|
IA Endorses Gephardt Democratic presidential candidate Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) picked up another union endorsement as the executive board of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees unanimously backed his candidacy. It was the first time in its 110-year history that the union endorsed a presidential candidate. IA President Tom Short praised Gephardt’s national health care plan and his opposition to the privatization of Social Security. “For Dick Gephardt, affordable health care for every American is not a national imperative, it is a moral imperative,” Short said. At press time, Gephardt had received fourteen union endorsements, including the Machinists, the Teamsters and the Steelworkers.
NY Times 7/29 | Gephardt acknowledges the IA’s endorsement. | Complete list of unions endorsing Gephardt. | Washington Post 8/1 | In These Times 8/25 U.S. Senate Blocks Overtime ‘Reforms’ President Bush’s plan to change the definition
of who is eligible for overtime pay ran into a serious roadblock as
the Senate, in a rare Democratic victory, voted to block the White
House from issuing the new rules. Six Republicans joined with 48 Democrats
to oppose the plan, which critics say would strip as many as eight
million workers of their right to overtime. NY Times 9/11 | AFL-CIO Press Release 9/10 Senate Votes Against FCC’s Media Ownership Rules The Senate dealt a blow to the Bush Administration by voting to rescind new Federal Communications Commission rules that would allow large media companies to get even bigger. By a vote of 55 to 40, the Senate approved a resolution that would roll back the FCC regulations allowing television networks to own more stations and permitting conglomerates to own newspaper, television and radio stations in a single metropolitan market. President Bush has threatened to veto this bill if it reaches his desk. “ Never have I seen a federal regulatory agency cave in so completely and quickly to the industry it is supposed to be regulating,” said Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), who, with Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss.), co-sponsored the unusual resolution. Since the FCC vote in June, the media ownership rules have been under assault by a bipartisan group of lawmakers and a broad coalition of advocacy groups, saying they would harm media diversity and place too much power in the hands of a few major media companies. Washington Post 9/4 | Wall Street Journal 9/5 | SF Chronicle 9/12 | Wall Street Journal 9/12 | NY Times 9/16 Group Seeks To Block Canadian Film Subsidies The Film and Television Action Committee (FTAC) received the endorsement of Film U.S., an organization of state and local film commissions, for a controversial effort to seek a ruling from the World Trade Organization (WTO) that Canadian production subsidies are illegal. FTAC is comprised of below-the-line Hollywood workers. The group is pursuing the submission of a petition asking the U.S. Trade Representative to initiate negotiations with Canada to remove its subsidies, backed by the threat of intervention by the WTO, as the most effective way of preventing productions from using less-expensive foreign locations. In a related development, Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) reintroduced federal anti-runaway-production legislation. Senate Bill 1613 is a tax credit bill aimed at productions budgeted under $10 million and is supported by many film unions and trade groups. Studios, Unions Form ‘Free Trade’ Coalition A new group, known as the Entertain-ment Industry Coalition for Free Trade, was formed earlier this year to influence international trade negotiations, in order to make shooting in foreign locales easier and cheaper. Participants include all the major studios and record labels, as well as the Screen Actors Guild, Writers Guild West, Producers and Directors Guilds, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America. Due to the Coalition’s influence, the House passed trade agreements with Chile and Singapore in July despite serious opposition from national unions. The agreements contain language eliminating relevant import tariffs and strengthening intellectual property rights. Even though Hollywood unions are included in the Coalition, the rest of organized labor has a different perspective. “Labor leaders have stressed that these two most recent deals [with Chile and Singapore] will set a dangerous precedent regarding workers’ rights and environmental standards, as they are expected to serve as a template for upcoming pacts with five Central American countries, with 33 nations of the Western Hemisphere and with Australia and Morocco, all of which could be finalized in 2004,” writes Cynthia Green in a Labor Research Association editorial. AFL-CIO Launches Campaign to Reform Labor Law The AFL-CIO plans to launch a nationwide campaign to change federal laws and make it easier for workers to join unions. The federation’s president, John Sweeney, said that American workers often face huge obstacles joining unions. Sweeney cited academic studies indicating that in 92 percent of organizing drives, employers invoked their legal right to make employees attend anti-union meetings, and that supervisors submitted workers to one-on-one pressure sessions in 78 percent of such campaigns. Nike Settles Free Speech Case Rather than face more litigation, Nike has elected to pay $1.5 million to settle charges that the company lied about its reliance on sweatshop labor. While some had hoped that this would be a landmark case answering the question of whether corporations have the right to free speech, the settlement does leave intact a California Supreme Court ruling that companies can be sued under state law for making allegedly false statements. San Francisco activist Marc Kasky sued Nike five years ago, claiming the company lied in press releases and other statements concerning the conditions in the factories where its athletic shoes were made. Nike claimed protection under the First Amendment. The company appealed the California Supreme Court ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided in June that a ruling on the free speech issue would be premature before a trial on the truthfulness of Nike’s statements. Rather than face losing at trial, Nike opted to settle. The settlement stipulates that Nike pay $1.5 million — about half of one day's advertising budget — to the Washington, D.C.-based Fair Labor Association, which promotes adherence to international labor standards and improved working conditions worldwide. Seattle Post-Intelligencer 9/12 | Reclaim Democracy 9/12 | FLA Press Release 9/12 Democratic Presidential Candidates On Trade Issues In this age of out-sourcing, job flight and globalization, it’s important for union voters to understand the presidential candidates’ views on trade issues. By and large, debate centers around the pros and cons of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), passed by Congress in 1993. NAFTA is an international agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, designed to increase trade by removing barriers. “NAFTA’s main outcome,” writes the AFL-CIO Executive Council, “has been to strengthen the clout and bargaining power of multinational corporations, to limit the scope of governments to regulate in the public interest and to force workers into more direct competition with each other — reinforcing the downward pressure on their living standards, while assuring them fewer rights and protections.” Retired U.S. Army general and former NATO commander Wesley Clark announced his candidacy on September 17. As of press time, he had not yet released information concerning his views. Former Governor Howard Dean opposes trade agreements that do not include meaningful labor, environmental and human rights protections. “We are subsidizing the profits of multinational corporations by not having international labor standards. Free trade must equal fair trade,” says Dean. In 2002, Senator John Edwards voted against giving President Bush fast-track trade authority, after several provisions he supported to help workers and the textile industry were dropped from the final bill. Edwards had worked to include amendments that would have sped up aid to displaced textile workers hurt by the trade deals, and increased financing for community college retraining programs. Congressman Dick Gephardt has gone beyond his decade-long opposition to NAFTA by calling for a phased-in international minimum wage (IMW) administered by the World Trade Organization. The goal of the IMW will be to equalize a “living wage” in each country to ensure the proper levels of sustenance for that country’s population. The IMW will vary based on a country’s development level and will help to eliminate the proliferation of slave, sweatshop and child labor around the world. Senator Bob Graham supported NAFTA, and he voted in favor of giving President Bush “fast track” trade authority. At the AFL-CIO Working Families Presidential Forum on August 5, he supported provisions for labor rights, human rights and environmental standards in future trade agreements. Senator John Kerry has attacked President Bush for the nation’s losses in manufacturing employment, while holding fast to the Clinton administration’s support for open markets. Kerry accused Dean and Gephardt of pandering to unions and advocating a retreat from the global economy. Congressman Dennis Kucinich has called for the dissolution of NAFTA, stating it is an obstacle to economic democracy and an abrogation of U.S. law. Kucinich goes on to say that “all nations must review and modify all treaties which reject national sovereignty in the cause of a global corporate ethic which does not respect human rights, workers rights’ and environmental quality standards.” Senator Joe Lieberman warns against the “resurgent protectionism of some in the Democratic party, which would cost us jobs by building barriers instead of bridges to the world, and the do-nothing ideology of the Bush Administration, which has left American workers defenseless while other nations have manipulated the rules of free trade.” Former Senator Carol Mosely-Braun admitted that her vote in the Senate in favor of NAFTA was a mistake because the agreement lacked environmental and labor standards. Reverend Al Sharpton calls for the strengthening of our “real national security by fighting for human rights, the rule of law, and economic justice at home and abroad.” AFL-CIO on NAFTA 4/19/2001 | More
on NAFTA | Gephardt’s
International Minimum Wage Proposal |
|||||||||||||
