Labor Union Blog

An investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) confirms what union and other workplace safety advocates have charged for years—the Bush administration’s reliance on voluntary policing by employers of their safety and health actions did not improve worker safety.

The GAO report, released this week, concludes that under the Bush administration the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Voluntary Protection Program lacked proper oversight, did not improve worker safety and diverted scarce resources from other enforcement duties.

The program has been in place since 1982, but the Bush administration greatly expanded it and widely promoted it as an alternative to strong enforcement of workplace safety and health laws. During its last five years, the Bush administration more than doubled the number of workplaces under the voluntary program.

Companies in the program are able to avoid routine inspections as long as they demonstrate they have an exemplary safety and health program, have no ongoing enforcement actions and have an injury and illness rate below the average rates for the industry.

The program’s stated goal is to promote cooperation between workers and management on developing innovative workplace health and safety programs. However, says Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee:

GAO’s report makes clear that OSHA has strayed too far from its core mission of protecting the safety and health of workers on the job. The agency has spent too much time seeking voluntary compliance from employers and too little time enforcing the law. I look forward to working with the Obama administration to see that OSHA effectively carries out its important responsibilities to the nation’s workforce.

Yesterday, OSHA announced that it is beginning a comprehensive review and evaluation of the program. Jordan Barab, acting assistant secretary of labor for OSHA, said he agrees with recommendations made in the GAO report. GAO’s analysis recommended that OSHA strengthen the program’s oversight activity, documentation and other aspects of program operations and impact to ensure consistency and adherence to existing OSHA policies and procedures.

The GAO found that OSHA did not properly ensure that only worksites that had exemplary safety programs were eligible for relief from routine inspections. According to the GAO report, 12 percent of the worksites participating in the program had an injury or illness rate higher than rates for their industry, and one participating worksite had an injury and illness rate four times higher than their industry average.

In addition, OSHA continued to allow some businesses to participate in the voluntary program even though they were cited for serious safety violations. One such worksite had three separate fatalities over a five-year period. Another was cited for 10 violations related to a fatality, including seven serious violations, and one related to discrepancies in the site’s injury and illness logs, but was able to continue to avoid regular inspections as a result of its participation in the voluntary program.

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, says he is not surprised at the GAO findings.

They only confirm what many had already known—the Bush administration’s misdirected reliance on voluntary programs siphoned scarce resources that were needed for enforcement of our nation’s health and safety laws. Fortunately, the Congress and Obama administration are committed to help set OSHA on a new course to provide the additional resources and staff in order to ensure that all workers are able to return home safely after their shifts.

To read the full GAO report, click here. Click here, here and here to read about OSHA’s new direction under the Obama administration.

As part of the AFL-CIO’s Labor 2008 program, Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka educated voters about the Employee Free Choice Act.

In the latest issue of International Union Rights, the journal of the International Centre for Trade Union Rights (ICTUR), AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer explains what the Employee Free Choice Act would mean for America’s workers and the entire economy and makes a strong case why the freedom of America’s workers to form unions and bargain matters for workers around the world.

Trumka says the Employee Free Choice Act is necessary to bring balance to workplaces and put decisions about forming a union back where they belong—in the hands of workers:

Currently, an employer can demand a company-controlled election and workers would have no say in the matter. The Employee Free Choice Act would require the NLRB to certify a bargaining representative without mandating an election if a majority of the bargaining unit employees signed such cards in the majority sign-up. Most critically, the choice would be up to the workers, not management.

In short, the Employee Free Choice Act would guarantee workers their right to choose a bargaining representative either through majority sign-up or a ballot election process. It would thus give the choice of whether to join a union to the workers themselves instead of to companies.

Trumka takes a critical look at America’s union-busting industry and at the multimillion-dollar campaigns that big corporations are using to defeat workers’ union campaigns in individual workplaces. Trumka starts with the story of Kelly Beringer, a nurse who faced harassment and interference in her attempts to join a union, but he notes that she’s not alone—recent studies have shown that far too many employers act with impunity to intimidate, pressure and even fire employees seeking a union:

Employers in this country have a lot of assistance in fighting unionization. In fact, union-busting is a $4 billion industry in the United States. When faced with a group of workers who want to form a union, U.S. employers all too often turn to these firms, packed with corporate lawyers who, for a steep price, provide them with all the dirty tricks they can undertake inside and outside the law.

Trumka notes that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and their corporate allies also are dumping millions into crushing efforts to create legislation to give workers a fair shot at forming a union:

Opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act have launched a $200 million campaign to defeat it. Working through front groups with innocuous-sounding names like the Center for Union Facts, organizations like the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and giant corporations are bombarding the airwaves and filling major newspapers with pricey advertisements designed to turn public opinion against the proposed legislation. More crucially, their lobbyists are deluging lawmakers in Congress with repeated visits and contacts to pressure them into voting against the bill when it comes up this year.

Supporters of workers’ rights around the world are stepping up to push back against the vicious campaigns against unions and the Employee Free Choice Act, Trumka says.

You can get a copy of the latest issue of International Union Rights here.

The recession has hurt all America’s workers, especially Latino workers. Despite their growing political power, Latinos are still at the bottom of the economic ladder. Until the nation enacts policies that help lift Latinos and other communities of color, the economy cannot fully recover, according to a new report.  

“Reviving the Latino Workforce: Complex Problems Demand Comprehensive Solutions,” released June 17 by the AFL-CIO constituency group, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA), points out the interconnections fueling this economic hardship, and the need for comprehensive solutions.

For example, the unemployment rate for all Latinos has been steadily increasing since the beginning of the recession in December 2007. Latino joblessness reached 12.7 percent in May, almost three percentage points higher than the national average. Also, Latinos are paid low wages—Latino households earn just over 50 cents for every dollar earned by a white household, the report says.

It is clear that simply creating new jobs will not be enough to save the Latino workforce, says Gabriela Lemus, LCLAA’s executive director.

An economic stimulus plan alone will not suffice. It is also important to engage in progressive policy reform in the areas of health care and immigration, and to target adult workforce retraining and efforts such as the Employee Free Choice Act so as to better empower the community in its social, economic and political aspirations.

The nation cannot afford to ignore the needs of the Latino workers, the report says. Not only are Latinos the fastest growing segment of the workforce, they are younger than most Americans with an average age of 25.8 years. The Latino population is expected to reach 47.8 million by 2010. Already, Latinos make up more than 14 percent of the nation’s labor force. Yet Latinos generally are clustered in low-wage jobs and lack access to quality health care and benefits. Employers often exploit the immigrant workers and use them as pawns to lower wages for all workers.

For the United States to remain competitive in the global economy, it must engage all its workers in rebuilding the economy, the report adds. That cannot happen if a large segment of workers are denied the basic necessities, the report adds.

Specifically, the report calls for:

• Spending federal stimulus funds where they are most needed, providing jobs for low-income workers and communities.
• Passing comprehensive health care reform to provide care to those currently uninsured or unable to get quality care because of low income, which include primarily people of color.
• Enacting a realistic immigration policy that meets the country’s economic needs. LCLAA recommends using the framework developed by former Labor Secretary Ray Marshall and adopted by the AFL-CIO to begin discussions on a fair immigration plan.
• Enforcing workers’ rights provisions in trade agreements to help raise wages in other countries to lower the need for workers to migrate to the United States to seek a better life.
• Restoring the freedom to join unions by passing the Employee Free Choice Act and educating all workers, especially Latinos, about their rights under the law.

Lemus says now is the time to make the changes needed to help Latinos to become fully integrated into the U.S. economy. She points out that two-thirds of the nearly 12 million Latino voters backed Barack Obama, allowing him to carry key states such as California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico.   

Latinos contribute much to the United States. They are part of the engine that drives the economy. They are trying to adapt to the changed economy, but they are so disadvantaged relative to other cultural groups that more comprehensive assistance is needed in order for them to better and more fully participate. 

The data are clear: The gap between rich and poor is widening, and certain communities—including Latinos—have been placed on the margins. If ever there was a time when private interests and social interests can be converged and harmful market forces can be corrected by public policy, this is it.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele has been called a lot of names. Here’s another one for him: cheater.

It’s not surprising Steele and the Republicans are embarrassed about their party. But Steele has hit a new low (insert Munch’s “Scream” here): He’s set up an RNC fundraising page on Facebook made to look like it’s the United Steelworkers union.

The “United STEELE Workers Union” page even features a hard hat with an American flag sticker front and center.

Just curious, Michael: Doesn’t a white hard hat clash with your designer suits?

Steele’s rip-off is another blatant and egregious attempt to align the party of NO ideas and NO appeal with progressive and forward-looking groups, in this case, the union movement—because the party can’t get anywhere on its own. And with a pathetic 21 percent of the public willing to identify themselves as Republican and four in 10 of those Republicans having an unfavorable opinion of their own party, it’s looking worse than ever for the Party of NO.

Even before the current GOP disaster, Steele campaigned in the same sleazy, misleading way, distributing “Steele Democrat” yard signs in his 2008 run for Senate to make it appear he really wasn’t aligned with the Party of Bush/Cheney. His campaigns in Maryland have included handing out fliers with inaccurate voting information distributed by homeless people he bused in from Pennsylvania.

Steele posing as a member of the United Steelworkers is an insult to the 1.2 million active and retired members of the Steelworkers whose proud history of taking a stand for workers emerged in the hard-boiled 1930’s struggles for union recognition as part of the CIO’s industry-wide organizing strategy.

Yet here’s what the False STEELE workers’ page proclaims as its goals:

This group is dedicated to help the new RNC Chairman Michael Steele get the GOP moving for the 2010, 2012 elections and beyond.

We will be a grassroots force ready to answer the call from Mr. Steele.
We will organize.
We will campaign.
We will fight to win our country back.

Organize? Campaign? Grassroots? More rip-offs of the union movement.

Here’s the real—and extremely partial—list of Michael Steele’s RNC goals:

• Destroy jobs.
• Oppose the Employee Free Choice Act.
• Kill health care reform.
• Disenfranchise minority voters.
• Smash efforts to equalize women’s pay.
• Shred civil liberties.
• Pad Big Business coffers.
• Lie.
• Cheat.
• Steal.

This is a cross-post from the Firedoglake blog.