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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Labor Hour Headlines 5-25-02 |
Current rating: 0 |
by Peter Miller
Email: peterm (nospam) shout.net (unverified!) |
25 May 2002
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Headlines as broadcast during the Illinois Labor Hour, Saturday at 11 a.m. on WEFT 90.1 FM, Champaign. Senate Votes to Approve Fast Track, IBT-UPS Strike, White House Suspected of Hiding Enron Documents, Monticello Losing General Cable Plant, Area Pepsi Plants Hit by Strike, State Budget Takes its Toll -- Governor Prepares Announcement for Monday, Announcements |
Senate Votes to Approve Fast Track
The Senate voted to approve another corporate free trade bill last week, disappointing fair trade supporters and global justice activists. By a vote of 66 - 30 the Senate approved Fast Track, a bill that gives to the President Congress' authority to negotiate trade bills, and George Bush claims he needs fast track authority to negotiate new trade deals, including a hemisphere-wide expansion of NAFTA known as the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Fast Track was the senate's last vote before adjourning for the Memorial Day recess. Business groups and most press outlets praised the Senate vote. The National Association of Manufacturers said that the vote "breathes new life" into global trade expansion, and they gave particular recognition to Democrats who led the way for the bill's passage. Illinois Senator Dick Durbin voted against Fast Track and consistently voted for amendments to protect the environment and workers. Illinois' Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald strongly supported fast track. Labor expressed disappointment with the outcome. John Sweeney, president of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations said that "the bill will guarantee that future trade deals perpetuate the flaws of NAFTA by costing Americans jobs, hurting the environment and protecting investor rights over those of citizens and states." The Teamsters were outraged when the senate rejected an amendment to protect displaced workers, and the Steelworkers lashed out at what union president Leo Gerard termed a "small band of right-wing extremists" who used an arcane parliamentary procedure to prevent 100,000 displaced steelworkers and their families from receiving assistance paying for their healthcare. Public Citizen's global trade watch said that the vote was actually not much of a victory for business groups because it took nearly six months for the Senate to approve it, and because the bill is significantly different from the House-approved version. Negotiations between the house and senate to reach a final bill are expected to be highly contentious.
http://www.aflcio.org/news/2002/0523_fasttrack.htm
http://www.uswa.org/rapid/rapidfeedbackfax052202.html
http://www.tradewatch.org/
http://www.teamster.org/02news/nr_020524_1.htm
http://www.nam.org/tertiary.asp?TrackID=&CategoryID=245&DocumentID=24806
IBT-UPS Strike
On Monday last week, the Teamsters, engaged in difficult contract negotiations with United Parcel Service, announced a 93% vote in favor of going on strike against the transportation company if contract negotiations don't lead to a "decent and fair contract." The vote was conducted by secret ballot at membership meetings of all 196 local unions who represent Teamsters at UPS. Union president James P. Hoffa said that a new contract needs to restore dignity and respect for Teamsters by expanding full-time Teamster job opportunities, providing good wages, and maintaining health benefits. In 1997 a fifteen-day strike led to significant limitations on the use of part-time employees at UPS. UPS downplayed the significance of the vote.
http://www.teamster.org/
Enron
Enron, the largest bankruptcy in US history and the corporation that supplied over fifty members of George Bush's administration including Army Secretary Thomas White, remains in the news this week. After stonewalling congressional efforts to obtain information about the White House's connections to the failed corporation, the Senate Judiciary Committee took the stern measure of issuing a subpoena to obtain documents from the White House. Democratic leaders in congress are suspicious that Bush isn't providing complete information but is only leaking it out, bits at a time. Tom Daschle noted that the in January, the White House said that it made only six contacts with Enron prior to its filing for bankruptcy, but by last week, the number had risen to 24 contacts.
Monticello Losing General Cable Plant
General Cable Corp. announced that it will close its plant in Monticello on Aug. 16, laying off about 114 workers, who are represented by IBEW Local 1993. The plant manufactures telecommunications service wire. The company said that the slump in the telecommunications industry is the reason for the shutdown, but the company also said that the slowdown gives them the opportunity to move production elsewhere. General Cable recently opened two factories in Mexico and it operates factories in Canada, Spain and Portugal, and New Zealand. Employment at the Monticello plant had fluctuated in recent years. Company officials will be meeting with union representatives to discuss details of the layoffs and severance packages.
Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette, May 22, 2002, p B-7
http://www.generalcable.com/Assets/PressReleases/pr0392.html
http://www.generalcable.com/sections/Investor_info/Annual_Reports/images/2001AR.pdf
Area Pepsi Plants Hit by Strike
Delivery drivers for Pepsi in Chicago and Elk Grove Village went on strike last Wednesday over Pepsi's efforts to dramatically increase employee health insurance payments. After rejecting a second contract proposal on May 19 by a vote of 100-81, sales and delivery workers who are represented by Teamsters Local 744, went on strike. At issue in the negotiations are company demands that the workers pay 15% of their health care insurance costs, which until now had been completely paid by the employer, and changes in the delivery system that would eliminate commissions now paid to drivers who double as salespersons. Managers and nonstriking employees are continuing to make deliveries. The parties hope to resume negotiations next week.
Chicago Tribune, May 22, 2002, section 3, p 1
State Budget Takes its Toll -- Governor Prepares Announcement for Monday
34 workers at Urbana's Provena hospital are being laid off due to the state's reductions in health care reimbursements for low-income and elderly patients. The News-Gazette reported the cuts on Friday. Reductions in Medicaid and Medicare payments are just a small piece of the many cuts in public services that the state will be making this year as they wrestle with a budget deficit of $1.3 billion dollars, or over two percent of the state's full budget. Lawmakers are afraid to raise taxes to cover the shortfall since this is an election year and anti-tax activists have become more militant in recent years. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that last year in Tennessee, fiscal conservatives broke windows in the state capitol when the state's republican governor proposed implementing an income tax to rescue public education. AFSCME Council 31, which represents many state employees in Illinois, has been urging the governor to negotiate over ways to handle the budget crisis, but AFSCME says the governor hasn't negotiated in good faith. Governor Ryan will be addressing the state legislature on Monday, and while the exact contents of his speech aren't known, AFSCME believes that the plan won't be good for state services or employees. The union is encouraging its members to be ready to call legislators after the announcement because a budget vote could happen as soon as Tuesday. More information is available at the AFSCME Council 31 website, www.afscme31.org.
http://www.afscme31.org/articleDetail.asp?objectID=404
Announcements:
* Refusenik Ram Rahat-Goodman in town
* Josh Hartke, Democrat for Congress, fundraiser.
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