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.