EVEN WINNING AN ELECTION DOES NOT GUARANTEE VICTORY

December 21st, 2012

The latest talk out of Washington DC is that President Obama, after winning his hard fought election with the help of many thousands of worker's boots on the ground and many millions of dollars of labor unions political action money - has now opened up discussions about cutting the COLA - the cost of living adjustments, which directly affect how much the checks in those Social Security envelopes will be as inflation kicks in once a recovery gets going. It is also clear that the promise of no tax cuts to those making over $250,000 a year was never written in stone. Meanwhile Boehner and his rat pack seem to still not be clear on who won the election - trotting out another "Plan B" with tax cuts getting extended once again for millionaires, a plan so weak that they couldn't muster the votes to even fake pass their own bill - so went home for the holidays leaving the nation hanging.

Why the President has already offered to raise this tax cut limit to $400,000 from $250,000 is beyond me. There are very few workers I know - actually none- who come close to making that kind of dough. That's the pay of owners and managers - not workers. We'll have to keep fighting brothers and sisters, keep writing those emails to the White House and Congress and tell them in no uncertain terms that this fiscal cliff was nonsense from the start and that the rich have done so enormously well on the backs of the poor and working folks for so long that no is the time to settle up the books. NO CUTS TO MEDICARE OR SOCIAL SECURITY, STICK TO AND END FOR TAX CUTS TO THOSE OVER $250,000.

Read a great blog post on the topic from Damon Silvers of the AFL-CIO:http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Political-Action-Legislation/Boehner-s-Plan-for-Fiscal-Showdown-Cut-Social-Security-COLA-to-Pay-for-More-Tax-Cuts-for-the-Rich

GOP’s True Agenda After President Obama’s Re-election: The War On Workers Will Continue

December 10^th, 2012

In the waning days of their current legislative session, without holding the legally required waiting period for public comment and participation, Republican legislators in Michigan chose to ram through another salvo against workers in the ongoing right-wing assault on the middle class. Still smarting at the recent thumping of right-wingers nationally and the trouncing of their favorite son Mitt, these radical ideologues decided that a state where many spilled blood to win labor rights in the nation’s auto plants, would now join the confederation of anti-worker states. 

Make no mistake about it, in a state where the Governor, Rick Snyder, had recently said the union-busting tactics displayed by Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Jon Kasich in Ohio (where those efforts were sent packing) and Mitch Daniels in Indiana, were not a “high-priority,” was perfectly happy to sign the legislation, illegally voted through this past week by a GOP dominated legislature that had lost half its seats in the new legislature and so feared their anti-worker agenda might not pass muster in 2013.

 It is exactly this type of skullduggery, anti-democratic, winning at the cost of open and transparent government that the party of the right now finds itself allied with every day. From funding and creating “get out the vote drives” that were actually designed to confuse voters about where and when voting was to take place, to lying about court ordered sanctions against the disgusting Jim Crow practice of requiring photo IDs from life-long residents of states where early 20^th century birth records were poorly kept for people of color, today’s GOP is all about rigging the system to frustrate the will of the 99%. Just as in the battle over the “fiscal cliff,” their goal is to maintain the gross income inequality that has mushroomed since the election of Ronald Reagan. Reagan started the ball rolling by crushing the strike of the air traffic controllers. That was the green light to corporate America to go on the offensive – and they sure as heck did.

As many commentators pointed out during this election season and now during the battle over the phony “fiscal cliff,” income inequality, after a thirty-year war against organized labor, has reached eye-popping extremes. According to a recent article from the Center for Budget Policy and Priorities, the 400 top earning American families now control as much national wealth as the bottom 150 million taxpayers. The top 5% of all taxpayers control over 60% of the wealth of the nation versus only 7% control by the bottom 80%. There is no way we can ever avoid a permanent fiscal cliff if this inequality is allowed to continue.

 As Frederick Allen, writing in the October 2^nd, 2012 issue of Forbes Magazine (not exactly a left-wing journal) suggested, the income inequality created over the last thirty years is not only unpleasant and unethical, bad it is bad for the long-term fiscal health of the United States. In effect, the same “gilded-age” conditions that existed prior to the Great Depression were mirrored in the easy-credit, financial casino mentality of the most recent economic collapse. Each time the conditions that greatly inflated the magnitude of the financial collapses were directly brought on by a gross exaggeration in income inequality. Check out the full article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2012/10/02/how-income

The ongoing war by Michigan and other states is especially fascinating, because the Wagner Act, the foundation of our whole National Labor Relations Act – “Labor’s Bill of Rights,” and our whole national system of collective bargaining, was never meant to be the only federally passed law that individual states had a right to choose not to follow if they chose. The Wagner Act was meant to rectify the “robber baron” style of exploitative capitalism of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, when workers were seen as so many exploitable and expendable pieces of the production line. The Wagner Act reversed these deeply rooted anti-worker patterns of big business, but not for long. 

Though Labor played its part during the heyday of WWII and kept labor peace while churning out the goods needed for the war effort, by the end of the war, as hundreds of thousands of workers returned home from fighting overseas, and the huge amounts of government spending to drive the war effort started to slow down, business owners who had seen sales and profits rocket up during the war now had angry workers on their hands – workers who had agreed to no strike clauses during the war and reigned in wage demands and now wanted to  share in the soaring prosperity that the business owners enjoyed during the postwar boom. 

Many work stoppages and strikes occurred, being the prime tool of workers to defend their rights to a fair wage.  Just like today, the corporate media went into overdrive to slander these demands for fair wages and benefits as the work of communists, socialists and anarchists. The postwar reaction to a decade of FDR’s policies aimed at leveling the playing field for workers and his public attacks on the big business class, lent force to the election of a conservative right-wing Congress – Richard Nixon among them - just as happened in the Tea Party election of 2010. This right-wing Congress, in 1947, “revised” the Wagner Act, under the name of the two sponsors of the legislation. The Taft-Hartley Act essentially gutted the most progressive measures of the Wagner Act and added a whole sub-section of impediments to labor organizing which have frustrated union organizers to this day. See more here: http://hnn.us/articles/1036.html 

It is important to understand here that this “revision” was the first and only time in our U.S. history that states were able to “opt-out” of federal law simply by the vote of their state legislatures. We had fought the Civil War on the basis that all states in the union must follow one set of rules or the union could not stand – but for worker’s rights? This apparently did not hold true. I am simplifying here to a degree, but sadly, not by much. Labor did fight hard against Taft-Hartley Act at the time, calling it “the slave-labor act,” but the tide was against them. This anti-labor law has been at the root of labor’s decline for the last several decades. It has provided the tolls to employers and their government cronies to restrict and curtail the rights of workers to organize into legal labor unions. 

It is amazing to note that even in the last election, when two states voted to legalize the personal use of marijuana, in direct violation of federal anti-drug laws, even under what is considered a progressive national administration, it has only been a matter of a few weeks before clear rumblings have been heard from the White House and federal authorities that such violations of federal law will not be allowed to proceed. Already plans are in motion to bring these two forward thinking states into line with the wasteful and outdated drug laws. But try and screw workers? That's A-OK. 

The question then is, what will organized labor and workers do to fight back? Organized labor and worker’s groups of all types must quickly figure out an active counter-attack to these most recent assaults against American workers. Though the AFL-CIO and major union supporters likely spent over $200 million this past election cycle to guarantee a pro-labor victory, the time for celebration has obviously been very short-lived.  All workers, unions, new worker alliances – such as the new National Taxi Alliance out of NYC, must target these recent attacks our of Michigan and use them as the focus for a major counter-attack against the Taft-Harley Act’s anti-worker provisions – especially the ability for any state to opt out of the right of workers to organize free of any obstacles. Workers Rights Must be Civil Rights! 

We have just contributed to one of the great progressive victories of the last half-century and now is not the time to stand back and be shy. We must be bold, we must have a clear message and we must be unrelenting in our attacks. Why should Michigan get away with such attacks? There are big convention centers in Detroit and many national companies have their headquarters in the state. We must target those who economically seek to destroy us and declare economic war on them in return. This is the only message they will listen to and one of the strongest weapons in our arsenal. At the same time, all workers and organized labor must work together to re-educate the public about the terrible consequences of such attacks against working people and these rights for which tens of thousands have spilled their blood, fought tooth and nail to secure a safe and equitable future for their children and grandchildren.

Americans have just demonstrated that when they are presented with the truth, in a clear and coherent manner, they will make the right choice. We are just now in a period when many types of progressive media, including such efforts as our own Workers Unite Film Festival (and over a dozen wonderful labor film festivals across the country), worker/labor web-based news outlets, twitter-feeds, facebook pages, etc. can actually reach and communicate an alternate version of the what the corporate mainstream media wants to offer – which is most often to confuse and obfuscate the actual truth. We have a real chance here my fellow progressives, labor activists, union organizers – let’s get out there and fight this thing like our parents and grandparents fought the great battles of the last 100 years. No defeat, no surrender. Our future as a labor movement, our future as a country with a viable middle-class, who has the chance for a life with decent wages and dignity is what is at stake.

Support "Our Walmart" workers striking this Thursday and Friday

November 21st, 2012

This Friday is now known as "Black Friday," the universally accepted term for when retailers cross over into the more profitable part of their selling year. This is all well and good and for many small retailers, we are happy to support them and wish them a healthy and fulfilling holiday selling season.

However - the increasingly desperate focus of the corporate owned media and their mountains of advertising dollars on getting all Americans to somehow get so frenzied over such teaser retail bonanzas as a $120 flat screen color TV, or a $50 Iphone that they are willing to trample each other to get their cheap deals first - well that part needs to come to a respectful end.

The sad and sour spectacle of economically stretched families pushing and shoving to save a few bucks in the holiday dash to replace kindness and giving with consumerism and shopping is bad enough. But now the retail giants, such as Walmart, Target and many others, have pushed the opening bell for these gladiator tinged shenanigans earlier and earlier out of "Black Friday" and now plan to roll out the come-ons as early as Thanksgiving Eve. That means family members who previously might have been able to have dinner with loved ones, then get to their job for even a ridiculous midnight Thursday opening bell - now are forced to sacrifice even those precious few hours of family togetherness so that these mega-retailers might generate an even greater feeding frenzy and a few more dollars of revenue per store.

As bad as this insult to the meaning of Thanksgiving might be, this disgust with the corporate trashing of the holiday is but one grievance in a long list of disrespectful and anti-worker, anti-human work rules imposed on these low-wage workers. And what do they get for following such rules? $7.50 an hour, if they are lucky, no health care plan, no pension, a constant stream of irregular hours and erratic schedules designed to keep them off-balance and part-time employees and a steady stream of disrespect and condescension if the worker is brave enough to ask why they are being treated like so much disposable garbage.

The conditions have reached such a low point that thousands of brave and thoughtful Walmart workers, in particular, organized in worker center groups - like "Our Walmart," are not even trying to form a union - knowing of how many roadblocks have been put in their way be tainted labor laws that have been twisted by the courts, all the way up to the Supreme Court's anti-class action decision last year against many thousands of women managers across the country who had brought a class action lawsuit against Walmart for gender discrimination. Yet these workers have already pulled of over thirty successful walk-outs from Walmart stores across the country. Walmart is so clueless as to even the basic meaning of the National Labor Relations law, that they have filed a complaint against the United Food and Chemical Workers Union - the UFCW, claiming that the union, though not organizing these workers, has somehow magically convinced all these folks to walk out in order to "frustrate Walmart's ability to carry on their regular business." Hah. Just as during the recent election, there is not a bit of understanding on the part of these greedy bosses that workers actually have the capacity to know when they are getting screwed and though it might take them a bit of time, they eventually will figure out a way to fight back - and a double bravo! for that!

This Thursday and Friday "Our Walmart" and several other worker center groups helping Walmart employees to educate and organize themselves into empowered workers, have called for a national day of boycotts, walk-outs and demonstrations to highlight not only the thoughtless and heartless push for opening stores on a major family holiday, but to also highlight the terribly lopsided working conditions at these stores and the huge income inequality between the pay of the average Walmart worker and the billions of dollars made by members of the Walton Family and their top brass each year.

Please support these workers, join a demonstration, picket with them in front of the store, but most of all - don't shop in any of those stores that don't respect that families have a right to peacefully enjoy a national holiday without being coerced into choosing between their sole source of income and seeing their children and parents sit down for the rare family meal all across the country.

UPDATE: Read OUR Walmart's actions "From The Front Lines" By Nation's Josh Eidelson:

http://www.thenation.com/blog/171430/black-friday-begins-early-walmart-workers-already-striking-least-seven-states-updated-83?utm_source=Sidney%27s+Picks+11-23-12&utm_campaign=Sidney%27s+Picks&utm_medium=email#

Check out this article from the Retail Action Project:

http://retailactionproject.org/2012/11/black-friday-thank-a-retail-worker-support-walmart-workers-on-strike/

And go to Sign.org to send a message of support for these workers and their right to organize to Walmart's Chairperson: http://signon.org/sign/rob%2Dwalton%2Drespect%2Dyour?source=mo&id=58098-18059543-99KUqyx

Workers Around the U.S. and the World Won Tonight

November 7th, 2012

I'll write more on the results of the election in the coming days, but the results of this hotly contested race could have been disastrous for workers and labor unions in this country and in the developing world. Though we cannot stop organizing and fighting for our labor rights - not by a long shot - we can breathe a sigh of relief this morning that workers and labor unions, among millions of other folks, fought so hard to keep a labor friendly President in office. This was an election where one side demonized workers and their unions, building alliances with the likes of union-busting governors such as Scott Walker and John Kasich - while the other side reiterated daily the critical importance of a middle-class built of hard-working folks from the core industries of the United States.

One campaign was about inclusion, one was about exclusion. One side wanted as many folks to vote as possible, one side tried to limit access to the polls to millions of Americans, many of whom suffered terribly to gain that right to vote.

This was a historic election - just looking at the rainbow mosaic of the President's cheering crowds, shows that this country is changing, evolving.  This time the majority of voters did see that when we have each other's backs, when we fight for the common good, we build a better country - a country with a future of fairness and dignity for many more millions of folks than was ever thought possible.

Congratulations to the amazing efforts of America's labor unions, who pulled out the stops, knocking on millions of voters doors across the country and served as the muscle for the Democrat Party's massive get out the vote drive. When unions pull together with a purpose, even up against the hundreds of millions of dollars of secret corporate and PAC money, they could beat the 1%ers hands down!

You did good brothers and sisters, you did really good.

It's Election Day - Get Out and Vote!

November 6th, 2012

Election Day is finally here! After endless months of negative attack ads, truth stretching and many unintentionally humorous moments, the real election moment is finally here. We are a strong advocate for worker and labor rights. Though we cannot tell you who we think should be President - we can ask you to simply look at the issues, especially the issues of what has happened to American workers over the last disastrous period for our economy. Even though we are certainly digging out of the mess created by the casino gambling mentality of stock manipulators and big banks, we are nowhere near a full jobs recovery. This part of the recovery is critical, not only for the long term stability and overall health of our economy, but also for the survival and dignity of working families - of all types and formulations - as the bedrock upon which our communities, neighborhoods and ultimately our whole society can thrive and grow into a sustainable and equitable future.

All we ask you to do is to look at the ways in which each candidate for President and their down-ticket colleagues running at the Senatorial and Congressional level, discuss the role of the middle class, workers and the dignity of labor in this country - now and into the future. One side has actively engaged in the wholesale outsourcing of jobs from every industry to lower wage competitors overseas, the other seeks to create increased opportunity for job development here at home. One side believes in  the rights of workers to collectively bargain and to maintain fair wages and benefits which allow their families and themselves to live in dignity. The other side would like to see a return of a virtual serf style nation where masses of workers are so browbeaten they claw at each other's throats for minimum wage jobs.

This is not rocket science folks. Read the papers, listen to some news, go online. But please, please, please! Whatever you do tomorrow - no matter how hectic it gets, no matter how bad the storm's effects - and we were co-sufferers in that tragic event - our hearts go out to all those who suffered and are still suffering from the storm and the pathetic way private enterprise is allowed to respond to such a disaster - but please go out and vote! Bring your friends, bring your neighbors, bring friends of neighbors and neighbors of friends. Don't let those forces who would like to see the number of voters shrink get their way - because they can't win an election fair and square based on the merits and the real beauty of our democratic system.

GET OUT AND VOTE! Vote for the rights of working men and women, children of working families, to live lives with dignity and not fear about their future. Let them know that postive and healthy change for the better is possible and that it can happen in their lifetimes. Let all of us know that simply by thinking clearly and voting our conscience - that we can actually beat back the awful tide of corrupt corporate dollars that have washed over this election cycle.

No matter who wins, we will have our work cut out for us. Organizing and fighting for worker/labor rights does not depend on one or the other Presidential candidate or political party. It depends on all of us fighting for our human rights to organize and unite as workers - at any level of employment, on any job site - anywhere in this country and anywhere in this world. We are responsible for our futures.

Now get out there and VOTE!

First International Conference of Labor Film Festivals a Major Success

October 20th, 2012

I was honored to attend the exciting and informative first international conference of labor and working peoples film festivals from around the world. This event was expertly organized by Chris and Julia, the organizers of the DC Labor Film Festival for the last 12 years.

I was thrilled to meet folks from London, Turkey, San Francisco and surrounding cities, the Los Angeles area (San Pedro), Washington DC, Philadelphia, Rochester, NY and indirectly, Toronto, Haifa, Australia, New Zealand, Madrid and several more global participants who will help grow this group in the future.

This is a watershed moment for labor and worker culture around the world. Thousands of activists are filming stories or worker's struggles to survive, at the same time the corporate media does its best to ignore and smother those same key stories. This is one of the reasons why public information about unions and worker's efforts to organize is often so misguided. 

The establishment of such a worldwide network, both to find and develop films about workers around the world, but even more importantly - to provide a platform and showcase for all films relating to workers lives is a vital achievement. The creation of these showcases give all activists and organizers an opportunity to get their messages out in a fresh and compelling way.  This development and screening of more media based on the lives and struggles of real workers, (workers who know that organized into unions makes them stronger and better able to gain leverage against the huge monetary resources of their employers), is critical for progressive media and messages to be able to cut through the intentional anti-worker media noise created by the the huge corporate owners of almost all the airwaves. This is important in order that the old, outdated images and stereotypes of labor unions are wiped away from popular culture and replaced by the true and uplifting stories that all these labor film festival directors plan to program during the coming years.

If Labor Dies, What's Next?

October 19th, 2012

This election is about many important issues, but one of the most important is the future of American workers and their co-workers around the global village. It is very clear that we must take our future into our own hands, organize, fight for our rights, educate ourselves and the public and get our message across in as many ways as we can. This helps to counteract the daily anti-worker, anti-union message of the corporatacracy.

This article, from the American Prospect, needs to be read and understood by anybody fighting this battle. Just a few paragraphs from this great article are below:

"I. A Union-Free America

Here’s what happens if the dinosaur dies.

When unions vanish, ordinary Americans lose their right to bargain collectively for their pay and benefits. Even those who have never bargained collectively will feel the loss. Some years ago, when unions were big enough that their effect on the larger economy could be measured, Princeton economist Henry Farber concluded that the wages of nonunion workers in industries that were 25 percent unionized were 7.5 percent higher than they’d be if their industry were union-free. When unionized companies were common, firms that were nonunion had to mimic the wages and benefits of their unionized counterparts for fear that their employees would leave or, worse, organize. That was certainly the practice at General Electric and other largely nonunion giants.

Nonetheless, union workers generally maintained a 20 percent wage advantage over nonunion workers. The key to the wage advantage is the percentage of union membership in a given industry or market. In cities where nearly all the class-A hotels are unionized, as they are in New York and San Francisco, housekeepers make more than $20 an hour. In cities where roughly half of such hotels are unionized, such as Los Angeles, their hourly wage is about $15. In cities where all the hotels are nonunion, such as Phoenix, housekeepers make little more than the minimum wage, if that.

From 1947 through 1973, when union density in America was at its peak, real wages for nonmanagerial employees rose by 75 percent. From 1979 through 2006, as union density collapsed, real wages for nonmanagerial employees rose by only 4 percent. Unable to get a raise, American households maintained their standard of living during those years by women entering the workforce and by going into debt.

 Density is just one element of unions’ ability to raise wages, however. The other is strikes. We look back now at the three decades of broadly shared prosperity that followed World War II as a time of union-management concord, when executives made their peace with unions and unions didn’t rock the boat. In fact, more strikes occurred from the late 1940s through the early 1970s than before or since. When union contracts expired, workers and managers fought pitched battles over the terms of the next contract. The largest strike in American history came in 1959, amid the sleepy Eisenhower years, when 500,000 steelworkers stayed off the job for 116 days. It was through such expedients that workers compelled management to let them share in their company’s proceeds. But as density declined, unions’ ability to win strikes declined with it. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, unions were striking less to win raises than to resist management proposals to freeze wages and cut benefits. The weaker unions grew, the fewer their strikes. In the early 1950s, there were roughly 350 strikes in the United States every year. Over the past decade, there have been roughly 10 to 20 per year.

As unions shrank, inequality grew. From 1947 through 1972, productivity in the United States rose by 102 percent, and median household income rose by an identical 102 percent. In recent decades, as economists Robert Gordon and Ian Dew-Becker have shown, all productivity gains have accrued to the wealthiest 10 percent. In 1955, near the apogee of union strength, the wealthiest 10 percent received 33 percent of the nation’s personal income. In 2007, they received 50 percent.

Profits have been growing at wages’ expense. Michael Cembalest, J.P. Morgan’s chief investment officer, has calculated that reductions in wages and benefits were responsible for about 75 percent of the increase in corporate profits between 2000 and 2007.

Today, wages and benefits make up the lowest share of America’s gross domestic product since World War II. Wages have fallen from 53 percent of GDP in 1970 to 44 percent today. Profits have been growing at wages’ expense. Michael Cembalest, J.P. Morgan’s chief investment officer, has calculated that reductions in wages and benefits were responsible for about 75 percent of the increase in corporate profits between 2000 and 2007.

What’s causing this decline in workers’ ability to claim more of the nation’s wealth? It’s not that they’re less productive. According to a Wall Street Journal survey of the S&P 500, the nation’s largest publicly traded companies, revenues per worker, which were $378,000 in 2007, grew to $420,000 in 2010. Businesses now produce more with fewer employees, but even those workers who’ve kept their jobs haven’t seen their wages rise."

There is a reason this is such a slow recovery and neither side is clearly telling the American public why this is so. Without decent union jobs, wages drift lower and lower and it is almost impossible for enough purchasing power to develop to bring this economy back to life. The GOP knows this, but it works just fine for them. The Democrats want to have it both ways - so they never really clearly connect the dots.

Read the whole article here: http://prospect.org/article/if-labor-dies-whats-next

We Salute the Courageous Walmart Workers & the UFCW

October 10th, 2012

In the spirit of so many workers and so many groups organizing together to take economic power back into their own hands, workers at a Walmart stores at 28 Walmarts in 12 different cities walked out of work on Tuesday. These workers, aided by The United Food and Chemical Workers'  Making Change at Walmart workers outreach and organizing group, threatened further and wider walk-outs on "Black Friday," retailer' critical shopping day after Thanksgiving.

OUR Walmart, another UFCW backed worker organization, closely affiliated with the Making Change at Walmart group, vowed to target as many Walmarts across the country as possible with "non-violent actions, flash mobs, raising public awareness of illegal working conditions and any other legal means to force Walmart to come to the table and bargain over a fair wage and fair treatment for hundreds of thousands of Walmart workers nation-wide.

This is a historic event, because no retail Walmart workers had ever gone on strike before. After the anti-worker Supreme Court threw out the largest class action discrimination case in history - brought against Walmart by women workers nationally - these spreading strikes demonstrate that the winner take all mentality of the 1% society can only last so long. Workers will only accept mistreatment, no benefits, low pay and exploitative working conditions for so long before they organize and fight back.

These efforts follow in the successful footsteps of the NY Taxi Workers Alliance, who started in much the same place and are now the newest chartered AFL-CIO union in the country. They recently won a huge victory and fare increase, including a health care plan, from taxi fleet owners in NYC that was historic in its own right. The Domestic Workers United, We Make The Road NY (Organizing car wash employees),The Restaurant Opportunity Center (ROC) - organizing and helping restaurant workers gain dignity at their jobs, all these groups and many more signal a resurgence in workers understanding:Labor Rights Are Civil Rights!

To Read more go to the Huffington Post and we thank them for their excellent coverage of these Walmart strikes.

Great New Film on PBS on the War Against Workers

October 8, 2012

Check out a great new film now screening on PBS - called As Goes Janesville. This powerful new documentary, played currently on Independent Lens (also available on DVD) goes deeply into the recent battle for labor rights in Wisconsin. The film really follows both sides, workers laid off from good middle-class jobs at the recently closed GM Janesville plant and several smaller local factories - as well as owners of those same factories. The film also follows the activities of Janesville's City Manager and Board as they try to figure out a future without GM and make honest efforts to replace that tax base, but also some sad and ridiculous gambles in the name of "free enterprise."

This documentary is heartbreaking as we watch scenes of a mother of two teenage daughters, being forced to travel five hours away to find work at a an auto plant in another state. On the flip side, it made my skin crawl to watch the all white executive board of a local manufacturing company, a company that had laid off many workers during the downturn and was now looking to rehire, but hoping these former employees had left the state to find work. Why? Simple. New hires as opposed to rehires could be had for much lower wages, no pesky past pay scale to contend with. And this board was thrilled and chuckling over this prospect. Not a single second of understanding on the part of these Midwestern, likely Christian folks, that their actions so deeply and negatively affected their follow Janesville neighbors. 

The film goes on to document the ups and downs of one Democratic State Legislator, elected as a centrist, but then stunned to see just how radical and uncompriomising the newly elected Governor Walker and Tea Party Republicans are when it comes to destroying collective bargaining rights in once progressive/labor Wisconsin.

The anger and hatred pouring out of these medium sized business owners and local bureaucrats for labor unions and really workers in general is a sad commentary on a small portion of our society that sees everybody else around them as simply tools to help them create ever greater wealth - not much different than the current national campaign by the GOP.  And while the same business owner who was positively gleeful over the prospect of hiring all new low-wage workers for her plant fawns over a Scott Walker visit to a local right-wing booster group called Rock 5.0, she epitomizes the bizarre nature of this current system when it is reported towards the end of the film that she personally donated over $510,000!! to Scott Walker's record breaking, costly recall fight.

At the same time, Janesville city officials, during a period of terrible economic downturns, with a GM plant closing for good and many local families facing really desperate times, turns to the entrepreneurial dreams of an unproven high tech company as their salvation. The film follows with devastating effect the battle of the city manager to push through a $9 million loan to this medical equipment start-up company - with no income, no real product and still in need of over $15 million more to make a future pay-off to the city even remotely a reality. The kicker is that the future 120 jobs possible created down the road? Both sides agree that almost none of them will come from the local population! And this is called "free market" vision? All the while the needs of the local unemployed are basically shoved aside with the explanation that their survival is not a community problem.

This film directs our attention in a very precise way to the complex nature of the fight labor unions and workers now face in a society still awash in popular folklore about the holiness of business success. This remains true even after the complete destruction and collapse of America's financial and housing sectors due to unrestrained gambling on the part of so many "brilliant businessmen."  

And why is this still true? Look at the media. Look at who has the money to finance most media. Everyday we are bombarded by how the massive financial meltdown was just a small glitch in the machine. No real corrections have been made, Chase Bank, Bank of America, among others, have recently continued to lose BILLIONS in highly speculative financial instruments. Nobody has even been indicted at the managerial level of these gamblers who almost brought down the economy. And as the recent article in the New Yorker detailed, these financial titans of banking and Wall Street are not the least remorseful - they rather feel that President Obama has not treated them with "the respect" the actually deserve. Stunning.

But lost in these big stories are the smaller stories portrayed in the film. The mother of two forced to move away to find work, the single mother, a veteran of Afghanistan, laid off in Janesville, sweating out a diagnosis over a breast lump, with health insurance from her job and unemployment benefits both run out. All the working folks in this film, including these women quietly persevere, but the stresses they face and the obvious toll it takes on them and their families serves as a huge reminder of the ridiculous waste of this winner take all economy and the mentality that says that's just AOK.

Workers who gave years of their lives to make a business thrive deserve better than this and labor unions need to watch this film carefully to understand how difficult the battle will be to reassert the right of workers to organize into unions.

We Are All Part Of the 47%

September 20th, 2012

What can one possibly say about this latest gaffe from McRomney? He is a country-club republican to his core and this really is what they think of a large segment of America. As Jon Stewart put it so well last night - when they succeed - it is solely by their own magical brilliance, but when they fail - it's the government's fault (oh, but by the way - can that government send in millions of $ to save our sorry asses!).

However, when the average working person succeeds - it's because of some bloated federal program we don't need, or some other "tax handout" that the "job creators" had taken out of their hard-earned riches. It never is seen as the part of the American dream we are all raised with, where somebody less fortunate, through a good public education and really hard work, plus perhaps some support from federal programs put in place with exactly the mission of helping to raise those on the bottom towards the top - you know - create a viable middle class that pays taxes and PAYS DOWN THE 1%'s GROSSLY  CREATED BUDGET DEFICIT - these country club types never see this as a good story. And God Forbid these folks don't make their way one, two three, then let's kick them to the curb, cut their food stamps, let them and their kids live in their cars - if they're lucky.

That's what the Romey types are talking about when they discuss the "47%" behind closed doors at $50,000. per plate!!! dinners. As workers - it shouldn't be too hard to see which side are you on.

Ryan for VP Makes clear what the GOP thinks about our future

August 13th, 2012

Slipping into a steady downward drift against President Obama, the McRomeny pulled out all the stops and selected the male version of Sarah Palin to restart his campaign. Once again the GOP has chosen to cater to the most rabid, extreme wing of their party - the teabags - with the selection of Paul Ryan. Much will be written about how Mr. Ryan is a "regular guy" from working class roots and "very serious." As opposed  I guess - to the rest of the former Republican Prez field who were anything but serious - including the McRomney.

So Ryan will inject a note of down and dirty policy discussions - except his "policy" papers - are nothing of the kind. They are simply a regurgitation of the same drivel the Koch brothers, casino  owner Sheldon Adelson and every other wealthy 1% type has dreamed about for at least two decades. Cut the federal government to shreds, dump necessary tax burdens mostly on the poor saps who don't have rich lawyers to legally get them out of paying taxes and the icing on the cake is even greater tax cuts for those already doing phenomenally well at the top.

Not rocket science, because you do the bidding of Mr. Wealthy, he rewards you with more donations, more trips, more access to the wealthy life you aspired to - but never got a chance to have. This way - you drape yourself in some lofty rhetoric about "saving our future," or "taking America back." Only problem is - who are they saving America from? Who are they taking it back for? Easy - the wealthy patrons who foot the bill get to live like the potentates of old, while formerly honorable working class folks, including firemen, policemen and soldiers serving our country overseas- they get to work for minimum wage - like in Pennsylvania just last month. That's if they don't get "downsized" out of their job - so Mr. Richy Rich can buy himself another Bentley, or house in the Hamptons - God forbid Mr. Rich might actually have to shoulder a proportionate share fo the burden for all the services he needs to build his business, drive to his Hamptons palace and keep his fleet of luxury cars running at top speed(all of those toys, by the way, a deduction!! on his tax return!!! You and me pay for him to have those toys!)

So - Don't be fooled by the GOP rhetoric, nor the sloppy, uneducated reporting of the corporate media. They want the public to think this type of drivel is legitimate - when there is nothing but smoke, mirrors and a deep shaft inside for regular working folks like me and you.

Time For a Wake-Up Call

June 12, 2012

After so many words have been written about Wisconsin, why we had to fight, why "we" lost and what this means for the future of public sector unions and labor organizing in general - it seems almost ridiculous to add to that pile; but we must.

It is really important to fully read the following article from Andy Kroll, on Alternet - who has a fuller grasp of the actual dynamics of how the energy we saw in Madison last February ended in a solid defeat for the Democrats, in the recall election. Let's remember - it was once again a fairly lackluster Democratic machine candidate - Tom Barret - who did beat a much more progressive Labor candidate - Kathleen Falk - in the earlier primary election. Would Kathleen, or anybody for that matter, have made a difference? Hard to say in hindsight - but certainly - re-running a race with the same machine candidate from just two years earlier totally changed the focus of the original movement - and this is something we see every single day in the difficult alliance between big labor and the Democratic Party.

Workers rights and dignity on the job should not be just a one party issue, but when you narrow the focus down to a red versus blue debate and pick candidates with a well worn history of inter-party battles - it is hard not to expect the well-oiled money machine the current GOP has become to find a relatively easy target to exploit through their carpet-bombing of the electoral TV air waves.

Read the article:https://www.freespeech.org/text/how-wisconsin-uprising-went-wrong

I think all of labor, activists, progressives, organized and fighting to get organized - we all need to really think hard about how we repeat the same mistakes over and over again. We had a hugely motivated group of folks, signed ove a million recall supporters, but then, as Andy Kroll suggests, we played the whole game on the other team's turf by their obscenely rigged rules. This is the definition of stupid. 

We need to change how we think about organizing, unions, who belongs, how they belong. We need to keep it simple - we need to acknowledge that folks will pay union dues if they see a real reason - this has been proven by the NY Taxi Workers Alliance. It is not easy - it takes lots of sweat and many hours - but there is no longer a shortcut. We must go back to having organizers get out to workplaces and shop floors and collect the dues - let them do it electronically but let them be there in person! Let them look into the eyes of their union brothers and sisters and tell them why dues are the lifeblood of a union.

And I've said it before - but will do so again at this moment when union-busting thug governors think they have the upper hand. LABOR RIGHTS MUST BE CIVIL RIGHTS! Plain and simple. Let every single group of workers, no matter how large or small, no matter where they work, who they work for, what they do - they can organize if they vote to do so - even if a majority don't want it now - the minority can still be organized for purposes of collective bargaining. Civil Rights Laws have guts and ignoring them costs the company plenty that makes the mistake.

This is not an easy path, nor a short path, but we must attempt this new path in order of having any chance at all of long term survival and relevance.

Those are the lessons of Wisconsin - LABOR RIGHTS ARE CIVIL RIGHTS and paying dues must be by choice, collected by an organizer who really gets to know the workers and because the worker feels engaged.  If we had these things as gospel, we might really turn worker's future lives around and not have to make alliances with a political party who's top guy is just too darn busy to support our fight. We'd be our own strength; our own boss.

DONATE TODAY TO DEFEAT SCOTT WALKER

May 29th, 2012

It all comes down to next week. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE! EVERYBODY WHO CARES AT ALL ABOUT WORKERS AND LABOR, GET ONLINE TODAY AND DONATE WHATEVER YOU CAN AFFORD TO HELP THE GET OUT THE VOTE CAMPAIGN TO DEFEAT SCOTT WALKER IN WISCONSIN.

WE CAN ONLY FIGHT CITIZENS UNITED AND THE 1% MANIPULATORS IF WE STICK TOGETHER AND PUT $10, $20 OR $50 DOWN TO HELP DEFEAT THESE ANTI-WORKER FORCES.

PLEASE VISIT ANY OF THE WEBSITES FIGHTING THIS BATTLE TODAY AND GIVE THEM THE AMMUNITION THEY NEED TO PULL THIS VOTE OUT.

Congratulations to Our Award Winners!!

May 15th, 2012

Please take a look at our new home page. We recognize the award winning efforts of our first year's wonderful group of filmmakers and scriptwriters.  All were talented and creative beyond belief - but we had to narrow it down to a few of the most well received this year.  Each of these projects deserves a wide release and a long life on DVDs around the world.

We at the Workers Unite Film Festival are not only are already thinking about next year - but we plan to utilize many of these fine films in pop-up festivals around the city and around the country throughout this election year. Please call us if you'd like some amazing labor/worker cinema to help your organizing drive, your union meeting, your worker center get-together - or even your local's summer picnic! We'll screen the right film anywhere there are workers looking to learn more about their lives and how their struggles are the same struggles as their brothers and sisters around the world.

And a few final words for this year's festival:

Many thanks to all our entrants for  entering over 95 new amazing films and screenplays to the first annual Workers Unite film Festival that highlight the struggles and victories of workers and their unions from around the world!
When we started to plan the event over one year ago, we hoped to present powerful, timely stories about where we as a worker/labor movement had come from, as well as what was happening right now on the streets, including Occupy Wall Street. Our goal was for as many people as possible to gain strength from the knowledge that even during a very tough year of anti-labor legislation here at home, that workers across the region, across the country and all over the world, were still organizing, still fighting for their rights and still positive about making progressive change. We were overwhelmed by the response, the creativity, the vision and the passion. We salute each and every one of our entrants and hope to see more of their work in the years to come.

Keep organizing, keep fighting, keep filming! In Solidarity. See you next year.

AN IMPORTANT MOMENT FROM THE FESTIVAL

May 9, 2012

Our esteemed Program Director, Phil Hopper, who recently recieved a Fulbright Fellowship to teach film and television in Jerusalem and the West Bank for a year - congratulations Phil! has an important moment from the festival he would like us all to remember.

Geroge Stoney, one of the founders of the social documentary film movement and still going strong at 96! came to the festvial and he and Phil made some important points prior to the screening of George's short film on Bread and Roses, the cultural arm of SEIU 1199's huge healthcare workers union.

When he was introduced at our first Workers Unite Film Festival George Stoney challenged the audience, asking "How do we teach our students about the importance of labor." Later, at the end of that program Festival Program Director Phil Hopper rephrased the question, "How do we teach digital natives, many of whom think they live in the United States of Entertainment, about the value of labor and work?" There are no easy answers but the central question - how to engage young people in labor issues as the social network continues to erode - is important for all of the 99%. We are the United States.

I couldn't agree more!

Tremendous Crowds for NYC Premiere of "Brothers on the Line"

May 6, 2012

As the first annual Workers Unite Film Festival enters its final day we are thrilled to report the sold-out crowdsfor Sasha Reuther's NYC Premeir of "Brothers On The Line."  Sasha's powerful and fascinating film tells the story of the three amazing Reuther brothers who were the forces behind the formation of the United Auto Workers Union and supported many progressive labor and civil rights efforts.

Huge Crowd Attends NYC Premiere of Brothers On The Line

So many wonderful films throughout the weekend! Workers fighting back around the world and from right in the local area. From garment workers in Bangladesh fighting to form a union, to "iron slaves" breaking up moth balled oil tankers in the Pakistani desert, to union members in a famous cookie plant in the Bronx trying to save their jobs from a thoughtless new owner - we have seen how dedicated workers who talk to each other, organize and fight for their union and their rights to dignified work can have a tremendous effect.

Thanks to all the amazing film makers who sent in their films, to the screenplay writers who entered their scripts and to all the workers, union members and friends who attended our first annual event. 

We plan to debrief and are open to your suggestions to build an even bigger and better festival for next year.

THANK YOU TO THE RUBIN FOUNDATION, AMALGAMATED LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, ALIGRAPHICS,SEIU 1199 HCWE, 32BJ SEIU, THE JOSEPH S. MURPHY INSTITUTE FOR WORKER EDUCATION AND LABOR STUDIES, THE NATIONAL TAXI WORKER ALLIANCE and all our friends and supporters who made this event possible.

We ARE the 99%!!!!

George Stoney, 96 and Still Fighting for Labor Rights

May 5, 2012

George Stoney, 96 and one of the founders of the social documentary film movement, introduced his film this afternoon at the first Annual Workers Unite Film Festival. This short film, Bread and Roses, tells the story of the cultural arm of the large 1199SEIU Health Care Workers Union.

Bread and Roses was a term from the famous Lawrence, MA textile strikes of over 100 years ago, where the women striking for fair wages and a better life also sang songs about not only striking for bread - but for roses too! They wanted to be treated fairly at work, paid a living wage, but also to enjoy their lives, have culture that was important to them and time to enjoy their other pursuits.

We are fighting for the very same issues today and with this festival - we are trying to project exactly that same message - all working people deserve fair wages and decent benefits, but also lives filled with the same access to beauty, culture, relaxation and hobbies as the 1%. Workers lives should never be just about slaving away and constantly worrying about the next electric bill or mortgage payment.

Come see the rest of the program tonight and on Sunday!

Amazing First Day of The Workers Unite Film Festival

May 5th, 2012

The first day of the first annual Workers Unite Film Festival has come and gone and it was incredible! Films about workers from Bangla Desh, Pakistan, Afghanistan all the way right back to taxi workers in New York City.

We saw workers all over the country and the world fighting for dignity and their rights to organize into unions.

We saw the brand new National Taxi Workers Alliance receiving the first new membership in the AFL-CIO in over sixty years! We were thrilled to have Bhairavi Desai, Executive Director of the National Taxi Workers Alliancein attendance for this powerful slate of films about how working people can organize and fight back against greedy and exploitative owners.

Come see the rest of the festival over the next two days - still lots of great movies, great stories.

See you there!

Come To The Festival This Week

This short film is also the result of amazing work by Phil Hopper, Matt Maltese, Allan Siek, Kristin Marting and many other photgrpaphers and video artists out that day. Please check out our Kickstarter to help fund the festival!

Thanks

As We Celebrate May Day - See Where Apple Hides it's Billions Tax Free

May 1, 2012

As hundreds of thousands of worker and labor activists prepare to demonstrate today and celebrate their worker power, it is instructive to remember how things get so lop-sided in this crazy, unbalanced economy.

At a time when school budgets are getting slashed and uniformed services necessary for our comfort, safety and security fall under the ax - the NY Times has detailed a very simple, completely legal scheme whereby Apple, the most profitable company on earth - nearly $47 Billion earned this past year! avoids billions in state income taxes by....simply moving an office to Reno, NV.  Nevada has no state income tax - versus California's obviously onerous 8.4% tax on corporate profits. Of course without things like public schools and road and fire, sanitation and police services, among many others - Apple might never have grown to be such a successful corporation. But these are the heady days for the 1% types and they will fill a phone book with excuses as to why paying anything like a fair share of local taxes is a burden on their growth and ability to compete. In fact, they and many corporate types like them are heavily funding GPS:Crossroads - the GOP attack Obama machine - and the funding arm of the "save Scott Walker from early forced retirement," committee in Wisconsin.

This, of course, is complete and utter nonsense and we must treat it as such. If Apple alone paid a more equitable share of it's profits to CA as tax, that alone would add almost $3 BILLION to the state treasury. To say this would not have any effect on the quality of life of most CA residents, suffering under austerity programs, like in most states right now is just hogwash. Would Apple be that much the loser on $47 Billion minus the $3 Billion?

As you march around the country tomorrow and think about the roles of the 99% and the 1%, think about common decency, think about fairness and what we once thought of as the American dream. And before your reach for that new Ipad or Iphone, think about a company that wants to take your hard earned money, suck out the resources in your depression shocked neighborhood, then put it down and write them a letter about being a better corporate citizen to the rest of us in the country.

Read the rest of the article here:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/business/apples-tax-strategy-aims-at-low-tax-states-and-nations.html?src=me&ref=general

See you out on the street today!!