Cross-Trade Solidarity

For local rank and file news be sure to check this out. The Cross-trade group have published their first newsletter and this blog has made it down-loadable in pdf. format.
Cross-Trade Solidarity is a Portland activist group dedicated to building unity among building trades unionists. We believe that the pressures and struggles each local faces are similar and that these issues could be better tackled by all the trades fighting together.
For more info on Cross-Trade down-load the newsletter HERE. or check them out on Facebook HERE

A nice sumary of union history to contemplate.

In 1886, at a meeting of members of various trade union representatives in Chicago, the American Federation of Labor was formed. Cigar maker Samuel Gompers was elected president, and J.P. McGuire of the Brotherhood of Carpenters was elected secretary. The AFL now represented by far the largest number of workers, with 25 unions and 300,000 members. As struggles for better working conditions, livable wages, and a shorter workweek from the mines of Pennsylvania to the factories of Illinois, allowed the AFL to 1,700,000 members in it's first ten years. By the 1930's, some AFL leaders recognized the need for industrial unions, and formed the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1935. The CIO increasingly organized mass production workers such as auto workers and steel workers. Throughout the 30's, both the AFL and CIO continued to gain membership, and were able to win many rights for US workers including the right to join a union, the right to workplace safety, and the right to overtime pay. On Dec. 5th 1955, the AFL and CIO decided to reunite into one big union, and elected George Meany as their president.
The formation of the AFL came on the heels of the fight for the eight hour day, which culminated on May 1st 1886 with hundreds of thousands of American workers participating in strikes and demonstrations demanding a federal eight hour day. At a rally in Chicago, Illinois in Haymarket Square, several demonstrators were killed and many more wounded when an explosion went off in the crowd and police subsequently opened fire. Eight anarchists were arrested and charged for causing the explosion and four were executed by the state of Illinois. These four became known as the Haymarket Martyrs, and May 1 st became the international celebration of workers day, commemorating the fight for the 8 hour day. It also became a commemoration of the Haymarket Martyrs and an example of the violence the US government is willing to use against us.
One example of the US government's willingness to engage in violence on behalf of bosses was the Pullman Strike of 1894, lead by Eugene Debbs. "Workers in the non­AFL affiliated American Railroad Union struck their manufacturing plant in Pullman Illinois, calling for ~ boycott of all their railroad cars. Within a week, 125,000 railroad workers had joined them in solidarity, including many AFL members. The immediate response of the government was to bring 3,400 armed strikebreakers to put down the strike, and then to mobilize Federal troops. 34 railway workers were killed. When the strikers still did not return to work, the federal government issued an injunction forcing railroad workers back to work. The injunction became a popular weapon for bosses to use
. against their workers, using the threat of fines, jail time, and even death to undercut organizing efforts.
The sit-down strike was one tactic employed by union members that won several gains for US workers. The tactic was first used in Flint, Michigan by the United Auto Workers in December, 1936. Workers in the factory instead of walking out and allowing strike breakers to re-open the plant, simply stayed inside, refusing to leave their machines. Outside, the Women's auxiliary and other supporters provided food and defense for the striking workers. General Motors was forced to recognize the union, and the sit-down became popular worldwide for it's effectiveness and low levels of violence: as factory owners were reluctant to attack their own property. "Unfortunately: because it was so successful, the sit-down strike was outlawed in the US in 1939 by the Supreme Court.

Care to share some union history-
email: patfr.respect@yahoo.com

Your Legal Rights Online.

Cyber-Democracy for Unionists: Your Legal Rights Online.

Democracy makes unions stronger. The key to union democracy is an educated, informed, and active membership. Fortunately, you have legal rights that protect internal union activity, including activity that takes place online. This summary describes your rights under a Federal Law: the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) as they apply to online activism.

1. The Right to Participate in Your Union

You have the right as a union member to participate in union affairs, including meetings and elections. This means you have the right to:

* participate in official union chat groups or discussion lists,
* participate in elections: run for office, vote, and observe the vote count (there are other important election rights),
* equal access to union publications -- including union e-mail lists, web sites, listserves, and e-mail publications -- in election campaigns,
* due process if you are disciplined by the union.

NOTE: It is illegal for the union or the employer to retaliate against you, or threaten you, for exercising your rights under the LMRDA. Participation in union activities is subject to reasonable rules and procedures.

2. The Right to Essential Information

As a union member, you have the right to certain types of information, much of which is available online:

* Copies of annual financial reports, including the LM-2 forms, available from the Office of Labor Management Standards--OLMS,
* Copies of union contracts and side agreements that affect your job,
* Copies of the union constitution and bylaws.

NOTE: You are free to publish and distribute, in print and electronic form, the information in the reports and documents described above.

3. The Right to Free Speech

Your right to free speech about union affairs (in the union and in public) is very broad and includes e-mail and web speech. You are free to:

* criticize (or praise) union policies, officers, staff, or candidates,
* discuss union policies and issues,
* write about, draw cartoons about, sing about, etc. union representatives,
* complain, protest, demand and advocate.

NOTE: You can be disciplined if you advocate "decertifying" -- leaving the union, or changing unions -- or for violations of the union constitution that are not otherwise protected by the law.

4. The Right to Free Assembly

Like your rights to free speech, your rights to organize with your coworkers are very broad. Among other things, you can:

* form a committee or a caucus,
* meet on or offline without official union permission or participation,
* set up a website, blog, discussion list, newsletter, chat room, or other online publication or forum,
* limit access to all or parts of your site to members of your committee,
* link to other websites, organizations, and unions (including your own),
* take collective action to influence the union (online pickets, PDF flyers, e-mail petitions, web sites, etc.).

*************************************************************************************

ARBITRATION




The rank/file painters of local ten need answers! We've been in the dark for five months about what's going on in our arbitration. There are things we can do as rank/file members under arbitration, but first we should at least know where we stand. Let's make our voices heard!

"UPDATE" News about union support for single-payer health care and HR 676

Three Maine Labor Councils Call on AFL-CIO Convention to Endorse HR 676
and Call for March On Washington

"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Three Labor Councils in Maine, Southern, Western and Central, have
followed the lead of the Maine State AFL-CIO in calling on the national
AFL-CIO September Convention to endorse HR 676 and educate and mobilize
for its passage.

The resolution passed by the 3 councils urges that the AFL-CIO Convention:
“…pursue the passage of HR 676, the ‘United States National Health Care
Act’ to meet the needs of our members, our families, and all America, and
not endorse or support any fallback program of mandated insurance which
includes the wasteful, for-profit insurance industry….”

The resolution further calls on the AFL-CIO to “...help organize and
financially support a ‘Healthcare is a Human right’ Solidarity March and
Rally in Washington, DC.”

Chris Teret, President of the Southern Council said: “The Southern Maine
Labor Council realizes that the fundamental principle of labor is
solidarity—an injury to one is an injury to all. For that reason, the
labor movement can’t support any health care system except one that
includes everybody, no exceptions. We know the insurance companies are
the problem and we’re ready to see them gone….”

The Troy Area Labor Council initiated the campaign to get resolutions
urging support of HR 676 sent to the AFL-CIO Convention which meets in
Pittsburgh September 14-17. The sample resolution and information on how
to submit a resolution are at: http://pefencon.info/HR676/Resolution.htm

Convention resolutions can be submitted at
resolutions-amendments@aflcio.org. The deadline for submitting
resolutions is Aug. 14th. #30#

HR 676 would institute a single payer health care system by expanding a
greatly improved Medicare system to everyone residing in the U. S.

HR 676 would cover every person for all necessary medical care including
prescription drugs, hospital, surgical, outpatient services, primary and
preventive care, emergency services, dental, mental health, home health,
physical therapy, rehabilitation (including for substance abuse), vision
care, hearing services including hearing aids, chiropractic, durable
medical equipment, palliative care, and long term care.

HR 676 ends deductibles and co-payments. HR 676 would save hundreds of
billions annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the
private health insurance industry and HMOs.

In the current Congress, HR 676 has 83 co-sponsors in addition to Conyers.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has introduced SB 703, a single payer bill
in the Senate.

HR 676 has been endorsed by 540 union organizations in 49 states including
128 Central Labor Councils and Area Labor Federations and 39 state
AFL-CIO's (KY, PA, CT, OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD, NC, MO,
MN, ME, AR, MD-DC, TX, IA, AZ, TN, OR, GA, OK, KS, CO, IN, AL, CA, AK, MI,
MT, NE, NY, NV & MA).

For further information, a list of union endorsers, or a sample
endorsement resolution, contact:

Kay Tillow
All Unions Committee For Single Payer Health Care--HR 676
c/o Nurses Professional Organization (NPO)
1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218
Louisville, KY 40217
(502) 636 1551
Email: nursenpo@aol.com
http://unionsforsinglepayerHR676.org
06/24/09

June Union Metting

Getting ready for another Union Meeting, Here is a little insight on what will be submitted as an action for the next meeting.

This is the effort of brother Travis Giobbi and is self explanatory:


Resolution Endorsing Single Payer Universal Health Care
May 20, 2009


Whereas: Health care in the United States is a national disgrace and in the throes of a crisis of cost, accessibility and quality; and

Whereas: Health insurance premiums skyrocketed over 10% in 2008 and more than 80% of all employers increased employee co-payments and premium contributions; and

Whereas: These increases have helped sustain a climate of concessionary bargaining, pushing down wages, and shifting more and more of the costs on to the backs of workers; and

Whereas: The employment-based system of health coverage puts benefits at risk every time workers face a layoff or change jobs; and

Whereas: More and more friends, neighbors and family members have no health coverage at all as the number of uninsured U.S. residents climbs past 47 million; and

Whereas: Workers in the U.S. pay more for healthcare than in any other country in the world and yet rank 28th in infant mortality, 24th in life expectancy; and

Whereas: A just health care in the system would provide cradle-to-grave coverage for all U.S. residents with free choice of doctors, hospitals and clinics; now

Therefore, Let It Be Resolved: That the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, Local 10, stands in solidarity with our brothers and sisters across the country, in over 500 unions, and unequivocally advocate, educate and organize around the following principles:

1. Access to comprehensive health care is a human right. It is the responsibility of society, through its government, to assure this right. Coverage should not be ties to employment. Private insurance companies’ past record disqualifies them from a central role in managing health care.

2. The right to choose and change one’s own physician is fundamental to patient autonomy. Patients should be free to seek care from any licensed health care professional.

3. Pursuit of profit and personal fortune has no place in care giving and they create enormous waste. The U.S. already spends enough to provide comprehensive health care to all residents with no increase in total costs. However, the vast health care resources now squandered on bureaucracy (due mostly to efforts to divert costs to other payers or onto patients themselves), profits and marketing must be shifted to actual care.

4. In a democracy, the public should set overall health policies. Personal medical decisions must be made by patients with their caregivers, not by corporate or government bureaucrats; and



Let it Be Finally Resolved: That the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, Local 10, supports and urges our federal and state legislators to enact legislation that embodies the principles of a national single-payer health care system, currently HR 676, and that a copy of this resolution is sent to the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 5 and the AFL-CIO Executive Council to pass similar resolutions.

Let’s make our voices heard and demand fair contracts!

United for Oregon March: Sunday June 7

Bring your family and friends! We will form up at the Eastbank Esplanade near OMSI (between Main & Taylor on the West side of Water Avenue) at 11:30 am, march across the Hawthorne Bridge starting at 1 pm, and gather at Terry Schrunk Plaza (3rd Avenue at Madison in downtown Portland) for a rally at 2 pm.

Saturday Workshop -"Exploring Union Democracy".

Hi all,

This event is going too be awesome. its a work shop on rank-and file unionism for folks in the building trades, alot of the work we are doing in local ten is the same work they are about. It will be a great opportunity to get some ideas and too share ours. Ive been to a couple of their meetings and i think everybody in respect will dig it. Hope to see everybody Saturday.

Saturday, May 30th, 2009
9 am to 4pm
Liberty Hall
311 N. Ivy St.
Portland, Oregon.

WAGE FREEZE

WAGE FREEZE?


This so called "freeze" does not take into account our possible health benefit cost increase, nor reflect rising inflation. Our take home pay would decrease with this proposed wage freeze.

We need to gather our solidarity and let union contractors know that we will not accept a further diminished wage, especially in the paint trade where our wages have limped in a stagnant form for close to 20 years.

The painters deserve the same respected fair contract for their labor as our fellow allied trades

TAPERS
FLOOR COVERERS
GLAZIERS

All walked away from contract negotiation without a wage freeze, and actually increased there wage.

Union Wage Comparisons- Feb. 2009

As the Chart lays out, Local 10 painters are caged into a stagnant, broken wage system that is sadly far below our brothers and sisters in the Northwest Building Trades. As Local 10 members, let's give our democratically elected negotiating team the backing and support to win a contract rank-and-file members of local 10 can be proud of.

Members should attend the upcoming labor and negotiating subcommittee meetings. More information on these meetings will be coming out soon.

Plumbers: $36.00/hr

Electricians: $35.65/hr

Glaziers: $32.60/hr

Carpenters: $32.40/hr

Tapers: $31.86/hr

Laborers: $26.15/hr

Painters: $19.68/hr

Teamsters Rebellion

Join together for talk and discussion

The Book "Teamsters Rebellion"

The Author " Farrell Dobbs "

Thursday, March 5th 6:45p.m. PSU
Smith Center Room 229