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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (June 21, 2013)
U.S. suffers biggest pay drop on record Who’s On Our Side? By Tom Chamberlain O ur 2009 efforts to pass com- prehensive labor law reform failed by one vote in the U.S. Sen- ate. Sensible labor law updates and changes — in the form of the Em- ployee Free Choice Act — failed because a U.S. Senate procedural vote requires 60 votes out of 100 to close debate, and failure to close de- bate results in preventing an up or down vote on legislation or an ex- ecutive branch or judicial appoint- ment (filibustering the bill or ap- pointment). Over the last half decade, corpo- rate and Wall Street lobbyists — helped primarily by Senate Repub- licans — have used the filibuster not only to kill the Employee Free Choice Act and a load of progres- sive legislation, but they have also successfully blocked President Obama’s federal judicial appoint- ments — judges who would have countered President Bush’s 240 ju- dicial appointees and brought the court system’s rightward trajectory back into balance. The success corporatists have had using the filibuster (specifically the silent filibuster, where senators don’t have to talk anymore; they can simply “object” to a vote and everything comes to a screeching halt) has resulted in long-term va- cancies in key parts of our govern- ment —from the Federal Election Commission to the Bureau of Alco- hol, Tobacco and Firearms. Presi- dent Obama is not the first president whose appointments have been held hostage by the filibuster, but he is the first to see whole enforcement bodies held hostage by the fili- buster. Until recently, presidents have O PEN F ORUM To The Editor: You published an article informing us that organized labor ranks are shrinking. Do you mean to tell me that this is news? For 20 years, myself and others like myself have been wonder- ing when organized labor would use its ability to contact large groups of the public through the media, newspapers, local publications, public outreach, etc., to warn against the trend of unchecked outsourcing and the accept- ance of unregulated immigrant labor. Where were you people when NAFTA was passed? PAGE 10 had the ability to make temporary executive appointments during Sen- ate recess, allowing them to keep our government working even if the Senate is holding up permanent ap- pointees. But recent decisions by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for the Third Circuit say that presiden- tial intrasession recess appointments are unconstitutional. This decision is under appeal to the United States Supreme Court, and if upheld it would bring agencies such as the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to a grinding halt. Currently, the NLRB needs members to be reappointed (these are current members who have al- ready been confirmed by the Senate in the past) to even have a quorum and be able to conduct business. Without a NLRB quorum, private sector workers would have no way to enforce workers’ rights. Such rights range from enforcement of rules governing organizing to col- lective bargaining. Without a Board to enforce the National Labor Relations Act, em- ployers could threaten workers’ jobs or outright fire union advocates. Union organizing would slow from the trickle we are experiencing to- day to no organizing. Without enforcement, collective bargaining would halt, employers could simply refuse to bargain with- out recourse, dragging out negotia- tions and unilaterally cutting wages and benefits, putting ever-increas- ing pressure on workers in the hopes that workers would vote against their own best interest and decertify the union. While employers have imple- mented anti-worker strategies, they have always had to function within the confines of the National Labor Relations Act. Left to their own de- vices, employers could run rough- shod over workers in a way that hearkens back to the Robber Baron era of the 1890s. Fifteen months ago, a Senate rules reform bill specifically focus- ing on filibuster reform was watered down in exchange for promises of cooperation from Senate Republi- can Leader Mitch McConnell. Those promises have proven time and time again to be hollow. Thankfully, Oregon’s junior U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley has spear- headed a charge to change the Sen- ate rules to stop the efforts of a mi- nority of senators who would rather derail government in their efforts to advance a political agenda. Sen. Merkley’s leadership, cou- pled with increased pressure from progressive groups led by the American union movement, has re- sulted in a renewed outcry for fili- buster reform. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has signaled that the time is right for re- form. Our message to Oregon Senators Merkley and Ron Wyden: Fight on for reform, fight on for workers, and fight on for a govern- ment that works for the 99 percent, and work to get more of your col- leagues standing on our side of fili- buster reform. Tom Chamberlain is president of the Oregon AFL-CIO. Labor needs PR campaign How ignorant do you think we are? I have been a union man my whole life. I have tried to promote union thinking and pro-American manufac- turing and products. I have been in the industrial community for over 35 years. What has happened in the in- dustry did not take a socio-economic genius to predict. We now have a soci- ety where a large part of the workforce is happy to get any job at all, and a large part of that workforce doesn’t un- derstand that organized labor is the rea- son that they have such things as week- ends, holidays, benefits, etc. They are happy to (work as much overtime as they can) to make up for meager wages. And what’s worse, organized labor sat by and watched it happen. Where were the public ad cam- paigns informing people what was re- ally going on and warning people of the real dangers of free trade with China and the unchecked admittance of migrant labor all the time flooding a depressed economy that could not sup- port their ranks? Is it too late to change this trend? I believe that it probably is. But if I had my way, my dues would go to public information about the real state of this country and the leadership that is driv- ing it into the ground. But of course we all know that's not going to happen, is it? Fred Feuerstein IBEW Local 125 Satsop, Washington As union membership continues to decline, hourly pay for nonfarm work- ers in the U.S. fell at a 3.8 percent an- nualized rate in the first quarter of 2013, the biggest quarterly decline since the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) started keeping track in 1947. Via Huffington Post: “Some of the drop was payback for a 9.9 percent surge in hourly pay in the fourth quarter of 2012, as employers shoveled money out the door to avoid tax changes they expected to take place in 2013. “But there have been plenty of such quarterly pay increases in the past. Many were even bigger. Some went on for several quarters at a time. And never has there been such a steep pay drop in E E FR response as there was in the first quarter of this year. “Smoothing out the quarterly ups and downs doesn’t make the picture look any better. “Hourly worker pay rose just 1.9 percent in 2012, a pitiful increase that barely kept up with the 1.8 percent gain in the consumer price index. That was the third-weakest annual increase in hourly pay since 1947, topping only the 1.4 percent gain in 2009 and a 1.8-per- cent gain in 1994. “Hourly pay has grown by just 2 percent per year, on average, for the past four years, the weakest four-year stretch on record. 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