Archive for March, 2007
Presidential Candidates Set for Union Forum as Building Trades and CWA Members Head to the Hill
Congress will get an earful from union members in lobbying visits and a Capitol Hill rally this week. In addition, several presidential candidates will get a chance to make their pitch for the job when they address more than 3,000 delegates from the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) and the Communications Workers of America (CWA) annual legislative meetings.
Some 2,500 BCTD members kicked off their three-day conference today. Tomorrow they will head to Capitol Hill to attend House hearings on several important issues, including a House Education and Labor Committee panel looking at employer misclassification of construction and trades workers as independent contractors. BCTD calls the practice a:
thinly veiled, and illegal, attempt to boost profits, deny workers health, retirement, workers compensation, and unemployment benefits, and deprive state and federal governments of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues.
AFL-CIO Leads Union Delegation to Middle East
An AFL-CIO-led labor delegation to the Middle East is arriving this week in Amman, Jordan, for talks with union leaders and workers. Cathy Feingold at the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center describes the goals of the visit and will provide updates on the delegation throughout the week.
AFL-CIO union leaders, led by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, are visiting Jordan and Bahrain this week. The labor delegation seeks to learn more about the challenges facing Arab trade unions, leaders and working men and women while sharing with our brothers and sisters in the Middle East our experiences and the challenges we all face in a global economy. Most important, the delegation will explore with our counterparts in the region how U.S. workers can support workers in the Middle East. U.S. workers face many of the same issues as do workers in this region.
State, City Lawmakers Join Push for Employee Free Choice Act
The momentum for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act is building as lawmakers in dozens of cities, counties and states have either passed or are considering resolutions calling on Congress to pass the most important labor law reform in 70 years.
Last Tuesday, the Pittsburgh City Council unanimously passed a resolution calling on its congressional delegation to support the bill, which will level the playing field and allow workers to freely choose a union.
The U.S. House passed the Employee Free Choice Act on March 1 by a margin of 241–185. The bill is expected to be introduced in the Senate this week.
House of (Debt) Cards
The crumbling house of cards spilling across the subprime mortgage loan industry is big news right now. There were signs these risky loans could cause problems as early as two years ago, but it takes awhile for the mainstream media to pick up on bad economic trends. As economist Tom Palley puts it, “the U.S. economy is showing signs of a potentially rapid deceleration.”
In particular, there is accumulating evidence that the housing sector slowdown may be becoming a meltdown. In many areas house prices are falling, house sales are down nationally, and mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures are rising—especially in the sub-prime market. This has caused tremors in broader financial markets. The only good news is employment and wages continue growing, but labor markets conditions are also widely viewed as a lagging indicator.
Needed: Family-Friendly Workplaces
U.S. families are working longer and harder and enjoying it less. Every morning, millions of parents try to coordinate schedules so everyone gets to work and school on time before rushing off to work for what probably will be a longer than eight-hour shift.
If they’re lucky, one of the parents will be able to pick up the child at daycare and be home to make sure the children do their homework and eat a decent dinner before going to bed. And if they’re really lucky, the other parent will get home in time to help or to at least spend a few minutes with the other partner before they both drop off to sleep so they can start all over again tomorrow morning.
All this to earn a paycheck that is the same or smaller (when adjusted for inflation) than it was last year while the cost of everything is going up.
Bully for You? Not if Your Boss Is One
Anybody who works for a living knows not all the bullies are in the school yard. Some of them have moved to the nice office with a view—the boss’ office. This week, a new study by the Employment Law Alliance finds that 45 percent of workers say an abusive boss has bullied them.
The poll defined bullying boss actions as yelling, rudely interrupting, publicly criticizing, making sarcastic jokes and teasing remarks and giving dirty looks. These actions take a serious emotional and psychological toll on workers and reduce workplace productivity, say employment experts.
Stanford professor Robert P. Sutton, author of The No Asshole Rule—Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t, says:
This national survey adds to a growing mountain of evidence showing the abuse of power is a rampant problem in the American workplace.
RESPECT Bill Would Restore Important Rights of Workers
One of the major contributors to the middle-class squeeze is the difficulty workers face when trying to join together and collectively bargain for better wages and benefits. That freedom has been further reduced by several misguided decisions by the Republican-controlled National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which eroded the ability of millions of workers to exercise their freedom to join unions.
Late yesterday, a bipartisan bill was introduced in the House and Senate that would begin to reverse some of the most egregious of those NLRB decisions. The Re-Empowerment of Skilled and Professional Employees and Construction Tradeworkers (RESPECT) Act would reverse a Republican party-line NLRB vote in September 2006 to slash long-time federal labor law protections of workers’ freedom to form unions.
The RESPECT Act would clarify the National Labor Relations Act to ensure it is not misinterpreted or undermined on a fundamental question of coverage.
Virgin Pact Tries to Silence Opposition to ‘Open Skies’
The Bush administration this week gave the green light for Virgin America—the airline owned in part by British billionaire Richard Branson and his Virgin Group—to begin domestic U.S. flights. Ed Wytkind, president of the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department (TTD), says the move is an attempt to “silence” Branson’s vocal opposition to the Bush administration’s efforts to open up the lucrative trans-Atlantic market to all European airlines as part of a so-called Open Skies agreement.
Legislation STRIVEs for Real Immigration Reform
The wheels were set in motion yesterday for the new Congress to seriously consider real reform of the nation’s immigration system when Reps. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) introduced the STRIVE (Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy) Act of 2007.
AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney says the approach to immigration in the 110th Congress “stands in stark contrast to the mean-spirited path that the House of Representatives took under Republican control in the last Congress.”
Minimum Wage in 31 States and DC Now Higher than Federal
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Kentucky is the second state in a week, the third state this year and the 13th state since 2006 to raise its minimum wage level higher than the federal minimum wage—stagnant at $5.15 an hour since 1997.
Overall, 31 states—including New Mexico, where Gov. Bill Richardson (D) is poised to sign a wage hike—and the District of Columbia have minimum wage rates higher than the feds.
Gov. Ernie Fletcher (R-Ky.) signed legislation yesterday that will give the Bluegrass State’s lowest-paid workers a raise to $5.85 in July, rising to $6.65 the following July and $7.25 an hour in July 2009.
