I am going to the Organizing 2.0 Conference that will deal with online organizing, mobilizing and education in one respect or another. If you can’t make the conference, what would you want to find out? What questions might you have for other organizers? What information would you want to share?

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(L-R) IAM’s Don Greshman, CSC workers Thomas O’Bryant, Scot Long, Richard Gomez and Chris Yeaton and IAM’s Bud Michel.

Illinois state employees and nurses, government-contracted tech workers, airport workers and helicopter pilots all have won a voice at work with AFL-CIO unions recently.

In Illinois, more than 500 Illinois state public service administrators won their fight for representation with AFSCME Council 31 after waiting more than a year and a half for their ballots to be counted. As Henry Bayer, Council 31 executive director, says: “In tough times, a strong union is essential.”

With AFSCME, all public service workers have the job security and decent wages and benefits only a strong union can provide.

The workers perform audits and other functions for many state agencies, primarily the Department of Revenue and the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.

In a separate election last month, 180 working nurse supervisors also joined Council 31. They work in mental health and developmental centers operated by the Department of Human Services and in other state agencies.

Meanwhile, 275 workers employed by Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) of Indian Springs, Nev., voted to join the Machinists (IAM). The CSC employees, who work at Nellis Air Force Base, a major training location for U.S. and foreign military air crews, now can bargain for raises under the Service Contract Act. The Service Contract Act covers employees working for employers holding contracts with the federal government.

In Ontario, Canada, 200 employees of Toronto Ground Airport Services voted to join IAM Local 2323, following a hard-fought organizing win. District 140 organizer Ian Morland says:

This is a very rewarding victory over an aggressive and anti-union employer. This campaign has been under way since May and it involved terminations and worker intimidation by the employer. We took the matter to the Federal Labour Board, who awarded us a vote and reinstatement for the terminated workers and severance for those who did not wish to return to work for this employer.

The new members include dispatchers and wheelchair assistants for physically challenged patrons who use the airport and its services.

Also in Canada, the 275-member Global Helicopter Pilots Association (GHPA) has affiliated with the Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU). The group will be known as GHPA, OPEIU Local 103. 

After the Canadian pilots formed a union in 2006, they were forced to fight a series of legal challenges mounted by their employer, CHC, Helicopter Corp. GHPA voted to affiliate with OPEIU in March 2007, and affiliation was granted upon the recent issuance of a decision by the Canadian Industrial Relations Board. Kevin Kistler, OPEIU director of Organization and Field Services, says “this was a long time coming,”

but we’re glad we now represent the more than 275 GHPA pilots. Contract negotiations have begun, and we look forward to achieving an agreement that provides improved compensation, benefits, and working conditions.

President Barack Obama this week is convening a jobs summit to address the urgent need to create jobs for the more than 26 million unemployed or underemployed workers looking for work in an economy in which there are more than six workers for every one job.

An economy in which one in three Americans have either lost his or her job or live in a household with someone who has.

The summit, set for Thursday, Dec. 3, will include more than 100 experts and leaders from business, labor, government and community organizations, including AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman.

At the summit, Trumka will discuss the five-point plan proposed by the AFL-CIO and our allies to create jobs and boost the economy, which involves:

1. Extending the lifeline for jobless workers through unemployment insurance, food aid and health care assistance.
2. Rebuilding America’s schools, roads and energy systems.
3. Increasing aid to state and local governments to maintain vital services and prevent layoffs.
4. Fund jobs in our communities, focusing on distressed areas.
5. Put the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds to work for Main Street by increasing lending from community banks to small and medium-sized businesses.

We’ll be reporting on the White House jobs summit all this week, including follow-up coverage after the event closes at 5 p.m. EST. It’s imperative to create good jobs now and put our country to work.

Don McIntosh, associate editor of the Northwest Labor Press, writes about the 10th anniversary of the massive march against the World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) meeting in Seattle and the continuing struggle to rebalance a global economy that now benefits only the wealthy. The article is excerpted from the Northwest Labor Press. To read the entire article, click here.

Ten years ago on Nov. 30, 50,000 people protested a meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle. The protests succeeded in delaying the summit’s opening day and contributed to the collapse of plans for a new round of trade negotiations. It was one of those rare moments in history when ordinary people rise up and can no longer be ignored. 

Before the Seattle protests, few people had ever heard of the WTO, a secretive organization that promotes and enforces multinational trade agreements. But the public was increasingly aware that growth in worldwide trade was not benefiting workers or the environment.

WTO didn’t create the offshoring of U.S. manufacturing jobs. But the WTO served to “grease the skids,” by lowering tariff and “non-tariff” barriers to trade.

Not all interests are equal at the WTO, says Thea Lee, deputy chief of staff to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:

The bias is toward the interests of multinational corporations. The labor  movement’s view is that to the extent that we will continue to be in a global economy, we need to make sure the rules of that global economy are taking care of working people and the environment, not just corporate profits.

For months leading up to the meeting, [labor leaders and environmental and community activists] made extraordinary efforts to educate people about the WTO, and reached out to other groups to coordinate a week of protests.

The union movement focused on a rally and march on Tuesday, Nov. 30, 1999—Day One of the meeting. Seven staff organizers assigned by the national AFL-CIO worked for two months to prepare. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) resolved to shut down Washington ports for the day so members could take part. Other unions paid lost wages so members could get off work to attend. The Machinists committed to turn out 900 members to serve as parade marshals. United Steelworkers scheduled an annual conference to take place in Seattle just prior to the WTO meeting, reserving 500 hotel rooms.

The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions [now the International Trade Union Confederation] scheduled its annual meeting in Seattle as well, drawing unionists from more than 100 countries. Each local labor council in Washington organized between three and 10 busloads, and labor councils in Colorado, Montana and British Columbia organized bus and car caravans. The Oregon AFL-CIO chartered and filled a 350-seat Amtrak train, while other Oregon labor organizations accounted for 15 more buses.

On Nov. 30, some 20,000 people, mostly labor unionists, attended a union rally in Memorial Stadium, and then were joined by another 15,000 in “feeder marches” in a permitted march to downtown. But as marchers neared the convention center, they found the streets full of people. The procession ground to a crawl and split into at least three streams, some mingling with the protesters blocking intersections.

Steve Hughes, today a union rep at Oregon AFSCME Council 75, was then part of a group of The Evergreen State College students occupying an intersection near the convention center. He says:

The WTO was one of those moments where there was a crack in the facade and we got a taste of our power. It was a vision of how different groups could work together and how our causes are interrelated.

On Day Four of the summit, the WTO talks collapsed when delegates from less-developed countries walked out. The uprising punctured the perception of inevitability or omnipotence that free-traders had enjoyed.

After Seattle, free-traders adopted the rhetoric of protesters, saying it was important that labor and environmental concerns be considered. But labor and green groups were not fooled and continue to oppose new international trade agreements.

AFT and the children’s advocacy group Save the Children have partnered in a Valentine’s Day 2010 Card Contest as part of Save the Children’s campaign to end child poverty in the nation. You can help pick the winning cards.

The five winning designs—one each from kindergarten through grade 2; grades 3-5; 6-8; 9-10; and 11-12—will be printed on cards and used to create a Valentine’s Day card set. Those who donate to benefit Save the Children’s programs will receive the gift card set free. Each winning artist will receive a $500 U.S. savings bond.  

Using specially developed materials and lessons from AFT, teachers in classrooms across the country have helped young people express their artistry and creativity to illustrate the contest theme: “Uniting a Generation.” Using the traditional Valentine heart images, the students are encouraged to explore its symbolism as standing for values such as unity, loyalty, compassion, honesty and responsibility.

AFT says for “all children to be successful and productive citizens,”

key values must be taught, encouraged and nurtured throughout a child’s school career. These values are especially important for high-poverty students who are at a higher risk of dropping out of school.

Each participating school was allowed to submit one entry in each grade category. Five entries from each category will be selected and posted online at www.savethechildren.org/cardcontest beginning Dec. 14. Voters have until Dec. 22 to cast their ballots for the wining design.

If you have plans to travel this holiday season, check out the UNITEHERE! Union Hotel Guide before you book a room. The user-friendly online directory helps you identify union-staffed hotels across the country.

Just plug in city and state, and the site will display a list of hotels in the area that employ UNITEHERE! members and are doing right by their workers. You also can add the name of a hotel chain as part of the search. Click here for the Union Hotel Guide. 

A link on the site also enables you to quickly see which hotels are on the union’s boycott list and where workers are on strike.

UNITEHERE! is working across the country to bring a better life to hotel workers who often are underpaid and who work long, hard hours to make our stay comfortable and safe. For example, the union is urging customers to boycott three hotels in the San Francisco area, including the Westin St. Francis, where 650 workers ended a two-day strike on Nov. 21. The Palace and the Grand Hyatt, the sites of previous strikes also are on the boycott list.

Members of UNITEHERE! Local 2 voted by a 92 percent to 8 percent margin to authorize strikes at any of the 31 upscale hotels in San Francisco. Despite earning record profits over the past five years, the hotels are using the recession as an excuse to demand changes in eligibility for the employees’ health care plan that would eliminate coverage or put it out of reach for many workers.

This morning I got an email from Kim Bobo, Executive Director of Interfaith Worker Justice. I thought the email was so important that I should share with everyone on UnionReview.com.

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Support America’s workers and fill your holiday gift list all at the same time with one-stop shopping at the AFL-CIO’s The Union Shop Online.^TM Start by checking out the great selection of holiday cards. For gift ideas, here are staff picks from the AFL-CIO online team.

Seth Michaels: There are a few great songwriters and musicians who have written about America’s workers and the everyday struggles they’ve gone through, but few have the long career, storytelling talent and appeal of Bruce Springsteen. Pick up “The Essential Bruce Springsteen” at The Union Shop Online^TM for only $24.98, and you’ll find inspiration, heartbreak, joy and songs that don’t get old.

And if you’re up for supporting grassroots activism for social justice, why not do it in style? Get a Working America T-shirt!

Danielle Hatchett: Winters in the Washington, D.C., area aren’t quite as harsh as they can be in my home state of New Jersey. But as we saw on Inauguration Day 2009, for example, Old Man Winter can certainly make his presence known. I always have loved the feeling of fleece against my skin and the brand-new V-neck pullovers at $35 from The Union Shop Online^TM will certainly keep me nice and toasty this fall and winter. On those particularly frigid days, I can layer it with a union-made hoodie, which happens to come in red, my favorite color—and proudly show my union pride.

Tula Connell: As our recent AFL-CIO “Young Workers: A Lost Decade” report made clear, the nation’s disastrous economy is putting at risk the livelihood of an entire generation of working people. Author Tamra Draut reported on this as far back as 2005, making Strapped: Why America’s 20- and 30-Somethings Can’t Get Ahead, more timely than ever. Reissued in paperback at $13.95, it’s a low-cost educational tool for those who wonder why their adult kids have moved back in with them—and a call to action for everyone who worries about our nation’s future.

As a stocking stuffer, your favorite unionists will enjoy this great new bumper sticker, “Green. Union. Vote. We’re green. We support unions. We vote” from The Union Shop Online.^TM At  $1.50 each, you can stuff a lot of stockings.

Mike Hall: If you ever saw my CD and vinyl collection—somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000 from Francis Albert to Frank Zappa and most stops in between—you wouldn’t be shocked that I’m heading straight to The Union Shop Online’s^TM music section. At The Union Shop Online,^TM you’ll find well-known progressive, worker-friendly artists such as Billy Bragg, Steve Earle, Dave Alvin and Pete Seeger, as well collections of traditional union songs, working class classics and civil rights anthems.

With my ties to West Virginia and coal mining, I’d be remiss if I didn’t steer you to Tom Breiding’s “Unbroken Circle: Songs of the West Virginia Coalfields.” The Wheeling, W.Va., native uses the experiences of his own family and other true coalfield stories for songs about labor struggles including “Union Miner,” “My Father’s Clothes” and “The Bull Moose Special” and memorials to mining disasters, such as “The Longest Darkest Day.” Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Tim O’Brien calls Unbroken Circle “Pure Americana.”

Like the best historical fiction, these true stories in song provide easy access to a culture whose trials and tribulations are too often ignored.

Donna Jablonski: In my office I have a framed version of the Working Families Unite for Civil Rights and Justice poster. It’s what I see every time I look up from my desk. The art is from a quilt by Adrienne Yorinks, a fantastic fabric artist, and it incorporates photos that celebrate the diversity of the union movement. The poster, only $15, is bordered by images of hands in all the shades of the earth’s people. Love it.

James Parks: My favorite item in The Union Shop Online^TM is the Who Made Your Shoes? poster. The $16.95 poster clearly illustrates the reality that many of the things we take for granted in our consumer economy are made by people who don’t make enough to buy the things they make. And it reminds me of what the union movement is about: helping everyone live a better life.

These ILWU members volunteered their time and labor to load 15 containers of supplies for tsunami victims.

Members of the Air Line Pilots (ALPA) and International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) didn’t wait until Thanksgiving or some other holiday to show their generosity. Like union members across the nation who offer support and aid to their communities all year round, pilots at Hawaiian Airlines—ALPA members—contributed $15,000 to the Red Cross for recent tsunami and typhoon victims in American Samoa, Indonesia and the Philippines. And last month in Los Angeles, ILWU members donated their time and labor to load 15 containers of supplies for the tsunami victims. Click here to read more.

Overall, the Red Cross-sponsored Kokua for the Pacific fundraiser in Honolulu raised $155,000. (Kokua is a Hawaiian word that means offering generous help.) Says Capt. Eric Sampson, chairman of ALPA’s Hawaiian pilot group:

Our pilots and many of our fellow employees have friends and family who live and work in these areas. We feel a definite connection with them. ALPA members were among the first Hawaiian Airlines employees to come forward and donate their time as volunteers when the tsunami hit Samoa and Typhoon Ketsana devastated Manila. Now we want to extend our support for those affected families by making a financial contribution.

The Kokua drew several thousand people and featured some of the island’s most prominent entertainers. Donations still can be made at www.kokuaforthepacific.com.

The Kokua donation is just the latest community helped by the ALPA members. Earlier this year, the Hawaiian pilots donated nearly two tons of food to the Hawaii Food Bank and recruited a team of pilot volunteers to help build a house in Waimanalo for Habitat for Humanity.

Today, ALPA pilots will be serving Thanksgiving dinner to the homeless at the River of Life Mission in Honolulu and also will pitch in with the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve’s “Toys for Tots” campaign this Christmas. Says Sampson:

One of our union’s slogans is “We are ALPA.” We are Pacific islanders, too, and we are united in the common purpose of helping others, not just by flying people from island to island and to and from the Mainland, but by reaching out with a helping hand when they need one.

Union members continue to rally for real health care reform.

Here’s the latest news from the fight for real health care reform: 

• In the Baltimore Sun, Tom Schaller looks at how the nation’s broken health care system is undermining our economy. The cost of doing nothing to reform health care would be trillions of dollars, he says.

• In a great new piece at the Huffington Post, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) explains why he’s saying “Yes” to health care reform. We’re at a defining historical moment, Bennet says, and we can’t afford to continue the status quo.

• Think Progress looks at how insurance company bureaucrats are standing between patients and their doctors.

• The National Farmers Union has come out in support of health care reform, saying rural families need lower costs, more choices and better access to care. Senators from heavily rural states like Arkansas, Maine and Nebraska should pay attention.

• According to a new poll, 71 percent of the public agrees that reform needs to include an investment in preventive care.

• In new TV ads, Health Care for America Now (HCAN) thanks senators who voted to open debate on health care and criticizes those who tried to block debate.

• Steve Benen takes a look at the all-too-widespread tragedy of medical bankruptcy. 

Contact your senators to demand real reform that expands coverage, cuts costs, holds employers accountable, doesn’t tax our health benefits and offers a public health insurance option.