Corporate Tax Breaks, Corporate Greed and Lots More

by Tula Connell, Feb 25, 2006

There’s a lot going on around the country and plenty to say about it—from a new labor newspaper column in Johnstown, Pa., to a victory for undocumented workers seeking lost wages in New York.

Here’s a sample of comments we’ve gotten over the past couple of days. Got news? Send it to us at: blognews@aflcio.org.               —Tula  Connell

Johnstown (Pa.) Regional Central Labor Council Executive Vice President Terry J. Havener in March will start writing a monthly labor column in the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat.

The Faces of Labor column will appear in the Business section on the first Sunday of the month. Brother Havener’s goal is to apply proceeds from the column to the labor council’s scholarship fund. A $1,000 Faces of Labor scholarship will be awarded each year in conjunction with the council’s Workers Memorial Day (April 28) events.

Frank Schenhoffer, a retired member of Communications Workers of America, found  the recent AFL-CIO Now blog post by Greg LeRoy provocative.

In his post, LeRoy, the executive director of Good Jobs First, says workers and taxpayers often lose twice when states and cities give out huge corporate tax breaks in the name of “economic development.”

Says Schenhoffer:

You have hit on a point that just irritates me every time I read about it. That is, cities giving tax incentives to business for coming to their locale. I think if a business wants to open up shop in a particular city they should pay their share of taxes. I was not offered any incentive to move to where I reside. If there is something that should be done away with, this is it.

Cesar Ortiz, president of the Albany-Capital District Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA), an AFL-CIO constituency group, writes about a victory this week in Albany, N.Y., where he is an attorney. The New York Court of Appeals ruled in favor of undocumented immigrant workers seeking to recover lost wages under a New York law that compensates workers injured on construction jobs. Ortiz says this is decision is a victory for all workers.

…it will discourage unscrupulous employers from seeking to hire only undocumented immigrant workers in the belief that if the immigrant workers are injured on the job they will not have to pay compensation for workplace injuries at a rate based on New York wages.

The Albany-Capital District Chapter of LCLAA filed a brief supporting the  workers…

Pat Fuller took out the calculator after Caterpillar recently announced the salaries of its chairman and five division presidents

I used my trusty calculator to figure that the reported salary of the lowest paid president would cover my monthly insurance premium of $170 for 314 years!!!  And they wonder why retirees are so mad at them!

Right on, Pat.                       

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