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"The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people." Cesar Chavez |
:: Wednesday, December 31, 2003 ::
:: happy new year ::
here is a final quote to end the year on - attributed to my long-time friend from pittsburgh and published today in santa cruz:
Say what? Quotes from 2003 that made us angry, made us laugh and made us go, ‘Hmm ...’
santacruzsentinel staff report
"He really wasn’t much of a singer. He just learned tunes so that if there was a stool in the room, he could act like he was the evening’s entertainment until it was safe to talk union."
— Labor folk singer ANNE FEENEY said about her grandfather, legendary mine worker, union organizer and singer WILLIAM PATRICK FEENEY.------------------------------------------- posted 10:17 PM :: reference link ::
0 comments ::
Discrimination Against Women Editorial By Molly Ivins, Intellivu
A report by United for a Fair Economy, 'Shifting Fortunes: The Perils of the Growing American Wealth Gap,' takes an even broader view of economic inequities, concentrating particularly on the middle class. Those who are neither in the top 10 percent nor the bottom 10 percent in income have been the big losers during the last 25 years. Their wealth and earnings as a share of the total wealth and earnings in the United States are falling.
What is more disturbing, writes economist Lester Thurow, is that their wealth and earnings have been falling absolutely in inflation-corrected dollars. They have less than they used to have, despite an economy that has dramatically increased the per capita gross domestic product. 'Put simply and bluntly, the great American middle class has become a non-participant in the American dream.'
America's passive work force By Bob Herbert
An executive at Microsoft, the ultimate American success story, told his department heads last year to ''Think India,'' and to ''pick something to move offshore today.''
These matters should be among the hottest topics of our national conversation. We've already witnessed the carnage in manufacturing jobs. Now, with white-collar jobs at stake, we've got executives at IBM and Microsoft exchanging high-fives at the prospect of getting ''two heads for the price of one'' in India.
''If you take this to its logical extreme, the implications for the entire middle-class wage structure in the United States are terrifying,'' said Thea Lee, an economist with the AFL-CIO. ''Now is the time to start thinking about policy solutions.''-------------------------------------------
New Census File Tracks the Nation's Occupations Where Workers Work and Live U.S. Newswire
The Census 2000 file contains data on the number of people employed in nearly 500 occupations, from actors to veterinarians. Data cover gender, race, ethnicity, education, age, industry and earnings. In addition, users may find where workers live, where they work and how many who work in one place live somewhere else.-------------------------------------------
President of IWA Fraser Valley quits national post By Bruce Constantineau, Vancouver Sun
Ghag's Resignation Sends up Red Flags Instead of Hope ufcw Members for Democracy
Sonny Ghag, controversial President of IWA Local 3567 has resigned from his post as a Vice President of IWA Canada.
In an apologetic letter to IWA Canada President Dave Haggard, Ghag acknowledged that he embarrassed the union in a recent incident where he angrily denounced members of another IWA local as 'scabs' and stated that he will be consulting with members of Local 3567's Executive Board to decide whether he will stay on a President of the Local.
The IWA has been mired in controversy for months, since the B.C. Hospital Employees Union accused the 55,000 member biz union of raiding its members and facilitating provincial government privatization plans.-------------------------------------------
Hard Time on the Killing Floor - Inside Big Meat By Jeffrey St. Clair
All is not right at the IBP Inc. plant in Pasco, Washington, one of the nation's biggest slaugherhouses.
Workers say that IBP doesn't give them adequate breaks and cheats them out of pay for the 30 minutes a day it takes to put on and remove the protective clothing, glasses and gloves they must wear to work the cutting line. According to union shop steward Maria Martinez, many workers are often denied bathroom breaks, forcing them to urinate in their pants so they won't fall behind.-------------------------------------------
Freewheeling 'bloggers' are rewriting rules of journalism By Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY
Bloggers get their name from Web logs, a new form of publication on the internet. A blog is a cross between an online diary and a cybermagazine, aggressively updated to draw readers back. Just a few years ago, blogs were relatively rare. Now there are millions. They're devoted to every topic imaginable, from knitting to dating to homelessness. But those who have had the most impact write about politics.-------------------------------------------
:: Tuesday, December 30, 2003 ::Court of Appeal: Worker’s Conversations With Union Representative Not Privileged By a MetNews Staff Writer
There is no evidentiary privilege in California for communications between a union member and a union representative, the Court of Appeal for this district ruled yesterday.
Div. Eight granted a writ of mandate directing that a representative of Local 564 of the Transport Workers Union be compelled to disclose the substance of conversations with a former aircraft mechanic who claims he was wrongfully terminated by American Airlines.
Justice Laurence Rubin, writing for the Court of Appeal, cited Evidence Code Sec. 911, which precludes recognition of an evidentiary privilege “[e]xcept as otherwise provided by statute.” While the creation of a union representative-union member privilege may be supported by public policies favoring effective union representation and the right to bargain collectively, the justice said, those arguments are appropriately addressed to the Legislature.-------------------------------------------
FBI urges police to watch for people carrying almanacs By TED BRIDIS, AP
The FBI is warning police nationwide to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular reference books covering everything from abbreviations to weather trends could be used for terrorist planning.
In a bulletin sent Christmas Eve to about 18,000 police organizations, the FBI said terrorists may use almanacs 'to assist with target selection and pre-operational planning.'
It urged officers to watch during searches, traffic stops and other investigations for anyone carrying almanacs, especially if the books are annotated in suspicious ways.
The Osama Farmer's Almanac BuzzFlash Reader Satire
No wonder the FBI is so worried. We wouldn't want the terrorists showing anyone those nude pictures of Ashcroft. Ewww. Now that's biological terrorism at its worst!
-------------------------------------------
Worker Killed by 'Classic Employee Misconduct.' By Jordan Barab, Confined Space
I've already written about the trench collapse death of William Steadman, 37, who died in a trench collapse on Dec. 15. I noted then that this was an example of 'blame the worker' theory of occupational safety.
'We told him not to climb into that trench.'
'We told him not to climb down into that sump.'
'We told him not to stick his head in that machine to clean it out.'
In this case, the attorney representing Steadman's employer claims that
'None of them were told, 'You go down and dig that trench.' ... Nobody was forced or coerced into doing it. That's not how this company works.'
This means, according to Washington D.C. employer attorney Baruch Fellner*,
depending on the circumstances, the employer could be free of blame. It is, Fellner said, the 'classic employee misconduct defense.'-------------------------------------------
U.S. misses deadline on repeal of tariff law By Mark Drajem, Bloomberg News
The United States missed a Saturday deadline from the World Trade Organization (WTO) to repeal a law that gives millions of dollars in tariff revenue to companies, exposing the U.S. to sanctions from the European Union, Canada and Japan.
Because of duties on Canadian softwood, International Paper, Temple-Inland and Potlatch are among U.S. timber companies that stand to gain at least $800 million from preservation of the Byrd amendment.
"This establishes a very strong lobby for the flow of the money to continue," said Calman Cohen, president of the Emergency Committee for American Trade, an association for U.S. exporters including Caterpillar and Maytag that favor repeal of the law.-------------------------------------------
Building a better future By Larry Pyn, Vancouver Sun
By all accounts, the construction industry is entering a period of strong growth: housing starts, a shortage of skilled labour exacerbated by looming retirements, and the prospect of major construction projects such as the 2010 Olympics.
The Building and Construction Trades Council has a B.C. membership of 35,000 tradesmen and women in 14 unions representing 35 per cent of non-residential construction. One of its bulletins estimates 7,850 openings for carpenters in the 10-year period to 2008; 3,180 for electricians; 2,540 for plasterers and drywallers; 2,480 for plumbers; 1,800 for painters and decorators.-------------------------------------------
4,000 apply for Sept. 11 compensation By DEVLIN BARRETT, AP
Most of the recent rush of injury claims appear to be for respiratory problems resulting from working on the pile of asbestos-contaminated World Trade Center wreckage immediately after the attacks.-------------------------------------------
:: Monday, December 29, 2003 ::Smucker named top place to work By Candace Goforth, Akron Beacon Journal
At a time when the word "corporation'' elicits images of scandal and greed, there must be something appealing about a gingham-wrapped, jelly-scented company that operates under the golden rule.
Fortune magazine, citing small-town values and simple kindness, has named Orrville's J.M. Smucker Co. the best place to work in the country.
Smucker, known worldwide for its jams and jellies, is the first manufacturing company to achieve the distinction.
"I think maybe the Norman Rockwell factor and mid-America values are a little more back in favor now in this era when business seems to be getting the black eye,'' said Richard Smucker, who runs the company with his brother, Tim. "I think people are just looking for those tried-and-true values.''
"It isn't unusual to see Tim and Richard walk through the plant and talk to employees,'' said Kevin Wyler, secretary-treasurer for Teamsters Local 510, which represents 435 plant workers. "It is unusual in a company Smucker's size for employees to be so personally acquainted with the co-CEOs of the company. Smucker has always had a core belief in people.''
The J.M. Smucker Company Tops FORTUNE's List of '100 Best Companies to Work For' Press Release-------------------------------------------
Spokane-Idaho-Montana Carpenters Get A Raw Deal local98.com Spokane carpenters union
How do you retire on $250.00 per month?
What do you do after working 25 years as a Union Carpenter when you learn that your retirement benefit is $250.00 per month? That's right, 25 years of often back-breaking work building schools for education, bridges to improve our infrastructure and courts and jails for the community, and you are then rewarded with a pension of $250.00 per month. That is what every UBC member belonging to the Washington, Idaho, Montana Carpenters-Employers Retirement Trust can now expect from their union.
The recent reduction of pension benefits in the Spokane area violates everything the United Brotherhood of Carpenters stands for and is an unfathomable act. Even Wal-Mart employees accumulate greater pensions than UBC members in Eastern Washington, Idaho and Montana.
It was P.J. Mcguire who founded the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and first coined the phrase "Educate - Agitate - Organize". It is in his spirit of brotherhood and solidarity that Spokane, Eastern Washington, Idaho and Montana Union Carpenters are urged to switch their books out of the jurisdiction of the Eastern Washington Trust and avail themselves of the increased benefits under another Trust. No one should work 10 years of their life for a hundred bucks a month retirement...not even a RAT!-------------------------------------------
REACHING THE UNORGANIZED By Harry Kelber
A New Game Plan For Union Organizing (8)
This is the last of eight articles on union organizing.
More than 40 million unorganized workers would like to join a union, we’re told, but apparently they feel it’s too risky. Wouldn’t it be great if we could unionize even five million?
But where are they? What industries and occupations do they represent? How do we reach them to talk over their problems and convince them to join?
Fortunately, we have a golden opportunity to build a huge data base of unorganized workers. In this election year, we’ll have tens of thousands of union volunteers holding one-on-one conversations with workers on their jobs and in their homes. They should be able to find out how unorganized workers feel about unions and come up with a list that can be used in organizing campaigns.
And why not ask each of the AFL-CIO’s 13 million members if they know of any unorganized workers among their friends, relatives, neighbors and shopmates?
The hard part will be knowing how to use those lists to win organizing campaigns.-------------------------------------------
NAFTA - Free Trade Deal Dismal After a Decade by Emad Mekay
NAFTA was also promoted as a route to good jobs and improved living conditions, especially via maquiladoras, companies that are permitted to operate duty-free in nations that provide them with cheap labor -- in the NAFTA case, U.S. firms setting up in Mexico.
'Instead, we got low wages, sexual harassment, environmental destruction and birth defects,' said Marth Ojeda, director of the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, herself a maquiladora worker.-------------------------------------------
Treated lumber in for changes By KATHY JUMPER
Use of arsenic in process will be banned after end of year; industry predicts much-higher prices.
Fact Sheet: Chromated Copper Arsenate (CCA) -Treated Wood Used in Playground Equipment U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
There are a number of non-arsenic containing preservatives that have been registered by EPA to pressure-treat wood for consumer applications. ACQ (ammonium copper quaternary) and copper boron azole (CBA) are common ones. Some wood treated with these preservatives is already available at retail outlets such as home improvement stores. In addition, playground equipment made of other non-arsenic containing components is also available (e.g. woods such as cedar and redwood and non-wood alternatives such as metals and plastics).
Facts about Pressure Treated Wood Canadian Institute of Treated Wood
As of December 31, 2003, wood treaters will no longer use CCA to treat wood intended for non-industrial uses such as play structures, decks, picnic tables, landscaping timbers, residential fencing, patios, walkways and boardwalks. Remaining stocks of wood treated prior to December 31, 2003 can still be sold in stores and be used for residential construction in Canada. This is a voluntary transition designed to reduce the amount of arsenic released in the environment by replacing it with a new generation of wood preservatives.
Pressure-Treated Wood: The Next Generation by Daniel S. Morrison, Fine Homebuilding
The EPA is banning CCA lumber. The replacements are safer, but they may change how you build a deck.
Nearly 40 million lb. of arsenic is used in this country every year, and most of it goes into the pressure-treated wood that we use to build decks and playgrounds. But that all changes Jan. 1, 2004. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is banning chromated copper arsenate (CCA) as a preservative for wood intended for residential use (except for the lumber that is used in permanent wood foundations). CCA-treated lumber will still be available for industrial and agricultural use, however.-------------------------------------------
New law makes it easier for workers to file suits By Eve Mitchell, Oakland Tribune
EMPLOYERS are bracing for a new law that will make it easier for workers to sue companies over wage disputes, overtime pay and working conditions.
Senate Bill 796 makes it possible for workers to take their employer directly to court over alleged labor law violations under the jurisdiction of the state Labor Code, instead of first filing a complaint with the state Labor Commissioner.
The law is supported by the Oakland-based California Labor Federation AFL-CIO and several other unions. It is opposed by the California Chamber of Commerce and business groups.-------------------------------------------
:: Sunday, December 28, 2003 ::Heavy dues for unions By ALan Lupo, Boston Globe
Labor says management is aggressively going after workers who try to unionize the workplace, that 25 percent of the nation's employers have fired at least one worker for union organizing activity, and that 75 percent of employers have hired consultants or 'union-busters' to combat organizing efforts. Only 13.5 percent of the nation's 245 million workers belong to unions, down from 20 percent in 1983, but labor contends that small percentage of membership would jump to 47 percent if workers could choose freely.-------------------------------------------
High-Wage America By Robert Kuttner, TAP
This Prospect special report has demonstrated that America is needlessly generating a disproportionate number of low-wage jobs, and that other paths are possible.
Unions. As several articles in this special section vividly show, unions can be forces not just for better wages and working conditions but for skills training and career paths. The resulting wage premium, often, is more than offset by the reduced turnover and increased worker productivity. The viability of unions, in turn, is the product of worker and employer attitudes, of laws protecting the right to organize, and of the competitive environment of the firm and the industry. A Las Vegas hotel can't relocate to Bangalore. Increased labor costs of paying a living wage are passed along to tourists. Organize the whole town and the unionized hotel suffers no competitive disadvantage. On the contrary, the union hotel's better trained, paid and motivated staff attracts customers. Las Vegas is thus fertile soil for organizing. Even so, the success there took extraordinary leadership, strategy and mobilization. Similar strategies have been pursued by the Service Employees International Union, whose Justice for Janitors campaign seeks to organize the entire local building-cleaning industry and then raise wages across the board.-------------------------------------------
Blame Canada! Blame Canada! blog posted by metaphorge
'Wellsir, that thar cow they found last week with the BSE, you know, that Mad Cow shit, well, it came from them Canadians! Yeah, them pinko commies with lax food safety, totally unlike the perfect system we have in place here in the good old US of A....'
I wonder if there is such a thing as Mad Scapegoat Disease?
==============
From: kitsunekaboom December 28th, 2003 - 03:10 am
How much else are we, as a country, going to blame Canada for? (Personally I don't even believe in Canada. I think it is either made up by Yeti's to really fuck with American's heads, or made up by the US government to pawn its problems off on.)-------------------------------------------
Labor unions, Wal-Mart wage war of words By David Benda
"If anybody in Southern California isn't attributing this strike to the threat of Wal-Mart, they have their head in the sand," said Darin Ferguson, the Local 588 representative for the UFCW in Redding.
Analysts say grocery strike worth it if it cuts labor costs By James F. Peltz, Los Angeles Times
When talks aimed at settling the Southern and Central California grocery strike resume, the supermarkets' negotiators will have a staunch, if invisible, ally at the bargaining table: Wall Street stock analysts. Throughout the bitter labor dispute, many analysts have supported the supermarkets' effort to win wage-and-benefits savings from their union employees, even though the dispute could cost the chains $1 billion or more in combined lost sales.-------------------------------------------
Time may be right for solar By TRACEY L. REGAN
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers has embraced the job-intensive solar industry with gusto.
The IBEW's Local 269 recently built massive solar walls outside its offices on Whitehead Road in Lawrence, in part for the power but also as an advertisement.
'It really works well,' said Charles Marciante, Local 269's business manager, of the union's new panels, which he said 'tilt and angle' to absorb the maximum amount of sunlight as the seasons change. 'It's expensive, but it works.'-------------------------------------------
Images of the Year In Construction McGraw-Hill Construction | ENR
This Year in Construction / Photo Contest 2003-------------------------------------------
Just plain weird: A look back at the area's oddest new stories of 2003 By Kit Kadlec
An arthritic goose, a bank robber with poor handwriting and a carpenter union representative turned animal rights activist. These were the main characters in some of the area's weirdest stories of 2003.
Man cleared after calling policeman 'asshole' Ananova
New York City - Snitch Up To His Old Tricks By Sean Gardiner
But the story on which Huffman pegged his hopes this time was a doozy even for a man who once promised to lead prosecutors to the body of vanished labor union chief Jimmy Hoffa if they'd cut his jail time.-------------------------------------------
Tongass roads lead to nowhere The Seattle Times: Editorial
Competition in the raw-material market is hurting Alaska as well. Russia and China are huge suppliers of logs. Alaska also competes with British Columbia and Lower 48 states for the U.S. domestic market.
Selling old-growth trees for the price of alder is no boon to the treasury. Despite all of Alaska's natural bounty, timber has not been a major source of Alaskan employment in the modern era, the state concluded.
If U.S. taxpayers are going to send money to Alaska, more people might be put to work for a greater return if the investment is made in tourism, recreation and commercial fishing.
Paying to build and maintain more roads to cut more trees no one wants is suspect public policy.-------------------------------------------
:: Saturday, December 27, 2003 ::Lawyer says worker was told to stay out of trench By Jonathan D. Silver, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Washington, D.C., attorney and OSHA expert Baruch Fellner said depending on the circumstances, the employer could be free of blame. It is, Fellner said, the 'classic employee misconduct defense.'
In other words, Fellner said, if an employee decided to disobey the explicit instruction of an employer, the employee could essentially be responsible for his own misfortune, even if the employer did not follow every OSHA regulation.
OSHA report: Victim of fall loosened safety gear By Matt O'Brien
Both the worker's 'lanyard hooks were secured to the harness, indicating that the victim had unhooked himself and attached ends of lanyards to himself prior to falling,' according to the OSHA report.
Examination Finds OSHA 'Reluctant' to Seek Prosecution BLR/HRNext
In the last 20 years, OSHA has declined to seek prosecution in 93 percent of the cases involving willful safety violations that resulted in worker deaths, according to an examination by the New York Times.
The newspaper examined OSHA's records covering the period of 1982 to 2002 and found an agency 'reluctant' to refer cases of willful violators of workplace health and safety rules to federal and state prosecutors. The newspaper discovered 1,242 instances when OSHA determined that workers died because the employer had willfully violated safety rules.-------------------------------------------
EPA on right track at Lake Roosevelt The Seattle Times: Editorial
Three cheers for an exasperated Environmental Protection Agency, which has lost patience with a Canadian mining and smelting company that polluted Lake Roosevelt for generations.
After a year of failed negotiations, and plenty of corporate stalling before that, the EPA has ordered Teck Cominco Metals Ltd. to study a century of contamination on the upper Columbia River.-------------------------------------------
Older workers are valuable workers Montreal Gazette
A generation ago, there was a certain economic logic to mandatory retirement, from a social-engineering point of view. Youth unemployment was very high because the massive baby-boom cohort was so large; forcing older workers to leave the workforce opened up jobs for younger (and lower-paid) workers.
But that 'problem,' such as it was, doesn't exist anymore. With declining birth rates, low unemployment rates across the board, a worsening skills shortage and 300,000 job positions in Quebec alone expected to go vacant because of retirement over the next three years, Canada is going to need to start looking at ways of keeping older workers on the job.-------------------------------------------
She was fired from Wal-Mart for "insubordination." By Adam Fifield, philly.com
DiIenno said the district manager would not tell her why she was there, so she said she'd rather stand. " 'Tell me why I'm in here so I can decide if I have to get somebody else in here,' " DiIenno said. "He said, 'Why are you being insubordinate?' I said, 'I'm not being insubordinate for refusing to sit down.' He pushed the door shut and said, 'You're not leaving until you sit down.' "
DiIenno opened the door and left, saying she had to finish her job. At that, the manager yelled: "You don't have a job."-------------------------------------------
Which Side Won the Ferry Strike By Paul Ramsey, TheTyee
David Hahn, the American brought in to run the newly privatized BC Ferry Services Corporation, must be wondering what happened to the sailing orders the government gave him. Those orders contemplated a drastic reshaping of ferry operations; and the target of many changes was the scurvy crew of unionized workers. That rabble needed a touch of the lash, and Mr. Hahn was hired to wield the cat-o-nine-tails.-------------------------------------------
:: Friday, December 26, 2003 ::Alaska's first ice hotel set to open By Stanton H. Patty
Construction of the Aurora Ice Hotel at Chena Hot Springs Resort, 60 miles north of Fairbanks and by most accounts the first of its kind in the United States, was frozen Nov. 21 by order of the Alaska State Fire Marshal's Office because of possible building-code violations — inadequate fire protection, for one.-------------------------------------------
Worker safety groups demand OSHA file charges in Tropicana garage collapse By MADELAINE VITALE
"OSHA has ignored these requests and not moved forward, to make this a priority," Joel Shufro, executive director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, or NYCOSH, said Wednesday. "OSHA is supposed to be an enforcement agency, a watchdog group - not a lap dog. It isn't an agency employers can fear. Unfortunately they get away with murder."-------------------------------------------
Boeing: Putting Out The Labor Fires BusinessWeek Online
What Stonecipher didn't tell the assembled 3,000 Boeing Co. employees was that 10 days earlier, he had quietly approached the chief of the company's biggest and feistiest union, the International Association of Machinists, to offer an olive branch. At that meeting, Stonecipher not only told Machinists President R. Thomas Buffenbarger that Boeing would build the plane in Everett, he went much further -- offering to work hand in hand with the unions to end decades of bitter labor relations that have sunk employee morale to an all-time low.-------------------------------------------
Christian labour union takes root in the oilpatch Gordon Jaremko, The Edmonton Journal
Instead of religion, the union's name refers to principles or values that western European immigrants, who founded CLAC following the Second World War, brought with them to Canada, Vanderlaan said.
The CLAC cornerstones are: freedom of association including worker rights to stay out of unions, belief that a workplace is a community rather than a war zone, 'co-determination' sharing of responsibilities with management and dignity or respect for all roles.-------------------------------------------
ONE BRIDGE, MANY HANDS: Ironworkers foreman favors heavy metal in work, music By ROB CARSON
"It's like flying a 27-ton kite," he said.
SIDEBAR: Men of steel
Number of ironworkers working on bridge: 18
Ironworkers' nickname: 'Cowboys of the sky'
Journeyman ironworker's wage: $28.57 an hour
Full name of ironworkers' union: International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers Local 86
Ironworker slang for work harder: 'Get up on it'
Slang for an ironworker specializing in rebar: 'Rodbuster'
Slang for falling: 'Going in the hole'
Height at which ironworkers in Washington State must wear a full body safety harness: 6 feet-------------------------------------------
:: Thursday, December 25, 2003 ::Women in charge By AMY HORTON
A sister for the brotherhood 'It's not for every man,' Harriet Smith says of her chosen profession, 'and it's not for every woman.'
On Dec. 9, 2002, Mrs. Smith officially broke the ranks of a long-standing 'brotherhood' when she was appointed business representative for the Carpenters, Millwrights and Piledrivers Local No. 865, a Brunswick-based union with some 400 members from a 21-county area of South Georgia who work throughout the state, across the country and as far afield as Puerto Rico.
Ten of those members are women.-------------------------------------------
Bush Policy to Allow More Logging in Alaska Forest Reuters
"This is obviously a Christmas present from the Bush administration to the timber industry, which wants the right to clearcut in America's greatest temperate rainforest."-------------------------------------------
Huron Christmas Carol (various versions, languages)
JESOUS AHATONHIA - 'Twas in the Moon of Winter Time
'Twas in the moon of winter time,
When all the birds had fled,
That mighty Gitchi Manitou
Sent angel choirs instead;
Before their light the stars grew dim,
And wond'ring hunters heard the hymn:
Jesus your king is born!
Jesus is born: "In excelsis gloria!"
Huron carol launches family business By Randy Boswell, CanWest News
Song setting birth of Jesus in New World written in 1640s
Religion can be trouble in workplace By PAMELA REEVES
While the Christmas season is definitely a time for many of us to take stock of our religious beliefs, it is also a time to remember that those beliefs are personal. The workplace is simply not a pulpit.
Herewith, in the spirit of true patriot love and Yule cheer, a selective list of Canada's gifts to Christmas: By Tony Atherton, Ottawa Citizen-------------------------------------------
How To Give The Last-Minute Gift of Blog By Biz Stone
Okay, it's officially the last minute and you forgot to get your sister's roommate a gift. You're going to their holiday party tonight and you can't show up empty handed. What do you do? Fear not gentle bloggers, you'll have a great gift. The gift of blog.-------------------------------------------
:: Wednesday, December 24, 2003 ::Canada Landsat Mosaic Image EOSD
The most northerly regions of Canada are truncated from this mosaic because Landsat’s orbit does not extend above 81 degrees North Latitude. The mosaic extends well into the United States.-------------------------------------------
Why Do the Unemployed Remain Invisible? By Harry Kelber
LaborTalk for December 24, 2003
Why Do the Unemployed Remain Invisible?
How Can the Labor Movement Help Them?
Even though the federal government admits that there are some nine million workers who are unemployed, that has caused very little public indignation. Nor has the fact that more than two million have been unable to find a job for more than 27 months evoked a national outcry that Congress and the Bush administration do something about their plight.
It is easy to forget that those statistics represent human beings, because the unemployed remain almost completely invisible. We don't see them or hear them. They don't act mad at their former employers for depriving them of a livelihood. They don't demonstrate against Congress or the White House that have denied them even temporary assistance.
The docility of the nation's unemployed is strange, because American workers are known for sticking up for their rights. Apparently, they don't blame their employers for the layoffs. It's the free enterprise system that's at fault, they're told, and how is a jobless worker to fight the system?
In many countries around the world, especially in Europe, even threats of layoffs are greeted with mass protests, work stoppages and sit-ins. Americans, who will get into a fist-fight over a parking spot or a bar argument over a baseball score, don't raise hell when they are told they're terminated from a job they may have held ten, twenty or even thirty years.
The jobless are rarely in the news, and the AFL-CIO, who should be their biggest defenders, use their plight only as talking points to attack the Bush administration. Maybe if we knew more about how unemployed workers feel, we'd be more sensitive to their needs.-------------------------------------------
Underground Empire By Tom Robbins, Village Voice
With Bloomberg's deputy mayor Daniel Doctoroff at his side, Walentas broke ground on December 1 as members of the carpenters', laborers', teamsters', and other construction unions hooted, jeered, and displayed a 12-foot-tall inflated gray rubber rat.
'We bid the different trades and then used the best people we could get, at the lowest cost,' the dapper developer told the Daily News' Hugh Son at the groundbreaking. 'It's the American way.'
'It's hardly the American way to exploit people like this,' countered Anthony Pugliese, an organizer for the District Council of Carpenters who has led a series of protests at the site. 'What he's doing is taking advantage of his workers. And he's not doing it because he doesn't have the money, but in order to make more.'-------------------------------------------
Producers importing cheap wood from Russia John Greenwood, Financial Post
The Russian wood is high quality and it's rapidly winning fans in Canada and the United States. But the practice only adds to a growing glut of lumber that has kept prices low even though the United States is in the midst of a record housing boom.
It's not something the forest companies like to publicize, and for good reason. Georgia-Pacific of Atlanta, for instance, was a founding member of the U.S. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports, a powerful U.S. lobby that has long railed against the threat to the U.S. industry of low-priced Canadian lumber.
Indeed, the Coalition played a key role in triggering punishing U.S. duties on Canadian softwood. Georgia Pacific confirmed it does import lumber but declined to say how much. Ditto for Weyerhaeuser.-------------------------------------------
Prosecutor on crusade to end farm deaths in California By David Barstow, New York Times
It happened at the Aguiar-Faria & Sons dairy, a sprawling farm of some 1,700 cows operated by one of Gustine's leading families. Two dairy workers, illegal immigrants from Mexico, drowned in a deep, dark sump hole filled with manure and wastewater. The coroner's report succinctly cataloged their struggles in life and in death: Between them, they had eight pennies and one dime in their pockets; their lungs, however, were packed with bovine excrement.-------------------------------------------
Even Labor Unions Can Gain from Free Trade By Tamara Kay, YaleGlobal
While NAFTA did not generate relationships among all North American unions, its effects on many unions were profound. Even the AFL-CIO - dubbed the AFL-CIA by progressive Mexican unionists during the Cold War - began to work with independent Mexican unions when its Mexican counterpart, the Congress of Mexican Workers, refused to oppose NAFTA. As one AFL-CIO official explained, "De facto in this process, solidarity links have been built and strengthened. And there's no question that due to this struggle over NAFTA, we have more working relations with the Mexican labor movement and with the Canadians with regard to Mexico than ever before."-------------------------------------------
Lenny Bruce posthumously pardoned By Hugh Bronstein
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Thirty-seven years after he died of a drug overdose, pioneering comedian Lenny Bruce has been pardoned for a 1964 obscenity conviction over a raunchy, irreverent monologue at a New York nightclub.
New York Governor George Pataki, issuing what his office said on Tuesday was the first posthumous pardon in the state's history, said his action symbolised New York's commitment to Americans' constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech.-------------------------------------------
:: Tuesday, December 23, 2003 ::Do you have 'a card,' $$, for your garbage man? By Carla Anderson, Urban Warrior
THE CITY Streets Department garbage truck was rumbling down our Center City street when we were startled by the house-rattling knocks on our front door.
'Yes?' I answered, worried there was some kind of emergency. It was the garbage man.
'We need a Christmas card for the boys in the truck,' he said, giving a jaunty nod toward the truck that his co-workers were, at that very moment, dumping our household garbage into.
It took about half a second to figure out what he wanted.-------------------------------------------
U.S. Rarely Seeks Charges for Deaths in Workplace By David Barstow, New York Times
Every one of their deaths was a potential crime. Workers decapitated on assembly lines, shredded in machinery, burned beyond recognition, electrocuted, buried alive all of them killed, investigators concluded, because their employers willfully violated workplace safety laws.
These deaths represent the very worst in the American workplace, acts of intentional wrongdoing or plain indifference that kill about 100 workers each year. They were not accidents. They happened because a boss removed a safety device to speed up production, or because a company ignored explicit safety warnings, or because a worker was denied proper protective gear.
And for years, in news releases and Congressional testimony, senior officials at the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration have described these cases as intolerable outrages, "horror stories" that demanded the agency's strongest response. They have repeatedly pledged to press wherever possible for criminal charges against those responsible.
These promises have not been kept.-------------------------------------------
NEGOTIATING A FIRST CONTRACT By Harry Kelber
A New Game Plan For Union Organizing (7)
This is the seventh of eight articles on union organizing.
Now that they are full-fledged union members working under a negotiated contract, the workers will still have a great deal to do to protect what they've won. They should be on guard against attempts by the employer and his supervisors to undermine important provisions of the contract and bad-mouth the union and its officers.
The union has to prove not only that it can win a decent contract, but that it can enforce it. Shop stewards must be chosen who are well-informed, articulate and won't be intimidated by management. Grievances must not be allowed to pile up and fester. Workers must feel confident that their stewards are handling their complaints in a satisfactory manner.
Newly-elected officers must ensure that management respects the authority of the union and treats them with respect. They must strengthen the bonds of solidarity among their members by treating them equally and fairly, including those who originally had opposed the union. When workers speak with one voice on issues that matter, management will have to listen.
Through their long, continuing struggle, workers should come to realize that in their workplace, they are the union.-------------------------------------------
Magazine finds many new homes are plagued with problems by Robyn Friedman
According to the magazine, the cause of the boom in defects is a combination of builders' trying to keep costs down, tough energy efficiency regulations that make homes more complicated to build and the building boom that has caused a shortage of qualified laborers.-------------------------------------------
Plumbers pipe up enthusiastically about apprenticeship program By LAURA POLLAND
The Plumbers and Fitters Local Union 41 in Great Falls offers classroom instruction for apprentices 27 Saturdays a year. Topics include a heritage program, math and science, building and plumbing code, isometric drawing and drafting and care of tools. There are eight apprentices in the program.
'The industry has changed quite a bit,' said John Pejko, business agent with Local 41. 'It never stops.' The union also offers continuing education for licensed plumbers.
Nonunion apprentices turn to out-of-state courses. Waldenberg said that many Montanans who go to North Dakota for training end up staying there. Even with correspondence courses, resources are going out of the state, he added. Last year, around 400 Montana apprentices in various fields ordered some 990 courses from North Dakota because they were not available in Montana.-------------------------------------------
Canada home to hardest workers by Kathryn May
The study is the the first to examine how Canada's workplaces stack up against the U.S. and European Union on four key measures of job quality -- work-life conflict; health and well-being, skills development, career and employment security.
Canada tops the list for working the hardest, with nearly 17 per cent reporting they work at 'high speed' all the time. The worrisome finding, however, is that one-third of working Canadians feel their health is at risk because of their job. American workers are close behind in pace and intensity and fare only slightly better on the health front, with 28 per cent feeling their work is affecting their health.-------------------------------------------
:: Monday, December 22, 2003 ::COMMENT: Time to close gender wage gap BY MARIE C. WILSON, Freep
Forty years after the Equal Pay Act of 1963, a new government report reveals we're moving backward on wage equality. Studying the years from 1983 through 2000, the nonpartisan congressional General Accounting Office found that the gender wage gap had gotten worse in the 1990s and today is at a historic high.
American women earn an appalling 44 percent less than men.-------------------------------------------
You done killed my boy!' By Jordan Barab, Confined Space
Read the linked articles, A Trench Caves In; a Young Worker Is Dead. Is It a Crime?, and U.S. Rarely Seeks Charges for Deaths in Workplace by David Barstow, author of last January's excellent series on the McWane corporation in the NY Times.
The first article is a story of a young man, Patrick Walters, killed in an uprotected 10-foot deep trench, only a couple of weeks after OSHA had cited the same company for sending workers into unprotected 15-foot deep trench. It's the story of OSHA refusing to issue a willful citation despite proof that the hazards were well known to the company, and finally the story of a federal workplace safety agency that wouldn't even refer this case to the Justice Department for possible criminal investigation.
Where Barstow's McWane series may have left the impression that McWane was a uniquely bad actor, the devastation caused by the death of Patrick Walters in a collapsed trench is clearly only one of many similar preventable tragedies -- in unprotected trenches and elsewhere -- that are all too common in this country, yet are hardly reported or noticed by anyone except the families or co-workers of the dead.-------------------------------------------
Construction Sector Council recruiting aboriginals to fill ironworker shortage CBC News
The Construction Sector Council has launched a two-year initiative to address the shortage of skilled ironworkers in Canada and provide jobs for aboriginal youth.
'It's a win-win situation,' says Robert Blakely, one of the CSC co-chairmen and director of Canadian affairs for the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO union.
'The program addresses the expected shortage of skilled ironworkers while providing the opportunity for young aboriginal men and women to learn a trade they can be proud of and where they earn a good wage.'-------------------------------------------
Modern-Day Slavery Palm Beach Post 3 part series
Slavery is not just the shameful stuff of history books - not in Florida
For nine months, The Palm Beach Post explored the roots of modern-day slavery. Reporters and photographers traveled to destitute Mexican villages, crossed the desert with a smuggler, rode across the U.S. with illegal immigrants, found new claims of slavery, uncovered rampant Social Security fraud, and found that Florida's famous orange juice comes with hidden costs.-------------------------------------------
JEWEL OF AN MTA $CANDAL By LAURA ITALIANO
Figliolia overcharged the MTA for both labor and parts for a total of six maintenance and repair jobs between 1999 and 2002, contracts totaling $18 million in business and located throughout the metropolitan area, officials said. For instance, he hired unskilled recent immigrants, and even newly released convicts, for $8 an hour, then charged the MTA the prevailing union wage for plumbers of anywhere from $65 to $135 an hour.
He would also charge the MTA hundreds of dollars for parts that cost him a tiny fraction of that. The MTA paid Figliolia $123 each for a part called a 'thread-o-let.' Figliolia's cost? $4.70.
The MTA paid Figliolia $337.86 each for a part called a '21/2-by-41/2 brass nipple.' Figliolia's cost? $23.65. Sometimes the markup was as high as 5,000 percent, prosecutors said.
Greensboro - Housing headaches By STAN SWOFFORD
Hester and others wonder whether the holes have anything to do with the construction debris that washes up in their yards. Hester, who bought her house in early 1999 for $71,500, often finds boards, wire and bricks in her back yard after a rain. Sometimes a black and brown, 'rotten-smelling' liquid bubbles up. Ireland and other homeowners, including Robin Wright at 814 Carrieland, have found what they describe as 'layer after layer' of construction debris -- mainly Sheetrock or other drywall material -- buried in their yards.
Wright wonders whether the rotting debris could make the ground unstable, causing the houses to become unsettled and leading to the frequent cracks in ceilings and walls. The house next door at 812 Carrieland is separating from its front porch, and there are large cracks in its outside walls.
Something was rotten in Hamilton Township By KEITH ROYSDON
The Star Press has learned that the now-defunct Midwest Contractors - whose principals were Todd LaCosse and his father, Thomas - left a trail of unfinished sewer projects and angry government officials in the upper midwest. The elder LaCosse served prison time for drug- and fraud-related convictions and was released from prison a little more than a year before the Hamilton Township sewer contract was awarded.-------------------------------------------
WTO backs Canada in softwood dispute By Allan Swift, CANADIAN PRESS
In an interim report, a WTO panel found that the U.S. International Trade Commission "did not follow international trade rules" when it determined last May that Canadian softwood lumber exports threaten to injure the U.S. industry.
WTO Decision Against U.S. on Softwood Lumber Duties Another Blow To Protectionists; U.S. Should End Tax on Canadian Lumber ACAH/PRNewswire
Consumers pay the price of protectionism that benefits U.S. lumber producers
American Consumers for Affordable Homes (ACAH) said that today's decision by the World Trade Organization (WTO) rejected the U.S. government's conclusion that Canadian softwood lumber imports posed a 'threat of injury' to the domestic lumber industry. While the decision is supposed to be confidential until February, the contents were leaked.-------------------------------------------
Pyramid of Capitalist System IWW poster, copyright 1911-------------------------------------------
:: Sunday, December 21, 2003 ::Bush, Hoffa at odds, union boss says By TOM WALSH, freep.com
'There is a growing storm against trade with China and India, and this guy doesn't get it,' says International Brotherhood of Teamsters President James P. Hoffa of his one-time pal, President George W. Bush.-------------------------------------------
"Organize, Agitate, Educate" posted by "licatsplit", ufcw MfD OpenForum
I become a little nostalgic at times and I enjoy looking back on how moments and people in history were instrumental in molding our social structures. Being a building tradesman myself, I guess I'm naturally lured to the history of the early tradesmen. One such person, which stands out in my mind, was awarded the title of 'Father of Labor Day' He was a carpenter and his name was Peter J. McGuire. His first experience in activism was in 1872 in the fight for the eight hour day. What is amazing is the fact there is still a fight going on today for the return of the eight hour day as the norm! Even John Sweeney wrote about the need to return to the eight hour day and forty hour work week. The IWW also has a good article concerning this issue over the eight hour day and forced overtime. It's ironic that after all the sacrifices made by workers in the past to give us the eight hour day and the forty hour week, we must continue to fight just to maintain what they accomplished!-------------------------------------------
When Workers Die: A Trench Caves In; a Young Worker Is Dead. Is It a Crime? By DAVID BARSTOW, The New York Times
CINCINNATI — As the autopsy confirmed, death did not come right away for Patrick M. Walters. On June 14, 2002, while working on a sewer pipe in a trench 10 feet deep, he was buried alive under a rush of collapsing muck and mud. A husky plumber's apprentice, barely 22 years old, Mr. Walters clawed for the surface. Sludge filled his throat. Thousands of pounds of dirt pressed on his chest, squeezing and squeezing until he could not draw another breath.-------------------------------------------
Unions agree to unpaid day off BY FRAN SPIELMAN, Chicago SunTimes
Eight thousand city employees who bargain collectively as members of the building and construction trades have agreed to take one unpaid furlough day during the first quarter of next year to save the jobs of hundreds of their union brethren.-------------------------------------------
Judge: I saw police commit felonies By AMY DRISCOLL
Two citizens' panels plan to hold a joint meeting Jan. 15 to hear comments and complaints about police conduct during the FTAA, and both Miami-Dade and Miami police are conducting internal reviews. Amnesty International, the AFL-CIO and the United Steelworkers of America all have called for independent probes.-------------------------------------------
Would-be Rouge buyers gather for auction By Sarah Karush, AP
The winner must reach a collective bargaining agreement with the United Auto Workers, which represents most of Rouge's 2,600 employees.
Severstal already has been negotiating with the UAW. It filed a notice with the Wilmington court on Wednesday saying it had reached an agreement in principle with the union. No details were given.
The union said earlier it supports Severstal's bid because the Russian company intends to keep the steel-making facility fully operational. U.S. Steel is believed to have an interest primarily in Rouge's finishing assets.
Collecting steel stories a labor of love By Virginia Terhune
Andre Anderson, a member of United Steelworkers of America, worked in a Bethlehem Steel blast furnace at Sparrows Point until the company went bankrupt. He now works for ISG, which bought the plant.
Ed Bartee Sr., an African-American retiree from Bethlehem Steel, recounts his efforts to integrate the bathrooms at the Sparrows Point plant after World War II.
Edie Papadakis talks about her first day as the only woman in the all-male maintenance department at the mill.
Their memories, both good and bad, form part of a collection of videotaped interviews now preserved on the Internet, thanks to the efforts of a Dundalk college instructor.
'I've always been fascinated by oral histories and the stories people tell about their experiences,' said Bill Barry, director of the labor studies program at the Community College of Baltimore County-Dundalk.-------------------------------------------
Governor cuts labor institute funding By Andy Furillo
Union leaders decry the action, but business leaders see the UC institution as no friend of theirs.
As part of his unilateral budget-cutting action this week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger eliminated funding for what had been the intellectual driving force behind the burgeoning labor movement in California.-------------------------------------------
Talks in L.A. Grocery Strike Break Down By ALEX VEIGA
Teamsters President James P. Hoffa also issued a statement saying, 'The Teamsters will continue to honor picket lines at the retail outlets because our members know that the UFCW's fight is our fight.'-------------------------------------------
Election 2004 ‘Full-Tilt Boogie’ in Iowa By David Moberg
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean swept through Iowa in early December. The crowd gathered to hear him at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers’ (IBEW) union hall was divided between the curious and the committed. These well-organized union members are likely to play an outsized role in the January 19 caucuses, which in turn are likely to play an outsized role in selecting the Democratic presidential nominee. Though they disagree—with surprisingly little rancor—on who would make the best Democratic candidate, all agree with IBEW official Brian Heins that any Democratic aspirant would be “1,000 percent better than Bush.-------------------------------------------
REAGAN UNION BUSTING S.O.B. BUTTON / PIN eBay item 3646488879 (Ends Dec-21-03 16:38:14 PST)
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:: Saturday, December 20, 2003 ::SPARE A THOUGHT FOR WORKERS Isle of Man Online
'There's a mixed picture for Christmas workers,' said Mr Moffatt. 'Public sector workers tend to have very formalised terms and conditions and those allow for enhanced payments for Christmas working.
'But also, more importantly, they ensure that people do get Christmases off or there's a work/leave balance which ensures that people required to work Christmas are not required to work New Year or other holidays.'
'The private sector's much more unclear. I would say certainly in some of the service sectors there's scope for exploitation of workers at Christmas and, as we all merrily enjoy longer opening hours, we might sometimes dwell on the thought that the people who are required to provide this service for us aren't always properly remunerated.-------------------------------------------
WTO backs Canada in lumber dispute; Trade minister leans on CEOs By ALLAN SWIFT
MONTREAL (CP) - The World Trade Organization is backing Canada in its lumber dispute with the United States, even as Canada's trade minister tried Friday to get the industry to back a bilateral deal.
In an interim report, a WTO panel found that the U.S. International Trade Commission 'did not follow international trade rules' when it determined last May that Canadian softwood lumber exports threaten to injure the U.S. industry.
Independent Producers Oppose Non-Accommodating Lumber Deal PRNewswire
Representatives of Canada's independent lumber and wood products remanufacturing sector from across Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta today announced their opposition to the non-accommodating U.S. proposal for an out of court settlement to the Canada-US softwood lumber trade dispute.-------------------------------------------
Warning signs ignored during Giant strike: expert CBC North
YELLOWKNIFE - A mine safety expert has told the Giant mine civil trial the deaths of nine miners during a strike at the Yellowknife gold mine in 1992 could have been prevented.
Security precuations should have increased as vandalism and violence grew over the strike, says Plummer. Ian Plummer testified that the men's deaths might not have happened if the mine's managers and government safety officials had taken more action as vandalism escalated.-------------------------------------------
The revolution should not be eulogised By Rebecca Blood, The Guardian
"Weblogs are just too varied, too idiosyncratic, to fit into an existing box. Industry analysts might call this disruptive technology because weblogs have changed personal publishing so profoundly that the old rules no longer apply. We are at the beginning of a new age of online publishing - and I predict that this generation of online pamphleteers is just the first wave."
The best of British blogging The Guardian-------------------------------------------
Ferry Scandal Eclipses Strike By Terry Glavin, the Straight
During the week of December 8, we saw the worst disruption to B.C.'s ferry system in a quarter of a century. Now the ferries are running again, but arbitration of the union contract is not where the trouble will end. It's just where it starts, and only idiots will blame the ferry workers' union for any of this.-------------------------------------------
:: Friday, December 19, 2003 ::C.D. Smith faces $80,000 fine in death of worker By Patty Brandl
President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Smith said his company is contesting the citations — and rejecting a proposed settlement of $22,000 — because OSHA does not have regulations pertaining to dismantling scaffolding. The hearing will likely be in January.-------------------------------------------
Deal rewards U.S. protectionist behaviour By PETER HADEKEL
The closer you get to understanding how the United States conducts trade policy, the more you feel like taking a shower. Surely, one of the grubbiest, most offensive parts of the softwood lumber settlement the U.S. seeks to impose on Canada is the financial windfall the American lumber industry would pocket if the deal goes through.-------------------------------------------
Tropicana seeks OK for demolition By WILLIAM H. SOKOLIC
The Tropicana Casino and Resort has asked for permission to demolish the part of the parking garage that collapsed Oct. 30, killing four construction workers and injuring 21 others.
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration has reviewed the demolition plan, said spokeswoman Kate Dugan.
'We will be on site during the demolition,' she said. 'Our inspectors will be gathering information during the demolition."-------------------------------------------
'Miami Model' of FTAA security is lightning rod JIM DEFEDE/COMMENTARY
Richard Trumka is not someone you want as an enemy.
A third-generation coal miner, Trumka was born in a small Pennsylvania coal town. While working the mines he went to law school at night and later led an upstart campaign to take over the mineworkers union. While president, he waged two bitter strikes against the state's largest coal operators.
Today, as secretary-treasurer of the national AFL-CIO, the 54-year-old Trumka is one of the most powerful men in organized labor and has made it his personal mission to settle the score with Miami city leaders and its police force for what happened during the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit last month.
''The American labor movement is committed, and I am personally committed, to see that the brutality we saw never happens again anywhere in this country,'' he said Tuesday during an AFL-CIO meeting to gather testimony from people who say they were abused by the police.-------------------------------------------
Survey wake-up call to respect workers – union Press Release: Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union
News that more than half of New Zealand workers hate their boss is a wake-up call to management, says the country’s largest union.
EPMU national secretary Andrew Little said a survey that showed 54 per cent of workers cited quality of management as the single biggest thing they hated about their job showed that it was time for a change.
“The old nostrum of management-knows-best is long gone,” Mr Little said.-------------------------------------------
Unionists in Quebec mobilize to oppose antilabor legislation BY SYLVIE CHARBIN, The Militant
MONTREAL—The Quebec Liberal government has decided to ram through several antilabor bills before the Quebec National Assembly recesses December 19. In response, tens of thousands of unionists and other working people across the province took to the streets December 11, despite sometimes freezing rain, in what Quebec union leaders billed as a “national day of disruption.”
The actions capped off two weeks of demonstrations and other protests organized by all the main Quebec union federations. Several news commentators here have described the mobilizations as the most important union actions in 30 years, that is, since the general strike that swept the province in June 1972.-------------------------------------------
MacPhail savages IWA leader along with usual villains By Vaughn Palmer, Vancouver Sun
VICTORIA - When the legislature reconvened Tuesday to end the strike in the coastal forest industry, Opposition leader Joy MacPhail wasted no time saying who was behind this latest government interference in collective bargaining.
She pointed the finger at Dave Haggard, national president of IWA Canada.
A surprising choice, given the ties between his union and her political party.-------------------------------------------
:: Thursday, December 18, 2003 ::Firm tied to death fined again by Russ Olivo
WOONSOCKET -- A Warwick plumbing contractor has been fined a second time for repeating the same workplace safety lapses federal regulators say led to the death of worker Walter Gorski in the collapse of a sewer trench outside the Ballou Home for the Aged in February.
Greenwood Plumbing, Heating and Solar, Inc., also known as Mr. Rooter, was fined $140,800 for failing to ensure cave-in protection for workers at a residential sewer project in Cranston on July 2, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Monday.-------------------------------------------
Boehner, Johnson Statement on AFL-CIO Lawsuit Targeting the U.S. Department of Labor for Implementing New Reforms to Enhance Union Financial Transparency Press Release
House Education & the Workforce Committee Chairman John Boehner (R-OH) and Employer-Employee Relations Subcommittee Chairman Sam Johnson (R-TX) today issued the following statement on a lawsuit filed by leaders of the AFL-CIO targeting the U.S. Department of Labor for implementing long-overdue changes to the current LM-2 form that will empower union members with more detailed information about the financial activities of their unions.
“It is a shame that union bosses in DC are so consumed by partisan politics that they're willing to run their union into the ground to wage a political war at the expense of their members,” said Boehner. “With no accountability whatsoever, union leaders have regularly squandered their members’ dues and refused to disclose how they spent this money.”
“The new LM-2 forms are critical because they represent the last line of defense in keeping union leaders honest and accountable to the members they claim to represent,” Boehner added. “The Labor Department should be commended for its efforts to enforce new standards of financial disclosure and transparency so that we can ensure that the democratic rights of working American union members are protected under the law.”
"Leave it to big labor bosses to file frivolous lawsuits that will only harm their rank-and-file members,” said Johnson. “It’s time big labor honchos stopped worrying about their own hides and started caring about the hard-working men and women who make up their membership. It is the same rank-and file members who want, need and deserve these reforms."-------------------------------------------
Send a lump of coal to Wal-Mart in three easy steps!
1. Find out why Wal-Mart deserves a lump of coal this year.
2. Personalize your holiday message to Wal-Mart.
3. Send coal to Wal-Mart.-------------------------------------------
Hazardous Labor by Tom Robbins, The Village Voice
Nothing illustrates just how messy democracy can be like a good old-fashioned internal union fight. And the bitter rift that has erupted within the 2,000-member union representing the city's asbestos removal workers is a prime exhibit.-------------------------------------------
IWA tension boils over as two locals brawl at mill By Gordon Hamilton, Vancouver Sun
The workers, members of the Vancouver local of the Industrial, Wood & Allied Workers of Canada, say they were attacked by more than 100 members of the IWA's Fraser Valley local.
The mob scene at the mill was a dramatic escalation of the coastal forest labour dispute, coming at 10 p.m. Tuesday within minutes of the provincial government passing back-to-work legislation.
It reveals the degree of tension that has built not only between the IWA and forest companies, but within the ranks of the IWA itself.-------------------------------------------
A nation of hypocrites on labor rights By JULIUS GETMAN and F. RAY MARSHALL
The rights of workers to organize, to strike and to bargain collectively are essential attributes of human liberty, recognized as such by treaties, court opinions, papal encyclicals, government officials and every major international rights treaty. One is the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which the United States ratified in 1992 but has done little to implement.
Bush administration officials do not dispute the importance of these rights. They would probably even agree that sustainable growth and political and social stability all require free and democratic labor movements. They claim that worker rights are adequately protected and recognized in the United States. After all, our basic labor statute, the National Labor Relations Act, sets forth that workers have ''the right to self organization, to form, join or assist labor organizations to bargain collectively . . . and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.'' It also makes interfering with these rights an unfair labor practice.-------------------------------------------
Alberta joins Ontario in panning softwood deal while B.C. sits on the fence By AMY CARMICHAEL, CP
Alberta joined Ontario Tuesday in panning a proposal to end the softwood lumber dispute, while B.C. politicians continued to sit on the fence and many worried the deal would die.
"The B.C. government has got to start building consensus among the provinces and getting the players in line," said Gian Sandhu, president of Jackpine Forest Products, one of many small B.C. producers who say without a deal their companies won't survive another year.
But Alberta's Minister of International Relations told the federal government it wants to hold out for a bigger share of the U.S. market than is being offered to Canadian producers under the deal.
Saskatchewan seeks changes to softwood deal CBC
Saskatchewan is joining Ontario and Alberta in seeking changes to a proposed softwood deal with the United States.The province argues the deal is flawed and could devastate Saskatchewan's lumber industry. The biggest problem for smaller lumber producers is the quota being proposed by the United States.-------------------------------------------
:: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 ::EPA Scraps Changes To Clean Water Act By Eric Pianin, Washington Post
The Bush administration yesterday abandoned plans for regulatory changes that would have sharply reduced the number of federally protected streams and wetlands, in response to strong opposition from environmentalists, sportsmen, lawmakers and state officials.
President Bush made the decision after the government received more than 133,000 comments opposing efforts to narrow the Clean Water Act's scope to effectively strip millions of acres of wetlands and waterways from federal protection and leave them vulnerable to being filled in by developers.-------------------------------------------
The Wal-Mart You Don't Know By Charles Fishman, FastCompany
The giant retailer's low prices often come with a high cost. Wal-Mart's relentless pressure can crush the companies it does business with and force them to send jobs overseas. Are we shopping our way straight to the unemployment line?-------------------------------------------
Unions, builder spar over local hiring stats By MATT GRISWOLD
Stan McIntosh, business manager for Plumbers & Pipefitters Local Union 123, located in Dover, a small community in southern Hillsborough County, said his union has sent 40 people to Parrish and not one has been hired.
'I'll be surprised if I ever see them hired. They're just not going to do it,' McIntosh said.
Russell Leggette, an organizer for the Florida Pipe Trades, invited the Herald to take a look at the license plates on cars at the FPL construction site in Parrish.-------------------------------------------
Advice to Improve Union Publications By Harry Kelber
LaborTalk for December 17, 2003
It's inevitable that, like politicians, bankers and corporation executives, some labor leaders will become involved in criminal activities. When a union leader's wrongdoing was very serious and widely publicized, I felt I had to report it, while giving him an opportunity to defend himself in our newspapers. It was important to maintain our credibility with readers.
I applied that principle when then District Attorney Thomas Dewey, later to oppose Harry Truman for president of the United States, prosecuted officers of Hotel and Restaurant Employees Local 302 for shaking down restaurant owners by guaranteeing them 'labor peace.'
I believe that nearly all of today's labor publications made a costly blunder by not reporting the insider stock-trading scandal at the Union Labor Life Insurance Company for an entire year after Business Week and The Wall Street Journal made it public.
The labor scandal was the worst in decades, involving 27 current and retired national labor leaders, in a scheme they all endorsed, that allowed many of them to gain huge profits in buying and selling ULLICO stock at very favorable prices. By covering up the scandal, the labor press lost a lot of credibility with many readers.-------------------------------------------
EPA's Presents for Big Polluters By Christopher Brauchli
Mercury has been identified by the EPA as the "toxic of greatest concern among all the air toxics emitted from power plants". It contributes to neurological disorders and is a particular threat to pregnant women. One has to applaud the EPA's straightforward description of the effects of mercury. Its proposal to ease the rules on its emission into the atmosphere is another matter.
According to a report in the New York Times, the EPA's newest proposal would make the upcoming 'legally mandated mercury regulation fall under a less stringent section of the Clean Air Act that governs pollutants that cause smog and acid rain, which are not toxic to humans.' The EPA estimates that 48 tons of mercury is released into the air each year by power plants.
New Bush-Bashing Website Debuts townhall.com
BushGreenwatch.org, a news-and-information website, debuted on Monday, offering what it called an "expose" on the Bush administration's "conflicting" messages on the dangers of mercury.-------------------------------------------
Labour leaders criticize government intervention By Jeff Rud, Times Colonist
The collective bargaining process in British Columbia is being seriously undermined by a provincial government too eager to intervene in disputes, labour leaders and the opposition charged Monday.
The legislature is reconvening for a special sitting today to push through legislation to end the coastal forest dispute. It's the latest in a string of examples of government wading quickly into fights between employers and employees.
Split appears in IWA ranks By Andrew A. Duffy, Times Colonist
There appears to be a split developing within the ranks of the Industrial Wood and Allied Workers of Canada over the union leadership's handling of the proposed means to end a three-week strike by 10,000 coastal forest workers.
The presidents of two Vancouver Island locals have suggested they were all but blindsided by a decision made by IWA national president Dave Haggard to agree to sit down in mediated talks with Forest Industrial Relations -- the bargaining unit for coastal forest companies -- and if no progress is made, mediator Don Munroe will have the right to impose a decision.-------------------------------------------
BUSINESS WIRE ULLICO's J for Jobs fund and Prudential's Union Mortgage Account have agreed to a strategic alliance to co-invest in first mortgages on projects built by union labor. Each fund will continue to be managed separately by ULLICO and Prudential-------------------------------------------
:: Tuesday, December 16, 2003 ::Officials urge firm to allow union By Kimberly S. Johnson, New Haven Register
Connecticut leaders came out in full force Monday, demanding that Chef Solutions allow workers to unionize.
The company has been at odds with the UAW, which is trying to organize 132 nonmanagement workers.
The protestors waved union flags and signs as speakers amplified their remarks. A giant inflatable rat was also on hand.-------------------------------------------
Mold changes dream house into nightmare By Chris O'Malley
Homeowners, attorneys and home inspectors blame mold on sloppy construction -- particularly involving homes with brick walls.
Some point to the home-building boom that tempted busy builders, desperate for labor, to hire bottom-of-the-barrel masons and other subcontractors. Those crews often failed to allow for a sufficient air gap between brick and the outer wood sheathing. Overwhelmed municipal building inspectors couldn't keep pace with the construction frenzy.
Whether construction quality is worse than ever is debatable. But experts agree that mold-related health problems may be more common today because of tighter, energy-efficient designs that reduce ventilation.-------------------------------------------
United Steelworkers win compensation for Westray survivor USWA / Canada NewsWire
United Steelworkers National Director Lawrence McBrearty announced Monday that the union has won a compensation claim for a former Westray miner who was so disadvantaged that he was forced to pawn the medal he received for his part in the attempt to rescue the 26 miners killed in the 1992 Westray mine explosion.
'The worker, a lifelong miner, had been cut off compensation for post-traumatic stress and had been unable to work,' said McBrearty. 'He was plagued with thoughts about what he saw underground in the rescue attempt.'-------------------------------------------
Decision to Keep 'Injury' Threat to Domestic Lumber Producers 'Wrong'; Consumers Urge NAFTA Panel to Again Reject Harmful Homebuyer Tax ACAH / PRNewswire
Industries that depend on lumber as an input, and that oppose import restrictions, include manufacturers of value-added wood products, lumber dealers, manufactured and on-site home builders, and remodeling contractors and individuals. These industries employ more than 6.5 million workers, 25 to one when compared with those in the forestry industry. ACAH represents more than 95 percent of U.S. lumber consumption.
ITC rules U.S. lumber industry injured by Canadian exports, keeps 27% duties CP-------------------------------------------
International to pay legal costs on constitutional challenge December 2003 On The Level
10-b settlement reached
After several weeks of negotiations with the International’s legal counsel Randall Hordo, the UBCJA has agreed to pay costs of $60,000 to the BC Provincial Council of Carpenters for the court case they lost attempting to seize the council books.
This fall, the BC Provincial Council applied to the courts for its costs and expects to receive the cheque in the very near future.
In Madame Justice Brown’s judgement on the International’s attempt to enforce Section 10B of the UBCJA constitution and take over the Provincial Council books in June of 2000, she characterized General President McCarron’s actions as being in bad faith and the British Columbia membership as being “adamantly opposed to McCarron’s plans for restructuring.” This opposition was clearly reinforced with the recent referendum result of 83 per cent in favour of transferring affiliation to a Canadian body.-------------------------------------------
Teens learn teamwork building homes By Frank Bentayou
Students in school programs have built 10 houses over the years, and all have sold quickly to eager families, generally before they're completed, says Darryl Kleinhenz, who coordinates the 7-year-old program for the city of Akron.
'It's a valuable program for so many reasons,' he says. Students get hands-on experience; a neighborhood gets a solid, new house where there had been a derelict structure or nothing at all; trades get skill training for the next generation of union members; the city gets a tax boost; a family gets a home.-------------------------------------------
Effectiveness Of Fireproofing Used In Trade Center Questioned wnbc.com/AP
A federal investigation into the causes of the World Trade Center collapse has reportedly called into question the effectiveness of the buildings' fireproofing.
The investigation's findings could lead builders in New York City and nationwide to re-examine how similar fireproofing is applied in other buildings.-------------------------------------------
Burglar steals entire kitchen from house Ananova UK
A burglar has been jailed after stealing an entire kitchen, including the sink, from an unoccupied house and installing it in his own home.
Patrick Corby used power tools to strip £30,000 worth of property from the house over a number of days, including the fitted kitchen, freezer and fridge, a dresser and carpets.-------------------------------------------
We Finally Got Our Frankenstein By Michael Moore-------------------------------------------
:: Monday, December 15, 2003 ::Welding Rods Linked to Early Onset of Parkinson's disease; Pennsylvania Men Sue Manufacturers PR Newswire, SOURCE Roda & Nast, P.C.
A 2001 study performed by the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that welders who participated in the study developed Parkinson's disease an average of 15 years earlier than non-welders who developed Parkinson's disease.
The complaint alleges that exposure to the toxins in welding fumes, including high levels of Manganese, can damage the central nervous system and cause neurological problems. Other disorders caused by the toxins in welding fumes include manganese poisoning, and Manganism, according to the complaint.-------------------------------------------
A HELPING HAND: LABOR UNIONS PLAY BIG ROLE IN STOCKING AREA FOOD PANTRIES By ANDREA KAMPWERTH
The member unions that make up Southern Illinois Central Labor Council and are participating in the food drive are: AFSCME Council 31 in Springfield, Carpenters Local 638 in Marion, IBEW Local 172 in West Frankfort, IBT Local 347 in West Frankfort, IFT (Teamsters) in Centralia, IUOE Local 318 in Marion, Laborers in Cairo, Machinists in Percy, Plumbers Local 551 in West Frankfort, SEIU in Springfield, Sheet Metal Local 268 in Caseyville, UFCW Local 881 in Marion and Unite in St. Louis.-------------------------------------------
Racism in Temp Agencies NathanNewman.org
Just to emphasize what should be accepted, but continues to be disputed by those who oppose affirmative action and hiring goals, racism in the workplace is persistent and overwhelming. Just check out this new study by the Impact Fund. A summary from BNA Labor Report (no link):
The study that sent specially trained pairs of black and white job applicants to temporary employment agencies in Los Angeles and San Francisco found a 'significant preference' for white applicants over slightly higher qualified African Americans...
The agencies favored white applicants by a ratio of 4-to-1 in Los Angeles and more than 2-to-1 in San Francisco.
As examples, it said a white applicant was granted an interview, while the black counterpart was not; a white applicant was offered a job with a higher salary or for a higher duration; and a white applicant was the only one to be offered coaching or suggestions for resume improvement.-------------------------------------------
Pipe Company Charged With Environmental, Workplace Abuses ABC News/AP
Federal authorities on Monday accused a pipe manufacturer and five of its managers of fouling the environment and maintaining a workplace so dangerous that a worker died and many others were maimed.
The criminal charges against Atlantic States Cast Iron Pipe Co. were announced by the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey following the arrest of four of the managers at the company's plant in Phillipsburg. The fifth was expected to surrender before the group's first court appearance, scheduled for 1 p.m. Eastern time in the federal courthouse in Trenton.
'This company has a notorious history of wanton pollution of our environment, evading detection at all costs, and ruling the workplace through fear and intimidation of employees, all of which is alleged in this indictment,' U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie said.-------------------------------------------
Despite rejection, softwood deal still possible By Gordon Hamilton, Vancouver Sun
Producers won't have to wait long for the next step in the dispute -- a North American Free Trade Agreement ruling that is expected to come down today.
A NAFTA panel is expected to rule on a determination by the U.S. International Trade Agency that Canadian lumber imports had injured the U.S. industry. Under U.S. law, it is not enough to prove imports are subsidized. They must also be proven to have injured U.S. companies.
Even if the ruling is in Canada's favour, however, it will likely be remanded back to the International Trade Commission, resulting in no immediate victory, one of the reasons a negotiated settlement appeals to many companies.-------------------------------------------
LaborTalk for December 15, 2003 By Harry Kelber
A New Game Plan For Union Organizing (6)
This is the sixth of eight articles on union organizing.
A WINNING STRATEGY
As the organizing campaign develops, the workers will be watching to see who is stronger - the employer or the union. That is why the union must move aggressively to put the employer on the defensive. One way to do so is to run ads in the local newspaper in which five or six of the workers, with their photos, state why they need a union. The same material can be shaped into a leaflet, posted on the union Web site, adapted into a series of radio spots or made into a videotape.
The employer may decide to run his own ads featuring loyal employees. It won't enhance his image if he copycats the union's initiative. If he responds with a public statement opposing unions, that's fine: it means that the debate over whether these workers need a union is now out in the open.
Organizers no longer have to meet secretly with small groups of nervous workers to explain the advantages of belonging to a union. They can now convey the union message to all workers, including community residents, who can read it in the privacy of their homes.-------------------------------------------
Union, industry agree to legislated end to forestry strike By JEREMY HAINSWORTH, CP
The B.C. coastal forest strike will end this week after the provincial government announced Sunday it would impose legislation, a move the forestry union and industry agreed to.
The legislature will pass the legislation in a special sitting on Tuesday, Premier Gordon Campbell said.
Most sawmills on B.C.'s south coast have been behind picket lines since Nov. 21 with about 10,000 involved.-------------------------------------------
Mediator saves 'invincible' B.C. Ferry union from walk off plank By DIRK MEISSNER
Union lawyer Michael Walton emerged from the negotiating room early Friday man and was immediately asked for an update.
Without missing a beat, he said: 'We got them right where they want us.'
Thank You BC FERRY & MARINE WORKERS' UNION-------------------------------------------
:: Sunday, December 14, 2003 ::Observe Right To Unionize By Making It Reality by Pat Youngblood and Robert Jensen, ZNet
Fifty-five years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights set forth basic standards for what many hoped would be a new world emerging from the devastation of World War II and the horrors of colonialism. Among the rights articulated in that document is, "to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests."
This was in line with U.S. law; the 1935 National Labor Relations Act declared it the nation's policy to encourage "the practice and procedure of collective bargaining" and protect "the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid or protection."
Unfortunately, the principle on the books is not the typical workplace reality in the United States today. Existing laws are inadequate, and employers routinely violate even those.-------------------------------------------
Postal Service, union denounce Mad TVs 'going postal' sketch Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- The letter carriers union on Thursday joined the Postal Service in denouncing an upcoming Fox television comedy sketch about mail employees "going postal'' and demanded that it not be run as scheduled over the weekend.
The Postal Service had called on its employees to protest the sketch on Saturday's episode of "Mad TV.''
The skit features "disgruntled postal workers at odds with one another over who has the right to go on a shooting spree first,'' according to the program's Web site.-------------------------------------------
Ontario Gov't, 'Bulk Of Industry' Opposes US Lumber Plan By Lynne Olver, DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
The Ontario provincial government won't support a U.S. proposal to end the Canada-U.S. softwood lumber trade dispute, Ontario Natural Resources Minister David Ramsay said Thursday.
Among other items, Ontario lumber producers don't like the fact that only 52% of roughly C$2 billion in antidumping and countervailing duties already paid by Canadian producers to the U.S. government would flow back to Canada. In addition, quotas would only be assigned to existing exporters, Ramsay noted.
Lumber Dealers Urge US and Canadian Softwood Trade Negotiators to Reject Agreement Imposing Quota on Vital Softwood Lumber Imports National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association
“Historically, we have had to import at least a third of our lumber needs from Canada in order to have the quality of lumber required for construction of homes or remodeling. This agreement, if ratified, is clearly anti-business, anti-competitive, and anti-affordable housing. It only hurts US consumers, especially first time home buyers.”-------------------------------------------
The Case for Protectionism by Barbara Dudley
Given the desire of people of all nations to set their own standards, build their own economies, and given the great imbalance of power between multinational corporations and most developing countries (only 30 countries now have a GDP higher than that of Walmart), it is not useful or fair to punish developing countries for not controlling corporate behavior. What we want is to halt the “race to the bottom” in wages, working conditions, environmental and consumer protection. We want to insure the ability of workers in all countries to organize collectively against exploitation. We want to prevent the flight of investment to countries least able or willing to protect their workers’ rights, with the same investors then turning around and dumping their products in rich countries.-------------------------------------------
Saddam captured in dirt hole By HAMZA HENDAWI, AP
“I think it’s rather ironic that he was in a hole in the ground across the river from these great palaces that he built,” Odierno told reporters in Tikrit.-------------------------------------------
