On the picket line

Cincinnati’s King Day challenges guv’s attacks

Cincinnati’s annual AFL-CIO Martin Luther King Jr. conference moved to City Hall on Jan. 14 to condemn Gov. John Kasich’s plan to strip Ohio child care and home health care workers of their collective bargaining rights. The 400 union activists wanted the new Republican governor to know that “Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of social and economic justice is not dead” and it’s just plain wrong “to blame and punish low-income workers for the state of the economy.” As 13-year home care worker Teresa Laws stated during the protest, “Without home-care workers, the state would be spending three times as much to keep their patients in institutions. ... When [Gov. Kasich] tries to take away collective bargaining, he is trying to take our voice.” (aflcio.org, Jan. 14)

Md. public sector unions strategize

On Jan. 11 about 100 Maryland and District of Columbia area labor leaders met to strategize about defensive measures to stop cuts to public workers’ pensions and health care benefits. “We have to gear up and work together to protect ourselves against attacks on public sector employees, attacks on immigrants and ballot initiatives that attack labor,” said area AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Donna Edwards. (Union City!, online newsletter of the Metro Washington, D.C., AFL-CIO, Jan. 12)

Public sector workers earn less, not more

The Economic Policy Institute issued a study in 2010 proving that, contrary to right-wing demagogy, public sector workers were paid less than workers in the private sector. Rutgers professor Jeffery Keefe showed in “Debunking the Myth of the Overcompensated Public Employee” that after controlling for many factors, including level of education, hours worked and non-cash compensation, full-time state and local employees are underpaid compared to “otherwise similar private sector workers.” Private sector workers were paid on average $6,061 more annually than public sector workers. Even when benefits were included, private sector workers still were paid $2,001 more than public sector workers. As a Jan. 5 EPI release noted, cutting public employee wages and weakening their unions would continue 30 years of declines in working class wages and union representation. It’s time to unite and fight back: An injury to one is an injury to all!

Law profs support S.F. hotel workers

When an ad hoc committee of law professors learned that the Association of American Law Schools was planning to hold its annual meeting in San Francisco at the Hilton Union Square Hotel, hundreds of law teachers, librarians and administrative staff asked that AALS events take place elsewhere. The hotel has been boycotted for nearly a year and a half at the request of hotel workers represented by UNITE HERE! Not only were the majority of programs relocated, but hundreds of AALS attendees joined the hotel workers’ picket line on Jan. 7. As Northeastern University law professor Karl Klare noted in the committee’s statement, “Our professional lives and our professional association should model a commitment to social justice and a special sensitivity to the needs of vulnerable, excluded and marginalized [workers].” (UH release, Jan. 8)

Musicians target Ford at auto show

Musicians in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, who have been on strike since Oct. 4, passed out copies of a letter to Ford Motor Co. at the annual auto show on Jan. 10. The musicians, represented by the American Federation of Musicians Local 5, are asking Ford to cease funding the DSO until the 15-week strike is over. Part of the AFM members’ strategy is to encourage donors and funders to withhold support until management settles the strike “in a fair and equitable manner.” Though DSO management offered a new compensation package over the holidays, a Local 5 spokesperson gave thumbs down, saying that average player compensation would actually be about $60,000 lower than DSO’s stated offer. (Crains, Jan. 10)

S.F. Labor Council defends WikiLeaks

On Jan. 10 the San Francisco Labor Council unanimously passed a resolution in “firm opposition to the efforts of the U.S. and other governments and corporations to criminalize, financially destroy and shut down WikiLeaks and to silence, jail and prosecute Julian Assange as well as Bradley Manning.” Noting the “criminal record of the U.S. government in violating international agreements and committing war crimes against people throughout the world, including wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the resolution urges unions “to publicly reaffirm and defend our fundamental right to freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the ability to freely and openly expose and criticize the illegal, corrupt and undemocratic practices of governments and corporations.”