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Health Care Kumbaya |
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| Protest against health insurers need to have both a union and community face—like this march both against foreclosures and for the Employee Free Choice Act earlier in March in Lynn, Mass. |
The peasants are filing their pitchforks to a fine point in anticipation of an attack on the palace—and the target of their ire is not what we might have intended. At this critical moment in the health care debate, more than a few working folk are taking a suspicious look at the health care reform efforts of Senate Democrats, President Obama—and their own unions. A headline in my local newspaper, the Lynn Item, helped stir the tempest: “Obama Open to Taxing Benefits to Fund Reform.”
Vincent Panvani of the Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) warns:
If any of these Democratic Senators vote for this, they’ll be out in 2010, and it will be used against Obama….[Y]ou’re taxing the middle class.
Teamsters President James Hoffa calls taxing health care benefits “the poison pill that will kill reform.” The Laborers have attack ads at the ready. And Donna Smith, president of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) notes that insurance companies continue discriminatory rates for older workers and ongoing rescissions of benefits—that is, targeting people with more than 1,400 medical conditions for “opposition research” investigations so their benefits can be cut off. “Ugly stuff,” she puts it. (At a health care forum in Lynn, Mass., last week, Rep. John Tierney reported that in congressional hearings he asked every insurance company if they would stop these viscous targeted rescissions—each one said “No.”)
Trumka Announces Candidacy for AFL-CIO President |
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AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka this morning announced his candidacy for president of the AFL-CIO to succeed the retiring John Sweeney. Trumka has served as AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer since 1995.
Gregory Junemann, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), announced June 8 he is running for secretary-treasurer.
At a rally that drew several hundred supporters at the University of the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C., Trumka also introduced his running mates. Joining Trumka on the ticket are Liz Shuler, executive assistant to the Electrical Workers (IBEW) President Edwin Hill, for secretary-treasurer and incumbent AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker for re-election. This marks the first time two women have run for the AFL-CIO’s top offices.
No other candidates for the top three leadership positions have announced. Earlier this year, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney announced he was retiring when his fourth term as president expires in September. Delegates to the AFL-CIO’s 26th Constitutional Convention meeting in Pittsburgh Sept. 13-17 will elect the AFL-CIO’s new officers.
In a joint statement, Trumka, Shuler and Holt Baker note that the labor movement “faces tremendous challenges,” including an unregulated global economy, labor laws that favor employers over workers and a political system in which the wealthy wield far too much influence.
At the same time, we have historic opportunity, with a president and Congress we elected, to overcome these challenges. Our most important task is to make sure our economy creates jobs. And we are keenly aware that we must look within our movement for answers about how we can create full employment, organize workers and make sure workers prosper in the 21st century.
Before being elected AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer in 1995, the same year Sweeney took the helm of the AFL-CIO, Trumka served as president of the Mine Workers (UMWA) from 1982 to 1995. He is a third-generation coal miner and graduate of Pennsylvania State University and holds a law degree from Villanova University Law School.
Shuler is the highest-ranking women in the IBEW and has served as Hill’s top assistant since 2004. In 1993, she joined IBEW Local 125 in Portland, Ore., where she worked as an organizer and state legislative and political director. In 1998, she was part of the IBEW’s international staff in Washington, D.C., as a legislative and political representative.
Holt Baker has served as AFL-CIO executive vice president since September 2007. The longtime AFSCME member and leader came to the federation in 1995 as executive assistant to Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson, who was the first woman to become a top AFL-CIO officer. Holt Baker was AFSCME’s international union area director in California from the late 1980s to 1995 and also worked as an organizer and international representative.
Read the rest of this entry »
Massive Rally this Weekend in Arkansas for Employee Free Choice Act |
This Saturday, Arkansas workers, civil rights activists, faith leaders and union members will come together across Arkansas in support of workers’ freedom to form unions.
Workers and their allies will ask Arkansas’ two senators, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, to help pass the Employee Free Choice Act and restore the freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life.
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka and AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker will be on hand for a march across Little Rock, starting at Central High School at 1 p.m. After the march, they’ll rally and hold a catfish fry at the Arkansas Education Association.
In addition to the main rally in Little Rock, workers and religious leaders will rally in the morning in Pine Bluff, Texarkana and Fort Smith, bringing the message of support for workers all across the state.
Report: Security Screening Process Flawed, Leaves Dockworkers Jobless |
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Thousands of longshore workers, truck drivers and other workers at ports across the nation are out of work, not because of a staggering economy, but because they are caught up in a backlogged, inefficient and often inaccurate screening process for background security checks.
According to a new report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP), the federal Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA’s) post-Sept. 11 port worker background checks have put thousands of otherwise qualified and experienced port workers on the streets instead of the docks, with no rights to back pay once they gain their security clearance.
Most of the workers caught in this bureaucratic limbo are members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), Longshoremen (ILA) and Teamsters (IBT).
Canadian Scholars: Freedom to Form Unions Has Positive Impact |
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A group of Canadian scholars is helping to cut through the myths and lay out the facts about the Employee Free Choice Act. These 100 scholars and professors agree workers need the freedom to form unions and bargain for a healthy economy.
In an open statement released yesterday, these 100 academics, who study a variety of disciplines at institutions across Canada, say wide access to collective bargaining in Canada is good for Canada’s economy. Contrary to the unsupported statements of corporate mouthpieces, Canada’s broad union membership hasn’t hurt its labor markets; indeed, in recent years, Canada—where some 31 percent of workers are in unions—has experienced lower unemployment than the United States.
Many Canadians have the choice of majority sign-up for forming unions; federally overseen sectors and workers in five provinces all have the option of using majority sign-up. In eight provinces, workers have access to first-contract arbitration.
America’s Workers Oppose Taxing Health Care Benefits |
One of the most troubling health care reform proposals—taxing health care benefits—that had gained some traction in recent weeks appears to be slipping. Grassroots health care activists, President Obama and leading congressional Democrats have helped shed the light on, and slow the momentum of, this unfair tax that could boost working families’ tax liability by as much as 28 percent, according to the Commonwealth Fund.
Yesterday, the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reported that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told Sen. Max Baucus (D- Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, that any health care bill that included a tax on health care benefits and failed to include a strong public health insurance plan option would lose significant Democratic support. The paper said Reid told Baucus to drop
a proposal to tax health benefits and stop chasing Republican votes on a massive health care reform bill.
Widespread Support for Employee Free Choice Act in Colorado |
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Yesterday morning a group of clergy members delivered a letter in support of the Employee Free Choice Act to the offices of Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet. They represent a coalition of more than 120 faith leaders from around Colorado who have come together to support the legislation, which they see as critical to restoring a fair and prosperous economy for all. The signers of the letter include Protestant ministers, Rabbis, Roman Catholic priests and sisters, an Imam, and a Zen Buddhist priest.”
America’s faith traditions are nearly unanimous in support of the right of workers to organize free from employer retaliation,” said the Rev. Dr. Dana Wilbanks, Professor Emeritus of Christian Ethics, Iliff School of Theology. “By using sacred text and tradition, our faith compels us to support the Employee Free Choice Act and to support the freedom of workers to collectively bargain for a shot at a better life for themselves and their families.”
Sen. Franken Joins Senate, Co-Sponsors Employee Free Choice Act |
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Yesterday, after a long, hard campaign and almost eight months of vote counting and litigation, Al Franken was sworn in as the newest U.S. senator representing Minnesota. Then he signed on for the first time as co-sponsor of a bill—the Employee Free Choice Act.
Franken announced his co-sponsorship at a reception last night at the AFL-CIO, where Minnesota leaders like former Vice President Walter Mondale, Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Minnesota AFL-CIO President Ray Waldron helped union members and leaders welcome him to Washington, D.C.
Franken, a strong supporter of workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain, said his membership in four unions—AFTRA, SAG, WGAE and DGA—gave him, wife Franni and his family the opportunities that all working families deserve:
Because of my membership in those unions, Franni and I had health care during the campaign. Because of my membership in those unions, we have a pension.
We need to level the playing field. Unions built the middle class in this country, but we’ve seen the playing field become a steep hill. We’ve seen a great risk shift in this country.
Papal Encyclical: Workers’ Rights to Form Unions Must Be Honored |
In a new encyclical released yesterday by Pope Benedict XVI, the leader of the Catholic Church discusses the challenges of a global economy. He notes that workers’ ability to form a union and bargain is at risk and makes it clear it’s a matter of moral imperative to preserve that freedom.
Here’s what the pope has to say on the need for workers to have the freedom to form unions:
Through the combination of social and economic change, trade union organizations experience greater difficulty in carrying out their task of representing the interests of workers, partly because Governments, for reasons of economic utility, often limit the freedom or the negotiating capacity of labor unions. Hence traditional networks of solidarity have more and more obstacles to overcome. The repeated calls issued within the Church’s social doctrine, beginning with Rerum Novarum, for the promotion of workers’ associations that can defend their rights must therefore be honored today even more than in the past, as a prompt and far-sighted response to the urgent need for new forms of cooperation at the international level, as well as the local level.
The Vatican and a wide variety of Catholic leaders have continued to express support throughout the year for workers’ freedom to form unions, and many Catholic scholars and organizations like the Catholic Labor Network and Catholics for Working Families have come out in support of the Employee Free Choice Act.
Here’s what AFL-CIO President John Sweeney had to say:
The new encyclical offers a much-needed reminder that to create an economy that works for everyone it is critical to protect workers’ fundamental right to join together as a union and bargain for a better future. As the Pope makes clear, it is not only working people, but also entire communities–nations even–that stand to benefit when workers exercise this right. In the document, the Pope reaffirms the Church’s longstanding position that labor unions play a vital role in efforts to build a more just economy—one in which even the most marginalized workers are guaranteed basic dignity and respect.
Analysis of Labor Board Stats: Workers Who Want a Union Rarely Get One |
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Time and again, the evidence shows that when workers try to form unions, they often face harassment and intimidation from their employers. In fact, an analysis of labor board elections by University of California-Davis professor David Brody shows the odds of making it all the way through the process, from filing a petition to getting a first contract, years later, are only 573 out of 2,388 or less than one in four.
Pulling facts from the latest Annual Report of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which covers the fiscal year (FY) running from October 2007 to September 2008, Brody notes:
- During FY 2008, the NLRB closed 2,388 representation cases (NLRB annual report, Table 10).
- Of these, 782 were withdrawn and another 46 were dismissed, presumably before they ever got to an election (NLRB annual report, Table 10).
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