The Labor Club has endorsed the CPS bond and levy proposals, CPS School Board candidate Rex Cone, and Columbia City Council candidates Barbara Hoppe and Mike Trapp. Please get out and vote on April 3rd.
Hank Waters III, local protector of the Columbia status quo doesn't agree with our support for Rex Cone (http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2012/mar/25/school-board/ and http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2012/apr/02/voter-guide/). Mr. Waters apparently believes that labor unions are evil. We don't know Mr. Waters history with unions, but we do know that he has a closed mind full of misinformation about us.
The Labor Club endorsed school board candidate Rex Cone, because he is the only challenger who has firm positions in support of working families, including teachers, support staff and the children they teach. He's also the only candidate who understands the prevailing wage and supports it. To Waters, the fact that Cone is married to a member of the Columbia MNEA (a union, we are doomed!!!) means that Cone is the, "candidate with the most finely honed ax to grind." And having a wife who teaches in the district, "If not a conflict, at least Cone's favoritism is obvious."
Apparently, Waters only sees a problem in being married to a member of the CMNEA. He didn't question ex-board member Don Ludwig's marriage to Sally Beth Lyon when she was the Vice Principal at Gentry Middle School. It is apparently not obvious favoritism in Water's world to have been the local president of the Columbia MSTA before being elected to the board, as Jan Meese was. Since CMSTA opposes collective bargaining, apparently Meese has no favoritism problem. Even more bizarre, why didn't Waters ever mention that two time candidate Dan Holt (2008 and 2010) had a favoritism problem, being married to teacher?
It is more important than ever for working people to vote for the candidate who from the beginning has supported us - Rex Cone. On April 3rd ignore Hank Waters III and vote for candidates and issues that will help the working people of Columbia. This will be a low turnout election, so your vote can make a difference.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
A Civil Right to Unionize
Unionizing is a constitutional right in Missouri. The City of Columbia needs to realize that.
New York Times OP-ED
By RICHARD D. KAHLENBERG and MOSHE Z. MARVIT
Published: February 29, 2012
FROM the 1940s to the 1970s, organized labor helped build a middle-class democracy in the United States. The postwar period was as successful as it was because of unions, which helped enact progressive social legislation from the Civil Rights Act to Medicare. Since then, union representation of American workers has fallen, in tandem with the percentage of income going to the middle class. Broadly shared prosperity has been replaced by winner-take-all plutocracy.
Corporations will tell you that the American labor movement has declined so significantly — to around 7 percent of the private-sector work force today, from 35 percent of the private sector in the mid-1950s — because unions are obsolete in a global economy, where American workers have to compete against low-wage nonunion workers in other countries. But many vibrant industrial democracies, including Germany, have strong unions despite facing the same pressures from globalization.
Other skeptics suggest that because laws now exist providing for worker safety and overtime pay, American employees no longer feel the need to join unions. But polling has shown that a majority of nonunion workers would like to join a union if they could.
In fact, the greatest impediment to unions is weak and anachronistic labor laws. It’s time to add the right to organize a labor union, without employer discrimination, to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, because that right is as fundamental as freedom from discrimination in employment and education. This would enshrine what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. observed in 1961 at an A.F.L.-C.I.O. convention: “The two most dynamic and cohesive liberal forces in the country are the labor movement and the Negro freedom movement. Together, we can be architects of democracy.”
The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes that “everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.” The First Amendment has been read to protect freedom of association, and the 1935 National Labor Relations Act recognized the “right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations,” but in reality, the opportunity to organize is a right without a remedy.
Firing someone for trying to organize a union is technically illegal under the 1935 act, but there are powerful incentives for corporations to violate this right, in part because the penalties — mitigated back pay after extended hearings — are so weak.
It is noteworthy that American workers in the airline and railway industries, which are governed not by the 1935 law but by a stronger statute, the Railway Labor Act, have much higher rates of unionization.
Past efforts to strengthen labor laws over four decades have gotten bogged down: Congress cannot pass reforms until labor’s political clout increases, but that won’t happen without labor law reform.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, has much stronger penalties and procedures than labor laws. Under our proposal, complaints about wrongful terminations for union organizing could still go through the National Labor Relations Board, which has expertise in this field. But the board would employ the procedures currently used by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which provide that after 180 days, a plaintiff can move his or her case from the administrative agency to federal court. There, plaintiffs alleging that they were unfairly dismissed for trying to organize could sue for compensatory and punitive damages and lawyers’ fees, have the opportunity to engage in pretrial legal discovery and have access to a jury — none of which are available under current law.
Our proposal would make disciplining or firing an employee “on the basis of seeking union membership” illegal just as it now is on the basis of race, color, sex, religion and national origin. It would expand the fundamental right of association encapsulated in the First Amendment and apply it to the private workplace just as the rights of equality articulated in the 14th Amendment have been so applied.
The labor and civil rights movements have shared values (advancing human dignity), shared interests (people of color are disproportionately working-class), shared historic enemies (the Jim Crow South was also a bastion of right-to-work laws) and shared tactics (sit-ins, strikes and other forms of nonviolent protest). King, it should be remembered, was gunned down in Memphis in 1968, where he was supporting striking black sanitation workers who marched carrying posters with the message “I Am a Man.” Conceiving of labor organizing as a civil right, moreover, would recast the complexity of labor law reform in clear moral terms.
Some might argue that the Civil Rights Act should be limited to discrimination based on immutable characteristics like race or national origin, not acts of volition. But the act already protects against religious discrimination. Some local civil rights statutes even cover marital status, family responsibilities, matriculation, political affiliation, source of income, or place of residence or business.
Should organizing at work for “mutual aid and protection” not also be covered?
While there are many factors that help explain why the nation has progressed on King’s vision for civil rights while it has moved backward on his goal of economic equality, among the most important is the substantial difference between the strength of our laws on civil rights and labor. It is time to write protections for labor into the Civil Rights Act itself.
Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, and Moshe Z. Marvit, a labor and job discrimination lawyer, are the authors of “Why Labor Organizing Should Be a Civil Right: Rebuilding a Middle-Class Democracy by Enhancing Worker Voice.”
New York Times OP-ED
By RICHARD D. KAHLENBERG and MOSHE Z. MARVIT
Published: February 29, 2012
FROM the 1940s to the 1970s, organized labor helped build a middle-class democracy in the United States. The postwar period was as successful as it was because of unions, which helped enact progressive social legislation from the Civil Rights Act to Medicare. Since then, union representation of American workers has fallen, in tandem with the percentage of income going to the middle class. Broadly shared prosperity has been replaced by winner-take-all plutocracy.
Corporations will tell you that the American labor movement has declined so significantly — to around 7 percent of the private-sector work force today, from 35 percent of the private sector in the mid-1950s — because unions are obsolete in a global economy, where American workers have to compete against low-wage nonunion workers in other countries. But many vibrant industrial democracies, including Germany, have strong unions despite facing the same pressures from globalization.
Other skeptics suggest that because laws now exist providing for worker safety and overtime pay, American employees no longer feel the need to join unions. But polling has shown that a majority of nonunion workers would like to join a union if they could.
In fact, the greatest impediment to unions is weak and anachronistic labor laws. It’s time to add the right to organize a labor union, without employer discrimination, to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, because that right is as fundamental as freedom from discrimination in employment and education. This would enshrine what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. observed in 1961 at an A.F.L.-C.I.O. convention: “The two most dynamic and cohesive liberal forces in the country are the labor movement and the Negro freedom movement. Together, we can be architects of democracy.”
The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes that “everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.” The First Amendment has been read to protect freedom of association, and the 1935 National Labor Relations Act recognized the “right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations,” but in reality, the opportunity to organize is a right without a remedy.
Firing someone for trying to organize a union is technically illegal under the 1935 act, but there are powerful incentives for corporations to violate this right, in part because the penalties — mitigated back pay after extended hearings — are so weak.
It is noteworthy that American workers in the airline and railway industries, which are governed not by the 1935 law but by a stronger statute, the Railway Labor Act, have much higher rates of unionization.
Past efforts to strengthen labor laws over four decades have gotten bogged down: Congress cannot pass reforms until labor’s political clout increases, but that won’t happen without labor law reform.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, has much stronger penalties and procedures than labor laws. Under our proposal, complaints about wrongful terminations for union organizing could still go through the National Labor Relations Board, which has expertise in this field. But the board would employ the procedures currently used by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which provide that after 180 days, a plaintiff can move his or her case from the administrative agency to federal court. There, plaintiffs alleging that they were unfairly dismissed for trying to organize could sue for compensatory and punitive damages and lawyers’ fees, have the opportunity to engage in pretrial legal discovery and have access to a jury — none of which are available under current law.
Our proposal would make disciplining or firing an employee “on the basis of seeking union membership” illegal just as it now is on the basis of race, color, sex, religion and national origin. It would expand the fundamental right of association encapsulated in the First Amendment and apply it to the private workplace just as the rights of equality articulated in the 14th Amendment have been so applied.
The labor and civil rights movements have shared values (advancing human dignity), shared interests (people of color are disproportionately working-class), shared historic enemies (the Jim Crow South was also a bastion of right-to-work laws) and shared tactics (sit-ins, strikes and other forms of nonviolent protest). King, it should be remembered, was gunned down in Memphis in 1968, where he was supporting striking black sanitation workers who marched carrying posters with the message “I Am a Man.” Conceiving of labor organizing as a civil right, moreover, would recast the complexity of labor law reform in clear moral terms.
Some might argue that the Civil Rights Act should be limited to discrimination based on immutable characteristics like race or national origin, not acts of volition. But the act already protects against religious discrimination. Some local civil rights statutes even cover marital status, family responsibilities, matriculation, political affiliation, source of income, or place of residence or business.
Should organizing at work for “mutual aid and protection” not also be covered?
While there are many factors that help explain why the nation has progressed on King’s vision for civil rights while it has moved backward on his goal of economic equality, among the most important is the substantial difference between the strength of our laws on civil rights and labor. It is time to write protections for labor into the Civil Rights Act itself.
Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, and Moshe Z. Marvit, a labor and job discrimination lawyer, are the authors of “Why Labor Organizing Should Be a Civil Right: Rebuilding a Middle-Class Democracy by Enhancing Worker Voice.”
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Union leader at Democrat Days: Without Nixon, Missouri would be another Wisconsin
By Jo Mannies, St. Louis Beacon political reporter
2:21 am on Mon, 03.05.12
HANNIBAL -- Even with this fall’s election looming, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon is continuing his credo of accentuating the positive and playing down the negative.
Take his address during the closing banquet for the weekend's annual Democrat Days in Hannibal. Nixon never used the words “Republican” or “Democrat,’’ as he instead chose to focus on the can-do spirit of average Missourians in confronting adversity.
Jay Nixon
Even so, Nixon’s political role in the continued combat between unions and Republicans was cast in stark terms by Saturday night’s keynote speaker, regional Teamsters president Jim Kabell.
Kabell’s speech described the power of one person to change history. Amid his series of examples – from the biblical figure Nehemiah to seamstress-turned-civil-rights-activist Rosa Parks to former Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan – Kabell worked in Nixon as well.
"He has been a remarkable governor," Kabell said. "He's the most popular governor in this country today."
Without Nixon, said Kabell, Missouri likely would be facing the same battles over collective-bargaining rights that within the past year have engulfed legislatures in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and elsewhere.
Jo Mannies | Beacon
Kabell speaking at Democrat Days
“In Missouri, if we didn’t have this man as governor, we’d be another Wisconsin, we’d be another Ohio,” Kabell said, citing governors’ decisions to sign into law various restrictions on workers’ rights. “We’d better wake up.”
Kabell did not detail the current efforts in Missouri’s Republican-controlled General Assembly to pass bills that would outlaw closed-union shops and make Missouri a “right-to-work’’ state, eliminate teacher tenure and make it more difficult for workers to sue employers for job discrimination.
Nixon has signaled that he would veto such bills – he did veto a job-descrimination measure in 2011 – but he generally hasn’t brought up the topics and has sidestepped making many public comments.
Kabell’s point was that it was what people do, not what they say, that is important. And in 2012, the union leader said that Democrats and their allies in organized labor have to get voters out if they want to stop Republican attacks on their rights.
Nixon is among the Democratic candidates on this fall's ballot. At the moment, his chief Republican rivals are St. Louis businessman David Spence and consultant Bill Randles.
(Click here to read the Beacon's overview of the recent statewide Republican Lincoln Days gathering.)
In 2010, Kabell noted that the Republican turnout in Missouri was about the same as in 2008. But Democrats turned out 1 million fewer voters, which he said was to blame for the huge wave of Republican victories – a scene duplicated in many other states, including Wisconsin and Ohio.
“Folks, we went to sleep,” the labor leader said. “That can’t happen in 2012. When we lost that election in 2010, the right-wing of the Republican Party decided they were going to crucify the United States, and they were going to start with organized labor.”
The threat is real for the future of the Democratic Party, in Missouri and nationally, he asserted. “Because, organized labor -- if they can chill us -- folks, you’re dead. That’s it. I don’t care what anybody says, you’re dead without organized labor. We’re dead without you. We have common interests.”
Nixon sat transfixed throughout Kabell’s address. Afterward, the governor made no public comments; he quickly left the banquet hall to head back to Jefferson City.
Obama the subject of racist attacks
Kabell also praised President Barack Obama and said that Democrats in Missouri and elsewhere need to be more vigorous in defending his record and in addressing one reason the labor leader said Obama has faced so much opposition since taking office in 2009.
Kabell lauded Obama's historic election as the nation's first black president. But looking at the almost all-white audience gathered in Hannibal, Kabell pointedly said, “There is way the heck too much racism in this country.”
He touched off a standing ovation.
https://www.stlbeacon.org/#!/content/22991/demo_days_kabell_030512?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+StLouisBeacon+%28St.+Louis+Beacon%29
Monday, March 5, 2012
Local labor unions contribute to campaigns of Hoppe and Trapp
Columbia Missourian
Thursday, March 1, 2012 | 7:48 p.m. CST
BY KIP HILL
COLUMBIA — Local labor groups have weighed in on the April 3 municipal election at a time when some public employees are worried about how spending cuts might affect their benefits.
The Mid-Missouri Labor Club, a group of representatives of labor unions for both city and private workers, contributed $500 to the campaign of Michael Trapp in the Second Ward race and $250 to incumbent Barbara Hoppe in the Sixth Ward. The contributions come on the heels of a forum the group held last week to inform candidates of labor issues and to gauge their position on those issues.
Club President Russ Unger said its executive membership made the decision.
"We felt like they would work with the labor representatives to help them with their issues," Unger said.
Hoppe did not attend the Feb. 22 forum. Mid-Missouri Labor Club Secretary Regina Guevara said the group decided to support Hoppe based on her record of listening to the concerns of city workers.
Guevara specifically cited Hoppe's push for an amendment to the 2010 city budget — supported by Local 773, a union representing city workers in the Parks and Recreation and Public Works departments — that would preserve holiday pay for public employees. After the motion to include holiday hours in payroll failed, Hoppe was the lone dissenting vote on that portion of the budget.
"She did that not because we asked her, but because it was the right thing to do," Guevara said.
Hoppe said she recalled supporting the amendment to make sure the city's lowest paid employees, such as trash collectors, would be compensated fairly in spite of budget cuts.
"I think it's undoubtable that it's hitting a good section of employees harder than others," Hoppe said at that meeting, which took place in Sept. 2009.
Hoppe said Thursday the labor group's support reflects her willingness to talk with all groups and consider their concerns.
"I think they just appreciate someone listening," Hoppe said.
Hoppe is running against Bill Tillotson, whom the Columbia Chamber of Commerce endorsed on Feb. 17.
Guevera said she sees Trapp as a genuine candidate who would support collective bargaining between the city and its workers following last week's forum.
"He said, 'I'm going to bring an open mind and I'm going to understand the issues,'" Guevara said.
Trapp, who is a counselor with Phoenix Programs, said his professional and personal background have prepared him to listen to the concerns of union workers. Trapp said he had been a member of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a union representing public workers, and that his father was a union meat cutter and later a teamster.
"When you grow up in a union household, there's a level of cultural understanding you gain from that," Trapp said. He added that reforms such as the 40-hour work week were due to the efforts of organized labor.
Trapp said he is grateful for the contribution from local labor groups and that their support reflects the diversity of interests behind his campaign. Last week, Trapp reported earnings to the Missouri Ethics Commission of $2,250, with many of his contributions coming from college professors and other individual donors.
Bill Pauls and Mike Atkinson also are seeking the Second Ward council seat. Guevara said she was concerned by Pauls' position on government-funded pension plans. At the forum, Pauls, a retired soil scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said he thought his own state-funded pension plan was "too good."
"My retirement pension's too good for the government to afford to pay me for the rest of my life," Pauls said at the forum.
Guevara said that raised a "red flag" for her as the city ponders what to do about a mounting gap in its own pension fund.
"If he doesn't think that he deserves a pension, how is he going to vote for a pension for the city workers?" Guevara said.
Unger said the group tried to pick candidates who would support working families in town, in spite of the recent economic hard times.
"Everyone understands that there's budget constraints," Unger said. "But there are issues that are affecting city workers and employees and we felt like (Hoppe and Trapp) would help solve some of those."
The deadline to register to vote for the April 3 election is Wednesday.
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2012/03/01/local-labor-unions-contribute-campaigns-hoppe-and-trapp/
Thursday, March 1, 2012 | 7:48 p.m. CST
BY KIP HILL
COLUMBIA — Local labor groups have weighed in on the April 3 municipal election at a time when some public employees are worried about how spending cuts might affect their benefits.
The Mid-Missouri Labor Club, a group of representatives of labor unions for both city and private workers, contributed $500 to the campaign of Michael Trapp in the Second Ward race and $250 to incumbent Barbara Hoppe in the Sixth Ward. The contributions come on the heels of a forum the group held last week to inform candidates of labor issues and to gauge their position on those issues.
Club President Russ Unger said its executive membership made the decision.
"We felt like they would work with the labor representatives to help them with their issues," Unger said.
Hoppe did not attend the Feb. 22 forum. Mid-Missouri Labor Club Secretary Regina Guevara said the group decided to support Hoppe based on her record of listening to the concerns of city workers.
Guevara specifically cited Hoppe's push for an amendment to the 2010 city budget — supported by Local 773, a union representing city workers in the Parks and Recreation and Public Works departments — that would preserve holiday pay for public employees. After the motion to include holiday hours in payroll failed, Hoppe was the lone dissenting vote on that portion of the budget.
"She did that not because we asked her, but because it was the right thing to do," Guevara said.
Hoppe said she recalled supporting the amendment to make sure the city's lowest paid employees, such as trash collectors, would be compensated fairly in spite of budget cuts.
"I think it's undoubtable that it's hitting a good section of employees harder than others," Hoppe said at that meeting, which took place in Sept. 2009.
Hoppe said Thursday the labor group's support reflects her willingness to talk with all groups and consider their concerns.
"I think they just appreciate someone listening," Hoppe said.
Hoppe is running against Bill Tillotson, whom the Columbia Chamber of Commerce endorsed on Feb. 17.
Guevera said she sees Trapp as a genuine candidate who would support collective bargaining between the city and its workers following last week's forum.
"He said, 'I'm going to bring an open mind and I'm going to understand the issues,'" Guevara said.
Trapp, who is a counselor with Phoenix Programs, said his professional and personal background have prepared him to listen to the concerns of union workers. Trapp said he had been a member of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a union representing public workers, and that his father was a union meat cutter and later a teamster.
"When you grow up in a union household, there's a level of cultural understanding you gain from that," Trapp said. He added that reforms such as the 40-hour work week were due to the efforts of organized labor.
Trapp said he is grateful for the contribution from local labor groups and that their support reflects the diversity of interests behind his campaign. Last week, Trapp reported earnings to the Missouri Ethics Commission of $2,250, with many of his contributions coming from college professors and other individual donors.
Bill Pauls and Mike Atkinson also are seeking the Second Ward council seat. Guevara said she was concerned by Pauls' position on government-funded pension plans. At the forum, Pauls, a retired soil scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said he thought his own state-funded pension plan was "too good."
"My retirement pension's too good for the government to afford to pay me for the rest of my life," Pauls said at the forum.
Guevara said that raised a "red flag" for her as the city ponders what to do about a mounting gap in its own pension fund.
"If he doesn't think that he deserves a pension, how is he going to vote for a pension for the city workers?" Guevara said.
Unger said the group tried to pick candidates who would support working families in town, in spite of the recent economic hard times.
"Everyone understands that there's budget constraints," Unger said. "But there are issues that are affecting city workers and employees and we felt like (Hoppe and Trapp) would help solve some of those."
The deadline to register to vote for the April 3 election is Wednesday.
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2012/03/01/local-labor-unions-contribute-campaigns-hoppe-and-trapp/
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