Unions to Olympics: Don't buy from union-busting supplier

Here's how to inspire a generation: Risk your job to make sure your kids have the same good wages and benefits that you have. 

That's what steelworkers in Alma, Quebec, are doing. They refused to accept a contract that allows their employer to replace retiring union workers with temporary workers at half the pay.

On Jan. 1, the nearly 800 steelworkers were locked out of the Alcan aluminum smelter by their employer, ruthless mining conglomerate Rio Tinto. (That, btw, is what happened on Aug. 1 to Sotheby's Teamsters who stood up for the same principle.) 

Teamsters are supporting the locked-out workers in Alma,  just as we supported locked-out miners at Rio Tinto's borax mine in Boron, Calif., two years ago.

Rio Tinto is the official supplier of 99 percent of all the gold, silver and bronze used in the Olympics medals.Unions throughout the world are asking the International Olympic Committee NOT to buy from Rio Tinto.

An Olympic triathlete, Helen Russell, posted a terrific blog about the dispute. She asked whether the London games will be the "fair play" Olympics:

On 1st January Rio Tinto locked out 780 workers who were campaigning against the company’s contracting-out of jobs. The workers are trying to stop apparent attempts by the company to replace retiring unionised workers with precariously employed contract workers earning half the wages and no pension benefits. 

Workers argue that this is driving down wages and living standards of the community despite the smelter being highly profitable.

The workers in Alma were allegedly locked out of the factory without warning, in the middle of the night on New Year’s Eve. They have since been locked out for five months and the plant has been operating with non-unionised workers at about one-third capacity.

Russell hits a home run with this paragraph:

The workers are not campaigning for a pay rise but rather fighting to protect decent jobs in their community for the next generation. In my opinion, these workers are putting into action the Olympic motto of ‘inspiring a generation.'

Couldn't have said it better ourselves.

Dissent criminalized in Quebec

The massive student strike in Quebec, now in its fourth month, has taken the policies of austerity head on as more than 100,000 students protest against student fee hikes in the province. But now the Canadian government is instituting the most chilling crackdown on the right to protest in North America with its recent enactment of Bill 78.

As the Legal Committee of the Coalition of the Association of Student Union Solidarity (CLASSE) wrote in a statement:

Among other draconian elements brought forward by this law, any gathering of 50 or more people must submit their plans to the police eight hours ahead of time and must agree to any changes to the gathering’s trajectory, start time, etc. Any failure to comply with this stifling of freedom of assembly and association will be met with a fine of up to $5,000 for every participant, $35,000 for someone representing a ‘leadership’ position, or $125,000 if a union – labour or student – is deemed to be in charge.

We’ve seen similar attempts to stifle protest in the U.S. In March an ALEC-inspired anti-union, anti-picketing bill was defeated in Georgia thanks to a coalition of groups, including labor and Tea Party activists. Teamsters Local 728 led that fight, using social media to build opposition to the bill.

But Bill 78 is already the law in Quebec. It’s a draconian assault on democracy and free speech that has dangerous implications for students and workers in Canada. Right now, 4,800 Canadian Teamsters are preparing to strike at Canadian Pacific rail. Of course, Bill 78 won’t affect those workers directly, but an alarming precedent has been set.

As CLASSE said in its statement:

One cannot view this law in isolation. In the past few months, the Québec student movement – inspired by Occupy, the Indignados of Spain, the students of Chile, and over 50 years of student struggle in Québec; and presently at North America’s forefront of fighting the government’s austerity agenda – has been confronted by precedent-shattering judicial and police repression in an attempt to force the end of the strike and our right to organize collectively. 

…[O]f particular concern for those of us involved in the labour movement is that anti-strike forces have filed injunctions systematically from campus to campus to prevent the enactment of strike mandates, duly and democratically voted in general assemblies.

The Quebec students have vowed to continue their strike in defiance of Bill 78.

They got some high-profile support last weekend on Saturday Night Live. Arcade Fire band members, playing behind Mick Jagger, wore red squares to show their solidarity with the students.

Student debt is killing our communities

Cross-posting from the AFL-CIO's blog:
Isaiah Toney is the Student Labor Action Project coordinator in Washington, D.C., and a senior at the George Washington University.

When I finish classes in August of 2012, I will have something like $78,000 in student debt. That's about three times the national average, which is just over $25,000 in student debt upon graduation.

And I'm not even the least lucky. I have friends who will graduate with six digits in student debt.

Sometimes people try to argue that we are asking for special treatment when we talk about lessening the burden that these loans place on graduates, but this is a red herring.  We are asking that we all take notice of the threat that these unfair debts place upon the millions of college graduates' economic futures—and the economic future of our country.

Let's look at my own example. As I pay off my loans over the next (hopefully) 15 years, I'll be sending my income straight to Sallie Mae, which will send a good deal of that money straight into the pockets of executives like Sallie Mae CEO Albert Lord, who made $240 million in three years and into its lobbying efforts to make it more expensive to go to college. That's money that I won't be spending going to see local performances or donating to local causes that I care about (there is a middle school marching band going down my block as I write this and I want to be able to support them). I won't be contributing to a local economy at the same time that I will have to reconsider things like becoming a public school teacher for fear that I may end up like one of those student loan borrowers who default on their loans.

And Congress is neglecting the Pell Grant, one of the most powerful tools for getting students into college classrooms by giving students up to $5,550 (Department of Education says that the average was $3,984 in 2011). Thirty years ago, the Pell Grant covered around 70 percent of average tuition, but now that number is only 34 percent.

Put another way, the fact that Congress cut $10 billion from the Pell Grant between this year and last year is not a surprise. But it is a problem.

We need to make college affordable, and soon. It affects students’ ability to attend college, find a job that they can do because they care, stay financially solvent and do things like purchase a home. It affects seemingly small things that when multiplied across a generation of college graduates has an enormous impact on our economy. And we have an opportunity to make those changes.

For starters, we can keep interest rates on loans from rising too high and lower those rates that are already too high. That small change with a big impact is exactly why I am going with the Student Labor Action Project on May 24 to the shareholder meeting of Sallie Mae, the largest student debt lender and trendsetter, to ask for a meeting with Albert Lord. We want to talk, and we want to work.

Here's what's coming next from ALEC

Five putrid anti-union, anti-worker, anti-middle-class bills are on the agenda for next year's legislative sessions in the states. They didn't actually originate with ALEC; they came from a couple of anti-union, anti-worker, anti-middle-class think tanks: Arizona's Goldwater Institute and Michigan's Mackinac Center for Public Policy. But they were unveiled at an ALEC confab in Charlotte, N.C.

Mother Jones tells us:

Goldwater representative Byron Schlomach introduced two bills, one requiring that public employees annually approve their employer's automatic deduction of union dues from paychecks. Another would prohibit union officials from taking paid leave from public-sector jobs to perform union duties.

The Mackinac Center sent labor policy analyst Paul Kersey to introduce three more bills targeting unions. One of those model bills is already Michigan law, requiring public-sector unions to make public audits of their financial activities. Another Mackinac proposal would require public-sector union members to vote on their union membership every three to five years, and a third would make it easier for public and private employees to decertify their unions.

Charming. 

Today's Teamster News 05.22.12

Double trouble at JP Morgan: trader's losses could exceed $7bn  The Independent   ...The crisis at JP Morgan escalated yesterday as it emerged its trading losses in London could rise to as much as $7bn (£4.5bn) and the US bank cancelled a share buyback...
Students march peacefully in holiday protest  Montreal Gazette   ...Good weather drew a big holiday crowd to the nightly protest against student fees and Bill 78...
AMC Acquisition Largest-Ever Chinese Takeover of a U.S. Company  Economy in Crisis   ... China’s Dalian Wanda Group has purchased U.S. movie theater chain AMC Entertainment for $2.6 billion. This is the largest corporate takeover of a U.S. company by a Chinese firm ever, and the third largest investment by a Chinese firm in the United States...
House Democrats calls for Gov. Walker to clarify testimony in light of new video  Raw Story   ...During a congressional testimony last year, Walker had denied that his actions in Wisconsin were used to punish members of the Democratic Party and their donor base, namely unions. But recently released video of the governor appears to contradict his testimony...
Teamsters union aims to organizes Windsor Essex Parkway construction dump truck drivers  Daily Commercial News and Construction Record   ...This follows a brief protest and work stoppage late last month at the location of the initial earth hauling along Matchette Rd. at the extreme west end of the 11-kilometre six-lane expressway, that will link Hwy. 401 to a new Windsor – Detroit bridge...
Teamsters Canada Rail Conference issues 72-hour strike notice to CP  Progressive Railroading   ...The union represents about 4,800 CP workers, including conductors, yardmen, locomotive engineers and rail traffic controllers. The parties have been negotiating since October 2011 to renew labor agreements that expired on Dec. 31, 2011...

Walker's new deer czar thinks hunting on public lands is communism

Deer hunting is only for the 1% in Scott Walker's world. 

We're not kidding.

Frequent liar Job-killer Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has hired James Kroll, a Texan, as his new white-tailed deer trustee. In that job, Kroll will analyze and recommended changes to Wisconsin’s deer management program.

Kroll doesn't believe in public lands. Apparently he doesn't believe ordinary citizens should be able to hunt deer, either.

According to the Lodi Valley News, Kroll said,

...people who call for more public hunting opportunities are “pining for socialism.” He further states, “(Public) Game management is the last bastion of communism."

The Badger Democracy blog had some biting words for the deer czar:

The public lands Kroll despises include the state parks, state and national forests, and other publicly held property that hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites—particularly in the northern part of the state—rely on for deer hunting. Hunters on public land may be surprised to discover that Walker regards their annual trek into a state forest as a radical left wing activity akin to marching in a May Day parade in Red Square. But so it is. 

If Kroll gets his way, public land hunters will get the shaft. The deer herd no longer would be managed as a public resource, but as the private property of wealthy landowners. Wisconsin will become like Europe, where hunting is the privilege of the wealthy. 

Kroll’s view fit in nicely with those of DNR secretary Cathy Stepp, a Walker appointee who already has suggested that public lands be sold. 

What this means for hunters is that the management of the state’s deer herd could be sold or contracted to management corporations like Johnson Timber, who already owns Summit Lake Game Farm on the southern edge of the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation, and vast tracts of timber land. Joe Hunter would have to buy his hunting tag (and perhaps make a bid on it) from a private game management firm for his deer, grouse, turkey, wolf, berry picking permits, etc....

Sounds like Koch-funded wingnuttery to us.

Rioters kill corrections officer at private prison in MS

To anyone who doubted that private prisons are dangerous, we bring you today's news about the Mississippi prison riot that left a corrections officer dead.

According to the Associated Press,

A guard was killed and, at one point, hostages were taken during a riot at a Mississippi prison that holds illegal immigrants, authorities said. 

The Sunday riot at the privately run Adams County Correctional Center in southwest Mississippi began around 2:40 p.m. CDT and involved dozens of inmates before it was brought under control that night. 

Adams County Sheriff Chuck Mayfield told the Natchez Democrat that 15 employees were freed at one time during the uprising by opening a fence and protecting the route with guns. The sheriff said in a statement early Monday that there were at least two dozen hostages being held at one time. 

Adams County Coroner James Lee confirmed that a guard died, but said he could not provide any other details until the correctional officer's family was notified. In addition to the guard who was killed, five other correctional officers and three inmates were injured.

The prison is run by Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America. The other big bad private-prison actor is GEO Group in Boca Raton, Fla.

Private prisons don't save money. That's because the companies that run them need to make a profit, unlike the government. Private prisons have a long track record of understaffing, union-busting and letting prisoners escape.

The Teamsters fought off a plan to privatize prisons in Florida. Today, Teamsters International Vice President Ken Wood said the Mississippi riot is a reminder of what  happens when public safety is turned over to a for-profit company. Wood is also acting president of Teamster Local 2011, which represents Florida Department of Corrections officers.

Murder, hostage-taking, and injured prison employees is not the type of a correctional system that should be allowed to take hold in Florida. Regrettably, CCA has been in charge when similar violence erupted in Idaho and Vermont. The citizens of Florida should continue to let their elected officials know that prison privatization should not be an option in our state.

Crazy people Lawmkers in Michigan are now trying to pass a bill to close a government prison and send 1,200 inmates to a private prison. That is not a good idea.