People Before Profit blog

Supreme Court ruling robs workers of united voice on the job

Mon, 30 Jun 2014 15:15:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - In a decision that will rob unions of millions of dollars and thousands of members, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to legalize "free riders" in cases where state or local governments and individuals jointly employ caregivers.

The court split along partisan lines, with all five Republican-appointed male justices in the majority and the four other justices - Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor - dissenting.

Justice Samuel Alito's majority opinion in Harris vs. Quinn, a case involving caregivers from Illinois, said Illinois violated the workers' First Amendment rights to free speech by requiring them to pay "agency fees" - money to cover costs of collective bargaining and contract administration - to the Service Employees, the union a majority voted for. "A state may not force every person who benefits from this group's efforts to make payments to the group," Alito said.

At least 20 other states have similar arrangements where government workers whom the union represents, but who do not wish to join, must pay agency fees, Kagan's dissent noted. So do many local governments. She predicted there could be a mass exodus from the unions, not just of the agency fee payers, but of members.

The laws of economics, letting them be free riders while still compelling unions to represent them, would lead to those departures, she predicted.

Latest data show the U.S. has 1.14 million personal care aides and 807,000 home health care aides. It does not say how many the states employ and, of those, how many are free riders. Women are an overwhelming majority of the affected workers.

SEIU was the only union to comment immediately after the ruling.

"No court case is going to stand in the way of home care workers coming together to have a strong voice for good jobs and quality home care," said SEIU President Mary Kay Henry. "At a time when wages remain stagnant and income inequality is out of control, joining together in a union is the only proven way home care workers have of improving their lives and the lives of the people they care for.

"The ruling places at risk a system of consumer-directed home care in Illinois that has proven successful in raising wages, providing affordable health care benefits, and increasing training," SEIU added.

"Given that Illinois' caregivers voted to unionize, it may be presumed that a high percentage became union members and are willingly paying union dues," Alito said for the court majority. Kagan, politely, doubted that.

"In fact nothing of the sort may be so presumed, given that union supporters (no less than union detractors) have an economic incentive to free ride," she responded.

"The federal workforce, on which the majority relies provides a case in point. There many fewer employees pay dues than have voted for a union to represent them.And why, after all, should that endemic free-riding be surprising? Does the majority think that public employees are immune from basic principles of economics? If not, the majority can have no basis for thinking that absent a fair-share clause, a union can attract sufficient dues to adequately support its functions."

Alito explained that "partial public employees" - the caregivers -- have two employers: The state and the elderly or disabled individual they care for. A state law to have free riders pay the fair share costs of the SEIU-negotiated agreement, which covers all caregivers - though the state sets their wages and benefits - is unconstitutional because the fair share payment breaks the dissenting workers' free speech rights, Alito said.

The anti-worker, anti-union National Right To Work Legal Defense Fund recruited the complaining caregivers and funded the case. It wanted the justices to go even further and reject union dues for all public workers in all cases, but Alito turned that down.

The caregivers "are quite different from full-fledged public employees, (so) we refuse to extend" past decisions about agency fee-payers (the Abood case), "to the new situation now before us," Alito said. "Abood itself has clear boundaries: It applies to public employees" who must pay fair share fees. "Extending those boundaries to encompass partial-public employees, quasi-public employees, or simply private employees would invite problems.

"A joint employer remains an employer," Kagan responded. "Illinois kept authority over all workforce-wide terms of employment -- the very issues most likely to be the subject of collective bargaining. The state thus should also retain the prerogative...to require all employees to contribute fairly to their bargaining agent," she retorted.

Kagan did find one silver lining: Rejection of the Right To Work group's scheme to declare all public agencies as open shops, with no requirement for union dues from anyone in any enterprise, public or private. The Right To Work group's lawyer told reporters after oral argument that destroying unions, in public agencies and in private enterprise, by yanking all dues is his group's ultimate goal. He even said so, to Justice Antonin Scalia, in court.

"The good news out of this case is clear: The majority declined that radical request," Kagan said. "The court did not, as the petitioners" - the Right to Work group - "wanted, deprive every state and local government, in the management of their employees and programs, of the tool that many have thought necessary and appropriate to make collective bargaining work. The bad news is just as simple: The majority robbed Illinois of that choice in administering its in-home care program."

Photo: AP

House panel’s GOP majority bashes NLRB – again

Mon, 30 Jun 2014 12:58:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - For the 16th time in the sharply partisan 113th Congress, the radical right GOP majority on the House Education and the Workforce Committee bashed the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

That left the defense of the NLRB to panel Democrats and AFL-CIO Assistant General Counsel James Coppess. The GOP refused to ask board members to testify.

The latest attack was a June 24 Education and Workforce subcommittee hearing to pressure the NLRB to drop two ideas it is considering. In the Purple Communications case, the board seeks public comment on to what extent workers can use employers' email for protected communications - specifically communications about unionizing.

In a prior e-mail use case, involving The Newspaper Guild's local at the Eugene (Ore.) Register-Guard, "a divided board ruled the employer had violated" labor law by barring use of work email for "National Labor Relations Act-protected communications but not by other prohibitions," Coppess told lawmakers.

"But in the end," federal courts reversed the board, he said. "That outcome left employers and workers uncertain of when email communications on NLRA-protected topics are protected and when they are not." The NLRB is using Purple Communications to try to say whether workers' use at home of employers' email systems - a common practice - for union business and communications follows labor law.

The AFL-CIO says use of email, like use of bulletin boards and regular mail, is legal.

In the other case, the board wants public comments on defining what a "joint employer" is, in cases where the company and a subcontractor both pay workers, who do identical jobs, at the same plant. But the company controls all the working conditions.

The NLRB is using a case involving a Teamsters Local 350 organizing drive among the 240 employees of Leadpoint Business Services - the subcontractor - at the Browning-Ferris plant in Milpitas, Calif., to try to figure out the bounds of being a joint employer. The union represents the other 60 workers whom Browning-Ferris directly employs at the plant. All 300 workers recycle trash.

Given rising employer use of such joint employer/subcontractor arrangements, the NLRB's decision on whether the workers are organizable is important.

"In petitioning for an NLRB representation election, Local 360 listed both Browning-Ferris and Leadpoint as joint employers. The union did so, because the terms and conditions under which the employees work are, in effect, controlled by both Browning-Ferris and Leadpoint. That circumstance makes it impossible to bargain over all the terms and conditions of employment without both employers at the table," Coppess explained.

Browning-Ferris, he said, owns the plant and its equipment, sets safety standards, mandates how fast the trash-sorting lines will run, ordering how and how long the sorters will sort the trash, sets their pay and can fire them, too.

"The board has long held two companies can be required to engage in collective bargaining as joint employers where they 'share, or codetermine, those matters governing the essential terms and conditions of employment,'" Coppess explained.

"Although the bare statement of the NLRB's long-standing test would seem to clearly require joint-employer bargaining in the circumstances presented by this case, the board's application of that test over the years has given rise to much confusion - as the regional director's decision in Browning-Ferris Industries amply demonstrates."

That NLRB official, Coppess said, recognized Browning-Ferris controlled working conditions in Milpitas, but said it did not have direct control over the Leadpoint workers. The board, Coppess said, is using the Browning-Ferris case to try to sort out that mess, he added.

"Once again, the board would only be doing its duty were it to clarify the collective bargaining rights of employees whose terms and conditions of employment are effectively jointly controlled," Coppess testified.

Defense of the NLRB irked the GOP-called witnesses - two union-buster lawyers and a lobbyist for the low-wage restaurant industry - as well as subcommittee chairman Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn. "Union bosses have increasingly relied on federal agencies to tilt the balance of power in their favor," Roe, using standard GOP anti-worker anti-union invective, claimed.

"The NLRB is at the center of this effort, promoting a culture of union favoritism that makes it virtually impossible for employers and workers to resist union pressure," Roe's rhetoric continued. His comments drew protests from Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., the panel's top Democrat.

"The board has not come yet to a decision to change either of these standards," said Tierney. "It is simply asking for comments.

"According to one witness' testimony - and I am quoting here - 'All indications are that what workers and employers should expect is that NLRB will decide these cases by carefully applying established legal principles to the particular facts of each case and that, in so doing, the board will attempt to provide legal guidance to workers and employers who encounter similar situations in the future.'

"Assuming no one associated with this hearing would want to be perceived as attempting to 'chill' NLRB members from engaging in their job or attempt to influence a decision under consideration, one must wonder about the timing of this hearing and question its purpose. After 16+ hearings and mark-ups, I think the subject of the NLRB has been covered," Tierney concluded.

Photo: Teamsters website

From Freedom Summer to Mississippi Nissan plant: “We got the power”

Mon, 30 Jun 2014 12:44:00 +0000

CANTON, Miss. - Marking the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer, student activists joined with Nissan workers, civil rights veterans, community supporters and actor/activist Danny Glover to score a moral victory over the giant automaker here, Friday June 27. Here's an eyewitness account:

Under dark skies, almost 1,000 workers, students, civil rights veterans, and community activists descend on Nissan's mile-long plant here. Young activists continuing the legacy of student civil rights advocacy during 1964's Freedom Summer march side by side with Nissan workers. Among them is actor and humanitarian Danny Glover, who has made the Nissan workers' struggle for union rights a personal cause.

The gray Nissan plant is huge. Over 6,000 Mississippians work, without a union contract, in the building every day. Their efforts make Nissan one of the most profitable car manufacturers in the world. Between January and March of 2014 Nissan reported $1.1 billion in profits.

Much of that profit has been extracted from the work of poor black and white Mississippians who haven't seen a raise in five years. Moreover, approximately one-half of the work at the Nissan plant is done by temporary workers who are paid around $10 an hour, poverty wages here. These workers are constantly threatened with losing their jobs, or never coming off of temporary status, if they support the union. As 11-year veteran Nissan worker Diane Moore puts it, "Nissan, lead us not into Temp Nation."

Today's event is about more than pay. It is about the fact that that on this mile of Mississippi farmland, workers live in constant fear. Sadly, if you work for Nissan in Canton, your basic rights as an American to speak and assemble freely are null and void. Morris Mock, a tall man with a ready smile and the build of someone who has in fact worked building Nissans for a decade, says it plainly: "Once you step into that plant you cannot speak your mind."

Nissan's retaliation against workers who do attempt to exercise their basic rights is well documented. One example is the case of Calvin Moore, an 11-year worker for Nissan with a spotless work record. Moore is known as an open supporter of the union, and regularly wears pro-union shirts to work. When interrogated by his supervisors, Moore refused to answer questions about the union. He was then fired on March 5, 2014, for insubordination, with management citing a warning he had received four years earlier. Nissan refused all requests for documentation of his alleged insubordination.

Workers and activists around the globe rallied in support of Moore. Less than a month after his firing, workers from three of Brazil's largest labor federations protested outside a Nissan dealership in Sao Paulo. Later that April, in a coordinated effort using social media and the power of such celebrities as Danny Glover and the rapper Common, a group of eight students from Jackson State University and Tougaloo College visited the Canton Nissan plant, demanding that Nissan management meet with them to discuss Moore's termination and the need for a fair union election. Two days later, Calvin Moore was reinstated with full back pay.

Outside the media spotlight, workers say much worse happens. Workers injured on the job are sent to company doctors who attribute work-related injuries to sports, work around the home, or fishing. Workers are forced into one-on-one meetings with management and told their jobs are gone if they unionize. The culture of fear and intimidation is so strong at Nissan that some workers, regularly denied bathroom breaks, wear adult undergarments to work in order to keep their jobs.

Today, workers, students, and fellow activists trudge through mud, and jump over ditches thick with weeds and water, arriving outside the massive Nissan complex with the sound of beating drums. They include young people from the Mississippi Student Justice Alliance, Youth Congress and Concerned Students for a Better Nissan, clergy and others from the Mississippi Alliance for Fairness at Nissan (MAFFAN), Nissan workers, and other community supporters.

As the long line comes to a stop just before the first gate, many dance and sing, "Up with the workers, yeah, yeah; down with the bosses, no, no." Many carry signs proclaiming, "Workers' rights are civil rights." In the shadow of the Nissan water tower looming above the pines the crowd congeals around a high energy ring shout. Clapping and shouting, the students and workers cry their discontent: "Tear down Babylon! Union workers are the bomb! We're ready. We're coming."

The crowd sings and dances until called to order by Father Jeremy Tobin of St. Moses the Black Priory. A short man with a white goatee, wearing a Roman collar, Father Tobin leans back and cries out, "Lord G-d of justice," and the crowd falls silent. He continues his brief homily, invoking the almighty to lead the workers in their fight for civil rights, because, "these workers have the right to a free and fair election to form a union."

Dr. Isiac Jackson, chair of MAFFAN, puts the Nissan workers' struggle into perspective. Gripping the microphone in his fist, Jackson tells the crowd the Nissan plant was, "built on the land where slaves picked cotton." He goes on, "After the Civil War sharecroppers worked the land until the end of Jim Crow, when the sharecroppers ran off. The bosses paid workers $2 a bale to pick cotton, and Nissan is still paying sharecropper wages." He draws back, breathing in the Mississippi afternoon, and roars, "We're here to say 'Union today, union tomorrow, union forever!" The crowd explodes, shouting its agreement.

In the spirit of Freedom Summer, this is more than a rally in front of Nissan. Danny Glover takes the lead in direct action, attempting to deliver a petition signed by thousands of workers, students, concerned citizens, and religious and community leaders addressed to Nissan management. Workers want nothing more than to make the Nissan plant in Canton, Miss., a safer and more productive factory. The demand of the petition is humble: Sit down with us.

Turned away from the main gate, Glover and a group of 50 workers and students, accompanied by this reporter, are directed to a gate where management sequesters itself, half a mile away. The group trudges through the sweltering Mississippi farmland before reaching the gate where they find no less than 10 Mississippi Highway Patrol cruisers, county sheriff's department blazers, and Nissan security vehicles, flashing oscillating blue and red lights. A few hundred yards away, we stop briefly, and 10 workers and activists are chosen to approach the gate with Glover to try to enter the plant to deliver the petition.

Climbing a small hill onto the paved drive, it is clear we are in the mouth of a monster. To the left and rear of the group, tucked behind their blazers, are deputies carrying rifles, wearing black tactical gear and combat boots. In front of the workers and students is a yellow line marking company property and a cordon of state troopers and Nissan security, many with their hands on their pistols.

Fearlessly, the workers and students march, with Glover at the lead, towards the entrance. Nissan security people move to meet them. A stern white-haired man with a military haircut and conservative moustache, Steven Hovsepian, senior manager of security, shouts from a distance, "Can I help you?"

Glover responds, gently touching his chest with his hand, "My name is Danny Glover, and I am here to deliver a petition to management on behalf of the workers." Accompanied by troopers and Nissan security, Hovsepian approaches as deputies lean around their vehicles behind us. Glover once again introduces himself, asks Hovsepian how he is doing, and if the group can deliver the petition to management. The racial line that rips across the State of Mississippi is starkly apparent. Except for one, every member of management and law enforcement are white and aged 30 to 60 while the 10 workers and students are mostly black and of all ages.

Without giving his name, or any sort of greeting, Hovsepian says there is "no one available" to take their petition despite the fact that multiple Japanese company managers can be seen sitting in idling Nissans less than 20 yards away. Glover, clearly stunned by the blatant falsehood, eventually nods and walks away while the crowd gasps and more than one person is heard asking, "Really?" and "Is that it?"

The group draws back into a huddle to confer, when Glover unexpectedly marches towards the gate, the delegation of 10 hurrying behind him. "I walked all this way to talk to you" he says to the security manager, "and I want to talk to someone." Hovsepian, staying behind the troopers and security agents 30 yards or so away, attempts to deflect Glover by repeating that there is no one to receive the petition. Glover waves his arms to silence the noisy crowd in the distance, before turning to the head of security. "Listen, I told you my name," he says. "The least you can do is walk over here and talk to me like a man." Impassioned, Glover repeats, "Walk over here and talk to me like a man."

The security manager confers with one of the Nissan managers before slouching over to Glover and the 10 workers and students. "I can take that for you," he offers, reaching out for the petition. Glover retorts, "Will you give this to management?" The workers and students are toeing the yellow line as troopers inch closer. Hovsepian surrenders with a sigh, "I will make sure it is received," and takes the petition.

Back with the thousand-some crowd we learn that workers have been trying for years to get management to accept their right to organize and sit down with them and talk about how to improve working conditions and productivity at Nissan.

The fact that Nissan management in Canton publicly has accepted the petition presented on behalf of 6,000 workers for the right to organize is seen as a significant victory not only for workers in Mississippi, but for workers everywhere fighting for a living wage and the right to form a union. Led by students from across the country, the crowd chants, "We got the power. Because WE are the collective!"

Photo: Students, workers and supporters rally at Nissan's Canton, Miss., plant, Friday, June 27. James Raines/PW

SEIU: After Supreme Court ruling, workers vow to stand up for good jobs, quality care

Mon, 30 Jun 2014 12:24:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Home care workers and consumers are ready to stand up for quality home care in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Harris v. Quinn today, the Service Employees International Union said in a media statement.

The ruling places at risk a system of consumer-directed home care in Illinois that has proven successful in raising wages, providing affordable health care benefits, and increasing training. The number of elderly Americans will increase dramatically in the coming years. States need to build a stable, qualified workforce to meet the growing need for home care-and having a strong union for home care workers is the only approach that has proven effective.

"I count on my home care provider for so much-I wouldn't be able to work or get through the day without her," said Rahnee Patrick, a home care consumer and advocate from ACCESS Living in Chicago." "I'm worried that I could lose her if her wages and benefits don't keep up with the cost of living."

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, an extreme anti-worker group whose funders include billionaires like Charles Koch and the Walton family, brought the case. It is the latest in a decades-long attack on the rights of working people to join together to improve their jobs and the quality of services they provide.

"They are trying to divide us and limit our power, but we won't stop standing together for our families and our consumers" said Flora Johnson, a home care provider from Chicago. "Before we formed our union, I made less than $6 an hour, but by uniting we are set to make $13 an hour by the end of the year. I know from experience that we are stronger together."

"For our parents and grandparents to get the care they need to live at home, workers need a strong voice in a union," Henry said. "I know that Flora Johnson other SEIU members are determined to keep up the fight to end poverty wages and ensure quality care."

Photo: Besides fighting for higher wages for their members, SEIU participates in coalitions to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour (John Bachtell/PW).

Union leader says Congressional rules block pro-worker bills

Fri, 27 Jun 2014 16:34:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Unions and their allies must "connect the dots" between gummed-up congressional rules and the lack of legislation that helps workers, voters, women and their allies, Communications Workers President Larry Cohen says.

Cohen's observations on June 24 came as he accepted the "Champion of Justice" award from the Alliance for Justice, an organization of pro-worker progressive groups - including unions - and attorneys. The alliance lauded Cohen for launching and leading CWA's Democracy Initiative, which, as a first win, forced some curbs of Senate filibusters.

Those curbs, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pushed through last year, resulted in Senate confirmation of Obama administration judicial nominees, helping to even out the heavily Republican-named federal judiciary, and confirmation, for the first time in a decade, of a full 5-member National Labor Relations Board.

Introducing Cohen, retiring Senate Labor Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said CWA's large pro-democracy coalition and Cohen in particular had a lot to do with pushing Reid to finally act. Reid changed Senate filibuster rules so that only a bare majority - 51 votes - is needed to approve presidential nominees and lower federal court judges.

"'It's enough that you guys are always on my rear end'" about changing the filibuster rules, Harkin quoted Reid's comments to Harkin and other anti-filibuster senators. Filibusters forced a 60-vote threshold for nominee approval. "'Now I've got that Larry Cohen guy, too.'"

But Cohen said changing the filibuster for nominees and some judges is not enough. He reminded the crowd that it still takes 60 senators' votes to halt a filibuster against Supreme Court nominees and against legislation. He urged them to make that the next step.

Cohen singled out the Employee Free Choice Act and pay equity as particular legislative victims of GOP filibusters, and exhorted listeners to mobilize for further reform.

Harkin backed that by saying that, as lead sponsor of EFCA, he was within one vote of 60 to pass it while Democrats still controlled both houses of Congress. And then the GOP won a special election to fill the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's vacant seat, and EFCA died.

Cohen said that shows "the really big lesson is that you can't get your first issue" - be it workers' rights, raising the minimum wage, pay equity or comprehensive immigration reform - "through the Senate unless you win your second issue," the rules changes, first.

Otherwise, the Senate Republicans will keep blocking pro-worker legislation, voting rights bills, immigration reform and more, whenever and wherever they can, he declared.

"They'll do it on the Supreme Court (nominations), and forget about justice. They'll do it in the Senate" about regular legislation "and forget about decency," he said.

Today in Labor History: Emma Goldman, IWW, Wagner Act, strike and lockout

Fri, 27 Jun 2014 15:39:00 +0000

There were at least five major events in the annals of labor history in the U.S. that occurred on June 27.

On June 27, 1869 Emma Goldman was born in Lithuania. At the age of 17, she came to the United States. Goldman was an early advocate of free speech, birth control, women's equality and independence, and union organization. Her criticism of mandatory conscription of young men into the military during World War I led to a two-year imprisonment, followed by her deportation in 1919.

Goldman's papers are available at the Berkeley Digital Library site. The PBS series American Experience presented a documentary on her life.

On June 27, 1905, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), also known as the "Wobblies," was founded in Chicago. The famous Wobbly motto: "An injury to one is an injury to all."

On June 27, 1935 the Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act, which became the basis of U.S. labor law until now. The NLRA, also known as the Wagner Act, commits the government to encouragement of collective bargaining rights.

On June 27, 1985, there began an historic 26-day strike of 26,000 New York City hotel workers with workers winning a five-year contract that put in place major wage and benefit gains. The strike was the first such massive walkout by hotel workers in the city in 50 years.

On June 27, 1993, in Decatur, Ill., the A.E. Staley Company locked out 763 workers, members of the Allied Industrial Workers of America. The lockout was to last two and a half years. "We want to work to live, not live to work," the workers would chant on the picket line.

Photo: Emma Goldman 1901 mug shot Public Domain

Today in labor history: Blues legend Big Bill Broonzy born

Thu, 26 Jun 2014 16:21:00 +0000

Lee Conley Bradley, who became known to the world as blues singer Big Bill Broonzy, was born on June 26 in 1893, as he later said, or possibly in 1905 as family records suggest. In addition to singing the blues, he was also a prolific songwriter and guitarist. His long and varied career marks him as one of the key figures in the development of blues music in the 20th century.

Big Bill Broonzy was one of 17 children born to Frank Broonzy (Bradley) and Millie Belcher. He grew up in Arkansas where he started playing music at an early age. When he was 10 he made himself a fiddle from a cigar box and learned how to play spirituals and folk songs from his uncle. As a teenager he worked as a sharecropper, then was drafted into the Army, serving two years in Europe during World War I. After experiencing racism on his return to Arkansas after the war, Broonzy moved to Chicago in 1920. He began his musical career there, playing country blues to mostly African American audiences. His first record, "Big Bill's Blues," was released in 1927.

Through the 1930s and 1940s he moved to a more urban blues sound popular with working class African American audiences. He is considered a pioneer of the Chicago blues style.

In the 1950s a return to his traditional folk-blues roots made him one of the leading figures of the emerging American folk music revival and an international star.

In 1957 Broonzy was one of the founding faculty members of Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music. At the school's opening night on December 1, he taught a class titled "The Glory of Love."

He died of throat cancer in 1958.

Broonzy copyrighted more than 300 songs during his lifetime, including both adaptations of traditional folk songs and original blues songs. As a blues composer, he was unique in reflecting the many vantage points of his rural-to-urban experiences.

In 1980, he was inducted into the first class of the Blues Hall of Fame along with 20 other of the world's greatest blues legends.

Big Bill Broonzy plays "Hey Hey":

Photo: Studio portrait of Big Bill Broonzy. Wikipedia

Supreme Court rules against Obama on NLRB recess appointments

Thu, 26 Jun 2014 15:38:00 +0000

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the president and supporters in the labor movement today by restricting the ability of the White House to fill vacant government positions before getting full Senate approval.

In a ruling that will apply to future presidents, the court decided in a 9-0 vote that three vacancies President Obama filled on the National Labor Relations Board in 2012 were illegal. Obama made those appointments while the Senate was, for practical purposes, in recess. It was conducting no business. However, Senate Republicans used a parliamentary maneuver to keep the Senate in "pro-forma" session so they could continue filibustering Obama's NLRB appointments.

The filibuster of the NLRB appointees prevented workers across the nation from exercising basic rights - everything from filing complaints against employers to setting up union elections at their work sites.

The immediate impact of the ruling today is somewhat blunted because Democrats, who currently control the Senate, put through a rule change last November that made it harder for Republicans to block the president's nominees. An agreement worked out in the Senate in July 2013 opened the way for the confirmation of all five NLRB members.

Those changes came, however, only after a major campaign led by organized labor - a campaign that saw union members take to Capitol Hill to demand that lawmakers "Give Us Five" NLRB members.

"We're not going to just be hopeful that Senate Democrats do the right thing," Communications Workers of America President Larry Cohen said in May 2013. At the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on the NLRB nominations activists wore red buttons and stickers reading, "Give Me 5 NLRB Members."

Obama, who has been the most filibustered president in American history, made the recess appointments in an attempt to stop GOP sabotage of the NLRB and its vital role in protecting U.S. workers. The National Labor Relations Act, which says that it is the role of the U.S. government to encourage the exercise of collective bargaining rights, established the board in the 1930s.

"The board is the only place workers can go to if they have been treated unfairly and denied basic protections that the law provides," said Sen. Tom Harkins, D-Iowa.

Although the ruling today does not remove any of the board's five members, it will force the board to take the time to reexamine all the decisions that were made while the temporary appointees were in office.

From the purely legal angle the case was one of determining when the Senate is or is not in formal recess because only then does the president's power of recess appointments kick in. The court, in its ruling, strictly limited the legal definition of recess, therefore sharply reducing the number of times a president can make recess appointments.

The court did not go as far as some had feared it might. It did not try to cut back on the power of the president to make recess appointments in between Senate sessions or recesses during a legislative session.

The case, Noel Canning vs. NLRB, was one in which the soft drink bottler challenged an NLRB ruling against it. The company said the ruling was invalid because some of the NLRB board members on the panel that issued it had been improperly placed there by Obama.

Anti-Obama Republicans, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other big business outfits campaigned hard, demanding the court back up the company.

The administration and its supporters in the labor movement and elsewhere pointed out that similar recess appointments had been made by other presidents dating all the way back to George Washington.

The ruling could become a real problem for the president if the GOP were to gain control of the Senate in November. They would be in a position to make it more difficult for the president to make appointments of his choosing for the last two years of his term.

Photo: CWA Facebook page

West Coast dock workers battling push to gut ILWU

Thu, 26 Jun 2014 12:05:00 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO - With their six-year contract about to expire, talks being held in San Francisco between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the managers of Pacific coastal ports are going down to the wire.

But there's a big difference between now and the time when the port managers locked out ILWU just over a decade ago: Barack Obama, not George W. Bush, is president. One other difference, but with probably less impact: ILWU was then in the AFL-CIO. Today, it's not.

The Pacific Maritime Association, managers of the 29 West Coast ports - including the nation's busiest, Los Angeles-Long Beach - are battling to cut the number of jobs under ILWU control, make the 20,000 workers pay more for their health care, and allow further automation.

Talks will go beyond the June 30 contract expiration. ILWU's West Coast longshore workers handle 44 percent of all incoming U.S. seaborne freight. A shutdown stops supply lines. (story continues after video)

That's what happened in 2002 - thanks to management. PMA unilaterally declared an impasse in the talks, locked the ILWU out for 10 days, and then got Bush to issue a back-to-work order, which maritime labor law allows. PMA had wanted Bush to send troops; he didn't.

"We've got an excellent negotiating team and solid support from longshore and clerk members who mapped out their priorities and gave us their marching orders to secure a good contract," ILWU President Bob McEllrath said when bargaining began on May 19.

The union said that its members, through their bargaining caucus delegates, set four key priorities for negotiators: Maintaining health care and retirement benefits, management respect for ILWU jurisdiction, fair raises and better safety conditions.

The jurisdiction issue involves other unions winning at several ports, notably Portland, Ore. The health care issue could involve who pays the tax on "Cadillac" plans that, the Affordable Care Act says, will begin in 2018. "In 2002, employers united with shippers and giant retailers to support a 10-day lockout that shut West Coast ports," ILWU noted.

Photo: Managers of the 29 West Coast ports are trying to gut the ILWU because of its long history of militancy. In this photo, union members strike in the state of Washington in 2011. Terrie Albano/PW

Video: Workers at the Washington state port of Longview fought off attacks on their union, the ILWU, in 2011.

Massachusetts, Michigan minimum wage hikes leave restaurant workers shortchanged

Thu, 26 Jun 2014 11:47:00 +0000

Massachusetts and Michigan have become the latest states to get sick of waiting for a GOP-hamstrung U.S. Congress to raise the federal minimum wage, as both states' legislatures recently voted to hike their own state minimum wages.

But there's one big flaw in the two measures, according to the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC), the union-supported group that is campaigning to raise restaurant workers' pay nationwide: Increases in the tipped minimum wage were too small.

The federal minimum wage for workers who depend on tips is $2.13 hourly and it hasn't risen in more than 20 years. Employers are supposed to make up the difference between what a worker gets in tips, on top of that $2.13 hourly sum, and the regular minimum wage, now $7.25 hourly. But employers routinely cheat the tipped workers out of the difference.

Raising the tipped minimum would help close the wage gap, especially for restaurant workers, who are among the poorest-paid nationwide, ROC co-founder and co-director Sayu Jayaraman says. Seven states have eliminated the tipped minimum, bringing all workers under the regular minimum wage, she adds. Their restaurants are thriving, she notes.

Massachusetts and Michigan did not raise the tipped minimum enough, Jayaraman adds. Specifically, Massachusetts increased its tipped minimum wage from its current $2.63 an hour to $3.75. Michigan raised its tipped minimum by a dollar an hour, to $3.50.

Massachusetts now has an $8 hourly minimum wage for other workers. That's 75 cents above the federal figure of $7.25, which itself hasn't risen since 2006. Michigan's overall minimum would rise to $9.25. The new Massachusetts minimum would rise to $11 hourly by 2017. Unions, President Obama, and congressional Democrats are campaigning for a hike to $10.10 by 2016.

Michigan's hike went quickly through a GOP-dominated legislature - and GOP Gov. Rick Snyder signed it - to head off a worker-led union-supported referendum that would have given low-wage workers in the Wolverine State an even larger raise, Jayaraman adds.

Nevertheless, the two minimum wage wins are signs of success nationwide of the growing movement of hundreds of thousands of low-wage workers - fast-food workers, retail workers, Walmart workers, warehouse workers and others - who demand a living wage of $15 hourly, decent benefits and hours and the right to organize without employer interference.

"This law is not a win for many Michiganders," Jayaraman added. "Through intense lobbying by the National Restaurant Association and other interests, more than 160,000 tipped workers in Michigan, over 74 percent of whom are women, are stuck with a base wage of $3.50 an hour- less than $1 per hour increase over their old wage-and still far below the poverty line.

"For three bucks and fifty cents an hour, many of Michigan's mothers, wives and daughters live day-by -day, shift-by-shift to see if they will earn enough income to cover their rent, food, and transportation while raising a family. They have to endure five times the national rate of sexual harassment, performing for customers to earn their wages, and for their employers to obtain the best shifts. This is not a culture that should be perpetuated at any price, and the sub minimum wage makes it all the worse."

Some 120,000 tipped workers would benefit from the Massachusetts tipped minimum wage hike, Jayaraman says. But the hike should have helped them come closer to the regular minimum wage, the better to lift them out of poverty-level wages, she adds.

"Sixty-six percent of tipped workers in Massachusetts are women," she said. The new $3.75 Massachusetts tipped wage means "women will remain dependent on the largesse of customers for their livelihood. Nationally, servers use food stamps at double the rate of the rest of the U.S. workforce and are three times as likely to live in poverty."

Photo: Restaurant workers, including those involved with ROC, attend a Chicago event called "National Restaurant Worker Olympics," a protest against unfair wages and working conditions that involves dancing and other competitive performances. ROC United official Flickr page

Today in labor history: Fair Labor Standards Act signed by Roosevelt

Wed, 25 Jun 2014 15:56:00 +0000

On this day in 1938 President Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act. The new law established a shorter work week (44 hours), prohibited child labor, set a minimum wage and provided time and one-half for overtime.

Senator Hugo Black, author of the law, initially proposed a 30-hour week. Close to 700,000 workers were benefited from the legislation.

Unite Here aims to grow union membership among low wage workers

Wed, 25 Jun 2014 14:36:00 +0000

BOSTON - Delegates from all over the country, representing some 270,000 Unite Here members, are converging on this city June 25-27 for the union's constitutional convention.

The mood among the delegates is upbeat with many celebrating recent organizing victories and others talking about things like their long range vision of an America where the income gap has been drastically narrowed.

Unite Here includes in its ranks a wide range of workers with people in the hotel, gaming, food service and even manufacturing sectors of the economy among those gathering here this week.

In opening speeches today, leaders of the union have emphasized the theme that the poor economic recovery makes it more urgent than ever that the union bring in more members. Joining a union is the only way to boost pay and thereby stimulate economic growth, they say.

To this end the convention has adopted "Changing 50,000 More Lives" as its theme. A resolution to organize 50,000 more workers in the next five years has been put on the agenda for discussion and adoption by the delegates.

No one here is shy about mentioning organizing successes the union has already had. Some of those delegates, for example, are among the 5,000 workers in the food service industry who have unionized with Unite Here in the last year alone.

"Since we won our first contract this year I now make over $16 an hour and can afford healthcare for my young daughter and my husband," said Tatiana Lam, who is among those 5,000. She works at Einstein Bros. Bagels at Cal State East Bay in Hayward, California.

Delegates at the convention will also elect new officers. Current President D. Taylor will stand for a full five year term after taking over the leadership of the union in 2013. "At a time when so much attention is rightfully being paid to the declining living standards of American workers, the Unite Here family knows the surest way to change lives for the better is to organize workers into unions," said Taylor.

Delegates will also hear from speakers including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Gov. Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Martin Walsh. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will also speak.

Photo: UNITE HERE Local 26 in Boston says "The Time Is Now" for immigration reform. Facebook page.

Union activist sees new unity, new day for labor movement

Tue, 24 Jun 2014 15:54:00 +0000

ST. LOUIS - On May 15, I was in the driver's seat of a mini-van with six nursing home workers. All were SEIU members I represent from three different nursing homes here in Saint Louis. We are one in a fleet of vehicles surging onto the parking lot of a local Wendy's. It has been an inspiring day of fast food strikes.

My members, along with hundreds of labor, community, faith and student allies, have arrived to show support to fast food workers organizing for $15-an hour and a union.

The energy in the van is through the roof!

Louise, sitting next to me, is a veteran activist and a seasoned shop steward. The five other union members are new and developing.

Debra admits to everybody this is the first action she's ever been to.

However, she asks a central question regarding worker rights and solidarity: "We are in a contract fight, maybe some of these people could help us picket our nursing home?"

Kay, another shop steward replies: "Think about it. Grand Manor [Nursing Home] is in a contract fight. Christian Care [Nursing Home] is in a fight. Northview Village [Nursing Home] is in a fight. Mary Ryder [Nursing Home] is about to start bargaining. If we all came to each other's pickets we would be an army!"

The side doors of the van fly open, and demonstrators pour out and surge into the Wendy's. In moments the lobby is full, demonstrators clog the dining area and cheer as the entire line of kitchen staff walk off the job.

Fast forward to Thursday, June 12.

The management at Christian Care Nursing Home has violated the National Labor Relations Act by denying and even disciplining workers wearing their union logo on their work apparel. Adding insult to injury, workers at Christian Care have only received a nickel raise in almost five years.

It's a gorgeous June afternoon and a handful of workers and union staff are walking the sidewalk in front of the facility. It's a little early, but everyone is eager to picket. It is almost time for shift change. A large stack of picket signs, all made by members the day before, waits patiently by the road.

A worker comes out of the facility, picks up a sign and exclaims, "The managers are giving out ice cream to keep people from coming out!" We all start laughing, but the tension is real.

There has never been an action at this nursing home, and for a moment we all wonder if we will be sold out because of some dilly bars.

Members start trickling out and filling in the missing ranks.

Suddenly, from the residential area across the street members of Jobs with Justice, the Missouri Homecare Union, and the United Food and Commercial Workers union file-in alongside those already marching. Fast-food workers round the corner with bullhorns blaring, "Christian Care, you can't hide. We can see your greed inside." Workers from other nursing homes arrive in solidarity, still wearing scrubs from their own shifts.

Within minutes, an impromptu parade makes its way across the entrance of Christian Care Nursing Home. We chant, "What do we want? A CONTRACT! When do we want it? NOW!"

Kay, one of the shop stewards, is on the bullhorn. She says, "There are residents inside in wheelchairs who wanted to come out and march with us. There are family members who wanted to bring them. Christian Care has never seen anything like this. Let me tell you, this is a new day at Christian Care!"

There is an old union adage: "Together we are what we can't be alone."

Labor and community organizations are re-learning an important lesson. We must not forget who our friends are.

The three fast food workers who walked off the job at Wendy's are vulnerable without our support, without hundreds of other workers chanting, "Come on out. We've got your back!" With that kind of support, management knows they are not alone.

Similarly, nursing home workers are vulnerable without the support of their brothers and sisters from different facilities, as well as broader community support - fast-food workers, clergy, other unions, etc.

It is in fact a new day, a new day for the labor movement!

Photo: Courtesy of Nicholas James.

Nicholas James is a collective bargaining rep for the Service Employees International Union.

Government workers back Grimes in Kentucky Senate race

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 13:55:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - The American Federation of Government Employees today formally endorsed Alison Lundergan Grimes for election to the U.S. Senate.

Grimes, who is currently Secretary of State for Kentucky, will face incumbent Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky in the November election.

"Alison Grimes has demonstrated a lifelong commitment to public service, and federal employees will have a much-needed advocate in the Senate when she is elected," said Arnold Scott, AFGE National Vice President for the Sixth District, which includes Kentucky.

Sen. McConnell, on the other hand, has a six percent lifetime voting record from AFGE. As majority leader in the Senate, McConnell has overwhelmingly voted against the interests of federal employees. He led the fight to pass the budget plan introduced by Rep. Paul Ryan, which would have frozen federal pay through 2015, reduced retirement benefits significantly while requiring federal employees to pay more for a smaller pension, and cut the federal workforce by ten percent across the board.

McConnell also has worked to block extended unemployment benefits while voting to increase tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and corporations, undercut union contracts and workers' rights, and dismantle protections against contracting out that AFGE fought years to establish.

"Mitch McConnell has helped to lead every attack against federal employees in the U.S. Senate. We have an opportunity to gain a powerful advocate for workers' rights and Allison Grimes is that chance," AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. said.

Photo: Allison Grimes. AP

Chicago Walmart worker at White House summit today

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 13:43:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - Chicago Walmart worker Bene't Holmes told her story today to fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama. He didn't like what he heard.

Holmes, one of hundreds of workers who traveled from around the nation for today's White House Summit On Working Families, explained to the president about how Walmart mistreated her when she was pregnant. It led her to join Our Walmart, an organization - not a union - of Walmart workers dedicated to public pressure on the monster retailer.

Their objective: To get Walmart to give its full-time workers full-time hours, to achieve pay of at least $25,000 yearly with decent benefits - and to get the right to organize without the anti-worker retailer's interference and constant labor law-breaking.

Holmes told the President that in February she suffered a miscarriage while at work, after a manager denied her request for job duties that were less physically demanding. Following her miscarriage, she asked for a leave of absence to recover and was denied that request as well. That inhuman response led her to join Our Walmart.

Workers at the White House gathering told other such stories to President Obama, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler, the labor movement's highest-ranking woman, reported today. They highlighted the need to help working women in particular, she said, to raise their wages, increase their benefits, overcome job discrimination - and get an ironclad right to unionize to achieve those goals.

"But when the speeches are done, the focus of national news wanes and the participants all go home, it won't have been enough to have had a successful discussion about important topics," Shuler warned. "We have to be ready to build on the momentum of the important discussion and turn these from exceptional examples into real, everyday practices. It's crucial that we help working families who are quickly falling further and further behind.

"This is a challenge that is personal to me, because it wasn't that long ago when I was piecing together part-time jobs, struggling to find my way into work that would lead to a career. And in my early years of working to help clerical workers organize to gain better wages and benefits, I saw firsthand how intimidating it can be for workers to even ask for a better deal, much less demand one." Shuler helped organize West Coast workers for IBEW in Oregon.

The unionists at the summit, she said, emphasized three key ways to help working women and their families. One is to create equal opportunity, by raising earnings and passing legislation - such as the Equal Pay Act - giving working women the leverage to force employers to do so.

"It's almost a cliché, but the stubborn reality is that women are the sole or primary breadwinners for a record 40 percent of all U.S. households," Shuler said. "If we brought women's earnings in line with what men earn, working women below the poverty line would see a bump in average yearly wages of about $11,600, enough to make a huge difference in their lives, according to the National Women's Law Center.

"Moreover, women face pregnancy discrimination, and also hold a majority of the jobs that do not offer paid leave or paid sick leave. Basic paid leave laws would ensure workers don't have to choose between staying home to recover and having their pay reduced."

The second way, Shuler said, is to demand and get a fair deal for low-wage workers, including the one-million-plus Walmart workers and the hundreds of thousands of fast-food, tipped workers, and retail workers nationwide. Those occupations are majority-female - as is Walmart - and the lowest-paid, federal data show.

Raising the minimum wage, now $7.25 hourly, to $10.10 and indexing to it inflation after 2016, as the president proposes and labor campaigns for, would help lift the women and families out of poverty, Shuler said.

"Over the past few years, low-wage workers have been among the fastest-growing segments of the job market, and until we get them a better deal, the United States will continue to swell the ranks of the working poor," she added.

The unionists will also emphasize the third way to raise women's wages: Strengthening the right to organize.

"Unions have been a frequent and convenient target for Big Business, politicians and others in the recent past, but the reality is that collective action and joining an union have resulted in higher wages and better conditions for workers across the board," Shuler said. A new study puts "the union advantage" of wages and benefits for working women at 22 percent.

"In fact, union membership is one way women in the workforce are moving toward achieving wage parity with men," Shuler added. Federal data show the median wage for a working woman is 77 cents for every dollar the median man earns. But unionized working women's median wages are 90 cents per unionized man's dollar - and both are at least $200 weekly higher than the median wages of non-union men and women.

Labor Secretary Thomas Perez agrees with the unionists, even if the ruling Republicans in Congress don't.

"Let's never forget that having a voice at work - having the right to organize and join a union - is absolutely essential to securing the wages, benefits and flexibility that both women and men need," Perez told a recent regional summit which preceded the White House confab.

"The labor movement is one of American history's most powerful forces for upward mobility and economic security. There is a direct link between the strength of the labor movement and the vitality of the middle class," Perez declared.

Photo: Bene't Holmes joins in with a Phoenix-area Walmart demonstration. MakingChangeatWalmart.org

Unions unite for Connecticut elections

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 13:08:00 +0000

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - "We are not letting anybody divide the unions of the Connecticut AFL-CIO!" exclaimed Randi Weingarten to a standing ovation and loud applause as she addressed the organization's tenth bienniel political convention.

Weingarten, national president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and Lee Saunders, national president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) both traveled to New Haven to warnAFL-CIO convention delegates of the danger of the billionaire Koch brothers attempt to defeat Democratic governors and legislatures in order to destroy collective bargaining for public sector workers and all workers, as was done in Wisconsin two years ago.

"We need to be at the center of the community, to guarantee economic security for all," said Weingarten. "That is who we are, that is what we know!"

In 2010, bucking the national trend, Connecticut voters narrowly elected a Democratic governor, Dannel Malloy, for the first time in two decades, along with the full Democratic slate of constitutional officers, and Democratic majorities in the state House and Senate.

Weingarten was escorted to the platform by the presidents of three locals of AFT Connecticut at Lawrence and Memorial Hospital whose members sustained a four month lockout earlier this year, during which Gov. Malloy walked the picket line with the health care workers.

The two-day convention opened with remarks by Stephanie Bloomingdale, secretary treasurer of the Wisconsin AFL CIO. "The Koch brothers came for us in Wisconisn and they are coming for you," she said, warning the delegates to step up their organizing. "We are fighting for the vision of America that treats all people equally, where democracy is not for sale. We cannot let that light be extinguished."

Addressing the convention, Malloy acknowledged mistakes he had made during his tenure which angered teachers and state sector public workers, while emphasizing his commitment to strong unions that "build the middle class and protect our families."

He listed major accomplishments including the Earned Income Tax Credit, raising the minimum wage, paid sick leave, creating over 50,000 private sector jobs, investing in public education and universal access to pre-K, investing in manufacturing and infrastructure, getting building trades back to work, and signing legislation that has enabled 20,000 workers to win collective bargaining rights including at the University of Connecticut and home health care and child care providers.

Malloy's Republican-endorsed challenger was on the defensive, attempting to explain a comment he made when running against Malloy in 2010, that he was hoping for a "Wisconsin moment in Connecticut." At the convention his denial that he was referring to Gov. Walker's elimination of collective bargaining for state workers drew laughter.

A video, "We are Not Wisconsin," filmed at a recent rally of 800 public sector workers in Middletown, gave voice to several union workers from Wisconsin who lost all their union bargaining rights and benefits under Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

After the presentations the convention voted unanimously to endorse Malloy for re-election this year.

The election is expected to be close again this time around. Delegates expressed concern that Jonathan Pelto, a Democrat who has formed the Education and Democracy Party to run for Governor and challenge Malloy's education reform program, could swing the election to the Repiublicans.

Four days before the convention, AFT Connecticut had endorsed Gov. Malloy.

Responding to Pelto's appeal to rank and file teachers for support, Weingarten asked, "Is this election about helping out a friend, or it is about doing what we have to do to restore the American Dream?"

"It's not easy to be a progressive governor in the United States today," she continued. "Connecticut doesn't need a billionaire (Foley) who doesn't care about kids to take teacher's rights away."

At the same time, the convention expressed its dissatisfaction with the policies of Malloy's Commissioner of Education by passing a strongly worded resolution to "mandate minimum educational and classroom experience for the State Commissioner of Education to include at least the same requirements as any individual serving as a superintendent."

Convention workshops were geared to educating members and getting out the vote, including trainings on voter registration, common sense economics, and member communication and mobilization.

Executive Secretary Treasurer Lori Pelletier concluded the convention with a strong appeal to the delegates to take the information and the message back to their members and get them involved. Summer labor picnics and a Labor Day Breakfast will all build up toward full scale mobilization for labor walks, phone banks and workplace discussions.

Representing over 200,000 union workers from more than 900 union affiliates statewide, the Connecticut AFL-CIO is the largest federation of unions in the state.

Photo: Gov. Malloy, seen here shaking hands on his way out of a session of the Connecticut State Legislature. Stephan Savoia/AP

Today in labor history: Title IX enacted

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 12:51:00 +0000

(history.com) - On this day in 1972, Title IX of the education amendments of 1972 is enacted into law. Title IX prohibits federally funded educational institutions from discriminating against students or employees based on sex. It begins: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." As a result of Title IX, any school that receives any federal money from the elementary to university level--in short, nearly all schools--must provide fair and equal treatment of the sexes in all areas, including athletics.

Title IX is also known as the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act, named for its author, Rep. Patsy Mink, D-Hawaii, who died in 2002. The bill was signed on June 23, 1972, by President Richard Nixon and took effect on July 1, 1972.

Before Title IX, few opportunities existed for female athletes. Ask any woman who went to high school before Title IX was enacted and you will hear many stories about wanting to be on a sports team, but none existed for girls at that time.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which was created in 1906 to format and enforce rules in men's football but had become the ruling body of college athletics, offered no athletic scholarships for women and held no championships for women's teams. Furthermore, facilities, supplies and funding were lacking. As a result, in 1972 there were just 30,000 women participating in NCAA sports, as opposed to 170,000 men.

Title IX was designed to correct those imbalances. Although it did not require that women's athletics receive the same amount of money as men's athletics, it was designed to enforce equal access and quality. Women's and men's programs were required to devote the same resources to locker rooms, medical treatment, training, coaching, practice times, travel and per diem allowances, equipment, practice facilities, tutoring and recruitment. Scholarship money was to be budgeted on a commensurate basis, so that if 40 percent of a school's athletic scholarships were awarded to women, 40 percent of the scholarship budget was also earmarked for women.

Since the enactment of Title IX, women's participation in sports has grown exponentially. In high school, the number of girl athletes has increased from just 295,000 in 1972 to more than 2.6 million. In college, the number has grown from 30,000 to more than 150,000. In addition, Title IX is credited with decreasing the dropout rate of girls from high school and increasing the number of women who pursue higher education and complete college degrees.

The law may be taken for granted today, but there was quite a struggle to pass Title IX.

"The Washington Post and New York Times opposed it in editorials; college presidents decried it; college football coaches demeaned it; and many members of Congress tried to figure out ways to weaken it," wrote Gwendolyn Mink, a professor of equality law, poverty policy, gender issues and American politics, and the daughter of Patsy Mink, in her blog marking the 40^th anniversary of this major civil rights law.

After Title IX became law, the attack on it intensified.

Mink notes, "The loudest assault came from the male athletics lobby - the NCAA, and legions of college football fans. Although Title IX was not enacted with women's athletics primarily in mind, the male sports establishment certainly predicted correctly that under Title IX, women would flourish as athletes."

President Obama, in a 2012 Newsweek oped marking the 40^th anniversary of the bill's signing, wrote that as result of the law, "Today, thanks in no small part to the confidence and determination they developed through competitive sports and the work ethic they learned with their teammates, girls who play sports are more likely to excel in school."

One of the most striking examples of the success of Title IX and the benefit for the entire nation came in 2012 at the London Olympic Games. For the first time, women outnumbered men on the U.S. Olympic team. U.S. media outlets dubbed the games, "The Title IX Olympics."

Title IX was a milestone, but the struggle to complete its promise goes on. For example, battles continue over charges that Title IX discriminates against men. Some colleges claim that Title IX forced them to drop predominantly male sports like wrestling.

Gwendolyn Mink says, "The history of Title IX over 40 years is really the story of millions of bold and resilient girls and women who have enforced Title IX by their actions - by resisting exclusion; demanding fairness; exposing sexual harassment; and challenging educational institutions to change because of the contributions of women."

Today, Title IX is also a means for campus survivors of sexual assault to file complaints if the administration ignores or mishandles reports of rape and other sexual violence. Sexual assault on college campuses is so pervasive the White House recently convened a task force, which issued a report in May, and developed a tool kit and website for students to take action on their campus.

"When many people think about Title IX they think about it in the context of [discrimination in] women's athletics - but it is so much more," Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, said in her opening remarks at a Capitol Hill meeting.

"It is part of our federal civil rights scheme that ensures that students have equal access to educational opportunities free from sexual discrimination. This also means an educational environment free from sexual harassment and free from sexual violence."

Photo: Senate sponsor of Title IX, Sen. Birch Bayh of Indiana, jogs with athletes from Perdue University (CC/Wikipedia).

Oregon contractor tell NLRB he'd rather close than clean up

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 15:10:00 +0000

PORTLAND, Ore. (PAI) -- It has to have been one of the more unusual hearings federal administrative law judge John McCarrick has ever presided over. Oregon City painting contractor Gene Edwards - accused of threatening, bribing, interrogating, discriminating against and firing pro-union workers - went without an attorney, and ended up being the prosecution's best witness.

But Edwards' "do-it-yourself" defense ran into problems well before the hearing began on May 6 in Portland.

Painters District Council 5 filed "unfair labor practice" charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in October accusing Edwards Painting of repeatedly violating federal labor law during the course of a union campaign that began in June 2013.

After the charges were filed, Edwards filed papers to remove his wife Connie and son Grant as co-owners of the business. Edwards later told the judge that he did it to shield them from liability in the case, adding his wife had been listed as the majority owner because at one point they considered getting certified as a woman-owned business.

When the NLRB investigated the allegations, Edwards told the federal agent he would sooner close his 45-year-old business than allow workers to unionize, which they have a right to do under federal law. In February, the NLRB issued a formal complaint and set May 6 as the date for a hearing to begin before McCarrick.

But the company failed to file a legal response by the deadline, failed to answer some of the charges before the hearing, failed to obey a subpoena request for documents, and even destroyed several of the requested documents. The NLRB could have treated the failure to respond as an admission of guilt, but instead the judge and the agency let Edwards respond to the charges during the hearing.

Edwards, with about 20 employees, does a good deal of work for several prominent Portland-area general contractors. Mostly, Edwards Painting works on commercial multi-family residential construction projects, including some federally funded projects.

Painters union organizer Scott Oldham says he targeted Edwards for a campaign because the company pays well below the union rate at that time: $19.81 an hour, plus benefits. That enables Edwards to underbid unionized painting contractors, and win jobs that might otherwise pay the union rate. So Oldham and fellow Painters member Wyatt McMinn got jobs at Edwards, and started talking to their new co-workers about unionizing - a technique called "salting." That's when the owners began violating federal labor law.

According to the NLRB, Gene Edwards and his son Grant, a foreman, threatened to fire workers if they attended a union meeting, fired one worker for wearing a union T-shirt, fired other union supporters on fabricated pretexts, attempted to quell the union campaign by giving raises of up to several dollars an hour, and even put a question about union affiliation on its employee application form to screen out potential union supporters.

As the hearing on those charges began, Edwards was unprepared, telling the judge he hadn't read through the law he was accused of violating, nor documents the NLRB submitted as evidence, nor even his own sworn affidavit.

McCarrick, flown up from San Francisco to judge the case, patiently explained rules of procedure to Edwards. But he had to intervene repeatedly - like when Grant Edwards interrupted to correct his dad's testimony, or when Gene Edwards tried to rebut witness testimony during cross-examination, or when Oldham was on the witness stand and Gene Edwards, acting as his own lawyer, asked him to divulge which workers had been planning to attend a union meeting.

At one point, NLRB attorney Rachel Harvey asked Edwards what happened to the employee information form that asked - unlawfully - whether an applicant was a union member. Edwards said he put it in the shredder. "As soon as I did it I thought it was stupid, but I can't undo it," Edwards testified.

Given the facts that tumbled out during the 5-day trial, it's hard to understand how Edwards Painting gets as much business as it does. After operating for 45 years, the firm has no office, but instead is run out of Edwards' home in a residential area of Oregon City. Once a week, up to 20 employees come by to pick up paychecks left on a shelf outside the house.

The company maintains little or no personnel files beyond handwritten pay sheets and IRS forms. When Harvey asked why the company hadn't complied with the subpoena request for I-9 forms, Edwards said he doesn't have any, and doesn't even know what an I-9 is. An I-9 is the form employers use to verify that an employee is legally entitled to work in the United States. Up to half of the company's employees are foreign-born.

The company also has no real drug policy, written or otherwise. That featured in one of the stranger incidents in the trial. Pro-union worker Sean Carter complained to Edwards that a co-worker was using drugs on the job. Edwards told the accused co-worker, who then allegedly sent text messages to Carter threatening to kill him and harm his family, and to sic a biker gang on him.

Oldham helped Carter file a police report, and then Oldham and McMinn confronted Edwards about the situation. Edwards' reply was the accused worker could take a drug test up to three days later. If he failed the test, he'd be fired; if he passed, Carter would be fired.

When Oldham and McMinn objected, Edwards told them to get a drug test too, though he didn't follow through on that. In the trial, Gene Edwards denied he'd heard from Carter about drug use, contradicting what he'd said in the sworn affidavit with the NLRB agent. Carter, fired by the company in August 2013, failed to appear at the trial, ignoring a subpoena and attempts to contact him. The two sides have until June 24 to submit final arguments.

Don McIntosh is Associate Editor, The Northwest Labor Press

Photo: Painters District Council 5 organizer Scott Oldham and his chalk work on the sidewalk in downtown Portland. Oldham showed up to publicize anti-union actions by a general contractor. Oldham chalked in the logo and under it he wrote: "Unlawful interrogation by your contractor: NLRB 19-CA-127019." nwlaborpress.org

Justices unanimously back public employee whistleblower

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 12:59:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI)-In a win for unions, public workers and whistleblowers, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously backed an Alabama whistleblower whom his boss illegally fired for testifying about fraud to a grand jury and a trial jury.

The 9-0 ruling cheered the National Education Association (NEA), whose Alabama affiliate - the largest and most-influential union in the state - provided the attorneys for whistleblower Edward Lane in lower court arguments.

NEA and other unions also filed friend-of-the-court briefs for Lane with the justices, arguing for wide protection of public worker whistleblowers in virtually all cases. But Justice Sonia Sotomayor, speaking for the court, didn't go that far.

"Almost 50 years ago, this court declared citizens do not surrender their 1^st Amendment rights" of free speech "by accepting public employment," she wrote.

"Rather, the 1^st Amendment protection of a public employee's speech depends on a careful balance 'between the interests of the employee, as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the state, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.'"

In 1968, she added, the justices extended constitutional protection "to a teacher who was fired after writing a letter to the editor of a local newspaper criticizing the school board that employed him. Today, we consider whether the 1^st Amendment similarly protects a public employee who provided truthful sworn testimony, compelled by subpoena, outside the course of his ordinary job responsibilities. We hold that it does."

Lane had testified before a grand jury and later at trials of a state legislator who got a no-show job at a publicly funded job-training program for disadvantaged youth. The lawmaker was convicted of fraud. The community college Lane worked for helped run the program.

Lane's supervisor, the community college president, decided the program needed to cut staff to save money. He fired 29 people - and then immediately rehired 27 of them after finding they hadn't been on probation, as he thought. He didn't rehire Lane, who sued, alleging retaliation. The lower courts agreed with the supervisor, but the justices backed Lane.

"Speech by citizens on matters of public concern lies at the heart of the 1^st Amendment, which was fashioned to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people," Sotomayor said.

"This remains true when speech concerns information related to or learned through public employment. After all, public employees do not renounce their citizenship when they accept employment, and this court has cautioned time and again that public employers may not condition employment on the relinquishment of constitutional rights."

Using language similar to that unions filed in their pro-Lane briefs, Sotomayor added, "there is considerable value, in encouraging, rather than inhibiting, speech by public employees. Government employees are often in the best position to know what ails the agencies for which they work. The interest at stake is as much the public's interest in receiving informed opinion as it is the employee's own right to disseminate it."

But she added the employer - schools, the states, or local government - still could have some very limited instances where its control of the workplace overrides the individual worker's free speech rights.

NEA President Dennis Van Roekel cheered the court's ruling, but said the justices should have extended it to every instance where a public worker speaks out.

"The Supreme Court took an important step in ensuring the free speech rights of public employees by concluding Edward Lane's testimony was speech as a citizen on a matter of public concern," Van Roekel said. "We are pleased the court recognized public employees are indeed protected by the 1^st Amendment when they testify. Today's decision will protect public employees from job retaliation when they testify in court about public corruption.

"We are disappointed the court did not go further to establish a clear rule that sworn testimony by public employees should never be the basis for any retaliatory action by a public employer. The decision was too narrow. Public employees who have the courage to stand up and speak out to improve public services and prevent corruption should be protected from retaliation," he said.

Teachers often must speak out to protect their students and advocate for resources for them, Van Roekel said. And when they do so, the teachers should be protected, too.

Union cheers mass transit advocate’s election in Canada

Thu, 19 Jun 2014 13:47:00 +0000

TORONTO - The Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) is cheering the mid-June Ontario parliamentary election win by the Liberal Party and its leader, Kathleen Wynne, a foremost advocate of mass transit - and a fervent foe of public service job cuts.

Wynne swept to victory in the voting in Canada's largest province, home to approximately one of every three Canadians. The pro-worker New Democratic Party also did well, even though it will no longer be the junior partner in a coalition government, ATU said.

The Progressive Conservatives (Tories), who campaigned on a platform of cutting 100,000 public service jobs, did so badly in the balloting that their leader had to step down.

"The Liberal Party received a clear majority of the votes in Ontario's elections last week, electing its foremost advocate of public transit, Kathleen Wynne, to be premier," ATU's website said. "And even though it lost its former power as a coalition partner in a minority government, Andrea Horwath's NDP gained seats sweeping the southern tip of the province.

"The election is a virtual ratification of Wynne's budget," presented before parliament was dissolved so the new election could be held, ATU explained. And it's "a green light for her big plans for public transit-particularly in the Greater Toronto area."

Wynne's budget includes $29 billion for public transit, roads and bridges over the next decade and better wages for workers in health care and education. Ontario, like the rest of Canada, has government-run single-payer health care, but the provincial governments, not the federal government, manage it. Health care workers are government employees.

"The one thing to watch, however, is any movement by the new Liberal government to build new transit with public-private partnerships, which would be bad news for labor in general - and ATU members, in particular," ATU's posting warned.

Canadian media also reported Wynne used her reputation as a conciliator "to make peace with public school teachers angry over wage-freeze legislation" from her Liberal predecessor. And Wynne called the Tory plan to cut 100,000 public service jobs "an apocalypse" and promised to stop it. The Tories said the cuts would help close a budget deficit.

Meanwhile, Ontario, like the U.S., is dealing with another mass transit issue: Increasing injurious assaults on bus and subway drivers. At the urging of ATU Local President Travis Oberg, the Lethbridge, Ont., city council wants the Canadian parliament to increase penalties for such assaults. Other cities made the same request to Canada's Tory government.

Right now, the perpetrators, when caught, tried and convicted, receive a 30-day jail sentence at most, Oberg told city councilors in mid-June. Oberg and his local want the penalties to be the same as those for assaults on first responders, such as Firefighters.

Photo: Kathleen Wynne. Frank Gunn/AP & The Canadian Press