UnionBook

 

The Alsabah (a pro-Iraqi government newspaper) published this news on May 15, 2010:

The higher ministerial committee that supervises the implementation of the Civil Provisional Authority Decree No. 3 (Paul Bremer, 2004), has decided that unionists must obtain prior approval from the government should they intend to travel or participate in any delegation or activity abroad.

The decision was made April 25, 2010, by a high committee headed by Thamir Jaffer of the State Ministry of Civil Society Affairs along with representatives of the ministries of Interior, Finance, Justice, National Security, National Assembly Affairs, the Office of the NGOs, the Supreme National Commission for Justice and Accountability and the Iraqi Central Bank, according to Fariq Abdualrahman, spokesperson for the Civil Society Affairs Ministry.

The committee also decided that names of the preparatory committee of the General Federation of Workers Councils and Unions will be further checked by the committee before the committee is approved and allowed to form a federation.

 

Amjad Ali

of Iraq Freedom Congress

www.ifcongress.com

 

phone# 1-416-264-1131 

 

Working For a Democratic, Secular and Progressive Alternative to both the US Occupation and Political Islam in Iraq

Received today from Eric Blanc at City College of San Francisco:

To all student, worker, and teacher organizations and activists worldwide:

A California statewide conference of over 800 education faculty, workers, trade unionists, students and community people on October 24, 2009 at the University of California Berkeley issued a call for a Strike and Day of Action on March 4, 2010 in defense of public education and against cuts, fee hikes, and layoffs.
A key component of this strike and struggle is the fight against the catastrophic privatization of public education system in California. But we know that this attack on education and public workers is a worldwide offensive. Thus there is a need for an international struggle to defend public education and social services and against funding for militarization and war.

We therefore ask organizations of workers, students, and teachers throughout the world to send solidarity statements and organize mobilizations on March 4 in defense of public education. Through international solidarity, we will win!
 
- The California Coordinating Committee
march4strikeanddayofaction@gmail.com
www.defendcapubliceducation.wordpress.com

Forwarded from THE ORGANIZER, San Francisco:

EL ORGANIZADOR
P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140.
Tel. (415) 641-8616; fax: (415) 626-1217.
Correo: elorganizador@earthlink.net
PLEASE EXCUSE DUPLICATE POSTINGS
--------------------

November 18, 2009

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

We learned yesterday through articles posted on the international wire services that the Congress of Honduras will convene and decide on the reinstatement of ousted President Manuel Zelaya on December 2 -- that is, three days after the presidential elections will be held.

This announcement was made on November 17 by National Congress President Jose Alfredo Saavedra immediately after the arrival in Tegucigalpa of Craig Kelly, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs. Kelly returned to Honduras, he said, with the aim of "relaunching the Tegucigalpa/San Jose Agreement."

Saavedra said the Congress will decide on the reinstatement of Zelaya after seeking the opinion of the Honduran Supreme Court, the Public Prosecutor, the Attorney General's Office, and the National Commissioner for Human Rights -- all of which are institutions that supported the June 28 coup that deposed democratically elected President Zelaya and backed the coup government.

This would appear to be a joke -- but it is anything but a joke. It is a travesty of the most basic democratic principles -- and it is happening ONLY because of the continued backing by the U.S. government of the de-facto regime of Roberto Micheletti. Without this U.S. backing, the tin-pot Micheletti dictatorship -- which has close to no popular support in its own country -- would have crumbled over night.

Early on, President Obama characterized the June 28 kidnapping and transfer of President Zelaya to Costa Rica as a "coup d'etat" and pledged to support Zelaya's immediate and uncondition return to Honduras. This stand was applauded widely across the hemisphere.

But no sooner had Obama made this statement than Hillary Clinton and the State Department conditioned Zelaya's return with a series of demands that violated the Honduran people's right to self-determination. Clinton rejected Obama's view that a military coup d'etat had occurred on June 28. She then placed both the perpetrators of the coup and the legitimate president of Honduras on equal footing and demanded that they form a coalition government of "national unity." And she then demanded that Zelaya abandon the effort to convene a new Constituent Assembly that would rewrite the 1982 Constitution, which was drafted under the supervision of the Reagan administration with the aim of converting Honduras into a military base from which to maintain tight control over the entire region.

Zelaya, to the chagrin of many of his followers, accepted the unacceptable terms of this San Jose Agreement -- an accord that the U.S. press later revealed was written in Washington and then sent to Costa Rican President Oscar Arias for him to make public.

Therein began a game by the Honduran regime, with U.S. backing, of putting forward one stalling tactic after another. The ultimate aim was to make it to the November 29 elections without Zelaya's return to office -- and then have the United States recognize the legitimacy of the elections and of the new government resulting from these elections. That would close this five-month chapter of "political instability."

But there was one major hitch in the de-facto regime's game plan: The Honduran people did not go along with this charade -- and nor could they be beaten, or starved, into submission. The National Resistance Front Against the Coup demanded the immediate and unconditional return of Zelaya, opposing the San Jose Agreement. For five months, despite the repression and the lack of funds, the people took to the streets day after day, week after week, in mass struggle.

Most important, the people and their fighting leadership did not abandon their call to establish a National Constituent Assembly that would draft a new and genuinely democratic Constitution -- one that established the sovereignty of the Honduran people over their nation and their resources, one that ended Honduran subordination to the United States via the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and the military pact that established a U.S. base at Soto Cano (Palmerola).

Then came the salt added to an already bitter wound. On October 30, U.S. State Department representative Thomas Shannon brokered a deal that was hailed around the world as a breakthrough in the political stalemate: Zelaya would be returned to the presidency by November 5, in exchange for which Zelaya would constitute a government of national reconciliation with Micheletti, the call for a National Constituent Assembly would be dropped, and the November 29 elections would go forward with the support of all parties in dispute.

But even this deal was not to be. Shannon let the cat out of the bag when he told CNN en Español that the U.S. government would recognize the November 29 elections even if Zelaya were not reinstated prior to the elections. That closed the circle. No more charade was necessary. The U.S. was firmly behind the coup and the coup government -- and behind the prepared electoral fraud of November 29.

Today, the Micheletti regime is threatening all union leaders and activists who oppose these elections with the full power of State repression. Every day the Honduran papers are filled with such threats from elected officials at all levels. Voting in Honduras is mandatory, and those who do not vote -- or who do not vote the right way -- are subject to heavy fines and jail sentences. The Honduran people are once again under attack as the regime prepares its second coup d'etat.

Working people and supporters of democratic rights across the United States and internationally must demand that the Obama administration reverse course in Honduras by rejecting the legitimacy of the coup government and that of the November 29 elections. Already the governments of Brazil and Argentina, among many others across the Americas, have announced that these coup-orchestrated elections are a farce and will not be recognized. This, too, must be the stance of the U.S. government.

The national leadership of the AFL-CIO trade union federation has taken the lead in this battle for democracy. In a November 13 letter addressed to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka writes the following:

"Our position on the crisis has been developed in consultation with the Honduran labor movement, which is unequivocally opposed to the June 28 coup, to the continuation of the de facto regime, as well as to any future elections conducted by the Micheletti regime. ... The current environment in Honduras, including an illegitimate government in power, makes free, fair and open elections impossible."

We call upon all labor and community organizations, and all defenders of democratic rights, to join with the AFL-CIO in demanding that the Obama administration publicly reject both the legitimacy of the November 29 elections in Honduras and the legitimacy of the government emanating from these fraudulent elections.

In solidarity,

Rodrigo Ibarra and Alan Benjamin
Co-Editors
El Organizador

PLEASE EXCUSE DUPLICATE POSTINGS

[Note: The draft resolution below will be presented to the upcoming delegates' meeting of the San Francisco Labor Council. Given the emergency situation in Honduras today, we are sending it out to unionists and labor activists across the country as a model resolution for possible submission to your unions and labor councils. It can also be adapted for endorsement by community organizations. Please send us copies of any resolution you may adopt so that we can forward it to the National Resistance Front in Honduras. Thanks, in advance for your support. In solidarity -- Alan Benjamin and Dave Welsh, Delegates to San Francisco Labor Council]

************

Draft Emergency Resolution on the Current Crisis in Honduras

Whereas, following the June 28, 2009 military coup in Honduras, the AFL-CIO National Convention  passed a resolution in September demanding immediate reinstatement of President Manuel Zelaya, restoration of all labor and democratic rights, and an immediate halt to all U.S. aid to the coup government; and

Whereas, since that time President Zelaya is still taking refuge in the Brazilian Embassy; the Honduran people led by the National Resistance Front Against the Coup continue to mount massive daily demonstrations against the coup regime; and the coup government continues to deploy the U.S.-trained army and police in an attempt to suppress the popular will and prevent the exercise of democratic rights; and

Whereas, a U.S.-brokered deal [the Tegucigalpa/San Jose Accords] to reinstate President Zelaya by November 5th -- in preparation for the Nov. 29th elections -- has unraveled. Nov. 5th came and went and the coup regime refused to restore Zelaya to the Presidency. As a result President Zelaya, denouncing the "bad faith" of the U.S. government, said the Tegucigalpa/San Jose Accords were "a dead letter." The National Resistance Front confirmed it could not participate in nor recognize the legitimacy of the Nov. 29th elections under these conditions; and

Whereas, mass tear-gassing and beating of protesters has continued. There is a total lack of political space for opposition candidates to campaign and for the expression of any dissident political opinion. Under the current coup regime, conditions for free, fair and open elections are non-existent; and
Whereas, the National Resistance Front has denounced the Nov. 29th elections as a scheme by "the de facto regime that is repressing the people and violating the civil and human rights of its citizens, with the goal of validating the dictatorship of the oligarchy." It said that participating in such an electoral exercise "would give legitimacy to the coup regime or its successor." The Front also stressed that "our stance in opposition to the electoral farce will remain firm even if President Zelaya is reinstated between now and Nov. 29th, since 20 days or less is too short a time to dismantle an electoral fraud many months in the making," and since there is no time for opposition candidates to mount a campaign.

Therefore be it resolved, that the ___________  [name of your union, council or organization] stand in solidarity with the heroic people of Honduras as they resist the savage repression of a military dictatorship, and fight to win real democracy and sovereignty for their country; and

Be it further resolved, that the ____________ send official letters to Congressional representatives and President Obama demanding that the U.S. government take strong measures against the repressive coup government in Honduras -- and whatever government may succeed it as a result of the "electoral farce" scheduled for Nov. 29th. These measures should include: 1) Immediately break off all political and economic ties with the coup government and its successor; 2) Recall the U.S. ambassador; 3) Establish an economic embargo on all trade and aid to Honduras; 4) Freeze the U.S. bank accounts of the coup plotters and deny them visas for U.S. travel; 5) Shut down U.S. military bases in Honduras; and

Be it further resolved, that the __________ demand that the U.S. government denounce and refuse to recognize the results of Nov. 29th elections or any electoral process organized under the repressive coup regime; and

Finally be it resolved, that the __________ make common cause with other labor and community organizations, to develop a reliable support network for the National Resistance Front against the Coup, and for the labor unions that are at the center of the Resistance movement in Honduras.

I just got home from downtown, where I voted in the representation election bwtween Sharleen Stewart's SEIU and Tim Oribine's OWU. I considered our options carefully, and in the end I put the X next to the SEIU.

I am not happy to do this, mind you. A lot of what Tim and my friends on the OWU side have to say about the way the SEIU, even Local 1 Canada, has been run is valid and true. I just don't think on balance that starting a new union from scratch is the way to fix it. There has to be a genuine reform effort from within the local first! I've been guilty of just coasting along, the last few years, and letting Stern get away with a lot of stuff that has taken control of this union away from the membership. But my conversation with the SMART group over the last couple of years has shown me that there is a smart way to do this, an intelligent way to kick-start reform efforts from inside Local 1.

I'm going to be joining the retiree's group within the local soon, but I expect that in my copious free time as a pensioner I will be able still to advise anybody who wants to carry the fight. Y'all know where to find me.

From the current issue of UNITY & INDEPENDENCE
Supplement to The Organizer Newspaper
P.O. Box 40009
San Francisco, CA 94140
Email: ilcinfo@earthlink.net
Website: www.owcinfo.org
PLEASE EXCUSE DUPLICATE POSTINGS
--------------------

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

President Obama now says that card check is dead. [See Reuters article below.] He says he regrets that it may be necessary to find a compromise on labor reform that does not include card check, "as the votes aren't there." The fact is that the interview Obama granted to the Washington Post on Jan. 16, six days before he was sworn into office, was aimed consciously at trying to bury EFCA and card check.

By urging the political establishment to consider "an alternative" that would be more palatable to Big Business than EFCA, as he did in this interview with the Washington Post, Obama sent a signal to Arlen Specter, Dianne Feinstein and all the other politicians that he would not uphold his promise to labor and use the power of his presidency and his massive support among working people to fight for EFCA. His about-face began six days before he took his oath of office. It shows how hard the Chamber of Commerce and Wall Street must have leaned on Obama on this burning question for the entire labor movement -- and for working people as a whole.

But does the labor movement have to accept this pre-mature burial of EFCA? Hell No!

It ain't over till, till it's over -- and it ain't over! This last phase of the fight to win card check is only beginning. There must be no turning back.

Labor has to return to its roots -- mobilizing its members independently in mass actions and protests of all sorts (including those proposed by Mark Brenner below) to fight tooth and nail for card check -- for a real EFCA -- not a watered-down and close-to-useless EFCA without card check. Yes, it's time to fight back and remind President Obama and all the politicians that labor isn't going to stand by and allow them to renege on their promises. No way!

It's time to build a powerful movement in the streets that will compel Obama to put card check back on the table and that will compel 60 senators -- or more -- to do the right thing by voting for EFCA with card check. We cannot, and we must not, accept anything less!

-- Alan Benjamin
Co-Editor
Unity & Independence

*********************************

Obama Pronounces 'Card Check' Dead"

Reuters -- Friday, May 22

On Thursday, President Obama pronounced "card check" dead, saying that the current Employee Free Choice Act didn't have the votes to pass but that a "compromise" could work. By compromise, the president meant a version of the bill without card check, the provision obliging employers to recognize unions after a majority of workers have signed cards, rather than after an election. On the same day, Sen. Arlen Specter, newly "D"-Pa., a key swing vote, said that he, too, would support a "compromise" on EFCA: card-check-free, of course.

 These twin announcements sealed what most observers had understood for a while: Card check isn't happening. The provision has always been imperfect, but its death is a sure sign that the labor movement needs a more effective approach to politics.

 Card check was devised as a solution to a simple yet intractable problem: Workers who want to join unions do not get a fair shake. Elections take too long, giving employers plenty of time to hire high-priced union-busting law firms, fire union sympathizers, intimidate and spy upon workers, and do whatever they can do, legally or illegally, to keep the union out. Many people now work for companies like Home Depot (HD), Rite Aid (RAD), or Wal-Mart (WMT) that have plenty of resources to wear unions down and every incentive to do so since their business models depend on underpaid, short-term labor. Specter opposes card check but does support speeding up elections, allowing workers to campaign at their work sites without retaliation, and imposing stiffer penalties for violations of organizing rights.

 Not everyone committed to labor-law reform is mourning card check.

Columbia economist Jagdish Bhagwati, one of EFCA's most prominent sympathizers, told TBM earlier this spring that he regretted the card-check provision of the bill: "I think that it was a mistake for us who are supporters of unions and unionization to go for card check. I agree that some employers intimidate workers who wish to unionize, but those who do not wish to unionize can also be intimidated by union organizers." Bhagwati strongly supports secret ballots and thinks it would have been better to try to reform enforcement mechanisms to ensure that illegal intimidation by employers would be punished. Bhagwati also points out that U.S. labor law makes it cripplingly difficult for unions to strike: "If unions cannot strike effectively they become paper tigers, more or less. I would have concentrated on this rather than get diverted into the card-check provision." He adds, "The card-check provision has unnecessarily cost us some credibility and also some votes, I fear."

 Sandy Pope, president of Teamsters Local 805, which is headquartered in Long Island City, Queens, thinks labor law reform is needed but says she's "not sad about card check going away." Pope explains: "I would prefer an expedited election to card check. It's important for workers to do something as a group. In order to go into bargaining in the strongest possible way, you have to campaign. You have to really want" the union. Pope argues that if unions "treat people like babies" by bypassing the election process, workers won't build effective organizations that can stand up to the employers' aggressive behavior at the bargaining table. A shorter election would bypass much of the employers' current strategy of intimidation and firings, Pope thinks, while preserving the possibility of debate in the workplace and allowing employees to organize, if they choose to do so, rather than passively assent to a visiting bureaucrat.

 The business lobby has been running numerous ads emphasizing that "card check kills the secret ballot" with pictures of Jimmy Hoffa and other easy symbols of union corruption. The whole concept reinforces stereotypes of union leaders as intimidating thugs, an image opponents have enthusiastically exploited, with one business coalition even using the comically corrupt visage of Johnny Sack from The Sopranos. "There are unscrupulous unions out there who will just go in the backdoor, sign cards without the employees really knowing who they are," says Sandy Pope. "Some of the accusations of the right wing are true." (Most union leaders are, of course, neither as corrupt nor as effective as David Chase's imaginary mob bosses, but her point is important.)

 Worthy as such concerns about card check are, they are not the major reasons for its death. Most politicians are posturing when they decry EFCA as "undemocratic." It's much more likely that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., doesn't like EFCA because of campaign contributors like Kindred Healthcare, which has been involved in bitter struggles to stay union-free (as well as, attractively, opposing workers' attempts to improve the quality of care). Others in Congress are similarly compromised (including Democrats like Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, a former friend of card check and a major recipient of Wal-Mart campaign largesse).

 Business interests vigorously oppose serious labor-law reform, and the labor movement isn't as serious as it needs to be in defending it. Serious divisions within the labor movement hampered unions from working together. Some have argued that Obama's November victory created an atmosphere of complacency, allowing unions to not push card check as hard as they needed to. Even without the unwieldy baggage of card check, unions will need to get more aggressive to win labor-law reform: After all, even the emerging EFCA-decaf-lite compromises supported by Starbucks (SBUX) are opposed by the most politically active business interests. The anti-EFCA lobby flatly rejects even Specter's compromise, despite having based its campaign on opposition to card check.

 New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse, in a recent essay on why Americans don't protest, paraphrases United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard saying that demonstrations are less needed in the United States than in Europe "because often all that is needed is some expert lobbying in Washington to line up the support of a half-dozen senators." This approach has plainly failed with the Employee Free Choice Act. To get labor-law reform, card check or no, rather than "just sitting around and lobbying," Sandy Pope points out, "we have to talk to our members. We have to get into the streets."

 Mark Brenner, a labor activist and editor of Labor Notes, agrees, observing: "The labor movement is turning its back on its own history. Every major legislative advance has come about because of street protests, civil disobedience, by our turning up the heat."

 Explaining why it's important for labor to return to the organizing and protesting strategies of the past, Brenner says: "We're never going to win the inside game. Wal-Mart and Home Depot will always have more money. Our strength is that we have millions of members ... and millions more people who would like to be in a union." Winning labor-law reform will take organizing to make all those people more visible. "Why no civil disobedience in Arlen Specter's office?" Brenner asks. "Why aren't we picketing in front of every Republican's house? Why aren't we bird-dogging them? If this is [labor's] most important campaign, let's act like it is."

UNITY & INDEPENDENCE
P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140
Tel. (415) 641-8616; fax: (415) 626-1217
email: ilcinfo@earthlink.net
--------------------------------

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

At a time when labor needs to be united to send a clear and unmistakable message to President Obama that we will not accept anything less than card check and the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), at a time when all the main unions have regrouped to say to the Obama administration that we will not accept having EFCA taken off the table (as Dianne Feinstein, Arlen Specter and Larry Summers have argued vociferously) ... at this crucial juncture, Andy Stern of SEIU has jumped ship and dealt a body blow to labor's united stand by abandoning card check and saying that labor should "consider alternatives" to EFCA. (The article below from the Washington Post speaks for itself.)

This is more than a body blow. It is a stab in the back.

Labor put Obama in office. It has every right to tell the new president that he MUST carry forth on his promise, repeated time after time at labor rallies all across the country, that he would fight tooth and nail for EFCA -- not just sign it when it came before him. He promised to advocate for it and fight for it once in office. Labor must hold him and the new administration accountable!

Labor should be mobilizing in the streets to let the Obama administration know that we aren't backing off. We are going to fight to make EFCA the law of the land. It is a life-and-death question for millions of working people. It is a vital step in implementing a real stimulus of the economy -- and not one like we have at present, which just keeps bailing out the banks and the war profiteers.

Our labor council here in San Francisco condemned in no uncertain terms the raid organized by Andy Stern and the leadership of SEIU against UNITE HERE, one of its own Change to Win affiliates. Other central labor councils across the country have taken a similar stance.

But this kind of raiding isn't just one more case of an overzealous union leader impinging on another union's jurisdiction. This is raiding carried out on behalf of the employers, and with the employers' help, to weaken the labor movement by imposing sweatheart contracts, undermining standards, and destroying all rank-and-file democracy.

This is why Stern had to go after, and attempt to destroy, SEIU UHW in Northern California, something he has not been able to achieve -- and will not be able to achieve -- thanks to the stubborn resistance and combativity of Brother Sal Rosselli and the membership of that union, which has now launched the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).

The politics of Andy Stern are a serious threat to the entire labor movement. No one in labor is immune from this offensive. It takes the form of attacking a major component of his own union, in the case of SEIU-UHW. It takes the form of raiding, brazenly on behalf of the employers, the UNITE HERE union. It takes the form of undermining labor's united front in support of EFCA, right when we have the real possibility of winning card check. The list goes on.

Defeating this threat from Stern, however, is inseparable from charting an independent fightback perspective to win passage of EFCA, to ensure that serious and fundamental NAFTA revisions are on the table, to ensure that we win single-payer healthcare, to ensure that our unions do not bail out corporations (as they are doing in Chrysler and GM), and the list goes on.

The November 4 election has placed the labor movement in a unique role to champion the fight for change that the majority of the American people want and expect from the new president.

Over a month ago, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis came to San Francisco and met with many of us on the executive committee of the San Francisco Labor Council. When asked by someone in the audience what it would take to win EFCA given all the resistance from the Chamber of Commerce and all the hesitation and backsliding from politicians who claim to be labor's friends, Ms. Solis responded, "For labor to win the Employee Free Choice Act, you are going to have to build a movement."

Simple and to the point!

Building a movement means not accepting so-called "alternatives" that are more accommodating to the employers. It means organizing labor-community coalitions to do what the San Francisco Labor Council is doing on May 6-7 with its 24-hour vigil at the Federal Building in San Francisco to demand that Dianne Feinstein get back on board with EFCA. It means taking on the openly "company union" orientation of Andy Stern, which is at the root of his drive to raid and destroy his own union and other unions.

And it means affirming that labor's role, its only role, is to defend the interests of its members by remaining entirely independent of the bosses and the government. This means saying that labor's role is not to use union funds to bail out corporations, as this makes the union a partner and accomplice in the bosses' decisions to lay off workers, impose speed-up, take away holiday pay and overtime pay, and ultimately to put the union's funds (and therefore the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of retirees) at great risk.

These are challenging times for the labor movement. They could be the best of times. People are full of hope and energy to take action. They have been emboldened by the results of the November 4th election. They want change and they expect to get it -- not in some distant future, but now. Any opening for united struggle is immediately seized upon to fight back.

But this could also be the worst of times, as unions are turning inward against each other, using funds to bail out corporations, fighting against each other for the crumbs from the table.

The only way out is for the labor movement to reclaim its independent voice, its backbone and its tradition of mobilizing its members to win its heartfelt demands -- which are the demands of the working class majority in this country.

In solidarity,

Alan Benjamin
Exec. Bd. member, SF Labor Council
(note written in a personal capacity)

****************************

(reprinted from April 20 Washington Post)

Stern Considers Alternatives to EFCA
By Alec MacGillis

As key senators have announced that they are not planning to support the Employee Free Choice Act, labor leaders put on a brave face, saying they have every intention of finding the needed 60 votes and that it is premature to start talking about alternatives to the bill.

But in an interview today, Andy Stern, head of the influential Service Employees International Union, stepped gently away from that unified front, raising the prospect of reforms that would overhaul union elections without giving workers the option of organizing sans secret ballot elections.

The legislation now before Congress, dubbed "card check," would let workers organize if a majority in a workplace sign pro-union cards; as it stands, employers require secret ballot elections. Unions say elections are marred by employer intimidation; employers say going with card-check -- what the unions call "majority sign up" -- would expose workers to union pressure.

Speaking to The Post's editorial board, Stern noted that there are ways to try to level the playing field in union elections without giving workers a way around the secret ballot requirement, such as shortening the window before elections are held -- thus giving employers less time to pressure workers -- and stiffening penalties for employer violations.

"We are on the hunt for a solution," he said. "No matter what you do, you have to change the election process. Whether it's majority sign up or not, workers have to have a choice about having an election. The bill has to address ... fast elections, eliminating employer behavior and what happens if there are employer violations. Regardless, that needs to be done."

He even suggested that the card-check bill had been introduced as it is in the Senate only in order to have the same language as the bill that is in the House, and that this may not have been the right way to go. "We sort of have a bill that talks a lot about majority signup and nothing about the problems of the election system," he said. "That was probably a decision made in the House to have the same bill come up and potentially pass the same bill -- which is not going to be a logical way to follow through now that we know ... what the situation is."

Stern and SEIU secretary treasurer Anna Burger said they have not given up on getting 60 votes for card-check, saying that they still hold out hope that Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the only Republican to support the bill in 2007, could yet reverse his declaration against the bill last month. "Oh sure," Burger said about the chances of Specter flipping back. "This is Arlen Specter we're talking about."

But they also acknowledged that, for now, they are having to search for their 60 votes without any help from President Obama, who has expressed support for card-check but not made it a priority.

"The President has said he has a series of things -- that we agree that he needs to get done -- which are major for every man woman and child, like health care, like the budget, like financial regulation," Stern said. "We respect that we have a job to do to line up enough votes without him. I don't think there's any question that he says there will be a vote, that this bill's time has arrived and he will do whatever is in his power to bring this home. We just aren't there yet."

Then Stern signaled one last time that if card-check does prove to be unrealistic, he believes that unions must get behind some other substantive reform, instead of waiting until 2011 in hopes of a bigger Democratic majority after the next election. "We need to get something that's significant done," he said.

Report forwarded to me by Brother Kroopkin.

 

In a well attended raucous meeting on April 13, 2009  of the San Francisco Labor Council representing nearly all the unions in San Francisco unanimously endorsed a resolution condemning the raid by Andy Stern and the SEIU International on Unite-Here throughout the country and also declared support for any SEIU local that "stands in opposition to this violation of union principles and practice. ... The meeting was one of the most intense in some time as San Francisco Unite Here Local 2 president Mike Casey in a dramatic statement charged that the SEIU raid on his union had threatened all the work the members had done in order to get a national contract with the major hotel chains. The union had waited for years to sign a contract so their expiration dates would coincide with the expiration dates of other local's chain hotels around the country. Casey was joined by many other SEIU rank and file delegates who said they were angered and appalled by the use of their union dues to finance a raid on another union that was fighting for their members. Olga Miranda who is also the leader of SEIU Local 87 of the San Francisco janitors did not speak at the meeting but resolution had been previously introduced by her to support any SEIU local that opposed these raids. SEIU Local 87 janitors decertified twice in the past ten years before they were able to win back control of their local from SEIU president Andy Stern who wanted to merge their local into the statewide SEIU Local 1877. Domita Davis Howard who is the Stern appointed Executive Secretary of the 50,000 member SEIU 1021 had boycotted the meeting although she was on the SFLC Executive Board and was aware that this motion would be coming up. Not one delegate of the over 100 delegates who attended got up to oppose the resolution and it was adopted unanimously. Included were the other members of Stern's Change to Win unions including the UBC Carpenters, UFCW and Teamsters who were also in the meeting. This action as well was not unique to San Francisco since similar resolutions have passed in the South Bay Labor Council and other Northern California labor councils as well as the Seattle Labor Council. The frontal rebuff to the International SEIU and Andy Stern's efforts to raid Unite-Here is a significant sign that the SEIU International is danger of becoming totally isolated in California and event threatening the continued power it has in the California labor movement as local after local bolts from the Stern operation.

 

SFLC Resolution Opposed to SEIU’s Attempted Hostile Takeover of UNITE HERE and its Jurisdiction  http://www.sflaborcouncil.org/ViewUpload/405 Whereas an internal dispute within UNITE HERE over constitutional reform and union democracy has led to a minority faction within the union to secede, in violation of the International Constitution; and  Whereas SEIU has seized on this division within UNITE HERE as an opportunity to raid UNITE HERE’s members and jurisdiction; and  Whereas an affiliation agreement between SEIU and this secessionist faction provides for organizing in UNITE HERE’s traditional jurisdiction, namely hotels, gaming, and food service; and   Whereas slick mailings, followed up with live and automated phone calls have encouraged UNITE HERE members in cities across North America (including San Francisco) to leave UNITE HERE and join a “new union” which is an affiliate of SEIU; and  Whereas SEIU’s reprehensible behavior not only undermines UNITE HERE’s local unions now preparing for industry-wide negotiations in Atlantic City, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, but also will be exploited by anti-union corporations and interest groups opposed to the Employee Free Choice Act; and   Whereas the actions of SEIU International leadership threatens longstanding cooperative relationships and undermines solidarity between UNITE HERE locals and SEIU locals;  Therefore be it Resolved that the San Francisco Labor Council: 1. Condemns the intervention in the internal concerns of UNITE HERE by President Andy Stern and top SEIU leadership, and their actions designed to attack and weaken UNITE HERE; 2. Condemns the campaign being waged against UNITE HERE and its locals with the reliance on corporate-type anti-union tactics; 3. Demands that SEIU cease all actions and/or support in raids of gaming, hotel and food service bargaining units and publicly acknowledge UNITE HERE’s organizing jurisdiction in these areas across North America; 4. Encourages SEIU local leaders, members and staff to repudiate the SEIU affiliation agreement that seeks to steal UNITE HERE’s jurisdiction and denies UNITE HERE a future; 5. Directs the Council’s Executive Director to send a copy of this resolution to Andy Stern, Anna Burger and the Change to Win leadership, the SEIU International Executive Board, and John Sweeney and the AFL-CIO Executive Committee. 6. Urges the California Labor Federation and other Labor Councils and bodies throughout the nation to adopt the same position as this Council.  Submitted by Mike Casey, UNITE HERE 2, and adopted by the Executive Committee of the San Francisco Labor Council by acclamation on April 6, 2009 and unanimously by the Delegate Body of the San Francisco Labor Council on April 13, 2009.  Respectfully, Tim Paulson Executive Director
http://www.sflaborcouncil.org/ViewUpload/406 Resolution on SEIU Locals and SFLC Support Whereas, the San Francisco Labor Council has taken a position opposing the Andy Stern-led attack on UNITE H ERE,   Therefore be it Resolved, that the San Francisco Labor Council offers its support to any SEIU local that stands in opposition to this violation of union principles and practice.  Resolution submitted by Olga Miranda, SEIU 87 and adopted by the Executive Committee of the San Francisco Labor Council on April 6, 2009.  Respectfully,  Tim Paulson Executive Director  OPEIU3 AFL-CIO 11 

Dear Friends,

Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now" program tomorrow (Friday, March 27) will feature a report on the recent and successful 44-day general strike in Guadeloupe. Amy will be interviewing Kali Akuno, a leader of the Malcom X Grassroots Movement who was a central organizer of the U.S. solidarity effort with the struggle of the workers and people of Guadeloupe.

The Guadeloupe segment is scheduled to run at 8:15 a.m. in New York City. Listeners in the San Francisco Bay Area will be able to hear the interview with Kali Akuno at 6:15 a.m. and also at 9:15 a.m. Listeners in other cities can go to www.democracynow.org to find out when the show is broadcast.

We are also sending below, for your information, the latest interview with Elie Domota, general secretary of the UGTG trade union federation of Guadeloupe and spokesperson for the LKP Strike Collective. The interview was conducted March 15 by Robert Fabert for the ILC International Newsletter. It is reprinted here from issue no. 328 of the newsletter. Also reprinted below is the Preamble to the Jacques Bino agreement that ended the general strike.

Thanks to all of you for your ongoing support to the ILC campaigns. Your support of the heroic struggle of the workers and people of Guadeloupe made a real difference!

In solidarity,

Ed Rosario and Alan Benjamin,
for the International Liaison Committee

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[reprinted from ILC International Newsletter No. 328, March 18, 2009]

Guadeloupe

Interview with General Secretary of the General Union of Workers of Guadeloupe (UGTG) and spokesperson for the Liyannaj kont pwofitasyon (LKP) Strike Collective

Following a powerful, united general strike that lasted 44 days, the workers, youth and the entire working population of Guadeloupe concluded an agreement that met their key demands, including a 200 euro increase in the monthly minimum wage.

We met with Elie Domota, General Secretary of the General Union of Workers of Guadeloupe (UGTG) and spokesperson for Liyannaj kont pwofitasyon (LKP). He draws a few lessons from this movement for the readers of the ILC International Newsletter.

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ILC: What is your balance sheet of the strike?

ED: It is a very positive balance sheet. We witnessed 44 days of a total general strike. It was a great demonstration of unity of all workers and all the organizations forming the LKP.

Many said earlier that this was a Negro konplo a sé konplo chyen [a conspiracy of Negroes, a conspiracy of dogs - Ed] ... Well, we have demonstrated that we can unite trade unions, political organizations, consumer organizations, tenants, and cultural movements. It is our diversity that has forged unity.

ILC: What was the origin of LKP and its role in the movement?
ED: How was the LKP started? Well, very simply: Previously, each organization worked on its own. In late November, at the UGTG, we decided to meet with other organizations, as a series of problems arose and we did not think that any one single organization could wage the fight successful; we needed broader unity.

It was relatively easy to meet, because for six years we have tried to mount what we called a program of demands of the working class. We were also together on May 1. But during all this time, we were unable to come to an agreement.
On December 5, 2008, we met first with the trade unions, with unions in the education, cultural movements, with political parties ... And then, liyannaj (alliance) took root! There was the strike on December 16 and on the 17th. We went to the Prefecture de Basse-Terre [French Government Building]... and we decided to continue the movement in January.

Thus, the LKP was created. In this dynamic [Balan], we have found a color and a name and a new song, The Gwadloup sé tannou [Guadeloupe Is Ours] repeated in chorus by all the demonstrators ... It adan balan [very quickly] took off. The LKP is the fruit of the unity begun between organizations for the past several years.

ILC: Guadeloupe will never be as before, say the workers, activists ... Do you agree? And for you, what does that mean?
ED: I agree. But I want to say that we do not operate in fits and starts, by shock. We must maintain some regularity and consistency in all our actions if we don't want to fall back into the system we condemn.

This means, above all, changing social relationships, establishing new social relationships, new relationships between men and women of our country. And above all, social relations in the workplace. We Indians and Blacks, who are majority in this country, must feel proud and stop bowing our heads and accepting the unacceptable.

ILC: In the immediate sense, what does this movement symbolize for the people and workers in the world?
ED: This may symbolize the fact that it is the big struggles that make the wheels of history turn. Today, large international capital controls everything, including the politicians who apply their dictates. We can show that a small nation of 400,000 inhabitants can challenge this system based on exploitation and submission.

ILC: Legal charges have been brought against you for "incitement to racial hatred" and "the extortion of signatures on the Jacques Bino Agreement."

ED: This is an attempt to denigrate the movement: the words were not racist (1). They reflect a reality, the organization of society in Guadeloupe, which has always, and is still, based on a relationship of races and classes for nanni Nannan [that goes back a long time]. At the top of the pyramid, it is always the same: békés and whites, and at the bottom, the Black and Indians. 400 years later, we live in a photocopy of the same slave plantation society.

The truth is that we are still out on strike in companies that refuse to implement the Bino agreement (2), we call for the implementation of the agreement ... And what does the prosecutor do? He opens an investigation for "extortion to sign" the agreement. This, I repeat, is an attempt to smear us, to demonize us, to reverse the gains we have won.

We are ready and we are not intimidated if they proceed against us! In the court, should it go this far, there will be a forum to expose to the world what our society is all about, what the French state does in a small dominated country.

-- Interviewed conducted by Robert Fabert

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Endnotes
(1) Interviewed on television at a moment when the béké [while eilite] bosses refused to sign the agreement, Elie Domota said: "Either they will implement the agreement, or they will leave Guadeloupe; we will not let a bunch of békés restore slavery."

(2) Jacques Bino: The name of the trade union activist shot dead in the night of February 17-18, 2009.

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Preamble to the inter-regional agreement on wages in Guadeloupe: Jacques Bino agreement.

Between the undersigned signatories:

-- For the organizations of employers: UMPEC, UCE, GRIP, OPGSS, UNAPL;
-- For the trade unions of employees: CGTG, CFDT, CFTC, CGT-FO, UGTG, UNSA organized within the Liyannaj Kont Pwfitasyon (LKP).
In the presence of Mr. DESFORGES, Prefect of the Guadeloupe Departement, and under the mediation of Messrs. BESSIERE, LOPEZ, LEMAIRE Arcont.

Preamble:
- Considering that the economic and social conditions in Guadeloupe are a result of the persistence of the plantation economy model.
- Considering that this economy is based on monopoly profits and the abuse of a dominant position, which generates injustice.
- Considering that these injustices affect both workers and our internal economic growth.
- Considering that they are obstacles to economic development and the internal social development.