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Netroots Nation 2010: Labor, Online Progressives and Union Beer
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Union activists are joining a couple thousand online progressives this week for the annual Netroots Nation conference. The July 22–25 event in Las Vegas brings political powerhouses like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) together with progressives from across the nation for workshops, panels and speaking events like the dynamic full-conference lunch session July 24 with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
Along with Harvard legal professor Elizabeth Warren, Florida Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson and others, Trumka will take part in the panel, “Building a Progressive Economic Vision,” where he will focus on the key steps the nation needs to take to rebuild our nation’s economy (hint: Trumka’s proposals don’t include slashing the deficit at the expense of jobs).
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler will moderate the July 23 panel, “Young Workers: Taking Charge of Our Future,” following up on the AFL-CIO’s successful, first-ever Young Workers Summit last month.
There’s lots more, including the ever-popular “Raise a Glass for the Working Class” AFL-CIO/Working America beer booth. After visitors take an action on behalf of working families—sending an e-mail to lawmakers about aid to states to save jobs, texting JOBS to 225568 to join the AFL-CIO Good Jobs Now mobile alerts team, taking the Working America Ask a Working Woman survey or joining Working America—they can attend a union beer tasting.
In between beer tastings, we’ll be blogging the Trumka and Shuler events, as well as the following panels and events from Netroots Nation.
- “Freelancers of the World, Unite! Unions for Permatemps and Freelancers,” sponsored by the Writers Guild of America, East, July 22.
- “The 2010 Elections: Channeling the Power of Jobs, Populism and the Angry Voter,” sponsored by our friends at the Alliance for American Manufacturing, July 22.
- “Obama’s Social Security ‘Death Panel’: Engaging Activists to Defeat the Drive to Cut Critical Social Programs,” with Working America’s Laura Clawson on the panel, July 22.
- “Immigration Reform’s Strange Bedfellows: The Surprising Consensus that Reform Will Improve American Jobs and Bolster Our Economy,” sponsored by the United Food and Commercial Workers, July 22.
- Labor Caucus, July 24. Thanks to everyone who sent in their suggestions for discussion!
- “Civil Rights in the Modern Era,” sponsored by SEIU, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the Hip-Hop Caucus.
- AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Emerita Linda Chavez-Thompson, Blue-Green Alliance President Chuck Rocha, Franken and others in the closing night event, July 24. Chavez-Thompson is running for lieutenant governor of Texas and will join us throughout the conference.
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At the risk of repeating myself, I want to stress the importance of exploring shorter work time as a solution to the unemployment crisis. Shorter hours and higher pay was the philosophy of the American Federation of Labor in its formative years embodied by Mary Steward’s slogan, “whether you work by the piece or work by the day, decreasing the hours increases the pay.” Over the years the two parts of a single issue came to be treated as if they were two distinct and even competing issues: shorter hours OR higher pay. This was a strategic mistake of the highest order.
My proposal is for re-invigorating the labor movement by returning to its roots. It contains two parts: first, institutional innovation as a vehicle for social change and second, a new tool for macro-economic analysis that can give direction to the emerging institution:
Persistent high levels of unemployment in the wake of the Great Recession are drawing attention to structural imbalances in the economy that require measures beyond the usual cyclical responses of fiscal stimulus. Encouraged by the success of the Kurzarbeit program in Germany, work sharing features as one of the suggested policy responses. Meanwhile, looming environmental perils – ranging from climate change and loss of biodiversity to accumulations of toxic waste and resource depletion – have prompted an upsurge of interest in alternatives to economic growth. Recent books by Juliet Schor, Tim Jackson, and Peter Victor, among others, have called for work time reduction as a strategy for maintaining employment in a low growth or steady state economy. The backbone of my book, The Gift of Prosperity is an in-depth examination of past and current insights, controversies and misconceptions about working time, leisure, technology, productivity, wages and employment. I have distilled from these extensive conversations two innovative policy proposals, nicknamed “the Canoe” and “the Compass,” which address current dilemmas about the economy, employment and the environment. The Canoe describes an institutional vehicle for the policy voyage and the Compass serves as navigational aide and direction finder for that journey.
The Canoe addresses two key questions: first, what kind of new institution might foster a more socially equitable and ecologically sustainable allocation of work and working time? Second, how can we account for the social and environmental impacts of economic activity? Discussions of working time have often addressed only two options for allocating the hours of work: markets and government regulation. Collective bargaining has usually been assimilated to one or the other pole. Elinor Ostrom’s case study analysis of the management of common pool resources suggests a third distinct institutional model for determining the hours of labor: common pool resource management unionism. That new institution (albeit with important historical precursors) could serve as a starting point for new a mode of social and environmental accounting.
The Compass helps chart a course through the dense and complex relationship between hours, employment, policy and productivity and to extract from that analysis estimates of the production and employment potential of work time reduction. Advocates of shorter working time have normally positioned reduction of hours as a buffer against job losses that would otherwise result from technological progress. On the other hand, mainstream economists adopt a model of income/leisure choice that treats the reduction of working time as an optional consumer choice made possible by productivity gains. Both of those responses can be described as volunteeristic. My analysis suggests, however, that failure to redeem the productivity dividend inherent in work time reduction results in the forfeit not only of leisure but also of potential efficiency and employment gains. The choice is thus not negotiable ; income and leisure are not substitutes for each other because their sum is sensitive to the relative proportion of its parts.
Netroots Topic – Workmen’s Compensation Reform and Support for Je Baca’s Bill – HR 635
Dear AFL-CIO and Netroots Nation,
The following message is sent in an effort to draw attention to a CRITICAL FAILURE within the Labor Arena!
Working Men and Women face a personal catastrophe should they be injured “during and in the course of employment!” This issue and the conditions facing Injured Workers in this 21st Century is an embarrassment and an utter failure in representing the Health and Safety interest of All Working Men and Women.
As a result of the achievement obtained in National Health Care Reform, Injured Workers must now be led and assisted out of the bondage of the current FAILED Workmen’s Compensation ( Employer Protection ) Scheme. At present, far too many Advocates including LABOR are S I L E N T on this Critical Topic and how Working Men and Women are impacted by this failed and outrageous scheme.
At present I am not able to attend this event, but on behalf of “ALL INJURED WORKERS” this Topic must not remain S I L E N T any more. I will be happy to provide guidance and more information on this topic if I can obtain some local support at the meeting. Giving LIFE to HR 635 is also an important opportunity!
This topic alone affects every single Working Man and Woman across the country. Unless you have been Injured at Work, and had your injury claim “DENIED,” this topic may not have any meaning. The conduct in this arena is simply Criminal and Violates Basic Human Rights Obligations.
Please contact me if I can help to bring a Face and a Voice to this Important Issue for All Working Men and Women. Only we can change the course of History! Now this Issue is a MUST DO!
Thank you, Please let me know if there are other options available to advance this important issue!
Craig Michie – Injured Worker – Member of an AFL-CIO Labor Union
NvVIAW@aol.com – Nevada Voters Injured At Work
Las Vegas, Nevada