Labor Union Blog

Capt. Dan Jones, right, and Flight Engineer Jeremy Studney, center, are part of the First Air crews flying relief supplies to Haiti.

Wherever there is a need for help, union members are quick to respond. With estimates as high as 100,000 killed and 40,000 buried during this week’s earthquake in Haiti, three crews of pilots and flight engineers of the Canadian airline First Air, all members of Air Line Pilots (ALPA) Councils 240 and 241, are flying relief supplies to the Caribbean for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The First Air crews, who normally work in the arctic, are flying two Hercules aircraft, which have 6,000 cubic feet of capacity and can carry more than 45,000 pounds of cargo. First Air said it also will send a Boeing 767-223 Super Freighter this weekend to deliver relief provisions from Toronto to Haiti. The Super Freighter can haul 98,700 pounds.

You can help Haitian workers in distress by donating to the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center’s Earthquake Relief for Haitian Workers’ Campaign. Click here to make a donation and here to learn more about how the center is working to help Haitian workers.  More donation and volunteer options here.

AFSCME President Gerald McEntee announced that the union is donating $25,000 to the Solidarity Center relief fund. He says the upcoming Martin Luther King holiday is

a reminder of what this great man stood for, and of our ongoing responsibility to help those who cannot help themselves. That is why this day has become a day of service.  I can think of no greater service than helping the survivors of the earthquake that hit Haiti.

The New York State AFL-CIO also is asking all its affiliates to do all they can to help Haitians survive the earthquake and to donate to the Solidarity Center’s relief fund.

These relief efforts are the latest in an outpouring of union support for those affected by the earthquake. Yesterday, the AFL-CIO called for the United States and the entire international community, including the global union movement, to “do our utmost to aid our Haitian sisters and brothers in their moment of extraordinary need.” 

To learn about what some other unions are doing to provide aid to Haiti, click here and here.

Registered nurses at MountainView Hospital in Las Vegas voted yesterday to affiliate with the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC).

The 500 nurses are the first RNs to unionize with the growing national nurses movement—National Nurses United (NNU)—following its formation last month with the joining together of CNA/NNOC, the United American Nurses (UAN) and the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA).

Alta Meyer, an intensive care RN at MountainView, says the election is

a victory for patients, patient safety and for us, the nurses. We have our voice at last.

MountainView is affiliated with Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), the nation’s largest hospital system. Malinda Markowitz, RN, a California HCA nurse, co-president of CNA/NNOC and NNU national board member, says:

This election should provide tremendous encouragement to HCA and other nurses across our nation who also long for representation to enhance patient care conditions and advance standards for their colleagues, their families and the nursing profession

NNU was formed in part to accelerate the organizing of nonunion RNs into a direct care RN-led national movement.  NNU Co-president Jean Ross congratulated the MountainView RNs as new charter members of NNU who will be

a vital part of our national campaign to change the face of patient care, and assist the ability of all RNs to promote a better life for themselves and their patients.

Listen to call here.

Lisa in Louisville, Ky., was one of some 20,000 unemployed Working America members who took part in a conference call today with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) to talk about solutions to the jobs crisis and how to make the economy work for working families again.

She posed this question:

We’ve been told for years that cheap goods from China will somehow help our economy, but I believe what really helps is spending our money here. How do we redirect what we’re spending there to our economy here?

Replied Franken:

We can’t allow ourselves to be chumps when it comes to trade.

He and Trumka then went on to outline the changes that must be made in U.S. trade and tax policies that currently encourage U.S. firms to ship jobs overseas.

Callers were concerned about creating jobs now, ensuring that new green jobs stay in the United States, extending long-term unemployment benefits that are set to expire at the end of February, reining in the kind of financial practices and abuses that fueled the recession, and other issues.  (For more, check out Workday Minnesota’s coverage here.)

Working America Director Karen Nussbaum says the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate for workers who have no union is mobilizing its 3 million members to call on Congress to move quickly on job-creation legislation. Callers could add their names to a petition to the Senate to move jobs legislation similar to the House-passed Jobs for Main Street Act.  Said Franken:

This year, our first priority, and our second and our third, must be creating jobs and putting America back to work. The idea of a jobless recovery is absurd. Real recovery is good middle-class jobs for all Americans.

Marvin Bohn, from Yellow Springs, Ohio, who lost his job as director of a college’s food service department, said:

In Ohio, It seems like everyone’s out of work. What should the government do to create jobs, not just short-term jobs, but jobs that will stick around?

For the near term, Trumka pointed to the AFL-CIO five-point plan that includes job-creating measures such as rebuilding the nation’s roads, schools and infrastructure, and lending Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds directly to small and medium-sized businesses via community banks.

For the longer term, said Trumka, the nation must invest in green and clean energy jobs, rebuilding infrastructure, training and incentives for firms that create and keep jobs in the United States.

We can’t have half measures. We must take measures big enough to correct the problems. Even when times are good, people can afford to buy cars, but they don’t pay for it all at once. We can do the same thing for jobs, and it’s an investment that will pay off in the future.

Liz Freeburg, from Circle Pines, Minn., has been out of work for 18 months since losing her sales job in the iron industry. While she and her husband and three special-needs children struggle, banks and Wall Street are handing out bonuses and “padding their pockets just like insurance companies with medical insurance.” Freeburg asked:

What can be done to make sure banks stop taking advantage of us and contributing to our financial situation?

Trumka said it was “quite frankly outrageous” that after taking taxpayer money in the bailout, the banks were back “to business as usual” In handing out obscene bonuses. He pointed to the efforts of the AFL-CIO in trying to tighten corporate governance rules through shareholder actions, new laws and regulations.

But it also takes public pressure and outrage, Trumka said. He urged participants to call lawmakers and urge them to rein in the banks and Wall Street.

Ron, from Barberton, Ohio, wanted to know if there was a move to renew the extended unemployment insurance benefits program. Chris Owens, director of the National Employment Law Project (NELP), who also was on the call, said it is urgent that the Senate and House move quickly and extend the program.

We have to build pressure on members to act quickly. Call your home state senators and representatives and tell them to extend the program.

Daniel Marschall, AFL-CIO legislative and policy specialist for workforce issues, reports on union participation in the final meeting of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

It is important to build upon the model of joint apprenticeship and training programs as the nation develops solutions to critical problems in the preparation of workers for the jobs of the future, Jim Hunter of the Electrical Workers (IBEW) Utility Department told the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB) at a meeting in Washington, D.C., this week.

Hunter participated in a meeting of 20 business leaders, nonprofit organizations and Obama administration officials to discuss workforce needs in the energy/utilities sector of the economy. The meeting was sponsored by the PERAB Education and Training Subcommittee.

Hunter discussed the growing workforce crisis among utilities. Many of their highly skilled workers are reaching retirement age at the same time as a great deal of work needs to be done in renewable energy systems and the construction of a smart grid. Hunter suggested that federal stimulus money be coupled with a year of company-sponsored, on-the-job training to help utility companies—many of which have a hiring freeze—bring on the workers they need as the country gradually recovers from the recession.

The IBEW and four utilities have established a national trust to train workers for future jobs. Both the IBEW and the Utility Workers (UWUA) are partners in the Center for Energy Workforce Development (CEWD), a business-labor-association consortium that is working to build a skilled workforce pipeline for the industry. 

The energy-utilities session was the last of seven meetings called by the PERAB subcommittee to obtain business and labor input into the Obama administration’s workforce agenda.

In a health care meeting, Cheryl Feldman, executive director of the AFSCME District 1199C Training and Upgrading Fund, argued for an integrated approach to the education and training of health care workers that combines remedial education, skill upgrading for current workers (in areas such as health information technology), and career development services in emerging occupations such as home health care workers.

Participating in the financial services meeting, Nicole Korkolis, director of communication, education and research for the Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU), questioned business representatives about the outsourcing of office jobs.

During the manufacturing session, Jerry Evans, executive director of the Institute for Career Development, a labor-management partnership between steel and rubber companies and the United Steelworkers (USW), called for a national “branding” campaign to inform parents and young people about the career opportunities in advanced manufacturing jobs.

In the small business meeting, Wayne Donato of the USW and the AFL-CIO Workforce Investment Act Task Force, called for legislation that would mandate greater labor participation on workforce investment boards and the adoption of industrywide, regional approaches to federal workforce development strategy. 

As reported here, the first two subcommittee meetings on technology and services/retail included labor participants from the Machinists (IAM), the Communications Workers of America (CWA)  and the Las Vegas Culinary Training Academy. 

President Obama established the PERAB by executive order in February 2009. Its 15 members—from corporations, labor and universities—include AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. He serves on the full board with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) International Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger, who is also a member of the Education and Training Subcommittee.

Results of the seven meetings will be synthesized into a report to the full board, with the intention of influencing the president’s job creation and workforce programs in the year ahead.

Chloe Osmer of the Clean Carwash Campaign in Los Angeles sends this report on yesterday’s National Workers’ Rights Board hearing investigating the abuse and harassment faced every day by carwash workers.

Several Los Angeles area carwash workers yesterday told a National Workers’ Rights Board hearing that they had been cheated out of wages, harassed and fired for trying to form a union and forced to work in dangerous conditions.

Along with the testimony from workers, board members heard from community and labor leaders (including Steelworkers President Leo Gerard), academics, and health, safety and environmental experts on the deplorable and often dangerous conditions that continue to plague Southern California carwash workers.

California has more establishments and employees in the carwash industry than any other state. Too many of these employers routinely violate basic labor laws, leading to unsafe and unhealthy workplaces for their workers and the communities they serve

Workers have reported being paid less than half of California’s $8 an hour minimum wage and some are paid only in tips. Violations also include underpaying workers, hiring minors, operating without workers’ compensation insurance and denying workers meal and rest breaks. Others have faced illegal harassment and threats of violence for attempting to form a union.

Aura Lopez told the board that in 2008, she severely injured her back in a fall on the job and was refused proper treatment.

A month after the accident, the owner saw me talking to a union organizer about how to get help for my injuries. The owner then fired me and told me never to come back to the carwash.

As former carwash cashier Maria Aide Hernandez—who left the job when her paychecks began to bounce—testified:

I saw my co-workers work for far less than minimum wage for 50-60 hours a week with no overtime pay. I saw workers have accidents because they were not provided with basic safety equipment, and I saw the owner fire or reduce the hours of workers who they suspected of supporting a union.

The Community-Labor-Environmental Action Network (CLEAN) Carwash Campaign, a coalition of community, religious, environmental and immigrant rights organizations, formed in March 2008 to aid Los Angeles carwash workers in their efforts to form a union with the Steelworkers.

USW’s Gerard told the board:

The United Steelworkers is fully committed to help carwash workers in Los Angeles form a citywide carwash union to raise standards throughout the industry.  A stable, unionized workforce would be a win-win situation for both workers and responsible owners.

The board released several findings and recommendations for making critical improvements to the conditions in the industry.

• Urging the City of Los Angeles to do business only with those carwashes that have signed the CLEAN Carwash Agreement, in which employers pledge to abide by minimum employment, health and safety, and environmental standards and to respect workers’ right to organize a union free from intimidation, harassment or other interference.
• Urging all L.A. carwash businesses to sign the CLEAN Carwash Agreement, and urging the Western Carwash Association to recommend to its members that they sign the CLEAN Carwash Agreement.
• Requesting that the City of Los Angeles review whether existing local laws and procedures regulating the carwash industry could be improved to enhance compliance of carwashes with wage and hour, health and safety, and environmental laws.
• Recommending that the California Department of Industrial Relations spearhead a multi-agency task force to investigate complaints and prioritize the collection of stolen wages.

National Workers’ Rights Board hearings are a project of the national nonprofit organization Jobs With Justice and have a proven track record of creating opportunities to address and correct workplace abuses by involving the local community in these issues.

Without good jobs, the gains of the civil rights movement are empty: Just as Martin Luther King Jr. fought to secure basic rights for all Americans, we must now fight for economic justice, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker said.

Speaking this morning at the Martin Luther King Prayer Breakfast in Atlanta, Holt Baker said:

The freedom to sit at a lunch counter or in the Oval Office was won for us.

Now it is our time to win for the next generation the economic strength to take advantage of those freedoms. Today more than ever, we understand that without jobs, civil rights is an empty promise. And without good jobs, there is no real freedom.

The annual prayer breakfast is sponsored by the Atlanta-North Georgia Labor Council.

Unemployment for African American workers stands at 16.2 percent and a staggering 48.4 percent for black youths. At the same time, Holt Baker added, too many of the doors that helped African Americans reach the middle class—good manufacturing jobs and government jobs that have provided good wages and benefits—are closed.

She said working people must demand that Congress enact the AFL-CIO’s  five-point plan to save and create millions of jobs in the next year. Nowhere is immediate action more needed than among African Americans, who have been hit especially hard by the crisis, she said. The AFL-CIO plan calls for the government to create additional jobs in distressed areas for people who desperately need them.

The plan also includes job-creating measures, such as rebuilding the nation’s roads, schools and infrastructure, and lending Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds directly to small and medium-sized businesses via community banks.

Saying “the generation coming up now is at risk of doing less well than their parents,” Holt Baker reminded the audience that freedom fighters like Dr. King, Rosa Parks and the Rev. James Orange fought so we could leave our children a better life.

She quoted King:

It’s all right to talk about “streets flowing with milk and honey,” but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can’t eat three square meals a day. This is what we have to do.

Economic justice also is the focus of the annual AFL-CIO King Day celebration in Greensboro, N.C., from Jan. 14-18. More than 400 union members will call on the White House and Congress for meaningful job-creation policies.

Participants also will honor the four trailblazing students whose sit-in at the Greensboro Woolworth’s lunch counter 50 years ago ignited a nationwide effort that resulted in passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Thomas Perez, assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights, will speak on civil rights priorities in 2010.

If you’re one of the nation’s 15 million officially jobless workers—or one of the more than 16 million who are underemployed or have dropped out of the job market—there are likely times you feel isolated and powerless.

A new community service program by the Machinists (IAM) can put you in touch with other men and women struggling to cope with the stress and pressure of being jobless in America. It also is designed to give jobless workers the opportunity to mobilize and make their voices heard.

Called “Ur Union of Unemployed,” or UCubed for short, the IAM initiative will function as an online community, with small groups of unemployed activists in a single ZIP Code forming “cubes” and ultimately becoming a linked network with considerable political and economic influence.

IAM President Tom Buffenbarger says UCubed’s goal is to provide:

“a measure of relief and an end to the isolation, frustration and depression that so many unemployed workers experience. Working together, they can build a network of mutual support and help each other to get through the next few years.”

The UCubed website (click here) gives unemployed workers a means to connect and share experiences. Also, with links to allow activists to pressure state and federal lawmakers to respond more effectively to the jobs crisis, jobless workers will have the opportunity to speak with a single voice on critical political issues that directly affect them.

The site includes action links on topics such as:

• Unemployment benefit extensions;
• Food stamps;
• COBRA benefits; and
• JOBS NOW!, the IAM’s effort to draw attention to the need for a national industrial policy.

Buffenbarger says the UCubed initiative “will add a real sense of urgency to efforts to get all Americans back to work.”

Everywhere we turn, we see the personal devastation this Grave Recession has caused. And we hope UCubed provides a measure of relief—an end to the sense of being all alone, a chance to build something useful and unique, and an opportunity for the unemployed to change things for the better.

A just transition to a green economy is the only path toward building the broad support needed to combat climate change and to creating and retaining quality jobs and decent work, AFL-CIO Policy Director Damon Silvers said. 

Speaking yesterday at the U.N.’s Investor Climate Risk Conference in New York City, Silvers said investors, especially those who manage workers’ pension funds, must change their investment strategies and lead the way to a stronger, greener future.

Silvers delivered the speech on behalf of AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who was called to meet with President Obama on health care.

Silvers told investors at the conference that a just transition requires an aggressive, sustained commitment of national resources to modernize industry, develop and deploy technology and educate and train current and future workers.

And most important, it requires that workers have the right to a voice in how the decisions that affect their lives are made, which means Congress must pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

With an administration in place that’s making climate change a priority, now is the time for investors and corporations to turn away from financial speculation and short-term profit making and invest in new technologies that will create sustainable jobs in the future, Silvers said.

He urged the investors to support corporate transparency so workers would know where their money is being invested and to oppose efforts by groups like the Chamber of Commerce to undermine good climate change policy. 

The AFL-CIO believes that with the right political and business leadership the global transformation to a low-carbon economy can and should be the engine for growth and good job creation here in the United States and around the world.

The job crisis has hurt everyone. But for African American communities, which were suffering before the crisis hit, it has been a disaster. Unless the nation takes immediate steps to create jobs now, the damage will become more entrenched and we will all pay the price.

Unemployment among African Americans is more than 16 percent, and that’s not counting those who can find only part-time jobs or who have just given up looking for work altogether. African Americans also stay unemployed longer.

The strides made by African American workers in the 1990s are being wiped out in this current job crisis, and millions of people of color are no longer making middle-class incomes. As unemployment has grown, local tax bases have shrunk, eroding education and destroying public jobs, public services and public safety.

In the metropolitan areas with the nation’s highest unemployment rates, most of the residents are black. African American communities have been disproportionately slammed by foreclosures and bankruptcies. Communities suffering these multiple economic blows are less able to support minority-owned small businesses at the same time as banks choked off their credit.

This is no ordinary recession. The fabric of whole communities has been unraveled. The economic scarring of African Americans may endure for generations. The child who is hungry today and can’t concentrate in her overcrowded classroom starts with the deck stacked against her. Maybe her state has cut teachers, guidance counselors, police staff and funding for higher education. Twenty or 30 percent of the adults around her may be unemployed. Her pain is not hers alone—with so little opportunity, her pain will also be her children’s.   

Speaking to the Illinois State AFL-CIO in 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said:

It is a constitutional right for a man to be able to vote, but the human right to a decent house is as categorically imperative and morally absolute as was that constitutional right. It is not a constitutional right that men have jobs, but it is a human right. 

The AFL-CIO has laid out a five-point plan to save and create millions of jobs in the next year. Nowhere is immediate action more needed than among African Americans, who have been hit especially hard by the crisis. That’s why our plan calls for the government to create additional jobs in distressed areas for people who desperately need them.

The plan also includes job-creating measures, such as rebuilding the nation’s roads, schools and infrastructure, and lending Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds directly to small and medium-sized businesses via community banks. If small businesses can get credit, they will create jobs.

Saving and creating jobs alone won’t solve the ingrained economic problems of African Americans in devastated communities. But it’s the start we need—right now—as we continue rebuilding an economy that works for our streets, not just Wall Street.