Archive for March, 2010
Temple Hospital Workers Strike
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Today, 1,000 nurses and 500 health care workers at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia set up a picket line that eventually grew to more than 1,200 for a noon-time rally.
Members of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP), an affiliate of national Nurses United (NNU), have been without a contract since September.
Maureen May, president of the nurses union, told the crowd:
We will be on strike until Temple is ready to begin a relationship of cooperation and respect. This strike is about our fundamental rights as workers and healthcare professionals, which the hospital seeks to undermine with their ‘best and final’ offer. Their offer has not changed for months, despite the union’s commitment to good faith bargaining. Read the rest of this entry »
After 8 Years of Bush Neglect, Job Safety Gets New Boost from Obama, Solis
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A little more than a year after taking office, the Obama administration and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis have taken significant steps to repair the damage to workplace safety and health left behind after eight years of the Bush administration.
With Workers Memorial Day (April 28) approaching, this is a good time to look at the progress made since the “the new sheriff” hit town. (Click here for fact sheets, fliers, posters, stickers and other Workers Memorial Day materials.)
As Esther Kaplan writes in the Nation:
During the Bush years, the Department of Labor became a cautionary tale about what happens when foxes are asked to guard the henhouse.
For eight years under the Bush Administration, corporate officials and management representatives headed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). Bush’s first MSHA head, David Lauriski, was chief safety officer at Emery Mining’s Wilberg, Utah, mine in 1984 when an explosion killed 27 coal miners. The blast, says Kaplan, “was later attributed to numerous violations at the mine.” Read the rest of this entry »
Trumka: Big Banks Must Pay to Create Jobs
Wall Street got $700 billion in our taxpayer bailout dollars after fueling an economic disaster that has left America’s workers without jobs and communities without hope, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka writes today at the Huffington Post.
Now the financial industry is mounting a public relations campaign instead of supporting new rules for Wall Street to prevent a repeat of this disaster.
Trumka spells out a three-point plan for the banks that used and abused taxpayer bailout money.
First, Big Banks must resume lending to help credit-starved communities create jobs.
Next, they must embrace a small tax to curb destabilizing short-term speculation and pay for the jobs they destroyed.
Finally, Congress also must reform the rules for Wall Street, including creation of an independent consumer agency that will crack down on abuses by big banks and their CEOs and credit card companies to protect working families and small businesses.
Read the entire post here.
Tobacco Workers Demand Justice at R.J. Reynolds
Members of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) and the Pilgrimage for Peace and Justice, a coalition of social justice groups, will walk through Winston-Salem, N.C., today to demand fair treatment for tobacco farm workers who suffer low wages and poor working conditions.
For nearly three years, FLOC has asked Susan Ivey, CEO of Reynolds American, the parent of R.J. Reynolds, the nation’s second-largest tobacco company, to meet and work toward ending the abuses that occur in the tobacco fields. To date, Reynolds has refused to even speak with members of FLOC.
Although Reynolds does not directly employ the farm workers on its contract farms, Reynolds sets the terms with its contract growers and profits from the farm workers’ labor. Read the rest of this entry »
Coburn Can’t Take the Heat, Tries to Deflect Blame for Killing Jobless Aid
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Back home in Oklahoma, Republican Sen. Tom Coburn must really be feeling the heat from some of the millions of America’s jobless worked he shafted last week. Coburn, who blocked a short-term extension for unemployment insurance (UI), issued a press release making it look as though Senate Democrats blocked the extension and he was a helpless victim of the vote. He’s also sending out the same info to those who, like some AFL-CIO Now blog readers, sent him scathing letters for his mean-spirited move.
In short, Coburn’s spin is: Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
In fact, Coburn blocked the emergency UI extension bill, effectively killing it until after the Senate returns from break April 12. Some 200,000 jobless workers a week will now lose UI support because of Coburn. Worse, Coburn has said he would continue to block UI extension after the Senate returns.
First Contract Arbitration Doesn’t Hurt Businesses
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Contrary to what opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act claim, first contract arbitration does not endanger the survival of businesses, according to a new study.
The study by the non-partisan Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shows when an arbitrator decides a first contract, a business survives at about the same rate as any other.
One of the key provisions of the Employee Free Choice Act would allow either the union or the employer the option of entering binding arbitration after 120 days of inconclusive bargaining. Similar rules already are on the books in several states in the United States and in eight of Canada’s 11 provinces.
The arbitration rule in Manitoba, Canada, most closely resembles the Employee Free Choice Act provisions. EPI’s survey of all the businesses in Manitoba with contract finalized by an arbitrator between 2001 and 2007 reveals that the arbitration had no effect on business success and survival. Of all the Manitoba businesses in which a first collective bargaining agreement was ruled on by an arbitrator, 87.5 percent were still in operation in 2009, compared with 86.2 percent of all businesses.
A recent study by John-Paul Ferguson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows that even after a majority of employees vote for union representation, they only get a first contract about 56 percent of the time. And if an employer resists negotiating by engaging in illegal labor practices, the chance of getting a contract is reduced by 13 percent.
Temple Nurses Won’t be Silenced
Tomorrow, 1,000 RNs and 500 health care workers at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia are set to go on strike. The members of Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP) have been without a contract since September.
One major issue, according to PASNAP, is hospital management’s effort to include a “gag order” provision preventing the nurses and health care workers from speaking out about patient care in public. PASNAP President Patricia Eakin, a Temple emergency room nurse says:
I’ve been at Temple for almost 27 years, I’ve bargained a lot of the contracts, and I’m simply flabbergasted. I’m astonished that among the many terrible things they are trying to put in the contract, they are trying to insert this terrible gag clause that prevents us from saying anything to the public. Read the rest of this entry »
Student Labor Action Week Highlights Jobs, Affordable Education
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The Jobs with Justice annual Student Labor Week of Action starts today, and Carlos Jimenez, coordinator for the JwJ Young Worker Project, tells us what it’s all about.
This week, students across the country will honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and César Chávez by working to build on their struggle for jobs and economic justice. As part of our Student Labor Action Project’s annual Student Labor Week of Action, we are using our power and voice to support workers fighting for better wages by taking part in teach-ins, rallies and other actions that highlight the importance of collective action. We want to bring attention to the enormous jobs crisis that is devastating millions across the nation, and its disastrous impact on America’s young people.
Don’t Listen to Sarkozy: U.S. Tanker Contract Should Create U.S. Jobs
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Today French President Sarkozy reportedly is lobbying President Obama to delay the U.S. government’s decision to award its $35 billion contract for the Air Force’s new refueling tanker. Sarkozy wants the contract for Northrop-EADS, a heavily subsidized French defense firm that recently pulled its proposal from the bidding process. Northrup-EADS now is mounting a huge public relations campaign to get the U.S. government to reverse what it regards as an unfair advantage for Boeing, which says the competition is fair.
If Northrup-EADS won the contract, most of the jobs would be in Europe. The few thousand jobs created here under an EADS contract would be low-paid assembly jobs with no union representation. Meanwhile, there are some 17 million jobless workers in this nation, and as leaders of two AFL-CIO constituency groups point out, granting the contract to Boeing would create at least 50,000 family-supporting jobs, save taxpayer dollars and protect fair trade laws.
In Quick Retreat, Insurers Say They’ll Cover Sick Kids After All
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Arrogance allows you to do just about anything and think you can get away with it. For years, health insurers have swaggered about, callously raising premiums through the roof, dropping sick people from coverage and refusing to cover folks with pre-existing conditions. They got away with it. But not yesterday.
After media reports surfaced that big insurance companies claimed a loophole in the new health care reform law would allow them to deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions, the—well you know—hit the fan. Picking on sick kids is like kicking a dog or stealing Grandma’s purse. It doesn’t sit well with most Americans.
