[Educationforall] spam con huevos, labor news, views and concerns, 12.20.11‏‏

Wed Dec 21 08:34:14 UTC 2011

Gingrich Challenge to Child-Labor Law Backed in State Capitals

Tell Gov. Brown: We're serious about banning methyl iodide.‏
Venezuelan Government Incorporates 1,723 Subcontracted Workers into Sidor, Nationalises Companies‏

AT&T Ends $39 Billion Bid for T-Mobile
Must See YouTube, Not in my America by SEIU‏
Jobs That Died in 2011‏
U.S. Trade Union Research Delegation to Cuba: April 25-May 2, 2012‏

Good News for Low-Paid Home Health Care Workers: Minimum Wage and Overtime Pay On the Way

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Gingrich Challenge to Child-Labor Law Backed in State Capitals

By Holly Rosenkrantz
Bloomberg
Dec 19, 2011
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2011-12-19/gingrich-challenge-to-child-labor-law-backed-in-state-capitals.html

Newt Gingrich isn't the only Republican who wants
to relax U.S. laws that have restricted work by
children for more than seven decades.

Republican governors and state lawmakers, who succeeded
this year in curbing union powers, are pushing to
revise their child-labor laws to help companies such as
groceries get workers. Wisconsin will let employers
treat teenagers as adults in pay and hours, and Maine
lawmakers want to let companies keep teens working
longer hours.

The moves pose a challenge to child-labor laws,
established at the federal level in 1938 to protect
youths from working long hours on dangerous machinery
instead of going to school. Republicans and businesses
that share Gingrich's view see easing the restrictions
as part of their effort to cut back government
regulation while giving teenagers a chance to learn
valuable work habits.

"How come it's OK, even exemplary, for teenagers to
spend 40 hours a week in sports, glee club, chorus,
debate society, or any other select activity sanctioned
by the social elite, but if you are a teenager who
wants to work or needs to work, there are limits?" Dick
Grotton, president of the Maine Restaurant Association,
based in Augusta, said in an interview. "Kids working
is not a bad thing."

The U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act sets a minimum age of
14 for most work and bars children under 18 from
hazardous jobs. The law remained intact after the
Supreme Court knocked down a challenge in 1941, and its
champions say Gingrich is leading an effort to
undermine it. Some states such as Maine have laws that
exceed federal requirements, and Republican legislators
are targeting the state regulations.

'Anti-Worker Policies'

"This is part of a coordinated effort by conservatives
across the country to use the economic crisis to shred
critical worker protections," Anne Thompson, a policy
analyst at the National Employment Law Project, a
Washington-based group that advocates for worker
rights, said in an interview.

Gingrich, leading in polls among candidates for the
2012 Republican presidential nomination, used a speech
at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, last
month to depict the restrictions as undermining
opportunities for the poor.

"It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods,
entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which
are truly stupid," the former House speaker said.

He reaffirmed the position during a Dec. 10 debate
among the Republican candidates in Iowa, suggesting
children replace union janitors in New York's public
schools.

(http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2011-12-19/gingrich-challenge-to-child-labor-law-backed-in-state-capitals.html)

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Tell Gov. Brown: We’re serious about banning methyl iodide.

Let’s keep the pressure on.

Together we have held the line on methyl iodide in California. Getting it banned there will be a first step to getting this chemical out of U.S. agriculture, period.
We’ve pitched a long battle here in California to keep the cancer-causing pesticide methyl iodide out of strawberry fields because getting it banned here will make a national ban all the more likely. Some 90% of the nation’s strawberries are grown here. So without a CA market, methyl iodide just isn’t viable.
Back in 2010, growers argued that without methyl iodide, California's billion-dollar agriculture industry would hemorrhage jobs and profits. Guess what? The cancer-causing pesticide has been approved for use in California’s strawberry fields for a year now. But farmers aren’t using it. Records show only six applications in the entire state, all on very small farms – by now there should have been hundreds.
Why only six? Because consumers like you have helped the UFW and our partners keep up the pressure. By writing e-mails, calling decision makers, passing local resolutions and more, you have helped us hold the line to stop growers using methyl iodide.
According to a Dec 14 article in the Huffington Post, "some growers say methyl iodide is too politically risky to use. 'The people who oppose this particular chemical are really loud and effective,' said Liz Elwood Ponce, co-owner of Lassen Canyon Nursery in Redding. 'If no one said anything, I think the chemical would be used more widely. '"
And according to our partner Pesticide Action Network, PR people at methyl iodide's manufacturer, Arysta, have told reporters that they “don’t call it methyl iodide anymore because the public thinks methyl iodide means poison.” 
Help us keep up the pressure. Last April, Brown said he’d “take a fresh look” at the methyl iodide decision. Since this time, memos have gone public showing that the decision to allow the use of this toxin was based on political calculations, not science.
We’re told that the new head of the state’s Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) will be appointed around the new year. This person will have the power to reverse the prior administration’s decision and ban this toxin once and for all.
Please send an e-mail today and tell Governor Brown that whomever he appoints to head DPR should take swift action to reverse this bad decision and protect farm workers and local residents who live in agricultural areas. Keeping this carcinogenic chemical out of California must be a priority for the new year.

http://action.ufw.org/mei1211
After you take action please share this campaign with your friends and family.  You can send them an e-mail, post this campaign on your Facebook and/or Twitter page by clicking here or going to http://action.ufw.org/page/share/mei1211

Will You Make a Holiday Gift to Help Farm Workers?
The holiday season is when we share special memories and look forward to creating new ones in the coming year. We've accomplished a lot, but there is still more to do. 
Please help us bring justice to the fields by making a donation to help farm workers. Or even make a New Year’s resolution that lasts all year long by joining our monthly pledge program. No amount is too much or too little. Even a few dollars will help us get stronger and take advantage of the opportunities ahead.
Thank you again for your generosity. From our family to yours, Happy Holidays!
Click here to donate

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Venezuelan Government Incorporates 1,723 Subcontracted Workers into Sidor, Nationalises Companies
Dec 19th 2011, by Ewan Robertson - Venezuelanalysis.com

Subcontracted Sidor workers greeted the announcement with jubilation (AVN)

Guyana City, December 19th 2011 (Venezuelanalysis.com)  A further 1,723 subcontracted workers are to be incorporated onto the state payroll in Venezuela´s nationalised steel plant Sidor, Venezuelan Vice-president Elias Jaua announced on Friday. He further confirmed that two other companies, Grafitos del Orinoco and Sidetur, will be nationalised by the end of the year.
The announcement, made in the presence of a gathering of Sidor workers in Caracas, was greeted by applause and jubilation by the subcontracted workers.
Jaua stressed that the gains made by subcontracted workers in being included within the more generous collective contract with the state should not be attributed to one individual, but are “the achievement of a collective, of a people who know how to make a revolution and do it with a leader like [Venezuelan President] Hugo Chavez”.
Further, a central commission is to be established that will examine the incorporation of the remaining 2,200 subcontracted Sidor workers. Jaua explained that workers not directly linked to the production process may not be incorporated, but would be offered “dignified work” by Venezuela´s new Knowledge and Work mission to be launched next year.
Friday’s announcement means that a total of 6,370 subcontracted Sidor workers have now been incorporated onto the state payroll since 2008, with the majority of the remaining cases to be analysed by the new central commission in the first quarter of 2012.
Ending Subcontracted Labour
Subcontracted workers are those contracted by private companies to work alongside state employees in nationalised enterprises such as Sidor, but enjoy less benefits and are paid up to four times less for performing the same work.
At the meeting on Friday, Jaua claimed that the creation of a double  tier workforce is rooted in the neoliberal policy of privatising state companies in the 1990s, in which “the first victims were the poor and the workers”.
Sidor, situated in the Guayana region of heavy industries in the east of Venezuela, was privatised in 1997 by Venezuela President Rafael Caldera, the year before Hugo Chavez was elected to power. According to information supplied to Venezuelnalysis.com by Sidor union activist Jesus Pino, during the decade of privatisation 1997  2008 the number of workers enjoying the direct collective contract with Sidor was reduced from 11,000 to 5,000, while up to 9,000 subcontracted positions were created.
After a 14 month struggle between workers and management over collective contracts, Chavez responded to workers’ demands and announced the renationalisation of Sidor in April 2008. A key clause of the nationalisation agreement obliged the Sidor to gradually incorporate the subcontracted workers as full state employees, ending outsourced labour.
This process continued according to a set timetable, and by mid 2011 4,647 subcontracted workers had been reincorporated.
However, accusing Sidor management of incompliance with the stage of incorporation of workers in September this year, the subcontracted workers union, the Bolivarian Movement, launched a series of actions in protest, including seizing an administration building, and blocking the main highway to Guyana City for 32 hours in mid November.
These protests resulted in the formation of a commission to resolve the dispute, with representation from the Bolivarian Movement, Sidor president Carlos D' Oliveira, and Minister of Basic Industries and Mines José Salamat Khan. The commission agreed on the quickest possible incorporation of the September wave of subcontracted workers, and a revised timetable for the rest.
However, on 5 and 6 December a group of subcontracted workers closed down the section of the Sidor plant producing steel rods and bars to further increase pressure on Sidor management and the government. This was a particularly sensitive move because Sidor´s products are central to the government´s mass housing mission (GMV) launched in April this year, which aims to build over 2 million 700,000 homes by 2019.
Representative of the Bolivarian Movement Hugo Bastardo, who had organized the highway closure a few weeks before, claimed that the subcontracted workers behind the plant stoppage did not represent the union, and that the move was an act of “internal sabotage”. “The protesters demanded their insertion into the company without taking into account that a timetable exists”, he stated.
Meanwhile the head of marketing in Sidor, Nestor Astudillo, opined that the moves were part of a plan to take advantage of the incorporation issue to destabilise the plant among a faction oriented with the opposition, exacerbating labour conflicts and jeopardising supplies to the house building program, especially given that 90% of the products from this section of the plant are destined for the program and state construction.
The stoppage was resolved after dialogue was opened between the workers and Sidor president Carlos D' Oliveira.
Hugo Chavez later commented on the dispute, declaring that the subcontracted workers “have to know that they can count on me, but they can´t ask me to arrange with the stroke of a pen what occurred over so many years,” and maintained that subcontracted labour had to be eliminated in the country.
Following Friday’s announcement, subcontracted labour in Sidor should be almost ended during the coming year.
Nationalisations 
On Friday Jaua also announced an order from President Chavez for the nationalisation of Grafitos del Orinoco and Sidetur, two companies key to the steel production process. The move aims to ensure the production of construction materials needed for the GMV, and for the workers signifies “a great commitment with the Venezuelan people”, Jaua declared.
The 70 workers at Grafitos del Orinoco in Guyana have been hoping for nationalisation in order to secure their model of worker control that they have developed since the government awarded them ownership of the factory in October 2009, after an 8 month struggle against the former boss.
“We workers celebrate the President´s decision of constructing this victory [of the worker control model], of the workers and the working class”, related Karlos Rondon of the Grafitos factory to Venezuelanalysis.com in response to the decision.
Meanwhile the Sidetur company, with over 1,800 workers and factories situated in various cities in the country, produces 40% of the cables used in Venezuelan construction. 

Source URL (retrieved on 20/12/2011 - 7:24am): http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/6702

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AT&T Ends $39 Billion Bid for T-Mobile
By MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED 
AT&T acknowledged that it could not overcome opposition from the Obama administration to creating the nation's biggest cellphone service provider.

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Not in My America

Go to YouTubePlay video
00:03:59
Added on 12/15/11
638 views

On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 7:41 AM, Re: [mxac]Lorena Colin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIECMvEduvA&sns=em

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Jobs That Died in 2011

By Jen Hubley Luckwaldt, PayScale.com 

http://career-advice.comcast.monster.com/job-search/company-industry-research/jobs-in-decline-2011/article.aspx?WT.mc_n=comcast802
The tech-savvy, newest generation of workers grew up hearing that the jobs they would hold as adults hadn't even been invented yet. No one mentioned that the jobs they had come to think of as permanent might become a thing of the past.   

More Resources from Monster:

Eight Bright-Outlook Careers
Update Your Resume
All Job Hunt Strategy ArticlesThis year has been a rough one for many industries. In fact, many fields were plagued with layoffs and budget cuts severe enough to threaten the continued existence of specific jobs within them. In time, we may look back and say that 2011 was the year that the following jobs began to die.

1. US Postal Service Carrier

"Get a government job," your parents told you. "Government jobs are secure. You'll get a pension, and they can never, ever fire you." This belief might no longer be true. The US Postal Service has had a famously bad year. 

According to stories in Money and The Washington Post, in order to make a $5.5 billion annual payment to its retiree healthcare fund, the Postal Service has considered canceling Saturday delivery, closing post offices and laying off some of its 280,000 workers.

Median Annual Pay for a Mail Carrier: $48,300
Median Hourly Pay: $23.20 
Education: High school diploma

2. Real Estate Agents

Real estate, formerly the favorite second job of actors and parents returning to work, is no longer such a sure thing. 

Al Halverson of Burien, Washington, a 30-year real estate industry veteran, says the money just isn’t what it used to be. “The buyers are coming out to buy at much lower prices,” he says. “That means Realtors are working more and making less. The million-dollar houses are now $450,000 or $500,000.” Homes selling for half the price means a big pay cut for commission-based agents’ earnings.

Median Annual Pay for a Real Estate Agent: $75,500
Median Hourly Pay: $36.30
Education: Bachelor's degree plus real estate license

3. Video Store Clerk 

Your college job may soon look as dated as that tape deck in your car. Blockbuster closed more than 200 stores in 2011, while Netflix blundered into a PR nightmare that made us long for the days of 50-cent rewind fees. 

Median Hourly Pay for a Video Store Clerk: $9
Education: High school

4. Toll Collectors/Operators 

Technology is a double-edged sword for some workers. On the one hand, computers, handhelds and all the assorted gadgets of the 21st century make jobs easier. On the other hand, ask any toll collector how he feels about E-ZPass.

Median Annual Pay for a Toll Collector: $36,800 
Median Hourly Pay: $17.70 
Education: High school

5. Stock Brokers 

The good news is that many of the large financial services firms (such as Morgan Stanley) seem to have gotten back on their feet. The bad news is that many of them are doing it, in part, by laying off employees. 

Still, don't cry too much for beleaguered stock brokers: Their salaries were slightly up in the third quarter of 2011, compared to last year, according to PayScale.com data.

Median Annual Pay for a Stock Broker: $58,400 
Median Hourly Pay: $28.10 
Education: Bachelor's degree

6. Newspaper Reporters 

It took 15 years, but the Internet might finally be crushing the newspaper industry. Papers all over the country reported declining ad revenue and responded by laying off staff -- including folks in the newsroom.

Median Annual Pay for a Newspaper Reporter: $34,700
Median Hourly Pay: $16.70 
Education: Bachelor's degree

Source: All salary data provided by PayScale.com. Annual salaries are for full-time workers with five to eight years of experience and include any bonuses, commissions or profit sharing. Education is the most typical education level respondents with that job title list in the PayScale survey.