Is the Labor Movement Speaking for Its Female Members?

by Mike Elk

Coalition of Labor Union Women

Karen Nussbaum, the director of the AFL-CIO’s Working America, has a penchant for pointing out that the AFL-CIO is the largest women’s organization in the country. In fact, the AFL-CIO comprises about six million dues-paying women, who represent 45 percent of the organization’s membership. By 2020, women will constitute the majority of union members.

Why, then, did the AFL-CIO refuse to assume a position on the Stupak amendment to the Affordable Health Care for America Act – the health care reform bill negotiated earlier this year – which restricts women from using health insurance plans toward the cost of abortions? As my colleague Roger Bybee chronicled last spring, Michigan AFL-CIO President Mark Gaffner refused to put any pressure on strongly labor-supported Bart Stupak to drop the measure.

For lower-income working women, the ability to pay for an abortion is often a very important issue. Had the issue been banning insurance coverage for colonoscopies, a medical service that affects men directly, the AFL-CIO would have been up in arms.Disproportionate to the high percentage of female members, the executive council of the AFL-CIO is 80 percent male.

New school funding imperiled

The Arrogance of  some  school superintendents

A New York Times article August 18, 2010 makes the incendiary assertion that some  schools districts may not spend the just passed $10 Billion dollars on hiring teachers and preventing teacher layoffs. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/18/business/economy/18teachers.html?_r=1&hpw

Under a law passed by Congress and signed by President Obama in August, the “Keep Our Educators Working Act,”  schools will receive $ 10 billion in federal funding for education to help put teachers and teaching assistants back in classrooms.

Let us be clear.  This is a budget emergency in many states.  That money was passed by the Congress  to hire teachers and other staff, not for superintendents to play with, to hide, or to use for their other plans.

Districts should hire the teachers now. The money is on the way.  Yes, that leaves a budget problem for next year. But, the kids need a quality school system this year. And, the economy needs these teachers back to work.

It was teacher voices and teacher mobilization that passed the bill.  Both major teachers unions, the NEA and the AFT mobilized to encourage passage of the bill.  Senators received over 20,000 e mails, phone calls, and letters. As reported in prior posts here,   it took 4 votes to pass the bill over the Senator filibuster.

The Times article particularly cites Houston’s Superintendent Terry B. Grier with planning to use the funds for other uses.  Grier has a  history  in other districts of budget manipulation to promote his own self interest going back to the time when he was superintendent in Sacramento, California.

If you are in the middle of a flood, or a fire, you don’t say, well lets not fight this because we might need the funds next year.  We need to respond to the crisis by hiring teachers now – and then working on next year’s crisis.

Should administrators ignore the clear legislative intent to provide teacher jobs and use this money for other needs, it will be very difficult in the future to convince the Congress in the future of the need to fund teachers and schools.

Any superintendent who uses this money for other purposes should be fired.  Labor unions and Central Labor Councils should insist that candidates seeking their endorsements commit to using the money for the intended purposes of hiring back laid off teachers.  We can’t allow school districts to act like AIG, or Bank of America with public money.

In the New York Times the article is titled, “Given Money for Rehiring, Schools Wait and See.”

Labor organizes Latino voter registration in California

Sacramento Voter Rally

Service Employees International  Vice President, Eliseo Medina, speaks to  a crowd of over 100 on the Capitol Steps in Sacramento  on August 17, 2010, as they complete phase I of the campaign,  For our Families: Todas A Votar.

The campaign organized by several unions including SEIU, the California Teachers Association, and others  traveled to by bus to some 9 cities in the state,  from San Diego to Sacramento to initiate a the voter registration  campaign in each of these areas.

In Sacramento Assembly Speaker Perez and some 8 members of the Latino caucus joined labor and religious groups to welcome the caravan to the state capitol.

In cooperation with unions and community groups, the campaign will be  providing offices and registration efforts  in each of the 9 cities in targeting thousands of new Latino voters.

“For Latinos, the election of 2010 is more than just  choose one candidate or another, it’s about taking a role  active, more than ever, in decisions that affect  our families and create a better future for our children and grandchildren, “said Eliseo Medina, vice president of SEIU. “We have the potential to influence the elections and  now this is where our voices must be heard.”

A push for paid sick leave in Pa. and Philly

By Jake Blumgart

You wake up with a throbbing headache, achy muscles, and a hacking cough. Do you miserably trudge into work or call in sick? Will the call depend on the health of your body or your wallet?

For almost half of Pennsylvania’s workforce, the answer will come down to money. Neither Pennsylvania, nor any other state, requires employers to offer earned sick leave. True, 54 percent of the state’s private-sector workers are offered sick-leave pay, as are 56 percent of workers in Philadelphia. But those who enjoy such benefits tend to have higher incomes, which means, perversely, that if you can swallow an unpaid sick day, you don’t have to. The other half of the workforce is on its own.

Thankfully, regional politicians are responding to the squeeze on working families. Bills to require paid sick leave have been introduced in Philadelphia by Councilman Darrell L. Clarke and in Harrisburg by State Rep. Marc Gergely (D., Allegheny).

Clarke’s bill would let workers earn one hour of paid sick leave per 30 hours worked, with a cap of 72 hours in a calendar year. The more austere state bill requires 40 hours of work to earn a sick- leave hour and only guarantees 52 hours of sick leave annually. There is a hearing scheduled on Gergely’s bill tomorrow in Harrisburg.

The unemployed get restless

by Chris Maisano

NYC unemployment protest Courtesy of Theresa Vigliarolo via UWAG

Reading the news always tends to be a bit depressing, even in supposedly good times, but as the fitful and uneven recovery from the Great Recession grinds on, the economic outlook confronting millions of Americans becomes ever more bleak.

Massive cuts to state and local government budgets have produced four day school weeks in Hawaii, the shutdown of entire local transit systems in Georgia, and the indefinite darkening of streetlights in Colorado. Some states and localities are literally unpaving roads because gravel is less costly for them to maintain. Last week, the Department of Labor reported that the economy shed 131,000 jobs in July, as thousands of laid off state and local government employees joined former Census workers in the ranks of the jobless. Unsurprisingly, government figures released today showed that first time unemployment claims jumped last week to the highest level in six months. Initial claims rose to 484,000, the four week average hit 473,500, and claims for the previous week were revised upward to 482,000 from 479,000.

New Study: Funding Public Services is the Best Route to Prosperity

The New England states, can no longer afford to spend scarce resources on tax credits and other business giveaways. Instead, the region needs to focus its economic development efforts on rebuilding neglected infrastructure and improving education for people at all levels, from pre-school youngsters to older adult workers.

Those are the conclusions of a new study released today by economist Jeffrey Thompson of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Thompson’s paper is based on his extensive analysis of research on what works and doesn’t work to create jobs and strengthen state and regional economies. It suggests a better approach to economic development, one that the New England states should pursue as they slowly dig out from the Great Recession that began in late 2007.

According to Thompson, the New England states have for too long viewed funding for public services and economic development as competing interests. That’s a false dichotomy, he says.

Sitting Down, Chicago Hotel Workers Rise

by Bob Roman

Photo Credit Jerry Mead Lucero

On Thursday, July 22, several hundred people gathered in front of downtown Chicago’s Hyatt Regency hotel to protest the Hyatt chain’s failure to negotiate a new contract and, more to the point, to protest management’s attempt to take back gains made in the previous contract. Management’s rationale being the recession at a time when business at the Hyatt is recovering and the enterprise is, in any case, profitable. This action was part of a nationwide day of action at Hyatt hotels called by UNITE HERE.

Some 17 different actions were held in the United States and Canada. With the exception of a Thursday morning action out at the Hyatt near O’Hare Airport, they all featured civil disobedience leading to arrests. In Chicago, not all those participating in blocking the street remained to be arrested. This was done to allow some police officers time off to attend slain police officer Michael Bailey’s wake and funeral. Not all the participants were happy about this, but everyone behaved in a disciplined and focused manner.

Stop Tax Dollars From Paying for Forced Labor!

Jobs with Justice

Late last night, Mexican guestworker Hilario Jimenez escaped from company housing to expose his employers. Hilario and other guestworkers were recruited from Mexico and brought to the U.S. on H-2B visas by Vanderbilt Landscaping LLC.

This morning Hilario blew the whistle on a Tennessee scandal: Vanderbilt Landscaping, LLC is receiving millions in federal stimulus money and state contracts put together. And the company is importing guestworkers – cheap, captive labor – into public jobs even as local communities are suffering from record unemployment rates.

Now we ask you to stand with Hilario Middle Tennessee Jobs with Justice and members of the Alliance of Guestworkers of Dignity to fight human trafficking, forced labor, and a company that gets millions in state and stimulus money.

Jobs bill passes, Obama signs it

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

After months of Republican obstruction in the Senate, vital aid to states facing massive budget shortfalls and layoffs of hundreds of thousands of teachers, public employees, police officers and firefighters is on its way to the White House for President Obama’s signature. The bill passed the House by 247-161. A pathetic number of Republican representatives–two, count ‘em, two–voted to support working families. Says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:

Simply put, this vote keeps us on the path to economic recovery….Republicans who continue to fight for tax cuts for the super rich did everything in their power to defeat funding for teachers and firefighters, adding to the laundry list of anti-jobs votes they’ve taken.

Read Trumka’s full statement here.

BTW, it’s fully paid for in part by closing costly corporate tax loopholes that allow corporations to ship American jobs overseas. Works for us. Too bad so many Republicans think it’s a bad idea.

From the AFL-CIO blog.

ITUC Calls for UN Summit to endorse Financial Transactions Tax

The ITUC (International Trade Union Confederation) is calling on governments to commit to introducing a financial transactions tax (FTT) at September’s United Nations Development Summit to help tackle global poverty and accelerate action on jobs and climate change.

The UN Summit, to review progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), will take place against a background of growing global unemployment and inequality and major set-backs on economic development in countries across the globe.

“The global economic crisis continues to hit hard, with 200 million more people falling into absolute poverty since 2008, millions of young people with little or no hope of finding work, and women in particular being squeezed out of employment. The recession may be over for banks and finance, but the outlook for employment and for vital public services is bleak as governments cut spending in order to satisfy the money markets. A financial transactions tax not only makes good economic sense – it is also a matter of justice and equity,” said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow.

An FTT could raise between US$200bn and US$900bn depending on the way it is structured and the level at which it is set, according to the ITUC submission which is being sent by its national affiliates to governments in preparation for the Summit.