AFL-CIO PRESIDENT TRUMKA SPEECH to STUDENT ACTIVISTS
Most of you probably don’t know much about unions. I hope you know that unions are nothing but working women and men who’ve come together for the strength to improve our lives – at work and in our economy. Some of you probably think we’re a bunch of stodgy, old-school people with outdated ideas – too interested in what’s good for us and too disinterested in what’s good for others in our communities -- and to be perfectly frank with you, there’s a grain of truth to that – and it’s something we’re working to change. But at the end of the day, our goal is and has always been simple and pure—we want to make life better for working people.
We’re not always spiffy and clean. Some of us are a little rough around the edges. But the labor movement and progressive student activists share the same core values.
And let me say this -- As the next generation of activists and leaders, you are also part of the next generation of workers, and the way you exercise your activism and solidarity on the job will define the future of work.
You see, activism isn’t limited to what we do off-hours or as career advocates. It’s also what we do every day where we work. As progressive activists we have to understand that “workers’ rights” are civil rights, to turn lousy jobs into good jobs -- even if we have to fight for it—and for that matter, to work together with employers who want to do the right things for working families and solve problems to create a sustainable future.
Your generation’s struggle for jobs—for quality jobs—with fair wages and good benefits, so that those of you who have student debt can have the ability to pay it down and have the opportunity to live the life you want: the ability to get married, to raise a family if you want to, to start a business, to fight for the causes you believe in, and to leave a stronger America for the generations that follow you -- that struggle is the struggle of the labor movement, and that struggle is also my struggle.
You see, activists from my generation and before me also needed solidarity on and off the job to improve this country. The struggles of working people haven’t changed all that much, and that’s why we share so many values in common.
Unions have been fighting for social and economic justice since our beginnings.
We’ve worked for decades, and will continue to fight, to make sure no employer can
pay you less just because you are a woman, or person of color.
We’ve supported benefits for same-sex couples since the early 1990s.
We fight today for the passage of the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform.
We stood with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the activists of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. We supported Occupy Wall St. We’re working to address the issue of college debt, and we’ll stand with the activists and the movements of tomorrow.
And, my friends, we will stand with you through it all.
Today, America is in crisis. We’re at a tipping point. Wall Street and corporate CEOs have pretty well figured out how to make mountainous profits off the backs of America’s workers, especially young workers. Big money has locked Washington in stalemate. Things can’t continue in this vein for very long.
But I might surprise you by saying that this isn’t all bad news. The good news is that we’re going to change it – I’ve never seen more determination to change it. America is in the process of rediscovering collective power to make things better for all of us, politically, socially, and economically.
My story in how I got involved within this movement is probably similar to yours. I can remember when I blew out my knee in college and lost my football scholarship. Unable to afford to go to college, I went home and got a job in a coal mine. I had to figure out how to finish my degree while working full time in some of the most dangerous work conditions imaginable. About that time I got involved in a movement in my union called Miners for Democracy.
Miners for Democracy wanted to return our union to its activist roots so it would answer not to our employers, but to our members—so we could use our union to improve ourselves. People said it couldn’t be done, but we didn’t know any better. I thought hard about what to do next, and I talked to a lot of people. I’m lucky that my father always had a head and the heart for doing the right thing. I’m lucky my mother gave me my passion and my fire.
It took years. I ended up getting my law degree, with the support of my union. It took the Miners for Democracy years of activism, risk and perseverance, but we came out on top, and that’s the shortest possible version of how I became the youngest president in the history of the United Mine Workers of America.
It would be a gross understatement to say that not everybody was supportive along the way. I think a lot of people thought I was out of my mind, or just a dreamer.
But it didn’t stop me. It still doesn’t. I’m lucky that I’ve been able to spend my entire professional life in the service of working people, of union members. And we’re still working to make sure that our labor movement struggles to help working people every way we can—first, last and always.
We try to keep our eye on a simple vision. I believe that every single working person in America who works hard and plays by the rules should have a fair shot at a decent life—the opportunity to be who they want to be and earn good pay and benefits and a secure retirement. And I believe that this ideal is not a cost to be weighed against national prosperity, but that the two are one and the same.
Here’s the most amazing thing. Our goals are much closer than most people realize. Wall Street hasn’t learned its lesson -- of course not. And sometimes it seems like some people just wish we could return to the upside of a bubble economy.
But something is happening in America.
Just a few short years ago, the DREAM Act was nowhere. Now, because the DREAMers refused to take no for an answer, it has momentum and national support from the President of the United States.
Not even a decade ago, marriage equality was considered far-fetched. It was used as a tool of the right wing. Now it, too, has the endorsement of the President of the United States, and a majority of Americans.
Collective bargaining? It dropped out of the public consciousness years and years ago -- but today, support for the rights of workers is back.
In the experience of a young person, some of these struggles may seem long, but I can look back and see that they weren’t long at all, not when measured against the history of the struggle for justice. Not when measured against the sea change they represent.
There is no end to what Campus Progress can do. You don’t sit around talking about problems. You generate ideas, and you get things done.
Look at how lucky we are! I wouldn’t want to be a leader of the American labor movement at any other time. And you? You are strong activists with your entire careers in front of you.
This is the moment that counts. You couldn’t script a better time. It is time for us to act. And I know that you will.
I want to thank each and every one of you, and I wish for all of you a future of hope and dedication -- and one that is forever young. Thank you
by Jackie Tortora
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
LIBOR Arrests Start
Exclusive: Prosecutors, regulators close to making Libor arrests
(Reuters) - Prosecutors and European regulators are close to arresting individual traders and charging them with colluding to manipulate global benchmark interest rates, according to people familiar with a sweeping investigation into the rigging scandal.
Federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., have recently contacted lawyers representing some of the suspects to notify them that criminal charges and arrests could be imminent, said two of those sources, who asked not to be identified because the investigation is ongoing.
Defense lawyers, some of whom represent suspects, said prosecutors have indicated they plan to begin making arrests and filing criminal charges in the next few weeks. In long-running financial investigations it is not uncommon for prosecutors to contact defense lawyers before filing charges to offer suspects a chance to cooperate or take a plea, these lawyers said.
The prospect of charges and arrests means prosecutors are getting a fuller picture of how traders at major banks allegedly sought to influence the London Interbank Offered Rate, or Libor, and other global rates that underpin hundreds of trillions of dollars in assets. The criminal charges would come alongside efforts by regulators to five major banks, and could show that the alleged activity was not rampant at the lenders.
"The individual criminal charges have no impact on the regulatory moves against the banks," said a European source familiar with the matter. "But banks are hoping that at least regulators will see that the scandal was mainly due to individual misbehavior of a gang of traders."
In Europe, financial regulators are focusing on a ring of traders from several European banks who allegedly sought to rig benchmark interest rates such as Libor, said the European source familiar with the investigation in Europe.
The source, who did not want to be identified because the investigation is ongoing, said regulators are checking emails among a group of traders and believe they are close to piecing together a picture of how the suspects allegedly conspired to make money by manipulating rates. The rates are set daily based on an average of estimates supplied by a panel of banks.
"More than a handful of traders at different banks are involved," said the source familiar with the investigation by European regulators.
There are also probes in Europe concerning Euribor, the Euro Interbank Offered Rate.
It is not clear on which individuals and banks federal prosecutors are most focused. A top U.S. Department of Justice lawyer overseeing the investigation did not respond to a request for comment.
Reuters previously reported that more than a dozen current and former employees of several large banks are under investigation, including Barclays Plc, UBS and Citigroup, and have hired defense lawyers over the past year as a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., continues to gather evidence.
Activity in the Libor investigation, which has been going on for three years, has quickened since Barclays agreed last month to pay $453 million in fines and penalties to settle allegations with regulators and prosecutors that some of its employees tried to manipulate key interest rates from 2005 through 2009.
Barclays, which signed a non-prosecution agreement with U.S. prosecutors, is the first major bank to reach a settlement in the investigation, which also is looking at the activities of employees at HSBC, Deutsche Bank and other major lenders.
HSBC declined to comment. Officials at Citigroup and UBS were not available for comment.
The Barclays settlement sparked outrage and a series of public hearings in Britain, after which Barclays Chief Executive Bob Diamond announced his resignation from the UK bank.
The revelations have raised questions about the integrity of Libor, which is used as a benchmark in setting prices for loans, mortgages and derivative contracts.
Adding to concerns are documents released by the New York Federal Reserve Bank this month that show regulators in the United States and England had some knowledge that bankers were submitting misleading Libor bids during the 2008 financial crisis to make their financial institutions appear stronger than they really were.
Among other details, the Fed documents included the transcript of an April 2008 telephone call between a Barclays trader in New York and Fed official Fabiola Ravazzolo, in which the unidentified trader said: "So, we know that we're not posting um, an honest Libor."
The source familiar with the investigation in Europe said two traders suspended from Deutsche Bank were among those being investigated. A Deutsche Bank spokesman declined to comment.
The Financial Times said on Wednesday that regulators were looking at suspected communication among four traders who had worked at Barclays, Credit Agricole, HSBC and Deutsche Bank.
Credit Agricole said it had not been accused of any wrongdoing related to the attempted manipulation of Libor by Barclays, but had responded to requests for information from various authorities related to the matter.
Beyond regulatory penalties and criminal charges, banks face a growing number of civil lawsuits from cities, companies and financial institutions claiming they were harmed by rate manipulation. Morgan Stanley recently estimated that the 11 global banks linked to the Libor scandal may face $14 billion in regulatory and legal settlement costs through 2014.
In the United States, the regulatory investigation is being led by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which has made the Libor probe one of its top priorities.
(Reporting by Matthew Goldstein and Jennifer Ablan in New York and Philipp Halstrick in Frankfurt, with additional reporting by Emily Flitter in New York and Aruna Viswanatha in Washington, D.C.; Editing by Alwyn Scott, Maureen Bavdek and Dale Hudson)
Related News
French Corp Control of Phones Failing
The Privatization From Hell
On 11 September 2009, A France Telecom employee threw herself out of the office window to her death. Hers was the 23rd suicide in the company since early 2008. There was another France Telecom suicide only several days previously. There were suicides before 2008; more were to come. The office window suicide marked a turning point.
On 14 September 2009, a senior manager was saved from an overdose of barbiturates, taken when she learnt that she was to be posted across the country for the third time in a year. On 28 September, another employee threw himself off a bridge, having recently been moved into a call centre in the Haute-Savoie from a backroom job across the other side of the country. That was the last straw.
On 4 July 2012, sometime France Telecom CEO/Chairman Didier Lombard was indicted for overseeing a campaign and culture of moral harassment of employees, allegedly driving over 30 staff under his watch to suicide. Lombard’s Deputy and his Human Relations Manager are also in the dock.
This is an instructive story for American watchers of corporate ‘personhood’. FT itself has been charged but FT has been unable to appear in person. Ironic that the French for legal entity is ‘personne morale’. The then CEO has been indicted as the proximate embodiment of the corporate person, the latter having displayed a decided lack of personal morality.
In late 2009, SUD, one of FT’s more radical unions, initiated action against the company. In February 2010, a report by the French Labor Inspectorate (complementing a private report) claimed that FT was culpable, and judicial proceedings were commenced in April. Lombard was forced to step down as CEO in March 2010, but stayed on as Chairman, from which position he was also forced out in January 2011. The mid-2012 indictment is part of a long process spurred by the defenestration of Suicide #23.
The saga begins in 1990. The EU issued the Telecom Services Directive and the Open Network Provision Directive which dictated full liberalization of telecommunication services and a framework for access to national public networks. France’s deadline for complying with these directives was 1 January 1998. Formally, the EU directives did not compel privatization, but privatization was in the ether, neoliberalist imperatives then rampaging across the continent.
Privatization was also on the cards in France. There was much on offer after President Mitterand’s wholesale nationalizations of 1981-83. Denationalizations began under the ‘cohabitation’ Chirac government (1986-88), but were stalled with the Socialists returning to office in 1988. Nevertheless, the Ricard government (1988-91) was in liberalizing mode. Thus in 1990 the PTT (Postes, télégraphes et telephones) was taken out of the Ministry, and split into two companies (operative 1991) – France Télécom and La Poste. (Phone and Mail - ed)
The Right was returned to office in early 1993 in a landslide. One of Prime Minister Édouard Balladur’s first actions was to initiate the privatization of France Télécom. FT remained heavily unionized, and the multiple unions were appalled at the prospect.
Strikes ensue, impasse, the years pass. Alain Juppé is appointed Prime Minister in mid-1995; the Right gains the Presidency with Chirac’s election. Balladur’s initiatives are belatedly voted on in mid-1996, opening the way for partial privatization in 1997, with the state retaining majority ownership. The government gained leverage by doing a deal with a minority union (FO). Universal service would be guaranteed, and employees with public service status (fonctionnaires) would retain that status, but new hirees would be on private contract. It would be the largest privatization in French history. The two biggest unions (CGT, SUD) remained bitterly opposed. Employees themselves were targeted for share subscriptions (with concessions) to gain support for the privatization.
The Parti Socialiste in Opposition promised a halt to privatization. But the Socialists return to office in June 1997, under Lionel Jospin; a month later, it turns full circle. Jospin’s Economy/Finance Minister, a certain Dominique Strauss-Kahn, expedites the process, with the first tranche of 20% listed in October. With three tranches listed, the state’s ownership settles at 55%.
The Socialists were in a quandary – committed neither to public ownership nor privatization; reduced to pragmatism, naive on the implications of competition in telecommunications and myopic on the pain associated with the transition. The European Commission’s New Year deadline for deregulatory compliance loomed large. But all in politics were dazzled by the billions that would flow into the state’s coffers and optimistic on FT’s potential as a national champion in the global economy, seemingly buoyed by the dot.com boom. The politicians talked of ‘manna from heaven’. Indeed it was, but it was a Faustian bargain, and the souls of others were offered to the devil.
Michel Bon is appointed CEO of FT by Juppé (a friend) in late 1995 to prepare the institution for privatization. Bon had previously had an exemplary career in public service and the private sector, including banking; his immediate past appointment involved the rebuilding of the retail behemoth Carrefour. As well as passing through the elite École nationale d’administration, Bon had business degrees, including from Stanford (the recruiters at Carrefour hoped that Stanford had ‘distintoxicated’ him from his French training). Bon was the first person to be appointed head from a non-technical background (‘I am not an engineer, and there are many things that still remain a mystery to me’).
Bon joined mobile and the internet to FT’s fixed line inheritance. But, in a hurry, Bon spent lavishly on acquisitions. Bon was desperate to capture the substantial business of big business. Good companies had been bought (Orange), but also dogs (German MobilCom). FT had also gobbled up overseas telcos being privatized under pressure from the IMF.
FT went into the red in 2001; by mid-2002, it had debts of almost €70 billion. The dot.com bubble had burst in March 2000. The budding success story was now an enormous liability. The bulk of FT’s employees (part of 1.5 million small ‘investors’), having been seduced into transcending their traditional financial conservatism, were not amused at the plunging stock price.
The Socialists lose office to the Right in May 2002, and no longer had to wrestle with their conscience. Bon was replaced in October by one Thierry Breton. With both the requisite technical and managerial background, Breton had come from running, successively, Bull and Thomson Multimedia, with claims of having been decisive in ‘turning them around’.
Breton did generalize FT’s ADSL network across France, but his dominant brief was to attack the crushing debt burden. The new Raffarin government had no ideological hang-ups. December 2003 legislation abolishes FT’s monopoly on universal service provision, and opens the door to the ending of the state’s majority ownership. The government had pumped another €9 billion into FT in March 2003; now it wanted it back. More, the government wanted the FT selloff as successful precedent to privatize more public assets. The selloff begins in September 2004, with the state’s shareholding eventually reduced to the current stake of 27%. The state now hires the Chairman/CEO but is otherwise passive. Budgetary concerns were now pre-eminent; the country’s telecommunications needs would be determined by private entities.
Intensification of work and mass layoffs were a complementary priority. French weekly Marianne (19 October 2009) claimed that Breton was the man for the job. Mentored by Jean-Marie Descarpentries, ex-McKinsey ‘change management’ guru, at Bull, Breton “applied the methods of the master, with added testosterone, management by fear at best, by terror at worst, perennial plans with unattainable targets …”. Breton introduced ‘Ambition FT 2005’, to be driven by TOP (Total Operational Performance), including “€15 billion of ‘cost killing’, of which €6 billion to come from supply savings organised by 2IC Louis-Pierre Wenes; … [and] abolition of 22,000 jobs in 3 years”. Breton himself has claimed that, during his tenure, staff numbers were reduced by (only) 16,800, “in the very great majority of cases” due to retirement or voluntary departures. Some ex-employee commentators have begged to disagree on the ‘voluntary’ claim.
Wenes himself had been hired from management consultancy firm A T Kearney, ‘cost killing’ specialists. When Wenes was forced to step down in October 2009, a web article commenter claimed: “I know this man well, having rubbed shoulders with him … He doesn’t know what it is to be human. He has a head only for figures and has not hesitated to sack hundreds at a time, and even to close down the company.” At FT, Wenes continued to sub-contract Kearney, well remunerated, as consultants on cost savings.
With the selloff due to proceed in September 2004, a union official noted: “For the workers, the situation is already difficult: worsened working conditions, stress, sickness, despair, even suicides, because of the massive elimination of jobs, the incessant restructurings, the forced mobility. Total privatization will only aggravate this situation.”
Breton was called to the Finance Ministry in February 2005 to address not FT’s debts but the state’s. A Breton lieutenant, Didier Lombard, was promoted to the top job. Again, Lombard’s formal qualifications were impeccable, with classic technical training and experience. But the debt, albeit reduced, remained. Lombard embarks on a further strategic plan for 2006-08, titled NExT (New Experience in Telecom Services!). Upfront, the object is a new platform to sell customers bundled services (‘convergence’). But the complementary ambition (the ‘Crash’ programme) involves a further round of dramatic labour cost savings, especially with respect to the unsackable fonctionnaires. Thus more mass retrenchments and an escalation of harassment of those remaining. A (costly) network of 4000 cadres was built up to expedite the process.
An anonymous FT worker, 30 year veteran, noted (interview, 20 Minutes, free commuter daily, 14 September 2009): “For 5 years, it has become harder and harder. There are many job relocations or closure of services. When that happens, it is very difficult, for one has to re-learn everything. In 8 years, I have moved 4 times and changed my craft 3 times. It is easy to do this when one is 25 or 30. But it is another thing at 50 …”. The British Observer noted (20 September 2009) that a report to the Conseil d’Orientation pour l’Emploi “showed that in 2005 a quarter of French people had previously worked outside the region where they now work, against an EU average of 15%.” So much for the Anglo catechism that the French are stuck in their ways.
Thus to the suicides. On 14 July 2009, a Marseille-based engineer killed himself. The much-admired engineer’s talents and achievements were integral to FT’s technological transformation. Increasingly, he found his work rendered dysfunctional by incessant restructuring (in particular, the incorporation of Orange into the parent company under Lombard’s NExT program), and by a new breed of technically ignorant managers. His suicide note included (Mediapart, 6 October 2009): “I have killed myself because of my work at France Telecom. It is the sole cause. Endless ‘emergencies’, overwork, absence of training, total disorganization of the enterprise. Management by terror. … I’ve become a wreck. It is best that I end it.”
On 15 October 2009, an engineer employed at Lannion in Brittany hung himself. The site, a crucial FT research hub, had been a special target in 2008, with almost 100 positions earmarked for elimination. The same year, FT opened a research centre in Jordan.
Market analysts, social analysts, Anglo commentators particularly, FT spokespeople say – Stiff Cheddar. The suicide rate at FT is little different to that of the French population as a whole. The French, buffeted by the nanny state, can’t take insecurity. The changes were essential to improve efficiency and keep FT competitive. Etc.
The summer of 2006 had seen a systems breakdown debacle, for neglect of investment in infrastructure. Financial imperatives were competing with products/services maintenance and development. Rampant destabilization, driven by a management consultancy ethos, appeared to involve a sadistic element towards the fonctionnaires – their contribution ill-understood and their inherited status disdained. Thus the engineers and technicians themselves were to be attacked, and this supposedly to facilitate enhanced efficiency. Madness.
Lombard defended his record in Le Monde, 4 July. The situation was diabolical, said Lombard. Here was a company that he had devoted most of his professional life to. Survival required radical measures. No other sector had undergone such a profound transformation. There was FT’s massive debt, the demands of the European and French competition authorities, the sequential revolutions in technologies, etc. All true. But how quintessentially Marxist! Here is a chief executive claiming that ‘it’s the system that made me do it; I had no choice’. The representative bourgeois as impersonal bearer of capitalist social relations.
Lombard also claimed that the plans were oriented to minimizing the harm to the workforce and facilitating their transition into to the new digital age. The evidence indicates otherwise. The Labor Inspectorate report detailed evidence of a conscious strategy at the top to create an environment that forced employees to the edge. Perennial concerns expressed to top management by doctors, counsellors and inspectors were ignored. This behaviour constituted, prima facie, a crime under statutes passed in 2002.
So who is to blame? Certainly, Lombard and his two immediate underlings directed latter day proceedings. But they should be joined by the panoply of collaborators – the contemporary leaders of both sides of French politics; Bon and Breton; the ill-tutored eurobureaucrats and their French counterparts whose textbook competition mantra is oblivious to the specifics of telecommunications infrastructure and provision of essentially public goods; and so on.
The process of employee degradation was already in train with FT becoming a public company in the 1990s. Thus a manager who finally resigned in despair in 2000, having been brutalised continuously since declining to switch from fonctionnaire to private contract status in 1993, achieved a judgment in late 2011 (after 12 years of litigation) against FT for moral harassment (Mediapart, 26 February 2012). This judgement provides a precedent, but the Lombard indictment for a generalized culture of harassment is unpredecented.
Meanwhile, Bon’s career has continued unimpeded. Breton is feted as a giant with endless distinctions, including the Légion d’Honneur; most recently, the Les Echos 2011 Prix du Stratège. Lombard is also Légion d’Honneur, courtesy of Breton’s sponsorship. In 2008 (Wikipedia), he received the Prix de l’Innovation dans le Management de l’Innovation, and the Grand prix: manager BFM.
At worst, Lombard will be found guilty, given a minor suspended sentence, and a trivial fine, which he will pay as small change from the golden parachute he received from FT upon his less than illustrious resignation.
It’s called trickle down. Those at the bottom get to pay for all the mistakes made by those at the top, while those who made the mistakes sail on into nirvana.
For calendar year 2009, at the crest of the suicides, FT’s dividends payout exceeded its net profits. The dividend per share has been on the rise since 2002, since 2008 paid at €1.40 per share. Management’s decision to retain this rate for 2011 ignored dissent from employee shareholder representatives, but it received full support from the Finance Ministry. The dividend yield on FT shares is at least 12.6% (estimates differ), significantly above the industry average. The 2011 total payout was again higher than net profits of €3.9 billion, this in spite of a new competitor entering the domestic market, and 4thgeneration mobile investment looming. A union official quipped: “Of what use is a Ministry of Productivity Growth if [the state as shareholder] treats France Telecom as a milch cow?”. FT’s mobile network crashed in early July, leaving 26 million customers without connections. FT blamed another party, the supplier Alcatel-Lucent.
With aggressive purchases of foreign national telecoms, FT now has a global reach, with half of its employees based overseas. France Telecom has become a ‘national champion’. In effect, the suicides were casualties of global war by commercial means. Monuments should be erected to the fallen, especially outside FT head office, with the conventional inscription – Morts pour la France.
Yet, hot off the press (Le Canard Enchainé, 11 July), we learn that FT has run into a spot of bother in Equatorial Guinea, where it has run the telco network since 1984. A local FT operative, one Yves Garcia, witnesses some unsavoury corruption and becomes a whistleblower, but falls foul of the regime. Framed by a corrupt judge, Garcia escapes to France, only to find himself sidelined and harassed within FT, driven to depression, his computer appropriated and key files destroyed. FT moved to destroy its own principled staff member to keep the network contract, which the regime ended up giving to the Chinese anyway.
National champion indeed. It appears that the dead at France Telecom died for nothing other than the fat dividend cheques to the rentier state and Breton’s and Lombard’s Légion d’Honneur.
by Evan Jones, a retired political economist at Sydney University.
He can be reached at evan.jones@sydney.edu.au
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/23/the-privatization-from-hell/
On 11 September 2009, A France Telecom employee threw herself out of the office window to her death. Hers was the 23rd suicide in the company since early 2008. There was another France Telecom suicide only several days previously. There were suicides before 2008; more were to come. The office window suicide marked a turning point.
On 14 September 2009, a senior manager was saved from an overdose of barbiturates, taken when she learnt that she was to be posted across the country for the third time in a year. On 28 September, another employee threw himself off a bridge, having recently been moved into a call centre in the Haute-Savoie from a backroom job across the other side of the country. That was the last straw.
On 4 July 2012, sometime France Telecom CEO/Chairman Didier Lombard was indicted for overseeing a campaign and culture of moral harassment of employees, allegedly driving over 30 staff under his watch to suicide. Lombard’s Deputy and his Human Relations Manager are also in the dock.
This is an instructive story for American watchers of corporate ‘personhood’. FT itself has been charged but FT has been unable to appear in person. Ironic that the French for legal entity is ‘personne morale’. The then CEO has been indicted as the proximate embodiment of the corporate person, the latter having displayed a decided lack of personal morality.
In late 2009, SUD, one of FT’s more radical unions, initiated action against the company. In February 2010, a report by the French Labor Inspectorate (complementing a private report) claimed that FT was culpable, and judicial proceedings were commenced in April. Lombard was forced to step down as CEO in March 2010, but stayed on as Chairman, from which position he was also forced out in January 2011. The mid-2012 indictment is part of a long process spurred by the defenestration of Suicide #23.
The saga begins in 1990. The EU issued the Telecom Services Directive and the Open Network Provision Directive which dictated full liberalization of telecommunication services and a framework for access to national public networks. France’s deadline for complying with these directives was 1 January 1998. Formally, the EU directives did not compel privatization, but privatization was in the ether, neoliberalist imperatives then rampaging across the continent.
Privatization was also on the cards in France. There was much on offer after President Mitterand’s wholesale nationalizations of 1981-83. Denationalizations began under the ‘cohabitation’ Chirac government (1986-88), but were stalled with the Socialists returning to office in 1988. Nevertheless, the Ricard government (1988-91) was in liberalizing mode. Thus in 1990 the PTT (Postes, télégraphes et telephones) was taken out of the Ministry, and split into two companies (operative 1991) – France Télécom and La Poste. (Phone and Mail - ed)
The Right was returned to office in early 1993 in a landslide. One of Prime Minister Édouard Balladur’s first actions was to initiate the privatization of France Télécom. FT remained heavily unionized, and the multiple unions were appalled at the prospect.
Strikes ensue, impasse, the years pass. Alain Juppé is appointed Prime Minister in mid-1995; the Right gains the Presidency with Chirac’s election. Balladur’s initiatives are belatedly voted on in mid-1996, opening the way for partial privatization in 1997, with the state retaining majority ownership. The government gained leverage by doing a deal with a minority union (FO). Universal service would be guaranteed, and employees with public service status (fonctionnaires) would retain that status, but new hirees would be on private contract. It would be the largest privatization in French history. The two biggest unions (CGT, SUD) remained bitterly opposed. Employees themselves were targeted for share subscriptions (with concessions) to gain support for the privatization.
The Parti Socialiste in Opposition promised a halt to privatization. But the Socialists return to office in June 1997, under Lionel Jospin; a month later, it turns full circle. Jospin’s Economy/Finance Minister, a certain Dominique Strauss-Kahn, expedites the process, with the first tranche of 20% listed in October. With three tranches listed, the state’s ownership settles at 55%.
The Socialists were in a quandary – committed neither to public ownership nor privatization; reduced to pragmatism, naive on the implications of competition in telecommunications and myopic on the pain associated with the transition. The European Commission’s New Year deadline for deregulatory compliance loomed large. But all in politics were dazzled by the billions that would flow into the state’s coffers and optimistic on FT’s potential as a national champion in the global economy, seemingly buoyed by the dot.com boom. The politicians talked of ‘manna from heaven’. Indeed it was, but it was a Faustian bargain, and the souls of others were offered to the devil.
Michel Bon is appointed CEO of FT by Juppé (a friend) in late 1995 to prepare the institution for privatization. Bon had previously had an exemplary career in public service and the private sector, including banking; his immediate past appointment involved the rebuilding of the retail behemoth Carrefour. As well as passing through the elite École nationale d’administration, Bon had business degrees, including from Stanford (the recruiters at Carrefour hoped that Stanford had ‘distintoxicated’ him from his French training). Bon was the first person to be appointed head from a non-technical background (‘I am not an engineer, and there are many things that still remain a mystery to me’).
Bon joined mobile and the internet to FT’s fixed line inheritance. But, in a hurry, Bon spent lavishly on acquisitions. Bon was desperate to capture the substantial business of big business. Good companies had been bought (Orange), but also dogs (German MobilCom). FT had also gobbled up overseas telcos being privatized under pressure from the IMF.
FT went into the red in 2001; by mid-2002, it had debts of almost €70 billion. The dot.com bubble had burst in March 2000. The budding success story was now an enormous liability. The bulk of FT’s employees (part of 1.5 million small ‘investors’), having been seduced into transcending their traditional financial conservatism, were not amused at the plunging stock price.
The Socialists lose office to the Right in May 2002, and no longer had to wrestle with their conscience. Bon was replaced in October by one Thierry Breton. With both the requisite technical and managerial background, Breton had come from running, successively, Bull and Thomson Multimedia, with claims of having been decisive in ‘turning them around’.
Breton did generalize FT’s ADSL network across France, but his dominant brief was to attack the crushing debt burden. The new Raffarin government had no ideological hang-ups. December 2003 legislation abolishes FT’s monopoly on universal service provision, and opens the door to the ending of the state’s majority ownership. The government had pumped another €9 billion into FT in March 2003; now it wanted it back. More, the government wanted the FT selloff as successful precedent to privatize more public assets. The selloff begins in September 2004, with the state’s shareholding eventually reduced to the current stake of 27%. The state now hires the Chairman/CEO but is otherwise passive. Budgetary concerns were now pre-eminent; the country’s telecommunications needs would be determined by private entities.
Intensification of work and mass layoffs were a complementary priority. French weekly Marianne (19 October 2009) claimed that Breton was the man for the job. Mentored by Jean-Marie Descarpentries, ex-McKinsey ‘change management’ guru, at Bull, Breton “applied the methods of the master, with added testosterone, management by fear at best, by terror at worst, perennial plans with unattainable targets …”. Breton introduced ‘Ambition FT 2005’, to be driven by TOP (Total Operational Performance), including “€15 billion of ‘cost killing’, of which €6 billion to come from supply savings organised by 2IC Louis-Pierre Wenes; … [and] abolition of 22,000 jobs in 3 years”. Breton himself has claimed that, during his tenure, staff numbers were reduced by (only) 16,800, “in the very great majority of cases” due to retirement or voluntary departures. Some ex-employee commentators have begged to disagree on the ‘voluntary’ claim.
Wenes himself had been hired from management consultancy firm A T Kearney, ‘cost killing’ specialists. When Wenes was forced to step down in October 2009, a web article commenter claimed: “I know this man well, having rubbed shoulders with him … He doesn’t know what it is to be human. He has a head only for figures and has not hesitated to sack hundreds at a time, and even to close down the company.” At FT, Wenes continued to sub-contract Kearney, well remunerated, as consultants on cost savings.
With the selloff due to proceed in September 2004, a union official noted: “For the workers, the situation is already difficult: worsened working conditions, stress, sickness, despair, even suicides, because of the massive elimination of jobs, the incessant restructurings, the forced mobility. Total privatization will only aggravate this situation.”
Breton was called to the Finance Ministry in February 2005 to address not FT’s debts but the state’s. A Breton lieutenant, Didier Lombard, was promoted to the top job. Again, Lombard’s formal qualifications were impeccable, with classic technical training and experience. But the debt, albeit reduced, remained. Lombard embarks on a further strategic plan for 2006-08, titled NExT (New Experience in Telecom Services!). Upfront, the object is a new platform to sell customers bundled services (‘convergence’). But the complementary ambition (the ‘Crash’ programme) involves a further round of dramatic labour cost savings, especially with respect to the unsackable fonctionnaires. Thus more mass retrenchments and an escalation of harassment of those remaining. A (costly) network of 4000 cadres was built up to expedite the process.
An anonymous FT worker, 30 year veteran, noted (interview, 20 Minutes, free commuter daily, 14 September 2009): “For 5 years, it has become harder and harder. There are many job relocations or closure of services. When that happens, it is very difficult, for one has to re-learn everything. In 8 years, I have moved 4 times and changed my craft 3 times. It is easy to do this when one is 25 or 30. But it is another thing at 50 …”. The British Observer noted (20 September 2009) that a report to the Conseil d’Orientation pour l’Emploi “showed that in 2005 a quarter of French people had previously worked outside the region where they now work, against an EU average of 15%.” So much for the Anglo catechism that the French are stuck in their ways.
Thus to the suicides. On 14 July 2009, a Marseille-based engineer killed himself. The much-admired engineer’s talents and achievements were integral to FT’s technological transformation. Increasingly, he found his work rendered dysfunctional by incessant restructuring (in particular, the incorporation of Orange into the parent company under Lombard’s NExT program), and by a new breed of technically ignorant managers. His suicide note included (Mediapart, 6 October 2009): “I have killed myself because of my work at France Telecom. It is the sole cause. Endless ‘emergencies’, overwork, absence of training, total disorganization of the enterprise. Management by terror. … I’ve become a wreck. It is best that I end it.”
On 15 October 2009, an engineer employed at Lannion in Brittany hung himself. The site, a crucial FT research hub, had been a special target in 2008, with almost 100 positions earmarked for elimination. The same year, FT opened a research centre in Jordan.
Market analysts, social analysts, Anglo commentators particularly, FT spokespeople say – Stiff Cheddar. The suicide rate at FT is little different to that of the French population as a whole. The French, buffeted by the nanny state, can’t take insecurity. The changes were essential to improve efficiency and keep FT competitive. Etc.
The summer of 2006 had seen a systems breakdown debacle, for neglect of investment in infrastructure. Financial imperatives were competing with products/services maintenance and development. Rampant destabilization, driven by a management consultancy ethos, appeared to involve a sadistic element towards the fonctionnaires – their contribution ill-understood and their inherited status disdained. Thus the engineers and technicians themselves were to be attacked, and this supposedly to facilitate enhanced efficiency. Madness.
Lombard defended his record in Le Monde, 4 July. The situation was diabolical, said Lombard. Here was a company that he had devoted most of his professional life to. Survival required radical measures. No other sector had undergone such a profound transformation. There was FT’s massive debt, the demands of the European and French competition authorities, the sequential revolutions in technologies, etc. All true. But how quintessentially Marxist! Here is a chief executive claiming that ‘it’s the system that made me do it; I had no choice’. The representative bourgeois as impersonal bearer of capitalist social relations.
Lombard also claimed that the plans were oriented to minimizing the harm to the workforce and facilitating their transition into to the new digital age. The evidence indicates otherwise. The Labor Inspectorate report detailed evidence of a conscious strategy at the top to create an environment that forced employees to the edge. Perennial concerns expressed to top management by doctors, counsellors and inspectors were ignored. This behaviour constituted, prima facie, a crime under statutes passed in 2002.
So who is to blame? Certainly, Lombard and his two immediate underlings directed latter day proceedings. But they should be joined by the panoply of collaborators – the contemporary leaders of both sides of French politics; Bon and Breton; the ill-tutored eurobureaucrats and their French counterparts whose textbook competition mantra is oblivious to the specifics of telecommunications infrastructure and provision of essentially public goods; and so on.
The process of employee degradation was already in train with FT becoming a public company in the 1990s. Thus a manager who finally resigned in despair in 2000, having been brutalised continuously since declining to switch from fonctionnaire to private contract status in 1993, achieved a judgment in late 2011 (after 12 years of litigation) against FT for moral harassment (Mediapart, 26 February 2012). This judgement provides a precedent, but the Lombard indictment for a generalized culture of harassment is unpredecented.
Meanwhile, Bon’s career has continued unimpeded. Breton is feted as a giant with endless distinctions, including the Légion d’Honneur; most recently, the Les Echos 2011 Prix du Stratège. Lombard is also Légion d’Honneur, courtesy of Breton’s sponsorship. In 2008 (Wikipedia), he received the Prix de l’Innovation dans le Management de l’Innovation, and the Grand prix: manager BFM.
At worst, Lombard will be found guilty, given a minor suspended sentence, and a trivial fine, which he will pay as small change from the golden parachute he received from FT upon his less than illustrious resignation.
It’s called trickle down. Those at the bottom get to pay for all the mistakes made by those at the top, while those who made the mistakes sail on into nirvana.
For calendar year 2009, at the crest of the suicides, FT’s dividends payout exceeded its net profits. The dividend per share has been on the rise since 2002, since 2008 paid at €1.40 per share. Management’s decision to retain this rate for 2011 ignored dissent from employee shareholder representatives, but it received full support from the Finance Ministry. The dividend yield on FT shares is at least 12.6% (estimates differ), significantly above the industry average. The 2011 total payout was again higher than net profits of €3.9 billion, this in spite of a new competitor entering the domestic market, and 4thgeneration mobile investment looming. A union official quipped: “Of what use is a Ministry of Productivity Growth if [the state as shareholder] treats France Telecom as a milch cow?”. FT’s mobile network crashed in early July, leaving 26 million customers without connections. FT blamed another party, the supplier Alcatel-Lucent.
With aggressive purchases of foreign national telecoms, FT now has a global reach, with half of its employees based overseas. France Telecom has become a ‘national champion’. In effect, the suicides were casualties of global war by commercial means. Monuments should be erected to the fallen, especially outside FT head office, with the conventional inscription – Morts pour la France.
Yet, hot off the press (Le Canard Enchainé, 11 July), we learn that FT has run into a spot of bother in Equatorial Guinea, where it has run the telco network since 1984. A local FT operative, one Yves Garcia, witnesses some unsavoury corruption and becomes a whistleblower, but falls foul of the regime. Framed by a corrupt judge, Garcia escapes to France, only to find himself sidelined and harassed within FT, driven to depression, his computer appropriated and key files destroyed. FT moved to destroy its own principled staff member to keep the network contract, which the regime ended up giving to the Chinese anyway.
National champion indeed. It appears that the dead at France Telecom died for nothing other than the fat dividend cheques to the rentier state and Breton’s and Lombard’s Légion d’Honneur.
by Evan Jones, a retired political economist at Sydney University.
He can be reached at evan.jones@sydney.edu.au
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/23/the-privatization-from-hell/
Friday, July 20, 2012
NY AFL-CIO Supports UWUA
Labor Movement Unites with Locked-Out UWUA Local 1-2 Workers
A diverse group of thousands of union members and community supporters marched in the heat from Con Edison’s "ivory tower" at 4 Irving Place to Union Square, New York City. With chants of “We Are One!” and signs bearing such slogans as “Con Ed Can’t Con Me” and “Con Ed Took Away My American Dream,” people were expressing their frustrations and showing solidarity with the locked-out Utility Workers (UWUA).As Harry Farrell, president of UWUA Local 1-2 told the crowd, “Today we are All utility workers!” Seeing the energy and size of the crowd in sweltering heat, it is hard to imagine that Con Edison understood the backlash when it locked out the workers and gave unreasonable contract demands. Representing 2.5 million workers and their families in the state, New York State AFL-CIO President Mario Cilento said:
Your fight is Our fight! We are all in this together.
The list of Union leaders pledging their support spanned all sectors, from public, private and building trades. Vincent Alvarez, president of the New York City Central Labor Council, said:
Each and every member of labor stands with you today!
To sign a petition in support of the workers, please click here; and check out our website, www.nysaflcio.org, for the latest details. Visit www.ConEdRipoff.com and sign up for text messages from Local 1-2.
To see more pictures of the rally, click here.
On July 1, during a massive heat wave, Con Edison and its CEO Kevin Burke locked out 8,500 utility workers from Local 1-2. On July 3, Con Edison cut off health care benefits for all workers and their families. It reinstated the benefits on July 15 because of public pressure.
Since then, managers who are doing the dangerous work of the locked-out workers have been seriously injured, and citizens of New York City and Westchester have faced numerous power outages and service disruptions. Despite an investigation by the Public Service Commission and building public pressure, Con Edison so far continues to make unacceptable demands.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
War on Unions Comes to California
The War On Workers Comes to California, in Disguise
By: David Dayen
After the victory in Wisconsin, many wondered where conservative interests would strike next to finish off unions and permanently alter the power relationship between labor and capital. It appears the next step is California. In November, voters will decide on an initiative, Prop 32, that would “eliminate unions from having any voice in politics whatsoever,” according to one labor official.
In its simplest form the measure, often called “paycheck protection” on the right, would stop unions from using automatic payroll deductions from their members for political activity. Similar measures have been on the ballot before in California, and have been beaten back both times. In 1998, voters rejected Prop 226, and in 2005, they similarly beat back Prop 75. But those were frontal assaults against unions. The difference here is that the supporters have dressed up this initiative as a campaign finance reform measure that affects corporations and unions in equal measure. Prop 32 supporters call it the “Stop Special Interest Money Initiative.” Nothing could be further from the truth, says the opposition to Prop 32.
“The people who drafted this are the same people who twice before tried this and failed,” says Brian Brokaw, the communications director for No on 32. “They claim that it’s even-handed, in that it bans both unions and corporations from collecting political funds via payroll deductions. But corporations don’t use payroll deductions for political funds, they just use their own treasuries.”
It’s actually more insidious than that. The initiative has two parts. First, it bans direct political donations to state candidates from both corporations and unions. Neither side does a whole lot of that, as independent expenditures are more common in support of or opposition to individual candidates. But the definition of a “corporation” is made so narrow in the initiative language, granting a number of special exemptions to entities such as LLCs, limited partnerships, insurance companies, hedge funds, developers, Wall Street investment firms and more. “They carefully drafted this to exempt themselves,” Brokaw says. Any corporation could set up a shell company and continue the practice of direct political contributions.
As to why unions could not engage in such behavior, that brings us to the second part of the initiative. This is the payroll deduction part. As said before, both unions and corporations would be banned from using payroll deductions for political activities, yet only unions use this function. “Political activities,” incidentally, is so broadly defined, that it would include internal communications, i.e. unions talking to their own members and educating them about upcoming elections and legislative votes.
Unions can ask their members to voluntarily donate to political causes, say the backers of Prop 32. But the initiative contains an additional measure that requires an annual written authorization from each union member on even voluntary contributions. Unions typically have an automatic process to collect dues and use them in part for political ends. Now they would have to go through a time- and resource-consuming process of collecting all dues individually, getting written authorization for how the dues can be used, in such a way that would be logistically impossible.
“This attacks our ability to engage in politics from every conceivable angle,” says Steve Smith, the communications director for the California Labor Federation. “The whole reason to have a union is to collectively bargain. This would take political action, and say you can’t do that. In terms of those who would be able to spend resources on elections, it would be wealthy individuals and Super PACs.”
The intent of the law can be seen by looking at the leading funders who paid to get in on the ballot. So far, the leading funder is billionaire Thomas Siebel, the founder of Siebel Systems, since purchased by Oracle. Siebel, a funder of Super PACs and a huge Sarah Palin fan, introduced her at a 2008 rally with this bit of schmaltz:
“Sarah Palin has risen as if from some mythical kingdom of the north. She carries the flag of outrage for the rest of us: the employers who create jobs, the shareholders, the parents, the people who raise children … and the students, the future of America,” he said. “Sarah Palin carries the flag of outrage for each of us … who cries out, ‘We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore.’”
Other funders all have companies that would qualify them for the corporate exemptions under the law. Jerry Perenchio, the founder of Univision, now has an LLC. Other funders include insurance company executives and Wall Street investment managers. “This is the least grassroots campaign in the history of America,” said Steve Smith of the Cal Labor Fed. “All of these guys are billionaires, trying to rig the system. If this goes through you open the floodgates for corporate and billionaire funding of campaigns.”
In fact, one of the driving forces behind the ballot measure has a particular history here. The Lincoln Club of Orange County, long a conservative powerhouse in California, has put up some money for the initiative. They happen to have been the executive producers behind “Hillary: The Movie,” which ended up becoming the impetus for the Citizens United decision. So the self-described backers of Citizens United are now funding an initiative purporting to get special interest money out of politics.
So far, mostly state money has gone to back Prop 32, and No on 32 has the edge in terms of fundraising. But it’s very early yet, and given that this plays into a national movement to constrain union power, we could easily see national money play here. “What keeps us up at night,” Smith said, “is the chance that a Koch brother or a national guy needs to drop some money and comes to California to bring it.”
Indeed, passage of Prop 32 would have a national impact. It plays into the recent dynamic of the rise of SuperPACs and big money at the national and state levels. “Without having a couple million workers pooling their money in California to counter-balance corporate cash, it’s not going to happen,” Smith says. “There would be a domino effect. If California falls, what chance does a smaller state have?” The goal, according to Smith, is a two-step maneuver. First, they pass this measure to de-fang union power and allow for corporate spending to dominate political campaigns. Then, the money flows into California, to elect corporate Republicans and Democrats and change the system from within. “We couldn’t fund anything to stop them,” Smith says. “You’ll see ballot measures stripping away the minimum wage, family leave. The electoral dynamic would completely shift immediately.”
With Prop 32 on the November ballot, it has the potential to get lost in the shuffle. It will be one of 11 initiatives before voters, and not the most high-profile one. Governor Jerry Brown will probably turn all his attentions to a tax measure, Prop 30, that is needed to secure the state budget. And there’s a Presidential election and a multitude of high-profile state races that will garner more attention.
But the No on 32 team, which is fighting this as the “Special Exemptions Act,” specifically on the grounds of how this measure makes a mockery of campaign finance reform by granting exemptions to all kinds of corporate actors, sees that as a possible benefit. “The fact that we will see such a disgusting display of corporate-backed campaign spending is good for us,” says Brian Brokaw of No on 32. “It will be an example of what happens when you take away transparency.
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/07/12/the-war-on-workers-comes-to-california-in-disguise/
By: David Dayen
After the victory in Wisconsin, many wondered where conservative interests would strike next to finish off unions and permanently alter the power relationship between labor and capital. It appears the next step is California. In November, voters will decide on an initiative, Prop 32, that would “eliminate unions from having any voice in politics whatsoever,” according to one labor official.
In its simplest form the measure, often called “paycheck protection” on the right, would stop unions from using automatic payroll deductions from their members for political activity. Similar measures have been on the ballot before in California, and have been beaten back both times. In 1998, voters rejected Prop 226, and in 2005, they similarly beat back Prop 75. But those were frontal assaults against unions. The difference here is that the supporters have dressed up this initiative as a campaign finance reform measure that affects corporations and unions in equal measure. Prop 32 supporters call it the “Stop Special Interest Money Initiative.” Nothing could be further from the truth, says the opposition to Prop 32.
“The people who drafted this are the same people who twice before tried this and failed,” says Brian Brokaw, the communications director for No on 32. “They claim that it’s even-handed, in that it bans both unions and corporations from collecting political funds via payroll deductions. But corporations don’t use payroll deductions for political funds, they just use their own treasuries.”
It’s actually more insidious than that. The initiative has two parts. First, it bans direct political donations to state candidates from both corporations and unions. Neither side does a whole lot of that, as independent expenditures are more common in support of or opposition to individual candidates. But the definition of a “corporation” is made so narrow in the initiative language, granting a number of special exemptions to entities such as LLCs, limited partnerships, insurance companies, hedge funds, developers, Wall Street investment firms and more. “They carefully drafted this to exempt themselves,” Brokaw says. Any corporation could set up a shell company and continue the practice of direct political contributions.
As to why unions could not engage in such behavior, that brings us to the second part of the initiative. This is the payroll deduction part. As said before, both unions and corporations would be banned from using payroll deductions for political activities, yet only unions use this function. “Political activities,” incidentally, is so broadly defined, that it would include internal communications, i.e. unions talking to their own members and educating them about upcoming elections and legislative votes.
Unions can ask their members to voluntarily donate to political causes, say the backers of Prop 32. But the initiative contains an additional measure that requires an annual written authorization from each union member on even voluntary contributions. Unions typically have an automatic process to collect dues and use them in part for political ends. Now they would have to go through a time- and resource-consuming process of collecting all dues individually, getting written authorization for how the dues can be used, in such a way that would be logistically impossible.
“This attacks our ability to engage in politics from every conceivable angle,” says Steve Smith, the communications director for the California Labor Federation. “The whole reason to have a union is to collectively bargain. This would take political action, and say you can’t do that. In terms of those who would be able to spend resources on elections, it would be wealthy individuals and Super PACs.”
The intent of the law can be seen by looking at the leading funders who paid to get in on the ballot. So far, the leading funder is billionaire Thomas Siebel, the founder of Siebel Systems, since purchased by Oracle. Siebel, a funder of Super PACs and a huge Sarah Palin fan, introduced her at a 2008 rally with this bit of schmaltz:
“Sarah Palin has risen as if from some mythical kingdom of the north. She carries the flag of outrage for the rest of us: the employers who create jobs, the shareholders, the parents, the people who raise children … and the students, the future of America,” he said. “Sarah Palin carries the flag of outrage for each of us … who cries out, ‘We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore.’”
Other funders all have companies that would qualify them for the corporate exemptions under the law. Jerry Perenchio, the founder of Univision, now has an LLC. Other funders include insurance company executives and Wall Street investment managers. “This is the least grassroots campaign in the history of America,” said Steve Smith of the Cal Labor Fed. “All of these guys are billionaires, trying to rig the system. If this goes through you open the floodgates for corporate and billionaire funding of campaigns.”
In fact, one of the driving forces behind the ballot measure has a particular history here. The Lincoln Club of Orange County, long a conservative powerhouse in California, has put up some money for the initiative. They happen to have been the executive producers behind “Hillary: The Movie,” which ended up becoming the impetus for the Citizens United decision. So the self-described backers of Citizens United are now funding an initiative purporting to get special interest money out of politics.
So far, mostly state money has gone to back Prop 32, and No on 32 has the edge in terms of fundraising. But it’s very early yet, and given that this plays into a national movement to constrain union power, we could easily see national money play here. “What keeps us up at night,” Smith said, “is the chance that a Koch brother or a national guy needs to drop some money and comes to California to bring it.”
Indeed, passage of Prop 32 would have a national impact. It plays into the recent dynamic of the rise of SuperPACs and big money at the national and state levels. “Without having a couple million workers pooling their money in California to counter-balance corporate cash, it’s not going to happen,” Smith says. “There would be a domino effect. If California falls, what chance does a smaller state have?” The goal, according to Smith, is a two-step maneuver. First, they pass this measure to de-fang union power and allow for corporate spending to dominate political campaigns. Then, the money flows into California, to elect corporate Republicans and Democrats and change the system from within. “We couldn’t fund anything to stop them,” Smith says. “You’ll see ballot measures stripping away the minimum wage, family leave. The electoral dynamic would completely shift immediately.”
With Prop 32 on the November ballot, it has the potential to get lost in the shuffle. It will be one of 11 initiatives before voters, and not the most high-profile one. Governor Jerry Brown will probably turn all his attentions to a tax measure, Prop 30, that is needed to secure the state budget. And there’s a Presidential election and a multitude of high-profile state races that will garner more attention.
But the No on 32 team, which is fighting this as the “Special Exemptions Act,” specifically on the grounds of how this measure makes a mockery of campaign finance reform by granting exemptions to all kinds of corporate actors, sees that as a possible benefit. “The fact that we will see such a disgusting display of corporate-backed campaign spending is good for us,” says Brian Brokaw of No on 32. “It will be an example of what happens when you take away transparency.
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/07/12/the-war-on-workers-comes-to-california-in-disguise/
Thursday, July 12, 2012
CWA Second Worker Bill of Rights
Workers Stand for America Rally on Aug. 11
Union leaders today launched a national campaign refocus America's agenda on rebuilding economic opportunity for all.
The campaign, "Workers Stand for America," kicks off with two major events. The first is a rally on Aug. 11 in Philadelphia that will bring together tens of thousands of workers to focus attention on jobs and the needs of working men and women -- the country's economic engine.
The second is what leaders are calling the "Second Bill of Rights," which will be presented to delegates at both the DNC and RNC conventions. Inspired by President Franklin Roosevelt's proposed 1944 economic bill of rights.
It has five planks or Rights:
The right to full employment and a living wage;
The right to full participation in the electoral process.
The right to a voice at work
The right to a quality education
The right to a secure, healthy future
"The voices of working families will be heard in the birthplace of American democracy, at the convention and beyond. And we're asking elected officials, leaders on both side of the aisle and people around the country to stand with us," said CWA District 2-13 Vice President Ed Mooney. "We're determined to create economic growth and prosperity for all — not just the elite few."
Activities in Philadelphia kick off on Friday night, Aug. 10, at Independence Hall where National Labor leaders will be signing the Second Bill of Rights.
On Saturday morning, thousands of CWA and IBEW activists and allies will Rally in front of Verizon at 9th and Race Streets in support of the 45,000 Verizon workers who continue to fight for a fair contract.
Activists will then march to Eakins Oval, a large park in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where they'll join the crowd rallying for working families.
CWA locals are reaching out to allies to build even more support at the rally, said CWA Local 13000 Vice President Mike Davis.
In a letter to national and international union presidents, AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka asked for help mobilizing and spreading the word about Aug. 11, an "opportunity to connect the faces of ordinary Americans to the basic issues affecting working people in our country."
"Are you with us?" asked Trumka at a media conference at the National Press Club, inviting elected officials on both sides of the aisle to join. "Are you with the American people?"
For more information visit www.workersstandforamerica
Union leaders today launched a national campaign refocus America's agenda on rebuilding economic opportunity for all.
The campaign, "Workers Stand for America," kicks off with two major events. The first is a rally on Aug. 11 in Philadelphia that will bring together tens of thousands of workers to focus attention on jobs and the needs of working men and women -- the country's economic engine.
The second is what leaders are calling the "Second Bill of Rights," which will be presented to delegates at both the DNC and RNC conventions. Inspired by President Franklin Roosevelt's proposed 1944 economic bill of rights.
It has five planks or Rights:
The right to full employment and a living wage;
The right to full participation in the electoral process.
The right to a voice at work
The right to a quality education
The right to a secure, healthy future
"The voices of working families will be heard in the birthplace of American democracy, at the convention and beyond. And we're asking elected officials, leaders on both side of the aisle and people around the country to stand with us," said CWA District 2-13 Vice President Ed Mooney. "We're determined to create economic growth and prosperity for all — not just the elite few."
Activities in Philadelphia kick off on Friday night, Aug. 10, at Independence Hall where National Labor leaders will be signing the Second Bill of Rights.
On Saturday morning, thousands of CWA and IBEW activists and allies will Rally in front of Verizon at 9th and Race Streets in support of the 45,000 Verizon workers who continue to fight for a fair contract.
Activists will then march to Eakins Oval, a large park in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where they'll join the crowd rallying for working families.
CWA locals are reaching out to allies to build even more support at the rally, said CWA Local 13000 Vice President Mike Davis.
In a letter to national and international union presidents, AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka asked for help mobilizing and spreading the word about Aug. 11, an "opportunity to connect the faces of ordinary Americans to the basic issues affecting working people in our country."
"Are you with us?" asked Trumka at a media conference at the National Press Club, inviting elected officials on both sides of the aisle to join. "Are you with the American people?"
For more information visit www.workersstandforamerica
Stop Anti-Union Prop 32
NO on Union Busting California Prop. 32
Stop Proposition 32 - Special Exemptions Act -
the GOP's attempt to silence California's workers
Proposition 32 was put on the California ballot by Orange County right-wing activists, anti-union billionaires like the Koch Brothers and corporate SuperPACs. Proposition 32 would silence the voices of working people in California on all state and local issues.
At its core, Proposition 32, the Special Exemptions Act, is about worker payroll deduction versus corporate profits.
Most unions get dues through payroll deduction. A portion of those funds are then dedicated to politics. Proposition 32 says that if money comes into the union via payroll deduction, it cannot be used for any political purposes – no direct contributions, no independent expenditures, no political parties, no ballot measures and no communications by the unions with their own members.
So, if Proposition 32 passes, our labor movement will not have any money to repeal it. We will have no money to fight "Right-to-Work" initiatives. We will be unable to stop attempts to eliminate workers' rights and protections.
If Proposition 32 passes, it will virtually eliminate all political activity by labor in California
.
We can't let this happen. Start educating your coworkers, family and friends now.
Please watch the video and share it widely!
To stay informed, go to the website STOP the Special Exemptions Act.
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Thursday, July 5, 2012
Phone Workers Protest TPP Trade Deal
CWA Activists Challenge Secret TPP Trade Deal
CWA Union activists from Local 9509
Protest top secret TPP Trade deal in San Diego.
CWA activists were part of a big crowd that stood up to Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiators this week, demanding more transparency and openness in what could be the biggest free trade agreement in the world.
Rallying in San Diego, site of the 13th round of negotiations, CWAers joined nearly 200 others activists from the AFL-CIO and other unions, Citizens Trade Campaign, Sierra Club and other organizations.
CWA is working with allies to highlight the dangers of TPP — what some have dubbed "NAFTA on steroids" — including the possible end to "Buy American" policies, offshoring of millions of good-paying jobs and rolling back of important Wall Street regulations. In addition, the deal would jeopardize the sovereignty of the 11 nations by giving more power to large corporations like Walmart, Monsanto, Goldman Sachs and Halliburton.
"This not only contributes to the nation's severe unemployment problems, but it pushes down wages and benefits for the jobs we have left," said Lorena Gonzalez, chief executive officer of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, at the rally outside the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel. "That means a smaller tax base to support our schools, our infrastructure, and other critical services."
"Let us say, 'open these negotiations to the people,'" Rep. Bob Filner, a San Diego Democrat, told the crowd. "Let's stop this so-called free trade."
The talks include Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam; Mexico, Canada and Japan have expressed interest in joining.
But, despite growing support for public access to the documents and discussions, the United States Trade Representative continues to deny key stakeholders a seat at the table.
On Saturday, the Coalition plans to make some noise throughout downtown San Diego in the Occupy-led "Pots & Pans" protest.
Read more at http://stoptpp.org/.
CWA Union activists from Local 9509
Protest top secret TPP Trade deal in San Diego.
CWA activists were part of a big crowd that stood up to Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiators this week, demanding more transparency and openness in what could be the biggest free trade agreement in the world.
Rallying in San Diego, site of the 13th round of negotiations, CWAers joined nearly 200 others activists from the AFL-CIO and other unions, Citizens Trade Campaign, Sierra Club and other organizations.
CWA is working with allies to highlight the dangers of TPP — what some have dubbed "NAFTA on steroids" — including the possible end to "Buy American" policies, offshoring of millions of good-paying jobs and rolling back of important Wall Street regulations. In addition, the deal would jeopardize the sovereignty of the 11 nations by giving more power to large corporations like Walmart, Monsanto, Goldman Sachs and Halliburton.
"This not only contributes to the nation's severe unemployment problems, but it pushes down wages and benefits for the jobs we have left," said Lorena Gonzalez, chief executive officer of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, at the rally outside the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel. "That means a smaller tax base to support our schools, our infrastructure, and other critical services."
"Let us say, 'open these negotiations to the people,'" Rep. Bob Filner, a San Diego Democrat, told the crowd. "Let's stop this so-called free trade."
The talks include Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam; Mexico, Canada and Japan have expressed interest in joining.
But, despite growing support for public access to the documents and discussions, the United States Trade Representative continues to deny key stakeholders a seat at the table.
On Saturday, the Coalition plans to make some noise throughout downtown San Diego in the Occupy-led "Pots & Pans" protest.
Read more at http://stoptpp.org/.
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