We couldn’t resist. The Fourth of July is the biggest and baddest of all barbecue bonanzas, and so we decided the Union Cookout needed a sequel for Labor Day. Labor 411 is here with our follow-up to last year’s grill special that includes some of the best union-made picnic and party goods around.
(Reposted from Labor 411.)
Check out this handy collection of American Prospect stories on the state of labor and the labor movement in the U.S. The anthology, The Good Fight, can be browsed online or downloaded for offline reading.
It features pieces by Robert Kuttner, Tracy McMillan, Josh Eidelson and Harold Meyerson — including Meyerson’s recent profile of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, “L.A. Story.”
Perfect reading for this Labor Day weekend!
As our nation pauses to observe Labor Day this week, you have to wonder what the future holds for American workers. Rising income inequality, a dwindling middle class, the growth of low-wage jobs without benefits, and unemployment rates that remain uncomfortably high should make us wonder whether we’ve allowed the American Dream to become a mythic fairy tale.
While these realities are certainly dire and downright depressing, they are not insurmountable.
Last month, President Obama began laying out a plan to rebuild America’s manufacturing base and shore up job security with good wages in stable industries. He called for rewarding companies for keeping jobs at home or bringing them back to the U.S. And, he said that we can and must train workers — especially those left farthest behind by the economic downturn — to get on new career tracks that lead them to the middle class.
» Read more about: Transit Investments Can Get Manufacturing Moving Again »
Of all the commemorations of the March on Washington, the one that will best capture its spirit isn’t really a commemoration at all. Thursday, one day after the 50th anniversary of the great march, fast-food and retail workers in as many as 35 cities will stage a one-day strike demanding higher wages.
Sadly, the connection between the epochal demonstration of 1963 and a fast-food strike in 2013 couldn’t be more direct.
The march 50 years ago was, after all, a march “For Jobs and Freedom,” and its focus was every bit as economic as it was juridical and social. Even more directly, one of the demands highlighted by the march’s leaders and organizers was to raise the federal minimum wage — then $1.15 an hour — to $2. According to Sylvia Allegretto and Steven Pitts of the Economic Policy Institute,
With robots taking over factories and warehouses, toll collectors and cashiers increasingly being replaced by automation and even legal researchers being replaced by computers, the age-old question of whether technology is a threat to jobs is back with us big time. Technological change has been seen as a threat to jobs for centuries, but the history tells that while technology has destroyed some jobs, the overall impact has been to create new jobs, often in new industries. Will that be true after the information revolution as it was in the industrial revolution?
In an article in The New York Times, David Autor and David Dorn, who have just published research on this question, argue that the basic history remains the same: While many jobs are being disrupted, new jobs are being created and many jobs will not be replaceable by computers. While there is good news in their analysis for some in the middle-class,
Infographic Source: Economic Policy Institute
(Today’s Los Angeles Times reported that strike actions against local fast-food outlets, launched by workers demanding a living wage, began early this morning. The following story from Equal Voice News sets the background for this day of national action.)
Fast food workers – who say their hourly wages are not enough to keep up with the cost of living – are planning a nationwide strike Thursday in about 35 cities. The industry employs about four million people.
Their message to restaurant chain owners and the public: Because of the pay, they often have to pit buying food against paying for their housing – and that, they say, seems strikingly odd in the United States.
In fact, some say they need food stamps to survive despite being employed.
Restaurant associations and representatives from fast food outlets point to the jobs as cooks and cashiers as opportunities to move up the career ladder – especially to become a manager and earn more money.
President Obama recently signed a bipartisan bill that ties student loan interest rates to the financial markets, which allows this year’s undergraduates to borrow at 3.9 percent interest — nearly half of what they would have paid if Congress had failed to act. As a recent college graduate, I, like many of my peers, was very excited to learn of this decision. However, while the federal government has done great work to help those students who are already enrolled in college, it is effectively failing those students who come from families at or below the poverty line.
A recent Brookings Institute and Princeton University study notes that the federal government is spending around $1 billion per year on programs to help low-income students. Despite this funding, the four major college prep programs, Upward Bound, Upward Bound Math-Science, Student Support Services and Talent Search (known collectively as TRIO), have had “no major effects on college enrollment or completion.” The study shows that students from low-income backgrounds who earn college degrees are 80 percent less likely to be poor.
» Read more about: Paper Chases: College and Low-Income Students »
This week we mark the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Few would argue about the importance of Dr. King in U.S. history and the decisive role he played in the civil rights movement. Soon after his death, a campaign began to have King’s birthday declared a national holiday. Over six million signatures were collected on a petition to Congress to pass such a law, in what has been called “the largest petition in favor of an issue in U.S. history.”
Martin Luther King Jr. Day became a federal holiday in 1986.
Fourteen years later, MLK Day was observed in all 50 U.S. states for the first time.
And in 2006, Greenville County, South Carolina became the last county in the U.S. to officially make MLK Day a paid holiday.
Growing numbers of private employers also consider MLK Day a holiday.
» Read more about: L.A.’s Fox TV Strips MLK Day from Union Contract »
Union leaders and activists from around the country, in Los Angeles September 8 for the AFL-CIO Convention, will get a close look at a regional labor movement with membership numbers holding steady or even slightly increasing.
Compare this with much of the U.S., where the percentage of workers represented by unions is dropping rapidly and persistently.
L.A., more than most cities (and California, more than most states) has stayed a step ahead of an employer class determined to cleanse the global economy of collective worker power.
Credit Los Angeles and statewide unions for building tightly run coalitions with immigrant-rights and economic-justice groups; their brassy leadership and an electoral strategy which has – so far, at least – beaten back anti-union measures like Proposition 32.
AFL-CIO delegates from the de-industrialized Midwest, by contrast, have been facing relentless attacks from Republican governors and legislatures fronting right-to-work drives and laws restricting public employee bargaining rights.
» Read more about: AFL-CIO Convention Comes to Los Angeles »
Tonight, port truck drivers employed by Green Fleet Systems, which contracts with companies like Skechers and Huffy bikes to haul cargo containers on and off the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, began a 24-hour Unfair Labor Practice strike. The strike started at 5 p.m., the beginning of the night shift, and will continue through Tuesday when the day shift arrives. As a Green Fleet day shift driver, I will be joining the night shift picket line and then will be on strike myself starting at 5 a.m. Tuesday. We are striking to protest harassment and intimidation by Green Fleet management.
I have been a port truck driver for 13 years. I have been driving for Green Fleet Systems (GFS), based in Carson, for the last three years. During my time as a port truck driver, I have seen how the port trucking industry works. Port drivers like me are often kept at low wages with few benefits,
In 1999 the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a Living Wage Ordinance applicable to private businesses that contract with the county to provide certain services, including landscaping, janitorial and security. The reason for the ordinance was simple: The state’s minimum wage at the time — $5.75 per hour—was insufficient and the failure of some county contractors to pay their workers living wages was placing financial burdens on L.A. County by causing these employees to use social and health services provided by the county.
The board set the living wage initially at $9.46 per hour without health benefits, or at $8.32 per hour if an employer offered health benefits worth at least $1.14 per hour. Since then, the living wage has been raised only once, in 2006, when the board approved an increase to the current level of $11.84 per hour without health benefits, or $9.64 with health benefits valued at $2.20 per hour.
» Read more about: Rally to Raise L.A. County’s Living Wage »
Low-income parents and child care providers who oppose a controversial finger-scanning policy in Mississippi won a reprieve August 15 when a judge issued an order that stops its implementation – at least for now.
Judge Denise Owens of the Chancery Court of the First Judicial District in Hinds County issued a temporary injunction, which effectively means that low-income parents whose kids are in a federally-funded voucher program that supports child care do not have to have their fingers scanned for facility pick-ups or drop offs.
The requirement applies to other adults designated to escort kids to and from participating child care facilities. The Mississippi Department of Human Services had planned on using the scans to track attendance to pay child care centers that participate in the subsidy program.
Certain requirements would have started on August 15. The scanning policy was scheduled to start throughout Mississippi,
» Read more about: Judge Blocks Fingerprint Scans for Low-Income Moms »
(This post first appeared on The Nation and is republished with permission.)
Nine fired workers and a current employee were arrested around 2:30 p.m. Thursday after locking arms and sitting in front of the entrance to a Washington, D.C., Walmart office. The planned act of civil disobedience concluded a noon rally at which workers announced a Labor Day deadline for Walmart to raise wages and reinstate workers they allege were fired for their activism. Twenty workers who joined a June strike by the labor group OUR Walmart have since been terminated; another 50-some have been otherwise disciplined by Walmart.
“Hopefully it opens Walmart’s eyes and lets them know that this is just the beginning,” OUR Walmart activist Barbara Collins told The Nation prior to her arrest. If Walmart doesn’t meet the Labor Day deadline, she said yesterday, “then we’re going to give them a lot more actions,
» Read more about: Walmart Gets Ready for Labor Day With Arrests »
This Walmart low-prices, low-wages thing isn’t working out so well — even for Walmart.
The company released its quarterly numbers last week, and they weren’t pretty. Same-store sales declined by 0.3 percent, and the company lowered its earnings-per-share forecast. Bad news wasn’t limited to Walmart. At the low end of the retail consumer market, Kohl’s reported similarly bad news; Macy’s, a little higher up the food chain, lowered its earnings forecast as well.
While Americans with money are boosting both the housing and auto markets, the growing number of Americans without are curtailing their shopping. As Douglas McMillon, chief executive of Walmart International, noted last week, “When we do see good things in the economy, sometimes they don’t immediately flow through to a paycheck. Remember how the average American lives.”
And who signs more paychecks than any private-sector employer on the planet?
You wouldn’t know it from the Los Angeles Times’ recent coverage, but the labor contract with International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 18 currently under consideration by city officials is a good deal for Department of Water and Power (DWP) customers and the city as a whole, and city officials would be wise to approve it, even if there are minor changes made to the deal. A regular reader might also miss the fact that Los Angeles has some of the lowest utility rates and most reliable service in the region.
A cursory review of the L.A. Times website reveals that the newspaper has published some 18 stories on issues related to labor costs at DWP over the last year. (This accounting does not include the Times’ coverage of the mayoral campaign in which IBEW Local 18’s support of Wendy Greuel became an issue.) Meanwhile,
» Read more about: The L.A.Times Misses the Bigger Picture »
The Citizens Trade Campaign is coordinating efforts with labor, environmental organizations, health organizations and others to help persuade Congressional representatives of the need to opposed fast track authority for the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, which would cover 40 percent of the global economy between 12 nations, and is currently being negotiated in virtual secrecy.
Since negotiations began in 2008, none of the negotiating documents have been officially released for public review. However, approximately 600 corporate lobbyists have been named as official advisors which entitle them to access to both the negotiating texts and the negotiators.
And now the Administration wants to invoke a Nixon-era procedural tactic known as “Fast Track” that allows for only an up or down vote on the agreement. “Fast Track” allows the Trans Pacific Partnership and other trade agreements to be signed before the public sees any proposed texts and then rushed through Congress,
» Read more about: Will Congress Fast-Track a “NAFTA on Steroids?” »
Rooftop solar has many benefits, like reducing the need for dirty natural gas plants that pollute our air. It is also a great tool for growing California’s clean energy economy. In fact, not only does it save individuals money on their utility bills, but it also creates much-needed jobs.
The solar industry has created approximately 43,000 jobs in California alone. That’s more jobs than Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric, and San Diego Gas and Electric combined. When families decide to go solar and install solar panels on their roofs, they contribute to this incredible job growth. This means that solar families are also solar job creators.
The jobs are not the only way rooftop solar helps the economy. Solar saves consumers money. According to the Vote Solar Initiative, schools and other public agencies have saved $2.5 billion installing rooftop solar. The money saved by schools provides huge budget relief to cash-strapped schools and can be used to purchase new books,
Why is the nation more bitterly divided today than it’s been in 80 years? Why is there more anger, vituperation and political polarization now than even during Joe McCarthy’s anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s, the tempestuous struggle for civil rights in the 1960s, the divisive Vietnam war or the Watergate scandal?
If anything, you’d think this would be an era of relative calm. The Soviet Union has disappeared and the Cold War is over. The civil rights struggle continues, but at least we now have a black middle class and even a black President. While the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been controversial, the all-volunteer army means young Americans aren’t being dragged off to war against their will. And although politicians continue to generate scandals, the transgressions don’t threaten the integrity of our government as did Watergate.
And yet, by almost every measure, Americans are angrier today.
As Labor Day approaches, here’s a question that many opponents of immigration reform don’t want to answer honestly: Can you be for the middle class and against comprehensive immigration reform? The answer is no — a fact that creates all kinds of problems for those lobbying to stop legislation that would create a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants.
Foes of immigration reform like to position themselves as true-blue patriots acting in the best interests of the country. But it’s hard to square that image with opposition to legislation that, more than any other single act, could help rebuild the nation’s middle class.
It’s obvious to most people that immigration reform would improve economic conditions for undocumented immigrants. After all, while most immigrants come here in search of a better life, their legal status often relegates them to low-wage jobs with few if any benefits and unsafe workplace conditions.
» Read more about: Immigration Reform Debate: Facts v. Bad-Faith Arguments »
It’s summer and gasoline prices have peaked — a certain sign that it’s vacation time. Except for those who don’t get vacations or, worse, get them but don’t take them.
Since about a quarter of this country’s workforce earns only minimum wage or holds down a job (or two) at less than full-time hours, a large number of families do not benefit from paid vacations at all. Add in the number of self-employed who only take a vacation if they can earn enough to set aside the money, and vacations, which much of the middle class has always taken for granted, have suddenly become out of reach for a large number of families. If they take any time off, it costs them money they need to survive.
More than three-quarters of Americans say they live paycheck to paycheck, which means taking a vacation even for the middle class means going into debt.