SEIU’s Eliseo Medina: “The Court has decided, but on Nov. 6 we will have the final say.”

Eliseo Medina

WASHINGTON, DC — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the key portion of the anti-immigrant Arizona law SB 1070 – the discriminatory provision that forces law enforcement to request immigration papers of anyone they suspect might be undocumented. While the court did not specifically consider the racial profiling or unconstitutional search and seizure issues in this limited case, law enforcement officers across the country have testified the law cannot be enforced without racial profiling.

On a key point, the court agreed that only the federal government should regulate immigration. The court also left the door open to future legal challenges, which SEIU and other plaintiffs in other lawsuits against SB 1070 are pursuing.

SEIU International Secretary-Treasurer Eliseo Medina responded to the court’s ruling:

Organizing Wildfire and Wildcat Strikes Spread Among Cablevision Workers

by Mike Elk

Mike Elk

After nearly two decades of Cablevision workers attempting to organize in New York City, it suddenly appears that they’re meeting success. This story perhaps precipitates a broader trend about how, given the hope of the Wisconsin Uprising and Occupy Wall Street, workers are reinvigorated to fight back against slashed wages and poor working conditions.

In January of this year, in a campaign involving a massive training of shop stewards, political support from elected New York City officials, and community outreach with groups like Occupy Wall Street, 282 Brooklyn-based Cablevision workers voted to unionize with CWA (for more on the dynamics of this incredible campaign, read my story here). Then a group of 120 from the Bronx—employed by Corbel, a Cablevision subcontractor—went out on a wildcat strike to protest cut wages. Last month, those Corbel workers voted to join the IBEW.

The Real Story About the USPS

by Bill Brickley

NH letter carriers (NALC) at a Save Our Postal Service rally.

The corporate owned media is blindly mouthing the GOP version of the situation with the US Postal Service. Their fairy tale states that the USPS is losing serious money because of declining mail volume due to the Internet – competition from Federal Express and UPS and those ineffective union workers. Since our electorate spends minimal time researching anything of substance they buy this fairy tale as fact.

Let me tell the real story. The USPS is currently in a financial crisis – no dispute on that. It has in fact been caused by a 2006 poison pill put in a postal reform bill by the Bush administration that required the USPS topre fund their future retiree health care costs for the next 75 years in the next 10 years. That is $5.5 billion a year. No other federal agency does this as well as few private companies. Especially during an economic slowdown we are experiencing. Take away this onerous pefunding and the Postal Service has actually made a 7 million dollar profit over the last 6 years despite the effects from the economic meltdown.

How about a Robin Hood Tax?

Rio Summit Draft Bitterly Disappointing

International Trade Union Confederation

20 June 2012: The global trade union movement is bitterly disappointed at the draft Declaration presented to world leaders at the Rio+20 Summit on Wednesday, and is calling on governments to use the remaining two days of the summit to map out a pathway to avoid environmental and social destruction.

Sharan Burrow, ITUC General Secretary, said, “World leaders have been presented with a draft which lacks the concrete direction needed to end senseless environmental destruction, drive investment into the green economy and guarantee social protection for all. They now have 48 hours to show the ambition and commitment needed to get the Rio Summit back on the right track and ensure that future generations inherit a sustainable economic and environmental future.”

Senate Democrats Block Funding for Guest Worker Protection Rule

by Mike Elk

Mike Elk

On June 14, five Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee joined 14 Republicans to help pass an amendment sponsored by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) that would block funding for the enforcement of a new H-2B guest workers protection rule issued by the Obama administration. Approximately 115,000 guest workersare working in the United States on H-2B guest worker visas. The program allows companies to bring in workers into the United States to work when they claim that they cannot find American workers to do the job.

However, workers’ rights advocates claim the program is often abused by companies to hire workers in industries like construction. Currently, 14.2% of construction workers are unemployed. A recent Department of Labor internal audit found that nearly half of all companies using H-2B guest workers are not in compliance with federal laws about their usage.

Labor advocates claim that the H-2B visas programs are often used to pay workers lower wages. One study by the Economic Policy Institute found that workers on H-2B visa in the seafood industry make on average $10,000 a year less than American workers in the seafood industry.

So-Called Free Trade — Bad Policy and Wrong Debate

by Stan Sorscher

Stan Sorscher

An editorial in my local paper is a good example of how we trivialize our public discussion of globalization and trade policy.

The editorial follows this logic: Trade is good. All trade is good. More trade is better than less trade. Maximum possible trade! Anyone who disagrees is protectionist or resentful.

I can immediately correct one misunderstanding. Everyone I know is in favor of trade. I am 100 percent in favor of trade. The issue is not “trade.” The issue is good trade policy, which raises my standard of living, or bad trade policy, which lowers it.

Similarly, I am in favor of capitalism. Even so, we can have real, significant, meaningful, legitimate debates about good rules for capitalism and bad rules for capitalism.

I am in favor of banks. We deserve serious policy debates about banking.

I am 100 percent in favor manufacturing. China’s manufacturing capacity is prodigious. It grows on the misguided principle of maximum possible output. As a result, air pollution in China is legendary, causing 750,000 premature deaths per year. In America, we debated clean air and clean water. Our public health and living standards are better for that debate.

I am in favor of copper, iron ore and titanium. However, it is bad trade policy for international trade tribunals to compel El Salvador to expose their people to unsafe mining practices, threatening more than a third of their clean water. Maximum possible mining threatens public health and safety in El Salvador.

It is bad public policy for a trade tribunal to overturn Ecuador’s $18 billion environmental penalties against Exxon, compelling the national courts to back down in the face of trade sanctions. Exxon has already damaged the environment, and been found guilty in court. Bad trade policy punishes Ecuador instead of Exxon.

These concerns are not new. Past trade negotiations identified them in writing, but dealt with them ineffectually.

For instance, when China entered the WTO in 2001, it signed an “accession agreement” with several conditions designed to make trade a two-way deal. China’s national policies flagrantly violate those conditions. China openly manipulates its currency. China demands that U.S. companies transfer technology to Chinese domestic producers. Foreign companies are discouraged or prevented from selling to China’s domestic consumers, and Chinese producers receive subsidies and incentives that drive our producers from the market.

Free speech, free press and labor standards are notoriously weak in China. China has a rich history and amazing culture. However, they lack the institutions of civil society for democratic debate about serious policy issues.

This harms workers and producers in America.

In our NAFTA and WTO debates, advocates of so-called free trade promised us a rising standard of living, balanced trade and millions of good new jobs. Instead, U.S. companies shifted 2.4 million jobs abroad, while eliminating 2.9 million jobs in America. Our cumulative trade deficit since NAFTA is over $7 trillion. Our economy is de-industrializing, and we are losing strategic opportunities to produce the next generations of products.

These are fundamental flaws in our trade policy that lower our standard of living — well worth a serious public discussion. Nineteenth century “free trade” theory may work well in a textbook, but it has profound conceptual, economic, social, environmental, and political shortcomings in our real 21st century global economy.

Challenging bad policy is the way democracy works.

Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney found fault with aspects of our trade policy (at least during election campaigns). Candidate Obama recognized the weaknesses in our trade theory, and promised better trade agreements all through the campaign. Candidate Romney says action on China’s currency manipulation will be a top priority.

In at least one respect, our so-called free trade policy is fabulously successful. It’s really about putting investor and business interests at the highest priority, while sweeping aside the environment, labor rights, human rights, public health and reasonable regulations. Investors go first; civil society comes after. Maximum possible trade! It’s great for companies who move production to countries with low-wages and weak democracies.

Dave Johnson says this in plain language:

The business advantage China offers is not low wages — it is that in China the people do not have a say, and here people have a say. When people have a say they say they want better pay, health care, retirement, vacations, sick pay, protections, worker safety, clean environment and taxes to support the country — things like that — the very things China offers to let our businesses escape from.So what China offers is that China is “business-friendly.” Because people there do not have a say, so they can’t ask for the things people should have.

When our newspapers and policy-makers trivialize globalization and dismiss legitimate public concerns as “resentment” or protectionism, they weaken our democracy.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is the Obama administration’s signature trade agreement, which is being negotiated in total secret. Text was leaked recently, showing that TPP will be worse than the past agreements. A crummy deal, negotiated in secrecy is not saying much for democracy.

Popular disillusionment with so-called free trade is real. It is based on personal experience, rational analysis, and looking out the window.

Voters, workers, families and Main Street businesses sense serious problems with our domestic economy. Whatever those problems are, they are made worse by so-called free trade. We won’t solve either unless we deal with both.

Stan Sorscher is Labor Representative at the Society for Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), a union representing over 24,000 scientists, engineers, technical and professional employees in the aerospace industry. He has been with SPEEA since 2000.

International Jobs Deficit Recognized at the G20, but the Jury is Out on Action

International Trade Union Confederation

(Brussels, 20 June 2012) International unions said the shift in language in the G20 Los Cabos Declaration from austerity to jobs is the right direction, but unless there is coordinated action from G20 leaders, words will not be translated into the investment necessary to get people back to work.

Sharan Burrow, General Secretary ITUC, said working families without hope will want to see genuine coordinated action which delivers jobs and secure incomes.

“There is a shift from talk of austerity to jobs, but is it enough when the global economy is on the brink?” said Burrow. “Leaders are recognizing that austerity has deepened the social crisis, but there is still an isolationist tendency and consequently government polices are being caught in the web of financial markets.”

The Longest Strike in the U.S.

by Tom Broderick

Photo: UniteHere

The longest current strike in America continues. The rank and file of UNITE-HERE! Local 1 voted to rally on June 15 at the Congress Hotel to mark the ninth year of their strike. This is 3,285 days.

In his speech at the end of the rally, Henry Tamarin, President of Local 1, referred to the usual suspects being present again. Some of the groups that were on the pavement included Interfaith Worker Justice, Bickerdike Redevelopment Corporation and Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. Several unions were represented by individuals wearing their union colors. The giant inflated rats were there as well. Tamarin also mentioned another group of usual suspects — the Chicago Police Department., some of whom had been at all the previous rallies.

Big Banks Slam the Brakes on Public Transit

by Bob Simpson

Dale Burnett stood in the lobby of a Chase bank in downtown Chicago the morning of June 7 and explained why Chase and other big banks need to stop gouging millions from the city’s public transit system. A home care worker who cannot afford a car, Burnett’s job pays her poverty wages and she cannot afford fare increases or service cuts. In contrast, Jamie Dimon, CEO of Chase, has a $23 million compensation package this year. Nationally, 43% of transit riders make under 25,000 annually.

Burnett was among 50 Chicagoland transit riders and community activists who came to send a letter to CEO Jamie Dimon. Representing a coalition of transit riders and transit workers called ReFund Transit, they were asking him to renegotiate the interest rate swaps  that are bleeding public transit across the USA. Simultaneous protests by ReFund Transit were held in other US cities.