Workers Memorial Day

All too often we hear about Americans being killed and injured at the workplace. Nearly 5,680 workers on average die on the job each year. In the last 30 years, 500 AFSCME members have been killed on the job.

Every worker who is killed or injured under these circumstances serves as a constant reminder of why the men and women of AFSCME continue to fight for increased security and the best workplace safety resources.

April 28, Workers Memorial Day, is set aside to pay tribute to the men and women who have been killed or injured at work. The date coincides with the anniversary of the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the federal agency in charge of issuing and enforcing standards for workplace safety and health.

Since OSHA’s inception, in 1970, the number of workplace fatalities has fallen. But we have more work to do. Today, only 24 states along with Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands have federally approved OSHA laws covering public employees. That’s not enough. Every public employee across this nation deserves OSHA protections.

That’s why AFSCME is playing a leading role in the battle for the job safety rights that protect workers from asbestos, infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and other hazards. Regularly, we also conduct health and safety training so our members can identify and correct workplace hazards.

The fight for workers’ rights goes hand in hand with workplace security. After all, good jobs are also safe jobs.

This Date in Arkansas Labor History

April 27, 1999. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration declared that Arkansas has more high-injury workplaces per capita than all but 10 other states. The federal agency identified 264 job sites in Arkansas as among the nation’s 12,500 worst for occupational injury and illness.

UA Pay Equity Still an Issue

The Wage Gap….It’s not just about women anymore! The wage gap isn’t just a women’s issue. Equal pay for women raises family income and the whole family benefits.

In 2006, women earned approximately 77 cents for every dollar men received. That’s $23 less to spend on groceries, housing, child care and all other expenses for every $100 worth of work done.

Two years ago, AFSCME Local 965 raised the problem of the significant wage gap between male and female professors at the University of Arkansas with Chancellor John White, but his response was to offer excuses rather than solutions. We are hopeful that Chancellor David Gearhart will take the issue more seriously and take meaningful action to make it right.

A press conference will be held observing Pay Equity Day Tuesday, April 28, 1PM at the Fayetteville Public Library Walker Room. Pay Equity Day is the day to which women must work the following year to make the same money as a man made in the 12 months of the year before. Women must work 16 months for what men earn in one year. The press conference is being sponsored by The American Association of University Women Fayetteville Branch, Business and Professional Women of NW Arkansas, Democratic Women of Washington County, League of Women Voters of Arkansas, and National Organization of Women of Arkansas. Information from the new AAUW State by State Earnings Comparsion and the last University of Arkansas Wage Study will be shared. Where women are wage wise and what needs to be done to address the disparity will be discussed.

For questions or further information, contact Berta Seitz, 479-442-6256, or email at berta.seitz@att.net.

From President Gerald McEntee

State and local budgets are being drastically slashed, and AFSCME members like you are on the front lines—trying to meet skyrocketing demand for services with fewer and fewer resources.

In the face of such challenges, AFSCME members do we what do best—we keep our communities going. We make America happen.

But it can't all be left to the frontline workers to keep doing more and more with less and less. That's why AFSCME launched our Make America Happen campaign—to win bold changes in Washington that will get our country back on track.

With our Make America Happen campaign we are fighting to win:

1. Big investment in public services that strengthen the economy;
2. Quality, affordable health care we can count on;
3. A stronger middle class by passing the Employee Free Choice Act.

Republican leaders in Congress have made clear that they will do all they can to block progress. Not one Republican House member—not one—voted for President Obama's recovery bill for Main Street—a bill to create or save nearly 4 million jobs, in part by investing $225 billion in state and local public services. We got it passed without them because tens of thousands of AFSCME members took action—calling, emailing and writing your elected officials in Washington.

Our work is far from done. Our next step is to help get the President's budget passed. Unlike the budgets of the past eight years, it’s a budget with the right priorities—putting the needs of working families first and paving the way for real health care reform.

As part of our Make America Happen campaign, we've deployed field organizers across the country. And this week we've launched, in partnership with Americans United for Change, a TV ad campaign to put pressure on politicians who want to stay with the failed policies of the past.

But field organizers and TV ads won't be enough. We need every AFSCME member taking part in this campaign. We’ve launched a new Make America Happen website. There you can get campaign updates, watch a video message from me, hear from your fellow AFSCME members, register for a special online briefing and sign up to get involved.

In Solidarity,

GERALD W. McENTEE
International President

This Date in Arkansas Labor History

April 19, 1999. University of Arkansas United Students Against Sweatshops pressed Chancellor John White and UA administrators to support changes to "code of conduct" addressing women's rights and realistic wages to ensure that the University's trademark apparel isn't made in sweatshops by mistreated and underpaid foreign workers.

Health Care for America Survey

THE ECONOMY IS NOT WORKING FOR WORKING FAMILIES TODAY—AND HEALTH CARE IS A MAJOR PART OF THE PROBLEM. Across America, families are making hard decisions between paying for health care and paying for other necessities and struggling with a system that is too often cruel and inefficient. As President Obama has said, "Health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year."

With health care reform front and center, it's important that AFSCME members make our voices heard in this critical policy debate. Take the survey!

As decision-makers at every level take up health care reform, it is urgent that they hear from working families about what you are experiencing. Please MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD BY COMPLETING THIS SURVEY, telling your health care story and encouraging your friends, co-workers and family members to do so, too. We'll share the survey results with national, state and media leaders.

Mayor Jordan Stands with Local 965

Fayetteville Mayor Lioneld Jordan, former President of AFSCME Local 965 and former President of the Northwest Arkansas Labor Council, was honored yesterday for his career of service to working families and the community.

Jordan served as President of the Northwest Arkansas Labor Council from 2006-2008 but resigned after he took office as Mayor in January 2009, following his policy of serving only on boards of organizations that are covered by the Arkansas Freedom of information Act. He served as President of AFSCME Local 965 from 2000-2006 until he was promoted to a management position and was precluded from holding that office by the by-laws of the local union.

After addressing the Northwest Arkansas Labor Council yesterday, Mayor Jordan signed a new union card to rejoin AFSCME Local 965, the first Fayetteville city employee to do so this year.

Labor Council Honors Mayor Jordan

The Northwest Arkansas Labor Council will host a reception honoring Fayetteville Mayor Lioneld Jordan, Past President of the NWA Labor Council, at 4:30 pm on Thursday, March 26th, at the Martin and Kieklak Law Firm offices at 2059 Green Acres Road in Fayetteville.

AFSCME Local 965 will be cooking hamburgers and hot dogs for the event, so come hungry and join with other local unions to congratulate Brother Lioneld.

Campus Town Hall Meeting Tuesday

Fayetteville Mayor Lioneld Jordan will be holding a Town and Gown Town Hall Meeting on the University of Arkansas campus this week. The event will be in Old Main Giffels Auditorium from 12:30 to 1:30 on Tuesday, March 24th.

This is an opportunity for students, staff, and faculty to learn more about our local government and to ask questions about the programs and policies of city government. All members of AFSCME Local 965 are encouraged to attend during their lunch break.

Mayor Jordan will be joined by several city department heads, including Police Chief Greg Tabor, Trails Coordinator Matt Mihalevich, Parks and Recreation Director Connie Edmonston, Sustainability Coordinator John Coleman, Bryan Pugh from Recycling and Composting Facilities, and Yolanda Fields from Community Development and Code Enforcement.

Chief of Staff Don Marr will also discuss opportunities for citizen involvement and service on city boards and commissions that deal with environmental concerns, historic preservation, sidewalks, trails, trees and landscape, support for the arts, Fayetteville Public Library, Yvonne Richardson Center, telecommunications policy, and the Council of Neighborhoods.

The last 30 minutes of the meeting will be devoted exclusively to questions from the audience.

We Need Labor Law Reform

Millions of America's working families are losing their jobs and even their homes, while millions more are seeing their job-based benefits cut back or eliminated and their wages stagnate.

Our elected leaders need to tackle this economic crisis, the worst since the 1930s Depression. They must keep their promises to the people who voted for them—and we have to give them the support they need to make the tough choices. We need strategies that will turn around this broken economy for working families with good jobs, "green" jobs, re-regulation of our financial system and health care that works for all of us. But no matter what else we do, it won’t result in real shared prosperity unless we restore workers’ freedom to form unions so they can bargain for better benefits, fair wages and a better life.

As President Obama said in January when launching the White House Task Force on Middle Class Working Families:

We need to level the playing field for workers and the unions that represent their interests, because we know that you cannot have a strong middle class without a strong labor movement.

That’s what proposed legislation, the Employee Free Choice Act, will do—level the playing field and make the freedom to form unions and bargain a reality. The Employee Free Choice Act will:

• Put real teeth in the laws that are supposed to bar companies from intimidating, harassing—even firing—workers who want to form unions.
• Allow workers, not management, to decide how they form a union and give workers the option of majority sign-up.
• Require arbitration to end corporate foot-dragging when workers try to get a first contract.
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The Employee Free Choice Act will level the playing field that today leaves all the power in the hands of corporations, not workers. And that’s not important just for workers who are trying to form unions: Everyone in the job market, including current union members who want to negotiate fair contracts, benefits from this “strength in numbers.” More union members means more power for workers across states and industries, leading to better health care, more pensions and fairer wages for all workers.

The corporations whose greed has driven our economy understand this, too. That's why Big Business and its corporate front groups are preparing an all-out, $200 million propaganda and lobbying war to block it.

The corporate campaign is aimed at spreading falsehoods about the Employee Free Choice Act, aimed at driving a wedge between workers and the unions that represent them. Despite the fact that nearly 30,000 workers a year are discriminated against and coerced by their employers during attempts to form a union (compared with fewer than 50 confirmed incidents of union misbehavior in the 70-year history of the NLRB), these shady front groups pose as defenders of workers’ rights, making false claims of union coercion.

Know Your Rights

Two recent United States Supreme Court decisions strengthen employee protections.

On January 21, 2009, a unanimous opinion in Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee written by Justice Alito, the Supreme Court reversed the First Circuit and held that plaintiffs suing for gender discrimination under Title IX may also assert constitutional claims under Section 1983. The Court reviewed the history of Title IX and found no evidence that Congress intended that legislation to preclude constitutional claims to redress gender discrimination under Section 1983. The Court noted that Title IX is modeled after Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which addresses racial discrimination in education, and Title VI has long been held not to preclude parallel and concurrent Section 1983 claims. Therefore, the Court reasoned, “Title IX was not meant to be an exclusive mechanism for addressing gender discrimination in schools, or as a substitute for § 1983 suits as a means of enforcing constitutional rights.” The Court therefore remanded the case, allowing claimants to proceed on both their Title IX and the Section 1983 claims.

On January 26, 2009, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed and remanded the Sixth Circuit decision in Crawford v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville.The Supreme Court reviewed the conflict among circuit courts and held that the “opposition” clause of Title VII’s anti-retaliation provisions protects an employee who testifies in an internal investigation of alleged harassment. The Court ruled that Title VII’s protection “extends to an employee who speaks out about discrimination during an employer’s internal investigation.” The Supreme Court ruling did not reach the issue of whether the “participation clause” of the anti-retaliation provisions also protects such an employee.

For additional information on these cases, see the AAUP’s Web site.

The Big Lie

The Big Lie About the Employee Free Choice Act

March 5th, 2009

By AFSCME President Gerald McEntee

America’s top CEOs — the clueless millionaires whose greed, ignorance and arrogance drove our economy off a cliff — have declared their top legislative priority for 2009. It isn’t the president’s budget. It’s not promoting jobs or health care for their workers. And it’s certainly not limits on CEO pay.

Instead, they’ve launched an all out campaign to scuttle bi-partisan legislation that would restore workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life. The legislation, the Employee Free Choice Act, fixes a broken system and would restore the promise of the American Dream for working Americans. It must be a key component of our efforts to rebuild the middle class, promote economic growth and create an economy that works for all Americans.

America’s CEOs have made the defeat of this bill their biggest goal in 2009. To spearhead their campaign, they’ve hired Rick Berman, a shadowy P.R. man who has spent his career attacking nonprofits, like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, through phony front groups and misleading advertisements. Berman made a name for himself by winning huge fees working for clients including the tobacco and alcohol industries, mounting campaigns to defeat or weaken drunk driving laws, quieting concerns about cigarettes, and blocking increases in the minimum wage.

Berman specializes in Big Lie campaigns. That’s why the CEOs have hired him. The Chamber of Commerce, The National Association of Manufacturers and other front organizations for the CEOs have decided that they can’t oppose the Employee Free Choice Act on the merits, so they’ll create a Big Lie to raise concerns about the bill. The lie they’re promoting is that the bill would eliminate secret ballots for workers forming a union.

The claim is simply not true. The bill gives workers, not their employer, the choice in how they choose to form unions: either after a majority of workers sign a card in support of the union or through a secret ballot election. Workers could choose elections, but the opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act don’t care about the truth. They’ve already begun spending $200 million to spread the lie that the bill eliminates secret ballots, hoping that enough people will believe it to kill the bill. That’s why we need to call them on their lie.

The real reason CEOs oppose the bill is because they know that giving workers a better chance at forming a union will undercut corporations’ ability to keep the rewards only to themselves. Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott - who made about $23 million in 2007 - is one of the few CEOs to tell the truth about his motives. He admits that the secret ballot canard isn’t the real reason he’s fighting to kill the bill. “We like driving the car,” he said, “and we’re not going to give the steering wheel to anybody but us.”

Playing fast and loose with the truth is not going to defeat this important legislation in Congress. In the last Congress, the Employee Free Choice Act passed the House of Representatives by a wide margin, and in the Senate, Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has helped to build a solid majority of Democrats to support the bill. Thanks to Senator Reid, we now have a senate majority that supports giving workers a ticket to the middle class. But Republican senators have threatened a filibuster. Too many Republicans appear to be frightened that if they stand up to the Big Lie about secret ballots, they will upset the leaders of the their party. They know from experience that those leaders - anti-worker talking heads like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity - will make it difficult for them to stand with America’s workers.

That’s why it’s important to keep the facts in front of the GOP senators. They need to be reminded that union members earn 30 percent more than workers who don’t have one. Union members are 63 percent more likely to have health care through their employers. That’s why workers want to join unions. CEOs don’t want to pay more so that workers can live better.

Americans want an economy that works for everyone, not just CEOs and right wing radio and TV talk show hosts. The Employee Free Choice Act will help rebuild the middle class and jumpstart our economy, by giving every worker a chance to bargain for decent wages, benefits and safe working conditions. A union job is not only a ticket for workers into the middle class, it’s the best way to jumpstart our economy.

Help during Hard Times

If you've ever given yourself a six-figure bonus, this message probably isn't for you.

But if you're like me, and you're outraged that CEOs and other executives continue to lavishly reward themselves while the middle class struggles, I hope you'll keep reading—and that you'll add your name to our petition to rebuild the middle class right now.

Earlier this month, AFSCME members everywhere stepped up to help pass President Obama's jobs and economic recovery package. We have to keep the momentum going because our economy is still in big trouble. I probably don't have to tell you how tough it is out there—as public service workers, we're on the frontlines of this crisis every day.

But I do want to tell you that, here at AFSCME, we remain committed to big solutions that will help make America happen—again. Right now, that means guaranteeing quality, affordable health care for all and strengthening our middle class.

With the new President and Congress, we have a historic chance to pass the much-needed Employee Free Choice Act. The idea behind the bill is simple: if a majority of workers want to form a union, they should be able to do so. And so far, nearly one million people—from AFSCME and other unions and allies—have added their name in support. Can I count on you to join them?

Once passed, this change will deliver an economy that works for us all by giving workers a stronger voice. Workers will be empowered to form unions and together fight for better wages and better benefits.

The result for AFSCME members? A stronger union workforce that lifts our national standard of living during hard times and rebuilds the middle class for the long term.

CEOs and corporate interests are terrified of this bill and fighting back with the dirtiest tricks in the books, including misleading ads and bogus front groups. These are the folks who think CEOs should be able to rake in millions while they cut health care benefits and layoff employees. But we can win, just like we did earlier this month, because we have you.

Over the next couple months, we'll be calling on AFSCME members to help us make America happen, again. Today, that means adding your name to our petition in support of the Employee Free Choice Act so we can rebuild the middle-class and restore the American Dream.

Minimum Wage Hike Passes House

Legislation to have the stae minimum wage law parallel the federal wage rates passed the Arkansas House of Representative today, 67-27. The bill is sponsored by Local 965's own Representative Jim Nickels (D-Sherwood), and it would raise the Arkansas minimum wage to $7.25 in July.

Fayetteville Democratic legislators Lindsley Smith, Jim House, and Uvalde Lindsey all voted for the bill.

All Northwest Arkansas Republicans vote NO -- Duncan Baird, Jonathan Barnett, Les Carnine, Debra Hobbs, Donna Hutchinson, Bryan King, Mark Martin, Roy Ragland, Marylou Slinkard, and Tim Summers -- and to keep wages below the federal poverty level. Jon Woods (R-Springdale) did not vote, which has the same effect as voting no.

Unions and Upward Mobility for Women Workers

In 2007, women made up 45 percent of union members. If the share of women in unions continues to grow at the same rate as it has over the last 25 years, women will be the majority of the unionized workforce by 2020.

This paper uses the most recent data available to examine the impact of unionization on the pay and benefits of women in the paid workforce. The data suggest that even after controlling for systematic differences between union and non-union workers, union representation substantially improves the pay and benefits that women receive.

On average, unionization raised women's wages by 11.2 percent - about $2.00 per hour - compared to non-union women with similar characteristics. Among women workers, those in unions were about 19 percentage points more likely to have employer-provided health insurance and about 25 percentage points more likely to have an employer-provided pension.

For the average woman, joining a union has a much larger effect on her probability of having health insurance (an 18.8 percentage-point increase) than finishing a four-year college degree would (an 8.4 percentage-point increase, compared to a woman with similar

Similarly, unionization raises the probability of a woman having a pension by 24.7 percentage points,compared to only a 13.1 percent increase for completing a four-year college degree (relative to a high school degree). For the average woman, a four-year college degree boosts wages by 52.6 percent, relative to a woman with similar characteristics who has only a high school degree. The comparably estimated union wage premium is 11.2 percent - over 20 percent of the full four-year college effect.

Read the full report.

One Down, Two to Go

Thanks to you, we now have an economic recovery plan that includes substantial fiscal relief to state and local governments. President Obama signed this bill into law today.

Thousands of AFSCME members across the nation helped get this bill passed with phone calls, emails and faxes to your members of Congress. AFSCME International President Gerald McEntee has a special video message for all of you who took action: you can view it here.

We succeeded despite the Republican leadership's effort to kill the bill and stick to the failed policies that got us in this mess in the first place. Not one Republican supported this bill in the House. And only Senators Snowe and Collins (ME) and Specter (PA) were brave enough to break with their fellow Republicans in the Senate.

The opposition to Obama's jobs and recovery package was truly shocking given the dire situation of our economy.

• AFSCME members are dealing with proposals for layoffs, furloughs, demands for contract re-openers and much more—all while demand for public services grows.
• America is losing 20,000 jobs a day and unemployment just hit 7.6%.
• States are looking at shortfalls this fiscal year that amount to 14% of their total budgets.
• Projections for the 2010 and 2011 fiscal years look to be even worse.

I will be the first to admit that the compromise deal for the bill isn't perfect. We'll probably need more help and perhaps another recovery bill. But we know that without this plan, AFSCME members would feel much more pain. With it, we can avoid some of the most drastic cutbacks that would otherwise be made.

As a result of your hard work, the bill includes:

• $87 billion increase in the federal contribution for Medicaid programs, money that will immediately relieve pressures on state governments and free up resources for other purposes.
• $80 billion in new education funding to help states and local governments.
• $150 billion in spending on infrastructure, for transportation facilities, roads and bridges, public transit, clean water, flood control, school construction and energy efficiency.
• An additional $9 billion to the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund for flexible grants for critical public services.

Passing a jobs and economic recovery bill was the first of our three top legislative priorities in our "Make America Happen" campaign. Now we will fight to win quality, affordable health care for all and to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. And we’ll need you every step of the way. If the events—and your emails and calls—over the last few weeks have shown me anything, it's that when we join together, we can indeed make America happen, again.

Thanks for making a difference—I hope you'll watch the special video message from International President Gerald McEntee here.

It's All About Jobs

Let there be no mistake. We know it, you know it and President Obama knows it: Our economy is bordering on collapse and we need your help to save it.

We have lost more than 1.5 million jobs in the last three months alone and we must act quickly to create new jobs, preserve existing ones and rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. To meet this challenge, President Obama and leaders in Congress have developed a large and comprehensive economic recovery and reinvestment bill.

We all worked very hard to make this the best bill it can be and create the most jobs possible, and let's be clear: While the final version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act isn't perfect, passing it is absolutely necessary.

We need you to contact your senators and representative immediately and tell them to vote for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Economists across the political spectrum agree we need to act quickly. But a small band of Republicans and right-wing radio hosts are determined to derail any effort to rescue our economy and rebuild our middle class. The same people who got us into this mess somehow think the best way to get us out of it is to keep doing the same things that got us here in the first place. Crazy, eh?

We can’t let them stop a comprehensive economic recovery package and we need your help to make sure that doesn’t happen. Tell John Boozman that you support the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. We are all counting on you.

Please contact your senators and representative right now. Time is of the essence.

McEntee on Executive Salaries

For years, AFSCME has been leading the fight to rein in the grotesque and excessive paychecks that unaccountable boards of directors have been giving too many of America’s CEOs. We’ve fought shareholder battles and taken our case to the media, arguing that directors who approve exorbitant salaries for executives cheat shareholders and workers. We created a network of institutional and individual investors that fights to get shareowners a voice on executive compensation packages and in the boardrooms of major corporations. But the CEOs want their sky-high pay guaranteed even when they fail, so they’ve fought us every step of the way.

Finally, as unemployment reached a 30 year high this week, President Obama took the case to the American people. "We all need to take responsibility," the President said on Wednesday, "and this includes executives at major financial firms who turned to the American people, hat in hand, when they were in trouble, even as they paid themselves their customary lavish bonuses." The President called excessive pay and bonuses "the height of irresponsibility." More importantly, he laid the responsibility for our country’s economic crisis right in the hands of CEOs who have put greed ahead of the well-being of everyone else. "That’s shameful," the President said.

President Obama decried the "culture of narrow self-interest and short-term gain at the expense of everything else" that has produced countless tales of corporate irresponsibility. For example, Martin J. Sullivan ran AIG, the giant insurance and financial services firm, into the ground. He was fired, but walked away with a severance package estimated at $47 million. He wasn’t alone. At a time when taxpayers were handing over $700 billion to bailout failing banks, the top echelon of the banks collected more than $18 billion in bonuses.

Benefits and pay for most Americans are being cut to the bone, jobs are disappearing, health care costs are skyrocketing and working families are struggling to make ends meet. Yet, CEOs are paid an average of 344 times more than average workers. This madness has to end. Unjustified executive salaries are padded with generous benefits, bonuses and contracts with so-called golden parachute provisions.

That’s why it was heartening to hear the President pledge that our taxes wouldn’t be spent to line the pockets of those who already get too much. "For top executives to award themselves these kinds of compensation packages in the midst of this economic crisis is not only in bad taste - it’s a bad strategy - and I will not tolerate it as President." Yesterday, the Senate followed the President’s lead and passed two important amendments to the President’s jobs and recovery legislation. Senators adopted an amendment from Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO), which imposes a $400,000 salary cap,on officers and directors at firms that receive bailout funding.

The Senate also adopted an amendment offered by Senator Christopher J. Dodd, (D-CT), to prohibit bonuses and other incentives for at least the 25 most highly paid executives at firms that receive bailout funds from the Treasury Department and to conduct a retroactive review of bonuses given out by the firms.

Now, for the first time in memory, our political leaders are taking action that can lead to accountability and reform. But more must be done. It’s time to stop rewarding corporate executives for failure. Shareowners must have a say on executive pay. It’s time for Congress to pass legislation that gives shareholders a voice in how top corporate executives are paid and a chance to elect directors who will represent shareholder interests. We need bold action to bring these rampant abuses to an end.

--AFSCME President Gerald McEntee, February 6, 2009

Jim Nickels Serving in House

State Representative Jim Nickels, member of AFSCME Local 965 and Executive Director of AFSCME State Council 38, is serving his first term in the Arkansas House of Representatives, representing District 43 (Sherwood and North Little Rock). Jim is also a member of the Executive Board of the Arkansas AFL-CIO.

Jim is an experienced labor attorney, who has served on the Executive Board of the Little Rock Workforce Investment Board since 2005, and he holds memberships in the Labor and Employment Relations Association, the American Association for Justice, the American Association of University Professors, the Lawyers Coordinating Committee of the AFL-CIO, and the National Employment Lawyers Association. He received his undergraduate and master's degrees in Sociology from Henderson State University and his law degree from the University of Arkansas.

Nickels prefiled House Bill 1035 to "unlock the freeze" and allow county assessors to lower the tax liabilities for homeowners who are over age 65 or disabled if their property values fall. The House approved HB1035 by a 99-1 margin on January 23rd. It received a Do Pass recommendation from the Senate Revenue and Tax Committee, and it is expected to pass the Senate this week.

Last week Representative Nickels filed House Bill 1383 that would authorize the state Contractors Licensing Board to impose penalties on a contractor who knowingly employs illegal immigrants either directly or through a subcontractor. The board could fine an offending contractor up to $200 per day for as long as the violation continues and could suspend or revoke the contractor’s license. It is currently on the agenda for the House Committee on State Agencies.

Another Union Man in Legislature

State Representative Richard Carroll (G - North Little Rock) is a former President of International Brotherhood of Boilermakers Local No. 66. Though he cleans up well, his button-down work as a legislator is a far cry from what he really does for a living: a dirty, dangerous job as a boilermaker for the Union Pacific Railroad, Thanks to what he calls his very “civic minded” employer, Carroll has been allowed to work the night shift at the Union Pacific yards in North Little Rock part time so he can come to the legislature during the day. From 11 p.m. to around 3 in the morning, he helps rebuild locomotives that have been damaged in derailments and accidents. He catches a few catnaps before and after work, and sleeps a lot on weekends. “I get a couple hours sleep before I go in to the Capitol,” he said. “I may stay until 7 o'clock, go home, get a couple more hours sleep, then go to work.”

Read the rest of the article in this week's edition of the Arkansas Times.