[Peace-discuss] Fw: NP Cox: Goal Is to Reach 300, 000 Members by Next Year
E. Wayne Johnson
ewj at pigsqq.org
Mon Sep 3 00:46:37 UTC 2012
Let me present to you Exhibit B:
On 9/3/2012 8:40 AM, Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
>
> from the American Federation of Government Employees...
>
> ----Original message-----
>
> <http://afl.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=8Zu/l9c4d6R1aRXuznW5npq%2BU2oxOlsS>
>
> *Aug. 31, 2012*
>
> *NP Cox: Goal Is to Reach 300,000 Members by Next Year: *Newly
> elected National President *J. David Cox* said
> <http://afl.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=GhR6WFKgKwQYoysX7yoHmQqB/vgSgZoG>
> AFGE’s goal is to reach at least 300,000 dues paying members
> within the next year. AFGE currently has about 277,000 dues
> paying members.
> *D**EFCON Blitz to Kick off Next Week: *DEFCON is launching a
> massive organizing effort at DoD worksites across the country
> to recruit new members. The blitz will run from Labor Day,
> Sept. 3, to Oct. 12. Last year’s blitzes netted over 8,000 new
> members in our DoD locals. DEFCON is using this blitz as an
> opportunity to talk to DOD employees about sequestration and
> other personnel cuts and how they may affect their livelihoods
> in the future.
> “DEFCON is excited about the potential success of this blitz
> and the possibilities of increasing the membership in the AFGE
> DOD Locals,” said DEFCON Chair *Don Hale*. “Let's make the
> DEFCON organizing blitz a success, with the participation of
> each and every DOD Local's involvement.”
>
> DEFCON currently has over 50 volunteers assigned to help
> conduct events across the country during the blitz. These
> volunteers use their own time to assist other locals build
> AFGE’s membership.
>
> *Louisiana Governor Jindal Now Wants Federal Help: *Louisiana
> Governor *Bobby Jindal* has been a vocal critic of federal
> spending, but as Hurricane Isaac was about to make a landfall
> on the gulf coast state, Jindal on Monday wrote
> <http://afl.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=FK98WDb1etmpemcTGxzfZQqB/vgSgZoG>
> to the president, seeking more help from the federal
> government. The governor asked the president to reimburse
> Louisiana for the full cost of its preparations on top of the
> disaster assistance the government normally provides.
> “The State’s expenditures for emergency protective measures
> are already approximately $8,000,000 and exceed the State of
> Louisiana’s threshold when making a request for a major
> disaster declaration,” Jindal wrote.
> This is the same governor who decried federal spending, mocked
> a volcano monitoring budget, but at the same time posed with a
> stimulus check when it reached his state. Jindal supported
> his right-wing colleagues in Congress to severely cut funding
> for federal programs that help victims of natural disasters.
> In 2011 for example, they rejected the administration’s budget
> request and slashed the National Oceanic Atmospheric
> Association’s funding by $454 million. The National Weather
> Service’s budget was reduced by $126 million. They also cut
> FEMA’s state and local programs by $783 million and management
> funding by $24.3 million. This year when Hurricane Irene
> devastated the east coast, a deadly tornado hit Missouri, and
> an earthquake shook Virginia in 2011, the right wing demanded
> that the funding for natural disaster victims be offset with
> spending elsewhere.
> *Texas Voter ID Law Struck Down: *A federal court this week
> struck down
> <http://afl.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=V9TedxtYwZXHimt3dEkKNwqB/vgSgZoG>
> Texas’s controversial voter ID law passed last year to
> suppress turnout and exclude minorities from voting. The court
> ruled that the law would harm Latinos, racial minorities and
> the poor.
> “It imposes strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor, and
> racial minorities in Texas,” the judges said.
> Several states have either passed or introduced similar laws
> pushed largely by right-wing lawmakers and governors. The
> effects of the laws are already felt in Florida where the
> number of people registering to vote dropped sharply
> <http://afl.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=gCYDTSVnxYMFGdnZSecaqwqB/vgSgZoG>
> after the voter suppression law took effect more than a year ago.
>
> *Poll: The Wealthy Don’t Pay Enough in Taxes: *According to a
> new Pew Research Center poll
> <http://afl.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=cFQufC598RfkmCwHXmsS7gqB/vgSgZoG>released
> this week, 58 percent of those polled believe the rich are not
> paying their fair share of taxes. Twenty six percent say they
> are and 8 percent say they pay too much. About two thirds feel
> the income gap between the rich and the poor grew wider the
> past decade. Sixty three percent say the right wing favors the
> rich over the middle class and the poor.
>
> *80 Years of Proud History: *AFGE is 80 years old this month.
> Looking back, the union has accomplished a great deal for the
> government employees we represent. These advances are even
> more impressive in view of hostile administrations, the
> restrictions against unions, and the scapegoating of federal
> employees whenever the economy tanks. The following are some
> of the highlights of our achievements since the creation of
> AFGE in August 1932.
> *1930s and 1940s: *AFGE won improvements in sick leave, annual
> leave and retirement security through political pressure since
> bargaining was still a distant dream. We called for the
> abolition of the so-called “spoils system,” in which federal
> employees were kept beholden to the elected officials who
> hired them. When the system was finally eliminated and
> replaced with the merit system, almost 14,000 jobs were taken
> off the patronage roles, giving those workers a voice and job
> security.
> In 1939, AFGE won a major victory when the War Department,
> later renamed the Defense Department, granted workers the
> right to organize. On the heels of World War II when President
> *Franklin D. Roosevelt* expanded civil service and provided
> paid overtime for federal employees, AFGE won uniformity in
> salary increases. The union later defeated bills that would
> have banned overtime pay and made union contracts illegal.
> During the war, while private sector workers enjoyed
> tremendous growth in income, government employees had their
> wages frozen, resulting in a 15% pay gap by the end of World
> War II. AFGE lobbied hard and won a 15.9% raise for federal
> employees in 1945.
> *1950s: *During the *Eisenhower* administration, AFGE and
> veteran groups fended off an effort that would have given the
> attorney general the right to fire workers without describing
> the nature of the charges or giving the employees the right of
> appeal or a hearing. The president, however, did remove the
> limits on annual leave and provided lump-sum payments for the
> greater of 30 days or the amount accrued since the start of
> the year to employees leaving federal service.
> By the late 1950s, when pay raises had not kept pace with
> inflation and the VA and others had resorted to downgrading
> jobs to save money, AFGE successfully protected workers whose
> jobs were downgraded by ensuring that they would not suffer
> pay cuts. The union also managed a 7.5% pay raise for all
> employees in 1956 and a 10% raise for white-collar employees
> in 1958.
> *1960s:* In 1960, AFGE won establishment of the Federal
> Employee Health Insurance Program. For the first time ever,
> the government would pay one-third of the cost of benefits and
> insurance would pay up to 80% of non-hospital and all hospital
> expenses.
> In 1962, AFGE successfully persuaded President *John F.
> Kennedy* to issue an executive order to institutionalize
> labor-management relations by mandating agency heads to
> negotiate agreements with the unions. The order opened the
> doors to AFGE organizing around the nation, and the union
> membership jumped from 71,000 members in 1961 to 301,000
> members by 1970. These victories culminated in a pioneering
> 1966 collective bargaining agreement between AFGE and the
> Labor Department, one that would become a model for
> AFGE-federal government contracts for decades to come.
> In 1968, AFGE won the passage of the Equal Pay Act, which was
> designed to bring federal wages in line with the higher paying
> private sector.
> In 1969, AFGE won better retirement benefits that included a
> formula based on the three highest consecutive years of
> service, including sick leave in the computation to determine
> the multiplier, correcting the cost-of-living adjustment
> formula and allowing widows or widowers to keep benefits if
> they remarry.
> *1970s:* In 1972, AFGE’s intensive lobbying led to the passage
> of two laws that made the entire pay process more fair for
> both white collar and blue collar federal workers – the
> Federal Wage System for blue collar workers and the Federal
> Pay Comparability Act for white collar workers.
> In 1978, AFGE won one of its greatest victories ever – passage
> of the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA), which expanded and
> solidified collective bargaining rights and opened up the
> courts for contract enforcement. The law, signed by President
> *Jimmy Carter*, created the Federal Labor Relations Authority
> (FLRA) and the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).
> FLRA oversees the rights of federal employees to form
> collective bargaining units and to engage in collective
> bargaining with agencies. MSPB hears the appeals of federal
> employees who are disciplined.
> AFGE also won a wage adjustment in 1970, resulting in
> thousands of federal employees receiving millions of dollars
> in back pay.
> *1980s:* Even though contracting out had long been a problem
> for AFGE, the wind-down of the Vietnam War intensified the
> problem as major defense contractors sought to shore up their
> declining incomes by displacing government workers. They
> pressed Congress and eventually virtually every civilian
> activity became subject to outsourcing under the *Reagan*
> administration. But AFGE fought back, winning revisions in
> government contracting regulations, standardizing cost
> comparisons, and forcing agencies to maintain in-house
> functions when proven to be more economical. AFGE created a
> headquarters capability to devise strategies to challenge
> outsourcing decisions and to permit units of threatened
> employees to “compete” with contractors to keep work out of
> the hands of contractors.
> In June 1982, AFGE signed its first national agreement with
> the Social Security Administration (SSA) covering some 60,000
> employees. In August the same year, AFGE signed its first
> national contract with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
> covering over 125,000 employees.
> *1990s: *AFGE persuaded President *Bill Clinton* to issue an
> executive order further expanding government employee
> bargaining rights through a new labor-management concept
> called the National Partnership Council. This improved the
> quality of services while reducing the number of grievances
> and unfair labor practices.
> After five long decades, AFGE finally won a Hatch Act Reform
> bill, signed into law by President Clinton in 1993 as the
> original Hatch Act had intimidated federal workers and wreaked
> havoc on local political campaign. Under the new law, federal
> employees could be candidates in non-partisan elections. Off
> the worksite, they could voice support for candidates and
> issues and hold office in political parties and clubs just
> like any other American citizen.
> As the Cold War came to its final end, thousands of federal
> workers were being laid off. AFGE lobbied and won a $25,000
> buyout, job training, extended health benefits, and more for
> the affected workers. This provided the much needed financial
> cushion for our members. AFGE was also successfully lobbied
> for the passage of the Family Leave Act, which gives workers
> the right to take time off to care for ailing family members
> without the risk of losing their jobs.
> *2000s: *Since the 1950s when the military-industrial complex
> was in full gear, AFGE spent years fending off efforts to wipe
> out civil service. When the Bush administration took office in
> 2001, they began rewriting the A-76 contracting out rules to
> review nearly one million federal jobs for privatization. But
> in 2008, AFGE won bipartisan support from Congress to reverse
> a number of key rules to make competition for the work between
> federal employees and contractors more evenhanded, including
> the exclusion of health care and retirement costs from the
> contracting out cost comparison process when contractors
> contributed less than the federal government for those earned
> benefits. It was also the first time that federal employees
> were allowed to appeal bad outsourcing decisions to a neutral
> third party, the Government Accountability Office. At our
> urging, Congress for the first time banned outsourcing studies
> governmentwide in 2009 and permanently prohibited direct
> conversions of federal jobs to contractors. AFGE also secured
> the first insourcing laws ever—which the departments of
> Defense and Homeland Security report have resulted in
> significant savings and restoration of public control over
> important or sensitive functions. AFGE has been able to keep
> many of these restrictions in place despite some anti-union
> lawmakers’ repeated attempts to repeal them.
> In 2011, our 10-year fight for worker rights at the
> Transportation Security Administration (TSA) came to an end
> when we finally won historic collective bargaining rights in
> 2011. AFGE also won a union election to represent 45,000 TSA
> officers nationwide.
> *This Week in Labor History: *August 28, 1963 - The march for
> jobs and freedom—the *Martin Luther King, Jr. *"I Have A
> Dream" speech march—is held in Washington, D.C. with 250,000
> participating.
> *This Week’s Tweet:* “The reason the recovery is so slow is
> most Americans no longer have the money to buy enough to
> create more jobs. It's inequality, stupid” ~ @Robert Reich
> <http://afl.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=hrc5B7%2BSEWOITmTI36%2BbwgqB/vgSgZoG>
>
>
> *Hot on YouTube:* Fake celebrity pranks New York City
> <http://afl.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=zAwTQtuWiKOD9i81GQL07AqB/vgSgZoG>
>
> *Inside Government:* Tune in
> <http://afl.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=lIDuit6XAppiKeDs1%2BAh0wqB/vgSgZoG>
> now to AFGE’s “Inside Government” to learn more about the
> federal pay freeze extension. The show, which originally aired
> on Friday, Aug. 24, is now available on demand. AFGE National
> President *J. David Cox* and Public Policy Director *Jacque
> Simon* denounced President Obama’s decision to extend the pay
> freeze of federal workers until Congress passes a new budget.
> Cox discussed the union’s next steps while Simon analyzed the
> financial impact a continuing freeze will have on federal
> employees. AFL-CIO Executive Vice President *Arlene Holt
> Baker* and AFGE Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
> Local 556 President *Don Thomas *then participated in a
> special broadcast from AFGE’s recent national convention. Holt
> Baker discussed efforts to end voter suppression and Thomas
> highlighted the union’s labor contract with TSA.
> Listen LIVE on Fridays at 10 a.m. on 1500 AM WFED in the D.C.
> area or online at FederalNewsRadio.com.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> /American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO 80 F
> Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20001 | Tel. (202) 737-8700 |
> Fax (202) 639-6492 | www.afge.org
> <http://afl.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=4smb2iLwMmrY8L8MCtRSxgqB/vgSgZoG>
> /
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