As summer approaches, here are a few books that would be worthwhile reading for anyone with an interest in the labor movement and the struggles of American workers, whether in today’s economy or in America’s past.

State of the Unions: How Labor Can Strengthen the Middle Class, Improve Our Economy, and Regain Political Influence – Philip M. Dine, an award-winning investigative reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, combines a strong narrative of the lives of union members with insightful analysis of American labor’s triumphs and recent struggles.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy says: “Longtime respected labor reporter Phil Dine makes a compelling case that a much stronger labor movement in the years ahead is indispensable for restoring fairness for working families and reducing the widening income gap that is threatening the American dream for so many millions of our families.”

The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker – New York Times labor reporter Steven Greenhouse gives readers a behind-the-scenes view into the lives of American workers being squeezed by low wages, disappearing benefits and a lack of job security.

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz says: “In this shocking and important book, Steven Greenhouse explains – and tells the stories – of how U.S. workers are paying the price for the lower labor standards and wages that are the result of poorly managed globalization.”

Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s Last Campaign – Noted labor historian and University of Washington-Tacoma Professor Michael K. Honey tells the story of the 1968 AFSCME sanitation workers strike in Memphis. Honey analyzes a strike that was a defining moment for our union and the modern labor and civil rights movements. Princeton University Professor Cornel West calls the book “A magisterial treatment of this neglected period.”

Going Down Jericho Road is the first-prize winner of the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, given by the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial each year to the author whose work best embodies RFK’s commitment to justice and social change.

Honey will be discussing his book at AFSCME’s 38th International Convention in San Francisco this summer.

Black Men Built the Capitol: Discovering African-American History in and Around Washington, D.C. – Associated Press labor reporter Jesse J. Holland tells the forgotten story of how African Americans helped build some of our most important national landmarks, including the U.S. Capitol, the White House and the Lincoln Memorial.

“A cross between a history book and a travel guide,” says Roll Call’s Alison McSherry, adding: “The tome unmasks dozens of facts and stories about the role black people have played in the construction of Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia.”

Reposted from the AFL-CIO Now Blog.

Employees at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) are seeking a voice on the job through a historic coordinated effort by two unions – AFSCME and UAW.

Kelly Hinton, an eight-year financial support specialist, says:

This is great news for all UNH employees. We feel that the two unions working together will be a good fit for the University alongside of the faculty union. Working together with AFSCME and the UAW means we are united and stronger.

Says Lonn Sattler, a veterans coordinator who has worked at UNH for 26 years:

This is a terrific opportunity for us to have a real, effective voice on the job. With two great unions working together, we can make UNH a better place to work.

Last year, the state Legislature passed legislation allowing state employees, including those at UNH, to form unions and bargain with their employers when a majority of workers sign union authorization cards.

AFSCME and UAW agreed to coordinate organizing efforts and support the negotiating teams of all UNH workers who are successful in forming their own local unions and bargaining units. Under the agreement, clerical, technical, skilled trades and administrative employees and certain supervisory employees will be eligible to join AFSCME. Service and professional staff, adjunct faculty members and some supervisors will be eligible to become part of the UAW.

Both unions say the partnership will help the workers. Says Bob Madore, director of UAW Region 9A:

Our goal is to help workers who want to form their own unions. By combining resources so we can work with AFSCME, we can be even more effective.

Alva Arellano, AFSCME’s director of organizing in New England, adds:

This is the right approach for UNH workers and for our two unions. We’re going to help UNH workers join together so they can have a voice in the decisions that affect their lives and improve the important public services they provide.

The Bush economy is in a tailspin – record home foreclosures, skyrocketing prices at the pump, unemployment rising and food prices going up and up. Now, as state and local governments cope with the additional costs of providing a safety net for families in economic trouble, they are facing big budget deficits.

In these tough times, at least 28 states and the District of Columbia face budget shortfalls, forcing them to lay off workers, cut services, and curtail aid to local governments. Most of these states are mandated not to run deficits, so they can’t borrow to close a revenue gap.

Ironically, Congress named this week National Public Works Week. Both the House and Senate passed resolutions. They proclaimed that public works infrastructure, facilities, and services “play a pivotal role in the health, safety, and quality of life of communities throughout the United States.”

Words are not enough. The nation’s economic crisis requires action. Congress should immediately increase federal funding for states and local public services to revitalize the economy and to maintain the infrastructure and services that make America strong.

(También disponible en español.)

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.