SEIU Criticizes Clinton for Lack of Health Care Plan

ABC News' Teddy Davis Reports: Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has undercut her standing with a politically powerful labor union with her go-slow approach on health care.

"We're disappointed in what she's released so far," Stephanie Mueller, the spokesperson for the powerful Service Employees International Union, told ABC News. While expressing disappointment that Clinton has not yet released a health care plan offering coverage for all Americans, Mueller was quick to add that when it comes to winning the union's coveted endorsement "no one has been disqualified at this point."

Nobu/De Niro Restaurants Take Cue from Snotty French Chefs: Wage Violations, ULPs

De Niro's NY restaurant latest celeb venture sued
Thu Aug 2, 2007 11:43PM BST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two former waiters employed by a Manhattan restaurant chain partly owned by actor Robert De Niro sued it over wages on Thursday in the latest legal battle involving celebrity-owned New York establishments.

The lawsuit, which does not directly name De Niro, accuses Nobu, Nobu 57 and Nobu Next Door of failing to pay overtime and unfairly splitting tips.

It is among several recent lawsuits to accuse New York restaurants of wage violations and unfair labour practices.

New York restaurant staff are commonly paid tips instead of full wages. But many including immigrant busboys and food runners are underpaid and cut out of the larger tips, worker advocates say.

The suit filed in Manhattan federal court says that more than 100 waiters and busboys were cut out of their proper tips at the three Nobu establishments, and that the tip pool unfairly included managers and other usually untipped staff.

A spokeswoman for Nobu did not immediately return calls for comment.

Other lawsuits have accused celebrity French chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten of not paying proper wages or dividing tips at his upscale New York restaurants, and hip-hop producer and rapper Jay-Z of paying incorrect wages at his Manhattan nightclub.

Another famous chef, Daniel Boulud, agreed to settle a discrimination lawsuit this week after workers at his Manhattan restaurant Daniel accused the restaurant of promoting white French workers ahead of nonwhite workers.

In yet another case, celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay was recently sued by a New York restaurant manager who said he exaggerated the restaurant's conditions on his television reality show "Kitchen Nightmares."

UNITE-HERE members to Vote on Las Vegas Casino Strike Authorization

Culinary Workers Union Slates Las Vegas Strike Vote Sept 12

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

Culinary Workers Union Local 226 members will vote on Sept. 12 to authorize the union's negotiating committee to call for strikes at Las Vegas casinos without new contract settlements.

The union has been in negotiations with MGM Mirage (MGM) in Las Vegas since March for new agreements covering more than 21,000 workers at nine of the company's Las Vegas Strip properties.

Earlier this month, the union began negotiations with other casino operators in Las Vegas covering an additional 14,000 workers.

As of July 31 only workers at seven of Harrah's Entertainment Inc.'s (HET) Las Vegas properties have settled new contracts covering 15,000 workers.

CTW Investment Group Calls on Vegan A-Hole to Resign

Group Urges Whole Foods' Mackey
To Step Down as Firm's Chairman
By DAVID KESMODEL
July 26, 2007

Wall Street Journal

CHICAGO -- An investment group affiliated with union pension funds said John Mackey, the embattled chief executive of Whole Foods Market Inc., should step down as chairman of the natural-foods giant in the wake of revelations that he posted anonymous comments on Internet stock-market forums.

CtW Investment Group, a branch of Change to Win, a coalition of labor unions, wrote a letter Wednesday to John B. Elstrott Jr., the lead independent director at Whole Foods, urging the board to immediately name an independent chairman "who can quickly establish credibility with regulatory authorities and shareholders."

Union pension funds affiliated with CtW own some 900,000 shares of Whole Foods, according to the letter. That's less than 1% of the Austin, Texas-based company's outstanding shares.

Whole Foods' board said last week it had formed a special committee to launch an internal investigation into Mr. Mackey's online statements. Over a roughly eight-year period, Mackey used a pseudonym, "Rahodeb," on Yahoo Finance message boards. He touted Whole Foods, derided his rivals and got into lengthy debates with other users.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun an informal probe to determine if the comments violated the law.

The investment group said even if Mr. Mackey didn't violate the law or the company's code of conduct, his "poor judgment has already damaged his credibility" and jeopardized the company's proposed purchase of rival Wild Oats Markets Inc. "With Whole Foods under mounting legal and regulatory scrutiny, its share price down 37% in two years, and Mackey's leadership in question," the group wrote, "we do not believe the creation of a special committee alone is sufficient to restore investor and regulatory confidence in the company and its management."

Mr. Mackey's postings as Rahodeb surfaced as part of a lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission aimed at blocking the $565 million acquisition of Wild Oats. The government contends the deal would reduce competition and raise prices for consumers.

For years, labor unions have been at odds with Mr. Mackey, who has opposed efforts to organize workers at Whole Foods stores and criticized the broader labor movement.

A Whole Foods spokeswoman declined to comment.

New Plan to Bore Capitalism to Death

Parecon and Anarcho-Syndicalism: An Interview with Michael Albert
Michael Albert interviewed by
DC Tedrow
ZNet

Participatory economics, or parecon for short, is a classless economic system that serves as an alternative to capitalism, market socialism, and centrally planned economies. Parecon is based upon equity, solidarity, diversity, and participatory self-management, as well as takes into account kinship/gender, community/race, and polity in addition to economic considerations. Under parecon, workers and consumers councils are responsible for self-managed decision making; workers have balanced job complexes; effort and sacrifice are rewarded, not hours worked or how much capital was invested; and planning is participatory.

Continued...

News from Filthy Trots

Service Employees End California Nursing Home Partnership
Mark Brenner
Labor Notes

Following months of criticism and sharp internal debate, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) ended its controversial partnership agreement with a group of California nursing homes on May 31. The four-and-a-half-year-old deal was a quid pro quo arrangement that brought over 3,000 workers into SEIU after the union secured higher state government payments to nursing homes that care for Medicaid patients. In addition to giving SEIU organizing access to a number of nursing homes, the agreement provided “template” contract language for these newly organized workplaces.

SEIU announced it was ending the partnership just days after the executive board of United Healthcare Workers-West (UHW), one of the two SEIU locals that were party to the original deal, launched a campaign to steer the agreement in a different direction.

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Pies Fly at Social Forum

Communique on USSF Pieing by Agents aNGie O'tool and Cherry Karim

Pies fly when you are having fun-- and so do fliers. The text that accompanied the media coverage of the pieing was taken from the flier distributed on the scene. The following is the statement from the agents themselves.

People are talkin, talking 'bout people
I hear them whisper, you won't believe it
They think we're lovers kept under covers
I just ignore it, but they keep saying
We laugh just a little too loud
We stand just a little too close
We stare just a little too long
Maybe they're seeing, something we don't, Darlin'
--Bonnie Raitt, "Something to Talk About"

People were talking at the historic, very first United States Social Forum. Talking. Talking talking talking. We know, because we were listening. And talking, ourselves, too, sure. Talking. Listening. Not surprisingly, a major topic was the role of non-profits in the global movement for social justice. Officially, it was the theme of workshops and presentations. Unofficially, it was the continuation of an ongoing conversation that was recently revived by the Zapatistas' Sexta Declaración de la Selva Lacandona. At least. Recently. I mean, people have been talking about that since, like, the 60's, right? So people were talking, right? Talking about the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, right?

According to LIP MAGAZINE, the US non-profit sector is the seventh largest economy in the world. At a conference put on by INCITE! in 2004 called The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, "movement builders from within the [Non-Profit Sector] spoke of the paralysis, disempowerment and ineffectiveness of the nonprofit world." This year, 2007, a collection of essays was released by the same group under the same title. We invite this movement to pick up copies of that book and take a look in the mirror. Like Bonnie Raitt sings, "maybe they're seeing something we don't."

On Saturday, June 30th Medea Benjamin, self-appointed spokesperson for popular movements, received a tasty banana cream pie courtesy of the Bakers Without Borders, Co-optation Watch cell. The tactic of delivering our critique of just desserts was specifically chosen as a social critique from within our peoples’ movement which mobilizes a tradition of tricksters, clowns, jesters, pranksters and yippies to make serious commentary in a playful way. And while our actions were playful, the issues which motivated us were serious. So, in the spirit of Hopi clowns, court jesters, and buffoons of all ages, Bakers Without Borders offer this movement a mirror—at the bottom of a pie tin—for self-reflection. Are these funhouse mirrors the clowns hold up? Do we really take ourselves that seriously? Have our heads really swollen that big?

Continued...

Union - Palestinian Solidarity

Boycott and divestment movement spreads to Northern Ireland and USA

Bethlehem - Ma'an - Northern Ireland's biggest trade union, the Northern Ireland Public Service Alliance (NIPSA), has yesterday unanimously passed five motions that call for solidarity for Palestinians in the face of the Israeli occupation.

The motions contained severe condemnation of Israel's illegal withholding of Palestinian tax revenues and the ongoing military assaults. Furthermore, the motions express outrage at the human rights abuses on Israel's part, such as the continued occupation and destruction of Palestinian lands and civilian infrastructure and the building of illegal Israeli settlements, as well as mass arrests, torture and extra-judicial killings.

Continued...

Beware teh Anarchy

Local unrest followed cycle of social movements
The Register-Guard

It was the late 1990s, and the Eugene scene had a backdrop of activism, tension and violence.

Bottle-throwing throngs of drunken college students confronted police.

Tree sitters drew clouds of pepper spray as they tried to halt a downtown housing development.

Anarchists regularly flooded the streets - decrying consumerism, corporate greed, excessive police force and government in general. They drew more police gas, beanbag shotgun rounds and arrests by the scores.

Vandals roamed at night, breaking business windows, torching Dumpsters and spray painting the anarchist symbol - a circled A.

Amid the helter-skelter, a secretive cell of radicals took their activism to yet another level - large-scale arsons around the Northwest for the cause of animal rights and environmentalism.

The comparative quiet of the years since then may create an impression of that period as a chaotic era, a fluke disconnected from the norm.

Continued...

Fightin' Scabs in the Streets

Battle for high-rises in New York
Fight for work at building site
Hardhats face off in West Side rumble

BY PETER KADUSHIN and JOTHAM SEDERSTROM
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Saturday, June 30th 2007, 4:00 AM

A union member lies in the street, separated from his prosthetic leg yesterday, after a battle erupted between workers.

Construction workers squared off on a midtown street yesterday after a nonunion laborer backed a cement mixer into a crowd of protesting union workers, police and witnesses said.

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Elderly Anarchism

A West Philly-based anarchist newspaper turns 10

The conversation on that van ride 10 years ago this month spawned The Defenestrator, a collectively run anarchist newspaper based in West Philadelphia that first published a few weeks later. In August the newspaper will celebrate its 10th anniversary—a major accomplishment for a community that’s constantly in flux and doesn’t believe in hierarchy.

Against Type

A West Philly-based anarchist newspaper turns 10.

by G.W. Miller III
Philadelphia Weekly

It was the halcyon days of the mid-’90s. The economy was fast approaching the dot-com boom, welfare reform was putting people to work, the country wasn’t at war and Monica Lewinsky wasn’t yet a household name.

With the exception of an escalating homicide rate, things were pretty quiet in Philadelphia in 1997.

A little too quiet.

On a long van ride back to Philadelphia from a Boston conference for activists fighting poverty and homelessness, a group of Philly anarchists decided, “We don’t fuck shit up nearly as much as we really ought to.”

The rhythm of everyday life had beaten the once-thriving Philly activist scene into submission. Demonstrations had been too tame, they said. Protests had been ill attended. They needed a spark to bring everyone together, to inspire action, to mobilize.

The conversation on that van ride 10 years ago this month spawned The Defenestrator, a collectively run anarchist newspaper based in West Philadelphia that first published a few weeks later. In August the newspaper will celebrate its 10th anniversary—a major accomplishment for a community that’s constantly in flux and doesn’t believe in hierarchy.

Continued...

Fuck the DNC

Union rooms not in cards
DNC HOTEL SELECTION
By Chuck Plunkett

In a significant break with tradition, no state delegations will stay in a unionized hotel in Denver during the 2008 Democratic National Convention, the national party confirmed Wednesday.

Because there is just one unionized hotel in the city, Democratic National Convention Committee officials were concerned that states with high union representation would be clamoring for the 1,100-room Hyatt Regency Denver.

The Hyatt will be used during the Aug. 25-28, 2008, convention but will probably house national party officials and support staff. Nearly 7,000 state delegates are expected to attend the convention.

The arrangement disappoints many Democrats, whose rule of thumb is to seek out union hotels whenever they travel and who are accustomed to staying at union hotels during convention week. The last time Democratic conventioneers traveled to a city with little to no union representation was 1988, in Atlanta.

But several state party officials interviewed said they considered the accommodation plan a workable solution.

"There is one union hotel in all of Denver," said New York State Democratic Party chairwoman June O'Neill. "It's the reality."

Continued...

South African Strike Ends

Crippling four-week strike in South Africa ends

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) -- South African public sector unions agreed a wage deal with the government on Thursday, ending a four-week strike that exposed sharp political divisions between the ruling ANC and its labor allies.

"The public service trade unions, after full consultation with their membership, have unanimously agreed to call off the strike action which began on 1 June, 2007," said a statement issued by the umbrella COSATU labor federation.

The decision eased pressure on the ANC leadership, which is holding a policy conference expected to provide hints on a bitter succession race ahead of a December congress that will choose a new party leader.

The protest saw some 600,000 teachers, nurses and other civil servants walk off the job on June 1 to push for a 12 percent pay hike in one of the largest industrial actions since the end of apartheid in 1994.

Angry union members marched through major cities in demonstrations of labour's power, while many schools closed due to teacher walkouts and public hospitals operated with skeleton staffing.

Unions accuse President Thabo Mbeki of abandoning the poor through his pro-business policies. South Africa's economy is booming but civil servants have complained their wages can barely keep up with rising prices.

Continued...

Zambian Union Mergers

Zambia: Don't Downplay Union Mergers, FFTUZ Told
The Times of Zambia (Ndola)

THE Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has called on the Federation of Free Trade Unions of Zambia (FFTUZ) not to downplay the importance of trade union mergers.

ZCTU secretary general, Sylvester Tembo, said in a statement in Kitwe yesterday that unions stood to lose if they opted to continue with the status quo.

"This is not the time for trade union leaders to take individualistic positions on serious issues at the expense of the interests of the general membership," Mr Tembo said in reaction to FFTUZ national executive secretary Lyson Mando's negative response to the ZCTU proposed merger.

Mr Mando on Monday described the ZCTU proposal contained in Mr Tembo's letter as not being serious saying it lacked details on how the merger was envisioned.

Mr Mando said the ZCTU had over the period of time been discussing the merger in the Press without putting plans on the table.

But Mr Tembo said Mr Mando's views lacked seriousness and bordered on triviality and should be dismissed with the contempt they deserved.

"ZCTU attaches great importance to issues of unity and solidarity hence our desire to initiate moves for a merger between our two federations. We did not expect to get such an immature response, which lacks credibility and seriousness from our colleagues.

Continued...

Copper Strike in Chile?

Chile Collahuasi copper workers expect to vote strike

SANTIAGO, June 26 (Reuters) - Workers at the large Collahuasi copper mine in northern Chile expect to vote for a strike on Wednesday after management failed to present them with a better offer than the one they rejected a week ago.

"We have received no new offer, except for the one last Wednesday ... and the expectations are for workers to vote 100 percent to go on strike," Union President Hernan Farias told Reuters on Tuesday.

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Mobtown, Organizing and Precarity

Temporary Injustice
Union Tries To Organize Temp Laborers At Camden Yards
By Chris Landers

The men and women began arriving at 2 p.m., and half an hour later there were around 30 of them, gathered in the shade by Camden Yards' Gate B. The crowds weren't scheduled to arrive for hours to watch the Washington Nationals hand the O's a 7-4 beat-down.

During a baseball game's nine innings, fans generate a lot of trash. The people at Gate B are there at the stadium to pick up after them.

Veronica Dorsey took the No. 3 bus from Northwood to get here. Phyllis Ockimey came down after her hospital job was finished. Last Saturday she was turned away because she was wearing her slippers from the hospital. Today she's worried about her nonregulation shorts, which she wore instead of pants, but it's hot out.

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P-CRAC Goes International

Greetings Comrade-Enemies,

P-CRAC is most pleased to announce a "great leap forward" in the fight for liberation and pie-cardism!

In addition to our established chapters in Seattle-Tacoma, Chicago and New York City including revolutionary union hacks from SEIU, UNITE HERE and UFCW...

We gladly accept our first international chapter!

P-CRAC is now in London with the CWU.

Clearly this growing movement is catching on like a wildfire. We will not be stopped.

This is Class War!
This is P-CRAC!

Anarchists put the @ in N@ture!

Guerrilla Gardens
by Justin Valone
info [at] faultlines.org
Faultlines (San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center)

For those of us living in our modern cities land is a foreign concept. Stories of land conjure romantic images of countrysides far from our crowded neighborhoods, images that seem irrelevant to our lives. Even though we inhabit a landscape smothered with buildings and concrete, the struggles for land fought by rural people hold many important lessons for us as we strive for control over our lives and communities. When we consider the landless state of most poor people the world round and how most of us own no land, we realize we are all perpetually inhabiting someone else’s space. Our lives and communities as well as our food supply are controlled by people in far away places whose main motivation is profit. When we start to reclaim some of this space we begin to take back our lives.

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SEIU Healthcare Launch

Union creates health care arm
SEIU unit to oversee 38 locals across U.S.
By Hanah Cho
Sun reporter

The Service Employees International Union, hoping to better coordinate its resources, organizing strategies and direction nationally, has created a new health care union.

SEIU is expected to launch the health care arm of the larger organization tomorrow in Baltimore. Leaders and members will meet until Sunday to discuss the new union, which is designed to better unify about 1 million health care members - including nurses and service workers at hospitals and nursing homes. The parent union has a total of 1.8 million members.

Continued...

Interview with Dennis Rivera

Labor adapts to service economy
Boston Globe

Dennis Rivera, president of the New York-based 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, recently rose to the job of chief of all SEIU healthcare workers in the country. He spoke with Globe reporter Christopher Rowland about the union's efforts to organize workers at Boston's teaching hospitals.

Q Why are you having success organizing healthcare workers when other unions are having trouble increasing membership?

A The American economy right now is basically going to a service economy, and we are in areas where the economy is growing. By this time next year, we will have 2 million members in our union, and that will be a milestone -- 1.1 million to 1.2 million will be healthcare workers. There are about 10 million healthcare workers in the United States that could potentially be organized. We believe this year we are going to organize around 100,000, including, we hope, 22,500 personal care attendants here in Massachusetts.

Continued...