AFL-CIO Weblog

With the graduation of seven newly certified weatherization technicians from its Eastern New York Laborers Training Center, the New York State Laborers’ Union (NYSLIUNA) is blowing holes in several right-wing myths all at once, proving that jobless people do want to work, government programs can spur the creation of good jobs and labor unions can lead the way to prosperity.

Working in partnership with Peter Young Housing, Industries & Treatment (PYHIT), a non-profit that provides treatment, housing and vocational training to disadvantaged people struggling with drug and alcohol addiction, the Laborers trained these first members of Green Jobs Local 58, chartered by the Laborers (LIUNA) as the first local in the Albany, N.Y., region dedicated exclusively to green jobs. Participants in the training had to be clean and sober for at least six months in order to be accepted into the program.

Thanks in part to the state’s 2009 Green Jobs/Green New York Act and a new program launched by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), the demand for the retrofitting of homes to be more weather-resistant and energy-efficient is expected to climb. (Through the NYSERDA program, residents will be able to finance the weatherization of their homes via their monthly utility bills.)

The new Local 58 members will work for Eagle Street Construction, one of PYHIT’s vocational enterprises. Local 58 Business Manager Frank Marchese Jr. told the Albany Times Union that the workers would earn $14 per hour, plus a benefits package. He told the paper:

We are taking people involved in social programs who are now moving into being viable taxpayers.

Pete Wilcox, one of the local’s new members, expressed his enthusiasm to the Times Union this way:

I am very thankful for the opportunity to get green jobs training. I live in Albany and it means a lot to me to be able to have the skills to weatherize homes in my own backyard.

Sounds like a win for everybody.

Donna Gratehouse, who blogs at DemocraticDiva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.

Arizona’s teachers and first responders are under full-frontal attack this week, as union-stripping bills that have been called “Wisconsin on steroids” are being shuttled through the legislative process at whirlwind speed. These bills would prohibit public-sector unions from negotiating pay and benefits, ban paycheck deductions for union dues and ban compensation for union activities. They passed through committee hearings last week and are going to be debated in the full Senate this week. It’s expected that they will pass through both chambers easily due to the anti-labor GOP majority in both. It’s unclear if Gov. Jan Brewer will sign them into law. A Phoenix-based right-wing pressure group, the Goldwater Institute, and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are behind the measures.

Like their counterparts in Wisconsin last year, working people in Arizona are not taking this lying down. Rebekah Friend, Arizona AFL-CIO executive director, told Phoenix newscaster Brahm Resnik on Sunday morning that the Arizona union movement is planning to use “every option available” to fight these attacks on working families. The Arizona AFL-CIO and member unions are mobilizing people to call and write their state representatives to oppose the bills. Friend assured Resnik that, if necessary, they can fill the state Capitol with people.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi attending BAYDA Institute.   

This is a cross-post from the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center.

Almost 22 years ago, the National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide in a free and fair election in Burma—but the military dictatorship refused to let the NLD take power. Instead, the ruling junta crushed the organization and imprisoned its members and activists, including its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

In the past six months, Burma seems to be thawing, opening to the outside world it long shunned. And Suu Kyi, who spent many of the interceding years under house arrest—and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her struggle—is out again among the people, speaking at rallies and renewing her call for democracy.

On a recent trip to Rangoon, I had the opportunity to sit down with Aung San Suu Kyi for a conversation about the future of the labor movement in Burma. We discussed my meetings over the previous few days—with journalists, farmers, textile and garment workers and industrial workers—all of whom had started to form independent unions. She thanked the Solidarity Center and the U.S. labor movement for its support.

Suu Kyi had already given a lot of thought to what a future Burma labor movement should look like. She felt that it was important for unions to be responsible and to work for their members. She said the new unions should not be tools or fronts for any political parties, including her own NLD. She did not say that unions should not be involved in politics or support the political parties they wanted, but she did voice her position that parties should not create unions and the NLD had no desire or intent to do so.

When we talked about economic development, she stressed that Burma should not be just about garment factories; other, more creative economic development was necessary, she said. I said that Burma had the opportunity to engage in a variety of economic activities and mentioned natural resources and extractive industries as possible but also problematic. She laughed gently and said there were a lot of opportunities “to do things right or do them very wrong.”

We ended the meeting with a promise to stay in touch, and she said that they would be busy until April 1, when by-elections are scheduled. The NLD is going to participate in elections for the first time in 20 years.

“We should meet soon,” she said as I was leaving. And she reiterated the importance of independent, responsible unions, saying she did not want to see unions run by demagogues. 

“Being a demagogue is so boring,” she said with a laugh.

The Solidarity Center over the past two decades has supported Burmese labor activists that have worked with Burmese migrant workers in Thailand, have reach within the country, and have trained workers about their rights and international labor standards. Today, these workers in Burma are beginning to form and register their own unions.

    AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker, Indiana AFL-CIO President Nancy Guyott and others distributed fliers in Super Bowl Village, welcoming fans and reminding them the stadium was union built, the stadium staffed by union members, the half-time show courtesy of union members, the beer made by union members and the game played by union members.        

Over the weekend, all eyes were on the Super Bowl in Indianapolis, where tens of thousands traveled to see the event and hundreds of thousands more watched it on television. But while the spotlight was on the game, workers across the city took to the streets to protest the outrages happening to working people.

In one such event, we rallied at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Indianapolis, where hardworking hotel housekeepers are fighting to keep their jobs and boost their poverty-level pay at a hotel where rates can be more than $1,000 a night for a Super Bowl week room. Twenty longtime hotel workers may be out of jobs in a few days when the hotel ends a subcontract with Hospitality Staffing Solutions.

The hotel workers are not in this fight alone. In the midst of what is undoubtedly the busiest few days for football players, DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), and NFL players joined Hyatt housekeepers at the rally to demand Hyatt end its abuse of subcontracted workers and hire outsourced workers directly. Smith said NFL players would  continue a year-old boycott of Hyatt over its treatment of  workers and told the crowd:

I love people who stand together to fight for what’s right.

Just blocks from the Super Bowl, these football players, together with construction workers, office staff and steelworkers, stood side by side with hotel housekeepers, joined in common cause by the struggles that unite all working people—all of the 99 percent in this country who are fighting against corporate greed and challenging politicians who seek to take away our rights as citizens of this great country.

    AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker on the picket line with UNITEHERE! members and allies.        

Days ago, some of those politicians right here in Indiana pushed through the state legislature  legislation that is a massive assault on the wages of the state’s working people. The “right to work” for less bill was hustled through the legislative process in a series of dirty tricks in outright contempt for democracy.

What’s happening in Indiana is just one part of the massive assault on working families across the country. Yet over the past year, we saw again and again the strength of collective action, of public protest in state after state as the rights of workers came under attack. We re-learned that we are not alone, and we have seen that when we stand together with those who share our values, victory is ours.

Hours after Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) signed Indiana’s contemptuous bill, tens of thousands of Hoosier workers came together in solidarity to march from the statehouse to Super Bowl village. Construction workers and teachers, grocery clerks and truck drivers chanted “Remember November,” vowing to take back the state door by door, neighborhood by neighborhood.

This year, as in Indiana, we will stand together for jobs and for economic freedom across the nation. We’ll congregate in the public square. And on Election Day, we’ll march to the ballot box to cast our votes for economic, social and political justice.

 

In a radio ad airing on Indianapolis-area stations during Super Bowl week, UNITEHERE! reminds listeners one of the first things many young NFL players do after signing a first contract is “buy their mom a house, or build her a new kitchen or let her retire.”

Many NFL players were raised by moms who cleaned houses, cleaned hotels or cleaned both. We all have a special place in our heart for the women of Indianapolis who do that work.

The commercial (click here to listen) to raise awareness about hardworking hotel housekeepers is airing at the same time housekeepers at the Hyatt Regency Indianapolis are fighting to keep their jobs and boost their poverty-level pay at a hotel where rates can be more than $1,000 a night for a room during Super Bowl week.

Last month after area hotel workers filed a federal lawsuit alleging wage and hour violations against Hyatt subcontractor Hospitality Staffing Solutions (HSS) and 10 downtown hotels, including the Hyatt Regency Indianapolis, Hyatt announced that it would cut ties with HSS, according to UNITEHERE .

Thus far, Hyatt has refused to hire the HSS workers directly and that means 20 workers, some who have been on the job for nine years as full-time employees, will be out of work after Feb. 8.

On Friday, DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), NFL players and local leaders joined Hyatt workers and supporters in a rally outside the hotel demanding Hyatt end its abuse of subcontracted workers and hire outsourced workers directly. Says Jackie White, who works at the Hyatt Regency Indianapolis in the housekeeping department:

I’ve worked at the Hyatt for over 30 years in housekeeping and I’m very proud to be welcoming Super Bowl visitors to Indianapolis. It is a celebration for our city. That said, I am concerned about what the legacy of the Super Bowl will be for Indianapolis hotel workers. The Hyatt will be making millions of dollars during the Super Bowl, and we deserve more for the hard work we do.

The commercial asks listeners that before kick off today, “when you’re at church, please say a prayer, let’s thank God for the women who raised us, for the women who are cleaning out hotel rooms.”

In Indy, we’re fans of our moms, we should support hotel housekeepers here, and they’re among the lowest paid in America. We pay for the stadiums, pay the players’ salaries and pay to build the hotels, so let’s pay the moms.

 

On this week’s episode of “Brotherhood Outdoors,” Lee Hengsteler, a member of Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) Local 359 in Arizona, gets to realize a dream he’s had since he was 6 years old:  He heads to Montana to hunt elk.

The show airs on the Sportsman Channel at 8 p.m. EST and PST every Thursday.

His bow hunting expedition was made possible when his wife, Neva, applied to the show on his behalf. Says Hengsteler:

People like me don’t win things like a guest shot on a nationally televised show, but Neva insisted on applying for me. I have one heck of a wife.

The award-winning “Brotherhood Outdoors,” Union Sportsmen’s Alliance’s (USA‘s) hunting and fishing series pairs union members with renowned outdoorsman Tom Ackerman for a guided hunting or fishing trip in North America or the opportunity to show off their skills by taking Ackerman to their own favorite hunting or fishing sites.

You can click here to apply to be a guest on “Brotherhood Outdoors.” Says Hengsteler:

Tell all those union men and women out there to apply for a guest shot on “Brotherhood Outdoors,” and tell them they can win. I’m just a normal blue-collar working guy, and I won, thanks to my wife.

Click here for more photos form his elk hunt and here for more on the hunt.

Wednesday marked the six-month anniversary of America Crystal Sugar Co.’s lockout of 1,300 workers and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) told the U.S. House: “It’s time for the company to negotiate.”

In a speech on the House floor, Ellison said the workers, members of Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Millers (BCTGM) Local 167G at plant sin Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa, have been

denied the basic and most fundamental right to work and support their families. These workers have gone to bat for the company. These workers stood shoulder to should with the company to fight for a better sugar program in the farm bill just because that’s how dedicated they. What have they got in return? They’ve gotten locked out. They are not on strike. They are locked out because they refuse to accept an unfair take it or leave contract. They have been locked even though they have agreed to a no-strike guarantee.  It’s wrong, these 1,300 folks deserve better from this company.

Locked out worker Jay Holter told Steve Share, editor of Minneapolis Labor Review,

We’ve given the best we’ve got to this company and this is how we are treated. It’s probably only a year and a half ago the company gave us shirts that said, “You’re the best at what you do.”

Click here for Share’s full update on the lockout.

 

 

Not that we ever believed right-wing lawmakers in the first place. But the cover’s been blown on all who claim that the extremist bills they introduce—uncannily similar from state to state—are the works of their own fertile but twisted minds.

They fervently deny that the legislation designed to strip workers of their rights, voters of their franchise, bust unions and boost corporate profits and power are handouts from the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC’s) corporate power toolkit.

Click here to take a look at a bill introduced last fall by Florida state Rep. Rachel Burgin (R) to reduce corporate taxes. Notice the second paragraph, “Whereas is the mission of the American Legislative Exchange Council….” That’s right ALEC’s mission statement is smack dab near the top of Burgin’s measure.

The next day Burgin apparently realized she had left the smoking gun at the scene and withdrew the bill only to reintroduce it later with ALEC’s mission statement removed. H/t to Common Cause for uncovering the deception.

 

In response to protests by foreign students exploited in a factory subcontracted by the Hershey Company and advocacy by the AFL-CIO and our allies, this week the U.S. State Department announced that it will make major revisions to a guest-worker and cultural exchange visa program and barred participation by a major player in the program, the Council for Educational Travel, USA (CETUSA).

Harika Duygu Ozer, one of the students involved in the protest, told the New York Times:

I hope this sends a clear message to other recruiters like CETUSA, that we will not be your captive workers.

As we reported last summer, students recruited for a cultural exchange program found themselves instead all but indentured to a factory in Palmyra, Penn., where they were made to perform dangerous work loading Hershey products with no safety protection for less than the minimum wage. In addition, the students stayed in housing provided by the Hershey contractor, for which it overcharged. Rents were deducted from the students’ pay.

In August, the students staged a sit-in at the factory to protest their working conditions and pay abuses by the Hershey subcontractor, Excel Logistics. Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Rick Bloomingdale was arrested for taking part in the sit-in.

Working with Jobs with Justice and the National Guestworker Alliance, the student protesters’ actions led to a State Department investigation that found widespread abuses of a program that was designed to be a cultural exchange for students from abroad. Students who take part in the Summer Work Travel (SWT) program are admitted on a J-1 visa.

In a statement issued by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) on Thursday, EPI Vice President Ross Eisenbrey and Immigration Policy Analyst Daniel Costa wrote:

Our research has shown that corporations and labor recruiters like CETUSA are using the J-1 visa Exchange Visitor Program—and especially the SWT program, which admitted 132,000 workers last year—to avoid hiring unemployed U.S. workers and paying state and federal payroll taxes. In Pennsylvania, a state with a 7.6 percent unemployment rate, scarce jobs in rural areas (such as Palmyra, the site of the Hershey plant) should first be offered to local unemployed workers. In addition, the use of subcontractors as a way to keep employees from unionizing should be banned. The Hershey Company has successfully used the J-1 program as a way to diminish the bargaining power of its workers.

As urged by the AFL-CIO in its public comments on the SWT, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Rick Ruth announced that the list of jobs prohibited for exchange students traveling on a J-1 visa would be expanded to include construction, roofing and most industrial work.

But scrutiny of the Summer Work Travel program won’t end there. An investigation by the Associated Press also found SWT students pressed into service in the sex industry.

Read more about the student sit-in at Hershey’s Excel plant here and here.

Spreading the work here from our friends at LabourStart, who sent this action request (and plug for its conference this year).

They’re calling it the “uprising of the invisible.”

Cleaning workers in the Netherlands have been on strike for 30 days and have now asked for international solidarity. They’ve created an online campaign on LabourStart which needs your help.

It will take you just one minute to tell their employers—and their employers’ clients—that it’s time to show these workers some respect, and to reach agreement to end the strike.

Please send off your message here today and spread the word.

And one more thing….

We’ve just announced the dates for the third annual LabourStart Global Solidarity Conference, to be held in Sydney, Australia, from Nov. 26-29 2012. To learn more and show your interest in attending, please visit the Event page on Facebook.

    Click on chart to enlarge.        

The nation’s unemployment rate in January fell to 8.3 percent, down from December’s 8.5 percent, and the economy added 243,000 jobs, according to the latest figures released this morning by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The nation’s unemployment rate continues it steady decline, dropping by 0.8 percentage points since August and to the lowest point since February 2009. The number of jobless workers dropped to 12.8 million, down from December’s 13.1 million. But the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 5.5 million, about 42.9 percent of the unemployed.

The unemployment insurance program for the nation’s jobless workers expires Feb. 29.  A conference is now under way between the Senate and House over two very different one-year extensions of the UI program passed late last year, and the Republican bill would slash federal benefits, impose harsh new restrictions and move to dismantle the essential lifeline of unemployment insurance. Click here for details.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says, “The seeds of sustainable job growth are clearly present—if Republicans in Congress do not succeed in weakening the recovery.”

Republican leaders, who are admittedly unconcerned with the poor and still pressing for ill-timed austerity in Washington and state capitals, run a very real risk of putting this incipient recovery at risk. President Obama, by contrast, has laid out a comprehensive agenda for job creation and broadly shared prosperity, rather than wealth for a few.

Private-sector jobs grew by 257,000, and government employment was essentially unchanged, but over the past 12 months 276,000 public employee jobs have been lost.

In January, professional and business services add about 70,000 jobs. The leisure and hospitality industry added 44,000 jobs and health care jobs grew by 31,000.

Manufacturing saw an increase of 50,000 jobs, mostly in durable goods, and the construction industry added 21,000 jobs.  There were 10,000 new jobs in the mining industry in January.

The unemployment rates for adult men (7.7 percent) and African Americans (13.6 percent) declined in January. The unemployment rates for adult women (7.7 percent), teenagers (23.2 percent), whites (7.4 percent) and Hispanics (10.5 percent) were little changed.

Economic Policy Institute (EPI) economist Heidi Shierholz says today’s figures show “a labor market where all the moving parts seemed to be moving in a solidly good direction.”

Strong payroll employment growth was matched by a falling unemployment rate, strong employment growth in the household survey and a growing share of the population with jobs….It’s important to keep this growth in context, however—the jobs deficit is so large that even at January’s growth rate, it would still take until 2019 to get back to full employment.  We need reports this strong and stronger for the next several years to get back to good health in the labor market.

 

Warehouse workers, school, bus drivers, teachers, mechanics, telecommunication and manufacturing worker all have recently won a voice at work with AFL-CIO unions.

More than 350 employees at IKEA Distribution Center in Perryville, Md., voted by an overwhelming margin to join the Machinists (IAM ) despite opposition from IKEA managers who hired Jackson-Lewis, the well-known union-busting law firm. District 4 Business Representative Joe Flanders says the workers, “were able to see through the scare tactics.”

Last year, the Danville, Va.-based employees at Swedwood, a wholly-owned subsidiary of IKEA, voted to join the IAM.

In DuPont, Wash., more than some 350 workers who repair military helicopters and do site maintenance site maintenance and repair work for defense contractor URS Corp. Wash., voted to join IAM District Lodge 751. The workers have been without a pay or cost of living increase for more than four years, says new IAM member John Davis, and “a bunch of people got fed up.”

In Avon, Ky., 219 workers (see photo) at Allsource Global Management at the Bluegrass Station base voted to join the IAM. They are material coordinators for the distribution of military equipment.

Workers at former Alltel facilities—acquired in 2009 by AT&T—continue to choose the Communications Workers of America (CWA), through a majority sign-up agreement between CWA and AT&T. In a majority sign-up, the company agrees to remain neutral and recognize the union after a majority of employees signs authorization cards. Recently in New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota and Montana more than 150 workers joined CWA.

Late last, month 282 Cablevision technicians and dispatchers in Brooklyn voted to join CWA Local 1109. Click here for an in-depth look at the workers’ victory.

Workers at a GE Transportation plant in Kansas City, Mo., fought back against back against a hired gun, anti-union campaign and voted to join the Electrical Workers (IBEW). Workplace safety concerns following the 2010 on-the-job death of a co-worker and a long-list of broken promises by management spurred the nearly 100 workers to fight for a voice at work.  Click here for a detailed look at the struggle from the IBEW Now News blog.

More than 70 bus operators, mechanics, maintenance and other workers at Colonial Intermediate Unit 20 at several locations in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley voted to join the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 282. Colonial provides various school services, including transportation to 13 school districts.

Twenty teachers at the Evergreen Charter School in Hempstead, N.Y., won representation with AFT affiliate New York State United Teachers (NYSUT). But the fight is not over.  NYSUT is seeking reinstatement of special education teacher Jill Haag who was fired Dec. 2 when she was 8 1/2 months pregnant. The union says she was illegally fired for her for her work organizing the union. Haag regularly wore a lanyard stating, “Unions and Charters Working Together,” and urged parents to sign the petition in support of the union.  Click here for more from AFT.

In Fraser, Mich., the teachers and staff at the Arts Academy in the Woods, a charter school voted 20-to-1 to join Michigan Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff, an affiliate of AFT Michigan.

 

The Affordable Care Act has saved nearly 3.6 million people enrolled in Medicare $2.1 billion on their prescription drugs in 2011, finds a new report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says the health care reform law signed by President Obama in 2010:

is already saving money for millions of Americans with Medicare. As we move forward, we will close the donut hole completely and save even more money for everyone with Medicare.

The Affordable Care Act—which Republican lawmakers are fighting to repeal—provides a 50 percent discount on brand-name prescription drugs and, beginning this year, a 14 percent discount on generics. Last year, it provided a 7 percent discount on covered generic medications for people who hit the prescription drug coverage gap known as the donut hole, with more than 2.8 million beneficiaries receiving $32.1 million in savings on generics.

Overall, the 3.6 million Americans who hit the donut hole saved an average of $604 on the cost of their prescription drugs. The Affordable Care Act closes the donut hole completely by 2020.

Click here for a state-by-state look at donut hole savings figures for today’s donut and here for a fact sheet.

 

If you’re frustrated about the wage gap that persists between male and female workers, you can channel your energy into a new contest sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor and President Obama’s National Equal Pay Task Force.

The Equal Pay App Challenge invites the public to create innovative software applications that use the department’s data to educate users about the pay gap, and provide tools to combat it.

Women earn about 80 cents for every dollar earned by men doing comparable work—and the gap is wider for Latinas and African American women. Over a lifetime, the pay gap results in lost wages, reduced pensions and diminished Social Security benefits.

Of course, unionized women do better than their unrepresented sisters, thanks to the power of collective bargaining. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that union women earn nearly 34 percent more than nonunion women.

Software apps that “improve the accessibility of pay data broken down by gender, race and ethnicity, and provide coaching on early career pay, pay negotiation or career mentorship” are among the goals of the challenge. March 31 is the deadline and prizes will be awarded around Equal Pay Day in April. Find development tools here.

This is a cross-post by Dustin Beilke from PR Watch.

Today, hundreds of state legislators from across the nation will head out to an island resort off the coast of Florida to a unique “education academy” sponsored by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). There will be no students or teachers. Instead, legislators, representatives from right-wing think tanks and for-profit education corporations will meet behind closed doors to channel their inner Milton Friedman and promote the radical transformation of the American education system into a private, for-profit enterprise.

What Is ALEC Scoring on Its Education ‘Report Card’?
Little is known about the agenda of the ALEC education meeting taking place at the Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island. The meeting is not open to the public and recently even the press has been kicked out of meetings and barred from attendance. So to understand the ALEC agenda with regard to education, it is important to examine ALEC’s education “scorecard.” Imagine getting a report card from your teacher and finding out that you were graded not on how well you understood the course material or scored on the tests and assignments, but rather on to what extent you agreed with your teacher’s strange public policy positions. That is the best way to understand ALEC’s 17th Report Card on American Education, released last week.

The report card’s authors are Matthew Lardner, formerly of the Goldwater Institute, and Dan Lips, currently of the Goldwater Institute and formerly of the Heritage Foundation. They give every state’s public schools an overall grade based on how they rate in 14 categories. Homeschooling, alternative teacher certification, charter schools, private school choice and virtual learning make up seven of the 14 categories. Of the other seven categories, two rate the states’ academic standards and the other five have mostly to do with the way states retain “effective” teachers and fire “ineffective” ones.

ALEC’s education bills encompass more than 20 years of effort to privatize public education through an ever-expanding network of school voucher systems, which divert taxpayer dollars away from public schools to private schools, or the creation of new private charter schools with public funds, and even with private online schools (who needs actual teachers when you can have a virtual one?). The bills also allow schools to loosen standards for teachers and administrators, exclude students with physical disabilities and special educational needs, escape the requirements of collective bargaining agreements and experiment with other pet causes like merit pay, single-sex education, school uniforms, and political and religious indoctrination of students.

States where students score well on tests but where ALEC’s legislative agenda around school choice, charters, merit pay, de-unionization and alternative certification have not yet taken hold get low grades. States where elected officials are gung-ho for ALEC’s agenda but the students are not faring so well are still graded generously.

Ranking Policy, Not Performance
While ALEC’s report card and its many appendices weigh in at hefty 130+ pages, it is markedly slight on evidence that school choice, charters, or firing more teachers improve student performance. Indeed, the report card itself even makes this case by also ranking each state’s students’ performance on the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) exam, the largest and most accepted national, standardized assessment of student knowledge in several subject areas.

Massachusetts, Vermont, New Jersey, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, North Carolina, Kansas, New Hampshire and New York comprise the top 10 states in NAEP performance. Among them, only Colorado is among the 13 states ALEC gives a B or better on its report card. Vermont, even though it scored number two on the NAEP, is tied for dead last for policy with a D+. Missouri, ALEC’s star pupil
with an A-, scored 47th on NAEP.

“It’s a compendium of the progress of the ALEC agenda and it has nothing to do with educating students,” says Julie Underwood, dean of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Underwood, who wrote about ALEC for The Nation last summer and has studied the organization extensively, notes that the most interesting and potentially useful data in the report card is left out of each state’s grade calculation. There are tables ranking states according to the NAEP performance of low-income students, students of color and students with disabilities, but this is not added in the final grade.

“Why is that not part of the state’s A to F grades?” Underwood asks. Missouri ranks 43rd in low-income students’ 4th grade reading score improvement and 34th in math improvement, but still got the top grade. Utah is 49th and 37th, but was still one of the few states to score a B or better from ALEC. Maryland is number one in reading improvement and number 2 in math improvement, but drew a C-.

Union-Busting Applauded
Her answer comes in the report card’s introduction, where Lardner and Lipps call 2011 “The End of the Beginning in the Battle for K-12 Reform.” Legislative efforts to weaken and defeat unions were so successful in places such as Florida, Indiana and Wisconsin last year that, according to the authors, we have entered a new era for ALEC’s education policy agenda.

Comparing the union fight to Britain’s defeat of Germany in Egypt to secure the Suez Canal, Lardner and Lips crow that in 2011, “For the first time, the unions suffered major policy defeats in a large number of states across a wide array of policy issues.”

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels wrote the report card’s forward, lamenting how the unions in his state once had a voice in issues such as the length of the school day, academic freedom and, generally, the content of their work, says his state has turned the corner. “Collective bargaining will now be limited to wages and benefits and will no longer stand in the way of effective school leadership or student progress,” Daniels writes.

Indiana’s ALEC grade improved to a B from a C+ in 2010 even though its NAEP scores declined from 13th to 17th. Indiana did, however, pass several pieces of legislation in the last year that were influenced by ALEC model bills, including the creation of a statewide voucher school program, merit pay and restricted collective bargaining rights for teachers, and deep budget cuts.

ALEC Education Policy ‘Academy’ at Island Resort, No Students Allowed
The report card, released during National Charter School Week, also comes during the ramp-up to ALEC’s annual “K-12 Education Reform Academy” at the swanky Ritz-Carlton in Amelia Island, Fla. The non-profit group Fund Education Now intercepted one of ALEC’s invitations to legislators in Florida delineating the junket’s deluxe (and gratis) accommodations and summarizing the opportunity to learn more about school privatization and giving teachers their comeuppance.

You are cordially invited to attend ALEC’s K-12 Education Reform Academy,
February 3-4, 2012 at the Ritz-Carlton in Amelia Island, Florida. For invited
legislators like you, ALEC will cover your room for up to two nights at the host
hotel. ALEC will also reimburse up to $500 for travel expenses, which includes
coach airfare, cabfare, and a reimbursement of 55.5 cents per mile driven.

This event will address the top reforms in K-12 education that ALEC believes
each state must have to ensure the successful and productive education for all
American students. We will discuss what you as a state legislator can do to
address a variety of issues surrounding K-12 education reform, including charter
schools accessibility, accountability and transparency, standards for teacher
excellence, open enrollment, vouchers, tax credits, and blended learning
options.

Fund Education Now co-founder Kathleen Oropeza says the “academy” is closed to the press and the public and Amelia Island itself is secluded from the outside world and heavily policed. The meeting’s agenda is so secretive that Oropeza has been unable to track one down.

“The island is a challenge for protesters, and we think they chose it for that reason,” Oropeza says.

However, a raft of ALEC legislative and corporate members are certain to be there. These include online school businesses such as K-12 Inc., Insight Schools, and Connections Academy a division of Connections Education LLC. These for-profit schools will likely join with their allies from the Heritage Foundation, Texas Public Policy Center, The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, the Hoover Institution, the Alliance for School Choice and more.

Today, the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida (DPCF) called on Florida legislators to boycott the island retreat. Caucus President Susan Smith stated, “The secretive process of allowing corporate lobbyists and billionaires to write legislation, which they then pass off to Florida legislators, is a betrayal of the intent of representative government. The closed-door gathering of legislators is not government in the sunshine.”

See the ALEC education bills and learn more about the ALEC’s Public Education Task Force at the Center for Media and Democracy’s ALEC Exposed website.

Tom Chiancone, Union Plus Scholarship Program Manager, sends this report on recent problems some people had applying online for a Union Plus scholarship.

If you tried to complete the Union Plus Scholarship application prior to the Jan. 31 deadline, please accept our apologies for any problems you may have experienced submitting your application in the past couple of days.  Our partner’s online application system had trouble handling the recent extremely high volume of activity, but we’ve worked with them to resolve the issues.

We have a record of all applicants who logged in or attempted to log in to the application system since Jan. 29, 2012 and our provider sent an e-mail to all applicants at 12 pm ET on Feb. 1, 2012.  This e-mail noted that your application has been re-opened and you have until 5 p.m. (EST) Friday, Feb. 3  to login to complete and submit your application. NOTE:  E-mails were sent to the email address provided during the set up your scholarship login ID.

Also, at 12 p.m. ET on Feb. 1, an e-mail was sent to all applicants that successfully submitted, verifying  your complete application was received.

If you do not get an e-mail, please send a request to open your application to info@unionplus.org and make sure to include your login ID. You can also check your e-mail junk or spam folders in case the message was delivered to those folders.

NOTE:  If you had NOT already started your application before the Jan. 31 deadline, we are NOT accepting NEW scholarship applications at this time.

Thanks for your understanding and good luck with your education pursuits!

 

 

Why shouldn’t teachers be paid more? Because the Bible says it would be wrong, according to an Alabama Republican state legislator.

Really.

“It’s a Biblical principle. If you double a teacher’s pay scale, you’ll attract people who aren’t called to teach,” said State Sen.
Shadrack McGill, who was quoted in Dekalb County’s Times-Journal.

See, teaching is a calling, not something a good teacher would do for money.  Raising a state legislator’s pay, though, is cool with the Bible because it makes for less vulnerability to corruption. “He needs to make enough that he can say no, in regards to temptation.”

Wonkette does a nice job of explaining it here.

This is a cross-post from The Huffington Post.

On Dec. 18, a dozen retirees, men and women in their 60s, 70s, even 80s, began occupying a median strip along Route 33 in front of the closed Century Aluminum smelter in Ravenswood, W.Va. In tents and under tarps, a small group stays overnight, despite hypertension, arthritis and other old age ailments. One has suffered a stroke.

These vulnerable people expose themselves to weather extremes although some have no health insurance at all. Century canceled it. That’s why they’re occupying Century.

The retirees labored their entire lives for wages and pensions comparably lower than those of other aluminum workers. They did it believing they made those sacrifices in exchange for good, lifelong health coverage. Over the past two years, however, Century evicted them, about 540 retirees altogether, from the insurance plan.

The betrayal burns. Executives at Century, corporate 1 percenters, committed the same sort of treachery that is being condemned by Occupy Wall Street demonstrators representing the victimized 99 percent across the country. Thus the retirees adopted the grandchildren’s protest tactic of encampment.

Century shuttered the 50-year-old Ravenswood smelter in February of 2009, throwing 651 workers out of jobs. Century, headquartered in Monterey, Calif., didn’t go bankrupt though. It still operates aluminum plants in Kentucky, South Carolina and Iceland. And it didn’t immediately cancel promised insurance for retirees.

Nine months after the shutdown, it announced it would terminate as of June 1, 2010 health benefits for retirees eligible for Medicare. Then on Nov. 1, 2010, Century told its retirees who weren’t yet eligible for Medicare that it would stop paying for their coverage as of Jan. 1, 2011.

This revoking of earned benefits isn’t an isolated incident or a fluke. It is part of a pattern documented by Wall Street Journal investigative reporter Ellen E. Schultz in her new book “Retirement Heist.” The subtitle is, “How companies plunder and profit from the nest eggs of American workers.

She describes in gory detail how corporations raided worker pension accounts, siphoning off surpluses that would be needed later to prop up plans damaged by the Wall Street collapse. She provides detailed accounts of executives gouging the funds to pay for their own exorbitant retirement packages. She tells of corporate executives ending retiree health insurance and freezing pensions but deceptively calling the changes improvements, so that CEOs could pump up company profits with money that had been pledged to workers.

While breaking promises to workers and violating contracts, these CEO 1 percenters falsely portrayed themselves as beleaguered champions of workers, valiantly attempting to preserve underfunded pensions. Like Costa Concordia Captain Francesco Schettino saving himself while abandoning passengers on his sinking cruise ship, the captains of industry padded their own pockets with pension and health care funds intended for retirees, then deserted the workers. Schultz describes the CEO scams this way in the book:

“In reality, they’re the silent pirates who looted the ships and left them to sink, along with the retirees, as they sailed away safely in their lifeboats.”

Most of the Costa Concordia passengers survived, but more than a dozen drowned. In West Virginia, most of the retirees are still kicking. A leader among the Century occupiers, Karen Gorrell, explained:

“We may have one foot in the grave, but we are kicking like hell with the other.”

But some have succumbed. Gorrell, wife of a 33-year veteran aluminum worker, says Century has retiree blood on its hands.

She tells of two tragedies. There’s Bryce Earl Turner who Karen encountered after her first meeting with Century retirees in Ravenswood. He was scared and sick. Both alternatives he faced — buying private insurance or paying for his leukemia treatments out of pocket — were way beyond his means. Losing his insurance was a death sentence. The retirees worked desperately to get him more time.

With the help of West Virginia’s U.S. senators, Jay Rockefeller and Joe Manchin, and a provision in Obama’s health care reform law, the retirees managed to get coverage extended to Sept. 1, 2011. Bryce Earl Turner, 59, who worked 37 years at the aluminum plant, died the next day.

The other tragedy is Sam McKinney. He attended a meeting of the retirees on Feb. 14, 2011. He said he feared losing the insurance because his wife was ill. Karen recounts:

“He was very emotional because he had taken his wife to Charleston to try to get some assistance with her health care costs and had been turned down.”

He said, she recalled, that it was hard to believe that in America after a person expended his usefulness to industry, a corporation could coldly cast him aside as if his life had no value.

After the meeting, Sam McKinney took his wife to Outback Steakhouse in Parkersburg for Valentine’s Day. As they left, he collapsed and died in the parking lot. Karen is sure the stress killed him. Wrongful stress. Stress he’d not have experienced if Century was good for its word.

Karen says of Turner and McKinney:

“It was murder without a gun.”

Though Century failed to fulfill its obligation to pay for retiree health care, it handed its last CEO, Logan W. Kruger, $4.9 million in 2010. That’s twelve times more than Americans pay their president, the leader of the free world. Century gave Kruger another $6.2 million to leave last November. Still, he’s suing for $20 million on top of that. Century also is defending against a lawsuit filed for the retirees by the United Steelworkers (USW) union, which represented most of the Century workers.

The USW hopes, however, to resolve the dispute outside the courtroom, with the help of the retirees and West Virginia lawmakers. The elderly agitators managed to win the support of the state’s U.S. senators, its governor and its legislature. So last year when Century went begging to the state for $20 million it claimed it needed to re-open the Ravenswood smelter, the lawmakers sent Century away empty handed with a directive to settle with the retirees before seeking reconsideration.

Not long afterward, Century booted Kruger, and the new management team is negotiating with the USW and the retirees.

The protesters don’t have what they want yet, and they’re not leaving their tents until they do.

Century gave the retiree occupiers port-o-potties and installed concrete barriers to prevent cars careening on an icy Route 33 from plowing through the encampment.

Very nice gesture. But resuming payment for promised health insurance would be a whole lot better.

AFL-CIO Field Communications staffer Cathy Sherwin sends us this from the Indiana statehouse.

Far from conceding defeat after the passage of a so-called right to work (RTW) bill, tens of thousands of Hoosier workers came together in solidarity to march from the statehouse to Super Bowl village in Indianapolis. From the steps of the statehouse, Indiana AFL-CIO President Nancy Guyott said today would mark a new start to taking back the state, starting with “the biggest march Indiana has ever seen!”

Construction workers and teachers, grocery clerks and truck drivers cheered on the workers and elected officials with chants of “Remember November,” vowing to take back the state door by door, neighborhood by neighborhood. WISH-TV has some great aerial footage here.

The overreach and extreme politics that led to today’s vote—including actions by RTW supporters that included shutting the doors to the statehouse, cutting off debate and an ad campaign bankrolled by secret special interests have given the voting public a window into the Indiana Capitol. In poll after poll, Hoosier voters say they don’t approve of these strong-arm tactics by GOP leaders.

By using his final months in office to push this divisive attack, Gov. Mitch Daniels has tarnished his legacy, an outcome that he predicted only a few years ago when he said “right to work” would cause a “civil war.”‘ At today’s rally and march after the vote, that quote was turned on its head by Guyott. She called out the governor but said that today’s vote was the opposite of a civil war, “brother against brother,” because in Indiana,

[b]rothers and sisters were standing together to work for the sake of their children and grandchildren.