(The AFL-CIO circulated the following on May 31.)
MORE THAN 400 JOIN TEAMSTERS—More than 200 medical lab assistants at Detroit Medical Center voted to join IBT Local 283 recently. In Hesperia, Calif., 133 bus drivers, mechanics and aides employed by Laidlaw Education Services voted for IBT Local 572. Fifty-one mechanics, counter rental representatives and service agents at Budget Rent-a-Car in West Palm Beach, Fla., voted in late April to join IBT Local 769. Thirteen workers at two locations—Dubuque and Cedar Rapids, Iowa—of My Type Inc., a DHL independent cartage contractor, voted May 17 to join IBT locals 421 and 238.
FACULTY VOTES—The 65-member faculty of Montana Tech in Butte voted May 23 for representation by MEA-MFT, the merged NEA and AFT state affiliate. Montana Tech is part of the University of Montana system. The election leaves only one public higher education institution in the state not affiliated with MEA-MFT, union leaders said.
ONLINE HEARING LOOKS AT UNITED—In what was the first-ever online congressional hearing, unions and others testified about United Airlines’ decision to dump $6.6 billion in unfunded pension liability onto taxpayers, a move approved by a federal bankruptcy judge May 10. Along with testimony from the Flight Attendants-CWA and Machinists leaders, more than 125 United employees submitted e-testimony during the May 23–27 hearing. The unique hearing was developed by Democrats on the House Education and Workforce Committee after the Republican majority refused to look into the United pension bailout. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC) will take over the pension liability, but under PBGC’s formula, many of the airlines’ 120,000 current and former employees will see their promised pensions slashed by more than half. To read the testimony, visit http://edworkforce.house.gov/democrats/unitedhearing.html.
HISPANIC CAUCUS SAYS ‘NO’ TO CAFTA—The Congressional Hispanic Caucus voted 14–1 May 25 to oppose the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). CAFTA would extend to the Dominican Republic and five Central American countries the low wages and environmental damage caused by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). “The vote demonstrates that CAFTA is a failed model of trade and development for Central America and the United States,” said AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson. “Instead of improving things, CAFTA will further oppress workers, depress wages in the Dominican Republic and Central America and cost jobs in the United States,” she said. For more information on CAFTA, visit www.aflcio.org/cafta.
SHIPYARD WORKERS RALLY—Thousands of Portsmouth (N.H.) Naval Shipyard workers, union leaders and others fighting to keep the yard in open will rally outside the gates June 1. In May, the federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission recommended the yard be closed, along with 33 other military installations. About 4,800 people, including 4,000 union members, work at the yard, and they were honored by the Navy last year for their exemplary work in maintaining the Navy’s submarine fleet. Most of the union workers are members of Portsmouth Metal Trades Council unions, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers and AFGE. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, AFL-CIO Metal Trades Department President Ron Ault and Painters and Allied Trades President James Williams are scheduled to attend the rally.
TRUTH ON THE ROAD—Federal workers hit the road last week to let the public know the truth behind the Bush administration’s proposed National Security Personnel System (NSPS) rules for 750,000 Department of Defense workers. The new rules gut the civil service and bargaining rights of the department’s civilian workers. The NSPS Truth Tour was organized by AFL-CIO Metal Trades Department unions that represent federal workers. Hundreds of workers rallied in Norfolk, Va., Puget Sound Naval Yard in Bremerton, Wash., and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and called on Congress to stop or modify the rules, which could be implemented later this summer. In January, a similar set of personnel rules was announced for 170,000 workers in the Department of Homeland Security, and Bush administration officials say they will seek to impose similar new personnel rules on the entire federal workforce. For more information, visit www.afge.org and www.aflcio.org.
SOCIAL SECURITY KEY TO SENIOR INCOME—With Congress debating President George W. Bush’s scheme to privatize Social Security, a new study shows the system’s guaranteed payments play a growing role in keeping retirees out of poverty. More and more retirees depend on Social Security for their income as pension benefits become smaller or even disappear, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute. The study, Retirement Income: The Crucial Role of Social Security, found the value of Social Security retirement benefits represents the largest single source of wealth for the typical worker approaching retirement. For two-thirds of people older than 65, Social Security provides more than half of all income. Meanwhile, the public still is not buying Bush’s privatization plan. By a 56-percent-to-36 percent margin, respondents to a recent Wall Street Journal poll said it is a bad idea to shift Social Security contributions into the stock market. For more on the EPI study, visit www.epinet.org. To learn more about the Bush privatization plan, visit www.aflcio.org/socialsecurity.
SENATE VOTE SOON ON EXTREMIST JUDGE—Union activists and civil rights, women’s and other groups are gearing up to defeat Janice Rogers Brown, one of President Bush’s most extremist nominees for a seat on the federal appeals courts. She will likely face a Senate confirmation vote in early June. Brown once called programs such as Social Security “cannibalization” by senior citizens looking for “free stuff” from the government. Democrats had blocked her nomination in the previous Congress, but Bush renominated her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit—the nation’s second most powerful court. Under a recent agreement reached by a bipartisan group of senators to preserve the right to filibuster judicial nominees, Democrats agreed not to block votes on several Bush nominees, including Brown and Priscilla Owen, who won Senate confirmation in a 56-43 vote May 25. Democrats had blocked a handful of Bush nominees because of their bad records on workers’ rights, civil rights and other important working family issues. To download a fact sheet on Brown and for more information, visit www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/upload/brown_fsheet.pdf.
EHRLICH VETOES WAGE HIKE—Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich (R) May 20 vetoed legislation that would have raised the state’s minimum wage by a dollar to $6.15 an hour. Ehrlich’s veto “continued his relentless assault on working families in Maryland,” said Tom Hucker, executive director of Progressive Maryland, a coalition of unions and activist groups that supported the bill. Meanwhile in Philadelphia, Mayor John Street (D) signed an ordinance that boosts the minimum wage to 150 percent of the federal or state minimum wage, whichever is greater. It covers city workers, workers for city service contractors and companies that receive financial aid from the city. It immediately boosts the city minimum wage to $7.73 an hour. The federal minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 an hour since 1997.
CBTU TACKLES ECONOMY’S CHALLENGES—The challenges posed by unemployment among African Americans and the restructuring of the AFL-CIO topped the agenda for the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists’ convention in Phoenix May 25–30. The fact blacks held 55 percent of union jobs lost in 2004 is not being fully discussed in the debate on the future of the union movement, CBTU President Bill Lucy told the more than 1,500 delegates. “Black workers—like women and other people of color—are central to organized labor’s attempt to become more relevant to an American workforce that looks less and less like the labor movement of the past 50 years,” he said. The convention also included town hall meetings on relations among people of color and the export of U.S. jobs. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and the Rev. Jesse Jackson addressed the convention. For more information, visit www.cbtu.org.
TRUTH GETS RAILROADED—The railroad industry’s attempt to distort its own safety record through self-awarded safety prizes is a shameful disservice to those who work for or live near freight railroads, said Ed Wytkind, president of the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department. He called the industry’s recent Harriman awards for safety an attempt to paint a rosy picture of its safety record although 896 people were killed in rail accidents in 2004. The TTD endorses a doubling of federal rail inspectors, stronger whistle-blower protections, limits on the use of remote control technologies and stronger training mandates.
CONTRACEPTION EQUITY IN ARK.—Arkansas became the 22nd state to pass a contraception equity law that requires health benefit plans that cover prescription medicines to provide FDA-approved prescription contraception. The law, signed May 25, exempts certain nonprofit religious employers. According to the Coalition of Labor Union Women’s Contraception Equity Project, women on average pay 68 percent more out of pocket for health care expenses than men—largely because of contraception costs. For more information on contraception equity, visit www.cluw.org.
CALIF. NURSE STAFFING UPHELD—Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) did not have the authority to delay new stringent nurse staffing rules when he issued orders to do so last year, a California Superior Court judge ruled May 26. The new staffing rule, mandated by the state legislature and backed by the state’s health care unions, was due to go into effect Jan. 1, 2005, but Schwarzenegger’s action delayed its implementation until 2008. The judge’s ruling upholds an earlier court order requiring the state’s hospitals to meet the more stringent nurse-to-patient ratio. More legal action is expected.
NEW MODEL NEEDED—Unions around the world must look beyond their own countries and come together to build strategies to counter global corporate trade rules and benefit workers worldwide, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka told the International Pacific Rim Mining and Maritime Unions Seminar in Long Beach, Calif., May 22. The “American Model” of free trade, which drives down wages and ignores workers’ rights, is being exported to the world, he said. To balance oppressive corporate power, Trumka said unions need to create new strategies, such as using shareholder initiatives to democratize and improve corporate governance.
SOL STETIN DIES—Sol Stetin, 95, former president of the Textile Workers (now part of UNITE HERE), died May 25. A Polish immigrant, Stetin rose from a job in a Paterson, N.J., dye shop to become an organizer for the union and was elected president in 1972. He gave up the top job in 1976 to lead a merger with the Amalgamated Textile Workers, where he served as executive vice president until he retired. A memorial service was held in St. Louis May 26. The family requests contributions in his name be made to the American Labor Museum/Botto House, which he helped found, or to Jobs with Justice to fund an annual Sol Stetin fellowship.