Archive for October, 2006
7 Days @ Minimum Wage: American Dream a Nightmare for Low-Wage Workers
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It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The mantra we’re all taught is that if you work hard and follow the rules, you can succeed in America. But millions of hard-working people are breaking their backs on the job and are not making enough to take care of their families.
In the fourth installment of the video blog (vlog) “7 Days @ Minimum Wage,” Jessica, a single mother who makes “very, very close to the minimum wage,” can’t hold back the tears as she describes how hard it is to live on so little income:
It’s very hard. I go to bed crying at night, and I wake up crying. I don’t tell them [her children] the reason why mommy is not eating tonight is because I’d rather for you to eat.
It’s a battle. You do everything you’re supposed to do. I’m here 30 minutes before work. I stay two to three hours after work. I would think they would pay me more.
I don’t want to work like that, but I have no choice.
The vlog, which is running at http://sevendaysatminimumwage.org/ from Oct. 23–30, is sponsored by the AFL-CIO and ACORN. Hosted by comedienne Roseanne Barr, it features interviews with seven workers describing life at or near the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour, which has not been raised since 1997.
Report from the Field: Rolling Through Ohio with Working Family Candidates
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Kombiz Lavasany, who works in online communications at the United Federation of Teachers/AFT in New York, is spending the final weeks before the elections at the AFL-CIO, where he is coordinating political campaign outreach among state-level bloggers. Lavasany describes a recent bus tour across Ohio during which AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson joined working family candidates (check out video clip).
Last week, candidates with rock-solid records of support for working families headed off on a bus tour across Ohio. In Toledo, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson welcomed a crowd of several hundred union members to the Steelworkers hall. She expressed the frustration stakes in the election.
Harley Shaiken: NLRB Decisions Could Polarize Economy, Mute Democracy
When the Bush-dominated National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued its recent decision in the Oakwood case, it slashed long-time federal labor laws protecting workers’ freedom to form unions and opened the door for employers to classify millions of workers as supervisors. Under federal labor law, supervisors are prohibited from forming unions.
But the decision’s impact may extend far beyond union members. It could result in a more polarized economy and a less democratic society. Here’s what University of California-Berkeley professor Harley Shaiken says in the most recent AFL-CIO Point of View guest column:
Dow’s Up. Everyone Must Be Happy, Right?
Political pundits are puzzled, puzzled that what they falsely call a good U.S. economy is not translating into votes for Republican candidates.
With the Dow Jones stock index over 12,000, why aren’t voters happy? Gas prices have temporarily blipped downward. Why aren’t Republican office holders getting credit?
7 Days @ Minimum Wage: 70 Percent Making Minimum Wage Are Adults with Families
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Throughout the week, millions of Americans are hearing, seeing and getting a sense of what it’s like to try and live at or near the minimum wage at the video blog (vlog): “7 Days @ Minimum Wage.”
The Oct. 23–30 event, sponsored by the AFL-CIO and ACORN, features interviews with seven workers describing life at or near the federal minimum wage, which has not been raised from $5.15 an hour since 1997.
The vlog’s host, comedienne Roseanne Barr, introduces this installment with a very telling statistic, saying raising the minimum wage is:
not about teenagers working for pocket change at a hamburger joint because 70 percent of people working at minimum wage are adults with family responsibilities.
Today, in the third installment, Jeffrey Edwards, who makes just above the minimum wage, $6 an hour, tells what it’s like to try and support a family working at a job that pays so little.
Report from the Field: Pennsylvania
Bernard Pollack, AFL-CIO political field coordinator in Pennsylvania, reports on the action there, where Bob Casey Jr. is the working family candidate for Senate, along with Gov. Ed Rendell for governor and lots of great candidates for U.S. Congress.
Congrats goes to all our union volunteers for a great Saturday turnout, with 690 union volunteers across the state plugging into the Labor 2006 program. This week, 17 AFL-CIO central labor council presidents led our walks across the state and with the help of union volunteers, next week’s headline will say: “150 local union presidents lead walks across Pennsylvania.”
100 Miners Rally, Demand That Safety Chief Meet With Workers
Nearly 100 coal miners from West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio, all members of the Mine Workers (UMWA), today marched into a federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) district office in Morgantown, W. Va., demanding that new MSHA head Richard Stickler beef up enforcement of mine safety laws and regulations.
Kennedy, Pelosi Promise Quick Action on Minimum Wage if Democrats Win Congress
Two top congressional Democrats promised that if their party gains control of Congress in the Nov. 7 elections, there would be a vote to raise the minimum wage within 24 hours after the opening gavel of the new Congress.
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who would chair the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee if Democrats are in the majority next year, said during a telephone press briefing yesterday:
Let’s get a Democratic Senate, and I’ll do my damnedest to get this increased minimum wage out in 24 hours.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who would become house speaker if the Democrats gain the majority Nov. 7, also has said a minimum wage hike would be on the House floor within 24 hours after the new Congress convenes in January.
Report from the Field: Dayton, Ohio
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Gordon Pavy, whose Bargaining Digest Weekly is published here each Saturday, is blogging from Ohio where, like many AFL-CIO staff, he’s in the field getting out the vote in this critical election. Check out the video at left for a look at why union volunteers in Ohio are getting out the vote.
I’ve been in my hometown of Dayton, Ohio, for four weeks now working on Labor 2006, phone banking, leafleting, scanning. Every morning, I write the collective Bargaining Digest for Bargaining@Work subscribers from a very familiar corner in town where I spent many evenings as a child with my father. At the time, it was a bowling alley, where NCR employees relieved the stress of factory work, now it is a Panera.
Report Card Spotlights Connecticut Rep.’s Close Ties to Big Business
Rep. Nancy Johnson (R), in Connecticut, proudly describes herself as the “key architect” of a Medicare prescription drug bill that prevents the government from negotiating lower drug prices and opens the door to $139 billion in profits for the pharmaceutical industry. Not surprisingly, she was the top congressional recipient of campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical industry when the prescription drug bill was written.
