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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 4, 2011)
... Nov. 5 declared Bank Transfer Day (From Page 5 class people.] Local 483 is moving the money to Advantis Credit Union. The District Council of Trade Unions, a coalition of City of Port- land unions, also voted to move its money. Meanwhile, the City and County of San Francisco are looking at the possibility of a creating a munici- pally owned bank where govern- ment funds would be deposited. Cur- rently, most of their 133 bank accounts are with Bank of America, the San Francisco Business Times reported. The Oregon Working Families Party has pushed a similar idea in the Oregon Legislature: Instead of stor- ing Oregon tax funds in out-of-state banks, they propose creating a state- owned bank along the lines of the Bank of North Dakota, which would stimulate the state’s economy by making farm and business loans. Protest campaigns targeting the big banks have been under way since at least late 2009, when the Move Your Money campaign was launched. That campaign’s web site, moveyourmoneyproject.org, encour- ages depositors to divest from the na- tion's largest Wall Street banks, and it provides a list of local banks and credit unions to choose from. In March 2010, the AFL-CIO’s community outreach organization Working America launched an online petition campaign at notyouratm.com. In the “Wall Street: I am not your ATM,” campaign, sign- ers declare “It's time for banks to be a safe place for our money, not an- other place to get nickeled and dimed” … and become members of Working America. In March 2011, a coalition of community organizations launched the “Make Wall Street Pay” cam- paign, encouraging people to tally their own damages from the finan- cial crisis, and calling on Congress to make the big banks pay their fair share. But the Occupy Wall Street upris- ing, which began in late September, has given the movement new energy. [Donations to the Occupy Wall Street group itself are being de- posited in union-owned Amalga- mated Bank and in the Lower East Side People’s Credit Union.] MoveOn.org joined the campaign Oct. 31 with a "Move Your Money Pledge." In one day, close to 20,000 people pledged to close accounts with Bank of America, over 9,000 at Chase, 2,500 at Citigroup, and over 13,000 at other big banks. To crib a line from the movie V for Vendetta, for the big Wall Street banks, the 5th of November may be a day to remember, remember. AFL-CIO will launch online campaign Nov. 14 in Portland November 14, the national AFL- CIO will launch a pilot version of a media campaign in three mid-sized cities: Portland, Oregon; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Austin, Texas. Using a combination of online ad- vertising and public events, the cam- paign will emphasize the dignity and value of work, showing how “work connects us all.” The campaign, devel- oped by the SS+K marketing and com- munications agency, will give recipi- ents a chance to connect via an online hub, and it will present America’s unions in a positive light. The reaction was uniformly positive among union staff and leaders at an Oct. 31 meeting in Portland, where AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Liz Shuler described the campaign as a proactive response by labor that would counter the anti-union media campaign that some business groups have waged. Launch events will take place in each of the cities the week of Nov. 7- Last call at the Guild Public House Jesse Cornett and Molly Aleshire. But the pair announced the pub’s closure Oct. 20. “We realized that we’re unable to continue the business if we’re going to have the lives we value,” they explained.The Guild, at 1101 East Burnside St., Portland, was open less than a year. Cornett, formerly with the Oregon Bus Project, was a candidate for Portland City Council in 2010. A short-lived, briefly-union bar closed its doors Oct. 29. Six workers at the Guild Public House became members of Communi- cations Workers of America Local 7901 Aug. 13, with the blessing of owners Employer associations say reporting for injuries, amputations is a job-killer The National Association of Manu- facturers and other employer associa- tions are urging the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to abandon a proposed regulation that would require employers to report workplace injuries within eight hours and amputations within 24. The employer groups say the re- quirement would be a nuisance and a job-killer. The rule would require employers “to report to OSHA, within eight hours, all work-related fatalities and all work- related in-patient hospitalizations; and within 24 hours, all work-related ampu- tations,” and would update which em- ployers were exempt from this require- ment, the agency said in its proposal. “I think this is a very simple, easy and transparent modification,” Bill Ko- 7LUHG RI 3$,1" 0RVW,QVXUDQFH 3ODQV$FFHSWHG 3 528'/< 6 (59,1* 3 257/$1' : 25.(56 ) 25 2 9(5 < ($56 NOVEMBER 4, 2011 quirements in comments to OSHA. The retail association called the require- ments “ambiguous and unrealistic.” Current law only requires employers to report workplace fatalities within eight hours and in-patient hospitaliza- tions involving three or more employ- ees at a time. OSHA says tightening the reporting requirements will help the agency better identify the causes of workplace incidents while placing “rel- atively minimal burdens on employ- ers.” Trauger told The Hill the proposed regulation creates confusion about what needs to be reported, since medicinal practices vary across states regarding who is admitted for different injuries. The timeline is also unrealistic, he said, since if an employee is injured on a weekend and the employer does not find out until the next business day, he could violate the new eight-hour re- quirement. Finally, with the influx of individual workplace hospitalization reports, seri- ous incidents could be lost among those caused by outside factors like pre-exist- ing conditions, Trauger said. “What we’re trying to get at here is the reporting of any injury that is al- leged to or happened in the workplace. Is that going to make a safer workplace, or is it just data for the sake of data?” Trauger said. “Just because someone visits the hospital doesn’t make it a workplace-related incident.” Kajola told The Hill the expansion of reporting requirements and the col- lection of the data would help protect workers. “I think that’ll help the agency iden- tify what those hazards are and then think about how can we assist employ- ers in … eliminating or decreasing or exposure to those hazards,” Kajola said. “It’s very important.” Unions are not fully satisfied with the proposed rule. Many are upset that certain employers will remain partially Call 503-288-3311 Subscribe Today! %HHVRQ&KLURSUDFWLF :RUNLQJ LQ jola, an industrial hygienist with the AFL-CIO’s Department of Safety and Health, told The Hill, a congressional newspaper in Washington, D.C., that publishes daily when Congress is in session. “It modifies the reporting re- quirements in a very modest way for some of the most serious events that happen to workers in the workplace.” Trade associations disagree. Joe Trauger, the vice president of human re- sources policy at the National Associa- tion of Manufacturers, told The Hill the measure would hurt job creation and add new burdens to an already overreg- ulated economy. Other trade groups including the Re- tail Industry Leaders Association, the National Grain and Feed Association and Printing Industries of America ex- pressed concerns about the reporting re- KHOSVEULQJWKH UHOLHI\RXQHHG Receive 24 issues of the latest labor news and views from Oregon and Southwest Washington. RATES: $13.75 a year for union members 7UHDWPHQWIRUSDLQGXHWR RYHUXVHDQGUHSHWLWLYHPRWLRQ &KLURSUDFWLFDGMXVWPHQWV 7UHDWPHQWIRUDFFLGHQWDQG VSRUWVUHODWHGLQMXULHV 5HKDELOLWDWLRQH[HUFLVHV 7KHUDSHXWLFPDVVDJH ,QWHUQDOGLDJQRVLVDQGWUHDWPHQW /DEWHVWVDQG[UD\V Special union group rate of 38 cents per issue on orders of 25 or more Mail to: Northwest Labor Press P.O. Box 13150 Portland, OR 97213 Name/Union Affiliation Address 'U'DQ%HHVRQ&KLURSUDFWRU 6(7KLUWHHQWK$YHLQ6HOOZRRG City &$// NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS State Zip PAGE 11
