May 8: Demand Justice at SAPPI Fine Paper in Maine!

Join the Steelworkers at noon to rally at the corporate headquarters of SAPPI Fine Paper, 225 Franklin St. Boston. SAPPI workers, including two locals in Maine, have been working for an extended period without contracts. For further information contact Jennifer at jennifer@massjwj.net or 617-524-8778.

June 23-25: 20th Annual WILD Summer Institute

Registration is now open for the 20th Annual WILD Summer Institute:Moving Forward: In Unions, Our Communities and the Political Arena, Wheaton College, Norton, MA. The Women's Institute for Leadership Development (WILD) is an inspirational educational program that provides women with the leadership vision, confidence and skills to become more effective leaders and organizers in the labor movement and workplace in Massachusetts. Workshops include both leadership development and skill building. For a description of specific classes offered, please visit www.wildlabor.org or call for a full brochure.

Nurses set up camp at State House

On April 25th, as hospital CEOs held their annual "Lobby Day" at the State House, registered nurses from the Mass. Nurses Association were also out in force educating legislators about the true performance of the hospital industry, which posted a $1 billion profit in 2005, while providing substandard and, in many cases, dangerous care to patients. MNA is pressing for enactment of the Safe RN Staffing Law, H. 2663, which would require adequate staffing in hospitals. For information on how to support the campaign, visit the MNA web site at www.massnurses.org

Nurses union files charges against Kindred Healthcare

In other MNA news, the union has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board against Kindred Healthcare, the new for-profit health care corporation that purchased the Springfield facility on March 1st. The nurses are "outraged by the corporation’s blatant disregard for the nurses’ union rights and Kindred’s recent illegal efforts to unilaterally alter or disregard a host of contractually guaranteed rights and benefits."

SEIU Local 509 uncovers corruption at LifeLinks

Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 509 has revealed that LifeLinks Inc. in Lowell has handed out lucrative contracts to their executives and board members. After winning a union election, the local has been frustrated in its efforts to negotiate a first conference. Tonya Ellison of Local 509 describes the environment at LifeLinks as "like a prison".

New Orleans Union Leaders Visit Massachusetts

On April 12, The Greater Boston Central Labor Council sponsored a visit of two union leaders from hurricane ravaged New Orleans. Robert “Tiger” Hammond, President of the New Orleans Central Labor Council, and Brenda Mitchell, President of the New Orleans Teachers Union, along with Rich Rogers of the Greater Boston Central Labor Council, held an open forum at the Plumbers Local 12 in Boston to thank their brothers and sisters for their generous hurricane relief support and to make us aware of the continued abuses of workers rights along the Gulf Coast.

Hundreds rally for quality home health care

More than 300 personal care attendants (PCAs), consumers and supporters rallied at the State House on April 13 in support of the Quality Home Care Bill (H. 4246/S. 139). The bill is sponsored by SEIU Local 1199, and would create a Quality Workforce Council directed by consumers and allow PCAs to form a union.

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Healthcare compromise not fair to Massachusetts workers

By Robert J. Haynes President, Massachusetts AFL-CIO

The recent healthcare compromise is a completely one-sided victory for the business sector in Massachusetts. First and foremost despite all this rhetoric from the business community, this is about healthcare and the quality of life of working people in Massachusetts. This is an issue of humanity, morality, and the social compact that makes Massachusetts such a wonderful place to live, work, and raise a family. We live in Massachusetts because we expect more out of life, and we expect the employer class to work as hard and contribute as much to the quality of life in Massachusetts as we do. Working people insist on having a voice in the direction of this Commonwealth. If Massachusetts left the problems of our society to be solved by the business community we'd be living in a modern day Gilded Age. That's why we have government. That's why we have organized labor. Someone has to inject humanity and morality into the bottom-line mentality of the for-profit business community. Yes, we have and demand a voice. What we really care about, however, are results, plain and simple. And the results of this healthcare compromise are not up to the standards we set in Massachusetts.

Are we really to believe that the business community has better intentions for our quality of life than the Massachusetts AFL-CIO? Yet nearly all the coverage of this issue in the press talks about how good this is for business. Someone has to ask - what about the quality of life of people who work for a living in this Commonwealth? It is one thing to call this agreement progress, but quite another to sing its praises. When it comes to this healthcare bill there is little to sing about if you’re a working person.

If there is anyone who wants healthcare for all in this Commonwealth it's union people. We have been fighting for over a half-century to demand healthcare for workers and our families. In that time we have never blindly said that business is our natural foe. It is not. We partner with business in many endeavors, charitable and economic, all the time. Our foe has always been and will always be greed, unfairness, and injustice. The employee mandate and the puny employer assessment reek of these and we are not going to sit silently. We won't ever stop fighting for the quality of life we deserve here in Massachusetts, no matter how good the sales pitch is from the business community or their media mouthpieces.

Most coverage of this bill has failed to adequately mention the most important part of this bill: an employee mandate. This bill requires people, by law, to have health insurance. We expect workers to foot the bill for healthcare, but we don't ask business to pay their fair share? The anticipated $295 employer assessment will not break business's back, but make no mistake, an employee mandate without a fair contribution by the employer community, will absolutely break the backs of working people who are already feeling the strain of too high healthcare costs, too high property taxes, too high college tuitions, and soaring gas and energy bills. It's important to note that the genesis of the employee mandate came from the blatantly conservative Heritage Foundation and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Do they sound like advocates for working people to you?

This compromise is not such a promising building block. Not the way it's written. Contrast the anti-worker employee mandate to the pro-business $295 assessment and you can see why we demand a voice. The $295 assessment breaks down to 15 cents per hour for employers who neglect to provide healthcare. Good employers who do the moral and humane thing by providing healthcare for their employees are paying upwards of $8 per hour. How is that fair? $295 is less than one month's premium for an individual HMO. How is 15 cents per hour or one month's premium going to change the bad behavior of employers not providing health insurance today? It isn't. And why would any employer provide health insurance to their workers if the state has compelled the workers to bear that responsibility? In the end this looks more like a state-endorsed cost shift to employees than it does a healthcare fix. If the employee mandate becomes law without any corresponding fair requirement for employers, you will see employer-provided healthcare go the way of employer-provided pensions. Does Massachusetts really want to be this kind of leader?