“THEY SAY ‘CUT BACK’!  WE SAY ‘FIGHT BACK’!”

We reprint Will Rogers’ report from Left Labor Reporter about the terrific, union-led Save Our State march and rally on April 6.  http://leftlaborreporter.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/spirit-of-wisconsin-alive-in-texas/

Judy Lugo speaks (photo Rene Renteria)

“Texas has won the race to the bottom,” said Texas State Employees Union president Judy Lugo. “But Gov. Rick Perry and Republican lawmakers in the state House of Representatives want to keep racing.” Lugo was speaking to a crowd of 7,000 Texans chanting, “no cuts” at a rally on the steps of the state capitol to protest the $23 billion cuts to the state’s budget that passed out of the state House of Representative last week.

“Right now, Texas ranks last among states in the number of children with health insurance, 44th in high school graduation rates, 49th in per capita spending on Medicaid, and 50th in per capita tax expenditures,” Lugo said. “These vital services that working people rely on will get much worse if the proposed budget cuts go through.”

photo Alberto Martinez, Austin American Statesman

Last week, the state house voted to adopt HB 1, which seeks to close the state’s $23 billion budget deficits solely by cutting state services. If these cuts become law, they could do irreparable harm to working class Texans.  A recent study by the state’s Legislative Budget Board found that the proposed cuts will eliminate 335,000 jobs and reduce personal income by more than $17 billion. State Senator Kirk Watson speaking at the rally said that the proposed budget cuts are “an evolving catastrophe.”

Scott Chase, president of the South Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce, which represents small businesses in this South Dallas community, told the crowd that the proposed budget cuts are “bad for business,” which is why his group was the first Chamber of Commerce in the state call on legislators to take a balanced approach to closing the budget gap rather than relying solely on cuts. Chase urged lawmakers to use all of the state’s $9 billion Rainy Day fund to help close the budget gap.

HB 1 would reduce funding for public education by $4.7 billion, resulting in mass layoffs for teachers and other education workers and increased class sizes. “We don’t want our children packed into overcrowded classrooms and we don’t want our state’s economy undermined by pink slips for our teachers and public employees,” Watson said.        

photo Rene Renteria

HB 1 would also reduce funding for the states health and human service agencies by $10.8 billion. Medicaid will bear the brunt of these cuts. HB 1 cuts $4.7 billion from the Medicaid budget and is $13.7 billion shy of the amount requested by the state Health and Human Services Commission to fund projected growth in the Medicaid caseload.

“We’re already getting calls from hospitals telling us that nursing homes won’t take back patients that they sent to the hospitals because the nursing homes don’t think that there will be enough Medicaid to take care of their patients because of the budget cuts,” said Dalia Martinez, a TSEU member in the audience who works at the Department of Family Protective Services’ Statewide Intake Center, a hotline for reports of abuse to the elderly and children.

photo Rene Renteria

The rally against the budget cuts was organized by TSEU and Texas Forward, a coalition of 50 organizations that advocate for better public services. The rally drew a wide range of working-class people. Community organizations like the Texas Organizing Project, a grassroots community group of low- and moderate-income people with 10,000 members in cities all over the state, and Rio Grande Valley Interfaith, COPS of San Antonio, TMO of Houston, and Austin Interfaith, all of which are Industrial Area Foundation groups, sent large contingents.

CWA telephone workers (photo Rene Renteria)

Union members  from all over the state and from a wide variety of industries were the backbone of the rally.  About a dozen telephone locals of the Communication Workers of America sent members to support their sister public sector union, TSEU. Speaking for the CWA, Richard Kneupper, assistant to the vice-president for District 6 told the state workers and teachers in the audience that “the work you do is important; without public workers, Texas doesn’t work.”

Teamster Local 749 in Dallas filled six bus loads of people to come to rally. Unions representing steelworkers, autoworkers, machinists, sheet metal workers, bus drivers, railroad workers, and many other private sector

photo Rene Renteria

unions sent large contingents of members to support Texas’ public workers. There were also members from AFSCME and the teachers’ unions on hand to offer their support.

Speaking for the labor movement, Becky Moeller, president of the state AFL-CIO  said, “When I have a hole in my roof, I don’t  burn off the roof to fix the hole; that’s what HB 1 does. HB 1 will throw people out of nursing homes; it will make it harder for people to get health care; it will cause people to get sick and die. It will also cause hundreds of thousands of hard-working Texans to lose their jobs, and to keep running, the machinery of Texas depends on jobs. We in the labor movement will do everything we can for as long as it take to defeat HB 1.We’re united like never before. WE ARE ONE.”

AFSCME and more (photo Bob Daemrich, Texas Tribune)

TSEU leads the march (photo Rene Renteria)

photo Rene Renteria

Solution to the money problem! (photo Rene Renteria)

TSEU Legislative Director Derrick Osobase (photo Rene Renteria)

Dallas Fights Back!

North Texas Jobs with Justice joined with the Texas Alliance for Retired Americans and most of the union retiree leaders in North Texas to conduct a speakout on December 2nd against cuts in unemployment benefits and proposals to cut retiree benefits. Cuts in retiree benefits would just make unemployment much worse. In fact, the AFL-CIO had estimated that new proposals from the so-called “Committee for Fiscal Responsibility” would cause another 4,000,000 job losses! Many of the 50 people at the meeting had already called Congress that week, and more calls were made after the meeting. They were gratified on December 3 when they learned that the committee’s proposals had been voted down before going to the Congress.

Communications Workers of America Retired Members Council 6290 President Larry Laznovsky opened the meeting and called for introductions. Leaders of his own union from Tarrant and Dallas Counties were joined by retiree leaders from the Steelworkers, Teachers, and Auto Workers. Jobs with Justice organizer Gene Lantz, opened the discussion. He said that the American people were not going to be fooled by the continuation of “voodoo economics.” “We are being told that poor people can be made happy if they give money to rich people. They’ve been saying that for 30 years,” he said. He introduced Dr. Joerg Rieger, who had written a book with that same theme. It is called “No Rising Tide” because President Reagan used to say that “A rising tide lifts all boats.” More recently, people have realized that the Reagan/Bush tide only lifted the yachts, while it submerged ordinary peoples’ rowboats and canoes!

CWA leader Jim Rivers went over the cutback proposal in detail. He also summarized a much better deficit-reducing proposal by Senator Jan Schakowsky, a dissenting member of the “Fiscal Responsibility Committee.” Rosemarie Rieger said that younger people must follow the lead of the retiree activists.

Comments came from CWA leaders of both Dallas and Tarrant County, Steelworkers, Teachers, and Autoworkers. Everyone remarked on the alarming extent of the crisis and the need to get more people actively involved in fighting back. The activities around Dr Martin Luther King’s birthday, January 15, would make a good time to get more people on the streets, as they already are in Europe over these same issues!

Jobs with Justice will make plans at its second-Wednesday meeting, 7 PM on December 8th, at 2218 E Main in Grand Prairie.

Join and/or donate to North Texas Jobs with Justice

http://www.labordallas.org/

Once again the Communications Workers of America, the international union of which Texas State Employees Union is a local, reaffirms its opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  CWA passed this resolution at its recent convention in Washington, D.C.  In 2008 its anti-war resolution stressed the war in Iraq; this one gives more attention to the war in Afghanistan.

SUPPORT THE TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME

Resolution: 72A-10-9, July 28, 2010

Our country is now engaged in a great national debate about the war in Afghanistan, whether we should be there at all, and, if so, what our mission is and what resources are needed to carry out that mission.

The fateful decision President Obama made to add 30,000 troops in Afghanistan will affect our own country in profound ways for years to come, including whether President Obama will be able to carry out his commitment to rebuild our own country.

The earlier decision by President Bush to go to war in Iraq was based on false information and has already cost our country more than 4,400 soldiers’ lives, over 30,000 wounded, and more than $733 billion.

The labor movement, having worked so hard to elect our president, has a direct stake in President Obama’s capacity to direct the necessary resources to create jobs and rebuild America.

Some 35,000 CWA members, including public sector workers and telecommunications workers and many others have been surplused during this economic downturn and need to be able to get back to work immediately at good union wages, providing needed healthcare and public services and building affordable broadband access for all of America.

The United States has spent over $283 billion in Afghanistan already. The decision to send 30,000 more troops will cost at least $33 billion more this year, and could cost at least $100 billion a year for years to come. These funds are urgently needed to create and keep jobs here at home, and for other pressing needs, including rebuilding the nation’s physical and telecommunications infrastructure; aid to city and state governments to maintain public services; full veterans’ benefits; health care and quality education for all; housing relief in the foreclosure crisis; and the creation of millions of good jobs at fair wages in manufacturing, services, and green jobs.

Hundreds of thousands of brave and patriotic Americans, including CWA members, have enlisted in these wars and too many have made the ultimate sacrifice; yet those who return home too often find that the government help they need to regain their health and rebuild their lives is sorely lacking.

Resolved: CWA calls for an end to the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Resolved: CWA calls for withdrawal of all U.S. military forces and contractors from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Resolved: CWA calls for the use of diplomatic and multilateral measures to resolve these and the many other pressing conflicts around the globe.

Resolved: CWA calls for rebuilding America and redirecting funds used for these wars to urgently needed public and private sector job creation in this country, and to aid for state and local governments.

Resolved: CWA continues to support our troops and believes that the best support is to bring them home and give them the benefits they deserve, including but not limited to adequate medical and mental health care, employment training, and placement in jobs paying a living wage.

The biennial statewide General Assembly of the Texas State Employees Union/CWA Local 6186, to be held Oct. 3 – Oct. 5 in Austin, will be presented with an antiwar resolution originated by Texas Labor Against the War activists.  The resolution is co-signed by over 30 TSEU delegates and members from Austin and Dallas.  Here is the resolution, which endorses the resolution passed at the Communications Workers of America national convention in June.  The CWA resolution was printed in an earlier TxLAW news item on this website.

Resolution to be presented at the Texas State Employees Union 2008 General Assembly

RESOLVED:  TSEU/CWA Local 6186 will actively work to implement this resolution by adding our voice to those demanding that resources spent on these wars be redirected to our needs at home; by demanding of our government that our troops, veterans, and their families get the medical care and benefits they deserve; and by exploring affiliation with U.S. Labor Against the War and other groups which support international labor standards.

Activists will present a resolution opposing the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at the general assembly of the Texas State Employees Union/CWA Local 6186, to be held Oct. 3 – 5 in Austin. The resolution will be an endorsement of the antiwar resolution passed in June at the national convention of the Communication Workers of America, TSEU’s parent union.

Here’s the CWA resolution. We will publish the proposed TSEU resolution when its wording is finalized.

2008 CWA Convention Resolution: Working for Peace and Labor Rights in Iraq
Communications Workers of America
June 28th, 2008
Resolution 70A-08-9

The military actions of the Bush administration in the Middle East have reached a critical point, one which may commit future administrations to an expanded war. The costs of that war are now running over $341 million per day and total more than $531 billion to date. These costs will be borne by generations to come.

The money spent on this war could be spent to repair our nation’s infrastructure and restore social programs that have been devastated by years of Republican neglect. But the cost in human Iives is even more important, with 4,104 of our young men and women killed to date, over 30,000 wounded, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children killed.

The Iraqi labor movement also has been devastated. It is increasingly dangerous to be a union leader in Iraq. The Iraqi labor movement reports that union property has been seized and destroyed, bank accounts have been frozen, and leaders have been abducted, arrested and assassinated. With their lives in danger, many labor leaders have been forced to leave the country.

Following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority kept intact a 1987 decree by Saddam Hussein outlawing unions in the public sector and in public enterprises. This ban has been continued by the current government of Nouri Al-Maliki. In place of free union elections, the government is imposing an elections process. This is an affront to the principles of free trade unionism and counter to the Iraqi government’s 2004 pledge to create a law that would comply with International Labor Organization (ILO) standards and guarantee workers the right to form their own trade unions.

A coalition of international labor rights organizations, including the AFL-CIO, is calling for the lraqi government to cease its interference with lraqi unions and to respect workers’ rights to form unions. In the United States, local unions, state and regional labor organizations and others have built a solidarity network – U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW). USLAW has sponsored two visits by lraqi trade unionists to the United States and continues to provide a key link between U.S. workers and our brothers and sisters in the Iraqi labor movement.

RESOLVED: CWA continues to support our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and believes that the best support is to bring them home and give them all medical treatment, care and benefits they need and deserve.

RESOLVED: CWA encourages all Locals to unite with labor unions here and internationally in the growing movement against the war and to deepen their active solidarity with the Iraqi trade unionists.

RESOLVED: CWA Joins with the AFL-CIO and other labor organizations to call on the lraqi government to take immediate steps to bring Iraq into compliance with International Labor Organization core labor standards.