Labor Union Blog

At Netroots Nation, there is a wide variety of activists and bloggers who hope to make positive changes in their own communities. In their local unions they have a strong potential partner in this effort—but only if  communication and trust between the groups is created. That’s was the focus of “Working with Unions in Your District,” a panel held Thursday afternoon at the conference.

Blogger Chris Shannon moderated the panel, which included Blaine Rummel of AFSCME, Matt Browner Hamlin of SEIU, Elana Levin of Workers United and our own Eddie Vale, AFL-CIO media specialist. The panel introduced bloggers to what unions are and how progressives can work with them to help make positive change in their communities.

Rummel noted that union members can have the biggest impact at the local level, because they’re bottom-up, member-driven organizations.

Unions are democratically elected bodies—there’s a lot of local autonomy. If you’re looking to get involved, it starts locally. We appreciate that people make their choices independently.

Rummel said unions have meeting space, organizational infrastructure and other resources in communities across the country, and that unions can provide expertise and content to bloggers interested in state and local issues.

What’s more, Browner Hamlin added, while political campaigns come and go, unions are always around, active and engaged in their communities.

Vale said the best way to build engagement between bloggers and unions is to build ongoing relationships.

Browner Hamlin, who came to the union movement from the blog world, pointed out some of the overlaps between the two groups. He noted that unions and local bloggers have been collaborating to get the word out about destructive state budget cuts. The two groups are natural allies, he said.

Levin saw blogs as an opportunity to organize people who had not previously been included in the mainstream conversation. She noted that union members know the traditional media doesn’t pay much attention to labor issues, and they get excited about blog coverage. Levin said unions are natural partners of community groups of all kinds who are trying to make positive change.

Vale noted that bloggers are particularly helpful when they push back against attacks on unions and union members. Push-back is happening at the national level, he noted, but needs to take place at the local level, too. Local bloggers, he said, can fight negative media portrayals of unions and falsehoods about union members.

For a detailed account of the conversation at this panel, you can check our Twitter feed.

Bankruptcy filings jumped 35 percent between the end of June last year and the end of June this year. One point three million bankruptcies were filed in the United States over the 12 month period with 55,000 of those bankruptcies being business bankruptcies. Chapter 11 bankruptcies were up by 91 percent. Those types of bankruptcies are used to reorganize businesses. General Motors and Chrysler were the most well known filers for such bankruptcy protection in the last year. Chapter 7 filings were up by 47 percent. Chapter 7 bankruptcies require the sale of property.

A clothing factory in Long Island City is being charged with operating as a “sweatshop” by workers. According to the New York Daily News, workers for Great Wall Corporation have been rallying outside of the factory and allege they were fired after they complained to management about work weeks as long as 100-hours and wages below the minimum. Some employees were allegedly forced to work more than 15 hours and locking doors until garment orders were completed. The workers are filing a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.

A clothing factory in Long Island City is being charged with operating as a sweatshop by workers. According to the New York Daily News, workers for Great Wall Corporation have been rallying outside of the factory and allege they were fired after they complained to management about work weeks as long as 100-hours and wages below the minimum. Some employees were allegedly forced to work more than 15 hours and locking doors until garment orders were completed. The workers are filing a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. This isn’t the first time Great Wall has been accused of wage violations.

The International Association of Machinists is asking the national Mediation Board to recognize Delta and Northwest Airlines as a single operating unit. If it does, the union will then need to prove that 35 percent of workers want a union and that will lead to a vote where the IAM will need to win a majority vote from workers on whether or not to continue having union representation. The IAM represents workers at Northwest, but workers in similar duties at Delta are currently non-union. Also seeking such a ruling from the board is the Association of Flight Attendants. If the board agrees both unions could see elections in the fall.

Correction: This article originally said this speech was at the Steelworkers convention. We regret the error.

This week AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka headed to the Sheet Metal Workers International Association Convention in Nevada to accept the unions endorsing his bid to be the next AFL-CIO President. During his acceptance speech Trumka called candidates that received labor’s support during the election to the mat, vowing that there would be repercussions if those politicians backed off promises made to earn organized labors trust.

[Trumka]: “…we need to send them a special message: it’s that you may have forgotten what the labor movement did to get you elected; but, by God, we never will!

This week AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka headed to the Steelworkers Convention in Nevada to accept the unions endorsing his bid to be the next AFL-CIO President. During his acceptance speech Trumka called candidates that received labor’s support during the election to the mat, vowing that there would be repercussions if those politicians backed off promises made to earn organized labors trust.

[Trumka]: “…we need to send them a special message: it’s that you may have forgotten what the labor movement did to get you elected; but, by God, we never will! And if you stab us

So I took a tour of a steel plant today. There was a lot of hot, molten steel, but also high-tech computerized systems running the show, making sure just enough steel is poured into a mold at just the right temperature and speed, among many other functions.

The tour of the Edgar Thomson Steel Works in North Braddock, Pa., was sponsored by the Alliance for American Manufacturing and the Campaign for America’s Future as part of the Netroots Nation conference here in Pittsburgh.

On the way to the Thomson plant, we passed by the spot on the Monongahela River where, in 1892, striking steelworkers literally did battle with Pinkerton thugs who tried a sneak attack on them from barges in the river. The workers were prepared, and the Pinkertons surrendered. Ultimately, though, Carnegie, the owner of the plant, won the Homestead strike.

Passing by Homestead was a reminder that many people associate steel mills with the hazy history of our nation, but this tour was not about nostalgia. It was about the future—and how steel plants and manufacturing must be an essential part of 21st century America, or our economy will wither. 

And while Homestead and other early 20th century labor battles often were hand-to-hand combat, the new corporate masters are no less brutal than the old—just a lot more clever.

Earlier today at a Netroots panel titled “Bloggers and Blue Collar Workers Unite: You Have Nothing to Lose but Wall Street Domination,” Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) pointed to how the same anti-worker corporate interests that are fighting health care reform and other key progressive issues push relentlessly to move overseas family-supporting jobs like those at steel plants.

These same corporate interests ensure that Congress maintains policies that reward their short-term profits—like sending jobs overseas—rather than developing long-term strategies for strengthening our economy.

A far-reaching policy would place the United States at the center of green jobs creation. It would understand that when manufacturing jobs go away, so does the R&D—and our nation cannot get ahead with such a brain drain. It would recognize that the current economic disaster showed that the nation cannot rely on the financial services industry as the generator of its economy. If we don’t make things, that is, if U.S. manufacturing is not revived, we will have nothing to export and no job creation.

Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers (USW), who also was on the panel, noted that it’s no accident that China is making 90 percent of the solar panels in the world. China’s government wants its country to be at the forefront of this technology, and so it is.

Edwards discussed how the creation of a high-speed train in this country passed Congress—yet we have no way to make any of the tracks, cars or engines for the new system.

The USW members at the U.S. Steel plant are proud of what they do, and it showed as they maneuvered our groups around the massive machines and 3,000-degree steel plates. They know what too many Americans don’t—unless we make things in this country, we die. 

This is a crosspost from Firedoglake.com.

Seth Michaels is posting live from Netroots Nation.

Join us for “The Secret Plan to Defeat the Right Forever,” a Netroots Nation panel on labor law reform and why it matters to the progressive movement. Featuring Stewart Acuff of the AFL-CIO, Tanya Tarr of Texas AFT, Jake McIntyre of the Bricklayers (BAC) and Elana Levin of Workers United.

Learn why labor law reform matters and how the progressive netroots can take part in the fight for the Employee Free Choice Act.