From SEIU Blog 1/30/09:
“I do believe–and I make no apologies for it–that over the last 100 years the middle class was built on the back of organized labor. Without their weight, heft and their insistence starting in the early 1900s we wouldn’t have the middle class we have now, in my view. So I think labor getting a fair share of the pie is part of it.”
the claim that workers are getting $70 an hour in compensation is just “not true.”
The catch phrase that is used to make people hate unions
image by David Horsey- Seattle Post Intelligencer
The corporate war against unions and American workers in general has taken an awful turn, in ‘if you repeat it people will believe it is true fashion’ the stooges against us are creating more anti-union sentiment with making us think that only unionized autoworkers are making far too much money as opposed to the rest of us here in the U.S.
Alas their fear of the possible passage of the Employee Free Choice Act is making them slam the unions as hard as possible, getting catch phrases like “73 dollars an hour” to become a household phrase, but you my dear reader are much smarter than those who believe this to be true. Finally the numbers have been scrutinized and the sensationalistic numbers have been brought to our attention, the average union autoworker makes around $28 an hour as of 2007 and the new contract signed in early 2008 will limit the top wage of many non-core new hires to roughly $14 an hour with a lower degree of benefit costs also. That’s a whole lot less than what a Toyota worker makes here in the US, but it was done to create American jobs.
The average UAW autoworker at the ‘Big 3′ makes roughly a little less than $60,000 a year and the average non-union autoworker in the U.S. makes roughly $52,000 and considering that most of the nonunion plants are in lower cost of living areas, I would say that both are quite competitive with one another. Basically no one is getting rich who is a general worker at any U.S. auto manufacturing plant. The anti-union forces along with the corporate right are spinning this to create more anti-union sentiment in our country. They fixate on a number that sounds outlandish and just keep repeating it until you say “greedy union worker”, when in fact with the way the world is changing even the nonunion manufacturers here will be cutting back and need help eventually as it is very hard to compete globally when places such as Mexico have a minimum wage of $2 an hour, Bangladesh is only $0.06, and Vietnam is $64 an month.
So the choice is your, keep listening to their horseshit, keep hating your fellow American workers, keep letting them get away with outsourcing all of our industry or open your eyes and let them know that you know they are misinforming us. Remember “unions force jobs overseas” or at least that’s what they want you to believe.
Yes these are bad times, really bad times, but don’t take it out on the American workers, not the union ones or the nonunion ones, we are all hurting, don’t let them get away with driving a bigger wedge between all of us, the collapse of GM, Ford and Chrysler will cost us 3 million U.S. jobs, add that to the 50,000+ Citibank workers, and all the others who have recently been laid off and you can see now we as the American working class need to rely on each other now more than ever.
Debunking the $73/hour Myth
Here’s the scoop on the pay at the ‘Big 3′, from the pages of The New Republic
Why Are We Bailing Out Auto Workers Who Make $70 An Hour?
by Jonathan Cohn
Debunking the myth of the $70-per-hour autoworker.If you’ve been following the auto industry’s crisis, then you’ve probably read or heard a lot about overpaid American autoworkers–in particular, the fact that the average hourly employee of the Big Three makes $70 per hour.
That’s an awful lot of money. Seventy dollars an hour in wages works out to almost $150,000 a year in gross income, if you assume a forty-hour work week. Is it any wonder the Big Three are in trouble? And with auto workers making so much, why should taxpayers–many of whom make far less–finance a plan to bail them out?
Well, here’s one reason: The figure is wildly misleading.
Let’s start with the fact that it’s not $70 per hour in wages. According to Kristin Dziczek of the Center for Automative Research–who was my primary source for the figures you are about to read–average wages for workers at Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors were just $28 per hour as of 2007. That works out to a little less than $60,000 a year in gross income–hardly outrageous, particularly when you consider the physical demands of automobile assembly work and the skills most workers must acquire over the course of their careers.
More important, and contrary to what you may have heard, the wages aren’t that much bigger than what Honda, Toyota, and other foreign manufacturers pay employees in their U.S. factories. While we can’t be sure precisely how much those workers make, because the companies don’t make the information public, the best estimates suggests the corresponding 2007 figure for these “transplants”–as the foreign-owned factories are known–was somewhere between $20 and $26 per hour, and most likely around $24 or $25. That would put average worker’s annual salary at $52,000 a year.
So the “wage gap,” per se, has been a lot smaller than you’ve heard. And this is no accident. If the transplants paid their employees far less than what the Big Three pay their unionized workers, the United Auto Workers would have a much better shot of organizing the transplants’ factories. Those factories remain non-unionized and management very much wants to keep it that way.
But then what’s the source of that $70 hourly figure? It didn’t come out of thin air. Analysts came up with it by including the cost of all employer-provided benefits–namely, health insurance and pensions–and then dividing by the number of workers. The result, they found, was that benefits for Big Three cost about $42 per hour, per employee. Add that to the wages–again, $28 per hour–and you get the $70 figure. Voila.
Except … notice something weird about this calculation? It’s not as if each active worker is getting health benefits and pensions worth $42 per hour. That would come to nearly twice his or her wages. (Talk about gold-plated coverage!) Instead, each active worker is getting benefits equal only to a fraction of that–probably around $10 per hour, according to estimates from the International Motor Vehicle Program. The number only gets to $70 an hour if you include the cost of benefits for retirees–in other words, the cost of benefits for other people. One of the few people to grasp this was Portfolio.com’s Felix Salmon. As he noted yesterday, the claim that workers are getting $70 an hour in compensation is just “not true.”
Of course, the cost of benefits for those retirees–you may have heard people refer to them as “legacy costs”–do represent an extra cost burden that only the Big Three shoulder. And, yes, it makes it difficult for the Big Three to compete with foreign-owned automakers that don’t have to pay the same costs. But don’t forget why those costs are so high. While the transplants don’t offer the same kind of benefits that the Big Three do, the main reason for their present cost advantage is that they just don’t have many retirees.
The first foreign-owned plants didn’t start up here until the 1980s; many of the existing ones came well after that. As of a year ago, Toyota’s entire U.S. operation had less than 1,000 retirees. Compare that to a company like General Motors, which has been around for more than a century and which supports literally hundreds of thousands of former workers and spouses. As you might expect, many of these have the sorts of advanced medical problems you expect from people to develop in old age. And, it should go without saying, those conditions cost a ton of money to treat.
To be sure, we’ve known about these demographics for a while. Management and labor in Detroit should have figured out a solution it long ago. But while the Big Three were late in addressing this problem, they did address it eventually.
Notice how, in this article, I’ve constantly referred to 2007 figures? There’s a good reason. In 2007, the Big Three signed a breakthrough contract with the United Auto Workers (UAW) designed, once and for all, to eliminate the compensation gap between domestic and foreign automakers in the U.S.
The agreement sought to do so, first, by creating a private trust for financing future retiree benefits–effectively removing that burden from the companies’ books. The auto companies agreed to deposit start-up money in the fund; after that, however, it would be up to the unions to manage the money. And it was widely understood that, given the realities of investment returns and health care economics, over time retiree health benefits would likely become less generous.
In addition, management and labor agreed to change health benefits for all workers, active or retired, so that the coverage looked more like the policies most people have today, complete with co-payments and deductibles. The new UAW agreement also changed the salary structure, by creating a two-tiered wage system. Under this new arrangement, the salary scale for newly hired workers would be lower than the salary scale for existing workers.
One can debate the propriety and wisdom of these steps; two-tiered wage structures, in particular, raise various ethical concerns. But one thing is certain: It was a radical change that promised to make Detroit far more competitive. If carried out as planned, by 2010–the final year of this existing contract–total compensation for the average UAW worker would actually be less than total compensation for the average non-unionized worker at a transplant factory. The only problem is that it will be several years before these gains show up on the bottom line–years the industry probably won’t have if it doesn’t get financial assistance from the government.
Make no mistake: The argument over a proposed rescue package is complicated, in no small part because over the years both management and labor made some truly awful decisions while postponing the inevitable reckoning with economic reality. And even if the government does provide money, it’s a tough call whether restructuring should proceed with or without a formal bankruptcy filing. Either way, yet more downsizing is inevitable.
But the next time you hear somebody say the unions have to make serious salary and benefit concessions, keep in mind that they already have–enough to keep the companies competitive, if only they can survive this crisis.
Jonathan Cohn is a senior editor at The New Republic.
My apologies to my readers for the lapse of writing on my behalf, I needed some time after the election to rest, work has been very satisfying also and I have been trying to have more free time with my family. Fear not I have a lot to say and a ton of ammunition on really bad shit happening against workers in today’s America, I even have about 4 stories in the sandbox that need final editing to go forward and get published, but I need some time to focus and get the facts correct and intact.
More child labor in our backyard, more unscrupulous employers rejecting us in favor of undocumented workers with little or no rights and even a touch of good news, a story on more clothing made in the USA.
Update #1:
Michael Moore, Moore on the $73 Myth and the anti-union ties to it, just like I wrote and spoke about last Thursday at the NYC Central Labor Council meeting
Michael Moore on the arrogance of the Big 3
this is from CNN on Nov.19th.
It’s more like $41 for the entire package
Another update on the myth from Media Matters (11/22/08), in a story entitled “Media figures falsely assert or suggest autoworkers make $70/hour without noting figure includes benefits paid to current retirees” (In part, entire article at link above):
In a November 18 post on his American Prospect blog criticizing Sorkin’s reporting, economist Dean Baker wrote that the $70 figure Sorkin used is distorted by conflating “legacy” costs — medical benefits and pensions paid to retirees — with current labor costs:
The New York Times told readers that GM’s autoworkers are paid $70 an hour (including health care and pension). This is not true. The base pay is about $28 an hour. If health care cost per worker average $12,000 per year, that adds in another $6 an hour. If the pension payment takes up 25 percent of base pay (an extremely high pension), that gets you another $7 an hour, bringing the total to $41 an hour. That’s decent pay, but still a long way from $70 an hour.
How does the NYT get from $41 to $70? Well the trick is to add in GM’s legacy costs, the pension and health care costs for retired workers. These legacy costs are a serious expense for GM, but this is not money being paid to current workers. The person on the line in 2008 is not benefiting from these legacy costs.
Rick Berman, the US Chamber Of Commerce and their agenda against the Employee Free Choice Act
I called this one last week, I spoke in front of my fellow New york City Central Labor delegates and noted that the $73 an hour myth was perpetrated by anti-union forces seeking to discredit unions. Here’s the payoff, Rick Berman, the corporate lobbyist and spin doctoring lawyer, who’s past efforts were defending animal torture by trying to make PETA look bad, defending cigarette companies, trying to lower the legal drinking age and higher the breath test levels for the alcohol companies and trying to defend the fish industry against claims of mercury levels that are dangerous. He is also the creator of The Center For Union Facts, a biased attack site against unions which is funded by McDonalds, Smithfield Pork and others who I cannot name due to court papers being locked.
One of Mr.Berman’s front groups, the business-backed Employee Freedom Action Committee has been showing commercials which attack unions. Are we gonna let this corporate shill distort the facts? Here’s the scoop from The Hill in a story by By Ian Swanson entitled “Business group blames unions for carmakers’ woes” (full story at link):
Unions are to blame for the Big Three automakers’ problems, according to a television ad meant to stoke public opposition to organized labor’s number one legislative priority.“Steel, auto, airlines. What do these industries all have in common?” asks the ad sponsored by the business-backed Employee Freedom Action Committee, which was active in several hotly contested Senate races this year. “Hundreds of thousands of lost jobs and union bosses that helped put them out of business.”
The advertisement urges people to fight the Employee Free Choice Act, which unions hope will be taken up quickly by the Democratic Congress and President-elect Barack Obama. The bill would eliminate the requirement for workers to cast secret ballots in deciding whether to organize, making it easier to form unions.
Business groups are paying for the ad to run on CNN and the Fox cable news network Monday through Wednesday, according to the group’s spokesman, Tim Miller. He said the ad buy was “fairly substantial” but declined to specify a figure. A similar ad ran in Mississippi and New Hampshire in conjunction with Senate races in those states, where business groups worked to tie Democrats to the Employee Free Choice Act.
“If Americans like what the unions did to Detroit’s economy, they’ll love what the unions will do to the country,” said Richard Berman, the business group’s executive director.
“The unions have played a significant role in nearly bankrupting the Big Three automakers with untenable inefficiencies which have put tens of thousands out of work,” Bergman said. He said the union bill, known as “card-check legislation,” would do the same to millions of jobs across the country.
Alan Reuther, legislative director for the United Autoworkers, blasted the ad and Bergman’s comments. He said the auto industry’s problems rest on a series of bad trade and healthcare policies, and that the credit crunch is to blame for the current crisis.
Reuther also said major concessions offered by unions in their 2005 and 2007 contracts will result in the elimination of the cost-gap between union and non-union plants. “We feel that we’ve stepped up to the plate,” he said.
He also pointed to a 2007 report by two auto industry consulting firms that found nine of the 10 most-efficient auto plants in North America have workers organized by the United Autoworkers or the Canadian Autoworkers.
It’s called Propaganda
“Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths.”
You know who said that? Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s Propaganda Minister in Nazi Germany, he got the people to focus and hate other people, this cycle is repeated over and over throughout history, Goebbels also quips
“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly – it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over”
We have seen this recently in the term “terrorism”, which was used against President-Elect Barack Obama by Sarah Palin in a failing campaign.
Now these groups against workers want to use the manifestation of “greedy” union workers, those guys and gals who are making a whopping “$73 an hour”, it’s all propaganda and many of us are eating it up.
Even Pat Buchanan doesn’t blame the autoworkers
from “PJB: Who Killed Detroit?” (11/21/08):
Who killed the U.S. auto industry?To hear the media tell it, arrogant corporate chiefs failed to foresee the demand for small, fuel-efficient cars and made gas-guzzling road-hog SUVs no one wanted, while the clever, far-sighted Japanese, Germans and Koreans prepared and built for the future.
I dissent. What killed Detroit was Washington, the government of the United States, politicians, journalists and muckrakers who have long harbored a deep animus against the manufacturing class that ran the smokestack industries that won World War II.
He continues (full article in link above):
It then clamped fuel efficiency standards on the entire U.S. car fleet.Next, Washington imposed a corporate tax rate of 35 percent, raking off another 15 percent of autoworkers’ wages in Social Security payroll taxes
State governments imposed income and sales taxes, and local governments property taxes to subsidize services and schools.
The United Auto Workers struck repeatedly to win the highest wages and most generous benefits on earth — vacations, holidays, work breaks, health care, pensions — for workers and their families, and retirees.
Now there is nothing wrong with making U.S. plants the cleanest and safest on earth or having U.S. autoworkers the highest-paid wage earners.
That is the dream, what we all wanted for America.
And under the 14th Amendment, GM, Ford and Chrysler had to obey the same U.S. laws and pay at the same tax rates. Outside the United States, however, there was and is no equality of standards or taxes.
Thus when America was thrust into the Global Economy, GM and Ford had to compete with cars made overseas in factories in postwar Japan and Germany, then Korea, where health and safety standards were much lower, wages were a fraction of those paid U.S. workers, and taxes were and are often forgiven on exports to the United States.
All three nations built “export-driven” economies.
The Beetle and early Japanese imports were made in factories where wages were far beneath U.S. wages and working conditions would have gotten U.S. auto executives sent to prison.
The competition was manifestly unfair, like forcing Secretariat to carry 100 pounds in his saddlebags in the Derby.
Japan, China and South Korea do not believe in free trade as we understand it. To us, they are our “trading partners.” To them, the relationship is not like that of Evans & Novak or Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It is not even like the Redskins and Cowboys. For the Cowboys only want to defeat the Redskins. They do not want to put their franchise out of business and end the competition — as the Japanese did to our TV industry by dumping Sonys here until they killed it.
While we think the Global Economy is about what is best for the consumer, they think about what is best for the nation.
Like Alexander Hamilton, they understand that manufacturing is the key to national power. And they manipulate currencies, grant tax rebates to their exporters and thieve our technology to win. Last year, as trade expert Bill Hawkins writes, South Korea exported 700,000 cars to us, while importing 5,000 cars from us.
That’s Asia’s idea of free trade.
How has this Global Economy profited or prospered America?
In the 1950s, we made all our own toys, clothes, shoes, bikes, furniture, motorcycles, cars, cameras, telephones, TVs, etc. You name it. We made it.
Are we better off now that these things are made by foreigners? Are we better off now that we have ceased to be self-sufficient? Are we better off now that the real wages of our workers and median income of our families no longer grow as they once did? Are we better off now that manufacturing, for the first time in U.S. history, employs fewer workers than government?
We no longer build commercial ships. We have but one airplane company, and it outsources. China produces our computers. And if GM goes Chapter 11, America will soon be out of the auto business.
Our politicians and pundits may not understand what is going on. Historians will have no problem explaining the decline and fall of the Americans.
Mr. Buchanan points towards over-government and unfair trade. I was happy to see his views, I’m so sick and tired of reading the propaganda that is today’s mainstream, the likes of the US Chamber and Rick Berman who claim more unfair trade is a good thing for America make me sick. One commenter on the above article, Kurt2208, states:
Free trade agreements work fine with countries like Germany, England, japan and Canada which have close to the same standard of living. They do not work with third world and communist countries. As the traiter Dubya leaves office he is pushing another trade agreement with Columbia. I believe he should be tried and convicted of treason and shot!!!
Hope that last line doesn’t get him in trouble. They might even call him a ‘terrorist”. We toss $700,000,000 billion on the banking industry that got us in this mess and when it comes to unionized workers the talking points start. Do you know what the US Chamber of Commerce and Mr.Berman had to say about the banking bailout? Nothing.
Now they blame the workers. Fucking amazing.
GM sent me an E-Mail on the crisis
I own a Chevy Impala
Despite what you may be hearing, we are not asking Congress for a bailout but rather a loan that will be repaid.The U.S. economy is at a crossroads due to the worldwide credit crisis, and all Americans are feeling the effects of the worst economic downturn in 75 years. Despite our successful efforts to restructure, reduce costs and enhance liquidity, U.S. auto sales rely on access to credit, which is all but frozen through traditional channels.
The consequences of the domestic auto industry collapsing would far exceed the $25 billion loan needed to bridge the current crisis. According to a recent study by the Center for Automotive Research:
• One in 10 American jobs depends on U.S. automakers
• Nearly 3 million jobs are at immediate risk
• U.S. personal income could be reduced by $150 billion
• The tax revenue lost over 3 years would be more than $156 billionDiscussions are now underway in Washington, D.C., concerning loans to support U.S. carmakers. I am asking for your support in this vital effort by contacting your state representatives.
Please take a few minutes to go to www.gmfactsandfiction.com, where we have made it easy for you to contact your U.S. senators and representatives. Just click on the “I’m a Concerned American” link under the “Mobilize Now” section, and enter your name and ZIP code to send a personalized e-mail stating your support for the U.S. automotive industry.
Update #2♦:
Spotted a new blog by the autoworkers who are trapped in this mess, it’s called Joe The Autoworker, go stop bye and show some support for our fellow American workers
the claim that workers are getting $70 an hour in compensation is just “not true.”
The catch phrase that is used to make people hate unions
image by David Horsey- Seattle Post Intelligencer
The corporate war against unions and American workers in general has taken an awful turn, in ‘if you repeat it people will believe it is true fashion’ the stooges against us are creating more anti-union sentiment with making us think that only unionized autoworkers are making far too much money as opposed to the rest of us here in the U.S.
Alas their fear of the possible passage of the Employee Free Choice Act is making them slam the unions as hard as possible, getting catch phrases like “73 dollars an hour” to become a household phrase, but you my dear reader are much smarter than those who believe this to be true. Finally the numbers have been scrutinized and the sensationalistic numbers have been brought to our attention, the average union autoworker makes around $28 an hour as of 2007 and the new contract signed in early 2008 will limit the top wage of many non-core new hires to roughly $14 an hour with a lower degree of benefit costs also. That’s a whole lot less than what a Toyota worker makes here in the US, but it was done to create American jobs.
The average UAW autoworker at the ‘Big 3′ makes roughly a little less than $60,000 a year and the average non-union autoworker in the U.S. makes roughly $52,000 and considering that most of the nonunion plants are in lower cost of living areas, I would say that both are quite competitive with one another. Basically no one is getting rich who is a general worker at any U.S. auto manufacturing plant. The anti-union forces along with the corporate right are spinning this to create more anti-union sentiment in our country. They fixate on a number that sounds outlandish and just keep repeating it until you say “greedy union worker”, when in fact with the way the world is changing even the nonunion manufacturers here will be cutting back and need help eventually as it is very hard to compete globally when places such as Mexico have a minimum wage of $2 an hour, Bangladesh is only $0.06, and Vietnam is $64 an month.
So the choice is your, keep listening to their horseshit, keep hating your fellow American workers, keep letting them get away with outsourcing all of our industry or open your eyes and let them know that you know they are misinforming us. Remember “unions force jobs overseas” or at least that’s what they want you to believe.
Yes these are bad times, really bad times, but don’t take it out on the American workers, not the union ones or the nonunion ones, we are all hurting, don’t let them get away with driving a bigger wedge between all of us, the collapse of GM, Ford and Chrysler will cost us 3 million U.S. jobs, add that to the 50,000+ Citibank workers, and all the others who have recently been laid off and you can see now we as the American working class need to rely on each other now more than ever.
Debunking the $73/hour Myth
Here’s the scoop on the pay at the ‘Big 3′, from the pages of The New Republic
Why Are We Bailing Out Auto Workers Who Make $70 An Hour?
by Jonathan Cohn
Debunking the myth of the $70-per-hour autoworker.If you’ve been following the auto industry’s crisis, then you’ve probably read or heard a lot about overpaid American autoworkers–in particular, the fact that the average hourly employee of the Big Three makes $70 per hour.
That’s an awful lot of money. Seventy dollars an hour in wages works out to almost $150,000 a year in gross income, if you assume a forty-hour work week. Is it any wonder the Big Three are in trouble? And with auto workers making so much, why should taxpayers–many of whom make far less–finance a plan to bail them out?
Well, here’s one reason: The figure is wildly misleading.
Let’s start with the fact that it’s not $70 per hour in wages. According to Kristin Dziczek of the Center for Automative Research–who was my primary source for the figures you are about to read–average wages for workers at Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors were just $28 per hour as of 2007. That works out to a little less than $60,000 a year in gross income–hardly outrageous, particularly when you consider the physical demands of automobile assembly work and the skills most workers must acquire over the course of their careers.
More important, and contrary to what you may have heard, the wages aren’t that much bigger than what Honda, Toyota, and other foreign manufacturers pay employees in their U.S. factories. While we can’t be sure precisely how much those workers make, because the companies don’t make the information public, the best estimates suggests the corresponding 2007 figure for these “transplants”–as the foreign-owned factories are known–was somewhere between $20 and $26 per hour, and most likely around $24 or $25. That would put average worker’s annual salary at $52,000 a year.
So the “wage gap,” per se, has been a lot smaller than you’ve heard. And this is no accident. If the transplants paid their employees far less than what the Big Three pay their unionized workers, the United Auto Workers would have a much better shot of organizing the transplants’ factories. Those factories remain non-unionized and management very much wants to keep it that way.
But then what’s the source of that $70 hourly figure? It didn’t come out of thin air. Analysts came up with it by including the cost of all employer-provided benefits–namely, health insurance and pensions–and then dividing by the number of workers. The result, they found, was that benefits for Big Three cost about $42 per hour, per employee. Add that to the wages–again, $28 per hour–and you get the $70 figure. Voila.
Except … notice something weird about this calculation? It’s not as if each active worker is getting health benefits and pensions worth $42 per hour. That would come to nearly twice his or her wages. (Talk about gold-plated coverage!) Instead, each active worker is getting benefits equal only to a fraction of that–probably around $10 per hour, according to estimates from the International Motor Vehicle Program. The number only gets to $70 an hour if you include the cost of benefits for retirees–in other words, the cost of benefits for other people. One of the few people to grasp this was Portfolio.com’s Felix Salmon. As he noted yesterday, the claim that workers are getting $70 an hour in compensation is just “not true.”
Of course, the cost of benefits for those retirees–you may have heard people refer to them as “legacy costs”–do represent an extra cost burden that only the Big Three shoulder. And, yes, it makes it difficult for the Big Three to compete with foreign-owned automakers that don’t have to pay the same costs. But don’t forget why those costs are so high. While the transplants don’t offer the same kind of benefits that the Big Three do, the main reason for their present cost advantage is that they just don’t have many retirees.
The first foreign-owned plants didn’t start up here until the 1980s; many of the existing ones came well after that. As of a year ago, Toyota’s entire U.S. operation had less than 1,000 retirees. Compare that to a company like General Motors, which has been around for more than a century and which supports literally hundreds of thousands of former workers and spouses. As you might expect, many of these have the sorts of advanced medical problems you expect from people to develop in old age. And, it should go without saying, those conditions cost a ton of money to treat.
To be sure, we’ve known about these demographics for a while. Management and labor in Detroit should have figured out a solution it long ago. But while the Big Three were late in addressing this problem, they did address it eventually.
Notice how, in this article, I’ve constantly referred to 2007 figures? There’s a good reason. In 2007, the Big Three signed a breakthrough contract with the United Auto Workers (UAW) designed, once and for all, to eliminate the compensation gap between domestic and foreign automakers in the U.S.
The agreement sought to do so, first, by creating a private trust for financing future retiree benefits–effectively removing that burden from the companies’ books. The auto companies agreed to deposit start-up money in the fund; after that, however, it would be up to the unions to manage the money. And it was widely understood that, given the realities of investment returns and health care economics, over time retiree health benefits would likely become less generous.
In addition, management and labor agreed to change health benefits for all workers, active or retired, so that the coverage looked more like the policies most people have today, complete with co-payments and deductibles. The new UAW agreement also changed the salary structure, by creating a two-tiered wage system. Under this new arrangement, the salary scale for newly hired workers would be lower than the salary scale for existing workers.
One can debate the propriety and wisdom of these steps; two-tiered wage structures, in particular, raise various ethical concerns. But one thing is certain: It was a radical change that promised to make Detroit far more competitive. If carried out as planned, by 2010–the final year of this existing contract–total compensation for the average UAW worker would actually be less than total compensation for the average non-unionized worker at a transplant factory. The only problem is that it will be several years before these gains show up on the bottom line–years the industry probably won’t have if it doesn’t get financial assistance from the government.
Make no mistake: The argument over a proposed rescue package is complicated, in no small part because over the years both management and labor made some truly awful decisions while postponing the inevitable reckoning with economic reality. And even if the government does provide money, it’s a tough call whether restructuring should proceed with or without a formal bankruptcy filing. Either way, yet more downsizing is inevitable.
But the next time you hear somebody say the unions have to make serious salary and benefit concessions, keep in mind that they already have–enough to keep the companies competitive, if only they can survive this crisis.
Jonathan Cohn is a senior editor at The New Republic.
My apologies to my readers for the lapse of writing on my behalf, I needed some time after the election to rest, work has been very satisfying also and I have been trying to have more free time with my family. Fear not I have a lot to say and a ton of ammunition on really bad shit happening against workers in today’s America, I even have about 4 stories in the sandbox that need final editing to go forward and get published, but I need some time to focus and get the facts correct and intact.
More child labor in our backyard, more unscrupulous employers rejecting us in favor of undocumented workers with little or no rights and even a touch of good news, a story on more clothing made in the USA.
I have some shocking news. The AGC of San Diego has finally printed some good news. Good news to me that is.
The AGC here in town usually prints anti-union venom every Monday with their Monday Morning Quarterback. It does have some good information sometimes about local and national construction industry news, but often it just includes anti organized lab rants and raves by the senior staff.
In their post election analysis they were certain that the Obama Administration was going to push for two major labor policy changes. The first is removing the ban on Project Labor Agreements on Federally funded projects. The second is implementing the Free Choice Act. This update to the National Labor Relations Act, allows for a workplace to be organized if majority of workers to say that they want to be a part of a union.
Below you can find the article. Please remember the author’s tone is not labor friendly and they are getting ready to fight. But it is good to see the local AGC on thier heels.
President Elect Obama is going to face some unprecedented challenges as he takes office this January. Our economy is in terrible shape, and we are fighting two wars on two different fronts. I am sure all AGC members understand the difficult task the new administration will be facing and how important it is that the administration stay focused on the critical problems our country is now experiencing.
However, we also see some troubling priorities that appear to be on our President Elect’s “front burner.” These priorities involve sweeping changes to our labor laws that will result in the most comprehensive changes in labor relations since the 1940’s. With the Democratic Party holding solid majorities in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the US Senate, we see the following actions moving soon after the inauguration:
To set the tone….here is a quote from President Elect Obama’s April 2008 speech to the delegates attending the Building Trades National Convention….
“They (Bush Administration) don’t believe in unions. They don’t believe in organizing. They’ve packed the National Labor Relations Board with their corporate buddies. Well, we’ve got news for them….it’s not the Department of Management, it’s the Department of Labor, and we’re going to take it back.”
So what can we expect?
The Employee Free Choice Act
As a Senator, President-Elect Obama was a co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act. This law makes union organizing of a workforce easy……I think too easy. It simply requires the union to obtain 50% +1 of your employees in a particular craft to sign cards. There is no election. When this happens your firm has a union. Yes, you do get to negotiate for an agreement after the cards are signed, but if you are unable to reach an agreement with the union within a specified time period, an arbitrator will be called in and the terms of the agreement will be subject to binding arbitration. This initial agreement will be a two-year agreement.
Under the law that has existed since the 1940’s, unions could get cards signed by 30% of your work force and then call for an election which is overseen by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). If 50% +1 of the unit employees voted for the union you are required to enter into negotiations. If you are unable to reach an agreement, the union has the right to strike/picket but does not necessarily end up with an agreement.
The Employee Free Choice Act takes away the secret ballot election that is currently a mandatory part of the election process. In addition, it contains a powerful new tool that will create a very difficult atmosphere for employers facing a union organizing campaign. The union, probably through individual employees, will be able to file a civil suit against an employer for violating an employee’s right to organize during a campaign. The fine is up to $20,000 per violation. I would assume that it will be tempting for the unions to convince the employees to file these suits during the card signing process even if the allegation is a “stretch.”
Unions like nothing better than to have a big fine hanging over an employer’s head during these campaigns. This is not possible under current law. In addition, if an employee is fired during a campaign, and it is found that the firing was a result of the employee’s involvement in the campaign, the employer will owe the employee the employees lost wages times three.
Now, it is a given that the Employee Free Choice Act is going to pass and be signed by the President during 2009. Obviously, AGC and all other major construction and non-construction interests are gearing up for the legislative battle that will surround this Act when it is introduced. Its exact form is not known, but assuming that it passes in a form similar to the above, please understand that AGC staff and legal experts are working on innovative ways to assist contractors.
And….if you are a union contractor do not believe that you will not be affected by the Employee Free Choice Act. It is no secret that there is a great deal of union to union friction in the Building Trades right now. I predict that there will be efforts to amend the Employee Free Choice Act to position some of the larger Building Trades unions to organize workers in the smaller building trades unions. Certain building Trades Unions are committed to the concept of reducing the number of building trades unions, and this is a real opportunity to structure easy takeovers of smaller unions!!!!
Project Labor Agreements (PLAs)
In a September 16th, 2008 letter to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers President Elect Obama wrote….
“We need to make sure the government uses project labor agreements to encourage completion of projects on time and on budget. One of the first things George Bush did when he got into office was to ban PLAs. One of the first things I’ll do as President is repeal that ban.”
This returns us to the way it was before President Bush took office. How extensively the PLA will be used in this “Federal” context remains to be seen, but….beware.
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
The NLRB in Washington hears and attempts to decide all major labor cases. There are five Board members appointed by the President. Normally three of the appointees will be from the President’s party, and will view labor relations as the President does, and two appointees will be from the other party. During the Bush years, the President did not have a full five-member Board for very long. This caused some of the most controversial cases, including the “Ban the Banner” case, not to be decided since these cases by tradition will only be addressed when five members are serving.
We expect all five to be appointed quickly in the Obama Administration!!!
I have been involved in construction industry labor relations for the past 30 years. There is no question that the next few years will be a real challenge. If the Employee Free Choice Act passes in any form similar to what we have seen in past versions of the legislation, our industry and all other industries face some real difficulties. However, please remember actually implementing something this unfair will be difficult.
Stay tuned.
This is a response I wrote to the ignorant mob over at the Newsvine on a story entitled “Labor unions get boost from Boeing strike“, where in the first sentence the author states that the Boeing strike has:
given a shot in the arm to a weakening organized labor movement in America.
I had to remind him about his choice of wording and respond to the anti-union views I read in the comment’s, here’s what I had to say:
Firstly a note to the author: Last year for the first time since 1984 the union membership has risen in America, hence a strengthening labor movement is more accurate, secondly to all the people who have posted before me, and those who read afterwords:
I believe that the complacent American people have moved jobs overseas, and I’m right.
The day you all decided that the poison pet food from China was OK, the cheap plastic piece of crap toy with the lead paint from Wal-Mart was fine for your kid to put in their mouth, the day you blamed the US auto worker and not the greedy companies that used our tax money to make concept cars that got 80+ MPG over ten years ago and didn’t bring it to market, that was when YOU gave our jobs overseas. When you decided to talk to Apu in India, masquerading as “Charlie” for your PC’s tech support and didn’t demand an American at the other end of the phone, the day you let the undocumented worker mow your lawn, that day you all closed your eyes and bought Nike sneakers that some Vietnamese guy made for a whopping $64 a month over the New Balance that was half the price and made by the head of an American family.
You watched with your head up your behind when such staples of American life as Wrangler Jeans moved to Haiti, where even the workers make less than $2 a day and are forced to eat clay sandwiches with salt to stave off the hunger pains, and to such places as Bangladesh, where even the highest paid of the regular working class must stand in thousand people lines to get government subsidized rice, you still sit there idle and watch Hershey’s chocolate move 1,500 jobs to Mexico for $2 an hour wages, and you allow the media to brainwash you with fluff of Paris and Britney’s sniffer, you are the reason we are here today. You closed your eyes and gave our industry and our jobs away.
Don’t blame the unions for the loss of good American jobs, blame yourself. You blindly point your fingers at the only institutions that try to help the American worker, because that’s exactly what they want you to do.
Your ignorance disgusts me, your grandparents would slap you. They fought for what you have blindly gave away, even child labor has made a comeback, as an immigration raid in Pottsville, Iowa, which grabbed almost 400 workers in the Agriprocessors Kosher meatpacking plant, has been found to have over 30 workers who were underage, the youngest was on the KILL floor, she was 13. This year also saw how a 13 year old who was working with his father in Illinois, fell 3 stories from a forklift and watched his father die. That doesn’t even mention the pregnant teenager from Mexico who died on a California vineyard because she wasn’t allowed to stop for a water break. Yes, you allow that and wonder why the Salmonella has spread into out food supply, and no one in any media outlet comes to the conclusion that maybe they don’t get a potty break either. You all get what you deserve, less and less. Until you get rid of your blinders and see exactly how they have sold us out, it’s only gonna get worse.
So enjoy your crap from Wal-mart, your now made in China air conditioner that 1 in 10 don’t work, your poison food and your self-created rat race to compete with workers that have little or no rights in foreign lands and within our own borders.
When the labor movement dies, when we must all fend for ourselves, when you must have at least 3 sources of income to survive and work 12 hours a day with no hope for a dignified retirement, don’t come crying to me. Just keep your mind occupied with all the crap they throw your way and make sure your kid’s can pass a test and are discouraged from critical thinking so the manager’s at McDonald’s and the military recruiter’s can be well stocked with another group of clean slates to work with.
Joe,
Bah, I just get so sick of the bullsh!t these people choose to believe. If you like what I wrote over there, hit the little up arrow below my post.
See also “Why unions are bad“
and check out the latest from Lobotero, the first commentor on this post and his latest “Open Letter To The American Voter”
By Bendygirl (Cross Posted on Uniongal)
DELL, notorious for using labor all over the world (exploitation shipped from country to country) has contracted with UNICOR to recycle their computers (only after they came under fire from environmental advocates for dumping toxic waste).
CBS News posted a story on this (but since it’s from AP, I won’t be linking to those rat bastards at AP). The most important aspect of this piece is that UNICOR pays their inmates who do recycling as much as $1.26 per hour. Okay, they also pay as little as about a quarter of a dollar, but, whatever.
Years ago, 60 minutes did this amazing piece on how UNICOR (Federal Prison Industries) doesn’t have to worry about trademarks and patents and has actually put textile mills in the states out of business.
So, this got me thinking about why UNICOR’s future challenges tend to be an explosion in the prison population. Why have prison populations exploded and why should I care?
Well, you see, we all should care, because, there’s a correllation between unemployment and crime.
In a 1987 study of Growth in incarceration among African Americans showed a direct correlation with growth in unemployment among African Americans. In another study, for the Journal of Human Resources, author Ming–Jen Lin correlates a drop in UNION workers with unemployment and an INCREASE in rates of burglary and robbery. From the paper’s abstract:
We find a one-percentage-point increase in unemployment would increase property crime by 1.8 percent under the OLS method, but that the elasticity goes up to 4 percent under 2SLS. The larger 2SLS effect has significant policy implications because it explains 30 percent of the property crime change during the 1990s.
Freakin-A. Not only do unionized workers get a “union-premium,” but there’s a correlation to the drop in unionzation with a rise in crime (coupled with a rise in unemployment).
So, when I saw the latest post on Unbossed (thanks again Shirah) about inmates and UNICOR, it didn’t really surprise me that UNICOR has complaints against it from inmates seeking help with the recycling program’s toxic exposures of inmates. From UNBOSSED (in its entirety):
They’re just criminals – so why should we care about how they are treated in The Big House?
In fact, if we can get “Onshore outsourcing at offshore prices” by using prison labor, what’s the problem?As I said in 2007,
It’s hard to imagine a creepier government web page than that of the National Security Agency – do not skip intro. Although the NSA kid’s page comes close.
This is sock you in the face creepy. But a far creepier federal agency webpage is that of Unicor. What? Never heard of Unicor?And don’t we just know that the bureau of prisons program through UNICOR is just Poisoning Prisoners for Profit and that Life in Prison is a Riot
Well, now the latest, in the sorry saga. Here is the July 16, 2008 letter from NIOSH on this subject:
On November 27, 2007, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) received your request for technical assistance in your health and safety investigation of the Federal Prison Industries (UNICOR) electronics recycling program at Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) institutions in Elkton, Ohio; Texarkana, Texas; and Atwater, California. You asked us to assist the United States Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General (USDOJ, OIG) in assessing the existing medical surveillance program for inmates and staff exposed to lead and cadmium during electronics recycling, and to make recommendations for future surveillance.
In addition, you asked us to assess past exposures to lead and cadmium, and to investigate the potential for take home exposure. This interim letter summarizes our findings and provides recommendations to improve the safety and health of the inmates and staff at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Elkton, Ohio. These findings will be included in a final report that will contain findings from the evaluations at all three institutions identified in your request.
As it turns out, monitoring results for past exposures are not available because they just weren’t done for the most part or, if performed, they were so badly performed that they are of little use.
Electronics recycling at FCI Elkton appears to have been performed from 1997 until May 2003 without adequate engineering controls, respiratory protection, medical surveillance, or industrial hygiene monitoring. Because of the lack of both biological monitoring and industrial hygiene data, we cannot determine the extent of exposure to lead and cadmium that occurred during that time frame, but descriptions of work tasks from staff and inmates indicate that exposures during that time frame were likely higher than current exposures. The current GBO is a significant improvement, but can be further enhanced to limit exposure to those performing glass breaking, as well as limiting the migration of lead and cadmium from the room into other areas. While some take-home contamination does occur, surface wipe sampling and biological monitoring suggest that take-home contamination does not pose a health threat at this time. Take-home contamination can be further reduced by changes to the GBO, work practices, and improved personal hygiene as recommended below.
We cannot determine the extent of exposure to lead that occurred in the chip recovery process because of the lack of data. Descriptions of work tasks from staff, and a BLL of 5 μg/dL in an inmate 4 months after the process ended indicate that exposure to lead during this process did occur. We found no evidence that actions were taken to prevent exposure to lead at the outset in the chip recovery process and found that no medical surveillance was performed until after the process ended.
Medical surveillance that has been carried out among inmates and staff has not complied with OSHA standards. No medical exams (including physical examinations) are done on inmates; staff receive inconsistent examinations and biological monitoring by their personal physicians; biological monitoring for lead is not done at established standard intervals; and results are not communicated to the inmates.
Inappropriate biological monitoring tests have been done. Records of medical surveillance are not maintained by the employer for the appropriate length of time.
The report makes many recommendations for improvement. I personaly like this one as the most likely to ameliorate the situation:
7. Appoint a union safety and health representative. This individual should be a regular participant on the joint labor-management safety committee that meets quarterly. Since inmates do not have a mechanism for representation on this committee, ensure that they are informed of its proceedings and that they have a way to voice their concerns about and ideas for improving workplace safety and health.
Yep. If you want help getting your workplace conditions improved, get union representations. Not so easy for the prisoners, of course, but maybe they can piggy back on the prison workers’ union representation.
After all, contamination for one is probably contamination for all.
But Shirah has only provided the most recent blog posting on UNICOR and their roll in the US. Before Shirah’s most recent posts, there was this one from Ian Urbina, America’s Prison Factories. Where Ian notes that:
Over the years, FPI has grown exponentially, now ranking as the government’s thirty-ninth largest contractor — in no small part due to the quantity and diversity of apparel items it manufactures for the Department of Defense. The company has churned out more than 150,000 Kevlar helmets in the past 24 months, more than $12 million worth. Aside from the battle-dress shirts sewn at Greenville, the company is also a major supplier of men’s military undershirts, $1.6 million of which it sold to the Pentagon in 2002. In that year, FPI made close to $3 million fashioning underwear and nightwear for the troops. Inmates also stitch together the vestments donned by military pastors and the gowns cloaking battlefield surgeons. If an item of clothing is torn in combat, it will likely be sent to the prison shop in Edgefield, South Carolina, where it is mended at a cost of $5 per shirt and or pair of trousers. In 2002, 700 prisoners based at FPI laundry facilities located in Florida, Texas and Alabama washed and pressed $3 million worth of military apparel.
Snip
…Out of the 1.3 million pairs of these trousers bought by the Defense Department last year, all but 300,000 were produced by FPI, which means that at least three out of four active-duty soldiers in the region wear pants made by the inmates of the FPI factories in Atlanta and in Beaumont and Feagoville, Texas. These sorts of numbers have earned FPI critics from a range of perspectives. FPI competitors, such as Propper International, point out that they use free labor to make the exact same trousers for the government at $2.39 cheaper per pair. Organized labor questions why the government should buy from a company which depends solely on inmate workers, while paying sub-minimum wages (from 25 cents to $1.15 per hour), skirting workplace safety standards and enjoying exemption from the payroll and Social Security taxes levied on other employers.
Which then brought me over to the UNICOR site where there are no pictures of inmates in prison garb or looking as if they’re behind bars or even guards, it’s pretty eerie. But I found this statement from their site more eerie and way more creepy:
The Future Challenge
The challenge for FPI is to remain financially self-sufficient while providing enough work for an increasing number of inmates. The Federal inmate population has tripled over the last 10 years, and it is projected to continue growing for the foreseeable future. In order for the Bureau of Prisons to successfully manage the increased number of inmates, FPI will have to create jobs for these additional inmates.FPI’s influence on the successful management of Federal prisons is no secret; it has been a matter of public policy for over six decades. Policymakers have long recognized that increasing the number of incarcerated individuals means increasing the number of prisons and, in turn, increasing the size of FPI in order to improve both the management of the prisons and an inmate’s chances of success upon release. As we begin the next decade, continued support of Federal Prison Industries will pay important dividends for the country.
Creepy, huh?
Thanks Shirah for making me think about this.
Since I was already thinking, I decided to put the pieces together for me. I looked at the numerous reports linking crime rates, incarceration and unemployment and thought about how it is possible that it’s okay for UNICOR to pay inmates all of $1 (ish) an hour (if even that much) to produce things that American manufactures had been producing and STILL produce. I’m just not sure why this is acceptable anymore.
To me, it’s almost as if the US Government is in the business of creating inmates to work for almost nothing, driving American manufacturing into the ground and thereby, creating new inmates.
Of course, my understanding of this issue, isn’t science, I just like to read. And sometimes, things strike me. This issue, doesn’t just strike me, it makes me sick.
Honestly, this just really sucks.
Corporate interests are fighting the Employee Free Choice Act with everything they’ve got. They’re protecting the status quo – a rigged system which allows employers to intimidate, harass, and even fire workers who try to form a union. We’re not talking about isolated incidents:
30 percent of employers fire pro-union workers during union organizing drives. 1
Added this gem to the top right of the page as the combustible dust petition is reaching it’s 500th. signature(please sign it if you haven’t already done so). Now it’s time to tell Congress we are serious about the Employee Free Choice Act. So from todays E-Mail box.
Dear Joseph,
CEOs take in millions while the economy tanks – and workers pay the price.
The Employee Free Choice Act can get us back on track. Click here to sign the petition.
A robust middle class. Economic growth and shared prosperity. The American Dream. None are possible without good union jobs that protect workers.
That’s why we need the Employee Free Choice Act – critical legislation that would give more workers a way to form unions and negotiate for better wages, health care, and working conditions.
We’re teaming up with hundreds of groups and unions to launch a massive campaign: One Million Strong for the Employee Free Choice Act.
We’re going to show the new President and Congress that there are one million people who want to give hardworking families a chance to get ahead. Can you be one of the first?
Click here to sign the petition for the Employee Free Choice Act.
Why is this bill so important? It’s plain as day: workers are struggling in this country.
Today’s workplaces are tilted in favor of lavishly-paid CEOs, who get golden parachutes while middle-class families struggle to get by. The Employee Free Choice Act can restore the balance, giving more workers a chance to form unions and get better health care, job security, and benefits – and an opportunity to pursue their dreams.
Corporate interests are fighting the Employee Free Choice Act with everything they’ve got. They’re protecting the status quo – a rigged system which allows employers to intimidate, harass, and even fire workers who try to form a union. We’re not talking about isolated incidents: 30 percent of employers fire pro-union workers during union organizing drives.1
It’s time our economy worked for everyone again. It’s time for Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
When you sign, be sure to upload your picture, too. We’ll share it with lawmakers so they can see the faces of everyone who cares about this issue.
Together, we can change the law, change the economy, and change our futures for the better.
Sincerely,
Liz Cattaneo
American Rights at Work
www.AmericanRightsatWork.orgP.S. For more information about the Employee Free Choice Act, click here to find out about our campaign.
1 Chirag Mehta and Nik Theodore, Undermining the Right to Organize: Employer Behavior During Union Representation Campaigns, Center for Urban Economic Development, University of Illinois at Chicago, Dec. 2005.
The union avoidance law firm Jackson and Lewis has released a press release against the Employee Free Choice Act, Forbes is writing about the corporate fear and the Rick Berman Law group has been putting anti-union/anti-Employee Free Choice Act commercials on the air. They see the writing on the wall. Americans are sick of getting shit on and want to be union workers.
Union City is the Labor Council in Washington DC, when you think of the fact that most of the International unions offices, as well as most of our Federal Government offices reside in Washington DC, you can imagine how much is going on there on a daily basis. Their E-Mail newsletter helps keep me in the know, heres the latest E-Mail and they send me one daily. It’s like the newspaper for unionists. You can subscribe to Union City by clicking this link
There are also many other publications on the AFL-CIO Working Families E-Activist Network
that you can sign up and get delivered to your inbox.
You can even get the Joe’s Union Review Newsletter by entering your E-mail address into “
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TODAY’S LABOR NEWS
ON THE LINE THIS WEEKEND |
Friday, June 6, 2008
LABOR UPDATES: Union Victory for MontCo Profs: Hundreds of part-time faculty at Montgomery College won a months-long battle to unionize this week (DC Jobs with Justice Corner: PT MontCo Profs Organize 4/24/08 UC), voting overwhelmingly for SEIU Local 500, reported Marcus Moore in Wednesday’s Gazette. “The opportunities we now have to win improvements for ourselves and our students are endless,” said part-time faculty member Terilee Edwards-Hewitt. The vote is the first successful unionization drive by part-time instructors in Maryland, reported Moore. Delta Workers Vow to 
Continue Campaign After Failed Union Bid: Delta flight attendants (Flight Attendants Hold Union Vote at Delta 5/9/08 UC) will continue to fight for a union voice following a worker vote last week that fell short because of an intense voter suppression effort by Delta management, reports the CWA District 2 website. “Managers plastered crew rooms with posters urging flight attendants to throw out their official voting information” and “prevented workers from exercising their right to post pro-union materials in crew lounges,” reports District 2. The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) plans to file interference charges against Delta. Workers are optimistic, though, that another union vote – following the probable merger between Delta and Northwest – will be successful. Click here to read the full story.
WALKING & TALKING HEALTHCARE IN NOVA: Northern Virginia activists will door-knock on the healthcare issue tomorrow in Northern Virginia Central Labor Council’s health care walk. “We will have doughnuts, bagels, juice and coffee in the morning and Iron Workers General Secretary Walt Wise and AFGE National Secretary-Treasurer J. David Cox will do a send-off,” says Northern Virginia CLC President Dan Duncan. Lunch will be provided after the walk. For more info or to RSVP, contact Roxy Mejia or Steve Mendenhall at the NoVa CLC 703-750-3633.
DC COPS CALL FENTY “ANTI-UNION”: Calling DC Mayor Adrian Fenty “anti-union,” DC police union official Kristopher Baumann said Fenty “has shown absolute disdain for front line workers.” Contract negotiations between the District and DC police officers are heating up after what Baumann called “outrageous” contract proposals from the city, reported WTOP Radio Monday. “Negotiators for the city have not acted in good faith, they’re trying to run over the frontline officer and destroy the union,” Baumann told WTOP. City proposals would take away guaranteed pay increases, reduce hazardous duty pay, technical work, and clothing allowances, give commanders more power in determining overtime compensation for officers, weaken 
workers’ due process rights and rights to appeal disciplinary actions, reported WTOP.
CWA AND VERIZON RESUME EARLY NEGOTIATIONS: Talks between CWA and Verizon resumed last week, according to a report in the CWA 2108 News. “CWA Districts 1, 2 and 13, together with the IBEW, have agreed to resume early negotiations with Verizon, covering the Verizon ‘East’ contract,” says a report in the June edition of the 2108 News. The contract, covering 55,000 CWA members, expires on August 2. “The parties initially engaged in early contract bargaining beginning last November but the talks were suspended earlier this year. Verizon has continued to agree to limit its 
bargaining agenda to health care while the unions have an unrestricted agenda and the discussions will cover the ability of members to have access to jobs of the future in the growth areas of the company.” CWA is bargaining jointly with the IBEW.
NLRB UPHOLDS TRUMP PLAZA DEALERS’ VOTE FOR UAW: More than a year after they voted for a union, dealers at Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, N.J., finally can celebrate their victory. The National Labor Relations Board (NRLB) last week certified the UAW as their union. On June 21, a united labor movement, backed by community supporters, will hold a major demonstration in downtown Atlantic City to demand that casino owners end their stalling tactics and come to the bargaining table. Click here for details on buses from DC. “We’ve been trying to get to the bargaining table for over a year,” said Trump Plaza dealer Doug Migliore. “Now we can move forward to get a contract.” Click here for the complete story by James Parks on the AFL-CIO Now Weblog.
WEEKEND LABOR HISTORY: Speculator mine disaster. 164 killed at Butte, MT (6/6/1917); A general strike by some 12,000 autoworkers and others in Lansing, MI. shuts down the city for a month in what was 
to become known as the city’s “Labor Holiday.” The strike was precipitated by the arrest of nine workers, including the wife of the auto workers local union president: the arrest left three children in the couple’s home unattended (6/6/1937); Labor Party founding convention opens in Cleveland, OH (6/6/1996); Militia sent to Cripple Creek, CO, to suppress Western Federation of Miners strike (6/7/1904); Sole performance of Pageant of the Patterson Strike, created and performed by 1,000 mill workers from the silk industry strike, New York City (6/7/1913); Unemployed riot in London (6/8/1886); A battle between the Militia and striking miners at Dunnville, CO ended with six union members dead and 15 taken prisoner. Seventy-nine of the strikers were deported to Kansas two days later (6/8/1904); More info & ammo for unionists is available online from Union Communication Services and from the 2008 Slingshot Collective Organizer booklet.
Material published in UNION CITY may be freely reproduced by any recipient; please credit the Council as the source. Published by the Metropolitan Washington Council, an AFL-CIO “Union City” Central Labor Council whose 200 affiliated union locals represent 150,000 area union members. JOSLYN N. WILLIAMS, PRESIDENT. Story suggestions, event announcements, campaign reports, Letters to the Editor and other material are welcome, subject to editing for clarity and space, and should be directed to:
Editor: Chris Garlock/Assistant Editor: Andy Richards/streetheat@dclabor.org/Voice: 202-974-8153/Fax: 202-974-8152
The ad is simple and effective and drives home the point that unions are not special interests they are the people who make everything in this country work. – Bill
*Click image for large view
Hello everyone,
Heres a little more info from the Concrete Alliance, Inc., who’s member unions are sponsoring this ad:
“Unions are all about family values,” says says Al Gerosa. President of the Concrete Alliance. Membership brings superior health benefits for union workers and their families. he notes, “and we want qualified non-union workers to be aware of what they can gain by joining.”Families of union members can also enjoy the advantages of middle class living standards. he adds. Followed by a strong pension program when the breadwinner retires. The public benefits as well, because union workers are trained and re-trained in safe working practices. “This emphasis on safety clearly pays off”,declares Mr. Gerosa, “because construction sites with union workers have far fewer accidents.”
“Raising public awareness of how unions benefit New York City as a whole. especially through improved safety on city streets and construction sites, is another reason for taking to the streets with this new campaign,”
Supporters of the bus advertising campaign include:
Word is, many more unions will be advertising on 1010 Wins news in the drive times, thats good news.
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