Metal Trades Department, AFL-CIO

From President Ault

Ron's rants

1-22-10--The anti-incumbency voting pattern isn't changing any time soon

On Tuesday, morning, January 19th, I attended a committee meeting of the Federal Workers Alliance to talk about possible OPM-driven government-wide personnel reforms. One topic being discussed was the possible excise tax on federal employee health care based on the Senate version of the Health Care bill. You may be aware that many of the MTD's affiliated unions are opposed to this bill. I said that the election of Brown in Massachusetts may de-rail this entire process. My remarks sparked a discussion of why I thought Brown would not only win in a heavily Democratic seat, but easily win. It is simple—the same reason that Corzine lost in New Jersey and why McDonnell won in Virginia.

Last fall voters voted en mass for change—not tiny barely-able-to-see change, but massive changes in the direction and the tone of our government. One year later, most people cannot see anything that has changed except the number of people added to unemployment.

There is no sense of urgency in Congress to help the average American struggling with massive job loss. What jobs there are are temporary, or part time jobs. Full-time jobs are non existent. Home foreclosures continue unabated. Bailed-out banks cut off credit lending to small businesses. Gasoline prices are rising. Some say "independent voters" are abandoning Obama.

Wrong, dead wrong! It isn't just the independent voters voting the other way. It is a demoralized Democratic base that just stayed home. Why? Why is the base not energized to go out and work? None of the key Democratic base constituencies feels that their fundamental causes are being addressed. Few in the party are happy. Especially organized labor. The prospects for change in a mid-term election year are dim at best. Watered down, half measures that are really bad compromises are worse than real changes that are proposed,then defeated by congressional votes from the opposition. At least then we can see who are our friends and who are our enemies. Until things change on Capitol Hill and members of Congress and the President get it, priority number one has to be jobs, jobs, and more jobs! Not bailing out greedy investors sending our jobs overseas. Not passing laws that we call health care reform but that only guarantees higher profits for the health care industry.

We will see massive changes in both parties in the elections this year. Voters want to "throw the bums out.". The anti-incumbency voting pattern isn't changing any time soon.

1-15-10--“We Are At War”

These words were uttered recently in a news conference by President Obama and everyone in the US seemed shocked by them. My family knows this. We have family members deployed in harms way wearing our nation’s uniform. As a matter of fact, in every US military action in the twentieth century, a member of my family (me included) has worn the uniform and has served overseas.

But America is fighting other wars too. Economic wars. Our enemies are varied, and not necessarily a nation. We still have unfriendly nations who would like to wipe us off the face of the earth, but they aren’t the ones we are currently fighting. Keep Reading >

11-10-09 The False “New” Economy—Seems like everyone is telling us that none of our manufacturing jobs that have been sent overseas to Communist China and Asia will ever come back; that we should move on to the “new economy.”

I attended a conference recently and heard a lot of very knowledgeable experts tell us how to fix our nation and bring our economy back. I am no economist, not a Harvard MBA. I have no college degree at all. I’m just a simple old country boy from the hills of Arkansas, with a PHD from the school of hard knocks. But, I know self promotion when I see it and there was a lot of that going on at this conference. (What’s new about that?)

The professional academics were touting their beloved education system as the answer: re-train, educate people for the jobs of the new “green economy.” Another speaker focused on foreign trade policy and currency manipulation enforcement after relating his industry horror stories about unfair government-aided foreign competition from Communist China. READ MORE >

09-04-09 Labor Day Message—CHANGE—The state of the American Labor movement is different on Labor Day 2009 than it was on Labor Day 2008. For one thing, organized labor made it clear that they were putting all the marbles in the game last fall in the 2008 general election and left no stone unturned in supporting labor endorsed candidates, including Senator Barack Obama. After a massive and costly campaign effort by all the unions in the labor movement, the results were clearly tilted in favor of worker friendly candidates. It wasn’t a clean sweep for the Democrats—there were scatterings of losses in hard core Republican strongholds, but even there, the percentage numbers for Republican victories were marginalized by the union households’ strong voter turnout. Some of worker friendly, labor endorsed Republicans also won by respectable margins. READ ON >

08-27-09 Poverty and Lifestyle Choices—I watched the Bill Maher show on HBO the other day when actor/director Ashton Kutcher was on a panel of guests—spouting off like he was an expert on healthcare…True, Kutcher grew up in a working class family and with a twin brother with a multitude of medical problems, which makes it even more surprising that he would take an attitude about “paying for the lifestyle choices” of an obese fast-food eater. READ ON >

The Metal Trades Department, AFL-CIO: The Metal Trades Department was chartered in 1908 to coordinate negotiating, organizing and legislative efforts of affiliated metalworking and related crafts and trade unions. Twenty national and international unions with a total membership of over 5,000,000 are affiliated with the MTD today. More than 100,000 workers in private industry and federal establishments work under contracts negotiated by MTD Councils. Workers retain membership in their own trade unions. Read More..

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Justice Delayed is Justice Denied
More than 5,000 workers at Avondale Shipyard fought for 10 years to win union representation. They voted by better than 60 percent for a union in a secret ballot election in 1993, but their struggle for dignity and respect began much earlier. It would take another eight years to secure their union rights, through a card check agreement. The Avondale struggle is the poster child for the need for enacting card check rights for American workers.

IN: Metal Trades President Ron Ault Kicks Off Indy Block Walk for the Employee Free Choice Act.

Rebuilding America: Tell Republicans that Americans Won't Take No for an Answer!

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immigration

Immigration

Ron Ault, President Metal Trades Department, AFL-CIO

Every nation has immigration. Some have very restrictive policies that make it very difficult to ever become a citizen. Then there"™s the United States of America"¦do we really have a national immigration policy? The painful answer is a resounding NO! Our national immigration policy is one of- it is OK to cheat and sneak in"¦and be an illegal worker forever as long as you don"™t make it too obvious that you are here illegally.,"¦It doesn"™t matter that we know you are illegally here. Just don"™t broadcast it on the evening news and we will all wink and say "œyou"™re okay. Once in a while we will send the ICE squad to raid a lettuce farm, or a construction site, or restaurant, or even a Wal-Mart"¦(you fill in the blank low wage job site)"¦just for show. When "œICE" shows up for a token publicity bust on the jobsite, nothing really happens"”except for the human misery of families being separated. A few workers are deported to Central America or Mexico"¦so they have to start their journey all over again "”exploited by smugglers getting them back into America"¦as a permanent underclass of low wage workers afraid report they are being ripped off by their law-breaking U.S. bosses"¦cheated out of wages, abused, raped, and even killed.

This immoral and unlawful, modern day wage-slave trade isn"™t far removed from the 1830"™s & 40"™s when Clipper Ships sailed from Africa and Asia with cargo holds packed full of kidnapped men, women and children sold in America at auctions to rich plantation owners searching for cheap labor. True, African slaves came in shackles, torn forcibly from their homes. Today, Mexicans, Central Americans and many Asians, Caribbeans, Cubans, Eastern Europeans and even Irish nationals, are forced out of their homes in the shackles of hunger and deprivation. It"™s estimated that up to one-third of illegal immigrants in the U.S. hail from somewhere other than Mexico or Central America. They are no more anxious to leave their native lands than African slaves were two hundred years earlier. They are driven to the decision by hopelessness and despair. Today, employers use pretty much the same justification as the plantation slave owners did before the Civil War"¦"they are doing jobs, Americans won't do"

How many law-breaking employers do you think were prosecuted by our federal government last year for knowingly violating the law by hiring illegal immigrants? The answer: less than 700 out of an estimated 4 million who employ undocumented workers. Most of those "œprosecutions" involve simple notices of "œintent to fine," akin to a warning ticket from a state trooper.
How many do you think were convicted and sent to prison? None. The most celebrated case I"™ve seen involved the owners of the Golden State Fence Co, a San Diego company that, you guessed it, was hired to erect part of the vaunted "œimmigration fence" authorized by Congress in the 1990s. Apparently they used undocumented workers to get the job done. (Isn"™t that a punch line in a George Lopez joke?) The owner of Golden State Fence and his son-in-law were cited three times before the recent crackdown brought them into court last December. Both men were given probation and minimal fines while the company was ordered to forfeit some $4.7 million.

We have NO national policy on immigration, but let"™s ask a few questions and really think about this for a minute"¦Number one -why won"™t Americans do those jobs the illegal immigrants are doing? Are they too technically complex or too physically demanding? Is there a worker shortage in the U.S.? Are we not producing enough children each year to fill the labor market? Is the U.S. labor market that tight? If so, is that why American workers"™ wages are soaring through the stratosphere? Oh, that"™s not right"¦U.S. wages aren"™t soaring. Real wages are actually falling after adjustment for inflation? Humm"¦that is curious! What"™s going on, then? If we have unemployed, out-of-work U.S. citizens, why won"™t they apply to work the jobs that are being filled by illegal immigrants?
I think we all know the answers to these questions. These jobs are only available to illegal immigrants. Tens of thousands of law-breaking U.S. employers want illegal immigrants they can cheat and exploit, not American citizens who know their workplace rights, demand fair wages and fringe benefits"¦These very same unscrupulous employers who are hiring these illegal immigrants are the very same neo cons who support the Bush "œguest worker" program"¦why?

Why not eliminate the problem of human exploitation in the U.S. once and for all"¦forget the red herring of immigration reform and all the emotional divisiveness it brings to the table. Instead, let us focus on the root cause of illegal immigration. Let us ask our government to represent us for a change and to pass laws that guarantee a real living wage payable to any worker working any job in the United States regardless of immigration status or citizenship. Let us work toward eliminating America"™s abject poverty and human suffering, once and for all. Why should America continue to tolerate a permanent under class here in our great nation? Demand that Congress pass and the federal government enforce real workers"™ rights laws that are citizenship "œblind" and that take the burden off the backs of exploited workers"¦Tell Congress to focus on laws making hiring of illegal immigrants a crime and level felony criminal charges against employers who knowingly violate workers rights and labor laws.

Don"™t fall for the phony game of blaming the desperate workers for wading across a shallow river for survival. It is not their fault. They are just trying to feed their families and have a better life just as our fathers and their fathers did. Don"™t fall for the "œamnesty" flame throwing rhetoric of the Right Wing"¦Do you really think we are going to deport the 12-20 million illegal immigrants who have been working in America for years and have had children born as U.S. citizens? Grandfathering these workers is the big debate that looms large on the political landscape and it must be addressed calmly and rationally, without tearing families apart or disrupting our economy. I don"™t have a magic plan, but I think the framework of citizenship for those workers who have been here for many years and have established themselves firmly in the community, are different than for someone who just crossed the border into the U.S. yesterday.
And while we are working on real immigration reform, let"™s also go to work on passing a law to provide Universal Healthcare in our great country. The United States of America is the only nation in the developed world that does not have a universal health care system for its citizens. The burden of providing what little health care is available falls on industry and individual workers. Every job action or strike I have been involved in the past twenty years, as a labor representative has been directly tied to the increased costs of "œfor profit" health care. It is time America takes this unfair burden off our domestic industry and our citizens. This is an unfair cost advantage amounting to almost 20% that other nations"™ businesses have over American businesses.

I say we level the playing field for every job opportunity in America. We are all competing for the available work, and every American"™s wages are being depressed by unfair competition.

Let us not forget the words of a great orator, politician, and Republican, "œLabor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could not have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital and deserves much higher consideration. Working men are the basis of all governments, for the plain reason that they are more numerous. To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as nearly as much as possible, is a worthy object of any good government."
Abraham Lincoln

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