out across stores," building solidarity and making connections in the broader community.

Rafanan, who serves as the St. Louis Workers' Rights Board co-chair, added, "This is the beginning of a movement."

Justin Johnson, another McDonald's worker, couldn't agree more. Pointing to the assembled activists during the noon rally on Monday, he told the People's World, "They've got my back. And we've got everyone's' back. And we're going to keep going until we get what we deserve."

What's that? he was asked. He replied, "$15 and a union!"

Photo: Fast-food workers stage noontime protest in St. Louis, July 29. Tony Pecinovsky/PW

Port hazmat workers: we need medical benefits!

Tue, 30 Jul 2013 15:13:00 +0000

SAN PEDRO, Calif. - Imagine cleaning chemicals off barges, large tank containers, as hazmat workers or ship scalers do, without the proper suit that protects from the specific chemicals they are attempting to clean.

"We work with dangerous chemicals. We have no benefits," said one of those workers, Maria Lapov, here at the largest port in the country. "I am mother and father to my children, if I get sick, I have no medical benefits, my children will suffer."

Another worker, Armando Trujillo, said, "The salary we receive is not enough to sustain us or meet our medical needs. The corporations are benefiting from our labor and we are being paid minimum wage."

These workers, members of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 56, are in contract negotiations and are asking the public for support. They said, at a rally here July 27, that they are ready to strike if the giant shipping and port-based corporations do not provide adequate wages and benefits. The contract expires Nov. 4.

Ilugardo Mendoza, longshore worker and president of ILWU Local 56, spoke about the three main demands that include, medical benefits, a livable salary and a pension, and Margarito Suarez faces retirement without a pension. "I am four months away from retirement age of 62, but without a pension plan I am not able to retire because Social Security is not enough to sustain my family and me," Suarez said.
(Article continues after video.)

California Senator Roderick Wright was the first of several legislators to sign the pledge of support, which read, "Count on us! We support the members of Local 56, the ILWU hazmat cleanup team who are: cleaning our harbors, protecting our environment, helping working families in our community and winning fair pay and better benefits for workers."

The state senator said, "The work that you do on the Hazmat team is just as important as other jobs on the port. We have a responsibility to make sure that you are healthy, are able to sustain your family and have a livable pension."

Several Long Beach City Council members also were present and signed the pledge.

Ship scaler Sergio Naboa said, "The neglect that has been past practice is what we are suffering today and is what we are fighting to correct with this struggle. When there are emergencies we are like the Fire department entering the barges to clean up hazardous waste, we have to be very careful and we do not have the necessary equipment to keep us safe."

Other ILWU local presidents and international officers were also on hand to sign the pledge as well as a number of other unions, such as the Brotherhood of Teamsters.

"No contract, no work" is the call for November 4, 2013.

Photo: Members of the public sign a pledge to support ILWU hazmat workers, July 25, Long Beach, Calif. (Rossana Cambron/PW)

For striking Laborers at Cretex, preserving pensions is key

Tue, 30 Jul 2013 14:43:00 +0000

SHAKOPEE, Minn. - For 38 members of Laborers Local 563 forced to strike at the Cretex concrete manufacturing plant in Shakopee, Minn., preserving the promise of their hard-earned pension is the key issue.

Workers voted to go on strike June 19. When the Labor Review went to press July 19, they continued to walk their picket line -- with no further negotiations scheduled, according to Steve Buck, Local 563 business agent.

A visit to the Cretex picket line mid-day July 10 took place as the morning picket shift of striking workers mingled with the afternoon picket shift and the union provided a dozen take-out pizzas for lunch for all.

"We've been out for three weeks," said Todd Mutch of Apple Valley, who has worked 29 years at Cretex and is Local 563's steward at the plant. "Out of the three weeks" of the strike, "they haven't made one day's worth of product."

Mutch summed up the reason for the strike. "We don't want to give up our pension," he said. "They've been trying to shove this 401(k) down our throats," he added - a scheme other workers nationwide have encountered in recent decades.

"They're trying to take money we allocated from our raises and put it in their pocket," Mutch added.

In place of the $4.07 per hour workers chose to allocate to their defined benefit Laborers pension fund, the company would contribute $1.19 per hour to a 401(k) plan.

The workers are pretty savvy -- they know they're better off with the current defined benefit plan instead of the proposed 401(k), which is subject to the ups and downs of the stock market.

Plus, under the company proposal, workers with less than five years at Cretex and not fully vested in the pension would lose everything they've contributed.

One of those workers is Alex Ocampo of New Hope, who has worked three years there. "I've been putting into the pension," he said. "In the last three years I've put in close to $6,000. Now they want to keep the money. It's not their money. It's our money." Ocampo added: "There's a lot of guys like me."

The Laborers at Cretex also include many longtime workers like Rhonda Wellentin of Belle Plaine, who has worked 19 years at the plant and is one of three women among the strikers. "I want my pension and I don't think the corporation should be taking any money from us," she said. "That's mainly why I worked here for so long in a man's world."

"I'm a hard worker," Wellentin said. "That's one reason they've kept me on here."

"It doesn't sound good for me, when say I'm 80 years old, when I have no pension and my 401(k) runs out," she said. "What am I supposed to do? Go back to work? That's why I want the pension."

Dan Parkin of Lakeville has worked 10 years for Cretex at the company's Shakopee plant and five years at the company's Elk River plant. After years of physically demanding work at Cretex, he said, the promised pension is "your only light at the end of the tunnel."

"I've never stood up for anything in my life, whether it's 'Save the Whales' or anything," he said. "But this is too much to give up."

"We're all in it to win it," Local 563 steward Mutch said. "We're diverse. We've got Hispanics. We've got women. We're not going to give up. We all want our pension."

In addition to strike benefits, Local 563 is helping the workers by covering their COBRA payments to maintain their health insurance -- which the company cut off the day they went on strike.

"There's not much we can do but stay together and try to win," Ocampo said.

Steve Share is edtior of the Minneapolis Labor Review.

Photo: Workers on strike at Cretex plant. Minneapolis Labor Review

Feds review worker exposure to blood-borne pathogens

Tue, 30 Jul 2013 12:48:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - The federal government has opened a legally required review of a rule designed to cut or eliminate worker exposure to blood-borne illnesses - a rule that AFSCME and other unions thought they permanently won several years ago.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's review of the blood-borne pathogen rule is one of several job safety regulatory actions the Obama administration plans in coming months, according to the semi-annual list of planned regulatory actions, released July 23.

The list is important, not only for its specific items that affect workers, but as at least a partial indication of where the government is headed, particularly in protecting workers and residents' health and safety.

President Obama has made clear that since a dysfunctional Congress refuses to attack national problems - everything from climate change on down - he will use federal rules to do so. But in a sop to business to try to woo them before last year's election, Obama also ordered agencies to review current rules.

The catch with Obama's promise, veteran AFL-CIO Occupational Safety and Health Director Peg Seminario told Press Associates Union News Service, is that Labor Department agencies often send over to Obama's White House Office of Management and Budget proposed rules to help workers - and watch them sink from sight there.

Indeed, OMB has sat on so much, she adds, that "this administration's record on OSHA rules is worse than that of (George W.) Bush."

Meanwhile, the business-backed Regulatory Flexibility Act forces OSHA to review an existing rule designed to cut down worker exposure to blood-borne pathogens in hospitals and other health care facilities.

Interestingly, Seminario adds, when the feds do the required reviews, the data disprove business' dire predictions about the negative impact of federal rules.

"OSHA has always had to do this. They look around and ask questions. It gives them the opportunity to see what actually happened" when they required a business to follow a rule, as OSHA required health care facilities to cut worker exposure to blood-borne disease.

"And what OSHA finds is that businesses were able to comply with the rules, and that the rules were effective and they've worked," she adds.

In the case of the blood-borne pathogens rule, OSHA "will consider the continued need for the rule, whether the rule overlaps, duplicates, or conflicts with other federal, state or local regulations, and the degree to which technology, economic conditions, or other factors may have changed since the rule was evaluated." OSHA plans to end the review and release results in October. Other federal rulemaking proposals include:

After a decade of prodding, pushing and hauling, OSHA says it will start work on a rule - officially called a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking - to cut worker exposure to crystalline silica, which causes chronic silicosis.

Right now, workers, especially construction and shipyard workers, can be exposed to 10 milligrams of silica per cubic meter of air yearly. OSHA says that limit is too high, based on outdated measuring methods and hasn't changed since 1968. It wants to cut exposure to between 25 micrograms and 50 micrograms per cubic meter.

"The Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO has also developed a recommended comprehensive program standard" for worker exposure to silica, OSHA says. "These standards include provisions for methods of compliance, exposure monitoring, training, and medical surveillance."

The 14-year campaign by the Steel Workers - and their Paper Workers members before that - to cut worker exposure to beryllium, which causes cancer, isn't over yet. But almost three years after the agency ended taking comments during its scientific peer review of proposals to cut beryllium exposure, it will, in October, issue a notice that it plans to create a rule attacking the problem.

In an agreement with the Steel Workers, OSHA will issue a rule in December about when construction contractors can confine their workers in small spaces - and how to protect them. There's been a general industry standard for working in confined spaces on the books for 20 years, OSHA says.

"But this standard has not been extended to cover employees entering confined spaces while engaged in construction work because of unique characteristics of construction worksites," OSHA explains. The Steel Workers campaigned for a stronger general industry standard and won. Protecting the construction workers for the first time, OSHA admits, is part of that settlement with the union.

Electric power line workers have a high on-the-job death rate: 50 deaths per 100,000 workers annually. After a decade of work, OSHA plans to update its 40-year-old rule on how to protect them, and to regulate protective equipment too, with a final rule ready - it says - this month.

"OSHA has developed a revision...that will prevent many of these fatalities, add flexibility, and update and streamline the standard," its statement says. "OSHA also intends to amend the corresponding standard for general industry so requirements for work performed during the maintenance of electric power transmission and distribution installations are the same as those for similar work in construction.

"In addition, OSHA will be revising a few miscellaneous general industry requirements primarily affecting electric transmission and distribution work, including provisions on electrical protective equipment and foot protection. This rulemaking also addresses fall protection in aerial lifts for work on power generation, transmission, and distribution installations," the agency says.

Until it gets more information, OSHA is delaying further action to curb worker exposure to diacetyl, a chemical used in creating butter flavorings for cookies and popcorn that causes fatal bronchitis in workers.

The Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers asked OSHA six years ago for an emergency rule to stop diacetyl exposure, but the agency turned them down. It still intends to write a rule, its notice says, but it's waiting for a report from the National Institutes of Occupational Safety and Health on the effects of diacetyl exposure - and the risk of it.

The years-long process to get a new rule on the books frustrates Seminario and others concerned with worker safety and health. "The regulatory agenda basically kicks the can down the road," she comments. "We haven't had any movement out of OMB. The silica rule hasn't even been started yet. You need support from the White House to get anything."

That backing from Obama isn't there, she says. "We've been pushing and prodding and continue to do so," she adds before making the Obama-Bush comparison. "It's appalling, and I don't know what the rank and file can do."

The regulatory agenda also includes plans from independent agencies. But it does not include a proposal, floating around the National Labor Relations Board but not yet written down, to expand the data firms must legally turn over to unions for contact purposes during an election campaign, after the union files required authorization cards.

The data, in the so-called Excelsior list, now includes just names and addresses. The proposal would add telephone numbers, email addresses and work locations.

Photo: AFSCME has fought hard for higher safety stnadards for hospital workers (like those pictured, at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center in California) who are at risk from blood borne pathogens. Parimal M. Rohit/AFSCME 3299

IBEW adds its voice to call for changes in Obamacare

Tue, 30 Jul 2013 11:57:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, one of the nation's largest construction unions, has gone public with its call to change the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the health insurance revision law, so that workers covered by multi-employer plans don't get hurt or lose coverage.

In ads running July 26 in D.C.-based publications that decision-makers read, the union says the ACA as written would leave those multi-employer plans, jointly run by unions and management in construction and other industries, with disadvantages. It would let most construction firms opt out of covering workers altogether, IBEW adds.

The union explains 95 percent of construction contractors would be exempt from the law, because they employ fewer than 50 people. Many of those contractors join the multi-employer plans, which cover workers who move from firm to firm on jobs.

Because of the law and the way it's being interpreted, many contractors would have an incentive to drop out of covering workers, IBEW President Ed Hill says. And low-road contractors would get an advantage over those who treat their workers right.

Besides the ads, the union published and posted a detailed, footnoted 4-page white paper on the problems facing workers covered by multi-employer plans, asking readers to contact lawmakers about the ACA's problems.

The union's objections are important because Hill, like four other union presidents who have raised concerns, cites President Obama's promise that anyone with present insurance who wants to keep it can do so.

United Food and Commercial Workers President Joe Hansen, Teamsters President James Hoffa and Unite Here President D. Taylor took their concerns public in letters to congressional leaders in mid-July, adding the White House "stonewalled" them. Until now, Hill privately lobbied lawmakers. Kinsey Robinson of the Roofers, the first to cite problems facing multi-employer plans, called for ACA's repair or repeal.

"I said three years ago the Affordable Care Act was a major step" in health care coverage "but not the last step," Hill said in a video on IBEW's website. "That's why IBEW is urging the president and Congress to take steps to ensure the future of multi-employer plans," which cover 26 million workers and retirees.

IBEW, like the other unions, wants the federal government to change ACA rules so firms participating in multi-employer plans, and workers the plans cover, would be eligible for federal insurance subsidies and tax credits. IBEW also wants to reduce the no-coverage exemption for businesses, now 50 people, but did not say by how much.

Photo: Ed Hill (center). AFL-CIO/AP

Today in labor history: United Farm Workers sign contract with Calif. grape industry

Mon, 29 Jul 2013 16:24:00 +0000

On this day in 1970, the United Farm Workers signed its first contract with the California grape industry. The contract covered 10,000 workers and provided seniority, hiring, and a medical plan.

The agreement was a significant victory for union leader Cesar Chavez and proved the success of community based organizing that included a grape boycott. The first grape strike began in 1965. The United Farm Workers Organizing Committee was admitted to the AFL-CIO in 1972 as the United Farm Workers union.

Photo: Wikipedia (CC)

Labor movement in for a major makeover

Mon, 29 Jul 2013 13:17:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - The labor movement, aiming to reverse decades of decline suffered under relentless attacks by the corporate-funded right wing, is headed for a major makeover. The nation's largest labor federation, the AFL-CIO, is planning to begin the task of building a movement in this country that includes not just the traditional labor unions but also a host of allies in non-traditional workers' organizations and among civil rights, women's, African American, Latino, Asian, Native American, youth, and LGBT groups.

"We're dead serious about this," said a source close to top officers in the federation, "and the proof will be what you see unfold at our upcoming convention."

At that convention in Los Angeles Sept. 8 -12, delegates will be asked to vote on a major revamp of the labor movement. The proposals are the product, in part, of extensive discussion among labor and allied organizations and deliberations that happened here at a July 24^th meeting of the federation's executive council.

They are also the product of hundreds of forums and discussions unions have hosted for months, discussing reasons to revitalize the movement and how to restore worker power. In an unprecedented display of democracy and grass roots involvement at a national meeting of the labor movement, in small group sessions, convention delegates themselves will be figuring out the nuts and bolts of the revamp.

As part of this process some 4,700 people attended the revamp forums hosted by state federations, unions and central labor councils.

Some 75,000 participated online by going to the AFL-CIO 2013 Convention website, with online participation also including an incredible 3 million Facebook and Twitter posts, shares and retweets. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka announced the figures at the executive council meeting. The participation has been continuing since then.

"It was 'Let a thousand flowers bloom,'" Peg Seminario, the federation's Occupational Safety and Health Director, told reporters at a press conference during the executive council meeting.

The revamp is needed, Trumka says, because the labor movement faces a huge crisis, as private-sector union density is at its lowest point since the 1920s. That lessens labor's influence and hurts workers, union and non-union, nationwide, by removing a counterweight to corporate greed.

Only seven percent of private sector workers are unionized, and public-sector unions, whose growth helped lessen the slide in overall U.S. union density - now around 12 percent -- have also seen membership declines since the Great Recession hit.

One of the big problems, labor leaders say, is that the labor movement is organized right now for a workforce that has largely gone out of existence.

"The labor movement is organized around the workforce that was, not the workforce that is," said Seminario. "With the growth of the service sector, the self-employed and contingent workers, the labor movement needs to change."

The reality she outlined was a major factor, she said, leading unions to start a discussion about whether the AFL-CIO itself could transform itself into a voice for all workers, organized and unorganized. The eventual goal would be to have everyone organized with the AFL-CIO unions in a good position to bargain then for millions of new members.

The revamping does not simply mean a labor movement adjusting to a world of new and lower paid jobs. Almost everyone active in AFL-CIO unions sees the need to also mount a major fight for creation of good, decent-paying, quality jobs. The executive council confirmed this as a primary task of the labor movement now and as it reorganizes.

The overwhelming majority of participants in the revamp discussions, AFL-CIO leaders say, agree that collective bargaining is a key way to achieve such quality jobs but that bargaining collectively can be supplemented with other avenues to achieve the at goal,

Important in this area, they say, is reaching out to allies and pushing and winning support for an "agenda of shared prosperity and holding corporations accountable for their actions."

In some ways the campaign around fast food companies is a good example of the newer approach. Unions are working with non traditional worker rights groups, ad hoc groups of employees and a variety of community groups to stage one-day strikes. The pressure for action builds, with city councils and other bodies of lawmakers passing ordinances, as they did in Washington D.C., calling for higher wages.

The quality jobs goal ties in with another theme participants in both the live and online revamp discussions want: Pushing an "agenda of shared prosperity and of holding corporations accountable" for their actions. That includes reinstituting progressive tax rates, a financial transactions tax and a massive jobs program.

"This is about organizing and broadening the labor movement, increasing political power and involvement and also about how to deal with a global economy," Seminario said. "We need to look at new initiatives to enable more people to become part of the labor movement."

"Participants in the discussion were nearly universal in calling for more organizing, even as they suggested many different things that 'organizing' might mean," Seminario said. "Perhaps the most widely held opinion is that we need a more open conception of what it means to be part of the labor movement" including "organizations for workers that are outside the tortured paradigm of the National Labor Relations Act."

There is also an intention to reach out more to community allies, religious groups, women, people of color and the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender community.

That communication must be a two-way street, Seminario said. "We have to be more aggressive and affirmative" in both joining together with those groups and in agreeing on and campaigning for a joint agenda and each other's causes, she added.

Participants also reiterated - strongly - that labor should make it clear it is not tied to the Democratic Party, and vice versa. They said labor's political operations should emphasize issues, such as higher wages, a living wage, the rights of public workers and shared prosperity, and not politicians.

But there are disagreements when it comes to politics.

A minority involved in the discussions argued for stronger ties to the Democrats, while holding Dems accountable for votes on workers issues. The majority split over whether labor's political operation should concentrate on "competitive races we can affect" or undertake a 50-state strategy, with more emphasis on the heavily non-union, and growing, South.

Photo: Union members involved in the discussions on renewing the labor movement talked about ways to make the AFL-CIO represent all workers, organized and unorganized. Blake Deppe/PW

Survey: Majority backs public schools over alternatives

Mon, 29 Jul 2013 12:33:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - The U.S. public still strongly supports public schools and wants to improve them - and is willing to pay to do so - a new survey for the American Federation of Teachers shows.

That same survey, released July 22 during AFT's Teach 2013 conference in Washington, D.C., also reported rejection of the leading alternatives: Charter schools, privatization, so-called "school choice" plans, and anti-teacher proposals.

Union President Randi Weingarten, speaking to the 3,000 attendees, used the survey results to launch a new AFT campaign among the public to both support public schools and to show the rest of the country that teachers put their students first.

Weingarten spoke as after the GOP-run House Education and the Workforce Committee jammed through, on a party-line vote, legislation extending and revising federal school aid programs, by rewriting the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act.

The foes of public schools and teachers "are using that failure" of NCLB's teach to the test rigidity "as an excuse to deep-six and abandon" public schools, she added.

The new GOP bill is so anti-student that it virtually gets the federal government out of any involvement with local schools, Weingarten said - except for telling the locals how to hire, fire, evaluate and trample the rights of teachers.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., "wanted a bill where the only place for the federal government is in the teacher evaluation system," not in helping educate kids, she told a later press conference. "They want to move it out, otherwise."

But the schools and teachers need more help than ever, Weingarten declared. Her 1.2-million-member union, which represents teachers, aides and paraprofessionals in many big-city school districts, found "nearly one of every two students in public schools lives in poverty," a statistic that brought a gasp from the crowd.

"And they (kids) come with a vocabulary that is one-quarter of that" of richer students, Weingarten added in her keynote address. "It can be overcome if we invest in high-quality pre-kindergarten education," a longtime AFT cause.

The survey shows the 1,003 public school parents interviewed agreed. By a four-to-one margin, they told Peter Hart Research Associates surveyors that "social/economic problems outside the classroom" are "the main obstacle for low-income kids."

The parents' solution is not spending more on charter schools and less on public schools (31 percent for charters, 53 percent against), or more standardized tests (37 percent right amount/not enough, 57 percent too much), or cutting everything but reading and math, as NCLB demands. Parents voted that down 68-24 percent. They also rejected, 74-15 percent, mass closings of public schools in major cities such as New York, Chicago and Philadelphia, which AFT fought against. And parents opposed increasing class sizes, 82-13 percent.

They also turned thumbs down on yanking taxpayer dollars from public schools and putting them in vouchers for parents of private school kids, a major GOP theme in NCLB and the proposed GOP education law. Vouchers lost 56-39 percent.

Instead, parents want more spending and effort put into creating high-quality neighborhood schools that teach kids a wide range of subjects, plus critical thinking. And they want schools to step in and help floundering teachers improve, not fire them.

That's not what foes of public schools want, Weingarten said in her speech.

Schools are "under assault by those who, for ideological reasons, want to call one of America's great accomplishments - public education for all - a failure. Those people aren't in education to make a difference. They're in it to make a buck," she said.

But the foes have taken control of the dialogue about public schools, Weingarten admitted in a press conference afterwards, thanks to unlimited corporate cash in races for state legislatures and the U.S. Congress that decide education funding.

"Parents trust teachers, principals and PTAs - not pols and CEOs" in deciding the future and funding for schools, she said. "But you see this unprecedented level of noise" from public school foes fueled by campaign cash and business lobbying.

So the AFT and its members must hit the streets, armed with the findings and their ideas and successes in public school improvements, to take the dialogue back, using a framework the union and administrators created to improve public schools.

"This should not be rushed. Our point is to 'do it right, not do it quick,'" she said.

The framework to improve the schools includes giving teachers all the tools they need to improve their classrooms, making sure teachers are qualified to teach the courses they're assigned and evaluating their teaching quality by a wide variety of methods, including test scores. Tests "have a role, but so do other ways of evaluation," Weingarten said. Returning to the poll of the parents, she added, "The fixation on testing is something no one likes anymore."

Photo: Chicago teachers rally. Sitthixay Ditthavong/AP

Letter Carriers: Even Dem plans for postal “reform” fall short

Mon, 29 Jul 2013 11:22:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - The latest Republican version of "reform" of the red-ink-ridden U.S. Postal Service is unacceptable, while the Democratic alternative, though better, needs more work to be totally acceptable, the Letter Carriers say.

And in letters to House Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and top Democrat Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the union offered its own ideas for how to rid the USPS of its deficits and debt. The Postal Workers offered similar views.

The panel started work on USPS reform on July 24, and NALC President Fredric Rolando commended lawmakers, Issa included, for reaching out - this time - to unions and other stakeholders for ideas on how to help the service make money again.

The panel is wrestling with ideas to close a deficit that the Postmaster General claims is $16 billion yearly.

That executive's solution is to kill Saturday pickups and deliveries, except for packages, fire 100,000 workers, let another 100,000 go by attrition, close thousands of post offices, slow down first-class mail delivery and shutter distribution centers.

The Letter Carriers and other unions proposed, and NALC reiterated in separate letters to Issa and Cummings, other solutions to stem the red ink.

Primary among them, Rolando says, is to end the requirement that USPS pre-pay 75 years' worth of future retirees' medical benefits in one decade, which began in 2006. A GOP-run Congress imposed the requirement at GOP President Bush's request. It's unique to the USPS and it's a $5.5 billion annual drag, he adds.

And the new legislation should also let USPS get into new lines of business that can take advantage of its nationwide network, such as acting as notaries public or shipping beer and wine as well as mail, the letters say.

Rolando thanked Issa for dumping a provision from his prior legislation that would mandate a financial czar to take over the USPS, and to let the czar rip up union contracts, cut benefits and fire workers. But he said Issa's new proposal still would not let the USPS enter new business lines and still would set firings as the key. Firings and service cuts "would set off a death spiral" at USPS, Rolando added.

"We believe your draft proceeds from a false premise that the Postal Service is irreversibly failing and must be dramatically downsized," Rolando wrote the chairman. "The reforms you propose would have a devastating impact on the jobs of eight million workers," including 7.5 million in the private sector, he said.

Issa's plan to restrict Saturday delivery just to packages would eliminate 80,000 full-time jobs at USPS alone, NALC says, and thousands more in the private sector - shippers, mailers, etc. - that depend on the agency's door-to-door service. And Issa would kill that service, too, in favor of centralized banks of mailboxes, for 40 million customers, thus eliminating more jobs, Rolando said.

Cummings and Issa rewrote the health care prepayment requirement to make it less onerous, the union president wrote - but they didn't succeed. He said the trim would be about six percent of the projected costs of the prepayments. The health care prepayment, and lower valuation of workers' comp account assets due to the Great Recession account for most of the USPS red ink, Rolando told both.

"We hope Democrats on the committee are as committed as we are to passing a bill that puts service and growth above the Bush-era pre-funding mandate," Rolando wrote to Cummings.

Rolando told Issa if USPS is going to be run like a business, as Bush's 2006 postal "reform" bill mandates, then reform should start at the top. The present USPS board lacks people with experience running large businesses or organizations with large numbers of unionists, and should be canned, Rolando said.

The USPS should have a board of "proven...senior business executives, successful entrepreneurs and leaders of large non-profit organizations." And politics should be taken out of the board by removing nominations from Senate leaders.

While Issa dropped his scheme to dump union contracts outright, he still wants to write management's pre-conditions into law. That hamstrings bargaining before it begins, Rolando warned. And bargaining helped USPS adjust to the Great Recession and reduce its workforce, by attrition, by one-fourth in the last decade, he noted.

Whether Issa's measure will go anywhere beyond his own committee is uncertain. He tried to jam through an anti-union anti-worker "reform" bill last year, including eliminating Saturday delivery, but a bipartisan revolt on Capitol Hill foiled him. And the House version of the money bill that includes a small sum for USPS, to cover mailing subsidies for the blind, already includes a section mandating six-day service.

Coast-to-coast demonstrations by NALC and other postal union members on their day off, a Sunday, fueled lawmakers' resistance then to Issa's scheme. Workers explained what that "reform" bill would do to customer service, and their jobs.

Photo: Ryan Moore/AP

Today in labor history: Americans with Disabilities Act signed into law

Fri, 26 Jul 2013 15:12:00 +0000

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law today in 1990. It requires employers to offer reasonable accommodations to qualified disabled employees and bans discrimination against such workers. It also guarantees equal opportunity for people with disabilities in public accommodations, commercial facilities, employment, transportation, state and local government services and telecommunications. The law was hailed as the largest civil rights victory ever as approximately 20 percent of the U.S. population are disabled. Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., a disabled veteran, issued a statement marking the ADA's anniversary, hailing its historic nature while pushing to fully implement the law.

"Despite the victory the ADA provided for Americans with disabilities, there is still a lot of work to be done to make sure that it is fully implemented and that people with disabilities around the globe have similar protections. The fact that swimming pools were not required to be ADA complaint until last year proves that the work to provide rights to disabled persons is an ongoing process that is far from complete," the statement read.

Duckworth also called on the U.S. Senate to "honor the passage of the ADA by ratifying the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a treaty that would help guarantee access and protections for people with disabilities worldwide. This treaty has strong support from both the disability rights community and numerous Veterans organizations and its ratification would reaffirm the United States as a leader in the fight for equality for people with disabilities." Republican senators blocked the international treaty last year.

DisabilityScoop reports: Unemployment among Americans with disabilities is on the rise, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The jobless rate for those with disabilities hit 14.2 percent in June. That's up from 13.6 percent the month prior. The Labor Department began tracking employment among people with disabilities in October 2008. Data on people with disabilities covers those over the age of 16 who do not live in institutions.

Photo: Residents of Maryland participate, July 26, 2012, in the annual celebration of the Americans with Disabilities Act (Jay Baker/Maryland GovPics).

Unions scramble to aid victims in Detroit bankruptcy filing

Fri, 26 Jul 2013 13:54:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - Union leaders, both in Detroit and nationally, blasted the decision of Detroit's state-appointed financial czar to file for bankruptcy for the 750,000-person Motor City, even as they scrambled to try to help their members and retirees who suddenly face a very uncertain future.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, whose union represents the city's teachers - whom the school district summarily fired en masse more than a year ago at the start of the crisis and then selectively rehired - reserved her highest scorn for GOP Gov. Rick Snyder. She said he set up the bankruptcy.

And Detroit's firefighters went one better: Starting July 24, off-duty members hit the streets with informational picket lines about bankruptcy's impact. But their local union president assured Detroiters that his members would still stay on the job and respond to fires and other emergencies during their regular shifts.

Snyder, a white former corporate executive, and the Republican-run mostly white legislature imposed the financial regime on the heavily African American city. Financial czars run ailing Michigan governments in other majority-minority cities, such as in Flint.

Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr filed for bankruptcy for the city on July 18, citing a multi-billion-dollar debt and a declining tax base. He said creditors refused to accept low payments on their notes. The emergency manager statute lets Orr sell assets and rip up city contracts with its union workers, represented by AFSCME District 25, IAFF Local 344, a police local, a 50-person Utility Workers local, and other unions.

Bankruptcy would also let Orr, representing Snyder, trash pensions for current and future workers, as well as current retirees, along with health care negotiated in union contracts. The hits sent the union retirees and union pension funds into federal court in Michigan to fight the bankruptcy.

Metro Detroit AFL-CIO President Chris Michalakis and Michigan State AFL-CIO President Karla Swift said in a joint statement that Orr's bankruptcy filing shows his prior negotiations with the unions over how to solve the financial crisis - Orr suggested things like offering pensioners huge cuts and eliminating health insurance -- were a sham.

"Today's action can be taken as confirmation that Kevyn Orr was hired, secretly and ahead of a declared financial emergency, because he is a bankruptcy expert," the statement said.

"Every step of the way, the citizens of Detroit were told they had to give up their right to democratic representation in order to avoid bankruptcy. Now that this filing has come anyway, it is clear that either state control has failed or that Snyder and his emergency manager appointee were not honest about their intentions in the first place."

In an interview July 22 during her union's Teach 2013 conference in D.C., Weingarten was even more caustic about Snyder's role.

"It's terrible," she said. "You have a city starting to see some roots and seedlings grow again" in economic development and an increased tax base after decades of decay and loss "and here you have a governor more bent on its demise.

"As someone who grew up in New York City in the 1970s," when the Big Apple went broke, "I put all this at the feet of Snyder," she said. A federal loan guarantee, deep pay and pension cuts New York unions agreed to and other changes - such as the end of free tuition at the City College of New York - pulled New York out of the hole.

"The moment a governor puts a city into bankruptcy, what does it say? That has to be the last, last, last (her emphasis) thing you do. If you think I'm passionate about this, you're right," Weingarten, a New York City teacher, declared.

Fire Fighter Dennis Hunter, a 14-year-veteran, told the Detroit Free Press he thought of the informational picket line after listening to what he called "hyperbole on the evening news" from Orr, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, and other politicians.

The Fire Fighters walked informational picket lines, describing the impact on their pensions and on response times, at eight locations. In the last 30 years, Hunter told the paper, the Detroit fire department has gone from 1,800 Fire Fighters to 830 and from 77 fire companies to 42. Fire-related deaths rose from 30 in 1983 to 79 last year.

Orr blamed mismanagement for the city's financial ills, but independent analysts traced another, larger cause: Detroit has been "hollowed out" for the last 60 years, and even more so when its economic mainstay, the car companies, fell victim to foreign competition. Its 1950 population was 1.8 million, while its 2010 count was 750,000, after a quarter-million-person exodus in just the prior 10 years.

Businesses also left in droves. Residents who remained were disproportionately poor, compared to other cities. And since Detroit depends on income taxes instead of property taxes for revenue, one analyst said at an AFL-CIO session about civil rights, the city's tax receipts crashed even faster.

Photo: Service Employees Union's choir about to perform at a 2011 rally for jobs, Detroit. (John Rummel/PW).

Today in labor history: Farrell Dobbs born

Thu, 25 Jul 2013 14:41:00 +0000

On this day in 1907, trade unionist Farrell Dobbs was born in Queen City, Missouri. Dobbs first became a pro-labor activist after witnessing the plight of workers during the Great Depression in the 1930s. In 1933, he joined the Teamsters while working for the Pittsburgh Coal Company in Minneapolis.

He worked full-time as a union organizer and helped organize the Minneapolis General Strike of 1934, on which he later wrote four books. He also served as an advisor to a young Jimmy Hoffa.

In 1960, he traveled to Cuba to experience the movement there, subsequently supporting the Cuban Revolution and the leadership of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.

He was a member of the Socialist Workers Party, and so remained until his death in 1983.

Photo: Dobbs (center-right) at a demonstration.