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Democrats in Puerto Rico go to the polls on June 1, and in his latest entry on The Huffington Post, AFSCME President Gerald McEntee says their voices deserve to be heard in this historic nomination battle.

AFSCME’s affiliate in Puerto Rico, Servidores Públicos Unidos recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of winning their right to collectively bargain for better working conditions and benefits. After a long, hard fight in the largest organizing drive in America, the public service workers of Puerto Rico are now organized – 120,000 workers strong. Those unionized workers want to be heard not only in the workplace, but also at the ballot box. The Puerto Rico primary gives them that chance to be heard.

Read the full post.

The 800 office-technical and administrative-technical employees in Tulsa, Okla., now have a voice on the job after joining AFSCME Local 1180.

Says Laureen Gilroy, who works in the city’s Public Works Department:

Forming a union is our legal and democratic right, and we decided to exercise that right. Having a union means that we can work to improve conditions on the job and give employees a voice at work.

A majority of the employees submitted union interest ballots to the state’s Public Employees Relations Board this month. State law allows municipal employees in Oklahoma cities with populations of more than 35,000 to form unions.

Local 1180 President Mark Stodghill said he is proud to have the employees join the union.

They have gone much too long without a strong, organized voice in the workplace. Now it’s time that the union members of this new unit all roll up their sleeves and get their first contract to cement their rights as employees represented by a union.

The new union members join the city’s 911 operators, airport police and municipal labor and trades employees as members of Local 1180.

(crossposted from the AFL-CIO Now Blog)

In an interview with Politico, President Bush shared the special way in which he has tried to acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers and their families.

“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”

Bush said he made that decision after the August 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which killed Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top U.N. official in Iraq.

Many vets took umbrage with the president’s show of solidarity with the troops. “I would say that thousands of Americans have given up a lot more than golf for this war,” Brandon Friedman, vice chairman of VoteVets.org and a reserve Army captain who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said in an interview. “For President Bush to imply that he stands in solidarity with these families because he quit a game is an insult.”

According to the Washington Post, “Nearly every president of the past century, including Bush and his father, has been a regular golfer. Presidential historian Robert Dallek noted that Dwight D. Eisenhower’s golf habit was so advanced that Democrats accused him of neglecting his duties. But Dallek, who is critical of the current president’s legacy, said Bush’s remarks about Iraq “speak to his shallowness.” Dallek added: “That’s his idea of sacrifice, to give up golf?”

When a 14-year-old girl attending a town hall meeting in Michigan got to ask a question of John McCain, she took the opportunity to ask why he skipped out on voting on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a bill that would have made it easier for women to pursue pay discrimination lawsuits. Sen. McCain told her:

“You may be violating the rights of the individuals who are being sued… I don’t think you’re doing anything to help the rights of women.”

That’s right, John McCain doesn’t support legislation allowing women to sue for equal pay because it would “violate the rights” of managers who discriminate against women. You can read more at the AFL-CIO Now Blog.

Better yet, through Americans United for Change, you can send your mom a Mother’s Day e-card. This Mother’s Day, every mother in the country needs to know about John McCain’s position on fair pay for women.

This entry by AFSCME President Gerald McEntee was crossposted on The Huffington Post.

For the first time since the Great Depression, America is experiencing a profound and disturbing trifecta: 1) 20,000 lost jobs in April (260,000 total so far in 2008); 2) unprecedented home foreclosure rates along with harsh drops in home values; and 3) skyrocketing retail prices for food, gas and other necessities. All of these add up to a harsh climate for American families.

As the economy started to sputter, the Bush Administration ignored the truth. President Bush, said “The fundamentals of our economy are strong … Job creation is strong. Real after-tax wages are on the rise. Inflation is low.” That willful ignorance of the economy until the 11th hour might be why President Bush and Republican leaders proposed more tax breaks for the wealthy and for business, and more spending on the war in Iraq, but little that would help most Americans. Business tax cuts have little or no effect on investment, while cuts for the rich are slow and have far less impact than those for the rest of the nation. And we have seen all too well over the past few years how dramatic increases in military spending show little return on the home front. Bush and Congress ended up agreeing to a stimulus plan focused on rebates. While we’ll all eagerly cash those checks as they start arriving soon, that’s hardly a robust package of investments designed to turn the economy around.

In this weak economy, many state and local governments are being forced to make painful cuts to health insurance programs, education and other important services to balance their budgets. As a result, millions of aging and disabled individuals and children will have their health care coverage cut or eliminated. Local governments are cutting public safety, education, social services and health care due to budget shortfalls from the precipitous drop in tax revenues.

At least ten states are moving toward cutting support for family access to health care. In Rhode Island, the governor moved to eliminate health care for thousands of low-income parents. In Kentucky, higher education funding has already been sliced by 5%. California is considering drastic cuts to home-based care that helps seniors and individuals with disabilities remain independent and in their own home. Firefighting resources may be cut in places where they are most needed, like San Diego. These are blows to our communities and to the survival of working families; they also combine with lower consumption to drag the economy even further down.

In the last economic downturn states tightened their belts to squeeze out savings from Medicaid. Now states facing at least $40 billion in budget shortfalls will be pressed to cut core programs, which could hurt kids and other vulnerable populations.

As Congress decides how to stimulate our ailing national economy and reinforce the fraying safety net, the first step should be substantial investments in state and local governments in order to infuse our economy with the energy it needs to recover, and to maintain current health care, education and other critical services. Investments produce the best, most immediate results when they go to low- and moderate-income working families for health care and food stamps, and to increasing financial support for state programs. Those investments lead to immediate spending, increasing their value to the economy.

Another important step is temporary relief for states and localities by increasing federal support for the Medicaid program that provides health care to people in need. That spending will be a boon to states’ economies — stimulating the economy and lessening job losses.

While the solution to our economic downturn seems clear to so many, would you be surprised to learn that Senator John McCain continues to focus on tax cuts as a solutionhttp://www.afscme.org? After all, even when pumping himself up for voters he admits that he’s not an expert on the economy.

It’s do or die time for millions who are struggling to get by. We’ve got to focus on health care, education and domestic priorities by investing in state and local government services to stimulate the economy.

That is why we need a new President who will take responsibility for helping working families and fixing the economy.

The failure to enforce even weak U.S. labor laws has created an incentive for many employers to hire undocumented immigrant workers, several experts told a House committee earlier this week.

During the hearing, a chilling audiotape was played of an employer’s phone message to an immigrant worker who simply wanted to be paid for the work he had done. Listen to it and read more at the AFL-CIO Now Blog.

AFSCME President Gerald McEntee today challenged John McCain on “two “crazy statements” the Senator made this week. McCain blamed the collapse of the Minnesota I-35 bridge last year on congressional earmarks and suggested that the U.S. Congress was similar to the Mafia.

In his latest entry on the Huffington Post, President McEntee points out the need to invest in public services and infrastructure instead of spending our nation’s wealth on tax cuts for the rich or the war in Iraq.

Senator McCain is happy to blame the disastrous results of Republican inaction on earmarks, but that’s not where the responsibility belongs. He is responsible, as are the other politicians who failed to provide crucial funding for infrastructure upkeep and repairs. Earmarks aren’t to blame. It’s irresponsible Republican legislators like Senator McCain.

Read the full post.

Exactly five years ago today, President Bush landed aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, stood under a banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished,” and declared, “major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”

The Bush Administration is now saying the President meant to say only the mission was accomplished for those service members aboard the U.S.S Abraham Lincoln. Really. And perhaps the Bush Administration wants to sell all us a bridge in Brooklyn.

Whatever. The point is the mission is not accomplished and, in fact, during these last five years there has been much suffering and loss. USA Today marks this ignominious anniversary with a summary of how things have changed since 2003.

DEATHS: There have been 4,064 U.S. military casualties in Iraq, according to the Pentagon. About 96% have occurred since May 1, 2003, a period that the government describes as “Post Combat Ops. “It’s hard to find reliable numbers when it comes to the civilian death toll. Iraq Body Count, an online group that tracks casualties, says it has documented between 83,221 and 90,782 civilian deaths from violence in Iraq.

INJURIES: The Defense Department says nearly 30,000 troops have been wounded in action. About 96% of these men and women were injured after the period officials describe as “combat operations.” About 13,000 of the wounded were unable to return to duty within three days.

HUMANITARIAN UPHEAVAL: Earlier this week, the United Nations cited the following figures in a report on displaced Iraqis: A total of 4.7 million Iraqis have been uprooted as a result of the crisis in Iraq. Of these, more than 2 million are living as refugees in neighboring countries – mostly Syria and Jordan – while 2.7 million are displaced inside Iraq.

PUBLIC OPINION: In July 2003, 27% of Americans thought the invasion was a mistake, according to Gallup. In February 2008, 59% of respondents told pollsters that “the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq.”

TROOP LEVELS: The size of the U.S. military presence has grown since 2003. The United States had 148,000 troops in Iraq after the fall of Baghdad. About 160,000 servicemen and women are now said to be serving in that country.

INTERNATIONAL COMMITMENT: In March 2003, the White House said 49 countries were “publicly committed to the coalition.” In May 2007, the Multi-National Force in Iraq identified 25 countries as “partners in the Coalition.”

COVERAGE: News organizations have been devoting less time and space to the conflict in Iraq, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism. The Committee to Protect Journalists says more than 100 reporters and photographers have been killed since 2003.

On April 28, AFSCME and the other unions of the AFL-CIO observe Workers Memorial Day to remember those who have suffered and died on the job and to renew the fight for safe workplaces. The toll of workplace injuries, illnesses and deaths is enormous. Each year, thousands of workers are killed, and millions more are injured or diseased because of their jobs.

Our fight for safe jobs has gotten harder because for more than seven years the Bush administration has refused to act. Instead, at the behest of corporate interests, the administration has moved to roll back workplace protections. Voluntary compliance has been favored over new standards and enforcement. Many workers have little or no safety and health protections, and major workplace hazards remain unaddressed.

This year, with the election, there is an opportunity to change the direction of the country and make workers’ issues a priority once again. More than three decades ago, Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act, promising every worker the right to a safe job. AFSCME and other unions have fought hard to make that promise a reality, winning safety and health protections that have saved hundreds of thousand of lives and prevented millions of workplace injuries. Yet millions of public employees across the country are still not protected by basic occupational safety and health laws.

On Workers Memorial Day, we will continue that fight. We will fight to create good jobs in this country and to guarantee health care for all. We will fight for the freedom of workers to form unions and, through their unions, to speak out and bargain for safe jobs, respect and a better future. We will demand that the country fulfill the promise of safe jobs. For all.

“Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a measure intended to overturn a Supreme Court decision limiting pay discrimination suits in a politically charged vote certain to be replayed in the presidential and Congressional campaigns.”
From today’s New York Times (Republican Senators Block Pay Discrimination Measure)

Yesterday, Republican senators once again made it harder for women to overcome pay discrimination by preventing a measure known as the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Impeccable timing: The vote on a measure supporting equal pay occurred the same week that we commemorate Equal Pay Day. It was marked this year on April 22 because that date represents how far into 2008 women must work just to be paid the same amount men received in 2007. That’s because women in the United States are paid just 77 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts.

The act would reverse a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision dismissing a suit by Lilly Ledbetter, an employee for 19 years at a Goodyear Tire plant in Alabama. Her suit alleged she was paid less than her male counterparts. “They treated me like a second-class citizen not only when I worked, but for the rest of my life,” Ledbetter, now retired, said yesterday, referring to the fact that the inequity in pay also affected her pension and Social Security.

Noted by Raising Kaine: “John McCain was conveniently absent for the vote, although he says he would have voted against it if he had been there doing his job like he’s supposed to be.”