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lia Href=http://www.laborradio.org/node/9775WIN Week In Review October 31-November 2, 2008a//li
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p WIN Week In Review October 31-Nov. 2, 2008/p
p By Doug Cunningham/p
pInternational Association of Machinists workers will vote Saturday on a tentative agreement ending the 52 day-old Boeing strike. The union says it secured health care benefits with no additional cost shifting to workers, preserved defined benefit pensions for all members of the union and improved those pensions. The IAM also says the new agreement guarantees a 15 percent pay raise over the four year proposed contract. The union also says it won its fight for job security. Full details of the tentative agreement have not yet been made public. The strike had cost Boeing an estimated $100 million a day in lost production and sales. Twenty-seven thousand workers are covered under the tentative agreement./p
Here’s another example of why America’s workers need the Employee Free Choice Act.
This week, the adjunct faculty at Pace University in New York City and on Long Island finally has a tentative contract—after four years of stalling by university management.
Four years.
In May 2004, the professors voted 308–165 to form the Union of Adjunct Faculty at Pace (UAFP), an affiliate of AFT. Their key issues included wages, a lack of benefits and a lack of respect. As Pace Physics professor Chris Williams puts it:
I would starve to death if I had to rely on my wages from Pace.
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The tight Kentucky Senate contest has been dubbed the “second most important race in the country.” Bluegrass working people have mobilized in a big way to unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a nemesis of working people in the upper house and one of the most virulent opponents of workers’ rights in the Congress.
Yesterday, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker spent the day in Louisville, Ky., energizing union members to make a strong push in the final four days before the election to get out the vote to elect Sen. Barack Obama president and to “Ditch Mitch” by sending Democratic Senate candidate Bruce Lunsford to Capitol Hill.
Lunsford has a good chance to defeat McConnell and led the filibuster that prevented the Employee Free Choice Act from passing the Senate this year. As minority leader, McConnell has actively opposed every piece of pro-worker legislation to come to the floor.
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In the battle to send Barack Obama and Joe Biden to the White House, few factors are more critical than a strong union turnout in the swing state of Ohio
Today in Kettering, Ohio, in the competitive Dayton area, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney introduced Biden at a rally with 1,500 enthusiastic supporters. Sweeney is one of many labor leaders making sure there’s a strong turnout among union members on Tuesday.
Ohio is at the center of this election in many ways. Closely fought in 2004, the state has borne heavy costs from the Bush-McCain economic agenda. Bad trade deals, the housing crisis and unemployment have hit Ohio’s working families particularly hard—the jobless rate in the state hit a 15-year high of 7.2 percent over the summer and has climbed to 7.4 percent in recent months.
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This Halloween has to be the scariest ever. And not because of the costumes.
* The Washington Post, long in denial about a U.S. recession, today runs an item on tanking consumer spending leading to a decline in the U.S. gross domestic product by saying:
The freight train of American consumption has been derailed.
* AIG, bailed out twice with taxpayer money—despite reports that its top executives spent the money, in part, on a lavish California retreat and fox hunting in the English countryside—already has used three-quarters of the $123 billion we loaned it.
* The total numbers of jobs lost this year stands at 684,000, with October’s jobless figures likely to make the total much worse.
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Julie Hunter, Labor 2008 Virginia communications director, sends us this great story of 93-year-old Margaret Stanton, a retired social worker and AFSCME member. Hunter shows just how communicating with union members and retirees about politics can make a big impact.
Margaret Stanton is a retired social worker and AFSCME member who lives in Front Royal, Va. After receiving a mail piece from the Virginia AFL-CIO explaining that Sen. Barack Obama and former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner were our endorsed candidates, she decided to write a letter.
In her letter, Margaret, 93, explained that she read both of Sen. Obama’s books and her daughter in Connecticut is working on Obama’s campaign.
Margaret believes that the current policies in Washington are “killing the middle class” and hopes and prays Obama becomes president.
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Here we are: the final four days. Months of hard work have led up to this. But we can’t let up now.
Union members who want to be part of this historic effort can download a spreadsheet here that lists locations and contact info for hundreds of get-out-the-vote events in 25 key states.
We have the chance to elect a president and vice president who understand the importance of unions and want to make the economy work again for everyone: Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
We have the chance to get to 60 pro-worker votes in the Senate, to break the grip of obstruction and corporate power and pass the Employee Free Choice Act. (You can help by contributing to candidates in key Senate races through ActBlue.) We have the chance to send dozens of new representatives to Congress who will listen to workers on issues like health care, trade and Social Security.
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Abandoned houses with windows broken, doors hanging by a hinge and yards knee-deep in grass, eventually are boarded up and the yards mowed. But for too many years in Dayton, Ohio, that duty fell to the city because a tangled web of banking laws made it nearly impossible for city officials to determine just who was responsible for the properties.
That is, until John Carter, AFSCME Local 101 member and a city housing inspector, began to untangle this web of banking bureaucracy. Thanks to his deft detective work, the city is now saving more than $50,000 a year in boarding costs and Carter has been named one of the eight “Public Officials of the Year,” chosen by Governing magazine.
In a post on AFSCME’s website, our colleague Clyde Weiss writes that once the houses were foreclosed and abandoned:
Banks would take ownership, Carter explains, “But you couldn’t locate anybody who would take responsibility” for boarding up a foreclosed house, or cutting the grass. So it became the city’s responsibility by default.
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lia href=http://www.laborradio.org/node/9768U.S. Economy Contracts As Mass Layoffs Squeeze Workersa//li
lia href=http://www.laborradio.org/node/9769AFL-CIO Says Shrinking GDP Makes Fast Second Stimulus Necessarya//li
lia href=http://www.laborradio.org/node/9770SPEEA: Reasonable Progress But Major Differences Remain With Boeinga//li
lia href=http://www.laborradio.org/node/9771Ford Adds 1,000 Jobs At Michigan Truck Planta//li
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