Obama turns Labor around

Obama signals big shift in labor policy
Three friendly to unions tapped for key positions

By Lisa Mascaro

Washington — President Barack Obama’s decision to tap three veterans of the labor movement for crucial posts signals a strong, if expected, shift from the Bush administration’s tilt toward business on labor issues.

Obama named Mary Beth Maxwell, a founder of the card-check-advocacy group American Rights at Work, as a senior adviser at the Labor Department. Maxwell’s appointment is a boost for the Employee Free Choice Act, the so-called card-check bill that would make it easier for workers to form unions. Maxwell will work with the White House Task Force on Middle Class Working Families.

Obama also nominated two veteran labor lawyers to the National Labor Relations Board. The five-member panel has been operating with just two members since late 2007, amassing a backlog of cases of disputes between workers and management.

Nominee Craig Becker is currently associate general counsel for the Service Employees International Union and the AFL-CIO, and a longtime law professor. Mark Pearce is a career labor lawyer in private practice.

If confirmed by the Senate, they will join Wilma Liebman, whom Obama tapped as chairman in January, as Democratic appointees to the panel. The panel has one Republican appointee and one vacancy.

Labor advocates see a pendulum swing from the Bush administration.

Read the whole story here...

Laborers' Union Backs Obama

The Laborers' union (LIUNA) announced today that it is endorsing Barack Obama for president. The union, which did not endorse a candidate during the primary season, is a member of the Change to Win federation which did endorse Obama last March.

This from a LIUNA press release:

“The men and women of LIUNA, who go to work every day building and servicing America, will support a candidate that will stand up for working families. Senator Obama is that candidate,” said LIUNA General President Terence M. O’Sullivan. “He will fight for good jobs and a stronger economy, he will fight for the necessary resources to build our basic infrastructure, such as highways, bridges, dams and schoolhouses, and he will lead our country forward with health care reform and true retirement security.”

O’Sullivan said, “Senator Obama offers the promise of a new day in American politics, a day in which millions more working voters participate in the process and a day in which the voices of working people rise above corporate money in Washington, D.C.”

O’Sullivan said Obama’s honesty, integrity and leadership will bring about the change America needs to move the country in the right direction. “As a charismatic leader, Senator Obama will unite America around the politics of change and America certainly needs a change from the Bush Administration,” said O’Sullivan. “We look forward to joining together in communities around the country between now and November, to reach out to working families and put their issues in the forefront of a plan for change. Citizens of this country will feel the power of Obama’s commitment to improving the lives of working men and women.”

Longshore Workers Back Obama

Just a day before "crucial Tuesday," the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) announced its endorsement of Barack Obama.

According to the AFL-CIO's blog, the 60,000 member longshore workers' union believes that Obama would be the strongest candidate on key issues like trade, health care and workers’ freedom to form unions.

ILWU's president said:

America’s working families are ready for a candidate with a fresh approach who will put people first and hold corporations more accountable. Obama met with us, listened to our concerns, and we think he’ll do the best job on the issues that matter most to working families.

To this, the ILWU's web site adds that Obama is the best candidate for "bringing our troops home safely from Iraq."

ILWU's endorsement brings to 5 the total number of AFL-CIO unions that have endorsed Obama. This is in addition to the prized endorsement by the Change to Win federation, including SEIU, the Teamsters, UNITE HERE, and the UFCW.

Obama Wins Major International Union Endorsement

By Joel Wendland

Earlier today, reports the New York Times, Sen. Barack Obama won the endorsement of UNITE HERE, a union of hotel workers, restaurant workers, and garment workers with a national worker membership of about 460,000 and about 400,000 retirees.

While Obama's first international endorsement doesn't measure up numerically to the unions who have lined up with Sen. Clinton, this particular union will be crucial in the Nevada caucus set for the 19th. Culinary Local 226 is the largest union in Las Vegas (60,000 members) and is affiliated with UNITE HERE.

The union's international president Bruce Raynor told the Times that his union sided with Obama because of the union's dispute with Mark Penn, Clinton's lead political strategist. Penn heads a PR firm that represented Cintas Corporation.

Cintas fought UNITE HERE's efforts to organize its thousands of janitorial workers. You can read Political Affairs' coverage of the Cintas fight here, by Joelle Fishman.

Cintas openly threatened immigrant workers with deportation if they joined the union. Cintas was cited hundreds of times for violating safety and health laws, and for refusing to protect workers from unsafe conditions. Read more here...

Cintas also aggressively fought to break unions in plants it bought, and UNITE HERE filed dozens of grievances for violations of labor laws against the company (such as these). Cintas owner Richard T. Farmer has given Republicans like Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, George W. Bush, and numerous other ultra-right PACs well over $1 million dollars.

For union members this is an issue of solidarity. Clinton's relationship to Penn has long been an issue, but now it has cost her union support and could cost her a key caucus. She should know better.

Good Jobs, Green Jobs, and the Emerging Labor-Green Alliance

We can promote economic growth and job creation even when we call for environmental sustainability. There is a growing alliance between labor and the environmental movement that is popularizing this idea.

One important development in this regard was the Blue-Green Alliance formed last year by the United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club.

According to an AFL-CIO Now post on this alliance, the goals of the coalition are to promote clean, alternative energy to help turn the tide against global warming, to promote fair trade policies that also include environmental protections, and to educate, expose, and reduce the use of toxins in our workplaces, consumer products, and homes.

This type of alliance between labor and the environmental movement is so important. It draws a lot of key issues together: creation of jobs and addressing issues of economic justice, globalization, corporate dominance of political processes, while educating on and advancing policies that promote sustainability.

Another such coalition is the Apollo Alliance, which is leading important efforts to transform our economy into a clean energy one, while creating new jobs and breaking the addiction to oil.

Apollo argues that a new clean economy itself will require the development of whole new industries and new job creation in manufacturing and other basic, union dense industries, or what it calls "green collar jobs." Check it out.

I love it.

--Joel Wendland

Pulte Homes Attacks Picketing Workers with Water Truck

On Friday, June 22nd, a group of construction workers released shocking video footage of Phoenix’s largest homebuilder hosing down picketers at a worksite in Florence, Arizona. The video, posted on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml00gVWhSGY, shows Pulte Homes’ representatives out of control, frustrated at workers demonstrating at construction sites within their developments due to poor working conditions, and the Pulte drivers assaulting the protesters with high-pressure water from Pulte’s own water trucks.

The Building Justice campaign is seeking to improve working conditions and pay at Pulte and its subcontractors, and the Sheet Metal Workers and Painters unions, with the support of the AFL-CIO, are focusing their efforts in Arizona and Nevada.