Labor Union Blog

Today’s National Day of Action, called by Rebuild the Dream, the Alliance for Retired Americans and embraced by members of the Occupy movement, took an unlikely turn on Capitol Hill, as working and retired Americans joined together to tell lawmakers not to balance the budget on the backs of the 99 percent, as a joint congressional committee has threatened to do through proposed cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

In a packed hearing room at the U.S. Senate, participants in a “Jobs, Not Cuts!” rally, keynoted by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), erupted into the chant that has come to identify the Occupy movement: “We are the 99 percent!”  Most of the chanters bore little resemblance to the stereotyped image of an Occupy protester—many were senior citizens, and the young people in the audience bore a distinctly clean-cut look.

It all served to prove Sanders’ point that mainsteram American wants the wealthiest Americans to pay more taxes, and they want Congress not to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Sanders said:

Poll after poll, that is what the vast majority of the American people want.

Rally participants also heard from several people who told how Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security had saved them from abject poverty or enabled them to maintain their independence. Among them, Marilyn Dixon Hills of Camden, N.J., a 58-year-old widow,worked as nurse for 30 years before being suddenly struck with a paralyzing illness. She’s currently without health-care coverage because she can’t afford her COBRA payments, which extend health care coverage after someone leaves a job. Her Social Security disability benefits make her ineligible for Medicaid. But without those Social Security benefits—benefits the Super Committee might cut—she would have no income.

Rally participants aimed their message squarely at the so-called Super Committee, a joint committee of both the House and Senate, which is scheduled to deliver a plan on Nov. 23 to trim the U.S. budget deficit by $1.2 trillion over the course of the next decade. Republicans on the committee have rejected Democratic plans that would allow the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens to expire and, as we reported, some Democrats have expressed a willingness to accept cuts in the social safety net programs on which the nation’s elderly and less affluent citizens rely—a position AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has deemed “unacceptable.” If the committee fails to reach a deal, a raft of cuts to programs across the board is scheduled to go into effect.

In his opening remarks, Sanders said the United States does have a serious deficit problem—but one, he said, that was caused by tax cuts, two unpaid-for wars, and:

…it was caused by a recession that was the result of the greed and recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street.

“That’s right!” shouted some members of the audience, while others held up their hands, wiggling their fingers, echoing the hand signals used in the consensus-driven general assemblies of the Occupy encampments.

The language of the movement permeated the speeches delivered in the hearing room. Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), opened her remarks this way, referring to plans by rally-goers to visit the offices of Super Committee members:

We want to invite you to the first meeting of Occupy the Joint Committee.

Mikulski’s Maryland colleague, Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin, also addressed the rally.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) announced that 80 House Democrats have signed onto a resolution that “clearly states” that the Super Committee’s deficit reduction plan should not target Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. DeLauro continued:

I have a 98-year-old mother, so this cuts very close to home. What we are doing is extending people’s lives on the one hand, and we’re taking away their quality of life on the other.

The AFL-CIO launched a campaign last month, urging online activists to tell Congress “No!” on proposed cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. As we reported:

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.

Additionally, Health Care for America Now, Jobs With Justice, and the PICO Network, a faith-based community-organizing coalition, helped spearhead the event.

Many economists and policymakers say the drop in unionization rates is an inevitable consequence of the changing global economy and advancing technology. But a new report finds that national politics plays a bigger role than globalization or technology in the decline in unionization in the United States and the 20 other nations studied.

The report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) looked at 21 countries with advanced economics facing the same globalization and technology changes. It found that economies with few labor protections such as the United States showed a higher decline in unionization rates than nations with economic and national policies where workers’ rights have a more prominent place in the market.

National politics are a major determinant of national unionization rates and changes in those rates in recent decades. At the same time, the data contradict the view that a decline in unionization rates is an inevitable implication of “globalization” or technological change.

Click here for the full report.

Leaders of the Mexican electrical workers union, along with the AFL-CIO and more than 100 global unions and human rights groups, are asking the U.S. government to negotiate with Mexico to stop the attacks on the union and workers or face sanctions. The Mexican government forcibly disbanded the union in 2009. The union movement has come under constant attack since Mexican President Felipe Calderón took office in 2006. Click here, here and here for more.

In a petition filed with the U.S. Office of Trade and Labor Affairs (TLA) Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas (SME) is asking that the United States find that the Mexican government has failed to enforce its own labor laws and protect workers’ rights. The Trade and Labor office within the Department of Labor that handles labor rights violations

If the U.S. government finds that the Mexican government has failed to live up to its labor rights obligation under international labor and trade agreements, it would negotiate with the Mexican government. If talks fail to reach an agreement on enforcing labor and workers’ rights, sanctions could be applied.

A similar complaint was filed with the Canadian government in late October. This tri-national effort to win justice for thousands of SME members will be followed by a global call to action in solidarity with Mexican workers later this month.

Two years ago, police and military forces forcibly removed more than 44,000 unionized electrical workers from more than 400 workplaces across Mexico. The presidential decree from Calderón also dissolved the former electrical company, which had a collective bargaining agreement with the SME. The company’s assets and facilities were transferred to a state-owned electrical company.

Since then, the work that was previously performed by union workers was given to workers hired by the new government-run company. Those worker lack collective bargaining rights and suffer from significantly worse working conditions than SME members and lack adequate health and safety protections, which have resulted in the death of more than 30 subcontracted workers during the past two years.

Want a job? Want Medicare when you retire?  How about good public schools? Then look out: Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) is joining with his tea party allies to hold a vote today that would guarantee deep, radical cuts—and make those cuts part of the U.S. Constitution, the supreme law of the land.

The so-called Balanced Budget Amendment is even worse than the budget proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). As Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) put it, the Ryan plan would have  produced:

the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history, while increasing poverty and inequality more than any measure in recent times and possibly in the nation’s history.

If you thought the Ryan budget was bad, the “Balanced Budget Amendment” to the U.S. Constitution is far worse. It would double the nation’s unemployment rate and cause the economy to shrink by 17 percent, according to the  Center for American Progress. In addition, as Bloomberg points out, it would force lawmakers to”:

slash Medicare, eliminate federal programs or shrink education, law enforcement or national defense.

(If you oppose the so-called Balanced Budget Amendment, let your representative know. Call 202-224-3121 or click here.)

Last night, The Hill reported that “the conservative-Democrat Blue Dog Coalition officially endorsed the House Republican balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.”

It appears conservative democrats—who opposed the Ryan budget—are willing to join with Boehner and his tea party allies in supporting the much worse-Balanced Budget Amendment. Maybe that’s because the “balanced budget amendment” has a good name on paper. And it doesn’t have the votes to pass. So for some of these lawmakers, it’s a nice symbolic vote to take. They can go back home and tell their constituents they support a “balanced budget.” Sounds good, right?

What these lawmakers aren’t telling their constituents is that working families would bear the burden of massive, massive cuts. Mammoth cuts—versus raising revenue to balance the budget—would be forced in part because of extremist opposition to raising taxes on the right, and in part because of Grover Norquist’s “taxpayer protection pledge,” which the vast majority of Republicans have signed. This pledge prohibits raising taxes to balance the budget, under any circumstances. As Norquist, a rapid anti-government activist famously said, “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” This amendment, tied to his pledge, is a way of making his goal a reality.

Clearly, there’s a moral crisis in Washington. The fact that lawmakers of both parties are considering an amendment to immediately balance the federal budget when our economy is so weak—which would tie the government’s hands in the future and all but guarantee a second Great Depression in the event of a financial crisis—is deplorable.

What could possibly be worse? The fact that they’re prepared to do it knowing that working families—the 99 percent who have borne the burden of bailouts and an awful jobs market—would now suffer the consequences of the savage cuts that the so-called “balanced budget Amendment” would force. While as usual, the 1 percent are let off the hook. Shame.

From left: Miya Saika Chen, White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders; Monica Thammarath, NEA; Cheryl Kono, UTLA; Greg Cendana, APALA Executive Director; Caroline Fan, APALA Assistant Director; Tori Miyagi, APALA; Nicole Woo, CEPR; and Marlene Kim, University of Massachusetts Boston.

Emmelle Israel, AFL-CIO Media Outreach fellow, sends us this.

“Unemployed, Not Undeserving”—the first-ever congressional briefing on Asian American and Pacific Islander unemployment and job creation—yesterday brought to light issues of long-term unemployment, income inequality, and the need for bold jobs legislation as it relates to Asian American and Pacific Islander workers.

Sponsored by the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), the briefing included Reps. Mike Honda and Judy Chu of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, who said applauded the briefing for lifting up Asian American and Pacific Islander voices into the national discussion on the jobs crisis.

Honda stressed the importance of “chiming up, chiming in” on the issues:

Unemployment hit Asian Americans in different ways, sometimes unnoticed… We need to make sure the discussion includes us.

As a group, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have higher than average levels of education and an unemployment rate nearly 2 percentage points lower than the national average. But a breakdown of the statistics reveals that a monolithic view of AAPIs obscures the problems a variety of AAPI workers face.

Nicole Woo of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) pointed out the diverse ethnic groups categorized as Asian American and Pacific Islanders have weathered the economic crisis with varying degrees of difficulty. For example, according to a 2009 report by CEPR, although Japanese workers are experiencing a 4.5 percent unemployment rate, Laotian workers suffer an unemployment rate of 13.7 percent, a rate higher than the average Latino unemployment. Samoan communities fare even worse with an unemployment rate of 17.8 percent, putting them in similarly dire economic straits as black communities where, unemployment is 16.3 percent.

In addition, Asian American and Pacific Islanders who are unemployed are more likely than any other group to remain unemployed for six months or more. Marlene Kim, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Boston Massachusetts, detailed the long term unemployment dilemma that specifically plagues highly educated AAPI workers in spite of their advanced degrees.

Cheryl Kono, an unemployed school counselor and member of the United Teachers of Los Angeles, is one such worker. Even with her years of experience and a Master’s Degree in Social Work, she has been laid off consecutively for the past three years. Unfortunately, this is the one year she has not been able to fight and get her job back.

This is the first time in my life that I have ever been unemployed … Unemployment has been challenging, both psychologically and financially… My family and I have had to significantly cut back … I’ve experienced a significant loss of my professional identity.

Kono put her newly acquired free time to good use by volunteering with UTLA as an advocate for teachers and support staff who’ve been left without jobs in the wake of cuts to public education. She urged passage of the American Jobs Act as a way to get educators and others without jobs back to work.

Chu agreed on the need to pass major jobs legislation:

The American Jobs Act is so important. We have a big job to do… we have to build momentum and make it essential to pass [the American Jobs Act]. You have to raise your voices and tell the truth about what’s going on with Asian Americans and with jobs across the country.

Dave Johnson, a fellow at the Campaign for America’s Future, sends us this.

The new U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission report on China should be a “wake-up call” for the United States, says Scott Paul, director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM). Click here to read the full report and here for a comprehensive list of the commission’s recommendations beginning on page 355 of the report.

In sum: China is rigging trade using subsidies and currency manipulation, has barriers to bringing in U.S. goods and is forcing American companies to hand over proprietary technology. The result is our huge trade deficit is getting even worse. China also is acting more like it could become a national security threat.

This bipartisan commission was created by Congress in 2000 “to monitor, investigate and submit to Congress an annual report on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China and to provide recommendations, where appropriate, to Congress for legislative and administrative action.”

Some key excerpts:

Trade: China has reversed its original promise to lower trade barriers and to treat foreign products and services fairly….[It forces] the transfer of technology to Chinese firms. These policies…strike at the heart of America’s greatest economic strength—its ability to innovate.

Trade deficit: “China continues to maintain an export-driven economy with policies that subsidize Chinese companies and undervalue [its currency]….For the first eight months of 2011, the U.S. trade deficit with China increased 9 percent over the same period in 2010. [There was] a 17 percent increase in the advanced technology products deficit for the same period over the previous year.

“Harming American interests”: “The Chinese government’s special treatment of state-owned enterprises (SOEs)…can overcome comparative advantages of competitors, thereby harming American economic interests.…China seeks to wall off a large portion of its economy from foreign competition.”

Forced-transfers of technology: “China maintains policies of forced technology transfer in violation of international trade agreements and requires the creation of joint venture companies as a condition of obtaining access to the Chinese market.”

Piracy: “China has yet to create a system that effectively protects intellectual property; something that is required of all World Trade Organization (WTO) members. But U.S. business software companies still report that China is the world’s largest source of pirated software. About eight of 10 computers in China still run counterfeit operating system software.”

Network attacks: “In 2011, as in previous years, the U.S. government, foreign governments, defense contractors, commercial entities and various nongovernmental organizations experienced a substantial volume of actual and attempted network intrusions that appear to originate in China.”

State ownership: “…the Chinese government in the past several years has returned to relying on a system of state ownership and control of major sectors of its economy. The government directs a vast array of subsidies to favored industries and seeks to nurture particular technologies behind protective barriers. This is contrary to the spirit, and in many cases the letter, of China’s WTO commitments.”

More from Alabama, where a delegation of African American labor and civil rights leaders is  investigating the state’s recently passed anti-immigrant law. Follow the delegation here.

A grade school child is there one day and gone the next. Dependable laborers don’t show up to pick crops on a farm.

“It’s incredible,” said local AFT President Vi Parramore.

I have teachers tell me that kids are disappearing overnight. Not unenrolling and leaving. Just all of a sudden gone, just gone! Crops are rotting in the fields!

Parramore shared what she knew at a roundtable at the Beloved Community United Church of Christ in Birmingham, Ala. The roundtable was part of a tour by national African American labor and civil rights leaders to help shed a light on one of the harshest immigration laws in the country and how it invokes inhumanity reminiscent of the Jim Crow South. The delegation has investigated firsthand the impact of Alabama’s H.B. 56 on the lives of Latino working families.

Early in the day, the group toured a trailer park. Later, they met with small business owners. Alabama’s punitive anti-immigration law has cast a chill over the state’s Latino population. According to news reports, the new law says that police must report to federal authorities anyone they detain if they have a “reasonable suspicion” the person may be in the country illegally.

The wording of the law has prompted some local governments to threaten to cut off water service to people who can’t prove legal residency and some school officials to scrutinize the legal status of children, news reports said.

At the roundtable, teachers and others spoke about how the law impacted their lives and places of work. The point was to allow national leaders to gain a better understanding of the civil rights implications of the legislation and assess the law’s impact.

Said Parramore of Jefferson County AFT:

It’s a mess, I have to tell you. It really is a mess. It’s the civil rights issue of 2011. How can you treat people like this?

More from Alabama, where a delegation of African American labor and civil rights leaders is  investigating the state’s recently passed anti-immigrant law. Follow the delegation here.

DREAMer activist Victor Palafox took a delegation of national labor leaders and community and faith activists on a tour of a trailer park in Pelham, Ala., about 15 minutes from Birmingham, to give them a taste of how Alabama’s H.B. 56, which is one of the most punishing anti-immigrant state laws in America, hurts typical working people.

“My name is Pedro,” said one young man who spoke to the delegation in a community center in the park.

I don’t speak English very well because I’ve spent my time working.  I work for a cleaning company. Ever since the law, my employer has used derogatory language and threatened not to pay me. I can’t leave. I have to work to feed my family.

People were nervous to come forward to talk to the delegation for fear that the news coverage would spark a crackdown.

One person said he won’t carpool with anyone to work anymore, because it’s against the law to drive an undocumented worker. Another said his wife is in hiding. A mother said she has asked her children to return with her to Mexico; her kids are U.S. citizens but she isn’t.

This is their country. They love it and don’t want to leave.

The meeting is part of a tour of Birmingham, Ala., to help shed a light on one of the harshest immigration laws in the country and how it invokes inhumanity reminiscent of the Jim Crow South. The delegation will investigate first-hand the impact of Alabama’s H.B. 56 on the lives of Latino working families.

National, state and local leaders are hearing from the families directly impacted by the law, documenting the impact of the law on Latino communities, acquiring a better understanding of the civil rights implications of the legislation and assessing the impact of the law on workers and businesses.

Oralia Casso de Gómez, wife of Napoleon Gómez Urrutia, and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

Exiled Mexican mine workers union leader Napoleón Gómez Urrutia will be honored with the AFL-CIO’s 2011 George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award tonight at a ceremony at the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says Gómez Urrutia is a ”truly courageous man who has shown us how difficult and how important it is to be an independent leader of a democratic union.”

Gómez Urrutia, head of the Mine, Metal and Steel Workers Union (SNTMMSSRM), also known as Los Mineros, was forced to flee Mexico to Vancouver, Canada, in 2006. The Mexican government filed criminal charges against him after he publicly accused the government of “industrial homicide” following a February mine explosion that killed 65 miners.

Mexican and international human and labor rights organizations have dismissed the government’s charges as false.

The government’s action against Gómez Urrutia followed years of his challenges to Mexican government policies that were depressing wages, creating unsafe workplaces and turning permanent jobs into casual work, essentially increasing the vulnerability of Mexico’s workers. He had also begun building alliances with the global trade union movement.

United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard—the USW is in an alliance with Los Mineros—says that even in exile, Gómez Urrutia is fighting to “bring economic justice to Mexican working families.”

From Vancouver, Gómez Urrutia  says:

We have continued with our global struggle for justice, respect and dignity for all workers because we know that we have the support and solidarity from unions around the world.

Because he couldn’t secure a visa to travel to the United States, his wife Oralia Casso de Gómez will accept the award on his behalf.

The annual Meany-Kirkland award, created in 1980 and named for the first two presidents of the AFL-CIO, recognizes outstanding examples of the international struggle for human rights through trade unions.

More from Alabama, where a delegation of African American labor and civil rights leaders is investigating the state’s recently passed anti-immigrant law. Follow the delegation here.

Alabama’s new anti-immigrant law instantly intimidated the nine Latino employees of Max’s Delicatessen, owned by Steve Dubrinsky, who says: 

They are good solid people, and I don’t like how they feel right now.

Dubrinsky also quickly adds:

They’re all here legally.

His qualifying statement has become obligatory for everyone in Alabama these days who mentions an employee, friend or family member who’s Latino.

Dubrinsky wants that to change. Today, he hosted a group of local business owners to meet with African American union and civil rights leaders from as far away as Michigan and Washington, D.C., to enable owners to talk about how the new law, H.B. 56, has affected their employees and business in general.

The meeting is part of a tour of Birmingham, Ala., to help shed a light on one of the harshest immigration laws in the country and how it invokes inhumanity reminiscent of the Jim Crow South. The delegation will investigate first-hand the impact of Alabama’s H.B. 56 on the lives of Latino working families.

National, state and local leaders are hearing from the families directly impacted by the law, documenting the impact of the law on Latino communities, acquiring a better understanding of the civil rights implications of the legislation and assessing the impact of the law on workers and businesses.

Max’s Deli, known regionally for its excellent corned beef sandwiches (the best in the South, some reviewers say) and community involvement, earned national headlines after Dubrinsky’s courageous stand against H.B. 56 and for basic human rights sparked some locals to call for a boycott of his restaurant. He received threatening hate mail and some 80 negative reviews online.

It didn’t take much positive feedback to bolster Dubrinsky’s position. He started hearing from customers how good they felt to eat there.

So we turned it up a couple notches.

When he found out a local Methodist church hosted a food bank and a Friday night soup kitchen, he decided to get involved.

Holy cow! When I found out about it, I said, “I won’t sell you chicken fingers. I’ll give them to you!”