Tidbits - June 30, 2011

* Correction Re: Life Expectancy in Most US Counties Falls
  Behind  World's Healthiest Nations
* Proposed NLRB Election Reforms (Ellen Dannin)
* Two Key Proposed Rules for Union Organizing (American
  Federation of Teachers (AFT)
* Re: Apple Store Workers Share Why They Want to `Work
  Different' (Jeremy Gantz)
* Re: Why the Labor Movement is Not Just Another Protest
  Movement (Thane Doss and John Marrone)
* Global unions launch campaign to defend public services
  (The Council of Global Unions)
* Re: Trouble on the German Left: Israel and Anti-Semitism
  (Irving Lee)

==========

* Correction Re: Life Expectancy in Most US Counties Falls
Behind  World's Healthiest Nations

The URL for this post was omitted Sunday night. Here it is:

http://www.healthmetricsandevaluation.org/news-events/news-release/life-expectancy-in-us-counties-2011

Moderator

==========

* Proposed NLRB Election Reforms

The NLRB has announced proposed changes to NLRB election
procedures. They have also announced that an open meeting
will be held on July 18 to receive comments on the proposed
changes. If you would like to speak at that meeting, you
must send written notice by Friday, July 1.

Written comments may be submitted either electronically
through www.regulations.gov, or by mail or hand-delivery to
Lester Heltzer. Written comments are due by August 22, 2011.

Additional information may be found at these links.
http://www.nlrb.gov/news/nlrb-announces-july-18-open-
meeting-receive-comments-proposed-election-rule-amendments-
requests

Information and links to additional information related to
proposed rules.
http://www.nlrb.gov/news/board-proposes-rules-reform-pre-and-post-election-representation-case-procedures

Publication of notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal
Register.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-06-27/pdf/2011-15962.pdf

Red-lined proposed amended election rules.
http://www.nlrb.gov/sites/default/files/documents/525/nprmredline.pdf


Ellen Dannin
Fannie Weiss Distinguished Faculty Scholar
and Professor of Law
Penn State Dickinson School of Law
http://law.psu.edu/faculty/resident_faculty/dannin

===

* Two Key Proposed Rules for Union Organizing (American
Federation of Teachers (AFT)

Last week, the administration issued two proposed rules
that, if enacted, will establish a fairer and speedier
process for private sector workers seeking union
representation.  The proposed rule addressing union busting
consultants came from the Department of Labor (DOL).  The
other was issued by the National Labor Relations Board
(NLRB) and concerns the conduct of elections.  Below is more
information on both:

Department of Labor Proposed Rule on Labor Relations
Consultants

Currently, neither an employer nor a consultant are required
under the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act
(LMRDA) to file a report with the DOL if the nature of the
consultant's services is giving "advise."  Yet, as we know,
under the guise of "advise," union busting consultants
engage in intense and coercive anti-union campaigns in both
organizing and collective bargaining situations.  This
proposed rule attempts to make reportable the "persuadable"
actions, conduct or communications of a consultant,
regardless of whether the consultant had direct contact with
workers.  If this rule takes effect, by interpreting
"advise" more broadly, consultants will be required to
publicly disclose the full extent of their activity, conduct
and communications in union organizing and collective
bargaining efforts.

This proposed rule was published in the Federal Register on
June 21, 2011 and is available at
http://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2011/06/21/2011-14357/labor-management-reporting-and-disclosure-act-interpretation-of-the-advice-exemption 
and
http://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2011/06/27/2011-15960/labor-management-reporting-and-disclosure-act-interpretation-of-the-advice-exemption-correction.  
Comments can be submitted online.  On these URL sites, you
can click on the green box on the right hand side that says
"Submit a Formal Comment."

National Labor Relations Board Proposed Rule on Elections On
June 22, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) proposed
a new rule that addresses how union elections would be
conducted.  If implemented, the new rule will speed up and
modernize election procedures.   As you know, anti-union
employers use the current NLRB process to subvert the
democratic process and engineer delays that allow time to
intimidate and fire pro-union workers.

Attached to this e-mail is AFT President Randi Weingarten's
statement on the proposed rule and materials prepared by the
AFL-CIO (these include a bullet point summary, talking
points, a one-page background paper and a statement by AFL-
CIO president Richard Trumka).

A good summary of the proposed rules prepared by the NLRB,
which includes a side-by-side comparison between what is
proposed and what is the current process, can be found at
http://nlrb.gov/node/525.  The proposed rule in full can be
found at:
http://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2011/06/22/2011-15307/representation-case-procedures.

We understand there will be a public hearing by the NLRB on
July 18-19 and a 60-day comment period.   We anticipate that
anti-union forces will try and pack the hearing and comment
record with statements opposing the proposed rule.  It will
be important for all of labor to submit comments supporting
an expedited and modernized election procedure.   I will be
sending an e-mail later today with more information on the
kind of testimony that will be particularly helpful to
making the case for this proposed rule.

While many of the workers who seek to form their unions with
the AFT and our affiliates are in the public sector, public
sector labor law often is based on the National Labor
Relations Act and the regulations that stem from this law.
Thus, whether we are organizing public or private sector
workers, all of AFT has a stake in ensuring this proposed
rule is finalized and put into effect.

Please Forward

For those of you who work with state and local affiliates
with organizing programs in the private sector, please
forward this information.

[thanks to Meredith for forwarding this to Portside]

==========

* Re: Apple Store Workers Share Why They Want to `Work
Different'

Could you please provide listserv subscribers with the link
to where the story originally appeared -- in this case,
http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/11557/apple_store_workers_share_why_they_want_to_work_different/ --

rather than where it was reprinted?

I should that we here at In These Times are grateful for how
frequently our stories are sent out to the listserv.

Many thanks,

Jeremy

==========

* Re: Why the Labor Movement is Not Just Another Protest
Movement

It is curious that Mr. Burns completes his article without
mention of socialism, and that he describes the labor
movement as rooted in the workplace, rather than in the
community. As long as the community is indifferent to unions
and unionism, ways can be found to replace disgruntled
workers and squeaky wheels without concessions on wages and
benefits. The Boron action was especially effective because
nearly the entire community consisted of laborers for the
company, and unlike an auto manufacturing plant, a mine
can't simply be uprooted and moved to another state (or
country) where a hungry population willing to work for less
and indifferent or hostile toward unions can be found. While
the workplace-located guild cannot be ignored in the
traditions of trade unionism, the formation of
international brotherhoods (apologies for the historical
gendering) of labor in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries is arguably the beginning of modern trade
unionism, the thing that distinguishes it from the previous
existence of local craft guilds.

The existence of labor and socialist parties in so many
countries is testament that unionism has long had an
extensive root system outside of the workplace. The majority
of readers of Portside are probably aware of most of this
history, but i doubt that restatement is a a real affront. A
rededication to this location of unionism within the global
community is necessary if neoliberalism and the worst
manifestations of globalization are to be countered from the
bottom up. (I say this fully recognizing that local battles
in many areas are so critical that energy and attention for
expanding the scope of the movement may be difficult to
find.)

Arguably, it was the US's post-World-War-II vision of itself
as exceptional, with an attendant severing of many
international union ties, that made rapid installation of
neocolonial globalization as "the" nearly unconsciously
accepted economic system possible. To the extent that
international limbs of the labor movement still require
reconnection, the world labors yet under the legacy of
McCarthyism and the Cold War.

Thane Doss, 
Tokyo

==========

* Re: Why the Labor Movement is Not Just Another Protest
Movement

a Very Good Read!!!

John Marrone

==========

* Global unions launch campaign to defend public services

http://www.nupge.ca/content/4374/global-unions-launch-campaign-defend-public-services

In the face of mounting threats to public services around
the world, the Council of Global Unions is launching a
campaign to defend and promote the value of public services.

Ottawa (23 June 2011) - The Council of Global Unions, an
organization that represents 175 million workers around the
world, is launching the worldwide Quality Public Services -
Action Now! campaign today. The aim is to advance public
services for all people through unprecedented coordinated
action across borders.

From Canada to the Middle East, Europe to Asia, South
America to Africa, the United States to the Pacific Rim -
private and public sector unions are uniting to defend the
quality public services that support families and keep
communities strong.

"When we look around the world today, we find peace and
improved equality and opportunity only in countries where
strong public services provide equitable redistribution of
wealth, protect democracy and deliver security, justice and
decent work," Council of Global Unions chair Peter Waldorff
said.

NUPGE is a proud and active affiliate of Public Services
International which is a member of the Council of Global
Unions.

"NUPGE strongly supports this important campaign," said
James Clancy, NUPGE national president. "It's crucial that
people around the world work together to promote public
services and tax fairness as the best way to build an
equitable and sustainable economy and improve the quality of
life for everyone - not just a selected few," said Clancy.

NUPGE has been running a national campaign in Canada for the
last year called All Together Now! The campaign promotes
investment in public services as a key solution to the
economic crisis and improving living standards for all
families.

The campaign also promotes the need for tax fairness by
calling for an end to the shifting of taxes from
corporations and the super-rich to working families.

 NUPGE

The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE)
is one of Canada's largest labour organizations with over
340,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of
working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring
our common wealth is used for the common good. NUPGE

==========

* Re: Trouble on the German Left: Israel and Anti-Semitism

The opposition to Israel and Zionism is anti-apartheid and
anti-imperialist. Zionist supported racial separation with
the Nazis which led to the Transfer agreement to Palestine
in 1933. The Zionist saw Hitler's rise to power as an
opportunity. So to describe the opposition to Zionism as
anti-semetic is absurd. Arabs are Semites themselves so they
are fighting against a form European colonialism. The left
need not apologize for their opposition to Israel. It was
the left and communist movements that were and currently the
vanguard in the struggle against Fascism. The Zionist
leadership collaborated.

Irving Lee

==========

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