The donations will be used to buy books about major labor and human rights events, ranging from the Triangle Shirtwaist fire to the United Farm Workers movement. Many of the books are biographies of activists such as Frederick Douglass, Eugene V. Debs, Cesar Chavez and Sojourner Truth, and others who have made their mark in U.S. history such as Daniel Boone, Laura Ingalls Wilder and John Glenn. Videos include the civil rights movement documentary "At the River I Stand" and the recent independent film "Billy Elliot." Union members suggested topics and titles, which were then reviewed by the school district. "We always need biographies," said Virginia Tupa, director of instructional services for the Grand Forks public schools. "A lot of these books will go along with the curriculum" being taught in classrooms. The Grand Forks district has 18 school libraries serving some 7,400 students. The $45,000 is split proportionately among Grand Forks and the smaller East Grand Forks and Crookston districts. As costs of books, videos and other materials go up, the districts have to work harder and harder to maintain adequate resources, Tupa said. The labor donation exceeds even the amount the school libraries received following the disastrous 1997 flood that hit the Red River Valley, she noted. "It is the largest single contribution the Grand Forks libraries have ever received. We're very excited and thrilled about this." Both Froemke and Tupa credited Administrative Assistant Shirley Johnson with making the most of every dollar donated. Johnson is ordering all the books and videos for the three districts and bargaining with various publishers and distributors to get the best deals. She estimated she will be able to order more than 9,000 books and videos with the $45,000. Each book will have a special sticker indicating it was donated by the labor movement. The $45,000 was raised mostly through the sale of raffle tickets, Froemke said. The effort took several months and involved scores of volunteers, but was worth every minute, he said. "For working people, public education is one of the most important accomplishments of the labor movement," Froemke noted. "It'll be hard to find more labor books in public schools for K-12 than we've done."
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Worker News WAL-MART: ONLY THE HEALTHY NEED APPLY—An internal memo sent to Wal-Mart’s board of directors proposed the world’s largest retailer cut health care costs by screening out unhealthy people from working at the company. In the memo, M. Susan Chambers, Wal-Mart’s executive vice president for benefits, recommends Wal-Mart “attract a healthier, more productive workforce” by requiring “all jobs to include some physical activity” to discourage less hardy applicants. Chambers also proposed employees pay more for their spouses’ health insurance and called for cutting 401(k) contributions and company-paid life insurance policies (www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/business/26walmart.pdf). Even without Wal-Mart’s proposed cost-cutting measures, fewer than half of Wal-Mart workers have health coverage on the job, according to an AFL-CIO report. Many full-time Wal-Mart employees are unable to afford the company’s health coverage. Nearly 46 million Americans were uninsured in 2004—up 6 million since 2000, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Nearly 3.7 million fewer people had employer-provided insurance in 2004 than in 2000, the study found. Learn how we all pay the cost of Wal-Mart’s low prices at www.walmartcostsyou.com. Report Spotlights Wal-Mart’s Anti-Union Tactics Nov. 16—A new report says Wal-Mart uses legal and illegal tactics to prevent its 1.3 million U.S. employees from forming unions. Released by American Rights at Work, Wal-Mart: Rolling Back Workers’ Wages, Rights, and the American Dream says the company has amassed a poor record on treatment of workers, including low pay, difficult working conditions and the company’s effective strategy for remaining union-free. The report lays out evidence of Wal-Mart’s wide-ranging union-avoidance tactics, including profiling individual employees at stores that are likely to support unions and using an anti-union hot line for managers to call at the first sign of employee discontent and talk of organizing. Nearly 100 federal unfair labor practice complaints were lodged against the company in 1998–2003, according to the report. The report follows other recent revelations about how the world’s largest retailer depresses local wages when it moves into a community, its settlement of a federal child labor case and an embarrassing internal memo about a proposed scheme to slash its health care costs by requiring “all jobs to include some physical activity” to screen out less hardy or healthy applicants. Even without the screening measure, fewer than half of Wal-Mart workers have health coverage on the job, according to an AFL-CIO report, largely because of high costs and limited eligibility. As a result, many Wal-Mart workers and their families must turn to emergency rooms and other public health services as their only health care option. American Rights at Work Chair David Bonior says while most Americans are aware that Wal-Mart mistreats workers, “including accusations of gender discrimination, substandard health benefits and the denial of lunch breaks, most Americans don’t know about how Wal-Mart’s union-busting activity prevents workers from forming unions to address this mistreatment.” Another report by the Wal-Mart Alliance for Reform Now (WARN), the community alliance providing a voice for citizens trying to get Wal-Mart to be a better corporate neighbor, and the Wal-Mart Workers Association released Nov. 18 shows Wal-Mart’s average wage is actually somewhere between $6.35 an hour and $7.69 an hour, much less than the $9.63 that Wal-Mart claims. The report, Wal-Mart Real Wage and Turnover Study, shows Wal-Mart’s annualized turnover rate is about 75 percent and that 975,000 workers enter and leave Wal-Mart jobs each year in the United States. As a result of such huge turnover, at any given time, the majority of employees are unlikely to be eligible for most benefits, the report says. In a related development, corporate officials at Wal-Mart knew contractors the giant retailer hired to clean its stores were employing undocumented workers, according to an affidavit by a federal investigator and news reports. The October 2003 affidavit, which was unsealed by a federal judge Nov. 2, reportedly said a top Wal-Mart official encouraged a contractor to set up several “shell” companies to employ undocumented workers. The affidavit was unsealed at the request of undocumented workers who are suing Wal-Mart over alleged labor law violations. Meanwhile, this week a new documentary, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, is being screened in some 7,000 congregations, union halls, community centers and other sites as part of a nationwide effort by unions and their community allies to show the real Wal-Mart: a corporation that made $10 billion in 2004 while paying workers wages below the poverty level. Produced by Robert Greenwald, the documentary shows the effects of Wal-Mart’s greed through the personal stories of everyday workers and their families. More
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BCTGM Local 167G 100 N. 3rd Street Suite 50 Grand Forks, ND 58203 |
BCTGM Local 167G
