Tell Newt His Plan to Fire Unionized Janitors and Hire Poor Kids is Nuts

by Mike Hall,

We noted yesterday that Newt Gingrich wants “get rid of unionized janitors” and hire poor kids to clean the schools in low-income neighborhoods. TodayAFSCME says it’s time to tell Gingrich that his ”model” to lift kids out of poverty is outrageous dangerous and downright hogwash.

Click here to sign a letter that reminds Gingrich that

“doing janitorial work in a school entails sanitizing toilets, handling hazardous cleaning chemicals, and scrubbing floors hunched over a mop for hours. It’s hard to imagine a nine-year old doing any of those tasks. Come on.”

You can also tell the oh-so- brilliant Gingrich—at least in his mind—that when he fires all those janitors,

a lot of them are parents. That job puts a roof over kids’ heads, food on the table, and provides them with health care and the chance to get an education. That job is the only thing between a kid and poverty. Firing someone’s mom and hiring the kid for less money isn’t exactly the “process of rising.”

Click here to tell Newt he’s out of his mind and click here for a video look at his plan.

Happy Thanksgiving

We just made history in Ohio

A message from Richard L. Trumka, President, AFL-CIO:

Dear Union Member,

I’m in Ohio right now, where working families just won an incredible victory.

Ohioans overwhelmingly voted to repeal Senate Bill 5—Gov. John Kasich’s attack on middle-class jobs that was designed to destroy collective bargaining rights in Ohio.

We pieced together a short, powerful video summing up the amazing energy that went into this. I hope you’ll take a moment to watch:




Tonight’s victory represents a turning point in our collective work to protect good jobs, working families and workplace rights. But it’s more than that. It’s a long-overdue return to common sense. 

From the very beginning of our jobs crisis, anti-worker politicians like Ohio’s Gov. Kasich have used our poor economy to push a cynical political agenda that favors the richest 1 percent at the expense of the 99 percent. Today, Ohio voters rejected that agenda. 

During this campaign, firefighters, nurses, teachers and other public employees were joined by construction workers, bakery workers and all kinds of private-sector workers. They came together to ensure the survival of the middle class. And together, we’ll keep doing it. Politicians who side with the richest 1 percent will find their radical efforts stopped by working people who want America to work for everyone.

Watch the energy and dedication that went into this huge victory—and join us.

This is our moment, and we won with solidarity. We won because the working people of Ohio—public and private sector, union and nonunion—stood together.

But the solidarity went even further than that: Volunteers traveled not just from neighboring Wisconsin—but from states as far away as California and New York—to help get out the vote. And activists from dozens of states as far away as Alaska gave up their nights and weekends to call Ohio voters from home. 

Solidarity means that when workers anywhere are under attack, we will all do whatever we can to help. It means we’re in it together.

Watch our video. See what solidarity looks like. 

I hope you’ll celebrate this moment in your own way. But the most important thing is to find a way to keep your own energy going and growing—so you can be a part of sustaining and growing our movement for all working people—the 99 percent.
 
This fight we’ve taken on and won—and the threats we face going forward—are about more than Democrats or Republicans, or 2012 battleground states. They are about good jobs and our right to a voice on the job.

Together, we're building a new kind of politics. A politics that works for the 99 percent, not just the 1 percent. 

We’ve got to start getting ready now to win tomorrow’s victories. Over time—together—we’ll build a future that works for working America.
 
Thank you for being a part of this movement, and for all you do for America’s workers.

In Solidarity,

Richard L. Trumka
President, AFL-CIO

P.S. America is waking up. Here’s one big reason we won in Ohio—people can see that the firefighters, teachers, nurses and snowplow drivers hurt by SB 5 didn’t cause our economic problems. Wall Street did. Ohio voters saw through Senate Bill 5—they understood it was a plan to make the 99 percent bear the burden of Wall Street’s recklessness—and that it would do nothing to create jobs. 

Take a moment to watch the incredible energy that went into this win.

CSEA Monroe County PAC Endorsements

The Mobilization Continues....



CSEA Monroe County Unit 7400 members and the Federation of Social Workers
(FSW) have been working without a contract since December 31, 2008.
photo: Bess Watts


Rochester, N.Y.-- Members of CSEA and FSW rallied outside the Monroe County Office Building Tuesday October 11th to bring attention to the fact that County government is dragging its heels when it comes to collective bargaining with County workers.



Thousands of County employees have been working without a contract since December 31, 2008. To read more about the Brooks administration's stall tactics, you can go here. (CLICK HERE)

CSEA Unit 7400 Members Tell the County: Quit Your Stalling, Stand Up, Do the Right Thing, NEGOTIATE!

CSEA Unit 7400 members have been working without a contract for over two and a half years and have spent the last 9 months battling with the County Administration over their petty attempts to keep members from receiving quality of life wages and benefits. At the same time the County continues to give raises to and hire more administrative positions at higher salaries while the County Executive and Legislators cry to the public that the County can’t afford services to the community.

Unit members have reached out numerous times to the County Executive and the Legislators to explain the importance of the services they perform and requested their help to push the Administration to come to the table and properly negotiate. This hasn’t happened and the membership, who continues to do what is right for the community every day, providing needed public services, is fed up.

We ask all concerned citizens to join and rally with us; we are putting all County officials on notice. “We do our jobs, you do yours! We’ll remember this November!”

MONROE COUNTY WORKERS RALLY FOR A FAIR CONTRACT

WHEN: Tuesday, October 11, 2011

TIME: 5pm to 6pm


WHERE: County Office Building, 39 West Main Street, Rochester

At 6pm we ask that you attend the first hour 6pm to 7pm of the Monroe County

Legislature for those that can. If you have a yellow shirt: WEAR IT!!

All CSEA Members are urged to attend.

For more information call (585) 328-5250

The CSEA Unit 7400 Leadership thanks all members for their continued involvement and will continue to keep all members up to date on the contract situation.

CSEA’s Representation Still Equals Benefit Protection

Monroe County Employees are on

the job working without a contract!

As the County continues an effort to stall any chance of the workforce getting a fair agreement this year by once again entering a frivolous charge against CSEA with the Public Employees Relations Board (PERB), CSEA as our union continues to protect your benefits, especially your health insurance benefits both for working members as well as protecting benefits for members when they retire.


The County’s new charge is that the Union Negotiating Team has made new proposals to the Fact-finder that were previously not discussed in any of the two and a half years of talks both sides have had or in any of the two tentative agreements that the membership has rejected. On the contrary, the proposals sent by CSEA are only modifications of subjects that have been previously discussed and although, it only causes a continued stall of the process, the County’s argument once again will be nulled by the State and CSEA will continue the Fact-finding process that has a great probability of showing that the Union proposals will be substantiated especially for the economic times we all have endured.

Another major piece the County is using to stall negotiations is that they are not willing to come away from is the issue of your health insurance benefits. They have a mis-guided belief that to maintain the benefit of having health insurance (something you actually work for) should cost you more by increasing your percentage of the premium drastically. What they forget to realize is that if you have to pay an exorbitant amount for the health insurance, than it is really not a benefit to you as it decreases any gain you might achieve with a fair wage increase. That the County has this ill-conceived idea that the workforce will ever agree to this concession illustrates their position to continue to delay any real possible agreement, even more so when two prior agreements that did not include this extremely negative proposal did not pass.

“We are doing what needs to be done, the only thing standing between higher health insurance costs and the current rates we benefit from is CSEA”, said CSEA Unit 7400 President Cris Zaffuto. She added, “Fighting the good fight, our union is protecting our benefits and we’re still working 24/7 to secure a positive future for all”.