Why Isn't Congress Hearing Workers?

It must be election season, because Republican leaders in Congress are at it again - wasting taxpayer dollars to make a political show of attacking workers’ most fundamental rights.

This morning, the Education and the Workforce Committee held a hearing they called “The NLRB Recess Appointments: Implications for America’s Workers and Employers.” The sole intent of this hearing was to question and undermine President Obama’s appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). As we know, the NLRB is charged with protecting the right of every American to bargain for a better life – a right Republicans are steadfastly committed to obliterating.

On tap for tomorrow morning is a hearing by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform called “The Right to Choose: Protecting Union Workers from Forced Political Contributions.” Don’t be fooled by fancy word play – this hearing doesn’t protect union workers; it protects corporations that oppose collective bargaining in the first place.

Republican committee leaders should be ashamed of themselves for so blatantly putting the corporate interest ahead of the national interest – and their constituents should be outraged. The last thing we need right now are hearings driven by cynical partisan politics – especially considering that this Congress can’t even get it together to pass substantive pieces of legislation like the American Jobs Act or the payroll tax cut extension.

It’s time we let Republican leaders in Congress know we’re tired of waiting - they need to stop wasting time and start working for the American people. Send this message loud and clear by visiting the Education and Workforce Committee and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Facebook and giving them a piece of your mind.

Governor Mitch Daniels Abandons his Pledge to Workers

Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana has spent the better part of the last three weeks strongly advocating divisive Right-to-Work legislation in Indiana. Indiana Republican leaders declared it their top legislative priority and Governor Daniels has walked hand-in-hand with them, vigorously championing the measure.

Governor Daniels’ support of this legislation is particularly troubling because it’s something he claimed for years he would never pursue. In 2006, during a speech at the Teamsters 135 Union Stewards Dinner, Governor Daniels said, “I'm a supporter of the labor laws we have in the state of Indiana. I'm not interested in changing any of them. Not the prevailing wage law and certainly not a right to work law. We can succeed in Indiana with laws we have respecting the rights of labor and free and fair competition for everybody.” Why the change of heart, Governor? Watch the video.

Support Retail Workers Sticking Together for a Say Over Holiday Scheduling

Black Friday has finally become Black Thanksgiving, leaving retail workers with no time for turkey - or to spend with their families.

Retail workers go above and beyond to provide great service for their customers during the holiday season, and take pride in their work. But with stores like Walmart moving up Black Friday opening times to 10pm on Thanksgiving, and Target calling in workers at 11pm, retail workers will be unable to sit down with their families for Thanksgiving dinner this year.

Click here to sign the petition to stand with Walmart employees and other retail workers who are sticking together to have a say over their schedules during the holidays. 


Concerns over hours and scheduling constantly fall at the top of the list of problems for retail workers. That's why workers should be able to stick together and have a say over their hours and scheduling, and compensation for holiday work. After all, retail jobs are the fastest growing jobs in the country, and millions of retail workers have the power to make these jobs good middle class jobs. That's good for our economy, and good for all Americans. UFCW members who work at stores like Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Modell's, and H&M know the power of sticking together and speaking with one voice. They know that we can improve our jobs and our lives by standing up with one another for what's right. By sticking together in a union, these retail workers earn higher pay for work on holidays.  They also have more control over their schedules.

Retail workers are part of the 99 percent. And it's good to see that people are paying attention to the working conditions facing retail workers in our economy.  We know that when workers speak with one voice to address workplace issues with management as a group, they begin to level the playing field and improve their jobs. When we support workers coming together to make positive changes in the workplace, we all win.

Retail workers and their families deserve respect on the job. Stand with Walmart employees and other retail workers who are sticking together to have a voice over their schedules during the holidays.

Why We Fight: Video From the Front Lines of the Fight for the Middle Class

In states across the country, politicians are attempting to roll back the steps forward workers have made in their fight for economic justice and the American Dream. Regardless of whether those politicians are motivated by favors to super-rich corporate donors or are out to exact political revenge, workers have to stick together to stop the attack on the middle class.

On April 4, 2011, we plan to join the rest of the labor movement and our allies in a mass mobilization to make a public and workplace show of support for union rights for all workers. Join us!

AFL-CIO President Blasts Pay Freeze for Hardworking Americans

Rich Trumka on the President's decision to freeze pay for federal workers: 

 

Today’s announcement of a two-year pay freeze for federal workers is bad for the middle class, bad for the economy and bad for business. No one is served by our government participating in a “race to the bottom” in wages. We need to invest in creating jobs, not undermining the ones we have. The President talked about the need for shared sacrifice, but there’s nothing shared about Wall Street and CEOs making record profits and bonuses while working people bear the brunt. It is time to get our nation back on track, but we should not do so by placing an even greater burden on the middle class.

These are good middle class jobs, and Trumka is exactly right--we need to stop placing the brunt of our economic burden on our middle class, and start placing it where it belongs--on the Wall Street tycoons and greedy CEOs who got us into this mess in the first place. Whether it's the retail industry, the service industry, the manufacturing industry, or government workers--we need to stand together and say NO MORE to the attempts to hold down wages and benefits in our industries while Wall Street is allowed to run wild and the gap between the haves and have-nots grows greater every day. Only when we stand together can we stand up for America's working families.

Wal-Mart's Sick Leave Policy Puts Workers at Risk for Spreading H1N1

According to information released by the National Labor Committee, Walmart's punitative sick leave policy puts the employer "on track to on track to be a major spreader of swine flu this fall." The Committee says that Walmart "gives workers demerits and deducts pay for staying home when they are sick or to care for a sick child."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that:

During an influenza pandemic, all sick people should stay home and away from the workplace, hand washing and covering coughs and sneezes should be encouraged, and routine cleaning of commonly touched surfaces should be performed regularly.

But Walmart has, according to the NLC's report, "routinely flouted" the CDC's recommendations. The NLC says that:

[A] Wal-Mart associate told us, “Wal-Mart won't even look at a doctors note. If you are out sick, youre going to get a demerit and lose eight hours wages.”

In fact, when the NLC interviewed Walmart associates across New York State, employees said:

they had no choice but to work sick. One Wal-Mart employee from a supercenter explained: “Plenty of girls are coughing their brains out. But they cannot go home because of points. Everyone comes in sick. You cant stay home and God forbid if you leave early.” “Associates” –including food handlers working in the grocery, meat and even deli departments—are routinely coming to work with the flu, conjunctivitis, fevers, strep throat, diarrhea and vomiting. It is only when an employee is coughing too loudly and violently that he or she will be transferred from the food section to another department, where the sick worker will still be interacting with customers.

When the New York Times interviewed Walmart employee Paul Hotchkiss in Hastings, Minnesota, he said that:

the point system pressured him to report to work two weeks ago even though he had swine flu.

“There are a lot of people who have swine flu right now who are going in because they worry about getting fired for having too many points,” Mr. Hotchkiss said.

His supervisor sent him home because he looked pale, he said, adding that he did not see a doctor because he could not afford the company’s health insurance.

At a time when children and families nationwide are concerned about H1N1, Walmart needs to follow in the footsteps of more responsible employers, and follow the CDC's recommendations. They need to understand that punishing workers for being sick hurts, not helps in combating the H1N1 virus and keeping workers healthy.

Update #2: From a release by Education and Labor Committee:

U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, and Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), chair of the Workforce Protections Subcommittee, announced emergency temporary legislation today that will guarantee five paid sick days for a worker sent home or directed to stay home by their employer for a contagious illness, such as the H1N1 flu virus. The House Education and Labor Committee will hold a hearing on the legislation the week of November 16.

“Sick workers advised to stay home by their employers shouldn’t have to choose between their livelihood, and their coworkers’ or customer’s health,” said Miller. “This will not only protect employees, but it will save employers money by ensuring that sick employees don’t spread infection to co-workers and customers, and will relieve the financial burden on our health system swamped by those suffering from H1N1.”

Update #1: Pat Garofolo over at WonkRoom points out this response from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce:

“The vast majority of employers provide paid leave of some sort,” said Randel K. Johnson, senior vice president for labor at the United States Chamber of Commerce. “The problem is not nearly as great as some people say."

The "dread possibility of a Labor Department that actually works"

Thomas Frank writes in today's Wall Street Journal of the held-up confirmation of M. Patricia Smith to the position of solicitor of the U.S. Department of Labor. Because of a hold placed on Smith's nomination by Sen. Enzi of Wyoming, she will now need 60 votes to be confirmed.

So why the controversy? What horrible skeletons does Smith have dangling in her closet? It appears Smith's sin is...being effective. Our lawmakers fear, in Frank's words, "the dread possibility of a Labor Department that actually works." Frank points out that:

Ms. Smith has "created some of the best outreach and enforcement programs in the nation," says Kim Bobo, head of the advocacy group Interfaith Worker Justice and a critic of the Bush-era Labor Department.

Outreach is just what understaffed labor agencies need. Governments ought to enlist private citizens and community groups to help people "come forward if they have complaints and problems. That's exactly the kind of thing we need to extend capacity," Ms. Bobo told me.

UFCW members in New York know how effective the Smith and the Wage Watchers program have been. Just earlier this year, then-State Labor Commissioner Smith announced the findings of an investigation into wage practices at several grocery stores in New York City and surrounding communities. Because of the investigation, 550 workers will receive nearly 1.5 million, primarily in unpaid overtime wages. As Smith said at the time:

It's unfathomable to think that in this day and age - in these frightening economic times - an employer would actually believe it could get away with cheating workers out such an exorbitant amount of their hard earned money. This case is a prime example of collaboration, good detective work and, as always, strong labor law enforcement.

Lawmakers like Enzi don't seem to like this "strong labor law" approach, and obviously see nothing wrong with the way we've been doing things the last eight years. Or, rather, not doing them. Frank on the Labor Department's fundamental broken-ness under the Bush administration:

The late Bush administration practiced regulatory euthanasia all across Washington, and the consequences have been felt in every corner of the economy.

The Labor Department was hit worst of all, a bureaucracy that was run in reverse until the motor seized up and the wheels came off. This past March the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report on the department's Wage and Hour Division that reads like one of the pranks Spy magazine pulled off in its heyday. It seems that over the preceding nine months, a group of GAO investigators filed 10 made-up complaints with the Wage and Hour Division to see how it would respond. One of them alleged that kids were working "on heavy machinery" in a meatpacking plant during school hours. Wage and Hour simply blew that one off. As the report concludes in its inimitable government style, the Labor Department "successfully investigated 1 of our 10 fictitious cases."

You can read the full GAO report here, entitled "Wage and Hour Division’s Complaint Intake and Investigative Processes Leave Low Wage Workers Vulnerable to Wage Theft."

So a functioning Labor Department is Big Business's nightmare. But Big Business and its closest allies in Congress surely must be dreaming if they think the Obama administration and Sec. Hilda Solis will allow the status quo to stand at the DOL. Smith's nomination must go through--not just because she's a qualified, capable candidate--but because it sends a strong message to Enzi and others like him: this Labor Department is going to start working for workers.

Why the Baucus Bill is No Good for Working Americans

Senator Baucus's health care bill is the talk of the town in Washington, D.C. today, and around the country as Americans wonder what this bill would mean for them. UFCW members should know that in the UFCW's opinion, this is not a good bill.

In a statement released today, we stated that:

Rather than advancing the goals of making health care more affordable for working Americans and controlling the spiraling costs of insurance, the bill by Senator Max Baucus aggravates an already dire situation.

This bill encourages large employers to duck responsibility for providing health care to their workers, potentially passes on thousands of dollars in premiums onto hardworking middle class families, and raises taxes on the few who may still have benefits. With no public option to keep insurance companies honest, these premiums will suck up an ever-increasing share of a worker's salary, while reducing benefits in their plan.

As President Hansen said:

There is another more productive, more prudent path. Thanks to the hard work of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and the U.S. House of Representatives--we know that we can do better. We can have a solution to this health care crisis based on shared responsibility, lower costs for working Americans, and better, more efficient, health care for all.

How Much For a Worker's Life?

How much would you guess a worker's life is worth? Millions? Hundreds of thousands? Maybe you can't even contemplate a thing like measuring human life in terms of pure monetary value. Maybe, like the credit card commercials say, it's...priceless?

Or what about $7000?

If that last figure seems a little low to you, you'll no doubt be horrified to hear that that's the top rate. The maximum amount that OSHA is allowed to fine companies who've received citations subjecting their workers to preventable hazards that could result in death or serious physical harm.

This is the palty price WalMart has to pay after OSHA

cited Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for inadequate crowd management following the Nov. 28, 2008, death of an employee at its Valley Stream, N.Y., store. The worker died of asphyxiation after he was knocked to the ground and trampled by a crowd of about 2,000 shoppers who surged into the store for its annual "Blitz Friday" pre-holiday sales event.

This is what a worker's life is worth. Less than a fraction of 1 percent of those bonuses paid out to AIG executives.

Doesn't that reflect a problem with our labor laws? As Jason Lefkowitz at CTW Connect points out:

President Barack Obama has brought in a new team at the Department of Labor that is committed to ensuring that every worker has a safe workplace. But they can only do as much as they are empowered to do by the law. And the laws that govern worker protection on the job are shockingly toothless.

Lefkowitz goes on to make the same ask that I'll make here: Please tell Congress to pass the Protecting America’s Workers Act, which is currently before the House of Representatives. It's legislation that would put some teeth in our labor laws and strengthen many protections for employees at their workplaces--including upping the minimum fine for the type of citation WalMart received after their worker's trampling death.

It won't bring workers who've died on the job back to their families and friends. But it would at least give companies pause to think about the consequences of not adequately protecting workers from on-the-job hazards.

Making workers safer on the job? That really would be priceless.

New Study Shows Employers' Anti-UnionTactics Have Increased

A new study illustrates what workers have known for years--it's become harder to get a union than ever, thanks to an increase in opposition to unionization by employers.

The study, by Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, is titled “No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing." The study was

based on a random sample of 1,004 unionization elections from early 1999 to late 2003 and relied on a review of National Labor Relations Board cases and documents, as well as surveys of 562 lead union organizers.

A similar study done 12 years ago found that employers used 10 or more types of anti-union tactics in 26 percent of unionization drives. Bronfenbrenner's study shows that 10 or more antiunion tactics were used by employers in 49%, or almost half of all organizing efforts. In 12 years, companies have doubled their efforts to oppose unionization among their workers.

The report includes confirmation that there has been an increase in more coercive and retaliatory tactics, such as:

plant closing threats and actual plant closings, discharges, harassment and other discipline, surveillance, and alteration of benefits and conditions.

And it shows that even workers who have the determination and strength to fight through may not be guaranteed a contract, since:

Even for those who do win the election, 52% are still without a contract a year later, and 37% are still without a contract two years after an election.

For most workers who've tried to get a union at their workplace, the report simply confirms the bitter truth they've been aware of for a long time--and demonstrates the increased importance of passing the Employee Free Choice Act.

When Joanne Fowler, a Certified Nursing Assistant at Lake Village Health Care in Wilmot, Ark.,and her co-workers tried to organize their workplace, management threatened workers with layoffs and tried to bribe workers with raises if they would vote against the union. She said that:

under the Employee Free Choice Act, it will be the workers’ free choice to organize. You won’t have to worry about the company threatening you.

At a briefing today on Capitol Hill to unveil the study, California Rite Aid worker Angel Warner, who is trying to form a union and get a contract with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union spoke out about anti-union tactics and intimidation:

We wanted to form a union so we would be treated with dignity and could speak up without fear of losing our jobs. Now we finally got through the harassment to form a union and we still don't have a contract. It shouldn't be like this. If my coworkers and I want a union, we should have one.

Artists Support Employee Free Choice (w/video)

Broadway talent, TV stars, movie stars and other artists--forty seven of them--have just released a new video in support of the Employee Free Choice Act. People don't always realize that most artists are also union members, and that unions are the reason those working in showbiz can support a family and pay the bills.

Check out the great video and be sure to spread the word.