Victory at Corona
by Jon Melegrito | January 15, 2013
More than 300 registered nurses at the Corona Regional Medical Center voted to join United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals, or AFSCME-UNAC/UHCP.
As a result of the vote last week, 300 RNs now have a voice at work at the 240-bed community hospital, which employs more than 1,000 trained health care workers.
“Our concerns about patient safety issues were being ignored,” says Diane Arreola, a registered nurse at Corona for many years. “This is why a strong majority of us decided to seek representation and organize our union with UNAC/UHCP. As patient advocates, we realized that when we act collectively, we have a powerful voice and we will be heard.”
The key issues nurses at the hospital will seek to address are improvements to patient care, better working conditions, dignity, respect and a voice for all RNs.
Union Mourns the Loss of Dedicated Activist, Leader
by Cathy Scott, President, AFSCME District Council 47 | January 14, 2013
It is with deep sorrow that we announce Rita Urwitz, Vice President of AFSCME District Council 47 and Local 2186, passed away on Sunday, Jan. 6.
Rita was very active in AFSCME DC47 since she began working as a social worker for the City of Philadelphia in 1980. Rita was a strong advocate for children, labor, and social justice issues, fighting hard to protect public services for all.
Rita's boundless energy was seen in her many accomplishments whether it was overseeing the AFSCME DC47 Political Action Committee; engaging in an ACLU lawsuit against the City of Philadelphia, which changed the way abuse and neglect cases are handled in Philadelphia; leading a groundbreaking wellness and disease management program for DC47; or working on a domestic partnership ordinance that passed in the City of Philadelphia — to name a few.
Shortly before her passing, Rita and her longtime partner, Carol, were married in Maryland enabling Rita to fulfill a longtime personal wish. AFSCME District Council 47 membership has lost a leader, advocate and dear friend.
Newtown Cops Deserve Workers’ Compensation Benefits
by Jon Melegrito | January 11, 2013
First responders expect to witness crime scenes with casualties as part of their job. They are also expected to rescue survivors and attend to the wounded and injured.
They don’t run away from danger. They go to it. It’s their job, they are proud to say. And they carry on the next day, performing their duties with dedication and courage.
But walking into a horrific scene like the one at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where 20 children and six adults were repeatedly shot and killed and many others injured, is something else entirely. That kind of horror is simply unimaginable.
To the 15 police officers who rushed to the school that day, it was by all accounts the worst crime scene they’d ever walked into. They were in shock for days. In the aftermath of the massacre, a few of these officers – all members of the Connecticut Council of Police Unions (AFSCME Council 15) – are suffering from severe emotional distress and have been unable to return to work. Traumatized by the senseless shootings, these officers had to take extended time off in order to recover.
Unfortunately, post-traumatic stress is not covered by workers’ compensation benefits under the town’s current statute. Council 15 is working with local officials, state legislators and the governor’s office for a change in state law that would provide emotional trauma benefits and allow police officers to take more time to recover. The 2013 legislative session opened Wednesday.
“These officers have been unable to function due to trauma,” says Eric Brown, an attorney for Council 15. “But under the circumstances, they are forced to use sick and vacation time and could soon be at risk of going without a paycheck. The emotional loads they’re carrying far exceed anything they could imagine. We need to support them in every possible way.”
State Rep. Stephen Dargan, co-chairman of the legislature’s public safety committee, has indicated his support for such a measure. “The circumstances are so horrific in Newton,” he said. “We need to protect those first responders and give them all the help we can give them.”
The Newtown Board of Police Commissioners is also supportive. In a resolution passed last week, the board said that “fairness and compassion dictates” the law be changed to provide appropriate benefits to those who suffered physical and emotional injury “as a consequence of their heroic efforts” on the job.
Illinois Governor Quinn Continues His War on Public Service Workers
by Clyde Weiss and Anders Lindall | January 11, 2013
The rights of public service workers seem to be of no consequence to Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn. He’s prepared to sign a bill that allows him to deny collective bargaining rights to 3,580 state employees of his choosing, including up to 1,900 who currently are represented by AFSCME and other unions. The legislation also allows the state’s other constitutional officers broad latitude to take away bargaining rights from their employees.
A “quiet war on the collective bargaining rights of public employees” is how The State Journal-Register, the capitol city’s paper of record, described the governor’s campaign against the state’s employees. But Quinn’s war resembles a scorched-earth battle. In 2011 he canceled pay raises for 30,000 public employees. Then in November, Quinn terminated AFSCME’s collective bargaining agreement with the state, leaving some 35,000 employees without the protection of a union contract.
Quinn also tried to get the Legislature to pass a pension proposal to change the way the annual cost-of-living adjustment is calculated, drastically reducing pension values over time. Following strong grassroots pressure from workers and retirees coordinated by labor’s We Are One Illinois coalition, the Legislature adjourned Tuesday without acting on the proposal because it lacked the necessary votes.
Taking away collective bargaining rights from public service workers is right out of the playbook of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who stripped more than 200,000 public service workers of their union rights in March 2011, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, whose failed effort in 2011 to strip the collective bargaining rights of 350,000 public service workers in that state demonstrates widespread public opposition to such efforts.
In Illinois, however, voters were not given an opportunity to express their views on Governor Quinn’s anti-worker campaign. He used the opportunity of a lame-duck session of the Legislature to squeeze through a corporate-driven agenda to undermine workers’ rights, including collective bargaining.
Taking such rights away from thousands of employees now covered by the state’s collective bargaining law will set a dangerous precedent that could imperil collective bargaining rights throughout the public sector.
This is not about saving the state money. We fear he has a more sinister goal in mind: He wants to strip workers of the protections of their union contract in an attempt to intimidate them, and ultimately to replace them with political patronage workers.
AFSCME will continue fighting for workers’ rights, and push for a repeal of this law. The voters will certainly have something to say about this as well.
President Saunders: Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis “a Tireless Advocate” for Workers
by Pablo Ros | January 10, 2013
AFSCME Pres. Lee Saunders called U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis “an ally, a friend and a tireless advocate” for workers after Solis announced this week she would be leaving her cabinet position.
“We are grateful for Secretary Solis’ extraordinary commitment to working men and women,” President Saunders also said. “At a time when powerful, moneyed forces have come together to pursue a virulent, anti-union agenda, she focused the Department of Labor’s attention on putting Americans back to work, making the workplace safer and healthier, and protecting and preserving the rights of union members and working families.”
“She will be missed,” he added.
A welcome choice when Pres. Barack Obama nominated her in 2008, Solis will be hard to replace. During her service as labor secretary, she was praised by labor unions for standing up for working families, enforcing workplace regulations, and protecting children and underpaid workers.
Today, the former Congresswoman from California reportedly intends to go back to her native Los Angeles and run for local office.
Solis, who was confirmed in February 2009 as the 25th U.S. Secretary of Labor, is the first Latina to hold this position. No doubt she will remain a strong advocate for labor unions and environmental policy reform, as she has been throughout her career.
The Ever-Shrinking Paycheck
by Clyde Weiss | January 09, 2013
39.6 percent.
That’s the new top rate Congress set on wages and salaries as part of the recently passed fiscal cliff deal. Previously, wages and salaries were taxed at 35 percent. But the rate that rich folks pay on their investment income was raised to only 20 percent.
Why is this disparity important? Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson notes that “taxing wages and salaries at a higher rate than investment income means that the tax code is taking a bigger bite out of a steadily shrinking share of Americans’ income. Pay from work just ain’t what it used to be.”
Meyerson also notes that “income from wages and salaries as of July 2012 constitutes the smallest share of gross domestic product [the market value of all goods and services produced in the country] since World War II” – just 43 percent. That’s down from its high of 53 percent in 1969.
What’s missing is about $1.5 trillion annually that went “to corporate profits, whose share of the economy has risen as the share going to wages has diminished,” Meyerson writes. “This shift from wages to profits is called redistribution. It is the central fact of American economic life. And it is the primary reason that economic inequality in the United States has skyrocketed.”
Corporations have been very successful in avoiding paying their fair share. The time has come for Congress to end the various legal tax dodges corporations use to beat the system – dodges that the working middle class can only envy.
Iowa State Employees Launch Statewide Media Blitz Against Governor’s Double Dealing
by Dave Patterson | January 08, 2013
Corrections Officer Marty Hathaway demands accountability at a press conference in Iowa City, Iowa.Iowa public service workers spoke out Friday against Gov. Terry Branstad’s hypocrisy of doling out bonuses to his political cronies while demanding freezes and cuts to bargaining unit employees.
Council 61, which represents 20,000 employees entering negotiations with the state this past weekend, coordinated six statewide press conferences to get the word out to the public that Branstad handed hundreds of thousands of dollars in political appointee bonuses during the last year while simultaneously targeting the middle class. That targeting includes demands that bargaining unit employees accept a two-year wage freeze, reductions in health coverage and increased insurance premium payments. Meanwhile, Branstad’s state has more than $1 billion in surplus.
Friday’s day of action in Des Moines, Sioux City, Council Bluffs, Mason City, Iowa City and Davenport put the governor on the defensive leading in to contract negotiations. AFSCME negotiators have called for modest raises of 1 percent in the first year and 2 percent in the second year, with no changes to the insurance and no employee premiums.
In Iowa City, Marty Hathaway, a corrections officer and AFSCME member was quoted in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, speaking about the huge bonuses paid out by Branstad, including to one appointee who raked in a $30,000 bonus each of the last three years.
“That is more than some state employees make in a year,” said Hathaway.
Branstad has also proposed huge tax incentives to an Egyptian company, offering them a $648,000 tax break for each permanent job they create.
In Council Bluffs, AFSCME member and corrections officer John Good expressed his dissatisfaction with these policies in the Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil. “We believe Iowans deserve honest, open and scandal-free government,” said Good.
Added AFSCME member Paula Barker in the Sioux City Journal: “There is a double standard here, and we just want everybody to play on a fair and square board.”
Negotiations will occur every Saturday and Sunday through January.
Danny Homan, AFSCME Iowa Council 61 president, and also an AFSCME International vice president, told WHO-TV, the Des Moines Register and the Associated Press: “Today the state has a surplus and reserves over a billion dollars partly because of sacrifices made by state employees. We stand ready to work with the governor in the coming days. But we will not stand for further cuts to Iowa’s cities, towns and neighborhoods while wasting the state surplus on lavish bonuses to appointed cronies or tax giveaways to out-of-state corporations.”
AFSCME’s Kansas/Missouri Council 72 Steps Boldly Into the Future
by Clyde Weiss | January 08, 2013
Delegates to AFSCME Council 72’s special convention in December approved a revised constitution, elected new officers and recognized outstanding performance of two of its members.
The union represents more than 20,000 public service employees who work for states, counties, municipalities and other political subdivisions. Council 72 also represents a large and growing number of workers who provide home care and child care services in their communities.
Thirty-six delegates, plus guests, attended the convention in Columbia, Mo., on Dec. 19. Among the amendments they approved to their newly revised constitution involves restructuring the makeup of the officers and executive board. Among those elected to new posts:
- Michelle Mason, president of Local 2730, was elected council president. The direct care attendant at Bellefontaine Habilitation Center in St. Louis was unopposed.
- Jeff Mazur, who was serving as the council’s acting executive director, was elected director. Mazur, also a member of Local 876, was unopposed.
Two Council 72 members also were recognized for their contributions to the council and their local unions:
Jennifer Hargreaves, a member of Local 622, was presented with the council’s organizing award in recognition of her efforts to increase the local’s membership by approximately 28 percent this year. The local represents developmental disability workers at the Nevada Habilitation Center in Nevada, Mo.
Nispa Bryant, past president of Local 3160 in Kansas City, Mo., was honored with the council’s Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her years of service to her union. A direct care staffer working in Kansas City, Mo., Bryant has been a Council 72 member since 1996.
AFSCME Pres. Lee Saunders congratulated the newly elected officers, award recipients and the members of Council 72 for their achievements. “Your sisters and brothers throughout AFSCME salute you for taking this step to build an even stronger union. At a time when public sector unions are threatened by right-wing, corporate-driven lawmakers intent on weakening the rights of workers, you have demonstrated a commitment to work together on behalf of your members to build a union we can all be proud of. Congratulations!”
Illinois, Rhode Island Poised to Become the Next States with Marriage Equality
by Kate Childs Graham | January 06, 2013
On the heel of victories in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington, LGBT activists are continuing the fight for marriage equality. This week, in Illinois and Rhode Island, where same-sex couples can have civil unions but not full marriage equality.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) AFSCME members in each state are cautiously optimistic that their states will become the next in a growing guild that has adopted marriage equality.
Kate Ekman is an office administrator at Northeastern Illinois University and a member of Local 1989 (Illinois Council 31). When she took the job and found out that she could join the union, she “jumped at the chance.” Since then, she has become active in her local, recently joining the executive board. Ekman is also a member of the LGBT community.
Ekman helped her local negotiate contract language that is more inclusive of LGBT people. For her, the link between contracts and marriage equality is simple.
“If we have marriage equality, at least at the state level, we will provide a lot more of the equality that some of our contracts provide,” Ekman says. “It will institutionalize and equalize all of those benefits.”
Legislators across the aisle are supportive of the marriage equality law.
Ekman called her state legislators yesterday to urge them to support marriage equality. “But I also told them not to pass anything that would put our pensions at risk.”
In Rhode Island, AFSCME Retiree Jim Gillis, who is gay, is similarly hopeful that 2013 will be the year for marriage equality in his state.
“Marriage is a right everyone should enjoy,” Gillis says. “Everyone works with gay and lesbian people, whether they know it or not. Everyone has gay and lesbian relatives, whether they know it or not. Everyone has gay and lesbian neighbors, whether they know it or not. By supporting marriage equality, you are supporting people just like yourself. “
Retirees face particular challenges where marriage equality doesn’t exist. They lack equal access to pension plan benefits – like survivor options – and other critical safety net programs that so many retirees rely on.
If achieved, winning marriage equality at the state level is only half of the battle. Repealing the Defense of Marriage Act is the only way that Gillis, Ekman and all LGBT workers and retirees will have equal marriage rights under the law.
Right to Know Webinar for AFSCME Members on Hazard Communication Standard
by Kate Childs Graham | January 04, 2013
Nearly every AFSCME member will be affected by a new, basic health and safety regulation: the Hazard Communication Standard (Hazcom), or Right to Know Law. (Click here to register for the online seminar.)
OSHA estimates that more than 32 million workers are exposed to 650,000 hazardous chemical products in more than 3 million American workplaces. Most affected are public works, transportation, school employees and health care.
The new regulation is designed to keep workers safe. It requires chemical labeling, developing chemical fact sheets and training workers on the hazards of and safe work practices for the chemicals they work with. The regulation also requires that chemical manufacturing companies use standardized labels, pictures and chemical fact sheets.
The law isn’t set to go into effect until 2016, but employers are required to train their employees on these changes by Dec. 1, 2013.
Learn all about the Hazcom changes in a new webinar on AFSCME’s Online Leadership Academy. Health and Safety Specialist Diane Brown will give you the inside scoop on the law, explaining what the changes mean to AFSCME members. The webinar will take place at 6 p.m. EST, Tues., Jan. 15. Register online now (you’ll need your member ID).
