June 7, 2007

Verizon — This Company Needs a Conscience

In March 2006, sixty percent of the Verizon Business techs in the Northeast chose to form a union, signed union cards and sought formal recognition from Verizon.  The workers had their majority support verified by elected officials who counted the union cards and confirmed the majority against a company employee roster. 

But now Verizon has joined the long and shameful list of US companies who feel free to ignore US labor law and the rights of workers.  It has used every trick in the union-busters’ book to defeat the will of its employees.  From discharging union supporters to closing call centers with strong union support, the company has flouted decisions against it by the NLRB.
   Employees simply want the company to return to its prior practice of remaining neutral and voluntarily negotiating with employees after a majority shows their support for a voice at work.

What can you do?  CWA suggests:

• Contact Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg at http://www.freechoiceatverizon.com/help/ and tell him to support workers’ rights.

• Find out if your city or county has a Verizon contract, and  ask elected officials to tell Seidenberg that they fully support the rights of Verizon employees to form a union and bargain collectively without intimidation and harassment.   And try to get your local government to “buy union” when their current contracts reach expiration.

More information about the Verizon organizing campaign is on the web at:  www.cwa-union.org/verizon

Wal-Mart Rakes It In

   Wal-Mart has received Economic Development Subsidies from state and local governments including 39 deals worth more than $200 million in just the past three years; 6 deals worth a total of about $16.7 million in Iowa. This according to researchers at Good Jobs First.   But in Iowa City, union member Gary Sanders (AFT 716) started a local group — Iowa City Stop Wal-Mart—that blocked the company from  getting access to public land to build a second Super Wal-Mart.  Labor-based local coalitions can fight a giant and win!

 EFCA Would Help

CWA organizers say that  “Verizon is the poster child for why workers need the Employee Free Choice Act.”   One could make the same argument about Wal-Mart.  The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would provide a mechanism for employees who want a union to make a free and fair – uncoerced – choice about union representation on the job.  It includes real penalties for companies that are serial abusers of workers’ rights. And it provides a fair path for both parties to reach a first contract.

December 9, 2006, 12:30 p.m.

North Central Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO

Marvin Gardens

809 Central Avenue Fort Dodge

December 9, 2006, 5:00 p.m.

North Iowa Nine Labor Council, AFL-CIO

Hanford Inn

3041 - 4th St. SW

Mason City

December 13, 2006, 5:30 p.m.

Black Hawk Union Council, AFL-CIO

Brown Bottle

209 West 5th

Waterloo

December 15, 2006, 5:30 p.m.

Hawkeye Labor Council,

AFL-CIO

Iowa City Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO

RWDSU #110 Hall

526 F Ave. NW

Cedar Rapids

December 16, 2006, 9:00 a.m.

Dubuque Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO

Labor Temple

1610 Garfield, Dubuque

December 16, 2006, 12:30 p.m.

Clinton Labor Congress,

AFL-CIO

Quad City Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO

Rusty Nail

2606 W. Locust

Davenport

December 16, 2006, 12:30 p.m.

Southwest Iowa Labor Council, AFL-CIO

Tish’s

1115 S. 35th St. Council Bluffs

December 16, 2006, 5:00 p.m.

Des Moines - Henry County Labor Council, AFL-CIO

Lee County Labor Council,

AFL-CIO

Parthenon Steakhouse

715 - 8th St.

Ft. Madison

December 16, 2006, 5:00 p.m.

Northwest Iowa Labor Council, AFL-CIO

UFCW #222

3038 S. Lakeport,

Sioux City

December 17, 2006, 12:30 p.m.

Southern Iowa Labor Council, AFL-CIO

UFCW #230 Hall

1305 E. Mary Ottumwa

December 18, 2006, 5:30 p.m.

Iowa Federation of Labor,

AFL-CIO

Machinists Hall

2000 Walker St.

Des Moines

IFL Secretary-Treasurer
recognized at Democratic Party Hall of Fame Banquet

    Ken Sagar, IFL Secretary-Treasurer, also serves as Treasurer of the State Democratic Party Central Committee, a demanding job which is critical to the success of efforts to get labor-friendly candidates elected.

   At the State Party’s annual recognition banquet in Cedar Rapids, Sagar was awarded the Jim Lodwick Award for Outstanding Democratic State Central Committee Member. Sagar, who has served the party as Treasurer for three years, shared the spotlight with Presidential candidates Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards and Richardson in an event which gained national press coverage.  Congratulations, Ken!

Gearing up for
Election ‘08

   We welcome Betty Brim-Hunter back to her job as State Political Director for the AFL-CIO.  As of June 1st, Betty has been working out of the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO office in Des Moines, with the IFL and AFL-CIO affiliates to implement the state and national 2008 election program in Iowa. 

   Betty is a member of CWA and previously served as an auditor for the Iowa Federation of Labor.

The Non-Union Workers in Your Town are about to get a Whole Lot Smarter!

Working America Launches Summer Canvass in Iowa - A voice for workers who don't have unions

Working America, the new community affiliate of the AFL-CIO, was created in 2003 to bring some of the benefits of union membership to workers who don’t have unions on the job.  It now  has 1.6 million members representing every state and U.S. territory and hopes to reach 2.5 million members by Labor Day 2008.  Iowa will be a part of that effort.

How it works

Working America canvassers spread out in communities, contacting non-union workers on issues.  They generate approximately 30 new Working America members per shift, per canvasser, out of about 45 people they speak to in the course of an evening.

The effect of these new members is powerful.  In Washington state, Working America members sent more than 700 handwritten letters in a successful effort to get legislators to support state Family and Medical Leave legislation.

In the 2006 election, Working America received widespread attention for its ‘Final Four’ campaign, which added 600 staff members who knocked on 153,000 doors in Minnesota, Ohio and Pennsylvania to get out the vote in those crucial days before the election.  That effort helped put candidates who support working people over the top in several key electoral districts.

 Political education

Crucial to this success was the fact that 74 percent of members voted for candidates

endorsed by Working America. While, for example, white men overall voted by a nine percentage point margin for Republican candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, white men who were Working America members voted by a 44 percentage point margin for the Democrats vying for those seats.

Each Working America campaign is directed by the members of Working America themselves, who write in and vote online for the issue they believe should be a priority.  These members rarely fit the stereotypical profile of a progressive.  Forty percent consider themselves political independents.  Sixty-three percent do not have a college degree; 32 percent own guns and 41 percent attend church at least weekly.

Jobs: a key issue in Iowa

This year Working America’s members chose jobs as the most important issue in our state.  This summer’s campaign will focus on talking to people about the need for quality jobs and what measures need to be taken to achieve them. They’ll also ask people to take action and get involved politically for the 2008 election. (Working America, 5/29) 

Raise The Floor: Wages and Policies That Work for All of Us uses current data and real-life stories to show what it takes to make ends meet in today’s America. At present, a couple with two children has to work a combined 3.3 full-time minimum wage jobs to make ends meet. That’s 132 hours a week!  Iowa’s recent minimum wage increase helps here.  But more needs to be done.

Authors Holly Sklar, Laryssa Mykyta, and Susan Wefald argue that the minimum wage must be raised for Americans in every state.  The Des Moines Register describes how the authors show what the 100-member U.S. Senate would look like if it were a microcosm of the nation. “A few    examples: Twenty-three senators would earn less than $8 an hour; 12 would be below the official  poverty line; and 15 would have no health insurance.  The book states that only one would have nearly as much wealth as 95 others combined.”   “In Congress, they're not like us,”  DMR 5/22/07

The Global Trade in Jobs

AFL-CIO pursues dual strategy
to protect our industrial base 

China now accounts for 43 percent of this nation’s manufactured goods trade deficit, a situation that hurts our manufacturing base and kills good-paying union jobs.  And this deficit is closely tied to the value the Chinese government assigns its currency, the Yuan, currently greatly undervalued, thus making Chinese goods artificially much more attractive to global consumers than they should be.

The AFL-CIO is pursuing a legal and a political strategy to work on this issue. 

Legal strategy.  The AFL-CIO  is a partner in the China Currency Coalition, which filed a petition in 2004,  asking for relief from the effects of the

 the US over the currency situation.  

Political strategy.  Prior to the Chinese delegation arriving, the House of Representatives held an unprecedented, high profile three subcommittee joint hearing on currency.  Thea Lee testified for the AFL-CIO in favor of the Fair Currency Act of 2007, which would give the United States new tools to deal with China’s currency manipulation.  The law would clarify that currency manipulation is an illegal subsidy under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules.  (The Bush Administration has repeatedly stated that though China’s currency manipulation is a problem, it can find no “technical violations” of the law.)

 A New Coalition. 

The Alliance for American Manufacturing, (AAM) sponsored by the USW and firms from the steel, rubber and aluminum industry AAM will be lobbying to protect domestic industry.  It now has a web site, a book on trade law enforcement, a video and a study on job loss to China.  AAM’s executive director Scott Paul was chief lobbyist for the Industrial Union Council and the AFL-CIO on trade before moving over to the Alliance.  We look forward to working with the Alliance.  Be sure to check out their web page at http://www.americanmanufacturing.org/.

Enforcing the Rules, from the Alliance for American Manufacturers, gives a first-of-its-kind look at the consequences of predatory trade practices on workers, manufacturers, and their communities and emphasizes the economic benefits of enforcing U.S. trade law.  The study includes analyses of recent trade actions in 10 different industries -- from steel and shrimp to furniture and raspberries -- in which anti-dumping and countervailing-duties were imposed on imports from other countries to combat predatory trade practices. 

 “Costly Trade with China” by the Economic Policy Institute, points out that 1.8 million U.S. jobs have been displaced since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, nearly 3/4 of those jobs in manufacturing. This EPI study estimates the labor that would be required to produce a given volume of exports, and the labor that is displaced when a given volume of imports is substituted for domestic output. The job losses represent an estimate of what employment levels would have been in the absence of growing trade.

2007 Midwest School for Women Workers

Union Women: Power Through Political Action

July 29-August 2, 2007

Iowa City, IA

Sponsored by the United Association of Labor Education (UALE),
 the University of Iowa Labor Center, and the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO

Topics include:

        Collective Bargaining; Arbitration; Local Union Leadership; Intro to the U.S. Labor Movement; Labor Law in the Private Sector; Solidarity in the Global Economy—and more!

        Registration:  Phone: (319) 335-4146;  On-line: http://www.continuetolearn.uiowa.edu/laborctr/html/MSWWRegistration.htm 

What Does…

• John Edwards have to  say on health care?

• Barack Obama on the Employee Free Choice Act?

• John McCain on education?

• Hillary Clinton on trade?

• Rudy Giuliani on Social Security privatization?

• (Hint: He's in Favor!)

 Find out where the presidential candidates stand on working family issues at:

www.WorkingFamiliesVote08.org

¶Good News Department¶

   More than 3,000 New Jersey workers now have the power of collective bargaining, thanks to the success of two union organizing campaigns that resulted in major victories for working families this week. 

   On Tuesday, 2,000 administrative staff at Rutgers University chose to become part of the American Federation of Teachers.  On Saturday, 1,100 casino dealers from Bally's in Atlantic City voted overwhelmingly to join with United Auto Workers, following the lead of approximately 860 dealers who formed a union at Caesars Atlantic City and nearly 500 at Trump Plaza Hotel in March.   Welcome, brothers and sisters!

   That brings to approximately 4,500 the number of New Jersey workers who have formed a union to improve their lives in the last four months.