Labor Union Blog

After nearly a year of negotiations, the Screen Actors (SAG) reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) on a new basic agreement covering television programs and motion pictures.

Details of the tentative deal will not be disclosed until after the SAG national board of directors reviews it this weekend. If the board approves, then the agreement must be ratified by the membership.

In February, the SAG national board overwhelmingly rejected what was then called the AMPTP’s last, best and final offer, but negotiations continued.

Earlier this week, President Obama announced he intends to nominate Lorelei Boylan as administrator for the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division and Thomasina Rogers as chairwoman of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC).

The practices of the Wage and Hour Division under the Bush administration have come under fire recently. Last month, the Government Accountability Office issued a report saying the division, which is supposed to enforce minimum wage, overtime and child labor laws, had not enforced the laws, leaving low-income workers vulnerable to wage theft.

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has announced the agency will add 250 new investigators, an increase of more than one-third. Toward that end, the agency already has begun the process of adding 150 new investigators to its field offices. In addition, another 100 investigators will be hired to ensure that contractors on economic-recovery projects comply with the applicable laws. This is a big step in the right direction to rebuild the agency, which lost more than 200 investigators during the Bush administration.

Boylan currently serves as director of strategic enforcement for the New York State Labor Department’s Labor Standards Division, where she supervises the apparel industry/fair wages task force, a statewide unit that investigates low-wage industries. Under her leadership, the task force has flourished into a groundbreaking investigative unit with a high rate of success in resolving wage and hour investigations. 

Rogers has been a member of the OSHRC since 1998. The commission decides appeals of citations or penalties resulting from OSHA inspections of workplaces.

Prior to joining the OSHRC, Rogers served as chairwoman of the Administrative Conference of the United States and as legal counsel to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where she developed regulations for the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Many of our nation’s health care facilities are not prepared to protect health care workers from exposures to pandemic influenza, putting both care providers and the public at risk, according to a new report compiled by the AFL-CIO and six unions.

A survey of some 104 health care facilities nationwide indicate that although these facilities have made some progress in preparing for a possible flu pandemic, more than a third of the clinics surveyed have no written plan in place. Further, more than one-third of the survey respondents believe their workplace either is not ready or only slightly ready to address the health and safety needs necessary to protect health care workers during a pandemic.

The lack of preparedness not only could endanger health care workers on the front lines of responding to the pandemic, it could severely affect the health of the rest of the nation. Indeed, 43 percent, more than two out of every five of the respondents, said that given this lack of readiness, most or some of their co-workers would stay home in the event of a pandemic outbreak. Click here for a copy of the report, “Healthcare Workers in Peril: Preparing to Protect Worker Health and Safety During Pandemic Influenza.”

The report also lists several recommendations to address the problems uncovered by the survey:

• The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) should issue a mandatory standard requiring health care facilities to protect all health care workers from exposure to pandemic flu.
• Congress should ensure that health care workers not currently covered by OSHA are covered by the mandatory standard.

The survey and report were jointly produced by the AFL-CIO, AFSCME, AFT, Communications Workers of America (CWA), SEIU, United American Nurses (UAN) and the United Food and Commercial Workers.

Al Franken received strong support from union members during his 2008 Senate campaign.

It’s April 2009 and we’re still checking back in to see who won in Minnesota’s hard-fought 2008 Senate race between incumbent Norm Coleman and AFL-CIO-endorsed challenger Al Franken—because corporate front groups are dumping money into delaying and dragging out the process.

When last we visited Minnesota, the state was just beginning to recount the votes in the excruciatingly close race. The recount was an exhaustive, transparent process, with every step open to the public and examined closely by Minnesota’s judiciary. And this week, a three-judge panel—in a 68-page decision issued after extensive consideration—ruled that Franken “received the highest number of votes legally cast” and is “entitled to receive a certificate of election.”

Yet Franken can’t be seated, because ex-Sen. Coleman is planning to appeal to the Minnesota state Supreme Court. Although election-law experts suggest that Coleman’s arguments are unlikely to have any more effect on the state Supreme Court than they did in front of judges from around the state who have heard them throughout this long process, Coleman is still keeping his team of lawyers busy and well-paid. And who’s paying for those mounting legal bills? The same corporate front groups bankrolling the fight against the Employee Free Choice Act.

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent reports that Coleman’s cronies—a coalition of deep-pocketed corporate lobbying groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business, the National Restaurant Association and the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW)—are willing to “raise as much as necessary” to keep Coleman’s lawyers going and bankroll his attempts to overturn the judges’ ruling that Franken is the winner.

It’s clear what’s underlying this: Franken ran—and won—as a friend to working families and a supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act. Franken, a former member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), the Screen Actors (SAG) and the Writers Guild of America, campaigned alongside union members throughout his campaign, and their energetic mobilization made the critical difference in one of the closest Senate races in U.S. history.

Now, after their failure to defeat pro-worker Franken at the ballot box, corporate front groups are hoping to keep him out of the Senate seat that’s rightfully his, to prevent him from voting to break minority filibusters and pass critical legislation to make the economy work for everyone. Because of the rules of the Senate, having a vacant seat is just as effective in squelching pro-worker bills as having someone there to vote against them. Even Dirk Van Dongen, NAW president, acknowledges that keeping the seat empty is a feature that Coleman’s backers are happy about.

(Worth noting: the Chamber of Commerce gets at least some its money from groups that have taken taxpayer bailout money. Not only is the Chamber putting its resources into anti-worker lobbying and anti-Employee Free Choice commercials—they’re paying to prevent Minnesota from seating a senator.)

Coleman and his cronies already have lost the battle in the court of public opinion as well as in Minnesota’s judicial branch. At Daily Kos, Arjun Jaikumar provides a comprehensive rundown of the voices from across the political spectrum asking Norm Coleman to give it a rest—including three newspapers that endorsed Coleman during election season. And Sam Stein at The Huffington Post gets a Republican official on the record suggesting Coleman isn’t doing himself any favors:

If this goes much farther, he will lose whatever goodwill he has remaining with the voters of Minnesota and he can kiss a political comeback goodbye. There is a fine line between toughness and obstinacy.

A poll of Minnesota voters shows that 63 percent think Coleman should concede, and 59 percent say Franken should be seated now, giving Minnesota’s voters the two senators that every other state gets.

Experts say Coleman has minimal chances of getting the previous rulings overturned—and he knows it. He can’t overturn the vote, but as long as the seat is vacant, Coleman & Co. can make it harder for the majority in the Senate to break filibusters and pass pro-worker legislation.

It’s the equivalent of saying: if we don’t get to win, nobody does.

West Virginia Nurses Association’s Economic and General Welfare Chair Rue Hairston, RN.

Here’s a great news report from Katrina Blomdahl, writer-researcher for RNs Working Together, a coalition of 10 AFL-CIO unions representing more than 200,000 registered nurses nationally.

In this tough economy, West Virginia nurses at the Appalachian Regional Healthcare (ARH) system are breathing a sigh of relief after the Kanawha County Circuit Court rejected an appeal by their employer to deny unemployment benefits to the nurses who walked the picket line from October to December 2007.

Turns out the hospital blew a filing deadline that the courts apparently intend to enforce.

To the nurses of the West Virginia Nurses Association/UAN it’s a real vindication. Not only did the court refuse to allow the employer to skirt the law for its own convenience—it jammed up the hospital system’s union-busting practices.

West Virginia Nurses Association’s Economic and General Welfare Chair Rue Hairston, RN, says the nurses

are ecstatic about the decision because it’s the David and Goliath story. Goliath keeps coming and David keeps winning.

As previously reported here, ARH hired replacement nurses and housed them in vacant wings of the hospitals.

Hiring replacement workers serves as a union-busting technique meant to weaken the impact of a strike—but this time, it didn’t work. According to its own appeal, the hospital system shelled out more than $4.4 million at the Beckley facility alone to pay for replacement nurses and expenses rather than negotiating fairly with the nurses who were already there.

But even that kind of money didn’t buy management out of negotiating with workers. It was a tough strike that went on for longer than the nurses wanted, but with the national union movement behind them, the nurses got what they were fighting for—keeping their union and winning a contract with safer staffing levels and higher patient care standards.

Because ARH had spent so much money “staffing up” with replacement nurses during the strike to keep the hospitals running at full capacity, it was unable to make the case to the Labor Dispute Appeal Tribunal (the first stop for all labor disputes in West Virginia) that it was not liable for unemployment benefits.

According to the Labor Dispute Appeal Tribunal, there was no “stoppage of work” and “no substantial curtailment of ARH business” during the strike. In a nutshell, that means ARH will have to pay up.

ARH appealed to the Board of Review in November 2008, but the board upheld the tribunal’s decision. ARH then took its appeal to the Kanawha County (W.Va.) Circuit Court, but failed to file the appeal in a timely fashion and the court dismissed the case. ARH now has four months to appeal to the state Supreme Court.

The ongoing battles with ARH are particularly heartbreaking for Hairston, who has a keen sense of the hospital’s cultural history. Before ARH acquired them, 10 hospitals in the region were miners’ hospitals. She explains:

These hospitals are old UMWA hospitals. This is coal territory and the hospitals were created to give miners and their families essential medical care. Now, here we are—union nurses, over 50 years later—fighting to provide the quality care that these hospitals were developed for. I can’t help but to think that John L. Lewis would be turning over in his grave.

Just like the miners that came before her, Hairston maintains the courage of her conviction when it comes to her union. She concludes:

I want to let our sisters and brothers in the labor movement know that we’re still fighting. We’ll advocate for quality care for patients no matter what we’re going through. That’s what keeps us going. Patients deserve better.

Working families in Scranton, Pa., rally in support of Employee Free Choice.

Nearly 100,000 phone calls to Congress. More than 27,000 letters to Congress. More than 400 community events. The fight to pass the Employee Free Choice Act is the biggest grassroots union mobilization since the election, and it’s happening across the country.

The “Faces of the Employee Free Choice Act” campaign, with billboard trucks traveling around key states, showed the faces of workers whose stories express the need for the Employee Free Choice Act. These trucks put in more than 5,000 miles around the country, joining workers and supporters of the freedom to form unions at rallies, at town hall events and outside the offices of senators. Union members, community allies and small business owners in Colorado toured their state with a billboard truck, as did union members and allies in Arkansas. Another truck toured Pennsylvania, joining union members and Employee Free Choice Act supporters at rallies in cities across the state.

Arkansas union members are asking their senators to support the freedom to form unions.

The fight for Employee Free Choice was in full swing in Virginia this week as well. On Tuesday, union members in Richmond braved hard rains to rally for the Employee Free Choice Act, and on Wednesday, workers in Roanoke delivered thousands of letters in support of the Employee Free Choice Act to Sens. Mark Warner and Jim Webb.

In Nebraska, union members, allies and supporters from the small business community visited the state capitol to talk about the Employee Free Choice Act and what it would mean for Nebraska’s working families.

Working lunches for union members to write letters to their senators continue in Indiana, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Virginia, Arkansas and other key states.

John Engen, mayor of Missoula, Mont., is just one of the elected officials who has come out in support of the Employee Free Choice Act. Engen says:

I think the Employee Free Choice Act makes a difference for our country….I’m glad for the unions who represent the employees of the city of Missoula, who help me manage, who help me ensure good wages, who help me ensure the sustainability of our programs and our product, and who help me take care of citizens. Employee Free Choice makes a great deal of sense.

State legislators in Indiana, Arkansas and Nebraska also expressed their enthusiastic support for the Employee Free Choice Act this week.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says that the nationwide efforts show that workers understand the importance of the Employee Free Choice Act in creating an economy that works for everyone:

From all corners of the country, working families’ voices were raised to call for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, vital legislation necessary to turn our economy around and shore up our nation’s middle class. People have had enough of corporations wreaking unchecked havoc on our economy. We’re demanding that Congress work with us to create an economy that works for everyone.

Heath Coleman

As the battle for the Employee Free Choice Act gets fought out in the press and the political arena, it’s worth remembering why we’re fighting for this bill in the first place: because far too many workers can’t exercise their freedom to form a union. Heath Coleman, a heavy-equipment operator from West Virginia, tried to form a union and found his safety endangered by management pressure. His story shows why we need the Employee Free Choice Act.

 Says Coleman:

I’ve had to put my family’s well-being at stake just to exercise my rights as an American. People shouldn’t have to live the way we’ve had to live for the last year.

Coleman works at the Fola Coal Co. in Indore, W.Va. When another company, Consol, bought Fola, it slashed health benefits and wouldn’t provide information about the pension plan to workers. So along with other workers, Coleman sought to form a union with the Mine Workers (UMWA) to get a say in the workplace. Consol then began to intimidate and pressure workers individually and in group meetings.

Management didn’t stop there, says Coleman.

The company told us that if it went union, they’d shut down because they couldn’t afford to work union.

And when employees started signing cards saying they wanted union representation,

management would direct employees to get those cards back from the union.

Management threatened to fire pro-union workers and even put Coleman himself in danger, he says:

One of the things they did was that they came out and took my company radio from me. That could have put me in some danger. I’m a reclamation worker, so I’m out by myself a lot and away from the equipment where there’s a CB radio. They issued radios to us as a safety precaution. I asked the foreman why he was taking away my radio, and he said, “They don’t feel you represent the company anymore; you represent the union.”

The workers who say they were abused and coerced filed an unfair labor complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)—but the only penalty the NLRB could impose was asking management to post signs saying it would no longer commit those unfair practices. Despite the NLRB’s ruling, Consol continues to put pressure on employees to keep them from choosing a union—it’s a sign of a deeply broken system that doesn’t protect workers.

All of us believe the reward of having a union would be worth the risk we’re taking, but this situation is crazy. It’s like a disease. If we don’t find the cure, it’s going to get worse.

Coleman says the only solution is to put the power to choose a union, free of management coercion, back in workers’ hands and strengthen the law to protect the freedom to form unions and bargain.

I think we’ve got to have the Employee Free Choice Act. Our forefathers fought and bled and died to give us the rights we’re supposed to have today, but the companies are stomping all over these rights. The Employee Free Choice Act would help put a stop to this.

Economic Report:

The month of March saw New York state’s unemployment rate stay steady at 7.8 even though 33,000 private sector positions were lost. Overall the state has seen a decline of 176,100 jobs in the private sector since August of 2008. New York City’s unemployment rate was also steady in March staying at 8.1 percent. In March of 2008 the city’s unemployment rate was 4.6 percent while statewide the rate was 4.8 percent.

Suicide rates for debt ridden Indian farmers are sky rocketing. Jesse Russell reports:

More than 1500 farmers in India have committed suicide over the past year as they face a massive and ongoing drought which is driving them into debt. According to Down To Earth magazine the water level in the region of Chhattisgarh (chuh-teez-gur) has dropped by more than 200 feet over only a handful of years. Without water the farmers have no crops to pay off lenders. According to the Organic Farming Association of India nearly 10,000 farmers across the country of India who were facing increasing debts committed suicide in the last decade. The government has stepped in to try and help the debt ridden farmers offering to waive farmer loans.