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Former UTU International President Al Chesser (1972-1979) is now 97 years old, and the fire in his belly in support of organized labor has never dimmed.

The following was written by Chesser in response to creation by President Mike Futhey of the Collective Bargaining Defense Fund, intended to create public awareness of — and opposition to — the attack on collective bargaining rights by political extremists in scores of states and in Congress. Before his election as UTU International president, Chesser was the UTU’s national legislative director.

By Al Chesser

The objective of political extremists — those holding elective office and those seeking elective office — is to destroy labor unions, which are among the most patriotic and democracy-loving organizations in our nation.

When dictators take over a country, one of their first objectives is to destroy labor unions. If this no-compromise, labor-union hating group takes control of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate — as they have done in a number of state legislatures — America could cease to be a democracy.

This group of extremists not only is targeting collective bargaining rights; it is intent upon destroying Railroad Retirement, Social Security and Medicare, threatening the financial security of current and future retirees.

If these political extremists are able to destroy organized labor, they will destroy the many achievements of the labor movement, and the principles we have worked and sacrificed so hard for on behalf of working families.

Overtime pay, paid vacations, employer-provided health care, retirement benefits and workplace safety laws and regulations all exist because of labor unions — and all are coming under attack by political extremists.

I am grateful for this opportunity to contribute $500 to the UTU’s Collective Bargaining Defense Fund to help fight this war against organized labor and working families.

I say to every labor union officer and union member: Don’t get caught asleep at the switch. Don’t let these political extremists fast talk you. If they destroy organized labor, our financial security will be a shambles. Our earnings, benefits and workplace safety will no longer be collectively bargained. We will be at the mercy of employers.

To my railroad brothers and sisters, I tell you that this would set us back to the 1800s, when the lives of working men and women were nearly the equivalent of slave labor.

The threat from today’s political extremists is the most dangerous we have faced since before enactment of the Railway Labor Act and the National Labor Relations Act.

Light the fire in your belly and join our fight. We can, will and must beat back this attack from those who want to destroy the union movement in America.

Please contribute to the UTU Collective Bargaining Defense Fund, and participate in the UTU Political Action Committee.

By Assistant President Arty Martin
While we go about our daily lives, political extremists are gaining strength and working non-stop to undermine and eliminate much of what we cherish on the job and look forward to in retirement.
It’s not just Wisconsin and Ohio where right-wing majorities voted to eliminate public-employee collective bargaining rights.
In 20 states, bills have been introduced to restrict or eliminate collective bargaining rights.
In 14 states, right-to-work (for less) bills have been introduced, allowing workers to refuse to pay union-representation dues while unions remain required to represent the workers refusing to pay dues.
Right-to-work (for less) legislation is an dastardly effort to strangle union finances and disrupt the ability of unions to engage in collective bargaining, fight for better safety laws and prosecute work-place grievances.
In existing right-to-work (for less) states, workers earn 3.2 percent less and are less likely to have employer-sponsored health insurance and pension benefits.
In Congress, three conservative senators — Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) — have introduced national right-to-work (for less) legislation that would similarly amend the National Labor Relations Act and the Railway Labor Act.
In seven states, bills have been introduced to eliminate laws requiring contractors on state-funded projects to pay prevailing wages. A university study of 10 states, where half of all highway and bridge work in the U.S. occurred, revealed higher-wage workers built 74 more miles of roadways and 33 more miles of bridges for a total cost of half-a-billion dollars less than was accomplished by workers earning less than the prevailing wage.
Bills have also been introduced in Congress to close the National Labor Relations Board, which enforces private-sector workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively; and to reverse a National Mediation Board decision that determines airline and railroad union-representation elections based on those actually voting and not count those not voting as “no” votes.
Political extremists — in every state legislature and in Congress — has chosen organized labor as a target to be attacked, weakened and destroyed.
At risk is all organized labor has achieved for the middle class in America — the 40-hour work week, overtime pay, injured worker compensation, unemployment insurance, workplace health and safety protections, restrictions on discrimination in hiring, time off for family and medical emergencies, and restrictions on child labor.
Eliminating collective bargaining doesn’t solve budget deficits; it demoralizes the workforce.
Cutting wages doesn’t create jobs; it depresses economic activity. For every $1 million in wage reductions, six jobs are lost, according to a study by the AFL-CIO.
Busting unions doesn’t make the economy more competitive; it widens the gap between the rich and poor and undermines the foundation of the middle class, which is the engine of economic growth.
Unions establish wage rates and worker benefits that non-union employers follow to stay competitive.
The time has come for our membership to get mad about this attack on middle-class wages, benefits and workplace safety.
Our jobs, our workplace safety, our benefits and our families’ economic security are at stake.
Contributing to the UTU Collective Bargaining Defense Fund and the UTU PAC is how we coordinate an effective and successful response to the political extremists’ attack on organized labor.
In union there is strength, and when members of all labor unions engage in political solidarity, the result is millions of union members and their families working toward a common goal of electing more labor-friendly lawmakers
As President Futhey says, “We have drawn a line in the sand from which we cannot retreat. We can and will make a difference. We will not go away. We will not forget.”
Please observe what is happening in state legislatures and Congress. The attack is on you and your family. Participate in the UTU Collective Bargaining Defense Fund and the UTU PAC to the greatest extent you are able.
I will always encourage everyone to be passionate about their beliefs. But I also want our members to be more passionate about their jobs, because without our jobs, we would have no means to be passionate about the other things we want in life and for ourselves and for our families.
Be a proud part of labor solidarity to stop the attack on organized labor before we are destroyed and it is too late.

Robert Kerley

By Robert Kerley
UTU International Vice President

America’s soldiers and their families are sacrificing to preserve liberty and ensure justice throughout the world.

As labor unionists, we can follow their example of service by remaining resolute in our struggle against injustice and the denial of human rights and dignity here at home.

Liberty means freedom from tyranny at home. Justice must be demanded in corporate boardrooms and the workplace.

Working men and women are under attack in states throughout America. It is an attack on all that unions have fought so long and hard to achieve — the right to organize and bargain collectively for good wages and safe working conditions.

The attack is by those who cannot make their case at the bargaining table.

Working families, whose purchasing power sustains our economy, absolutely did not cause the economic collapse that has driven states into the red.

Yet those families are now told that their breadwinners don’t deserve a seat at the table when the elimination of their jobs and a reduction in their negotiated wages and health care and retirement plans are discussed.

A half century ago, Americans of every color, creed, faith and age stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the fight against racial and social injustice, and made America a better place for us all.

We must renew that spirit, reaffirm that message and reignite that flame of righteous indignation against this denial of democracy and dignity in the workplace.

We must reach out to young people for whom the American dream is becoming a legendary paradise lost, and to the unorganized, because their future depends on our success.

Without strong labor unions and labor laws, America’s middle class will disappear into a nation of masters and servants.

America is better than that. Our cause is just. Our motives and our actions must be honorable, but unequivocal.

We must prevail, because the loss of these precious rights will dishonor all who came before us, and resign the generations who follow to lives of meager toil without the just rewards of honest labor.

MADISON, Wisc. — Are labor rallies in support of collective bargaining rights effective? Can the UTU Collective Bargaining Defense Fund make a difference?

Do trains run on tracks? Do buses operate on highways?

As for Wisconsin, the proof of the value of labor rallies was reflected in balloting for state supreme court justice, as a previously almost unknown state Democrat, JoAnne Kloppenburg, almost upset a presumed shoo-in April 5 — incumbent conservative Republican David Prosser, who had been “expected to coast to a victory for a second 10-year term,” according to the Madison Capital Times newspaper.

Hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin voters, vocally outraged at the state’s Republican governor and Republican-controlled legislature for their vicious attacks on public-employee collective bargaining, flocked to the polls in record numbers in support of the underdog Kloppenburg.

The balloting was widely viewed as more of a referendum on the anti-union attacks of the state’s Republican governor and Republican-controlled legislature than a vote for supreme court justice.

Said the Capital Times: “It is rare to unseat a sitting supreme court justice [and the close vote that followed] would almost certainly never have happened had Democrats, unions and other liberal groups not channeled anger against Gov. Walker and the Republican-controlled legislature into support for Kloppenburg.”

Prosser was viewed as a supporter of Walker and his anti-union agenda. The New York Times quoted Prosser as having said he was proud of his membership among the state supreme court’s “common sense 4-3 conservative majority.”

The Wisconsin law revoking public-employee collective bargaining rights is on hold pending a judicial challenge that is expected to reach the state supreme court. Had Kloppenburg prevailed, the state supreme-court’s seven-member majority will shift from conservatives to liberals.

Although neither candidate has expressed an opinion on the controversial collective bargaining law and how it was enacted — by the Republican majority after Democrats boycotted the legislature — it is widely recognized that the vote was, in large part, a referendum on the anti-union politics of Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the right-wing led extremist legislature.

Labor union members from across Wisconsin have rallied in opposition to Gov. Walker’s and the legislature’s anti-union attacks. The UTU Collective Bargaining Defense Fund is helping to supply UTU rally participants with signs and T-shirts with slogans — and other materials are on order for continued rallies nationwide that help to attract and focus public opposition to attacks on collective bargaining rights and labor unions.

Hundreds of labor-union members — including dozens of UTU members — were on hand at polling places in Wisconsin to collect thousands of signatures from voters on petitions to recall eight Republican lawmakers who voted to revoke public-employee collective bargaining rights.

Many of the lines to sign the petitions were said to have been as long as the lines to vote, in what was described by the media as an unusually large voter turnout.

UTU members interested in joining a rally in support of collective-bargaining rights should contact their state legislative director.

An opinion article recently published by the Financial Times and Fox News, written by conservative financial columnist Liz Peek, takes a nasty and incorrect swipe at Railroad Retirement, saying Railroad Retirement should be eliminated and folded into Social Security.

The argument begins with a major falsehood — that Railroad Retirement is costing the American taxpayer.

In fact, Railroad Retirement costs the American taxpayer not a single penny.

Not only are all Railroad Retirement benefits paid from payroll taxes of railroads and their workers, but so is the overhead operation of the Railroad Retirement Board.

Scrapping Railroad Retirement and folding it into Social Security wouldn’t save the federal government or the American taxpayer a single penny. But shutting it down would ravage the retirement security of some 600,000 current railroad retirees and their families, as well as future railroad retirees and their families.

The truth is:

  • The Railroad Retirement Tier I benefit is roughly equivalent to Social Security benefits.

Railroads and their employees each pay the same 6.2 percent payroll tax as employers and employees covered by Social Security. In what is strictly an accounting transfer, Railroad Retirement payroll taxes are transferred by the Railroad Retirement Board to the Social Security Administration, and then Social Security returns the equivalent Social Security benefits due railroad retirees to the Railroad Retirement Board. It is strictly an accounting transfer.

Although Tier I does provide benefits beyond what is paid by Social Security — such as early retirement and occupational disability — those additional Tier I benefits are paid entirely out of the Railroad Retirement Trust Fund — maintained entirely by railroads and their employees through payroll taxes.

  • The Railroad Retirement Tier II benefit, which is equivalent to a defined benefit private pension, is fully funded by additional payroll taxes paid solely by railroads and their employees — 3.9 percent by employees and 12.1 percent by railroads.
  • If the Railroad Retirement Trust Fund faces a shortfall, railroads are on the hook for higher payroll taxes — not the American taxpayer. That’s the law.

Railroad Retirement was created before there was Social Security, and has remained separate from Social Security, but is funded fully by railroads and their employees.

Although Congress sets the payroll tax rates and benefit levels, it does so in collaboration with railroads and rail labor — and not a penny of general tax revenue has been or is used for Railroad Retirement.

The unwarranted, unsubstantiated and unjust attack on Railroad Retirement by right-wing extremists is as phony as claiming that elimination of public-employee collective bargaining rights will solve state financial problems.

The mean-spirited attack on Railroad Retirement is part of a more broad effort to weaken and destroy organized labor.

Throughout America Monday, UTU members joined with brothers and sisters across craft and industrial lines in We Are One rallies reinforcing labor solidarity and raising public awareness of mean-spirited attacks on collective bargaining rights by right-wing extremists.

The word went forth that labor will not stand passive as anti-union zealots elected to state legislatures seek to dismantle public-employee unions through laws revoking collective bargaining rights, curtailing dues check-off and forcing costly annual representation elections.

There is an end-game: Reminding elected officials that organized labor remains a potent political force able to mobilize millions of voters, and to set the stage for recall elections of anti-union lawmakers and voter referendums to nullify the legislative assault on collective bargaining rights.

“The immense activity this week is a direct result of the backlash provoked by overreaching governors and legislators,” said AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka.

Labor leaders nationwide recognize that the assault on public-employee collective bargaining rights is part of a right-wing effort to extend the anti-union assault to private sector unions. Anti-union extremists already have urged an assault on Railroad Retirement Tier II and the Federal Employers Liability Act (FELA).

The UTU Collective Bargaining Defense Fund, established to help support public awareness of anti-union actions by right-wing extremists is just one example of union solidarity, being duplicated by dozens of other labor organizations in the public and private sectors.

Thousands of dollars already have been contributed to the UTU Collective Bargaining Defense Fund for this purpose, and UTU members and retirees are urged to add to the contributions already received from locals, general committees and state legislative boards.

In Ohio, where Gov. John Kasich signed into law a bill curtailing public-employee collective bargaining rights, the effort to nullify that law in a November voter referendum already has begun.

Over the next 90 days, union members and their supporters in Ohio will collect the necessary 231,000 signatures to put the Ohio legislation to a voter referendum in November.

Efforts also have begun in Wisconsin to recall legislators who voted in favor of curtailing public-employee collective bargaining rights in that state.

“If you believe in something strong enough, you fight for it,” said UTU International President Mike Futhey in urging donations to the UTU Collective Bargaining Defense Fund. “Together, in solidarity, we can and will win this fight and emerge stronger than ever.”

Checks to the UTU Collective Bargaining Defense Fund should be sent to:

UTU Collective Bargaining Defense Fund
United Transportation Union
Suite 340
24950 Country Club Blvd.
North Olmsted, OH 44070-5333

 

COLUMBUS, Ohio — It’s official. The Ohio House and Senate have passed anti-union legislation that limits public-employee collective bargaining.

Gov. John Kasich intends to sign the bill into law.

The legislation bars strikes by public employees and limits collective bargaining to wages — but only if the public body chooses to bargain collectively. Otherwise, wages — as well as health care benefits, pensions and outsourcing — will be set unilaterally by public bodies.

The bill also limits payroll deduction for union political action committees and eliminates the use of seniority in determining layoffs.

In the works is a voter referendum for the fall that would overturn the legislation. The UTU, through the newly created UTU Collective Bargaining Defense Fund, will help in that effort.

A labor-law professor at Ohio State University told The New York Times, “The essence of collective bargaining is when you can’t agree on terms of a contract, you have a dispute resolution mechanism, by strikes or perhaps binding arbitration. Here, you have none of that. That’s not collective bargaining. I’d call it collective begging. It’s a conversation that ends whenever an employer decides that it ends.”

Said the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees: “[The legislation] undermines our basic American values by attacking the right of Ohio workers to have a voice on the job.””

In Wisconsin, similar legislation was passed without Democrats voting; and is now being challenged in state courts.

Other states, where right-wing extremists control the legislature — as in Ohio and Wisconsin — are also considering Ohio- and Wisconsin-like anti-union legislation.

To learn more of what is happening in your state, contact your state legislative director.

WASHINGTON — Speaking to labor’s rank-and-file via an AFL-CIO electronic town hall meeting last week, Vice President Joe Biden warned of “barbarians at the gate” of working families as attacks on collective bargaining and union membership move forward in numerous state legislatures.

“The only people who have the capacity — organizational capacity and muscle — to keep, as they say, the barbarians from the gate, is organized labor,” Biden said.

“And make no mistake about it: The guys on the other team get it. They know if they cripple labor, the gate is open, man. The gate is wide open.”

Encouraging organized labor to continue the fight against extremists who would destroy labor unions, Biden said, “You built the middle class. We don’t see the value of collective bargaining, we see the absolute positive necessity of collective bargaining.”

MADISON, Wis. — It may be only a temporary restraining order, but the decision of a Wisconsin judge last week to block the state legislature from revoking the collective bargaining rights of public employees reflects the controversial nature of the action and keeps it before ever-increasing citizen wrath.

Wisconsin Circuit Court Judge Maryann Sumi, appointed by former Wisconsin Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, issued the temporary restraining order, barring Wisconsin’s secretary of state from publishing the law, effectively staying its implementation.

The challenge accuses Republican lawmakers — who control both the Wisconsin House and Senate — of violating the state’s requirement for open meeting requirements when they passed the law. It is alleged that because Democratic members of the legislature were not present, the open meeting requirements were violated.

An appeal to a higher court of the temporary restraining order is expected this week, and Judge Sumi also later could permit the law to be published following a hearing she scheduled to begin March 28.

Additionally, Wisconsin Republicans, who control the legislature, could bring the bill up again for a vote, now that Democratic members — who had fled in an earlier unsuccessful attempt to block the law’s passage — have returned.

“We highly doubt a Dane County judge has the authority to tell the legislature how to carry out its constitutional duty,” said Republican Sen. Scott Fitzgerald and Republican Rep. Jeff Fitzgerald.

The fight is far from over in Wisconsin or elsewhere.

It's not just Wisconsin. UTU members participate in a rally in Lansing, Mich., last week where the legislature there is considering bills whose intent is union busting. Similar rallies are taking place nationwide as union members and non-union members are speaking as one against the assault by right-wing extremists against collective bargaining rights.

 

By Assistant President Arty Martin

The attack on public-employee collective bargaining rights by right-wing extremists is intended to destroy labor unions.

Union busting is something expected in the private sector; that’s why we have laws to level the playing field, with most differences settled at the bargaining table or in neutral arbitration — not through management dictatorship, as in Wisconsin and other states.

Should right-wing extremists succeed in destroying public-sector unions, the assault will spread to the federal government workforce and then the private-sector.

In my 45 years as a proud union member and officer, I have never witnessed such blatant attacks on working families.

The source of the attacks is corporations, financial institutions and wealthy investors bankrolling right-wing extremist lawmakers. A Supreme Court decision virtually removing caps on corporate political donations certainly helped the effort.

Many right-wing candidates use emotional issues such as gun control, school prayer and abortion to stir the emotions of union members, recruiting many to inadvertently participate in destroying the right of collective bargaining and, eventually, the economic security unions provide working families.

If labor-union survival and the economic survival of working families is going to be preserved, we in organized labor must respond to the attacks on our collective bargaining rights.

We must maintain our right to join a union, our right unify and our right to make political donations (if we so choose) through payroll deduction to those politicians supporting workplace democracy.

We cannot match the level of donations of the huge corporations and others financially backing the attacks on labor, but we have something our enemies don’t have — millions and millions of members who can vote for labor-friendly candidates.

The UTU Political Action Committee (UTU PAC) helps identify labor friendly candidates, helps finance their election campaigns, and helps to get out the vote for labor-friendly candidates on Election Day.

Please consider joining this voluntary effort and contribute to the UTU PAC. If you already are a member, please consider increasing your contribution. Our job security and the economic security of our families hang in the balance.

Let’s not forget that the attacks on labor we are witnessing today have not been seen in generations, and what is happening in Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin and elsewhere today are only the beginning if we don’t stand in solidarity to protect the rights labor fought so long, so hard and at such a great cost to achieve.