Channel: Bush & Co.
Screeners Closer to Long Overdue Bargaining Rights
Some 43,000 airport screeners at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) yesterday moved another step closer to winning “long overdue” collective bargaining rights and other workplace protections.
By a 19-10 party-line vote, the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee approved legislation (H.R. 1881) restoring the workers’ rights that the Bush administration stripped away in 2003. In addition, the bill grants the screeners—also known as Transportation Security Officers (TSOs)—and other TSA workers “whistle-blower” rights and the same civil service protections enjoyed by other federal workers.
Committee chairman Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) says the restoration of collective bargaining rights is “long overdue” and will help the agency
deal with the high attrition, low morale and severe workplace injury rates that have plagued the agency since its creation in 2001.
Pride At Work: We’ve Come a Long Way, We Still Have Further to Go
 |
|
As union members get ready for the 2009 AFL-CIO Convention, Pride At Work (PAW), an AFL-CIO constituency group, is among several union-related organizations meeting in Pittsburgh to plan for the future.
It’s the 10th anniversary for PAW as an official constituency group of the AFL-CIO. PAW focuses on the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) workers. Co-president Nancy Wohlforth said this morning that she’d never have believed how far the organization would come and how much they’d be able to accomplish—but that there are still many challenges ahead.
Wohlforth, who will step down this year as co-president, said PAW members have proven themselves a valuable asset in working family campaigns across the union movement and, in turn, they’ve been able to make great strides in educating and assisting unions about LGBT issues. Thanks to the efforts of PAW, unions across the country are making sure that contracts offer nondiscrimination provisions, as well as health and pension benefits for domestic partners. Unions also are stepping up to fight for equality not just in the workplace, but in state policy.
The Secret’s Over and Out: Bush Chemical Exposure Rule Killed
It’s no secret now. The Bush administration’s clandestine move to loosen the rules on how much toxin or dangerous chemicals to which workers can be exposed—and to make it more difficult to issue new worker protection rules—is now officially dead.
The U.S. Department of Labor announced this week that the proposed rule was unnecessary and withdrew it. The rule came to be known as the secret rule because of the Bush administration’s attempt to keep it off the public’s and media’s radar screen last year.
In January, as one of its first official acts, the Obama administration ordered work halted on the chemical exposure rule and other last-minute regulatory changes the Bush administration tried to ram through before leaving office.
Ground Zero Workers Still Suffer from Lung Problems
 |
|
A new study finds nearly one-quarter of a sample of firefighters and other first responders and construction workers exposed to the toxic mix of chemicals and debris at Ground Zero during 9/11 rescue and recovery operations continue to suffer from persistent lung problems.
The continuing study by the Mount Sinai Medical Center’s medical monitoring program examined the workers between 2004 and 2007, repeating exams conducted between the middle of 2002 and 2004. Slightly more than 24 percent had abnormal lung function and limited lung capacity, compared with 28 percent in the first study.
New Ad Refutes the Myths About Employee Free Choice
Today, American Rights at Work, the national workers’ advocacy group, launches a new ad campaign to cut through the dishonest spin about the Employee Free Choice Act, a vital bill to restore the freedom to form unions and bargain and make the economy work for everyone.
The broadcast and print ads, set to launch Sunday, will push back on a massive and misleading corporate campaign, in which anti-worker front groups are blanketing politicians, journalists and the public with falsehoods about the Employee Free Choice Act.
Noting the connection between corporate greed, the stagnation of workers’ benefits and wages and the economic crisis, the new ad exposes the corporate disinformation campaign for what it is: a desperate attempt to maintain control and prevent workers from having the freedom to bargain.
After Eight Years, We’re Burning BushWatch
 |
| Up in flames: 8 years of Bush debacles. |
Today, we bid farewell to BushWatch. That special section on our website where you could always go if you were in need of a little outrage or indignation over—repeat after me—”former” President Bush’s most recent slap at workers, gift to corporate cronies or bow down to extremist ideologues.
Click here, here, here, here and here for our five-part look back at BushWatch.
When we first started BushWatch eight years ago, we were sometimes genuinely shocked at the actions of this so-called “compassionate conservative” who had spent the entire campaign convincing voters he really wasn’t that extreme.
For example, he picked a Labor Secretary nominee (she later withdrew) who said the Labor Department staffers who disagreed with her opposition to basic worker protections like the minimum wage were “Marxists.” Now, that caught us off guard.
BushWatch: 3.5 Days and Counting…
More than 20,000 AFL-CIO union volunteers are planning to heed President-elect Barack Obama’s call to pay tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.
In our retrospective of eight years of BushWatch this week, we’ve looked back at the outgoing president’s more egregious vetoes, executive orders and decisions on the economy, workplace safety, health care, workers’ rights and other issues. Click here, here, here and here for parts one through four.
Today we present a potpourri—a grab bag of sorts—of randomly bad actions highlighted on BushWatch:
- As part of a last-minute push to implement a slew of new federal regulations before leaving office, the Bush Labor Department issued new rules that make it more difficult for workers to use family and medical leave.
BushWatch: First MBA President Leaves Behind an Economic Wasteland
Eight years of President Bush’s economic tax cuts for the rich and job-killing actions have devastated working families. Just look at the smoking crater of the economy he’s leaving behind—7.2 percent unemployment, 2.6 million jobs lost last year alone, home foreclosures up by 81 percent in 2008, a plunging stock market, failing banks. Heck of a job, Bushie!
Our BushWatch retrospective today looks at a few of his more notable moves—mostly aimed at helping the wealthy and corporate world, with little regard for the rest us. For a complete listing, go to BushWatch and click on “Jobs and the Economy” and “Tax Cuts for the Wealthy” in the top box.
In early 2001, the man who molded Bush’s economic brain set the tone for the next eight years. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill said U.S. corporations should pay no income tax. Further, he said the capital gains taxes for businesses should be abolished and “able-bodied” adults should take care of their own retirement needs and medical expenses.
BushWatch: Eight Years of Health Care Failure
With the reauthorization of the nation’s health care program for 11 million low-income children (State Children’s Health Insurance Program), today’s look back at BushWatch examines the president’s record on health care. It’s not pretty—especially his two vetoes of the children’s health program.
(Click here and here for first two parts of our BushWatch review.)
After eight years of chronicling President Bush’s actions, it’s clear the common thread in his health care decisions, policy initiatives, legislation and regulations is this: preserving and protecting the private, for-profit health care industry—especially the massive health insurance industry and pharmaceutical giants.
The corporate health care cult has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying expenses and campaign contributions to influence health care policy in Washington. It’s paid off. The children’s health care program is a great example.
BushWatch: Job Safety and Health Took Big Hits
This is our second look back at eight years of BushWatch. Today we review an area where outgoing President George W. Bush’s actions have a daily, and maybe deadly, impact on men and women who go to work every day—job safety and health.
Whether it was via regulation, legislation, executive order, policy decision or inaction, Bush repeatedly carried out the wishes of Big Business—less enforcement, weaker safety laws, lighter penalties or no regulation at all.
If there was any doubt whom he served, Bush erased that when he ended decades of practice and refused to name union representatives to serve on job-safety study and advisory groups, which also include academic, professional and management representatives.
Here are just some of the lowlights. For the complete accounting, go to BushWatch and click on Health and Safety in the top box.
