Hello, everybody, and welcome to Labor Diary Rescue. Diaries are below the fold.
The Labor Diary Rescue is done every Monday and Thursday evening, barring a bad internet connection, my insane work schedule, or Acts of God. In order to be rescued you must have a diary that is pro-union, has the words “union” or “labor” in the title, have less than 100 comments, and not be on any other rescue list or the rec list.
Here we go....
Catchlighting shows us the The Coming Battle for Jobs and Recovery.
Another 787,000 Americans joined the ranks of the unemployed last month, and the unemployment rate increased to 9.4%. 14.5 million Americans are unemployed, more than at any time during the Great Depression. Add the 9.1 million underemployed and the 2.2 million "discouraged" workers and there are now an astonishing 25.8 million Americans unemployed or underemployed.
The critical need to re-employ America is not yet being addressed on the scale required to meet this challenge. But there is good news. Major organizing efforts are underway to build both the grassroots movement and the broader coalition that will be needed in the coming battle for jobs and economic recovery.
Tristero312 shows why the teachers unions are needed in Chicago Public Schools Turnaround Policy Racist?
Wanda Evans, a teacher who worked at Orr High School for 11 years before it was turned-around, claims that the plan is designed to get rid of senior teachers and replace them with lower-salaried new teachers to save money; "I’m completely offended by the way veteran teachers have been treated, it’s like a fast food special, let’s get a 2 for 1." Ms. Evans has been nominated for Golden Apple and DRIVE teaching awards and now feels "swept right out of the door."
TomP and RDemocrat write about CNBC comparing the Iranian election to the Employee Free Choice Act. First, TomP’s diary: Action Diary: CNBC Compares EFCA to Iranian Election
SEIU is leading an effort to let CNBC know that we are sick and tired of their right wing shit. This time, CNBC’s Jim Cramer and Erin Burnett compared the Employee Free Choice Act to the Iranian election:
RDemocrats diary, CNBC Compares EFCA to Iran Elections.
A while back CNBC ruffled feathers by trying to minimize the greed of corporate CEOs in the crashing of our economy. Luckily, the were called out on it by Jon Stewart. Well, now they are at it again. As if those statements were not ridiculous enough, now they are comparing the Employee Free Choice Act to the elections in Iran.
The business channels never like to give the working man a break, do they?
Kate Thomas gives us another great diary on the EFCA in Stop Squeezing the Middle Class: Former Labor Secretaries Reich and Marshall on Employee Free Choice.
In the past 50+ years that have passed since America's middle class was expanding and the economy was soaring, former labor secretaries Robert Reich (1993 - 1997) and Ray Marshall (1977 - 1981) have seen an economy weakened by a combination of personal greed, individual irresponsibility and unsustainable financial conditions. In Sunday's Chicago Tribune, Reich and Marshall explain why the Employee Free Choice Act is fundamental to getting our economy back on track.
Badabing says what we’re all thinking in We Were Once As Brave as the Iranian People.
I watch in awe of the courage, passion and activism of the Persian people. A people sitting directly in the cradle of civilization. A people who are highly sophisticated and intelligent. A people who are showing me, as an American what it looks like to do more than just rant in a blog room on the internet.
I am old enough to remember how it felt to be tear gassed, to help carry friends away from angry police lashing out with their sticks as I marched to end the Vietnam War in the seventies. That war killed over 58,000 American soldiers and what we don't often hear about is the estimated four million Vietnam civilians who were killed during that conflict.
The Iranian people are reminding me today of how it felt to care so deeply about the direction that my country was taking that, I was willing along with so many of my friends to do whatever it took to stop the killing, the madness, the senseless feeding of the Military Industrial Complex. This is a tribute to these brave people.
Anybody else need to be reminded of how big a dick Bush was? Bay of Arizona is reminding us-and telling us about a much needed policy change in Reverse Bush's overtime pay rules.
In 2004, there was a large fight over overtime rules. Workers who were considered management were exempt from coverage.
The Bush administration expanded that exemption to include many jobs that were not remotely managerial in nature, such as truckers and nurses. This was the first revision of the law in 50 years.
Employee Free Choice Act gives us more reasons for passing the EFCA in Great Article in the Bloomington Alternative.
The Bloomington Chamber of Commerce has followed the position taken by the Indiana and national Chambers of Commerce by publicly opposing the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). The EFCA is a piece of federal labor legislation aimed at rebalancing the power between workers and their employers in the workplace. EFCA would restore workers' rights lost due to unfair rulings by hostile Labor Board appointments, illegal tactics utilized by employers and the fact there is little incentive for following the law because penalties are effectively non-existent.
HansBennet has a long read about mountaintop removal, labor unions, and coal miners in Aviva Chomsky Interview: Coal Mining in Colombia and Kentucky.
In both the U.S. and Colombia, union density has been falling. In Colombia, the main cause has been violence against unions; in the U.S., deindustrialization has played a big role. The AFL-CIO has a checkered history in Colombia, as it does in the rest of Latin America. Historically, the federation has been closely linked to U.S. foreign policy goals through the American Institute for Free Labor Development or AIFLD. I think the AFL-CIO is trying to overcome this past, and the suspicion it has generated in Latin America. Yet it is also struggling with internal conflicts, and now the accelerating economic crisis, and I think it has not made as much progress as it could in the area of trying to develop real international solidarity.
Shirah has a three part series called Amending the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
Part 1:
First: Do you have a pulse? You are reading this, so I will assume the answer is "Yes". If so, then you have probably heard about the Employee Free Choice Act even though you may not know what all its provisions are, particularly any of its provisions beyond representation based on signing cards in addition to representation based on a secret ballot election. It has been in the news, discussed in diaries on Daily Kos and the subject of ads here for years.
But did you know that this year we have a bumper crop of other bills to amend the NLRA, including proposals by Republicans eager to amend this country's fundamental law on employee rights to support one another, union organization, and collective bargaining?
As you might expect, the bills introduced by the Republicans are not friendly amendments, nor are they friendly to worker rights, unions, or collective bargaining.
Part 2:
The so-called "Raise Act" could be used for either purpose - horse trading or killing the EFCA. It otherwise serves no useful purpose.
Merit pay is already available in unionized workplaces.
All you have to do is negotiate it with the union.
What this bill does is give the employer the unilateral right to give some employees higher pay. It allows employers to play employees off against one another and thereby destroy the solidarity necessary to have a strong union.
Part 3:
One of the issues presented by the RAISE Bill is exclusive representation. That is, under the NLRA, the union chosen by the employees by majority vote or recognized by the employer as the majority representative of the workers, is the exclusive representative of all the employees in the bargaining unit.
Although employees are allowed to discuss problems and even reach resolutions of them with the employer, those resolutions cannot trump the terms of the collective bargaining agreement.
That’s the gigantic list of diaries, folks. Treat the comments as an open thread. And please comment, as more comments attracts attention:).