tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5257602647313181002014-10-01T22:57:24.139-07:00Metal Trades Department Blog SpotThis is the Blog for the Metal Trades Department of the AFL-CIO. We reserve the right to edit or delete comments.Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-28817762750431646322010-07-14T14:44:00.001-07:002010-07-14T14:44:47.607-07:00Metal Trades Disappointed at NGS Restructure Announcement; Hopeful That a New Strategic Alternative at Avondale Can EmergThe following is a statement from Ronald Ault, President of the Metal Trades Department of the AFL-CIO in response to the announcement by Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding that it will consolidate its shipbuilding capacity into its Pascagoula, Mississippi shipyard.<br /><br />Northrop Grumman Corporation’s announcement that it will consolidate its Gulf Shipbuilding operation is disappointing and regrettable. The Metal Trades Department recognizes the inevitability of that news given the Navy’s earlier decision to constrain its shipbuilding budget, but that doesn’t make the potential impact on workers at the Avondale yard any less painful. Nor does it make a total shutdown inevitable. The Metal Trades and a number of our key affiliates—specifically the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers (IBB)—began a serious campaign to sustain Avondale on May 10, 2010, but we were cautioned against going “public” with our concerns at that time by the Company and members of Congress, each of whom told us that publicity might upset “delicate negotiations” seeking a solution. Obviously, those authorities were unable to achieve that solution.<br /><br />The economy of the Gulf region is on life support. Shipbuilding is the largest single employer in the region. The combined impact of the Metal Trades-represented Northrop Grumman shipyards in New Orleans and Pascagoula is $12.6 billion—six times that of the seafood industry. If Avondale, which represents 40 percent of the region’s shipbuilding industry, disappears—the economic impact will be devastating. We can’t blame shipbuilding woes on the oil spill or on a catastrophic storm; but we can say that the demise of Gulf Coast shipbuilding is the result of neglect—benign or otherwise. Regardless of the cause, it is an unacceptable outcome.<br /><br />We reiterate, for the benefit of the Obama Administration, Congress, elected officials at every level and the American people, America needs a shipbuilding industry. We are rapidly nearing the tipping point where any further loss of capacity may mean that the industry could go from shallow breathing into a comatose state. Any shutdown of a large shipbuilding facility corrodes our strategic national interest and ripples throughout our economy subtracting good paying jobs not just in direct ship construction in the Gulf region, but in the thousands of large and small enterprises that feed the shipbuilding industry’s needs for components. America has neither the resources nor the national resolve to recreate such resources from scratch.<br /><br />It is clear that New Orleans and its surrounding areas can ill afford to lose one of the last reservoirs of decent middle class jobs that exist today. The economic circumstances for this area cry out for attention and urgent action. We stand ready to help.<br /><br />We intend to hold Northrop Grumman to its promise to work to explore alternative uses for the facility even before work on the two remaining Navy vessels now under construction.<br /><br />We will encourage collaboration among private investors, elected officials at the federal state and local level, and the Obama Administration, to work with us to develop a strategic alternative to the complete dissolution of the Avondale facility. We believe that—through a combination of innovation, vision and courage—a new enterprise can emerge that can utilize the skills of the Avondale workforce to address urgent national needs for shipbuilding and energy applications.<br /><br />It would only take a small measure of policy adjustment—such as stricter enforcement of the Jones Act, especially as it applies to the offshore oil industry; and DOD’s abandonment of its long-term ship leasing policy—to breathe new life into private shipbuilding. We believe that Avondale could economically produce ships for a domestic market as long as that domestic market can be nurtured by rational and stable policies.<br /><br />Among the other options that can and should be pursued would be the conversion of portions of the Avondale yard to construction of containment vessels for nuclear facilities. At present, there is no domestic source for those vessels and their construction process is not significantly different from that of shipbuilding. The Metal Trades and our affiliates have been suggesting these remedies in various forms for over two decades.<br />The Metal Trades Department of the AFL-CIO is an umbrella organization comprised of 17 national and international unions. Chartered in 1908, the Department negotiates collective bargaining agreements and coordinates representation in shipyards, nuclear facilities, manufacturing, mining and petrochemical operations throughout the United States.Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-12039815294185026592010-06-18T09:51:00.001-07:002010-06-18T09:51:27.459-07:00Silent Majority: Why Don’t the Smart Southerners Speak Up?Ron Ault<br />June 17, 2010<br />I happened to catch Congressman Stupack’s hearing into the causes of BP’s “accident” today. Then I watched the CNN coverage with Gulf Coast residents’ responding from a local diner in Metairie, Louisiana. I kept thinking “I sure hope there is a ’silent majority‘ of Americans out there, otherwise we are in deep do-do.”<br /><br />I know the media sometimes deliberately picks the absolute dumbest “bubba” they can find to interview on the air to make inflammatory remarks, but come on…this guy sounded just like a Sarah Palin Tea Party nut case.<br /><br />The man chosen by the media to be the public representative of the entire region’s views was a perfect example of the old adage “a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.” He was lamenting the “fact” that the oil spill was worse than Hurricane Katrina. Duh! Thousands of human beings died in Katrina, dude, many after the storm passed because there was no planning or logistics prepositioned to get immediate assistance and supplies to the survivors! It took five days to get drinking water to the Superdome after the storm passed. There is a big difference in the federal response to this man-made disaster.<br /><br />But, CNN chose to spotlight this guy who accused President Obama of caving in to unions because he won’t waive the Jones Act and allow foreign vessels to come in and clean up the spill…Where do these people get this from? He must be watching “fair and balanced” Fox TV. Did he think a onetime cleanup was going to fix the millions of gallons of oils still spewing from the well? Did he think that there are millions of foreign built vessels lined up, just waiting to come in and clean up the oil? This guy was saying that under former President Bush’s leadership the Jones Act was waived for the oil industry. Yes, that is the one thing this guy said that was a fact. George W. Bush did that. <br /><br />Does anyone out there know anything about the Jones Act? Ignorance is bliss but once in a while the networks should do a little bit of fact checking before they broadcast what they heard someone else say. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but broadcasters have an obligation to at least refrain from spreading mis-information, especially if the source is a man-on-the-street.<br /><br />“Ditto heads” simply repeating what shock jocks Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck say on a national TV interview gives an entire region a bad name. The Jones Act is an 80-year-old law designed to insure that America has a shipbuilding industry and a merchant marine to build and crew Navy ships in time of war. It requires that vessels engaged in US, port-to-port trade, be built and assembled entirely in US Shipyards, crewed by US crews and owned by US citizens.<br /><br />Bush gave his friends in the oil and gas industry a pass from the requirements of the Jones Act. That is why the Deepwater Horizon wasn’t built in a shipyard in Louisiana or Mississippi. The drilling platform was built in South Korean-owned by Transocean, a Swiss company, not an American Company that would observe U.S. law…And that is why British Petroleum could “drill baby, drill” with little or no oversight.<br /><br />Jones Act waivers, once given, are difficult—if not impossible to retrieve. President Obama had little to do with anything associated with the Deepwater Horizon disaster except to try to hold BP accountable. The Jones Act does permit foreign vessels to operate in coastwise trade if there are insufficient US domestic vessels available for the needs. There is no need to grant additional waivers under the Jones Act. They already exist, but “Fair and Balanced” Fox TV and CNN didn’t tell you that, did they? <br /><br />Not one Gulf Coast job was generated in the building of the Deep Water Horizon even though the largest private employers in Mississippi and Louisiana are the Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi and the Avondale Shipyard just outside New Orleans, Louisiana. Both shipyards (and many more Gulf Coast shipbuilding facilities) could have easily built this rig, but why give American folks jobs when you can build it cheaper in South Korea as long as you don’t have to follow US Jones Act laws? Cheaper, faster, cut corners to save money. Isn’t that BP’s track record in this disaster. Save money even if it costs lives, ruins the environment and kills American jobs?<br /><br />The people on the Gulf Coast don’t know what they want President Obama to do about BP’s mess. They criticize him for not showing up on day one after the explosion. They criticize him for not meeting with every man, woman and child in the area when he does come down to the Gulf Coast to survey what the Coast Guard and BP crews are doing about the tar balls and oil washing up on the beaches and in the marshes. They criticize him for not getting money to reimburse residents who have lost their jobs and livelihood in the region fast enough. Then they accuse him of an illegal “shakedown” for making BP put up a 20 Billion dollar “slush fund,” as Congressman Joe Barton put in the congressional hearing as he apologized to BP saying he was “ashamed.” (And, Joe Barton should be ashamed!)<br /><br />You hear these folks (and the Tea Partiers) say that they are opposed to the President’s policies and they are going to “take our country back” in the next election….That’s an incomplete sentence. Who are these folks going to take the country back from? There are some in the South who are still fighting the Civil War and still sore about desegregation.<br /><br />What they are really saying is, no matter what President Obama does or doesn’t do, they are not going to support him. Obama didn’t carry the states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama in the 2008 Presidential election and it would be difficult for him to have much support there today no matter what he does about the oil in the Gulf.<br /><br />Boy, I sure hope that there is a big, silent majority of Americans that are out there thoughtful and making intelligent decisions, and not a majority of “ditto heads” blindly following the talk radio hate jocks and the flame throwing race baiters.Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-17664282293118925902010-06-02T07:14:00.001-07:002010-06-02T07:14:34.614-07:00Challenges are Opportunities to SucceedRon Ault<br />June1, 2010<br />The Deepwater Horizon disaster spewing raw crude oil into the crystal clear waters of the Gulf of Mexico points out the problem with allowing private enterprise lead in developing cutting edge technology in energy or any other critical commodity. As we have seen, a massive failure can bring a nation to its knees and arouse public opinion on a grand scale. The BP spill is to the oil industry what Chernobyl was to Russia’s nuclear energy program. Chernobyl, with the catastrophic pile meltdown and fire that killed hundreds and sickened thousands over a generation came about a decade after our own near miss nuclear disaster at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. The major difference between the U.S. experience and Russia’s is that the reactor containment at Three Mile Island worked.<br /><br />The Deepwater Horizon was built in a South Korean shipyard. It was owned and operated by Transocean, a Swiss company. Are bells going off anywhere? Are the warning lights flashing, America? The Jones Act is an 80-year-old law that requires ships engaged in commerce in the US coastal trade to be built in the US, owned by US owners and have US crews. This is the US Merchant Marine. In hearings into the cause of the explosions and fire aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, Congressman Gene Taylor specifically asked the Obama Administration to invoke the Jones Act for all the oil and gas drilling in the Gulf.<br /><br />The other two corporate entities implicated in the Gulf disaster were Haliburton, now headquartered in Dubai; and BP, incorporated in the UK and headquartered in London.<br /><br />We have a shortage of naval shipbuilding work to keep our six major U.S. shipyards in business. There is a discussion about Avondale Shipyard of New Orleans— one of only six major US Shipyards, being sold or closed, Avondale and its sister shipyard, Ingalls, located some 120 miles away in Pascagoula, Mississippi, are the two largest private employers in Louisiana and Mississippi. Both yards are capable of building complex combat vessels for the U.S. Navy, and that has been their forte.<br /><br />Avondale has built commercial ships, including double hulled oil tankers for the US Alaskan oil trade after the Exxon Valdez disaster in Prince William Sound. No one has designed and built deep water equipment for a disaster like the BP Deepwater Horizon. Why not? Why doesn’t the US government develop the design and build the safety equipment necessary to cap runaway oil well in deepwater? No one can argue we don’t need it. We could put thousands of the people who live in the area being slimed by the oil spill tomorrow morning to work building this equipment. The people directly affected would have a stake in the development and construction of the equipment that would protect their very way of life and their quality of life. <br /><br />With BP’s oil billowing into the waters of the Gulf, whose job is it to staunch the flow? Americans and the press are badgering the federal government to “do something” about it, but the federal government doesn’t have the technology because it hasn’t ever focused on a problem of this dimension. Until now, it was the domain of private industry. Well, that hasn’t worked out so well now, has it?<br /><br />If we want bold decisive action to plug the hole and stop the oil spewing into the Gulf- this is it! Turn American ingenuity loose and give American shipbuilders the job of designing and building the deep water disaster response for this and similar drilling disasters just waiting to happen in our costal waters. Saying this will never happen again is sticking our head in the sand and ignoring the facts that say otherwise. This challenge is an opportunity for success, let’s get started!Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-88977441534223654152010-05-27T12:59:00.001-07:002010-05-27T12:59:26.980-07:00America for SaleRon Ault<br />Memorial Day, 2010 <br /><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Are you paying attention to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that threatens the entire Gulf, all of Florida and even the East Coast?&nbsp; Republicans are saying this is Obama’s Katrina!&nbsp; What is the Federal Government doing about the oil spill? Why hasn’t Obama taken over and plugged the leak?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Duh! What is wrong with this picture?&nbsp; Has everyone in America eaten a stupid pill? Dumbass is somewhat contagious, but this is pure stupidity on a grand scale!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">How can the federal government be responsible for what the private sector does to us?&nbsp; If our food is poisonous, is it the fault of the federal government?&nbsp; If the medicines we take cause cancer, is it the fault of the federal government?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Didn’t we sell yours and mine mineral rights on our public lands to energy companies?&nbsp;&nbsp; Yes, we did. We voted to do it .…You and I agreed to give millions of dollars worth of public mineral rights to millions of acres of public land for just pennies an acre mineral lease rights to these companies.&nbsp; And then we agreed to deregulate these very same industries so they didn’t have to invest any money in safeguards against neglect and unsafe mining and drilling techniques that kill workers and poison our air and water. YES, we did, don’t deny it!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">And we are still demanding more – look at the “Tea Party” demonstrations. What do they demand: smaller government; no taxes; “take back our government;” deregulate; no rules; free markets… stop “socialism!”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Well, Gulf Coast residents, welcome to the returns on the investment that the “Free Market” oil industry brings you! Foreign ownership, foreign built rigs, foreign technology, all used to drill and then when all hell breaks loose and millions of barrels of crude oil is spilling into the US coastal waters, it is the United States federal government that is supposed to jump in and bail out BP and the foreign governments who own these companies?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Remember what the eminent Grover Nordquist said would be the ultimate in conservative government: Make it small enough to drown in a bathtub. Now, the bathtub is full of oil, and we’re drowning in it!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Didn’t we vote for the Contract for America when Newt Gingrich and his Republicans pledged to roll back regulations, make government smaller less intrusive that would free up investments and be more business friendly?&nbsp; Didn’t we vote for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney?&nbsp; Didn’t we go to war in the Middle East in Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom to keep the oil flowing? Didn’t we support those politicians who deregulated the coal mining and oil exploration industry? Didn’t we vote to re-elect these same Senators and Congressmen and women term after term, rewarding them for their votes? Meanwhile, these lawmakers de-regulated, dismantled and removed federal safeguards from the banks and energy companies that are harming us today.&nbsp; </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Free enterprise isn’t free for you and me. It is free from regulation – free from federal inspectors checking up on cheats and unscrupulous businesses; free from mine inspections and meat inspectors; free from DOL Wage and Hour inspectors, free from CDC scientists working on new vaccines that only affect a few thousand Americans (so it isn’t profitable for drug companies to do); free from border patrol and law officers; free from public school teachers and fire fighters; unburdened of all those federally-supported services that our taxes provide. Wall Street is lobbying our Congress so they don’t have to pay the same taxes as you and I pay. And, 36 lawmakers lined up to support Wall Street over you and me…including some Blue Dog Democrats who should be voted out of office, like Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas.&nbsp; </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">But I digress…America is for sale. Private industry has waged an expensive decades-old public relations campaign to brainwash the general public into believing that any government regulation is bad and only totally free enterprise, free trade is good. Kinda like saying sin is great and virtue is bad. Say it loud enough and repeat it often enough on every TV channel and soon it is no longer an ad, or just an opinion – it is the truth….it is the Golden Rule: Those with the gold rule.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Don’t you get it? America is being sold to foreign interests every day of the week. We are a third world country being mined by foreign national governments for our raw materials. Huge tracts of American farms are foreign government-owned and the crops harvested in the USA go directly to those nations…Same story for our forests. Raw logs are loaded in ships and shipped directly overseas for raw materials; not as a finished, valued-added product. Why should we be surprised that crude oil is being drilled in the deep water US coastal Gulf by foreign government owned businesses like BP, the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, the United Arab Emirates, China Development Fund, etc? As Sarah says: Drill, Baby, Drill!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Almost nothing that has benefitted Main Street America in our entire history is from private enterprise.&nbsp; Required reading in every school in America should be Jeff Madrick’s “Case for Big Government,” a book written in layman’s language, (so that even an old country Boy from Arkansas like me can understand it) that details his conclusion that a public relations campaign has been systematically waged against America so we vote against our own interests and with greedy corporations who, with our help, legally steal money from the general public (that’s us).&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Jeff Madrick is the editor of “Challenge” magazine and senior fellow at the New School’s Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He creates a fact-filled, “connect the dots” road map for every day citizens to understand the complexities of economics in plain language. After reading this book, you will clearly see the lies and deception heaped upon America by the greedy and unscrupulous mining and energy corporations who use public lands to make billions of dollars of pure profits that belong to you and me, and then avoid paying anything for the land and avoiding taxes on their profits. Incredible!&nbsp; </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">So shut up America. You asked for this. You paid for it. You voted for this, and you continue to support the system that is dumping millions of barrels of oil in the Gulf. You made the deal; so live with it!</div><div class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</div>Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-57176425276952811452010-05-24T07:27:00.001-07:002010-05-24T07:27:27.393-07:00Memorial Day MessageRon Ault<o:p></o:p> May 23, 2010<br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal">The last Monday in May has been observed as the Memorial Day federal holiday since 1971.&nbsp; Before then, it was known as “Decoration Day” to decorate the graves and monuments that honor our fallen servicemen and women.&nbsp; This observance goes all the way back to 1871 to honor the dead servicemen who served in the Civil War.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">This history of Memorial Day shows that the more things change, the more they remain the same, especially when we are in a temporary time of peace between the numerous wars our nation has fought since 1871.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Today, the&nbsp; public’s perception is that we are at peace with other nations, although that isn’t entirely true.&nbsp; We are at war and it is with nations; not just a loose group of so-called terrorist groups;&nbsp; al Qaeda&nbsp; may be the face of their surrogate, but these terrorists are sponsored and supported by nation states hell bent on harming America. At the same time, we are in the worst economic recession/depression since the Great Depression of the 1930’s.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">2010 looks an awful lot like the state of the world in 1938, before World War II.&nbsp; History has a way of repeating itself. The world of the “haves” and the “have nots” during the Great Depression actually triggered World War II. Adolph Hitler came to power united behind a starving Germany that was largely unemployed. Today, we are seeing riots in Europe, political uprisings in the Far East and an angry American electorate that is voting long-term incumbents out of office.&nbsp; We have sleeper cell terrorists attempting to bomb New York City’s Times Square just to kill innocent civilians. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The United States Constitution specifically requires the US Congress to provide a Navy for the national defense…not the Department of Defense; not the President of the US; but Congress. Yet, in these dangerous and uncertain times, what is happening to our Navy?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The Navy’s recently released 30-year shipbuilding plan is fraught with faulty assumptions that are based purely on shortages of shipbuilding funding. And, if Congress simply rubber stamps the recommendations of this report, it will be giving up its constitutionally mandated responsibility to provide a Navy to auditors and bean counters.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">It costs a lot of money to have a modern two ocean Navy and our nation doesn’t have any money to spare. The war in Iraq bankrupted America. This war has actually lasted longer than WWII —it is the longest and most expensive war we have ever had. To shift money to fight the war of our choice in Afghanistan, the US has decided to cancel new defense programs saying that no other nation on Earth has the technology we currently have in our military, so we don’t need new systems. This decision will have long term consequences. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">By cutting the development of future weapons systems we are dismantling our national defense industrial base, and by doing so we give up our ability to build our own weapons systems we will need to defend ourselves.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Any nation that cannot build their own defense weapons cannot be considered a world power and must buy whatever weapons other nations are willing to sell to them.&nbsp; This is especially true in the Naval Shipbuilding industrial base. America has only six major shipyards that are capable of building complex large deck Naval combat ships and submarines; listed from West to East: <b>National Steel Shipyard</b> owned by General Dynamics Corporation located in San Diego, California; <b>Avondale Shipyards</b>, owned by Northrop Grumman Corporation and located just outside New Orleans, Louisiana; <b>Ingalls Shipyard</b> owned by Northrop Grumman Corporation located in Pascagoula, Mississippi; <b>Newport News Shipbuilding</b>, owned by Northrop Grumman and located in Newport News, Virginia; <b>Electric Boat</b>, owned by General Dynamics Corporation and located in Groton, Connecticut; and <b>Bath Iron Works</b>, owned by General Dynamics and located in Bath, Maine.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Newport News is the only shipyard currently building nuclear powered aircraft carriers and Electric Boat is a nuclear submarine yard. Bath Iron Works, Ingalls, Avondale and National Steel Shipyards are building the non nuclear, combat surface ships, including destroyers, amphibious ships, fleet underway replenishment ships (formerly called fleet oilers), minesweepers, frigates and cruisers.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">We haven’t built a modern icebreaker in decades and considering the Russian race for oil exploration in the Arctic Circle, seems pretty short sighted.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The modernization of the aging Coast Guard fleet and the US coastal trade, Jones Act fleet of US Merchant Marine ships requires more than six shipyards, but without federal support for such programs, America will lose the last vestiges of heavy industry manufacturing left in America and we will have to buy our ships from China and South Korea with money we borrow from them. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">What most Americans don’t realize is that these shipyards are the largest private employers in their respective states and generate and additional $7.80 for every dollar they spend in economic activity in their regions and within the shipbuilding supplier base.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The income taxes on wages paid to our workers offset some of the costs of Naval and Coast Guard purchases, but no one accounts for that.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Every single state in the US has industries that supply the US shipbuilding industry. Every job in these shipyards is a good-paying, middle class job.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">When all variables are factored in the economic pie that is sliced up, I submit that the economic impact of shipbuilding is self-sustaining. Once any of these shipyards is closed, there will never be another shipyard built in the United States again.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">No one can afford to invest the billions of dollars into the infrastructure to build a shipyard, and the environmental permits would NEVER be approved to dig and build dry docks, dredge berthing and outfitting spaces, waterfront piers, machines, electrical conduits, piping, sheet metal and steel fabrication shops and massive heavy lift cranes and weight handling equipment used in modular construction of massive metal ship structures.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">America’s shipyards are national treasures and should not belong to private enterprise, but they do and as such they are operated on a supply and demand basis. They must make a profit or be closed, sold and disposed of, regardless of the impact on our national security.&nbsp; Had America closed down its shipbuilding base between the crash of 1929 and December 7, 1941, we would have the axis flags of Germany and Japan flying over Washington, D.C. today. History ignored is history to be repeated.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">This Memorial Day as we honor our fallen and our currently serving American armed forces, let’s not put future generations at risk by short sighted defense policies based on budget rather than on our national needs. As Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld candidly said when asked by news reporters about why our Humvees were not ordered built with IED armor to prevent unnecessary US causalities: “We go to war with the Army we have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Our shipbuilders build every U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ship knowing it is their sons and daughters who will crew and fight in those ships.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">#&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; #&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; #<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-68047079208373066622010-05-21T05:14:00.001-07:002010-05-21T05:14:27.330-07:00America’s Fractious Two Party Systemby Ron Ault<br />May 20, 2010 <br />Results from the so-called Super Tuesday elections are in.<span>&nbsp; </span>A friend of workers, Senator Arlen Specter, lost his bid to be elected as a Democrat and will retire after 30 years of service. Senator Specter is caught up in the anger of America at a broken two-party political system that doesn’t work. To work there must be a willingness on the part of the minority party to abide by the will of the majority. And both sides must be willing to compromise to achieve bipartisanship.<span>&nbsp; </span>Instead the partisan rancor has been ratcheted up a notch and nothing is coming out of the Senate where Democrats hold a razor thin majority over Republicans. <div class="MsoNormal8"> <o:p>&nbsp;</o:p> </div>In the 2008 general election Americans voted for a change.<span>&nbsp; </span>In the special elections last Tuesday they continued to vote for change.<span>&nbsp; </span>Hello, professional politicians, didn’t you hear the voters? Where is the CHANGE we voted for? <div class="MsoNormal8"> <o:p>&nbsp;</o:p> </div>Why is there a <span class="GramE3">so called</span> “Tea Party”?<span>&nbsp; </span>Why are incumbents losing elections right and left?<span>&nbsp; </span>CHANGE is what we want; not more of the same. Using a minority status and abusing the rules of the Senate to block any change in government is a sure fire strategy to piss off America and that is exactly what Senator Mitch McConnell’s political strategy has been.<span>&nbsp; </span>McConnell believes that if his party can block everything in the Senate and mire down government so that nothing gets done voters will blame the Democrats and vote for Republicans in the mid term elections. McConnell’s strategy is purely self-serving, <span class="GramE3">hard-ball</span> politics above the good of the public. In carrying that strategy out, the Republicans are hurting America in the worst economic recession in our lifetime. And this negative strategy of could not have come at a worse time for our nation. We need bold, new ideas from our legislators to recover from the recession, not gridlock. <div class="MsoNormal8"> <o:p>&nbsp;</o:p> </div>The voters are smarter than McConnell thinks they are.<span>&nbsp; </span>Voters say throw them all out. So we are seeing the baby thrown out with the bath water, so to speak in the special elections.<span>&nbsp; </span>Since there are more Democrats running for re-election in the 2010 mid term elections than Republicans McConnell’s strategy might work- but not as he intended. <div class="MsoNormal8"> <o:p>&nbsp;</o:p> </div>America wanted to change the direction we were headed under Bush- so far, Senator McConnell has blocked the will of the 2008 election. How is it possible for a minority to block the will of a majority?<span>&nbsp; </span>Want to know the answer? The rules of the Senate empower a single Senator to put a hold on confirmations of Presidential appointments, effectively stopping the President from putting his new government in place.<span>&nbsp; </span>The rules of the Senate allow for endless debate unless a “super majority” of 60 votes to invoke cloture and end debate. These rules are not part of our <span class="GramE3">constitution,</span> they are made up by the Senate. They are not really required and should be scrapped in today’s poisoned partisanship climate. <o:p></o:p> <div class="MsoNormal8"> <o:p>&nbsp;</o:p> </div>Gridlock strategy is frustrating the base on both the left and the right. The outgrowth is parties within the parties—the Tea Partiers, Club for Growth and others among Republicans and, among Democrats, a range of political approaches—from “Blue Dogs” to “Progressives”. This factionalism weakens the mainstream of each of the two parties and encourages extremists to hijack party platforms that, for better or worse, express the vision and ideals of a political party. In place of platforms, the extremists find it safer, easier and more appealing to play to anger and frustration—in other words, demagoguery in place of idealism. Although we continue to maintain that we have a two party system, the reality is that we have a multi-party system, but the two institutionalized parties retain total control over the fund raising and organizational machinery. <div class="MsoNormal8"> <o:p>&nbsp;</o:p> </div>What America really needs is to abandon the two party political system, but neither party is willing to do that. Both political parties like the system in place. They like being able to block elections and stymie the will of the majority of voters so they don’t have to listen to you and I. Change is something neither political party wants.<span>&nbsp; </span>America is in deep doo doo. <br /><div class="style1"><br /></div>Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-9983742171504596252010-05-07T12:59:00.001-07:002010-05-07T12:59:46.509-07:00Anti Worker Policies that Kill the Middle ClassBy Ron AultMetal Trades Department, AFL-CIO<br /><br />May 7, 2010<br /><br />The Bush Administration left us a lot of excess baggage in anti-worker federal policies. One especially onerous policy came out of the National Nuclear Security Administration of the Department of Energy. It was proposed in order to eliminate defined benefit pension plans and post retirement health care programs for all the contract workers who perform the nation’s nuclear weapons work. Organized labor blocked the policy by having Congress pass a bill that said in essence that DOE could not spend any funds to implement that policy. Shortly afterward, then-DOE Secretary Samuel Bodman met with me and several other national labor leaders, including then-AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, to tell us that DOE was withdrawing the DOE directive over defined benefit pensions.<br /><br />We relaxed and moved on to other battles. Big mistake. DOE was secretly implementing the directive by including it within the procurement bid process, called “solicitation for bids,” that would require any successful contractor to implement the DOE/NNSA policy that Secretary Bodman told us they were withdrawing.<br /><br />We worked night and day to elect a worker friendly administration in 2008 to stop attacks on workers and the elimination of a middle class in America. We welcomed President Obama and applauded his appointment of Secretary Chu as Energy Secretary.<br /><br />On January 21, 2009, I sent Secretary Chu a letter asking for an opportunity to sit down with him over the issue of DOE policies that were harmful to workers we represent. In June, almost exactly ix months later, I received a cryptic email thanking me for my communication to Secretary Chu, but due to his busy schedule he could not accept my invitation for a meeting. In the meantime we were locked in battles at DOE Sandia National Laboratory with Lockheed (DOE’s prime contractor that runs the lab for them) over the elimination of defined benefit pension for workers that have had this provision in their union contract at Sandia for more than fifty years. The defined benefit pension plan at Sandia is virtually free. It currently operates at no cost to the government and it is currently overfund by 167% (as of May 17, 2010) AND WILL NOT REQUIRE ANY ADDITIONAL CONTRIBUTION IN THE FORSEEABLE FUTURE! Apparently, for DOE, facts should not get in the way of a policy. In this case, the overfunded status was irrelevant for DOE.<br /><br />The agency insisted that the contractors take away the defined benefit pensions in collective bargaining negotiations even if it meant a strike and required that the employer start a new defined contribution pension program (a 401 (K) program) that actually increased the costs to the government and added to the federal budget deficit.<br /><br />The Metal Trades took a strike vote at Sandia, but the bargaining unit turned it down in face of the worst recession in modern history.<br /><br />Same story at DOE Hanford in Richland, Washington; at the Oak Ridge Tennessee facility; and at all other DOE/NNSA nuclear weapons programs, in addition to our Idaho Falls Naval Nuclear Reactor facility that is a joint Navy/DOE facility. For more than two years now Secretary Chu has refused to meet with me over these DOE anti-worker policies even though he has met with many of our Metal Trades Council and Atomic Trades Council local presidents when he makes visits to the many thousands of Metal Trades Department-represented workers at all these DOE locations. <br /><br />On Good Friday this past month before the Easter Holiday, NNSA/DOE posted on their website a new requirement for contractor bids on a combined operations and maintenance contract our Pantex Nuclear Weapons Plant in Amarillo, Texas; our Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge Tennessee; and, within two years, at the DOE Savannah River Weapons Complex in South Carolina. The plan is to link these operations together under a single contract, with a new provision that the successful contractor will have the “flexibility” (for the first time in history) not to hire the present employees, who have decades of seniority and valuable experience after (in many cases) decades of working at these DOE facilities for every previous DOE contractor. Even worse, the successful contractor is free to set wages and benefits without regard to the rates of pay and benefits contained in our collective bargaining agreements. <br /><br />How many thousands of highly skilled, high security, nuclear qualified employees could this affect? What classifications will be affected? Will this be a wholesale replacement of the entire present workforces in all three locations with brand new kids fresh out of high school? Hell, don’t ask me. I am only the National President of the largest labor organization representing workers within NNSA- they haven’t seen fit to even brief me or any of our unions. We read about this just like John Q. Public did.<br /><br />I recently wrote DOE Secretary Chu a letter similar to the January 21, 2009 letter I previously had sent to him, again asking for a meeting to discuss these disturbingly anti-worker developments by his Department of government. We haven’t heard a word from DOE.Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-31738121519887543912010-04-28T08:18:00.001-07:002010-04-28T08:18:33.071-07:00Death, Injury & Illness: America’s Shameful Legacy of Workplace Dangers--WMD – 2010<div class="style3">By Shel Samuels, Special Representative <o:p></o:p> </div><div class="style3">April 25, 2010 <o:p></o:p> <o:p>&nbsp;</o:p> </div><div class="style3"> Washington, DC - The global threats of <b>W</b>eapons of <b>M</b>ass <b>D</b>estruction share more than a set of initials with <b>W</b>orkers’ <b>M</b>emorial <b>D</b>ay: <b>WMD. </b>As this was written, eleven workers were missing and 17 injured in an exploding and sinking oil drilling rig in American waters of the Gulf of Mexico, owned by a Swiss company, leased to a British multinational oil company, and built in South Korea. The same day, the President of the United States delivered a eulogy for 29 miners killed in a West Virginia coal mine disaster to satisfy the insatiable production demands for coal. On <b>April 28, 1971</b>—almost four decades ago—the Occupational Safety and Health Act went into effect, opening what we hoped would be a new chapter in the struggle to protect ourselves against death, injury and illness at work. <o:p></o:p> </div><span class="style3">Like the Texas City refinery disaster preceding the passage of the OSHAct in 1970, the disasters in the Gulf and West Virginia are fast-running scenes from films that spur legislation, but slower motion scenes depict death from chronic work-associated disease for hundreds of thousands of other workers easier too easily ignored, for whom the eulogy is mumbled with closed eyes.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> </span> <div class="style3">From the first day of enactment, the law was corrupted by the historic failures of the workers’ compensation systems. There are no accurate actual counts of death and disease generated in the American workplace. The first— and last [<b>1972</b>]— honest estimate published by the government, was calculated by its top biometrician, Bill Lloyd: <b>100,000 excess deaths per year. </b>The size of the great pandemic of death in the workplace in America was greeted with corporate derision, governmental inaction and <b>bi-partisan political orders for official silence! <o:p></o:p> </b></div><div class="browntitle"><b><span style="line-height: 150%;">The First Line of Defense: Prevention</span></b></div><div class="style3"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Affiliates of the Metal Trades Department went to court to force the slow process of setting OSHA standards, beginning with asbestos. About 125 million people worldwide are still exposed to asbestos even though it is ostensibly banned in 52 countries—including the European Union. Some two-thirds of the nations of the World Health Organization (WHO) continue to sell and use asbestos. WHO estimates between 100,000 and 140,000 asbestos-related deaths from cancer alone (ANNUALLY???). Professor Joseph LaDou of the University of California-San Francisco estimates that “the asbestos cancer pandemic may take as many as 10 million lives before asbestos is banned worldwide and all exposure is brought to an end.” <o:p></o:p> </span></div><div class="style3">The MTD and its affiliates—in partnership with labor’s doctor, Dr. Irving J. Selikoff of the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, began the equally slow and difficult work of <b>clinical intervention, </b>the second line of defense for worker’s health<b>. </b>Dr. Selikoff, whose work ultimately focused the world’s conscience on the full effects of asbestos, and his team began with the screening of asbestos-exposed workers in the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. With what we learned in the shipyards and in other industries, we then fought for <b>medical surveillance programs</b> for all workers. One positive result, at least in Department of Energy nuclear weapons facilities, is a program of employer-conducted medical surveillance and sheltered workshops for active workers exposed to beryllium. A separate program supposedly conducted by “independent” physicians was congressionally-mandated for all former DOE workers, but has been limited by tight budgets, government micro-management and contractors tied to the employer. <o:p></o:p> </div><div class="style3">Another, massive human tragedy had been unfolding for centuries in the uranium and beryllium mines and mills until (at least in this country in the 1950s) a handful of civil servants in the diminutive National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health aided by doctors of the Indian Health Service, initiated critical studies uncovering endemics of silicosis and cancer. In 1967, then-Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz testified that these tragedies could have been prevented under a 1936 federal law. Forty years later —despite concerted pressure by Native Americans and our unions for stronger protections—the Mine Safety and Health Administration established the far less stringent radon standard in force today in mines and mills.</div><div class="style3"> <o:p></o:p> After passage of the OSHAct, NIOSH also conducted studies that paved the way for OSHA’s first attempted beryllium standard, an effort that has been frustrated by <b>White House-supported DOE interference (</b>that continues to this day). The delays have resulted in hundreds of unnecessary cases of debilitating and deadly beryllium disease in the nuclear weapons system and other industries! <o:p></o:p> </div><div class="style3"><strong><span style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 150%;">In the United States, besides workers in the nuclear industries, t</span></strong><span style="line-height: 150%;">he number of industrial and remediation workers exposed to beryllium dust has increased with growing applications, even though the total number of industrial workers has decreased. <o:p></o:p> </span></div><div class="style3">In the United States, in 1975, a union petition proposed replacing the 1949 Atomic Energy Commission so-called “interim” exposure standard with a ‘permanent’ standard, the number of industrial workers exposed was an estimated 30,000. Today that estimate has risen, to an estimated 800,000 workers in the United States alone who could be currently or previously exposed to debilitating and cancer-generating beryllium dust. <o:p></o:p> </div><div class="style3"><span style="line-height: 150%;">No agency has bothered to do a definitive count. &nbsp;The government has chosen to identify and count the sick and dying only in <strong><span style="font-weight: normal;">the primary beryllium industry&nbsp;and&nbsp;Department of Energy weapons facilities, although the toxic dust is also generated by production and waste disposal in other industries. Almost nothing has been done to look at the devastation of entire families, and the burden on their communities, but that omission is typical for all occupational disease, not just beryllium disease.</span></strong></span><strong> <o:p></o:p> </strong></div><div class="style3">And we aren’t ‘safe’ behind the third line of defense for occupational health: <b>compensation to our families for</b> <b>lost wages and medical care.</b>&nbsp; <o:p></o:p> <b><span style="line-height: 150%;"> <o:p>&nbsp;</o:p> </span></b></div><div class="browntitle"><b><span style="line-height: 150%;">Political Compromise <o:p></o:p> </span></b></div><div class="style3">The Congress had before it a century of prior experience with state workers’ compensation systems, and the sad history of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) of 1990, before writing and incorporating similar provisions in the Energy Employees Compensation law in 2000. RECA was written to compensate communities exposed to testing and underground uranium miners. However, the new law incorporated traditional records-dependent cost containment provisions, records that most often are inadequate or don’t even exist. If they are found, their meaning is twisted to meet political compromises that date back to the first workers’ compensation statutes were written in Europe and in the Americas in the early 1900’s, predating the modern labor movement a generation later.</div><div class="style3">Compromises are the root of widespread intellectual corruption in occupational and environmental health science. Legislated lists of compensable disease distort the science in ways that were questionable even in 1900, and indefensible today. The medical expert is forced to twist what is known of risk in populations to pinpoint legal and social responsibility for individual cases, an objective unachievable with precision even with perfect records. Inevitably all parties are forced into what President Ron Ault correctly calls the “paper chase” and maladministration.</div><div class="style3"> <o:p></o:p> These effects are clearly seen in the radiation dose reconstruction program, mandated by Congress and administered by NIOSH, as illustrated by the four-year-old [2006] MTD petition for a Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) for Pantex workers. SECs are based on an escape clause in the law to cover instances where records do not exist. We claim the records do not exist and reconstruction cannot be done. <o:p></o:p> </div><div class="style3"><b><span style="line-height: 150%;">The National Academy of Science goes further, and objects to NIOSH’s fictional reconstructions used to calculate “probability of causation”, because that concept <u>“applied to populations and not individuals and could not be interpreted as the probability that a given cancer was caused by a given radiation exposure.” </u></span></b><span style="line-height: 150%;"><b>NIOSH – and Congress - have ignored that expert advice. <o:p></o:p> </b></span><span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></div><div class="style3">The result, as in the case of the 2006 pending petition for an SEC to be established for Pantex employees, not one but whole sets of claimants are subjected to unjustified, unnecessarily prolonged delays while NIOSH and its consultants argue with still other consultants about presumptions made in the absence of hard data. <o:p></o:p> <b><span style="line-height: 150%;"> <o:p>&nbsp;</o:p> </span></b></div><div class="browntitle"><b><span style="line-height: 150%;">Writing the End to This Tale</span></b><span style="line-height: 150%;"> <o:p></o:p> </span><span style="line-height: 150%;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></div><div class="style3"><span style="line-height: 150%;"> NIOSH claims that records are not necessary, because:&nbsp;&nbsp; </span><u><span style="line-height: 150%;">“…the routine weapons operations at Pantex were technically contamination free …” </span></u><i><span style="line-height: 150%;">The basis for this claim is the presence of product acceptance seal of approval on each weapon or material component, claiming that the component is “contaminant free.” This invalid claim is belied by the actual tasked behavior of both management and workers, and is contrary to the recorded observations of those actually engaged in or supervising assembly operations.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></i><b><span style="line-height: 150%;"> <o:p></o:p> </span></b></div><i><span style="line-height: 150%;">This sad tale will only end</span></i><span style="line-height: 150%;"> when the weapons of mass destruction among the workforce—asbestos, beryllium and thousands of other toxic agents in the work environment, along with the corrupted science —come under control, when the labor movement in America and globally develops the strength of numbers and allies. Only then will Workers Memorial Day become a true celebration of life, and not an occasion for still more funerals of brothers and sisters taken from us before their time.&nbsp; </span>Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-10074053385043365392010-04-14T13:11:00.000-07:002010-04-14T13:11:44.419-07:00SO NOW YOU GET MAD!<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i><b>GUEST RANT--AUTHOR UNKNOWN</b></i></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We had eight years of Bush and Cheney, but now you get mad! <br />You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount an appointed a President. <br />You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy. <br />You didn't get mad when a covert CIA operative got ousted. <br />You didn't get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.. <br />You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us. <br />You didn't get mad when we spent over 600 billion(and counting) on said illegal war. <br />You didn't get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq. <br />&nbsp;You didn't get mad when you found out we were torturing people. <br />You didn't get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans. <br />You didn't get mad when we didn't catch Bin Laden. <br />You didn't get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed. <br />You didn't get mad when we let a major US city drown. <br />You didn't get mad when we gave a 900 billion tax break to the rich. <br />You didn't get mad when, using reconciliation; a trillion dollars of our tax dollars were redirected to insurance companies for Medicare Advantage which cost over 20 percent more for basically the same services that Medicare provides. <br />You didn't get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark, and our debt hit the thirteen trillion dollar mark. <br />You finally got mad when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick. <br />Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all okay with you,but helping other Americans...oh hell no. <br /><b> AND NOW YOU'RE MAD!</b></div>Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-89096197936473924792010-04-06T08:41:00.001-07:002010-04-06T08:41:27.327-07:00Another Double Cross at National Nuclear Security Administration of the Department of EnergyWhen a government agency decides to do a dirty deed the evening before a holiday, you know it’s not going to be good. So, when NNSA/DOE revealed on Good Friday that it intends to award a combined contract to run the Oak Ridge Y-12 National Security Complex and the Amarillo Pantex Nuclear Weapons Plant without requiring the winning private contractor to use the incumbent workforce, it was clear it was something they’re not proud of. The decision didn’t surface in the mainstream media, and that was just what they hoped. &nbsp; <br /><br />Maybe it was the choice of words (“giving contractors flexibility”) that aroused our suspicion. Flexibility has become a buzzword for employers who don’t like such “rigid” requirements as fair wages, pensions, decent working conditions, making safety a high priority or allowing workers a voice on the job. &nbsp; <br /><br />As our Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Atomic Trades and Labor Council President Garry Whitley pointed out: It doesn’t make good economic sense to toss aside a trained and experienced workforce in the first place. If the winning bidder decides to hire off the street, he’ll be trading off immediate efficiency—no learning curve—to save a couple of bucks on wages. And, what does that matter? Not much, unless the workforce is working around nuclear material and highly classified sensitive data—which they are. Can you imagine the consequences of a major nuclear incident caused by someone inexperienced mishandling highly radioactive nuclear material? Or a security breach involving highly classified plans and documents that could compromise our nation’s nuclear weapons program? &nbsp; <br /><br />The NNSA decision to scrap the practice of successor hiring breaks more than 50 years of past practice and it gives a sour taste to the concept of Labor Management “partnership” that the White House has been touting in its own personnel relations. There was no phone call or warning that this was coming down. &nbsp; <br /><br />Our present relationship with the Department of Energy is at best, strained. We can’t get a straight answer about their heavy-handed implementation of DOE Directive 351.1 (their regulation that gives contractors every incentive to end defined benefit pension plans in favor of 401 (K) plans). DOE denies that they have interfered with collective bargaining, on pensions, but our experience says otherwise. &nbsp; <br /><br />Another suspicious development—DOE’s budget proposal contains extensive plans for changing accounting processes for pensions. But, the information is so well camouflaged that it is impossible to tell whether it’s another ruse to cheat the workforce or actually what they claim it is. &nbsp; <br /><br />That, brothers and sisters is exactly the point: when it comes to communication between unions and management, DOE’s credibility is zilch. This latest move simply confirms our suspicions. They do not want an experienced skilled workforce; they want the disposable, throwaway variety.&nbsp; NNSA/DOE has taken a page from the “Wally World” Human Resources manual—always the low price…and, if that’s the course they have chosen—they’ve got a fight on their hands.Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-62189967063465201902010-03-22T08:32:00.000-07:002010-03-22T08:32:27.102-07:00Making Sausage<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Being an old country boy from the hills of Arkansas, I know a lot about making sausage. I’ve made some this year at home. It is messy and requires a lot of preparation, but the end result—fresh, tasty home-made sausage—is worth it.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Last night I watched the Democrats finally stand (almost) united and pass health care. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted, or a perfect bill. It is a compromise that is a lot better than the status quo. It doesn’t achieve universal coverage. It doesn’t do a lot of things I wanted to see in a health care reform bill, but it is a vast improvement over the preset system of allowing the insurance industry to monopolize health care without any meaningful oversight or regulation to protect our citizens.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Every U.S. President since Teddy Roosevelt has talked about trying to fix health care. Seven Democrats—Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton and now Obama, proposed concrete plans to fix the healthcare industry, but until now they all failed. Every time ANYONE tried, there were merciless attacks by the business community, the insurance lobby, the healthcare industry and the US Chamber of Commerce. Opponents of health care reform poured obscene amounts of money into campaigns to block reform. After the “Harry and Louise” industry TV campaign against the Clinton health care reform, I didn’t think anyone would ever take them on again in my lifetime. Last night not a single Republican voted for anything. Every single member of that political party voted in lock step as obstructionists. They were all the hand maidens of the Healthcare Lobby. I was mad as hell at the 34 Democrats that voted with the Republicans. I had helped many of those Democrats in their elections.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">But here I am PO’ed at these 34 Democrats, and at the same time what about the Party of NO? At least under the big tent of the Democratic Party, there is room for members of Congress to vote differently from the leadership. Is that allowed by the Republicans? Hell no.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I have been railing against the Republican party because it demands total control, blind allegiance and total party discipline. Does that make me a hypocrite for then criticizing the 34 Democrats who voted against the Health Care Reform? If you look objectively at this (and it is hard) at least this highlights the major difference between Republican and Democrats. One is actually delivering the change the voters demanded in the last election, while the other wants to ignore the 2008 election as if it never happened.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The majority of voters demanded change and they are angry when it has taken so long to get it. Now, maybe the rest of the changes we want are beginning to happen as well.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Our system of government moves slow, it is messy, can be nasty and is a lot like making sausage. The animal is killed before the entire nation, gutted, cut up in pieces in town hall meetings and criticized by the most vocal activists who are hostile to anyone who doesn’t agree with them. The meat is then publically ground up in hearings, speeches, TV ads, and paid political PR campaigns. Spices and flavorings are argued over. Competing recipes are trashed, berated, and down right insulted by the different cooks on the floor of the chambers. Then different members throw in special private secret spices. And, finally after all that hostility and hot debates, the bill is voted up or down. Just like making home-made sausage.</span></div>Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-90954088147409900472010-02-19T08:58:00.000-08:002010-02-19T09:01:14.377-08:00Pay to Fight: Making War Pay<p>Last November, Rep. David Obey (D-WI) made a suggestion that bears serious consideration. In the face of the then-pending troop surge in Afghanistan, Obey proposed a “war tax” amounting to a 5 percent surcharge on high incomes and lower percentages for low-income taxpayers to underwrite the $40 billion a year cost of that surge. With the exception of our courageous and recently departed friend, the late John Murtha (D-PA), Mr. Obey’s proposal got no traction whatsoever. <o:p> </o:p> </p> <p>Now, as we hear a clamor of concern over America’s growing budget deficit, especially from conservative Republicans in Congress, it’s time to resurrect Mr. Obey’s proposal. <o:p> </o:p> </p> <p>I recall right after George W. Bush declared his vaunted “global war on terror” and reporters asked him how Americans might show their commitment to that war effort and demonstrate their patriotism. Bush’s response was classic: “Go shopping,” he said. Well, going shopping and buying more Chinese made goods hasn’t worked out so well. <o:p> </o:p> </p> <p>What’s happened to America? Most of us heard our parents and grandparents describe the sacrifices they made during World War II. From rationing eggs, meat and milk, scrap collections, victory gardens, war bond drives and rationing gasoline for their cars—America had a near universal outpouring of support for the troops on the frontlines. Sure, there were some cheaters, but the overwhelming attitude was solidarity and sacrifice for the cause. That’s why, when World War II ended, America became the breadbasket for the devastated economies of Europe and Asia. That’s how American influence helped Japan transition from a monarchy to a democracy. That’s how America was able to fund the Marshall Plan to help create European economies that were even more productive than they had been before the war destroyed them. <o:p> </o:p> </p> <p>Not long ago, a popular beer adopted an advertising slogan that went something like: “Who says you can’t have it all?” That slogan is a perfect reflection of the pandering expectations that too many politicians from both political parties practice today. It’s also the essence of Reaganomics. It assures us: “You can have a $1 trillion-plus expenditure on defense and security (23 percent of total government spending), another $3 trillion on health and education, consumer protection and law enforcement. You can fight wars half way across the globe, protect your shores, secure your transportation systems, keep food and drugs safe, while leaving no child behind and, oh, if we run a little short, just put it on the credit card.” Don’t blame that attitude on Obama—it originated even before Reagan, but his administration perfected it. <o:p> </o:p> </p> <p>Today, the tea baggers say, we don’t need any government besides defense and security. We hear these Right Wingers screaming that any new spending program has to be paid for with a cut somewhere else.<span style=""> </span></p> <p>Okay, let’s use that same thought on any war we fight.<span style=""> </span></p> <p>Let’s pay for it with a temporary tax that runs the duration of the war….Talk about an incentive for an “exit strategy”, that would be the greatest peace incentive in history.<span style=""> </span>The Lefty Liberals say, we can do away with defense and security, but we need to spend even more on the other 75 percent of government. But, you don’t hear many from either side say: If you’ll tell us exactly what these programs will cost, we’ll gladly pay our fair share. <o:p> </o:p> </p> <p>Then there are the corporations and super rich: They say, make sure the nation is “friendly to business” and “secure enough” for commerce, but let the suckers pay. Corporations think they’re doing their part with their political contributions and under the table payoffs to maintain the status quo. <o:p> </o:p> </p> <p>Fast forward to 2010: Lot’s of people proclaim their support for the troops with yellow ribbons on their bumpers. I’m sure the troops appreciate the gesture, but come on, what does it mean? Do those yellow ribbons mean you’re willing to pay for full funding for VA hospitals and VA benefits? To pay to build the ships, planes, weapons and material that the troops need to carry out their mission? <o:p> </o:p> </p> <p>No, Mr. and Mrs. America, we can’t “have it all,” but we can have what we’re willing to pay for. And, if we don’t think it’s worthwhile to pay a tax to pursue a global war on terror, we can let the politicians know that, too. <o:p> </o:p> </p> <p>We don’t need a deficit commission, we need a reality check and we need it now.</p>Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-11260336977248980522010-02-19T08:55:00.000-08:002010-02-19T08:57:53.579-08:00PatienceThe blizzards of "Snowmegaladon" have me suffering (like most of the Mid Atlantic region) from cabin fever. I have the TV on and noticed that several CNN stories have been devoted to billboard ads against President Obama. One in Montana has former President Bush with a big smirk on his face captioned: "Do you miss me yet?" Another is in Wisconsin with the Caption "Impeach Obama"… "America's small businesses are failing"…paid for by an attorney who isn't a small business. Seems like America has a very short memory. The first year has been a bit rocky as the recession President Obama inherited keeps deepening (even though nearly every economist predicted that unemployment wouldn't bottom out until the spring of 2010 and that it would remain high through 2012.) <p class="style4">Is it fair? Is it even realistic to think we could come out of the greatest economic disaster since the Great Depression this soon? Remember, this catastrophe was caused by the de-regulators in the anti-government Right Wing.</p> <p class="style4">Meanwhile, the defenders of the status quo and big Wall Street bankers have banded together to block President Obama's cabinet appointments (the highest number of Congressional holds in the history of America.)</p> <p class="style4">Their strategy is pretty obvious. They just say "NO" to everything and create total political gridlock, then blame the President for not doing anything. Both sides are aware that the vast number of Americans are angry that they don't have jobs, can't pay the mortgage, can't afford gas to fuel up the car and warm their homes and will blame the party in power come election day. Most of these Republicans are in safe Republican districts and not likely to be touched in the next election, so they feel safe by being obstructionists.</p> <p class="style4">There are enough southern and western Right Wing Conservative Democrats that frequently vote with the Republicans because they share the exact same political philosophy to block the will of the majority by using parliamentary procedures in Congress. So, passing sweeping laws in Congress is something that President Obama isn't going to be able to do. Forget that. It isn't going to happen until enough Americans get fed up with the body of Congress and wholesale replace them…and I don't see that happening in my lifetime. For some reason that defies logic, most voters blame Congress as a whole but not their own Senators and Congressman or woman. They curse the rain for being wet!</p> <p class="style4">So let's look at exactly what the President can and has done within his powers to do independent of this "Just Say No Congress."</p> <p class="style4">His appointments, by and large, look pretty much like mainstream America: women, Hispanics, Asians, Caucasians, Blacks, and members of the opposition party…He has issued Executive Orders that correct decades of waste, fraud and abuse of federal contracting. Despite the sniping from his critics, President Obama has blocked all terrorists attacks, and there are no headlines saying "Thousands of Americans have died from Swine Flu."</p> <p class="style4">But President Obama doesn't get any credit for doing a good job preparing the nation for a deadly pandemic and marshalling the world to produce an effective vaccine against this new deadly strain of flu. Obama didn't allow the swine flu to become his "Katrina." Did the President get any credit for saving untold thousand of American lives? No, but he would have gotten the blame had we not developed an effective vaccine and vaccinated a very large population center that stopped the pandemic in its tracks.</p> <p class="style4">We hear a lot of bad press about the stimulus bill not creating millions of new jobs. Okay, how about the thousands of workers who didn't get laid off? Do their jobs count? The police, fire departments, school teachers, and public safety personnel whose jobs were saved as a result of stimulus money going to the state governments?</p> <p class="style4">No one wants to talk about the jobs NOT lost. You hear that only 25-30 jobs were created in the construction industry by building a bridge across a highway. What about the thousands of jobs in the steel mills that produced the steel used in the bridge; or the concrete manufacturers that made the concrete that went into the bridge; or the factory that produced the paint used to paint the exposed steel portions of the bridge; or the electrical supply house that supplied the wiring and lights for the bridge? One thing most folks don't understand: construction projects need good weather for maximum efficiency. Why do you think you see so much construction taking place in spring and summer? This spring we will see the maximum effect from the stimulus bill on public projects.</p> <p class="style4">Before any major project is undertaken—it takes time to write contracts, secure bids, evaluate and score the bids, then award the successful contractor the work. After all that takes place, then and only then, are the first workers hired. It takes months before the first shovel full of dirt is turned after the stimulus bill was passed. Patience is something missing in the American voting public. </p>Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-69221796924327368612008-04-30T12:01:00.000-07:002008-04-30T12:03:08.942-07:00Protectionist Legislation, The Jones Act<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span><span style="font-family: arial;"></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Ron Ault,</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">President</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Metal Trades Department, AFL-CIO</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Sometime I feel like Don Quixote, tilting at windmills. Fighting against the U.S. federal government, the combined might of four giant, multi-national corporations, the Maritime Labor Organizations, the U.S. Ship owners and a lot of heavy political hitters in the Philadelphia region could make you feel slightly paranoid. My wife tells me she wants me to increase my life insurance policy…such was the case last Thursday, April 17, 2008, when we appeared in Philadelphia federal district court in our lawsuit (PMTC v. Allen, et al.) against the U.S. Coast Guard whacky interpretation of the Jones Act that reverses the original intent of Congress and is plainly at odds with the requirements of the law. This is our third consecutive federal lawsuit against the Bush Administration on behalf of America’s workers.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Our lawsuit is really simple- The U.S. Coast Guard is allowing Aker Philadelphia Shipyard (we represent the workers) to partner with HMD (Hyundai Mipo Dockyards South Korean Shipyards) and jointly build the U.S. double hull Product Tankers (oil tankers). Aker basically builds most of the outer hull of these ships while HMD builds or buys everything else in South Korea and ships it over prefabricated and assembled to Aker Philadelphia Shipyard. Since we filed our lawsuit, General Dynamics National Steel Shipyard has developed a similar partnership with Daewoo South Korean shipyards also using South Korean prefabricated preassembled kit ships. This is contrary to the clear and plain language of the Jones Act.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The Jones Act (as described by the Coast Guard and its Justice Department lawyers) is an 80 year old “protectionist law” that protects American shipbuilding, American crews and American ship owners from foreign competition for port-to-port, U.S. coastal trade. The Jones Act requires U.S. flagged ships to be manufactured in the USA, assembled entirely in the USA, crewed by U.S. crews and owned by U.S. citizens. The purpose of the Jones Act isd to insure a robust U.S. Merchant Marine and U.S. Shipbuilding Industry in the event of national emergencies. For 80 years ships built for the Jones Act were made in the USA and assembled entirely in the USA. “PMTC v. Allen” is the first federal Jones Act lawsuit over the building of a U.S. vessel in the history of the Jones Act. Why? Because this is the first time anyone has “interpreted” the Jones Act to allow Hyundai Mipo Dockyards to build the guts of the ship, assemble all these foreign parts in their massive South Korea shipyards in huge “modules” of completed systems (hydraulics systems, Engine room systems, compressed air systems, complete deck winches and cranes with motors, cable and electrical controls, brake assemblies, etc. all painted and piped up, ready to operate. No U.S. assembly required.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I was saddened to witness the U.S. Department of Justice aggressively defending the Coast Guard’s actions in this case in federal court. One argument I heard was that the Coast Guard was advancing two of its three interests under the Jones Act by fostering a robust US Merchant Marine and a US Shipping interest at the expense of US Shipbuilding. The government indicated to the judge that the cost of building a ship in the US would be too high if it were built entirely in the US and that the Coast Guard had been making rules for many years that allowed U.S. Shipbuilders to use foreign parts to build Jones Act ships. They argued that these Korean built modules of completed assemblies (some weighing several tons and as big as 60 feet by 40 feet) were merely “parts” under the Coast Guard interpretation and as long as they were lowered into a hull in the U.S. for final “assembly” they met the requirements of the Jones Act. The Justice Department attorneys went on to argue that the Union should be happy that we are getting any work on new construction, that if we are successful in our lawsuit it might become too expensive to build Jones Act ships in the USA. And if the judge did find all this just too much to swallow, that she had to give deference to the Coast Guard’s interpretation of “manufactured in the USA and assembled entirely in the U.S.” unless she found that interpretation so outrageous as it was completely contrary to the law.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Why? Why is the Bush Administration so anti “Made in the U.S.A.” that they would go to such extremes as to disadvantage American business and reduce our national defense capabilities? This Administration has chosen again and again to give preference to foreign suppliers over American business: </span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">• Sikorsky Aviation in New York was the lead defense contractor to build the new presidential helicopter (the next President will ride in it). However, the Bush Administration selected a European consortium headed up by an Italian corporation for the contract. Sikorsky’s helicopter was determined to be a better and safer helicopter than the Italian helicopter, but that did not matter. Neither did the requirements of Title 10, the “Buy American Act” that require goods and services for the U.S. military be purchased “made in the U.S.A.” whenever possible. This “Presidential Helicopter” is a military helicopter. In fact, under Bush the “Buy American Act” has been waived so often it is essentially unenforced. We buy our electronic chips for Navy sonar buoys from Communist China (funny, we can’t detect Chinese submarines with them), M-16 .223 ammo from Israel and other foreign countries while we lay off Remington ammo workers in Loneoak, Arkansas, and—still in today’s headlines—the European Airbus $4 billion initial contract for airborne refueling tankers (with an additional 40 billion dollars of contract options). In fact, we buy so much of our military hardware and supplies from foreign sources that we have lost the ability for a war time industrial surge capacity in America. America would not be able to defend herself if our foreign sources refused to sell us these essential manufactured military goods. We do not have stockpiles of these supplies any more…because we practice “just in time inventory”…- In the event of a shooting war, if our defense materials are not delivered in time we would have no choice but surrender our nation or pull the all out nuclear trigger of Armageddon. There is a passage in the Bible that says “there will be wars and rumors of war until the end of time.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">80 years ago a far sighted and patriotic Congress foresaw such a possibility and declared that it was in America’s strategic interests to have a robust U.S. Shipbuilding industry to protect our island nation in time of national emergency. They passed and the President signed the Jones Act into a law that has served this nation well. Indeed, shipyards are our nation’s defense arsenal. Obviously, the Coast Guard has lost sight of that purpose, we’re hopeful that the courts will put them back on the right track.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"># # #</span><br /><br /></span>Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-86381599825385684792008-03-03T06:28:00.000-08:002008-03-03T06:29:28.616-08:00Let Freedom Ring<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Ron Ault,</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">President</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Metal Trades Department, AFL-CIO</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">On March 1, 2008, the U.S.S. New York, LPD-21, will be commissioned in an elaborate, traditional Naval ceremony capped by a bottle of champagne breaking across her expansive bow at Northrop Grumman Avondale Shipyard in New Orleans, Louisiana. 7.5 tons of steel taken from the World Trade Center wreckage is cast into her majestic bow. The image of that cowardly terrorist attack is forever superimposed into the American psyche. It is poetic justice that an avenging United States Naval warship should contain as part of its soul, a portion of the destroyed World Trade Center structure that took more than 3,000 innocent lives. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Let Freedom Ring! Nothing could tug at the heart and inflame the national passions of patriotism more than this fitting image. Our members built the USS New York. They put their blood, sweat and expertise as highly skilled shipbuilders into building the USS New York. Working in a noisy, dangerous, heavy industrial environment with high humidity and air temperatures often hovering at or near 100 degrees, our members take hundreds of tons of raw materials, miles of piping, valves and machinery, cast, forge, form, bend steel plate into complex shapes and weld the hulls into sleek, highly complex, modern warships with offensive capabilities unheard of just a few years ago. Our members install and test highly classified, sensitive electronics, advanced weapons and propulsion systems in these 21st century naval warships. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Our Metal Trades Council members have built, overhauled and converted thousands of such advanced Navy ships over the past 100 years and we are justifiably proud of the craftsmanship and quality of these ships as they steam out of our shipyards and take their place in the fleet protecting our nation. We know they are the finest and most capable such ships in the world, because we build every ship knowing full well that it will be our Sons and Daughters who sail these ships in harm’s way and fight our nation’s battles.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">But there is another untold story hidden in the shadows of the magnificent U.S.S. New York. Meet Mr. J.F. Martinez, a long term employee of NG Avondale shipyard who has worked at Avondale for 29 years. Mr. Martinez is a shipfitter/welder, and a member of Boilermakers, Local Union 1814, one of the affiliated Local Unions of the New Orleans Metal Trades Council, AFL-CIO, the umbrella labor organization that represents all the blue collar workers who build ships at NG Avondale shipyard. Mr. Martinez is a worker who welded the steel from the World Trade Center into the bow of this great warship. “I am very proud that my skills and hard work helped build this great ship and that the steel I welded from the World Trade Center is part of this warship,” said Mr. Martinez. “I used to live in New Orleans East and after Hurricane Katrina destroyed everything I owned, I wondered if I would ever be able to rebuild my life and continue to build ships. It has been so hard and we aren’t there yet.” In fact, Mr. Martinez’s life is anything but normal. Married with two grown Daughters, he is one of the hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast workers who lost everything they owned, yet have struggled to maintain their dignity and rebuild their lives, while living in a FEMA furnished trailer.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">While FEMA is evicting Gulf Coast families out of unsafe Katrina trailers, homeowners insurance is unaffordable and largely unavailable for Gulf Coast residents. Government could help by requiring private insurers to pool risks and resources to provide homeowners insurance and facilitate rebuilding the residential communities destroyed by Katrina and Rita. Government could do a lot to facilitate the reconstruction of the devastation, but it hasn’t. There has been no government coordination and streamlining of the various government agencies and programs into a clearinghouse of help for the hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens. Just think about where America is today…We are in a major Recession. Foreclosures are at record highs as homeowners join the unemployed and homeless. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The Gulf Coast must be rebuilt. There is no option. The longer we wait, the more it will cost. Rebuilding the Gulf Coast in 2008 is a hundred times a better economic stimulus than the paltry $600 tax rebate program of the Bush Administration (that you and I will have to pay for in taxes next year.) Just stop and think of the economic ripple effect across the entire U.S. economy of tens of thousands of new, good-paying construction jobs rebuilding 740,000 homes and 9,000 business destroyed by Katrina. America would have a booming economy this year; not a recession, doing the right thing by rebuilding the Gulf Coast. Our Government has the power and the ability to appoint a Gulf Coast Reconstruction Czar at the White House level to cut across all agencies and programs. Such a bold and decisive move would draw wide bipartisan support in Congress and could be accomplished in just days, if we had bold and compassionate National leadership. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Are you ready for a booming economy that works for all? It is up to us to demand more than lip service by our politicians. Let Freedom Ring!</span><br /><br /></span>Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-15821287415538694312008-02-14T10:48:00.000-08:002008-02-14T10:50:18.218-08:00“Pop A Top Again”<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">“Pop a top again </span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">I just got time for one more round </span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sit em up my friends </span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Then I'll be gone </span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Then you can let some other fool sit down”</span><br /></span></div><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Country/Western artist Alan Jackson sings a song about drinking….pretty much a standard C &amp; W signature theme…why is this a topic I am writing about? Let me ask you an important question. Would you give an alcoholic another drink to help his recovery from alcoholism? That is exactly the solution President Bush has proposed for the ailing economy and is pushing through Congress…and not one member of Congress has the guts to stand up and say no to serving this drink to some estimated 200,000,000 voting alcoholics in an election year. What member of Congress wants to be the one that takes the blame for taking away your $600.00 tax rebate?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">We need to think this through, logically…to fix the broken U.S. economy and bring us out of recession, the Bush administration is going to add even more national debt (to the tune of billions of dollars) just to give every tax payer $600 to $1000 dollars rebate and then urge us tax payers to go down to the local “Wally World” and spend it; buy a Red Chinese made flat screen TV so the “economy” will get better…duh! I am just a simple country boy from Amity, Arkansas, but it seems to me this is exactly how we got in a recession in the first place! </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The credit card, “borrow and spend” Bush government took a trillion dollar surplus and in less than 12 months in office, sunk our nation into a trillion dollar deficit…even a simple country boy like me can add that up and see that totals two trillion dollars of unfunded Bush credit card spending. What was the money spent on?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The number one priority of that spending was to give Bush’s rich political supporters windfall tax breaks. Billionaires like Warren Buffet didn’t need a federal tax rebate, but none of them turned it down.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Bush went to war in Iraq to take out Hussein and when he did, he spent the treasury of our nation like a drunken sailor on liberty with a month’s sea pay in his pocket…and it has never stopped.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Even before the Iraqi war, the Bush administration was borrowing money to support his government spending. His national spending increased every month the war has continued. The U. S. national debt under Bush has increased geometrically and is funded by borrowing the money from foreign nations. Communist China has become a major U.S. lender and is one of the biggest bankers of the Bush government.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Every dime of this unfunded spending has been generated under the leadership of the standard bearers of the “Conservative” wing of the Republican Party: George W. Bush. Tom “the Hammer” DeLay, Vice President, and former Halliburton CEO, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Grover Norquist, Karl Rove, Denny Hastert, Bill Frist, Duke Cunningham, Lindsey Graham, Trent Lott, Haley Barbour, Mark Foley, John Warner, David Vitter, John McCain, Doc Hastings, Ted Stevens, Larry Craig, and the list goes on…In fact, nearly every Republican in each House of Congress—with few and very rare exceptions—marched in lock step with their Party’s leader, George W. Bush. None of the Conservative Republicans in Congress or in the Administration had a problem or voiced real opposition to the ballooning national debt as long as it was being spent on their priorities and not on any “Social Entitlement” programs like public schools, social security, veteran benefits, public health, aid to dependent children, or school lunch programs. Now, since Democrats took back the House and Senate, and are shifting national spending priorities away from the Republican’s war, suddenly we have a “fiscal” crisis in government spending and Bush and his followers are demanding a 50% reduction in federal spending or he will veto it? Does the word “Hypocrisy” come to mind?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Think of this- Do you balance your home budget? Keep your family’s checkbook balanced? How do you do it? Do you just keep maxing out all your credit cards and never send in any payments to the creditors? That is how George W. Bush’s administration and his Republican Congress ran our federal government. Even today, Republican Congressional lawmakers in the House and Senate are blocking any attempts by Democrats to change any of the spending priorities of the Bush Administration.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">We can’t run our households the way Bush runs America, can we? We have to limit our family spending and pay our bills or the power companies will turn off our utilities. We either have to get a better job that pays more money or cut back on what we spend. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Bush thinks the recession is a result of you and I maxing out our credit and cutting way back on our consumer spending. Bush thinks giving us more debt and another $600 a year of more credit is a great idea and will fix the recession. You and I will spend a lot more than $600 a year on just the increased price of $3.00 a gallon gas and $4.00 a gallon milk…under George W. Bush’s leadership, the Federal Reserve has dropped interest rates for borrowing all the away down to 3% in an attempt to get the economy going. Giving you more debt and cheaper credit is the way the Republicans think we can borrow our way out of recession. As Alan Jackson sings…Pop a top again! Give us another round, my friend…</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Fixing a recession is very, very simple. Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt figured it out in the early 1930’s after Republican President Herbert Hoover’s administration (an uncanny likeness in its economic policies to today’s Bush Administration) had led America into the worst “recession” in history (but it was called The Depression then).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Roosevelt put America back to work by creating millions of blue collar jobs to rebuild public infrastructure. Franklin D. Roosevelt also created a fair system of redistributing America’s national wealth. Roosevelt legalized free trade unions by advocating, supporting and passing the National Labor Relations Act. Roosevelt knew that free trade unions were the most effective way to redistribute wealth from the super rich/big business owners to the average hourly worker, whose work and toil made these owners rich. Under Franklin Roosevelt’s administration workers’ wages and standards of living rose dramatically, public schools and colleges were built to educate millions of the children of the “working class” and union membership in America peaked.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The elite “old” money “ruling class” families hated Franklin D. Roosevelt, and considered him a traitor to his family’s ruling class traditions. The conservatives labeled him a “socialist” and demeaned his depression recovery plans as “entitlement programs.” Businessman and banker Prescott Bush, George W. Bush’s grandfather, was typical. As a businessman, Prescott Bush publicly berated Social Security and vigorously opposed Roosevelt’s legislative programs. By the time he worked his way up to win a Republican Senate seat in Connecticut in 1950, Prescott Bush was considered a rising star among his conservative Republican colleagues.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">When George W. Bush came in office the very first Executive Order he signed as President prohibited unions from entering into “Project Labor Agreements” for building large public construction project like the new Interstate 495 Woodrow Wilson bridge across the Potomac River from Virginia to Maryland.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Under George W. Bush’s leadership, every department of the federal government declared an open war on America’s free trade unions. For the past seven years, Bush’s Department of Labor has been prostituted into an anti-labor/anti-worker organization and like the biggest, meanest junkyard dog, Bush has sic’ed it on organized labor and America’s workers. The National Labor Relations Board has become the hand maiden of corporations, and the enemy of America’s workers. The DOL advises employers how to avoid paying hourly workers overtime pay.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">No department of the federal government has been exempted from the pro business, anti worker policies. The Right Wing, Think Tank zealots like those of the Heritage Foundation have been assigned by President Bush to take over every aspect of the federal government and to systematically dismantle every program President Franklin D. Roosevelt built. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The Bush recession and his war on America’s middle class are the direct result of his politically driven, Neo-Conservative policies made possible by the aid and support of the Republican Members of Congress. These unrelenting seven years of attacks by Bush and his cronies, have resulted in the greatest unfair distribution of wealth in the history of our nation and has systematically destroyed what free trade unions created—the American Middle Class. Today, there are only two classes in America; the “Haves” and the “Have Not’s.” That will not change until we change the mission of government back to the clear vision of our founding Fathers—that the federal government’s mission is to provide essential goods and services to its citizens.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">A vote for Republicans in the November 2008 General Election is a vote to stay the present course of government and give George W. Bush’s vision of federal government a third four year term…..or America can vote to change the direction of our nation. Only you can make that happen. If we listen to the dishonest-dirty tricks “Swift Boat” smear ads and chase the old emotional wedge issues, they will win again.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Make your Vote count! Your nation and your family’s future are depending on you!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">In Solidarity,</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Ron Ault</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">President</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Metal Trades Department, AFL-CIO</span><br /><br /></span>Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-82914341624651587562008-01-10T09:40:00.000-08:002008-01-10T09:41:30.620-08:00A “Special Interest” Group<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I was up on Capital Hill testifying before a select Committee on Energy just before the Christmas holidays. One staffer identified me as representing a “special interest group.” This is not the first time I have had this experience when presenting labor’s views or testifying on behalf of American workers. Isn’t it a shame when the average American worker—the men and women who support themselves and their families by turning wrenches, bending their backs and applying their knowledge and experience to turn out the products and services that make America work—is considered a “special interest” by our elected representatives in Congress? Isn’t it a shame that the folks who play by the rules, pay their taxes, support our defense, serve in the military, volunteer for charitable causes, coach youth sports, act as the backbone to our churches and civic organizations are considered a “special interest” just because they speak out against stagnating wages, compromised job safety or demand the right to decent health care and the right to organize into unions?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">These same politicians don’t attach the “special interest group” label to the lobbyists for the Insurance Industry, the Medical Corporations, the Banking/Credit Card Industry, Oil and Gas Industry, Airline Industry, Drug Companies, Defense Contracting Industry and the Transportation Industry… and they all seem to get special treatment with head-of-the-line privileges. Is it because they are contributing big bucks to political campaigns? I think American workers are “special” because we make America work. But, when the politicians use that “special interest” label on labor reps, the connotation is that in pursuing our interests we are somehow cheating the rest of the nation or “gaming” the system. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Big money has corrupted our political system and has stolen our democracy. Every so often you hear some huff and puff from politicians that we need to curb the influence of money in elections…yeah, and I’m Santa Claus, too…that rhetoric is nothing more than smearing a little lipstick on this pig. Every so-called “campaign finance reform” that Congress has passed has been matched with an equal number of loopholes that allow “exceptions” and neutralize real reform. And, still the corruption in government continues—the vote buying, graft, bribery, misconduct and a general attitude of “I am above the law” by some elected leaders rubs our noses in the inequities of this corrupt system. No matter how many Americans want our government to change to make their lives better, no real change takes place. No matter how many polls show we want no more American jobs sent overseas, Congress and the President continue to negotiate and sign unfair trade treaties that mortgage our children’s future.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">It is against this back drop that the results of the Iowa Presidential caucus shout “Americans want a change.” Surprise, surprise…the political pundits stand out in the freezing cold with cherry red faces, clouds from their steaming breath reporting live from New Hampshire and act as if this was front page news. Duh! After eight years of seeing the standard of living for the average American plummet; as home values drop; as our savings remain at an all-time low; as the U.S. dollar turns into devalued “monopoly money” like some third world country; as we relive the vivid images of Hurricane Katrina survivors dying for lack of water while waiting for days in sweltering 100 degree temperatures on bridges, rooftops and the Super Dome…and as the price of gasoline becomes unaffordable for the tens of millions of American minimum wage workers…Yeah, America wants a new deal. A “New Deal” like Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered when America’s workers were in the darkest hours of the Great Depression?</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Eight years ago George W. Bush promised “change” as an outsider to the “inside the beltway” Washington establishment? His administration and the majority Republican Congress delivered a terrible change in government!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">This game is crooked and the rules are unfair. We can’t win and our government is the problem; not the solution. When the U.S. Department of Labor website gives employers tips on how to avoid paying their workers overtime pay for working more than 40 hours in a work week, our system of government is broken. Government is supposed to provide essential goods and services for citizens. When government has been prostituted to serve the interests of industry and commerce at the expense of the citizens, it is delivering oppression and exploitation, not service. We don’t need just a “change.” We’ve already had the Bush “change” and it hurts! We need an entirely new deal.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I am disappointed that no one has yet put forth a comprehensive plan to bring back the American middle class and redistribute the unfair distribution of wealth in America. Wages have been stagnating in the U.S. for almost forty years. The wealthy have gotten an unfair and disproportionate share of America’s resources. They are not going to share that wealth without a fight. And they won’t fight fair. They buy their way in by corrupting honest, but weak people with obscene amounts of money. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">If America’s workers sticks together, go to the polls and vote, money won’t distort elections. That is a big “IF” and it hasn’t been the case for many years….Big money has found that it’s easy to divide and conquer working people…the hired political guns separate workers by race, religion, by ethnicity, geographic region, by “hot” emotional “value” issues like “gay marriage”, “gun control” or “abortion.” And, big money interests stay in power and manipulate our government for their own benefit. We all know these “divide and conquer” false political issues are not ever going to be addressed or fixed, but we still get caught in the trap.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I’m an optimist…But I also believe that we’ll only get genuine change and a valid new deal when all of us every day Americans; the so-called “special interest group,” stand up and demand it.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">In Solidarity,</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Ron Ault</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"># # #</span><br /><br /></span>Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-7015369238936188412007-12-12T12:37:00.000-08:002007-12-12T12:38:56.216-08:00The Long Road HomeRon Ault<br />President<br />Metal Trades Department, AFL-CIO<br /><br />In August and September of 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita plowed paths of destruction of apocalyptic proportions throughout the entire Gulf Coast region. These storms were an act of God and were unavoidable. Modern weather forecasting and Max Mayfield’s personal calls of dire warnings of the consequences of these storms to the Governors of Louisiana and Mississippi saved millions of lives. We can all say thanks to the National Hurricane Center for doing their job so well. NOAA was one branch of our federal government that performed magnificently during this disaster.<br /><br />But overall government, at all levels, failed its citizens, both before and after the storms. Today, those governments are still failing. The lead for such disaster recovery is always with the federal government and our national leaders. State leaders define local needs and allocate available resources back to local governments at the community level, but those resources are a combination of federal and state. Partisan politics are also in play. Over two years after the storms subsided some partisan Republicans and Democrats are jockeying for political advantage, finger pointing and playing hard ball party politics.<br /><br />Louisiana had a Southern Democrat as Governor and was given second fiddle status by the Bush Administration in recovery funds and priority of first responders. The White House went out of their way to make Governor Blanco look bad. She didn’t need any help.<br /><br />Mississippi had a Republican Governor, the former Republican National Party leader, Haley Barbour. Not surprisingly, he got the lion’s share of early federal money and assistance. But what did Mississippi do with that money and where did the assistance go? Most of it went to rebuild the gambling industry as first priority…then wealthy areas got priority in rebuilding the infrastructure of roads, businesses, electricity, gas, water and sewers.<br /><br />Today, the vast majority of the working classes, everyday citizens of the Mississippi Gulf Coast are still trying to rebuild their lives. Many still live in FEMA trailers. They have been left out of the billion dollar federal and state grants that were so generously given to business and corporations to rebuild. Those most needy and unable to afford to rebuild are just out of luck in this equation and distribution of public funds. They don’t have a big politically connected lobby knocking on the doors of Congress for them.<br /><br />What about Louisiana? Their state government focused differently and funded the recovery differently. They allocated more money to the poor and middle class workers to rebuild their lives. The money was very slow coming to Louisiana from FEMA and the federal recovery monies allocated by Congress. But it is finally starting to be allocated down to the local community level and the results are dramatic. Tens of thousands of individual homes are being rebuilt or new replacement homes are under construction. In the past six months I have seen a quantum leap of recovery progress in the communities and suburbs of New Orleans. And all this progress happened before the election of a Republican Governor in Louisiana, so party politics did not come into play. This is just the difference in priorities that Louisiana placed on the recovery that Mississippi did not.<br /><br />The one story of non governmental organizational assistance and generosity in this tragedy that has not been told by anyone is the story of organized labor’s help and assistance-not by Anderson Cooper; not by CBS, NBC, ABC, Newsweek, USA Todayno one- no newspaper ink; no public exposure. Not one word about labor’s help has appeared in the national press…<br /><br />Organized labor responded immediately and has sustained that effort for over two years now. Teams of union volunteers from all unions packed their bags and went down to the Gulf Coast to help. Tractor trailer loads of supplies of potable water, food, emergency equipment, medical supplies, and temporary shelters were all supplied by, opened, stocked and run by labor unions.<br /><br />I was on the ground in Pascagoula, Mississippi, within days of Katrina and before Hurricane Rita struck. I was part of a team of senior level union representatives on a fact finding tour of the area interviewing survivors, assessing, filming and documenting the needs of the Gulf Coast. Upon my return to Washington, D.C., I gave a power point report to a meeting of the AFL-CIO’s Executive Council with hundreds of vivid pictures of the wide spread destruction and the overwhelming scope of this disaster.<br /><br />Five days after Katrina Hurricane Rita struck much of the same area and made the situation much worse. Organized labor, through all of its International and National Unions, freely gave millions of dollars of aid and invested millions more dollars in manpower and staff to the area’s recovery efforts with no strings attached or any thought of profit. The AFL-CIO directed a massive investment of union funds into the area that totaled a billion dollars. Part of that billion (with a B) dollar investment is a factory (Housing International, Gulf Coast) located in Reserve, Louisiana, to manufacture affordable, storm resistant, steel framed homes for workers and everyday citizens. In addition, organized labor is investing in rebuilding residential tracts of housing in the historic Treme section of New Orleans-a new Convention Center, a new Hotel, a worker training center and labor is helping in rebuilding area hospitals and schools.<br /><br />We have been working for over a year to get this manufactured housing facility up and running. Our goals are to be able to provide affordable worker housing that can be ready for the family to move in as soon as three days after the site preparation is complete.<br /><br />We want this strong, fire resistant, “green (65% recycled materials),” hypo-allergenic, energy efficient, termite proof, and low maintenance housing available to workers nationwide, but most especially for storm ravaged workers in the Gulf Coast region. We have been working hard to get the first prototype housing certified as 150 mph storm protection (that includes walls, roof, doors and windows). This 150 wind protection rating will exceed Dade County, Florida hurricane building code requirements, the toughest building code in the nation. Like the proverbial “chicken and the egg” question, we have struggled to get the first commercial orders for this new concept housing out on the market. I am happy to say that that phase is now complete. And an added point is that no one can tell from appearances that these houses are not conventional “stick built” houses.<br /><br />Labor’s efforts to alleviate the suffering of our fellow citizens in the Gulf Coast emanate from our fundamental commitment to the principle that we are all our brothers keepers. Our frustration with the failure of the media to spotlight this work grows not out of some self-centered need to garner “credit” but from a genuine understanding that the rest of America needs to know what has been done and what more can be done through the generosity, determination and creativity of America’s unions and their members.<br /># # #Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-49146761461726600922007-11-05T13:24:00.000-08:002007-11-05T13:27:56.178-08:00Energy: The Canary in the Coal Mine Has Died; Why Doesn’t Anyone Notice?<span style="font-family:arial;">While packing my suitcase for a business trip to the Gulf Coast, I was watching the NBC "Today" show with Matt Lauer on a boat in the open waters of the Artic circle, Ann Curry in Antartica, Al Rokker at the equator, all telling us about the increased ice melt on the polar caps and the ten fold increase in temperatures over what scientists predicted ten years ago.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />I watched Al Gore tell Meredith Viera about what we could do to turn global warming around and how many good paying jobs could be created by doing so...I then read news account predicting a worldwide 60 percent increase coal use over the next two months, causing a rising knot in my stomach.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />No matter what we do in America this problem is global, not just national. China's massive industrial pollution takes five days to reach America. Our pollution takes only hours to reach Canada. Mexico's pollution takes just one day to reach us.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />The canary in the mine has died but no one seems to take notice. Global warming is real and its effects are catastrophic in scope.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />The law of unintended consequences is now in play with global warming and there is no way to accurately predict all that it may bring.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />We already know some of the worst results, and they are chilling:</span><br /><ul><li><span style="font-family:arial;">Atlanta's population of five million citizens will run out of fresh, potable drinking water next summer unless the drought breaks.</span></li><li><span style="font-family:arial;">Small towns in Tennessee are now in water crisis situations—with tanker trucks bringing in drinking water.</span><br /></li></ul><span style="font-family:arial;">We must reduce our output of greenhouse gas this decade, but according to the coal use prediction, we will more than double our use of coal for, principally, baseline electrical generation plants.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />If this is the case, our research and development initiatives in the area of clean coal technology must redouble as well as increasing the use of nuclear, wind, water and geothermal (green power) power generation to reduce our reliance on greenhouse gas producing internal combustion steam generation. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />And, we need political leaders who fully grasp and appreciate that we must have a foreign policy of engagement of not only our close military allies, but also our trade partners to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As labor leaders we must lobby the presidential front-runners into adopting an energy policy that includes a matrix of power generation including green energy sources.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />So far, only John Edwards has publicly stated he opposes nuclear power. We need to talk to John and see if we can't change his mind. Being pro nuclear isn't anti-coal. Using the latest technology and continued R&amp;D into improving coal technology, we can have both while meeting our increasing energy needs.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"># # <br /></span>Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-7151728316028884902007-08-01T09:34:00.000-07:002007-08-01T06:34:50.866-07:00Going to Hell in a Hand BasketIs it just me or does the beginning of the election season bring out all the terror alerts again? I counted the number of times the news anchor used the words terrorism in the news broadcast on NBC evening news the other night. I quit counting after the total reached fifty…Seems John Edwards is right about our so called “war on terror” being a bumper sticker slogan. It seems to me that the Brits have gotten theirs a lot more right than we have. They don’t panic their general population with politically driven terror scares…they just bust up the cells, arrest those responsible and keep on living their lives as best they can without disrupting their entire economy and dividing their population.<br /><br />We, on the other hand, are going to Hell in a hand basket…Here the third world cave dwelling followers of Bin Laden are bankrupting our nation, stripping us of our national moral compass . America has stooped to their level by resorting to torture and other unspeakable acts of brutality. We now routinely deny individuals suspected of terrorism basic due process. Our government indiscriminately violates all citizens’ basic rights to privacy without any probable cause. Our military is all used up. Our national defense arsenal is used up to the point that the rolling equipment used in Iraq is not worth the costs of bringing it home for complete overhaul.<br />Bin Laden can stand on the deck of an aircraft carrier and say “mission accomplished.” Since September 11, 2001, he has fundamentally changed our everyday lives and taken our freedoms away. He won… the U.S. airline and air transportation industry is probably the best example of a sector of our economy ruined by our own “War on Terror.:<br /><br />For those of us who travel a lot—and I am one of those—our air line system is broken. It is so inconvenient, so unreliable and long lines at security checks are so silly and intrusive, flying isn’t worth it. In fact, our entire air transportation system is on the verge of collapse. Last week, United Airlines cancelled hundreds of flights. And it wasn’t just United Airlines; Northwest did, too. Thousands of stranded passengers were left frustrated to fend for themselves…and I was one of them. <br /><br />My trip originated out of Baltimore International Airport July 16th flying into Denver then on into the Tri City region of Pasco, Washington (home of the DOE Hanford nuclear facility). I had meetings scheduled for July 17th in the Pasco area with our workers, British Trade Union representatives who represent nuclear workers in the UK, and many of the contractors who have nuclear contracts both here and in the UK. Unfortunately, my United flight from BWI to Denver was delayed out of BWI for almost an hour (according to the pilot for weather issues along our route). When we arrived an hour late in Denver our gate was blocked so we sat on the airplane for an additional half hour. I rushed through the Denver airport to my departure gate to board the flight to Pasco finding that it had closed five minutes earlier. I was told that there were no more flights to Pasco that evening, because my flight had been “affected “ by weather United didn’t have to do anything. Which is exactly what they did…not a thing. No apology, No upgrade to first class on the next flight. No meal voucher. No hotel accommodation. Nothing! After several phone calls looking for a hotel room, I got the last available room at a Hilton in Aurora, Colorado, for $209.00 (a handicapped room that was only available because it was past 11 P.M. and they didn’t have to hold it any longer). … After a nineteen hour day I finally got in my room and placed a 5 A.M. wake up call so I could get back to Denver airport and stand in long security lines and hope to catch a flight that might fly to Pasco. I arrived just before noon in Pasco, Washington; wearing the same clothes I flew out of BWI the day before (Did I mention that I checked my luggage in Baltimore?) After a quick shower and a change of clothes, I hurried to my delayed meetings. <br /><br />The return trip to Baltimore was another horror story …I caught a United Express 6:00 A.M. flight out of Pasco Washington into Denver. At Denver, I learned my 10:40 A.M. flight to Baltimore had been cancelled…. After an hour wait along with several hundred other stranded United customers, I was told there wasn’t another flight from Denver to Baltimore…but there was one seat available on a flight out of San Francisco…Yep, you guessed it; a two and a half hour flight from Denver to San Francisco. I boarded my flight from San Francisco to find the friendly skies of United had put me sit in a tiny middle row seat in economy section for a five hour flight to Baltimore…We pushed away from the gate only to be told that we would be held up for air traffic control reason (what is that?) and that United needed our gate so we were pushed off to the side and sat for an hour. Now it would be six hours cramped in a tiny middle row seat between two big guys (I’m not tiny either) with my arms tightly tucked across my body unable to let them down in my lap. My day had started at 5:00 A.M. checking baggage and waiting in security to catch a 6:00 A.M. Two-hour flight from Pasco to Denver, then a two and a half hour flight from Denver to San Francisco, then six hours on the San Francisco to BWI flight- arriving home at 2:30 a.m. the following day… This is the torture we should apply to terror suspects…I guarantee they would talk! My three day business trip turned into an all week trip…My advice: don’t fly…Rent a car, take the train, hitch hike, but don’t fly.<br /><br />There has to be a better, safer, more efficient way to move the U.S. mass passenger volume than the inefficient airline system that has reached its maximum capacity. High-speed mag-lift rail is used extensively in the rest of the world. Building such a system would bring back thousands of good paying, middle class manufacturing and construction jobs and running this rail system would employ tens of more thousands of good paying, middle class jobs…maybe we don’t have to go to hell in a hand basket, if we join together and demand our federal government go to work for us instead of against us.Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-30071115300547471762007-05-11T13:04:00.000-07:002007-05-11T13:05:48.005-07:00The Case for Regulation<span style="font-style:italic;">By Ron Ault<br />President<br />Metal Trades Department, AFL-CIO</span><br /><br />The Reagan Administration sold the American people a bill of goods called “De-Regulation” purportedly as free enterprise working at its best to reduce prices, improve services and improve the quality of products. Natural competition was supposed to have businesses vye for your dollar by lowering prices and offering you a better deal. AT&T, airlines, the meat & poultry industry, public utilities, the broadcast & print industry, oil companies, drug companies, public hospitals and private health care industries were all un shackled from government regulation and were free to run their business as they saw fit…but they were no longer protected from competition as a public utility nor required (in the airline industry) to service unprofitable routes in smaller cities and rural areas. Gasoline was around $1.50 a gallon and U.S. telephone, mail and airline services were the envy of the free world. Deregulation of other industries accelerated under both Bush Administrations. Today, there is no meaningful regulation or controls on industry.<br /><br />But, deregulation proved to be something altogether different.<br /><br />Deregulation brought us the collapse of the airline industry Eastern, TWA, Value Jet, People’s Express, Delta, US Airways, and UAL bankruptcies. We got Bernie Evers’ WorldComm, Ken Lay’s Enron, and the Oil Companies’ $3.00 a gallon gas gouging…dead dogs and cats from un-inspected contaminated pet food, “E” coli deaths from contaminated un-inspected meats and produce, untold thousands of deaths from the “for profit” health care industry that has absolutely nothing to do with real health care, and just the latest debacle of the drug industry in a long and continuous list of debacles, drug company CEO’s lying about “Oxycontin” being a miracle drug and not being addictive.<br />“Trust me” say the captains of industry…on commercial network television channels that no longer gives us a factual news broadcast but instead, columnist commentary and entertainment news magazine format filled with fluff about celebrities like Kobe Bryant, Anna Nicole Smith, Brittany Spears, Barry Bonds and Lindsey Lohan . Real news doesn’t sell nor does it have high enough ratings for advertising dollars. <br /><br />For profit corporations cannot be entrusted to monopolize essential goods and services without strong Congressional oversight and a system of checks and balances. CEOs caught every day lying and cheating the American public. One only has to look at the energy sector. Dominated by multi national corporations and foreign state-owned businesses, they are only concerned about profits. The law of supply and demand doesn’t exist in the oil industry. Just look at today’s record highest gasoline prices in history…crude prices are lower than last year and supplies are so high Chevron has to rent super tankers to store crude in the Gulf of Mexico as they don’t have any where else to put it—all oil storage facilities are totally full. Production quotas are dictated by OPEC—the oil producing nations. This is nothing more than price fixing and commodity manipulation by greedy nations in collusion with even more greedy corporations. There is no better example of corporations that should be regulated as a public utility than the energy companies, and no one can argue that energy isn’t an essential service required by every American.<br /><br />The so-called “Health Care Industry” is another shameful example of corrupt corporate greed that is killing Americans every single day in the name of profit…just look at the thousands of new life-saving drugs developed every year that are patented but never marketed because the margin of profit just doesn’t fit the corporation’s formula as only a few thousand patients each year fall victim to these deadly illnesses. But Viagra and other erectile dysfunction drugs have billions of dollars of profit, so they get center stage advertising, free samples for doctors to give out to establish a need and a customer base. Same story for diet drugs…that is the largest R&D effort in drug history; not curing cancer nor finding a cure for diabetics…community and charity hospitals have just about gone the way of the dinosaur…for-profit Health Care provides neither health nor care…you get the level of health services you can pay for…those who can’t afford to pay, die. <br /><br />It is time for Americans to demand better from our elected officials. Demand that Congress pass laws regulating all public transportation, food, medicine, utilities, health care and energy companies. Make profit margins in these essential goods and services exactly the same as real inflation, so Americans are protected against price gouging. Excess profits from these industries should be returned to the government to pay for regulating the industries and to provide coverage for those who cannot afford coverage. <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they have resisted with either words or blows or both! The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress.”<br />Frederick Douglass <br />Escaped Slave and Great Abolitionist, 1857 <br /> <br /></span>Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-67133762035110457942007-03-07T06:52:00.000-08:002007-03-07T07:14:16.551-08:00Veterans as a Profit CenterMove aside, soldier. You were a hero when you could carry a weapon. Now, you’re just a used up piece of equipment—no more important than a broken down humvee. We’ve got to find some place to put you so you’re out of the way and we won’t have to see those awful scars.<br /><br />Sound harsh? That’s how our nation has been treating veterans for more than a century, especially the ones who come home in less than one piece.<br /><br />And, it’s worse than shameful.<br /><br />Every war our nation has fought, from the Revolution through today, put the sons and daughters of working people at the tip of the national spear. You’ll always find the chicken hawks who make the speeches, rattle the sabers and wave the bloody shirts far behind the lines tucked safely away cheering for our side.<br /><br />When the time comes to make good on the promises to young recruits—the earnest men and women who made the sacrifices, faced the enemy and earned the title of veteran—the hypocrites look the other way. And, somehow, the money that flowed so freely to fight the war has dried up. A billion here or there for Halliburton; suddenly there’s nothing left for the veterans.<br /><br />This war—in Afghanistan and Iraq—its execution and its aftermath, is personal for working families. I recall my own experiences in Vietnam, and I can relate. My own nephew has finished three combat rotations. Many labor leaders like me have sons or daughters in uniform. Many of our union members—friends and brothers like Don Bongo at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard—have both served and sent children into service. For us, this is a family issue.<br /><br />We bear the burden of worry for loved ones sent to war. We carry the sorrow for the casualties. Our families endure not merely the loneliness of separation, but the financial sacrifices, too. We see the pinch on today’s American military, with too many families scrimping to make ends meet, and those spouses and children left at home too often forced on rely on food stamps and public assistance.<br /><br />Yet, we still see service to the nation as a noble privilege. Unfortunately, not many among America’s political and corporate elite feel the same way.<br /><br />Our families share the frustration and agony of the vets who return, some with broken bodies, some with broken spirits, or both. For many, the human toll will last a lifetime—pain they will try to relieve with alcohol or drug. They will encounter difficulties in employment and relationships, and homelessness. All these conditions are predictable and very preventable.<br /><br />The same people who sent out the call to war somehow never thought to prepare a place for the warrior. Since 9/11, America has been creating 200,000 new veterans a year—yet the Bush Administration has failed to request adequate funds to maintain a modicum of medical services through the Veterans Administration. Today’s veterans will put up more than $700 million of their own money in “user fees” to “buy into” VA services. We wouldn’t want to have to ask those wealthy beneficiaries of President Bush’s trillion dollar tax cuts to dip into their pockets for it, now would we?<br /><br />There is no recess of hell too deep or hot to house the souls of those who proclaim they “support the troops” then turn around and ignore veterans, belittle them, or trample their dignity with bureaucratic red tape. And, there must be a niche in hell even deeper and hotter for those who exploit the plight of veterans for profit.<br /><br />The Walter Reed scandal is a case in point, but only one of far too many.<br /><br />As California Rep. Henry Waxman revealed in his subpoena demanding that the Army produce General George Weightman as a witness before the congressional committee investigating this scandal, the Army knew the conditions that existed. They thought no one else would ever find out. In fact, the guilty knowledge goes right up the chain of command through the Pentagon and to the White House. Here and there a courageous underling stood up and warned of the problems—it was Garrison Commander Col. Peter Garibaldi who had the courage to put that warning about the “risk of mission failure” on paper—but those words were ignored.<br /><br />No surprise, either, that a key contributing factor in the “mission failure” at Walter Reed was that wonderful concept known as “outsourcing” that led to the Army handing over a $120 million contract to IAP Worldwide Services, a firm run by two former Halliburton executives (one with the appropriate last name of Swindle). The process of replacing 300 trained, experienced and dedicated federal workers with some 25 employees of a for-profit contractor to handle facilities maintenance at the complex. Small wonder there was mold and rodents.<br /><br />Someone like Gen. Weightman may take the fall for Walter Reed, and there will no doubt be other scapegoats trotted out for public humiliation when other identical scandals related to the care and treatment of wounded veterans surface. But behind the scapegoats is a long line of culprits who are equally or more guilty of gutless behavior, criminality, greed and malfeasance. The buck should find its way to that big desk in the Oval Office where “the decider” works.<br /><br />Understandably, given the scope, level and breadth of corruption that has characterized the past six years of this administration, there is a kind of institutional attention deficit disorder infecting the nation. There is just too much going on to wrap the public’s mind around. We’re grateful to Rep. Waxman for his quick response in scheduling hearings on the Walter Reed matter. We’re now asking congressional leaders from both parties to make veterans issues, especially the treatment of wounded veterans a top priority and to hold extended hearings nationwide to bring this whole sordid mess to the top of the heap. We invite union members from the Metal Trades to share their stories with us and give us an opportunity to bring them forward for official scrutiny.<br /><br /># # #Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-525760264731318100.post-72426787771303919912007-02-27T08:01:00.000-08:002007-02-27T08:09:15.843-08:00The Metal Trades Department<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The <a href="http://www.metaltrades.org">Metal Trades Department</a> is a trade department of the AFL-CIO. It was chartered in 1908 to coordinate negotiating, organizing and legislative efforts of affiliated metalworking and related crafts and trade unions. Twenty national and international unions with a total membership of over 5,000,000 are affiliated with the MTD today. More than 100,000 workers in private industry and federal establishments work under contracts negotiated by MTD Councils. Workers retain membership in their own trade unions.</span></div>Ron Ault, Presidenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13056640453690734825noreply@blogger.com2