Labor Union Blog

Paul Krugman, The New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist, was honored last night with the Economic Policy Institute’s (EPI) first-ever Distinguished Economist Award.

In this EPI video, Krugman shares his vision for a decent society, discusses the radicalizing impact of the policy debates of the last decade and reveals his philosophy on making our society a better one for all.

Krugman, says Robert Johnson, executive director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking,

does this translation from the technical, high church of economic thinking to things that common sense people can understand.

The award was presented at EPI’s 25 anniversary celebration that also honored former Labor Secretary Ray Marshall, one of EPI’s founding members, and the workers in Wisconsin who rose up against Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) attack on collective bargaining and sparked a nationwide movement. Click here for a video tribute to Marshall and here for slide on the Wisconsin actions.

Go to any gathering, and you’ll find nearly every person carrying an iPhone or an iPad, despite the Apple Computer’s dismal record on labor practices. Apple executives must be laughing all the way to the bank — their Swiss bank, that is.

In its fourth quarter earnings report released last week, Apple Computer revealed that 2/3 of its on-hand cash – some $54 billion — is squirreled away outside the boundaries of the United States, presumably to avoid paying its fair share of taxes. In the meantime, reports Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM), a Hong Kong-based group, Apple’s major manufacturing contractors routinely subject employees to forced overtime, wage theft and no breaks — and even unprotected exposure to toxins.

Apple, together with rival tech firm Google, have been lobbying for a “tax holiday” that would allow them to bring some of those billions into the U.S. at a lower tax rate, promising that to do so would create jobs. But, as we reported, a similar measure tried in 2004 created few jobs, and instead rewarded companies that had kept their money overseas. Where Apple has created jobs is in China, where the workers who make its slick products are made to work in deplorable conditions.

A new SACOM report, “The iSlave Behind the iPhone: Foxconn Workers in Central China,” examines conditions at the Apple Computer contractor’s plant since the suicides of nine workers last year made big news. One thing that has changed: workers were given a raise — to all of $1.18 an hour. But workers are often shorted overtime pay, SACOM reports, and Foxconn even illegally withheld, during the Chinese New Year, payment for overtime already worked in order to prevent workers from taking the traditional holiday to visit their families.

Most workers in these factories are migrants; the corporations deliberately build facilities in lower-populated areas where wages are lower. Not that labor costs account for much of the cost of an Apple product. According to Sophia Cheng, writing at the SACOM Web site:

Take the iPad, for example, which is the sole item produced at Foxconn’s 100,000-worker factory in Chengdu. Industry analyst iSuppli estimates that Apple spends only $9 on labor for every $499 iPad.

In SACOM’s latest report — whose release was timed to coincide with the opening of the first Apple Store in opulent Hong Kong — workers complain of deplorable dormitory conditions, where access to electricity and water is routinely cut, and of the exploitative fees they are made to pay to Foxconn for their room and board.

Workers say they are also made to stand for 10 hours at a time without taking breaks, and subjected to abusive behavior by supervisors, including being made to sign confessional letters when accused of making a mistake or infraction. In China, labor unions are run by the state, so when workers act on their own to strike, as they did at United Win, another Apple contractor, in 2010, they risk legal sanction.

Download the full report, The iSlave Behind the iPhone: “Foxconn Workers in Central China,” here in a PDF file.

The drive to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) gets officially under way Nov. 15, when the United Wisconsin coalition will file papers with Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board to begin the recall effort. But Republicans last week launched a sneak attack to derail the effort.

A new bill in the Wisconsin state Senate—the same group that was the key player in winning Walker’s bill that eliminated the collective bargaining rights of public workers—is a direct effort to undermine the recall process.

It would force people who gather signatures on the recall petitions—about 550,000 are needed to qualify for a ballot spot—to notarize their signatures. Its goal is simple, add an unnecessary and burdensome procedural hurdle to jump and slow down signature gathering enough to miss the expected Jan. 15 deadline. BTW, it’s already a felony offense to falsify petition signatures.

Hundreds of thousands of signatures were gathered and verified—without any reports of signature fraud—for the successful summer recall elections of state senators who backed Walker’s bill.

David Nir on Daily Kos poses this question about Republican claims of signature fraud:

If the GOP believed that signatures gathered for this summer’s recalls were so questionable, then why didn’t they challenge them before the Government Accountability Board or a court of law? The fact that they didn’t shows they don’t have a leg to stand on, not even a stump.

The just-released 2012 edition of the UCS Labor Books Catalog provides a well-stocked toolbox of books, pamphlets and more, offering scores of classic and new titles on topics ranging from negotiating and grievance handling to organizing, health and safety, labor law and labor history.  It includes many worker-friendly fiction and young adult and children’s books as well.

New titles for 2012 include the brand-new Steward’s Pocket Reference & Diary (“The union steward’s best friend!”); Estelle Carol’s stunning “Unions Make a World of Difference” poster – suitable for prominent display in the workplace or union hall;  a riveting new Joe Hill biography, “The Man Who Never Died;” Philip Dray’s “There is Power in a Union;” a new Effective Grievance Resolution DVD from Wayne State University; new editions of several classic labor activists’ tools; and more.

Copies of the catalog are available free from UCS at 800-321-2545; by e-mail at ucsbooks@unionist.com and online web at www.unionist.com.  Or send your request to UCS Books, 165 Conduit St., Annapolis MD 21401. Books also can be purchased directly from the website.

As world leaders head to France for the the G-20 economic summit in Cannes, labor leaders from around the globe will gather nearby to represent the needs of the world’s workers. Among their demands is a Robin Hood tax on banks and financial institutions that would exact a nano-percentage of each financial transaction to the tune of 0.5 percent. (See video.) That’s one half of 1 percent on every bond or derivative traded, stocks sold and a host of other “financial instruments” bought and sold by the very institutions bailed out by the world’s taxpayers.

Also known as a financial speculations tax, or a financial transactions tax, the idea is catching on in the United States through the activism of unions, especially the National Nurses United (NNU), which has been joining with Occupy protesters to support the Robin Hood tax. The idea has already gained significant momentum across the pond, where British activists are using creative means, such as this video, to sell the public on the Robin Hood tax.

Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), explains it this way:

Banks don’t come with an internal switch that says “Enough! Let’s slow down a little.” Or “Let’s just share this wealth around for the benefit of the community now.”…We need a new political contract. The G-20 leaders’ meeting…is a chance for leaders to set a new direction for their governments and to re-establish a fractured trust with their citizens.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will join union leaders at the Labor Summit in Cannes to call for governments around the world to focus on creating jobs and to raise much-needed revenue from financial speculators via a Robin Hood tax. As the AFL-CIO has stated:

In the U.S., a tiny tax on financial transactions could raise hundreds of billions in revenue that could fund education and create jobs rebuilding our country, while discouraging speculation and encouraging long-term investment. Both Warren Buffett and Pete Peterson have urged Congress to consider a financial speculation tax.

Nurses in Cannes also will lead a press conference at the G-20 calling for governments worldwide to implement a Robin Hood tax.

While the global labor leaders and heads of state convene in France, working people and Occupy activists will gather with the AFL-CIO and members of the NNU at a rally in Washington, D.C., Nov. 3 to demand a Robin Hood tax that will make financial institutions pay their fair share to help put Americans back to work.

For more on the Robin Hood tax, click here.

From California to Capitol Hill to Cannes, France, on Nov. 3 nurses from National Nurses United (NNU) and other union members and community activists will call on the leaders of the world’s top economies—known as the G-20—to adopt a small Robin Hood tax (financial speculation tax) to create jobs.

The Washington, D.C., action will kick off with a rally at Lafayette Park across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, followed by a march to the U.S. Treasury Department and an afternoon of lobbying Congress. You can join in and follow the action on Twitter with the hashtag #taxwallstreet.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka also will join the Labor-20 in calling on the G-20 leaders to adopt a plan for jobs and recovery that sustains the recovery and stems the immediate jobs crisis.

In addition to the Washington, D.C., event, NNU and nurses from other nations, along with global activists will hold a press conference in Cannes calling for a financial speculation tax. Actions also are planned in Los Angeles and San Francisco.  Click here for details.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has been proven correct about the wealthiest 1 percent getting vastly richer while the rest of us 99 percent-ers are falling further behind.

Now, United for a Fair Economy parses out just what that wealth really means. The nonprofit economic justice organization notes that the 400 wealthiest families in the United States collectively own $1.37 trillion dollars—a figure that’s nearly incomprehensible. So United for a Fair Economy made that figure real with a list of showing 11 things that $1.37 trillion can buy.

• The richest 400 could pay the mortgages of every house in the whole country for 14 full months. 
• The richest 400 can pay off all credit card debt for every single person in the entire United States. Imagine that! No more credit card debt looming over your shoulders!
• The richest 400 can pay for three and a half years worth of gas for every driver in the country.
• The richest 400 households can afford to triple the number of teachers in the United States, then give every single one a $30,000 raise. Teachers are being laid off everywhere, their salaries are being cut, and they are suffering. Teacher-to-student ratios in schools are abysmal. But what can we do about it when so much wealth is in the pockets of so few families?

For the full list, click here.

AFT President Randi Weingarten joined hundreds of Ohio union volunteers to mobilize to defeat Issue 2.

AFL-CIO Field Communications Coordinator Andrew Richards files this report on the fight in Ohio to defeat Issue 2.

From small towns like Portsmouth on the banks of the Ohio River in the south to big cities like Cleveland bordering Lake Michigan in the north and all around the Buckeye State, union members are hitting the doors and the phone banks to make sure working families cast a “No” vote on Issue 2 Nov. 8.

Issue 2 would repeal S.B. 5, the law passed this spring that takes away the right of public employees to collectively bargain for a middle-class life.

In Cleveland, AFT President Randi Weingarten told the more than 800 members from dozens of unions who volunteered Saturday:

[Ohio Gov. John] Kasich, [Wis. Gov. Scott] Walker, [Fla. Gov. Rick] Scott, [Ind. Gov. Mitch] Daniels and many others are trying to strip working people of their rights, that’s their goal. But we’re not going to let that happen. We are going to fight back, give workers and the community their voice back and in the next 10 days do everything we can to bring Issue 2 home.

Before elementary school teacher Denise Riley headed out to knock on doors, she told the activists:

Issue 2 compromises our children’s education because we won’t have a say about how many children should be in a classroom to make sure they get the quality education they need and deserve. We know that smaller class sizes yield better test results and teachers can better attend to students’ needs with smaller class sizes.

In Toledo, AFSCME Ohio Council 8 President John Lyall spoke with several hundred union members, saying that while polls show strong support for defeating Issue 2:

It is not the time to be dancing in the end zone.  When they [right-wing front groups like Americans for Prosperity] dump in, and they will, another $10 [million] to $20 million in Ohio, it will tighten this election. Now it is our turn, now it is our moment. The entire labor movement has their eyes fixed on Ohio. They are looking here to be the place where union bashing finally stops.

Bob Baker, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) executive vice president, said to Cincinnatti volunteers:

Make no mistake about it, this is about Gov. Kasich’s wealthy friends trying to push down any chance of any one being in the middle class, and right now union representation is the only hope we’ve got of maintaining anything.

Union volunteers also walked and phone banked in Akron, Ashland, Canton, Chillicothe, Columbus, Dayton, Findlay, Lima, Lorian, Mansfield, Marion, Newark, Niles, The Plains, Portsmouth, Reno, Sandusky, St. Clairsville and Vandalia.