Jan-Feb, 2011
- The Republican Shakedown
- Union Busting: The Real Call from the Koch Brothers
- Shock Doctrine, U.S.A.
- Today in Madison, I saw my America
- Look for the Union Lable
- Wisconsin Power Play
- Divide and Conquer
- Petrochem Claiming Building Trades Work
- Eat the Future
- Buyer's Remorse for Business Leader Who Spearheaded RTW Effort in Louisiana
- Aggressive Attacks on Unions Begin
The Republican Shakedown
Posted February 26, 2011
Robert Reich in Huffington Post
You can't fight something with nothing. But as long as Democrats refuse to talk about the almost unprecedented buildup of income, wealth, and power at the top -- and the refusal of the super-rich to pay their fair share of the nation's bills -- Republicans will convince people it's all about government and unions.
Republicans claim to have a mandate from voters for the showdowns and shutdowns they're launching. Governors say they're not against unions but voters have told them to cut costs, and unions are in the way. House Republicans say they're not seeking a government shutdown but standing on principle. "Republicans' goal is to cut spending and reduce the size of government," says House leader John Boehner, "not to shut it down." But if a shutdown is necessary to achieve the goal, so be it.
The Republican message is bloated government is responsible for the lousy economy that most people continue to experience. Cut the bloat and jobs and wages will return.
Nothing could be further from the truth, but for some reason Obama and the Democrats aren't responding with the truth. Read the source story here.
Union Busting: The Real Call from the Koch Brothers
Posted 02/25/2011
Huffington Post
This week, Americans for Prosperity -- a right-wing political powerhouse funded by the billionaire Koch brothers -- started running anti-union TV ads in Wisconsin. The ads allege that Wisconsin's public workers, protesting Gov. Scott Walker's attempt to dismantle their right to unionize, "walked off their jobs, abandoning our children." The ads ask, "Who decides Wisconsin's future? Voters or government unions?" Unsurprisingly, the TV spots don't go into detail about who paid for them -- viewers might be less likely to trust faux-populist rhetoric if they knew it came straight from the mouth of a corporate front group run by a pair of billionaires.
The story of the year since Citizens United v. FEC may be perfectly crystallized in the fight that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is waging against his state's public employee unions. Organizations like Americans for Prosperity spent millions of dollars in 2010 running misleading ads bashing health care reform, progressives, immigrants, and American Muslims in order to elect politicians who would stand up for the interests of big business. Now those interests are working hard, and spending a little extra money, to make sure they collect on their investments.
The real story behind the protests in Wisconsin has little to do, as Gov. Walker would have you believe, with a state-level push for fiscal responsibility. It has everything to do with the changing dynamics of money and influence in national politics. Pro-corporate politicians have never liked the power wielded by unionized workers. Last year, in Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court handed them the tools do to something about it, paving the way for a wave of corporate money that helped to sweep pro-corporate politicians into power in November. Citizens United also increased the power of labor unions, but union spending was still no match for money pouring into elections from corporate interests. As Rachel Maddow has pointed out, of the top 10 outside spenders in the 2010 elections, 7 were right-wing groups and 3 were labor unions. Gov. Walker's attempt to obliterate Wisconsin's public employee unions, if it succeeds, could be the first of many attempts across the country to permanently wipe out what are the strongest political opponents of the newly empowered corporate force in American politics.
Citizens United alone did not win the 2010 elections for Republicans. But the money it let loose helped ensure that those swept to power by widespread voter dissatisfaction would be eager to pander to the interests of corporations and the wealthy, and to demonize those who oppose them. Instrumental in this movement were David and Charles Koch, the manufacturers behind Americans for Prosperity and central organizers in the movement to create a government more concerned with corporate profits. Americans for Prosperity, freed by the new rules governing corporate spending and unencumbered by financial disclosure requirements, spent millions of dollars on federal races in 2010, including over $350,000 in Wisconsin congressional races. Koch-backed groups were even implicated in a "voter caging" scheme to suppress the turnout of progressive voters in the state.
Koch Industries, through other means, was also directly involved in the election of Walker. The company's political action committee was the fourth largest contributor to his campaign, contributing $43,000, nearly the maximum amount allowed. It also contributed $1 million to the Republican Governor's Association, which in turn spent millions on ads attacking Walker's opponent. These kinds of direct and indirect contributions to candidates were legal under Wisconsin's campaign finance rules even before Citizens United. But they illustrate the enormous stake that corporations like Koch have in who controls state governments--and the amounts they are willing to spend to elect sympathetic candidates. And, as the recent prank call to Walker shows, that money buys more than a sympathetic candidate. It buys the ultimate access. Read the entire source story here.
Shock Doctrine, U.S.A.
Posted 02/25/2011
Paul Krugman in the NewYork Times
[...] In recent weeks, Madison has been the scene of large demonstrations against the governor's budget bill, which would deny collective-bargaining rights to public-sector workers. Gov. Scott Walker claims that he needs to pass his bill to deal with the state's fiscal problems. But his attack on unions has nothing to do with the budget. In fact, those unions have already indicated their willingness to make substantial financial concessions — an offer the governor has rejected.
What's happening in Wisconsin is, instead, a power grab — an attempt to exploit the fiscal crisis to destroy the last major counterweight to the political power of corporations and the wealthy. And the power grab goes beyond union-busting. The bill in question is 144 pages long, and there are some extraordinary things hidden deep inside.
For example, the bill includes language that would allow officials appointed by the governor to make sweeping cuts in health coverage for low-income families without having to go through the normal legislative process.
And then there's this: "Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the department may sell any state-owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state. Notwithstanding ss. 196.49 and 196.80, no approval or certification of the public service commission is necessary for a public utility to purchase, or contract for the operation of, such a plant, and any such purchase is considered to be in the public interest and to comply with the criteria for certification of a project under s. 196.49 (3) (b)."
What's that about? The state of Wisconsin owns a number of plants supplying heating, cooling, and electricity to state-run facilities (like the University of Wisconsin). The language in the budget bill would, in effect, let the governor privatize any or all of these facilities at whim. Not only that, he could sell them, without taking bids, to anyone he chooses. And note that any such sale would, by definition, be "considered to be in the public interest."
If this sounds to you like a perfect setup for cronyism and profiteering — remember those missing billions in Iraq? — you're not alone. Indeed, there are enough suspicious minds out there that Koch Industries, owned by the billionaire brothers who are playing such a large role in Mr. Walker's anti-union push, felt compelled to issue a denial that it's interested in purchasing any of those power plants. Are you reassured? Read more here.
Today in Madison, I saw my America
Daily Kos
Most of us were raised with a certain vision of this country as a place of community, justice, and mutual support. We were taught that a laborer's job was as honorable as a teacher's, which was in turn as honorable as a scientist's. We were taught that the strength of this nation was our ability to utilize our very diversity for a common good. Most of us lose faith in that vision as we grow up, and I'm no different. Today, on my tenth day at the Wisconsin State Capitol, I saw a glimpse of it, and it both energized and humbled me. I saw the muscle-and-blood reality of "e pluribus unum," and it was beautiful.
[...] As I made my way around the Capitol, the procession of firefighters was moving around the square. The streets weren't closed today. The streets weren't closed until the firefighters and cops wanted them. A mass of people a city block long moved through the streets, with two squad cars slowly creeping behind them for protection. Traffic stopped, and their chants echoed around downtown. When the procession reached the corner of the open entrance, they turned en masse and began processing into the Capitol. Those of us outside quickly gravitated to either side of the entrance they were about to use.
That's when it happened. I saw my America march by me. First the firefighters, then the cops, the prison guards, steelworkers, sheet metal workers, nurses, all of them walking by and cheering. Blue collar, white collar, it didn't matter. All of these people just saying, "We're in this together, and we're right to be." Later in the procession were contingents from some smaller unions. I was bowled over when I saw representation from the two major unions of my field - Actors' Equity and IATSE (Theatrical Stagehands). In a very real way, I was in that procession, too.
I was so profoundly moved by what I saw that the tears come again as I type this. That was the America I was told about. I had given up on it. Maybe it actually is possible. Maybe we don't have to resign ourselves to the well-funded madness that is invading our discourse. Read the entire source story here.
Look for the Union Label
William River Pitt, Truthout.org
[...] Governor Walker of Wisconsin got up on his hind legs on Monday and blasted public-sector unions for being wasteful. He made it very clear that he intends to continue his push to abolish collective bargaining in his state, which basically means he intends to abolish unions in his state. The polls are not with him, the people are not with him, and a number of Republicans in the legislature look to be going soft on the whole deal, but don't tell Walker that. He thinks he's going to get his way on this, so he can be the big conservative hero, the one who abolished unions, thus setting a trend to be followed in more than a dozen other states.
This is what I know about public-sector employees. This is what I know about unions.
In February of 1978, a snowstorm roared across New England, went out to sea, gained strength, turned back inland, and then stalled. It was for all intents and purposes a hurricane, complete with eye and sustained winds over 100 miles per hour. When it was all over, the Blizzard of '78 dumped several feet of snow, and paralyzed the region for a week. More than 50 people died. My mother worked for the city we lived in, and was put in charge of plowing out the streets and homes that had been buried. She and the plow guys disappeared into that maw for a week, got the snow cleared, and saved lives. Her work, and the work of the guys running the plows, made all the difference.
That's what public-sector employees do.
That's what unions do.
Four years ago, my wife and I arrived at a hospital to receive a diagnosis. My wife had been experiencing numbness and tremors in her right hand, and when the doctor told her she had Multiple Sclerosis, she collapsed into terrified tears. A nurse comforted her, and a social worker sat her down to talk things over. They told my wife about her options, about where she could go and what she could do to deal with this disease, and they were wonderful. Twenty minutes after finding out something horrifying and utterly life-changing, my wife was laughing through her tears and immensely comforted, thanks to the efforts of those two people.
That's what public-sector employees do.
That's what unions do.
When I was in public high school, I had the same English teacher two years in a row. His name was Brainerd Phillipson, and he was quite possibly out of his mind. He flew around the room like a dervish, and brought to life even the most brutally dull assignments we were required to read. Mr. Phillipson is solely responsible for the life-long love of reading I have enjoyed. He is the reason I became a teacher, and the reason I became a writer. Those two years in his classroom set the course of my life.
That's what public-sector employees do.
That's what unions do.
On a bright Tuesday morning nearly ten years ago, two commercial airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City. Thousands died. As people fled in terror from the fire and violence, police officers and firefighters and EMTs charged into the burning buildings to try and save as many as possible. When the Towers collapsed in fire and dust, those heroic rescuers were lost. At the time, I am certain that Gov. Walker had many fine things to say about those who gave their lives to save others.
That's what public-sector employees do, Governor.
That's what unions do.
In a perfect world, public-sector union employees would not be scapegoated for the ills of state budgets. They would not be called lazy or wasteful. They would not be asked to give up their rights after already having given up so much.
In a perfect world, the bankers and Wall Street wizards would be handed a bill for all the damage they have done, be required to pony up in order to salvage the economic calamity they created, and would spend some time in jail for the crimes they committed.
In a perfect world, the two disastrous wars George W. Bush and his cronies threw us into would never have happened. All those lives would never have been lost. The hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars spent to no avail would never have been so profligately wasted...and if those wars did happen, in a perfect world the perpetrators would also be billed, and jailed, for stealing from us all.
But, of course, this is not a perfect world. The bankers and Wall Streeters stole from us, the Bush administration and their "defense" industry friends stole from us, to the tune of trillions of dollars. If you want to know why we are in this economic crisis, why state budgets are falling short all across the country, why millions are without work, look no further for the reason. To date, none of these people have been called to account for what they have done. Instead, we hear about the "wasteful" nature of public employment.
It isn't a perfect world, so Republican frauds like Walker get to blame everything on unions and public-sector employees instead of their own unutterably flawed and false policies. Trickle-down supply-side pro-war idiocy is to blame for our current condition. Period. End of file.
When you are in a car accident, or a fire, or are sick, or get robbed, or are buried in snow, or lost, or need help in any way, you won't have to look far to find the union label. It will be there to save you, to comfort you, to dig you out, to make you smile, and to save your life.
Remember that.
Wisconsin Power Play
Paul Krugman in the NY Times: [...] You don’t have to love unions, you don’t have to believe that their policy positions are always right, to recognize that they’re among the few influential players in our political system representing the interests of middle- and working-class Americans, as opposed to the wealthy. Indeed, if America has become more oligarchic and less democratic over the last 30 years — which it has — that’s to an important extent due to the decline of private-sector unions.
And now Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to get rid of public-sector unions, too.
There’s a bitter irony here. The fiscal crisis in Wisconsin, as in other states, was largely caused by the increasing power of America’s oligarchy. After all, it was superwealthy players, not the general public, who pushed for financial deregulation and thereby set the stage for the economic crisis of 2008-9, a crisis whose aftermath is the main reason for the current budget crunch. And now the political right is trying to exploit that very crisis, using it to remove one of the few remaining checks on oligarchic influence.
So will the attack on unions succeed? I don’t know. But anyone who cares about retaining government of the people by the people should hope that it doesn’t. Read the rest of the story.
Divide and Conquer
By Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa
Published in the Detroit News on February 9, 2011
The 19th century robber baron Jay Gould once said, “I can hire half the working class to shoot the other half.”
Gould’s vision of class warfare is being played out today in the shameful attacks on public employees. These attacks are secretly financed and planned by modern-day Jay Goulds who aim to keep their own taxes low. Vastly powerful corporations and billionaires want to cripple all unions and turn America into a low-wage banana republic.
They’re succeeding. Across the country, new governors and new legislatures are demanding
cuts to jobs, pensions and concessions from public employee unions. Their demands are nothing more than payback for the billions of dollars that the ultra-rich have poured into political campaigns.
Scapegoating public employees has almost become a sport. In New York City, a city councilman accused sanitation workers of a deliberate slowdown in removing snow during the Christmas blizzard. It turned out that slow snow removal was actually caused by the layoffs of 400 workers and the failure to call a snow emergency quickly enough. (That’s why actress Julianna Margulies thanked the Teamsters for digging out New York in her acceptance speech for a SAG award.)
In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich wants to ban collective bargaining for public employee unions and get rid of the prevailing wage. In Wisconsin, Scott Walker suggests banishing unions for government workers. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he won cooperation from unions because he threatened "to take a bat out and hit you.”
Christie’s threat isn’t funny to anyone who remembers the Memphis sanitation strike in 1968. All the workers wanted was to earn above-starvation wages and to be respected as human beings. Peaceful workers were gassed, dragged, arrested and threatened by armed National Guardsmen in tanks. Only after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis while supporting the workers’ struggle did city officials come to their senses and recognize Local 1733 of AFSCME as the bargaining representative for the sanitation workers.
Just think where those workers would be today without a union.
It’s time for a reality check. Government employees did not blow a hole in any state budgets, including Michigan. Economist Dean Baker points out that shortfalls were almost entirely caused by the recession. “If revenue had increased in step with normal growth (2.4 percent real growth, plus inflation), state and local governments would have had an additional $290 billion since the start of the downturn,” Baker notes.
Public employees didn’t create a huge housing bubble. Wall Street did that. And public employees didn’t cause the Great Recession through reckless speculation. Wall Street did that too.
State governments didn’t get $3 trillion dollars in loans from the Federal Reserve and profit from those loans by relending them. Again, that was Wall Street.
It’s also important to remember, as economist Robert Reich points out, that the typical public employee’s pension is only $19,000 a year.
These attacks on working families and government workers are nothing more than divide-and-conquer tactics aimed at weakening or eliminating all unions. I hope my brothers and sisters in private-sector unions don’t fall for them. Because after they’ve finished with government workers, they’ll be coming after you, too.
Petrochem Claiming Building Trades Work
Union Brothers and Sisters,
Petrochem now claims the work of many Building Trades. I would like
everyone
to take a look at Petrochems website at
http://www.petrocheminc.com/Services.aspx.
Does Petrochem's scope of work look like the jurisdiction of
'Steelworkers?'
What happens when one of our employer's leaves the Building Trades and
signs
with the USW and is on the job the next day( flying the Washington State
Labor Council, AFL-CIO banner) paying half the wages and benefits?
Petrochem is doing that NOW!
Please contact the WSLC,AFL-CIO at 1 800 542-0904 and ask them why
USW/Petrochem is bidding, securing and working Washington State
Building
Trades Bargained Work. Our out-of-work members have the RIGHT to know!
Thank You
Monty Anderson
Business Manager
IAHFIAW Local 7
Seattle/Tacoma Wa.
Eat The Future
On Friday, House Republicans unveiled their proposal for immediate cuts in federal spending. Uncharacteristically, they failed to accompany the release with a catchy slogan. So I'd like to propose one: Eat the Future.
I'll explain in a minute. First, let's talk about the dilemma the G.O.P. faces.
Republican leaders like to claim that the midterms gave them a mandate for sharp cuts in government spending. Some of us believe that the elections were less about spending than they were about persistent high unemployment, but whatever. The key point to understand is that while many voters say that they want lower spending, press the issue a bit further and it turns out that they only want to cut spending on other people.
That's the lesson from a new survey by the Pew Research Center, in which Americans were asked whether they favored higher or lower spending in a variety of areas. It turns out that they want more, not less, spending on most things, including education and Medicare. They're evenly divided about spending on aid to the unemployed and — surprise — defense.
The only thing they clearly want to cut is foreign aid, which most Americans believe, wrongly, accounts for a large share of the federal budget.
Pew also asked people how they would like to see states close their budget deficits. Do they favor cuts in either education or health care, the main expenses states face? No. Do they favor tax increases? No. The only deficit-reduction measure with significant support was cuts in public-employee pensions — and even there the public was evenly divided.
The moral is clear. Republicans don't have a mandate to cut spending; they have a mandate to repeal the laws of arithmetic. Read the rest of this story here.
Buyer's Remorse for Business Leader Who Spearheaded RTW Effort in Louisiana
Here's some powerful ammunition to use against those who advocate for "right to work" laws - or for repeal of prevailing wage laws and/or prohibitions on public sector project labor agreements.
The article might be 10 years old, but the message still resonates today. And it's a stark reminder of what frequently occurs when a "race to the bottom" mentality infiltrates our society and our culture. It is also a cautionary tale for those elected officials who aggressively seek to correct our financial imbalances not upon the backs and balance sheets of those who caused them in the first place, but upon the backs of working American families. The lesson for them is: "think, before you legislate."
State's Construction Workers Underpaid, Business Expert Says
LABI founder: Scene sets stage for unions
BATON ROUGE -- Edward Steimel, who spearheaded passage of Louisiana's "right to work" law in the 1970s, now says that "the pendulum has swung too far" and construction workers in the state are underpaid.
Steimel, who battled organized labor to win passage of the 1976 law that grants employees the right to choose whether to join unions, said in a news release that, "What the shortsighted industries are doing is creating a climate for a return of unions. Unions are a very normal and proper response when workers are provided unfair wages, benefits and working conditions."
The founder and former president of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, or LABI, Steimel retired from that post several years ago and is now director of development in the College of Engineering at Louisiana State University. Before organizing LABI, Steimel was president of the Public Affairs Research Council for many years.
"A look at the construction craftsmen's wage rates in Louisiana for the year 2000 compared to wage rates in Michigan, New Jersey and Illinois show a bleak story for Louisiana workers," Steimel said. "It also explains why so many workers are leaving their families here in search of higher pay elsewhere."
He cited U.S. Department of Labor figures showing that construction wages in Louisiana in 2000 averaged $17.10 per hour, compared with New Jersey at $29.50, Michigan at $27.82 and Illinois at $22.97. In Texas, he said, the average construction wage is $20.25 an hour.
The figures show actual construction wages in New Orleans and Baton Rouge have steadily fallen behind the Consumer Price Index over the past 20 years, he said. Construction wages in 1982 averaged about $12 an hour, growing to the current $17-plus. "If they had kept pace with the CPI," he said, "the rate would now be $22 an hour, or $5 an hour more."
When skilled workers leave the state in search of higher pay, he said, "This is terrible economics for Louisiana. Huge dollars are being spent on craft training in apprenticeship programs and in vocational schools and community colleges, and we are losing many of our best-trained workers to northern and eastern states."
What happens, he explained, is that most companies, which in past years did their construction maintenance work in-house, now contract out the jobs. To win the contracts, he said, contractors are "forced to pay wages below what they would normally pay."
"Many plant managers, unlike decades ago, now move after a few years and apparently do not want to have records of higher than usual construction costs on their watch," Steimel said. "The result is to squeeze the wages of construction workers."
Another problem, Steimel said, is that Louisiana chemical and refinery workers average $31.06 and $32.50 an hour, respectively. When construction workers work alongside higher paid chemical and refinery workers, he said, "the construction workers don't understand why the plant pays its own workers substantially more than they earn even though their skill levels are comparable."
"Unrest among workers over wages and benefits has long been one of the greatest reasons they resort to unions," Steimel said. "It appears such a condition is virtually at hand in Louisiana. I hope Louisiana does not find the labor-management conditions deteriorating to the level it was in the late 1960s."
Aggressive Attacks on Unions Begin
So much for the spirit of bipartisanship and civility that prevailed at the session's opening. Now that bills are being introduced, it's clear that some legislators blame unions, not Wall Street, for what ails the nation's economy. And they plan to fix it (us, that is):
- SB 5347 -- "Right-to-Work" -- Discouraging unions by banning union-security clauses. Sponsors: Sens. Dan Swecker (R-Rochester), Jim Honeyford (R-Sunnyside) and Mike Hewitt (R-Walla Walla).
- SB 5349 -- Bans collective bargaining for state employees -- Sponsors: Sens. Honeyford, Swecker, Hewitt and Bob Morton (R-Kettle Falls).
- SB 5345 -- Blocks bargaining over the contracting out of state services -- Sponsors: Sens. Swecker, Honeyford, Hewitt and Doug Erickson (R-Ferndale).
That's just a taste; there are more. These bills have little chance of passage in the Democratic-controlled Legislature, but they offer a glimpse of what our state might look like if anti-union Republicans took control -- and a glimpse of the right-wing extremism that's alienating voters and keeping them in the minority.