2012 January | Talking Readers

January, 2012

Generals Still in Charge Tough Days Ahead in Egypt

January 31, 2012 by admin

By Carl Finamore

Carl Finamore

Cairo, Egypt (Jan. 26, 2012)—The most populated country in the Arab planet took the day off on Wednesday, January 25.

Tahrir Square was overloaded with men and women stretching and squeezing into every single nook and cranny on adjacent streets, storefront alcoves and constructing doorways. Still, thousands have been just unable to ever attain the center.

But there was a thing equally noteworthy on this day—the complete absence of the police and army. In a nation in which the army has far as well considerably manage in all affairs of state, on this day they could not be found.

Nonetheless, it ought to be explained that the army’s presence was quite a lot felt. For instance, the largest center stage in the middle of the square was controlled by their important ally, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Continuous “God is Great” and pro-military chants were consciously intended to counter opposition slogans of the protest motion.

Voices of the Youth and Employees

Beyond the center stage, even so, had been dozens of political groups, student and youth organizations and independent union contingents calling for a 2nd revolution. They completely engulfed the areas along the perimeter of Tahrir.

Following a series of modern bloody attacks against youthful protestors, along with continued repression of worker protests, a clear statement was built on January 25 that voices of the youth and employees, in certain, would not be muted.

Nonetheless, Egypt’s generals have proven themselves far more astute in dealing with raging social unrest and complicated political issues than the ousted dictator.

For instance, Area Marshall Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), announced on January 24 that virtually 2000 political prisoners getting held for military trials would be released and that the repressive 30-year Emergency Decree providing the government dictatorial powers would be lifted.

These and other calculated political gestures by SCAF undoubtedly improves their public image and impresses big sections of the population that desperately want to think things will improve now that Mubarak is gone.

But it doesn’t fool seasoned political activists since it contrasts so sharply with the brutal military and police assaults in November and December. These assaults left a number of thousand youthful guys and ladies injured and about 150 killed.

Plus, there has been no true improvement in the financial system. The demands of employees remain largely unaddressed except for a modest improve in the minimum wage from close to $ 53 a month to $ 115 a month. Newly formed independent unions were demanding at least $ 200 a month.

The Egyptian working class is really large and remains the most troublesome dilemma for the generals. They understand the vital role workers played in ending Mubarak’s reign by conducting the biggest strike wave in Egyptian background.

“Workers had been in Tahrir, but as folks,” Marian Fadel advised me, “then, on February 7, 8 and 9, they started acting like a class. Strikes occurred everywhere, leading the generals to turn on Mubarak.” Marian is an lawyer with a Master Degree in human rights. She is also Egypt system officer for the U.S. AFL-CIO-supported Solidarity Center.

Considering that these heady days, Fadel continued, “the independent trade unions have been obstructed at every step when they try to organize. Organizers are transferred to distinct locations, fired and even arrested and tortured.”

In addition, she explained, “the law enacted in 1976 permitting only one union in a workplace and only a single union federation in the nation is nevertheless on the books. It certainly favors Mubarak’s corrupt Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), which is trying to regroup with help from the military and the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The ETUF supported Mubarak and, in truth, the former ETUF president is now in jail for assisting lead the grotesque camel rider attacks against young men and women in Tahrir Square last year.

The Economy is Killing Men and women

Nonetheless, immediately after one particular 12 months of protest and even with so numerous reforms left unaddressed, there is no doubt large sections of the population are feeling exhausted and want all the strife to end.

“The economic climate is killing people,” Fadel observed.

“Many folks are tired of Tahrir, exhausted of the protests and exhausted of the battles with the military. They mistakenly feel that everything will enhance and get back to regular if protestors just halt asking for so considerably.”

I noticed this division last year on my initial trip to Cairo. Almost instantly following Mubarak was deposed, the army and huge sections of the middle and upper classes had been calling for a return to work. This is the drum beat continuously echoed by the media and the military with their allies in the Muslim Brotherhood.

But, slowing of the protests did not nor could not take place right away following the battles that toppled Mubarak. There was as well much enthusiasm and also many outstanding social and economic issues left unresolved. The people had tasted victory and they wanted a lot more.

But, now, following 1 year of political maneuvers crafted by the military, conducting elections, establishing a parliament and promising the set up of a newly elected president on July one, an exhausted population is confused, specifically these influenced by the 70 per cent Islamist majority in parliament.

Of program, there are still dissident voices. Nadea, for instance, is a 48-year outdated translator holding a sign in Tahrir demanding the military leave the government. She was with a group of buddies who lately formed Woman for Adjust.

“We all fought for a civil society and what we got is a military government and an Islamist parliament. Neither of them are civil,” she advised me as she threw up her hands.

Amid the absolutely critical political debate in Egypt these days, there is also, according to several political activists I interviewed, some despair and demoralization. This is especially accurate amongst the impoverished vendors in the informal sector who typically earn only $ 2 a day and endure dearly from the 30 per cent drop in tourism.

Walking the streets of Cairo, you see vivid examples of their wretched poverty. Children are all over the place functioning as vendors assisting their household earn an revenue. Of course, this signifies they are not in school.

The United Nations records 40 per cent illiteracy rate and a 40 per cent poverty price in Egypt.

It is fairly various for the organized working class. In fact, above the final numerous a long time, even underneath Mubarak, the AFL-CIO recorded some 1900 mostly illegal strikes happening from 2004 to 2008. These actions earned some important concessions from the government.

“Strikes continue nowadays,” according to 23-12 months old Nadeem Mansour, executive director of the prestigious labor and human rights’ organization, the Egyptian Center for Financial and Social Rights (ECESR). “But the new independent unions place most of their vitality, now, into strengthening their regional chapters still in their infancy.”

One more 23-year old I met in Tahrir, Hussein, proudly announced himself a revolutionary. He provided this analysis: “The operating class has a far better sense of their very own collective power and does not feel the same exhaustion and demoralization of their far far more isolated brothers and sisters in the informal sectors of the economic climate.”

“And, of course, the other revolutionary issue in Egypt, is the youth, who need to continually ally with the demands of the functioning class,” he advised me.

I heard this typically. According to the Globe Bank, there is 90 per cent unemployment amongst those below 30 a long time of age, now comprising 60 per cent of the population. Beneath these conditions, the youth have set an instance of committed activism under the most violent of situations.

“I lost an eye on November 19 when I was hit by a rubber bullet,” 30-year outdated Malek Moustafa advised me. He is media director for one of the most prominent human rights organizations in Egypt, the Hisham Mubarak Law Center.

“It was the initial day of the month-long protests opposing military rule and demanding real democratic and economic reforms. Almost 150 had been killed by the military and police assault on Mohamed Mamoud street proper off Tahrir and in front of the Ministry of Interior.”

“It was like bloody Beirut, complete mayhem with the army and police dragging bodies into trucks possibly to be dumped in the desert. And, it appeared they were firing purposely at the eyes,” a veteran AP photographer I befriended in Cairo advised me in a separate interview.

“Among the several thousand wounded,” Malek said, “are one more 35 who lost a single eye like me, 7 who lost both eyes and a lot of other individuals with crucial and permanent injuries.”

The big, enthusiastic youth presence in Tahrir this January 25, following the bloody days of the final few months, definitely shows their passion and determination is undeterred. Of program, the revolutionary youth know the activist minority must ultimately win above the a lot more conservative majority who yearn for stability, and for that challenge, they inform me, they are prepared.

The feeling at Tahrir was 1 of determination, a recognition that the struggle for revolutionary alter will take longer. “We are not just fighting an person now, we are fighting an entrenched military institution and its corrupt allies,” said Fadel. “We are prepared for the troubles ahead.”

Carl Finamore is delegate to the San Francisco Labor Council, AFL-CIO. He is in Cairo for eight days. He can be reached at local1781@yahoo.com and his writings at carlfinamore.wordpress.com

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The Mother of All Union Trusteeships–Three Years Later

by admin

Talking Union has extensively covered the controversy between the national SEIU and its California UHW local, which have evolved in the National Union of Health Care Workers. We have sought to present a variety of viewpoints on this an other controversial issues. That policy continues. Posts represent the views of the author and not those of Talking Union or Democratic Socialists of America, unless explicitly stated. –editors.

by Steve Early

Steve Early

Three years ago this Friday (Jan. 27), Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andy Stern declared war on one-quarter of his California membership. Mimicking the Pentagon, SEIU headquarters in Washington dispatched an army of paid staffers to seize the Oakland office of United Healthcare Workers (UHW) and other union facilities around the state. Stern’s trusteeship over UHW was aided by scores of high priced union lawyers, uniformed local police officers, and private security personnel from the OSO Group, which hires ex-cops, former FBI and Secret Service agents, and even retired CIA employees to provide corporate clients with surveillance, intelligence, and counter-terrorism protection. (OSO’s bill for its services totaled $ 2.2 million.)

Before the UHW take-over occurred, the 150,000 hospital, home care, and nursing home workers in UHW were part of a model local that was spearheading a much-needed movement for union democracy and reform within SEIU. Over night, they were stripped of their own elected leaders, from the shop-floor to statewide level. For the next several years, SEIU’s third largest affiliate was run by Stern appointees, with no accountability to the membership. Many of its overseers arrived from out-of-state and have never left, fulfilling their duties with far less competence and commitment than the local officers and staff they replaced. Once a fast-growing SEIU affiliate, UHW has done little or no new organizing since the 2009 trusteeship. Contract standards and workplace representation have both declined dramatically for its existing members (For documentation of that trend, see the always well informed http://sternburgerwithfries.blogspot.com/)

Instead, SEIU and its installed UHW leaders have diverted more than $ 50 million in membership dues money into their on-going counter-insurgency effort. About 9,000 UHW members have, nevertheless, joined a rival union, the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), that was formed in response to trusteeship. Dave Regan, the controversial SEIU official imported from Ohio to replace Sal Rosselli as president of UHW, now earns nearly $ 300,000 a year, more than twice what his predecessor was paid. Post-trusteeship, the UHW treasury has been so badly plundered that even its PR flack, Steve Trossman, makes $ 200,000 annually.

That’s a higher salary than the national presidents of the United Auto Workers, Steelworkers, and Communications Workers receive for overseeing unions with 350,000 to 700,000 members.

Taking a page from White House rationales for U.S. intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, Stern defended the UHW trusteeship as a tragic necessity. In America, Stern told The Washington Post, “there is not enough money you can spend…to protect us from terrorists. As you know, sometimes you have to spend money to protect the integrity of the institution from its own version of self-righteousness and terrorism.”

The Legacy of Andy Stern

On the third anniversary of the “mother of all trusteeships” – one of the largest in U.S. labor history – it’s worth remembering why and how this fiasco occurred. In the view of most outside observers, the UHW take-over has greatly harmed, rather than helped, SEIU-represented health care workers, in California and other parts of the country.

Stern’s intervention has also negatively impacted other California unions that once counted on SEIU to be a progressive force in local and state politics. The UHW under Regan won’t even back a referendum campaign to increase state taxation of millionaires, a measure favored by the California Federation of Teachers and other groups.

Meanwhile, since Stern’s retirement in 2010, SEIU’s “President Emeritus” has become a full-fledged One Percenter himself. In addition to collecting a union pension worth nearly a quarter of a million dollars annually, he receives huge director fees as a board member of SIGA Technologies (a perk arranged by billionaire Ron Perlman, a major stakeholder in the pharmaceutical firm).

From Stern’s current perch at the Columbia University Business School, he has been lobbying for corporate tax relief and deficit reduction, while urging, in the pages of the Wall Street Journal, that the U.S. adopt China’s model of economic development (one notably lacking in respect for workers rights and real unions).

For workers still trapped in the Chinese-style company unionism that Stern & Co. imposed on them, the UHW trusteeship saga is a tale of political deceit and blatant hypocrisy; the official version of why former UHW-President Sal Rosselli and other Stern critics had to be ousted in 2009 didn’t conform to reality at the time and, as a credible pretext, has grown much thinner ever since. To provide liberal cover for his crack-down on SEIU reformers, Stern utilized union insiders like Justice for Janitors organizer Stephen Lerner and Executive Vice-President Eliseo Medina, who now serves as SEIU’s secretary-treasurer under Stern’s successor, Mary Kay Henry. To lend a veneer of legality to the proceedings he also hired a well-known outsider, former U.S. Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall.

The Role of Marshall, Medina, and Lerner

A Carter Administration cabinet member now 83 years old, Marshall was paid $ 200,000 to investigate Stern’s allegations that financial misconduct by Rosselli and his executive board justified a UHW take-over. While researching a book published last year, The Civil Wars in U.S. Labor, I interviewed the retired University of Texas law professor about the trusteeship hearings he conducted while top SEIU staffers like Lerner were already making secret preparations to remove elected UHW leaders. Marshall reaffirmed his January 2009 finding that, based on the evidence presented to him, there were no current UHW financial irregularities that required such action. “Nobody lost any money,” Marshall told me. And, contrary to Stern’s view that UHW dissenters were organizational “terrorists” who needed to be rooted out, Marshall believed that both SEIU and UHW were “strong and progressive voices for their members and all American workers.” In a personal letter to Stern on January 21, 2009, Marshall urged the parties “to settle their differences and return to the kind of cooperation that helped both organizations…”

Unfortunately, the price of cooperation for UHW, as determined by Marshall in his accompanying written decision, was its dismemberment. On January 9, 2009, the Stern controlled SEIU executive board ordered that 65,000 UHW-represented nursing home and home care members be transferred to a new statewide SEIU local that would have all of its officers hand-picked by Stern.

The affected workers had made it quite clear to SEIU and Marshall that they preferred to remain within UHW, which insisted that the question be put to a vote among its long-term care members (a form of rank-and-file veto power not guaranteed by the SEIU constitution). Nursing home and home care union activists feared they would end up in the clutches of another Stern protégé like Tyrone Freeman, the president of SEIU’s United Long Term Care Workers Local 6434 based in Los Angeles. In mid-2008, Freeman’s embezzlement of $ 1 million from his low-paid membership had just created a widely-publicized corruption scandal and led to his removal from office. (He now awaits federal criminal charges as well.)

As Medina explained in a Jan. 21, 2009 Beyond Chron article (entitled “Why SEIU Supports Uniting Long Term Care Workers”), members of Freeman’s former local, UHW, and a third SEIU affiliate were all going to be merged into “the nation’s largest and most powerful organization of long term care workers – 240,000 strong” for their own good. According to Medina, creating this “one unified local” was a top SEIU priority and “couldn’t come at a more critical moment,” due to public sector budget crises and resulting home care program funding cuts that threatened to undermine past union gains.

“Homecare workers hold an important place in SEIU,” Medina insisted. In fact, they were so important that he was personally “working with members in California” to ensure prompt implementation of the restructuring plan mandated by the SEIU board. “When our international union made a commitment to organize home care workers as a way to raise standards in this sector, the entire national union fought intensely to pass laws to allow home care workers to organize…” Medina wrote. “That’s why we must use all of our resources to strengthen union membership and political power in parts of this state and across the country.”

SEIU’s Post-Trusteeship Reality

After UHW balked at the forced transfer of its long-term care membership – and trusteeship was imposed – SEIU’s impending membership realignment was never mentioned publicly again. The statewide long term care local that Medina was going to create – “to raise more folks out of poverty so they can provide for themselves and their families” – was never established.

In apparent continuing violation of the executive board’s now three-year old jurisdictional decree, 65,000 nursing home and home care workers remain dis-united, to this very day, in UHW. There, 2% of their modest pay-checks is deducted monthly to fund the extravagant salaries of Dave Regan and his top staff.

If there’s any transfer of membership in the near future, it will most likely involve Regan’s absorption of 160,000-member Local 6434, a take-over opposed by its current president, a former SEIU staffer named Laphonza Butler. Of course, if UHW and 6434 were consolidated, Regan would then head the second largest SEIU affiliate in the country. But long term care workers would not be segregated in their own local; they would be united with hospital workers, just as pre-trusteeship UHW leaders said they should be.

The notion that any of these top-down schemes lead to strengthened union membership and/or more “political power” is almost laughable at this point. Since Stern’s seizure of UHW, SEIU political clout has diminished so much in California that it couldn’t even get a putative ally, Governor Brown, to sign a bill passed by the legislature last year permitting unionization of tens of thousands of home-based child care providers through a card check recognition process. Similar card check procedures in New York, New Jersey, and others states have made it possible for tens of thousands of home day care providers to be unionized there.

While UHW/SEIU have been spending millions battling NUHW in California, past union gains among both home care workers and child-care providers have unraveled around the country. Some of the organizing “laws” referred to by Medina above were not laws at all—but executive orders obtained by SEIU from labor friendly governors in states like Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

After Republicans replaced Democrats in three of those four states in 2010, the state house winners began stripping more than 75,000 publicly-funded, home-based workers of recently acquired bargaining rights or contract protections. (For details, see Steve Early, “GOP Targets Fragile Gains of Home-Based Caregivers,” >Working In These Times, April 9, 2011.)

Since the UHW trusteeship, SEIU’s overall organizing record has steadily declined. It has lost a series of decertification elections to independent unions formed by county workers in southern California, city workers in Los Angeles, municipal workers in Arizona, and health care workers in Ontario. In recent months, NUHW has, for the first time, won NLRB elections outside of California, ousting SEIU as the representative of several hundred Michigan health care workers. Last January, a large-scale SEIU attempt to grow in Ohio ended in crushing defeat at hospitals and nursing facilities operated by Catholic Healthcare Partners (CHP).

In statewide voting conducted among CHP professional and non-professional employees, there was only one union (SEIU) on the ballot and virtually no anti-union campaigning. Nevertheless, the health care local formerly headed by Dave Regan lost in 39 proposed bargaining units and won in only four. Less than 700 workers gained bargaining rights out of 6,600 eligible to vote.

Something’s Rotten?

After Henry became SEIU president, she appointed a Dave Regan protégé from Ohio to head up membership recruitment throughout the country. SEIU’s new organizing director, Florida-based Scott Courtney, makes more than $ 200,000 a year, as the union’s highest paid unelected official.

According to one concerned SEIU activist, “the International union is doing no organizing. Scott Courtney is in charge and the only campaign he has allowed has been fighting off NUHW at Kaiser. Everything else has been shutdown.” In the Fall of 2010, Courtney had such an acrimonious dispute with Stephen Lerner over SEIU priorities that he put Lerner on administrative leave. His unruly subordinate was, back then, a convention-elected member of SEIU’s top governing board, and thus outranked Courtney. Yet, after a quarter century of widely-praised SEIU work, Lerner was given little or no role in organizing the unorganized when he was finally allowed to return to his headquarters staff position early last year.

Now this longtime Stern loyalist, liberal media darling, and critic of SEIU dissidents been forced out of SEIU entirely – by Mary Kay Henry! Although Lerner has refrained from public comment about his resignation this month, at least one co-worker – a self-described “career staffer”(blogging under the screen name “Union Jo”) – took to the internet to warn that “the internal culture at SEIU under Mary Kay has taken a turn toward the dark side.” (For the full lament, see http://seiuhardtruths.blogspot.com/2012/01/somethings-rotten-inside-seiu-loyalist.html) “Courtney has clamped down on dissent, with Henry’s evident approval,” reports Union Jo. Lerner’s “ouster exposes the culture of fear, rigidity, and conformism that has taken root inside the union since she became its leader.” All of which leads this anonymous whistle-blower to conclude that something’s rotten inside SEIU – hardly a revelation to UHW members stripped of their union rights three years ago, and terribly abused, on a wide scale, ever since.

Steve Early’s book-length account of the UHW trusteeship and related SEIU conflicts was published by Haymarket Books last March and is now in its second printing. The Civil Wars in U.S. Labor can be ordered at www.civilwarsinlabor.org A version of this article first appeared on Beyond Chron. Early can be reached at Lsupport@aol.com

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China’s advantage- Serfdom

by admin

by Tula Connell. AFL- Cio

Image by way of CrunchBase

A significantly-discussed report in the Sunday New York Times on why iPhones are made in China highlights the transition of Apple guru Steve Jobs who, a handful of years after Apple began creating the Macintosh in 1983, bragged it was “a machine that is produced in America.” These days, millions of Apple products like iPhones, iPads and Kindles are created in China sweatshops like Foxconn.

So what happened?

In a nutshell, this:

Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s display at the last moment, forcing an assembly line overhaul [at a Chinese factory]. New screens started arriving at the plant near midnight.

(There are three articles in the NY Instances series. Each and every is crucial. See hyperlinks beneath in Jobs.)

A foreman immediately roused eight,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Every employee was provided a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and inside half an hour began a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Inside 96 hrs, the plant was creating over 10,000 iPhones a day.

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive explained. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”

China’s use of close to-slave labor situations creates its “competitve edge.” But its benefit is not so a lot due to lower wages as to speed and turnover—an on-demand supply of workers who are housed little much better than assembly components, stacked in several dorm beds per area with no possibility to escape.

Yet the New York Times repeats the mantra that corporations really don’t develop this kind of jobs in the United States due to the fact of a “skills shortage.” Economist Clyde Prestowitz will take apart this tired refrain:

The Apple argument is that the U.S. colleges and schooling program are not turning out the varieties of employees with the kinds of skills we want. So, we have no choice but to go overseas. But the truth is a lot more nearly the opposite. It’s because the organizations are moving the jobs overseas that no Americans are studying the required abilities. This is true for two reasons. 1 is that Americans are typically not stupid and understand that since of off-shoring there will not be any of these kinds of jobs and as a result there is no sense in finding out the abilities necessary to do them. The second is that most of this variety of task or talent training occurs on the work, and if there are no jobs then there will be no capabilities.

Prestowitz applauds President Obama for asserting in his State of the Union deal with Tuesday evening that a U.S. “economy built to last” must have a robust manufacturing base and that corporate tax incentives to offshore jobs must be reversed.

But as AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka notes, Obama alone cannot turn close to this nation’s economic climate and develop excellent jobs.

Now it is time for Congress to stop standing in the way of rebuilding our nation and act.

From the AFL-CIO Weblog

New York Occasions

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/organization/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?scp=9&ampsq=apple%20china&ampst=cse

Human expense to workers

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-ipad-and-the-human-expenses-for-employees-in?_r=one

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Jobs, Jobs, and Cars

January 28, 2012 by admin

Paul Krugman. NYT. Jan. 26,2012.

Image by way of Wikipedia

“Mitch Daniels, the former Bush budget director who is now Indiana’s governor, created the Republicans’ reply to President Obama’s State of the Union tackle. His overall performance was, well, dull. But he did say one thing thought-provoking — and I imply that in the worst way…

Obviously, Mr. Daniels does not have a lot of a long term in the humor organization. But, much more to the point, anyone who reads The New York Occasions knows that his assertion about occupation creation was totally false: Apple employs quite handful of people in this nation.

A big report in The Times last Sunday laid out the information. Despite the fact that Apple is now America’s greatest U.S. corporation as measured by market place worth, it employs only 43,000 individuals in the United States, a tenth as several as Standard Motors employed when it was the greatest American firm.

Apple does, nevertheless, indirectly utilize all around 700,000 men and women in its a variety of suppliers. Unfortunately, virtually none of those men and women are in America.”

by Duane Campbell

Go through the grueling accounts of work in Apple’s Chinese factories as they appeared in the N.Y.Instances this week. We can not post them right here due to copyright restrictions.

New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/organization/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?scp=9&ampsq=apple%20china&ampst=cse

Human price to employees

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/enterprise/ieconomy-apples-ipad-and-the-human-costs-for-employees-in?_r=one

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Union Membership Holds Steady in 2011

by admin

by Center for Economic Policy and Research

In stark contrast to the decline in union membership in recent a long time, union membership levels held steady at 11.8 % in 2011, falling a mere .1 percentage compared to 2010.

Although cash-strapped state and local governments reduce jobs, the percentage of public sector workers in unions elevated from 36.2 percent to 37. percent. In other words, the loss of public sector non-union jobs occurred at a higher price than the loss of union jobs. Employment loss in the public sector was offset by gains in the private sector, wherever union membership stayed at 6.9 percent with an improve of 110,000 union members. The building sector, which experienced one particular of the greatest drops in unionization in 2010, noticed 73,000 union members extra in 2011—the largest net obtain for any market.

Following the release of the Bureau of Labor Stats report on union membership, American Rights at Function Executive Director Kimberly Freeman Brown issued this statement:

“The 99 percent can take heart in today’s numbers—a welcome adjust from latest years.

“Despite the egregious attacks on public sector employees, the continuous assault on collective bargaining from politicians at every degree of government, and the obstacles employees nevertheless face when they consider to join together in a union, Americans are holding their ground.

“Jobs are lastly coming back, and with them, an elevated number of workers with access to fair pay out, decent advantages, and a voice on the occupation. Numerous of these new union jobs are a direct end result of unions functioning together with their employers to weather the financial storm. For instance, as the auto sector rebounded, GM and the UAW collaborated to restore production and great, American jobs.

“That’s not to say we do not have far more function to do. Millions of Americans are still out of perform, even much more are struggling to make ends meet, and employees are even now beneath attack in statehouses nationwide. At the same time, unscrupulous companies carry on to squeeze their personnel and reduce task requirements, furthering the erosion of the middle class.

“But if we’ve discovered anything this year, it’s that voters assistance workers’ right to a voice on the occupation by means of their union—as a path to economic security for their families, a boon to their communities, and a a lot-required counterbalance to the unbridled influence of the one %. And when legislators attempt to strip away that correct, they pay the value at the ballot box.”

# # #

Assets:

http://bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm

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Fact-checking Obama’s State of the Union Speech: Jobs

by admin

by Jack Rasmus

Jack Rasmus :

Final Tuesday, January 24, 2012 President Obama delivered his most current ‘State of the Union’ (SOTU) speech to Congress. It heavily emphasized economic themes, among which were jobs, manufacturing, trade, the car business, teachers, taxes, medicare, monetary regulation, and developing income inequality in the U.S. Claims have been produced and general proposals offered for making more jobs and how to get a sluggish US economic recovery eventually going after a few many years of tepid, stop-go results. But many of the President’s claims in his SOU speech were contrary to the facts, especially with regard to jobs. And the proposals he reaffirmed for creating a sustained economic recovery were far more of the same ‘old wine in new bottles’ that haven’t had considerably impact to date. Here’s some facts regarding jobs to consider just before feeling also optimistic over what was largely a campaign election year SOTU speech—a speech a lot more reminiscent of Obama’s 2008 ‘talk the talk’ period than his 2009-11 ‘talk but no walk’ record.

Part one: JOBS

Obama boasted that the US manufacturing sector had turned around and created millions of jobs on his view. He subsequently raised the need to additional improve manufacturing and the exports of US produced goods as one of his two principal suggestions for undertaking one thing about the 23 million jobless nevertheless without having perform in the U.S. (The other major recommendation was much more company tax cuts, further comment about which will follow in Component two).

What are the information regarding manufacturing sector jobs in the U.S. right now?

According to the US Labor Department (table B-1 Employment Reports), there had been 17.264 million jobs in manufacturing in December 2000. By the start of the recession in December 2007 there had been 13.879 million. When Obama took office in 2009 there had been 13.406 million. As of December 2011 there were 11.812 million.

Above the previous year, from December 2010 by means of December 2011 there have been 1.932 million complete private sector jobs created. But only .218 million of those were manufacturing jobs. And practically all of people manufacturing jobs had been produced in the very first half of 2011, as world-wide trade and exports accelerated. That exact same worldwide trade began contracting in the second half of 2011. In response to that contraction, in the final three months of 2011, October-December, US manufacturing employment truly fell by 24,000 jobs. So inform me how this picture, and a further promotion of manufacturing sector is going to significantly minimize the 23-24 million presently still jobless in the US? Even at the early 2011 rate, it will take one hundred many years to create 20 million added manufacturing jobs.

The over numbers represent complete manufacturing jobs. How about jobs for non-supervisor/non-managers in manufacturing? Because the so-known as official ‘end’ of the recession in June 2009, via December 2011—over a period of two and a half years—a mere 174,000 production manufacturing jobs had been designed. That is a meager five,800 a month.

The president in his speech was exceptionally laudatory of the US car businesses, praising all a few for having fully recovered and now generating jobs. But let’s look at the record right here as properly. 315,000 automobile jobs were lost from the commence of the recession in December 2007 by means of the end of 2010. More than the past year the market has hired back at the price of only four,000 a month, or 48,000, of these 315,000 jobs lost. And let’s not forget, the overwhelming number of these hired the past year have been temp status auto sector jobs paid at close to $ 14 an hour, about half of the standard auto worker wage rate. Yes, the automobile organizations are hiring, but at half pay out. Not surprisingly, their profits have recovered, but have carried out so by shifting money from automobile workers to auto companies’ income bottom line.

Okay, close friends of the administration could argue, perhaps the details concerning manufacturing jobs had been a bit overblown, and exaggerated by the president. What about the one.9 million complete personal jobs developed this previous year. Isn’t that significant? Properly, 600,000 of individuals jobs have been designed in the retail sector in the last two months of 2011, the holiday season. Most jobs in that sector are element time and temp jobs, several of which will soon disappear in early 2012. Another 82,000 jobs have been messengers and couriers, hired by UPS, Fedex, etc. for the surge in mailing in the holiday season. They too will quickly disappear in early 2012. In addition, Banking and Finance sector companies have announced a lot more than 150,000 layoffs scheduled for 2012, and that’s just a start off. And the two largest occupation creation sectors of the financial system in the very first half of 2011—Business and Skilled Services and Leisure and Hospitality—both diminished jobs in the final two months of 2011 by 264,000 jobs.

Finally, let’s not overlook the non-private, government sector of the financial system. While the personal side may possibly have designed 1.9 million jobs, 257,000 state, regional government, and postal workers lost their jobs just in 2011 alone—106,000 of whom have been teachers.

Even though on the topic of teachers, Obama praised the profession for its key function in the economy and improvement of society. He effectively noted teachers should be honored and respected for their contribution to both. He then proclaimed the best teachers must be rewarded with far more shell out. Training managers must be given a lot more flexibility, he advocated, to give far more shell out to the greatest teachers and get rid of the worst. This is his Schooling Secretary, Arne Duncan’s, outdated formula. In practice it means the introduction of merit shell out, which would undermine instructor union contracts, and far more manager freedom to fire teachers and/or layoff out of seniority based on administrator preferences and favoritism—the old ‘civil service’ technique. With each other with the push towards charter schools, Obama’s policy for schooling amounts to a destruction of teacher union contracts. Charter schools plus merit spend plus end of seniority and far more freedom to fire indicates the end of teacher unionism as we know it.

In the second half of 2010 Obama reshuffled his employees, re-populating his team with corporate advisers. Bill Daley grew to become chief of employees. Basic Electric Corp. CEO, Jeff Immelt, headed his ‘jobs council’. Scores of corporate underlings had been hired behind them. What we subsequently got in terms of jobs policy was a manufacturing sector-export trade centric set of proposals. Jobs were supposed to come from stimulating manufacturing, exports, pushing cost-free trade, as properly as cutting business laws, marketing patent protection for the tech sector, and similar pro-enterprise approaches. Daley-Immelt basically took over the Obama jobs system.

Far more enterprise and investor tax cuts followed, including $ 802 billion in further tax reductions in December 2010. Laws have been decreased, as Obama bragged in his SOTU that he cut more laws than did George W. Bush in his 1st expression. Contrary to his 2008 campaign guarantees to restructure task-killing free of charge trade agreements, the Obama-Daley-Immelt group opened a new offensive to pass pending totally free trade agreements with Korea, Panama, Columbia and elsewhere. The former a few had been adopted in 2011. These have been promoted as manufacturing work-creation measures. Nonetheless, according to different reports since 1994 by the respected Financial Policy Institute, more than 10 million jobs have been LOST due to cost-free trade. Nonetheless, in his SOTU speech Obama when once more is marketing the corporate line and false claim that cost-free trade produces jobs.

Manufacturing output has risen considerably because mid-2009, as has manufacturing corporations’ revenues and earnings, especially the big multinational players like Immelt’s GE and the automobile and high tech organizations. But manufacturing jobs are even now one.6 million quick of wherever they have been in early 2009 and wages of new manufacturing jobs are far reduce than current wages. A handful of employees get reduced having to pay jobs, although manufacturing companies reap the huge advantages of Obama’s manufacturing-export centric jobs policies. The ‘let’s boosts manufacturing-export companies’ technique to job creation has been a sham job creation plan, taken straight out of the financial playbook of the Daleys and Immelts that have been driving the Obama group jobs program considering that late 2010. And by the comments of President Obama in his current SOU handle, firms will continue to drive the Obama jobs program—while they simultaneously sit on their current $ 2.five trillion cash hoard and refuse to invest in America. Positive, GE and GM could generate some jobs in the US—but only if American workers are willing to operate for Chinese wages!

Jack Rasmus is the author of EPIC RECESSION: PRELUDE TO International DEPRESSION, 2010, by Palgrave-Pluto press and the pamphlet, Option Program for Economic Recovery, Kyklos Productions, October 2011, which might be bought for $ 5 from his site, www.kyklosproductions.com. And watch for Jack’s forthcoming new book in March 2012: OBAMA’S Economic climate: RECOVERY FOR THE Few, by Pluto and Palgrave.

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Category eBook Readers | Tags: Factchecking,Jobs,Obama’s,Speech,State,Union | No Comments
LIUNA Leaves BlueGreen Alliance

January 25, 2012 by admin

LIUNA

(Jan 20) The Laborers’ Worldwide Union of North America – explained today it has left the BlueGreen Alliance in response to job-killing attacks on the Keystone XL pipeline by some of the alliance’s labor and environmentalist members.

“AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka just lately explained there was a divide in the labor movement over this project,” LIUNA Common President Terry O’Sullivan explained. “That is an understatement. That divide is as deep and broad as the Grand Canyon. We’re repulsed by some of our supposed brothers and sisters lining up with job killers like the Sierra Club and the All-natural Sources Defense Council to destroy the lives of working guys and females.”

O’Sullivan mentioned Keystone is only the beginning of what will probably be a protracted struggle over major projects to construct and strengthen America’s vitality infrastructure. “LIUNA plans to unite with the help of the strong and proud unions of the AFL-CIO Creating and Development Trades Department to battle for good jobs that build America and strengthen our energy sources,” he stated. “We will not stand idly by, nor will the Constructing Trades.”

In addition to expansion of solar, wind and geothermal power, LIUNA favors expansion of other power resources, such as clean coal, purely natural gas and nuclear power.

“We believe in defending the planet, but we should also care about the people on it,” O’Sullivan explained. “We feel green jobs ought to place green in workers’ pockets.”

The Keystone XL pipeline would have developed thousands of family members-supporting construction jobs. Among these opposing it were environmental groups and some unions, whose members had no jobs to get or drop on the project. Pipeline opponents acknowledged their genuine situation was with oil sands growth in Canada, which will continue regardless of regardless of whether the pipeline is built.

“Their actual target wasn’t the pipeline, but the oil sands. They missed that target – the oil sands will be produced regardless of whether Keystone XL is built or not – but hit tens of thousands of operating men and ladies,” O’Sullivan said. “It is impossible for LIUNA to stand side-by-side with these groups. Building workers are struggling with 16 % unemployment and one.three million of them are jobless. The Keystone XL was not just a pipeline to them, it was a lifeline.”

O’Sullivan stressed LIUNA’s concerns were not with the leadership or employees of the BlueGreen Alliance. “Executive Director Dave Foster and his team have carried out historic and groundbreaking function to highlight the require for excellent green jobs below attempting circumstances,” he mentioned.

LIUNA members have prolonged done the operate of environmental remediation, creating buildings and communities secure from hazardous waste, lead and asbestos contamination. The union has led the improvement of education plans for employees in emerging job sectors this sort of as developing weatherization and retrofitting and has joined with allies across the nation to fight for investment to make the tasks attainable.

And the union has been on the forefront of calling for cap and trade legislation with curbs on carbon emissions exceeding those backed by other unions and the Obama Administration.

“The battle for complete climate modify legislation to curb world-wide warming is challenging and won’t be won effortlessly, but is the greatest, if not only way, to create and shield jobs whilst defending the planet,” O’Sullivan stated. “Sadly, as a substitute of facing that challenge, the environmental movement and some unions have abandoned this mission and as an alternative chosen to turn out to be work killers as a substitute of job creators.”

The half-million members of LIUNA – the Laborers’ International Union of North America – are on the forefront of the construction sector, a powerhouse of employees who are proud to construct America.

Talking Union

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Indiana Senate Passes RTW Despite Broad Public Opposition

by admin

by Cathy Sherwin

&nbspRegardless of overwhelming opposition all through Indiana to the so-known as appropriate to operate (RTW)&nbspbill, the state Senate yesterday passed its version of the bill by 28-22, whilst Home Speaker Brian Bosma continued to use robust-arm techniques to force RTW down Hoosiers’ throats. The Senate chose to vote even as 10,000 Hoosier employees packed the statehouse—and even although working families have been holding town hall meetings, producing thousands of cellphone calls and signing postcards.

During the day, Democratic amendments to the House edition of RTW (Residence Bill 1001) were rejected on party lines. Even the hugely well-known amendment calling for a public referendum that would enable voters to decide on RTW went down to defeat. Then Bosma shut down the discussion on amendments, cutting off additional debate. In protest, Property Democrats left the chamber and went to caucus.

There are two various “right to work” for much less expenses, H.B. 1001 and S.B. 269. Now that one particular has passed the Senate, that bill goes to a Property committee in which amendments can be additional, then to a second studying and then to a last vote. The same procedure applies to expenses passed in the Home, moving to the Senate by means of the final vote. Only if there are no adjustments produced in the second chamber would the bill go straight to the governor’s desk to sign. If there are changes, the bill would then go back to the property of origin where legislators would once more vote to sign on or not.

Meanwhile, the national Republican Celebration is giving Indiana governor and RTW backer Mitch Daniels the primo spot in tonight’s Republican post-State of the Union commenary–a clear signal the GOP is making attacking operating people a cornerstone of its 2012 campaigns.

We’ll be back at the statehouse nowadays.&nbspOur voices have ensured bipartisan opposition to “right to work” for much less, regardless of GOP leadership leaning on Republican elected officials who are standing with us. And our voices are becoming heard by the Democratic legislators who brought up amendment right after amendment to lessen the blow of a “right to work” bill—and, when the amendments had been denied a hearing by partisan leaders, walked out to stand with us.

Cathy Sherwin is an AFL-CIO Field Communications staffer. This report from the Indiana statehouse was initially posted on the AFL-CIO Now web site.

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New ad: ‘What’ Exposes Indiana Gov. Daniels on ‘Right to Work’

by admin

Functioning families in Indiana have launched a new television entitled ‘What,’ that attributes Governor Daniels in his personal words opposing Appropriate to Operate for Less. In his speech to the Teamsters in 2006 Daniels opposed any alterations to Indiana’s labor laws and explained, “…certainly not a Proper to Perform law.”

The ad will run following Governor Daniels’ response to the State of the Union on broadcast networks in Indiana and nationally on CNN and MSNBC.

TALKINGREADER.COM

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Cool Technology images

January 22, 2012 by admin

Some cool Engineering pictures:

Army Engineering Zone comes to lifestyle

Picture by RDECOM
The Army Engineering Zone at Maker Faire Detroit is coming to lifestyle. Dr. Grace Bochenek, TARDEC director, visited the website this morning to view the exhibits and speak to RDECOM participants. Maker Faire Detroit requires area this weekend at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Mich. Organizers assume 20,000 visitors to the occasion that celebrates the progressive and imaginative spirit of all exhibitors and participants, like the makers of Utilikilts, suppliers of utility kilts for daily wear.

Army Technologies Zone comes to existence

Image by RDECOM
The Army Technological innovation Zone at Maker Faire Detroit is coming to daily life. Dr. Grace Bochenek, TARDEC director, visited the site this morning to view the exhibits and talk to RDECOM participants. Maker Faire Detroit will take spot this weekend at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Mich. Organizers anticipate 20,000 guests to the event that celebrates the revolutionary and imaginative spirit of all exhibitors and participants, like the makers of Utilikilts, suppliers of utility kilts for daily put on.

Category Technology | Tags: Cool,images,Technology | No Comments