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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Labor Hour Headlines 5-5-01 |
Current rating: 0 |
by Peter Miller
Email: peterm (nospam) shout.net (unverified!) |
05 May 2001
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Headlines as broadcast Saturdays at 11 a.m. on the Illinois Labor Hour, WEFT 90.1 FM. Thanks to Omar Ricks for assistance with the headlines. |
May Day
With strong statements that the global economy isn\'t working for them, last Tuesday workers around the world recognized May Day, the international workers\' holiday whose roots lie in Chicago\'s Haymarket Square. Governments responded to mass demonstrations in dozens of cities around the world by deploying tens of thousands of riot police to contain demonstrators. In France, workers expressed their anger that, despite a strong economy, a British retailer and several large French businesses recently announced mass layoffs. In London, tens of thousands shut down a central shopping district, and two hundred people on bicycles slowed rush-hour traffic to demonstrate against global warming. A frequent May Day target was the transnational corporation. Internet analysts at the Industry Standard pointed out that AOL-Time Warner is busy buying the United Kingdom\'s largest cable company, leaving little question in the minds of the British that they are rapidly becoming subjects of a new cultural empire. Sixty seven percent of British citizens say that transnational corporations have more power over their daily lives than their own government. In South Korea, the Reuters news service estimates that twenty thousand workers faced fifteen thousand riot police as workers continue to fight an IMF-imposed structural adjustment program. And in Chicago, a block-and-a-half long parade through the financial district drew attention to domestic examples of corporate globalization, including total privatization of administrative services at the City Colleges of Chicago, which was announced in January. A May Day rally was also staged outside the Canadian embassy in Chicago for political prisoner Jaggi Singh, who was abducted by police during the global justice rallies surrounding the Free Trade Area of the Americas meeting in Quebec.
JeffBoat Wildcat Strike!
On May Day, workers at JeffBoat, a major US shipyard owned by CitiGroup launched a wildcat strike. JeffBoat, which is located on the Ohio River, is the largest inland boatyard in the US. Workers there are represented by Teamsters local 89. On April 30, they received a contract offer that included setbacks in several areas and gave all decision making authority to union officers. According to a report on the Independent Media Center website, \"On Monday morning [April 30], several JeffBoat workers refused to enter the shipyard and started an unsanctioned picket line. Other workers joined in and by lunchtime there was a total walkout at JeffBoat shipyard.\" The JeffBoat workers are asking for assistance. More information about this story can be found at the Urbana independent media center website, http://urbana.indymedia.org/
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=37694&group=webcast
WGA settlement
At 7 p.m. last night, television and movie writers and their employers called a hasty news conference to announce that they\'d reached a tentative contract agreement, heading off a widely anticipated strike. The tentative agreement covers eleven thousand writers working at the major movie studios and the major TV networks including ABC, CBS, NBC, and, with this agreement, Fox. Most believe that by withholding their work, the writers could have successfully stopped television and movie production indefinitely. Ultimately, the threat of a strike was enough to force the studios to offer concessions on numerous issues concerning both compensation and working conditions. In a statement available at the Writers Guild of America\'s website, the union describes some highlights of the agreement, including bonuses and residual improvements for videocassette, DVD, video-on-demand, and internet productions. The agreement also brings the Fox network under the contract, doubling residuals to writers for Fox. Aside from economic issues, the writers guild also said that agreement addresses creative issues. Writers will have the right to be on the set of any movie they write, and they have a guaranteed right to consult with the film\'s director over creative issues. The Los Angeles Times spoke with several writers reacting to the settlement. All were relieved that a strike wasn\'t necessary, and many were very happy with the released terms of the settlement. One writer suggested that Writers Guild preisident John Wells will be a hero to writers for many years to come. The chief negotiator for the studios called the negotiations the most difficult they\'ve ever faced, but that they unanimously endorsed the proposal, in the end. The guild\'s previous contract expired Tuesday at midnight, and many expected the writers to strike immediately. But negotiations continued into the night and for the next three days, leading to Friday evening\'s announcement.
http://www.latimes.com/business/cotown/strike/lat_writers010505.htm
www.wga.org
Economy/Downsizings highest since \'93
Is the US economy heading into a recession? One day, the numbers scream, YES; on other days, the numbers say, \"not so fast.\" Last week, the Labor Department announced that unemployment rose to 4.5 percent, the highest level since 1998, giving weight to the Economic Cycle Research Institute\'s conclusion that a recession is inevitable. The institute\'s director says that they have never been so pessimistic about the economy, with all but one of a dozen indexes indicating that a recession is inevitable this year. Even the service sector, which conventional wisdom says is recession-proof, is taking job losses, adding to the pessimism. Challenger, Gray, and Christmas, a widely-cited outplacement firm, noted that April job cuts announced by US companies hit the highest level since the company began tracking such statistics in 1993, as the previous recession was ending.
Bush/Trade
As the city of Quebec disgustedly washes its hands of the Summit of the Americas, vowing never to hold such a highly militarized event again, world political leaders continue pushing their agendas forward. A spokeswoman for George W. Bush said that the president will announce his strategy for re-gaining fast track negotiating authority which is now being hidden in a new name, \"presidential trade promotion authority.\" She did not say exactly when Bush would made the announcement, although he may speak out about it on Monday when he addresses the Council of the Americas, another group of corporate executives who wield vast influence over the hemisphere\'s economy. Fast Track or Trade Promotion Authority allows the president to negotiate trade deals and reduces congress\' role to either accepting or rejecting deals that the president negotiates. A coalition of Democrats and Republicans fought and stopped fast track when it came up for discussion in 1997.
Delta/Comair/American Flight Attendants
Airlines remain in the labor headlines this week. First, at Comair, the regional carrier for Delta Airlines, pilots and the company are reviewing a mediator\'s proposed contract settlement in a dispute that had led pilots to strike for the past six weeks and which is costing Comair four million dollars a day. The pilots\' negotiating team said that members will be allowed to vote on the proposal, but the negotiating team isn\'t endorsing the proposal because it is not the result of a negotiated agreement. The airline spokesman would not comment on the mediator\'s proposal. The pilots have been trying negotiate a new contract at Comair since June 1998 as they seek pay equity, a retirement plan, more rest between shifts, and pay for non-flying hours when they\'re on duty. At Comair\'s parent company, Delta airlines, leaders of the pilots\' union have approved a new contract, which they say is the best in the country, and will put it up for a vote by the union\'s nine thousand eight hundred members beginning on May 22. And at American Airlines, two days of mediated talks with flight attendants ended without an agreement. The Association of Professional Flight Attendants, a union of 23,000 employees, has asked to be released from mediation, which would allow them to strike. American has refused to reach a settlement with the flight attendants for the past two years. The American flight attendants and their counterparts at United Airlines are both threatening strikes.
Harvard Sit-in
A sit-in at one of the world\'s wealthiest universities is well into its sixteenth day, as students take action for a living wage. About 50 students seized the president\'s office at Harvard University demanding health insurance and a minimum wage of $10.25 per hour for janitorial, food service, and maintenance workers at the university. An estimated one thousand Harvard employees earn less than $10.25, which is considered a minimum subsistence wage in Boston. Harvard, which has a twenty BILLION dollar endowment, is out of step with its home city of Cambridge, which passed a living wage law in 1999, setting the city minimum wage at $10.25 per hour. A great deal more information about the Harvard sit-in is available at www.livingwagenow.com.
http://www.livingwagenow.com
Machinists Seek Injunction Against Boeing
Aerospace Machinists Industrial District Lodge 751 at Boeing manufacturers in Seattle filed suit this week against the airplane giant. The machinists\' union is bypassing unfair labor practice complaints filed with the NLRB, and instead seeks a federal court injunction to stop plans that Boeing suddenly announced to move many of its manufacturing operations out of Seattle. The union says that the most recent contract they have with Boeing stipulates that the company must give 180 days advance notice before any such move can be undertaken.
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Salon.com, 1 May 2001
Buy a new Hewlett Packard system and on the box is the image they toss in, seemingly at no extra cost-that glossy, now ubiquitous image of the tech industry as a high-energy environment filled with saavy young idealists who turn incredible profits on good ideas and hard work. But look at where the components of that computer came from and you may notice that there is a great cost to that futurist Bill Gates/Steven Jobs/dot-com image of the new economy philanthropist who provides workers with generous salaries and benefits.
Salon.com this week published two articles about a newly released documentary on the abuses of, and the recent attempts to organize, temporary workers in Silicon Valley. Despite the image of the tech industry as a high-energy environment filled with savvy young idealists who turn incredible profits on good ideas and hard work, most of the workers who actually build the equipment are not well-paid. The image of the tech industry for temp workers on the assembly line is one of mind-numbing, ergonomically unsound labor that is not paid in a timely fashion and can be terminated at a moment\'s notice. Filmmakers Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman set out to show how a Silicon Valley company-in this case, Hewlett Packard-is able to afford the high profile philanthropy by shorting its workers on pay and to keep its hands clean by pointing the finger at Manpower, the temporary work agency, as the true exploiter of labor. The documentary is called \"Secrets of Silicon Valley,\" and Snitow and Kaufman say that they deliberately crafted this documentary to show the real costs of the shiny image without turning it into a \"pity the worker\" melodrama. They attempt to expose the conditions of work on the assembly line by following two activists who are fighting back in their own ways. One, Magda Escobar, directs an agency called Plugged In, which trains low-skilled and low-income workers to compete for higher-skilled, higher-income jobs. The other activist may be a \"mole,\" a union organizer who works for the abusive temp/tech companies in order to expose their abusive practices and identify potential sympathizers. He documents specific abuses and attempts to organize workers. He is fired and immediately files a grievance for unfair termination. He knows the law and the lingo.
The filmmakers are seeking national distribution for this film while offering initial screenings in Boston and in the Bay Area in California. The title, again, is \"Secrets of Silicon Valley.\"
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Comments
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Correction--last piece |
by Peter Miller
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
06 May 2001
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Here's a better version of the "Secrets of Silicon Valley" review.
Salon.com, 1 May 2001
Buy a new Hewlett Packard system and on the box is the image they toss in, seemingly at no extra cost-that glossy, now ubiquitous image of the tech industry as a high-energy environment filled with saavy young idealists who turn incredible profits on good ideas and hard work. But look at where the components of that computer came from and you may notice that there is a great cost to that futurist Bill Gates/Steven Jobs/dot-com image of the new economy philanthropist who provides workers with generous salaries and benefits. Salon.com this week published two articles about a newly released documentary on the abuses of, and the recent attempts to organize, temporary workers in Silicon Valley.
Of course, most of the workers who actually build the equipment are not well-paid. The image of the tech industry for temp workers on the assembly line is one of mind-numbing, ergonomically unsound labor that is not paid in a timely fashion and can be terminated at a moment's notice. In "Secrets of Silicon Valley," filmmakers Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman set out the show how a Silicon Valley company-in this case, it happens to be Hewlett Packard-is able to afford the high profile philanthropy by shorting its workers on pay and to keep its hands clean by pointing the finger at Manpower, the temporary work agency, as the true exploiter of labor.
Snitow and Kaufman say that they deliberately crafted this documentary to show the real costs of the shiny image without turning it into a "pity the worker" melodrama. They attempt to expose the conditions of work on the assembly line by following two activists who are fighting back in their own ways. One, Magda Escobar, directs an agency called Plugged In, which trains low-skilled and low-income workers to compete for higher-skilled, higher-income jobs. The other activist may be a "mole," a union organizer who works for the abusive temp/tech companies in order to expose their abusive practices and identify potential sympathizers. He documents specific abuses and attempts to organize workers. He is fired and immediately files a grievance for unfair termination. He knows the law and the lingo.
The filmmakers are seeking national distribution for this film while offering initial screenings in Boston and in the Bay Area in California. The title, again, is "Secrets of Silicon Valley."
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