Labor Union Blog

The H1N1 (swine flu) virus is now the first global flu pandemic in 41 years. The World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday declared the virus a Phase-6 pandemic, its highest level of warning.

The declaration means the virus has circled the globe and poses a threat to spread more rapidly among populations. So far, there have been 27,737 cases of swine flu and 141 deaths in 74 countries. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says there have been 13,000 cases of the flu and at least 27 deaths.

WHO classifies the reported cases as mild to moderate. But two other factors are causes for concern. About half of those who have died from the H1N1 virus were young and healthy people not normally susceptible to flu. Second, the virus continues to spread in the warm summer months in the Northern Hemisphere, a time when flu viruses normally disappear.

When the virus was found to have spread to the United States earlier this year, the CDC and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recommended that employers follow recently issued guidelines for protecting workers from pandemic flu, and CDC issued new interim guidelines to protect health care workers from the H1N1 infection

But studies showed that numerous states and health care facilities were not following the guidelines. Last month, the AFL-CIO and several unions urged OSHA to protect health care workers and other front-line employees by issuing a hazard alert and/or compliance directive that makes clear that exposure to the H1N1 virus poses a recognized hazard to workers and requires protective measures.  OSHA is currently evaluating the unions’ request.

In April, a report by the AFL-CIO and several unions revealed that health care workers are at risk because many of the nation’s health care facilities are not prepared to deal with a pandemic.

Don’t forget to check out the AFL-CIO’s pandemic flu site, which includes vital resources for health care workers, firefighters, educators and more. Recently added to the site are five updated fact sheets:

• Basic Facts About Pandemic Flu and the H1N1 (Swine) Flu
• Protecting Workers During Pandemic Flu
• Protecting Health Care Workers During Pandemic Flu
• Respirators: One Way to Protect Workers Against Pandemic Flu
• What the Union Can Do: Preparing the Workplace for Pandemic Flu

Here are a few highlights from newspapers around the country that make the case for why we need the Employee Free Choice Act. 

In Maine, Bill Murphy, director of the University of Maine’s Labor Education Program, writes a great op-ed in the Bangor Daily News explaining how our current labor laws are broken and how the Employee Free Choice Act can fix the system for workers: 

The central legal principle of the National Labor Relations Act, or NLRA, is to provide workers in the private sector with the democratic right to organize unions in the workplace…. However, for large numbers of workers, the rights established under this law no longer exist, because of willful employer violations and a lack of adequate statutory enforcement. 

For all too many workers, the right to obtain justice on the job through unionization has been either denied or delayed. Enactment of the Employee Free Choice Act will enable workers and their organizations to remedy this injustice. 

Maine AFL-CIO President Ed Goreham takes to the pages of the Morning Sentinel to cut through the corporate anti-worker spin and explain that both workers and businesses will benefit from the Employee Free Choice Act: 

Corporate CEOs are playing politics, while unions and employers at hundreds of successful businesses are working together to form constructive relationships. Unions and businesses have worked together to train workers in new skills, preparing them for the kinds of jobs that will get this economy running again. Union workforces are more stable, with less turnover and fewer retraining costs. 

In Colorado, more than 200 small business owners have offered their support to the Employee Free Choice Act. Terri Monley, co-owner of a moving company in Denver, says workers with good wages, benefits and economic security are what keep small business alive: 

A way to really get this economy going again is to start building up the middle class by having people make decent wages. 

In communities where there are large numbers of people working at larger enterprises who are unionized, the small businesses do much better. 

Writing in the Texarkana Community Journal, the AFL-CIO’s Stewart Acuff explains how the decline of workers’ bargaining power contributed to our economic crisis and how the Employee Free Choice Act will help bring about a sustainable recovery: 

The most effective and real economic stimulus to get us out of our economic morass is to restore workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain collectively. Given the real freedom to form unions and bargain collectively, workers will bargain for a fairer share of the wealth we create and a return on our productivity increases. We will bargain for a larger, stronger middle class. We will bargain for an exit ramp from poverty. We will bargain for spending and buying power to generate consumer demand. We will bargain for an economy that works for all. 

Acuff urges Arkansas Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor to support a fairer, stronger economy by voting for the Employee Free Choice Act.

Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council and co-chair of the AFL-CIO Energy Task Force, is in Bonn, Germany, for meetings to ensure that labor’s input contributes to larger United Nations climate change discussions later this year. This report follows up on his first two blogs from Bonn here and here.

The 30 international trade unionists here in Bonn, under the umbrella of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), are redoubling efforts to ensure that language calling for a “just transition” to a global green economy is included in the outline of a new climate agreement we’ll discuss at a larger U.N. climate change conference this December in Copenhagen.

In short, the ITUC is calling for commitments to a “just transition” for “sustainable, low-carbon economies as the key to guarantee a socially sustainable outcome.”

The ITUC states that we need to achieve these goals: 

through socially responsible and green investment, low-carbon development strategies and by providing decent work and social protection for those whose livelihoods, incomes and employment are affected by the need to adapt to climate change and by the need to reduce emissions to levels that avert dangerous climate change.  

Since this is the first time the “just transition” language has appeared in the official documents, we have had a lot of explaining to do. One of the problems we encountered is that most people assume the language is only about job loss. It is much more than that. What the trade union movement wants is an industrial and environmental policy that delivers a good, just transition for a world moving to a greener economy. You can’t have a just transition without workers and their communities having a voice. Also, a just transition requires investments to retain and create good jobs, modernize industry, education and training, and provide assistance for any workers and their families who may be adversely affected.

At an ITUC event June 8, a panel of speakers described their discussions about the issue of a just transition.

Angela Anderson, representing Climate Action Network, a coalition of  460 organizations, said the ITUC’s proposal is:

a really exciting development that also reflects the new era in American politics around the climate change opportunities agenda for investment in the green economy.

Poormina Chikarmane from the Wastepickers Union of India applauded the ITUC’s efforts to put “workers’ interests in a larger framework of sustainable development.” But she also reminded us of the challenges we all face. For example, members of her union whose livelihood is based on recycling are losing jobs. New technology, waste incineration plants, now stand where the workers once collected, sorted and sold waste. Now, investors make money with their new plant, which employ few and displace many, and they no longer recycle waste, but burn it. 

The next morning we met with Michael Zammit Cutajar, who will craft the draft of the official text of the long-term agreement from the statements of the official parties. He really sobered our group when he told us the language had little chance of making the draft unless the governments of some of the countries represented at the conference spoke for it.

Taking Cutajar at his word, delegates scheduled meetings with their governments and potential allies, including one meeting with the Climate Action Network. They were interested in the “just transition”  message because it complements their efforts to challenge the dominant theme that a climate agreement is only about burden sharing. They understand what an aggressive and concerted pattern of investments can mean and the importance of good jobs. 

In a critical meeting between ITUC European unions and representatives of the European Union, government officials invited the U.S. trade union representative to address developments in the U.S. I used the opportunity to draw parallels among the investments in the Obama administration’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Waxman-Markey bill and the concept of just transition.

The reception to our argument has been friendly and open, but cautious. No surprise. These are negotiators who scrutinize every word of an agreement. It’s our job to get them to understand that we do have a choice about the type of transition this agreement will represent.

Jonathan Pershing, head of the U.S. delegation, says “this is a positive message, one that is needed.”  We think so, too.  Now we need commitments by the U.S and other governments to work with us to put meaning to the words.

Eight years of Bush administration cutbacks in funding for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), particularly for an adequate inspection force, puts New York state workers at greater risk of dying on the job, a new report reveals.

“Dying for Work in New York,” released yesterday, also says immigrant, minority and nonunion workers are at greater risk on the job. The report was sponsored by the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH), the New York State AFL-CIO and the New York City Central Labor Council.

Joel Shufro, executive director of NYCOSH, told the Workers Independent News (WIN):

It essentially finds that workers are being killed on the job here in New York, and in other parts of the country, as a result of the failure of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to enforce the law. And that’s not because the agency is not doing its job. It’s that they don’t have enough resources.

The report was released in conjunction with OSHA Acting Assistant Secretary Jordan Barab’s briefing for NYCOSH and New York unions on OSHA’s new priorities under the Obama administration. Under the Bush administration, the agency’s inspection force was slashed, its budget was cut and dozens of new safety rules were killed or delayed.

The safety agency is due for increased funding, especially in the enforcement area, under the Obama administration’s budget for the Department of Labor.

Among the report’s findings:

• OSHA had fewer inspectors in the state in 2007 than in 2001. The ratio of inspectors to workers covered in New York state is 1 for every 88,731 workers—far exceeding the International Labor Organization’s benchmark of 1 per 10,000 workers for industrialized nations.

• OSHA’s penalty structure is insufficient to serve as a deterrent—the average proposed OSHA fine resulting from a fatality inspection in New York state was $5,193. This is well below the national average of $12,226 for penalties for fatalities in 2007. Not one employer cited for a hazard leading to fatality was referred to the Solicitor’s Office for criminal prosecution.

• The rate of fatalities in the construction industry was 16.2 per 100,000 workers—more than six times the state fatality rate for all workers. In New York City, the fatality rate among construction workers was even higher—18.5 deaths per 100,000 workers.

• New York state, compared with the nation as a whole, has both a much higher percentage of unionized workers (24.9 percent vs. 12.4 percent) and a lower rate of occupational fatalities (2.57 per 100,000 vs. 3.7 per 100,000 nationally).

Click here for the full report.

Last month at a Senate hearing, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said the Obama administration’s budget increases for OSHA would allow the agency to hire an additional:

• 130 safety and health inspectors (a 10 percent increase from FY 2009).
• 25 whistle-blower investigators (a 33 percent increase).
• 13 full-time employees to strengthen OSHA’s capacity to quickly respond to the sudden emergence of safety and health hazards, such as a pandemic influenza.
• 20 full-time employees to restore OSHA’s rulemaking capabilities, allowing the agency to simultaneously address multiple complex longstanding and emerging regulatory issues.

The increased funding, Solis said, will restore OSHA’s capacity “to enforce statutory protections, provide technical support, promulgate safety and health standards, and strengthen safety and health statistics.”

Providence, R.I., wants protestors to register in advance. It even has provided a special online registration form and “Public Viewing Guidelines” (h/t to Pat Crowley).

How thoughtful.

Seems the upcoming U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting set for that city has put the spotlight on Providence Mayor David Cicilline’s seven-year-long battle against union members. Cicilline refuses to bargain a fair contract, forcing the union into arbitration over each contract, and even going so far as to introduce anti-union ordinances and calling for similar state legislation. The Democratic mayor—yep, a Dem—couches his attacks against members of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 799 as saving taxpayer money. In reality, as of 2008, Cicilline’s mounting legal bills against the union hit $1 million, with the city losing every court decision.

Now, Cicilline, who lobbied hard for the conference to take place in Providence, has national egg on his face: The White House announced that Vice President Joe Biden and a delegation of top administration officials—including Labor Secretary Hilda Solis—will not cross the Fire Fighters picket line to speak at the conference. Quite a black eye for a city expecting 1,200 people from around the country, including 180 mayors and their families. And for a mayor who’s watching his aspirations for governor’s office tank along with his sinking approval ratings.

And so:

The city, foreseeing a large turnout of picketing firefighters, police officers, and other advocacy groups, is asking protesters to register for the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the annual gathering of mayors that is coming to the city starting Friday.

Payback, anyone?

Lest the public worry about that pesky First Amendment, Peter Gaynor, director of the city’s Emergency Management Agency, assures the public that the city wants to honor the free speech of protesters “while also ensuring the safety of those who live, work and visit the city while the conference is in town.”

The mayor’s draconian measures continue his long line of attacks against union workers—the same workers who, by the way, believed his promises to negotiate a fair contract and so helped elect him in his first run for mayor. Yet, since that 2002 election, Cicilline consistently has opposed fire fighters. As IAFF points out:

Local 799’s last contract expired in 2005 and Providence fire fighters have been forced to arbitrate their last seven collective agreements. Mayor Cicilline has fought Local 799 in arbitration and lost nearly every battle. The mayor has fostered additional ill-will by introducing state legislation and city ordinances against Providence fire fighters.

Kudos to the White House, where press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters:

Because of the circumstances surrounding the conference, administration officials will not be participating in this year’s meeting….We have always respected picket lines, and administration officials will not cross this one.

IAFF General President Harold Schaitberger said:

We appreciate the Obama administration’s support of fire administration’s unqualified support for workers and organized labor.

Local 799 President Paul Doughty says fire fighters and other local union members plan to picket throughout the four-day Mayor’s conference. 

We tried to settle our differences with the mayor, but he continues to antagonize the hard-working fire fighters of Local 799, so we will use this opportunity to shed light on the mayor’s epic mismanagement and his disdain for workers.

In 2008, 114 on-duty firefighters died while doing their jobs, up from 102 on-duty firefighter deaths in 2007, both sharp increases over the 89 firefighter fatalities in 2006.

It’s real easy to throw the power of the mayor’s office around to stall public employee contracts. Not so easy to get up and do a job where your life is at risk every day.

This is a cross-post from the Firedoglake blog.

Around the globe, workers and human rights activists are spending World Day Against Child Labor by focusing on this year’s goal: Give Girls a Chance. Of the estimated 218 million children who work worldwide, the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that 100 million are girls. More than half of those girls work in hazardous jobs in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, domestic services and commercial sexual exploitation.

Workers from Albania to Bangladesh will hold rallies, seminars and exhibits to mark the day and increase awareness of the plight of the world’s children. Click here for a list of events around the world. 

The ILO says the global economic crisis could lead to an increase in the number of children, especially girls, who are forced to give up school and go to work to support their families. The ILO’s new report, “Give Girls a Chance: Tackling Child Labor,” found that the combination of poverty and the tendency to place a higher value on the education of male children will result in many families in poor countries taking girls out of school and forcing them to enter the workforce.

Child labor is not only a problem outside the United States. Reid Maki, director of the National Consumers League’s Child Labor Coalition, points out that between 400,000 and 500,000 migrant children work right here in the United States, harvesting our food for pennies a day.

In advance of the World Day Against Child Labor, U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis hosted a June 10 roundtable on child labor to discuss strategies to combine efforts of government, business, non-government organizations and unions to eradicate child labor.

Kou Solomon, a former “lost boy” of Sudan and now student at the University of Minnesota who took part in the roundtable, shared his first-hand experiences to show why fighting child labor is so important. Solomon was abducted at age six and spent a decade as a child soldier, forced laborer and refugee before escaping to Kenya and later to the United States. He has launched a campaign to save his two young nieces, who were abducted in 2007.

No child should ever go through what I saw as a child. You can help by letting the world know what is happening and advocating for change.

Opening the roundtable discussion, the first in more than a decade at the U.S. Department of Labor that actually involved workers, Solis reaffirmed the Obama administration’s commitment to assist vulnerable children worldwide.

Many challenges remain in the fight against child labor, but the department is committed to raising awareness, improving the quality and access to education, and building the capacity of governments and civil society organizations to address the issues of children in need. This year’s World Day calls for us to focus our attention on the special circumstances and needs of girls who are being used as child laborers.

Solis announced that the Labor Department, which already funds 220 anti-child labor projects in 82 countries, will provide more than $60 million for programs to address exploitative child labor. These programs will provide education and vocational training to children and help their parents find alternatives to child labor.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), a longtime crusader against child labor who took part in the roundtable, pointed out that while girls often perform the same work as boys, we need to pay special attention to the trafficking of girls for prostitution and domestic service. The dire circumstances of the global economic crisis create a fertile ground for even more exploitation of children, Harkin warned, saying:

Desperate situations force desperate measures, including an increase in child labor. [Progress] is sometimes slow, but we can’t let up.

Widespread adult unemployment, poverty, lack of independent unions and poor education combine to make children vulnerable to forced labor, says Tim Ryan of the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center. He outlined a program the center is conducting along with the human rights group, Save the Children, in the mining industry of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The program enables children to leave the mines and attend school.

According to the ILO report, the worst forms of child labor include those jobs that are extremely hazardous; jobs that involve physical, emotional and sexual abuse; practices similar to slavery such as debt bondage or forced labor; and domestic labor into which a child has been trafficked.

The ILO report warned that the work of girls is “often hidden,” with girls more likely to be engaged in domestic work, small-scale agriculture, and home-based workshops outside the notice of authorities. In addition, girls often carry the double burden of working outside the house as well as carrying out household chores within the family.

Nearly two-thirds of working girls between five and 14 years old are engaged in agricultural work, ILO added, one of the three most dangerous sectors in terms of job-related deaths, accidents and occupational illnesses. Click here to read the full ILO report.

Many of the speakers at the Labor Department roundtable also emphasized the importance of education to lift the girls out of poverty and provide a stronger economy for their countries. Tina Tchen, executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls, reiterated President Obama’s assertion in his recent speech in Cairo, Egypt, that educating girls is crucial to rebuilding economic health around the world. The fact that 96 million women are illiterate is absolutely unacceptable in today’s economic climate, she said.

Derrick Figures, a legislative representative for AFT, added that eliminating child labor ultimately will require a combination of international solidarity for reform and the support of local communities where the labor takes place. He said too often the local communities are left out of the campaigns against child labor.        

Child labor is not only a problem in developing countries, said Brian Campbell, a staff attorney with the Forum. Consumers in the United States and the developed world contribute by buying products produce by children in sweatshop factories around the world. He called for independent standards that consumers can use to determine where products are made so they can not buy child-produced items and, as a result, drive down the demand for their labor.

This year’s World Day also marks the 10th anniversary of the adoption of ILO Convention 182, which commits member countries to combat the worst forms of child labor. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and union leaders from around the world will join Harkin and ILO leaders in Geneva to commemorate the anniversary.