WIN Week In Review May 9-11, 2008

By Doug Cunningham

For four months in a row now, U.S. workers have suffered a net loss of jobs. Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute says working people are in for more of the same.

[Mishel]: "The last six months the economy barely grew at all and as a consequence we're gonna see persistent loss of jobs for months to come and steadily rising unemployment. Whenever that happens, and we're already seeing it, wages grow much more slowly, hours of work don't rise or they actually decline. Fewer family members are working, people are working part-time jobs, they want a full-time job."

To really make the economy work for workers, Mishel says, we need economic policy designed to make sure all workers benefit from the economy. Mishel says the government should take the lead in helping create jobs.

[Mishel]: "We need to provide extended unemployment insurance so those who are exhausting benefits get it and spend in a healthy economy. I think we need a boost of spending by the government
on infrastructure repairs and schools, bridges, roads, sewage, etc., to help create jobs as soon as possible."

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The National Association of Letters Carriers will be out collecting food this weekend for their huge annual drive to replenish the nation’s food pantries. May 10 has been proclaimed National Association of Letter Carriers Food Drive Day and postal carriers and volunteers will be collecting nonperishable food items left by mailboxes in all 50 states.

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The Canadian Auto Workers have approved a new three-year contract with Ford Motor Company avoiding a two-tier wage structure. Jesse Russell reports:

The new contract negotiated between the workers represented by the Canadian Auto Workers union and Ford Motor Company avoids the two-tier wage model agreed on last year by the United Auto Workers. Under the two-tier structure, new hires wouldn't benefit from the same pay rates as senior workers. Instead, the Canadian workers gave up a week of vacation and agreed to a wage freeze. The CAW now moves on to negotiations with Chrysler and then GM. The CAW hopes to use the Ford contract as a model for negotiations with those two companies.

The UAW in the U.S. has gone on a local strike, shutting down a Fairfax, Kansas GM plant.

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The FBI is pouring over computer records and documents seized in raids Tuesday on the Office of Special Counsel and at the home of Special Counsel Scott Bloch. That office is supposed to enforce civil rights and whistleblower protections for federal workers. But Hans Johnson, President of Washington D.C.’s Pride At Work chapter, says Bloch instead tried to dismantle sexual orientation discrimination protections and attacked union and civil rights of federal workers. Johnson says it’s part fo a Bush administration pattern.

[Johnson]: “To name people to public service positions exercising a great deal of public trust who have a fundamental disbelief or antagonism toward the very mission of the agency they re named to head.”

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SEIU is fighting for thousands of Boston hospital workers who want a union to improve their working conditions, advocate for patients and secure good health care and retirement benefits. Mike Fadel is a Vice-President with 1199SEIU in Boston.

[Fadel]: “They're coming together to change that, to make life better for themselves, for their families, for their patients, and ultimately for the entire city. There's just a growing civic consensus among elected officials and community leaders that there's no reason for the hospitals to interfere with these caregivers' right to freely exercise their choice to form a union."