Debby Zabarenko Sheila Perez

What makes the union movement go and grow? It's the rank-and-file men and women who not only go to work every day, where they use their first-rate skills to perform top-flight, quality work, but who also go that extra mile.

It may be spending hours after work or in the early mornings helping other workers win justice and a voice at work in an organizing drive. Maybe it's giving up Saturday mornings to mobilize union families to get out the vote in labor walks or leading efforts to improve neighborhoods and communities.

These union members make up the Heart of the Movement. Debby Zabarenko and Sheila Perez are among them—and the two latest additions to union members we feature in the Heart of the Movement section on our website.

Zabarenko first joined The Newspaper Guild-CWA 27 years ago when she began her journalism career at the Associated Press. Today, she is the environment correspondent for the Reuters news service and covers a host of stories ranging from climate change to environmental political activists.

Up and down the West Coast today, members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) are commemorating the 74th anniversary of "Bloody Thursday."

On July 5, 1934, San Francisco police, backed up by the National Guard, opened fire on a group of 2,000 dockworkers, sailors and other maritime workers, killing two and wounding scores of others.

The longshore workers had struck San Francisco and other West Coast ports May 9. They demanded recognition of their union and the ouster of a company union—one that controlled who got work, who didn’t, what workers were paid and what meager benefits, if any, they received for their backbreaking and dangerous work in cargo holds and on the docks. Other maritime workers joined them in solidarity.

This July 4, there will be lots of speeches about freedom and patriotism. Politicians will talk about the nation's struggle for independence and how we must fight to defend what we have achieved. But especially since the terrorist attacks in 2001, such talk has defined patriotism as fighting terrorism and standing up for the flag—yet it goes no further.

But it should.

Among those in the country embodying patriotism are the women and men who make up our nation's unions.

Union members demonstrate their patriotism by taking on the most fundamental of roles: Defending our nation. Thousands of union members have joined the National Guard and the military. Union members—firefighters, police, medical technicians—were the first to respond on Sept. 11, and hundreds more risked their lives to help recover bodies from the rubble. These union members put their lives on the line on Sept. 11—as they do every day.

Barack Obama is the only candidate in the presidential race who is on the side of working people, and we must defeat attempts to divide workers by race and put him in the White House, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka says.

Speaking to the United Steelworkers’ (USW) convention in Las Vegas this week, Trumka said:

[At] the end of the day, what people are going to need to hear is that when it comes to protecting jobs, when it comes to protecting pensions, when it comes to health care, child care, pay equity for women, Social Security, Medicare, seeing to it that people can afford to go to college and buy a home—and restoring the right to collective bargaining—Barack Obama has always, always been on our side.

First McCain said he doesn't know much about the economy. Lately, he's saying he never said it. Which is it?

George W. Bush's solution to our nation's economic mess—that his failed policies helped create—is to applaud people who must work three jobs to make ends meet.

Sen. John McCain colors his solution to working families' financial struggles with similar crayons: He encourages us to make a living selling stuff on eBay. As reported on Bloomberg:

McCain, seeking to address voter anxiety about the economy, uses eBay to signal that he is "fundamentally optimistic about the capacity of the U.S. economy to innovate, for that innovation to give new opportunities for jobs,'' said Doug Holtz-Eakin, the candidate's senior economic adviser. "We shouldn't be obsessed with looking backwards all the time, and saying, 'Gee, where did those jobs go?' "

Tax cuts for corporations, coupled with tax hikes and higher health care costs for working families? That’s no way to turn around the economy and the country. Yet, it’s the likely result of John McCain’s economic agenda, according to analysts.

This week, the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF) hosted “McCain U.,” a daylong session with economists and policy analysts who say a McCain presidency would be a third Bush term.

McCain’s agenda, these experts say, is quite extreme, taking Bush’s economic theories and pushing them even further, leaving working families behind.

Jobs tanked again in June, with U.S. employers cutting 62,000 jobs, for a sixth consecutive monthly decline, according to the Labor Department today.

The jobless rate remained at 5.5 percent after jumping in May by the most in two decades.

The Labor Department today also issued a report showing initial claims for jobless benefits rose by 16,000 to 404,000 last week.

According to Bloomberg:

The total, higher than economists forecast, brought the four-week average to the highest since October 2005, just after Hurricane Katrina. The total number of people collecting benefits dropped to 3.116 million from 3.135 million.

Charles Clark, Labor 2008 state director for Indiana, reports on union members’ response to a McCain appearance this week.

When John McCain arrived in Indianapolis on Tuesday morning, he was greeted by dozens of union members chanting “Shame on McCain” and “McSame as Bush” in protest of the presidential candidate’s visit to the state capital.

Protesters from AFSCME Local 661, OPEIU Local 1, IUPAT Local 47, UAW Region 3, UFCW Local 700 and USW Locals 1999 and 715 blasted McCain for his plan to tax health care.

With its two leaders still awaiting trial, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has condemned the continuing violence and intimidation of union members in the country as the government of discredited President Robert Mugabe tries to hold on to power. The violence against union members is taking place within a countrywide surge of brutality against Mugabe opponents.

The AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, along with the international labor movement, is supporting Stand Up for Zimbabwe, a global campaign to end violence in Zimbabwe and show solidarity with its people.

The ZCTU says members of Mugabe’s ruling party orchestrated a national campaign of intimidation, with union members as major targets, to ensure he would win the June 27 presidential runoff. Mugabe was the only candidate in the race. His opponent had withdrawn, saying the election could not be fair because of Mugabe’s reign of terror.

In a global economy where multinational companies operate across borders, unions are developing global strategies to better represent their members and sustain the middle class.

Today, the United Steelworkers (USW) and Unite, Britain’s largest union, took a giant step in that direction by formally joining together to form the world’s first global union.

The new union, dubbed Workers Uniting: The Global Union, will draw on the energies of the two unions' more than 3 million active and retired workers from the United States, Canada, Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland. The members work in virtually every sector of the global economy, including manufacturing, service, mining and transportation (see video).

Top row from left: Ed Wright, Ironworkers Local 7; James McCallum, former alderman and retired president of Sheet Metal Workers 17; Alderman Robert Trane, Ward 7; Alderman Bill Roche, Ward 1; Dennis Sullivan, president, Board of Alderman; Tony Perrone, business agent, Laborers Local 22; Reese Thornton, member, Painters and Allied Trades District Council 35; Reese Thornton's son. Botton row from left: Rich Rogers, executive secretary-treasurer, Greater Boston Labor Council; Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone; and Frank Callahan, president of the Massachusetts Building Trades Council.

If construction contractors want to do business with the Boston suburb of Somerville, they must show they are "responsible employers" as a result of new contracting standards. The city's Board of Aldermen passed the new contacting standards after Boston-area unions pressed for the legislation.

The new "Responsible Employer" ordinance, passed earlier this month and signed into law Monday, requires all contractors bidding on city construction work to provide worker health benefits, maintain a state-certified apprenticeship program and classify their workers as employees, not independent contractors.

Frank Snyder, Labor 2008 state director for Pennsylvania, reports on a union rally outside a John McCain campaign stop.

More than 70 union members and activists gathered outside Worth and Co. in Pipersville, Pa., to highlight Sen. John McCain's anti-worker record as he held a town hall meeting inside the building.

Members from AFSCME, AWIU, CWA, IAFF, IBEW, NATCA, SMWIA, UA, UFCW and USW attended the rally, chanting “John McCain is more of the same” and holding signs that read “Turn Around America” and “John McCain Voted Against Health Care for Children.”

Asserting that “our time is now,” United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard opened the union’s convention by calling on the more than 3,000 delegates to “seize the moment” to bring fundamental change to the nation’s economy and politics.

In a rousing keynote speech yesterday, Gerard said USW members

share the powerful belief that every human being, no matter where they work—no matter their gender, their race or their creed—every worker has the right to be treated with dignity and respect, and the right to retire with security. This is our moment to challenge that shell game and reassert our rightful place as champions of the middle class.

While Sen. Barack Obama campaigns in America's heartland over the Fourth of July holiday, Sen. John McCain is heading out of the country. He's on his way to Colombia, where he plans to stump for anti-worker trade deals like the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

Apparently McCain decided, in the midst of a hot presidential election season, his time is best spent showing he's on the side of Big Business—by supporting trade deals that send family-supporting jobs out of the United States.

Why is McCain so strongly opposed to standards in trade agreements that would not send jobs overseas? Maybe it’s because his campaign is deeply entwined with the lobbyists and corporations who are the real winners in these unfair trade policies. According to reports by The New York Times and the Huffington Post, many of McCain’s top advisers and funders have actively lobbied for the Colombian government and corporations in support of the U.S-Colombia FTA.

 

Members of CWA Local 6355 take part in a recent weekend labor walk in St. Louis.

In Pennsylvania, Missouri and across the country, union members went door to door last week to educate, mobilize and energize union members for the 2008 elections.

This month’s member-to-member walks are focused on the economy and the Employee Free Choice Act and are part of the AFL-CIO Labor 2008 program, the largest grassroots union political mobilization in history.

In St. Louis, 47 union leaders and members gathered Saturday at the Greater St. Louis Labor Council building for the AFL-CIO’s second labor walk.

Jose Rivera

For years, AFGE’s Council of Prison Locals (CPL), the union representing correctional officers in the nation’s federal prisons, has been pushing for more funding and staffing to safely maintain our nation’s prisons and surrounding communities. The union warns that staffing levels are decreasing while inmate population levels are increasing, leaving the correctional officers and the communities in grave danger.

Tragically, on June 20, those warnings were realized when Jose Rivera, a correctional officer at the U.S. Penitentiary in Atwater, Calif., was killed by two inmates with homemade weapons. Rivera, who would have turned 23 this month, had worked for the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for 10 months when he was killed. A Navy veteran, he served two tours in Iraq. For more information on Jose Rivera and to donate funds to help his family, click here

Terry and Mary Landa, homeowners from Goodyear, Ariz., speaking in support of the Homeowners' Bill of Rights.

Robert Masciola, deputy director of the AFL-CIO Center for Strategic Research, describes how an initiative that qualified for the November ballot would benefit Arizona homeowners.

In December 2007, the Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) Local 359 filed paperwork with the Arizona Secretary of State to form the Arizona Homeowners' Bill of Rights Committee. The goals were clear: Provide homeowners with improved rights to deal with construction defects and shady home sales practices.

Yesterday, at a press conference at the Arizona Secretary of State’s office, the committee presented petitions with more than 260,000 signatures to the state to allow Arizona voters to determine the outcome of this issue in the fall.

Houston workers protest high gas prices and John McCain's support for Big Oil.

Over the weekend, union members in Texas and Kentucky held events to demand relief for working families during this time of economic difficulty and soaring gas prices.

In Houston, more than 75 union members gathered in front of Shell Oil headquarters to demand an economic plan that helps families beset by these rising costs. They called attention to Sen. John McCain’s record on tax breaks for oil and gas companies, and asked that he change course and look out for workers, not the lobbyists who fund and run his campaign.

The union members were joined by Charles Steel, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which co-sponsored the rally.

Eloise Mullen, a member of UFCW Local 1776, along with IUOE Local 542 members and Liz McElroy from the Philadelphia Council of the AFL-CIO, gets set for walks in Delaware County (top), as do union members in Colorado (bottom).

Phil Hayes, Labor 2008 state director for Colorado, reports on member-to-member walks in Colorado this past weekend. Walks also took place in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin and elsewhere across the nation.

This weekend, 92 union members came out in Colorado to talk with their fellow union members about important issues in this election. AFGE, AFSCME, AFT, APWU, ATU, CWA, IAFF, IBEW, IUOE, LIUNA, NALC, NATCA, SMWIA and USW had members walking to turn around America.

This member-to-member walk is part of Labor 2008, the AFL-CIO’s largest grassroots political mobilization in history. In recent days, union members have gone door to door to talk with their fellow workers about the 2008 election, the economy and the Employee Free Choice Act.

In Denver, volunteers talked with other union members about the AFL-CIO’s endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama for president. Colorado is sure to be a crucial state in this fall’s elections for the White House and Congress.

 

When you get a chance, cruise on over to the United Steelworkers (USW) revamped and eye-catching new website.

Launched earlier this month, the site features live streaming video, daily news, photo slide shows, audio reports, updated blogging and a wealth of other USW information.

In the "In Our Members' Words" section, USW members, like David Garcia, speak out about what the union means to them. Says Garcia, a member of USW Local 296 in Tucson, Ariz.:

I have been union for 31 years. I see my union as an enforcer and protector of the workers. The union is a check and balance that keeps corporations from taking advantage of the workers.