Guild Asks Huffington for Dialogue on Future of Journalism
Earlier this month, The Newspaper Guild-CWA (TNG-CWA), called on the unpaid writers at The Huffington Post to withhold their work in support of a strike launched by Visual Art Source in response to the company’s practice of using unpaid labor.
In an open letter today to publisher Arianna Huffington, TNG President Bernie Lunzer wrote that when Huffington Post spokesman Mario Ruiz was asked about TNG’s action, he said, “We stand squarely behind The Newspaper Guild’s mission of ensuring that media professionals receive fair compensation.”
We invite you to demonstrate this commitment by sitting down with the Guild to begin a dialog about the future of journalism. We would like to discuss the values that we share, and build upon them to meet the rapid changes and demands taking place in the industry. Like you, we believe that for journalism to survive it must adapt to the digital age.
Labor Secretary Solis: Time to Work Together to Solve State Budget Crises
Public employees, from nurses to teachers to firefighters and police officers, have made and will continue to make sacrifices to help close budget gaps. But some state leaders have gone too far, says U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. Budget sacrifices are one thing; demanding that workers give up their rights as union members—to take away their voice—is another, she says.
Writing today at The Huffington Post, Solis, the daughter of union members, says working people and their unions “make remarkable contributions to the strength and prosperity of our nation.”
[Public employees’] collective voice gives them the opportunity and the right to actually improve public education, public heath, and public safety and security. They deserve the right to have their voices heard when they speak out for job security and safe workplaces. Unions fight for better wages and benefits, not just for their members, but for everyone. They advocate for quality jobs that build a strong middle class.
Solis adds:
In hard times, we all understand the need for sacrifices. Scapegoating teachers, firefighters and bus drivers by taking away their basic rights is not going to solve any problems. This is a time to find ways to work together and forge compromise. Neither side will get everything it wants, and everyone should share in the sacrifice.
Read the entire Solis column here.
Continuing the Fight for Freedom
The following is a cross-post from The Huffington Post by AFSCME President Gerald McEntee.
The tens of thousands of Wisconsinites who have marched and protested at the state Capitol and throughout the state this past week are American heroes. It is not often in this country that thousands gather to fight for the dignity and the rights of their fellow citizens. Yet for days now, workers and their families, students and retirees, clergy and businessmen, LGBT activists and veterans have joined together to have their voices heard. The people of the Badger State are making history happen.
The vast crowds are demonstrating their determination to fight for the God-given right of workers to have a voice on the job. They are fighting for the American values of freedom, fairness and the fundamental right of workers to speak, organize and negotiate for a better life. They are waging a battle that has been waged by workers for generations in nations across the globe, a battle for the right to participate fully in the life of their community and country and to have their voices heard.
This Price Isn’t Right: Walker Willing to Lose $50 Million to Silence Workers
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) claims he has to eliminate the right of public workers like nurses, teachers and EMTs to bargain for good jobs in order to fix the state’s budget. He claims it’s fiscally prudent.
How fiscally prudent is it to toss away almost $50 million of Wisconsin taxpayer money that could be used to create jobs? But that’s exactly what Walker will do if his so-called “budget repair” bill passes. Wisconsin would forfeit $46.6 million in federal transportation funds because, under federal labor law, states lose that funding if they eliminate collective bargaining rights that were on the books at the time the federal money was authorized.
While that provision of the law may not be well known, as Sam Stein in The Huffington Post points out, Walker knew about the loss of funds well before he launched his attack on public-service workers. A memo from the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau warned Walker of the forfeiture.
It looks like Walker is willing to put a $50 million price tag on his attack on middle-class workers.
Trumka Says Republicans’ ‘Screwed-Up Priorities’ Hurt Jobless
Diane S. lost her job as a human resources manager in 2006 and has since applied for countless jobs, taken temporary work and, when no work was available, survived on unemployment insurance (UI) to help keep a roof over her head and pay a few bills.
But Diane and millions of other jobless workers are losing the last of their jobless benefits, writes AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in a column today at The Huffington Post, because of the:
screwed-up priorities of congressional Republicans who insist America can’t afford unemployment insurance benefits for desperate job seekers even as they demand $700 billion in tax cuts for millionaires.
He urges readers to watch a video (click here) of some of the 300 jobless like Diane who were in Washington, D.C., last week to tell their stories to Congress and to join the National Online Day of Solidarity with Jobless Workers. Change your Facebook status and your photos on Facebook and Twitter, and urge your friends to join you. Get the details here.
Cooperation, Not Condemnation, Is Key to Improving Schools
Imposing a one-size-fits-all “business model of performance on our schools…is as ill advised as it is ill suited for solving the problems we confront,” says School Administrators President (AFSA) Diann Woodard.
In a recent Huffington Post column, Woodard says management techniques that amount to telling us, “Get in line and march,” are not the answer to improving the nation’s schools and student performance.
Approaches like these aren’t turnaround plans; they simply turn a blind eye to the reality educators must confront, especially in communities where poverty and crime are more pervasive.
Rather than glib condemnations, what’s needed is a new spirit of cooperation, one in which all the stakeholders in public education—especially school administrators—are consulted on solutions rather than being targeted for vilification.
Read her entire column here.
There Is No Tomorrow—America Needs Jobs Now
The nation’s unemployment crisis threatens the very core of the United States—entire communities, rural and metropolitan, are going under.
Writing at Huffington Post, Mark Ayers, president of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department, says the United States must immediately build on the successes of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and use scarce federal dollars in the most efficient way to boost demand and get jobless workers back to work. There is no time to waste, Ayers says.
Our nation can no longer afford to ignore the suffering of the unemployed who so desperately want to get back to productive work. Nor can we afford to indulge our leaders’ penchant for delay and political posturing, which comes at the expense of millions of working American families who are hurting. What we need now are bold approaches to economic recovery that will produce jobs.
Read Ayers’ entire post here.
The Best Job Training Is a Job
Millions of college graduates and displaced workers who go back to school are finding out that after years of hard work, all they are left with is hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. Employers say we need a more educated workforce, yet they use the excuse that they can’t find qualified workers here in the United States to ship jobs overseas or import foreign workers in a cynical scam to inflate their own bottom lines.
Now, some of corporate media are blaming the students and their parents for making a bad economic decision for sending their kids to college. The bad economics is not the parents’ fault—the blame lies squarely on the fact that there are no good jobs for the graduates to go to, says Stan Sorscher, a labor representative for the Society for Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace/IFPTE Local 2001 (SPEEA).
The BP Disaster-China Connection
A bipartisan poll shows the majority of voters believe the nation’s economy is no longer the strongest economy in the world and we need an aggressive national manufacturing strategy to regain our pre-eminent position. Here’s one reason why. When the blow-out preventer on the Deepwater Horizon rig needed to be modified, it was sent to China, according to the UK’s Guardian newspaper.
Pointing out the BP disaster-China connection, Scott Paul, director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), says:
Wow. If China can’t keep cadmium and lead out of children’s bracelets, it’s hard to understand why BP—flush with profits—would trust a Chinese firm to overhaul a key component in the Deepwater Horizon rig simply to save money. This is, after all, a life or death issue for oil rig workers. If the modification in China led to the failure of the blow-out preventer, what a monumental miscalculation it was, costing lives and causing our nation’s most severe environmental disaster.
Level the Playing Field in Trade Policy
Current U.S. trade policies encourage corporations to move production off our shores to low-wage countries that do not enforce workplace and environmental laws. This is good for multinational businesses and investors but bad for workers and communities, as pointed out by Stan Sorscher, legislative representative for the Society for Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA)/IFPTE Local 2001.
Writing at Huffington Post, Sorscher says to level the playing field, the United States should set rules that will
encourage more investment in America, and neutralize the flow of new investment offshore.
