November 28, 2011
Check out USW Director of Education and economist Lisa Jordan explain how the economy went so wrong for the 99 percent and how we can stand and fight for a better way:
March 29, 2011
In Pennsylvania, and around our nation, corporate CEOs and the politicians they funded to win election are trying to cut essential services, programs and jobs. They're trying to erode our rights and bust unions - the only ones who can stand up to the ultra wealthy and fight for everyone else.
It's time to stand and fight!
In Pennsylvania, contact Gov. Tom Corbett and your state lawmakers and demand that they stop the budget cuts and demand that corporations pay their fair share! Click here to contact the governor's office. Click here to find your local legislators.
No matter where you live, send this message to your state lawmakers! Click here to sign the AFL-CIO petition to state legislators fighting for our rights and demanding that corporate CEOs and Wall Street pay their fair share!
For more information, visit the Protect Workers' Rights online tool kit and check back often for updates. Remember - We Are One and together, we will make the difference.
March 09, 2011
The attack on workers' rights around the nation has energized the American middle class and the USW. Here's a collection of videos capturing recent events.
USW International President Leo W. Gerard on ABC This Week (03/06/2011)
Leo on KDKA's Sunday Edition (03/06/2011)
Solidarity in Madison
Leo Madison State House
Madison State House Feb 21 2011 from Scott Marshall on Vimeo.
USW Wisconsin
American Workers Vs Billionaires
Madison Protests
Madison Protests - Part 3, by Matt Wisniewsk
WI "Budget Repair Bill" Protest (Feb 20-24?) Pt. 3 from Matt Wisniewski on Vimeo.
Other Videos:
Madison Ground Zero Music Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_EkUQFPwNc
Indiana Statehouse Protests
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLIY50lSvuU
Wisconsin Police Union Join Protests
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVE_rLjxnfU
Shouting Shame in Wisconsin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGDp581g9t0
Wisconsin "Budget Bill" Protests Part 1&2
http://vimeo.com/20089255
http://vimeo.com/20168864
February 21, 2011
United Steelworkers members were out in force - many standing outside in freezing rain - to speak out against proposed anti-worker, anti-union legislation in Indiana. Click here to learn why so-called "Right to Work" bills are bad for Indiana workers and find out how you can help.
February 21, 2011
The following is an op-ed by famed economist Paul Krugman published Feb. 20, 2011, in The New York Times.
Last week, in the face of protest demonstrations against Wisconsin's new union-busting governor, Scott Walker - demonstrations that continued through the weekend, with huge crowds on Saturday - Representative Paul Ryan made an unintentionally apt comparison: "It's like Cairo has moved to Madison."
It wasn't the smartest thing for Mr. Ryan to say, since he probably didn't mean to compare Mr. Walker, a fellow Republican, to Hosni Mubarak. Or maybe he did - after all, quite a few prominent conservatives, including Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santorum, denounced the uprising in Egypt and insist that President Obama should have helped the Mubarak regime suppress it.
In any case, however, Mr. Ryan was more right than he knew. For what's happening in Wisconsin isn't about the state budget, despite Mr. Walker's pretense that he's just trying to be fiscally responsible. It is, instead, about power.
What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin - and eventually, America - less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that's why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators' side.
Some background: Wisconsin is indeed facing a budget crunch, although its difficulties are less severe than those facing many other states. Revenue has fallen in the face of a weak economy, while stimulus funds, which helped close the gap in 2009 and 2010, have faded away.
In this situation, it makes sense to call for shared sacrifice, including monetary concessions from state workers. And union leaders have signaled that they are, in fact, willing to make such concessions.
But Mr. Walker isn't interested in making a deal. Partly that's because he doesn't want to share the sacrifice: even as he proclaims that Wisconsin faces a terrible fiscal crisis, he has been pushing through tax cuts that make the deficit worse. Mainly, however, he has made it clear that rather than bargaining with workers, he wants to end workers' ability to bargain.
The bill that has inspired the demonstrations would strip away collective bargaining rights for many of the state's workers, in effect busting public-employee unions. Tellingly, some workers - namely, those who tend to be Republican-leaning - are exempted from the ban; it's as if Mr. Walker were flaunting the political nature of his actions.
Why bust the unions? As I said, it has nothing to do with helping Wisconsin deal with its current fiscal crisis. Nor is it likely to help the state's budget prospects even in the long run: contrary to what you may have heard, public-sector workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere are paid somewhat less than private-sector workers with comparable qualifications, so there's not much room for further pay squeezes.
So it's not about the budget; it's about the power.
In principle, every American citizen has an equal say in our political process. In practice, of course, some of us are more equal than others.
Billionaires can field armies of lobbyists; they can finance think tanks that put the desired spin on policy issues; they can funnel cash to politicians with sympathetic views (as the Koch brothers did in the case of Mr. Walker). On paper, we're a one-person-one-vote nation; in reality, we're more than a bit of an oligarchy, in which a handful of wealthy people dominate.
Given this reality, it's important to have institutions that can act as counterweights to the power of big money. And unions are among the most important of these institutions.
You don't have to love unions, you don't have to believe that their policy positions are always right, to recognize that they're among the few influential players in our political system representing the interests of middle- and working-class Americans, as opposed to the wealthy. Indeed, if America has become more oligarchic and less democratic over the last 30 years - which it has - that's to an important extent due to the decline of private-sector unions.
And now Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to get rid of public-sector unions, too.
There's a bitter irony here. The fiscal crisis in Wisconsin, as in other states, was largely caused by the increasing power of America's oligarchy. After all, it was superwealthy players, not the general public, who pushed for financial deregulation and thereby set the stage for the economic crisis of 2008-9, a crisis whose aftermath is the main reason for the current budget crunch. And now the political right is trying to exploit that very crisis, using it to remove one of the few remaining checks on oligarchic influence.
So will the attack on unions succeed? I don't know. But anyone who cares about retaining government of the people by the people should hope that it doesn't.
March 12, 2010
The Economic Policy Institute recently released a new fact sheet that has some stunning data. It shows that the Great Recession and the toll of joblessness is great. For example, some 2.2 million manufacturing jobs have been lost since the beginning of the recession, or nearly 16 percent of all jobs in that sector. Click here for the entire fact sheet.
February 17, 2010
Support for manufacturing continues to grow in the United States, as the results of a new poll show and as more and more economists - even conservative ones - say that returning to a manufacturing-based economy is what our nation needs to create good jobs. Check out this blog by Mike Elk posted today on the Huffington Post:
Protecting manufacturing jobs has long been considered an issue that only people in the Midwest or in unions cared about. However, a recent USA Today/ Gallup Poll showed that Americans believe the number one way to solve the jobs crisis is to keep manufacturing jobs in the U.S.
The manufacturing jobs crisis has been accelerating rapidly; 5.5 million high-paying manufacturing jobs have been lost since 2000, with an incredible 2.1 million lost in the last two years alone. Such rapid loss has startled even typically free-trade-loving political pundits into agreeing that something needs to be done to protect manufacturing. Establishment columnist Robert Samuelson wrote in The Washington Post this weekend:
Greater conflicts and a collision of national egos seem inevitable. No longer should we sit passively while China's trade and currency policies jeopardize jobs here and elsewhere. Political differences between the countries are increasingly hard to ignore.
It's not just low-skill jobs that are disappearing anymore; it's high technology jobs that were suppose to be the new core of the U.S. economy that are leaving as well. Recently, 19 U.S. trade associations, which have traditionally backed free-trade measures, asked the Obama administration to take action against China's efforts to force them to turn over advanced technologies developed with American taxpayer money.
On the trade front, President Obama has taken some preliminary steps to stem this threat to the American economy, such as enforcing an anti-dumping ruling against Chinese tire makers last year. Also, Obama released a "Framework for Revitalizing American Manufacturing," which Steelworkers President Leo Gerard labeled a "good start."
However, China is taking advantage of U.S. Senate inaction on stimulus investment to jockey to the top of the race to lead the global economy. China invested 70 percent of its yearly budget into stimulus spending to keep its economy going through the economic downturn. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats fumble with a severely inadequate $15-billion-dollar jobs package. Former AT&T Broadband Chairman Leo Hindrey argues in a must-read piece today that an inadequate stimulus response is actually creating an opportunity for the Chinese to pull ahead of the US:
China's economy is visibly re-booming while much of the world, especially America, continues to face severe economic problems. The Great Recession has in fact quickly turned into China's "great opportunity," with American companies cutting both their payrolls and their capital spending, thereby driving business to China at the same time that Chinese manufacturers are boosting their global competitiveness, directly on their own and indirectly through subsidies from their partner central government.
Companies aren't moving to China simply to take advantage of cheaper labor costs in low-skill production work; today it's to build computer chips and wind turbines, taking advantage of the infrastructure subsidies, tax breaks and, of course, illegal currency manipulation that is responsible for 90 percent of the savings associated with manufacturing in China. (Currency manipulation alone accounts for 25% of the savings, according to Economist Peter Moriri).
As Norbert Sporns, a Seattle-based CEO who recently moved some production to China, said, "The major reason why we're [now] sited [in China] is not because of cheaper labor, but because of government support, because of the infrastructure that is laid out properly."
As Congress looks for ways to solve the unemployment crisis it should invest in increased infrastructure spending with Strong Buy America provisions. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that $2.2 trillion is needed over five years to bring it back to proper conditions. Investing in infrastructure does more than put people to work right away building roads, bridges, etc; it helps create the type of environment business to succeed--something China is kicking our butt in. It also helps American manufacturing grow as jobs gains from infrastructure investment can increase by up to 33 percent when strong Buy America provisions are included.
In order to have a real jobs bill, we must invest heavily in infrastructure with a strong Buy America provisions. It would also help Creating would help states a $357 billion budget shortfall and local governments are facing an additional $80 billion budget shortfall. This could help create million of jobs, revitalize American manufacturing, and keeps states from being forced to choose between cutting education or stopping bridges from falling down.
Senate Democrats should go back to the drawing board and do a real job bills that makes America competitive with China by investing in infrastructure with Buy America provisions. A recent Gallup poll shows there is broad bipartisan support for this among the American public. More importantly to some Senate Democrats, there is broad support from the establishment pundits that they often seem more concerned about pleasing. Our economy, with China on the rise, can simply not afford inaction by the United States Senate.
January 13, 2010
It's a sad reality: too many of our USW sisters and brothers have been laid off. When you lose a job, it's devastating in so many ways. We've put together a resource guide that we hope will help you through some of the confusing times. Click here to download the guide.
February 09, 2009
From pushing our Buy American resolution at state houses and city councils, to writing letters to the editor and participating in rallies, there's plenty to do to make sure working families' voices are hard as we push to renew our economy.
If you want to be involved, sign up for our campaign here, or click here for a list of USW Make Our Future Work coordinators by district. Find the one in the state where you live and let them know you're ready to work! The coordinators will help keep you informed, keep you updated about actions and let you know where we need help.
Check this site often for a listing of events as well as for the latest information about our campaign to fight for economic renewal that works for working families.
January 05, 2009
Former lawmaker Jim Hightower has written a new article in which he describes how Congress has turned the nation's economic woes into class warfare. Read more here.
January 06, 2009
In this United Auto Workers TV ad, airing in Washington, UAW members tell members of Congress to give Main Street the same consideration they've given Wall Street. Check it out here:
