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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Labor Headlines 2-23-2002 |
Current rating: 0 |
by Peter Miller
Email: peterm (nospam) shout.net (unverified!) |
23 Feb 2002
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Headlines as broadcast during the Illinois Labor Hour, Saturdays at 11 a.m. on WEFT 90.1 FM. Illinois Governor's State Budget Address, Anti-union violence in Warsaw Marriott Hotel, Federal Appeals Court challenges DOL decision on Carpenters Regional Council, KENTUCKY WORKERS GAIN A VOICE, Living Wage Plan Loses Support |
Illinois Governor's State Budget Address
Job Cuts...
Illinois Governor George Ryan presented his much-anticipated "state of the state" speech last week, in which he presents his budget priorities. Some of the biggest news of the speech was Ryan's decision to cut nearly four thousand jobs to balance the state budget. Most of the job cuts proposed by Ryan are held by members of AFSCME, the largest state employee union. In AFSCME Council 31 President Henry Baer's response to the governor's address, Baer stated that the governor's choice to cut state jobs is unwise, and that hospitals, social service agencies, and advocacy organizations will be hurt at a time of economic downturn. Baer suggested that the governor should instead reform prescription drug purchasing, stop subsidizing gambling, and reform the Illinois estate tax law. Ryan accused AFSCME of being unwilling to help balance the budget, but in a separate press release AFSCME pointed to several instances in which they have tried to help solve the crisis, including developing proposals to not only scale back government services but to generate new revenue. Governor Ryan has issued no proposals to generate new revenue.
http://www100.state.il.us/PressReleases/ShowPressRelease.cfm?SubjectID=1&RecNum=1684
http://www.afscme31.org/
Education...
The aspects of Ryan's address that he highlighted most strongly in his press statements were his education reform proposals. The opening of Ryan's budget address press release boasts that the outgoing governor has proposed, quote, "a historic change in state school funding," unquote. Ryan says he will adhere to his campaign pledge of allocating 51 percent of all new state revenues to schools, and he also proposes changes in school funding that lift the base per-pupil school funding to nearly $5,000 per year, a change that helps fight school funding disparities caused by a funding system directly tied to land values. Ryan's proposal combines 22 separate state grant programs that are administered by the State Board of Education, and gives the money directly to school districts. Eliminating grant programs in favor of "block grants" mirrors a national conservative policy goal for federal school funding, articulated by conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation. The two state education unions had very different responses to the Governor's proposal. The Illinois Federation of Teachers, which opposed Ryan's candidacy for governor, said that Ryan's proposed school funding solution forces school districts to fight against one another for inadequate resources and that it pits suburban, urban, and rural districts against one another. The IFT pledged to continue fighting for adequate school funding. The Illinois Education Association, which was Ryan's biggest campaign contributor, applauded Ryan's proposals, saying they will let school districts avoid state bureaucrats. IEA President Anne Davis argued that Ryan's proposal does not mean that important programs which were previously funded through state board grants will go un-funded. The IEA statement says, quote, "it merely means that educators, not bureaucrats, will decide how best to use available resources," unquote.
www.ift-aft.org
www.ieanea.org
Anti-union violence in Warsaw Marriott Hotel
Marriot Hotels have been condemned by the International Confederation of Free Trade unions following an attack on a union leader that resulted in a severely broken nose. On instruction from a Marriott hotel human resources manager, security guards at the Marriott hotel in Warsaw, Poland escorted the leader of the Solidarity union to the manager's office. On the way, he was assaulted in an elevator. Two other leaders who helped the officer being attacked were reprimanded for abandoning their workplace. The one hundred sixty million member ICFTU has written to the chairman of Marriott, condemning the incident and the continuous and ongoing violations of trade union rights in the hotel. The February 14 assault was the culmination of a series of measures and incidents designed to halt union activities in the hotel. A campaign of harassment and intimidation against union activists has been carried out systematically since the day the union registered for legal recognition in June 2001. Marriott has not issued a response to the charges.
http://www.icftu.org/
Federal Appeals Court challenges DOL decision on Carpenters Regional Council
The struggle for democracy within the Carpenters' Union took a step forward last week. The Association for Union Democracy reports that carpenters in Massachusetts won an important legal decision in their battle for the right of members to directly elect their regional officers. On Tuesday last week, the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals offered an insufficient explanation of why carpenters should be denied the right to elect their regional officers. The case, Harrington versus Secretary of Labor Chao, is now remanded back to district court while the Labor Department makes its mind up on what to do. The decision may have implications for other carpenter elections, including the right of carpenters to elect their business agents. The right to elect business agents was gradually taken away from carpenter union members, and a rank-and-file movement called Carpenters for a Democratic Union is working to restore that right.
http://www.uniondemocracy.org
KENTUCKY WORKERS GAIN A VOICE
The AFL-CIO's weekly electronic newsletter, Work in Progress, reported that on February 15, the majority of 4,000 clerical, technical and paraprofessional workers employed by the state of Kentucky voted for a voice on the job with UAW. Betty Collingsworth, a secretary in the Kentucky Department of Corrections said she voted for the union because, quote, "We want a seat at the table when it's time to talk about our wages, our pensions and our health care--and now we've got it," unquote. Thousands of workers are joining several unions in Kentucky in the wake of Governor Paul Patton's executive order allowing collective bargaining. State health care workers already have voted to be represented by SEIU. Corrections and Social Services workers have voted in favor of AFSCME, while labor and trades workers have voted for the Teamsters.
http://www.unionvoice.org/wip/join.html?r=8d1N1wF1q1zgE
Living Wage Plan Loses Support
The News-Gazette reported last week that members of the Democratic Caucus of the Champaign County Board at a meeting on Feb. 18 indicated that the proposed county living wage ordinance will not have unanimous support from Democrats. Dissenters argued that they could not support the current proposal because they could not commit themselves to future expenditures without considering the county's financial position at the time. The county has already improved some employees' salaries to bring them up to a living wage. The cost of bringing the rest of the county employees up to a living wage would be about $93,000 next year. Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette, February 20, 2002, p B-1
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See also:
http://www.ilir.uiuc.edu
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