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October 21, 2011
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Obama’s jobs plan defeated, he vows to press on President Obama’s American Jobs Act, as expected, died a quick death in the U.S. Senate and likely won’t be resurrected any time before Election Day 2012. All 46 Senate Republicans plus two Democrats voted against the bill on Oct. 10, which was “defeated” 50-48. Obama and Democrats need 60 votes to overcome a Republican filibuster. The bill would have died in the Republican-led House, anyway. “Tonight's vote is by no means the end of this fight,” Obama said. “Independent economists have said that the American Jobs Act would grow the economy and lead to nearly two million jobs, which is why the majority of the American people support these bipartisan, common-sense proposals. "But even though this bill contains the kind of proposals Republicans have supported in the past, their party obstructed the Senate from moving forward on this jobs bill," Obama added. According to the AFL-CIO, the American Jobs Act would:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has said defeating Obama in next year’s presidential election is his top priority. He said “this whole exercise...is a charade. Democrats have designed this bill to fail. They've designed their own bill to fail in the hopes that anyone who votes against it will look bad for opposing a bill they misleadingly refer to as a 'jobs bill.’ ” AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka said “the 99 percent of our country who want jobs now should take note of how each and every senator voted today on the American Jobs Act. And we should ask each one who voted no – what is your plan? How would you put our country back to work and give hope to our nation’s families? Because the truth is the Republicans who unanimously blocked this courageous bill have no plan and seek to profit politically from the country’s pain. The common sense jobs bill should have brought together all senators of both parties to stem the tide of economic pain that is overwhelming working people.” Obama’s Plan B is to break up his $447 billion jobs plan into several separate bills, likely setting up more showdowns with Republicans in Congress. He then outlined his intention to work with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and produce several smaller bills derived from the bigger plan.
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A few ideas to escape from the Great (Jobs) Depression By Robert Reich Fmr. U.S. Secretary of Labor I’m afraid we’ll need more than marches to get jobs back. Since the start of the Great Recession at the end of 2007, America’s potential labor force – that is, working-age people who want jobs – has grown by over 7 million. But since then, the number of Americans who actually have jobs has shrunk by more than 300,000. In other words, we’re in a deep hole and the hole is deepening. In August, the United States created no jobs at all. Zero. America’s ongoing jobs depression – which is what it deserves to be called – is the worst economic calamity to hit this nation since the Great Depression. It’s also terrible news for President Obama, whose chances for re-election now depend almost entirely on the Republican Party putting up someone so vacuous and extremist that the nation rallies to Obama regardless. The problem is on the demand side. Consumers (whose spending is 70 percent of the economy) can’t boost the American economy on their own. They’re still too burdened by debt, especially on homes that are worth less than their mortgages. In addition, their jobs are disappearing, their pay is dropping, their medical bills are soaring. Consumer spending slowed again in August as incomes dropped. Businesses, for their part, won’t hire without more sales. So we’re in a vicious cycle. The question is what to do about it. When consumers and businesses can’t boost the economy on their own, the responsibility must fall to the purchaser of last resort. As John Maynard Keynes informed us 75 years ago, that purchaser is the government. Government can hire people directly to maintain the nation’s parks and playgrounds and to help in schools and hospitals. It can funnel money to help cash-starved states and local government so they don’t have to continue to slash payrolls and public services. And it can hire indirectly – contracting with companies to build schools, revamp public transportation and rebuild the nation’s crumbling highways, bridges and ports. Not only does this create jobs but also puts money in the hands of all the people who get the jobs, so they can turn around and buy the goods and services they need –generating more jobs. Not exactly rocket science. But congressional Republicans are firmly opposed. Why don’t Republicans get it? Either they’re knaves – they want the economy to stay awful through next election day so Obama gets the boot. Or they’re fools – they’ve bought the lie that reducing the deficit now creates more jobs. Republicans claim businesses aren’t hiring because they’re uncertain about regulatory costs, or their taxes are too high, or they can’t find the skilled workers they need. But if these were the reasons businesses weren’t hiring – and consumer demand were growing – we’d expect companies to make more use of their current employees. The average number of hours worked per week by the typical employee would be increasing. In fact, the length of the average workweek has been dropping. In August, it declined for the third month in a row, to 34.2 hours. That’s back to where it was at the start of the year – barely longer than what it was at its shortest point two years ago (33.7 hours in June 2009). Republicans say America can’t afford to spend more. In truth, we’ll be in worse shape if we don’t. If the economy remains dead in the water, the ratio of public debt to the total economy balloons. Besides, the United States can now borrow money from the rest of the world at fire-sale rates. Interest on the ten-year Treasury bill is now under 2 percent. That’s an almost unprecedented deal. With so many Americans unemployed and so much of our infrastructure in disrepair, this is the ideal time to get on with the work of rebuilding the nation. But it won’t be enough for government to become the buyer of last resort – in Keynes’s words, to prime the pump. If the economy is to continue to grow and create jobs after the government has stopped the priming, there must be enough water in the well. Yet, now and in the foreseeable future, America’s vast middle class doesn’t have the purchasing power to keep the mechanism going. For more than 30 years, the median wage in America has barely increased, adjusted for inflation – even though the economy is twice as large as it was three decades ago. Almost all the gains have gone to the top – especially the top 1 percent, who now receive over 20 percent of total income (it was just 10 percent in 1980). As long as America’s vast middle class could continue to borrow on the rising value of their homes, they continued to spend – thereby keeping the economy going. But going deeper into debt is not a sustainable strategy. Now, after the bubble burst, America’s middle class doesn’t have enough money to maintain the economy at or near full employment. Any long-term strategy for rescuing the American economy must therefore seek to reverse the widening gap in income and wealth. One place to start is tax reform. The earned income tax credit – a wage subsidy for lower-income workers – should be enlarged and expanded. Taxes on the middle class should be reduced – including Social Security payroll taxes (80 percent of Americans pay more in payroll taxes than they do in income taxes). Taxes on the wealthy, on the other hand, should be increased. The president has proposed closing some tax loopholes that allow the super-rich to reduce their tax liability, and to end the tax cut on the rich put in place by George W Bush in 2001 (thereby increasing the top marginal tax rate to what it was under Bill Clinton – 39percent). But the nation should go much further, particularly in light of the large budget deficit projected several years from now. We need more tax brackets at the top, with higher marginal rates. The capital-gains tax (now at 15percent) should be raised to match the income tax rate. And a wealth surtax of 2 percent should be applied to all wealth in excess of $7 million. Needless to say, Republicans won’t go along with anything like this. They balk even at the president’s modest plan. It would be better for President Obama to assume that he will get no Republican support this year and next, and build his 2012 election campaign around a bold plan to revive jobs and the American middle class – and end the American Jobs Depression.
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Trades enjoy jobs boom from remote Kennecott nickel mine By Marty Mulcahy Managing Editor MARQUETTE – A new chapter in the Upper Peninsula’s rich mining history is being written on a site 26 miles northwest of here on an area called the Yellow Dog Plains. On a remote plot of land near Big Bay village, the building trades are in the process of setting up North America’s only mine devoted primarily to nickel extraction. By the time the mine is closed and turned back over to Mother Earth in seven or eight years, some 300 million pounds of nickel will have been extracted, along with about 250 million pounds of copper. Much smaller portions of other metals will also be removed. “It’s a huge project for the area, and it’s already a major jobs creator for construction workers,” said Daniel Blondeau, Advisor - Communications and Media Relations for Kennecott Eagle Minerals, which is operating the mine under the parent company, Rio Tinto. “When we finish here, by permit we will restore the area to its original state and take out everything that traces back to it being a mine.” The $469 million Eagle Project is indeed a major jobs creator for the building trades. Boldt Construction is the prime contractor on the project. Along with their subcontractors, they will put to work about 500 construction workers. And during the years of the mining, 220 operational jobs will be created. As isolated as it is, the mining site created a number of challenges during the set-up phase, including transportation and power delivery. The site is accessible from an old but improved dirt logging road that’s about a half hour’s drive from the nearest paved road. Electrical delivery to the site also had to be improved. Kennecott paid $8 million for the replacement of miles of existing 50-year-old power lines on the public grid that leads from a substation at the Wisconsin Energies’ Presque Isle Power Plant in Marquette to the new mine. The new power lines, not surprisingly, have also helped make power delivery to homes and businesses in the region more dependable. The mine site itself is basically a big clearing in a forest that contains a mixture of fixtures and features you’d see in any city or only on a… nickel mine. The site sits on approximately 120 acres (a typical 18-hole golf course takes up 150-180 acres of land). Many Hardhats are bussed in to the mining site from Marquette as a convenience and in order to minimize road traffic. “The construction work at the mine came at a perfect time for us,” said Tony Retaskie, executive director of the Upper Peninsula Construction Council. “Many of the people working on site hadn’t had a steady job in two years. So it has been great for them to have an opportunity to build up their bank accounts and get their health insurance back. And it’s been nice for a lot of local unions to start getting money flowing back into their apprenticeship training programs.” Kennecott lists a number of structures planned for the site, and most are already complete. A truck wash building will clean all trucks leaving the mine site, and the wash water will be treated and recycled. The site will also have a water treatment plant, pump houses, a treated water infiltration system, a powerhouse, a services building, and contact water basins. The entire site is sloped so that the basins, which have a multi-layered waterproof lining and a leak detection system, collect water that comes in contact with mining operations. The water is then treated and used for washing trucks, mining activities, or slowly released back into the environment. Kennecott says its goal “is to ensure that area groundwater, streams, rivers and lakes remain protected from activities associated with mining.” An onsite water treatment plant will purify water used during operations, as well as rain and snow. Environmentalists had numerous concerns about the construction of the mine, but were fixated on whether the water used in the mining process would contaminate the groundwater. Much of the work of the building trades has been focused on building plumbing systems that will make sure Kennecott meets or exceeds all state and legal requirements for construction, mining and natural reclamation of the site. Rio Tinto and their Kennecott Eagle Project have not only brought jobs to the area – they have introduced a safety culture that’s likely the most stringent the building trades have ever seen. For example, vehicles on site are required to chock their wheels no matter the grade, and beep twice when backing up. And that’s just for starters – there are many more requirements for trades workers. “Health, safety and the environment is something we think about every day, and it’s part of everyone’s job at Kennecott,,” Blondeau said. “Wherever Rio Tinto operates, the health and safety of our employees and environmental protection is a core value.” Retaski said he had talked to workers and union reps about the enhanced safety requirements, “and they’re not a problem. People have accepted them. They’re really a plus on this job, and the nice thing is, our people are going to bring what they’ve learned about safety to future jobs.” Most construction at the site will be complete by the end of 2012. Mining operations are expected to start in 2013. The Kennecott Mine’s operations centers around its portal into the underground that will provide access to the nickel and copper that are there. Their geologists expect the mining operations to unearth a highly concentrated nickel ore body roughly six acres in size underground. The portal is basically a ramp that will allow machines to bore a zig-zag tunnel ever-deeper into the ground. The bottom of the ore body lies approximately 984 feet below the surface. Called “long-hole stope” mining, the process requires a main decline tunnel for worker and equipment access, a primary ventilation system and an emergency route to the surface. Stopes are horizontal, open spaces created as ore is removed. After stopes are mined they are filled with excess waste rock to maintain the integrity of the ground before another stope is created. Nickel and copper are increasingly in demand in the world’s economy, used in the manufacture of cell phones, hybrid-electric car batteries and refrigerators. Sixty percent of all nickel that’s mined in the world is used for stainless steel. Kennecott’s mining operations in the area also include the Humboldt Mill, which processed iron ore and other metals beginning in the 1950s but has been unused for the last two decades. Located about 60 miles from the Yellow Dog Plains site, it is being renovated as part of the mining operations. Ore that is taken from the mining site will be trucked to the mill and crushed and separated into nickel-copper concentrate. The material will then be taken by rail to a smelter and further concentrated. At the end of the mining process, all excess rock will be returned underground and the site will be reclaimed by nature. Kennecott must monitor water quality for 20 years after closure.
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Construction’s jobless rate eases to 13.3% Construction employers added 26,000 jobs between August and September as the industry’s unemployment rate dropped to 13.3 percent, from 13.5 percent, according to an analysis of new federal employment data released Oct. 7 by the Associated General Contractors of America. Association officials said the increase is the first significant change in construction employment levels since February and reflects growing private sector demand for nonresidential construction projects. “These numbers give us a taste for how investing in construction activity can really boost overall employment figures,” said Stephen E. Sandherr, the association’s chief executive officer. “However, the real question is whether these numbers are an anomaly or the start of a positive trend.” Total construction employment now stands at 5,551,000, compared to 5,514,000 in September 2010, a nearly 7 percent increase. Association officials added that the bulk of the construction gains came from the nonresidential sector. Nonresidential building construction added 13,200 jobs in September while nonresidential specialty trade contractors added 10,700 jobs and heavy and civil engineering construction added 6,200. Meanwhile, residential building contractors added only 1,800 jobs while residential specialty trade contractors lost 5,600 jobs. Sandherr noted that the industry’s 13.3 percent unemployment rate was an improvement from the 17.2 percent rate of a year earlier but far above the all-industry rate of 9.1 percent. He cautioned that much of the decline in the industry’s unemployment rate was caused by construction workers leaving the industry, as opposed to returning to the sector’s workforce. Association officials cautioned that the increase in construction employment will be short-lived should Congress and the administration continue making cuts to infrastructure and construction programs. They noted that construction programs accounted for more than half of the fiscal year 2011 federal budget cuts and that Congress and the administration have yet to finalize aviation, surface transportation or water system legislation that expired years ago. “With private sector demand inching back up, the construction industry is finally on the brink of recovering from years of hardship and job losses,” Sandherr said. “If Washington continues to cut infrastructure funding instead of addressing out of control entitlement spending, the industry will lose whatever momentum it picked up in September.”
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Attractions offered by right-to-work states may be as simple as nice weather (Second in a series) LANSING – There are several Republican-backed right-to-work bills and proposals that are floating around the state Capitol. One would allow local governments to institute right-to-work “zones” in their corner of the state. Another would make RTW a statewide law. Last month, a state Republican leader advocated “right-to-teach” legislation in an effort to specifically break the Michigan Education Association. With Michigan on the front lines of the right-to-work debate, the Economic Policy Institute is helping organized labor in our state fight back with information. The labor-backed think-tank issued an extensive briefing paper Sept. 15 titled “Right to Work – The wrong answer for Michigan’s economy.” The full 20-page report can be accessed at www.epi.org. Following is our second excerpt of the study, which further debunks proponents of right-to-work. “Referring to the right-to-work states as a coherent group, as if they’re all having passed a certain law means that their economies all function in similar fashion, is misleading. “It implies that labor laws play a dominant role in shaping these states’ economies. But people don’t refer to the 27 states that offer tax credits for child care as “the child-care tax credit states” because that would wrongly imply that these states are, above all, linked together by their common child-care policies. “The same is true for right-to-work policies. The 22 states with right-to-work laws have very different economies, and their economic fortunes are mostly explained by the unique features of their economies and state economic development policies. “Texas, for instance – the single largest right-to-work state – has a very large oil and gas industry. Florida and Nevada have large tourism industries and attract large numbers of both young people and retirees drawn to the climate. It is factors such as these – along with a host of state policies other than labor law – that determine a state’s economic fortunes. “The average growth rate of these 22 states misleads us into assuming that all states in this group grow in a similar fashion, when in truth they have hugely divergent track records. “As the following analyses show, there is tremendous variation between right-to-work states with high or low unemployment rates, and fast or slow growth rates, which proves that the average is meaningless and the real factors driving state fortunes have nothing to do with ‘right to work.’ “The Mackinac Center (a Michigan-based conservative think-tank) argues that since the average unemployment rate is lower in states with right-to-work laws than in free-bargaining states, if Michigan adopts a right-to-work law, its unemployment rate will improve in line with the average of all right-to-work states. “However, these averages are highly deceiving. The actual state-by-state unemployment rates show that there is no relationship whatsoever between a state’s unemployment rate and whether or not it has a right-to-work law. “First, while Michigan’s unemployment rate is troubling, it is not the highest, but in fact is lower than that of two states with right-to-work laws (Nevada and Florida) and even with that of a third, South Carolina. “If right-to-work laws guarantee low unemployment, why are Nevada and Florida worse off than Michigan? When we look at the broader pattern of unemployment in the states, the relationship between unemployment and state labor laws is even harder to discern. Seven of the 10 highest-unemployment states are states with right-to-work laws. How can that be true, if right to work is the path to low unemployment? “Put another way, if Michigan adopts a right-to-work law, how can we tell whether it will end up with an unemployment rate as low as North Dakota’s, or as high as Nevada’s? “Indeed, both the highest and the lowest unemployment rates in the country are found in states with such laws. Clearly, then, something other than right to work explains relative growth rates in the states. “The misleading ‘averages’ of 22 very different states are also used by others to obscure the reality of state-by-state data. For example, a January 2011 Indiana Chamber of Commerce report promoting a right-to-work law for Indiana focused on the fact that personal income in the 22 right-to-work states grew faster on average than in the 28 free-bargaining states. Based on these numbers, the Chamber asserted that if Indiana adopted a right-to-work law, personal income there would grow at a rate similar to the average of right-to-work states over the past 30 years. “At first glance, the Chamber’s argument may seem convincing. ‘States with right-to-work laws have experienced above-average economic growth…while states without such laws have seen below average growth,’ the report said. As with the claims about unemployment rates, a reader might conclude that all right-to-work states enjoyed rapid economic growth (measured in this case by the growth in per capita income), while all free-bargaining states had sluggish growth – that if the states were lined up in order of growth, we’d find all the right-to-work states up front and all others at the back of the line. “In reality, this is far from the case. “The two fastest-growing states between 1977 and 2008 were Massachusetts and Connecticut – both free-bargaining states with relatively high rates of unionization. In fact, 10 free-bargaining jurisdictions (nine states plus the District of Colombia) all enjoyed growth over this period that was superior to three quarters of the right-to-work states. “If states with right-to-work laws can experience either dramatic employment growth or steep declines, and if both right-to-work and free-bargaining states can foster booming job markets, then it is clear that something in these states’ economies, demographics, or policies other than right-to-work laws must be driving their job growth. “The economic fortunes of the 22 states with right-to-work laws are mostly explained by the unique features of their economies and state economic development policies. The average growth rate of these 22 states misleads us into assuming that all states in this group grow in a similar fashion, when in truth they have hugely divergent track records. The tremendous variation between right-to-work states with high or low unemployment rates, and fast or slow growth rates, proves that the average is meaningless and the real factors driving state fortunes have nothing to do with “right to work.” “To the extent that these 22 states share any common economic trends, their growth is explained by factors other than labor law. There is no reason to believe that Americans move from one state to another because of right-to-work laws, as most Americans have likely never heard of something called ‘right to work.’ Rather, the evidence points to other factors. “One factor is the weather. The right-to-work states are concentrated in the South and Southwest, and it is likely that the climates of Florida, Nevada, Arizona, and similar states draw many migrants. The single most important factor is the cost of housing, according to U.S. Census data. For example, many Californians have moved to Oregon, a free-bargaining state that happens to have much more affordable housing prices. Thus, higher job growth may be concentrated in those warmer-weather states that happen to have right-to-work laws, but it has nothing to do with those laws.”
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Look for the union label on this right-to-work resolution By Marty Mulcahy Managing Editor MUSKEGON – Now this is a right-to-work resolution organized labor can live with. A resolution supporting the “real” right-to-work was adopted during the Oct. 11 meeting of the Muskegon County Board of Commissioners. Introduced by Commissioner Scott Plummer (D), the resolution turns the tables on what is a traditionally the most noxious, anti-union legislation ever invented – right-to-work – replacing it with script-flipping, union-friendly language. The resolution concludes: “Be it resolved, the Muskegon County Board of Commissioners goes on record in support of everyone’s right to work and engage in collective bargaining without fear or favor.” The board directed that the correspondence be sent to local state legislators as well as Gov. Rick Snyder. The measure was adopted 7-4 along straight party lines, with Democrats in favor and Republicans against. This resolution was put into motion after Muskegon County Board of Commissioners received letters in August and September supporting statewide right-to-work legislation from board of commissioners from Grand Traverse County and Lake County. In separate votes on receiving those letters, Democrats on the Muskegon County Board of Commissioners defeated routine measures that would have simply placed the letters on file. Plummer, a Plumbers, Pipe Fitters and Service Trades Local 174 member who voted to toss out the pro-RTW letters, said simply, “Either you're in favor of it or throw it where it belongs.” Local 174 Business Manager Mark Mangione, who spoke before the commission on Oct. 11 in favor of the resolution, said organized labor’s hands are mostly tied on the state level when it comes to stopping anti-union legislation because of the complete Republican control of government. “Too often,” he said, “opinions come out from the other side in the form of pro-right-to-work letters to the editor or these resolutions from county commissions, and then labor issues a rebuttal. But this is a great concept. Let’s be proactive about getting the word out to the public about supporting unions. “This resolution is symbolic, but it gets the commissioners’ name on something that tells voters where they stand. I think that’s important,” Mangione added. Right-to-work is being promoted in various forms in the Michigan Legislature. (See the related article). Right-to-work laws allow workers in a collective bargaining unit to enjoy the benefits of being in a union, without having to pay dues to support the work of the union. Such workers are called “free riders.” The premise by right-to-work proponents is that workers shouldn’t be forced to pay union dues even though they voluntarily accepted a job that they knew provides union membership, and even though they toil in a workplace where a majority of workers voted to join a union to provide for the common good. This resolution takes a completely different tack. Following are some of the “whereas” clauses that make up what is essentially a statement of support for workers’ bargaining rights, but not a binding law, from Democrats on the Muskegon County Board of Commission:
Furthermore, the resolution says that where employees have chosen to organize for collective bargaining, “all employees in the group should bear their fair share of the costs to do so.” The resolution suggests “that the current laws and regulations regarding public and private employment need not be revised since they already preserve the rights of employees.” Plummer said his motivation to introduce the pro-union measure stemmed from a pro-right-to-work column he read recently in the Muskegon Chronicle that angered him. “Boards of commissioners from counties all over the state are getting these letters support right-to-work,” Plummer said. “I’ve been a union member for 30-plus years, and I just don’t see a need for it in Michigan or any other state. So I thought we needed to counter what other counties are doing and pass a resolution of our own.” |
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IBEW Local 557 of Saginaw is the latest to join the growing roster of local unions subscribing to The Building Tradesman. Local 557’s neighbor, Bay City IBEW Local 692, started subscribing in August. We send out a hearty welcome to the members of Local 557. By way of introduction, The Building Tradesman was established in 1952 as the official publication of the Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council and is one of the oldest labor publications in the state. Our paper won first place in 2009 in the “general excellence” category in the International Labor Communications Association’s annual publication contest, topping all labor papers in the nation. We serve more than 50 building trades unions around the state, and mail about 43,000 copies of each edition, every other week. Occupy Wall Street spirit spreading (PAI) – Unions from New York to Los Angeles eagerly jumped aboard the student-started month-old “Occupy Wall Street” crusade, which featured a mass march of thousands of people down to New York’s Foley Square on Oct. 5 and allied protests in more than 60 other cities nationwide. Several Michigan cities have been “occupied,” with more scheduled in the future. For more information, search on Facebook under “Occupy Michigan.” Said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka: “We support the protesters in their determination to hold Wall Street accountable and create good jobs. We are proud that on Wall Street, bus drivers, painters, nurses and utility workers are joining students and homeowners, the unemployed and the underemployed to call for fundamental change. He added: Workers nationwide “are turning out in parks, congregations and union halls to express their frustration and anger about our staggering wealth gap, the lack of work for people who want to work and the corrupting of our politics by business and financial elites. “The people who do the work to keep our great country running are being robbed not only of income, but of a voice. It is time for all of us – the 99 percent – to be heard.” A statement from the AFL-CIO Building Trades Department said it has taken “no official stance on this grassroots phenomenon, we do however sympathize with what the protesters are saying. Which is fundamentally that we know that our nation and our economy are being manipulated by a powerful cabal of wealthy special interests, corporate bosses, bankers, lobbyists and self-serving politicians.” We know the game is rigged and that change can only come about through concerted, grassroots activism.”
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