Wisconsin State AFL-CIO Blog

People’s Building Inspection Exposes Walker's Neglect

The Scott Walker Truth Squad, a broad coalition of concerned citizens, public employees and community activists, conducted an inspection of Milwaukee County buildings yesterday, giving County Executive Walker failing grades for building maintenance and drawing attention to ongoing safety concerns.

In June, a 15 year-old boy was killed when a chunk of concrete fell from a poorly maintained O'Donnell Park parking garage, and others in Milwaukee have sustained preventable injuries due to crumbling county infrastructure.

“The Walker decade in Milwaukee County has been a decade of neglect,” according to Dave Somerscales of SEIU Local 1.  “Voters across the state deserve to know what they are in for if Scott Walker becomes governor.”

Budget cuts during the Walker administration have put maintenance off into the future and accelerated the deterioration of county buildings and parks.  Repairs are not being made, and engineering inspections didn’t occur until after the tragedy at O’Donnell Park parking structure. 

Many Milwaukee County residents feel that Scott Walker has misled the public about the safety ramifications of these policies.

Walker has also been criticized for focusing on his political campaign in the first critical days after the recent Milwaukee floods.

County Supervisors Chris Larsen and Johnny Thomas participated in the People’s Building Inspection, which made stops at the O’Donnell Park Pavilion, the Milwaukee County Transit Center, the Community Corrections Center, the County Safety Building and the County Courthouse.   

At the end of the tour, the Truth Squad visited Scott Walker’s office to deliver his failing report card and a pair of hard hats.  If Scott Walker becomes governor, hard hats might become a necessary Wisconsin fashion accessory.

For more information or to join the Scott Walker Truth Squad, visit:
http://scottwalkertruthsquad.org

For additional information about Scott Walker’s terrifying record as Milwaukee County Executive, visit: http://scottwalkerfailurefiles.com
 

(Top photo: The Truth Squad Scorecard, with two safety hard hats donated to the Walker Administration, on display in the lobby of Walker's offices. Right Photo: County Supervisor Chris Larson and Dave Somerscales of SEIU Local 1 at O'Donnell Pavilion. Karl Morrow, MPS food service worker, is also pictured. Left Photo: Downtown janitor Bessie Hervey marks Walker's grade at the dilapidated Community Corrections Center, which was closed for good in January 2009.  Vincent Goldstein of Healthy Wisconsin, transit worker James Macon, and MPS food service worker Karl Morrow are holding the scorecard. 

All pictures provided by Siva Morgan of the Scott Walker Truth Squad.  For more photos, visit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wisaflcio/sets/72157624766658006/.)

Wisconsin Celebrates Social Security

Last week the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans (WI ARA) celebrated the 75th Birthday of Social Security.  Events were held around the state in Kenosha, Madison, Milwaukee, Eau Claire, and Green Bay.

Party-goers enjoyed cake while praising Social Security as America’s most successful government program. Sponsors of the events included the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, AARP, the Coalition of Wisconsin Aging Groups, the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, and the Milwaukee Area Labor Council.  Rep. Steve Kagen participated in the Green Bay party.

The birthday celebrations centered on a recent report put out by advocacy groups Social Security Works and Strengthen Social Security.  “Social Security Works for Wisconsin” provides a clear picture of how important the program is to our communities and our economy. 

According to the report:

• Social Security provides benefits to more than 1,000,800 Wisconsin residents, nearly 1 out of 6 people living in the state. (17.9 percent).

• Social Security lifts 372,000 Wisconsin residents out of poverty.

• Wisconsin residents receive Social Security benefits totaling over $13.2 billion per year, an amount equivalent to 5.5 percent of the state’s annual GDP (the total value of all goods and services produced).

The report clears up many misconceptions on Social Security and highlights its importance to citizens and families around the country.  According to Billy Feitlinger,  Executive Director of the WI ARA, “Fifteen percent of the people in this country today under the age of 18 would be in poverty without social security.” 

Although some in Washington, including a new federal commission on deficit reduction, have recently suggested cutting Social Security benefits or raising the retirement age as a way to “fix” the deficit.  It is clear that the Wisconsin community thinks differently. 

The 75th Birthday Parties highlighted the fact that Social Security has enough money to cover full benefits for another 30 years, and has not contributed one cent to the nation’s budget problems.

Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans President Leon Burzynski said, “America’s Social Security trust fund was built up in the 1980’s in preparation for the retirement of the baby boomers.  However, the government has been borrowing from the trust fund for decades to pay for other federal programs.  Currently, the federal government owes Social Security over $2.6 trillion.”

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), an independent non-partisan federal department, reported in 2009, that most of the current and future federal deficit is caused by 2 wars, double digit increases to health care, enacting President Bush’s tax cuts, and the worst recession since the Great Depression. 

In 2009, the CBO reported that Social Security will remain solvent through 2043 and that by 2020, it will have a surplus of over $3.8 trillion dollars. 

“With more than 53 million people receiving Social Security benefits today, the program touches virtually every American family,” Burzynski said.  “So beyond the candles and the cake, we have a very serious message to members of the Wisconsin Congressional delegation—that Social Security is vital to the economic well being of citizens in Wisconsin and our country.  In Wisconsin over 1 million people rely on Social Security.” 

The birthday celebrations were a fun way for the community to come together in support of Social Security.  The events received statewide media coverage, and a few examples are listed below :

The Wisconsin Radio Network, which syndicates news to over 100 radio stations, had this to report:
http://www.wrn.com/2010/08/social-security-celebrates-75-years/#more-30843

WEAU NBC channel 13 in Eau Claire covered the story for their nightly news:
http://www.weau.com/home/headlines/100594064.html

And Workers Independent News, which syndicates stories to radio stations nationally and has a widely distributed podcast, debunked the myth that social security is in financial trouble:
http://www.laborradio.org/files/mp3_web/2010/08/laborradio080910.mp3

(Top Center Photo: WI ARA volunteers collect signatures on a petition to protect Social Security.  Bottom Left Photo: WI ARA President Leon Burzynski. Photo Credit for both photos: Sheila Cochran and Jenissee Volpintesta.  For more pictures of the 75th Anniversary of Social Security event at the WI State Fair, visit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wisaflcio/sets/72157624725783296/ .)

Johnson Controls Workers in Milwaukee and Mexico Unite to Fight

“We must stand in solidarity with workers in Mexico and around the world,” says Phil Neuenfeldt, Secretary Treasurer of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO.  “As long as multinational corporations can silence employees by threatening to move operations to a place with fewer worker protections, our standard of living will continue to decline.”

Last Friday workers and organizers from Puebla, Mexico held a press conference outside of Johnson Controls Inc. (JCI) headquarters in Glendale.  Local labor and community leaders turned out to support the visiting delegation, who asked to meet with JCI management about worker rights’ violations at JCI’s FINSA plant in Puebla. 

FINSA workers are fighting for the right to establish an independent, democratically run union. Although the company has repeatedly refused to meet with workers in the past, the attention from the press conference forced management to receive letters of support delivered by the delegation.

State Sen. Spencer Coggs, Chair of the Senate Labor Committee, spoke at the press conference and delivered a letter of support signed by other state legislators including Rep. Pedro Colón.  According to Coggs, “Johnson Controls operates three different plants in Puebla, and they have already done the right thing by letting workers form an independent union at one location.  This time we hope that workers can be heard without resorting to a strike.”

Other speakers at the press conference included former FINSA worker Isidoro Aguila Lara,  Milwaukee Area Labor Council (MALC) Secretary Treasurer Shelia Cochran, Voces de la Frontera Executive Director Christine Neumann Ortiz, and IAMAW Lodge 66 member Doug Curler who lost his job when JCI manufacturing moved from Wisconsin to Mexico.

Michael Rosen from AFT Local 212 worked closely with the U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project (USLEAP) to coordinate this visit and media event.  Wisconsin union members and community supporters from AFT, IAMAW, MALC, UA, UAW, UFCW, USW, Voces de la Frontera, and WFNHP-AFT showed up at the press conference to express their support.

Workers at the FINSA plant have organized the Organizing Coalition of Workers of Johnson Controls (COT-JC) to form an independent and democratic union and recently signed affiliation cards to the Mexican Mineworkers (Mineros).  Since February 2009, the COT-JC has attempted to contact Milwaukee management about these issues, but the company continues to refuse to meet with workers.

The Johnson Controls FINSA plant is covered by a collective bargaining agreement with the Tlaxcala section of the CROM, a Mexican union frequently used by employers to establish a “protection contract” and keep out independent unions. Workers report that they do not have a copy of the union by-laws or collective bargaining agreement. They also say the union has never consulted them or taken any action to oppose the bank of hours, 12-hour shifts, or other measures imposed by the company.

Labor and academic experts estimate that about 90% of all collective bargaining agreements in Mexico are negotiated with company-funded unions whose sole purpose is to protect corporate interests. This has real consequences for workers north of the border too.  The JCI Milwaukee auto part jobs that were lost to outsourcing in Mexico are just one example.  U.S. owned companies comprise 60% of the multinational corporations operating in Mexico, many of which allow protection contracts.

The Glendale press conference earned extensive media coverage including stories from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee Magazine’s News Buzz, In These Times, Wisconsin Public Radio, Workers Independent News, ABC-WISN Channel 12 news, CBS WDJT Channel 58 news, NBC-WTJM Channel 4 news, and Fox WITI Channel 6 news.  Milwaukee Public Television’s Spanish language program ¡Adelante! conducted interviews to air later in the week.  A few sample press clips are listed below.

CBS-WDJT Channel 58 news:
http://www.cbs58.com/index.php?aid=12819

In These Times story from local labor writer Roger Bybee:
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6120/johnson_controls_bad_faith_on_both_sides_of_rio_grande/

Milwaukee Magazine’s News Buzz:
http://www.milwaukeenewsbuzz.com/?p=123290

To read more about the events leading up to this press conference and the ongoing struggle for workers' rights in Central and South America, visit the USLEAP website:

http://usleap.org

http://usleap.org/major-victory-johnson-controls-workers-mexican-plant-struggle-goes-second-factory

http://usleap.org/johnson-controls-refuses-meet-workers-puebla-mexico

(Top Photo: The visitors from Puebla were given a warm welcome on Thursday night at Conejito's Restaurant in Milwaukee. (from left to right) State Sen. Spencer Coggs, MALC Secretary Treasurer Sheila Cochran, former FINSA worker Isidoro Jorge Aguila Lara, Voces de la Frontera Vice President Juan Luis Gutierrez, Lupita Aguila of USLEAP, Carlos Esquer from los Mineros, State Rep. Barbara Toles, and Wisconsin State AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Phil Neuenfeldt. 

All other photos taken at the Glendale press conference.  Top Right Photo: State Rep. Barbara Toles, Michael Rosen of AFT 212, and former JCI Puebla worker Isidoro Jorge Aguila Lara with former JCI Milwaukee worker and current IAMAW Lodge 66 Secretary Treasurer Doug Curler. Left Photo: Voces de la Frontera Executive Director Christine Neumann Ortiz.  Bottom Right Photo: Doug Curler of IAMAW Lodge 66, speaking about his experience as a dislocated worker. 

Credit for All Photos: Jenissee Volpintesta.  For more pictures from the press conference, visit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wisaflcio/sets/72157624327085080/)

Media Matters: Wall Street shouldn’t be Above the Law

Now that the big banks have been bailed out at the expense of working people, it is up to union members in Wisconsin and across the nation to make sure that things don’t go back to business as usual.

On Thursday, national AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka announced the launch of the 2010 Executive PayWatch website (see the video above).  Visit http://paywatch.org to find out more about the lavish bonuses handed out to executives at the six biggest banks which received a taxpayer funded bailout.

Earlier last week, the Green Bay Press-Gazette published a guest column by President Trumka and Wisconsin State AFL-CIO President David Newby on job creation and corporate responsibility.  The article called on Wall Street to:

• Pay its fair share to restore the jobs it destroyed.
• Stop fighting financial reform.  
• And start lending in our communities.

Click here to read the full article on the Green Bay Press-Gazette website.

(Photo: Wisconsin State AFL-CIO President David Newby.)

Trial of the Tycoons, Make Wall St. Pay!

“We put on this play with the help of community allies because absurd crimes call for creative action,” said Jim Cavanaugh, President of the South Central Federation of Labor.  “The banks that we bailed out with our tax dollars are using that money to resist financial reform and pad their wallets.  That lobbying and bonus money must be redirected towards creating jobs.”

Yesterday, working families in Madison joined together to hold a mock trial for JP Morgan and Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. Union members and community activists participated in street theater, calling for 11 million new jobs. Rally attendees demanded that big Wall Street banks, which helped destroy the economy and then took taxpayer bailouts, pay for job creation.
   
“When JP Morgan and Chase was in trouble, they took $25 billion in our tax dollars to get back on their feet,” said Mark Thomas of AFSCME Local 171. “Now it’s time for JP Morgan and Chase to pay to get working families back on our feet.”

In the past year alone, JP Morgan and Chase has spent $6.2 million to lobby against financial reform.  Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon took home $17.6 million dollars in pay and bonuses in 2009.  Unfortunately, JP Morgan and Chase isn’t the only bank that took bailout money and is now up to the same old mischief.

Since the recession began, America has lost nearly 9 million jobs when we needed to create more than 2 million just to stay even. While Americans suffered, big Wall Street banks took billions in taxpayer bailouts and gave their executives some $145 billion last year alone in pay and bonuses.

According to Cavanaugh, “even a very small financial speculation tax could pay for jobs America needs now.”

The rally in Madison was sponsored by the South Central Federation of Labor.  Union members and community allies from AFSCME, AFT, DALU, IBEW, Madison Teacher's Inc., MadTown Liberty Players, SEIU, UAW and the Workers' Rights Center put on the street theater performance which dramatically condemned the disgraceful actions of big bank CEOs.

The script for Trial of the Tycoons was written by Ron Blascoe of AFT-W 4848.  The cast of the play included Jim Cavanaugh, Kim Genich, Joan Grosse, Roger Hayes, Patrick Hickey, Heidi Verbeten, Angella Volante, and Ken Volante.  MadTown Liberty players provided puppets and props.

Trial of the Tycoons was covered “Live at 5” on WKOW, the Madison ABC television affiliate.  They continued to run coverage during their 6 o’clock and 10 o’clock news broadcasts: http://bit.ly/9vVFlZ

Madison community radio WORT and Workers Independent News also covered the event.

With chants and cheers, Madison activists told the bank to pay a fair share to restore the jobs they destroyed; stop fighting financial reform; and start lending to our community, small businesses and others starved for credit.

Good Jobs Now: Make Wall Street Pay events led by the AFL-CIO are taking place across the country March 15–26. The AFL-CIO is calling on the big Wall Street banks to pay for a major jobs plan to extend unemployment insurance benefits, food assistance and health benefits; rebuild our crumbling infrastructure; increase aid to state and local governments to save critical services and jobs; increase funding for neglected communities to match people who need jobs with work that needs to be done; and use TARP money to get credit flowing to small businesses for job creation. Find out more at www.aflcio.org/createjobs.

In addition to these efforts, Working America, the 3 million-member community affiliate of the AFL-CIO, has kicked off a campaign called "I am not your ATM."  People across the country are submitting photos of themselves in front of ATMs, asking "where's my bailout?" and delivering the message to Wall Street:  "I am not your ATM.” To see some of the photos collected so far, go to www.notyouratm.com. Working America speaks to 25,000 people across the country every week about the creation of good jobs and holding Wall Street accountable.

(Top Photo: Jim Cavanaugh, President of the South Central Federation of Labor addresses audience.  Bottom Photo: Cast of Trial of the Tycoons.  Video and Photo Credit: Union Labor News.  For additional photos, visit flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wisaflcio/sets/72157623510718401/  For more information about MadTown Liberty Players visit: http://madlibplayers.org/)

4th Street Forum: Our Sinking Middle Class

This program originally aired on MPTV on February 18th and features Milwaukee Area Labor Council Secretary-Treasurer Sheila Cochran.

Media Matters: The Employee Free Choice Act Revisited

Although immediate job creation and health care concerns may have eclipsed the Employee Free Choice Act in recent months, it is still critically important to any long-term economic recovery that working people have a fair shot at bargaining for a better life.  For those of you who may have forgotten, the Employee Free Choice Act will:

1. Strengthens penalties for companies that illegally coerce or intimidate employees in an effort to prevent them from forming a union;

2. Allows a neutral third party to settle a contract when a company and a newly certified union cannot agree.

3.  Allows workers, rather than their corporate bosses, choose how to form their union.

The Beaver Dam Daily Citizen recently ran an option editorial from the local Chamber of Commerce, which distorted the facts on this issue.  The article prompted strong reactions from readers concerned with the truth.

This rebuttal was printed on February 15th:
http://www.wiscnews.com/bdc/opinion/470924

And local union members had their say on February 20th:
http://www.wiscnews.com/bdc/opinion/471094

Way to keep them honest!

Fixing Unemployment is the Way to Tackle Deficits

Wisconsin State AFL-CIO President David Newby recently responded to a Wisconsin State Journal editorial on the budget deficit.  This is the original version his letter to the editor, which ran in a slightly edited format in the paper's online edition:

The Myth of a Dangerous Federal Debt

The State Journal has fallen for the alarmist, carefully created myth that “our nation’s debt is out of control.”

Reducing it is not going to bring fiscal stability and employment for all. The myth of a debt crisis has been cleverly cultivated by conservative economists and politicians – and bankrolled by billionaire Peter Peterson. The purpose of their debt-focused alarmism is to cut federal expenditures by drastically cutting, if not eliminating, Social Security and Medicare. Debt hysteria is a partisan plan, not a reasonable economic analysis.

Our debt is not out of control. As a percent of gross domestic product (the value of what we produce each year) it is what we'd expect with the temporary drop in revenues resulting from the current recession.

What we DO have is a devastating UNEMPLOYMENT crisis, with more than 10% of those who want to work unable to find jobs – 40% of them out of work 6 months or more. We need to get people back to work to increase demand in our economy. The private sector isn't doing that. That’s why we need major expenditures and investments by our federal government to put people to work in useful ways so that they spend their wages and increase demand – which creates more private sector jobs. People who work pay taxes. And those taxes in turn will reduce the national debt.

Today, national AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka concurred, with the following statement on the creation of a deficit commission:

The most important issue facing working families today is a jobs crisis of historic proportions and a demand deficit.  Long-term budget deficits are a problem that needs to be solved, but we do not have a short-term budget deficit problem.  And we should avoid taking hasty actions now that will end up actually worsening our long-term deficit.

According to data from the Congressional Budget Office, most of the deficit over the next ten years results from Bush’s tax cuts for the rich, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, spiraling health care costs and the worst recession since the Great Depression.  The main driver of the recent increases in deficit projections is worsening economic conditions -- in short, the present deficit “crisis” is largely a symptom of the jobs crisis.

The best way to fix the deficit is to create 10 million jobs now -- the number of jobs needed to close our jobs deficit.  This will require large amounts of public investment in the short term, which should be paid for in future years by taxing Wall Street.  In addition to creating jobs for Main Street this tax will also curb short-term speculation and other Wall Street abuses that caused this recession.   

The problem with perennial proposals for entitlement commissions and deficit commissions is that they are too often premised on the mistaken assumption that short-term stimulus and entitlement spending are the root causes of burgeoning budget deficits.

Social Security is fundamentally sound and does not contribute meaningfully to our long-term deficit.  If Social Security were a private pension plan, it would be considered healthy by any measure.  Social Security can be brought into long-term actuarial balance with relatively modest adjustments and without cutting benefits.  With the decline of defined benefit pensions, the sudden loss of retirement savings for millions and the dramatic increase in economic uncertainty, strengthening Social Security's core guarantee of retiring with dignity is now more important than ever.

Problems with Medicare financing in the long term are a symptom of the larger problem of rising health care costs in the private and public sectors.  The solution to Medicare’s financing problems is comprehensive health care reform, not benefit cuts.

In December, when the deficit commission completes its deliberations, Congress should not merely rubberstamp its recommendations.  Legislation of the magnitude likely to be proposed should be considered under the regular congressional process.  We are under no illusion that Congress always works perfectly, but lawmakers from both parties need to step up responsibly and make thoughtful and deliberate decisions on these issues.
 
Under no circumstances should deficit alarmists be allowed to circumvent the regular democratic process to advance their long-standing agenda of gutting Medicare and Social Security.

Commissions have been, and can be, serious and useful mechanisms to grapple with difficult problems.  But the true test of this commission's success will be whether it helps fix our budget deficits by attacking the jobs deficit, or whether it makes our budget problems worse by sacrificing jobs and urgently needed long-term public investment.

(Top Photo: Wisconsin State AFL-CIO President David Newby.  Bottom Photo: AFL-CIO President Trumka talks tough on the unemployment crisis.)

Media Matters: Health Care Frustrations Broadcast Statewide

On Friday, Wisconsin State AFL-CIO President David Newby took to the radio to express disappointment in the current Senate health insurance reform proposal.   He insisted that real reform must include a public insurance option in order to reign in cost and keep insurance companies honest.  He also objected to any new tax levied on the health care benefits of working people.

This interview aired in the Madison area on WORT’s Labor Radio program:  http://archive.wort-fm.org/mp3/wort_091218_173001labor.mp3

The Wisconsin Radio Network, which syndicates news stories to about 100 radio stations, filed this report and featured it on the homepage of their website all weekend:  http://www.wrn.com/2009/12/labor-head-health-insurers-too-powerful-in-senate-bill/

“Fox and Friends” with David Newby?

That isn’t a misprint.  On Thursday morning, Wisconsin State AFL-CIO President David Newby participated in a debate about labor history in schools on the Fox News Network.   Although he was given less than half the speaking time of his opponent, Newby pointed out that the history of labor unions and collective action is an important and often overlooked part of American history: http://www.foxnews.com/search-results/m/27951023/reading-writing-and-organizing.htm#q=David+Newby

“I didn’t get to say everything that I might have wanted to, but I felt that it was important to bring even a brief mention of labor history to a national audience,” said Newby after the program aired.

For those who do not regularly view “Fox and Friends,” Milwaukee area blogger and past President of the Wisconsin Labor History Society Kenneth A. Germanson provided this humorous and insightful take on Newby’s appearance: http://advoken.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/%E2%80%98fair-and-balanced%E2%80%99-my-eye/

In case you hadn’t heard, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle recently signed a law requiring that the Superintendent of Public Instruction include the history of organized labor and collective bargaining in the model academic standards for social studies.   Please check out our previous blog post on the subject:  http://wisaflcio.typepad.com/wisconsin-state-afl-cio-blog/2009/12/labor-history-victory-governor-doyle-signs-ab-172-into-law.html