7.28.2005

Tasini says "Punish the CAFTA 15"

15 House Democrats voted in support of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) last night. I have to agree with Jonathan Tasini that labor needs to punish these traitors in order to reassert its political power. We can't just stand on the sidelines as they betray the labor movement that supported them and harm workers worldwide.

Melissa Bean, Illinois (8th District): 202-225-3711

Jim Cooper, Tennessee (5th District): 202-225-4311

Norm Dicks, Washington (6th District): 202-225-5916

Henry Cuellar, Texas (28th District): 202-225-1640

Ruben Hinojosa, Texas (15th District): (202) 225-2531

William Jefferson, Louisiana (2nd District): (202) 225-6636

Jim Matheson, Utah (2nd District): (202) 225-3011

Gregory Meeks, New York (6th District): (202) 225-3011

Dennis Moore, Kansas (3rd District): (202) 225-2865

Jim Moran, Virginia (8th District): (202) 225-4376

Solomon Ortiz, Texas (27th District): 202-225-7742

Ike Skelton, Missouri (4th District): 202-225-2876

Vic Snyder, Arkansas (2nd District): 202-225-2506

John Tanner, Tennessee (8th District): (202) 225-4714

Edolphus Towns, New York (10th District: (202) 225-5936


7.27.2005

The AFL-CIO's Tough Stand on the Iraq War

On the third day of the AFL-CIO Convention, delegates votes in favor of a resolution calling for a "rapid" return of all U.S. troops from Iraq!

U.S. Labor Against the War reports that this is the first time in the AFL-CIO's history that they've taken a position "squarely in opposition to a major U.S. foreign policy or military action."

The resolution states:
Our soldiers...deserve a commitment from our country's leaders to bring them home rapidly. An unending military presence will waste lives and resources, undermine our nation's security and weaken our military.
The resolution also says that the American people were "misinformed" about the war and that the AFL-CIO supports the formation of independent labor unions in Iraq.

Check out Nathan Newman's take on this whole thing at TPM Cafe.

7.26.2005

I love Costco.

Steven Greenhouse (NYTimes) recently joined the chorus lauding Costco's good labor and business practices. He quotes Jim Sinegal, Costco's chief executive, about why his salary is 10 percent lower than other chief executives: "I just think that if you're going to try to run an organization that's very cost-conscious, then you can't have those disparities. Having an individual who is making 100 or 200 or 300 times more than the average person working on the floor is wrong."

Greenhouse says: "Costco's stock price has risen more than 10 percent in the last 12 months, while Wal-Mart's has slipped 5 percent."

Plus, 12.4 percent of Costco's workforce is organized by the Teamsters -- pretty good compared to 0 percent at Wal-Mart and 8 percent in the private sector as a whole.
Go Costco!!

7.11.2005

Article on the AFL-CIO, the NED and Venezuela

ZNet posted an article by Kim Scipes on the AFL-CIO's "Solidarity Center" and the National Endowment for Democracy's (NED) involvement with the right-wing Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV) and the Venezuelan business community around the 2002 attempted coup. He's got a lot of interesting points and a good background on the NED.

Scipes states:
"In short, a number of high-level AFL-CIO national leaders-based on the legitimacy of their Labor positions-have been invited into and have joined top-level US foreign policy circles, and actively participated in US foreign policy initiatives without informing their affiliated unions and their members, much less asking for a mandate to do so. They have consciously kept these affiliations secret from their members, and have lied when they have been exposed. In short, they have actively betrayed the trust of workers, both American and those in labor organizations around the world."
"[I]n fact, the AFL-CIO has a long-established history of undermining progressive, democratically-elected governments that try to extend human liberties-such as freedom of association, freedom of speech, and freedom of economic security-to working people. We see that in Guatemala, Guyana, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua and, most recently, in Venezuela."

7.05.2005

Democratic unions? Hypocricy from the SEIU?

Anna Burger, SEIU International Secretary-Treasurer blogs that the AFL-CIO national convention is not democratic, because 57 percent of the delegates represent central labor councils and state federations, not national unions. While I think this is an interesting point, and I am definitely interested in making sure workers' voices are hear and figuring out how the union movement can better be worker-driven, I have several reservations.
-First, it seems suspicious that the SEIU is bringing up this criticism now. The first person to comment on the SEIU blog asks this important question and reminds us that the SEIU has had ten years to raise this question but has never done so (until now). That makes this seem more like a strategic move than a principled one.

-Second, as I've posted before, the current shake-up appears to be really leader-driven, not rank-and-file driven. If the SEIU's true goal is to make workers' voices heard, then it just doesn't seem like they've been doing a very good job. Even the Unite to Win blog seems a bit backward to me, with the posting set up as a one-way communication rather than as a real discussion with Stern, Burger, and workers all having the same authority and space to post.

-And third, I'm not sure what model Burger is advocating. Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think that the SEIU has a one-member, one-vote system.

7.01.2005

An Anti-Sweatshop Ordinance for San Francisco?

The American Chronicle reports that San Francisco's Mayor Gavin Newsome and Supervisor Tom Ammiano are introducing a sweatshop free ordinance for the city of San Francisco. This sounds like an amazing grassroots effort -- According to the article: "Supervisor Tom Ammiano, a strong advocate of the proposed ordinance said, 'While other jurisdictions have taken policy positions against sweatshop labor, this proposal represents the nation's strongest anti-sweatshop law to date.' Ammiano continued, This legislation exists today because of a historic grassroots effort involving a coalition of over 50 community groups." Pretty impressive. The coalition includes Global Exchange, UNITE HERE!, the San Francisco Labor Council, the San Francisco Women's Political Committee, and the Chinese Progressive Association.

Here is a summary of the proposed ordinance.

Los Angeles already has a good anti-sweatshop ordinance. I'm wondering if there have been any studies of the effectiveness of these ordinances - anyone know?