A friend from CIR sent over this piece from WABC in NY. It is about the unsafe conditions happening in a Bronx, NY hospital. I was told that CIR has joined together with nurses, security guards and other hospital employees to file an OSHA complaint about the hospital’s failure to address workplace violence.  Though I can’t get the embed of their video on the site, I ask you to go check it out by going to the link:http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/investigators&id=7410297

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As chairman of the AFL-CIO Union Veterans Council, Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) President Mark Ayers salutes America’s veterans.

Memorial Day is a time to reflect upon those fallen American heroes who have given their lives and health to keep this nation safe. Memorial Day is also the perfect time to honor those brave soldiers who are still with us, to thank them for the freedoms we enjoy every day and to do all that we can to improve their quality of life.

But, in many aspects, Memorial Day has simply morphed into the day when we kick into high gear for the summer season.

Yet, I firmly believe that the men and women who died for their nation would fully understand what we do with their day, Memorial Day. Or, at least I hope they would, because if they would have insisted that it be a somber, respectful day of remembrance, then we have blown it big time.

But you know what?  Some of those that I served with, and who paid the ultimate price, would have completely understood.

They liked a sunny beach and a cold beer and a hot barbeque filled to the edges with hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken and ribs. They would have enjoyed nothing more than packing the kids, the jet skis, the coolers and the suntan lotion in the car and heading for the lake or to the beach. Or, they would have enjoyed it just as much by staying at home and cutting the grass and getting together with some friends and cooking some steaks on the grill.

But they didn’t get the chance. They were ambushed at a mountainside outpost in Afghanistan; or killed by an IED on a road into Fallujah; or they were blown up in the Marine Barracks in Beirut; or they died in the oily waters of the Persian Gulf. 

They never made it back from Grenada, in the little war that most folks thought was a joke. They bravely fought until the end in places nobody had ever heard of before—like Khe Sanh and the Mekong Delta. Many died in Korea at Chosin, Inchon or Pusan. And tens of thousands died in the surf, on the beaches, or in the surrounding fields at Normandy; while just as many fought until the end in the fetid island jungles of the South Pacific.

They died in the ice and snow at Valley Forge, and on the hills of San Juan; as well in the fields of Gettysburg, Antietam and Shiloh.

They couldn’t be here with us this weekend, but I think they would understand that we, as Americans, don’t spend the day in tears and heart-wrenching memorials. Americans have always been about remembering the past and looking to the future. And our military heroes wouldn’t want it any other way. Because, quite frankly, it was the future they were fighting to secure.

Having a nation mired in grief is not why they died. They died so we could go fishing. They died so another father could run and jump with his children into the surf for the very first time. They died so another father could toss a baseball to his son or daughter in their backyard while the charcoal is getting hot. 

And they died so their buddies could drink a beer on their day off from work. 

They won’t mind that we have chosen their day to have our first big outdoor party of the year in their honor.  But they wouldn’t mind it in the least, either, if we just took one moment to think about, and remember, them.

Many of us, especially those of us who have experienced a painful loss of a loved one in battle, will honor our veterans in a more formal manner.  Flowers and flags will decorate gravestones at Arlington and in cemeteries all across the nation.  Wreaths will be laid in small, sparsely attended ceremonies at monuments at state capitols and in small towns. 

As a nation, we will remember. We will remember all of them. And for those of us who served and who made it back, we will remember the deal we made with our fallen comrades:  If one of us doesn’t come back, the rest will toast his or her memory.

For the rest of America, they will not necessarily mourn the deaths of our American heroes on this Memorial Day.  Rather, they will celebrate the life and freedoms that these heroes have so unselfishly given to us.  I would encourage all Americans—especially those that have not had someone close to them serve in the Armed Forces—to reach out to a Veteran on this Memorial Day and take the time to understand them.

And in so doing, I would ask that all Americans use this reflective time on Memorial Day to ensure that our collective gratitude manifests itself in concrete ways to improve the quality of life for those who have borne the struggles of battle…yet now find themselves struggling to succeed in the civilian world.  And that means ensuring that our nation’s veterans have access to job training, good jobs and quality health care.

So, as we head into what is arguably the most enjoyable weekend of the year, we hold dear to the words of R.J. Goldlewski, who wrote a profound Memorial Day article entitled, “Those Who’ve Passed Before Us Haven’t Really Left.”  And those words are:

While you are reflecting upon the price already paid, whenever you come across a person in uniform, kindly extend your hand in gratitude, for you just never know who’ll have to pick up the tab the next time that the bill comes around to our table. Enjoy your freedoms, but always – always – know that we’re here on lease, not ownership. Someone has to keep making the payments.

May God Bless the United States of America.

Chester W. “Bill” Hack had survived bloody air combat and the fiery crash of a B-17 bomber into the English Channel.

The Kentuckian was stateside teaching aerial gunnery when he volunteered to fly combat missions again.

Nazi fighters and anti-aircraft fire forced Hack’s bomber to crash into the sea on May 29, 1943. “When we ditched, I was dazed,” said Hack, an 89-year-old retired member of Ironworkers Local 782 in Paducah, Ky.

But when I smelled my hair burning, it gave me the strength to live.

World War II combat veteran and dedicated union member Bill Hack.

Hack was barely 22 on the day he came closest to losing his life in World War II. It was his third mission against the Germans in a big, olive-green, four-engine bomber the Army Air Force called a “Flying Fortress.” Hack’s plane was nicknamed “Barrel House Bessie.”

Jeff Wiggins, a United Steelworker and president of the Paducah-based Western Kentucky Area Council, AFL-CIO, says “Bill is one of my heroes.”

“He fought for our freedom in Europe in World War II, and he fought for the freedom of working people to be able to earn a good living in our country.”

In 1997, Hack received the W.C. Young Award, the highest honor the council bestows. Hack represented his local on the council for many years.

Hack worked for 53 years out of Local 782 and ultimately became the union’s business manager. He says he fought for unions in Detroit before he fought for his country in Europe. Like many Kentucky families, the Hacks of Paducah migrated to the Motor City in the 1930s, seeking employment.

Hack’s first job was in a nonunion shop.

There were very harsh rules. I was just a teenager, but I ran a machine for twelve and a half cents an hour. I couldn’t leave that machine to go to the bathroom without them writing down what time I left and when I came out. They worked me twelve hours a day, six days a week. It made me think something had to be done about such matters.

Hack moved on to work for Chrysler Motors. He eagerly joined the UAW and participated in the drive that organized the giant auto company in 1937, shortly after General Motors went union. He became a UAW member and a labor activist at age 16. “I needed a job, so I got a phony birth certificate that said I was 18,” he recalled with a grin. 

After he’d clock out at Chrysler, Hack would go to the Ford plants and help his UAW brothers and sisters struggling for recognition. Henry Ford was bitterly anti-union. He hired a private army to keep the UAW out.

I went out there and fought the police and the strikebreakers. I know what it’s like to have to fight for decent wages and working conditions.

Ford didn’t accept the UAW until 1941, the year the United States entered World War II. Drafted in 1942, Hack ended up an aerial gunner with the Chelveston, England-based 305th “Can Do” Bomb Group. The group’s target on May 29, 1943, was the heavily fortified German submarine base at St. Nazaire, France, on the Atlantic Ocean. 

When Staff Sgt. Hack flew with the 305th, U.S. heavy bomber crews—usually 10 men per plane—had to complete 25 missions before they could go home. A flier’s chance of reaching the magic number was one in three, he said.

On the St. Nazaire raid, Hack was Bessie’s right waist gunner, manning a 50-caliber machine gun about halfway along the B-17’s pudgy, round fuselage. He was filling in for a gunner killed in action. He usually flew in another bomber dubbed “Me and My Gal.”

Messerschmitt 109 and Focke-Wulf 190 fighters riddled Bessie and the other lumbering B-17s, shooting some of them down. A 20-millimeter cannon shell tore through the fuselage, missing Hack’s head by inches and slicing his oxygen line in two. When he reached down for his metal emergency bottle, another shell blew it up in his hands.

The left waist gunner plugged Hack into his emergency bottle, but his comfort was fleeting. Flak over St. Nazaire destroyed more B-17s and riddled Bessie’s number two engine, setting it ablaze. The B-17 nosed into what seemed to be a death dive—”from 28,000 feet to about 500 feet before the pilot and co-pilot were able to pull us out,” Hack said.

The dive put out the engine fire.

After the pilots righted the plane, Hack dragged the unconscious tail gunner to the radio room. He took over the twin 50-caliber machine guns, the stinger in Bessie’s tail.

Limping on three engines, Bessie was easy prey for German fighters. A pair of Messerschmitts jumped the B-17 about 100 miles from England.

Hack fired at the Nazi planes, which turned tail. He could hardly believe he chased them away—and, in fact, he didn’t.

I looked up and saw a flight of British Spitfires. Those Spitfires were the most beautiful airplanes I ever saw.

Even so, Bessie didn’t make it home. The pilots had to ditch her about 50 miles from England. While they brought the plane down, the rest of the crew braced themselves in the radio room.

Bessie hit the sea hard. The impact hurled Hack and another crewman through an aluminum door into the empty bomb bay, which burst into flames.

Hack splashed sea water on his burning face and hair, dousing the fire. Stunned, bruised and bleeding, he managed to flee Bessie before she sank. “Fire was spreading all over the water,” Hack said.

He swam through the blazing high-octane fuel to reach a life raft. It had been shot full of holes and couldn’t be fully inflated.

Hack and eight other crewmen—all of them wounded—were hanging on to the sides of the dinghy when a British seaplane arrived to rescue them. But the channel was too rough for a landing, and the flying boat turned back.

At the same time, Hack and the other fliers watched helplessly as the tail gunner’s lifeless body floated farther away. “His name was Ralph Erwin,” Hack said softly.

Meanwhile, Bessie’s crew faced another peril. “Hypothermia,” Hack said. “They told me that even in May the English Channel is usually around 48 degrees.”

Hack and his crewmates were in the water for about 90 minutes before a British rescue boat saved them. The fliers asked the captain to retrieve Erwin’s body. “…But he said we had to leave him because of the danger of enemy air attacks,” Hack said. “So we left Ralph, and he floated away into oblivion.”

Hack logged 22 more missions, including the Eighth Air Force’s famous first raid on Schweinfurt and Regensburg, Germany, one of the bloodiest air battles of the war. He returned to air combat in early 1945 and flew four more missions before the war in Europe ended.

Staff Sgt. Hack moved back to Paducah after he was discharged. His service to his country earned him a Distinguished Flying Cross, a Purple Heart, four Air Medals and two Presidential Unit Citations.

Not covered by U.S. labor laws—and until 1974, denied even minimum wage protection—domestic workers are among the most vulnerable. But in recent years, they, like other workers, have found innovative ways to organize, mobilize and spread their message.

Marina’s experience as a domestic worker is typical. She left her home and family in Colombia to find work in the United States. She was desperate for a job that could help pay for insulin and other medications her children need to take daily.

She was hired to care for a child with a disability in New York. At least, that’s what she was told. But she ended up cooking, cleaning and doing the laundry as well.

Her conditions were appalling. Marina worked 18 hours a day, six days a week for $3 per hour. Her living quarters were a basement with an overflowing sewage system. Then, after three years, she was summarily fired and instantly became homeless. 

Marina’s experience isn’t unique. Far from it. Domestic workers are routinely victims of exploitation, from wage theft to verbal and sexual abuse. Says Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance:

Every single domestic worker in this country is vulnerable to those kinds of conditions.

Poo helped spearhead one of the first efforts to organize domestic workers in New York City, forming Domestic Workers United. Three years ago, Domestic Workers United joined with similar groups across the nation, forming the National Domestic Workers Alliance.

In 2004, Domestic Workers United started pushing for a New York-wide Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights with paid sick days; personal days and vacation; notice and severance pay; overtime pay; one day of rest per week; and health benefits. In June, the New York Senate is expected to pass the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights. It should be signed into law soon afterward. It will be a first in U.S. history.

One of the group’s strongest supporters has been AFL-CIO President Emeritus John Sweeney, himself the son of an immigrant domestic worker, who traveled to Albany to join their lobbying of state legislators. (You can make a donation to the Domestic Workers United at: www.domesticworkersunited.org.)

California domestic workers and their supporters are trying to follow suit. On the national level, the alliance is working closely with the Labor Department to expand domestic-worker protections and enforce the few that are already there.

At the global level, the International Labor Organization (ILO) meeting, for the first time in its history, will consider passing a convention to end abuse of domestic workers at its upcoming International Labor Conference in June.

The domestic workers and their union backers are looking forward to engaging their employers in a good discussion on achieving internationally recognized rights for domestic workers. Poo notes the Obama administration and the AFL-CIO are behind the effort:

The AFL-CIO has even opened up some of its delegate seats for domestic workers to be part of the delegation to the conference.

Victories in Albany, Washington and Geneva make headlines. But more and more, there also are quieter victories like Marina’s. After she was fired from her job in New York, she contacted Domestic Workers United. It helped her hire an attorney and file legal claims for unpaid back wages—and she won.

Tens of thousands of people of conscience from across the nation converged on the Arizona state capitol today in Phoenix for a national day of action against that state’s infamous anti-immigrant law, also known as S.B. 1070.

Chanting “Stop Racism in Arizona,” protestors marched five miles in the hot desert sun to the capitol in one of the largest demonstrations yet against this law. S.B. 1070 allows police to stop and question anyone they have “reasonable suspicion” of being undocumented. The law does not define “reasonable suspicion,” a fact that many opponents say is carte blanche for racial profiling.

After leading the march—sponsored by Alto Arizona—AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told the crowd:

Sisters and brothers, this is wrong. S.B. 1070 is wrong. Our broken immigration system is wrong. And we are here today to say it’s time—past time—to put things right. We’re here because 12 million unauthorized immigrants are living in the dark shadows of abuse. That’s why we’re here today.

We’re here because 7 million workers in this country live and labor without guarantees that they’ll be paid the minimum wage or overtime pay…they work without the protections of job safety standards or our civil rights laws. That’s why we’re here today.

We’re here because the Arizona solution to our broken immigration system is to criminalize workers—and that’s wrong.

Earlier this month, Trumka urged President Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to cut all ties—including collaborations between state and local law enforcement and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security—that result in the federal government’s cooperation with racial profiling.

Just how widespread is opposition to this law? Consider this: Ten police chiefs, including three from Arizona, traveled to Washington, D.C., this week to tell Attorney General Eric Holder that Arizona’s new law will make their jobs harder, erode working relationships built on mutual trust and cooperation between law enforcement and immigrants and make communities less safe. The federal government should step in to prevent more states from following suit, they told Holder.

A study released this week shows undocumented immigrants embody traditional values much more than native-born Americans. For example, 94 percent of undocumented immigrant men work or actively are seeking work, compared with 83 percent of native born men. Undocumented immigrants are more than twice as likely to support traditional families with children: 47 percent of undocumented immigrants today are part of couples with children, compared with 21 percent of native-born Americans. Robert Shapiro authored the report by the New Policy Institute (NPI) a Washington, D.C., research organization.

Undocumented workers don’t lower wages for native-born workers either, Shapiro says. In fact, studies show immigration has increased the average wage of Americans modestly in the short-run, and by more over the long-term as capital investment rises to take account of the larger number of workers. Check out Shapiro’s report here.

“Immigrants are not the cause of America’s problems,” Trumka said. “And S.B. 1070 is not the answer.”

The problem is that privileged and powerful people are using the same old dirty tricks of division, diversion and distraction to make people blame the least among us in order to keep us from seeing and solving our real problems.

Our wisest leaders have always understood that, here in America, on these shores, we must not fall for hate and fear and divisiveness—we must stand together for justice, unity and opportunity.

On Wednesday, May 26, community members and supporters of Sodexo food service workers made their mark at Anna Maria College’s annual alum golf tournament in Boylston, MA. Dressed up like 1920′s golfers, supporters passed out “cleanupsodexo.org…

In case you missed it….organizing successes, contract victories and recent news from SEIU Locals in New York, California, Missouri, Texas, New Hampshire, Oregon, Maine and Minnesota.

Judge Rules New York’s Furloughs May Not Go Forward: A f…

If you’re planning a trip to Arizona anytime soon and

a) plan to wear jeans OR

b) have even remotely tanned, brown, or yellow skin in hue OR

c) tend to eat fast foods, drink brightly-colored juice or eat fresh vegetables in leiu of meat …

By 215-204, the U.S. House today passed a watered-down version of H.R. 4213, “The Promoting American Jobs, Closing Tax Loopholes and Preventing Outsourcing Act of 2010.” The bill extends unemployment insurance (UI) for six months. But the Senate, now on vacation, will not even consider the bill until the week of June 7, a week after UI expires for millions of jobless workers.

The bill that passed today did not include the COBRA extension or Medicaid assistance to the states. It does include $23 billion in funding to put off 21 percent cuts in Medicare reimbursements to doctors for 19 months and ensures that Medicare beneficiaries have access to quality and affordable medical care. It also includes subsidies for local infrastructure projects by extending the Build America Bonds program and funds for summer job creation.

Earlier this week, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told members of Congress, “If you’re not for this bill, you’re not for jobs.” Today, Trumka says:

We are profoundly disappointed and angry with representatives in Congress—Democrats as well as Republicans—who refused to support health care for the unemployed and job-saving critical aid to cash-strapped states in the original version of H.R. 4213. Working family voters will not forget who sided with them and who did not.

We are in a jobs emergency—a national crisis. Millions of lives are in ruins and children are being condemned to poverty. Excuses from their elected representatives are of no help to them. Trumka praised the hard work by House Majority Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who pushed to get passage of the original, stronger jobs bill. Trumka called on the Senate to approve the UI extension as soon as it returns from the Memorial Day recess and urges the House to move quickly to restore health care benefits for jobless workers and aid to states to maintain jobs and vital services.

Police at the SINTRAJAP union hall stand below a sign that says the port funds are for everyone, and the workers won’t give that up.

Jennifer Sargent, Coast communications director at the ILWU, sends us the latest on the struggles by longshore workers in Costa Rica.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has asked the Obama administration to investigate illegal ousting of elected union leaders. Declaring that longshore workers are united beyond international borders, the ILWU today denounced Wednesday’s police takeover of SINTRAJAP, the union representing longshore workers in the Caribbean ports of Limón and Moín, Costa Rica, and promised to increase its months-long campaign to help restore union democracy in the Central American country. Limón and Moín are major importers of petroleum and other products and major exporters of bananas, coffee, cocoa and coconuts.

ILWU President Robert McEllrath said:

Longshore workers are united globally, and when police start breaking glass and occupying the union hall in Costa Rica, it’s a call for international solidarity.

According to the Costa Rican newspaper El País:

A group of 60 armed police closed streets around the building of JAPDEVA’s union [SINTRAJAP] in Limón, while several knocked down doors and stormed the building, at 4:30 a.m., in the Costa Rican Caribbean port.

In January, the democratically elected leaders of SINTRAJAP were replaced in what the ILWU calls a “sham election forced by the government in apparent violation of international labor law.” Since that time, the ILWU Coast Longshore Division has supported the union’s Costa Rican counterparts by:

• Writing a letter to President Barack Obama from ILWU President Robert McEllrath outlining the issue and requesting assistance.
• Educating members of Congress on the issue, prompting a letter signed by 25 U.S. senators and representatives asking Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to investigate.
• Hosting a delegation of Costa Rican dockers at the annual ILWU Coast Longshore Division’s Caucus, where representatives of all 25,000 members voted unanimously to support SINTRAJAP’s fight to restore its elected leaders.
• Placing several full-page advertisements in major Costa Rican newspapers, including La Nacion and El Semanario, to educate citizens on the undemocratic moves of their government.

McEllrath’s letter to President Obama ends with this message:

Dockworkers worldwide are of a strong and unique fraternity that transcends nationalism. Cargo vessels and their owners are not dependent on any one country. Neither are dockworkers. An injury to one is an injury to all.