(The AFL-CIO issued the following on December 20.)
HAPPY HOLIDAYS–The Work in Progress staff wishes you and your families and friends a happy holiday season and peace, prosperity and solidarity in the new year. The next issue of WiP will be published Jan. 4.
FOUR SCORES FOR WORKERS–More than 1,000 workers won a voice at work with the Teamsters in four recent victories. In Orange County, Calif., 502 para-transit drivers at Laidlaw Transit Services chose IBT Local 952 in a majority sign-up, in which workers win their union when a majority verifies the desire to join a union by signing authorization cards. The drivers provide transportation for seniors and people with disabilities. In a recent election, 420 workers at the Berwyn, Ill., Juvenile Temporary Detention Center voted to join IBT Local 714. Most of the workers are counselors and the remainder work in security, maintenance and food service. In Mobile, Ala., 60 workers at Allied Waste/BFI voted for IBT Local 991 and 50 drivers and dock workers at Jordan Air in Richmond, Va., which delivers packages for DHL, voted to join IBT Local 822.
LOOK SHARP–The majority of 450 dietary and housekeeping workers at Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women in San Diego recently voted to join AFSCME, while 108 municipal workers in Espanola, N.M., have a voice on the job with AFSCME Council 18 after a successful majority sign-up.
HOSPITAL WORKERS WIN–The 180 workers, including nurses and service, maintenance and technical workers at Aliquippa Community Hospital in Aliquippa, Pa., recently won a voice on the job with SEIU District 1199P. They chose their union by majority sign-up.
BIG BEN DAVIS VICTORY–In San Francisco, 100 Ben Davis clothing workers unanimously ratified their first contract Dec. 7 with UNITE HERE. The two-year agreement brings workers up to the city’s mandated $8.50-an-hour living wage, reinstates vacation provisions, adds personal days and decreases health coverage payments. The company had stopped bargaining early this year and threatened to leave the country if forced to pay the living wage. But it returned to the table following a campaign by union and community activists demanding the company respect the law and the workers, who belong to the UNITE HERE Western States Regional Council.
DECEPTION IN OHIO–The Republican-dominated Ohio legislature approved a bill that quadruples the maximum allowable corporate contribution to a political candidate or campaign and restricts how unions and their members can participate in electoral politics. The bill passed in a special session called by Gov. Bob Taft (R). In 1998, a similar Ohio “paycheck deception” law was declared unconstitutional by federal and state courts. In testimony before the new bill passed, Tim Burga, Ohio AFL-CIO legislative director, said of the $90 million spent on Ohio elections in 2002, just 3 percent came from unions. The rest came from “wealthy individuals, political parties and such big industries as banking, real estate, insurance, manufacturing and health care. What would it take for supporters of this bill to be content? Perhaps when working people only have 1 percent of the political voice, or better yet are silenced all together.”
HANDS OFF SOCIAL SECURITY–Instead of privatizing Social Security, President George W. Bush should shore up the nation’s most successful family protection program by requiring the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share into the system, said AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney. He was joined at a Dec. 16 news conference in Washington, D.C., by advocates for women, African Americans, people with disabilities and others who are part of a coalition fighting to protect Social Security. Bush should transfer the revenue from the estate and gift tax each year to Social Security, and Congress could make the highest wage earners pay their fair share to Social Security by raising the cap on earnings subject to the payroll tax, Sweeney said. Bush’s scheme to divert Social Security funds to private accounts would lead to benefit cuts, a higher federal deficit and raising the retirement age, according to studies from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and The Century Foundation. Privatizing Social Security would leave retirees, survivors of workers who die young and people with disabilities subject to the whims of the stock market, while enriching Wall Street by as much as $940 billion over the next 75 years, according to a study from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. In addition, estimates show transition costs to private accounts could cost the government $2 trillion. At the news conference, Sweeney also called on financial services firms to reject Bush’s privatization plan. For more information on the coalition’s response to Bush’s Social Security privatization plan, visit http://www.ourfuture.org .
CIVIL RIGHTS CHOICE SLAMMED–President George W. Bush’s choice to head the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights signals the “death of the agency as an independent voice and fair fact-finder,” said William Taylor, chairman of the Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights. Bush appointed Gerald Reynolds, a conservative Missouri attorney, to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Reynolds, an African American, told The New York Times that “traditional civil rights groups…overstate the problems” of racial discrimination and, according to the paper, once called affirmative action “a big lie.” In his previous post as assistant secretary of civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education, Reynolds “showed antipathy toward programs that encourage and protect equal opportunity,” said Nancy Zirkin, deputy director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.
AIRLINE WORKERS RALLY FOR JUSTICE–Hundreds of flight attendants and other airline workers rallied outside the White House Dec. 14, urging the administration to stop bankrupt carriers from dumping union contracts and workers’ hard-earned pensions. “There is a price for safe and efficient airlines,” Flight Attendants/CWA President Patricia Friend told the crowd. AFA members voted to strike nationwide if any carrier unilaterally drops a union contract. To reduce costs, many airlines are using bankruptcy laws to abrogate contracts and eliminate pension payments. For more information, visit http://www.afanet.org .
HOTEL WORKERS GET ‘GIFTS’–Hundreds of hotel workers in Washington, D.C., members of UNITE HERE Local 25, and their supporters rallied and marched Dec. 15, receiving mock gifts–such as a box of respect that was empty–from community allies symbolizing their employers’ meager contract offers. In Los Angeles, workers rejected the hotels’ latest contract offer. Hotel workers in several cities are fighting for fair contracts that all would expire in 2006, giving workers parity to negotiate with the increasingly global hotel industry. For more information, visit http://www.hotelworkersunited.org .
SCORING CHARTER SCHOOLS–A new government report confirms earlier studies showing charter school students are not performing as well as other public school students in math and reading. Results from the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called “the nation’s report card,” were released Dec. 15. President Bush’s No Child Left Behind law encourages converting academically struggling public schools into charter schools–a policy that lawmakers should reconsider in light of the evidence about student performance, said AFT officials. For more information, visit http://www.aft.org .
BIGGER IS BETTER–Members of SEIU locals 250 and 399 voted to merge and become the 130,000-member-strong United Healthcare Workers-West, California’s largest union and the largest health care union outside New York. It will fight for quality patient care and help lead the national movement against profit-driven health care, according to union leaders. “Forming the new statewide union in California will create a ripple that will be felt across the country,” said SEIU President Andrew Stern. “Health care is in a state of crisis for all Americans, and it’s only appropriate that our new action start here, and now, in California.”
THE DEVIL’S IN ANGELICA’S DETAILS–A Jobs with Justice and National Workers’ Rights Board report on Angelica Textile Services indicts the giant laundry for tolerating dangerous working conditions. The report, “Angelica’s Dirty Laundry: How Management Interference in Workers’ Freedom to Unite Puts Employees and Their Communities at Risk,” also accuses the company of interfering with the workers’ freedom to form unions. About two-thirds of the workers are UNITE HERE members, but others have been thwarted in their efforts to win a union voice at work. Read the report at http://www.jwj.org/WRBs /National/AngelicaReport.pdf.
DISCONNECT THIS NUMBER, PLEASE–Cell phone use should not be allowed on commercial airliners, the AFA told the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last week. Citing safety concerns, AFA urged the FCC not to lift its current ban on such use. Cell phones and other wireless transmitters produce radio signals that may compromise flight safety by interfering with onboard navigation and communications systems, the union said during an FCC hearing on a proposal to allow passenger cell phone and other wireless use.
TRADE DEFICIT BALLOONS–The U.S. trade deficit grew to an all-time high of $55.5 billion in October, up from $51.6 billion in September, the U.S. Department of Commerce reported last week. The U.S. trade deficit with China, the largest with any country, rose to $16.8 billion. The record deficit is a key factor in the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs because the nation imports massive numbers of products cheaper than those produced domestically.
‘WITHDRAW SALVADOR’S PRIVILEGES’–The AFL-CIO and the IBT filed a petition with the Bush administration to remove El Salvador from the list of beneficiary developing nations. Under the Generalized System of Preferences, the United States allows duty-free entry to approximately 3,000 products from 1,423 designated beneficiary countries and territories. The petition, filed Dec. 13, charges the Salvadoran government routinely violates workers’ rights and provides little protection against anti-union activities.
FIRST WOMAN TO LEAD ICFTU–The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) World Congress elected Sharan Burrow as president. Burrow, president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, is the first woman to be chosen as leader of the ICFTU, a confederation of 23 union organizations, including the AFL-CIO, from more than 150 countries. The ICFTU World Congress also agreed on greater coordination for the world labor movement on organizing, confronting multinational corporations and enforcing labor rights.
THE TRUTH BEHIND EXPORT ZONES–A new report by the ICFTU exposes the harsh conditions and sweeping violations of workers’ rights in export processing zones (EPZs) around the world that produce many popular name-brand products. The report, Behind the Brands, also chronicles success stories of workers forming unions and winning needed changes. For more information, visit http://www.icftu.org or http://www.solidaritycenter.org .
ARCHIVES’ ART– “Belle Glade,” a collection of 11 paintings by artist Carol Carter, will be on exhibit at the George Meany Memorial Archives from Dec. 20 through April 30, 2005. The exhibition focuses on the landscape and agricultural workers of Belle Glade, Fla. The exhibition is open 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday-Thursday and 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Friday. It is closed on holidays. For more information, call 301-431-5451.
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