Daily Blog

Taking on Smithfield

    Smithfield Foods is a very ugly company. As the UFCW explains, "Smithfield Foods is the largest pork producer and processor in the world, the fourth largest turkey processor and fifth largest beef processor in the U.S." It has its own police force and jail cell in its Tar Heel, North Carolina processing plant. It has repeatedly violated labor laws to prevent its workers from organizing.

    Which is one reason, in case you are pretty good in the kitchen (I mean you can cook), you should not be buying “It Ain’t All About the Cooking". The author, celebrity chef Paula Deen, is a shill for Smithfield. Yesterday, there was a demonstration outside her book signing in Washington, D.C.:

Paula Deen, the Food Network’s ebullient queen of butter-drenched Southern cooking, has found herself in the middle of a dispute between Smithfield Foods Inc. and a union that has long tried to organize one of the company’s pork processing plants.

As part of a national campaign to win support for its effort, the union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, is trying to get Ms. Deen to sever her ties to Smithfield, for which she has been a paid spokeswoman since last fall.

Within the growing world of food-celebrity endorsements, Ms. Deen is the first personality to have become entangled in such a fight.

The latest round of it took place on Wednesday night at the National Museum of Natural History here, where Ms. Deen, on a national book tour, made an appearance before a sold-out crowd.

    The full story about the campaign is at the UFCW's website. So, when Deen comes to your town, get out there with your pots and pans and make some noise.

      

Are There Four Anti-Union Democratic Senators?

    Supporting the Employee Free Choice Act should be a no-brainer for every Democratic senator. So, we need to ask: why are four Democratic Senators not co-sponsoring the legislation (S1041)? Are they anti-union?

    As of today, every Democratic senator is on-board as a co-sponsor of the bill (as are the two independents, Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman). Yet, as of today, Senators Blanche Lincoln (AK), David Pryor (AK), Ben Nelson (NE) and Ken Salazar (CO) have refused to add their name.

    So, I decided to find out why these four are holding out. I spoke to Jim Stowers, legislative aide for Lincoln.

"She is in the process of listening to folks who have an opinion about the bill. She wants to make sure her constituents have a chance to be heard. She wants to allow people who support the bill and those who oppose the bill to weigh in."

    There was more of that obfuscating and non-responsive replies but I’ll spare you. Tate Heuer from Pryor’s office had a bit more to say:

"It’s become a lot more controversial in our state than it was. Our phones are ringing quite a bit from Arkansans who are opposed to it."

    Heuer admitted that the calls, which he said were 3-1 against the legislation, were predominately coming from the business community, which he says is doing a lot of "grassroots" work. At the end of the day, though, he says his boss will vote for the bill.

    So, why not get out in front? Heuer considers co-sponsorship a "symbolic act."

    By the way, both Lincoln and Pryor had been previous co-sponsors of the legislation when it was introduced in the last Congress.

    An interesting historical parallel: Arkansas politicians have a not-great recent history of  undermining the labor movement (and I’m leaving aside here the not-inconsequential shilling Bill Clinton did for so-called "free trade" starting with his push to pass NAFTA). In 1994, the Senate was within two votes of the 60 needed to cut off a Republican filibuster that was blocking passage of a bill that would have banned the permanent replacement of strikers—an absolutely crucial protection for workers when they are forced to walk off the job. The two Arkansas Senators—Dale Bumpers and David Pryor (Mark’s father) refused to add their names to the cloture vote, dooming the legislation and, arguably, crippling the labor movement for years to come—not to mention depriving thousands of workers their jobs when they were forced to exercise a basic democratic right.

    Nelson and Salazar’s people didn’t bother to return calls.

    My own view: co-sponsorship shows a willingness to stand up, at the head of the pack, declare support for an important issue and, in theory, lead the fight to recruit supporters, both in the Congress and in the public, and pass the bill. Refusing to co-sponsor the EFCA, in particular, is a sign of political cowardice or, worse, collaboration with the business community, which would like to kill the labor movement.

    Even the political motivation seems goofy. Lincoln and Salazar are not up for re-election until 2010, and Nelson was jut re-elected so he’s not facing voters until 2012. Only Pryor comes up in 2008 and, in what should be a strong Democratic year, it makes no sense for him to be cowering behind his desk.

    Some of this boils down to money. The Center for Responsive Politics’ data shows:
• That in the 2005-2006 period, Pryor received half a million dollars in PAC money—just $30,000 of the cash comes from labor, the rest flows in mostly from business PACS.

• Lincoln banked $200,000 from business in 2005-2006, zero from labor; over her political career, 82 percent of her PAC money comes from corporate coffers.

• Given the way Nelson generally votes, this should come as no surprise. Since he was elected in 2000, 77 percent of his PAC money comes from business. In his 2006 re-election campaign, labor accounted for a miniscule $229,000 out of his $2.5 million in PAC dollars.

• Salazar also is very close to business PAC money, taking in $171,825 in 2005-2006, of which just $12,500 came from labor.

    The bottom line is, in fact, the bottom line: none of these four are anxious to alienate their donors.

    But, here is what should, if we were living in a rationale world, make support for the EFCA easy. If Democrats believe in a middle class in America, if the party wants to address the growing gap between rich and poor, the lack of health care and pensions, the insecurity people feel about their jobs—there is no better antidote to those problems than broad unionization.

    There is only one reason tens of millions of workers are not in unions: employer intimidation and illegal behavior. EFCA would end that. And EFCA would be the beginning of the restoration of a decent standard of living.

    As for the action part, call the four senators and ask them to co-sponsor EFCA:

Sen. Mark Pryor: 202-224-2353
Sen. Blanche Lincoln: 202-224-4843
Sen. Ben Nelson: 202-224-5274
Sen. Ken Salazar: 202-224-5852

Dems Can Stand Firm

    I don't think the Democrats have gone far enough in the legislation to end the war. Having said that, there is no reason for the Democratic leadership to give an inch to the madman in the White House. The public stands behind the Democrats on the issue and, apparently, despite Bush's attempt to use the typical absurd Republican rhetoric that pulling out as fast as possible is anti-troops, the public ain't buying, according to a new CNN poll:

Most Americans (72%) say they are closely following the ongoing dispute between President Bush and the Democrats in Congress over proposed timetables for withdrawal -- and a likely Bush veto of the Iraq appropriations bill if it includes such a proposal. Six in ten think that they would wind up siding with the Democrats in this dispute; 37% say they are more likely to take the President's side.

    So, even taking into account that the Democrats are afraid to govern on principle, raw political calculations argues for a tough stand.

A Very Interesting Merger

    Good for Steelworkers president Leo Gerard--from today's Wall Street Journal--

Unions in the U.S. and abroad have been slow to follow companies as they extend their overseas reach. The United Steelworkers and two of Britain's largest unions are considering a daring move to catch up.

The Steelworkers union is expected to sign an agreement tomorrow with Amicus and the Transport and General Workers' Union to explore a merger, the biggest step to date by a U.S. union toward creating a significant global union. Amicus and the United Kingdom transport-workers union, known as T&G, are finalizing a separate merger and will soon represent a total of 2.1 million members in a range of industrial and service sectors in the U.K. The Steelworkers union represents 850,000 workers in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean, in steel, aluminum, paper, tire and rubber and health care, among others industries.

The clout of a new global union is far from certain, given the waning power of organized labor in the U.S. and abroad. A merged union's effectiveness will depend largely on how it is structured, who leads it and how well it can marshal resources against common employers. Structuring the combined organization will be complicated, which is why the unions plan to give themselves 12 months to work out legal, constitutional and structural differences between the unions.

Such a merger comes at a time when unions around the world struggle to respond to globalization, which is pushing down wages and benefits for workers in many Western countries, labor experts say. They note union density has declined throughout much of the industrialized world and unions have been largely ineffective in maintaining wages and benefits when employers open new operations in different parts of the world. Talks between the unions were reported by the Times of London earlier this month.

    The rest of the story for subscribers only is here. How you deal with marauding transnational corporations is a tough question, and the answers are no less easy. But, at least, this acknowledges the challenge and may even provide some new leverage. At least Leo is trying.

Years Late But A Sign

    The crumbling of so-called "free trade" has got to be near when you read The Wall Street Journal and learn that "Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain will use his campaign's first big economic speech today to talk about downsides of free trade." Apparently, McCain will "acknowledge that open markets have resulted in pain for some individuals whose jobs are being eliminated or sent overseas..." Of course, McCain's response is classic: retraining.

     Retraining has been a bi-partisan failure. The problem is that retraining has simply set people up for a failure because they can't find jobs that pay anywhere near what they made before. The solution is not retraining--it's a different conception of how to set up the rules of the global economy. But, it does say something that McCain feels compelled to even acknowledge that something is amiss.

Exploited Delivery People

    Today, Steve Greenhouse has a good story in The New York Times about the struggle of many food delivery workers to get a decent wage.

They can usually be seen pedaling madly on Manhattan streets, often against traffic, rushing to satisfy New Yorkers’ capacious appetites for cold sesame noodles and General Tso’s chicken.

Yu Guan Ke, who started working for Saigon Grill a decade ago, says he was paid $120 in wages for 75-hour weeks as a deliveryman.

But nowadays these restaurant deliverymen can increasingly be seen standing defiantly on the city’s sidewalks, hoisting protest signs and shouting that they should be paid the minimum wage.

Call it the deliverymen’s rebellion. These workers, almost all of them immigrants from China, have picketed several Saigon Grill, Ollie’s and Our Place outlets, accusing these well-known Asian restaurants of paying them as little as $1.40 an hour, far less than the federal and state minimum wage. The workers have filed federal wage lawsuits in Manhattan against those restaurant companies, and their advocates say they will soon sue a dozen other restaurants in the city.

“The conditions are pretty bad in all the restaurants, so there’s no real advantage to switch to another restaurant,” said Yu Guan Ke, a deliveryman who said Saigon Grill usually paid him just $120 in wages for his 75-hour weeks. “Before we would accept whatever wages they would give us, but now we see we should stand up for what we’re entitled to under the law.”

    The rest is here.

Jim Jontz Remembered

    I don't know how many people out there worked with or knew Jim Jontz. He was a long-time activist who worked in the trenches of labor and politics for a long, long time...Jim died today of cancer. Here is what Americans For Democratic Action sent out:

It is with profound sorrow that I announce the death today of Jim Jontz.  As many but not all of you know,  Jim has been battling cancer for more than two years now.  Today he lost that fight and we are all diminished.  For me personally, this is the loss of a friend of more than 20 years.  I have known him as a young state legislator, a Member of Congress, an activist, ADA president, mentor, advisor, leader of Working Families Win and so much more.  Each of you will have similar memories. 

The past two weeks have, in many ways, been harder on us than on Jim.  He was in no pain and was surrounded by family.  You will not be surprised to know that he worked until he literally could not.  We have committed to him that his work will continue and we will live up to that commitment.

His sister tells me that he has designated the ADA Education Fund for contributions.  These contributions are tax deductible and will be dedicated to Working Families Win's educational activities.

    For a short period of time, Jim was active in the National Writers Union, trying to bring his expertise to the work of organizing independent writers. I got to know him back then and, most recently, I've been serving with him on the advisory board of United Professionals. He will really be missed.

    Here's another story from The Indianapolis Star.

We Are Not Getting Our Share

    A few days, I got a report from the good folks at the Center for Economic and Policy Research on a topic that hasn't gotten the attention it should--the break between productivity and wages. CEPR's report focuses on looking at productivity and how that relates to wage growth and income inequality. Some of the conclusions:

From 1973 to 2006, the rate of total economy productivity growth has been 0.3 percentage points less than the rate of productivity growth in the non-farm business sector. This is due to the fact that reported productivity growth in the government, household, and institutional sectors is considerably lower than the rate of productivity growth reported for the non-farm business sector.

There has been a growing gap between gross output and net output in the years since 1973 as an increasing share of GDP goes to replace worn-out capital goods. Only net output can raise living standards, since the portion of output that goes to replacing depreciated capital equipment cannot directly affect living standards. A net measure of annual productivity growth is nearly 0.2 percentage points lower than a gross measure for the years from 1973-2006. By contrast, the two measures were nearly identical over the period from 1947 to 1973 as the share of output going to depreciation changed little over this period.

The consumption deflator used to measure real wages has shown a much higher rate of inflation than the output deflator used to measure productivity growth. This is due to the fact that the price of many consumer goods and services, like health care and education, have risen more rapidly than investment goods like computers.

If the U.S. economy could have sustained its 1948-73 rate of productivity growth it would be more than 80 percent larger today. This could have allowed for major increases in incomes and/or more leisure time.

    The rest of the report is here.

A New Home/Look For Working Life

    Working Life is moving...sort of...and it's a great development for all of you. If you go to www.workinglife.org you will now see that the site has been re-launched as a project of Labor Research Association.

    The best thing about this--you can have your own blogs. That's right, the thousands of people who visit this site regularly can now have their own way to blog about the issues you want to talk about. Boy, makes my life easier, too--you know how many people say "why don't you write about this?" Well, right back at ya, friends--why don't YOU blog about THAT!!!

    So, have it. This particularly site will still be around for a bit but I'm going to likely repost blogs here and workinglife.org

    See you over there!

More On China and Workers

    From today's Wall Street Journal, we learn some more about the tensions building in China over working conditions and labor rights.

China Clears
McDonald's,
Yum on Pay

By GORDON FAIRCLOUGH
April 11, 2007; Page A7

SHANGHAI -- Provincial authorities in China cleared U.S. fast-food-restaurant companies McDonald's Corp. and Yum Brands Inc. of allegations they underpaid student workers, but the officials called for changes in the nation's laws to improve wages and working conditions under all employers.

Officials in southern China's Guangdong province started an investigation into pay practices at the McDonald's chain and at Yum's KFC and Pizza Hut chains last month after a newspaper in Guangzhou, the provincial capital, reported that the companies were illegally undercompensating student workers.

The Guangdong Labor and Social Security Bureau said in a statement that it had cleared the companies because, under national law, students are exempt from minimum-wage and other labor regulations. The bureau said it was continuing to look into whether nonstudent part-time workers in Guangdong had proper contracts and working hours. If laws were violated, "it will be dealt with in a serious manner," the bureau said.

    There is more of the article at the Journal website (which is subscription only). I discussed this last week. Yesterday, The New York Times reported that McDonald's had actually agreed to allow unions in its stores in China. Here are some of the most interesting points:

While unions have been around here for a long time, mostly in state-owned companies, experts say that they have traditionally been weak in China. In many cases, they work in tandem with management, particularly in state-run companies. They have not been known to challenge management or to bargain for higher pay. More often than not, experts say, the unions have been used by management to coordinate employee activities.

But recently, union leaders have promised to fight for workers. And last year, the country’s biggest union won a significant victory by forcing Wal-Mart to allow unions in all 62 of its stores here.

Now, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions says its goal by the end of this year is to have unions active in 70 percent of the foreign-invested companies operating here.

    And...

One indication of the union’s growing power in China is its role in helping prepare a new draft labor law, which is expected to pass this year. The labor law could give unions greater power.

That prospect is creating tension between American and European multinationals and the country’s labor leaders and labor rights activists.

    All this bears watching. There is tremendous tension within the Chinese worker community over the growing divide between rich and poor as China's growth continues to soar. And it is ironic, to put it mildly, to see companies like Wal-Mart and McDonald's accept unions in China, while fighting them tooth-and-nail here. Shows you what a little government intervention can do.