Labor Union Blog

Speaking at the second and final day of the Demos conference, A Better Deal 2009, Algernon Austin, an analyst at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), said the U.S. economy was failing young people long before the current recession was officially declared. He called the prospects for young workers “bleak” and said the nation needs additional investment in recovery.

Even before the recession, we had a very weak economy in terms of job growth, economic growth—it was one of the historically weakest periods for job growth—and now we’ve been hit with the hardest recession we’ve seen since the Great Depression. For young people, this impact has been particularly difficult.

It was a bad economy generally from 2000 to 2007, but it was a very, very bad economy for young people. For individuals from 25 to 34, household income declined 4.6 percent before the recession—and all the bad trends that occurred from 2000-2007 have multiplied in their impact.

Austin was among several experts discussing the current U.S. economy and its impact on young people at the panel, “On the Rebound? The Great Recession and Its Impact on Young People.” Other panels focused on issues like retirement security, family leave and the need to engage young people politically.

The recession is hitting young people in devastating and long-lasting ways (as we found in the AFL-CIO “Young Workers: A Lost Decade” report), and solving these problems will require an immediate focus on job creation, as well as long-term investments to build a strong economy through education, training and infrastructure, panelists at “On the Rebound” agreed. Although the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act prevented a more severe depression, the jobs crisis requires more direct action.

It’s even worse for young families with children, Austin noted. Child poverty is high and will have long-lasting negative consequences. Delays in starting on the career ladder damage the lifetime earning power. Indeed, a young person just entering the job market today, Austin says, will be earning about 8 percent less than if they had entered the job market in 2000.

Discussing the long-term damage caused by the recession, Paul Roales, a city council member from West Lafayette, Ind., said there is a “vicious cycle” at work. He noted that educational outcomes, which impact earnings over a lifetime, are affected by immediate financial strains. Students are going into debt to pay for higher education, working to pay for necessities and frequently living with parents to save on rent. If their parents’ jobs are tenuous, that provides additional strain.

Because of layoffs across generations, said Ditashiah Norris-Kohn, who works with the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based DREAMS Youthbuild training program, young people who typically would get entry-level positions are competing for jobs against unemployed, middle-aged workers. When competition for jobs is so fierce, it gets hard to take critical first steps on the career ladder, Norris-Kohn said, so we need to invest in mentorship and training programs to make sure youth can get a good start in their careers, especially those from marginalized and low-income communities.

Caitlin Howarth, policy director at the Roosevelt Institution, pointed to ways that a second stimulus program could work to build a stronger long-term economy. Investing in the nursing sector is a great opportunity to get young people into important, career-ladder jobs, Howarth said, but we need training and mentoring to get people to a position to become a nurse. She also pointed to important student loan reforms she hopes will pass in Congress this year, as a way to put young people on sounder financial footing.

Austin noted another key element that must be addressed: racial justice. We can’t build to a better future without acknowledging and working to fix racial disparities in poverty and educational attainment, he said. Those disparities are not sustainable because rising generations are more racially diverse. The history of race and economics in this country has been about pitting people against each other, Austin said, and we simply can’t do that anymore.

We can pull out of this recession and build a strong foundation for a fair economy, Austin said, but we need serious investments now in infrastructure and education—both for the short-term relief this investment provides and the long-term needs of our economy.

In a case that clearly illustrates the need for real labor law reform, four construction unions have reached a settlement with Fluor Daniel over the company’s practice of discriminating against union organizers who apply for work. It took nearly 20 years for the cases to be resolved and some of the original workers in the cases have died. 

Fluor, one of the nation’s largest engineering and construction companies, will pay $12 million in back pay and interest to 167 union members who were denied jobs. Each member will receive between $8,000 and $217,000.

The settlement ends several cases before the National Labor Relations Board, brought by three of the unions—Boilermakers, Electrical Workers and Plumbers and Pipe Fitters. The United Brotherhood of Carpenters is also a party to the litigation. Some of the cases date back to the early 1990s.      

In a joint statement, the presidents of the four unions said:

This settlement is unprecedented for this type of case. It is the largest in terms of back pay, and it is the longest. The combined cases took nearly 20 years to litigate through the Labor Board and the appeals process. Today marks a huge victory for the union construction trades and for the individuals who were treated unfairly by Fluor Daniel.

More than a dozen of the workers who faced discrimination have died, demonstrating the need for labor law reform, the presidents said, beginning with passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

The legal right of workers to organize is routinely abused. It should never take two decades for workers to receive justice under the law.

Texas-based Fluor Daniel is a Fortune 500 company, which employs more than 41,000 international employees and maintains offices in over 25 countries.

Direct care registered nurses are injured at a higher rate than laborers, movers and truck drivers because they reposition, move and lift patients, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. A proposed bill would protect the health of RNs, ensure patients get the care they need and decrease work injuries, say leaders of the United American Nurses (UAN) and the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA).

The Nurse and Health Care Worker Protection Act of 2009 (S. 1788), introduced by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), requires the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to develop and implement a standard to eliminate, as much as possible, manual lifting of patients through the use of mechanical devices. The bill is a companion measure to H.R. 2381, introduced this session in the House by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.).

The legislation requires health care facilities to get input from RNs on a plan to comply with the standard. The bills also provide RNs the right to refuse an assignment and protect whistle-blowers.

Three states—Minnesota, Rhode Island and Washington State—have passed similar legislation.

Says UAN President Ann Converso, RN:

We applaud Sen. Franken for taking this important step to stand up for the health of nurses and our patients, and he has our full support as we work to pass this bill into law. There is no reason why an RN should have to accept a lifetime of injury or chronic pain as part of his or her job.

After the recent tsunami in Samoa and American Samoa, members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) helped provide aid in a big way. When members of the Samoan community in Southern California asked union workers if they would help send a massive shipment of tsunami relief supplies to the two islands, the workers did what union members do best: They came together to help those in need. The Sept. 29 tsunami killed more than 200 people. Thousands of Samoans are homeless and hundreds are injured.

The ILWU members volunteered to donate their time to load 15 containers of supplies for the tsunami victims. Union officials, led by ILWU President Robert McEllrath, worked with industry leaders to secure donated containers and to get the shipping company to waive the $45,000 fee that is ordinarily charged for such a load. The ship left for the islands Oct. 14.

George Malauulu, a member of ILWU Local 13 whose parents live in Samoa, helped organize the volunteer effort. He says that even in these lean times when work at the docks is down by about 20 percent from last year, “We’ve gotten even more help from the longshoremen than we’d asked for.”

The union, the shippers, the community-based groups, volunteers from around the community and the country [responded]—before you knew it, our shared passion turned a little pebble into a big boulder.

The 15 containers have a total capacity of 23,525 cubic feet and each is filled to the brim with nonperishable food, water, clothing, medical supplies, household goods and other items donated from around the country.

If you want to send supplies or make a donation to help the tsunami survivors, visit the Samoa Disaster Relief Coalition for American Samoa and Samoa website here.

Because of the actions of two Republican senators, every day this month 7,000 jobless workers have lost their unemployment insurance (UI) coverage. Each day these two Republicans continue to stand in the way of Senate passage of a UI extension, 7,000 more workers will run out of benefits.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has tried twice to bring the UI measure to a vote on the Senate floor. First Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), then Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) blocked action.

Christine Owens, executive director for the National Employment Law Project (NELP), says workers are “devastated” by the Republican roadblock.

Unemployed workers across the country are devastated and dismayed by the failure of the U.S. Senate to extend their lifeline. Every day, 7,000 additional workers are facing the total loss of benefits, in many cases after struggling to find work for more than a year and a half.

Ricky Macoy, a Navy veteran and an electrician with 30 years of experience, lost his job after a government contractor pulled the plug halfway through the project. He was supporting himself and his 11-year-old son through a combination of his unemployment insurance, his savings and by pawning his tools. His unemployment ran out two weeks ago, his savings are depleted. He tells NELP:

We have survived some hard times, especially this past year when work was nowhere to be found. Unemployment benefits have kept us afloat, but now we may soon end up homeless without them. What the Senate does now will make all the difference for me and my family.

The official unemployment rate now is 9.8 percent, while the number of those who have given up looking for work or are underemployed stands at an appalling 26 million workers.

Click here to tell the Senate it’s time to pass an extension of UI benefits.

In September, the House overwhelmingly passed a UI extension that called for an additional 13 weeks of (UI) for jobless workers in high unemployment states (more than 8.5 percent) who have exhausted their benefits without finding new work.

Last week, the AFL-CIO urged the Senate to approve legislation that provides 14 weeks of benefits to all jobless workers who can’t find new work and an additional six weeks for those in high unemployment states. Says AFL-CIO Government Affairs Director William Samuel:

Failure to extend benefits would pull the safety net out from under laid-off workers who are struggling to find jobs that have become increasingly scarce…a record 5 million workers have been unemployed for six months or more and there are now six unemployed workers for every available job in the United States.

NELP estimates 400,000 workers exhausted their benefits in September and without any extension, another 1.3 million will run out of benefits by year’s end.

Says Owens:

It’s shameful and callous. Because the Senate has not acted, hundreds of thousands of workers are languishing without any means to support their families in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. It’s time for the Senate to do right by the families hardest hit by the recession—the Senate needs to do whatever it takes, working weekends included, to make this happen.

Are you an artist with an activist streak and belief that our broken health care system needs to be fixed now? Put your skills to work for health care reform with Public Option Please (POP) just-launched group’s visual arts contest and to promote public option as a vital part of health care reform.

The contest is designed to cut through the Washington Beltway “insider” clutter and provide a vehicle for artists to make the moral case for health care reform and take part in the debate currently raging in Congress. Apple Via, director of the POP contest, says

This is a chance for artists around the country to help express the human side of the equation. Now, instead of only hearing from the big insurance companies about protecting their profits, these artists will be making the moral case for health care as a human right. They can help shape a vision of a future where health care is available for all and nobody has to die to protect a corporate bottom line.

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker is among the judges. Joining Holt Baker are:

• Arianna Huffington, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post.
• Jesse Dylan, an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker and artist.
• Marshall Ganz, a longtime organizer with the Farm Workers and lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
• Aaron Rose, a film director, art show curator, musician and writer.

The first prize winner will receive $1,000, second prize is $750, third prize is $500.00 and the Public Choice Award winner will receive $750.00. The winning art works will be featured on posters, T-shirts and stickers. Entries must be submitted by Oct. 31. Click here for the contest rules and here for instructions on how to enter.

Says Dylan:

Artists have a unique ability—by speaking to us in an honest, engaging, emotional language—to remind us of the human side of the health care issue.

The POP campaign will work with musicians, actors, artists and social justice advocates to engage the public in a way that makes the public option part of a larger, longer civil rights battle for universal health care. Click here for more information.

Thanks to Jane Hamsher at FireDogLake for alerting us to the contest.

Stephen Root

At Union City, Chris Garlock of the Metropolitan Washington (D.C.) Council speaks with Stephen Root, who’s in town for Saturday’s D.C. Labor Film Fest showing of “Office Space,” the 1999 funny-because-it’s-true comedy about a demeaning workplace.

With the economic crisis making workers who have jobs feel more and more at the mercy of their employers, Root says, “Office Space” is as relevant as ever, even on its 10th anniversary:

It’s the underbelly of America. Everywhere there are cubicles and people just like the characters in the movie. We’ve all been there, or know someone who has.

Just like in the movie, everybody’s afraid of losing their jobs. And there are a lot less jobs out there now.

Root’s character in the film, Milton, absorbs abuse from management until the theft of his stapler finally pushes him over the edge. In a culture where too many workers feel powerless in the workplace, Root says, that frustration is something everyone can identify with:

There’s a Milton wherever you go. He’s a completely universal character.

Root has been on both sides of the comedy of workplace frustration: he also played an arbitrary, all-powerful corporate boss in the sitcom “News Radio.”

Gary Cole, the actor who plays Milton’s boss Lumbergh in “Office Space,” is also in town for the anniversary showing and speaks with Working America about workplaces, having a union and why the film “took on a life of its own” long after it first appeared in theaters.

For more information on Root and the D.C. Labor Film Festival, visit Union City.

Some chamber pots need a lot of cleaning.

The day after Barack Obama was elected president, we at the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., draped the front of our building with a massive banner: “We’re Turning Around America.” In January, we added another banner supporting passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

The AFL-CIO building is just around the corner from the Chamber of Commerce. So apparently after stewing lo these many months, the Chamber decided to drape itself in its own banner, imitation being the sincerest form of flattery.

The banner proclaims the ludicrous—yet at an estimated $100 million, massively funded—campaign the Chamber announced yesterday to shore up free enterprise and create jobs. Or, as Politics Daily puts it:

Chamber of Commerce Relaunches Capitalism.

Chamber President Tom Donohue, who last week was battling Apple Inc. and other corporations about their decisions to leave the Chamber over its antediluvian climate change stance, had this to say about the campaign:

The free enterprise system, which has done so much for so many, is facing great challenges.

Indeed. Here are a few of those challenges:

• Major U.S. banks and securities firms are on pace to pay their employees $140 billion this year—a record high….Even as 26 million U.S workers are unemployed or underemployed.
• Taxpayers saved the American International Group-and now it plans to dole out $198 million in bonuses to employees of its trading unit, where problems posed a threat to the global financial system last year.
• Meanwhile, total weekly pay for production workers (80 percent of the workforce) has fallen for nine consecutive months, an unprecedented string over the 44 years the Bureau of Labor Statistics has calculated weekly pay. The old record was a two-month decline, during the 1981-1982 recession.
• A total of 937,840 homes received a default or auction notice or were repossessed by banks between June and September, a 23 percent increase from a year earlier. Yet large financial institutions continue to engage inthe same risky lending practices that led to the near collapse of the financial system, beginning with the mortgage crisis in September 2008.

So what’s the Chamber’s solution?

• Spend millions of dollars to kill the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency that would be consumers’ frontline against predatory loans and usurious credit card interest rates.
• Fight to kill legislation extending unemployment insurance for the millions of jobless workers whose search for work has been futile in an economy where there are more than six workers for every one job.
• Pretend to have a campaign about job creation to cover up who’s side it’s really on: Wall Street.

No less a mainstream outlet than the Washington Post blasted the Chamber pot of big bucks the organization is spending to convince most Americans of the value of “individual initiative, hard work, freedom of choice and free exchange of trade, capital and ideas.”

What we’ve also learned this week is how disingenuous the Chamber has become in its Washington lobbying. To hear it from Donohue and his minions, it’s not that the business community opposes financial regulation, or universal health care or controlling greenhouse gases—it’s just opposed to every credible idea for doing something about them. And rather than focus on working constructively to improve legislation, the Chamber’s default strategy is to try to kill it outright through exaggeration, misrepresentation and outright lies.

Discussing the Chamber’s fleeing members, Marc Ambinder also sums up the overall outlook for the Chamber:

It’s becoming harder for the Chamber to mount the sort of astroturf campaigns that’ve been so effective before.