(The AFL-CIO circulated the following on July 25.)
IOWA CARE GIVERS VOTE AFSCME–More than 2,500 home care workers in Iowa voted to join AFSCME Council 61 earlier this month. Their yearlong fight for a voice received a boost July 4 when Gov. Thomas Vilsack (D) signed an executive order granting the workers collective bargaining rights.
VOICE IN NEW JERSEY–New Jersey acting Gov. Richard Codey (D) signed a new law July 19 that expands the freedom of New Jersey workers to choose a union when a majority signs authorization cards for union representation. The new law covers workers who do not fall under the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Act. Those employers whose workers could choose a union by signing authorization cards include racetrack owners, breeders and trainers, real estate brokers, certain public employers and public supervisors. Similar laws already exist in California, New York, Illinois and Massachusetts (covering charter school workers only), and majority sign-up is specifically provided, on a voluntary basis, in New Mexico, Alaska and Ohio.
CONVENTION REPORT–Nearly 1,000 union delegates from more than 50 AFL-CIO unions are charting a course to strengthen the union movement and improve the lives of working families through organizing, political action, building state and local power and bringing more diversity to the labor movement’s political ranks at the AFL-CIO’s 25th Constitutional Convention July 25-28 in Chicago.
On Monday, SEIU and the Teamsters notified the AFL-CIO that they have disaffiliated from the federation. Two other unions, United Food and Commercial and Workers and UNITE HERE, said July 24 they would not participate in the Convention. Over the past several months, the federation, its affiliated unions and union members have engaged in an extensive dialogue that culminated in scores of proposals outlining strategies for strengthening the union movement. Most of the proposals from the four unions that made the announcements–UFCW, SEIU, IBT and UNITE HERE–are similar to those made by the Winning for Working Families team. In the end, these unions acknowledged the real issue is not policy differences but rather control over the federation leadership–representing only 30 percent of union membership, they would not be able to gain through the AFL-CIO’s long-established democratic election process.
“At a time when our corporate and conservative adversaries have created the most powerful anti-worker political machine in the history of our country, a divided movement hurts the hopes of working families for a better life,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney in his keynote address to the Convention Monday morning. Sweeney also said the union movement can’t look to the past and stressed the Convention is about the future of the union movement.
On opening day, delegates passed resolutions centered on diversity in the union movement, good jobs, public health and retirement programs and the upcoming House vote on the Dominican Republic–Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Tomorrow will be devoted to decision making about organizing, political mobilization and strengthening state and local labor movements, including a vote on a comprehensive plan developed by the AFL-CIO’s executive officers after months of consultations and solicitations of ideas from union leaders and rank-and-file members about how to strengthen the union movement for the future. This far-reaching and innovative proposal calls for creating a Strategic Organizing Fund, establishing Industry Coordinating Committees (ICCs) to focus on strategic organizing and encouraging and promoting union mergers. The mobilization provisions include building year-round capacity for member political action and legislative mobilization and increasing the Member Mobilization Fund, which does not include contributions to candidates.
The Convention will also take up an amendment establishing ICCs that would be formed at the request of affiliated unions and would bring together unions that represent workers in an industry, employer, occupation or region. The committees would be responsible for establishing contract standards and a strategic organizing plan for that industry. On July 27, the focus will be the global and U.S. economies, along with nominations for AFL-CIO officers.
During the weekend prior to the Convention, more than 800 union activists met in an unprecedented two-day conference and discussed strategies for Building Power for Working Families. Conference participants held a National Summit on Diversity in Our Union Movement, where they discussed diversity, inclusion and representation in the union movement and strategies for implementing resolutions, diversity principles and other change proposals on the Convention’s agenda. Union activists and leaders also explored strategies that build capacity and help workers to achieve three priorities critical to for building a stronger union movement: organizing, strengthening state and local movements and global justice. Visit http://www.aflcio.org for complete and up-to-date coverage and http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/convention2005 to sign up for Convention e-mail updates.
A CHOICE FORUM–Nearly 400 union members and community allies attended a recent forum in Pittsburgh where Comcast workers told how they have struggled for years to form a union and how the Employee Free Choice Act (S. 842 and H.R. 1696) would help guarantee workers’ right to a voice at work. More than 450 Comcast workers in Pennsylvania, who organized three years ago, still do not have a contract. The act would strengthen protections for workers’ freedom to choose by requiring employers to recognize a union after a majority of workers signs cards authorizing union representation. It also would provide for mediation and arbitration of first-contract disputes and authorize stronger penalties for violation of the law when workers seek to form a union. The bipartisan legislation has 194 House co-sponsors and 38 in the Senate. The forum was organized by the Communications Workers of America, the Electrical Workers, Jobs with Justice, Pennsylvania AFL-CIO and the Allegheny Labor Council.
DHS WORKERS WIN RULE DELAY–The Department of Homeland Security agreed to delay until Aug. 15 its implementation of major portions of its new personnel system that slashes employees’ bargaining and other workplace rights and eliminates civil service pay scales at the request of a U.S. District Court judge for the District of Columbia. The delay came after workers’ unions sought an injunction against implementation of the new rules for some 160,000 Homeland Security Department workers. Judge Rosemary Collyer suggested the delay so she could have more time investigate the new personnel rules thoroughly and specifically questioned collective bargaining provisions. “We are confident that this delay will provide the judge with enough time to legally block implementation of these draconian regulations,” said AFGE President John Gage. The delay came just days after hundreds of workers rallied on Capitol Hill to protest the Bush administration’s implementation of similar rules on 750,000 Department of Defense workers.
CAFTA MODEL, NAFTA, COST JOBS–With the House set to vote on CAFTA this week, a new study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shows the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the model for CAFTA, cost more than 1 million jobs in the United States. The United States experienced a rapid acceleration in its trade deficit after NAFTA took effect in 1994, EPI reports, and NAFTA-spurred trade deficits led to job losses in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. States with the largest job displacement due to NAFTA between 1993 through 2004 were California, Texas, Michigan, New York and Ohio. For a copy of the report, visit http://www.epi.org .
FAA’S TURBULENCE–On the day contract negotiations began between the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Association of Air Traffic Controllers, the FAA staged more than 20 press conferences in a “coordinated media assault aimed at justifying an ill-advised plan that would lead to fewer controllers guiding more planes,” said NATCA President John Carr. With 1,000 fewer controllers than seven years ago, today’s 14,500 controllers are moving more planes than ever–yet the FAA hired just 13 new controllers in 2004. In addition, the FAA’s recent public comments have painted controllers’ as overpaid. But the FAA official presenting the agency’s case at a Pittsburgh press conference is paid $162,100 a year, according to the “Pittsburgh Tribune Review,” for administrative work–not highly stressful tower work safely guiding passenger-laden planes through the nation’s skies.
TARNISHED GOLDEN YEARS–People near retirement are facing growing uncertainty as employers switch from traditional defined-benefit pensions to options such as 401(k) plans subject to the vagaries of the stock market and inflation, a new EPI report shows. In addition, the report, “Shifting Risk,” shows employers also have been cutting their contributions to employees’ retirement savings. While employers continue to eliminate traditional pensions, President George W. Bush is pushing hard to privatize Social Security. The report is the third and final of a series of recent reports examining Bush’s Social Security privatization plan and other retirement security issues. All three are available at http://www.epi.org .
AIR PHONE FIGHT STILL RINGING–The Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC’s) proposal to lift the ban on cell phone use aboard commercial airliners “could have catastrophic effects on aviation and safety and security,” Flight Attendants-CWA President Pat Friend told a House of Representatives committee July 15. Friend said the FCC is continuing to push for the rule despite public, industry and some government opposition. The vast majority of the 7,800 written comments submitted to the FCC oppose onboard cell phone use, and a recent poll showed 63 percent of Americans are against lifting the ban. The Justice Department has raised concerns about terrorists using in-flight cell phones to stage and coordinate attacks, and one of the nation’s largest cell phone service providers, Cingular, has weighed in on the side of cell phone silence.
CHINA CURRENCY PLAN A ‘SMOKE SCREEN’–China’s announcement that it will revalue its currency, the yuan, by 2 percent is little more than a smoke screen, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka said. “A 2 percent revaluation doesn’t mean much when the yuan is undervalued by 40 percent or more,” Trumka said, adding the devaluation will not affect the mushrooming trade deficit with China or the 410,000 manufacturing jobs lost over the past two years to China trade. Last September, the Bush administration rejected a petition by a coalition of 20 industrial, agricultural and service organizations that called for trade sanctions against China unless that country devalued its currency. China keeps the exchange rate of its currency artificially low, the petition said, giving that country an unfair trade advantage over the United States.
Work in Progress is also available on our website at http://www.aflcio.org/aboutaflcio/wip .