I recall vividly my first union job. At the age of 16, I joined the Amalgamated Meat Cutters Union as a supermarket clerk. I remember the good wages in my first paycheck and the sense of pride I felt when I received my first union card.
Back then, about a quarter of all private sector workers were union members. Collective bargaining allowed us a path to a better life. The standard of living rose, not just for those of us in a union, but even for those who weren’t.
But today, too few workers have the right to bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions. Years of assaults by corporations on the freedom to join unions have taken a terrible toll.
As the protests rage on over Gov. Scott Walker’s politically motivated attempt to strip Wisconsin’s public workers of collective bargaining, there’s too little discussion in the media about the decline in bargaining rights for private sector workers. Instead, opportunistic politicians like Walker have used the current economic crisis to help further their agenda to divide the middle class.
As private sector unionization declined from 25 percent to about 7 percent today, a gargantuan share of our nation’s wealth has left the middle class and gone to the very wealthy. Today, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans receives 25 percent of our nation’s total share of income, up from 8.9 percent in the 1970s. CEOs, who once made 40 times what rank and file workers made, now rake in 350 times that of the average worker.
Meanwhile, wages for most of us have stagnated or declined over the last decade. Big corporations and Wall Street are profiting off an economic meltdown they largely created while middle-class families suffer. Corporations made record profits in 2010, while doing nothing to create jobs or boost workers. Wall Street bonuses and compensation are up too. Last year, Wall Street firms – including those bailed out by taxpayers -- gave out more than $20 billion in executive bonuses.
The attack on unions has a direct correlation to the massive income inequality we face today. Big corporations have turned their back on their workers by reducing wages, cutting benefits and union busting. It used to be that CEOs had a stake in their workers’ economic security. Now it’s all about corporate profit, which the vast majority of workers never benefit from.
What with all the attacks on Labor in states like Indiana, Ohio, New Jersey, and Wisconsin, there has been just so much misunderstanding out there these past couple weeks about what things are actually like for State workers.
Are the conditions decent?
Is there excessive pay?
Is there even a need for State workers?
Well, I can't answer every question, but I can sure tell you what it's like in our house...and the reason my words carry the "voice of authority" is because The Girlfriend has been working for the State of Washington for the past 16 years.
Bona fides established, let's get to telling the story:
While the nation is still dealing with the Wisconsin labor debate, UC Regent nominee David Crane thought a few days before his confirmation process was a good time to get involved in the issue. In fact, the timing was so awesome that he thought the occasion was ripe to put an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle. Oh, and --Spoiler Alert!-- he wants to get rid of collective bargaining for public employees.
Collective bargaining is a good thing when it's needed to equalize power, but when public employees already have that equality because of civil service protections, collective bargaining in the public sector serves to reduce benefits for citizens and to raise costs for taxpayers. Citizens and taxpayers should consider this as they watch events unfold in Madison. (SF Chronicle)
This was published back on February 27, and now that a week has passed, and Crane is making his way to the Capitol, Senators Ted Lieu and Leland Yee both put out press releases stating that they will lead the charge against Crane's confirmation as a UC Regent. From Sen Lieu's statement:
"I actively oppose the confirmation of David Crane as a UC Regent. I read Mr. Crane's Op-Ed in the San Francisco Chronicle in which he argues for the elimination of collective bargaining for public sector employees. I cannot support someone for the powerful post of UC Regent who continues to perpetuate the myth that collective bargaining caused our state economic crisis and has a fundamental misunderstanding of how our state budget operates.
*** *** ****
The specific reason our general fund spending sharply declined was because the person Mr. Crane advised, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, reduced the Vehicle License Fee and replaced it with . . . nothing. As a result, the state general fund lost over $5 to $6 billion in revenues per year for every year Mr. Schwarzenegger was in office. The VLF reduction has resulted in a total loss of over $30 billion to the state, an amount in excess of the current California budgetary shortfall. How conveniently Mr. Crane forgot to mention that critical fact when it doesn't suit his ideological assault on public sector unions.
Given that so much attention is being paid to the budget, who knows how much attention this will get. However, given the national climate, I expect that this might gather some focus in Sacramento while Crane tries to get approved.
There's a lot of ways to be petty and cheap and stupid, and a lot of ways to stick it to a program you don't like, and by extension, the clients of that program...and this week the House Republicans have embarked on an effort to combine the two into one petty, cheap, and stupid way to stick it to the clients of Social Security and the workers who administer the program.
They're going to sell it to you, if they can, as a way to "lower the deficit", or words similar...but what this is really about is making the actual Social Security program work less well-because, after all, if a program is popular today, the best way to make it less so is to apply a bit of "treat 'em like their cars were impounded" to every interaction customers have with the system.
And what better way to make sure that happens...then to aggressively demoralize everyone who works down at the ol' Social Security office?
Is this the protest that wakes up America and starts the push-back to big business and their anti-human agenda?
National Nurses United, and the California Nurses Association, sure hope so, and we're doing our part to move that along. Please join our efforts by following @ProtestInTheUsa, our new national newsline of reports, notices, and videos about specific protests in the USA concerning democracy, healthcare, workers' rights, and human rights. @ProtestInTheUSA is starting as a twitter feed, and a hashtag #ProtestInTheUSA, and will be expanded from there. Find it at www.twitter.com/ProtestInTheUSA.
Already @ProtestInTheUSA is helping document our national wave of protests-the upcoming mass rally of women in New York, the workers protesting in Ohio and Indiana for their rights, indigenous protests in Alaska and nurse protests in California. We simply have got to find a way to bring all these protests together and amplify each others' voices. We're many people--but one cause.
If off-shoring of manufacturing burns you up, so should the elimination of prevailing wages in construction
For years we've been hearing about the devastation caused by the off-shoring of manufacturing capacity. Families that were firmly in the middle class experienced dramatic declines in their standards of living as their jobs were shipped off to a far off location where the work would be done at a fraction of the cost because the CEOs could pay workers a pittance while evading the costs of keeping the air and water clean. When the left-behind workers found new jobs, the wages and benefits were nowhere near what they had lost. As families became poorer, communities suffered as their coffers emptied because residents had far less to spend back in town. Entire industries and the technical know-how of their workforce have disappeared in the United States.
All of this has rightfully made many Americans angry. But while the most noticeable impacts of off-shoring have been concentrated in a few states in the industrial Midwest, the elimination of prevailing wages in construction has the potential to bring these problems to California. At first blush the comparison between construction and manufacturing does not seem to fit. However a deeper look at the construction industry, its hiring practices, its skill base, and the stabilizing role of prevailing wages shows that the comparison is right on target.
Isadore Hall, Assemblyman for the 52nd District, brought five volunteers with him for precinct walking and carne asada. More from Isadore Hall, CA52AD, on the flip.
Sometimes stories happen because of planning; other times serendipity intervenes, which is how we got to the conversation we'll be having today.
In an exchange of comments on the Blue Hampshire site, I proposed an idea that could be of real value to unions, workers...and surprisingly, employers.
If things worked out correctly, not only would lots of people feel a real desire to have unions represent them, but employers would potentially be coming to unions looking to forge relationships, and, just to make it better, this plan bypasses virtually all of the tools and techniques employers use to shut out union organizers.
Since I just thought this up myself, I'm really not sure exactly how practical the whole thing is, and the last part of the discussion today will be provided by you, as I ask you to sound off on whether this plan could work, and if so, how it could be made better.
It's a new week...so let's all put our heads together and rebuild the labor movement, shall we?
(8.15.10 Disclosure: My union, CSEA, endorsed Wood, and I volunteer on his campaign.)
Carl Wood is the Democratic candidate for the CA 65th Assembly District, the most depressed area in the nation after Detroit. Carl is a lifelong labor guy with deep roots in the community. As Public Utilities Commissioner, Carl Wood helped guide the state through the disastrous energy crisis, protecting the interests of workers and working class utility consumers.
Wood is unapologetically liberal and direct, in a very pleasant way. Here he is at the California Democratic Convention last April 2010:
It's no secret that Meg Whitman is wealthy beyond most of our wildest dreams. But few know the true cost of Whitman's wealth. Today, the California Labor Federation launched a new online video and video game that highlights Whitman's job-slashing corporate history.
Labor Federation Executive Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski:
Meg Whitman has made a game of downsizing workers and outsourcing their jobs, and walking away with a very real fortune for herself in the process. The record shows that Whitman is a one-person weapon of mass job destruction. By attempting to buy the California Governor's Office, Whitman wants to take her game to the next level, but we can't forget there are real lives at stake with every jobs she cuts, outsources or downsizes.
While Whitman touts her business savvy as her primary qualification to become governor, a closer look at Whitman's corporate background reveals a troubling portrait of someone who got rich at the expense of her own employees. Whitman is a career corporate executive who built a personal fortune by eliminating and outsourcing jobs and slashing workers' benefits. Everywhere she's been, she's made out with lucrative bonuses, stock options and other compensation. And workers have suffered hardships as a result.
I'm honored to share a letter that was sent by Maria Elena Durazo, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, regarding her recent endorsement of my re-election. I urge you to watch her video message and share it with your friends and family.
Dear Friend,
My name is Maria Elena Durazo, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO. I am proud today to announce my endorsement of Congresswoman Jane Harman.
The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor represents over 300 unions - the men and women who make up all of the different industries that make Los Angeles work - from the public sector and the private sector.
In the years I have known Congresswoman Harman, she has shown herself to be leader. She takes hold of an issue in Congress and gets the job done. She is as courageous as she is energetic.
Congresswoman Harman has always fought for a worker's right to organize, and she is an original co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act. She refuses to cross picket lines and has marched with local janitors, health care workers, and others to make sure that people who work hard and play by the rules are paid well and treated with dignity.
She has opposed unfair trade agreements, including NAFTA and CAFTA, and has long advocated better technology and fairer hours for air traffic controllers.
Most importantly, as we fight our way out of the Bush recession, we are proud to work cooperatively with her to create good, high-paying, skilled jobs for our communities.
I hope you will watch this short video and share it with your friends and family.
Meet Carl Wood, Democratic challenger to the GOP's Paul Cook in the California 65th Assembly District. Carl is a lifelong advocate for labor and civil rights, a true blue progressive. Last election, Carl narrowed the spread on this race from 23% to 7% with only a skeletal campaign. He's well known in Riverside County for his work as a Public Utilities Commissioner under Gray Davis, battling the forces of Enron.
This time, the 65th is a priority for local Democratic clubs and labor unions. So far Carl has the endorsement of the California Labor Federation, CNA, CTA, CSEA, CWA, LIUNA, SEIU California State Council, SEIU RN 121, Teamsters Council 42, Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA), and United Auto Workers (UAW).
This is a purple, not red district, and the incumbent's staff is already making panicky mistakes. See over the flip. **Correction: Previously listed UDW among endorsers, which was incorrect.**
Barely one week after a federal jury unanimously found NUHW, Rosselli, Lewis, and the other defendants liable to UHW for over $1.5 million, following a two week trial that exposed their corruption and deceit, NUHW is dealt another devastating blow. By withdrawing from the NLRB election at St. Francis Hospital in Lynwood, California, NUHW only sped up by a few days what would have been the inevitable result - another win for workers represented by SEIU-UHW!
No matter how hard Rosselli's propaganda machine tries to hide it, each day that passes by reveals that NUHW is losing steam, and after 15 months of having gained NOTHING for even a single healthcare worker in California, these "union reformers'" sole achievement has been discrediting their short lived experiment and "leaving their honor behind."
The hardworking members at St. Francis have reclaimed their hospital and can now return to doing what they do best, taking care of the sick. We, your brothers and sisters in the Daughters of Charity network of hospitals, working in the other facilities congratulate you! We too look forward to reclaiming our facilities, returning to normal, and finally being liberated from the unnecessary distractions that have tried to hurt us this past year. See you at the same bargaining table in 2012!
In this election, working people don't have a choice. We have an imperative.
Jerry Brown has spent a lifetime fighting for working families. Meg Whitman, on the other hand, has spent her adult life as one of the corporate elite, advancing Wall Street's disastrous agenda. Whitman's plan to corporatize our economy would lead to more devastating cuts to education, health care and the safety net. She'd cut tens of thousands of jobs, making an already severe recession much worse. She'd strip workers of important protections like meal breaks and overtime pay.
More than 500 union members and leaders from across the state gathered in San Jose this morning committing to reject Whitman's hostile takeover attempt of California and elect a proven, experienced leader and fighter for working families, Jerry Brown.
The California Labor Federation today endorsed Attorney General Brown in his bid to become Governor, kicking off Labor's broadest grassroots electoral campaign in California history.
A glimpse at Brown's record shows why he's the right person to renew California's promise and rebuild our middle class. During his nearly four decades of public service, he has compiled an impressive record in support of working families' priorities. Brown fought to:
Protect and improve our wages. As Governor, Brown strengthened the state's equal pay law (SB 1051, 1976), and signed a law that requires the University of California to pay prevailing wage on construction projects (SB 394, 1975).
Ensure a safe and healthy workplace. In 1980, Brown signed a groundbreaking law (SB 1874) that requires employers to provide information to workers on toxic substances produced or handled in their workplace.
Strengthen the safety net for laid off and injured workers. During his 8 years as governor, Brown increased unemployment benefits for laid off workers (AB 91, 1975), and signed several bills to extend and increase workers' compensation for those who were injured on the job (SB 469, 1975; AB 467, 1976; AB 3028, 1978).
Expand and defend our right to form and join unions. Under Brown's leadership, California established collective bargaining rights for teachers, school employees and other state workers (SB 160, 1975), firefighters, police and other local government workers (AB 644, 1978) and farm workers (SB 1, 1975). Additionally, Brown signed a law that prohibits the use of professional strikebreakers in labor disputes (SB 719, 1975). Today, more than a million Californians can bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions thanks to Jerry Brown.
Crack down on employers that don't play by the rules. As Attorney General, Jerry Brown has take legal action against a number of companies that exploit and abuse their workers and violate California's labor laws. Just this month, Brown secured a settlement for construction workers whose rights have been violated by their employer (CA v. Evleth Construction, 4/5/2010). He's never shied away from a fight, even when the odds were against him.
In short, Jerry Brown did more than any governor in California history to build the middle class.
He also knows a thing or two about creating jobs. Unlike Meg's unrepentant job slashing, Jerry Brown has a record job creating. As Governor, he created 1.9 million jobs for California.
From his time as Governor to his work as Attorney General, Jerry's been on our side.
Jerry Brown's life of public service has been about fighting for a fair deal --
Not CEO deals;
Not multinational corporations;
Not the wealthy and privileged.
Jerry fights now for a new generation of prosperity, a new chapter for California -A chapter in which everyone has the right to earn their own way, to a safe workplace, a healthy environment, and good health care.
Meg Whitman is trying to buy the Governor's office to corporatize our economy, to give more power and wealth to the already wealthy and powerful.
Jerry Brown fights to restore for us the California that we knew - when he led it - a California that is unsurpassed in its potential for the future. A California that works for its working people.
He shares our values. He's on our side. We need a leader in Sacramento who we trust, not another corporate crony to do Wall Street's bidding. The contrast between the two candidates couldn't be starker. And there's never been more on the line for California's families than there is this year.
Jerry Brown is leading a new fight for our better future. Now it's time for us to fight for him.
Art Pulaski is executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation, representing 2.1 million union members in over 1,200 unions across the state. For more information, visit www.CaliforniaLabor.org.
January 2009 was a watershed moment in our nation's history. As we gathered to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama, members of my union felt a powerful sense of accomplishment. Together we had worked long hours and covered many miles to elect a president who would represent working people instead of big corporations.
But those days were also bittersweet for me and thousands of health care workers in California. As President Obama took the oath of office, SEIU's President Andy Stern had begun a process to remove me and other health care workers from our elected positions, suspend our local union's constitution, and put his own officials in charge.
When the trial started two weeks ago, it was clearly stated what this was all about. It was about rules, the dangers of thinking you can be above them, and the consequences for then refusing to follow them. In his opening arguments, Gary Kholman, attorney for the 150,000 members that were abandoned by Rosselli and his co-defendants, told the jury that he will lay out evidence that showed how the defendants, in reaction to "constitutional mandates" placed upon them by the international, began to plot and put into motion a set of premeditated actions in response. The sole purpose of these actions by the defendants was to pilfer the union's treasury, hijack the local's valuable information network, and ultimately steal members away and put them into a new organization with shady beginnings. In the two weeks that followed those opening statements by Mr. Kholman, witness after witness after witness came forward to testify. They told how they were recruited to either lie to and cheat members out of due representation, or how they were intimidated into cooperation. Mountains of documents, many from the defendants' own hands, were put into evidence. We read secret e-mails, task lists, minutes and notes of meetings, correspondence, and watched videos that showed the evolution of this "great plan" of these 26 OUTSIDERS that sought to destroy our union of over eighty years.
In his closing arguments today, Kholman again reminded the jury what this has always been about rules and consequences. These defendants always had three honorable options before them;
- Accept the rules and abide by them
- Work within the system to change the rules
- Leave the organization
Instead, they chose a fourth, dishonorable option, to defy the rules and breach the rules that govern our union. The means they used to reach that end were equally dishonorable! Taking members' dues monies off the books into a secret slush fund, pirating our confidential information into a shadow database, and creating secret groups that held clandestine meetings. Appalling as that is, the worst offense they made against us was to lie to us and then recruit us as pawns in their sinister scheme.
In society, and the organizations within them, rules are what bind us together and keep us from falling into chaos. Regardless how one felt about the 2000 Bush v Gore election drama, it was because rules were in place that an "orderly transition" occurred from one president to the next. Hard as it may have been for Gore to accept the result, can you imagine what shambles our democracy would be put into if he had decided to not accept or abide by it and instead conspired to have the "blue states" secede? That's what Rosselli and the others are trying to do.
For NUHW, It's Still About Distraction and Distortion:
Two weeks ago Dan Siegel, attorney for Rosselli and his co-defendants, chose to talk about what this trial was NOT about. He wanted to talk about Andy Stern, his salary and a book he wrote. He wanted to preach about democracy and tyranny. He told us how his clients' actions were "motivated by patient care." These attempts to distract the jury only got him stiff admonishments from the judge who then instructed him to follow the rules. Throughout the trial, he offered no evidence to refute our claims against his clients...only spin. He put forth witnesses that proudly verified claims of violent actions, then insinuated the victims were to blame. On the stand, his clients broke down, and Rosselli himself became as nervous as a "sinner in church!"
In his closing arguments today, Siegel offered nothing new...only spin. He spoke about gazing at the stars and pondered the horoscope signs they formed. He dipped his feet into various conspiracy theories like the government's involvement in 9-11 and the CIA's role in the Kennedy assassination. From this, he gathered that SEIU our union of over eighty years, is like Iran. He defended his clients' obstructive actions as mere "expression," saying they cannot be held accountable for them, but then referred to them as "terrible conspirators." Mr. Siegel obviously has never stepped foot in any of our facilities, this much was evident when he had the nerve to ask "Did anything horrible really happen?" The answer to that Mr. Siegel, YES!!! Ask any of the 150,000 members your clients left behind.
With both sides resting their cases, a milestone has been reached in the federal lawsuit against ousted SEIU-UHW President Sal Rosselli and his 25 co-defendants. The case is being tried in federal court in San Francisco before U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup.
Ms. "Ungovernable Situation" Takes The Stand:
Barbara Lewis, author of the now infamous "Ungovernable Situation" memo, which plotted out leaving our union in chaos after they were ousted from power, took the stand. From her we learned how she spent $41, 871 at Kinko's to print decertification petitions. When asked if she put her staff on "Code Orange," she replied that she could not recall. However, a January 22, 2009 memo was shown where she instructed trusted staff to:
- Always be accessible by phone
- Not to plan for any sleep - OUCH!
- Be on 24 hour standby
And yes, she did say "Code Orange." She was asked if as high ranking officer of UHW how she felt about trusteeship being imposed to which she said very saddened by the whole situation. Mr. Kohlman then showed a video clip where she called it "A great day for our union." Ooops.
"Define Forming"
NUHW co-founder John Borsos was one of the final witnesses in the case. Despite his lack of recollect, the jury was shown a memo where lawyers advised him to "lay low" about active resistance to the international. He was told to "launder" it through an intermediary. At one point Mr. Kohlman asked him if one still works for one union and uses the resources of that union to start forming a new union, would he consider that stealing. His answer "depends on how you define forming." He then insisted that despite the similarities between this case and the Colcord case of 2005, it's a different situation. Different, apparently, because he's the one on the hot seat.
(Colcord case: In 2005 three organizers while still employed by UHW used union resources such as the member database among other stuff to form a new union to organize EMT workers at AMR. Rosselli and UHW sued the three and won a judgment against them. In this trial, UHW makes the same claim, that Rosselli and the other defendants used UHW resources to form NUHW while they were still the top officers/employees of UHW.)
Tomorrow we will hear the closing arguments and the judge will give the jury instructions they will use for their deliberations.
