Amazon.com Becomes The Eighteenth Group To Drop ALEC
Think Progress
By Ian Millhiser on May 24, 2012 at 1:13 pm
According to an email ThinkProgress received from the Center for Media and Democracy, one of the leaders of a progressive campaign to push corporations and other funders to break with the American Legislative Exchange Council, online retail giant Amazon.com just announced that it will part ways with ALEC. In the wake of this campaign, ALEC eliminated a task force that pushed voter suppression laws and the so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws that played a significant role in the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin shooting, but the conservative group remains committed to other priorities such as repealing minimum wage laws, eliminating capital gains and estate taxes, and blocking safeguards that protect children from eating rat poison.
Other groups that have dropped ALEC include: Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Kraft, Wendy’s, Mars, Inc., Arizona Public Service, the National Board for Professional Teaching StandardsScantron, The National Association of Charter School Authorizers, Kaplan, Procter & Gamble, Yum! Brands, five Pennsylvania legislators, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Reed Elsevier, American Traffic Solutions, Intuit, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/05/24/489934/amazoncom-becomes-the-eighteenth-group-to-drop-alec/
Monday, May 28, 2012
Romney Campaign NLRBgate: One Down, More to Go?
The Romney Campaign has a Labor Policy Advisory Group? This can't be good for working people.
Sunday May 27, 2012
End of a Scandal? NLRB Member Terence Flynn Resigns; Prosecution Still Possible
Sunday May 27, 2012
End of a Scandal? NLRB Member Terence Flynn Resigns; Prosecution Still Possible
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Amid accusations that he broke the law by leaking
information to then-top Romney adviser Peter Schaumber, embattled GOP
National Labor Relations Board member Terence Flynn resigned Saturday
evening. The NRLB's Inspector General (IG) had been investigating Flynn
for leaking confidential pre-trial information to top Romney advisors
and for allegedly drafting op-eds and preparing Schaumber, who was
Romney's labor policy advisor, for television appearances and debates.
Flynn has denied any wrongdoing. The leaks allegedly occurred last
year, before Flynn was appointed to the NLRB in January by President
Obama, when Flynn was working as a lawyer for the federal agency, which
mediates labor disputes.
The IG alleged that
Flynn may have violated the Hatch Act by providing “non-public
deliberative information and other assistance to Peter Schaumber, a
co-chair of the Labor Policy Advisory Group for the Mitt Romney
Presidential campaign.” The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from
using their official power to influence the results of an
election. (Since the NLRB IG's report was released earlier this year,
the Romney campaign has said Schaumber left the campaign in December
2011, but serious questions about the validity of that story remain unanswered.)
Recently, Congressman George Miller (D-Calif.) and Congressman Elijah
Cummings referred the matter for prosecution by the Office of Special
Counsel. (The Office of Special Counsel will not comment on whether it
will prosecute Flynn.) House Education, Labor and Pension Chairman
Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) also recently threatened to hold hearings on
the matter.
As I reported in late March, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called on
Flynn to resign after the release of the first of two NLRB IG reports
showing Flynn had provided confidential information to the Romney
campaign and helped Schaumber craft attacks on the NLRB. Trumka said
that “The report makes clear that Schaumber used his inside connections
through his former chief counsel Flynn to get internal, confidential
information that he then utilized in ongoing public attacks on the
actions of the NLRB. These unethical practices are unprecedented and
indefensible.”
A second report by the IG on why Flynn leaked information to Schaumber
concluded that Flynn did so in exchange for Schaumber's efforts to
secure Flynn's appointment to the NLRB. NLRB IG Dave Berry wrote, “The
situation gives rise to the appearance that Mr. Flynn’s disclosure of
deliberative information and assistance to former Member Schaumber was
in return for former Member Schaumber’s lobbying on behalf of Mr.
Flynn’s nomination.”
After the release of that report, NLRB Chairman Mark Pearce said, “We
take the findings in these reports very seriously. They raise questions
of ethics and trust that go to the heart of the values shared by all of
us at the NLRB. Those concerns are paramount in our minds as we
consider the necessary response.”
In a prepared statement, Barry Coburn, a lawyer for Terence Flynn, said
Flynn’s "contacts with Mr. Schaumber, his friend and former colleague,
were not illegal in any respect." Coburn said that
Flynn "does not deserve to be publicly smeared," and said that
"circumstances are precisely what deter people like Mr. Flynn from
government service."
It is unclear if Flynn’s resignation will affect any potential criminal
investigations launched by the Office of Special Counsel or any future
hearings threatened by Harkin. Pearce said he intends to issue a
statement on the matter this week.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Don't miss the meeting tonight, Monday May 14 starting at 6 pm in Columbia at the Labor Temple.
At this meeting we have several candidates scheduled to meet with us:
6:00 pm Mary Still - State Senate 19th District
6:15 pm Ken Jacob - State Representative 44th District
6:30 pm Nancy Copenhaver - State Representative 47th District
6:45 pm Jason Wright - State Representative 47th District
Friday, May 4, 2012
Columbia Teachers to Vote on Representation
Here's the KOMU link: http://www.komu.com/news/columbia-teachers-to-vote-on-representation/
Education group submits petition for exclusive representation
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2012/05/03/cmnea-submits-petition-elect-teacher-representative/
Columbia Missourian
Thursday, May 3, 2012 | 3:44 p.m. CDT; updated 3:53 p.m. CDT, Thursday, May 3, 2012
BY ABIGAIL GEIGER
COLUMBIA — Columbia teachers will likely vote in the fall on a proposal to elect a teacher group to collectively bargain with the district, Columbia Public Schools Superintendent Chris Belcher said.
The Columbia Missouri National Education Association, one teacher group in Columbia, submitted an election petition Friday to the district to further a collective bargaining policy approved in January.
CMNEA's submission sets the foundation for other labor unions and associations to have a more active role in the district’s dialogue with teachers. Other teacher groups have at least 20 days to send their submissions to the district to be considered for the election.
A school board notice said that the deadline for teacher groups to send in submissions is 4:30 p.m. on June 1.
Belcher said once this time period has passed, the submissions will be reviewed for completion by a "designated person" who is not part of a teacher group or the district. Then, the school board will set a date to review them. Belcher said the school board will probably see the submissions this summer.
The vote:
If the petition is approved, the vote would occur in the fall. District spokeswoman Michelle Baumstark said the district is still in the process of defining whether teachers will be the only employees eligible to vote.
Teachers would have the option to vote for a group to be exclusive representatives or to maintain the current “meet and confer” system, which is a less formal communication between teacher groups and the district. Either option needs to receive 50 percent, or a simple majority, to win.
Policy change sparks idea for exclusive representation
In January, the issue of collective bargaining was put at the forefront of teacher and district discussions when the school board passed two policies, HA and HH.
Baumstark said these policies work as guidelines for how the district approaches the collective bargaining process. She said the district uses policy HA as a guideline for the "meet and confer" system.
Policy HH proposes to use one teacher group, such as CMNEA, as an "exclusive representative" for the teachers to address salaries, benefits and other conditions of employment with the district.
Belcher and Baumstark said policy HH comes in response to a 2007 Missouri Supreme Court decision that made collective bargaining legal for teachers and other public employees. Old labor precedents set in the 1940s did not include teachers and applied collective bargaining only to private sector workers.
Baumstark said that once the court made its decision, Missouri school districts expected the state legislature to create a law defining how teachers would be represented for collective bargaining. No such law was proposed, so districts took the issue into their own hands and created their own policies.
Helping to 'keep the conversation flowing'
CMNEA president Susan McClintic said elections for exclusive representation for teachers are difficult because there is no official law that defines the process. She said groups such as CMNEA serve as a way to determine the district's and the teachers' responsibilities. They are there to keep the conversation flowing.
"What we think we can bring to the table are discussions that are driven by employees and employers and also have experts at the table," McClintic. "Then you get to have the people that matter at the table, which can essentially create better learning environments for children."
Belcher said he’s concerned policy HH could make collective bargaining and teacher representation in the district too bureaucratic. He said he is afraid that the dialogue between the district and the teachers might not be as inclusive or open with the proposal.
Moreover, he said, the collective bargaining process needs to focus solely on the teachers and what they want.
"This is truly the teachers' decision," Belcher said. "It's not my decision, it's not the board of education's. It's the teachers'."
Columbia Missourian
Thursday, May 3, 2012 | 3:44 p.m. CDT; updated 3:53 p.m. CDT, Thursday, May 3, 2012
BY ABIGAIL GEIGER
COLUMBIA — Columbia teachers will likely vote in the fall on a proposal to elect a teacher group to collectively bargain with the district, Columbia Public Schools Superintendent Chris Belcher said.
The Columbia Missouri National Education Association, one teacher group in Columbia, submitted an election petition Friday to the district to further a collective bargaining policy approved in January.
CMNEA's submission sets the foundation for other labor unions and associations to have a more active role in the district’s dialogue with teachers. Other teacher groups have at least 20 days to send their submissions to the district to be considered for the election.
A school board notice said that the deadline for teacher groups to send in submissions is 4:30 p.m. on June 1.
Belcher said once this time period has passed, the submissions will be reviewed for completion by a "designated person" who is not part of a teacher group or the district. Then, the school board will set a date to review them. Belcher said the school board will probably see the submissions this summer.
The vote:
If the petition is approved, the vote would occur in the fall. District spokeswoman Michelle Baumstark said the district is still in the process of defining whether teachers will be the only employees eligible to vote.
Teachers would have the option to vote for a group to be exclusive representatives or to maintain the current “meet and confer” system, which is a less formal communication between teacher groups and the district. Either option needs to receive 50 percent, or a simple majority, to win.
Policy change sparks idea for exclusive representation
In January, the issue of collective bargaining was put at the forefront of teacher and district discussions when the school board passed two policies, HA and HH.
Baumstark said these policies work as guidelines for how the district approaches the collective bargaining process. She said the district uses policy HA as a guideline for the "meet and confer" system.
Policy HH proposes to use one teacher group, such as CMNEA, as an "exclusive representative" for the teachers to address salaries, benefits and other conditions of employment with the district.
Belcher and Baumstark said policy HH comes in response to a 2007 Missouri Supreme Court decision that made collective bargaining legal for teachers and other public employees. Old labor precedents set in the 1940s did not include teachers and applied collective bargaining only to private sector workers.
Baumstark said that once the court made its decision, Missouri school districts expected the state legislature to create a law defining how teachers would be represented for collective bargaining. No such law was proposed, so districts took the issue into their own hands and created their own policies.
Helping to 'keep the conversation flowing'
CMNEA president Susan McClintic said elections for exclusive representation for teachers are difficult because there is no official law that defines the process. She said groups such as CMNEA serve as a way to determine the district's and the teachers' responsibilities. They are there to keep the conversation flowing.
"What we think we can bring to the table are discussions that are driven by employees and employers and also have experts at the table," McClintic. "Then you get to have the people that matter at the table, which can essentially create better learning environments for children."
Belcher said he’s concerned policy HH could make collective bargaining and teacher representation in the district too bureaucratic. He said he is afraid that the dialogue between the district and the teachers might not be as inclusive or open with the proposal.
Moreover, he said, the collective bargaining process needs to focus solely on the teachers and what they want.
"This is truly the teachers' decision," Belcher said. "It's not my decision, it's not the board of education's. It's the teachers'."
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