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June 25, 2010
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Immigration reform? First step should be to halt traffic in ‘cheap, easily exploitable labor’ By Mark Ayers The current firestorm that has erupted as a result of the enactment of the “Show Me Your Papers” law in Arizona has further enflamed the already contentious debate about illegal immigration. Proponents of the Arizona law flatly state that it was needed because of the federal government’s failure to act on comprehensive immigration reform that would address issues related to border security. Critics, on the other hand, say the Arizona law is nothing more than a pathway to provide state and local police carte blanc authority to racially profile and harass Hispanics. Either way, because of this firestorm, there are discussions now underway in Washington, DC relating to the introduction of a comprehensive immigration reform bill. On April 30, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and several of his fellow Senate Democrats introduced a framework for an overhaul of immigration laws in light of the Arizona law. The Senate Democrats’ approach would impose tougher sanctions on employers who hire illegal immigrants, create new identification cards for immigrant workers, reform temporary worker programs, and provide a sensible pathway for responsible immigrants to become full-fledged U.S. citizens. For his part, President Barack Obama voiced his support for the plan, saying it is "a very important step in the process of fixing our nation's broken immigration system." In truth, the entire debate around the issue of immigration never seems to effectively address the real problem - our collective national addiction to cheap labor and low wages. In America today, it’s all about next quarter’s profits and the bottom line. While exploitative businesses and their apologists hide behind empty slogans like “free markets,” we know the only freedom they are fighting for is the freedom to exploit workers, steal wages and cut corners. It's no secret certain industries, such as construction, rely heavily on illegal labor. In recent years, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, undocumented workers accounted for as much as 25% of the entire U.S. construction workforce. And in the residential construction sector, that number is even higher. In many states, attempts have been made to require employers to check prospective employees on their legal status through the production of a driver’s license, state ID card, or other positive means of identification. But this is hardly a fool-proof method of dealing with the problem, as evidenced by the results of an undercover operation spearheaded by Jobs for Georgians and the North Georgia Building Trades Council, and as reported by the Atlanta Journal Constitution: “Jose Alvarez first asked about a bricklaying job with M&D Masonry at the Atlanta airport in March, and the foreman assured him that being an illegal immigrant wouldn’t be a problem. ‘Do you have a picture ID?’ said Bob Beaty, hiring foreman for the Americus-based masonry company working on the new $1.4 billion international terminal. ‘But it’s not legal,’ Alvarez told him. ‘I know, I know, none of our guys are, but if you have a picture ID, you can get on here,’ Beaty said. ‘Everybody turns in a Social Security number and we take taxes out for that number. I know none of those numbers are right.’ This, ladies and gentlemen, is the crux of our national immigration problem. And when states move to address these issues, they are inevitably thwarted by those whose business models are now predicated upon an addiction to cheap, easily exploitable labor. This was the case in 2006, for example, when the state of Colorado attempted to crack down on employers who hire illegal workers. Governor Bill Owens was initially supportive of the bill, but when business leaders told him the price of a house might go up by 5 percent because some homebuilders could lose their exploitable labor, he backed away. You can be sure, with talk about immigration reform heating up, that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Home Builders, and the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) are all gearing up to engage lawmakers, because their “race to the bottom” business model relies upon the continued exploitation of workers who do not have the same right to join a union or recourse under the law as U.S. workers. Let us examine what this “race to the bottom” approach (predicated upon the exploitation of undocumented workers) has done to the U.S. construction industry, and to U.S. construction workers. For starters, real wages for construction workers were lower in 2006 than they were in 1973! Adjusted for inflation, construction workers in 1973 earned the equivalent of $22.13 an hour in today's dollars. However, actual average hourly pay for construction workers in 2006 was only $18.29 – 17 percent below the 1973 rate, adjusted for inflation. Additionally, even when contractors are making money, workers are not seeing the gains. According to the federal government's economic census, contractors' profits grew between 1977 and 2002. However, workers did not get their fair share of the gain; instead the proportion of construction receipts spent for payroll and benefits actually declined by almost 14 percent during the same period! With those types of statistics in mind, it is simply idiotic for us, as a nation, to pass law after law – like the one in Arizona – and arrest someone with brown skin who can't produce an ID; or confiscate their cars; or deport people and break up families; when we don’t have the sense or the courage to address the real issue - companies maximizing profits at the expense of workers, using a business model that relies on the lowering of standards and wages industry-wide by exploiting a workforce without the legal standing to demand justice. Instead of demagoguery and divisiveness, we need comprehensive immigration reform that stops this exploitation. America’s Building Trades Unions and this great country were built by immigrants seeking a better life for themselves and their families. Whether it’s a temporary worker program that denies full rights and wages to those working in this country or the “Show Me Your Papers” law, anytime we treat immigrants like second-class citizens, we undermine our core values as Americans, and undermine the American Dream for all of us. America's building trades unions will never stop in their quest to expose organizations like the Home Builders and the ABC for what they truly are – defenders and practitioners of an abhorrent business model that is contrary to our American beliefs.
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Carpenters announce return to Michigan Building Trades The leadership of the Michigan Regional Carpenters Council (MRCC) has opted to end a 14-year split and re-affiliate with the Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council, effective immediately. In a June 8 news release, MRCC Executive Secretary-Treasurer Mike Jackson said: “We are rejoining Michigan Building Trades because they share the same mission to make unionized construction stronger. By doing this we have a stronger unified voice.” In May 1996 the Michigan Regional Carpenters Council stopped paying per capita tax to the Greater Detroit and Michigan Building and Construction Trades Councils, effectively withdrawing from those organizations. The MRCC’s leadership at the time indicated their displeasure with council leadership as well as differences over some policy matters. During the last 14 years the state and national construction industry have, of course, changed a bit. The leadership has changed at the MRCC and at the Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council, which was strengthened by a 2006 consolidation with Greater Detroit Building and Construction Trades Council as well as other local building trades councils. Over the last several years the Carpenters and local building trades in Michigan have continued to work cooperatively in many areas, despite the MRCC’s lack of affiliation. “The MRCC has recognized that the Michigan Building Trades have built strong relationships with the owner community and with the contractors,” said MRCC President Rich Davis. The Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council has become a national leader in forging tripartite alliances with owners and contractors. The building trades have successfully pushed for the use of project labor agreements and has sought to position unionized construction as an owner-friendly “brand” in order to secure more work for members. The MRCC, with more than 18,000 members, becomes the largest affiliate within the Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council, which now has about 118,000 affiliate members. “We’re thrilled to have the MRCC back under the umbrella of the Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council,” said Patrick Devlin, secretary-treasurer of council. “They’re obviously a huge part of the unionized construction industry in Michigan, and having them back will make the unionized building trades a bigger, more influential force going forward. We’ve been talking with Mike Jackson and Rich Davis since they assumed their office after winning their election last year, and they’re smart guys who know that Carpenters and our other trades work side by side on construction projects, and we should be working side by side, too.” On a national level, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters (UBC) and Joiners of America withdrew from the AFL-CIO Building Trades Department in 2001 in a dispute over building trades leadership and how leaders spent dues money on organizing. Although informal and formal local and state alliances have been formed with other building trades – as they have in Michigan – the UBC continues to be unaffiliated with the national Building Trades Department as well as the AFL-CIO. “Here in Michigan it was kind of like a Hatfields and McCoys thing – it was so long ago I don’t think too many people remember or care why the Carpenters split with the building trades in the first place,” said Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council President Patrick “Shorty” Gleason. “I do know that it’s great to have them back, and that we’ll be a better organization because of it.”
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New Karn plant vacuum system will better clean its emissions By Marty Mulcahy Managing Editor HAMPTON TWP. – Consumers Energy’s Karn-Weadock Generating Complex – which has employed thousands of building trades workers performing various projects over the past few decades – is playing the host again. Work began last October on the $189 million “Pulse Jet Fabric Filter Project,” a task that will result in the construction of two new pollution control systems at the plant’s coal-fired Karn Units 1 and 2. Related to the project are extensive duct and electrical work and other tie-in tasks. The project is currently employing some 225 construction workers, and is at peak employment. Both Units 1 and 2 will remain in operation until the wrap-up of the work, which is expected to take place in the first quarter of 2011. The Karn-Weadock plant has been extensively modified over the years since the first coal-burning boilers came on line in 1959-1960, and introducing modern pollution controls and more efficient fixtures into the old plant has always been a design challenge. “You can see that we’re in a tight space, and everybody is working on top of each other,” said Consumers Energy Construction Manager Scott McCulloch. “There’s not a lot of room to move around, but the people out here are doing a really good, safe job.” The footprint of the containment structures for both Units 1 and 2 on the Pulse Jet Fabric Filter Project are both confined by a canal that runs through the property and whose water provides cooling for the plant. According to Consumers Energy’s Point-of-Contact Engineer Jerome DeCarlo, the new fabric filter system will remove particulate matter from the boiler’s flue stream. The new system will use vacuum bag filters in each unit to catch the fly ash, in a set-up akin to a home vacuum cleaner. But the bags that will go into this system are a little bigger than what’s in your average Hoover upright – they’re 30 feet long by 8 inches in diameter, and there will be 1,080 of them in each unit. The system will blow the fly ash off the bags, and collect it in hoppers. The bags have an estimated life of five years. DeCarlo said this is the first Consumers Energy plant that will receive the fabric filter upgrade, and the utility is following a path of “maximum achievable control technology” for the removal of sulfur dioxide and mercury from the plant’s emissions. He said the system has become a proven technology in other plants around the country. “The biggest challenge here has been finding a place to put them,” he said. Worley Parsons is acting as construction manager of the project, and leading the project for them is Lebron Creech. Early on, he said, planning had to include a careful investigative process, looking over old plans for any underground utilities or other hazards that needed to be avoided. “The old drawings were pretty good, but over the years things sometimes get buried that you don’t know about,” Creech said. He added, “the people here are doing very well, and the tripartite (labor-owner-contractors) meetings we have every month have been very helpful.” The cooperation is certainly a benefit to safety at the site: as of June 9, 289,000 man-hours had been worked on the project without a recordable safety incident. Our visit to the ongoing construction at Karn 1 & 2 occurred two weeks after Consumers Energy announced the indefinite deferral of construction of a new $1.2 billion clean-coal power plant at the Karn-Weadock site. John Russell, the president and chief executive officer of CMS Energy and Consumers Energy, said “the current timetable for the new unit isn’t consistent with today’s market conditions.” However, Russell said “a number of alternative investment options, including additional environmental controls on some of our existing coal-fired units…will support our efforts to provide customers with reliable and affordable energy.” He added that those investments are expected to create nearly the same number of jobs as the clean coal plant. The Karn/Weadock Generating Complex is Consumers Energy’s largest power production complex and consists of three separate plants: the 310-megawatt coal-fueled Weadock plant; the 515-megawatt coal-fueled Karn 1 & 2 plant; and the 1,276-megawatt natural gas- and oil-fueled Karn 3 & 4 plant. Together, Karn/Weadock and associated combustion turbines can generate up to 2101 megawatts, enough to meet the electric needs of Bay City, Saginaw, Midland and Flint combined.
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Rocky road ahead for our ‘not normal’ economy WASHINGTON (PAI) – The recession is officially over, but the nation is in a so-called economic recovery that “only a statistician could love,” with long-tem unemployment, way more job-seekers than jobs, and jobless benefits acting as a poor man’s stimulus for the economy. The comment about statisticians was made by Heidi Shierholtz of the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute think-tank, which hosted a seminar featuring several high-level economists on May 26. The EPI panel included Labor Department Chief Economist Jesse Rothstein, who was joined by economists Ray Chetty of Harvard and Till Marco van Wer of Columbia. Rothstein called the economy “not normal,” with unemployment affecting different groups of people than it did before, and the recovery – in terms of seeing improved joblessness numbers – taking longer than prior slumps. “The number of job openings is 40% below what it was before the recession started,” Shierholtz said. And one of the others pointed out that in December 2007, when the Great Recession began, there were 1.5 job-seekers per opening. Now there are 5.6. Following are a few of the numbers and scenarios bandied about at the seminar: *Rothstein said the Obama Administration forecasts that the nation will still have a 7 percent unemployment rate in 2014 and then full employment somewhere between 2015 and 2017. Economists define ‘full employment” as an economy with a 5-6 percent jobless rate. *Shierholtz noted the economy added 290,000 jobs in April, the fourth straight month of employment growth. (There were 431,000 jobs added in May, but the numbers were vastly inflated because many of those jobs were temporary Census-taker positions). But she said the economy would have to add about 300,000 jobs each month for five years to reduce joblessness down to 5 percent. Before Bush took office, it was at 4 percent. Bush left President Obama with a jobless rate of 8 percent *Sustained GDP growth since early 2009 have led many economists to proclaim the recession is officially over. But the panel said that for workers, it‘s still going, with unemployment in May at 9.7 percent. The slow gains anticipated in employment are another reason this recession differs from prior post-World War II slumps, they added. *Chetty argued that helping the unemployed with long-term jobless benefits helps the economy in many ways – and not just by putting more money in workers’ pockets. He also said studies show that extending jobless benefits typically extends the period an average recipient is out, by all of one week -- again contrary to GOP claims. Chetty said other studies have found lack of savings is a key to determining whether and how the unemployed workers spend their checks. “These people have no savings, no income and need outside sources of money,” he said. Jobless benefits, which produce almost $2 of economic “bang” for every dollar distributed, inject more money into the economy than other boosts – including tax credits for hiring – he added. Long-term, the economists said that changing a “not normal” economy calls for some big-ticket solutions. Chetty warned against accepting high unemployment rates as the “new normal.” He cited their negative impact: Everything from workers’ long-term income declines to rising crime to less education for jobless workers’ kids, and more. Long-term solutions they suggested included linking lengthier jobless benefits to extensive retraining of workers for jobs in growing occupations. “And there should be a lot of infrastructure spending to put construction workers – where unemployment is more than 20 percent – on the job” and to build economic capacity, Shierholtz said.
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OSHA to publicly shame job safety violators By Mark Gruenberg PAI Staff Writer (PAI) – The Occupational Safety and Health Administration “will use not just our normal inspection system, but regulation by shaming” against notorious job safety and health violators, its administrator says. In a June 15 telephone press conference/emergency meeting in Pittsburgh on the issue with Steelworkers President Leo Gerard and Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts, OSHA Administrator Dr. David Michaels added that the targets of the shaming would be “those companies that aren’t playing by the rules” on worker safety and health. “We have every right to call the CEO of any company and tell them what we want, and we will,” Michaels added. And he urged workers to report violations. Gerard, Roberts and Michaels spoke at an emergency safety conference of oil workers USW called in Pittsburgh, after a string of fatal oil refinery accidents – even before the deep-sea well blew up – and after deaths of 37 coal miners so far this year. Michaels said he has already called the oil companies’ lobby on the carpet to justify its practices, after the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil well fire, explosion and sinking in the Gulf of Mexico almost two months ago. The blast at the mile-deep well killed 11 workers and has spewed millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf in the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. Oil and mine disasters show the need for stronger job safety laws, and stronger enforcement, both union leaders said. “There’s got to be an equal consequence” for companies when their laxity or refusal to protect workers costs lives, Gerard said. “We need stronger laws, bigger penalties and criminal penalties for executives who commit these acts,” Roberts added. Both unions are leading labor’s fight for the Protect American Workers Act (PAWA), a measure to strengthen the 40-year-old Occupational Safety and Health Act. It would increase fines, let OSHA impose separate fines for each violation, and change violations that kill workers from criminal misdemeanors that carry maximum 6-month jail sentences to felonies that carry 10-year and 15-year terms, among other things. The Obama administration OSHA, led by Michaels, also endorses PAWA, but the measure is marooned in Congress, victim of a jammed schedule. Business and congressional Republicans also strongly oppose the legislation. The oil majors also don’t want to do anything about safety, citing money, says Steelworkers Vice President Gary Beevers, who is in charge of bargaining with the oil firms. His statements were backed up, the same day, by documents released by congressional committees investigating the Gulf of Mexico disaster. They show BP, which buys the oil from Deepwater Horizon, stinted on safety. But the documents also showed the other oil majors also have large safety problems and lack plans for them.
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Insulators promote cancer research at Karmanos By Marty Mulcahy Managing Editor DETROIT – When it comes to early detection of and getting treating for asbestos-related diseases, the Karmanos Cancer Center has the seal of approval of the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators. The partnership was sealed on May 28, when officers from the Heat and Frost Insulators union, on behalf of their contractors and the Breath of Life Association, presented Karmanos with a $70,000 check to support their National Center for Vermiculite and Asbestos Related Cancers program. The money will be used to fund research and operations at the center’s program, which fits hand-in-glove with the needs of thousands of building trades workers who have been exposed to asbestos while on the job. Karmanos says that asbestos exposures from 20 to 50 years ago are killing up to 10,000 Americans each year. The Journal of the American Medical Association reports that even today, an estimated 1.3 million construction workers and general industry workers are exposed to asbestos. “Nearly everyone in our trade especially, but really all the trades has a family member or knows someone who is affected by asbestosis or mesothelioma,” said Heat and Frost Insulators International Vice President Greg Revard. “Our goal has been to utilize in this region a quality center that our members can trust to go to get the right information on treatment and early detection for mesothelioma. Karmanos was selected as that center. They have such an advanced area of expertise in research and treatment.” The Karmanos Center will serve as a preferred magnet for Heat and Frost Insulator workers in the International Union’s Central States region, which includes Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia. “It’s all about finding a cure for mesothelioma, and getting the word out about early detection of the symptoms for the disease,” said John Martin, President of the West Virginia Master Insulators Association and a Trustee on the Breath of Life Association. The Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Center, located in Detroit’s Medical Center, has been designated by the National Cancer Institute as one of 40 comprehensive cancer centers in the U.S. Within its Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine is the National Center for Vermiculite and Asbestos-Related Cancers, which provides focused care for people like afflicted construction workers. Dr. Michael Harbut is head of Karmanos' National Center for Vermiculite and Asbestos-Related Cancers the center and is co-author of the world’s largest study of respiratory health in asbestos-exposed iron workers. “We have an ongoing relationship with all the cancer centers, so if we learn something new, we exchange information,” Harbut said. “We see people in the trades all the time, and the only thing I would say to anyone who is worried that they have mesothelioma symptoms, is to come and get checked out. Our treatments have worked for others.” The Karmanos Cancer Center can be reached at 1-800-KARMANOS (1-800-527-6266), or at www.karmanos.org. Revard said this year’s contribution to Karmanos came from local unions in the Central States Conference, as well as individuals, contractors and contributions from the Central States Insulation Contractors Association. He expects regular contributions will be made in the future to Karmanos. “We appreciate your contribution and we hope we can make a difference in fighting this disease,” said Dr. Gerold Bepler, president and CEO of the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, to the attendees at the check presentation. “There are new drugs and new approaches coming out all the time to help us in the fight.”
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NEWS BRIEFS End the talk:build the bridge Let’s build the bridge. A proposal to build a new suspension bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario has been studied and debated for years, It’s at the point now where approval for the proposed Detroit River Internatioal Crossing has been passed by the Michigan House, but is being held up in the state Senate by Majority Leader Mike Bishop, who questions the legality of the financial agreement between the State of Michigan and the government of Canada. The Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council and a host of other politicians, pundits and newspaper editorialists are convinced that the agreement is legal, and the $1.8 billion in construction work (U.S. side only) should proceed at once. You can help. There’s a website at www.buildthedricnow.com, where you can contact your state legislator to convince him or her to support construction. Votes not there for EFCA passage The Employee Free Choice Act – organized labor’s top legislative priority – simply does not have enough votes as it is written to get passed in the U.S. Senate. So said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) to a legal conference on May 13, the Construction Labor Report said. “We were within one vote,” in the Senate, Harkin said, but Republican Scott Brown won Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy’s seat this spring, which took away the 60-vote super-majority Dems held in the Senate. The House has already passed the bill. The Employee Free Choice Act, if it’s ever passed, would make it easier for unions to organize. The EFCA would allow a majority of workers at a workplace to sign union cards to gain representation, rather than waiting for a formal ballot election. Often employers delay representation votes, allowing them time to coerce employees into not voting for the union. Harkin, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told the audience that “he had not higher priority” than passing the EFCA. That’s not the case with other Democratic senators, however, especially those from conservative states. A handful were publicly wavering on supporting the EFCA, after getting pressure from the business community. Republicans have voted nearly in lockstep against the pro-union measure.
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