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The bubble economy has finally run its course. For a long time we've been told to trust the wisdom of the free market. But after years of conservative economic policy that all but eliminated effective market regulation, we've seen a seemingly endless parade of corporate failures and misdeeds. Since the 2001 Bush inauguration, four trillion dollars of investment funds, much of it in pensions and retirement accounts, have vanished, and two million Americans have lost their jobs. Few laws appear to have been broken, and many officers and insiders have walked away with millions of dollars. "For the first time in 20 years, corporate America is losing legitimacy," labor leader Tony Mazzocchi wrote, pointing to the Enron and WorldCom debacles. "It is cracking under the weight of its own greed. No longer can it play the goose that lays the golden eggs." Mid-term elections come at an auspicious moment. Will the Democrats, long-time friends of organized labor, be able to turn this "crisis of capitalism" (as the Financial Times of London put it) into election results? With Democrats holding a one-seat edge in the Senate and a six-seat deficit in the House, this is the most closely divided legislature in half a century. Every incumbent Senate Democrat is running for re-election (none are retiring) and all are polling well. On the other side of the aisle, four Republicans are stepping down. The party is scrambling to defend their seats and is struggling to hold vulnerable incumbencies in New Hampshire, Arkansas, Colorado and Oregon, as well. As we saw in the 2000 election campaign, every vote matters. Please don't let indifference or cynicism keep you from voting. Financial Times Special Report
"The corporate wrongdoing being exposed daily is not the product of a few bad people. It is the result of markets that were once well regulated, but now allow short-term pressures to combine with conflicts of interest and unchecked greed to destroy companies, industries and lives," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. "To exert real leadership, the president will not only have to put the weight of his presidency behind serious reforms that go further, he must also insist on an investigation of the irregularities at Halliburton when Vice President Cheney was CEO and fully disclose details of his own sale of Harken Energy stock." Sweeney called for fundamental reforms, including changes in "rules that are rigged to entrench and enrich CEOs and other insiders at the expense of employees, shareholders, the companies themselves, and the national economy." "When CEOs personally profit as a result of abusing their responsibilities, they should be required to return their gains directly to shareholders and employees," he said. "We must have new laws that move employees from the bottom of the ladder in bankruptcy proceedings to the top, so individuals whose lives are ruined by their companies' behavior are not left with crumbs after big banks and preferred creditors get their share."
The Bush administration is determined to keep cargo moving through West Coast ports, and has promised to call in U.S. troops should contract negotiations break down. At press time, though progress had been made, the outcome was still unclear. One option is for the president to declare a national economic emergency, forcing a strike delay for 80 days. The AFL-CIO Executive Council strongly condemned the administration's actions. "The Bush administration is threatening the ILWU [International Longshore and Warehouse Union] with military action in support of a lockout of the ILWU workers in the event of an impasse in negotiations. The mere threat of intervention is an unconscionable effort to bolster the PMA's [Pacific Maritime Association's] contract demands and threatens the legitimate collective bargaining rights of longshore workers. On a larger scale, the threatened use of federal troops to determine the outcome of a collective bargaining dispute undermines the basic civil rights of the labor movement and all American workers," the council said in a statement. AFL-CIO Press Release 8/9/02 | AFL-CIO Executive Council Statement 8/7/02 | ILWU
California Labor Federation (CLF) President Tom Rankin delivered a petition to the Cal-OSHA Standards Board calling for a stricter ergonomics standard in California. The current standard only comes into play when two workers at the same company report the same specific repetitive motion injury within a 12-month period. "As of last year, two-thirds of all the Cal-OSHA ergonomics complaint-triggered investigations resulted in no citations because there was no qualifying second injury," Rankin said. "What happens to the worker who was the first one injured? And what happens to other workers exposed to the same ergonomic hazards?" Every year, says the CLF, thousands of California workers suffer crippling repetitive motion injuries -- at a cost of hundreds of millions on dollars to businesses. By adopting a comprehensive, hazard-based, preventive approach, the Cal-OSHA Standards Board can create a win-win situation for workers and employers alike. Such a stronger standard is the subject of a Federation-sponsored bill, AB 2845, by Jackie Goldberg (D–Los Angeles). California Labor Federation Legislative Agenda
The debate over workers rights in the war on terrorism has proved to be a contentious one as the Bush administration insisted on removing some of the traditional Civil Service and union protections for workers in its new Department of Homeland Security. "The Bush administration seems to believe that collective action on the part of workers -- and specifically the right of certain federal workers to join a union -- is a potential threat to national security," writes Jacqueline Jones, a history professor at Brandeis University. "The president favors a plan for the proposed Department of Homeland Security that would allow for 'managerial flexibility.' This notion that unions are superfluous -- or, worse, somehow subversive to the nation's well-being -- is deeply troubling." One union that would represent many federal employees in this Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU). NTEU President Colleen Kelley said the administration's proposal would give the directors of homeland security and the federal Office of Personnel Management wide-ranging authority to waive all civil service laws -- including merit principles, whistleblower protection, the right to belong to a union, and pay and benefits for any employee of the new department. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) would also represent employees in the new department. In Congressional testimony on the President's DHS proposal, AFGE President Bobby Harnage pointed to language that would give "authority to the Bush administration to exempt DHS employees from Title 5 civil service protections and collective bargaining rights." Title 5 was enacted in 1966 to establish the rights of federal employees in the workplace. It allows for union representation, job evaluation based on merit, and a variety of other protections, all of which could be threatened under the president's plan. NY Times 8/2/02 | AFL-CIO Press Release 7/26/02 | NY Times 8/4/02
A civil suit, filed in the District of Columbia, alleges that the Indonesian military provided "security services" for ExxonMobil, and that the Indonesian military committed "genocide, murder, torture, crimes against humanity, sexual violence and kidnapping" while providing security for the company from 1999 to 2001. Lawyers also claim that ExxonMobil provided these hired troops with facilities and equipment, including excavators that were used to dig mass graves, and buildings where illegally detained prisoners were tortured. The plaintiff, the International Labor Rights Fund, claims that ExxonMobil was aware of widespread abuses committed by the military but failed to take any action to prevent them. In an Orwellian twist, the State Department declared that pursuit of the case would harm Washington's campaign against terrorism, and urged the court to dismiss the lawsuit. "Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, is a focus of the Bush administration's effort to fight terrorists" explained State Department legal adviser William H. Taft IV in a letter to the court, "and any action by the United States that could interrupt the country's revenues would be perceived by the Indonesian government as interference in its internal affairs." In Aceh, many have a strong distaste for ExxonMobil, which is seen to have given little in return for the vast profits it has made, particularly in helping villagers directly affected by the project. ExxonMobil's gas fields in Aceh have produced 3,600 cargos, worth $47 billion, since 1978. Taft also suggested that Chinese oil companies, which have made significant purchases in Indonesia recently, might try to replace ExxonMobil if it were forced to leave, and could be "far less concerned about human rights." Some businesses believe the State Department may move to scrap the Alien Torts Claims Act (ACTA), which is used to hold U.S. companies responsible for human-rights abuses. "This is ... sending a signal that the administration is not only not sympathetic to these lawsuits, but may in fact seek to repeal the Act," said one American mining executive. ILRF [See ExxonMobil link] | NY Times 8/8/02 | Far Eastern Economic Review 8/15/02 |
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