People Before Profit blog

Today in labor history: Paterson silk strikers take to stage

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Today in labor history, silk workers held a one-time performance of Paterson Strike Pageant at Madison Square Garden in 1913.

"Paterson, New Jersey, was known as the 'Silk City of America.' More than one-third of its 73,000 workers held jobs in the silk industry. High-speed automatic looms were introduced into the factories at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1911 silk manufacturers in Paterson decided that workers, who had previously ran two looms, were now required to operate four simultaneously. Workers complained that this would cause unemployment and consequently, would bring down wages.

"On 27th January, 1913, 800 employees of the Doherty Silk Mill went on strike when four members of the workers' committee were fired for trying to organize a meeting with the company's management to discuss the four-loom system. Within a week, all silk workers were on strike and the 300 mills in the town were forced to close," according to UK-based Spartacus School.

Notable Industrial Workers of the World leaders, Bill Haywood, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, became strike leaders.

Radical journalist John Reed "went to Paterson to learn about the Wobbly-led silk workers' strike then in progress and decided to mount a massive public pageant to publicize the strike and raise money for the strikers. He won financial backing from art patron Mabel Dodge and enlisted artists such as John Sloan, who painted a 90-foot backdrop depicting the Paterson silk mills.

"The pageant opened on June 7 in Madison Square Garden and ended with the workers and the audience triumphantly singing the 'Internationale,' the anthem of international socialism," says History Matters.

Reed had been arrested in Paterson and then released when authorities learned he was embarrassing them through his writings of prison conditions. Other left-wing journalists, like Walter Lippmann, went to Paterson in solidarity with Reed.

Although the pageant lost money, supporter Dodge wrote of its importance, "For a few electric moments there was a terrible unity between all of these people. They were one: the workers who had come to show their comrades what was happening across the river and the workers who had come to see it. I have never felt such a pulsing vibration in any gathering before or since."

Photo: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn speaks at a silk workers strike rally. As a way to fully engage the women of Paterson, Gurley Flynn held successful women-only weekly meetings during the strike. (CPUSA/Daily Worker collection/Tamiment)

This history note was originally published June 7,2012.

Hoffa and Brown try to put brakes on Pacific trade pact

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 13:10:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI)--With the Obama administration moving ahead with negotiations with Pacific Rim nations about another trade pact, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Teamsters President James Hoffa teamed up to try to stop the rush through new legislation setting standards for such pacts in advance.

Joined by several business leaders, including a vice president of Ford, the Ohio lawmaker and the union leader unveiled the bill in a June 27 conference call. They say Congress must have the chance to order U.S. negotiators to include pro-worker standards in trade pact texts, before bargaining begins.

But it is unlikely that lawmakers will approve Brown's bill before the next bargaining session on the Pacific pact, in San Diego on July 8.

Brown's "21^st Century Trade Agreements and Market Access Act" would also order the executive branch to report on worker rights, labor protections and enforcement in any potential trade pact partner nations before negotiations start.

"This legislation would help set standards for global trade deals to ensure they create good jobs and improve working conditions not only at home, but with potential trading partners throughout the world," Hoffa said. It "lays out the foundation of how a trade agreement should be negotiated, providing fair trade with labor standards that workers everywhere deserve."

The talks are on a proposed Trans-Pacific Pact (TPP) enacting so-called "free trade" between the U.S. and other nations around the Pacific: Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. Canada, Mexico, and Japan also intend to join the TPP.

The AFL-CIO started its own campaign to warn Obama not to move ahead on the TPP. It's circulating an on-line protest petition, to be sent to the White House.

"Past free trade agreements accelerated the shift of jobs overseas, made it harder for our own government to spend our tax dollars on Made in America products and put corporate profits before the interests of working families here and in other countries," the petition says.

"It's past time for our leaders to support trade rules that reward companies that invest in America so we can rebuild our nation. Creating good jobs at home starts with a commitment to a new trade policy-not more of the same failed policies of the past.

"If we want to bring jobs home, the last thing we need is another bad trade agreement," the federation petition declares.

Union leaders, including Hoffa, joined Brown in prior years to introduce similar legislation, the Trade Act, setting standards for U.S. trade bargainers. It went nowhere.

"The Teamsters have said all along we're not fighting trade - we are fighting trade that destroys good jobs and lowers standards," Hoffa said. "We are for trade that creates jobs and improves working conditions. And we are for this bill that would rewrite the rules for global trade to help protect workers everywhere at this critical time. We have to make sure labor rights are not an afterthought, but the first thought."

"It's time for an honest assessment of what our trade agreements yielded and recognize where changes are in order. After we've seen more than 5 million jobs lost to our 'trading partners,' in NAFTA, CAFTA, and China, and with new export opportunities not enough to offset our trade deficit, it's time for a new direction in trade policy," Brown said.

"The TPP is an opportunity to learn from the past. And that means demanding our trade partners uphold the same labor, environmental, and human rights standards that we do. The rules of trade and the processes for negotiating the rules matter. We should export American products, not American jobs," Brown concluded.

Photo: Back in 1996 Teamsters were protesting NAFTA trucking regulations in San Diego. They are longtime proponents of fair trade with labor standards that benefit workers everywhere. Denis Poroy/AP

Today in history: Civil Rights Act signed

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 12:43:00 +0000

On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, a historic advance for all Americans.

It includes the following landmark provisions:

Title I bars discrimination in voter registration requirements.

Title II outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce.

Title III prohibits state and municipal governments from denying access to public facilities on grounds of race, color, religion or national origin.

Title IV encouraged desegregation of public schools and authorized the U.S. Attorney General to file suits to enforce it.

Title VI prevents discrimination by government agencies that receive federal funds.

Title VII prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.

Title VII also prohibits discrimination against an individual because of his or her association with another individual of a particular race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. An employer cannot discriminate against a person because of his or her interracial association with another, such as by an interracial marriage.

Photo: President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act, July 2, 1964. Standing behind him is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Wikimedia Commons

Hunger strikers crusade to save Postal Service

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 15:31:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - If all else fails, try shame.

That's what a dozen campaigners - 10 or so present and former postal unionists and two or three allies - did with their 4-day hunger strike on June 25-28, to get lawmakers to save the U.S. Postal Service, the right way.

The group, led by Jamie Partridge from Portland, Ore., a retired Letter Carrier from Branch 82 there, fasted to dramatize that they're endangering their health to show how supposed legislative solutions for the agency's financial ills are endangering its health, as well as the middle-class jobs of almost 500,000 workers.

"We've been fighting this effort" against congressional evasion of the USPS' problems "for more than two years, in traditional ways," Partridge told Press Associates Union News Service at the end of their first day of fasting. "They haven't worked."

So the group, and its grass-roots allies nationwide, seek other ways to "step up the pressure" on lawmakers, from both union members who work for USPS and from its customers - who are virtually the entire country.

Besides the fast, their tactics included an occupation of the Portland Post Office, resulting in 10 arrests. There may be similar occupations, Partridge says, in other post offices nationwide. And they're getting the word out to grass-roots activists around the U.S. via Twitter, Facebook and other social media, going beyond traditional lobbying efforts that the Letter Carriers, the Postal Workers and the Mail Handlers undertake.

The activists say such lobbying, including e-mailing, visits to lawmakers, and letters, don't prevent Congress from dismantling USPS and killing jobs. Traditional lobbying also isn't stopping USPS from starting big service cuts, to save cash, on July 1.

The fasters retort that the Postmaster General's cuts have already begun, and already harmed service to customers, with examples:

Some 129 rural post offices have already had their hours cut in Oregon alone, and the USPS is leaving carrier vacancies unfilled, Partridge says. Instead, current carriers get more routes added to their loads, often finishing deliveries after nightfall.

In the Los Angeles area, says Kevin Cole of the Southern California branch of the Postal Workers, USPS distribution centers in the City of Industry and in Long Beach are being consolidated with centers in Santa Ana and Anaheim. USPS says such consolidations will cut costs by eliminating tens of thousands of jobs.

The hunger strikers, and the unions, say the cuts slow down the mail and reduce service, too. That'll drive customers away, starving the USPS, the hunger strikers add.

"We have the same machines at Santa Ana and Anaheim, and the mechanics to maintain them," Cole says. But the machinery at the remaining distribution centers could well break down under the increased workload, he adds.

The same thing's happening in Indiana, only it's worse, says Curt Cary, a state legislative activist and retired Letter Carrier from Local 98 in Muncie and Local 378 in Marion. He reeled off a list of about half a dozen sorting centers being closed in that state alone, with all the mail being sent to Fort Wayne or Indianapolis.

Tom Dodge, of Postal Workers Local 781, said when USPS closed its mail-sorting facility in Frederick, Md., four of the six information technology workers there got new jobs - as janitors. The others were let go. "I took my neighbor to" the sorting center in Baltimore "to pick up her mail," added Dodge's wife. Now that all the mail's going through there, "some of it's taking three weeks. You can tell by the postmarks."

Besides the hunger strike, designed to shame Congress into saving, not destroying, the Postal Service, the activists also did some inside work: Lobbying lawmakers, but with a twist. Except for a press conference with Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, the hunger strikers concentrated on foes, not friends.

Whether that worked is open to question. Partridge called a 45-minute discussion with aides to Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chair of the committee that handles Postal Service legislation, virtually fruitless. He calls Issa's legislation part of the wider right wing war on unions and workers and the Republican privatization crusade.

Issa's "reform" puts the USPS under an independent czar empowered to tear up contracts, fire workers, cut pay and do anything else to reduce the agency's red ink. The postal unions and the strikers point out the red ink would vanish if USPS did not have to make a $5.5 billion yearly prepayment to fund future retirees' health care costs. Another financial aid: Let the Treasury return billions of dollars in overpaid pension money to the Postal Service.

But will their hunger strike have an impact on Congress? The workers don't know. They do know one thing, hunger striker Nannette Corley of APWU Local 3630 in the D.C. suburbs, said: "We want to see the Postal Service get back to serving the public."

Photo: MoneyBlogNewz // CC 2.0

Today in labor history: Luddites rebel against substandard work conditions

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 13:31:00 +0000

Today in labor history, the Luddites (19th century textile workers) attacked the Heathcoat and Boden's Mill in Loughborough, England, sabotaging and damaging machinery. This was a response to substandard workplace conditions, and employers replacing them with less-skilled, low-wage labor.

After the workers smashed 53 frames at the mill, troops were sent in, and six Luddites were executed.

The Luddites are believed to have named themselves after Ned Ludd, an English laborer who destroyed weaving machinery around 1779 out of the belief that it was diminishing employment.

The movement first began in Nottingham, England, where weavers faced competition from a new wide-frame machine that could conduct six times the work of previous machines. High prices and depressed wages plagued the area around this time. The Luddites learned to train, march, and organize - rudimentary attempts at what workers are capable of doing today.

The Luddites were one of the earliest examples of an attempt by workers to stand together and collectively bargain, though on this day in 1816, it was done as a riot.

Postal workers on hunger strike take aim at newspaper

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 14:49:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - After three days of starving themselves to "save a starving postal service" 10 hunger strikers today took aim at the Washington Post.

Charging the Post editorial board with "disinformation and omission," the 10 threw up a picket line here in front of the newspaper's office.

Pointing to an April 15 editorial "Dead letters," which describes the postal service as "technologically obsolescent" and suggests that "costs will get shifted to...taxpayers," the strikers said that a $5.5 billion annual pre-funding mandate is sinking an otherwise successful agency.

The postal service is required by a 2006 act of Congress to pre-fund retiree health benefits 75 years in advance, something not required of any other public agency or private company.

"It's not the Internet, not private competition from FedEx or UPS, not the recession - its Congress that's killing the U.S. postal service," said James Partridge, one of the hunger strikers in a phone interview. Partridge is a retired letter carrier from Portland, Ore. "Allow the postal service access to its own funds - not tax but postage funds - from the pension surplus, and the finances can be fixed," he said.

The pension surplus amounts to $60 to $85 billion overpaid into federal retirement accounts, according to the Office of the Inspector General and the Postal Regulatory Commission.

The hunger strikers have spent much of their time walking the halls of the massive congressional office buildings where Partridge says the strikers have been "intent on shaming Congress into action." He said the strike will culminate in a mass rally June 28 at 4 p.m at postal headquarters on L'Enfant Plaza. The hunger strikers will attempt what he called "an encounter with the Postmaster general."

The hunger strike is happening only a week before the U.S. Postal Service downgrades delivery standards for first class mail. Beginning July 1, overnight single-piece first class mail delivery will end.

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe has announced that he will then begin shutting down half the mail sorting plants in the country and slash hours from 25 to 75 percent in half the nation's post offices. Forty thousand jobs will be eliminated. The hunger strikers are demanding that Donahoe maintain current delivery standards and suspend cuts and closures while allowing Congress to repair the financial mess by repealing the prefunding mandate and refunding the pension surplus.

"The Postmaster General is sending the service into a death spiral," said Matt McAuliffe, another of the hunger strikers. McAuliffe is a mailhandler in Denver. "By slowing the mail, one to two days," he said, "the postal service will drive away customers. Those most dependent on the mail, the elderly, the poor and rural communities will be hit the hardest."

Hunger strikes and other protests in sympathy with the action in the nation's capital are being organized in cities across the country, including Seattle, Olympia, Portland, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Richmond and Baltimore. Hundreds of individuals and groups have endorsed the hunger strike, which has been put together by Communities and Postal Workers United, a national grassroots network.

"Corporate interests, working through their friends in Congress, want to undermine the postal service, bust the unions, then privatize it," said Tom Dodge, of Baltimore, another of the hunger strikers. "We will not stand by as our beloved postal service is destroyed."

Photo: Hunger strike by postal workers in Washington. Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO.

Independent union of Merck workers joins OPEIU

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 11:48:00 +0000

WEST POINT, Pa. -- Members of an independent union of administrative workers at the drug giant Merck, Sharp & Dohme voted overwhelmingly on June 14 to merge into the Office and Professional Employees, OPEIU announced. The 96-4 vote will bring 287 workers at Merck's West Point, Pa., facility into the larger union as Local 1937 - the year the Merck Independent Union was founded.

"Our affiliation with OPEIU will give us more strength in representing members as part of the 108,000-member OPEIU and the support of the 13 million members of the AFL-CIO and organized labor," said MIU President Dottie Miller. "We evaluated the pros and cons of affiliating with several unions and chose OPEIU as the best fit."

"We look forward to working with MIU to give them the additional leverage they need to carry out their work," said OPEIU President Michael Goodwin. MIU will keep its autonomy within OPEIU, he added, after the larger union's Organizing Director, Kevin Kistler, worked out an affiliation agreement, Goodwin added.

Ironically, the merger of the administrative workers' union at Merck came one week before the U.S. Supreme Court showed another, larger group of drug company workers - those in pharmaceutical sales - could use union protection, too.

The justices ruled, 5-4, in a case by sales reps for GlaxoSmithKline, that pharmaceutical salespeople are "outside sales" workers exempt from the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, and thus ineligible for overtime pay.

The reps said "their primary (sales) objective was to obtain a nonbinding commitment from physicians to prescribe" Glaxo's drugs, the justices said. Reps called on MDs for 40 hours a week, and spent 10-20 more hours weekly on "events and other miscellaneous tasks."

The reps were well paid, but said Glaxo should have paid them overtime. They lost in lower courts and on June 18, at the High Court. The Obama Labor Department tried to tighten the definition of an outside sales person, to make more workers eligible, the justices noted. But its attempt, which the Glaxo workers cited, was contrary to prior law and DOL's own precedents. The majority tossed the workers' complaint.

Hunger strike underway in D.C.

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:17:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Planned cuts to the U.S. Postal Service that would cost more than 100,000 active workers their jobs, cut another 100,000 by attrition, close post offices and cut service nationwide prompted eight retired union Letter Carriers to begin a hunger strike in D.C. on June 25.

Their protest, to end with a demonstration at Postal Service headquarters on June 28, demands deletion of the cuts, and congressional action on legislation that unions back to reverse USPS' financial slide. Bills in Congress to "save" the Postal Service are inadequate (Senate) and unacceptably anti-worker (House), the unions add.

Portland, Ore., activist Jamie Partridge told the Northwest Labor Press that the hunger strikers, including himself, want USPS to halt its planned July 1 cuts, which would start the downward spiral of reduced service and declining usage of the USPS, leading to more jobs being cut and more workers being fired.

The activists, along with NALC and other postal unions, argue Congress could "stop starving the Postal Service," by freeing it to enter other business lines, eliminating its required annual $5.5 billion prepayment of future retirees' medical costs, and by returning billions of dollars it overpaid into the federal workers pension system.

Photo: Letter carrier Felipe Raymundo moves a tray of mail to his truck to begin delivery at a post office in Seattle. Elaine Thompson/AP

Judge sides with American Airlines, blocks employees' vote

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:14:00 +0000

FORT WORTH, Tex. -The Communications Workers of America will continue to fight against an undemocratic anti-union ruling by a federal judge here on June 21^st. The union has spent years contacting the customer service reps at American Airlines and was ready to hold a union election just as management took the company into bankruptcy.

American Airlines has demanded the right to break their union contracts with the Pilots, Flight Attendants, and the Transport Workers Union. They also blocked the Communications Workers from holding their election to further prevent their employees from organizing to defend themselves. The company insisted that a recent change in the Railway Labor Act, which governs most organizing drives in transportation, should be applied retroactively to deny employees their right to vote.

Outside the courthouse on the morning of the final presentations, airline employees and their supporters gathered for an enthusiastic rally. Representatives from the Auto Workers, American Federation of Teachers, Alliance for Retired Americans, and others heard CWA District 6 Director Claude Cummings blast the flimsy legal excuses that the company had put forward. He talked about broad support within the labor movement and specifically thanked Gary Bledsoe, the President of the Texas NAACP, and State Representative Marc Veasey for support. A written solidarity message from State Representative Lon Burnam of Fort Worth was read. Individual American Airlines employees talked about democracy and their right to organize.

After the rally, several employees went into the courtroom. They were forced to reverse their union tee shirts so that their messages could not be seen. Eventually, the judge would take another step away from American democracy. The union will appeal.

Photo: American Airlines employee Salma Kassam told reporters how much she and others needed to unionize. Jim Lane/PW

Biggest public worker union elects new president

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 11:10:00 +0000

In an election that marked the changing of the guard at one of the nation's biggest and most politically active unions, American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees convention delegates elected Lee Saunders as the union's new president, and running mate Laura Reyes to succeed Saunders as secretary-treasurer.

Saunders, a Cleveland native, won 54 percent of the vote, from delegates representing 683,628 members, to 46 percent for New Yorker Danny Donohue, from delegates representing 582,358 members. Vote totals were announced late on June 21.

Saunders will be only the fourth president of the 1.6 million-member union, and its first African-American president. Reyes, who defeated fellow Californian Alice Goff, 52.3 -47.7 percent, will be the union's first female secretary-treasurer.

Saunders succeeds Gerald McEntee, who retired after 31 years as president. McEntee backed Saunders.

The race between Saunders and Donohue, an international vice president and president of a big New York AFSCME local, featured a debate over how to meet the GOP-radical right challenge to workers, especially public workers. Saunders favored what some said was a more conciliatory approach of reaching out to Republicans than did his opponent, Donahue.

The 2010 elections swept anti-worker governors and lawmakers into office, including Wisconsin's Gov. Scott Walker and Ohio's Gov. John Kasich. Both of them went on the attack against collective bargaining rights with Walker surviving a recall election and Kasich seeing his law go down to defeat at the polls.

In the end, however, the two sides said their differences were small and they put up a strong united front.

"We had a vigorous and energetic campaign, but now the union will pull together to win victories for working families and our members all across this great country," Saunders said after the election.

"We know Wall Street and their allies are engaged in an all-out assault against our members and the services we provide. They know AFSCME stands in the way of their efforts to destroy the middle class.

"We are united in our commitment to stand up for the men and women who care for America's children, nurse the sick, plow our streets, collect the household trash and guard our prisons. Our members are a cross-section of America, not some elite group as our opponents try to claim. We are energized and ready for the battles ahead."

AFSCME's importance in politics was emphasized by the fact that U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden flew out to the convention in Los Angeles to personally address the 5,000 delegates.

"You provide the safe neighborhoods, you provide the good schools, you provide the school lunches, you provide the day care centers, you provide the hospitals, you provide the roads, you provide the ability of people to live a decent middle-class life. We owe you!" Biden declared.

Photo: Biden greets workers at a machining plant. Madalyn Ruggiero/AP

A win, a loss, and a toss-up for labor in Michigan

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 10:47:00 +0000

This story is from The Building Tradesman.

LANSING, Mich. - Labor won one, lost one, and had one key issue still up in the air in the latest action in the Republican-run Michigan legislature. The win was state senate approval of a measure to make part-timers eligible for jobless benefits, thus letting them both work and collect aid for the hours that they miss.

That measure would let firms keep workers on the job, with wages and benefits combining to almost match prior full-time pay, until business picks up and they can be restored to full-time employment.

But that win was balanced off by a loss: A second state attempt to ban project labor agreements (PLAs) on state and locally funded construction. Still pending: A proposal - directed at teachers unions - barring paying workers for time taken out for union duties such as grievances or handling shop steward responsibilities.

The Michigan House on May 31 adopted a "fix-it" bill to again ban PLAs. Lawmakers banned PLAs last year, but in February, U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts tossed it out, saying that ban was pre-empted by the U.S. National Labor Relations Act.

The new PLA ban was adopted along party lines, with one House Republican voting along with all the Democrats against it. The GOP controls the house, 64-46. A nearly identical version previously passed the senate, also along party lines, and is headed for GOP Gov. Rick Snyder's signature. Republican lawmakers hope the new ban is an end-around evading Roberts's ruling.

"The bottom line with this new bill is they're trying to fix what the federal judge found wrong, by making technical changes," Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council attorney John Canzano says.

"But in my opinion, they can't find a fix for what they're trying to do, which is to prevent all government units in Michigan from employing PLAs." The Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council had appealed the prior PLA ban in federal court, and won.

Not content with trashing construction workers by the PLA ban, the lawmakers went after the teachers, too - again.

The ban (SB7) on using tax dollars to pay union officials for time conducting union business surfaced May 23 in a state senate committee after being introduced in early 2011. Last year, the GOP enacted a ban on school districts taking payroll deductions for union dues.

A "fiscal impact" statement May 24 by the Senate Fiscal Agency said: "The bill would have no impact on state revenue or expenditures, or on local unit revenue."

That non-impact comes after the GOP, last year, enacted a law forcing all new state public school hires into a 401(k) plan, rather than a traditional pension. The state House Fiscal Agency calculated that law would cost the state $300 million per year.

The payment ban would most heavily impact teachers represented by the American Federation of Teachers and the Michigan Education Association in 12 large school districts, MEA said. But numerous other public employee union members would also be affected, though not police officers and Fire Fighters unions.

Last year, Michigan AFL-CIO Legislative Director Michael Geller told a state House committee "permitting union officials to become engaged early on in a problem will typically allow for a quicker and sometimes less costly resolution."

He added both the union and the employers locally weigh the costs and benefits of the practice. "This is a local control issue, Geller said. Added MEA: "Many times, union business is school business. When problems arise, they can be resolved quickly during the day. The school district benefits and the union benefits."

But just as even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then, as the old saying goes, the Michigan Senate Republicans came up with a pro-worker bill, in contrast to the 95 anti-worker measures moving through Lansing.

By unanimous vote on May 23, the senate approved legislation to allow payment of unemployment benefits to individuals whose wages and hours have been reduced. This would let employees working part-time also collect unemployment benefits and enable companies to retain employees rather than laying them off. Similar work-sharing legislation is pending in other states. Germany used it to successfully avoid the huge depths and high joblessness that hit Michigan and the U.S. in the Great Recession.

"It doesn't matter whose name is on the bill, what matters is the legislature is taking action to provide help for Michigan workers struggling to get by and enable companies to retain top-flight talent," said Democratic State Sen. Vince Gregory. "We have been calling for action on work-sharing legislation for more than a year and I applaud sponsor Sen. Bruce Caswell's efforts to finally get some traction on this important lifeline for working families." Added Caswell: "Today's unemployment compensation system is not adequate or agile enough to retain our best talent."

Employers could reduce employees' hours, while letting workers receive reduced unemployment benefits to somewhat make up for their losses. The bill now goes to the state House for consideration. Snyder has expressed support for the legislation.

Photo: A Michigan worker demonstrates at a rally. William Archie/AP & Detroit Free Press

Labor tries new tactic after defeat at Walmart

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 10:18:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling throwing out the mammoth class action sexual pay discrimination lawsuit against the monster retailer Walmart has prompted civil rights groups and sympathetic lawmakers to draft legislation creating an alternative route for workers to get justice in such cases.

The measure, by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. a veteran campaigner for workers' rights and women's' rights, and Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., along with 20 other senators and 20 other representatives, leaves the High Court's Walmart ruling in place, but sets up a way around it, says Jane Dolkart, the law professor who worked with them and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law to craft it.

And the new proposal also lowers the high bar the court's five-man majority set for workers seeking to get damages once pay discrimination is proven, Dolkart told Press Associates Union News Service. The justices said even if a class-action suit wins, the workers would then have to sue one by one for damages. The proposal would permit lower courts to calculate lump sum damages in discrimination cases, and then split them up.

The key barrier the court erected is that, in so many words, it made Walmart - and other companies - too big to sue as a class, forcing workers who suffer pay and promotions discrimination to bring cases individually. Last year's Walmart ruling also affected class action cases against Costco and Lockheed Martin, among others.

"Forcing workers to sue one by one effectively shields corporate America from having to pay out any money," Dolkart says. "And money" - potential damages of millions - "is the incentive for corporations to do the right thing in the first place."

But with the court having tossed class actions, "We set up an alternative, called a 'group action.' In place of the 'commonality of interest,' that class action suits require" for all class members involved - and that the majority said wasn't there in the decade-long Walmart case - "you can challenge any employment practice that affects a substantial number of persons within a group" of workers.

"That includes subjective practices" by local supervisors in employment decisions which impact on a group of workers, she said. Another Walmart practice the High Court majority upheld was its defense that it left hiring, promotion and pay decisions to local supervisors.

Walmart also used its written anti-discrimination policy as a defense. The new bill, the Equal Employment Opportunity Restoration Act, says existence of a written anti-discrimination policy is no defense. The employer wins only if it can prove it enforces its policy "consistently and effectively," the new measure adds.

The court's majority - over the vocal and pointed dissent of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who questioned what world her colleagues were living in - "set the standard so high" that class action suits for pay discrimination by sex, race or other factors became virtually impossible, Dolkart said. The court majority even threw out the use of such things as statistical sampling to determine whether discrimination occurred.

The new proposal restores that, too.

The DeLauro-Franken bill is not likely to move in this Congress, given its jammed agenda and lack of working time before the November election. But its unveiling sets the stage for hearings and debate down the road. That's a familiar journey for DeLauro in particular, a wily and veteran nose-cutter who has been toiling for more than a decade to enact other legislation outlawing pay discrimination on the job.

Photo: During Oct. 2011, an attorney speaks at a news conference as a group of former and current female Walmart workers listen. The California workers alleged that Walmart discriminates against women. Jeff Chiu/AP

Texas janitors on strike

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 09:30:00 +0000

HOUSTON -- June has been a month of fierce struggle for janitors in Houston. They make only $8.35 per hour and often only get four-hour shifts each day. They make only $9,000 dollars per year and live in poverty.

Many of the janitors employed by big corporations such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, Penzoil, Centerpoint Energy, and Reliant, do not make enough to provide food for their families and live in one-bedroom apartments with three other family members. Most cannot afford healthcare and often have to choose between food and medicine. Most of the janitors cannot afford to pay the high price of gas and most can barely even afford to take the bus to work.

One of the janitors, Rita Soto, says that "we are left with nothing at the end of the month," and is unable to afford Internet or even a new pair of shoes for her daughter. She works two other jobs and barely has any time left at the end of the day to spend with her children.

Houston janitors are paid the lowest in the country, with workers in other cities making much higher wages: Cincinnati ($9.80), Cleveland ($10.30), Detroit ($10.97), and Chicago ($15.47). With the cost of living continually rising, $8.35 is not enough to support a family of four and provide for the means of subsistence.

Some 3,200 janitors in Houston are members of the Service Employees International Union and have a contract agreement with their employers. The janitors, sick and tired of the total impoverishment created by their low-wages, rose up to demand a wage of 10 dollars per hour (incrementally over the next three years). The employers denied the proposal, offering the workers only an increase to $8.85 by 2016.

When the companies broke off contract negotiations with SEIU on May 31, 11 janitors at Pritchard Industries walked off the job and went on strike. The company fired them immediately.

Many of the other janitors in the SEIU were harassed by their managers and threatened with firing. Izabela Miltko, spokeswoman for the SEIU, says that the employers who have fired the workers for striking are in violation of federal labor law.

On Tuesday, June 5, all janitors with the SEIU voted to go on strike until their employers renew their negotiation contract and pay them a living wage of 10 dollars per hour.

In order to prevent the bosses from crushing their strike effort, the janitors have called strikes at random locations each day for the coming two weeks. Whenever the janitors walk out, their bosses call in scabs to walk across the picket line. Many of the janitors have lost their jobs, despite the fact that by firing strikers their employers are in clear violation of federal labor law.

On June 14, during a march with the janitors as well as over 450 activists from progressive organizations, one of the janitors was arrested. One of the janitors, Hernan Trujillo found himself suddenly trampled by a group of mounted police officers.

Trujillo's fellow co-worker rushed to the scene to help him get free from underneath the horses. When she attempted to help Trujillo, one of the cops handcuffed her and threw her into a police van.

The janitors have received much support from the progressive community in Houston, as well as from their fellow janitors across the U.S. At a rally on June 12, Texas Rep.Al Green, D., gave an inspirational speech in support of the striking workers. At this rally, Richard Shaw, head of the Texas AFL-CIO, was there in solidarity with the janitors, as well as the Catholic Archdiocese of Galveston. Even Mayor Anise Parker called on the employers to pay the workers a living wage and fulfill their demands.

Every afternoon the janitors organize at Tranquility Park in Downtown to try to get the bosses to fulfill their demands. The union sends a delegation a few times a week to the corporations where the workers are employed to try to work out a deal with the employers. When the delegation arrives, they're met by mounted police, who do not allow them to enter the building. Police harass both the activists and the workers, following them around after demonstrations and threatening them with arrest.

Photo: 3,000+ Houston janitors are members of the Service Employees International Union, which is pictured here in a demonstration. Damian Dovarganes/AP

June 20: American Railway Union is founded in Chicago

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 10:58:00 +0000

Today in labor history, the American Railway Union, headed by Eugene Debs, is founded in 1893 in Chicago. It was the largest labor union of its time and one of the first industrial unions in the United States.

The union was notable in that it sought the unification of all railroad workers, regardless of craft, race, or ethnicity.

Eugene Debs was one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World and also worked with several smaller unions - like the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen - before leading the ARU.

When, two months later, the Great Northern Railway enacted a series of wage cuts for its workers, the ARU organized its members in a strike action that lasted for 18 days and succeeded in pressuring the company to roll back the cuts.

In the Pullman strike a year later, the union was defeated by federal injunctions and troops, and Debs was imprisoned for violating the injunctions. Debs educated himself on socialism in prison and later ran as the Socialist Party's candidate for presidency on five different occasions.

Photo: Wikipedia

Congress Hotel strikers on 9th anniversary: “We’re not going anyplace”

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 15:11:00 +0000

CHICAGO - It's the longest strike in American history and still going strong.

"We're not only fighting for ourselves, we're fighting for all the workers of Chicago," said Lola Contreras, one of 60 Congress Hotel workers who marked the 9th anniversary of the strike here June 15.

Contreras addressed hundreds of supporters who jammed the sidewalk in front of the hotel marching in a festive block-long picket line. Strikers' families, other union members, clergy and community activists joined in.

The picketers, who marched to lively music provided by members of the Chicago Federation of Musicians, booed patrons who crossed the line to enter the hotel, some stepping out of luxury autos.

The scene included several gigantic inflatable rats to draw attention to attempts by the Congress Hotel owners to break the hotel workers' union by hiring non-union replacement scabs in 2003. The workers struck when owners refused to recognize the citywide collective bargaining agreement negotiated by Unite Here with the downtown hotels, and unilaterally imposed lower wages and benefits.

The strikers, mainly Latino immigrant and African American workers, have been maintaining a daily picket line for over 3,000 days. Asked what kept him going, striker Efrain Cortina said, "You don't look at it as if it's just for yourself. You look at all the union members."

Bringing solidarity from the rest of the trade union movement, Chicago Federation of Labor President Jorge Ramirez said it was hard for many to comprehend how long the strike had lasted. He lauded the courage and persistence of the strikers.

"I may be the president of the CFL, but you are the leaders of the labor movement," he said.

"The Congress Hotel owners are really evil," said Henry Tamarin, Unite Here Local 1 president. "Today there are just 12 full-time workers here. The rest of the workforce is being hired through temp agencies. It started here and is spreading to the rest of the hotel industry."

Tamarin said it was good to see, among others, members of the Chicago Police Department, who along with other public workers have had their own contract issues with the city.

"There are also many young people here today who have grown up with this strike," said Tamarin. "They are learning what the fight for workers' rights is all about and they will have to carry it on."

Tamarin said the workers and Unite Here would fight for as long as it took to get a fair contract. "We're not going anyplace, we're still here and we're going to be loud and proud at our protests," said Tamarin. "We'll be back!"

Photo: Workers show their solidarity, and drive home the point that they're not going anywhere. John Bachtell/PW

June 19: workers, families occupy Akron, Youngstown, and Hawaii

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 13:37:00 +0000

June 19: workers, families occupy Akron, Youngstown, and Hawaii

Today in labor history ... an Occupy trio: 1934 first sit-down strike, 1937 Women's Day Massacre and 1953 four-day general strike in Hawaii.

Sit down!

On June 19, 1934, workers conduct a pioneering sit-down strike at General Tire Co. factory in Akron, Ohio. The United Rubber Workers union was founded a year later. The tactic launched a wave of similar efforts in the rubber, auto and other industries over the next several years.

According to author Louis Adamic, rubber workers first used the sit down because they had organized ball teams of union rubber workers, who sat down on the grass or on benches and refused to play until they were provided with an umpire who was a union man. Later a dozen of them remembered this technique when they were dissatisfied with working conditions. The paralysis spread through the plant, and within an hour the dispute was settled.

Women's Day Massacre

During the "Little Steel" strike, on June 19, 1937, Youngstown police use tear gas on women and children, including at least one infant in his mother's arms, during a picket line at Republic Steel. Union workers respond to police violence, and police open fire. More union members and supporters join with crowd, which had not retreated. One union organizer later recalled, "When I got there I thought the Great War had started over again. Gas was flying all over the place and shots flying and flares going up and it was the first time I had ever seen anything like it in my life..." The day was dubbed the Women's Day Massacre.

General strike for democracy

Today in 1953, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union begins a four-day general strike in sugar, pineapple, and longshore to protest convictions under the anti-communist Smith Act of seven activists, "the Hawai'i Seven." A federal appeals court later overturned the convictions.

At DoubleTree, workers fight for "better Florida"

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 11:03:00 +0000

ORLANDO, Fla. - Over 500 Unite Here members, brothers and sisters from other unions, and community allies rallied here June 13 outside Orlando's only union hotel, to present their visions for a better Florida.

The event, organized by Unite Here Locals 362 and 737, was the culmination of a project in which 5,000 workers filled out cards on which they expressed their ideas for what needs to be done to make the Sunshine State work for working people. The two locals represent 19,000 hospitality and tourism workers in central Florida, and include a high percentage of Haitian and Latino immigrants and African Americans.

According to the union, "With Florida ranked among the highest in the U.S. with home foreclosures, among the lowest in education, [and] ranked at the bottom in public transportation, our state is in desperate need for a new direction and new leadership.

"With all of the challenges facing Florida, it ranks among one of the wealthiest states in the country next to one of the highest poverty rates. The workers in the hospitality industry have solutions to fix these problems and will be fighting for a better Florida."

The workers' solutions include quality public education for young people and affordable tuition for older workers who want to continue their educations, good jobs with living wages, affordable housing, rights for immigrants, the restoration of voting rights to ex-felons, and access to good, affordable public transportation.

The workers, many in red Unite Here T-shirts, paraded in front of the Hilton DoubleTree hotel, holding signs that said, "Fighting for a Better Florida," while others drummed, and chants such as "Up up with the workers! Yeah! Yeah! / Down, down with the bosses! Boo! Boo!" and "Hey hey, what you say / Unite Here is here to stay!" filled the air.

"We chose to be here today in front of the DoubleTree to support the brave and courageous workers who are fighting Blackstone, one of the biggest and greediest hotel corporations in the world," said Judith Pascuale of Local 737.

The DoubleTree workers are in the midst of what the union calls "difficult" contract negotiations with Hilton Worldwide, a subsidiary of the Blackstone Group, a financial services company. Blackstone's net income was more than $1.4 billion in 2010.

Travis Joyner, a Local 362 executive board member and a shop steward at a Walt Disney World restaurant, told the crowd that his "dream is to be able to live a life where I make enough to be able to live."

"Corporations, not only here but across the nation, are posting record profits," he said. "They make those profits on the backs of the workers."

"Executives are paid six-, seven-, and even eight-digit salaries because companies say their visions are why the companies are doing so well," he said. "We know that's a load of crap."

"They might have a vision," he added, "but without us, the workers, to realize their vision, they are just dreamers. We are just as important to these companies as the executives who run them."

Chrysanthemum Ashley, a member of community allies Organize Now! said her vision of a better Florida includes earned sick time.

"No one should have to lose their job for taking care of their family," she said.

Ashley related how, as a seasonal worker at a local business, she had lost her chance for a permanent part-time job after being written up for missing three days of work when her son was hospitalized.

"All because I was being a mother to my child," she said.

Citizens for a Greater Orange County are working to collect 45,000 voter signatures by the end of June to put an earned sick time initiative on the November ballot. If the measures passes, companies with 15 or more workers would be required to provide employees one hour of paid sick time for every 37 hours worked, up to a maximum of seven days (56 hours) per year.

Other groups and unions with a presence at the rally included the Student Labor Action Project at the University of Central Florida, Central Florida Jobs With Justice, SEIU, UFCW, IATSE and AFSCME. State Rep.-elect Victor Torres, D-Orlando, who is an Amalgamated Transit Union member, also attended.

Caption: Workers march outside Orlando's DoubleTree hotel, June 13. Frederick Barr/PW

Youth march for jobs and to end violence

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 09:24:00 +0000

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- A spirited march of 150 youth and adult supporters stopped downtown traffic to honks of support on Saturday as they made their way from the closed Dixwell Q House youth center to New Haven City Hall. They called for jobs and an end to violence.

Rallying in front of the Amistad statue, youth speakers, union leaders, and elected officials urged the Jobs Pipeline Committee formed by the Board of Aldermen to continue working until opportunities are provided to New Haven's youth.

"I'm fighting for these kids. I'm fighting for myself," exclaimed Nollysha Canteen, a high school senior and the youth representative on the Committee. "My sisters and brothers are scared to walk out the door because they're scared they'll be shot," she said.

"Would it be different if there were jobs? " asked Latoya Agnew, a youth leader from the Newhallville neighborhood. "Yes," answered the crowd. "Give us youth centers. Give us jobs. So this doesn't have to happen," she added.

"I may be only 11," said Jackie Marks, of New Elm City Dream, who chaired the rally, "but the youth here today are our future leaders."

Montell Wright, 16, led the crowd chanting, "United we stand, Divided we fall; Jobs for youth, Jobs for All!"

New Elm City Dream members have surveyed over 500 teens about jobs, violence, education, and neighborhood needs. It was announced at the rally that the youth who filled out surveys overwhelmingly state that having good jobs available for young people and adults will improve the quality of life in New Haven.

State Sen. Marty Looney reminded the crowd that this year is an important presidential election year and urged everyone to make sure they are registered to vote.

High school student Gerald Scott Campbell addressed the rally on behalf of the New Haven Young Communist League to announce that similar actions for jobs took place during Juneteenth weekend in a half dozen cities around the country.

"Once we have jobs, peace will come to our communities," he said. "Black, white, Hispanic; we all need jobs."

The New Haven Peoples Center, where the New Elm City Dream has been organizing since its inception in September, brought many adult marchers to support the youth. Peoples Center president Alfred Marder congratulated the young people for taking their destiny into their own hands.

"The lesson is to organize. Our common ground today is jobs," he said. "The People's Center is under attack because it provides support for the fights for jobs, immigrant rights, and for all the people of the city!"

Several came to march with the Peoples Center banner in solidarity after Governor Dannel Malloy withdrew funds to restore the 1851 brick structure from the state bonding budget, in reaction to anti-communist protests from a group of extremist Republicans, despite many letters of support from the state's largest unions and a number of community organizations.

Rev. Scott Marks concluded the rally by invoking the youth who were in the forefront of the Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam war movement. He praised the leadership being shown by New Haven youth today, and emphasized their unifying message: "They never say 'jobs for youth' without adding 'jobs for all,'" Marks said.

Referring to last year's labor-community victories in city elections, he pointed out that the youth demands -- stop the violence, jobs for all -- are now at the top of the agenda of the Board of Aldermen.

The weekend event was organized by New Elm City Dream along with several other youth groups to kick off a three weekend series of activities around the theme Youth ACTION - All Coming Together In Organizing New Haven. Following the rally, school buses took the youth to nearby Criscuolo Park for food, music, and performances.

Photo: New Elm City Dream youth group leads march for jobs and against violence through downtown New Haven on Juneteenth weekend. Art Perlo/PW

Court blocks airline union vote

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 13:54:00 +0000

FORT WORTH, Texas - Texas federal judge Terry Means has halted a planned union recognition vote among 10,000 passenger service agents at Texas-based American Airlines, drawing outrage from the Communications Workers, who had received a federal OK for the balloting. Its organizing drive at American was one of the biggest among airlines in recent years.

Means, a district judge in Fort Worth named to the bench by former GOP President George H.W. Bush in 1991, issued a temporary restraining order on June 13 against the vote. He ruled in a case American brought in his court on May 2 - a month before the National Mediation Board, the agency that oversees labor-management relations in airlines and railroads, even had approved the balloting.

Means said American would "suffer irreparable harm," if the election went forward now. CWA retorted it is the workers, not American, that his ruling hurts. "Workers, not American Airlines, will suffer irreparable harm - the standard for such an order," said CWA. It noted the agents have fought to unionize for 15 years.

"This decision will live in infamy as an atrocious assault on workers' rights," union President Larry Cohen said. "It will be remembered as total collaboration with a management discredited not only by vicious union-busting but by the disgrace of bankruptcy. CWA will carry on this fight for representation and justice and decency for as long as it takes. American Airlines CEO Thomas Horton has picked the wrong fight."

The passenger service agents sought the election just as American filed for bankruptcy late last year, with $4 billion in the bank, its unions say. American wants to "throw out its collective bargaining agreements with union workers and gut the jobs, benefits, and working conditions for the passenger service group," CWA adds. When NMB OK'd the union recognition vote, the passenger service workers openly said they wanted to cast ballots to protect their jobs before the jobs disappeared.

Means said American "had a substantial likelihood of success on the merits" of its case against the vote. He set a hearing for June 21 on whether to make his ban permanent. The voting was supposed to start that day and run through Aug. 2.

American's suit said CWA should have filed for the election under a new law governing the NMB, enacted in February. The law mandated that unions seeking recognition at airlines and railroads must get signed election authorization cards from an absolute majority - 50 percent+ 1 - of the workers involved. The old requirement was 35 percent.

CWA met that when it filed for the vote on Dec. 7. NMB approved the vote on June 6.

"American Airlines doesn't want to follow the law, it's trying to rewrite the law," CWA added. "There is no retroactivity for legislation, and clearly none for the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization," that increased the union recognition election card requirement to 50 percent+1.

Mine workers stay neutral in presidential race

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 13:14:00 +0000

The United Mine Workers union is staying neutral, so far, in the presidential race between Democratic incumbent Barack Obama and presumed GOP nominee Mitt Romney, the union's spokesman has told Press Associates Union News Service.

"We have not endorsed anyone in the presidential election and have no plans to do so at this time," communications director Phil Smith said in an email in mid-June. Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts was "not in Florida when the AFL-CIO endorsement was made," he added, due to a death in Roberts' family.

The governing council of the union's campaign finance committee, or PAC, backed Smith's comment and added Romney is unacceptable so far, too.

"Neither candidate has yet demonstrated he will be on the side of UMWA members and their families as president. We will continue to examine the candidates' positions on all issues of importance to our members and American working families as the campaign progresses," its statement said.

The Mine Workers move is important. The union, while smaller than in its heyday under legendary leader John L. Lewis, still has influence among miners, their families, and its retirees - who now outnumber active UMWA members - in Kentucky, western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and southern Illinois, among other states.

Ironically, Roberts' predecessor is AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who called for the federation's endorsement of Obama at the union leaders' executive council meeting. Trumka, despite differences with the president, backs Obama.

While neither Smith nor the PAC committee elaborated on Obama's failings, Roberts had a few choice words for the president's Environmental Protection Agency in a local radio interview several weeks ago in West Virginia.

"The Navy SEALs shot Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan and" EPA administrator "Lisa Jackson shot us in Washington," he told MetroNews Talkline. Roberts said Jackson's EPA is proposing new anti-pollution rules that would effectively end construction of any new coal-fired electric power plants in the U.S.

The Mine Workers' stand makes them one of two unions known to have taken no position, officially or unofficially, on the presidential race. The other is the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, an independent union.

Photo: Mine workers in Pittsburgh. America's Power // CC 2.0