Labor, Management Partner to Create Jobs in Wash. State
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Here’s a bipartisan solution: Labor and management working together to create jobs.
In Washington State, where construction workers are experiencing up to 50 percent unemployment, a labor-management coalition is working to push a jobs bill through the state legislature to alleviate the jobs crisis and rebuild infrastructure.
The Washington State Labor Council, the Washington State Building and Construction Trades Council, the Association of General Contractors are sponsoring the Infrastructure Jobs Bond legislation and have released lists identifying which capital construction work around the state could be funded through the legislation.
Says Dave Myers, executive secretary of Washington State Building and Construction Trades Council:
These jobs will become a reality right away for thousands of laid off constructions workers and returning veterans. The projects will also be targeted toward key sectors of economic development including construction of aerospace training facilities and college research facilities, both of which will spin off other economic development.
Read more here.
Bill Clinton: Unions Are ‘America’s Employment Bankers’
Former President Bill Clinton yesterday singled out the efforts of the union movement in creating massive numbers of jobs through union pension fund investments. Speaking yesterday at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), Clinton praised the AFL-CIO and AFT for already providing $1 billion in pension fund investments to improve infrastructure and increase energy efficiency. (Watch the video of the event here. )
He also called on financial institutions and corporations–which are sitting on $2 trillion in cash without creating jobs–to follow the lead of the union movement and “loosen up all this money and put America back to work. If you did that, you’d have a million jobs in no time.”
With AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and AFT President Randi Weingarten on the stage with him, Clinton said: Read the rest of this entry »
From the Fields to Facebook: Union Organizing Online
Tom Dalzell is business manager and financial secretary of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1245, which represents electrical workers in the state of Nevada (excluding Las Vegas) and Northern California. He describes how online organizing complements traditional organizing—and why both need to work together.
When I started with the United Farm Workers of America in 1972, some of the old hands taught me a trick: Before you organize people, you have to meet them. To meet them, you have to know where they are. Back then, that meant fields, parking lots where crews gather in the morning, their homes and the occasional bar. Now, with more than 500 million people on social networks like Facebook, that means going online.
In 2010, the local I represent, Electrical Workers (IBEW) 1245, started the Shame on NVEnergy campaign to shine a light on abusive labor practices the utility engages in—not the least of which is clawing back pensions and benefits of retirees who worked and negotiated with the company in good faith for decades.
Alabama Unions Continue Tornado Relief Efforts
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Terry Davis, the AFL-CIO Community Service liaison from the Central Alabama Labor Federation in Birmingham, sends us this update on how unions are continuing their outreach to help the victims last month’s series of deadly tornadoes.
The accompanying video—from the Locust Fork News Journal—highlights the work of the Central Alabama Building Trades Council and United Steelworkers Local 2122.
We had another union work day Saturday (May 21), again with an overwhelming crowd. It was at least as big as the first one probably well over 150 union folks. We were able to do debris removal in Pleasant Grove and Pratt City.
AFT provided bags with sunscreen, lip balm, bug repellant, and wipes to the participants. Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 136 has continued cooking and provided lunch for the union workers as well as donating a large amount of chicken breast and BBQ sandwiches to the Pleasant Grove Masonic lodge, which is providing meals for the community. The Masonic lodge was very appreciative. Read the rest of this entry »
Workers Come Out Strong At End of Missouri Legislative Session
Missouri AFL-CIO President Hugh McVey and Secretary-Treasurer Herb Johnson wrap up the outcome of the state’s legislative session.
The first session of the 95th General Assembly of Missouri ended at 6 p.m., May 13. The session began with the emotional fervor of the majority Republican party proclaiming great changes they would make in the state during the upcoming legislative session.
Among those issues were those that were political in nature, bills that would produce no employment and create no economic gains for our state. Those bills were simply meant to reduce the capacity of labor unions to advocate for our members and so reduce the participation of working people in the political process in our state. Read the rest of this entry »
Pulte Got Taxpayer $$ to Create Jobs–But Didn’t
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Ben Horowitz from Painter and Allied Trades (IUPAT) District Council 15, sends us this report.
In Romulus, Mich., seven community members linked arms and refused to leave the street outside the Detroit Airport Marriott, blocking a bus they believed was carrying PulteGroup’s board of directors. Minutes later, while the Romulus 7 were taken away in handcuffs, the PulteGroup board sat inside, still not held accountable for the $880M tax refund they ostensibly received for job creation.
The money came to Pulte thanks to the Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act of 2009. This Act was intended to create jobs and extend benefits to the unemployed. Instead, PulteGroup is spending the cash on debt buy-downs and land, while increasing the ranks of the unemployed by laying off employees.
The Rev. Charles Williams II, who was arrested by Romulus police, summed it up this way:
I believe Pulte’s acceptance of $880 million taxpayer dollars is unethical and should be illegal. And if it takes me getting in their way of business as usual to make the Board of Directors do the right thing, then I’m willing to do that. We’re calling on Pulte shareholders and our federal legislators to make Pulte do the right thing — use the money to create jobs, or give it back.
Some 200 more union members, community activists and other allies remained outside, holding signs demanding answers and chanting:
Where are the jobs? Where is the money?
As states across the country grapple with deficits and contemplate tax cuts of their own, the Building Justice campaign by the Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) and IUPAT District Council 15 with the support of the AFL-CIO has followed PulteGroup executives across the country to remind taxpaying Americans that money for job creation needs to come with accountability. In January of 2011, activists interrupted a conference of mortgage executives being led by Debra Still, Pulte Mortgage’s director.
Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO President Saundra Williams said:
We have shown up at virtually every public event attended by Pulte executives to ask one simple question. Where did the money go that Pulte got from the federal government to create the jobs? There needs to be accountability here.
BCTD’s Ayers: Come Together to Save the Middle Class
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Working people have been pulled into a brutal struggle for the very soul of our nation and our democracy, but we can win that struggle if we stand together and tell our story, AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) President Mark Ayers said.
In his keynote address to the BCTD Legislative Conference, which began April 3 in Washington, D.C., Ayers said:
The attacks we see today on unions all across America are being instigated by an ultra-radical conservative movement. Yes, their initial focus is to shred public employee unions under the guise of fiscal responsibility; but make no mistake about it their real purpose is the eradication of all unions from the American landscape. Read the rest of this entry »
Union Members Share with Those in Need
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The unemployment rate among building and construction workers in Los Angeles County is nearly 40 percent, which means many families face a bleak holiday. But one thing the workers can be thankful for is that they belong to a union and their union brothers and sisters will be there for them.
The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor selected unemployed construction workers and their families as this year’s recipients of its annual holiday “Turkeys and Toys” campaign, which helps out working families in need. The federation and its affiliated unions bought the makings of Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings, including a turkey, for 4,000 unemployed building trades workers.
More than 40 different unions contributed to the Thanksgiving turkey and food distribution, including grocery workers, truck drivers, hotel workers, sanitation workers, teachers and school employees, firefighters, college faculty, costume designers, telecommunications workers, courtroom clerks and more. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) also helped distribute food to the workers.
Real Issue Behind Immigration: Corporate Race to the Bottom
The ongoing debate about immigration never seems to effectively address the real problem-our collective national addiction to cheap labor and low wages, says Mark Ayers, president of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD).
In a column on BCTD’s website, Ayers says the enactment of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law has revived efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform at the national level. But before Congress rushes to pass immigration legislation, it must take into account that “in America today, it’s all about next quarter’s profits and the bottom line.”
While exploitative businesses and their apologists hide behind empty slogans like “free markets,” we know the only freedom they are fighting for is the freedom to exploit workers, steal wages and cut corners.
Ayers points out that certain industries, such as construction, rely heavily on undocumented labor. In recent years, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, undocumented workers accounted for as much as 25 percent of the entire U.S. construction workforce. And in the residential construction sector, that number is even higher.
Court Upholds OSHA’s Power to Protect Workers
In a major win for workers’ safety on the job, a federal appeals court upheld the power of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to determine how to craft and enforce workplace safety rules.
The saga began when Eric Ho, a contractor in Houston, hired 11 immigrant workers in 2003 to remove asbestos from a building but did not train them or provide them with respirators. After a city inspector issued a stop-work order because of asbestos violations, Ho directed employees to work at night behind locked gates.
OSHA cited Ho for 22 separate violations—11 for not training each worker and 11 for not providing a respirator for each worker. Amazingly, the Bush administration’s Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission overturned the majority of the citations, saying Ho could only be cited once for not training workers and once for not providing respirators. That meant Ho only had to pay two fines, not 22.
