New York Worker News

Untitled

2009-06-11T13:25:00.000-07:00

Wow! We're havin' some fun now, thanks to the "Uploading and Downloading Labor's Message" panel at the Metro Labor Communicator's Convention. "What are we going to do tonight, Brain?"

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Hiya Word Warrior, I think we need to add some writers

Hearty congratulations!

2009-06-11T05:15:00.000-07:00

Joe,
Good work and thank you for taking the time and effort to get this thing up and running. I sincerely hope we all use this new tool to good advantage. I'm sure we will need some guidance, but I'm ready to learn, and I'm sure everyone else is too. Once again, good job!

Bill

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Hi Bill, I'm saying thank you right here in the post for a reason, notice before the front page had no thumbnail, here's the trick, the first image in any given story will be the thumbnail for the front page, no matter where it appears. For instance in this Editor, the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) I paste an image I had highlighted and copied from another site here, in the middle of the article. First image in the story wins the front page prize.

This will now be the thumbnail on the main page.

I also added a very important feature of a webblog/site I added a TAG(label) of "Note" in the box under the Editor. I also added the word "test". The TAGS, as I favor calling them do a few things, they become links to all stories that contain the same tag (ie. if you click on a tag, all stories with that tag will show up), the tags are listed on the main page and TAGGING is a way that search engines such as Google know how to catagorize a website. One of the most important features on a site, getting good SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Congressional Plans to Stop Wage Theft to be Announced at National Summit in New Orleans

2009-06-10T18:32:00.000-07:00

Wage theft is rampant, whether it be the unpaid workers at Yellow Rat Bastard before they got a union, the countless people talked about in Kim Bobbos' book "Wage Theft In America", or the almost 400 undocumented workers, some as young as 13, who were underpaid and overworked in the Agriprocessor's Kosher meat plant in Ohio, here's whats happening, got this in an e-mail, :

Leading National Organization on Wage Theft Convening Major Gathering with Federal Government Officials

Interfaith Worker Justice, the nation’s largest network of faith leaders mobilized to improve wages and conditions for workers in the low-wage economy, is holding a major national summit at Tulane University this Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, at which a key new piece of federal legislation to end the pernicious practice of wage theft – “the crime wave no one talks about” – will be announced for the first time.

Jody Calemine, Deputy Director of Labor Policy for U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor, will discuss plans to introduce the new anti-wage theft bill in a plenary address at 7:30 p.m. Sunday in the Kendall Cram Lecture Hall, Room 213 of Tulane’s Lavin-Bernick Center for University Life (LBC).

The bill will be designed to empower worker advocates and community organizations to partner with the U.S. Department of Labor on wage theft prevention and enforcement efforts. It would establish mandatory minimum penalties for employers who willfully and repeatedly violate wage and hour laws.

“When this legislation passes, unscrupulous employers will have to think twice about stealing their workers’ wages, because they’ll be on alert that the penalties will be serious,” said Ted Smukler, Director of Public Policy for Interfaith Worker Justice. “Not only will they face monetary penalties, they could also face jail time.”

Smukler authored IWJ’s 2007 report on the rampant violations of labor rights in post-Katrina New Orleans, also the subject of congressional testimony he delivered in June of 2007.

Joining Calemine on Sunday’s plenary will be Michael Kerr, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Administration and Management. Kerr will address the commitment of the Department of Labor’s new leadership to cracking down on wage theft and health and safety violations in the workplace.

Preceding Kerr’s remarks there will be a special videotaped message from Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis. In her message, Solis praises IWJ’s campaign to stop wage theft, calling the book Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Working Americans Are Not Getting Paid—And What We Can Do About It, by the organization’s executive director, Kim Bobo, “excellent.”

More than 100 leaders representing over 40 worker centers around the country will be present to exchange local strategies for fighting wage theft, making the summit the largest gathering of worker center leaders in recent years.

I have also posted an article with a video On Joe's Union Review entitled "Video: Kim Bobo author of Wage Theft speaking before Congress in July 2008", it has more on the subject and how to follow whats going on in this authors life

New York's Department Of Labor has created a grass roots style organization to battle wage theft in our city, you can learn more aboiut that, who's involved and how you can help in this article "Wage Watch, NY Dept. of Labor reaches out to grass-roots campaign to fight wage violations"

CUNY: The Murphy Institute is now offering a Master Degree in Labor Studies

2009-06-10T18:11:00.000-07:00

The Murphy Institute, a little background from their site:

The Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies was established at Queens College over twenty years ago with the support of the late Chancellor Joseph S. Murphy. The Institute constitutes two centers: The Center for Worker Education and The Center for Community, Labor and Policy Studies.

The Center for Worker Education provides undergraduate, graduate and certificate programs to working adults and union members who want to improve their skills, upgrade their qualifications, advance their careers, and deepen their understanding of the world. Recently, the Institute has been elevating these activities to a University-wide level and providing unions and their members with a single entry point into CUNY's 1,200 academic programs, 19 campuses, and diverse educational resources. Partnerships with the CUNY's School of Professional Studies, City Tech, and the College of Staten Island have enabled the Institute to create new programs that meet the academic and career advancement needs of working adults and union members.

They have many courses, from certificate's in labor studies to Bachelor's to their newly introduced Master of Art's in Labor Studies program, here's more on that from the Murphy Institute website:

About the M.A. in Labor Studies

The Master of Arts in Labor Studies is offered by the the Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies and the School of Professional Studies. Labor Studies, broadly defined as the study of work, workers and workers' organizations, is increasingly relevant for professionals in the labor movement and in labor-related fields who must keep up with the intellectual demands posed by a rapidly changing and ever-more complex global economy and culture. In order to meet these demands, the curriculum of this new M.A. program is interdisciplinary and comprehensive in scope, drawing from sociology, economics, history, global studies, political science, and cultural studies. It is grounded in current economic and social conditions and informed by historical analyses of work, workers and workers' institutions, nationally and globally. The degree prepares students for effective leadership in the labor movement; gives those in labor-related fields specialized knowledge; and provides opportunities for advanced scholarship in many areas of social science.

Students in the Master of Arts in Labor Studies will study with renowned faculty from across The City University of New York as well as with expert practitioners in the field.

Degree Requirements: To earn the M.A. in Labor Studies, students must complete 30 credits, distributed among seven required courses and three electives. Tuition Rates: Effective for the fall 2009 semester, New York State residents will pay $310 per credit, and out-of-state residents will pay $575 per credit. Some students may be eligible for union tuition benefits.

Information Session:
July 8, 6 pm
CUNY Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies
25 West 43rd St., 19th floor
For more information please call (212) 827-0200
For applications and information, visit: www.workered.org

Building Bridges Radio: Domestic Workers United - Your Home, My Work

2009-06-10T14:34:00.000-07:00

written by building bridges radio at Thursday, June 4, 2009

WBAI Radio's Building Bridges:
Your Community & Labor Report
Produced by Mimi Rosenberg and Ken Nash
56:27
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Domestic Workers United - Your Home, My Work

Building Bridges allows domestic workers to tell their stories -
stories of their pains, their pride and their efforts to organize for
labor rights. Since slavery, the domestic work force has been
predominately women of color. With the abolition of slavery
African-American women were still the predominate workers,
as immigrant woman began to enter that workforce. Today,
women of color, from around the world work as domestic
workers. Everyday, 200, 000 domestic workers (nannies,
elderly companions, housekeepers) in New York make it
possible for their employers to go to work. Most are employed
without a living wage, healthcare, and basic labor protections.
Domestic work is vital to the economy and the community,
but domestic workers remain invisible, vulnerable, and
undervalued. “Your Home, My Work” recognizes and values
domestic laborers.

play or download

TV takes a look at horrible non union contractor in New York

2009-06-10T14:10:00.000-07:00

From The Village Voice June 2nd, 2009:

TV Showdown for Deadbeat Luxury Builder
By Tom Robbins in Featured, Tom Robbins, Unions

There's a nice in-your-face piece of TV journalism about economic injustice that aired last night on MY9TV.com -- the handle for what we used to simply call Channel 9.

The story, by dogged investigator Barbara Nevins Taylor, reports how a a successful nonunion subcontractor whose cranes and workers have helped erect some of the city's classiest new towers has been regularly stiffing his immigrant employees.

Taylor tracked down builder Thomas Auringer (above, left) to his posh waterside home on Long Island to ask him what went wrong. Auringer is seen on tape, smiling and and insisting that it's all a misunderstanding before pulling away in his giant SUV. But the builder was up to the same tricks last year when the Voice wrote about his work on two major luxury hi-rises in downtown Brooklyn.

Back then, employees had the same gripes. They also told of the response they got when they complained: As one supervisor said in an affidavit to federal labor officials: "He said he had about six guns on the job, and he had people there who would do whatever needed to be done. He said that he could dig a hole and put me in it and make the records showing I worked for the company disappear."

Taylor's story,which includes a look at the dangerous ways that Auringer stores his cranes in the residential neighborhood, has a happy ending; The developer on one project where Auringer was a subcontractor was embarrassed into paying out $30,000 from his own pocket to settle back wage claims.

Taylor also has a brief interview with Andres Puerta, a relentless organizer for the carpenters' union. Puerta has been on Auringer's case for over a year now, arguing that if people can pay top dollar to live in these new palaces, then the people who build them at least deserve a living wage.

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This is a follow up on an earlier piece that showed how Thomas Auringer threatened his employees with guns if they voted to join a union. That piece can be found at the Village Voice story entitled "High-Cost Condos, Low-Cost Labor—and Threats of Violence to Union Organizers", I also chimed in at Joe's Union Review in the story entitled "NY nonunion construction: With guns, threats and empty promises this modern day gangster keeps his workers from joining a union". To find out more about what I term "Sweatshop Construction" check out these stories at Joe's