Unionists, Environmentalists, Progressives Need to Take Over Democratic Party

It is time to purge the corporatists from the Democratic power structure. The real work of the Democratic Party is done by grassroots activists. These activists are the Democratic Party. They should run it at every level.

This conclusion has become clear in the aftermath of tainted Blanche Lincoln primary victory in Arkansas. It took massive voter disenfranchisement and the intervention of both former President Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama for Lincoln to squeak out a victory.

Obama still has not learned that the Obama Movement that put him in the White House was not really about Obama. It was about a set of progressive policies that constituted “change we can believe in.”

Former President Clinton started the process of going Republican-lite and selling out parts of the Democratic base around specific policy issues. Union members and American workers were shafted by the false promises surrounding “so-called free trade deals.” Poor Americans really suffered from some aspects of his welfare reform ideas. Deregulation helped create media consolidation that gave the corporations excessive control of public policy discussions and American politics.

Hilary Clinton was the driving force behind the most progressive policy goal of the Clinton Presidency which was the failed attempt at healthcare reform. America would have been a much better place if she had been President instead of Bill Clinton. One note of caution in her background was her position at one point on the Wal-Mart Board but her overall political history is solidly progressive.

President Clinton was not a bad on corporate issues as Reagan or both of the Bushes but he was pretty bad for a Democrat. He was not as bad as Senator Blanche Lincoln. Lincoln received more campaign money from Big Oil than any other Senator regardless of political party. She was the leading force in blocking the public option in healthcare reform.

Blanche Lincoln stopped the Employee Free Choice Act from even getting debated on the floor of the US Senate. She has a terrible record on trade policy, environmental protections, tax policy and deregulation. Blanche Lincoln has proven herself the most “corporatist” Senator in the relatively small “corporatist” wing of the Democratic Party.

Union activists, progressives and environmentalists are the majority of foot soldiers that go to battle for Democratic candidates at every level in every community of the nation. Along with civil rights leaders, civil libertarians, peace activists and the progressive Internet community, these activists give more money to elect Democrats than every corporation combined.

The corporations make the big donations and control the mainstream media but their values are really more Republican than Democratic. They value money over people. They value money over traditional American values. They value money over American patriotism. They value money over ethics, honesty and decency. Their values are directly at odds with the core values of the Democratic base.

We need to return to the values of FDR and the New Deal. We need to capture every Democratic Party office and drive out the corporatists. The Democratic Party is a much better institution because we drove out the Southern racist faction (and the northern one) and we need to do the same with the corporatists.

Obama needs to decide if he is going to the leader of this effort or an obstacle. If he elects to be an obstacle, he will not get a second term. If he joins in this populist effort, he might go down in history as an equal to our greatest American President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

With or without Obama, we need to take over every local Democratic Committee, every Democratic club and elect our “real Democrats” to public office. Government is not our enemy as long as it has not been captured by corporations. The US Constitution says we “the people” are the government. Corporations are not people despite the radical Right Wing Supreme Court rulings.

The Tea Party crowd has been captured and in some cases created by corporate forces. They cannot be the populist engine for “change you can believe in” but you and your friends can be that populist engine. Get angry, get active and fight corporatism regardless of political party.

Written by Stephen Crockett (host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com) . Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702. Email: demlabor@aol.com. Phone: 443-907-2367.

Feel free to publish without prior approval.

Lessons for Obama from the Arkansas and Pennsylvania Democratic Primaries

The Obama White House hopefully will learn something about Obama 2008 winning coalition from the 2010 Democratic Primary Elections in Arkansas and Pennsylvania. The media needs to learn this same basic lesson. The Obama Movement was never just about Obama. It was about change… real change. While Obama gives a great speech and the Obama loves to hear him talk, they want real actions that they can believe in and they want it now!

Of course, the Obama movement is not really radical. However, it does want to see fundamental reforms in our political and economic system. The Obama White House has been unwilling to get out in front of the Obama Movement on almost every issue. Conservative and corporate forces within the Obama White House have effectively held back the pace of reforms and often have completely defeated them. The Obama Movement wants more! If they do not get more and soon then Obama will no longer be the leader of the Obama Movement.

Sestak won in the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate race because labor activists and the local Democratic Party leaders did not follow Obama’s endorsement of Specter although their top leadership did. The grassroots refused. They were joined by some unions and essentially all progressive organizations at every level. Minority voters simply did not vote in large numbers. The Obama Movement effectively backed Sestak or stayed home for the most part. Obama cannot take the Obama Movement down paths outside their core values.

Specter was not the kind of leader the Obama Movement wanted. Sestak was and is a different story.

Sestak loves labor. Specter needed labor. The grassroots of the labor movement understood the difference.

Sestak wants to end needless wars and wants to curb excessive corporate power. He is certainly not anti-business but he does seem more focused on Main Street than serving Wall Street. The Republican in the race, Pat Toomey, is widely considered a complete tool of Wall Street and with good reason. Toomey effectively ran the Right Wing billionaires political entity known as the Club for Growth. He will not look good running against a tough military man with a devotion to mainstream middle class values.

I believe that Specter would have lost to Toomey. I believe Sestak will soundly defeat Toomey! Sestak is both a realist and an economic populist. He is honest and hardworking almost to a fault. The contrast with Toomey will be very clear in November.

Blanche Lincoln has voted with the Republicans often. She has blocked important legislation like the Employee Free Choice Act. Only since getting an effective Democratic challenger did she start voting more often for the kind of change desired by the Obama Movement.

Lincoln did not deserve the support of Obama based on her voting record. She still does not deserve his support in the run-off. Obama’s core supporters will hold this misplaced support against Obama for a long time to come.

Obama should have stayed out of the race in both Pennsylvania and Arkansas. The American people like and respect Obama but want Obama to act more aggressively to check excessive corporate power. Opposing progressive or reform Democratic challengers only makes Obama weaker.

The Obama Movement activists want Obama to aggressively push legislation to limit the damage from the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling. Obama should push legislation requiring that all shareholders should have to approve in a vote before any money from the corporate treasury gets spent on elections or politics. Corporate executives should not be able spend corporate funds on politics if even one shareholder disagrees. The executives are spending other people’s money.

All publicly traded corporations should be required to give at least 20% of the Board of Director seats to elected representatives of their employees. Obama should push that legislation.

Obama should get out and start a nationwide voter education effort to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. It is time to make unionization elections truly democratic instead of jokes rigged in favor of corporations. Workers need a much bigger say in the economy and a bigger slice of the economic pie. Obama should support legislative limits on corporate executive salaries. Corporate executives should be removed completely from the election process for members of the Board of Directors.

Obama should push legislation to break up the largest banks, modify or repeal unfair “so-called free trade deals”, hold oil companies fully responsible for economic damages from oil spills without financial limits, appoint more aggressive regulators and judges, tax imports and start repealing decades of tax breaks for international corporations.

Every hint of going “corporate Republican-lite” upsets the Obama Movement. Obama needs to remember his base. Obama should look hard at making some staff changes and policy shifts in a more Democratic reform direction. He should compromise less with his enemies and remember his real friends.

The media should stop drinking the Republican Right “tea” kool-aid! The Tea Party Republicans are not economic populists nor anti-corporate. If Obama learns the lesson of these two elections, he can lead the Democratic Party in a real economic populist reform direction. This is what the Obama Movement wants and is the key to victory in 2010.

Written by Stephen Crockett (host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com) . Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702. Phone: 443-907-2367. Email: demlabor@aol.com.

Feel free to publish or reprint at no charge without prior approval.

Published by AlterNet / Written By Mike Elk

Labor Unions May Have To Abandon Obama to Beat Corporate America

Labor unions need to start fighting their battles in the workplace, not on Capitol Hill.
May 13, 2010 |

As president of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka is emerging as the voice of an increasingly irrelevant labor movement. As unionized work sinks to only 7 percent of the private sector, the labor movement is losing its influence within the Democratic Party. To revitalize labor, Trumka must not only challenge Democratic leaders, but wage political battles outside the bounds of party politics by bringing labor back to its working-class activist roots.

The failure of President Barack Obama to make a major push on the Employee Free Choice Act — let alone give even a single speech dedicated to the topic — is a telling sign of organized labor’s declining momentum inside the Beltway. As Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson noted in February, “For American labor, year one of Barack Obama’s presidency has been close to an unmitigated disaster.” Labor ranks so low on the president’s list of priorities that a new generation of Obama activists is now planning for a political environment altogether devoid of the labor movement….

Read more at:

AlterNet article link
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Mike Elk is a third-generation union organizer who writes for Campaign for America’s Future. He previously worked for the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE).

UAW optimistic about growth as economy revives

BY BRENT SNAVELY
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

http://www.freep.com/article/20100415/BUSINESS01/4150401/1207/Business0104/UAW-optimistic-about-growth-as-economy-revives

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said Wednesday that he is hopeful the UAW can reverse its declining membership as the economy recovers and the nation’s labor laws are changed.

Gettelfinger said industry sales are off to a good start in April and he believes that Ford, General Motors and Chrysler and the industry at large are on a path to recovery.

“We’re right on the verge of having 12 million in vehicle sales” for 2010, Gettelfinger said during a speech at Wayne State University. That would be a big improvement from 10.4 million in 2009, the U.S. industry’s lowest sales in nearly 30 years.

Gettelfinger, whose second and final term ends in June, has guided the union through a retrenchment during which membership fell to 355,191, a post-World War II low.

He is both praised and blamed for convincing UAW members to accept concessions on contracts the union fought for decades to win in an effort to prevent General Motors and Chrysler from failing.

Many Americans still want to join unions, Gettelfinger said, but U.S. laws make it difficult to organize. Employers can delay certification votes and even threaten workers with recriminations or even firing.

In 2007, he said 58,000 U.S. workers voted to join a union. Two years later, 37% of those workers were still without a labor contract with their employer.

The proposed Employee Free Choice Act would allow a union to be certified to bargain with an employer if it collects signatures from a majority of the workers.

However, James Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said Wednesday that passing the legislation, commonly known as card check, will be difficult because Republicans can block the bill unless the Democrats have 60 votes in the U.S. Senate. After Massachusetts voters elected Republican Scott Brown to succeed the late Democrat Ted Kennedy, Democrats can count on only 59 votes in the Senate.

Contact BRENT SNAVELY: 313-222-6512 or bsnavely@freepress.com

FEBRUARY 2010 Scranton/Wilkes-Barre/Hazleton edition of The Union News

Corey O’Brien pledges to support labor community if elected

BY PAUL TUCKER
THEUNIONNEWSSWB@AOL.COM

REGION, February 4th- Lackawanna County Majority Democratic Commissioner Corey O’Brien is attempting to gain the support of the labor community which in the past supported incumbent United States House of Representative Paul Kanjorski (11th Legislative District). Mr. O’Brien is challenging Mr. Kanjorski for their party nomination in May. Mr. Kanjorski is serving a 13th term in Washington, DC.

“We are not writing-off organized labor to Mr. O’Brien. Congressman Kanjorski has one of the best labor voting records in Washington. He has supported labor’s agenda, and will continue to do so,” said Ed Mitchell, Mr. Kanjorski’s media consultant.

Justin Carroll, O’Brien for Congress Campaign Manager, told the newspaper several unions have contributed to his campaign that in the past supported Mr. Kanjorski. Mr. Carroll also stated the International Association of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Union Local 329 in Scranton endorsed Mr. O’Brien over Mr. Kanjorski.

Mr. Carroll stated both the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters International Union Local 524 in Scranton and the Bricklayers and Allied Craftsmen International Union (BAC) Local 5 in Harrisburg have given funds to Mr. O’Brien’s campaign. “We are cutting into Mr. Kanjorski’s base. If elected Corey will be a strong voice for labor in Washington. Also, he will be accessible to the labor community, something Mr. Kanjorski is not,” said Mr. Carroll.

Mr. Carroll said the labor community will have Mr. O’Brien’s cell phone number and will even be able to call him on the floor of the House of Representatives if they have any questions or any problems.

The newspaper contacted several labor leaders throughout Northeastern Pennsylvania including unions that represent construction workers, government employees and industrial workers but most did not want to be interviewed on the record about the Primary Election on May 11th.

John Gatto, Assistant Business Manager of the Painters and Allied Trades International Union (IUPAT) District Council 21, Drums, stated what several of the labor leaders told the newspaper, Mr. Kanjorski’s labor voting record should not be ignored when union members vote in the May Primary Election. “Corey has been a supporter of us, but you can’t just forget Paul’s labor voting record,” said Mr. Gatto.

Mr. Kanjorski voted to increase the federal minimum wage in January 2007 and voted for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCAct) legislation in 2008. The Employee Free Choice Act legislation passed in the House of Representatives 241-185 but failed in the United States Senate. The labor community made passage of the legislation a priority in the 2009 legislative session but it stalled in the Senate.

Mr. Mitchell said Corey O’Brien’s pledge to support organized labor in Washington if elected means nothing because Congressman Kanjorski is already one of the most labor progressive votes in the nation’s capitol.

“He has voted to support the working people for more than two decades. He has fought against the conservative anti-union agenda. The labor community has been able to count on his vote,” added Mr. Mitchell.

Unions bash Democrats, warn of political fallout

By JAMES HOHMANN

Labor groups are furious with the Democrats they helped put in office — and are threatening to stay home this fall when Democratic incumbents will need their help fending off Republican challengers.

The Senate’s failure to confirm labor lawyer Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board was just the latest blow, but the frustrations have been building for months.

“Here’s labor getting thrown under the bus again,” said John Gage, the national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 600,000 workers. “It’s really frustrating for labor, and a lot of union people are thinking: We put out big time in money and volunteers and support. And it seems like the little things that could have been aren’t being done.”

The 52-33 vote on Becker — who needed 60 to be confirmed — really set labor unions on edge, but the list of setbacks is growing.

The so-called “card check” bill that would make it easier to unionize employees has gone nowhere. A pro-union Transportation Security Administration nominee quit before he even got a confirmation vote. And even though unions got a sweetheart deal to keep their health plans tax-free under the Senate health care bill, that bill has collapsed, leaving unions exposed again.

Union leaders warn that the Democrats’ lackluster performance in power is sapping the morale of activists going into the midterm elections.

“Right now if we don’t get positive changes to the agenda, we’re going to have a hard time getting members out to work,” said United Steelworkers International President Leo W. Gerard, in an interview.

“There’s no use pretending any longer.”

The biggest threat, of course, is apathy from a Democratic constituency that has a history of mobilizing for elections.

“You’re just not going to be able to go to our membership in the November elections and say, ‘Come on, let’s do it again. Look at what the Democratic administration has done for us!’” Gage said. “People are going to say, ‘Huh? What have the Democrats done for us?’”

Kim Freeman Brown, the executive director of a D.C.-based nonprofit called American Rights at Work, acknowledged “frustration” with the lack of movement.

“I implore Congress to listen to the voice of their constituents who want change, and so far we haven’t delivered good enough on that promise,” she said. “To the degree that we don’t address these real bread-and-butter issues, we will have failed America’s workers.”

Gage warned that Democrats will struggle to energize blue-collar voters if they don’t score a few victories soon. Union leaders say they will closely watch as a new “jobs bill” emerges to see if it includes more labor-friendly provisions or tax cuts for small businesses.

When you talk to labor officials these days, much of their animus is directed at Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who helped filibuster Becker’s confirmation.

“Ben Nelson has got principles until you buy him off,” Gerard said. …….

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32781.html#ixzz0fFAlz6FN

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32781.html#ixzz0fFAm1qx9

Under Obama, labor should have made more progress

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, February 10, 2010

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/09/AR2010020902465.html

For American labor, year one of Barack Obama’s presidency has been close to an unmitigated disaster.

Labor’s primary priority — the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) — died when the Democrats lost their 60-vote majority in the Senate. Labor’s normal priority — a functioning National Labor Relations Board — also seems out of reach, with Republicans on Tuesday blocking the appointment of Obama nominee Craig Becker (that’s why Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown scurried down to Washington last week to take his seat). Other key legislation for which labor has lobbied, including health-care reform and financial regulations, languishes in the Senate.

For the unions, the Senate’s inability to pass EFCA is devastating and galling. Democratic senators had developed a compromise proposal that would have jettisoned the controversial “card check” process — by which unions could be organized without a secret ballot — in favor of expediting the election process (so that management couldn’t delay for months, or even years, employees’ votes on whether to unionize) and stiffening the penalties for violating the rules that govern election conduct.

The compromise had a shot at winning all 60 Democratic votes. The unions, which spent more than $300 million in the 2008 elections on Democrats’ behalf, wanted a vote on EFCA last year, but Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asked them to wait until health reform had passed. (Their requests for confirmation votes on NLRB appointees were similarly delayed.)

By my count, this marks the fourth time in the past half-century that labor’s efforts to strengthen workers’ ability to organize have been deferred by the Democratic presidents and the heavily Democratic Congresses they supported. In 1965, about the only piece of Great Society legislation not enacted was the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act provision that gave states the power to block unions from claiming as members all the employees in workplaces where they had won contracts. In 1979, as American management was beginning to invest heavily in union-busting endeavors, the first effort to reform labor law failed to win cloture in the Senate by one vote as President Jimmy Carter stood idly by. In 1994, President Bill Clinton responded to a similar labor-backed effort by appointing a commission to recommend changes in labor law to the next Congress — which turned out to be run by Newt Gingrich. And last year, by asking his labor supporters to wait, Obama ensured — unintentionally, of course — that the next effort to revive organizing must wait until the next overwhelmingly Democratic Congress.

Meanwhile, the percentage of American workers in unions steadily declines. During the 1965 effort, more than 30 percent of private-sector workers belonged to unions. In 1979, the share was 21 percent; in 1994, 11 percent; and in 2009, just 7.2 percent. When the next chance to rewrite labor law comes around, the rate of private-sector unionization could be down to trace elements.

What will life be like in an America with almost no private-sector unions or collective bargaining? We had a glimpse of that during George W. Bush’s presidency, in which the unionization rate was already so low that median household incomes declined even as gross domestic product rose. It’s also apparent that a deunionized private sector won’t readily support — politically or economically — a unionized or expansive public sector. In 1960, when California Gov. Pat Brown created the nation’s foremost public sector — the greatest university systems, freeways and aqueducts — it was paid for by the nation’s most vibrant, and one of its most highly unionized, private-sector economies. California’s private sector is nowhere near as vibrant or unionized today — a major reason its public sector is crumbling.

In a deunionized America, it’s not clear who, if anyone, will fund campaigns such as those the unions funded this year, for universal health care and financial regulation. It’s also not clear who, if anyone, will persuade working-class whites to vote Democratic. (Over the past half-century, white male union members have voted Democratic at a rate 20 percentage points higher than their nonunion counterparts.)

No nation has ever been home to a middle-class majority absent a sizable labor movement. In their failure to advance labor’s prospects, the Democrats condemn themselves to a future of fewer Democratic voters and their nation to a future of mass downward mobility.

* * *

American workers suffered a loss of a different kind Friday with the death of Beth Shulman from complications of a brain tumor. In her 2003 book, “The Betrayal of Work,” and throughout her life, Beth eloquently championed the interests of the tens of millions of Americans who barely make enough to get by. Her voice, and her warmth, will be missed.

meyersonh@washpost.com

No More Senate Super Majority Illusion

There is very little upside to the election of a Republican Far Right Senator to replace the late Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) for Democrats, progressives and reformers. My list is very short: (1) everyone should now understand that we never had a real workable Senate Super Majority to begin with despite all the media hype, (2) watering-down progressive legislation has now been shown to produce electoral defeat for Democrats and (3) Democratic candidates at all levels can now clearly see that they will suffer if Democratic House and Senate members do not start acting more aggressively in opposition to Republican actions and spin.

The Senate Democrats should never let Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) caucus with them. Lieberman was rejected by Connecticut Democrats at the polls. He was not elected as a Democrat. He often opposes the Democratic legislative agenda in the Senate. Lieberman supports and campaigns for Republicans. Letting Lieberman join the Democratic caucus raised unrealistic expectations without adding his vote behind the legislation Democrats were trying to pass! For Democrats, the fictional 60th Senate Democratic member illusion was a “lose, lose” proposition.

Of course, some elected Democratic Senators remain unreliable votes. Neither Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) nor Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) are guaranteed yes votes on most progressive legislative issues. It is obvious that relying on a 60 member Super Majority to pass legislation is and always will be a mistake. A simple majority vote of Senate members can reduce the number of Senators it takes to end a filibuster. I suggest moving to 55 instead of the current 60, as a reasonable compromise, unless Senate Republicans stop threatening to filibuster everything Democrats want to do in terms of passing laws and budgets. Ending filibusters entirely would be a better approach.

Watering-down healthcare reform left the Democratic base discouraged for basically nothing in return. Republicans remain devoted to defeating all real healthcare reforms. Corporate Democrats filled the Senate version full of compromises that left independents unhappy with the results. If we had no filibuster threat, the Senate could have given us a much better product to sell to the voting public.

Republicans can be counted on to do everything possible to disrupt debate and progress on legislation in the Senate. It pays for them. It helped defeat great Democratic candidates in state and local elections in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Virginia in 2009. With the election of Scott Brown to the Senate in January 2010, the Republicans smell blood. Their shark instincts are in full attack mode.

Republican tactics and spin make bipartisan compromise basically impossible! It is time to tell the public to forget it and why!

Democrats should never have let the idea that “Obama and the Democrats own the economy” to gain traction. Anyone with even a little bit of honest understanding of how an economy operates should have been responding to every statement along this line. Our message should have been that the Republican economic train-wreck started about 30 years ago and would take at least 2 full Presidential terms to fix. This answer is good politics and actually true. Obama should have been publicly attacking Republican efforts to undermine his agenda as attacks on the American middle class designed to benefit greedy corporations. It would have been good politics and is true! There is still time to correct our messaging.

Every local Democratic officeholder and/or candidate in America needs to put pressure on Senate Democrats to move aggressively to pass legislation with a real economic populist approach. Local Democrats should demand an end to the filibuster blackmail. It is time to move to regulate and tax imported manufactured goods. Bring our factory jobs back home. Pass the Employee Free Choice Act without watering it down. Raise taxes on the wealthy. Pass a second stimulus bill. Regulate abuses on Wall Street including executive pay at publicly traded corporations.

Make economic populism the core principle behind our Democratic Party. Show we are not the “Republican-lite” alternative. Be aggressive, forceful and brave. Be winners! Be real Democrats!

Written by Stephen Crockett (host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com ). Phone: 443-907-2367. Email: demlabor@aol.com. Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702.

Feel free to publish or reprint in full without prior approval.

January 2010 Scranton/Wilkes-Barre/Hazleton edition of The Union News

United States Chamber of Commerce challenges labor law

BY PAUL TUCKER
THEUNIONNEWSSWB@AOL.COM

REGION, December 27th- The United States Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit on December 22nd alleging that a new State of Oregon law is unconstitutional because it is too pro-union.

The business organization jointly filed the lawsuit with Associated Oregon Industries and is arguing a new Oregon law “unconstitutionally eliminates an employer’s right to conduct mandatory meetings with employees to rebut union rhetoric and provide information about drawbacks of a unionized workplace.”

“Organzized labor hasn’t been able to muster the votes or the public support to pass Card Check, so they’ve moved on to “Plan B” to muzzle employers during union organizing drives. Just like Card Check, this law flies in the face of the country’s democratic values,” said Steven Law, chief legal officer and general counsel for the business organization.

Oregon is the first state in the nation to pass such a law that would prohibit employers from conducting mandatory meetings with their employees during union organizing campaigns. The Oregon legislation is modeled after language in the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCAct) legislation that is currently being held-up in Washington, DC.

The United States Chamber of Commerce told the newspaper the federal law pre-empts the Oregon law, which runs counter to fifty years of federal protection for employers’ right to hold mandatory meetings to rebut labor leaders’ rhetoric about unionizing. The business organization lawsuit also alleges the law violates employers’ speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The legislation became law on January 1st, 2010.

The law, known as SB 519, and the case is Associated Oregon Industries and Chamber of Commerce of the United States v. Brad Avakian and Laborers’ International Union of North America Local 296.

“This legislation is organized labor’s first salvo in an apparent state-by state assault on federally protected employer speech,” said Robin Conrad, executive vice president of the National Chamber Litigation Center, the United States Chamber of Commerce public policy labor firm.

Organized labor has urgued for decades that the conducting of mandatory meetings with workers by employers during organizing campaigns were unfair because all employees must attend or face being discipline or termination.

October 2009, Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton edition of The Union News

Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan meets with Building Trade Unions to discuss 2010 campaign

BY PAUL TUCKER
THEUNIONNEWSABE@AOL.COM

LEHIGH VALLEY, September 4th- Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan will challenge incumbent Republican United States House of Representative for the 15th Legislative District Charlie Dent in 2010 and Mr. Callahan wants labor support.

Mr. Callahan, a Democrat, who is seeking re-election as Bethlehem Mayor this year but has no challengers, stated local and national Democrats believe he would be a formidable challenger to Mr. Dent.

Congressman Dent is currently serving a third two-year term in Washington, DC. He defeated Democratic challenger Sam Bennett last year. The 15th Legislative District includes Lehigh and Northampton Counties.

“He is a great candidate. I’m looking forward to the campaign,” said Joe Long, Chairman of the Northampton County Democratic Committee and a retired member of the United Auto Workers of America (UAW).

On September 1st the Building and Construction Trades Council of the Lehigh Valley held a strategy session with Mr. Callahan at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Union Local 375 building on Liberty Street in Allentown. The event was attended by leaders of the construction trades unions and several labor leaders from the Lehigh Valley. The Building and Construction Trades Council of the Lehigh Valley has 20 local unions affiliated with the labor federation. The unions represent workers employed within the building and construction industry.

Kenneth Kraft, Assistant Business Manager of the Painters and Allied Trades Union District Council 21, stated a good line of communication between the labor community and the campaign will be necessary if Mr. Callahan is to defeat Congressman Dent.

The 15th Congressional District seat has been held by a Republican for six consecutive terms. Pat Toomey represented the Lehigh Valley in Washington for six years and did not seek a fourth two-year term in 2004. Mr. Toomey has announced he will seek the Republican nomination for the United States Senate in 2010. The seat is currently occuppied by Democrat Arlen Specter. Mr. Specter has already announced he will seek another six-year term in 2010.

The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) in Washington tabulates the voting record of legislators toward legislation important to the working people. Since being in the United States Congress, Mr. Dent’s voting record has dropped every year.

According to the review of the report card of the legislators by the newspaper, Mr. Dent in 2006 had nearly a 35 percent labor voting record. However, it dropped to 27 percent in 2007 and is now below 20 percent. In 2009, Mr. Dent failed to support federal “bridge loans” to General Motors and Chrysler, which was important to the UAW.

In 2008 Mr. Dent voted against the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)/Card Check legislation. The Congressman also voted against the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007, which raised the federal minimum wage in three steps to $7.25 per hour.

Specter to Support Cloture on Card Check

By Matthew Murray
Roll Call Staff

http://www.rollcall.com/news/37775-1.html

Recent party switcher Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) will vote to cut off debate on a forthcoming Employee Free Choice Act compromise, the lawmaker confirmed Friday following his appearance at the Netroots Nation convention in Pittsburgh.

“I expect the cloture vote to occur on a modified version of the [EFCA] legislation,” Specter said in a statement. “And I will support that cloture vote.”

Specter’s pledge to support a yet-to-be-introduced “card check” compromise, which is still being negotiated, comes after he told the crowd that he supports having up-or-down votes — without explicitly naming the EFCA compromise legislation.

Specter said he generally expects “to support [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid [D-Nev.] on a bill he wants to bring up,” before citing his vote last Congress on previous card-check legislation.

“That was illustrated by when there were 49 Republican Senators a couple of years ago and the Employee Free Choice Act came up [and] I was the sole Republican who voted for cloture, so we could take up the bill,” Specter said. “Legislation ought to be considered by the Senate.”

Specter’s announcement comes as he faces a bloody 2010 primary fight against Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.), who is running to the ideological left of the five-term Senator and questioning his Democratic bona fides.

Before Specter bolted the GOP in April, he had said he would not support the card-check bill this Congress, saying during a highly publicized floor speech on March 24 that he would not cast the deciding vote to cut off debate on the contentious legislation

“The problems of the recession would make this a particularly bad time to enact the Employee Free Choice Act. Employers understandably complain that adding such a burden would result in further job losses,” Specter said on the Senate floor earlier this year. “Knowing that I will not support cloture on this bill, Senators may choose to move on and amend the [National Labor Relations Act] as I have suggested or otherwise. This announcement should end the rumor mill that I have made some deal for my political advantage.”

He later softened his stance on the bill, saying he would be open to a compromise on the measure that makes it easier for employees to join unions.

Earlier this summer, Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) began a series of closed-door negotiations with fence-sitters like Specter and Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), whose home state is headquarters to the massive nonunionized retailer Wal-Mart.

The business community expressed concern Friday with Specter’s announcement, as well as with how a potential compromise deal is being hatched.

“We’re very concerned with the comments made by Sen. Specter,” said Keith Smith, director of employment and labor policy at the National Association of Manufacturers. “It’s very concerning that such a jobs-killing piece of legislation is being hatched out through these nontransparent discussions with a small group of Senators.

“Of all the discussion items that we’ve seen, the provisions of a potential alternative version of this bill are just as onerous as the current provisions of the Employee Free Choice Act itself,” he added.

While the business community fumed in the wake of Specter’s announcement, a labor coalition spokesman said in an e-mail that “clearly it’s a positive sign.”

“The Senator is heeding the calls of working families who want to see real labor law reform this year so the economy can work for everyone,” American Rights at Work spokesman Josh Goldstein said.

August 2009 Scranton/Wilkes-Barre/Hazleton edition of The Union News

EFCAct legislation does not include card-check provision

BY PAUL TUCKER
THEUNIONNEWSSWB@AOL.COM

REGION, August 1st- The main provision wanted by labor unions has been dropped from the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)/Card Check legislation that will be likely be introduced in the United States Congress after their summer recess.

The legislation was passed by the House of Representatives in 2008, with both Congressman Chris Carney (Democrat-10th District) and Congressman Paul Kanjorski (Democrat-11 District) voting in favor. However, the legislation failed in the Senate with Pennsylvania Senator’s Robert Casey Jr. (Democrat) and Arlen Specter (Republican) voting for the bill. Mr. Specter has since changed his party affiliation to Democrat but announced on March 24th, 2009 would not support the legislation.

Under the prior EFCA legislation, employees would be allowed to sign authorization cards seeking union representation and the union would be recognized when a majority of cards are signed. However, under the legislation if thirty percent or more of the employees sign authorization cards requesting for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) conduct an secret ballot election the agency will do so.

Labor groups, including the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) labor federation in Washington DC, and business groups, including the United States Chamber of Commerce, Wal-Mart, Lowe’s and McDonald’s Restaurants that opposed the legislation, spent millions of dollars in advertising and lobbying attempting to influence legislators on the EFCA.

The AFL-CIO mobilized union members and their families across the nation requesting them to contact their legislators asking them to support the legislation, including Senator Specter. Under Senate rules, at least 60 Senator votes are needed to force a vote on the legislation by the full-Senate.

On July 16th, the Senate negotiators dropped the card-check provision of the legislation. However, the revised legislation would require shorter unionization campaigns, faster elections, and a mediation system should the parties fail to reach an agreement within 120 days.

The Chamber of Commerce and business groups, which opposes the legislation, are now attacking the revised legislation by stressing how damaging they believe arbitration will be to employers.

The legislation is expected to easily pass in the House of Representatives where only a majority vote is needed. President Obama stated he would sign the measure should it reach his desk.

Hi there,

I wanted to write you about the recent news about the Employee Free Choice Act. The New York Times reported that the Senate is considering dropping majority sign-up from the Employee Free Choice Act.

I just signed a petition to Congress in support of majority sign-up. Can you please add you name?

http://action.seiu.org/page/s/majoritysignup

Majority sign-up is based on a simple idea: if a majority of workers say they want a union, they should get a union. It’s the best way to make sure workers have a free and fair choice to join a union without intimidation or harassment.

We see that Wall St. is back to business as usual. Bank of America and Citigroup posted billions in profits today. Goldman Sachs made $38 million a day in the last three months, and is set to pay out record bonuses.

Corporate greed alive and well, despite billions in bailouts. Meanwhile, unemployment is still rising, and many working people are still struggling to get by in the rough economy.

Congress needs to support majority sign-up. Working people need to see who supports giving employees a truly free choice, and who supports letting greedy corporations make choices for their workers.

Click here to write your letter now:

http://action.seiu.org/page/s/majoritysignup

Thank you.

Why All Progressives, Democrats, Unionists and Reformers Should Join ACORN

We are all familiar with the highly partisan and blatantly dishonest attacks on the low and moderate income advocacy group ACORN that dominated Fox News election coverage last Fall. Republican Right Wing partisans have remained loyal to their absurd talking points after the November election and continue to intentionally spread lies about the ACORN organization that all progressives, Democrats, labor activists and reformers should actively refute. These politically-motivated attacks on ACORN are based on two ridiculous ideas.

The first ridiculous idea is that this relatively small group of relatively poor individuals somehow is responsible for the mortgage crisis and the collapse of the economy. After decades of Reagan-Bush Republican mismanagement, Wall Street greed, assaults on unionized labor, unsound tax policies, unfair trade policies, disastrous healthcare policies, runaway corporate corruption, huge sweetheart government contracts going to Republican connected corporations and absurd financial deregulation, we need to understand that the structure of our economy needs serious fundamental reform. Reagan-Bush Republicanism ruled the market economically and politically to create the economic crisis.

The economic collapse has many more serious fundamental causes than just the collapse of the mortgage market. Income inequality, speculation, ending anti-usury laws, not enforcing anti-monopoly laws and excessive credit card debt can be added to the previous list of root causes underlining the current economic crisis. The Republican Right bears most of the responsibility for this situation. ACORN bears none!

First of all, sub-prime mortgages did not create the mortgage crisis. The notable economist Paul Krugman has debunked this Republican myth very effectively. The mortgage crisis has been spread across all income levels. Foreclosures are not limited just too poor people.

ACORN has never issued any mortgages nor has it pressured lenders to issue high-rate, unaffordable loans to poor and middle class Americans. Instead, for over a decade, ACORN has been the national leader in the fight against predatory lending.

The roots of the mortgage foreclosure problem are in the deregulation of the financial sector of our economy. Readers can find an excellent article outlining this situation, The Conservative Origins of the Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis by John Atlas and Peter Dreier http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_conservative_origins_of_the_subprime_mortgage_crisis. The article effectively refutes most of the Republican talking points on the root causes of the mortgage meltdown.

Secondly, ACORN has never been involved in election fraud. ACORN never tried to rig any election. The accusations are both false and politically-motivated in the extreme. The FBI investigation of ACORN for voter fraud so widely publicized during the election does not appear to exist. Every state and local investigation has proven ACORN to be innocent of any wrong-doing!

Every informed political person knows that voter registration forms once signed cannot be legally discarded even if the organization collecting them suspects fraud. It is a crime to discard those registration forms. ACORN has a policy of trying to verify the validity of voter registration forms and bundling suspect forms together before turning them in to election offices. ACORN is not required by law to do this extra step but voluntarily does so to help local election offices prevent voter registration fraud.

The real reason that the Republican Right has smeared ACORN on the voter registration issue is that ACORN helped register upward of 1.3 million new voters during the 2008 election cycle. The majority of these voters were low and moderate income Americans. Since they are low and moderate income voters, they tend to support Democrats more than Republicans. Everyone knows that the Republican Party supports the economic interests of the Super Wealthy and international corporations over those of poor and moderate income Americans.

Voter suppression targeting low and moderate income Americans by Republican operatives have been documented in almost every state in the nation in recent elections. The attacks on ACORN were designed to support legal action attempting to keep low and moderate income citizens from voting. Republican lawyers filed lawsuits in dozens of states as part of this effort during the 2008 elections with a special emphasis being placed on swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. The lawsuits failed basically everywhere because they lacked any merit or validity.

However, the illegitimate Republican lawsuits attacking ACORN were effective propaganda tools in keeping the hardcore Republican partisans fired-up and motivated during the election. These false attacks are still being used to keep the ever-shrinking Republican base motivated to fight the Obama economic recovery agenda. ACORN has lobbied hard in favor of much of this legislative agenda. It is easy to understand the Republican attacks if you read ACORN: The Bogeyman in the GOP Closet http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bertha-lewis/acorn-the-bogeyman-in-the_b_162138.html .

When the attacks on ACORN began, I joined ACORN and became strongly involved in their political action, lobbying and community organizing activities. While ACORN consists of mainly poor and moderate income people, they accept anyone regardless of income who cares about the issues that impact poor and moderate income Americans.

ACORN is an important ally of progressives, Democrats, labor unions and reformers everywhere. ACORN is a strong supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act. They are fighting foreclosures and predatory lending. ACORN fights hard for equality before the law. ACORN helps bring millions of new voters into the political process. They fight to make our economy work for all Americans and not just the economic elite. ACORN is good for American Democracy.

Every progressive, Democrat, union activist and reformer in America should seriously consider showing their support by joining ACORN and becoming actively engaged in their efforts. You can join ACORN by contacting your local ACORN office or signing up via their website at http://www.acorn.org/.

Written by Stephen Crockett (Host, Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor, Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com). Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702. Email: demlabor@aol.com. Phone: 443-907-2367.

Card Check legislation still not scheduled to be introduced for vote in U.S. Congress

BY PAUL TUCKER
THEUNIONNEWSSWB@AOL.COM

REGION, July 6th- The lobbying in Washington DC and across the United States between business groups and the labor community is continuing over the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)/Card Check legislation.

EFCA would allow employees to sign authorization cards seeking union representation and recognizing the union when a majority of cards are signed. However, under the legislation if thirty percent or more of the employees sign authorization cards requesting for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to conduct an secret ballot election the agency will do so.

The law if passed would also establish a system of mediation and arbitration that would apply to an employer and union that are unable to agree on their first contract. The legislation passed the House of Representatives in 2008 but failed in the Senate.

Pennsylvania United States Senator Arlen Specter has switched political parties from Republican to Democratic but maintains he will not vote for the labor supported Employee Free Choice Act legislation in 2009, unless changes are made to the bill. Mr. Specter supported the legislation in 2008 but on March 24th, announced he would not support the passage of EFCA in 2009 but would reconsider when the economy returns to normalcy.

The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) labor federation in Washington, DC has mobilized union members and their families requesting them to contact their legislators in Washington asking them to support the legislation, including Senator Specter who’s vote will be crucial if EFCAct is to be implemented.

The AFL-CIO has also conducted several forums in the region to discuss why the legislation would be beneficial to the working people.

George George, a member of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) Union Branch 115 in Wilkes-Barre, was released by his job at the United States Postal Service (USPS) to help mobilize union members and organize EFCAct community events.

The United States Chamber of Commerce and several business groups, including Wal-Mart, Lowe’s and McDonald’s Restaurants, have spent millions of dollars in advertising and lobbying to defeat the legislation.

The legislation was expected to be introduced in the United States Congress in early 2009, but because of a threatened Republican filibuster in the Senate, the bill is being withheld until changes are made and there is enough votes to pass the legislation.

Under Senate rules, at least 60 Senator votes are needed to override a filibuster which would allow the legislation to be voted on by the full-Senate. The legislation is expected to easily pass in the House of Representatives where only a majority vote is needed. President Obama stated he would sign the measure should it reach his desk.

http://www.americansunitedforchange.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Lauren Weiner, 202-470-5870 or Jeremy Funk, 202-470-5878

DATE: July 21, 2009

Americans United for Change: “Majority Signup is Central to Labor Law Reform and Rebuilding Our Economy”

Where’s the Controversy? 75% of the American People Support Majority Signup as Part of the Employee Free Choice Act

Three-quarters (75%) of adults favor allowing employees to have a union once a majority of employees in a workplace sign authorization cards indicating that they want to form a union, including 44% who strongly support the idea. Just 20% of adults oppose majority sign-up. [Hart Research Associates, 1/8/09]

Washington D.C. – Americans United for Change issued the following statement on the heels of recent reports that a version of the Employee Free Choice Act in the Senate may not include majority sign-up provisions.

Tom McMahon, Acting Executive Director, Americans United for Change: “The jury is in on the Employee Free Choice Act with seventy-five percent of the American public behind labor reform that specifically includes allowing employees to form a union through majority signup. As negotiations on the Employee Free Choice Act continue in Congress, Members need only look at public opinion to realize the only controversy over majority signup is being fabricated by a vocal, well financed, factually challenged minority led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Corporate powerhouses like Wal-Mart. There’s no debate among the American people that the system is badly broken for the 60 million workers who would form a union tomorrow if only given the chance – a system that allows big business and Corporate America to routinely harass, intimidate and even fire workers who try to form a union and bargain for better pay, benefits and retirement security. These Corporate special interests will continue to say or do anything to keep the system broken, but when three-quarters of the American people agree majority signup is central to labor reform and building a strong economic foundation for our disappearing middle-class, Congress really doesn’t have to listen.”

Democrats Drop Key Part of Bill to Assist Unions

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: July 16, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/business/17union.html?_r=2&th&emc=th

A half-dozen senators friendly to labor have decided to drop a central provision of a bill that would have made it easier to organize workers.

The so-called card-check provision — which senators decided to scrap to help secure a filibuster-proof 60 votes — would have required employers to recognize a union as soon as a majority of workers signed cards saying they wanted a union. Currently, employers can insist on a secret-ballot election, a higher hurdle for unions.

The abandonment of card check was another example of the power of moderate Democrats to constrain their party’s more liberal legislative efforts. Though the Democrats have a 60-40 vote advantage in the Senate, and President Obama supports the measure, several moderate Democrats opposed the card-check provision as undemocratic.

In its place, several Senate and labor officials said, the revised bill would require shorter unionization campaigns and faster elections.

While disappointed with the failure of card check, union leaders argued this would still be an important victory because it would give companies less time to press workers to vote against unionizing.

Some business leaders hailed the dropping of card check, while others called the move a partial triumph because the bill still contained provisions they oppose.

The card-check provision was so central to the legislation that it was known as “the card-check bill.” Labor had called the bill its No. 1 objective, and both labor and business deployed their largest, most expensive lobbying campaigns ever in the battle over it.

“This is a very emotional issue,” said Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the Republican turned Democrat who had been lobbied heavily by both sides. “I cannot remember an issue this emotional in all my years in the Senate.”

Several moderate Democrats, including Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, have voiced opposition to card check, convinced that elections were a fairer way for workers to unionize. They were swayed partly by business’s vigorous campaign, arguing that card check would remove confidentiality from unionization drives and enable union organizers to bully workers into signing union cards.

Though some details remain to be worked out, under the expected revisions, union elections would have to be held within five or 10 days after 30 percent of workers signed cards favoring having a union. Currently, the campaigns often run two months.

To further address labor’s concerns that the election process is tilted in favor of employers, key senators are considering several measures. One would require employers to give union organizers access to company property. Another would bar employers from requiring workers to attend anti-union sessions that labor supporters deride as “captive audience meetings.”

Labor unions have pushed aggressively to enact the bill — formally, the Employee Free Choice Act. They view it as essential to reverse labor’s long decline. Just 7.6 percent of private-sector workers belong to unions, one-fifth the rate of a half-century ago.

Several union leaders interviewed took the senators’ move in stride. One top union official, who insisted on anonymity because lawmakers and labor leaders have agreed not to discuss the status of the bill, said, “Even if card check is jettisoned to political realities, I don’t think people should be despondent over that because labor law reform can take different shapes.”

While voicing confidence they have the 60 votes to pass the revised bill, labor leaders acknowledged an additional hurdle: two powerful Democrats, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, are seriously ill.

“This bill will bring about dramatic changes, even if card check has fallen away,” said an A.F.L.-C.I.O. official who insisted on anonymity.

The official said the revised bill achieves the three things organized labor has been seeking.

“Our goals,” the official said, “have always been letting employees have a real choice, having real penalties against employers who break the law in fighting unions, and having some form of binding arbitration to prevent employers from dragging their feet forever to prevent reaching a contract.”

Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, a senior member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has led a group of six Democrats who have worked closely with labor to revamp the bill. The other senators are Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Thomas R. Carper of Delaware, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Charles E. Schumer of New York, and Mr. Specter.

Labor leaders voiced confidence that if Mr. Pryor backed the compromise, Ms. Lincoln and other moderates would do likewise.

Union leaders argue that under current law, unionization elections are often unfair because, they say, employers have a huge opportunity to intimidate and pressure workers during the lengthy campaigns that precede the unionization vote.

Business leaders say the current system is fair, asserting that unions lose so many elections because workers oppose paying union dues and do not feel they need unions to represent them.

Corporate lobbyists have indicated they would oppose fast elections, arguing that such a provision would deny employers ample opportunity to educate employees about the downside of unionizing, such as strikes and union dues.

Labor leaders counter that employers will have plenty of opportunity to fight unionization, noting that many companies begin plying employees with anti-union information the day they are hired.

Business also opposes the bill’s provisions to have binding arbitration if an employer fails to reach a contract with a new union. Companies argue it would be wrong for government-designated arbitrators to dictate what a company’s wages and benefits should be.

“Binding arbitration is an absolute nonstarter for us,” said Mark McKinnon, a spokesman for the Workforce Fairness Institute, a business group opposing the bill. “We see it as a hostile act to have arbitrators telling businesses what they have to do.”

Several union officials said that once the senators’ revisions became public, some union presidents who are card-check enthusiasts might attack the changes, call for scrapping the revisions and demand an up-or-down Senate vote on a bill with card check.

Kate Cyrul, a spokeswoman for Mr. Harkin, declined to discuss details of the bill. “Nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to,” she said.

Union officials have urged the White House and Senate leaders to schedule a vote this month. But Senate leaders have told labor that the Senate is so preoccupied with health care legislation that September would be the earliest time to take up the pro-union legislation.
—————————————————————–

EDITOR’S NOTE: Any Senate Democrat who forced this dramatic weakening of the Employee Free Choice Act should not receive a dime of campaign money from any union member, union organization or any Democratic officeholder or potential candidate who ever hopes to receive labor support. This should apply to general elections and primaries. No exceptions.

Union activists should encorage primary opponents to these Senate Democratic incumbents. It is time to make the SOB’s pay for their betrayal of working Americans!

Labor Groups to Press Obama on Health Care and a Second Stimulus Effort
By Steven Greenhouse

When President Obama meets with a dozen union presidents next Monday, the plan is to focus on their shared goals, not their differences.

One key item, administration officials and union leaders say, will be health-care reform and how to assure Congress enacts universal coverage.

But several labor leaders said that with unemployment nearing 15 million, they plan to urge the president to push for a second stimulus package — something that has stirred quite a bit of controversy lately. Administration officials, including most recently Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr, and Democratic lawmakers haven’t closed the door to that possibility but have counseled patience in monitoring the effects of the current $787 billion stimulus.

“There are a lot of issues of common interest to the administration and to the folks who will be in the room,” said Nate Tamarin, an associate White House political director. “The fact is that this is a group of leaders who individually and as a group are important to us.”

The meeting will include John J. Sweeney, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., Anna Burger, president of the rival Change to Win labor federation, and Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest labor union, which is not in either federation.

Union leaders say they will tell the president that their organizations will do what they can to win passage of universal health coverage, preferably with the public option that many Republicans oppose.

“It does not take a lot of ask for the labor movement to be supportive of health-care reform and to be supportive of the public option,” said Patrick Gaspard, the White House political director. “There are a lot of shared interests between them and the president’s goals on health-care reform.”

He added, “It’s more of a conversation about how to get there.”

At the meeting, Mr. Obama will underline his concerns about the troubled economy and discuss what the administration is doing to fix it, White House officials said.

“You can expect that the president is really going to try to focus some portion of the conversation on the economy and job growth,” Mr. Gaspard said. “We all know where we’re headed with unemployment. Obviously the folks around the table have an acute interest in the economy, and the president wants to hear from them about what basically needs to happen to grow the economy and to stabilize the middle class right now.”

Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said the labor leaders would of course want to discuss the card check bill legislation that would make it easier to unionize workers. That legislation is stalled, with opposition preventing Democratic senators from acquiring the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster…..

(Click on link below to read the rest of this article)

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/labor-groups-to-press-obama-on-health-care-and-a-second-stimulus-effort/?nl=pol&emc=pola2

Whose Country is it anyway? A political-economic oligarchy has taken over the United States of America

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=KOZ20090704&articleId=14226

by Prof. John Kozy

A political-economic oligarchy has taken over the United States of America. This oligarchy has institutionalized a body of law that protects businesses at the expense of not only the common people but the nation itself.

CNN interviewed a person recently who was seriously burned when his vehicle burst into flames because a plastic brake-fluid reservoir ruptured. Having sued Chrysler, he was now concerned that its bankruptcy filing would enable Chrysler to avoid paying any damages. A CNN legal expert called this highly likely, since the main goal of reorganization in bankruptcy is preserving the company’s viability and that those creditors who could contribute most to attaining that goal would be compensated first while those involved in civil suits against the company would be placed lowest on the creditor list since compensating them would lessen the chances of the company’s surviving. This rational clearly implies that the preservation of companies is more important than the preservation of people. Of course, similar cases have been reported before. The claims of workers for unpaid wages have often been dismissed as have their contracts for benefits.

But there is an essential difference between a business that lends money or delivers products or services to another company and the employees who work for it. Business is an activity that supposedly involves risk. Employment is not. Neither is unknowingly buying a defective product. Workers and consumers do not extend credit to the companies they work for or buy products from. They are not in any normal sense of the word “creditors.” Yet that distinction is erased in bankruptcy proceedings which preserve companies at the public’s expense.

Of course, bankruptcy is not the only American practice that makes use of this principle. The current bailout policies of both the Federal Reserve and the Treasury make use of it. Again companies are being saved at the expense of the American people. America’s civil courts are notorious for favoring corporate defendants when sued by injured plaintiffs. Corporate profiteering is not only tolerated, it is often encouraged. The sordid records of both Halliburton and KBR are proof enough. Neither has suffered any serious consequences for their abysmal activities in Iraq while supplying services to the troops deployed there. Even worse, these companies continue to get additional contracts from the Department of State. “A former Army chaplain who later worked for Halliburton’s KBR unit . . . told Congress . . . ‘KBR came first, the soldiers came second.’” [http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/deyoung.html] Again, it’s companies first, people last. But Major General Smedley Butler made this point in 1935. [See http://www.scuttlebuttsmallchow.com/racket.html] And everyone is familiar with the influence corporate America has over the Congress through campaign contributions and lobbying. For instance, “the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has earmarked $20 million over two years to kill [card check].” [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-card-check4-2009jun04,0,7195326.story?track=rss] Companies expect returns on their money, and preventing workers from unionizing offers huge returns. And on Thursday June 4, 2009 USA Today reported that, “Republicans strongly oppose a government run [healthcare] plan saying it would put private companies insuring millions of Americans out of business. ‘A government run plan would set artificially low prices that private insurers would have no way of competing with,’ Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, said . . . .” (Kentucky ranks fifth highest in the number of people with incomes below poverty. Why is he worried about the survival of insurers?)

The profound question is how can any of it be justified?

President Calvin Coolidge did say that the business of America is business and the American political class seems to have adopted this view, but the Constitution cannot be used to justify it. The word “business” in the sense of “commercial firm” occurs nowhere in it. Nowhere does the Constitution direct the government to even promote commerce or even defend private property. The Constitution is clear. It was established to promote just six goals: (1) form a more perfect union, (2) establish justice, (3) insure domestic tranquility, (4) provide for the common defense, (5) promote the general welfare, and (6) secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. Of course, the Constitution does not prohibit the government from promoting commerce or defending private property, but what happens when doing so conflicts with one or more of its six purposes? Shouldn’t any law that does that be unconstitutional? For instance, wouldn’t it be difficult the claim that a bankruptcy procedure that protects business and subordinates or dismisses the claims of workers and injured plaintiffs establishes justice? How can spending trillions of dollars to save financial institutions and other businesses whose very own actions brought down the global economy be construed as establishing justice or even promoting the general welfare when people are losing their incomes, their pensions, their health care, and even their homes? These actions clearly conflict with the Constitution’s stated goals. Shouldn’t they have been declared unconstitutional? Although the Constitution does provide people with the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances, it does not clearly provide that right to organizations or corporations and it certainly does not provide to anyone the right to petition the government for special advantages. Yet that is what the Congress, even after its members swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, allows special interest groups to do. Where in the Constitution is there a justification for putting the people last?

How this situation could have arisen is a puzzle? Haven’t our elected officials, our justices, our legal scholars, our professors of Constitutional Law, or even our political scientists read the Constitution? Have they merely misunderstood it? Or have they simply chosen to disregard the preamble as though it had no bearing on its subsequent articles? Why have no astute lawyers brought actions on behalf of the people? Why indeed?

The answer is that a political-economic oligarchy has taken over the nation. This oligarchy has institutionalized a body of law that protects businesses at the expense of not only the common people but the nation itself. Businessmen have no loyalties. The Bank of International Settlements insures it, since it is not accountable to any national government. (See my piece, A Banker’ Economy, http://www.jkozy.com/A_Bankers__Economy.htm.) Thomas Jefferson knew it when he wrote, “Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gain.” Mayer Amschel Rothschild knew it when he said, “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes the laws.” William Henry Vanderbilt knew it when he said, “The public be damned.” Businesses know it when they use every possible ruse to avoid paying taxes, they know it when they offshore jobs and production, they know it when the engage in war profiteering, and they know it when they take no sides in wars, caring not an iota who emerges victorious. IBM, GM, Ford, Alcoa, Du Pont, Standard Oil, Chase Bank, J.P. Morgan, National City Bank, Guaranty, Bankers Trust, and American Express all knew it when they did business as usual with Germany during World War II. Prescott Bush knew it when he aided and abetted the financial backers of Adolf Hitler.

Yet somehow or other the people in our government, including the judiciary, do not seem to know it, and they have allowed and even abetted businesses that have no allegiance to any country to subvert the Constitution. Unfortunately, the Constitution does not define such action as treason.

America’s youthful students are regularly taught Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and are familiar with its peroration, “we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” If that nation ever existed, it no longer does. And when Benjamin Franklin was asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?” he answered, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” We haven’t. What we have ended up with is merely an Unpublic, an economic oligarchy that cares naught for either the nation or the public.

To argue that the United States of America is a failed state is not difficult. A nation that has the highest documented prison population in the world can hardly be described as domestically tranquil. A nation whose top one percent of the people have 46 percent of the wealth cannot by any stretch of the imagination be said to be enjoying general welfare (“generally true” means true for the most part with a few exceptions). A nation that spends as much on defense as the rest of the world combined and cannot control its borders, could not avert the attack on the World Trade Center, and can not win its recent major wars can not be described as providing for its common defense. How perfect the union is or whether justice usually prevails are matters of debate, and what blessings of liberty Americans enjoy that peoples in other advanced countries are denied is never stated. A nation that cannot fulfill its Constitution’s stated goals surely is a failed one. How else could failure be defined? By allowing people with no fastidious loyalty to the nation or its people to control it, by allowing them to disregard entirely the Constitution’s preamble, the nation could not avoid this failure. The prevailing economic system requires it.

Woody Guthrie sang, “This Land Is My Land, This Land Is Your Land,” but it isn’t. It was stolen a long time ago. Although it may have been “made for you and me,” people with absolutely no loyalty to this land now own it. It needs to be taken, not bought, back! America needs a new birth of freedom, it needs a government for the people, it needs a government that puts people first, but it won’t get one unless Americans come to realize just how immoral and vicious our economic system is.

John Kozy is a retired professor of philosophy and logic who blogs on social, political, and economic issues. After serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he spent 20 years as a university professor and another 20 years working as a writer. He has published a textbook in formal logic commercially, in academic journals and a small number of commercial magazines, and has written a number of guest editorials for newspapers. His on-line pieces can be found on http://www.jkozy.com/ and he can be emailed from that site’s homepage.

http://www.examiner.com/x-2071-DC-Special-Interests-Examiner~y2009m6d25-DC-labor-family-mourns-the-loss-of-three-in-Metro-tragedy-ATU-decries-rush-to-blame-operator

by Ron Moore

It is at times like this when the term Family of Labor takes on a poignant meaning that cannot be defeated by the opponents of labor. While mourning the loss of three labor Sisters, ATU Local 689 member Jeanice McMillan, CWA member Mary Doolittle and SEIU 32BJ member Ana Fernandez, the responsibility to represent Metro union members must not be neglected.

Shamelessly, the anti-union Drudge Report suggested that “texting” by the operator may be a contributing factor on its headline page while the actual story made no mention of texting. Attempts to determine causation and ensure the safety of workers and riders will take months of careful investigation and first reports indicate management not operator failure. But to reflexively blame management is unfair so early in the investigation.

In response to the tragedy Warren S. George, international president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, issued the following statement:

“On behalf of the entire International Union, I offer my heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of our fallen member, Jeanise McMillan, and all of those who lost loved ones as a result of this tragedy.

“With regard to the accident, I think it is unfair and unacceptable to speculate that the ATU operator may have been in any way responsible for the incident. Until a fair and thorough investigation is completed there will be no basis for statements implying that anyone or anything is to blame for the accident.

“The International fully supports [Washington, DC’s Local 689] President Jackie Jeter’s call for honesty and a full disclosure of the facts during the investigation.”

It is at times like this when the rallying cry Don’t Mourn Organize motivates the Family of Labor as members who will march today for health care for all, in support of Iranian freedom fighters and union leaders and lobby for the Employee Free Choice Act. It is a poignant reminder that a strong labor movement is the most effective way to build a strong community.

For additional information about supporting the families of those lost go the Community Services Agency of the Metro Washington Council AFL-CIO donation site. http://partners.guidestar.org/controller/searchResults.gs?action_donateReport=1&partner=networkforgood&ein=52-1718506