People Before Profit blog

Today in labor history: Black farmers meet to unionize, are attacked

Mon, 30 Sep 2013 16:19:00 +0000

On this day in 1919, African-American farmers met at the Hoop Spur Church in Elaine, Arkansas to establish the Progressive Farmers and Householders Union in order to fight for better wages and higher cotton prices. They were shot at by white men, one of them a deputy sheriff, the other a railroad detective, and returned fire in self-defense. The railroad detective was killed, sparking the Elaine Race Riot.

Arkansas Gov. Charles Hillman Bough sent 100 U.S. troops to the area, where they exchanged gunfire with the farmers. Over the following days, 285 black residents were put in stockades for so-called investigation, while somewhere between 100 and 200 black men were killed in the ensuing violence.

79 African-Americans were convicted of crimes after unfair trials, with 12 sentenced to death. Their union was destroyed by the repression and prejudice that followed the shootout.

Photo: TimeToast

Unions sue agency for pulling City College of San Francisco accreditation

Mon, 30 Sep 2013 13:22:00 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO - Teachers' unions and others here are suing an accreditation agency over its decision to revoke accreditation of the City College of San Francisco.

A lawsuit filed Sept. 23 against the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), by American Federation of Teachers Local 2121, along with the California Federation of Teachers and others, seeks an injunction and restitution for the harm caused by the agency's July decision to pull the accreditation of the city college.

The lawsuit "charges that the ACCJC engaged in unfair and unlawful business practices in sanctioning City College." according to AFT 2121. Furthermore, "it argues that these reckless actions have already caused harm to students, faculty, and other employees of City College, and will cause much greater harm both to them and to San Francisco if the college closes."

The union's lawsuit caps a month of reversals for the accreditation body, manifested in moves by a number of public agencies to pressure ACCJC to reconsider its decision.

* Aug. 13, the U.S. Department of Education concluded in an official letter that ACCJC was deficient and out of compliance in several areas, after examination of the 300-page compliant filed jointly by AFT 2121 and the CFT. The letter puts the accreditation agency on notice that it could itself have its accreditation revoked it these issues are not addressed.

* Aug. 21, the California Bureau of State Audits announced its intention to audit ACCJC. The audit should take seven months and will look at a number of issues, including the cost of the accreditation process to community colleges, which support the agency in part with fees. In a public hearing, state Sen. Jim Nielsen, a Republican,and member of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, remarked on the especially "arrogant" and "dismissive" tone he had encountered in meeting with ACCJC President Barbara Beno. Beno is also being scrutinized for conflicts of interest in appointing her husband Peter Crabtree to the panel that reported on CCSF.

* Aug. 30, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera also filed a lawsuit against ACCJC. The suit alleges unlawful engagement in political activities by the agency, by pressuring community colleges to alter their mission from providing open access to education to providing "outcome-based" education. ACCJC has accepted grants from foundations with the stated intention of changing the educational culture of community colleges to focus resources on degree-seeking students.

* Sept. 19, Tom Torlakson, California State Superintendent of Public Instruction, sent a letter to urge ACCJC to rescind the "show-cause" sanction that originally led to the agency's accreditation panel decision to revoke CCSF's accreditation. Torlakson pointed to the preponderance of evidence that the "process was flawed," as revealed by subsequent reports.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee released findings in a public hearing Sept. 18 that outlined the economic loss that would result from the closure of CCSF. The closure would affect thousands of students who are intending to transfer to four-year institutions. These students would have to complete general education requirements at a higher tuition rate at a new school if forced to transfer earlier than planned.

In addition, CCSF serves thousands of English language learners in nondegree programs and also aids students who seek to complete GEDs. These students could be forced into more expensive for-profit programs in the wake of a CCSF closure, or be compelled to go without updating their skills entirely, which would lead to thousands of dollars lost in projected wages over their working lives.

The San Francisco Unified School District also reported preliminary data suggesting there has been a 24 percent drop in enrollment of San Francisco high school graduating seniors into CCSF this year.

The closure of the college would also, inevitably, cost faculty and staff their jobs. CCSF would be the largest college ever to lose its accreditation, if the decision of ACCJC is not reversed this year. Part of the damage suffered already by the college has been a significant loss of faculty in the wake of the threat of closure. Between Fall 2012 and Fall 2013, the total number of faculty has dropped from 1,649 to 1,491.

Photo: AFT 2121 Facebook page

University workers call off strike

Mon, 30 Sep 2013 12:53:00 +0000

Eugene, OR - In a startling last-minute reversal yesterday, workers at several Oregon universities called off a strike set to begin on Monday. A statement released in the early morning hours by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents the classified employees at all seven campuses in the Oregon University System (OUS), explained that administration officials had given ground on all of the most contentious proposals they have held to without budging since earlier this year, rendering a strike unnecessary.

The strike, authorized by a vote of SEIU's membership two weeks ago, was set to begin on Monday, September 30th, the first day of fall term classes. At the University of Oregon, the OUS flagship campus, the strike was supported by a broad coalition of university community members, including other campus labor unions such as the United Academics (faculty) and Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation (graduate employees), as well as student organizations like the Student Labor Action Project and the Associated Students of the University of Oregon, the official student government at the University.

SEIU and OUS had been deadlocked over economic proposals since May. The administration demanded another round of pay freezes for classified staff and asserted the need for further furlough days, when workers are sent home without pay. This proposal amounted to a pay cut for classified workers, amid administrator raises, increasing tuition, and booming enrollment.

Perhaps most contentiously, OUS sought to slash classified worker "steps," the yearly wage increase received by those workers as they gain experience, from five to 2.5 percent, meaning a classified worker would have taken fully 18 years to reach their full earning potential with the University system-a long time in a bargaining unit where more than a quarter of workers earn so little they qualify for food stamps.

In a marathon bargaining session that ran into yesterday morning, OUS suddenly gave ground on all of these issues, offering a 3.5 percent raise over the next two years, as well as promising an end to furlough days and maintaining the "steps" until 2015. This sweeping success for SEIU at the bargaining table is almost certainly due to the credible threat of a strike, which has set all seven OUS campuses abuzz in recent weeks.

"These folks work some of the lowest paying and often least appreciated jobs on campus," said Sam Dodders-Katz, president of the ASUO, in a statement last Thursday supporting the strike. "They deserve a contract that treats them with dignity, respect and most importantly fairness." This unqualified statement of support from the student government helped persuade SEIU to delay the strike, which was originally scheduled to begin on Monday, September 23rd, for a full week.

The additional time did not go to waste. The University of Oregon Campus Labor Council, founded last spring following the formation of the faculty union, faced its first collective action, organizing faculty and graduate employees in support of the classified workers. Faculty members promised to hold classes off campus and, when possible, release graduate employees under their supervision from responsibilities that would require crossing a picket line, allowing them to support picket lines directly in a way that would not be possible otherwise.

Members of the Student Labor Action Project, a student group supporting unions on campus, organized undergraduate students for a mass leafleting of campus residence halls scheduled for Thursday the 26th, as well as signing up students to participate in a rolling sit-in in OUS offices. "Students can do things and take risks [workers] can't," said Joanna Stewart, co-chair of SLAP, at a meeting of undergraduate labor allies Tuesday night.

Although these actions were not necessary in the end, the tight collaboration between students, faculty, and staff had a decisive effect on the atmosphere at the bargaining table.

"I really believe that it was the coalition [of students, faculty, and staff] that had an impact on bargaining," said Chuck Theobald, a member of SEIU's bargaining committee. "It was a new thing, and it really turned things around."

Photo: NW Labor Press

AFL-CIO in motion after history-making convention

Mon, 30 Sep 2013 11:32:00 +0000

Coming out of the AFL-CIO quadrennial convention three weeks ago pumped up for action, unionists and their allies are wasting no time carrying out the decisions of what was a trail-blazing convention.

The AFL-CIO announced last week that it has entered a new national partnership with the college-based United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), which will make the campaign to organize T-Mobile workers into the Communication Workers of America (CWA) a priority.

Not in the news but also significant, the federation's recent convention revealed that thousands of union members at T-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom in Germany have taken up their U.S. counterparts' cause and are protesting their company's treatment of them.

T-Mobile U.S. workers now can count on the solidarity of students, other consumers, and workers abroad who together could potentially exert economic and public pressure affecting the company's bottom line and willingness to bargain.

This is but one example of the far-reaching initiatives the AFL-CIO and several affiliates have begun to take in recent years to strengthen international labor cooperation, including mergers, to leverage labor's power in a global economy dominated by capitalist transnational corporations and financial institutions.

Indeed, the AFL-CIO convention projected an agenda and a vision aimed to transform the labor movement, its partners and allies into a formidable 21^st century people's force for economic justice and democracy.

The convention mapped out a modern-day agenda akin to wall-to-wall organizing of the 1930s CIO that resulted in the unionization of the nation's industrial base during a decade of powerful popular upsurge that saw the enactment of the then-progressive National Labor Relations Act, Social Security and Unemployment insurance.

The program projected by the AFL-CIO today, in a process begun a few years back, could potentially become even more consequential given the national and international links set in motion at the convention.

Drawing on the 1960s civil rights era's transformative impact on today's social environment, AFL-CIO leaders and delegates set out to change the labor movement's composition from top to bottom.

The full integration of women, people of color, immigrants, youth, LGBT and other specially oppressed people into all aspects of the federation's operations is to bring together this overlapping kaleidoscope of human categories - including white men - into joint struggle over common needs.

At the same time, in several unanimously-approved resolutions, the convention took into consideration the particular needs of the working class' "diverse" components, making the needs of each the cause of the entire labor movement.

In response to institutionalized racism and the rightwing assault on the democratic rights of people of color, the convention moved to condemn the rise of the private-for-profit prison system and the "school-to-prison pipeline" disproportionally impacting African American and Latino young people. The convention proposed a set of far reaching progressive reforms to address this crisis.

Given the persistent ideological influence of racist notions among sections of the white population, it was heartening to see a multiracial group of delegates who spoke thoughtfully on behalf of the resolution including white delegates, starting with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka from the podium.

No less resolute

No less resolute were the convention's actions on women's rights reflected in a comprehensive resolution and the spirited participation of women and men.

In a sign of the growing unity between labor and the women's movement, the President of the National Organization of Women Terry O'Neill linked the corporate right-wing's "relentless assault on women's economic security" with the attack on women's reproductive rights, which the resolution also addressed.

Particularly encouraging is the energetic way in which the AFL-CIO and several affiliates are preparing a new generation of young labor leaders and activists.

The AFL-CIO leadership was the first to admit there is a ways to go on this and other fronts.

But in the convention, in the conference on building a diverse movement immediately preceding, and in the wide-ranging public discussions during previous months, it was refreshing to witness the self-critical way the challenges were evaluated, with an eye to finding productive solutions and then acting on them.

The progress on all fronts is remarkable, given that until former President John Sweeney's team - including current President Trumka as secretary-treasurer - won the federation's top leadership in 1995 the AFL-CIO had been in the hands of top leaders who had pursued center-right policies since the 1950s McCarthy witch hunts that purged communist and progressives from the trade union movement.

At the AFL-CIO convention the refrain, "diversity and inclusion," came into play in other unprecedented ways.

The convention agreed to step up efforts to organize all workers whether covered by collective bargaining agreements or not, whether protected by labor and social laws or not.

These include undocumented workers, taxi drivers classified as independent contractors to deprive them of labor law protections, and domestic workers excluded from the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, whose causes and leaders were heralded at the convention.

Last week California became the nation's third state to enact a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights with the pivotal involvement of labor in broad coalition with civil rights, women, youth, interfaith, and community groups.

These are precisely the social movements represented at the convention with which the federation is forging closer relations in action, in some cases even formal partnerships as with Workers Centers and USAS.

The convention launched Working America, previously tested successfully in a few states, as a national formation. Any one not belonging to a union can join whether employed or not and for a small fee be entitled to modest benefits.

The convention called upon "all" AFL-CIO unions and Working America to "develop forms of workplace representation and advocacy that can benefit members outside collective bargaining agreements by educating them about their workplace rights, providing assistance when their rights are violated, and encouraging concerted action to redress workplace grievances."

Will continue as the vehicle

Working America will continue to be a vehicle for registering workers to vote, and educating and mobilizing them into electoral and legislative campaigns alongside their unionized counterparts.

Perhaps nothing spoke louder about how seriously the AFL-CIO takes the 2014 midterm elections than the fight for immigration reform with a path to citizenship.

During the August Congressional recess, the AFL-CIO, immigrant rights and other allied groups led a blitz of visits to Republican House members' offices, demanding they act on the Senate version of the immigration bill or pay the consequences during next year's midterm national elections.

Flanked by leaders of unions and labor-community groups, Maria Elena Durazo, head of the Los Angeles Federation of Labor and chair of the national federation's Immigration Committee, told a convention press conference: "We will not let Congress put this issue on the back burner!"

True to its word, the federation announced last week that on October 5 it would take to the streets with allies in a National Day of Action in over 30 states and dozens of cities for a vote on immigrant rights with a path to citizenship.

As a recognition of the critical role of immigrants in the nation, the convention elected as its new Executive Vice President Tefere Gebre, a native of Ethiopia, who had been the head of the Orange County Labor Federation.

Gebre, an innovator credited with helping transform a county once a bastion of conservatism, is expected to help fortify the role of local labor councils and state federations, pivotal to broad unity of action on the ground.

Major problems still remain, not least of which is the power of transnational capital and the dominant grip of the corporate elite over the economy and political and social institutions, especially far-right sections concentrated in the Republican Party out to destroy the fighting capacity of the labor movement and its allies.

But even within labor's ranks, challenges to unity, such as reunification, require urgent attention.

Great strides have been made on that front with the return to the AFL-CIO of UNITE HERE, the Laborers and the United Food and Commercial Workers.

But SEIU, the Teamsters, the United Farm Workers and the ILWU, which pulled out on the eve of the convention, are still out.

In some cases, jurisdictional disputes are a problem, both between AFL-CIO affiliates and with those outside the federation's fold.

While the immediate solution may be for the federation's leadership to be more aggressive in seeking mutually satisfactory solutions, the real answer lies elsewhere, as Trumka told a convention press conference.

Instead of fighting

Trumka said that instead of fighting over the 11.2 percent who are already organized into unions, labor ought to be fighting together to organize the other 88-plus percent who are not.

That kind of unifying strategy could open the door to a coordinated drive for massive organization of the unorganized - employed, underemployed and unemployed - in which the whole labor movement, its allies and, most importantly, the whole working class and allied social forces would be the winners.

These unprecedented initiatives exhibited at the convention were precipitated by a general feeling that the labor movement is in crisis largely due to the ferocious corporate counteroffensive of the last thirty-plus years and the resulting loss of union members.

Nevertheless, as Trumka said in his convention keynote, the AFL-CIO is still "the biggest, strongest, best organized force for economic justice in America."

As developments on the ground show, the AFL-CIO constitutes the core of a broad people's coalition for economic justice and democracy.

In announcing the new partnership with USAS this week, Trumka said, "We have to change the way we're doing business in a significant way to get out of the crisis we find ourselves in."

"But," he added, "this crisis also offers us ample and tremendous opportunity."

Photo: bctgm.org

Today in labor history: 10,000-plus dockers locked out

Fri, 27 Sep 2013 14:14:00 +0000

Pacific Maritime Association, a coalition of corporate shipping giants, locked out 10,500 longshore workers today in 2002. The action unleashed an unprecedented union-busting campaign, which included retailers like Walmart and the active participation of the President of the United States George W. Bush, against the International Longshore and Warehouse Workers Union.

All of labor rallied in solidarity with the ILWU against the corporate-White House attacks. The 29 ports involved, closed for almost two weeks, were re-opened after Bush invoked the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act . It was the first time since 1978 that the act had been used.

Before the lockout, shipping companies and the ILWU had been in contract negotiations where health care, pensions and job loss due to "labor-saving" technology were the main points of contention. Unable to provoke the ILWU into a strike, the PMA locked out the workers claiming it was in response to a "slow-down."

The PMA, along with the White House, blatantly used the horrific Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as rationale for federal intervention by using national security as a pretext. At the time Scott Marshall wrote, "In the tragic aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, the ultra-right in Congress, with the urging of the shipping companies, introduced some 43 pieces of port security legislation. Cynically exploiting popular fears, the legislation claims to protect ports and harbors from terrorist attacks. Sensational speculation was the game of the day. Terrorists were planning to smuggle in nuclear devices in cargo containers, through our wide-open, unprotected ports, they said. "

The role of Walmart as a leading anti-union, profiteering force became more widely known during this port battle. Juan Lopez wrote, "Walmart has become one of the key players in the West Coast longshore negotiations. They have helped to form an association of retailers to help bring corporate pressure to bear on the negotiations. The famous close ties between Wal-Mart and the Bush administration tend to expose the real concerns on port security - not nuclear bombs but the unfettered flow of goods, free from union working conditions."

People's World gave extensive coverage to the 2002 struggle, helping to amplify labor's working-class voice in this epic battle against corporate exploitation and ultra-right political power. The list of stories include:

ILWU longshore contract by the numbers

Bush rewards bosses invokes Taft-Hartley

Longshore potential intervention threat to negotiations

Bush threatens troop in longshore dispute

National security or war on workers?The Bush outrages of the month list

Labor law 101

Labor solidarity backs West Coast dockers

Harry Bridges and ILWU from "wharf rats" to "lords of the docks"

ILWU ties pension demands to technology

ILWU to vote on landmark pact

Photo: International Longshore and Warehouse Union workers block attempt to move a banana ship in Port Hueneme, southern California, October 2, 2002. After tense stand-off with riot cops, the shipping company backed down. ( Jean-Marc Bouju/AP)

Today in labor history: Wreck of the Old 97

Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:24:00 +0000

Old 97 was a Southern railway train officially known as the Fast Mail. On Sept. 26, 1903, while en route from Monroe, Va. To Spencer, N.C., the train derailed at Stillhouse Tressle near Danville, Va. The wreck inspired a famous workingclass ballad.

The wreck of Old 97 happened when the engineer, Joseph A. ("Steve") Broady, at the controls of engine number 1102, was operating the train at high speed, under orders from the railroad company to stay on schedule and arrive at Spencer on time. (Fast Mail had a reputation for never being late.)

The derailment left 11 of the eighteen on board dead and the remaining seven injured. Among the dead were engineer Broady, the conductor, and the flagman. The bodies of both firemen were recovered but they were so mangled that they were unrecognizable.

In order to make up for delays, Broady had to increase, under company orders, the normal speed from 39 mph to at least 51 mph. mainting that speed through what otherwise would normally have been scheduled-stop locations. He was not allowed to drop below the 51 mph even around tight radius curves and when going up steep inclines.

This made Broady unable to sufficiently reduce speed as he approached the curve leading into the tresle, causing the entire train to derail and plunge into the ravine below. The flames that erupted as the train crashed into the ravine consumed the wooden cars. Only a fraction of the mail on the train survived, including a large case filled with canaries that managed to escape and fly to safety.

The Southern railway tried to blame Broady, the dead engineer, disavowing that they had ordered him to run as fast as possible. They had a lucrative contract with the Post Office to haul mail. In the contract was a penalty clause for each minute the train was late into Spencer.

The ballad the wreck inspired has been recorded by many artists including Johnny Cash, Charlie Louvin, Pink Anderson, Boxcar Willie, Pete Seeger, and the Seekers.

The lyrics:

Well they gave him his orders at Monroe, Virginia

Sayin' Steve you're way behind time

This is not 38, it's old 97

You must put her into Spencer on time

Then he turned around and said to his black greasy fieman

Shove on a little more coal

And when we cross that White Oak Mountain

Watch old 97 roll

But it's amighty rough road from Lynchburg to Danville

And from Lima it's on a three mile grade

It was on that grade that he lost his air brakes

See what a jump he made

He was goin' down the grade makin' 90 miles an hour

When his whistle broke into a scream,

He was found in the wreck with his hand on the throttle

A-scalded to death by the steam

Then the telegraph came to Washington station

And this is how it read

Oh that brave engineer that run old 97

He's a lain' in old Danville dead

So now all you ladies you better take a warnin'

From this time on and learn

Never speak harsh words to your true lovin' husband

He may leave you and never return

Photo: Wikipedia

“Right to work” strategy session draws uninvited guests: union members

Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:47:00 +0000

VANCOUVER, Wash. (PAI) - Backers of proposed right-to-work initiatives in Oregon and Washington got a taste of what the political fight might look like Sept. 5 at Clark College in Vancouver, Wash.

Then, more than 50 protesters - primarily from construction trades unions -- greeted attendees of a strategy session on how to pass right-to-work referendums in Oregon and Washington. The event was sponsored by the anti-union Freedom Foundation of Olympia, Wash., and the Portland, Ore.-headquartered Cascade Policy Institute.

Protesters blocked cars as attendees entered the college campus at 1s8700 SE Mill Plain Blvd., Vancouver. As the session was about to begin, a handful of protesters entered the building with signs and a bullhorn. Police were called and one protester was arrested for not leaving quickly enough.

"We want to let them know that they're not going to come into Washington or Oregon without a fight," said Eric Fanning, a member of Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 290. "We (labor) may have some disagreements, but on this issue we have total solidarity."

The featured speaker at Clark College was Vincent Vernuccio of Michigan's Mackinac Center for Public Policy, the largest conservative state-level policy think-tank in the nation.

Last year, Michigan became the 24^th state to enact a right-to-work law, though it wasn't by a vote of the people. Michigan's Republican-controlled legislature and Republican governor passed a law - in a lame-duck session -- making the payment of union dues voluntary for private-sector unions and most public-sector unions (with police and firefighters exempt).

Proposed initiatives in Oregon and Washington are restricted to public-sector worker unions. The Oregon initiative, dubbed the "Public Employee Choice Act," would remove any requirement that public employees pay union dues or any share of the costs that unions incur to represent them. Under current Oregon law, public employees who are represented by unions pay either union dues, if they choose to be members, or reduced "fair share" fees, which cover the union's cost of negotiating contracts and representing workers.

On Sept. 12, the Oregon Supreme Court ordered the ballot title be rewritten. According to an Oregonian report, the court unanimously ruled the state attorney general's office needs to rewrite the ballot title for the measure to make clear the "free-rider effect" of allowing represented workers to avoid union dues.

The attorney general has five business days to submit a new ballot title. This issue of the Labor Press went to press before the new ballot title was announced.

On Labor Day, Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) told a large crowd at a picnic at Oaks Park that he would oppose any attempts to turn Oregon into a right-to-work state.

"A right-to-work state means you have a right to work for less without a voice in the workplace," Kitzhaber said. "A right-to-work state means you have a right to be exploited and ripped off and work at unsafe jobs and low wages and no benefits."

If a right-to-work law is passed for public sector workers, said protesting construction worker Eric Fanning, "we'll be next."

Michael Gutwig is editor of the Northwest Labor Press.

Photo: Northwest Labor Press

Workers at a New York T-Mobile outlet go union

Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:06:00 +0000

Workers at a Metro PCS store in Harlem have voted this week for union representation by the Communications Workers of America by a vote of 7-1.

The victory by the handful of workers at that store, however, is a victory for thousands of T-Mobile employees across the nation who have also been fighting to unionize. T-Mobile owns Metro PCS. The two companies "merged" last year.

Jose Ortiz, one of the Metro PCS workers, said: "This has been a David versus Goliath struggle and I'm beyond thrilled to say that David won. We look forward to bargaining a fair contract that gives MetroPCS workers a real voice at work. When we stick together we win!"

At a store with nine employees, T-Mobile U.S. executives kept up an intense campaign on workers who are looking for representation on their issues and fairness. T-Mobile U.S. CEO John Legere and other top executives trekked from Bellevue, Wash., headquarters to the Harlem store.

Today's vote ensures representation on issues and fairness on the job.

Thousands of union members at T-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom in Germany, who have a significant voice on the job, collective bargaining and many seats on the company supervisory board, have taken on U.S. workers' cause and are protesting their company's treatment of T-Mobile U.S. employees. Recently, their union, ver.di, sent a letter to DT, the parent company of T-Mobile U.S., telling the company it should cease the captive audience meetings that workers were forced to attend as the workers had requested.

More information available at www.weworkbettertogether.org and www.tmobileworkersunited.org

Photo: T-Mobile Workers United Facebook page

Today in labor history: Congress approves Bill of Rights

Wed, 25 Sep 2013 15:39:00 +0000

On Sept. 25, 1789, the first Congress of the United States approved 12 amendments to the recently adopted U.S. Constitution, and sent them to the states for ratification. Ten of the 12 were ratified within two years, becoming the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. Known as the Bill of Rights, they have become the cornerstone of what Americans see as their most basic democratic rights: freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion. These are embodied in the First Amendment, perhaps the most famous part of the Constitution.

The amendment says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

This has been the basis on which landmark mass struggles have been fought and won over the past two centuries, including the struggle against slavery and for equality for African Americans, the women's rights movement, the battle to organize labor unions, the civil rights movement, and a host of others.

Other Bill of Rights amendments guarantee the right to privacy (Fourth Amendment) and to fair legal procedures (Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments). These have been put under stress many times in our history, including in the McCarthy period of anti-communist witch-hunts, in the struggles over women's reproductive rights and judicial issues like the death penalty, and in the current controversy over government phone and electronic surveillance of ordinary Americans.

The meaning of the Second Amendment is hotly debated today. It says, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Does that apply to individual civilian possession of multi-round automatic assault weapons? A well-funded right-wing lobby argues "yes," while many others, horrified by what is called an epidemic of shocking gun violence, say "no."

Like the rest of the Constitution and the other amendments that were adopted later, the meaning and application of the Bill of Rights adopted more than 220 years ago continue to be developed and contested in life. But they remain the centerpiece of what Americans mean when they think about democracy.

Photo: Bill of Rights. (Note that the First Amendment is actually "Article the third" on the document, Second Amendment is "Article the fourth", and so on. "Article the second" is the 27th Amendment. "Article the first" was never ratified.) Wikimedia Commons

Miners encircle Peabody coal company's headquarters

Wed, 25 Sep 2013 14:11:00 +0000

ST. LOUIS - "This is a struggle for all that is good and decent in our country," Steve Earle, United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) District 12 vice president, told nearly 2,000 mine workers, and their labor and community allies, as they rallied here on September 24 just steps away from Peabody Energy's national headquarters.

Earle said, "Corporate America has declared war on the working class."

The UMWA has been in a struggle with Peabody Energy - and its shoot-off companies Arch Coal, Heritage Coal, and Patriot Coal - since Patriot declared bankruptcy last year in an attempt to shed health care and pension obligations owed to thousands of mineworkers.

In mid-August union mine workers ratified a new contract with Patriot Coal covering 1,800 miners. The five year contract restores all but $1 an hour in wage cuts; some company imposed wage cuts neared $8 an hour for some job classifications.

The new contract also increases mine workers' pay by 50 cents anhour annually starting in 2015 and eliminates monthly premiums for health care coverage.

Most importantly, especially for the aging union membership, the contract caps annual out-of-pocket health care expenses at $1,600 down from $4,000 and life insurance, vision, dental, accidental death and dismemberment insurance have all been restored.

Patriot Coal had received approval from a bankruptcy judge in July to impose more severe cuts. However, due to overwhelming community support for the mineworkers it chose to instead negotiate new terms with the union.

Unfortunately though, the settlement with Patriot only covers a fraction of the nearly 20,000 mineworkers who have worked for Peabody Energy, the world's largest and most profitable coal company, Arch Coal or Heritage Coal - all Peabody shoot-offs - which is why the UMWA has continued to protest outside of Peabody's national headquarters here in St. Louis.

UMWA international president, Cecil E. Roberts, said in a press release after the August settlement, "Make no mistake: Peabody Energy and Arch Coal created this problem. They made the promise of lifetime health care to our members, and we will continue our efforts to hold them to their word."

Claude Cummins, Communications Workers' Union of America (CWA) District 6 vice president, connected his unions - and all union members - self-interest in this struggle when he said to the assembled activists, "The issues you face today we'll face tomorrow. And somebody else will face them after that. We're not going to stand for it."

He added, "We'll fight until hell freezes over and then we'll fight on the ice."

Cummins, representing 63,000 CWA members in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas and Missouri, also sent a warning to elected officials. "If you don't stand with us" when it is time to protect retiree benefits then "we're not going to stand with you."

Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) international president, Terry Melvin, also addressed the crowds, declaring, "I stand shoulder to shoulder with you because I am today a mineworker. I've never been in a mine, but I am a mineworker. And I will not stand down. I will stand by your side until the end of this. We are one."

Melvin added, "We may have come in different ships, but we're all in the same boat now. We're in a war. This is a war, an assault on workers and unions across this country."

St. Louis CWA Local 6300 and the St. Louis chapter of CBTU both brought large contingents to the September 24 rally to show support for the mineworkers.

Waiving his hand out to the crowd the Rev. John Stratton said, "Christ walked among us. He wasn't a CEO or an executive. He was a worker from a rural town. I am standing with The Christ in my midst."

Stratton talked about the Biblical parable The Sheep and the Goat found in Matthew, where Jesus says "What you have done unto the least of me you have done unto me."

In the parable the sheep are blessed because they took care of the hungry, the thirsty and the homeless, while the goats are sent into eternal hell-fire because "what you did not do for the least of these, you did not do for me."

Stratton called Peabody's CEO's "goats in three-piece suites."

He added, "Goats eat everything, your garden, your trash, the shirt off of your back. Goats are never satisfied. Their thirst can never be quenched. And these goats over at Peabody are eating your health care and pension. There will be a reckoning."

Mike Louis, secretary-treasurer of the Missouri AFL-CIO, also addressed the crowd. He said, "This is the Show Me State, but you're showing us, you're showing the state what standing together is all about."

Louis called Peabody "corporate pirates" and added "this fight is far from over. Crumbs are not good enough for the UMWA. You determine when you've gotten a fair shake. Not until then is this over."

UMWA international president, Cecil E. Roberts, ended the rally with a call to arms. He said, "We may not be the biggest union in the country. But," he added, looking up at Peabody's headquarters just across the street, "It's not the size of the dog in the fight. It's the size of the fight in the dog."

Roberts called on "every single union in the United States to stand up with us" and "turn America around. Start the spark that we need in America."

"The door is wide-open. We want, we need you in our movement," Roberts concluded before he and 14 other mineworkers and supporters were arrested as part of their non-violent civil disobedience outside of Peabody Energy.

1st Photo: Fairness at Patriot Facebook page

2nd Photo: Mike Louis, Missouri AFL-CIO secretary treasurer. Courtesy of Gary Otten

Today in labor history: Eisenhower orders troops to integrate Little Rock schools

Tue, 24 Sep 2013 14:52:00 +0000

On September 24 in 1957 President Dwight Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock Arkansas to enforce the integration of the city's schools.

Delivering a television speech from the Oval Office, Eisenhower explained his actions to the country: "Speaking from the house of Lincoln, of Jackson, and of Wilson," he said, "my words better convey both the sadness I feel in the action I was compelled today to take, and the firmness with which I intend to pursue this course until the orders of the federal court in Little Rock can be executed without unlawful interference."

Several months earlier following orders of then Governor Orval Faubus, the state's national guard blocked the entrance of the "Little Rock Nine" to the city's Central High school. The "Little Rock Nine" were nine black students chosen to integrate city schools.

Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas national guard removing it from Faubus's control and ordered the 101 Airborne Division of the U.S. Army to protect the students.

The "Little Rock Nine" were subjected to verbal and physical abuse throughout the school year. One student, Melba Pattillo, had acid thrown in her eyes. Pattillo also suffered burns when trapped in a woman's bathroom stall where classmates attempted to burn her alive.

Photo: 101^st Airborne at Little Rock Central High. Wikipedia

Workers welcome Obama’s new home health care rules

Mon, 23 Sep 2013 15:30:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Laura Lyn Clark toils more than 100 hours a week, and she gets paid $8.87 per hour - and that's for the first 40 of them.

She doesn't get overtime pay. Her health insurance may come from Medicaid. She hasn't had a vacation. She doesn't know if she'll be able to send her daughter to college. And retirement? Forget it. She hasn't been able to sock money away.

Soon, she will. Clark, you see, is a home health care worker in Virginia. But she's also one of the more than two million such workers who will, under final rules the Obama administration's Labor Department unveiled on Sept. 17, get paid at least the minimum wage - and overtime.

The rules, from Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division, cover home health care aides, personal care aides and certified nursing assistants. They may not cover a minority of home health care workers for the elderly employed by individual families - or a developing "grey market" of workers whom families hire, outside the home health care system, by advertising in newspapers and on Craigslist. But they cover most workers for individual families and all workers employed by agencies and sent to families.

"We do work hard for very little. You can't go far on $8.87 an hour," Clark told a telephone press conference on the rules. Clark loves her work caring for the elderly. "Everything you do for yourself and take for granted, I do for her," Clark says of her employer. But the rules, she said, "will allow workers like me to get what they need."

"If I work overtime, I'll get overtime," added Florida home health care worker Carolyn Gay, who often receives word-of-mouth referrals to new clients through her church. "This has to be advertised and I'll have to tell my clients."

Unions, workers' rights groups and women's rights groups lobbied hard for the new rules, which President Obama first proposed in Dec. 2011. Some 90 percent of the home health care workers are female and half are minorities. Thus, union leaders cheered the unveiling of the Obama Labor Department's final rules.

"Congress intended these hard working individuals, whose labor is often physically and emotionally demanding, have the protection of our nation's most basic labor standards - the right to be paid a minimum wage and receive more for working overtime," AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka said in a statement.

"Yet since 1975, the Labor Department allowed an entire, fast-growing industry to operate outside the law. Today, with the active support of a wide array of advocates, the Obama administration corrected this historic injustice."

"Denying these workers basic wage and hour protections is not right," AFSCME secretary-treasurer Laura Reyes, herself a former home care worker, told the telephone press conference. "This rule corrects long-standing injustice."

Giving the home health care workers "a minimum wage provides a floor and starts to create a pathway out of poverty" for the workers and their families, Ai-Jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, told the press conference. "It'll transform these jobs into living wage jobs. This is a long-overdue show of respect for women in the workplace and for the important work of supporting seniors and people with disabilities."

Extending the minimum wage and overtime pay is "a major victory" not just for the present home health care workers, but for "the millions more who will be needed" in coming years as the U.S. population ages, noted Sarita Gupta, executive director of Jobs With Justice, in a statement.

"As a care worker I am grateful I will finally have the same protections as other workers do so I can continue to provide the best support to my clients," said Myrla Baldonado, a former home health care worker, now a household worker organizer with Latino Union in Chicago. Her union, along with NDWA, is lobbying the Illinois legislature to enact the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, modeled on legislation New York already enacted. California's bill of rights is headed for Gov. Jerry Brown, D.

"This is a step forward both for quality home care and for the good jobs America needs," said Service Employees President Mary Kay Henry in a statement. "For too long this vital occupation has been treated as marginal and casual work to be performed under poverty conditions...even as the occupation has become among the fastest growing and most vitally important within the American health care system. Home care work is now the second-fastest growing job in America, but the majority of home care workers earn poverty wages, no benefits, and no healthcare coverage."

To try to change that, SEIU financed and fought a case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing the minimum wage law should cover workers such as the home health care aide it represented, the late Evelyn Coke, a Jamaican immigrant then working, via an agency, for an elderly client on Long Island. Ms. Coke and SEIU lost.

"Our hope is the new rule will improve the quality of home care by reducing turnover and increasing the number of committed workers who enter and stay in the home care profession, creating a foundation on which truly quality care can be built," Henry added. She noted that the Labor Department cited that goal as one reason for the new rule: "To encourage home care employers and state health care programs to recruit and retain a broader base of home care workers to meet consumer demand."

One speaker at the telephone press conference, the owner of a small home health care agency in D.C. who pays her workers at least $12.50 an hour, with benefits, confirmed that's true. Her annual workforce turnover, among 20 employees, is 15 percent. Elsewhere, it's 50 percent.

Debra Ness of the National Partnership for Women and Families, which also lobbied for the new rules, called them "a tremendous victory for home care workers, fair pay, quality care and the well-being of our nation. The home care workforce has been grossly undervalued for much too long...Nearly half of home care workers rely on public assistance to make ends meet because of poverty-level wages and few benefits. These regulations will help change this grave injustice and improve working conditions."

As might be expected, Republican business toadies screamed. House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., alleged DOL's new rule "will raise costs and limit access to in-home care."

Starting on Jan. 1, 2015, the new rule will "extend the Fair Labor Standards Act's minimum wage and overtime protections to most direct care workers who provide essential home care assistance," DOL said in a fact sheet. "It will help ensure that individuals and families who rely on the assistance of direct care workers have access to consistent and high quality care from a stable and increasingly professional workforce. Today, direct care workers are, for the most part, not the elder sitters Congress envisioned when it enacted the companionship services exemption (to FLSA) in 1974, but are instead professional caregivers."

Photo: Ai-Jen Poo and the National Domestic Workers Alliance participate in an action. Bekah Mandell

D.C. unions to City Council: We’ll remember your Walmart vote

Mon, 23 Sep 2013 13:52:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - The leader of Washington, D.C.'s Central Labor Council says union members and workers citywide will remember which city council members voted for Walmart in upholding Mayor Vincent Gray's veto of legislation requiring a $12.50 minimum wage for workers at non-union big box retailers in the Nation's Capital.

The council initially passed the Large Retailer Accountability Act, 8-5. Passage led Walmart, the monster anti-worker retailer, to threaten to cancel its planned six stores in poor neighborhoods. Walmart is known for its vicious anti-worker actions, its labor law-breaking, low prices, and its notoriously low wages and benefits. But it claims to create jobs - a claim unions and their allies say studies disprove.

Walmart's jobs claim swayed Gray, a Democrat. The override vote on Sept. 17 was 7-6, with nine votes needed to overturn his veto.

Two council members who plan to challenge Gray in next year's primary - Democrats Muriel Bowser and Tommy Wells - voted to uphold Gray's veto, as did another council member and mayoral hopeful, independent David Catania. The remaining mayoral contender, council member Jack Evans, voted to override the veto.

Wells explained his vote by saying he prefers a comprehensive citywide hike in the minimum wage, and it is part of an economic package he unveiled earlier this year and introduced at the same council session. Catania, son of a union clerk at a Missouri A&P, said, "I wish I could do this in my heart, but I know in my head this is not the right way to solve income inequality in this country." Bowser was silent.

Metro D.C. Central Labor Council President Jocelyn Williams was not. "While we thank those who stood with workers, those who did not must know that their actions will have consequences," he said in a story posted on the council's website after the vote.

And the Washington Post reported that supporters of the law, who jammed the council chambers for the vote, chanted "We won't forget!" and "Recall!" Several, while leaving the room, stopped to point at Wells and Bowser, while holding signs that said "My next mayor supports the Large Retailer Accountability Act."

Photo: Washington, DC, Mayor Vincent Gray announces his veto decison. Charles Dharapak/AP

Today in labor history: California landmark Paid Family Leave

Mon, 23 Sep 2013 13:26:00 +0000

On September 23, 2002, Democratic California Gov. Gray Davis signed legislation making the state the first to offer workers paid family leave.

California's landmark Paid Family Leave (PFL) program has produced substantial "economic, social, and health" gains for workers and their families. It has had "an equalizing effect" regarding gender, racial and income disparity. And, it did not turn out to be the "job-killer," costly and easily abused program the business community claimed when it was fighting the now six-year-old program before it became law.

These are the conclusions of a study released in January 2011, by co-authors Eileen Appelbaum, senior economist at the Center for Economic Policy and Research, and Ruth Milkman, professor of sociology at the University of California in Los Angeles and City University of New York.

California is the first of two states to offer paid family-leave, New Jersey is the other.

The California program allows private-sector workers to take up to six weeks a year off at 55 percent of wages to care for a newborn, a newly adopted child or a sick family member. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) law allows up to 12 weeks off, but it is unpaid.

In comparison with workers not utilizing PLF, those using the program were able to greatly increase the amount of wages replaced while on leave, took longer leaves, and were more satisfied with the length of their leaves.

On May 8, 2013, by a 45-3 margin, the New York City Council passed a bill mandating paid sick or family leave for millions of workers in thousands of businesses in the Big Apple. The margin can override any threatened mayoral veto.

The victory elated both women's groups and the New York City Central Labor Council. Both lobbied strongly for the legislation.

Three interests that hate workers are the backbone of the opposition to paid sick leave: The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the National Restaurant Association, and the business-funded secretive radical right cabal, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Photo: nycforpaidsickdays.org

Connecticut takes on AT&T and ALEC

Mon, 23 Sep 2013 11:17:00 +0000

When legislation to limit oversight of the communications industry was introduced in the Connecticut State Legislature this year, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1298 went into full gear to mobilize opposition.

"We were 150 percent successful!" exclaimed president William Henderson in an interview at his Hamden office.

As workers for AT&T battling against cuts to pension and healthcare, the union was well aware that their employer is ALEC's corporate sponsor for Connecticut and five other states: Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), a lavishly funded right-wing corporate lobby, has pushed "stand your ground" and repeal of union rights and voting rights through state legislatures across the country. Among their priorities this year was state deregulation of telecommunications.

The deregulation bills were stopped in Connecticut. Local 1298 activated its members and union and community ally organizations to expose the bill to "modernize telecommunications" as a bill about deregulation that would cost jobs and raise rates for consumers.

"This legislation is not just about the impact on jobs which leads to offshore and outsourcing; it's about the negative impact to service to the people and businesses in Connecticut," said president William Henderson to the Energy and Technology Committee.

"We should not be driven by ALEC proposals, by a company that is the corporate sponsor of ALEC in Connecticut but instead demand nothing but the best for our residents and constituents of our fine state," Henderson testified.

Consistent grass roots organizing by union and community groups in recent elections has won a complete Democratic Congressional delegation, a veto proof majority in the state legislature and a Democratic governor.

Connecticut has been able to buck national trends. Voting rights have been expanded, paid sick days legislation has been enacted, the minimum wage has been raised, and the rights of home health care and home child care workers to organize have been won in the state legislature.

In reaction, this state is now in the cross-hairs of right-wing corporate extremist organizations.

An indication of the priority that ALEC places on the fight to reverse Connecticut's forward trend, is the selection of their national chair for 2013 -- Connecticut State Rep. and Senior House Minority Whip John E. Piscopo (R-76).

In April, Connecticut Republicans invited Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to keynote their major fundraiser in Stamford, a center for corporate headquarters. They bragged that their goal is to eliminate all unions in this state

Shortly after, Bill Foley, 2010 Republican candidate for Governor who was narrowly defeated by Dannel Malloy, told the media he is waiting for "Connecticut's Wisconsin moment." This week Foley announced an exploratory committee for his candidacy for Governor in 2014.

While the Connecticut Republican Party often prefers to be viewed as moderate in the New England tradition, in reality their program is an assault on working people. In a workshop at the Connecticut Working Families convention held in Bridgeport, it was reported that 20 Republicans in the State Legislature belong to ALEC, which has opened an office in Hartford.

Connecticut ALEC chair, State Senator Kevin Witkos (R-8), a former police officer, is Deputy Minority Leader Pro Tempore and Caucus Chairman for Outreach of the Senate Republican Caucus.

In April, the Connecticut Citizens Action Group (CCAG) protested in front of AT&T's Hartford office, demanding that the company stop funding ALEC.

"The money finances campaigns and helps elect thousands of state representatives and state senators willing to champion ALEC bills at state capitols," said Susan Pease of Common Cause. Her organization filed a complaint regarding the use of funds as scholarships for legislators to attend ALEC national conferences and be recruited to sign onto model bills.

John Emra, president of AT&T' in Connecticut and ALEC's state corporate co-chairman, told the media he was unaware of who financed ALEC scholarships in Connecticut. He called the national conference an opportunity for "relationship building."

The all-out campaign by Local 1298 shows that the legislative proposals of ALEC can be defeated if they are exposed and explained.

"We were the only state in the nation that fought back and won against the corporate giant AT&T in their effort to deregulate all IP based products in the future and to deregulate wire line service," says Henderson. "Once again, David has beaten Goliath."

In a letter to the membership, he urged continued involvement and called for more volunteers to participate in legislative action.

Photo: President Reagan gave several favorable speeches about ALEC and its role in government. Flickr (CC)

Governor and EM should hear stories of hardship, says Detroit judge

Fri, 20 Sep 2013 13:58:00 +0000

DETROIT - Governor Snyder and Emergency Manager (EM) Kevyn Orr should listen to the audio, said Detroit bankruptcy judge Steven Rhodes, in hearing objections to the city's Chapter 9 bankruptcy application.

Rhodes was referring to testimony of city retirees expressing fears and anger upon learning their pensions are on the chopping block.

It may have been an unusual scene in a bankruptcy court, often ruled by lawyers for high priced clients, but the Judge gave Detroit's residents and workforce, the "small" creditors the city owes money to, three minutes to tell their story. More than 100 signed up to do so.

Reading the live coverage provided by the Detroit Free Press newspaper one hears the moving and sometimes heartrending voices of workers - some fighting back tears - who are stunned and very stressed their pensions are in jeopardy after decades of hard work.

One retiree said, "I go to sleep at night worrying about being a debtor when, from the age of 17, I worked."

They were workers from the city's water and sewage department, building inspectors, police, and many more.

One stated her goal was "always to make the city better." Working at the water and sewage department she had risked health and safety to provide safe water. "We did our part. We need the city of Detroit to continue to do theirs,' she declared.

They argued the pensions owed to them by the city cannot be compared to the monies owed Wall St. Banks and other creditors. Who could rationally argue otherwise?

Their jobs were not an attempt to make a fast buck, or get rich quick. Nor were their jobs one of many investments in a large portfolio that many of the city's large creditors have. Theirs was not a wild hope that they would hit the lottery or win a big jackpot rolling three of a kind on a one armed bandit at the casino.

The pensions they earned and counted upon for a modicum of security were modest, averaging $19 thousand a year. Many are for much less.

On the "Stand with Detroit" page of the American Federation of State City and Municipal Workers are the stories of a cross section of the city's retirees. One is Ora Mae Mott who worked for the city of Detroit in the Finance Department for 30 years. She is 81 years old and her monthly pension is $1100.

"There's no way in hell I'm living large," and she says she has to "keep my clothes well because I cannot afford to go shopping."

Objections in court yesterday were also raised to the self defeating cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face method of cutting expenses.

A Detroit resident said selling and privatizing public lighting department will mean less revenue coming into the city.

Another said the severity of the crisis might not be as great if the city hadn't laid off its tax collectors.

Photo: Patricia Drury/Flickr

Irish unions battle minimum wage cuts

Fri, 20 Sep 2013 13:25:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES - Can you imagine battling the Great Recession by cutting the minimum wage?

It sounds unlikely, if not absurd, but that very scenario crashed down on Ireland's unions and workers when the world economy collapsed five years ago. And similar such austerity schemes have plagued the four-million-person nation ever since.

That's what Irish unions and workers face now, and toil to overcome, even as the Irish Labour Party is the minority partner in a new coalition government, a top Irish union leader says. And Ireland's unions also must hold Labour to its promises, she adds.

Sallyanne Kinahan, Assistant General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, described that history and scenario in an interview with Press Associates Union News Service during the recent AFL-CIO Convention in Los Angeles. As the Irish federation's number two official, Kinahan, one of 120 foreign trade unionists who attended the AFL-CIO conclave, has a top seat in Irish unions' battle to pull workers from the slump.

Those efforts are held hostage to the austerity-driven crusade the 27-nation European Union imposed upon the Irish Republic (and Greece and Spain) with willing agreement from the former governing Fianna Fail Party and its Green Party partners.

In Ireland, the austerity included cutting the minimum wage from 8.65 Euros, then equal to $11, to 7.65 Euros, she says. Austerity champions also kept the two-million-person Irish labor market open, including to low-paid workers from Eastern Europe. "The trade unions weren't consulted about that," Kinahan notes, dryly.

How austerity-driven was the crusade that Irish unions faced? "Our crisis can't be solved without a massive economic stimulus," she says. "You had one in the U.S., however inadequate. We didn't. Hello? They had no recognition of reality.

"The policies they advocated only increased the pain and suffering for many families. We're really not recovering," Kinahan comments.

That wasn't all that Ireland's unions and workers faced from the austerity emphasis.

Deregulation let the Irish banks overextend themselves, then crash. There was removal of "wage protection and wage advancement," and the government blamed Ireland's 250,000 public servants for fiscal ills, enacting "similar propositions and impacts" on public workers there as the right wing advocates and enacts here, she notes.

"But the big factors" in Ireland's crash "were massive job losses in construction, which then spread to manufacturing, services and retail," she explains.

Opening the Irish labor market may have worked when Ireland joined the EU in 2004 and the Irish economy, fueled by banking and real estate speculation, was booming and people were actually immigrating to Ireland for the first time in 150 years.

It didn't in 2008 when Irish banks went bust, real estate values collapsed, joblessness zoomed from four percent to 14.5, and Ireland's "best and brightest" young workers and college grads resumed emigrating, heading to the U.S., Canada, and Australia.

"The government was triumphant last month when unemployment went down by one percent to 13.5 percent," Kinahan notes. "But those most affected are those with lower educational attainment, lower skills, and older workers."

But it's a new government, a combined Fine Gael-Labour coalition, that's trying to clean up the wreckage left by Fianna Fail, whom it clobbered in the last election.

It's also left the Irish Congress of Trade Unions considering other measures to help pull Ireland out of the ditch. Collective bargaining is unavailable in many cases. Kinahan explains Ireland is one of only three EU nations without the right to collective bargaining written into its constitution, and most of Ireland's 180,000 businesses are small, "so extending unionism to them is practically impossible."

That means the Irish union congress must negotiate on national issues, starting with lobbying their Labour Party allies to restore the minimum wage cut. "But for new entrants" to the labor force "the minimum wage is a maximum wage," Kinahan says.

"The other thing we did is that through joint labor-management committees, we negotiated collectively agreed-upon pay for whole sectors - launderers, cleaners, painters and the like." The catch is that after the committees also agreed on the wages, "four hours later the committees collapsed."

The Irish unions and workers still face austerity-driven pressure, according to Jack O'Connor, president of the Service, Industrial, Professional, and Technical Union.

"It is quite clear there is a well-orchestrated campaign by those at the top of the banking system in Ireland and in Europe, who caused the crisis in the first place, to tighten the austerity screw to a degree that is not required even by their own criteria," O'Connor wrote in his union's monthly magazine, Liberty, which Kinahan cited.

"The government must demonstrate the nerves of steel required to face them down. Granted, the blackmailers have leverage, but we have some too because if our program fails then their whole project will collapse like a pack of cards," he wrote.

Photo: Sallyanne Kinahan, Asst. Gen'l Secy of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. Teachers Union of Ireland.

Groups launch new initiative for women’s equality

Fri, 20 Sep 2013 12:33:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Saying the nation cannot wait any longer to make women economic equals, women's organizations, activists, and lawmakers got together here Sept. 18 and launched a women's economic intiative that includes not just reproductive rights but pay equity, good jobs, and economic justice.

At a symposium here House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., influential Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., top Obama White House advisor Valerie Jarrett, speakers from the Service Employees and other allies declared the start of a grass-roots national campaign to enact the "Fair Shot: A Plan For Women And Families To Get Ahead."

That campaign, said Center for American Progress executive director Neera Tamden, recognizes the only way to move issues through a gridlocked Congress is to shove lawmakers with mobilized popular support. The Center was the sponsor of the Sept. 18 rollout of Fair Shot.

Pelosi, the keynote speaker, had unveiled a Democratic women's economic agenda last month, with support of the Coalition of Labor Union Women, among others. Both that agenda and the new Fair Shot campaign go far beyond concentration on reproductive rights to embrace pay equity, good jobs and a just economy.

When the 2013 AFL-CIO convention in Los Angeles earlier this month took up women's issues it too embraced the same expansive approach to women's agenda.

Another key similarity between what happened at the labor convention and both Pelosi's and the Fair Shot plan is that a top women's rights group, the National Organization for Women, are playing a leading role. NOW President Terry O'Neill did so at the convention in Los Angeles, where she strongly linked women and unionists on common issues. There, AFL-CIO delegates approved the federation's women's initiative, which called for demanding, "over and over again, shared prosperity for all. Nothing less.

"Over the next four years," the federation resolution adds - in language that Pelosi could herself use - "a core set of values will drive the labor movement's agenda and define our strategy for women's equality." It then lays out the action plan for them.

Equal pay for equal work tops the list of those plans. Fifty years after Congress approved the Equal Pay Act, women's median income is still only 77 cents for every dollar of a man's median income. For union women, it's closer to 90 cents. "Two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women, and women are the majority in the lowest-paying occupations," the resolution adds. "Those are problems for all of us."

The resolution pledged unions to "continue the fight to raise the minimum wage and close the wage gap," along with greater job training and educational opportunities for women - especially in sectors, such as construction, which are traditionally male - and "to make wage and benefit standards more transparent."

The AFL-CIO also linked work and family together in the resolution by reaffirming its support for Social Security and promising to campaign for paid sick leave, paid family and medical leave, creating "affordable and available quality child care," again backing reproductive choice and urging "fair (work) schedules alongside a fair wage."

The labor federation also intends to push more women workers into its leadership ranks, where they are still underrepresented. Seven of the 55 AFL-CIO Executive Council members are women, as is one of the three top officers, Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler.

Two members - Randi Weingarten of the Teachers and Diann Woodward of the School Administrators - are union presidents. Another, Rose Ann DeMoro, is executive director of National Nurses United. NNU's four female co-presidents are not council members. A fourth of the seven, Veda Shook, heads CWA's Flight Attendants sector.

"Women workers will be front and center of our effort to grow the labor movement, revitalize democracy, respond to the global economic crisis and build durable community partnerships," the federation adds. It also says the partnerships with other progressive groups, including women's groups, are necessary for the equality crusade.

O'Neill's NOW will be one of those key progressive groups partnering with the federation.

"At the national, state and local levels, our federations will integrate women's issues in every key strategy" the resolution declares. "Women should be engaged at all levels in strategy, outreach and implementation of political, organizing and issue campaigns, particularly those that have particular...relevance to women workers."

And the federation said its public policy and legislative efforts "will prioritize issues such as equal pay, paid family and medical leave and workforce development." Labor's political campaigns "will include issues such as paid sick days as a measure of commitment to labor's priorities."

In Los Angeles, O'Neill spoke frequently and passionately about the common and shared interests of women and unions in economic improvement and equality.

"In 2012, the 'war on women' became notorious. It's also the war on women's economic life," she told a press conference during the convention. "Two-thirds of minimum-wage workers are women and half of women workers are the sole or essential supporters of their families.

"So if a woman worker gets laid off, the family has to make a choice between food and rent," and the labor movement gets that, she said. She also pointed out that union foes targeted female-dominated unions. "Scott Walker's law went after women's unions -- teachers, health care workers, government workers - and left the police and fire fighters alone," O'Neill said, referring to the right wing GOP Wisconsin governor's 2011 law killing collective bargaining for most state and local government workers.

Photo: Flickr (CC)

More AFL-CIO Convention coverage here than anywhere else

Thu, 19 Sep 2013 14:58:00 +0000

Many of our hardest working union sisters and brothers, along with many friends and allies, just completed the most important AFL-CIO convention in history.

And People's World reporters were on the scene! We had a great team in Los Angeles reporting on the many facets of the convention: John Wojcik, Blake Deppe, Rossana Cambron, Eric A. Gordon, Juan Lopez, and our great colleague from PAI, Mark Gruenberg.

Here is a list of People's World articles and videos through September 13 so you can be sure you didn't miss any of the significant developments.

And Keep reading at peoplesworld.org or on Kindle or Google Currents.

Articles from Peoplesworld.org by John Wojcik, Blake Deppe, Eric A. Gordon, Juan Lopez and Mark Gruenberg:

AFL-CIO demands end to anti-gay job discrimination

Labor Secretary Perez vows to grow middle class, "so help me God"

Labor opens house to all U.S. workers

In bold resolution, AFL-CIO calls for labor law overhaul

Iraqi union leader: "War not over for our workers"

Labor's house opens door wide: Let's work together

Firefighters union leads somber 9/11 commemoration

AFL-CIO warns Congress on immigration: no back burner

Ethiopian immigrant Tefere Gebre shakes up labor organizing

Trumka urges "culture shift" to build "real working class movement"

As matter of survival, unions double down on diversity

Durazo: Labor must fight for all who work

Social media and labor: a perfect, and necessary, match

Domestic workers come out of shadows, into labor movement

Elizabeth Warren at AFL-CIO meet: "If we don't fight, we don't win"

Labor takes a look behind kitchen door

Young workers are hot topic at labor journalists meet

AFL-CIO blasts big business prison profiteers

How to build our union movement: Ideas from LA

"Mr. Clean" gives guest workers a dirty deal

AFL-CIO crafts compromise to prevent dumping of health care law

AFL-CIO to unite with allies for job safety

Videos by Rossana Cambron from People's World YouTube channel:

Hareth Andrade-Ayala, Immigration Activist re-recites her poem "America"

Jamaican guest worker speaks to the gathering of Jobs With Justice social at the AFL-CIO convention

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Sub-minimum wage Internet employer loses round one in federal court

Thu, 19 Sep 2013 11:24:00 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO (PAI) - A federal court case in San Francisco could have national implications for wages paid to workers hired to do specific tasks over the Internet. And the ruling could also have long-term implications on the hourly wages of millions of workers in an office or plant whose tasks could be moved online.

That's because the case challenges Internet companies that misclassify their workers as "independent contractors," thereby paying them far less than the federal minimum wage. A top official for the firm defending itself in the case estimates up to four million workers could be included in the case, just from his company alone.

While the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour and various states and municipalities require a higher minimum wage, online workers are now being paid $2 to $3 an hour, in some cases less, because CrowdFlower, a leader in the crowdsourcing industry, claims the federal minimum wage law does not cover their online workers.

And workers whose jobs could be shifted to the Internet could wind up earning a pittance.

"If a repetitive task now performed in an office - say, bookkeeping for $15 an hour -- or in a plant, where machine monitoring is the process paying $15 or more an hour, those jobs could be shifted to online workers who are paid a lot less, destroying a lot of jobs," said attorney Mark Potashnick of Weinhaus & Potashnick in St. Louis, Mo., one of the attorneys representing the plaintiff workers who are suing to prevent such wage slashes.

"I see this as the newest effort to evade paying the minimum wage," Potashnick told the Labor Tribune in an exclusive interview.

In a suit filed by Potashnick and co-counsel firms in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles, U.S. District Judge Jon Tiger in San Francisco ruled there's enough evidence already for the case to proceed as a collective action. A collective action suit is different from a class-action suit. In a collective action, people who may be harmed must opt in to join the suit. In class actions, they're automatically in unless they opt out.

This is the first step in the legal process to win justice and fair wages for on-line workers and potentially forestall the loss of millions of jobs for other workers whose tasks are not performed on-line but could be.

The employer - and the defendant in the case -- CrowdFlower, Inc., pays only $2 to $3 an hour to Internet workers to gather valuable information for its customers. CrowdFlower classifies the workers as "independent contractors," not subject to state or federal minimum wage laws, job safety and health laws, or Social Security withholding.

Potashnick and his co-counsels contend the workers are misclassified as "independent contractors." He says the level of CrowdFlower's control of their work, monitoring of their work, supervising their work, and motivation of their work, among ample other evidence, shows they are "employees" instead, covered by federal labor laws, including minimum wage and overtime laws.

"If the defense" - the company - "is ultimately successful in winning this case, it will have a profound impact on America's minimum wage in any job that can be moved from a permanent facility to online," Potashnick said.

"At that point, America's minimum wage is in jeopardy because so many tasks could be put on the Internet and tens of thousands, perhaps millions, of workers could lose their jobs or be forced to do online work for a lot less than they are now earning."

Crowdsourcing started as a way for entrepreneurs to raise money over the Internet for projects or start-up businesses that could not get traditional bank funding. However, companies now use the concept to hire workers - calling them independent contractors - over the Internet to do projects. Without protection of a federal, state or municipal minimum wage law, those companies would be free to pay as little as people they find are willing to accept.

Judge Tiger ordered CrowdFlower to turn over the emails and other contact information they have on the workers to the plaintiff/workers' attorneys so workers doing similar work for CrowdFlower can be invited to join a collective action lawsuit under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which governs minimum wages and overtime.

If Tiger ultimately rules for the workers and against CrowdFlower, the workers would be entitled to be paid at least the federal minimum wage, and entitled to recover unpaid minimum wages for work previously performed plus liquidated damages. The back wages would amount to the difference somewhere between the $7.25 federal minimum wage and whatever CrowdFlower had paid them.

But the case has broader implications: It could establish a precedent that would require other Internet employers to pay at least the federal minimum wage. If that happens, the incentive to move jobs from site-specific companies to online would be severely dampened.

CrowdFlower is believed to be the largest Internet employer in the world, with more than a million workers who perform a variety of tasks such as verifying business listings for sales calls. In a sworn declaration filed with the court, CrowdFlower's Chief Technology Officer testified that "based upon my preliminary review of the available data, I estimate the total number of potential class members...could exceed 4,000,000..." More than 60 percent of their online workers live in the United States. One CrowdFlower executive calls its work "a digital automotive assembly line."

Defending the case is Littler Mendelson, the largest pro-business employment law firm in the world. They have just lost round one. But it is only round one.

Dana Spitzer and Ed Finkelstein are, respectively, the Managing Editor and publisher of the St. Louis Labor Tribune.

Photo: CrowdFlower claims their online workers are not covered by federal minimum wage law. CrowdFlower.com