Labor Union Blog

The new jobs report shows the glass half full. We need a second economic recovery package for a full drink.

U.S. jobs lost in July totaled 247,000, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data out today, with the unofficial unemployment rate now at 9.4 percent compared with 9.5 percent in June, the first improvement in the pace of job loss since June 2008.

The July jobless rate, while much better than economists predicted, still means 14.5 million U.S. workers are without jobs. And if the underemployed or those who want a job but have given up looking are counted, the broader U.S. unemployment rate stands at 16.3 percent, more than 25 million Americans who need jobs or full-time work but cannot find it. Jobs were lost in all sectors, except for education, health care, leisure and government, which all experienced small gains.

More frightening, the July job figures would have been far worse without the economic recovery package, which has helped to slow the pace of job loss to less than half of what it was just six months ago. From May to July, job losses averaged 331,000 per month, compared with losses averaging 645,000 per month from November to April.

Economic Policy Institute (EPI) economists say the economic recovery program already has saved or created some 750,000 jobs. Plus, says John Irons, EPI director of research and policy, the gross domestic product (GDP) report last week showing GDP shrunk far less in the second quarter of this year (-1 percent) than the first quarter (-6.4 percent).

But the depth and duration of the nation’s economic crisis that resulted from eight years of the Bush administration and economic imbalances that took years to form will not be solved quickly—or with one shot in the arm of economic stimulus.

EPI economist Heidi Shierholz and other economists predict the jobless rate will reach 10 percent by the end of this year or in early 2010. Those with jobs are putting in far fewer hours than a year ago, so as the economy improves, the first move employers will make will be to increase hours, not hire new workers. Says Shierholz:

The fact that we’ve seen this dramatic new decline in jobs means employment will be long in coming because employers have a lot of hours to fill.

Worse, there are now 5 million long-term unemployed workers, the worst such figure in any recent recession. There are 5.7 workers looking for every one job available. EPI Director of Research and Policy John Irons predicts that the effects of the economic stimulus package will begin to wane in mid-2010, when the U.S. jobless rate will still be bad. EPI economists say today’s jobless data point to two urgent actions Congress must take: Extend unemployment insurance and pass a second round of economic stimulus.

Diann Woodard is the new president of the School Administrators (AFSA). She was elected last week by delegates to the union’s constitutional convention, in Washington, D.C. 

Woodard becomes the sixth AFSA president and succeeds Jill Levy, who held the post since 2006. AFSA represents more than 20,000 school principals, assistant principals and other supervisors and education professionals in the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. 

Woodard says the union’s main goal is improving wages, hours and working conditions. 

We want to gain the right to collectively bargain for those who do not have it. And we want to improve the contracts for those affiliates who have contracts…we want to help train leaders so that they can build and maintain strong local unions. 

For the past three years, Woodard was the union’s executive vice president and has served as AFSA secretary-treasurer. The former assistant principal at two Detroit high schools says she first learned about unions and workers rights’ growing up in a UAW family in Michigan.

United Healthcare’s “mission is to help people live healthier lives,” CEO Stephen Hemsley told the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee in March.

But the health insurance giant’s real mission is to maximize its profits and executive pay and to defeat health care reform that threatens that pot of gold, says the new website SickForProfit.com. 

Launched by Brave New Films, SickForProft will feature a series of Web videos spotlighting several large insurance companies—their profits, their CEOs’ astronomical compensation and the stories of everyday families insured by those firms but denied coverage or turned away altogether. 

Welcome to the American health insurance industry. Instead of helping policyholders attain the health security they need for their families, big insurance companies get rich by denying coverage to patients. Now they’re sending lobbyists to Washington, D.C., to twist the arms of lawmakers to oppose reform of the status quo. Why? Because the status quo pays. 

United Healthcare’s Hemsley finds the status quo quite comfortable, with nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars in unexercised stock options and millions in annual salary, according to the first film posted at Brave New Films. 

But that same status quo made the first few years of Isabella Griggs life miserable and painful for the little Watertown, Wis., girl, and heartbreaking for her parents. Isabella was born with several life threatening conditions, says her mother, Stephanie, including the inability to eat solid food. 

Isabella was forced to use a feeding tube that delivered liquid nourishment straight to her stomach, a painful and frightening treatment for a young child. But when her parents discovered and were accepted into a treatment program for which doctors said Isabella was “an ideal candidate,” United Healthcare refused to pay. Of course, the company had gladly accepted the Griggs’ premiums for years.  

After waiting weeks for approval, Stephanie says: 

First, we were told that the paperwork was lost, and then we were told that it was being denied….They make all that money off the backs of people like us. 

It was only after Stephanie posted a YouTube video chronicling their battle and United Healthcare’s despicable denials, that the Griggs’ family saw some action. After thousands of views, posting on insurance watchdog websites, United Healthcare, seeing the quick viral growth of the video, suddenly had a change of heart and agreed to cover the treatment. 

Click here to see Isabella’s story and those of two other United Healthcare customers coldly denied the life-changing treatment. Click here to find out how much insurance industry CEOs are making out of the broken health care system and here to tell your own story of insurance industry abuses.

On the latest newscast by the Real News Network, United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard checks in on the fight for the Employee Free Choice Act and the need for political leaders to step up and restore the freedom to form unions.

Gerard notes that the inability of workers to form unions and bargain under current labor laws has eroded worker power and hurt our economy. He says passage of the Employee Free Choice Act must be one of the most important measurements on which to judge the Obama administration and the majority in Congress. This fight won’t be easy, Gerard says, but it’s imperative.

Gerard says that even though President Obama and the House and Senate leadership support Employee Free Choice, the union movement must mobilize and put pressure on wavering senators to make sure they stand with workers:

Unions are committed to this legislation, and we’re fighting hard…people want this legislation, people understand that we need to rebuild the labor movement and re-establish collective bargaining so you can help fix the economy. We need an economy that works for everybody.

Cutting through corporate disinformation, Gerard clarifies that the Employee Free Choice Act would put workers in charge by giving them—not their bosses—the power to make decisions about how to form a union:

What it does is…put the choice where it belongs, with the workers. In no other industrialized country does the employer decide if there will be an election or not, how it will be conducted. Workers make that choice.

Gerard provides a great explanation of the Employee Free Choice Act and the political landscape of this critical fight. Watch the entire video here.

More than 100 nurses, wearing surgical masks and carrying signs that read “Nurses and Patients Demand Swine Flu Protection,” rallied Wednesday at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center to spotlight unsafe practices in treating H1N1 (swine) flu patients and protecting health care workers and other patients.

The nurses, members of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), also protested the recent firing by UCSF of an RN who blew the whistle on unsafe patient care involving swine flu at the facility.

A recent study by CNA/NNOC of California hospitals uncovered widespread problems, including systemic trouble with safety gear for nurses and infection control procedures for patients, as well as an emerging pattern of retribution against nurses who speak out about unsafe care.

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.

Last week, a U.S. Government Accountability Office report to Congress warned the United States is still not adequately prepared for a potentially large outbreak of H1N1 this fall. The action came just weeks after a nurse at Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael died of the H1N1 flu. Says CNA/NNOC co-President Deborah Burger, RN:

Hospitals across California—and possibly the entire country—are putting registered nurses and other front-line caregivers at risk by inadequately preparing for this pandemic.

If hospitals do not take urgent precautions to reverse this lack of preparation, we may see our health care facilities become vectors for infections. That is especially worrisome for hospital patients who already have compromised immune systems, and our nurses who may be unable to respond because of their own sickness.

The nurse who was fired for speaking out, says CNA/NNOC, recently started working at the facility when she was exposed to the virus in June. 

While still suffering from the infection, she protested to management about inadequate hospital safety standards that she felt contributed to her illness.

Ultimately, the RN was fired in, what CNA/NNOC calls, retaliation against a swine flu whistle-blower.

Earlier this summer, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the virus a Phase-6 pandemic, its highest level of warning. WHO reported the death toll at 1,154, in data published this week.

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; and
• What the Union Can Do: Preparing the Workplace for Pandemic Flu.