by Tula Connell, May 3, 2011
Imagine one day you woke up and there were no sanitation workers to pick up the pile of stuff in your trash. No letter carriers or postal workers to move your mail. No teachers in the classrooms, no firefighters to stop your neighbor’s house—or yours—from burning to the ground.
Such is the scenario being created by many Republican lawmakers in the states who are destroying collective bargaining rights for public employees and decimating our ability to attain good middle-class jobs.
Sam Gilberg, an 18-year-old songwriter with a band, One Track Mind, thinks about the plight of workers and has created a video depicting this bleak scenario, with the hope that it will stir people to action. Watch it.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Support Flower Workers This Mother’s Day
by James Parks, May 3, 2011
Today’s the deadline to show your solidarity with working mothers who cut and process the flowers we send on Mother’s Day.
Some 80 percent of the fresh-cut flowers sold in the United States come from Colombia, where most flower workers are women, who work long hours, especially before holidays like Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day. They are paid poverty-level wages and face hazardous working conditions.
You can help these women by making a $35 donation ($20 student or low income) to U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project’s (USLEAP’s) Flower Worker Economic Justice Project. USLEAP will send a card to the mother of your choice with a personalized message inside, letting her know that you made a donation in her honor.
Choose between two card designs, each featuring a photo of a Colombian flower worker with her child on the front, and a short paragraph about the pictured worker on the back of the card.
Orders for delivery by Mother’s Day must be submitted today, May 3.
To learn more about the ways you can help the flower workers in Colombia, check out USLEAP’s Toolkit: Flower Workers and Economic Justice. USLEAP is a an independent, non-partisan, non-profit organization that promotes full respect for the rights of workers in Latin America.
Members at Ft. Rucker in Alabama Ratify New Pact
Tue. May 03, 2011
Nearly 3,800 members of Local 2003 at Ft. Rucker, AL, voted recently to ratify a new three-year agreement with Army Fleet Support. The pact includes annual raises of three percent and a 50 cent-increase in the employer’s contribution to the IAM Pension Plan over the term of the contract.
The sprawling base in southeast Alabama is the Army’s largest helicopter base. Operational units on the post include the 1st Aviation Brigade and the 110th Aviation Brigade handling Army Aviation training, and the USAF 23rd Flying Training Squadron for the training of Air Force helicopter pilots. IAM mechanics service and maintain the helicopters, and IAM test pilots fly at Ft. Rucker.
Members of Local 2003 ratified their contract while collecting food and funds for victims of the recent tornados that swept across Tuscaloosa and Northern Alabama. In 2007, a deadly tornado slammed into nearby Enterprise, AL, causing nine deaths and injuring over 121 others. The worst damage occurred at Enterprise High School, where eight students died after a hallway roof collapsed.
North Carolina Coast Guard Workers Join IAM
Tue. May 03, 2011
One hundred and thirty workers at Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, NC voted for IAM representation to improve their pay and benefits. The Service Contract workers are employed by URS Corporation and provide service to the base and helicopter fleet.
Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City is one of the busiest Air Stations in the Coast Guard. On any single day, aircrews may be as far away as Greenland, the Azores or the Caribbean. Aircrews from the base are constantly putting their training and knowledge to the test in missions including maritime law enforcement, environmental response as well as search and rescue. URS employees also ensure the equipment at the station is in top shape at all times.
“Local Lodge 2203 already represents federal workers at the base,” said District Lodge 74 Directing Business Representative Larry Young. “Our federal members talked to the Service Contract workers about the importance of having a union contract. The URS employees recently had pay and benefits cut. I want to thank Local 2203 member Willard Jenkins, and his wife, Tabatha, who is a URS employee. They led the organizing effort.”
“Hard-working professionals don’t need pay cuts. They need the protection of an IAM contract to ensure their future,” said Southern Territory GVP Bob Martinez. “This was a great move for the 130 workers and their families. Congratulations to DBR Young, and I want to welcome our newest IAM members.”
IAM Leaders Address Ohio State Council Delegates
Tue. May 03, 2011
Members of the Ohio State Council of Machinists met on April 30 in Cleveland, OH, to coordinate their efforts on behalf of members in the Buckeye State and to review the unprecedented assault on collective bargaining taking place in Ohio and elsewhere.
International President Tom Buffenbarger, General Secretary-Treasurer Warren Mart and Eastern Territory GVP Lynn D. Tucker, Jr. were among the IAM leaders who addressed the group and spoke about the importance of resisting the anti-union agenda being pushed by Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich.
“In little more than a year, we’ve gone from a solid ally in Gov. Ted Strickland to John Kasich, a former investment banker for Lehman Bros. and Fox television host, and the results have been disastrous,” said IAM President Tom Buffenbarger. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you that elections don’t matter, because Ohio is proof how much difference a single election can make.”
GST Mart echoed Buffenbarger’s remarks, calling on members to be leery of watered-down proposals from anti-union lawmakers that are only slightly less odious than the frontal assaults in Wisconsin. “It will be up to us to keep our members advised about subtle changes that would gut their collective bargaining rights, just over a slightly longer period of time,” said Mart.
Delegates at the annual meeting were updated about the AFL-CIO Union Veterans Council and the IAM’s Young Machinists Program, an organizing and outreach effort designed to build connections with new members and potential new members. “We have an obligation to educate the next generation about the value and importance of union membership,” said Andy Buffenbarger from the Young Machinists. “The Young Machinists Program is intended to do exactly that.”
Ohio Gov. Kasich Pays Lip Service to Public Employees
by Tula Connell, May 3, 2011
Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich has taken hypocracy to a new low. After months of pushing a bill to kill collective bargaining rights for public employees, he now has issued proclamations making this week “Public Service Appreciation Week” and “Teacher Appreciation Week.” Seriously.
Kasich signed the draconian bill into law, and workers–many of them teachers and other public employee–now are gathering signatures to put repeal of the bill on the November ballot. Kasich’s actions prompted this respsonse from Ohio State House Miniority Leader Armond Budish:
Gov. Kasich’s statements forced me to check my calendar, and much to my surprise today is not April Fool’s Day….While he’s putting out statements of praise, he and his Republican cronies are working to systematically destroy public employees and teachers… So Gov. Kasich, do you commend the police officer for doing his job well before or after you call him an ‘idiot’? Do you thank teachers and firefighters for the invaluable work before or after you slash their wages and benefits?
Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga called Kasich’s proclamation “superficial” and “disingenuous” given Kasich’s support for the legislation.
Those words describe Kasich’s two-year budget as well. Like many Republicans who ran and won in 2010 by promising they would create jobs, he has done the opposite after getting elected. Kasich’s budget would result in the direct loss of 51,052 jobs in that state, according to a study by Innovation Ohio.
IAM Report Highlights U.S. Manufacturing Jobs
Tue. May 03, 2011
Unlike most industrialized countries, the U.S. has no definitive policy to preserve and protect its homegrown manufacturing jobs. A new IAM report, “Creating and Sustaining U.S. Manufacturing Jobs,” includes a nine-point plan that could provide the basis for a desperately-needed national policy.
“While there are many reasons for the decline in manufacturing and the closely-related economic crises, one of the fundamental reasons is the simple fact that the U.S. does not have a national manufacturing strategy and has not established a framework for creating one,” said IAM Trade and Globalization Department Director Owen Herrnstadt.
Included in the nine-point plan is a provision to require that “Made in the U.S.” actually means “Made in the U.S.” An additional point in the plan calls for policies that will curtail states battling with one another for manufacturing jobs.
“It is imperative that the administration demonstrate much-needed leadership in pursuing policies that will have immediate and long-term impact on ensuring support and creation of U.S. manufacturing jobs,” said Herrnstadt.
Answering the Call
Mon. May 02, 2011
May 2, 2011 - Each time Congress cuts the budget, a social program usually suffers. For the Machinists and the labor movement, that means, if you aren't already doing so it's time to step up and answer the call of community service.
Communicator's Note: Watch the video here.
Sweeney: Renewal of Social Justice Spirit Desperately Needed
by James Parks, May 2, 2011
Working families in our country are in desperate trouble and in desperate need of the spirit and strength of Catholic social teaching which embraces social justice and the right of workers to form unions, AFL-CIO President Emeritus John Sweeney said today.
Sweeney delivered the keynote address at the Church, Labor and the New Things of the Modern World conference at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. The conference celebrates the 120th anniversary of the landmark papal encyclical Rerum Novarum (Of New Things). Written by Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum laid the foundation for the Catholic Church’s longtime involvement in workers’ issues. Read the entire speech here.
Labor unions, the “free associations” Rerum Novarum said should protect them, are under attack as never before, Sweeney said.
Earlier this year, politicians began taking America’s anti-union, anti-worker crusade a step even further by trampling the rights of public employees and boldly trying to eliminate their unions altogether.
If unchecked, this assault on the very existence of unions is sure to spread, and the impact on Catholic social teachings and, indeed, the moral and economic fiber of our nation, will be profound.
Sweeney reminded the participants it will take more than words and admonitions to rescue working families from a society that insists they should have no say in the decisions affecting them.
It will take a genuine renewal of the social teaching tradition in the Church and the willingness of the leadership to challenge the economic and political “powers that be.” It is that tradition and that willingness that together brought us so far towards the goal of dignity for all work and dignity for all workers.
The conference, which ends tomorrow, brings together top Catholic religious leaders and scholars, including His Eminence, Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and journalists Harold Meyerson and E.J. Dionne and others to discuss the relevance of Catholic social teaching in the modern world.
NNU: Lawmakers Have ‘Real Choice’ to Reform Medicare
by James Parks, May 2, 2011
In a letter to the New York Times today, Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United (NNU), says the Republican plan put forward by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is “little more than a thinly veiled scheme to destroy one of the most fundamental reforms in American history through privatization and further cost-shifting to many of the most vulnerable in our society.”
The “real choice,” DeMoro says:
would be securing the future of Medicare once and for all by extending it to cover everyone. Through its proven formula of global budgeting and federal bulk-purchasing power, it is the best way to effectively control costs while ensuring that we change our broken health care system from one based on ability to pay to one based on patient need.
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