Archive for July, 2006
Bargaining Digest Weekly
How would you like to make $81,000 for six months of work at a bankrupt company? That’s $81 per hour.
Yes, that’s what 467 Delphi Corp. executives will get following a U.S. Bankruptcy Court court ruling permitting the company to dig itself a $38 million hole by approving additional executive bonuses—over and above their regular salaries. The law limits retention bonuses to a multiple of 10 over what regular hourly workers make. Some limit.
$7.25 an Hour NOW
“I’m a lumberjack, and I’m not OK…because I get paid a lousy minimum wage.” With apologies to Monty Python, that could be one of the chants Minnesota union and Working America members bust out this Sunday at the Lumberjack Days Parade in Stillwater, Minn.
As they take part in the festivities, union and community activists also will be trying to chop down the failed policies of House members such as Rep. Mark Kennedy (R-Minn.). Kennedy has opposed legislation to raise the $5.15 federal minimum wage and is among the members of Congress bottling up House and Senate legislation (H.R. 2429 and S. 1062) that would raise the minimum to $7.25 an hour.
Bush Denies AFL-CIO China Trade Petition: A ‘Slap in the Face’ to Workers
The Bush administration’s decision today to reject the AFL-CIO petition demanding China’s government stop denying workers their rights is “a slap in the face to Chinese and American workers who expect our government to uphold the law,” AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka says:
Senate Panel Approves Cuts in Funding for Job Training, Workplace Health and Safety
The Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday approved most of the Bush administration’s budget proposals that would freeze or eliminate funding for several health, education and worker safety programs. The cuts prompted a top Republican lawmaker to question whether the government really is committed to the welfare of America’s workers.
Senate Approves Voting Rights Law, Adds César Chávez to Bill Name
The Voting Rights Act (VRA) is on its way to President Bush for his signature after the Senate voted unanimously, 98–0, today to reauthorize key sections of the law.
Passage comes after an intensive, grassroots effort by union members, civil rights, religious and voting rights groups that put tremendous pressure on members of Congress to renew the legislation that has been called the most successful civil rights legislation in U.S. history. Activists’ efforts even moved some of the most recalcitrant senators to vote for the bill.
Honk If You Support a Minimum Wage Increase
Yesterday, 30 union and Working America members marched to the district office of Rep. Melissa Hart (R-Pa.) in suburban Pittsburgh to tell her it was time to stop playing games and raise the $5.15-an-hour federal minimum wage.
The rally was the first of several this month in which workers are marking the 10th anniversary of the last federal minimum wage increase. The AFL-CIO America Needs a Raise Campaign is pushing Congress to boost the wage, but Republican leaders continue to block action on House and Senate bills to raise the federal minimum to $7.25 an hour.
Workers Expose Bush NLRB Agenda
Over the past two weeks, thousands of America’s workers took to the streets to highlight an issue few people are aware of—and as a result, have moved it up on the nation’s political agenda. In 21 cities, workers protested the Bush National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB’s) failure to do its job and protect workers’ freedom to join a union.
AFL-CIO Organizing Director Stewart Acuff, who took part in several of the actions nationwide, says:
The rapid grassroots mobilization of workers responding to this pending crisis revealed the extent to which a bad decision from the labor board could spark disruption at hospitals, health care facilities and other worksites.
The week of action focused on a series of cases now before the NLRB known as “Kentucky River,” in which the NLRB soon will decide whether many nurses, building and construction trades workers, journalists and others should be classified as “supervisors.” If the NLRB expands the definition of supervisor to include such workers, an estimated 8 million workers no longer will have the federally protected right to form a union.
Among those workers, Linda Warino, has spent the past 33 years caring for patients as a nurse. She says her union, the Ohio Nurses Association/UAN, empowers her and provides resources to bolster her expertise on health standards and practices. This knowledge is invaluable when the hospital tries to implement practices that might result in harm to patient care.
House Passes Oman—Another Bad Trade Deal
The U.S. House of Representatives just passed another bad Bush administration trade deal, the Oman Free Trade Agreement (OFTA), by a 221–205 margin. Twenty-two Democrats voted for the treaty.
Sago Mine Deaths Could Have Been Prevented
The 12 coal miners who died following a methane explosion in the Sago Mine in Upshur County, W.Va., could be alive today if the foam blocks used to seal off the section of the mine where the blast occurred had contained the explosion as they were supposed to, a report on the deadly disaster concluded.
Same Old School Voucher Song…Different Verse
U.S. Department of Education Secretary Margaret Spellings seems purposefully unaware of the study released last week by the department she heads up that shows public schools do as well or better than private schools.
