Labor Union Blog

Last week, 10,000 of us-along with 16,000 virtual marchers-marched to the doors of Wall Streets’ Big Banks and told them it was time to pay to restore the millions of jobs their reckless practices destroyed and time to stop their multi-million dollar lobbying campaign to kill Wall Street reform.

On May 17, we’re set for a Showdown on K Street, the famous Washington. D.C., avenue of high-priced, deep-pocketed, hired-gun lobbyists who are leading the Big Banks’ fight against real Wall Street reform.

The action targets the lobbyists for Wall Street’s Big Six banks-Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo/Wachovia.

Since last year and so far through 2010, big banks are spending about $1.4 million a day in lobbying and political expenses to fight reform. There are four Big Bank lobbyists for every member of Congress.

Like we did in downtown Manhattan, we’re partnering up with the National People’s Action, MoveOn, SEIU and others to deliver a message that the Big Banks’ money or their lobbyists can’t silence-the American people demand an end Wall Street’s dangerous practices and financial products that tanked the economy.

Details for the march and rally are still being worked out, so stay tuned.

Want to get in the ring and help battle the Chamber of Commerce? American Rights at Work is holding a fundraiser to help expose the Chamber’s war on workers. The $7,000 in seven days campaign doesn’t aim to compete with the mega-millions the Chamber collects from its Big Business patrons. But your donation can help the workers’ advocacy organization spread the truth about the Chamber. Donate here.

Last year, the Chamber spent more than any other lobbying organization in the country: $144,496,000. And it plans to spend $50,000,000 to influence the upcoming elections.

Here’s where its lobbyists stand:

• The Chamber is for Big Banks and against real reform of our financial system: Chamber lobbyists fought for years for dangerous deregulation that brought the U.S. economy to its knees. And they’re still at it-teaming up with the likes of Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase and trying to sink financial reform.
• The Chamber is for the “Tea Party” movement and against rational discussion: Mine CEO Don Blankenship-who is on the Chamber’s board of directors-teamed up with his friends from the Chamber to spend more than $1 million on a Tea Party rally against green jobs legislation.
• The Chamber is for the insurance industry and against patients: During the fight to pass healthcare reform, the Chamber took $20 million from insurance companies and funneled it into misleading anti-reform attack ads.
• The Chamber is for huge corporations and against workers: Just recently, the  Chamber used its deep pockets to round up around 250 lobbyists-for-a-day from around the country and flew them to Washington to rail against the Employee Free Choice Act.

You also can sign the American Rights at Work act.ly “Not My Chamber” petition and retweet it for others to do the same.

Make a contribution today-and help David beat Goliath.

This is a crosspost from Blue Arkansas.

Nice house, right? Certainly nicer than almost anything you see regularly here in Arkansas. Guess who owns it. That’s right, Blanche Lincoln. (It’s in her husband’s name.) And guess where it’s located. Helena? Nope. It’s located in Arlington, Virginia. That’s right, Senator Lincoln, the person who’s spent her whole campaign trying to scare people about Bill Halter being rich and childishly calling him “Dollar Bill,” has a home worth over 2 million bucks IN VIRGINIA!

Now, normally I wouldn’t run a piece like this, but I think it’s relevant for two big reasons. First and foremost, Lincoln has based much of her campaign around attacking Bill Halter for his (self made) wealth, calling him, as I said, “Dollar Bill” and “a multi-millionaire.” Yet here she is, a multi-millionaire herself, living in a very expensive home out of state. Complete hypocrisy on her part.

Secondly, Blanche’s only big selling point is how much she’ll do for Arkansas on the Ag. Committee. Between this, and all her privately funded travel (a HUGE majority of which was to places out of Arkansas), I think it’s pretty clear that Senator Lincoln’s commitment to Arkansas is skin deep, like so much else.

As I said, Lincoln brought this on herself with this Dollar Bill crap. She could have taken Halter’s offer on ending negative campaigning, but she just had to keep trying to scare people with the whole “he’s rich!” line. Now, like Senator Rick Santorum in ‘06, she now has to address both a residency issue and questions about her commitment to Arkansas.

Young union workers and activists are the men and women who are “Next Up” to lead the nation’s labor movement and they will meet June 10-13 in Washington, D.C., for the first national Young Workers Summit.  You can join them—just register by May 21. Click here for registration information.

At the summit, you will be able to meet with AFL-CIO leaders to share your ideas, skills and concerns about young peoples’ role in the union movement and your vision of the movement’s future. Earlier this spring, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler, who is leading the federation’s young worker initiatives, told student activists:

There’s no question that the union movement needs your skills, your energy, your ideas, your leadership.

The Young Workers Summit follows several regional young worker forums this spring that brought together workers, union and community leaders. During the summit, you and the other young union members will have the opportunity to

• Share ideas about how to reach out to other young workers in order to strengthen and grow our movement.
• Hear from policy experts, labor leaders, student activists, community allies, political comedians, professional athletes and others committed to the same progressive causes you are—and find out how you can effectively integrate their ideas into your work.
• Attend workshops that focus on topics identified by young workers across the country, such as communications, organizing and mobilizing, issues facing this generation and integrating young workers into our programs.
• Learn about the exciting work already happening to engage young workers and how you can build on it for your own community.
• Gather knowledge and tools to share with your co-workers and peers.
• Network with peers, other young activists and leaders from the broader progressive movement.

For more information, click here. Don’t forget to go to the Next Up Facebook page and connect with other young union members and activists and join the conversation.

More than 12,000 home care workers in Missouri won a voice at work when they voted to join the Missouri Home Care Union, an alliance between AFSCME and SEIU. The mail ballot results were announced May 5.

AFSCME President Gerald McEntee says the victory is “a great day for home care workers and the people they serve.”

Thousands of Missouri families rely on home care workers to help their loved ones live independent lives. We will use our combined voice to fight unnecessary cuts that threaten quality home care services.

Home care workers provide vital services–bathing, cooking, shopping, assistance getting to and from medical appointments and more–that help thousands of Missouri’s elderly and people with disabilities retain their independence, while saving taxpayers millions of dollars annually for the cost of nursing home care.

SEIU Executive Vice President Mary Kay Henry, who also oversees SEIU’s health care division, says the workers’ vote to from a union is

a big step forward for home care workers in Missouri and the people they take care of… [and] is about home care workers gaining a strong new voice about how to provide better care and support for their clients.

Missouri home care attendants join home care workers in more than 10 other states–including California, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, and Washington–who have united to improve the quality of care available to consumers.

Across the country, home care worker unions have helped establish training programs, started registries to connect consumers with qualified home care workers and won increased funding for home care services while fighting budget cuts that would force thousands of consumers out of home care and into nursing homes.

Some 290,000 jobs were created in April, the fourth straight month in more than year the nation has seen gains in employment. Yet the unemployment rate worsened to 9.9 percent from 9.7 percent in March, according to data released this morning by the Department of Labor. The total unemployment figure, which includes those who are discouraged or underemployed, worsened to 17.1 percent in April, from 16.9 percent in March—some 27 million U.S. workers without jobs or full-time work.

Yet economists say the increase in the unemployment rate can be viewed as good news because it means that more than 800,000 workers entered the labor force, many of them formerly discouraged workers who had stopped looking for work.

April job growth came in manufacturing, 44,000 jobs; service jobs, 166,000; construction, 14,000 and mining, 7,000. The jobs increase also was bolstered by the federal government’s hiring of 66,000 temporary workers to help complete the U.S. Census. The April jobless rate for black workers is 16.5 percent, for Hispanic, 12.5 percent and worsened for white workers, to 9 percent.

April’s jobs increase is a far better scenario than the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost each month in the past year—but nowhere near what the nation needs to fill the 11 million job deficit created by the past few years of economic maelstrom.

Especially bad new is the continued worsening in the number of long-term unemployed workers. In April, some 6.7 million U.S. workers were out of a job for 27 weeks or longer, compared with 6.5 million in March. In April, 45.9 percent of unemployed workers had been jobless for 27 weeks or more.

These data make it all the more essential that Congress extend the lifeline for jobless workers by extending unemployment insurance (UI) for a year, a move that is a key part of the AFL-CIO Jobs Agenda. Congress has passed several UI extensions, but only for up to 30 days. The length of time it takes to get a job in this economy, however, clearly shows much more time is needed.

A new report out from the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers documents the challenges for unemployed workers in this economy.

In short, “No End in Sight: The Agony of Prolonged Unemployment” concludes:

While the worst phase of the Great Recession may be behind us, the vast majority of jobless Americans have not found new jobs.

The report finds only 21 percent of those unemployed and actively looking for a job in August 2009 found employment by March 2010. An even smaller number (13 percent) found full-time employment. Sixty-five percent who found employment searched for at least seven months. Twenty-eight percent looked for more than a year.

Among those still searching for work—many for more than a year—are millions who have never been without a job and who have at least a college education. And the jobs they’re taking do not fit their skills nor financial needs.

It is clear that many took their new jobs out of need rather than desire. The majority (61 percent) said their new job was “something to get you by while you look for something better,” while just 39 percent agreed with the statement that their new position is “something you really want to do and think it is a new long-term job.”

As part of the AFL-CIO Good Jobs Now campaign, we are calling for Big Banks to resume lending to help credit-starved communities create jobs. Clearly, small businesses are not getting the credit they need to expand and hire workers.

We are backing a bill co-sponsored by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) to save or create nearly 1 million local jobs. Developed with mayors, county officials and others, the Local Jobs for America Act will provide $75 billion over two years to local communities to stave off planned cuts or to re-hire workers laid-off because of tight budgets. Funding would go directly to eligible local communities and nonprofit community organizations to decide how best to use the funds. More than 100 co-sponsors have signed on. (Click here to urge your representative to become a co-sponsor.)

What happens to a private-sector worker who blows the whistle on unethical, discriminatory, unsafe and even sometimes downright illegal actions in the workplace? Federal law is supposed to protect the worker from retaliation. But is that law protecting workers from demotions, dismissals, transfers, pay cuts and other management backlashes?

David Michaels, head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the agency in charge of enforcing the Whistleblower Protection Program, will address those issues Tuesday May 11, in forum sponsored by the Professionals for the Public Interest: Associations and Unions Defending Professional Integrity (PftPI), a group organized by the AFL-CIO Department of Professional Employees (DPE).

The forum, Whistleblowers and OSHA: Strengthening Professional Integrity, will run from 11:45 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 1200 New York Ave., N.W., Washington, DC. The event is free and open to the public with advance registration. Click here to register.

Some recent whistleblower cases have grabbed headlines. But are they the rule or the exception?

• Last month, OSHA ordered New Jersey Transit to pay more than $500,000 for retaliating against a worker who reported a work-related illness.
• In March, OSHA ordered Tennessee Commerce Bank in Nashville, Tenn., to pay more than $1 million and reinstate a former corporate officer who raised concerns about internal controls.
• In December, U.S. Marshals seized a vehicle from the president of Brocon Petroleum in Freehold, N.Y. to satisfy a consent judgment in favor of a worker who triggered an inspection and suffered retaliation.

Michaels will address the way the law is being enforced, problems and strategies for improving worker protections. This is the second of a series of PftPI forums. April’s inaugural forum explored patient care issues.

PftPI, formed last year, brings together 19 national and global organizations around a common focus: defending professional integrity against external pressures in the interests of the public. The organizations include eight professional associations; 10 national unions; and the DPE, which collectively represent millions of professionals in disciplines from the sciences and engineering to human services.

For more information, visit the group’s website at www.PftPI.org.