Verizon and 29 Other Big Corps Paid No Taxes Since 2007
While Verizon workers toil without a contract, a report issued jointly today by Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows that it’s not just its workers the company is short-changing; it’s all of the American people. For the last three years, Verizon has paid less than zero taxes. That’s right—through the use of corporate loopholes, Verizon has actually “made” money through its tax filings, according to the report, “Corporate Taxpayers and Corporate Tax Dodgers.”
One area where Verizon didn’t mind paying out? CEO compensation—to the tune of $18.1 million last year.
And Verizon is hardly alone: 29 other corporations listed on the Fortune 500, according to the report, paid either no taxes, or, like Verizon, enjoy a negative tax balance on their filings for 2008, 2009 and 2010. Other household names on that ignominious list include Honeywell International, DuPont, Boeing, Mattel, Duke Energy and Wells Fargo (which also benefited from the bank bailout). Read the rest of this entry »
Tentative Agreement Reached at GE
After four weeks of tough bargaining, IUE-CWA and the United Electrical Workers Union (UE) late last evening reached tentative national agreements with General Electric (GE).
The four-year tentative pact provides for gains in wages, pension and job and income security. The settlement will be voted on by the union negotiating committees then submitted for membership ratification. Details of the proposed agreement will not be released until later this week.
Ten unions have been bargaining with GE since May 24 as part of a joint union Coordinating Bargaining Council (CBC). The unions represent industrial workers who manufacture everything from jet airplane engines to locomotive train diesels, electrical appliances, small motors and lighting systems.
In addition to IUE-CWA and UE, the CBC includes representatives of the United Steelworkers (USW), Machinists (IAM), National Association of Broadcast Employees & Technicians-CWA (NABET-CWA), UAW, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), Electrical Workers (IBEW), Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA), Plumbers and Pipe Fitters (UA) and the Firemen & Oilers division of SEIU.
Tell Corporate Tax Dodgers: Pay Up!
As part of the Tax Day: Make Them Pay mobilization, the AFL-CIO community affiliate Working America is urging people to tell Congress to close the corporate tax loopholes that allow companies like ExxonMobil to rake in $19 billion in profits in 2009 and yet pay no federal income taxes—and instead, get a $156 million rebate from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). You can tell these corporate tax scofflaws to pay up—click here.
Exxon Mobil is one of the top five tax avoiders. The others are:
$93 Million Upgrade Will Save GE Plant and 700 Jobs
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Workers at a General Electric’s (GE’s) refrigerator plant in Bloomington, Ind., have been fighting to keep the facility viable in the cutthroat global economy. Now, two years after the company said it was going to shutter the plant, workers are celebrating a new day. Instead of closing the plant, GE has announced it will invest $93 million in upgrades and begin to produce energy-efficient refrigerators at the plant.
Not only will that save the jobs of the plant’s 700 workers, most of whom have 20 years or more experience, it will create 200 new jobs, which GE will move back to Bloomington from Mexico.
In a video (above), the workers credit their union, Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 2449, for much of the turnaround. One worker, Tammy Gilstrap, says:
We have a great union that is willing to go out and do what it can to save our jobs. We have a lot of dedicated employees in here and if we can get new technology, that’ll be a good future for us.
CEOs, Union Leader Agree: Manufacturing Strategy Crucial
United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard will be part of the discussion on CNBC’s “Meeting of the Minds: Rebuilding America” today at 8 p.m. EST.
Defying the popular stereotype, CEOs and labor representatives sat on a panel and largely agreed on major issues confronting industry and working people.
It happened earlier this week as CNBC taped “Meeting of the Minds: Rebuilding America” at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh before nearly 600 students, businessmen, steelworkers and other trade unionists. Host Maria Bartiromo said the show, which airs today at 8 p.m., was filmed in the Steel City because
It was here that America’s soul was forged.
Health Care Kumbaya
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| Protest against health insurers need to have both a union and community face—like this march both against foreclosures and for the Employee Free Choice Act earlier in March in Lynn, Mass. |
The peasants are filing their pitchforks to a fine point in anticipation of an attack on the palace—and the target of their ire is not what we might have intended. At this critical moment in the health care debate, more than a few working folk are taking a suspicious look at the health care reform efforts of Senate Democrats, President Obama—and their own unions. A headline in my local newspaper, the Lynn Item, helped stir the tempest: “Obama Open to Taxing Benefits to Fund Reform.”
Vincent Panvani of the Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) warns:
If any of these Democratic Senators vote for this, they’ll be out in 2010, and it will be used against Obama….[Y]ou’re taxing the middle class.
Teamsters President James Hoffa calls taxing health care benefits “the poison pill that will kill reform.” The Laborers have attack ads at the ready. And Donna Smith, an organizer and legislative representative for the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) notes that insurance companies continue discriminatory rates for older workers and ongoing rescissions of benefits—that is, targeting people with more than 1,400 medical conditions for “opposition research” investigations so their benefits can be cut off. “Ugly stuff,” she puts it. (At a health care forum in Lynn, Mass., last week, Rep. John Tierney reported that in congressional hearings he asked every insurance company if they would stop these viscous targeted rescissions—each one said “No.”)
550,000 NYC Workers Win Pact to Save Jobs, and More Bargaining News
More than 550,000 New York City active and retired workers reached an agreement that will delay and reduce layoffs, and more updates from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 900 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
SETTLEMENTS
Multiple Unions, New York City: More than 550,000 New York City active and retired workers, represented by unions in the Municipal Labor Committee, including AFSCME, AFT and many other unions, reached an agreement for city workers to contribute more to their health care in exchange for delayed and reduced layoffs.
UAW, General Motors: UAW locals nationwide ratified a new agreement with General Motors and the U.S. government. ”UAW members have once again stepped up to make necessary and painful sacrifices to preserve U.S. manufacturing jobs,” said UAW President Ron Gettelfinger. The agreement laid the groundwork for GM to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in court. The federal government takes a 60 percent ownership stake in the company during its restructuring, and UAW will emerge with a 17.5 percent ownership through shares of the new GM held by the retiree medical VEBA trust. UAW agrees not to strike until 2015 in the new agreement.
UAW, Volvo Mack Trucks: UAW members ratified a master agreement with Volvo Mack Trucks, which includes the establishment of an independent VEBA trust that will assume responsibility for providing health care to retired workers. The trust must be approved by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, a process that can take up to 12 months.
IUE-CWA, GE: Some 2,000 General Electric workers at Appliance Park in Louisville, Ky., represented by IUE-CWA Local 761, voted to accept a pay freeze until the current agreement expires in June 2011. In exchange, GE will add some 100 jobs at the Louisville complex. “Hopefully, this gets the ball rolling and starts bringing in these jobs by the end of the year,” said local President Jerry Carney.
AFSCME, Manatee County, Fla.: Manatee County, Fla., School District bus drivers, cafeteria workers and other school support workers with 21 years of seniority, represented by AFSCME, will see a 1 percent pay increase next year under terms of a new agreement.
IBEW, Boston Globe: Technical services workers at the Boston Globe, represented by the Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 103, ratified an agreement to help the financially struggling newspaper company. Members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) are set to vote on similar proposals.
IATSE, Eugene, Ore.: Eugene, Ore., city workers, represented by International Association of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 675, agreed to a three-year contract with no pay raise in the first year starting in July, with a 2.5 percent pay increase in the following fiscal year. In the third year, either the union or the city will be able to reopen talks on wages and benefits.
WORK STOPPAGES AND JOB ACTIONS
HPAE-AFT, Englewood Hospital: In New Jersey, 700 nurses, represented by the Union of Health Professionals and Allied Employees (HPAE-AFT), launched pickets outside of the Englewood Hospital and Medical Center after management locked out workers and hired replacements. HPAE-AFT offered to rescind their strike notice, but management said they had to honor their contract with the company, US Nursing, supplying the replacement workers.
NEGOTIATIONS
USW, MeadWestvaco: Workers represented by the United Steelworkers (USW) at MeadWestvaco’s paper mill in Covington, Ky., are set to resume negotiations after a two-year hiatus in bargaining talks.
Disclaimer: This information is being provided for your information only. As it is compiled from published news reports, not from individual unions, we cannot vouch for either its completeness or accuracy; readers who desire further information should directly contact the union involved.
Trumka Named to Obama Economic Advisory Panel
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AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka has been named to the new economic advisory panel that will serve as President Obama’s team of experts.
In announcing creation of the panel last year, Obama said the group will prevent policy from being made in an echo chamber in Washington.
Trumka will join a who’s who list of top economists, corporate executives and academics. The White House Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which is modeled after the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board used by President Eisenhower in the 1950s, will be chaired by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul A. Volcker.
