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International Media Unions Meet in Los Angeles The Media, Entertainment and Arts Sector of the Union Network International held its General Assembly in Los Angeles last October. Some 120 delegates from over 100 international media and entertainment unions attended three days of panels as well as receptions at the Writers Guild and Directors Guild. Leadership from American entertainment unions, including Tom Short, president of the IATSE and Editors Guild Executive Director Ron Kutak, met with colleagues from around the world to exchange information and ideas about entertainment labor issues. Delegates expressed a growing concern over efforts by governments to relax media ownership rules, something affecting many countries besides the United States. UNI-MEI
Enters the Digital Age 10/6 | UNI-MEI
on Cultural Diversity 10/3 | UNI-MEI
Press release 10/1
New Federal Bill Expands Labor Rights Workers and their allies joined lawmakers on Capitol Hill in November to announce the Employee Free Choice Act, which would enable U.S. workers to join unions and negotiate first contracts without employer harassment. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Representative George Miller (D-Calif.) are co-sponsoring the new bill, which will offer three important new rights and protections. It will allow employees to freely choose whether to form unions by signing cards authorizing union representation, provide mediation and arbitration for first contract disputes, and establish stronger penalties for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during first contract negotiations. AFL-CIO News Analysis 11/13 | Labor Research Association 11/13 News Outlets Ignore Labor Issues Project Censored, a well-known investigative media analysis project at Sonoma State University in California, has released its annual list of the top 25 most underreported news stories for 2002-2003. Number five is “The Effort to Make Unions Disappear,” drawn from the research of four published accounts and one academic study. The article pulls together several underreported labor news stories, including the erosion of the right to organize and anti-labor provisions in the new Homeland Security Department. “Called the ‘most pro-corporate president in history,’ George W. Bush has been, particularly since 9-11, engaged in a relentless, yet largely covert, effort to undermine labor unions and worker protections,” states Project Censored. Bush Administration Increases Costs to Unions Less than 24 hours after the U.S. House of Representatives voted to block the Bush administration attack on overtime pay protections in October, the White House issued new federal rules that could cost unions as much as $1 billion a year. The new rules are part of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act and involve what are called the LM-2 annual reports that all unions currently file with the U.S. Department of Labor. Unions already operate under far stricter financial reporting rules than do corporations, and the cost of following the new requirements leaves unions fewer resources for contract negotiations, grievance procedures, organizing and other activities. Democratic Candidates on Labor Issues Presidential primary season is rapidly approaching. California and New York primaries are March 2. Voter registration deadlines vary — it’s February 5 in New York and February 15 in California. The presidential primaries are an important opportunity for voters to carefully consider the candidates and their positions. While you may as an individual have an interest in many issues, as a member of the Editors Guild you may also want to consider how the candidates stand on labor issues.
During presidential elections, business outspends labor by a factor of twelve to one. According to the Federal Election Commission, business spent over a billion dollars during the 2002 campaign, while labor spent less than $100 million. Business interests also own the major media outlets. Media conglomerates are motivated not by public service, but by advertising income. Companies advertising their products in print or over the air prefer to avoid messages that could ultimately increase their labor costs. Consequently, trade union issues are ignored, diminished or dismissed as “special interests.” For example, most media outlets, with the notable exception of C-SPAN, ignored the AFL-CIO’s Working Families Presidential Forum last August, despite the participation of all the candidates. So here is our opportunity to place labor issues front and center, with the perspectives for each of the current nine Democratic candidates. Candidates with prominent labor endorsements appear first. Congressman Dick Gephardt has been an advocate for organized labor for over three decades. Gephardt has defended labor rights against a series a partisan attacks and delivered several increases in the federal minimum wage, including one during Newt Gingrich’s first term as Speaker of the House. Currently he calls for a gradual transition to a living wage, which would be indexed to inflation and include health care coverage. Gephardt wants to enforce and expand labor law to better protect workers. He joins most of the other Democratic candidates in supporting “card check recognition,” which would establish a union whenever a majority of workers have signed cards stating that they wish to unionize. He is also in favor of first contract arbitration and requiring triple back pay for any unlawfully dismissed union organizers, as well as legislation banning permanent striker replacements. Twenty unions have endorsed Gephardt, including the IATSE. Gephardt’s
record on Labor Issues | Gephardt’s
record on Labor Issues “ Workers rights are fundamental human rights,” says former Governor Howard Dean. As governor of Vermont, he supported binding arbitration for municipal workers and was the first recipient of the AFL-CIO Paul Wellstone Award, based on his support of labor. Dean is in favor of card check recognition and also believes there should be meaningful financial penalties available to federal regulators when an employer fails to negotiate in good faith with a union. Two of the nation’s largest unions have endorsed Dean: the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. “ Under the Bush Administration, ‘jobs’ is a four-letter word,” says Senator John Kerry. “We have lost more jobs than at any time since the Great Depression.”
Kerry believes that the Bush Administration has been the most anti-labor administration in recent memory. If elected president, he promises to restore the three million jobs lost under George Bush during his first 500 days, bring back the strength of the manufacturing sector, increase the minimum wage and make workplaces safer and healthier. Kerry also supports card check recognition. As of press time, labor endorsements consisted of the Utility Workers Union of America and the International Association of Fire Fighters. Kerry’s statement on Labor Day | Kerry on restoring Jobs “ Labor has stood almost alone while corporations have cut wages and benefits,” writes IATSE member and Congressman Dennis Kucinich. He believes there is a direct correlation between the decline in union membership and increases in the gulf between rich and poor, saying “…attacks on unions are a means of redistributing wealth upwards. Since 1981 the share of income of the richest 5 percent of this country has increased more than 40 percent while that of the lowest fifth has decreased more than 20 percent.”
Kucinich calls for a repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, legislation passed
in 1947 that is used frequently to prevent unions from going
on strike. On votes the AFL-CIO considered the most important for 2002,
Kucinich
voted the preferred position 100 percent of the time. Edwards proposed legislation in September that would overhaul the National Labor Relations Act, the law that has governed union organizing since 1935. The proposal would ensure that workers illegally fired for union activity get a prompt hearing, include strong financial penalties on employers who break the law, prevent employers from ignoring workers who unionize, allow workers to establish a union after a majority have signed cards and ban the permanent replacement of striking workers. “ I have always been committed to supporting unions because unions are good for all workers — and good for America,” writes Senator Joe Lieberman. In 1975, he successfully led the fight to guarantee collective bargaining rights for Connecticut state workers. In the U.S. Senate, he has opposed anti-salting legislation (laws that would prevent the hiring of union workers at non-union companies), has consistently opposed a national right-to-work law and has supported anti-scab legislation. Lieberman on labor issues | Lieberman on labor issues Retired U.S. Army general and former NATO commander Wesley Clark has never held public office and so has no voting record on labor issues. As of press time, he also had not yet responded to the AFL-CIO labor questionnaire. In his biographical essay on his website he expressed a desire to “…reduce unemployment to the levels achieved in the Clinton Administration,” but also expressed the perspective that as we “…empower more international trade and finance, firms will naturally shift production and services to areas where the costs are lower.” At the AFL-CIO’s Working Families Presidential Forum, former Senator Carol Mosely-Braun was asked about the right to bargain collectively. “ The fact of the matter is that unions, organized labor, has given us the middle class. And if we’re going to fight for the middle class, we have to fight for unions,” she stated. “This is especially important for women, because we suffer a wage gap still that becomes a pension gap, a retirement gap…my dad used to march picket lines and worked to organize workers. And so I’ve grown up with the notion that the right of workers to come together, to bargain collectively for the conditions of work and for their lifestyle and for wages and the like, is a fundamental right.” Mosely-Braun at the AFL-CIO Working Families Presidential Forum Reverend Al Sharpton has been a candidate numerous times, but has yet to hold elected office. On the AFL-CIO’s candidate question concerning minimum wage, Sharpton promised to “work with Congress to increase it to a livable wage and index it to inflation. This would guarantee a floor below which no American worker would fall.” On the question of the right to organize, Sharpton called for strengthening the National Labor Relations Board “to make it an effective and fair tool for workers’ right to organize.” Sharpton’s
responses to the AFL-CIO’s questionnaire | Register
to Vote On-Line | OpenSecrets.org |
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