Labor Union Blog

The United Steelworkers (USW) called on the Obama administration to reject efforts by the Chinese government to undermine the rule of law in two separate U.S. trade cases currently under investigation.

China’s People’s Daily reported April 29 that China’s vice minister of commerce met with U.S. embassy officials in Beijing “to negotiate on two trade remedy investigations targeting Chinese-made products that U.S. industries recently filed with the U.S. government.”

The USW says the published article makes it clear the Chinese government is pressuring the United States to prevent these cases from being decided on the facts, while urging the Obama White House to reject import relief, despite thousands of permanent job losses and facility shutdowns. Read the People’s Daily article here.

The cases, filed by the USW and domestic producers, seek penalties against China for illegally dumping into the Unired States imports of consumer tires and stainless steel pipes used to extract oil or gas from drill wells. The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) and the U.S. Department of Commerce are investigating the cases.

USW President Leo Gerard says:

China’s Ministry of Commerce reflects a total lack of respect for the rule of law that characterizes the U.S. administrative and judicial system. There is no place for the type of implied threats and pressure made by China…on these cases. It is simply incredible that the Chinese government would attempt to undermine a remedy they accepted as part of its…commitments to join the WTO (World Trade Organization) in 2001.

Despite the Chinese government’s efforts to interfere in the cases, Gerard says he is confident the Obama administration and the ITC will both conduct their investigations and their deliberations consistent with the laws.

The USW petition against China on consumer tire imports into the United States claims nearly 7,000 U.S. tire workers have been affected by six factory shutdowns since 2004. In the other petition, the union says about 2,000 workers were laid off by U.S. producers who make the stainless steel oil- and gas-extraction pipes. Chinese exports of both products into the United States have tripled in recent years, according to the petitions.

The USW complaints are just two of more than 640 trade complaints filed worldwide against China since 1995, Gerard says. “Obviously, this demonstrates that Chinese goods are highly disruptive to domestic country markets and require trade remedies,” he says.

 Gerard adds that the USW “will not stand by while a foreign government attempts to undermine U.S. laws and procedures.”

We will be working with the administration and the Congress to see that all efforts to influence the process by the Chinese government and its agents are placed in the public record. The public has a right to know just how pervasive the efforts are to subvert our system of justice.

The current trade case investigations deserve a process free from Chinese government strong-arm diplomacy.

Support for a public health insurance option as part of comprehensive health care reform received a boost this week when four prominent congressional groups announced a public plan was essential to their backing of reform legisaltion.

A public insurance plan option is one of the AFL-CIO’s key health care reform principles, but it has been vigorously attacked by the private insurance industry.

In a letter to President Obama and Senate and House leadership, the leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), the Black Caucus, the Hispanic Caucus and the Asian Pacific American Caucus wrote:

Our support for enacting legislation this year to guarantee affordable health care for all firmly hinges on the inclusion of a robust public health insurance plan like Medicare.

Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Hispanic Caucus, says:

With one out of every three Hispanics in our country likely to be uninsured and with so many Latino small business owners, we have to provide all Americans with the choice of a public health insurance plan.

Noting that the United States is the only industrialized nation without universal health care, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Black Caucus, says:

It is time we put in place high quality comprehensive care for all. As we develop healthcare reform legislation, a public health insurance plan like Medicare and Medicaid must be included in order to guarantee equal access to quality affordable healthcare for everyone.

The private for-profit insurance industry and most congressional Republicans long have opposed a public insurance option. After all, their soaring profits and bonuses are at stake. Says Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), chairman of the Asian Pacific American Caucus:

For too long, insurance companies have dictated the quality, quantity and accessibility of healthcare to the American people. A robust public health insurance plan will ensure true competition with those companies that reap egregious profits.

Last month, the CPC announced its support for a public plan. This latest action by the four groups, says  Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), co-hair of the Progressive Caucus, shows:

we are committed…to developing a health care system that doesn’t leave anyone out. That’s why we need to make certain that any final healthcare reform legislation includes the option of a public health insurance plan to ensure that everyone has access to high quality, affordable care.

Also, last month, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said House Democrats are committed to including a public plan option in health reform legislation. In the Senate, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has expressed support for a public plan. But he is working on developing bipartisan legislation with committee ranking minority member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who opposes such an option.

Tell us what you think should be included in comprehensive health care reform. Take the 2009 Health Care for America Survey. The survey gives you the opportunity to make your voice heard and help shape health care reform to meet the needs of working families.

The survey asks specific questions about your household’s health care coverage and costs. It also provides an opportunity to tell your health care story in your own words or in a video.

Take the survey here.

One way to celebrate May Day is to catch up on recent coverage of the Employee Free Choice Act, so here’s a roundup of news, resources and blog posts from the week about the fight to ensure workers have the freedom to form unions without harassment and intimidation from managers.

*  In the Huffington Post, the AFL-CIO’s Stewart Acuff looks at Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s decision to leave the Republican Party and says the union movement will be “watching closely” to see how Specter votes on issues critical to working people. Acuff says the Specter switch is a step in the right direction for the Employee Free Choice Act:

Arlen Specter’s decision to become a Democrat makes the fight for the Employee Free Choice Act much more fluid and passage much more likely.

The labor movement will re-double our already overwhelming efforts in Pennsylvania to convince the Senator to once again support the bill that he was a co-sponsor of.

*  Speaking of Specter, here’s what Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Bill George had to say about his party switch:

We will encourage Sen. Specter to reconsider his decision on the Employee Free Choice Act and the Freedom to Organize without fear and intimidation by corporations and their hired union busters. We do not evaluate candidates based upon party affiliations. Our evaluations are based upon the voting records and positions of candidates on issues that matter most to working Pennsylvanians.

*  Calling it a “crucial measure” for workplace fairness and the economy, Katherine Stone, a professor at the University of California-Los Angeles School of Law, offers her take on some of the key questions about the Employee Free Choice Act.

*  Ed Kilgore neatly dismembers the fact-free theories of Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who claims Specter’s defection shows unions are bad and the Republican Party is healthy.

*  The fine folks at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) have released a series of one-page reports summarizing the latest research on what unions mean for workers all around the country.

*  Michigan State AFL-CIO President Mark Gaffney speaks about the economic crisis, the auto industry and the need for the Employee Free Choice Act in an interview with the Oakland Business Review.

*  At the Huffington Post, Art Levine looks at how local media coverage—unlike the national press—is getting past the corporate spin in covering the grassroots campaign for Employee Free Choice.

*  The National Center for Lesbian Rights offers support for the Employee Free Choice, saying it’s critical to give families the ability to join the middle class.

*  And pollster Mark Mellman takes to The Hill to look at the positive public attitudes toward the freedom to form unions.

For the first time in more than three years, the nation’s National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) has been cleared to land a fair contract with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Yesterday, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced the Obama administration was appointing mediators to settle the dispute.

In 2006, the Bush administration’s FAA rejected NATCA’s call for mediation to settle a contract and walked away from the bargaining table. The agency then imposed a set of work rules and wage cuts that have driven controllers out of the towers. Because of the deplorable work environment, more than 2,600 controllers have left the FAA, creating a shortage of experienced controllers and threatening aviation safety.

The FAA under Bush rejected all calls to resume negotiations and threatened to veto any legislation that required the agency to sit down and bargain with the union.

LaHood said Jane Garvey, who headed the FAA during the Clinton administration, will oversee the mediation. NATCA President Patrick Forrey says:

With this bold step, President Obama is fulfilling his commitment to the safety and modernization of the air traffic control system and to the dedicated men and women safety professionals who run the system each day. President Obama is showing the leadership that will guide a positive way forward in which aviation safety professionals will be included as valued stakeholders.

As the president made clear, a resolution to the dispute is critical to stabilizing the controller workforce, restoring a collaborative working relationship between controllers and the FAA and successfully installing the Next Generation Air Transportation System needed to spur economic development and increase the safety, efficiency and effectiveness of air travel.

Today as we celebrate May Day and the birthday of legendary labor advocate Mother Jones, workers and other progressives must think about how we use our values to build a struggle for human sustainability, including a sustainable environment, sustainable jobs, sustainable health and a sustainable economy.

Speaking today before a forum on quality green jobs at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Stewart Acuff, an assistant to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, says that to successfully accomplish that goal, we must bury forever the falsehood that greed is good and every person is on his or her own. 

See, while they told us you are on your own, they did all they could to make it so.  While they ignored climate change and global warming and more and more kids with asthma and more and more cancer cases, they were busting our unions, outsourcing and contracting out and privatizing our work, Wal-Marting our economy, telling us we have to compete in a global economy that sends 13-year-old girls to factories and factory dorms and the whims of supervisors in the Caribbean Basin, that murders trade unionists in Colombia, that sends 9- and 10-year-olds to work in Vietnam and Pakistan and uses slave labor in China.

Instead, we need a series of actions to make the global economy work for every person, Acuff says, including:

• Tapping renewable sources of energy. But to tap this energy requires skilled crafts people to build the windmills and turbines and build and install the turbines that can be turned by the tides of the sea.
• Creating good green jobs that help save the environment and provide a decent living. Sustainable jobs that help preserve a sustainable environment.
• Providing universal health care.
• Renewing the freedom to join unions by passing the Employee Free Choice Act.

Click here to read Acuff’s speech.

Acuff’s call for an economy that works for all receives a big “amen” from the global union movement. In its May Day declaration, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) called for an end to poverty and inequality.

Trade unions demand far-reaching, urgent and coordinated action to pull the world out of recession. Governments must act to keep people in work and create new jobs, to avoid an even deeper and longer-lasting crisis. These actions are essential, but alone they are not sufficient.

We demand nothing less than a full-scale transformation of the world economy. A new global economy is required, which is built on social justice.

Click here to view a video of ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder’s May Day message.

In other May Day actions:

• Workers in Milwaukee and Madison, Wis., will rally in support of rights and protections for immigrant workers. They will call for a path to citizenship, strengthening worker protection laws and passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.
• In Los Angeles, thousands are expected to join seven marches to push for immigration reform. Also in LA, supporters will rally to save the UCLA Labor Center from budget cuts.