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2008 in Review: Workers Win Unions, Crown Bad Bosses |
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Here’s the fourth part in our series taking a look back at 2008. Check out Part 1 here, Part 2 here and Part 3 here.
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In July, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka gave a speech to delegates at the United Steelworkers (USW) convention warning that as the presidential campaign heats up, there will be attempts to divide workers by race. His bold and much-needed statement went on to became a YouTube, Internet and blog sensation throughout the campaign season:
Barack Obama has always, always been on our side. This is a guy who’s voted with labor 98 percent of the time….There’s not a single good reason for any worker—especially any union member—to vote against Barack Obama. There’s only one really bad reason to vote against him: because he’s not white.
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Through the summer, union members showed it was the working family issues like good jobs, health care, retirement security, freedom to form unions, fair trade and more that motivated them to go door to door, staff phone banks and talk with workers on the job. The core message—Obama’s support for working families versus John McCain’s dismal record.
McCain help spread the message, too. He told a town hall meeting in Denver that “Social Security is a disgrace.” The Alliance for Retired Americans made sure those words followed him throughout the campaign.
The newly formed AFL-CIO Union Veterans Council brought together veterans and members of military families to get involved in the 2008 elections. Jim Wasser, a Vietnam vet and retired Electrical Workers (IBEW) member summed up the feelings of many union veterans about the presidential race.
Every vet respects John McCain’s war record. It’s his record in the Senate that I have a problem with.
Meanwhile, working families’ economic fears continued to grow as the as the economy spiraled deeper into recession. In August ,the Labor Department announced that July was the seventh straight month jobs disappeared—51,000—while the unemployment rate hit 5.7 percent, the worst in four years. More workers were out of work longer, involuntarily working a part-time job or just giving up.
Even workers with jobs had horror stories to tell, and they did in Working America’s third annual My Bad Boss Contest. More than 600 workers sent in their stories describing mean bosses, drunk bosses, authoritarian bosses, sexist bosses, stupid bosses and just plain jerks. Online voters ultimately “crowned” the worst boss: an ambulance company owner who forced a dispatcher to work in a decrepit ambulance.
One way workers can protect themselves against bad bosses is through a union contract. Large groups of workers did just that. At the University of California, 5,000 researchers joined the UAW. More than 1,000 child care workers, bus drivers and municipal workers from New Mexico to New York voted for AFSCME. In Boardman, Ohio, 250 AT&T Mobility workers joined the Communications Workers of America (CWA) through majority sign-up.
Majority sign-up—where an employer agrees to recognize the workers’ choice to join a union after a majority sign union authorization cards—is at the center of the Employee Free Choice Act. Momentum to pass the bill grew nationwide as the Million-Member Mobilization for the Employee Free Choice Act hit the 550,000 mark.
USW and Unite, Britain’s largest union, took a giant step in staying abreast with multinational companies that operate across borders and joined together to form the world’s first global union to better represent their members.
Two Boston Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) members, A.J. Pugliese Jr. and Robert Johnson, risked their lives to pull to safety a man who had fallen and was knocked unconscious dangerously close to the deadly 600-volt third rail of the Boston subway.
In other headlines from July and August:
NLRB Upholds Workers; Vote for UAW at Foxwoods Casino
Unions Lend Helping Hand to Midwest Flood Victims
Flight Attendants Hold Vigil Against Pay Cuts
Screen Actors Celebrate 75th Anniversary
LCLAA Convention Focuses on Latino Political Strength
U.S. Union Leaders meet Champions of the Colombian Labor Movement
We Pay Taxes. Most Corporations Don’t
65,000 Workers at Verizon Get Tentative Pact Hours Before Strike
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Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report
National Edition
Produced by Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg
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From The Picket Line:
Stella D’Oro Strikers Say - No Contract, No Cookies
The 135 workers of Stella D’Oro, the biscuit producers, most
of whom are women and Latinos, now in their fourth month on
strike are confronting a difficult Holiday Season on the picket
line. The company has refused to negotiate their demands to
eliminate holidays, vacation and sick pay,slash wages and
pension benefits, and impose crushing healthcare premiums.
They are demanding that the workers return to work without a
contract in an effort to break the union. The workers are
standing strong and none have broken the line to return to
work.
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To Download or listen to this 27 minute program,
go to
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Let us not also forget we have had some significant setbacks. Assults upon worker’s rights were in full swing and Bush and boys still working hard at it.
Union benefits in many areas were assulted. Healthcare, retirement, pay and more were hit by companies while our fearless leaders in congress and varied statehouses did little or nothing.
Next year, two items to push: Employee Free Choice Act and Medicare for All Americans (hb 676). Accepting less than total victory for both does disservice to working folks and their families.
Time to end some of the bandaid approach to critical and pressing problems.