Labor Union Blog

In May, on the last day of Teacher Appreciation Week in Broward County, Fla., Cherine Akbari was honored “with a fancy embroidered jacket and handed a pink slip.”

Today, the out-of-work history teacher was in Washington, D.C., along with hundreds of teachers, fire fighters, police officers and supporters at an indoor Senate rally for the just-introduced Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Act (S. 1723). The bill provides funds to local governments to put back to work or keep on the job some 400,000 teachers and first responders. Said Akbari, an AFT member:

I have my own worries, but I am more worried about my students…We need to ensure students have better opportunities to learn and receive the attention they deserve. Instead of being in front a classroom today, I am here to urge Congress to pass this bill.

Click here to send a message to your senators urging them support the bill.

The rally drew an overflow crowd that spilled into the Senate Russell Building hallways and was sponsored by the Fire Fighters (IAFF), AFT, AFSCME and other unions. IAFF President Harold Schaitberger called the Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Act a “critical piece of legislation for our nation’s economic future.”

In the past three years revenues have dropped. Some 300,000 teaching jobs lost, 15,000 firefighters jobs vacant, tens of thousands police officers’ jobs on the chopping block. The time for a solution is now and the time put people back to work is now. The time to support this legislation is now.

The bill mirrors a provision in President Obama’s American Jobs Act that Senate Republicans blocked with a filibuster last week. In his most recent weekly address, Obama said provisions of the bill will be broken out for individual votes and this is the first of those votes.

Vice President Joe Biden told the crowd that when he and other Obama and administration officials sat down to design to the jobs bill, “We said we should do things that would create jobs and that Republicans support. This wasn’t designed to put Republicans on the spot. It was designed to do something to help this country.”

The things we picked are things that every Republican I’ve served with have  supported—infrastructure, tax cuts for small businesses, for middle-class people, the ability to provide for the safety and security of our communities and continue teaching our kids.

But these guys wouldn’t even allow us to vote on it…Now we’re going to vote piece by piece and they can explain to the American people why they are against the people who save our lives and give our children a chance to have good lives.

Schaitberger said that Republicans can’t use the excuse that the bill adds to the deficit as a reason to oppose it because:

It is all paid for with a one half of 1 percent tax on those making more than a $1 million a year. I think they can afford that.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told rally participants that if Republicans won’t come to an agreement to hold a vote on the bill, he will set in motion Senate rules that will force a vote on the likely Republican filibuster of the Teachers and First Responders Act.

Biden urged people to watch how their lawmakers vote on the bill.

Watch them and see how they choose. Are they going to put 300,000 teachers back in the classroom, 15,000 firefighters back on the job and thousands of police officers back on the beat or vote to save people with incomes of  more than $1 million a one-half of 1 percent increase on the their taxes for every dollar they make over a million.

Jennifer Pierce, a Marion, Conn, police officer and AFSCME member told the crowd that recently, 56 Connecticut state troopers received pink slips and police departments around the state have laid off officers.

When there are fewer officers on the job, that hurts the entire community with longer response times…and when a cop calls for back up there might not be any nearby.

As police officers were are trained to run toward the problem and I hope politicians in Washington, D.C., do the same and run toward the Teachers and First Responders Act and pass the bill.

Sometimes, it seems you have a shot at besting your opponents at their own game. It’s hard not to see a bit of poetic justice in the latest gesture of support for Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters by the Laborers (LIUNA)—one that involves a pension fund’s Wall Street investments.

Zuccotti Park, the corporate-owned land in lower Manhattan where OWS has set up camp, is owned by Brookfield Properties. Among Brookfield’s long-term investors is the Massachusetts Laborers’ Pension Fund—as in the fund that covers Massachusetts LIUNA members. So Barry McAnarney, the fund’s executive director, has made it plain in a letter to Brookfield executives that his members support the protesters’ continued presence at the park. According to a statement issued by LIUNA:

“Our pension fund investments represent the hard-earned retirement security of thousands of men and women who have dedicated their lives to building our country,” said Barry McAnarney, the fund’s executive director, in a letter to Brookfield executives. “Many of our members suffered as a result of the reckless financial dealings of major firms on Wall Street. The protesters at Zuccotti Park are courageously standing up against these wrongdoings and in support of working-class people. To silence the voice of Occupy Wall Street would be an assault on each of our members and all they have worked to achieve.”

Last Friday, Brookfield moved to evict the protesters from Zuccotti Park to allow for cleaning and trash removal, according to Brookfield executives—even though they have refused to permit protesters to arrange for dumpsters or portable toilets in the park. When protesters massed at the park to resist the eviction, which was to have been carried out by the New York City Police Department, Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway announced that Brookfield had relented, and postponed the eviction, which still looms as a possibility. (You can sign an appeal to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg here, demanding that the park remain open to the protesters.)

LIUNA President Terry O’Sullivan said the union’s half-million members are “united behind the fight against corporate tyranny and for economic prosperity for all.”

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka visited Occupy Wall Street earlier this month and, as we noted at the time, issued the following statement before his visit:

Occupy Wall Street has captured the imagination and passion of millions of Americans who have lost hope that our nation’s policymakers are speaking for them. We support the protesters in their determination to hold Wall Street accountable and create good jobs.

When 12,000 U.S. air traffic controllers went on strike 30 years ago, Ronald Reagan threatened that if they were not back on the job in 48 hours, they would be fired. Two days later, 11,000 of them, all members of PATCO, were terminated and permanently replaced. The PATCO strike not only changed the lives of those involved, who were unable to ever work again in their field, it proved to be a key turning point in this nation for workers seeking a voice at their workplaces, according to Georgetown University professor Joseph McCartin.

Speaking last night as part of a Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor panel at Georgetown, McCartin said the PATCO strike resulted in a fundamental shift in workers’ ability to utilize the strike, widely recognized as workers’ most effective tool in seeking a fair shake on the job. After PATCO, employers were emboldened to replace strikers and, in turn, workers waged fewer and fewer walkouts.  By 2010, there were only 11 strikes involving 1,000 or more workers, compared with 222 such strikes in 1960—a 95 percent drop in walkouts.  As the ability to successfully strike decreased, so did workers’ strength at the workplace and their numbers in unions. As McCartin summed up:

Ever since a Supreme Court ruling in 1938 in the Mackay case, private-sector employers knew that they had the legal right to replace workers in most strikes. But until 1981 few were willing to risk the conflict and public disapproval that might come from doing so. 

Reagan’s firing of the PATCO strikers, which the public initially strongly supported, helped break that barrier of reticence. 

McCartin, author of the newly published book, Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers and the Strike that Changed America, was joined by several former PATCO members and former Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services Director Ken Moffet for a panel discussion following his presentation. McCartin had interviewed Moffet and the PATCO members—a total of 100 interviews in all—as part of his research for Collision Course.

Jim Stakem, a PATCO member who became a controller after fighting in some of the bloodiest battles in the Vietnam War, led the walkout from the air traffic center in Leesburg, Va. Stakem said that although the workers were naive in thinking they could win, they felt they had no choice but to walk out after years of broken promises by their employer, the Federal Aviation Admnistration (FAA). 

McCartin brought the lessons from PATCO to the present, citing the crisis facing collective bargaining—”one of  the great American innovations of the 20th century,” and one that ”helped make this nation more prosperous, egalitarian and democratic.” And just like the frustration that boiled over among PATCO workers who felt their concerns were being ignored and their voices unheard, the nation’s growing inequality is fueling anger and frustration throughout the country.

In times of economic turmoil, unrest has always tended to lag behind events in America (it took several years before people took to the streets in protest during the Great Depression). But when it emerges, it can be a significant force….[T]here is evidence across the board, as people on both the right and the left voice the feeling that their voices are not being heard by the powers that be, that they feel they no longer have control over the economic forces that are changing their lives. 

An increasing number of people feel, in short, as so many air traffic controllers did in the late 1970s as stagflation eroded their salaries and the FAA seemed to them to be deaf to their entreaties. And like the air traffic controllers back then, so many today lack the ways and means of giving voice to their aspirations: to their demands that they be fairly compensated, that their voices be heard.

Across the country, tens of thousands of firefighters, paramedics and teachers have been laid off and the jobs of tens of thousands more are under threat. As this nationwide ad from the Fire Fighters (IAFF) shows, those first responder cuts are threatening public safety.

Says fire Capt. Tracey Wright:

Longer response times and fewer of us responding are putting our neighbors at risk.

The just-introduced Teachers and First Responders Act (S. 1723), would provide funds to local governments to put back to work or keep on the job some 400,000 teachers and first responders. It mirrors a provision in President Obama’s American Jobs Act that Senate Republicans blocked with a filibuster last week. In his most recent weekly address, Obama said provisions of the bill will be broken out for individual votes.

This afternoon on Capitol Hill, teachers, firefighters, paramedics and police officers will rally with Vice President Joe Biden, Senate leaders and union members to urge Congress to approve the legislation.

Click here for a live webcast of the event.

UAW members at Ford Motor Co. have voted to approve a new four-year agreement with the automaker. In September, UAW members ratified a four-year contract with General Motors. Workers at Chrysler now are voting on a tentative deal reached earlier this month.

The agreement with Ford will add 5,750 new jobs, bringing to 12,000 the number of new jobs when combined with recent announcements from Ford. UAW President Bob King says:

As the nation’s economy remains stalled and uncertain and its employment rate stagnates, we were able to win an agreement with Ford that will bring auto manufacturing jobs back to the United States from China, Mexico and Japan.

The agreement includes $16 billion to produce new and upgraded vehicles and components by 2015, of which, $6.3 billion will be invested directly into retooling and upgrading plants. A complete list of plant investment can be found on the UAW’s website.

Seth Michaels, a writer at Working America, sends us this.

Working America’s Job Tracker is an online tool you can use to find out about mass layoffs, outsourcing and labor law violations going on right in your neighborhood.

Now, with a few clicks, you help spread the word about what’s really going on in the American workplace. Working America has entered the Job Tracker into the Department of Labor’s informACTION App Challenge—and the voting is open to the public.

Here’s what you do:

1. Click this link to vote for Job Tracker. You just have to set up a quick account with your e-mail address or Facebook.
2. After you cast your vote, share the link using the Facebook and Twitter buttons on the site. Let your family and friends know why tracking outsourcing and labor law violations are important.
3. See what all the fuss is about! Try out our Job Tracker, and see what’s really going on behind closed doors in your area.

In this contest, Working America has the chance to win $15,000 to improve, expand and spread the word about Job Tracker and the truth about where good American jobs are going. Working America canvassers and staff hear all the time—via e-mails, phone calls, Facebook messages and at the doorstep—about how job outsourcing and offshoring are decimating communities. With a few clicks, help us fight back.

Voting ends Wednesday, so there’s no time to waste! Vote here now.

And thanks again for all you do.

UPDATE: This event has been moved to the Russell Senate Office Building in the Kennedy Caucus Room, SR 325.  Click here for more information and directions and here to view a live webcast.

The U.S. Senate this week may vote on legislation that would enable some 400,000 teachers, police officers and firefighters to return to work or stay on the job. At a rally on Capitol Hill tomorrow, they will urge the Senate to act quickly and warn lawmakers who try to block or defeat the bill that they will have to answer for their no votes.

The rally—sponsored by AFT, AFSCME, the Fire Fighters and other unions—is set for 2 p.m. EDT on the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol.

The bill, the Teachers and First Responders Act, mirrors a provision in President Obama’s American Jobs Act that Senate Republicans blocked with a filibuster last week. In his most recent weekly address, Obama said provisions of the bill will be broken out for individual votes.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has already said he will oppose the bill, which provides funds to local governments to keep teachers and first responders on the job. A new poll shows he and other Republican leaders are far out of step, not just with the general public, but with Republican voters as well.

Steve Bennen on Washington Monthly’s Political Animal blog writes that the most recent CNN poll shows Republicans support (63 percent to 36 percent) providing federal funds to help communities hire teachers and first responders. They also back three other central points of Obama’s American Jobs Act—raising taxes on millionaires (56 percent to 43 percent), federal spending on infrastructure to create jobs (54 percent to 46 percent) and a payroll tax cut for all workers (58 percent to 40 percent.)

Bennen says these numbers point out not only “just how mainstream the American Jobs Act is,” but also show:

the chasm between Republican voters and Republican policymakers. With 63 percent of the GOP’s rank-and-file supporting, for example, aid to states to protect teachers’ and first responders’ jobs, it’s tempting to think at least some GOP lawmakers in Washington would support the idea.

But in reality, that’s just not the case—literally zero Republicans on Capitol Hill are willing to even allow a vote on a popular jobs idea, during a jobs crisis, that even their own party’s voters strongly support.

Congratulations, congressional Republicans. You’re now far more extreme than your own supporters.

At a pancake breakfast sponsored in the town of Mason by the ironically named right-wing group, Build a Better Ohio, Fox News Channel host Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, laughingly suggested that his audience might find ways to prevent people who plan to vote against a ballot measure that would ratify the state’s anti-union bill, known as S.B. 5. The bill contains a number of anti-worker provisions aimed at public employees, rolling back collective bargaining rights and prohibiting binding arbitration for the settlement of disputes.

On Nov. 8, Ohioans will vote on a ballot measure, Issue 2, that will determine whether S.B. 5 remains the law. Working families need to vote NO on Issue 2, so working Ohioans can have a chance at a middle-class life.

A local blog, MasonBuzz, reported Huckabee’s comments:

Make a list….Call them and ask them, “Are you going to vote on Issue 2 and are you going to vote for it?” If they say no, well, you just make sure that they don’t go vote. Let the air out of their tires on Election Day. Tell them the election has been moved to a different date. That’s up to you how you creatively get the job done. [Emphasis added.]

Huckabee may have meant his prescription in jest—or maybe not. Politico notes that he never said he was joking and got in hot water in 2009 for making similar comments. And earlier this year, another right-wing group—the Koch-backed Americans For Prosperity—was found to have mailed fliers to Democratic voters in the Wisconsin recall elections for state Supreme Court that instructed recipients to return their requests for absentee ballots on a date that was past the application deadline.

As we reported last week, BBO, the organization that sponsored Huckabee’s talk to right-wing activists, is already under fire for lifting footage from a television ad made by the pro-labor coalition, We Are Ohio, to distort a testimonial from a great-grandmother to make it appear that she was in favor of the anti-worker law:

[Marlene] Quinn, whose great-granddaughter, Zoey, was saved from a burning house by Cincinnati firefighters, first appeared in a TV ad urging Ohio voters to vote “No” on Issue 2.

BBO edited the footage and interspersed her comments with misleading narration to make it seem as if Quinn was advocating just the opposite.

Doug May, a communications intern at the United Steelworkers, sends us this.

Volunteers from United Steelworkers (USW) locals from the South and Midwest aided communities this spring after a burst of tornadoes killed more than 500 and left a swath of destruction.

A day after a tornado tore across Pleasant Grove, Ala., USW Local 2122 set up coolers outside the union hall and distributed water to patrolling state troopers, National Guardsmen and storm survivors.   

“The next thing you know strangers began driving up and dropping off donations at our hall,” said Local 2122 President Bob Irwin.

Our hall became a full-fledged relief center.

Three USW locals—2122, 1013 and 2120—coordinated their relief efforts in Pleasant Grove. Irwin’s local union represents workers from U.S. Steel Finishing, the Birmingham Southern Diesel Shop, Warrior & Gulf Navigation, Vulcan Refineries and Tube City. He said union members:

ran the center for a month like a community food bank and thrift center.

Volunteers from USW locals from across the state joined union craftsworkers, including electrical workers, operating engineers, laborers and pipe fitters organized by the Central Alabama Labor Council in cleanups on Saturdays.

Some of the worst damage was in Tuscaloosa, where two members of USW Local 351 at the BFGoodrich plant lost their lives and 15 members lost homes. Local 351 donated 250 T-shirts to the Salvation Army and served 100 lunches to the National Guard and county police.

On May 22, more than 100 tornadoes ravaged the Missouri-Oklahoma region, particularly the town of Joplin, Mo., where thousands of homes were destroyed, including those of several members of USW Local 812 at EaglePicher Technologies.

USW locals in Springfield, 70 miles away, drove to Joplin and began cooking food, cutting wood and sorting through rubble. And USW volunteers from Independence made two 170-mile trips to Joplin hauling pallets of water, flashlights, bedding and toiletries.

The attack on public workers at the state level has been big news: the words “Wisconsin” and “Ohio” have become shorthand for a national right-wing legislative strategy designed to beat up unions and their members.

But at the local level, things are even worse. Since 2008, municipal and county governments have shed a total of 535,000 jobs, losses that, according to USA Today, have negatively offset any job-generating progress made in the private sector.

When public employees lose their jobs, everybody suffers—and not just because of services lost, libraries closed or schools with crammed classes. Lost in the rhetoric of assault on public workers is the simple fact that they are workers, and the loss of every public-sector job adds to one more person to the unemployment rolls, deprives localities and states of much of the tax revenue they once paid, and adds the potential for yet another foreclosure or default on personal debt.

As economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research explained to The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein earlier this month:

We’ve lost 500,000 state and local jobs, and before that, we were creating 160,000 a year. If we hadn’t had those losses and had done more to keep creation at that pace, we would have almost another million jobs.

That simple fact, though, has not stopped some unscrupulous politicians from taking advantage of the crisis as a way to weaken public employee unions. According to the USA Today story:

In New York, Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano is proposing to lay off 700 workers in 2012 after leaving 300 jobs unfilled this year to wipe out a $310 million budget gap.

What the article fails to mention is Magnano’s assault on existing union contracts, as we noted here—with a proposal that could have national ramifications. John Durso, president of the Long Island Federation of Labor, says in a video produced by the area’s Civil Service Employees Union:

This proposed law is even more devastating than what has happened in New Jersey or Wisconsin or in Ohio.

Other municipalities engaged in a job-cutting frenzy, according to USA Today, include Chicago, San Jose and Venice, Fla., which is slated to cut 9 percent of its workforce.

Vicious Cycle

The crisis in municipalities and county governments began, as we reported last week, with the bursting of the housing bubble. The resulting recession and the unemployment it generated meant not only a greater demand for state services, but less revenue for state governments, which in turn slashed support for local governments.

Then the decline in home values hit local governments directly. Property taxes, generally levied at the local level and used to fund education and local services, are based on the value of a home. When that home value plummets, that means less revenue to the locality.

In the midst of the crisis, right-wing operatives saw their chance to attack unions, and to attempt to pit private-sector workers against those who work for government. It worked for a while, but now Americans are beginning to take stock of the attack on the whole middle class. In Ohio, polling on a referendum that will either ratify or repeal the state’s recently passed bill that greatly curtailed collective bargaining for public employees if running in favor of rolling back the bill, which will appear on the Nov. 8 ballot.

And a majority of voters in New York State, where Gov. Andrew Cuomo has played hardball with public-sector unions, recently expressed sympathy, in a poll by Siena research, with the Occupy Wall Street movement’s message: “We are the 99 percent.” According to the New York Daily News:

The Siena respondents also said, by a 49% – 28% margin, that if they had to join one or the other, they’d pick the Occupy Wall Street movement over the Tea Party.

Yesterday, Cuomo and the New York State Public Employees Federation reached a tentative agreement that will avoid further layoffs if union members approve the deal.