People Before Profit blog

Labor Department aids workers displaced by BP's oil spill

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 12:15:00 +0000

The U.S. Department of Labor today announced an award of $27 million in National Emergency Grants to four key Gulf Coast states to assist workers displaced by BP's ongoing Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The states are Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi.

“Working families in the Gulf Coast have been dealt a tremendous blow by this oil spill, and they are facing serious long-term challenges," said U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis in a press statement. "They need and deserve our help now."

"From the start, we have been actively engaged in ensuring workers tackling the cleanup are kept safe and healthy," Solis added. "These grants will help those still looking for work find jobs that are good, safe and will help the region’s economy get back on track.”

According to the Department of Labor, the funds are being granted to workforce agencies in the four states experiencing economic hardship caused by BP's oil spill. Workers displaced by wage decline and job loss in the shrimping, fishing, hospitality and tourism industries will be eligible. Alabama and Mississippi each will receive $5 million. Florida will receive $7 million, and Louisiana will receive $10 million.

The resources are being provided to the states to help workers now while they seek reimbursement from BP for the costs associated with retraining and re-employment assistance. Services funded by the grant money may include skills assessment, basic skills training, individual career counseling and occupational skills training.

Since April, the Labor Department has been involved in the Deepwater Horizon response. The department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is deployed across the Gulf Coast monitoring the cleanup and ensuring BP provides appropriate worker safety and health training and protections.

For example, OSHA inspectors and have visited over 1,400 sites in the region impacted by BP's oil spill to protect clean-up workers and has worked to ensure that BP provides appropriate personal protective equipment. OSHA inspectors have also pressured BP to implement a heat stress work plan that prevents heat-related illnesses such as dehydration and heat stroke for workers doing the clean-up in the Gulf Coast's hot summer weather.

In addition to the grants for displaced workers, the Labor Department created One-Stop Career Centers where workers can receive information on unemployment insurance and job opportunities posted through the public workforce system.

Union bids farewell to Bill Lucy

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 09:47:00 +0000

BOSTON - The fighting mood at the 39^th Convention of America's 1.2 million-member public workers union here was tempered with some sadness this week because of the retirement of AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer William Lucy after a 57 year stint with the union.

Lucy worked with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1968 strike by sanitation workers in Memphis. He continued his collaboration with King until the civil right leader's assassination.

He is a founder and president of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, an organization that includes both union leaders and rank-and-file trade unionists who fight for what they see as the special needs of African-American and other minority workers.

When the AFL-CIO took a position of neutrality in the Nixon vs. McGovern contest for the presidency of the United States in 1972, the CBTU, under Lucy's leadership, came out boldly for McGovern. He said at the time that the labor movement could not remain neutral when the choice for the nation was between someone who wanted to roll back labor and civil rights and someone who stood for those rights.

In the mid-1980's Lucy helped found the Free South Africa movement. Out of that organization there developed a nationwide and international struggle against apartheid that eventually resulted in freedom for Nelson Mandela and collapse of the hated apartheid system in South Africa.

A video presentation at the convention portrayed Lucy's history as a fighter for civil rights and economic justice.

"We've always known that there's a crisis," Lucy said during his farewell speech. "It might be more intense now, but there's always been a crisis for millions of people not as lucky as we are in this room," he said. "There's a daily crisis in their lives, as they struggle to put bread on their tables, to put clothes on their backs, and have a roof over their heads. We have a responsibility to help them out."

Lucy said he hoped that, "when the final history of this union is written people will say of me simply that I did my best."

Thousands began chanting, "Thank you Bill!" as they waved placards that said the same thing. They kept it up for more than five minutes.

Public service union in a fighting mood

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:28:00 +0000

BOSTON - 5,000 public workers gathered here for the 39^th convention of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees are in a fighting mood - a mood they displayed frequently on day two of their assembly.

The mere mention from the podium of the names of the two Republican senators from Maine, for example, triggered a chorus of boos and jeers. They were angry about the fact that Sens. Collins and Snowe, often touted as more moderate than other Republicans, had marched in lockstep with GOPers blocking an up or down vote on a jobs bill backed by unions.

The bill the senators filibustered would end tax breaks for companies that outsource jobs, cut working-and-middle class taxes, extend unemployment insurance for millions and help states like Maine avoid job-killing budget cuts.

The union is beyond just anger, however. Even as convention business was conducted Tuesday, AFSCME was raking Snowe and Collins over the coals in a TV ad blitz paid for by the union itself and Americans United for Change.

"And those ads are being watched by people here in Massachusetts so let them be a warning to Scott Brown," AFSCME president Gerald McEntee said to thunderous applause. Brown is the Republican senator from Massachusetts who, in a special election, took the seat vacated by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.

The union's determination to be a force in the political arena extends well beyond an interest in Senate and House seats. Among union activists on the convention floor was Ron Green, the political action director for AFSCME Local 3634, California Council 36. He said his local had successfully worked to elect a "real friend of labor" to the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors. "What a difference it makes to have someone plugging for, rather than against us in the halls of government," he said.

Anger and determination turned into a joyous welcome when, to the words and music of Tom Petty's "Won't Back Down," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka was introduced.

He told the crowd how, "with the loss of 11 million jobs in this recession, public service jobs are needed now more than ever. We will not stand for right-wing calls to slash those jobs and abandon the millions who need help in the crisis."

Trumka condemned "politicians and pundits who try to make public service workers out to be fat cats." He blasted "the billionaire Mort Zuckerman who calls public service workers a 'new privileged class.' If you are privileged, what then are the Mort Zuckermans," Trumka asked. "They must be the aristocracy. Well I thought we got rid of the aristocracy years ago, but I think, if we have to, we will get rid of them again."

"Only the Tea Party and talk show hosts are stupid enough to think that people become public service workers to get rich," Trumka said. "Most people know you don't see hedge fund managers and CEOs looking to become social workers, hospital workers or bridge and tunnel operators. A person becomes a public worker not to get rich, but to build a better America." The crowd, some with tears in their eyes, cheered.

The loudest and most sustained applause came when the leader of the nation's largest labor federation declared: "The labor movement shall not allow public employees, minorities and immigrants to be turned against one another and used as scapegoats in a crisis created by corporate criminals. We won't back down against the mad dog Republicans, the party of "no." And we won't back down against Blue Dog Democrats in the party of "well, maybe."

Among many resolutions adopted Tuesday were ones calling for training and mentoring programs to bring women and youth into leadership positions in the union.

Carmen Charles of District Council 37, who was on the floor, was recently elected president of the Coalition of Labor Union Women. "We need to support women, educate women and women need to be leading this union," she said. Sixty percent of the delegates at the convention are women.

AFSCME members under 35 have set up "New Wave" caucuses in locals and councils across the country.

Elvis Agria, one of the New Wavers, was on the convention floor showing a retiree how to set up a Facebook account on his laptop.

"We young people have a strong commitment to social justice and we bring that commitment and other talents to the union," he said. Touching the retiree he was helping, he said, "But I have to tell you, we stand on the shoulders of giants like him."

Photo: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

Workers demand Chase stop Michigan foreclosures

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 13:25:00 +0000

DETROIT - The growing movement to "bail out the people, not the banks" came a step closer to being reality during a rally this past Friday at the United States Social Forum (USSF). It was organized by the USSF Faith and Spirituality Committee.

Two issues were highlighted: the home foreclosure crisis and the unfair treatment of farm workers who work in the tobacco fields of North Carolina.

JP Morgan Chase bank gets its hands dirty in both. They hold many of the home loans being foreclosed on and Chase is one of the lead banks that have invested $498 million in Reynolds American, one of the largest tobacco companies in the U.S.

Newly elected United Auto Workers President Bob King told the rally farm workers at Reynolds are "living in third world conditions where they are not given proper wages; they are not given proper water."

He said these injustices will only stop when people of conscience say, "we are not gong to take it anymore; we are going to stand together."

King also spoke to the foreclosure crisis.

"Those banks are fully rewarded by the federal government. They get all the loans back. We have to stand up and fight because the banks are getting paid. They (the government) are guaranteeing their loans. Those families should be allowed to stay in their homes."

He asked, "how can we allow the same creators of the crisis six months later to get million dollar bonuses? How can we at the same time let people who every day of their life have lived with a great work ethic, have lived according to the rules, have gone to work every day, have supported their schools, yet were letting them lose their homes while the bankers are riding on their million dollar bonuses?"

Baldemar Velasquez, President of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), AFL-CIO, which represents workers in North Carolina spoke about the responsibility the bank has for the horrible conditions farm workers have to endure.

On this coming Labor Day he asked people to pledge to withdraw their money from Chase if they won't "sit down and negotiate an agreement." Velasquez said the campaign will be carried across the country.

"If they are going to use that money to exploit us, it doesn't make any sense. We are going to make it right by not allowing our money to be used against ourselves."

Rev. David Bullock, president of Rainbow PUSH Detroit said, "We live in a time when greed is taking over America. We are so beholden to money. We are bowing down to the almighty dollar. Somebody tell me: What happened to caring about children? What happened to caring about families? What happened to the American dream of home ownership?"

"We're not asking for anything Wall Street hasn't gotten," he said.

Those at the rally marched to the steps of Detroit's home office for Chase Bank. A delegation of four led by King and Velasquez demanded to meet with bank officials and were finally let in. Later they returned with Velasquez announcing that they had won the "first step to victory" in their call for a temporary moratorium on home foreclosures in Michigan: bank officials agreed to meet within two weeks.

Regarding farm workers in North Carolina, Velasquez said if there isn't progress by Labor Day in FLOC's campaign for improved conditions for Reynolds' tobacco workers, the campaign to withdraw money will be in full swing.

People are quickly taking notice of the new activism in the UAW. King said "wherever workers or people are standing up and fighting for justice the UAW is going to be there with you."

The union is off to an excellent start. A leader of the UAW told me "I've been on more UAW endorsed marches in the last week than in the last ten years."

Photo: John Rummel

Steelworkers, wind energy group join forces to create jobs

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 12:01:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - The Steelworkers union and the American Wind Energy Association have signed an agreement on working together to develop the wind power industry, emphasizing the need for alternative energy devices - windmills and wind turbines generating electricity - produced by U.S. workers in U.S. factories.

Key parts of the pact include lobbying for a national standard ordering U.S. utilities to purchase a set percentage of their power from renewable sources - wind, solar, hydro, etc. - and for tax incentives to ensure the parts for the wind turbines and associated power plants and transmission lines are manufactured here, not overseas.

"We expect this framework will help advance the promise of green jobs being key to our future. The nation cannot continue to fall behind other countries on clean energy manufacturing," said Steelworkers President Leo Gerard.

"If we do not act quickly on this opportunity through federal leadership and industry commitment, we will have done a disservice to our citizens," he said. "The agreement is designed to create a partnership for progress that doesn't accept second place, and instead, puts the U.S. at the leading edge" in clean energy, he added.

"We're really excited. This will allow us to diversify our electrical power to a renewable power portfolio," Gerard told a telephone press conference.

The Steelworkers have led the way in the union movement in arguing for building factories to manufacture "green" products, such as wind generators and turbines, solar panels and hybrid car batteries. Not only would doing so revitalize U.S. manufacturing, they contend, but it would also produce high-paying jobs.

They cite the example of Gamesa, a Spanish wind-turbine manufacturer that bought a former steel mill in the Pittsburgh area, converted it to making wind turbines and now employs several hundred Steelworkers doing so.

But wind power and other alternative energies have yet to get off the ground due to lack of investment. That's because federal tax credits for such alternative energy investment expire every several years, making financial institutions reluctant to commit money. The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) adds that banks don't lend because many of the wind energy firms are "too small," to quote the group's chairman. Gerard also noted construction of some alternative energy plants, though not necessarily wind power plants, can take a decade.

"We have a lot of challenges due to that lack of a long-term commitment. We only have a short-term tax policy," he said. So financing is lacking, he pointed out.

"A stable and secure financial climate allowing AWEA members to plan for the future, while getting the capital to achieve those plans, is a necessary ingredient to expanded utilization of domestic supply chains," Gerard added. "Steelworkers, and all Americans, want to know that we will take every step necessary to create a plan for long-term economic growth."

Denise Bode, the CEO of the 2,300-member wind energy group, said the pact with the USW ensures that this sector "is the first major player in the energy industry to clearly show its commitment to utilizing domestically located sources of supply.

"Job creation and long-term growth in this sector require a comprehensive public policy agenda," Bode added. "That agenda will require some federal resources, but most importantly, it will require the national commitment to clean and green energy essential to the future of the industry. Our partnership will help achieve these goals."

The agreement drew immediate support from Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. He said wind energy plants already bring new jobs to his economically depressed state. He also stressed the need to rebuild the nation's factory base.

"Thirty years ago, 30 percent of our GDP was in manufacturing and 11 percent to 12 percent was in finance. Today that's almost flipped -- and we know where that's taken us," he said, referring to the current Great Recession caused by financial excesses and speculation. "So this is a big step the wind industry has taken, with our encouragement."

Brown did not say what the chances are of approving a long-term tax credit for alternative energy.

"But there are 8,000 parts needed to produce a wind turbine," he said. "I have people - tool and die makers, machine shops, auto parts dealers - coming to me and saying ‘I want to be part of the supply chain'" for wind power."

Photo: Workers finish a turbine blade at the Gamesa plant in Pennsylvania. PW/Teresa Albano

AFL-CIO head: Time to take green jobs seriously

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 11:42:00 +0000

CLEVELAND - Keynoting a town hall meeting on "Creating Green Jobs," AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka called for massive federal investment in clean energy industry and technology.

"A new generation of breakthrough technology is coming," he told the June 17 meeting here. "The question is whether it will be developed here or not."

The United States, he said, is planning to build 500 miles of high-speed rail. "That's good, but China, a country about the same size, is building 5,000 miles. China is taking it seriously."

He also noted that the world's largest wind farm is being built in Texas, "but the turbines are coming from Scandinavia."

Other speakers at the event, sponsored by the North Shore AFL-CIO, addressed urban mass transit, use of land freed up by the foreclosure crisis, a planned Lake Erie wind farm and the Emerald Cities program to weatherize buildings and homes.

The forum was held at Trinity Cathedral in connection with Trumka's invitation to speak at the City Club the next day.

Many of the 100 in attendance took part in a lively question period.

William Nix, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 268, and Amanda Woodrum of the Policy Matters research institute decried the neglect and destruction of urban mass transit due to the funding crisis.

Instead of discontinuing routes and laying off workers, "we should be expanding and investing in public transit," said Nix. "Every public transit job is a green job. It is a reduction in carbon emission."

Ohio spends less than 1 percent of its budget on mass transit, Woodrum said. This amounts to $10 million a year distributed over 89 transit systems and is far less than neighboring states.

Jim Rokakis, Cuyahoga County treasurer, said Cleveland suffers the "worst foreclosure crisis in the United States" and "nobody knows when it will end." There are 35,000 vacant structures, he said. Most are worth "virtually nothing."

In response, the county established a land bank and has been deluged with properties from individuals, banks and Fannie Mae, the Federal National Mortgage Association. While some of the homes can be rehabbed and made available for low-income people, most need to be demolished. The county, in cooperation with the regional sewer authority, hopes to create wetlands and "rain gardens" and use vacant land for urban farming.

"It's a way to take lemons to make lemonade," Rokakis said.

Chenelle Smith, Ohio coordinator of the labor-environmental Apollo Alliance, reported on the Green Emerald City Project, a collaboration of unions, environmental groups, the NAACP and the City of Cleveland, that is expecting to receive federal funds to retrofit 142,000 buildings.

"We will target minority communities and low-income workers," she said.

Lorry Wagner, president of the Lake Erie Energy Development Corp. (LEEDCo), described plans to launch a massive wind farm in Lake Erie. In an agreement signed with General Electric this month, a pilot project will build five turbines eight miles off Cleveland's shore. This would be the first wind energy production in North American waters and would create enough electricity to power 16,000 homes.

Wagner said the hope is that hundreds of turbines would be built in Lake Erie over the next decade, developing new industry and creating thousands of jobs in Ohio. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, has co-sponsored a bill to promote offshore wind development by private industry and the U.S. Dept. of Energy.

In response to a question, Trumka, formerly president of the United Mine Workers, said that clean energy development need not conflict with coal, which accounts for 57 percent of electricity generated in the U.S.

"We must invest in clean coal technology," he said. "We have the ability to remove carbon in the generation of power. We have a 400-year usable supply of coal."

Photo: A rally at West Virginia's state capitol in Charleston, 2008. (greenforall.org cc 2.0)

Public workers demand jobs bill

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 19:46:00 +0000

BOSTON - More than 5,000 union members from across the nation heard Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, demand that Congress "stop fooling around and pass the jobs bill that is before them."

"The bill will save or create more than a million jobs and, without it, we won't have an economic recovery," he declared, at the opening session of AFSCME's 39^th International Convention here.

"Sadly, that bill is now on life support," according to McEntee, "because just last week Republicans in the Senate blocked it for a second time."

He did not reserve his anger with politicians for Republicans alone, however, saying, "no politicians should ever again expect that labor will allow them to run roughshod over us." He said that a labor-run "accountability campaign," in which AFSCME played a major part, "put Blanche Lincoln, the incumbent Democrat in Arkansas, on the ropes and fighting for her political life."

AFSCME backed her primary opponent after what it saw as her betrayal of labor when she refused to back a public option in the health care reform battle and when she pushed for watering down the Employee Free Choice Act.

"We support the politicians who support workers," McEntee declared, "but these politicians, whether they are Democrats or Republicans, must understand they are being held accountable and if you turn on us, you will pay the price."

The union president said many elected officials were trying "to get away with using the recession as a cover for an attack on public workers, who he described as "the very people who provide whatever it is that makes our communities a great place to be.

"They're using this recession," he said, "as an excuse to privatize public jobs, raid pension funds and cut out jobs altogether."

He said the attack on public workers was a cornerstone of the Bush administration and that the Obama administration has, in 18 months, shown its commitment to a new direction for the country.

"This is why we can't allow the Tea Party, which does not represent America, to set back the progress we've made," he said, to sustained applause. "I look around this room," he told the thousands of Black, white, Latino, Asian and Native American people gathered before him, "and I see the real America. Right wingers, when they get angry, they get bitter. The real America, when it gets angry, fights for a better future. The Tea Party is not the real America. In fact, they're not even the real Tea Party. That's something that happened here in Boston more than two hundred years ago."

McEntee said the success of AFSCME would result in improvements for all workers, including those not in unions. "Our vision," he said, "is to help all workers deal with an onslaught unlike any they have ever seen. This union's agenda is to secure decent jobs that allow people to support their families and preserve the level of services that is worthy of this great nation."

He blasted "the big banks that create nothing yet pocket billions off the sale of empty promises."

"Don't believe for a minute," he warned, "the propaganda that what is good for the big banks and corporations is automatically good for America or for the rest of us."

Among the thousands applauding again were Ralph Miller, president of the Los Angeles County Probation Officers Union, Local 685. Miller said one of his proudest accomplishments was helping a young gang member turn her life around to become a medical assistant at an LA hospital.

When AFSCME members in Pennsylvania didn't receive pay checks for almost a month because the state legislature couldn't agree on a budget, life for many of them became extremely difficult. Jean Thompson, a delegate from Pennsylvania Council 13, Local 2582 was also in the crowd as McEntee spoke. Thompson said she worked with a community food bank in Fayette County to get food to those who needed the assistance. She said it was heart-warming to see how, when the workers got back on their feet, they donated time and money to the food bank.

Some in the crowd were among those AFSCME sent to help out in the aftermath of the deadly earthquake In Haiti earlier this year.

The AFSCME convention will continue all week. On Wednesday the delegates will join forces with local workers at the Boston Common in a protest demonstration against budget cuts and in demands by Boston area union members for a massive jobs program.

Photo: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

Chavez-Thompson energizes labor

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:33:00 +0000

CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS - The governor's race may get the highest media profile and the most campaign donations, but it's Linda Chavez-Thompson for Texas Lieutenant Governor that really puts fire underneath union activists. While the lineup of candidates at the labor caucus during the Texas Democratic Party convention here on June 25 received polite applause, Chavez-Thompson received a standing ovation and plenty of Texas "yippees" when she started, then two more loud standing ovations when she finished!

The candidate made her advocacy of the workers' needs more than clear. She said, "For 40 years I represented the labor movement proudly. I did everything that I was asked to do, and a little bit more." In fact, she was the first woman and the first person of color to hold highest-level office in the AFL-CIO. Chavez continued, "I saw some things wrong in Texas: I saw a lack of dignity and respect for workers, mostly those who don't have a union. The fact is that Texas has the highest number of low-wage workers in the country!"

Chavez-Thompson contrasted the present presidential administration with the former one. She said, "For eight years George W Bush lived right across the park from the AFL-CIO but not a single time did any of them get into the White House, because he didn't like unions."

"I am extremely grateful to come from the body of the labor movement!"

"I have been so excited about going into the crowds of voters across Texas. They ask ‘Can you bring the labor base out?' and I reply, ‘Hell yes, labor will come out!"

The Corpus Christi newspaper credited labor's candidate with creating the most exciting moments of the first day of the convention. On the second and last day, she thrilled the entire convention with a longer talk that included fiery denunciations of Governor Perry, and her opponent, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst. Among their many failings, she blamed them for the state's present $18 billion budget shortfall. "Do you know how many zeroes there are in $18 billion?" the candidate asked, then gave the answer, "Eleven, if you count Perry and Dewhurst!"

Photo: Jim Lane

Give us our rights, workers tell Rite Aid

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:55:00 +0000

Accusing retail drug giant Rite Aid of "stalling" tactics, hundreds of workers and their supporters from California, Pennsylvania and New York marched on Rite Aid's annual shareholder meeting in Harrisburg, Pa., June 23 to demand the company reach agreement on new contracts.

At issue are a first-time contract with workers at the company's sprawling southwest distribution center in Lancaster, Calif., and contract renewal at stores in Pennsylvania.

After the rally, Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Richard Bloomingdale and 20 Rite Aid workers and union representatives walked into the annual meeting and presented a resolution calling for shareholders to have a say on CEO pay.

Mary Summons, who is being replaced as CEO but continues as chairwoman of the Rite Aid board, received $6 million in fiscal year 2008 and $3.2 million in 2010. Had she been fired after presiding over company losses in recent years, she would have received a golden parachute of more than $14 million, according to the AFL-CIO.

While Summons made millions even as Rite Aid's stock price dropped, Sylvia Estrada and Angel Warner, International Longshore and Warehouse Union members at the Lancaster warehouse, made an impassioned plea "to give us our rights - to be paid fairly and treated with respect."

Rite Aid waged a three-year anti-union campaign that put the nearly 600 workers at the Lancaster distribution center "through hell and back," Peter Olney, the union's organizing director, said earlier this year. But, in March 2008, the workers voted in the ILWU.

Despite company efforts to intimidate workers in the workplace and stall in negotiations, Olney said "the workers remain solidly behind the union" and have been making gains.

Most recently, after a worker suffered a serious head injury, the company agreed in negotiations with the union to stop storing heavy liquor boxes on the top levels of the warehouse "mods," and not to count time spent fixing unstable loads against the workers' production quotas.

The workers and their union are employing a combination of tactics, including shop floor initiatives by the workers themselves as well as public and legal pressure, in order to improve safety and working conditions as they continue to fight for their first contract.

Speaking of the most recent victory, ILWU bargaining team member Carlos Rubio said, "Having a union, and feeling empowered because of it, helped us finally get this done."

Meanwhile in Pennsylvania, Wendell Young IV, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776, urged Rite Aid "to bargain in good faith" to reach agreement on new contracts at the retail stores in the state.

Other speakers at the actions outside and inside the shareholder meeting included union leaders representing Rite Aid retail store clerks from 1199-SEIU in New York City and warehouse workers from the Teamsters union on the East Coast.

Photo: A 2009 rally at Rite Aid headquarters in Pennsylvania. (AFL-CIO/Amy Niehouse) http://www.flickr.com/photos/labor2008/3292916718/ cc 2.0

Wal-Mart makes deal with unions on Chicago stores

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:53:00 +0000

CHICAGO (PAI)--Extracting concessions for union construction workers and wages that will be at least a dollar an hour higher than the retail monster Wal-Mart wanted to pay, Chicago unions and their political and community allies finally agreed, after a six-year campaign, to let the behemoth build a store in Chicago.

The pact, announced June 24, calls for a Wal-Mart to be erected at Pullman Plaza. That's in the South Side community, now predominantly African American working poor, that became world-famous for oppression of workers in the 1890s.

WakeUp Wal-Mart, a national campaign by the United Food and Commercial Workers -- the union trying to organize the violently anti-union retailer's workers -- hailed the Chicago pact as a first step towards national standards for other Wal-Mart projects.

Those standards could bring living wages to Wal-Mart workers, it said.

"They're responsible for a lot of job loss in areas that they've been operating in, so its a good first start," said Jorge Ramirez of the Chicago Federation of Labor. "But they need to do more. They need to be held to a higher standard."

Wal-Mart, of course, is known for its often-illegal resistance to unionization, its extreme anti-worker bias, its low wages and skimpy benefits -- and its always-low prices that, due to its size, lets Wal-Mart force its suppliers to impoverish their workers, too.

Against all that, the Chicago Federation of Labor, the Chicago Building and Construction Trades Council and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 881 won concessions from the mega-retailer.

"After years of demanding more from the world's most profitable retailer, we have reached a point where we have received more guarantees over wages, community benefits and construction than any other place in the world," said CFL President Dennis Gannon. "The time is right to bring retail and construction jobs to the people of Chicago. We will be vigilant about holding Wal-Mart accountable for the promises it has made to us and to the community." The agreement's details include:

Starting wages at $8.75 hourly, 50 cents more per hour than Illinois' minimum wage; then 40-cent, 50-cent and 60-cent yearly raises;
Project labor agreements, setting union wages, grievance procedures, work rules and safety rules not just at the Pullman Wal-Mart, but at any other store it wants to erect in Chicago or the 20 Northern Illinois counties.
A $20 million Wal-Mart contribution to community economic development.

"Considering what the corporation is capable of paying and its long, tarnished record of mistreating employees and communities, we demanded better" than it first offered, the CFL said. Unions demanded entry level wages of $9.15-$9.35 per hour for workers after the first year the store is open.

"We are committed to ensuring that Wal-Mart will not deny its workers in Chicago their rights," said Local 881 President Ron Powell. "Around the world, this corporation has routinely mistreated its employees and violated labor laws. We won't let that happen here in Chicago."

The Pullman PLA, negotiated by Chicago Building Trades President Tom Villanova, mandates "increased employment opportunities for minority workers and provision of minority apprenticeship opportunities," the CFL said.

WakeUp Wal-Mart called the Chicago pact "an important first step in establishing workplace standards for Wal-Mart operations in new markets" and "a starting point for future discussions that will establish retail jobs that can sustain a career, pay wages that can support a family and rebuild America's middle class."

The new stores will be built with union labor. And the company has also promised to open some stories in so-called "food deserts" -- places where there are no easily accessible grocery stores.

The jobless recession and supposed recovery is credited with the shift of political opinion among the Chicago City Council. In 2006 the City Council, over the objections of Mayor Richard Daley, passed a "Big Box Living Wage Ordinance" designed to prevent Wal-Mart and other "big box" stores from coming into communities and driving down wages and demolishing small businesses. The mayor then vetoed the ordinance. The first time Daley ever used his veto.

After the 2006 ordinance, Wal-Mart redoubled its PR machine, and working overtime to court African American communities, in particular, with its promise of jobs. Wal-Mart also sought to drive a wedge between the communities and the labor movement.

"With the economy like it is, who can afford to vote no on jobs?" asked long-time Wal-Mart supporter Ald. Anthony Beale of Chicago's 9th Ward, soon to be home of the Pullman Wal-Mart.

"Is there any alderman who is going to turn their back on 12,000 jobs here in the city of Chicago? I don't think so."

Wal-Mart is seeking new markets, after saturating the suburban and rural ones. The under-served urban markets are its next frontier. Chicago is seen now as setting the standard for its nationwide campaign to break into cities.

After the deal was announced and the zoning committee voted to OK the Pullman store, Wal-Mart attempted to "scrub" the record denying there was a deal. A spokesman at the Chicago Federation of Labor said the retail giant was posturing.

"The mayor says there is a deal. Alderman Burke read into the zoning committee record the deal. Wal-Mart's policy is they don't talk about wages. They are trying to scrub the record. There is a deal," the CFL spokesman said.

Teresa Albano contributed to this story.

Photo: Supporters of the Big Box Living Wage Ordinance rally at City Hall in July 2006. (PW)

Related stories from the archives:

Chicago to Wal-Mart: Pay a living wage

Chicago postpones action on new Wal-Mart stores

Don't steal the big box ordinance

Wal-Mart pulls back from Chicago

A new day in Chicago politics

Windy City elections show growing class divide

Panel debates how to make it in America again

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:27:00 +0000

DETROIT - Corporate greed is the main reason for the devastation of the U.S. manufacturing base. So said a wide range of labor activists and their community allies who shared personal experiences in a discussion at the U.S. Social Forum here. They were exploring ways to rebuild manufacturing and in the process create millions of new green jobs.

Lisa Jordan, educational director for the United Steelworkers (USW), said global capital, which met last fall at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, pointed to that city as a "model of post-industrial America." That was all well and good, said Jordan, except if you went into the devastated working class communities that had been built around manufacturing.

The global economy is largely dictated by the transnational corporations' drive for profits. Of the 100 largest economies globally, 40 are countries and 60 are transnational corporations, Jordan said. In 1976, 90 percent of the bottom wage earners in the U.S. had 50 percent of the wealth. Today, that has been reduced to 24 percent, a result of neoliberal policies applied to the U.S. working class.

This concentration of wealth is the backdrop for the multi-pronged crises in the U.S. and Europe, she said.

A panel of labor activists kicked off an animated discussion about how to rebuild the U.S. manufacturing base. Andrew Dinklelocker, an organizer with United Electrical Workers (UE), recounted the story of the six-day occupation of the Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago in December 2008. The workers successfully forced Bank of America to use its federal bailout money to extend credit so that workers could get wages, and benefits due them. Another company subsequently bought Republic Windows and there is hope most of the workers will eventually be called back.

Dinklelocker said for every manufacturing job created, five additional jobs are created. By contrast, in the service sector, the ratio is one to one.

Michael Bolton, from the Steelworkers, spoke about a paper mill in Kimberly, Wis. The entire community depended on the mill's existence. But its latest owner, New Page Corp., closed the mill because the company could import cheaper paper from abroad. Wisconsin's paper valley has been devastated with plant closings since 2001.

"The mill's existence didn't matter to the company and the elected officials," Bolton said. "But it mattered to the workers, their families and the community. Two years later, 70 percent of the workers are still unemployed."

Bolton said communities, cities, states and countries are being whipsawed, and this should be illegal. Our current trade system is a "protective trade system - it protects the rich and corporations," he said. "Trade should be a global civil rights and environmental issue."

Jeff Rains of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a Steelworkers partnership with a number of U.S. manufacturers, said $2 trillion is needed to modernize the U.S. infrastructure. Such an investment in "green jobs" could put millions back to work in manufacturing, construction, research and development, and clean energy. Rains said a broad coalition can be built including some sections of the business community. He cited 30 corporations who pledge to use U.S, production facilities to construct a high -speed rail system.

Photo: A worker on the job at a solar wafer manufacturing plant in Oregon. http://www.flickr.com/photos/oregondot/3347740006/ cc 2.0

Social Forum: In jobs fight, America will find its soul again

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:06:00 +0000

DETROIT - "The fight for jobs is probably the most unifying struggle right now. It is the key struggle. It connects to every other struggle we face right now. It will allow America to find its soul again," Nick Unger, from the AFL-CIO Strategic Campaign Center, told a packed workshop here at the U.S. Social Forum, June 23.

The AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor federation, has a combined membership of about 12 million workers, led by dozens of international unions.

"We have to fight for jobs to get out of this economic mess," Unger continued. "This is our shot. This is our time. Jobs is the issue."

The workshop, titled "Good Jobs for All: Winning Full & Fair Employment & A New Economy," brought together trade union leaders, community activists and youth from across the country to discuss the current economic crisis, unemployment and the struggle for good paying, union jobs.

According to Fran Tobin, Midwest field organizer for Jobs with Justice, "We are in an economic crisis worse than any other crisis since World War II." JwJ is a national grassroots labor, community, faith and student coalition.

"Corporations have concentrated power and money into their hands" and are attempting to "redefine normal," Tobin said. "They are attempting to redefine the narrative, to change expectations, to make good jobs with good benefits a distant memory."

Around 15 million Americans are out of work and there are six job-seekers for each job opening. About 100,000 workers join the ranks of the unemployed every month. Nearly 3 million foreclosures are expected this year and public services for working people are being slashed due to recession-induced budget shortfalls.

Tobin declared, "Corporate greed and Wall Street recklessly started this crisis. They wrecked things. They are the evildoers. We need to get in their face. We need to build the movement."

"We need big, bold jobs creation programs," Tobin added. "We have deep, serious and major problems, and we need a deep, serious and militant movement to turn this thing around."

"We need to start talking about full-employment programs. We need to set the stage for a full-employment future," he said.

James Mumm, director of organizing at National People's Action, agreed, saying banks and big corporations are the problem and "we need to put direct pressure on them."

"We need to reign in the big banks," he said. "We need to hold them accountable."

NPA is a national network of community organizations that work to advance an economic and racial justice agenda.

Moreover, Mumm said, "While we need to create 11 million jobs to relieve the suffering that ordinary people are facing, we also need a transformative struggle that will build a new economy. Financial reform legislation is just round 1."

Julio Henriquez, an activist from Los Angeles who organizes community support for expanding mass transit, told the People's World, any successful jobs campaign must include a "fight for sustainable and equitable access to mass transportation."

Henriquez and other activists recently held an eight-day fast outside LA's Metro-Transit Authority protesting fare hikes. They want to see more federal tax dollars going towards creation of a newer, more affordable mass transit system that would employ thousands of people while providing transportation to and from work for hundreds of thousands of community residents.

According to most workshop participants, coalition-building around jobs is the main task at hand, as it connects to every other struggle - from housing and foreclosures to corporate accountability and rebuilding our infrastructure, to public transportation and health care.

Unger summed up the thrust of the workshop when he said, "The AFL-CIO is in a dating mood right now. We want to make new friends, make partnerships and work with folks. But we need you to infuse the fight for jobs into your culture, into your organizations. We need 'you' to do your thing as a part of 'us' doing our thing."

"Our country is in deep, profound trouble," Unger added. "And this struggle for jobs can be the glue that holds us all together, that allows us to be more than we are. It allows 'us' to be 'we.'"

Photo: At the opening march of the U.S. Social Forum, June 22. (PW/Libero Della Piana)

In Vancouver, global labor rallies for jobs

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 14:40:00 +0000

Vancouver, Canada - On day three of the International Trade Union Confederation's Congress the delegates, from trade union federation's around the world, including the American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), took a break from their deliberations to rally for jobs and a just economy for workers.

In a spirited demonstration outside the Vancouver Convention Center, speakers called for more action and street heat for jobs, taxes on the banks and financial institutions, re-regulation of financial markets, restoring public services, and defending labor rights, including the right to organize and the right to strike.

They further demanded a reordering of global priorities, away from war and towards peaceful green development and meeting human needs instead of corporate greed.

We can win jobs if we fight for them, autoworkers tell U.S. Social Forum

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 11:34:00 +0000

DETROIT - Just days after his election as the new president of the United Auto Workers, Bob King was at the U.S. Social Forum here with a message: "The UAW will, from here on out, speak up for and lead the fight for all workers, regardless of whether they are in unions."

The UAW aims to play a major role in the 2010 mid-term elections, King told the People's World on Wednesday after he sat in on a workshop his union ran about UAW campaigns to stop plant closings.

"We are going to work very hard for pro-labor and progressive candidates," he said, "and we will give voice to the real concerns of working people who want jobs, income and economic justice. People will respond to this because they need these things much more than they need anything that the Tea Party has to offer."

Scott Bean, assistant director of the UAW's Solidarity House here, cited the union's struggle to save and organize the former NUMMI plant in Fremont, Calif. ,as an example of the direction in which he said the UAW and the labor movement as a whole should be moving.

The unionized California plant was, on paper at least, jointly operated by GM and Toyota, with Toyota actually in control of 85 percent to 90 percent of the operation. Toyota decided two years ago to move Corolla production from Fremont to Mississsippi and close its Fremont plant altogether.

Some participants at the Social Forum workshop asked why the union was discussing a plant in California while Detroit itself is reeling from layoffs and joblessness.

"There are compelling reasons for this," Bean said, "because the issues workers faced with the closing of that plant are precisely the ones labor and its allies must grapple with across the country."

He explained that Toyota's shutdown move in California took place in the context of moving plants abroad in search of cheaper labor. The company wanted to shut the Fremont plant because it was Toyota's only unionized facility in the U.S., Bean said. With all the attention Toyota has been getting over safety issues, he said, it was logical for the union to mount a campaign there.

Bean said the line had to be drawn there because Toyota, as a result of vehicles produced in Fremont, had become the biggest beneficiary of the Cash for Clunkers program initiated by the government to help stimulate the economy. "How ironic that they get that benefit and then make a move to damage the economy for so many in California," he said.

Ron Carver, who ran the UAW effort to save the NUMMI plant, described how, in order to succeed, the union had to reach out for allies.

"Any time a union fights a plant closing it must go out and bring in supporters," he said, "because people who are not key players might see the fight as just a skirmish between Big Corporation and Big Labor. People must understand that getting rid of those union jobs, those benefits will destroy the surrounding community. It's not just the 5,000 jobs at the plant. It's the 50,000 jobs in the surrounding community."

Carver urged the many community activists present at the union-run workshop to be vigilant about any signs that job -producing companies in their areas are about to disinvest or cut jobs. "As soon as there are any signs, that's the time to start the fight," he said.

Harley Shaiken, a labor expert at the University of California, said that even though Toyota pulled out of the Fremont plant the strong fightback was the reason Toyota ended up pulling in the Tesla Corporation to build electric cars at the plant. Right now there are several hundred workers there and the union says it will put on the pressure to get that figure back up to where it was before, and more.

Toyota has announced that it will remain neutral and do nothing to interfere with UAW efforts to re-organize the plant. "We'll see if they stick to that promise," said Chaiken, "but at least, because unions and community groups got together and fought together, we are dealing with a live plant, not an abandoned and rusted hulk. There's room, this way, for a lot more victories."

Photo: UAW President Bob King at the U.S. Social Forum. (PW/John Rummel)

Labor anger and determination resound at Social Forum march

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 11:25:00 +0000

DETROIT - Labor made its presence felt at the U.S. Social Forum on Wednesday in a lively march and rally in this ravaged city's downtown, calling for jobs and an end to cuts in city services. (See video below.)

Johnny Brown, a Detroit resident, expressed both the anger and the determination of the labor movement here.

Brown is upset about cuts in the city's bus service. A retired limousine driver, Brown said he has to wait up to an hour to catch a bus. Voicing anger at Detroit's mayor, he said, "It's not the bus drivers' fault, it's Dave Bing's fault. He's cutting back on service and wants to totally eliminate Sunday service. Bing and his kid have never caught a bus. We have got to stop it somewhere and we are going to stop it here in Detroit."

Others at the rally noted that the economic crisis extends way beyond the Midwest rustbelt. Martin Chartrand, from economically hard-hit Maine, said he is a member of a state organization called Food and Medicine. "Lots of jobs have been lost in the last 10 years in the paper industry and other manufacturing," he said. "Now secondary jobs that depended on people spending those paychecks are also being affected." His organization is "dedicated to the idea that people should not have to choose between buying food and paying for medicine."

Jobs with Justice is playing a prominent role at the Social Forum and JwJ members came out in force for the rally. JwJ member Bob Lynn said government needs to take care of the people instead of the big banks.

Lynn was enthusiastic about AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka's call for taxing Wall Street financial transactions. "Taxing Wall Street is always a good idea," Lynn said. "All the people will get on board, that will be an easy sell."

JwJ-er Karen Krause, from Toledo, Ohio, said the situation there is similar to Detroit. "It's dismal, dismal, it's bad," she said. "We have the same problem. We are heavily invested in the auto industry and when the auto industry is not in good shape, none of us are."

During the brief rally, the Rev. Ed Rowe of Detroit's Central United Methodist Church asked for a moment of silence for "all the workers making millions for all of the banks and corporations but don't have enough for themselves."

Referring to the big Bank of America and Chase offices nearby, Rowe said Americans should "get ready to move their money from the banks down the street. Every dollar we give them helps put us out on the streets. We are foreclosing on ourselves."

Photo: With Detroit's Renaissance Center in the background, marchers demand jobs and say Wall Street should pay, June 23. (PW/Libero Della Piana)

World labor leaders: Reject dictatorship of markets

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 13:17:00 +0000

VANCOUVER, Canada - World labor leaders gathered here in the second congress of the International Trade Union Confederation are of one mind in rejecting the "Washington consensus" that calls for deregulation of banks and financial markets.

In his opening address, Guy Ryder, the outgoing ITUC general secretary, called for an end to the "dictatorship of the finance-atariate." He said it is the people's time to fight for "fundamental change in globalization."

The delegates amplified Ryders message in their remarks, and in one voice declared that decent jobs is the only real answer to the economic crisis. Overwhelmingly the delegates called for financial transaction taxes to pay for jobs and economic recovery.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, speaking from the U.S. delegation, called for bold action for a "new economic order." Citing the violent government attacks and repression against the Mexican miners' union in Cananea, Trumka said the new order must include strong labor and human rights. He said collective bargaining and the right to organize are cornerstones of real democracy in a new economic order.

A highlight of the congress so far was an address by a young hotel worker from Vancouver. She spoke about workers' struggle for a new contract with some of the biggest hotel chains in the world like Hyatt and Four Seasons. She said these hotels in Vancouver are recovering from the economic crisis and the rooms are full. And still, she said, they are cutting staff, increasing workloads and demanding concessions even as they make big profits.

Many delegates raised the need to fight for the unemployed and jobs at the same time as global labor puts forward the demand for stock transaction taxes and re-regulation of the financial markets. Many also pointed out that a crisis of poverty, hunger and homelessness was rampant throughout the developing world long before the financial market meltdown and the Great Recession.

Like many of the delegates, A. Santos of Brazil argued that the crisis shows the failure of the neo-liberal model, with its deregulation, wild speculation and attacks on labor and human rights. He called for a new economic model that will put people back to work with decent jobs and income, that will provide a strong role for the state in regulating and controlling finance capital and tackle sustainable economic development to end poverty, hunger and homelessness.

J. Smit of the Netherlands echoed the call of many delegates for fundamental change in globalization. The current system doesn't work and the "invisible hand" of the market is dead, he said. Just as feudalism has failed so this system has to be discarded, Smit said. He called for a new system that provides social security, labor rights, a strong public sector, strong services, and strong banking controls. We need a sustainable green system, he said.

Several delegates joined with A. Jerad of Tunisia in calling for peace as central to a new economic model. In particular Jerad called for an end to the blockade of Gaza and for an independent Palestinian state. Others called for ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This echoed Ryder's statement that "our world is not just and not at peace." Ryder said wars "are a blight" on progress and that trade unionists must fight to end them.

Delegates also called for special attention to the impact of the crisis on women and young workers. Many spoke of the terrible conditions faced by women in the informal economy and in export zones around the world. And they called for special efforts to bring women into unions and into union leadership.

S. Andersson of Sweden spoke of the work of the ITUC's youth committee. She told how young workers are using social networks and new technology to bring young people into the labor movement. She outlined some of the special problems facing young workers including being forced into temporary work with no rights, where they are often cheated out of wages. She said the ITUC must become a loud voice for young workers.

Also much attention was given by delegates to green development and sustainability. They heartily agreed with Ryder when he said, "The road to global justice must be a green road. Green development and protecting the environment cannot be put off to after the crisis."

Throughout the discussion it was clear that a new fighting spirit is emerging in global labor. With all the calls for action from the congress came also a realization that labor must form bigger and stronger coalitions to take on finance capital globally. As one delegate put it, "If we are united, if we reach out to all of labor and all of the people, we can push back just as hard as the banks and the multinational corporations try to push us."

Photo: Inuit throat-singers welcome delegates to the second congress of the ITUC in Vancouver. (PW/Scott Marshall)

OSHA to publicly shame job safety violators

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 10:00:00 +0000

PITTSBURGH (PAI) - The Occupational Safety and Health Administration "will use not just our normal inspection system, but regulation by shaming" against notorious job safety and health violators, its administrator says.

In a June 15 telephone press conference/emergency meeting in Pittsburgh on the issue with Steelworkers President Leo Gerard and Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts, OSHA Administrator Dr. David Michaels added that the targets of the shaming would be "those companies that aren't playing by the rules" on worker safety and health.

"We have every right to call the CEO of any company and tell them what we want, and we will," Michaels added. And he urged workers to report violations.

Gerard, Roberts and Michaels spoke at an emergency safety conference of oil workers the Steelworkers union called in Pittsburgh, after a string of fatal oil refinery accidents - even before the deep-sea BP well blew up - and after deaths of 37 coal miners so far this year.

Michaels said he has already called the oil companies' lobby on the carpet to justify its practices, after the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil well fire, explosion and sinking in the Gulf of Mexico almost two months ago. The blast at the mile-deep well killed 11 workers and has spewed millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf in the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

Oil and mine disasters show the need for stronger job safety laws, and stronger enforcement, both union leaders said. "There's got to be an equal consequence" for companies when their laxity or refusal to protect workers costs lives, Gerard said.

Harkening back to the 1989 Pittston coal strike, where the United Mine Workers was fined $64 million for a peaceful protest that blocked a road, Roberts said "what corporate CEOs go through" when their firms kill people "is vastly different" than what hit his union.

"Their fines are not adequate. We need stronger laws, bigger penalties and criminal penalties for executives who commit these acts," Roberts added.

Both unions are leading labor's fight for the Protect American Workers Act (PAWA), a measure to strengthen the 40-year-old Occupational Safety and Health Act.

It would increase fines, let OSHA impose separate fines for each violation, and change violations that kill workers from criminal misdemeanors that carry maximum six-month jail sentences to felonies that carry 10-year and 15-year terms, among other things.

The Obama administration OSHA, led by Michaels, also endorses PAWA, but the measure is marooned in Congress, victim of a jammed schedule. Business and congressional Republicans also strongly oppose the legislation. The oil majors also don't want to do anything about safety, citing money, says Steelworkers Vice President Gary Beevers, who is in charge of bargaining with the oil firms. (The USW has represented the nation's oil workers since it merged with Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers in 2005.

His statements were backed up, the same day, by documents released by congressional committees investigating the Gulf of Mexico disaster. They show BP, which buys the oil from Deepwater Horizon, stinted on safety. But the documents also showed the other oil majors also have large safety problems and lack plans for them.

In the last round of oil company bargaining, following the fatal 2005 blast at BP's Texas City, Texas, refinery, the USW pushed strongly for including safety standards - notably process safety, covering entire refineries, not just specific machinery - in its contracts with the oil companies, Beevers said. The firms turned that down flat.

Since then, he added, the oil majors remained intransigent. The independent investigatory federal Chemical Safety Board identified huge safety violations at Texas City and declared the industry as a whole was negligent. Beevers said the oil lobby then offered to share information, refinery by refinery - but only if the USW would "sign a confidentiality agreement," confining the data to each specific refinery's workforce.

"The one thing we know is that we have a fight at every refinery over money" to be spent on safety and health, he added. "As Dr. Michaels said, it's not just BP. OSHA's own survey showed 70 percent of the nation's refineries had the same conditions as at Texas City" where a large leak produced fumes that were then ignited, killing 15 and injuring more than 100.

Gerard reminded listeners that inattention to job safety and health costs lives. He said one committee, chaired by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., has held hearings this year on the string of refinery blasts. Murray acted after one blast in Tesoro, Wash., near her home, killed six Steelworkers and a former unionist promoted to a supervisor's job. "Don't just have hearings about the oil leak in the Gulf. Have hearings about the 11 families whose lives were destroyed. You don't hear about them anymore," he said.

Photo: A refinery employee reacts after news of deaths from the explosion at a BP oil refinery in Texas City, Texas, March 23, 2005, in which 15 workers were killed and more than 100 injured. (AP/Houston Chronicle, Carlos Javier Sanchez).

Organized unity in action needed, says labor leader

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:44:00 +0000

ST. LOUIS - "Organized, mobilized unity in action - that is what will save the ordinary American," Stewart Acuff, of the Utility Workers' Union of America, told a packed Jobs with Justice Workers' Rights Board meeting here June 18.

Acuff referred to the past ten years as the "decade of disaster." He said, this decade has brought "zero job growth." "Currently, 1-in-5 Americans is unemployed, 1-in-8 are on food stamps, and wages have been stagnant since the 1980's. America has officially stopped working for ordinary Americans," he concluded.

Additionally, while productivity has increased 75 percent over the past 30 years, and while CEO pay has increased from 40-times the average workers' pay in 1980 to 422-times the average workers' pay today, most Americans make less today than they did in 1973.

"We have greater wealth and income inequality today than during the Great Depression," Acuff said.

Acuff added this is the result of an "intentional shift of wealth to the filthy rich." "The financial elite understand the relationship between wealth and power. They have changed public policy, gambled recklessly with the world's wealth, and have operated the biggest casino in the history of the world, while average, ordinary Americans no-longer have the money to make our economy work."

"Consumer buying power is gone," he concluded.

"This is a direct result of an assault on unions," he added. "Unions are the largest source of power for workers. They are the back-bone. They make the middle class possible."

However, over 20,000 workers are illegally punished every year for legal union activity. Additionally, 90 percent of employers hire anti-union law firms. "The union busting business is a $4 billion dollar-a-year industry," Acuff said.

In fact, 30 percent of employers fire union leaders to make examples out of them. And 40 percent of union campaigns never see a first contract due to employer intimidation, stalling and illegal activity.

"This assault," Acuff said, "has had a terrible impact on our country, our economy, and on workers' lives."

According to Acuff, "Free market capitalism, unfettered capitalism, always, ultimately destroys."

However, he added, "The answer to this crisis is uncomplicated." "First we have to focus on the common good. Second, we have to re-learn how to work together, collectively. Third, we need to invest in America, we need to rebuild our infrastructure and resurrect our manufacturing base. Forth, we need to create a green-energy economy that puts Americans back to work."

He added, "This is the formula for how we got out of the Great Depression."

Acuff called for a unified labor movement to work together with community organizations, women's rights groups, youth, the LGBT rights movement, clergy and people of color. He said, "We don't have the luxury of division. We share a common challenge, a common destiny."

He added, "We've accomplished the first, hardest step. The election of Barack Obama was a historic first step." Acuff characterized the Tea Party as "fraud" used to manipulate the real frustrations of ordinary Americans.

"The mid-term elections this year," Acuff added, "are very important. We are in a brutal fight over the direction of our country."

PHOTO; Marilyn Bechtel

Obama may face union picket line in Toronto

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 12:37:00 +0000

TORONTO (PAI) - President Barack Obama and other international leaders arriving for their June 26-27 summit here may encounter something they didn't expect: a picket line.

That's because unless Unite Here Local 75 and the owners of the Canadian metropolis' convention hotels reach settlement before the summit starts, the union could use the opportunity to garner publicity for the way its members have been mistreated.

Obama and other leaders of the G-20 industrialized nations will meet in Canada's largest city to discuss, among other things, the impact on workers of the continuing global recession.

Earlier this year, the G-20 labor ministers drafted a set of recommendations on helping workers cope with the crash. One recommendation, U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said then, implicitly backs the right to organize, though not in those words.

There will also be a "people's summit" to counter the G-20 in the Toronto area - and massive security downtown, which is where the convention hotels are located.

The 32 Toronto hotels facing the strike employ 5,500 workers combined, who overwhelmingly gave Local 75 a strike authorization vote on June 3, Unite Here said.

"Many of us are immigrants, women and workers of color and we have fought hard to lift ourselves out of poverty. Yet the hotels are trying to undo all that by continuing to cut hours and service levels as if they're still in deep recession, which they aren't," said Local 75 Vice President Cicely Phillips, a room attendant at one of the hotels, the Fairmont Royal York.

"These global giants are reporting profitable years in 2010 and into the future. As the people who make these hotels work, we want to share in that economic recovery. We refuse to have the hotels 'lock in the recession' for workers," Phillips stated.

Local 75 says many hotels shortened shifts, introduced split shifts (a breakfast shift and dinner shift with no pay in between), brought in "beck and call" hyper-flexible scheduling and increased the use of part-timers, costing workers income and benefits.

The Toronto Sheraton established a "fake green choice" program, which "purports to help guests save the environment but is really intended to reduce housekeeping services and room attendants," the local added.

"How can you get a second job or raise a family in dignity and security with these types of draconian measures?" asked Phillips.

While the confrontation in Toronto may greet world leaders, it is only the latest in a string of strikes Unite Here locals have been forced to stage against major chains:

* On June 10, workers and allies staged a mass protest at Hyatt's first-ever public shareholders' meeting, in Chicago. Just days before, several hundred Unite Here members had to walk out of the Hyatt Regency Chicago, the chain's flagship. Another forced strike in Chicago, against the Congress Plaza, just passed its seventh anniversary. Conditions there are so bad that the hotel gives travelers deep discounts.

* One former housekeeper at the Hyatt in Boston held proxy ballots and got into the chain's Chicago shareholders' meeting. Hyatt fired all 100 unionized workers in Boston last Aug. 31 and replaced them with contracted-out minimum wage workers.

"For 21 years, I gave my body - everything I have - to that hotel, and Hyatt kicked us to the curb," said Lucine Williams, who worked at the Hyatt Regency Boston. "You profess to be such a great company, but look at how you treat your workers," she said.

* Other protests were at Hyatts in Vancouver, Honolulu, San Francisco and Los Angeles. "Protesters are outraged at how the company is trying to make the recession permanent for workers despite significantly improving industry conditions and Hyatt's rising share values," the international union said.

* Hyatt workers in San Francisco staged a three-day strike, June 8-10, protesting working conditions. It was the fifth time that intransigence by nine hotel owners forced Unite Here Local 2 members to walk out. The last contract, covering 9,000 workers in San Francisco and San Mateo, Calif., ran out around a year ago.

The local announced a boycott, too. It listed seven, including a Hilton, a Westin and two Hyatts, over management demands for cuts. And it listed Le Meridien and Hyatt Fisherman's Wharf "because their workers demand the right to choose whether or not to form a union without any intimidation from management." Local 2 rep Riddi Mehta told the SF Bay Guardian: "We're not launching a boycott of San Francisco. We've moved $7 million out of boycotted hotels and the majority of the money has stayed in San Francisco."

* Even Disney mistreated workers. Hundreds of Unite Here members struck three Disneyland hotels just on June 11, over mistreatment on the job, refusal to respect seniority, and illegal firing of 23-year bartender -- and union activist - MaryAnn Hegner.

Photo: President Barack Obama talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown during last year's G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh, Sept. 25, 2009. (White House/Pete Souza)

At “Spectrum of Shame,” families back striking health care workers

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 12:02:00 +0000

HARTFORD, Conn. - A "Spectrum of Shame" speakout by family members and friends of residents at Park Place nursing home marked the 65th day of a strike by nearly 400 District 1199 health care workers against four Vernon-based Spectrum Healthcare. facilities. At a press conference outrageous stories were told of the poor care since the strike began.

Ana Ruiz said she visits her brother at Park Place regularly. She worries that he is losing weight. She used to visit other patients who did not have loved ones, but since the strike she was ordered by Park Place staff not to speak to any other patients. She said they are wrong if they think she will "make trouble" for the home. She only wants to provide some much-needed companionship.

Bonnie Becker, whose mother is in Laurel Hill in Winsted, also testified. Due to lack of care, she said, her mother was left to lie in her own urine until she got a visit from her other daughter.

David Zile, a patient at Park Place, also spoke out. He said that since the strike began, "twice I almost got the wrong medications."

Maria Rodriguez, daughter of Emiliano Robles, said her father has been crying a lot, every day, since the new "replacement" workers came.

Risalina Miranda, daughter of Maria Miranda, said "My mother needs help to the bathroom, but no one is doing anything to help her."

Other stories of the shame at Spectrum Healthcare's nursing homes have been posted at www.SpectrumFamilyVoice.com.

The strikers have won the respect of family members who value the care the workers gave to their loved ones and understand that the administration forced the strike.

In a victory for the union last week, the state Department of Labor ruled that all the striking workers are now eligible to receive unemployment benefits. State law prohibits strikers who have not been locked out by their employer from receiving unemployment benefits, but there are exceptions.

Spectrum Healthcare hired permanent replacement workers during the strike. Union workers were told they would not automatically be given their jobs back if they returned, but would be placed on a "recall list." As a result the state Department of Labor ruled that the striking workers "had been permanently replaced, and that their unemployment was no longer due to the existence of a labor dispute."

Community members and members of other unions have been stopping by the picket lines between 6 a.m. and midnight every day. Strike locations are:

Birmingham Health Center, 210 Chatfield Street, Derby
Hilltop Health Center, 126 Ford Street, Ansonia
Laurel Hill Healthcare, 106 East Lake Street, Winsted
Park Place Health Center, 5 Greenwood Street, Hartford.

Photo: Carmen Boudier, president of District 1199 union, center, walks the picket line with the striking Spectrum workers. (PW/Tom Connolly)