Labor Union Blog

The campaign of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to bring better wages and improved working conditions to Florida’s tomato fields took a big step forward this week.

Whole Foods Market announced that two of the largest organic growers in Florida—Lady Moon Farms and Alderman Farms—have signed agreements to implement the principles of  the “penny-per-pound” program to improve wages for tomato harvesters. That means workers on those farms will get 72 cents to 77 cents for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes they pick, up from 40 cents to 45 cents.

These agreements effectively break a stalemate that began nearly two growing seasons ago when the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange threatened to levy a $100,000 fine on any member who participated in the CIW agreements. At that time, two Florida growers who had been passing on the penny-per-pound increase under a 2007 agreement with Taco Bell agreement ceased doing so.

Although fast-food companies such as McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway and Yum! all agreed to the CIW principles, no farms in the area dared buck the Growers Exchange until now.

Says Lucas Benitez of the CIW:

For nearly two seasons, the campaign’s promise of fair wages for Florida’s farm workers has been held hostage by the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange. Today, however, the higher wages and fairer conditions we have fought for will begin to reach the workers who so clearly deserve them, thanks to the leadership of Whole Foods Market and the forward-thinking growers at Alderman Farms and Lady Moon Farms.

Without a doubt, the food market is changing, and for the better. Sustainability, social as well as environmental, is the way of the future. Together we—as farm workers, farmers, and buyers—are forging a path toward that better future.

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) praised the two farms for recognizing that treating workers fairly and paying a better wage isn’t bad for business, “but rather the best way to ensure the long-term success of Florida’s tomato growers.”

Whole Foods should also be congratulated for its leadership in demanding higher standards from its suppliers. All Florida tomato growers should follow the example…and join with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in bringing fairer wages and more humane working conditions to all of Florida’s tomato harvesters.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has long championed the tomato workers’ cause, says the new agreement is “an important and hard-earned victory for tomato workers who have been fighting for years for an increase in their abysmally low wages and an improvement in their working conditions.”

With the signing of this agreement, it is long past time for the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange to drop their threats of fines or surcharges on other growers who want to participate in the penny-per-pound program so that more workers can benefit. As someone who has been to Immokalee and seen the deplorable conditions of farm workers there, it is my hope that today will mark the beginning of the end of the “Harvest of Shame” that has existed in the tomato fields in Florida for far too long.

In September 2008, Whole Foods became the first in the supermarket industry to sign an agreement with the CIW. In a statement, Karen Christensen, global produce coordinator for Whole Foods, said:

Lady Moon and Alderman Farms are examples of Florida growers that we are proud to support. These farms are long-term partners of Whole Foods Market, and we look forward to continued growth together. Agreements like these are consistent with Whole Foods Market’s core values and are in the best interest of the people who harvest our tomatoes.

Nothing beats getting out of a think tank long enough to find out what’s really going on.  Seth Freed Wessler, a researcher at the Applied Research Center, did just that, traveling to Michigan where he talked with workers for ARC’s “Race and Recession” report. 

The title of his blog today at Huffington Post sums up what he found: GM Bankruptcy Hurts People of Color Hardest. Workers Desperately Need Employee Free Choice. 

Wessler reminds us that “across the labor market, workers of color are overrepresented in occupations with high unemployment rates.” The loss of auto industry jobs strikes a massive blow to the ability of workers, especially black workers, to earn middle-class incomes. Workers like those Wessler talked with across Michigan.

I met Leo Shipman, a 24-year-old black man, who had recently lost his job in an auto parts factory in Detroit. “My biggest worry is my son,” he said about his 3-year-old. “You don’t know how you’re going to feed them. He doesn’t know the bills are running up, but I do.” When I met Shipman, he was on the edge of being evicted from his apartment. 

As we now know, high levels of unionization equate with smaller income gaps between people of color and whites. But in the economy we’ve inherited from the last three decades of deregulation and declining union density, people of color are increasingly relegated to low-wage, precarious work that pays too little to support a family. Unless Congress acts now to ensure that work actually pays, these workers will have few options and we’ll only deepen the racial income and wealth divides. 

Wessler recommends what those of us in the union movement have been fighting for over the years: reforming the nation’s labor laws to enable people who want to join a union to do so. 

As a country, we’re reckoning with the fall-out from decades of putting profit above people. As precious union jobs disappear, the time has come to ensure that those who are unemployed—disproportionately people of color—are able to enter employment that actually pays. Congress should immediately pass the Employee Free Choice Act so that workers can demand fair pay without intimidation. 

Read Wessler’s full post here.

In Arkansas and other key states, union members and allies are rallying for Employee Free Choice.

This morning, 20 religious leaders in Hammond, Ind., met with union members from the Northwest Indiana Federation of Labor to talk about the need for the Employee Free Choice Act and sign a letter to Sen. Evan Bayh asking him to support workers’ freedom to form unions. 

Today’s breakfast is just a small part of a national effort on behalf of  faith communities in support of the fight to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. 

Union members, religious leaders, Working America members and a wide range of allies have made their voices heard with prayer vigils and rallies at Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s offices all around Arkansas, including Little Rock, Fayetteville, Jonesboro, Texarkana and El Dorado. They’ve also held vigils in Indiana, including events in South Bend, Fort Wayne and Indianapolis, as well as Omaha, Neb., and Missoula, Mont.

Elsewhere in the country, supporters of the Employee Free Choice Act are finding creative ways to reach out to their communities. In Virginia, union members organized a softball team sponsored by the Central Virginia Area Labor Federation (now with an 8-0 record!). In Alaska, working women are asking Sen. Lisa Murkowski to support the Employee Free Choice Act, while academics and business owners held a roundtable in New Orleans to discuss why they support this bill to protect the freedom to bargain for a better life. 

In Maine, Mike Hillard, a professor of economics at the University of Southern Maine, is one of the thousands of academics backing the Employee Free Choice Act. Looking at the history of increasing abuses against workers trying to form unions, Hillard says: 

The problem is that the process that the law created…has been subverted, intentionally….Labor law could be stretched or violated with little consequence. 

I think we stand at a crossroads. Both as an expert and as a citizen, I call on our senators to support the Employee Free Choice Act.

Jack Henning

The union movement is mourning the loss of longtime California labor leader Jack Henning, who died yesterday at age 93. Henning served as executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation for 26 years before his retirement in 1996.

Henning’s leadership produced some of the great milestones in California labor history. Almost immediately after his election to the top office of the state federation, he joined the struggles of the United Farm Workers, campaigning successfully for passage of the historic Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975.

Henning also led the campaign to restore Cal-OSHA in 1988, a year after it was abolished by then-Gov. George Deukmejian, and he spearheaded a successful drive to reform the state’s workers’ compensation system.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney praised Henning as “one of a kind,” saying he was:

a ferocious warrior for working people and an inspired leader with literally thousands of accomplishments for which we all owe him a tremendous debt.

Says California AFL-CIO Executive Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski, who succeeded Henning in that post:

 Jack was a lion of a man and a great labor leader. His vision and his magnificent oratory inspired several  generations of union activists.

His commitment to global unionism and anti-racism were ahead of his time, and he never hid from a good fight. He led the labor movement at times of great growth and opportunity, and through challenging times as well. There will be a silence where his voice once was heard, and he will be dearly missed.

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said American workers have lost a “tireless advocate,” and she lost “a dear a friend.”

 For most of his life, Jack Henning was on the front lines of the labor movement, fighting for civil rights, equality and justice for working Americans. He was a man of modest means, with a thirst for knowledge and a tremendous sense of compassion for his fellow man. Jack Henning was a champion, visionary and unwavering voice on behalf of the working women and men of the United States and of the world. We are all indebted to his leadership, and he will be missed.

Henning began his career in the union movement in 1938 while working with the Association of Catholic Unionists in San Francisco. The same year, he joined the United Federal Workers of the CIO not long after graduation from St. Mary’s College.

Later, he was a member of the Boilermakers in San Francisco. In 1949, he became administrative assistant to the head of the California Labor Federation, AFL, and frequently represented the organization before state commissions and regulatory bodies.

Gov. Edmund Brown named Henning director of the state Department of Industrial Relations in 1959. Three years later, President John Kennedy appointed him as undersecretary of labor, a job he held until 1967 when President Lyndon Johnson named him U.S. ambassador to New Zealand. He was elected executive secretary-treasurer of the California state fed in 1970.

During his farewell speech at the California Labor Federation’s 1996 convention, Henning delivered a thundering defense of political liberalism, saying:

And if by a suspension of the laws of nature, I were young again, I would follow no other course, no other flag but the flag of labor.

Henning is survived by his seven children, 12 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. His wife, Betty, died in 1994.

Crushing medical bills were the major cause of 62 percent of all personal bankruptcies in 2007. Even worse—75 percent of those with medical bill-related bankruptcies had health insurance.

More bad news: The percentages cited above were based on data collected before the nation’s economy began its long nose dive.

Says one of the study’s authors, David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School:

Unless you’re a Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, you’re one illness away from financial ruin in this country. If an illness is long enough and expensive enough, private insurance offers very little protection against medical bankruptcy, and that’s the major finding in our study.

The U.S. health care financing system is broken, and not only for the poor and uninsured. Middle-class families frequently collapse under the strain of a health care system that treats physical wounds, but often inflicts fiscal ones.

Researchers from Harvard and Ohio University published the study in the American Journal of Medicine.

In the AFL-CIO’s 2009 Health Care for America Survey, thousands of the more than 23,000 respondents cited the burden of high medical costs, even with insurance coverage, as a major problem facing working families. The survey’s full findings will be released later this month.

In the bankruptcy cases studied, hospital costs accounted for nearly half the medical expenses (48 percent), followed by prescription drugs (18.6 percent), doctor bills (15.1 percent) and insurance premiums (4.1 percent). Medical equipment and nursing home care rounded out the list. Says Himmelstein;

For middle-class Americans, health insurance offers little protection. Most of us have policies with so many loopholes, co-payments and deductibles that illness can put you in the poorhouse. And even the best job-based health insurance often vanishes when a prolonged illness causes job loss—precisely when families need it most.

One of the key elements of health care reform backed by President Obama and the AFL-CIO is inclusion of a public health insurance option to enable workers and families who either have private insurance coverage or no coverage to choose between private or public insurance plans. It has been vigorously attacked by the private insurance industry and most congressional Republicans.

Deborah Thorne, associate professor of sociology at Ohio University and a co-author of the study, says medical costs leading to bankruptcy affect families

who have played by the rules of our economic system, and they deserve nothing less than affordable health care.

Click here to find out how you can join the fight for health care reform at one of thousand of events planned tomorrow at private homes or community centers nationwide.

In May across the nation, 345,000 jobs were lost, worsening the U.S. unemployment rate to 9.4 percent, according to data released today by the Department of Labor.

There are now 14.5 million jobless U.S. workers, a number that doesn’t reflect the severity of the problem. If those who are underemployed or who want a job but have given up looking are counted, the broader U.S. unemployment rate stands at 16.4 percent—more than 
25 million Americans who need jobs or full-time work but cannot find it.

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) increased by 268,000 over the month to 3.9 million and has tripled since the start of the recession in December 2007.

According to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the job loss was spread throughout most industries, moderating in construction and retail:

Manufacturing employment fell by 156,000 in May….Employment in construction decreased by 59,000 in May, compared with an average monthly job loss of 117,000 in the industry for the previous six months….Job losses in profesional and business services moderated in may, with the industry shedding 51,000 jobs….Retail trade employment was down by 18,000 in May; job cutbacks in retail have moderated markedly in the past two months.

Health care employment increased by 24,000, and employment in government changed little in May.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney described today’s jobs data this way:

The moderation of job loss is welcome news and an affirmation of the early steps taken by the Obama administration, but until the recession ends and we see sustained economic growth, jobs will continue to disappear and the ranks of the unemployed will growth.

Minutes after the BLS released the May unemployment data, the corporate media already was predicting the end of the recession because the nation lost “only” 345,000 jobs in May.

Not so fast.

Even if monthly job losses continue to diminish and the recession ends this year, the nation likely will confront a massive employment deficit of 10 million jobs and a long period of slow wage growth, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

From the Daily Labor Report (subscription required):

“I think we will have high unemployment for a long time” after the recovery begins, EPI President Larry Mishel said in a telephone news conference. Mishel predicted that the unemployment rate will reach 10 percent by the end of the year, sooner than many economists expect.

In the early 1990s, it took 15 months from the official end of the recession before the unemployment rate stopped rising—and 19 months after the end of the recession in the early 1980s. But it’s not sufficient for the unemployment rate to fall to turn around the economy. The number of new jobs created must keep up with population growth—that means 127,000 news jobs must be created a month, according to EPI.

In a June 3 conference call, Mishel noted another worrying trend: wage decline. Although wages held steady last year, beginning in late 2008 or early 2009, wage growth skidded to a near halt, and now is barely growing. While job numbers get the attention, Mishel says wage growth is a critical indicator of the health of our economy.

Why do we care about wage growth? For most families, wages are what they live on. It means the recession is now adversely affecting those lucky enough to keep a job. Wage growth is being knocked down so much we will see inflation outpacing wage growth.

Underemployment, long-term unemployment and wage growth are three key factors to keep in mind when the Wall Street crowd crows that losing 340,000 in one month is good news.

We heard Bill O’Reilly is having trouble finding American-made T-shirts to sell in his Patriot Store. We know he’s heartbroken because, after all, what good is a Patriot Store if its products are made in El Salvador or Haiti? (Especially if you’re selling red, white and blue “American Patriot” T-shirts, like the one on the left.)

We heard he can’t find made-in-the-USA T-shirts because O’Reilly said so himself (h/t to D-Day). In his “Mailbag” segment on May 22, O’Reilly took the following question from Stewart Hollins in Rio Rancho, N.M.:

Mr. O, great looking mugs. Terrific bold and fresh shirts. Where are the items made?

And O’ Reilly responded:

Mugs are made in the USA, Stewart. The shirts in Central America. We cannot get the volume of shirts we need made in America, sadly.

Actually, Bill, you can. And not only American-made, but union made. And there’s nothing more patriotic than buying the products made by the heart of America’s working middle class.

A spokeswoman from Image Pointe, based in Waterloo, Iowa, says the company has 40,000 T-shirts on hand, and another 200,000 easily accessible from their vendor. That’s on hand, instant delivery. After that, the company can churn out 10,000 T-shirts a day. The shirts are made in places like Chicago, Pennsylvania, the Carolinas and San Francisco. That is, made in the USA. And all made by union members.

Not enough T-shirts there for you, Bill?

You can always supplement orders with K& R Industries in Chantilly, Va., where a spokeswoman says the company could provide any amount of American-made, union-made T-shirts needed. Just give them a heads up.

In the off-chance Bill O isn’t a reader of the AFL-CIO Now blog, how about sending him a message and telling him his Patriot Store should carry American-made products? If he’s a real patriot, he’ll be happy you asked.

This is a cross-post from the Firedoglake blog.