The Economy

Freedom to Form a Union

Health Care

Retirement Security

Core Labor Laws, Labor Standards and Workplace Protections

Education, Civil and Human Rights, Fair and Open Elections

The Global Economy

After eight years of neglect and inaction by the Bush administration, the Department of Labor under the Obama administration set an ambitious agenda to develop and issue much-needed standards to protect workers from serious and life-threatening safety and health hazards, to strengthen enforcement against serious violators and to protect workers’ rights.

Four decades ago, in 1970, Congress enacted the Occupational Safety and Health Act promising workers in this country the right to a safe job.

Since that time, workplace safety and health conditions have improved. But too many workers remain at serious risk of injury, illness or death, as demonstrated by three 2010 disasters: the explosion at the Massey Energy Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia that killed 29 coal miners—the worst coal mine disaster in 40 years; the Tesoro Refinery explosion in Washington State that killed seven workers; and the BP/Transocean Gulf Coast oil rig explosion

This Issue covers: Civil Rights, Voting Rights, Immigration, LGBT Developments, Women’s Rights, and additional Resources

A pandemic flu will have a huge impact on workers in the United States. During the worst part of a pandemic flu, 40% to 60% of workers may have to stay home. Some workers are more likely to get sick, like health care workers and those who respond to an emergency. Workers who have a lot of close contact with the public are also in danger. Whenever workers are at risk of getting the virus, employers must take steps to prevent it from spreading. This is called infection control.

Last March, as Congress contemplated the repeal of OSHA’s ergonomics standard, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao stated, “Repetitive stress injuries in the workplace are an important problem.” She promised that if the standard was repealed, the Department would “pursue a comprehensive approach to ergonomics, which may include new rulemaking…This approach will provide employers with achievable measures that protect employees before injuries occur.”

This report evaluates how the 10 largest mutual fund families voted when presented with the opportunity to curb CEO pay abuses at a dozen S&P 500 companies in 2004. We chose executive compensation as our benchmark because, in the words of billionaire investor Warren Buffet, “The acid test for reform will be CEO compensation.”

We found that, when it comes to voting proxies on proposals involving CEO pay abuses, there is significant variation among fund families. The scores in our survey ranged from a high of 100% for American Century to a low of 20% for Putnam.

Working families throughout America are increasingly being squeezed— they are working longer today to pay for middle-class living than they had to 25 years ago. Nationally, today’s families are facing a combination of stagnant incomes and staggering cost increases for health care, education, housing, transportation and, especially now, fuel. In 2005, the average two-earner family needed to work 31.5 weeks a year to pay for taxes and health care, housing, college and transportation costs, compared with 30.2 weeks in March 2001 and 28.7 weeks in March 1979. After paying for those basic needs, that average family had $951 less than families in 2000 and $1,702 less than families in 1980 to pay for other basic items as well as to save for retirement.

The survey confirms that every day, people are being forced to make life-and-death decisions: Pay the health care premiums or buy the life-saving prescription? Chip away at credit card debt or skip the required care for a serious chronic condition? Nearly everyone is dissatisfied with health care costs—including almost three-quarters of people with insurance. As one woman wrote, “My insurance deductible equals four to five months of take home pay each year. My insurance bill is split with my employer but equals two days of pay each month. How am I supposed to go to a doctor?”

The Hart survey reveals stark differences between the importance workers place on workplace rights and how they say employers treat those rights.

Recent studies in 13 states have examined the extent to which employers’ workers utilize public health programs to secure health coverage for themselves and their families. As the following summary of those analyses reflects, in each one of these states, Wal-Mart ranks at or near the very top of the list of employers that are shifting to the public the cost of providing health care for their workers. In so doing, Wal-Mart is directly contributing to the nation’s Medicaid crisis.

Several factors account for manufacturing job loss in Washington and elsewhere, but there is little evidence about the role any single factor plays. Yet identifying causes and measuring their effects is important: Understanding the role of current policies in manufacturing job loss can help shape reasoned and reasonable changes that will maintain American competitiveness while creating and preserving good jobs in America.

Legislation has been introduced in the Congress to prevent future disasters and protect the safety and health of miners and other workers. H.R. 5663 strengthens the Mine Safety and Health Act and Occupational Safety and Health Act, the nation’s primary job safety laws. The bill – the “Miner Safety and Health Act of 2010” - provides for stepped up enforcement and tougher penalties for employers who flagrantly violate the law and enhances the protection of miners and workers who speak out about job hazards, report injuries and exercise their rights. The mine safety provisions address problems identified after the Upper Big Branch disaster, including increased oversight, enforcement and penalties for mines with a pattern of violations. The provisions to strengthen the OSH Act come from H.R. 2067 – the Protecting America’s Workers Act – legislation introduced last year and the subject of numerous Congressional hearings.

Some companies have directly backed initiatives that threaten retirement security. For example, Charles Schwab and Wachovia both belong to the pro-privatization lobby, the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security. Citigroup donated $100,000 to Citizens to Save California, which has championed the proposal to outlaw traditional public pensions in California.

America deserves an immigration system that protects all workers within our borders—both native-born and foreign—and at same time guarantees the safety of our nation without compromising our fundamental civil rights and civil liberties.

Any viable solution to this crisis must address the reasons why people are coming to the U.S. Most immigrants come from countries where the international development process has failed, and many are from countries where International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and trade policies have weakened countries’ economies and labor protections, causing a devastating impact on all workers. In some developing countries, IMF policies have caused public-sector workers to lose their jobs and their union protections, forcing them into competition in the private sector, where few, if any, jobs are available, driving down wages and working conditions even further. Trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement undermine the agricultural economies of developing countries, leading workers to leave the fields and consider moving north. Without rising living standards abroad for workers and the poor, the pressure for illegal immigration will continue and escalate.

Our union’s Health and Safety Department has prepared this handbook to assist PEF members in recognizing the workplace hazards that are most frequently cited by PESH and OSHA. This handbook gives you an overview of the standards related to those hazards as well as a reference guide to do any further research.

American workers routinely confront a shameful pattern of threats, harassment, spying, firings and other reprisals against worker activists and a labor law system that is failing to deter such violations.

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Instead, the study reported on here analyzes a large body of evidence—drawn from industry and government sources, the professional literature, and many other sources—in an effort to examine the extent that the deterioration of the overall U.S. manufacturing base is contributing to the erosion of the nation’s defense industrial base. That is, its focus is on assessing the health and competitiveness of the nation’s civilian industrial base upon which a strong defense industrial base—including the ability to produce specialized defense-critical products—ultimately rests.