AFL-CIO Now Blog

Indiana Working Families Ready to Take Back the State

superuser — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:11:00 -0500

AFL-CIO Field Communications staffer Cathy Sherwin sends us this from the Indiana statehouse.

Far from conceding defeat after the passage of a so-called right to work (RTW) bill, tens of thousands of Hoosier workers came together in solidarity to march from the statehouse to Super Bowl village in Indianapolis. From the steps of the statehouse, Indiana AFL-CIO President Nancy Guyott said today would mark a new start to taking back the state, starting with “the biggest march Indiana has ever seen!”

Construction workers and teachers, grocery clerks and truck drivers cheered on the workers and elected officials with chants of “Remember November,” vowing to take back the state door by door, neighborhood by neighborhood. WISH-TV has some great aerial footage here.

The overreach and extreme politics that led to today’s vote – including actions by RTW supporters that included shutting the doors to the statehouse, cutting off debate, and an ad campaign bankrolled by secret special interests have given the voting public a window into the Indiana Capitol. In poll after poll, Hoosier voters say they don’t approve of these strong-arm tactics by GOP leaders.

By using his final months in office to push this divisive attack, Gov. Mitch Daniels has tarnished his legacy, an outcome that he predicted only a few years ago when he said “right to work” would cause a
“civil war.”‘ At today’s rally and march after the vote, that quote was turned on its head by Guyott. She called out the governor, but said that today’s vote was the opposite of a civil war, “brother against brother,” because in Indiana,

Brothers and sisters were standing together to work for the sake of their children and grandchildren.

Small Biz Owners Say Job Exports, Not Regs Problem

superuser — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:11:00 -0500

Tell Labor Department to Adopt Homecare Worker Rule

superuser — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:10:00 -0500

House Republicans Renew Attack on Jobless Workers, UI Benefits

superuser — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:06:00 -0500

Florida Seniors Speak Out Against Voter Suppression

superuser — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:42:00 -0500

Apple’s Profit Skyrockets, Workers Die at Its Factories

superuser — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:13:00 -0500

Hours after Apple released its first quarter earnings, which showed a mind-blowing 44.7 percent profit, the New York Times published another in a series of articles illustrating some of the reasons behind Apple’s profit margin. Describing the conditions in which Chinese workers assemble iPhones, iPads and a panoply of Apple products, the report states:

Employees work excessive overtime, in some cases seven days a week, and live in crowded dorms. Some say they stand so long that their legs swell until they can hardly walk. Under-age workers have helped build Apple’s products, and the company’s suppliers have improperly disposed of hazardous waste and falsified records, according to company reports and advocacy groups that, within China, are often considered reliable, independent monitors.

More troubling, the groups say, is some suppliers’ disregard for workers’ health. Two years ago, 137 workers at an Apple supplier in eastern China were injured after they were ordered to use a poisonous chemical to clean iPhone screens. Within seven months last year, two explosions at iPad factories, including in Chengdu, killed four people and injured 77. Before those blasts, Apple had been alerted to hazardous conditions inside the Chengdu plant, according to a Chinese group that published that warning.

A separate article details a New York Times survey that found Apple consumers are less likely to worry about the conditions in which products are made.

Over all, 52 percent of the public said it was very important that the products they buy were made in the United States; only 42 percent of owners of Apple products agreed.

Earlier this month, the Fair Labor Association, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending sweatshop conditions in factories worldwide, announced Apple was admitted as a “Participating Company.” That means that Apple promises to clean its supply chains from labor abuses during the coming two years.

The International Metalworkers’ Foundation expresses skepticism that Apple will carry through on it promises.

In fact, if Apple and other companies that outsource their work corrected the massive abuses of workers at their factories overseas, their incentive for shipping jobs from the United States would be greatly reduced.

China’s ‘Competitive Advantage’: Serfdom

superuser — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:13:00 -0500

A much-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 few years after Apple began building the Macintosh in 1983, bragged it was “a machine that is made in America.” Today, millions of Apple products like iPhones, iPads and Kindles are made in China sweatshops like Foxconn.

So what happened?

In a nutshell, this:

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

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

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

China’s use of near-slave labor conditions creates its “competitve edge.” But its advantage is not so much due to lower wages as to speed and turnover—an on-demand supply of workers who are housed little better than assembly parts, stacked in multiple dorm beds per room with no chance to escape.

Yet the New York Times repeats the mantra that corporations don’t create such jobs in the United States because of a “skills shortage.” Economist Clyde Prestowitz takes apart this tired refrain:

The Apple argument is that the U.S. schools and education system are not turning out the kinds of workers with the kinds of skills we need. So, we have no choice but to go overseas. But the truth is more nearly the opposite. It’s because the companies are moving the jobs overseas that no Americans are learning the necessary skills. This is true for two reasons. One is that Americans are generally not stupid and recognize that because of off-shoring there won’t be any of those kinds of jobs and thus there is no sense in learning the skills necessary to do them. The second is that most of this kind of job or skill training occurs on the job, and if there are no jobs then there will be no skills.

Prestowitz applauds President Obama for asserting in his State of the Union address Tuesday night 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 can’t turn around this nation’s economy and create good jobs.

Now it’s time for Congress to stop standing in the way of rebuilding our country and act.

Gov. Scott Set to Hand Florida’s Prisons to Corporate America

superuser — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:13:00 -0500

Donald Cohen, founder and executive director of In the Public Interest, a national resource center on privatization and responsible contracting, sends us this.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-controlled legislature are moving fast to privatize all 29 prison facilities in 18 counties in southern Florida.

Last year, the GOP prison privatization proposal was ruled unconstitutional because it was wrapped into a budget proposal, a violation of Florida laws that requires policy changes be in separate laws. Tallahassee Judge Jackie Fulford ruled that the lawmakers rushed the process.

The privatizers aren’t making the same mistake this time. Not only are they proposing to privatize the prisons but they are changing the law to be able to privatize any service as fast, as easily and as secretly as possible. Under the latest proposals, an agency would not have to report its privatization of a program or service until after the contract is signed. And they also would eliminate a current legal requirement to do a cost-benefit analysis before privatizing any government function.

In other words, don’t let the public know what you’re doing and don’t bother to find out the costs.

Scott, former CEO of hospital giant Columbia/HCA, came into office on a mission to privatize Florida government. Scott left HCA as the company was being investigated for the “biggest Medicare fraud case in U.S. history.” Columbia/HCA ultimately paid a record $1.7 billion in fines, penalties and damages.

Scott has already proposed privatizing the state’s Medicaid system, state park campgrounds, the state’s three remaining public mental hospitals, three centers for the developmentally disabled and six veterans’ homes.

The two largest prison companies, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut), are poised to strike, in what Judith Greene, director of Justice Strategies calls, “an unprecedented” expansion of the use of private prisons that no other state has undertaken.

GEO has been a consistent force within Florida politics. GEO Group alone gave more than $400,000 to the party in the past election cycle. Geo Group‘s lobbyist, Brian Ballard, hosted Scott at his Tallahassee home to watch the Super Bowl. GEO Group and CCA donated nearly $1 million toward the Scott’s inauguration celebrations.

Labor, Management Partner to Create Jobs in Wash. State

superuser — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:13:00 -0500

Here’s a bipartisan solution: Labor and management working together to create jobs.

In Washington State, where construction workers are experiencing up to 50 percent unemployment, a labor-management coalition is working to push a jobs bill through the state legislature to alleviate the jobs crisis and rebuild infrastructure.

The Washington State Labor Council, the Washington State Building and Construction Trades Council, the Association of General Contractors are sponsoring the Infrastructure Jobs Bond legislation and have released lists identifying which capital construction work around the state could be funded through the legislation.

Says Dave Myers, executive secretary of Washington State Building and Construction Trades Council:

These jobs will become a reality right away for thousands of laid off constructions workers and returning veterans. The projects will also be targeted toward key sectors of economic development including construction of aerospace training facilities and college research facilities, both of which will spin off other economic development.

The Cablevision 99% Votes Today

superuser — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:13:00 -0500