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Donna Gratehouse, who blogs at DemocraticDiva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.

As Arizona’s “Wisconsin on Steroids” anti-worker bills get streamlined through committee hearings, Arizona labor leaders are gearing up to push back. This afternoon, I spoke with Roman Ulman, executive director of AFSCME Arizona. Ulman told me union leaders are still meeting with legislators at this point, urging them to support working families over corporate interests. As he said:

Senators on both sides of the aisle are telling me they are uncomfortable with the bills and are pleased that we’re talking and not walking at this point. Some of the Republicans have privately expressed to me that they’re tired of being terrorized by the Goldwater Institute and the Tea Party into voting for bad legislation. They want to focus on the budget and solving Arizona’s problems.

(Click here to sign a petition to tell all Arizona lawmakers to stop the attacks on firefighters, teachers, police officers and other hard-working public service workers.)

Private conversations aside, even the more principled Republican lawmakers in Arizona have a history of caving under under corporate pressure so it is expected that the majority will vote for the bills in the end. Ulman says union members and allies are prepared for that.

If it moves out of the Senate, all bets are off and we will march and take our case to the public.

Labor and community groups plan to hold a press conference on the lawn of the State Capitol in Phoenix on Thursday afternoon and are expecting a good sized crowd to turn out.

The Goldwater Institute has been working diligently to pit private-sector workers against public-sector workers, so much so that they’ve taken to pretending to support private sector unions!

Which is odd because I had never known the folks at the Goldwater Institute, who support right to work laws with the same fervor that they oppose minimum wage laws, to be fans of any kind of union. So I asked Ulman about that and he agreed that it was preposterous. “They’re against all unions!”
He says the unions have noticed this new tack by the Goldwater Institute too, and they aren’t buying it.

Some of them trip up and admit they want to end all the unions but the smoother ones are sticking to the script. They’re running a stealth operation and they’ll say anything to move their agenda forward.

Ulman assured me that Arizona’s public-sector unions have the full support of private-sector unions.

People are so geeked up right now I’m having to tell them to calm down!

Last year, despite some twisted political maneuvering and trickery by New Hampshire House Speaker William O’Brien (R), he and other anti-worker lawmakers and their out-of-state backers could not override Gov. John Lynch’s (D) veto of a right to work for less bill.  With a new legislative session underway, they’re back at it again.

Thursday, the House labor Committee will hold a hearing on a new right to work (RTW) bill. Although  the calendar may have changed, the facts haven’t—right to work is still wrong for New Hampshire, a new Economic Policy Institute (EPI) report finds.

Political economist Gordon Lafer provides new evidence that RTW laws have failed as economic development strategies and would likely harm New Hampshire.  Right to Work: A Failed Policy, A New Hampshire Update strengthens the findings of Right-to-Work: Wrong for New Hampshire, an analysis of why RTW was particularly unsuited to New Hampshire that EPI released last April.

Some of the new evidence Lafer examines that confirms the harm that RTW has caused to state economies includes:

• A 2012 study by economists from the University of Nevada and Claremont McKenna College estimates that the damage RTW inflicts on nonunion employees is greater than earlier research suggested.
• A recent survey of manufacturers found that RTW status has fallen (to 16th place) in the list of factors influencing location decisions.
• An Oklahoma think tank that promoted the adoption of a RTW law reported that the state has in fact lost manufacturing jobs and become a next job exporter in the years since.
• A new study finds that workplaces in the construction industry are less safe in RTW states than in non-RTW states.
• Recent unemployment data show that New Hampshire continues to outperform RTW states.

Click here for the full report.

Sort of like that periodic rash that you can’t scratch in public, Richard Berman is back. Berman is best known to us in the union movement for his so-called “Center on Union Facts” that is to facts what Bernie Madoff is to secure investments.

Now, Berman has launched a $10 million campaign, writes the National Journal, to help push new federal anti-union legislation under the 180-degree-from-the-truth title the Employee Rights Act.

Part of that $10 million helped buy a 30-second spot in selected markets—during the Super Bowl that earned three “Pinocchios” from the Washington Post’s Fact Checker on campaigning and advocacy ads for using “nonsense” facts to make its claim. A trio of long-nosed wooden Italian puppets means that add contains “Significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions.”

BTW, there was bit more fantasy in the ad. Super corporate insider Berman played a mechanic in the ad. Now there’s some acting, playing someone who gives an honest day’s work.

Berman also runs corporate financed “astro-turf” campaigns that masquerade as grassroots movements against consumer, safety, health, environmental, corporate and financial regulations. Berman’s anti-union phony front group does not reveal its donors. But according to The Republic Report, it has been reported that the group coordinates with the Big Business-backed U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

In the past, Berman has taken money from corporations—including from Wendy’s, Phillip Morris, Tyson Foods, Cargill, and Coco-Cola—to orchestrate “fake grass-roots websites and movements.”

With the 2012 election year heating up, don’t be surprised if you see more of Berman’s ads’ popping on the air or in print.  But the next time you need to scrape some of his “union facts” off your shoes, click here to visit Berman Exposed from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

Unemployment as we know it is on the chopping block.

So-called tea party legislators are trying to punish and humiliate people who are out of work—they’re even threatening to take away unemployment insurance from some people completely.

If you believe Congress should be focusing on jobs instead of punishing and even humiliating people who are out of work through no fault of their own, take action now.

These “tea party” politicians are pushing plans to:

• Slash federal unemployment funding by more than half in the states with the highest unemployment.
• Let states whose governments have been taken over by the tea party divert premium money away from unemployment as we know it—and use it to experiment with right-wing social engineering programs (like “workfare,” where people are forced to work for free to get unemployment benefits).
• Mandate drug testing requirements. Politicians are ready to humiliate people who are out of work—by making them urinate in a cup to get benefits they paid for and are entitled to.
• Make jobless workers pay for their re-employment services. People who are out of work through no fault of their own and have paid into the system aren’t asking for a handout—but a helping hand. Now, the radical lawmakers want to make them to pay for the privilege.
• Deny benefits to people who never got their high school diploma lose their right to benefits—they’d have unemployment insurance taken out of their paycheck—but will get nothing should they lose their job. Shame!
• Cut federal employee pensions—or freezing wages for yet another year. Federal workers have already done more than their fair share to balance the budget—while the richest 1% of Americans have been asked to do absolutely nothing.

Tell Congress to focus on jobs rather than punishing jobless workers who have already suffered enough.

 

This is a cross-post from Jared Bernstein’s blog, On the Economy. Bernstein is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) and, from 2009 to 2011, was the chief economist and economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.

I’ve always thought the national minimum wage is a lot more important than most people tend to think. By definition, it sets a floor on the low end of the job market, though to their credit, many states now set their minimums above the federal level of $7.25 (Washington State clocks in at a cool $9.04). So it’s a floor, not a ceiling.

Lots of low-wage workers and their families depend on it, and its long slide, as shown in the accompanying chart, especially over the Reagan years, contributed to wage losses and working poverty for many who toil to this day in low-end services.

Of course, when someone raises the idea of a raise, you hear a huge outcry from some in the business lobby. Their generic argument is that the increase will lead to job losses among those low-wage workers affected by the higher wage level. Such workers, they say, will now be “priced out of the labor market.”

Yet, you hear the opposite from groups that represent low-wage workers’ interests, groups like the National Employment Law Project, or NELP (proud disclosure: I’m on their board).

Now, let’s just pause here for a second. The D.C. lobby that represents low-wage employers says they’re against the increase but not because it would raise labor costs and cut into profits, but because it’s bad for the workers themselves, who will suffer reduced hours and layoffs. But the workers’ groups say, “Bring it on!”

Hmmm…who you gonna believe?

In fact, with all this state variation—and some international variation as well (the UK has seen quite sharp increases in its minimum wage since it was re-introduced in the late 1990s)—we’ve had the benefit of natural experiments, rare in economics, enabling econometricians to fight it out as to the job loss effects (here’s mine with the great John Schmitt from a few years back).

It’s a large, gnarly literature, but I think it’s fair to say that most objective parties come away thinking that the hysteria around the increase is overblown. It helps some low-wage workers, most of whom are adults, many of whom have kids. Some studies find small job loss effects, some none.

A much more interesting question, economically speaking, is why don’t we see the horrifics that opponents scream about? I mean, the textbook theory implies that a one penny increase in a market wage should lead to massive unemployment, and that, I can say with 100 percent confidence is not at all what we’ve seen.

In fact, there are numerous other channels through which the higher wage is absorbed:

• Profits: to the extent that the increase is paid for out of profits, we shouldn’t expect job losses. And in an economy where profits have dazzled while paychecks have fizzled, that ain’t a bad thing.
• Prices: some studies find that a small bit gets passed through to higher prices.
• Productivity: to the extent that higher wages reduce turnover and vacancies, a higher minimum can partially pay for itself by squeezing out such inefficiencies. It’s not wishful thinking—some studies have found just that.
• Reasonable rates: it matters what the level you raise it to, and historically, increases have affected less than 10% of the workforce, often even smaller shares. With relatively few in the “affected range” we wouldn’t expect to see large distortions.
• It’s stimulus! Minimum wage workers tend to spend the extra cash, so there’s more economic activity than otherwise would occur—btw, even under the redistributive scenario described under “profits” above, you’ll get this effect if low-wage workers consume more of their last dollar than those in the sky boxes.

Finally, I’ve got to partially give it up to Gov. Mitt Romney (R) as the dude has taken significant incoming from his rivals for advocating indexing the national minimum wage, as is already done in some of those states noted above, so it doesn’t lose value over time as prices rise. It’s an excellent idea in that a) you avoid the dips in the figure below—which shows the real value of the national minimum since 1960, and b) businesses know what to expect. I mean, after all, we index lots of stuff like this, including Social Security and [Earned Income Tax Credits] EITC benefits.

Why just “partially” in terms of giving it up to Mitt? Again, look at the figure. We don’t want to index the national wage to such a historically low level.

So where should we set it? I need to do more research on the question of “affected range” as noted above, but given that a national campaign will take numerous years to gain traction, I suspect I’ll end up in the $9-$10 range, phasing it in starting a year or so down the road. That’s higher than the historical record as shown in the chart, but of course, average wages have gone up considerably over these years and the divergence between the wage floor and the average is both a symptom and a cause of increased earnings inequality (a graph of the minimum wage compared to the average wage would trend downward; I’ll make that soon).

What’s that? I’m dreaming??!! I don’t think so. Surely there’s a minimum wage increase out there in our future. The sooner we get to work on it, the sooner that future arrives.

The AFL-CIO is joining with civil rights, community and labor partners in the re-enactment of the historic 1965 Selma to Montgomery, Ala., civil rights march that will focus attention on new attacks on voting rights, immigrants, workers’ rights and education.

Speaking, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., this morning, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker told reporters:

The onslaught of coordinated attacks on workers’ rights, voting rights, public education and immigration reform is an affront to our democracy.  During the difficult economic times that so many of our communities are facing, we would much rather see our state legislators spending their time focusing on job creation…as opposed to deconstructing  our fundamental rights.

The five-day march will begin on Sunday March 4 in Selma in remembrance of 1965’s “Bloody Sunday” when more than 600 marchers calling for enactment of the Voting Rights Act were met by hundreds of local and state police with billy clubs and tear gas.

The march is being sponsored by National Action Network (NAN) and NAN President the Rev, Al Sharpton said:

It is important that we not just remember what Dr. King and others did in 1965 with the Voting Rights Act that came as a result of the Selma to Montgomery march. We must preserve it against Voter ID Laws and the early voting and voter suppression attempts that are taking place today

Said Holt Baker:

We may be marching from Selma to Montgomery, but this is about the Wisconsins, Ohios, Indianas, Arizonas, the Michigans and any other state where they’re blatantly attacking our rights.

 

 

Mike Gillis, Ohio AFL-CIO communications director, sends us this.

A new report released today by People For the American Way Foundation, Common Cause, the Center for Media and Democracy and Progress Ohio reveals the deep ties between the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Ohio state lawmakers.

ALEC in Ohio: The Corporate Special Interests that Help Write Ohio’s Laws, demonstrates ALEC’s policymaking influence with an in-depth analysis of the organization’s ties to key Ohio lawmakers, as well as a side-by-side comparison of nine ALEC “model” bills and actual Ohio legislation, including:

• Attacks on workers by severely limiting collective bargaining, eliminating public employment through outsourcing and privatizing government functions;
• Diminishing public education through private school voucher programs and private scholarship tax credits;
• Encouraging the privatization of state prisons to benefit the private prison industry;
• Voter suppression bills designed to disenfranchise thousands of eligible Americans;
• Draconian anti-immigrant measures that criminalize undocumented workers and penalize their employers;
• Creation of barriers for consumers and injured parties in seeking justice from corporations in a court of law;
• Measures to prevent implementation of health care reform.

At a press conference releasing the report, Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga explained ALEC’s influence over many legislative initiatives, including SB 5, which repealed collective bargaining rights for Ohio public employees (and which Ohio voters overwhelmingly overturned in a 2011 ballot intiative). “When Ohioans overwhelmingly rejected SB 5 last year, they sent a clear message that they will not tolerate attacks on Ohio’s middle class,” said Burga.

They rejected the idea that our economic problems are the result of the workers’ rights to collectively bargain. They fully rejected that extreme political agenda and opted instead to support governance with basic fairness.

Lisa Graves, Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy, noted Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s ties to ALEC.

Ohio is led by ALEC alum John Kasich, who has long advanced the agenda of ALEC corporations to the detriment of American citizens during his time in Congress and now in the statehouse in the Buckeye state.

Burga called for legislators to cut their ties with ALEC and align themselves more closely with the interests of those they were elected to represent.

What is needed is an agenda that focuses on doing the most good for the most Ohioans rather than legislating for the narrow benefit of so few.

 

 

Christian Sweeney, AFL-CIO deputy organizing director, sends us this.

A busload of teaching and research assistants from New York University (NYU) traveled to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) headquarters in Washington, D.C., in recent days to call on the board to affirm their right to form unions. The NYU TAs and RAs, members of the UAW, filed a petition seeking a union recognition election in the spring of 2010 but are still waiting for a board decision.

Chanting “Two years is too long to wait,” as they rallied outside the NLRB, the TAs and RAs are among tens of thousands of private university graduate employees seeking their legally protected right to form a unions. That right was taken away by a ruling from the George W. Bush-appointed NLRB in 2004. 

In December, TAs and RAs from the University of Chicago protested outside the NLRB offices in Chicago, calling on the NLRB to issue a decision in the NYU case affirming teaching and research assistants’ right to form unions under federal law. The University of Chicago grad employees, who are part of Graduate Students United, an organizing project jointly affiliated with the AFT and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), stood in solidarity with the UAW campaign at NYU.

Teaching assistants and research assistants—grad employees—are critical to the mission of our universities. They are paid modestly to teach classes, grade papers and tests, tutor students, run labs and do the research that make U.S. universities the envy of the world.  Since the 1960s, thousands of these student workers have formed unions.  Many of our most prestigious public universities—Wisconsin, Michigan, UC Berkeley, UCLA and the University of Washington—have graduate employees who are union members, and more than 50,000 graduate employees are members of AFL-CIO affiliate unions.

“We are proud to support the efforts of these young workers in the UAW and the AFT,” said AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler, who heads up the AFL-CIO’s Young Workers Initiative.

They deserve the same rights that other workers have and we look forward to the day when the NLRB restores their rights under the law.

With the graduation of seven newly certified weatherization technicians from its Eastern New York Laborers Training Center, the New York State Laborers’ Union (NYSLIUNA) is blowing holes in several right-wing myths all at once, proving that jobless people do want to work, government programs can spur the creation of good jobs and labor unions can lead the way to prosperity.

Working in partnership with Peter Young Housing, Industries & Treatment (PYHIT), a non-profit that provides treatment, housing and vocational training to disadvantaged people struggling with drug and alcohol addiction, the Laborers trained these first members of Green Jobs Local 58, chartered by the Laborers (LIUNA) as the first local in the Albany, N.Y., region dedicated exclusively to green jobs. Participants in the training had to be clean and sober for at least six months in order to be accepted into the program.

Thanks in part to the state’s 2009 Green Jobs/Green New York Act and a new program launched by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), the demand for the retrofitting of homes to be more weather-resistant and energy-efficient is expected to climb. (Through the NYSERDA program, residents will be able to finance the weatherization of their homes via their monthly utility bills.)

The new Local 58 members will work for Eagle Street Construction, one of PYHIT’s vocational enterprises. Local 58 Business Manager Frank Marchese Jr. told the Albany Times Union that the workers would earn $14 per hour, plus a benefits package. He told the paper:

We are taking people involved in social programs who are now moving into being viable taxpayers.

Pete Wilcox, one of the local’s new members, expressed his enthusiasm to the Times Union this way:

I am very thankful for the opportunity to get green jobs training. I live in Albany and it means a lot to me to be able to have the skills to weatherize homes in my own backyard.

Sounds like a win for everybody.

Donna Gratehouse, who blogs at DemocraticDiva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.

Arizona’s teachers and first responders are under full-frontal attack this week, as union-stripping bills that have been called “Wisconsin on steroids” are being shuttled through the legislative process at whirlwind speed. These bills would prohibit public-sector unions from negotiating pay and benefits, ban paycheck deductions for union dues and ban compensation for union activities. They passed through committee hearings last week and are going to be debated in the full Senate this week. It’s expected that they will pass through both chambers easily due to the anti-labor GOP majority in both. It’s unclear if Gov. Jan Brewer will sign them into law. A Phoenix-based right-wing pressure group, the Goldwater Institute, and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are behind the measures.

Like their counterparts in Wisconsin last year, working people in Arizona are not taking this lying down. Rebekah Friend, Arizona AFL-CIO executive director, told Phoenix newscaster Brahm Resnik on Sunday morning that the Arizona union movement is planning to use “every option available” to fight these attacks on working families. The Arizona AFL-CIO and member unions are mobilizing people to call and write their state representatives to oppose the bills. Friend assured Resnik that, if necessary, they can fill the state Capitol with people.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi attending BAYDA Institute.   

This is a cross-post from the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center.

Almost 22 years ago, the National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide in a free and fair election in Burma—but the military dictatorship refused to let the NLD take power. Instead, the ruling junta crushed the organization and imprisoned its members and activists, including its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

In the past six months, Burma seems to be thawing, opening to the outside world it long shunned. And Suu Kyi, who spent many of the interceding years under house arrest—and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her struggle—is out again among the people, speaking at rallies and renewing her call for democracy.

On a recent trip to Rangoon, I had the opportunity to sit down with Aung San Suu Kyi for a conversation about the future of the labor movement in Burma. We discussed my meetings over the previous few days—with journalists, farmers, textile and garment workers and industrial workers—all of whom had started to form independent unions. She thanked the Solidarity Center and the U.S. labor movement for its support.

Suu Kyi had already given a lot of thought to what a future Burma labor movement should look like. She felt that it was important for unions to be responsible and to work for their members. She said the new unions should not be tools or fronts for any political parties, including her own NLD. She did not say that unions should not be involved in politics or support the political parties they wanted, but she did voice her position that parties should not create unions and the NLD had no desire or intent to do so.

When we talked about economic development, she stressed that Burma should not be just about garment factories; other, more creative economic development was necessary, she said. I said that Burma had the opportunity to engage in a variety of economic activities and mentioned natural resources and extractive industries as possible but also problematic. She laughed gently and said there were a lot of opportunities “to do things right or do them very wrong.”

We ended the meeting with a promise to stay in touch, and she said that they would be busy until April 1, when by-elections are scheduled. The NLD is going to participate in elections for the first time in 20 years.

“We should meet soon,” she said as I was leaving. And she reiterated the importance of independent, responsible unions, saying she did not want to see unions run by demagogues. 

“Being a demagogue is so boring,” she said with a laugh.

The Solidarity Center over the past two decades has supported Burmese labor activists that have worked with Burmese migrant workers in Thailand, have reach within the country, and have trained workers about their rights and international labor standards. Today, these workers in Burma are beginning to form and register their own unions.

    AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker, Indiana AFL-CIO President Nancy Guyott and others distributed fliers in Super Bowl Village, welcoming fans and reminding them the stadium was union built, the stadium staffed by union members, the half-time show courtesy of union members, the beer made by union members and the game played by union members.        

Over the weekend, all eyes were on the Super Bowl in Indianapolis, where tens of thousands traveled to see the event and hundreds of thousands more watched it on television. But while the spotlight was on the game, workers across the city took to the streets to protest the outrages happening to working people.

In one such event, we rallied at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Indianapolis, where hardworking hotel housekeepers are fighting to keep their jobs and boost their poverty-level pay at a hotel where rates can be more than $1,000 a night for a Super Bowl week room. Twenty longtime hotel workers may be out of jobs in a few days when the hotel ends a subcontract with Hospitality Staffing Solutions.

The hotel workers are not in this fight alone. In the midst of what is undoubtedly the busiest few days for football players, DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), and NFL players joined Hyatt housekeepers at the rally to demand Hyatt end its abuse of subcontracted workers and hire outsourced workers directly. Smith said NFL players would  continue a year-old boycott of Hyatt over its treatment of  workers and told the crowd:

I love people who stand together to fight for what’s right.

Just blocks from the Super Bowl, these football players, together with construction workers, office staff and steelworkers, stood side by side with hotel housekeepers, joined in common cause by the struggles that unite all working people—all of the 99 percent in this country who are fighting against corporate greed and challenging politicians who seek to take away our rights as citizens of this great country.

    AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker on the picket line with UNITEHERE! members and allies.        

Days ago, some of those politicians right here in Indiana pushed through the state legislature  legislation that is a massive assault on the wages of the state’s working people. The “right to work” for less bill was hustled through the legislative process in a series of dirty tricks in outright contempt for democracy.

What’s happening in Indiana is just one part of the massive assault on working families across the country. Yet over the past year, we saw again and again the strength of collective action, of public protest in state after state as the rights of workers came under attack. We re-learned that we are not alone, and we have seen that when we stand together with those who share our values, victory is ours.

Hours after Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) signed Indiana’s contemptuous bill, tens of thousands of Hoosier workers came together in solidarity to march from the statehouse to Super Bowl village. Construction workers and teachers, grocery clerks and truck drivers chanted “Remember November,” vowing to take back the state door by door, neighborhood by neighborhood.

This year, as in Indiana, we will stand together for jobs and for economic freedom across the nation. We’ll congregate in the public square. And on Election Day, we’ll march to the ballot box to cast our votes for economic, social and political justice.

 

In a radio ad airing on Indianapolis-area stations during Super Bowl week, UNITEHERE! reminds listeners one of the first things many young NFL players do after signing a first contract is “buy their mom a house, or build her a new kitchen or let her retire.”

Many NFL players were raised by moms who cleaned houses, cleaned hotels or cleaned both. We all have a special place in our heart for the women of Indianapolis who do that work.

The commercial (click here to listen) to raise awareness about hardworking hotel housekeepers is airing at the same time housekeepers at the Hyatt Regency Indianapolis are fighting to keep their jobs and boost their poverty-level pay at a hotel where rates can be more than $1,000 a night for a room during Super Bowl week.

Last month after area hotel workers filed a federal lawsuit alleging wage and hour violations against Hyatt subcontractor Hospitality Staffing Solutions (HSS) and 10 downtown hotels, including the Hyatt Regency Indianapolis, Hyatt announced that it would cut ties with HSS, according to UNITEHERE .

Thus far, Hyatt has refused to hire the HSS workers directly and that means 20 workers, some who have been on the job for nine years as full-time employees, will be out of work after Feb. 8.

On Friday, DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), NFL players and local leaders joined Hyatt workers and supporters in a rally outside the hotel demanding Hyatt end its abuse of subcontracted workers and hire outsourced workers directly. Says Jackie White, who works at the Hyatt Regency Indianapolis in the housekeeping department:

I’ve worked at the Hyatt for over 30 years in housekeeping and I’m very proud to be welcoming Super Bowl visitors to Indianapolis. It is a celebration for our city. That said, I am concerned about what the legacy of the Super Bowl will be for Indianapolis hotel workers. The Hyatt will be making millions of dollars during the Super Bowl, and we deserve more for the hard work we do.

The commercial asks listeners that before kick off today, “when you’re at church, please say a prayer, let’s thank God for the women who raised us, for the women who are cleaning out hotel rooms.”

In Indy, we’re fans of our moms, we should support hotel housekeepers here, and they’re among the lowest paid in America. We pay for the stadiums, pay the players’ salaries and pay to build the hotels, so let’s pay the moms.

 

On this week’s episode of “Brotherhood Outdoors,” Lee Hengsteler, a member of Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) Local 359 in Arizona, gets to realize a dream he’s had since he was 6 years old:  He heads to Montana to hunt elk.

The show airs on the Sportsman Channel at 8 p.m. EST and PST every Thursday.

His bow hunting expedition was made possible when his wife, Neva, applied to the show on his behalf. Says Hengsteler:

People like me don’t win things like a guest shot on a nationally televised show, but Neva insisted on applying for me. I have one heck of a wife.

The award-winning “Brotherhood Outdoors,” Union Sportsmen’s Alliance’s (USA‘s) hunting and fishing series pairs union members with renowned outdoorsman Tom Ackerman for a guided hunting or fishing trip in North America or the opportunity to show off their skills by taking Ackerman to their own favorite hunting or fishing sites.

You can click here to apply to be a guest on “Brotherhood Outdoors.” Says Hengsteler:

Tell all those union men and women out there to apply for a guest shot on “Brotherhood Outdoors,” and tell them they can win. I’m just a normal blue-collar working guy, and I won, thanks to my wife.

Click here for more photos form his elk hunt and here for more on the hunt.

Wednesday marked the six-month anniversary of America Crystal Sugar Co.’s lockout of 1,300 workers and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) told the U.S. House: “It’s time for the company to negotiate.”

In a speech on the House floor, Ellison said the workers, members of Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Millers (BCTGM) Local 167G at plant sin Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa, have been

denied the basic and most fundamental right to work and support their families. These workers have gone to bat for the company. These workers stood shoulder to should with the company to fight for a better sugar program in the farm bill just because that’s how dedicated they. What have they got in return? They’ve gotten locked out. They are not on strike. They are locked out because they refuse to accept an unfair take it or leave contract. They have been locked even though they have agreed to a no-strike guarantee.  It’s wrong, these 1,300 folks deserve better from this company.

Locked out worker Jay Holter told Steve Share, editor of Minneapolis Labor Review,

We’ve given the best we’ve got to this company and this is how we are treated. It’s probably only a year and a half ago the company gave us shirts that said, “You’re the best at what you do.”

Click here for Share’s full update on the lockout.

 

 

Not that we ever believed right-wing lawmakers in the first place. But the cover’s been blown on all who claim that the extremist bills they introduce—uncannily similar from state to state—are the works of their own fertile but twisted minds.

They fervently deny that the legislation designed to strip workers of their rights, voters of their franchise, bust unions and boost corporate profits and power are handouts from the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC’s) corporate power toolkit.

Click here to take a look at a bill introduced last fall by Florida state Rep. Rachel Burgin (R) to reduce corporate taxes. Notice the second paragraph, “Whereas is the mission of the American Legislative Exchange Council….” That’s right ALEC’s mission statement is smack dab near the top of Burgin’s measure.

The next day Burgin apparently realized she had left the smoking gun at the scene and withdrew the bill only to reintroduce it later with ALEC’s mission statement removed. H/t to Common Cause for uncovering the deception.

 

In response to protests by foreign students exploited in a factory subcontracted by the Hershey Company and advocacy by the AFL-CIO and our allies, this week the U.S. State Department announced that it will make major revisions to a guest-worker and cultural exchange visa program and barred participation by a major player in the program, the Council for Educational Travel, USA (CETUSA).

Harika Duygu Ozer, one of the students involved in the protest, told the New York Times:

I hope this sends a clear message to other recruiters like CETUSA, that we will not be your captive workers.

As we reported last summer, students recruited for a cultural exchange program found themselves instead all but indentured to a factory in Palmyra, Penn., where they were made to perform dangerous work loading Hershey products with no safety protection for less than the minimum wage. In addition, the students stayed in housing provided by the Hershey contractor, for which it overcharged. Rents were deducted from the students’ pay.

In August, the students staged a sit-in at the factory to protest their working conditions and pay abuses by the Hershey subcontractor, Excel Logistics. Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Rick Bloomingdale was arrested for taking part in the sit-in.

Working with Jobs with Justice and the National Guestworker Alliance, the student protesters’ actions led to a State Department investigation that found widespread abuses of a program that was designed to be a cultural exchange for students from abroad. Students who take part in the Summer Work Travel (SWT) program are admitted on a J-1 visa.

In a statement issued by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) on Thursday, EPI Vice President Ross Eisenbrey and Immigration Policy Analyst Daniel Costa wrote:

Our research has shown that corporations and labor recruiters like CETUSA are using the J-1 visa Exchange Visitor Program—and especially the SWT program, which admitted 132,000 workers last year—to avoid hiring unemployed U.S. workers and paying state and federal payroll taxes. In Pennsylvania, a state with a 7.6 percent unemployment rate, scarce jobs in rural areas (such as Palmyra, the site of the Hershey plant) should first be offered to local unemployed workers. In addition, the use of subcontractors as a way to keep employees from unionizing should be banned. The Hershey Company has successfully used the J-1 program as a way to diminish the bargaining power of its workers.

As urged by the AFL-CIO in its public comments on the SWT, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Rick Ruth announced that the list of jobs prohibited for exchange students traveling on a J-1 visa would be expanded to include construction, roofing and most industrial work.

But scrutiny of the Summer Work Travel program won’t end there. An investigation by the Associated Press also found SWT students pressed into service in the sex industry.

Read more about the student sit-in at Hershey’s Excel plant here and here.

Spreading the work here from our friends at LabourStart, who sent this action request (and plug for its conference this year).

They’re calling it the “uprising of the invisible.”

Cleaning workers in the Netherlands have been on strike for 30 days and have now asked for international solidarity. They’ve created an online campaign on LabourStart which needs your help.

It will take you just one minute to tell their employers—and their employers’ clients—that it’s time to show these workers some respect, and to reach agreement to end the strike.

Please send off your message here today and spread the word.

And one more thing….

We’ve just announced the dates for the third annual LabourStart Global Solidarity Conference, to be held in Sydney, Australia, from Nov. 26-29 2012. To learn more and show your interest in attending, please visit the Event page on Facebook.

    Click on chart to enlarge.        

The nation’s unemployment rate in January fell to 8.3 percent, down from December’s 8.5 percent, and the economy added 243,000 jobs, according to the latest figures released this morning by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The nation’s unemployment rate continues it steady decline, dropping by 0.8 percentage points since August and to the lowest point since February 2009. The number of jobless workers dropped to 12.8 million, down from December’s 13.1 million. But the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 5.5 million, about 42.9 percent of the unemployed.

The unemployment insurance program for the nation’s jobless workers expires Feb. 29.  A conference is now under way between the Senate and House over two very different one-year extensions of the UI program passed late last year, and the Republican bill would slash federal benefits, impose harsh new restrictions and move to dismantle the essential lifeline of unemployment insurance. Click here for details.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says, “The seeds of sustainable job growth are clearly present—if Republicans in Congress do not succeed in weakening the recovery.”

Republican leaders, who are admittedly unconcerned with the poor and still pressing for ill-timed austerity in Washington and state capitals, run a very real risk of putting this incipient recovery at risk. President Obama, by contrast, has laid out a comprehensive agenda for job creation and broadly shared prosperity, rather than wealth for a few.

Private-sector jobs grew by 257,000, and government employment was essentially unchanged, but over the past 12 months 276,000 public employee jobs have been lost.

In January, professional and business services add about 70,000 jobs. The leisure and hospitality industry added 44,000 jobs and health care jobs grew by 31,000.

Manufacturing saw an increase of 50,000 jobs, mostly in durable goods, and the construction industry added 21,000 jobs.  There were 10,000 new jobs in the mining industry in January.

The unemployment rates for adult men (7.7 percent) and African Americans (13.6 percent) declined in January. The unemployment rates for adult women (7.7 percent), teenagers (23.2 percent), whites (7.4 percent) and Hispanics (10.5 percent) were little changed.

Economic Policy Institute (EPI) economist Heidi Shierholz says today’s figures show “a labor market where all the moving parts seemed to be moving in a solidly good direction.”

Strong payroll employment growth was matched by a falling unemployment rate, strong employment growth in the household survey and a growing share of the population with jobs….It’s important to keep this growth in context, however—the jobs deficit is so large that even at January’s growth rate, it would still take until 2019 to get back to full employment.  We need reports this strong and stronger for the next several years to get back to good health in the labor market.

 

Warehouse workers, school, bus drivers, teachers, mechanics, telecommunication and manufacturing worker all have recently won a voice at work with AFL-CIO unions.

More than 350 employees at IKEA Distribution Center in Perryville, Md., voted by an overwhelming margin to join the Machinists (IAM ) despite opposition from IKEA managers who hired Jackson-Lewis, the well-known union-busting law firm. District 4 Business Representative Joe Flanders says the workers, “were able to see through the scare tactics.”

Last year, the Danville, Va.-based employees at Swedwood, a wholly-owned subsidiary of IKEA, voted to join the IAM.

In DuPont, Wash., more than some 350 workers who repair military helicopters and do site maintenance site maintenance and repair work for defense contractor URS Corp. Wash., voted to join IAM District Lodge 751. The workers have been without a pay or cost of living increase for more than four years, says new IAM member John Davis, and “a bunch of people got fed up.”

In Avon, Ky., 219 workers (see photo) at Allsource Global Management at the Bluegrass Station base voted to join the IAM. They are material coordinators for the distribution of military equipment.

Workers at former Alltel facilities—acquired in 2009 by AT&T—continue to choose the Communications Workers of America (CWA), through a majority sign-up agreement between CWA and AT&T. In a majority sign-up, the company agrees to remain neutral and recognize the union after a majority of employees signs authorization cards. Recently in New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota and Montana more than 150 workers joined CWA.

Late last, month 282 Cablevision technicians and dispatchers in Brooklyn voted to join CWA Local 1109. Click here for an in-depth look at the workers’ victory.

Workers at a GE Transportation plant in Kansas City, Mo., fought back against back against a hired gun, anti-union campaign and voted to join the Electrical Workers (IBEW). Workplace safety concerns following the 2010 on-the-job death of a co-worker and a long-list of broken promises by management spurred the nearly 100 workers to fight for a voice at work.  Click here for a detailed look at the struggle from the IBEW Now News blog.

More than 70 bus operators, mechanics, maintenance and other workers at Colonial Intermediate Unit 20 at several locations in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley voted to join the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 282. Colonial provides various school services, including transportation to 13 school districts.

Twenty teachers at the Evergreen Charter School in Hempstead, N.Y., won representation with AFT affiliate New York State United Teachers (NYSUT). But the fight is not over.  NYSUT is seeking reinstatement of special education teacher Jill Haag who was fired Dec. 2 when she was 8 1/2 months pregnant. The union says she was illegally fired for her for her work organizing the union. Haag regularly wore a lanyard stating, “Unions and Charters Working Together,” and urged parents to sign the petition in support of the union.  Click here for more from AFT.

In Fraser, Mich., the teachers and staff at the Arts Academy in the Woods, a charter school voted 20-to-1 to join Michigan Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff, an affiliate of AFT Michigan.