(The AFL-CIO issued the following on April 18.)
GAINING RECOGNITION—Some 400 workers are members of the Communications Workers of America after their employers agreed last week to voluntarily recognize the union. In Dallas, 270 employees of SBC Internet Services joined locals 6215 and 6132. Another 130 workers at Hanson and McClain, a financial advice company, are now members of Local 6171 in Arkansas.
PRO-PRIVATIZATION CEOS PAY LITTLE—The CEOs of Wall Street firms that support privatizing Social Security pay into the system for only a few days a year because Social Security taxes are not paid on income above $87,900, a study by United for a Fair Economy and the Institute for America’s Future shows. The CEOs of seven financial firms financing pro-privatization campaigns had incomes so high they exceeded the Social Security earnings cap in eight hours or less, according to “Taxpayers for a Day: The Most to Gain, the Least to Lose.” The Bush administration’s privatization scheme would cut recipients’ guaranteed benefits by as much $152,000 after a lifetime of work while rewarding Wall Street financial firms with some $940 billion in private account management fees over the next 75 years, according to University of Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee. For a copy of “Taxpayers for a Day,” visit www.faireconomy.org/WallStreetCEOs.
HUNGER STRIKERS FOR JUSTICE—Fifteen students at Washington University in St. Louis ended a six-day hunger strike April 16 and will meet this week with school officials in an effort to gain a living wage for janitors, cafeteria employees and other low-wage workers at the school. More than 20 students there are continuing a sit-down strike at the university’s undergraduate admissions office, which began April 4. The students, members of the Student Worker Alliance (SWA), are demanding a living wage of at least $10.05 an hour with benefits for workers, who now fall below the federal poverty guidelines for a family of four. The AFL-CIO, St. Louis political leaders and community groups are backing the students’ efforts.
GRAD STUDENTS ON STRIKE—Graduate student teaching assistants at Columbia and Yale universities went on strike for one week beginning April 18 to demand recognition of their unions. The Columbia teaching assistants are members of Graduate Student Employees United, an affiliate of UAW Local 2110 in New York City, and the Yale students belong to the Graduate Employees Student Organization, affiliated with UNITE HERE Local 35 in New Haven, Conn. In July 2004, the Bush administration’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled graduate student teaching assistants at private colleges are students, not employees, and denied them National Labor Relations Act protections for forming a union. More than 7,300 AFSCME Local 3299 members, service workers at the University of California’s nine campuses and five medical centers, staged a one-day walkout April 14 to protest stalled contract negotiations with the university. The contract expired June 30, 2004, and was extended to Jan. 31, 2005. After reaching an impasse, the two sides are participating in state-mandated mediation and fact-finding.
GEARING UP TO PASS FREE CHOICE ACT—In an effort to reform the nation’s basic labor laws, the union movement is mobilizing to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. A bipartisan group of members of Congress will introduce the act on April 19. Some 57 million U.S. workers say they would join a union if they could, based on research by Peter Hart and Associates. But when workers try to gain a voice on the job by forming a union, employers routinely respond with intimidation, harassment and retaliation. The Employee Free Choice Act would require employers to recognize the union once a majority of workers signed cards authorizing union representation. It would provide mediation and arbitration for first-contract disputes and establish stronger penalties for violation of rights of workers seeking to form unions or negotiate first contracts. The bill was also introduced last year and gained more than 240 co-sponsors, but the Republican leadership would not allow it to go to the floor. “Behind the closed doors of the workplaces of America, workers face incredible—often ruthless—opposition when they try to come together in a union,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. “These employers are literally robbing working people and their communities of better lives.” Visit www.aflcio.org after 4 p.m. April 19 to view a webcast of the bill’s introduction and to hear from workers whose freedom to form unions and bargain was violated.
STOP CAFTA MOVEMENT GROWING—Working families stepped up their fight to stop the proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Thousands of activists flooded congressional offices with phone calls April 13 during a National Call-In Day against CAFTA. The same day, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson and Mark Levinson, UNITE HERE’s chief economist, told congressional committees CAFTA will further oppress workers, depress wages in Central America, do nothing to lift workers there out of poverty and will cost jobs in the United States. If approved, CAFTA would spread to the Dominican Republic and five Central American countries the job loss, environmental damage and growing inequality caused over the past decade of the North American Free Trade Agreement. For more information on CAFTA, visit www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/globaleconomy/cafta_ftaa_main.cfm.
(UN)HAPPY EQUAL PAY DAY—Union activists and women’s rights advocates will mark Equal Pay Day April 19 with a Washington, D.C., press conference to announce the reintroduction of the Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act. The Fair Pay Act, sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), would require employers to provide equal pay for comparable work. The Paycheck Fairness Act, sponsored by Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), would strengthen current equal pay laws and toughen penalties for violations. April 19 is the date symbolizing how far into the new year women must work, on average, to earn what men earned the previous year. Women earn only 76 cents for every $1 men earn, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Meanwhile, the Bureau of Labor Statistics intends to end the collection of data on the number of women employees, according to a public notice in the April 18 Federal Register. The agency received nearly 5,000 comments on the proposal, with about 90 percent opposed to the plan. For more information, visit www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/women/equalpay/index.cfm or www.pay-equity.org.
‘LEAVE FAMILY LEAVE ALONE’—The AFL-CIO, along with more than 200 state and national organizations, have written letters urging the U.S. Department of Labor to protect the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). The department is poised to issue new regulations revising the FMLA, and family advocates are concerned those changes will weaken the law and restrict its use. The law allows workers at companies with 50 or more employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year to care for a seriously ill family member or newborn or newly adopted child. In a separate letter, 100 Democratic members of Congress asked the Labor Department not to make any major changes to the FMLA.
UFCW FILES WAL-MART COMPLAINT—The United Food and Commercial Workers filed an unfair labor practice complaint against Wal-Mart on April 12. Filed with the NLRB, the complaint alleges the retail behemoth violated federal labor law by bribing employees to report on co-workers who supported joining a union. The complaint cites a Wall Street Journal report that former Wal-Mart vice chairman Thomas Coughlin paid for information about union support. During the time Coughlin allegedly made the payments, Wal-Mart employees “abruptly abandoned” efforts to form unions in 13 states, according to the complaint. To join the campaign to fight for justice at Wal-Mart, visit www.wakeupwalmart.org.
MARYLAND TO WAL-MART: PAY YOUR WAY—The Maryland General Assembly approved legislation requiring companies with more than 10,000 employees to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on health care coverage or put the money into a fund to benefit the state Medicaid program for low-income families. Although other Maryland employers have more than 10,000 employees, Wal-Mart is the only one that does not spend 8 percent of its payroll on health care. Recent studies in 13 states show Wal-Mart ranks at or near the very top of the list of employers shifting to the public the cost of providing health care for their workers. For more information, visit www.walmartcostsyou.com.
BCTD IN D.C.—More than 3,000 delegates from 15 unions are discussing strategies to increase political strength and build the union movement during the AFL-CIO’s Building and Construction Trades Department 2005 Legislative Conference April 17–20 in Washington, D.C. The conference includes appearances by Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. Delegates will take part in legislative workshops and visits to members of Congress on Capitol Hill. For more information, visit www.bctd.org.
USWA, PACE MERGE—Delegates to a special PACE International Union convention voted overwhelmingly April 12 to merge with the Steelworkers. USWA President Leo Gerard will lead the new union, named the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers, or USW for short. PACE President Boyd Young, who will become executive vice president, announced he is retiring this summer.
OKLAHOMA CITY COMMEMORATION—AFGE will take part in the Oklahoma City National Memorial Week of Hope to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that claimed 168 lives on April 19, 1995. Fifty-one AFGE members in the Social Security and Housing and Urban Development offices were killed, and hundreds more were hurt.