(The AFL-CIO circulated the following on March 28.)
NEW JAX CITY VOICE—Some 534 city employees in Jacksonville, Fla., won a voice at work after voting to join the Communications Workers of America Local 3106. The workers are librarians, social workers, engineers and other professionals.
SO-CAL WORKERS VOTE TEAMSTERS—Bus drivers, mechanics and other workers at Southern California’s ATC Vancom voted to join Teamsters Local 166 March 2. ATC is under contract to the Victor Valley Transit Authority, and the 101 workers serve the communities of Hesperia, Victor Valley, Victorville, Adelanto, Apple Valley and San Bernardino County. In Ontario, Calif., 23 workers at the Mazda Auto Parts Distribution Center voted for a voice at work with IBT Local 495.
SCHOOL DRIVERS PICK UP SEIU—Some 100 transportation employees in the Fayetteville-Manilus (N.Y.) school district voted to join SEIU 200United recently.
NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION—Working families and community allies in more than 70 cities across the country will challenge Charles Schwab, Wachovia and other Wall Street firms on March 31 to withdraw their support for privatizing Social Security. The National Day of Action is the largest grassroots mobilization yet in the campaign to defeat President George W. Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security. Bush’s plan would funnel billions of dollars to financial firms, cut Social Security’s guaranteed benefits by nearly half and increase the federal debt by nearly $5 trillion in just 20 years. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney will speak at a rally in Washington, D.C., while Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka and Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson will join workers in Philadelphia and San Antonio, respectively. Political and community leaders will march with union members in Charlotte, N.C., Chicago, New York and San Francisco. For more information about the Social Security campaign against Schwab and other Wall Street firms, visit www.wallstreetgreed.org or www.aflcio.org.
MORE WAL-MART WORKERS ON MEDICAID—In its home state of Arkansas, Wal-Mart leads all the state’s companies in the number of workers and their children forced to rely on the state Medicaid program for low-income, uninsured children and adults and other public assistance programs. A report by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette showed 3,971 employees of Wal-Mart, the state’s largest employer, receive public assistance. By contrast, the state’s seventh largest employer, Triad Hospitals Inc., has just three employees on public rolls. Recent studies in Georgia, Tennessee, Washington, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Connecticut also show a disproportionate number of Wal-Mart workers and their children on public health programs. Fewer than half of Wal-Mart’s workers are covered by the company’s health plan because of long waiting periods for eligibility and high costs.
SOCIAL SECURITY STILL SOUND—The latest report by the Social Security Fund Trustees shows the system will be sound for decades and there is no need to rush into President Bush’s reckless plans to privatize Social Security, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said. Trustees reported March 23 that without changes to address long-term financing problems, the trust fund would be able to pay full benefits until 2041, and there would still be sufficient money coming in to cover 74 percent of benefits thereafter. The report also reflects a 12-year improvement in the outlook since 1997, when trustees projected a shortfall beginning in 2029. Also, last week seniors rallied across the country calling for their representatives and senators to stop Bush’s privatization scheme. In Denver, hundreds of workers and members of the Alliance for Retired Americans rallied March 21 at the state capitol just hours before Bush spoke there as part of his nationwide campaign to create private Social Security accounts. The rally coincided with the beginning of the Alliance’s Truth Truck tour, which will deliver 1 million petitions the Alliance has collected from seniors to members of Congress urging them to protect Social Security. The Truth Truck began its 3,000-mile, six-state tour March 21 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and will end April 1 in Harrisburg, Pa. In Greensboro, N.C., March 23, a crowd of more than 50 Alliance and coalition activists gathered to tell Rep. Howard Coble (R-N.C.) and Republican Sens. Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr to oppose Social Security privatization. North Carolina State AFL-CIO President James Andrews delivered petitions signed by 1,046 of Coble’s constituents to the congressman’s office calling on him to protect Social Security. For more information, visit www.retiredamericans.org or www.aflcio.org/socialsecurity.
IBT WEBSITE FOR WAL-MART WAREHOUSERS—The Teamsters, which represents distribution center employees across the country, launched a website March 21 directed at the employees of Wal-Mart distribution centers. The site, www.walmartworkersunite.org, is designed to provide distribution center employees a place to go with questions regarding all aspects of their employment. Visitors can find organizing resources and research and can sign up confidentially for more information about organizing their workplaces.
HUNGER STRIKERS GETS JUSTICE DESSERT—After a nine-day hunger strike by 26 Georgetown University students, the school’s administration agreed to pay campus workers a living wage. The victory capped a three-year effort by students and others to win pay increases for the school’s custodial, cafeteria and security workers. The Washington, D.C., university agreed on March 24 to boost the minimum wage to $14 an hour from $11.33, phased in over two years. It also agreed to respect the workers’ wish to join or not join a union. On March 22, some 200 union, university and community activists joined the hunger strikers at a campus rally. “You’ve had three years to discuss and research this issue,” AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka told university officials. “Now is the time to treat your workers with the respect and dignity that we all deserve.”
BUSH TO OLD SOLDIERS: FADE AWAY—The planned closure of a Veterans Administration (VA) nursing home unit in Salisbury, N.C., won’t be the last reduction in long-term care for aging and chronically ill veterans if President Bush’s VA budget cuts are enacted, said AFGE President John Gage. The Geriatrics and Extended Care unit is part of the Hefner VA Medical Center that serves 23 counties. The center’s management said budget restraints were partially to blame for the closure, which would bring to 120 the number of nursing home beds lost at the center. Gage said Bush’s VA cuts in the fiscal 2006 budget would reduce VA nursing home care capacity by 27 percent. “It’s a disgrace that our president wants to deprive our aging heroes of the dignified nursing home care they deserve,” he said.
BUSH’S FIRST-RESPONDER CUTS REVERSED—For the second year in a row, Bush’s proposed budget contained cuts to first-responders programs for firefighters, emergency medical personnel, police and others. The same week that 800 Fire Fighters were in Washington, D.C., for a legislative conference and lobbying visits, the U.S. Senate voted to add $565 million in first-responder grants for states and localities to Bush’s proposed budget. The amendment passed 63–37 March 17. “Having just met with their local firefighters and hearing firsthand about the challenges they face clearly made a strong impression in Congress,” said IAFF President Harold Schaitberger.
GOLDEN PARACHUTES AND PINK SLIPS—AT&T is planning to shut down call centers this week in Atlanta, St. Louis and Mesa, Ariz., putting 1,000 service representatives out of work. “These job cuts are completely unnecessary—simply a matter of greed,” CWA President Morton Bahr said. One AT&T employee who doesn’t have to worry about his future is CEO David Dorman. The company reported when AT&T’s merger with SBC is final, Dorman will receive $17.7 million in stock shares and options. The company set up a $31 million severance pool for top executives and may set aside $100 million more for cash bonuses to entice top executives to stay after the merger.
UNIONS TO ARNOLD: TERMINATE VIDEOS—The California Labor Federation, SEIU’s United Healthcare Workers-West and the California Nurses Association filed suit March 21 to stop Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) from using taxpayer funds to produce and distribute news-like video releases promoting his political agenda. Styled as television news reports with state employees posing as reporters, the releases promote several of Schwarzenegger’s proposals, including his plan for new workplace rules that could cut back on lunch and rest breaks for hourly workers and his effort to strike down new nurse-to-patient staffing rules. The Bush administration has distributed similar video news releases and in 2004, the Government Accountability Office found those release violated federal laws that ban the use of federal money for overt propaganda.
CÉSAR CHÁVEZ CELEBRATIONS—Workers will celebrate the life of Farm Workers founder César Chávez on his birthday March 31, honoring his memory with marches, parades, rallies, breakfasts and actions aimed at winning worker-friendly legislation and saving libraries. The union is sponsoring a virtual march to honor Chávez on its website at www.ufw.org, which also lists some of the activities occurring nationwide. Events are planned in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Rosa, Oxnard, Calinas and Keene, Calif., San Antonio and Jacksonville, Fla., where UFW President Arturo Rodriguez will join the march to the state capitol. Chávez died in 1993.
BRING THEM BACK—Members of CWA plan to deliver union proxies to Verizon’s annual meeting May 5 in Houston to demand the company bring back 3,000 DSL support jobs that have been contracted out to nonunion shops in the United States and Canada. They also will demand CEO Ivan Seidenberg honor his promise that the company will remain neutral during efforts by workers at Verizon Wireless to form a union. CWA charges Seidenberg with overseeing a campaign of intimidation and firings of workers trying to organize. For more information, visit www.cwa-union.org/verizon.
BLINDED BY THE LIGHT—The Air Line Pilots told the House Aviation subcommittee about the threat pilots face from persons shining lasers into the cockpits of in-flight airplanes. ALPA member Perry Winder testified about a laser incident that affected his vision for several weeks. Capt. Terry McVenes, ALPA’s executive air safety chairman, urged law enforcement agencies fully prosecute persons endangering airliners in this manner and called for accelerated research for technology to protect airline crews from the risk of lasers and improvements in government and industry’s response to the problem.
BACK AT WORK—Some 650 UAW members, locked out of their jobs at four CNH Global plants since Nov. 22, returned to work March 21 after ratifying a new six-year contract. The company, a manufacturer of agricultural and construction equipment, initiated the lockout following a 19-day strike at plants in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The workers had been without a contract since May 2004 when they voted down the company’s final offer. The new pact contains significant improvements over the voted-down contract, the union said.