This message is from Chuck Loveless, AFSCME Director of Legislation.

Out-of-work Americans narrowly averted losing their unemployment insurance when Congress passed a stopgap two-month extension at the end of 2011.

But that extension is set to expire at the end of February, and nearly 6 million unemployed workers will lose their insurance benefits if Congress does not fully renew this program through the end of 2012.

House Republicans are expected to push for drastic cuts in benefits and create new barriers for millions of unemployed workers’ and their families. This includes thousands of AFSCME members across the country who feel the painful realities of state and local service cuts.

Congressional leaders are trying to significantly change unemployment insurance through a bill, H.R. 3630, which would:

• Cut the length of benefits in half in the states with the highest unemployment rates;
• Impose drug testing of recipients;
• Make jobless workers pay for re-employment services;
• Deny benefits to workers who did not receive a high school diploma or GED; and
• Allow states to use unemployment funds for other purposes.

Contact your member of Congress today, and urge them to oppose changes to unemployment insurance and fully renew the program through the end of 2012.

ALEC – the powerful corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council – loves Arizona. The group wants to turn this already right-to-work-for-less state into the most anti-worker one in the nation. With a tea party-dominated Legislature doing ALEC’s bidding, it’s on its way.

Last Wednesday, the Republican-controlled Senate passed several bills out of committee that eliminate collective bargaining entirely and all-but eradicate workers’ rights to organize. Another proposed measure ends payroll deductions for voluntary contributions to a union’s political action fund – something already declared unconstitutional by a judge last year.

These deceptive, corporate-sponsored bills were drafted by ALEC and its Phoenix affiliate, the Goldwater Institute. Fifty out of 90 of the state’s legislators are ALEC or Goldwater Institute members.

If you think Wisconsin’s union busting law was bad, Arizona’s is even worse. Police officers and fire fighters aren’t exempted from Arizona’s legislation, as they were in Wisconsin. These bills will devastate 911 dispatchers and public safety officers and the vital services they provide.

“This is a battle for our existence and we’re not going to let them muzzle our voice,” says Frank Piccioli, a Phoenix 911 dispatcher and president of AFSCME Local 2960. “We are the first of the first responders. We are there when someone is having a heart attack, when a child is drowning, when a life is in peril. Politicians doing ALEC’s bidding are turning their backs on the citizens of Arizona and hurting the very people who save lives.”

Emergency dispatchers field approximately 1.5 million calls a year with ever-dwindling staff and resources, Piccioli points out. Despite being paid 19 percent less in wages, “we have made compromises and wage concessions because we want to be part of the solution. We are not the problem. But we are demonized because of a political agenda. This is not about saving taxpayer money. This is about wiping out unions and destroying the middle class.”

The climate in Arizona may well be receptive to ALEC-inspired legislation, but citizens are becoming increasingly alarmed by the extreme policies crafted by corporate special interests. Last year, anti-worker candidates for mayor and council in Phoenix were defeated. Residents apparently value the hard work and dedication of public service workers and agree with the decision of city officials to work with them.

AFSCME has launched an online campaign featuring a video and open letter calling on Gov. Jan Brewer to stop attacking teachers, fire fighters and police and other public service workers. Watch the video below and sign the letter here: http://AttackingUnionsDoesNotCreateJobs.com.

In a national campaign to win respect for EMS workers, uniformed EMTs and paramedics from the Fire Department of New York City are joining forces with their peers in Northern California to help build a new AFSCME local for emergency medical service workers on the west coast.

Northern California EMS workers hope to join the 20,000 EMS workers nationwide, who are already united through AFSCME, to fight for issues that matter to American workers at the local, state and national levels.

"Seeing our fellow EMS workers come out here and offer their help shows what national strength and unity really means," said Sam Tennison from Rural/Metro, a medical transport service, in Santa Clara. "We've gone far too long without a real voice. Standing together as United EMS Workers/AFSCME means people just like us are here and have our backs when we call on them. That's what national strength is about.”

Jose Gonzalez

As part of AFSCME, the California EMS workers will join a union of 1.6 million people who deliver vital services that keep American families safe and make our communities strong.

"If we stick together, we can get the respect we deserve, and we can win on the issues that matter to us,” said Jose Gonzalez, from Local 3621, who took vacation time to help out fellow EMS workers in California. "Whether we're in New York, Indiana, or California, we are all EMS workers who deserve a unified voice in the work we do."

AFSCME has approximately 3,400 local unions and 58 councils and affiliates in 46 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.  Every local writes its own constitution, designs its own structure, elects its own officers and sets its own dues.

Dade County, Fla. – Building a union in ordinary times is tough enough. But the remarkable growth of Miami-Dade County Florida Employees Local 199 (AFSCME Council 79) is proof that you can build a union even in the face of adversity. In fact, workers sought to join the union – representing 9,000 workers in Miami-Dade – because of the adversity.

Last summer, the local set a membership goal of 60 percent, from a starting point of 21 percent. It now approaches 32 percent – more than 1,000 new members. One of the volunteer member organizers responsible for that success is Mario Ambrose, 51, a record specialist with the Miami-Dade County Clerk of the Courts, as well as a steward and contract negotiating team member for Local 199.

Ambrose says he was “reared to believe that the union is one of the most important entities in a community,” and was eager to learn about organizing and determined to build the union’s strength.

Meeting with workers at their homes, Ambrose (and other organizers) made their case. “What I emphasized is that it’s a numbers game,” he said. “They don’t take us seriously because we don’t have the numbers. We need members to be able to fight.”

Fighting is exactly what they did. Members crowded the county commission budget hearings last year and reached out to the community to fight for public services. Also, Local 199’s contract was coming up for renegotiation.  

Members ratified a new three-year contract on Jan. 20. Although it contains some give-backs, the union was ultimately able to preserve the bulk of the cost-of-living adjustment received last summer. It also maintains merit and longevity pay.

Still, workers continue to join Local 199. “They understand it’s going to take a union to fight, not a just a work unit,” says Ambrose.

Read about other AFSCME organizing victories here.

Here are the key points in the poll, conducted Feb. 1 through Feb. 4 and based on a random national sample of 1,000 adults:

• A whopping 68 percent say the current U.S. tax system is stacked in favor of the wealthy. A strong majority – 56 percent – feel strongly about that.

• An even greater 72 percent support raising taxes on those with incomes higher than $1 million annually (59 percent strongly feel that way).

• By a 66 to 30 percent margin, those polled say Romney does not pay his fair share of taxes, based on his nearly 14 percent tax rate in 2010. Nearly half of Republicans polled also agree with that statement.

• By a 10-point margin (52 to 42 percent), President Obama leads Romney when asked who they trust to do a better job on handling taxes.

• Asked who they trust to “protect the middle class,” President Obama led Romney by 55 percent to 37 percent.

• 57 percent of those polled who read or heard about President Obama’s State of the Union address approved of it.

The nation’s fragile economy is starting to rebound, and the key to the recovery is a strong middle class. As the Washington Post-ABC News poll demonstrates, Americans by strong majorities believe President Obama is the right leader to keep America on track through this recovery. AFSCME believes that, too. That’s why our International Executive Board has endorsed President Obama for re-election.

Read more about the poll here.

Days before the Super Bowl – a game played by union members, with a halftime show performed by union members, with commercials created by union members, in a stadium built by union members – Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels made Indiana a right-to-work-for-less state. Not only is the bill he signed unjust and unfair to union workers, it will also lower wages, reduce benefits and shrink pensions.

The irony of enacting such an anti-union law days before such a pro-labor event was not lost on Twitter users:

On Sunday, when you tune in to watch the biggest sporting event of the year, be sure to raise a pint to the union workers who made it possible. And on Monday, let us all continue to beat back right-to-work-for-less legislation in Indiana and across the country.

“Sadly, it has become too commonplace to attack public employees,” Lynch said. “And that needs to stop.”

Watch highlights from Governor Lynch’s address here:

It’s intimidating knocking on someone’s door and asking them to join a union. Even knowing it’s a co-worker may not calm the jitters. But when you begin to explain that there is power in numbers and that coming together as a union gives workers a voice, it gets easier.

That’s what eight members of AFSCME Local 1180 learned one recent weekend in Tulsa, Okla., when they knocked on co-workers’ doors to encourage them to join the union. These Volunteer Member Organizers (VMOs) have never done anything like this before. But the preparations, field training and house calls made believers out of them.

Local 1180 represents approximately half the city’s employees, which means there are about 2,000 who are not yet members.That’s the challenge. The citizens of Tulsa deserve the vital services provided by the city’s water, sanitation and road maintenance workers, airport safety officers, 911 emergency operators and administrative employees. But ongoing threats of privatization and anti-worker legislation could mean not only loss of jobs but a deterioration of these services.

The VMOs participated in a three-day training, learning one-on-one communication skills. Each day, participants partnered with experienced organizers as they headed out to make house calls.

“Yes, it was intimidating at first but once you try it, you become comfortable and can successfully move a non-member into action,” says Michael Rider, Local 1180 president. He is also one of the VMOs. “The value of the VMO program is critical in helping us create a culture of continuous organizing, so that we can make improvements for ourselves, our families and the public we serve.”

Similar VMO training programs are held across the nation with positive results.At the AFSCME Women’s Conference last year, more than 70 members signed up to become champions of their fellow co-workers and middle-class workers everywhere.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels has just signed legislation that will make his state the first in years to enact right-to-work-for-less legislation. It’s a shame he didn’t consider the views of those who will be impacted by the legislation.

Take William Tandy, for instance. A Richmond Street Department employee and member of Local 1791 (AFSCME Council 62), he was demonstrating at the statehouse “to support our local and our elected representatives who have fought for Indiana’s workers. I want to look back on this fight and know that I was here and I helped fight this until the end.”

If the right-to-work-for-less bill becomes law, Tandy says, “training will suffer and safety will become more of an issue. It might take a while for businesses to notice, but this will cost them more in the long run. Equipment will get torn up, more people will get hurt.”

Jamin Isaac Green

For Richmond Sanitation Department worker Jamin Isaac Green – also a member of Local 1791 – this fight for worker rights is his first as a union member. “I’ve been here for six months,” he says. “The guys at work have taught me that it’s important that blue-collar workers like us have a voice. We need to stay together so we’re not being taken advantage of by a company owner or our city.”

Green says it’s not fair “that right-to-work is being pushed by these legislators. They didn’t run on this issue when they took back the majority in 2010. Nobody should be able to benefit off another, and that’s what this law allows. We’re going to keep on fighting.”

Scott Lotich

Scott Lotich, an equipment operator for the Richmond Street Department and a member of Local 1791, says, “This right-to-work attack is just the next step in the anti-worker attack against unions that began in the 1980s. This should be called the ‘right-to-sponge.’ It makes unions represent every worker even though they’re not required to pay anything for that representation.”

Lotich adds, “This fight is not over. If we have to, we’ll fight it at the ballot box in November.”

Right-to-work-for-less laws are bad for everyone. They lower wages. They endanger health and safety standards. They hurt pensions. And they are just plain unfair for union members.

“Conversations with friends and supporters on both sides of the aisle have persuaded me that the proposed legislation is unnecessary and poses unintended consequences for police, firemen and teachers,” Senator Adelstein said in a statement.

Despite Adelstein’s reversal, others of his party are still interested in pushing the bill. It is not yet dead. That’s a shame. Although South Dakota’s state public service workers do not currently have the right to collectively bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions, taking that right away from those who do – teachers, firefighters, police and some county and city employees – is an attack on the Main Street values of workers everywhere.

We’re glad Senator Adelstein took the time to listen to the people who would be most hurt by his bill. “Too often legislators take a knee jerk reaction to unions and collective bargaining without knowing the issues and the importance they serve,” said Council 59 Exec. Dir. Matt Miller. “We think anyone who studies the issue in depth understands collective bargaining is a fundamental part of American life. We hope other legislatures look at it in as much depth as Mr. Adelstein does.”

Until the bill is officially killed, however, Miller said that Council 59 members will remain vigilant. “We want to make it clear to Senator Adelstein or any other legislators who support a bill banning collective bargaining that it is unacceptable to public employees in South Dakota,” said Miller. “We are on alert and ready to debate this issue wherever it’s riSenator”

Senator Adelstein said he came to realize that passage of the legislation “would be in opposition to my values of supporting fair compensation, and recognition for our state’s capable public employees.” Also, he said, it “would cause grievous harm.”

But we are still concerned that Senator Adelstein doesn’t understand the true nature of collective bargaining. Just days before reversing course, he stated, “I’ve opposed collective bargaining through the years, because it’s always seemed to me that it benefits those who are not interested in compensation based on their efforts.”

Senator Adelstein is plain wrong on this point, and he also does not seem to realize that collective bargaining is about more than compensation. It’s about the basic right of public service workers to negotiate with their employer to improve their jobs, their safety, and even (in the case of nursing staff ratios) to better protect the lives of those in their care.

Voters in Ohio recently came to the same conclusion as Senator Adelstein and voted down a measure that also would have repealed collective bargaining rights. A similar effort was recently blocked in Nebraska. But workers’ union rights are under attack in Indiana, Michigan and other states.

But we’re fighting back. Check out how registered voters in Wisconsin are dealing with a governor who repealed collective bargaining rights last year.

For more about the importance of collective bargaining rights, click here. 

Additionally, he highlighted the loss of nearly 4,000 good-paying jobs that would result from this legislation; Fasano also emphasized the increased safety risks, for Florida’s communities, if the bill becomes law.

SB 2038 is scheduled for a vote in the next 48 hours. Hopefully, Senator Fasano’s colleagues will join in voting for good jobs. The lawmakers must value the safety of Florida’s communities – more than the profit for private prison companies, which have engaged in pay-to-play politics.

Floridians should contact their legislators and urge them to vote NO on these privatization measures.

With evocative words such as “work is what shakes us awake every morning” and “it’s the initials we scratch on the wet cement of America’s progress,” the ad features Americans from virtually every industry and union reminding fellow Americans that it is the 99% who make this country happen.

Also broadcast in Spanish, the ad is part of a wide-ranging campaign by the AFL-CIO to connect people around the values associated with work, including family, progress and the American Dream.

The campaign includes social media and online ads, and an interactive website which shows that when it comes to work, there are no degrees of separation between any of us.

Mitt Romney has released some information on his income taxes over the past two years. Turns out he’s paid less than 14 percent on more than $40 million in income. He makes more in one day than most American makes all year, yet he pays a tax rate that is far less than what the vast majority of Americans pay. Keep in mind that Romney’s income rolled in while he did nothing but clip coupons and hit the campaign trail. It suggests that our once progressive income tax has been turned into a farce, where the very rich get away with paying less than bus drivers, construction crews and health care workers. That’s not right, and it’s why the tax laws need to be changed and changed soon.

It’s now obvious why Romney tried so hard for so long to hide his financial holdings. He’s stashed some of his money in tax havens like Luxemburg and the Cayman Islands. He’s even had a Swiss bank account. He says he’s paid taxes on all his foreign holdings, but The Los Angeles Times reports that Romney failed to disclose at least 23 funds and partnerships on his most recent financial disclosure forms, including 11 based in low-tax foreign countries. While he may not have broken any laws by funneling cash into off-shore accounts and companies, Romney has clearly broken faith with the American people. He amassed his wealth by hollowing-out companies, laying off employees, ruining communities and practicing what is kindly called “vulture capitalism.” He left thousands of families in hardship while he accrued hundreds of millions in wealth. He should be ashamed, but if we’ve learned anything over the past year, Mitt Romney has no shame.

Romney, after all, doesn’t hide that he wants a tax code that rewards the 1 percent and makes the rest of us pay far more than our fair share. He’s running for president with a plan to change the tax code to make rich Americans even richer. The Economist magazine describes his plan as “very progressive, by 15th century standards.” Romney’s “help the rich get richer” plan would reduce the taxes of the top 1 percent by more than $170,000, while adding $600 billion to the deficit. He gets defensive when his plan is attacked, just as he gets hot under the collar when people bring up his past career as a corporate raider. He claims that any criticism of his repugnant business practices is an attack on free enterprise. It is not. It’s an attack on ruthless behavior. He claims that his critics are engaging in “class warfare.” It is not that either. If anything, he’s demonstrated the truth in Warren Buffett’s statement about class warfare: “It’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

Unfortunately, Romney’s not the only candidate out there who is interested in making life easier for the well-to-do. Shockingly, Newt Gingrich’s tax proposals are even worse that Romney’s. He wants to eliminate completely the taxes on capital gains. His radical tax scheme would guarantee that most members of the 1 percent, including Romney, would pay little or no taxes at all. The middle class would be left to pay the country’s bills, including the cost of additional tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy.

Perhaps that’s why the GOP candidates spend their time distorting Pres. Obama’s record, rather than outlining their own hare-brained plans for our country. Rick Santorum goes even farther. He says talking about the middle class is misguided because, get this, it buys into “the class warfare arguments of Barack Obama.” Santorum scolded Romney for using the term in a recent debate: “The governor used a term earlier that I shrink from. And it’s one that I don’t think we should be using as Republicans: Middle class.” And why shouldn’t Republicans talk about the middle class? “There are no classes in America,” Santorum continued. Only a millionaire could believe this.

We shouldn’t be surprised that Romney, Gingrich and Santorum all support the unhinged agenda of their political allies who now control the U.S. House of Representatives. They’ve promised to support radical schemes like the Ryan Budget, which abandons programs that have helped to build and sustain the middle class, including Medicare, Social Security, education assistance, health research and job training programs. They ignore the damage done to the middle class as CEO pay skyrocketed 300% since 1990 and corporate profits doubled. These are the candidates of the 1%, for the 1% and by the 1%. If they have their way, Mitt Romney and the wealthiest people in America won’t have to release their tax returns. They won’t even have to file.

Sgt. Barbara Ester was simply doing her job Friday morning last week, responding to a report that an inmate had contraband items. That was her duty as a property officer at the East Arkansas Regional Unit. But when she attempted to investigate, the inmate stabbed her with a sharp object. Sergeant Ester was rushed to the infirmary and later transported by helicopter to a hospital where she died. She was 47 years old.

A founding member of Local 2899 (Arkansas Council 38), Ester was a 12-year veteran of the facility. Her husband and co-worker, Lathen Ester, said that his wife of six years was loved by everybody who knew her. “She was a mother to a lot of the younger inmates coming in who didn’t have the mother figure in their lives. She just cared about people.”

Local 2899 Pres. Willie Robinson asked for prayers for her family and fellow corrections officers. “Sister Ester went to work every day knowing she may not come home alive,” Robinson said. “Yet she went about her job with a great sense of pride, because she cared. She will be greatly missed by our AFSCME family.”

The alleged killer has been in jail since 2001, serving a sentence for first degree murder. He was immediately moved to a maximum security wing at the prison. Corrections officials say Ester’s killing is the first death of a corrections officer at the hands of an inmate since 1995.

Funeral services will be held at noon on Saturday at the Lee High School Auditorium in Marianna.

President Obama delivered his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. He talked about jobs and education. He talked about Wall Street. He talked about fairness. And while he was talking about all that, Americans across the country were at home, tweeting their responses, hundreds by the second.

On jobs:

@CurlyKamiJami: #presidentobama #SOTU lets put our unemployment system into a re-employment system! PREACH!

@JBucknoff: @cspan #SOTU LOL. #Romney just told NBC News the programs and policies that create jobs don't create jobs. #GOP

On education:

@lizzylynngarcia: Dear @BarackObama I really want to see these education provisions go into effect. #sotu

@KeithOlbermann: Wait! High school until you're 18! But how does Gingrich recruit his Child Slave Labor Janitorial Force? #SOTU

On the payroll tax cut:

@ReneJSL: Pass the Payroll Cut. No one deserves to get #40DOLLARS off their hard-earned money. #sotu

@DavidCornDC: Was that Cantor clapping like Queen Elizabeth for extending the payroll tax cut? #SOTU

On equal pay:

@worleygirl: Equal pay for equal work! Amen! #SOTU

@JillFilipovic: Also sad that it's 2012 and our president still has to say, in the #SOTU, "Women should earn equal pay for equal work." #DUH

On Wall Street:

@lhugle: Best #SOTU development -- finally investigating Wall Street crooks.

@LuArguet: Deficit of trust between main street and wall street. Seems to get worse every year. #sotu

On fairness:

@SenatorReid: W/millions of middle-class families sacrificing daily, Ds r united behind the principle that millionaires should pay their fair share #SOTU

@MothTwiceborn: RT Obama: "We want a country where everyone gets a fair shot!" Not a single Republican applauded. There's your two Americas. #SOTU

Of course, the tweets weren’t confined to the substance of the speech. People had much to tweet about Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ emotional greeting with President Obama, Sen. John Kerry’s black eyes (hockey accident), applauses, ovations, Speaker John Boehner’s lack of poker face and the spilled milk jokes.

If Twitter is any indicator, though, the people overwhelmingly agreed with the President. The state of our union is indeed “getting stronger.”

Follow AFSCME on Twitter at twitter.com/AFSCME.

Tuesday night, addressing the nation in his State of the Union speech, President Obama called on the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share of taxes.

Proof that they often don’t is found in GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s federal tax return for 2010 – which he only reluctantly agreed to release under pressure from Newt Gingrich, his rival for the GOP nomination. The tax papers, released yesterday, showed he and his wife paid an effective tax rate of just 13.9 percent on taxable income of $21.7 million. Is that fair?

Since more than half of his earnings are considered capital gains and dividends, they are taxed at a top rate of 15 percent. But for those of us whose income is derived from actual work – called ordinary income – the top federal tax rate is 35 percent. Romney calls it “entirely legal and fair.”

Legal? Perhaps – but why should investment income be treated differently than ordinary income?

“The most affluent Americans in recent years have pulled away from the rest of us, and the reason is at least in part that they are able to compound their wealth at very, very low tax rates,” University of Southern California law professor Edward Kleinbard says in a recent article in Bloomberg. “Romney’s tax return, with its heavy reliance on income taxed at low capital gains rates, demonstrates that.”

If Newt Gingrich had his way, he’d entirely eliminate taxes on investment income (stock dividends and capital gains). Under that plan, Romney said during the Jan. 23 GOP presidential debate in Tampa, “I’d have paid no taxes in the last two years.”

Even a senior adviser to Romney realized the unfairness of that approach. Stuart Stevens, quoted in a story in The Washington Post, says, “Governor Romney thinks that’s unfair.”

So do we. The current tax code is unfair to the working middle class – a group that at least some in the GOP Presidential field would like to argue doesn’t even exist. We don’t need to keep enriching the richest 1 percent. We need to help the 99% whose spending is the engine of our economy.

“We need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of members of Congress, pay our fair share,” President Obama said in his State of the Union speech. He went on to explain:

“Tax reform should follow the Buffett Rule. If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes. And my Republican friend Tom Coburn is right: Washington should stop subsidizing millionaires. In fact, if you’re earning a million dollars a year, you shouldn’t get special tax subsidies or deductions. On the other hand, if you make under $250,000 a year, like 98 percent of American families, your taxes shouldn’t go up. You’re the ones struggling with rising costs and stagnant wages. You’re the ones who need relief.”

Gingrich and Romney call this talk of fairness and economic inequality “class warfare.’ Obama had this to say about that:

“Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.”

Gathered this past week in front of the Phoenix Statehouse, AFSCME members, community supporters and MoveOn activists were loud and clear about what they thought of Gov. Jan Brewer’s budget proposal. They are ready to take on politicians who have turned their backs on constituents and the 99% to do the bidding of outside organizations and corporate funders, such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Goldwater Institute.

“Through ALEC and the Goldwater Institute, corporations and state politicians are voting behind closed doors to re-write laws that protect workers and middle class families,” said Sheri Van Horsen, president of Local 3111.  “We are taking a stand against corruption and demanding accountability from our government to the people it is supposed to represent: Arizona citizens.”

The press conference was a follow-up to a demonstration that occurred last month in Scottsdale to coincide with the annual meeting of ALEC. During these meetings, Arizona state legislators and corporate lobbyists get together behind closed doors to deal with issues like cutting taxes, outsourcing, gutting pensions and union busting. Right-wing politicians then draft ALEC-inspired bills and push them at the next legislative session.

Last year, Arizona lawmakers passed numerous “ALEC model” bills. One was a brazen attempt to take away workers’ right to voluntarily contribute to their unions’ political action funds. AFSCME and other labor and civil rights groups sued. A judge later ruled the law unconstitutional as it unfairly targeted unions and union members.

This year, Governor Brewer has been vocal about her plans to take away civil service protections for 30,000 state workers – another idea from ALEC – and is attempting to bribe workers with a 5 percent raise if they opt out of the state personnel system. That system gives them the right to file an appeal if they get fired or demoted.

“We reject the governor’s bribe attempt,” Van Horsen said. “We will not give up our rights and protections.”

Other ALEC and Goldwater Institute inspired legislation that have directly impacted families and communities in the state include measures aimed at enriching specific industries by privatizing city services and prisons, suppressing the vote and eliminating collective bargaining rights for public service workers.

Also at the press conference were city workers from Peoria, who were energized from their recent victory against corporate profiteers when an attempt to privatize city sanitation services was dropped.

“This move would have cost good jobs and hurt our close-knit community,” said Randy Cordero, a city utility worker for more than 23 years and president of Local 3282. “With this victory we are empowered to take on anyone who wants to put profits over people.”

For more information on the voice of corporate special interests in the halls of Arizona’s Legislature, see the joint report of People For the American Way Foundation and Common Cause, “ALEC in Arizona: The Voice of Corporate Special Interests in the Halls of Arizona’s Legislature.”

“There may be middle-income people, but the idea that somehow or another we're going to buy into the class-warfare arguments of Barack Obama is something that should not be part of the Republican lexicon.”

In fact, it’s the Republican presidential candidates and their billionaire financial backers who like to raise the “class warfare” argument every time someone suggests that they pay their fair share of taxes. They raise it when people point to the widening gap between the 99% of Americans who work for a living and the extremely rich 1 percent, such as Mitt Romney, who live off their investments and benefit from lower federal tax rates than most workers.

Yet, when asked recently about anti-Wall Street protestors who point out the discrepancy between Wall Street and Main Street, Romney calls it class warfare. He said, “I think it’s dangerous, this class warfare.” Romney also accuses President Obama of fanning the flames of class warfare.

But it’s Romney and the rest of the GOP presidential field who are inciting class warfare. How?  Through their attacks on workers’ rights, like collective bargaining, that helped build the middle class in the first place. For instance, Santorum says if he becomes President he will deny public workers an opportunity to improve their lives through a union:

“I would actually support a bill that says that we should not have public employee unions for the purposes of wages and benefits to be negotiated.”

Romney has his own anti-worker agenda, and his record makes clear he is no friend of working middle-class families. Take his support of Ohio’s anti-worker law Senate Bill 5, which would have deprived public service workers of their right to have a voice on the job through collective bargaining. Voters last November were not persuaded by his arguments, however, and sided with workers to repeal the law by an overwhelming margin.

Americans say they believe there is already a war between the classes. That’s no surprise. Inequality has resulted in a middle class that’s actually shrunk, according to Alan B. Krueger, who chairs the White House Council of Economic Advisers. He explains:

“The share of all income accruing to the top 1 percent increased by 13.5 percentage points from 1979 to 2007. This is the equivalent of shifting $1.1 trillion of annual income to the top 1 percent of families. Put another way, the increase in the share of income going to the top 1 percent over this period exceeds the total amount of income that the entire bottom 40 percent of households receives.”

Krueger blames this downward shift partly on the decline in union membership, which he said dropped from 20 percent of employees in 1983 to just 12 percent. He also cited tax changes in the early 2000s that “benefited the very wealthy by much more than other taxpayers, compounding the widening gap in pre-tax earnings.”

That’s why the fight to preserve the middle class depends on winning the fight to preserve collective bargaining. As AFSCME members already know, strong unions “are a critical factor in creating a middle-class society,” says a report from the Center for American Progress. “Restoring the strength of unions would go a long way toward rebuilding the middle class.”

That’s why AFSCME’s International Executive Board has endorsed President Obama for re-election. “President Obama is the only choice for the 99%,” said AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee. We must put people back to work, make the 1 percent pay their fair share, and protect Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. President Obama will stand up for working families.” 

Traditional pensions are still the most efficient way of guaranteeing retirement security for workers. The economy benefits too, as pensions are a highly efficient source of financing that ultimately provides income and jobs for others. If states go the route of replacing them with 401(k)-style plans, it will end up costing them more in the long run. There’s also an adverse impact to society when Americans, after a career of working hard to provide for their families, become vulnerable and angry because they could not retire with dignity.

These are the conclusions shared by a panel of state leaders and policy experts at a press briefing yesterday at the National Press Club. Participants took turns separating fact from fiction on budget and policy proposals regarding defined benefit pensions.

Leading the panel was New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli who called Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposal to create a new pension system – including an optional 401(k)-style account for newly hired workers – “unacceptable.”

“I am a firm believer that defined contribution systems are simply not adequate,” he said. “In times of fiscal distress, we should be focusing on ways to strengthen public pension plans, not take them away.” He reminded everyone that “New York has one of the strongest pension funds in the country because it has been managed and funded responsibly over the years.”

North Carolina State Treasurer Janet Cowell decried the fearmongering and the tendency by some states “to react with broad, drastic changes that could negatively impact defined benefit systems that are working well.” She called for “thoughtful, fact-based conversations on a state by state basis to determine what the best plan is for public workers.”

“The existing public pension system has provided retirement security for tens of millions of workers,” added Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “There is no reason that it cannot continue to do so for decades into the future.”

Hank Kim, executive director of the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems, pointed out that the public pension model is “a key pillar for retirement security” and can be extended to the private sector.

Lending an eloquent voice to those who don’t have retirement security was Dolores Bresette, a retired Rhode Island state worker and a member of AFSCME Retiree Chapter 94.

“I contributed 9 percent of my salary to my pension fund during the 37 years I worked for the state,” she said. “Now, after years of saving and preparing for my retirement, so much of what I and thousands of other public workers were promised by the state is being taken away. I am angry – angry that something like this could happen when I played by the rules all of my life.”

Rhode Island cut the cost of living adjustments to state workers’ pensions. To Bresette, that adds up to approximately $70 a month.

The press briefing was sponsored by the National Public Pension Coalition of which AFSCME is a leading member. The Coalition engages in state-based activities in support of public employee defined benefit pension systems.

Need money for college? You could get a job wearing a pirate’s hat and selling fish dinners to tourists in T-shirts. Or you can apply for a Union Plus scholarship. It’s a process that just takes a few minutes.

What you need to apply: a union sponsor – you, your parent or spouse who is or was a union member (make sure the union participates in Union Plus); and acceptance in a U.S. accredited school.

Just last year, 130 union families received scholarships ranging from $500 to $4,000. And 18 of those winners came from AFSCME families. One scholarship recipient said, “This scholarship enabled me to go to the school of my dreams. I highly encourage any prospective applicants to take advantage of this opportunity.”

You’ve got everything to gain.

What you need to do: Submit a letter of reference and an essay on your career goals and community service.

Fill out the application online. Need to take a break? Don’t worry. You can save your work and return later. But don’t take too long. The deadline to submit is Tuesday, Jan. 31.

A few minutes after the news was confirmed that more than 1 million Wisconsin voters signed petitions to have the governor recalled, “Scott Walker” was trending on Twitter.

Natives of the Badger State celebrated:

@vahamaa: Dear Scott Walker, welcome to Recallville.

@DefeatVos: 1,000,000+ Wisconsin voters say: "I love teachers, firefighters, police..." (but NOT Scott Walker) #wiunion

@mcwheelz: Scott Walker, we have your pink slip ready for you.

@Spudlovr: Gov. Scott Walker lives in public housing. Landlords' about to evict him #wiunion

@BrewCityBrawler: Strange how Friends of Scott Walker ads dont call out his awesome job creation record. Oh, wait ... #wiunion #recallwalker

Politicians and journalists weighed in:

@AndrewKroll: The 1mln #recallwalker signatures gathered by organizers adds up to 46 percent of #wisconsin's total electorate

@BrianFair: Let's remove Gov. Scott Walker from office. Then let's convince the singer Scott Walker to tour again & obliterate the memory of Gov. Scott.

@donnabrazile: Recall fever 2.0! RT @HuffPostPol Organizers collect 1 million signatures in favor of recalling WI Gov. Scott Walker

@mcmullenforus: Scott Walker is being recalled, let's hope this happens to Rick Scott in Florida.

And even Arsenio Hall had a character or two for the governor:

@ArsenioOFFICIAL: In addition to the states troubles, i also blame Wisconsin governor Scott Walker for the Green Bay Packer loss. #recall

Meanwhile, @GovWalker has soothed himself with some “American Idol.”

Why aren’t we surprised?

Businessman and GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney just confirmed what we’ve known all along. The gap between the rich and the rest of the country is widening dramatically because of mega-millionaires, like the man from Bain Capital, who pay lower overall tax rates than middle-class Americans.

Bowing to growing pressure to release his tax returns, Romney said Tuesday that his effective tax rate was “probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything.” This is far below the country’s top marginal tax rate of 35 percent paid by millions of struggling Americans.

His admission that his fortune, estimated at $250 million, comes from mostly investment income – which is taxable at lower rates than ordinary income – also validates what the 99% in this country have been saying all along: The economic system is rigged to favor the top 1 percent of U.S. earners by giving them tax advantages that allow them to reap huge benefits. See the recent report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which shows that investment income was the biggest contributor to an increase in income inequality between 1996 and 2006. In fact, Romney takes advantage of a tiny loophole that likely allows all of his income – including compensation for work – to be taxed as capital gains.

So, how does this all square with Romney’s vaunted claims that he is “concerned about the poor in this country,” that he wants to “make sure the safety net is strong and able to help those who can’t help themselves?” On the campaign trail, Romney has touted a tax plan that would continue the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and provide extra tax breaks that would primarily help the rich. At the same time, he’s all for cutting Medicaid spending, reducing food stamps and doing away with safety net programs that would help low-income families. As Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus points out, “Romney would spend hundreds of billions for a tax cut whose benefits flow overwhelmingly to the wealthiest of Americans, even as he would cut even more from programs that help the most vulnerable.”

Interestingly, Romney characterized as “not very much” the $374,327 he reported earning in speaking fees last year, which alone would put Romney in the top 1 percent of income earners nationwide. He may not admit it, but we think his 15 percent tax rate is not very much either.

Currently, there are nine privatized prisons in the state, run by three private prison firms (CCA and GEO Group have the largest stake). These private prisons house 10 percent of Florida’s inmates. As always, there’s much to be learned by following the money.

According to the National Institute on Money in State Politics, GEO Group and its executives gave more than $705,000 to political candidates and parties in Florida in 2010, while CCA donated $138,994 – primarily to Republican causes. And both CCA and GEO kicked in $30,000 to Gov. Rick Scott’s inaugural fund. Since 2004, GEO has given $1.8 million to Florida political candidates, parties and committees.

Also, based on Senate records, GEO paid its Florida lobbyists between $220,000 and $360,000 to influence state officials since October 2010, which Private Corrections Institute, a Florida-based non-profit watchdog organization that opposes the privatization of correctional services, criticized as “pay-to-play” politics.

These bills will remove oversight and put our prisons in the hands of lobbyists and the corporations looking to profit, who have bought influence in Tallahassee. We know from previous reports that the public safety in Florida communities will be at risk and taxpayers could end up shelling out even more to run more costly private facilities. Private prisons have a history of poorly trained personnel that increase the amount of prison violence and escapes.

It goes without saying that JPMorgan needs some cleaning up. And that clean-up must start at the top with CEO Jamie Dimon – who also happens to be chairman of the board. This double duty as CEO and chairman of the board gives Dimon unyielding power and unfathomable compensation. Dimon, who as board chair presides over the directors who establish his compensation, received a $26.5 million raise from 2009 to 2010.

Now, the AFSCME Employees Pension Plan has stepped in. It filed a shareholder proposal asking JPMorgan to adopt an independent board chair. By doing this, the AFSCME Plan believes that JPMorgan can cure, or at least make a step towards curing, its problems, both ethical and economic.

AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee added, “An independent chair would get JPMorgan executives focused on generation long term value for shareholders, rather than empire-building and big bonuses.”