Archive for November, 2006
Wall Street’s Latest Attack on Capital Markets: ‘Dead on Arrival’
Robert E. McGarrah Jr., capital stewardship coordinator for the AFL-CIO Office of Investment, notes that CEOs are eager to get back to their old ways of doing business—little oversight coupled with lots of freedom to undermine shareholders. Unfortunately for them, most Americans agree that strong law enforcement, especially in the capital markets, is good for the economy.
A Big Business extremist report calling for lax corporate law enforcement, more restrictions on reform-minded state attorneys general like Eliot Spitzer and a do-nothing attitude on CEO pay is “dead on arrival,” according to Richard Breeden, former chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Peabody Coal Miners Locked in Struggle for Justice
Names like Zeigler, Ill., Sturgis, Ky., and Dugger, Ind., evoke the image of close-knit small-town America where everybody knows everybody else and neighbors leave their doors unlocked. But these towns and dozens more—all in coal mining country—are locked in the biggest battle to bring justice to coal miners since the days of the Mine Worker’s (UMWA’s) legendary leader John L. Lewis.
In mining towns throughout Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia, thousands of nonunion miners at Peabody Energy facilities are fighting to exercise their freedom to form a union. Responding to their calls, the UMWA union, which Lewis led from 1920–1960, and workers at 19 Peabody mines launched the Justice at Peabody campaign in December 2005.
Peabody, the world’s largest private coal company, employs some 8,300 miners at 33 mines in nine states. The company provides 10 percent of the nation’s electricity and 3 percent of the world’s power. Peabody systematically closed its union mines and replaced them with nonunion mines over the past 15 years, according to the UMWA. Currently, only 30 percent of Peabody’s U.S. mines are union. Their union contracts expire Dec. 31.
Could You Live on $7 a Day?
Seven dollars a day. That’s not the income of impoverished residents of a lesser-developed nation. That’s the average income of the poorest 60 million of Americans.
That shocking statistic was buried deep inside a New York Times article Tuesday that detailed our nosediving national incomes.
Wal-Mart Twisting the Truth Again
Wal-Mart’s misinformation machine is at it again. JR Monsterfodder at Daily Kos exposes the giant retailer’s latest effort to twist the truth and make Wal-Mart seem like good guys.
He shares a letter he wrote to a junior executive at the Washington, D.C., public relations firm handling the Wal-Mart account. Seems the firm created a fake grassroots organization called Working Families for Wal-Mart and fake blog that preaches against unions.
Iranian Union Leader Arrested Second time
In February, union members in the United States and around the world protested the arrest of union bus drivers in Iran. Cathy Feingold of the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center tells us the president of the union is back in prison after being released only four months ago. And she lets us know how we can let Iran’s leaders know the world is watching and demanding justice for Iranian workers.
Pennsylvania House Turns Democratic
William George, president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, reports that a final vote count in a legislative race yesterday gave Democrats control of the state House of Representatives for the first time in 12 years.
In state legislative races across the United States, Democrats picked up roughly 323 more seats, giving them new majorities in 10 chambers in eight states, including the Iowa House and Senate, the Indiana House, the Minnesota House, the Michigan House, the New Hampshire House and Senate, the Oregon House and the Wisconsin Senate. The Iowa Senate was previously tied.
Goodyear Workers Keep Heat on Tire Maker
Striking members of the United Steelworkers (USW) plan to turn up the heat on Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. with a rally outside the NASCAR awards dinner in New York City on Friday. Goodyear is the exclusive tire maker for NASCAR.
The rally is part of the workers’ international effort to educate the public about the ongoing labor dispute at 15 North American Goodyear plants. Two weekends ago, striking workers and their supporters rallied and handed out informational fliers at Goodyear stores in 10 cities in the United States and Canada, including the Akron, Ohio, and Toronto headquarters for the company’s U.S. and Canadian operations.
Minimum Wage Increase Does Not Cost Jobs
More than 80 percent of Americans believe it’s time to give workers a raise and back the drive to boost the minimum wage, and even business owners have said raising the minimum wage is the right thing to do.
Now comes a study that shows raising the minimum wage does not cause job loss as business and extremist critics claim. State Minimum Wages: A Policy That Works, by Paul Wolfson, a statistical research associate at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, finds that “wages are higher and employment is no lower” in states with a higher minimum wage than those without.
In the report, released Monday by the Economic Policy Institute, Wolfson shows the median minimum wage was $1.40 (more than 25 percent) higher than the federal value in states that had raised their minimum wage.
The study finds that contrary to opponents’ dire predictions, there was little effect on either employment or labor supply in states with a higher minimum wage, including teenagers and those employed in the restaurant industry.
Lots to Say
Catching up with the mailbox this week. If you have news, send it to blognews@aflcio.org.
Tens of thousands of air travelers made their destinations safely this busy Thanksgiving holiday in large part because of the skill of the nation’s air traffic controllers. But moves by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to cut back breaks and reduce time between shifts means controllers aren’t getting the necessary rest they need to concentrate on guiding planes.
Employee Free Choice Act Tops Agenda at Organizing Summit
Stewart Acuff, the AFL-CIO’s organizing director, explains how the union movement plans to commemorate International Human Rights Day with an Organizing Summit to plan strategies to organize and restore workers’ rights.
International Human Rights Day, Dec. 10, is less than two weeks away. The AFL-CIO and its affiliates are preparing to commemorate the day with renewed vigor, resolve and hope that we can restore fundamental workers’ rights in America.
