A National Manufacturing Strategy Key to Job Growth

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US Airways CEO's pay package rises to $2.8 million

Doug Parker, Chairman, President and CEO, US Airways

CEO of US Airways sees $2.8 million in compensation after profitable 2010

Joshua Freed, AP Airlines Writer, On Friday April 29, 2011, 7:55 pm EDT

The head of U.S. Airways Group Inc. saw his compensation rise 7 percent to $2.8 million last year, according to an Associated Press calculation from the company's proxy statement, as it logged its first profitable year since 2007.

Chairman and CEO Doug Parker's salary was unchanged at $550,000.

Options awards valued at $1.1 million were down from 2009, but incentive pay of $987,800 was more than double the $429,000 he got for 2009. The stock options will only have value if the company's shares increase in value, and they must vest over the next three years.

He got nothing under a long-term incentive plan because U.S. Airways shares did not perform better than the shares of other airlines from 2008 through 2010.

US Airways is the fifth-biggest U.S. airline, and Parker's pay is less than the CEOs of the other big U.S. carriers.

"While my compensation remains below those of other airline CEOs, it is still a significant expense for our company and with this level of compensation comes significant responsibility," he wrote in a letter to employees on Friday, the same day his pay was detailed in a filing. "I take that responsibility very seriously and will continue to do so as we continue to run a great operation, take care of our customers and ensure US Airways is successful for many years to come."

The airline, based in Tempe, Ariz., reported net income for 2010 of $502 million after losing $205 million in 2009. Revenue rose 13.9 percent to $11.9 billion.

During 2010, its shares more than doubled to finish the year at $10.01, up from a close of $4.84 at the end of 2009. On Friday they rose 32 cents, or 3.7 percent, to close at $9.09.

The AP compensation formula calculates an executive's total compensation during the last fiscal year by adding salary, bonuses, perks, above-market interest the company pays on deferred compensation (which Parker didn't receive) and the estimated value of stock and stock options awarded during the year. The AP formula does not count changes in the present value of pension benefits. That makes the AP total slightly different in most cases from the total reported by companies to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The value that a company assigned to an executive's stock and option awards for 2010 was the present value of what the company expected the awards to be worth to the executive over time. Companies use one of several formulas to calculate that value. However, the number is just an estimate, and what an executive ultimately receives will depend on the performance of the company's stock in the years after the awards are granted. Most stock compensation programs require an executive to wait a specified amount of time to receive shares or exercise options.

US Airways said it would hold its annual shareholder meeting on June 9 in New York.

Breaking: Court Rules NFL Can Lock Out Players

by Tula Connell, Apr 29, 2011

This just in. According to CNN:

A Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals granted the National Football League (NFL) request to restore a lockout, according to a court clerk.

The temporary stay of an April 25 lower court order allows NFL owners to again suspend football operations as they seek to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Players Association (NFLPA).

If the players are locked out when the season starts in September, it would be the first NFL work stoppage since 1987.

A New Yorker article has pointed out what’s behind the owners’ lockout of the players:

It’s about very rich businessmen thinking that they should be even richer.

Read requests from the NFLPA to owners seeking financial information to back the owners’ claims that they are losing money and need to cut players’ pay $1 billion. The owners refused.

Here’s a listing of the owners’ final demands that they characterized as a meet-in-the middle compromise offer. But in fact was little different from their long-standing give-back demands.

Mich. Financial Martial Law Sponsor Faces Recall, Ties to Benton Harbor Developer Probed

by Mike Hall, Apr 29, 2011

The sponsor of Michigan’s “financial martial law” bill that Gov. Rick Snyder (R) pushed and then signed last month is facing a recall because the first city—Benton Harbor—to be placed under the law that virtually abolishes local government is in his district and local officials and residents want their government back.

In addition, news reports have uncovered his ties to a major developer that wants to take over the city’s crown jewel—a lakeshore park deeded to the city in 1917.

Today, Benton Harbor City Commissioner Dennis Knowles, filed a document that is the first step to recalling State Rep. Al Pscholka (R). The document is proposed language for a recall petition and if approved by the Berrien County Commission, activists can begin collecting signatures for recall. The county commission is expected to rule on the recall move May 9.

The document says Pscholka should be recalled “for sponsoring and supporting Public Act 4 that has robbed the citizens in District 79, namely the city of Benton Harbor, of their democratic rights…empowering a nonelected emergency financial manager…(and) striking local municipal government representation for, of and by the people.”

Meanwhile MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has traced the connections between Pscholka, the Whirlpool Corp.’s development of a luxury golf course and estate home community and a Benton Harbor lakeshore city park it’s drooling over to add to the Golf Club at Harbor Shores.

In a nutshell, Pscholka is a former aide to Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) heir to the Whirlpool fortune. Its corporate headquarters is in Benton Harbor and Whirlpool is using some of its land in Benton Harbor for the project. But it is eyeing Jean Klock Park along Lake Michigan’s shores for even more McMansions. After leasing a small portion of the park to Harbor Shores when the project began, Benton Harbor residents and city officials have opposed any expansion.

Pscholka is the former vice-president of a development company involved in the Harbor Shores project and was on the Board of Directors of a non-profit also involved in the Harbor Shores project.

Under the financial martial law bill, the city officials who have opposed Harbor Shores don’t have much power anymore. Here’s what they can do, according to the recently appointed “Emergency Financial Manager” Joseph Harris. They can an only call meetings to order, adjourn them and approve minutes of meetings. All other decision–making powers rest with Harris.

Click here for Maddow’s segment on Pscholka, here to visit Save Jean Klock Park and here, and here.

1968 Memphis Sanitation Strikers Inducted Into Labor Hall of Fame

President Obama met this morning with participants in the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike.

by James Parks, Apr 29, 2011

In an emotional ceremony, punctuated by several standing ovations, the U.S. Labor Department inducted into the Labor Hall of Fame 1,300 Memphis sanitation workers whose 1968 strike the right to join a union and collective bargaining was Martin Luther King’s last campaign. King was killed in the midst of the strike.

This is the first time the Hall of Fame has inducted a group of workers. U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said the sanitation workers were “ordinary men who took an extraordinary stand for what is right.”

The 1,300 workers walked out in 1968 after two of their co-workers were crushed on the job. They withstood beatings, harassment and firings to gain a raise and win recognition of their union, AFSCME Local 1733. Their simple slogan ”I Am A Man” has become a labor history icon.

Solis related that President Obama, who met with eight of the strikers this morning (above), told them he stood on their shoulders and he never would have been president if it were not for their courageous actions.

Former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young, a King aide who was in Memphis in 1968, said the men represented not only themselves, but all poor people.

Alvin Turner, one of the strikers, drew strong parallels between the problems they faced in 1968 and the attacks on public employees today in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and other states. He said in times like these, it is essential workers stick together. He pointed out that not one of the 1,300 sanitation workers crossed the line in 1968.

If it hadn’t been for unity, we never would have won the strike. I see they’re trying to balance the budget on the backs of poor people. They’re staring at the top with the teachers, but they’re coming down to the little man. I go to union meetings and only 10 people are there. They’re coming after you and if you don’t start coming to union meetings, they’re gonna get you.

Workers Could Be ‘Unstoppable’ with Unity, Solidarity, Democracy

by James Parks, Apr 29, 2011

The attempts to blame the nation’s economic mess on teachers, firefighters, nurses and other public employees provide a great opportunity for working people to regain the American Dream, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said this week.

But reviving the Dream will require working families and unions to rededicate themselves to organizing, reach out in solidarity to other workers at home and around the world and develop strategies to win back state legislatures as well as keep the White House in 2012, Trumka said. Read the entire speech here.

Speaking to the Lawyers Coordinating Committee (LCC), a group of union and labor lawyers, Trumka said the public is learning what the CEO-backed Republican attackers are trying to do to working people and their rights. Over the next 18 months, he said, “working people and our allies across these battleground states are going to win—not every fight, but the big ones and the day. “

But he warned that victory over the likes of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker will not mean victory for all workers and our unions. We need to win at the ballot box in 2012 to create the changes that will help working people and the nation reverse all the damage from these anti-worker policies, he said:

We need a 2012 election that puts the Scott Walkers of the world on notice that their agenda is not a viable political strategy. We need to win back the House, keep the Senate and win state and local races across the country. We need to win back at least one house in every one of these embattled state legislatures. Political strategies that are simply about low-risk ways of holding the White House will not help workers—they will lengthen a losing end game and will not give us a path to victory.

Global solidarity among workers is critical as well. Trumka said:

In the age of Internet globalization, we live our cause as one with workers around the world. The U.S. labor movement’s voice has been clear in support of democracy and workers’ rights in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Bahrain, in Syria, in Iran—and our voice has been heard.

“Now we must take that same spirit that brought working people to the streets of Indianapolis and Madison and Columbus—and Tunis and Cairo—and bring it to all our nation’s workplaces—and to our polling places, our state capitols and our national capitol,” Trumka said.

With this spirit of unity, of solidarity, of democracy itself, we can be unstoppable in 2011, in 2012 and in the years to come.

Lawmakers Find Republican Budget Draws Big Heat Back Home

by Mike Hall, Apr 29, 2011

Republican lawmakers have gotten a broad and angry response this congressional recess as they meet with constituents back home irate over a Republican federal budget proposal that would make senior’s Medicare costs explode by forcing them to buy coverage from greedy insurance companies. The Republican budget also would cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy, slash education funding, repeal health care reform and decimate up to 2 million jobs.

As this video compilation, courtesy of Think Progress, shows, it’s been damn tough to defend. Jeff Spross writes the budget crafted by Rep. Paul Ryan “has laid the Republicans’ values out in the open for all to see.”

Everyday Americans at town hall meetings across the country are reacting with outrage at the perverse priorities of the Ryan budget. And this latest manifestation of the burgeoning Main Street Movement against the right’s economic agenda has only grown in intensity since both Think Progress (and even some mainstream media outlets) began reporting on the phenomenon.

Take a look.

Job Safety Laws Must Not Go Backward

by Mike Hall, Apr 29, 2011

In Michigan yesterday, workers not only honored those killed and injured on the job as part of Workers Memorial Day ceremonies at the state Capitol in Lansing, they warned that plans to dismantle the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MIOSHA) and repeal the state’s workplace safety law would put workers at risk.

UAW Region1C Director Norwood Jewell said:

We remember those that are injured and it brings to light the fact they are talking about defunding MIOSHA. We still have people dying in workplaces. We have come too far to go backwards.

Michigan AFL-CIO Health and Safety Director Derrick Quinney says, “Even in a common-sense topic like public safety, our Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation in Michigan that will repeal the Michigan Occupational and Safety Health Act in favor of a federal OSHA program.”

Instead of stripping away our law that we know works, why not update it with further rules and regulations to keep our workers safe on the job?

The real goal of our Republican legislature is to take away workers’ rights and weaken the role of protecting workers in the public. These are the same coordinated attacks that are happening in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio. This isn’t about the budget—these attacks threaten the economic security and safety of all workers.

Read more here.

Elsewhere on Workers Memorial Day, Mike Staley of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 649, offered a prayer during services at Laborers (LIUNA) Local 538 in Galesburg, Ill.

Every worker killed on a job is a mother or father, son or daughter, brother or sister…They were all part of our communities, part of our lives.

Tom Lowey of the Galesburg Register Mail notes:

Finding a worker who knew of a fatal accident in the workplace wasn’t hard. Randy Bryan, a member of the Operators 649 Local out of Peoria, knew a crane operator killed two years ago. The message delivered Thursday was that workplace safety is a very real issue.

Click here for his full story.

Cheryl Rouse, a member of Machinist Local 1005 and chair of the safety committee at the Daimler truck plant in Portland Ore., says all workers feel the emotional sting when a co-worker is hurt or killed. She told Public News Service:

Most of us here have had children, become grandparents and everything else. So, when somebody gets hurt, it affects everybody, kind of personally, because that’s the person you’ve worked next to for 20 years.

At a Salem Workers Memorial Day event she and others read the names of the 34 Oregon workers killed in 2010. Says Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain:

As our economy picks back up it is crucial that Oregon employers continue to prioritize safety at the workplace—anything else would be unacceptable and undermine the years of work we all have put in to strengthening protections at the workplace.

AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Liz Shuler told a National Labor College (NLC) audience in Silver Spring. Md., that the labor movement was instrumental in winning landmark job safety laws and “and the progress we’ve made has been tremendous—worth celebrating. But our job is not done.”

The simple truth is that our jobs are still terribly dangerous. Some data suggest that deaths from workplace chemical exposure and cancer are actually on the rise. Immigrant workers are still getting sick picking vegetables and they’re getting hurt and killed by falling off of roofs and ladders. And millions of office workers are injured or in pain because of poor ergonomics

We will never forget those who died in the workplace or while trying to organize workers. We remember them every day, with the work we do to improve the safety and health of all working people… and to gain and safeguard for all working people the basic human right to form unions to bargain for a better life.

Read her full address here.

Patient Safety: Saving Lives and Saving Money

This is a crosspost from LMPartnership.org by John August, Executive Director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions.

Unions that are seeking to transform the role of frontline workers in health care organizations know that real change will take more than a high level of employee engagement. It will also take a different type of relationship between managers, physicians and workers. Real, sustainable change will require union members, managers and physicians to commit themselves to a social dialogue that creates more value for the patients and communities we serve.

This past week, the president of the United States announced a new partnership. Here’s a summary from healthcare.gov:

Doctors, nurses and other health care providers in America work incredibly hard to deliver the best care possible to their patients. Unfortunately, an alarming number of patients are harmed by medical mistakes in the health care system and far too many die prematurely as a result.

The Obama Administration has launched the Partnership for Patients: Better Care, Lower Costs, a new public-private partnership that will help improve the quality, safety, and affordability of health care for all Americans. The Partnership for Patients brings together leaders of major hospitals, employers, physicians, nurses, and patient advocates along with state and federal governments in a shared effort to make hospital care safer, more reliable, and less costly.

The two goals of this new partnership are to:

•Keep patients from getting injured or sicker. By the end of 2013, preventable hospital-acquired conditions would decrease by 40percent compared to 2010. Achieving this goal would mean approximately 1.8 million fewer injuries to patients with more than 60,000 lives saved over three years.
•Help patients heal without complication. By the end of 2013, preventable complications during a transition from one care setting to another would be decreased so that all hospital readmissions would be reduced by 20percent compared to 2010. Achieving this goal would mean more than 1.6 million patients would recover from illness without suffering a preventable complication requiring re-hospitalization within 30 days of discharge.

This effort will save lives, prevent injuries and can save up to $35 billion dollars across the health care system, including up to $10 billion in Medicare savings, over the next three years. Over the next 10 years, it could reduce costs to Medicare by about $50 billion and result in billions more in Medicaid savings.

The initiative is part of the new health care reform law and represents the kind of challenge that the Kaiser Permanente Labor Management Partnership and our unit-based teams (jointly led teams that operate within each department) are uniquely positioned to take on. And as we do, we also advance the new workplace relationships that can serve as a model for others in this country.

We can show the American people that successful practices in patient safety are an important contribution to deficit reduction. We can show that a new dialogue in the workplace, based on outcomes for the benefit of the community, is essential to our country’s future. The relationship of this outcome-oriented approach to labor-management relations has enormous possibility.

The ongoing debates about deficit reduction, taxes and the protection of essential services to our people must continue.

But the possibilities for frontline strategies for performance improvement are endless – not just in health care, but in many other sectors of an economy that must be rebuilt if we are to ensure good and sustainable employment for the tens of millions of people in this country who want to work.

Frontline workers can show the policymakers the way to rebuild our nation.

In the coming months, you will be hearing more about how our Labor Management Partnership, through unit-based teams, is advancing patient safety as part of our improvement efforts at Kaiser Permanente and within the context of the president’s call to action.

As we put forward this new model of partnership, we will be acting on our Union Coalition legacy statement: that unionized workers help create the means for affordable universal health care. We’ll embolden the instincts of most Americans who believe in the essential role of collective bargaining and union. And we’ll show the unions’ role in delivering better outcomes for everyone in our society.

Sixth Republican Senator Faces Wisconsin Recall

by Mike Hall, Apr 28, 2011

Wisconsin activists today filed more than 26,000 signatures today to recall the sixth Republican state senator—Robert Cowles of Green Bay—who voted for Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) bill to eliminate collective bargaining rights of public employees.

All the petitions have carried far more signatures than the minimum needed to qualify, which must equal 25 percent of the total vote for governor in November’s election in each Senate district. The Cowles petition needed just 15,960 signatures and the 26,524 represents 166 percent of the requirement.

Along with Cowles, recall petitions have been filed for Alberta Darling of River Hills, Shelia Harsdof of River Falls, Luther Olsen of Ripon, Dan Kapanke of La Crosse and Randy Hopper of Fond du Lac. Democrats need to win three seats to take control of the Senate.

Republicans targeted eight Democratic senators for recall, but filed petitions for just three and those have yet to be verified. They fell short and missed the deadline for four others. They still have a few days to file against their last target.

People’s Budget Outperforms Republican Plan

by Mike Hall, Apr 28, 2011

Congress is back in town next week and the budget battle will take top billing. Republicans are standing solidly behind their Paul Ryan-crafted House plan that forces seniors to pay more for health care by replacing Medicare with underfunded vouchers, cuts taxes for corporations and the wealthy, cuts Medicaid funding, repeals health care reform and slashes up to 2 million jobs.

They claim their fiscal plan is the centerpiece of the deficit-reduction strategy, but with $4.3 trillion in spending cuts and $4.2 trillion in tax giveaways, mostly to the wealthy and corporations, that’s not much of down payment on the deficit.

Today the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) released a Snapshot of the 10-year deficit-reduction projections for the Republican plan, the budget framework outlined by President Obama and the “People’s Budget” developed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus. While the Republican and Obama plans do achieve a reduction in the deficit over the next decade, the People’s Budget goes a step further by creating a budget surplus by 2021.

EPI says the Ryan plan’s savings come mostly from domestic spending cuts, cuts in Medicaid and Medicare. Obama’s framework cuts the deficit through some domestic spending cuts and slight reductions in defense spending, and saves money through health care reform and broad-based tax reform.

In contrast, the People’s Budget achieves deficit reduction mainly by shifting the tax burden more fairly to high-income individuals and corporations: Its proposals include rolling back the Bush tax cuts, taxing capital gains as ordinary income, raising the payroll tax cap and enacting a financial transactions tax. The plan also cuts defense spending, enacts a public option for health care coverage and makes room for $1.4 trillion in vital investments in infrastructure, education and innovation over the next decade.

Click here for the full Snapshot and here for the AFL-CIO Principles for the FY 2012 Budget.

Fix the Hazards; Don’t Blame the Workers

by Leo W. Gerard, Apr 28, 2011

The Clearwater Paper Corp. in Lewistown, Idaho, chose the king cobra to symbolize its workplace safety program. A cobra. One of the deadliest snakes on the planet.

Every day on his way to and from work at Clearwater, John Bergen III drove past a billboard in the company parking lot sporting a picture of a king cobra and the explanation that it represented the company’s behavior-based safety program – Changing Our Behavior Reduces Accidents – COBRA.

Bergen, a devoted father, a gifted artist and a conscientious worker who urged everyone to observe safety rules, died last summer after inadvertently stepping through a gaping opening in the floor of the Clearwater Paper mill.

Behavior-based workplace safety programs like COBRA are attempts by corporations to shirk responsibility to eliminate hazards by blaming workers instead. When workers die, behavior-based programs disrespect the deceased by blaming them for their own deaths. These safety programs say to Bergen’s young son, “Your daddy’s dead because he wasn’t careful enough.”

These programs are cruel. They don’t work. And they must stop. This Workers Memorial Day, a day on which we honor those killed in the workplace and recommit ourselves to ending the slaughter, workers and their families across America demand an end to “blame the worker” safety programs.

Last year, among those killed on the job were 44 members of my union, the United Steelworkers (USW), which represents industrial workers including those in the paper sector. That is nearly one a week. Bergen was among them. His friends Jesse and Nigell Hutson wrote after his death:

Such a tragic loss for everyone. He will be missed more than words can say. We love you, John.

Over the past 18 years, the number of Steelworkers who died on the job has remained tragically constant, at about one every 10 to 12 days. So far this year, 11 Steelworkers died at work.

The stubborn consistency of the death toll demonstrates that the corporate-favored behavior-based safety programs achieve nothing.

The premise of behavior-based safety is that employees can work around hazards if they are just careful enough — if they are ever vigilant. “You are looking at the person responsible for your safety,” these programs proclaim on stickers attached to workplace mirrors. One behavior-based safety consultant actually counseled that if there were an opening in the shop floor, the employer should leave it there because repairing it would give workers a false sense of security.

Will Public Workers and Immigrants March Together on May Day?

On May Day in 2007, immigrants and their supporters marched through the streets of Kennett Square, Pa.

In this cross-post from “In These Times,” photojournalist and author David Bacon says immigrant workers and public service workers have a lot in common this May Day.

One sign carried in almost every May Day march of the last few years says it all: “We are Workers, not Criminals!” Often it was held in the calloused hands of men and women who looked as though they’d just come from work in a factory, cleaning an office building, or picking grapes.

The sign stated an obvious truth. Millions of people have come to the United States to work, not to break its laws. Some have come with visas, and others without them. But they are all contributors to the society they’ve found here.

This year, those marchers will be joined by the public service workers we saw in the Wisconsin state capitol in Madison, whose message was the same: we all work, we all contribute to our communities and we all have the right to a job, a union and a decent life. Past May Day protests have responded to a wave of draconian proposals to criminalize immigration status, and work itself, for undocumented people. The defenders of these proposals have used a brutal logic: if people cannot legally work, they will leave.

But undocumented people are part of the communities they live in. They cannot simply go, nor should they. They seek the same goals of equality and opportunity that working people in the United States have historically fought to achieve. In addition, for most immigrants, there are no jobs to return to in the countries from which they’ve come. The North American Free Trade Agreement alone deepened poverty in Mexico so greatly that, since it took effect, 6 million people came to the United States to work because they had no alternative.

Instead of recognizing this reality, the U.S. government has attempted to make holding a job a criminal act. Thousands of workers have already been fired, with many more to come. We have seen workers sent to prison for inventing a Social Security number just to get a job. Yet they stole nothing and the money they’ve paid into Social Security funds now subsidizes every Social Security pension or disability payment.

Undocumented workers deserve legal status because of that labor-their inherent contribution to society. Past years’ marches have supported legalization for the 12 million undocumented people in the United States. In addition, immigrants, unions and community groups have called for repealing the law making work a crime, ending guest worker programs, and guaranteeing human rights in communities along the U.S./Mexico border.

The truth is that undocumented workers and public workers in Wisconsin have a lot in common. In this year’s May Day marches, they could all hold the same signs. With unemployment at almost 9 percent, all working families need the federal government to set up jobs programs, like those Franklin Roosevelt pushed through Congress in the 1930s. If General Electric alone paid its fair share of taxes, and if the troops came home from Iraq and Afghanistan, we could put to work every person wanting a job. Our roads, schools, hospitals and communities would all benefit.

At the same time, immigrants and public workers need strong unions that can push wages up, and guarantee pensions for seniors and health care for the sick and disabled. A street cleaner whose job is outsourced, and an undocumented worker fired from a fast food restaurant both need protection for their right to work and support their families.

Instead, some states like Arizona, and now Georgia, have passed measures allowing police to stop any “foreign looking” person on the street, and question their immigration status. Arizona passed a law requiring employers to fire workers whose names are flagged by Social Security. In Mississippi an undocumented worker accused of holding a job can get jail time of 1-5 years, and fines of up to $10,000.

The states and politicians that go after immigrants are the same ones calling for firing public workers and eliminating their union rights. Now a teacher educating our children has no more secure future in her job than an immigrant cleaning an office building at night. The difference between their problems is just one of degree.
But going after workers has produced a huge popular response. We saw it in Madison in the capitol building. We saw it in the May Day marches when millions of immigrants walked peacefully through the streets. Working people are not asleep. Helped by networks like May Day United, they remember that this holiday itself was born in the fight for the eight-hour day in Chicago more than a century ago.

In those tumultuous events, immigrants and the native born saw they needed the same thing, and reached out to each other. This May Day, will we see them walking together in the streets again?

For information about where May Day marches are scheduled to take place this Sunday, visit the May Day United website here.

Case Against Boeing Draws National Attention

Thu. April 28, 2011

The nation’s largest newspapers are weighing in on last week’s complaint by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) charging Boeing with multiple violations of federal labor law.

The case, which has implications for union members in all 50 states, centers on a decision by Boeing to open a 787 assembly line in South Carolina. According to the board, the decision was crafted primarily to retaliate against Boeing workers who have in the past, or may in the future, exercise their lawful right to concerted activity.

While the facts and the law in the case are undisputed, newspaper editorials are all over the map. The New York Times describes the NLRB complaint as “a welcome effort to defend workers’ right to collective bargaining.” Meanwhile, the Seattle Times came out against the NLRB ruling, saying Boeing’s decision to move should not be reversed by the federal government.

Another view of the issue came from Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein, who applauded the decision by the board and cited the 1935 law protecting workers’ rights and the NLRB’s obligation to enforce it.

“If Boeing or the Chamber of Commerce or the South Carolina political establishment wants to change or repeal the law, it is certainly within their rights to try,” wrote Pearlstein. “After 75 years, it would be a useful debate for the country to have again. But given the further consolidation of corporate power and two decades of stagnant wages, I’m not sure they’ll like how it turns out.”

The next step in the process will be a hearing before an NLRB administrative law judge in Seattle, set for June 14, when all parties will have an opportunity to present evidence and arguments.

Global Anti-Regulation Agenda Threatens Health and Safety at Work

by James Parks, Apr 28, 2011

On Workers Memorial Day, the global union movement is warning that more lives will be lost at work if business groups and companies around the world succeed in reducing legal protections against hazardous jobs. In the United States, Big Business and congressional Republicans have launched campaigns to turn back health and safety regulations, claiming they hinder competitiveness.

Workers Memorial Day is observed by trade unions around the globe and today there are observances in more than 50 countries. To find out what’s going on around the world for Workers Memorial Day, click here.

Trade unions are challenging the rigged statistics and bogus arguments being used by business interests that care more about profit than the lives of the people who work for them, said Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

“Consider the devastation wrought a year ago by the Deepwater Horizon disaster,” Burrow says.

Eleven lives lost, environmental devastation and economic costs to the economy in the billions—all down to an appalling disregard for safety aided and abetted by an absence of effective regulation and official oversight. Lessons from this and other disasters like the Fukushima complex in Japan show how critically important regulation and enforcement is. Added to this, “slow burn” disasters like asbestos mean today’s failures to regulate can have a deadly legacy spanning two generations and killing millions.

The AFL-CIO “Death on the Jobs” report, released yesterday, showed that in 2009 (the latest figures available), 4,340 workers were killed on the job in the United States—an average of 12 workers a day—and an estimated 50,000 died of occupational diseases. More than 4.1 million workplace injuries and illnesses were reported in private and state and local workplaces. But the report says the 4.1 million “understates the problem,” and the actual number is more likely 8 million to 12 million. Click here for the full report.

The report also backs the ITUC call for strong health and safety regulations:

The nation must renew the commitment to protect workers from injury, disease and death and make this a high priority. Employers must meet their responsibilities to protect workers and be held accountable if they put workers in danger. Only then can the promise of safe jobs for all of America’s workers be fulfilled.

While accidents at work kill hundreds of thousands each year around the globe, this total is dwarfed by the number of deaths from occupational diseases such as work-related cancers. The World Health Organization estimates the annual toll from asbestos-related diseases alone at 107,000 deaths a year. Burrow says:

There is plenty of evidence to show the importance and value of proper regulation and enforcement. Lives are saved, and the huge economic costs of occupational accidents and disease are reduced. Studies indicate that possibly more than 20 per cent of major killers worldwide, including cancers, heart and respiratory disease, are related to work. All these are preventable.

Vibrant unions, tough regulation and effective enforcement can ensure safer workplaces, Burrow says.

Harnessing the on-the-ground knowledge of workers, backed by their unions, is crucial for preventing death and illness. Protection, including through respect for workers’ rights to trade union representation, should be expanded and not curtailed in an outbreak of deregulatory fever. Removing or weakening regulations, and depriving workers of union protection costs lives.

Flight Attendant Webcast Available for Viewing

Thu. April 28, 2011

The IAM is inviting all United, Continental and Continental Micronesia Flight Attendants to view an IAM Virtual Road Show. The show, which was broadcast live over the Internet, features United and Continental Flight Attendants answering questions and providing information about the United/Continental merger, the upcoming representation election and the negotiations that will follow.

Click here to view the broadcast and for additional information about the campaign.

IAM Remembers the Fallen

Machinists Union International President Tom Buffenbarger speaks at the annual IAM Workers’ Memorial service for friends and family of IAM members who perished from workplace illness or injuries.

Thu. April 28, 2011

Families, friends and fellow IAM members gathered at the William W. Winpisinger Education and Technology Center as part of a national observance of Workers’ Memorial Day to honor the memory of those who perished on the job or from work-related diseases.

The IAM honors its fallen brothers and sisters each year by inscribing their names on bricks that are placed at the memorial. Among this year’s list of inscribed bricks were: Sid Zimmermann of Local 1564, who died from an accidental fall from a ladder; Kenneth Crump of Local W246, who suffered a heart attack on the job; Steve Manwill of Local W246, who died from injuries sustained in a truck accident; Jerry Culuerhouse of Local 2003, who died in a helicopter crash; John Jefferies, District Lodge 4 Vice President, who died of natural causes; and Eduardo Tlatempa of Local 1759, who fell off a baggage loader lifter at Dulles Airport.

IAM Workers' Memorial

“The IAM remembers its fallen members today,” said IAM International President Tom Buffenbarger. “Like us, these brothers and sisters got up every morning, got dressed and headed off to work so that they may be able to provide for themselves and their families. Sadly one day these members did not return home. They are the reason we continue to fight. We fight so that not one more person will have to endure the pain and grief of losing a loved one on the job.”

This year marks the 40th anniversary of OSHA and the right of workers to a safe job. With help from OSHA, unions have made great progress in making workplaces safer and protecting workers. But this progress didn’t just happen overnight. It happened because workers and their unions organized, fought and demanded action from employers and their government.

Reminders for 2011 IAM National Staff Conference

Thu. April 28, 2011

IAM representatives from the United States who are assigned to the 2011 National Staff Conference scheduled for June 12-16, 2011 in Toronto, Ontario, are reminded that they need a valid U.S. Passport enter Canada. If you do not have a current passport, you should apply for, or update, your Passport as soon as possible. Click here to go to the State Department website for the application form and further instructions.

Another concern is extra charges for international cell phone usage. Before leaving for the Staff Conference, contact your cell phone carrier about making and receiving calls while in Canada. Most major phone companies have ongoing or temporary service plans that allow you to make international calls. Call your carrier for specific information about your phone plan.

Also, you should call your credit card company to let them know the times you’ll be in Canada so they don’t put a hold on your account because they think your card has been stolen.

IAM Welcomes Single Carrier Ruling for Ramp/Fleet at United Airlines

Thu. April 28, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Washington, D.C., April 28, 2011 – The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) welcomed today’s National Mediation Board (NMB) single carrier ruling for the Ramp and Fleet Service classifications at the recently combined United Airlines and Continental Airlines.

The NMB decision sets in motion a 14-day period during which the IAM will provide sufficient evidence of support for the NMB to call for a union representation election. The Board requires a “showing of interest” by at least 35 percent of the combined classification before an election will be scheduled. The NMB will set the time frame for an election after the IAM provides its showing of interest.

“We are very pleased with the NMB decision,” said IAM District 141 President and Directing General Chairman Rich Delaney. “This will allow Fleet/Ramp service employees to determine their future and allow the IAM to continue to negotiate from a position of even greater strength. As airlines continue to consolidate for their best interests it is equally important for airline employees to consolidate into a single group. This decision is the first step.”

The IAM has represented Ramp Service employees at United Airlines since 1948, negotiating collective bargaining agreements that repeatedly set compensation standards for the entire industry while providing solid careers for generations of workers at United.

“This is the first step towards bringing together the Fleet/Ramp service classifications at the new United under the banner of the IAM,” said New York Local 1322 President James Carlson. “The IAM has the knowledge, experience and strength to deliver a combined collective bargaining agreement that secures the wages, benefits and working conditions we deserve.”

“IAM members in Chicago are looking forward to the process that will welcome our brothers and sisters from Continental into the IAM family,” said Chicago Local 1487 President Tony Liccardi.

Fleet Service workers at Continental are also looking forward to the representation election. “The fact that the Machinists were the only union at United to secure a defined benefit pension for its members when the carrier went through bankruptcy is proof they can get the job done,” said Houston-based Continental Fleet Service worker David Otoya.

“The best job in the world isn’t worth much if it can be easily outsourced, subcontracted or drastically cut back,” said Newark, NJ-based Continental Fleet service worker Mitch Buckley. “The IAM contract has solid job security language that doesn’t have an expiration date.”

The IAM has represented United’s Ramp Service workers for more than 60 years while Continental and Continental Micronesia’s Fleet Service workers are currently represented by another union. The IAM is the largest airline union in North America. More information about the IAM campaign is available at www.voteiam.com.

Obama: Workers Memorial Day—Time To Recommit to Job Safety

by Mike Hall, Apr 28, 2011

Today, in hundreds of ceremonies across the country, working families are honoring workers who died or were injured on the job in the past year. In a Workers Memorial Day proclamation, President Obama says the nation must:

recommit to keeping all workers safe and healthy [and] make sure the full force of the law is brought to bear in cases where workers are put in harm’s way.

He also says the safety and health laws that protect today’s workers “were won by generations of courageous men and women, fighting to secure decent working conditions.”

Organized labor has continued to give voice to millions of working men and women by representing their views and fighting for good working conditions and fair wages.

Click here for the full proclamation.

In Huntington, W.Va., the West Virginia AFL-CIO will honor the 50 West Virginia workers killed on the job in 2010, including the 29 coal miners killed in the explosion at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine. Says President Kenneth Perdue:

As vividly demonstrated by the Upper Big Branch mine disaster and other worker safety disasters that recently occurred, too many workers remain at risk and face death, injury or disease as a result of their job.

In Kansas City, Mo., Ron Hayes, whose son Patrick was killed in a grain silo accident in 1993 on his first day working in a location and job for which he hadn’t been trained, will join Workers Memorial Day services.

After his son’s death, he founded the group Families in Grief Hold Together (The Fight Project). He tells the Kansas City Star:

We help families speak with and learn from other families who have had loved ones killed or hurt at work.

Visit the Fight Project’s Facebook page here.

At a Las Vegas Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) union hall today, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis will join workers and families whose loved ones have been killed on the job. In a column this morning in the Las Vegas Sun, Solis writes:

Our nation and especially our workers are facing big challenges and making big sacrifices every day. But one sacrifice they should never have to make is trading their lives for their livelihood.

She notes that while workplace deaths and injuries have fallen dramatically since the Occupational Safety and Health Act was enacted 40 years ago and the Mine Safety and Health Act shortly after:

there’s no question, we still have more work to do. Although the numbers may seem overwhelming, for me on this day, their message is quite clear: One workplace-related death, injury or illness is one too many.

Click here for a list of other Workers Memorial Day events around the country.

May Day Rallies Will Support Workers’ and Immigrant Rights

Thousands of people rallied in New York City last year on May Day.

by James Parks, Apr 27, 2011

This May Day, working people are rallying across the country to oppose attacks on workers’ rights and immigrant rights. Just as we did on April 4, working people will declare: “Somos Unos—Respeten Nuestros Derechos” or “We Are One—Respect Our Rights.”

Workers’ rights and immigrant rights are connected. CEO-backed politicians are targeting all working people—including immigrants—with their corporate-sponsored political agenda and continuing power grab. In addition to demanding protection for collective bargaining and other workers’ rights, ralliers will call for comprehensive immigration reform and passage of the DREAM Act, which would provide undocumented young people a pathway to legal residency through higher education or service in the military.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says:

These [May Day] marches are driven by the same spirit of activism and commitment that drives our brothers and sisters in Wisconsin and every other community that is now fighting back against the attacks on working people.

Trumka will speak at a march and rally of about 60,000 people in Milwaukee. Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler will address a crowd in Chicago and Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker will join a mass rally in New York City.

To find out what is happening in your community on May Day or to plan an event, visit www.we-r-1.org.

Here are some other major rallies planned for May Day:
•In Boston, thousands will participate in a march that draws on the global fight for workers’ rights with the theme of “From Cairo to Wisconsin to Massachusetts Defend All Workers’ Rights.”
•In Houston, the local chapter of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) is joining with Houston United in a huge rally for workers’ rights and immigrant rights.
•In Buffalo, N.Y., working people and immigrants will march 2.1 miles from the east side of the city to the west side of buffalo for a rally to protest the threat to close a community health clinic that supports the growing Latino community.

Protests in 10 Cities Support Tobacco Workers

Protesters march up the walkway to the British Embassy in Washington, D.C.

by James Parks, Apr 27, 2011

Union activists joined with members of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) to rally in front of the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., and British consulates in nine cities. The marchers called on British American Tobacco (BAT), the largest stockholder in U.S. tobacco giant Reynolds American, to use its influence to stop “widespread and egregious” human rights abuses against U.S. tobacco field workers.

Meanwhile in London, a delegation led by Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) President Baldemar Velasquez met with a small group of BAT corporate officials at the company’s headquarters. BAT promised to hold another larger meeting next month with workers to discuss conditions in the U.S. tobacco fields, according to FLOC. This is the first time any corporation with close ties to Reynolds American has agreed to meet with workers. For at least the past four years, Reynolds has refused to meet with representatives of workers.

Tomorrow, Velasquez will present to the BAT annual shareholders’ meeting the major findings of an upcoming human rights study detailing the abuses of workers in the U.S. tobacco supply chain. Says Velasquez:

We are urging the company to back up its words of support for human rights with monitoring and enforcement. Through its control of Reynolds, BAT has the power and the moral obligation to take action to end these abuses.

A worker delegation visited BAT headquarters in London today.

At the British embassy rally, Nick Wood, a FLOC organizer, told the crowd that tobacco workers are some of the most exploited people in the world. He said the workers are exposed to pesticides and nicotine poisoning in the fields and live in squalid housing. Workers have no protection, he said, if they complain or are fired for seeking union representation to help them improve their working and living conditions.

After the rally, a delegation hand-delivered a letter to the embassy gate asking Ambassador Nigel Sheinwald to use his influence to get BAT to act. At the same time, local union leaders delivered the letter along with LCLAA’s recent report, “Latino Workers in the United States,” to the British consulates in nine cities.

Clayola Brown, president of the A. Philip Randolph Institute (APRI), told the crowd at the embassy that BAT is a “two-faced corporate outlaw” and despite its stellar corporate image exploits workers around the world.

Metropolitan Washington AFL-CIO President Joslyn Williams said British companies should respect workers’ rights in America. LCLAA Executive Director Hector Sanchez said it was time for BAT and Reynolds American “to stop profiting off the backs of farm workers in North Carolina.”

NLRB Seeks to Overturn Anti-Worker Amendments in Ariz., S.D.

by Mike Hall, Apr 27, 2011

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is set to file lawsuits to overturn constitutional amendments in Arizona and South Dakota that outlaw the use of majority sign-up for workers who want to form unions.

Federal labor law provides two methods for worker to form unions. They can either go through an NLRB-supervised election or use majority sign-up, in which the employer agrees to recognize the workers’ choice when a majority of the workers sign union authorization cards.

The NLRB says the state amendments, approved by voters last fall after well-funded campaigns by anti-worker groups, are preempted by federal labor law.

Acting General Counsel Lafe E. Solomon also says the state amendments are preempted by the supremacy clause of the Constitution that says federal law prevails if there is a conflict between state and federal law.

South Carolina and Utah have similar constitutional amendments against majority sign-up. In a letter to the attorneys general of all four states, Solomon says the NLRB may later file suit to invalidate the South Carolina and Utah amendments.

Backers of the amendments said they were needed to protect secret ballot elections and falsely claimed the Employee Free Choice Act—then under consideration in Congress—would outlaw union elections. The Employee Free Choice Act, in fact, would give employees the choice about how to decide about forming their union. Currently employers decide whether workers must go through an election, even if a strong majority signs authorization cards.

Click here to find out more about your freedom to join a union.

Sweeney to Keynote Conference on 120th Anniversary of Landmark ‘Rerum Novarum’

John Sweeney

by James Parks, Apr 27, 2011

AFL-CIO President Emeritus John Sweeney will keynote a two-day conference celebrating the 120th anniversary of the landmark papal encyclical Rerum Novarum (Of New Things).

The Church, Labor and the New Things of the Modern World conference at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., May 2-3, will bring together top Catholic religious leaders and scholars, journalists Harold Meyerson and E.J. Dionne and others to discuss the relevance of Catholic social teaching in the modern world.

Sweeney’s keynote speech on “Renewing the Historic Partnership of Unions and the Catholic Church in an Anti-Worker Era” on May 2 will explore Catholic involvement in labor issues around the world guided by the principles outlined in Rerum Novarum. While the conference is free and open to the public, you must register. Click here to learn more about the conference and here to RSVP.

Dr. Stephen Schneck, director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at Catholic Univeristy, says Sweeney was a natural choice for the keynote.

Nobody gets the moral dimensions of labor solidarity and its commitment to the common good better than John Sweeney. A symposium on the contemporary significance of Rerum Novarum, a document that speaks so eloquently about the moral and social imperatives of worker justice, would be inconceivable without John Sweeney.

Written by Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum laid the foundation for the Catholic Church’s longtime involvement in workers’ issues, Schneck says.

That encyclical endorsed Catholic religious participation in organized labor. The result was that from its beginnings, the labor movement in America has had a religious component. Arguments for worker justice and for the moral cause of unionism reflect these religious influences, and throughout the 20th century and down to the present, the history of American labor benefited from the continuing commitment of religious support.

Catholic social teaching has played a central role in Sweeney’s more than 50 years of serving those who work for a living. After receiving an honorary doctorate at Georgetown University, Sweeney said faith “has been the bedrock of my life.”

He added:

[The] Holy Father [the Pope] reaffirms our belief in government as a legitimate tool for correcting injustice and inequality, and for regulating business. He writes: “The market is not, and must not become, the place where the strong subdue the weak.”

He also reinforces the spiritual teaching that society should honor work—work is a way of worshipping God and participating in God’s ongoing act of creation. Honoring the dignity of work is the core of our shared support for free labor unions, for the absolute right of workers to join together and bargain collectively, and the absolute obligation of corporations to honor those rights and hold themselves to higher standards of social responsibility.

American Airlines applies to add flights to Brazil

South Florida Business Journal
Date: Monday, April 25, 2011, 2:35pm EDT

American Airlines has filed an application to add 10 flights from Miami to Brazil.

American's application with the U.S. Department of Transportation proposes to launch service to Manaus and increase the frequency to Brasilia and Belo Horizonte.

"If we are granted the use of these frequencies, we could begin flying as early as this coming December," said Will Ris, American's senior VP for government affairs, in a news release.

The expansion could be a good overall boost to South Florida businesses because many Brazilians use their nation's strong currency to go shopping when they are in South Florida.

Brazil's president reportedly wants to raise fees on overseas credit card purchases from 2.4 percent to 6.4 percent, as spending by Brazilians abroad jumped 38.5 percent in the first two months of the year.

Brazilians have been among the heaviest buyers of luxury condos in the region.

In an article in the April 22 edition of the South Florida Business Journal, Peter Zalewski, managing partner of Condo Vultures Realty, said Brazilians and Canadians were among the foreigners buying homes out of confidence created by the strength of their respective economies.

American wants to boost service from Miami to Brasilia, the nation's capital, from four times a week to daily, using 182-seat Boeing 757 ...

Fare Hike Narrows Loss at United

Zacks Equity Research, On Monday April 25, 2011, 1:00 pm EDT

The largest U.S. airline United Continental Holdings Inc. (NYSE: UAL - News) reported first quarter 2011 adjusted loss of 41 cents per share outpacing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4 cents. Adjusted earnings showed a substantial 29.3% increase from a loss of 58 cents in the year-ago quarter. Despite higher fuel prices and capacity cuts, earnings improved on increased fares and extra fees.

Adjusted earnings exclude $77 million of special items pertaining to merger-related costs and other one-time charges.

Revenue

Total revenue climbed 10.8% year over year to $8.2 billion in the reported quarter and was ahead of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $8.195 billion driven by higher ticket prices and continued growth in ancillary revenue. On an annualized basis, Passenger, Cargo and Other revenues showed increases of 11.5%, 9.3% and 5.2%, respectively.

Airlines traffic, measured in revenue passenger miles, dropped 1% year over year while capacity or available seat miles grew 1.4%. Traffic slowed slightly in the first quarter due to lower demand caused by the March 11 disaster in Japan. Load factor (percentage of seats filled with passengers) declined 200 basis points year over year to 78%.

Airlines' New Motto: We've Got a Fee for That

By Sean Williams
April 25, 2011

Just in case you were worried that airlines were going to have a problem battling rising jet fuel prices, here's news for you that should set your mind at ease: They have a solution.

Apparently, the easiest way to remedy fuel prices that are rising faster than airlines can hedge against is to charge for everything -- and I mean everything!

If you look at the quartet of quarterly results that came out last week, you'll notice a not-so-surprising trend in that airlines that could easily pass along rising costs to customers fared considerably better in their bottom lines than those that could not.

Take JetBlue (Nasdaq: JBLU ) , for example. The low-cost regional carrier usually known for its competitive fares has had no choice recently but to raise flight prices. The company has also responded to fuel costs that rose by 35% in the most recent quarter versus the same quarter last year by tacking on an additional $5 charge to preferred seats with more leg room and for second checked bags. By booking more fees per flights, JetBlue was able to log a $0.01 per-share quarterly profit.

Some of its competitors were not as lucky. Many analysts expected the United Continental (NYSE: UAL ) merger would result in millions of dollars saved as the two companies integrated their fleets and reduced overhead expenses. Instead, the company was eaten alive by merger-related costs and rising fuel expenses. Fuel expenses amounted to 32% of United Continental's quarterly revenue, and even more worrisome the company has just 46% of its fuel hedged through the remainder of the year. In response to rising prices, the company plans to cut its expansion plans altogether.

Even traditional Wall Street darling Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV ) isn't immune from the suffering. Despite raising ticket prices and boosting revenue, nearly all of the company's gross profit was gobbled up by rising fuel costs.

Alaska Air Group (NYSE: ALK ) , which also reported quarterly results last week, may come out as the rosiest of the bunch. By carefully hedging most of its fuel costs, the company was actually able to book a derivatives profit! Even excluding those one-time gains, Alaska performed considerably better than expectations thanks in large part to controlled fuel costs and higher passenger load yields.

The lesson here is that an airline can still be successful even in a rapidly rising cost environment if it can pass along costs to customers and keep those customers flying. Alaska Airlines and JetBlue have done an exceptional job of this so far.

Slated to report next week are Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL ) and US Airways (NYSE: LCC ) , and let's just say I'm not nearly as optimistic about their outlooks as I was about the smaller regional providers Alaska and JetBlue. Unfortunately, these larger carriers lack the niches of smaller counterparts. This forces them to viciously compete for passengers and drive down profits. We'll see next week whether this dynamic holds.

Appreciating Music Education and All That Jazz

Jazz great Wynton Marsalis is featured in AFT’s “American Educator” report on the importance of music education.

by James Parks, Apr 25, 2011

April is Jazz Appreciation Month and AFT, one of the national co-sponsors of the observance, has developed a content-rich curriculum that includes the arts and music.

Rich resources from the AFT include ”The Neglected Muse: Why Music Is an Essential Liberal Art“ and an interview with jazz great Wynton Marsalis from AFT’s quartrly journal “American Educator” and an “American Teacher” magazine feature on the importance of instruction in the arts. View that article here.

AFT explains that Jazz Appreciation Month is celebrated in April for two reasons: First, April is near the end of the school year student jazz ensembles culminate year-long preparations and play at their best.

Second, April is also the birth month of a number of leading figures in jazz, including: Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Bessie Smith, Johnny Dodds, Billie Holiday, Charles Mingus, Lionel Hampton, Gerry Mulligan, Shorty Rogers, Tito Puente, and Herbie Hancock.

Jazz Appreciation Month is sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History with the support of the U.S. Congress, numerous federal agencies and departments, non-governmental organizations, including AFT, foundations and broadcasting networks.

Campaign Launched for Decent Work at Olympics, World Cup

by James Parks, Apr 25, 2011

For the first time in history, the world’s two biggest sports events—the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics—are being held in the same country, within two years of each other. This month, hundreds of workers and activists met in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, site of the events, to launch a campaign to ensure that all the workers involved in the construction of facilities and manufacturing of event products work under decent conditions.

The global Play Fair campaign includes several international trade union groups, such as the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the Global Union Federation for the Textiles, Leather and Garment industry (ITGLWF), the Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI), and other groups, such as the Clean Clothes Campaign.

“It is paramount that the principles of the decent work agenda are applied during the works for the World Cup and Summer Olympics in Brazil,” said ITUC Deputy President Nair Goulart.

The construction works are already under way—such as the infrastructure projects—and the workers are already demanding better health and safety conditions as well as decent wages. This campaign is important to raise awareness in regards to the respect of the decent work agenda. Moreover, we should make sure a collective agreement can be reached at the national level in respect to the minimum standards of the ILO [International Labor Organization].

Representatives of the British Trade Union Council (TUC) said they developed strategies to keep the 2012 Olympics in London free of sweatshop labor. Said TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber.:

We have worked together, for instance, on a complaints mechanism covering supply chains. It is hard to establish world class labor standards in a world where exploitation is rife, but we hope that London 2012 represents a big step forward and that our Brazilian colleagues benefit from and build on our experience.

You can follow the campaign on the Decent Work Towards and Beyond World Cup 2014 web site.

Listen, House Republicans: Public Doesn’t Want Medicare Cut

by James Parks, Apr 25, 2011

If congressional Republicans were listening to the American public, they wouldn’t be pushing so hard to turn Medicare over to Big Insurance through a voucher program and slash Medicaid for seniors, children and people with disabilities.

A just-released Washington Post/ABC poll shows that more than three-fourths (78 percent) of Americans do not want Medicare cut to reduce the national debt, including 65 percent who are strongly opposed. This compares with just 21 percent who favor cutting the program.

Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) prefer keeping the Medicare system the way it is rather than replacing it with a fixed amount voucher to be used to purchase private health insurance.

This week you have a chance to make sure Congress hears your voice. On April 27 and 28 in more than 50 cities in 18 states, activists from the Strengthen Social Security, Don’t Cut It, coalition, which includes the AFL-CIO and the Alliance for Retired Americans, will hold events at congressional district offices to tell their lawmakers hands off Social Security and Medicare. Visit the Alliance here and the Strengthen Social Security coalition here to find an event near you.

If you can’t make to a rally or there isn’t one in your area, you join a virtual rally here. Spread the word via e-mail, Facebook, or Twitter.

Writing today on the Center for American Progress website, Ruy Teixeira says:

This (poll) can fairly be characterized as massive opposition. Conservatives, who appear to lack any policy common sense, might want to exert some political common sense and retreat from their assault on Medicare.

NFL players can go back to work _ for now

Apr 26, 6:20 AM EDT
By DAVE CAMPBELL
AP Sports Writer

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- The NFL is a long way from playing football again - even if players are welcomed back to work with no lockout to stop them.

U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson granted the players' request for an injunction to lift the lockout on Monday, ending the NFL's work stoppage in its 45th day but prompting an immediate notice from the league that it will appeal.

And players? They were told to show up ready for work - or workouts - on Tuesday.

Bills safety George Wilson confirmed that the NFLPA emailed players after Nelson's ruling suggesting they show up at team facilities. He said players were told if they are denied access that teams would be in violation of the judge's ruling.

"We have received inquiry from a number of players and agents. We have simply responded and told them we don't see anything wrong with it," NFL Players Association spokesman George Atallah said in a text message to The Associated Press. "Players are organizing stuff on their own."

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said any player who shows up at team facilities will be allowed in and "treated courteously and with respect."

"As soon as Judge Nelson lifted the lockout this afternoon, a number of my teammates called and asked me if they could return to work," Browns linebacker Scott Fujita said. "Basically, I told them I don't see why not."

Others weren't ready to go that far.

United Continental paid CEO Smisek $4.4 million

For United Continental CEO Jeff Smisek, running a bigger airline is paying off

Joshua Freed, AP Airlines Writer, On Friday April 22, 2011, 7:38 pm EDT

Jeff Smisek is running a bigger airline, and now he's getting a bigger paycheck.

The president and CEO of United Continental Holdings Inc. collected compensation worth $4.4 million last year, according to an Associated Press calculation from a proxy statement the newly merged airline filed on Friday.

When 2010 began, Smisek, 56, had just taken over as CEO of Continental Airlines. He helped negotiate a merger with United. After the deal closed Oct. 1, he took over as CEO of the combined company, which will be the world's largest airline and fly under the United name.

The compensation figure for last year includes his salary for his time at both airlines plus a cash incentive of $3.6 million and $9,766 in extras. His total compensation was $3.6 million in 2009, when he was president and chief operating officer of Continental.

As head of Continental, Smisek had said he would not take a salary or bonuses until it earned a full-year profit. It did -- $854 million, counting the results for both companies. Because of that, United Continental said in the filing, it paid Smisek's salary retroactively at the end of 2010, partly at the Continental rate and partly at a higher rate after the merger.

Smisek's base salary was $730,000 as head of Continental. The combined company's board raised his salary to $975,000 after the merger "in consideration of his enhanced responsibility and leadership," the filing said.

He also received $6,735 for a 401(k) contribution and $3,031 in tax reimbursement.