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.