Workers Independent News Labor Radio
Internet Radio Program 06/02/10
Producers: Doug Cunningham & Jesse Russell
Labor Radio Rundown:
1) WIN Newscast
Economic Report:
Next week the World Cup will kick-off creating a conundrum for soccer fans many countries. Due to the time difference between South Africa other countries resulting in many matches taking place during working hours. Worldwide 17 percent said they will miss matches due to employer restrictions, while 9 percent will watch covertly. In the U.S., where soccer isn’t very popular, 7.1 percent are planning clandestine viewings.
Kwame Patterson says the strike by 500 SEIU building workers at Co-Op City that started Tuesday is about trying to maintain a modest middle-class life in New York City. River Bay Corporation wanted to freeze wages for four years.
By Doug Cunningham
Ninety-six thousand union members at Kaiser Permanente are voting on a new tentative two-year contract that includes three percent raises each year, maintains existing health care benefits and protects jobs security, according to SEIU-UHW. The union says the new deal upholds high standards at the nation’s largest not-for-profit health care provider. SEIU called it a remarkable achievement in a tough economy.
The National Association of Letter Carriers has broken the previous record of its annual food collection drive. Jesse Russell reports:
By Doug Cunningham
The United Steel Workers union has reached a deal on a new contract at Alcoa. The tentative four-year agreement covers some 6,000 workers at 11 Alcoa locations. The workers will vote on whether or not to approve the new contract. The union says it will release details after its members have seen them. Alcoa on Tuesday said it expects workers to ratify the agreement “shortly”.
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The nation’s postal customers responded with extraordinary generosity this year, donating a record 77.1 million pounds of food in the Letter Carriers’ 18th annual “Stamp Out Hunger” food drive. This year’s results topped last year’s record donation of 73.4 million pounds.
Members of the Letter Carriers (NALC) on May 8 picked up the donations left at mailboxes in more than 10,000 communities. The food was delivered to local food banks, pantries and shelters to help needy families in all 50 states and U.S. jurisdictions.
Since 1993, the NALC food drive has collected more than 1 billion pounds of food—1,059,800 pounds—to help feed hungry families.
NALC President Fredric Rolando praised postal customers’ generous donations and the NALC and other union members and volunteers’ work on the nation’s largest one-day effort to combat hunger.
Despite the lingering effects of the recession, postal customers came through again this year in the continuing fight against hunger in America. Our members and the thousands of rural letter carriers and other volunteers were proud to deliver the generous donations from millions of caring citizens who wanted to help needy families in their communities.
Donations are particularly critical at this time of year because most school lunch programs are suspended during the summer months and millions of children must find alternate sources of nutrition.
Tampa [Fla.] NALC Branch 599 collected 2,062,529 pounds to emerge as the top local union branch in the country.
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So the U.S. Senate ran off on vacation and left the House to pass a jobs bill that the august body won’t consider for another week, when up to 1.2 million jobless workers will have lost their unemployment insurance (UI) because the Senate failed to act.
Nice.
Expect to win any elections anytime soon? Guess not. Because what working families voters care about—job creation—clearly is no match for the chance to fire up the limos and head out of town.
This makes the third time Congress let extended UI lapse and the second time Congress left town for a recess knowing it would cause massive hardship for workers unable to find jobs.
But in the view of some lawmakers, that’s just fine because helping jobless workers feed their families only encourages them to not look for jobs. Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.)—who as Dave Johnson points out makes $174,000 with the best benefits in the nation—says jobless workers on UI “don’t want to go look for work.”
Here’s a message for Judd from Deborah, a jobless worker who commented at the AFL-CIO Now blog:
I have been a lifelong Republican. I believed that if you were willing to work, you could always find a job and support yourself and your family. Confident, even cocky I suppose, in hindsight, I generally thought that welfare was a lifestyle people chose.
After working more than 20 years at a well-paying job, I was a victim of widespread job cuts. The fact that I was a long-term employee actually worked against me as bureaucrats eagerly cut many of us who had the highest salaries to maximize their savings.
Her job ended Dec. 3 and her UI is now expired.
I have faithfully applied to job after job….What will I do when my unemployment benefits end? I am outraged that our representatives seem willing to let people go under when they have lost a job through no fault of their own and there are not enough jobs to make a dent in the jobless situation.
Not enough by a long shot: There are more than five workers for every one job, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). As EPI vice president Ross Eisenbrey said via MarketWatch:
People who are trying to find a job, no matter how hard they try, most will not be able to find a job in the near future. They have to have some income or they end up having their house foreclosed, or declaring bankruptcy.
Instead of stirring up class war, Judd and others should take a lesson in economics: By replacing a portion of a worker’s income, unemployment insurance benefits can support consumer demand and so fuel the economy.
Job creation is what will make the U.S. economy strong. Working family voters know that. Congress may soon, too. As AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said after Congress left jobless workers hanging:
We are in a jobs emergency—a national crisis. Millions of lives are in ruins and children are being condemned to poverty. Excuses from their elected representatives are of no help to them….Working family voters will not forget who sided with them and who did not.
Some 25,000 registered nurses in California and Minnesota will conduct a one-day strike June 10 over patient care issues in contract negotiations at 15 health systems and hospitals.
The nurses are members of the California Nurses Association (CNA) and the Minnesota Nurses Association(MNA), both affiliated with National Nurses United (NNU). The 13,000 California nurses work at five University of California medical centers and four other hospitals. The 12,000 Minnesota RNs come from six hospital systems that are a part of the Twin Cities hospital systems.
Both CNA and MNA say the key issue is safe nurse-to-patient staffing ratios. Short staffing has become the hospital industry standard across the country, leaving serious patient care issues unaddressed, according to CNA.
In California, staffing levels are set by state law that went into effect in 2004, after a years-long battle for the patient safety standard led by the CNA. But CNA spokesman Jill Furillo told BNA’s Daily Labor Report (subscription required) the
University of California is trying…to short-change the law and not implement all the provisions of the law.
The California nurses also want to guard against politicians and the hospital industry who seek to roll back patient safeguards, including the ratios.
MNA President Linda Hamilton says the nurses called for the “one-day, unfair labor practice strike for patient safety,” after “the hospitals left us with no choice.”
Our nurses always have and always will stand up in order to protect our patients and our profession. Twin Cities’ hospitals are dangerously understaffed, and our patients are needlessly suffering and sometimes even dying as a result. We want working conditions that ensure our patients receive the safest, highest-quality nursing care possible.
In April, a study by University of Pennsylvania researchers found California’s nurse-to-patient staffing law reduces patient deaths, allows nurses to spend more time with each patient and helps keep experienced nurses on the job.
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