Labor Union Blog

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lia href= http://www.laborradio.org/node/10668Employee Free Choice Act Is Introduced In Congressa//li
lia href= http://www.laborradio.org/node/10669Is Conyers Single Payer Bill Health Care Reform’s Best Bet?a//li
lia href= http://www.laborradio.org/node/10670San Francisco Chronicle Workers Reach Agreement That May Save Papera//li
lia href= http://www.laborradio.org/node/10671Economic Report: Projections Indicate Unemployment Could Be 9.4% By Year’s Enda//li
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pEconomic Report:/p
pA survey conducted by Bloomberg News of 54 unemployment projections suggests the year could end with unemployment reaching 9.4 percent. The news organization conducted the survey between March 2 and March 9. The new median is higher than the previous projection of 8.8 percent. According to the estimates unemployment rates could remain that high until 2011./p

pEconomic Report:/p
pA survey conducted by Bloomberg News of 54 unemployment projections suggests the year could end with unemployment reaching 9.4 percent. The news organization conducted the survey between March 2 and March 9. The new median is higher than the previous projection of 8.8 percent. According to the estimates unemployment rates could remain that high until 2011./p

pWorkers and the San Francisco Chronicle have reached a deal that could save the floundering publication. Jesse Russell reports:/p
pSan Francisco is at risk of becoming the first major metropolitan city without a major daily paper, but a new deal worked out with employees represented by the California Media Workers Guild Local 39521 could prevent that reality. Details of the contract agreement were not made public. Members will vote on the contract this week. . The Chronicle is owned by the Hearst Corporation and has lost money every year since 2001. Hearst recently announced it would be shutting down or converting the Seattle Post-Intelligencer into an online publication. Papers across the country have been struggling to stay afloat as advertising sales decline. On Monday McClatchy Newspapers announced plans to lay off 1600 workers. On February 27 of this year Denver’s Rocky Mountain News ceased publication after 150 years. The Rocky Mountain News was owned by Scripps. /p

pBy Doug Cunningham/p
pA day of action in Washington, D.C. in support of single-payer universal health care is being followed by regional demonstrations in Burlington, Vermont and Dearborn, Michigan in support of HR 676. That’s the single payer, universal health care bill currently in Congress. Kay Tillow is with the All Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care. /p
p[Tillow]: “I think most people are persuaded now within the union movement that this is the best bill. I think there are some who have yet come to believe that we really can pass it. We think it’s the building of the movement that will make it possible. You know, President Obama endorsed single payer in 2003 at an Illinois AFL-CIO meeting, So we believe that he really knows that it’s the best plan. It’s a matter of a movement being there that makes it politically possible.”/p

pBy Doug Cunningham/p
pThe Employee Free Choice Act labor law reform was introduced in Congress Tuesday. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says it was a banner day for working Americans. The reform makes it easier for workers to join unions without employer intimidation and pressure that are often used in NLRB union organizing elections today. Sweeney says the AFL-CIO is confident the Employee Free Choice Act is going to become the law of the land. The labor federation says the introduction of this bill so early is a strong message that Congress is ready to move forward to help working Americans. /p

The Employee Free Choice Act was introduced in the House of Representatives and Senate today, launching the legislative battle to restore workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life.

It’s a great day for working families and a sign of the change that America voted for last fall. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) announced the bill’s launch at the Senate, along with workers whose struggles to form unions illustrate the need to give workers, not bosses, the ability to choose how to form a union, as well as a guarantee of a contract and protection from employer intimidation, coercion and firing.

Sen. Tom Harkin shows how without unions, and the Employee Free Choice Act, America’s workers fall behind.

Deborah Kelly, one of the workers testifying today before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee about the importance of protecting the freedom to form a union, says her union is vital to protect her and her family.

As a line man apprentice for the Chugach Electric Association, I work hard every day, in sometimes dangerous conditions, to provide power to the Anchorage, Alaska, area. I am truly honored to testify before Congress about how I have benefited from joining a union. Thanks to my union, I work with the most highly trained people in the industry and I know I will come home safe every night.

Workers spoke at today’s press conference for the need to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, including Sharon Harrison from CWA; Kelly Badillo, SEIU; and Deborah Kelly from IBEW.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says introduction of this bill is a strong message in support of working families.

Today is a banner day for working Americans, a milestone on the road to rebuilding our nation’s middle class—and it couldn’t come at a more crucial time. We thank the House of Representatives and the Senate for introducing the Employee Free Choice Act, which will restore workers’ freedom to bargain for fair wages, job security, better health care and secure pensions. Special thanks also goes to Congressman Miller, Sen. Kennedy and Sen. Harkin for being the lead sponsors and champions for America’s working families.

We are confident the Employee Free Choice Act is going to become the law of the land. 

Carol Pier of Human Rights Watch, one of the dozens of organizations backing the Employee Free Choice Act, says U.S. labor laws need the kind of fair opportunity that workers around the world have.

Weak U.S. labor law effectively denies millions of workers the right to form a union and bargain collectively. Congress should bring worker protections closer to international standards by passing the Employee Free Choice Act.

Today’s introduction of the Employee Free Choice Act  in the U.S. House and Senate was a long-awaited day for working families and those concerned about the freedom to form unions.

The bill has widespread support, including a broad coalition of allies from the civil rights, religious, environmental and human-rights community.

Here’s what some of these groups had to say about the Employee Free Choice Act.

Christine L. Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project:

Workers have a fundamental right to join together into unions, but any semblance of a free and fair process for exercising that right is destroyed by ruthless employer opposition to organizing and a legal framework favoring employers every step of the way. By insisting that workers alone get to decide whether to form a union and the process for making that choice, the Employee Free Choice Act will renew workplace democracy, improve jobs, strengthen the economy and rebuild America’s middle class.

Sierra Club: 

The green economy holds great promise to build the American middle class. One way to ensure that it benefits the many, rather than the few, is by passing the Employee Free Choice Act. 

National Partnership for Women & and Families: 

With our nation’s work/family policies badly out of sync with the realities of this era, and the economy taking a terrible toll on families, the National Partnership for Women & Families strongly supports the Employee Free Choice Act because it has the potential to dramatically improve working conditions of millions of women and men around the country.  Union participation improves wages, health coverage, pensions and other benefits that hard-working Americans need to hold jobs and care for their families and their health. 

Center for American Progress Action Fund: 

The Employee Free Choice Act holds the promise of restoring workplace democracy for workers attempting to organize, boosting unionization rates and improving the economic standing and workplace conditions for millions of American workers. 

People for the American Way:

The Employee Free Choice Act supports important American values around workers’ rights to association. It provides workers a free and fair choice about how to form a union, helps workers secure their first contract in a reasonable amount of time and toughens penalties against employers that violate the law.  This is a sound and measured approach to restoring workers’ rights—and to rebuilding and renewing our nation’s economy. 

Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change: 

Our economy can only prosper when it works for everyone. Especially in difficult times, American communities have a history of meeting challenges by coming together. The rise of corporate greed and irresponsibility has created the worst economic crisis in this nation since the great depression. It’s time that we empower American families and working people to hold corporations accountable. Through unions, workers come together to balance their voices with the power of companies, and to build an economy that works for all of us. 

National Consumers League: 

The National Consumers League is proud to join with our labor friends and other national consumer groups in supporting the Employee Free Choice Act. Consumer groups understand that the fair wages, benefits, and protections that union workers receive allow them to have a decent standard of living and be better informed consumers. That is good for America, and that is why NCL supports the Employee Free Choice Act. 

Catholics United: 

The Employee Free Choice Act is the cornerstone of an economy that serves working families. The right to organize is foundational to Catholic social teaching. Catholics United stands with working families and supports the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. 

Jobs with Justice: 

The Employee Free Choice Act is an issue not only for workers but also for their communities. When workers are fired for organizing on the job, the effects ripple through their families, their churches and their neighborhoods. When workers can choose a union through a fair process, it creates a stable and prosperous community. That’s why Jobs with Justice supports the Employee Free Choice Act as a necessary part of a broad economic recovery that benefits working men and women. 

Gabriela Lemus, executive director of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement: 

Latino workers will strongly benefit from the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. It will assist them in their efforts to organize at the workplace, which in turn will ensure better wages, health benefits and the opportunity for a secure retirement. The introduction and ultimate passage of this legislation will help move workers into the middle class and thus help reinvigorate the economy. 

Paula Brantner, executive director of Workplace Fairness: 

The Employee Free Choice Act is the best stimulus package we have. Workers with good jobs, benefits and job security are able to confidently spend their earnings and help lift our economy out of this recession. 

Kim Bobo, executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice: 

As people of faith, we must stand with workers in their struggles and  ensure that they are protected and can provide for themselves and their families. One of the most effective means to ensure workers’ protection is for them to join a union. Union representation is a vehicle to reduce poverty for workers in low-wage jobs, provide health care and pension benefits for families, and provide workers a role in workplace decisions. Furthermore, our religious traditions address the need for freedom in the workplace, basic human dignity and a voice at work. Our traditions affirm the right of workers to freely organize themselves: all workers have the right to form a union without fear or harassment. The Employee Free Choice Act will restore workers’ freedom to form and join unions. 

Robert Borosage, co-director of Campaign for America’s Future: 

The Employee Free Choice Act will help restore the right of workers to organize in this country. Over the last decades, that basic right has been shredded, as companies waged open warfare on union organizing, and administrations often failed to enforce the laws protecting that right. 

But the Employee Free Choice Act isn’t just about worker rights. It’s about whether we can return to an economy with a broad middle class….It will be a critical building block of the new economy that we must construct from the ashes of the old.

A wide range of approaches and proposals mark the debate on health care reform. The insurance industry group, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), has a pretty “simple plan” says Ethan Rome, deputy campaign manager for Health Care for America Now! (HCAN).

They get the profits and we get the shaft.

Rome and some 100 union, health care and community activists, including members of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) and Working America, rallied outside AHIP’s National Policy Forum at Washington, D.C.’s Ritz-Carlton hotel this morning.

Calling for “real reform and not rhetoric,” the group denounced AHIP’s “astroturf” health care reform campaign orchestrated by private, for-profit health insurance executives that is masquerading as a grassroots initiative.

Rome told the crowd that during the past five years, health insurance company profits have soared by 1,000 percent while health care premiums for working families have risen five times faster than wages.

They raise our premiums, they raise our deductibles, they raise our co-pays each and every year and now they’re conducting a fake campaign for reform.

Rep. Eric J.J. Massa (D-N.Y.) said that health care reform was the issue that propelled him to victory in November and that voters across the nation are ready to back comprehensive health care reform. But they must be ready to push back against the health insurance industry that will fight mightily to retain its health care power and profits.

There are vast numbers of middle-class people denied a place at the health care table…we need a grassroots movement whose voices cannot be silenced and we need a unique American solution…and we can never cave in on our core principle that at the end of the day we must provide quality health care for all.

The tight grip health insurance companies have on the health care system—who gets care and who is denied—doesn’t just affect patients, but providers, too. Mary Jennings, a University of South Carolina medical student, said she dreaded the day when health insurers dictate how she will practice medicine.

We have to today take our health care system back because if we don’t some day, some insurance company executive will tell me I can’t provide a CAT scan for my patient or I can’t order a test for my patient, that I can’t provide treatment for my patients….We demand a public plan at a bare minimum

Big health insurance company profits mean big pay for health insurance company executives—some $14.2 million a year for the top seven CEOs. Along with zealously protecting profits, one of biggest tasks for AHIP—the public face of the insurance industry—is to deflect public attention from those profits and portray the industry as caring and reform-minded. That’s the main job of AHIP CEO Karen Ignagni, who is, says HCAN,

consistently saying one thing but promoting another when it comes to health care reform that actually put people’s health before corporate profits.

At the end of the rally, Donna Smith, a CNA/NNOC community organizer, and several others tried to enter the hotel to present Ignagni a special award—a 24-inch x 36-inch certificate honoring her as “The Best Protector of Insurance Company Profits at the Expense of Our Health.”

But hotel security agents barred their way. Not to be deterred, the group placed the certificate on the trunk of a stretch black limousine at the foot of the hotel’s long circular driveway just before it pulled away. The sign almost made it to the hotel entrance before security guards snatched it away. But it’s pretty certain that Ignagni and AHIP got the message.

Click here to read a report on last week’s White House Health Care Summit, and here, here and here for more on health care reform.

Deborah Kelly

At today’s Senate HELP Committee hearing on rebuilding the middle class, senators heard from workers who weighed in on the importance of unions and the need for the freedom to form unions and bargain. 

Deborah Kelly is an Electrical Workers (IBEW) member, an apprentice line worker in Alaska. She said her union membership offered her a lifelong career that includes health insurance, a living wage and a pension. She also values the training and assistance she’s received from other union members on the job. In a dangerous position—repairing electrical lines in mountain passes—Kelly says that the workplace safety she relies on is due to having a strong union. And as the only woman on her crew, Kelly appreciates that her union protects her from discrimination.

Thanks to my detailed classroom training, and the help of journeymen, we pulled off these dangerous operations with success. I have a solid career with a future, I know I can work hard and receive a decent paycheck. I know I’ll work with the most highly trained people and I’ll come home safe. I know I’m never alone—my union provides a safety net and helps me ensure I have equal opportunity employment.

Before she was hired as a line worker, Kelly was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. As a cancer survivor working in a seasonal industry, union health care made it affordable to get coverage and stay healthy.

Sharon Harrison, a CWA member and call center employee in Lebanon, Va., says her union benefits her family, her co-workers and her community. As employees of AT&T Mobility, Harrison and her co-workers utilized majority sign-up, without interference from her bosses. AT&T Mobility agreed to stay neutral and allow workers the choice about forming a union.  It was simple, she said: Workers at her call center wanted a union—and they got a union.

Because of that agreement, we weren’t afraid anymore that management would retaliate against us for trying to form a union. When more than a majority of workers signed up for representation, all of us at AT&T Mobility were better for it. For workers, we were able to get better pay and benefits, lower health care costs, a grievance procedure and more opportunities. We know we’re providing quality service and we know AT&T respects us. It’s good for our employer, too. We’re in a real partnership—we have a framework to solve problems on the job, a clear path to improving our jobs and our work, that’s important to us and to our employer. We have the kind of jobs that enable you to support your family and contribute to the community. A quality workforce gives a real competitive edge. We’re proud we work for a company that respects us, listens to us and consider us a real partner.

The Employee Free Choice Act is important because all workers deserve the chance that I had. I know what a difference it makes when you don’t have to be scared to stand up for a voice at work.

Harrison, a member of the bargaining committee for her union, says her union—and the freedom she had from corporate interference—has made a real difference in her life, from on-the-job training to better health coverage for her family.