Last week, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s July ruling that a proposed state constitutional amendment that sought to restrict how workers can vote in union representation elections was unconstitutional. Not surprisingly, it’s being pushed by opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act.

But that hasn’t stopped Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) and the Republican-controlled state legislature from taking a swing at workers and their unions. Brewer called a special session of the legislature and the state Senate and House today passed a measure to put the anti-union amendment on the November ballot.

Talk about fear of unions and real worker rights, even if passed, the amendment wouldn’t go into effect unless Congress passes and the president signs the Employee Free Choice Act.

Rebekah Friend, executive director of the Arizona AFL-CIO, tells the Arizona Republic:

They’re making a law that pre-empts a law that hasn’t even passed.

Of course knowing Brewer’s and the legislature’s anti-immigrant hysteria, their anti-union panic isn’t a real shock.

For more on the special session and the amendment from the Arizona AFL-CIO click here.

This post originally appeared in AFL-CIO blog on August 11, 2010. Reprinted with permission.

About The Author: Mike Hall is a former West Virginia newspaper reporter, staff writer for the United Mine Workers Journal and managing editor of the Seafarers Log. He 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.

To the outside world, hearing that unions are fighting amongst themselves does not seem like anything new. Sadly, that’s what a lot of people expect from the labor movement. But the civil war between SEIU and UNITE HERE was a particularly painful internal dispute. It created a rift between two of the most dynamic organizations in organized labor and limited the ability of the entire movement to address critical challenges facing the American economy over the past year and a half.

America is a country of immigrants. The unions at the core of the recent dispute, the former UNITE and HERE, are each deeply rooted in the dreams of immigrant workers to create better lives for themselves, their co-workers, and their families. Organized labor in the United States has always grown with the newest wave of immigrants to our country. Moreover, the labor movement has been the most important institution, bar none, in allowing those who are newly coming to America to enter into the economic mainstream of their communities. It is central to our mission, and the continuing importance of this goal far surpasses any internal disagreements we may have within organized labor. Even while the combination of the two organizations, UNITE and HERE, did not last, the labor movement as a whole should reaffirm the broader principles that inspired the merger.

The immigrants who organized the textile and apparel sector a century ago—immigrants from Italy and Eastern Europe, like my grandparents—believed that if working people were going to have strong institutions that could go toe-to-toe with employers, they needed solid infrastructure. So they founded trade unions, and they fashioned institutions like the Amalgamated Bank—which today is a significant asset that was a point of contention in labor’s family feud. We must remember that these institutions are not prizes to be divvied up. They are embodiments of the hard work and foresight of previous generations, who left them so that their children and future generations of working immigrants could create better lives for themselves.

Family feuds are painful. They rip at the very fabric of an institution. Likewise, internal disputes within the labor movement can be deeply harmful, eroding the foundations of organizations that we have worked so hard to build. Like in a family, each side in a dispute believes that it is right. However, within the family, the imperative to resolve a dispute and to mend wounds often outweighs the particulars of any given disagreement. The damage an internal fight can cause is so profound that sometimes being right is not enough.

For this reason, the announcement of a settlement between SEIU and UNITE HERE represents an important moment for the entire labor movement. Going forward, we need to put our unifying mission ahead of any disagreements that divide us.

Today, we face a sea of opponents ready to defame and defeat all unions. The only side that wins when we don’t work hard to put our differences behind us is the side of organized money. When they see us divided, the big corporations and the Glenn Becks of the world laugh all the way to the bank. Every family has its internal disputes. But the labor movement doesn’t have the luxury of fighting against itself any longer

About This Author: Amy B. Dean served as President of the South Bay AFL-CIO in Silicon Valley from 1992-2003 and chaired AFL-CIO President John Sweeney’s committee on the future direction of labor strategy at the regional level. She is co-author, with David B. Reynolds, of A New New Deal: How Regional Activism Will Reshape the American Labor Movement.

Lawmakers Go After Employers Who Misclassify Workers as Contractors

Nearly three years ago, Warren, Ohio, Local 573 Business Manager Mark Catello found out the hard way how rampant is the illegal practice of misclassifying workers as independent contractors to circumvent labor law and cheat on taxes.

The local tried organizing cable workers at Baker Communications, a subcontractor for Time Warner Cable. Organizers got the majority of the 40-person unit to sign union authorization cards, but the National Labor Relations Board killed the unionization drive after agreeing with the company that most of its employees were independent contractors, making them exempt from the right to collectively bargain. “It’s a scam,” Catello said. “All the employees had to follow the company’s manual, wear the company’s uniform with the Baker Communications logo on it and follow their work schedule.”

San Francisco labor activists protest a construction contractor found guilty of cheating its employees out of wages and benefits.

Federal and state officials are now starting to aggressively crack down on employers who mislabel their employees as independent contractors—an act that cheats both taxpayers and workers out of billions of dollars.

According to Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times, more than two dozen states are stepping up their enforcement of employment laws by increasing penalties for employers who misclassify workers as contractors. And Congress recently introduced tougher legislation to punish lawbreakers.

‘Widespread Practice’

The practice is extensive, says James Parrott, chief economist of the Fiscal Policy Institute in New York. He testified earlier this year before the state Senate that an estimated 10 percent of the state’s workers are misclassified as independent contractors.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that number has been estimated to be as high as 30 percent in some states. Lax enforcement of the rules has only encouraged the practice.

In 2007, the Government Accountability Office reported that 10 million workers were classified as independent contractors, an increase of more than 2 million in just six years.

Misclassification ends up costing federal and state authorities billions in lost revenue. Companies that report employees as independent contractors avoid paying Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance taxes.

But misclassifying workers also cheats workers out of their rights and benefits. Laws regarding overtime, workers’ compensation, sick days and minimum wage don’t apply to independent contractors.

“This denies many workers their basic rights and protections and means less revenues to the Treasury and competitive advantage for employers who misclassify,” Jared Bernstein told the New York Times. Bernstein is a noted economist and aide to Vice President Joseph Biden. “The last thing you want is to give a competitive advantage to employers who are breaking the rules.”

The practice is particularly common in trucking and some sectors of the construction industry. It is also found in the telecommunications industry, particularly in satellite dish and cable installation.

And it’s not just fly-by-night operations that are guilty. Corporate giants FedEx, Target and Comcast have all been sued for misclassifying workers.

Counting their workers as contractors has also proven to be an easy way for employers to prevent unionization.

‘Keeps Them From Joining a Union’

For Eighth District Organizer Bob Brock, a crackdown on industry violators is long overdue.

Brock has been trying to organize workers who install home satellite dishes for more than a year. Many of these workers—located mostly in Idaho, Montana and Colorado—endure long hours, low pay, draconian work rules and unsafe working conditions. But according to their employers—including Direct TV and Star West Satellite—they are their own bosses.

“Most of these (satellite) companies operate a whole separate wing, which they staff with what they call independent contractors,” Brock said. “But they have to follow the companies’ regulations, their work hours and use their equipment. What kind of boss is that?”

Brock says that the IBEW has been successful in getting many of these workers to talk with organizers, but until their job status is changed, they can’t legally form a union.

He says he has seen workplaces where two different workers are doing the exact same job, but one is labeled an employee while the other is an independent contractor. “It’s a selective way for the company to get out of paying benefits and taxes and to keep them from joining a union.”

Educating Workers on Their Rights

But the IBEW hasn’t given up on organizing the satellite sector. The Eighth District has started an organization—Satellite Techs Allied for a New Direction—which brings together satellite workers to improve their working conditions. Organizers help workers document what’s going on in their workplace so they have evidence to back up their claims that they are full-time employees.

STAND also helps misclassified workers with tax advice and how to avoid being preyed on by unscrupulous insurance agents who try to sell them overpriced liability policies. It’s a long-term strategy, Brock says, but the campaign is starting to pick up steam. “The word is spreading throughout the industry. A lot of them don’t know about their rights and they are hungry to find out.”

The campaign is now moving into lobbying mode, with organizers talking to state leaders about rampant abuses in the satellite installation industry. “This is a good time, because with the budget shortfalls, politicians are more eager to crack down on tax cheats,” Brock said.

Rampant Abuse

Broadcasting is another industry where the practice has become widespread. “Many broadcast technicians will work for one of the big networks, be considered an employee, but then go work for another network, do the exact same job, and all of a sudden they become contractors,” said Broadcasting Department Director Ro Wratschko.

Many smaller production companies are also notorious for misclassifying employees to give them unfair advantage over local signatory companies. “They are bidding for the same work as our union shops but they are illegally getting out of paying the same taxes we do, so they have a leg up,” he said.

While not as rampant in the electrical construction industry as it is in other trades, many inside locals have confronted nonunion contractors trying to pass off their employees as contractors. Last fall, Dublin, Calif., Local 595 helped bring to light one Bay Area contractor who cost the state and her employees millions of dollars by illegally misclassifying them.

“It’s the primary means for nonunion contractors to get out of their responsibilities to their employees and try to cut into our market share,” said Kirk Groenendaal, Special Assistant to the International President for Membership Development.

Federal prosecution of companies that misclassify their workers as contractors was nonexistent under the Bush administration, says Political and Legislative Department International Representative Dan Gardner, but the tide is turning.

President Obama has promised to hire an additional 100 investigators to look at companies accused of misclassifying workers and the Internal Revenue Service announced in February that it was launching a three-year nationwide investigation of the practice.

On Capitol Hill, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry (D) has introduced the Taxpayer Responsibility, Accountability, and Consistency Act of 2009—with Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) sponsoring a House version—which beefs up enforcement of worker classification regulations and closes tax loopholes used by unscrupulous employers.

In April, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) introduced a similar bill—the Employee Misclassification Act—that focuses on tougher enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The Department of Labor also recently announced tougher regulations of worker classification regulations, calling on employers to disclose to their employees their work status.

State authorities are also intensifying their crackdown. In Iowa, a six-month investigation by the labor department recently found more than 100 companies guilty of misclassifying employees, while in California, Attorney General Jerry Brown is aggressively going after lawbreakers, recently filing a $4.3 million lawsuit against a construction company with several public works contracts that he says cheated workers out of wages.

In Nebraska, a bill is under serious consideration that would target trucking and construction companies that abuse the independent contractor label.

Gardner said that the IBEW is working closely with NECA contractors and other businesses to push Congress to endorse Sens. Kerry’s and Brown’s legislation to crack down on lawbreakers. “It’s wrong for workers, wrong for taxpayers and wrong for the businesses that play by the rules and follow the law.”

This post originally appeared in IBEW.org on June 2, 2010. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Alexander Hogan is Communications Specialist for the IBEW.

Despite U.S. Chamber of Commerce propaganda, the nation’s small business owners recognize the value of employees forming a union, according to a new survey by Americans Rights at Work (ARAW). The survey was released yesterday, the same day the Chamber opened its annual small business summit.

Some 80 percent of the small business owners and self-employed individuals surveyed agreed that “strong unions make the free market system stronger.” A significant majority—54 percent—strongly agreed.

ARAW Executive Director Kimberly Freeman Brown says:

We are learning that small business owners across America support the rights of employees to organize unions, believing not only that it makes good business sense, but also that strong unions make the free market system stronger.

A full 69 percent of the respondents said it was very important to their businesses that “Congress enact legislation that rewards responsible employers who respect their workers’ right to join a union.”

Brown added:

Small business leaders are showing us that there is a path to a “win-win” economy in America. Employers and workers can both generate success and share in the rewards of their hard work together.

The online survey included 1,055 respondents who identify themselves as small business owners or self-employed individuals. Click here to read the full results of the survey, “Surveying the Small Business Owner: The Value of Unions In America.”

Among other results, the survey found:

• Some 52 percent of small business owners express strong concern that “unions have been weakened so much that our economy has actually been hurt.”
• Nearly three out of five—58 percent—strongly agreed that “labor unions are necessary to protect the working person.”
• A huge 72 percent strongly agreed that “a good business person can make a profit and respect their workers’ choice to form a union.”

As one politically independent small business owner in Virginia said:

When workers form unions, they can secure benefits and rights in the workplace, including a decent wage and health care. They have economic and job stability. Unions lift workers and workers lift the economy. It’s as simple as that.

*This post originally appeared in AFL-CIO blog on May 18, 2010. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: James Parks had his first encounter with unions at Gannett’s newspaper in Cincinnati when his colleagues in the newsroom tried to organize a unit of The Newspaper Guild. He saw firsthand how companies pull out all the stops to prevent workers from forming a union. He is a journalist by trade, and worked for newspapers in five different states before joining the AFL-CIO staff in 1990. He has also been a seminary student, drug counselor, community organizer, event planner, adjunct college professor and county bureaucrat. His proudest career moment, though, was when he served, along with other union members and staff, as an official observer for South Africa’s first multiracial elections. Author photo by Joe Kekeris.

Some 290,000 jobs were created in April, the fourth straight month in more than year the nation has seen gains in employment. Yet the unemployment rate worsened to 9.9 percent from 9.7 percent in March, according to data released this morning by the Department of Labor. The total unemployment figure, which includes those who are discouraged or underemployed, worsened to 17.1 percent in April, from 16.9 percent in March—some 27 million U.S. workers without jobs or full-time work.

Yet economists say the increase in the unemployment rate can be viewed as good news because it means that more than 800,000 workers entered the labor force, many of them formerly discouraged workers who had stopped looking for work.

April job growth came in manufacturing, 44,000 jobs; service jobs, 166,000; construction, 14,000 and mining, 7,000. The jobs increase also was bolstered by the federal government’s hiring of 66,000 temporary workers to help complete the U.S. Census. The April jobless rate for black workers is 16.5 percent, for Hispanic, 12.5 percent and worsened for white workers, to 9 percent.

April’s jobs increase is a far better scenario than the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost each month in the past year—but nowhere near what the nation needs to fill the 11 million job deficit created by the past few years of economic maelstrom.

Especially bad new is the continued worsening in the number of long-term unemployed workers. In April, some 6.7 million U.S. workers were out of a job for 27 weeks or longer, compared with 6.5 million in March. In April, 45.9 percent of unemployed workers had been jobless for 27 weeks or more.

These data make it all the more essential that Congress extend the lifeline for jobless workers by extending unemployment insurance (UI) for a year, a move that is a key part of the AFL-CIO Jobs Agenda. Congress has passed several UI extensions, but only for up to 30 days. The length of time it takes to get a job in this economy, however, clearly shows much more time is needed.

A new report out from the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers documents the challenges for unemployed workers in this economy.

In short, “No End in Sight: The Agony of Prolonged Unemployment” concludes:

While the worst phase of the Great Recession may be behind us, the vast majority of jobless Americans have not found new jobs.

The report finds only 21 percent of those unemployed and actively looking for a job in August 2009 found employment by March 2010. An even smaller number (13 percent) found full-time employment. Sixty-five percent who found employment searched for at least seven months. Twenty-eight percent looked for more than a year.

Among those still searching for work—many for more than a year—are millions who have never been without a job and who have at least a college education. And the jobs they’re taking do not fit their skills nor financial needs.

It is clear that many took their new jobs out of need rather than desire. The majority (61 percent) said their new job was “something to get you by while you look for something better,” while just 39 percent agreed with the statement that their new position is “something you really want to do and think it is a new long-term job.”

As part of the AFL-CIO Good Jobs Now campaign, we are calling for Big Banks to resume lending to help credit-starved communities create jobs. Clearly, small businesses are not getting the credit they need to expand and hire workers.

We are backing a bill co-sponsored by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) to save or create nearly 1 million local jobs. Developed with mayors, county officials and others, the Local Jobs for America Act will provide $75 billion over two years to local communities to stave off planned cuts or to re-hire workers laid-off because of tight budgets. Funding would go directly to eligible local communities and nonprofit community organizations to decide how best to use the funds. More than 100 co-sponsors have signed on. (Click here to urge your representative to become a co-sponsor.)

*This post originally appeared in AFL-CIO Blog on May 7, 2010. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Tula Connell got her first union card while she worked her way through college as a banquet bartender for the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee (they were represented by a hotel and restaurant local union—the names of the national unions were different then than they are now). With a background in journalism—covering bull roping in Texas and school boards in Virginia—she started working in the labor movement in 1991. Beginning as a writer for SEIU (and OPEIU member), she now blogs under the title of AFL-CIO managing editor.

For the past 80 years, radio stations have used the publicly owned airwaves to make billions of dollars playing music without paying anything to the artists who created it.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) President Roberta Reardon and American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada (AFM) President Thomas Lee joined with members of Congress today to announce a strong push by the union movement to pass legislation that supports the fundamental right of American musical artists to be paid for their work.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka (third from left) jams with Rep. Jerrold Nadler, AFTRA President Roberta Reardon, musician Peter Yarrow and Reps. John Conyers and John Garamendi.

The Performance Rights Act, H.R. 848, would close a loophole in copyright law that allows AM and FM stations to duck royalty payments to performing artists. The United States is one of a handful of countries that do not provide fair performance rights on radio. The others include Qatar, Iraq, Iran, North Korea and China.

Trumka told a Capitol Hill press conference that workers should not be cheated out of their wages:

The labor movement was founded on the principle that a hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay. That’s the principle at stake in the fight for the Performance Rights Act.

The reckless greed that drives Wall Street is the same as the unconscionable greed that drives the handful of conglomerate corporate radio executives that control 75 percent of our nation’s radio stations.

The bipartisan legislation, introduced by House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), has 46 co-sponsors. Both the Obama and Bush administrations endorsed the legislation along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and former House Minority Leader Dick Armey.

Reardon told reporters:

The Performance Rights Act will help thousands of hard-working, middle-income recording artists, legacy artists, and session singers earn a living, provide for themselves and their families and support an economy that works for everyone.

Big Radio has launched a propaganda campaign against the legislation led by Cathy Hughes, owner of the African American mega-company Radio One, which claims the legislation would hurt African American and small radio stations.

Last year, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU), the A. Philip Randolph Institute (APRI) and the NAACP endorsed the legislation saying it would not hurt black radio and that musicians, like all workers, deserve to be paid a fair wage.

Radio One is a classic example of corporate greed, Trumka pointed out. In the middle of the recession, Radio One executives fired workers, cut salaries and slashed benefits while setting themselves up with millions of dollars in bonuses.

Trumka issued a challenge to members of Congress and activists across the country:

If you care about music, if you care about the right of Americans to get paid for their work, if you care about doing what is right, be a part of the good fight for our performing brothers and sisters.

The Music First Coalition, which includes AFM, AFTRA and the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW), is leading an effort to pass the bill. The AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees (DPE) also is backing the bill.

*This post originally appeared in AFL-CIO blog on April 27, 2010. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: James Parks had his first encounter with unions at Gannett’s newspaper in Cincinnati when his colleagues in the newsroom tried to organize a unit of The Newspaper Guild. He saw firsthand how companies pull out all the stops to prevent workers from forming a union. He is a journalist by trade, and worked for newspapers in five different states before joining the AFL-CIO staff in 1990. He has also been a seminary student, drug counselor, community organizer, event planner, adjunct college professor and county bureaucrat. His proudest career moment, though, was when he served, along with other union members and staff, as an official observer for South Africa’s first multiracial elections. Author photo by Joe Kekeris.

When the world’s banks were going under, governments jumped to their aid. Now with record numbers of people out of work, it’s past time for governments to put working people first, or the fledgling economic recovery could fall apart. Leaders from the G-20 nations issued this warning while in Washington, D.C., this week for the first-ever meeting of G-20 labor ministers and employment ministers with labor and business leaders April 20-21.

The meeting stems from the efforts by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and others at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh last September to make jobs the central element in any global economic recovery. The G-20 includes the leaders of the world’s top 19 economies and the European Union.

During their meetings at the AFL-CIO before the labor ministers’ summit, the union leaders again strongly urged their governments to support the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Global Jobs Pact, which includes comprehensive measures to stimulate employment growth and provide basic protections for workers and their families.

Sharan Burrow, president of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), told the ministers:

Governments must show the same political will to attack global unemployment and underemployment as they did to tackle the banking crisis in late 2008. We cannot afford a lost decade of stagnant labor markets.

Trumka made it clear that if the jobs of the future are to be good, family supporting jobs, workers in all nations must have the fundamental right to form unions and bargain collectively:

In the U.S, tens of thousands of workers are fired every year for attempting to form unions. For example, there can be no excuse for T-Mobile, the U.S. telecommunications company, to viciously oppose unions in the U.S. while its corporate parent, Deutsche Telekom supports bargaining rights and unions throughout Europe. Unless workers’ rights are enforced in all countries, there will be a “race to the bottom” in wages and working conditions, a race that will undermine decent work everywhere.

For more information on the ongoing campaign to bring justice to T-Mobile, click here and here.

The union leaders also insisted that governments not reduce stimulus efforts until employment rates return to pre-crisis levels on a sustainable basis, and called for an equitable sharing of the cost of the recovery costs through more progressive tax systems, including the adoption of a financial transactions tax, actions the AFL-CIO strongly backs.

ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder said:

We must halt the continuing rise in unemployment and create new jobs.  Furthermore, there needs to be an ongoing role for labor ministers within the G-20 in order to address the employment impact of the crisis with effective measures to help all workers, including the most vulnerable.

John Evans, general secretary of the Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), added:

Increasing economic inequality over two decades helped cause this crisis. Fairer income distribution and restoring real purchasing power to working people is essential for sustainable economic growth in the future.

Check out the detailed proposals presented by the union delegation here. Read the ITUC/TUAC evaluation of the meeting’s outcomes here.

*This post originally appeared in AFL-CIO blog on April 22, 2010. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: James Parks had his first encounter with unions at Gannett’s newspaper in Cincinnati when his colleagues in the newsroom tried to organize a unit of The Newspaper Guild. He saw firsthand how companies pull out all the stops to prevent workers from forming a union. He is a journalist by trade, and worked for newspapers in five different states before joining the AFL-CIO staff in 1990. He has also been a seminary student, drug counselor, community organizer, event planner, adjunct college professor and county bureaucrat. His proudest career moment, though, was when he served, along with other union members and staff, as an official observer for South Africa’s first multiracial elections. Author photo by Joe Kekeris

The White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility has generated an energetic buzz in work family advocacy circles across the nation. As a longtime advocate for family friendly workplaces, I am thrilled by First Lady Michelle Obama and President Barack Obama’s keen interest and commitment to build and promote flexible workplaces. I also commend the many businesses that are genuinely trying to create workplaces that reflect the current needs of America’s working families. But I am cautiously optimistic. For, I am also aware of the many “fake flex” policies that force workers to “flex” their lives to fit the job and not vice versa.

Workplace flexibility remains an elusive phenomenon in most American workplaces — the majority of such benefits are available only to the highly qualified and skilled professional workforce. And when flexible work arrangements are offered to service sector workers, they do little to address the workers’ needs but plenty for the company’s bottom-line. Creating a more “flexible” and cheaper workforce is a popular profit-making strategy of many large retail employers including big box chains like Walmart. In the name of flexibility, employers are capping wages, forcing full-time workers into part-time positions without benefits, and forcing them to work irregular and erratic work schedules, including working more nights and weekends. The demand that workers be available round the clock puts the company’s needs first and the needs of working families last. Such management-driven “fake flex” policies that penalize workers and give them little or no control give workplace flexibility a bad name.

As I see it, real workplace flexibility equals workers’ control over their job plus security. It is never forced on workers. It expands their choices by giving them the power to shape their work days, hours and schedules to achieve work family balance. A key task for the Obama Administration is to put existing flexible workplace policies through a sieve and champion only those policies that truly give workers control over their work time without risking their wages, benefits or job security.

We have made some advances in creating family friendly workplaces — but these have been worker by worker and workplace by workplace. For the most part, labor unions have been at the forefront of re-envisioning the workplace — the 8-hour work day, the weekend, safety standards, and important family friendly policies such as paid sick days, paid family leave and family health insurance (see Family-Friendly Workplaces: Do Unions Make a Difference?). In many industries, unions have regulated “flexibility” that is controlled by the employer and a burden on employees (see Real Flextime – Union Made). Any policy discussion on advancing workplace flexibility stands to gain from a strong union presence at the table.

Nearly 75 percent of all working adults in the United States have little or no control over their work schedules — lower paid workers (especially lower income women) have the least control. Arriving or leaving even a few minutes late can cost them their jobs. We continue to lag behind other developed nations in guaranteeing our workers important labor standards such as paid sick days and paid family leave. In his closing remarks at the Forum, President Obama said, “Caring for loved ones and raising the next generation is the single most important job we have.” It is indeed time we made this easier for our working families.

A Peaceful Revolution is a blog about innovative ideas to strengthen America’s families through public policies, business practices, and cultural change. Done in collaboration with MomsRising.org, read a new post here each week.

*This post originally appeared in The Huffington Post on April 5, 2010. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Netsy Firestein is founder and Executive Director of the Labor Project for Working Families, a national non-profit organization that educates and empowers unions to organize, bargain and advocate for family friendly workplaces. Ms. Firestein is recognized as a national expert on labor and work family issues. For over 25 years, Ms. Firestein has worked with the labor movement to ensure that work family issues are an integral part of labor’s organizing, bargaining and advocacy efforts.  Ms. Firestein has also helped forge important partnerships between labor and community groups to advocate for statewide and national work family policies.

The U.S. Senate today passed a jobs bill that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka calls a ”good start” in helping the nation’s workers climb out of the 11-million-deep jobs hole dug by the Wall Street greed that propelled the economy’s nosedive.

But he says the bill—which is on its way to the White House for President Obama’s signature—must be the first step of a broad and intensive effort to rebuild the economy.

Much more needs to be done. We need to restore the jobs that were lost to the financial debacle, and Wall Street should pay to create them. We must invest in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and in the green jobs of the future. We have to maintain funding for vital services by state and local governments and prevent destructive cuts in education, police and fire protection and more.

We must take the additional steps needed to extend unemployment insurance and health care lifelines to the unemployed. We must increase funding for neglected communities to match people who want to work with jobs that need to be done. And we should move right now to use leftover TARP money to get credit flowing to Main Street.

The $17.6 billion bill includes a one-year extension of the federal highway program, an extension of the Build America Bonds program that helps states finance certain infrastructure projects and tax incentives for employers to hire workers.

The Senate first passed the legislation in February, but minor changes by the House forced a second vote on the legislation.

Other pending jobs legislation includes a December-passed House bill that is a more extensive jobs bill with an emphasis on jobs-creating infrastructure projects. The next step for the bill is uncertain—Senate leaders have promised to move further jobs-related legislation, but no time table has been set. Also this month, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) introduced the Local Jobs for America Act, which would create or save up to 1 million public- and private-sector jobs. Jobs saved would include those such as the firefighters, the police and teachers and others whose jobs are in jeopardy because of local government budget cuts.

*This article originally appeared in AFL-CIO blog on March 17, 2009. Reprinted with permission from the author.

About the Author: Mike Hall is 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.

As kids, we all loved the sugar-coated fairy tales of handsome and brave princes rescuing beautiful princesses from despotic kings.

The new CBS “reality” show “Undercover Boss” that debuted last night after the Super Bowl is a 21st century sugar-coated fairy tale. But this time, the brave prince is actually a CEO who goes undercover as a regular worker near the bottom of the food chain. There he finds how hard and dirty the job is; how stifling and draconian the company’s workplace rules are; and how crappy the pay is.

Then after walking so many miles in an employee’s work boots, the boss sees the light and promotes workers, raises pay, eases rules and promises a new found respect for all workers.

(If your boss isn’t going undercover anytime soon, be sure to check out American Rights at Work’s new website, Fix Our Jobs, where you can vent about how lousy—and even how great—your job is and learn how to make it better. Click here to watch the video.)

But just like our childhood stories ignored the dark, bloody and scary Brothers Grimm originals, “Undercover Boss” ignores the grim reality of too many of today’s workplaces.

“Undercover Boss” is a sweet, happy-ending tale for a handful of workers, but make-believe for millions of others. The best way to make workplace improvement and worker rights a reality is with the Employee Free Choice Act, that would restore the right of workers to form unions and bargain for a better life.

The bosses portrayed on the show may indeed be sincere and a handful of workers will enjoy the benefits of their foxhole conversions. But what about the millions of workers whose CEO’s will never be on TV? That’s where unions come in: to ensure employees have a voice at the workplace, with family-supporting pay and affordable health care and retirement security.

Along with the restoring the freedom to form unions, rebuilding the middle class means fighting for health care legislation, strong enforcement of wage and hour laws, holding Wall Street accountable and most importantly creating jobs. Unions and their members at the forefront of all these battles—out in the open—not undercover.

*This article originally appeared in the AFL-CIO blog on February 8, 2009. Reprinted with permission.

**For more information on the Employee Free Choice Act visit the Workplace Fairness EFCA Resource Page.

About the Author: Mike Hall is 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.