The House of Representatives voted on July 18 to raise the federal minimum wage. By a vote of 231-199, members passed the Raise the Wage Act, H.R. 582, legislation that would increase the federal minimum wage-now just $7.25 an hour-for the first time in 10 years. Under the act, the minimum wage would increase to $15 by 2025. A higher federal minimum wage would benefit numerous categories of workers, including many education support professionals, who provide important services to students, yet struggle to get by on what they earn. The legislation would help one-sixth of educators, according to studies, as well as one-fifth of construction workers, a quarter of health care workers, and nearly a third of manufacturing workers. Studies also show the legislation would reduce poverty and income inequality by raising the total annual income of the lowest-paid workers, and help close racial earnings gaps. Send an email urging your senators to cosponsor S. 150, the companion legislation in the Senate.

PROTECT OUR PENSIONS! PASS HR 397

HR 397 House Vote

The Rehabilitation for Multiemployer Pensions Act (HR 397) is headed to the full House of Representatives for debate and vote on the floor this week!  This bill is vital to protecting the pensions of hundreds of thousands of active Teamsters members and retirees across the country.  Thanks to both Democratic and Republican allies in the House, the bill is expected to pass out of the house.  But every last vote counts, from members of Congress on both sides of the aisle.

The time is NOW to urge your member to vote for H.R. 397!

TAKE ACTION – Tell your Member of Congress that you support the Rehabilitation for Multiemployer Pensions Act (HR 397) and that you will be watching how they vote on the House floor this week.

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URGE YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS TO PROTECT WORKERS FROM PREVENTABLE INJURY AND DEATH

Asuncion Valdivia was 53 years old, working a 10-hour shift picking grapes in the sun on a 100-degree July day.

He collapsed from heatstroke and died as his son valiantly tried to get him to the hospital.

U.S. workers don’t have basic protections against deadly heat, and the climate crisis is intensifying this hazard. 

The Asuncion Valdivia Heat Illness and Fatality Prevention Act, just introduced in Congress, is our chance to change this.

Take action now.

Email your U.S. representative and demand that they protect workers from deadly heat.

This bill will protect workers by ensuring they have access to water, rest and shade, or a cool environment during dangerously hot days.

Whether it’s a worker laboring under the scorching sun or in a sweltering warehouse without proper ventilation, no worker should be denied basic protections against dangerous heat.

These are common sense safety measures proven to save lives.

Urge your member of Congress to co-sponsor this bill to protect workers from preventable injury and death.

Heat is the leading weather-related killer in the U.S., and the problem is only growing worse due to the climate crisis.

An estimated 290 million Americans will see temperatures hit 90 degrees or more during the next week — and this legislation could help ensure workers won’t die in the future in extreme conditions like these.

Thanks for raising your voice,               

Shanna Devine
Public Citizen’s Worker Health & Safety Advocate

12 Minimum wages going up in seven Bay Area cities Alameda, Milpitas and Fremont will see the biggest bumps

By ANNIE SCIACCA | asciacca@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: June 30, 2019 at 6:14 am | UPDATED: July 1, 2019 at 8:03 am

Many workers in seven Bay Area cities will see bigger paychecks next month as a round of new ordinances raising minimum wages takes effect Monday.

Those in Alameda, Milpitas and Fremont will see the biggest bumps.

In Alameda and Fremont, the minimum wage will rise from $12 to $13.50 an hour, although businesses in Fremont with 25 or fewer employees can continue paying $11 per hour next year. Minimum wages in Milpitas will climb from $13.50 to $15 an hour.

In San Leandro the minimum wage will jump a buck, from $13 to $14 per hour.

They’re among the latest Bay Area cities raising minimum wages at a faster pace than the state, which is marching toward its goal of $15 an hour by 2023. Cities including San Francisco and Berkeley have already reached $15 per hour and those rates will increase slightly to $15.59 on Monday.

Emeryville has one of the highest local minimum wages — $15.69 per hour for businesses with 56 or more employees and $15 for those with fewer employees. On Monday, the minimum hourly wage for most businesses there will rise to the single rate of $16.30. There will be some exceptions, however, a result of the Emeryville City Council responding to the concerns of small business owners.

The council last month approved an amendment to the minimum wage ordinance that defines small independent restaurants as those with fewer than 20 locations globally, including franchisees. The amendment sets the hourly minimum wage for those restaurants at $15 for fiscal year 2019-2020 and phases in gradual increases over the next eight years until the rate matches those of all other businesses.

East Bay Working Families, a coalition of labor advocates and workers, submitted a petition to overturn the amendment. Chadrick Smalley, the city’s economic and housing manager, said the signatures are being reviewed by the Alameda County Registrar of Voters, and if they’re confirmed, the council will either repeal the amendment or put the question to voters in an election.

“The rising cost of living in the San Francisco Bay Area has made it one of the most expensive regions to live in the United States. Suddenly revoking a long-awaited minimum wage increase further devalues Emeryville’s most vulnerable community members,” East Bay Working Families stated in opposing Emeryville’s minimum wage amendment. “This abrupt decision to revoke a living wage from the city’s most vulnerable workers based solely on the feedback from business owners will leave these employees with an 8 percent pay cut.”

Opponents of minimum wage laws argue that forcing businesses to pay employees more than they can afford forces them to offer either fewer hours or fewer jobs or be forced to close.

Proponents counter that higher wages are key to surviving in the high-priced Bay Area.

Research on the impacts of minimum wages haven’t produced clear results. Business owners in Emeryville surveyed by Mills College researchers provided mixed feedback. While 33 percent said business suffered because of minimum wage increases, 14 percent said it actually improved. About 22 percent said workers were more productive, while 19 percent said productivity decreased. Even their perceptions of employee morale were split, according to survey results.

Approximately 32 percent of employees in California — 4.9 million — earned less than $14.35 per hour in 2017, a study released last year by the UC Berkeley Labor Center shows.

108th ILC – PLENARY SESSION: Speech of George Mavrikos, WFTU General Secretary

The hope lies in our struggles

Dear friends, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen

   100 years since the founding of the ILO have been completed this year, and this is an opportunity to make an objective evaluation from the perspective of the World Working Class. To draw the true conclusions from the side of the militant  trade union movement. To assess the results.

   We believe that the ILO history is divided into two main periods. From its foundation until 1990 and from 1990 until today. In the first period, it played a positive role in general and often worked as a mechanism of protection of workers’ rights. The international correlations benefited and supported the role of the ILO, with the decisive role of the Soviet Union, of the People’s Republic of China, of many other socialist countries and of the non-aligned countries’ movement. Those favorable correlations had an important ally by their side. The militant trade union movement, with the leading role at that time of the World Federation of Trade Unions. They had by their side the great class struggles of all workers.

   The successes in establishing remarkable achievements such as: Collective Bargaining Agreements, social security, social expenditure, improved salaries and working conditions of the working women, working time, wage increase, progress of democratic and trade union freedoms, was the result of these circumstances. Trade unions were established in every corner of the planet.

   No matter how much ink is being spilled by modern slanderers, the truth will always shine.

    Following the 1989-1991 overthrows and the changes that took place, the situation and role of the ILO, as well as of all International Organizations, also changed.

    These days here, in the annual Conference, Ministers, Prime Ministers, arrived, they used big words, empty promises, and tried to present a picture of virtual reality.

       Before 1990, employers did not want to hear about the ILO. Now they consider it their ally and friend. Why? Everyone should think and give the answer on his own.

   But whatever words some people say, the truth is at the workplaces, where workers suffer from state violence and authoritarianism, from unemployment and lay-offs, from black labor, from privatizations, from poverty and capitalist barbarity. The truth lies in the Mediterranean Sea, where mothers and children are being drowned in their effort to escape imperialist aggression.

   This picture is also a result of the role played by the ILO and of the current situation within the leaderships of the trade union movement.

   Since 1960 the blockade against Cuba continues. What did the International Organizations do?

    In Soma, Turkey, on 13 May 2014, 301 workers were killed. What did the International Organizations do?

    In the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh on 24 April, 2013, 1.132 girls and women were murdered. What did the ILO do?

   In Colombia, over the last three years, 600 trade union militants have been murdered. Who was punished for these crimes?

   In Chile the government  undermines with anti-democratic methods the independent functioning of the CAT. What did the responsible Office of the ILO do?

    What have the International Organizations done to protect the workers of Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Yemen from the imperialists? Only words. This is the picture.

   Today, Heads of States come here and tell us that black is white. Mr Macron, who attacks and beats the protesters, who fires 1.000 workers from Centrale à charbon de Gardanne, whose Member of Parliament, from his party, Mr. Mohamed Laqhila, threatens to close the functioning of the Trade Union Centre of UD CGT 13, came here a few days ago and presented us a false reality. Both Mr Macron and Mrs Merkel see the ILO today as an ideological mechanism in favor of their policies. This is the truth. This is the real picture. At the same time, they strengthen the phenomena of neo-fascism and xenophobia with their anti-workers policies.

  This picture only by today’s workers can and must be changed, with their united, class-oriented struggles. By strengthening the unions at the base. By enhancing trade union democracy. The hope lies in our struggles.

OUR UNION NEEDS US AT THE LA COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS MEETING ON JUNE 25

URGENT UNION ACTION

Proper management of our retirement fund is at risk. SEIU Local 721 represents over 55,000 current LA County employees, and tens of thousands of retirees  who participate in the LACERA plan.  It’s important that our voice is respected in this process – but,  right now, our voice is at risk of not being heard at all. Why? Recent changes on the governing body have drastically reduced the voices of LA County workers  and retirees. So this means that even though we – the LA County workforce – are contributing the tens of billions of  dollars that make LACERA the largest public retirement fund in America, we no longer have a real say in  how that retirement fund operates. This is unacceptable. We must secure our retirement. We cannot – and will not – be excluded from managing our own retirement plan. Our elected LACERA trustees must not be excluded from managing our retirement plan. We are stakeholders. This is our retirement plan. We deserve representation on our own retirement board! Join us at the LA County Board of Supervisors meeting this Tuesday,  June 25 starting at 9:30 AM. RSVP by clicking here to confirm your attendance. It's time for our Union to send a message to the LA County Board of Supervisors:  "We must secure our retirement!" Our elected LACERA trustees must manage our  retirement funds in a transparent manner that serves the needs of all LA County employees,  retirees and our families. Your retirement represents a lifetime of hard work. Fight to protect it! In Solidarity All of Us at SEIU 721 CONTACT US SEIU Local 721 1545 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90017 (800) 721-4YOU

VA UNDER ATTACK IN FLORIDA

Here's what you need to know this week:
Employees of the VA Healthcare System, 1 of 3  which are veterans themselves, are fighting against a contract that threatens to significantly strip away their collective bargaining rights. In workplaces that are already understaffed due a lack of action by the agency to fill thousands of vacancies nationwide, these union rights are critical not only to the employees, but also to the quality of care that veterans receive.

According to the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the union that represents these employees, this contract could limit grievance filing, ban certain issues in collective bargaining, scrap harassment and retaliation protections, and strip away union time from over a million hours every year to a staggeringly low 10,000. Lawmakers are expressing their concerns, as well. In a bipartisan letter to Robert Wilkie, the VA Secretary, 128 members of congress expressed concerns that this anti-union contract's rippling effects through the agency would cause veterans relying on the VA to suffer.

Around the United States, VA Employees are rallying to against this contract. In Tampa, our sisters and brothers from AFGE Local 547, employees of the James A. Haley VA Hospital, will rally outside the hospital on Saturday, June 29th from 11AM - 1PM. The local will be providing lunch. We hope that you can make it to stand in solidarity with them against this horrible contract.

Here's what's coming up:

- On the fourth Wednesday of every month, the Florida AFL-CIO hosts a statewide call at 6PM for union activists from around Florida to join and share news and events from their area. Everyone is invited to join the call on Wednesday, 6/26. The dial-in information is as follows:

Number: 877-336-1274
Access Code: 964-7066

Keep in Mind:
Elections are only the beginning. After candidates win, they begin the full-time job of representing us. Most of the action happens during legislative session, but the time between can always be spent organizing around issues and holding our elected officials accountable. To help us do this, we can look to their performance during legislative session. To make the process of sorting through legislation easier, check out the recently released People First Report Card, courtesy of Progress Florida, and the Florida AFL-CIO's own Legislative Session Debrief.

That's all for this week! Check out our website at wcflc.org or follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more updates. If you would like to receive text message alerts from the Florida AFL-CIO (Msg & data rates may apply), text FLUNION to 235246!

In Solidarity,

West Central Florida Labor Council