People Before Profit blog

Labor fights to recognize Native American rights

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 13:58:00 +0000

The AFL-CIO is fighting to add a new constituency group for Native Americans to its roster. Backing and supporting the effort are the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and a group called Council Fire, Kevin Cummings noted, in a presentation to the National LCAA Conference in August.

Cummings, a representative for IAM, commented that, despite being the first people to live on the land that is now America, Native Americans have essentially gotten the short end of the stick in terms of rights, recognition, health, and more.

Council Fire is a group that seeks to solve this problem by including the First Nations of the Americas into the labor movement. As of now, labor has recognized constituency groups that tackle important issues for women, Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and the LGBT community. However, to date there is no significant voice representing Native Americans and Alaskan Natives.

On September 24th in Seattle, the International Labor Communications Association made its voice heard in support of Native American recognition, together with various state labor federations.

Cummings' presentation in August expounded upon how the lack of representation is affecting Native Americans; statistics show that:

38 percent of Native American women are victims of domestic violence (one in three of which are raped).

Native mothers are five times more likely to have a baby that suffers from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Moreover, Native American infants are three times more likely to die from Sudden Infant Syndrome. And Natives of any age are three times as likely to die of tuberculosis - and twice as likely to die of diabetes.

Youth suicides are three times the national average among this ethnic group. Meanwhile, Native American young women are two and a half times more likely to be pregnant before the age of 18, compared with others.

Nearly 50 percent of Native American students don't finish high school, and schools on Indian reservations are funded at less than half as much as public schools. Thirdly, less than 17 percent of Natives that graduate will go on to enroll in college.

Natives barely earn more than half as much as the average American at their places of work, and 27 percent of Native American families now live below the poverty level.

To drive the point home more sharply, it should be understood that the very original inhabitants of the land that is now America are those who suffer some of the highest poverty rates, unemployment levels, and diseases of any ethnic group in the country.

In keeping with organized labor's desired goal of "solidarity with the indigenous people of the Americas," the short-term hope is to raise awareness for the situation. The prevailing feeling of the labor movement is that a serious issue such as this should not be ignored.

Cummings also acknowledged that some Native Americans have become well off, due to owning and operating casinos. But Cummings pointed out that this was a rare exception, as, out of the country's 557 Indian tribes, only a quarter own casinos. Furthermore, only 48 casino-owning tribes earn more than $10 million a year from them.

When problems associated with gambling are considered, the presentation continued, casinos cannot be accepted as the universal answer or ‘light at the end of the tunnel' for Native Americans, who are owed for centuries of oppression and unrecognized rights.

In pursuit of equality and rights for all, "if any group of people are left behind," Cummings said, "then we all lose."

"It is a shame in these United States," Cummings remarked, "that the people who were first on American soil, are last in the American dream."

Labor youth summit opens in Minneapolis

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:59:00 +0000

MINNEAPOLIS - Hundreds of young workers from all over America are gathering here today and will remain until Sunday at a Next Up Young Workers Summit sponsored by the AFL-CIO.

Demanding government action to create jobs, they are also discussing topics ranging from how to stop the attacks on the labor movement to how to fix the economy.

Some 800 participants, as they arrive today, are being polled via text message about their views on jobs and the economic situation of young people today. The results of the poll, being conducted by Lake Research Partners, will be released tomorrow.

Participants are texting their answers to questions that include, "Does the government need to take a larger role in the economy?" and "How concerned are you that a family member will be out of a job?" and "Is economic opportunity or economic security more important to you?"

Those at the summit can take the poll by texting POLL to 235246.

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler and U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis will kick off the second annual Next Up Young Workers Summit this evening.

The gathering, which includes young workers, young union organizers and students, is part of the AFL-CIO's attempts, over the last two years, to reach workers under 35 years of age. Shuler has led that effort.

Well-known young performing artists will participate in the events this weekend.

Among them are actors Lucas Neff, of the Fox sitcom "Raising Hope" and RJ Mitte of the TV show "Breaking Bad." Neff and Mitte are members of the American Federation of Television and Radio Actors.

Neff has a history of active participation in labor struggles.

In March he joined actors Susan Sarandon and Tony Shalhoub in Madison, Wisconsin, for rallies that were aimed at Republican Governor Scott Walker's attack on union organizing rights.

"This is not the government of Scott Walker, this is not the government of the Koch brothers," Neff told the crowds in Madison. "This is the government of the people, by the people and for the people. And we the people will not be defeated."

Mitte, who has cerebral palsy, is active in the fight for increased funding to research and treat the disease.

Workshops, plenaries and caucuses for the conference, which is centered on a theme of "Educating, Empowering and Mobilizing Young Workers for a Just 21st Century Economy," will focus, conference organizers say, on building a vision for a new generation of working people in the country.

The current economic crisis is a key part of the agenda. Conferees hope to emerge with several new programmatic approached to strengthening the fight against attacks on union rights in various state legislative bodies and with some new proposals to help fix the economy.

Photo: R.J. Mitte as Breaking Bad's Walter White Jr. Mitte is a member of AFTRA and will be speaking at the Next Up conference.

Postal workers rally in St. Louis (video)

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0000

ST. LOUIS - Closing post offices and eliminating Saturday service "will cost more than just the jobs at the Postal Service," Fred Wolfmeyer, president of the American Postal Workers' Union (APWU) Gateway District Area Local, told the People's World as hundreds of postal workers and supporters rallied outside the downtown post office here Sept. 27.

"What's going to happen to all of the mail houses, the printers and other institutions that rely on the Postal Service? It could have a ripple effect in this bad economy," Wolfmeyer said.

Postal workers held hundreds of simultaneous rallies all across the country on the 27th to bring attention to HR 1352, a bill that would address the manufactured financial crisis facing the Postal Service.

According to Wolfmeyer, the Postal Service would be financially solvent if it wasn't required to pre-fund retiree health care 75 years into the future.

The pre-funding requirement was placed on the Postal Service in 2006 as part of the Bush Administration's attack on public services, working families and unions.

"No other corporation has to pay that. No other federal agency. Only the Postal Service," Wolfmeyer added.

The APWU, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the National Postal Mail Handlers Union and the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association say, "Congress created this problem, and Congress can fix it!"

Photo: Tony Pecinovsky

Workers demonstrate to save the U.S. mail

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 11:55:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. - Postal workers and their supporters here were among many thousands throughout the country who demonstrated Sept. 27 to save the U.S. Postal Service from austerity measures they say are totally unjustified and would cause a vital institution to collapse.

Joining the protest were the American Postal Workers Union, National Association of Letter Carriers, National Postal Mail Handlers Union, National Rural Letter Carriers Association and National Association of Postal Supervisors.

They say the threat to the USPS's financial stability does not come, as is often claimed, from a drop in use of regular mail as electronic communications have grown.

Rather, they say, the problem lies with a bill Congress passed in 2006, requiring the postal service to "pre-fund" health care benefits for future retirees by paying a 75-year liability in just 10 years. The unions point out that no other government agency or private company faces such a mandate.

The Oakland postal workers said they gathered in front of Oakland's Federal Building for their rally because they wanted to thank U.S. Representative Barbara Lee, D-Calif., for co-sponsoring a bill now before Congress that will make unnecessary the threatened mass layoffs, drastic service cuts and loss of workers' collective bargaining rights.

H.R. 1351, introduced by Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass. with a bipartisan list of 216 co-sponsors, "would resolve all of the Postal Service's financial problems," Robert Rutter, president of the Greater East Bay Branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers, said in an interview.

Rutter said the bill would relieve the Postal Service of $5.5 billion a year in prefunding the retirement benefits, by letting the USPS use the billions in overpayments to meet its financial obligations. He pointed out that the postal service receives no taxpayer funding.

Vital services performed by the USPS, including delivery of medicines, would be seriously undermined by the threatened cutbacks, he said.

A 25-year postal worker who staffs the windows and sorts mail at Berkeley's main Post Office spoke of the effects of the proposed layoffs of 120,000 postal workers.

"What happens to postal workers affects everyone," she said. "When we lose our jobs, it not only devastates our immediate and extended families, but it also keeps the whole economy down," she said. "The Postal Service affects everyone - families and the people who depend on our services.

"We need to get beyond 'I' and 'me' to 'us' and 'we,'" she said.

The National Association of Letter Carriers said demonstrations were planned at local offices of all House members, including the three Republican members of the Congressional "supercommittee," Jeb Hensarling of Texas, and Dave Camp and Fred Upton of Michigan.

Photo: Marilyn Bechtel/PW

OSHA warns hair salons on worker exposure to formaldehyde

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 11:36:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES - The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is warning the nation's hair salons - again - about the exposure of their low-paid female workers to formaldehyde present in hair smoothing and straightening products.

The issue is particularly important to Asian-American workers toiling at family owned salons in Los Angeles, the Asian-Pacific American Labor Alliance says. OSHA's warning followed its probe of the products, and after one manufacturer falsely said its products had "acceptable" formaldehyde levels, less than 0.1 parts per million.

OSHA says formaldehyde is a cancer hazard. It also can irritate the eyes and nose, and cause allergic reactions of the skin, eyes and lungs. OSHA's new hazard alert orders salons that use products with formaldehyde to not only keep the levels below OSHA's minimums but to put warnings about formaldehyde on product labels.

"During recent investigations, OSHA's air tests showed formaldehyde at hazardous levels in salons using Brazilian Blowout Acai Professional Smoothing Solution and Brasil Cacau Cadiveu, resulting in citations for multiple violations," the agency told the manufacturer of the two products on Sept. 21.

OSHA said 15-minute exposure of workers to formaldehyde in L.A. were as high as two parts per million, 20 times the OSHA standard for warning workers and salons. But Brazilian Blowout lied about the exposures and did not list formaldehyde on product warning labels.

"Misleading or inadequate information on hazardous product labels is unacceptable," said OSHA Assistant Secretary Dr. David Michaels. "Salon owners and workers have the right to know the risks associated with the chemicals with which they work and how to protect themselves."

Photo: Susan NYC // CC 2.0

Longshore union leader: "We're putting our bodies on the line."

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 16:13:00 +0000

SEATTLE - Hundreds of port workers have voluntarily stood in front of trains carrying grain to an outlaw company in Longview, Washington. Their struggle has made news across the nation and around the world. "They do this because the big grain company, EGT, refuses to honor pledges to the local community to provide good jobs in Longview," said Dan Coffman, president of Local 21 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

Coffman, who himself has been arrested on the docks along with his members, spent Friday afternoon with four labor journalists including this reporter. "It's the same now as it was then," he said as he stood on what has become almost sacred ground for longshore workers. He was standing near the train tracks, under a bridge in Seattle's Smith Cove. In 1934 workers blocked trains that come into that cove for 83 days. Police, doing the bidding of the companies, shot at them from turrets they erected along the bridge.

Author Rod Palmquist was present at the interview, has written on the historic strike. He explained that before 1934 coming to work on the docks was almost like selling yourself into chattel slavery. "The bosses stood you up on a block. If you were 22, and weighed 200 lbs., their attitude was that they could get five years out of you before the life was squeezed from your body."

Coffman said that, "until then, if workers organized in Seattle, the companies set up shop in Tacoma. If they organized in Tacoma, the companies went to Seattle. The rise of the union meant solidarity along the entire coast, decent life for the workers and bigger and better communities, in general."

Palmquist and Coffman spoke about how, in 1934, pickets greased the train tracks and how the mayor, known as "Machine Gun Smith," sent in police who set up machine gun nests along what is now the Magnolia Bridge. Cops on horseback led a cavalry charge against the workers. "It was union organizing coupled with support from the Roosevelt administration that began to turn all of this around," he said.

The grain terminal that is the center of what Coffman sees as a similar fight today is owned and operated by EGT - a consortium of companies that includes U.S.-based Bunge North America, South Korea-based STX Pan Ocean and Japan-based Itochu Corporation. Bunge reported profits of $2.5 billion dollars last year. "It's the company we have been negotiating with for years," Coffman said.
Coffman insisted that in all the recent demonstrations where police have charged into demonstrators, the workers were peaceful and simply exercising their rights. "What in God's name is morally wrong with sitting on train tracks," he asked. "For exercising their rights and protesting a company that violates contracts and international laws they were hit with pepper spray, struck with batons, wrestled to the ground. They grabbed our union president, physically assaulting him and detaining him. Seeing the pictures of that really got people up and down the coast to mobilize in support of our local."

Workers in Tacoma, Seattle, Anacortes and Everett, other ports in Washington, engaged in one day rank-and-file strikes to show their support.

"The corporate media is lying and it is lying over and over again, to try to get people to believe that the workers are the ones who are violent," Coffman said. "It was the Longview police chief, who lied to the press when he said that on Sept. 8 six guards were held hostage for a couple of hours in Longview. That was a lie and even local elected officials have said the police chief owes the people of Longview an apology."
Coffman said EGT received substantial tax breaks and other benefits - including the land that was secured for the company by the Port of Longview. "They signed a sweetheart deal with the port and then turned their backs on the people of the Longview by importing out of state and out of country workers to build the terminal. This helped drive down wages all over our area, hurting everyone, not just dock workers."

Now, he said, EGT refuses to honor the contract the union has with the port to hire ILWU workers. Instead, it has brought in scabs from another union.
The company is facing a tough battle in Longview and Coffman says he is thrilled about that. Support for the ILWU is so rock solid that over 200 businesses, he said, are displaying signs in their windows that express support for Local 21 members.

Coffman said that company and government attempts to stop the union from protesting grain shipments cannot be allowed to succeed. "Laws were always stacked against workers but got really worse with Taft Hartley in 1947," he said. "One of the purposes of that law is to restrict effective picket lines and do the bidding of companies by requiring the NLRB to seek quick and far-reaching injunctions against protest activity."

"The company wants this to end up in federal district court," Coffman said, "because the judge involved at the Tacoma district, Judge Ronald Leighton, is a Bush-appointed Republican judge."

The other thing that pleases Coffman a lot is support he says is "coming in from all over." This includes the International Longshore Association on the East and Gulf coasts, the International Dockers Council and the International Transport Workers Federation.

"I wouldn't be surprised if, eventually, we see united action that could end up closing ports all over this country," he said. "I'm not predicting that, but I wouldn't be surprised."

Photo: Dan Coffman stands at the bridge from which, in 1934, Seattle police were ordered by Mayor "Machine Gun Smith" to fire on unarmed dockworkers sitting on the railroad tracks below. John Wojcik/PW

Labor takes fight against the right into the courts

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 12:19:00 +0000

Labor's fight against the radical Right isn't just occurring in the streets or at the ballot box. Unions are challenging the Right Wing's schemes in court, too.

And those challenges, in Wisconsin, Indiana, Alabama, Michigan, and elsewhere, show once again that court rulings are important to workers and their allies.

The court cases in those states have split: Workers won in federal court in Alabama and state court in Michigan, lost in state court in Wisconsin but have taken the case to federal court there, and await a local court hearing date in Indiana.

But beating back the right-wing-GOP-business cabal's scheme to strip workers of their rights isn't the only legal battlefield workers are playing on - just the main one:

In Wisconsin, GOP Gov. Scott Walker's law stripping 200,000 state and local government workers of their collective bargaining rights was briefly delayed by a Dane County (Madison) Circuit Court judge, who ruled the Wisconsin legislature violated its own open meetings rules in jamming the measure through.

The state Supreme Court overturned her decision, reinstating Walker's law and prompting the state AFL-CIO, three AFSCME councils, the Service Employees, and state affiliates of the Teachers and the National Education Association to sue in federal court on June 15 to overturn Walker's law on constitutional grounds. They said the law violated both the freedom of speech of the 1st Amendment and equal protection of the laws of the 14th.

In Alabama, federal judges have stopped the state ban on deducting union dues from any union-covered state and local worker's paycheck if the union spends even voluntary contributions on politics. The suit, by the Fire Fighters and Teachers, is designed to prevent a crippling blow to their local unions. Again, the GOP governor pushed the ban through the GOP-dominated state legislature - with the Alabama Education Association, the state's biggest union and a mainstay of the Democratic Party, as their target. The AEA also sued to overturn the law.

In Indiana, AFSCME Council 62 sued GOP Gov. Mitch Daniels, in Marion County (Indianapolis) Circuit Court on Aug. 26, seeking to overturn his state budget law that makes collective bargaining between the state and any union - except for the one representing state police - illegal. Daniels' law reversed 16 years' worth of collective bargaining rights under the prior three governors.

The council, which represents 3,600 workers, said that the budget law violates the state constitution's separation of powers. "The executive branch of government has jurisdiction over administrative procedures and employee/employer relations - not the legislative branch, which passed the new law," AFSCME said.

"It's been well established that administration of state employees is the role and responsibility of the executive branch of Indiana government," said Council 62 Executive Director David Warrick. "This law is an attempt to blindside established precedence and leave state employees with no ability to enjoy the same rights of a private employee."

In Michigan, the Auto Workers have already won one key case against the Right's attempt to cut workers' pay and pensions. On Aug. 25, the state Court of Appeals threw out Michigan's 2010 law - approved under then-Gov.

Jennifer Granholm (D) - ordering that an additional 3 percent of all state workers' pay be deducted from their checks to fund state retiree health care. UAW Local 6000, which represents 17,000 state workers, helped lead the fight.

The court said Michigan voters amended the constitution to put state employee compensation - including pay and pensions - in the hands of the state Civil Service Commission. When the 2010 legislature mandated state worker pay be "redirected" to fund current state retiree health care benefits, it violated the constitution.

"The people can and should expect shared sacrifice" in bad budget times, the court said. "However, it cannot come at the expense of constitutional nullification, and the legislature cannot expect to balance the budget on the backs of state workers."

"This decision is on target and shows the Michigan legislature's end-runs around the Michigan Constitution to erode state employee compensation won't be tolerated," said UAW Public Sector Vice President Cindy Estrada.

On June 22, the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice sued to overturn the GOP-passed governmental takeover law. It sailed through the GOP-run Michigan legislature in 2011, and was signed by GOP Gov. Rick Snyder, a former corporate mogul who vigorously pushed it. The new law lets Michigan declare any local government body "financially failing," and appoint a receiver. Under the new law, the receiver (read: "dictator") could abolish union contracts, fire workers, cut pay, sell assets to private firms, or do anything he or she pleased.

Not surprisingly, the new law has been applied to the city of Benton Harbor, and the Detroit public schools. Both had been under state control under an old, milder law, which Granholm invoked. Both have union workforces; both are, in their majority, African-American. The receiver in Detroit fired every teacher and all school staffers - virtually all of them unionists. Benton Harbor's czar killed union contracts.

Photo: People's World Flickr photo stream.

Paid sick days the law now in Seattle

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 11:41:00 +0000

SEATTLE - Tom Geiger, communications director of Local 21 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, told journalists Friday at the 2011 convention of the International Labor Communications Association how labor and its allies were able to get this city to guarantee paid sick days for all its workers.

Seattle's mayor signed the historic bill Friday. Every worker in the city, depending upon his or her conditions of employment, is now guaranteed five to nine sick days per year. Employers with less than four workers are exempted.

"The key to this victory was unions working closely with groups outside of the labor movement to get something done," Geiger said. The UFCW was one of the unions most active in the campaign for passage of the bill.

"We went everywhere," he said. "We'd walk into a restaurant or a fast food place and ask people whether they knew that there were 190,000 people living in this city who could never take a sick day."

Geiger said the medical community responded to labor's outreach too. "They were great. There were ads showing how going to work sick is bad policy for the company and how it hurts the health of everyone else."

Geiger was one of four labor leaders who comprised a panel designed to familiarize journalists with the struggles of workers in the state of Washington.

The other three panelists focused on the uphill battles facing workers in the region.

Terri Mast, the national secretary-treasurer of the Inland Boatmen's Union, described how 1800 workers on the Puget Sound ferries are fighting unprecedented attacks. She said the union got most of what it wanted in its last arbitrated contract and the right wing was determined to undo that.

Channel 5, which Mast described as a right-wing local TV station, started attacking items in that contract. The series, Waste on the Water, said workers were overpaid. Other claims made in the series were on issues that had been resolved years ago, Mast said, and were put into the series to whip up feeling against the workers.

Legislators, meanwhile, were in campaign mode and took up the anti-worker campaign in the ferry-serviced districts on Puget Sound.

In January, the union was at the bargaining table having to deal with a "mountain" of legislative proposals that cut salaries, and, Wisconsin-style, took away bargaining rights. The union ended up taking a 3 percent wage cut, hoping the attack bills would be withdrawn.

Although many Democratic lawmakers sided with the ferry workers others went along with Republican attacks and the captains of the ferry boats ended up losing their collective bargaining rights.

"The Wisconsin style attacks were here, despite our high union density," said Mast. Our members have said enough is enough and at some point those ferries might just stop in the water," she said.

Tim Welch, director of public affairs for the Washington Federation of State Employees described what public service workers are up against. He described how the mentally ill they served are literally being thrown out into the streets in Seattle and how public workers are being pushed to accept less and less. "Our opponents tell other people, essentially, that the economy would by OK if we just reign in those public service workers." Welch's union, which is part of AFSCME, has a solid reputation for making democratic reforms, not the least of which was the elimination of the patronage system in the state, and fighting for the rights of minority workers and women.

Beginning in February, Welch said, the union launched campaigns to make the public aware of the effects of the cuts. Thousands responded and filled the halls of the state capital in Washington, he said. "It wasn't to the degree that happened in Wisconsin, but it did indeed happen, even though the major media, nationally, wasn't paying attention."

Welch said that the challenge labor faces here is that the attack is "incremental and gradual. Scott Walker tried the all-at-once neutron bomb approach but here it is gradual and insidious. In some ways this is even a bigger challenge."

He said the union is mobilizing for the 2012 elections because " a defeat there would mean we are really in trouble. Those elections will be do or die for us."

Carino Barragan Talancon, lead organizer for Casa Latina, said her group, which represents immigrant workers, has officially affiliated with the Washington State Labor Council.

Wage theft, she said, is a major issue for immigrant workers in this state. "We have joined unions and community groups to form the Stop Wage Theft Coalition," she said, "and it gives us a long-term strategy to deal with the situation."

Talancon said her group has launched specific campaigns to win back wages, describing how they helped a janitor who was told his first month's wages were a deposit and then, after two months was still not paid. He finally started to get checks but they were always two and a half months behind. He went to Casa with his complaint and the group realized the employer was a repeat offender, so they launched a campaign against the company.

Casa did picketing and is in the midst of the campaign now.

The group was able to get the city of Seattle to pass an ordinance that criminalizes wage theft. "The task now, is to get people prosecuted for violating that ordinance," she said. The ordinance provides for fines, jail time and removal of business licenses when contractors steal wages.

Photo: (L - R) Tim Welch, Carino Barragan Talancon, Tom Geiger Terry Mast. John Wojcik/PW

NBA cancels games as lockout continues

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 16:25:00 +0000

The NBA's regular season is set to open Nov. 1, with the NBA champions Dallas Mavericks hosting the Chicago Bulls in the first game. But the prospects of that game happening appears dim, as collective bargaining talks between players and owners failed this week. The NBA lockout, which began July 1, continues.

The NBA has postponed training camps indefinitely, set to open Oct. 3, and canceled 43 preseason games because it has not reached a new labor deal with the players. The league announced Friday that all games from Oct. 9-15 are off, and further decisions will be made as warranted.

"We'll keep working at it until we figure this thing out, but right now there isn't anything to really report or say," said Derek Fisher of the Los Angeles Lakers and president of the players union to the Associated Press.

NBA Commissioner David Stern also provided little progress between the two adding, "the calendar is not our friend" when it comes to keeping the season intact.

Sports experts note the league usually needs at least four weeks to prepare for the regular season, making the actual deadline for a new labor deal closer to Oct. 4.

Both sides remain divided over structural and financial terms. However the gap seems to have been significantly closed in recent weeks. The players have agreed to reduce their share of revenue to 53 percent or less, from their current 57 percent. Every percentage point represents about $40 million. The players union has conditioned that offer on retaining a soft salary cap, which allows team to exceed the cap under certain circumstances. A hard cap doesn't allow exceptions.

On the other side the owners have been insisting on a hard cap, and are seeking a 50-50 split of the leagues revenue. Last week Stern signaled that the cap structure was negotiable, opening the door to a potential compromise.

Sources say Stern told union chief Billy Hunter that the owners want to reduce the players' cut of basketball-related revenue to a percentage well below 50 percent, which is a non-starter for the players.

Talks between the players and the owners will resume next week.

"We're trying to figure out ways to come together," said Fisher to the LA Times. "Hopefully we'll get another opportunity next week to continue to try and figure this thing out. We're committed to this process."

But some basketball fans are fed up with the whole process.

"It's terrible and I feel like this can take up half the season," said Marcus Hollowell, 22, a student at Shimer College in Chicago.

"It's always over more money. When it comes down it, it's us the fans that have to suffer."

The NBA has not lost a game, preseason or regular season, to a labor dispute since the 1998 lockout. That year, league officials started canceling exhibition games on Sept. 24 and regular season games on Oct. 13.

Photo: NBA players and union executive director Billy Hunter, right, join Los Angeles Lakers' Derek Fisher, center, president of the NBA players union, during a news conference, Sept. 15, in Las Vegas. Players will remain unified and calm in what could be a lengthy pursuit of a labor agreement, said Fisher. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

Thousands of California nurses strike to fight takeaways

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:25:00 +0000

BERKELEY, Calif. - Nurses picketing Sutter Alta Bates Medical Center here Sept. 22 broke into boisterous cheers as AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka asked them, "Is anyone out there fed up with Corporate America?"

The nurses were among 23,000 of their co-workers holding a one-day strike at three-dozen Sutter Health and Kaiser Permanente facilities in northern and central California, as well as Oakland Children's Hospital.

Calling nurses "the last line of defense for patients," Trumka said nurses "have more responsibility in an hour" than executives have "in a year ... Sutter's here for the profits, you're here for the patients. Sutter wants to work the system, you want the system to work for everyone."

Trumka pledged that the AFL-CIO's 12.5 million members "are not just on your side, we're at your side. We thank you for having the courage and commitment to stand up for patient care and good jobs."

The nurses' union, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United, says that despite amassing $3.7 billion in profits over the last five years, Sutter Health is insisting on demands that would limit nurses' ability to advocate for their patients, end paid sick days, forcing them to work while sick, and slash their health care coverage and retiree health benefits.

The nurses are also protesting dozens of cuts in services at Sutter facilities, including ending breast cancer screening for women with disabilities, closing or seriously cutting back psychiatric services, ending or cutting back care for children, threatening to close hospitals in underserved areas, and shutting down home health care services.

"I've been a nurse at Sutter Alta Bates here in Berkeley for 43 years, and I've never seen such vicious takeaways," Christine McCargar said in an interview. Noting that Sutter's profits are enormous, and most Sutter top executives have had raises of over 100 percent in recent years, McCargar said nurses "would be willing to negotiate in earnest if Sutter would take off the takeaways."

A handout at the rally listed 20 Sutter executives with salaries of more than $1 million a year - four of them over $2 million. CEO Pat Fry's pay was listed as nearly $4 million.

Pennie Torres, who said she'd recently been hospitalized at Alta Bates, part of the time on life support, said as she began to recover she'd noticed that nurses and other health care workers were having to work while they themselves were sick. "Don't let others have to suffer what I did," she said.

Nurses at Children's Hospital Oakland were protesting inadequate staffing there, as well as management's efforts to cut their health coverage, which they say would make it prohibitively expensive to bring their own children for care to the hospital where they work.

Kaiser nurses were striking in solidarity with other Kaiser workers who face deep cuts in health coverage and retirement benefits.

Also on the picket line were hospital workers from other disciplines.

Among the speakers was other Sutter nurses, including one who is also a city councilman in nearby Albany, as well as area Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner and San Francisco Labor Council head Tim Paulson.

As the rally came to a close, Children's Hospital nurse, and the rally's MC Martha Kuhl told the crowd, "We struck for one day. We're prepared to go back to work at 7 a.m. tomorrow." But, she said, the hospitals "have once again chosen to squander everyone's health care dollars" by hiring "replacement workers" for several days beyond that. "They should be ashamed for that," she said.

The strikers responded, "Shame on them! When you take on one of us, you take on all of us!"

Photo: Marilyn Bechtel/PW.

Dock, maritime workers making significant unity moves

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 12:15:00 +0000

In the latest effort to strengthen labor's hand in the global economy, West Coast dockworkers this month welcomed pilots at the Panama Canal into their union. Meanwhile longshore unions on the nation's Atlantic and Pacific coasts are forging new ties.

At one of the world's strategic passageways, the Panama Canal Pilots Union joined the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) on Sept. 7, the 32^nd anniversary of the United States turning over control of the Canal Zone to Panama. The ILWU represents longshore workers along the West Coast of the U.S. and Canada.

In welcoming the canal pilots, ILWU International President Bob McEllrath said, "This is an historic agreement that unites workers in different countries with a critical link in the global supply chain," reported the Dispatcher, the ILWU's publication.

The new affiliation "will provide each with more solidarity and support that will be there when we need it," McEllrath added.

The canal's importance will be magnified once work is completed to expand and modernize the nearly century old passageway between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, to accommodate the newer, bigger container ships.

This strategic alliance comes as the ILWU and the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), which represents dockworkers on the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico coastline, are taking steps to strengthen their relationship.

Pointing to employers' efforts to pit the ILWU against the ILA, "using the word 'competition' to put a wedge" between the two unions over jobs, McEllrath told the ILA's quadrennial convention in July, "We are one."

"I'm going to work with the new ILA president, Harold Daggett," McEllrath added. "We're going to fight together, we're going to keep our jurisdiction and we're going to keep our unions' jobs."

For his part, Daggett said he intends to "bring the ILA closer to the ILWU, as we have many matters of mutual interest in dealing with management in protecting our jurisdictions and memberships."

The ILWU's McEllrath will sit in the next round of ILA contract negotiations at the invitation of the ILA's Daggett, the Dispatcher reported.

Photo: Panama Canal pilot boat. CC 2.0

Washington state unions see arrests on docks as part of pattern

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 10:17:00 +0000

SEATTLE - The arrests Sept. 21 of two union officers and the wives and mothers of 10 longshoremen are seen by union members here as part of a major assault underway against this state's labor movement.

The wives and mothers of the International Longshoremen and Warehouse Union went to the railroad tracks near a Columbia River grain terminal where they blocked a shipment on a Burlington-Santa Fe train from being unloaded at the EGT Grain Terminal on the port of Longview.

ILWU Local 21 President Dan Coffman says two longshoremen officers and 10 wives and mothers of workers were arrested.

Police brought in tactical vehicles, canine units and, dressed in full riot gear, hit the women with hot pepper spray.

Unions here say the action by police amounted to the taxpayers of Washington state being made to pay for the private security operations of a company out to kill workers' rights.

In protest, Longview workers, along with workers at other ports in this state, stopped working at their jobs and stood, frozen in silence, for 30 minutes. As workers stood silently the train, under escort of riot gear clad police, rolled into the EGT terminal.

ILWU workers have been out of their jobs at the $200 million EGT terminal, which is under contract to hire them, because the company is filling their positions with scabs from another union. The ILWU had refused to go along with company rules that allow EGT to ship jobs overseas at will.

200 have been arrested in protests against the company over the past several months.

Jeff Johnson, president of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO, said, "The labor movement in this state has a proud history of being aggressive when it comes to workers' rights. We have almost 20 percent of the workforce in unions, the fourth highest state for union density in the nation and there are powerful forces out there that want to change that."

A look around the state at recent or current labor battles seems to confirm his assessment.

1,600 Tacoma teachers were forced out on strike last month, stalling the opening of school for 28,000 students in Washington state's third largest school distract.

"They came to us after two years with no pay increase and demanded a 1.9 percent pay cut," said Rich Wood, media representative for the Tacoma Education Association.

The Masters and Pilots, a major ferry union on Puget Sound, recently lost collective bargaining rights, according to union members here, because a TV reporter who wanted to "make it big" did a series entitled "Waste on Water."

After the series ran union members were demoralized, there was legislative backlash and the union's bargaining position was weakened, say local union leaders who have worked hard to correct what they say were the misconceptions viewers got about the workers.

That and other stories are being covered by reporters from publications affiliated with the International Labor Communications Association this week at the group's convention here. The Peoples World is among those participating.

"There is an attack on public workers because so many are in unions," Johnson told the labor journalists. "Those who oppose union rights know that if they can weaken those rights in the public sector it will be easier for them to do it elsewhere."

"The country needs labor journalists now, more than ever," he told them, "because the corporate media, if they cover the workers' stories at all, covers them like they cover a natural disaster. The story comes out of the blue, from nowhere. It wreaks havoc and then its over."

Photo: Law enforcement personnel wrestle ILWU Local 21 longshoreman Kelly Muller to the ground. Wives and mothers also sit on the tracks to prevent a grain train from pulling in to the EGT grain terminal at the Port of Longview Sept. 21. A dozen officers in riot gear stood guard along the tracks. Longshore officers and about 10 wives and mothers of Longshore workers were arrested.(Bill Wagner/The Daily News,/AP)

Oklahoma labor commissioner calls public workers “feral hogs”

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:27:00 +0000

TULSA, Okla. - During the September 13 meeting of the Republican Women's Club of Tulsa County, Oklahoma Labor Commissioner Mark Costello likened Oklahoma's public sector workers to "feral hogs." Going further, he said, "I don't know if you know much about feral hogs, but they reproduce three or four times a year, they eat anything and everything, and I kind of think there is some comparison between bureaucrats and feral hogs." The irony is that the labor commissioner is a government bureaucrat, who makes close to 10 times what the average municipal employee earns. However, besides being offensive and hypocritical, Costello's comments are a stark reminder of a nationwide assault on the collective bargaining rights of working people.

Representatives of the labor movement and others who support Oklahoma's working families were quick to denounce Costello's slurs and demanded his resignation. But Costello, a business owner, has defended his comments and has announced the formation of a 501(c)(4) organization that will be dedicated to making it increasingly difficult for organized workers to collect dues money from members. This is just another in a series of initiatives that ultra-right-wing politicians in Oklahoma have taken to undermine the ability of workers to maintain a voice in negotiating the terms of their employment. What's more ominous is that the labor commissioner is an elected official whose duty is to protect and uphold the laws affecting Oklahoma's workers. Instead, he is brazenly defying the law and likening working people to wild animals.

The ideology expressed by Costello and his ilk is dangerously close to the rhetoric of eugenicists, the pre-Nazi pseudo-scientific movement that began in America which argued that the poor and lower tiers of the working class are lesser evolved than the wealthy. This ideology spread to Europe and became popular in Germany where the likes of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party became its greatest advocates. In Hitler's infamous 1925 book Mein Kampf, he expresses views that are clearly being echoed today about union workers. Hitler wrote:

Since the inferior always outnumber the superior, the former would always increase more rapidly if they possessed the same capacities for survival and for the procreation of their kind; and the final consequence would be that the best in quality would be forced to recede into the background. Therefore a corrective measure in favour of the better quality must intervene...[T]he weaker will have to submit and will thereby be numerically restricted; but even that portion which survives cannot indiscriminately multiply, for here a new and rigorous selection takes place, according to strength and health.

Compare these comments to Costello's "feral hogs" remarks, and one can see that the Oklahoma labor commissioner (himself a millionaire) shares the Nazi belief that the wealthy attain their riches because they are genetically superior to working people. European fascists opposed unions because they believed that organized workers are like a mob of feral animals that outbreed the superior specimens of the human race (the wealthy), and make unfair demands on the rich. The Oklahoma Labor Commissioner is evidently in complete agreement with fascist philosophy on this point.

In reality, it is the working people that make human society function. Without workers, there is no civilization, and there would be no riches for the millionaires to own.

But disparaging remarks against working people have become commonplace as the extreme fringe elements of U.S. "conservatism" has slowly become the dominant ideology of the Republican Party. Remember that Oklahoma's previous governor, Frank Keating, called the state's teachers "slugs." Therefore, in addition to demanding the Oklahoma labor commissioner's resignation, it is important to recognize that the ongoing assault on the rights of Oklahoma's working people is not simply the doing of one arrogant elected official, but part of a coordinated effort by certain politicians to undermine the organizations that protect workers. Even if the current labor commissioner were to resign, the battle for the rights of our communities' working people has only just begun.

In order to win this fight, we must understand the historical basis of the ugly fascist-like ideology that is being put forward by many of today's so-called "conservative" politicians. The conclusion of their degenerate logic is lower wages, fewer benefits, and a weakened democracy. When we allow them to dehumanize working people we start down the path that produced slavery and forced-labor camps. Therefore we have to denounce this rhetoric, and fight this ideology wherever it rears its head. In a time when government has become overtly dominated by the wealthy, and the CEOs of multinational corporations carry more sway than the democratic will of the American people, we must defend our unions, and recognize them as the last line of defense for workers to have some say over their lives.

Labor leaders here are now demanding Labor Commissioner Costello's resignation, and are preparing to take the offensive in the struggle to ensure that elected leaders respect the collective bargaining rights of Oklahoma public workforce. All Oklahomans - union and non-union - should take a stand against any efforts, whether by out-of-state multinationals or their lackeys in our state, to attack our local, democratic organizations and our democratic rights.

Photo: Costello, official portrait.

Jersey casino fights labor board

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 15:02:00 +0000

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - The big casino Donald Trump built in Atlantic City - which he doesn't control any more-is taking on the National Labor Relations Board.

And the board is replying, in a brief to U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for D.C., that, in so many words, the Trump Plaza holds a losing hand.

At issue is the hotel's court challenge to NLRB's certification of the United Auto Workers to represent the casino's full and part-time dealers. The union's 2010 win at Trump Plaza, by 324-149 among a 530-member unit, was part of UAW's wide-ranging campaign to unionize dealers at many Atlantic City casinos.

As part of that drive, the union convinced politicians - everyone from the Atlantic City Council on up to Reps. Chris Smith and Frank LoBiondo, both R-N.J. - to write letters of support for the workers' right to vote on whether to unionize or not. The letters, prepared before a prior union recognition vote at Caesar's Atlantic City, did not specifically mention Trump Plaza, but were generic letters of backing.

Trump Plaza took the case to court, arguing the letters so influenced the election that its results should be thrown out. The NLRB's legal brief replies that Trump Plaza managers should in essence (though not those words) throw in their cards, because it'll lose its bet. For the record, the hotel management told PAI "the bank and shareholders" own 90 percent of Trump Plaza, while Donald Trump owns the other 10 percent.

"The board did not abuse its discretion in overruling Trump Plaza's election objections and certifying the union," NLRB attorneys Julie Broido and Renee McKinney argued in their brief to the court.

"The board reasonably overruled Trump Plaza's objection contending the union improperly circulated letters and resolutions authored by local, state, and federal elected officials. Those officials had no connection to the board, and their statements merely expressed their personal, generalized views on unionization.

"It is settled that elected officials are not required to remain neutral in organizing campaigns, but may seek to persuade employees, provided their statements do not compromise the board's neutrality. The board reasonably found the statements here did not tend to mislead voters into believing the board endorsed the union, or that the board's neutrality was otherwise compromised. That the union disseminated multiple documents does not change this conclusion," the NLRB brief adds.

Had Trump Plaza proven the board's neutrality was compromised - and it did not - the election would have been tossed. The hotel raised other objections to the election, but the administrative law judge and the board rejected them, too.

Photo: CC 2.0

Unions, not "right to work" laws, bring back an automaker

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:25:00 +0000

HAZELWOOD, Mo. - (PAI) The labor movement is a key part of a recently successful effort to get a company to build a plant here that will produce diesel/electric vehicles.
While looking at 25 states, Emerald Automotive, a British company, selected Missouri, and the St. Louis suburb of Hazelwood, specifically, as the site for their initial $175 million investment for several key reasons. These include availability of a skilled automotive-oriented workforce; support from state and local governments; enthusiastic cooperation of the local business community, and cooperation and support from the labor community.

A site in Hazelwood has not yet been selected, officials said.

Initially, Emerald is expected to hire some 300 people by 2013, and 581 by 2014, ultimately leading to more than 1,000 new jobs being created as other supplier firms build near the plant. It plans to build 10,000 electric hybrid vans yearly, starting in 2015.

The plant will be "100 percent union built" adds Jeff Aboussie, executive secretary-treasurer of the St. Louis Building and Construction Trades Council. The building trades - especially the Sheet Metal Workers and the Plumbers - enthusiastically support its construction.

Building trades unions are willing to bring to the table union pension funds and other union related funding sources that invest in construction to consider investing in this project and provide critical construction capital, Aboussie explained.

"Missouri opened its resources to us," Emerald spokesperson Sharon Heaton, the company's general counsel, told the Labor Tribune. After visiting many of the 25 states, "Missouri was clearly the right partner. They understood our needs. They provide the right working relationship for us. Everyone was very much about 'How do we make this happen?'"
One of Missouri's key strategic advantages, she said, is the availability of a skilled, car assembly workforce. Noting that their new vehicle will not be mass produced, but rather a niche vehicle, Heaton pointed out, "There is a different skill set needed for this vehicle," skills that require more hands-on assembly rather than the use of machines. Hands-on skills are the kinds of assembly skills that are in abundance among Missouri's autoworkers, the company determined.

That's great news for the many thousands of unemployed auto workers here, the United Auto Workers said. It also came just before UAW opened talks with the Detroit 3, pledging intense cooperation.

"The UAW is excited that they are coming into the area, not only excited for our laid-off workers here, but for the entire State of Missouri for the positive economic impact it will have," said regional director Jim Wells. "We look forward to working with the company, the community, and the state to make this a successful endeavor," he told the Labor Tribune.
Hazelwood Mayor Matt Robinson, a working member of Sprinkler Fitters Local 268, said the car company's executives wanted union involvement and commitment. "Andy Tempest, Emerald Automotive's CEO, worked in Detroit and is very familiar with the unions, and committed to working with them here," he said.

"We are here to deliver a product the customer wants and we are here to let the workforce share in that," Tempest told KSDK-TV. His primary goal is growing Emerald domestically and globally.
"We view [the unions] as partners in what we're trying to build. We expect to have a mutually beneficial relationship," said Heaton, the auto firm's general counsel. "We are absolutely committed to working with the unions," Heaton added.

"They told us they want a well-qualified workforce, which we have here, and that they intend to pay a decent wage and provide benefits to their workers," UAW's Wells said. He emphasized the UAW would work closely with Emerald executives and local and state officials to obtain state and/or federal funding for any specialized training programs that might be needed.

Why is a British auto firm building a manufacturing plant in the U.S. when its initial market is the United Kingdom and Europe? First, because most components will be American-made, Heaton said, particularly "the battery packs and engines." That's more good news for U.S. workers.
Secondly, she cited the potential of ultimately selling over a half million vehicles of this size in the U.S. market as compared to the overall potential market of 400,000 vehicles in Europe.

"We're thrilled with the kind of cooperation we've had from organized labor, not only on this project, but generally on every economic development effort we've been making at the RCGA," said Dick Fleming, president/CEO of the St. Louis area's Regional Chamber & Growth Association.
Fleming said labor's involvement in the effort to attract the auto builder began when he asked Aboussie, who is also an RCGA board member, for help in moving this project forward when it first came to light months ago.

"The next day, we had a meeting with the United Auto Workers leadership, and we were off and running," Fleming told the Labor Tribune. "We have a distinctive advantage in economic development here because the labor unions and their leadership are so strongly committed to working with the business community to help existing businesses expand, or recruiting new businesses."
"In the end, it's about putting a lot of talented unemployed or underemployed auto workers initially, and hundreds of others, back on their feet and into good paying jobs," Fleming added. "Labor has been a cooperative partner all along in these efforts," Fleming said, noting cooperation of many other unions, and especially the locals of the Sheet Metal Workers, and the Plumbers and Pipefitters.

Governments are providing $10 million in economic incentives for the plant. Half comes from the British government - the Royal Mail will be the first prime customer for the plant's vans - and half from the city of Hazelwood and a state economic development body, combined.

Aboussie also noted construction of the auto plant "will mean hundreds of thousands of man hours of work for our construction trades, to say nothing of the thousands more" as suppliers for Emerald erect their own plants. "And Emerald is on the cutting edge of green technology, so it can see massive expansion in the future, creating more construction and technology jobs.

"This is yet another major example of how organized labor here works with industry and government to benefit the entire community to produce real jobs," he pointed out. "And second, it's a clear indication that manufacturing companies want to locate in Missouri. That gives the 'big lie' to those Republicans who say that Missouri needs a phony 'right-to-work for less' law in order to compete with other states to attract more manufacturing business."

"They had 25 other potential sites, but they picked Missouri!" Aboussie said proudly.

Does outsourcing save government money?

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:44:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Contracting out federal jobs to the private sector - a favorite cause of both political parties - wastes billions of dollars, a new study by the non-partisan Project on Government Oversight (POGO) shows.

The study reveals the government not only employs almost four times as many contractors as it does workers - 7.6 million to 2 million - but that private companies charge the government for the same services up to almost five times as much as the government would spend if the jobs were done in-house.

The contractors also charge the government for those same functions, in occupations ranging from accounting to nursing to highly technical fields, more than they pay private-sector workers in those jobs, POGO's study adds.

The government spends more than $320 billion yearly on contractors.

Not only that, but more than 80 percent of all savings from "contracting out" came when federal workers were pitted against their private counterparts and - to win the contests and keep their jobs - had to give up such things as better health care choices.

POGO's study covered 35 different job categories and years of payment data comparisons. It attracted the attention of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which is fighting budget-cutting and similar-contracting-out schemes on the state and local levels. Union President Gerald McEntee said the federal data shows the fallacy of the contracting-out craze.

"In the wake of the worst recession in our lifetime, federal, state and local governments should not be doling out billions of dollars to private contractors to perform services that can be done more efficiently and at lower cost by public workers," he said.

"Privatization has always been a recipe for disaster. This study confirms what AFSCME and its allies have been saying time and time again: Privatizing services leads to cost overruns and in most cases lower quality. The only ones benefiting from privatization are the private companies and the campaign coffers of the politicians who push for privatization," he concluded.

POGO reported that the worst comparison among the 35 occupations was in claims assistance and examining. The average federal claims examiner earns $57,292 and the average private examiner earns $75,637. But private firms charge the government $276,598 for each claims examiner's services - 4.83 times the federal paycheck. In only two of the 35 occupations, groundskeeper (80 percent), and medical records tech (99 percent), did the contracting companies charge less than what a federal worker would earn.

The average charge by firms using contractors to do federal work is 2.09 times the amount the government would pay if it employed those workers itself, POGO found.

Farmworker rights bill awaits Calif. gov’s signature

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:39:00 +0000

Now awaiting California Gov. Jerry Brown's signature is a bill to greatly strengthen the rights of the state's 400,000 farmworkers. The measure passed the state legislature earlier this month after a major drive by the United Farm Workers union and its labor and community allies. The campaign included a 12-day march from the central California city of Madera through the scorching Central Valley to Sacramento.

SB 126 calls for immediate certification of a union if employer election violations could have affected a unionization vote, and a speeded-up process for Agricultural Labor Relations Board certification of elections. The ALRB could go to court to reinstate farmworkers illegally fired during union election drives, and mediation could take place after 90 days of contract bargaining instead of the current 180 days.

The bill emerged just two months after the campaign suffered a major blow when the governor vetoed an earlier bill to let farmworkers decide about a union through majority signup, or "card check," in addition to the current secret ballot election.

Brown, who during an earlier term as governor signed the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, codifying farmworker rights into law, claimed the original bill would significantly change the "guiding assumptions" of the ALRA in ways that weren't justified.

Undaunted, the farm workers kept up their campaign, and two months later, Brown outlined the proposals now incorporated in SB 126. The UFW says the governor is committed to signing the measure.

Both bills were introduced into the legislature by state Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento.

Farm workers and their supporters celebrated the new bill's emergence at a Labor Day weekend rally at the state capitol in Sacramento. "We marched to Sacramento and Gov. Brown listened," UFW President Arturo Rodriguez told the crowd of over 5,000.

The UFW is vowing to continue the fight for majority signup.

"While we believe that SB 126 would significantly advance the cause for fair treatment of farmworkers, the UFW knows the only way to truly protect a farm worker's right to choose union representation is by allowing workers to vote away from the workplace and their bosses' threats," UFW spokesperson Maria Machuca said in an e-mail interview.
Machuca added that the union sees majority signup as "the only union process that would protect farm workers regardless of whose administration is in the State Capitol." Calling Brown "sympathetic to the farmworkers' struggle," she said many of the measures he put in place as governor in the late 70s and early 80s were not enforced under succeeding governors, or were "manipulated and underfunded," making them ineffective in ensuring workers' rights to intimidation-free union election.

Farmworkers' need for safer working conditions, as well as better wages, is underscored by the heat-related deaths of at least 16 California farm workers since 2005, even after a state regulation to prevent heat deaths was issued at the UFW's urging. Cal-OSHA, the state's work safety agency, was investigating the deaths of at least two more farm workers, possibly from heat exposure.

A case that drew major attention was the death of pregnant 17-year-old farmworker Maria Isavel Vasquez Jimenez in 2008, after collapsing of heat stroke and being denied medical aid by her bosses.

Photo: National Farm Workers Ministry // CC 2.0

400 union women at confab demand equality and union rights

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:32:00 +0000

ORLANDO, Fla. - Over 400 union women came to the Coalition of Labor Union Women's 16th Biennial Convention here, September 7-10, to demand equality and to defend union rights. The women came from many different unions to speak in one voice for working women.

CLUW President Karen See spoke about the benefits of union membership for working women: higher wages, better working conditions and protection from sexual harassment on the job.

The union women called for expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act, an act that saves the worker's job while she/he takes leave for medical reasons or to care for a child or sick family member. CLUW adopted a resolution to promote the Healthy Families Act to create a national paid sick days standard.

Delegates noted that the Family and Medical Leave Act was a great victory when it was won but that it covers only half the work force and the leave is unpaid. Many local CLUW chapters are already leading a fight for paid sick days.

Other resolutions adopted by the convention include support for single-payer health care, no cuts to Social Security cost of living increases, support for the Paycheck Fairness Act. Also adopted was a call for new priorities: end the wars and invest in America, stop the U.S. Postal Service from closing, and protect affirmative action.

While the convention was in session, President Obama asked Congress to pass his American Jobs Act.

The president's call to fight for jobs electrified the convention. Delegates resolved to fight for Obama's American Jobs Act and also to support Rep. Jan Schakowski's, D-Il., jobs bill. Jobs for women must also be part of the jobs program, delegates said.

Autoworkers, steel workers and many other trades united with their allies in the public sector to fight the attack on public workers. An important part of the jobs fight is to stop the layoffs of teachers and other public workers, a majority of them women. A major focus of the convention was outreach to young women workers who needed a voice on the job. A gala reception supplied a spirited end to the convention, to pass the Jobs Act and win the 2012 elections.

After elections, Guatemala turns right

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 08:10:00 +0000

Guatemala held presidential and parliamentary elections Sept. 12 and, as expected, the far right was the biggest winner.

A Nov. 6 presidential runoff scheduled between General Otto Perez Molina, of the Patriot Party (PP) and Manuel Baldizon of the Renewed Democratic Freedom Party (LIDER). Both are right-wingers. Perez Molina received 36 percent of the vote, while Baldizon received 23 percent.

Perez Molina, who held high military rank, including head of military intelligence, during periods when the Guatemalan armed forces and right-wing militias were carrying out genocidal attacks against the half or more of the country's approximately 13 million people who are indigenous Mayans, campaigned on the slogan of "mano dura" (hard hand) against the country's terrifying crime problem. Baldizon, a businessman, stressed using the death penalty for kidnapping and other crimes.

The largest center-left party, incumbent President Alvaro Colom's UNE (National Unity of Hope), fielded no presidential candidate. They had tried to run Colom's popular wife, Sandra Torres, as Colom himself is prohibited by the constitution from running for a second term. But the same constitution forbids the close relatives of sitting presidents from running for the presidency. To get around this, Ms. Torres formally divorced Colom earlier in the year. But the courts did not buy this maneuver, and she was excluded from the ballot.

The only other left-wing candidate for the presidency, Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu Tum, ran under the banner of the Broad Front including the Winaq, Alliance for a New Nation and National Revolutionary Unity of Guatemala parties, the last being the party set up by the guerillas when the civil war ended in the 1990s. Menchu got only 3.3 percent of the presidential vote.

In the parliamentary vote for the unicameral legislature, the picture was slightly different. Candidates of Perez Molina's PP got 26.2 percent of the vote, and those run by Baldizon's LIDER party only about 9 percent. Candidates of President Colom's UNE took 22.6 percent, while the candidates of the Broad Front got 3.2 percent. How this will play out in terms of congressional seats remains to be seen, but it is also an advance for the right. Of the 158 seats, 29 are chosen by proportional representation, and at writing were yet to be apportioned.

How could this happen in a poor country where people like Perez Molina have wrought so much carnage over the years, with a death toll of at least 200,000 people in the wars that began with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's overthrow of leftist president Jacobo Arbenz in 1948?

Most public opinion polls name the people's fear for their personal safety, which, in Guatemala as well as the United States and elsewhere, makes a "tough on crime, law and order" campaign attractive to many. Guatemala's crime rate was very high to begin with, and its rate of convictions was ridiculously low.

Now added to this mix is the infiltration of Guatemalan society at many levels by drug cartels based in Mexico, especially the ultra-violent Zetas. Guatemala happens to be on the direct line of importation of drugs from Colombia and to Mexico and then north to the United States. So the drug barons have been building their bases throughout the country, in the process buying up estates and other properties from which to base their operations, and also politicians.

Drug money has so flooded Guatemala that many commentators wonder if perhaps it did not fuel some of the candidacies in the election. Certainly a number of parties ended up spending far more money on the elections than the law allowed, and campaign financing is so lacking in transparency that one cannot exclude the possibility that some of this money came from the cartels.

The run up to the election saw significant violence, with 36 candidates for lower office murdered.

Rigoberta Menchu was quoted in the press as saying that the elections produced "many anomalies; in many places votes were bought, in many places things were given away, some people were subjected to extortion." This, says Menchu, demonstrates that Guatemala is a failed system... We have to transform the state, we have to prosecute illicit businesses, we have to say 'no' to corruption. Menchu says she will not recognize any winners of the election until electoral authorities investigate reports of corrupt campaign financing and other anomalies.

At any rate, the winner of the presidency will be decided Nov. 6, but the Guatemalan workers, peasants, poor people and youth may have already lost. If history is any indication, "mano dura" policies will soon degenerate into attacks on the political opposition.

Postal unions, postal service collide over layoff scheme, health care cuts

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 08:00:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - The nation's postal unions and the U.S. Postal Service's management have collided over management's latest plan to close what it says is a yawning deficit: mass layoffs, violating union contracts, and cuts in health care.

"I am at a loss for adjectives sufficient to the task of describing these actions by the postal service. Several that come close are outrageous, illegal and despicable," Postal Workers President Cliff Guffey told a contentious Senate Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Sept. 6.

The confrontation will continue: Postal unions plan a National Day of Action Sept. 27 to alert the public about the Postal Service's schemes.

APWU and the other postal unions, including the National Association of Letter Carriers and the Mail Handlers, a sector of the Laborers, oppose the USPS plan to abrogate its union contracts and unilaterally fire 120,000 career workers.

Guffey noted the postal service already has the power to cut employee costs by making up to 20 percent of its workforce low-paid no-benefit temps. USPS also expects 100,000 veterans to retire.

The unions also oppose the agency's plan to withdraw the nation's half a million postal workers from the federal employees' health care plan - a plan that, due to its huge size, is very cost-effective while providing a wide range of health care choices.

The other unions also oppose the postal service's schemes, which Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe claims are needed to prevent the semi-independent agency from running out of cash and exhausting its $15 billion line of credit.

Letter Carriers President Fredric Rolando tangled with Donahoe on PBS's Newshour. Rolando said most of the projected $8 billion-$9 billion loss USPS faces in the year ending Sept. 30 comes because a 2006 law requires it to prepay future health benefit costs for present workers - a $5.5 billion expense per year for a decade.

"Any business would not put $20 billion in cash into future pre-funding" of the health care costs, as USPS has been forced to do since 2006, Rolando said. And no business "would be forced to leave $50 billion-$75 billion in excess payments in its pension account," again as the 2006 Bush-pushed law forces USPS to do, he added.

News reports say the Obama administration plans to offer proposals to close the USPS budget gap, when it sends its recommendations to the 12-person congressional budget deficit-cutting committee. In the interim, it intends to ask lawmakers for a 3-month stay on the latest $5.5 billion health care payment, due at the end of September.

That's not enough for Donahoe. Though he too says requiring pre-payment of the health care costs is ridiculous, he wants to cut the workers, anyway. That would force Congress to override union contracts, both the one Donahoe just signed with APWU and the others now being negotiated with the Letter Carriers and others.

"Current agreements prevent the Postal Service from moving swiftly enough to achieve these workforce reductions," Donahoe said. "Our proposal would address collective bargaining prohibitions against layoffs and allow the Postal Service to make these difficult, but absolutely necessary, personnel moves, in order to remain viable.

"Development and submission of these plans illustrates the Postal Service's commitment to consider a wide range of options and solutions to our ongoing financial difficulties. Although there is disagreement with some of the proposals, the Postal Service is willing to put everything and anything on the table for discussion," he added.

The Postal Service also wants to close 3,700 post offices, consolidate distribution centers, eliminate Saturday delivery and allow first-class letters to get to their destinations within two or three days, not one or two. First class mail is the most-profitable mail for the Postal Service. Bulk mail runs at a large loss, figures show.

Guffey did not comment on the closings but he said cutting the workers and the service would actually cost USPS money as well as people.

"APWU will oppose with every resource at our disposal any effort to destroy our health benefits program, to lay us off and replace us with temporary workers, or to undermine our retirement. And make no mistake about it, the layoff of 120,000 postal employees would hit all postal workers, including veterans. Whenever the Postal Service closes a whole plant, as they have said they want to do, all the employees in that plant, would be subject to being laid off," he added.

And a top Letter Carriers official, attending an international conference of postal unions (UNI) in D.C., said his union is also pushing to give USPS greater flexibility in setting rates. That would let it raise rates on money-losing third-class bulk mail.

The U.S. postal unions also drew international postal union support. UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings told Press Associates the U.S. unions are correct to lobby about the health care payments and against the personnel cuts. And USPS should be thinking of ways to expand its service and bring in more revenue - such as reopening a postal savings bank or becoming the lead agency for foreign workers' remittances to their home countries - he added.