http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/09/BA9O1CD86C.DTL
Sleep with the fish: San Francisco Supervisor Sean Elsbernd was walking to pick up his 8-month-old son at day care Monday evening when his cell phone rang.
It was a local labor leader, calling to inform the Sunset District supervisor that his political career "is over" if he continues with his efforts to pass a charter amendment ending the guarantee that Muni drivers be the second-best-paid transit operators in the nation.
Interesting to note that the call came just days after a top-level labor sit-down at which leaders urged the Muni union to consent to enough givebacks to take the wind out of Elsbernd's amendment and thus avoid a costly fight at the polls in November.
The problem is that the Transport Workers Union Local 250-A itself is in the midst of power struggle between the African American old guard and the newer Latino and Asian American members led by union President Irwin Lum, and no agreement - on anything - appears in sight.
]]>ID Card for Workers Is at Center of Immigration Plan
By LAURA MECKLER
Customs and Border Protection agent Jesus Gomez checks a passport at the vehicle crossing at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in California.
Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.
Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker.
The ID card plan is one of several steps advocates of an immigration overhaul are taking to address concerns that have defeated similar bills in the past.
The uphill effort to pass a bill is being led by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who plan to meet with President Barack Obama as soon as this week to update him on their work. An administration official said the White House had no position on the biometric card.
"It's the nub of solving the immigration dilemma politically speaking," Mr. Schumer said in an interview. The card, he said, would directly answer concerns that after legislation is signed, another wave of illegal immigrants would arrive. "If you say they can't get a job when they come here, you'll stop it."
Revolving Door: Immigration Legislation
View Interactive
See attempts at reform and statistics on immigrants removed from the U.S. over the past six decades.
Journal Community
The biggest objections to the biometric cards may come from privacy advocates, who fear they would become de facto national ID cards that enable the government to track citizens.
"It is fundamentally a massive invasion of people's privacy," said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "We're not only talking about fingerprinting every American, treating ordinary Americans like criminals in order to work. We're also talking about a card that would quickly spread from work to voting to travel to pretty much every aspect of American life that requires identification."
Mr. Graham says he respects those concerns but disagrees. "We've all got Social Security cards," he said. "They're just easily tampered with. Make them tamper-proof. That's all I'm saying."
U.S. employers now have the option of using an online system called E-Verify to check whether potential employees are in the U.S. legally. Many Republicans have pressed to make the system mandatory. But others, including Mr. Schumer, complain that the existing system is ineffective.
Last year, White House aides said they expected to push immigration legislation in 2010. But with health care and unemployment dominating his attention, the president has given little indication the issue is a priority.
Rather, Mr. Obama has said he wanted to see bipartisan support in Congress first. So far, Mr. Graham is the only Republican to voice interest publicly, and he wants at least one other GOP co-sponsor to launch the effort.
An immigration overhaul has long proven a complicated political task. The Latino community is pressing for action and will be angry if it is put off again. But many Americans oppose any measure that resembles amnesty for people who came here illegally.
Under the legislation envisioned by Messrs. Graham and Schumer, the estimated 10.8 million people living illegally in the U.S. would be offered a path to citizenship, though they would have to register, pay taxes, pay a fine and wait in line. A guest-worker program would let a set number of new foreigners come to the U.S. legally to work.
Most European countries require citizens and foreigners to carry ID cards. The U.K. had been a holdout, but in the early 2000s it considered national cards as a way to stop identify fraud, protect against terrorism and help stop illegal foreign workers. Amid worries about the cost and complaints that the cards infringe on personal privacy, the government said it would make them voluntary for British citizens. They are required for foreign workers and students, and so far about 130,000 cards have been issued.
Mr. Schumer first suggested a biometric-based employer-verification system last summer. Since then, the idea has gained currency and is now a centerpiece of the legislation being developed, aides said.
A person familiar with the legislative planning said the biometric data would likely be either fingerprints or a scan of the veins in the top of the hand. It would be required of all workers, including teenagers, but would be phased in, with current workers needing to obtain the card only when they next changed jobs, the person said.
The card requirement also would be phased in among employers, beginning with industries that typically rely on illegal-immigrant labor.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce doesn't have a position on the proposal, but it is concerned that employers would find it expensive and complicated to properly check the biometrics.
Mr. Schumer said employers would be able to buy a scanner to check the IDs for as much as $800. Small employers, he said, could take their applicants to a government office to like the Department of Motor Vehicles and have their hands scanned there.
—Alistair MacDonald contributed to this article.
Write to Laura Meckler at laura.meckler@wsj.com
Unions Seek to Pry Loose Transit Stimulus Funding
Eye on Operational Needs
By ARI PAUL
LARRY HANLEY: Only Feds can help.
Representatives of transit unions from around the country gathered Feb. 27 at the headquarters of Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ to discuss a national strategy to get the Federal Government to pump more money into mass transit, specifically for operational use.
Amalgamated Transit Union Vice President Larry Hanley said that transit systems in every major metropolitan area are facing layoffs—the Chicago Transit Authority has already laid off 1,100 workers—and that while the Federal Government has put stimulus money into transit, it has been restricted to capital construction budgets rather than day-today use.
‘Feds Handicapped Transit’
“They handicapped transit by saying that that money was restricted to new construction,” Mr. Hanley said of Congress and the White House.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Restrictions hurting systems.
As a result of the six-hour meeting, he said, transit union leaders and reps agreed that they needed a national lobbying campaign for more Federal money that would also involve working closely with rider advocacy and environmental groups.
“We need to get, very quickly, the attention of the Senate, the House and President Obama,” Mr. Hanley said. “There are many, many willing hands to work in the effort. The challenge is bringing them together.”
In the past, he said, transit unions have focused too heavily on lobbying the cities, counties and states for transit funding.
“The cities and states really are broke,” he said.
Harsh Words for MTA
While he noted that many transit authorities have urged that Federal stimulus money be opened up to operational use so that layoffs and service cuts can be avoided, Mr. Hanley said that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has stood out, as it has totally resisted such efforts.
“The MTA has been the staunchest ally of the construction industry in Washington, saying to not use Federal funding for operational expense,” he said. “That’s kind of a New York irony.”
Transport Workers Union Local 100 President John Samuelsen and Teamsters Local 808 President Chris Silvera attended the meeting, along with representatives of the SEIU, International Association of Machinists and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Norman Brown, the legislative director of the New York State Council of Machinists, who attended the meeting, called the current situation of keeping Federal dollars tied to capital budgets an “emperor with no clothes moment.”
‘Unreasonably Absurd’
“What is the point of building a system while cutting service? It’s a level of absurdity that’s not reasonable,” he said. “We can buy new buses, but we can’t operate them. What is the point in that? That’s digging holes and filling them up.”
Mr. Hanley said he was disappointed in the Obama Administration, as he believed that increasing mass transit service would meet multiple national priorities, including spurring job growth in both the public and private sectors.
“There is no real urban agenda coming out of Washington,” he said, “despite the fact that transit is the solution to many of the problems many countries are facing, whether it be climate change or the rising price of oil.”
]]>TWU Local 100 Pres. John Samuelsen denounces MTA proposed service cuts, job elimination
]]>Outside MTA Public Hearings, The Union’s Voice Rings Out
A powerful rally on March 4 put over 3,000 TWU Local 100 members in the streets outside the MTA’s Manhattan Public Hearing at FIT. We were joined by a large contingent of high school and college students, vociferously protesting the MTA’s planned elimination of student metrocards. TWU Local 100 got strong support from allies in the union movement and government, including New York State AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes, PBA President Pat Lynch, RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum, the UFT's Michael Mandel, DC 37’s Oliver Gray, Teamsters Local 237's Gregory Floyd, and Public Advocate Bill DiBlasio, to name a few. (Watch this page for videos, coming soon.)
President John Samuelsen trenchantly criticized MTA cuts as blatant disregard of workers and the needs of citizens. He called upon members to speak in a single voice: "Hell no, Mr. Walder. We will fight your attempts to steal our jobs; we will fight your attacks on our students; you will not destroy our transit system."
Mandel questioned the contradictions in the MTA’s budget priorities, seeking congestion pricing tolls on the one hand, while cutting service on the other. Pat Lynch spoke of his father’s longtime membership in TWU Local 100 and demanded that the fat cats on Wall Street surrender their raises and perks before working families face firings and pay cuts.
Local 100 is working a multi-pronged strategy to win additional funding streams for the MTA in Washington, Albany, and here at City Hall. But your turning out in the first major rally under Local 100’s new leadership team is an essential ingredient. The time is now. Your participation does make a difference.
]]>Evan Rohar| March 1, 2010
In late January members of AFSCME Local 3299 surrounded a newly privatized non-union bus at a Berkeley lab. The University of California recently contracted out one bus line—but the union has stopped the administration's drive to privatize all service at Berkeley. Photo: Liz Perlman
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As budget-butchering legislators and executives slash away at public services and public workers, they’re reaching for a familiar tactic: privatization.
Privatization Watch, an information clearinghouse, counts 411 battles over privatization between 2008 and 2009, from a riot at a Kentucky prison provoked by a contractor’s lousy food to a Republican governor in Indiana who killed a billion-dollar contract to outsource welfare-benefits after big delays and denials to qualified applicants.
Only 30 proposed privatizations were stopped. But one arena where unions are generating outsized heat lately is transit.
At the University of California, no stranger to budget woes, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has seen a fierce fight over its contracting out of bus service.
Thirteen bus drivers, members of AFSCME Local 3299—some with more than 10 years’ experience—were replaced in the privatization scheme when the new operator MV Transportation took the reins January 19.
“I think it’s a pilot program,” said Kat Bedford, one of the displaced drivers, suggesting that if UC gets away with outsourcing 13 jobs it will shoot to replace all 200 bus drivers across UC’s 10 campuses and five medical facilities.
Safety and reliability suffer in privatization schemes, said Local 3299 organizer Liz Perlman, noting that driver retention is a constant problem for low-wage, bad-benefit transportation companies.
The university’s contractor, she said, boasted that it has kept drivers for as long as two years.
DANGER TO OTHERS
The terrain surrounding the lab is treacherous, with sharp turns, blind corners, and steep hills, but new drivers get only a month of training. In the first two weeks of privatized operation, MV drivers ran into a car, forced drivers off the road, and nearly hit a bicyclist.
In his complaint to the MV contract manager, the bicyclist wrote that in thousands of rides over the last 20 years, “I never had an incident like this with the old shuttle buses.”
BEATING OUTSOURCING
AFSCME Local 3299 scored a victory February 24 when the University of California administration agreed to halt plans to outsource shuttle service at the Berkeley campus. The university was looking at final bidders with plans to sign a contract by April 1 to begin privatized service in May.
The union ran an aggressive campaign against privatization, including recruiting student activists to ride buses and make announcements to passengers about the outsourcing scheme.
Meanwhile drivers at the university’s Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory are still fighting for their jobs and are painstakingly documenting service and safety complaints to show how privatization really works.
“Buses are breaking down because they are running them too much,” said Liz Perlman, a staff organizer for Local 3299. “That’s what you get when you pay for a cheap contract.”
The drivers and the union are taking action to stop the privatization and see it doesn’t spread. A group of 200 Local 3299 activists, supporters, and officers including President Lakesha Harrison surrounded one MV bus in protest on January 20. Thirteen were arrested.
Already administrators are considering transit privatization at the Berkeley campus, prompting drivers and organizers to meet with fellow union members at the university to prepare.
Local 3299 is seeking a moratorium on privatization of bus services, and has enlisted help from students, faculty, and other staff. It’s leafleting campuses daily, but the core of its strategy is to apply pressure on the university’s regents through worker actions.
STUCK IN THE MUD
While some unions are taking up the fight against privatization, others lag behind, leaving defense of public sector jobs to rank-and-file activists.
“My local is kind of stuck in the mud,” said Chai Montgomery, a K-12 bus driver in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and member of Teamsters Local 214.
Drivers in Ann Arbor have been working without a contract for two years under wage and hiring freezes and reduced overtime allotment.
The school board, facing a budget deficit of $20 million over the next three years, is considering bids to privatize its bus service or turn it over to the county. Either way, the union is in trouble.
Drivers are staring down a double barrel: unemployment if the district privatizes, or a $2 wage cut and reductions to health benefits if the county takes over.
The board reviewed two bids February 12 but will wait until April to see what the county can offer before it makes a decision.
“This is a window of opportunity for activists to fight,” Montgomery said. Local 214 troublemakers are speaking against privatization at weekly school board meetings and holding informational pickets outside. They’re drawing support from the NEA-affiliated Teachers and AFSCME Local 1182 custodians, too.
INSTABILITY
At Georgia Tech, 40 members of Teamsters Local 728 were fired when the school switched transportation contractors in January. During previous transitions, new contractors rehired the incumbent drivers. That practice changed after drivers voted to join the Teamsters in March 2008.
Ben Speight, organizing director for Local 728, said the union is pressuring Georgia Tech’s administration to force the new contractor, Groome Transportation, to rehire the drivers. It has enlisted the help of students, who have shown enthusiastic support for the union. After holding three rallies and filing an unfair labor practice charge, the union has forced Groome to rehire four Teamsters and intends to pursue the struggle until the remaining 36 are back in the driver’s seat.
]]>Costa Rica: Dock workers mobilise against government interference in union
Report by Movement towards Socialism (MAS)
Published: 05/03/10
via Martin Ralph
Dock workers in Limon, the Caribbean region of Costa Rica, have had several days fighting against government interference in their union, Sintrajap.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Security created on 15 January a new leadership for the organization, elected in an unofficial meeting, convened by the president of the company. On 23 February, Sintrajap general secretary, Ronaldo blear, was reported to be sacked.
His replacement, Douglas Brenes, is a friend of the government, who promotes the privatization of ports in the region. In exchange for the support of workers, the government even offered a “compensation” of $ 137 million to the port. Another objective is to attack the labor rights of the port.
In response to the authoritarian intervention in the labor movement, unions in the province of Limon plan to strike, in addition to entering in court to contest the possession of the leadership submissive to the government of Óscar Arias.
1st March, report from Movement towards Socialism (MAS) Costa Rican section of the International Workers League
]]>Militants win PAL union elections
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 11:35:00 02/28/2010
Filed Under: Labor, Air Transport
MANILA, Philippines—Militants won a landslide victory in the elections for the Philippine Airlines (PAL) ground crew union on February 25, twelve years after the controversial moratorium in the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) of 1998, the PAL Employees Association (Palea) said in a news release over the weekend.
“After 12 long years, PAL employees again have a union that will protect their rights and welfare, including job security,” said Gerry Rivera, who will assume the position of Palea president on March 29.
Rivera said his group, party-list group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM), campaigned on a platform of defending job security, will immediately face a challenge as PAL reportedly plans to spin off departments and lay off employees this coming April.
PM members won the top three national union positions and their local party called Sulong Paleans cornered 13 of the 21-member union board during the elections held last Thursday, February 25. But the ballots were only finally tallied Friday night with the winners proclaimed by the union Commission on Elections and representatives of the labor department’s Metro Manila office, the news release said.
Rivera is also vice chairman of PM and has been a PM nominee in the past party-list elections. He was vice president of Palea during the PAL strike of 1998, the biggest labor dispute of the 1990s. After owner Lucio Tan temporarily shut down PAL, PAL employees were forced to agree to a 10-year CBA moratorium that has been extended twice since 2008.
The fight against spin-off and outsourcing will be a key task of the incoming union leadership, according to Rivera.
In September 2009, PAL management announced that it would outsource passenger handling, ramp handling, cargo handling, and catering by November. Rivera said the plan, which was shelved after his Sulong Paleans protested against it, would result in the layoff of at least 2,000 PAL employees.
Rivera also revealed that Palea will now insist on negotiations for a new CBA. “Through the CBA, we will ensure that security of tenure is guaranteed. No spin-off or layoff must happen if the union does not agree,” he explained.
“Contractualization is a virus that has ravaged the workers, depriving them of security of tenure, decent wages, and benefits. If PAL employees are successful in resisting management’s drive to outsource work, then hopefully we can help reverse the epidemic of contractualization,” he added.
]]>And, Cut! Money Woes Delay a TV Reality Show on Subway Workers
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
Published: March 1, 2010
It is not your typical subway series.
Who knows what drama lurks beneath the city? Transit officials may let the A&E network find out, but not immediately.
For months, officials at theMetropolitan Transportation Authorityhave been working with television producers on a reality show set in and around the New York City subway. The series, commissioned by the A&E network, would follow an ensemble cast of train conductors, station agents and other subway workers as they handle track fires, angry customers and the grind of running the country’s biggest mass transit system.
But as with many of the authority’s major projects, the show is now facing a delay. Citing hard financial times, transit officials said they were halting work on the show, even though shooting had started last month for a 15-minute sample episode — the first step toward a pilot and potentially a full season.
“I still want to do it at some point,” said Christopher Boylan, the authority’s top marketing officer. “It may not make sense to do it right away.”
The decision to halt production surprised the show’s creative team, though an A&E spokesman said such delays were common with municipal agencies. And producers said they remained enthusiastic about the show’s prospects.
“It has buzz potential,” said Robert Sharenow, the A&E executive in charge of the project. “The flavor of the New York character is appealing across the country. They are blue-collar heroes, and there’s a level at which that resonates with everybody.”
The concept for the show came from Ross Breitenbach, a veteran producer of reality television who supervised “The Simple Life 2” with Paris Hilton and “Sober House,” a VH1 series about celebrities in rehab.
Inspired by his children’s Thomas the Tank Engine toys, Mr. Breitenbach approached the transportation authority last year about an animated children’s show focused on the subway. But the conversation quickly shifted to something more vérité.
“The plan is to follow these guys wherever they go,” Mr. Breitenbach said. “The M.T.A. has been interested in letting us tell real stories, not a sanitized commercial.”
The idea of a documentary series also appealed to the authority’s marketing department, which had struggled to showcase the human side of an often-demonized system. Tight budgets have prevented in-house television projects in the past.
Managers at New York City Transit, the authority’s bus and subway unit, were asked in November to “please canvass your work force to identify potential participants” for the series, described as a new show “that will be set in and around the New York City subway system.”
Steven A. Feil, then the agency’s senior vice president for subways, wrote in an internal memo at the time: “By following a consistent set of interesting employees, the series will explore the challenges that are met each day as M.T.A. employees work together to move millions of people around New York.”
A crew from Left/Right Productions — the company behind “I Want to Work For Diddy” and the short-lived Mr. T reality show, “I Pity the Fool” — set up shop in Grand Central Terminal earlier this year and conducted on-camera interviews with about 100 interested transit workers.
“I hate using the word ‘casting,’ ” Mr. Breitenbach said. “As storytellers, we’re looking for people with rich stories to tell.”
A&E has an apparent interest in transit bureaucracies. “Parking Wars,” a show currently seen on the network, follows the ticket agents and towers of the Philadelphia Parking Authority as they undergo “outrageous encounters with unrestrained citizens,” according to the show’s Web site. “Airline,” a show that ended in 2005, filmed workers at Southwest Airlines.
Producers at the cable channel had expected to review sample footage by the spring, although that schedule will quite likely be pushed back. Executives will then decide whether to pursue a pilot or full season, perhaps in a prime-time slot. “It’s something we believe in,” said Mr. Sharenow, the A&E executive.
And is there a working title?
“In a nod to Dostoyevsky, I do want to call it ‘Notes From the Underground,’ but we won’t be doing that,” Mr. Sharenow said.
]]>Victory To The Tekel Workers In Turkey-Statement Of The TWSC
Our bay area Transport Workers Solidarity Committee TWSC is in solidarity with
your struggle for your jobs and justice. The US controlled International Monetary Fund-World
Bank and their policy of forcing privatization of public services and public institutions is a plague
on the workers of the world. It is organized to benefit the billionaires and we are aware
that the past privatization of your national telecom system was used by US government
officials like US Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger to personally benefit from
the destruction of publicly owned industries as an investor.
The policy of privatization and deregulation is a way of stealing from the people of a country and
workers in the United States also face similar attacks on our living conditions and benefits.
We support your fight and call for the re-nationalization of Tekel under the democratic control
of the workers.
We will be publicizing your struggle in the United States and urging US workers to
build support for your fight. A victory of your strike is a victory for all workers around the world and
a blow against the dispossession and thievery of these capitalist government in Turkey and around
the world.
On March 6, 2010 we will also be having a video screening of your struggle and a report will be made
on your powerful actions.
Unity, Solidarity and Victory to The Turkish Tekel Workers.
Transport Workers Solidarity Committee
www.transportworkers.org
On March 1, 2010 in San Francisco hundreds of MUNI TWU 250-A drivers
and riders joined in rallies and a march to demand that the cutbacks and
attacks on Muni workers end. SF Mayor Newsom and his appointed MTA
board have sought to pit the TWU 250-A drivers against the public by
saying that unless they took concessions on their wages and pensions
the city would have to increase fares for the elderly, students and the
disabled. Already over 100 operators have been layed off by the city.
Produced by Labor Video Project, P.O. Box 720027, San Francisco, CA 94172
laborvideo.blip.tv www.laborvideo.org (415)282-1908
French air traffic controllers' strike latest European labor trouble
A French air traffic controllers' strike has grounded dozens of flights in Paris, one of Europe's busiest air travel hubs. The first hints of spring appear to be bringing strike fever to Europe.
By Robert Marquand Staff writer
posted February 23, 2010 at 11:49 am EST
Paris —
With chills from a ghastly European winter in abeyance, thoughts on the continent are turning to labor strikes. This week, a French air traffic controllers' strike has roiled European travel, grounding half of the regional flights from Orly and a quarter from Charles DeGaulle, the two main Paris hubs, until Saturday.
French air traffic controllers, currently among the most well paid in Europe and required to work only 100 days a year, are angry at a proposal to consolidate air traffic control with some of their European neighbors, which they fear will lead to salary and benefit reductions.
Air travel-associated strikes in recent days have created delays and ticket-counter drama elsewhere as well. Pilots for Lufthansa ended a one-day strike last night, but there will be routing and delays until Friday, authorities say. In all, some 800 flights have been affected.
Now British Airways cabin crews, who put a holiday scare in travelers with a proposed Christmas strike, are again threatening a walk out.
Cost-cutters, workers at odds
The global economy, combined with a host of low-cost alternative airlines, have put British Airways and Lufthansa workers at odds with cost-cutters in management, at a time when a new less-regulated “open skies” policy for Europe has set in. It appears that unions are using the threat of strikes as a primary tactic. Lufthansa pilots agreed this week to a court-ordered suspension of the strike until March 8 -- with job security guarantees that would not allow their compensation, generally one-third to twice as high as those at regional airlines like Austrian Air, to be renegotiated. BA crew strikes were preempted by a judge last December.
This week, British Airways crew members voted on a strike that could begin within 28 days, though apparently not during Easter.
"Our members are not mindless militants, but men and women committed to their company and their profession,” said cabin crew union official Len McCluskey. “So it is right that they want to be consulted on changes to their jobs.”
BA officials fired back that they would not allow the union “to ruin this company.”
The advent of cheap European short-hop carriers like EasyJet and RyanAir has brought fares in the 50 euro to 100 euro range for travel between Rome, Berlin, and Paris – while larger national carriers charge far more. The result has been a spate of mergers. Air France and KLM joined, and British Airways is seeking ties with Iberia and American Airlines.
Ground control isn't happy
But not everyone is happy with consolidation. French air controllers appear to be resisting plans to create a regional agency that would bring air traffic controllers in Switzerland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands under unified regulation.
Currently, the skies above Europe are divided into 27 blocs, which is more favorable to jobs than efficiency – creating fears among unions. French authorities at the Cour de Comptes, the state accounting office, have attacked the union for being “opaque” regarding vacation scheduling policies in a work year of 100 days.
Elsewhere in Europe, Spanish unions are threatening a strike tomorrow over a government plan to raise the retirement age from age 65 to 67 – a plan proposed by Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero though not yet ratified. Marches may come off in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and smaller cities
Greece anticipates general strike
In Greece, fears of significant cuts in public spending in the wake of proposed austerity measures stemming from the Greek economic crisis is expected to bring a general strike of all unions, including a news black out as journalists will also participate – shutting down government offices, transportation, courts, and schools.
In France, five of six oil refineries have been shut down for the seventh day by workers at the oil giant Total – with gas supplies reportedly nearly out at 100 of some 4,000 gas stations. The workers want guarantees that no further refineries will be shut in the wake of the closing of a plant in Dunkirk.
Petroleum authorities say France has seven days of fuel left ,while the government environment minister says there are 10 days of gas stocks left.
]]>Union calls for massive jobs bill
AFL-CIO officer tells local workers about drive to put 'Main Street' back to work
BY WARREN WISE
The Post and Courier
Friday, February 26, 2010
America needs to get back to work and a new federal jobs bill that costs billions of dollars will do just that.
That's what a top organized labor official told a union-friendly audience at the International Longshoremen's Association headquarters in Charleston on Thursday during a two-day meeting to recognize and celebrate their struggles and victories.
Arlene Holt Baker, AFL-CIO executive vice president, said the group is launching a national grass-roots campaign this week to put 15 million unemployed Americans back to work by stressing the need for Congress to pass a new jobs bill.
The U.S. Senate, she said, has passed a jobs bill for $15 billion with some tax breaks for businesses.
"It's not big enough or bold enough to put millions of Americans back to work," Baker said. "We need a jobs program, a massive jobs program. Not just here in South Carolina, but in every city and every state in our country."
Baker derided bailouts for big banks and corporations and said now is the time to bail out the working class.
"We can lend a flood of money to Wall Street, but we cut the spigot off for Main Street," she said. "We'll be harnessing this frustration and using it to power a nationwide movement for jobs."
She wants the jobs bill to extend unemployment benefits, increase federal aid to local governments and put some of the repaid bailout money into community banks so they can lend money to small businesses that create jobs.
Baker wants the bill tied to investment in alternative energy sources, what she called "good, green union jobs" and in rebuilding schools, roads and bridges.
"We need a jobs plan that creates and retains jobs here at home instead of shipping them overseas," Baker said. "I am sick and tired of having my only choice be 'made in China' or somewhere else."
She also took the chance to swipe at Republicans and support the Obama administration's health care overhaul.
"Nearly 50 million Americans don't need obstructions. They need health care and they need it now," she said.
And, Baker praised organized labor and pledged support for an employee choice law.
"Some say unions aren't relevant. Well, we know they're dead wrong, and our current economy proves that we need unions more than ever," she said. "We must ensure that the jobs we create are good jobs by guaranteeing every working person the freedom to bargain for a better life through the Employee Free Choice Act. A union is still the best way to the middle class."
Baker tied her speech and appearance to the 10th anniversary of the Jan. 20, 2000, waterfront rumble when hundreds of unionized dockworkers clashed with hundreds of policemen near the State Ports Authority's Columbus Street Terminal after the Danish ocean carrier Nordana Line used non-union dockworkers instead of ILA longshoreman.
The melee resulted in five men charged with felony riot charges and placed under house arrest for several months. The charges against those who became known as "The Charleston 5" were eventually dropped under a plea agreement.
"We have to be as bold as the Charleston 5," she said. "We have to go to the streets or go to jail. We have to do what it takes to turn this economy around and put America back to work."
Ken Riley, president of the ILA Local 1422, said it's important not to forget the union's struggles and to embrace the support of union members' from elsewhere in a right-to-work state that tends to shun unions.
"It means a lot to the labor movement that we are not isolated," he said.
Reach Warren Wise at 937-5524 or wwise@postandcourier.com.
]]>February 26, 2010
Clearing the Air at American Ports
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
The Teamsters union and environmental activists have formed an unlikely and outspoken alliance aiming to clear the air in American ports, and perhaps bolster the Teamsters’ ranks in the process.
The labor-green alliance is getting under the trucking industry’s skin by asserting that short-haul trucking companies working in ports — and not the truck drivers, who are often considered independent contractors — should spend the billions needed to buy new, low-emission rigs that can cost $100,000 to $175,000 each.
The Teamsters union says seaport air is so dirty largely because port truck drivers earn too little to buy trucks that would belch out fewer diesel particulates, tiny particles that contribute to cancer and asthma. Working with environmentalists, the union helped persuade the Port of Los Angeles to adopt a far-reaching plan that bars old trucks from hauling cargo from the port and puts the burden of buying new vehicles on the trucking companies, not the drivers.
The battle has intensified as federal officials press ports to adhere to clean-air regulations. Seaports from Newark to Miami to Seattle are confronting the same issue: who should pay for the cleaner trucks?
“We think if you have the big trucking companies own the equipment and maintain it, the trucks will be cleaner,” said David Pettit, director of the Natural Resource Defense Council’s Southern California Clean Air Program. Noting that both trucks and ships contribute to port pollution, he said, “we got involved because the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are the single biggest contributors to air pollution in the L.A. area, and that’s because of diesel pollution.”
Environmental groups are happy to have the Teamsters’ political muscle behind efforts to clean up the ports, while the union likes having environmentalists backing its goal: requiring port trucking companies to employ their drivers directly, rather than as independent contractors because employees, unlike contractors, can join unions. The Teamsters are eager to unionize the nation’s more than 40,000 port drivers.
The labor-green alliance achieved a major victory in late 2008 when it helped persuade the mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, a former union organizer, and the city’s port to require trucking companies to employ their drivers directly, making the companies bear the cost of buying new rigs.
Angry that this move increased their labor costs, trucking companies sued to block the policy. A federal judge on Thursday announced she would hold a civil trial beginning April 20.
Last April, the Federal District Court judge in the case, Christina A. Snyder, granted an injunction suspending the mandate while letting stand the ban on pre-1994 trucks. The judge said the suspended rules were pre-empted by a federal law that regulated trucking.
The American Trucking Associations, the industry group, wants to maintain the current structure in which most port drivers are considered independent contractors responsible for buying their own trucks. The group also wants the seaports to subsidize purchases of new trucks, whether by drivers or the companies.
The industry does not hide its dismay about the labor-environmental coalitions that have sprouted in various cities.
“A lot of these groups are just front groups for the Teamsters, and it’s really horrible that they’re attacking these drivers and saying they can’t possibly finance newer trucks and don’t know how to maintain them,” said Clayton Boyce, a spokesman for the American Trucking Associations. “That is a total falsehood.”
But Rafael Prestol, a truck driver at the Port of Newark, disagreed, saying he could not possibly afford a new truck. When he became a driver in 1978, his salary was $425 a week, but some weeks, he says, he still nets the same amount — just $425 — after fuel and other expenses.
“If we invest $100,000 in a new vehicle and we’re making $2,000 a month or less, it doesn’t make sense,” said Mr. Prestol, who blames trucking deregulation for pulling down drivers’ pay. “And what guarantee do you have after you buy a new truck that you’ll continue to get work?”
In addition to Mayor Villaraigosa, the Teamsters and environmentalists have lined up other backers, including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, Mayor Corey Booker of Newark and other mayors, senators and representatives.
With a recent Rutgers study finding that port drivers earned $29,000 a year on average (after paying for their trucks, maintenance, fuel and insurance), Mr. Bloomberg said, “Truck drivers simply can’t afford to buy expensive trucks. They’re barely earning enough to make ends meet in a job that should be providing them with a solid, middle-class living.”
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the Port of Newark, has introduced an antipollution plan that includes $28 million in grants and subsidized loans, totaling nearly $50,000 a truck, that aim to enable 630 drivers to buy new rigs to replace the dirtiest ones. The industry likes the plan. But drivers like Mr. Prestol say the subsidies are inadequate, considering the cost of the rigs.
The Port of Los Angeles hired the Boston Consulting Group to help develop its ambitious plan.
That plan charges companies like Wal-Mart $70 for each shipping container hauled by older trucks as a way to finance $42 million in subsidies to buy cleaner trucks. With grants of $20,000 a truck, that program has helped companies buy 2,100 new trucks, including 250 trucks powered by liquid natural gas. Both the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation’s largest port complex, have banned pre-1994 trucks.
Port officials in Los Angeles channeled the grants to trucking companies, convinced that most drivers did not have the wherewithal to buy new trucks or maintain them adequately.
“I used to see a lot of people drive messed up trucks, badly maintained trucks,” said Carlos Santamaria, a driver in Los Angeles. “They often had to make a decision, ‘do I fix my truck or do I put food on the table?’ ”
Los Angeles officials wanted to make the port less of a free-for-all where trucking companies and drivers constantly undercut each other on price, leaving too little money for them, in the port’s view, to buy new trucks and maintain them.
John Holmes, deputy executive director of operations at the Port of Los Angeles, said some might describe the port as perfect, free-market economics, but he described it as “cavemen economics.”
To transform the system, the port required that trucking companies treat their drivers as employees, arguing that this would ensure better, cleaner trucks because the companies, not the drivers, would be responsible for buying and maintaining the rigs.
As a result of the grants, the ban on pre-1994 trucks and the extra fees for using trucks from 1994 to 2003, the industry had bought more than 6,000 new trucks since the Los Angeles plan took effect in October 2008.
“We say emissions are down 70 percent since the program began,” Mr. Holmes said. “This program has probably been the most successful environmental program on the planet in terms of reducing emissions.”
Dismayed by the judge’s ruling partly blocking the plan, Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Villaraigosa and Mr. Booker are pressing Congress to amend truck-deregulation law so that local ports would have greater power to adopt environmental and safety rules, including ones like the suspended employee mandate in Los Angeles.
The trucking industry opposes such legislation. “We need to keep trucking regulated by the federal government to prevent a patchwork of regulations across the country,” Mr. Boyce said.
Michael Fox, president of a trucking firm in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., opposes any mandate that companies treat drivers as employees.
“It’s just a bad idea to dictate that you can only do business one way,” said Mr. Fox.
With the injunction in force, some companies that hired drivers as $18-an-hour employees now employ them as independent contractors.
Once again, many drivers are rushing to haul as many loads as they can each week, although they often wait for two unpaid hours to pick up loads. Many say they now earn $8 to $10 an hour. Mr. Holmes and many environmentalists ask who will buy the next generation of trucks in five years if it is left to the drivers.
“You can’t get clean air on the backs of the drivers,” said Amy Goldsmith, executive director of the New Jersey Environmental Federation. “They can’t possibly earn enough the way the system is set up, with the drivers required to buy gas, insurance and equipment.”
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