People Before Profit blog

Nurses: court decision is a threat to public health and safety, workers' rights

Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:15:00 +0000

Today's decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to grant review of a case challenging the survival of public sector unions poses a significant threat to public health and safety and quality of life, warned National Nurses United, the largest U.S. organization of nurses.

The Court agreed to review and act on an appeal of a Court of Appeals decision in its next session beginning in October. The case, Friedrichs v. CTA (California Teachers Association), involves a challenge supported by far right anti-union groups to the right of public unions to require all members who receive the benefits of representation, including higher wages and benefits, to pay union dues - with the ability to withhold payment for certain union political activity.

But the case goes far beyond permitting union members to opt out of dues for politics, going directly to the heart of everything the union does in the realm of collective bargaining.

If the Supreme Court overturns the decision of the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals public sector unions could be barred from requiring any dues payments from any members even while still being mandated, at considerable cost, to represent all members in bargaining for wages, health benefits, and other conditions of employment - in effect subsidizing free riders, says NNU.

That's a considerable risk now that the Court has agreed to take up and rule on Friedrichs v. CTA. A decision on the case would come later in 2015 or in 2016.

"The intended effect," warns NNU Co-President Jean Ross, RN, "is to essentially bankrupt public sector unions, including many nurse unions that advocate for patient safety, by allowing members to enjoy all the privileges of union representation, including wage increases, health coverage, pensions upon their retirement, and improved working conditions, while avoiding any financial responsibility to help support the work done by their union on their behalf."

"The architects of this move are the management-linked groups, funded by some of the wealthiest corporate interests in the U.S. whose goal is to eliminate the ability of workers to have a voice in the workplace or limit the ability of corporations to put profits ahead of worker rights, workplace rights, and in the case of nurses, patient health and safety," Ross said.

Friedrichs v. CTA parallels the so-called "right to work" campaign by similar far right groups that have targeted unions in the private sector, and should be seen in the context of the broader attack on unions and worker's rights that have resulted in a decline in union membership, stagnant wages for most workers, declining relative living standards, and a massive gap in income inequality, notes NNU.

With the growth of right to work legislative efforts, and an increase in the number or right to work states, research has documented the effect on income and living standards. For example, workers in right-to-work states earn on average 12 percent less than workers in non-right-to-work states. Median household income is also 12 percent less.

"Right-to-work means lower pay, higher poverty rates, and much greater income disparity," said Ross. "That's the same reason why groups like supporters of Friedrichs v. CTA have targeted states like California that have avoided such anti-worker laws."

Nurses are especially concerned with the impact of right-to-work laws on public health.

In, 20 of 24 key measures affecting public health and safety "right to work" states, rank lower on average in poverty rates children, infant morality, cardiovascular deaths, access to primary care physicians and mental health services, infectious disease control, occupational fatalities, and many other factors compiled by America's Health Rankings

Weaker unions - the goal of anti-union groups from the Koch Brothers to corporate linked management law firms and consultants - also reduces the ability of workers through collective action to protect the public, and their own health and safety. For example, the rate of workplace deaths is 54 percent higher in right-to-work states, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data surveyed by the AFL-CIO.

"For nurses, weakened unions, whether in the public or private sector, means less ability to speak out against unsafe patient care conditions to employers or public agencies, exposing more patients to the risk of death or other health complications in a healthcare industry increasingly dominated by big corporate chains that put their profits and budget goals ahead of patient protections," Ross said.

Action on Friedrichs v. CTA comes after two other recent cases, Harris v. Quinn and Knox v. Service Employees International Union, Local 1000, in which the Court began to rollback the rights of public unions and public workers. Those were likely test rulings for a broader decision that could come with Friedrichs v. CTA.

If the Court does overturn the Appeals Court ruling it would be reversing four decades of settled case law, notes NNU, going back to a case known as Abood v. Detroit Board of Education in 1977 in which the court firmly set in place the current system permitting individual workers to choose to opt out of dues payments for political activity, such as union spending on elections or candidates.

"Sadly, as this Court has demonstrated over and over, most notably in Citizens United and other court cases putting limits on corporate spending on elections, precedent has meant little on a Court dominated by conservative activists. For our patients and the public interest, let's hope that is not repeated with Friedrichs v. CTA," Ross concluded.

Photo: National Nurses United.

Union leaders applaud Supreme Court health care law ruling

Mon, 29 Jun 2015 13:50:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI)-By and large, union leaders applauded the U.S. Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling on June 25, keeping the Affordable Care Act's federal individual payments for health care insurance subsidies for users of health care exchanges, state or federal.

The leaders, including AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, Teachers President Randi Weingarten, National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen-Garcia and the Steel Workers, praised the court for retaining individual access to affordable health care.

Two other leaders agreed, but warned of potholes ahead: Patricia Sheran-Diaz, an RN and Service Employees member, said Congress' ruling Republicans could still try to overturn the High Court's ruling through their constant war on the ACA and funding to run its programs.

And Laborers President Terry O'Sullivan reminded lawmakers the ACA still needs major work on its mistreatment of multi-employer labor-management-run health care plans, and that solons should repeal the so-called "Cadillac tax" on high-value health care plans.

"Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve insurance markets, not destroy them," the court majority said. The challengers wanted to outlaw the subsidies in states that did not establish their own health care exchanges to cover the uninsured-some 7 million-9 million people in 34 states. The largest group of uninsured is in deep-red Texas.

Trumka said Congress should now add protections to the ACA, since the court kept the subsidies. Additions are unlikely in the GOP-run Congress. The House GOP's money bill for the Health and Human Services Department-which helps administer the ACA-again bans use of money to implement the law. Trumka demanded the Republicans halt those efforts.

He called the court's ruling "an important victory for the millions of people who need financial assistance to make health insurance affordable and for everyone committed to improving America's health care system." It also removes the threat of them being "at the mercy of" the law's GOP foes, who hate the law and its mover President Barack Obama (D).

Trumka advocated expansion of Medicaid to "low-income workers in every state and making changes that will protect and strengthen the health coverage workers have fought for on the job." He was not specific. O'Sullivan, in his criticisms, was.

"Extremists in Congress tried to take away affordable healthcare from 8 million people with a bogus lawsuit, King v. Burwell, but the Supreme Court just handed down their decision: NO," said SEIU's Sheran-Diaz, whose union represents thousands of health care workers.

"Despite the ruling, Republicans won't be giving up their campaign to repeal" the ACA, Sheran-Diaz stated. "Let's put a stop to extremist attempts to tear down this law today. Call 855-728-5215 right now to tell Republicans in Congress it's time to stop playing politics." The ACA "is working and it's time to move forward."

Her SEIU president, Mary Kay Henry, added voters would remember the GOP's efforts to kill the Affordable Care Act-and retaliate at the polls next November.

"Working families will remember who fought against the ACA, who greased the gears for attacks against it in the courts, and which politicians voted to repeal the law without offering a single plausible plan as a replacement. In 2016, the extremists who are risking the healthcare of millions of people will be held responsible," Henry said.

The Laborers' O'Sullivan called expanded access to health care "a good thing," but said solons must fix two major ACA holes: Its threat to multi-employer plans and the imposition of the so-called "Cadillac tax" on individuals with high-value health care plans, starting in 2018. A transition tax has already cost his union's health care plans $45 million.

Those two problems create "the Obama Administration's pick-pocketing of working people" to fund the ACA, O'Sullivan said. Other unions, including the Steel Workers and the Communications Workers, are also campaigning to repeal the "Cadillac tax."

"Millions of workers in multi-employer plans, including Laborers members, have had quality coverage for generations. They collectively bargained for it, paid for it out of their paychecks, and were never a drag on our nation's health care system. Unless Congress fixes the ACA, their plans will be destroyed through new costs and taxes, such as the 40-percent so-called 'Cadillac tax,'" O'Sullivan explained. "The fees and taxes make the 'Affordable' in the ACA an oxymoron."

The Steel Workers, a leading labor advocate for single-payer government-run national health care, lauded the court's ruling and said "any other decision would have penalized citizens in 34 states solely because state leaders refused to act." Left unsaid: Republicans, dead set against the ACA, run most of those states. "Insurance companies can no longer play tricks and deny coverage to people with illnesses," USW added. It pledged to continue to fight to expand health care access and "will oppose future attacks that aim to" roll it back.

AFT's Weingarten, whose union includes 120,000 nurses, called the court's decision "a victory for working families," preventing "a major step backward" in U.S. health care coverage.

"Ask the nurse who sees patients every day who are getting healthy thanks to the Affordable Care Act. Ask the adjunct professor or the school support-staff worker who now have coverage thanks to the law. The Affordable Care Act is working," she declared.

She also said the law is starting to curb "out-of-control health care inflation," provides "a new focus on quality and outcomes" and expands preventive care. Left unsaid: The GOP money bill for the Health and Human Services Department kills the quality care-monitoring agency and axes the preventive care funds.

NEA President Eskelsen-Garcia said the court's ruling helps kids, too. "Millions of Americans breathe a little easier knowing their health insurance is secure and will remain affordable. The subsidies provided by the ACA help increase school children's access to quality health insurance and medical care," she explained.

Photo: Students cheer as they hold up signs supporting the Affordable Care Act (ACA) after the Supreme Court decided that the ACA may provide nationwide tax subsidies, June 25, outside of the Supreme Court in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

AFL-CIO, ally protest deep cuts in House Labor-HHS money bill

Fri, 26 Jun 2015 13:34:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI)-The AFL-CIO and a top ally, Public Citizen, are protesting deep cuts in pro-worker programs in a money bill now moving through the GOP-run House.

The measure, which allocates funds for the Labor, Education and Health and Human Services Departments and related agencies - including the National Labor Relations Board-shortchanges programs vital to workers and ends important protections, say AFL-CIO Legislative Director Bill Samuel and Keith Wrightson of Public Citizen in separate letters.

The legislation cuts employment and training funds, job services and job safety and health (OSHA and MSHA) funding, they said. It kills health care quality evaluation and funding prevention programs under the Affordable Care Act, they add. It also cuts the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) by 27 percent, Samuel said. That would "gut" the board, he added.

And the GOP would yank NLRB jurisdiction over Native American tribes' private enterprises - such as casinos - halt the agency's new union election rules initiative and end its case covering whether franchise-granters, such as McDonald's headquarters, are joint employers with local franchise holders, and thus jointly responsible for obeying labor law.

But the GOP-run House Appropriations Committee, which actually helps disburse federal funds for the year starting Oct. 1, shoved the workers' objections aside and approved the money bill on June 24 on a party-line vote.

The AFL-CIO opposes the bill's restrictions, along with its money cuts. The restrictions include but are not limited to:

Banning automatic representation for workers when OSHA teams inspect plants.

"The bill would bar workers from designating a representative to participate in OSHA inspections on their behalf 'except in accordance with applicable laws and regulations and by a vote of the employees of the affected worksite,'" Samuel said. Workers now have the legal right to have an employee representative accompany the OSHA inspectors. "The language appears to require workers represented by a union to have a separate vote to designate an inspection walk-around representative," Samuel said.

A ban on the Labor Department's current effort to write rules to force pension investment advisors, including advisors for 401(k)s, to avoid conflicts of interest.

A ban on DOL's new final rule ordering firms that import workers on H2-B visas to pay them wages in the same range as those of U.S.-based workers. The DOL rule also includes other worker protections, Samuel said.

Banning the government from enforcing President Barack Obama (D)'s requirement for a $10.10 minimum hourly wage for all seasonal recreation workers employed by federal contractors. "This rider would deprive minimum wage and overtime protections to low-wage seasonal workers who need the additional income and protections provided by the regulations," Samuel said. "The AFL-CIO opposes this rider and urges that it be deleted."

Wrightson, who covers job safety and health for Public Citizen, cited many of the same provisions, but also went into detail about the money cuts. He called the overall bill "reckless."

"The House majority is stacking this legislation with inappropriate policy riders and providing far less funding than necessary to appropriately support the agencies under its purview," he said.

They include a $206 million cut, to $11.7 billion in overall Labor Department money. Part of that is an $18 million cut, to $535 million, for OSHA, and a $4.9 million cut, to $371 million, for the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Obama wanted more money than Congress allotted this year for DOL and the agencies.

Republicans added another anti-worker "rider" neither Samuel nor Wrightson cited: A requirement that DOL, in so many words, revisit procedures for setting "prevailing wages" for government-funded public works projects. The right wing has long complained that prevailing wages are really union wages - and too high for cut-rate contractors.

And their committee report wants OSHA to return to "compliance assistance" for firms - a discredited Bush-era plan which let companies get away with OSHA violations in return for consultations with the agency. The Appropriations panel says that OSHA sought more increases only for enforcement.

"The committee directs OSHA to reorient its approach and refocus its efforts and resources on helping companies to comply," the appropriations panel says.

"The AFL-CIO believes funding for workforce programs, public health, and education must be sufficient to meet the growing needs in these areas. Unfortunately, the Republican allocations for 2016 are inadequate and provide little hope that the chairman's Labor-HHS draft will adequately fund these vital programs," Samuel said.

"Congress should support policies that will help our economy grow, will raise wages, and will work for all people - not just the affluent," he added.

Photo: CWA activists, allies, members of Congress and workers outline the importance of the NLRB. CWA.

Right-wing GOP Illinois Gov. Rauner plans to force state workers to strike

Thu, 25 Jun 2015 11:58:00 +0000

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (PAI) - With a June 30 contract expiration date looming and the two sides far apart in bargaining, right-wing Gov. Bruce Rauner, R-Ill., apparently plans to force state workers to strike.

Besides announcing his intention, he's even said he'll veto legislation rushed through the Democratic-run General Assembly to ban a strike or a lockout and mandate arbitration.

Rauner's tactic is the latest wrinkle in a nationwide campaign by the right, its business backers and its political puppets to trash workers, cut their wages, destroy their pensions and kill unions, particularly public worker unions. It's been successful in totally GOP-run states.

But in Illinois, Walker's been rebuffed in the legislature, in local cities and towns , and at the state Supreme Court. The municipalities are trashing his local right-to-work scheme. The court tossed out a public pension cut law earlier this year. The state House voted down statewide RTW 72-0. That hasn't stopped former hedge fund honcho Rauner from trying to blame Illinois' workers for its problems.

His plans include a pay freeze, ending longevity pay and maximum security pay, shifting health care costs to the workers, forcing all workers hired before July 1, 2011, to "voluntarily" cut their pension benefits, cuts in holidays and vacation time, "paycheck deception" to ban unionists' contributions to politics, and unlimited rights to privatize public jobs.

"Rauner has said that if we don't agree to his terms, he'll force a strike and shut down state government until we do," AFSCME Council 31 Executive Director Roberta Lynch told The Labor Paper of Peoria

"Those kinds of threats don't serve the bargaining process or the citizens of our state well. That's why our union is doing everything possible to reach a fair settlement at the bargaining table."

But if AFSCME, which represents the state workers, is willing to bargain, Rauner isn't.

"We have pensions that are unaffordable...health care that's unaffordable, and pay raises based on seniority, not productivity," he told the Springfield Journal-Register.

Rauner also wants a property tax freeze. His tax freeze bill also would kill collective bargaining for local government workers and the prevailing wage on state-funded construction.

Rauner took his anti-worker campaign to Belleville, just east of St. Louis, in mid-June. The St. Louis Labor Tribune reported more than 150 union workers - most of them from the building trades - protested. "Go home!" was the most-frequent shout. The Belleville rally was one of dozens statewide from June 9-11 against Rauner's anti-worker agenda.

"All the trades - I mean everybody - was there," said Plumbers Local 360 Business Manager Don DeGonia. "The Electricians, the Steamfitters, the Laborers, the Plumbers, the Painters, the Carpenters. They were all there....He only spoke about 10 minutes."

Rauner isn't the only Illinois official trying to cut government workers' pay and pensions. Cook County (Chicago) Board President Toni Preckwinkle (D), asked state lawmakers for authority to cut pensions there, too. They turned her down in early June, AFSCME said.

Photo: The Labor Paper, Facebook.

Unions and allies get support for gas tax hike for highway-mass transit funding

Wed, 24 Jun 2015 12:54:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - With yet another deadline looming for the highway-mass transit bill and the Highway Trust Fund whose revenues pay for such projects, construction and transit unions and their allies picked up support from former Obama Administration Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in their campaign for a long-term bill and a gas tax hike to fund it.

But while LaHood, a respected former moderate Republican U.S. House member from downstate Illinois, favors raising the gas tax by a dime a gallon to pay for repairing the nation's crumbling infrastructure, he apparently didn't convince his own party to take that step.

That's because when LaHood, representing former mayors and governors, proposed a gas tax hike at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on June 18, Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, virtually dismissed it. The Finance panel is one of two that write tax bills, and the ruling Republicans on both committees, plus other GOPers, oppose raising taxes.

Unions, led by the Laborers and the Amalgamated Transit Union, favor increasing the gas tax, which hasn't risen since 1993. The federal gas tax is 18.4 cents a gallon.

The highway-mass transit legislation is important both for jobs creation and to repair and replace the nation's crumbling infrastructure. Calculations show that every $1 billion spent on such projects creates 40,000 or so construction jobs.

The money also goes to repair, replace and upgrade bus and subway systems. They're limping along - due to past funding cuts and uncertain federal aid - despite record ridership and workers' need to use them to get to their jobs, says ATU President Larry Hanley.

LaHood used all those arguments and more in campaigning for the gas tax hike to help fund the roads, bridges, subways and buses. The federal gas tax now does not supply enough money for the repairs and construction, he said. And without a new highway-mass transit law, the feds can't collect it after July 31.

"Whether it's on our roads, in the air, in our ports or on our rails - our nation's infrastructure is falling apart. That is causing us to lose our economic competitiveness and to negatively impact our quality of life," LaHood testified.

"The nation's roads are essentially one big pothole, and the tens of thousands of bridges that millions of Americans drive across every day are in dire need of repair," he said. They also cost commuters money and time, he added: $818 per driver yearly, due to 42 percent congestion on major roads.

"The most-straightforward way to generate needed revenue for a long-term transportation bill is to increase the gas tax," LaHood stated.

Speaking for the Building America's Future coalition of former mayors and governors, LaHood wants Congress to immediately raise the gas tax by 10 cents a gallon and then index it to inflation. A dime hike would generate $15 billion. "While this would not be enough to fund a robust long-term bill, it would be enough to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent while Congress considers other sustainable and longer term solutions," he said.

Laborers President Terry O'Sullivan, whose union has taken the lead in campaigning for the gas tax hike to fix the roads, bridges, subways and buses, hailed the hearings, and LaHood's testimony. Hatch's reaction was different.

"Action must not end with just hearings and another damaging short-term patch of the Highway Trust Fund," O'Sullivan said. "Congress must do its full job - craft a bill, responsibly pay for it and pass it.

"The safety of our roads and bridges, the competitiveness of our nation and the good jobs transportation infrastructure creates are essential. They are worth paying for...If it must be done - and it must be - all responsible means must stay on the table," he declared. That includes raising the gas tax.

"Since inception of our Interstate Highway System, the gas tax provided the backbone of resources for transportation investment, and if adjusted, it still can," O'Sullivan said.

"Our national priorities...are incoherent," Hanley added in a statement last month. "What other government would squander its wealth in endless wars while allowing our people to be put at risk by failing, outdated transportation systems?

"Our bridges are crumbling, our transit is failing and rail is becoming more dangerous every day. This is not a question of us not having the money to save our country. We are lavishing the military-industrial complex with the resources that could be spent ensuring our people can travel safely..."That's why ATU is urging Congress to act now to pass a complete, six-year transportation authorization bill and dedicated tax to bring our rails, roads and bridges up-to-date, and repair, maintain, and expand mass transit in America."

LaHood sympathized with congressional refusal to raise taxes, a litmus test for GOP officeholders. But he informed them that state and local lawmakers and voters of both parties, alarmed by their crumbling roads, collapsing bridges, creaky buses and overage subways, all voted to raise local gas taxes to pay for repairs. Politicians haven't been voted out, he said.

Hatch disagreed about raising the gas tax. So does President Barack Obama (D).

"While I know the idea has some support, I don't think a massive increase in the gas tax could be enacted into law. Of course, anyone who believes otherwise is free to publicly correct me and to try to make their case," Hatch said.

In his budget and in his State of the Union address, Obama urged Congress to approve a long-term - at least four years - highway-mass transit funding bill. But he wants to pay for it through closing corporate tax loopholes and taxing overseas profits of U.S. firms, not by raising the gas tax.

Photo: LiUNA Facebook.

Picking peas should bring a better life

Fri, 19 Jun 2015 15:50:00 +0000

I'm Triqui, from Rio Venado in Oaxaca. I've been here seven years, working in the fields all the time. Right now I'm picking peas. Other times in the year I work in the broccoli.

The worst part about working in the peas is that you have to work on your knees. After a day on your knees they hurt a lot, and when you stop it's hard to extend your leg. It hurts, even when they give you a break for 15 minutes every two hours. I don't take pills for the pain, but I know many people who do.

Sometimes your knees break down. That's happened to a lot of people. Their knees go out permanently and they can't work anymore.

Another problem is the dust, which has chemicals in it. Until two years ago, they didn't give you glasses to keep the dust out. Now they do, but by now most people who work in the peas have problems with their eyes.

What they pay us is not fair. They want you to pick 130 pounds in ten hours, and the piece rate is 45¢, so we make very little. The hourly wage is supposed to be $9.50 per hour, but when you're working on the piece rate it's less. You can make $100 in a day sometimes, but other times it's $80 or $70. It depends on how much you can pick.

I have a family I have to support. There are six of us -- myself and my husband, and our four children. These wages aren't enough. We live in an apartment and have to pay rent, electricity and food. The little they pay us doesn't cover it.

It's a disaster if anyone gets sick because we don't have any insurance. If it's not really bad we don't go to the doctor. But if it's really serious we have to, and then we end up owing a lot of money. We're just now recovering from the last time we had to do this. We had to take one of the kids and didn't have the money to pay.

Normally we get six months every year when we can work all the time. Other times work is hard to find. A paycheck for a week is $300, or even $100. When the work is good we try to save a little for the times when work slows down.

The majority of the people in my crew are Triqui. There are also Mixtecos, and people who speak Spanish. Almost everyone is indigenous.

The Triqui people don't agree with the low wages. We want a salary that our work deserves. The boss now says they have a water crisis, but I really think he says this to intimidate us. When we complain about the wages they tell us, "If you want to work, there's the work, and if you don't, so what?" What can we do?

If people get together and demand more, I think things could change. But instead we stay quiet. Many of my coworkers are afraid they'll lose their jobs.

I heard about what was happening in San Quintin on Facebook [when thousands of indigenous Triqui and Mixtec farm workers went on strike in Baja California this spring]. I worked down there for a number of years, picking tomatoes. They paid really low there. I think what they did there was really good. They tried to do something for themselves.

We agree with what they did. We come from the same towns. We're brothers. We are the same community. We are indigenous people, and we have to do whatever we can to keep our children eating, no matter what they pay. But if we don't work and harvest the crops, there's nothing for the growers either.

We are thinking of doing something like they did in San Quintin.What we demand from the growers is that they recognize that just as we work for them they should work for us. Things should be more equal between us.

I'm going to keep working in the fields, because I have no other work. But I don't want my children to work in the fields. We're doing it so that our children can leave the fields and move forward. I want to give them a better life.

The above story was told by the author to David Bacon.

Photo: Rosalia Martinez and daughter Eloina Merino. | David Bacon

House bill slashes $74 million from NLRB, shackling board

Fri, 19 Jun 2015 12:10:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Adding to their campaign against the National Labor Relations Board - and worker rights - the ruling Republicans on the House subcommittee that helps dole out federal funds slashed $74 million from the board's budget for the year starting Oct. 1.

But even more important than cutting its spending from $274 million this fiscal year to $200 million in fiscal 2016 - President Obama wanted $278 million - is that the lawmakers attached several "riders" banning the board from acting in various areas.

The NLRB did not comment on the House GOP's proposal. Obama also proposed adding 30 more employees to the board's current 1,810. A $74 million cut would prevent that.

But even worse for the board - and for workers whose rights it is supposed to enforce in refereeing disputes with bosses - are "administrative provisions" the GOP draft inserts.

One such "rider" would ban the board from using any money to institute its new rule to consolidate the endless litigation and other tactics employers and their union-busters employ to delay or deny union recognition elections - everything from challenging the size and composition of the bargaining unit to challenging ballots and leafleting.

A second GOP "rider" would ban the board from spending money on deciding whether franchisors - think McDonald's headquarters - are "joint employers" with local franchises - your local McDonald's - in terms of wages, working conditions and workers' rights under the National Labor Relations Act.

The board's general counsel, recognizing the huge growth of franchising since the act was enacted in 1935, is using complaints against McDonald's as a test case on whether and how to hold corporate headquarters of franchise firms jointly responsible for the low pay and impossible working conditions in the local franchise outlets. The board's general counsel notes that franchisors control almost all aspects of local operations.

A third "rider," a pet project of Labor Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., would ban NLRB from governing worker-boss relations in commercial enterprises, notably casinos, owned by Native American tribes. The right wing GOP majority on the House Education and the Workforce Committee held a hearing on that issue the week before. Tribal representatives argued they are, in effect, independent nations and thus not under the NLRB.

Gary Navarro, a slot machine worker at the Pomo tribe's casino in Santa Rosa, Calif., retorted he became active in organizing there for Unite Here Local 26 "because of unjust treatment of casino workers by their managers and how nothing could be done about even sexual harassment because of sovereignty. Exercising our right to organize turned out to be the only way to protect ourselves and our co-workers. Don't strip us of these rights.

"I am opposed to the idea that in the name of my heritage, some of the most important rights Americans have would be taken away from the thousands of people who work in Native (American) businesses," Navarro said.

Photo: If the Republican bill became law, organizing a union, which these workers at El Super in California are trying to do, will become even more difficult. | Rossana Cambron/PW

Report exposes vast web of secret Walmart tax shelters

Thu, 18 Jun 2015 15:18:00 +0000

A groundbreaking report released Wednesday, June 17 by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF), and researched by the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), reveals that Walmart has built a vast, undisclosed network of 78 subsidiaries and branches in 15 overseas tax havens, which may be used to minimize foreign taxes where it has retail operations and to avoid U.S. tax on those foreign earnings. These secretive subsidiaries have never been subject to public scrutiny before.

They have remained largely invisible, in part because Walmart fails to list them in its annual 10-K filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Walmart's preferred tax haven is Luxembourg, dubbed a "magical fairyland" for corporations looking to shelter profits from taxation.

"This is an important and deeply disturbing report," said Rebecca Wilkins, Executive Director of Tax Justice Network USA and a member of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice Coordination Committee. "Walmart makes billions in annual profits and is owned by one of the world's richest families, yet they appear to be doing all they can to avoid paying their fair share of taxes through a series of elaborate and previously secret tax maneuvers-at the expense of low- and middle-income citizens around the world."

The report, The Walmart Web: How the World's Biggest Corporation Secretly Uses Tax Havens to Dodge Taxes, is the first-ever comprehensive documentation of the company's use of tax havens. The full report is available here, and for the report's Key Findings, click here.

Key Findings

Most people know that Walmart is the world's biggest corporation. Virtually no one knows that Walmart has an extensive and secretive web of subsidiaries located in countries widely known as tax havens. Typically, the primary purpose for a corporation to set up subsidiaries in tax havens where it has little to no business operations and few, if any, employees is to pay little, if any, taxes and to maintain financial secrecy.

Walmart has established a vast and relatively new web of subsidiaries in tax havens, while avoiding public disclosure of these subsidiaries.

All told it has 78 subsidiaries and branches in 15 offshore tax havens, none of them publicly reported before. They have remained invisible to experts on corporate tax avoidance in part because of the way Walmart has filed information about them to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Walmart may be skirting the law as there is a legal requirement to list subsidiaries that account for greater than 10 percent of assets or income.

Luxembourg, dubbed a "magical fairyland" by one tax expert because of its ability to shelter profits from taxation, has become Walmart's tax haven of choice.

It has 22 shell companies there - 20 established since 2009 and five in 2015 alone. Walmart does not have one store there. Walmart has transferred ownership of more than $45 billion in assets to Luxembourg subsidiaries since 2011. It reported paying less than 1 percent in tax to Luxembourg on $1.3 billion in profits from 2010 through 2013.

Walmart has made tax havens central to its growing International division, which accounts for about one-third of the company's annual profits.

At least 25 out of 27 (and perhaps all) of Walmart's foreign operating companies (in the U.K. Brazil, Japan, China and more) are owned by subsidiaries in tax havens. All of these companies have retail stores and many employees. Walmart owns at least $76 billion in assets through shell companies domiciled in the tax havens of Luxembourg ($64.2 billion) and the Netherlands ($12.4 billion) - that's 90 percent of the assets in Walmart's International division ($85 billion) or 37 percent of its total assets ($205 billion).

There is evidence that Walmart uses its subsidiaries in tax havens to pursue well-known international tax-avoidance strategies:

In 2014, Walmart's tax-haven subsidiaries provided U.S. affiliates access to $2.4 billion in foreign earnings - in the form of low-interest, short-term loans - which may transgress U.S. law.
Walmart generates about $1.5 billion worth of tax deductions in Luxembourg each year by making phantom interest payments to its U.S. global parent. It uses a "hybrid loan," which makes this income disappear for tax purposes here and in Luxembourg.
Walmart's use of inter-company debt permits it to avoid taxes overseas. It strips earnings out of higher-tax countries by taking out inter-company loans and pays interest to itself in tax havens where the interest income is taxed lightly or not at all.

Walmart appears to be playing a long game - from tax deferral to profit windfall.

It is using tax-haven subsidiaries to minimize foreign taxes where it has retail operations and to avoid U.S. tax on those foreign earnings. Walmart apparently hopes the U.S. Congress will reward its use of tax havens by enacting legislation that would allow U.S.-based multinationals to pay little U.S. tax when repatriating current low-taxed foreign earnings (such as to fund infrastructure spending) and pay no tax with the adoption of a territorial tax system.

The report suggests the U.S. and foreign authorities should investigate Walmart's tax avoidance.

Among the issues to pursue:

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) should use Walmart as an example to test the usefulness of its nascent template for country-by-country reporting of each corporate entity's income and taxes paid, and reconsider the decision to give control over the release of those templates to home countries like Luxembourg that might find releasing the information to be embarrassing or worse.
Policymakers in the United States and abroad should press Walmart (and other multinational corporations) for accurate and complete country-by-country information on their income and taxes paid, assets, number of employees and more, including for their subsidiaries, to determine whether Walmart has been playing one country off another to escape paying taxes in multiple jurisdictions.
The European Commission should determine whether Luxembourg has been providing Walmart with sweetheart tax deals equivalent to illegal state aid.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission should ask Walmart to explain its failure to disclose on Exhibit 21 of its SEC Form 10-K any of the 78 subsidiaries and branches Walmart has in tax havens. As a remedy for that failure, the SEC should also require the company to make public a complete list of its business entities and which of those subsidiaries Walmart has elected to designate as disregarded for U.S. tax purposes, so that investors can better evaluate the company's tax practices.
The Internal Revenue Service should audit Walmart's use of subsidiaries in tax havens, including the transfer of billions of dollars to its tax-haven subsidiaries and its use of various financial instruments to move taxable income out of the United States. The IRS should also analyze Walmart's use of short-term offshore loans to fund some of its U.S. operations without paying repatriation taxes and its deposit of offshore cash in U.S. financial institutions to determine whether Walmart has been improperly avoiding U.S. tax.

Download the full report here.

Download the Key Findings here.

Download Global Week of Action for #TaxJustice / #WalmartTaxHavens shareable graphics here.

Photo: AP

Virginia Democratic primaries a victory for labor-backed candidates

Thu, 18 Jun 2015 13:15:00 +0000

The June 9 Democratic primary in Virginia ended in a clean sweep for a new labor and community group's roster of candidates. The five candidates were backed by a coalition that included several SEIU locals, the UFCW Local 400, the immigrant advocacy group CASA in Action, the Mid-Atlantic Laborers' Union, the National Korean American Services and Education Consortium in Action Fund, as well as Austin Thompson's Youth Engagement Fund.

By focusing on outreach to young people and minority groups, the coalition was able to help deliver victories from Arlington, where Katie Cristol and Christian Dorsey vied for a place on the ballot for the county's Board of Supervisors, and Fairfax, where Penelope Gross beat back a challenger who aimed to remove her from the Fairfax Board. In addition to victories in Northern Virginia the coalition aided Rosalyn Dance in her State Senate bid for the 16th district, centered around Petersburg, along with Steve Heretick, who unseated long standing right-wing Democrat Johnny Joannou.

In Arlington, Cristol and Dorsey face four other challengers for the board's two open seats, with both candidates focusing on Arlington's housing challenges and with Cristol supporting turning the county's massive volume of vacant office space into small housing units. Gross is supporting a plan that would fix a bottleneck at the Seven Corners intersection and ease travel in the area.

It was Heretick's bid, for the 79th House of Delegates seat that perhaps raised the most eyebrows. His opponent, Johnny Joannou, had spent more than thirty years in the General Assembly and was considerably better funded than Heretick. However, by hammering away on Joannou's reluctance to support Medicaid expansion along with citing his weak opposition to new tolling on the region's Midtown and Downtown tunnels. Joannou made only a token effort to oppose the tolling imposed on those key transportation links by now disgraced former governor Bob McDonnell.

Perhaps though, it was Joannou's endorsement by the Portsmouth Tea Party and the National Rifle Association that narrowly tipped the balance in Heretick's favor. The Tea Party and NRA called on supporters to vote in the Democratic primary as they felt that Joannou would be more favorable to their interests than outspoken progressive Steve Heretick. Heretick seized on these endorsements to show that Joannou was out of touch in a district where Republicans typically do not even field candidates.

These victories show that even in a right-to-work state like Virginia, labor and labor allies still have a path to victory at the polls. Narrow as they were (Heretick, for instance, won by only 190 votes) the primary means that more progressive Democrats are likely headed to Virginia's Capitol and local elected office.

Photo: Steve Heretick. | Heretick's Facebook page

LA supporters take to the streets to back fired El Super worker

Thu, 18 Jun 2015 11:59:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES - On June 17, a hot summer day here, Fermin Rodriquez, a fired El Super market worker, marched alongside community, labor and religious leaders in the streets of Highland Park. The community of Highland Park is a located in northeast Los Angeles where one of 50 statewide El Super markets is located.

At the rally in front of the El Super store, 25,000 signatures on petitions calling for the reinstatement of Rodriquez was presented to El Super management. The heat of the day did not lessen the enthusiastic support for this on-going labor struggle against El Super.

"One day longer, one day stronger," supporters chanted.

Rodriquez was fired by El Super for supporting a union organizing drive. His termination was part of a broader company push to intimidate workers who try to organize a union.

Labor has joined in the call for a boycott of El Super. Regio Valdez said, "This is the first major supermarket boycott called by LA labor in over a decade."

People at the rally demanded that the company rehire Rodriquez and return to the bargaining table. Art Pulaski, head of the California State Federation of Labor said, "Labor supporters from Northern California to San Diego are here in support of the El Super workers. We are here in support of the boycott.

"Labor will not stand by as a multi-billion dollar corporation treats workers the way El Super has treated its workers. The California State Federation stands with the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) in declaring a boycott of El Super.

"This company has to realize that it has a choice. It can give respect, dignity and fair wages to their workers or they can continue to treat workers poorly and see the workers rise up getting stronger and more organized every day. We are going to win."

Rusty Hicks, executive director of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, spoke at the El Super rally indicating that the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor will support the boycott. "This Company is not doing the right thing for its workers," Hicks said. "El Super is making profits on the backs of workers. A company threatening workers who want to join a union will not be tolerated by the labor movement.

"This movement today is a community labor solidarity action. It is something to build on. The labor union will be there to help this movement. Let's be clear all workers have value. People power will force El Super to do the right thing. This will now be a statewide action with labor support."

Rev. Sam Bulten, a member of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE), a group that represents a broad range of ethnic and denominational constituencies, joined in supporting the El Super workers and boycott. Bulten said, "Many of the Los Angeles clergy groups have too come together to support this community and the El Super workers against this highly unjust action of busting the union, a union that the workers voted for. CLUE will stand with the workers against this illegal action."

Students came from around Los Angeles County to participate in the March and rally. Raiza Arias, a student at California State University Northridge and a UFCW Local 770 member, was just one of many students participating in the El Super struggle to win fair wages, respect and the right to join a union.

Arias said that on her campus the janitors are working extra hours and not being paid by their employer, just another indication that disrespect for workers rights is not just here in Highland Park."

El Super operates 50 stores in California, Nevada and Arizona. It is owned by Mexico's third largest retailer and has made billions in profit. Regio Valdez said, adding that "at some point there may be a rally organized in Mexico City against El Super."

Photo: Rossana Cambron/PW

Triqui migrants do the work, but want change

Thu, 18 Jun 2015 11:53:00 +0000

Pedro Alvarez was born in the Triqui-speaking town of Santa Cruz Rio Venado in Oaxaca, and came to the U.S. in 1985, after his father was murdered. He was one of the first Triquis to migrate to the U.S. Today he is a respected elder of a community that has grown to many thousands of people, spread through the farm worker towns of the Salinas Valley, Sonoma County and beyond.

"When I got my first job at Sonoma Vineyards, I didn't know how to do the work," he recalls. "But eventually I learned how to prune, plant, tie vines and remove leaves, and then worked in the grape harvest." He is an old man now, and still a farm worker.

In 1986 Alvarez got his permanent residence visa, or "green card," through the farm worker amnesty, part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act. Once he had legal status he brought his wife and children to California. Here they had other children, and the family grew.

"Working in the fields has supported all of us, and made it possible to bring everyone," he says. His children, however, don't do farm labor any more. "They went on to study, and now they do other jobs. None of them work in the fields. But that's still the way my wife and I put food on the table."

Triquis in California are among the state's most recent migrants, and because they arrived after the amnesty, most are undocumented. Triquis are also among the poorest workers in agriculture. Perhaps because Alvarez came earlier and got legal status, his family gained a kind of economic stability that most Triquis don't have. The Alvarez children may be leaving the fields, but they are still a big presence in the Triqui community. Last weekend one of Pedro Alvarez' sons, Mariano, organized the country's first Triqui cultural festival in Greenfield, where indigenous migrants make up more than half the town's residents.

Pedro Alvarez believes agriculture is still the path to survival for his community, but like many others he gets angry about the low wages. "Working here doesn't pay much, but if you haven't studied, there's no alternative," he concludes. "There will always be work in the fields for those who need it, but maybe in the future it will pay better. The price of food is always going up, and people aren't so willing to work in the places that pay the worst. There aren't as many workers right now, so growers have to raise wages a little to get people."

The militarized border with Mexico makes crossing more expensive and dangerous, and traps many families here. Yet people continue to cross, looking for work. Pedro's nephew Federico recently returned from Oaxaca, where he'd gone to get married to Araceli Rosales [Their names have been changed to protect their identity]. As the couple ate tlayudas (tostadas on big Oaxacan tortillas) and watched the dances at the festival in Greenfield's Pioneer Park, Federico was looking forward to the coming work season in the Salinas Valley. But he also worried that his new family might not be able to live on the pay.

"Economically, it's hard to support us with this work," he explained. "When I'm working I can do it, but when there's no work it's impossible. There are really only five months when I have work all the time. Other than that, I'm mostly working two or three days a week."

To Federico, field work is still a good job, "but really, there's no alternative," he says. "I can't get a job in construction or working in a warehouse because they ask you for papers there. If you don't have papers they won't hire you. I'll be working in the fields for many years to come. It has its ups and downs, but it's what my life depends on."

Alejandro Alvarez, Pedro's oldest son, is angrier. He came with his father years ago, and put himself through high school, and later college, working beside him in the grapes. Today he's a skilled technician in a winery, but he doesn't see field labor as unskilled work.

"Only the people working out there know how to do it," he charges. "If it wasn't for them the crops wouldn't get grown or harvested. Sometimes I think about what would happen if nobody went to work in the fields for one or two days. It would be chaos." Alejandro compares farm work to a job in the winery warehouse, "where they pay overtime and sick leave, where people get breaks and foremen can't just punish someone. When I look at people working in the field, I see a lack of equality."

Nevertheless, he doesn't think Triquis accept these conditions passively. "Little by little people are waking up," he asserts. "The people who have crops they need planted and harvested should listen and pay attention to what our lives are actually like. For the next generation, there will be a change."

The festival shows Triquis are proud of their culture, he explains, and are trying to find a secure place in Greenfield. The town has at times welcomed migrants, while at other times its leaders have been hostile and even called immigration authorities.

Triquis will wind up following the path made by other migrant groups in California agriculture, Alejandro Alvarez predicts. "The Filipinos did it, and Triquis are now following them. We are very creative, and here we are communicating the best part of ourselves."

Photo: Pedro Alvarez and his wife Ana Merino, leaders of the Triqui community in California. | David Bacon

Call your rep! Another Fast Track vote today

Thu, 18 Jun 2015 10:32:00 +0000

It's now or never. Today, the House is going to vote again on Fast Track-and we're hearing it's going to come down to the wire.

Your representative stood with working families last week and voted to stop Fast Track. Let's keep the pressure up.

Click here now to call your representative and demand a "no" vote on Fast Track today.

Nobody thought we'd defeat Fast Track last week, but we've proven them wrong.

But I'm going to be honest with you. There's been a lot of arm-twisting happening in Congress the last couple of days by House Republican leadership and corporate lobbyists-and they could turn the tide in their favor.

Stopping Fast Track means an end to the failed trade policies that have shipped jobs overseas, lowered wages and given more power to corporations and the One Percent. We won last week and we can win again.

Call your representative now or dial 855-712-8441.

Celeste Drake is Trade and Globalization Policy Specialist for the AFL-CIO.

Photo: AP

Teachers’ unions begin presidential endorsement process

Wed, 17 Jun 2015 15:03:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - The leaders of the nation's two big teachers unions launched their organizations' presidential endorsement processes with the first publicly reported meetings between union presidents and top Democratic presidential hopefuls.

Both Lily Eskelsen-Garcia and Randi Weingarten, presidents of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, respectively, said the hopefuls are committed to an inclusive vision of education that relies on teachers, not tests.

The meetings are important because both teachers unions are known for their members' political activism, intelligence, credibility and reach. NEA is the nation's largest union, with more than three million members and branches in every state.

AFT, with almost 1.5 million members, is large and influential in key swing states and big cities, such as New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Los Angeles and D.C.

Eskelsen-Garcia met the current Democratic front-runner, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on June 9. Weingarten, her executive council and seven rank-and-file AFT members met Clinton and challengers Sen. Bernard Sanders, Ind.-Vt. (running as a Democrat) and former Gov. Martin O'Malley, D-Md., on June 3.

AFT also sent questionnaires on education issues to all presidential hopefuls, announced and unannounced, of both parties. No Republican replied, Weingarten said.

NEA also invited all hopefuls to participate, Eskelsen-Garcia added. The Utah 6^th grade teacher called her conversation with Clinton "frank and robust."

She added teachers will "ask the tough questions that get to the heart of issues they, their students and families are facing every day. They know all students deserve the support, tools, and time to learn. But are politicians willing to commit to the success of every student regardless of his or her zip code? That's the question educators will ask over and over again."

"What we can do together to deal with the issues we know are at the real core of making it possible to look at every little boy and girl and say 'Yes, you will have the best chances we can give you,'" Clinton told Eskelsen-Garcia.

Clinton satisfied both unions on ending over-exclusive concentration on mandatory testing and teaching to the test as the sole way to evaluate students, schools and teachers. That's the key facet of GOP President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind federal education aid law, which has raised the ire of teachers, parents and unions nationwide.

"Education is not just how well you do on a test," Clinton said in a statement released by NEA. "We know about a lot of different learning modes ant not every child learns the same way. We have funneled our kids into a particular educational model that I don't think will ever produce the looked-for results.I would like to see us get back to looking at individual children, looking at age-appropriate learning experiences, looking at enriching the classroom experience, using tests that are not done for the sake of getting a score but for actually diagnosing the needs of kids and helping those kids do better year after year."

Clinton repeated those themes in her meeting with AFT. She told the AFT council that "unions are part of the solution" to improving schools, respecting teachers and helping kids learn.

O'Malley touted his gubernatorial record: A major expansion of state school aid. Sanders has made access to quality K-12 education and free college education both platform planks and legislative proposals, and tied it into his campaign theme about income inequality.

"Elections matter. That's why we are committed to using our collective voice to help give pro-public education, pro-worker candidates the strongest possible base to win -- because we know what happens to workers when the other guys win," Weingarten, a New York City teacher, explained.

"Every single child should be able to start learning early at home, in child care settings, at pre-K, and then go off to public school with teachers who are going to be able to support them and who have the respect and dignity that comes with the teaching profession," Clinton replied. AFT has campaigned for comprehensive pre-K for all kids for years.

"I want to work with you to make sure we do what needs to be done based on evidence, not ideology. From what I've seen, all of the evidence, and my own personal experience, says the most important and impactful thing we can do for our public schools is to recruit, support and retain the highest-quality educators. It is just dead wrong to make teachers the scapegoats for all of society's problems. Where I come from, teachers are the solution," Clinton said.

O'Malley reminded the group he worked with unions, on improving Maryland's public schools, currently top-ranked among states. He also took potshots at the GOP. "I don't know how these other guys think," he mused. "How do you improve public education if you vilify and turn into enemies the teachers that are responsible for our children?

"The more a person learns, the more a person earns and the better that is for our eco-nomy. One of the most important things we can do to give our country to our kids and restore the truth of the American dream is to improve education and access to higher education."

Sanders fit his drive for more funds for public schools into his theme of income inequality and its impact on the U.S. "The issue is getting our priorities right," he told the AFT group. "You have 25 hedge fund managers who, a few years ago, made as much money as 435,000 public school teachers. Is that what America is supposed to be about?

"I am calling for a political revolution, and what that means is...changing fundamentally the priorities of this nation. We are the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. Today. Why in God's name is there any school in America talking about cutting back?"

Photo: Hillary Clinton has told leaders of the nation's teachers' unions that she opposes reliance on just mandated tests to measure student progress. | AP

Catholic Church and labor leaders vow joint push for social justice

Wed, 17 Jun 2015 14:38:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - The Roman Catholic Church and the U.S. labor movement are working more closely together than ever, uniting on social justice, immigration and income inequality issues, leaders of the two say.

That's because the social justice aims of U.S. workers largely coincide with those of the Church, on everything from immigration to workers' rights, add AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, D.C.

The increasing cooperation between the two came through at a June 15 "Conversation on Solidarity and Faith" at the AFL-CIO, along with a brief Trumka-Wuerl press conference. The conversation attracted union activists and church leaders from dioceses nationwide.

The activism will last through and beyond the coming visit, this September, of Pope Francis I to the U.S., when the pontiff is scheduled to stop in Philadelphia, New York and D.C., and possibly elsewhere. "The labor movement will be at the complete disposal of the Pope," Trumka, a practicing Catholic, told the all-day conference.

The closeness began even before the AFL-CIO decided to reach beyond its member unions and recreate itself as a workers movement, "We started with the church," Trumka said. "Our automatic focus is on the renewal of human solidarity in the face of currents going the other way," Wuerl elaborated.

The joint movement of unions and the church is important: Catholics hold a high share of union leadership and activist slots and because Catholics and Jews are traditionally overrepresented in unions. And unions and the church share the idea of solidarity, Wuerl said.

"Solidarity is coming together to embrace the dignity of the worker," he declared in his keynote address. Wuerl added that when he, like Trumka, grew up in the coal country of southwestern Pennsylvania, "We learned 'Don't cross a picket line.'

"And the efforts to be inclusive" of workers and the poor in U.S. society and economy, rather than leaving them behind, "are the new picket lines of today," he added.

"The new picket lines have to be respected for our people who are struggling to be part of this world, to engage with them and to defend them - and don't cross that picket line!" the cardinal declared.

The catch is that the church and the labor movement face the same opposing forces with their emphasis on materialism, unbridled capitalism, and economic libertarianism, Wuerl added. Pope Francis has been outspoken against those forces, saying they ravage and deny the humanity of workers and the poor.

Instead, the Pope has been reemphasizing 125 years of Catholic Social Teaching, which includes all-out endorsement of unions, and ordering clergy to implement it. "The Catholic vision of Solidarity" is the "need for reawakening the vision of a life of economic justice based on faith," the cardinal explained. "That's a shared experience with organized labor."

But at the press conference, Wuerl admitted that not all Catholics, or Catholic institutions, follow church social justice teachings.

He did not name names, but prominent lay Catholic politicians in the U.S., such as House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, enact or implement policies - such as cutting food stamps - that ignore those teachings.

And Catholic institutions, including the Resurrection Health Care hospital system in Chicago, many Catholic-run universities nationwide and the schools of archdiocese of St. Louis, have acted like other anti-union employers in battling workers' rights and sometimes breaking labor law, to boot.

Wuerl admitted the church's clergy must take responsibility for that waywardness.

"I'd better get better at teaching," he said with a smile when reminded of such transgressions. "We have to start all over again, highlighting something that needs to be said in the hope that it'll be heard. We have a saying in the office that 'You need to say something three times before it is heard.'"

Pope Francis has been giving that message of standing up for workers and the poor even before he took over the church's overall leadership. His latest denunciation of excesses of corporate greed is in an encyclical - an official church document of teaching and faith - on how to combat global warming and climate change. The capitalist rush to exploit fossil fuels, Francis said, has come at the expense of the planet and of lives.

The conference, the second such session the AFL-CIO has hosted, comes along with concrete steps the church and the labor movement have taken to work together on social justice causes, Trumka and Wuerl said.

That's despite what Trumka admitted are occasional disagreements - the only allusion, however indirect, to the church's consistent and continuous stand against reproductive choice. The Coalition of Labor Union Women, an AFL-CIO constituency group, and many unionists, are on the other side of that issue.

Instead, the two concentrated on areas of agreement, notably comprehensive immigration reform, where both are mobilizing at the grassroots.

But the church and labor also share something else, Wuerl said: Many times, society isn't listening to them. "It's not that the church and the labor movement are not on the same wavelength. It's that we're not being heard," the cardinal admitted.

Photo: Pope Francis waves to crowds in Vatican City. The labor movement has made it clear ahead of the Pope's September visit that the Catholic Church and unions have a lot in common when it comes to social justice. | Gregorio Borgia/AP

New Haven march calls for hiring to end jobs crisis

Wed, 17 Jun 2015 13:35:00 +0000

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - The power of unity and solidarity filled Church Street in front of City Hall on June 11 as every neighborhood and many unions rallied together behind the banner of New Haven Rising for good jobs for city residents.

The rally and march, the latest action in a four-year campaign, highlighted the fact that of 82,000 jobs in New Haven only 2,000 living wage jobs at $20 an hour belong to residents of the largely Black and Latino Dixwell, Newhall, Hill, Fair Haven and Dwight neighborhoods.

In 2012 the newly elected Board of Alders, including many union members, established New Haven Works to train and locate jobs at major employers. In 15 months 500 people were placed. But now there are another 500 ready and waiting. The rally called on Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital to hire them now so the thousands more in the jobs pipeline can move forward.

"Let's be real about who the jobs crisis effects. Unemployment is 15 percent. For our white brothers and sisters - it's eight percent. For the black and Latino communities, nearly 20 percent," said Pastor Scott Marks, founder of New Haven Rising. "Employers need to increase their hiring rate - and their focus on hiring from our communities of need," he declared to cheers and applause.

The Carpenters Union gets it, he said, asking the state-wide delegation of 45, mostly white males, to wave their hands. "Give the carpenters a cheer," he said. "We need more carpenters from New Haven to get in the union and then those carpenters can join these carpenters so everyone is working!"

After speeches, a community drill team led the multi racial crowd with many families and children to Prospect and Sachem Streets, the site of two new dormitories under construction at Yale. Against this backdrop, the rally called on the University to hire locally for construction jobs and for permanent union jobs once the dorms are completed.

New Elm City Dream and YCL youth groups were asked to stand in front with the banner from their march for jobs in February, carrying on their campaign for jobs for youth and jobs for all which began in 2010 after 31 young people lost their lives to street violence.

Mayor Toni Harp responded to the crowd in front of City Hall with three messages: One, I am with you, she said. Two, we are working on meeting transportation needs, ending discrimination against those with prison records and removing other barriers for the unemployed and under employed. Three, I will push the three major employers - Yale, Yale-New Haven Hospital, and the City of New Haven, to make these hires, she concluded to applause.

This response was the result of hundreds of house meetings, thousands of individual meetings, and overflow turnouts for the Black and Hispanic Caucus jobs crisis forum and state of the city address earlier this year, as well as an intensive grass roots leadership development program by New Haven Rising.

Two days prior to the rally, Yale University issued a statement that it will hire 500 New Haveners over the next two years. "That's fine," Tyisha Walker, president of the Board of Alders and secretary of Local 35, told the crowd. "But what neighborhoods will those workers come from?"

The unions at Yale including Locals 34 and 35 and GESO the graduate students, are all facing major battles as the university seeks to downsize its unionized staff and expand subcontracting practices. The union contracts expire in a year and a half.

Photo: March for Good Jobs with New Haven Rising on June 11. 2015. | New Haven Rising

“Right-to-work” goes down the drain in Maine

Wed, 17 Jun 2015 11:45:00 +0000

AUGUSTA, Maine - Following effective worker lobbying, meetings, phone calls and 10,000 post cards, so-called right-to-work legislation went down the drain in Maine, by a 90-52 margin in the state House. Other anti-worker bills also hit the legislative garbage can.

But the fight isn't over yet: The Maine AFL-CIO is warning that right-wing GOP Gov. Paul LePage, who tried to sneak RTW through in the closing hours of this year's legislative session, might bring a version covering public workers back in January. So it's setting up a summer school for activists in the state capital, Augusta, for training for further fights.

The Maine measure is one of several RTW bills that went down to defeat in states recently, despite flush-with-cash campaigns from corporate interests and right-wing Republicans. Other defeats occurred in Kentucky and New Mexico. Missouri's Democratic governor vetoed the GOP-passed RTW bill and has the votes to sustain his veto.

RTW has been a right wing cause ever since a 1947 federal law legalized it, letting non-unionists in union shops be "free riders" receiving union services without having to pay at all for them. What RTW backers really want to do is to de-fund workers and unions, depriving them of money to represent workers, bargain contracts or campaign against the corporate agenda.

While RTW overall lost 90-52, a separate RTW bill, covering just public workers, was sent back to committee. LePage may try to resurrect it next year, the state fed said. A "paycheck protection" bill - unions and workers call it "paycheck deception" - to ban automatic dues deductions from workers' checks in unionized government workplaces, lost 90-51. A ban on paying government union shop stewards for grievance handling lost 86-56.

"We did it!" proclaimed Sarah Bigney, the state AFL-CIO's leadership coordinator.

"Because of your tireless efforts, we've won the first battle in our fight to defeat the so-called 'right-to-work' bills," even though the public sector RTW bill went back to committee, she added. And that panel postponed a vote on that measure "because they did not have the support to pass this anti-worker legislation-and that's because of all of you.

Besides the 10,000-plus postcards against RTW, Maine workers met more than 50 elected officials in home districts, and more than 300 unionists descended on Augusta in March for labor lobby day, double the previous record.

"And with just a few days' notice, you brought over 1,000 union members and workers to the State House to say that rolling back collective bargaining rights is unacceptable," Bigney added. "The level of public and private sector solidarity was incredible, showing we really are stronger when we all stand side-by-side together. You made it happen."

Lawmakers should deal with jobs, Maine AFL-CIO Executive Director Matt Schlobohm told the lobby day crowd. The last election, he added, "was not about turning back the clocks and rolling back basic protections, rights and standards." Legislators should "focus on real issues and not be taken up with distractions that undermine workers' organizations, their retirement and their health security."

Photo: 2015 Labor Lobby Day, Augusta, Maine. Maine AFL-CIO.

CWA's new leadership eyes labor's political independence

Tue, 16 Jun 2015 12:27:00 +0000

DETROIT (PAI) - Chris Shelton, the longtime activist and leader of Communications Workers District 1 in New York and New Jersey, and Sara Steffens, a rapidly rising organizer from The News Guild, won the top two posts at the CWA convention in Detroit last week.

Shelton started his union career in 1968 as a shop steward for Local 1101 at New York Telephone, where he worked as an outside technician. He became District 1 leader in 2005. Shelton, a Bronx resident, was unopposed in his race for the union presidency after former President Larry Cohen retired after 10 years.

Steffens, who first came to prominence for organizing the San Jose Mercury News for The News Guild - and for being illegally fired for doing so - defeated incumbent Secretary-Treasurer Annie Hill by a weighted vote of 194,461-150,914. The two ran together.

The building of a separate workers' party was one of several goals Shelton set out in his acceptance address, along with fighting discrimination, and campaigning for a financial transactions tax.

Steffen addressed the need to build even more "unity and militancy at the bargaining table" and stressed his commitment to continuing Cohen's pro-democracy campaign against big business and big givers' monetary dominance in politics.

"We can build unity and militancy - whether it's at Verizon or ATT or American Airlines or United Airlines or Texas or Missouri or New Jersey or ABC or NBC or the Canadian Broadcasting Company or The New York Times or Frontier Communications or CenturyLink or General Electric or wherever the hell our members are in a fight," Shelton declared.

"We will unite and fight because we are fighting to defend the living standards not just of our members, but of the entire working class and that is our job and that is our mission."

But it's not necessarily the Democrats' mission, he added, specifically citing President Barack Obama's push for so-called "fast-track" trade promotion authority and the trade pacts it would lead to. Those pacts have no worker rights, no environmental protections and could lead to outsourcing factory jobs, service jobs and even government jobs, he said.

"It's time to quit relying on the Democrats to move this (progressive) agenda forward," Shelton declared. "Yes, we are going to fight in every state and every congressional district to defeat the crazy, wing-nut Republican tea partiers who want to roll back history to a time when African Americans and women and gays and lesbians knew their place, kept their mouths shut, and were forced to hide in the closet. And we have to elect a Democratic president in 2016 if only because the next president is likely to make up to four appointments to the Supreme Court."

To Shelton, this is no progressive pipedream but an ongoing project. Citing his unions' 15 years of work with the Working Families Party, Shelton is confident in his union's ability and labor's ability generally to build their "own political party, that stands unequivocally with us on every issue, whether it is the fight against TPP, or to raise the minimum wage, or to enact paid sick days legislation or to raise taxes on the wealthy or to get corporate money out of the political system. It is an organization we built and that working people and their allies run."

Most importantly to Shelton "is that it has the capacity and the willingness to take on the corporate Democrats who oppose us."

"This is a strategy I think we should pursue wherever possible, and I think the entire labor movement should adopt this strategy also. While we will be pragmatic about what we must do at election time, we also must have a vision-a vision of a politics that serves the working class. And to do that, we need to build our own, independent, anti-corporate, pro-union political organizations," Shelton declared.

Photo: Chris Shelton, CWA website.

Labor, allies push to derail Fast Track for good

Mon, 15 Jun 2015 15:32:00 +0000

After a House of Representatives vote Friday stalled Fast Track authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, unions and their allies are doubling up their pressure on Congress to derail Fast Track for good.

Social Security Works, one of the many groups in the labor-led coalition that stalled Fast Track in Congress last Friday, noted in a statement today that "the billionaires and millionaires behind Fast Track aren't used to taking 'no' for an answer and will try again this week to ram it through."

The group is urging that everyone send cards thanking those in Congress who voted against the measure and urging them to stand firm on any additional roll call votes in the House this week.

National Nurses United (NNU)-the largest organization of nurses in the country-has announced that its 190,000 members are mobilizing now, as the House expects to vote this week on a motion to reconsider whether to move Fast Track forward. To date, nurses have rallied tens of thousands of emails and calls urging Congress to vote 'no' on Fast Track; thousands of nurses mobilized over the weekend alone, in a last-minute push for Congress to hold the line.

NNU is also sending a letter to Capitol Hill, asking all Members of Congress to vote no on the Motion to Reconsider and on the TAA bill.

"Congress did right by the American people on Friday, protecting jobs, public health, the environment and our very democracy against a secret trade deal that would complete the corporate take over of our country," says NNU Executive Director RoseAnn DeMoro.

"Unfortunately this vote was only a temporary stay of execution for our economy," says DeMoro. "That's why Nurses across the country are redoubling their efforts to make sure that every member of Congress hears directly from a registered nurse to hold the line and vote no on this disastrous trade deal."

Nurses emphasize today's "trade" agreements impose constraints over matters that impact everyday life and have more to do with entrenching corporate power than they do about trade. For example, of the TPP's 29 chapters, only five are about trade. RNs say they are committed to fighting against the aspects of the TPP, learned through leaked documents, that threaten to give giant healthcare corporations the right to privatize national healthcare systems and pharmaceutical companies the ability to inflate drug costs.

Days before the House vote, WikiLeaks published an additional healthcare-related secret draft chapter of the TPP, proving the agreement seeks, according to WikiLeaks, to force "healthcare authorities to give big pharmaceutical companies more information about national decisions on public access to medicine, and grant corporations greater powers to challenge decisions they perceive as harmful to their interests."

"We're here to tell Congress that senior citizens, diabetics, cancer patients, HIV and AIDS patients, and families deserve to buy affordable medications. And healthcare corporations cannot overturn laws, such as nurse-to-patient ratios or environmental regulations, in the name of profits," says NNU Co-president Jean Ross. "Our nurses will be working hard as this next vote approaches -and as long as it takes-to ensure Congress puts an end to dangerous trade deals."

Photo: National Nurses United

Why 2016 is all about raising pay

Mon, 15 Jun 2015 14:37:00 +0000

For over thirty-five years, American workers' wages have been stuck. This comes while we've seen tremendous growth in our country's productivity and soaring corporate profits.

What happened? How has the middle class dissolved and childhood poverty risen while we continue to create more and more millionaires and billionaires?

The answer is simple. Our elected officials in Washington and across the country have adopted policies, written by the very wealthy, which are meant to ensure that the lions' share of income growth continues to go to the top one percent while the rest of the country is left behind.

Thankfully, the researchers at EPI have the solution: An eleven-point policy proposal titled the "Agenda to Raise America's Pay," which includes raising the minimum wage, strengthening collective bargaining rights, providing earned sick leave and paid family leave, and much more.

If we want to raise workers' wages and rebuild the middle class, we must ensure that EPI's policy proposals are adopted by the growing field of presidential candidates.

There is now widespread agreement across the political spectrum that wage stagnation is the country's key economic challenge, and EPI has the solution. The Washington Post called EPI's plan, "the liberal plan to save the middle class" and went on to say:

"When presidential candidates confront complex policy challenges, they usually turn to their party's wonks, who supply them with ideas that reflect their party's consensus.... Today, the Economic Policy Institute-a liberal think tank ...-released an eleven-point "Agenda to Raise America's Pay," and it's worth paying attention to because something like it will probably become Hillary Clinton's economic plan."

If we as a nation want to reduce poverty, address income inequality, and rebuild our crumbling middle class, the missing ingredient is raising workers' wages. And we need to ensure that ALL presidential candidates embrace EPI's policies to ensure that American prosperity is broadly shared.

Whether it is providing lawmakers with the research they need to draft minimum wage legislation in Congress or supporting fast food workers in their "Fight for $15," EPI's research is being used by lawmakers and activists alike. But we can't continue providing this critical research without YOU!

Together we can rebuild our crumbling middle class and lift millions of workers and their families out of poverty.

Please donate to EPI today to support our critically important research and make sure the "Agenda to Raise America's Pay" becomes the backbone of the national fight to address income inequality.

Lawrence Mishel is president of the Economic Policy Institute.

Photo: Detroit public schools counselor Lakia Wilson (left) and Brooklyn Papa John's worker Shantel Walker (right). | Patrick Foote/PW

Labor-led coalition deals blow to trade deal

Mon, 15 Jun 2015 10:46:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - The largely secret Trans Pacific Partnership deal was blocked in the House Friday in a setback resulting from pressure applied for many months by a powerful coalition of unions, community groups, environmental groups and civil rights organizations.

It was progressive Democrats in the House who delivered the legislative blow by rejecting a so-called trade partnership amendment to the TPP bill whose actual purpose was to fast track the trade pact between the U.S. and 11 other Pacific Rim countries.

Democrats responded to calls from their constituents who cried out against the deal and rebuffed pressure from President Obama to join his unusual alliance with pro-TPP Republicans.

On Friday, at least, a defiant progressive wing of the Democratic Party in the House responded to the unprecedented campaign against Fast Track waged by labor and its allies.

"This is not about the President," declared Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., one of the leading congressional voices against the pact. "It really is all about what we heard from our own people, what they thought was the right thing to do."

The leaders of the coalition that have been organizing the opposition to Fast Track seemed to sense that both their campaign against the bill and the vote Friday reflected something new in American politics.

Even as he warned that "the fight is not over" (another vote could come up in the House as early as Tuesday) AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka declared, "This is a significant day in America. America's workers came together and spoke with one voice about the path this country and economy should follow.

"The debate over Fast Track so far has been a marvelous contrast to the corporate money and disillusionment that normally mars American politics today.

"This was truly democracy in action," he declared, "with millions exercising their rights to inform their elected representatives. We should all draw from this experience to help replenish our democracy at every level on every issue."

The votes in the House Friday were on two measures, both of which had to pass in order to send the legislation, which was approved in the Senate last month, to President Obama for his signature.

A bill to give the President fast-track authority to negotiate future trade deals was approved, although only by a narrow 219-211 vote. But another measure, ostensibly to provide assistance money to retrain displaced workers, failed 126-302. It failed, however, because Democrats, who normally support such assistance, voted against it.

Labor, its allies and Democrats in the House saw the trade assistance bill as a last-minute ploy by Fast-Track supporters to win support for the main TPP package itself. Democrats voted against the measure not just to sink the TPP but to express anger over Republican plans to pay for the future "retraining" with eventual cuts in Medicare.

Fast Track backers say that what happened Friday was merely a legislative bump in the road to approval of the trade pact. Opponents of the bill say that the unprecedented mass fightback against the bill was what was really at work and that Friday was more than just a snafu.

Rallies, mass marches, lobbying campaigns, phone banking operations, email campaigns, and sit-ins were carried out for months by unions, religious groups, environmental watchdogs, the NAACP and many others. Their message was simple: Fast Track was beneficial only to the corporate elite but devastating to the 99 percent.

TPP, they said, would trash workers' rights, kill jobs and open the floodgates to new rounds of outsourcing.

A paramount concern for Fast Track opponents was that it would authorize secret deals for future trade pacts. The secret deals would then be followed by up or down votes with no chance to amend or change parts of the legislation.

"Not only do TPP backers have the gall to write and push this horrible legislation, but they want to do it behind closed doors, without letting Congress read it," said AFGE President J. David Cox just before the vote. "This deal is bad for workers, it is wrong and it is a wrecking ball to the American dream," said Cox, a Veterans Administration nurse who grew up in a North Carolina textile mill town that he said was "devastated" by the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, a previous trade deal opposed by labor.

"We are tired of all the secrecy going on around all these trade deals," said Liz Shuler, the AFL-CIO's secretary treasurer, also before the vote. "We were promised that this would be the most transparent of all trade deals. Instead, we can't even see the text. We're sick of relying on promises."

AFL-CIO President Trumka praised Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, who he said took a courageous stand in opposition to the TPP.

When Pelosi announced that she was voting against the retraining bill as the only way to block the larger TPP accord votes in the House began swinging her way.

It is difficult to determine whether totals will change in any new vote Tuesday or later this week.

To get TPP passed Republican leaders would have to swing many more than the 86 Republicans who voted Friday in favor of the retraining amendment. It's a tough task for GOP leaders who would have to corral right-wing lawmakers who have difficulty supporting anything that even sounds like it would help workers.

On the Democratic side progressives would have to change their votes too. After Friday, however, many of the liberal Democrats appeared bolder in their opposition than they were before the vote. In Washington, where outcomes are often uncertain, one thing is clear, however. The labor-led coalition that has come this far isn't going away anytime soon.

"From here we move on to fighting for the raising wages agenda and to fashioning trade agreements that boost and lift up both the economy and all the workers," Trumka said.

Eric Hauser, the AFL-CIO's communications director noted that the nation is seeing an unprecedented and serious campaign. "So far labor and its allies have organized 650 anti-Fast Track events. Thousands of workers have travelled to D.C. to lobby, two million have called members of Congress and 18,000 have sent hand-written letters. Digital ads," he said, "have gotten 25 million hits so far."

Mark Gruenberg contributed to this story.

Photo: AP