Good job! New York State shows climate work can be union work
What if we could take bold steps to create thousands of good union jobs that also help save the environment? That’s the proposal of a New York State coalition of unions and environmentalists. Building trades, energy and transport workers unions have banded together to address the dual problems of inequality and climate change across New York State – and they’re winning.
Without public policy that protects workers’ livelihoods as part of protecting the environment, many workers have to choose between good jobs or a healthy environment – a growing concern in New York State, and elsewhere. Climate change has hit New York hard. There was Super Storm Sandy as well as Hurricane Irene, unprecedented snowstorms, and more recently, Lake Ontario flooding, all of which have devastated communities across the state.
To ensure cleanup and prevention jobs are good ones, Climate Jobs NY (CJNY) is a union-driven campaign to implement a pro-worker, pro-union, good-climate program in New York State. CJNY has already won an increase in funding for solar and energy efficiency work in public buildings along with a Project Labor Agreement requirement for the work, labor representatives on a statewide working group, and a prevailing wage requirement for all of the state’s renewable energy solicitations. But CJNY has bigger ambitions: a plan to construct high-speed rail, develop a robust offshore wind industry in New York, and put solar on as many public buildings as possible.
The plan for the building sector calls for reducing energy use in all public buildings by 40% and retrofitting all public schools to reach peak energy efficiency by the year 2025. That’s an ambitious timeline, considering the 212 million square feet of real estate owned by the state. It would also be huge for workers: every $1 million dollar investment in commercial building retrofits creates between 13 to 17 new jobs, all of which, under this plan, would be good jobs.
The energy plan calls for using the 100 million square feet of public school rooftops to harness two billion watts of solar energy, with a further two billion watts produced through the construction of large solar utilities throughout the state. Meeting those energy goals could create up to 210,000 new jobs in construction and installation of solar panels. The plan also calls for the generation of 7.5 billion watts through offshore wind – a project that would generate another 17,000 jobs.
“This initiative represents the best hope for protecting my members,” said Utility Workers Local 1-2 President James Slevin, while simultaneously “ensuring new energy jobs are good union jobs, and addressing climate change.”
The transportation plan calls for a $20 billion investment in restoring the New York City subway system to a state of good repair and an additional $14.71 billion for expanding statewide regional railroads. The subway work would create 20,000 jobs, while the statewide railroad investment could add almost 300,000 more.
This campaign grew out of a Cornell University initiative to find the overlapping self-interest in addressing the inequality and climate crises facing all New York State workers and residents, according to Lara Skinner, associate director of the Cornell Worker Institute. “The Climate Jobs NY campaign shows that ‘jobs versus the environment’ is a false choice.”
“We started by asking the people who do the work what might help. By starting with people who do the work of building our buildings, moving New Yorkers around, and powering both, we knew we’d find solutions that the usual debate leaves out,” Skinner said.
The “usual debate” might be best reflected in the battle over the proposed construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which bitterly divided unions over the question of creating jobs or protecting the environment. Some politicians and corporations like to stoke those divisions, offering environmental exploitation as an engine of good jobs. President Trump’s campaign bluster about bringing coal mining back to West Virginia is just one example of this.
After Super Storm Sandy, Skinner launched a four-year process of figuring out a pro-worker, pro-union environmental agenda would look like, called Labor Leading on Climate. The slow and steady approach, which included a lot of meetings, trainings, and a research report) paid off, as unions created the CJNY campaign and now champion what’s known as a “just transition” to a more equal economy and one that respects environmental limits. “Unless we’re talking about good jobs and a good environment, the conversation just doesn’t go anywhere productive,” says Skinner.
That’s why CJNY calls for a “just transition” for workers who lose their jobs due to climate protection policies. Without public policy that protects workers’ livelihoods as part of protecting the environment, many workers feel the need to cheer environmentally harmful job creation.
But Christopher Erikson, Business Manager of IBEW Local 3, points in another direction “We need an energy transition to clean energy and we need to do it so we protect the good union jobs of those who construct, operate, and maintain power plants in this country,” he says.
Skinner agrees. “Jobs in the clean energy sector are growing – solar and wind installers are among the fastest growing jobs in the U.S. right now,” says Skinner. “If labor isn’t involved, there’s a good chance these won’t be union jobs.” For example, a 2014 plan by New York City Mayor Bill deBlasio to install solar panels on two-dozen school building was going to be done on a non-union basis until a coalition of unions, environmental justice organizations and community groups intervened to negotiate a Project Labor Agreement.
Labor leaders – from stewards to the New York State AFL-CIO president– see the potential. “Expanding the state’s commitment to renewable energy projects is not only an opportunity to make New York a leader in the clean energy industry,” adds NYS AFL-CIO President Mario Cilento, “it’s an investment in long term, sustainable middle class jobs in our state.”
[This piece originally appeared at Unionist.com.]
That Time I Was (Willingly) on Fox News
On a slow news day in March of 2002, I was the token socialist for a roundtable segment on the “O’Reilly Factor.” I think they destroyed the tape, because I haven’t been able to find it on any transcription service. When Fox News still handled this stuff themselves, they claimed there was 12 hours of missing footage from the day – conveniently including the live show and its late-night re-run.
Anyway, with some help I was able to dig up this transcript. What’s interesting is how much has – and hasn’t – changed. What hasn’t changed is that Bill O’Reilly has always been a full-of-shit asshole. Even when we went to commercial, he continued to be a sanctimonious prick.
What has changed is that nobody could get away with denying the very existence of poverty in America today. And it would be hard to dismissively say “there aren’t a lot of you” socialists.
By the way, one of the funnier things that the transcript misses is my response to the writer from Parade magazine (who was also serving as Treasurer of the Democratic National Committee at the time) encouraging me to join the Dems. I laughed and said something like, “I can’t believe you just invited the socialist to join the Democratic party live on Fox News. The internet is going to go nuts tomorrow.”
Anyway, this was much better than the time that Tucker Carlson libeled me on “Fox and Friends.”
Unresolved Problem
Interview With Andrew Tobias and Shaun Richman
Fox News Network THE O’REILLY FACTOR (20:37)
March 1, 2002 Friday
O’REILLY: Thank you for staying with us. I’m Bill O’Reilly.
In the “Unresolved Problem” segment tonight, the money we earn. “Parade” magazine is out Sunday with its annual money edition, listing the salaries of hundreds of Americans. The average American worker makes $31,000 a year.
But some of us make a lot more than that. 20-year-old Britney Spears, for example, made close to $40 million last year. Shaquille O’Neill is in for $24 million. Regis Philbin, $35 million. Question is, is the income gap unfair?
With us now is Andrew Tobias, who wrote the article for Parade magazine and Shaun Richman, the executive director of the American Socialist Foundation. So you say in your essay, after the article, that it is unfair, that the salaries in America aren’t fair?
ANDREW TOBIAS, PARADE MAG PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR: Well, life is unfair. But I don’t have a problem with celebrities. You know, no one forces you to buy a CD or go to a movie or watch “Friends” or whatever. And Jennifer Aniston made $15 million, you don’t have to watch her on “Friends.” And you don’t have to buy the products. It’s free to watch NBC. And you don’t have to buy the products that are advertised.
O’REILLY: But what about these CEO weasles?
TOBIAS: But that’s — exactly, that’s the distinction I draw. Because in the celebrities, it’s the free market. In 1980, the average CEO of a very top company made 42 times as much as the average worker. In 2000, it was 531 times as much as the average worker. And if that’s what you have to pay in a free market to get really good talent…
O’REILLY: I don’t think so.
TOBIAS: But here’s the thing. And I quoted Fortune, so I didn’t put it on me because some people think I’m not far enough to the right. Fortune had a cover story called “The Great CEO Pay Heist.” And they said it’s highway robbery and everybody…
O’REILLY: It is.
TOBIAS: And what it is — and the reason it’s not a free market. I mean, some of course, many executives are worth exactly what they’re paid. And good for them. But at a lot of these huge pay packages are done, there’s this kind of club between I’m a director and you’re a company, you’re a director on my compensation committee. The consultants are all in it together. And if “Fortune” is screaming about it, and saying that it’s highway robbery…
O’REILLY: Yes, I mean look, a guy like Ken Lay making what, $50 million a year or whatever he’s making, he doesn’t know what’s going on? I mean, come on.
Now Mr. Richman, you’re a socialist, right?
SHAUN RICHMAN, AMERICAN SOCIALIST FOUNDATION: Yes.
O’REILLY: OK, and there aren’t too many of you in this country. We’re a capitalistic country, but what is the basic unfairness of somebody like Shaquille O’Neill making $25 million, if he’s worth that kind of money for the free enterprise that he works for?
RICHMAN: I’m not sure — well, I think that it’s certainly fair. If there’s going to be that much money in the system, labor’s entitled to what it produces. So I actually think in the current system, Shaquille O’Neill deserves that money a lot more than whoever owns the team and the people in the back office.
The problem is, again, with the income gap. The top fifth of people in this country, top fifth income earners, own four-fifths of the wealth. And it’s just not a sustainable system. And poverty is actually much worse than you described.
You konw, the average income is $30,000. The median income is much lower. You know, 20 percent of the kids in this country are living in poverty. 60 percent of all people will live in poverty for one year of their life.
O’REILLY: Not in the United States.
RICHMAN: In the United States.
O’REILLY: No, that’s bogus. I mean, that’s a socialist stat. You can believe it if you want to, but it’s not true.
RICHMAN: It comes from Cornell University.
O’REILLY: Well, what more do I have to say? It comes from Cornell University. But what I’m saying to you is, look, in the socialist system, you want to redistribute income. You want to take income from the big companies and give it to people, right?
RICHMAN: Yes.
O’REILLY: But you can’t give stuff to people. I mean, that never works or the Soviet Union would be still here. Wouldn’t it?
RICHMAN: It works in many countries in Europe.
O’REILLY: Like where?
RICHMAN: Like France, for example.
O’REILLY: France doesn’t take it from you. They basically say we’ll give you cradle to grave entitlementments. They don’t send you a check.
RICHMAN: They do, in fact, have family allowances.
O’REILLY: For certain welfare families, but we have that here as well.
RICHMAN: It’s actually, these are universal systems. I’m not as familiar with the various different…
O’REILLY: All right, so you believe…
RICHMAN: These are universal programs.
O’REILLY: …you should give people money, just because they’re in your country? Give them money?
RICHMAN: I think you give people money for having families.
O’REILLY: For having kids?
RICHMAN: For having kids.
O’REILLY: Just give them money for having kids?
RICHMAN: Yes…
O’REILLY: Mr. Tobias, you don’t agree with that, do you?
RICHMAN: We’re certainly not talking $35 million.
TOBIAS: I would like to see, Shaun, whose opinions I respect, I’d like to see him join the Democratic party, where we really do care about the little guy in a more practical way, because this stuff is not likely to happen.
O’REILLY: No, it’s never going to happen.
TOBIAS: But the earned income credit, that the Democrats are for, and the minimum wage and all kinds of the things that our friends in the other party are for, that’s, I think, a very practical way to get at some of this. I’m for the progressive income tax.
O’REILLY: OK, I’m not for that.
TOBIAS: I know.
O’REILLY: But look, I’m paid 50 cents on the dollar. And I make a lot of money, OK?
TOBIAS: Right.
O’REILLY: But I don’t make what it’s printed in the papers. That’s not even close. Are you sure that these salaries are right, that your Parade magazine?
TOBIAS: We low-balled yours.
O’REILLY: What?
TOBIAS: We low-balled yours.
O’REILLY: I’m not even in there. But are you sure they’re right?
TOBIAS: No, I mean, I didn’t do the salaries. But most of them are right. And some of them, for the really high dollar people, it’s hard to figure out what to include.
O’REILLY: OK, but here’s the deal. And you ought to know this, too, Shaun, is that for many years, I didn’t make any money. OK? And I lived in my younger time in a very frugal environment. OK? So I don’t believe that the government has the right, now that I’m successful, due to hard work and some luck, to come into my house and take my money and give it to other people, and they don’t even know what these people are going to do with it. That’s wrong, morally wrong.
TOBIAS: Well, but you know, it’s a balance, isn’t it? I’m sure you wouldn’t know. Or you would correct me if I’m wrong, that everybody should just pay a flat $3,000 a year. You and the poorest people and everybody, you would say, even with a flat tax, obviously…
O’REILLY: You pay more. I don’t mind paying what I pay, 50 percent, if it weren’t wasted. It is.
TOBIAS: Well, wait a second. So you’re saying that you — the progressive income tax is OK, as long as it’s spent well? All right.
O’REILLY: As long — that’s right, as long as it’s responsible, because at war, you wouldn’t need that much money. You could have a fair progressive tax that wouldn’t take as much as it does. But I’m not moaning about it. I just see the corruption in the system.
But you, you want to take my money. You want to come into my house, all right, after I worked hard all these years and did a lot more than you’ll ever do, in the sense that I got shot at, I had to move around. I mean, I went through a lot of abuse.
And so do these athletes. OK? They train themselves, they make a big score, but they blow out their bodies and all that. You want to take our money and give it to somebody who you don’t even know. Doesn’t that bother you?
RICHMAN: Are you living in poverty as a result of this 50 percent?
O’REILLY: Am I living in poverty? No, but what right do you or anybody else have, even in France, to take other peoples’ money and give it to somebody you don’t know? What right do you have, morally?
RICHMAN: It’s a basic system of fairness. Now when you weren’t making that money…
O’REILLY: Yes.
RICHMAN: When you were living in dire straits, wouldn’t it have been nicer to have a system where…
O’REILLY: No, I wouldn’t have taken a dime.
RICHMAN: You wouldn’t have taken a dime?
O’REILLY: No. Absolutely not.
RICHMAN: You would have died of tuberculosis?
O’REILLY: That’s right. And I wouldn’t have kids unless I could support them. That’s right, because I don’t believe in taking other peoples’ stuff and giving it to me. I won’t even take Social Security when I’m older. I’ll give it back or I’ll give it to charity. You see? That’s where you guys are wrong. You’re taking stuff, you’re making value judgments. You’re giving it to other people and you don’t know what those other people are going to do. That’s wrong. Am I wrong?
TOBIAS: No, I — if I dreamed of being on your show, I wouldn’t have expected to be in this nice position. I happen to think that while Shaun’s instincts are great, he’s too far to the left. I happen to have respect for you and a lot of what you’re saying.
O’REILLY: Think about it, though.
TOBIAS: But to the extent, and I’m not saying you’re the Republican leadership, but I think that there is a balance here.
O’REILLY: It has to be done fairly. It has to be done fairly.
TOBIAS: I totally agree with you. I totally agree.
O’REILLY: Not taking it. All right, gentlemen, thanks very much. Always fun to read that Parade piece.
TOBIAS: Thank you.
O’REILLY: Mel Gibson when we come back in a moment.
This job is killing me: Not a metaphor
You are more likely to be killed at work than in a terrorist attack or plane crash. On average, thirteen workers die on the job every day. Most of these deaths are completely preventable. And yet the complex web of state and federal agencies and insurance programs meant to protect worker’ssafety and incomes are persistently under-funded and under attack.
Two new books shed light on the dangers we face at workand the laws that are letting us down. Jonathan D. Karmel’s Dying to Work: Death and Injury in the American Workplace (Cornel University Press) is a compelling call for action on a national health crisis that’s hiding in plain sight.
The conventional narrative is that coalmine disasters and factory fires have been extinguished through reform laws. And also that efforts to pass new regulations are “red tape” that threatens jobs. At the center of those somewhat conflicting arguments is the controversial and widely misunderstood Occupational Health & Safety Act (OSHA).
Pushed by a strong labor movement, a Democratic Congress forced Richard Nixon to sign it into law in 1970. The federal agency it created, also called OSHA, has the authority to promulgate industry-specific workplace safety rules and to fine companies that violate them. The law also provides for workplace safety inspectors, whistleblower protections for workers who report potentially unsafe conditions and legal protections for workers who go on wildcat strikes to put an end to a dangerous situation.
Republican politicians – including the president who signed it into law – and the business interests who fund them have hated it since the day it became law. Corporations routinely block its efforts to update safety rules in the courts and appeal the puny fines it levies for their willful violations. As a result, our workplaces are becoming more dangerous
The heart of Karmel’s book is a series of heart-breaking (and stomach-turning) stories about preventable workplace injuries and deaths, and the broken lives left behind.
These are just a few: Yvonne Shurelds suffered an “internal decapitation” when the forklift that she was not properly trained to operate backed up into a metal bar. Her employer was fined $7,100 for safety violations. Hannah Phillips lost her arm to a meat grinder at a Kroger grocery store when her ill-fitting uniform snagged on the power switch. She feels “lucky” because the amputation was below the elbow and she was able to get off worker’s comp when she landed a $10.50 an hour job (with no health insurance) at a non-union Honda plant. Paul King was electrocuted on the roof of Terminal 3 at Logan airport while doing routine maintenance work. He was not trained as an electrician and his employer – a subcontractor of a subcontractor – did not provide him with protective gear or electrical test equipment. It contested its $54,000 OSHA fine, and neglected to include his last deadly hours of work in the final paycheck it sent to his widow.
Seemingly every widow in these stories is tormented by unannounced visits from inspectors, hoping to find her remarried so the state can discontinue its paltry workman’s comp survivor benefits. None of these families left behind gets a big payout, or even returns to the standard of living they had scraped together before the fateful accidents.
Karmel notes that the workers comp system was a “grand bargain” that preceded the New Deal by decades. In exchange for providing some insurance for workers who lose life and limb, it shields employers from greater liability for their callous disregard for their human resources. Workers compensation laws generally prevent survivors from directly suing an employer for damages. Successful suits must include a third party like a subcontractor or machinery manufacturer.
Even this insufficient “varied system of state laws” is under attack. The Koch brothers and other deep-pocketed bosses are funding Republican efforts to reduce benefits or repeal the protections in every state. Right wing governments like Indiana’s compete against their neighboring states by advertising lower insurance rates, in a deadly race to the bottom.
Workplace safety can also be imperiled by intentional acts of violence. That’s the subject of Jeremy Milloy’s excellent new book, Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Violence at Work in the North American Auto Industry, 1960-1980 (University of Illinois Press). This largely forgotten period of routine fistfights, stabbings and shootings in the factories and parking lots of Detroit’s “Big 3” automakers was, Milloy argues, a harbinger of today’s depressingly common mass shootings.
Threatened by foreign competition from Germany and Japan, U.S. auto executives in the 60’s and 70’s – particularly at Chrysler – decided to forgo badly needed modernization of their infrastructure and instead tried to squeeze every last ounce of productivity out of their factories and workers. This produced a toxic culture of speed-ups and bullying that escalated into acts of violence between workers, management and even union representatives.
Milloy dives into the grievance records of union locals in Detroit and across the river in Windsor, Ontario. Violence was pervasive throughout the auto industry, but it was more common and deadlier in Detroit. One explanation is that the American factories had recruited black workers from the south in order to run the plants around the clock, while Canada’s workforce was more racially homogeneous. The racist hostility of some white workers combined with black workers’ own frustrations about being at the bottom of the seniority list and thus first in line for the companies’ annual layoffs to add to the already poisoned environment.
But America’s gun culture also played a role. Then – as now – easy access to firearms made it likelier that what might have been a mere fistfight became a workplace massacre. Milloy notes that in 2009 Ontario passed a law that requires employers to assess and report on the risk of violence to workers and that allows workers to refuse assignments that expose them to that risk. In America meanwhile, 22 states have passed laws that prevent employers from banning guns from the workplace.
Towards the end of Dying to Work, Karmel concedes, “there is no doubt that reported deaths and injuries have declined over the years.” But he poses the provocative question, “is there a number that is acceptable as the cost of doing business? Is one preventable death acceptable?” Of course, anyone who believes in the dignity of workers and the sanctity of human life would answer no. But 40 years of successive Republican administration rolling back workplace protections – and Democratic ones moving too slowly to roll back those cuts and advance new safety rules – makes every workplace a potential Massey Energy mine disaster.
Massey was the company that was criminally liable for a 2010 methane gas explosion that killed 29 mineworkers in West Virginia. Several executives including CEO Don Blankenship were convicted – not for violating OSHA standards but because a crusading federal prosecutor put together a solid conspiracy case for their cover-up of unsafe working conditions in the mine. Blankenship retired with a $12 million golden parachute before being sentenced to one whole year in jail. He is currently a leading contender to represent the Republican Party in November’s U.S. Senate election. That race is emblematic of the pathetic left-right divide on workers rights, as Blankenship seeks to replicate Donald Trump’s success with the economically-depressed state’s working class voters who are – in all senses of the phrase – dying to work.
The size of the American workforce has doubled since OSHA was passed in 1970, and many of those new jobs are “temporary” or sub-contracted in order to evade our various labor laws. One study showed that temps in construction and manufacturing suffer twice the rate of injuries as directly-employed workers. Clearly, OSHA needs to be updated to keep up with corporate chicanery.
Karmel suggests a list of reforms that’s longer than an amputated arm.
For starters there’s a bill that’s been gathering dust. The Protecting America’s Workers Act – which would amend OSHA to expand coverage and increase penalties – was first introduced by Sen. Ted Kennedy a decade and a half ago. It’s time to pass it.
Karmel also calls for enhanced civil penalties and criminal prosecution. Usually the idea that stiffer sentences act as deterrence against future crimes beggars belief. Who calmly weighs the consequences during a crime of passion or desperation? But corporate crimes – which unsafe workplaces must be viewed as – are coolly calculated in boardrooms as matters of dollars and sense (and the continued comfort of the far-removed executives).
Why is Don Blankenship running for the Senate instead of learning yoga in a minimum-security jail for another decade or more? And how much does his example of acting with impunity encourage more bosses to write off their workers’ lives as an everyday cost of doing business? Attention must be paid.
Financial penalties, which were set as a specific hard-dollar amount in the original Act, have been raised just once – in 1990. Obviously, a company that kills an employee through willful negligence should pay more than a pittance in fines. Those statutory fines should not only be exponentially increased, but indexed to inflation like almost every other federal regulatory penalty is.
To fix our nation’s patchwork of worker’s compensation laws, Karmel has a slew of proposals. A “know your rights” posting requirements at every workplace – like we have for the minimum wage – is long overdue. A mandate that medical professionals who treat injured workers have no affiliation with the employer and a Medicare-style insurance system to pay for their treatment is pretty common sense. The fact that attorney’s fees for these cases have been reduced or remained stagnant is ridiculous if one believes that “you get what you pay for.” Finally, he calls for a streamlined process to replace the “complex and oppressive legal system that requires employees to bear the burden of establishing their entitlement to benefits.” That sounds to me that we should just federalize the system under a well-funded OHSA (and stop voting for Republicans).
This is a sound agenda, and one that unions should prioritize as a literal matter of life and death.
[This post originally appeared at Unionist.]
Next Stop
I was on the 1 train today, riding from Whitehall (South Ferry) to SoHo. There were a bunch of high-acheiving high school nerds trading notes on AP courses and SAT prep. As the train pulled out of the Rector St. station, one of them misheard the conductor’s garbled “Next Stop!” announcement and gasped, “Wait, is that open now?”
Confusion, as every part of this conversation was initially misunderstood by each other:
Kid 2: “What, no. Chambers is open.”
Kid 1: “No, that other stop that’s always under construction.”
Kid 3: “I sincerely hope not. We’re late enough.”
Kid 4: “I hear that station’s gonna be closed for, like, three years.”
Kid 3: “That station has been closed for, like, 20 years. Like, after 20 years, does anyone even want to go to Cortlandt Street anymore?”
Cortlandt St. – for those of you not from around here – has been greyed out and listed as “TEMPORARILY CLOSED” on subway maps since October of 2001. It was obliterated when the Towers fell. There are now mostly-functional semi-adult human beings currently earning college level credits who have never known it as anything but an urban wreck, a permanent construction zone, a ghost train station.