Workers Independent News Labor Radio
Internet Radio Program 05/19/10
Producers: Doug Cunningham & Jesse Russell
Labor Radio Rundown:
1) WIN Newscast
By Doug Cunningham
The United Steel Workers union says that a fire Monday at a LyondellBasell oil refinery in Houston is the latest example of an unsafe industry. While no one was hurt in that fire, USW Vice-President Gary Beevers says it’s another example of the need for improvements in health and safety within the oil industry.
Are World trade Center workers losing their sense of smell? Jesse Russell looks at a new report:
Tuesday morning saw more than 1,000 mine workers marching on a Massey Energy Corporation shareholders meeting. The meeting was held in Richmond, Virginia and they message they brought to the shareholders meeting was that Don Blankenmanship is the wrong man for the job of CEO. According to the AFL-CIO 52 people have been killed under Blankenships’ watch as head of the mining company. Most recently 29 coal miners were killed at the company’s Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia.
By Doug Cunningham
 |
|
Despite U.S. Chamber of Commerce propaganda, the nation’s small business owners recognize the value of employees forming a union, according to a new survey by Americans Rights at Work (ARAW). The survey was released yesterday, the same day the Chamber opened its annual small business summit.
Some 80 percent of the small business owners and self-employed individuals surveyed agreed that “strong unions make the free market system stronger.” A significant majority—54 percent—strongly agreed.
ARAW Executive Director Kimberly Freeman Brown says:
We are learning that small business owners across America support the rights of employees to organize unions, believing not only that it makes good business sense, but also that strong unions make the free market system stronger.
A full 69 percent of the respondents said it was very important to their businesses that “Congress enact legislation that rewards responsible employers who respect their workers’ right to join a union.”
Brown added:
Small business leaders are showing us that there is a path to a “win-win” economy in America. Employers and workers can both generate success and share in the rewards of their hard work together.
The online survey included 1,055 respondents who identify themselves as small business owners or self-employed individuals. Click here to read the full results of the survey, “Surveying the Small Business Owner: The Value of Unions In America.”
Among other results, the survey found:
As one politically independent small business owner in Virginia said:
When workers form unions, they can secure benefits and rights in the workplace, including a decent wage and health care. They have economic and job stability. Unions lift workers and workers lift the economy. It’s as simple as that.
The U.S. House is poised to vote this week on a multibillion-dollar package of aid to states that would help America’s workers, promote U.S. jobs and provide a much-needed additional lift to our economy. Plus: The bill would make Wall Street pay for it.
The Promoting American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010 (H.R. 4213) would extend unemployment insurance (UI) and reduce COBRA payments for those out of work and fund summer jobs for young workers.
Take action now. Call 1-877-442-6801 today and urge your representative to vote for the bill.
Here’s how Wall Street would pay. For years, a tax loophole has allowed hedge funds managers and others on Wall Street to have their earnings taxed as capital gains instead of as ordinary income. In the case of some managers, that has meant more than $1 billion a year in tax-free earnings. The legislation would close this loophole, which has saved billions for mega-rich bankers while they drove our economy off a cliff and cost us millions of jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars.
Wall Street lobbyists on Washington, D.C.’s K Street are working hard to kill this bill and the vote will be close. Working people need this jobs bill. Millions of out-of-work families are relying on unemployment insurance just to put food on their table, and without the COBRA subsidy extension, they will be forced to go without health insurance.
Tell your representative that Congress must act now to protect these workers, promote U.S. jobs and do it by making Wall Street pay.
The 3,000 marchers at yesterday’s Showdown on K Street included a cross-section of union members, community activists and allies from across the country—with some traveling from as far away as Minnesota to take the battle to K Street, where Wall Street’s highly paid lobbyists scheme to stop Wall Street reform.
AFT members were out in force, calling for Pink Hearts, Not Pink Slips in the union’s campaign to stop slash-and-burn job cuts among teachers. A contingent of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) members marched behind a large banner: Good Jobs Now! Make Wall Street Pay (see video).
Members of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) and the Screen Actors (SAG) interviewed rally participants from several unions and allied organizations (see video), including Chelsea Carr with Jobs with Justice, who says she turned out in the Washington, D.C., rain to demand the Big Banks that created the financial crisis be held accountable.
Emily Parish, another marcher, summed it up, saying she was here because of her two children, ages nine and 12:
“The banks have taken our country and sinking all our money into taking care of Wall Street and not taking care of the people. It’s time to stop it.”
Kenneth Wiley, an unemployed member of the Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) told Washington’s ABC 7 News he marched because Wall Street’s greed led to a recession that resulted in his being out of work for the first time in 20 years:
“Every day you’re thinking about what am I going to do? How much savings have I got left?”
Thousands of people also watched the event via live webcast and commented live throughout, many expressing solidarity with the marchers and outrage that Big Banks have yet to be held accountable. Some of the comments included:
Leslie: I wish I was with you in DC. Sack Goldman Sachs, take away their bonuses. They are too rich already. Get rid of “too big to fail.” Regulate them to the eyeballs. Make them lend—from their bonuses.
Support from Albuquerque: Support to All on K-street from Albuquerque. Let’s reclaim our voice and power of the people and the local communities and re-establish business/corporations in positions of service to the betterment of communities of people, Nature, and especially in service to our precious Planet Earth. Any destructive or potentially destructive behaviors in that damage this higher purpose needs to be extinguished immediately.
Pegi: End the greed now!
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler made it clear at yesterday’s event that Wall Street needs to pay for the jobs its reckless practices destroyed.
Americans are fed up. $700 million in bank bailouts. We have $1.4 million being spent every day to kill this legislation.
We stand for holding Wall Street and K Street accountable. We stand for rebuilding our economy with good jobs, and we want Wall Street to pay its fair share. The 11 million jobs lost in this crisis were stolen. You might say that these jobs were collateral damage. The casualties of K Street and Wall Street.
 |
||||
|
||||
More than 1,000 Mine Workers (UMWA) and other union members and allies marched to the doors of Massey Energy Co.’s shareholders meeting this morning in Richmond, Va., demanding that CEO Donald Blankenship step down and three board members be ousted.
Speaking at a rally before the march to the ornate Jefferson Hotel site of the Massey shareholder meeting, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker said Blankenship and the three board members up for re-election have:
presided over a company whose safety and environmental record is the worst in the industry. They’ve demonstrated their dedication to the pursuit of short-term profits at any cost.
Don Blankenship is the wrong man in the job. His priorities are wrong. He’s bad for the miners and their families. He’s bad for Massey Energy.
Since 2000, 52 people have been killed on Massey Energy property, according to the Mine Workers (UMWA). On April 5, 29 coal miners were killed in an explosion at Massey’s Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia. The nonunion mine had a long record of safety violations.
UMWA President Cecil Roberts told NBC12 that Massey’s mines are “the most dangerous mines in the United States of America.”
Something need to be done here. It’s a drastic situation and we’re hoping to save other miners’ lives.
UMWA member Charles Dixon told Richmond’s WTVR this morning:
We think it’s just time for the people in this country to tell CEOs like Don Blankenship and big profitable corporations like Massey Energy it’s no longer acceptable to kill coal miners and put profits above their health and safety.
Holt Baker said the serious safety problems at Upper Big Branch “did not come by mistake.”
The evidence is overwhelming. In 2009 the Upper Big Branch violated federal safety rules 515 times, according to the Mine Safety and Health Administration. The citations were serious. They pointed to the lack of escape routes….To unsafe ventilation.
But in a memo to mine superintendents, Don Blankenship told them to ignore everything except to “run coal.”
She said the message this morning was “simple”:
America has had enough of profits-at-any-cost….It’s not right to run coal over the lives of miners….This must stop.
Last night, hundreds of miners from Virginia and other Appalachian coal states held a prayer vigil outside Massey’s headquarters for the 29 Upper Big Branch miners and the 23 others killed on the job at Massey’s mines. While hundreds held candles, 52 miners stood somberly and turned their miners’ cap lamps on to honor the dead. UMWA member Tanya James said, “We’re tired of miners dying in unsafe mines.”
Meanwhile, more than 12,000 people signed the American Rights at Work petition calling for Blankenship’s firing. This morning, the workers’ rights group is asking people to call Massey Energy (1-804-788-1800) and tell them it’s time for Massey Energy’s board to fire Don Blankenship and replace him with a CEO who cares about workers’ rights.
Both Roberts and Blankenship are scheduled to testify before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee Thursday. The committee is looking into the huge backlog of mine-safety violation appeals that enable companies to escape stricter enforcement, delay fines and allow violations to go uncorrected.
According to the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), it takes an average of 500 days to adjudicate a contested violation. In a preliminary report on the Upper Big Branch blast, MSHA says that Massey “contested the majority of its serious violation citations” that would have led to putting the mines under a tougher safety watch.
Recent Comments