Georgetown Panel Examines Wisconsin Uprising
A year ago, thousands of Wisconsin workers filled the statehouse and streets of Madison protesting Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) attack on their collective bargaining rights. The battle reverberated beyond the borders of Wisconsin, triggering a nationwide dialogue on collective bargaining.
On Wednesday, Feb. 15, the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University, will hold a special discussion focusing on what the Wisconsin protests mean a year later; the history, law, and politics of collective bargaining in the public sector; and what these public sector labor struggles mean for the country more generally.
The discussion will run from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Georgetown Law Gewirz Center on the 12th floor.
Georgetown University professor and Kalmanowitz Initiative Executive Director Joseph McCartin will lead the panel. Panelists include Craig Becker, a former National Labor Relations Board member, Mahlon Mitchell, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin (IAFF), Joseph P. Rugola, executive director of the Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE/AFSCME) and Newsweek and Daily Beast contributor, Eleanor Clift.
Pensions Aren’t the Problem for State Budgets
This is a crosspost by AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Lee Saunders from Huffington Post.
Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, the Pravda of the 1 percent, is at it again, continuing its push to gut the retirement security of millions of middle class workers across the country while enriching the Wall Street moneymen who just three years ago took our economy over the cliff.
Virtually everyone agrees that our nation faces a retirement security crisis, but the Journal last week published a shameful op-ed calling for the elimination of pensions for nurses, firefighters, corrections officers and others who still have them. Having punched private-sector workers retirement in the gut, these folks won’t be happy until the whole concept of a secure retirement for working Americans is a thing of the past.
The typical AFSCME member — men and women who plow our streets, care for the sick, protect our children, clean our buildings and keep our communities safe — receives a pension of approximately $19,000 a year after a career of public service. The employees have earned and paid for these pensions. Employee contribution rates commonly amount to 3 percent to 10 percent of their paychecks. These contributions, combined with investment earnings, usually account for 75 percent or more of all pension benefit funding. Read the rest of this entry »
Phoenix Councilman Targets Workers in Fraudulent Crusade
Donna Gratehouse, who blogs at DemocraticDiva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.
Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio is a Tea Party conservative, and a prolific e-mailer. For the past year, DiCiccio (who assumed office in 2009) has flooded the inboxes of thousands of Phoenicians on about a weekly basis with long-winded missives spinning tales of public-sector “union bosses” drunk with power and city workers enjoying lavish compensation packages while services are cut. Here are excerpts from one dated Jan. 11:
Union Demands Exposed: More Money/Power
What you are about to read will create a significant stir at city hall, and I need you to pass this information to others.
Phoenix is about to enter another round of union negotiations, and I am insisting the public see all the demands and be involved in the discussions….While we still see our neighbors out of work, losing their homes and struggling to just get by, the government unions believe they are entitled to more. The private sector and private sector unions have seen cuts between 15-25% while government unions have seen an increase payout of 23%.
Today I am releasing the written demands from the unions along with a breakdown of what those demands mean to you in money and more power over your pocketbook. Have no doubt the information below will make quite a few insiders upset because it exposes each demand by each union.
Feels like there should be a dun dun DUUUUUUUN soundtrack accompanying that, doesn’t it? What Sal “exposed” there was negotiating information that was posted on the city’s website. But this type of theatrics is what we’ve grown to expect from Sal. Read the rest of this entry »
New Hampshire Lawmakers: Public Workers Aren’t Taxpayers
 |
 |
| Fire Fighters President Harold Schaitberger joins union members at a rally in New Hampshire. |
AFL-CIO communications staffer Nora Frederickson sends us this report.
Workers in New Hampshire took over the floor of the New Hampshire House chamber yesterday to testify against a spate of anti-collective bargaining bills debated in the House Labor Committee. The hearings were relocated to the people’s chamber after the hearing rooms were flooded past their capacity by more than 600 firefighters, state workers, truck drivers, teachers, and community members protesting the most recent anti-worker onslaughts in the Granite State.
Barely a month after right-to-work was definitely beaten down in the House, the House Labor Committee held a hearing on a slew of anti-worker bills ranging from dues deduction and other attempts to dismantle aspects of the labor relations law, to HB 1645, an outright repeal of collective bargaining for public employees.
State representative Andrew Manuse, sponsor of HB 1645, made it clear that he had no idea of what his bill would actually do after he compared a firefighters’ job to “changing a light bulb,” claimed he “respected” public workers—while trying to take away their rights—and said public employees “weren’t taxpayers.”
Diana Lacy, president of the State Employees Association, promptly asked Rep. Manuse to refund her $250,000 in back taxes.
But the most contentious bill, HB 1570, would allow public-sector workers to opt out of a union Read the rest of this entry »
Video, Website Highlight AFSCME’s 75th Anniversary
|
|
AFSCME is celebrating its 75th anniversary with a special website, a brand new video on the union’s history and a yearlong series of events.
The video features key moments in AFSCME’s history, including the union’s organizing campaigns, struggles to protect Social Security and pass affordable health care for all and the current battle to save and rebuild America’s working middle class.
The online exhibit at 75.afscme.org traces the union’s history from its origins as the Wisconsin State Employees Association to its charter with the AFL-CIO as AFSCME in 1936. It examines AFSCME’s fights in the 1930s and 40s to win collective bargaining rights and strong civil service laws, its strong involvement in the civil rights movement in the 1960s.
The exhibit also highlights the prominent role of women in AFSCME’s growth, the union’s fight for pay equity, child care health care, strong Social Security and today’s current fight for workers’ rights in Ohio, Wisconsin and other states where the extreme right wing has mounted attacks. Read the rest of this entry »
AFSCME’s Celebrating 75 Years of Fighting for Workers
AFSCME is celebrating its 75 anniversary with a yearlong series of events. The observances include a traveling exhibit of the union’s 75 years of fighting for workers’ rights and the middle class from its founding in Wisconsin in 1936 to today. Says AFSCME President Gerald McEntee:
For 75 years, our members have worked to build a strong middle class and keep the American Dream alive for every working American. We have a proud history fighting for collective bargaining rights, for civil rights, for women’s rights and for the vital public services that Americans depend upon in good times and in bad.
The exhibit, which will be displayed at union meetings, conventions and other events, includes an examination of the Memphis sanitation workers‘ strike, during which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed while supporting the workers; the union’s fight for pay equity for women; the drive to pass health care reform; action to protect Social Security; and the most recent battles for workers’ rights in Wisconsin and Ohio.
Other activities are planned, including a special soon-to-be-released video and website.
Working Families Show Ohio’s Issue 2 Is ‘Nuts’
 |
|
 |
|
Deborah Dion with the Ohio AFL-CIO field program sends us this.
Working families rallied at the Firefighters Memorial in front of the Cleveland Browns Stadium and distributed football-shaped stickers and 250 pounds of “Vote No on Issue 2″ peanuts to tens of thousands of football fans as they entered the stadium. Issue 2 would repeal S.B. 5, the law passed this spring that takes away the right of public employees to collectively bargain for a middle-class life.
Tom Lally, president of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 93, said during Sunday’s event:
“S.B. 5 is a safety issue for citizen and for firefighters, plain and simple. Issue 2 makes it illegal for us to negotiate for enough firefighters to do the job. We will be doing more with less staffing under Senate Bill 5. We are concerned that politicians are risking the safety of citizens and firefighters for political gain. We are asking citizens of Ohio to vote “No” on Issue 2 because if they keep us safe, we will keep them safe.”
Cleveland-area firefighters also canvassed tailgaters to talk with them about the safety Read the rest of this entry »
Traditional Pension System More Cost-Efficient for New York City than 401(k)s
 |
The city of New York helps out taxpayers and retired public employees by sticking with a traditional defined-benefit pension plan rather than a 401(k) model, according to a new report issued by the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS). According to the NIRS release describing the report, ”A Better Bang for New York City’s Buck,” which was commissioned by New York City Comptroller John C. Liu:
New York City’s defined-benefit pension plans can deliver the same retirement income at a nearly 40 percent lower cost than a defined contribution 401(k)-type individual account.
The report builds on research gathered by NIRS for a national study, “Decisions, Decisions: Retirement Plan Choices for Public Employees and Employers,” issued in September. In a press statement, NIRS Executive Director Diane Oakley explained:
Ohio Firefighters, Working Families Rally to Vote ‘NO’ on Issue 2
 |
||||
|
||||
Deborah Dion with the Ohio AFL-CIO field program sends us this.
More than 250 firefighters and working families rallied for an early vote in Mansfield, Ohio, to defeat Issue 2. Voting “NO” on Issue 2 would repeal S.B. 5, passed earlier this year, that gutted collective bargaining rights for public employees. Working families gathered at the historic Mansfield Fire Museum, which celebrates firefighter history, heritage and the first responders that keep the community safe. Immediately following the rally, a caravan of a dozen jeeps carried 85 firefighters to the Richland County Board of Elections where they cast their vote against Issue 2/S.B. 5.
Click here for more photos from the event.
Speaking at the rally, Dan Crow, president of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 266 and an active firefighter with the City of Mansfield, said: Read the rest of this entry »
Ohio Panelists Detail Impact of Kasich’s Issue 2/S.B. 5 on Working Women
 |
||||
|
||||
Mike Gillis, Ohio AFL-CIO communications director, writes about a panel in Ohio earlier today in which participants agreed that women will be hard-hit by the state’s newly passed bill (S.B. 5) that takes collective bargaining rights away from public employees—and why voters need to go to the polls Nov. 8 to vote NO on Issue 2, to kill the bill.
Experts on women’s workplace issues and women from Ohio’s workforce detailed their concern for Kasich’s agenda this morning at a panel in Cleveland on the state’s S.B. 5/Issue 2. The panel, moderated by journalist, author and Pepper Pike City Councilwoman Jill Miller Zimon, offered a variety of perspectives on why doing away with collective bargaining would be disproportionally detrimental to women. Panelists also discussed how, with unemployment increasing in Ohio and more layoffs and cuts expected from Gov. John Kasich’s budget, Issue 2/S.B. 5 would only make the growing jobs crisis in the state worse and has only divided and distracted Ohioans from real policies that will help grow jobs.
