This is NOT what democracy looks like. Indiana Republicans are going for an end run around any opposition as they ram through their right-to-work for less bill.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Labor Readies Goal-Line Stand Against Right-to-Work in Indiana
Indiana is now Ground Zero for the national battle between the top 1%
and the vast majority in the closely interwoven struggles over the
future of democracy, the rights of workers and economic justice in
America.
The next week or so may determine whether Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and allied Republican legislators, who dominate both houses of the state legislature, succeed in passing the first “right to work” law in a northern industrial state.
A committee of Indiana state lawmakers advanced the controversial "right to work" legislation to the House of Representatives in an 8-5 party line vote Tuesday Morning. House Democrats had ended a three-day long boycott of the bill Monday, but House Democratic Leader Patrick Baur said they may boycott again to stop the bill from advancing, according to Politico. Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma said the bill could advance to the GOP-controlled Senate as early as Friday. Republicans, who control the house 60-40, need two-thirds of their members to vote for the measure.
The legislation, which would ban companies and unions from requiring nonunion members to pay for union representation, has been bitterly contested between Republicans and Democrats. Protesters against the bill heckled Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels' final "State of the State" address Tuesday night at the Indiana Statehouse, while many of the Democrats' seats were empty as a form of protest. If "right to work" is approved, Indiana would become the 23rd state to approve the ban, and the first in over a decade.
“Multinational corporations and the Right are pulling out all the stops trying for a win in Indiana with ‘right-to-work’ legislation after they’ve been hit with setbacks in New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Ohio,” explained Jeff Smith, communications director of the Indiana AFL-CIO.
The anti-labor initiatives launched so boldly a year ago by Republicans elected in the 2010 sweep have splintered after crashing into the rocks of deeply-felt public support for labor rights.
On November 8, the Right was shaken by the overwhelming 61% vote repealing Ohio’s revocation of public-worker union rights. Zealous GOP advocates of “right-to-work” legislation in New Hampshire were unable to overcome a veto by the Democratic governor. In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker and Republican legislators ignited a massive labor uprising as they trampled basic democratic procedures in winning a virtual ban on public-worker union representation.
But Walker and others in Wisconsin are now facing near-certain recall elections, with a set of scandals—most recently, the arrest of Walker appointees in Milwaukee County accused of stealing money from a fund for wounded veterans—further undermining public support.
Now activists on the Right are moving "right-to-work" legislation forward rapidly before public awareness becomes consolidated against it. The heavy financial advantages of the corporate side are drowning out democratic dialogue in Indiana, substituting a blitzkrieg of TV ads for thorough consideration of how right-to-work laws impact a state’s quality of life.
As studies cited by the New York Times Steven Greenhouse indicate, "right-to-work" laws banning the union shop give employers leverage to weaken existing unions by favoring anti-union nonmembers and to disccourage further unionization. Indiana's current situation would seem to provide all the evidence one needs to demonstrate that the state needs more—not fewer—high-wage, unionized jobs to combat growing poverty:
Taking advantage of the unlimited corporate spending and removal of public-disclosure requirements enabled by the U.S. Supreme Court’s highly unpopular 2010 Citizens United ruling, the “right-to-work” forces in Indiana are blanketing the state with $600,000 in ads by the shadowy Indiana Opportunity Fund.
The Opportunity Fund is headed up by attorney James Bopp, Jr., who served as one of the lawyers arguing for the removal of constraints on campaign spending for the tycoons gathered in the Citizens United organization. For those seeking to secure the privileged position of the top 1% in Indiana and across America, it is not sufficient for corporations to have a 15-1 spending advantage over labor as they did in the 2008 federal elections.
Daniels, Bopp, and the Opportunity Fund are unwilling to provide the Indiana public with the opportunity to judge their message by considering what their contributors seek to gain. This refusal to reveal donors has triggered widespread calls in numerous newspaper editorials and by civic groups for full disclosure of the list of funders.
Daniels' legacy
Gov. Daniels’ first act in office in 2005 was to issue an executive order wiping out the collective bargaining rights of public employees, in a move apparently aimed at luring a heavily subsidized Honda plant to a nearly all-white, anti-union region of the state.
That was followed up by the enactment later in 2005 of a highly restrictive voter identification bill that suppresses the votes of unwelcome parts of the electorate, such as African Americans, students, the elderly and the poor, all of whom are likely to lack official photo IDs like a driver’s license or passport. (Indiana was unable to document a single case of voter fraud in persuading the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the law.)
In 2011, huge throngs of unionists and supporters, estimated at about 75,000, staged rallies inside and outside the Indiana State Capitol against an earlier version of the right-to work bill. At the same time, Democratic members of the House—much like 14 Democratic senators in Wisconsin—took refuge outside the state in order to deny a quorum on the right-to-work bill. Eventually, RTW supporters were forced to back off temporarily.
This time around, the Republicans believe that they have adopted cures for the displays of democratic dissent that disrupted their right-to-work offensive last year. The Republicans won passage of “anti-bolting” penalties of $1,000 per day against legislators who might consider adopting the same tactic of fleeing the state again.
Most recently, the Daniels administration enacted new rules restricting the number of people allowed into the Capitol and even restricted the size of signs. But following a firestorm from across the political spectrum—from the Tea Party to the American Civil Liberties Union, Daniels and his staff backed off at least temporarily from putting the rules into effect, but may still invoke them.
“They had hoped to get the bill passed last week, and were trying to get the most controversial legislation in the last decade passed within two or three days,” AFL-CIO’s Smith said. “But we’ve had 17,000 union members and supporters showing up on the first three days of the new legislative session, and with thousands coming every day,” Smith reported.
"We’ve had phone banks calling our members and the public, and members going door-to-door asking people to call their legislators. “There’s now a good number of Republicans who are saying that they can’t vote for it.”
Appparently, if the bill is passed, Daniels and his allies envision the Feb. 5 Super Bowl as a chance to publicize their success in crushing worker rights—or, alternately, distracting from citizens' outcry.
But the NFL Players Association has already issued a strong statement denouncing the proposal, and any major delays this month would give Indiana labor an unprecedented worldwide audience for its goal-line stand against the bill.
The next week or so may determine whether Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and allied Republican legislators, who dominate both houses of the state legislature, succeed in passing the first “right to work” law in a northern industrial state.
A committee of Indiana state lawmakers advanced the controversial "right to work" legislation to the House of Representatives in an 8-5 party line vote Tuesday Morning. House Democrats had ended a three-day long boycott of the bill Monday, but House Democratic Leader Patrick Baur said they may boycott again to stop the bill from advancing, according to Politico. Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma said the bill could advance to the GOP-controlled Senate as early as Friday. Republicans, who control the house 60-40, need two-thirds of their members to vote for the measure.
The legislation, which would ban companies and unions from requiring nonunion members to pay for union representation, has been bitterly contested between Republicans and Democrats. Protesters against the bill heckled Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels' final "State of the State" address Tuesday night at the Indiana Statehouse, while many of the Democrats' seats were empty as a form of protest. If "right to work" is approved, Indiana would become the 23rd state to approve the ban, and the first in over a decade.
“Multinational corporations and the Right are pulling out all the stops trying for a win in Indiana with ‘right-to-work’ legislation after they’ve been hit with setbacks in New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Ohio,” explained Jeff Smith, communications director of the Indiana AFL-CIO.
The anti-labor initiatives launched so boldly a year ago by Republicans elected in the 2010 sweep have splintered after crashing into the rocks of deeply-felt public support for labor rights.
On November 8, the Right was shaken by the overwhelming 61% vote repealing Ohio’s revocation of public-worker union rights. Zealous GOP advocates of “right-to-work” legislation in New Hampshire were unable to overcome a veto by the Democratic governor. In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker and Republican legislators ignited a massive labor uprising as they trampled basic democratic procedures in winning a virtual ban on public-worker union representation.
But Walker and others in Wisconsin are now facing near-certain recall elections, with a set of scandals—most recently, the arrest of Walker appointees in Milwaukee County accused of stealing money from a fund for wounded veterans—further undermining public support.
Now activists on the Right are moving "right-to-work" legislation forward rapidly before public awareness becomes consolidated against it. The heavy financial advantages of the corporate side are drowning out democratic dialogue in Indiana, substituting a blitzkrieg of TV ads for thorough consideration of how right-to-work laws impact a state’s quality of life.
As studies cited by the New York Times Steven Greenhouse indicate, "right-to-work" laws banning the union shop give employers leverage to weaken existing unions by favoring anti-union nonmembers and to disccourage further unionization. Indiana's current situation would seem to provide all the evidence one needs to demonstrate that the state needs more—not fewer—high-wage, unionized jobs to combat growing poverty:
One in three Hoosiers qualifies as low-income now, compared with one in four a decade earlier. And 58 percent of unemployed Indianans have burned through their benefits...Against this backdrop, even the advantages of having a right-wing Republican governor, a 60-40 GOP advantage in the House, and a 37-13 majority in the Senate are not enough to guarantee victory for the right-to-work bill.
Workers here have done a backward slip-slide for more than a decade. Median income is falling — by 15 percent in the last decade. The so-called real unemployment rate, which includes those too discouragedto look for work, stood at 17.4 percent last year. And the percentage of Indianans who participate in the work force has dropped in the past two years, much faster than in Illinois and Ohio to the east....
In 2010, wages of workers in unionized manufacturing companies in Indiana were 16 percent higher than in nonunion plants.
Taking advantage of the unlimited corporate spending and removal of public-disclosure requirements enabled by the U.S. Supreme Court’s highly unpopular 2010 Citizens United ruling, the “right-to-work” forces in Indiana are blanketing the state with $600,000 in ads by the shadowy Indiana Opportunity Fund.
The Opportunity Fund is headed up by attorney James Bopp, Jr., who served as one of the lawyers arguing for the removal of constraints on campaign spending for the tycoons gathered in the Citizens United organization. For those seeking to secure the privileged position of the top 1% in Indiana and across America, it is not sufficient for corporations to have a 15-1 spending advantage over labor as they did in the 2008 federal elections.
Daniels, Bopp, and the Opportunity Fund are unwilling to provide the Indiana public with the opportunity to judge their message by considering what their contributors seek to gain. This refusal to reveal donors has triggered widespread calls in numerous newspaper editorials and by civic groups for full disclosure of the list of funders.
Daniels' legacy
Gov. Daniels’ first act in office in 2005 was to issue an executive order wiping out the collective bargaining rights of public employees, in a move apparently aimed at luring a heavily subsidized Honda plant to a nearly all-white, anti-union region of the state.
That was followed up by the enactment later in 2005 of a highly restrictive voter identification bill that suppresses the votes of unwelcome parts of the electorate, such as African Americans, students, the elderly and the poor, all of whom are likely to lack official photo IDs like a driver’s license or passport. (Indiana was unable to document a single case of voter fraud in persuading the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the law.)
In 2011, huge throngs of unionists and supporters, estimated at about 75,000, staged rallies inside and outside the Indiana State Capitol against an earlier version of the right-to work bill. At the same time, Democratic members of the House—much like 14 Democratic senators in Wisconsin—took refuge outside the state in order to deny a quorum on the right-to-work bill. Eventually, RTW supporters were forced to back off temporarily.
This time around, the Republicans believe that they have adopted cures for the displays of democratic dissent that disrupted their right-to-work offensive last year. The Republicans won passage of “anti-bolting” penalties of $1,000 per day against legislators who might consider adopting the same tactic of fleeing the state again.
Most recently, the Daniels administration enacted new rules restricting the number of people allowed into the Capitol and even restricted the size of signs. But following a firestorm from across the political spectrum—from the Tea Party to the American Civil Liberties Union, Daniels and his staff backed off at least temporarily from putting the rules into effect, but may still invoke them.
“They had hoped to get the bill passed last week, and were trying to get the most controversial legislation in the last decade passed within two or three days,” AFL-CIO’s Smith said. “But we’ve had 17,000 union members and supporters showing up on the first three days of the new legislative session, and with thousands coming every day,” Smith reported.
"We’ve had phone banks calling our members and the public, and members going door-to-door asking people to call their legislators. “There’s now a good number of Republicans who are saying that they can’t vote for it.”
Appparently, if the bill is passed, Daniels and his allies envision the Feb. 5 Super Bowl as a chance to publicize their success in crushing worker rights—or, alternately, distracting from citizens' outcry.
But the NFL Players Association has already issued a strong statement denouncing the proposal, and any major delays this month would give Indiana labor an unprecedented worldwide audience for its goal-line stand against the bill.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Board OKs collective bargaining, ballot issues
After over four years of struggle, the teachers in the Columbia School District can finally have a vote to elect an exclusive representative. Yes!
Columbia Tribune
By CATHERINE MARTIN
Published January 9, 2012
The Columbia Board of Education approved collective bargaining policies Monday, including one that calls for teachers to elect an exclusive representative.
Policy HA was approved outlining the process of collective bargaining, and Policy HH calls for an exclusive representative.
The district previously did not have a collective-bargaining policy and instead used a “meet-and-confer” approach. In May 2007, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that public employees, including teachers and educational support staff, have a constitutional right to collectively bargain. Teachers can request to exercise that right at any time, and that prompted the district to consider adopting a policy.
The two polices were approved with a 5-1 vote, with Board Member Jan Mees voting in opposition to the policies. Board member Michelle Pruitt was absent from the meeting.
Members of the Columbia Missouri State Teachers Association, including a few who spoke up Monday night, have repeatedly objected to an exclusive representation policy, citing fears that their voices would be left out if another group was elected as representative.
“When our policy … has the option for exclusive representation, we’re setting up a precedent where we automatically rule out some voices,” said Marilyn Andre, CMSTA liaison to the board.
Superintendent Chris Belcher stressed that ultimately the decision will still be up to the teachers through a vote. He emphasized that the policy is not calling for the creation of unions of exclusive representation but is only outlining a process for collective bargaining if teachers were to ask for that right.
The board also approved two items to go on the April ballot – a 40-cent tax levy increase and a $50 million bond issue, which would likely mean a 12-cent tax increase.
Funds from the bond issue would be used to pay for facilities such as an additional new elementary school, which would likely open in 2016, an early childhood center and additions to existing schools, such as Shepard Boulevard and West Boulevard elementary schools. Altogether the projects would eliminate at least 28 classroom trailers.
The bond issue is part of a 10-year long-range plan that accounts for growth and would eliminate all trailers from the district by 2020.
“We know we want to be out of the business of trailers,” board member Jonathan Sessions said. “We know they are inefficient. We know they are breaking down. We want our students in bricks-and-mortar buildings.”
The tax levy would go toward operation costs such as salaries and programs.
“We’ve talked about this for two years, and I think a 40-cent increase is necessary to maintain and sustain the programs we have,” Belcher said.
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2012/jan/09/board-oks-teacher-collective-bargaining-policies/
Columbia Tribune
By CATHERINE MARTIN
Published January 9, 2012
The Columbia Board of Education approved collective bargaining policies Monday, including one that calls for teachers to elect an exclusive representative.
Policy HA was approved outlining the process of collective bargaining, and Policy HH calls for an exclusive representative.
The district previously did not have a collective-bargaining policy and instead used a “meet-and-confer” approach. In May 2007, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that public employees, including teachers and educational support staff, have a constitutional right to collectively bargain. Teachers can request to exercise that right at any time, and that prompted the district to consider adopting a policy.
The two polices were approved with a 5-1 vote, with Board Member Jan Mees voting in opposition to the policies. Board member Michelle Pruitt was absent from the meeting.
Members of the Columbia Missouri State Teachers Association, including a few who spoke up Monday night, have repeatedly objected to an exclusive representation policy, citing fears that their voices would be left out if another group was elected as representative.
“When our policy … has the option for exclusive representation, we’re setting up a precedent where we automatically rule out some voices,” said Marilyn Andre, CMSTA liaison to the board.
Superintendent Chris Belcher stressed that ultimately the decision will still be up to the teachers through a vote. He emphasized that the policy is not calling for the creation of unions of exclusive representation but is only outlining a process for collective bargaining if teachers were to ask for that right.
The board also approved two items to go on the April ballot – a 40-cent tax levy increase and a $50 million bond issue, which would likely mean a 12-cent tax increase.
Funds from the bond issue would be used to pay for facilities such as an additional new elementary school, which would likely open in 2016, an early childhood center and additions to existing schools, such as Shepard Boulevard and West Boulevard elementary schools. Altogether the projects would eliminate at least 28 classroom trailers.
The bond issue is part of a 10-year long-range plan that accounts for growth and would eliminate all trailers from the district by 2020.
“We know we want to be out of the business of trailers,” board member Jonathan Sessions said. “We know they are inefficient. We know they are breaking down. We want our students in bricks-and-mortar buildings.”
The tax levy would go toward operation costs such as salaries and programs.
“We’ve talked about this for two years, and I think a 40-cent increase is necessary to maintain and sustain the programs we have,” Belcher said.
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2012/jan/09/board-oks-teacher-collective-bargaining-policies/
No More Mr. Nice Obama
Scoll down to the highlighted paragraph - Meyerson makes an great point worth remembering about Republican attempts to shut down the NLRB by filibustering any nominees to the board. Remember their "Secret Ballot Protection Act?"( http://www.redstate.com/laborunionreport/2011/01/28/gop-introduces-secret-ballot-protection-act/). If a workers right to choose a union with a secret ballot vote is sacrosanct, then why shut down the board that runs the secret ballot elections? Hmmmm...
Harold Meyerson
JAN. 4, 2012
The American Prospect
With key recess appointments, the president shows he's through being held hostage by intransigent Republicans.
There’s a common and compelling logic to President Obama’s recess appointments today of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Board and of three appointees to the National Labor Relations Board. In the case of both boards, the appointments were necessary if the boards were to function at al—the very reason that Senate Republicans had made clear their determination to appoint nobody at all to the two boards.
In December, Republicans filibustered Cordray’s nomination, stating clearly that they had nothing in particular against Cordray but were opposed to the existence of the board itself, which had come into being as part of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act passed by Congress in 2010. Lacking the votes to repeal the act, Republicans chose instead to kill the board by refusing to confirm a director, without which the board could not fully, or even substantially, function.
At the NLRB, the expiration of board member Craig Becker’s term at the end of December left the board, which is supposed to have five members, with just two. In recent decades, as American business has increasingly refused to recognize unions’ right to exist, all appointments to the one board that ensures workers’ right to unionize have been politically charged. Ronald Reagan and both Presidents Bush made recess appointments to the board to overcome congressional opposition to their choices. During the last years of the more recent Bush’s term, the board was down to just two members, and last year, the Supreme Court ruled that a two-member board, lacking a quorum, had no power to make or enforce any rulings.
Congressional Republicans have raged at the board over the past year over General Counsel Lafe Solomon’s decision to hear a case testing whether Boeing could relocate a plant in response to strike threats (the case has since been withdrawn). Becker’s departure would have enabled Obama to submit three candidates for board membership– two Democrats, one Republican—to the Senate for confirmation, but GOP Senate leaders made clear that they wanted to keep the board’s size down to an impotent two. Had they succeeded, any company or union could have appealed an election result or any other matter to the board with the assurance that the board could do nothing about the appeal. In essence, employers could have forestalled their workers’ decision to unionize indefinitely.
Ironically, when Republicans in 2009 and 2010 successfully opposed the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have enabled workers to unionize by submitting signed cards and foregoing a board-supervised election, they argued that such elections were essential to democratic industrial relations. Now, however, they support bringing the operations of the board that runs those elections to a halt by declining to staff it.
As I’ve written before, the Republicans’ policy is one of agency-cide—the killing of a federal agency they don’t like by refusing to confirm the appointments required to make it run. It’s a back-door way to repeal federal law establishing such agencies, a course the GOP has taken precisely because it lacks the votes to dis-establish them. By making his recess appointments today, Obama hasn’t, as Republicans allege, arrogated congressional power to himself. Rather, he’s restored the right of majorities that enact legislation not to have that legislation negated by congressional minorities. He’s also sending one more signal that the days of his accommodating Republican rejectionists are over.
Harold Meyerson
JAN. 4, 2012
The American Prospect
With key recess appointments, the president shows he's through being held hostage by intransigent Republicans.
There’s a common and compelling logic to President Obama’s recess appointments today of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Board and of three appointees to the National Labor Relations Board. In the case of both boards, the appointments were necessary if the boards were to function at al—the very reason that Senate Republicans had made clear their determination to appoint nobody at all to the two boards.
In December, Republicans filibustered Cordray’s nomination, stating clearly that they had nothing in particular against Cordray but were opposed to the existence of the board itself, which had come into being as part of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act passed by Congress in 2010. Lacking the votes to repeal the act, Republicans chose instead to kill the board by refusing to confirm a director, without which the board could not fully, or even substantially, function.
At the NLRB, the expiration of board member Craig Becker’s term at the end of December left the board, which is supposed to have five members, with just two. In recent decades, as American business has increasingly refused to recognize unions’ right to exist, all appointments to the one board that ensures workers’ right to unionize have been politically charged. Ronald Reagan and both Presidents Bush made recess appointments to the board to overcome congressional opposition to their choices. During the last years of the more recent Bush’s term, the board was down to just two members, and last year, the Supreme Court ruled that a two-member board, lacking a quorum, had no power to make or enforce any rulings.
Congressional Republicans have raged at the board over the past year over General Counsel Lafe Solomon’s decision to hear a case testing whether Boeing could relocate a plant in response to strike threats (the case has since been withdrawn). Becker’s departure would have enabled Obama to submit three candidates for board membership– two Democrats, one Republican—to the Senate for confirmation, but GOP Senate leaders made clear that they wanted to keep the board’s size down to an impotent two. Had they succeeded, any company or union could have appealed an election result or any other matter to the board with the assurance that the board could do nothing about the appeal. In essence, employers could have forestalled their workers’ decision to unionize indefinitely.
Ironically, when Republicans in 2009 and 2010 successfully opposed the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have enabled workers to unionize by submitting signed cards and foregoing a board-supervised election, they argued that such elections were essential to democratic industrial relations. Now, however, they support bringing the operations of the board that runs those elections to a halt by declining to staff it.
As I’ve written before, the Republicans’ policy is one of agency-cide—the killing of a federal agency they don’t like by refusing to confirm the appointments required to make it run. It’s a back-door way to repeal federal law establishing such agencies, a course the GOP has taken precisely because it lacks the votes to dis-establish them. By making his recess appointments today, Obama hasn’t, as Republicans allege, arrogated congressional power to himself. Rather, he’s restored the right of majorities that enact legislation not to have that legislation negated by congressional minorities. He’s also sending one more signal that the days of his accommodating Republican rejectionists are over.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Obama Makes Recess Appointments to NLRB. Is It Enough for AFL-CIO Endorsement?
Obama deserves credit for this. He's going to catch hell from the Republicans for doing the right thing.
Working In These Times
Wednesday Jan 4, 2012 6:33 pm
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Today, President Obama made three recess appointments
to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)—Democrats Sharon Block and
Richard Griffin, as well as Republican Terry Flynn. Without the
apppointments, the federal agency, which mediate labor disputes and
oversees union elections, wouldn't have had a quorum to issue valid
rulings. (He also made a much more high-profile appointment of Richard
Corday to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in order
to make that regulator functional as well.)
The recess appointments come after the NLRB was rendered inoperable due to the expiration of Craig Becker's term on January 3. That lowered the number of people sitting on the board to two, below the quorum threshold. As I reported, Obama nominated Block and Griffin for the positions last month. (The Senate didn't confirm the nominees, which were made only a few days before Congress recessed for the holidays.) With the recess appointments, the board will be able to make key decisions that affect American workers.
President Obama's rapid fix to the NLRB"s problem stands in stark contrast to the beginning of his term in January 2009, when the board was also inoperable. Obama waited 14 months to make recess appointments to fill those slots.
The speed in making the appointments may be a move by the White House to gain the support of the AFL-CIO, which has yet to endorse Obama, unlike other major unions like AFSCME, NEA, UFCW and SEIU. It’s unclear as well if the AFL-CIO's delay in endorsing Obama, or AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka’s recent call for greater political independence for organized labor played any role in pressuring the White House to quickly make the recess appointments to both the CFPB and NLRB.
Trumka was quick to praise the appointments:
But the labor federation, and other unions that have yet to endorse Obama, may be looking to see if the president can pass several other tests this year that have to do with workers and their rights.
State legislators in Indiana are planning to bring right-to-work legislation to a vote in the Indiana legislature possibly as early as this week. It’s unclear if President Obama is going to make any public statement about the legislation, which organized labor strongly opposes, in this key battleground state.
Congressional Republicans are also floating the idea of paying for a payroll tax cut holiday by continuing a freeze on the pay of federal employees.
“Federal employees are working with severely limited resources,” National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley wrote in a letter to Congress today. “They have faced government shutdowns four times this year, yet they have worked diligently to deliver services to the public. To ask them to bear such a disproportionate additional burden is unfair and unacceptable.”
Late last month, when House Republicans floated the idea of a federal pay freeze as part of a temporary deal to extend the payroll tax cuts, Democratic Senators strongly objected. However, the White House did not object publicly to the freeze being in the deal.
Republicans may push the federal pay freeze again as part of a long-term payroll tax cut deal when the temporary deal expires at the end of February. Given Obama’s willingness to implement a two-year pay freeze on public employees in 2010 and his lack of objection to including a continuation, it’s unclear if Obama will oppose Republican efforts.
While today's recess appointments will allow the nation’s top labor law body to operate, there are more big labor fights on the near horizon—and organized labor choose to demand more support from the President before gearing up for the campaign season.
The recess appointments come after the NLRB was rendered inoperable due to the expiration of Craig Becker's term on January 3. That lowered the number of people sitting on the board to two, below the quorum threshold. As I reported, Obama nominated Block and Griffin for the positions last month. (The Senate didn't confirm the nominees, which were made only a few days before Congress recessed for the holidays.) With the recess appointments, the board will be able to make key decisions that affect American workers.
President Obama's rapid fix to the NLRB"s problem stands in stark contrast to the beginning of his term in January 2009, when the board was also inoperable. Obama waited 14 months to make recess appointments to fill those slots.
The speed in making the appointments may be a move by the White House to gain the support of the AFL-CIO, which has yet to endorse Obama, unlike other major unions like AFSCME, NEA, UFCW and SEIU. It’s unclear as well if the AFL-CIO's delay in endorsing Obama, or AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka’s recent call for greater political independence for organized labor played any role in pressuring the White House to quickly make the recess appointments to both the CFPB and NLRB.
Trumka was quick to praise the appointments:
We commend the President for exercising his constitutional authority to ensure that crucially important agencies protecting workers and consumers are not shut down by Republican obstructionism. Working families and consumers should not pay the price for political ploys that have repeatedly undercut the enforcement of rules against Wall Street abuses and the rights of working people.The move may give the AFL-CIO necessary cover to endorse President Obama, and offer active support on the ground during the election season.
But the labor federation, and other unions that have yet to endorse Obama, may be looking to see if the president can pass several other tests this year that have to do with workers and their rights.
State legislators in Indiana are planning to bring right-to-work legislation to a vote in the Indiana legislature possibly as early as this week. It’s unclear if President Obama is going to make any public statement about the legislation, which organized labor strongly opposes, in this key battleground state.
Congressional Republicans are also floating the idea of paying for a payroll tax cut holiday by continuing a freeze on the pay of federal employees.
“Federal employees are working with severely limited resources,” National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley wrote in a letter to Congress today. “They have faced government shutdowns four times this year, yet they have worked diligently to deliver services to the public. To ask them to bear such a disproportionate additional burden is unfair and unacceptable.”
Late last month, when House Republicans floated the idea of a federal pay freeze as part of a temporary deal to extend the payroll tax cuts, Democratic Senators strongly objected. However, the White House did not object publicly to the freeze being in the deal.
Republicans may push the federal pay freeze again as part of a long-term payroll tax cut deal when the temporary deal expires at the end of February. Given Obama’s willingness to implement a two-year pay freeze on public employees in 2010 and his lack of objection to including a continuation, it’s unclear if Obama will oppose Republican efforts.
While today's recess appointments will allow the nation’s top labor law body to operate, there are more big labor fights on the near horizon—and organized labor choose to demand more support from the President before gearing up for the campaign season.
Monday, January 2, 2012
The Romney-Gekko ticket, this makes sense!
Hilarious and quite realistic. The election year has officially begun.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Bargaining rights are human rights
This seemed like a good message to start off the new year. Let's make 2012 the year workers fight back against the attack on unions. We won't give up our unions and the right to a voice at work through collective bargaining. Happy New Year!
JOHN NICHOLS | Wisconsin Cap Times associate editor | jnichols@madison.com |Posted: Sunday, December 18, 2011
Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch is leading the attack on collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin — claiming in a new video ad that collective bargaining by unions represents some sort of threat to taxpayers or communities or — though this remains unspoken — the out-of-state special interests that are trying to keep her in office.
What Kleefisch does not recognize, however, is that collective bargaining is not some evil that must be wiped out. In fact, the right of workers to organize and to have a voice in the workplace and in our politics is universally recognized as a fundamental underpinning of a free society.
Claiming that collective bargaining rights must be swept away in order to balance budgets is like claiming that free speech rights, the right to privacy or the right to bear arms must be eliminated in order to address fiscal challenges.
It is a trade-off that is never acceptable.
States and municipalities can bargain hard with unions. Wisconsin certainly has done this over the years. In tight budget years, for example, state workers have often had their wages frozen and even cut through the use of mandatory furloughs.
But states cannot take away basic rights because those rights happen to inconvenience governors or lieutenant governors — or the political paymasters of those officials.
Over 30 years ago, Ronald Reagan, on the eve of being elected president of the United States, spoke of the emergence of the Solidarity organization in Poland, saying, “(The brave workers in Poland) remind us that where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost. They remind us that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. You and I must protect and preserve freedom here or it will not be passed on to our children.”
“There are real financial constraints on states, but that is no excuse to seek to eliminate fundamental rights,” says Alison Parker, U.S. program director at Human Rights Watch. “State governments can negotiate cost savings with workers without violating their rights in the process.”
Parker is right about that. And she is right to note that international law on the right to bargain collectively applies in both private and public workplaces.
The United States played a critical role in developing the International Labor Organization’s 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. As an endorser of that declaration, the U.S. — and, by extension, American states — has pledged “to promote and to realize ... fundamental rights … (including) freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining.”
Parker notes, as well, that the United States is a party to and bound by its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. That covenant guarantees that all people have the right to protect their interests through trade union activity.
The Human Rights Committee notes the obvious: “Denying the right to collective bargaining would violate this international treaty.”
That Kleefisch does not get this provides one more argument for her recall and removal from office.
John Nichols is associate editor of The Capital Times. jnichols@madison.com
Copyright 2012 madison.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Posted in John_nichols on Sunday, December 18, 2011 5:15 am
John Nichols, associate editor of The Capital Times, is the author of seven books on politics and the media. He writes about electoral politics and public policy for The Nation magazine, and is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times.
Read more: http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/john_nichols/john-nichols-bargaining-rights-are-human-rights/article_b0ef23ae-5341-5d33-82c8-23f71c335ec6.html#ixzz1iGkL9FPI
JOHN NICHOLS | Wisconsin Cap Times associate editor | jnichols@madison.com |Posted: Sunday, December 18, 2011
Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch is leading the attack on collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin — claiming in a new video ad that collective bargaining by unions represents some sort of threat to taxpayers or communities or — though this remains unspoken — the out-of-state special interests that are trying to keep her in office.
What Kleefisch does not recognize, however, is that collective bargaining is not some evil that must be wiped out. In fact, the right of workers to organize and to have a voice in the workplace and in our politics is universally recognized as a fundamental underpinning of a free society.
Claiming that collective bargaining rights must be swept away in order to balance budgets is like claiming that free speech rights, the right to privacy or the right to bear arms must be eliminated in order to address fiscal challenges.
It is a trade-off that is never acceptable.
States and municipalities can bargain hard with unions. Wisconsin certainly has done this over the years. In tight budget years, for example, state workers have often had their wages frozen and even cut through the use of mandatory furloughs.
But states cannot take away basic rights because those rights happen to inconvenience governors or lieutenant governors — or the political paymasters of those officials.
Over 30 years ago, Ronald Reagan, on the eve of being elected president of the United States, spoke of the emergence of the Solidarity organization in Poland, saying, “(The brave workers in Poland) remind us that where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost. They remind us that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. You and I must protect and preserve freedom here or it will not be passed on to our children.”
“There are real financial constraints on states, but that is no excuse to seek to eliminate fundamental rights,” says Alison Parker, U.S. program director at Human Rights Watch. “State governments can negotiate cost savings with workers without violating their rights in the process.”
Parker is right about that. And she is right to note that international law on the right to bargain collectively applies in both private and public workplaces.
The United States played a critical role in developing the International Labor Organization’s 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. As an endorser of that declaration, the U.S. — and, by extension, American states — has pledged “to promote and to realize ... fundamental rights … (including) freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining.”
Parker notes, as well, that the United States is a party to and bound by its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. That covenant guarantees that all people have the right to protect their interests through trade union activity.
The Human Rights Committee notes the obvious: “Denying the right to collective bargaining would violate this international treaty.”
That Kleefisch does not get this provides one more argument for her recall and removal from office.
John Nichols is associate editor of The Capital Times. jnichols@madison.com
Copyright 2012 madison.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Posted in John_nichols on Sunday, December 18, 2011 5:15 am
John Nichols, associate editor of The Capital Times, is the author of seven books on politics and the media. He writes about electoral politics and public policy for The Nation magazine, and is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times.
Read more: http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/john_nichols/john-nichols-bargaining-rights-are-human-rights/article_b0ef23ae-5341-5d33-82c8-23f71c335ec6.html#ixzz1iGkL9FPI
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