[Educationforall] spam con huevos labor news, views and concerns, 3.11.12

[Carlos Pelayo]

Economy Adds 227,000 Jobs‏ Trabajadores de Cervecería Polar Anzoátegui radicalizan lucha en defensa de sus derechos y reivindicaciones.‏Court OKs new NLRB poster mandate, limits authority to penalize employers‏ (FYI)How Public Sector Layoffs Are Holding Back the Recovery  NEA's $500,000 a Year Boss, Van Roekel, Shocked, simply Shocked, at Teacher unhappiness! Raising Taxes on Rich Does Not Slow Jobs Growth  Our New Website is Just the Beginning‏ (27) NEARLY 1/3 OF MIDDLE CLASS SUFFER DOWNWARD MOBILITY‏ American Airlines & Pensions‏Healthy Job Growth Pushes Employment-to-Population Ratio Upward  Black Unemployment Rate Was 14.1% in February 2012, an Increase from 13.6% in January 2012‏  
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March 9, 2012
Looking for a laugh? Check out our new video—yes, it is suitable for work—from last month’s Laughter Works comedy show in Portland, Ore.The nation’s economy added 227,000 jobs in February, but the unemployment rate remained steady at 8.3 percent, according to the latest figures released this morning. Economic Policy Institute economist Heidi Shierholz says the latest figures “show a strengthened recovery [and] mark two full years of job growth,” but adds “the jobs deficit remains very large.” Read more and comment.  Laughter Works—Take a Look Report: Young Workers’ Wages Are Sinking American Backs off Plan to Dump Pensions Illinois Signs PLA for Renewable Power Project, Creates 1,400 Jobs Phoenix News Report Says It All About Arizona Legislature’s ‘Priorities’ on Job Creation Southern Workers in Transition Help Bring a Great New Film About Sanitation Workers to the Big Screen! ‘Protect Our Jobs’ Campaign Launched In MichiganRead more important news of the day on the issues working families care about.Follow the AFL-CIO:
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http://www.luchadeclases.org.ve/lucha-obrera-leftmenu-166/7188-huelgacerveceriapolar
Trabajadores de Cervecería Polar Anzoátegui radicalizan lucha en defensa de sus derechos y reivindicaciones.Escrito por Prensa Lucha de Clases   Viernes 09 de Marzo de 2012 El día miércoles 07 de Marzo, los trabajadores de la planta de Cervecería Polar de la Ciudad de Barcelona, Edo. Anzoátegui, llevaron a cabo una huelga durante varias horas, como medida de protesta ante la pretensión del patrono de continuar violando de manera descarada varias cláusulas contractuales en materia de beneficios económicos y sociales.  En una conversación que sostuvimos con dirigentes del Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Industria de las Bebidas del Edo. Anzoátegui, (Sintraibean), los compañeros señalaron que entre las reivindicaciones que están demandando, solicitan el reconocimiento del día domingo como día feriado y el reconocimiento del día sábado sobre la base de lo que está estipulado en el contrato colectivo vigente.Tales reivindicaciones han sido negadas de manera reiterada por el patrono, argumentando que ya existe un supuesto acuerdo previo desde hace 6 años, establecido en un acta que fue elaborada en conjunto por los representantes del patrono y la antigua representación sindical de los trabajadores para aquel momento, por lo cual se niegan a reconocer lo contemplado en la actual convención colectiva.Por otra parte, los trabajadores también solicitan el reconocimiento de un fondo de ahorro para los trabajadores de la empresa, el cual está contemplado en el contrato colectivo vigente y al cual el patrono está en la obligación de aportar las respectivas cuotas para su constitución. En el actual contrato colectivo, las cuotas que debe aportar la empresa al fondo de ahorro por cada trabajador, están contempladas como parte de los beneficios que componen el salario de cada uno de los trabajadores.Desde hace 8 meses los trabajadores de la empresa han venido discutiendo con los patronos a fin de solventar esta situación. En ése sentido, hace tres semanas fue introducido un pliego conciliatorio en la respectiva Inspectoría del Ministerio del Trabajo, y aún y cuando el Ministerio del Trabajo ya se ha pronunciado a favor de los trabajadores, el patrono se sigue negando a reconocer sus demandas.En otro orden de ideas, los compañeros de Sintraibean nos notificaron que Henrique Capriles Radonski (HCR), actual abanderado o majunche de la MUD para las elecciones presidenciales del 7 Octubre, está entregando cestas de comida constituidas principalmente por productos del grupo de empresas Alimentos Polar, lo que refleja el apoyo rotundo que los sectores más rancios y reaccionarios de la burguesía monopolista venezolana le están dando a HCR. Ante esta situación, los compañeros de Sintraibean y también de Fenactralbeca, la recién fundada Federación de Nacional Clasista de Trabajadores de Alimentos, Bebidas, Conexos y Afines, y que cuenta con un aproximado de 5.000 trabajadores afiliados en varias empresas de Alimentos Polar en todo el país, manifestaron su total repudio ante estas acciones del señor Mendoza.Foto Crédito: J. M. Abreu para Diario El Tiempo
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Court OKs new NLRB poster mandate, limits authority to penalize employers

One federal court has given the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) a green light to require businesses to post a new federal workplace notice advising employees of their right to join unions -- but the court battle over the mandate is likely to continue.

The National Restaurant Association, through the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, joined other business groups in December in suing to block the NLRB requirement. The business groups argued that the NLRB did not have the authority to impose the mandate on businesses.

A federal district court in Washington, D.C., ruled March 2 that the NLRB has the authority to require the workplace poster. However, the court also said that the agency did not have the authority to deem an employer's failure to post the notice to be an unfair labor practice, and said that a business's failure to post the notice does not start the clock running on a "statute of limitations" for charges employees can file against their employers under the National Labor Relations Act.

Both sides in the lawsuit are expected to appeal the court's ruling. The March 2 ruling came in one of two pending lawsuits on the poster mandate; a separate lawsuit challenging the NLRB's right to require businesses to hang the 11" x 17" posters is pending in a federal district court in South Carolina.

Due to legal challenges to this poster requirement, the NLRB has delayed the posting date on several occasions. If a higher court does not intervene, the NRLB says April 30, 2012, is the effective date for the new posting requirement; if a higher court intervenes this may change this at which point we will let you know. If you purchased the 2012 all-in-one compliance poster from the California Restaurant Association, the new poster was included as a complimentary separate poster.

For, FAQs and other related information from the NLRB, go online at :
https://www.nlrb.gov/poster


You have received this message because you have subscribed to a mailing list of the California Restaurant Association. If you do not wish to receive periodic emails from this source, please click below to unsubscribe.

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How Public Sector Layoffs Are Holding Back the RecoveryHeather Boushey, ThinkProgress: "The current economic recovery is going well if one looks at private sector job creation. The pace of private sector job creation is slower than in the recovery from the early 1990s recession ... Since early 2009, governments at all levels have shed nearly 700,000 jobs, most of them at the state and local level. Since August of 2008 state and local governments have shed a total of 647,000 workers, of which 64 percent were women workers." Read the Article 

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NEA's $500,000 a Year Boss, Van Roekel, Shocked, simply Shocked, at
Teacher unhappiness!A recent poll showing teacher job satisfaction
at its lowest point in decades is “shocking,” union leaders say,
though they say reports of increased parental and community
involvement are “bright spots.”  
http://www.mlive.com/education/index.ssf/2012/03/teachers_union_president_poll.htmlThe Teacher Morale Survey More than half of teachers expressed at
least some reservation about their jobs, their highest level of
dissatisfaction since 1989, the survey found. Also, roughly one in
three said they were likely to leave the profession in the next five
years, citing concerns over job security, as well as the effects of
increased class size and deep cuts to services and programs. Just
three years ago, the rate was one in four.
 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/education/teacher-morale-sinks-survey-results-show.html?_r=1
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Raising Taxes on Rich Does Not Slow Jobs Growth
Read the Article at The Real News

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  The AFL-CIO’s new website showcases our commitment to reaching and engaging all working people. We hope you’ll take a look—and come back often.

Visit the AFL-CIO’s new website.  

Since becoming secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, I have been committed to reaching and engaging the broadest range of working people inside and outside of unions. 

I believe that—to be relevant and part of the conversation in this day and age—we need to do things differently. 

It’s critical that we embrace constant innovation to build on what we do best. And we’ve got to commit to a culture of openness—building an inclusive movement that puts the voices of workers front and center and encourages all working families to get involved. 

Innovation and openness are what we had in mind as we redesigned our website from the bottom up. We put the stories of working people front and center, and created a community space to share information, take action and showcase the work of the unions and the people we are proud to represent. 

Please take a moment to visit the AFL-CIO’s new website and get more involved by visiting our blog and action center. 

Then share our new website with your friends and family:
   The AFL-CIO’s investment in cutting-edge communications and technologies isn’t just limited to a new website. In fact,our commitment to innovation starts at the top. 

President Richard Trumka sent his first tweet last week. You can now follow President Trumka on Twitter (@RichardTrumka). And you can also follow me on Twitter here (@LizShuler).

We’ve also made a big commitment to building new tools and a new team that will empower our members and activists to leverage the power of the Internet to mobilize their friends, neighbors and families.

Over the coming months and beyond, we’ll take what the labor movement has always done well offline, bring it online and open up our movement in more ways to more people. We’ll be mobilizing harder and smarter than ever before. 

Soon, we’ll ask you to use some of these new tools to do more of what the labor movement does best. Things like conversations in our workplaces, phone banking and reaching out to the people you know. We’ll invite everyone who cares about the future of working families to get involved.

Lots of exciting things are coming, and I can’t wait to tell you more soon. But today, the best way to see the new direction we’re headed in is to visit the AFL-CIO’s new website, blog and action center. 

With your help, we’re building an increasingly innovative, active, open and effective movement for allworking people—including young people, Latinos and working men and women who don’t have the benefits of a union voice on the job. Our new website reflects that. Thank you for being a part of it—and for all the work you do.

In Solidarity,

Liz Shuler
Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO

P.S. Here are four things you can do this week that you couldn’t do last week:
1. Visit our redesigned website, then share it on Facebook and Twitter.
2. Check out the revamped AFL-CIO Now Blog.
3. Visit our new action center.
4. Follow President Trumka on Twitter. (You can also follow me.)To find out more about the AFL-CIO, please visit our website at www.aflcio.org.

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RANT: Cenk & Ratigan On Robbery Of Middle Class AmericansPlay videoCenk Uygur (host of The Young Turks) on his weekly Daily Rant segment on the Dylan Ratigan show explains how social security cuts are a scam and that the program is actually in great shape overall.…00:04:53Added on 2/10/1129,980 viewsNEARLY 1/3 OF MIDDLE CLASSSUFFER DOWNWARD MOBILITYJanuary 11, 2012  NEW YORK - Nearly one third of Americans who were raised in the middle class dropped down the economic ladder as adults -- and that's before the Great Recession hit. "Being raised in the middle class is not a guarantee that you'll have that same status as an adult," said Erin Currier, project manager at Pew's Economic Mobility Project. "With all the economic turmoil in the past four years, there's good reason to think that downward mobility is more severe." Pew looked at children born in the early- to mid-1960s and assessed their economic status roughly 40 years later. Being middle class in the parents' generation meant a household income of roughly $33,000 to $64,000 in 1979. But their children had to earn between $54,000 and $111,000 to maintain their relative standing in society in the mid-2000s. (These figures are adjusted for inflation.) The middle class is defined as those between the 30th and 70th income percentile.Marital status and educational attainment had a great bearing on whether people were able to remain in the middle class, Pew found. Race and gender were also factors. Those who are divorced, widowed or separated are more likely to fall out of the middle class, particularly if they are women. And Americans who don't attend college are also more likely to slip. One's foothold on the middle class is more secure if you are a white man. Thirty percent of white women and 38% of black men drop out of the middle class, while only 21% of white men do. Things have only gotten worse in recent years. The Great Recession has likely made it harder for many people to remain in the middle class, experts said. Long-term unemployment has devastated the ranks of the middle class, with many people losing their homes and forced to turn to food banks and government aid after they run through their savings.HOW STATE TAXES PUT A BIGGER PINCH ON THE POORhttp://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/02/13/how-state-taxes-put-a-bigger-pinch-on-the-poor/It takes nearly 41 weeks, on average, for the jobless to find new work. Also, the steep decline in home values has hurt many in the middle class. Recovering from a huge drop in income is not easy, a separate Pew study found. Half of people who lost more than 25% of their income in 1994 had not recovered four years later. And a third did not regain their economic footing after 10 years. While it remains to be seen how quickly Americans will recover from the current economic downturn, Currier suspects it could take even longer Pew looked at children born in the early- to mid-1960s and assessed their economic status roughly 40 years later. Recovering from a huge drop in income is not easy, a separate Pew study found. Half of people who lost more than 25% of their income in 1994 had not recovered four years later. And a third did not regain their economic footing after 10 years. While it remains to be seen how quickly Americans will recover from the current economic downturn, Currier suspects it could take even longer.TOM LUTHBYhttp://money.cnn.com/2012/01/11/news/economy/middle_class_mobility/index.htm?iid=Leadhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/FREEDOMSFORUM/message/159918WORKING AND STILL POOR IN THE US OF Ahttp://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/19/working-and-poor-in-the-usa/ VIDEO - CENK & RATIGAN ON ROBBERY OF MIDDLE CLASShttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnSeILUljvkThe reality is that Social Security has a surplus of $2.5 trillion, and that surplus is going to go all the way up to $4.2 trillion with interest. Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit, it is funded by the Payroll Tax that you have been paying for your entire working life - a total of 15% for 40 or 50 years. It has nothing to do with the deficit. They are lying to you and coming after your retirement money.
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A Victory for American Airline Workers, but
Pension-Free Future Still Looks Bleak for Most 

By David Moberg

In These Tmes


http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/12850/a_victory_for_american_airline_workers_but_pension-free_future_still_looks_/

Half of U.S. workers have no employer-funded retirement
plan

When AMR--the holding company for American Airlines and
American Eagle--declared bankruptcy in November, it
claimed that the airline needed $1.25 billion in
concessions from employees, including termination of
13,000 jobs and the end of four employee pension plans.

But pressure and suggestions of alternatives from its
unions and the federal government's pension insurance
fund led AMR on Wednesday to promise the Transport
Workers Union---which represents ramp crews, mechanics
and five smaller crafts--that it would "freeze" pensions
for those workers, as well as pensions for flight
attendants and nonunion employees. That means existing
workers and retirees, who total 130,000 in all four
plans, would keep their collectively bargained AMR
pensions. AMR is still negotiating with the pilots'
union, making a freeze dependent on pilots giving up
their right to take their pension as a lump sum when
they retire. Future employees that American hires would
only have a 401k plan, to which the company will make
defined contributions but which will not guarantee
benefits.

AMR had hoped to dump its pension obligations on the
Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, a government
agency funded by insurance premiums on traditional
pension plans offering defined benefits to retirees.
The PBGC would then have been responsible for providing
pension benefits to American employees, but the agency
does not cover retiree health insurance and by law has
limits on how big a monthly pension it could pay. All
employees, but especially pilots and others with
negotiated benefits far higher than the PBGC limit,
would have lost future income. And with the largest
pension termination ever potentially adding $10 billion
to its responsibilities, the PBGC, already facing
obligations amounting to $26 billion more than
projected income, would have been pushed closer to
crisis.

"We would have preferred to keep the existing defined
benefit plan in place," TWU president Jim Little said,
"but that was simply not possible." TWU got AMR to
abandon its demand for $600 to $800 billion in
additional concessions as the price of freezing the
plan, partly by proposing alternatives including
low-cost borrowing, according to a source close to TWU.

But Little emphasized that implementing the pension
plan freeze depended on resolving other issues and
reaching "an overall agreement." AMR still needs to
settle pension and other issues with its pilots and
flight attendants, with whom negotiations have
reportedly been more testy.

The breakthrough is a tentative victory for both PBGC
and the TWU, but it is also part of a trend that
endangers the retirement security of not only airline
employees but also all American workers. Most
seriously, half of all workers have no employer-funded
retirement plan. But the dramatic change from defined
benefit plans to 401(k) plans shifts risk to workers,
who are left with plans inferior in virtually every
other way as well.

Corporations have often declared bankruptcies as a way
to reduce labor costs, including pensions, as well as
to shortchange suppliers and often to wipe out
shareholders, not because they are about to fail. Wall
Street refers to such moves as "strategic
bankruptcies," as a Wall Street Journal editorial
described AMR's declaration.

After all, despite four years of losses, AMR had over
$4 billion in cash when it filed for bankruptcy, and
the same after announcing a $234 million loss in
January. Furthermore, around $2.1 billion of that cash
can be attributed to congressional relief of rules
governing AMR contributions to the pension plans. "In
effect," the PBGC wrote, "that's money AMR borrowed
from its workers' pensions, money that helped keep the
company afloat."

PBGC director Josh Gotbaum forthrightly challenged
AMR's attempt to dump its pension responsibilities.
"Before American takes such a drastic action as killing
the pension plans of 130,000 employees and retirees,"
he said on Feb. 1, "it needs to show there is no better
alternative. Thus far, they have failed to provide even
the most basic information to decide that."

While some airlines, like United and US Air, used
bankruptcy to end pension plans, Northwest, Delta and
Continental either froze or preserved intact all or
most of their plans. And despite complaints about their
high costs, PBGC says many American competitors have
higher pension costs. Delta pays into its funds 2/3
more per employee than American. Many of the other
bankruptcies and pension terminations occurred when the
whole industry was in trouble. Now American is the only
major airline losing money.

Workers and their pensions are not the problem, Little
says. Since 2003 TWU workers have surrendered 30
percent of their pay--about $600 million, adding to a
grand total of "billions of dollars" in concessions
from all union workers since 2001, Little says. Bad
management is the problem: "They didn't modernize their
fleet, missed merger opportunities, got stuck with
higher fuel costs, lost money year after year--and
rewarded themselves with hundreds of millions in
executive bonuses," he wrote.

Gotbaum's persistent, tough challenges to AMR's claims
played a major role in reaching the tentative agreement
and represents a much-needed shift.

"Gotbaum did what the PBGC should have done in previous
events," says Teresa Ghilarducci, economics professor
and pension expert at The New School for Social
Research and author of When I'm Sixty-Four: The Plot
Against Pensions and the Plan to Save Them "He's doing
his job, making them prove there's a business reason to
[end the pension plans]....He's acting appropriately
and raising red flags as he should. He's acting like
any insurance executive would and like previous PBGC
directors under Bush should have done. There were
opportunities for plans to consolidate [and form
multi-employer pension plans]. We lost eight years
under Bush, and these plans lost a lot under Bush, who
had an ideological interest in undermining defined
benefit plans."

University of Massachusetts-Amherst finance professor
Ben Branch adds that Gotbaum may also be motivated to
save PBGC from more financial strain, which is likely
to grow if more corporations abandon defined benefit
plans and thus stop paying PBGC premiums. Ghilarducci
argues that the administration, the PBGC and unions
should first try to preserve defined benefit plans,
encouraging multi-employer plans wherever they might
strengthen such pensions. But if defined benefit plans
can't work, she believes 401(k) plans are the worst
alternative (other than no plan) and that unions should
strive for hybrids.

Defined benefit plans are run by legal fiduciaries
focused on long-term investment for the benefit of
pension recipients, Ghilarducci says, but defined
contribution plans, especially 401(k)s, typically are
managed by investment "professionals" whose fiduciary
responsibility is to their investment firm employers,
whose costs are high, and who often promote investments
that are not well-designed for retirement needs.

But she believes some hybrid vehicles--such as some cash
balance plans--combine some of the 401(k) features
employers like with traditional pension characteristics
that are good for workers. Government policy on pension
tax credits for employers could be designed to favor
defined benefit plans, or hybrids, instead of treating
them the same as 401(k)s.

Although TWU had already tentatively negotiated 401(k)s
for new hires before bankruptcy, it may still be
possible for the unions, Gotbaum and the administration
to craft a better alternative with American. But at
least they seem on the way to salvaging pensions for
current American workers and retirees.

____________________________________________

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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Healthy Job Growth Pushes Employment-to-Population Ratio UpwardDean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research: "One very positive sign is that state and local government added 1,000 jobs after adding 7,000 last month. This indicates that the sector will no longer be a drag on growth and could even provide some modest boost over the course of the year. On the negative side, wage growth may be weakening." Read the Article 

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 Leadership Schools · Workshops · Research Reports · Publications   Black Unemployment Rate Was 14.1% in February 2012, an Increase from 13.6% in January 2012. Data Brief: Black Employment and Unemployment in February 2012March 9, 2012, by Steven Pitts » Data Brief  The unemployment rate for Blacks was 14.1 percent last month. This is according to the latest report on the nation’s employment situation released Friday morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its monthly Employment Situation report. This rate was an increase from January, when unemployment in the Black community stood at 13.6 percent. For the nation as a whole, unemployment was 8.3 percent in the month of February; this was unchanged from January when the national unemployment rate also stood at 8.3 percent. Among whites, unemployment was 7.3 percent; among Latinos, unemployment was 10.7 percent. Comparable January 2011 figures were 7.4 percent and 10.5 percent respectively. Overall, total non-farm payroll employment increased by 227,000 jobs from last month. This month’s report also includes a brief commentary on the sharp drop in Black unemployment rates from December 2011 to January 2012.   If you were forwarded this e-mail and wish to subscribe, please click here To find out more about the Labor Center Black Worker Project, please visit http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/blackworkers/  Stay connected to the Labor Center     DonateJoin our mailing listFollow usBecome a fan Center for Labor Research and Education, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, University of California, Berkeley 2521 Channing Way # 5555 · Berkeley, CA 94720-5555 · TEL (510) 642-0323 · FAX (510) 642-6432 If you do not wish to receive occasional emails from the UC Berkeley Labor Center, please reply to clre_unsubscribe at berkeley.edu and place UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line. 














































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