Working America, Illinois AFL-CIO Connecting with Jobless Workers

Illinois AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Tim Drea knows what it’s like to be unemployed—he’s experienced it himself, as a laid-off coal miner.  He knows, too, how important it is to keep jobless union members involved in the union movement and the fight for working family-friendly policies. That fact turned out to be the answer to a little mystery that presented itself recently to Working America, the AFL-CIO community affiliate.

Working America staff was mystified when a stack of membership registrations arrived in the mail from the Illinois AFL-CIO. Although Working America had sent membership cards to many state federations and central labor councils around the country in 2009 as part of our effort to organize jobless workers through the Unemployment Lifeline, these registrations did not use those cards. Working America was not engaged in an active organizing drive on the ground in Illinois. How did the state federation there sign up so many people?

Turns out that under Drea’s leadership, the Illinois AFL-CIO handed out fliers at dislocated worker workshops and at the local workforce investment centers, where dislocated and laid-off workers go for resources and assistance. Through its Member Assistance Program and the Peer Outreach Program, Illinois AFL-CIO staff designed a flier and sign-up form that got straight to the point. They then went out and held thousands of conversations with jobless workers and ultimately registered more than 2,000 new Working America members.  Those new members now have the ongoing opportunity—and will get reminders—to participate in the union movement and hear what important legislation is being debated that will affect them.

Secretary-Treasurer Drea told Working America Program Director Maggie Priebe that the effort came about as the Illinois AFL-CIO watched the repeated battles to renew unemployment insurance and COBRA benefits play out.  Those battles have been a constant reminder of the vast number of long-term unemployed workers—and, all too often, of the contempt elected Republicans have for working people who have been victims of a recession spurred by financial policies those same Republicans promoted.

People who’ve worked their whole lives, who have gone from being optimistic about their prospects to being desperate to settle for any job, at a fraction of what they used to make, and still can’t find work. So many of those people feel left behind, by their old employers, by the economy, by the government.

But the AFL-CIO isn’t leaving those people behind—and today, an additional 2,000 of them know that the Illinois AFL-CIO and Working America are with them, fighting for something better for working people.

Hotel Workers’ Faces Show Pride, Determination to Win Justice

Photojournalist David Bacon has captured the pride and determination in the faces of hotel workers at the downtown Hilton in San Francisco who have spent the past few weeks in a dawn to dusk picket line.

The workers, who chant to guests, “Don’t check in, check out!” are demanding that the hotel’s owners negotiate a new contract with their union, UNITEHERE! Local 2.

San Francisco’s largest hotels are demanding cuts in health and retirement benefits and increased workloads.

A typical San Francisco hotel worker earns $30,000 per year.

These are their faces—all races and ages, together on the picket line.

Jobs? Not Part of My Job Description, Says Angle

Most of us, especially the jobless among us, agree with Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), who yesterday said, “Jobs is Job One for this Congress.” But then there’s Sharron Angle.

The Tea Party/Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Nevada says that if she unseats Sen. Harry Reid, she’s not going to be wasting her time worrying about putting Americans back to work. After all, she’ll have to get started on eliminating Social Security and Medicare. Here’s what she says about jobs and Congress:

As your senator, I’m not in the business of creating jobs….People ask me, what are you going to do to develop jobs in your state? Well, that’s not my job as a U.S. senator.

So, if elected, just what is her job? Well, a new ad from Reid points out that among other items on  her “to-do list” are protecting tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas, opposing Wall Street reform (in fact, she says it doesn’t need any reform) and “other extreme ideas that will make thing worse.”

If she does win, maybe she won’t have time to free Wall Street from government oppression or throw a protective shield around job-exporting companies because she’ll be awfully darn busy protecting the nation from all the “domestic enemies” she says are serving in Congress. Maybe she can use Joe McCarthy’s old office.

Painters Launch ‘It’s About the Jobs’ Bus Tour

People who desperately want to go back to work don’t want to hear the same old rhetoric from politicians this year—they want candidates to put politics aside and tell us all what they are going to do to get America working again.

Yesterday, the Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) launched a coast-to-coast “It’s About The Jobs” bus tour to connect IUPAT members across the country with the candidates the union believes are the best hope to generate and bring back jobs.

 The bus, wrapped in IUPAT signature black and gold, began its monthlong trip in Seattle and will make its way across the country, winding through the West and Midwest and New York City, before ending its trip in Delaware.

IUPAT President James Williams says the bus tour will educate candidates about the need for jobs for all Americans and their families.

You can follow the IUPAT bus tour here and get regular updates from the road on Twitter @GoIUPAT. Speaking of Twitter, even the ‘It’s About Jobs!’ bus driver is getting in on the action. You can read his thoughts on tour events by following @JakeTheDriver. You also can watch videos from the campaign on the IUPAT YouTube channel,  www.youtube.com/goiupat, or their Facebook page.

 The stakes for working people in this election are high. The entire U.S. House of Representatives and 37 Senate seats are up for election—and along with the hundreds of state and local races, the outcomes will determine how well all of us can shape a pro-worker agenda. AFL-CIO unions are working hard as part of Labor 2010 to mobilize working families across the country to make jobs the number one issue in the campaigns and to make sure candidates commit to creating real jobs to put America back to work. For more information on Labor 2010, click here.

Our Election Choice: Open Door to the Future or Slam It Shut

Open the door to the future or slam it shut? That’s the choice in this fall’s elections as a new AFSCME ad makes clear. While Republicans in Congress blocked Democratic efforts to advance job-creating bills, they voted to lay off hundreds of thousands of Americans—while taking care of CEOs by closing tax loopholes.

The  two-week ad is running in Michigan, Nevada, Ohio and Pennsylvania to back Democratic candidates in those states now under attack, in part, because of their support for the jobs bill passed in August. The jobs bill provided states with $26 billion in emergency funding for vital services. The TV ad will be complemented by radio spots, Web ads, and this week, AFSCME is sending more than 300 staff to targeted districts around the country to engage in member education and get-out-the-vote drives.

Is the nation’s economy what we want now? No. Would it be far worse under Republican leadership? You betcha.

Prayer and Public Employees

When AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker spoke Sunday at St. Margaret’s & San Francisco de Asis Episcopal Church in Miami Lakes, Fla., as part of Labor in the Pulpits, the service had just begun when a member of the choir slumped down in her chair and fell to the floor.

The service stopped while the clergy and members called 911 for emergency help. Within minutes, fire, police and emergency medical assistance arrived to give the woman medical care. Each one was a union public servant—the people whose jobs are in danger from state and local budget cuts.

After the medics left to take the woman to the hospital, the service resumed. The ministers led prayers for her swift recovery. 

Reflecting on the incident over the Labor Day holiday, Holt Baker said the situation showed that:

Prayer is good and it helps. But sometimes you also need public servants.

Union Leaders Discuss Workers’ Issues in Media Around the Nation

Dozens of newspaper, radio, TV and Internet media featured op-eds over Labor Day by union leaders on issues that workers care about—Social Security, jobs, young workers, immigration and job safety. While most columns ran in local media, several received national attention, including a piece on Social Security on AOL and job creation in the National Journal. A column written in Spanish on immigration appeared in several Latino publications and a column on workplace safety ran in newspapers in at least three states. Here are some samples. Click on the author’s name to read the full column.

Social Security: Wall Street and congressional Republicans are…pushing for Social Security benefit cuts, floating every idea from reducing the inflation adjustment to raising the retirement age.

 …if we truly want to fix what’s broken, let’s look ahead to designing an employer-based retirement system for future generations while strengthening Social Security. —AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka

Young workers: Are we raising a generation of kids who won’t be equipped to dream? How do we restore for them the promise of what America should and can be?

 We make the public investments that will put America back to work—rebuilding our infrastructure, jump-starting green energy technology and tackling the extreme problems of distressed communities. Workers with good safe jobs won’t need to bump younger workers off the escalator and out of summer jobs. This is the best way to bring our economy back to life, restore consumer demand and fix that broken escalator for America’s working people of all ages. —AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler

Job creation: Ultimately, our nation has to face a decision: Do we aspire for better for America’s families, or do we want to strip away the best of our nation to lower the common denominator? And are we okay with big corporations encouraging working people to form a circular firing squad when the target should be squarely on corporations themselves? —AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker

Workplace safety: We should remember that restoring the freedom of workers to organize unions also is an important piece of ensuring workplace safety, because there is no greater protection than empowered workers, on the job every day, looking out for each other. —Trumka and Georgia  AFL-CIO President Richard Ray. Similar pieces ran in several other states as well.

Jobs: Job One for Congress

Putting people to work making things in America will be Democrats’ top priority when Congress returns Sept. 15, two House leaders said today. During a telephone press conference, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said House Democrats will present a series of bill in this Congress and the next to help revive manufacturing and to implement President Obama’s infrastructure rebuilding plan.

Rep. Xavier  Becerra (D-Calif.), vice chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said the Democrats want to put to rest the idea pushed by congressional Republicans that the only way to create jobs is to give tax breaks to the richest Americans.

We want to celebrate Labor Day. We want to make this a day for workers again by making products in America again. Jobs is Job One for this Congress and we’re going to continue to do this despite what the naysayers may say.

The  “Make It in America” initiative is a 17-bill package designed to help manufacturers recover from the Great Recession and the loss of 5.6 million manufacturing jobs in the past decade.

 The House Ways and Means Committee will hold important hearings soon on the issue of China’s manipulation of its currency. The AFL-CIO has been urging Congress to take quick, strong action to stop the unfair and illegal advantage against U.S. producers that China and other nations gain by undervaluing their currency.

 The AFL-CIO is backing S. 3134, the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2010, which would give our government the tools and resolve it needs to address currency manipulation.

Another major bill that may come to the floor is H.R. 5893, the Investing in American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010. Introduced by Ways and Means Chairman Sander Levin (D-Mich.), the bill would close loopholes that encourage companies to ship jobs overseas. The legislation would spur job creation here in the United States by extending successful Recovery Act provisions, including the Build America Bonds program to fund domestic infrastructure improvements and the Emergency Fund for Job Creation and Assistance program to help states immediately support job programs. 

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who joined in the conference call, told reporters “we desperately need decisive action from our leaders on both fiscal and monetary policy.”

It’s time for our leaders to show they are economic patriots. That’s what we’re looking for—economic patriotism. Leaders fighting to protect jobs, fighting unfair trade deals and putting us on a path to make things in America again. In short, to invest in America and American workers.

Mott’s Corporate Greed: Rotten to the Core

Dr. Pepper Snapple Group CEO Larry Young pocketed $6.5 million last year. But he thinks his employees at Mott’s applesauce plant in Williamson, N.Y., should make $20,000 a year. So, the corporate conglomerate has been trying to cut $1.50 an hour—$3,000 a year—from the salaries of the 350 skilled workers, while freezing pensions and health care.

But there’s no need to bring up CEO pay. Really. According to Dr. Pepper Snapple Senior Vice President Robert Callan:

Executive pay is completely irrelevant to the discussion.

Really. More from Callan in this great segment from PBS:

The Williamson employees have enjoyed wages that have exceeded 50 percent of the market for a very long time. The best example I can give you is one of our forklift drivers at the Williamson facility makes $20 an hour. Local market in the Williamson area a forklift driver will make about $9.90 an hour—about $20,000 a year.

The Dr. Pepper Snapple Group made $555 million in profits in 2009, another point that Thomas Culhane, a Mott’s forklift operator, says is not irrelevant:

I don’t think that’s fair that a multimillion-dollar company can tell us…you guys have to accept all these cuts, when they are making money hand over fist.

Workers at the Mott’s Williamson plant, who process half of the state’s apples into juice or sauce, have been on strike since May in opposition to the corporate-imposed $1.50 hourly pay cut. A pay cut that mostly likely will line the pockets of the Texas-based CEOs.

Northeastern University economist Andrew Sum says Mott’s, like most U.S. corporations, is keeping the profit.

It’s not been reinvested in new capital equipment. It’s not been used to help purchase new technology. So, this is the first time that we have ever had where basically all the gains in income went simply to corporate profits. 

Take action to support Mott’s workers. Go to www.NoBadApples.org and click on the Facebook Actions box.

And join others who are tweeting their support of the strikers to Mott’s. Sign up to follow Mott’s on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Motts.

Fox Spends Labor Day Attacking Working People

Most people celebrate working people on Labor Day. But not the extremists on Fox News. There, hate-mongering never takes a day off.

Here are a few ugly examples of Fox from our friends at Media Matters for America:

• Tucker Carlson attacks autoworkers.
• Glenn Beck assails an 80-year-old labor activist because she spoke at a high school.
• Stuart Varney criticizes a union-backed Securities and Exchange Commission rule that would allow more shareholders of public companies to use proxy votes to nominate board members. 

Clearly Fox opposes opening up the election process to shareholders who have a financial stake in a company because it would mean less chance for corporate greed and mismanagement.

Meanwhile, the anti-worker crowd doesn’t like being called out by Media Matters. So what do they do—they resort to thuggish suggestions of violence, saying Media Matters employees should be “curb-stomped.”

More here.