Financial issues can be confusing—especially when there aren’t many places working folks can get unbiased, reliable information about investing and financial security.
We know that working families around the country face tough financial issues and would like good, honest, fair information.
CWA and IBEW informational picketting every Saturday and Sunday 1:00 Latham.... please help !
Message:
Workers Weekend Update!
Remember , 40,000 members trying to get a fair Contract : our contract is only 18 Months away and we will need their support !
Stand in Solidarity with our CWA 1113, 1118 & IBEW 2213 Brothers and Sisters
Every Saturday and Sunday from 1pm till 3pm. They are fighting for the working class and need support!
News
Leadership changes made for Momentive Performance Materials
Published: Tuesday, February 14, 2012
By Danielle Sanzone
The Record
@DanielleSanzone
ALBANY — There have been some changes in leadership at Momentive Performance Materials.
Brothers & Sisters--An Update from the NEWLY Formed Compensation Committee
Kick off meeting was held yesterday--Monday, February 13, 2012. See the entire UPDATE on the Member Home page.
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Welcome to our site: Take time to scroll down and read the articles. We have a very detailed section WITHIN this site for our Members. The Main Page is primarily for PUBLIC LOCAL 359 INFORMATION, the main public page will include Local Area Labor News and National Labor News. To get text updates and Flash e-mails you must include YOUR specifics in the "User Settings," with home e-mail and cell #.
Monthly Union Meeting
WATERFORD TOWN HALL
Friday, March, 2nd 2012 @11:45
Order of Business: Monthly Agenda Sheet/Grievance Rep.
(Get Involved: Attend YOUR Union Meeting)
Please See BELOW for Our Local's Public News in the Section--
"What's New at 81359"
"It is essential that there should be an organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes, therefore labor must organize"
Locked Out Workers-- A Sign of Increased Employer Militancy !!
Locked-Out Workers to Embark on Journey for Justice
Amy Masciola, a union campaign consultant, sends us this.
More than six months ago, American Crystal Sugar Co. locked out more than 1,300 sugar beet workers in the Red River Valley of Minnesota and North Dakota. Two months ago, Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. locked out more than 1,000 workers in Findlay, Ohio. Last week, Caterpillar announced it would shut down a plant in Ontario, just over one month after locking out 500 workers. Rio Tinto Alcan locked out 750 workers in Quebec Jan. 1. HealthBridge locked out 800 nursing home workers in Connecticut in December. As Laura Clawson at the Daily Kos notes, “For evidence of a war on workers, look no further than the rise of the lockout.”
Steven Greenhouse of The New York Times wrote recently that the number of strikes has dropped precipitously in the past two decades, while lockouts now “represent a record percentage of the nation’s work stoppages.” Greenhouse quotes professor Gary Chaison of Clark University, who says:
This is a sign of increased employer militancy. Lockouts were once so rare they were almost unheard of. Now, not only are employers increasingly on the offensive and trying to call the shots in bargaining, but they’re backing that up with action—in the form of lockouts.
Unions and our allies are fighting back against this war on workers. Beginning Feb. 22, locked-out workers from American Crystal Sugar Co. and Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. will start a 1,000-mile journey across America’s heartland. They will visit six states in six days, taking part in rallies, fundraisers and other actions with local union members and allies. Locked-out workers will take their message to supporters—and call out the perpetrators of the war on workers.
From Fargo to Findlay: A Journey for Justice is a joint project of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) and the United Steelworkers (USW).
The Journey will begin with a rally in Fargo, N.D., and will make stops in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana, before concluding in Findlay, Ohio. For workers making the Journey, the message is simple: They want to keep their union, and they want to go back to work.
As Paul Woinarowicz, a BCTGM member who has worked for Crystal Sugar for 34 years, told Greenhouse, the lockout was:
just another way of trying to break the union….It was just like a knife stuck in your heart.
CWA 1118, Capital District
Area Labor Federation, and the Solidarity Committee proudly
present a stirring documentary:
The March Against Corporate Greed
The March Against Corporate Greed (2012), a new film by Manolo Munoz – a videographer and member of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) – tells the story of a dramatic eight-day march for economic justice by union activists. In November 2011, a group of capital district CWA members, engaged in a struggle for a fair contract with the corporate giant Verizon, began a hike from Albany to New York City to call attention to the disparities in wealth and income between the 1 percent and the 99 percent. Joined by a few Working Families Party members and other CWA members along the way, they met up with 35,000 supporters of the Occupy movement at the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park and, then, together with contingents from other unions, proceeded to a massive Occupy the Brooklyn Bridge demonstration.
This premiere of The March Against Corporate Greed, held in support of the Occupy campaign, provides a great opportunity to see this important new film, produced and starred in by capital district union activists. Admission is free of charge.
Reverse Citizens United--Government Of, By and For the People...
Thanks to the Supreme Court and Citizens United, the same big corporations and billionaires that destroyed our economy and caused millions of us to lose our jobs and homes, are spending obscene amounts to drown out our voices in elections and take over our government.
But together, "We the People" can set things right.
Stand with Robert Reich and join the movement for a constitutional amendment today.
The Steelworkers have set up a website: www.stopcoopertire.org, where supporters can sign a petition to the company and make donationsto help the locked out USW workers at the Findlay, Ohio Cooper Tire Plant....
Concession Bargaining is at a Critical Crossroads!
As We Prepare for Our 2013 Contract....what can we expect?
You see it happening all over this country. We have documented and posted articles from all over this country -- both Private and Public Unionized Employees -- being attacked on wages and benefits. If you haven't been paying attention, please read the articles at the links that follow. And sometimes, it seems we are NOT ONLY fighting Corporations or Governments, but our OWN INTERNATIONAL UNIONS as well! It's very scary, and it's coming to a time of decision for all of us, 2013 is NOT that far away. You need to educate yourselves! You will need to PREPARE for it! As a group of unionized manufacturing employees, we will need to formulate our strategy and our response, and we will have to do it sooner, than later. Again, please read the articles at these links.
COMMENTARY: The following is an article on the history and evolution of concession bargaining in the US that is perhaps appropriate this labor day 2011. It briefly traces how concession bargaining at the shop level has, since the late 1970s, evolved, transitioned recently to the public sector, and now is morphing into an attack on the ‘social wage’ (social security, medicare, etc.) at the grand ‘political’ level as the economic class war in the US intensifies and moves into every ‘nook and cranny’ of the economy. We are witnessing in Congress and the Obama administration today (political) ‘management’ decisions to cut (social) wages just as for decades corporate management cut wages and benefits at the shop or company level. Of course, it’s the same ‘corporate management’ that has been driving both. Having accomplished much of their concession bargaining goals at the shop level in recent decades, they are now-through their political managers-attempting the same at the social level.
‘Concession Bargaining At the Crossroads’ by Jack Rasmus, copyright August 7, 2011
DOESN'T IT FEEL LIKE A RECURRING NIGHTMARE? CONCESSION BARGAINING CAN NOT BECOME A WAY OF LIFE! IT IS DESTROYING THE WORKING MIDDLE CLASS! WE HAVE TO STOP PAYING FOR THE MISTAKES & FAILURES OF WALL STREET--BANKS, CORPORATIONS, AND GOVERNMENT--STATE & FEDERAL. THE 1% NEED TO SAY "NO MORE" & "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!"
Financial issues can be confusing—especially when there aren’t many places working folks can get unbiased, reliable information about investing and financial security.
We know that working families around the country face tough financial issues and would like good, honest, fair information. That’s why the National Labor College and the AFL-CIO have partnered to provide resources and answers at our new website: NLC InvestEd.
Paperback, 304 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1-58367-280-8
Cloth (ISBN-13: 978-1-58367-281-5) January 2012
In early 2011, the nation was stunned to watch Wisconsin’s state capitol in Madison come under sudden and unexpected occupation by union members and their allies. The protests to defend collective bargaining rights were militant and practically unheard of in this era of declining union power. Nearly forty years of neoliberalism and the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression have battered the labor movement, and workers have been largely complacent in the face of stagnant wages, slashed benefits and services, widening unemployment, and growing inequality.
That is, until now. Under pressure from a union-busting governor and his supporters in the legislature, and inspired by the massive uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, workers in Wisconsin shook the nation with their colossal display of solidarity and outrage. Their struggle is still ongoing, but there are lessons to be learned from the Wisconsin revolt. This timely book brings together some of the best labor journalists and scholars in the United States, many of whom were on the ground at the time, to examine the causes and impact of events, and suggest how the labor movement might proceed in this new era of union militancy. Look at the sites below--
ALBANY — There have been some changes in leadership at Momentive Performance Materials.
Craig Morrison, chairman and CEO, is the interim president of Momentive’s Silicones and Quartz Division, according to John Scharf, a spokesman for the company based in Albany with a silicone facility in Waterford.
Morrison replaces Steven Delarge who stepped down as the executive vice president and division president not long after 2011 preliminary fourth quarter results were posted on Momentive’s Web site.
In the fourth quarter, Momentive Performance Materials, one of the largest employers in Saratoga County, expected to record sales of approximately $600 million, an operating loss of $32 million to $22 million. The company recorded sales of $670 million in 2010 during the same time period.
In a release Friday, Morrison, who expected a volatile economy to continue in the near future, said of the preliminary figures, “Our fourth quarter 2011 results reflected economic weakness in Europe and China, pricing pressures in certain end use markets, and inventory de-stocking as customers remained cautious in their order patterns considering the macro-economic volatility. We also experienced slower demand for our quartz products in the fourth quarter of 2011 due primarily to softer semiconductor markets.”
The Chief Commercial Officer, Michael Modak, will also be stepping down from his position, the company announced in an 8-k report Monday. His responsibilities will be assumed by other members of the executive team and, as with Morrison assuming his additional duties, this will be on an interim basis.
Momentive is negotiating separation agreements with Delarge, who worked from the Albany office, and Modak.
Dominick Patrignani, president of a Momentive union, said the workforce had received information Monday that were described as “senior leadership changes.”
“It appears the process of de-layering our business unit’s upper management team is in the works,” Patrignani said. “We were not surprised based on the merger of Hexion and Momentive. The local workforce here in Waterford will continue to produce world-class products and looks forward to new leadership.
Patrignani continued, “It was surprising to many of the union workforce that even with the Wage cuts, outsourcing and concessions imposed on the manufacturing workers here it never resolved the cost issues. Maybe they were looking in the wrong place all along.”
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