“The government can’t run Cash for Clunkers, how can we trust them with health care.” That line was repeated over and over during recent town meetings with Congress-people and Senators.

First, the Cash for Clunkers program was an unqualified success. When was the last time you remember hearing about a government program that was so popular and so successful?

Cash for Clunkers was designed to get gas-guzzlers off the road and to sell new cars. Check and double-check. People loved the program and raced to the dealerships to cash in. Sure the program ran through a lot of money, because people loved it and it more than achieved its goals. Give me more of this kind of government program!

And speaking of government programs, sign me up for a government run health care program. As skeptical as I am of government, I am a thousand times more skeptical of health insurance companies.

I’m writing this not only as a consumer, but as a person who spent time working for two different health insurance companies. I’ve seen the lies and profiteering from the inside and I want another option. We deserve another option.

I wish Congress-people and Senators could see how frustrated we are with pre-existing conditions, treatments being considered experimental and all the other crap that we’ve all been handed by health insurance companies. Crap that we’ve had thrown in our faces even though we paid our dues and were promised the very care we’re having withheld from us.

I’m not suggesting a single-payer model. No, my suggestion is much simpler. Let the government compete with health insurance companies. I’m tired of them having a monopoly in health care. Let’s give them a real run for their money by making them compete.

They hate this idea because they know that far from fearing their government there are millions of people who would rather put their lives in the hands of government bureaucrats than profiteering private companies.

So please keep the public option on the table. Give us real choice.

Funny how corporations talk about the free market but then do everything to keep it very expensive and not free at all.

Based on your experience do you prefer the existing monopoly or would you like to join me in a government run program?

About the Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com .

Employment of older workers has increased by almost 1 million in the downturn.

The economy lost 247,000 jobs in July, bringing the rate of job loss over the last three months to 331,000. This is down sharply from the 700,000 monthly rate of decline in the months from November to February. The unemployment rate actually slid slightly to 9.4 percent, although this was entirely attributable to people dropping out of the workforce. The employment-to-population ratio fell by 0.1 percentage points to 59.4 percent, four full percentage points below the pre-recession peak.

The slower rate of job decline is largely due to a moderation of the pace of job loss in manufacturing and employment services, two sectors that had seen employment plummet during the worst of the downturn. Manufacturing lost 52,000 jobs in July; by contrast, it lost 205,000 jobs per month between November and February. This improvement was, in turn, driven largely by the auto sector, which lost jobs at a rate of 30,000 per month in the winter plunge. By contrast, employment in the auto sector rose by 28,200 in July. This is entirely a seasonal story as unadjusted employment in the sector actually decreased by 8,600 in July. Workers who ordinarily would have been laid off for retooling in July had already lost their jobs earlier in the year.

The employment services sector lost 25,600 jobs in July, compared to an 86,000 monthly rate of job loss between November and February. Temporary jobs are always the easiest for firms to shed. The July data still shows that the direction is clearly negative, but the rate is far slower than in the months of free fall. Construction lost 76,000 jobs, with all sectors of the industry still shedding employment, although the pace is down from a 115,000 peak monthly rate.

The establishment data showed a modest 0.1 hour increase in the average workweek. This was driven largely by the 1.6 hour increase in the workweek reported in the auto sector. However, even though the increase may prove to be an artifact of seasonal adjustment, it appears that the length of the workweek has at least stabilized.

The picture in the household data continues to be mostly bad, but there were a few somewhat encouraging signs. Consistent with the rise in hours reported in the establishment survey, there was a decline of 198,000 in the number of people involuntarily working part-time. As a result, the U-6, the broadest measure of labor market slack, fell from 16.5 percent to 16.3 percent, the first drop since November of 2007.

There continues to be the extraordinary trend of increased employment among older workers in spite of the economic downturn, as employment among workers over age 65 increased by 11,000 in July, even as it fell by 166,000 for everyone else. Since November of 2007, employment of people over age 55 has increased by 957,000 even as it has decreased by 7,581,000 for everyone else. To some extent, this presumably reflects not only the desire of baby boomers to work later in life than the cohorts that preceded them, but also the need of older workers to secure health care coverage through employment.

One especially disturbing item was a jump of 0.9 percentage points to an unemployment rate of 12.6 percent for women who maintain families, the highest rate since the peak of the 1982 recession. While this rate peaked at 13.6 percent in early 1983, there are almost 80 percent more women who maintain families in the labor force today.

The increase in the average hourly wage was 3 cents, bringing the annual rate of increase over the quarter to 1.2 percent. The 14 cent reported rise in manufacturing wages accounted for more than half of the month’s increase.

Given the steepness of the winter decline, this report has to be viewed as positive news. The stimulus has worked in stabilizing the economy and ending the free fall. The main impact to date was felt through tax cuts and benefit increases which raised the annual rate of consumption in the quarter by roughly $100 billion, adding more than 2 percentage points to growth. However, without further stimulus, the economy will have excessive unemployment for years to come.

Dean Baker: Dean Baker is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. He is frequently cited in economics reporting in major media outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, CNBC, and National Public Radio. He writes a weekly column for the Guardian Unlimited (UK), and his blog, Beat the Press, features commentary on economic reporting. His analyses have appeared in many major publications, including the Atlantic Monthly, the Washington Post, the London Financial Times, and the New York Daily News. He received his Ph.D in economics from the University of Michigan.

This article appeared originally at CEPR on August 7, 2009 and is reprinted here with permission from the author.

More than 100 nurses, wearing surgical masks and carrying signs that read “Nurses and Patients Demand Swine Flu Protection,” rallied Wednesday at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center to spotlight unsafe practices in treating H1N1 (swine) flu patients and protecting health care workers and other patients.

The nurses, members of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), also protested the recent firing by UCSF of an RN who blew the whistle on unsafe patient care involving swine flu at the facility.

A recent study by CNA/NNOC of California hospitals uncovered widespread problems, including systemic trouble with safety gear for nurses and infection control procedures for patients, as well as an emerging pattern of retribution against nurses who speak out about unsafe care.

In April, a report by the AFL-CIO and several unions revealed that health care workers are at risk because many of the nation’s health care facilities are not prepared to deal with a pandemic.

Last week, a U.S. Government Accountability Office report to Congress warned the United States is still not adequately prepared for a potentially large outbreak of H1N1 this fall. The action came just weeks after a nurse at Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael died of the H1N1 flu. Says CNA/NNOC co-President Deborah Burger, RN:

Hospitals across California—and possibly the entire country—are putting registered nurses and other front-line caregivers at risk by inadequately preparing for this pandemic.

If hospitals do not take urgent precautions to reverse this lack of preparation, we may see our health care facilities become vectors for infections. That is especially worrisome for hospital patients who already have compromised immune systems, and our nurses who may be unable to respond because of their own sickness.

The nurse who was fired for speaking out, says CNA/NNOC, recently started working at the facility when she was exposed to the virus in June.

While still suffering from the infection, she protested to management about inadequate hospital safety standards that she felt contributed to her illness.

Ultimately, the RN was fired in, what CNA/NNOC calls, retaliation against a swine flu whistle-blower.

Earlier this summer, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the virus a Phase-6 pandemic, its highest level of warning. WHO reported the death toll at 1,154, in data published this week.

Don’t forget to check out the AFL-CIO’s pandemic flu site, which includes vital resources for health care workers, firefighters, educators and more. Recently added to the site are five updated fact sheets:

• Basic Facts About Pandemic Flu and the H1N1 (Swine) Flu;
• Protecting Workers During Pandemic Flu;
• Protecting Health Care Workers During Pandemic Flu;
• Respirators: One Way to Protect Workers Against Pandemic Flu; and
• What the Union Can Do: Preparing the Workplace for Pandemic Flu.

Mike Hall: I’m a former West Virginia newspaper reporter, staff writer for the United Mine Workers Journal and managing editor of the Seafarers Log. I came to the AFL- CIO in 1989 and have written for several federation publications, focusing on legislation and politics, especially grassroots mobilization and workplace safety. When my collar was still blue, I carried union cards from the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, American Flint Glass Workers and Teamsters for jobs in a chemical plant, a mining equipment manufacturing plant and a warehouse. I’ve also worked as roadie for a small-time country-rock band, sold my blood plasma and played an occasional game of poker to help pay the rent. You may have seen me at one of several hundred Grateful Dead shows. I was the one with longhair and the tie-dye. Still have the shirts, lost the hair.

This article originally appeared on the AFL-CIO Blog on August 7, 2009 and is reprinted here with permission from the author.

It is not always easy to be a cheering squad for organized labor in these times. Unions across the country are cracking into contracts to give concessions, bargaining away rights to keep jobs and, really, it is pretty messy out here for workers and the unions that represent them. I am getting a lot of email and phone calls from a lot of
disgusted people and everyone is asking in one way or another the same question … why? I don’t know specific answers, but I feel it, too.

The economic crisis gave a sense of militancy to employers for their demands in give-backs. The same militancy, unfortunately, the union movement lacks. The Employee Free Choice Act, the one piece of legislation that the workers’ movement is NOT divided on, is taking a beating from the right wing Capitalists who fear fines if a first contract is not signed within a given time frame, who fear majority sign up, who fear that working people might just have a voice in their workplace and threaten their bottom line. The millions of dollars that are spent on fighting the Employee Free Choice Act is working, and it is a shame. Working people deserve the right to organize a union
without fear and retribution, without the harassment the other side says it fears will come from the organizing unions.

There is not a day in the week that another article pops up from somewhere in the  country spilling lies or exaggerations about EFCA – online articles that allow for comments, and all of the comments are against the unions and working people. The sad stuff is that the comments are probably written by people who carry union cards! There
is so much misinformation and lack of union-to-rank-and-file communication that, well, it is pathetic. It needs to change.

I am of the opinion that one of the ways to counter the negative perception of unions is through education, and doing it online more so than anywhere else. Online organizing and mobilizing just happens to be where my skills (and my trade) are, but lately I find it hard to spread out any news but bad news. But that’s how it goes, labor is riding a weird wave right now, it seems. My biggest concern is that our failure to resist the endless concessions is lowering the standards of all workers – organized or not.

While the news of the day might appear more bleak than usual, there is definitely a ton of good stuff to embrace. The problem is that not a lot of people are forwarding that stuff anymore because we are absorbed with the negative. I do try to promote the good stuff on UnionReview.com and on other sites to do my part in changing the
perception of labor unions. And, if there is anything that the online community has taught me is that I am not alone. We are a growing community of workers concerned about our rights, our unions and each other. While labor leaders and Washington politics at times appear to be leading us astray, we stay firm in our own militancy and mindset to right the wrongs that affect us in a struggle we’d been fighting a
long time.

I continue to see the good fight being fought and won with campaigns driven by workers for workers and won for workers. And I will continue to spread as much of that around, it is just impossible today to not acknowledge the other realities we are all facing in these times.

Richard Negri: Richard Negri is the founder of UnionReview.com and is the Online Manager for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

This article originally appeared on Union Review on August 1, 2009 and is reprinted here with permission from the author.

One of the few openly gay TV anchors in the country–Charles Perez of WPLG in Miami–has filed a charge with the local human rights authority alleging sexual orientation and gender discrimination by station managers that resulted in his demotion from weeknight anchor. Perez says his openly gay news director made comments about his performance and on-air presence that reflected anti-gay animus and that he was treated differently from heterosexual news employees.

According to the intake questionairre filed with the Miami-Dade Equal Opportunity Board–Florida does not protect employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation and so the claim would gay bias claim would be brought under local law–Perez says that beginning in March 2009 he was subjected to bias at the hands of news director Bill Pohovey. The turning point appears to be an e-mail that was distributed by Perez’s ex-partner implying Perez was seeking the assistance of a therapist for issues relating to “gender identity issues.”

The allegations–and they are allegations at this point–suggest that Perez had been criticized for being “too anchor-like” and that he needed to lighten up with his female co-anchor, but then was told he should not interact with his co-anchor like “girlfriends.” He also alleges the news director made comments to him about marriage and family that he would never make to a heterosexual employee.

The complaint paints a picture of the news director showing photographs of “conquests” and talking explicitly about sex at one moment and then suggesting Perez was “too soft” the next.

In a statement from the station, Pohevey said “[a]s a gay man myself, I can safely say the Station does not discriminate against gay people. Charles’ claim that the Station discriminates against gay people is untrue and offensive. WPLG has a reputation of being a leader in this community with a very diverse staff. The Station does not discriminate. The Station will bring the facts out in the appropriate legal forum and fully expects to be completely vindicated.”

At this stage of the game, these are classic “he said, she he said” allegations. Perez provides a lot of evidence of conversations between him and the station and makes a number of inferences about the meaning of those conversations. There isn’t a lot of case law to parse out what is considered evidence of sexual orientation discrimination, although he clearly is making the argument that inferences of him being “soft” and “girlfriends” has homophobic overtones.

It’s also not true that a member of the same protected class–another openly gay man, in this case–cannot also discriminate. From same-sex sexual harassment cases to race discrimination cases, courts have never been persuaded that someone of the same protected class can’t also be a harasser or a discriminatory actor.

michael R. Triplett: Michael Triplett is the president of the Washington, D.C., chapter of NLGJA and a member of the NLGJA Rapid Response Task Force. He is the assistant chief of correspondents for BNA.

This article was originally posted at RE:ACT on August 4, 2009 and is reprinted here with permission fromt he author.

The central question on the American people’s minds right now about health reform seems to be, “What’s in it for me?” Though the cost of doing nothing, as the conservatives propose, is staggering, with the average family paying $10,000 more in premiums by 2019, people still need to understand what reform will do. And while many people have answered or attempted to answer that question, I thought it might be worth another shot. So here it is – a concise and explanatory answer to the question, “What will health reform do for me?”

The below is based on the House version of health care reform, HR 3200 – America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, which is the strongest bill being discussed to date. In short, it will provide a guarantee of quality, affordable health care to everyone.

If you receive health insurance from your employer (or your spouse’s or parent’s employer):

The big things will not change – you will keep your current health insurance, keep your current doctor, and keep your current benefits. All the health reform plans being proposed allow people to keep their health insurance if they want to, and that means keeping their current benefits and choice of doctor. So if you get your coverage through work, or if your spouse or parent covers you on their health insurance through work, these big pieces will not change unless you want them to.

Your health insurance will get better and more stable. Health reform gives your employer a strong incentive to retain your health insurance or make it better. They will have to offer you at least standard, comprehensive package of benefits and your employer will not be able to continue shifting additional costs of insurance to you – they will have to pay at least about 70% of the cost of your coverage.

Your health insurance will get cheaper. As the public health insurance option forces insurance companies to compete, prices of private health insurance will fall. Your costs, even if you keep your current health insurance plan, will go down.

If you lose your job, you will always be able to get affordable insurance. If for any reason you lose your job and your employer based coverage, you will be eligible for affordable health insurance that meets your needs, as described below, with the government helping you pick up the tab until you get back to work, and expenses will be capped to make sure you can’t go bankrupt due to medical costs. You will always have a guaranteed, affordable backup to rely on if you need it.

If you are employed but do not receive health care benefits from your employer:

Your employer will have to offer you good, affordable health insurance. Under the bill proposed by the House, employers will have to offer you health benefits. Those benefits need to meet a standard for coverage, so you can’t be offered sub-par insurance that doesn’t meet the needs of you and your family. And your employer will have to cover a large percentage of your health care costs (65% for families and 72% for individuals), ensuring insurance is affordable and your employer can’t shift more costs to you. Small businesses are exempt from this regulation.

If you work for a small business that is exempt from regulations asking employers to provide health benefits you will always be able to get affordable insurance. You will be eligible for affordable health insurance that meets your needs, as described below.

If you buy health insurance on your own, or if you or your family are uninsured:

You will be able to find coverage. You will have access to a new health insurance “exchange,” where both public and private health insurance will be offered. You will be able to compare these plans side-by-side and choose what’s right for you and your family. None of these plans will be able to reject your application for pre-existing conditions or for your gender. You will have guaranteed access to health insurance.

You will be able to afford coverage. Any health insurance plan in the exchange will be subsidized if you qualify. Subsidies will be available up to 400% of the federal poverty level, or $88,000 per year for a family of four. These subsidies will ensure that you will only pay a certain percentage of your income in health care costs (that percentage varies depending on how much you make). Bottom line: Health insurance through the exchange will be affordable to you.

You will save money. Even if you do not qualify for subsidies or choose the public health insurance option, competition from the public health insurance option will force prices for insurance to fall across the board.

Your coverage will be good coverage, stable and secure. All plans in the exchange will have to conform to federal regulations, making sure that the plan you purchase covers things that you and your family need – things like preventative medicine, regular checkups, and prescription drugs. And, under health reform, your health insurance company will no longer be able to deny you coverage or care for pre-existing conditions. Your insurance company will no longer be able to drop your coverage if you become sick, or charge you more if you’re a woman. There will be no more annual or lifetime caps on coverage, so you won’t be stuck with tens of thousands in uncovered medical bills. And if you pay your premiums, your insurance company won’t be able to reject a renewal of your insurance plan.

Your expenses will be capped. Deductibles, co-pays, premiums, and other expenses will be capped at a percentage of your income (between 1.5% and 11%, depending on how much you make), so you no longer face exorbitant health insurance costs.

If you are on Medicare or Medicaid:

Your health programs will not be touched. There will be no eligibility or benefit cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Health reform will be financed partly by finding savings in these programs. These savings will come from eliminating portions of Medicare and Medicaid that are no longer needed once we’ve passed health care reform for everyone. For example, right now, Medicaid pays hospitals a reimbursement for people who come to the hospital without health insurance, and thus stick that hospital with the bill. Under health reform, most people will have health insurance, making these reimbursements unnecessary.

The Medicare “Donut Hole” will be closed. The “donut hole” in Medicare’s prescription drug program that leaves seniors with thousands of dollars in drug costs when their coverage runs out partway through the year will be gradually closed under health care reform.

Is this all paid for?

Yes. Health reform will be fully paid for, and will not increase the deficit. It will not increase your taxes, either. The House has proposed increasing taxes on those that make more than a quarter of a million dollars per year to pay for health reform. The middle class will not be affected.

—————————

There is a short answer to the question of what health reform will do for you: Better coverage, lower costs, and the security of knowing you’re not at the mercy of private insurance anymore. This is what health care reform will do for you.

The cost of doing nothing – the conservative plan for health care – is staggering: The average family will pay $10,000 more in premiums by 2019 if nothing is done. We can not afford the conservative health care plan. We must reform health care now, for you and me and our families.

For a lot of you, this information is not news. However, you must know someone who needs to be educated. Copy and paste this post into an email and send it to someone who needs to know exactly how this bill works. Send around this link. Whatever you need to do, get that information out there. Fear can stop health care reform from happening, we need to fight back with the truth.

Jason Rosenbaum: Jason Rosenbaum is a writer and musician currently residing in Washington D.C. He is interested in the intersection of politics and culture, media consolidation issues, and making sense out of our foreign policy disasters. He currently works for Health Care for America Now and he is also the webmaster for The Seminal.

This article originally appeared on the Health Care for America NOW! Blog on August 4, 2009 and is reprinted here with permission from the author.

The recession numbers focus on the out of work, the nearly 10 percent of the workforce who are unemployed. Not counted in the stats of workplace misery are those still “lucky to have a job.”

A Labor Notes survey this month found harassment in the workplace at unprecedented levels, with a sharp uptick since the recession began. It may be that a measurable chunk of the unemployed have been harassed out of their jobs, fired rather than laid off.

Union members report increases in verbal abuse, discipline including discharge, crackdowns on attendance, surveillance, hassling to work faster, forced overtime, and a concerted effort to get rid of older workers. “It’s at a level that I have not seen equaled in my 20 years with the company,” said Seattle UPS driver Dan Scott.

As a rule recessions are a time for management to bear down in all sorts of ways, as the order to do more with less comes down the supervisory food chain.

Now, unions may be less prepared than ever to resist the harassment. In previous rounds of concessions, many surrendered work rules that had given workers flexibility or some say over their work day. Some took two-tier contracts that diluted solidarity on the job. And many older workers who knew—and defended—a less onerous workplace are gone.

Mark Bass, president of a Longshoremen’s local in Mobile, Alabama, said foremen are rushing dock workers and blackballing those who don’t speed up.

“It has not always been this way,” Bass added. “We had a large group of longshoremen retire who knew the longshoreman industry and had the union at heart. Now with the newcomers that don’t know the history and the story that goes from one to the other, we are faced with the challenge of educating our people.”

A recession is a hard time to do that. “At least I’ve got a job,” many say. And union leaders feel pressed to save jobs, not job standards. Still, some locals are hearing members’ desire for day-to-day respect.

BROWN DOG BITES

UPS made its plans for the recession clear with a video shown to workers late last year. CEO Scott Davis warned that companies come out of a recession three ways: weakened, not at all, or leaner and stronger. UPS bosses—long expert at micromanagement—intend to take the third path.

Scott, the Seattle driver, said managers are putting on the brown uniform and riding along with drivers in record numbers. From an average of three or four rides per month, he says, they’ve increased to that many per week. They choose perfectly sorted trucks, open doors for drivers, walk really fast—everything to speed up on measurement day.

“You have to fight the urge to walk as fast as they’re walking. If I had a nickel for every time he said, ‘let’s go, let’s move it,’” Scott said. “It’s perpetual chatter the whole day.”

If the numbers at the end of a ride day are higher than on a regular day, that’s proof the worker has been “stealing time.”

UPS made $400 million in the first quarter of this year, despite recession blues. Telecommunications giant AT&T is even better off, pulling down $12.9 billion in 2008. But once the AT&T contract expired April 4, says Dan Coffin, a business agent with Communications Workers Local 1298 in Connecticut, suspensions skyrocketed.

Because AT&T has a two-tier contract, management is intent on getting rid of first-tier workers. Walt Cole is a case in point. He and other Local 1298 installers were transferred temporarily to U-Verse, which installs TV and Internet lines. They brought their higher pay and contract rights with them.

“Management hated paying us $30 an hour,” said Cole. “We had things to say about work rules being violated, we filed grievances, we were a thorn in their side.”

When Cole exercised his contractual right not to work on his day off—a right not shared by the U-Verse second-tier workers—he was suspended. When he ducked into a restaurant for carry-out and forgot to lock his truck, he was put on final warning for a year—despite a 10-year record of no discipline. Now he’s fired.“When the contract expired,” Cole said, “you could almost see them rubbing their hands and saying, ‘This is the time to get rid of people.’”

SICK AND TIRED

Hospital workers, too, report that penalties are ratcheting up, with suspensions substituting for progressive discipline. A punitive approach to medication or practice errors has employees fearing for their jobs—and could pressure workers to cover up mistakes rather than report them.

Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, a nurse at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, says nurses are harassed to punch out and finish their paperwork off the clock or to work through their meal breaks to finish on time.

At the University of Chicago Medical Center, the endowment took a hit from the stock market crash, and the president decided on 9 percent cuts to come through the recession leaner. Layoffs mean blue-collar and clerical workers are working short-handed and lunches are denied, according to Teamsters Local 743 rep J Burger.

Workers are bumping into new jobs where they’re pressured to be up to speed within 30 days. Burger said many find the environment “so nasty and hostile they said they were leaving.” The local managed to negotiate severance pay.

At the same time management created a new non-union position, “advanced pharmacy tech,” that does bargaining unit work. “They’re using them to snitch on people,” said Burger. “We’ve gone from one or two grievances every two months to 15 outstanding.”

GET THE OLD GUY

At the L’Oreal hair dye factory in New Jersey, chemical compounder Tom Walsh says management is targeting older workers to discipline and then fire. As a part-time business agent for RWDSU-UFCW Local 262, Walsh sees a similar crackdown across the wide variety of workplaces he represents.

“They write them up for every little thing, it doesn’t matter how minor, and then it progresses to the next step till they’ve got their foot out the door,” Walsh said.

Scott, the UPS steward, said each of the four drivers he represented in management reviews in two months’ time has had more than 20 years.

At other UFCW-represented companies, workers on sick leave for more than 13 weeks are fired. Walsh notes that lower managers are not immune: “They got rid of pretty much anybody over the age of 40 and brought in a bunch of young kids right out of college.”

NO ROLLING OVER

Some CWA locals at AT&T are using the fact that their contract is expired to take action against harassment. In Northern California, when two members of Local 9404 were disciplined for refusing overtime, the local called a grievance strike.

Overtime work isn’t required, after a 2001 agreement stripped it from the contract. “We had to defend that,” said President Carol Whichard, who remembers hating year after year of forced overtime as a technician in the field.

Whichard called the strike at 8:30 a.m., and by 10 a.m., 600 workers had driven their vehicles back to the garages and were holding picket signs. By 5 p.m. the discipline was removed. Workers were paid a half day.

In Southern California AT&T is cracking down on bathroom breaks for inside workers. Managers say “lost time” should equal no more than two hours a month—about five minutes a day. Local 9503 steward Wynter Hawk says managers keep track, letting workers know how much they’ve used. They call it “a courtesy.”

“I say, ‘Your courtesy is kind of like harassment,’” she said. “Do they think when they get to the end of the month people will just hold it?”

Stewards are considering a mass pee-in, in which all workers would clock out at the same time.

At UPS, Dan Scott, a member of Teamsters for a Democratic Union, counsels fellow drivers to fight speedup by following UPS’s thick rulebook to a tee. “They encourage us to hydrate throughout the day, stretch after each break and at the beginning of the day, take all breaks and lunches in full,” he said.

Scott believes the union’s untapped resource is the customers.

“People relate to their driver, how hard they work,” he said. “They are the face of the company. How much trouble would it be for a local or the international to run an ad saying, ‘UPS is harassing your driver. Ask your driver what it’s like.’ Start that chatter.”

Jane Slaughter: Jane Slaughter is the author of Concessions and How To Beat Them and co-author, with Mike Parker, of Choosing Sides: Unions and the Team Concept and Working Smart: A Union Guide to Participation Programs and Reengineering. Her work has appeared in The Nation, The Progressive, In These Times, and Monthly Review, among others.

This article originally appeared at Labor Notes, a monthly publication for reform-minded labor activists. It is reprinted her with permission from the author.

At least in Utah (via Derek Thompson at The Atlantic):

Not sure this will start a craze, but the fewer day workweek clearly has some benefits, as illustrated above.  Moreover, Thompson points out:

But, on the other hand, any increase in telecommuting will lead to less face time in the office. Will that have deletrious effects on the culture of the workplace and make employees feel that they are not part of a team, part of something more than just what they contribute to the enterprise?

Am I overstating my concerns here?

Paul Secunda: Paul Secunda joined the Marquette University Law School as an associate professor of law in the summer of 2008. He teaches employment discrimination, employee benefits, labor law, employment law, civil procedure, and seminars in special education law, global issues in employee benefits, and public employment law. Professor Secunda is the author of nearly three dozen books, treatises, articles, and shorter writings. He is also the author, along with Rick Bales and Jeff Hirsch, of the treatise, Understanding Employment Law, along with Sam Estreicher and Rosalind Connor, of the case book, Global Issues in Employee Benefits Law, and of the Teacher’s Manual to the 14th Edition of the Cox, Bok, Gorman & Finkin Labor Law casebook.Professor Secunda is a frequent commentator on labor and employment law issues in the national media and has written numerous columns and op-eds for the National Law Journal and Legal Times. He co-edits with Rick Bales and Jeffrey Hirsch the Workplace Prof Blog, recently named one of the top law professor blogs in the country, which is part of the Law Professors Blog Network.

This article originally appeared at Workplace Prof Blog on July 30, 2009 and is reprinted here with permission from the author.

Remember when President Reagan was shot and Al Haig famously burst into the White House and said that he was in charge? Okay, it might not have been as over the top as Howard Dean’s scream, but Haig did become the poster boy for an “Era of Executive Testosterone Overload.” An era that seems to have come to an end. Finally.

Executives-in-charge, no that doesn’t sum it up adequately. Executives as rock stars is more like it. For much of the last decade the line between CEO and celebrity blurred. Some weeks there seemed to be more CEOs on magazine covers than supermodels. And gossip columns were full of tidbits on their lavish lifestyles.

In the future if they try to carbon date the exact moment when the “Era of the Executive” ended, remarkably it didn’t involve a “perp walk,” with a shamed executive being led away in handcuffs.

It ended with Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld. In this Supreme Court case, the justices held that the President of the United States is not beyond the law and must follow certain legal principals and the Geneva Convention—even in wartime.

This case is definitely the icing for the end of the unquestioned executive, but the cake has been rising for a long time. Enron, WorldCom, Tyco—executives learned the hard way—via hard time—that Leona Helmsly was wrong. It’s not just the little people who have to pay taxes. The rules are for all of us.

Consequences. What a concept.

Like it or not, we all need to get ready for more and more restrictions and rules surrounding executive behavior. Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX for short) is just the start. The reason that more regulations and restrictions will be right around the corner? Because people are tired. Tired of guys (yes, mostly guys) who earn millions of dollars in salary, with a boat load of options (backdated of course) and then still manage to justify having employees not covered with health care or on food stamps. Hollywood long ago learned that corporate executives are the perfect movie villain, can politicians be far behind?

Don’t get me wrong, I hate the idea of acres of staff having to be hired to fill out forms for the government. The problem is that SOX is necessary because executives couldn’t police themselves. Just like the Labor Union movement in the first part of last century, once again executives moan about a logical response to their greed run amok. What is always overlooked by executives and the often toothless business press is the wretched excess that preceded Unions, SOX, etc.

Sure there are good guys and gals out there in the executive suites. Warren Buffett immediately leaps to mind. For him to give a gift approximately 5 times the size of Carnegie and Ford is indeed worthy of sainthood. For that alone I promise to take back two-thirds of the Nebraska jokes I’ve made through the years. But it’s not good enough to give back some of the gain, the public is demanding that executives do the right thing from the very start. And I don’t think that’s too much to ask. Even from the Oil Industry.

Enjoy your slice of humble pie, Mr. Corporate Executive. You earned it.

About the Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

To teachers across the country, the carrot that Washington is dangling before schools could soon start to feel like a stick.

As the Obama administration funnels stimulus money into public schools, states will compete for a $4.3 billion fund known as Race to the Top. But the strings attached to the money reflect a vision for school reform that many activists fear will drive the corporatization of education and the marginalization of organized labor.

One key requirement is that states allow teachers to be assessed on the basis of standardized test scores—a policy that could ignite labor disputes over merit pay and raise philosophical questions about how to evaluate educators.

The funding guidelines could endanger some states’ access to the funds, due to “firewall” policies that bar the direct use of test scores in employment-related decisions, such as awarding tenure—a protection against unfair judgment of teachers based on limited data.

The Race to the Top guidelines also prioritize the expansion of charter schools and alternative pathways for teacher certification, like Teach for America’s fast-track program for top-tier college grads. Both have been hyped as a way to bring innovation and “entrepreneurialism” to public schools. But critics view charters and alternative credentialing as steps toward privatization and deregulation, which in turn alienate struggling students and undermines union power.

By tethering stimulus money to controversial policy initiatives, Education Secretary Arne Duncan is stoking tensions between free-market reform principles and unions’ mission to protect their professions and labor standards.

Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers, signaled a willingness to compromise in a recent statement, calling for “shared responsibility” and transparency in reform efforts.

But many cast doubt on the merits of the Duncan brand of reform.

In a new report on efforts to reform teacher pay schemes, the Center for American Progress challenges the common assumption that “compensation is the primary incentive for teachers to perform at higher levels”:

[N]umerous approaches have been punitive or simplistic in design, implementation, or marketing. This is one reason that teachers and unions have frequently opposed efforts to link learning and compensation. Teachers have often seen these efforts as professionally insulting and as misunderstanding what leads to improved performance.

To progressive education activists, the Duncan brand of reform—which was incubated during his tenure as CEO of Chicago Public Schools —embodies the worst aspects of No Child Left Behind.

Though the Bush-era law was billed as a path toward alleviating racial and socioeconomic educational gaps, critics say it has cheated disadvantaged students by emphasizing rigid high-stakes testing regimes rather than genuine intellectual development.

From a labor standpoint, Jim Horn of Schools Matter says the Race to the Top will accelerate the downward spiral in public education:

The winners of the Race to the Top will not be teachers, who will be further humiliated by having meager pay raises to their embarrassingly low salaries now dependent upon test score production work….

Among the winners will not be the embattled teaching profession, since Mr. Duncan prefers the marginally-prepared and the alternatively-certified teachers to those with real credentials based on both content and pedagogy expertise.

While Duncan tries to pull schools and unions toward a hardline “accountability” agenda, there are signs that some educators are bucking mainstream reform trends from the ground up. Teachers at some charter schools are moving to unionize to stabilize their jobs and working conditions.

In Duncan’s former hometown, a crop of radical teachers has risen up against Chicago’s plans to overhaul and shut down under-performing schools. The Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE) filed a discrimination lawsuit last month to challenge the city’s school “turnaround” initiative.

CORE alleges that black teachers have been disparately harmed by staff purges, and that the restructuring has disrupted students’ education, with little accountability to parents and surrounding communities.

Amid all the political bluster around “fixing” public schools, the lesson that seems to constantly elude policymakers is a simple one: a classroom is a space for intellectual exploration as well as a workplace, and it works best when it enables students and teachers to thrive together.

In the Obama administration’s race to reform, is there room at the top for the whole school community?

Michelle Chen: Michelle Chen’s work has appeared in Extra!, Legal Affairs, City Limits and Alternet, along with her self-published zine, cain. She also blogs at Racewire.org

This article originally appeared at Working In These Times on July 30 and is reprinted here with permission from the source.