 |
    |
      |
|
ISSUES & FORUMS
Labor / Social Security Forum:
PACG is working to maintain Social Security as it currently operates. We are opposed to any plans to privatize Social Secuity. Contact Dick Fallow for more information at 563-391-3562.
Please sign the petition asking Congress to protect Social Security:
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/ProtectSocialSecurity
(may need to copy and paste this link into your browser)
UNION BATTLE TAKES CENTER STAGE AT SMITHFIELD SHAREHOLDERS MEETING
One Thousand Workers, Religious and Civil Rights Leaders and Activists Rally in Support of Smithfield Workers
Smithfield Announces Talks with UFCW
On Wednesday, August 29th, 150 Smithfield workers and family members traveled to Williamsburg, Virginia to meet the top corporate leaders of Smithfield Foods, and were joined by 1000 supporters from around the country in a loud, colorful and passionate show of solidarity.
The demonstration, the largest in the history of the historic colonial town, dominated Smithfield Foods’ 2007 Shareholders meeting. Moved by a series of inspirational messages from faith, civil rights, and workers’ leaders at the First Baptist Church (click here to see the diverse list of speakers), the overflow crowd took to the streets, chanting and singing to the beat of a dozen drummers and hundreds of whistles. Stopping briefly in front of the Williamsburg Lodge—the site of the shareholders meeting—the crowd shook the walls with their cries for justice at Smithfield’s Tar Heel Plant.
The most exciting moment, though, came inside the shareholders meeting. Ten workers from the Tar Heel plant and ten prominent clergy and community leaders went to the shareholders meeting. During the meeting, Reverend Nelson Johnson from the Southern Faith Labor Community Alliance gave an impassioned message of support for the workers cause on behalf of the millions of members represented by the prominent leaders. Terry Slaughter, a livestock worker at the Tar Heel plant, showed CEO C. Larry Pope petitions signed by thousands of Tar Heel employees—representing a strong majority of workers in the plant. The petitions demanded a free and fair choice for selecting a union and called for “A union and a union contract...like unionized Smithfield workers have in other plants...and for Smithfield to remain neutral and let people choose a union without the company interfering” Terry showed thousands of supporting petitions from Smithfield workers around the world-from Poland, Spain and France to Iowa and Nebraska.
After the event, press reports noted that Smithfield executives plan to enter into talks with UFCW representatives. In another press interview, Pope “criticized the union's extensive campaign against the company...‘It is costing the company substantially,’ Pope said after the meeting.” And click here to watch the local television coverage.
As the supporters rallied nearby in Bicentennial Park they promised to continue to stand alongside the Tar Heel workers until the battle is won. When workers brought the news from inside the shareholders meeting, the crowd erupted in a chant that made clear that the movement was just getting started. “We will be back,” they cried. “We will be back.”
Stay tuned.
Values Statement on Worker's rights, Minimum Wage, Fair Trade:
Based on a long history on having to fight for even the most basic standards for working Americans, we believe it is essential to ensure worker's rights; including safe working conditions, adequate compensation and pay, health benefits, and to be treated with respect in the workplace.
Based on the negative effects that NAFTA and CAFTA have had on American jobs, we believe both should be revisited and should include protections for workers to ensure that corporations do not continue to outsource American jobs in order to take advantage of and exploit workers abroad. The Human rights of ANY worker should be safeguarded within any global trade agreement.
We believe the federal government should raise the minimum wage to an actual 'living wage' of $11 an hour, and index it to inflation thereafter. We believe that Congress should net give themselves a raise unless they are prepared to give the American people a raise.
Please Support the Employee Free Choice Act Now!
This is it. The battle lines are drawn for workers' freedom to form unions so we can bargain with our employers for better wages, benefits and working conditions. Today, the Employee Free Choice Act was re-introduced in Congress.
Representative Bruce Braley was among hundreds who have signed on to this critical legislation as co-sponsors. Please tell your representative to become a leader in passing the Employee Free Choice Act.
The Employee Free Choice Act would restore workers' freedom to make our own choice about whether to have a union so we can bargain for a better life -- without interference from management. In theory, we've had that right for decades. But, in fact, the system for forming unions and bargaining is broken. Employers routinely coerce, intimidate, harass, threaten and even fire workers who dare to try.
That's got to end.
Today, only 38 percent of Americans feel we're getting ahead financially -- and less than a quarter of us believe our children's generation will be better off. Being able to bargain collectively through a union provides the best way for working people to get ahead economically, to ensure a better future for our children and to rebuild America's middle class. CEOs may be getting contracts that protect their pay and benefits--but they fight tooth and nail to keep us from having the same opportunity.
Thank Representative Braley for co-sponsoring the Employee Free Choice Act -- but make it clear you expect more leadership. Click here.
The Employee Free Choice Act would strengthen penalties for companies that interfere with workers who try to form unions and bargain, establish mediation and binding arbitration when the employer and workers cannot agree on a first contract and enable workers to form unions when a majority signs union authorization cards.
The Bush administration and corporate special interests have been eroding the power of regular working Americans to get ahead for way too long. The Employee Free Choice Act is our opportunity to level the playing field.
Please take a minute right now to urge your representative to make you proud by being a leader in the fight for the Employee Free Choice Act.
Thank you -- this is our best chance to help America's working families prosper.
In solidarity,
- Working Families e-Activist Network, AFL-CIO
*P.S. Follow the latest news about the Employee Free Choice Act and get tools for the fight to pass the Employee Free Choice Act!
Labor News:
AFL-CIO and National Textile Association File First-Ever Worker Rights Case Under U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement
(Washington, September 21) - The AFL-CIO, the largest labor federation in the U.S., representing more than 10 million workers, and the National Textile Association, which represents U.S. textile producers, mainly in the knitting, weaving, and finishing sectors, joined to file the first worker rights case ever submitted under the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
This is the first time that a business association has formally joined in filing a worker rights case under a trade agreement. The groups called on the Bush Administration to initiate dispute settlement proceedings under the FTA that would halt gross workers rights violations occurring in Jordan.
The complaint charges that the Jordanian government has failed to meet its obligations under the Jordan FTAs labor chapter, both because its labor laws fall short of international standards and because the government has failed to effectively enforce its laws. These factors together, the complaint states, contributed to scandalous abuses of workers rights, especially in the Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZs), revealed in reports by the AFL-CIOs Solidarity Center and the National Labor Committee earlier this year. (download pdf)
We are delighted that the NTA has joined the AFL-CIO in filing this historic case, said John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO. The AFL-CIO fought hard to include meaningful labor rights provisions in the Jordan FTA - and we will fight just as hard to ensure that our government and the Jordanian government enforce these important provisions.
It isnt just labor that has an interest in protecting workers rights around the world, said Karl Spilhaus, president of NTA, the nations oldest industrial trade association. U.S. producers are also hurt when unscrupulous employers violate the rights of their workers abroad or when governments fail to enforce their labor laws.
The AFL-CIO and the NTA reiterated that effective enforcement of the labor rights provisions in trade agreements is crucial to the competitiveness of American businesses that are still producing on American soil. The egregious abuses reported in Jordan - 100-hour workweeks, unsafe working conditions, and unpaid wages - distort labor-market conditions globally, said Spilhaus. Just as we press our government to aggressively enforce the antidumping and subsidy elements in our trade agreements, we also call on our government to uphold the labor rights provisions that we have negotiated in our FTAs.
The labor rights provisions are in fact among the most important in any FTA, said Sweeney, because trade liberalization without respect for workers rights simply doesnt achieve the goals that are most important to us: poverty reduction, sustainable development, and the creation of good jobs worldwide.
Under the Jordan FTA, apparel exports to the United States increased by more than twenty-five-fold in just five years, from $43 million in 2000 to $1.083 billion in 2005. During the same period, the U.S. trade balance with Jordan swung from a surplus of $244 million to a deficit of $623 million. Foreign investment in the QIZs also boomed. And yet Jordanian workers received few of the new jobs generated, even though unemployment in Jordan remains over 15 percent. The foreign workers who got the majority of the new jobs created -- mainly from Bangladesh, China, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines -- were often lured to Jordan by unscrupulous labor brokers, then mistreated by their employers, sometimes in conditions approximating indentured servitude, the complaint charges.
Our experiences under the Jordan FTA strengthen our conviction that we need even more effective worker rights protections in our trade agreements and in global trade rules, Sweeney said. Without stronger protections for workers, free trade deals can end up being a sham and a betrayal: the worst employers are rewarded with market access and higher profits, while national development goals are neglected. We know we can do better, and we call on the Bush Administration to use all the tools at its disposal to ensure that Jordan reforms its labor laws and puts in place an effective labor inspection and enforcement system, with the full cooperation and participation of the Jordanian unions.
The AFL-CIO and the NTA recognize and welcome the important steps taken by the Jordanian government in response to the allegations of worker rights violations. The Jordanian government has closed at least seven factories where abuses were occurring and has taken steps to improve the labor inspection regime. But Sweeney said those measures fall well short of whats needed to correct the widespread abuses in Jordan.
The Jordanian government must reform its labor laws, and thoroughly overhaul its inspection and enforcement system, Sweeney added. Fines need to be at a level that companies take seriously, and the government needs to ensure that companies cannot evade such fines easily by declaring bankruptcy, leaving the country, or simply changing their corporate name.
The complaint provides a constructive and clear set of benchmarks for both the U.S. government and the Jordanian government, in order to thoroughly address the extremely serious challenges faced by Jordanian and non-Jordanian workers today.
SUCCESS!
The Senate version of HF 729, the bill to fund the Iowa Public Employee Retirement System (IPERS) passed the Iowa House Tuesday morning 97-0 and is on its way to the Governor's desk for his signature. The bill will increase funding for IPERS, but maintain the same employer-employee ratio as in the past.
Thank you to all e-activists who sent e-mails to their legislators on this issue. You made a difference!
Visit this web address below to take action!
www.unionvoice.org/campaign/Support_EFCA
You can sign up for Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO at:
www.unionvoice.org/iowafed/
Click on this link for more information from your union, online activism and benefits: http://www.unionvoice.org
LINKS: