Labor Friendly Super Bowl Ads

I will be holding my breath again this year to see if the AFL-CIO, Change to Win, or anyone else for that matter will take advantage of the massive audience watching the Super Bowl to air a pro-labor commercial.

I have called in the past for an ad that utilizes various members of the labor community, from construction workers who build stadiums, to the players who, by the way, happen to be union members.

The ad could be simple, ending with a 1-800 number for people to call if they are interested in forming a union where they work. This is not rocket science. Labor membership is now below 7% nationally. If not now, when is this sort of action appropriate.

In Solidarity,

Joseph

American University Food Service Workers Get a Fair Contract

I was elated to see that the hard working employees at my university have reached a fair contract.  They can now take culinary classes and get paid for doing so, and prepare meals from scratch.  This means that there will be much better food coming out of TDR, and that is a good thing.

You can read the whole story from Labor Notes here:

http://labornotes.org/blogs/2013/01/campus-workers-win-training-hours-cook-better-food#comment-4712

In Solidarity,

Joseph

NUHW-CNA: A Real Match Made In Heaven

Some time ago, I wrote about the proposed affiliation between the International Association of Machinists(IAM) and the National Union of HealthCare Workers(NUHW).  While that proposed partnership never came to fruition, NUHW and the California Nurses Association(CNA) recently made their affiliation public.

I always held the opinion that CNA was a much better fit for an affiliation with NUHW than the Machinists, for various reasons.  The most obvious is that CNA is a healthcare union that would help bridge the gap between organizing professional and non-professional employees.  The partnership with NUHW sort of fills the doughnut hole, if you will. Secondly, as much as IAM would have liked to assist NUHW in the upcoming Kaiser election re-runs, I don't believe they would have brought as much to the table as CNA does.

For NUHW, this partnership brings two very big benefits:

1. By affiliating with an AFL-CIO member union, NUHW is protected by Article 20 of the AFL-CIO constitution.  Article 20 protects member organizations from being raided by other AFL-CIO affiliated unions.  While this won't help to keep SEIU from trying to raid their chapters, it is one less thing to worry about.  On a side note, I believe this clause makes the split between SEIU and the AFL-CIO almost permanent.

2. This partnership will bring much needed resources to NUHW in their ongoing struggle against SEIU.  They will certainly need CNA's organizing and financial assistance if they hope to have a chance to be victorious in the Kaiser fight.

I believe that this is a pivotal moment in the history of the American labor movement.  The Kaiser election will help to shape the direction of the labor movement for years to come.  Only time will tell which way it will go.

In Solidarity,

Joseph

Silencing The Truth - SEIU Style

Recently, the organization that I formerly worked with was the target of an information campaign.  Specifically, incriminating evidence of the waste of members' dues money, the extravagant lifestyle of the union president, among other things, was put on display in the wonderful world of facebook.

The response from SEIU/1199 WV/KY/OH was heated and desperate.  They moved quickly to have the account shut down, they had their Executive Vice-President create a fake profile to attack the poster who was releasing the aforementioned information. 

What was very interesting to me as I read the posts and counter-posts, was the fact that no one from the Pro-SEIU point of view, not even the Executive  Vice-President offered any statements or proof to show that anything the person posted was false or exaggerated.  Instead, they attacked the poster, using inflammatory language insinuating that the person must be a disgruntled former SEIU employee with a grudge.  Now admittedly, there is a long line of former employees who have been treated in unsavory ways by this organization.  In full disclosure, I am myself a former employee with my own feelings about SEIU.

That being said, nothing that this person posted was untrue, or exaggerated.  I would go so far as to say that the person probably could have posted things that were both true, and far worse than what they did.  Since SEIU has seen fit to have their account shut down, I will post a list of the excesses pointed out by this unknown person.

If SEIU had not successfully blocked this account, I would not be posting this.  At the end of this list, I will post a link to the LM-2 statement, which I encourage anyone who is a member of SEIU/1199 WV/KY/OH to read for themselves and make their own judgement.

1. SEIU/1199 WV/KY/OH pays for a $2000 a month apartment that is only used by Becky Williams, Kathy McCormick, and I think Mary Jo Ivans and Lisa Hetrick.  There is also a second apartment rented by the organization.  The only issue I have with this is that I believe the president of the union should be willing to relocate to Columbus if they require organizers to relocate.

2.  The union spent over $800,000 on office furniture.  This includes over $5,000 on Becky Williams' desk alone.

3.  The union pays Becky Williams a salary of $122,000.  This is common knowledge, but most members are unaware that she is probably collecting a salary from the International just for sitting on the board.  This is known as "double dipping" in the labor community.

4. Becky Williams and Kathy McCormick took a trip to Europe which was paid for by the Local.  Supposedly, they were meeting with a union official, but according to SEIU's official directory, there are no SEIU Locals outside of the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico.  Who knows, maybe they are looking to expand WV/KY/OH to France or Italy.  In all fairness, there might have been a legitimate reason for the trip.  I would bet that most members will feel that given their generous salaries, they should have paid for their own trips.

5.  The Local spent $60,000 on a staff party.  This can be found in LM-2 statements.

6.  The Local gave bonus ranging from $100 - $600 to each staff member.  I actually don't have an issue with this, as most of the staff, especially the organizers, are treated poorly.  If they had a choice, they'd probably give the bonus back in exchange for not working 70 hours a week.

There is so much more here.  To view the LM-2 statements, which is a report that every union is required to send to the Department of Labor every year, click here and enter report number 509-111 in the file number box.  This report will give you an itemized report on every penny spent.  There's quite a few eye openers in there.
The most striking thing about this recent ordeal was not that SEIU/1199 was upset.  This is understandable.  What was very telling, to me at least was that they didn't dispute anything the person posted.  They were simply pissed that someone had told the truth, and it wasn't pretty.

One last number to think about: in 2011, the union spent $4,260,424 on Political Activities and Lobbying, but only $3,037,373 on Representational Duties.  This means they spent more on Politics than they did on actual representation of members.  I'm not saying political action isn't important, but is it more important than actual representation of members?  You be the judge.

I'll return to normal, non-SEIU posting in a few weeks when I am up and running with regular internet access again.

In Solidarity,

Joseph

President Obama, The Labor Movement, And The Next Four Years

With the election finally behind us, many in the labor community may have a sense of feeling that we have come back from the brink of the abyss.  While a Romney administration would surely have been a nightmare for workers, it will be interesting to see if Obama's second term will yield any big advances for the labor movement.

Answers to many of the questions that labor leaders have about the next four years depend largely on how much the Obama Administration believes it owes to unions for the success of its ground game.  In Ohio and Wisconsin, the benefit of the recent recall fights was blatantly obvious, as Team Romney was no match for Team Obama when it came to GOTV operation.

The real question for the next four years is: how will Big Labor spend whatever political capital it may have earned with the Obama Administration?  One would have to imagine that pushing the Employee Free Choice Act would have to be a high priority on the list.  Unfortunately, this is very unlikely, as Obama has shown a tendency towards Clintonian Triangulation in the past, and there is no reason to believe this will change.

So which other agenda items should labor push for in the coming months?  One thing is for sure - we better make it count.

In Solidarity,

Joseph

The Great Disappearing Act

No, I'm not referring to Candidate Obama, or Medicare under Paul Ryan's budget.

I'm referring to the phenomenon that occurs with the staff of labor organizations every time there is an election.  If you are a union member, have you ever noticed that your union representation becomes as hard to find as a unicorn during election season?  The local office is as empty as a church on Sunday morning - unless it is being used as a campaign office.

 

The reason for this is one of the worst kept secrets in the world of organized labor.  Every election cycle, in direct conflict with FEC law, union staff are forced to "volunteer" for whoever the Democratic candidate happens to be.  In presidential election cycles, this can start as early as September, and in mid-term or special elections, it can start in October.

I experienced this firsthand during my time with a certain purple entity during the Senate Bill 5/Issue 2 election.  Instead of representing our members as we should have, we were required to work exclusively out of a campaign office.  Everything else became secondary, unless you had an actual arbitration hearing.  In full disclosure, the S.B. 5 recall was somewhat justified, as it directly affected almost a third of the members of our local who were state employees.  However this is commonplace in presidential and statewide races where this is not the case. So, if you happen to have a contract that might be coming up for negotiation, it might be a little concerning if all of the sudden, everyone is off doing political work instead of representing members. 

This is not limited to SEIU.  This is standard procedure with virtually every major labor union, with the exception of the United Electrical Workers(UE) and the National Union of HealthCare Workers(NUHW),  who prefer direct action to wasting its time with PACs.

I'm not saying the unions should not be involved in the political realm.  It is necessary and important, as elected officials have direct influence on the livelihood of union members.  What I am saying is that a union's involvement in politics should not come at the expense of member representation, which is almost always the case.

In Solidarity,

Joseph

Anti-Worker Sentiment At The RNC

Last night's speeches by Nikki Haley and Chris Christie should have been enough to turn any voter who favors collective bargaining rights for workers away from the Republican Party.  In their respective speeches, they both attacked organized labor directly. 

Haley attacked the Obama Administration for its stance on the Boeing situation, in which Boeing decided to punish union workers in Washington state by moving the operation to South Carolina, which is regarded as the most anti-union state in the nation.

Christie went after his favorite target - teachers.  Christie's point is dripping with irony, as it is easy to attack public education when your own children go to expensive private schools.

I haven't decided if I will vote for Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee, or stick with my earlier endorsement of Stewart Alexander on the Socialist Party USA ticket.  Either is far more labor friendly than either of the nominees from the two major parties.

In Solidarity,

Joseph

Mid-Summer Labor Musings

As I sit here at the computer logging this entry, I am three months into a job that I enjoy, although my position is not in the bargaining unit(give me some time).  Some of the employees are union, although if/when I decide to travel that route, I will likely choose a different form of representation.

I've been mildly working on my first book, which covers my experience working for the purple giant in Appalachia.  I'm working on an article about the faux crisis created by the GOP to kill the United States Postal Service.  Why would they want to do that?  Simple - the USPS is one of the most unionized workforces in the United States.  More to come on that one.

I'm also putting together a sort of then and now article on the labor movement.  If you've been around the movement twenty or more years, post a comment or shoot an email about how the labor movement is different from when you first became involved.

Hope everyone is having a great summer.

In Solidarity,

Joseph

What Closed Door Bargaining Actually Looks Like

The National Union of HealthCare Workers released a copy of the tentative agreements(TA's) reached by Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition of KP Unions - an organization almost completely controlled by SEIU.

This document shows exactly what happens when your union turns away from militant action and operates on a business model: They essentially become part of the company itself.

I recommend checking this out:

http://www.nuhw.org/storage/doc/documents/Annotated_TAs.pdf

In Solidarity,

Joseph

Deja Vu In Wisconsin

I feel like I've already written this entry before...

My autopsy of the failed attempt to recall Scott Walker in Wisconsin is very similar to my autopsy of the legislative recalls in Wisconsin last year. 

1.  As was the case last year, Big Labor allowed the Democratic Party to run the show.  This is somewhat understandable because unlike Senate Bill 5 in Ohio, this was an election with candidates, not an issue election.  But with so much at stake for labor in Wisconsin - AFSCME has just lost the right to represent workers in the state in which it was founded - one would think that labor would have taken the reins from the DNC.

2.  Labor and the Democrats relied on the same outdated ground game that fell short last year.  I wrote about this at length in the entry linked above. 

3.  President Obama's lack of involvement will undoubtedly be scrutinized, and for good reason.  Labor is still waiting for Candidate Obama who promised to walk the picket line with us to make good on his promise.  This is one of the main reasons The Virtual Picket Line has endorsed Stewart Alexander for President in 2012.

While Big Labor will attempt to deflect criticisms such as the ones I mentioned earlier by pointing the finger to the Citizens United decision rendered by the Supreme Court, I reject this argument as a cheap cop-out.  While Citizens United makes a mockery of our democracy, it is hardly the reason Labor and the Democrats fell short yesterday. 

Yes, Barrett was outspent by a 7-to-1 margin by Walker.  In any other case, I would probably agree that the disparate spending levels heavily influenced the outcome.  I don't believe that to be the case in this election.  When I was on the ground in Wisconsin for last year's round of recalls, it became very clear to me that the the level of undecided voters was virtually zero.  People had not only made up their minds about the candidates up for recall at the time, but on Scott Walker as well. 

Now if Scott Walker had been up for recall last summer, he likely would have lost by a wide margin.  But as we know in politics, timing is everything.  Huffington Post had a very good post explaining that exit polls showed that the Walker campaign simply did a better job turning out its vote than Labor and the Democrats did.  This goes back to explanation of the outdated ground game of Labor and the Democrats on Number 2.

If Labor does not learn from this lesson, things could start to get really rough in other states, especially states that are not as moderate as Wisconsin.

In Solidarity,

Joseph