People Before Profit blog

Today in labor history: Harvey Milk elected to office

Mon, 03 Nov 2014 16:00:00 +0000

On this day in 1977 Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He was the first openly gay person elected to public office in California, thereby establishing a new "constituency" in American politics that candidates and legislators would need to take into consideration. Today there are thousands of openly LGBTQ officeholders, and flagrant homophobia is limited to the right-wing fringe.

Born in 1930, Milk served in the Navy during the Korean War, and went into a conservative banking career. He was already 40 in 1970 when he reacted with revulsion against the U.S. widening the Vietnam War by its invasion of Cambodia. After he moved to San Francisco he founded a camera store and became a savvy community activist. Before long he was referred to as "the mayor of Castro Street."

The new fearlessness of LGBTQ folk inevitably prompted a conservative backlash. In 1978 the big issue in California was Proposition 6, the Briggs Initiative, which would have banned gays and lesbians from teaching and other employment in public schools. In the movement to fight Prop 6, the gay movement in San Francisco, led by Harvey Milk, reached out to labor, which had its own battles against the anti-union (and anti-gay) Coors Brewing Co. The unity Milk forged between labor and the GLBTQ movement led to a successful boycott of Coors beer, and to a defeat of Prop 6.

Harvey Milk lasted only 11 months as a supervisor before being assassinated on November 27, 1978, along with San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, by a crazed anti-gay fanatic. In 2009 Milk received a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom, and in 2014 a "forever" U.S. postage stamp was issued in his honor.

Photo: Harvey Milk, far right, campaigns for the California State Assembly with longshoremen in 1976 (Daniel Nicoletta/CC)

Wisconsin’s Walker worries as workers organize

Fri, 31 Oct 2014 13:24:00 +0000

In U.S. elections, incumbent governors have an 80 percent chance of being re-elected. So why is Wisconsin's Scott Walker having such a difficult time convincing voters to give him a second term?

Many observers would quickly assume this has to do with the lingering resentment of Walker's union busting, which brought an end to 50 years of public employee collective bargaining in the state and touched off what has become known as the 'Wisconsin Uprising' .

Others may conclude that it is Walker's failed promise to create 250,000 jobs in his first term that has voters thinking twice. It is a promise Walker made to a public that in 2010 was growing weary of a worldwide crisis in finance capital and was desperate to get back on its feet. The promise looks even more ridiculous today as just this week a tractor plant in southeastern Wisconsin announced the layoff of 150 UAW workers.

In reality, even if the public's memory of all of Walker's failures could be erased by his multi-million dollar Koch brothers funded TV buys, they can't ignore the numerous missteps of his current re-election campaign.

In a moment reminiscent of President Jimmy Carter going on TV to scold the public in his infamous "malaise speech," Walker made one the most serious errors of his campaign when he was being questioned about his failure to create any meaningful jobs in the state. During a televised debate Walker explained, "We don't have a jobs problem in this state; we have a work problem." Meaning - it isn't his fault Wisconsin workers are unemployed and savaging empty food banks for sustenance. It is their own fault. They just don't have the skills needed to fill the available jobs.

As if that wasn't enough to send the voters scurrying to Walker's opponent, he took another tumble in the polls when in a meeting with the editorial board of Wisconsin's largest circulation daily newspaper he said that in terms of the minimum wage, "Well, I'm not going to repeal it, but I don't think it serves a purpose..."

Repelling the votes with his message of 1 percent dominance, and opening a new front in the GOP "War on Women," with his statements in favor of government enforced mandatory motherhood by declaring he was against the option of an abortion even in the cases of rape or incest, Walker changed his tactics to pure voter suppression. The Republicans went to court to get a new ruling in support of a dead voter ID law. Initially the ultra-right was successful and the voter ID law was reinstated, but a U.S. Supreme Court ruling shortly reversed the decision and Wisconsin voters can still register at the polls and cast a ballot without a bought and paid for ID.

As Walker continues to fumble, Wisconsin workers, environmental activists, and students continue to organize a massive fight-back to send Walker packing.

With the polls consistently dead even it is now in the hands of the voters, turnout is the key, and that is why every shop floor and feed mill, every campus and clubhouse, is reverberating with the same refrain, "Unite and defeat the ultra-right! Dump Walker!"

Photo: Some 150,000 people, including farmers with their tractors, protested Republican Gov. Scott Walker and Wisconsin GOP union-busting and outrageous budget proposal, March 12, 2011. (John Bachtell/PW)

Postal unions plan national protests vs. closings

Fri, 31 Oct 2014 12:12:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) -- The nation's four postal employee unions are uniting to sponsor yet another mass protest, on November 14, against Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe's planned January 2015 shutdown of 82 more distribution centers. And the Mail Handlers/ Laborers formally notified the Postal Service the union believes the closings break its contract.

Centered around the theme of "Stop delaying America's mail!" the unions timed the protest for the last meeting of the Postal Board of Governors for this year, said Letter Carriers President Fredric Rolando, who just won re-election to a new term in his union's top job.

"The Postal Service is set to make severe cuts in mail delivery service that, if implemented, would cause hardships for customers, drive away business, and cause incalculable harm to its reputation," he said.

A report by the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO), released October 27, backed Rolando. It said Donahoe's past closings slowed 25 percent of first-class mail.

The Letter Carriers said closing 82 more mail-processing centers would slow the mail so much that overnight mail delivery even within the same city or town would likely disappear.

"This plan would sacrifice service while failing to address the real causes of the Postal Service's financial problems," Rolando said, speaking for himself, Postal Workers President Mark Dimondstein, Mail Handlers President John Hegarty and Rural Letter Carriers President Jeannette Dwyer.

Donahoe's closings are part of his scheme to eliminate the USPS deficit. He also wants to end Saturday service, let 100,000 workers go by attrition, fire another 100,000, replace full-time unionized well-paid postal worker jobs with part-timers and subcontract out USPS functions to minimum-wage non-union workers at Staples and, APWU adds, Walmart.

And Donahoe demands elimination of door-to-door delivery. All the moves, Dimondstein says, are part of Donahoe's scheme for "creeping privatization" of the Postal Service. Privatization is also a goal of congressional Republicans.

The unions reply the red ink Donahoe cites is due to a 2006 "postal reform" pushed through a Republican-run Congress by GOP President George W. Bush that reform orders USPS to pay $5.5 billion yearly to pre-fund future retirees' health care benefits. As a result, the USPS runs a billion-dollar profit on operations now that the Great Recession is over, but the health care mandate turns it into a multi-billion dollar loss.

The NALC and APWU both voted "no confidence" in Donahoe earlier this year. Both demand he resign - or be fired - in favor of a Postmaster General committed to a positive future for the Postal Service.

Donahoe has also given the back of his hand to union proposals, in legislation by Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind.-Vt., to let the Postal Service enter new and profitable business lines and to eliminate the health care pre-payment.

The day of action is designed to highlight both the impact of Donahoe's planned cuts and to promote the alternative plans, the four unions say. Donahoe's cuts since 2012 have cut service, the unions and GAO add.

Donahoe's new cuts are "so severe that they will forever damage the U.S. Postal Service," the unions said in a letter to their locals, urging them to start mobilizing members for November 14. "On January 5, the USPS is slated to lower 'service standards' to virtually eliminate overnight delivery - including first-class mail from one address to another within the same city or town. All mail throughout the country will be delayed," it adds.

"Beginning January 5, 82 Mail Processing and Distribution Centers are scheduled to close. These cuts will cause hardships for customers, drive away business, cause irreparable harm to the U.S. Postal Service, and lead to massive schedule changes and reassignments for employees. They are part of a flawed management strategy that unnecessarily sacrificed service and failed to address the cause of the Postal Service's manufactured financial crisis."

The GAO report backs the unions' letter to locals. Even before she got it, one senator who sought the report, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., launched an online petition against further USPS cuts. The other, Senate Government Affairs Committee Chairman Thomas Carper, D-Del., used the report as a reason to again push a postal "reform" measure the unions call unacceptable. Carper's plan tracks well with Donahoe's demands, they point out.

"Revised delivery standards have increased delivery time for some first-class mail and periodicals, notably by reducing mail with a 1-day standard," GAO said. "USPS revised its standard to maintain 1-day delivery for intra-Sectional Center Facility (SCF) mail, but not for inter-SCF mail. SCFs serve as the processing and distribution centers for post offices in a designated geographic area," GAO said. Those are the facilities Donahoe wants to close.

"USPS also revised its delivery standards for 2-day delivery. Mail must now be within a 6-hour drive between the applicable processing facilities rather than within a 12-hour drive time to meet the 2-day delivery standard; mail sent outside the 2-day delivery area shifted to a 3-day delivery standard," GAO said.

"USPS estimated that about one quarter of first-class mail volume was affected by the changes in delivery standards. Further, the percentage of single-piece and bulk first-class mail with a 1-day delivery standard decreased from 2012 to 2014, while the percentage with a 3-5 day delivery standard increased. USPS also eliminated 1-day delivery standards for periodicals, which generally shifted to a 2-day standard."

All this made such a mess of the mail that the Mail Handlers formally notified Donahoe's minions last month that USPS' 82 planned closures break the union's contract. They formally filed a nationwide grievance and requested arbitration.

The closures "violate the mail processing guidelines" in the USPS' own handbook, which are "incorporated by reference" into the NMPHU contract, its September 18 letter said.

"The handbook requires USPS to take certain actions, conduct various studies, accept and consider various opinions and hold certain public meetings" before implementing such closings. Those procedures last at least six months, and USPS has followed none of them, the union said.

The national unions are involved only in the last of the nine steps in such actions, NMPHU reminded the USPS brass. But the first step must be based on current data, and USPS is using numbers from when it started the last round of closings in 2011. And the procedures call for bottom-up consultations, with public notice at the very beginning and accountability throughout, it added.

"The current plans to close or consolidate the 82 processing facilities are based on untimely processes resulting in essentially meaningless studies and reports. Implementation would violate" pertinent sections of the handbook "and the National Agreement."

Photo: National Association of Letter Carriers at Neal Smith Federal Building in Des Moines, Iowa.

Labor making intensive final push for Election Day, Nov. 4

Fri, 31 Oct 2014 10:20:00 +0000

Backed by radio ads from the AFL-CIO and several top unions, workers and their allies mounted a final intensive political push in the week before the Nov. 4 election, seeking to convince unionists, their family members and pro-worker non-unionists to turn out in droves for worker-friendly candidates from the Senate and the statehouse to city hall and sheriff.

Turnout was the key. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told Michigan union leaders in October that since unions now represent only 6.7 percent of private-sector workers, "We're no longer big enough to win by ourselves. Not only do we need to get our members to the polls, we need to get their households to the polls."

And when unionists stumped for pro-union candidates, they sometimes were campaigning for fellow unionists. Union members on the ballot included gubernatorial nominees Mike Michaud of the Steelworkers in Maine and Mark Schauer of the Laborers in Michigan. Also running are at least two incumbent U.S. representatives, another U.S. House hopeful and dozens of candidates for state and local office.

But results of all these efforts and more won't be known until after the polls close, and in some cases, not even then. Senate Democrats are defending 35 of their 53 seats. One, Louisiana's Mary Landrieu, appears headed for a December runoff. So does Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Michelle Nunn in Georgia, seeking an open GOP-held seat. The Georgia runoff would be on Jan. 6.

And a strong pro-worker senator, Alaska Democrat Mark Begich, may have to wait weeks after the election for all the absentee ballots to be collected and counted from around his far-flung state.

The election is important for workers and their allies. With Congress gridlocked due to the tea party-run House and Senate GOP filibusters, action turned in the last four years to state capitols nationwide. And the wave of Republican governors elected in 2010 jammed through anti-worker legislation.

Many of those GOP governors, including Wisconsin's Scott Walker, Michigan's Rick Snyder, Maine's Paul LePage and Florida's Rick Scott, are in too-close-to-call re-election races against pro-worker candidates. But so are governors who have been pro-worker more often than not: Illinois' Pat Quinn, Connecticut's Dannel Malloy, and Colorado's John Hickenlooper, to name three.

The close races, and others, sent thousands of workers out on the hustings, including:

WISCONSIN: "It's not been tough for us to get volunteers in Wisconsin," Trumka told MSNBC while stumping for Democratic business executive Mary Burke, Walker's Wisconsin foe. "This guy (Walker) is known not just as an anti-worker governor in Wisconsin. He's sort of like the poster child for that across the country."

Walker and the GOP-run legislature abolished collective bargaining for 200,000 state and local workers and imposed other onerous restrictions. He survived a recall effort in 2012, but recently made headlines by saying the state's minimum wage - $7.25 hourly, the same as the federal minimum - "doesn't serve a purpose." Walker also called it "a living wage," which it is not. Walker and Burke are in a dead heat.

Enthusiastic Steelworkers, whose union is known for its political activism and organizing, hosted pre-election rallies for Michaud in Portland, Maine, and for Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial nominee Mary Burke at the Green Bay Labor Council building. Steelworkers President Leo Gerard keynoted the Green Bay rally.

"Wisconsin is ready for good jobs and a strong middle class. Wisconsin is ready to move forward with Mary Burke," the Steelworkers said before the November 1 rally there. "Union workers are working around the state to get out the vote for Burke by making phone calls, going door to door and having important conversations at worksites about our vote."

"In Wisconsin, our priority is to stop Walker, not only to end his rampage of ruin, but to warn the Walker clones in other states that they can't win on the backs of working people and retirees," added AFSCME President Lee Saunders in his union's nationwide tele-town hall in late October. "We won't let them."

"I'm ready to hit the phones to talk with fellow Machinists, encouraging them to vote," Local Lodge 66 member Doug Staniszwski said during a break in phone-banking. "I've got to do my part because I can't sit on the sidelines and wait for other people to do it anymore.

"Walker is ready to make Wisconsin a Right to Work state and I'm tired of him doing things to hurt working people. A Right to Work law would hurt every single person in Wisconsin, not just union members. Walker wants to drive down all our wages until we're a third world country. This is America, workers deserve a living wage."

ILLINOIS: Teamsters President James Hoffa spent a recent weekend campaigning for Quinn in Chicago. So did his union's members. Both also urged unionists to take advantage of the state's early-voting plan. Other states also let voters cast ballots early by mail.

"This election is very important and you need to encourage your family and friends to not only vote early but vote for candidates which believe in unions and all they stand for in support of working families," Hoffa told the 70 Teamsters working at Chicago's new - and Local 727-organized - Lagunitas Brewery. Brewery worker and Local 727 member Steve Syreggelas canvassed friends and family members. "Supporting union jobs in Illinois is very important. At Lagunitas...we are proud to be Teamsters brewing and bottling beer."

ALASKA: Laborers Local 341 led the way for the state AFL-CIO in Begich's race against Right Wing GOP Lieut. Gov. Dan Sullivan. Recent polls show Begich is trailing.

"This election is a choice between growth and opportunity for everyone or gridlock and special favors for the powerful. We think it's clear which one Alaskans prefer, but we need your help making sure they vote this year," the Laborers said. "Sullivan let Wall Street walk away with billions of Alaskans' retirement dollars," the state fed added. "We can't count on him to protect Alaska's interests over big corporations' interests."

MICHIGAN: GOP-passed "right-to-work (for less)" laws and other anti-worker measures - including weaker workers' comp, higher taxes on workers' pensions, fewer weeks of jobless benefits, imposing a state financial czar on Detroit and abolition of teacher tenure - drove workers out onto the campaign trail for the Laborers' Schauer, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee against Snyder. Chances of retaking the legislature are slim.

"It seems like every month the GOP introduces a new bill in the legislature," IBEW lobbyist Todd Tennis told The Building Tradesman. "Putting in more hoops for workers to jump through before they can get workers comp. Reducing unemployment compensation, which has just been devastating. Right to Work. And the (Snyder) administration has always gone along. No matter how difficult they have made things for workers, it's never enough."

"Pundits say both parties are the problem. In Michigan, when it comes to the war on workers and organized labor, that's clearly not the case. The Republican Party is doing all the damage," the Building Tradesman commented.

MINNESOTA: Gov. Mark Dayton had a wide lead for re-election, as did Sen. Al Franken, both DFL-Minn., but workers campaigned to prevent the state legislature from returning to total Republican control, as it had been during the first two years of Dayton's term.

"It becomes an anxious time," state Building Trades Council President Harry Melander told his convention, the Union Advocate reported. "We have made great progress, and to go backwards would be a shame." Dayton echoed that theme, citing 159,000 new jobs statewide, infrastructure improvements, a minimum wage hike and family-friendly laws.

"I hope to come back, obviously, but I don't want to come back with a Republican (state) House of Representatives," Dayton said, adding that it would mean "gridlock, deadlock and another budget showdown." The GOP shut down the state government for three weeks during its years of total control in St. Paul.

KENTUCKY: Steelworkers joined Mine Workers in campaigning around the Bluegrass State, with top targets being to replace the chief Republican obstructionist, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, with Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) and to prevent an anti-labor majority in the legislature.

Polls show the U.S. Senate race is a tossup, but McConnell's business and right-wing allies flooded the state with millions of dollars in negative ads. The Steelworkers, led by Gerard - who spoke at an Oct. 28 rally - countered with shoe leather.

"Voter turnout is going to be the difference maker in this election," said Jeff Vance of Local 1155L at the Bridgestone Tire plant in Warren County, Tenn. His state has no hot races, so Vance started canvassing Kentucky voters on Sept. 1. USW volunteers in Kentucky have knocked on about 50,000 doors. Only 1.4 million voters turned out in Kentucky's 2010 midterm election, so canvassing - especially with new targeting technology - can make a difference, USW says.

So does a concise message about the cause of gridlock in D.C. - McConnell - and importance of voting. The volunteers visited labor-minded voters, especially those in danger of staying home, with a simple plea: Get to the polls.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN UNIONISTS: High turnout by African-Americans could swing many of the close races, retired union leaders Norman and Velma Hill wrote in the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the nation's leading African-American papers. Norman Hill is a past president of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the AFL-CIO constituency group for African-Americans. Velma Hill is a former Teachers and SEIU official.

"In many close Senate races, Blacks constitute a significant proportion of the population: 32 percent in Louisiana, 31 percent in Georgia, 22 percent in North Carolina, 16 percent in Arkansas, 14 percent in Michigan, and eight percent in Kentucky," they wrote.

"The African-American vote has typically dipped dramatically during off-year elections. Reversing this tendency is made more difficult by the new strategic voting restrictions," especially in Southern states, after the Supreme Court gutted enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, the Hills wrote.

"More than ever, organizations like the NAACP, the A. Philip Randolph Institute and the AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions need to rise to the task. Without strong voter education, and get-out-vote programs, Blacks,

workers and all ordinary Americans will be shoved backward like no other time in the modern era," they warned.

NEW JERSEY: "So far this fall, our volunteers have visited 135,870 union members' homes to tell them about their Election Day choices," the New Jersey AFL-CIO tweeted last week. One of those choices is State Sen. David Norcross (D), past assistant business manager of IBEW Local 351 and past president of the Camden-area Building and Construction Trades. He's favored to win an open U.S. House seat in southern New Jersey.

Norcross would join the handful of elected unionists in the U.S. House. Though they'll lose Michaud - win or lose - in Maine, those seeking re-election include Reps. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., of Unite Here, Teamster Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., and Tim Walz, DFL-Minn., of Education Minnesota, the state's joint AFT-NEA affiliate.

On the state level, they join Oregon State Senate Majority Leader Diane Rosenbaum, a Communications Worker, Mineworkers District 31 President Mike Caputo, the West Virginia House Minority Whip, and Missouri Building Trades President Gina Walsh, one of the leaders of the State Senate's Democratic minority.

They're not the only unionists who sought votes for themselves. Besides Sanchez, the Teamsters alone list a dozen members seeking elected office, many of them for state legislative seats. Local 600 members Bob Burns and Terry Lisinski, seek Missouri House seats, as does Ohio's Thomas Jefferson Davis of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers/ Teamsters. He's running in Scioto County, east of Cincinnati.

All are in normally GOP territory. So are Local 190's Eric Johnson, seeking a Montana senate seat, and Local 728 member Jim Nichols, seeking a Georgia senate seat. Two Graphic Communications Conference/IBT members are among union candidates for local office: Former Chicagoan Mark Bogen in Broward County, Fla. (Jacksonville) for county commissioner and Tom Trapp in the Republican town of Clarkson, Long Island.

MEDIA ADS: Workers' Voice, the labor federation's independent campaign committee that, thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling can reach out to non-members, backed selected gubernatorial and U.S. Senate hopefuls with seven figures' worth of radio ads. The ads are "designed to educate working families about the stakes on Nov. 4 and promote the candidates who will work for their economic interests," the fed says.

The 60-second radio ad blitz, backed Begich, Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, who seeks an open U.S. Senate seat there, Grimes, Michaud and Burke. Workers' Voice also bought TV ads for Schauer, who is in a neck-and-neck battle against Snyder in Michigan.

Photo: Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO is campaigning relentlessy around the country to defeat right-wing Republicans and to prevent a GOP takeover of the Senate. Alex Brandon/AP

Today in labor history: Nat Turner captured

Thu, 30 Oct 2014 14:36:00 +0000

On this day in 1831, Nat Turner, leader of one of the largest slave revolts in U.S. history was captured. The rebellion began in August of that year was put down a few days after its inception, but Turner successfully eluded captors until for nearly two months. Over 50 slaves were killed in retaliation by militias and perhaps 200 more in the aftermath of the revolt. A slew of new repressive laws were passed in the slave South as a result.

W.E.B. Du Bois commenting on the Turner rebellion pointed to its economic origins. "The Turner insurrection is so connected with the economic revolution which enthroned cotton that it marks an epoch in the history of the slave. A wave of legislation passed over the South prohibiting the slaves from learning to read and write, forbidding Negroes to preach, and interfering with Negro religious meetings. Virginia declared, in 1831, that neither slaves or free Negroes might preach, nor could they attend religious service at night without permission."

Photo: Encyclopedia of Virginia, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Today in labor history: International Labour Organization conference in D.C.

Wed, 29 Oct 2014 16:26:00 +0000

On October 29, 1919, the International Labour Organization (ILO) held its first conference in Washington, D.C., adopting six international Labor Conventions.

On January 30 of that year, the Paris Peace Conference established the Commission on International Labour Legislation to draft the constitution of a permanent international labor organization, founding the ILO.

In the wake of the devastation of a destructive world war, the Conference established the Commission to pursue a vision based on the premise that universal, lasting peace can be established only if it is based on social justice.

The ILO became the first specialized agency of the UN in 1946. Today, as part of the UN, the ILO is charged with drafting and overseeing international labor standards. The main aims of the ILO are to promote rights at work, encourage decent employment opportunities, enhance social protection and strengthen dialogue on work-related issues.

The ILO website is available in English, Spanish and French languages. It provides a wealth of information on current issues in countries of Africa, the Americas, the Arab States, Asia and the Pacific, and Europe and Central Asia.

The ILO holds meetings and events, produces statistics and databases, publications, labor standards and original research. It hosts a newsroom, campaigns, and covers trends in the world of work.

The ILO registers complaints against entities that are violating international labor standards and policies; however, it does not impose sanctions on governments.

Recent topics include a campaign against child labor, ILO/WHO briefing on the Ebola outbreak, Gaza reconstruction efforts through its Palestinian Decent Work Programme, substantial skills mismatch in Europe, and the challenges and opportunities for trade unions in 2015.

ILO has a multi media library and you can follow ILO on twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds and other social networking sites.

Photo: ILO Facebook.

AFL-CIO rallies Georgia voters for Nov. 4

Wed, 29 Oct 2014 13:51:00 +0000

The AFL-CIO's determination to advance the struggle in southern red electoral states came alive Sunday, Oct. 26, with a Get Out the Vote rally in suburban Clayton County, near Atlanta, where Tefere Gebre, their executive vice-president, spoke about the urgency to energize the grassroots, door-to-door efforts building for the Nov. 4 election.

Flanked on stage by Charlie Flemming, Georgia AFL-CIO president, and Roberta Abdullah-Salem, former state representative and present coordinator of the Friends of Transit, Gebre spoke of the need for public transportation to help create jobs locally.

Four years ago, Clayton County was written out of regional plans for public transit (CTRAN) connecting it with the popular MARTA system, which serves metropolitan Atlanta. After years of wrangling in the state legislature and a final approval by the county commissioners, Clayton County residents won the fight to get a referendum on this year's ballot.

Supporters of the ballot initiative, who include bus drivers from the Amalgamated Transit Workers Union, estimate that nearly 500 new jobs would be created by the 48 million-dollar expansion to Clayton County, where lack of transportation contributes to high unemployment.

The rally and subsequent caravan ended with door-to-door canvassing and voting, and the charismatic Gebre's promise to return to Georgia on November 3rd. The decision to come south twice underscores recognition of the critically close race for both senator and governor in the Peach State.

Latest polls give Michelle Nunn (a Democrat following in the steps of her senator father Sam Nunn) a razor-thin lead over David Perdue, a local vulture capitalist known for his Swiss bank accounts and closing local plants to send jobs abroad.

In the gubernatorial arena Jimmy Carter's grandson, state senator Jason Carter, is pulling even with the Republican incumbent, Nathan Deal. It would seem that in places like Georgia, having a reasonable political viewpoints is only acceptable if you have dynastic connections.

Photo: Georgia voters line up to cast their ballot early, Oct. 26 (via Tefere Gebre Twitter feed).

Injunction halts action against Philly teachers contract

Wed, 29 Oct 2014 13:17:00 +0000

The School Reform Commission (SRC), the state body which runs Philly's public schools, unilaterally and abruptly cancelled the contract with Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. This week that action was enjoined by a local court.

The Commission, which had been negotiating with the teachers' union (PFT), is seeking to force teachers to pay substantially more for their health insurance and has announced its intention to appeal the decision in the state (Commonwealth) courts. The Philadelphia school district, like others throughout the state, is limping along deprived of more than one billion dollars by the administration of Republican Gov. Tom Corbett.

At stake in this whiplash fight to fund public education is whether the SRC can abrogate the contract with the PFT, imposing its terms. Educators across the country and from differing perspectives view this latest act as "... a drumbeat across the country that this is the way to deal with your public-sector unions," said Linda Kajoolian, public policy lecturer at Harvard University (Education Week, Oct. 27).

The action of the SRC met a response which could only be called appropriate and dramatic. More than 3,000 thousand teachers, students and parents, together with many local trade unionists, filled the city streets in front of the SRC offices - forcing police to block off sections of Broad Street. The red tee shirts of union supporters dominated the visuals.

Education supporters are learning to be prepared on a dime. More than 60 of them entered the SRC meeting to testify against the SRC's action. Among the organizations present were the Home and School Association, the Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools (PCAPS), POWER and others. Teachers, they said, not only already fund education through voluntarily purchasing school supplies, but work in high stress circumstances worrying about the next management shoe to fall. Jerry Jordan, PFT President, said employees are not indentured servants and the union had proposed other contributions teachers are willing to make.

The under-funding of public education has a long history and predates the austerity years ushered in under Ronald Reagan. The latest effort by the relatively new management of the SRC fills out the politics of privatizing schools, which has meant selling off public schools to the highest bidder in the name of "reform". The second leg of this policy is to let teachers, school workers and their unions know that their contract is a work in progress subject to the needs or whims of management.

Negotiations between the PFT and the SRC have been going on for more than a year. Now Pennsylvania is in an electoral fight to determine who will be the next governor. Corbett, who is credited with orchestrating the annual reduction in state funding for education, is fighting for his political life. Polls consistently show Corbett trailing Democratic challenger Tom Wolf. Some think this current action by the SRC is a "hail mary pass" for Corbett to show undying support for the privatizers and union busters of public education. For-profit interests in the education field and oil and gas extractors have been big contributors to the Corbett re-election campaign.

The election this year gives voters an opportunity to speak for education and for taxing the fracking industry. Tom Wolf, Tom Corbett's opponent, has pledged to increase funding for education and has proposed a five-percent extraction tax. Activists argue that this is an opportunity to oust the right wing governor and elect one who proposes change for the better. Savvy voters are preparing to go to the polls and do the necessary lobbying once the election is history.

Photo: Ben Sears/PW

Labor aims to unseat McConnell, block GOP power grab

Wed, 29 Oct 2014 12:41:00 +0000

Steelworkers, Electrical workers, Teamsters, and health care workers stood and cheered Oct. 28 as U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., pounded the lectern and urged Kentucky voters to turn out election day to remove Republican Mitch McConnell from the Senate.

"There is no better fighter for America's middle class, for America's working people than Alison Lundergan Grimes," Warren told the crowd of union members that packed International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 369. Warren was referring to McConnell's Democratic challenger, Alison Lundergan Grimes, who is currently Kentucky's Secretary of State. Polls show the two candidates in a dead heat with less than a week before the Nov. 4 off-year election.

Steelworker organizer, Ronnie Watson, told the People's World by phone from his office in Louisville that Alison Grimes, Elizabeth Warren and others who spoke at the union rally then left the IBEW union hall and drove to the Copper & King distillery where they were greeted by another crowd of 400 supporters.

Sen. Warren told that crowd that she and Grimes "believe in an America where kids have a fighting chance to get an education without being crushed by student loan debt." She blasted McConnell for blocking an increase in the minimum wage, for obstructing legislation to ease the burden of student loan debt.

Both she and Grimes support tougher rules against ruthless Wall Street profiteers, ending tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas, Warren said. "We believe that corporations are not people," Warren added. "Mitch McConnell is here to work for the millionaires and billionaires."

As the crowd applauded, Grimes described herself as a "strong Kentucky woman" who will stand in defense of Medicare and Social Security. "It is labor that has lifted millions out of poverty and it is labor that will help us grow the middle class," Grimes added.

Watson said Kentucky's labor movement is helping turn the tide against McConnell. "This election is taking a turn. Grimes has the momentum. She has visited every county and everywhere she stops, she's got a crowd."

He added, "This past week we've been phonebanking and doing a lot of door knocking. Jefferson County, where Louisville is located, is a major population center with a lot of votes."

Yet Grimes, he said, has a statewide strategy, appealing to voters in the coal-mining regions of east Kentucky to the bluegrass of western Kentucky. "We've worked really hard for the past several months. We have a really great candidate, a woman who challenged the 'King.'"

The razor thin margin that separates Democrat Grimes and Republican McConnell mirrors the "too-close-to call" tightness of Senate races all across the nation. Labor's "ground game" is considered a decisive factor in the final drive to get out the vote. At stake is the Republican's determination to take majority control of the U.S. Senate. The current Senate is 53 Democrats to 45 Republicans. The GOP must gain six additional seats to win majority control. For months, the corporate media has trumpeted the advantages of the Republicans while orchestrating a campaign of Obama-bashing seeking to turn the election into a referendum on the President's failure to stop the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and the ISIS offensive in Iraq.

Yet the lie-factory seems to be running on empty even if fueled by tens of millions of dollars in Koch Brother secret donations. Polls show a dead heat in the following Senate races:

Colorado: Democrat Tom Udall vs. Republican Allen Weh

Kansas: Independent Greg Orman vs. Republican Pat Roberts

Kentucky: Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes vs. Republican Mitch McConnell

North Carolina: Democrat Kay Hagan vs. Republican Thom Tillis

New Hampshire: Democrat Jeanne Shaheen vs. Republican Scott Brown

Georgia: Democrat Michelle Nunn vs. Republican David Perdue

Iowa: Democrat Bruce Braley vs. Republican Joni Ernst

Alaska: Democrat Mark Begich vs. Republican Dan Sullivan

In every one of these races, the AFL-CIO is spearheading a get-out-the-vote ground game for the Democratic or Independent candidates with major mobilizations this coming weekend and on through election day. Union members are phonebanking, doorbelling, to get their members and other concerned citizens to the polls. Corporate media polls cannot deny that this election is too close to call. The only poll that counts in the end, is the number of votes counted starting the evening of Nov. 4.

Photo: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. (left), campaigned in front of crowds of union workers for Kentucky Secrearty of State Alison Lundergran Grimes. The labor movement is backing Grimes who is working to oust Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell from both his Senate seat and his position as Minority Leader. Timothy D. Easley/AP

Labor says vote for hopes not fears in Connecticut

Wed, 29 Oct 2014 11:18:00 +0000

"Connecticut needs a governor who walks picket lines, not a governor who busts unions and destroys communities," proclaimed AFT president Randi Weingarten at a jam-packed labor walk kickoff rally Sunday in New Britain with Governor Dannel Malloy (D).

While Malloy joined striking AFT Connecticut workers at Lawrence and Memorial Hospital in New London last year and helped settle that lockout, his opponent, multi-millionaire Republican Tom Foley, forced workers on strike when he owned TB Woods Sons Inc. in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. He replaced 325 members of UAW Local 695 with non-union workers and then sold the company for $40 million leaving an entire community stranded. "We decided to go without the union," he said.

Across the state hundreds of union volunteers and community activists are knocking on the doors of their co-workers and neighbors to discuss the high stakes of this tossup election and get commitments to vote. When Malloy and Foley ran against each other in 2010, Malloy won by only 6,000 votes.

As one canvasser said, "We don't want Connecticut workers and communities to be abandoned like our sisters and brothers were in Chambersburg."

Firing up the volunteers, Liz Schuler, secretary treasurer of the AFL-CIO declared, "Vote your hopes not your fears."

Malloy's response to the economic crisis was opposite to that of Republican governors like New Jersey's Chris Christie and Indiana's Mike Pence who shredded collective bargaining rights for public workers, withdrew aid to cities, and starved public education. Both are campaigning with Foley.

There have been issues of contention over the last four years, but the Malloy administration, including Lt. Governor Nancy Wyman, a past member of 1199, and Commissioner of Labor Sharon Palmer formerly president of AFT CT, have bucked the national tide and taken some bold steps toward improving the lives of working class people in the state with the largest wealth gap in the nation.

Connecticut was the first state to enact mandatory paid sick days and to raise the minimum wage. In addition, the governor signed an executive order allowing 20,000 home health care and home child care workers to unioninze. They now have won their first contracts and are receiving retroactive pay increases.

An Earned Income Tax Credit for low-wage workers and Circuit Breaker tax relief for seniors were enacted, alternative sentencing and other policies have reduced youth incarceration 44%, state pension funds have been strengthened, a green bank was established, the Dream Act was signed into law, funding for public education and for cities has been increased to avoid layoffs of municipal workers. As well the death penalty was repealed and the strongest gun safety legislation was passed following the Newtown tragedy.

"What we have accomplished in Connecticut makes us a top target," said Lori Pelletier, executive secretary treasurer of the Connecticut AFL-CIO. She praised the state's union leaders for working tirelessly since February with an education and voter engagement program to ensure that this state does not have the anti-worker "Wisconsin moment" that Foley said Connecticut needs.

"Tom Foley's Wisconsin moment? Tax cuts for millionaires and pay cuts for working families. No thanks, Tom," says Dawn Tyson in AFSCME Council 4's video "The View from Wisconsin and Connecticut."

AFSCME president Lee Saunders has also traveled to Connecticut to support Mally and Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty (D-CT5). At a labor walk rally in Meriden he said, "The governor has stood with working families across Connecticut and we will stand with him." Reflecting the tight race he urged the volunteers, "This is one on one organizing, knocking on doors, making calls, at worksites. If we dedicate ourselves we will make a statement in Connecticut and across the country."

It has become clear to many that Foley's concern is for the well-being of the One Percent and not the vast majority of Connecticut residents. His tax returns show that he paid little or no federal and state income taxes in the last three years despite owning a large home, fancy yacht and private jet. He promises voters that he will cut their taxes but says nothing about how services will be maintained.

Foley has been endorsed by extremist right-wing groups including the Family Institute of Connecticut and A Public Voice, Inc. of West Chester, Ohio. Both oppose same sex marriage and women's reproductive rights. He has also been endorsed by the Connecticut Citizens Defense League the state's largest gun owners group.

In response to high expectations from labor, Malloy has strengthened his stance for workers' rights. "You do the hard work and you should be respected and have the right to collectively bargain." he told Yale's graduate student teachers and researchers seeking union recognition at a rally of 1500 for good jobs in New Haven last week, adding "This state stands up for working class people."

Unions are not alone in mobilizing for Malloy's re-election. The Sierra Club, gun safety organizations who support Malloy's role in passing the strongest legislation in the country after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, and women's organizations are among those campaigning with the Governor.

In New Haven, the city with the largest Democratic voter turnout, a movement demanding living wage jobs in African American and Latino neighborhoods is asking voters to commit to be "Jobs Voters" on election day by voting for Malloy and for question one, to expand early voting, and question two, which would require developers who receive public funds to hire New Haven residents. The youth group New Elm City Dream spent the summer registering voters and is now going door to door to get out the vote.

Malloy and Wyman, along with the other constitutional officers and Congressional candidates will also appear on the Working Families line.

Like elsewhere across the country, this election is a tossup in the polls. And like elsewhere, voter turnout will decide if Connecticut is to be led by a governor who walks picket lines or busts unions and destroys communities.

Photo: Union volunteers applaud Gov. Dan Malloy before door-knocking in support of the governor. Art Perlo/PW

Today in labor history: Puerto Rican labor organizer and feminist Luisa Capetillo born

Tue, 28 Oct 2014 18:04:00 +0000

Luisa Capetillo was born on Oct. 28 1879 in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Her parents gave her a very liberal education that wasn't common for women at that time. They encouraged open and free debate as a vital part of her education. This allowed her to be exposed to many philosophical views of which she adopted anarchism. While most anarchists at the time were atheists, she maintained her faith in God. Luisa viewed being a Christian as believing in justice and equality.

Luisa had a love affair in her late teens that lasted three years and resulted in two children. By 1898 she was a single mother and had to look for work. Luisa eventually found a job as a reader at a cigar factory owned by American Tobacco Company, which hired readers to read stories and current events to the employees while they worked.

A reader sat or stood at a podium on the factory floor and read aloud so that the workers who stemmed the tobacco leaves and rolled the cigars could hear It was tradition i to have open discussions and debate on particular lectures without interrupting the work. Workers also debated and voted on which works would be read each day.

The tobacco factory was where Luisa first came into contact with labor unions. The Federación Libre de Trabajadores (FLT), which translates as Free Federation of Workers was organizing tobacco factory workers in the area. Luisa quickly took to organizing and educating women across Puerto Rico.

She wrote political literature to support a sugar cane workers strike in 1905. As the Puerto Rican sugar industry boomed, the workers demanded better wages and fewer hours.

She was also one of Puerto Rico's first women suffragists. As a leader in the FTL she asked at the convention of 1908 for it to support women's suffrage. While she was an anarchist, Luisa still campaigned for the Partido Socialista (Socialist Party) the political arm of the FTL.

In 1912 she traveled to New York City to organize workers in the tobacco factories there. 1916-1918 was an intense period of strike activity and she would travel between New York City and Puerto Rico. Luisa traveled to Cuba to work with la Federación Anarquista de Cuba (Federation of Anarchists of Cuba) organizing sugar cane workers.

In 1922 she contract tuberculosis and died at the age of 42. While becoming well known as the first women to wear pants in public in Puerto Rico, she led a very dynamic life and played a major role in the feminist and labor movements.

Today in labor history: Birth of poet Dylan Thomas

Mon, 27 Oct 2014 15:30:00 +0000

October 27, 2014 marks the centennial of the birth in Swansea, Wales, of world-renowned poet Dylan Thomas. A famous tippler, Thomas died in New York City at the age of 39 in 1953. The singer-songwriter Bob Dylan (originally Robert Allen Zimmerman) assumed his name in tribute to the poet.

Some of Thomas's poems have entered the canon of poetry in the English language. His "Do not go gentle into that good night" has become almost a popular saying, expressing the passion to live large up to the very end. The companion line from that poem that has also found its way into common speech is "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." How many old radicals in retirement homes, now trying to organize the workers there, have embraced this philosophy of militancy into their sunset years!

More than any other single work, Dylan Thomas is known for the 1954 radio drama (performed posthumously, and often staged) Under Milk Wood, which comprises a day in the life of the small fictional Welsh seaside town of Llareggub, with a wide-ranging cast of characters that one might find there. Various professions are represented among its colorful folk: a sea captain and fisherman, the butcher, the barber and herbalist, the barman, cobbler, draper and undertaker, the sweetshop owner, the proprietress of a guesthouse, the schoolteacher, church organist, linoleum salesman, farmer, police constable, postman and preacher. They all have their vivid dreams and fantasies, many libidinous and ecstatic. The play is a warm and tender appreciation of the human spirit, without a false note of sentimentality.

Labor Secretary boosts unions, praises new models of organizing

Mon, 27 Oct 2014 15:05:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - For Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, unions represent what's right with the U.S.

In a stem-winding speech at the National Press Club on Oct. 22, Perez, who grew up in a working-class family in Buffalo, declared unions are responsible for creating and sustaining the middle class. And the decline in unions is bad for the nation, he added.

Perez' remarks are notable because they represent one of the Obama administration's few full-throated instances of advocacy of unions before a non-union audience. While Obama himself says people should join unions - most recently in a Labor Day speech in Milwaukee - he's restricted those remarks to appearances before union and/or partisan Democratic crowds.

They're also notable because Perez has been backing words with enforcement actions. His predecessor, first-term Obama Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, repeatedly declared herself "the new sheriff in town." She repeatedly used those words to union audiences.

But Perez' DOL has been backing the words by acting on a wide range of labor law enforcement issues, unveiling job health and safety rules and cracking down on worker misclassification, for example.

In his speech, Perez skipped areas where Obama and unions split: The president's support of magnet and charter schools and conflicts with teachers unions over testing, his refusal to push the Employee Free Choice Act when Democrats ran Congress - though Obama said he would sign it - his negotiation of so-called "free trade" pacts and lobbying for "fast-track" trade treaty authority for presidents to ram the pacts through without worker rights.

But after touting the statistical recovery from the Great Recession (also known as the Bush Crash) since Obama took office in 2009, Perez admitted it isn't enough for rank-and-file workers. "The pie is getting bigger...American workers helped bake it...but they're not getting a bigger slice. Their sweat equity hasn't translated into financial equity," he said.

"We're on pace for 2014 to be the best year for private sector job growth in 16 years. But the difference between then and now is that the rising tide of the late 1990s lifted more boats - the yachts and the rafts; the cruise liners and the dinghies. The principal unfinished business of this recovery is to ensure that prosperity is broadly shared, and that we build an economy that works for everyone."

That means building a "stairway to shared prosperity" for all, Perez declared. Its steps include raising the minimum wage, building infrastructure, paid sick leave, empowering and equally paying woman workers, comprehensive immigration reform - and unionization.

"Worker voice can take many forms, one of the most important being membership in a union," he said. "The Obama administration is resolute when it comes to protecting the collective bargaining rights of workers across America, rights that have come under withering attack in recent years. Because it's clear to me, throughout our history, there is a direct relationship between the health of the middle class and the vitality of the labor movement.

"The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that last year median weekly earnings for union members were $200 higher than for non-union workers. That's not pocket change, and it doesn't even account for the superior benefits enjoyed by union members," he pointed out.

"I grew up in Buffalo, the quintessential 20^th century manufacturing town, and I saw firsthand that a job in a union shop was a surefire way to punch your ticket to the middle class. What I saw in Buffalo and continue to see as Labor Secretary is that unions don't succeed at the expense of business. They succeed in partnership with business."

His examples of such partnerships include the Ford plant in Louisville, Kentucky, which rose from 1,000 workers in 2007 to 4,400 and rising now; joint Teamsters-UPS cooperation on "building a pipeline of skilled workers;" and joint union-management training sponsored by the Service Employees to increase the number of health care professionals.

But Perez did not limit his remarks to traditional union structure. He singled out, and praised, alternative models.

One he lauded is the mass movement of low-wage workers for a living wage, decent conditions and benefits and the right to organize without employer interference. The other is the United Auto Workers' experiment with the German labor-management "works council" cooperation model at the Chattanooga, Tenn., Volkswagen plant. Perez will travel to Germany to discuss that "works council" model. He advocated importing it to the U.S. on a wider scale.

"We need to create space in America for new forms of collaboration between workers and their employers," he explained. And building the stairway to prosperity should be bipartisan, Perez stated. The first person he quoted saying those words was GOP President Theodore Roosevelt.

"There are still many stubborn obstacles making it harder for workers to have a meaningful voice," Perez admitted. "Many workers are scared to speak out because they don't want to lose their jobs. Many states have passed laws making it harder for workers to organize," he noted, without saying that Republicans pushed those so-called right-to-work laws and other anti-union, anti-worker measures.

"But I've been around the block enough to know that you can't stifle the voices of the American worker for long. The various movements and models - some longstanding, others emerging - give me great hope that we can fortify this critical step in the stairway of shared prosperity," Perez said.

Photo: Labor Secretary Thomas Perez. AP

Workers’ Ed Society opens in St. Louis

Mon, 27 Oct 2014 12:51:00 +0000

ST. LOUIS - After nearly a year of organizing, fundraising and coalition building, the St. Louis Workers' Education Society, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization committed to initiating and facilitating community-labor coalition building and pro-union education curricula, recently purchased its new headquarters - a historic, beautiful, 10,000 square-foot union hall located in south St. Louis City.

The property - located at 2929 S. Jefferson Ave. - was built in 1913 and was formerly the home of the International Union of Operating Engineers' (IUOE) Local 148. Before that, it was owned by the Stove Mounters International Union of North America.

The Workers' Education Society is part of the emerging National Worker Center Movement, and actively participates in local labor-led coalition efforts to form a workers' center here in St. Louis, along with the Service Employees' International Union (SEIU), St. Louis Jobs with Justice (JWJ), the St. Louis chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU), and the Missouri Immigrant and Refugee Advocates (MIRA) coalition, among others.

The Workers' Education Society offers educational curriculum focused on "Workers' Rights" and "Understanding and Advancing Democracy."

Specifically, we partner with local unions to offer on-site apprenticeship application assistance and classes on understanding a union contract, shop stewards trainings and a brief history of the St. Louis labor movement.

Our apprenticeship application assistance program and labor education curriculum focuses on building union membership among women, Latinos and African Americans - a large and growing part of the workforce unfortunately often denied the benefits of union membership. Additionally, we initiate voter registration and constituent meeting facilitation.

The St. Louis Workers' Education Society building currently houses national organizations like Labor Campaign for Single Payer Health Care, and the Speak Progress speakers' bureau, regional organizations like the Missouri/Kansas bureau of the People's World and local, grassroots organizations like Latinos En Axión STL, a immigrant rights organization - each organization building the movements for social and economic justice in its own way.

Probably most remarkably, the purchase of the 10,000 square-foot community center was made possible by local and national supporters - working men and women, union and non-union, skilled and unskilled, professional and academic - who dug deep and gave generously to make this project a reality. Additionally, we received financial support from local unions, faith leaders and elected officials.

Don Giljum, a Workers' Education Society board member and retired business manager of IUOE Local 148, told the People's World, "We've officially owned this property for about one month. The amount of support we've received is truly humbling. Our entire rehab has been volunteer driven. Not only have our supporters put their money where their mouths are, they have quite literally put their bodies - their time, sweat and energy - where their money is, the St. Louis Workers' Education Society."

Holly Roe, a social worker and member of the Missouri State Workers' Union (CWA-MSWU) Local 6355, is one of the volunteers Giljum spoke about. She has spent numerous hours cleaning, painting and working with a larger volunteer collective to help shape and guide the overall direction of the Society's rehab.

She said, "St. Louis needs a place like this. We all need a place like this - activists, union leaders, workers generally - a place we can call home, our political home. The Workers' Education Society is that place."

Leticia Seitz, the executive director of Latinos En Axión STL, couldn't agree with Roe more. Latinos En Axión STL is the most recent organization to become part of the Workers' Education Society family.

"This space is wonderful. It's open and welcoming. There is plenty of room for classes, meetings and crafts that deepen our members' connection with their culture."

Latinos En Axión STL not only organize out-reach to the Spanish speaking community, they also facilitate regular continuing education classes for Spanish speakers, English as a second language classes, workshops on domestic violence and out-reach to youth separated from their families due to immigration policy.

Rebecca Bolte, a local small business owner, sees the Workers' Education Society building as an essential bridge bringing together community and labor.

"When unions are stronger, small businesses do better," Bolte said. "It's the people in the neighborhood, the people working regular jobs, the teachers, firefighters and mechanics - not the corporate CEO's - who spend money here, who shop here, who drive our economy. If they've got good paying, union jobs, small businesses like mine do better."

Ultimately, the St. Louis Workers' Education Society sees itself as a central hub of activity, bringing together trade unions, community organizations, churches, student and small businesses - all with one goal, to make our community better!

If you would like to learn more about the St. Louis Workers' Education Society please contact Tony Pecinovsky (tony@workerseducationsociety.org or 314-240-5477).

If you would like to make a donation to support our on-going work, please send checks payable to: Workers' Education Society, 2929 S. Jefferson Ave., St. Louis MO 63118.

Visit our website at: www.workerseducationsociety.org

Photo: The building that will house the Workers' Education Society. Tony Pecinovsky/PW

Walmart workers plan new round of Black Friday protests

Fri, 24 Oct 2014 15:07:00 +0000

Walmart workers, who have been agitating peacefully for years for pro-worker changes at the notoriously anti-worker low-paying lousy-benefits retail monster, are again planning mass protests at their stores nationwide on "Black Friday," the big shopping day immediately after Thanksgiving.

The activists, members of Our Walmart, set their plans in motion after Walmart pressured police in D.C. and New York City to arrest 42 people on October 17. Arrestees were demonstrating outside the D.C. office of Walmart's foundation and outside a Park Avenue penthouse that a rich Walmart co-owner/family member just bought in Manhattan.

Protesters demanded Walmart stop using taxpayer funds - calculated at $7.8 billion annually for food stamps, Medicaid, housing subsidies and more - to support its low wages.

And they delivered a petition to firm chairman Rob Walton and to the foundation office, demanding the company pay its workers a living wage of $15 an hour, and provide full-time (40 hour) workweeks on predictable schedules. That would let them find child care, pay their bills and raise their kids normally. If Walmart refuses, the Black Friday protests will go ahead as planned.

The Walmart workers are a leading sector of the mass movement of low-wage workers nationwide - retail workers, port truckers, fast-food workers, warehouse workers and others - who have had it with low wages, no benefits and company oppression of their rights.

Millions of those workers, like the Walmart workers, have taken the streets demanding a living wage, decent working conditions and benefits, regular hours and the right to organize without employer interference and law-breaking.

Walmart's wages are usually below $10 hourly and often below $9. And it defines "full-time" as 30 hours a week. Last year, Walmart's former CEO admitted most Walmart workers are paid less than $25,000 each yearly. The low-pay few-hours combination usually means Walmart workers cannot afford the firm's high-cost health insurance, either.

Workers who have protested Walmart's conditions have been met by massive company repression, illegal firings and other labor law-breaking. A Cornell University study showed at least 288 federal labor law-breaking citations against Walmart in the last five years.

The protesters made it clear that Walmart's wages and working conditions are totally inadequate to support families. Protests occurred at Walmart stores and other sites nationwide on October 17, though arrests occurred only in New York and D.C.

Workers from 1,710 Walmart stores, located in each state, signed the petition to Rob Walton. "The Waltons have made it impossible for me to get ahead and make sure my daughter goes to bed in a warm home," said Fatmata Jabbie, a Walmart worker who delivered a copy to the foundation's D.C. office. "My grandkids go hungry because of low pay at Wal-Mart," added Sandra Sok, a Walmart worker in Phoenix.

"We are tired of seeing the Waltons enjoy every luxury this world can offer while the workers that build their wealth are unable to pay their bills," said Interfaith Worker Justice Executive Director Kim Bobo. "Income inequality will only be addressed when the Waltons and Walmart provide fair pay and regular hours to their workers. I'm here today taking a stand for Walmart workers, and I'll be back on Black Friday with thousands of others who have had enough of Wal-Mart's destruction of the American Dream."

Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., who spoke at the D.C. protest, noted that "Walmart alone rakes in $16 billion a year while enjoying $8 billion in tax breaks and subsidies, but refuses to pay employees enough to put food on the table or clothes on their back. Many employees are forced to rely on taxpayer-funded programs, meaning taxpayers are paying for the Walton family's refusal to pay a decent wage. It's time to end this scam, and ensure all workers have the decency of a livable wage and full-time work."

Photo: This is what $15/hour and full time would mean for Our Walmart Southern California member Nikki. Organization United for Respect, Facebook.

Ohio teachers strike, beat back board attack

Fri, 24 Oct 2014 14:05:00 +0000

COLUMBUS, Ohio - After a tumultuous 15 days on the picket line, teachers in the conservative community of Reynoldsburg, near Columbus, Ohio, went back to work with a solid settlement this past week. Like all labor contracts, the settlement is somewhat of a compromise, but it is actually a major victory not only for the 374 teachers represented by the Reynoldsburg Education Association (REA), but for the students, parents and community in general.

Teachers, as well as parents, students and the wider community, saw the strike as a foregone conclusion, one that was forced onto the teachers. "The vast majority of teachers felt we did the right thing, both for ourselves and our families, but for our students and for education in Reynoldsburg," stated REA spokesperson Kathy Evans.

The settlement will protect teacher's health care and pensions and establishes, for the first time, a program to control the growth of class sizes. Teachers are to get raises of 2 percent the first year, 1.6 percent and 1.9 percent in succeeding years. Board proposals to forego contractual increases for so-called merit pay are nowhere in the new contract.

For weeks prior to the contract deadline, the Reynoldsburg School Board, representing extreme "tea party" views, used the GOP-leaning media in Columbus to attack teacher's competency, commitment and push their program of establishing a "merit pay" based system. The board's program included wiping out teacher's paid health care and replacing it with lump sum payments, as well as attacks on the teacher's pensions. The entire pay system was to be overturned, if the board had its way, replaced entirely with a system of subjectively run "merit pay" and lump sums. Teacher and parent/community input into education in Reynoldsburg was to be sidelined, replaced completely with a corporate-run system, based exclusively on testing.

The atmosphere of the schools became increasingly authoritarian, also, with the board bringing in "guards" and students were publically threatened with arrest if they did anything to support their teachers, as well as for "truancy." Students were "accompanied" to classes and were only able to use the restrooms at designated "restroom breaks."

Like a prison

"It's like prison," said high school student Baker Long. "I can't go to the bathroom by myself when I have to. I can't get food. This is ridiculous!"

The teachers, on the other hand, took a strong position for limiting classroom size, for longer, structured programs of class preparation, as well as standing up for parent and community input into education. The system of structured pay raises, health care and pensions were strongly defended by the REA, and student's welfare was a high priority. These stands hit a strong positive note for the entire Reynoldsburg community.

Treating the strike as a militarized threat, the school board advertised across Ohio to bring in scabs to teach & spent over $80,000 bringing in the union-busting firm, Huffmaster. They used radio and the press to issue public threats to arrest students or parents supporting the teachers. Superintendent Tina Thomas-Manning defended the use of scabs and union-busters during the walkout, stating they were for "the safety of the students." Her pay, however, had become a major issue, both for teachers and parents prior to & during the strike.

The school board had raised the pay of the previous superintendent, Steve Dacklin, by 20.8 percent in 2011, and again raised pay for that position by 8.5 percent when Thomas-Manning was hired, with no prior experience in this position, in January of this year.

"It's a slap in the face to expect teachers to take concessions," said parent Debbie Dunlap at big mass community meeting a week before the strike, "then turn around and ask teachers to give more, and all the while increasing the pay of management."

As teachers hit the picket lines, their students defied the school's threats of arrest and expulsion to stand with them. Dozens of students walked out of classes, chanting; "We love our teachers" and "No justice, no peace!"

Parents and community folks also weighed in. A large community organization, 'Families for Teachers,' called a Community Education Rally in front of the Reynoldsburg High School. Estimated at over a thousand folks, the event set a tone of massive community support for the embattled teachers.

"Shame on you, board members, for not standing up for the principles and values of decent education that you were elected to uphold," shouted parent Denise Shook. "You are single-handedly destroying our schools and our community!"

Throughout the two-week strike, it was difficult to be heard on the picket lines over the noise of almost constant horns honking in support of the teachers. Regularly, a car would swing over to the line and unload food, drinks or even lawn chairs, newspapers to show articles supporting the teachers to picketers. Parents and students were a constant presence on the picket line, defying the board's threats. Teachers from other districts, union members and retirees also organized daily solidarity rallies.

"Teachers are the folks who educate our students," stated Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga. "This program of the right-wingers to attack teachers, and public education, must end! All of organized labor stands together with these teachers, for justice, for teachers, for students, for parents and our communities!"

Filed a lawsuit

Thomas Draback, an attorney and parent of a student, filed a lawsuit, calling for the removal of the "unqualified substitute teachers," the Huffmaster strike-breakers and for the schools to be closed during the walkout. Calling the situation at the schools "a police state," Draback stated that the board had "completely failed, in spite of spending over $100,000 on consultants, had completely failed to provide for the safety of the students."

Candidates for office also made appearances on the teacher's lines. Mike Schadek and Marilyn Brown, Democrats running for Auditor and Commissioner, respectively, came to support the teachers. Both Ed Fitzgerald and Nina Turner, Democrats running for Ohio Governor and Secretary of State, issued statements of support. None of the Republicans supported the teachers.

The board's plan to use the conservative media to attack teachers then took a big hit when the REA pushed to bring in a federal mediator, who issued a "gag order" to both parties.

With their opponents denied a platform for attacks on teachers and public education, and forced instead to actually negotiate, the teachers were able to gain a decent proposal to take to their members, who voted overwhelmingly to approve it, ending the strike.

The Reynoldsburg teacher's strike actually provided a tremendous education for not only the teachers, but the students, parents, community and labor movement of Central Ohio. The community saw that, if they wanted to preserve quality education for their children and maintain a fair community, they had to stand up and get involved, stand up with their embattled teachers. The whole labor movement took up this fight, as its own, understanding that if they busted the teachers, it would harm all working folks. The teachers stood up, fighting for justice, not just for themselves, but found new ways to build solidarity with their students, the parents, the entire community and labor. The students, as well, got the education of a lifetime, the chance to stand up and fight for justice, with their teachers, their friends and neighbors. Even the Reynoldsburg School Board got an education. Theirs, however, was of a much different sort. We'll have to wait and see if it takes.

Photo: Reynoldsburg Education Association Facebook page

Farm workers: One, two, three grapes, you're out!

Fri, 24 Oct 2014 13:21:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES --If you had a job picking fruit at Fresno-based Gerawan Farming, you'd fill many 22-pound boxes of table grapes on every shift. If the boss finds just one rotten grape that you've boxed, you'll lose your entire day's wages. Two, and you'll lose two days' wages. Three rotten grapes, and you can get fired.

This is the kind of harassment, abuse, and wage theft that's going on in the fields of California's Central Valley by one of the nation's largest fruit growers. Gerawan (Geh-RAH-wan) not only sells grapes, but peaches, plums, nectarines and apricots under its Prima label at stores throughout California. Its biggest customer is Walmart. But Gerawan doesn't just pick on individual workers: They've picked on the whole United Farm Workers, the storied union for agricultural laborers that César Chávez, Dolores Huerta and many others founded in the 1960s, and that won the sympathy of fair-minded people worldwide.

Under the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act, the UFW won an election for union representation two years ago, but Gerawan has refused to honor the contract issued last year by a neutral mediator and approved by the state. State prosecutors have brought a case against Gerawan before a Fresno judge over a myriad of labor abuses designed to thwart the success of the union and ultimately destroy it. The UFW's big "ask" is simply to get the grower to implement the state-mandated contract, which will resolve issues of back wages, benefits, and rights on the job. With implementation, the UFW will also start receiving 3 percent of earned wages as union dues.

Over a hundred farm workers from Gerawan bused down to Los Angeles early Wednesday morning for a short 9 a.m. rally on the sidewalk outside Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral, attended by an equal number of supporters from the community. Labor leaders and politicians addressed the crowd. Three L.A. city councilmen were present-President Herb Wesson, Curren D. Price, Jr., and Bob Blumenfield-emphasizing that when the gathering proceeded to march on City Hall four blocks down Temple Street, it was not going to be a protest! Rather, the farm workers would be welcomed with open arms. L.A. was prepared to show its support.

Addressing the assembled union supporters were also UFW President Arturo Rodríguez, U.S. Rep. Judy Chu, and L.A. County Federation of Labor Executive Secretary-Treasurer María Elena Durazo, as well as a few of the farmworkers themselves. Durazo told the crowd that though the workers are "invisible to us most of the time," when we sit down at the table, either at home or out in a restaurant, remember the toil and the toll upon working people that it took to bring those products to market. Rodríguez demanded that Gerawan "obey the law just like everyone else," and to stop "trampling on the rights of farmworkers," who deserve "the same respect and dignity as everyone else in this state."

While waiting to be admitted to City Hall, the marchers kept up the chants for the contract, and an end to bullying and harassment. Every few minutes the crowd broke into the familiar rhythmic slogan first popularized in Salvador Allende's Chile more than 40 years ago, el pueblo unido jamás sera vencido, the people united will never be defeated.

The council chamber was packed with the UFW's "sí se puede" red shirts, the bright yellow of the UFCW (which handles Prima fruit in unionized grocery stores throughout California), and representatives of many other unions. The scheduled hour of 10 a.m. for Item 16, declaring support for the farmworkers, came and went on the City Council agenda. For a good 90 minutes the Council heard testimony about changing the timing of city elections to coincide with other major votes (presidential, congressional) so as to improve voter turnout. Between the imperfect, reverberating sound system in the ornate marble hall, and the rustling impatience of workers awaiting their moment of glory, it was hard to follow that discussion. Though it surely must have occurred to people that in a larger sense it's all related: Greater turnout means a more involved citizenry, greater democracy, and better outcomes for working people. Setting out a path toward citizenship for 11 million undocumented residents in the U.S. would help too.

At last - it was after 11:30 - Item 16, introduced by Councilmembers Paul Koretz and Curren Price. Arturo Rodríguez spoke, María Elena Durazo (recalling her own upbringing in the farmworker community-for her this is personal!), and Rabbi Jonathan Klein, executive director of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice. Several farmworkers spoke in Spanish, with translation provided, citing labor violations, pressure, layoffs, arbitrary discipline, intimidation, unpaid days, no shade (Gerawan won't allow you eat your noontime lunch under the fruit trees!), special exploitation of women, expensive medical coverage, and the lack of dignity from the long delay of union recognition.

Rick Tuttle was the last speaker for Item 16, a 16-year former L.A. City Controller well known to most of the City Council members, who has been active in the support of farmworkers for 49 years. He reaffirmed that many of the City Council members themselves came out of union backgrounds, some with extensive histories of working in the agricultural sector. Throughout the over 20-minute long succession of speakers for the resolution, the audience stood at their seats as a sign of respect and support. This crowd had come to be seen!

Four speakers, using only half of the opposition's allotted 20 minutes for discussion, rose to complain about having to surrender 3 percent of wages to the union. We're doing just fine at Gerawan, they said. Gerawan has joined up with radical right-wing groups affiliated with Grover Norquist to orchestrate a well-financed PR campaign against the UFW, including anti-union labor consultant costs of $3,000 per day. Clearly, Gerawan would love to see the union decertified, submitting large numbers of forged signatures on decert petitions, and granting time off and extreme leniency toward workers who helped the decert campaign, while riding herd on union supporters.

When the electronic tally ran up on the screen overhead, loud cheering and the UFW handclapping rose up as one voice. A unanimous vote!

Seeking justice in the courts can be a notoriously slow process. In the meantime, Gerawan continues with business as usual, mistreating its 5,000 workers during peak harvest season. Therefore the union is turning to consumers and the "court of public opinion" to state its case.

The fact that the Los Angeles City Council has gone on record as supporting implementation of the contract should be a powerful statement. L.A. is, after all, the second-largest city in the country, and the closest metropolitan area to the produce, with potentially millions of consumers prepared almost overnight to start boycotting Prima fruit and the stores that sell it.

In that sense the City Council resolution is far more than a vote of confidence in the union. It might be a game-changing persuader.

Photo: City Councilman Paul Koretz with UFW President Arturo Rodríguez and a few of their friends in the rotunda of Los Angeles City Hall. Eric A. Gordon/PW.

Yuck! What’s on my chicken?

Thu, 23 Oct 2014 14:32:00 +0000

The American Federation of Government Employees filed suit Monday to stop the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) new poultry inspection rule that replaces 25 bpercent of the current USDA-trained food safety inspectors with poultry company employees and speeds up the processing lines by 400 percent. AFGE President J. David Cox said: "The USDA's new inspection process flies in the face of reality and will allow potentially contaminated and diseased poultry to be sold to American consumers. It's ridiculous, dangerous and against the law, and it must be stopped.

The rule went into effect Monday and because it gives the poultry processer an increased role and authority in the food safety inspections AFGE says it "puts the fox in charge of the henhouse."

A review of the pilot program by the group Food & Water Watch found company employees charged with inspecting the birds were missing many defects and allowing birds contaminated with feathers, bile and feces to pass down the line.

The new rule simultaneously reduces the number of federal inspectors on the production line from as many as four to one and authorizes a 400% increase in the maximum line speed per inspector from 35 birds per minute to 140 birds per minute. The sole federal inspector will be required to "inspect" some 2.3 chicken carcasses per second.

Charles Stanley "Stan" Painter, a poultry inspector who serves as president of AFGE's National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals and a plaintiff in the suit, said: "USDA's plan will reduce the federal inspection process to a mere rubber stamp. USDA has pushed through its dirty chicken rule over the objections of employee advocates, the public and lawmakers. We are asking the court to step in and stop this insane rule from taking effect for the safety of federal inspectors, plant workers and consumers."

The above article and photo appeared on the AFL-CIO Now Blog.

Chicago hotel workers to Bruce Rauner: Give back the money!

Thu, 23 Oct 2014 13:41:00 +0000

CHICAGO - Hotel workers in America's "Second City" descended on Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner's campaign headquarters here yesterday demanding that Rauner return $25,000 he got from a real estate firm that holds more than $200,000 in state contracts.

Rauner has made stopping what he calls the "chokehold" that special interests have on Illinois state government a key part of his campaign to unseat Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn. The demonstration at his headquarters yesterday, coming as it did on top of the new information about the $25,000 contribution from Inland Real Estate Group, is casting doubt on the right-wing Republican's commitment to ethics reform.

"Bruce Rauner said he wants to stop the chokehold that special interests have on our government, but Inland's contribution may well be just more of the same," said Demetrius Jackson who has worked at the Hyatt Regency Hotel here for seven years.

The 50 to, at times, 100 hotel workers who jammed the entrance yesterday to the building at 230 W. Monroe which houses Rauner's election headquarters let loose with chants that echoed through the cavernous streets of the West Loop. Their shouts of "Pay to play, not okay," "Rauner's game, more of the same," and "Hey Bruce, give it back" could be heard several blocks away.

The demonstration was targeted at what the hotel workers say are serious ethics violations, not at the broad range of anti-union and anti-minimum wage hike postions Rauner has taken over the years. Nevertheless the demonstration showed, perhaps better than anything else, why Republicans are often so determined to destroy unions. Workers with the most involvement in unions and union organizing were among the most vocal in yesterday's protests.

Demetrius Jackson, who has spent his seven years as a Hyatt employee setting up ballrooms and meeting spaces, said he was "proud" to be at the demonstration. "I have spent four years marching in the streets and urging boycotts of my own hotel. There is no way that we fought this hard just to sit down and shut up when we see this kind of injustice happening," he said. "I've given seven years of my life and my father before me worked for Hyatt for 25 years - he gave his whole life."

The Inland Real Estate group which gave the money to the Rauner campaign owns much of Chicago's and the nation's hotel space.

"Bruce Rauner is talking honesty and ethics," Jackson said. "Let him put his money where his mouth is."

The connections in this case that seem to make the case for an ethics problem are as follows: Rauner accepted the $25,000 contribution from the Inland Real Estate Group, a $16 billion company headquartered in Oak Brook, Ill. The company's affiliate, Inland Commercial Property Management, holds a contract with the Illinois Department of Central Management Services worth over $200,000. The contribution is seen by the union as a way of getting around Illinois law which bans campaign contributions from companies that have or are seeking state contracts. The loophole the Rauner contribution uses is that the law does not cover the sister companies of those entities.

"The left hand of Inland should not be able to give large dollars to politicians while the right hand holds lucrative state contracts," said Jordan Fein, research analyst with Unite Here Local 1. "If Bruce Rauner is serious about ethics reform, as he has stated repeatedly, he will return Inland's money, and he will do it today."

The Inland Real Estate Group and its chairman are both tied to Inland Commercial, owning 12.5 percent and 10 percent of the company respectively. Inland's chairman is the former board chair and a current director of Inland Commercial's sole owner and is also chairman, president and majority owner of the Inland Real Estate Group's sole owner.

Another affiliate of the Inland Real Estate Group, Inland American Real Estate Trust, was under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as of June 30, 2014.

The Peoples World attempted to talk to Rauner or a spokesperson for his campaign by going to the 24^th floor of 230 W. Monroe where the campaign is headquartered. Four security personnel stopped this reporter before he could reach the elevator bank in the lobby with one saying that the campaign office was a "secure" area "not open to the press or the public."

Rauner is not the only politician who has taken contributions from Inland affiliates. The Inland Real Estate Group contributed $15,000 to Republican Illinois Treasurer candidate Tom Cross as its affiliate Pan American Bank held a contract with the Treasurer's office worth over $100,000. Current Illinois Treasurer Dan Rutherford has also received $12,500 in donations from companies related to Inland from April 29, 2005 to August 22, 2012.

Photo: Demetrius Jackson, center with mic, and others, demonstrating at Rauner headquarters in Chicago. UNITE HERE Local 1 Facebook page

Today in labor history: 200,000 students boycott Chicago public schools

Wed, 22 Oct 2014 14:40:00 +0000

On October 22, 1963, a coalition of civil rights groups organized Freedom Day, a mass boycott and demonstration against segregated schools and inadequate resources for black students. Almost half of Chicago's public school students (estimated at 200,000 students) skipped class, leaving many schools on the predominantly black South and West Sides virtually empty.

In 1963, public schools in Chicago's black neighborhoods were often outdated and always overcrowded. The Chicago Board of Education's answer to overcrowding was to have double-shifts at some schools. Double-shifts meant that students in affected schools attended less than a full day of class. In another measure, at some schools the Board sanctioned the construction of mobile classroom units.

In addition to overcrowding, CPS faculty was segregated, and the history curriculum then did not mention African Americans.

The climax of Freedom Day was the march by students, parents, teachers and supporters to the downtown office of the Chicago Board of Education. Thousands took to the streets, carrying signs that voiced their frustrations. Police met the nearly 10,000 protestors and prevented them from entering the Chicago Board of Education building.

One group organizing Freedom Day was the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations. They helped black parents stage sit-ins against overcrowded schools and pursued legal action against school segregation. In 1964 Al Raby, a black schoolteacher, was elected convener of CCCO.

Another group involved in Freedom Day was the Congress of Racial Equality or CORE, founded in Chicago in 1942.

The filmy in progress, '63 Boycott chronicles the Chicago Public School Boycott of 1963. A project of Chicago's documentary powerhouse Kartemquin Films, it features then and now interviews with organizers and participants of the boycott with never-released 16mm footage of the march and student interviews. '63 Boycott and a companion website will provide a modern perspective on the impact and legacy of this history as it reconnects the participants to each other and the event itself.

In September of 2012, the attack on public education in Chicago led to a strike of nearly 30,000 teachers, nurses, librarians, counselors, social workers, aides and paraprofessionals.

The Chicago Teachers Union was fighting for a collaborative voice in any education reform and sought quality, fully funded public education, with smaller class sizes, fully staffed schools and a curriculum rich in art, music, physical education and language at every school.

Teachers saw their fight as bettering not only their pay and benefits, but more importantly working and learning conditions benefiting the students.

Contributing to this story: Chicago History Museum's Facing Freedom website (with photos and newsreel footage), The Encyclopedia of Chicago, Wikipedia.

Photo: Crowd fills LaSalle Street between City Hall and building housing Board of Education as thousands of demonstrators marched in Chicago on Oct. 22, 1963, protesting school segregation. Paul Cannon/AP