Negotiators from USW and Stillwater Mining reached a tentative agreement on a new contract. That's good news, although we'll see if the workers like the new contract before we break open the whiskey to celebrate.
Through it all, reading the Gazette's online coverage has been heartening. Most comments have been supportive of the workers. Unsupportive comments have been rated down. And they ran a big piece on how a bunch of locals who don't work at the mine are siding with the workers. Previous stories have gone into detail with workers talking about their presence being a statement of support for other workers, even ones who work in different departments.
This sort of good news emerges, even though I generally find the tone of the media to be pretty anti-union. During the transit strike in New York, there was a lot of bitching by the press about the nerve that these workers had to strike. The public, though, supported the workers, not management.
Ezra Klein is on a bit of an education tear today, noting that teachers unions aren't really the problem in education and noting that teachers unions even support merit pay.
The reality of education reform is that there are a whole bunch of far-right policies, ranging from tax credits, charter schools, and vouchers to union busting, corporate test teaching, and so on and so forth. All of these ideas have an ideological source, but few of them have actually been proven to do anything about education quality.
Please join the Progressive States Network, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, Montana State Senator Jim Elliott and others Friday 3/16 at 1pm EST for this important conference call about the national state-based campaign to stop President Bush's request to reauthorize "fast track" trade authority - the authority that allows presidents to strip "free" trade deals of all labor, human rights and environmental standards. As you may have heard, a new ad campaign has launched in Montana against fast track in the wake of the Montana Senate's powerful anti-fast track resolution. This fight is just starting to heat up across the country. The call-in info is in the extended entry in the media advisory sent out by the Progressive States Network today.
Big (and good) news for workers today. Even in the face of a Presidential veto, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), landmark legislation protecting the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively. Even better news? The legislation even got 13 crossover votes from Republicans.
What does the EFCA do? In a nutshell, it allows workers to organize either through the current employer-dominated election process -- a process that has resulted in widespread employer intimidation of workers -- or through "card check" where a majority of workers sign cards stating their preference for a union -- a process that results in far lower levels of worker intimidation.
Currently, card check campaigns are only recognized voluntarily by employers. Election processes are so rife with intimidation and corruption that the first step in most real union organizing these days is fighting simply to get the employer to agree to not intimidate workers. Without that first step, it becomes impossible to organize.
Almost a year ago, Max Baucus became the 43rd cosponsor of the EFCA in the Senate. I have no idea where Jon Tester stands on it. Labor already knows it faces a tougher battle in the 51-49 Senate and the prospects of a Presidential veto. But the House today took a strong stand for workers. And that deserves a little round of applause.
