People Before Profit blog

Two massive unions, SEIU and AFSCME, announce partnership, potential merger

Mon, 01 Aug 2016 13:34:00 +0000

LAS VEGAS (PAI) - Two of the nation's largest unions, AFSCME and the Service Employees, who represent thousands of the same types of workers - nurses, public service workers and more - will create "unity partnerships" for joint planning, bargaining, legislation, politics and organizing. And down the road, their plan adds, they may merge.

The detailed plan, revealed in a resolution AFSCME convention delegates approved in mid-July, builds on a three-way politics-only alliance between those two unions and the American Federation of Teachers in the 2012 national election campaign. And it may well make both unions, both political powerhouses, even more influential in that field.

And since AFSCME and SEIU, with almost four million members combined, overlap far more than either does with AFT, the new, more comprehensive alliance is more significant.

SEIU's board previously approved the alliance, but did not spell it out in detail. AFSCME does.

The resolution, entitled AFSCME and SEIU: Unstoppable unions that never quit, points out both must "come together and work collaboratively to unite workers and communities to challenge the rapidly growing inequity in wealth and power" that threatens society in general and workers and unions, private and public, in particular.

While the two recognize past differences in structure and style - AFSCME is the largest AFL-CIO union and SEIU is the largest in Change To Win, for example - the resolution decides "the times demand we build on our common purpose."

That means setting up a lot of joined structure, along with "innovating in collective bargaining, exploring creation of new forms of self-sustaining democratic worker organization" beyond that model, expanded joint organizing and determination to "lead and participate in the wider social-economic justice movement."

To do that, the unions will create the unity partnerships at all levels for "joint goal setting and strategic planning, joint bargaining and representation" before common employers, "coordinated bargaining" where their members are in the same industry or labor market, joint priorities and strategies to deal with legislators and government agencies, joint political activities and joint "communication, legal, mobilization and research strategies."

They also want other unions to join them. And "based on the durability and effectiveness of the partnerships...we will explore ways to deepen and expand our collaborative efforts, including consideration of an institutional merger that would formally unite the strengths of both."

The two unions also decided to appoint a joint committee to "foster the collaboration" and work out the practical details of the unity partnerships. But it also says the boards of the two unions could "modify or end the collaboration" and that both unions must vote on any proposed structural changes.

Photo: Mary Kay Henry and Lee Saunders - presidents of SEIU and AFSCME, respectively - stand beside AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka. | Carolyn Kaster/AP

Striking Walmart workers in China contact U.S. Walmart activists

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 13:03:00 +0000

Walmart workers in China, pushed to strike due to shifting schedules and demanding the right to government-free unions and leaders, have contacted U.S. Walmart activists to garner support.

In a July 20 Skype conference call, the Chinese workers, who banded together into the Walmart Workers Network, discussed common issues with Our Walmart, a group of independent U.S. Walmart workers, Hong Kong and independent Chinese labor newspapers say.

The Chinese workers asked for U.S. support in their struggle against the monster retailer, one Our Walmart leader, Cantare Davunt, told another news organization, Reuters. An Our Walmart colleague added the Chinese and U.S. workers can use their collaboration to press Walmart managers on common issues.

The Walmart Workers Network, also called the Walmart Chinese Workers Association (WCWA) was forced to strike four retail stores starting on July 1, the labor-monitoring papers reported. Some 200 workers struck. The strikes lasted through July 4.

Key issues were scheduling and free elections for union leadership - in an independent union. The WCWA is not part of China's official All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), which works hand-in-glove with management and the government.

"We are going to stand our ground," Zhang Liya, a founding member of the workers' network, told the Chinese labor paper. Walmart unlawfully fired Zhang Liya for "running for the trade union presidency in Store 1059 in Shenzhen." Zhang Liya said its attacks "made more people awaken, and have turned their indignation into persistence."

At least 130 workers marched through one big Walmart Nanchang store chanting "Walmart workers stand up!" and "No to the comprehensive working hours system." That's the new forced scheduling Walmart. Their action prompted workers at two other Chinese Walmart retail stores - a smaller one in Nanchang and another store in Chengdu - to also walk out.

Another WCWA leader, Wang Shishu, called the new hours system "a move by upper management to maximize flexibility." If Walmart closes a store, he told the labor paper, "They could force anyone to quit by shuffling their shifts around and making their lives harder. They'd save huge sums of money in severance fees." A leaked Walmart document on the new scheduling system claims it would not affect full-timers employment, seniority or legal benefits.

Photo: Zhang Liya (left), co-founder of the Walmart Workers Network, an independent union in China, holds a protest sign in front of the monster retailer's store in Shenzhen. The sign, like the workers, protests an exploitative new weekly scheduling system. The Chinese Walmart workers are also in contact with, and support, exploited U.S. Walmart workers. | PAI Photo Service.

The day after: Labor launches big battleground blitz

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 10:27:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Only 12 hours after Hillary Clinton accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for the presidency, the nation's labor movement is mobilizing a big blitz in six battleground states, according to a statement released today by the AFL-CIO. The aim is to campaign for Clinton and for Congressional and Senatorial candidates whose election would help take those bodies out of the hands of right wing Republicans.

Today and Sunday there are 35 major events scheduled in Florida, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin according to the labor federation's statement.

"Working people are an unstoppable force when we stick together," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is quoted as saying in the announcement of the blitz. "We spoke loud and strong and have helped put the country on a path to shared prosperity. We have driven the debate that put the brakes on the TPP and have established the standard for rewriting the economic rules that will shape this election."

He was referring to the fact that many of the issues put forward by the labor movement found their way this year into the campaigns of both Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Clinton.

The AFL-CIO, with 12 million members, is the largest labor federation in the nation.

The federation's executive vice president, Tefere Gebre, is expected to be in Florida this weekend for campaign kickoff events.

Canvassers armed with information about the anti-labor record of the GOP's presidential candidate, Donald Trump, will be out on the streets today and Saturday in the key states. They will campaign for Clinton and for various Congressional and Senatorial candidates with the aim of taking out GOP leadership of both of those bodies.

Phone banking operations, the statement says, will also begin today in the six states.

Commenting yesterday on Clinton's nomination Trumka said, "This is a momentous occasion for working women everywhere who are still fighting to level the playing field in their workplaces and achieve equal pay for equal work. Hillary Clinton's nomination signals our nation's commitment to gender equality and we in the labor movement will lift up that commitment on a daily basis."

Photo: Union canvassers are going door to door in the six battleground states. In Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio they are talking to white working-class voters who have been considering voting for Trump, informing them about his solid anti-worker record. | Wikipedia (CC)

UN human rights official cites attacks on worker rights in U.S.

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 09:13:00 +0000

A top United Nations human rights official, attending the two political party conventions as part of his investigation of U.S. conditions, is warning of a large threat to U.S. workers' rights, and specifically to freedom of association. That freedom was threatened outside the party conventions, too, he said.

And while Maina Kiai, a Harvard-trained attorney from Kenya, didn't mention the Republicans by name, his implications are clear. And he adds the threat to freedom of association in the U.S. goes hand-in-hand with threats by race.

"Today, unfortunately, America seems to be at a moment where it is struggling to live up to its ideals on a number of important issues, the most critical being racial, social and economic inequality, which are often intertwined," Kiai reported.

"To be clear, the focus of my mission was not race or discrimination. My mandate concerns the enjoyment of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association. But it is impossible to discuss these rights without issues of racism pervading the discussions. Racism and the exclusion, persecution and marginalization that come with it, affect the enabling environment for the exercise of association and assembly rights."

The criticisms from Kiai, the UN's Special Rapporteur on the rights of freedom of assembly and association, echo those U.S. workers and unions have voiced for years about weak U.S. labor law, virtual elimination of the right to strike and employer abuses against workers, documented and undocumented.

For his preliminary report and his full study next year, Kiai met with representatives of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the U.S. Labor Department, the AFL-CIO, its Solidarity Center, and the ACLU during his trip from July 11-27. He also traveled to Washington, New York, Baltimore, Ferguson, Mo., Cleveland, Phoenix, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, La., Jackson, Miss., and Philadelphia.

Ferguson was the site of the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed African-American, by police, which started the Black Lives Matter movement. Jackson is the site of a Nissan "transplant" auto plant, whose workers are overwhelmingly African-American or Latino. The UAW is trying to organize the plant despite company labor law-breaking.

Kiai did not like what he saw. He was particularly perturbed by restrictions on peaceful protests outside the conventions. Restrictions violate the right to freedom of association, regardless of the protests' content. Kiai was even more scathing about lack of workers' rights.

"In law, workers are not prevented from forming unions. However, in practice the ability to form and join unions is impeded by a number of factors: Inordinate deference to employers to undermine union formation, a so-called 'neutral' stance on unions by authorities-when in fact international law requires they facilitate unions-weak remedies and penalties for intimidation, coercion and undue influence by employers, and political interference and overt support for industry at the expense of workers," Kiai said.

And "permanent replacement" of striking workers "renders the right to strike ineffective," Kiai added, despite international guarantees of that right.

Even where workers unionize, employers are under no mandate to bargain first contracts, Kiai said. Companies can intentionally draw out negotiations to be "open-ended and unproductive." That way employers "demoralize and frustrate union members, thus weakening their bargaining power."

In organizing, Kiai singled out the inequality of employer-mandated "captive audience" meetings versus bans on distribution of union literature in workplaces and on the rights of workers to meet at plants or to protest without management presence or retaliation. He also hit "pervasive employer interference practices...vividly illustrated by the strength of the $4 billion dollar 'union-busting' industry."

And Kiai criticized states - he singled out Mississippi - for touting lack of unionization and ability to exploit workers "as a great benefit to employers." At Nissan, "workers have suffered greatly," Kiai reported. Nissan now outsources all hiring to a temp agency, "which pays significantly lower wages and benefits," he noted. "Nissan reportedly operates 44 major plants throughout the world. All are unionized, except for two in the U.S. South. Why not Mississippi?"

Kiai also blasted so-called "right to work" laws in Louisiana, Arizona, Mississippi and elsewhere as "a particularly insidious way of weakening unions, because it removes any incentive for workers to join" while the unions must still pay to defend them on the job. While he did not say so, Republican-run state legislatures and governors have pushed RTW laws.

"Coupled with the intense pressure by employers against unionization, it" - right to work - "also gives enterprises a free pass to unilaterally set terms and conditions of employment to the detriment of workers," Kiai said.

The NLRB, charged with overseeing worker-management relations for most U.S. private enterprise and some public enterprises, is a weak reed, in so many words, Kiai found. The board "is unfortunately unable to issue penalties for employers' violations of rights.

Its "remedies...do not serve any deterrent purpose and underfunding severely limits the number of cases the board can investigate. Enforcement arms of the NLRB" and the Labor Department must "be strengthened dramatically to effectively address the challenges workers face in exercising their rights to freedom of association.

"International human rights law explicitly sets out the rights of workers, including the right to organize and the right to strike, and is equally clear about" every nation's "duties not only to respect these rights but also to protect and actively facilitate their enjoyment," Kiai said.

Photo: UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association Maina Kiai speaks at a press conference in Geneva on March 11, 2016. | Wikipedia (CC)

OSHA to take first steps this fall towards potential rule to curb workplace violence

Thu, 28 Jul 2016 14:10:00 +0000

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration will take its first steps, this fall, towards potentially writing a rule to force firms to curb workplace violence - a problem particularly prevalent in the health care industry.

In a response to Press Associates Union News Service, agency spokeswoman Kimberly Darby, said OSHA would put out a "request for information" for more and more detailed evidence from workers and businesses, as well as experts on workplace violence. She did not set a specific deadline for its receipt.

OSHA wants evidence "relevant to the hazard and industry in question" including "the nature of the hazard, risk to workers, evidence of how to protect workers...as well as information on the economic and technological feasibility of addressing" it, she said.

Darby explained that OSHA ordinarily starts considering whether to write a new rule by reviewing its own inspection data and peer-reviewed articles in trade journals, but that is sometimes not enough. Then it puts out the formal request for information, as it will on workplace violence.

It particularly wants data from "the nine states that require certain health care facilities to have some type of workplace violence prevention program," Darby said. Two states, California and Minnesota, have laws cracking down on firms that ignore workplace violence.

But Darby warned that just seeking information does not guarantee OSHA will act, since it has to balance new requests for rules, such as this one against "the implications of other rulemaking activity already underway and the agency's ability to take on a new regulatory project," given limited money and staff.

The request for a new rule came earlier in July from National Nurses United, the leading union for registered nurses in the U.S. RNS have been prime victims of workplace violence, particularly from patients. Injuries are in the thousands and several RNs have been killed in past years.

In mid-July, the Steelworkers, Teamsters, the Government Employees (AFGE) Teachers, Communications Workers, AFSCME, the Service Employees, the AFL-CIO and the National Council on Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH) joined NNU's petition. The unions joining the petition also include significant numbers of nurses.

In their July 20 letter to Labor Secretary Thomas Perez and OSHA Administrator David Michaels, a public health specialist, NACOSH and the unions asked the agency to "issue a comprehensive standard to prevent workplace violence in the health care and social assistance sectors."

The rate of workplace violence in health care is extremely high, NACOSH and the unions said: 154 injuries per 10,000 workers in public hospitals, and 228 injuries per 10,000 workers in public nursing homes in 2014, the latest data available.

"More than half (52 percent) of victims of workplace violence, as reported by BLS, are health care or social service workers," their letter added. "Voluntary efforts by employers are not sufficient to address the scope of this problem."

Any proposed OSHA standard, they added, should include "a written workplace violence prevention program; hazard assessment and risk evaluation; hazard correction; planning for post-incident response; incident reporting and record-keeping, with special focus on incentives to report all incidents, rather than sweep problems under the rug and training for all employees, including full-time, part-time and contract employees."

It also must include "protections against retaliation for whistleblowers who report incidents of workplace violence, or practices and policies that could fail to prevent such incidents and full involvement of workers and their unions or other representatives in planning, training, response and evaluation of prevention efforts," the NACOSH-unions letter said.

Photo: Laurie Grove, RN, testifies at a hearing on workplace violence. | video snapshot

At KGW-TV, unions take stand against ‘Uberization’ of news

Thu, 28 Jul 2016 13:51:00 +0000

PORTLAND, Ore. (PAI) -- For workers behind the camera at Portland NBC television affiliate KGW-TV, labor negotiations are going from bad to worse. There, 23 camera operators and editors are represented by Theatrical and Stage Employees Local 600, and 19 control room operators and technicians are represented by Electrical Workers Local 48. Neither union has been able to reach agreement on a new union contract in two years of bargaining.

The biggest obstacle, says IATSE representative Dave Twedell, is a company proposal to end union jurisdiction over union members' work, apparently in order to allow the station to use amateur footage shot by members of the public.

KGW-TV is one of 46 TV stations owned by Tegna, a company created last year as a spinoff of media giant Gannett. In bargaining with IATSE, Tegna negotiators have been threatening for months the company might impose its own terms at KGW, over the objection of union members.

On June 28, Tegna presented what its chief negotiator called the company's "best offer." For a highly profitable company, it's not much: A $250 signing bonus and two 1.5 percent raises - in a three-year contract that's half over with. IATSE's last contract at KGW expired February 2015.

The company offer would also eliminate a "successor" clause that preserves the contract in the event of a sale of the station. And it would end union jurisdiction. Twedell recommended against approving the company offer - mainly because of the jurisdiction proposal. In a July 11-12 secret ballot vote, members rejected it, 26-0.

Twedell says Tegna never fully explained why it wants to end union jurisdiction, but he thinks the answer is something he's calling the "Uberization" of TV news. Just as smartphones turn drivers into cabbies with Uber, they could turn bystanders into TV camera operators with an app called Fresco.

Users who download the app get notified by newsrooms if they're in the vicinity of breaking news events; they then shoot and upload photos and videos, and get paid if a news outlet uses the footage. So far, 11 Fox TV affiliates around the country are using Fresco, paying $75 for videos and $30 for photos - of which the user gets two-thirds.

At Fox stations KTTV in Los Angeles and KTVU in San Francisco, IATSE represents camera operators and has filed grievances and unfair labor practice charges to try to block the use of Fresco.

"This is precisely the business model of amateur news that we are fighting," Twedell says. "We have every reason to believe that Tegna intends to use a Fresco-like approach."

A third union at KGW, SAG-AFTRA, agreed to the "flexible jurisdiction" clause, and settled a new contract with Tegna. SAG-AFTRA represents KGW's on-air talent.

In Seattle, the same struggle is playing out at Tegna-owned KING-TV, where IATSE Local 600 and IBEW Local 46 represent similar units to those at KGW. There, the Seattle City Council took the side of the union, passing a resolution condemning Tegna by unanimous vote on June 27. The measure, by city councilors Kshama Sawant and Lisa Herbold, criticizes Tegna for downsizing KING-TV's news operation, and calls on all public entities that own Tegna stock to consider divestiture.

Twedell is looking to see if Portland City Council will do something similar. To discuss that idea, IATSE and IBEW hosted a town-hall-style meeting on July 27 in downtown Portland.

Meanwhile, negotiations between KGW and IBEW Local 48 paused June 29 when management announced two master control operators will be laid off this fall, including the station's IBEW union steward, Steve Smith. The station won't need those workers because their work will be done from a hub in Jacksonville, Fla., except during live broadcasts of local sports events, it said.

Under the IBEW contract, layoffs are supposed to start with the least-senior employees, and Smith has been at KGW 25 years. But the contract also says seniority is a factor only when workers are equal in merit and ability. KGW management points out Smith lacks a commercial drivers' license, something a much less senior worker has, so he has to go.

IBEW attorney Diana Winther thinks that's a paper-thin pretext - the station's satellite news truck, which requires a CDL to operate, hasn't been driven in a year, and KGW could have Smith get a CDL if it wanted to. A decade ago he offered to get one and was turned down by the station.

Maybe not coincidentally, Tegna has proposed a voluntary early retirement package in bargaining-two weeks' pay per year of service, plus health insurance, for members 55 or over who've worked there 15 or more years. The two sides next meet on August 2. They've been without a new union contract since June 2014.

Don McIntosh is Associate Editor, Northwest Labor Press

Photo: Workers at a public rally protest anti-union moves by KGW. | Northwest Labor Press

Teachers’ convention celebrates history, vision for future, Clinton support

Mon, 25 Jul 2016 13:57:00 +0000

MINNEAPOLIS (PAI and Workday Minnesota) -- More than 3,000 delegates convened July 21 at the Minneapolis Convention Center to celebrate 100 years of the American Federation of Teachers - and lay out a vision for the future of the 1.6-million-member union.

Union President Randi Weingarten gave the keynote address, while presumed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, whom AFT endorsed a year ago, got a warm welcome when she promised AFT that teachers "would have a seat at the table" in a Clinton administration.

Clinton's address also touched on other education issues the union supports, including opposition to privately run public schools and to taxpayer-paid vouchers for private schools. She also touted more aid for pre-K education, a top AFT cause.

Her speech to AFT was one of three big addresses Clinton gave during the week of the Republican convention in Cleveland. On that confab's opening day, July 21, she spoke to the NAACP in Cincinnati before flying to address AFT in Minneapolis. On July 22, she addressed AFSCME's convention in Las Vegas.

AFT's 100-year history

In her speech, Weingarten said throughout its 100-year history, the AFT has been at the juncture of key social, economic and civil rights movements. "Democracy and fairness, education and economic prosperity" and "racial and social justice for all" were convention themes.

She recalled the founding of the organization in 1916 in Chicago, where "union headquarters was a spare room in the financial secretary's house."

"One hundred years ago, women didn't have the right to vote. Legislation to outlaw lynching was routinely blocked. Child labor was legal. Teachers were forced to sign 'yellow dog' contracts promising they'd never join a union.

"So much of what we take for granted today took the work of people just like you, coming together demanding better," Weingarten said. "We have done a lot, that to our founders would be inconceivable, but we made inevitable."

The AFT grew from its original eight locals to 3,500 local unions with more than 1.6 million members.

Many challenges exist

While reflecting on the union's success in promoting public education and raising the standards for educators and students, Weingarten said many challenges exist, including divisions and violence in American society.

"There are 33,000 gun deaths in the United States each year..." Weingarten said, then added, to loud applause, "Should it really be easier to get an assault weapon than to get a driver's license or to register to vote? We should never accept that mass murder and indiscriminate killing are the new normal."

Many Americans are struggling economically and looking for solutions, Weingarten said. "Underlying the anger that people are feeling are aspirations for a better life and those aspirations compel us to act."

Hillary Clinton's remarks

Clinton praised the work of the AFT in particular and of educators in general, and got a thunderous ovation.

"Thank you for caring for all children --- no matter what they look like, where they come from or who they are," she said. Clinton also expressed her support for unions, adding, "We need to be serious about raising wages for teachers and support staff."

Those ideas and her past history got Clinton early teachers' support. AFT was the first union to openly support her run for the White House. The nation's other, larger, teachers' union, the National Education Association was the second.

Clinton also told AFT she would back efforts to modernize teaching, expand computer science and STEM education and ensure that testing assists teaching. Teaching-to-the-test, the center of the now-dead Bush era No Child Left Behind law, angered teachers and parents.

After strong lobbying by both AFT and the National Education Association (NEA), bipartisan majorities in Congress backed a replacement law which deemphasized linking testing as the end-all measure of student performance - and of whether schools and teachers would be penalized or not.

Clinton also attacked Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for his divisive policies and Republicans attitude toward education. Her campaign also hosted its own "counter convention," just blocks from the GOP's conclave, in Cleveland.

Before arriving in Minneapolis, Clinton told the NAACP that violence and madness has to stop and pledged to push for reforms in law enforcement to reduce the killings of unarmed African-Americans as well as of police.

"There is, as you know so well, another hard truth at the heart of this complex matter: Many African-Americans fear the police," she said. Clinton vowed to work toward bridging the gap between the African American community and local police forces.

That repeated her statement three days before to the 200^th anniversary convention, in Philadelphia, of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church that "There is clear evidence that African-Americans are much more likely to be killed in police incidents than any other group of Americans. And we know there is too little trust in too many places between police and the communities they are sworn to protect." She added, however, "good law enforcement officers far outnumber those who are bad and a violent response to violence is not the answer."

Barb Kucera is editor, Workday Minnesota

Photo: AFT Facebook

Connecticut low wage workers testify for $15 an hour

Sat, 23 Jul 2016 15:29:00 +0000

BRIDGEPORT, Conn -- Dozens of low-wage workers demanding Connecticut's minimum wage be increased to $15 an hour testified this week at a hearing in Bridgeport called by the Low-Wage Employer Advisory Board. The 12-member task force was created by the state legislature to study the impact of low wages on families, their communities and the state economy.

A lopsided economy hurts working families, and the problem of income inequality is particularly acute in Connecticut. According to a recent report from the Economic Policy Institute, the wealthiest 1 % in Connecticut captured 100% of the state's income growth between 2009 and 2013.

Connecticut had the second-highest income inequality among the 50 states, while the Bridgeport metropolitan area was the second-highest in income inequality among metropolitan areas across the country.

"Working one job, making $9.60 an hour is nowhere near enough to survive in Connecticut, which is why I recently had to take on a second job," said Richard Grimes, a homeless Hartford-area Burger King worker and member of the Fight for $15. "It's really disgraceful to know that I'm working for a multi-billion dollar company yet I make so little that I cannot afford a place to live. Each day I have to decide between buying a meal and paying for the bus to get to work, so some days I walk and other days I skip meals. A $15 minimum wage would change my life drastically and that's why I had to testify before this group today."

Raising the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour would lift families out of poverty and boost the economy, bringing billions of dollars to Connecticut.

"Among Americans who work in jobs paying the minimum wage, two out of three are women, including single moms," said Queen Freelove, a childcare provider. "As a childcare provider in New Haven, I make it possible for many of those parents to get and keep their jobs because I'll take children outside of regular center hours. But many childcare providers struggle because parents can't afford to pay more than they already do. Everyone should be paid a living wage, whether that's $15 or higher. No company should be allowed to pay their workers poverty wages."

Wages have stagnated for America's workers across the board, and those in lower-paying jobs have been hit the hardest. Among the 10-largest occupations in the bottom fifth, declines were most pronounced for occupations in the restaurant sector: food preparation workers and cooks saw wage declines of 7.7 percent and 8.9 percent. Janitors and cleaners, personal care aides, home health aides, and maids and housekeeping cleaners also experienced steep declines in real wages.

"My constituents in Bridgeport struggle very hard to make ends meet," said State Sen. Marilyn Moore, chair of the Human Service committee. "I saw their struggles myself, when I took a job last summer at Target to experience what so many others in my district experience. The work is physically and psychologically demanding, and workers - the vast majority of whom are adults, many raising children - not only need but deserve a base of $15 an hour. It would dignify their labor, and ultimately benefit their employers and customers as well."

"I have seen firsthand over the decades the erosion of the middle class in my hometown of Bridgeport, as the income gap has widened more deeply here than almost anywhere else in the nation," said State Senator Ed Gomes. "We need to staunch that gap by providing a sensible minimum wage that can actually sustain adult workers and help them raise their families toward a brighter future. If low-wage workers have more money to spend in a town like Bridgeport, through a gradual increase of the minimum wage to $15, the ripple effect would benefit the entire economy."

Workers are hoping that the Advisory Board will issue recommendations that will lead to elected officials raising the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour, as in New York, California, the District of Columbia, and cities across the country. The Board is expected to release a report in December with its recommendations.

Photo: Dunkin Donuts' worker Ivelissa Lugo testified before the Low Wage Employer Advisory Board in Bridgeport on July 21 in Bridgeport. | Fight for $15.

AFGE leader calls GOP plan for federal workers a “spoils” system

Fri, 22 Jul 2016 14:47:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - J. David Cox, Sr., the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, is charging that the Republicans' 2016 platform for federal workers would, if enacted, lead to "a spoils system staffed by those hired because of who they know, not what they can do."

The GOP plan advocates, among other things, elimination of the federal union for airport screeners, replacement of merit pay and reductions in federal pay and pension benefits.

And the GOP also wants to privatize Department of Veterans Affairs' health services, a proposal that veterans' organizations and AFGE, the union which represents the VA workers, overwhelmingly oppose.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has had little to say about federal workers, other than to bash the VA and call for privatization there. By contrast, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, whom AFGE - which is virtually even in partisan political registration-and other unions strongly support, values federal workers and their labor, union leaders say.

"The platform advocates such profound changes to the terms of government employment that, if enacted, it would bring to end the merit-based, apolitical civil service system," Cox said after reading the labor and federal worker sections.

"Without constitutional due process rights and free unions to provide accountability and transparency to government employment, government employment would cease to be a professional civil service.

"What would ensue is quite predictable and occurs wherever there is an absence of the rule of law: A government staffed with cronies and political protectors that will fail to provide quality services to the American people. A spoils system staffed by those hired because who they know, not what they can do."

Cox pointed out that GOP claims federal workers are overpaid and have excellent benefits show its "ignorance and misrepresentation of the facts." He cited many presidential commissions reporting that federal pay lags private sector pay for the same jobs, by an average of 35 percent.

"And federal benefits only look generous when compared to the shameful practice of private employers who provide nothing or next to nothing for their employees in the way of pensions or insurance," he added. "Dragging a border patrol agent or a VA nursing assistant's living standards down even lower is despicable," said Cox, a retired VA psychiatric nurse.

Privatization and handing over government work to "profit-hungry contractors" is also a "guarantee of scandal," Cox said. That's what privatizers on a VA advisory commission advocate, he previously noted.

"Telling veterans to find their own care through a privatized insurance system is a disgraceful and outrageous abrogation of the promise our nation makes to those who have worn our nation's uniform," he stated.

Photo: The GOP platform calls for taking away the right of airport screeners to unionize. | AP

Trump hotel workers picket as boss gets GOP nomination

Fri, 22 Jul 2016 13:57:00 +0000

LAS VEGAS - It may have been a coincidence, but some 600 workers at Donald Trump's Las Vegas casino hotel, members of Unite Here, picketed the place on July 20, the day their boss won the Republican presidential nomination. The reason? The man who declares he'll "Make America great again!" refuses to make low-paid workers at the casino great by ordering his managers to bargain a first contract there.

Joined by members of AFSCME, who held their convention blocks away, the Trump Las Vegas workers detailed the low pay and lousy working conditions that pushed them to unionize with Culinary Workers Local 226 and Bartenders Local 165, both within Unite Here's largest U.S. local, in Las Vegas. "Donald Trump has made a career of enriching himself at the expense of working people, including his own employees in Las Vegas," the unions said.

The union also announced the Trump hotel agreed to settle a labor law-breaking claim by Local 226 by paying $11,200 in back wages to two pro-union workers it illegally retaliated against. The National Labor Relations Board regional office worked out the settlement.

Photo: While Trump was promising at the GOP convention that he would "make America great" workers at this Las Vegas hotel were demanding a contract that will be "great."

Unions can organize temps alongside permanent workers

Thu, 21 Jul 2016 14:05:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - In a decision that kicks another employer anti-union dodge in the head, the National Labor Relations Board voted 2-1 on July 12 to let unions organize temporary workers at a job site who are doing the same jobs as permanent workers there, without getting the employers' approval in advance. That applies to part-timers, too.

In a case involving the Sheet Metal Workers organizing drive among temps at Miller & Andersen, also known as Tradesmen International, in Monessen, Pa., the board's majority said it was returning to the plain language of the National Labor Relations Act and to more than 40 years of NLRB precedents - precedents overturned by a GOP-majority board in 2004.

The decision is important because many employers, in order to dodge labor law and organizing drives, hire workers as temps to toil side by side with full-time permanent workers who perform exactly the same tasks. The old decision, Oakwood, said unions could organize the temps only if they got an OK from both the regular employer and the temp agency.

Needless to say, such a dual approval from employers rarely, if ever, happens.

The new ruling's important point is whether the temps and the permanent workers share "a community of interest," which is labor law's general standard for deciding whether a specific group of workers can vote to unionize or not. If they don't share such interests, they can't ordinarily be combined. If they do, all can vote for or against the union.

Since the temps and the permanent workers share such interests, they all can vote for the union, the board majority said.

"Employer consent is not necessary for units that combine jointly employed and solely employed employees of a single user employer. Instead, we will apply the traditional community of interest factors to decide if such units are appropriate.

"A review of board precedent demonstrates that units combining employees solely employed by a user employer and employees jointly employed by that same user employer and a supplier employer" - the temp agency - "are not novel," the board majority added. Indeed, the board and the law approved such mixed units until 2004, using the community of interest standard.

Quoting from the last prior NLRB ruling on the issue before the 2004 reversal - a case that arose in 2000 - the board said this time that "The scope of a bargaining unit is delineated by the work being performed for a particular employer.

"In a unit combining the user employer's solely employed employees with those jointly employed by it and a supplier employer, all of the work is being performed for the user employer. Further, all of the employees in the unit are employed, either solely or jointly, by the user employer. Thus, it follows that a unit of employees performing work for one user employer is an "employer unit" for purposes of" labor law and for organizing.

Photo: Photo: Sheet Metal Workers are part of the building and construction trades. In shops they layout, fabricate, and assemble sheet metal products. In the field they install these sheet metal products in buildings. | Sheet Metal Workers Local 80.

NLRB judge rejects union’s complaint about AT&T button ban, then allows the button

Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:12:00 +0000

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. (PAI) - In one of the more unusual decisions a National Labor Relations Board official has ever handed down, administrative law judge Charles Muhl rejected a Communications Workers local union's complaint about AT&T's button ban in Sheboygan and Fond du Lac, Wis., because the union did not bring the issue up in prior bargaining.

But Muhl then allowed the buttons, anyway, ordering AT&T Wisconsin not to ban them.

The key to Muhl's ruling, issued July 12, is that in a prior case involving other CWA locals, dealing with Pacific Bell in California and Nevada Bell, with an identical button, the full National Labor Relations Board itself ruled last year the banned button did not break labor law.

And Muhl said he had to follow that ruling, even if CWA Local 4622 in Wisconsin did not raise the button ban in bargaining or when the firm issued new employee handbooks, but only when AT&T enforced it. The local then filed an unfair labor practices charge against the firm.

AT&T Wisconsin promulgated a no-button, no-union insignia rule in its employee handbook for Sheboygan and Fond du Lac in 2009. Muhl said CWA Local 4622 did not challenge the button ban as late as 2013. But when the techs at Wisconsin Bell started wearing the buttons in 2014, AT&T Wisconsin enforced its no-button rule.

The button expressed worker displeasure at AT&T's stances in negotiations. It "carried the acronym 'WTF' on it. The button here states 'CWA Local 4622,' 'WTF AT$T,' and 'Where's the Fairness'" and was called the WTF button, Muhl said.

Meanwhile, Muhl pointed out, the full board ruled for the button in the case involving Pacific Bell, Nevada Bell and CWA. In that decision, "The board rejected the argument" by the phone companies that there were "special circumstances" that justified banning the buttons, he explained. AT&T Wisconsin made the same special circumstances argument.

In the prior case, "The board found the button language was not so offensive and vulgar as to lose the protection of the National Labor Relations Act or damage the companies' public image with their customers. In so holding, the board relied upon the button's inoffensive 'Where's the Fairness' interpretation of WTF. The WTF button here includes the same innocuous interpretation," so, Muhl ruled, he had to decide the same way.

But he chided Local 4622 for not acting "with due diligence" and challenging the button ban either in bargaining or in challenging the employee handbook. The union effectively waived its right to challenge the buttons and so lost its specific complaint, Muhl said.

"Establishing waiver" of bargaining rights "is a heavy burden," but because the local didn't act, it "waived the right to bargain over" AT&T Wisconsin's "decision to implement and maintain the ban on premises technicians wearing any buttons," Muhl said. So AT&T "lawfully enforced the button prohibition against premises technicians in November 2014 and May 2015." But the other California-Nevada case legalized the button, so Muhl reinstated it.

Photo: CWA Local 4622 Facebook page

GOP platform backs national right to work law, hits federal workers

Wed, 20 Jul 2016 09:31:00 +0000

CLEVELAND - To nobody's surprise, the Republican Party platform, adopted at its convention in Cleveland, backs a national so-called "right to work" law, slams federal workers and trashes the National Labor Relations Board for using federal minimum wage and overtime pay laws to deny "flexibility" to businesses.

"We support the right of states to enact right to work laws and call for a national law to protect the economic liberty of the modern workforce," it says. Those are code words for a national RTW law. And the GOP stops just short of demanding outlawing of federal unions.

The platform, adopted by delegates who also made business mogul Donald Trump their presidential nominee, also pledges to renegotiate trade pacts in favor of U.S. interests - while not specifying which U.S. interests - and has a strict right-to-life section with no exceptions.

Party platforms are often filed and forgotten, and this platform may be no exception. But they do lay down the principles the party expects its candidates, from the presidency on down, to adhere to. With GOP platform writers coming from the party's business-oriented establishment wing, those principles are anti-union, anti-worker or both. Key passages include:

A slam against regulations in general and NLRB and Labor Department regulations in particular, as bad for business: "We will revisit existing laws that delegate too much authority to regulatory agencies and review all current regulations for possible reform or repeal," it says.
Elimination of the minimum wage and the Jones Act - which says U.S.-flagged U.S.-crewed ships must carry goods between U.S. ports - in U.S. territories.
After declaring the GOP would "challenge the anachronistic labor laws that limit workers' freedom and lock them into the workplace rules of their great-grandfathers," the platform takes aim at the NLRB, promising "to restore fairness and common sense" there.

"Instead of facilitating change, the current administration and its agents at the NLRB are determined to reverse it. They are attacking the franchise model of business development, which is essential to the creativity and flexibility of the new economy. They are wielding provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, designed for the manufacturing workplace of the 1930s, to deny flexibility to both employers and employees.

"They have outlawed union transparency rules that allowed members to discover what was being done with their dues. They have outlawed alternatives to unions even when they were favored by the workers. Their project labor agreements discriminate against the vast majority of workers by barring them from jobs on taxpayer-funded projects. Their patronizing, controlling approach leaves workers in a form of peonage to the NLRB."

One way to "bring labor law into the 21^st century" is to have it "encourage cooperation between management and workers, not conflict," the platform says. That cooperation should include so-called "merit pay," though the GOP doesn't call it that. Bosses often use "merit pay" to divide and conquer workers within already unionized workplaces.

"All workers, including union workers, must be free to accept raises and rewards without veto power from union officials," the platform says. And "all unionized workers should be able to find out what is going on in their union trust funds and their executive compensation."

The platform also advocates "employee empowerment and workplace flexibility."

Republicans use "flexibility" as code for their comp-time-not-overtime legislation. Their bills coerce workers into comp time, but then leave when they can take it up to the boss.

The platform takes special aim at federal workers, who are favorite targets of Congress' ruling Republicans. That includes implying federal worker unions should be banned.

It charges, incorrectly, that "the federal workforce is larger and more highly paid than ever."

Data show the federal workforce is at its lowest level since 1960 and federal pay panels routinely point out that except for the lowest-paid workers - such as janitors - federal workers' pay trails their private-sector counterparts with the same skills and in the same jobs.

The platform also contends non-cash benefits - health care, pensions and the like - average $35,000 per federal worker per year, above their pay, and are triple the private sector figure. It calls federal pensions and vacation time "wildly out of line with...the private sector."

The platform urges Congress "to bring federal compensation and benefits in line with those of most American employees. A Republican administration should streamline personnel procedures to expedite the firing of bad workers, tax cheats and scammers," the GOP says.

And in their thinly veiled threat to outlaw federal unions, the Republicans noted that unionization of federal workers "first permitted by Democratic presidents in the 1960s, should be reviewed by the appropriate congressional committees examine its effects on the cost, quality and performance of the civil service." Such "reviews" have led to proposed bans.

"Union representatives in the federal workforce should not be paid to conduct union business on the public's time," it adds. And while the platform lauds federal whistleblowers - most of them unionists, though it does not admit that - it declares in the next sentence that "none should be compelled to join a union or pay dues to it," though unions protect them against bosses' retaliation.

The platform also specifically slams unionists' political contributions, ignoring that they're voluntary, and that they're not taken from union dues. "We believe the forced funding of political candidates through union dues and other mandatory contributions violates the 1^st Amendment. Just as Americans have a 1^st Amendment right to devote resources to favored candidates or views, they have a 1^st Amendment right not to be forced to support individuals or ideologies they oppose," it declares.

And it even says Native American communities should be able to ban unions at tribal-run casinos. "Native communities should have the same authority as state governments in labor matters, so that union bosses and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) cannot undermine the authority of tribal governments," the platform declares.

Other specific platform points include:

Killing federal gas-tax-provided funding for mass transit - and anything else that isn't a highway. The platform criticizes the government for spending on-fifth of surface transportation money "on mass transit, an inherently local affair that serves only a small portion of the population, concentrated in six big cities." The GOP wants to "phase out the federal transit program," including its money for bike-share programs, sidewalks, recreational trails, landscaping, historical renovations, ferries and scenic byways.
Public schools and teachers are also a target. The platform demands abolition of tenure for teachers, and it supports "home schooling, career and technical education, private or parochial schools, magnet schools, charter schools, online learning, and early-college high schools.

"We especially support the innovative financing mechanisms that make options available to all children: education savings accounts, vouchers, and tuition tax credits." It calls that a civil rights issue - echoing anti-union anti-teacher-tenure lawsuits in California.

The GOP also wants to turn student loans back to banks, which amassed huge profits from them, before Congress ordered the Education Department to take over the loan program.

"The federal government should not be in the business of originating student loans. In order to bring down college costs and give students access to a multitude of financing options, private sector participation in student financing should be restored," the platform says.

Photo: Indiana's GOP Gov. Pence, the party's vice presidential nominee, pushed turning his state into a Right to Work (for Less) state. | Daron Cummings/AP

“Taking a man’s job”: Video tells story about gender and workplace

Tue, 19 Jul 2016 09:18:00 +0000

CHICAGO - I met Margaret Fulkerson as I was staffing an Illinois Labor History Society table at this year's Labor Notes conference. She was promoting the campaign to create a Mother Jones museum in Mt. Olive, Ill. I had been to the Mt. Olive monument for Jones (who chose to be buried there, near those miners killed in the 1898 Virden Massacre) and was glad to contribute to the cause. I casually asked what union she was in and she told me Communications Workers of America, which is the same union I belong to. But what she told me next really blew me away.

Fulkerson said she was the first journeywoman cable splicer in the Midwest for AT&T and had just given a presentation to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission about the consent decree that had led to her hiring. I felt that I needed to know her story. I told her I was in school but when classes ended in May, I would get in touch with her because I wanted to do a feature on this little known consent decree and her journey as a journeywoman for People's World.

Some time after that serendipitous meeting, I signed up for an Introduction to Video course during Summer Session at Northeastern Illinois University. The first day of class the professor, Cindy Moran, an award-winning filmmaker, said we should start thinking about what we wanted to do for our final project. I thought of Margaret's story immediately and a 3 minute 51 second video was born. (Story continues after video.)

Naturally, a brief video only touches on this subject. I have a lot more footage of Fulkerson and through my research learned more about affirmative action, quotas and the times from which these victories sprang. Starting with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s through to the women's movement into the 1970s, the victories in the legislative arena, namely the Civil Rights Act, and Title VII (which established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), helped create a governmental framework to tackle racial and gender discrimination at the workplace.

Today gender-based discrimination and the struggle against it look, sound and feel different than those faced by previous generations because progress has been made. Yet for many seemingly intransigent obstacles like the gender pay gap and job segregation, the tools to make progress have been dulled by the extreme Right, hurting democratic rights for all. Fulkerson's story reminds us that there are still government policies designed to chip away at those obstacles instead of embedding them even deeper into the foundation of our nation.

Photo: Margaret Fulkerson stands next to a photo of her commissioned by the Illinois Labor History Society in the 1970s to document working people on the job. She is holding a new book by University of North Carolina Professor Katherine Turk, "Equality on Trial: Gender and Rights in the Modern American Workplace," in which the AT&T consent decree is discussed. On the book cover is another photo of Fulkerson from the labor society series. | Teresa Albano/PW

Cleveland labor leaders build opposition to Trump’s anti-worker policies

Tue, 19 Jul 2016 08:59:00 +0000

CLEVELAND, OHIO - According to Harriet Applegate, executive secretary of the North Shore Federation of Labor, a lot of Clevelanders have left town until Trump's Republican National Convention is over. They just couldn't stomach the Republican invasion.

However, labor leaders, union members, and many others are using the presence of the convention as an occasion for building opposition to the GOP's right wing, anti-worker platform and policies.

For example, unions here have launched a long range get-out-the-vote campaign for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and senatorial candidate Ted Strickland.

Meanwhile, yesterday the Code Pink organization marched down a major road with signs saying "Immigrants Welcome."

"We want people to know the real Cleveland," a Code Pink leader said. "Just because the Republicans spew hatred here doesn't mean they are speaking for us."

Today, Cleveland State University, located in the heart of town, is sponsoring a forum on voting rights with Congresswoman Marcia Fudge, D. - Ohio, a discussion on black women voting with Ohio AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Petee Tallee, and a panel discussion on Opportunity, Poverty and National Policy moderated by Amy Hanauer, executive director of Policy Matters Ohio and CNN Political Editor Juana Summers.

"What would you like to say to the Republican leadership?" Summers asked the four panelists.

Panelist Baldemar Velasquez, president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, answered "I would like to point out to them that workers must have a chance to have a collective voice so that we can have a chance to get enough to feed, clothe and house our families.

"Capitalism strives to marginalize workers," he said. "But we must have the courage to implement workers' wishes to have an economy that works for all people."

Cleveland State Professor Ronnie Dunn told Summers, "We must invest in rebuilding our country and creating good jobs."

Colleeen Cotter, executive director of the Legal Aid Society of Greater Cleveland, answered "Poverty can't be effectively addressed unless we guarantee rights and dignity to everybody."

Finally, John Corlett, president of the Center for Community Solutions, said simply, "The Republicans should at least talk about it," they should list poverty as a problem.

This past weekend, members belonging to North Shore Federation of Labor unions, went door to door "targeting white working class neighborhoods," Executive Secretary Applegate reported. "We spoke to people about voting for Ted Strickland for Senate."

Strickland, a former Ohio governor, is challenging Republican incumbent, Senator Rob Portman.

The canvassers distributed a leaflet saying, "Tell Rob Portman to oppose bad trade deals like the Trans Pacific Partnership."

"We also began a campaign to explain how bad a Trump presidency would be for workers," Applegate said.

"We tell workers Trump talks tough on trade and protecting jobs, but he produces many of his products overseas," Applegate said. "He's against having a minimum wage and tries to prevent his own employees from joining unions."

"Trump: an outsourcing, union-busting hypocrite," a federation leaflet says.

"We started canvassing and phone-banking this weekend," Applegate said, "but we are going to stress a campaign of union leaders meeting with members face-to-face at work sites.

"We know that person-to-person contact, people talking to people they know and trust, is the most powerful communication method there is. It trumps any number of TV ads."

Cleveland area union leaders are also planning to mail letters to their members saying that the Republican Party holding their national convention in Cleveland "will bring a lot of attention to Ohio, not just as host of the event, but also because of the pivotal role our state will play in the coming election...

"Simply put, a Donald Trump presidency would make life harder for working people. Mr. Trump believes that wages are too high for American workers. This fact alone shows how detached he is from reality..."

Applegate said that "our first job is to show all working people, not just union members, just how bad Trump is."

The fact that the Republican convention is being held here gives labor leaders a unique opportunity to shine a spotlight on Trump, Applegate said.

"But in future weeks," she said, "we will stress our positive campaign for Hillary Clinton. We will point out that as a senator, she opposed job-robbing trade deals. And she has a life long record of supporting labor."

However, Applegate said, probably the most important job of all facing Ohio organized labor is to wrench the state out of the hands of Republicans.

"They hold every statewide office," Applegate said. "And they have a super majority in both houses of the state legislature."

For Ohio workers to make gains, Applegate said, Hillary Clinton must win the White House; but putting the state in the hands of pro-worker representatives is just as important.

Photo: Protestors yell during a rally against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Monday, July 18, 2016, in Cleveland. | Patrick Semansky/AP

Cleveland unions blast GOP on eve of their convention

Mon, 18 Jul 2016 13:00:00 +0000

CLEVELAND - "The GOP platform does not represent the interests of working people," Harriet Applegate, executive secretary of the North Shore Federation of Labor told a well-attended press conference July 17, the day before the Republican National Convention was set to open here.

The event featured former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, now mounting a tough challenge for U.S. Senate against incumbent GOP Sen. Rob Portman, as well as three workers impacted by Republican anti-labor policies.

"Portman has endorsed Trump," the presumptive GOP nominee for president "and served as the trade representative of Pres. George W. Bush," Strickland said. "He voted for NAFTA, CAFTA and eight other trade agreements that cost 300,000 good-paying American jobs."

"The Koch Brothers have spent $32 million on TV ads" to get Portman re-elected, Strickland said, adding that Portman has also voted to defund Planned Parenthood and to oppose pay equity for women. "Trump and Portman are both anti-worker and anti-women.

"They are both in the pockets of their corporate funders."

"Trump is a card-carrying member of the American ruling class," said Michael Kilbane, a member of Iron Workers Local 17. "He values his own gain and profits above all else." Kilbane warned against workers being fooled by Trump's "faux populism" and charged that Trump has fought all efforts of workers trying to unionize his casinos, hotels and restaurants. (Article continues after video of Michael Kilbane.)

"He avoids hiring union labor whenever possible and stiffs contractors," Kilbane charged. "He supports Right-to-Work (the union-busting scheme allowing workers represented by union contracts to avoid paying union dues).

"All working people should be alarmed by Trump. He represents a real danger to our living standards and well-being."

Ed Rico , a former Lorain steelworker, who was forced into "unanticipated early retirement" when his mill closed in March said Trump's record of having his goods manufactured overseas, shows "he can't be trusted." Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, he added, "is committed to saving American jobs and opposes TPP (The Trans Pacific Partnership, the new trade deal before Congress that is opposed by organized labor)."

Wanda Navarro, a garment worker, and president of Workers United, Local 168, also warned that Trump and the Republicans support "bad trade deals" and praised Strickland for the efforts he made that helped save the Hugo Boss plant where she worked when the company threatened to move production to low wage countries abroad.

Photo: Cleveland area unions are warning their memebers about Trump's strongly anti-union posititons. | Mary Altaffer/AP

Nurses union asks OSHA for workplace violence standard

Fri, 15 Jul 2016 10:40:00 +0000

With workplace violence a constant concern - especially in health care - National Nurses United has formally petitioned the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to write a standard with measures employers must follow to reduce, if not eliminate, it.

NNU, the leading union for registered nurses, cited the preventable death from workplace violence of one of its members, Cynthia Palomata, six years ago as a symptom of the problem. But it goes far beyond that.

Workplace violence is so acute, especially with violent patients assaulting nurses and staff, that Minnesota's NNU affiliate convinced that state's legislature to pass, and DFL Gov. Mark Dayton to sign, a workplace violence law several years ago. California has a similar law.

Nationwide, the AFL-CIO's Death on the Job report, using latest data available, for 2014, showed workplace violence killed 765 people, or one of every six who died at work.

And 21 percent of all on-the-job injuries were in hospitals, nursing homes and other health care facilities. Of those injuries, violence from other people harmed 26,540 workers that year, and two-thirds of the hurt workers were women.

"Workers in the health care industry were particularly affected, with nursing and

residential care facilities experiencing the greatest number of injuries from violence, followed by hospitals, social assistance and ambulatory health care services," the report adds.

"Nursing, psychiatric and home health aides, registered nurses, and personal care aides were the occupations at greatest risk of injuries from violence, and patients were responsible for 49 percent of reported injuries related to violence," it points out.

Palomata's death "spurred NNU to continue to fight harder for workplace violence protections for our members. We have since won comprehensive legislation requiring regulations in California. Now we are submitting this petition and moving to the federal level," NNU Director of Health and Safety Bonnie Castillo said.

The union wants OSHA to start its rulemaking process immediately. In May, OSHA announced it would extend its deadline for employers to initially start electronically reporting workplace injury data, worksite by worksite, for large firms. That practice goes into effect August 10.

The data shows, NNU says, that existing rules and OSHA efforts to prevent workplace violence are inadequate. "As things stand, nurses cannot keep their patients safe if they cannot guarantee their own personal safety, and it is past time for OSHA to mandate that healthcare employers create comprehensive prevention plans to stop violence before it happens," said Castillo.

Modeled on California's anti-workplace violence rules, NNU wants OSHA to write rules forcing all types of hospitals, nursing homes and other treatment centers to have facility-specific prevention plans. It also wants OSHA to:

Thoroughly assess workplace violence risk factors - including staffing, or lack of it - and individual health care facilities' prevention measures. Combating short-staffing, which insurance companies often force on health care facilities, is another key NNU cause.
Order health care facilities to implement a comprehensive workplace violence prevention program at all times, in all units and work areas and on all facility grounds, including parking garages.
Mandate that health care facilities plan for post-incident response to violence including first aid, trauma counseling, and injury investigations.
Require employee participation in plan creation and review, along with interactive training in violence prevention.
Ban health care management retaliation against an employee for seeking law enforcement assistance during a violent incident.

"Workplace violence is absolutely preventable. We cannot stand by while one more nurse or healthcare worker is injured, or killed on the job. This petition says the wellbeing of all nurses and healthcare workers must be mandated at the federal level-and it must be mandated now," Castillo said.

Photo: National Nurses United

More data to be collected on wage thieves who want federal contracts

Wed, 13 Jul 2016 14:28:00 +0000

Three federal agencies charged with labor law oversight and enforcement - the National Labor Relations Board, the Labor Department, and the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission - are going to start collecting information on federal labor law-breaking firms, storing it in a central database and sending it to federal contracting officers.

The officers, under an executive order President Obama issued two years ago, will then use that data to help determine whether such labor law-breakers can continue to bid on - or get - federal contracts. But it won't be a straight contract-vs.-no contract scenario.

The process was outlined in a memo in early July from NLRB Associate General Counsel Anne Purcell to all the agency's regional directors. Those RD decisions about law-breaking will be the ones NLRB sends to the contracting officers. But the NLRB must warn the firm that it comes under the executive order, that it's been investigated for breaking the law, and that it has the opportunity to settle the case first.

If a firm settles the law-breaking claims before the regional director writes up formal complaints for the central database the contracting officers will use, the complaint won't be recorded or used against the firm, the memo adds.

Obama's Fair Play Safe Workplaces executive order "creates in each (federal) agency a new position, Labor Compliance Advisor, who will assist contracting officers in making their responsibility determinations" about whether firms bidding for federal business committed "serious, repeated willful or pervasive violations" of labor law, NLRB's memo explains.

Obama's executive order does not totally bar such law-breaking contractors from getting federal business, but it tells the federal officers to weigh the labor law-breaking when they award contracts. They'll get the law-breaking data from the NLRB, the Labor Department, which enforces wage and hour laws and the EEOC, which enforces anti-discrimination laws.

The order - and the way it's implemented - are important. The federal government is one of the largest, if not the largest, buyer of goods and services in the U.S. So its decisions to award, or yank, contracts virtually always have huge impacts on firms' bottom lines.

Many of those firms are labor law-breakers. In just the Defense Department alone, data shows 49 firms with wage and hour law violations got $81 billion in federal contracts last year.

"A contractor who doesn't follow the law isn't living up to his or her obligations to you and may endanger your own workers and operations. The same is true for the federal government, which contracts with many thousands of private businesses that employ almost one in five American workers," a White House fact sheet says.

"Unfortunately, studies have shown many of the contractors with the largest wage-and-hour and worker safety violations go on to receive new contracts. Indeed, while the vast majority of federal contractors play by the rules, every year tens of thousands of American workers are denied overtime wages, are unlawfully discriminated against in hiring or pay, have their health and safety put at risk by federal contractors who cut corners, or are otherwise denied basic workplace protections.

"An analysis by the Center for American Progress examined the 28 companies with the top" number of "workplace violations between fiscal year 2005 and FY 2009 and found that a quarter of these companies went on to have significant performance problems.

"This data suggests a potentially strong link between a history of labor law violations and inadequate contract performance. It also means that the overwhelming majority of contractors who do follow the law-and may be more likely to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars-are unfairly competing against the worst actors who repeatedly violate the rights of workers and put them in danger."

Photo: Wisconsin Jobs Now/Photopin (CC), via Flickr

Veterans’ Affairs union: Trump will “throw vets to the wolves”

Wed, 13 Jul 2016 10:41:00 +0000

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (PAI) - Add Donald Trump to the lengthening list of Republicans who want to privatize the Veterans Affairs Department's hospitals, the union representing those 230,000 hospital workers says.

And while you're at it, don't forget that Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., the retiring Republican chairman of the House Committee that handles veterans issues, advocates the same goal - and that news reports indicate if Trump wins the White House, he'd make Miller VA secretary.

And that a 15-member VA advisory commission, pushed by executives with links to the anti-worker anti-union Koch brothers, recommended privatization, too, in a report on July 5.

AFGE' comments were prompted by Trump's July 10 speech in Virginia Beach, Va., home to a large veterans' community near a major naval base and shipyard. It was his second speech in that Virginia area about the VA. The first was last October. The difference this time is Trump is the prospective GOP presidential nominee, and Miller may be his VA Secretary.

AFGE President J. David Cox is no fan of Miller's privatization plan, HR5620, but he reserved his top ire for Trump.

"Donald Trump wants to throw veterans to the wolves" by giving them vouchers to go seek private care, said Cox, a retired VA psychiatric nurse in the agency's Greensboro, N.C., hospital. "Private health care for veterans would be an expensive disaster, and no one should be fooled into believing otherwise.

"The VA system provides the best possible health care to veterans at the lowest possible cost. Veterans know this and that's why they overwhelmingly want to keep the care they have. Trump's claims that privatization would improve care and cut costs are dead wrong. He is writing a blank check to huge hospital corporations to profit off the suffering of veterans."

"Trump needs to learn that VA health care is a serious issue, not something he can embrace one day and dismantle the next. One has to wonder if he has any idea of the consequences of depriving veterans of the integrated care system on which they rely or any idea of the enormity of the loss to the nation's health care education that closing the VA would entail. The irresponsibility of supporting the dismantling of the VA system is staggering,"

That's not what Trump sees. "Veterans should be guaranteed the right to choose their doctor and clinics, whether at a VA facility or at a private medical center," he said. He promised to fire non-performers and make sure "veterans are in the front, not back, of the line" for care.

That's not the case, now, he claimed - despite current evidence even in the advisory panel's report. Two years ago, a lack-of- care scandal led to a congressional overhaul of the VA, hiring of more doctors, replacement of the VA secretary, and permission for many vets to use private, but VA-approved health care facilities, with agency reimbursement afterwards.

Miller unveiled his VA health system plan the day before he introduced Trump at Virginia Beach. AFGE will lobby hard against it. So will veterans' groups.

"Profit-hungry special interests and their web of associates in Congress are making a desperate attempt to twist the facts, trash the VA, and take advantage of our veterans for personal financial and political gains," the union said of Miller's bill. It called HR5620 retaliatory against workers and whistleblowers and "the latest attempt to break VA doctors, nurses, and other providers...Demoralizing the existing workforce would put the VA in a worse shape, which could lead to more problems. The crippled VA would be just another excuse for Miller and special interests like the Koch brothers to shut down the VA," the union said.

Photo: AP

Unemployment rate rises in June to 4.9 percent

Tue, 12 Jul 2016 14:34:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - The nation's unemployment rate rose by 0.2 percent in June to 4.9 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Private businesses claimed to create 265,000 new jobs last month, while governments added 22,000 more, a separate survey said.

The mixed message continued in other data from BLS:

The number of jobless rose by 347,000, to 7.783 million, while the number of people not in the workforce dropped by almost 200,000.
Almost 40,000 of the new jobs were not created, but re-created, as the Communications Workers and the Electrical Workers returned on June 1 from Verizon's forced 45-day strike. The telecom sector added 28,100 jobs, net, rising to 797,900 total. Only low-paying health care (+38,500 jobs) and retail (+29,900) added more.
High paying sectors that added jobs included the telecom workers and government workers, especially in local government and schools (+17,000 combined). Factories added 14,000 jobs, to 12.296 million, but virtually of them - 13,000 -- were in one of the lowest-paying areas of a high-paying sector, food plants.
Meanwhile, at the height of construction season, there was literally no employment change at all, with 6.643 million employed building trades workers in both May and June. Jobless rates were 4.6 percent in construction and 3.7 percent in factories.
Almost one in ten workers (9.6 percent) were jobless, underemployed - people forced to toil part-time when they really want full-time work-or so discouraged they stopped looking. That percentage has changed little in the last five months.
And 25.8 percent of all jobless workers in June had been out of work for more than six months, meaning they've exhausted their jobless benefits. That's up from 25.1 percent in May.
Unemployment rates for major demographic groups changed little, except for African-American teenagers. Their number jumped by 33,000 from May to June, to 228,000, and their joblessness rose from 27.1 percent in May - already the highest rate - to 31.2 percent in June.

Pro-worker analysts' reactions were mixed, too. Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research worried about the jobless hike among African-American teens. "These data are highly erratic, but the trend is large enough that it could reflect a substantial deterioration in the labor market," he said.

Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute concentrated on "missing workers" - the ones forced to toil part-time or who have dropped out. As a result, the jobless rate "drastically understates the weakness of job opportunities," she said. If you add the 2.63 million missing workers to the official jobless numbers, the June jobless rate would be 6.4 percent, she pointed out. EPI data show that at the height of the Great Recession - also known as the Bush Crash-in early 2010, that recalculated rate hit 19.9 percent.

Photo: At a job fair in Miami. Wilfredo Lee | AP