Organized Labor

Starting tomorrow and continuing next week, jobless workers in 15 states who face cut off of their unemployment insurance (UI) Feb. 29 will ask members of Congress to ?Walk a Mile in My Shoes.?

The mobilization is aimed at lawmakers who are back in their districts for the President?s Day Recess that begins  tomorrow, and it’s a  partnership between USAction, the AFL-CIO, the National Employment Law Project (NELP), community and other groups.

If the Feb. 29 deadline passes without Congress taking action to extend UI coverage, 1.2 million jobless workers will lose their benefits by the end of March and 3.3 million by the June. (Click here tell your congressional representatives to act now.)

In a telephone press conference today, Gary Polvinale, an Ohio IT manager who has been out of work nearly a year said,

Congress is doing something corporations do, exploiting and bullying the helpless. We need them to act now So we can survive until till can find something.

Congressional Republicans are holding hostage an extension of  the UI  program by insisting that any UI renewal cuts as many as 40 weeks of benefits, imposes onerous restrictions on jobless workers and even makes them pay for re-employment services. Christine Owens, executive director of the (NELP) calls the Republican proposals ?punitive and unnecessary.

As AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker says, ?We don?t have time for sideshow fights that scapegoat workers.?

Unemployment insurance is the one thing that stands between them being out on the street, hungry and going with basic necessities. Tell Congress to do their jobs and stop penalizing workers and  rebuild the economy so that works for all of us, not just those at the top.

In Columbus, Progress Ohio will erect a stand and dangle shoes from it in front of Sen. Bob Portman?s (R) district office. In Concord, N.H., Citizen Alliance for Action will create an obstacle course using hula hoops to symbolize the ?hoops? conservatives in Congress want to force jobless Americans to jump through. In Newtown, Pa., Penn Action is collecting stories from unemployed workers, wrapping them in red tape and delivering them to Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R).

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) will get a warm labor union, progressive welcome tomorrow at its annual conference in Washington. D.C., and we will keep you updated with a live Twitter feed ( hashtag #OccupyCPAC ) courtesy of  Metropolitan Washington [D.C.] Council AFL-CIO.

The Who?s Who of the 1 percent–like Mitt Romney, Scott Walker, Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, Ann Coulter, Grover Norquist and other stars of the extremist rogue?s gallery–will be on hand.  But so will representatives of the rest of us, the 99 percent, with big puppets, inflatables, chants, songs and of course tents to Occupy CPAC.

If you happen to be in the D.C. area tomorrow and want to join in the fun, events are set for noon and 5 p.m. (EST) at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel (2600 Woodley Rd. at Connecticut Ave. N.W.). The nearest Metro stop is the Woodley Park station.

Rotten apple

More horrors out now from the Chinese serf-labor system involved in creating Apple products like iPads, iPhones and Kindles. It turns out many of the workers churning out millions of the devices in unendurable conditions at Foxconn and other factories are also forced laborers as young as 16.

The Hong Kong-based Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) says, “Legions of vocational and university students, some as young as 16, are forced to take months-long ?internships? in Foxconn?s mainland China factories assembling Apple products,” according to Alternet. One study found in some Foxconn factories, which employ 1.3 million people in China, up to 50 percent of the workforce were students.

SACOM and others report that schools teaching journalism, hotel management and nursing threatened students with failure if they did not take a factory position. The Chinese government-owned Global Times noted that ?automotive majors at a vocational school in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan, were also forced to serve as interns for Foxconn before they were given their diplomas.

Apple?s formula for mammoth profits, which topped $13 billion last quarter, depends upon a steady supply of forced laborers who are put through a torturous training to accustom them to the factory working conditions.

To meet production goals, Foxconn relies on ?military-style management?on the shop floor.? Workers say ?military training? starts during the recruitment phase, such as being forced to stand in the sun for hours with no water. In Chengdu, some workers claimed that for up to one month before work began they had to line up in formation and ?stand still as a soldier for hours.? Even the China Daily reported that the state-controlled Shenzhen Federation of Trade Unions said Foxconn has a ?quasi-military management system.? According to scholars as well as business publications, Taiwanese managers in China refer to their management style as militaristic.

Vocational schools force their students into Apple slavery because they get a huge cut: While students receive less than $80 a month for working 11 hours a day, seven days a week, “over the course of a year, 500 students could net a school more than a million U.S. dollars in income.”

Often, corporate apologists in industrialized nations will counter that low wages paid to workers in developing nations are justifiable because cost of living is lower. Another study, also in the Alternet report, refutes that claim. Migrant workers at the iFactories in the Shenzhen Province, even with overtime, are paid 47 percent of what city residents earned and amounted to only two-thirds of the living wage calculated by SACOM.

Alternet writer Aryn Gupta also makes the connection that a nation whose political policy endorses low-wage labor is one that also seeks to cut off workers’ voices by choking their unions.

The use of hundreds of thousands of students is one way in which China?s state regulates labor in the interests of Foxconn and Apple. Other measures include banning independent unions and enforcing a household registration system that denies migrants social services and many political rights once they leave their home region, ensuring they can be easily exploited.

Amy Masciola, a union campaign consultant, sends us this.

More than six months ago, American Crystal Sugar Co. locked out more than 1,300 sugar beet workers in the Red River Valley of Minnesota and North Dakota. Two months ago, Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. locked out more than 1,000 workers in Findlay, Ohio. Last week, Caterpillar announced it would shut down a plant in Ontario, just over one month after locking out 500 workers. Rio Tinto Alcan locked out 750 workers in Quebec Jan. 1. HealthBridge locked out 800 nursing home workers in Connecticut in December. As Laura Clawson at the Daily Kos notes, ?For evidence of a war on workers, look no further than the rise of the lockout.?

Steven Greenhouse of The New York Times wrote recently that the number of strikes has dropped precipitously in the past two decades, while lockouts now ?represent a record percentage of the nation?s work stoppages.? Greenhouse quotes professor Gary Chaison of Clark University, who says:

This is a sign of increased employer militancy. Lockouts were once so rare they were almost unheard of. Now, not only are employers increasingly on the offensive and trying to call the shots in bargaining, but they?re backing that up with action?in the form of lockouts.

Unions and our allies are fighting back against this war on workers. Beginning Feb. 22, locked-out workers from American Crystal Sugar Co. and Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. will start a 1,000-mile journey across America?s heartland. They will visit six states in six days, taking part in rallies, fundraisers and other actions with local union members and allies. Locked-out workers will take their message to supporters?and call out the perpetrators of the war on workers.

From Fargo to Findlay: A Journey for Justice is a joint project of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) and the United Steelworkers (USW).

The Journey will begin with a rally in Fargo, N.D., and will make stops in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana, before concluding in Findlay, Ohio. For workers making the Journey, the message is simple: They want to keep their union, and they want to go back to work.

As Paul Woinarowicz, a BCTGM member who has worked for Crystal Sugar for 34 years, told Greenhouse, the lockout was:

just another way of trying to break the union….It was just like a knife stuck in your heart.

The $25 billion foreclosure settlement with five of the nation?s biggest banks, announced this morning by federal and state officials, is a ?step in addressing the housing and foreclosure crisis that plagues our country,? says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

The banks broke the law by railroading homeowners through the foreclosure process. Today?s settlement provides compensation for foreclosure victims without requiring individuals to waive their legal claims. While banks must be made to pay more to help homeowners, the settlement includes needed principal write-downs so homeowners can stay in their homes.

The deal with the five banks settles potential charges against the banks for fraudulent practices, including improper foreclosures by “robo-signing” foreclosure documents. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder says the settlement moves toward ?righting the wrongs that led to our nation?s housing-market collapse and economic crisis.?

The five big banks are Ally/GMAC, Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo. Forty-nine states and the federal government have signed on to the settlement. Oklahoma is the lone holdout state.

Trumka says federal and state officials now need to continue their investigations into the ?full range of illegal bank activities that caused this crisis so we can hold fraudsters accountable for their actions.?

We urge President Obama to provide the federal investigative task force with the resources necessary to address the $750 billion in negative home equity that is the result of illegal conduct by banks.  The 99 percent demand a fair economy and a judicial system that holds the rich and powerful accountable for their illegal behavior.

California was one of the hardest states by the housing crisis and the banks? actions. Art Pulaski, executive secretary-Treasurer of the California Labor Federation says the settlement ?is a critical first step in holding banks accountable for cratering our state?s economy.?

He also offered praise for state Attorney  General Kamal Harris who held out against earlier proposals that we far more lenient on the banks.

In the face of enormous pressure from the banks to let them off with a slap on the wrist, Harris stood firm, ensuring that California families received a measure of justice for the devastation the banks wrought.

Click here for details on the settlement.

Check out this video from the Mine Workers (UMWA) showing coal miners providing the energy that powers America.

We are proud of who we are and what we do. We power America and make a difference for our communities every day. We’re working families?just like yours.

Charles Dickens’s tales have nothing on New Hampshire lawmakers. According to American Progress, the Republican-controlled legislature is proposing to do away with a state regulation requiring employers to give workers time to eat lunch. After all, they argued, employers will do so anyway out of the goodness of their hearts.

Like Walmart maybe? Nope. Back in 2005, Walmart was forced to pay $172 million for denying workers their lunch breaks. California’s Embassy Suites? No, again. California ordered Embassy Suites to pay workers tens of thousands of dollars for forcing them to skip breaks.

Starving workers on the job. What a novel 19th century concept.

As the Dickens’s orphan begged the headmaster, his hands outstretched with an empty bowl:

Please sir, may I have more?

This is a cross-post by Karen Hickey, communications director at the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO.

Working families in southwest Florida are standing in solidarity with Wisconsin workers and protesting Gov. Scott Walker?s (R) visit to Naples. Walker spoke this morning at the Ritz-Carlton resort in Naples, Fla., as part of the James Madison Institute think-tank luncheon.

The protesters in the Sunshine State are shining a light on Walker?s attacks on middle-class families. WZVN, a local news station, is reporting that:

Protesters are lined up to express their disapproval of the embattled governor?at Vanderbilt Beach and Airport Pulling. They say Walker is in town trying to raise money to defeat the recall election he faces in Wisconsin.

The timing is perfect, says Wally Ilczyszyn, president of Florida?s Painters & Allied Trades (IUPAT).

Walker?s at the Ritz-Carlton for a $500-a-plate luncheon because he can?t find enough money in his home state to fight against his recall. So he has to come here.

Brendan Fonock, a Cape Coral Fire Fighters (IAFF) member with Local 2424, explained:

We?re here standing with our brothers and sisters in Wisconsin. Their fight there has recharged unions across the country and we?re letting those (in power) know that we?re looking out for the middle class and that we will not be silent to take away our rights to collectively bargain.

With six straight months of job loss and an unfulfilled promise to create 250,000 new jobs for the state, Walker has plenty of work to do right here in Wisconsin. But this week alone the governor will be in Florida and in Washington, D.C.  These trips provide Walker an opportunity to fundraise with deep-pocketed, out-of-state individuals in an attempt to drown out the voices of the people of Wisconsin in the upcoming recall election.

Last week, American Airlines announced plans to eliminate the jobs of 13,000 workers and dump pension plans for nearly 90,000 workers pensions as part of its bankruptcy plan.

You can show you support for American Airlines employees by going to www.isupportamericanjobs.com and pledging to support the workers by telling public officials, the news media and community leaders that employees at American Airlines and regional carrier American Eagle and all workers dependent on these airlines must be treated fairly.

In the day since the pledge has been posted more than 10,000 people have signed. Click here add your name.

Transport Workers (TWU) President James Little?about 9,000 TWU members work at American?says the ?plan is wrong for American and wrong for America.?

The same management team that took hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses while the airline was losing money now wants workers to pay a high price for their mistakes.

Read more from Little here.