Channel: Legislation & Politics
Georgetown Panel Examines Wisconsin Uprising
A year ago, thousands of Wisconsin workers filled the statehouse and streets of Madison protesting Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) attack on their collective bargaining rights. The battle reverberated beyond the borders of Wisconsin, triggering a nationwide dialogue on collective bargaining.
On Wednesday, Feb. 15, the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University, will hold a special discussion focusing on what the Wisconsin protests mean a year later; the history, law, and politics of collective bargaining in the public sector; and what these public sector labor struggles mean for the country more generally.
The discussion will run from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Georgetown Law Gewirz Center on the 12th floor.
Georgetown University professor and Kalmanowitz Initiative Executive Director Joseph McCartin will lead the panel. Panelists include Craig Becker, a former National Labor Relations Board member, Mahlon Mitchell, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin (IAFF), Joseph P. Rugola, executive director of the Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE/AFSCME) and Newsweek and Daily Beast contributor, Eleanor Clift.
AFGE Says Republicans Have Some Explaining to Do
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In a nationwide advertising campaign getting underway this weekend, AFGE members are calling out Republican lawmakers for supporting a plan to pay for the payroll tax relief extension by slashing federal employee wages.
The new ads feature a Veterans Affairs nurse, a Defense Department worker and a federal corrections officer. They want GOP lawmakers to “explain it to me” how cutting federal pay and benefits helps put Americans back to work. Asks Minnesota VA nurse Teresa Capecchi:
Twelve percent of the salary I earn caring for veterans goes to my retirement. Explain it to me, GOP, how cutting my retirement puts people to work.
Republicans in Congress have proposed paying for the payroll tax relief extension by freezing federal employee salaries for another year. Says AFGE National President John Gage:
Federal employees already have given up their pay raises for two years in a row and many are in danger of losing their jobs because of drastic agency downsizing efforts. Freezing their wages for another year adds insult to injury and does nothing to get Americans back to work.
Hundreds of AFGE members will be in Washington for the union’s annual Legislative and Grassroots Mobilization Conference Feb. 12-15. Members will meet with their congressional representatives during the week to address the attacks on federal employees’ pay, pensions and benefits.
Jobless Facing UI Cut Off Ask Lawmakers ‘Walk a Mile in My Shoes’
Starting tomorrow and continuing next week, jobless workers in 15 states who face cut off of their unemployment insurance (UI) Feb. 29 will ask members of Congress to “Walk a Mile in My Shoes.”
The mobilization is aimed at lawmakers who are back in their districts for the President’s Day Recess that begins tomorrow, and it’s a partnership between USAction, the AFL-CIO, the National Employment Law Project (NELP), community and other groups.
If the Feb. 29 deadline passes without Congress taking action to extend UI coverage, 1.2 million jobless workers will lose their benefits by the end of March and 3.3 million by the June. (Click here tell your congressional representatives to act now.)
In a telephone press conference today, Gary Polvinale, an Ohio IT manager who has been out of work nearly a year said,
Congress is doing something corporations do, exploiting and bullying the helpless. We need them to act now So we can survive until till can find something. Read the rest of this entry »
Occupy CPAC, Summit of the 1%
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The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) will get a warm labor union, progressive welcome tomorrow at its annual conference in Washington. D.C., and we will keep you updated with a live Twitter feed ( hashtag #OccupyCPAC ) courtesy of Metropolitan Washington [D.C.] Council AFL-CIO.
The Who’s Who of the 1 percent–like Mitt Romney, Scott Walker, Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, Ann Coulter, Grover Norquist and other stars of the extremist rogue’s gallery–will be on hand. But so will representatives of the rest of us, the 99 percent, with big puppets, inflatables, chants, songs and of course tents to Occupy CPAC.
If you happen to be in the D.C. area tomorrow and want to join in the fun, events are set for noon and 5 p.m. (EST) at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel (2600 Woodley Rd. at Connecticut Ave. N.W.). The nearest Metro stop is the Woodley Park station.
Locked-Out Workers to Embark on Journey for Justice
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Amy Masciola, a union campaign consultant, sends us this.
More than six months ago, American Crystal Sugar Co. locked out more than 1,300 sugar beet workers in the Red River Valley of Minnesota and North Dakota. Two months ago, Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. locked out more than 1,000 workers in Findlay, Ohio. Last week, Caterpillar announced it would shut down a plant in Ontario, just over one month after locking out 500 workers. Rio Tinto Alcan locked out 750 workers in Quebec Jan. 1. HealthBridge locked out 800 nursing home workers in Connecticut in December. As Laura Clawson at the Daily Kos notes, “For evidence of a war on workers, look no further than the rise of the lockout.”
Steven Greenhouse of The New York Times wrote recently that the number of strikes has dropped precipitously in the past two decades, while lockouts now “represent a record percentage of the nation’s work stoppages.” Greenhouse quotes professor Gary Chaison of Clark University, who says:
This is a sign of increased employer militancy. Lockouts were once so rare they were almost unheard of. Now, not only are employers increasingly on the offensive and trying to call the shots in bargaining, but they’re backing that up with action—in the form of lockouts.
Unions and our allies are fighting back against this war on workers. Beginning Feb. 22, locked-out workers from American Crystal Sugar Co. and Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. will start a 1,000-mile journey across America’s heartland. They will visit six states in six days, taking part in rallies, fundraisers and other actions with local union members and allies. Locked-out workers will take their message to supporters—and call out the perpetrators of the war on workers. Read the rest of this entry »
Florida Protesters Greet Wisconsin’s Walker
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This is a cross-post by Karen Hickey, communications director at the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO.
Working families in southwest Florida are standing in solidarity with Wisconsin workers and protesting Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) visit to Naples. Walker spoke this morning at the Ritz-Carlton resort in Naples, Fla., as part of the James Madison Institute think-tank luncheon.
The protesters in the Sunshine State are shining a light on Walker’s attacks on middle-class families. WZVN, a local news station, is reporting that:
Protesters are lined up to express their disapproval of the embattled governor…at Vanderbilt Beach and Airport Pulling. They say Walker is in town trying to raise money to defeat the recall election he faces in Wisconsin.
The timing is perfect, says Wally Ilczyszyn, president of Florida’s Painters & Allied Trades (IUPAT).
Walker’s at the Ritz-Carlton for a $500-a-plate luncheon because he can’t find enough money in his home state to fight against his recall. So he has to come here. Read the rest of this entry »
Bill Would End Island Vacations for Corporate Taxes
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A Senate bill introduced this week would prevent some of the worst tax dodging tactics by corporations that use offshore tax havens and also raise about $155 billion in additional revenue over 10 years.
Chief sponsor Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) says, “Overwhelmingly, Americans tell us: Close those loopholes down.”
Among other provisions, the bill (S. 2075), known as the CUT Loopholes Act, would:
- Give the U.S. Treasury Department the authority to combat tax haven banks and jurisdictions that help U.S. clients hide assets and dodge U.S. taxes;
- Crack down on offshore corporations that are managed from the United States from claiming foreign status to dodge taxes; and
- Eliminate tax incentives for moving U.S. jobs overseas or for transferring intellectual property offshore. Read the rest of this entry »
RTW Still Wrong for New Hampshire
Last year, despite some twisted political maneuvering and trickery by New Hampshire House Speaker William O’Brien (R), he and other anti-worker lawmakers and their out-of-state backers could not override Gov. John Lynch’s (D) veto of a right to work for less bill. With a new legislative session underway, they’re back at it again.
Thursday, the House labor Committee will hold a hearing on a new right to work (RTW) bill. Although the calendar may have changed, the facts haven’t—right to work is still wrong for New Hampshire, a new Economic Policy Institute (EPI) report finds.
Political economist Gordon Lafer provides new evidence that RTW laws have failed as economic development strategies and would likely harm New Hampshire. Right to Work: A Failed Policy, A New Hampshire Update strengthens the findings of Right-to-Work: Wrong for New Hampshire, an analysis of why RTW was particularly unsuited to New Hampshire that EPI released last April.
Some of the new evidence Lafer examines that confirms the harm that RTW has caused to state economies includes: Read the rest of this entry »
Berman Back with New Lies About Unions
Sort of like that periodic rash that you can’t scratch in public, Richard Berman is back. Berman is best known to us in the union movement for his so-called “Center on Union Facts” that is to facts what Bernie Madoff is to secure investments.
Now, Berman has launched a $10 million campaign, writes the National Journal, to help push new federal anti-union legislation under the 180-degree-from-the-truth title the Employee Rights Act.
Part of that $10 million helped buy a 30-second spot in selected markets—during the Super Bowl that earned three “Pinocchios” from the Washington Post’s Fact Checker on campaigning and advocacy ads for using “nonsense” facts to make its claim. A trio of long-nosed wooden Italian puppets means that add contains “Significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions.” Read the rest of this entry »
Unemployment Insurance on the Chopping Block
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Unemployment insurance as we know it is on the chopping block.
So-called tea party legislators are trying to punish and humiliate people who are out of work—they’re even threatening to take away unemployment insurance from some people completely.
If you believe Congress should be focusing on jobs instead of punishing and even humiliating people who are out of work through no fault of their own, take action now.
These “tea party” politicians are pushing plans to:
- Slash federal unemployment funding by more than half in the states with the highest unemployment.
- Let states whose governments have been taken over by the tea party divert premium money away from unemployment as we know it—and use it to experiment with right-wing social engineering programs (like “workfare,” where people are forced to work for free to get unemployment benefits).
- Mandate drug testing requirements. Politicians are ready to humiliate people who are out of work—by making them urinate in a cup to get benefits they paid for and are entitled to.
- Make jobless workers pay for their re-employment services. People who are out of work through no fault of their own and have paid into the system aren’t asking for a handout—but a helping hand. Now, the radical lawmakers want to make them to pay for the privilege.
- Deny benefits to people who never got their high school diploma lose their right to benefits—they’d have unemployment insurance taken out of their paycheck—but will get nothing should they lose their job. Shame!
- Cut federal employee pensions—or freezing wages for yet another year. Federal workers have already done more than their fair share to balance the budget—while the richest 1% of Americans have been asked to do absolutely nothing.
Tell Congress to focus on jobs rather than punishing jobless workers who have already suffered enough.
