People Before Profit blog

New York City transport workers rally for contract

Fri, 01 Nov 2013 14:23:00 +0000

NEW YORK - On the evening of Oct. 25, lower Broadway here became a sea of green as thousands of transport workers wearing green hats filled the street in front of the headquarters of their employer, the New York City Transit division of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, to rally for a good contract. The workers were members of TWU Local 100, which represents New York City's bus and subway workers.

Chanting "no contract no peace" the assembled transport workers, filled the area in front of the NYCT headquarters, extended down Broadway and continued down Broad Street.

The rally featured music and the workers heard the union's leaders giving voice to the resolve to accept, "no zeros," referring to managements demand for a wage freeze.

The protest was timed to coincide with the first year anniversary of the Hurricane Sandy that, in addition to other damage, devastated the New York City subway system. In the wake of the hurricane the transit workforce played a vital role in restoring the system, however management took all the credit.

As far as the workers and their leaders see it management's failure to negotiate a fair contract illustrates their complete contempt for the people whose work they want to take all the credit for.

The workers have been without a new contract, and any wage increase, since the expiration of the last one almost two years ago. The employer has not backed off some outrageous demands, including a three year wage freeze for incumbents, inferior wages and benefits for new hires, reduction of the wages of cleaners who already are among the lowest paid of the transit authority's workforce, reducing the size of train crews, hiring part-time bus operators and self funded medical benefits. In other words, the MTA is saying transport workers must "pay" for any raises subsequent to the freeze company is demanding.

For their part the transport workers are firmly rejecting management's demands for a wage freeze.

Photo: (PW/Elena Mora)

Today in labor history: Seminole Indian resistance came to a head

Fri, 01 Nov 2013 13:40:00 +0000

On this day in 1836, the Seminole - an amalgamation of various groups of Native Americans and Africans that settled in Florida in the early 18^th century - entered into a war with the United States Army after attempts by the U.S. to forcibly take their land caused major conflict.

Such conflict was initially the result of tensions between the Seminole and then-General Andrew Jackson in 1816, when Jackson attacked Fort Gadsden, then known as Negro Fort. Seminoles that survived that attack were put into slavery.

The resistance was led by Osceola. Conflict carried on until the war ended in August 1842, when the Indians were force-marched to Oklahoma.

Photo: The Seminole lead an attack. Wikimedia.org (CC)

Today in labor history: Earl Lloyd became the first black player in NBA

Thu, 31 Oct 2013 14:38:00 +0000

On this day in 1950 Earl Lloyd became the first African American player in the NBA. Born in Virginia, Lloyd attended West Virginia state. He was selected in the 9th round NBA draft.

That year 3 other black players also played on NBA teams: Nathaniel Clifton, Chuck Cooper, and Hank DeZonie.

Lloyd played seven games before being drafted to fight in the Korean War. In 1970 the 6' 5'' player became the first black head coach of an NBA team, the Detroit Pistons. He was inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame in in 2003.

D.C. taxi drivers join Teamsters

Thu, 31 Oct 2013 12:55:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - In the latest instance of a group of low-wage, hard-to-organize workers banding together and joining unions, taxi drivers in Washington, D.C., are joining Teamsters Local 922.

In a mass meeting at the Teamsters local's hall in the industrial Northeastern section of the Nation's Capitol, the taxi drivers spoke about their problems on the job: Having to pay for their own tires, insurance and maintenance as "independent contractors," as owners or while leasing their taxis.

Despite that, they're still under control of the taxi companies. The typical driver works 16-hour days, seven days a week and nets $25,000-$30,000 yearly.

At least 1,000 of the 6,000 taxi drivers in D.C. have signed up to join the association and the local. They want to claim "a united, collective voice for positive change in their industry," the union said.

New taxi rules in D.C., including a recent change to meters, D.C. Taxi Commission orders that all cabbies must take credit cards as well as cash, and requirements to have the cabbies replace their dome lights - at their expense - and repaint all their cabs in a red-and-gray scheme, also prompted the move.

"The drivers approached the Teamsters because they need to have input on regulations before they take effect. They want a stronger voice and more representation on the taxi commission," the union said.

Photo: A taxi in D.C. AP

Perez: Cut poverty? Among other things, strengthen unions

Thu, 31 Oct 2013 12:45:00 +0000

If you want to cut poverty in the U.S., one big way is strengthen unions.

That's the word from new Obama administration Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, speaking at a recent conference hosted by the progressive think tank, the Center for American Progress. Below are excerpts of his address:

"Of course, the best anti-poverty program is the availability of good jobs. That's why the president is calling for major investments in technology, manufacturing and education. That's why he wants to upgrade our infrastructure to create opportunities for good middle-class work" as GOP President Eisenhower did in highways in the 1950s.

"We also need skilled, trained workers to fill those jobs...We are making unprecedented investments, working with partners like our community colleges, to build a workforce development system that is aligned with the needs of employers.

"But as we take on poverty, we have to have a short and a long game. There are some singles and doubles that we can hit right now, but we also need to be ambitious in our pursuit of long-range goals...Change takes time. Let's start laying the groundwork for big ideas so that we're able to strike when the iron is hot.

"Let me add that any anti-poverty approach must raise up the rights of workers to join a union and bargain collectively for higher wages and better working conditions.

"There is an undeniable relationship-not just correlation, but direct causation - between declining poverty and the strength of the labor movement. It just stands to reason: When workers have a strong voice and a seat at the table, they are able to bargain for their fair share of the value they help to create.

"But when someone muzzles that voice and cuts off the legs of that seat, that's when you see stagnant wages even as productivity and corporate profits continue to record heights. Empowered, organized workers reduce inequality and build the middle class."

Perez is hopeful the situation could change. He cited the recent uprisings of the most-exploited workers: The fast food workers, the home health care aides, taxi drivers and others. Many are "unorganizable" under traditional labor law but they're determined to organize to better themselves, anyway.

"In the coming years, we're going to see a rapidly evolving workers movement that takes many forms. More and more, we're seeing new groups of workers beginning to organize at the grass roots level. Fast food workers, taxi drivers, domestic workers and others in low-wage industries are taking action and speaking up for their right to a fair day's pay for a hard day's work.

"The labor movement and other allies are welcoming and supporting these independent movements. This is exactly what we need: Everyone working together, forging new strategies and building new alliances, in support of working people taking courageous action to improve their lives and communities.

"This isn't your father's labor movement, as you know."

But Perez also urged unions and workers to cooperate with employers, for the common good of both, citing examples from Unite Here, SEIU and construction unions.

Unions are listening. Employers, with a few exceptions, aren't.

"For example: the Culinary Academy in Las Vegas, which I toured this summer. This partnership between the local hospitality industry and the unions trains thousands of people a year for good jobs-as cooks, maids, bartenders, stewards and more-paying a middle-class wage and providing a secure career path.

"And the building trades, working together with construction companies, are leveraging $750 million a year in private sector money to provide state-of-the-art apprenticeship training that helps so many people find good work and skills that create the foundation for a stable career.

"And SEIU 1199, working directly with health care employers, has training centers designed to prepare people for careers as nurses, homecare workers, pharmacists and more. This is labor and management working hand-in-glove, rejecting stale debates of yesterday, finding common ground and identifying mutual interests."

In Germany, Perez said, joint worker-employer works councils "demonstrated conclusively that labor-management cooperation increases productivity, spurs innovation and creates shared prosperity. We can do the same as we rebuild manufacturing here in the states, if we reject false choices and work together on creative solutions."

One point Perez didn't mention: Workers elect their own representatives to those councils, employers must work through them on decisions - and German law mandates establishment of the councils.

"Rejecting false choices in this manner is critical to all our anti-poverty work," Perez continued. "I think there's a misperception-which some have done everything in their power to promote-that it's all a zero-sum game. Fighting poverty, this myth goes, means a redistributive approach that will hurt other people. If it's good for the shop floor, it's got to be bad for the executive suite.

"I categorically reject this kind of divisive thinking, and the false choices underlying it. Some people want you to believe in a binary nation of 'makers' and 'takers.' But we believe in one America, all of us in it together.

"On issue after issue, we need to leave behind the old battles that pit us against one another and identify the win-win solutions that are there to be seized...We don't have to choose between job safety, for example, and job growth. CEOs I talk to know that when workers are sick and get injured on the job, it's bad for their company. They know that cutting corners on safety is not only irresponsible...It's also a penny-wise, pound-foolish business strategy."

Perez means well and there are some enlightened employers. But he's got an uphill battle to convince the majority of corporate CEOs and their political puppets that he's right. For example, the 'makers' vs. 'takers' characterization came straight from the an influential member of the House GOP majority, Rep. Paul Ryan, last year's party vice presidential nominee. Others in the corporate and political classes are nastier.

Still, Perez has the right idea: To eliminate poverty, we need to raise workers' incomes. And that means strengthening unions.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Today in labor history: Meese tells employers to spy on workers

Wed, 30 Oct 2013 16:18:00 +0000

Ed Meese, attorney general (the main legal advisor to the government) in the Ronald Reagan administration, urged employers to begin spying on workers "in locker rooms, parking lots, shipping and mail room areas and even the nearby taverns" to try to catch them using drugs, October 30, 1986. Meese was attorney general from 1985 through 1988, but he resigned while under investigation from a special prosecutor over an oil pipeline deal in the Middle East.

Meese is currently involved in the Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institution and other ultra conservative groups.

Recently, a chilling report revealed that this same Ed Meese, zealous former Reagan administration attorney general and right-wing operative, along with "a loose knit coalition of conservatives activists," some of whom have substantial holdings in oil and gas, met not long after President Obama's reelection and decided then that the only way to defund Obamacare was to shut down government this fall.

For those who many not know, conservative Republican Ronald Reagan began his political career in Oct. 1947 as a leadoff witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). He was president of the Screen Actors Guild and testified that communists in the film industry were a threat to national security. His testimony helped launch the witch-hunt that destroyed the careers of the Hollywood Ten, union screenwriters of many Oscar-winning films. It was the opening shot for a decade of fear and intimidation. Tens of thousands, especially militant union workers, were blacklisted in what the writer, Lillian Hellman called the "Scoundrel Time."

Now we are suffering the realities that Reagan helped create: a nation with an obscenely wealthy elite that have lost count of their mansions, yachts, and Lear jets while the rest of us scrape by. In this worst recession since the Great Depression, millions are without a job, facing foreclosure and homelessness. And Reagan's tea party heirs want only to shred the safety net!

Reminding us all once again: Now is the time for action!

Photo: President Ronald Reagan receives applause from some of his political appointees, Jan. 20, 1984 at Constitution Hall in Washington. From left are Reagan Trade Representative Bill Brock, CIA director William Casey and Edwin Meese, Counselor to the president. (AP Photo/Ira Schwarz)

Obama’s NLRB nominee confirmed, but others could face roadblocks

Wed, 30 Oct 2013 12:04:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Today's action by the U.S. Senate confirming Richard Griffin as NLRB general counsel is the final piece needed to ensure a fully functioning National Labor Relations Board, the Communications Workers of America said in a statement. Some 80 million private sector workers, as a result of the approval, will continue to have the protections of federal law through the only agency that can enforce their workplace rights.

Last summer, the Senate confirmed five Board members, ending a delay in workplace justice for millions of workers.

"We call on the Senate to move forward on other critical nominations put forward by President Obama," the union also said in the statement.

Labor and progressives are anxious to see Senate approval of Tom Wheeler to head the Federal Communications Commission, Mel Watt to head the Federal Housing Finance Administration and judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. "If Senate obstruction continues, we call on Majority Leader Reid to take the necessary steps to move these nominations forward, " the CWA statement said.

Civil and human rights groups including the NAACP, National Council of Raza, National Urban League, and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights have signed on to a letter to the Senate which cites Rep. Watt's, D-NC., 40 years of experience in housing and finance and urges his confirmation as chief of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Watts was one of the first members of Congress to speak out against the predatory mortgage lending practices that contributed to the economic crash that triggered the Great Recession.

The right wing Club for Growth has already warned lawmakers it will punish them if they even so much as vote to bring the nomination to the Senate floor. The group opposes any government involvement in the mortgage process.

The labor movement has long been committed to ending the abuse of the Senate rules, which allows a minority of Senators, or even one individual, to block nominations and prevent measures with majority support from having even getting a vote.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina nevertheless announced yesterday that he would personally block all future Obama nominees, including the Watt nomination, unless the administration gives him a more satisfactory explanation of what went wrong in Benghazi, Libya last year when U.S. diplomats were killed in an attack on a CIA outpost.

Under Senate rules it takes only one Senator to file an objection and a nominee or any other measure, for that matter, can be blocked from coming before the Senate for a vote.

Photo: Rep. Mel Watt, D-NC. (left), is President Obama's nominee for top housing post. AP

Pope Francis, the Bishop of Bling, CEOs, and Leo Gerard

Wed, 30 Oct 2013 11:36:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - American CEOs and boards of directors should take note of Pope Francis' recent suspension of the "Bishop of Bling," whose excesses included a $20,000 bathtub and a $42 million renovation of the German bishop's residence, writes United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo W. Gerard.

In a column on The Huffington Post, Gerard writes that Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst's extravagances mirror the excessive pay and perks of far too many U.S. corporate princes and Wall Street barons such as "John Thain, the Merrill Lynch chief executive who bought a $35,000 toilet while spending $1.2 million on office renovations just months before confessing to $56 billion in losses." Says Gerard:

Unlike Elst and Thain, Pope Francis is beloved for his asceticism. He lives in Spartan rooms and drives a 1984 Renault. He runs an organization as big as any American corporation. Yet he doesn't demand millions in pay and perks. American CEOs, by contrast, place themselves on $35,000 thrones bought with the sweat of struggling minimum wage workers. The income inequality they've caused over the past half century is corrosive to the American ideal of an egalitarian society free of grotesquely wealthy royalty.

Click here to tell the SEC companies must disclose CEO-to-worker pay ratios.

The AFL-CIO Executive PayWatch calculates that CEOs of major corporations took home 354 times more pay than the average rank-and-file U.S. worker in 2012. Gerard outlines some of the most excessive of the excesses, such as former J.C. Penney Co. CEO Ron Johnson's $53.3 million pay package. The average Penney's employee earned $29,688.

That's a ratio of 1,795 to one. It means the J.C. Penney board of directors decided that Johnson was worth 1,795 times the average Penney's worker. Or, to put it another way, the J.C. Penney board determined that it would take 1,795 Penney's workers to equal the talent of one Ron Johnson, a guy whose leadership resulted in a disastrous, money-losing 25 percent drop in sales.

Not too far behind is Oracle's Lawrence Ellison, whose $96 million pay package in 2012 is 1,287 times what it pays the typical worker, says Gerard.

He also points that huge executive pay packages frequently don't result in equivalent performance.

The Institute for Policy Studies reviewed the accomplishments of 241 corporate chief executives who ranked among America's 25 top-paid CEOS in one or more of the past 20 years and found nearly 40% were bailed out by taxpayers, busted for fraud or booted like Johnson of Penney's and Thain of the over-priced toilet fame.

While federal law has required corporations to reveal CEO pay, until the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill was passed in 2010, they could keep secret the staggering difference between executive pay and the typical workers' wages within their own companies.

It's taken the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) three years to finally propose regulations requiring public companies to report the ratio between a CEO's pay package and the pay of the median worker. As soon as the proposal became public, says Gerard:

CEOs and their lobbyists immediately redoubled their efforts to scuttle this requirement....CEOs and board members don't want workers to get that pay ratio information. They don't want workers to feel degraded, and thus a little less devoted. And they don't want to be humiliated by shocking ratios at companies like J.C. Penney where the CEO's decisions damaged the corporation.

While he urges the SEC to ignore corporate protests, he also suggests that corporate boards should behave more like Pope Francis, banishing imperial CEOs and rejecting royal pay package demands.

This article is reprinted from the AFL-CIO Now Blog.

Photo: Luca Zennaro/AP

Unsafe buses being built in LA with $1.50-per-hour Chinese labor

Wed, 30 Oct 2013 11:00:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES - It was with great excitement that California elected officials welcomed the Chinese company Build Your Dreams (BYD) to build electric buses in places like Lancaster, Long Beach, and Los Angeles. Hopes were high that BYD's Zero Emissions buses would clean the air, and hundreds of Angelenos would go to work in BYD's new downtown Los Angeles office, earning paychecks to support their families.

But earlier this month news reports revealed that the company's promises of jobs and quality products couldn't be more hollow. The California Department of Industrial Relations issued BYD numerous citations on Oct. 10, fining the company $79,250 and requiring it to pay $20,000 in back wages to 22 employees.

City officials, according to the Los Angeles Times, expected that the deal with BYD would bring thousands of jobs to the area, but three-and-a-half years later, fewer than 40 workers are locally employed by BYD and quite a few of the workers who the company has employed are Chinese workers here on visas.

According to the Times, those workers have been living in dormitory-style housing for up to six months, getting paid only $1.50 per hour and a $50 a day allowance. The state agency that cited BYD found that the company failed to pay the workers minimum wage, didn't give them all of their legally mandated rest breaks and improperly reported wages to the workers.

BYD received millions in state and federal subsidies to come to California and has signed contracts worth tens of millions of additional revenue, and yet they can't seem to pay workers even a minimum wage.

In a press release, Madeline Janis, national policy director of Los Angeles Alliance for the New Economy (LAANE), said:

BYD has hidden abusive treatment of Chinese workers and substandard electric buses behind a false promise to provide good jobs and clean transportation to Angelenos. These shocking allegations should prompt Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority and Long Beach Public Transportation Authority to reconsider their contracts with BYD.

Los Angeles officials must have been asleep at the switch to miss BYD's potentially unsafe buses, failure to create good jobs for Angelenos, and misuse of millions in taxpayer funds. BYD's deception underscores the need for our public transportation agencies to monitor contractors and hold them to the highest standards.

Janis pointed to another of BYD's problems, the fact that the electric buses it has produced so far have potential safety problems. After failing to properly test some of its products and being dishonest about testing and contracts, when some of the BYD buses were tested, they started cracking-a problem traced to subpar welding done in China.

LAANE says that the numerous failures by BYD mean that transit agencies in Los Angeles and Long Beach should re-evaluate their contracts with this company and give responsible companies a chance to compete fairly for these lucrative deals. Janis continued:

Electric buses can provide clean transportation for our community, when made safely by American workers with good jobs. Several electric bus manufacturers with proven job creation and safety records were unfairly passed over for these contracts because of BYD's outrageous deception.

Photo: PlugInCars.com

Today in labor history: Wall Street crash of 1929

Tue, 29 Oct 2013 16:16:00 +0000

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, and it signaled the beginning of the 10-year Great Depression that affected all Western industrialized countries.

On October 24, the market lost 11percent of its value at the opening bell on very heavy trading. Several leading Wall Street bankers met to find a solution to the panic and chaos on the trading floor. The bankers who met on Oct. 24 included Thomas W. Lamont, acting head of Morgan Bank; Albert Wiggin, head of the Chase National Bank; and Charles E. Mitchell, president of the National City Bank of New York. They chose Richard Whitney, vice president of the Exchange, to act on their behalf.

With the bankers' financial resources behind him, Whitney placed a bid to purchase a large block of shares in U.S. Steel at a price well above the current market. As traders watched, Whitney then placed similar bids on other "blue chip" stocks. This tactic was similar to one that ended "the Panic of 1907." The Dow Jones Industrial Average recovered, closing with it down only 6.38 points for the day; but unlike 1907, the respite was only temporary.

Over that weekend, the events were covered by the newspapers across the United States. On October 28, more investors decided to get out of the market, and the slide continued with a record loss in the Dow for the day of 13percent.

The next day, "Black Tuesday", October 29, 1929, about sixteen million shares were traded, and the Dow lost an additional 12 percent. William C. Durant joined with members of the Rockefeller family and other financial giants to buy large quantities of stocks in order to demonstrate to the public their confidence in the market, but their efforts failed to stop the large decline in prices. Due to the massive volume of stocks traded that day, the ticker did not stop running until about 7:45 p.m. that evening. The market had lost over $30 billion in the space of two days, which included $14 billion on October 29 alone.

The volume of stocks traded that day was a record that was not broken for nearly 40 years.

Some people believed that abuses by utility holding companies contributed to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Depression that followed. Many people blamed the crash on commercial banks that were too eager to put deposits at risk on the stock market.

The stock market crash and ensuing Great Depression, along with the environmental and agricultural disaster of the 1930s "Dust Bowl," formed the longest, most widespread and deepest depression of the 20^th century.

About 25 percent of U.S. workers were unemployed and a militant movement of unemployed workers arose.

Today in labor history: Underground Railroad leader Levi Coffin born

Mon, 28 Oct 2013 15:29:00 +0000

Levi Coffin, whom some later called "President of the Underground Railroad," was born Oct. 28, 1798, in North Carolina.

Coffin grew up working on his father's farm. He later related that he became an abolitionist at age 7 when he asked a slave who was in a chain gang why he was shackled. The man replied that it was to prevent him from escaping and returning to his wife and children. That disturbed Coffin. By age 15, he was helping his family assist escaping slaves. As the repressive Fugitive Slave Act became more strictly enforced, the family began conducting their assistance to slaves with greater secrecy, mostly at night. By the 1820s, Quakers in North Carolina were being openly persecuted for helping runaway slaves. Many left for Ohio, Indiana and other states.

After moving to Newport (now Fountain City), Indiana, in 1826, Coffin made contact with the community of free black people there, who were already involved in the network that became known as the Underground Railroad. Since slaves hiding in the homes of fellow African Americans were often recaptured, Coffin offered to hide slaves in his own home to make them more secure. He first took runaway slaves into his home in 1826-27.

Word of his activity quickly spread, leading others to join. They formed a more formal route for the fugitive slaves to move from stop to stop until they reached Canada. Coffin referred to the system as the "mysterious road."

Over time the number of escaping slaves increased. Coffin estimated that on average he helped 100 escape annually - as many as 3,000 in all. His home became the convergence point of three major escape routes. Coffin would move the fugitives from his home to the next stops during the night. So many fugitives passed through his home that it became known as the "Grand Central Station of the Underground Railroad."

From his beginnings as a farmer, Coffin became owner of a general store, then a major investor and director in the Bank of Indiana, and operator of a mill. When he built a new two-story brick home in 1838, he included special hiding places for the runaway slaves. A secret door was created in his maids' quarters where up to 14 people could hide in a narrow crawl space between the walls.

He continued his Underground Railroad and other anti-slavery activities in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he moved in 1847.

Coffin helped found the Western Freedmen's Aid Society in 1863 and donated $100,000 to it after the Civil War ended. He strongly advocated for aid to the freed slaves to enable them to take their full place in American society.

He died on September 16, 1877, in his Avondale, Ohio, home. His funeral, in the Friends Meeting House of Cincinnati, drew an enormous overflow crowd. Four of his eight pallbearers were free blacks who had worked with Coffin on the Underground Railroad. In 1902, African Americans in Cincinnati erected a monument over Coffin's grave

Once asked why he helped slaves, Coffin said, "The Bible, in bidding us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, said nothing about color, and I should try to follow out the teachings of that good book."

Photo: Levi Coffin, drawing based on a circa 1850 engraving. Wikimedia Commons

U.S. diplomats not pushing Colombia on workers’ rights

Mon, 28 Oct 2013 14:31:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Overburdened U.S. diplomats are not pushing the Colombian government to live up to its written commitments on workers' rights and other rights that Colombia agreed to fulfill to win a so-called "free trade" pact, Colombian and U.S. witnesses told lawmakers on Oct. 24.

As a result, among other problems, there have been no prosecutions of murderers of unionists and union leaders in the Latin American nation in the two years since the treaty, called DR-CAFTA, took effect, AFL-CIO trade specialist Celeste Drake says.

U.S. Embassy personnel respond to reports, from both U.S. and Colombian unions and workers representatives, about death threats, kidnappings, intimidation and more, she said. They present the complaints to their Colombian counterparts, but "they never hear back and we never hear from them again," Drake said.

That includes the recent murder of Sintrinalgo union leader Juan Carlos Perez Munoz, she added. Neither his union nor the embassy ever got answers to their demands for an investigation.

"But the way to deter threats and violence is swift and effective justice," she said.

The issue is important to U.S. unions, since Colombia has the lowest rate of unionization, four percent, in the Western Hemisphere, and approximately 3,000 unionists have been murdered in the last two decades of its 50-year civil war. That record didn't stop the Obama administration from implementing the trade pact.

But Democratic lawmakers set a condition for the pact: That Colombia meet internationally recognized worker rights and human rights standards, and Drake said it's not. The lack of prosecutions is just the most-notable omission, she added.

In a statement submitted to lawmakers, the Colombian government touted its progress on human rights and economic development, particularly for oppressed Afro-Caribbean Colombians. But it did not mention labor rights. Drake differed.

"If this is success, I'd hate to see what failure would be," she told Press Associates Union News Service afterwards.

Drake and other witnesses told Congress' Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission that Colombia's government, even under presumably more liberal President Juan Manuel Santos, has fallen down on the job in terms of protecting human rights, including worker rights. "It's deplorable," Drake said.

And while Colombia's government is in talks with the main rebel organization, FARC, to end the war, the killings continue. Two days before the hearing, the body of a Medellin-area human rights activist, Diana Marcela Morales Arenas, was found with her throat cut in Batea Seca, a rural area within the municipality of Angostura.

Right-wing paramilitary forces, including those hired by multi-national corporations, have carried out the overwhelming majority of the murders and threats against unionists. Their violence made Colombia the most dangerous nation in the world for union members and activists.

Colombia's security services and military often aided in the repression, testimony in several court cases and before commissions shows. Recently, the military pushed a law through the Colombian Congress and got Santos to sign it, expanding its internal security power. But on Oct. 23, by a 5-4 vote, Colombia's Constitutional Court tossed it.

Had the court not done so, "the country would have gone backwards by 30 years," another witness told lawmakers.

The Colombian DR-CAFTA's labor side pact also has "no provision at all for union recognition and there's no process under the law for follow-up" by U.S. officials, Drake testified. "The goal" of worker rights "was good, but there seems to be too many problems of implementation," she added.

"Local labor negotiators have told our workers that virtually any kind of (worker) sub-contracting" will aid them and meet the side pact's terms, Drake said. "That's what the Colombian Department of Labor believes, but workers know better."

To put teeth into the worker rights promises, Colombia "needs to fix the law and they need to collect the fines" firms now incur for breaking even the Latin American nation's own weak worker protections, she told PAI later. Those fines total $139 million.

Sympathetic lawmakers sponsoring the hearing promised to put more pressure on Colombia, including through the embassy. "When you're talking about constructing peace and about negotiations, you're talking about more actors than just the government and FARC," said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., the hearing co-chair.

"We'll continue to monitor the human rights situation. We'll continue to pressure the Colombian government where necessary. And we'll continue to pressure the U.S. government to pressure the Colombian government, where necessary." They'll even pressure FARC, when necessary, he added.

Photo: Hundreds of thousands are participating in a national strike in Colombia that has entered its eigth day. Marcha Patriotica/Commondreams.org

Unionized carwash workers in New York win first contracts

Mon, 28 Oct 2013 12:31:00 +0000

NEW YORK (PAI) - Four groups of New York City "carwasheros" - the often-exploited often-immigrant workers who toil in big-city car washes - won and ratified first contracts in mid-October, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union reported.

The three-year pacts cover workers at the Webster Car Wash and WCA/Rico Pobre Car Wash in the Bronx and the Jomar Car Wash and Sutphin Car Wash in Queens. The four car washes employ approximately 150 workers combined.

Workers get an immediate raise and three more over the contract's life, to a $9.18 hourly minimum, overtime pay, protection of immigrant workers, grievance procedures, firings only for just cause, a ban on job discrimination and requiring shop stewards to supervise collection and distribution of tips, to ensure nobody gets shorted.

They also will get five paid holidays and two paid personal leave days yearly, and the right to time off for their weddings, births, funerals and to solve immigration issues.

The contracts are also expected to set a pattern for other car washes in New York, as the owners of the four car washes are two of the city's biggest car wash proprietors. New York has some 200 car washes, employing 5,000 people.

"These carwasheros stood up and demanded dignity and respect on the job. And now they have achieved a first contract that will improve wages and benefits," said RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum. "This contract sends a powerful message to all low-wage workers throughout New York City: You can fight back against poor wages and working conditions, and you can win."

RWDSU, Make the Road New York, and the New York Communities for Change jointly organized the carwasheros. All three groups concentrate on organizing, mobilizing and winning representation for low-wage workers, especially minority-group members, and immigrant workers.

That emphasis by RWDSU, a sector of the United Food and Commercial Workers, is in line with but predates the emphasis organized labor now puts on winning recognition for groups of workers - such as carwasheros, home health care workers and taxi drivers - who have traditionally or legally been difficult to organize.

The contracts are only the latest of their New York City wins. As a result of the joint campaign, RWDSU has won seven National Labor Relations Board-run union recognition votes at New York car washes and won a strike and secured a contract at the Sunny Day Car Wash in the Bronx.

The campaign also saved the jobs of workers at the Soho Car Wash, added another union contract at the Hi-Tek Car Wash and convinced the New York City Council to pass an ordinance mandating better car wash working conditions citywide.

"I feel very happy because we have finally reached the contract that we fought so hard for," said Luis Rosales, a five-year Jomar worker, told RWDSU. "This is going to be a great change for our car wash. More importantly, we were able to show other workers that it makes sense to fight and win what seemed impossible."

Added David Cruz, a 7-year worker at Sutphin Car Wash: "The contract shows hard-working people like us can fight for their rights and for respect. I want to especially thank the organizers for supporting us all the way and making us feel that united we could get the changes we deserved."

Most New York City car wash workers are immigrants who are paid low wages and too often denied overtime, to which they are entitled by law, the carwasheros' campaign organizers said. "This campaign has turned a major corner," said Deb Axt, co-executive director of Make the Road New York. "These car washes are owned by two of the biggest players in the industry, and contracts at these carwashes begin to set a new industry standard."

Photo: In the space of 24 hours, four big carwashes have signed contracts with the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union. Photo courtesy of Wash New York.

Chicago kids approve fresh food but not school cafeteria cuts

Fri, 25 Oct 2013 15:10:00 +0000

CHICAGO - Parents, teachers, students and cafeteria workers cheered the decision by Chicago Public Schools last summer to replace frozen, canned and pre-plated meals with fresh food.

They are decidedly unhappy, however, about the results of a CPS decision just two weeks short of school opening to lay off 200 lunchroom workers.

The reason for the unhappiness is simple, said 20 year lunchroom worker Linda Green: "We have worked hard to get fresh food in the schools, but cooking food from scratch requires more workers, not fewer."

Lunchroom workers rallied outside the CPS headquaters on Food Day, Oct. 24 reminding the public that it was their "Let's Cook" campaign that helped usher in an era of commitment to cooking fresh food.

A new survey by Unite Here, Local 1, the union that represents the workers, shows that 62 percent of respondents say their students like the food better this year compared to last.

Workers, teachers and parents, however, say the lunchroom cuts are causing big problems.

Some 53 percent of respondents reported that the lines of students waiting to be served are longer this year than last.

Nearly 60 percent of respondents who regularly see students in line said that the last student receiving food on average has less than 15 minutes to eat before having to be back in class. The USDA stipulates a minimum of 20 minuites for students to be sitting down and eating lunch.

Lunch rooms are not as clean as they were last year. Some 59 percent of respondents said they had less time to clean the lunch room this year compared to last year.

Some 43 percent of lunchroom workers have gone an entire day this year without a break. Fully one fourth have worked off the clock without pay.

"CPS lunchroom workers take great pride in their jobs and the food they serve to children every day," said Carly Karmel, a spokesperson for Unite Here.

The demonstration Thursday was one of more than 2,000 Food Day events that took place across the country.

"We are doing whatever it takes to make sure our students are fed," said Green. "But this isn't sustainable. We're doing our best, but the bottom line is that we need more staff."

Teamsters score big organizing gains, go “kosher” too!

Fri, 25 Oct 2013 15:01:00 +0000

SANTA MONICA, Calif. - A string of recent Teamsters organizing victories has added almost 800 new members in seven locations in the last few months. And while the biggest win was in Santa Monica, Calif., the most unusual saw the union "go kosher" - winning an election and a first contract for 15 kosher dining hall workers at the University of Pennsylvania.

The big win saw Santa Monica city trades and maintenance workers vote 237-17 on Sept. 5 for representation by Local 911. The new unit will have 375 members. The win let the Teamsters take over from an unaffiliated group, the Santa Monica Municipal Employees Association.

Wages, working conditions and the prospect of a stronger union were keys to the Santa Monica win. The association also harmed its own campaign when it retaliated against pro-Teamster HVAC tech Aaron Meza, the Southern California Teamster reported.

Local 911 spokesman Carlos Rubio called the win "an incredible victory... Through their unyielding efforts, they have chosen to ensure their future."

The other wins, reported in Teamster magazine, were:

The 15 Penn kosher dining hall workers voted overwhelmingly to join Local 929. The university's Student Labor Action Project chapter helped their 18-month organizing drive, which garnered 1,000 signatures university-wide on a petition supporting unionization. A month after winning the vote, workers won their first, 3-year, contract, with "significant wage increases in each year, affordable health benefits, paid time off and seniority protection," said Local 929 Secretary-Treasurer John Preston.

At least 50 tractor-trailer drivers who haul trash for Stafford Transportation in Port Huron, Mich., voted to join Detroit Local 337. The win came even though Stafford broke labor law by firing the main worker-organizer, Mike Williams, for refusing to give Stafford the union representation election authorization cards that NLRB requires.

Some 204 school bus drivers and monitors in four yards in Santa Rosa County, Fla., joined Local 991, representing yet another win in the union's long-running drive to organize workers for private school bus companies nationwide. The Florida workers toil for Durham School Services, a for-profit firm. Improved safety and working conditions were keys to the win. "It's important for us to have equality and to be treated fairly," added 25-year-driver Kim McLaughlin.

Some 70 percent of the 112 Toll Group port truck drivers, hostlers and long-haul drivers in New Jersey voted to join Local 469. Most of the drivers work out of the Australian-owned firm's Port of New Jersey yard. "As a Teamster, we will now be able to fight for what we have earned without fear of retribution: A fair day's pay for a hard day's work, affordable medical benefits and real retirement security," driver Fred Schmidt told the magazine. The company's "lies and threats" failed, Local 469 President Fred Potter says. The Teamsters also represent Toll Group drivers in L.A.

Twelve paratransit dispatchers and call takers at First Transit - yet another for-profit school bus company - in Glenview, Ill., a Chicago suburb, voted to join their First Transit co-workers in nearby Niles as Local 727 members. Overall, the local represents 6,800 people, including hundreds of First Transit workers, in the Chicago area. "We are pleased to welcome our newest members and vow to fight for them at the bargaining table and beyond," Local 727 President John Coli Jr. said.

Washington Irving's famous Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow wasn't a union member in the 1800s - but the workers at that village are now. Clerks, recreation workers, office staffers, crossing guards and parking enforcement personnel for the Westchester County, N.Y., village voted to join Local 456. The local already represents other Westchester county and village workers. And the Sleepy Hollow workers didn't need an election. When they presented union election cards from a majority of the workers to the village board, it voluntarily and unanimously recognized the local.

Photo: Teamsters with Local 911 recently won a contract for 15 kosher dining hall workers at the University of Pennsylvania. Teamsters Local 911 Facebook page

North American Labor History Conference showcases Detroit

Fri, 25 Oct 2013 14:24:00 +0000

DETROIT - On the first day of the Wayne State University's (WSU) North American Labor History Conference, WSU Professor Todd Duncan shared excerpts from his and the late Kathryne Lindberg's film, Detroit's Unruined Voices.

The unfinished film is an oral history of black Communist and radical labor organizers in Detroit, giants like Quill Pettway, General Baker and the late Dave Moore who led the fight to unionize the Ford Motor Company and beat back racism in the plant, in the United Auto Workers Union, and in society at large.

Duncan said the intent of the project was to insure "voices from the past are not lost."

Of the "Big Three" automakers, Ford was the toughest nut to crack. Moore, who passed away in 2009, quips that in 1938 Henry Ford boasted "hell would freeze over" before the plant would be unionized.

Hell might have become more than a few degrees cooler but Ford's vicious campaign to keep the union out, one that included beatings and murder, was lost in 1941 when the UAW scored a huge organizing victory.

Moore, who had begun working at the plant in 1938, said seventeen thousand Black workers, most who were forced to work in the hot and physically demanding foundry, were a "sleeping giant." The union could not win without also fighting for the rights of Black workers. "When you pull up the bottom, you pull everyone up," Moore says in the movie.

The turning point came when union leadership admitted it had erred in not welcoming Black workers into the union. Those workers became the base for progressive politics that unified and helped grow the union. The Rouge, Ford's huge plant with over 100,000 workers, was organized into UAW Local 600, becoming the largest union local in the world.

Pettway worked 28 years at the Rouge, becoming its first African American tool and dye maker.

In 1950, at the height of McCarthyism, he, Moore, Coleman Young and others organized the National Negro Labor Council (NNLC). Twelve hundred delegates attended the founding convention. Pettway said the NNLC "advanced the cause of democracy for Blacks, women and all who were oppressed."

It won important victories against discrimination both inside and outside the labor movement and is considered the forerunner of today's Coalition of Black Trade Unionists.

In discussion following the film, Baker said the struggles of the past have lessons for the current fight, now being played out in a downtown bankruptcy court, to save the pensions of Detroit public workers.

"If you don't know how you got it (pensions), you don't know how to save it." Local 600 was the first union to have pensions in their contracts. People should be more "passionate, indignant" about what may be lost said Baker.

Excerpts from Pamela Sporn's Detroit 48202, Conversations along a Postal Route, were also shown. Like Detroit's Unruined Voices, it tells a compelling story about life in the city from someone with a great vantage point, the letter carrier, Wendell Watkins.

Contrary to the usual mages of burned out neighborhoods and social problems, Sporn's film follows Watkins as he interacts with and comments on all the changes, the bad but also the many good, that are taking place along his route. Like many independent film makers, she needs additional funding to finish the film.

The Labor Conference continues through Saturday. Its program can be found at http://nalhc.wayne.edu/Program.html

Photo: John Rummel/PW

SEIU’S Henry: Half of jobs to be low-wage by 2020

Fri, 25 Oct 2013 13:36:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - Citing federal projections, Service Employees President Mary Kay Henry told a standing-room-only crowd of progressives on Oct. 24 that half of the jobs in the U.S. will be low-wage - minimum wage or just above it - in 2020. She declared progressives should lead a crusade to ensure high-wage jobs, instead.

Henry offered the gloomy prediction at the 10^th anniversary celebration of the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank that has contributed scads of ideas and people to the Obama administration and to causes nationwide. Progressives established it a decade ago to counter dominant right wing think tanks.

The celebration hailed the center's past ideas and achievements, but participants also discussed issues and crusades progressives should take up in the future - and a big one is reducing income inequality. That's where Henry came in, by describing what happened to a worker in St. Louis she had met who lost his well-paying job.

"I think of Morris Cornley, an Iraqi war veteran who was making $17 an hour. But at the height of the recession, his company shut down its St. Louis operations. He's now working at Jimmy John's," the fast food chain, "for the minimum wage with no benefits and no pension.

"And these are the jobs that are growing. Thirty percent of all college graduates are now working in fast food, because they have no alternatives. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that by 2020, 48 percent of all jobs will be low-wage jobs that people can't feed their families on," she said.

Other panelists agreed on the lack of well-paying jobs, during a still-anemic economic recovery. They also offered some solutions.

Henry said one key way is to raise the wages of such jobs, and specifically of the fast food and home health care workers. A later panelist, Obama administration Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, noted his department is doing just that for the latter group of 1.8 million workers, 90 percent of whom are women and 40 percent of whom are minority. It's doing so by issuing new rules taking home health care aides out of the "babysitter" class.

Henry also advocated raising wages at the city and state level, since gridlock in Washington prevents a raise in the U.S. hourly minimum, $7.25. California just raised its minimum to $10, in steps. Henry cited a community organized around the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where a living wage measure is up for referendum.

"When the airport opened, they were all well-paying jobs," she said. "But now they're all minimum wage, with no benefits and many are contracted out. So, by ballot, people can join together to get more."

Photo: Fight for 15 - Lucha por 15 WOCC Facebook page

Trumka warns Dems: stick by Social Security, Medicare

Fri, 25 Oct 2013 11:21:00 +0000

LAS VEGAS - AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has put lawmakers on notice to stick by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid or face labor opposition at the polls next year.

His Oct. 21 speech to the International Federation of Employee Benefit Plans in Las Vegas was directed at both parties, but with a special warning for the Democrats.

His warning is notable because some Democrats, including President Obama, have at least hinted they favor changing the way Social Security benefits are calculated by linking annual cost-of-living increases to the "chained CPI," rather than the previous year's rise in the regular Consumer Price Index.

The chained CPI, which assumes consumers substitute lower-priced goods when necessary, would cost each recipient thousands of dollars in the years after age 65. The AFL-CIO and the labor-backed Alliance for Retired Americans completely oppose chained CPI. The GOP favors the chained CPI and raising the retirement age, too.

Democrats who follow that path will suffer at the polls, Trumka predicted.

"We saw one of the strangest episodes in politics draw to a close when politicians of both parties voted to re-open the federal government after more than two weeks of closure and to pay the debts our government has already incurred," he said.

"Yet while our Democratic leaders move forward and Republicans regroup, I've got a sinking feeling too many politicians are ready to put the hurt on regular working people, on America's entire middle class and working class -- which is pretty much all of us," he warned.

"And let me just say this one for the record: No politician -- I don't care the political party -- will get away with cutting Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits. Don't try it. And this warning goes double for Democrats. We will never forget. We will never forgive. And we will never stop working to end your career."

Trumka said the budget impasse occurred for the same reason that political leaders - whom he did not name - attack workers' pay and pensions. They and their constituents "are gripped by fear," he said. Labor and its pension fund trustees should move in the other direction, he said, and not fall victim to those same irrational fears.

Instead, they should "review and update investment policies to address social,

environmental and governance issues. Our pension funds need sustainable long-term

returns and our economy needs patient responsibly invested capital for long-term prosperity," he said. He promised the fed "would develop model policy language on responsible investing" for unions, pension funds and others. "Our economy needs patient money for things like roads and bridges," and other job-creating infrastructure.

On another issue, Trumka defended the Affordable Care Act, but reiterated it needs fixes, particularly in its treatment of multi-employer health care plans. An Obama administration interpretation of the act's provisions threatens those plans with different - and worse - financial treatment than private insurers get.

Many unions raised that issue at the AFL-CIO Convention in Los Angeles, saying the multi-employer plans may be forced out of business, leaving 20 million people uncovered. Trumka said he's been in constant talks with the White House on the issue.

"I give you my word that we're fighting for a level playing field for the health funds of working people. This is one of my top priorities and we're going to keep talking with the federal agencies and the White House and Congress regarding the implementation of the Affordable Care Act until we get what we want and need, period," he said.

Photo: Fifth World Art/Flickr

Today in labor history: 40 hour week and minimum wage

Thu, 24 Oct 2013 14:45:00 +0000

October 24 marks events in two of the most significant struggles by workers in U.S. history: for shorter hours and better wages.

In 1940, the 40-hour work week went into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act, signed by President Roosevelt two years earlier. In 1945. the U.S. minimum wage increased to 40¢ an hour.

The fight between workers and big business for shorter hours and better pay has been a constant struggle stemming from the fact that human labor creates all wealth but big business is profit driven.

The history of working people in the United States - the real U.S. history - is filled with examples of these struggles: from abolitionism (slaves received NO pay) through May Day and the earliest attempts at an 8 hour day, the mass organizing of industrial workers and the forming of unions, strikes in numerous industries and in every state.

Today's struggles include the fight for a fair minimum wage and decent wages for big box employees and fast food workers, for immigration reform affecting millions of workers and their families, the fight against so called "right to work" legislation and the fight against the attacks on public sector workers.

As in the past the struggle for these rights is met with big business resistance that takes many forms: firings, heavy handed anti-union propaganda, buying off elected officials and pushing anti-union legislation, clogging the courts with lawsuits, media lies, voter suppression and worse - the recent shutdown of the federal government!

The AFL-CIO, the country's largest labor federation, held a groundbreaking convention in Los Angeles a few weeks ago. The convention was a break from the past in many ways, from who participated to the issues discussed and the decisions made.

Workshops and plenaries discussed and passed resolutions on organizing the South, labor/community campaigns, immigration reform, lesbian, gay and bisexual rights, the fight for voting rights, environmental issues, women workers, the prison industrial complex and more.

Many speakers emphasized bringing the fight to the giant multinational corporations and union-busters, their ultra-right friends in Congress and statehouses, and organizations like ALEC who are at the forefront of dismantling workers rights and democracy.

Read People's World's extensive coverage of the AFL-CIO convention

Photo: Communication Workers of America Local 6012

Ratio of job seekers to job openings slips below 3-to-1

Thu, 24 Oct 2013 13:41:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - The August Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) data released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the total number of job openings increased by 75,000 in August. That, along with the upward revision of 119,000 job openings to earlier data, brought the August level of job openings to 3.9 million. However, there were 11.3 million job seekers in August (unemployment data are from the Current Population Survey), for a "job-seekers ratio"-the ratio of unemployed workers to job openings- of 2.9-to-1. Though August was the first time the ratio of job seekers to job openings fell below 3.0-to-1 in nearly five years, this ratio of 2.9-to-1 matches the highest the ratio ever got in the early 2000s downturn.

In her analysis, EPI Economist Heidi Shierholz looks at the number of unemployed workers and the number of job openings by industry to examine the common claim that the labor market's main problem is that available workers lack the skills needed for the sectors with job openings.

If this were the case, she explains, some sectors would have more job openings than unemployed workers. However, there are between 1.3 and 9.8 times as many unemployed workers as job openings in every industry.

"In other words, even in the industry with the most favorable ratio of unemployed workers to job openings - finance and insurance - there are still 30 percent more unemployed workers than job openings," said Shierholz.

"In no industry does the number of job openings even come close to the number of people looking for work, which demonstrates that the main problem in the labor market is a broad-based lack of demand for work."

Photo: AP