More Than 1,000 March in Boston for Jobs, Corporate Accountability
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After the new U.S. jobless figures came out Friday, union activists in Massachusetts took to the streets to demand jobs and corporate responsibility, an action highlighted here in this cross-post from the Massachusetts AFL-CIO.
On the same day it was announced that unemployment had reached a 26-year high, more than 1,000 union members, unemployed workers and community activists gathered on Boston Common and marched through downtown Boston to protest layoffs and continuing unemployment, call out rampant corporate greed and demand an economy that works for all.
Kirk to Succeed Kennedy in U.S. Senate
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick today named Paul Kirk to serve as interim U.S. senator, filling the open seat left by the passing of Sen. Edward Kennedy.
Kirk, who served as an adviser to Sen. Kennedy as well as a chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is expected to be sworn in tomorrow afternoon. He will serve until a permanent replacement is elected in a special election, set for Jan. 19. The state legislature approved a bill allowing for the appointment of an interim senator this week, ensuring that Massachusetts will have its full congressional delegation during these critical months.
Massachusetts Will Appoint Interim Senator
Today, the process of ensuring that Massachusetts voters will get full representation in the U.S. Senate moved forward, as the Massachusetts Senate approved a bill allowing an interim appointment for the seat of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.
The bill, which would give Gov. Deval Patrick the authority to name a temporary appointee to the open seat, was passed by the State Senate, 24-16, following a 95-58 vote in favor of the bill in the State House. The bill will likely go to Patrick’s desk later this week, allowing him to name a successor to the Senate’s longtime champion of working families.
Massachusetts will hold a special election early next year to fill the remainder of Kennedy’s term, which runs through January 2013. The bill passed by the state legislature ensures that, between now and the special election, Massachusetts will have a full delegation of two senators.
Working Families Need an Interim Senator for Massachusetts
Robert J. Haynes, president, Massachusetts AFL-CIO, writes that the state’s working families need two voices in the Senate during the upcoming weeks of debate on critical issues like health care.
Like the labor heroes we remembered on Labor Day, Ted Kennedy didn’t believe that the American dream was only reserved for the powerful and privileged. While Massachusetts workers lost our biggest voice and best champion for the little guy, we should not have to go without two U.S. senators for months on end. Working families cannot wait that long for full representation; not ever, but certainly not in these times with such monumental challenges facing our nation.
Kennedy believed it was wrong for people to have to risk their lives unnecessarily at work, to be stripped of their pensions, denied health care, or impoverished by the recklessness of banks. He believed a father with an ill child shouldn’t have to choose between being with that child and keeping his job. Now his lion’s voice has fallen silent, too soon.
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.”)
43,000 New Jersey Communications Workers Ratify Pact, and More Bargaining News
Some 43,000 New Jersey Communications Workers of America ratify a revised contract—and more updates here from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The
AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 1,100 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
SETTLEMENTS
CWA, New Jersey: More than 43,000 workers in the largest union representing New Jersey state workers, the Communications Workers of America (CWA), ratified a revised contract that defers a raise and swaps furloughs this year for future vacation days. “During these hard economic times, nothing is more important than protecting vital public services and the jobs of working people,” said Hetty Rosenstein, CWA’s New Jersey area director.
2,500 UAW Members Say ‘No’ to Health Cuts and Outsourcing—and More Bargaining News
Some 2,500 UAW members in Texas authorize a strike—and more updates here 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.
WORK STOPPAGES AND JOB ACTIONS
UAW, Bell Helicopter: Some 2,500 workers at Bell Helicopter plants in the Fort Worth, Texas, area, represented by UAW Local 218, went on strike today after rejecting contract proposals that would have increased medical costs and outsourced the work of janitors.
500 Workers Cancel Raises to Help Massachusetts’ Budget, and More Bargaining News
Some 500 workers in Massachusetts cancel raises to help state budget deficit, 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, MBTA: Four unions representing 500 workers at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU), the Electrical Workers (IBEW) and the Boilermakers (IBB), agreed to cancel raises set to take effect this summer to help close an estimated $160 million budget deficit. The largest MBTA union, the Boston Carmen’s Union/ATU, represents 3,200 workers and has not yet reached agreement.
Veterans, Small Business Owners Step up Fight for Employee Free Choice
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Military veterans in Maine, Arkansas and around the country are calling for quick passage of the Employee Free Choice Act this week. In cooperation with national veterans groups, these veterans are holding meetings, writing letters and speaking about the need to restore the basic freedom to form a union and bargain for a better life.
Stephen Jackson, a Vietnam veteran from North Carolina who is both the commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 4312 and a member of Steelworkers (USW) Local 1283, took to the pages of the Roanoke Rapids Daily Herald in a great op-ed on the Employee Free Choice Act:
The men and women who put their lives on the line to protect our country deserve a chance to be a part of the American dream. They deserve a job that puts food on the table and a roof over the family’s heads. They deserve benefits so that they and their families can be healthy and thrive. They deserve the right to join any organization that will help improve their situation. They deserve to have the chance to be a part of the middle class and help rebuild our economy…
The Employee Free Choice Act will give veterans a better chance when they get back home to get better jobs with better benefits, and a better shot at the middle class. I support the Employee Free Choice Act. It’s my way of honoring those who served our country.
20,000 CWA Members Approve Tentative Contract with AT&T, and More Bargaining News
Some 20,000 CWA members approve tentative contract with AT&T, and more updates here 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.
NEGOTIATIONS
CWA, AT&T: More than 20,000 telecommunications workers at AT&T, represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), reached a tentative agreement. The settlement terms call for a compounded wage increase of 8.8 percent over the four-year contract term, along with a $500 bonus.
