(The AFL-CIO issued the following on June 21.)
New members reported in this week’s WIP: 1,516
New members reported in WIP, year to date: 68,092
SECURITY WITH SEIU—After a long-term organizing campaign, nearly 1,200 security guards at four companies in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., have joined SEIU Local 26 and are negotiating a contract that would cover 60 percent of the cities’ private security guards. The seeds of victory were planted when the union negotiated a majority verification agreement with the firm Securitas, allowing workers to win their union when a majority signed authorization cards indicating the desire to join SEIU. In addition, this year more than 175 security officers forming unions with SEIU Local 24/7 in the San Francisco Bay Area were recognized voluntarily by their employer.
PACE WINS AT EXXONMOBIL—With a strong majority, the 18 lab technicians at the ExxonMobil refinery in Torrance, Calif., voted May 21 to join PACE International Union Local 8.
JUSTICE WITH AFSCME—Clerical and administrative employees of Northampton County in Pennsylvania voted to join AFSCME recently. The 123 new union members work in county courts, domestic relations, probation and district justice offices.
WALKING TO VICTORY—Union volunteers continued their drive to call on hundreds of thousands of union members in a series of June precinct walks in key presidential battleground states June 19. The walks began June 12 and culminate with a massive walk June 26 in more than 70 cities. The mobilization is part of the AFL-CIO’s Labor 2004 program. The walkers talk with union household members about where the presidential candidates stand on good jobs, health care and other issues. They also distribute literature that compares the failed policies of President George W. Bush with the plans and record of Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). Your participation is urgently needed—please sign up for the June 26 walks and other Labor 2004 actions by contacting your local union or central labor council or visiting www.aflcio.org.
KERRY SAYS JOBS EXPORT IS WRONG—”I’ve met steelworkers and mine workers and autoworkers who are now ex-workers. They’ve watched their jobs and equipment unbolted before their eyes and shipped overseas—and some have even had to train their foreign replacements. That’s wrong. That’s dead wrong, and I’m going to change it,” Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) told a cheering crowd at the New Jersey State AFL-CIO convention June 15. Kerry outlined his plans to stop corporations from shipping jobs overseas, revive the nation’s economy to benefit working families, provide affordable, quality health care and improve educational opportunities. He also told delegates at the Atlantic City convention, “It’s time once and for all we change the laws so workers can organize when a majority of them wants to, without intimidation and interference from management.” Visit www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/politics/nj_remarks.cfm to read the entire speech.
ACTIVISTS READY FOR WEEK OF ACTION—Workers and their unions are gearing up to celebrate Independence Day with a Voice@Work national workplace week of action June 28 to July 4. They will declare the freedoms we celebrate on Independence Day must include workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain for good contracts. Workers are expected to send tens of thousands of postcards supporting the Employee Free Choice Act to the presidential candidates—thanking Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) for co-sponsoring the legislation and urging President Bush to change his mind and support the bill. The measure would clear many of the unfair obstacles workers face when they try to join together in unions. Activists also will distribute fliers highlighting the differences between Kerry and Bush on the freedom to form unions and bargain good contracts. Unions, state federations and central labor councils are mobilizing for a range of Voice@Work actions. In Oakland, Calif., the Alameda County Central Labor Council will hold a hearing June 28 in which workers will tell their stories about what happened to them when they tried to form unions. In Seattle, the King County Labor Council is linking the week of action to ongoing organizing campaigns. On June 15, the Chicago Federation of Labor hosted a conference about the obstacles workers face when trying to form unions. Led by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and central labor council President Dennis Gannon, the 500 local activists signed the postcards and took stacks of them to distribute at their worksites. To order materials, call 202-637-5102 or e-mail bboyce@aflcio.org by June 23. Quantities are limited.
HARD FACTS ON MICROSOFT—Microsoft Corp.’s efforts to send high-tech jobs offshore began in 2001 when the software giant contracted with two of India’s largest consulting firms for the services of software architects, senior developers, program managers and testers, reported WashTech, the Seattle-based Washington Alliance of Technology Workers/Communications Workers of America Local 37083. WashTech obtained copies of the Microsoft contracts detailing the company’s relationship with Infosys Technologies Ltd. and Satyam Computer Services Ltd. The contracts differ from Microsoft’s public claims that it would move only “noncore and low-risk tasks to Indian developers.” For more information, visit www.washtech.org.
HOUSE DEMS’ JOB PLAN—A new American Jobs Plan would boost job growth in the United States and help slow the corporate export of American jobs overseas, U.S. House Democratic leaders said June 16. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) said the new jobs plan would counter “the inaction of the Bush administration.” The legislation will call for a new business tax credit for newly created U.S. manufacturing jobs and jobs in other industries harmed by outsourcing; the elimination of tax incentives for businesses to operate overseas; reviving the federal extended unemployment insurance program for jobless workers who exhaust their benefits; and increased funding for job training and math and science education. Also, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduced legislation (S. 2531) that would eliminate tax deductions and other tax breaks for companies that ship U.S. jobs offshore. Legislatures in 38 states are considering bills to address job exporting. In May, Tennessee passed a law to allow the state to give preferences to companies that do not send work overseas.
SENATE TOUGHENS PRIVATIZATION RULES—The Senate approved three amendments to the fiscal year 2005 Defense Authorization (S. 2400) bill that add additional oversight rules and worker protection to contracting out and outsourcing civilian defense jobs. However, AFGE President John Gage warned that Bush administration backroom arm-twisting still could derail the protections when the Senate and House versions of the defense authorization go to conference to be melded into a single measure. “When they get behind closed doors with their friends in the White House, these private contractors could win a veto threat from the president,” he said. For more information, visit www.afge.org.
STATE SAFETY INSPECTIONS UPHELD—A federal district court in Washington state threw out a suit by an employers’ group that claimed workplace safety inspections were unconstitutional without the owner’s permission or a search warrant. The Washington Farm Bureau’s suit argued the Washington Industrial Safety and Health Administration (WISHA) had no authority to obtain search warrants. “The Farm Bureau suit was not just a misguided effort to halt workplace safety inspections; it was an attempt to eliminate WISHA entirely,” said Rick Bender, president of the Washington State Labor Council.
UNIFORM CODE NOT JUSTICE—The Bush administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is allowing $30 million worth of uniforms for U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents to be outsourced to Mexico, according to the National Border Patrol Council, an AFGE affiliate. Unlike the Defense Department, which under law must ensure its uniforms and other clothing items are made in the United States, DHS has no such restrictions. The Border Patrol uniform contract was awarded to a Nashville, Tenn., company that is outsourcing the manufacturing to Mexico and that means “American taxpayers’ money may be supporting sweatshops,” says UNITE President Bruce Raynor. For more information, visit www.aflcio.org.
82 MILLION LACKED HEALTH COVERAGE—One of every three people in the United States younger than 65—nearly 82 million—lacked health care coverage for all or part of 2002 and 2003, according to a new study by Families USA. One-quarter of middle-income families went without coverage. The report, One in Three: Non-Elderly Americans Without Health Insurance, 2002–2003, finds more than half of the 81.8 million were uninsured for at least nine months—an increase of 7 million over 2001–2002. Four out of five lived in working families. For more information, visit www.familiesusa.org.
A BRIDGE TO ACTION—On June 19, tens of thousands of workers took action to Bridge the Gap for Health Care, participating in historic bridge walks across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, and in marches and rallies in 163 other cities in the Health Care National Day of Action. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney addressed the Brooklyn Bridge marchers. The events, sponsored by Americans for Health Care, SEIU, Jobs with Justice and Rock the Vote, are a national call to action for quality, affordable health care for all. Eight of every 10 of the 44 million Americans who currently lack health care insurance live in working families. For more information, visit www.bridgingthegapforhealthcare.org.
GET WELL SOON OR ELSE—States are not doing all they should to guarantee paid sick leave to employees, according to a new report from the National Partnership for Women & Families. Get Well Soon: Americans Can’t Afford to Be Sick, released June 15, analyzed laws and regulations governing paid sick leave in the United States and found states and the federal government are doing a poor job of ensuring workers can use paid sick days to care for ailing children and other relatives. A separate study by the Project on Global Working Families at Harvard University finds the United States lags far behind the rest of the developed world in giving workers paid sick days. While 117 nations guarantee their workers paid sick leave, the United States does not. On June 15, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) introduced Senate and House versions of the Healthy Families Act that would require employers to provide full-time workers at least seven paid sick days per year. For more information on the reports, visit www.nationalpartnership.org and www.globalworkingfamilies.org.
CBO SHOWS SOCIAL SECURITY STRENGTH—Social Security finances are stronger than previously believed, according to new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). CBO estimates Social Security has enough resources to pay full benefits until 2052, a decade longer than was estimated by the program’s trustees earlier this year. The report “is more evidence that the sky-is-falling tactics that have been employed for years by those who want to privatize the system for ideological reasons should be rejected,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.