by Steve Early

Steve Early

Three years ago this Friday (Jan. 27), Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andy Stern declared war on one-quarter of his California membership. Mimicking the Pentagon, SEIU headquarters in Washington dispatched an army of paid staffers to seize the Oakland office of United Healthcare Workers (UHW) and other union facilities around the state. Stern’s trusteeship over UHW was aided by scores of high priced union lawyers, uniformed local police officers, and private security personnel from the OSO Group, which hires ex-cops, former FBI and Secret Service agents, and even retired CIA employees to provide corporate clients with surveillance, intelligence, and counter-terrorism protection. (OSO’s bill for its services totaled $2.2 million.)

Before the UHW take-over occurred, the 150,000 hospital, home care, and nursing home workers in UHW were part of a model local that was spearheading a much-needed movement for union democracy and reform within SEIU. Over night, they were stripped of their own elected leaders, from the shop-floor to statewide level. For the next several years, SEIU’s third largest affiliate was run by Stern appointees, with no accountability to the membership. Many of its overseers arrived from out-of-state and have never left, fulfilling their duties with far less competence and commitment than the local officers and staff they replaced. Once a fast-growing SEIU affiliate, UHW has done little or no new organizing since the 2009 trusteeship. Contract standards and workplace representation have both declined dramatically for its existing members (For documentation of that trend, see the always well informed http://sternburgerwithfries.blogspot.com/)

Instead, SEIU and its installed UHW leaders have diverted more than $50 million in membership dues money into their on-going counter-insurgency effort. About 9,000 UHW members have, nevertheless, joined a rival union, the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), that was formed in response to trusteeship. Dave Regan, the controversial SEIU official imported from Ohio to replace Sal Rosselli as president of UHW, now earns nearly $300,000 a year, more than twice what his predecessor was paid. Post-trusteeship, the UHW treasury has been so badly plundered that even its PR flack, Steve Trossman, makes $200,000 annually.

That’s a higher salary than the national presidents of the United Auto Workers, Steelworkers, and Communications Workers receive for overseeing unions with 350,000 to 700,000 members.

Taking a page from White House rationales for U.S. intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, Stern defended the UHW trusteeship as a tragic necessity. In America, Stern told The Washington Post, “there is not enough money you can spend…to protect us from terrorists. As you know, sometimes you have to spend money to protect the integrity of the institution from its own version of self-righteousness and terrorism.”

The Legacy of Andy Stern

On the third anniversary of the “mother of all trusteeships” – one of the largest in U.S. labor history – it’s worth remembering why and how this fiasco occurred. In the view of most outside observers, the UHW take-over has greatly harmed, rather than helped, SEIU-represented health care workers, in California and other parts of the country.

Stern’s intervention has also negatively impacted other California unions that once counted on SEIU to be a progressive force in local and state politics. The UHW under Regan won’t even back a referendum campaign to increase state taxation of millionaires, a measure favored by the California Federation of Teachers and other groups.

Meanwhile, since Stern’s retirement in 2010, SEIU’s “President Emeritus” has become a full-fledged One Percenter himself. In addition to collecting a union pension worth nearly a quarter of a million dollars annually, he receives huge director fees as a board member of SIGA Technologies (a perk arranged by billionaire Ron Perlman, a major stakeholder in the pharmaceutical firm).

From Stern’s current perch at the Columbia University Business School, he has been lobbying for corporate tax relief and deficit reduction, while urging, in the pages of the  Wall Street Journal, that the U.S. adopt China’s model of economic development (one notably lacking in respect for workers rights and real unions).

For workers still trapped in the Chinese-style company unionism that Stern & Co. imposed on them, the UHW trusteeship saga is a tale of political deceit and blatant hypocrisy; the official version of why former UHW-President Sal Rosselli and other Stern critics had to be ousted in 2009 didn’t conform to reality at the time and, as a credible pretext, has grown much thinner ever since. To provide liberal cover for his crack-down on SEIU reformers, Stern utilized union insiders like Justice for Janitors organizer Stephen Lerner and Executive Vice-President Eliseo Medina, who now serves as SEIU’s secretary-treasurer under Stern’s successor, Mary Kay Henry. To lend a veneer of legality to the proceedings he also hired a well-known outsider, former U.S. Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall.

The Role of Marshall, Medina, and Lerner

A Carter Administration cabinet member now 83 years old, Marshall was paid $200,000 to investigate Stern’s allegations that financial misconduct by Rosselli and his executive board justified a UHW take-over. While researching a book published last year, The Civil Wars in U.S. Labor, I interviewed the retired University of Texas law professor about the trusteeship hearings he conducted while top SEIU staffers like Lerner were already making secret preparations to remove elected UHW leaders. Marshall reaffirmed his January 2009 finding that, based on the evidence presented to him, there were no current UHW financial irregularities that required such action. “Nobody lost any money,” Marshall told me. And, contrary to Stern’s view that UHW dissenters were organizational “terrorists” who needed to be rooted out, Marshall believed that both SEIU and UHW were “strong and progressive voices for their members and all American workers.” In a personal letter to Stern on January 21, 2009, Marshall urged the parties “to settle their differences and return to the kind of cooperation that helped both organizations…”

Unfortunately, the price of cooperation for UHW, as determined by Marshall in his accompanying written decision, was its dismemberment. On January 9, 2009, the Stern controlled SEIU executive board ordered that 65,000 UHW-represented nursing home and home care members be transferred to a new statewide SEIU local that would have all of its officers hand-picked by Stern.

The affected workers had made it quite clear to SEIU and Marshall that they preferred to remain within UHW, which insisted that the question be put to a vote among its long-term care members (a form of rank-and-file veto power not guaranteed by the SEIU constitution). Nursing home and home care union activists feared they would end up in the clutches of another Stern protégé like Tyrone Freeman, the president of SEIU’s United Long Term Care Workers Local 6434 based in Los Angeles. In mid-2008, Freeman’s embezzlement of $1 million from his low-paid membership had just created a widely-publicized corruption scandal and led to his removal from office. (He now awaits federal criminal charges as well.)

As Medina explained in a Jan. 21, 2009 Beyond Chron article (entitled “Why SEIU Supports Uniting Long Term Care Workers”), members of Freeman’s former local, UHW, and a third SEIU affiliate were all going to be merged into “the nation’s largest and most powerful organization of long term care workers – 240,000 strong” for their own good. According to Medina, creating this “one unified local” was a top SEIU priority and “couldn’t come at a more critical moment,” due to public sector budget crises and resulting home care program funding cuts that threatened to undermine past union gains.

“Homecare workers hold an important place in SEIU,” Medina insisted. In fact, they were so important that he was personally “working with members in California” to ensure prompt implementation of the restructuring plan mandated by the SEIU board. “When our international union made a commitment to organize home care workers as a way to raise standards in this sector, the entire national union fought intensely to pass laws to allow home care workers to organize…” Medina wrote. “That’s why we must use all of our resources to strengthen union membership and political power in parts of this state and across the country.”

SEIU’s Post-Trusteeship Reality

After UHW balked at the forced transfer of its long-term care membership – and trusteeship was imposed – SEIU’s impending membership realignment was never mentioned publicly again. The statewide long term care local that Medina was going to create – “to raise more folks out of poverty so they can provide for themselves and their families” – was never established.

In apparent continuing violation of the executive board’s now three-year old jurisdictional decree, 65,000 nursing home and home care workers remain  dis-united, to this very day, in UHW. There, 2% of their modest pay-checks is deducted monthly to fund the extravagant salaries of Dave Regan and his top staff.

If there’s any transfer of membership in the near future, it will most likely involve Regan’s absorption of 160,000-member Local 6434, a take-over opposed by its current president, a former SEIU staffer named Laphonza Butler. Of course, if UHW and 6434 were consolidated, Regan would then head the second largest SEIU affiliate in the country. But long term care workers would not be segregated in their own local; they would be united with hospital workers, just as pre-trusteeship UHW leaders said they should be.

The notion that any of these top-down schemes lead to strengthened union membership and/or more “political power” is almost laughable at this point. Since Stern’s seizure of UHW, SEIU political clout has diminished so much in California that it couldn’t even get a putative ally, Governor Brown, to sign a bill passed by the legislature last year permitting unionization of tens of thousands of home-based child care providers through a card check recognition process. Similar card check procedures in New York, New Jersey, and others states have made it possible for tens of thousands of home day care providers to be unionized there.

While UHW/SEIU have been spending millions battling NUHW in California, past union gains among both home care workers and child-care providers have unraveled around the country. Some of the organizing “laws” referred to by Medina above were not laws at all—but executive orders obtained by SEIU from labor friendly governors in states like Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

After Republicans replaced Democrats in three of those four states in 2010, the state house winners began stripping more than 75,000 publicly-funded, home-based workers of recently acquired bargaining rights or contract protections. (For details, see Steve Early, “GOP Targets Fragile Gains of Home-Based Caregivers,” >Working In These Times, April 9, 2011.)

Since the UHW trusteeship, SEIU’s overall organizing record has steadily declined. It has lost a series of decertification elections to independent unions formed by county workers in southern California, city workers in Los Angeles, municipal workers in Arizona, and health care workers in Ontario. In recent months, NUHW has, for the first time, won NLRB elections outside of California, ousting SEIU as the representative of several hundred Michigan health care workers. Last January, a large-scale SEIU attempt to grow in Ohio ended in crushing defeat at hospitals and nursing facilities operated by Catholic Healthcare Partners (CHP).

In statewide voting conducted among CHP professional and non-professional employees, there was only one union (SEIU) on the ballot and virtually no anti-union campaigning. Nevertheless, the health care local formerly headed by Dave Regan lost in 39 proposed bargaining units and won in only four. Less than 700 workers gained bargaining rights out of 6,600 eligible to vote.

Something’s Rotten?

After Henry became SEIU president, she appointed a Dave Regan protégé from Ohio to head up membership recruitment throughout the country. SEIU’s new organizing director, Florida-based Scott Courtney, makes more than $200,000 a year, as the union’s highest paid unelected official.

According to one concerned SEIU activist, “the International union is doing no organizing. Scott Courtney is in charge and the only campaign he has allowed has been fighting off NUHW at Kaiser. Everything else has been shutdown.” In the Fall of 2010, Courtney had such an acrimonious dispute with Stephen Lerner over SEIU priorities that he put Lerner on administrative leave. His unruly subordinate was, back then, a convention-elected member of SEIU’s top governing board, and thus outranked Courtney. Yet, after a quarter century of widely-praised SEIU work, Lerner was given little or no role in organizing the unorganized when he was finally allowed to return to his headquarters staff position early last year.

Now this longtime Stern loyalist, liberal media darling, and critic of SEIU dissidents been forced out of SEIU entirely – by Mary Kay Henry! Although Lerner has refrained from public comment about his  resignation this month, at least one co-worker – a self-described “career staffer”(blogging under the screen name “Union Jo”) – took to the internet to warn that “the internal culture at SEIU under Mary Kay has taken a turn toward the dark side.” (For the full lament, see http://seiuhardtruths.blogspot.com/2012/01/somethings-rotten-inside-seiu-loyalist.html) “Courtney has clamped down on dissent, with Henry’s evident approval,” reports Union Jo. Lerner’s “ouster exposes the culture of fear, rigidity, and conformism that has taken root inside the union since she became its leader.” All of which leads this anonymous whistle-blower to conclude that something’s rotten inside SEIU – hardly a revelation to UHW members stripped of their union rights three years ago, and terribly abused, on a wide scale, ever since.

Steve Early’s book-length account of the UHW trusteeship and related SEIU conflicts was published by Haymarket Books last March and is now in its second printing. The Civil Wars in U.S. Labor can be ordered at www.civilwarsinlabor.org A version of this article first appeared on Beyond Chron. Early can be reached at Lsupport@aol.com

Carl Finamore

Tahrir Square was overloaded with people stretching and squeezing into every nook and cranny on adjacent streets, storefront alcoves and building doorways. Still, thousands were simply unable to ever reach the center.

But there was something equally noteworthy on this day—the total absence of the police and army. In a country where the army has far too much control in all affairs of state, on this day they could not be found.

Nonetheless, it must be said that the army’s presence was very much felt. For example, the largest center stage in the middle of the square was controlled by their key ally, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Continuous “God is Great” and pro-military chants were consciously intended to counter opposition slogans of the protest movement.

Voices of the Youth and Workers

Beyond the center stage, however, were dozens of political groups, student and youth organizations and independent union contingents calling for a second revolution. They completely engulfed the areas along the perimeter of Tahrir.

After a series of recent bloody attacks against young protestors, along with continued repression of worker protests, a clear statement was made on January 25 that voices of the youth and workers, in particular, would not be muted.

Nonetheless, Egypt’s generals have shown themselves far more astute in dealing with raging social unrest and complex political issues than the ousted dictator.

For example, Field Marshall Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), announced on January 24 that nearly 2000 political prisoners being held for military trials would be released and that the repressive 30-year Emergency Decree giving the government dictatorial powers would be lifted.

These and other calculated political gestures by SCAF undoubtedly improves their public image and impresses large sections of the population that desperately want to believe things will improve now that Mubarak is gone.

But it doesn’t fool seasoned political activists because it contrasts so sharply with the brutal military and police assaults in November and December. Those assaults left several thousand young men and women injured and around 150 killed.

Plus, there has been no real improvement in the economy. The demands of workers remain largely unaddressed except for a modest increase in the minimum wage from around $53 a month to $115 a month. Newly formed independent unions were demanding at least $200 a month.

The Egyptian working class is quite large and remains the most troublesome problem for the generals. They understand the critical role workers played in ending Mubarak’s reign by conducting the largest strike wave in Egyptian history.

“Workers were in Tahrir, but as individuals,” Marian Fadel told me, “then, on February 7, 8 and 9, they began acting like a class. Strikes occurred everywhere, leading the generals to turn on Mubarak.” Marian is an attorney with a Master Degree in human rights. She is also Egypt program officer for the U.S. AFL-CIO-supported Solidarity Center.

Since those heady days, Fadel continued, “the independent trade unions have been obstructed at every step when they try to organize. Organizers are transferred to different locations, fired and even arrested and tortured.”

In addition, she explained, “the law enacted in 1976 permitting only one union in a workplace and only one union federation in the country is still on the books. It obviously favors Mubarak’s corrupt Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), which is trying to regroup with support from the military and the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The ETUF supported Mubarak and, in fact, the former ETUF president is now in jail for helping lead the grotesque camel rider attacks against young people in Tahrir Square last year.

The Economy is Killing People

Nonetheless, after one year of protest and even with so many reforms left unaddressed, there is no doubt large sections of the population are feeling exhausted and want all the strife to end.

“The economy is killing people,” Fadel observed.

“Many people are tired of Tahrir, tired of the protests and tired of the battles with the military. They mistakenly believe that everything will improve and get back to normal if protestors just stop asking for so much.”

I noticed this division last year on my first trip to Cairo. Almost immediately after Mubarak was deposed, the army and large sections of the middle and upper classes were calling for a return to work. This is the drum beat continuously echoed by the media and the military with their allies in the Muslim Brotherhood.

But, slowing of the protests did not nor could not happen immediately after the battles that toppled Mubarak. There was too much enthusiasm and too many outstanding social and economic issues left unresolved. The people had tasted victory and they wanted more.

But, now, after one year of political maneuvers crafted by the military, conducting elections, establishing a parliament and promising the installation of a newly elected president on July 1, an exhausted population is confused, especially those influenced by the 70 per cent Islamist majority in parliament.

Of course, there are still dissident voices. Nadea, for example, is a 48-year old translator holding a sign in Tahrir demanding the military leave the government. She was with a group of friends who recently formed Woman for Change.

“We all fought for a civil society and what we got is a military government and an Islamist parliament. Neither of them are civil,” she told me as she threw up her hands.

Amid the absolutely critical political debate in Egypt today, there is also, according to many political activists I interviewed, some despair and demoralization. This is particularly true among the impoverished vendors in the informal sector who often earn only $2 a day and suffer dearly from the 30 per cent drop in tourism.

Walking the streets of Cairo, you see vivid examples of their wretched poverty. Children are everywhere working as vendors helping their family earn an income. Of course, this means they are not in school.

The United Nations records 40 per cent illiteracy rate and a 40 per cent poverty rate in Egypt.

It is somewhat different for the organized working class. In fact, over the last several years, even under Mubarak, the AFL-CIO recorded some 1900 mostly illegal strikes occurring from 2004 to 2008. These actions earned some important concessions from the government.

“Strikes continue today,” according to 23-year old Nadeem Mansour, executive director of the prestigious labor and human rights’ organization, the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR). “But the new independent unions put most of their energy, now, into strengthening their local chapters still in their infancy.”

Another 23-year old I met in Tahrir, Hussein, proudly announced himself a revolutionary. He offered this analysis: “The working class has a better sense of their own collective power and does not feel the same exhaustion and demoralization of their far more isolated brothers and sisters in the informal sectors of the economy.”

“And, of course, the other revolutionary factor in Egypt, is the youth, who must continually ally with the demands of the working class,” he told me.

I heard this often. According to the World Bank, there is 90 per cent unemployment among those under 30 years of age, now comprising 60 per cent of the population. Under these conditions, the youth have set an example of committed activism under the most violent of circumstances.

“I lost an eye on November 19 when I was hit by a rubber bullet,” 30-year old Malek Moustafa told me. He is media director for one of the most prominent human rights organizations in Egypt, the Hisham Mubarak Law Center.

“It was the first day of the month-long protests opposing military rule and demanding real democratic and economic reforms. Nearly 150 were killed by the military and police assault on Mohamed Mamoud street right off Tahrir and in front of the Ministry of Interior.”

“It was like bloody Beirut, total mayhem with the army and police dragging bodies into trucks probably to be dumped in the desert. And, it seemed they were firing purposely at the eyes,” a veteran AP photographer I befriended in Cairo told me in a separate interview.

“Among the several thousand wounded,” Malek said, “are another 35 who lost one eye like me, seven who lost both eyes and many others with critical and permanent injuries.”

The large, enthusiastic youth presence in Tahrir this January 25, following the bloody days of the last few months, certainly shows their passion and determination is undeterred. Of course, the revolutionary youth know the activist minority must ultimately win over the more conservative majority who yearn for stability, and for that challenge, they tell me, they are prepared.

The feeling at Tahrir was one of determination, a recognition that the struggle for revolutionary change will take longer. “We are not just fighting an individual now, we are fighting an entrenched military institution and its corrupt allies,” said Fadel. “We are ready for the difficulties ahead.”

Carl Finamore is delegate to the San Francisco Labor Council, AFL-CIO. He is in Cairo for eight days. He can be reached at local1781@yahoo.com and his writings at carlfinamore.wordpress.com

International Trade Union Confederation

The international union movement will put its case for the reform of capitalism at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week with five principles for dealing with current economic challenges.

Addressing political and business chiefs, trade union leaders from Indonesia, USA and the UK and the international trade union movement will call for jobs and growth to be at the centre of plans to reboot the world economy.

Sharan Burrow, General Secretary International Trade Union Confederation, said the pervasive economic challenges had spread to all areas of working life, from young people unable to find their first job, parents struggling with rising inequality and seniors struggling to survive on dwindling pensions.

“Over the past three decades income inequality has risen in 17 of the 24 OECD countries for which data is available. With growing unemployment and stagnating wages, we’re sitting on a social time bomb,” said John Evans, General Secretary Trade Union Advisory Council to the OECD.

“In Davos this week, we’ll be pushing to put people back into our economic system.  Because it’s workers in work that will drive us the global economy out of the crisis,” said Sharan Burrow.

Labour’s five principles for growth include:

1.       Jobs –Five years of two per cent GDP invested in the green economy across six sectors in 12 countries can drive more than 55 million sustainable, decent jobs.

2.       Social protection, sustainable demand and decent work – These should include a social protection floor in every country, with a global fund to kick-start development in the poorest countries; minimum wages on which people can live with dignity; and an expansion of collective bargaining to ensure fair work conditions.

3.       Financial regulation – Governments must band together to stand up for the ‘real economy’ by putting a ban on algorithmic High Frequency Trading, regulating the credit rating agencies, and requiring transparency for the shadow banking system –  the hedge funds and investment vehicles that transact trillions of dollars but fall outside national regulatory systems.

4.       Fair and progressive taxation – It is time to repair the balance sheets of governments through a fair contribution from those that can afford to pay: through making corporations pay their fair share, urgently implementing a broad-based, low-rate Financial Transaction Tax to reduce speculation and provide a new source of government funding to  invest in public services, social protection and development.

5.       Climate action – Governments must find the political will required to save our children’s future, by reducing emissions of industrialised countries by 25-40% by 2020, implementing a green climate fund and ensuring a just transition for workers and communities.

 “There will be no growth unless governments invest, using labour’s five principles as a road map” said Philip Jennings, General Secretary UNI

“It’s time to bring the real economy out of the shadows of financial greed – with unions and employers at the table agreeing a set of principles for growth,” said Jennings.

“The World’s Next Top (Economic) Model”, read Sharan Burrow in the Huffington Post : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sharan-burrow/the-worlds-next-top-econo_b_1224758.html

Read Labour’s Five Demands for Jobs, Growth and Equity (English) for Davos 2012: http://www.ituc-csi.org/labour-s-five-demands-for-jobs.html

The ITUC represents 175 million workers in 153 countries and territories and has 308 national affiliates. Website: http://www.ituc-csi.org  and http://www.youtube.com/ITUCCSI  

Some 30 Occupy Atlanta participants showed up on short notice in the pouring  rain at an African American church in one of Atlanta’s poorest neighborhoods on January 21 to take part in a workshop on labor unions, organized by some  of Atlanta’s progressive union activists and Jobs with Justice/DSA member Roger Sikes.

“Occupy Atlanta is usually a diverse crowd in terms of background, skin color and culture. In this case, there was also diversity in the understanding of what a union is. Folks had time to just ask questions, anything, about what this union thing is. On my way out a participant grabbed me and exclaimed: ‘I need to get in a union,’ ” said Sikes.

The latter part of the workshop was dedicated to concrete ways to unite Occupy Atlanta and labor. The announced layoff of 740 union AT&T workers
will be a test of union/Occupy/community strength. February 14th there will be a mass mobilization at an AT&T hub in Atlanta against the layoffs (for
details see http://www.atlantajwj.org/2012/01/blog-post.html)

The choice of venue was significant. Just days before, Occupy Atlanta andRainbow Push had rallied and petitioned to prevent the 108-year-old church
from being evicted by the BBT Bank. In a stunning victory, the bank not only offered a workable loan modification but also pledged to invest in the
community.(for details see <http://occupyatlanta.org/2012/01/17/victory-for-higher-ground-empowerment-center/#.Tx1OaUoZ-Fc> ) Occupy Atlanta has been holding some of its meetings at the church since then.

Atlanta Jobs with Justice members had brought a delegation of Atlanta labor union activists to visit Occupy Atlanta last fall before its eviction from a
downtown park. Since then, JwJ and Occupy activists have been meeting to discuss joint efforts, in particular around foreclosures and evictions, and
Occupy members have joined labor support picket lines.

Barbara Joye is an activist with  Atlanta Democratic Socialists of America.

Mike Elk

WASHINGTON. D.C.—Last night, President Obama gave his State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress—but barely mentioned unions. The president did touch on a number of issues important to workers—such as increasing manufacturing in America, taxing the rich more equitably, increasing education funding and increasing enforcement of trade laws—but said nothing about increased attacks on workers’ rights around the country during the last 12 months.

This despite 2011 being the a year in which unions (especially those representing public-sector workers) have been under unprecedented attacks in places like Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana.

The only time Obama explicitly mentioned a union was in reference to  “Master Lock’s unionized plant” in Milwaukee, which he said is now running at “full capacity” because the company brought back jobs from overseas.

At the beginning of his speech, Obama said: “At the end of World War II, when another generation of heroes returned home from combat, they built the strongest economy and middle class the world has ever known.” However, he did not mention the fundamental role that unions played in building that middle class. Unions represented nearly one-third of all workers in the decade following World War II.

One of the only times that President Obama did indirectly to address union issues was in what could be interpreted to be a reference to wanting more “flexibility” in contract language “to replace teachers.” Obama said:

Teachers matter. So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let’s offer schools a deal. Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones. And in return, grant schools flexibility: to teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test and to replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn. That’s a bargain worth making.

While some could interpret this language as attacking the contract clauses of teacher union contracts, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten did not see this as an anti-teacher union statement, telling In These Times, “I heard a different tone about what teachers and students need—as well as what he has always said about teacher accountability.” Weingarten further praised the speech, saying that it was about “fighting for the middle class, for economic fairness, taking on the banks, telling others to stop bashing and leading with accountability—it’s an important populist message for the times we are in. I think the president deserves that acknowledgement.”

The only other time that Obama referenced an event involving a union was in speaking about the role of workers (represented by the United Auto Workers union) in helping to revive the auto industry. Obama said: “In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility. We got workers and automakers to settle their differences. We got the industry to retool and restructure. Today, General Motors is back on top as the world’s number one automaker.”

While praising GM’s return to profitability, Obama did not mention how, despite the auto industry returning to profitability, the industry has done nothing to eliminate a two-tier wage system that was implemented as part of the bailout. The UAW did not return request for comment on the president’s section of the speech.

“There is little or nothing in this speech to oppose what most employers are doing; cutting jobs, busting unions, slashing wages, liquidating benefits, and running roughshod over workers in every way possible,” said UE Political Action Director Chris Townsend. ”As for workers, we are forced to work for a poverty existence at a “competitive wage” until we tipple into the grave. How inspiring is that?”

Kim Bobo, executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice, criticized the speech for failing to emphasize the importance of protecting living standards and workers’ rights. ”We need a national jobs policy that creates enough jobs for all those who are able to work, raises core standards around living wages and family-supporting benefits, stops and deters wage theft, and ensures that public and private sector workers have the right to collective bargaining,” she said in a statement Wednesday.

But despite the lack of positive references to the role of unions and organized labor, the speech did receive good reviews for Obama’s calls to renew America’s manufacturing sector, enforce trade laws more fairly, crack down on Wall Street, and reform tax laws to tax wealthy people at higher rates. (Billionaire Warren Buffet’s secretary was actually present for the speech to symbolize America’s dysfunctional tax code; her boss actually pays a lower tax rate overall than she does.) Specifically, he called for the creation of a “Trade Enforcement Unit that will be charged with investigating unfair trading practices in countries like China.”

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said:

President Obama’s speech tonight shows that he has listened to the single mom working two jobs to get by, to the out-of-work construction worker, to the retired factory worker, to the student serving coffee to help pay for college. …And tonight he made clear that the era of the 1% getting rich by looting the economy, rather than creating jobs, is over—what a contrast to the vision presented by presidential candidates squabbling over how much further to cut the taxes of the 1%.

The call for reviewing manufacturing and cracking down on unfair trade practices drew particular praise from United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard. He said:

President Obama has listened to us as American workers and laid out a vision of the America we want and need, one that creates jobs and prosperity for us and not the 1% who have looted the economy….The President’s commitment to discourage job outsourcing and promote insourcing is a ticket to a better economy.

We especially applaud the announcement to renew his policy to get tough on trade enforcement with a new unit to bring together resources and investigators from across the government to go after unfair trade practices in countries around the world, including China.

The GOp chose Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels to deliver the party’s response to the State of the Union address. Daniels has spearheaded the effort to pass “Right-to-Work” legislation in Indiana, which would weaken private-sector unions. On its website, the AFL-CIO said the choice of Daniels sends a “clear signal the party is making attacks on working people a top priority in the 2012 elections.”

Surprisingly, though, Daniels didn’t say anything about unions. At least from my perspective last night, it was as if the massive fights for collective bargaining rights we witnessed in Wisconsin and Ohio last year (which, of course, continue in Wisconsin) never even happened.

Mike Elk is an In These Times Staff Writer and a regular contributor to the labor blog Working In These Times, where this post originally appeared. He can be reached at mike@inthesetimes.com.

Occupy Wall Street’s singular achievement has been to inject issues of concentrated wealth, inequality, and the threat to democracy into the heart of national debate, something the labor movement has tried but largely failed to do for many years. Occupy Wall Street continues to generate attention across the country. While unions were one of its earliest supporters, and share some of its ideals, the two movements are also markedly different.

Unlike unions, Occupy Wall Street is inherently anti-capitalist. It also makes a point of not having a set of demands or a defined leadership, while trade unions are highly structured representative bodies that pay meticulous attention to formulating specific programs and demands. How do the two movements view each other? What has been their working relationship so far? How do OWS and unions see organizing? Are their strategies and tactics compatible? What can OWS gain from the involvement of organized labor, and vice versa?

Discussing these questions are John Samuelsen, president of Transport Workers Union, Local 100; Tammy Kim, staff attorney at the Urban Justice Center and an active member of the Occupy Wall Street Immigrant Worker Justice Working Group; Mario Dartayet-Rodriguez, Organizing Director, AFSCME DC 37 and member of the Labor Outreach Committee of OWS; and Amy Muldoon, member of CWA, Local 1106, and CWA District 1 liaison to OWS. The forum will be moderated by Steve Fraser, labor historian, author of numerous books including Labor Will Rule: Sidney Hillman & the Rise of American Labor, and Wall Street: America’s Dream Palace, and a member of the Labor Outreach Committee of OWS. Please RSVP to Eloiza Morales at 212-642-2029 or eloiza.morales@mail.cuny.edu.

By laying out a vision of an America that can create jobs and prosperity for all instead of wealth for the few, Trumka said the president “voiced the aspirations and concerns of those who are too often ignored.”

Obama also made clear that the era of the 1 percent getting rich by looting the economy, rather than creating jobs, is over.

“Now it’s time for Congress to stop standing in the way of rebuilding our country and act,”  Trumka said.

President Obama presented Congress a choice, Trumka said, between Obama’s vision of the need to invest to achieve stable, long-term prosperity for all and the vision of presidential candidates squabbling over how much further to cut the taxes of the 1 percent.

Obama “spoke to the confidence of working people that if we are determined and committed, we can revitalize ‘Made in the USA.’ That commitment to American manufacturing, made possible in part by enhanced enforcement of trade laws being violated by China , is welcome news to the too many productive, hard working Americans sitting idle unnecessarily.”

Trumka praised the President’s powerful insistance “on a more humble Wall Street subject to a thorough investigation of the misconduct in the mortgage  markets that wrecked our economy,” and applauded the creation of a new mortgage  crisis unit to be co-chaired by New York’s Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman.

Obama also sent a message of hope to America’s young people, “with his words of support for DREAM students, immigrants brought to this country by their parents and committed to the quintessentially American vision of hard work at school or in military service,” Trumka said.

The bottom line, of course, is job creation. The nation is still short 10 million jobs deficit from losses in 2008 and 2009. The addition of 200,000 jobs in December was strong and welcome growth, but the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) points out that even at that rate, the United States will not return to full employment until 2019.

Since Labor Day, Obama has been speaking out forcefully against the same staggering increase in inequality that inspired the Occupy Wall Street movement. His State of the Union speech demonstrate s a focus on job creation Republican House and
Senate leaders should follow.

Yet the Republican leadership is so out of touch it chose Indiana’s Gov. Mitch Daniels to give the party’s response to the State of the Union address, a move Trumka says represents
the sad decline of the national Republican party and its growing fixation with the voices of CEOs instead of every day Americans.

From the AFL-CIO.

The ad will run following Governor Daniels’ response to the State of the Union on broadcast networks in Indiana and nationally on CNN and MSNBC.

Throughout the day, Democratic amendments to the House version of RTW (House Bill 1001) were rejected on party lines. Even the hugely popular amendment calling for a public referendum that would allow voters to decide on RTW went down to defeat. Then Bosma shut down the discussion on amendments, cutting off further debate. In protest, House Democrats left the chamber and went to caucus.

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