Tuesday, April 14, 2015

US Senate Votes on Fast Track

The Fast Track Fight Begins In The Senate

Dave Johnson
The final fight to stop fast track begins this week. The new trade promotion authority (“fast track”) bill could be released in the Senate at any moment. (It might be out by the time you read this.)
Hatch and Wyden Poised to Introduce Bill
With literally zero reporting from the national TV networks and a virtual news blackout at most newspapers around the country, at least Politico sets the stage for insiders in their report, “Trade fight looms as Congress returns“:
Senate Finance Committee leaders Orrin Hatch and Ron Wyden appear poised to introduce a “fast track” trade promotion authority bill along with House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. But months of closed-door negotiations were continuing on Friday, congressional aides said.
The power, largely embraced by Republicans, pits many congressional Democrats, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren and potentially Senate Democratic leader-in-waiting Charles Schumer, against the White House.
The measure would allow President Barack Obama to submit free trade agreements to Congress for straight up or down votes without any amendments. It’s seen as key to completing his signature 12-country trade deal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact.
Fast track is, in essence, congressional pre-approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement. With fast track Congress agrees to give up its much of constitutional duty to define negotiating objectives, carefully deliberate and debate, and fix problems that might turn up. With fast track rendering Congress unable to fix flaws, even if any problems do turn up that might seriously hurt the country or our economy, a vote on the trade agreement will occur under the enormous pressure of the media blasting, “surely they won’t just kill the whole thing over a few problems.”
The idea is that allowing Congress (democratic government) to “meddle” will get in the way and keep other (non-democratic) countries from “making their best offers.” Congress is considering this pre-approval of TPP and future trade agreements even though the national news media is not reporting on fast track or TPP, and Congress and the public haven’t yet even seen the agreement (never mind had time to analyze it and consider its ramifications).
Week Of Action
The AFL-CIO is organizing a “Week of Action Against Fast Tracking Trade Deals.”
On Wednesday at 11 am in Washington D.C.’s Upper Senate Park, more than 600 union members will rally at an event organized by the United Steelworkers (USW) on Capitol Hill. The rally will feature Senators Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Al Franken (D-Minn.), Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), USW President Leo Gerard, AFL-CIO Executive VP Tefere Gebre, AFGE President J. David Cox, National Association of Letter Carriers President Fred Rolando, American Federation of Teachers Secretary-Treasurer Loretta Johnson, and Sierra Club National Campaign Director Debbie Sease.
On Saturday, the AFL-CIO and its member unions are organizing over 50 events throughout the country in conjunction with hundreds of events planned as part of the global day of action in over a dozen countries.
A Monday story in The Hill, “Labor unions ramp up opposition to Obama trade agenda,” has more on the Week of Action:
Lawmakers, labor union leaders and their members will hold a rally Wednesday on Capitol Hill and follow that up with 50 grassroots events around the country and in more than a dozen countries on Saturday as part of the weeklong effort. …
The efforts include letter-writing campaigns, phone calls, petitions and door-knocks.
Meanwhile CREDO and other organizations are petitioning to ask presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to lead the opposition to fast track and TPP.
Don’t Trade Our Future Demonstration April 20
There will also be a “Don’t Trade Our Future” demonstration on April 20, the final day of the Populism2015 Conference in Washington, which is sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future (CAF), National People’s Action (NPA), USAction and the Alliance for a Just Society. People will assemble at 11:30 a.m. at AFL-CIO headquarters at 815 16th Street NW, and will march first to the headquarters of the Chamber of Commerce and then to the U.S. Trade Representative’s office. They are urging Congress to vote down fast track.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), columnist Jim Hightower and Communication Workers of America (CWA) President Larry Cohen will address the demonstration.
Public Against More Job-Killing Trade Agreements
As the fast track fight enters the Congress, polls show that politicians will take a great risk by voting for fast track or TPP legislation. For example, one recent poll shows one senator’s vote for fast track could bring a primary opponent. The Huffington Post reported in February in, “Secretive Trade Deal Could Pose Problems At Home For Ron Wyden,”
“Half of the Oregon voters polled said they would be less likely to vote for Wyden in 2016 if he joins Republicans to approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive trade deal between the United States and countries in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as fast-track authority, which Obama is seeking in order to get TPP and other trade deals through Congress without amendments or filibusters.”
Other polling shows that public sentiment against trade deals and fast track is strong. One poll in January 2014 shows the breadth of public opposition,
By more than two to one, voters say they oppose (62%) rather than favor passage of fast-track negotiating authority for the TPP deal. Among those with a strong opinion, the ratio climbs to more than three to one (43% strongly opposed, just 12% strongly favorable). Demographically, opposition is very broad, with no more than one-third of voters in any region of the country or in any age cohort favoring fast track. Sixty percent (60%) of voters with household incomes under $50,000 oppose fast track, as do 65% of those with incomes over $100,000.
… Republicans overwhelmingly oppose giving fast-track authority to the president (8% in favor, 87% opposed), as do independents (20%-66%), while a narrow majority (52%) of Democrats are in favor (35% opposed).
People believe our trade agreements destroy jobs and lower wages. In a September 2014 Pew Poll, Americans say “trade” generally is good, but only 20 percent say it creates jobs while 50 percent say it destroys jobs, and 17 percent say it raises wages while 45 percent say it lowers wages.
This can have election consequences. In an April 2014 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll a plurality of Americans said they would support “a candidate who says that free trade with other countries will mainly be negative for America because it will cause the loss of U.S. jobs to other countries, which will hurt wages and jobs here.”
Resources
So it appears that the battle will be in the Senate this week. Here are some resources to visit.
Real Progressive Coalition for American Jobs. (“Every U.S. labor union and almost 600 environmental, consumer, faith, family farm, civil rights, seniors, LGBT and other civil society organizations opposed Fast Track. This is the REAL Progressive Coalition for American Jobs.”)
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Use Recertification to Build Your Union

Steward's Corner:  Use Recertification to Build Your Union


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The Madison Teachers protested Governor Scott Walker's attacks on public employee unions in 2011. Now they have to recertify each year. Photo: Lynn Friedman, CC BY-NC 2.0.
Many thought Governor Scott Walker’s anti-union Act 10 would be a death sentence for Wisconsin’s public sector unions. They’ve been given a high hurdle to clear: every year they have to recertify the union with yes votes by 51 percent of the bargaining unit. Not voting counts as a “no” vote.
But teacher unions around the state, while objecting to a law that ties two hands and a leg behind their backs, have taken the law’s obstacles and turned them into organizing opportunities.
Recertification grants a union legal recognition to bargain with its district—but only over the one topic Act 10 allows, wages. And increases are legally capped at inflation, around 2 percent. Some public sector unions have opted not to recertify, seeing it as pointless when bargaining is so limited.
But half the state teacher locals did recertify this year, including many of the largest districts, such as Madison, Green Bay, Milwaukee, and Racine.
The Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission conducts the votes. This year unionized workers could vote by phone or online, for a two-week period November 5-25.
“We like doing it,” said Milwaukee Teachers Education Association Vice President Kim Schroeder. “It’s a constant reminder that the system is made for us to fail. Even when the rules are stacked against us, we can still win.”
The Milwaukee union won all four units it represents: teaching assistants, substitute teachers, accountants, and teachers. Overall, 70 percent of members voted, and 99 percent of those voted yes.
Racine teachers got 87 percent of teachers to vote, and 98 percent yes. (For “no” voters, there’s little incentive to vote, since not voting is equivalent.)

UPDATE YOUR LISTS

While the law presents a unique challenge that unions in other states and sectors don’t face, the lessons of how to win are the same basic steps as any organizing campaign: list-building, phone-banking, having leaders in every building, and having the capacity to reach all your members in a short period of time.
In 2014, voting began the day after public sector unions tried and failed to unseat Walker in midterm elections, so unions were already in full turnout mode.
The first step is to make sure the list provided by the employer is accurate.
With non-votes counting against you, this is essential. A teacher who’s no longer employed but still on the rolls hurts the outcome. Schroeder said it took a long back-and-forth with the district to get the list fully updated.
On the union side, list updating has become part of the local’s ongoing program, not just something they scramble to put together before the vote. At the beginning of the year, the Milwaukee union gives each building representative a list of employees the union thinks are working at the school. The rep updates the list with new employees and those who’ve left, and returns it to the union office.

ORGANIZE EACH SCHOOL

Having active leaders at each school is essential. If anything, having recertification loom each year motivates unions to build organization.
While the exercise is an unfair bar for unions to meet, it creates urgency that can help unions with an organizing model improve their turnout for their other campaigns, too.
Leaders at both Racine and Milwaukee said it helps to do a big campaign launch. “We had a committee that put the campaign together,” said Al Levie, a Racine teacher who helped lead the recertification campaign. “We created the timeline, the literature, the training.”
Levie helped train all reps on the recertification process. “They took their membership list building by building, went around asking people to vote,” he said. “This year in the first week [of voting] we won the election.” Nonetheless they continued turning out votes in the second week, to get the highest participation possible.
In Milwaukee, leaders tried to make a fun event out of the first days of voting, getting people together for a party at lunchtime or after school. The goal was to get votes in right away, before interest waned.
Phone-banking filled in the gaps when employees couldn’t be reached at work. Unions tracked who reported voting, with the phone-bankers updating leaders at the school sites and vice versa, so they could zero in on those who hadn’t yet voted.
“Once you ask somebody, it’s fairly easy to get a yes,” said Milwaukee teacher and union executive board member Stephanie Schneider. “The biggest challenge is just getting everybody.”

UPHILL BATTLE

While the election results looked good for the teacher unions that participated, winning recertification every year has to be part of a bigger strategy to stay organized.
Statewide, teacher union membership has plummeted more than 30 percent since the law was passed. Not only is membership voluntary, but the law also prohibits employers from deducting dues from employees’ paychecks. The union has set up a separate process for members to pay union dues.
Since the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission shares the list of who voted (just not how people vote), the union can use last year’s voting results—targeting teachers who voted but are not yet members. In Milwaukee, they do a big sign-up push in the summer.
Unions have to work extra-hard to get people to pay dues, given that they can’t win improvements through collective bargaining. Building membership really comes down to identifying issues that would make people want to join.

FIGHT FOR WHAT MATTERS

Before Act 10, “for a lot of people it wasn’t something you thought all too much about when you sign your contract—it was a given you’d join the union,” Schneider said. But now, “since we couldn’t conduct bargaining like we had in the past, we had to demonstrate the need for the union.”
What’s most crucial is engaging in campaigns on the issues teachers and school employees care about. This year the Milwaukee union fought to raise wages for teaching assistants and to add preparation time for teachers. It mobilized teachers to school board meetings, and engaged with parents and the public.
In Racine, leaders facilitated discussions at every school to identify the issues affecting teachers. The union does take on specific school concerns, but on a larger level, it found the key issue to be the attacks on public schools. The state has cut public school funding across the board, and is diverting remaining funds to pay for proliferating private and charter schools—with devastating effects.
So the Racine union has framed its work as a fight to reclaim the teaching profession. “It’s hard,” said Levie. “People have to see the union as absolutely relevant.”
With no time to recover after winning recertification, Milwaukee and Racine teachers had to pivot into an even bigger fight. Under the guise of accountability, an assembly bill introduced in January would close schools deemed failing based on student test scores, replacing them with charters or private schools in the voucher system.
The unions aim to stop it. Teachers testified at the state capital about the disastrous impacts such policies have had already.
“Messaging-wise, it’s part of the same fight,” said Schroeder. “These forces want to end our union, and end public schools. We show our strength by recertifying.”
This article has been corrected to reflect that teachers unions have set up a separate process for members to pay dues not for donations.
A version of this article appeared in Labor Notes #431, February 2015. Don't miss an issue, subscribe today.
Samantha Winslow is a staff writer and organizer with Labor Notes.samantha@labornotes.org
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Friday, April 3, 2015

Los Angeles Teachers Protest

L.A. Teachers Escalate

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Fifteen thousand teachers, counselors, and other members of United Teachers Los Angeles filled downtown’s Grand Park on February 26 to demand a fair contract for themselves and their students. Photo: UTLA.
Fifteen thousand teachers, counselors, and other members of United Teachers Los Angeles filled downtown’s Grand Park on February 26 to demand a fair contract for themselves and their students.
“I am here to tell you that I am sick of not having enough of anything—especially teachers,” Beverly’anne Ogorro, a student at Dorsey High School, told the cheering crowd.
A week before the rally, UTLA had declared impasse. Its negotiations with the nation’s second-largest school district, L.A. Unified, covering 31,000 employees, are now in mediation.
“I feel disappointed and betrayed by the district. We took pay cuts to help the district get through a tough time,” said Leticia Duggan, a teacher in the pre-Kindergarten School Readiness Language Development Program. She walked the picket line with her six-year-old daughter, a public school student.
“I think the demands that we are making are more than fair,” Duggan said. “We’re not asking for something outrageous. We are asking for cleaner and safer schools, for a payback of wages we lost three years in a row.”
Teachers and support staff lost ground in their last contract, signed right after the 2008 economic crisis and after courts blocked a planned one-day strike. It expired three years ago. A shortened school year and numerous furlough days between 2008 and 2011 also hit members in the wallet.

CLASSES OF 45

After 20 bargaining sessions since the summer, the district has made no offers on class-size caps or staffing ratios. It’s continuing to stand by its offer of a 5 percent salary increase—though teachers have gone without a raise for eight years.
Three thousand middle and high school classrooms have more than 45 students apiece, according to the superintendent’s own report.
“When did it become radical to have class sizes that you can actually teach in? When did it become radical to have staffing, and to pay people back after eight years of nothing?” UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl asked.
The high-energy, diverse crowd—educators in red T-shirts, nurses in white coats, students with banners and noisemakers—flooded onto Broadway as the chants grew louder, demanding that the district and board bargain in good faith.
Speakers included rank-and-file members of the negotiating and organizing teams, parents, high school students, community members, and presidents of the National Education Association, California Federation of Teachers, and California Teachers Association. (UTLA is affiliated with both the NEA and the AFT.)
The rally followed districtwide picketing February 12 at 850 schools. Members, parents, and community allies also signed an open letter to the school board, supporting the educators’ 12 demands on salary, working conditions, and the learning environment.

SCHOOLS STUDENTS DESERVE

The contract campaign strategy reflects the vision of the local’s new leaders, who swept into office last March on the Union Power slate. Since taking over, they’ve emphasized member organizing and partnering with parents and the community.
The new leaders have mobilized around a platform they call “The Schools LA Students Deserve,” modeled on a similar initiative by the Chicago Teachers Union. Demands include safe, clean, and fully staffed schools, smaller class sizes, a commitment to arts, music, and physical education, and good salaries and benefits to encourage teacher retention.
Members ratified this platform in a 2013 referendum that called on the union to mount a contract campaign, starting by working with community groups and parents to identify shared issues. It also demanded UTLA put more resources into both member and community organizing and plan a series of escalating actions.
After the Union Power slate won office, this program became the basis for its contract campaign.
Since the union declared impasse, each of its eight areas has begun holding trainings for chapter chairs—the elected leaders at each school site—and activists. UTLA plans a series of escalating actions, including faculty meeting boycotts, beginning March 24.

CAUCUS ACTIVITIES

Meanwhile, the Union Power caucus has been holding its own general membership meetings every month. Attendance ranges from 15 to 40 people.
The ongoing caucus was created after Union Power’s election win to channel energy into member organizing for the demands the slate had campaigned on. Any UTLA member can join. Recent discussions have been zeroing in on which demands are top priorities in the areas of working conditions and learning conditions.
The caucus is also working to engage newer teachers in the union. In February it held a meeting for student teachers and those with one to two years of experience to discuss the contract demands and the connection between social justice education and unionism.
L.A. teachers hope their renewed willingness to fight—not just for themselves, but for their students and communities—will be enough to turn the tide.
“The recession, the cuts to the bones at schools, the attacks on public services, the increasingly savage racism and economic inequalities that our students face,” declared Caputo-Pearl at the February rally, “all of those have set us back, and we’re not going to take it anymore.”
Karla Griego is a UTLA member and a teacher at Buchanan Street School.
A version of this article appeared in Labor Notes #433, April 2015. Don't miss an issue, subscribe today.
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