Archive for February, 2006
Bridgestone-Firestone Workers Prevented from Helping Workers in Africa
For as long as there have been factories, workers have stood outside plant gates asking for charitable donations. But not at the Bridgestone-Firestone plant in LaVergne, Tenn. On Feb. 22, the company stopped workers at the plant gate from collecting donations to help struggling rubber workers in Africa.
“We’ve stood for years at the same locations collecting for members who are ill or other locals on strike. Most recently, we collected to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina,” says Lewis Beck, president of United Steelworkers Local 1055.
But this time, Beck and his co-workers, were collecting to support rubber workers who toil on Bridgestone-Firestone’s giant rubber plantation in Liberia. The United Steelworkers’ website explains the Liberians’ plight:
A decade-long civil war has ravaged the country and workers there, including thousands employed at Bridgestone-Firestone’s one-million acre rubber plantation, are struggling to provide for their families.
Local 1055 is the first of eight USW-represented locals scheduled to participate in the gate collections for the Liberia workers. Over there, BFS workers labor from dawn to dusk and receive about $3 as a daily wage. Recently the workers went on strike to protest the company’s withholding of more than one-third of their pay for unexplained deductions.
The Inter Press Service Agency reports that Bridgestone-Firestone, Liberia’s largest foreign investor, is being sued by an international human rights group over its alleged use of child labor and toxic pesticides.
Here’s how InterPress describes the conditions at the plantation:
…workers begin their day at 4:30 in the morning in order to make their daily quota of tapping some 750 trees—a quota that can only be met if children join their fathers and in many cases, mothers by working from dawn to dusk.
Jason Flomo, who has been living with six others in one of Firestone’s housing quarters on the plantation, said there are no toilets, running water or electricity.
“Situations like this remind me why our contract negotiations are so difficult. I think the company sometimes forgets that its workers are people trying to take good care of their families,” Beck says.
Corporate Tax Breaks, Corporate Greed and Lots More
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.
Why Are Workers’ Rights in Jordan Important?
George W. Bush and the unfettered trade crowd are fond of saying trade will benefit workers. Jordan disproves that fantasy.
After Jordan signed a trade deal with the United States in the final days of the Clinton administration—the first such U.S. trade pact that included a provision supporting workers’ rights—Jordan has ignored its responsibility under the treaty. And under the Bush administration, the United States has done little to nothing to enforce that part of the agreement, according to a new report, Justice for All: The Struggle for Worker Rights in Jordan, the latest in a series of reports on workers’ rights in various countries by the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center.
Migrant workers, especially, are treated like slaves. As the report says:
Men and women in the QIZs (Qualified Industrial Zones) are forced to work long and arduous shifts or below-poverty wages…bosses withhold their paychecks and passports.. the workers become virtual prisoners far from home.
Migrant women often end up in the informal economy as domestic servants, a condition one scholar calls “contract slavery:”
…they often work under employment contracts that are not respected [because the face a combination of abuse and violence, denial of freedom to move and communicate. Employers often imprison domestic workers…call upon them to work at any time of the day or night. They may starve, beat, and rape workers or even falsely accuse them of crimes.
The AFL-CIO and the union movement continue to push for free trade that includes enforceable workers’ rights clauses because corporations—many of them American—seek to move jobs to countries with the lowest possible labor costs and weakest worker protections. Even if the jobs are not shipped overseas, corporate executives use the threat of moving to coerce concessions from their U.S. workers.
Although Jordanian women are provided with free on-the-job child care under the nation’s law, workers’ freedom to form unions is so restricted, only a select few workers are allowed to join unions—and those who can join can’t go out on strike. In fact, workers can sentenced to hard labor for engaging in “individual or collective action with intent to change the economic or social of the state or basic conditions of the society.”
You cannot join a union in Jordan if you are a civil servant, domestic worker, gardener, cook or agricultural worker—that’s a whopping 87.5 percent of all workers. And by law, the number of unions is restricted to 17 in the entire country.
Surrounded by Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Israel, Jordan has very little land and no oil resources. It is home of the glamorous Queen Rania whose media appearances—including “The Oprah Winfrey Show”—pushing for the rights of women and the poor haven’t included the freedom to form unions.
Some things are changing for the better. The International Finance Corp. (IFC), the part of the World Bank that makes loans to companies with projects in developing countries, adopted new rules Feb. 21 that require any company that borrows from the IFC follow labor rules that ban forced labor, child labor and recognize workers’ freedom to form unions. If it is enforced, this rule could mean something to workers since the IFC is funding more than 236 projects in 67 countries worth $6.45 billion.
The Solidarity Center previously has released reports on workers’ rights in Sri Lanka, Mexico and China.
Forget Lauderdale—Take a Spring Break for Justice
A spring break at the beach might be fun, but the tans will fade and the cheap souvenir t-shirts will shrink. College seniors who want to make more permanent—and more important—memories, should check out AFSCME’s Union Spring Break 2006.
The union is offering three five-day sessions for college seniors who want to make a difference and help bring justice and respect to workers and their communities The sessions, which run from March 12-17, 19-24 and 26-31, include intensive training and organizing action.
Students who are accepted into the grassroots organizing training will receive lodging and transportation during the week. They are responsible for transportation to the program sites, but financial help may be available. Here are the details.
If you’re interested in joining AFSCME’s Union Spring Break 2006, you’ve got to hurry. Applications are due by Feb. 28 and you can apply online— click here to apply.
Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO’s Organizing Institute (OI) is accepting applications from activists looking for a career in organizing. Selected applicants go through an intensive training program, including a three-month, paid field assignment. After the training is completed, the OI helps graduates find organizing jobs with the nation’s unions and the placement rate for OI grads is 95 percent.
For more information, visit www.organize.aflcio.org.
AFL-CIO Nurses Seek Long-Term Solution to Save Sick Healthcare System
The nation’s nurses work on the frontlines of patient care and they know the nation’s health care system is intensive care. Now, more than 200,000 nurses in eight AFL-CIO unions are exploring how they can join together to coordinate their organizing and bargaining activities to improve patient care and give nurses a strong voice in fixing the healthcare system.
“RNs are joining together across our unions to take collective action through this coalition. We can’t count on hospitals to do the right thing, but we can count on each other,” says Cheryl Johnson, president of the United American Nurses.
Johnson and the leaders of seven other unions representing nurses announced Feb. 23 they are seeking AFL-CIO Executive Council approval to form an historic alliance, RNs Working Together. At its spring meeting next week, the AFL-CIO Executive Council will vote on recognizing RNs Coming Together as an Industrial Coordinating Committee.
“These 200,000 nurses will be sending the message loud and clear that we are the voice of nurses, we are the advocates for patients, and we will not allow any of our colleagues to be silenced,” says Ann Twomey, president of the Health Professionals and Allied Employees (HPAE)/AFT Healthcare.
At the July 2005 AFL-CIO Convention, the federation approved the creation of a new structure, the Industrial Coordinating Committee, to foster common strategies and practices for unions within a given industry. Unions that take part in the coordinating committee would receive additional support from the AFL-CIO. The first Industrial Coordinating Committee was formed last October by unions in the arts, entertainment, media and telecom industries.
Blogger Scott Shields on MyDD highlighted the move:.
…it has always concerned me that if a group of professionals is represented by
different unions, they might not wield the same bargaining power as if they were organized under one umbrella. So in my mind, this industry coordinating committee for nurses (or any profession, for that matter) seems long overdue.
The nurses’ first priority? Mobilizing for a national campaign to address the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) expected decision this spring on the rights of nurses to join a union. If the NLRB, the federal agency that is supposed to protect workers’ job rights, rules that nurses who occasionally oversee others are technically supervisors, it would take away nurses’ labor protections, including the freedom to form unions.
In addition to UAN and AFT, the members of RNs Working Together include AFGE, Communications Workers of America, Office and Professional Employees, UAW, United Nurses of America/AFSCME and the United Steelworkers.
Fed Report: Money’s Tight and Debts Soar
The Federal Reserve finally came around to saying what most families already feel: household budgets are tight and debts are soaring.
The Fed’s numbers, released Feb. 23, show inflation-adjusted family net worth barely moved from 2001 to 2004, rising 1.5 percent after rising the previous six years. Average net worth rose 10.3 percent in the three years ending in 2001, and 17.4 percent in the three years ending in 1998.
Charles McMillion, president of the business forecasting firm MBG Information Services, says Americans are carrying a lot of debt.
Today’s report verifies my own research that household and family debts soared between 2001 and 2004, not only as a share of income but as a share of assets and net worth. The Federal Reserve’s report does not consider data beyond 2004, but my own analysis shows this increase in debt-to-income and debt-to-net worth continued in 2005.
How did it get this way when the economy is supposedly booming? The Baltimore Sun explains it this way:
The negligible rise in net worth may seem surprising considering the boom in housing values. But Americans erased those gains by piling on debt. Also, many failed to benefit from the stock market recovery in 2003 and 2004 since they lightened their equity holdings.
The typical American household made little financial progress between 2001 and 2004 after making substantial gains in the previous six years, said Stephen Brobeck, executive director of the Consumer Federation of America in Washington.
Escalating debt was the principal reason. They increased their credit-card debt, their installment debt and their home mortgage debt.
Health Spending Up Sharply, Bankruptcy Deadline and More
The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily bargaining related news and research resources to the in-boxes of 700 union leaders throughout the country. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining at Work.
Below are some of the stories we covered this week.
Northwest Airlines and ALPA made progress on key issues in their negotiations prior to Friday’s bankruptcy court hearing covering the company’s request to cancel their labor agreements. Expect another delay in that action by the court.
North of the border, Canada’s public sector union, CUPE withdrew its Thursday strike threat after Ontario agrees to talk. CUPE was protesting proposed changes to their pension plan. Ontario provincial leaders agreed to work out their differences with the union.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released a study Tuesday projecting a steep rise in health spending. What a shock! The study says to expect Americans will spend $1 in $5 of their consumer dollars on health care by 2015. Thank goodness we have Medicare prescription drug coverage, yes? No. Since Part D coverage started this year pharmaceutical companies have raised drug prices 4.3%.
We’ve made a lot of noise lately about the Medicare Part D plan’s deficiencies. Columnist Michael Kinsley says the plan is based on Abracadabra Economics and unlike some of Bush’s other bad ideas, has no theory behind it. Nevertheless, the leaders and staff at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are trying their best to administer the plan, which at its base, was hoped to encourage employers who have retiree benefit plans to keep them by paying them a subsidy covering up to 28% of their costs. These payments will start flowing soon, and CMS estimates payments will be as much as $1 billion a year.
CMS holds monthly conference calls with unions the fourth Thursday of every month from 1-2 pm. We’ll post a notice on the website for the next one. In the meantime, CMS provides support for unions and their employers on their website.
New Wal-Mart Health Plan—The Placebo Effect
This weekend, Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott will tell the National Governor’s Association (NGA) that the nation’s largest retailer is going to bring health care coverage to more of its workers. While Wal-Mart is the world’s largest employer, very few of its workers can afford health coverage.
Why, after so vigorously defending its long-standing health care plan—one that covered fewer than half its workers, was unaffordable for the majority of low-wage Wal-Mart employees and shifted billions in health care costs to state governments—would Wal-Mart trumpet its new and supposedly more generous plan?
The New York Times, hits the nail on the head.
The changes…underscore how big a public relations threat the health care issue has become for the nation’s largest private employer.
Got to hand it to Scott: The NGA’s a great place to make the announcement. After all, working families and their community allies in more than 30 states are pushing their state lawmakers to enact Fair Share Health Care legislation. State budgets are being pushed to the breaking point by growing Medicaid costs.
The AFL-CIO Fair Share Health Care initiative would ensure the largest corporations—like Wal-Mart—stop shifting health care insurance costs onto workers, taxpayers and other businesses. In general, Fair Share Health Care legislation requires large, profitable corporations to spend a certain percentage of their payroll to provide health care benefits for their employees or pay into a state health care fund.
When workers can’t afford or are not eligible for their employer’s health insurance, families are forced to turn to taxpayer-funded programs such as Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, costing taxpayers some $21 billion a year, according to the Commonwealth Fund.
You can help the Fair Share Health Care mobilization by send a message to your state lawmakers urging their support. Click here.
The details of the new Wal-Mart plan won’t be released before Scott’s performance for the governors. But the Times did report that eligibility requirements would be eased. Today, part-time workers must wait for two years before being able to sign up and full-time workers face a six-month wait. Given the low percentage of workers who now have health coverage under the Wal-Mart plan, any improvements will be welcome. But it remains to be seen whether the world’s largest employer is really ready to do right by its workers and their families on this crucial issue.
“What is clear,” the Times wrote, “is that Wal-Mart would still require workers, whose average pay is less than $20,000 a year, to pay hefty annual deductibles and monthly premiums.”
Doesn’t sound like much of cure for a real sick health plan, now does it?
Monks Need Unions, Too
After 28 devout years in the Zenkoji complex of temples in Nagano, Japan, Buddhist monk Junshin Hosono discovered what workers of all types in all parts of the world have learned: Sometimes you really need a union.
The Los Angeles Times reports:
Last fall, Hosono clashed with Gencho Komatsu, the 73-year-old head priest of the Tendai sect at Zenkoji. In short order, the monk found himself banished to a tiny, windowless storage room where he was ordered to spend each day writing out Buddhist sutras until further notice.
Hosono said the head priest also banned him from the main floor of the Daikanjin temple, the sect’s headquarters at Zenkoji, and barred him from speaking to other monks and presiding over spiritual matters such as funerals that help provide him with a modest income.
“It was harassment,” Hosono said. “I wanted him to stop. I wanted him to release me from that room.”
So the monk went out and got himself a union card.
Along with four sympathetic monks and four office workers from the Daikanjin temple, Hosono formed a small but certified union affiliated with Japan’s National Confederation of Trade Unions. The organization says it is the first time Japanese monks have ever banded into an affiliate. With overall membership on the wane in Japan, union leaders were only too happy to welcome newcomers, no matter how unconventional the trade.
“As long as they are employed and get paid, they are technically workers,” said Yuichi Kizuki, the confederation’s secretary-general….
“I know people might think the idea of a monk joining a union is a joke,” he said. “But this is important. It is not funny.”
So now the Brother is a brother.
Outrage Over Port Security
America’s working families are outraged about the Bush administration handing over the nation’s ports to a Dubai-based corporation. We noted yesterday that in addition to raising security concerns, the $6.8 billion deal for handling cargo at major Eastern and Gulf Coast ports not only increases the potential for terrorist attacks, but highlights the greed involved and the not-so behind-the-scenes connections that bind the Bush administration to Dubai.
James Parks talked with a couple members of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA)—the workers who would be employed by Dubai—and they say even now, not enough is being done about the nation’s port security.
Clyde Fitzgerald, president of the South Atlantic-Gulf Coast District ILA which represents workers on Miami and New Orleans ports.
There’s a whole lot more we could do to protect our ports. We’re only checking a small percentage of containers coming in. It’s physically impossible to check every one, but we should check more than we do.
James Paylor, president of ILA Local 1566 in Philadelphia, agrees—and says he supports the efforts “to demand full disclosure of the details of the deals.”
The main thing is that we need consistent enforcement of security. At the Port of Philadelphia, they’re hiring [low-wage workers] making $6 an hour to load and unload cocoa beans—a job that should go to a Longshoreman.
As Josh Marshall points out on Talking Points Memo, Bush had a Freudian moment at cabinet meeting when he said:
This deal wouldn’t go forward if we were concerned about the security
for the United States of America.
Meanwhile, AFL-CIO Now visitors have weighed in on the debate—here’s a sample. (Got news? E-mail us at: blognews@aflcio.org) –Tula Connell
Danny Cooke, president of the Texas State Council of Machinists, says he is appalled, but not surprised, by Bush’s willingness to hand a contract to a United Arab Emirate corporation.
Bush has been very consistent in giving good American jobs over to other countries. Of course, in the past we sent the work to them and with the exception of Mexico, did not bring them to the work. I am also appalled that he hates the American worker to the point of refusing to allow American Companies in on the process. Do we not have some of the best security firms in the world? Is he simply more interested in taking care of other countries than our own? When the notorious Tom Delay says it was a mistake, you know this has to be bad.
Linda Lewis, an expert on Homeland Security, writes:
The decision to approve the Dubai takeover is contrary to earlier decisions regarding other STATE-owned firms planning takeovers, that were not Arab states. This refutes Bush administration claims that rejecting the Dubai deal would be discriminatory.
She provides details on her weblog, Goverup.com.
From Houston, Texas, Aurora Hunter writes:
I’ve had a lifetime of hearing about how no one ‘can do’ anything better than Americans. So how come we even have to consider outsourcing the management of our ports to foreign companies and countries? On the other hand, apparently we’re not very good at security, so maybe that’s what we should be outsourcing! Bin Laden’s security system comes to mind as one of the best in the world, judging by the damage that his organization has inflicted and yet he remains alive, well, and free despite the efforts of the world’s greatest superpower to change that status.
Mike Meyer, e-mailing from the computer of his neighbor David Tourison in Sheridan Wyo., says if he planned to spend $6.8 billion, he’d take a close look at his purchase. So why didn’t President Bush supposedly even know about the deal?
One need not look for conspiracy when GREED AND STUPIDITY fit the bill. Sadly we keep hiring these people when they refuse to do the job, refuse to earn their pay. We should do for them just as we would anyone who won’t work, DON’T PAY THEM.
Meyer is a member of The Voter Initiative Political Party of Wyoming. (VIPP) that believes American taxpayers should have the final word on the federal budget.
