Unions, Civil Rights Groups

Starting Big Political Push

By Mark Gruenberg

Press Associates, Inc.
The Newspaper Guild

July 16, 2010 – Traditionally, people don’t start paying attention to politics until Labor Day, but that isn’t stopping unions from starting their big political push now.

The push is taking two forms.  One is that unions are sending members out to worksites, with flyers about labor’s positions on key economic issues, such an unemployment benefits and the stimulus law, along with lawmakers’ voting records. That drive will last for at least the next two weeks and continue afterwards.

The other part of the push has been led by the Service Employees, building on a grand coalition that helped win health care reform — and again emphasizing grass-roots efforts.  They’ve been joined by the Teachers, the AFL-CIO and approximately 170 other progressive groups in a grand coalition, “One Nation Working Together,” to push a progressive agenda this fall — even when the Obama administration doesn’t.

Continue reading Getting the Change We Voted For: March on DC Oct. 2 for Jobs and Justice →

Leo W. Gerard

International President, United Steelworkers, July 6, 2010

Q&A with Veteran Labor Organizer Stewart J. Acuff

Leo W. Gerard: Stewart, you talk about power in a book you’ve written with economist Dr. Richard A. Levins. You called the manual, “Getting America Back to Work.” What’s the relationship between power and getting people back to work?

Stewart J. Acuff: A big part of the problem we have with this economy or the biggest problem is that most of the money has gone to the Financial Elite — and the power as well. To get America back to work we have to reinvest in our country and our workers. That necessarily means that the Financial Elite get less of the wealth generated by the economy and workers will get more. If you intend to take wealth from the richest people in the history of the world, you have to have enough power to do so.

Gerard: You say in the introduction that there are two kinds of power: “The first is lots of organized money. That is the kind of power the Financial Elite have used to bring the rest of us to our knees. The other source and form of power is lots of people: organized, mobilized, united, and taking action.” Do you really think that organized people can succeed in a wrangle with the financial elites?

Acuff: Absolutely! The economic history of the twentieth century is crystal clear. When unions were strong, working people had the lion’s share of income and the economy worked well. When unions were weakened, we have seen the Financial Elite take over and run the economy into the ground.

Continue reading Our Power vs. Their Power: USW’s Leo Gerard Interviews Acuff on Taxes and Jobs →

Steelworkers, wind energy group join forces to create jobs

by: Mark Gruenberg

People’s World

June 29 2010

Photo: Workers finish a turbine blade at the Gamesa plant in Pennsylvania. PW/Teresa Albano

WASHINGTON (PAI) – The Steelworkers union and the American Wind Energy Association have signed an agreement on working together to develop the wind power industry, emphasizing the need for alternative energy devices – windmills and wind turbines generating electricity – produced by U.S. workers in U.S. factories.

Key parts of the pact include lobbying for a national standard ordering U.S. utilities to purchase a set percentage of their power from renewable sources – wind, solar, hydro, etc. – and for tax incentives to ensure the parts for the wind turbines and associated power plants and transmission lines are manufactured here, not overseas.

“We expect this framework will help advance the promise of green jobs being key to our future. The nation cannot continue to fall behind other countries on clean energy manufacturing,” said Steelworkers President Leo Gerard.

Continue reading Green Jobs Now! Dept: Steelworkers, Wind Energy Group Join Forces →

Photo: Worker-Owner at MCC Coop

The Mondragon Alliance:

The Goal Is to Create Jobs

By Putting People First

By Rob Witherell

United Steel Workers

Keynote Speech at Western Mass.

Jobs with Justice Conference

March 6, 2010

—  An official unemployment rate of 10%

—  A real rate of unemployment and underemployment of 17%

—  Millions of good paying jobs lost, including 2 million manufacturing jobs in the past year alone

—  Stagnating wages

—  Frozen pensions and inadequate 401(k) plans

—  Sky rocketing health insurance costs

—  Millions of people without health insurance

—  Millions of people falling into poverty

—  Millions of people receiving food stamps to feed their families

—  Millions of people homeless and millions more struggling to stay in the homes they have

In the middle of the worst recession we’ve seen in the past 70 years, conservative politicians in Washington, DC are defiantly putting the purity of their ideals before the reality of the painful consequences.  Congress is not a high school debate club.  People need help, not talking points.

Wall Street executives, who were part of creating this crisis, were the first ones with their hands out, asking for help from Main Street taxpayers.  We gave them billions and billions of dollars.  As panic began to recede, they gave some of those billions back rather than have to live with the few strings attached.  These fat cat executives are trying to avoid accountability and transparency, regardless of the cost.  The millions of dollars in bonuses being paid again to executives, while insulting to the rest of us, are less harmful to our economy and our communities than the fact that little has changed in how Wall Street works.  Years of increasing deregulation have left us with a Wild West of finance where anything goes. Continue reading Steelworkers Elaborate on Worker-Ownership Jobs Effort →