Archive for August, 2007
Bush to Working America: Let Them Eat Hedge Funds
If Bush were running for president in 2008 and his opponent asked an audience, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” the hands of the richest 1 percent in this nation would shoot up. But not the hands of the millions of America’s workers who make this nation’s economy hum, and who are not even seeing their wages keep up with productivity, let alone seeing economic improvements.
New data came out this week showing home foreclosures jumped 93 percent in July from last year, even as U.S. workers earned a smaller average income in 2005 than in 2000, the fifth consecutive year they had to make ends meet with less money. But that’s just part of the story.
Indianapolis School Transportation Workers Choose AFSCME
They carry our most precious cargo—our children—to and from school each day. Now in Indianapolis, the workers who drive school buses have the opportunity to be treated with the respect, pay and dignity they deserve. Some 93 percent of the nearly 400 workers at First Student transportation in Indianapolis voted yesterday for representation by AFSCME.
The school bus drivers, monitors and mechanics are responsible for safely transporting thousands of Indianapolis Public School children from home to school and back each day. The workers are upset over low wages, no sick or vacation days, arbitrary management decisions and poor health insurance benefits.
Time off for Cancer? Not for This Bad Boss Winner
There are bad bosses, but then there are some real jerks as we found out from the hundreds of workers who sent their tales of boss horror to Working America’s second annual My Bad Boss Contest. Working America is the 1.6-million-member community affiliate of the AFL-CIO.
The best of the worst—or is it the worst of the bad?—goes to Pete’s boss, an Illinois tyrant who callously threw away the paid leave paperwork Pete had filed, leaving him without paid leave or disability benefits for those days. Pete, the father of three small children, has a rare form of cancer and needed paid leave to help pay his family’s bills.
California Nurses Win Historic Organizing Pact, Ratify Contract
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| More than 700 CNA/NNOC members rallied last year in Oakland, Calif., to protest a pending NLRB ruling that re-classified hundreds of thousands of nurses as “supervisors.” |
In one of the largest-ever organizing agreements for registered nurses, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) announced this week a national pact with Tenet Healthcare Corp. that could open the door for up to 3,000 registered nurses at Tenet facilities around the country to join a union.
At the same time, CNA/NNOC members ratified a new master contract with Tenet that raises salaries by 25.5 percent and provides significant worker and patient protections. The new four-year master contract covers some 3,500 registered nurses at nine hospitals in California.
Under the organizing agreement, union organizers will have access to certain Tenet hospitals, and the hospitals will not run anti-union campaigns, the union says.
Word from Kentucky: ‘Gov. Ernie Fletcher Needs to Go’
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Faye Liebermann says:
Ernie Fletcher needs to go. He’s not a friend to working people at all.
That’s why Liebermann (see video), her brothers and sisters from the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union and hundreds of other Kentucky union members are pledging their time and efforts to elect Steve Beshear (D) governor this fall.
Labor 2007′s mobilization to elect Beshear, along with lieutenant governor candidate state Sen. Daniel Mongiardo, is picking up speed as local unions around the Bluegrass State gear up to toss out the incumbent Fletcher. During his tenure, he has worked with his corporate cronies to try to slash wages by attempting to gut prevailing wage laws and attacked workers’ rights through his campaign to outlaw union security clauses and turn Kentucky into a “right to work” for less state.
Arizona State Students Launch New Semester with Action for Campus Workers
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| Arizona State University students stand to protest the presence of anti-worker Great Western Erectors on campus. |
As universities gear up again for the fall semester, student activists at Arizona State University (ASU) already are serving notice their commitment to justice for workers has not been cooled by a summer vacation.
At the new student convocation last Friday, 50 people stood up just as university President Michael Crow began speaking. Wearing T-shirts saying, “Dr. Crow Stands in the Way of Justice” and “Boycott Great Western,” the protestors demanded the university stop doing business with Great Western Erectors, which is constructing several buildings on campus. The protestors included members of 10 organizations, the campus Social Justice Coalition and striking workers.
If Stomping on Children’s Health Care Is OK, Why Do Bushies Bury News on Weekend?
Late last Friday, as the nation’s news cycle wound down and most of us turned our attention to the weekend, the Bush administration ramped up its attack on children’s health care. Today, as reports of President Bush’s latest action surface, children’s health care advocates are furious.
In letters to state officials who administer the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Dennis G. Smith, Bush’s director of the federal Center for Medicaid and State Operations, announced new rules designed to prevent states from expanding SCHIP to cover more of the nation’s more than 8 million uninsured children. This latest action follows Bush’s threats to veto bills renewing SCHIP, which expires Sept. 30.
AFL-CIO: Investors Need Safeguards in Private Equity Firms
The AFL-CIO has stepped up its efforts to ensure the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforces the law regarding private equity firms and hedge funds filing initial public offerings (IPOs), that is, going public.
In an Aug. 2 letter, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka asked the SEC to require Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), the big private equity firm, and hedge fund Och-Ziff Capital Management Group, to register as mutual funds or investment companies. As investment companies, KKR and Och-Ziff would be subject to limits on debt, fees and a raft of corporate governance provisions they can otherwise avoid.
A Plot Afoot in California to Swing State to Republican Presidency
As Woody Guthrie once sang in a ballad about Pretty Boy Floyd, “Some will rob you with a six-gun and some with a fountain pen.”
Today in California, Republican strategists a planning a bigger heist than anything the famed outlaw or crooked bankers pulled off in Dust Bowl America. They are trying to rob Californians of their presidential votes in 2008.
The weapon they are wielding is a double-speak ballot initiative that, if approved, would enable the Republican presidential candidate to heist about 20 of the state’s 55 electoral votes, even if the entire Golden State vote count is a double-digit win for the Democratic contender, as it was in 2004.
‘Can We Bust a Union?’ Is This Some New ABC Reality Show?
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| WGAE Executive Director Mona Mangan addresses rally outside ABC headquarters. |
When you think of ABC-TV, you probably think of hit shows like “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Ugly Betty” and “Boston Legal.” But now you can add “Union Buster” to the ABC lineup.
In contract talks with the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-CWA (NABET-CWA), management is demanding severe givebacks, including freezing pensions, which would cause workers to lose 25 percent of what they are due.
At the same time, ABC has refused for two years to bargain a contract with the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE). Last week, more than 150 ABC employees, members of NABET-CWA and WGAE, rallied outside ABC headquarters in New York City to call attention to their need for new contracts. WGAE members urged ABC to return to the bargaining table and protested the loss of 17 union jobs in Washington, D.C., last week. NABET members called for ABC to give them a fair contract when they return to the table this week.
