Labor Union Blog

With the Easter holiday approaching, many U.S. children and their parents will celebrate with chocolate bunnies and other chocolate-covered treats. But for children in West Africa, Easter will simply be another desolate day of harvesting cocoa, the main ingredient in chocolate, under inexcusable conditions.

AFT has launched a campaign to stop the importation of child-harvested cocoa beans or chocolate made from them. You can take action. Click here to send a message to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack urging him to ensure chocolate products Americans eat are not spoiled by the bitterness of child labor.

More than half of the world’s supply of cocoa is harvested in the two West African nations of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). Growing and harvesting the crop depends upon the labor of 3.6 million children caught in the worst forms of child labor, according to the International Cocoa Verification Board (ICVB). Children must climb trees with machetes to cut down cocoa pods. They handle and apply dangerous pesticides, burn brush and carry back-breaking loads, ICVB says. ICVB is non-profit, multi-stakeholder organization that monitors child and forced labor in cocoa production.

Their hazardous work in the cocoa trees also prevents these children from attending school. Nearly a quarter of the working children in Côte d’Ivoire have never been to school, AFT says. Among those who have attended school, 7.6 percent stop going after they go to work on the cocoa farms. Overall, just 14.8 percent of the child cocoa laborers are literate.

In a letter last month to Vilsack, AFT President Randi Weingarten said “urgent action is needed if we are to realize the International Labor Organization goal of eliminating the worst forms of child labor by 2016.” Cocoa beans from Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire already are on the U.S. Department of Labor’s list of goods produced by child labor. Read the letter here.

Researchers at American University report that slave traders are trafficking boys, between ages 12 and 16, taking them from their home countries and selling them to cocoa farmers in Cote d’Ivoire. Most of the boys come from neighboring Mali, where agents hang around bus stations looking for children that are alone or are begging for food. They lure the kids to travel to Cote d’Ivoire with them, and then the traffickers sell the children to farmers in need of cheap labor.

More than a 1,000 Pennsylvania union members, laid-off workers and community allies rallied outside a downtown Philadelphia Bank America office, hundreds streamed through the bank lobby along with a delegation carrying a $145 billion check. Shouting, “No jobs, no future,” they demanded BofA endorse the check and help finance creation of the 11 million jobs Wall Street gambled away.

After all: Wall Street’s Big Six-Bank of America, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wachovia-Wells Fargo-received $145 billion taxpayer bailout funds.

Kelle Sallard, an unemployed Verizon worker and member of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) member from Verizon, told the crowd she lost her medical benefits but doesn’t qualify for free health care.

While the CEO of Verizon makes 18 million and gets lifetime free health care, I lost my job at Verizon, lost my benefits and make too much on unemployment to qualify for free health care.  How is that fair?

Philadelphia AFL-CIO President Pat Eiding, AFSCME 1199C President Henry Nicholas and AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka hold a $145 billion owed to America’s workers.
Pennsylvania State AFL-CIO President Bill George speaks to the crowd outside the Bank of America.

Pennsylvania State AFL-CIO Bill George put it bluntly:

It’s time to get ours back. The banks got theirs. It’s revolution time. It’s the only thing they understand.

The Philadelphia action-in which members from all area unions took part-was one of more than 200 “Good Jobs Now, Make Wall Street Pay” actions taking place through March 25. The rallies and marches will demand that the Big Six Wall Street banks:

• Pay their fair share to restore the jobs their actions destroyed.
• Stop their fight and multi-million dollar lobbying blitz to kill financial reform.
• Start lending to communities, small businesses and others starved for credit.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told the crowd that Big Banks and Wall Street speculators “Played Russian roulette with our economy,”

and while Wall Street cashed in, they left Main Street holding the bag. They peddled meaningless junk-derivatives, credit default swaps, overpriced mortgages-and none of it was real. None of it created a job or gave a loan to small business.

Pat Gillespie, business manager of the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council, talked about how workers in the trades ‘”desperately need work.” Meanwhile, said Gillespie:

Infrastructure is going to hell. We’re already trained just put our people to work.

As Philadelphia central labor council President Pat Eiding put it, the union movement is letting people know that “working peoples’ voices are strong.” He added:

Today is about jobs. It’s about putting workers right here in Philadelphia, and all over this country, back to work.

Among other Make Wall Street Pay actions around the country, in Buffalo, N.Y., union and community activists set up a poker table yesterday at a Bank of America branch. U Under a “Gambling with Our Lives” banner, Buffalo, N.Y., they reenacted the banks’ risky wagers that wrecked the economy. Sam Williams, co-chair of the Western New York Area Labor Federation (WNYALF), told the Buffalo News:

Wall Street has been protected at the expense of Main Street families. Wall Street must restore the jobs that they destroyed.

Also yesterday, union activists held demonstrations in Des Moines, Iowa; Jersey City, N.J.; and Manchester, N.H. Several more actions are set for today.

Find out about events in your area here. If you take part in an event, be sure to send us your photo or video here.

You also can tell Wall Street executives to pay to create good jobs by sending a letter urging them to do the right thing. Just click here.

In Philadelphia this morning, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka joined Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Bill George in pledging the union movement's support for an impending strike by Temple University Hospital’s 1,500 nurses and professional and technical employees. Shortly before the press event, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP) delivered a 10-day strike notice to the hospital. The employees have been without a contract since last September, and Bill Cruice, Executive Director of PASNAP, said "Temple is on a reckless path."

They are willing to spend more money on imported strikebreakers than it would take to settle a fair contract. We know from other healthcare strikes that patients’ lives will be put at risk by the strikebreakers, who are flown in from all around the country in search of quick money.

Trumka put it this way:

We will not allow Temple Hospital, an institution supported by taxpayer funds, to thumb their noses at these workers or the union movement. And we’re going to enlist the help of political leaders who consistently support Temple’s repeated requests for additional funding.

In honor of Women’s History Month, the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) last night presented its first annual Working Women’s Awards to 11 women who have left their mark on and helped build the labor movement.

The ceremony, at the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., honored the women for their

extraordinary achievements, leadership, and for being exemplary models for working women who seek to advance in their workplace, union and community.

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler, who received one of the awards, said it was thanks to the work and success of many of the women in attendance that she has been able to walk down the path they pioneered.

Take a look around this room. Wow, what incredible talent, what incredible commitment to working women there is right here. As you all know, this celebration is all about Women’s History Month…but you don’t just celebrate women’s history-you make it yourselves. I owe a lot to you. It’s because of you that I can stand here tonight.

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker, another honoree, said women’s workplace rights have a come a long way, but

the struggle to close the pay gap between men and women still continues, although we have come a long way, we haven’t completely closed the gap.  If I could grant one right to working women, it would be  pay equity. 

The other women honored were Letter Carriers (NALC) Secretary-Treasurer Jane E. Broendel; UAW Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Bunn; Change to Win (CTW) Chair Anna Burger; AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Emerita Linda Chavez-Thompson; Alliance for Retired Americans President Barbara J. Easterling; CLUW Presidents Emerita Gloria T. Johnson and Joyce D. Miller; AFGE Vice President Augusta Thomas; and Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU) Secretary-Treasurer Emerita Nancy Wohlforth.

This morning, The New York Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman presented the straight-forward, reasoned and no-hype case why the U.S. House this weekend should pass health care reform.

For one thing, he writes, the bill would end abuses like those of a South Carolina health insurance company that had “a systematic policy of revoking its clients’ policies when they got sick.”

What is on the table, ready to go, is legislation that is fiscally responsible, takes major steps toward dealing with rising health care costs, and would make us a better, fairer, more decent nation.

Read Krugman’s entire column here and then call 1-877-3-AFLCIO and tell you representative to vote this Sunday to pass health care reform.

Workers Independent News Labor Radio
Internet Radio Program 03/19/10
Producers: Doug Cunningham & Jesse Russell

Labor Radio Rundown:

1) WIN Newscast

2) President Obama signs the Senate jobs bill, but says more is needed. Teamsters President Jim Hoffa praises Obama for and COngress or acting to create jobs.

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This afternoon, the AFL-CIO Executive Council said waiting 60 years for health care reform is long enough. Council members agreed to actively support President Obama’s health care bill and called on Congress to pass the legislation, which the U.S. House is set to vote on this Sunday.

Nearly every president since Harry Truman has sought health care reform. But powerful opposition from the insurance industry and others has scuttled each attempt. In a video message to working families, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says:

We can’t miss this opportunity. We’ve been fighting for health care for 60 years. When I look at the years we have put into fighting for health care and what it means to working families to start down the path of comprehensive reform, I know the time to step forward is now.

Trumka urged union members to call their representatives and tell them to pass the bill (call toll free 1-877-3-AFLCIO). He acknowledges many people have been “conflicted” about the bill. In a press conference call, he told reporters:

It is not a perfect bill. But we are realistic enough to know it’s time for the deliberations to stop and for progress to begin. And we are idealistic enough to believe this is an opportunity to change history we can’t afford to miss.

Trumka says action by working families during the health care debate “has made the health care bill stronger,” much to the dismay of the insurance industry that has:

plastered their money and lobbyists across Capitol Hill to try to stop this bill because it’s a game-changer for them. It ends what is literally a reign of insurance company terror.

Among other provisions, the bill:

• Immediately stops greed-driven insurance company abuse such as denying care based on pre-existing conditions.
• Toughens penalties on employers that try to run from their responsibilities.
• Puts the burden of paying for health care where it belongs–on the wealthy.
• Gets life-saving health coverage to 30 million more people and improves coverage for millions more.
• Reduces prescription drug costs for seniors and saves money for small businesses.

Trumka told reporters:

Rising health care costs are crushing families and businesses. Middle-class families are losing health care coverage faster than any other group today.

This bill is a solid first step in changing that.

Be sure to call your representative at 1-877-3-AFLCIO and tell him or her to pass the health care reform bill.

Members of the Communications Workers of America hit the streets in Central New Jersey on Thursday to protest proposals by Governor Chris Christie to cut benefits. The Governor has proposed placing a cap on the cashing out of unused sick days for retiring employees and would also force workers to contribute 1.5 percent of salaries toward health care. Of biggest concern to the unions is a plan that would see new hires be placed into a 401k plan instead of the current state pension system.

With an agreement with workers in hand the closure of the New United Motor Manufacturing plant in California is a done deal. Jesse Russell reports:

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