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Michelle H. Davis: Texas GOP Insults Teachers, Unions, and Fellow Citizens

By dianeravitch
February 22, 2025 //
7

Michelle H. Davis follows the sinister machinations of the Texas Legislature, which always pretends to be helping ordinary folks when they are actually hurting them.

She writes on her blog “Lone Star Left”:

Yesterday, the Texas Legislature took another step toward reshaping public education, not necessarily for the better. SB26, a sweeping education bill championed by Conservative lawmakers, passed with promises of boosting teacher pay and improving student outcomes. But beneath the surface, the bill reads more like a Trojan horse for privatization, union busting, and a long-term erosion of public education as we know it.

SB26 shifts teacher compensation from across-the-board salary increases and implements a performance-based pay system. On paper, rewarding high-performing teachers sounds excellent. In reality, this model has been used to justify pay disparities, foster favoritism, and force teachers into a test-score rat race rather than focusing on student development.

Merit and meritocracy are words we hear Conservatives use all too much. They frame these ideas as the backbone of fairness, insisting that success comes purely from hard work and ability. But in practice, “meritocracy” is often just a smokescreen for maintaining existing racial hierarchies. It ignores the systemic barriers that keep marginalized communities from accessing the same opportunities as their wealthier, white counterparts. In education, employment, and economic mobility, so-called “merit-based” systems reward those who already have advantages through generational wealth, access to elite schools, or the benefit of implicit biases in hiring and promotions. 

When conservatives push for “merit” in policies like education funding or hiring practices, they advocate for policies that protect privilege rather than create equity. In reality, meritocracy doesn’t level the playing field. It rigs the game in favor of those already winning. 

Brandon Creighton (R-SB04) used the words “merit” and “meritocracy” yesterday to describe SB26, which was a major red flag 🚩. This bill prohibits school districts from implementing general salary increases for instructional staff, except for inflation adjustments. Instead, funding is funneled into selective incentives that only some teachers will qualify for.

SB26’s move to contract a third party to provide legal assistance and liability insurance for teachers is particularly insidious. 

This might sound like a win, but here’s the catch: this state-controlled insurance provider would replace a key service teachers’ unions offer, weakening their role in advocating for educators’ rights. It’s union-busting in disguise. 

The bill also explicitly bans these contracted entities from engaging in political advocacy. Thus, teachers seeking to oppose harmful education policies will have one less resource. This is a classic conservative strategy: chip away at organized labor under the pretense of “helping” workers.

SB 26 isn’t about helping teachers. It’s about undermining unions, expanding state control over local schools, and pushing a corporate-style pay system that benefits wealthier districts while punishing the most vulnerable. Instead of investing in systemic reforms like universal Pre-K and across-the-board salary increases, the Texas Republicans have chosen to deepen inequities and destabilize an already struggling profession.

If the GOP were serious about education, they’d invest in all teachers, not just a select few. So, when Republicans announce that they’re pushing bills to raise teacher pay, just know that it’s total bullshit.

On top of this bill, which the Senate will claim is “teacher pay raises,” during yesterday’s hearing, Senator Bettencourt (R-SD07) continued his Trump impressions throughout. Weirdly, he does this in every hearing now. 

Please read my book Reign of Error, in which I review the research showing the consistent failure of merit pay.

Categories Corruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Fraud, Lies, Teacher Pay, Texas, Unions

Oklahoma’s State Schools Chief Blames Teachers for Terrorism

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2025 //
14

Having followed the wacky behavior of Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters since he was elected, I knew he was not the sharpest tack in the box. But I didn’t realize he was downright stupid.

While reading Ron Filipowski’s blog, I came across this crazy statement:

… OK Schools Chief Ryan Walters says the people most responsible for these acts of domestic terrorism are … public school teachers. Of course. “You have schools teaching kids to hate their country, saying this country is evil. You have teachers unions pushing this on our kids. We cannot allow our schools to become terrorist training camps.”

This is an insult to every teacher. And it reveals Ryan Walters’ ignorance and malice.

Categories Extremism, Oklahoma, Stupid, Teachers, Unions

Great News for NYC Retirees!

By dianeravitch
December 17, 2024 //
8

For years, the City of New York has tried to force its public service retirees to give up their Medicare and move to a private Medicare Advantage plan. Many retirees understood that MA means privatization. Any serious medical needs required prior approval by the insurance company; it also meant that the insurance company could decline to pay. Retirees were furious, but it seemed hopeless, especially when a few powerful unions, including the United Federation of teachers, supported the city’s plan.

Marianne Pizzitola, who retired as an Emergency Medical Technician for the Fire Department, organized resistance to the plan. She found other retirees who were opposed to giving up Medicare and educated others about the downside of making the change. Marianne created an organization called the NYC Organization of Retired Public Service Workers.

The organization lobbied elected officials, litigated, and kept up the pressure.

Today, they won! They stood up the government of the City of New York, against overwhelming odds. And they won!

Brad Lander, the Comptroller of the City of New York sent out this letter this evening:

Dear New Yorkers,

Massive news for New York City retirees: Today the New York Court of Appeals rejected shifting retirees to a Medicare Advantage plan.

Today’s ruling is the final win for the 250,000 some retirees fighting to keep the health care they worked for and were promised! Seniors will continue to have access to all providers who accept Medicare, a victory for our public sector retirees.

The City’s Medicare Advantage plan would have constrained our retirees to a smaller network with more restrictive requirements on care. Many public servants entered the municipal workforce with the promise of middle-class wages, pensions, and a retirement plan. The shift to anything less than that full promise was a hard pill to swallow.

When the Medicare Advantage contract was submitted to my office last year, we declined to register it, knowing that litigation raised doubts about the City’s authority to enter into the contract. As a matter of public policy, beyond the scope of our office’s specific Charter responsibility for contract registration, I was seriously concerned about the privatization of Medicare plans, overbilling by insurance companies, and barriers to care under Medicare Advantage.

It is vital that all our seniors—and all New Yorkers—get quality health coverage as a basic human right. At the same time, given the growing costs of health care for both retirees and active employees, we cannot ignore that there are real cost questions facing the City when it comes to health care.

Thanks,

Brad 

Categories Health, New York City, Resistance, Unions

Wisconsin: Court Overturns Scott Walker’s Anti-Union Law

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2024 //
8

Good news in Wisconsin! A local court overturned a notorious piece of anti-union legislation that was passed in 2011, at the instance of then-Governor Scott Walker. At the time, union protestors encircled the Statehouse to protest. Walker was unmoved. He celebrated the defeat of the state’s unions (excluding police and firefighters).

The Guardian writes:

As the labor movement braces for a second Trump term, union members and their leaders are celebrating a major victory over a controversial law that stripped public sector unions of collective bargaining rights.

In response to a lawsuit alleging that a notorious law passed by the former Republican governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker in 2011 is unconstitutional, a county judge ruled on Monday that more than 60 sections of the law and several sections of a follow-up law in 2015, Act 55, are unconstitutional.

Walker called the decision “brazen political activism at its worst” and Republicans plan an appeal.

Thousands protested the introduction of the law, which crippled unions’ funding and powers. Following the passage of Act 10, several Republican-dominated states pushed to pass similar legislation, including Florida which passed a similar law in May 2023 targeting public sector unions, and Iowa, which passed legislation that took away collective bargaining rights from many state employees in 2017.

Act 10 stripped collective bargaining rights from thousands of state employees in Wisconsin, limiting their ability to bargain solely on wage increases that cannot exceed inflation. It also forced public sector labor unions to annually vote, with a majority of members participating and voting, to maintain certification.

“We were kind of just demonized, not just teachers, but public sector workers in general,” said John Havlicek, a high school Spanish teacher in La Crosse, Wisconsin and former president of the La Crosse Education Association which represents teachers in the school district. “Teachers don’t go into it for the money but I also have groceries to buy and bills to pay and stuff like that. A lot of public sector workers, in my experience teachers, really felt like we were being scapegoated. It was really bad.”

The act has had a significant impact on union membership, pay and benefits. In 2010 Wisconsin had a union density rate of 15.1%. That number dropped to 8.4% in 2023.

The law also forced public sector workers to pay more for healthcare and retirement benefits, resulting in around an 8.5% decrease in their pay for workers making $50,000 a year.

An April 2024 report by the Wisconsin department of public instruction found teacher pay had declined from 2010 to 2022 by nearly 20% and about four out of every 10 first year teachers either leave the state or the profession after six years.

Public school funding also drastically declined in Wisconsin after Act 10 was enacted. Per pupil spending in Wisconsin out paced the national average by around $1,100 per student in 2011 and was $327 per pupil lower than the national average in 2021.

The verdict could be overturned on appeal. Stay tuned.

Categories Unions, Walker, Scott, Wisconsin

Wisconsin: Dane County Judge Overturns Notorious Act 10!

By dianeravitch
December 2, 2024 //
5

Thirteen years ago, Republican Governor Scott Walker and the legislature of Wisconsin enacted Act 10, which banned collective bargaining for public employees, except for public safety employees. Teachers, social workers, and other public employees were outraged. They encircled the State Capitol for days. Walker became a star, and his sponsors, the Koch brothers, were happy.

But today, Act 10 was declared unconstitutional. Time will tell whether the decision is upheld.

A Dane County judge on Monday sent ripples through Wisconsin’s political landscape, overturning a 13-year-old law that banned most collective bargaining among public employees, consequently decimating the size and power of employee unions and turning then-Republican Gov. Scott Walker into a nationally known political figure.

But there’s been a revival of hope in Wisconsin:

The effort to overturn Act 10 began in November 2023 when several unions representing public employees filed the lawsuit, citing a “dire situation” in workplaces with issues including low pay, staffing shortages and poor working conditions. 

In July,  Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost ruled provisions of Act 10 unconstitutional and denied a motion filed by the Republican-controlled Legislature to dismiss the case.

The lawsuit argued the 2011 law violated equal protection guarantees in the Wisconsin Constitution by dividing public employees into two classes: “general” and “public safety” employees. Public safety employees are exempt from the collective bargaining limitations imposed on “general” public employees.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Koch Brothers, Unions, Vouchers, Walker, Scott, Wisconsin

NEA on Trump Appointee as Secretary of Labor

By dianeravitch
November 23, 2024 //
15

Is it an accident? Trump made a good choice for Secretary of Labor. The NEA said good things about her. Let’s hope he doesn’t notice.

The NEA issued this press release:

National Education Association President Becky Pringle released the following statement reacting to the selection of Lori Chavez-DeRemer as Labor Secretary:

“Across America, most of us want the same things – strong public schools to help every student grow into their full brilliance and good jobs where workers earn living wages to provide for their families. 

“During her time in Congress, Lori Chavez-DeRemer voted against gutting the Department of Education, against school vouchers, and against cuts to education funding. She cosponsored the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, the PRO Act, and other pro-student, pro-public school, pro-worker legislation.  

“This record stands in stark contrast to Donald Trump’s anti-worker, anti-union record, and his extreme Project 2025 agenda that would gut workplace protections, make it harder for workers to unionize, and diminish the voice of working people.  

“During his first term, Trump appointed anti-worker, anti-union National Labor Relations Board members. Now he is threatening to take the unprecedented action of removing current pro-worker NLRB members in the middle of their term, replacing them with his corporate friends. And he is promising to appoint judges and justices who are hostile to workers and unions.  

“Educators and working families across the nation will be watching Lori Chavez-DeRemer as she moves through the confirmation process and hope to hear a pledge from her to continue to stand up for workers and students as her record suggests, not blind loyalty to the Project 2025 agenda.” 

-###-

The National Education Association is the nation’s largest professional employee organization, representing more than 3 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, education support professionals, school administrators, retired educators, students preparing to become teachers, healthcare workers, and public employees. Learn more at www.nea.org

 

Categories Alternate Route To Certification, Economy, Ethics, Supporting public schools, Unions

Media Matters: A Definitive Guide to Project 2025

By dianeravitch
October 10, 2024 //
7

Media Matters has done a thorough review of the contents of Project 2025, which was written as a playbook for the next Trump administration. It was released and posted on the web in 2023, without fanfare. As more people read it and expressed their indignation, Trump claimed he knew nothing about it. Ever heard of it. Didn’t know who wrote it.

But the authors of the plan included 140 people who had worked in the Trump administration. The plan was developed by the rightwing Heriage Foundation, whose president is Kevin Roberts, a friend of Trump’s.

He knew.

It’s the roadmap for the second Trump term in office.

For education, the main feature of Project 2025 is its strong support for school choice, especially vouchers. It is a formula for directing federal funds to public funding of private and religious schools, as well as home schooling. It’s the Betsy DeVos model. Its purpose is to end public schools.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Civil Rights, Democracy, Economy, Education Industry, Elections, Environment, Extremism, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Freedom to Read, Funding, Trump, Unions

Harold Meyerson: What Happened to the Teamsters?

By dianeravitch
September 21, 2024 //
42

Both Trump and Harris sought the endorsement of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Its board decided, no endorsement. This surprised many people, because the Biden administration was the most pro-union presidency in decades, and the Trump administration was loudly anti-union.

The Teamsters were set to endorse Biden, but withheld their endorsement from Kamala Harris. Why? Was it racism? One of the readers of the blog pointed to a story in The Guardian about Teamster leader Sean O’Brien paying $2.9 million for racial discrimination.

Teamsters in battleground states are endorsing Harris, ignoring the lead of their national union. The Washington Post reported Kamala endorsements by Teamsters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, Nevada, and Wisconsin. And added: “As of Thursday, at least eight regional councils, covering active Teamsters members in some 14 states, as well as 10 union locals, had endorsed Harris. The regional councils alone represent more than 500,000 Teamsters members.

No regional or local Teamsters organizations have endorsed Trump.”

Harold Meyerson of The American Prospect has a different take.

Inside the boardroom, it was no endorsement. Outside, some of the board members endorsed Harris.

Yesterday’s headline, of course, was that the Teamsters had decided to make no endorsement in this year’s presidential race. That depended, however, on which Teamsters you’re talking about, and whether or not they were still in a meeting chaired by union president Sean O’Brien.

To be sure, the international’s general board voted by a 14-to-3 margin to affirm O’Brien’s clear preference for a position that would require the union to avoid having to campaign for Kamala Harris and against Donald Trump. O’Brien had previously given Trump a boost by delivering the prime-time address on the first night of the Republican National Convention.

But almost as soon as the general board adjourned, some of those 14, including New York’s Gregory Floyd and the West Coast region’s Chris Griswold made clear that their own regional bodies were endorsing Harris. Indeed, within 24 hours of the union proclaiming its neutrality, regions and locals representing more than 500,000 of the Teamsters’ 1.3 million members (of whom a little more than 100,000 are in Canada) announced that they were backing Harris.

Before yesterday’s meeting, the Teamsters General Board had met with Harris, Trump, and Robert Kennedy Jr. Commendably, a group of eight Teamster rank-and-filers also were allowed to attend all of those meetings, and asked questions of the candidates. After the last of those meetings, which was with Harris, those eight unanimously stated that they favored her. Their judgment, apparently, didn’t filter up to the General Board members (at least when convened as the General Board, though it was clearly in accord with a number of those members once they’d left the meeting).

In fairness, none of those eight rank-and-filers nor any General Board members save O’Brien attended his one-on-one meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago earlier this year.

What could have prompted the rank-and-filers and so many regional Teamster leaders to support Harris? Herewith, a few plausible reasons.

First, of course, is the general record of the Biden-Harris administration, which has been the most pro-union in American history. Both Biden and Harris have walked picket lines with striking union workers.

Second, Harris voted in favor of the PRO Act, which neither any Republican member of Congress, nor Trump himself, supported. The act would levy actual penalties on employers who illegally violate the National Labor Relations Act by routinely firing workers seeking to organize their workplace. It would also require a mediator to impose a first contract at companies where the workers have won union recognition but the employer refuses to come to terms on a contract—a very frequent occurrence, says John Palmer, one of the three General Board members who voted to endorse Harris rather than join the room’s no-endorsement majority, and has declared that he’ll run against O’Brien in the Teamsters’ next presidential election.

Third, last year, the Biden appointees on the National Labor Relations Board reinstated the “joint employer” rule, under which the major companies that employ contractors to do their core work are liable for those contractors’ labor law violations. Trump’s appointees on the NLRB had struck that rule down in 2020. Just last month, following the reinstated ruling of the Biden NLRB, an administrative judge ruled that Amazon was responsible for inflicting a host of illegal labor practices on its delivery drivers in Palmdale, California, even though those drivers (who were required to wear Amazon uniforms and drive Amazon trucks) were nominally employed by a company that had contracted with Amazon to deliver its goods. Such contractors, called Delivery Service Partners (DSPs), employ 280,000 Amazon drivers, according to a Teamster press release that hailed the administrative judge’s ruling. The release went on to note that the ruling would encourage other such drivers to vote to join the Teamsters, as the Palmdale drivers had.

And in the several weeks since then, hundreds of drivers in the New York area have done just that. Had the Trump appointees to the NLRB still constituted the majority on the Board (i.e., had Trump been re-elected), Amazon would be immune to such pressures. As O’Brien has repeatedly stated, Amazon is the union’s primary target of organizing, which might suggest that having a majority of NLRB members appointed by Harris rather than by Trump would be a matter of considerable concern to Teamsters who wanted their union and workers in their industry to thrive.

Perhaps surprisingly, one group that has not been heard from since the no-endorsement decision is Teamsters for a Democratic Union, a generally progressive group that has been around for nearly half a century. TDU first arose in opposition to the union’s then-mobbed-up leaders and has been a voice for a more democratic union since then. Well over a year before O’Brien ran and won an insurgent campaign for the Teamster presidency in 2022, he secured TDU’s endorsement, even though he had frequently attacked the group in previous years.

Since he took office, however, a number of TDU former leaders, including Tom Leedham, who was TDU’s candidate for the Teamster presidency in 1998, 2001, and 2006, and Dan La Botz, who was one of TDU’s founders in 1976, have expressed concern that TDU has become an O’Brien cheering section in return for having been given staff and secondary leadership positions. As Leedham and La Botz wrote in CounterPunch, they are “disturbed and concerned to see TDU’s recent change over the last few years as it has subordinated itself to Sean O’Brien’s administration.”

“Beyond that,” they added, “O’Brien’s gestures of support for Donald Trump and other MAGA Republicans, suggest a turning away from the democratic, egalitarian, and inclusive values that inspired TDU.”

In fairness, the current leaders of TDU have never claimed that their primary mission requires them to be Teamsters for a (small-d) democratic America.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Categories Elections, Ethics, Harris, Kamala, Trump, Unions

Michael Hiltzik: Trump Was an Anti-Union, Anti-Worker President

By dianeravitch
September 19, 2024 //
85

Michael Hiltzik writes about business for The Los Angeles Times. In this column, he reviews Trump’s record on issues involving working people and unions. Although he is now positioning himself as a friend of workers, Hiltzik demonstrates that his record shows otherwise.

It is exceedingly odd that the Teamsters Union refused to endorse either candidate. One is a friend to organized labor; the other is hostile to unions. The difference between Trump and Harris is stark. What’s with the Teamsters? Be it noted that the Black Caucus of the Teamsters broke ranks and endorsed Harris, as did a Teamsters local in Chicago. West Coast teamsters also endorsed Harris. Other locals may follow those defections. But the crucial locals are in battleground states like Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Hiltzik wrote:

Donald Trump, in his determined effort to claim the mantle of friend of the working man and woman, unveiled a proposal the other day to make overtime pay tax-exempt. 

“People who work overtime are among the hardest-working citizens of our country, and for too long, no one in Washington has been looking out for them,” he told a rally in Tucson. 

Let’s be blunt about something here: Anyone who buys Trump’s pose about this is the mark in a con game. Trump’s claim that no one in Washington has been looking out for overtime workers was never as true as it was during the Trump administration, which slashed overtime protections for more than 8.2 million workers. 

Trump’s Department of Labor was a black hole for worker rights. The agency abandoned an Obama administration policy that would have favored more than 4.2 million workers. The Biden administration restored the Obama rule and went further. 

And that was just on overtime. As president, observed economic commentator Pedro Nicolaci da Costa in 2019, Trump pursued “the most hostile anti-labor agenda of any modern president.”

Before exploring Trump’s manipulation of overtime regulations, let’s examine his overall record on workers’ rights.

In 2019, Trump appointed as his Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia, son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The new labor secretary had made his career as a corporate lawyer fighting pro-worker policies. In 2012, the Wall Street Journal had labeled him one of the financial industry’s “go-to guys for challenging financial regulations.”

Scalia had helped Walmart overturn a Maryland law mandating minimum contributions by big employers for workers’ healthcare, defended SeaWorld against workplace safety charges after a park trainer was killed by an orca (he lost that case), and had written extensively against a federal regulation expanding ergonomic safety requirements. 

He had written that the latter rule, proposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, “would require businesses to slow the pace of production, hire more workers, increase rest periods and redesign workstations or even entire operations.”

No legitimate candidate for secretary of Labor would have regarded that policy as a bad thing, but Scalia condemned it in print as “the most costly and intrusive regulation in [OSHA’s] history.”

Scalia’s predecessor as secretary, Alexander Acosta, had gone to Congress to oppose measures to raise the federal minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since 2009 to $15 in steps. It shouldn’t need mentioning that this was an extraordinary position for a secretary of Labor to take. 

(Acosta, it may be remembered, lost his job after revelations about his role in soft-pedaling sex-trafficking charges against Jeffrey Epstein produced a political uproar.)

Trump remade the National Labor Relations Board along the same lines. In a key move, his NLRB scrapped the effort under Obama to expand the definition of “joint employer,” which would have made big franchisers such as McDonald’s jointly liable with their franchisees for violations of employees’ wage and hour rights. 

The Trump NLRB’s proposed definition would narrow the joint-employer standard “to the point at which many workers would find it nearly impossible to bring all firms with the power to influence their wages and working conditions to the bargaining table,” according to the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute.

Put it all together, and Trump had turned the Department of Labor into the “Dept. of Employer Rights,” I wrote.

Now to the overtime rules. As my colleague James Rainey reported Sunday, Trump’s proposal to make overtime pay tax-exempt was part of a passel of purported tax cuts for the working class, including tax exemptions for tips and Social Security benefits, all of which economists saw as “gimmicks” and “shams.”

In 2016, Obama had raised the ceiling making salaried workers eligible for time-and-a-half overtime — that is, working hours exceeding 40 hours per week — to $47,476 in annual wages, up from $23,660. The ceiling would be adjusted regularly to overall wage growth. Hourly workers typically get overtime after 40 hours, but salaried workers receive overtime pay if their wages are below the ceiling. 

The Obama administration’s idea was to narrow the practice of low-wage employers to designate workers as “managers” to exempt them from the OT rule while paying them an hourly wage. (That’s why fast-food restaurants are always suspiciously loaded with “general managers, assistant managers, night managers, managers for opening and closing and delivery,” as former New York prosecutor Terri Gerstein observed in 2019.)

It was estimated that the new rule would give 4.2 million workers new overtime protection.

The Obama rule was blocked by a federal judge in Texas. When Trump came into office, his Labor Department refused to defend the rule in court. Instead, the agency proposed a new rule reducing the wage ceiling to only $35,568. That was nearly $20,000 below the level that would have been reached by the Obama rule, as it was adjusted for wage inflation. The Trump rule was not indexed.

Some 8.2 million workers who would have gained OT protection under Obama were left behind by the Trump rule, Heidi Shierholz of the pro-labor Economic Policy Institute calculated. They would be deprived of a combined $1.4 billion in pay annually.

The 8.2 million workers left behind, Shierholz estimated, included “4.2 million women, 3.0 million people of color, 4.7 million workers without a college degree, and 2.7 million parents of children under the age of 18.”

The Biden administration restored the Obama rule, and then some. The new rule set the ceiling at $844 per week, or $43,888 for a full-time hourly worker, as of July 1. 

On Jan. 1, the salary ceiling will rise to $1,128 per week, or $58,656 annually. After that, it will be indexed every three years. The new rule will benefit an estimated 4.3 million workers, more than half of whom are women and about one-fifth workers of color. 

Among the largest groups of affected workers, EPI estimates, are those in healthcare and social services.

Whether Trump has sat down to map out a pro-worker policy is doubtful in the extreme — it’s not a concern he has ever displayed in the past. He appears to have blurted out the overtime policy as part of what the Irish writer Fintan O’Toole aptly describes as “the surreal bricolageof his rally speeches.”

But a clue can be found in “Project 2025,” a road map for a second Trump term drafted by the right-wing Heritage Foundation. (Trump claims to have nothing to do with this 900-page tome, but no one really believes him.)

Project 2025 would shrink overtime coverage materially. It advocates cutting the compensation subject to time-and-a-half to salary only, excluding pay for such benefits as healthcare, retirement, education, child care or paid meals. Under existing law, the only compensation that can be excluded from the calculation is pay for expenses a worker pays on the employer’s behalf, discretionary bonuses, gifts on special occasions, and vacation and sick pay.

The Project also advocates indexing the ceiling once ever five years rather than three years, which would slow its rate of growth, and index the ceiling to consumer inflation, which tends to grow slower than wage inflation, the current index. 

The Project also advocates allowing employers to calculate overtime hours over two or four weeks rather than weekly, which would allow them to require workers to put in more than 40 hours some weeks and make it up in others. That sounds like an open invitation to employer manipulation of work schedules.

Trump’s record on worker rights is clear as day. Do you really think he’ll be looking out for the men and women in the rank and file? 

Categories Elections, Extremism, Fake News, Trump, Unions

Bernie Sanders on the Importance of Labor Day

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2024 //
22

Senator Sanders of Vermont is leading a campaign to restore collective bargaining rights. [CORRECTION!]

He wrote today:

As we celebrate Labor Day, 2024, there is some very good news. 

Public approval of labor unions, at 70%, is higher today than it has been in decades. Over the last year major unions like the UAW have won some highly publicized strikes, while many other unions have negotiated trail-blazing contracts for their members. Young people at Starbucks and on college campuses are now more involved in labor organizing than ever before. And, for the first time in American history, a president of the United States, Joe Biden, walked a picket line with striking workers.

It is not an accident as to why we are now seeing more militancy and growth in the labor movement. The working people of our country are increasingly aware of the unprecedented level of corporate greed and power we are now experiencing, and the outrageous level of income and wealth inequality that exists. They understand that never before in American history have so few had so much, while so many continue to struggle. And they are fighting back. They know that workers in unions can negotiate contracts that give them better wages, working conditions and benefits than non-union workers. They appreciate that when you’re in a union you have some power against the arbitrary decisions corporate bosses. 

Working people today are more than aware that, over the last 50 years, there has been a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. They are disgusted that, despite huge increases in worker productivity, real inflation-accounted for wages for the average American worker are lower now than they were over 50 years ago as 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. They are insulted that CEOs of major corporations make almost 350 times as much as their average employee. They are concerned that the American dream is ending and that their kids may have an even lower standard of living than they do. And they worry that with the rapid growth of Artificial Intelligence and robotics, they have no power as to what will happen to their jobs as the economy undergoes major transformations.

The average American worker also understands that his/her political power has been significantly diminished as billionaires pour huge amounts of money into both political parties as they undermine our democracy. It is no great secret as to who now has the clout in Congress. It is the billionaires, the corporate CEOs, the campaign donors and their well-connected lobbyists.

Bottom line: The average American worker is sick and tired of status quo economics and politics. He/she knows that in the richest country on earth we can and should have an economy and political system that works for all, and not just the wealthy few, and that a strong union movement is the vehicle for bringing about the changes that we need.

On this Labor Day, as we reaffirm our support for the trade union movement and for labor solidarity throughout the world, as we continue to fight the day to day struggles against corporate greed, it’s important that we not lose sight of our vision for the future and what kind of country we want to become. Here, in my view, are just a few components of the agenda we need to fight for. 

We must establish a vibrant democratic political system. One person, one vote. We must end the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and the billionaire funding of campaigns through super-PACs. We need to move to the public funding of elections and give political power back to ordinary Americans. 

We need to pass the PRO Act and end the ability of companies to illegally intimidate and fire workers who want to join a union. Corporate interests spend an estimated $400 million a year on anti-union consultants who do everything possible, legal and illegal, to fight the right of workers to join unions.

We need to end starvation wages in America and raise the $7.25 an hour federal minimum wage to a living wage. People should not have to work two or three jobs just to pay the bills for their families.

We need trade policies that benefit workers in the U.S. and abroad, not just the CEOs and stockholders of major conglomerates. We need to rebuild our manufacturing sector and create good paying jobs here.

We need to join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee health care to all people as a human right through a Medicare for All, single payer system. No one should go bankrupt because of a hospital stay. Everyone in America, regardless of income, should have the right to see a doctor. 

We must finally guarantee paid family and medical leave to every worker in America. New moms and dads should be able to spend the first few months after delivery with their newborn child. Family members should be able to care for a loved-one who is sick without having to worry about missing a paycheck. 

Like health care, education and job training must be considered a human right from childcare to graduate school. At a time when, in a highly competitive global economy, we need the best-educated workforce in the world, no one should be forced to go deeply in debt to get the education and training they need to be productive members of our society. 

At a time when 50% of older workers have nothing in the bank for retirement, and 25% of seniors are trying to live on $15,000 a year or less, we must re-establish Defined Benefit Pension plans and increase Social Security benefits. Workers are entitled to a secure and dignified retirement.

And finally, we must address the unprecedented and outrageous level of income and wealth inequality that currently exists. No. It is not acceptable that three multibillionaires own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. It is not acceptable that many billionaires pay an effective tax rate that is lower than truck drivers or nurses. We need a progressive tax system that demands that the wealthiest people in our country finally start paying their fair share of taxes. 

Let’s be clear. None of these progressive concepts are “radical.” While they are opposed by the Big Money interests and marginalized by the corporate media and the political establishment, they are strongly supported by a majority of the American people. Most of these ideas, in one form or another, are already in place in other wealthy countries around the world.

So, on this Labor Day, let us redouble our efforts to grow trade unionism in America and create the kind of grassroots movement we need to take on the power of the Oligarchy. Let us, in the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, create an economy that provides a decent standard of living for all, and not just massive and obscene income and wealth inequality. 

As we enter the last two months of the election season, please contribute $54 to my campaign. I will use the donations we receive to travel the country with trade union and progressive leaders to defeat Donald Trump and to elect the most progressive Congress possible this November. We’ve already had great events in Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Maine and New York. But much more needs to be done. 

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And let us never forget: When we stand united, and not let authoritarians and bigots divide us up, there is nothing that we cannot accomplish.

Happy Labor Day! 

Bernie

Categories Economy, Unions
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