[Educationforall] spam con huevos, labor news, views and concerns, 12.29.11‏‏-I‏

[Carlos Pelayo]

A Living Wage, Long Overdue
FNS Feature: 100 Years of No Workers' Comp‏
Half of Americans Do Indeed Live in Poverty: It's a National Shame

German Auto Manufacturers' High Profits and High Pay Show Why U.S. Labor Laws Need to Be Stronger

We're bringing in the new year with a bang!‏
Nurses Say Private Equity Firm Starving Massachusetts 
In 2012, Let's Bring Manufacturing Back to the U.S.

We Are the Union: Democratic Unionism and Dissent at Boeing‏
We went on the Offense. And we won.
Nonunion competition weighs on contract talks for area grocery chains  
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A Living Wage, Long Overdue

A new bill would require developers who profit from public subsidies to pay a minimum wage of $10 an hour, lifting thousands of New Yorkers above the poverty line.
 
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December 26, 2011 

FNS Feature 

100 Years of No Workers’ Comp 

For the nearly one hundred years New Mexico has been a US state, farm and ranch workers have been excluded from the state workers’ compensation system. The labor force was systematically left out of legislation passed in 1917, 1937, 1973 and 1990. Despite the exclusion, contributions to the state administrative system are deducted from workers’ paychecks. Most recently, a 2009 bill mandating workers’ compensation coverage for agricultural workers and sponsored by State Rep. Antonio Lujan (D-Dona Ana) failed to pass the State House’s Business and Industry Committee, where it was tabled by a vote of 10-2. 

But as New Mexico prepares to kick off its Centennial of Statehood celebration in 2012, farmworker advocates are optimistic the people who work the land and put food on city slickers’ tables will soon have workers’ compensation insurance. 

In a major victory for farm labor activists and their supporters, New Mexico District Judge Valerie Huling ruled this month that the farm and ranch exclusion was unconstitutional. According to the judge, “...the agricultural industry is the only industry allowed to shift the burden of its injured workers from the industry to the taxpayers.” The omission, Huling ruled, takes place in an arbitrary manner “that lacks reasonable basis in fact.” 

“This is going to lead to a safer work environment for all farms and dairies in New Mexico,” said Maria Martinez, staff attorney for the Albuquerque-based New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty (NMCLP), which sued the New Mexico Workers Compensation Administration on behalf of several plaintiffs, Taxpayers, Martinez said, will then no longer have to foot the bill for indigent workers injured on the job. 

According to the NMCLP, 33 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands require mandatory workers’ comp for most agricultural sector workers. 

Representing three plaintiffs who worked in different dairies across the state, Joe Griego, Eloy Vigil and Ramon Molina, the NMCLP filed suit against the New Mexico Workers Compensation Administration after the latest legislative attempt to cover agricultural workers died in Santa Fe in 2009. Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit included the non-profit organization HELP-New Mexico and Sin Fronteras Organizing Project, an El Paso-based group that represents workers who labor in southern New Mexico fields. 

Court documents told of severe personal hardships encountered by the plaintiffs. In two instances, the men were attacked by bulls while in the third the plaintiff was kicked by a cow. The three plaintiffs claimed to have subsequently experienced extreme financial difficulties due to their inability to work and pay for medical attention; one of the plaintiffs was transported to Texas for treatment because a hospital in Portales was not equipped to attend his injury. 

New Mexico Workers Compensation Administration Director Ned Fuller said his office had to “look at” Judge Huling’s legal decision to determine the state’s next step. Fuller said he was displeased with some of the legal agreements between the state and attorneys for the plaintiffs that framed the case as it went to trial. 

“We think they stipulated some facts that weren’t helpful…and didn’t really offer any in our defense,” Fuller said. Reached by phone just prior to the Christmas holiday, Fuller said he had not spoken with either the governor’s office or the state attorney general’s office about the New Mexico District Court judgment. 

The state official added that he did not expect a decision on how to respond to Judge Huling’s ruling before the end of the year. 

The Workers Compensation Administration was defended by the state attorney general’s office. Current State Attorney General Gary King comes from a prominent ranching family that has been influential in New Mexico politics. His father, the late Bruce King, served three terms as New Mexico governor. 

Apart from the personal dramas of the three plaintiffs, court records in the workers’ comp case shed new light on the history and treatment of a mainly Mexican immigrant labor force in New Mexico; the nature of farm, ranch and dairy work; and the economic evolution and structure of New Mexico agriculture in the 21st century. 

According to the documents, the average value of agricultural production in New Mexico is currently around three billion dollars, or 1.45 percent of state production. Although 20,000 farms exist in the Land of Enchantment, only ten percent of them provide a primary income for their owners. Almost the same number-1,973 farms-employ three or more workers and account for 83 percent of the state’s farm and ranch labor force. 

“The nature of agriculture in New Mexico has changed since 1990, becoming industrialized, with larger and larger farms dominating the production and sale of agricultural products in the state,” Judge Huling wrote. 

The lawsuit examined the dairy boom of the late 20th century. With an average of 2,300 cows per dairy, New Mexico ranks as the nation’s ninth largest milk producer. Of the state’s 272 dairies, 150 account for 99 percent of the sales. Now New Mexico’s number one agricultural commodity, the dairy industry employs approximately 3,500 workers and generates in the neighborhood of one billion dollars in producer income every year. 

The number of dairy cows in New Mexico more than quadrupled from the 81,000 counted in 1990 to the 338,000 reported in the 2007 Census of Agriculture. In that year, the state dairy herd outnumbered the human population of Las Cruces, Deming, Rio Rancho, and Santa Fe combined. Move over green chile, roadrunners and Smoky the Bear. 

In making her decision, Judge Huling accepted numbers that reported the net profit of New Mexico farming and ranching operations fluctuated from a low of $422,979,000 in 2002 to a high of $900,887,000 in 2009. Profits then jumped to $1,020,831,000 in 2010. Meanwhile, the average annual amount paid out in wages during the last eight years was calculated at $231,250,000. 

According to Judge Huling’s opinion, seasonal crop workers earn between $6-7,000 per year while year-round dairy workers bring in $18,000 annually. Although 29 percent of agricultural employers were found to voluntarily cover their workers with workers’ comp, only one percent of agricultural workers had health insurance. Representatives of the state agriculture industry have argued that it is unnecessary to cover their employees under workers’ compensation since farm employee medical insurance policies performed the same function. 

According to plaintiffs’ lawyer Maria Martinez, such policies typically cap payouts at $5,000, even in situations in which an injured worker racks up “tens of thousands” in medical bills. “It’s nowhere close to the benefits workers’ comp gives to the workers,” Martinez said. 

In terms of occupational health and safety, farm and ranch workers are sometimes exposed to toxic chemicals, suffer spider and snake bites, sweat in extreme heat, slip in the mud and experience repetitive motion injuries, among other risks. No OSHA standard for egronomic injuries currently exists, according to the lawsuit. Finally, no reliable set of statistics tracks the injuries of New Mexico agricultural workers 

“There’s no place in the state that is collecting that information, at least that we are aware of,” said Gail Evans, the NMCLP’s legal director. 

The workers’ comp case opened a lens into farmworker history dating back to the late 1800s, when the New Mexico Bureau of Immigration promoted the availability of a Mexican labor force as an incentive to outside investors. Recruiters were quoted promoting the presence of a “peasant” labor force made up of “quiet, orderly, teachable people.” 

As portrayed by the plaintiffs, 19th century working conditions persist in the 21st century. Children as young as 12 years of age are permitted to do some work, and no state (or federal) collective bargaining law for farmworkers is on the books. Judge Huling found that farmworkers and their advocates had suffered retaliation for complaining and organizing around working conditions. 

In litigating the lawsuit, the State of New Mexico contended that excluding agricultural workers from workers’ comp simplified the overall system because it was hard to keep tabs on a workforce that moves from employer-to-employer and, in deference to farmers and ranchers, spared a struggling economic sector from an extra cost in tough times. 

Judge Huling rejected the arguments. According to the judge, requiring coverage for an estimated 10,000 eligible workers would cost between five and seven million dollars per year, or less than one percent of the agricultural sector’s annual profit. 

“The cost of workers’ compensation insurance for the agricultural industry is reasonable and comparable to that of other industries,” Judge Huling wrote. Increased claims on the system “would likely increase by less than one percent,” she maintained. 

Judge Huling’s employer cost estimate differed wildly from one prepared by a New Mexico State University economist who pegged the comparable annual figure at $90 million; the economist’s numbers were used in the New Mexico State House to shoot down State Rep. Lujan’s bill in 2009, according to court records. 

For now, it’s unclear if an appeal or other legal/legislative challenge to Judge Huling’s decision will emerge. “This is eventually going to be the law of the land in New Mexico,” predicted NMCLP attorney Maria Martinez. “We’re confident it’s going to be successful even if it’s appealed.” 

Beverly Idsinga, executive director of the Dairy Producers of New Mexico, said her organization was “still reviewing” the ruling and could not comment on it. Idsinga told Frontera NorteSur that she expected the lawsuit to be a topic when dairy farmers meet with other members of state agricultural associations on the first day of the 2012 State Legislature when it convenes in the state capital of Santa Fe next month. 


-Kent Paterson 


Frontera NorteSur: on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

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Half of Americans Do Indeed Live in Poverty: It's a National Shame
Read the Article at BuzzFlash


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German Auto Manufacturers' High Profits and High Pay Show Why U.S. Labor Laws Need to Be Stronger
By Laura Clawson | Daily Kos

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Dear SEIU-UHW supporter,

The year may be winding down, but SEIU-UHW members are making sure the year ends on a high note.

The holidays are a time to reflect on our blessings and share what we have with those in need, and SEIU-UHW members have taken a lead role in doing just that in our communities. On Christmas Eve, my co-workers at Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley and I hosted a holiday dinner and celebration for 100 people. In addition to giving away toys and warm clothes, we conducted sceenings for seasonal depression and were able to get people who struggle with it the help they needed. You can read more about our event here.


Kaiser Members “Stuff the Bus” For Families in Need

SEIU-UHW members at Kaiser and Santa Rosa community members came together and cleared out their pantries to spread a little holiday cheer and “Stuff the Bus” with healthy foods for families in need.

“Times are tough and we're fortunate to have so many people in our hospital willing help out, especially during the holidays,” said Tonya Salcido, a Medical Assistant at Kaiser Santa Rosa. “We want to make sure everyone in our community has a chance to experience Christmas the way they should."

During the event, 457 pounds of non-perishable food items and $340 in donations were collected on the purple RV and delivered to Redwood Empire Food Bank.
NUHW Sells Out Tarzana Workers with Pay and Benefit Cuts

After a year and half in bargaining and no pay raises, NUHW officials walked away from union standards at Tarzana Medical Center and settled a contract that gives away pay and health benefits, just like workers feared.

“Let’s get real here,” said Jeanene Aguilar, an employee at Providence Tarzana Medical Center and a dues-paying member of NUHW. “We took two huge steps back and one small step forward. I haven’t received a raise in 18 months, and under this contract the cost of my health insurance could now practically double.”

The NUHW deal dismantles years of progress made by workers, giving away the guarantees of minimum pay rates and fully employer-paid healthcare benefits previously secured with SEIU-UHW.

Members are holding Prime accountable inside and outside the hospitals

Several new media reports further expose Prime’s bad business practices—and SEIU-UHW members are in full support of these investigations.

“Healthcare workers are holding Prime accountable both inside and outside the hospitals–and it’s working,” said Erica Gomez of Centinela Hospital in Inglewood. “The buzz we’ve started in the media, among politicians, and in our communities is growing every day—and we won’t stop until Prime cleans up its act and makes improvements for workers and patients.”

Watch the television report that aired nationwide on PBS Newshour and listen to the KQED Public Radio report on Prime.

As you can see, SEIU-UHW is closing out a great end to 2011--here's to an even better 2012!
 
In Unity,
Connie Taylor-Smith

Eden Medical Center, Castro Valley

SEIU-UHW executive board member

P.S. Don’t forget to like us on Facebook.
 
 
 



 

SEIU United Healthcare Workers - West  

560 Thomas L. Berkley Way, Oakland, CA 94612 


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Nurses Say Private Equity Firm Starving Massachusetts Hospitals
Mark Brenner and Mischa Gaus, Labor Notes: "Nurses sang sour carols today to the private equity firm they say is starving Massachusetts hospitals and pitting workers against each other.... The nurses are looking to repair staffing levels, protect benefits, and keep the community hospitals open until Cerberus starts looking for the next big thing to exploit." 
Read the Article 

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In 2012, Let's Bring Manufacturing Back to the U.S.
By Dave Johnson | Campaign for America's 
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We Are the Union: Democratic Unionism and Dissent at
Boeing
 
Q&A with "We Are the Union" author Dana Cloud
 
Posted on December 20, 2011
 
by Beth Tracy Stollman
 
We Are the Union: Democratic Unionism and Dissent at
Boeing. (University of Illinois Press, 2011) by Dana
Cloud, associate professor of communication at The
University of Texas at Austin.
 
http://www.bethstollman.info/2011/12/20/qa-with-we-are-the-union-author-dana-cloud-4/
 
 
December 5, 2011, we published We ARE the Union:
Democratic Unionism and Dissent at Boeing by Dana
Cloud, an associate professor of communication studies
at the University of Texas, Austin. Dr. Cloud
discusses labor unrest at Boeing and how a 1995 strike
benefitted rank-and-file workers.
 
Q: What was the main impetus for the strike at Boeing
in 1995?
 
A: In 1995, the company was enormously profitable,
having just purchased McDonnell Douglass. Hundreds of
orders for planes were outstanding. Yet the Company
wanted concessions on wages, health care benefits,
pensions, and work hours-including demanding rotating
12-hour shifts that are incredibly disruptive to family
life. Knowing that the Company was flush, ordinary
workers felt moved to strike, but their leadership
cozied up with their employers to craft an
unnecessarily concessionary contract. After surprising
the Company, the IAMAW (International Association of
Machinists), and the media with their rejection of a
second bad contract offer, workers went out for 69 days
and won nearly all of their demands.
 
Q: How did the union negotiate the gulf between what
the workers wanted and what Boeing was willing to
offer?
 
A: The IAMAW did not negotiate that gulf-its leaders
stayed clearly on the side of the Boeing Company and
was willing to basically accept what Boeing was
offering without a fight. It took the workers
independent action to force the IAMAW to act like the
representative of the workers. This is an all too
common practice on the part of mainstream union leaders
across US industry since WWII. During this period union
leaders, occupying an ambivalent position between
worker and management operated on tacit agreements with
employers not to strike in exchange for the assumption
of job security. But employers violated that pact
beginning in 1973-and the unions did not modify their
stance accordingly, so that now unions bargain away the
rights and wages of workers even when a company like
Boeing is immensely profitable.
 
Q: There were dissident factions within the union that
wanted the union to be more responsive to workers'
demands. Is this type of dissent typical in union
history or a more recent development?
 
A: Democratic union agitators and organizations have
always been present in the union movement pushing for
greater accountability from their leaders and
generating upward pressure on both union and company.
Three notable examples are the efforts of postal
workers in 1970 in a national wildcat (unauthorized)
strike, the rise of the black-worker-led Detroit
Revolutionary Union Movement in Detroit in the 1960s,
and the rise of Teamsters for a Democratic Union in the
1990s. These countervailing pressures have always been
necessary to hold union leaders' and management's feet
to the fire, but are even more urgent now in the era of
neoliberal privatization. Demands for an increasingly
leaner, scattered, and non-unionized labor force have
imperiled workers around the world.
 
In this climate, union leaders have created and
heralded "partnerships" with employers, enacting joint
training and safety institutes. But as one of my
informers warned me, the appeal to "jointness" means
that "the employees are "getting the joint."
 
Q: You spoke to Boeing workers in Wichita and Seattle.
Did you observe regional differences in how the workers
at each location approached the strike?
 
A: The only regional differences came from the fact
that in the Puget Sound, there were many thousands more
workers in the union in a closed shop-which meant that
every worker in the plants there was in the union,
effectively uniting them in the power of a strike. In
Wichita, KS (a "right-to-work" state), the workforce
was not uniformly unionized and pressure on union
workers was high to keep fellow workers from crossing
picket lines. The strength of the workers in Seattle
bolstered the power of those organized in Wichita. In
terms of organizing strategy, there were some
differences among the groups I studied, but they
generally aren't regional differences. In the Puget
Sound, the long-term vision of David Clay and his
Machinists for Solidarity organization was more
moderate than those of the Unionists for Democratic
Change and the New Crew-the militancy of the latter
combined with the systematicity of the former could
make for a formidable presence.
 
Q: Did the 1995 strike ultimately improve the plight
of Boeing workers?
 
A: The strike was an unmitigated victory, as were
strikes in 2005 and 2008. The workers won a shorter
contract term, which means that they are not stuck with
any bad provisions for an extended period and can use
their leverage more frequently to win improvements in
wages, benefits, and work conditions. They won
assurances of job security, although those have
obviously eroded as the IAMAW continues speaking the
language of the Company in terms of
competitiveness-when in fact there is little to no real
competition. They retained great health care plans and
pension plans and cost of living raises for retirees,
all of which were and are continually on the chopping
block. To the extent that Boeing workers have had it
good, it is because they have been organized and
fighting. The decentralization of Boeing production in
numbers of non-union facilities threatens this capacity
to fight. Workers must attempt to organize every one of
the facilities where Boeing operates; the IAMAW should
make a great push to make this happen as well.
 
Q: What was the most interesting thing that you
learned while researching the book?
 
A: The most incredible thing is that you find people
who sacrifice their money and time to make a
difference, people who bear up under incredibly heavy
workloads, exploitation, discrimination on the basis of
race and gender, anti-gay harassment-and who still
possess full consciousness of their interests and power
as workers and who take risks to deploy that power.
They are eloquent tellers of their own stories and
powerful examples of how to fight. In other words, as
we have also seen in Egypt, in Wisconsin, and across
the US in the Occupy Movements, ordinary people can and
do take their futures into their own hands.
 
Q: What advice would you offer future strikers at
Boeing?
 
A: 1. To strike as long as it takes to defend short
contract terms, job security language, cost of living
raises for all employees and retirees, employee
controlled health care plans, seniority rights, a wage
structure without tiers, safety controls and all the
rest.
 
2. To push union leaders to distance themselves from
the Company and to enable workers to fight.
 
3. To be suspicious of joint programs.
 
4. To work hard to overcome differences of race,
gender, sexuality, and so on to craft the strongest
possible solidarity.
 
5. Know your history. When they tell you you can't
fight and win, that is a lie. When they tell you the
Company is struggling, that is a lie. When union
leaders say that workers have to take concessions,
that's a lie. When mainstream media tell workers that
it's the unions' fault that the economy crashed, that's
a lie.
 
6. Build lasting democracy organizations inside unions
that can weather the swells of activism. Make these
organizations about growing numbers of class-conscious,
critical rank and file members rather than run to win
union elections, which are rigged, and which gets you
ostracized, harassed, and threatened. Train up new
layers of leaders so as not to burn out. Charge dues to
cover the expenses of running an organization. Use that
organization to agitate at every available moment about
the Company's profitability and the workers' power,
contract in and contract out. Go for numbers rather
than exploiting legal loopholes.
 
7. Tell your stories to inspire others. Let scholars
and activists know that you know that you are not
ignorant of your own strength.
 
____________________________________________
 
PortsideLabor aims to provide material of interest to
people on the left that will help them to interpret the
world and to change it.
 
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@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@Dear Charles, As You May Have Heard by now, John Boehner and His Tea Party caucus of obstructionists in the House of Representatives finally accepted Political reality. Yesterday, they'd Announced They join 

with 89 out of 100 senators from Both Political Parties who'd voted to renew Already Unemployment aid for two months - With No Strings Attached cuts and no. 

This is an Enormous victory . Thanks to you, 2.8 million jobless Americans Will Have a brighter holiday season-and a helping hand over the next two months. Not an easy time.Not a handout or a free ride. But a lifeline and a chance That you made ​​possible. 

In the fight to extend aid for the jobless, the 99% Went on the Offense Against the 1% Politicians. And we won. And if working people keep it up, we'll score more victories and build a better future. Not Every Time-two steps forward, one step back. But look around. People all across the country are Saying our economy and our Democracy are out of balance. And they're winning the public debate. I hope you'll Take Some Time This well-Deserved holiday season to rest, recharge and Reflect. Because in 2012, huge Challenges Will keep on coming. And we'll need you ready to start early, act and work harder Often than ever. I wish all the best for you and your family, for our unions and for our nation This Holiday season and in the year ahead. Thank you for all the work you do. In Solidarity,Richard L. Trumka President, AFL-CIO 












PS Want to get more Involved in our work? "Like" the AFL-CIO on Facebook.
To find out more about the AFL-CIO, please visit our website at www.aflcio.org .@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Nonunion competition weighs on contract talks for area grocery chains 
By Dale KasleIt's Been A ticket to the middle class, college degree not required, for Generations of Sacramentans: a job at Raley's or Another unionized supermarket. - Read More@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 
 

 


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