Building Trades News

With $2 water, $7 pillows and $25 checked-bag fees, when you get on an airplane these days you expect to see signs on the emergency oxygen mask compartments, "In case of emergency, swipe credit card."

Passengers aren't the only ones fed up with being nickled, dimed and dollared by the airlines. The Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) and Air Line Pilots (ALPA) say if the airlines stopped handing out stock options, bonuses and perks and started making some sound business decisions, they'd have more money to pay the rising fuel costs?and maybe we could still get that pillow or water without shelling out.

Southeastern Missouri doesn't immediately come to mind as a hotbed of pro-worker political activism, but don't tell that to the nearly 600 union members and their families who turned out for the Cape Girardeau Central Trades and Labor Council's second annual labor picnic last weekend.

Council President Mark Baker, who also is a business rep for Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 702, says several local, state and national lawmakers and politicians joined the union families.

They all had a chance to hear Stewart Acuff, assistant to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, discuss how critical this election is to winning passage of the Employee Free Choice Act and restoring the nation's middle class.

This billboard supporting employee free choice greets delegates to the Democratic convention in Denver.

If you're in Denver for the Democratic National Convention, chances are you'll see billboards in support of the Employee Free Choice Act. They're part of a stepped-up public outreach campaign by workers' advocates and the union movement to broaden support for the bill and make it a central issue in the 2008 election.

The workers' advocacy group American Rights at Work is sponsoring ads for the legislation, including the billboards in Denver, full-page ads in Politico and USA Today, and expansive online advertising. This is a preview of a larger campaign to make the Employee Free Choice Act a reality for workers struggling in this economy. The billwould level the playing field for workers seeking to form unions.

ATU Local 85 members distribute issues leaflets at the East Liberty Port Authority bus garage in Pittsburgh.

Frank Snyder, Labor 2008 state director for Pennsylvania, reports on the massive political mobilization efforts of the state's union members.

Following the kickoff of the AFL-CIO Labor 2008 political mobilization program in March, the Pennsylvania labor movement has ordered nearly 1 million worksite leaflets for educating members about the issues that affect working families this election. As Labor Day nears, local union leaders, political coordinators and union activists are making member-to-member contact a priority.

As he distributed leaflets at the West Mifflin Port Authority garage in Pittsburgh, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 85 shop steward Ted Kielur pointed out:

When members see the union out talking about an issue, our members will then take the time to understand why. Our members trust the union and they trust other union members and that is why it is our job to get out and talk to them about important issues this election.

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka and Rep. Donna Edwards were among panelists at an AFL-CIO Economic Forum at the Democratic National Convention.

The AFL-CIO joined forces with The American Prospect at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this week for an economic forum, ?All Boats Rising: Transforming the American Economy.? AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka joined Paul Krugman, Robert Kuttner, Bennett College President Julianne Malveaux, Sens. Sherrod Brown and Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Donna Edwards in a discussion moderated by Ezra Klein and Harold Meyerson, both of The American Prospect.

The wide-ranging discussion touched on student loan debt, gas prices, trade agreements and other topics and consistently engaged both the immediate need for economic fixes and the long-term need to go beyond crisis thinking and change the balance of power between employers and working people in the United States.

Annette Lewis and her son, Marcus, Dan Luevano, and Steve Skvara joined AFL-CIO President Sweeney during his address at the Democratic National Convention.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney gave a high-profile and impassioned speech tonight at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, focusing on a top issue in the election: turning around our struggling economy.

Sweeney said 28 million active and retired union members and their families will mobilize this fall to elect Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden and help bring about the change America needs. Sweeney put the key issues of the campaign in the spotlight by highlighting the experiences of real people, members of working families whose lives are affected every day by the policies set in Washington.

Three workers appeared with Sweeney: Annette Lewis, a single mother whose son, Marcus, is starting 6th grade this fall; Steve Skvara, a retired steelworker, who lost his health care and saw his pension cut when his former company went bankrupt; and Dan Luevano, an electrical worker, who was fired for trying to form a union and bargain. They?ve all run up against the callous, corporate-friendly policies that George W. Bush and John McCain have imposed on the country.

Even though the nation?s economy has grown over the past few years, more of America's workers are living in poverty and household incomes are lower now than in 2000, the year before the 2001 recession.

The U.S. Census Bureau reported today that 816,000 more people?including 500,000 children?slipped into poverty between 2006 and 2007, raising the number of the poor to 37.3 million. The poverty rates for adults and children were both higher in 2007 than in 2000, when 31.6 million were poor.

Sen. Barack Obama says the Census report ?confirms what America's struggling families already know?:

Over the past seven years, our economy has moved backwards. We have now lived through the first so-called economic "expansion" on record where typical families saw their incomes fall, and working-age households lost more than $2,000 from their paychecks.

Sen. Edward Kennedy consistently has been the strongest champion in Washington for workers and their unions, for policies that ensure the right of hardworking Americans to support themselves and their families.

Safety on the job. Affordable health care. Secure retirement. Pay that doesn't discriminate by gender or race. Access to education. Wages that support families. And the freedom to form unions without which these other struggles would be impossible.

Kennedy has led these battles and many more. His speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last night shows, once again, the passion behind his belief that America's working people embody what the world sees as the American Dream.

Watch it.

Randi Weingarten, President, AFT
Reg Weaver, President, NEA

The leaders of the nation?s two largest teachers? unions in the country spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last night, praising Sen. Barack Obama as thecandidate we need to strengthen our country?s public education system.

AFT President Randi Weingarten and National Education Association (NEA) President Reg Weaver spoke proudly about Obama and Sen. Joe Biden?s commitment to education.

Weingarten said the AFT was ready to mobilize its members and fight alongside Obama?this fall and after the election?to make sure that America has the top-quality education system our families deserve.

The American Federation of Teachers is ready. Our number-one priority is, as it has always been, strengthening our public schools to better serve our students. Let?s do what we do best in our schools, in all of our schools. Barack Obama knows that teachers must be partners, not pawns, in federal education policy. And federal education policy must be about more than testing.

I ask you to join us in this quest. Because you believe that strong public schools are the cornerstones of our democracy. Because our aging population depends on future generations growing the economy. Because today?s students will be the caretakers of tomorrow?s environment, the sparks igniting our innovations, the tenders of our global relationships, the guardians of our prosperity and the creators of our arts. And simply because every child has the right to a fair and hopeful start in life.

A new report shows tax and accounting loopholes allow top executives and corporations to avoid paying about $20 billion a year in taxes. The report, Executive Excess 2008: How Average Taxpayers Subsidize Runaway Pay, released this week by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy, calculates the annual cost to taxpayers of the five tax and accounting loopholes that encourage excessive executive pay. Even worse: Many large corporations are not paying any taxes at all.

The authors point out that the average CEO of a large U.S. company last year received $10.5 million in total compensation, 344 times the pay of the average U.S. worker. Thirty years ago, the ratio was 35:1. The top 50 private equity and hedge fund managers in 2007 pocketed an average of $588 million each, or 19,000 times as much as the average worker.