The Emerging American Aristocracy
Stan Sorscher, labor representative for the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace/IFPTE Local 2001 (SPEEA/IFPTE), describes what he sees as an emerging American Aristocracy in this excerpt from Washington Policy Watch.
I went to France in June and couldn’t help comparing the French revolution to our own. So, let’s start with aristocracy, then we’ll get to Ayn Rand. Stick with me.
In a nutshell, shortly after our revolution, peasants in France concluded that aristocrats were giving them a really crappy deal. Within a short time, peasants and workers rounded up aristocrats, took them to Place de la Concorde in downtown Paris, and chopped off their heads. Very serious stuff.
Public Employee Bashing ‘More Like Class War’
 |
|
Around the country, public employees are under attack by Republican governors, state legislatures and right-wing conservative commentators who are blaming them for state and local government budget problems. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is leading the charge.
The easy solution Christie and others claim is to cut public employees’ jobs, wages, health care and pensions and “presto, we’re in the money again.”
But as Ed Ott, former executive director of the New York City Central Labor Council (NYCCLC), explained during a recent appearance on GRITtv with Laura Flanders:
[Christie] wants to solve it completely on the back of the standards and wages and pensions of working people. And we’re trying to find a fairer solution. If we’re in crisis… it’s not the fault of the public-sector workers, but the collapse of the private sector.
Tell Fox: Union Members ARE Rocket Scientists
Amaya Tune, AFL-CIO Media Outreach specialist, is p’od. She’ll tell you why.
Stuart Varney, a Fox blowhard, had a segment today hitting the AFL-CIO for pushing for a “No” vote on Michael Dell.
The Fox crew jested that we shouldn’t be weighing in because unions don’t create innovative technology and went so far as to say: ”Imagine if unions made an iPhone.”
This made me reach out to my brothers and sisters at the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), whose membership includes rocket scientists. They gave me a list of really cool things their members innovate and create.
Here’s a list of stuff I plan to tweet at Fox all day under the hashtag #unionsbuild with some of these examples:
* Nuclears subs and carriers;
* Space shuttle;
* Dams and waterways;
* B-52;
* Unmanned aircrafts; and
* 787 fuselages.
Washington State Workers Rally to Keep Tanker Made in America
 |
|
In this cross-post, Kathy Cummings, communications director of the Washington State Labor Council, reports on a rally Friday in support of Boeing workers. Boeing is in competition with European-based Airbus for the Air Force’s $35 billion tanker contract.
With as many as 50,000 jobs at stake across the country, members of the Machinists (IAM) and SPEEA/International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Local 2001 rallied along with Washington State’s congressional delegation and a host of community and business leaders Friday in Everett. We rallied in support of Boeing, as the company turned in their bid for the contract to replace the Air Force’s aging fleet of air re-fueling tankers.
Union Plus Awards $150K in Scholarships
 |
||||
|
||||
 |
||||
|
||||
Some 121 union members and union family members have been awarded $150,000 in scholarships, ranging from $500 to $4,000, by the 2010 Union Plus Scholarship Program. Says Union Plus President Leslie Tolf:
“During these challenging economic times, with college tuition rising and many working families struggling just to get by, we’re pleased to be helping some of the labor movement’s most promising students achieve their college dreams.”
Since the scholarship program began in 1991, Union Plus has awarded $3 million in educational funding to more than 1,900 union members, spouses and children.
The awards are granted to students attending a two-year college, four-year college, graduate school or a recognized technical or trade school.
Brianna Pang, of Oakland, Calif., whose mother Janet Yan is a member of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) Local 21 won a $4,000 scholarship. As a peer counselor in high school Brianna says she saw the terrible impact that dropping out of school, teen pregnancy and alcohol and drug abuse have on young people. At Stanford University she will major in public policy to develop ways to improve opportunities for young people and “help build the barrier on top of the cliff of that leads to the sea peril.”
30,000 CWA Members Ratify Contract with AT&T—and More Bargaining News
Some 30,000 Communications Workers of America members ratify a contract with AT&T, and more news from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 1,200 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
SETTLEMENTS
CWA, AT&T: Members of Communications Workers of America (CWA) District 3 last week ratified a three-year contract with AT&T. The contract covers 30,000 workers in the Southeast. CWA District 1 in Connecticut is now the only region still in negotiations with AT&T.
Workers Across Nation Choose a Voice with AFL-CIO Unions
 |
||||
|
||||
County workers, professional employees, bakery workers, airborne pilots and “ghost” pilots and sheriff’s deputies are among the latest workers to choose a voice at work with AFL-CIO unions.
In Utah, more than 400 Salt Lake County workers won a union voice with AFSCME Local 1004. The 408 county employees—skilled trades, maintenance and service workers—could vote for union representation only after AFSCME fought and won passage of a county collective bargaining ordinance last year.
John Farrer, a Highway Department worker, says:
This is definitely a positive thing for workers, and that’s why they voted it in. With all that’s happened, the wage cuts, benefits going down and insurance going up, we need a strong union voice to represent the interests of working families.
TVA Engineers Join IFPTE
 |
||||
|
||||
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.
Karen See Elected to Lead CLUW
 |
||||
|
||||
Delegates to the 15th Bienneial Convention of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) earlier this month looked to the future by electing a new slate of officers. Karen See, a member of the Postal Workers (APWU), was elected president, succeeding Marsha Zakowski.
More than 600 delegates and observers at the convention in Los Angeles discussed strategies for building the organization and recruiting younger members.
See says the convention theme, “The Rising Tide of Change: Activism, Leadership–Union Women!!” summarizes her goal of rejuvenating CLUW and getting union women more involved in the leadership of the union movement.
Defense Employees Celebrate Repeal of Anti-Worker Personnel System
After a tough six-year battle, U.S. Department of Defense employees are celebrating a major victory today. The 2010 Defense authorization congressional conference committee yesterday repealed the anti-worker National Security Personnel System (NSPS).
Created by the Bush administration, the NSPS was fatally flawed from the beginning. The personnel system took away Defense Department workers’ right to collective bargaining and personnel appeals. After the last Republican-led Congress refused to block the NSPS, the United Department of Defense Workers Coalition (UDWC) worked tirelessly to restore fairness and equity to the workplace. Members of the coalition, made up of the 36 unions that represent Defense Department workers, helped get out the vote to ensure a Democratic majority in Congress and that majority restored the Defense workers’ collective bargaining rights as part of the 2009 Defense authorization bill.
