(The AFL-CIO distributed the following on January 10.)
SETTLING IN WITH AFT—The 27 workers at Germantown Settlement Charter School near Philadelphia voted unanimously on Dec. 20 for a voice on the job with AFT.
AYES OF TEXAS—Twelve drivers at JMK Inc. in Laredo, Texas, unanimously voted to join Teamsters Local 657 in San Antonio. The company is an independent contractor for DHL, the package delivery company.
BUSH EYES MORE WORKER PAY CUTS—After eliminating overtime pay rights for millions of workers last year, the Bush administration is preparing another attack on working families’ paychecks. Two proposals would force employees to work longer hours for less pay, unions and other workers’ advocates say. The administration and Republican congressional leaders will push for new legislation to allow employers to substitute compensatory time off for time-and-a half overtime pay—for those still eligible for overtime pay. They also are likely to push a so-called flex-time bill to replace the 40-hour workweek with an 80-hour, two-week pay period. Specific legislation has yet to be introduced, but the Bush White House proposals are expected to mirror legislation that working families and their allies previously defeated. For more information, visit www.aflcio.org.
TAX CUT CREATES FEWER JOBS THAN PROMISED—President George W. Bush’s tax cuts have fallen 3.1 million jobs short of the 5.1 million jobs the administration projected would be generated over the past 18 months, according to a new analysis at www.jobwatch.org by the Economic Policy Institute. Meanwhile, for the fourth year in a row, the number of job cuts announced by U.S. employers in 2004 topped 1 million, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outplacement firm. “The economy remains unbalanced and unsettled, giving working families plenty of reason to worry about what may lie ahead,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.
MANY STRONG VOICES—Hundreds of union members, retirees, local and state union leaders, educators and others have posted their comments about the strengths, weaknesses and changes needed in the union movement at the AFL-CIO’s new Strengthening Our Union Movement For The Future website. Along with posting their comments, visitors to www.aflcio.org/ourfuture can read comments from others; download proposals from national unions, state federations and central labor councils; find fast facts on the union movement; and get e-mail updates and more. The Strengthening Our Union Movement For The Future website is part of the AFL-CIO’s broad-based examination of the issues our union movement must address to meet the challenges we face as we build strength for the future.
HONORING MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.—The AFL-CIO’s Martin Luther King Jr. holiday observance in Los Angeles Jan. 13–17 will feature activities with constituency groups and other union allies, including a community forum on Building Political Power in Our Communities and distribution of clothing, paper goods and other items to local agencies, food banks and shelters. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor will host a breakfast Jan. 14. There will be workshops the following day on environmental justice, health care, housing, organizing youths, union–community alliances and economic development. On Jan. 17, union members will participate in the Martin Luther King Jr. parade. In cities nationwide—including Atlanta, New York, San Francisco and San Antonio, Texas—union members will mark the holiday in a variety of activities. For a state-by-state listing of King Day events, visit to www.king-raleigh.org/natlevent/body.cfm
BUSH PLAN: CUT SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS—A secret White House memo confirms President Bush plans to cut future Social Security benefits drastically. As Bush pushes his plan to privatize the nation’s most successful family insurance program, his aides are floating a change in the way guaranteed benefits are calculated that would cut payments almost in half for future retirees. An e-mail sent by White House official Peter Wehner to conservative officials on Jan. 3 advocates pegging Social Security benefits to the increase in prices rather than wages. Because wages rise faster than prices, this would slash the amount of Social Security benefits retirees would receive. Under this formula, a person retiring at age 65 in 2075 would see a 46 percent smaller benefit than under the current system. “The Bush administration has finally acknowledged that the centerpiece of its plan to radically overhaul Social Security is a benefit cut of more than 40 percent in the coming decades for every American senior,” said House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.). Working families and their allies are fighting Bush’s plans to privatize Social Security, which would lead to benefit cuts and a rise in the retirement age.
CHECKING IN WITH HOTEL WORKERS—Hotel workers in three cities, members of UNITE HERE, continued their fights for fair contracts over the holiday season. In San Francisco, members of Local 2 rallied Dec. 21 with allies and religious leaders. Since Local 11 in Los Angeles called for a boycott of nine luxury Los Angeles hotels in November, event planners have moved the locations of 60 events. The AFL-CIO moved its winter Executive Council meeting, while the Laborers moved its convention and the Producers Guild of America moved its annual awards dinner, scheduled for Jan. 22. As the presidential inauguration approaches in Washington, D.C., members of Local 25 are still negotiating and handing out informational leaflets outside hotels. The workers in all three cities are fighting for contracts that provide decent wages and benefits and would expire concurrently in 2006, giving workers parity to negotiate with the increasingly global hotel industry. For more information, visit www.hotelworkersunited.org.
RAIL TIES THAT BIND—Seven major railroad unions joined together to create the Rail Labor Bargaining Coalition and coordinate upcoming contract negotiations with rail carriers. The coalition will develop a coordinated contract negotiating strategy, and no individual union will sign off on any tentative agreements with the rail carriers until all the coalition members concur. The unions are Maintenance of Way Employes Division and the Locomotive Engineers, both part of IBT, as well as the National Conference of Firemen and Oilers, an SEIU affiliate; Railroad Signalmen; Sheet Metal Workers; Boilermakers; and Train Dispatchers.
STOP RAILROADING WORKERS’ RIGHTS—Union activists plan to rally on Jan. 11, demanding the Bush administration stop railroading workers’ rights. They are protesting proposed new regulations issued by the Bush administration’s National Mediation Board (NMB) that would establish filing fees for workers who exercise their right to file grievances on such critical issues as working conditions, safety and pay. The activists will rally in front of the National Labor Relations Board headquarters in Washington, D.C., where the NMB is holding a hearing on the proposed rule.
AFM MEMBERS SILENT IN ST. LOUIS—Members the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada Local 2-197 who play for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra have been locked out of their jobs as they press for a fair contract that would restore a pay cut they took four years ago. Brass musicians sounded their horns during a Jan. 5 rally, but management cancelled scheduled concerts this past weekend.
LUNCH BREAK ATTACK TERMINATED—In California, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s attack on workers’ longstanding right to a 30-minute lunch break stalled when public outcry forced him to rescind new workplace regulations. The so-called emergency regulations, which don’t require public hearings, were issued in early December and provided employers a loophole to take away workers’ lunch breaks. Prior to the issuance of the regulation, workers had filed several class-action lawsuits accusing employers of denying breaks, including one on behalf of more than 200,000 Wal-Mart workers. For more information, visit www.calaborfed.org.
TOP IRAQI UNIONIST KILLED—The AFL-CIO condemned the murder of Hadi Salih, the international secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU). On Jan. 4, assassins broke into Salih’s home and tortured and killed him. Salih, a former printing worker who helped found the IFTU last May, was sentenced to death in 1969 under Saddam Hussein’s regime for his union activism. After five years in jail, his sentence was commuted.
PROTESTING FOR JUSTICE—Members of IBT, in conjunction with the AFL-CIO, protested a speech by Salvadoran President Elias Antonio Saca in Washington, D.C., Jan. 7. The protestors demanded Saca provide adequate funding and support for El Salvador’s Office of Human Rights Counsel, which investigates alleged human rights violations. Salvadoran human rights ombudswoman Beatrice Alamanni de Carrillo recently cited several irregularities and discrepancies with the official investigation into the Nov. 5 murder of IBT organizer Gilberto Soto in Usulutan, El Salvador. The findings prompted the AFL-CIO and IBT to call for an independent investigation of Soto’s death.
TSUNAMI RELIEF EFFORTS CONTINUE—Unions and union members have joined millions of other Americans to help raise record amounts of donations to help the victims of the last month’s deadly tsunami that claimed more than 150,000 lives in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and other Indian Ocean nations. Donations to the AFL-CIO American Center for International Labor Solidarity’s (Solidarity Center) Tsunami Relief Fund will go directly to union partners in those nations for medium- and long-term reconstruction and development. To contribute, make out a check marked Tsunami Relief, payable to Solidarity Center Education Fund, and send it to Tsunami Relief Fund, Solidarity Center, 1925 K St., N.W., Suite 300, Washington, DC 20006-1105. For more information, visit www.solidaritycenter.org. For a list of relief agencies, visit the U.S. Agency for International Development website at www.usaid.gov.
REX HARDESTY—Rex Hardesty, 67, chief spokesman for the AFL-CIO and director of the federation’s Information Department for eight years, died Jan. 9 in Bethesda, Md., after a short illness. Hardesty joined the AFL-CIO staff in 1969 and retired in 1995 but continued working for several affiliated unions, including IUE-CWA and the Electrical Workers. Hardesty leaves his wife, Terri, and three children: Elizabeth of Arlington, Va.; Larry of Boston; and Jessica of Durham, N.C. A funeral mass will be held Jan. 13 at 12:30 p.m. at St. Elizabeth Catholic Church, 917 Montrose Road, Rockville, Md. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be sent to the national Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in the Hardesty’s name at www.leukemia-lymphoma.org or 1311 Mamaroneck Ave., White Plains, NY 10605.