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Make no mistake — whatever the header to this e-mail may imply, I’m writing to *support* the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), better known as “Card Check” legislation. Please vote “YES” on this sensible, well designed legislation.

Workers deserve a fair workplace, which includes the right to vote “yes” or “no” on unionization by secret ballot — or the right to organize by other means when corporate anti-union policies make it necessary. Card Check legislation *enhances* worker’s rights by giving them another way to organize.  Opponents cite potential fears of workers under card check, but studies show workers actually feel less coerced by co-workers in “majority signup” situations than in secret ballot ones.

Americans cherish the secret ballot in *fair* elections. But as you know, all too often elections deciding unionization are anything but fair; companies can propagandize their employees at will, and often threaten them with workplace shutdowns or other punitive measures. Imagine if a mayor could really threaten moving the city if he lost the election!  Would that be a fair election?  Of course not!

As EFCA opponents like to say, the secret ballot is a cornerstone of our democracy. But what they *don’t* like to say is that card check does nothing to change that, since at any time, if 30 percent of the workers want an election, they can have one. (And once they have a union, workers also vote to elect their union representatives.)

I urge you to *support Card Check legislation*, which will even the playing field between unorganized workers and their company bosses.  And more unionized workers means a more prosperous America. I look forward to hearing where you stand on this important matter. Thank you!  God bless America!

Substitute this message to your Senators and Representative for the anti-EFCA boilerplate text here — pass it on!

For more information about EFCA, click here (my blog post), here (AFL-CIO) or here (Americans Rights at Work).

Blogging will be sparse at best. Meanwhile some items worth paying attention to:

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Vital unresolved anthrax questions and ABC News (Glenn Greenwald) — Greenwald makes a pretty good case that the government’s case against Bruce Ivins (the Fort Detrick germ lab scientist who committed suicide), the m.o. of the anthrax terrorist, and ABC News’s false insistence at the time that lab results pointed to Iraq all add up to a case that urgently requires Congressional investigation. Whoever gave ABC the false “bentonite additive” story has a lot to answer for — very arguably the Iraq war.

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Wal-Mart mobilizing against EFCA, pressuring “associates” on how to vote — That’s illegal, and that’s arguably what they’re doing by raising Obama’s support for the Employee Free Choice Act in in-store meetings. The charge is based on a Wall Street Journal article “Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win“:

The Wal-Mart human-resources managers who run the meetings don’t specifically tell attendees how to vote in November’s election, but make it clear that voting for Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama would be tantamount to inviting unions in, according to Wal-Mart employees who attended gatherings in Maryland, Missouri and other states.

The main link leads to “Americans Rights At Work,” where you can add your name to a petition urging the FEC to investigate Wal-Mart for potential election law violations.

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Last and definitely not least, the ACLU is sounding the alarm about a jaw-dropping legislative initiative by Bush and Attorney General Mukasey:

After years of litigation, the Supreme Court recently ruled in Boumediene v. Bush that detainees held at Guantánamo have a right to challenge their detention through habeas corpus — the ancient freedom that protects people from being thrown in prison illegally, with no help, no end in sight and no due process. Habeas proceedings could allow detainees to bring up the fact that the evidence that the government has against them came from hearsay, or even torture and abuse. Courts could also release people who are detained indefinitely without charge. Attorney General Michael Mukasey wants to make sure neither of these things happen. That’s why he’s calling on Congress to authorize indefinite detention through a new declaration of armed conflict. He is also proposing that Congress subvert the right of habeas corpus with a new scheme to hide the Bush administration’s past wrongdoing — an action that would undermine the constitutional guarantee of due process and conceal systemic torture and abuse of detainees.

More here. Join the ACLU petition to your Representative and Senators here urging them to oppose this misbegotten idea. Thanks to Mick Arran and the Talking Dog for sounding the alarm as well. As Mick says: “Please let’s not give them this one.”

washingtonpostunfair.com. Click here
to see the other ads, and radio and TV spots.

Advertisements like the one to the right have sprouted in the Metro Center subway station in downtown Washington. At issue is that the Washington Post is practicing some of what its op-ed royalists preach, by executing a grab for a Communications Workers of America (CWA) local pension fund. CWA Local 14201 has set up a WashingtonPostUnfair.com web site where they explain what’s going on:

Right now, the production workers have a national pension plan administered jointly by a board of employer and union trustees. But the Post is now demanding the right to withdraw from that plan, as well as requesting the unilateral right to decide what to do with the money in the plan. That money has been diverted from the workers pay raises over the last 30 years. It belongs to the workers. That’s right - the Post is asking to take pension money that has been coming out of its workers’ paychecks.

The pension fund was almost entirely funded by withdrawals from workers paychecks over the years. Now I understand why the Washington Post likes to sound the alarm bell about Social Security — raiding it is no more than they’d been planning themselves.

Wise guys and recent graduates of Econ 101 will probably think deep thoughts about the declining newspaper business to themselves, but Washington Post made $325 million in profits last year, and the management got itself a nice little “Incentive Compensation Plan” that was amended in 2005 “to increase (i) the maximum amount that can be given as an annual incentive compensation award to a participant in a given year, and (ii) the maximum payout of Performance Units at the end of an Award Cycle to a participant, in each case to $5 million.”

Meanwhile, CWA workers haven’t had a raise in 5 years — and the Post hasn’t even been willing to negotiate with them for four years. What are they hoping for? Your help :

Let the Post know you want them to treat their workers with fairness and respect. If you have five minutes to spare, can call the Post at (202) 334-6000. Ask to speak to CEO Don Graham. If you have one minute to spare, use the form below to send an email directly to the Post’s Ombudsman. The Ombudsman serves as the readers’ advocate; and attends to questions, comments and complaints about the paper.

The CWA aren’t calling for a boycott of the Washington Post — yet. On the other hand, why pay 50 cents for the Post when you can get the Washington Times for a quarter? They’re virtually indistinguishable in every other way.

…an occasional review of further developments in issues, news, or other items I’ve written about before.

Re Jackson Diehl’s “The House’s Ottoman Agenda”, 03/05/07; 90 years ago: Armenian genocide begins, 04/25/05 — Back in March, the Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl wrote an exceptionally snotty op-ed deriding the value and wisdom of H.Res. 106, the Armenian Genocide Resolution, saying it “pandered” to Armenian Americans and was “almost comically heavy handed.” Rubbish; see for yourself, and ask yourself what you would write if the murder of 1.5 million countrymen went unacknowledged for 90 years. Now the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) reports Majority of US House Members support Armenian Genocide Resolution (link added):

In gaining 218 cosponsors, we have demonstrated that a majority of the House strongly supports recognizing the facts of the Armenian Genocide,” said lead sponsor, Congressman Adam Schiff. “While there are still survivors left, we feel a great sense of urgency in calling attention to the attempted murder of an entire people. Our failure to acknowledge these dark chapters of history prevents us from taking more effective action against ongoing genocides, like Darfur.”

Bravo to Congressman Schiff and his 217 cosponsors, including Chris Van Hollen (D-MD-8) who, in an e-mailed response to my support of H.Res. 106, noted that he sponsored a similar measure in the Maryland legislature before coming to Congress. Meanwhile: House 218, Diehl 0.

Support the Employee Free Choice Act, 06/20/07 — As is well known, the Employee Free Choice Act was defeated when Senate failed by 9 votes (51-48) to reach the 60 needed to end debate on the measure. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t thank the representatives and senators who supported it. Locally, it was a clean sweep: Representative Chris Van Hollen and Senators Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin all voted for the bill. At “Free State Politics,” Isaac Smith provides a video clip of Senator Cardin’s floor speech, in which Cardin rebutted the canard that the Act prohibited secret ballot elections. From the official transcript of Cardin’s remarks:

“I listened again to what the Republican leader said about secret ballots, and I know there is a disconnect here, because, again, this legislation doesn’t get rid of that. What this legislation tries to say is we want workers rights to be adhered to. If the majority wants to have a union, they should be able to have a union without intimidation from the employer. And if the majority does not want to have a union, they should be able to do that without intimidation from the union.”

Earlier in his remarks, Cardin was also very good at spelling out what the stakes were for the country as a whole — union and non-union:

Real wages for U.S. workers are lower today than they were in 1973, even though productivity has increased by 80 percent. We do pride ourselves that each generation of Americans will live a more prosperous life than in previous generations. That will not be true for a large number of Americans. Today, wages are not keeping up with productivity. There is a problem in the workforce, and it affects all of us in this country. We need to do something about it.

Real median household income in my own State of Maryland has declined by 2.1 percent from 2000 to 2005. We find a widening of the income gap in America, a widening of the wealth gap in America. We should be moving to narrow that gap, not to see it continue to increase. We have a problem we need to deal with, and this legislation, H.R. 800, gives us an opportunity to debate these issues and determine whether the decline of unionization is one of the factors in contributing to these difficult economic trends.

CEOs are now paid 411 times what workers are paid in America–411 times. In 1990, it was bad enough at 107 times–once again, a widening of the gap. I remember when I was in college talking about the strength of America. The strength of America was that in all the western economic powers we had the narrowest gap between wealth and income. Now we have the widest. We need to do something about it. Unionization helps bridge that gap.

What has happened to unionization? In 1973, 24 percent of Maryland workers worked in a company that offered union representation. In 2006, that number dropped to 13 percent.

Pay attention to the Smithfield Tar Heel walk-out, 11/17/2006; New ICE age for labor?, 02/02/2007 — The Smithfield Tar Heel meat packing plant in North Carolina has been the scene of repeated walkouts and labor strife; the conflict has turned even uglier with Smithfield’s apparent reliance on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to pressure immigrant workers in the midst of a labor dispute.* But what Smithfield, other employers, and their misguided Republican allies in Congress and the White House are likely to find out is that if you stonewall, punish, and harass your workers for trying to improve their appalling working conditions (according to a Human Rights Watch report), those workers just going to have to up the ante.

To wit, Justice at Smithfield and the Union of Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) are now calling for a kind of surgical boycott of Smithfield Tar Heel products. Consumers are urged to take a close look at Smithfield products, and if they’re from the Tar Heel plant, contact the store manager and urge those products to be withdrawn. How can you tell it’s a Smithfield Tar Heel product? Except for a “Queenella” brand, all carry the Smithfield label — and all have a particular identification code. Justice at Smithfield:

You can identify the Tar Heel plant products with these codes:
EST 79C on bacon and EST 18079 on all other pork products.

(Red added to make you look.) The codes are part of the “use by” information and/or USDA inspection information on the meat packaging; see J-at-S’s “Find the Meat” document for examples.

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* ICE guidelines supposedly preclude raids on workplaces in the midst of a labor dispute. That’s sensible, since otherwise they’d be essentially encouraging employers to hire illegal workers, only to have ICE be their company cops once a strike is looming. But a recent study shows ICE’s real attitude is “guidelines, shmidelines”: fully 54% of ICE workplace raids take place at workplaces with active labor disputes.

EDIT, UPDATE, 3/10/08: 51-48 vote link added. Worth noting — Obama and Clinton both voted to end debate on the bill, McCain did not.

The Senate is taking up S 1041 this week, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). The act would:

• Establish stronger penalties for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during first-contract negotiations.
• Provide mediation and arbitration for first-contract disputes.
• Allow employees to form unions by signing cards authorizing union representation.

The last provision — called “card check” or “majority signup” by labor, and “streamlining union certification” in the bill — is designed to make it easier for workers to unionize. It’s important to note that EFCA doesn’t prohibit the traditional route to unionization: secret ballot elections. Instead, it simply provides an alternative.

The “majority signup” unionizing process recognizes that traditional secret ballot elections in the workplace can bear little resemblance to the elections we (hope we) use to elect political leaders. The graphic to the right, based on a report for American Rights At Work, shows some of the differences. Imagine if your mayor could credibly threaten you with shutting down the city if his opponent were elected.

While such tactics are supposed to be illegal, it can be years before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) gets around to considering complaints — let alone punishing management. Thus, according to the AFL-CIO, 25% of companies facing union campaigns illegally fire pro-union workers.

Management has the advantage anyway: they can campaign round-the-clock against unions with posters and meetings, while workers are restricted to breaks and after hours organizing; 92% of companies facing union campaigns have mandatory, closed door anti union meetings; union organizers, of course, can’t compel anyone to listen to them.

Some fret that the “card check” method will make it too easy for pro-union workers to coerce other workers into signing pro-union petitions as well. It’s hard to see how, though; labor law (including the EFCA) prohibits that. At any rate, a study by Adrienne Wheaton and Jill Kriesky found that workers actually feel less coerced by co-workers in “majority signup” situations than in secret ballot ones. That would make sense: “majority signup” would create less of an embattled atmosphere than a high stakes secret ballot election. (Meanwhile, of course, the respondents felt much less coerced by management as well.)

Something is keeping reported tens of millions of Americans from joining unions even though they’d like to; it’s probably because it’s usually just too much of an uphill battle. The Employee Free Choice Act will level that playing field — and bring higher wages and better benefits to workers, for a change.

Contact your Senators and urge them to support this bill and resist Republican efforts to filibuster it. The Employee Free Choice Act deserves an “up or down vote” — and then it deserves to win.

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FURTHER READING: For the Long Run: The Employee Free Choice Act, Jefferson Cowie, Cornell University, April 2006, and other documents at the AFL CIO’s “Who Supports the Employee Free Choice Act?” Wal-Mart is the poster child of unionbusting, of course; one of the most recent studies of their methods is by Human Rights Watch: Discounting Rights: Wal-Mart’s Violation of US Workers’ Right to Freedom of Association (summarized here).

From American Rights At Work –

After a victory in the House, the battle for workers’ rights has moved to the Senate. We need your help to make the Employee Free Choice Act a reality.

By making a donation to American Rights at Work, you’re helping with our urgent efforts—educating policymakers with briefings on Capitol Hill, telling workers’ stories in the media, and countering the constant drumbeat of misinformation from the well-financed, well-established, and well-coordinated anti-union network.

Related: the AFL-CIO hopes you’ll write your Senators urging them to support the Employee Free Choice Act, and support Verizon workers in New York and New England who’ve made their demands for union representation known via the proposed card-check mechanism.
UPDATE, 4/4: here’s a list of Senators supporting the EFCA; if you’re from one of their states, thank them!

Zimbabwe: Solidarity with Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions - for human rights and the rule of law — The news out of Zimbabwe continues to be terrible, including a brutal police beating of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the runup to last week’s parliamentary elections. (A Guardian report quotes Mugabe: “Of course he was bashed.”) Now, a LabourStart release explains:

Alarmed at the growing willingness to oppose the regime openly, including from within the ruling ZANU-PF party, the regime has banned political protests for three months, especially to prevent protests against the Government’s economic failures. But the ZCTU [Zimbabwean Council of Trade Unions -- ed.] and others have responded by stepping up their criticisms and protests, and a general strike has been announced for 3-4 April. Over the weekend of 10-11 March, the security services violently attacked opposition leaders and on 13 March, raided the offices of the ZCTU to seize materials about the strike.

Via LabourStart, this link gives you a chance to send a message of solidarity with the ZCTU to Zimbabwean embassies and agencies. If anyone can stop Mugabe’s thugs, it will be the unions — remember Solidarnosc?

SaveDarfur.org is calling for more US funds for peacekeepers in Darfur. From a recent e-mail:

Congress has agreed that the President failed to address the full funding needs of Darfur peacekeeping in his recent budget request for fiscal year 2008.

To quote the official language of the recently passed funding bill, Congress “is concerned that the Administration has not adequately planned for future peacekeeping activities in Sudan/Darfur in FY 2008 and urges the Secretary of State to work with the Office of Management and Budget to submit a budget amendment for FY 2008 addressing these urgent needs.”

Please join us and Congress in urging the President and his Office of Management and Budget to provide the funds to prevent this budget shortfall that would threaten the Darfur peacekeeping effort.

None of this is enough by itself. But it’s a start for many of us. Go ahead, lend a hand.

An occasional review of further developments in stuff I’ve written about.

Babel, 12/4/06 — I really liked the movie, so I’m pleased the Academy Awards people nominated it for Best Picture, Best Director, and two Best Supporting Actresses including Rinko Kikuchi, who I misidentified as Yuko Marata though crediting her with a “really memorable performance.” It also got well deserved Oscar nominations for best original screenplay, film editing, and music score.

Appeal for Redress from the War in Iraq, 12/18/06 — The appeal reads: “As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq. Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home.” Last week that petition, signed by over a thousand military personnel, was delivered to Capitol Hill. From the LA Times account by Noam Levey:

When the campaign began three months ago, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow dismissed the first signatories as “65 people who are going to be able to get more press than the hundreds of thousands who have come back and said they’re proud of their service.” The 1,000 signatories still represent a tiny fraction of the military personnel who have served in and around Iraq since the 2003 invasion. But according to the group, those who have signed the appeal include about 100 officers. Approximately 70% of the signatories are active-duty military, while the rest are reservists or members of the National Guard, said Madden, who added that the group would not reveal the names of the signatories to protect them.

Employee Free Choice Act, 6/13/05 — This perennial progressive wish list item may have the best prospects in years. The measure allows for union locals to be formed once enough signatures are gathered — rather than via up or down votes notoriously susceptible to management pressure and bullying tactics. You can learn more about “card check” systems via American Rights at Work, and you can send your congressman a message you support this sensible measure via a AFL-CIO Working Families petition: “Some 58 million workers would join a union if they could. But, as Human Rights Watch has documented, employers routinely harass, coerce, intimidate and stall to block workers’ freedom to choose union representation. In fact, every 23 minutes a worker is fired or penalized for supporting a union.” The Senate bill is S. 842, and the House version is H.R. 1696; I’m happy to learn my congressman, Chris Van Hollen (D-MD-8), is a co-sponsor.

Security Council votes 12-0-3 for UN troops in Darfur, 8/31/06 — One of the three abstentions was China. Now that nation is signaling a slightly different stance — but still no real pressure. The New York Times is running the headline China’s Leader to Visit Sudan and Seek End to Darfur Conflict, with Howard French reporting that Chinese officials announced President Hu Jintao will visit Sudan in early February and “press for a diplomatic solution to the conflict in that country’s western Darfur region.” However, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said that, “while China intended to use its diplomatic influence to encourage a settlement of the Darfur crisis, it would not press Sudan publicly or threaten it with sanctions.”

Fair Share Health Care: canary in the ERISA coal mine, 12/15/06 — Last Thursday The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld last year’s ruling overturning Maryland’s “Fair Share Health Care” law on the grounds that it conflicted with federal law, specifically the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The Baltimore Sun’s Matthew Dolan et al report:

…A divided three-judge panel ruled that the state’s Fair Share Health Care Act was incompatible with federal rules that promote uniform treatment of employees.

“In short, the Fair Share Act leaves employers no reasonable choices except to change how they structure their employee benefit plans,” Judge Paul V. Niemeyer wrote for the majority, adding that such a constricted choice also violates the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA.

One of the three judges disagreed; Judge M. Blane Michael held that the law was “‘a permissible response to the problem’ of escalating Medicaid costs.” While the article reports that most Maryland legislators don’t want to revisit the legislation, Senate Leader Mike Miller is an important exception:

“We’re going to try to work around what the [court's] majority said and comply with the law,” Miller said. “But at the same time, we can’t allow 60 percent of Wal-Mart employees’ kids to go without health insurance and use the emergency rooms for care. There has got to be some relief for Maryland and the other states.

Emphasis added. And even though he counsels against appealing the verdict, I also agree with Sen. Thomas M. Middleton, a Charles County Democrat and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee: “First of all, Congress needs to loosen up the ERISA laws.” More on the 4th Circuit’s ruling another time, I hope. For now, I’ll just reprint dissenting Judge Michael’s final words:

Because a covered employer has the option to comply with the Act by paying an assessment — a means that is not connected to an ERISA plan — I would hold that the Act is not preempted.

Yes! Jiminy Christmas, that ought to be the ballgame — at least one judge gets it.

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NOTES: Fair Share court ruling via Steve Fine (”fineline”)
EDIT, 1/25: Judge Michael’s final words and my comment added.

In 2002, nurses at Oakwood Heritage Hospital in Taylor, Michigan decided they wanted to join a union. Today 12 of them know they won’t be allowed to — by this country’s so-called “Labor Relations Board,” which has morphed from a protector of employee rights into an advocate for management’s every wish to curtail the right to organize.

The reason: under a brand new reading of labor law, they’re statutory supervisors. From the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) 3-2 Oakwood decision:

Where an individual is engaged a part of the time as a supervisor and the rest of the time as a unit employee, the legal standard for a supervisory determination is whether the individual spends a regular and substantial portion of his/her work time performing supervisory functions. Under the Board’s standard, “regular” means according to a pattern or schedule, as opposed to sporadic substitution. The Board has not adopted a strict numerical definition of substantiality and has found supervisory status where the individuals have served in a supervisory role for at least 10–15 percent of their total work time.(emphasis added, footnotes omitted.)

So if someone spends one hour in ten assigning some responsibilities to co-workers, they’re supervisors (and likely unwilling-scabs-to-be) — even if they can’t hire, fire, discipline, or reward anyone. From the dissent (published with the decision, footnotes likewise omitted) by Clinton appointees Wilma B. Liebman and Dennis P. Walsh:

Today’s decision threatens to create a new class of workers under Federal labor law: workers who have neither the genuine prerogatives of management, nor the statutory rights of ordinary employees. Into that category may fall most professionals (among many other workers), who by 2012 could number almost 34 million, accounting for 23.3 percent of the work force. [M]ost professionals have some supervisory responsibilities in the sense of directing another’s work—the lawyer his secretary, the teacher his teacher’s aide, the doctor his nurses, the registered nurse her nurse’s aide, and so on.

If the National Labor Relations Act required this result—if Congress intended to define supervisors in a way that swept in large numbers of professionals and other workers without true managerial prerogatives—then the Board would be dutybound to apply the statute that way. But that is not the case. The language of the Act, its structure, and its legislative history all point to significantly narrower interpretations of the ambiguous statutory terms “assign . . . other employees” and “responsibly to direct them” than the majority adopts. The majority rejects what it calls a “results-oriented approach” in interpreting the Act. But the reasonableness of the majority’s interpretation can surely be tested by its real-world consequences. Congress cared about the precise scope of the Act’s definition of “supervisor,” and so should the Board. Instead, the majority’s decision reflects an unfortunate failure to engage in the sort of reasoned decision-making that Congress expected from the Board, which has the “primary responsibility for developing and applying national labor policy.”(emphasis added)

The decision was reached without any public hearings on the matter — an indication the Board knew just how explosive the result would be. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney writes,

It is a sad day for every American who works to put food on the table and gas in their cars, when the rights they count on can be cynically eviscerated by a Labor Board that is informed more by political ideology than sound legal analysis.

The NLRB should protect workers’ rights — not eliminate them. If the Administration expects us to take this quietly, they’re mistaken. Over the next week, working people will be coming together in the streets in cities across the nation to make sure everyone knows the Bush Administration is slashing workers’ right to have a voice on the job.

For more, see “Working Americans Under Attack” at The Center for American Progress (CAP) Progress Report, an extremely informative and link-rich summary of the case and its implications. See also “NLRB Undermines Workers’ Rights” at American Rights at Work where you can let President Bush know just what you think of this transparent union-busting action by his cronies at the NLRB.

It’s unlikely that will change Bush’s mind, of course. So if you care about worker rights and unions, I’d suggest working like hell (and giving cash till it hurts) to get his Republican buddies in Congress defeated. With a majority in the House and Senate, Democrats can begin to try to reverse this and other travesties of the Bush years. Until then, the best we can do is make sure they know we’re paying attention.

But meanwhile we can also (try to) get a laugh out of it. Via American Rights at Work, check out this July Stephen Colbert segment on the NLRB and the related “Kentucky River” case:

From the Sierra Club press release:

On Wednesday, June 7th, the Sierra Club, the nation’s largest grassroots’ environmental organization, and the United Steelworkers (USW), North America’s largest private sector manufacturing union, will announce the formation of a historic strategic alliance. [...]

The Alliance will promote a new vision for American public policy–creating jobs by promoting smart energy solutions to global warming; reducing the risks from toxic chemicals in the workplace and the community; and building a responsible trade policy for America. This unprecedented alliance will chart a new direction for the nation’s labor and environmental movements, bringing together almost 2 million members around a shared vision of the future.

(Via Climate Crisis Coalition - Daily News.) The “Blue/Green Alliance” is described in a bit more detail in a second press release:

“Good jobs and a clean environment are important to American workers–we cannot have one without the other, said Leo Gerard, International President of USW. “In fact, secure 21st century jobs are those that will help solve the problem of global warming with energy efficiency and renewable energy.” [...]

The USW and the Sierra Club have worked jointly on issues of mutual concern for many years, including the Clean Air Act, trade reform, and corporate responsibility. Currently, the two organizations have joint projects in fifteen states. The new Alliance will build on these existing programs and focus initially on three key issues-global warming and clean energy, fair trade, and reducing toxics. The work will begin in four states-Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Ohio, and Washington with plans to expand into at least 10 more states in the next two years.

As the Duluth News Tribune’s Lee Bloomquist reports, the partnership extends a model Minnesota collaboration between regional branches of the two organizations, which worked together on the possible discharge of water from a Minntac Mine taconite tailings basin.

“It’s not that different than what’s already been going on,” said Bob Bratulich, United Steelworkers District 11 director. “I see this event as just a formalization of the alliance. We’re just going to be working together on projects that we have common interest in.” [...]

“We have a lot of the same goals and issues,” said Jerry Fallos, a Steelworkers associate member coordinator in Eveleth. “The Sierra Club believes in renewable energy, not just for the economics, but for the environment, and so do we.”

It’s encouraging to see alliances like this one work against the assumption that fighting pollution and carbon dioxide emissions must threaten jobs and economic growth. If the Steelworkers-Sierra Club alliance does nothing but blunt the political appeal of making that charge at election time, it will have been a worthwhile initiative.

I’m a little sad: a family tradition of seeing the Washington Ballet’s Nutcracker will be interrupted this year. It’s beloved music and a beloved piece, done exceptionally well by an excellent company of dancers. Who’ve had enough, and rightly so.

The Washington Post’s Sarah Kaufman and Darragh Johnson explain what’s happening in All Toes Point To the Picket Line:

For the second night in a row, the Washington Ballet has canceled its ‘Nutcracker’ performance because of labor strife. It announced last evening that it would scrap tonight’s show — just as its dancers, dressed in coats and boots instead of costumes, were throwing up a picket line on the slick sidewalk outside the show’s venue, the Warner Theatre.

Cutting to the chase, I hope you’ll join me in supporting the dancers in a long-running dispute with Washington Ballet management. In a nutshell, the argument centers on just how grueling rehearsal and performance schedules will remain. The outcomes have arguably been remarkable performances and seasons by a relatively small company on the one hand, but not surprisingly — the dancers claim — increased injuries on the other.

The ballet’s artistic director, Septime Webre, emerges as more than a bit of a taskmaster in this story. An earlier piece by Sarah Kaufman, “Going Toe-to-Toe,” is a superb piece of reporting confirming that, and detailing the travails of one dancer, Nikkia Parish, who — I’m convinced after reading this piece — lost her job because of her support for unionizing the ballet company, and her willingness to stand up to Webre and the company management:

As a newcomer to the Washington Ballet from the much larger Pennsylvania Ballet and Dance Theatre of Harlem, Parish says she became alarmed at the frequency of injuries in the company. She began making a connection between the company’s chaotic rehearsal schedules and the aches in her knees and her back, and in the foot that eventually became too painful to dance on.

Voted by the dancers last fall to be their representative, she not only raised concerns with Webre, she says, she proposed solutions. Both of the other companies she had danced with had been unionized. Remembering the hourly take-fives and dependable schedules, Parish added her voice to the growing campaign to organize the Washington Ballet.

Parish and three other company members acquired career-interrupting injuries during the 2004 season. Things came to a head in the winter of 2004/2005, when the dancers contacted the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) and hearings were held initiating the process to voting for unionization at the Washington Ballet. Parish and another apprentice dancer, Brian Corman, testified on behalf of AGMA.

After the proceeding, Parish says, “some of the dancers said, ‘Oh, you should’ve seen Septime’s face when you got up to testify.’ ” She never found out if it was her words or the mere fact that she was testifying at all that caused her boss to turn, as she says others told her, “all different shades of white.”

Two weeks later, the NLRB ordered the ballet to hold an election among the full company members and the apprentices, and on Feb. 14, the dancers voted to allow AGMA to represent them. One dancer, who AGMA officials say had wanted to get out of the company, had already left by this time. All the others had their contracts renewed for another year.

Except for Parish and Corman.

Wal-Mart has nothing on these guys. Take away the toe shoes and the tutu and Parish’s story sounds like a garden variety slam-dunk labor law violation — and indeed, the National Labor Relations Board is considering the case. An AGMA lawyer commented that the Washington Ballet did “exactly what I would do if I was trying to beat the union.”

There’s often an attitude in the artsy crowd (and sometimes in the nonprofit crowd) that their mission excuses anything, especially exploiting workers or running their operations like feudal kingdoms, beyond criticism or oversight. If anything, that’s even more annoying than the mere greed motivating most corporate miscreants.

So if Webre and the Washington Ballet want to flog their dancers across the finish line one more time, I think there’s no reason the dancers should put up with it any more. I’m happy to forgo my annual Nutcracker fix for that. If you’d like to lend your support, the excellent folks at American Rights At Work have set up one way for you to do so.

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EDIT, 12/19: 2d Kaufman title corrected.
UPDATE, 12/19: Posts and pretty active commenting about this at DCist and Metroblogging DC, among others.
UPDATE, 12/21: AGMA has posted a full account, “Washington Ballet’s Dancers Locked Out,” on its web site, along with the terms of the interim agreement it is seeking. Looks pretty reasonable to me, see for yourselves. No corresponding statement from the Washington Ballet on their site that I found, other than regret at cancelling the remaining Nutcracker performances. PS: very nice photo of the dancers about to go picketing (or just back from it) here.