Lots to Say

by Tula Connell, Jul 27, 2006

A rally in Washington, D.C., where members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-CWA (NABET-CWA) will spotlight their struggle for a fair negotiating process, air traffic controllers saving the day in California and more news you’ve sent to AFL-CIO Now.

Got news? Send it to blognews@aflcio.org.

Barbara Krieger, vice president of NABET-CWA Local 31 in Washington, D.C., sends us news of a union rally this weekend set to coincide with the ABC 7 Family Health & Caregiver Expo at the Washington Convention Center.

The July 29 event will spotlight the efforts by WJLA/NewsChannel 8 to take away one of the most fundamental features of a union contract: job security. According to NABET-CWA, WJLA wants to “pay off any discharged employee with a small severance, varying between four months and eight months of base pay,” at WJLA’s sole discretion. The issue highlights one of the key distinctions between workers represented by unions and those who aren’t: so-called at-will employment.

U.S. employees without union representation can be fired “at will” by their employers, for just about any reason, barring federal discrimination protections. Union members, who negotiate contracts with their employers, make sure if layoffs happen, they go through a fair process that involves negotiation on both sides, not only the employer’s. (First, of course, they try to prevent layoffs through negotiations.)

Anyone in the Washington, D.C., area this weekend can stop by the Family Friendly Rally between 10 a.m. and noon. Union members will give away free balloons and stickers for kids, who can meet Bobby Joe the Clown.

It’s bad enough California residents are forced to swelter through triple-digit temps with no air conditioning during electricty blackouts, but spoiled food and dark nights are minor inconveniences when compared with, say, no electricity to guide planes.

Thomas Thompson, a local union vice president in Indiana for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), brings to our attention a news story with terrifying ramifications: Air traffice controllers had to use their own cell phones for 15 minutes to keep tabs on planes because of a massive power and communications failure at the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center last week. The controllers called traffic control centers throughout the region to make sure planes were not routed through Los Angeles. According to Aero-News:

“We were completely dead in the water,” said Bob Marks, Western Pacific regional vice president for NATCA. “We lost everything and could not talk to our airplanes for those 15 minutes. Our controllers were frantically picking up cell phones and calling air traffic control facilities around the region….”

Air traffic controllers come through in times of emergency, such as Sept. 11, 2001—but is it too much to ask for a system that’s not so deregulated that electricity for guiding planes is not part of the package?

William Madden sends us a link to a Progressive States Network post in which Nathan Newman describes regulatory rulings in California that rebut FedEx’s long-held claim that its ground drivers are “independent contractors”—not employees. By classifying the drivers independent contractors, FedEx does not pay for workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance or a range of other worker protections.

Writes Newman:

FedEx is just a high profile example of an all too common abuse of workers by misclassifying them as independent contractors. States are increasingly proposing new legislation to tighten these rules to protect employees, as this guide to Combating Independent Contractor Misclassification in the States by the National Employment Law Project explains.

The AFL-CIO union movement consistently has argued that China manipulates its currency—an illegal subsidy benefiting industries in China at the expense of U.S. manufacturing jobs. Gem Hudson in Omaha, Neb., agrees.

You are so right. What is made is made cheaper over there in China and dumped here in the U.S. of A and the government printing up more of the money while we are making less of the goods is not making much of the money either.

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article |Comments (0)