Pacific Progressive

Offshoring Manufacturing Has Broad Implications for National Security

from the Alliance for American Manufacturing

The Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) announced today that it is partnering with two former Department of Homeland Security officials, former Secretary Tom Ridge and former Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection Colonel Robert B. Stephan, to review the national and homeland security risks posed by the decline of America’s manufacturing base and assess what steps are necessary to ensure adequate domestic production capacity to protect our nation’s security interests.

AAM will publish the findings of this assessment in a report due out at the end of this year, which will include specific recommendations for enhancing national security, preparedness and resiliency through a strong domestic manufacturing sector.

“Ten years have passed since the tragic events of September 11, 2001, and during that time the U.S. has seen the loss of over 50,000 manufacturing plants and over 5.7 million jobs,” said AAM executive director Scott Paul. “This report will raise awareness of the need to rebuild our industrial base to ensure that Americans are safe and secure.”

Paul added, “Both Governor Ridge and Colonel Stephan are eminently qualified to review weaknesses in our domestic manufacturing sector that could inhibit our ability to both prepare for and respond to a terrorist attack or naturally occurring disaster.”

"The AAM report will look at what's working, where gaps still remain and how to address those vulnerabilities," said Ridge. "Such a review is important because although great progress has been made in the ten years since the 9/11 attacks, evolving threats continue to pose risks to U.S. critical infrastructure preparedness and resilience."  

"One key aspect of preventing and mitigating disastrous events is hardening critical infrastructure," said Stephan. "This includes nuclear power plants, refineries, chemical facilities, pipelines, and transportation systems. A robust, diverse, and resilient domestic manufacturing sector is vital to these protective efforts."

The report will also address the risks associated with growing U.S. dependence on a range of manufactured goods, from steel to microchips, that are made in China or other nations. Risks may include protracted delivery times, sub-grade quality and lack of access to necessary materials and components from potentially hostile trading partners. China recently surpassed the U.S. as the leading manufacturing nation – a position held by the U.S. for more than a century.

Tom Ridge is the president and CEO of Ridge Global, an international security and risk management firm headquartered in Washington, DC. He served as the 43rd Governor of Pennsylvania and the first Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. 

Colonel Bob Stephan is managing director of Dutko Global Risk Management and served as the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Infrastructure Protection from 2005 to 2008. In this capacity, he spearheaded development of the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP).

What Role for Labor in the Progressive Uprising? A Conversation With Stephen Lerner

by: Amy Dean, Truthout | Interview

No force did more to build the American middle class than organized labor. In recent decades, however, unions have been decimated. Despite concerted efforts to turn the tide, the movement now represents only 7 percent of workers in the private sector. Never have working people in this country been more in need of a collective voice. Yet, we must ask, can labor alone create the change we need? If it can't do it by itself, what role can unions play in supporting a wider progressive uprising?

Few individuals are offering more interesting, credible and challenging views on this question than veteran labor strategist Stephen Lerner. Ezra Klein recently wrote in The Washington Post: "Ask union types who the smartest labor organizer is and they're likely to point you towards [SEIU] organizer Stephen Lerner, who planned the legendary Justice for Janitors campaign." In the most recent issue of New Labor Forum, Lerner has an essay titled "A New Insurgency Can Only Arise Outside the Progressive and Labor Establishment." It is a must-read for all those who wish to think seriously about creating change in this country.

On a recent trip to Washington, DC, I had a chance to sit down with Lerner on his back porch and have a conversation about his article. I walked away with the resolve that never before has it been so important for labor to have an inside-outside strategy. This means that unions can't just work to get better politicians elected, but must also help foster a wider grassroots insurgency that can directly challenge the forces that have undermined the American middle class.

Ohio Business Roundtable Study of Public Compensation is Flawed

From the Economic Policy Institute.

A recent Ohio Business Roundtable study critiqued a February Economic Policy Institute (EPI) study that found that public sector employees are neither over- nor undercompensated.  In a new paper, Dr. Jeffrey Keefe of Rutgers University, the author of EPI’s paper, explains how the Ohio Business Roundtable study’s analysis is faulty and why its central finding—that Ohio public sector workers are overcompensated by 43%–is wrong.  The study was done for the Ohio Business Roundtable by Andrew G. Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute and Jason Richwine of the Heritage Foundation.

In their study, Biggs and Richwine double count retiree health benefits and inflate the costs of employee pensions, among other errors.  They also create a “job security premium” for public sector workers even though more than 40,000 Ohio public employee jobs have been lost in the last five years.  In addition, Biggs and Richwine use calculations in their study that cannot be replicated.

 

Gas Company Strike Looms - Contract Ends on October 14

Sempra Energy, parent of your local gas company, hasn't signed a new contract with their utility workers even though contract expires  tomorrow.  Representatives of the Utility Workers Union of America say that Sempra wants concessions from the workers - no raises, ending pensions, ending current retiree health care benefits among other items - while giving management paychecks in the tens of millions of dollars.

More details to follow.

Rhee's StudentsFirst Hires Republican Lobbyist to Push Pennsylvania School Privatization Bill

Laura ClawsonFollowforDaily Kos Labor

The Pennsylvania legislature is working on a "school choice" bill—meaning school vouchers and expanded charter schools. Rachel Tabachnik has detailed the network of Betsy DeVos-funded think tanks and PACs that are pushing privatization. But no move to undermine public education that works for all kids would be complete without Michelle Rhee, and Karoli at Crooks and Liars details how Rhee's StudentsFirst has been involved. After a string of Rhee appearances with voucher supporters and at DeVos-funded events, StudentsFirst has hired a lobbyist with some hardcore Republican credentials:

With the Pennsylvania school choice bill still stuck in the ever-grinding gears of legislative activity, Rhee has decided she needs a lobbyist to give it a jumpstart, and that lobbyist is a Republican strategist by the name ofRay Zaborney, former campaign manager for Lynn Swann's gubernatorial bid. Zaborney is also currently advising Republican Tim Burns' bid to unseat Senator Bob Casey in 2012.

[...]

It appears that Zaborney is keeping a low profile on whatever education activities he is undertaking on behalf of  Michelle Rhee. But his prior public statements are anything but ambivalent: He is a full supporter of vouchers, ending teacher tenure and other hot-button issues Rhee advocates.  

Sometimes Rhee likes to pretend her policy agenda is a genuinely bipartisan one. But when the chips are down and you need to get a bill passed that fulfills some of the deepest-seated Republican goals there are, like privatizing public education and letting companies profit off it, best to go with an experienced Republican lobbyist.

 

Ohio's Issue 2 Backers Use Stolen Footage to Make Misleading Ad

Laura ClawsonFollowforDaily Kos Labor

This is about as brazen as it comes. The video above shows two ads in sequence. In the first, from We Are Ohio, a great-grandmother talks about how she's voting no on Issue 2 because "Issue 2 makes it illegal to negotiate for enough fire fighters to do their job"—a job that saved her great-granddaughter's life. And she's right. Issue 2 (also known as SB 5) would strip public workers like firefighters of collective bargaining rights, including the right to bargain for safe staffing levels and the safety equipment they need.

In the second, pro-Issue 2 group Building a Better Ohio actually takes part of this woman's statement about why she is opposing Issue 2, using her voice and the same footage the We Are Ohio ad used, and then adds a voiceover claiming the woman supports Issue 2. In fact, it makes it appear as if her reason for opposing Issue 2 is actually her reason for supporting it.

Plunderbund notes that the misappropriated footage was also spliced onto part of an ad "which the Columbus Dispatch‘s 'Ad Watch' feature had already declared was misleading" even without making this woman appear to take the opposite position she is actually taking. Not only that, this is only an escalation from Building a Better Ohio. Previously,

...they used stock photos to imply support by law enforcement and teachers. Then they passed off a GOP County Party Chairman as an educator’s endorsement. 

It's no wonder that while We Are Ohio has had no trouble finding Ohio residents to talk about why they oppose Issue 2, the bill's supporters have had to repeatedly resort to faking support for their side. But actually using footage from your opponent as if it was your own, not just taking it out of context but 100 percent reversing its meaning? That's not just misleading, it's a full-on dirty trick.

Vote no on Issue 2.

 

Auto Workers Use Social Media to Increase Transparency in Contract Talks

Laura ClawsonFollowforDaily Kos Labor

Union contracts are voted on by the members who will work under them. Contracts, though, are complicated documents and what you know about them can greatly influence how they look. Additionally, most union members are not in the room where contracts are negotiated and can only go on the judgment of their representatives about whether the company might have been willing to bargain a better deal or was really immovable.

The New York Times' Nick Bunkley describes how the internet and social media are changing the information about new contracts to which union members have access, and are offering a place for them to talk, and talk back. Bunkley describes an array of new ways auto workers have had access to information as the UAW has bargained with GM and Ford: When tentative deals have been reached, workers have been able to download copies of the contract rather than relying on in-person briefings; workers have gotten email updates through the negotiation process and union staff have maintained Facebook and Twitter feeds with more limited public information.

Unions have been able to "rebut rumors [...] rather than allowing them to spread unchallenged":

Shortly after a Detroit television station reported that workers would get a signing bonus of $7,500, a message posted on Facebook from Jimmy Settles, the union’s vice president in charge of Ford negotiations, described the report as inaccurate and “designed to intentionally create false expectations.” The finished deal included a bonus of $6,000 for most workers, some of whom had begun posting on Facebook that they would vote against any contract with a bonus of less than $15,000.

Cambridge Moves to Prevent Hotels—Like Hyatt—from Outsourcing Jobs

Laura ClawsonFollowforDaily Kos Labor

One of the very scummiest things Hyatt hotels has done to its workers—and there are more than a few—took place in Boston and Cambridge in 2009, to huge public outcry. Three Hyatts abruptly laid off their longtime housekeeping staff and outsourced their jobs to a subcontractor employing low-wage temps. To add insult to injury, the housekeepers had actually trained their replacements, immediately before learning they were being fired and replaced.

At the time, the manager of another hotel suggested this was a bad move from a customer service perspective:

“We would not [outsource housekeepers] because we want to tightly control the guest experience here and the cleanliness,’’ said managing director Jim Treadway.

Now, the city of Cambridge is taking the same view, and is taking steps to put some force behind it. In a vote more than a year in the making, the Cambridge License Commission has voted to impose a regulation prohibiting hotels from contracting out certain hotel jobs, specifically the ones that have access to guest rooms—a category that should include housekeepers. This move comes not from a labor standpoint but from a guest safety and room cleanliness one.

Unite Here Local 26 President Brian Lang calls the step "fantastic," citing both its labor and consumer aspects. "From our standpoint as an organization that represents hotel workers, and has seen contracting out like Hyatt did, in which folks who have worked 20-plus years get kicked to the curb," he says,

NC Tobacco Workers Face Below-Minimum Wages and Abusive Working and Living Conditions

by Laura Clawson for Daily Kos Labor

Working and living conditions for workers on North Carolina tobacco farms are nothing short of appalling, as portrayed in a new report (PDF) by Oxfam America and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee. Interviewers visited more than 100 labor camps in 5 key North Carolina tobacco farming counties and conducted 86 full interviews with 103 people, speaking to hundreds more along the way. Additionally, they interviewed growers, government officials, and manufacturers.

The North Carolina tobacco workforce is believed to include a higher proportion of undocumented workers than estimates of agricultural work nationally; in line with that, the vast majority of workers Oxfam and FLOC interviewed were undocumented; a few were working on H-2A visas or had permanent legal residency or citizenship.

These vulnerable workers face dangerous conditions on the job, disgusting and unsanitary conditions in their camps, and low wages.

• "Of the 103 interview participants, 22 (about 1 in 4) reported that they were paid less than the minimum wage, one as low as $6 per hour. 51 workers were paid at minimum wage, and only 11 were paid more than the minimum wage."
• For more than a third of workers interviewed, lunch was the only break they got during the work day; only a third reported having access to toilets while in the fields.
• "Sixty-one of the 86 workers interviewed said there was water in the field, but several said they were only allowed to drink it at certain times. Seven workers told interviewers that the water provided was dirty, hot, or often ran out during the day. Three workers said water was only provided sometimes, and three said water is not provided and they have to bring their own."
• Without adequate protective gear, workers are exposed to large amounts of nicotine absorbed through their skin—up to the equivalent of 36 cigarettes on a day when it has rained and the plants are wet. Many suffer green tobacco sickness. "Common symptoms they reported included nausea, vomiting, headaches,
  skin irritation, weakness, dizziness, fatigue, difficulty sleeping, hallucinations,
  and a feeling like being intoxicated."
• Workers were often exposed to pesticides and lacked adequate hand-washing facilities.
• In the living facilities provided by employers, workers faced inadequate toilet and shower facilities, inadequate or absent laundry and cooking facilities, lack of privacy, infestations of bugs and rodents, and worn out or missing mattresses.
• Child labor is common.

With such pervasive abuses, there needs to be in industry-wide reckoning with labor issues, and a dramatic increase in government oversight at both the state and federal levels. As we see time and time again, workers who are vulnerable for whatever reasons—immigrant status, language, race or ethnicity, gender, desperation—get exploited by employers and industries all too willing to take advantage of vulnerability. Giving workers more rights, including the right to organize into unions or gain a collective voice through non-union organizing, and enforcing the rights they have, are the only way to stop these abuses. Growers and manufacturers and other employers aren't going to do it just out of the goodness of their hearts.

(h/t AFL-CIO Now)

 

 

 

The Jobs Case for Conservation- Creating Opportunity Through Stewardship of America’s Public Lands

This material was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Jessica Goad, Christy Goldfuss, Tom Kenworthy

Download this report (pdf)

Download the introduction and summary (pdf)

Read the full report in your web browser (Scribd)

Most Americans know our public lands as the places we go to get away from it all and enjoy ourselves in the outdoors. Whether it is strolling through a national park, hiking in the backcountry, skiing, hunting, fishing, wildlife watching, or going boating, these places provide immense enjoyment. Conservation, however, also has enormous economic value, supporting a specific economy in recreation, restoration, and renewable energy development, all of which support numerous jobs. What’s more, these jobs in outdoor retail, the concessionaire business, outfitters and guides, and the construction industry to repair damaged lands and build renewable energy are frequently located in rural areas.

Americans are feeling the pinch of tough economic times and know that jobs are the key to supporting our families and lifestyles. They know what the August 2011 U.S. unemployment rate of 9.1 percent means to them, whether they have a job or not. And rural America, the location of the majority of public lands, was the hardest hit by the Great Recession, with many rural counties losing more jobs than the national average in late 2009 and early 2010. Rural America began to feel the effects of the recession early on, which was amplified by the fact that 90 percent of the poorest counties in the United States are rural. Luckily, public lands can provide a vast number of jobs that cannot be outsourced.

Huge Disparity in Share of Total Wealth Gain Since 1983

This material was published by the Economic Policy Institute.

Wealth is now lower for the typical household than it was a generation ago in 1983, while the wealth at the upper end has expanded.  As today’s Snapshot illustrates, the richest 5 percent of households obtained roughly 82 percent of all the nation’s gains in wealth between 1983 and 2009. The bottom 60 percent of households had less wealth in 2009 than in 1983, meaning they did not participate at all in the growth of wealth over this period.

National Education Association Advertising in Support of Obama's Jobs Bill

Laura ClawsonFollowforDaily Kos Labor

The Hill reports that the National Education Association will run this ad in support of President Obama's jobs plan in Washington, D.C., Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia, at a total cost of around $350,000.

When Obama's plan was announced, the NEA's president said in a statement that "Our members are behind this initiative and will raise their voices in support to Congress, who will hopefully put politics aside and make passing this its priority." With this ad, the NEA reaches out not only to its own members to encourage their support but to the general public, and emphasizes that this jobs plan will also have a positive impact on kids' experiences in school.

 

Growing Green Jobs in America’s Urban Centers

This material was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Jorge Madrid

Download this issue brief (pdf)

Read the issue brief in your web browser (Scribd)

While leaders in Washington, D.C., search for ways to create jobs and kick-start our struggling economy, urban centers are experiencing steady growth in the green economy, which is creating well-paid jobs in communities that have felt the worst of the recession, particularly those with large numbers of African Americans and Latinos. These urban centers are ideal for growing a strong and equitable driver of new business and jobs.

Defining green jobs and the green economy

The green economy is a sector of the broader economy producing goods and services that provide environmental benefit. This can include clean energy production, energy and water efficient design and construction, mass transit, conservation, waste management, and numerous other industries that are part of a general shift in the way we use and produce energy and eliminate waste.

When Trade Is Out Of Balance Tariffs And Trade Enforcement Equals Jobs

by Dave Johnson

This material was created by the Institute for America's Future.

A new report shows just how many jobs have been lost to "China’s currency manipulation, state-owned enterprises, heavy industrial subsidies, intellectual property theft and piracy, indigenous innovation policies, rare earth mineral export restrictions and other trade-distorting practices," and lets you look at the numbers in each Congressional district.

We have a huge trade imbalance with China, and trade imbalances that aren't as huge with several other countries. What this means is that we are buying from them and they are not buying from us. And that isn't really "trade," is it? The result of this kind of "free trade" has been a terrible bleeding of jobs from our country to countries that don't pay good wages, so they can't buy from us if they wanted to. How can any of this be good for the world economy?

Before "free trade" America had been a nice, big, prosperous market that the world wanted to sell things to. This prosperity was the fruit of our democracy. We, the People have a say here and we demanded good wages, benefits, workplace safety protections, environmental protections and all of this built a prosperous middle class. Everyone in the world wanted to sell into this market, and we were able to get concessions before letting their goods in. If countries exploited their workers we put a tariff on their goods to keep that exploitation from brings them a price advantage. It didn't make sense to make our democracy a competitive advantage on our own store shelves!

Right-to-Work Law Wrong for Michigan’s Economy

This material was published by the Economic Policy Institute.

Michigan should not adopt a right-to-work law in an attempt to address its economic challenges, a new Economic Policy Institute paper finds.  In ‘Right to work’: The wrong answer for Michigan’s economy, political economist Gordon Lafer explains that right-to-work laws do not boost job growth in states that adopt them, and that they lower wages and reduce benefits for both union and non-union workers.  Furthermore, by reducing people’s income, a right-to-work law could have a significantly negative effect on Michigan’s economy.

Right-to-work (RTW) laws make it illegal for employees and employers to negotiate a union contract that requires all employees who benefit from the contract to pay their fair share of the costs of negotiating it.  RTW laws are designed to undermine unions’ bargaining strength, and their primary focus is the manufacturing industry.  Currently, 22 states have RTW laws.

RTW laws have no impact on the performance of state economies.  Seven of the 10 highest-unemployment states are states with RTW laws, including Nevada and Florida, which have unemployment rates higher than Michigan’s unemployment rate of 10.5%, and South Carolina, which also has an unemployment rate of 10.5%.  Factors other than RTW laws, such as major industries and climate, shape states’ economies.