(The AFL-CIO issued the following on June 6.)
SCHOOL WORKERS VOTE AFT—School support workers with the Douglas County, Colo., School District voted June 1 to join AFT. The 2,062 workers include instructional paraprofessionals, office employees, maintenance workers, bus drivers, food service workers and others. The same day, 63 support staff with the Northville (Mich.) Public Schools voted to join AFT.
THE MARK OF VICTORY—Some 300 food service workers employed by Aramark at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia voted recently to join UNITE HERE’s Philadelphia Joint Board.
CURTAIN’S UP FOR UNION—In Austin, Texas, 34 workers at the Austin Lyric Opera voted unanimously April 27 to join Theatrical Stage Employes Local 484. In Hollywood, Calif., 40 crew members on Campus Ladies Production, which is filming a 30-minute comedy series for Oxygen Network, also won IATSE representation. The victory came through majority sign-up, in which employers recognize the union after a majority of workers signs cards authorizing union representation.
TUNE TO THE UNION CHANNEL—Workers at WGBA television in Green Bay, Wis., voted unanimously to join Electrical Workers Local 715 recently. The 25-member unit includes photojournalists and news production staffers.
ECON CLAIMS—FACTS VS. FANTASY—On May 31, President George W. Bush declared, “Our economy is strong.” He cited as evidence job growth during the past two years and a 5.1 percent unemployment rate. He didn’t mention how many jobs have been lost in his entire four-year-plus tenure. According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the job growth Bush pointed to simply makes up for the jobs lost earlier in his term. In May when the economy added just 78,000 new jobs, about half of what was forecast, the number of jobs in the private sector finally recovered to the level of March 2001. About 2.7 million manufacturing jobs have disappeared since Bush took office. On the unemployment front, today’s 5.1 percent unemployment rate is a far cry from the 30-year record low rate of 3.9 percent when Bush took office.
TEMP JOBS SOAR—Of new jobs being created, not only are many lower-paying service jobs but many are temporary, with few or no benefits. According to the American Staffing Association, staffing companies employed more than 2.58 million temporary or contract workers in the first quarter of 2005, the highest level since it began tracking temporary job numbers in 1992.
SOCIAL SECURITY PRIVATIZATION CUTS DEEP—As part of his plan to privatize Social Security, President Bush endorsed a plan to peg Social Security benefits to growth in prices rather than wages. That would lead to substantial benefit cuts for more than 70 percent of the system’s beneficiaries, including future retirees, widows and surviving children, according to a new report by the EPI. Married couples, men and younger workers would suffer the deepest cuts, the report showed. For more on the report, visit www.epinet.org. Meanwhile, the 184-nation International Monetary Fund warned last week that Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security would “pose fiscal challenges” and create “a significant increase in federal deficits and debt in coming decades.” Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan has said increased borrowing to pay for private Social Security accounts might boost interest rates as well. To learn more about Social Security privatization, visit www.aflcio.org/socialsecurity.
TAKING IT TO WAL-MART—Union members and environmental, religious and community activists rattled Wal-Mart shareholders by taking their campaign to change the way Wal-Mart does business to the giant retailer’s annual shareholder meeting in Fayetteville, Ark., June 3. Outside the meeting, members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Wake-Up Wal-Mart campaign rallied and demanded the company pay its 1.2 million employees a living wage. Inside the meeting, the AFL-CIO, affiliated unions and religious groups’ pension funds introduced at least eight shareholder resolutions. The proposals included basing executive pay and stock options on company performance, requiring annual reports on corporate political donations and electing directors by a majority vote of shareholders. Prior to the meeting, activists rallied in eight states and called for states to adopt legislation requiring Wal-Mart to provide adequate health care for its employees. Wal-Mart is fighting proposed legislation in Minnesota that would disclose the names of companies whose workers and family members are enrolled in the state’s public health care assistance program. In states that compile such lists, Wal-Mart ranks near or at the top. The average Wal-Mart store costs taxpayers an estimated $108,000 a year for its workers’ children who are enrolled in state children’s health insurance programs, according to a congressional report. For more information on Wal-Mart, visit www.WalMartCostsYou.com and www.WakeUpWalMart.com.
FARMERS: BEWARE OF CAFTA—U.S. farmers and agricultural companies, which lost 16,000 jobs under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), should think twice about Bush administration promises of rapidly growing demand for U.S. farm products under the proposed Dominican Republic–Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), a new study said. The study, Will CAFTA Be a Boon to Farmers and the Food Industry? by EPI, compares claims to farmers made by NAFTA supporters with the treaty’s actual outcomes. For more information, visit www.epinet.org. Also, Oregon workers carrying signs listing the names of state companies that have shipped jobs overseas rallied in Eugene May 31 to oppose CAFTA. The trade deal would extend the job loss and environmental damage caused by NAFTA to the Dominican Republic and five Central American nations. To learn more about CAFTA, visit www.aflcio.org/cafta.
THOUSANDS RALLY FOR SHIPYARD—Some 15,000 workers, their families and friends rallied at the Portsmouth (N.H.) Naval Shipyard June 1 urging that the facility be kept open. In May, the Defense Department recommended the yard be closed along with 33 other military installations. About 4,800 people, including 4,000 union members, work at the yard. The unions representing the workers include the Portsmouth Metal Trades Council unions, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers and AFGE. At the rally, thousands wore bright yellow “Save Our Shipyard” T-shirts and many children carried signs reading “Kids Against Closure” and “My Daddy Works at the Shipyard.” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney was among the union leaders who spoke at the rally.
UNIONS PUSH COMCAST CORPORATE REFORM—Some 50 Communications Workers of America and IBEW members leafleted shareholders at Comcast Corp.’s annual meeting June 1, as shareholders voted on corporate reform resolutions, including a one share, one vote shareholder democracy proposal. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts controls 34 percent of the shares but just 3 percent of total equity. The proposal received 34.1 percent of all the shares cast—which included Roberts’—but won 51.2 percent of the public shares voted. Other proposals called for an independent board of directors and creation of separate CEO and chairman positions, both currently held by Roberts. Comcast workers across the nation are seeking a voice at work but face Comcast’s huge anti-union campaign. For more information, visit www.comcastwatch.com.
TAKING IT BACK—Some 3,000 union, civil rights, women’s, environmental and other activists shared and developed strategies and networked relationships at the three-day, Take Back America conference in Washington, D.C., last week. Sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future, the conference explored new ideas and initiatives for building a progressive majority to move the country away from the corporate and extremist agenda of the Bush administration. The conference included media and political training workshops and sessions on critical issues such as Social Security, corporate accountability, workers’ freedom to form unions and more. It wrapped up with a rally across the street from the White House opposing Social Security privatization. For more information, visit www.ourfuture.org.
LIVING WAGE DOESN’T COST JOBS—Los Angeles’ living wage, currently $10.03 an hour, has raised pay for some 9,500 mostly low-income workers, a new report shows. Examining the Evidence—The Impact of the Los Angeles Living Wage Ordinance on Workers and Businesses found most of the workers benefiting from the living-wage law are low-income or families at the poverty level. Despite claims of the law’s opponents, the living wage, which was enacted in 1997, has not caused widespread job loss. The law cost only 112 jobs, or less than 1 percent of the 22,000 jobs critics predicted, according to the report. With the federal minimum wage frozen at $5.15 an hour since 1997, local union leaders and activists from New York City to Santa Monica, Calif., have helped pass more than 100 living-wage ordinances nationwide. For a copy of the report, visit www.losangeleslivingwagestudy.com, and for more information, visit www.aflcio.org/yourjobeconomy/livingwage.
HANG UP AND FLY—Letting airline passengers use cell phones would create chaos in the cabin, interfere with air traffic communications and pose a security risk, the Flight Attendants-CWA said in testimony filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). “I’ve seen fistfights because one passenger put his seat back and the passenger behind him wants to read his newspaper. Can you imagine what would happen with 300 people gabbing away on cell phones?” one attendant asked in the testimony. The AFA-CWA testimony also said cell phones could interfere with a plane’s communications, navigation and other electronic systems and could make it easier for terrorists to communicate and to coordinate attacks. The FCC is taking public comments on its proposal to lift the cell phone ban until June 27 at www.fcc.gov. Click on “Filing Public Comments.”
‘STOP RACING JOBS OVERSEAS’—United Steelworkers members used the Indianapolis 500 race May 29 to tell Bridgestone/Firestone to reinvest in its eight U.S. tire plants rather than ship jobs overseas. Some 6,000 USW members work at the plants and have been without a contract for more than two years. The race drew about 250,000 fans. At several booths around the Indy 500 speedway grounds, union members asked fans to sign petitions and distributed more than 100,000 sets of earplugs, Indy Racing League schedules and black flags, all with a pro-worker message. The union also sponsored local radio ads, mobile billboards and a banner-towing plane to fly overhead.
SOLIDARITY NEW PROM THEME—The junior and senior classes at the private Oakwood School in North Hollywood, Calif., didn’t replace their corsages with union buttons or dance to “Solidarity Forever.” But they did recently vote to move their prom from the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, where it has been held for the past 15 years in a show of support for UNITE HERE Local 11’s boycott of eight area hotels, including the Millennium, where its members have been without a contract since April 2004. The students, whose prom will be at the union-recommended Renaissance Hotel in Hollywood, are urging other area schools to take similar actions.