Archive for May, 2007
Unions Offer New Start for Young People in L.A.
For more than a century, the union movement has given those willing to work hard the opportunity to build a better life for themselves and their families. Today, in Southern California, the building and construction trades unions are opening doors of opportunity for a group that many others in our society have shut out—gang members and ex-felons.
The Los Angeles Times reported May 21 that a new generation of union leaders in Southern California are opening up membership to those who want to work hard—including gang members.
Calling the Media: Check into These Front Groups
When organizations have an agenda to push that would appall the American public—like say, encouraging pregnant women to eat mercury-laden tuna—those groups don’t want to present their case straightforwardly. Instead, they form an umbrella coalition with an innocuous-sounding name, something that resounds of apple pie and the American way. That way, their real intent remains hidden.
Several such front groups have formed now in an effort to kill a bill in Congress that would enable working people to improve their wages, health coverage and retirement security. The Employee Free Choice Act, which passed the House in March and now is in the Senate (S. 1041), seeks to level the playing field so workers can form unions without intimidation from employers.
Health Care Workers, Bus Drivers Win Union Votes
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| Thumbs up from some of the 55 school bus drivers in Allentown, Pa., who voted to join Amalgamated Transit Union. | |
Health care workers, municipal employees and school bus drivers are new union members after recently winning their struggle for a voice at work.
In a harsh example of the flawed election process run by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), about 550 health care workers finally had their votes counted and now are certified to join AFSCME Council 5 in Minnesota.
The licensed practical nurses, nursing assistants, housekeepers and maintenance and dietary workers at Walker Methodist Health Center in Minneapolis voted in 2003 to join AFSCME. But Walker appealed the vote.
It wasn’t until April 2006 when the NLRB certified the votes of all the workers except the LPNs, and only this month certified those 67 votes. LPN Terry Plant says the workers finally can celebrate:
because we know that our votes count. Now we can bargain together for good wages, benefits and working conditions. And we will have a powerful voice to improve patient care.
Take Action to Free Indonesian Trade Union Leader
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| Sarta Sarim is being held in an Indonesian jail. | |
The global union movement, including the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, is mobilizing to gain the release of Sarta bin Sarim, chairman of the union at an Indonesian furniture plant. Sarta was arrested May 1 after he participated briefly in a peaceful demonstration.
According to the Indonesian Federation of Construction, Informal and General Workers Union (FKUI-SBSI), Sarta, a packing worker and chairman of the union at a furniture plant in Tangerang, joined a May 1 demonstration as it passed the plant. He and other workers took part for a short time in the march, which was organized by a coalition of local unions.
Later that evening, police came to his house and took him to the local police station. Police said other workers had identified Sarta as the organizer of the demonstration.
Giuliani’s 9/11 Response ‘Deeply Flawed’
Rudy Giuliani, one of the leading Republican presidential candidates, has worked hard to craft an image as a 9/11 hero at the center of New York City’s recovery and rebuilding after the terrorists attacks.
While Giuliani’s role certainly cannot be discounted, perhaps it is not as extensive or unblemished as his campaign would like us to believe. Today, The New York Times took a long look at several specific emergency preparedness and 9/11 response incidents that Giuliani’s hand-picked choice to lead the city’s Office of Emergency Management, Jerome M. Hauer, says were quite different from what Giuliani and his campaign depict.
Edwards Endorses Oregon Free Choice Bill
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| John Edwards speaks at an AFL-CIO presidential forum in Seattle. | |
Presidential candidate John Edwards has endorsed a bill pending in the Oregon Legislature that would enable public-sector employees to join a union if a majority signs cards or petitions expressing that desire. This process already is in use in Oregon, but the choice of whether to use it is currently in the hands of the employer. The bill, H.B. 2891, would allow the workers to choose.
The statewide Blue Oregon blog quotes a letter from Edwards to Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain in which he says:
I am convinced that if individuals can join the Republican or Democratic parties by simply signing their names to a card, any worker in America ought to be able to join a union by doing exactly the same thing.
Click here to read the whole Blue Oregon blog post.
Workers’ Freedom to Choose: A ‘Matter of Basic Civil Rights’
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| Dan Luevano | |
Restoring the freedom of workers to form unions “is a matter of basic civil rights, a priority for our nation and an imperative for our movement,” according to a new report released yesterday.
The report, Let All Voices Be Heard: Restoring the Rights of Workers to Form Unions, by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), says the systematic, often brutal, denial of the right of America’s workers to form a union is “one piece of an overall roll-back of civil and workers’ rights over the past quarter century.”
As Wade Henderson, president of LCCR, told a briefing for Senate staff on the Employee Free Choice Act yesterday:
The same workers that our earliest civil rights laws were designed to protect—women and people of color, are those who stand to gain the most from being in a union.
Working Families Chalk up Wins in State Legislatures
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The state legislative season is winding down, and working family activists chalked up some impressive wins—minimum wage increases, Employee Free Choice Act support—and mobilized to beat back beat back serious anti-worker attacks, including paycheck deception and TABOR (the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights).
State AFL-CIOs, local labor councils and community allies worked together on lobbying days, rallies and letter and e-mail campaigns. Here’s a rundown of the major actions so far in 2007. Some legislatures will resume their work soon, but most are out of session until the fall or later.
California Nurses Association Joins AFL-CIO
The California Nurses Association (CNA) is the newest member of the AFL-CIO. The registered nurses union and its national arm, the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC), which together have a membership of 75,000, join another 250,000 nurses in the AFL-CIO’s RN’s Working Together Industry Coordinating Committee.
Says CNA/NNOC President Deborah Burger, RN:
We look forward to engaging in collective work with AFL-CIO unions. We believe that the strength of the labor movement, coupled with the nurses’ commitment to guaranteeing comprehensive health care coverage through H.R. 676, will provide the foundation necessary for genuine reform.
Workers Rally to Stop Verizon from Abandoning Rural New England
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About 1,000 consumers, workers and community activists and a presidential candidate rallied in Portsmouth, N.H., Saturday to prevent Verizon from turning northern New England into “road kill on the information super highway.”
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the public utilities commissions in New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine are considering a proposed $2.7 billion sale of Verizon’s rural landlines to FairPoint Communications. If all three states and the FCC approve, Verizon will be allowed to abandon all its so-called low-value residential customers in the three states, while keeping its more profitable customers, including Big Business and wireless users.
