Workers Urge Democrats to Focus Platform on Employee Choice, Jobs, Health Care, Trade

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/08/05/workers-urge-democrats-to-focus-platform-on-employee-choice-jobs-health-care-trade/

by James Parks, Aug 5, 2008



In recent decades, corporate power has grown at the expense of ordinary workers, who see the results every day—in exported jobs, stagnant wages, lost pensions and unaffordable health care. And union members have urged the Democratic Party and its nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, to make restoring that balance a major part of the party’s platform, campaign and policy agenda.

The keys to rebuilding the economy, they said, include passing the Employee Free Choice Act and enacting new economic, health care and trade policies that benefit everyone. Speaking before the Democratic Party’s platform drafting committee last Friday, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker said:

We know that at some point the recession will end, but without a restoration of worker bargaining power, we will see a repeat of the last recovery—a recovery that was only experienced by the top 10 percent of income earners.

The single, most important priority for the labor movement next year will be reforming our labor laws to empower workers and allow them to form unions free of harassment, intimidation or fear of firing.

The 2008 Democratic platform must make the important connection between restoring the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively and restoring fairness and balance to our economy. I urge you to include the Employee Free Choice Act as a central plank of the platform.

Holt Baker was one of nine union leaders and rank-and-file workers who addressed the Democratic Party’s platform drafting committee in Cleveland on Aug. 1–2. They all told the committee that a major change is needed in the way the country treats its workers.

With unemployment at its highest level in four years, the need for good jobs is clear. In July alone, the nation lost 51,000 jobs, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Bloomberg reports that the combination of job losses and decreasing property values, stricter lending rules and near-record energy prices have sent consumer confidence levels close to the weakest in 16 years in July.

Misti Wells, a single mother of three from Eaton, Ohio, told the committee she is a “first-hand account of how bad things have gotten.” She took a buyout in 2006 from the General Motors factory where she worked and went back to school. But, degree or not, Wells still doesn’t have a job, her unemployment checks have run out and her landlord can’t afford to keep letting her skip paying her rent.

FULL story at link.

[AdHocSolver]

1. We need to make it UNprofitable to offshore jobs. Without jobs available, there is no improvement.

Talk of making it easier to join a union will not help the country if there is large-scale unemplyment. A major reason for the corporations to offshore jobs is to make a large pool of workers desperate enough to work for low wages and willing to cross picket lines.

The inflation in this country is fueled by the huge trade deficit that has created an enormous debt to other countries. This debt decreases the value of the dollar, and so prices on imported goods rise. (Foreign creditors want more dollars for the goods that they sell to us.)

Neither wage losses, nor lack of affordable health care, nor lack of tax money to support education and rebuilding of our infrastructure, nor ANY other problem will be solved without bringing jobs back to the U.S.

The corporations know this. That is why they send jobs overseas. Fewer jobs makes for a desperate population unable to make demands to management and also reduces tax collections to make for a starved government that can't support social programs. Even if a company's workers are unionized, it doesn't help them if the company can easily transfer their jobs overseas.

Trade Agreements and cartel agreements such as NAFTA, the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank have to be rescinded or rewritten, and import quotas and import duties have to be imposed to make it unprofitable to send jobs overseas.

American workers pay income taxes, and this country "pays itself" for the goods it buys when Americans make what we buy. Our purchase dollars are not sent offshore to make some fat cat in China filthy rich. When American companies need American workers to stay in business, they will treat them better.

Unionization without American jobs is meaningless. Without a large number of jobs available, workers have no bargaining power, and bargaining power can't be legislated.

[peanut2010]

5. Just make it to expensive to import finished good hear

Tax everything from Asia so it costs twice as much as our stuff

[Omaha Steve]

7. Welcome to the DU and the Labor Forum

Nice to see a newbie in here.

[24HRrnr]

2. The Employee Free Choice Act

is anythng but employee friendly. And this is one former Teamster who will vote against anybody that says they're for it. It's more an "Empowering Union Thuggery Act" than helping the worker.

I'll go third party in a heartbeat rather than give up voluntarily on the secret ballot.

[Omaha Steve]

3. You bought right wing lies

Did Rush tell you this? The employee with card check can still have a secret election. They only have to ballot election on the card. Simple majority rules. See #8 below.

http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/10keyfacts.cfm

America’s workers want to form unions. Research shows nearly 60 million would form a union tomorrow if given the chance.


Too few ever get that chance because employers routinely block their efforts to form unions—and our current legal system is too broken to stop them. As many as one-quarter of employers illegally fire workers who try to form unions.


The Employee Free Choice Act would give workers a fair chance to form unions to improve their lives by:

* Allowing them to form unions by signing cards authorizing union representation.
* Providing mediation and arbitration for first-contract disputes.
* Establishing stronger penalties for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during first-contract negotiations.



In the 110th Congress, the Employee Free Choice Act has widespread support.


More than three-quarters of Americans—77 percent—support strong laws that give employees the freedom to make their own choice about whether to have a union in their workplace without interference from management (PDF).


Allowing working people to choose for themselves whether to have a union is the key step toward rebuilding America’s middle class. Union membership brings better wages and benefits and a real voice on the job (PDF). It’s no accident that the 25-year decline in workers’ wages in our country has paralleled a 25-year slide in the size of the America’s unions.


The Employee Free Choice Act would put democracy back into the workplace. Majority sign-up would ensure the decision whether to form a union was made by majority choice, not by the employer unilaterally.


# 8: Workers can still vote under the Employee Free Choice Act. At any time, if 30 percent of the workers want an election, they can have one. And once they have a union, workers also vote to elect their union representatives.


The Employee Free Choice Act has the support of hundreds of respected organizations and individuals—major religious denominations, academics and civil and human rights groups and others.


The AFL-CIO union movement is working in many ways to restore good jobs, health care and retirement security—but passing the Employee Free Choice Act is our top priority because we cannot create balance for working people or rebuild the middle class unless workers genuinely have the freedom to form unions for a better life.

[AdHocSolver]

4. If the corporations can offshore your job, then you can join five unions and still get screwed.

That the Employee Free Choice Act will do anything for the worker's benefit is an illusion. So you join a union and then the company closes its American plant and opens a plant in China or India. What have you gained? Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

The ONLY action that will save American jobs, and can, in fact, bring jobs back to the U.S. is to make it unprofitable to export jobs in the first place. When the corporations need American workers to stay in business, then they will treat the workers better.

Without meaningful change in trade laws that currently make it profitable to send jobs offshore, legislation to supposedly increase union membership is useless. What difference does it make if your union has 5,000 members or 10,000 members if the corporation can ship the factory to China?

The union leadership for the past 25 years has been tilting at windmills. The only action that will help American workers and save the U.S. economy is to rewrite trade laws to make it more difficult and less profitable to ship jobs overseas. That ability gives the corporations enormous clout and dooms any other actions by unions or by worker or consumer organizations to mere tugging at the leash.

[Omaha Steve]

6. There are millions of jobs that can't be exported

Do we give up on these workers too? Yes there are several laws that need to be changed to bring good paying jobs back inside our boarders. But we also need labor rights for the jobs here now and in the future. We also need to get a handle on immigration. It is working just the way the employers want and has been for years. Cheap labor.


http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/why/

Why You Need a Union
Home > Join A Union > Why You Need a Union

AFL-CIO Employee Free Choice Act Union members earn better wages and benefits than workers who aren’t union members. On average, union workers’ wages are 30 percent higher than their nonunion counterparts. While only 14 percent of nonunion workers have guaranteed pensions, fully 68 percent of union workers do. More than 97 percent of union workers have jobs that provide health insurance benefits, but only 85 percent of nonunion workers do. Unions help employers create a more stable, productive workforce—where workers have a say in improving their jobs.

* Learn more about the Union Difference.
* Communities benefit when workers have a voice on the job.
* See why so many workers say, "I'll never work nonunion again."

[AdHocSolver]

9. The union movement promoted the development of a large, affluent middle class in the 1950s-1960s.

The condition that made the union success POSSIBLE was the large number of MANUFACTURING jobs in the U.S.

When Americans bought goods, the money they spent went to other Americans. There was no huge trade deficit to cause devaluation of the dollar and the serious inflation we see today. (The inflation pushes up oil import prices, as well, beyond any "peak oil" situation.)

The union movement as a whole has lost a lot of clout due to offshoring. Spiraling inflation due to huge trade deficits has created a pool of "desperate" workers, which will limit wage increases to less than the inflation rate.

Reagan dealt a serious body blow to the union movement when he fired the Air Traffic Controllers. Many union guys voted for the "gipper" and screwed themselves (and America) in the process.

Most union leaders have totally misunderstood what is happening here. They have been scrambling for crumbs while the corporations have been stealing the loaves.

As the economy continues to crumble, the number of people who can afford to regularly buy "services" from the service industries will continue to decline. Being unionized will do nothing for workers who don't have a job.

My point here is that the union movement does not seem to have leadership that is aware of the economic realities. They may be in the 21st century, but their mindset is mid-20th century. The union rank-and-file may have to get its understanding about economic reality in some other way.

[Earth Bound Misfit]

8. Kick...Too late to rec

:kick: