Labor Resolution in Solidarity with the People of Oaxaca

Labor Resolution in Solidarity with the People of
Oaxaca

[Note: The following resolution was adopted unanimously
by the Delegates Meeting of the San Francisco Labor
Council on Monday, November 13, 2006.]

Resolution in Solidarity with the People of Oaxaca

Whereas, 70,000 teachers in the State of Oaxaca, Mexico
-- organized in Section 22 of the National Teachers
Union (SNTE) -- went on strike in May 2006 demanding
that all teachers across the State receive wage
increases and wage parity, and that all school children
be provided with shoes, breakfast and uniforms to go to
school; and

Whereas, in June 2006, the government of the State of
Oaxaca, led by Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, unleashed
the first brutal attack against the strike encampments
set up by teachers and their supporters; death squads
working with state authorities assassinated striking
teachers; and

Whereas, the people of Oaxaca -- through their labor,
community, political, religious and indigenous
organizations -- then rallied behind the teachers and
formed a Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca
(APPO) to urge the authorities to meet the strikers'
just and legitimate demands, and, with the Teachers, to
demand the resignation of Governor Ruiz. At that point
it became not only a teachers' strike, but a powerful
people's strike for justice and against violent
repression; and

Whereas, on October 29, 2006, the Federal government of
President Vicente Fox sent in 4500 special troops to
tear down the barricades and many of the encampments
that the Teachers and people of Oaxaca had created to
defend their strike; and

Whereas, Mexicans across the political spectrum have
commented on the not-so-behind-the-scenes role of the
U.S. Embassy. The Bush-appointed U.S. Ambassador Tony
Garza stated on October 28 that the Fox administration
had delayed too long, and needed to send in Federal
troops to Oaxaca. An hour later Fox announced his
decision to send in troops, which he implemented the
following day; and

Whereas, over the first six months of struggle in
Oaxaca, more than 20 people have been killed, including
a north American video journalist, and hundreds wounded
by troops, police and paramilitary forces. Hundreds
have been "disappeared" (many of them feared dead). And
many hundreds of union and community activists have
been jailed. Yet the popular forces in their hundreds
of thousands have continued to march.

Therefore Be It Resolved, that the San Francisco Labor
Council, AFL-CIO, joins with labor and democratic
rights organizations in Mexico and around the world in
urging the federal and state governments in Mexico to
seek every avenue to a peaceful solution to the
conflict in Oaxaca; and

Be it Further Resolved, that we urge the Mexican
authorities to settle the conflict by meeting the
legitimate demands put forward by the teachers and the
Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca, including:
(1) Immediate withdrawal of all troops and paramilitary
units from the city and state of Oaxaca, (2) Stop the
repression and state-sponsored killings, (3) Removal
from office of Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, instigator
of the reign of terror, (4) Release all detainees and
political prisoners, and (5) Governor Ruiz and others
responsible must be brought to justice.

Be it Finally Resolved, that we forward these demands
to our Labor Councils, National Unions, State
Federations, AFL-CIO and Change to Win Federation,
urging them to embrace these demands and to act in
solidarity with the teachers and popular movement of
Oaxaca.

(Resolution submitted by Dave Welsh, NALC #214; Alan
Benjamin, OPEIU #3; and Frank Martin del Campo, LCLAA)

http://www.sflaborcouncil.org/

_____________________________________________

San Mateo County Talks Continue

The contracts for county social workers, maintenance workers, accountants, pharmacists, carpenters, librarians and office support staff, among others represented by AFSCME Local 829 and SEIU Local 715, expired Nov. 4 without an agreement, while negotiations have been ongoing since August, Sullivan said.

According to Bledsoe, union officials are particularly concerned with "the disparity between management and line workers'' in retirement health benefits.

"We're looking for a realistic dollar amount and to be able to keep up with inflation,'' Bledsoe said.

The county is offering an increase in retiree health benefits from $165 per month to $440 per month, while the union is asking for the $440 monthly contribution to increase by 5 percent each year, which Bledsoe says is still less than inflationary increases and dwarfed by current management health benefits.

"We think we're making a modest proposal compared to lavish management benefits,'' she said.

If county and union negotiators are able to bridge that gap, Bledsoe believes negotiations on salary differences will follow suit.

California State University Faculties [includes Librarians] to Protest

Fed up with rising fees, executive perks and what they describe as unfair bargaining practices, a contingent of staff, students and faculty of California State University, Dominguez Hills will march on the CSU trustees meeting Wednesday in Long Beach.

Over 1000 are expected to rally.

CSU Faculty Plans Massive Protest

As many as 1,000 California State University faculty members are expected to rally Wednesday at the Board of Trustees meeting in Long Beach to protest what they say are misplaced priorities of university administration.

Union officials say administrators are spending too much money on executives and arent doing enough to fight soaring fees that are making it hard for students to stay in school or to address sagging faculty and staff salaries.

"We believe that they have not been representing the real and true needs of the CSU and that they misallocated the resources on things like transitional pay programs for top executives and other expenses,"

------ said John Travis, a Humboldt State University professor who is president of the California Faculty Association.

The university and union, which represents 22,000 teachers, librarians, coaches and counselors at CSU's 23 campuses, are at an impasse in contract negotiations that started 18 months ago. Some sticking points are salary and workload issues.

Travis said the rally — which he believes will be the largest ever organized in the CSU — transcends contract issues.

Émile Boudreau- Quebec Trade Union Movement-1915-2006

Fonds Émile Boudreau,
Université du Québec à Montréal, the repository of
Boudreau's papers:

From a discussion list:

Émile Boudreau, one of the outstanding leaders of the Quebec trade-union movement in the last century, died on Monday in Montréal, aged 90. Émile was a leader of many of the major industrial union battles that led to the formation of the largest, most militant and radical labour movement in Canada in the Sixties and Seventies. He was a socialist and, from the late 1960s, a supporter of Quebec independence.

Of Acadian origin, Émile Boudreau was active at various times in the CCF-NDP, the Parti Socialiste du Québec (where I got to know him), and later the Parti québécois, which he left in 1973 after unsuccessfully attempting to make it a labour party. It was only when I read his obituaries that I learned he had started his political involvement, in the 1940s, as a member of the Social Credit party!


As the materials below indicate, Émile was a prolific writer and advocate on behalf of injured workers. A forestry worker and later miner in Abitibi, he began his union career in a company union that he and other workers transformed into a Steelworkers local. He worked on the Steelworkers' staff for many years as an organizer. He was a major leader of the historic strike at Murdochville in 1957, which foretold the nationalist and labour upsurges of the following decades.

I remember Émile Boudreau above all for a remarkable essay he wrote in the magazine Liberté in 1964, "De la rue des Anglais aux Métallurgistes-Unis". The article described his experiences growing up in La Tuque, Quebec (where his family had moved when he was five), a company town dominated by the Anglophone mill owners and their senior executives (who lived on "the street of the English"), and how his consciousness of the linguistic divide nourished his developing class consciousness and later evolution as a Steelworkers leader. Some of his initial battles in the union were not only with the bosses, however, but with the Anglophone leadership in Toronto and Pittsburgh; in the beginning the local union members had to make their own French translations of the collective agreement negotiated over their heads with the company in English!

Boudreau modestly attributed his early prominence in the union to his bilingualism, as he was one of the few who could negotiate with both the company and the union’s top leadership in their language. Why did the workers choose the United Steelworkers of America and not one of Quebec’s provincial Francophone unions? In the first place, he wrote, because those unions were Catholic and the older miners were dead opposed to Church domination, which they equated with company unionism. And the letters CIO evoked John L. Lewis and the militant struggles of the coal miners.

That 1964 essay was written before Boudreau became an independentist. He wrote: "Perhaps because of my Acadian origins, I still consider the Canadian Confederation as the most favourable framework for the development of the French-Canadian nation, provided room is made for it in its constitution and functioning." (His italics)* Later he concluded this was impossible without at least a prior declaration of Quebec independence.
* The phrase "provided room is made for it..." was in italics. (RF).
-- Richard

>From the biographical note in the Fonds Émile Boudreau,Université du Québec à Montréal, the repository of Boudreau's papers:

Émile Boudreau est né le 12 décembre 1915 à Petit Rocher au
Nouveau-Brunswick. Dès le début des années 1940, il s'engage
dans l'action politique en adhérant au Crédit social.
D'abord bûcheron, il travaille ensuite comme mineur à
Normétal en Abitibi où il débute sa carrière syndicale en
1944 à la suite de son élection à titre de secrétaire de
l'Association des employés. En 1950, cette association se
saborde au profit du Syndicat des métallos. Émile Boudreau
devient alors président de la section locale. De 1951 à
1977, il est un permanent de ce syndicat. À partir de 1953,
il collabore à la lutte pour l'accréditation syndicale des
mineurs de Murdocheville et pour la défense des droits des
mineurs de cette région. Militant puis président du Parti
social démocrate (PSD) de 1957 à 1959, il participe en 1959
au comité conjoint FTQ-PSD tout en étant membre du comité et
du conseil provisoire du Nouveau Parti démocratique (NPD) de
1958 à 1963. Lors du congrès de 1963 visant la fondation du
NPD, Émile Boudreau suggère la création du Parti socialiste
du Québec (PSQ) ayant une base d'action provinciale ainsi
que d'une section québécoise du NPD fédéral agissant au
niveau canadien. En 1963, il est secrétaire du PSQ qui
s'éteint en 1966. En 1968, il participe à la fondation du
Parti québécois duquel il démissionne en 1973 suivant le
refus du parti de permettre l'adhésion de syndicats. En
1970, il est candidat du Front d'action politique (FRAP) aux
élections municipales de Montréal. De 1975 à 1982, il est
membre du conseil d'administration de la Co-op des
consommateurs de Montréal. De 1977 à 1983, il travaille au
sein de la Fédération des travailleurs du Québec à titre de
directeur du Service santé-sécurité au travail. Et en 1985,
il reprend le travail de Léo Roback chargé par la FTQ
d'écrire l'histoire de la Fédération. Histoire de la FTQ.
Des tout début jusqu'en 1965 paraît en 1987.


A tribute by Pierre Dubuc in L'Aut'journal:

Salut, Monsieur Émile . . .

C’est avec beaucoup de tristesse que nous avons appris le
décès de Monsieur Émile Boudreau. Monsieur Émile, comme nous
l’appelions affectueusement, a tenu pendant plusieurs
années, à partir de mai 1988, une chronique dans les pages
de l’aut’journal sur la santé et la sécurité au travail.

Nous nous sommes rapidement rendus compte que ses chroniques
étaient appréciées des travailleuses, des travailleurs et
des spécialistes de la question, mais également d’un public
beaucoup plus large qui se régalait de son style et de la
beauté de son écriture.

Monsieur Émile n’avait pas son pareil pour pourfendre et
fustiger les «médecins de papier» de la CSST et cela dans
une langue à nulle autre pareille, si bien que lorsqu’il a
finalement décidé de prendre sa retraite et déposer la
plume, tous ceux que nous avons approchés pour prendre sa
relève ont décliné l’invitation, en avouant ne pas vouloir
subir la comparaison avec Monsieur Émile.

En 1998, nous avons proposé à Monsieur Émile de publier un
recueil de ses articles, mais il nous a plutôt orientés vers
la publication d’un livre sur un des cas les plus
pathétiques qu’il avait rencontré au cours de sa carrière,
celui de Gaétan Dugal, «46 ans, marié, père de trois beaux
enfants» qui s’est donné la mort par suite de la
détérioration de son état physique, conséquence d’un
accident de travail survenu vingt-quatre ans auparavant, et
des traitements inhumains subis de la part de la CSST. Cela
a donné un livre de plus de 200 pages intitulé Condamné au
suicide.

Monsieur Émile était un ardent défenseur de la presse libre
et indépendante, en sachant lier les actes aux paroles. Il
nous fournissait gratuitement ses textes, nous a cédé ses
droits d’auteur pour le livre «Condamné au suicide» et était
toujours un des premiers à sortir son chéquier lors de nos
appels à l’aide pour assurer la survie du journal.

Nous garderons un souvenir impérissable de son petit sourire
narquois.

Pierre Dubuc
directeur

Democratic Senators Fight to Save EPA Libraries

A group of DEMOCRATIC senators has joined the fray over whether the Environmental Protection Agency should slow or stop a campaign to digitize materials in its technical libraries and close the facilities to agency researchers and the public....Unions representing more than 10,000 agency employees also protested the cuts in a June letter to members of Congress. "Many of us rely heavily on our technical libraries to perform our jobs in an effective manner," the letter stated. Closures would impair EPA's ability to respond to emergencies because of delays in accessing documents from storage or remaining facilities, the unions officials said.

"Our library staff provides us with the latest research on cutting-edge homeland security and public health issues," the officials wrote. They accused the administration of "suppress[ing] information on environmental and public health-related topics while cloaking these actions under the guise of 'fiscal responsibility.'"
=============
U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) today led a group of Senators in a letter to senior members of the Senate Appropriations Committee requesting that the Committee direct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to restore and maintain public access to its library collections.

Boxer's letter was cosigned by Senators Frank Lautenberg, Tom Harkin, Richard Durbin, Maria Cantwell, Jack Reed, James Jeffords, Barack Obama, Ken Salazar, Max Baucus, Joe Lieberman, John Kerry, Jeff Bingaman, Edward Kennedy, Russ Feingold, Paul Sarbanes, Mark Dayton, and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The text of the letter follows:

Dear Colleague:

We are writing to request that you direct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to restore and maintain public access and onsite library collections and services at EPA's headquarters, regional, laboratory, and specialized program libraries while the Agency solicits and considers public input on its plan to drastically cut its library budget and services. Government representatives, businesses and citizens use information in these libraries to protect public health, enforce environmental laws, and promote sound decision-making. We are concerned that EPA is already dismantling its unique library system without including the public or Members of Congress in the decision-making. Congress should not allow EPA to gut its library system, which plays a critical role in supporting the Agency's mission to protect the environment and public health.

EPA has already eliminated or reduced library service to the public in seven EPA regions covering 31 states and is planning to close its Headquarters' library and maintain it only as a repository. (Attachment) EPA has also closed its pesticide and toxics program library, reducing access to unique materials needed to assess pesticides and other chemicals' potential health effects on children. EPA is implementing these devastating closures on the grounds that they expect to save $2 million.

EPA's libraries provide far more benefits than the minor cost reductions resulting from their closure. A 2004 EPA report found that "[c]alculated conservatively, the benefit-to-cost ratio for EPA library services ranges between 2:1 and 5.7:1." The report noted that libraries saved EPA professional staff $7.5 million and non-EPA personnel $2.8 million, in 2003; and that one-third of the libraries' work gave EPA $22 million in benefits.

The American Library Association, American Association of Law Libraries, and Special Library Association strongly oppose the cuts, pointing out that EPA has "unique collections, including an estimated 50,000 one-of-a-kind primary source documents that are available nowhere else." Notes provided by the American Library Association that recount a meeting with EPA on the library closures state that their warnings that the Agency should develop a new system before closing libraries "fell on deaf ears." Unions representing 10,000 EPA scientists, engineers, and other staff have similar concerns. They note that "[t]he ability of EPA to respond to emergencies will be reduced because important reference materials may be unavailable or take significant time to receive from storage or another library."

A document from EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) about the library restructuring expresses concern about the Agency's failure to adequately assess costs and funding needs, maintain critical information, and ensure data accessibility. OECA notes that the libraries have information important to specific regions, states and locales, and unique data on industrial processes and analytical methods. OECA has indicated that it fears that dispersal of this material without proper tracking and access could undercut rulemakings and the ability to "substantiate and support findings, determinations, and guidance."

We are extremely troubled that EPA is rushing to eliminate or reduce library operations without adequately consulting Congress or the public. We respectfully request that you direct EPA in the FY 2007 Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill to restore and maintain public access and onsite library collections and services at EPA's headquarters, regional, laboratory, and specialized program libraries to the status they held as of January 1, 2006. We also ask that you direct EPA to solicit and consider public and Congressional input, in an open process, prior to making any decision to close a library, cut services, or dramatically restructure the Agency's library system.

National Library Workers Day 2007 is April 17!

Not too early to begin planning.
National Library Workers Day 2007 is April 17!

Union believes the EPA library closure has dangerous implications for public health.

The New Standard reports: Critics of the Environmental Protection Agency’s latest downsizing of scientific library materials say it threatens to strip access to information from the very people who help develop environmental policies.

The Agency this month closed the library that its own scientists use to research and evaluate new and existing chemicals before approving them for public use.

With no public announcement, the EPA shuttered the Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances Chemical Library as part of its 2006 plan to "modernize and improve" its network of 26 libraries by closing some physical spaces and digitizing library holdings. The plan, released in August, was spurred by the Bush administration’s proposed cuts to EPA library funding. ...
Bill Hirzy, a senior scientist with the EPA for 25 years and vice president of the National Treasury Employees Union, the union which represents EPA employees, told TNS that the union believes the library closure has dangerous implications for public health.

Hirzy said when evaluating a chemical, scientists must look at such things as "toxicity to humans and other mammals. Will it be an ozone-depletor? Will it travel through groundwater?" He continued, "And where this information resides is, guess where? In the library."

One arm of the EPA that uses the library, the Office of Pollution, Prevention and Toxics, regulates testing of new and existing chemicals.

Hirzy also said he is not convinced that the EPA will quickly and efficiently transfer all of the library’s hardcopy information into electronic databases.

He said scientists will have to "hope that [they] can track the information down through some system of computers instead of being able to take the elevator down to the third floor and find the information right there in front of you."

Einstein, Charter Member AFT Local 552

"I consider it important, indeed urgently necessary, for
intellectual workers to get together, both to protect
their own economic status and, also, generally speaking,
to secure their influence in the political field."

- Albert Einstein, 1938, in a comment explaining why he
joined the American Federation of Teachers local number
552 as a charter member.

[from Collected Quotes for the Week, Library Juice]

Middleton Public Library-Many Work Place Issues

Library, director can't resolve differences

After a lawyer requests a continuance so he can consult with Director Robert Balliot, the board of trustees moves up its performance review of Ballot to Nov. 21.

01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, October 28, 2006

KIA HALL HAYES
Journal Staff Writer

MIDDLETOWN -- It looks like the ongoing drama at the Middletown Public Library will continue, for at least another month.

Residents and employees had hoped the battle between Director Robert L. Balliot and the board of trustees would come to an end last night, when the two sides were to present recommendations to work out their disagreements.

But as the board was preparing to give Balliot his performance review, attorney Quentin Anthony arrived and requested a continuance so he could consult with Balliot.

Anthony said he was walking his dog last night when a friend of Balliot's called and asked him to help.

"He felt that [Baillot] needed some representation," Anthony said. The board agreed to give Balliot its recommendations Nov. 21.

For months, Balliot has claimed that the board has been trying to fire him for political reasons. Board chairman John Grisham says the board's actions have been "necessary and proper" and that "there are no grounds whatsoever for valid complaint."

At last night's meeting, Balliot said the board didn't follow open meetings laws, punished him for providing others access to information, and has hired attorney Dan Kinder with unappropriated funds.

Balliot said he's received nearly $4,000 in attorney fees, but has no way to pay them. Kinder, who was present at last night's meeting, was originally hired to help with union contract negotiations, Balliot said.

"At this point, you're doing work that has not been publicly approved," he told Kinder.

Kinder said he was an employee of the library, but when he demurred to say who requested his attendance at last night's meeting, residents demanded an answer.

"Who hired you, when did they hire you, and why are you here!" one woman yelled. Grisham at one point had to ask the audience to quiet down so the meeting could continue.

In an interview, Balliot said the board members, most of whom have been replaced over the last two years by the Town Council, are now using their seat to support a political agenda.

"The people they're appointing don't even have library cards," he said.

Balliot said it all started in December 2004, when he supplied Middletown First -- a citizens group opposed to heavy development -- with documentation about a Zoning Board meeting where developers were granted a variance to build a 55-room hotel in an area zoned for 23 units on Aquidneck Avenue.

"I'm supposed to provide access to public information, no matter who asks for it," Balliot said.

Middletown First posted the information on its Web site, which is linked on the library home page. Council liaison Edward Silveira and several board members then expressed concerns about the link.

"We didn't want to be seen as possibly promoting a political agenda," Grisham said.

In March 2005, the board decided to move the link to the "nongovernmental resources" section, where it remains today.

"It's going to stay open, active and accessible," Grisham said.

But since then, Balliot says, the board has been intent on firing him. The board considered giving Balliot a six-month probation during last month's meeting. Instead, both sides agreed to return with a written set of recommendations.

Silveira says Balliot's assertions are groundless.

"To suggest there's any political interference is just ridiculous," he said.

Silveira said Middletown First was a "politically driven, agenda-based Web site" whose link did not belong on the library's home page.

"I don't think that that's the message we wanted to give people in this community," said Silviera, who also said the Dec. 14 zoning meeting had nothing to do with the issue.

"The library board of trustees is a volunteer board that works tirelessly to oversee the functions of the library," he said.

Balliot's suggestions to the board were for the town to investigate board members' use of town funds, for board members to read and follow the library bylaws, and for all members to get library cards.

In a 5-to-0 vote, with member Edward Wray abstaining, the board voted to study relevant laws that deal with open meetings, conflicts of interest, and public records.

Barbara Murphy, who is co-president of the library union, said she was disappointed with last night's outcome. On top of the director's situation, library employees have been working without a contract for nearly four months, and things are terrible, she said.

"The atmosphere is no good," Murphy said.

khayesATprojo.com / (401) 277-7469
Online at: http://www.projo.com/ri/middletown/content/projo_20061028_mnlib27.33d6025.html

Significant Gender Gaps in Many Categories of Faculty Employment: AAUP

Inside Higher Education Reports:

In an effort to draw attention to the significant gender gaps in many categories of faculty employment, the American Association of University Professors is today releasing a report with “gender equity indicators” for higher education as a whole and for individual campuses.

The report finds significant gaps in salaries and in the percentages of faculty members in the senior ranks of universities, especially at doctoral universities. Gender parity appears to be much more likely at community colleges and other teaching-oriented institutions, and in part-time positions across sectors. Of course those are areas that tend to pay much less. The data also suggest that even at doctoral institutions, departments are more likely to have parity at the junior faculty levels.

“I think one of the questions that this raises is whether we are going to end up in a two-tiered profession,” a well paid tier dominated by men at research universities and a more modestly compensated and diverse tier elsewhere, said Ann Higginbotham, a professor of history at Eastern Connecticut State University and chair of the AAUP’s Committee on Women in the Academic Profession.

Full report: AAUP Faculty Gender Equity Indicators 2006

.

Union Workers Rally For Contract at Catholic News Service

Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild-CWA members planned a second rally Wednesday, October 25 to continue pressing for a contract with Catholic News Service.

The employer’s demand that it be able to unilaterally terminate the pension is the key sticking issue.

The union and CNS began bargaining for new contract last October. The union members have been working without a contract since January 1.

This is the second rally in two weeks outside the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ headquarters. It comes less than three weeks before the bishops gather in Baltimore for their fall meeting.

CNS is operated by the Bishops’ Conference but is editorially independent and funded through its client subscribers.

WBNG represents more than 3,000 workers in the metropolitan area and is a local of the Communications Workers of America. The Guild represents 20 employees at Catholic News Service, including reporters, editors, photographers, librarians and clerical workers.

Labor 2006

AFL-CIO Labor 2006
It's a tough time for working families. We’re working harder but losing ground. Wages are stagnant while costs are soaring. Health care and retirement security are disappearing. And a good, middle-class living is slipping out of reach for millions of America’s working families.

But if we work together this election season, we can make America work the way it should for working families.

Rosanne Langer:Librarian and Union President

Glendale, Arizona.
Rosanne Langer:Librarian and Union President speaking out on overrides as important to teachers and students alike. Tax rates are expected to remain about the same if both are approved.

San Diego School District Librarians Get 5.78% Raise

SAN DIEGO -- About 9,000 teachers and other staff [including librarians] will get a 5.78 percent raise under a tentative deal reached between the San Diego Education Association and the San Diego Unified School District, 10News reported.

The pay raise is part of a two-year agreement and would be retroactive to July 1. Next year, there will be another round of negotiations that could lead to further salary adjustments, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

Union Activist Jesús Marino Mosquera Murdered in Colombia

International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) reports:


The IUF condemns the assassination of yet another member of the Colombian rural workers' union SINTRAINAGRO, union activist Jesús Marino Mosquera, who was murdered while returning from work on October 11. Mosquera was employed for over 20 years at a farm in the municipality of Carepa, where he served as a union representative on the joint labour/management committee for the past 12 years. Mosquera's murder brings to well over 400 the number of SINTRAINAGRO officers and members who have been murdered since the union was founded.

[reported at LabourStart].



Joe Hill Watch

Law Librarians (Teamsters Local 229) Gain 11% Raise in Monroe County

The Pocono Record reports on October 19, 2006:

A state arbitrator has imposed a three-year wage settlement that will give 79 Monroe County court workers raises through 2008, totaling 11 percent.

The Monroe County commissioners formally ratified the settlement Wednesday with Teamsters Local 229.

The bargaining unit includes court reporters, law librarians, courthouse administrative assistants, domestic relations investigators and clerical staff, as well as clerical staff for magisterial district judges and the probation office.

U. of Illinois Library Technicians-AFSCME Local 698.

From the News-Gazette October 7, 2006:

After more than a year of negotiations, the University of Illinois has offered a contract to members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 698.

The union, which represents about 400 UI employees from laboratory assistants to librarian technicians, will meet later this month to vote on the contract proposal.
The proposal calls for a 2.5 percent raise for the first year of the contract, including back pay to Aug. 28, 2005, the day after the last contract expired; a 2.5 percent raise effective Oct. 8, 2006; and a 2.5 percent raise effective effective Dec. 2, 2007, or a raise in the amount of the UI's campus wage program, whichever is higher.

The proposal comes after several months during which the union held numerous rallies and pickets on campus. The two sides entered mediation this summer after reaching a standstill.

AFSCME's webpage for Library Workers and New Logo

AFSCME's webpage for Library Workers
has been updated. The AFSCME library logo and resources for library workers have been added. There is also have a list of AFSCME library local webpages.

Women of Color and Labor

Women of Color Caucus.
Call for Papers

WOCC Panel: "'Laboring under these conditions': Women Writers of Color on Work, Class and Creativity"-Women of color have long written about the various conditions under which their characters have labored, with
outcomes ranging from exploitation and alienation to self-realization and potential. How do considerations of work and/or class enable us to analyze, understand, or appreciate creativity, whether literary or other? What connections exist between women's labor, in all senses of the word, and creativity? Explorations of these and other questions are welcome.

Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted to Trina Philips
at by October 30, 2006. Questions about the session or the WOCC should be directed to Georgina Dodge at
.

2007 CONFERENCE
MELUS--Society for the Study of
the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S.

Theme: "Work, Migration, and Globalization: Contested Journeys in Multi-Ethnic US Literature"

21st Annual Conference

22-25 March 2007
Fresno, California

Joint Conference of Librarians of Color

Joint Conference of Librarians of Color

Halifax: Saint Mary’s Faculty Votes to Strike [includes librarians]

Saint Mary’s University professors [full-time permanent professors, full-time temporary professors and librarians] have voted in favour of striking if further negotiations with the Halifax university don’t pan out.

Larry Haiven, president of Saint Mary’s University Faculty Union, said last week’s vote, held from Oct. 4-6, was an unprecedented move by the union’s members.

"The faculty union has been in existence for 32 years and there’s never been a strike," Mr. Haiven said Saturday evening. "In fact, there has never even been a strike vote, as far as I know."

In Yonkers Unions Make the Tide Rise: Non-union workers in Yonkers get pay hike

YONKERS — Nonunionized municipal employees will get their first raise in three years, city officials announced.
Recent agreements for unionized municipal workers include a five-year deal reached in August 2005 that gave a 12.5 percent raise to 330 members of the SEIU, which includes librarians, dispatchers and clerical workers.

New City New York Librarians Vote to Unionize

NEW CITY , N.Y. October 6, 2006 – Library workers who are part of the New City Library have voted to unionize and be represented by New York State United Teachers.

The librarians and other workers, in a 40-13 vote under the direction of the National Labor Relations Board, voted to unionize after an organizing campaign that began in late summer. The vote succeeded despite anti-union efforts by a high-powered law firm hired by library management to oppose the union campaign.

"New City's library staff want and deserve a voice in their workplace, and respect from supervisors for the important work they do," said NYSUT President Richard C. Iannuzzi. "With our support, they will soon have a seat at the table and a say in what happens to them on the job."

Act Now to Defend Workers from KY River Decision

Act Now to Defend Workers from KY River Decision.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) voted today to crush longstanding Federal labor laws protecting workers' right to join a union. The NLRB ruled on three cases, collectively known as "Kentucky River", but it is their decision on Oakwood Healthcare, Inc which could have a devastating impact on workers’ right to join a union. The board’s ruling essentially enables employers to make a supervisor out of any worker who has the authority to assign or direct another and uses independent judgment. They ruled that any worker can be classified as a supervisor if he or she spends as little as 10-15% of his or her time overseeing the work of others. Under current Federal labor laws, supervisors are prohibited from forming unions. The ruling could deny up to 8 million workers the right to choose union representation.

Nominees Sought for $5000 Award for Improving Library Workers' Salaries and Status

For Immediate Release
October 5, 2006
Contact: Jenifer Grady, ALA-APA Director, 312-280-2424
Nominees Sought for $5000 Award for Improving Library Workers' Salaries and Status
The American Library Association-Allied Professional Association (ALA-APA) is seeking nominees, both individuals and organizations, that have made a positive change in the salaries or status of librarians and/or support staff. The Award Jury is looking forward to receiving the stories of champions that have had a local, regional or national impact. The winner will receive a $5000 award, thanks to the SirsiDynix Corporation. Each nominee must have three nominations using the electronic application form at http://www.ala-apa.org/sirsidynixnominationform.html. The deadline is Friday, December 1, 2006.

Nominations will be reviewed by the Award Jury, chaired by Barbara J. Ford of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, at the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in January 2007 in Seattle, WA, and the winner(s) will be honored at the Annual Conference in June 2007 in Washington, DC. Members of the 2005 Jury said that the nominations were "incredible experiences to share of triumph over seemingly insurmountable odds to achieve higher salaries. Their stories inspired us.”

In 2006, the winners were AFSCME Local 1526 of the Boston Public Library and James Fish, director of the Baltimore County (Md.) Public Library, and Eileen Muller, president of the Brooklyn Library Guild, Local 1482, was given an honorable mention. AFSCME Local 1526 "did an outstanding job in their last contract negotiations to win upgrades for all 76 library support staff in the 26 of the 27 branches of the city public library system." Fish campaigned for "a new pay program that resulted in a 7.34% pay adjustment to all staff, annual merit steps of 5%, and the base starting salary for librarians increased by 13.4%." In 2005, the first year, Maurice Freedman and Dorothy Morgan were chosen, Freedman, former ALA President, for raising awareness of salary inequities within librarianship and Dorothy for advocating on behalf of support staff nationwide. Morgan is the Business Manager, Liverpool Public Library (NY) and former President of the ALA Library Support Staff Interest Round Table (LSSIRT, 2000-2001).

The Award Jury encourages the library community to nominate those who are actively working on every level to secure equitable pay for people in librarianship. Please submt three strong letters of support as only the first three received will be reviewed. Self-nominations are permitted. Supporting documents may be emailed to ALA-APA, faxed to 312-280-5013 or mailed to SirsiDynix Award, ALA-APA, 50 East Huron, Chicago, IL 60611.

The recipient of the award does not have to be an ALA member or a current or past library staff member. The requirement is that the award recipient's achievement(s) has been notable. Officers of the ALA or the ALA-Allied Professional Association are not eligible for the award, nor are members of the ALA-APA Salary Awards Committee, ALA-APA Standing Committee on the Salaries and Status of Library Workers or employees of SirsiDynix.

For more information, contact jgrady@ala.org.
2006-2007 Jury

Barbara J. Ford, Chair, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Peter McDonald, Syracuse University
John Jessee, Jacksonville (FL) Public Library

The ALA-APA Dynix Award Jury and employees of the SirsiDynix Corporation are not eligible for this award. The SirsiDynix Corporation is a leading provider of information technology to libraries and consortia worldwide.
2005-2006 Jury

Peter McDonald, Chair, Syracuse University, ALA Councilor and member of Social Responsibilities Round Table
Jennifer Kutzik, Colorado State University Libraries, member of ALA Library Support Staff Interests Round Table
Ronald Stoch, Eisenhower Public Library District (IL)
2004-2005 Jury - 2005 WINNERS

Shelley Bennett, Chicago Public Library, member of the AFL-CIO Joint Committee
Jim Hill, Castlewood Public Library-Arapahoe County, President of LSSIRT
Michele Leber, member of the ALA-APA Standing Committee on the Salaries and Status of Library Workers
Copyright 2005 ALA-APA. Contact Jenifer Grady, 50 E. Huron, Chicago, IL 60611, 312-280-2424, jgrady@ala.org for more information.

Newberry Library Gets IWW Archives

Chicago Tribune reports: "On Monday, the Newberry Library announced its acquisition of "an outstanding archive" of extremely rare publications and ephemera that record the history of the Wobblies, more formally known as the Industrial Workers of the World."

Universite Sainte-Anne [Nova Scotia]

"A fair agreement recognizing the excellent work of the professors and librarians is in the long-term best interests of the students and of the institution as a whole."

The province has appointed conciliator Jacques Lessard in the labour dispute between Universite Sainte-Anne and its faculty and library staff.

The union comprising the teachers and librarians said in a release it has been without a contract since June 30, 2004 and has been negotiating since early April 2005.

Three weeks ago the staff voted 98 per cent in favour of striking.

Between the beginning of August and Sept. 18, the university agreed to just one negotiating session, said the release.

But after 36 meetings there is still no agreement on issues such as salaries, teaching loads, maternity leave, online courses and cross-sector teaching, said the union.

First ‘nudity-in-a-museum' case

While the Frisco,Texas teacher is not a librarian, it wouldn't be much af a leap to expect this principal--Nancy Lawson-- to go after the art books next.

Principal, Nancy Lawson, wrote:

“During a study trip that you planned for fifth graders, students were exposed to nude statues and other nude art representations.”

Ms. McGee, 51, a popular art teacher with 28 years in the classroom, is out of a job after leading her fifth-grade classes last April through the Dallas Museum of Art. One of her students saw nude art in the museum, and after the child’s parent complained, the teacher was suspended...
A representative of the Texas State Teachers Association, which has sprung to Ms. McGee’s defense, calls it “the first ‘nudity-in-a-museum case’ we have seen.”

Librarians Lose Jobs

A number of teachers and staff will be looking for work elsewhere today as the San Mateo Union High School District approved $3.5 million in budget cuts Thursday including the layoff of 12.4 teachers and 36.1 school staff.

Among the cuts are a 3 percent salary rollback, $5,717, for Superintendent Sam Johnson, two full-time librarians totaling $104,395, six teachers totaling $313,186.50 and five special education teachers who filled 4.4 positions and were let go earlier this month. A total of 36.1 classified staff were laid off.

Lessons from True Class Struggle: Detroit Teachers' Strike 2006

Detroit Federation of Teachers. AFT. Local 231.

The Detroit Federation of Teachers contract (includes librarians).


In his Counterpunch essay, "The Detroit Teachers' Strike, 2006," Rick Gibson analyzes the history of the labor in Detroit and the 2006 teachers' strike, noting the blackout of media coverage because these battles are

"very dangerous grounds for elites; they go to the heart of control of communities and the rule of knowledge itself.'

Gibson's essay bears close reading, not just for his insightful analysis but because at the end he ties the strike to NCLB and what people need to know. This cuts to the core of librarianship. He concludes:

The rebellious law-breaking teachers of the Detroit Public Schools strike of 2006 went back to work, conducting the scripted pedagogical programs the NCLB demands, to drill children to pass a test the US has designed for them to fail. It,s easily seen as a form of child abuse, which is the contradictory nature of educational life within the emergence of fascism.

The question of what people need to know, and how they need to come to know it, in order to assume the potential of a world already united through systems of production, communication, and transportation, yet a world that is now easily described as a war of all on all, is a pedagogical problem. The answer may spin out from the thought and action of educators.

Have no doubt, the Bush administration is using NCLB to choke the guts out of reading and education.

Berkeley Public Library Director Search: Service Employees International Union 535 Expresses Concern

The Berkeley Daily Planet reports:

Some library activists have been watching the search process for a new library head and say they don’t like what they see.

“It’s very exclusive,” said Jim Fisher, a member of SuperBOLD, Berkeleyans Organizing for Library Defense. To date, the library board chair has hired a professional “head hunter” and established an ad hoc committee of library directors to begin the search.

While Fisher says the community is being left out of the mix, Board of Library Trustees Chair Susan Kupfer counters that such fears are unfounded.

“There will be lots of input from the community,” Kupfer told the Daily Planet. “The community can interview the candidates and rate the candidates very early in the process.” ...
In addition to concerns expressed by Fisher and SuperBOLD, the library union, Service Employees International Union 535, has concerns, particularly because the union was often at odds with former embattled director Jackie Griffin.

“The brochure [announcing the job] should say something about working collaboratively with labor unions and line staff,” said Andrea Segall, SEIU 535 shop steward.

Joe Glazer, Labor’s Troubador. Solidarity Forever.

Joe Glazer, the singer-songwriter known as Labor’s Troubador, who played cowboy tunes on a $5.95 mail-order guitar as a boy in the Bronx, then sang songs of solidarity on picket lines and union halls and once on the White House lawn, died on Tuesday at his home in Chevy Chase, Md. He was 88.


Joe Glazer (1918-2006), often called "Labor's Troubadour," has spent a lifetime as one of America's noted historians of labor song. His booming baritone and exuberant guitar have performed exuberantly for millions of workers, strikers, and students. He is the author of several significant labor songs, notably "The Mill Was Made of Marble," which is a commentary on the need for cleaner, safer mill conditions for textile workers.

"Solidarity Forever" is the most popular union song on the North American continent. Ralph Chaplin (1887-1961), the Industrial Workers of the World poet, artist, writer, and organizer, was inspired to compose it in 1915, after helping the coal miners during the great Kanawha Valley Strike. It is still sung at every union rally. Joe Glazer recorded this version. Hear Joe sing "Solidarity Forever".

Labor's Troubadour traces the life and work of labor balladeer Joe Glazer. Glazer has seen songs about the battle for the eight-hour day give way to songs about automation and cheap imports, with a constant refrain of union busters, scabs, solidarity, plant safety, and retirement benefits. Seventy of these songs are included in the book.

Illinois State University Librarians Join in Informational Picket

More than 100 Illinois State University union employees marched Tuesday by the campus administration building - contesting continued salary negotiations, and decrying ISU’s proposed raise schedule...“We’ve been working without a contract since June 30, and we’re working on last year’s wages,” said Karen Dunton, president of Local 3236 American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

The informational picket was not a strike, she said. The marchers chose Tuesday to tie their cause to ISU President Al Bowman’s state of the university address, she said.

The ISU administration’s negotiators have offered a 2.5 percent raise for the first year of the three-year contract, with the remaining years not assigned a number, said Dunton. Negotiators told her percentages would be equal to what is announced for nonnegotiated ISU staff.

“Each year in his state of the university address, the president says faculty and staff compensation is his No. 1 priority. We want him to keep his promise to each and every one of the university’s employees,” said the union president.

Local 3236 includes about 330 members. These employees represent a variety of the campus’ secretarial and clerical staff, as well as many Milner Library staff.

Of the 330 members, the average income is $28,000 and 110 earn less than $23,000 per year, said Dunton.

Labor Heroes Live On At Stetson Branch Library (New Haven)

At New Haven Free Library's Stetson Branch three proposed murals that vividly capture the labor movement in mosaic, acrylic paint and photography are displayed behind the circulation desk in the library.
In the artwork images of Augusta Lewis Troup, Nick Aiello, Philip Voigt, and Vincent Sirabella shout loudly, carrying signs, banners, and megaphones.
All three proposals are in the running to decorate the renovated Troup Magnet Academy of Science when construction finishes in August, 2007.
The displays in Stetson Branch Library are part of New Haven’s Percent for Art Program, begun in 1981. A city law requires that the government spend 1% of its construction budget on artwork for the intended buildings.

Augusta Lewis Troup, the school's namesake, was one of New Haven's true all-time heroines. She organized America's first-ever female labor union. She also published a local newspaper that was the first in Connecticut to advocate women's suffrage.

Augusta Lewis Troup [1848-1920] was included in the Princeton University Library Exhibit, "UNSEEN HANDS: WOMEN PRINTERS, BINDERS, AND BOOK DESIGNERS."
At the age of 18, Troup became a reporter on the New York Sun, then worked as a typesetter on New York Era and the New York World. She helped Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton found The Revolution and was both a journalist and a typesetter for the publication. In 1869 she was elected president of the Women's Typographical Union, and then became the first woman to hold a national union office: corresponding secretary of the International Typographical Union. Her successful efforts to bring women typographers into full equality with men in the ITU unfortunately caused the WTU to disband in 1878.


The artistic competition for the Troup Magnet Academy for Science stipulated that proposals “memorialize the New Haven Labor Movement, throughout different time periods, beginning with and/or including Augusta Lewis Troup,” said a press release from the New Haven Office of Cultural Affairs.
This work of art should encompass a wider view of labor struggles and/or union history, as labor history is also community history. This new commission will be located somewhere in the new addition of the school, to correspond with preexisting WPA murals, which are being preserved in the original part of the building.

Union Leaders Disagree with Duluth City Leaders Fear of Negotiation Impasse

Duluth Mayor Herb Bergson said Friday he was concerned about an impasse.
"I suspect we are going to be at an impasse with some of the units before snow falls," Bergson said via e-mail. "We have a firm line drawn for what we can afford and where we need to get to for health-care costs. The taxpayers can't afford going beyond what we can afford."

Snowplow drivers, librarians, zookeepers, road crew members and secretaries comprise 543 of Duluth's 880 positions. [American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 5].
AFSCME Local 66 leader Ken Loeffler-Kemp disagreed with the the administration's dour assessment.

"I don't believe that it's an accurate reflection," he said. "I'm not sure what his expectations were."

Some problem at Union Librarian

As I was posting this morning the page went blank. I was posting about something George Bush has done so maybe there was a line I crossed. Anyway, if UNION LIBRARIAN doesn't reappear I will mirror the running list of academic library and public library unions at my other blog, Librarian.

I've contacted ALA to learn if they would like these lists for their site.

EPA Librarians Union Calls Closures "Orwellian.

Minnesota Star-Trinbune Editorial: EPA invites doubts with library closings. Agency makes its data, and performance, difficult to review.

---to environmental scientists in Minnesota or any of 14 other states, working inside or outside EPA, the pending shutdown of these repositories will be a serious blow.

The general public, too, should be concerned about what this means for EPA accountability, which has come under repeated challenge in recent years -- most notably over unduly rosy postdisaster assessments in lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks, and in New Orleans after last year's hurricanes.

And perhaps every taxpaying citizen should be offended by the way in which this action was taken -- essentially, by EPA officials anticipating a $2 million budget cut for fiscal 2007 that has been proposed by the White House but not yet considered by Congress, which alone has the authority to appropriate or withhold federal funds. Certainly the relevant congressional committees should object....
Just another exercise in arrogance by an agency in an executive branch that seems too often to relish it.

10,000 EPA SCIENTISTS PROTEST LIBRARY CLOSURES — Loss of Access to Collections Will Hamper Emergency Response and Research.

See EPA Librarian Union letter at Library Juice.

Universite Sainte-Anne Association of Professors and Librarians Vote to Strike

In Nova Scotia the Universite Sainte-Anne Association of Professors and Librarians have voted to strike.
The 50-member union has been without a contract since June 2004 and has been negotiating a new one since April 2005.

"We’ve had 34 rounds of talks at the bargaining table and there’s still no agreement on several very important points," said Ms. Igot, spokeswoman for the Universite Sainte-Anne Association of Professors and Librarians.

Over 600 Union Members Died on 9/11

On Sept. 11, Remember the Workers Who Risked Their Lives to Help

On the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the union movement will join with the rest of America and pause for a moment of silence today at 8:46 a.m. EDT in memory of those who perished that tragic day.

More than 600 union members were killed on Sept. 11. Union members responded with an outpouring of funds and volunteered thousands of hours to help treat the injured and rescue and recover the victims.

Flight Attendants-CWA President Patricia Friend says:

The grief we continue to experience over the events of that morning will always be an important part of our history. But rather than allow that grief to deplete us, we must transform it into action and take from it the important lessons that can guide our future actions.

Today, along with the moments of silence and ceremonies, you will hear a lot of political rhetoric about the war on terror and how it has changed our lives. But you won’t hear much about how 9/11 changed the lives of the more than 40,000 rescue and recovery workers, mostly union members, who risked their lives in what was one of the largest rescue efforts in world history.

Nor will you hear how short-sighted policies have made the lives of those brave men and women even worse in what some public health experts say was a systematic effort by the Bush administration to undercut the efforts of experienced health administrators in New York and at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

Thousands of workers who worked in the rubble of the World Trade Center are at risk for chronic diseases, but some officials don’t want to go the distance to help them.

Says Ronald Ault, president of the AFL-CIO Metal Trades Department, many of whose members helped in the recovery effort:

When our country was knocked to her knees on 9/11, thousands of union craft workers responded selflessly to use their skills to help in the recovery and risked their lives and their health in the process. Those efforts were not even acknowledged by the White House, where the fledgling administration continued to pour out hostile policies undermining wages, pensions and security and attacking the very unions that represent these proud and heroic workers.

Two recent studies put the health issue in perspective. A study by doctors at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City finds that nearly 70 percent of firefighters, police officers, emergency medical crews, construction workers, utility workers and volunteers have suffered lung and other health problems.

The report outlines a “complex list of toxic chemicals”—from jet fuel to asbestos to PCBs—to which workers were exposed immediately after the attacks and during the months-long cleanup.

A second study shows that the nearly 12,000 firefighters and emergency medical workers who took part in the Ground Zero rescue and recovery operations experienced such severe trauma to their lungs that those organs aged the equivalent of 12 years in the year following the attack—putting them at risk for chronic lung problems later in life.

Published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, the study identified some 400 chemicals in the toxic mix of dust and dirt at Ground Zero.

Says Joel Shufro, executive director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, a nonprofit coalition of 200 local unions and more than 400 individual workers, physicians, lawyers and other health and safety activists:

From the very beginning, the workers and volunteers were treated grotesquely, because government officials decided that mandating the use of adequate respiratory protection would undermine that lie that the air was safe to breathe. If the workers had been required to use respirators, it would have been obvious that the air was not safe to breathe and that the stock exchange and the world’s biggest banks could not safely reopen before an unprecedented decontamination job had been carried out.

Now, there are at least 15,000 sick workers and others, many of whom are not getting better, and more people are developing new respiratory illnesses every day.

Says Peter Gorman, president of Fire Fighters Local 854:

We didn’t need a study to tell us about the health problems from 9/11. We could see it when our members had hacking coughs. The labor movement has been outspoken about the ill effects. I hope these studies pave the way for health care and funding for long-term monitoring of these workers’ health care needs.

As if their health problems were not bad enough, the workers faced the insulting prospect of losing their jobs. In May 2003, New York’s Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered the closing of six engine companies to save $8 million in the $1.3 billion operating budget for the Fire Department.

The New York union movement spearheaded efforts to move legislation that would protect the first responders at Ground Zero, and Gov. George Pataki (R) recently signed union-backed legislation that greatly expanded the benefits for ailing 9/11 rescue workers, including a bill that will pay line-of-duty benefits to the families of first responders who die from illnesses contracted at Ground Zero and related sites. Pataki signed the bills into law hours after Bloomberg repeated his opposition to the legislation because of the potential cost to the city.

Immediately after the attacks, then-Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd Whitman assured the public the site was safe. Newsday reported the Bush administration gave Whitman the right to bury embarrassing EPA documents about the chemicals and other hazards by classifying them as secret.

Whitman’s comments were consistent with a systematic effort by the Bush administration to undercut the efforts of experienced health administrators in New York and at NIOSH, according to public health historians David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz, whose comments are posted by Jordan Barab at Confined Space:

By pressing them to return the city to “normal” and feeding them doctored information about dust levels—ignoring scientific uncertainties about the dangers that lingered in the air—the administration lied to support a national policy of denial.

Those policies, coupled with cuts in the national public health budgets, set the stage for a faulty, tragically inadequate structure to respond to disasters, Rosner and Markowitz say. As evidence, they cite the administration’s failed response to Hurricane Katrina.

Or, as Gorman says:

A disaster—manmade or natural—can hit anytime. It’s unbelievable that we don’t have a system in place to monitor and treat people who respond to these disasters.

Workin' It

Workin' It is a new weekly, one-hour show on Air America Radio focusing on working life in America. Hosted by comedienne and author Jackie Guerra, the lively magazine program provides a break from the daily grind to make you think, laugh, and do something about the declining state of workers’ rights. Catch the show live online Saturdays from 3-4pm EST, or listen to past shows for free anytime. Workin’ It is produced in partnership with the workers’ rights advocacy organization, American Rights at Work.

Milwaukee Teachers Union Files Complaint About Librarians

Staffing cuts put schools at odds with state policies

MPS began listing librarians not actually working in schools as the supervising librarians several years ago, and the roster of schools where that is true has grown rapidly.

Acting on a complaint from the Milwaukee teachers union filed more than two years ago, the state Department of Public Instruction issued a ruling in June that about three dozen MPS schools were out of compliance with state library requirements - and that didn't include about 40 schools that were using outside library supervisors then. The DPI gave MPS until September 2007 to get in line with requirements.

STRIKE! Eastern Michigan University. Insurance Hike=Pay Cut

Eastern Michigan University's Union includes librarians. Randal Baier is the Library Steward.

The AAUP has said the university's offer of a 2-percent salary increase and a 3-percent increase in employee contributions to health care costs equates to a pay cut.Howard Bunsis, president of the chapter stated “There is no way that we can accept this,” as the chapter remained in negotiations with the institution throughout the Labor Day weekend.

EMU-AAUP Response to Fallon and Loppnow

Dr. Michael W. Homel, Chief Negotiator
Eastern Michigan University AAUP
Hand-delivered to Hartmut Hoft on September 4, 2006

In summary, your team:

1. On August 11th canceled the negotiations scheduled for August 14th, and subsequently refused to schedule additional meetings that we requested in the last two weeks of August.
2. On August 30th refused the mediator’s request for a joint meeting between the two teams.
3. On August 31st failed to offer new proposals on healthcare and compensation, despite AAUP’s offer to extend the contract if adequate progress could be made on negotiations before the expiration of the contract.
4. On September 3rd had not moved from their healthcare offer of June 9th and compensation offer of August 21st. On September 4th we are awaiting the University’s first counter-offers on compensation and healthcare, less than 30 hours before the University threatens to leave negotiations.

In your letter, you threaten to break off contract talks at 10 p.m. on September 5, 2006, if the faculty strike is not called off by then. As with the strike two years ago, our team is ready to negotiate until a contract is reached. Two years ago the agreement was reached early in the morning of the first day of classes; with less than an hour notice we had faculty in their classes teaching which is where we want to be. Our team will be there to negotiate after 10 p.m. on September 5th whether your team walks out or not. If your team does walk out at 10 p.m. on the 5th, we will see this as a strike by the University against our students and against the public we serve.

Respectfully,

Michael M. Homel

Labor Day under Bush: Household Income Fell

So whereas past presidents could declare that a rising tide lifted all boats, Mr. Bush cannot honestly do so.

Labor Day History

Nice Labor Day history from Detroit News:
...The long legacy of labor history surrounds us not only in our city's auto industry, but in our architecture and art work, and most important in the job benefits and quality of life we all enjoy from the labor victories.

[photo right]:
Peter J. McGuire, an Irish-American cabinet maker and pioneer unionist who proposed a day dedicated to all who labor. Old records describe him as a red-headed, fiery, eloquent leader of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners.

Labor Day 2006

AFL-CIO. Labor Day 2006.

This Labor Day, unions are making a real difference in people’s lives.

* We’re standing up to raise the minimum wage and fighting for more corporate accountability, such as limits on CEO pay and lavish pensions.

* We’re working for fair trade laws to hold nations accountable when they violate workers’ rights.

* We’re championing laws to make workplaces safer, such as improvements in mine safety following the Sago coal mine tragedy.

* This fall, we're going to launch the most ambitious, sophisticated voter education and mobilization program we've ever run to take back our government for America's workers.

* Working America—the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate for workers who don’t have a union—opened seven new offices this year, bringing in about 200,000 new members a month this summer. Working America now has 1.5 million members.

Take Action: Verizon Wireless' Anti-Union Network

Take Action: Verizon Wireless' Anti-Union Network
Verizon Wireless is one of the nation’s most popular wireless providers, serving 42 million customers. But did you know the company is also one of the most anti-union?

A federal Administrative Law Judge recently found that Verizon Wireless illegally disciplined a pro-union worker and interfered with employees’ rights to form or support a union. Verizon Wireless workers say the company used “scare tactics” and intimidation to prevent employees from joining unions. And in an action reminiscent of Wal-Mart’s closure of a Quebec store when its employees formed a union, Verizon Wireless shut down a call center after its employees moved closer to getting their union!

Tell Verizon Wireless to stop interfering with employees who want to form unions!

Woody Guthrie: Poet of the People

ISBN:
0375811133
Author:
Christensen, Bonnie

Illustrator:
Christensen, Bonnie

Publisher:
Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
Subject:
Folk singers
Subject:
United states
Subject:
Biography & Autobiography - Music
Subject:
Biography & Autobiography - General
Subject:
Children's 4-8 - Biography / Autobiography

Union Hotel Guide

UNITE HERE maintains this Union Hotel Guide to promote the hotels where UNITE HERE members are employed. When you patronize these establishments, you are supporting these people and their families. This Union Hotel Guide is here to help you find nice places to stay on your travels and we hope you have a pleasant journey wherever your travels may take you.

University of Guelph Union Wins Ruling on Membership

Guelph-Mercury.com (8/26/2006) reports:
Faculty chairs and veterinary staff can now be part of a new trade union at the University of Guelph, the Ontario Labour Relations Board has ruled.

The university is simply moving in line with others across Canada, staff association president David Josephy said.

"As we tried to get into step, the university tried to push us out of step," said the molecular and cellular biology professor. "The University of Guelph in fighting us was trying to overturn the status quo in Ontario."


The union will be made up of 830 faculty members, professional librarians and staff veterinarians from the Veterinary Teaching Hospital and the Animal Health Laboratory.

Lakeview Librarians & Teachers Win New Contract

Vindy.com on 8/26/2006(Youngston, Ohio) reports from Cortland that Lakeview schools Superintendent Robert Wilson calls a new employees' contract a good step for the district.

"I think it's a fair contract for the teachers union, for the district, for the students and for the community," Wilson said.

Worcester, MA. National Association of Government Employees Local 495 Settles Contract

Worcester Telegram (August 24, 2006) reports:

WORCESTER— One of Worcester’s largest labor unions yesterday settled a six-year contract with the city, ending a three-year dispute that has been just as bitter as any other labor negotiation.

Michael Lavin, president of Local 495 of the National Association of Government Employees, called it a good day after seeing his membership endorse the contract by a vote of 275-86.

“It was fair to the members and I think they showed today … that they were satisfied with what they were getting,” Mr. Lavin said.


With the settlement, the city has negotiated its so-called model contract — which gives a 9.25 percent wage increase over four years with reductions in health insurances — with all of its major labor unions except the police officials’ union. NAGE, with 500 members, is one of the largest unions to approve the contract, placing second only to the teachers’ union.

The union represents Department of Public Works laborers and Code Enforcement Department inspectors, parks and cemetery workers and city librarians, as well as water and sewer system workers, public safety dispatchers and vehicle mechanics.

Strike warning by Erie County Teachers & Lbrarians

The Toledo Blade reports: SANDUSKY - The Perkins Education Association has issued a 10-day warning of its intent to strike the Erie County school district on Monday, when students are scheduled to return to school.

Bob Myer, spokesman for the teachers union, said yesterday the two sides have agreed to meet Sunday in a last-ditch attempt to avert a walkout by the 130 teachers, guidance counselors, and librarians.

The 10-day notice was delivered Friday.

The union said it worked without a contract the last school year. The first proposals were exchanged in March, 2005, and the pact expired June 30, 2005.

Bill Whitson-California Union Hero & Local Historian. UC-AFT Berkeley-San Francisco Local 1474

UC Librarians and the Union: A Historical Perspective. by Bill Whitson.

From the first days of librarians' struggle to win improved status, pay and perquisites back in the 1960's, the union's work has benefited librarians both directly and indirectly. READ THE ENTIRE ESSAY.



{Sandy Vella presents the Member of the Year Award to Bill Whitson, 1997.} Bill Whitson is a retired UC Berkeley librarian who participated over many years
in the development of both the Berkeley local and LAUC-B. He was a member of the Local 1795 Executive Committee between 1972-1992, co-chaired the legislative lobbying campaign in 1972/73, was President of the Local in 1977/78, 1978/79, 1984/85 and 1985/86, a member of the bargaining team in 1985 and 1992, and Co-chair of the Grievance Committee for 4 years between 1987 and 1992. He was statewide UC-AFT Secretary in 1987/88 and edited the statewide UC-AFT Newsletter in 1993/94.

Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library Workers Will Vote on Union

Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library Workers Have Won the Right to Vote on a Union! I posted about this yesterday but wanted to say it again!

Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library Board OKs Union Vote

The Indianapolis Star reports:

The Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library Board agreed this week to recognize an employee union if enough eligible workers vote for it....

In a resolution passed unanimously Thursday, the seven-member board established policies for organizing such a union, including a requirement that at least 75 percent of the employees cast ballots in an election.

Board President Louis Mahern, who until now has resisted demands from employees that the board recognize a union, said he "worked with other board members" to ensure there were enough votes.
"It was a definite victory in the sense that this is the first step they've taken to recognize us," said Michael Torres, a library reference assistant and employee organizer. "We have not had any dialogue for months."
Employees first voted last year to join the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, saying they wanted more input into library decisions.

IndyLibrarian reports:
Victory!..We will have more information posted shortly on this new development and what it means for all of us and our future at IMCPL, but in the meantime you can read the news release and send an email on the “How You Can Help” page thanking the board for giving the staff the opportunity to vote for union representation.

Library Board paves the way for union representation!

Anchorage School District (includes Librarians) Have Reached Tentative 3-Year Contract

August 17, 2006. Anchorage Daily News Reports:

Bargaining teams for the Anchorage School District and its teacher union have reached a tentative three-year contract...
The deal came after a marathon 15-hour bargaining session Wednesday, with the teams toeing a union-set deadline that no talks would be scheduled after that, since teachers returned to schools today. Classes begin Tuesday.

"I’m very pleased that teachers can now report back to their first day in the classrooms with their primary focus on students," said Ron Fuhrer, president of the teachers’ Anchorage Education Association...
The union has some 3,400 members, including teachers, school counselors, nurses, librarians and others who work directly with students.

Librarians / Faculty Union at Community College of Allegheny County Begin No-confidence Vote Against President

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports:
Faculty at Community College of Allegheny County are holding a no-confidence vote against embattled President Stewart Sutin -- possibly the first such vote in the college's 40-year history. "The reason for doing this is an accumulation of problems that have occurred while Stewart Sutin has been president," said John Dziak, head of the faculty union...."Most of the college's problems deal with lack of oversight, their own poor judgment, bad decisions," Dziak said. "We've had more publicity, albeit negative, in the last three years than we've probably had in the last 40 years, and this is not a good way to celebrate the 40 years of existence."

He said the vote is being conducted until early next week by the 370 teachers, counselors, librarians and other professionals in the bargaining unit. Passage of a no-confidence vote would take a majority of the members of Local 2067 of the American Federation of Teachers.

PROVIDENCE, R.I.- Library advocates form new coalition

The Providence Journal reports:

Resigned to their role as outsiders, library advocates announced a new coalition yesterday that will conduct its own parallel analysis of the Providence Public Library's operation and the library's future.

Members of the Library Reform Group, Mount Pleasant Friends of the Library, Smith Hill Friends and Save Our Branches have been shut out of the municipal working group, a team that will negotiate a contract between the city and library for library services....
Karen McAninch, the business manager of the union that represents library workers is a member of the coalition. [Providence Public Library Union].

National Education Association- Librarian Caucus

NEA Library, Information Literacy, and Technology (LIT) caucus! We are a group of National Education Association (NEA) members who are interested in promoting Information Literacy through the use of both books and technology. Many of us are school library media teachers. Our caucus meets each summer during the NEA Annual Meeting and Representative Assembly (RA).

[Thanks to IE].

Class: A Personal Story

In Class: A Personal Story by Michael D. Yates in the July-August Monthly Review the author describes the moment of intellectual awakening as taking place when he found radical periodicals in the library. His essay is important reading for all librarians who serve working people. Of special note is the following quote:

Workers receive a thoroughly uninspiring and mentally and physically destructive education. Struggles to expand and improve public education are, therefore, also radical struggles. The training of teachers is scandalously inadequate, and the freedom of teachers to teach critical thinking is uniformly circumscribed. Where are the teachers’ unions? Indeed, where is the labor movement? If only unions themselves took the time to educate their own members. If only the labor movement financed a network of labor radio stations, television programs, and newspapers. Working people are so misinformed and uninformed that it is no wonder governments everywhere can feed us daily doses of the most ridiculous propaganda.

Read Yates' entire essay online and then consider subscription.

Library Worklife and N.Y. District Council 37

ALA-APA's Library Worklife August 2006 issue includes the latest on District Council 37 which represents 121,000 members in more than 1,000 job titles [including library workers] from 56 local unions.

District Council 37, the city’s largest public employee union, reached a tentative agreement on July 12 with the City of New York on a new 32-month-2-day wage pact that provides a total of over 10% in wage increases and other benefits, and eases the residency requirements for covered city workers. The agreement covers the period from July 1, 2005 through March 2, 2008.

Read more.

Informational Picket at Library Board Meeting-Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library-August 17, 2006

Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library

Update! Join us for the informational picket at the next Library Board meeting on Thursday, August 17th, at the West Indianapolis Branch, 1216 South Kappes Street. Click here for more details.

As we continue our effort to gain recognition for our union, we want to be sure you are informed of our progress and plans. We want to alert you when we have actions or events we would like you to attend.

It is now time to learn the facts and add your voice to the growing list of your fellow workers who can no longer sit idly by and watch as our beloved institution is diminished daily in ways both large and small.

Nashua Public Library Employees Local 4831

Letter from Edmund Lowe, President of the Nashua Public Library Employees Local 4831 in the Nashua Telegraph:

Library union president: Aldermen’s committee shows no sense of give-and-take in contract negotiations

[excerpt..]

The library staff takes pride in its work. Its members understand that the citizens appreciate the importance of a really good public library to a city like Nashua, even if many of their elected officials do not.

I had hoped for a return to common sense with the election of the new aldermanic board last November. But if the budget review committee is representative of the full board, then this board of aldermen is as extreme in its conservatism as previous boards have been in their liberalism.

I have to wonder what the aldermen would consider an acceptable cost for the services of the employees whose contracts they rejected? Whether through ignorance of fair labor practice or complete disregard for it, they are putting our city at a real disadvantage.

Read the entire letter.
Edmund Lowe is the President of the Nashua Public Library Employees Local 4831.

PLG supports Indianapolis librarians

PLG supports Indianapolis librarians

RESOLVED, that the Progressive Librarians Guild support sister and fellow librarians in Indianapolis, Indiana in gaining union representation. PLG’s position and letter of support have been posted at Library Juice.

Workers Out! a great success. CUPE Members Empowered

MONTREAL—For CUPE 391’s Peter DeGroot, Doug Klohn and Tara Robertson, the Workers Out! conference was an empowering experience they’ll remember for years to come as they continue working to make a difference for lesbian, gay, bi and trans (LGBT) CUPE members.

CUPE was a major partner of the Workers Out! conference. Over three days last week, the Vancouver Public Library trio and other CUPE members from across Canada were among the 350 participants from labour organizations all over the world who participated in workshops, plenary sessions and round-table discussions. They were working on an international strategic plan to help unions take up the struggle for LGBT rights in the workplace and in society...

DeGroot, Klohn and Robertson produced a blog about the event. After four days, the site was loaded with colourful photos and a wealth of information reflecting the diversity of delegates, the range of issues and the meaningful connections made....

At the closing of the conference, The Declaration of Montreal was shared with all of the delegates. This declaration challenges the United Nations to advance the human rights of ALL people around the world. That our conference focused on LGBT issues, it follows that The Declaration of Montreal does have an emphasis on the rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered people, but it clearly shows that we are not basing our movement on this narrow perspective. Until full Human Rights are achieved for all, the organizing will continue.

"Technology, Environment and Work"

"Technology, Environment and Work" Twenty-Eighth Annual North American Labor History Conference Wayne State University, October 19-21, 2006

The Program Committee of the North American Labor History Conference invites proposals for sessions and papers on "Technology, Environment and Work" for our twenty-eighth annual meeting.

The parameters of work have always been shaped and ultimately changed by the uses of technology and the elements of the environment. Even before the tremendous shift of industrialization, labor and the environment, writ large, have coexisted, often in harmony but at times in conflict. Workers welcome technological change and environmental factors that ease their labor. But, at the same time, such changes also threaten not only worker culture and morale but also their very livelihoods. Technology has transformed more than the shop floor, the field and the home. It has affected nature, as well as laborers' relationship to the environment. As we witness on a daily basis, the intersection of technical change and work continues to exercise its complex pressure on labor today, just as it did in the past. This year's conference wishes to explore these issues.

The program committee encourages comparative and interdisciplinary scholarship from a range of national and international contexts, the integration of public historians and community and labor activists into conference sessions, and the use of differing session formats (workshops, roundtable discussions, and multimedia as well as traditional panels). It encourages sessions that address the theme from perspectives of gender, race, ethnicity, and sexuality.

The North American Labor History Conference is sponsored by the Department of History, the Walter Reuther Library, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Wayne State University, and the Labor and Working Class History Association.

Contact Information:
Please submit panel and paper proposals (including a 1-2 page abstracts and brief vitas or biographical statements for all participants) by March 20th, 2006, to:

Professor Janine Lanza, Coordinator, North American Labor History
Conference Department of History, 3094 Faculty Administration Building
Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202
Phone: 313/577-2525; Fax: 313 577-6987;
Email: ao1605@wayne.edu