Labor Union Blog

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lia href=http://www.laborradio.org/node/10362Baker: There is no consequence to being wrong with everyone else/a/li
lia href=http://www.laborradio.org/node/10363A Look at the Battle Between the SEIU and UHW-West/a/li
lia href=http://www.laborradio.org/node/10364California unemployment rate pushing 10 percent /a/li
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pThe country’s most populace state has hit its highest unemployment rate in 14-years. California’s unemployment rate rose to 9.4 percent in December up from 5.9 percent one year prior. In contrast, the unemployment rate for the country in December was 7.2 percent. Both of those numbers are expected to rise in January as mass layoff announcements continue and retail stores cut remaining holiday season staff. California’s unemployment rate is projected to break 10 percent in January. Ten out of the 11 employment sectors in the state saw payrolls decrease in December. The number of job losses /p

pUnless United Heathcare Workers West agrees to transfer 65,000 of its members into another SEIU local, SEIU International will appoint a trustee to take over United Healthcare Workers-West. United Healthcare Workers and SEIU international have been at odds over the reorganization. The local says its members want to stay in their own local, run by their locally elected officials. They say union democracy is at stake. SEIU International says Ray Marshall, a former U.S. labor secretary, found leaders of United Heathcare Workers West engaged in “financial malpractice and undermined democratic procedures” by transferring local union money to another fund to use the money in the local’s dispute with SEIU International./p

pIn his new book, “Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy” Center for Economic and Policy Research Co-Director Dean Baker takes a look at how the events that lead to the economic the country is in today. Baker was one of the few economists in the country who said a housing crisis was coming before other leading economists and policy makers. The Workers Independent News asked Baker why it took so long for his peers to admit there was a problem:/p
p[Baker1]: If you are wrong, and you are wrong with Alan Greenspan, you just go, “Well, who could have known?” There is no consequence to being wrong with everyone else. But if you step out of line and you say, “Wait, this is a really big problem, we have to do something here,” well, you are really putting yourself at risk./p

The advocacy organization American Rights at Work has produced a new report, “The Employee Free Choice Act: Ensuring the Economy Works for Everyone,” that clearly explains how restoring the freedom to form unions and bargain can revitalize the U.S. economy.

Written by researchers Erin Johansson and Julie Martinez Ortega, the report analyzes economic history and the nation’s ongoing economic crisis to show that a decline in union membership—brought about by weak labor laws and relentless corporate anti-union activity—is at the heart of the U.S. economic quagmire. The report says putting the freedom to bargain for a better life back in the hands of workers by passing the Employee Free Choice Act is a key step for economic recovery.

Restoring the right to form unions is a key part of an economic strategy to bring shared and sustainable prosperity to the middle class, creating the workforce needed for future economic growth, and ensuring workers have a role in crafting future policies that represent their interests.

The report, drawing on work by policy experts and journalists around the country, links the current economic crisis to a lack of bargaining power in the hands of workers—a problem due in large part to the fact that forming a union has become “a risk, not a right.” Workers who try to form unions are routinely harassed, intimidated or fired with little to no legal recourse—denying them the bargaining power they need to improve their wages, benefits and economic security. 

A majority of employers aggressively use both legal and illegal anti-union tactics during union representation elections, which impedes workers’ ability to form unions… 

If given a free and fair chance, it’s likely that many more employees would choose union representation. With expanded collective bargaining power, more workers would move into the middle class, stimulating economic growth and leading to more shared prosperity. 

Johansson and Martinez Ortega show that the benefits of bargaining in the workplace are enormous for union members—but broader bargaining rights improve conditions for all workers in the labor market. The economy can only create broadly shared prosperity for everyone if workers can participate freely in efforts to get a fair contract and improve their own lives, according to the report. The benefits aren’t just in wages, but in the long-term health of the economy and society, as workers are engaged and empowered. 

Allowing workers to freely form unions is essential to putting money back into the pockets of those whose spending drives the economy, producing a highly skilled workforce to promote future economic growth, and increasing the political participation of workers to shape new economic strategies that benefit the middle class.

Too many fat cats trying to steal workers’ pensions.

Jennifer Sargent, Northwest communications coordinator at the ILWU, sent us this from San Francisco.

In the current economic free fall, it’s wise to know where your pension funds are invested and whether they are as safe as you’d think. Union leaders of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and other union leaders are warning unions about a scheme that cost 60,000 Dutch dockworkers more than $1.7 billion in pension funds that had nothing to do with a sinking economy—and everything to do with a corporate sleight-of-hand.

To highlight the issue, more than 100 international protesters from labor and community groups rallied Jan. 12 at San Francisco’s landmark Transamerica Pyramid building. Union leaders from the ILWU, Teamsters and the Dutch dockworkers’ union FNV slammed the alleged looting of more than 60,000 Dutch dockworkers’ pension benefits by Dutch insurance giant Aegon, the parent company of Transamerica. The big corporation recently launched a plan to collect a huge hunk of cash from U.S. taxpayers under the bailout program but suddenly dropped the scheme last month.

Said ILWU President Robert McEllrath:  

Americans are fed up with fat cats and corporations who are looting our country and destroying our economy. Corporate greed has put millions of people out of work, is destroying local communities, and pulling families apart. Corporations have to be more accountable to workers, and more accountable to the public. 

Niek Stam, national secretary of FNV, came from the Netherlands to address the crowd and pledged to expand the campaign to put a public spotlight on Aegon’s activities. Aegon acquired Optas, formerly the Harbour Pension Fund, in 2007 for $1.7 billion, and with it the pension assets secured for the sole benefit of some 60,000 Dutch dockworkers. Aegon now claims the assets as their own and maintains that the port workers and employers have no special claim to them.

Union leaders support efforts in Congress to draft legislation that will close the loopholes that Aegon hoped to exploit to obtain funds from TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program).

Because many Teamsters-affiliated pension and benefit funds have invested in Transamerica over several decades, Teamsters General Secretary-Treasurer C. Thomas Keegel has sent letters to the fund trustees alerting them to the business practices of Aegon and Transamerica. The ILWU also is reviewing its investments to see if any investments funds are investments with Aegon.

Recent telecommunications advances, especially the Internet, could theoretically put more than 30 million U.S. jobs at risk of being exported overseas. Services previously needed to be performed domestically theoretically can be done anywhere in the world through the Internet, four U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) analysts say in an article appearing in the agency’s Monthly Labor Review (subscription required).

The 160 occupations considered capable of being performed in other countries account for some 30.3 million workers, one-fifth of total U.S. employment and cover a wide array of job functions, pay rates and educational levels.

More than half of the vulnerable jobs in the BLS study are professional and related occupations, including computer and mathematical science occupations and architecture and engineering jobs, and many office and administrative support occupations also are considered susceptible.

Since 2000, corporations have shipped more than 525,000 white-collar overseas, according to the AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees (DPE). Some estimates say up to 14 million middle-class jobs could be exported out of our nation in the next 10 years. Accountants, software engineers, X-ray technicians, all are losing their jobs as corporations look for low-wage workers in countries such as India and China.

Meanwhile, the jobs being created in the United States often are low-wage jobs that don’t offer health coverage or ensure retirement security. Nearly one-quarter of the nation’s workers labor in jobs that generally pay less than the $8.85 hourly wage the U.S. government says it takes to keep a family of four out of poverty. Sixty percent of such workers are women, and many are people of color.

 Among the occupations most susceptible to being sent overseas, the BLS analysts say, are those that produce information and do not require “face-to-face” contact. Among the most vulnerable are office and administrative support jobs, with relatively low education or training requirements, including telephone operators, payroll and timekeeping clerks, and word processors and typists.

Another 11 of the highest ranked jobs are professional and related occupations, which generally possess higher educational requirements. They include pharmacists, computer programmers, biochemists and biophysicists, architectural and civil drafters, financial analysts, paralegals and legal assistants.

Among the occupations least likely to be shipped overseas are financial managers, food scientists and technologists, front-line retail sales managers, and training and development specialists.

Last night after the Senate passed (61-36) the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Act, overturning the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that denied justice to Ledbetter—and any worker who suffers pay discrimination—Ledbetter told reporters:

When you win a battle, you’ve sometimes lost battles along the way. We knew we would get here. When right is right, it usually has a way of working out.

Ledbetter thought she had won her battle several years ago when a federal jury found she had been the victim of pay discrimination for nearly 20 years at an Alabama Goodyear tire plant where she was paid less than the men doing the same work.

But the Supreme Court ruled Ledbetter—and other workers—has no right to sue for a remedy in cases of pay discrimination if she—or any worker—waits more than 180 days after the first paycheck, even if she—or any worker—doesn’t discover the pay discrimination until years later, as was the case with Ledbetter.

The U.S. House, which passed a similar measure Jan. 9, is expected to soon approve the Senate bill and President Barack Obama has promised to sign the bill. Former President George W. Bush vowed to veto the legislation if it ever reached his desk. Says Debra L. Ness, president National Partnership for Women & Families:

This is the best evidence yet that a new era has dawned, and the lawmakers holding office today will support fair pay.

Last night, Republican leaders—who last year led a successful filibuster against the bill—proposed eight amendments to weaken the legislation. All were easily defeated. Five Republican senators—Kay Bailey Hutchison (Texas), Olympia Snowe (Maine), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Arlen Specter (Pa.) joined all Democrats on final passage.

Angela Bassett, star of the TV series “ER,” is one of the presenters at this year’s SAG Awards.

It’s time for the biggest awards show in Hollywood—the 15th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards®. The only all-union awards show honors Screen Actors (SAG) members for their outstanding performances over the past year. This year SAG is bestowing its highest award for Life Achievement to James Earl Jones.

SAG is America’s largest union representing working actors, with 120,000 members in film, television, commercials, video games, music videos and other new media. The SAG Awards is the only nationally televised awards show of any kind that honors the work of union members.

There is a star-studded lineup of presenters, including Christina Applegate, Angela Bassett, Jon Hamm, John Krasinski, Eric McCormack, Kyra Sedgwick and William Shatner and Forest Whitaker.

The 2009 SAG Awards® ceremony will be simulcast live nationally on TNT and TBS on Sunday, Jan. 25, at 8 p.m. EST/PST, 7 p.m. CDT and 6 p.m. MST from the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center. An encore presentation will air on TNT at 11 p.m. EST/PST. For satellite and HD viewers, the live presentation can be seen on TBS and TNT at 8 p.m. EST (5 p.m. PST), while the encore can be seen on TNT at 11 p.m. EST (8 p.m. PST).

In more than 50 years as an actor, Jones, 77, has won two Tonys, three Emmys, six Drama Desk Awards, a Golden Globe, two NAACP Image Awards and a Grammy. This year, he recently was back on Broadway playing Big Daddy in a new adaptation of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”

Says SAG President Alan Rosenberg:

James Earl Jones’s distinguished career on stage, in film, on television, in commercials and as a vocal presence without peer commands our admiration and respect. His long and quiet devotion to advancing literacy, the arts and humanities on a national and local scale deserves our appreciation. It is our honor to bestow the Guild’s highest tribute on this extraordinary actor.

As a Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Jones joins such previous honorees as Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward (1986), Elizabeth Taylor (1997), Ricardo Montelbán (1993), Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee (2000), Edward Asner (2001), Clint Eastwood (2002), Shirley Temple Black (2005), Julie Andrews (2006) and Charles Durning (2007).

The SAG awards are the only accolades in the entertainment industry devoted solely to actors honoring actors. Two randomly selected panels-one for television and one for film-each comprised of 2,100 Guild members from across the United States, chose this year’s nominees. The award winners then are chosen in a vote by the union’s members.

Over at Washington Monthly, the editors asked a few Famous Names to describe the book they think President Obama should read. But they did not ask the rest of us.

So I’d like to submit a suggestion. In fact, I’ll go easy on the new president and offer up a report rather than an entire book.

Consultants, Lawyers and the “Union Free” Movement in the USA since the 1970s, by British economist John Logan, analyzes the emergence of professional “union-busters,” providing case studies of each of the main groups comprising the industry: law firms, consultants, industry psychologists and strike management firms.

At 18 pages, it’s an easy read for a president who holds his books right-side-up. But the information is crucial for an understanding of why the nation needs passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. Big Business lobbyists are all over the new administration and Congress trying to convince lawmakers that corporations are even-handed and open-minded—and therefore no change is needed to current labor laws because the laws are so fair now. NOT.