Archive for December, 2007
‘Economy That Works For All’ Equips Workers to Turn Nation Around
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We experience it every day. The economy is not working for working families. We work longer hours than workers in any developed nation, but have less to show for it.
Working people have made the U.S. economy the strongest in the world, yet wages and family incomes are stagnant, income insecurity and inequality are rising, health care benefits are eroding and pensions are disappearing.
Consider that workers’ productivity almost quadrupled between 1947 and 2005, while wages have not even doubled in that time. Where has the money gone? In 1980, the average CEO made 42 times the salary of the average blue-collar worker. In 2006, the ratio had jumped to 364-1, the highest in the developed world by far.
Clinton Speaks Out Against Bush’s Labor Rules
A new report showing the Bush administration is using the Labor Department to weaken and undermine unions drew strong criticism from presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
In a statement, the Democratic senator from New York said:
Once again, President Bush is using the Department of Labor as a weapon to undermine the labor movement. Under the new rules, tens of thousands of union members will be forced, without justification, to navigate a bureaucratic maze of financial disclosure forms and meet onerous reporting requirements about information as private as their personal mortgages and loans. The information will then be publicly released on the Internet. The Bush administration’s goal is harassment, plain and simple. We have a duty to hold President Bush accountable for this ideological abuse of power and to restore a Department of Labor that is actually pro-labor.
Act Now to Stop Big Media Giveaway
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Breaking News: The FCC today approved new rules removing one of the last standing limits to media concentration in local markets. Click here to urge your member of Congress to reverse this ruling.
You can act now to prevent the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from allowing media moguls like Rupert Murdock from swallowing up more local media across the country and reducing the diversity of news and programming.
Nice, Not Naughty. So Where’s the Fair Contract for Pace Professors?
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Almost everybody has a holiday wish list—iPods, Wii consoles, maybe even world peace. The adjunct faculty at Pace University in New York has been putting the same thing at the top their list—a fair contract—since 2004 when they voted to join New York State United Teachers/AFT (NYSUT/AFT).
But the university administration’s legal maneuvering, stalling and foot-dragging in bargaining with the Union of Adjunct Faculty at Pace (UAFP) is entering its fourth year. (Click here to read what Pace physics professor Chris Williams told us in March about the struggle.)
So the faculty members who earn about one-sixth to one-fifth of what full-timers make, with no benefits and little job security, decided to use a holiday tradition to spotlight Pace’s four year’s worth of “grinch-ness.” They went caroling.
500 Bank Employees Join AFSCME, and More Organizing and Bargaining News
The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 900 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work. Here are a few recent items from the week of Dec. 10–14.
ORGANIZING
AFA-CWA, Delta Air Lines: The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA announced that half of Delta Air Line’s 14,000 flight attendants have signed authorization cards for a representation election.
AFSCME, U.S. Banks: In Milwaukee County, Wis., the Bank Employees Union, an independent union representing about 500 private-sector bank employees at offices of U.S. Bank, voted to affiliate with AFSCME. The group has now been chartered as AFSCME Local 777, which will reportedly allow the union to remain independent, with its own elected officers and other governing structures.
Nogales Council Members Face Recall for Voting Against Workers’ Rights
In November, we reported that the Arizona AFL-CIO was calling on union members to economically boycott the city of Nogales, Ariz., after the City Council voted, 4–3, to take away the rights of city employees to have union dues deducted from their paychecks and to withdraw recognition of the union.
Now the fight to restore the workers’ rights has entered the political arena.
The Committee for a Better Nogales—a bipartisan coalition of union members and business, community and other groups—has collected enough signatures from city residents to force a recall election of three of the council members who voted against city workers. The council members are Nubar Hanessian, Arturo Garino and Octivio Garcia. The fourth vote came from then-Mayor Ignacio J. Barrazza, who died Nov. 21.
Political Will is a Renewable Resource
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More than 10,000 delegates and observers from around the world traveled to Bali, Indonesia, for the U.N. Climate Change Conference from Dec. 3-14. Of the 90 union delegates, more than 20 were from North America, including Barbara Byrd, secretary-treasurer of the Oregon AFL-CIO, who sent us this report. U.S. delegates sent us a series of posts from the conference: here, here, here, here and here.
As the climate change summit neared its final hours, our international labor delegation submitted a summary statement, which was read on the plenary floor by the Tony Maher, president of Australia’s Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union.
The statement emphasized the major issues affecting working people:
· A “just transition” to a new, low-carbon economy, the impact of climate change.
· Mitigation efforts on the jobs and lives of our members.
· The union movement’s demand to be part of the decision-making process that will lead to a new climate agreement in 2009.
Iowans Call on Candidates to Support Fair Trade
A coalition of Iowa community groups, including labor, environmental, consumer and faith organizations, is calling on presidential candidates to support better trade policies.
In a letter to presidential campaigns, the Iowa Fair Trade Campaign asked that candidates reject the current model of free trade agreements and commit to a set of principles to ensure that trade agreements under their presidency would be fair and equitable.
Jingle Bells, Toxic Toys, Santa’s on the Way
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A chorus of kids on YouTube has a holiday message for the Bush administration, Congress and toy manufacturers.
Set to the tune of the holiday classic “Jingle Bells,” the kids plead:
Toxic toys, toxic toys,
Make them go away.
Please don’t bring us toxic toys
This year on Christmas day-ay.Toxic toys, toxic toys,
They will make us sick.
Better check the recall list
And notify St. Nick.
Over the past year, we’ve seen headlines about lead-tainted toys and other toxic products hitting our store shelves—usually made in China for U.S. manufacturers seeking the cheapest labor possible. Tens of millions of well-known and popular toys have been recalled.
Unions Must Rise to the Challenge of Climate Change
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More than 10,000 delegates and observers from around the world traveled to Bali, Indonesia, for the U.N. Climate Change Conference from Dec. 3-14. Of the 90 union delegates, more than 20 were from North America, including Roger Toussaint, president of Transport Workers (TWU) Local 100 in New York, who sent us the following post. Delegates sent us a series of posts from the conference: here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
Asthma rates in many urban areas are up sharply. Health care costs associated with other upper respiratory and cardiopulmonary diseases also are on the rise. Wildfires in California. Hurricane Katrina. Everywhere we see the impact of environmental hazards and climate change on our population and our lives.
Science tells us that the window is rapidly closing for us to act to stop the increase in the release of greenhouse gas emissions that are responsible for these problems. We will then need to begin to reduce these emissions. If we do not act to do so immediately and going forward, we will reach a level of climate instability that could end life as we know it. This is not a test. Global warming is real and climate change is happening.
