Locked-Out Iowa BCTGM Workers Fight Locally and Globally
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The French-based sugar and starch maker Roquette Frères opened its production plant in Keokuk, Iowa, 20 years ago, and its promise to create high-quality jobs was a key factor in winning support from local workers and local and state governments. Over the years, the firm has enjoyed tens of millions of dollars in tax benefits and other financial help.
But now, the multinational corporation is breaking its jobs promise to the community and its families by locking out 240 workers at its Keokuk corn milling plant and demanding massive wage, pension and health care concessions from the members of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) Local 48G.
The workers are waging their battle for justice both locally and globally. They are mounting a petition drive urging the city, county and state to refrain from awarding the company any additional grants, tax breaks and other economic assistance until Roquette ends the lockout and negotiates in good faith.
At the global level, they filed an international complaint against Roquette. In addition, the AFL-CIO, along with the International Union of Food Workers (IUF) and the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM), lodged a formal complaint wit the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) charging Roquette with violating the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises.
Pelosi Says Job Creation Is Economically and Ethically Right
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Creating jobs and forging an economy that breaks out of the boom-and-bust cycle that always leaves working families busted is both good policy and morally right, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told the hundreds of progressive activists at the America’s Future Now conference this morning.
“We have an ethical responsibility to create good jobs and economic necessity to create good jobs.”
She said it is imperative that lawmakers, policymakers and especially voters work to “achieve an economic prosperity that not only puts people back to work,” but opens the doors of economic opportunity that have been shut for the millions of people at the bottom of the economic ladder.
We need to create a new prosperity….Let’s build a future—America’s Future now based on job creation—jobs, jobs, jobs.
In Covanta Struggle, Utility Workers Go Global
In 2008, after some 140 workers at Covanta Energy Corp.’s Rochester, Mass., plant voted to join the Utility Workers (UWUA), the “green” energy company started a two-year-long campaign of delay, “intolerable” contract demands and other bargaining table stalls. As UWUA President Michael Langford says:
They thought we’d just go away.
Well, they didn’t go away. They went global. Now, UWUA Local 369 members in Rochester have a contract signed just last week and the union may be on the verge of winning an agreement that would allow Covanta workers at its 30 U.S. facilities, as well as its overseas operations, to choose to join a union without management interference (more below).
Congress Looks at Job Safety, Unions Worldwide Observe Workers Memorial Day
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With Workers Memorial Day and the recent deadly workplace tragedies that have claimed dozens of workers lives, two congressional committee hearings focused on job safety and strengthening worker protections.
This morning, the House Workforce Protections Subcommittee explored ways to protect workers who blow the whistle on unsafe and dangerous workplace conditions from retaliation, harassment and even dismissal by employers.
The hearing room was packed with workers who have been victims of on-the-job injuries and surviving family members of workers killed on the job, including many families of the 12 coal miners killed in the 2006 Sago (W.Va.) Mine explosion.
AFL-CIO General Counsel Lynn Rhinehart told the panel that “workers see firsthand the hazards posed by their jobs and their workplaces.”
But in order for workers to feel secure in bringing hazards to their employer’s attention, they must have confidence that they will not lose their jobs or face other types of retaliation for doing so.
U.S. Unionists Demand End of Saddam-Era Labor Law in Iraq
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When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, “we were told democracy would be built in Iraq” says Stan Gacek of the AFL-CIO’s International Department. But speaking at a rally today outside the Iraqi consulate in Washington, D.C., Gacek added:
There won’t be democracy in Iraq until the workers’ right to organize is guaranteed.
Every law from the Saddam Hussein regime has been rewritten—except the 1987 labor law that abolished the freedom to collectively bargain, the right to strike and a guaranteed minimum wage. That is the labor law today’s Iraqi government is using to bust the country’s union movement. Workers have been fired, harassed, exiled and even killed for forming unions and taking job actions.
TVA Engineers Join IFPTE
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By a nearly 10-to-1 margin, members of the Tennessee Valley Authority Engineering Association (EA), employees at the nation’s largest public power supplier, voted to affiliate with the Professional and Technical Engineers union (IFPTE) today.
The EA includes more than 2,600 scientists, engineers, technicians and other professional TVA employees.
EA President Gay Henson says joining IFPTE will make EA a more effective advocate for its members:
“We are extremely excited about moving forward together with the IFPTE. This partnership provides us with new connections to Washington, to the labor movement and to other engineers and professionals. IFPTE also will lend expertise to help us with legislation and negotiations. As a result of today’s vote, it’s a new day for the EA.”
IFPTE represents more than 80,000 professional employees in both the public and private sector, including technical experts and skilled workers at power-generation facilities across he country. IFPTE President Greg Junemann says he’s honored that EA, first formed in 1937, decided to affiliate with IFPTE.
$3.4 Billion Smart Grid Investment Will Create Tens of Thousands of Jobs
The nation needs jobs—big time. So it’s good to see that a $3.4 billion smart energy grid investment announced today by the Obama administration also will generate many new jobs.
In addition to saving energy and empowering consumers to cut their electric bills, the move will create tens of thousands of jobs in 49 states. This from the White House:
These jobs include high paying career opportunities for smart meter manufacturing workers; engineering technicians, electricians and equipment installers; IT system designers and cyber security specialists; data entry clerks and database administrators; business and power system analysts; and others.
Chamber of Commerce: Out of Touch with the Public
Here’s a proposal that makes sense: The Obama administration wants to set up a consumer financial protection agency to oversee the financial markets and make sure working families aren’t the victims of predatory lending, abusive credit card practices and the kind of irresponsibility and greed that have caused our economic crisis.
But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is putting its big bucks into preventing creation of any agency that would hold financial institutions accountable.
Earlier this month, the Chamber announced it would spend $2 million on an ad campaign opposing a consumer protection agency, and it has taken the lead in lobbying Congress to prevent new rules for our financial system.
Tough new rules—and an agency with the authority to enforce them—would protect families, their communities, the housing market and the entire economy. But the agency might make a small dent in the profits of a handful of huge banks and Wall Street corporations and the salaries and bonuses of CEOs. So the Chamber of Commerce is opposed to it.
Environmental Community Supports Employee Free Choice
Happy Earth Day! It’s a great time to celebrate the cooperation between the environmental movement and the union movement in building a stronger, greener economy. A big part of that collaboration is making sure that green jobs are good jobs, so workers can bargain for health care, pensions, job security and fair wages.
That’s why it’s encouraging that so many environmental groups have joined the coalition supporting the Employee Free Choice Act. The bill is critical to protect workers’ freedom to form unions, and give them a voice in the workplace and the ability to have a say in how their jobs impact their community.
Environmental groups such as the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, EarthAction and Green America have joined the fight for the Employee Free Choice Act, as has the Apollo Alliance, a coalition of union, environmental, business and community groups focused on building a new energy economy.
Blue Green Alliance: House Committee Takes A First Step Toward A Clean Energy Bill
A week after issuing its own principles for climate change legislation, the Blue Green Alliance said the draft bill released yesterday by the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce takes the first step toward building a strong clean energy economy.
Last week, the alliance, a national partnership of four unions and two environmental organizations, outlined its goals for climate change legislation that would rapidly put millions of Americans back to work building a clean energy economy and to reduce global warming emissions to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
