People Before Profit blog

AFL-CIO leads demonstration for minimum wage hike outside Heritage Foundation

Mon, 31 Mar 2014 15:00:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - The labor movement turned up the heat today on opponents of a minimum wage increase by gathering outside of the Heritage Foundation here, demanding to know why its chairman, former Sen. Jim DeMint, is afraid to debate the issue publically with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Tefere Gebre, who led the group, said it was wrong that DeMint, who is behind Heritage Foundation strongarming of lawmakers to oppose a wage hike, would be "afraid to come out on this issue and debate President Richard Trumka."

Trumka began pressuring for the debate more than a week ago because DeMint's organization has been lobbying lawmakers against an increase in the minimum wage. Republicans have been going along with the Heritage Foundation lobbyists as they continue to block any hike in the wage.

According to Josh Goldstein, spokesperson for the AFL-CIO, DeMint's office is claiming the former senator has no time for a debate. The AFL-CIO has told DeMint's staff, according to Goldstein, that Trumka is willing to debate "wherever and whenever" DeMint wants to debate.

The demonstration today is an attempt by the AFL-CIO to draw attention to DeMint's refusal to debate. The federation is using social media to draw attention to the refusal. The point, according to Goldstein, is that even those most ideologically determined to oppose a federal minimum wage hike know that it is a difficult, if not impossible, position to defend.

Democrats have proposed to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. DeMint and his Heritage Foundation have not only opposed the minimum wage increase but DeMint himself, as a member of the Senate, proposed legislation that would have abolished the federal minimum wage altogether.

"I'm not too surprised that Mr. DeMint is afraid to debate," AFL-CIO director of communications Eric Hauser wrote in an email last week. "If I thought the minimum wage should be zero, I probably wouldn't want to debate either. But a big part of life is facing your fears. Certainly millions of American workers bravely do that every day. I hope Mr. DeMint is willing to face his fear and debate President Trumka on the minimum wage."

Polls show that a majority of voters back a minimum wage hike. Those majorities holding across political lines, including among Democrats, Republicans and Independents. Democrats are expected to make the minimum wage a centerpiece of their campaign during their 2014-midterm elections.

Once again today, after the demonstration, DeMint refused to agree to a debate.

Photo: AFL-CIO blog

What Target says in new video is not what Target means

Mon, 31 Mar 2014 13:35:00 +0000

Target is at it again. The country's third-largest retailer has long been anti-union, and it has a new version of its hilarious propaganda video meant to scare workers away from organizing for a voice on the job. Gawker and other sources have run the video, which is filled with so many lines that are dishonest or misleading that you have to double check to make sure it isn't a comedy piece produced by The Onion.

You might find the video a bit hard to stomach, so here is a compilation of some of the most ridiculous statements in the video and what Target might really mean when it says those words....

What they say: "Property of Target. Do not duplicate." What they mean: "We know what we're saying is kind of embarrassing, so we don't want anybody else to see it."

What they say: "Some day, someone you don't know may approach you at work, or try to visit you at home, asking you to sign your name to an authorization card, petition or some other union document." What they mean: "Scary 'thugs' are coming to get you."

If you want to see some truly "scary" union "thugs" check out unionhugs.com.

What they say: "You may even receive phone calls, emails or text messages asking you to commit to the union. And we want you to be as knowledgeable as possible before you make your choice." What they mean: "We want you to be as knowledgeable as possible about our anti-union propaganda to discourage you from joining a union."

What they say: "Our union philosophy at Target is based on our confidence in and respect for our team members." What they mean: "Our union philosophy at Target is based on our dislike of workers coming together for a voice on the job."

What they say: "We know you face challenges here, too. But there are all sorts of partners standing by to help you out, like your leadership team and your fellow team members." What they mean: "If you face a challenge at Target, you should talk to one of your co-workers about it, because management doesn't really want to hear it."

What they say: "There's nothing we can't solve if we work together." What they mean: "Except wages, benefits, collective bargaining rights, career options, etc."

What they say: "At Target, an open door policy isn't just a catchphrase, it's a policy." What they mean: "At Target, an open door policy is just a catchphrase, it isn't a policy."

What they say: "A union is not a charity, it's not a club and it's not a part of the government. A union is a business." What they mean: "We know you hate businesses, so we're calling unions businesses. But we're not a business, so that doesn't apply to us."

What they say: "Unions may have been needed in the past, to help workers fight for things like child safety and workers' compensation, but now that type of protection is provided by state and federal laws that have been passed in the last 50 years. Nobody wants to pay dues for something they already have." What they mean: "Unions have already won too many rights for workers and we're trying to reverse that trend."

What they say: "Today if you want the chance to pick up additional hours, you can get cross-trained and become a more valuable member of the team. But, under a rigid union contract, you could easily lose that option." What they mean: "Even we don't believe this one."

What they say: "A union can't guarantee you anything." What they mean: "Whereas we can guarantee you low wages, weak benefits and little chance for a good life-work balance."

What they say: "Target makes decisions that are best for our team members, shareholders, and guests."

The above article was printed in the AFL-CIO Now blog.

Photo: Damian Dovarganes/AP

Postal unions sign cooperation pact, prepare for joint April 24 actions

Fri, 28 Mar 2014 14:56:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI)--The nation's postal unions - the Letter Carriers, the Postal Workers, the Mail Handlers and the Rural Letter Carriers - have signed what they call an historic joint cooperation pact. And they'll start putting it into effect with a combined "National Day of Action" on April 24.

And, as usual, the target will be schemes to cut postal services, end Saturday pickup and delivery, and fire or let go by attrition hundreds of thousands of workers.

Mark Dimondstein, the new Postal Workers (APWU) president, Letter Carriers (NALC) President Fredric Rolando, Rural Letter Carriers President Jeannette Dwyer and Mail Handlers President John Hegarty signed the pact. The Mail Handlers are a Laborers sector.

"A congressionally manufactured financial crisis drains the U.S. Postal Service of vital resources," the presidents' joint proclamation says. "Six-day delivery is under constant threat of elimination. Reduction of service standards and the elimination of half of the nation's mail processing centers has slowed service and wiped out tens of thousands of good jobs. Post offices in cities and small towns are being sold or closed or having their hours cut back.

"Corporate privatizers seek to gain control over larger segments of postal operations - and to get their hands on the Postal Service's $65 billion of annual revenue. The postmaster general's policies of subcontracting and degrading service are fueling the privatization drive.

"The four postal unions stand together to end the attack," it says. "We stand with the people of our country in defense of their right to a universal postal service operated in the public interest."

"We agreed to work together to defend a beloved national treasure," said Dimondstein.

"Our efforts will benefit all postal employees and the people of this country who expect and deserve a vibrant, public Postal Service for generations to come."

"Americans value and deserve postal services provided by highly trained, uniformed and accountable employees who work directly for the Postal Service, not for an office-supplies retail chain," Rolando said. "Just as the members of the APWU stand with the NALC in our battle to preserve 6-day mail delivery service, so do Letter Carriers stand with our brothers and sisters in this fight against privatization."

One goal is to derail S1486, the latest postal service "modernization" bill, which the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee approved early this year. Their April 24 action, led by APWU, will also oppose the postmaster general's scheme to replace unionized middle-class Postal Service workers with non-union low-paid retail workers at USPS "branches" in Staples stores.

And S1486 would let the postmaster general kill Saturday service after two years, order reopening of union contracts so management could slash benefits, and take postal workers out of a well-financed federal health benefits plan in favor of one USPS would run on its own, among other moves.

But the unions won't be mobilizing just against something. They also will campaign for an alternative measure by Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind.-Vt., to let the USPS expand into new lines of business, for re-establishing a "postal savings bank" for individuals, and to end the yearly $5.5 billion yearly USPS advance payment of future retirees' health care costs.

That payment, which began after a Bush-era postal "reform" bill, accounts for the red ink the postmaster general cites as a reason for his cuts. The USPS is projected to earn $1 billion this year on its operations, as it recovers from the Great Recession, but before the health care payment.

The joint agreement commits the four unions to campaigning for expanded USPS services, forming a common front for genuine postal reform bills, lobbying to below-cost rates to big profitable corporate mailers, joint actions on the local level and "maximum cooperation in the next round of contract negotiations" between the unions and management.

College athletes can unionize, NLRB says

Thu, 27 Mar 2014 13:56:00 +0000

CHICAGO - In a stunning ruling that could revolutionize a college sports industry worth billions of dollars and have dramatic repercussions at schools coast to coast, a federal agency said Wednesday that football players at Northwestern University can create the nation's first union of college athletes.

The decision by a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board answered the question at the heart of the debate over the unionization bid: Are football players who receive full scholarships to the Big Ten school considered employees under federal law, thereby allowing them to unionize?

Peter Sung Ohr, the NLRB regional director, said in a 24-page decision that the players "fall squarely" within the broad definition of employee.

Pro-union activists cheered as they learned of the ruling.

"It's like preparing so long for a big game and then when you win - it is pure joy," said former UCLA linebacker Ramogi Huma, the designated president of Northwestern's would-be football players' union.

The ruling addresses a unique situation in American college sports, where the tradition of college competition has created a system that generates billions but relies on players who are not paid. In other countries, elite youth athletes turn pro as teens, but college sports are small-time club affairs.

Under U.S. law, an employee is regarded as someone who, among other things, receives compensation for a service and is under the strict, direct control of managers. In the case of the Northwestern players, coaches are the managers and scholarships are a form of compensation, Ohr concluded.

The Evanston, Ill., university argued that college athletes, as students, do not fit in the same category as factory workers, truck drivers and other unionized workers. The school announced plans to appeal to labor authorities in Washington, D.C.

Supporters of the union bid argued that the university ultimately treats football as more important than academics for scholarship players. Ohr sided with the players.

"The record makes clear that the employer's scholarship players are identified and recruited in the first instance because of their football prowess and not because of their academic achievement in high school," Ohr wrote. He also noted that among the evidence presented by Northwestern, "no examples were provided of scholarship players being permitted to miss entire practices and/or games to attend their studies."

The ruling described how the life of a Northwestern football player is far more regimented than that of a typical student, down to requirements about what they can eat and whether they can live off campus or purchase a car. At times, players put 50 or 60 hours a week into football, Ohr added.

Alan Cubbage, Northwestern's vice president for university relations, said in a statement that while the school respects "the NLRB process and the regional director's opinion, we disagree with it."

Huma said scholarship players would vote within 30 days on whether to formally authorize the College Athletes Players Association, or CAPA, to represent them.

The specific goals of CAPA include guaranteeing coverage of sports-related medical expenses for current and former players, reducing head injuries and potentially letting players pursue commercial sponsorships.

Critics have argued that giving college athletes employee status and allowing them to unionize could hurt college sports in numerous ways, including raising the prospect of strikes by disgruntled players or lockouts by athletic departments.

For now, the push is to unionize athletes at private schools, such as Northwestern, because the federal labor agency does not have jurisdiction over public universities. But Huma said Wednesday's decision is the "first domino to fall" and that teams at schools - both public and private - could eventually follow the Wildcats' lead.

Outgoing Wildcats quarterback Kain Colter took a leading role in establishing CAPA. The United Steelworkers union has been footing the legal bills.

Colter, who has entered the NFL draft, said nearly all of the 85 scholarship players on the Wildcats roster backed the union bid, though only he expressed his support publicly.

He said the No. 1 reason to unionize was to ensure injured players have their medical needs met.

"With the sacrifices we make athletically, medically and with our bodies, we need to be taken care of," Colter told ESPN.

The NCAA has been under increasing scrutiny over its amateurism rules and is fighting a class-action federal lawsuit by former players seeking a cut of the billions of dollars earned from live broadcasts, memorabilia sales and video games. Other lawsuits allege the NCAA failed to protect players from debilitating head injuries.

NCAA President Mark Emmert has pushed for a $2,000-per-player stipend to help athletes defray some expenses. Critics say that is not nearly enough, considering players help bring in millions of dollars to their schools and conferences.

In a written statement, the NCAA said it disagreed with the notion that student-athletes are employees.

"We frequently hear from student-athletes, across all sports, that they participate to enhance their overall college experience and for the love of their sport, not to be paid," the NCAA said.

All of the big NCAA conferences, including the SEC, also disagreed with the decision.

"Notwithstanding today's decision, the SEC does not believe that full time students participating in intercollegiate athletics are employees of the universities they attend," Michael Slive, the SEC commissioner, said in a written statement.

The developments are coming to a head when major college programs are awash in cash generated by new television deals that include separate networks for the big conferences. The NCAA tournament generates an average of $771 million a year in television rights itself, much of which is distributed to member schools.

Attorneys for CAPA argued that college football is, for all practical purposes, a commercial enterprise that relies on players' labor to generate billions of dollars in profits. The NLRB ruling noted that from 2003 to 2013 the Northwestern program generated $235 million in revenue - profits the university says went to subsidize other sports.

During the NLRB's five days of hearings in February, Wildcats coach Pat Fitzgerald took the stand for union opponents, and his testimony sometimes was at odds with Colter's.

Colter told the hearing that players' performance on the field was more important to Northwestern than their in-class performance, saying, "You fulfill the football requirement and, if you can, you fit in academics." Asked why Northwestern gave him a scholarship of $75,000 a year, he responded: "To play football. To perform an athletic service."

Photo: In this Jan. 28, 2014, file photo, Northwestern quarterback Kain Colter, right, speaks while College Athletes Players Association President Ramogi Huma listens during a news conference in Chicago. In a Wednesday, March 26, 2014, landmark ruling, a federal agency has given football players at Northwestern University the green light to unionize. Paul Beaty/AP

Outpouring in Missouri Capital demands end to attacks on labor

Thu, 27 Mar 2014 13:26:00 +0000

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - "Today we are united, side by side. We have to stick together. If we lose, everyone who works for a living will pay the price," State Senator, Gina Walsh, told thousands of union members and their supporters as they rallied against anti-worker legislation here on the Capital lawn on Wednesday, March 26.

Walsh, who is also the president of the Missouri Building and Construction Trades Council, added, "Their number one priority is attacking your right to be in a union. It's a dangerous agenda designed to lower your wages and silence your voice."

Extremist leaders in the Missouri House are pushing a myriad of bills designed to weaken trade unions - and silence the workers they represent - here in the Show Me State.

For example, HB 1617, also known as 'Paycheck Protection,' and HB 1770, also known as 'Right-to-Work' or 'Worker Freedom,' are on the House calendar and could be brought to the floor at any time.

Both HB 1617 and HB 1770 would dramatically weaken unions, as they would ban 'union shops' and make it more difficult for unions to collect dues. If passed, the bills would drive down wages and working conditions for all Missourians.

It is estimated that Missouri families would lose between $1,945 and $2,547 a year per-household if 'Right-to-Work' were passed. Additionally, lower wages would mean less money for schools, roads, bridges and social services vital to a vibrant, modern economy.

Missouri Governor, Jay Nixon, added, so-called 'Right-to-Work' would "pull the rug out from under hard working folks." He vowed to veto any anti-worker legislation that makes it to his desk.

"We cannot lift up our economy by tearing down workers," he added. "'Right-to-Work' is wrong. It'll move our state backwards. It is an ill-conceived race to the bottom. We've defeated it in the past. And we'll stop it again - just like we did in 1978."

It was in 1978 that the National Right-to-Work Committee was able to place on the Missouri ballot an initiative to pass 'Right-to-Work' by popular vote. Many trade unionists fear that the republican dominated Missouri legislature will attempt a similar ballot initiative this fall.

The 1978 'Right-to-Work' initiative was defeated overwhelmingly, with over 60 percent of Missouri voters voting against it.

However, with a shrinking union membership as a percentage of the electorate, Missouri union leaders know that they will have to reach-out far beyond labor's ranks if they are going to defeat a similar initiative - if it makes it to the November ballot.

Secretary of State, Jason Kander, told the assembled union members, "I feel good. I feel optimistic. The reinforcements are here. The cavalry has arrived. I believe in workers' rights."

Kander echoed a widely held view that outside special interests like ALEC and the Koch brothers are the real backers behind the anti-worker push. He said, "I know Missourians are not clamoring for lower wages and fewer benefits."

Kander, a former U.S. Army Captain and United Transportation Union Local 933 member, said so-called 'Right-to-Work' and 'Paycheck Protection' are nothing but veiled attempts to "go after your rights and go after your voice."

Missouri Attorney General, Chris Koster, added, "Powerful politicians want to cut your pay. They believe Missouri would be a better place if you made less money, if you had less power to bargain with, if they scrapped your pension, and if they divided you from one another. That is what 'Right-to-Work' is all about."

"They want to cut the pie a little more in their favor," Koster continued. "That's not my vision of a better Missouri."

Moderate Republican representative, Anne Zerr (R-65), said, unions provide "protection and guaranteed wages."

"Labor is not the enemy," she vowed to tell other republicans "very quietly and very patiently. We're not going to do it by fighting. We're going to do it by education."

In fact, "Working with unions is good business," she added, as people with money in their pockets make our economy grow, which is something we all want regardless of party affiliation.

Democratic representative, Jake Hummel, fired the crowd up when he said, "This is what the union movement looks like in Missouri."

"We are under attack like never before. Our way of life is being threatened so millionaires can strip a few more dollars from your pockets," Hummel added. "They want more, more, more! But they need to know that we are sick of this attack and we're not going to put up with it."

"While labor is at a cross roads, it is also in the cross hairs. This isn't just about us, it's about all workers. And we have to fight! Take it home. Take it to your job sites. Take it to the ballot box. Remember those who stood with us and those who stood against us."

Hummel, who is also a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers' Local 1, concluded, "I want to look back and say, 'I was there when we beat 'Right-to-Work' in Missouri.'"

FedEx loses another driver misclassification case, in Maine

Thu, 27 Mar 2014 12:54:00 +0000

PORTLAND, Maine - FedEx, notorious for misclassifying its drivers as "independent contractors" - barring them from labor law protection and avoiding paying Social Security, Medicare and workers' comp taxes, lost another misclassification case, in Maine.

On Mar. 14, a federal judge in Portland approved a settlement saying FedEx Ground misclassified 141 drivers. The drivers will net $3.9 million in back pay and damages.

That follows previous FedEx losses and settlements of misclassification claims in Illinois, Massachusetts, California, Montana, and elsewhere. Another case is pending in Missouri.

If the case had gone to trial and the firm lost, it could have been hit with a $10 million-plus cost. "The proposed settlement...is clearly a compromise that discounts to some degree the drivers' total claims" but is a "fair trade-off for the uncertainties of trial and appeal and a prolonged delay in receiving any money," the court said.

The Teamsters have tried for years to organize FedEx drivers and also lead the anti-misclassification drive. Lawyers reporting the Maine case did not say if the union is involved.

Photo: Charlie Riedel/AP

Bangladeshi workers seek support from U.S. students

Thu, 27 Mar 2014 12:46:00 +0000

MINNEAPOLIS (PAI and Workday Minnesota) - Reba Sikder remembers waking amidst the rubble of her collapsed factory to the moans of a co-worker, trapped where the ceiling had fallen on him. With her leg pinned by debris, she was unable to help him.

"After a few minutes, he died," she said, tears welling up in her eyes. "I started losing hope that I would survive."

Sikder was one of some 3,600 workers employed at the Rana Plaza factory in a sub-district of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, when their building collapsed 11 months ago, on Apr. 24. At least 1,135 were killed and hundreds injured. She told her story recently to a crowd of 50 University of Minnesota students in a program - part of a national tour-sponsored by the United Students Against Sweatshops in its "End Deathtraps" campaign.

Trapped in the collapsed building for hours, Sikder finally freed herself from the debris. Then she and other survivors struggled to find their way out through air that was dark and thick with dust. At each turn, it seemed, their exit was blocked by rubble.

"I saw many of my co-workers, trapped like a sandwich, one upon the other," Sikder said. "It's true that I survived, but I left many of my co-workers behind. I saw many of my co-workers die."

Finally, the group found a hole through which to escape. On the other side, rescuers were digging desperately through the rubble, pulling out bodies. Many of those who survived had to have limbs amputated.

Bangladeshi politicians decried the disaster and the owners were jailed. But the collapse fit an all-too-familiar pattern in the factories, which produce clothing for major brand names like Nike, JanSport and Gildan Activewear, which are licensed to produce college-logo merchandise for U.S. universities.

"Reba's story is one of many," said Kalpona Akter, leader of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, who accompanied Sikder on a tour of 11 college campuses. In the last eight years alone, more than 1,800 Bangladeshi garment workers have died in building collapses and factory fires, the center reports.

What's particularly tragic about Rana Plaza is that, the day before, workers identified cracks in the building and evacuated. The next day, they were told the structure had been inspected and was safe. Those who questioned that decision were threatened with firing.

"One of our production managers was slapping and telling the female workers to go inside," Sikder recalled.

The majority of Bangladesh's four million garment workers are young women, whose income is crucial to supporting their families. Sikder began working in the factories at age 14, with her first job paying $23 a month.

At Rana Plaza, she was earning $90 a month by working from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week.

Akter worked in the factories from the age of 12 until she was blacklisted for speaking out about safety conditions and other issues. She now works for an organization that supports union organizing and other collective action in Bangladesh.

"There is no doubt we need these (garment industry) jobs," Akter said. "But we want these to be jobs with dignity."

That's where students at the University of Minnesota and other U.S. campuses come in, by calling on their institutions to put pressure on the companies that produce the college-logo clothing, Akter said.

Specifically, she said, the manufacturers need to sign the Accord on Fire and Building Safety, a legally binding agreement designed to make all garment factories in Bangladesh safe workplaces. It includes independent safety inspections at factories and public reporting of the results of these inspections.

Where safety issues are identified, retailers commit to ensuring that repairs are carried out, that sufficient funds are made available to do so, and that workers at these factories continue to be paid a salary. The accord holds the major brands responsible for conditions at the factories that produce their clothing, even though they don't own the factories.

Not all major clothing brands signed the accord. Some, led by Walmart, drafted their own toothless set of principles for Bangladeshi subcontractors. Those principles have no enforcement, unlike the accord, which unions nationwide and in Bangladesh back.

The Bangladesh workers also seek compensation for the Rana Plaza collapse and other factory disasters. Nearly a year later, almost 200 workers are still missing.

Akter and Sikder met with a representative of the University of Minnesota to discuss licensing and got a sympathetic response but no commitment, Akter said. "We need your support," she told the students.

Recently, Duke University, the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and New York University announced they would require brands that manufacture their university apparel to sign the accord. So far, the combined force of student pressure and worker mobilization in the streets of Dhaka has compelled Adidas, Top of the World, Fruit of the Loom, Knights Apparel, and Zephyr Headwear to sign it. Further information about the Bangladeshi sweatshops is posted on the United Students Against Sweatshops website.

Photo: Reba Sikder and Kalpona Akter speak to students at the University of Minnesota. Workday Minnesota

Burlington community backs bus drivers

Wed, 26 Mar 2014 11:19:00 +0000

BURLINGTON, Vt. - As public transit ridership continues to reach ever higher user levels, Chittenden County Transportation Authority (CCTA) has opted to cripple a community by refusing to bargain in good faith with its bus route drivers. The drivers, all members of International Brotherhood of Teamsters, local 597, struck Mar. 17 after working without a contract since June, 2013.

While the company and the 13-person Board of Commissioners stall contract talks, workers are left without a ride to work, students are left without a ride to school, seniors are left at home without access to meals, medical treatment and social activities and drivers are left out in the cold.

In the press, CCTA is portraying the drivers as greedy. While the drivers are indeed trying to negotiate a modest pay increase, the union has repeatedly stated that the primary reason for the strike is the increasing driver intimidation and arbitrary disciplinary harassment by management. They finally struck after experiencing months of unwillingness by CCTA to address any of these work condition issues.

Drivers were instructed not to use the rest room facilities located in a management break area along a popular route, and are also forbidden from scheduling their own rest room breaks.

Another concern of both the drivers and community is how CCTA will grow as ridership continues to expand. CCTA management wants to increase the use of part time workers, reducing the availability of family-supporting jobs to the people of Vermont.

The use of "spread" or "split" shifts to withhold pay due to workers is another bone of contention. A worker is expected to arrive at his or her station prepared to service a route for several hours. He or she is then forced to take an extended break and then return to work later in the day to finish the shift. During this extended break in service the driver is not paid. Going home to relax is not an option, however. If a driver lives 20 miles out of the area, for example, Vermont winter weather could make it impossible to return to work on time.

The time that can lapse from the beginning of the first part of the shift to the end of the second part is 12.5 hours, making for what amounts to a long day for anyone assigned to such a split shift.

Both the drivers and CCTA agree the 12.5 hour spread is unreasonable but not for the same reasons. CCTA actually says it's not a long-enough spread and is seeking to extend the spread by another hour to make the workday 13.5 hours long. The CCTA position flies in the face of national safety standards concerning driver fatigue, and destroys drivers' family life.

Federal regulations for maximum time allowed behind the wheel don't apply to municipal transit, so the terms of the contract are the only way limit to unsafe spread times. Drivers contend that the sheer exhaustion resulting from a 13.5 hour workdays will lead to unsafe conditions with more fatigued and overworked drivers on the road.

The CCTA drivers are standing against these trends, and the local community is responding in support to prevent CCTA from destroying good full-time work, to limit unsafe spread time, and reverse the deteriorating working conditions.

The Vermont Central Labor Council (AFL CIO), UE Local 597, Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, Vermont State Employees' Association, Faculty Union of the University of Vermont, Champlain Valley Teacher Leaders, and the Vermont-National Education Association have all expressed solidarity and issued statements calling upon the CCTA Board of Commissioners to bargain in good faith.

Among local elected officials, the Vermont Progressive Party is taking action, while thus far the Democrats have been silent. On the very first day of the strike, Progressive City Councilors Vince Brennan, Rachel Siegel, Max Tracy, and Progressive Councilor-elect Selene Colburn issued an open letter to CCTA management in support of the bus drivers.

Rep. Susan Hatch Davis (P - Orange County), who is co-chair of the Legislative Working Vermonters Caucus, wrote to CCTA General Manager Bill Watterson: "Vermont needs more full time workers who can support families without having to juggle multiple jobs, not more part-time workers without benefits." She also called on management, "to deliver a fair contract that improves public safety and working conditions."

In a near-unanimous vote, Burlington school board members voted to stand with the drivers in their efforts, rather than to hire non-union workers during the strike. And Burlington high school students have delivered a petition to City Council in support of the drivers. In one day they amassed 500 signatures - almost half the student body. Later, more than 70 students joined the drivers on the picket line.

Jane Osgatharp, president of the Vermont Alliance for Retired Americans,sent a strong message to CCTA. In her press release, Osgatharp denounced CCTA management and the Board of Commissioners alike. Vermont Alliance for Retired Americans members may need more transportation services than other Burlington residents, but for now they are willing to support the picket line. Several members braved the cold to stand with the drivers at the beginning of their second week on strike.

The CCTA Drivers' have a support site at: http://support-ccta-drivers.weebly.com/

Photo: Jennifer Kenny/PW

Trumka says he'll back Obama on a new pro-worker trade policy

Tue, 25 Mar 2014 15:43:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) -- Declaring presidential "fast-track" trade authority dead, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is urging President Obama to construct a new trade policy, as part of larger pro-worker economic policy.

In a major speech on fast-track and trade, and in Q&A afterwards, Trumka called the president's current trade plan "dead on arrival" in the U.S. Senate because then-Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., couldn't find any other Democrats to support it on his panel, which writes trade laws.

Over in the GOP-run House, though Trumka did not say so, three-fourths (150) of House Democrats have abandoned the president's fast-track proposals, as have at least 28 Republicans.

The death of fast-track, Obama told the Center for American Progress, gives him the opportunity to construct a new trade policy to benefit workers in the U.S. and worldwide, that guarantees labor rights, that protects "buy America" federal, state and local rules and that is not tilted towards corporations, among other positive factors.

And when Obama agrees to go in that new direction, labor stands ready to work with him on crafting it, Trumka pledged. Organized labor is not against trade, he declared, but against unfair trade. "The question is how the U.S. engages in the global economy, and what it means for American workers and workers around the world," he explained.

Fast-track, formally called trade promotion authority, lets a president rush legislation implementing trade pacts through Congress. The danger with that approach, unions note, is that a president could decide to circumvent hearings at which the public might have input and avoid changes, including pro-labor amendments. Unions also feel that fast track could be used by a chief executive trying to avoid the issue of protection of labor rights by our trading partners.

Existing U.S. trade pacts, Trumka said, have also cost hundreds of thousands of jobs here at home and are a major factor in increasing U.S. income inequality.

U.S. trade officials and the business community that pushes fast-track and trade pacts don't consider these factors or take note of public opposition to unfair trade, Trumka said. "If you close your eyes and listen to their talk, you'd think it was 1999 or 1994," Trumka commented. "We can't enact a failed model" of trade policies or economic policies, he added.

The goal of any new trade policy, he added, "should be to create enforceable labor standards, environmental standards and consumer standards - and to structure the pacts to drive wages up." Past pacts, he said, drove wages down by encouraging corporations to offshore U.S. jobs unless workers agreed to much lower living standards.

Death of fast-track, Trumka said after the formal Q&A, also means two trade pacts President Obama is negotiating - one with 11 other Pacific Rim countries and the other with the 27-nation European Union - are dead in Congress, at least for this year. If fast-track were to pass, the president would submit legislation implementing the two.

Most of the criticism of those trade pacts has centered on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which includes extremely low-wage nations that lack worker rights. But Trumka said there are pitfalls in the proposed pact with Europe, too.

One is that big financial institutions "on both sides of the Atlantic" would use that pact to undermine central bank requirements that curb financiers' speculation. Such speculation, with shaky or no asset backing, led to the 2008 Great Recession, which cost workers millions of jobs in the U.S. and worldwide, he said.

"Our trading partners" over the last 20 years "pushed weak unions, low wages and subsidies for foreign investment - such as tax-free export zones. That gave us a global financial system" that produced the crash, he explained. The old model of trade pacts "fuels bubbles and busts. And ever since the 1980s, big business has looked offshore first, rather than America, as the place to invest."

A new trade policy would produce the opposite results, he declared. The federation has put together its own trade policy package and is touting it to lawmakers. It includes enforceable worker rights - including the right to organize - and continued central bank requirements for financiers to back their trading with capital.

It also would include preserving "buy America" laws, a ban on using government procurement rules as a way to undercut public servants' jobs through outsourcing and offshoring, and enforceable language saying that currency manipulation is an unfair trading practice that can be penalized.

That trade policy should be part of a wider Obama economic policy designed to benefit workers, not corporations, he said. "Its best advocate - on his better days - has been Obama," Trumka said, recalling the president's statements at a 2009 summit of industrial nations, held in Pittsburgh.

"But we need to pursue policies for a strong cycle of global growth," he said, "including a global New Deal to bring electricity, water, roads and the Internet" - among other infrastructure "to everyone worldwide."

That global growth policy would also focus on raising workers' wages, thus increasing living standards and purchasing power for all workers, in the U.S. and abroad, he added.

Photo: People's World Flickr

New York City settles suit by minority firemen

Mon, 24 Mar 2014 11:44:00 +0000

NEW YORK - Under the leadership of New York City's mayor, Bill de Blasio, a settlement has been reached in a discrimination suit filed by the Vulcan Society (representing minority firefighters) and the city over the use of racially based civil service tests that favored white applicants.

The case dates back to 2007 [billionaire Michael Bloomberg was mayor] when a federal court found the city guilty of using racially biased tests. The city did not accept the ruling and appealed. Now, acceptance of that ruling by Mayor de Blasio brings an end to what many saw as disgraceful discrimination by the city against minority firefighters and minority applicants for firefighter jobs.

There are some groups who still try and defend racist past practices, however. One example can be found in the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post, which claims, untruthfully, that de Blasio "snatched defeat from the jaws of victory." (What the paper is saying is that the city was about to have won its case when the mayor entered the fray and admitted the city had indeed discriminated against the minority firemen and job applicants.)

The New York Post editorial is a distortion of the facts.

In the first place there was no "victory" on the horizon. The editorial falsely claims that the "case had been moving in the FDNY's direction" because it was on appeal due to a finding that the judge handling it (Nicholas Garauflis) "had raised so much doubt about his impartiality that a key part of the case was assigned to another judge."

The Post adds, "Even so.... the city agreed to shell out $98 million in back pay, medical benefits and interest to the suing firefighters." The Post calls this "surrender."

Actually it was a victory for the FDNY and the city.

The Post's version is misleading as it gives the impression that the charge of "racism" against the FDNY was in doubt and only if that were true would the case be "moving in the FDNY's direction" and maybe the $98 million need not be "shelled out." What is the truth?

Judge Garauflis found the FDNY guilty of "unlawful disparate impact" with respect to its testing policy. This is a technical legal term but simply put it means that it is illegal to give civil service tests that don't really test for knowledge that is related to job performance and have a negative effect on groups of people by failing them so they can't get the job. In this case the test is illegal because it has nothing really to do with the job being tested for.

The FDNY's test was such a test and it can be called "racist" because it had the effect of preventing minorities in general from being employed by the department. Even after this was pointed out to the department it continued to use such tests-this is the reason for the suit. This finding was not questioned by the appeals court and the $98 million and other penalties were going to go into effect anyway.

What the appeals court objected to was Judge Garauflis' additional finding that the NYFD had intentionally designed the tests to be discriminatory. The appeals court appointed another judge to handle this issue. But it also left Judge Garauflis in charge of the financial and other penalties in the case so there was no "shelling out" of any monies by the mayor.

Why was the settlement a victory and not a "surrender."? Because the settlement entailed the city accepting the verdict of "unlawful disparate impact" which was not on appeal anyway and the Vulcan Society withdrew its complaint that this was the result of a deliberate plan to discriminate. Thus the appeal was ended.

The NYFD can feel, in some sense, vindicated because it can claim that it never
deliberately discriminated against minorities, and hence the city is not "racist" in that sense. It is also a victory for the people of New York City because when a racist practice, though unintended, is pointed out they have a mayor who moves to correct it rathe3r than to cover it up.

The only defeat here is the one suffered by The New York Post.

Photo: At the swearing in of new Probationary Firefighters. FDNY Facebook page.

Today in women's history: Redstockings holds abortion speak out

Sat, 22 Mar 2014 11:25:00 +0000

In 1969 members of the "second wave" radical feminist group Redstockings were furious that legislative hearings about abortion featured only male speakers. On March 21, of that year Redstockings organized a public hearing entitled an "Abortion Speak Out." Redstockings was started by Ellen Willis and Shulamith Firestone in February 1969 after the breakup of New York Radical Women.

The abortion debate at that time focused on rape, incest or the health of the mother. Radical women's groups like Redstocking helped to shift the debate to a woman's right to choose. The original Redstocking collective split up in 1970 but continued in various incarnations afterwards.

Photo: Wikipedia

Regulatory oversight weak in aftermath of Texas City oil plant blast

Fri, 21 Mar 2014 14:52:00 +0000

A PAI SPECIAL REPORT, PT. II:

WASHINGTON - The fatal BP oil refinery explosion in Texas City, Texas, in March 2005 reflected not just safety problems at the nation's oil refineries, but problems with refinery regulation - problems that continue.

The blast killed 15 people and injured 170 more. After investigation, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined BP a record total of $72 million in 2005 and 2009.

But the second segment of OSHA's fine was because BP didn't fix the problems at Texas City, which Marathon Oil now owns. And the lack of a fix is symptom of yet another problem: Inadequate oversight and regulation of the nation's refineries.

In mid-2009, top Obama Labor Department official Jordan Barab, a former union safety and health director, sent letters to management of more than 100 oil refineries nationally, critiquing them on process safety management (PSM), the top-to-bottom comprehensive review of all production processes at a plant, taken as a whole, to ensure they're safe.

His letters showed each refinery its PSM "compliance issues" and reminded them to obey PSM standards designed to make an entire plant, and all its systems, safer for workers. Barab pointed them towards OSHA directives on the issue or said they could contact local OSHA offices for guidance.

But OSHA is so short-staffed, say the Steel Workers, who represent the workers at Texas City and other refineries in the Houston-Galveston corridor, that an average U.S. refinery would get a PSM inspection once every 120 years.

"We initiated this National Emphasis Program to ensure that refineries develop and fully implement a safety management system that protects workers from serious incidents," Barab explained in releasing the letter. "Our inspection teams were repeatedly seeing the same problems at the refineries. We found it necessary to remind employers of the importance of compliance with OSHA standards that are designed to save workers' lives."

In short, it isn't just BP and Marathon, say both Barab and Kim Nibarger, the safety and health director for the oil workers' sector of USW. "Things are kind of regressing" in Texas City "and that's a pretty common industry trait. The problems are nationwide" Nibarger says.

Congress helps little, he adds. The oil industry "is extremely powerful and has a lot of politicians in their pocket. Poor OSHA: They're undermanned and underbudgeted."

The problem is bigger than the public suspects. The figure of "46 fires and explosions a year" USW cites comes from the industry's own reports to the feds. "Those are the self-reported fires. They don't count the ones they don't report," Nibarger adds laconically.

Nibarger said the Obama administration is trying to do something about safety and health problems at refineries, specifically citing the National Emphasis Program and an Obama executive order this past August covering refineries and other chemical plants.

The order set up a federal cabinet-level Chemical Facility Safety and Security Working Group "to create comprehensive and integrated standard operating procedures for a unified federal approach for identifying and responding to risks in chemical facilities," it says.

That includes risks "during pre-inspection, inspection execution, post-inspection, and post-accident investigation activities-incident reporting and response procedures, enforcement, and collection, storage, and use of facility information. This shall reflect best practices and shall include agency-to-agency referrals and joint inspection procedures where possible and appropriate," and "consultation...on post-accident response."

A second large accident in 2012, in Richmond, Calif., killed nobody, but 15,000 area residents needed medical treatment. Gov. Jerry Brown, D-Calif., then commissioned an interagency report on safety, health and environmental hazards from refineries there.

"Gaps in the regulatory schemes exist, including limitations on their ability to cover all aspects of process safety and the extent to which they are enforceable," the California report says. "Regulatory agencies face multiple issues relating to inspection and enforcement capabilities including: Difficulty in hiring, retaining, and training inspectors; lack of mechanisms for information sharing and coordination; deficiencies in data and transparency; and insufficient penalties to create meaningful deterrence."

California's OSHA is short-staffed, too. The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility asked federal OSHA earlier this year to move against Cal/OSHA's short-staffing, which flunks federal standards. The state has 170 job safety and health inspectors for 18.6 million workers, including refinery workers.

Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute - the oil industry's lobby - defends his members' safety record. Gerard says independent outside auditors review the industry's safety standards and best practices. He adds the oil companies, including BP and Marathon, are constantly upgrading their plants and that API "does not play to the lowest common denominator."

And "what regulators do is adopt our standards," Gerard says. "So as we continue to improve our (safety) technology, they pick it up and make it a rigorous standard." Critics dispute that conclusion. They say the regulated industry is co-opting regulators.

And refinery explosions and accidents, unless they're big and dangerous, don't get publicity, which is often the most valuable deterrent. "The more the public knows about how these facilities are being run, the more pressure shines on them to make sure" there's no backsliding after accidents and that they're run right in the first place, Nibarger says.

Photo: USW Local 13-1 Facebook page.

Lawmakers unveil bill to hold employers responsible for supervisors’ sexual harassment

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 13:04:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - A coalition of congressional Democrats, backed by much of organized labor, introduced legislation on Mar. 14 to hold employers responsible for their lower-level supervisors' sexual harassment of workers on the job.

The Fair Employment Protection Act would overturn a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limits employer responsibility for sexual harassment. The court said that if supervisors who direct employees' daily work, but do not have the power to hire, fire or discipline workers, harass the workers, then the employer is not legally responsible for the supervisors' actions.

The new measure would make the employer responsible for those low-level supervisors' harassment, in suits under civil rights laws. It would not change who is a "supervisor" under federal labor law.

Unions backing the measure include the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the Communications Workers, the National Consumers League, AFSCME, the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees, the Teachers, the UAW, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the National Education Association, Restaurant Opportunity Centers United, Unite Here, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and Working America.

"Workplace harassment remains an unacceptable reality that threatens the economic security of far too many people, particularly women, working to build a better future for themselves and their families," said the lead Senate sponsor, Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis. "Harassment has no place in the workplace and should never impede economic success."

The bill, whose House sponsors are Reps. George Miller, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the Education and the Workforce Committee, and influential Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut would "restore important workplace protections, move this issue forward, and help provide American workers the level playing field they deserve," Baldwin added.

The legislation corrects the court's decision in a case involving Ball State University in Indiana, which the five-man GOP-named Supreme Court majority extended to all employers. Overruling the court, the legislation says a supervisor is, under civil rights laws, someone "in charge of an employee's daily work activities, thus able to reassign an employee whom they are harassing," a fact sheet says.

That's the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guideline for who is a supervisor that the justices overturned. "The bill is consistent with years of EEOC guidance on employer liability and has been endorsed by many of the nation's largest civil rights and labor organizations," the fact sheet adds.

Other backers include the National Partnership for Women & Families, 9to5, the Labor Project for Working Families, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Legal Momentum, MALDEF, MomsRising, CASA de Maryland, the NAACP and its legal defense fund, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, National Council of Jewish Women, National Council of La Raza, the National Employment Law Project, the National Organization for Women, the National Women's Law Center, Wider Opportunities for Women and the Women's Law Project.

Debra Ness, the National Partnership's executive director, called the new legislation "a badly needed step toward restoring essential protections for workers who face harassment from supervisors on the job. The Supreme Court eroded those protections in its troubling decision last year. This legislation is needed to enable victims of supervisor harassment of all kinds to hold their employers accountable.

"No one should face harassment at work, especially at the hands of the very people who have the power to control their day-to-day work and inflict harm," she stated.

Photo: Steven Senne/AP

The BP Texas City oil plant blast: What’s changed and what hasn’t

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 12:40:00 +0000

A PAI SPECIAL REPORT, PART I:

TEXAS CITY, Texas - Nine years ago, on March 23, 2005, the British Petroleum oil refinery in Texas City, Texas, an hour south of Houston, in so many words, blew up.

The hydrocarbon vapor cloud explosion after liquid overflow from an old blowdown stack there killed 15 people, injured 170 more and exposed numerous flaws in the nation's refineries, many of them, like the BP plant, lining the Texas Ship Channel from Galveston to Houston. It also exposed flaws in job safety agencies.

In the weeks after the explosion at the plant, the third-largest refinery in the U.S., the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) launched a comprehensive investigation of what went wrong. So did the independent U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazards Board (CSB). So, under pressure, did BP. So did the Steelworkers, who represent the unionized workers at Texas City and other area refineries.

What various probes found was appalling. And in the years since the blast, some things have changed in terms of safety and health at oil refineries - and much hasn't. Key findings include, but are not limited to:

BP management consistently emphasized output over safety. Citing management's absolute refusal to bargain on safety issues in contract talks, the Steelworkers say that attitude permeates the petrochemical industry, including BP's successor at the plant, Marathon Oil.

The oil industry had and still has a self-reported safety record of an accident each week. A few are fatal. All cause millions in damage. Many cause injuries.

Several years after Texas City, a Tesoro refinery in Washington State blew up, killing eight workers. An Aug. 2012 catastrophic pipe failure released a hot vapor cloud of flammable fluid from a Chevron plant in Richmond, Calif.

Nineteen workers barely escaped serious injury and death and 15,000 people in the surrounding areas needed medical treatment. A June 2013 explosion of a vapor cloud of flammable petroleum gases at a Louisiana plant released more than 62,000 pounds of toxic chemicals, caused a serious fire, killed two workers and injured more than 100 people. Those are the most-obvious examples.

Many oil plant workers, including dozens at Texas City, are non-union contract workers, and ill-trained. That's continued under Marathon. Trailers for and operations at Texas City were too close to dangerous storage tanks and machinery, including the explosion site.

Understaffing at OSHA was and is part of the problem. Texas City never had a top-to-bottom Process Safety Management (PSM) inspection of all its refinery systems, their safety and how they interacted. OSHA is so short of qualified inspectors that the average U.S. refinery would get a PSM inspection every 120 years.

The petrochemical industry claims it operates safely. Its lobby, the American Petroleum Institute, points to low fatality rates and small releases of toxic gases and liquids. API overlooks the fact that in such self-reporting to OSHA, refineries routinely underreport what actually happens, independent studies show. And API has stonewalled the Steel Workers in negotiations, union leaders say.

All this is important. The U.S. economy still runs on petroleum products and refinery disasters not only kill and injure people and cause billions of dollars in damage but also cramp the nation's capacity to produce gasoline, heating oil, diesel fuel, jet fuel and hydrocarbons that go into everything from plastic wrap to pipes and tubing.

Workers talk about current conditions

In an interview with Press Associates Union News Service, members of Steelworkers Local 13-1, the local for union workers at Texas City and other area plants, described the conditions there now, what improved just after the explosion - and the backsliding since.

Dale Battista, Greg Lahner, Earl Reed, John Madden, Laura McCollum, Laurie Kelso and Kim Stein are all heavily involved in job safety and health issues at the plant as local leaders, inspectors and members of the local's safety and health committee. One was the union's representative on the independent investigation panel BP was forced to name after the 2005 blast.

In the immediate months after the explosion and the investigations, the workers told PAI, "we wrote 20 process safety management policies for the plant, straight from the OSHA handbook - and started with employee participation."

Federal law requires workers have a voice on health and safety issues, especially when an accident occurs, and often the union is that voice. It also requires firms conduct health and safety programs and training in consultation and cooperation with their workers.

For a while, as long as OSHA kept sending monthly inspectors and as long as the independent chemical board was probing, BP grudgingly followed safety recommendations. There have been no job safety deaths at Texas City since 2005. But OSHA had to further fine BP in 2009 because the oil giant still failed to fulfill many of the safety measures.

And what the USW members at Texas City told PAI was that even before BP sold the plant to Marathon, the oil giant was reneging on consultation and cooperation. "In 2011, they stopped doing top training" of plant workers on safety and health issues at the aging refinery, Lahner said. "We said 'Good God.'"

The response, first from BP and later from Marathon, was, in essence "the regulators are off our backs" after OSHA's record-breaking fines against BP - $72 million combined in 2005 and 2009 - and after the independent Chemical Safety Board closed its investigation, too, he added.

"When they closed the OSHA settlement agreement, then things started to take a dive. Up until then, we met with OSHA once a month and BP had to give progress reports," said McCollum. "When the feds went away and the CSB closed its investigation," BP started to let things slide.

Things got only worse when BP sold the Texas City plant to Marathon. "Everybody heard Marathon say 'We're not BP. We don't have to do it that way,'" another worker said, referring to agreements BP made for improvements.

"Employee participation was good, but when Marathon came in, they didn't respect it at all," Lahner says. Adds another worker: "We've heard they're not reporting things they should," especially hazards in primary containment vessels.

One symbol of the continued safety problems at Texas City: Post-blast photos showed the trailers that housed workers and services torn to shreds. The trailers were too close to dangerous facilities and flying shards of metal and glass from the trailers injured dozens. Marathon has replaced the trailers, one worker told PAI-with tents.

"The API says tents won't crush us, but API doesn't address flying objects" from explosions "and numerous people have gotten hurt since," another adds. Marathon often threatens discipline or retaliation against workers who raise safety questions, they told PAI.

Things are so bad that local 13-1 contacted not just OSHA, but the National Labor Relations Board. It told NLRB's regional office Marathon is violating the safety agreement with the local, which it inherited, by barring union participation in safety inspections.

Marathon's reaction? "If we strike" over safety issues, the firm "has already told us they're going to bring in replacement workers," Lahner says. "Now we're back at the point where our program is just correcting hazards and assessing risks. And they" - Marathon - "want to blame the workers," he says.

Photo: Before this 2005 blast killed 15 workers and injured 170, an internal BP report had said that workers at the Texas City plant had "an exceptional degree of fear." One worker had died at the plant about every 18 months for the previous 30 years. In 2002, the company decided not to upgrade key safety equipment in order to save $150,000. Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica.org

Today in women's history: Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes "Uncle Tom's Cabin"

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 11:55:00 +0000

On March 20, 1852, author Harriet Beecher Stowe published the best-selling novel of the 19th century - anti-slavery book Uncle Tom's Cabin. It story depicts the reality of slavery, revolving around the character of Uncle Tom, an African American slave. The impact of the novel is considered to be great; it is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist movement.

Stowe was born in Litchfield, Connecticut on June 14, 1811. She spent time as a teacher and was highly active in the abolition movement. She and husband Calvin Ellis Stowe supported the Underground Railroad and temporarily housed fugitive slaves in their home.

Stowe went on to write over 20 books, including novels, travel memoirs, articles, and letters. She died on July 1, 1896, in Hartford, Connecticut. Today, she has multiple landmarks dedicated to her, including the Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Cincinnati, Ohio - a historical site that was once the home of her father; and another site with the same name in Brunswick, Maine, which is where Stowe lived when she first wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Photo: Illustration from an 1853 edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Wikipedia (CC)

Today in women’s history: Hull House co-founder Ellen Starr born

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 16:46:00 +0000

Ellen Gates Starr was born in Laona, Ill., on March 19, 1859. She was a student at the Rockford Female Seminary (1877-78), where she met Jane Addams; their friendship lasted many years. Some historians have suggested that Starr was a lesbian who had a relationship with Addams. Starr taught for ten years in Chicago and Mount Morris, Ill., before joining Addams in 1888 for a tour of Europe. While in London, they were inspired by the success of the English Settlement movement and became determined to establish a similar social settlement in Chicago, where Starr had been teaching.

According to about.com:

They found an old mansion that had become used for storage, originally owned by the Hull family - thus, Hull House. They took up residence on September 18, 1889, and began "settling" in with the neighbors, to experiment with how to best serve the people there, mostly poor and working class families.

Starr led reading groups and lectures, on the principle that education would help uplift the poor and those who worked at low wages. She taught labor reform ideas, but also literature and art. She organized art exhibits. In 1894, she founded the Chicago Public School Art Society to get art into public school classrooms. She traveled to London to learn bookbinding, becoming an advocate for the handicrafts as a source of pride and meaning. She tried to open a bookbindery at Hull House, but it was one of the failed experiments.

Starr also read such authors as Charles Dickens and John Ruskin, and began shaping her own ideas about labor and other social reforms. She became more involved in labor issues in the area, involving immigrants, child labor and safety in the factories and sweatshops in the neighborhood.

In 1896, Starr joined the garment workers' strike in support of the workers. She was a founding member of the Chicago chapter of the Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) in 1904. In that organization, she, like many other educated women, worked in solidarity with the often-uneducated women factory workers, supporting their strikes, helping them file complaints, raising funds for food and milk, writing articles and otherwise publicizing their conditions to the wider world.

In 1914, in a strike against Henrici Restaurant, Starr was among those arrested for disorderly conduct. She was charged with interfering with a police officer, who claimed she had used violence against him and "tried to frighten him" by telling him to "leave them girls be!" She, a frail woman of at best a hundred pounds, did not look to those in court like someone who could frighten a policeman from his duties, and she was acquitted.

Starr joined the Socialist Party in 1911 and was a candidate in the 19^thward for the alderman's seat on the Socialist ticket. As a woman and a Socialist, she did not expect to win, but used her campaign to draw connections between her Christianity and Socialism, and to advocate for more fair working conditions and treatment of all. She was active with the Socialists until 1928.

Addams and Starr disagreed about religion, as Starr moved from her Unitarian roots in a spiritual journey that took her to conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1920.

She withdrew from public view as her health grew poorer. A spinal abscess led to surgery in 1929, and she was paralyzed after the operation. Hull House was not equipped or staffed for the level of care that she needed, so she moved to the Convent of the Holy Child in Suffern, N.Y. She was able to read and paint and maintain a correspondence, remaining at the convent until her death in 1940.

Photo: Ellen Gates Starr in 1914 (Chicago Daily News/Wikipedia).

Nationwide, workers lead local movements to raise wages

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 15:30:00 +0000

In addition to the growing effort to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, working families across the country have been leading movements to raise wages at the state and local level.

The federal minimum wage has remained $7.25 an hour since 2009 and wages for tipped workers have been frozen at $2.13 an hour since 1991. Against that backdrop, workers, often led by local labor movements, are moving their own efforts to increase the minimum wage in several states, even where the state minimum wage is higher than the national. Coalitions across the country are working to raise wages in a variety of forms, some examples of local movements to raise wages are listed below:

Alaska: Over 43,000 signatures were collected in support of a ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage to $9.75 over two years, with an annual adjustment for inflation. Alaskans will vote on the initiative in August.

Arkansas: A coalition including labor and community group are campaigning for a ballot measure that would eventually raise the minimum wage from $6.25 to $8.50 in steps over the next three years.

Connecticut: Labor groups applauded Governor Dannel P. Malloy's proposal to increase the state minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. Student and community groups have testified in support of the bill as it makes its way through the legislative process. The bill would include tipped workers.

Iowa: Sen. Tom Harkin is the author of the federal legislation, and workers in his home state are also pushing for a bill to increase the state minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. Community members have adopted the cry, "We can't survive on $7.25!"

Idaho: Labor and community groups have joined together to spearhead a push to raise the minimum wage through the legislature in Idaho. The state has the highest percentage of minimum wage workers in the country.

Los Angeles: The Raise L.A. campaign is focusing on raising the wages of hotel workers to $15 an hour. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor has invited Pope Francis to come to L.A. to help champion economic equality for low wage workers.

Massachusetts: Last year, workers and community members joined together as the Raise Up Massachusetts coalition to collect 275,000 signatures to put a minimum wage increase on the 2014 ballot. This spring, they are organizing community meetings and lobby days to ask legislators to pass a minimum wage increase in addition to earned sick time.

Minnesota: An active coalition of faith, labor, and community organizations is working to pass a bill to raise the state minimum wage to $9.50 by 2015 with future increases indexed to inflation. In February, Working America held their Minimum Wage Challenge Week, in which five lawmakers struggled to live on minimum wage for a week.

Missouri: A bill to increase the minimum wage to $10 an hour is currently active in the state senate. Low wage and tipped workers organized to turn out and testify at a critical hearing, helping the bill pass out of committee.

New Hampshire: In New Hampshire, the local labor movement has named raising the minimum wage one of their top priorities for 2014. They are actively working with community allies to push a bill that would raise the minimum wage to $9.00 an hour.

Pennsylvania: A coalition of labor unions, clergy, community, and women's organizations gathered at the state capitol just this week to launch the campaign to raise Pennsylvania's minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. Bills are currently pending in the state legislature. The coalition plans an aggressive grassroots mobilization to make minimum wage a center issue in the fall elections.

Seattle: Workers and community members in Seattle are aiming to replicate the success of neighboring SeaTac with an effort to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour across the city. Washington State has the highest minimum wage in the country at $9.19 an hour. Hundreds have turned out to rallies and city council meetings to show their support for the measure.

South Dakota: TheSouth Dakota AFL-CIO along with working families succeeded in getting a minimum wage increase on the ballot that will be voted on in November. The measure would raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.50 and increase annually based on cost of living - it would also include an increase for tipped workers.

West Virginia - The West Virginia AFL-CIO led a successful campaign to increase the state minimum wage. The bill has been passed by the legislature and sent to the Governor and would increase the state minimum wage to $8.00 to $8.75. The bill will also include an increase in the minimum wage for tipped workers.

Photo: Huy Richard Mach/AP

Fast food workers protest wage theft

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 13:11:00 +0000

"Hold the burgers, hold the fries. Pay our wages, no more lies."

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Elected officials, clergy, community, and union members joined in a spirited protest outside the McDonalds in this city's Fair Haven neighborhood Mar. 18.

Just days after the filing of class-action lawsuits in three states claiming that McDonald's is deliberately and systematically stealing employees' pay, workers here and in Hartford, Conn. joined people in 40 other cities nationwide to demand that the burger giant stop stealing wages.

The lawsuits contend that employees at McDonald's have been forced to work off the clock through breaks, slashing hours off their time sheets and dollars off their paychecks - in many cases pushing wages below the $7.25 hourly federal minimum.

"I have worked off the clock" said Kevin Cottes. "That happens to everybody in fast food. That's why I'm out here today," said Cottes, who has worked for Subway for two years and still earns Connecticut's minimum wage of $8.70 an hour. "I don't get breaks. I don't get sick leave. I can't afford to take a vacation," he says. His work schedule varies from week to week. Cottes got involved with fast food workers' organizing, he said, when customers told him, "You work too hard."

While the protest targeted wage theft - failing to pay employees for working through breaks or extra hours - low pay and lack of union representation were also highlighted by the protesters.

Santiago Berrios-Bones, who represents the neighborhood around the McDonalds on the New Haven Board of Alders (City Council), told the crowd, "Workers need a raise to make it in this economy and we support them." Two other members of the Board of Alders also attended.

Union and community leader Rev. Scott Marks spoke of the undocumented workers in the Fair Haven neighborhood who, he said, "...live in the shadows. But all humans have rights. Eight dollars an hour is not enough. You can't feed your children on eight dollars an hour. You can't pay the rent on eight dollars an hour. You can't raise families on eight dollars an hour."

In New York yesterday, McDonald's workers and supporters poured into the burger giant's outlet near the Empire State Building chanting, "Every nickel, every dime, we deserve our overtime." One demonstrator dressed as Ronald McDonald, was put in handcuffs and "arrested" by fellow workers right at the cash registers in front of the store.

Outside the store workers and their supporters spoke before TV cameras. New York City public advocate Letitia James, standing next to "Ronald McDonald," declared her support, saying "It's hard enough for fast food workers to survive in this economy" without having to contend, in addition with wage theft. James said she is planning to introduce legislation to establish a hotline to report wage theft.

On the same day that the workers in New York were protesting New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced that one McDonald's franchisee, Richard Cisneros, had settled for $500,000 after failing to reimburse workers for laundering their uniforms. Workers say that many other franchise owners continue to get away with the type of wage theft Cisneros was practicing.

The actions on wage theft are part of a continuing effort by grass roots workers groups like Fast Food Forward and Fight for 15 to build support for a pay raise to $15 an hour.

The Service Employees International Union and other labor unions have been backing the campaign which began in 2012.

McDonald's, which has more than 14,000 locations across the country, has not outright denied that there may be some wage theft occurring. The company says it is planning to "investigate" the matter.

A hotline number is available in Connecticut for anyone experiencing wage theft - 860-469-2433.

Photo: New Haven, Conn. elected officials and community activists join fast food workers protesting low wages and wage theft at McDonalds. Art Perlo/PW

Mailman wonders how he made it through the winter

Tue, 18 Mar 2014 15:56:00 +0000

ROYAL OAK, Mich. - I begin my ritual. To the left rests a pair of needle nosed pliers and a flat headed screwdriver. To the right sits a vessel of amber fluid bubbling with anticipation. Every ceremony needs a sacrament, and mine comes with a yeasty, malty holiness. Between the two, spread out on the altar of my basement workbench, are the reasons for this rite. I run my fingers over the flattened, smooth steel protruding from the stiff, heavy plastic soles. Just two days earlier these were fresh steel hex screws shining brilliantly. Seventeen screws under each of my feet guiding me safely from house to house. Now most have been shaven flat from the constant grind of foot to ice or snow or step or cement. Within two or three days this metal has met its match and I am forced by the will of nature to repeat this liturgy. I talk to the screws: "I pray that you will bring me home safely tomorrow." Then I take a drink. When the right shoe is done, I repeat with the left one. My favorite is the left. I again bless that sole and take another quaff of the holy sacrament. This winter, I have found religion in the form of two simple household tools and a box of steel screws. Oh, and some beer.

Two words sum up this winter for me: brutal and relentless.

A National Weather Service meteorologist has given Metro Detroit the number # 1 ranking in its "misery index." Detroit has had 90.6 inches of snow so far this season; only 3 inches away from the all-time recorded total. We have had over 100 days of below freezing temperatures, and too many days of single-digit to subzero temps. Detroit has had its harshest winter since 1950. In a recent article, the Associated Press says that Detroit is experiencing the most extreme weather of any city in the country. And I deliver mail on foot, house to house, six days a week. That probably explains why I talk to my shoes. I may be somewhat delirious.

When I see the metal from my safety footwear grinding down to a nub, it helps me to appreciate the aches and pains of my knees, back, and hands. This human body is amazing, and even in my 50s I am in awe of how much punishment this shell of skin and bones can endure. My brother asked me last week how I do this job day in and day out with this harshest of weather conditions. My reply, "I don't know how I do it. I ask myself that same question at the end of every day." My fellow carriers and I delivered the U.S. mails every day this winter. We were given no snow days. We were given no administrative leave. We were expected to come to work and complete our assignments each and every day this winter. That is our job. That is our commitment to the American public. That is the mission I signed onto when taking my oath as a USPS letter carrier.

The trick to making it through these brutal days - for instance one day it was a high temperature of -7 degrees - is to play mental gymnastics with your psyche. You know, mind games. I bring a hot thermos of joe along with me and tell myself, "Get through the next 15 minutes and you get a slug of java." Get through the next 15 minutes and I get to blow my nose. If I make it to noon I'll find a bathroom and relieve myself! Little rewards with big mental payoffs.

The other fundamental element to getting through the worst of days is the response and respect I receive from my wonderful patrons. On this most hellish of days the Lynch girls, eight and 10, home from school because of the weather, greeted me at their door with a carafe of hot cocoa. "Mailman John, we want you to be warm so we made some hot chocolate for you." It wasn't the delicious drink that made me warm that moment. It was the sincere and caring sparkle in those little girls' eyes that ignited a bundle of tinder in my soul and gave me the inspiration to deliver more mail that day. This winter has been brutal, the worst in a lifetime. But yet I still feel blessed to walk these streets, even in a foot of snow and ice. I have a job with benefits and a retirement package. I have health and life insurance and paid days off. I have a strong union that fights for all workers' rights. I have a wife who retired as a letter carrier after 31 years of service and gives me deep spiritual support. I come home each day to a pantry filled with food and a bubbly cold libation to go along with it. When the snow is coming down one inch per hour and the wind is blowing at thirty miles per hour, this is my mantra; I am blessed. I am working, albeit not in the conditions I would choose, but nevertheless, I am working. I would be more stressed if my house payment was two months behind and my family could not afford to go to a doctor. I would be more stressed if a food bank was my option for putting nourishment on my table. And I would be completely overwhelmed if I was in a position of long term unemployment and my bare minimum of subsistence payments was terminated by the government. I am blessed to walk these wintry streets.

Unfortunately, the United States Postal Service does not feel as blessed as I do these days.

We had a tremendous Christmas season this year. Our parcel business grew dramatically in 2013 and for the fiscal quarter that ended December 31, 2013, we showed an operating profit of $765 million in just three months. The previous year, 2012, we had profits of $623 million for the whole year. These are astonishingly great figures of financial strength and should be heralded as a turnaround for our much beleaguered institution. Our postal unions made positive media alerts to announce this great news. But what did the USPS do with these figures? They made us watch an educational video from Postmaster General Donahoe, as well as flooded the media circuits with reports of impending doom and gloom. The Spin-doctor General reported that we lost close to $5 billion (yes, "b" as in billion). He announced that unless we get legislative relief in the form of a bill named S 1486 (The Postal Reform Act of 2014), the ship is sinking and we have run out of lifeboats. Here's the rub. The $5 billion loss is a paper loss. The money was never paid out. This loss goes back to the health care prefunding mandate fiasco. Without that 2006 mandate to pre-fund retiree health costs for 75 years, the Postal Service would have either broken even or made a profit for the last eight years. The reality is that the Postal Service has $50 billion stashed into its health care fund, enough for the next 40 years at least. The Postal Service has not paid any money into this fund for the last two years, but still uses this as a paper loss for accounting purposes. The big question is what is the motivation for this "spin" from USPS upper management?

In October of last year, I just happened to be sitting at a table with the Spin-doctor General at an awards luncheon in Washington. He was a jovial guy and actually grabbed my wife's camera and took our picture. I had a chance to address the crowd of dignitaries and expressed my concerns for the future of the Postal Service. Afterwards, Mr. Donahoe took me aside and assured me that he was doing everything in his power to save the Service so that we would not face bankruptcy like the "Big Three" car companies in Detroit. He told me that the Service needed to remain a public institution and never should it be privatized. He seemed sincere. Then again, I am a notorious bad judge of character.

This Senate bill S 1486 has the ability to end Saturday delivery and end the door-to-door delivery that our country relies on. It would cut into workers compensation benefits and allow the closure of more mail processing facilities. It would kill jobs and slow the mail service. It is a slash-and-burn solution to a problem that does not even exist. Our Postmaster General supports this bill, as well as many of our political foes and allies. My own senator, Carl Levin voted to push this bill out of committee and onto the Senate floor for consideration for a vote soon.

It is imperative that you do what you can as a citizen to understand the importance of this issue.

And please support S 316, the Postal Service Protection Act (Sanders, I-Vt.) and HR 630 (DeFazio, D-Ore.), two bills that were recently introduced in Congress. They address all the real concerns facing the Postal Service.

It is the simple tasks that keep us sane. I feel an anger rising up in me as I write this. It is time I go down to the basement for a rap session with my winter safety shoes. A screwdriver, a pair of pliers, and a box of screws is calling my name. Oh yes, and a lovely mug of suds. I'll be alright.

Photo: Matt Spiel CC

Today in women’s history: Betty Allen, steel town to opera, is born

Mon, 17 Mar 2014 13:43:00 +0000

Betty Allen, opera mezzo-soprano, daughter of a steelworker and a mother who took in laundry, was born March 17, 1927, in Campbell, Ohio, near Youngstown. Allen, along with her college classmate Leontyne Price, was part of the first wave of African American singers to appear on the world's leading opera stages after World War II.

Allen's father was a college educated math teacher who worked in a steel mill because racism prevented him from being hired in the public school system during the 1930s.

Growing up in a working class community, Elizabeth Louise (Betty Lou) Allen heard opera on the streets, from neighbors' radios.

"The families on my street were mostly Sicilian and Greek," she told The New York Times in 1999. "On Saturday, walking down the street, you could hear the Met (Metropolitan Opera) broadcasts coming from the windows of everybody's house. No one told them that opera and the arts were not for them, not for poor people, just for rich snobs."

After her mother died when Allen was 12, and her father became depressed and began drinking heavily, Allen went on her own to Youngstown and asked a judge to place her for adoption. "That judge didn't know what to do with me," she later told The Times. "You see, in those days, there was no orphanage for black children. You either had to be put in a detention home or you were put in a foster home. I chose to be put in foster homes."

Allen had a very rough time in a series of foster homes with both white and black foster parents. At 16, she moved into the Youngstown YWCA and supported herself by cleaning houses. She won a scholarship to all-black Wilberforce College in Wilberforce, Ohio, where, through the encouragement of a mentor teacher, she started on the path leading to her opera career.

From the 1950s to the 1970s Allen sang with the New York City Opera, the Metropolitan Opera and other opera companies around the U.S. and abroad. She performed frequently with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Allen's singing career was cut short by chronic lung problems which she blamed on her childhood exposure to the steel mills.

She became a noted music educator, teaching at the Manhattan School of Music from 1969 until her death in 2009. A longtime resident of Harlem, Allen was an advocate for that community and served for 13 years as director and then president of the Harlem School for the Arts.

Photo: Betty Allen. Wikipedia