Archive for September, 2007
UAW Strikes General Motors
Some 73,000 UAW members at General Motors Corp. (GM) plants across the country went on strike today after an 11 a.m. strike deadline passed. Negotiations will continue later today as the workers walk the picket lines, according to the UAW.
The UAW set the strike deadline Sunday, saying GM had failed to address job security and other key issues. At a news conference today with other UAW officials, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said job security was the “No. 1 issue” in what he calls the “one-sided negotiations.”
It was going to be General Motors’ way at the expense of the workers. They walked right up to the deadline like they really didn’t care….This is as serious as anything that any of us do. There is not one person on this stage that wanted these negotiations to end in a strike….But again, you can be pushed off a cliff and that’s what we feel like happened here.
‘They Got Walter’
My daughter told me, when I dropped her off at work at Market Basket last week: “They got Walter.” The police, or the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), had come to the supermarket and picked up “Walter.” He was a young Latino who had worked his way up to full-time. Nobody on the job knew where he was taken, and nobody knew why he was taken. In the following days it was said he had a false Social Security number. The large-scale raids were supposed to be aimed at the MS-13 gang, but others, including a union organizer, were caught up, and terror spread through the “New Immigrant” communities like a thunderstorm across the Kansas plains.
White neighborhoods didn’t even know about the raids. But the Latino neighborhoods were deserted. Around the corner from my union hall in Lynn,
Un-American: Employers’ Dirty Tricks at the Workplace
Polls show most Americans are unaware of the extent to which some employers will go to stop workers from exercising their freedom to form a union. But a chilling new article, by journalist Art Levine, exposes the dirty details of these often sinister actions.
In the October issue of In These Times, Levine gives us a blow-by-blow account of a seminar he attended in Las Vegas led by two attorneys from Jackson Lewis, one of the major law firms in the field of union-busting. Union-busting—the so-called “union avoidance” industry—is a multibillion-dollar industry involving more than 2,500 lawyers.
In “Unionbusting Confidential,” Levine exposes the techniques these lawyers teach their clients to keep unions out of their workplace. The first suggestion to employers: Act respectful of workers’ concerns to prevent union sympathies from growing. They even suggest writing out—but not adhering to—a mission statement that includes treating workers with dignity.
Seeger Power: Now Showing in Selected Theaters
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Some of you may be fortunate to live in the handful of selected cites where the movie “Pete Seeger: The Power of Song” will have limited runs (see below) this fall. Don’t miss it.
Norman Lear, the movie’s executive producer, says:
Pete Seeger is the true mythic American hero. He fought to bring music and song to political movements, even when it was unpopular and, at times, dangerous….It is an inspiring tale of how one person’s voice can make a difference.
(Click here to read an appreciation of Pete Seeger.)
Directed by documentary filmmaker Jim Brown, the movie uses new interviews, archival footage, old television shows and home movies to document the close connection between Seeger and the progressive movement from the 1930s through today. It explores the 1940s and 1950s “red scare” of black lists and Joe McCarthy, the civil rights movement, the war in Vietnam, the environmental movement and today’s continuing struggle for justice. Performers, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Bruce Springsteen, Arlo Guthrie, Bonnie Raitt, Peter Yarrow, Mary Travers and Natalie Maines, talk about Seeger’s influence and legacy.
Pete Seeger: Driving Down the Road Alone
The first time I ever saw Pete Seeger was at a 1971 folk and blues festival in Athens, Ohio, where he held more than 10,000 people in rapt attention. Just Pete and his banjo…and his songs, especially the anti-war “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy,” written for Vietnam but just as relevant today.
That night, as my brother and I left the show about an hour after the last note of “This Land is Your Land” faded away, I looked about 50 feet ahead in the mostly deserted parking lot. There was a tall, slender man with a banjo in a soft-sided case in one hand and a guitar case in the other—Seeger, by himself.
Bob and I thought about rushing over to tell him how great we thought the show was and how much his work and music meant to all of us good whacko, semi-pink, anti-war, counter-culture types—nobody called us progressives then.
But something stopped us. Maybe we didn’t want to intrude on his solitude. So under a yellow light flickering down from a nearby pole, we watched as he approached a four- or five-year old Ford Galaxie, set the guitar down, opened the trunk and carefully set in the banjo and guitar.
He closed the trunk, opened the driver’s side door and slid behind the wheel. Then, all by himself, no entourage or handlers or manager, Pete Seeger drove off into the southeastern Ohio night.
New Union Plus Program Helps Workers Manage Debt
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Union members worried about mounting debt now have a place to go for help.
Squeezed by corporate greed and government policies that favor the rich, U.S. workers’ real wages are stagnant and consumer debt is at an all-time high.The average U.S. household, consisting of college graduates who borrowed money for school and who have a mortgage and more than one credit card, owes about $112,000.
Working families can benefit from a new Union Plus website designed exclusively to help union members better handle their debt. Union Privilege, the organization created by the AFL-CIO to provide consumer benefits to members and retirees of participating unions through its Union Plus program, has launched a new service, Debt Help, to assist working families overburdened with debt.
Workers Joining AFL-CIO Unions at Highest Rate in Two Generations
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The highest priority of the union movement is help more workers join unions and, in doing so, to open the doors for millions of Americans to enjoy the benefits of union membership. Despite the incessant anti-union efforts of the Bush administration and employers, the union movement is growing.
The AFL-CIO and its affiliates are working hard to change to organize and train a new generation of organizers—and those efforts are paying off. Workers are choosing to join unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO at the highest rate in two generations, the Organizing Department reported today at the Executive Council meeting in Washington, D.C.
AFL-CIO Executive Council Elects Holt Baker, Approves Political Mobilization Plans
The AFL-CIO Executive Council today unanimously elected Arlene Holt Baker as AFL-CIO executive vice president, making her the first African American woman in one of the federation’s three top offices. Holt Baker, the daughter of a domestic worker and laborer in Fort Worth, Texas, brings 30 years of experience as a union and grassroots organizer and political activist to the post.
Holt Baker replaces Linda Chavez-Thompson, who served the labor movement for 40 years and announced her retirement earlier this month.
Massachusetts State Workers Get Majority Sign-Up
State workers in Massachusetts will soon be able to join a union without interference by their bosses. After several delays, the state legislature has sent to the governor a bill that would enable state employees to exercise their freedom to join a union by signing union authorization cards, similar to the majority sign-up provisions for private-sector workers in the federal Employee Free Choice Act.
Under majority sign-up, an employer agrees to recognize a union if a majority of workers sign union authorization cards. Gov. Deval Patrick (D) is expected to sign the bill soon.
House Aviation Bill a Major Step in Rebuilding Nation’s Air Transport System
Aviation unions say a bill passed by the U.S. House yesterday to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for the next four years is a major step in strengthening and rebuilding the nation’s air traffic system.
The unions lauded several worker-related provisions in the bill, which passed on a 267-151 vote. One of those provisions calls on the FAA to go back to the bargaining table with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA).
