Published By AMERICAN INCOME LIFE & NATIONAL INCOME LIFE LETTER LABOR ADVISORY BOARD SEPTEMBER 2015 Vol. 47 No. 5 NEWS FROM THE Dodd-Frank financial law. “At a time when 300 times in 2013, according to an analysis AFL-CIO, CTW, corporate profits are near an all-time high last year by the Economic Policy Institute. and income inequality is growing, employ- INTERNATIONAL & ees and shareholders have a right to know A coalition of unions recently NATIONAL UNIONS whether companies are padding the wal- negotiated the first-ever national tentative lets of executives at the cost of workers and settlement with the American Red Cross Five presidential candidates the company’s bottom line,” said Teamsters for 4,000 health care workers in 24 states. met with the nation’s top union leaders at Secretary-Treasurer Ken Hall. “It’s time Union members will have until October 2 the AFL-CIO Executive Council meet- we learn from the past failings that helped to approve the agreement. The coalition in- ing in Washington, D.C. in July. They are cause the Great Recession.” AFL-CIO Pres- cludes the Teamsters, American Federation Senators Bernie Sanders, Jim Webb, and ident Richard Trumka said the rule will al- of State, County and Municipal Employees, Hillary Clinton, and Governors Martin low shareholders to determine whether CEO American Federation of Teachers (HPAE O’Malley, all Democrats, and Republican pay is out of balance in comparison to what a and Oregon Nurses), Communications Mike Huckabee. “We are grateful to them company pays its workers. “We hope this rule Workers of America, United Auto Work- for making the time to talk with the elected will help investors make sound decisions ers, United Food & Commercial Workers, representatives of 12.5 million working men when they vote on executive compensation United Steelworkers and Service Employ- and women in America,” said AFL-CIO packages,” he said. Fifty years ago, chief ex- ees. “This agreement is a good example of head Richard Trumka. “The issues America ecutives were paid roughly 20 times as much what organized labor can do by working faces are daunting, eclipsed only by our re- as their employees, compared with nearly together to address the wages, benefits and solve to address them and put our country on a new path of shared prosperity. That path is embodied in our Raising Wages agenda, which would rewrite our economic rules to put working people first – and keep them there.” According to union sources, candidates were questioned in individual sessions about trade policy, how they will make the economy fairer for working fami- lies, supporting and strengthening collective bargaining and other issues. In a move hailed by America’s unions, the Securities and Exchange Com- mission (SEC) approved in a 3-to-2 vote a rule that would require most public com- panies for the first time to regularly reveal the pay gap between top executives and rank-and-file workers. The CEO pay ra- Washington, D.C. rally to raise the minimum wage. Flickr.com photo used under Creative Commons tio rule is required under the five-year-old from uusc4all. TERRY O'SULLIVAN, President - Laborers International Union of North America, Chairman - AIL/NILICO Labor Advisory Board VICTOR KAMBER, Vice President - American Income Life Insurance Company, Executive Director - AIL/NILICO Labor Advisory Board ROGER SMITH, President & Chief Executive Officer - American Income Life Insurance Company, President - AIL/NILICO Labor Advisory Board DENISE BOWYER, Vice President - American Income Life Insurance Company, Secretary - AIL/NILICO Labor Advisory Board Pg 2 LABOR LETTER working conditions of the unionized work- INTERNATIONAL Myanmar’s upscale Bagan Ho- force at the Red Cross,” said James Hoffa, tel River View, operated by KMA Hotels Teamsters General President. LABOR NEWS Group, is the target of a worldwide cam- paign for human and union rights viola- Represented by the Communi- United Kingdom’s UNISON tions. Management on March 7 terminated cations Workers of America and the Inter- public service union warned that govern- the jobs of five union supporters in an at- national Brotherhood of Electrical Work- ment plans to restrict trade union rights tempt to crush the legally registered trade ers, 39,000 Verizon workers along the East are “a strikebreaker’s charter,” which would union and later refused to reinstate them Coast continued to work beyond the August undermine the basic civil rights of work- after decisions issued in April and May by 2 expiration of their current contract and ing people. UK’s conservative government arbitration councils. While the company vowed to “continue their fight for a fair agree- recently announced what is called the big- appeals the rulings, job applicants are be- ment while on the job.” Union bargainers left gest crackdown on trade union rights for ing screened about their union sympathies the sites of round-the-clock bargaining in 30 years. The government plans to crimi- and pressured to discourage employees from Philadelphia and Rye, NY, where union and nalize picketing, permit employers to hire joining the union, and senior workers have management teams had been meeting since strike-breaking agency staff and choke been pressured to retire and only allowed to June 22. “Despite our best efforts, Verizon re- off the flow of union funds to the Labour continue their employment after obtaining fuses to engage in serious bargaining towards party. “This is a real attack on people’s ba- a doctor’s certificate. The company has up to a fair contract,” said Dennis Trainor, Vice sic human rights,” said UNISON General two years to appeal the decisions. President for CWA District One, which rep- Secretary Dave Prentis. “And this from resents Verizon workers in New Jersey, New the party which is trying to rebrand itself South Korean General Motors’ York and Massachusetts. The unions charged as the workers’ party.” He pledged that workers approved a wage deal that will raise Verizon did not significantly move off its UNISON would work with other trade the basic monthly wage by 83,000 won “outrageous initial bargaining demands,” unions but also with community groups ($71) and pay each worker 10.5 million which include increasing workers’ health and other civil liberties campaigns in the won in bonuses and incentives. The con- care costs, reducing overtime and differential broadest-based alliance to fight the pro- tract settlement averts a strike for a second payments, eliminating job security and other posals. The campaign will build towards consecutive year. According to the union regressive proposals. CWA also is in tough a national demonstration in Manchester spokesman, GM Korea has agreed to make bargaining with AT&T on behalf of 28,000 during Conservative Party Conference on next-generation Chevrolet Malibu sedans AT&T Southeast workers in nine southern October 4 and a mass lobby of Parliament on the second production line at its Bupy- states whose contract expired August 8. on November 2. eong plant as part of the deal. Labor costs have increased nearly 50 percent for GM over the past five years as workers have de- manded a greater share of the company’s re- cord profits. The Detroit carmaker has four plants in South Korea, three assembling vehicles and one building transmissions. Together, they account for nearly one-fifth of GM’s global output. The company faced pressure from workers who refused to work overtime and staged a partial strike over pay prior to the final settlement. A cut in funding by Australia’s federal government threatens the jobs of 17 nurses at three Alpine Health hospitals in north-east Victoria, charged the nurses’ union, Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation. The union said the Victorian government has boosted Alpine Health’s funding by $396,000, to almost $14 mil- lion, and called on the federal government to at least match the increase in state spend- ing. According to the union’s Lisa Fitzpat- CWA and IBEW rally at Verizon Headquarters. Flickr.com photo used under Creative Commons rick, several meetings with Alpine Health from Eileen White. revealed that a cut in federal funding is at LABOR LETTER Pg 3 the core of its proposal to restructure the a “national policy agenda that protects the in the digital realm. They are finding innova- service. “I’m also very grateful the local right of every American to a fair criminal tive ways to reach people, to inform, to en- Member (of Parliament) Cathy McGowan justice system” as well as “uninterrupted and tertain and to engage,” said Lowell Peterson, has raised our concerns at a federal level unfettered access to the ballot box.” AFL- Executive Director of the Writers Guild of because Alpine Health, like every other fa- CIO President Richard Trumka added his America, East. VICE Media is one of the cility in the state, isn’t just reliant on state voice to those praising the Voting Rights biggest digital media firms to be organized funding, it’s also reliant on Federal Govern- Act. “Political extremists are working to chip while unions have made steady gains in re- ment funding. I’m hopeful that the Federal away at the protections the law provides and cent months organizing workers at digital Government will back down in relation to threaten millions of voters’ access to the ballot media sites. In June, 118 writers at Gawker its reduction in funding,” said Fitzpatrick. box,” he warned. “I join President Obama Media joined the Writers Guild of America, in urging Congress to restore the Voting East. They were followed in July by 26 edito- Rights Act to ensure that we as a country rial staffers at Salon.com. NewsGuild-CWA NATIONAL AND go forward, not backwards, in protecting recently organized The Guardian US’s 45 POLITICAL EVENTS the right of every American to cast a vote.” newsroom employees.