Archive for October, 2009
Check Out Online Resource Center for Wage Theft
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Wage theft has become a national epidemic. A recent study found that low-wage workers in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles are routinely denied proper overtime pay and often are paid less than minimum wage.
Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) is highlighting their stories at its new Wage Theft Online Resource Center, which also includes a list of resources and information about the wage theft crisis. Click here to visit the Wage Theft Online Resource Center.
Shuler to IBEW: Let’s Fight for Jobs
At this week’s Electrical Workers (IBEW) conference, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler said we must focus on creating jobs and building a strong, sustainable and fair economy for the future.
Shuler, who rose to leadership as an IBEW organizer, congratulated the union’s members on their efforts in mobilizing and contacting members of Congress on behalf of health care reform and other key issues.
We still have a long way to go before we can truly have economic recovery, Shuler said, noting that as she travels around the country, the word she hears most often is “jobs.” The AFL-CIO worked hard for the economic recovery package passed by Congress, but the union movement still has much to do to address the massive unemployment and underemployment around the nation, she said. The AFL-CIO is pushing for more stimulus dollars to invest in energy, transportation, communications and school construction—for investment in green jobs and for more aid to state and local governments that have been slammed by biggest budget hits in decades. Most critically, Shuler said, if the union movement doesn’t push to make this happen, no one will.
Shuler said extending unemployment benefits was an urgent priority that will prevent further damage to our economy. With 26 million people looking for work, or discouraged entirely from the job market, and long-term unemployment at its highest level in more than 25 years, it’s critical to give some relief, she said.
Green jobs and a new energy economy have the potential to revitalize the country, Shuler said, but only if those jobs are good jobs, with fair wages and benefits. We can protect the environment and build a more prosperous future, she said, by getting a headstart on new technologies and increasing energy efficiency.
Shuler also laid out her vision for the policies we need to build a stronger economy—including health care reform, the Employee Free Choice Act and financial reform.
Alliance for Retired Americans Fights for Reform, and Other Health Care News
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Priscilla King, an Alliance for Retired Americans member from New Hampshire, got the chance to join House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-N.H.) for yesterday’s unveiling of the House’s historic health care reform bill.
King noted that one of the many ways the bill would improve our health system is by closing the “donut hole” that affects seniors who gets prescription drugs through Medicare.
The current structure of Medicare’s drug coverage leaves a $1,700 gap if your costs are more than $2,830 a year. King and her husband have been victims of that flawed policy and have gone into debt to pay for the drugs they need.
BP Hit with Largest-Ever OSHA Fine of $87 Million
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis announced today the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has levied the largest fine in its history—$87.4 million—against BP for failing to correct safety problems identified after a 2005 explosion that killed 15 workers at its Texas City, Texas, refinery.
In a telephone press conference this morning, Solis said the fines are the result of BP’s failure to comply in hundreds of instances with a 2005 agreement to fix safety hazards at the refinery.
Solis said the fines represent the Obama Labor Department’s commitment to maintain safe workplaces:
Let me be clear. This administration will not tolerate disregard of our laws. Employers have a legal and moral responsibility to protect their workers who ultimately are America’s most important assets. The laws are designed to level the playing field for all businesses and ensure that workers in any economic climate are kept out of harm’s way.
Unemployment Insurance Must Be Extended for Struggling Workers
With 26 million U.S. workers unemployed or underemployed, and the long-term jobless rate the highest since 1981—hundreds of thousands of struggling workers need relief. The U.S. Senate is expected to take action next week on an extension of unemployment insurance (UI).
Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says struggling workers will receive a much-needed boost from the UI extension—and workers whose UI has already run out will see it resume:
Our proposal from the outset has been simple: Let’s support those families who have been hardest hit by the recession. In the almost three weeks since Republicans first began to delay this measure, over 150,000 Americans have lost their unemployment benefits. Those Americans, and the thousands of others who will lose their benefits if we don’t act, need us to act now. It cannot be overstated how critical this assistance is to workers.
Time to Change the Game for Airline and Railroad Workers
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In this cross-post from the Huffington Post, Edward Wytkind, president of the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department, describes why the deck is stacked against airline and railroad workers when it comes to union elections.
The deck is stacked against airline and railroad workers when it comes to union elections. That’s why airline CEOs are working so hard to defend current election procedures that count all workers who sit out elections as “no” votes.
Americans are accustomed to elections where a simple majority of those voting decides the outcome—whether they’re voting for PTA president or U.S. senator. Not so for airline and railroad workers—who must first ensure that turnout exceeds 50 percent. How can we justify imposing higher turnout standards on airline and railroad union elections than we do in elections for the highest office of our land? We can’t.
Time Running Out to Rebuild the U.S Economy
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The unwillingness of political leaders to act boldly for the nation’s economic future has put our prosperity in danger, and it’s past time to do something about it, union leaders and lawmakers said today.
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) told the closing session of the Building the New Economy conference in Washington, D.C., that other nations, especially India and China, have made a huge commitment to rev up development of efficient energy sources and threaten to leave the United States in the dust. Said Rendell:
Time is running out. The science and technology are there, but do we have the will? The time of American economic dominance is fast disappearing. If we have an America that doesn’t make anything, then we become a second- or third-rate power.
Rendell, United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) made up the final panel for the conference.
CWA Cautions Frontier Shareholders on Verizon Transaction
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| CWA member Elisabeth Choate, fourth from right, warned shareholders about Frontier’s transaction with Verizon. |
Robert Masciola of the AFL-CIO Organizing Department describes how workers at Frontier Communications are calling attention to a deal with Verizon that workers say is bad for shareholders and workers.
Shareholders for Connecticut-based Frontier Communications and its top executives heard from an employee about how the proposed deal to acquire Verizon’s assets in West Virginia and 13 other states “may be good for Verizon, but will leave Frontier a much weaker company.”
With support from CWA Local 1298 in Connecticut and the AFL-CIO, Elisabeth Choate traveled to Stamford, Conn., to attend the Frontier special meeting where shareholders voted to approve the deal.
A movement in West Virginia and 13 other states led by CWA and the Electrical Workers (IBEW) opposes the deal—and the unions are not alone. Fran Hughes, chief deputy attorney general for West Virginia, doesn’t believe Frontier has the ability financially to live up to the commitments it has made to the West Virginia Public Service Commission.
Tanker Contract: Corporate Serfdom or Quality Jobs?
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The governors of Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama are pushing the U.S. Defense Department to award in 2010 a $35 billion to $40 billion tanker contract to European-owned EADS/Airbus rather than U.S.-based Boeing Corp.
In doing so, Republican Govs. Haley Barbour, Bobby Jindal and Bob Riley are seeking to pit worker against worker, North against South, as a ploy to cover what’s really at stake: family-supporting jobs.
See, these governors loooove job creation in their states—as long as those jobs don’t pay much. Or offer affordable health insurance and retirement security. And especially as long as those jobs aren’t union.
If Boeing is awarded the contract for the refueling tanker aircraft, 44,000 family-supporting production jobs will be created across the country. In contrast, the few thousand jobs created under an EADS contract would be low-paid assembly jobs with no union protection.
Manufacturing Crucial for Building New Economy
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Over the next decade, America is poised to invest $2 trillion in infrastructure, health care and a greener economy, but that money must be invested strategically to build a new economy, not just retool the current model, which is not working.
Speaking this morning at the Building the New Economy conference in Washington, D.C., AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the global economic collapse requires us to think of long-term strategies to rebuild and restructure our economy, with a revitalized manufacturing sector at its core.
The one-day conference, sponsored by the Institute for America’s Future and the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), is bringing together political, business, environmental and union leaders and economists to discuss the fundamental changes needed to create an economy that provides sustainable long-term growth and creates across-the-board prosperity.
