By The Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW)

– This summer CLUW has been working hard to battle the heat brought from Congress to cut Social Security by means of a new “Chained Consumer Price Index (CPI)” formula. Currently Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, is designed to adjust social security benefits to the current cost of living. The “Chained CPI” is a formula Congress has proposed that would not take into account the significant portion of a senior’s budget which goes towards medical costs. The cut resulting from a “Chained CPI” formula would be immediate, and would compound benefit reductions so that seniors lose more as they get older. A senior retiring at age 65 in 2011 would lose about $6,000 in benefits over 15 years using this formula. “Chained CPI” is a smaller measure of inflation, which operates under the assumption that seniors can replace purchases with less expensive alternatives and ignores the fact that costs such as health care cannot be substituted.

Judy Beard, CLUW National Treasurer, liaison to the Mature Women Workers Committee and Director of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) Retiree Department commented,

“…President Obama stated in his state of the Union address in 2011 that we should strengthen Social Security without cutting the benefits of current retirees, and he needs to keep his promise, because retirees (receiving an average yearly benefit of just $14,669.16) don’t deserve the burden of the deficit which they didn’t cause.

As with many issues facing the working class, such as unemployment and underemployment, stagnant low wages, and workplace discrimination, cutting Social Security by instituting the chained CPI (or through any other means, such as raising the retirement age) will affect women (and our families who depend on us) even more harshly. We already know that the average Social Security benefit is lower for women than for men, and women rely even more on their Social Security income than men do. Social Security is a critical anti-poverty program for women and their families, and older women are more at risk for poverty than older men, partly due to higher health care costs. Women especially simply cannot afford this cut to their essential Social Security benefits, and no Social Security recipient deserves to have the burden of federal budget cuts amount to their having to choose between the mortgage and health care…”

On June 29th, Eleanor G. Bailey, director of APWU’s retirees in the Metro New York City area, and a past National Vice President of CLUW, represented CLUW in New York City for a forum on social security, hosted by the New York Chapter of the National Action Network Political Action Committee (NANPAC). Dawn Jones, the chairwoman of NANPAC, is also a CLUW member. Joining Eleanor Bailey on the panel were four other experts, including Dionne H.E. Polite, Associate Director of Multicultural Initiatives of the AARP of New York, Jacquel Ryan, Medicare Benefits Specialist for Metroplus, Benjamin W. Veghte, PhD, Research Director for Social Security Works, and Edlyn Wiler, Esq., of the Harlem Community Law Office. The program was presented to seniors, caregivers, families and the general public with over a hundred in attendance.

Sister Bailey explained, “Woman can least afford any cut in benefits …many [women] have worked in low paying jobs or have worked part time, so their benefits are lower than men’s. Also, women tend to live longer than men. The “Chained CPI” cuts would be devastating in their later years.” She informed the group that the Chained CPI formula would amount to a $1,000 or more cut to our seniors’ budgets annually, and asked, “Who can afford this? How are [seniors] going to buy health care cheaper?” Social security cuts affect all seniors, and, as Sister Bailey pointed out, Chained CPI “puts seniors – especially those in their 80’s and 90’s – at risk for poverty. 1 in 6 older Americans live in poverty.”

Ms.Bailey urged the audience to join with New York seniors, and from around the country, to participate in the National Day of Action against Chained CPI.

On July 2nd, in over 50 cities nation-wide, over 2,000 people demonstrated against the Chained CPI by lining up and creating a human chain against the Chained CPI. Organized by the Alliance for Retired Americans, many CLUW members, including Eleanor Bailey, participated in this day of action.

In Ohio, lifetime CLUW member Toni McBroom (past IAM member) along with union members from the Steel Workers, IAM, and UAW and retirees, families, and children demonstrated against the Chained CPI outside Ohio 5th district (R – Bowling Green) Congressman Robert Latta’s office on the National Day of Action. Below the group is pictured with signs that read “Chained CPI = stealth tax on the middle class and cuts for seniors,” “Social Security is an earned benefit” and “Say no to chained Social Security cuts.”

Go To: http://www.cluw.org/?zone=/unionactive/view_article.cfm&HomeID=297993

by Dale Mezzacappa for the Notebook and Holly Otterbein for NewsWorks

– With new money for Philadelphia schools coming in at a trickle, even though schools are just six weeks from opening under a doomsday scenario, Superintendent William Hite said Friday that he believes the District has enough funds on hand to restore the positions of 220 secretaries for the upcoming school year — one for each school — as well as fall sports and 66 itinerant music teachers through January.

At a contentious four-hour School Reform Commission meeting that started at 8 a.m., Hite and his chief financial officer, Matthew Stanski, said they were confident that they could increase by $33 million their bare-bones budget. The budget resulted in 3,800 layoffs and stripped schools of nearly everything but a principal and a core of teachers. But the District leaders said that, as of now, they can count on only $17 million in additional funds from the city and state.

The rest, Stanski said, was eked out through identifying further savings in the budget passed at the end of May.

“To give you an example … [we’ll] go after vendors who we feel like owe us money for poor service or overbilling or things like that,” Stanski said.

Hite said that his priority is opening schools in September with as little disruption as possible.

“I want to point out that everything we do from this point forward is focused on opening schools and using the resources we have to meet the needs of students,” Hite said. “We plan to use revenue we believe is available to get schools ready.”

Stanski said the $33 million breaks down this way: $17.6 million for the secretaries and expenses of summer reorganization; $3.9 million for the music teachers, and $3.7 million for athletics (to pay for coaches, most of whom are teachers earning extracurricular money; referees; transportation; and equipment). The balance, $7.8 million, will be invested in the District’s internal turnaround initiative, the Promise Academies — although the SRC engaged in a lengthy debate over how to evaluate, refine, and improve the model.

Hite said that he decided to use the extra aid to bring back secretaries because principals identified them as being vital to getting schools open in September.

“The principals said they need one secretary to make sure students are registered, rostered and safely placed,” he said. “Principals said this function is extremely important.”

Many larger schools used to have more than one secretary, but only one per school is being restored.

Likewise, Hite said he chose to restore music and sports because students see them as invaluable.

“The students … indicated this was important to them as part of what makes school school,” the superintendent said.

In particular, Hite said he was influenced by a group of students that organized a protest against budget cuts at the District’s headquarters in May. The students requested a meeting with him after the rally, and later “declared themselves my advisory group,” Hite said.

Not yet restored are other crucial positions, including counselors and assistant principals, as well as nearly 2,000 paraprofessionals and aides who monitor the lunchroom and help keep order in school hallways.

Hite said that the principals emphasized that it was important to get their own secretaries back because they know the community, the students, and the families. However, that is not guaranteed.

The District laid off 307 secretaries altogether, and is calling back 220. Some head secretaries have retired or resigned, Hite said, creating vacancies that must be filled according to seniority. Secretaries, who are members of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, can apply to transfer to other schools, which could set off a chain reaction of movement.

“Where we can return secretaries to their school, that is our intent,” Hite said. “That is part of our conversation with the PFT.” As he sees it, he said, what’s happening now “is not about who gets to transfer,” but making sure schools have people present who know students and families to make school opening as smooth as possible under the circumstances.

Philadelphia this year faced an unprecedented funding shortfall of more than $300 million. Although the District asked for $180 million in additional combined city and state funds, a package cobbled together in Harrisburg resulted in about $127 million in new funds, and most of that is contingent on achieving significant contract reforms with its teachers’ union. The District is also counting on saving $133 million in labor costs. Negotiations with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers are ongoing, and the contract doesn’t expire until the week before school opens.

Joan Taylor, a teacher at West Philadelphia’s Middle Years Alternative School, asked the School Reform Commission to resign in protest because the state did not meet the School District’s funding request.

“Will you, the most powerful people here, stand up for equitable education funding by refusing to be complicit to the injustice we have foisted upon the children we’re supposed to protect?” she said. “This is not a rhetorical question. You need to get on the right side of history.”

Hite said he expected the SRC to hold more special meetings before school opens as the financial situation changes. The budget will need to be amended by the SRC at some point.

Check the Notebook site for further reporting on the meeting

Go To: http://thenotebook.org/blog/136237/33-million-additional-funds-hite-restores-secretaries-music-sports

BY David Moberg

As a worker at The Protein Bar, a quick-service eatery in Chicago’s glitzy North Michigan Avenue shopping district, Amie Crawford is very important to America’s unions: Even though she doesn’t belong to one, she may be a harbinger of new life for the labor movement at a time when even friends are preparing its obituary.

Last year, Crawford joined the “Fight for 15” campaign, a labor and community-supported project that aims to improve conditions for workers in Chicago’s central business districts. The campaign demands a $15 minimum wage and the right to form unions without interference from management.

Crawford recruited other fast food and retail workers to join neighborhood marches and helped form a workers’ association, Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago. On April 24, she and several hundred workers from about 30 businesses went on strike, cheered on by community groups like Arise Chicago, a faith-based worker center. The next day, members of these groups accompanied the strikers back to their jobs to shield them from potential retaliation. Crawford, empowered by the Chicago strike, volunteered a few days later to join Fight for 15 strikers in Milwaukee, one of seven cities where the campaign has taken hold, along with Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Detroit, Seattle and Washington, D.C.

These strikes have been the defining tactic of a new movement of low-wage service workers that has gained momentum in 2013. Small groups of workers have launched sudden strikes against big chains such as Wal-Mart and McDonald’s, as well as small employers such as car washes, laundries and taxi companies. In many cases, only a minority of employees were involved, sometimes from multiple workplaces. The strikes have typically been sudden and short, lasting just long enough to broadcast their message. A few campaigns have won union recognition; more have won small victories like a pay raise or a scheduling change. But taken together, the campaigns have surprised experts like Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University, who says she could not have imagined such an upsurge even two years ago.

Stephen Lerner, architect of the Justice for Janitors campaign that foreshadowed current low-wage organizing, says the short strike works well, offering exciting actions that both pressure employers and educate the public.

“What’s new is that the strike is being embraced by a lot of groups as the central point of their strategy, instead of happenstance,” he says.

Crawford, a 57-year-old former interior designer who was pushed into the service industry by hard times, has seen firsthand how the strikes feed the movement’s growth. “The [Chicago Fight for 15] strike showed workers they could come out of the shadows and that they would be heard, and it showed businesses that we weren’t going to go away,” she says. “After the strike, workers sought us out, asking, ‘What is this?’ ”

Such enthusiasm leads Keith Kelleher, president of SEIU Healthcare Illinois & Indiana, to call the strikes “hugely significant” because they demonstrate a desire for organization within a large and growing sector of workers who have plenty of reason to be disgruntled. Service workers’ wages are rock-bottom and have seen little improvement over the last decade. Arbitrary and unpredictable work schedules offer too few hours and preclude workers from holding other jobs. And a growing number of workers, including those who are older, more experienced and better educated, find that such jobs are their only long-term prospect. According to the National Employment Law Project, 58 percent of jobs generated in the recovery from the 2008 financial crash have been low-wage, compared to 21 percent of jobs lost.

But traditional unions have had only limited success tapping service workers’ mounting frustrations. They have run up against several major obstacles: Service sector workplaces are typically small, turnover runs high and major chains pour in resources to crush organizing attempts. If union-busting efforts don’t succeed, chains like Wal-Mart often simply shutter unionized shops. So even if unions achieve isolated organizing victories, they still need to conquer whole markets or industries to make those changes stick. And as upset as many workers may be, they are often unfamiliar with or cynical about collective action at work.

That’s where the new movement comes in. Unbound by decades of legal decisions that hem in unions, the low-wage workers’ associations are freer to use more innovative and militant tactics, such as strikes, which capture attention and enlarge the movement. The law—and contracts—often restrict union tactics, limiting the timing of strikes or their use in support of other workers, for example. Violating these labor laws can be costly. When the mine workers union pulled out all the stops in its 1989 strike against Pittston Coal—occupying a mine, blocking roads and engaging in civil disobedience—it narrowly avoided paying $64 million in contempt-of-court fees and other penalties.

So unions, especially the United Food and Commercial Workers and the SEIU, increasingly help finance organizing projects like Fight for 15 that aren’t formal unions. Elaine Bernard, director of Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program, thinks the new movement has potential for dramatic growth if union leaders refrain from imposing their own preconceived structures. “Fund [the worker activity] and let it go,” she says. “This is a movement where a lot of different things should be tried.”

Indeed, campaigns such as Fight for 15, Warehouse Workers for Justice and Our Walmart appear to be giving newly recruited workers a significant voice. Many have an independent organizing committee to allow workers to take initiative.

The new campaigns also have a community focus often missing from more traditional union recruitment drives. Many have close ties to community groups, such as Action Now in Chicago or New York Communities for Change, for whom the struggle against inequality naturally leads to fighting for higher wages at work. In this way, the campaigns harken back to historic labor upsurges with a broad social base, like the Knights of Labor of the 1880s and the strike-based organizing of the 1930s.

Unlike labor’s recent strikes, which have been rare and mostly defensive, the low-wage worker strikes play energetic offense—building the local committees, engaging strikers in organizing and spreading a broader critique of employers like Wal-Mart and of public policy. “This is a shout to the American people about the terrible state of labor law,” says Bernard.

Lerner believes the strikes could help create the conditions for a wider surge of labor organizing, especially if the campaigns can articulate why workers’ success should matter to everyone and can escalate their actions while protecting strikers from retaliation.

But once they’ve built steam and support, how can campaigns like Fight for 15 force substantial changes in the workplace and establish a sustainable structure to deal with employers? Fight for 15 leaders have not spelled out their next steps, but many options are open to them. Low-wage workers could decide to form traditional unions. They could negotiate broad guidelines for their sectors with major employers or local merchants’ associations. They could lobby for better labor laws, like a higher minimum wage. Or they could maintain the current structure, a loose movement that uses direct actions such as strikes to win specific improvements.

Although it may seem hard to imagine at the moment, any of these pathways could evolve into a series of broad, citywide struggles reminiscent of the general strikes of the 1930s in San Francisco, Minneapolis and other cities, which led to the surge of unionization in the country. And considering the breadth of employers they confront, the campaigns could move the United States toward more of a European approach to setting minimum standards for particular industries.

In this way, an organizing campaign turns into a social movement, centered on worker rights but linked to many other key issues of politics and values. And a surge of worker organizing, some in novel forms, becomes an historical opportunity to change both politics and the world of work.

Go To: http://inthesetimes.com/article/15235/thank_you_strike_again/

BY David Moberg – For In These Times

– Like many previous presidencies, the Obama administration may have thought it would escape intense public scrutiny of a public policy shift if it quietly released the news late in the day and shortly before a holiday. So last Tuesday evening, July 2, a Treasury official revealed that a major feature of Obamacare—the requirement that employers of more than 50 workers provide affordable health insurance or pay a fine—would be delayed a year.

As usual, stealth didn’t work. Nearly all major players weighed in quickly and forcefully, with the partial exception of the labor movement, which offered limited, guarded reactions.

Republicans, from Karl Rove to John Boehner to Paul Ryan, along with countless other actual or aspiring leaders, tried to make a big deal of the change. They said it proved either:

– the incompetence of the administration,
– the inherent faults of the legislation—which was “unraveling,” House Budget Committee Chair Ryan said—and all such “big government” initiatives
– the need, once again, to repeal all or parts of the Affordable Care Act, such as the mandate that individuals buy health insurance if they do not get it through their employers (what Republicans failed to mention here is that most Americans will be able to take advantage of a subsidized option through state exchanges opening October 1)
– all of the above

Most of the critiques took on an apocalyptic air. Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger, for example, called the date of the policy announcement “the day Big Government finally imploded,” an observation that—given his views—should have produced high praise for Obama as the man who finally ended Big Government. Most Republicans seemed to miss the irony that they were criticizing the president for delaying a measure they want to eliminate.

Democrats—with the exception of Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, who was not pleased with the delay—were inclined to see some hold-ups as routine in implementing major legislation (true, but hardly inspiring). Rep. Mike Thompson of California said in a hearing Wednesday that the delay showed the administration was simply trying to “get it right.” Democrats and liberal supporters of Obamacare argued that a year’s delay would hurt few people, citing, for example, the Kaiser Family Foundation’s calculation that most large employers already provide insurance—an estimated 98 percent of workplaces with more than 200 employees offer their workers insurance, as do 94 percent of those with 50 to 199 employees. Of course, this also implies that few people will benefit from the employer mandate, though they still would gain from other protections in the legislation.

Big employer groups, such as the National Retail Federation, largely applauded the delay as necessary for them to prepare for the law’s requirements. Like the fast food and hospitality industries, retail businesses do not tend to offer their largely non-union, low-wage workers health insurance at all or at affordable prices, because they don’t have to in order to keep a revolving supply of workers. For them, meeting all of the plan’s requirements could be complex. Yet while some may indeed be planning for complying with the law’s intent, others may be exploring loopholes, such as the exemption for workers employed less than 30 hours a week.

Some reports claim the administration could use more time to prepare as well for implementation of many parts of the law, including the individual mandate starting Oct. 1., but the Obama officials have continued to insist that they will be prepared and that the delay is for the benefit of businesses. Republicans are trying a faux populist pitch on behalf of their effort to delay, at least, the requirement for individuals, criticizing Obama for giving a break to big corporations while denying it to the masses. That rings a bit hollow, considering that the GOP’s ultimate aim is to leave everyone pursuing insurance in the open market at his or her own expense.

Labor union also have a stake in the game, as major backers of the Affordable Care Act whose members will be much affected by it. As details of the law’s implementation have emerged, some unions have grown increasingly concerned. For example, many unions provide insurance through multi-employer or “Taft-Hartley” plans that are jointly administered by labor and management and operate as pooled insurance buyers or cooperatives. But the Obama administration has interpreted the law as excluding multi-employer plans from the state insurance exchanges, putting them at a serious disadvantage in providing affordable insurance.

As the scrum unfolded last week, most unions reacted in a low-key fashion, with a few issuing brief formal statements. Those reactions ranged from vague general endorsements of the goal of universal healthcare to expressions of oblique grumpiness and anxiety about the administration’s implementation of Obamacare.

On one end of the spectrum, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) offered a largely upbeat view, though it is working with other unions on the multi-employer plan problems. Its statement read:

Today, despite all of the delay tactics and millions of dollars spent by right-wing extremists, the law is moving forward and the new healthcare markets will be ready to offer high quality, lower cost healthcare coverage to middle-class Americans as of January 1, 2014. We cannot lose sight of this goal, especially for working women and men who cannot afford to see a doctor or get the lifesaving prescriptions they need. The fair and flexible process developed by the administration in response to business concerns does not impede or delay that goal.

We will continue to work together with leaders and organizations from all walks of life to be ready for this date—including labor, small businesses and responsible employers, healthcare providers and advocates, faith leaders and elected officials—to make sure Americans are informed when it comes to their healthcare choices under the law.”

AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka sounded a more disgruntled note, expressing implicit anxiety that the delay might be an opening to modifying the principle that employers should share in the cost of health insurance. Trumka’s statement, issued the day after the announcement of the delay, indirectly asked the administration: If you can bend the process to accommodate corporations, can’t you show similar flexibility to preserve union Taft-Hartley insurance group plans? He said:

In the health reform debate, we fought to ensure that employers have a responsibility to provide affordable, comprehensive health benefits to their workers and their families. The employer responsibility provision included in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), while not as strong as we asked for, was designed to give large employers an incentive to offer or continue offering affordable, comprehensive health care coverage to some of their employees. The Administration’s announcement that it is delaying employer responsibility assessments until 2015 is troubling because it removes that incentive for next year. In light of this decision, we believe it is even more urgent for Congress and the Administration to reaffirm their commitment to employer responsibility.

We appreciate the need for flexibility and common sense implementation of a new law, particularly one of this scope. There are a number of areas in which we have asked that the ACA be interpreted to strengthen the delivery of benefits through employment-based plans. We hope the Administration will address these concerns just as they have the concerns voiced by employers.

AFSCME, the public employees union, issued a statement in response to an inquiry from In These Times. It focused on strengthening ACA in the future and downplayed the prospect of immediate problems stemming from the delay:

AFSCME supports much stronger employer responsibility requirements than provided by the ACA. But we don’t think the one year delay in the effectiveness of the employer requirements is very significant. On January 1, 2014 all Americans will have guaranteed access to health benefits for the first time in our nation’s history and that’s far more important than a one year delay in one of the weaker provisions of the law. We’re much more focused on improving and strengthening the ACA, than on provisions of the law that affect relatively few people. We would be very concerned if this was a retreat from requiring employers to shoulder their share of responsibility for health benefits, but we don’t think that it is.

The delay of the employer mandate prompted some commentators, such as conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, to question why this major reform continues to use an anachronistic and inefficient system of linking health insurance to employment at all. One alternative would be a universal plan funded by progressive taxation of businesses and the rich.

The answer is politics: Obama, drawing on the Clinton administration’s misadventures and polling data, concluded that it was critical not to upset people who had insurance and liked it by suggesting they might have to change. But many big corporations actually like to use insurance plans as a way of attracting and holding skilled workers. (Of course, the same corporations often wish to dump responsibility for insuring lower-paid workers). And unions like to use their own plans as motivation for workers to unionize, and can trumpet successful bargaining for improved healthcare as proof of the value of unions—though in recent years, bargaining over health insurance has been a headache, mainly devoted to avoiding concessions and cutbacks as the cost has risen.

In the end, the entire brouhaha is largely about politics. Republicans hope to present Obamacare as a disaster in the 2014 elections, while Democrats and their supporters (even reluctant ones) hope to minimize the headaches and maximize the experience of new benefits as a campaign edge. It is no coincidence that the delay extends just months beyond the 2014 elections: corporations may generate fewer criticisms if they get their delay, but at the same time, a relatively small number of workers will be deprived of insurance through their employers, and many of them will be able to turn to the state exchanges.

Given how little political weight the Obama administration gives to union concerns, as exemplified by the multi-employer plan controversy, the labor movement has reason to nervously monitor every chess move in the ongoing battle over healthcare.

AFSCME is a sponsor of InTheseTimes.com.

By the PA. AFL-CIO

The 54th annual Pennsylvania AFL-CIO Community Services Institute kicked off on Wednesday at the Crowne Plaza Pittsburgh South. Workshops and seminars continue through Saturday, as participants learn strategies for building community partnerships, planning community actions, and growing the labor movement while promoting the role of organized labor in their communities.

The opening evening included a keynote address by Community Services Chairman and AFSCME District Council 13 Executive Director Dave Fillman.

Pennsylvania AFL-CIO Community Services Director Carl Dillinger said that the attendance for this year’s conference is impressive and continues the growth that we have seen in recent years. “I’m especially encouraged to see higher participation by young activists and union members, among the 26 first-time participants that we have this year” Dillinger said.

One primary focus of this conference has been organizing and growing the labor movement. A well-received general session on Thursday was dedicated to this topic, and was led by a panel that was moderated by Pennsylvania AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Snyder and included Rick Bloomingdale (President, PA AFL-CIO), Jack Shea (Allegheny CLC), John DeFazio (USW), Joe Molinero (Teamsters), Dave Vinski (Southwestern PA ALF), Bill Cagney and Keith Thurner (Operating Engineers), Gabe Kramer (SEIU), Nicole McCandless (UNITE-HERE), Patrick Young (USW/FBP), and Robin Sowards (Professor at Duquesne University).

Participants also attended rotating workshops on immigration and engaging young workers, and worked on planning for this year’s week of action in September. Other workshops and seminars covered public policy, communications, and building community alliances. The conference wraps up tomorrow with a general session on the Affordable Care Act, and a Graduation Luncheon with Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Rick Bloomingdale.

Go To: http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=2335