People Before Profit blog

Reynoldsburg, Ohio teachers strike continues as Board of Education digs in

Wed, 01 Oct 2014 15:55:00 +0000

Teachers in the small suburban community of Reynoldsburg, Ohio, returned to the picket line for their second week of striking. The trouble started last May when the school board proposed a contract to replace the one that was expiring. The board's proposed contract made teacher pay raises merit-based and replaced healthcare insurance with cash payment for healthcare. In addition, unlike neighboring districts, the board's proposal has no limits on class size.

Since that time the Board has made some concessions on pay raises and healthcare, but it still refuses to address the teachers' concerns about working conditions, which have deteriorated over the last year. In fact, nearly one out of every five teachers left the district in the past year to seek employment elsewhere.

The latest contract proposed by the board was very similar to the one voted down by teachers earlier in September. After a recent meeting between the district, the teacher's union and a federal mediator, Reynoldsburg Education Association co-president Kim Cooper said she was "equally disappointed and unsurprised" that the board of education has failed to address the issues of the strike. Cooper also commented that the district officials left the talks prematurely.

While the strike is underway the district is using online lessons and scabs brought in from Michigan and paid at higher rates than substitute teachers ordinarily get. This has resulted in a situation in which the quality of education is so poor parents are suing to have the schools shut for the reminder of the strike.

The Reynoldsburg Education Association has held several rallies in the area that are well attended by parents, students, teachers, elected officials, and supporters from across the region. At one recent rally, parent Debbie Dunlap implored the Board not to tie teachers' raises to measurements of "quality" that are out of teachers' control.

Kim Cooper, REA co-president, reminded the audience that the strike comes after years of salary freezes, budget cuts and deteriorating learning conditions for students. Although the district has grown larger than ever, there are fewer educational programs because of the budget cuts. President of the Ohio Education Association Becky Evans chided the Board for saying that they were "for the students." "You can't be for the students," she said, "if you're against the teachers."

There is some speculation that there is more to this strike than meets the eye. Reynoldsburg school superintendent Tina Thomas-Manning has close ties to Governor John Kasich and the state board of education. This has led some to believe that the current strike in Reynoldsburg is a back door effort by the Governor to weaken the teachers' union. Kasich has attacked the teachers' union before with his infamous Senate Bill 5, which aimed to take collective bargaining rights away from teachers and other public employees in the state. SB 5 was defeated by the voters of Ohio, but Governor Kasich's hostility toward unions and the working people of Ohio seems to continue unabated.

Photo: Reynoldsburg Education Association Facebook page

Groundbreaking 1984 strike inspires organizing today

Wed, 01 Oct 2014 14:09:00 +0000

NEW HAVEN - Scores of Local 34 Unite Here members at Yale and their sisters and brothers from Locals 35 and GESO gathered on Cross Campus during lunch break last Wednesday for ballons, speeches and birthday cake. to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the historic strike by Local 34 clerical and technical workers which won their first union contract.

Despite current battles brewing, Yale's new president, Peter Salovey, came by to shake hands with each of the workers, recognizing the respect they had won in the hard fought 1984 battle.

Two days later, on the actual anniversary, the Peoples Center was filled with retirees and current Yale workers telling their stories. A video of strike photos taken by Local 34 member Joe Taylor was premiered, followed by a panel and then open discussion highlighting recollections of those who participated and led the organizing drive and strike.

"We weren't thinking about making history," said former Local 34 president Laura Smith. "This was our lives."

The 1984 strike was a turning-point struggle in the United States for unions, for women, and for the working class.

Many currents contributed to the victory. The civil rights and anti Vietnam war movements had changed attitudes of millions of youth who brought those new attitudes with them into the workforce and into their unions. At the same time, there was a flood of women into the workforce, both reflecting and contributing to the growth of the women's movement and its working-class component. In the late 1950s, 42 percent of working-age women (aged 25-54) were in the workforce. By 1984, this had increased to 68 percent, with most of that increase in the previous decade. This was also the decade that saw the start of the long stagnation and decline of men's wages and the increasing proportion of women whose income was essential to maintain their family.

The successful organizing drive and strike were conducted in the teeth of the anti-union offensive signaled by President Reagan's 1981 breaking of the air traffic controllers' union. It was one of a handful of nationally-watched struggles that helped revive and expand a militant, membership-based class struggle unionism and propel a new generation to leadership of the national labor movement.

After World War II, the big corporations used the cold war atmosphere and government repression to purge militant leaders from the labor movement, and impose a business unionism model. "The union" often became an outside service that workers hired with their union dues. But as early as the 1960s, unions like 1199 were challenging this model (including in New Haven, where it gained a foothold in Yale New Haven Hospital). The Local 34 organizing drive at Yale continued to break with the business union model by emphasizing working-class struggle and class unity, though it did not use those terms. Some features of the organizing drive and strike:

ñ The union drive stressed membership involvement. As several veterans commented, other unions said, "Join us and we will make things better." Local 34 said, "Join us and we will show you how to make things better."

ñ The union emphasized you only win what you are strong enough to win. When workers asked, "Can management do that?" the reply was always, "Only if you let them get away with it."

ñ The union stressed solidarity with the blue collar workers in Local 35, and with the labor movement.

ñ The union identified with social movements, especially the civil rights and women's movements.

Today, the struggles of fast food, big box retail, janitorial, car wash and all low-wage workers are in this tradition; Locals 34 and 35 today, while facing challenges to defend their hard-won gains against outsourcing and speedup at Yale, are in the forefront of a labor-community coalition demanding good jobs for New Haven residents. And at the state and national levels, the organized participation of rank-and-file union leaders and members is playing a critical role in preventing the complete takeover of the federal and state governments by far-right ideologues who act as fronts for corporate interests.

In honor of the anniversary, Political Affairs has reposted an analysis of the strike by some of the participants, which was first published in July 1985.

Photo: 1984 strike by clerical and technical workers at Yale University. Joe Taylor

Locked-out workers from Superman's town go to D.C.

Wed, 01 Oct 2014 13:26:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Locked-out Steelworkers from Honeywell's nuclear materials processing plant in Metropolis, Ill., took their dispute to the Nation's Capital on Sept. 26, with picket lines in front of the firm's D.C. office as well as at the offices of three heavyweight lobbying firms Honeywell hires to influence lawmakers.

Honeywell locked out 150 workers, members of USW Local 7-669, an old Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers local, on August 2. It was Honeywell's second lockout of the local in four years. The prior 13-month struggle ended in August 2011.

The workers ordinarily man Honeywell's uranium conversion plant in the downstate Illinois city. The key issue in the current lockout is Honeywell's plan to contract out dozens of the unionists' jobs. Honeywell netted $4 billion in profits last year, and is currently spending $6 million on D.C. lobbyists to get and preserve its federal government work, Local 7-669 adds.

While it has locked out the workers, Honeywell is trying to run the plant with supervisors and outside workers imported from elsewhere for the highly technical work. "Turning key pieces of work over to contractors could cause confusion and increase the likelihood of a serious accident at the facility," the union warns.

"This week our union received a call from a contractor letting us know that while performing a wash out of the GF2 (Gaseous Fluorine) Plant at least three people contracted burns and that the wash out wasn't being performed correctly," the union reported on its website just before midnight on Sept. 28.

"On top of that, the contractor said that contract employees who were injured at the plant were told to say that they were injured away from the plant. This does not come as a surprise as Honeywell continues to attempt to claim that operations are going well and people are working safe."

Members of other unions and the Metro DC Central Labor Council joined the Local 7-669 members on the picket line. Negotiations were scheduled to resume Oct. 2-3.

Photo: Support for Honeywell Workers Facebook page

Labor educator Worthen’s new book goes where few have gone before

Tue, 30 Sep 2014 16:40:00 +0000

In her new book, "What Did You Learn at Work Today? The Forbidden Lessons of Labor Education," Helena Worthen provides a unique blend of theory and practice. Based on her years of experience with working people - in and out of the classroom - she gives concrete examples of how people learn at work. Lessons on the job span the spectrum of skills to be successful at your work, to navigating the social context of a system based on class conflict, including the "forbidden lessons." At the same time, she explains the educational theories behind her examples; theories that have a wide application for adult education as well as leadership training not only for the labor movement but in many other contexts.

Worthen draws from her years of experience and work both in the labor movement and as a labor educator. Her partisanship to and passion for working people, their struggles and triumphs become apparent reading the first page. She details numerous real life examples of what people learn on the job, valuing all the lessons - some of which most people would not even consider "real" learning. Whether it's learning new software or "how to text your kid with your hand in your pocket so no one could see you using your phone, to see if she made it home from school," Worthen distills all these lessons, relating them to four educational theories, and placing it all in the complicated process of class struggle and social change by addressing a simple question: "Can they get away with that?"

Her examples of learning - taken from real life situations - are an intimate look at how collective knowledge is learned and produced by working people whether on the job or on strike. The case studies range from her classroom experiences to the dramatic and protracted fight by workers at a social service agency in the small Central Illinois town of Effingham to organize a union and to win a contract to safety issues in a power plant; black workers trying to break into the construction industry and the life and struggles of garment workers. She also reviewed essays written by children of union members to draw out what they have learned from their parents. From each of these cases, Worthen quotes workers involved and analyzes their experiences in such a compelling way that it's like eating a chocolate cake - you want to savor every bite.

Like most other services and goods produced by the working class, these lessons are rarely appreciated, let alone mined for their value to understand and improve the human condition. Yet Worthen's dedication to these values takes her into groundbreaking territory; where very few U.S.-based educators, scholars or labor organizers have gone before. And we are richer for it.

In her final chapter, "Why did I write this book?" Worthen makes the point that a wall has been constructed between "labor" and "education." "Education in the US does not think much about work or the working class majority as workers. It does not want to think about workers having to fight an employer," she writes, excluding labor educators from her critique. But she also points to the costs of the Cold War and McCarthy period both. "Labor thinks very little about learning and even less about theory. In fact, it avoids theory as much as possible," she writes. "The wall that keeps these two close cousins from talking to each other is historical. It is the result of two generations of effective popular campaigns against anything that seemed remotely Marxist."

Worthen goes on to suggest what can be done in knocking a hole in the wall. For me, step one is to read and digest this book.

The second edition is due out in mid-October. So give yourself or someone else a treat. This book is for three groups of people, she says, "people who work, including high school students," "people who know something about labor history and unions" and "teachers, especially adult educators and teacher educators," giving insight and tools for just about everyone.

"What Did You Learn At Work Today? The Forbidden Lessons of Labor Education"

By Helena Worthen

2014, Hard Ball Press, 276 pp (Paperback)

This article was updated with additional information on Oct. 9.

Migrant workers “shouldn’t have to be tortured to have work”

Tue, 30 Sep 2014 12:49:00 +0000

Three times each month, dozens of women gather in dusty courtyards in rural towns in Manikganj, Dinazpur or other districts across Bangladesh to learn all they can about the only means by which they can support their families: migrating to another country for work.

In leading these information sessions, the Bangladesh Migrant Women's Organization (BOMSA) seeks to assist women in understanding their rights-from what they should demand of those who facilitate their migration, to the wage and working conditions at the homes in Gulf and Asian countries where they will be employed as domestic workers.

"What I want for these women is that they are safe, they get their wages," says Sheikh Rumana, BOMSA general secretary. Rumana founded the organization in 1998 with other women who worked with her for years in Malaysian garment factories. Before she migrated for work in Malaysia, Rumana was promised a good salary at an electronics plant. But when she arrived, she was put to work at a plant making jackets and paid pennies for each piece she sewed.

The gap between the promise and reality of migrating for work overseas is the focus of migrant worker activists across Asia. This month, Rumana and seven other migrant worker activists from Bangladesh, India and the Maldives are traveling across the United States as part of a Solidarity Center exchange program supported by the U.S. State Department. The group is meeting with U.S. activists working on labor rights, migrant rights and anti-human trafficking issues in Washington, D.C., New York and Los Angeles to discuss best practices to promote safe migration and share ideas for raising awareness about the risks of migrating for work.

Like BOMSA, the Welfare Association for the Rights of Bangladeshi Emigrants Development Foundation (WARBE-DF) assists those seeking to migrate, provides support for workers overseas and assists them upon their return. The organization also has successfully pushed the Bangladeshi government to ratify the United Nations (UN) convention on the protection of migrant workers and is campaigning for passage of the International Labor Organization convention covering decent work for domestic workers, says Jasiya Khatoon, WARBE-DF program coordinator and AFL-CIO Solidarity Center exchange participant.

"Lack of job opportunities" is what drives millions of Bangladeshis out of their country in search of work, Khatoon says. Some 8.5 million Bangladeshis are working in more than 150 countries, according to 2013 government statistics.

Many workers migrating from Bangladesh and elsewhere are first trafficked through another country-where a lack of proper documentation may result in their arrest. In Mumbai, India, a transit point for many migrants, human rights lawyer Gayatri Jitendra Singh works both to assist imprisoned migrant workers and to change the country's laws so that, rather than penalizing migrant workers, the laws recognize the culpability of traffickers and corrupt labor brokers.

Singh, a former union organizer, and other migrant advocates, point to the actions of labor brokers as the biggest underlying problem in the migration process. Many labor brokers charge such exorbitant fees for securing work that migrant workers cannot repay them even after years on the job, essentially rendering them indentured workers. They remain trapped, often forced to remain in dangerous working conditions because their debt is too great. Unscrupulous brokers also lie about the wages and working conditions workers should expect in a destination country, the migrant advocates say.

Singh and the other migrant advocates came to the United States filled with fresh stories about the suffering of migrant workers and their families: a Bangladeshi domestic worker in Jordan and another in Lebanon who had just returned to Bangladesh, still suffering the effects of nightly sexual abuse by their employers; the family of an Indian construction worker who died in Qatar and is unable to pay for the return of his body; the 12-year-old Bangladeshi girl whose passport cites her age as 25 so she can migrate overseas to support her family because her father is ill.

Bangladeshis "wouldn't go if there were jobs in their country," says Rumana. But faced with grinding poverty and no chance for decent work in Bangladesh, they uproot their lives to make a living. But as long as they do, Rumana says, they "shouldn't have to be tortured to have work."

This story, reprinted from the AFL-CIO Now Blog, originally appeared on the labor federation's Solidarity Center website.

Photo: Courtesy, the Solidarity Center.

If you’re not seated at the table you’re on the menu!

Tue, 30 Sep 2014 11:06:00 +0000

Many politically engaged folks are well aware of the intense concentration given to "messaging"-how ideas are framed and communicated. The right wing, guided by message guru Frank Luntz, has shown its expertise at transforming the American language. Never say "Government," he tells his GOP friends; say "Washington," to heighten people's fear of totalitarian control from afar. Never say "Privatization," which implies profit, for example on your Social Security; say "Personalization" instead, implying more individual ownership. Never say "Globalization" or "Capitalism," which summon up harsh economic competition; rather, say "Free Market Economy." And of course never use a neutral term like "Undocumented Workers"; say the more threatening-sounding "Illegal Aliens." Many more such examples of the Luntz lexicon could be cited.

Americans in large numbers have adopted, or accepted these linguistic spins, because politicians and newscasters, especially those of the Fox News variety, employ such handed-down talking points and repeat them over and over and over again, until the public gets accustomed to their way of framing issues. You need only recall how often, back in 2003, we heard that "We don't want the smoking gun of WMD in Iraq to be an atomic cloud," a frightening scenario that got almost everyone on board the Operation Iraqi Liberation train (which, by the way, nearly became the name of that costly adventure until someone pointed out that it spelled OIL, thus it became Freedom instead of Liberation).

What does the labor movement, and what do its allies, respond to the right-wing assault on our history, our values, our demands, the very language we speak? This was the theme of a five-hour workshop (including lunch catered by a Long Beach restaurant called The Social List) held on September 25 and directed at union officers and staff, especially those in communications positions, rank and file union members and activists, and all workers engaged in organizing campaigns. Attended by almost 100 people, it was sponsored by the California Labor Federation AFL-CIO, and held at the IBEW 11 Training Center in Commerce, a suburb of Los Angeles.

Some 45 percent of Californians in recent polls have answered that unions do more harm than good. Where do they receive this idea, and how do we change the narrative?

Some of the right-wing wisdom that has caught on with the public says that "Big Labor is just another special interest whose demands are driving businesses out of the state, and out of the country, forcing small business to close their doors and lay off their workers." That narrative goes on to assert that "Overpaid public employees use the power of their unions to secure bloated pensions and benefits that cost taxpayers billions of dollars every year." The clear motive, or "framing" of such a line of argument, is to challenge the right of workers to organize at all, and to pit sectors of workers against each other in a global race to the bottom for wages and rights.

The new narrative Labor has developed has three prongs:

1) Rebrand unions, and organizing movements such as the fast food workers' struggle, as "working people standing together." This phrase resonates with people who have negative views of unions or think they are no longer relevant.

2) Refocus voter concern where it should be: Not on this or that sector of the labor movement which is better paid or has secure pensions, but on corporations and CEOs. Voters understand the inequality resulting from CEOs who negotiate their own compensation but won't let workers do the same. In this sense the Occupy movement, with its pointed reference to the 1 percent, has had a lasting effect.

3) Put a human face on workers. The home-care attendants, the first responders, the single mothers trying to survive on a McDonald's starvation wage. Come back against the right-wing tirade against "public employees" with: "I want the best possible cops and firefighters to protect my family, and the best and brightest to teach my kids. We're not going to recruit and retain them if politicians keep attacking them, cutting public services, and laying them off."

It's good to remind people you're talking with that "In our grandparents' generation, working people stood together in their unions to create the 40-hour work week, paid vacations, and good American wages. Sitting across from employers at the negotiating table, they made American companies the envy of the world and built our middle class, brick by brick." And continue with this:

"But now the middle-class is being systematically dismantled by Wall Street bankers and their lobbyists, outsourcing our jobs and slashing wages and health care to get bigger bonuses for themselves. With no one sitting across from them at the table negotiating for working families, CEOs walk away with bigger bonuses, and workers walk away wondering how they'll feed their families."

"Today the only thing that stands in the way of the CEOs and corporate lobbyists is what stood in their way in our grandparents' generation: working people standing together."

"Workers and their unions are innovating to keep America competitive by retraining workers for new industries, partnering with small businesses to keep jobs here at home, and fighting alongside parents for smaller class sizes so teachers can teach and students can learn."

Why should they get $15 an hour?

A common reaction to fast food workers asking for $15 an hour is, "Why should they get $15 an hour for making hamburgers when I have a college degree and barely make that much money?" Remind them that all working people, whatever they do, need a seat at the table and deserve a living wage and benefits if they're going to be able to provide for their kids. Or as someone from the audience quipped, "If you're not seated at the table, you're on the menu!"

The right wing uses language like a magician to misdirect attention: Look over here (the "bloated pension"), not at the ever-widening income inequality or the constant pressure to rid the country of Social Security. And they employ fear and scare tactics directed against immigrants, people of color, students, strikers, public employees, radicals, whistleblowers, "pointy-headed intellectuals" - anyone at all who might threaten the steady advance of corporate profits and CEO.

It's up to us to change the narrative by reminding people of our history and accomplishments, and offer hope instead of fear: Offer a realistic solution and give your audience a way to take action that will directly support achieving it. Connect with the people you are talking to using aspiration, humane and moral values, and acknowledging where they are. Describe the problem in ways that are concrete and visual, using examples such as the nurse who lovingly cared for Mom when she was hospitalized with a serious illness, or the sanitation workers who pick up our trash every Wednesday morning without fail.

Just as the key to the right-wing's near-hegemony over the framing of issues has been repetition, repetition, repetition, union supporters and progressives too must develop the habit of repeating our messages, tirelessly, until gradually we see the national tide shifting in our direction, toward our understanding of the world.

Anyone interested in accessing the printed or downloadable resources used at the workshop, including the expanded Talking Points briefly quoted above, may email Steve Smith, one of the presenters, Communications Director for the California Labor Federation, at ssmith@calaborfed.org. And get your state Federation of Labor to sponsor workshops like this!

Photo: Frank Luntz, the right-wing pollster. AP

Hyatt to pay $1 million to fired Boston workers

Mon, 29 Sep 2014 14:28:00 +0000

BOSTON - The Boston Globe reported Friday that the Hyatt Hotels Corporation agreed to pay ousted workers $1 million in a boycott-ending deal. The 2009 firings resulted in a 5-year boycott organized by Unite Here Local 26 with strong, nationwide solidarity.

According to the Globe report, the settlement could give some workers as much as $40,000, depending on their years of service. In exchange, the hospitality workers' union that brokered the deal will call off its five-year boycott at the three full-service Hyatts in the area. The union estimates the boycott cost the hotel chain about $6 million.

Back in 2009, Hyatt ignited a firestorm of protests across the country after it had its housekeepers in Boston train workers from a staffing agency. The housekeepers were told the trainees would be vacation replacements but when the training was complete the workers were fired August 31, 2009, and replaced by the trainees who earned half the pay.

Hyatt offered the fired Boston housekeepers "full-time" positions with United Services Companies, a Chicago-based staffing outfit that provides low-wage labor to hospitals, hotels and retail stores.

Although they were not in the union, 78 of the 100 fired Boston Hyatt housekeepers met September 29, 2009, at the Unite Here Local 26 office and voted unanimously to reject the hotel chain's offer to place them in jobs with the staffing organization.

After the meeting, at a press conference across the street from the Hyatt Regency Boston the women chanted "No Way Hyatt" as Janice Loux, then president of the union local, declared an official boycott against the Hyatt.

Workers at the press conference made it clear that they would settle for nothing less than reinstatement in their full-time jobs and that they did not want temporary jobs designed to put other workers out on the street.

The union-led boycott involved a major national campaign by Unite Here to convince Hyatt customers to cease doing business with the hospitality giant.

Hundreds of workers were arrested in massive peaceful civil disobedience actions that week at Hyatt hotels as far away as Chicago and San Francisco.

Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick initiated an informal state boycott against Hyatt to withhold all state business from the chain.

The Globe quoted Wanda Rosario, 62, who worked at the Hyatt Regency Boston for 24 years, as warning that if Hyatt opens another non-union hotel in Boston, the company should be prepared for more protests: "They're going to see me in front of their hotel to try and put a union there."

John Wojcik contributed to this article.

Photo: PW/Jose Cruz

Atlanta symphony board majority locks out musicians for second time

Mon, 29 Sep 2014 12:01:00 +0000

ATLANTA (PAI) - For the second time in two years, the intransigent board majority of the Atlanta Symphony, seeking to cut costs by firing orchestra members, locked them out, Sept. 6.

The workers, members of the American Federation of Musicians, are drawing wide support, however. Symphony board members who tried to avert the lockout and were rebuffed resigned. Music Director Robert Spano spoke out in favor of his orchestra.

The lockout is "a one-sided attempt to force the orchestra to its collective knees," Spano told the British newspaper, The Guardian.

Atlanta board chair "Stanley Romanstein again resorted to starvation as a weapon in his quest to extract unjustified concessions from his employees, all to pay for his failure to manage one of America's leading orchestras," said American Federation of Musicians President Ray Hair. "Romanstein's starve-out tactics are an indication of his inability to lead the institution. He also knows the orchestra would never voluntarily bow to his reckless and regressive demands to cover the company's self-inflicted wounds."

The lockout in Atlanta follows an earlier lockout by the Minnesota Orchestra board. And this summer, the managing director of New York's Metropolitan Opera came close to locking out all the opera's unions. In all three cases, management wanted to cut costs by cutting jobs and pay, allegedly to cut deficits. The Atlanta board majority claims the orchestra is running a $2 million deficit.

The Atlanta board majority locked out the Musicians two years ago. Then, the orchestra members agreed to cut the ensemble's size from 95 to 88, and take a pay cut. Now it's down to 80. Hair said the Atlanta Musicians took a 14 percent pay cut, too.

Now, Hair says, the symphony wants unlimited cuts and to slash health insurance, too. "By attempting to establish a feudal system, which would destroy the lives of musicians who have done nothing but bring joy to the community, Romanstein is threatening to destroy the institution itself," Hair said. "I doubt that citizens of Atlanta would want that to happen."

Photo: The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, with Music Director Robert Spano conducting. Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

NLRB hits Postal Service for breaking labor law

Fri, 26 Sep 2014 14:17:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - In its crusade to cut costs and fire workers, management at the U.S. Postal Service seems to be making a habit of "blowing it" - consistently breaking labor law in its dealings with its unions and workers.

At least, that's one conclusion from the latest National Labor Relations Board official's ruling against the agency's management, on Sept. 10. It's one of many recent NLRB cases agency managers lost to the Letter Carriers, the Postal Workers, or both.

That's when Administrative Law Judge Arthur Amchan decided Postal Service managers must give the union documents dealing with their outsourcing of transportation services, so the union would have the data it needs to contend union workers can do the work more efficiently. But USPS didn't turn over the documents - the evidence, if you will.

The dispute over the outsourcing is part of what postal unions call the Postmaster General's creeping privatization of the Postal Service.

The Postmaster General's other measures, which he says he must undertake to stanch USPS red ink, include plans to fire 100,000 workers, let another 100,000 go by attrition, close 82 more Postal Service sorting centers next year, eliminate Saturday pickups and deliveries, and replace full-time family-supporting union workers selling stamps and providing other postal services with minimum-wage no-benefit non-union part-timers at Staples stores.

But his privatization scheme also includes eliminating workers who don't directly serve the public, such as workers who run highway contract routes to Postal Service terminals.

That's what USPS announced it would do on April 23, 2013: Renew outsourced con-tracts with private firms for routes feeding eight of the terminals. But the agency's contract with APWU gives the union the right to contest such decisions, and to get data it can use to prove that regular Postal Service workers - APWU members - can do the work more efficiently.

"The Postal Service may not renew its private contracts if the union demonstrates that it can perform bargaining unit work at the same or lower cost," Amchan noted. "The Postal Service can cancel a contract mid-term if the union demonstrates that it can perform all or part of a contract route for less than the contractor."

When APWU official Michael Foster asked for summary contract numbers - so the union could determine if its members could run the routes more efficiently - the Postal Service refused. USPS cited confidentiality of proprietary company information, from the contractors, to deny turning over the key form involved, which listed the costs item by item.

Its denial broke labor law, Amchan said: "The union...is entitled by contract to recapture work contracted out...if that work can be performed for less in-house. Thus in a broad sense, any information regarding the basis on which" the Postal Service "decided to contract out this work is relevant and necessary to the union's functions."

Photo: Postal unions have won NLRB backing for some of their efforts to prove that postal employees can provide transportation services more efficiently than outseside firms. AP

A win for hotel workers is a win for all workers!

Fri, 26 Sep 2014 13:00:00 +0000

At a standing room only session of the Los Angeles City Council on Sept. 24, council members voted to raise the minimum wage to $15.37 an hour for hotel workers.

"Many workers live in Los Angeles. They pay taxes and buy groceries and other items they need in Los Angeles. With this raise they will be able to buy more and this increase will only benefit the city," said Benny Avina, a worker at Pomona College who came to support the hotel workers. "Hotels make billions of dollars and many hotel workers are single mothers having to work two jobs to make ends meet."

RAISE LA, a coalition of church groups, students, community organizations and small business, and initiated by UNITE HERE Local 11 packed the chambers to support an ordinance to raise the minimum wage of hotel workers.

Councilmember Curren D. Price, Jr., stated that by passing this ordinance workers will no longer have to work two jobs, allowing parents to spend more time on their children's education, and to tuck their children into bed at night.

Councilmember Mike Bonin thanked all those whose efforts had made this vote possible, saying that it was time to provide targeted incentives to help those living in poverty, and not just incentives for business.

An attempt to raise the exemption of hotels with fewer than 150 rooms to 250 rooms failed, which was a victory for the workers. As it stands, if passed, the ordinance would apply to hotels with 300-plus rooms by July 2015, and hotels with 125-plus rooms by 2016.

During the public speakers portion of the council meeting several hotel owners and managers gave Doomsday scenarios on loss of jobs and closings of hotels. But as the speakers in support of hotel workers pointed out, the same concerns were expressed when the City of Long Beach voted to increase the wages of hotel workers, and that in fact no such scenario occurred. Rather, the raise brought thousands more dollars to the city. Economic analysts projects that the raise will inject another $39.6 million into the Los Angeles economy.

Mayor of Santa Monica Pam O'Connor reported that in her city hotels are already paying a living wage of $15.30, which includes hotels of all sizes. "Development is robust as a result, local business are as successful as before. No one should live in poverty."

Vice President of the Los Angeles School Board Steve Zimmer stated that in June the Board endorsed this issue because they recognized it was a public education issue. He stated that about "15,000 of our parents work in this industry and we want them to be able to have the chance to be involved in their children's education." The raise will affect some 12,000 workers, in an industry whose local average pay is only $10.55. As many as 40% of hospitality industry workers currently live below the poverty line.

Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, said, "We are here side by side with workers who are a vital part of a growing industry of tourism, the men and women who work in this industry create enormous profit for this industry. It's time we invest in them, not just the brick and mortar of the buildings."

James Amador of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE), stated, "Hotels have had record revenues in the last four years and record occupancy this last year. They can afford to pay their workers a living wage." At the same time, hotels have been beneficiaries of municipal tax breaks for new construction, and of large-scale urban clean-up and restoration projects in such popular destinations as Hollywood.

The final vote was 12 yes and 3 no. Because the vote was not unanimous, this vote requires that another vote be taken at the next scheduled meeting council meeting, where it will require the vote of 10 or more to pass.

Photo: USC and Pomona College workers surround UNITE-HERE's Christian Torres during the Los Angeles City Council meeting, Sept. 24 (via UNITE-HERE Local 11)

A GOP fraud – defrauding voters

Thu, 25 Sep 2014 14:34:00 +0000

PITTSBURGH (PAI) - The GOP is working desperately to deny the right to vote to citizens it doesn't like. You know, poor people, black people, Hispanic people, old people, female people, especially people it believes are inclined to vote for Democrats.

Republican politicians hatched a multitude of schemes in states across the country to accomplish this gambit, passing laws demanding specific voter identification at polling places, eliminating early voting days and purging voters from registration rolls.

The right-wingers on the U.S. Supreme Court last year gave Republicans a hand in this effort by striking down key protections in the Voting Rights Act. Joining them this month were three Republican judges on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.

In a rush-job, five-paragraph order just hours after the trio heard testimony, the three over-ruled a lower court's 70-page decision and allowed Wisconsin to demand voter ID of 300,000 residents who don't currently have it for an election that is less than seven weeks away.

When their hands are pressed on a Bible in court, Republican experts admit they've got no evidence of in-person voter fraud the GOP claims these state laws are intended to prevent.

What they're really intended to prevent is voting by people Republicans detest, the derided "47 percent" that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney spit on. Republicans are robbing citizens of the fundamental right to vote. It's criminal. It's fraud that subverts America's cherished democracy.

Since 2010, Republicans have passed voter-suppression laws in 22 states, and nearly half the nation's population could be affected in November's balloting.

Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP succeeded in postponing and overturning some. That includes the one in Pennsylvania, where the law's Republican supporters conceded in court they had absolutely no evidence of in-person voter fraud.

In Texas, the expert called to testify by Republicans supporting the law admitted when cross-examined that he was unaware of a single case of in-person voter fraud there. In Wisconsin, Republican officials acknowledged in depositions they could not produce one example of in-person voter fraud in the entire state history. Wisconsin became a state in 1848.

The Brennan Center for Justice studied the allegations of in-person voter fraud and described it as essentially a myth, an event that almost never occurs.

Justin Levitt, a Loyola law professor who has tracked allegations of fraud for years, has found 31 incidents since 2000 -- out of more than 1 billion ballots cast nationwide. And, he says, some of the 31 have not been investigated and may, in the end, be debunked. Levitt also says voter ID does not prevent the most common types of election cheating.

Voter fraud is unacceptable. But so is disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of citizens. Particularly when disenfranchising them does not prevent voter fraud.

Federal District Judge Lynn Adelman put it this way in his ruling against the Wisconsin law, "There is no way to determine exactly how many people Act 23 will prevent or deter from voting without considering the individual circumstances of each of the 300,000-plus citizens who lack an ID. But no matter how imprecise my estimate may be, it is absolutely clear that Act 23 will prevent more legitimate votes from being cast than fraudulent votes."

Among the 300,000 are Ruthelle Frank, Shirley Brown and Eddie Lee Holloway Jr., all plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the Wisconsin statute. Though Brown has been a regular at the polls in Wisconsin for decades, the state Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) denied her the ID she would need to vote under the state law because she did not have a birth certificate.

Born at home in Louisiana 70-some years ago, Brown never had a birth certificate. The DMV rebuffed a statement from Brown's elementary school attesting to her birth, even though Medicare had accepted it.

The DMV denied Holloway an ID card because his birth certificate read "Eddie Junior Holloway instead of "Eddie Lee Holloway Junior."

The lead plaintiff is Ruthelle Frank, an 87-year-old woman born in Wisconsin who has voted in every election there since 1948 and who has served on the Brokaw Village Board since 1996. She does not have an acceptable ID under the law because she lacks a certified copy of her birth certificate.

Wisconsin Republican state officials told the appeals court earlier this month they would no longer require residents without birth certificates to produce them. They promised to do so because a state court suggested requiring residents to purchase certificates was akin to a poll tax. Instead, the DMV will look up the information. That may not help Ruthelle Frank, however, because her maiden name is misspelled on her certificate. To correct a birth certificate could cost $200 and takes time.

And she doesn't have much time. There's only seven weeks until the election. For hundreds of thousands of citizens like Ruthelle Frank, what Wisconsin is demanding of them to exercise their right to vote is extremely difficult if not impossible. Even if she could pay to get her birth certificate corrected in time, she'd have to find a way to a motor vehicle office to collect an identification card.

Those GOP-enacted high bars to voting are in other "voter ID" laws around the country.

In 48 of Wisconsin's 72 counties, where a quarter of the state's adult population lives, motor vehicle offices are open only two weekdays, and never during evenings. People without ID don't have drivers' licenses. That's 300,000 people in Wisconsin who would have to find a way to motor vehicle offices during limited hours - 43,000 people a week until Election Day.

If the three-Republican judge panel's ruling is not reversed, hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin citizens could be disenfranchised by Republicans in a state where there has been no documented in-person voter fraud since it joined the union.

That's exactly what Republican politicians and Republican judges want, especially when their GOP governor is running neck-and-neck with his Democratic challenger. That is defrauding voters.

Leo Gerard is president of the Steelworkers. This column was originally posted on the union's blog.

Photo by DonkeyHotey on Flickr.

Union shows viewers real “American Horror Story”

Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:32:00 +0000

One of the most popular TV shows four years in a row has been "American Horror Story," which has taken the viewing public into a haunted house, a horrific mental health institution, a witches' coven in New Orleans, and now a traveling carnival freak show.

The shows, depending upon how you view them, can scare the hell out of you or get you thinking and laughing about anything from everyday life to morals and politics.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) has taken off on the popular show to demonstrate the real horror story that is happening for workers in key states around the country. The idea is to defeat some of the worst right-wing GOP governors up for reelection this Nov. 4.

There are several "episodes" in this special "season" of the AFSCME-produced "American Horror Show." All of the "episodes" are designed to warn working people about the real American horrors that have taken the form not of ghosts or demons, but of GOP governors in important states. All are designed to turn out a large working-class vote against the "demons" in November.

The special "season" has four episodes, one each for four GOP governors: Rick Snyder of Michigan, John Kasich of Ohio, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and Rick Scott of Florida.

Against the backdrop of the theme music from the actual show you hear each of the governors referred to as a job-killer, an anti-worker bogeyman and a Wall Street ringleader. (story continues after video)

The ads are the latest indication that unions intend to fight hard during the mid-term elections right up to the end, despite polls that show some Republicans in a strong position since, traditionally, conservative voters are the more likely to turnout in the mid-terms. The American Horror Story ad is part of an effort labor is making to reverse those trends.

"You know what our problem is," said Lee Saunders, the president of AFSCME in a recent interview. "It's turnout . We have prioritized the election races and we have to get our people out. The local unions are being mobilized. If we get our people out, we win and if we don't - well then we have problems. We cannot have a repeat of 2010," he warned. "That would be a disaster."

In that year the Republican base turned out while much of the coalition that had elected President Obama two years earlier stayed home, resulting in the election of scores of tea party Republicans.

The American Horror Story ad reflects what Saunders, at a July meeting of the AFL-CIO executive council , said was labor's "first priority" - to defeat sitting right-wing governors in the four states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Florida.

That top priority goal has been tweaked a bit with the addition of concentrations on Illinois and Connecticut, where unions want to protect incumbent Democratic governors being threatened by right-wing challengers.

In Illinois unions face a difficult situation. Saunders, who is also chair of the AFL-CIO's Political Committee, and other labor leaders have warned that Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn is in trouble after alienating unionists over pensions. AFSCME has actually filed suit against him to overturn pension cuts. "Nevertheless, if Quinn doesn't win, we're in trouble," said Saunders. Unions are running telephone banks and get-out-the-vote efforts in Illinois.

Quinn is being opposed by Republican Bruce Rauner, an extreme right-wing anti union businessman.

For labor, less than perfect Democratic candidates is a problem in other places too. Connecticut Democratic Gov. Daniel Malloy came into office with strong union support four years ago. He had walked a picket line with striking nurses. "But now even he has to rebuild alliances," Saunders said, "particularly with teachers. He won only narrowly last time with 50 percent of the vote and his GOP opponent talked about having a 'Wisconsin moment.'"

Photo: FX Networks official site

At Minnesota AFL-CIO convention, organizing and elections high on agenda

Thu, 25 Sep 2014 12:58:00 +0000

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (PAI and Workday Minnesota) -- Politics, policy and planning for the 2015 state legislature took center stage at the Minnesota AFL-CIO Convention in St. Paul, from Sept. 21-23 -- but not until after the 500 delegates started by celebrating a big union organizing win: The 26,000 home health care workers whom the Service Employees will now represent.

Those home health care workers and other union members spoke of the importance of having a voice on the job-both for themselves and the people they serve.

Shaquonica Johnson, part of the 2-year campaign to change state law and win collective bargaining rights for her and other home health care workers, noted women of color like her fill most of those jobs.

"Our fight isn't just a fight against low wages and disrespect," she said. "It's a fight against the invisibility imposed on us by the racist and sexist system. We are fighting back and we will be heard."

In nearly every organizing drive in the state, employers mounted aggressive anti-union efforts that included hiring expensive consultants and holding meetings with workers. Cody Jakowski, who provides residential and support services for adults with traumatic brain injury or mental illness at Stepping Stones for Living in Hermantown, said management was dismissive toward the workers' concerns.

"The expectation from administration is, you can do this for a wage of $9.50 an hour or you can work somewhere else," he said.

The home health care workers' success was tied directly to politics, as Gov. Mark Dayton, DFL-Minn., and the Democratic-Farmer-Labor-run legislature pushed through pro-worker measures in the last two years, including giving the home health care workers the right to organize.

But Minnesota's workers face threatened attacks on their collective bargaining rights similar to those in Wisconsin and other states, if the Republicans triumph in this fall's election, speakers warned. So delegates focused on re-electing Dayton, retaining the DFL legislative majorities and re-electing Sen. Al Franken, DFL-Minn., to a new 6-year term.

If he wins, Dayton pledged to keep the focus on job creation. "Good jobs, union jobs, with more jobs to follow," he pledged on Sept. 21, as delegates applauded. "We need to keep investing more in Minnesota - and if I'm around, we will."

Republican Jeff Johnson opposes Dayton this fall. The fed endorsed Dayton early in 2014. It's mounting a major effort to turn out votes for him, legislative candidates and Franken.

Dayton touted progress in many areas during his first term: More funding for early child-hood education, adopting all-day kindergarten, raising the minimum wage, marriage equality, holding the line on tuition increases, higher income taxes on the wealthy, statewide property tax relief, elimination of school debt and "an honestly balanced budget," among others.

Under Dayton's leadership, lawmakers voted in 2014 to invest $1 billion in infrastructure projects, creating thousands of jobs for construction workers and others. If re-elected, Dayton promised to advocate for a comprehensive transportation plan to rebuild bridges and roads and beef up transit and other services. "With your help and support, we'll keep moving ahead," he said in thanking the state fed for its early endorsement.

Transportation is one top priority for the labor movement going into the 2015 legislative session, and paid sick leave is another. State House Speaker Paul Thissen (DFL) added affordable childcare to the list.

This year's minimum wage victory "shows that we need each other and when we do stand together, we can get things done," Brian Rusche, executive director of the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition, told the conclave, referring to the paid leave bill.

More than 900,000 Minnesota workers, many of them in restaurant, health care and other jobs that directly serve the public, have no access to earned sick time. Many workers face the threat of being disciplined or fired if they take time off due to illness or to care for a family member. Paid sick leave legislation is likely to build on an unsuccessful 2014 proposal to allow employees to earn one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked.

Nearly half of Minnesota's roads and bridges are more than 50 years old and transit services are inadequate, the fed said. It added the state's population and job growth outpace the current infrastructure.

"We believe any transportation solution has to be comprehensive...roads, highways, bridges, public transportation, biking and walking," said Jennifer Munt, director of public affairs and public policy for AFSCME Council 5.

However, the agenda hinges on the outcome in November. High turnout will be key to keeping a DFL majority in the House and moving forward a worker-friendly agenda, Thissen said. "Minnesotans want hope right now," he said. "They want progress right now. They want to keep going in the direction we're going." I

n other action, state fed delegates:

Supported a $15 minimum wage for workers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Of the approximately 10,000 people employed there, more than 2,500 make substantially less than $15 an hour.

Called for fewer standardized tests in schools, other ways to measure schools' progress, and closing the opportunity gap between white and non-white students. They also called for more education on the history of workers and unions. "We need thinkers - not test takers," said Emily Lynch, a member of Education Minnesota Local 7225 in Rochester.

For more information on the convention click here.

Photo: Convention delegates learning about organizing victories, MN AFL-CIO Facebook.

Labor played big part in massive climate march

Thu, 25 Sep 2014 10:25:00 +0000

NEW YORK - In the midst of the 400,000 who participated in the Sept. 21 People's Climate March here, there were many trade unionists. Six national unions, numerous state labor federations and central labor councils, plus as many as 50 local unions took part in the largest climate march in history.

The union workers, alongside many thousands of others, filled the streets of Manhattan's East Side for much of the day, demanding that U.S. and world leaders act to divest from fossil fuels and combat climate change. They did so a day ahead of the UN Climate Summit, which is being attended by 120 world leaders including President Obama.

In the city itself, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees played a major role in organizing marchers, amongst whom were community coalitions, women's groups, and a host of progressive organizations. Unions worked with these groups and many other allies, coming together to demand international action to curb the factors that cause global warming, including carbon and methane emissions. In particular, a major focus for unions was environmental justice. They pointed to the fact that workers, those in poverty, and minorities are often the victims of pollution and toxic waste. Even when it comes to national disasters caused by climate change, they added, it is most often working people who suffer the most.

"I think this climate march is awesome," said Audra Makuch, executive assistant to the regional director of the New York area United Food and Commercial Workers. "There's so many people; a super diverse crowd. Labor has a strong presence here, and there's a good reason for that. A lot of union members worked super hard to turn out for this event. The UFCW is here, and the SEIU. And National Nurses United brought buses of workers down. Any of them will tell you, climate change is a working person's issue. The working class bears the brunt of problems resulting from it. So this is really important for any worker."

Among labor's other participants in the march were the Amalgamated Transit Union; Communications Workers; the Office and Professional Employees; the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Workers; the National Education Association; the Service Employees, and the NNU. Also active in the march were members of the Canadian Labor Congress and UNI, an international federation that includes U.S. unions.

Other union backers included locals and state councils of SEIU and the American Federation of Teachers; UFCW; the National Writers Union; UAW; Teamsters Joint Council 16 and Locals 805 and 814; a heat and frost insulators' local; a large New York City Transport Workers local; IBEW Local 3 from Queens; the Blue-Green Alliance; the National Domestic Workers Alliance; and the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA - the AFL-CIO constituency group for Hispanic workers).

Union marchers also showed disdain for corporations whose frequent policies of inaction and denial on climate matters often result in dangerous pollution.

Makuch added that union marchers also saw the issues of jobs and of the environment as one and the same. "There are good potential union jobs in clean energy," she remarked. "There's no reason why it can't happen, we just have a lot of work to do. And don't forget - farmworkers and grocery workers are directly connected to the environment, and they're already union workers. So I would stand with them in saying that we need to prioritize clean energy instead of fossil fuels."

Greg Zuber, percussionist with the Met Opera Local 802, said, "You can't have much of an economy without clean energy. So I would say to anyone who buys the Republican line that renewables won't provide jobs: Stop believing the disinformation campaign. The continued reliance on fossil fuels, that's something that will affect my kids and grandkids; it's not worth the risk."

Jason Haaheim, a timpanist also with the Met Opera Local 802, added, "The so-called division between jobs and environment - to me, that's a false dichotomy. The solutions for reducing carbon and methane emissions are not only revenue-neutral, but revenue producing."

Mark Gruenberg contributed to this story.

Photo: Christine Irvine/People's Climate March/Flickr

Google and Facebook unfriend ALEC

Wed, 24 Sep 2014 16:40:00 +0000

As the result of pressure from unions and progressive groups, Google executives have ended the Internet search engine's membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Facebook too unfriended the right-wing ALEC as it joined Google and Yelp and more than 106 corporations and non-profits that now have severed ties with the right- wing legislation machine.

That list includes Coca Cola, Kraft, General Electric, Walmart, General Motors and Microsoft.

Funded by the Koch brothers and other major corporate interests, ALEC designs state legislation to further their corporate agendas, almost always at the expense of working families, unions and their allies.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the American Federation of Teachers played major roles in the push to get Google to dump ALEC. They drafted a letter that was signed also by the Communications Workers, the Teamsters, the Steelworkers, the United Food and Commercial Workers and the AFL-CIO and by non-union groups including Good Jobs First, the Alliance for Retired Americans, and Working America.

The groups had succeeded earlier this month in getting Microsoft to dump ALEC.

ALEC held secret meetings in Dallas recently and in Chicago last year where it drafted legislation in two major categories: a set of bills to kill clean energy programs in the states and another to end Internet neutrality.

Unions were heavily involved in the campaign to pressure Google into dumping ALEC because the right wing "stink tank," as many in the labor movement call it, is notorious for its anti-labor bills and other related right wing laws.

Destruction of unions and collective bargaining rights have been high on the group's agenda so unions are celebrating today's announcement.

ALEC was also behind the Stand Your Ground law that led to a night watch "volunteer" shooting dead an unarmed black teen, Trayvon Martin.

The unions involved in the campaign have spent two years flooding ALEC members with petitions from hundreds of thousands of Americans demanding that they sever ties. The latest protest letter to Google from the unions and their allies described ALEC as a "dating service" for politicians and corporate lobbyists.

Image: http://www.change.org

Walmart moms demand better pay and protections for women workers

Wed, 24 Sep 2014 13:43:00 +0000

CHICAGO - Walmart moms met in Chicago Sept. 23, calling on the company, the nation's largest employer of women, to publicly commit to better pay and protections for women workers. With the support of the country's leading women's rights advocates, the group developed a list of policy changes it says the company must make to ensure that the women who are key to the company's profit-making ability are not living in poverty or putting their health at

Since a class action lawsuit against the company for its dangerous discrimination against pregnant workers earlier this year, more women have been speaking out about the problems. On Monday a woman employed by Walmart filed a new Equal Employment Opportunities Commission complaint related to her firing while she was at doctors' visits related to her pregnancy.

"Walmart could be paving the way for good jobs for working moms like us," said Thelma Moore, who worked at the Chatham, Ill. store and is pregnant with her second child. "Instead, we're fighting for bathroom breaks when we're pregnant and steady schedules that let us get reliable childcare and put food on the table."

Moore was fired from the store for an absence when she was at doctors' appointments after television sets fell on her at the store. In Chicago alone, four workers have been forced to choose between their jobs and their health because Walmart denied them small accommodations like bathroom breaks and reduced lifting, workers say. After being denied these accommodations, some of these women reportedly suffered miscarriages.

Walmart moms have also been speaking out for better pay and consistent scheduling. Many Walmart moms are unable to get the hours they need to support their families or their schedules are so erratic that it keeps them from being able to identify reliable childcare.

From cities and states across the country, the group has been organizing online for over a year as "Respect the Bump." During its first in-person meeting, Respect the Bump organized a unified call for change at the retailer. Specifically, Walmart moms are calling on the company to publicly commit to:

Raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour;
Provide consistent, full-time work;
Immediate compliance with the Pregnancy Discrimination Act;
Adopt a policy that is in line with the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which would require employers to reasonably accommodate pregnant workers who need it so that they can continue working safely through their pregnancies;
Install breastfeeding stations or family rooms in stores;
Accept pregnancy-related doctors' notes.

"Walmart continues to force pregnant workers off the job over the need for simple accommodations. No woman should have to choose between keeping her job and having a healthy pregnancy," said Emily Martin, vice president and general counsel of the National Women's Law Center. "Walmart's persistent manipulation of workers' schedules and low pay keep women from being able to provide for their families. We are coming together to stand with Walmart workers today and every day until the company improves pay and respects its pregnant workers."

"Walmart's treatment of pregnant workers is creating a rallying cry for the entire women's rights movement," said Dina Bakst, co-founder of a Better Balance. "We will continue to fight until Walmart obeys the law in full and affords expecting and new mothers the fair and equal treatment they deserve."

The group's efforts have already registered some success. In April, OUR Walmart and Respect the Bump members successfully convinced the company to upgrade its pregnancy policy, which violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Many pregnant Walmart workers in Chicago and across the country are forced to choose between keeping their jobs and protecting their health. Even with doctors' notes for simple adjustments like carrying a water bottle at work, some pregnant workers face discrimination on the job and refusal from management to make accommodations. As a result, many workers have had to take unpaid leaves of absence when they could have worked, or worse, some have miscarried or suffered other pregnancy complications because Walmart did not follow the law and accommodate them.

The financial struggles of Walmart moms, like those of many women who are increasingly the breadwinners for their families and disproportionately impacted by the low-wage worker crisis, are driven by Walmart's low pay and erratic scheduling. The majority of Walmart workers are paid less than $25,000 a year, and many of them work part-time, relying on unpredictable schedules, food stamps, and other taxpayer-supported programs to survive.

National public policy organization Demos released a report this summer showing low-pay and erratic scheduling keep millions of hard-working Americans-particularly women-near poverty. The report finds that establishing a new wage floor equivalent to $25,000 per year for fulltime, year round work at retail companies employing at least 1,000 workers would improve the lives of more than 3.2 million female retail workers and lift 900,000 women and their families directly out of poverty or near poverty.

Photo: On June 23, #WalmartStrikers and working moms attended the White House Summit on Working Families. Making Change, Facebook.

GOP Senate leaders scheme to hamstring NLRB

Wed, 24 Sep 2014 12:32:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI)--Continuing the Republicans' war on workers, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kent., and Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., introduced legislation to hamstring the National Labor Relations Board by requiring super-majorities to approve anything and curbing the reach of its top enforcement officer, the General Counsel.

The legislation won't go anywhere in the 113^th Congress, as the two introduced it just before lawmakers went home to campaign. But if Republicans win Senate control, McConnell would become majority leader, and could set the legislative agenda. Alexander would chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which would consider the bill.

Thus their measure, part of their effort to cater to the radical right/tea party wing of the GOP, also is a marker of their hostility to workers and unions. McConnell faces a tough race this fall against Democratic Kentucky Secretary of State Allison Lundergren Grimes.

The McConnell-Alexander measure would expand the NLRB from five members to six, and require an even split between the two major parties. Right now, federal labor law allows one party to name three of the five NLRB members, and three votes can pass any case. McConnell and Alexander would require four votes, out of the six, to pass anything.

The only federal regulatory agency with six members evenly split between the two parties is the Federal Elections Commission, whose enforcement has ground to a halt for at least a decade.

McConnell and Alexander would rein in the General Counsel by letting companies take any GC decision to federal district court within a month - and forcing the counsel to turn over all internal documents related to the case, too, within 10 days of filing their cases in court.

Alexander complained the NLRB takes too long for its rulings. He said the measure would let either workers or bosses "appeal to a federal Court of Appeals if the board fails to reach a decision in their case within one year. To further incentivize speedy decision-making, funding for the entire NLRB would be reduced by 20 percent if the board is not able to decide 90 percent of its cases within one year over the first two-year period post-reform."

Both are upset by a recent General Counsel's memo saying franchise holders and the chains that enfranchise them - such as McDonald's and hotel chains - are joint employers that are both responsible for obeying wage and working condition laws, including labor laws.

Employing standard, but tired, GOP anti-worker and anti-union rhetoric, McConnell, blustered that the General Counsel wants "to take away independence from small businessmen and women - like decisions on who to hire, how much to pay them, and how to run their business - and put it in the hands of corporate bosses.

"This so-called 'joint-employer' standard is all about politics and appeasing the Left," he declaimed. "Big Labor bosses want it because it helps them expand and acquire more dues at the expense of small business owners."

McConnell also charged the board wants to "prevent companies from building factories in states with laws (that) the president's picks don't like." That's a veiled reference to the former General Counsel's suit against Boeing for moving its 787 Dreamliner production to anti-union South Carolina so that the firm could retaliate against the Machinists, who represent its Pacific Northwest workers. The case was later settled.

Photo: Chicago McDonald's workers and supporters rally for higher wages. Earchiel Johnson/PW

U.S. to push worker rights trade case vs. Guatemala

Wed, 24 Sep 2014 11:13:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) -- Saying the Guatemalan government did not live up to its own worker rights commitments, the Obama administration will push its trade case against the Central American nation, Obama's U.S. Trade Representative, Michael Froman, announced. It's the first-ever U.S. case involving worker rights filed against a trading partner.

"Our goal in taking action today remains the same as it has always been: To ensure that Guatemala implements the labor protections to which its workers are entitled," he told the press conference. The suit "is a means toward that goal, not an end in itself," he added.

The 7-year-old pact that covers Guatemala and other Central American nations includes some worker rights protections, Froman and Deputy Labor Secretary Christopher Lu all said. Guatemala is violating an enforcement plan it signed 18 months ago, Froman said. He added the legal case shows the administration is serious about protecting worker rights.

"We remain hopeful that Guatemala can succeed in producing concrete improvements for workers on the ground, which would send a positive signal to the world that would help attract investment, expand economic activity, and promote inclusive growth."

One concrete measure Guatemalan lawmakers are working on would strengthen penalties against employers who break that nation's labor laws, he added. Froman said the U.S., concurrent with the suit, is still committed to helping Guatemala protect workers' rights.

"Six years ago, the AFL-CIO, together with Guatemalan unions, filed a petition concerning widespread and serious labor rights violations in Guatemala, including numerous murders of trade unionists not being addressed or investigated by the government," Richard Trumka said.

"Since the filing, Guatemala has repeatedly made promises to protect and respect labor rights, but has consistently failed to act. This is why we applaud" the Obama administration's filing and demand that arbitration about the abuses resume, he told the press conference.

"When CAFTA was signed, both parties promised to enforce their own labor laws and respect international labor standards, so increased trade and investment would lead to better jobs and economic opportunities. This has not been the reality for Guatemala's workers.

"Since 2007, over 70 Guatemalan unionists have been murdered for exercising their fundamental rights, while many more have been fired. We cannot remain silent over the ongoing abuses of worker rights and the violence against trade unionists," he said.

But Froman's Sept. 18 statement, which drew support from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and from leading congressional Democrats involved with trade, comes as the administration again prepares a push to get lawmakers to enact so-called "fast track" trade promotion authority, in the lame-duck session that begins after the Nov. 4 election.

Fast-track would let any president push trade pacts through Congress on single up-or-down votes with no changes and no requirements for enforceable worker rights. Obama wants fast-track so he can push through three pacts Froman is negotiating now: One with 12 nations around the Pacific Rim, one with the European Union and a third on trade in services, including government services.

Photo: A demonstrator carries a sign that reads in Spanish "Guatemala bleeds" during a protest against violence in Guatemala City. There are about 17 deaths per day in Guatemala City, a city of 2 million. (AP/Moises Castillo)

Unions to Google: dump ALEC

Tue, 23 Sep 2014 13:59:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) -- Citing the secretive radical right lobby's opposition to Internet neutrality and to clean energy, unions and progressive groups, led by the Teachers, are calling upon Google executives to dump the Internet search engine's membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Signers include the Communications Workers, the Teamsters, the Steelworkers, AFSCME, Good Jobs First, the Alliance for Retired Americans, the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees, the United Food and Commercial Workers and Working America. In early September, the letter's signers add, Microsoft dropped ALEC for those same two reasons.

The leaders' letter to Google cites seminars at ALEC's recent secret meeting in Dallas, where its right wing lobbyists huddled with their business backers to draft and push legislation nationwide on those two issues and others.

"The public knows that the ALEC operation - which brings state legislators and corporate lobbyists behind closed doors to discuss proposed legislation and share lavish dinners - threatens our democracy. The public is asking Google to stop participating in this scheme," their letter adds. Google executives have yet to respond.

ALEC is notorious for its radical right agenda, including a wide range of anti-worker laws: Destruction of unions and collective bargaining rights, cuts in workers' comp and more. Even before that, ALEC became infamous for pushing a "Stand Your Ground" law through the GOP-run Florida legislature. That let a neighborhood watch "volunteer" shoot dead unarmed African-American teenager Trayvon Martin. The shooting sparked nationwide protest.

At least 80 corporations decamped from ALEC. Now the unions want Google to do so, too.

"Over the past two years, hundreds of thousands of Americans have signed petitions in order to ask that you take this step because of the role ALEC has played in subverting our democratic process," especially in funding and funneling corporate cash - without disclosure of sources - to politicians, the letter says. It also calls ALEC a "dating service" for politicians and corporate lobbyists and says ALEC is known for "pushing an extreme corporate agenda at the expense of the American people."

Photo: Act now to get big $$$ out of politics: Together we can make sure everyday Americans have a voice. CWA.

"We have to care, We do care, We're all in," Inspiring report from Missouri labor

Fri, 19 Sep 2014 16:35:00 +0000

ST. LOUIS - "We meet here at a critical time for Missouri, the nation, and the labor movement," Richard Trumka, president of the nation's largest labor federation, told nearly 250 delegates and guests at the Missouri AFL-CIO 27^th Biennial Convention held here September 14-17.

In what could be considered a historic moment in labor-community dialogue, the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations leader representing 12.5 million members, addressed the "difficult and uncomfortable" issue of "race in America."

Early in his keynote, Trumka turned his attention to the recent killing of Michael Brown, an African American youth shot to death in Ferguson, Mo., by a white police officer. His comments, brimming with both anger and optimism, cast a self-critical eye on labor's history.

He said in no uncertain terms, "We still have racism in America."

Trumka's remarks come after weeks of marches, protests and peaceful civil disobedience in Ferguson - all of which was initially met by riot police, pepper spray, percussion grenades and rubber bullets, a misuse and abuse of police authority that has served to galvanize this largely African American, working-class north St. Louis County community and the nation around issues of police brutality, racial profiling and militarization.

Ferguson police officer, Darren Wilson, shot and killed Mike Brown on August 9. Brown's family, attorneys and eye witnesses say Brown was shot as he attempted to surrender with his hands up.

Trumka continued by highlighting the ongoing, systemic nature of police brutality and racial profiling, and warned that the killing of Brown was not an isolated event.

He said, "The reality is that while a young man named Michael Brown died just a short distance from us from gunshot wounds from a police officer, other young men of color have died and will die in similar circumstances in communities all across this country."

He then asked the assembled union leaders, "How can we not be involved?"

"Our brother killed our sister's son and we do not have to wait for the judgment of prosecutors or courts to tell us how terrible this is," Trumka added. "How can we not be involved?" he asked again.

"Lesley McSpadden, Michael Brown's mother, who works in a grocery store, is our sister, an AFL-CIO union member. And Darren Wilson, the officer who killed Michael Brown is a union member too, and he is our brother," Trumka continued.

"We can't wash our hands of the issues raised by Michael Brown's death. We need to clearly, openly discuss the reality of racism in America," Trumka told the black and white, young and old, male and female, gay and straight gathering of union leaders.

Undoubtedly, he continued, "If we want to act as a positive force around racism and classism we have to face our own shortcomings. That's our fight!"

He challenged union leaders to imagine the fear parents of color feel when they "wonder, with good reason," if this will be the last time they will see their child alive. But it "doesn't stop there," the former mine worker added.

"We can't get around the fact that the prisons are filled disproportionately with people of color," and our police have become militarized. He added, ominously, "The weapons always end up being pointed at us."

The AFL-CIO president also addressed the "runaway inequality and desperation among staggering wealth" many workers face today due to stagnating wages, unemployment, and an all-out attack on pensions, healthcare benefits and other hard-won gains. He said these attacks have been spearheaded by "far right-wing" politicians and corporate CEOs.

"Justice and fairness just don't happen. We have to make it happen. We have to build power. We have to take this country back for every last worker out there," Trumka continued.

He reminded the audience, "Corporate bosses will play the race card over and over again," all in an attempt to "break the union" and "dash the hopes" of ordinary working families.

He urged union members - and all workers alike - to "stand together in the work place, polling place, and in the streets."

Newly elected Missouri AFL-CIO President Mike Louis echoed Trumka's remarks and added, "We know what's right. We know what we got to do."

Louis said the Missouri State Federation was committed to sending people to Ferguson, to help facilitate apprenticeship training, to do voter registration, and to help community members get to the polls in the upcoming November elections.

A new voter registration drive is currently underway in Ferguson, as community leaders begin to tackle many of the other political issues brought to the fore out of the Mike Brown shooting.

As the labor movement, Louis added, "We have to care. We do care. We're all in."

Trumka also spoke in detail about the importance of the 2014 elections. He told elected officials at the Convention - of whom there were many - "Supporting a working family's agenda is a sure way to win." He emphasized the labor movement's need to "lead by example." "When our members see us do it" - knock on doors, phone banks, have face-to-face conversations - "they know it is important."

Trumka concluded by saying, "We have a big vision of a better nation."