Labor Union Blog

The Alameda Labor Council and California Labor Federation are standing in solidarity with Occupy Oakland’s Nov. 2 Day of Action. In a message to activists, Council Executive Secretary-Treasurer Josie Camacho says working families are, “inspired by the spirit of the fight against Wall Street.”

This Day of Action will be a public demonstration of support for the right to peaceably assembly without interference, and against the growing wealth and income inequality created by Wall Street and the actions of the richest 1 percent.

Along with encouraging noon-time worksite actions and joining the 5 p.m. (PDT) mobilization at Oakland City hall, the labor council and its affiliates will hold a “cookout” to feed everyone taking part.

Last week, police used tear gas to disperse Occupy Oakland protestors and arrested dozens. They have since been allowed to return. But authorities have shutdown Occupy actions and arrested protestors in other cities, including Atlanta, Chicago,  Richmond, Va., Rochester, N.Y., and other cities.  AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says it is a

tremendous  dishonor to America when the voices for the powerless are suppressed by the powerful–the top 1 percent.

Occupy movements continue to stay strong across the nation. In Montana, union members joined Occupy Helena protestors in a march and rally. Says Montana AFL-CIO Executive Secretary Al Ekblad:

Occupy Wall Street is students, workers, people of faith, seniors and many more, coming together to demand fairness in the financial market, fairness in the social system, and fairness in the economy.

A new study the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) buttresses the Occupy Wall Street movement’s emphasis that “We Are the 99 Percent” while Wall Street and the wealthy represent the 1 percent of the nation that has cashed in on the economy.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is fundamentally right about how skewed the nation’s economic awards have become… Between 1979 and 2006, the annual wages of the top 0.1 percent grew 324 percent and those of the top 1 percent grew 144 percent, while the bottom 90 percent saw gains over that whole period of just 15 percent.  The ratio of the wealth held by the wealthiest 1 percent of households to the wealth held by the median household was 225-to-1 in 2009, up from 131-to-1 in 1983.

Click here for the full report.

Last week, Vatican officials said Catholic social teaching and the Occupy Wall Street movement agree that the economy should be at the service of people and that strong action must be taken to reduce the growing gap between rich and poor.  Cardinal Peter Turkson of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace told the Catholic News Service (CNS):

People who suffer from the way the financial markets currently operate have the right to say “Do business differently. Look at the way you’re doing business because this is not leading to our welfare and our good.” If people can hold their government to accountable, why can we not hold other institutions in society to accountability?

For more on the faith community and the Occupy Wall Street movement, visit Interfaith Worker Justice here.

Judy Parkins, AFL-CIO director of Community Services, sends us this report.

Since 1983, more than 60,000 people in northwest Missouri and western Kansas have experienced the spirit of the holidays because of the kindness and generosity of union members and community donations through the AFL-CIO Community Services Adopt-A-Family program.

The St. Joseph, Mo.-based effort is part of the AFL-CIO Community Services’  nationwide Adopt-A-Family program. In cities across the country, union members and other workers adopt families for the holidays, during strikes, layoffs and lockouts and when disaster strikes. 

In northwest Missouri and western Kansas, Adopt-A-Family is taking applications for assistance between Nov. 1 and Dec. 17 from low-income families, individuals who are alone for the holidays and working families struggling to make ends meet. 

Penny Adams, AFL-CIO Community Services director in St. Joseph, says:

We hope everyone will be adopted and since I’ve been around [1987] every family has been adopted every year.

A single mother in the area said that without the program,

my two children wouldn’t have had a Christmas at all. When I’m able to, I will adopt a family so they can see the looks on their kids’ faces and know that Santa didn’t forget them— just like I did.

St. Joseph Community Services reports that last year 2,962 people received assistance through the Adopt-A-Family and staff reports they expect to assist even more people this year.

AFSCME is celebrating its 75 anniversary with a yearlong series of events. The observances include a traveling exhibit of the union’s 75 years of fighting for workers’ rights and the middle class from its founding in Wisconsin in 1936 to today. Says AFSCME President Gerald McEntee:

For 75 years, our members have worked to build a strong middle class and keep the American Dream alive for every working American. We have a proud history fighting for collective bargaining rights, for civil rights, for women’s rights and for the vital public services that Americans depend upon in good times and in bad.

The exhibit, which will be displayed at union meetings, conventions and other events, includes an examination of the Memphis sanitation workers‘ strike, during which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed while supporting the workers; the union’s fight for pay equity for women; the drive to pass health care reform; action to protect Social Security; and the most recent battles for workers’ rights in Wisconsin and Ohio.

Other activities are planned, including a special soon-to-be-released video and website.

The AFL-CIO is launching a campaign and gearing up its 700,000 online activists to tell Congress that the proposals by both Republicans and Democrats on the federal budget deficit “Super Committee” to slash Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are “simply unacceptable,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a telephone press conference this morning.

He told reporters that the union movement will:

continue to mobilize in communities to ensure that working Americans aren’t asked to bear even more of the brunt of Wall Street greed. Now is the moment to restore balance in our economy. The absolute wrong way to do that is to take a machete to the safety net that we’ve spent years building.

You can join the action to fight the proposed cuts to these essential middle-class provisions by texting DEBT to 235246  to send a message to your lawmakers.

Trumka said the Super Committee:

holds the economic future of millions of Americans in their hands with the potential to dramatically impact how middle and low income families make do….Any person even loosely connected to reality can see that working people have already given up too much while Wall Street and the wealthiest Americans have done all the taking. Inequality is at historic levels.

The middle class has already “given their homes, given their jobs and given back in wages, it’s time for the rich to give a little so we can get back to balance,” said Trumka.

A “road map” to meet the Super Committee’s deficit reduction goals is pretty simple to draw. Trumka outlined a series of progressive tax revenues that would ask Wall Street and the superrich to pay their fair share, including:

• A surtax on millionaires;
• Taxing capital gains as regular income;
• Allow the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich to expire;
• A small financial transaction tax; and
• Ending tax breaks for corporation that send jobs overseas.

Another way to cut billions from the deficit, said Trumka, is to rein in health care costs—one of the biggest factors in the nation’s deficit—by allowing Medicare to negotiate drug costs with pharmaceutical firms, allowing the re- importation of prescription drugs and establishing a public  health care option.

Trumka told reporters that although “there is no litmus test on any one issue,” the proposed Super Committee cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid  “are very important issues that we will consider,” at election time.

Working people are waiting for leaders to show the political courage to do what’s right for their constituents and we intend to hold them to that standard.

Occupy D.C. activists and union members are joining together on Wednesday in a march for jobs and a fair contract for workers at Verizon. The march and rally is a joint effort of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the Occupy D.C. movement.

The action kicks off at 5 p.m. with a march from Freedom Plaza to the headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and then to a nearby Verizon Wireless store.

Earlier this month (see video above) CWA members, other union activists and Occupy Wall Street protesters staged a similar solidarity action in New York. Verizon workers have been on the front lines of the struggle against corporate greed.  This summer, they were forced on strike and, while they have returned to work, the battle for a fair contract continues.