(The AFL-CIO distributed the following on August 2.)
New members reported in this week’s WIP: 1,431
New members reported in WIP, year to date: 74,256
PECO AND COURT WORKERS CHOOSE IBEW—A strong majority of 1,100 workers at the Philadelphia Electric Co.’s (PECO) energy transmission and distribution unit voted July 21 to join Electrical Workers Local 614. “This is a decisive victory not just for the IBEW but for the workers who had the courage and the spirit to choose a strong voice on the job,” said Edwin Hill, IBEW president. In Cook County, the Illinois Supreme Court voted 4–3 on July 1 to recognize the choice of its 187 court reporters to have a voice on the job with IBEW Local 1220—more than a year after Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) signed a state law giving these state workers the right to form unions. The court workers have long sought union representation, and a large majority signed authorization cards indicating the wish to join the union, but the court initially refused to recognize the choice, even after the new law was signed.
WINNING AT THE YMCA—Concerned about low wages, favoritism and job security, the majority of nearly 80 workers at the Berkeley-Albany (Calif.) YMCA voted to join SEIU Local 616 July 22.
BFI WORKERS PICK UP VICTORY—Some 64 drivers and other workers at Allied Waste/BFI in Pensacola/Fort Walton Beach, Fla., voted to join Teamsters Local 991 July 23. Their win is the latest in a national campaign among waste industry workers coming together for a voice on the job with IBT, including workers in Atlanta and Northern California.
WORKERS’ INCOMES FELL…—For the first time in modern history, Americans’ overall income fell for two consecutive years, according to an analysis of Internal Revenue Service statistics by the New York Times. Adjusting for population growth and inflation, average individual income fell 9.2 percent between 2000 and 2002. The decline in jobs and wages in industries that pay well and the stock market drop are blamed.
…AND CEO PAY ROSE—Median compensation for a CEO in the United States shot up 15 percent last year, said a new report by the Corporate Library, a Portland, Maine, research firm. CEO compensation at surveyed companies listed on the S&P 500 stock index grew 22 percent in 2003, double its increase the year before. While most workers rely on a single, regular paycheck for their income, top executives have many income sources. The report revealed that every element of CEO pay rose—base salary, annual bonuses, restricted stock, long-term incentive payouts and the value realized from the exercise of stock options. For more information, visit www.thecorporatelibrary.com.
THEFT PREVENTION—As part of the AFL-CIO My Vote, My Right campaign to ensure every vote is counted in the 2004 election, a new flier is available for local union activists, officers and union groups. The flier, which can be customized for individual unions, tells workers how to take a few simple steps to check their voter registration and protect their voting rights. It is available at www.workingfamiliestoolkit.com (search the website with the phrase “my vote, my right”). More voting rights information, including a Voters’ Bill of Rights and online voter registration, can be found at www.myvotemyright.com or by e-mailing votingrights@aflcio.org.
UNION DELEGATES CHEER KERRY—The 800 union-member delegates to the Democratic National Convention capped a busy convention week with a rousing response to presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry’s acceptance speech July 29. Kerry told the Boston Fleet Center and national television audiences, “We value an America that exports products—not jobs….We value an America where the middle class is not being squeezed but doing better.” Before Kerry took the stage, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told the 5,000 convention delegates this election is a choice “between a president who ships our best jobs overseas and turns his back on the men and women who built the strongest democracy and most competitive economy in the history of the world, or a president who will fight for America’s jobs.” Sweeney introduced three workers who “represent millions of Americans whose dreams have been put on hold for the past four years.” Among them was Stephen White of Silver Spring, Md., fired from his job at Comcast after actively trying to form a union. Earlier in the day, White told reporters Kerry “supports the Employee Free Choice Act. You bet he’d help us tremendously.” AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Richard Trumka and Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson, Fire Fighters President Harold Schaitberger and Teamsters President James P. Hoffa also addressed the convention last week. Three special sessions during the convention focused attention on working family issues: a workshop on restoring workers’ freedom to join unions, a Fair Trade Summit and a Labor Delegates Caucus that included a live-by-satellite appearance by vice presidential nominee Sen. John Edwards (N.C.). For more convention coverage, visit www.aflcio.org.
FLORIDA VOTE SNAFU, PART I—Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) defied a Florida appeals court order requiring the state to supply newly released felons with the paperwork and assistance necessary to regain their right to vote. The Miami Herald reported July 23 that Bush had scrapped the paper form and now requires applicants to contact the Office of Executive Clemency to file for hearings to have their rights restored. The court found at least 125,000 inmates who had completed their terms between 1992 and 2001 had not even been notified of their right seek restoration of their voting rights. About 50,000 people a year are released from prisons in Florida, one of seven states that does not automatically restore voting rights to people who have completed their terms. Earlier this year when Bush attempted to purge 47,000 ex-felons from the voting rolls, a Miami Herald investigation found Bush’s purge contained Democrats by a 3-to-1 margin and included 2,100 people whose rights had been restored through the clemency process.
FLORIDA VOTE SNAFU, PART II—A computer crash erased detailed records from the first election held in Miami-Dade County using touch-screen voting machines, county officials admitted recently. The vote disappearance was made public after the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition won the release of data from the 2002 gubernatorial primary. Had the election been disputed, voting rights activists said, there would have been no way to conduct an accurate recount because no paper records of the votes are kept. “This a disaster waiting to happen,” Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, chair of the coalition, told the Associated Press (AP). The AP also reported that in June, state officials acknowledged that touch-screen systems used by 11 counties contained a bug that would make manual recounts impossible.
LOUSY JOB? TAKE A PILL—A telephone gaffe at the Bush campaign provided some unintended insight about the president’s team’s attitudes toward working people. When a reporter called the campaign for a comment on job quality, Reuters news service reported an assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt said, “Why don’t they get new jobs if they’re unhappy or go on Prozac?” She apparently made the comment to a colleague but was overheard by the reporter.
EVIDENCE OF MICROSOFT OUTSOURCING—Technology giant Microsoft is outsourcing high-level work to foreign countries, according to new evidence obtained by the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers (WashTech). The group obtained documents listing Microsoft wages and projects at four large software companies in India. In June, another batch of Microsoft documents obtained by WashTech also detailed Microsoft’s outsourcing efforts. “Clearly Microsoft is trying to increase its profit margins at the expense of its U.S. employees,” said WashTech President Marcus Courtney. For more information, visit www.washtech.org.
9/11 REPORT CITES TRANSPORTATION THREATS—The report of the 9/11 Commission is “yet another wake-up call about the failures of the federal government to close security gaps in the transportation industry,” said Edward Wytkind, president of the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department. U.S. agencies should require anti-terrorism training for transportation workers, fund rail and mass transit security needs and for first responders, close loopholes created by poorly supervised foreign repair of U.S. aircraft and cross-border transportation and improve inspection at U.S. ports, he said.
BAILING OUT ON WORKERS—United Airlines announced July 23 it would forgo payments, including more than $500 million this year, to its employee pension plans until it emerges from bankruptcy, an action required by the banks loaning money to the carrier. Last week, the Machinists sued the officers of UAL Corp., United’s parent company, charging a breach of fiduciary duty. The plans cover some 58,000 retirees and active and former United workers who are vested, members of the Flight Attendants/CWA, IAM and Airline Pilots. The unions fear United might ultimately seek bankruptcy court approval to terminate the plans.
FOOL’S GOLD—ALPA called proposals to install video cameras in the cockpits of some 6,000 commercial airliners the fool’s gold of accident investigation, saying the value of cockpit image recorders is vastly overrated. But ALPA and the unaffiliated Allied Pilots Association said the National Transportation Safety Board’s recommendation on expanding information gathered by digital flight data recorders would be far more effective.
UNITE HERE—Representatives of dozens of domestic unionized clothing manufacturers convened at UNITE HERE headquarters in New York City for a workshop with U.S. Department of Defense officials on supplying uniforms and other apparel to the armed services. The workshop, co-sponsored by the Council on American Fashion (CAF) and the Garment Industry Development Corp., was designed to help expand the domestic industrial base for military apparel. “This is an important opportunity for high-road garment manufacturers to get involved with the military procurement process,” said CAF Chairman Edgar Romney, who is UNITE HERE’s executive vice president. Earlier this year, UNITE and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union merged to form UNITE HERE.
PATAKI BLOCKS WAGE HIKE—New York Gov. George Pataki (R) vetoed a minimum wage bill that would have increased the pay floor for some 700,000 workers to $7.15 an hour by 2007. The measure had passed the legislature by veto-proof margins of 57–7 in the Republican-controlled Senate and 116–19 in the Democrat-controlled Assembly. An override vote has yet to be scheduled.
VICTORY FOR ALL—IBT welcomed a federal court decision vacating U.S. Department of Transportation rules implemented in January 2004 governing how long interstate truck drivers can drive and be on duty between rest cycles. “This is a victory for all truck drivers, including Teamsters,” said IBT President James P. Hoffa. “Working behind the wheel of a truck is hard, and our concern with this set of rules was that they would increase driver fatigue.” The court held the rules were “arbitrary and capricious because the agency failed to consider the impact of the rules on the health of drivers.” It remanded the rules back to the department’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.