Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service Director George H. Cohen today announced the extension of contract talks between the East and Gulf Coast longshore union and shipping-industry management. The agreement, which apparently has resolved the thorny issue of container royalties, averts an International Longshoremen’s Association strike that had been scheduled to take place Sunday.
Cohen’s statement read:
“I am extremely pleased to announce that the parties have reached the agreements set forth below as a result of a mediation session conducted by myself and my colleague Scot Beckenbaugh, Deputy Director for Mediation Services, on Thursday, December 27, 2012:
“The container royalty payment issue has been agreed upon in principle by the parties, subject to achieving an overall collective bargaining agreement. The parties have further agreed to an additional extension of 30 days (i.e., until midnight, January 28, 2013) during which time the parties shall negotiate all remaining outstanding Master Agreement issues,
» Read more about: Breaking News: Port Pact Talks Extended »
This election year yielded a bumper crop of books about economics and politics. Here, in alphabetical order, is a sampling.
1. The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame, Peter Dreier (Nation Books). Meticulously researched profiles of our country’s progressive movers and shakers.
2. Beyond Outrage: What Has Gone Wrong With Our Economy and Our Democracy, and How to Fix It, Robert B. Reich (Vintage). Bill Clinton’s Labor Secretary explains why our economy is broken – but not beyond repair.
3. Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power, Rachel Maddow (Crown). Everyone’s favorite MSNBC commentator looks at how America has become an army in search of a war.
4. The Great Divergence: America’s Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It,
Question: What’s the difference between the European Barbarians like the Goths and Vandals (you know, the folks who looted and pillaged Europe and finished off the Western Roman Empire) and the Tea Party Politicians?
Answer: The Tea Partiers bathe more often.
Like their Iron Age counterparts, who tore up every vestige of Roman civilization they could find, seemingly just for the pleasure of doing it, their Tea Party descendants seem to take a perverse delight in obliterating all traces of the Middle Class America so carefully and painfully built since the New Deal.
And if this sounds a little puzzling, consider for a minute just who and what the Tea Party is.
Although it claims to be a “grassroots movement”, the Tea Party is basically a creature of FreedomWorks, a powerful right-wing organization headed until recently by former Texas congressman Dick Armey.
FreedomWorks itself was formed in 2004 by a merger of Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE) and Empower America.
» Read more about: The Tea Party's Search and Destroy Operation »
While most eyes are focused on January 1 and that storied piece of geography known as the fiscal cliff, another crisis looms next week: A longshore workers strike that could shut down docks along the Eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico. The International Longshoremen’s Association hasn’t waged a full-fledged strike since 1977, but is now threatening to do so if a new collective bargaining agreement is not in place by December 30. The union’s contract with the U.S. Maritime Alliance expired September 30.
Writes the New York Times‘ Steven Greenhouse:
“The strike threat has so alarmed corporate America that more than 100 business groups wrote to President Obama last week to urge him to intervene to push the two sides to settle — and, if need be, to invoke his emergency powers under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act to bar a strike.”
According to a statement released December 24 by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service,
1. Protecting Families from Foreclosures. This year, California became the first state to enact reforms that ban the practice of foreclosing on a family seeking a loan modification (AB278, SB900). These bills also increased penalties for “robo-signing,” or the filing of false mortgage documents, and required banks to create a single point of contact for those seeking a loan modification.
2. Winning improvements for injured workers. California’s injured workers have suffered under slashed benefits and delayed medical treatment under Schwarzenegger reforms. Comprehensive workers compensation reform enacted this year (1) increases benefits for injured workers system-wide by $860 million or 30 percent, (2) cuts down delays in medical treatment, and (3) stabilizes the insurance market by removing inefficiencies and excess profiteering from the system. SB 863 earned strong bipartisan support and was based on Labor-management negotiations.
3. Building the High Speed Rail. As with any bold project, the voices of doom and decline said the high speed rail couldn’t be built.
» Read more about: The Year's Top Five Legislative Victories for Workers »
Please refer the Union Hotel Guide to search for recommended union hotels. Make sure to steer clear of boycotted hotels and you may wish to consider the desirability of staying at hotels that are at risk of dispute (where there are current or looming labor disputes). Be aware that this list only reflects the present status of union hotels across North America. To avoid the prospect of labor conflict during your stay at a hotel, insist on protective contractual language when you make a reservation or organize an event.
Boycott These Properties In the Los Angeles/Orange County Area
Hyatt Hotels
For more information about the Global Boycott of Hyatt, please visit hyatthurts.org
Embassy Suites Irvine
2120 Main Street Irvine, CA 92614
LAX Hilton and Towers
5711 W. Century Blvd Los Angeles, CA
Holiday Inn LAX
9901 South La Cienega Boulevard Los Angeles,
» Read more about: Don't Ring in the New Year at Boycotted Hotels »
Speaker Boehner’s debacle in failing to get his own caucus to support his “Plan B” is not only his failure, it shows the complete disarray of the congressional Republican Party. They are simply incapable of a coherent response to a problem that calls upon them to go beyond campaign talking points.
This gives the President and Democrats in the House and Senate an opportunity to set fiscal cliff policy, in two stages. First, before the end of 2012, they should pass a bill in the Senate that would end the Bush tax cuts for those earning over $250,000 per year, as the President promised during the campaign. The bill should also extend unemployment coverage for the long-term unemployed, extend the debt limit for at least a year, and adjust the Alternative Minimum Tax to inflation. It should suspend (not cancel) the mandatory across-the-board spending cuts in the Fiscal Cliff law.
One of the proposals floated for months in the fiscal bluff debate in Washington, D.C., is a change to the formula used to measure inflation for Social Security Cost-of-Living Adjustments (COLAs) called the “chained” CPI. Let’s be clear: This is a benefit cut. These COLAs make sure seniors’ income keeps pace with the rising costs of housing and food. The “chained” CPI would cut future Social Security benefits by as much as $2,432 for someone who is 17 years old today. Studies from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) show that not only is the “chained” CPI a benefit cut, it eventually will lead to higher taxes for most working people.
For instance, CEPR estimated that the change to the “chained” CPI would lead to a cut in benefits of three percent after 10 years, six percent after 20 years and nine percent after 30 years.
» Read more about: Chained CPI: Proposed New COLA Leaves Bad Taste »
My name is Cathy Youngblood. I work as a housekeeper at the Hyatt Andaz in West Hollywood. There are many positive things about being a housekeeper. I get to meet the world. I have a real bond with the other women I work with. I also take pride in working in a field where I give comfort and pleasure to people when they travel.
There are also challenges to being a housekeeper. Every day the work is exhausting and physically debilitating. And management doesn’t always really listen when we have ideas about how to make the work safer or more efficient.
I care about my job, but also I see how things could be better. That’s why Hyatt needs someone like me on its board of directors. The current corporate officers might have business sense, but I have common sense. They push paper, I do the physical labor.
» Read more about: Hotel Worker Says: Put Me on Hyatt's Board! »