Union Man Part 2, Growing Up

As I look back over the years, there is absolutely no doubt that when this book is published alot of lives will be uplifted, impacted, inspired and improved.  This universe definitely has order but is also crazy at the same time.  I do know this, nothing we do in life will be successful unless we are doing what we were created to do.  Each of us has a piece to the puzzle, and to the extent we work with our allotted piece do we see real gratification in our lives, the kind that no amount of money, possessions or even relationship can provide.  Why a book Mr. Lowery?  Very simple, I am beginning to see my piece of the puzzle, the ups, the downs, the highs, the lows, the accomplishments, the screw ups, the disappointments, the heart breaks are all for a reason.  They make me who I am and yours make you who you are.  I believe more "ordinary" people need to write books about there lives and through all of the lives put out there for all to see, maybe we will realize that we are definitely more alike than different.  This series of articles is a rough outline of what you get when the book is finished, saving the really good stuff for the hardback.  So sit back and enjoy the ride.  And know for sure putting your life out there isn't easy, but if one person can identify and be helped along this path called life, then it was worth the journey.

Growing Up

Born in Washington, D.C. in 1968 in the Old D.C. General Hospital, at the time I believe my parents was living in the old Parklands on Trenton Place in S.E.  I was raised mainly by my dear Aunt and my Mother though for alot of those early years I did not really know my mother.  It was my Cousin, my oldest brother and me being the youngest of the group, besides my Aunt us three practically raised and depended on each other.  While I have no bitterness toward my upbringing (that I am aware of :)..) I guess you could describe my brother and me as abandoned children for alot years.  We moved around alot.  I think I went to a different elementary school for every year through the 6th grade including three different schools in Florida (you do the math).  My family as I remember was a very tight knit loving family, but they loved to party.  Most of my childhood memories are of family parties with a lot of alcohol, drugs, and music.  There was also a very dark side to that party lifestyle, a lot of domestic abuse.

In the book we going into the juicy details, but for now it would be sufficient to say that I had a very unstable upbringing.  Out of that instability something good did evolve especially as it relates to me as Union Man.  Because we moved around in very diverse situations, I learned to get along and fit in with alot of different circles from Redneck white to straight hood figure type of people and all in between.  One could see that in my taste in music which is wide ranging from heavy metal, to gangster rap, and back to some classic rock all representing different environments I have lived through.  Speaking of music that has always been my one constant, my escape from my world of insecurity.  From my earliest of years just put me in room of records and I would probably never leave the room ever!  This constant moving on one level is tragic for a young child, but in the end it was a gift and blessing beyond what is apparent on the surface.

I naturally through this upbringing learned to communicate in different languages (that has helped my success in the business, I catch alot of people off guard, never see it coming!).  While we all speak English here in the U.S., the communities are diverse, all white people aren't the same, all black people aren't the same, as true for this nation of many ethnic nationalities in terms of language dialect, comprehension and cultural customs.  You can take a word and that word would have different meanings in different communities.  If you say "bomb" in some communities the people coming to lock you up.  You can say "bomb" in other communities then you looking for the female attached to that statement (Lls).  In short my upbringing taught me to have the ability to understand precise meanings across cultural lines.  I could listen to a Harvard professor and break it down into a form that a third grader in the worst of neighborhoods, in the worst of schools could understand.  That makes me a very DANGEROUS individual to some.  The ability to unite by bridging the gap of communication and comprehension/understanding.

Another positive out of a negative situation is my ability to detach.  Because we moved around so much I never learned the art of emotional attachment to others.  It was too painful for me to do so because just when I got comfortable we moved again and the process started all over again.  Overtime almost on auto pilot I have the ability to detach in times of sorrow, pain, failings, anger and disappointments.  To many it comes off as cold and uncaring, to others its comes off as shrewd.  The root of it all is a survival and defense mechanism that has become a part of who I am.  The quickness in which I am able to detach.  The negative is personal relationships are hard to maintain and the ability to stay in one fixed situation is difficult.  The positive is that a KEY INGREDIENT in being a successful representative of people is the art of detachment. Because of my upbringing it comes natural as the green on grass.  Many talk good game from the pulpit to the streets, but how many actually deal with despair, desperation, failure, disease, poverty, shortcomings, and life altering circumstances for a living with true compassion not found often these days without passing a basket?  It was my upbringing that to some maybe be tragic, but to me gave me tools you can't buy from a university (as stated before you got to buy the book for the gut level details).

More next article "so you think you have it rough" coming soon.  Thanks for reading and if there is a lesson in this article its this "often out of very dark circumstances comes a great positive, it all depends on our perspective, which takes years to properly form". 


Cjl

Too Much Comfort?

Wednesday morning, while meditating on the proper moment to zip over and get my dusty automobile washed, I discovered in the morning LA Times that a Southern California car wash had chosen to unionize. I confess that my previous thoughts about the men who wash my car had rarely exceeded wondering what constituted a sufficient tip, lest I end up in the hell of bad tippers for eternity. According to the Times, this drive toward unionization came to Bonus Car Wash in Santa Monica because workers were not permitted to go on the clock until customers had actually arrived. Union organizers argue that--probably as a result--many car wash workers receive less than the minimum wage.

If I had not glanced at the morning paper Tuesday, I never would have given a thought to alleged injustices perpetrated on the quick-moving men who wash my car. Fortunately, at my house of news junkies, two daily newspapers lie on the breakfast table, NPR plays in the background and the evening network news is a command performance. But I know just as many people who avoid the news like a plague of tragedies. For untold millions, whatever they know of the world depends on 10 minutes of the Daily Show, office gossip or the headlines from Brian Williams' NBC newscast anchored by his flawless hair and exemplary jawline.

None of us would choose to oppress the local carwasheros, but few feel they have time and energy enough to linger on their plight. I think of this as the "couch potato dilemma." How do I let the world in enough to care without the stress leaving me with migraine headaches? I mean, really, who could blame somebody for wanting to relax rather than meditate on the latest victims of the service economy?

Comfort is a real human need--to replenish our zapped physical, emotional and spiritual batteries. Comfort salves the wounds of traffic, health insurance bureaucracy, unemployment and toddler crimes and misdemeanors. Only the most devoted puritan would blow up my cozy recliner or cut the power to your television just as the B-list celebrities begin to dance and the police detectives pick up the trail of the killer (with or without crime scene investigators, coroners, novelists and fake psychics).

The problem is: the rest stop of comfort easily turns into the eternal vacation of bourgeois ease. Comfort food like cheeseburgers, macaroni and cheese or Styrofoam ramen may temporarily relieve sorrow, but as a daily bread they would ruin the palate and harden the arteries. In short, comfort can become an opiate of the masses that dulls our attention to the world around us or even the normal challenges of daily life. Too much ease, and we stop growing as human beings. Our horizons shrink.  Or worse, we simply stop caring. The mass of humanity (not to mention the environment they depend on) remain off the radar screen. We all know about this--the hospitalized friend we did not visit, the gas guzzler we opted not to trade in, the granola bars we hoarded from the homeless man with the cardboard sign at the intersection.

Maybe it's time for me to find out where that unionized car wash is located.

Brett C. Hoover is the author of Comfort: An Atlas of the Body and Soul (Riverhead, $16) and a university professor in Los Angeles.

The Making of the Union Man Part 1

This series of Articles is what I vision to become the blueprint for a larger body of work that I will eventually publish as a book.  The natural starting place for this work is the question I am asked the most from those who desire to know how did Clifford Lowery ever rise to be one of the most dynamic, controversial, explosive Union Presidents on the scene.  Given where I come from in life, how did I get started in the Union movement?  These questions I believe come from admiration in some and from others of a place of envy (read the story of Caine and Abel).  For those who want to know from admiration I hope this series will provide you with a deeper knowledge of the making of this Union Man.  For those who come from the line of envy, well I can expect nothing less from this writing than adding fuel to the eternal flame of envy.

I didn’t know until later in life that my great grandfather on my mother’s side was a Union President down south during the pre civil rights days (in fact according to the time they were the genetic starting point for the "Martin Luther King" days).  My Grandfather on my mother’s side was an entrepreneur in Washington, D.C. for many years (he did very well in the strip/nightclub market, in fact he ran a club I affectionately call the aftercare for my older brother and myself in our school days that was located on 14^th and Irving Street N.W.).  My father was I guess you can say a very militant man coming out of the civil rights era.  My step father was nothing short of a very rebellious soul.  My mother and my entire immediate family were government workers.  With that as my basic make up it becomes very simple to understand that the ingredients in the making of the Union Man are deeply ingrained in me both physically and philosophically.

I started my government career in 1987 straight out of Woodrow Wilson High School.  Back in those days we moved around so much (including a few years in near Orlando, Florida as the only black family in that community and one of very few black students in my early school years there), it would take several paragraphs to name all the schools I attended.  If anyone can remember it was during the mid to late eighties that brought a steep rise to the crack and PCP epidemic, gangster rap, gold chains, fancy cars, homicide, guns and the general lifestyle that is most often described in popular urban music today.  While my involvement in the said may not have been as deep as others (my brothers included), those who were heavy in that lifestyle nevertheless were my friends.  I was very much a product of my environment and during those days it was nothing less than toxic. 

Upon entering the government I was actually studying to be a computer programmer and did exceedingly well at the college level, but my associations with the urban element of society had a great pull and influence on some of my early choices upon entering the workforce.  Furthermore, starting at the age 17 in the D.C. Government I found myself dead center in the middle of two worlds, the aging “good old boy network” where Blacks in general (my immediate environment at that time) were low paid wage earners (I started as a DS-Grade 2 at about 175.00 every two weeks compared to my “hustle” friends who made that in a matter of minutes) relegated to the lowest jobs even in the “Barry” era.  Then came the emerging “new school network” who were progressive minorities who in many instances was worse in the treatment of the low end government workers than the good old boys.  All of this being thrown at a 17 year old looking back was a lot.  To understand the above general circumstances is imperative to understanding how I became the “Jay-Z” of the D.C. Government Union movement. 

More to come in Part 2 of this series of articles.

Update Vincent Gray Meeting

Good Day All,

This is an update with respect to our recent meeting last week with Mayor Vincent Gray.  The meeting I believe was a postitive step in the right direction with the City.  I must say I was very impressed with the Mayor and his commitment to working with Labor.  The meeting was near two hours and for a Mayor to give us that much face time is definetly a plus in his favor.  The following is the major outcome(s) of the meeting;

1.   As all should be aware by now, the steps are no longer in freeze status.  Contact you HR person
      to determine your step due date.

2.  Allen Lew the City Administrator has invited labor to send major issues directly to him, to assist
     us in dealing with the Agency(s) we represent, ESPECIALLY DDOT.

3.  Allen Lew, has agreed to a private meeting with Local 1975 (this is huge!!!!...aka..BINGO)
     This meeting will take place on November 8, 2:00 pm @Wilson Building.

4.  The Office of Labor Relations and Collective Bargaining will be meeting with C. Lowery for
     pending issues meeting.  This meeting will be held with Natasha Campbell, by means of 
     conference call.  November 7, 2011 5:45pm - 6:45 pm. 

I will have more specific details for you all following the 11/8/2011 meeting with the City Administrator.  If you have any questions you can ADD ME on Facebook..Clifford Lowery.

This Should Be Easy Mr. Mayor

Mr. Mayor, in a quick summary, the employees want to know when are they going to see an increase in pay?  In other words, can you break us off some of that surplus you found?

The Inside Scoop: Behind the Political Masquerade Part 1

Often citizens get highly frustrated at the seemingly abuses of those they pay to administrate their government.  Not to mention the feelings of employees especially in the public sector.  The employee’s feelings run RED with anger, frustration, and confusion (which leads to low morale) when it comes to holding those who are charged with the care of our government and their job accountable.  The many frustrations are rooted in the inability to effectuate a change in the behavior of those in the “in charge” ranks of government.  In this brief article I am attempting to bring some very basic understanding with the intent of decreasing the many ill feelings we often feel as a result of runaway government.   There is definitely a critical aspect to this game that we often overlook, underestimate, or choose to ignore.  We blame Unions, each other, and sadly enough take these frustrations into our homes.  Well as the saying goes if it looks like a duck, quack like a duck, then more than likely it is a duck.

Somehow in my life I ended sitting a many different tables.  The one thing that is missing from those tables is the people, the everyday citizen, worker, laborer, mother, father etc.  Certain decision has nothing to do with the “efficient service delivery to the people”.  For the most part that line is just some political talk that sounds good.  The “in charge” people exist mainly for the orderly distribution of tax dollars and resources to private interest of influence the real shot callers.  As an employee (true life example) have you ever wondered why those “in charge” will totally revamp an entire operation just to satisfy a request of a special interest?  In Washington, D.C. for example on any given day that the Washington Nationals (our baseball team) play at Nationals Stadium (that D.C. gave away for free) the government will redirect a great deal of its resources to help people cross the street.  Now ask yourself how does helping people across the street resolve the issue of unemployment, affordable housing, crime and poverty?  If you said it doesn’t then you win the prize!  This is a prime example of the puppet existing for the sole reason of orderly distribution of money and resources to private interest.  To be truthful there are many “in charge” folks that have the good of the people in their heart.  They tend to be a valuable source of insight for me, however that insight is usually given under the cover of darkness for fear of being seen with me which may cost them their jobs.  Overall though those that are “in charge” are accountable to those who donate vast sums of money to political campaigns, developers who throw large sums of gifts and money, and land owners of the “old school” type. 

In conclusion, it is imperative that the common citizen and worker understand, accept and act according to this first basic fact of today’s politics.  Those we have elected in positions of responsibility can care less about the common citizen or its employees.  They exist for one reason only as a means to distribute your money  and resources to private interest.  Maybe if we all pooled our money together and buy a golf trip or something for those “in charge”, maybe we can get 10 minutes of their time.  However, if you actually want one of those folks that are “in charge” to actually do something that benefits the taxpayer or employee we got to do much more than a golf trip.  Look up the donor list to your council member, mayor or any other elected official and what I am presenting here will quickly become painfully obvious. 

More to come in Part 2 of this topic.  .

Meeting With Mayor Vincent Gray

AFGE Local 1975 has confirmed a Meeting with Mayor Vincent Gray.  That date and time is as follows; November 3, 2011 @2pm. 

The battle between Republicans and labor unions in Ohio, Wisconsin and other states is ostensibly about public workers' pay, benefits and bargaining rights. What is really at stake, however, isn't labor's income. It's labor's influence - not just in the American workplace but in American politics. Critics of unions cast them as exclusive clubs for which the rest of Americans pay the dues. Wisconsin's GOP governor, Scott Walker, likes to say that unions are the "haves" and everyone else the "have-nots." And it's certainly true that unions aggressively pursue their own interests - sometimes to others' detriment. When asked in the early 20th century what the American Federation of Labor wanted, the union's gruff head, Samuel Gompers, famously replied, "More."  But unions play another role, too - one more like that of civic groups than private associations. Although they want "more" for their members, they also want to make good middle-class jobs the norm. And the most important way they pursue this larger goal isn't by demanding concessions at the bargaining table, but by operating as a counterweight to the demands of corporations and Wall Street in the corridors of power. That is precisely why opponents of organized labor are seizing upon state fiscal troubles to try to destroy its remaining clout.

Republican politicians haven't always been anti-union. In 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower declared: "Unions have a secure place in our industrial life. Only a handful of reactionaries harbor the ugly thought of breaking unions and depriving working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice." His words remind us that America's leaders once overwhelmingly believed, happily or reluctantly, in the power of organized labor.  When Eisenhower spoke, unions were a critical source of political capital for ordinary Americans who lacked substantial financial capital. Indeed, according to a number of political science studies, the effort by unions to get sympathetic voters to the polls was one of the main forces behind the high rates of voter turnout - regardless of income or education levels - in the decades just after World War II.

Unions also carried the battle beyond the ballot box. Organized labor was on the front lines during the struggle for universal health care and the fight for Medicare for the aged. They were the main champions of organizing rights for workers and of the gradual transformation of Social Security into a strong foundation for a dignified retirement. Unions even lent crucial support to the civil rights movement, leading one congressional champion, Missouri Democrat Richard Bolling, to later observe that "we would never have passed the Civil Rights Act without labor. They had the muscle; the other civil rights groups did not." 

Decades of research have shown that the economic pyramid is flatter in countries where unions are stronger. In economies as different as Canada and Germany, a sturdy union presence has helped reduce income inequality. The reason isn't just that unions defend their members. They also create changes in social norms, such as pressures for nonunion employers to match union gains. A recent study by the sociologists Bruce Western and Jake Rosenfeld suggests that, including these indirect effects, labor's decline may account for as much as a third of the rise in American wage inequality since the 1970s.

Unions also push for broad federal policies that reduce gaps in income and wealth. In the United States, they have resisted the rampant deregulation of financial markets and the soaring growth of executive pay. They have been one of the few organized voices that has consistently pressed back against the string of tax-cut bills for the rich that began in the late 1970s.  All of this makes the decline of unions - which has been far steeper in the United States than in Europe and Canada - a huge political and economic challenge. Private-sector union membership in America has fallen from roughly a third of workers in the middle of the 20th century to less than 7 percent today. Even including the public sector, the share is just over 1 in 10.
Despite these declines, labor continues to be the only large-scale membership organization consistently representing Americans of moderate means on pocketbook matters. While other civic groups - from fraternal organizations to women's federations - have virtually disappeared, labor is battered but still standing.

Meanwhile, groups representing the affluent have only grown stronger. In the early 1970s, corporations organized on an unprecedented scale to reshape policy and debate. Almost overnight, they expanded their already formidable presence in Washington, forging bonds with wealthy donors promoting business-friendly ideas. This emboldened conservatives while creating powerful conflicts for a Democratic Party increasingly torn between corporate money and its historical and electoral connection to the "little guy."
The result was a new Washington - one that tilted tax and economic policies away from middle-class Americans. In a little more than a generation, the richest 0.1 percent of taxpayers saw their slice of the national income (including capital gains) increase from less than 3 percent to more than 12 percent. Perhaps the most destructive legacy, however, was the expansion of reckless practices on Wall Street, which Washington alternately ignored and encouraged.

When the financial crisis hit in 2008, unions were a primary voice urging reform. In the face of aggressive lobbying by the health-care and financial industries, labor sunk a huge share of its limited resources into advocacy groups pushing for health-care reform and greater financial regulation.  Today, the recession has eased but has hardly disappeared. Yet the political climate has already swung toward premature austerity, with Republicans demanding cuts in spending that could, according to multiple estimates, cost many hundreds of thousands of jobs. In poll after poll, citizens say that unemployment is the nation's top problem; that tax cuts for the most well-off should expire; that Wall Street, not public-sector workers, precipitated the economic crisis; and that Medicare and Social Security should be preserved largely as they are.

It may seem ironic that unions are under attack when Washington seems most disconnected from the economic needs of the middle class. But that's not an irony; it's a strategy. Critics of unions, such as Gov. Walker, want to cut government and reduce taxes on the wealthy. (Dire budget rhetoric notwithstanding, Walker's first item of business was to reduce taxes on corporations and the well-off.) And they would much prefer to do it without unions calling them to account.

Unions surely have room to improve. Justifiably worried about external threats, they have too often downplayed their internal weaknesses. They're quick to point out, correctly, that public-employee pensions aren't a major cause of state budget woes and that public-sector workers aren't overpaid relative to similarly educated private workers. They've been much slower to change undesirable features of union contracts, such as policies that overemphasize seniority and protect poorly performing workers. Still, just as we wouldn't block entrepreneurs from forming corporations because some firms pollute or engage in financial fraud, we should not radically undermine the rights of Americans in unions just because some hinder effective responses to economic and policy challenges.

The goal of union opponents is not to exorcise "special interests" from American politics. It is to protect the special interests that represent corporate America and Wall Street from any serious challenge.

jacob.hacker@yale.edu

pierson@berkeley.edu

Jacob S. Hacker is a professor of political science at Yale University, and Paul Pierson is a professor of political science at the University of California at Berkeley. They are the authors of "Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer - and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class."

Wisconsin Pt. 3 The People Are Standing

Another weekend of CNN, CNBC, and host of other news channels so-called reporting on the issues brought to the front by the Labor struggle in Wisconsin.  The more I look and read on this issue, the more I become certain that the claim of Public Servants should not be entitled to bargaining rights is BOGUS!  The fact of the matter is that Public Employee Unions are feared because of their collective strength.  With that strength comes collective power, just ask Former D.C. Mayor Fenty.  The real struggle is to curtail the employee's benefits and to undercut the collective strength of Public Sector Unions.  This has nothing to do with managing the Public Sector more efficiently or producing cost savings.  Its about undercutting the political strength, the same strength that put President Obama in office which is the same strength that ran Ardrian Fenty out of town. 

Out of this struggle has come something very pleasing.  The people are standing up!  The people are coming together in unity!  You may not like your Union representatives locally, you may not see the value of Unions, but one thing for sure is that if you have no collective bargaining rights many things we take for granted will be those same things we will then be willing to unite and fight for to regain.

You could strip the workers of all benefits and collective bargaining rights and state, local and federal governments would still be broke.  They not us put the nation in debt to many trillions of dollars.  I don't recall one Union paying 500 million dollars for a stadium that sits half empty during baseball season.  I don't recall the Union creating 100 million dollar tax breaks for companies to build stores.  What about Wall Street who made trillions by creating bad mortgages, then doubled their money on the back end when the taxpayers bailed out their losses to the tune of multi trillions of dollars.  IN FACT WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE OVER TAXPAYERS MONEY BEING USED TO BAIL OUT GOLDMAN AND SACHS AND MAJOR BANKS?  They on Capitol Hill are spending the CITIZENS money in the mutli trillions of dollars with maybe less than 1% going toward Union Benefits, that is where the outrage should be happening.

DISCIPLINE

If you are given in writing for any reason discipline, you must contact your Union Representative immediately if you want our assistance.  Please be mindful that a "cc" to the Union doesn't start your Union assisted appeal process.  You must contact your representative.  For more information Contact the Chief of Stewards afge1975css@gmail.com

WISCONSIN Pt. 2, "The DC Connection".

This is part two of my take on the recent discussions surrounding labor unions in the public sector.  Make no mistake about it I believe this is some BS for lack of a better phrase.  The Government gives away trillions for all types of projects and services annually.  Let’s add up the contracts given out by government agencies that too is expending dollars.  Let’s add up every single government, state, local, county, municipal, and federal contract that’s out there currently.  And what about the Politician in Washington own "sweet" benefit package?  Speaking of tax payer’s money what about entitlements for everyone one with a cause? Isn't that taxpayer money?  What about Kwame Brown and his custom made Navigator?  In fact it would be fair to say THE GOVERNMENT OPERATES OFF TAXPAYERS MONEY IN ALL REGARDS.  WE ARE NOT A BUSINESS, WE ARE PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYEES. 

To even suggest Labor Unions have some type of strangle hold on the taxpayer is nothing short of an aggressive attempt to show public sector workers as not worthy for what we earn.  In reality, the public sector labor unions in DC have seen a decline due to record consecutive years of RIF's.  Numerically we can yield significant leverage politically, however we must consider our experience under the Fenty administration where all common sense labor/management agreements were ignored.   

To Date WE EMPLOYEES HAVE GIVEN UP STEP INCREASES, CAREER LADDER PROMOTIONS, COST OF LIVING INCREASES, 20 MILLION IN FURLOUGHS.  I don't know what collective bargaining rights they are talking about since by law in public sector unions management has sole right over budget.  Using that logic a significant shift in the MANAGEMENT and ADMINISTRATION of the Government IS THE ONLY SOLUTION.  They are busy chasing employees for 1 hour of AWOL rather than adding any real value and efficiency to the present labor force.  I wonder what bargaining rights they are talking about.  Where was DC bargaining rights when they got us for 600 million on a baseball stadium with a sorry team in a low attendance area flooded with over priced and vacant developments?  What about the hundreds of millions funding various transportation projects?  Where was collective bargaining when the City just up and mandated all DMVE employees give up their Saturday or face termination?

The real issues are your benefits and the cost of maintaining those benefits.  The real money is in our retirement programs, health insurance, cost of living increases and rate of pay provisions.  That’s hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Imagine a one percent cut to your retirement contribution without having the ability to bargain.  As far as salary, DC can't in no way be compared to the Federal Pay structure.  It is misleading to place all public sector Unions in this big pot over some issue that's applicable to Wisconsin.  If the right wing is successful in this initiative this would place your benefits and bargaining rights in congress by a vote, just like Federal Sector Workers.  We are not Federal Workers and WE WANT TO MAINTAIN OUR RIGHT TO BARGAIN OVER BENEFITS.

Since you read this far I will give you a little secret.  Very few public Unions have the right to bargain over the terms of employment and all matters related to compensation.  Your Working Conditions and Compensation terms cover close 100 collective but separate provisions.  We are unique like several other state and city governments that have the right to barging over COMPENSATION.  This is what we have in common with the Wisconsin; we are a very rare few organizations that has that dual ability to negotiate.

WISCONSIN

Everyone should be aware of the Labor Struggle in Wisconsin the birth place AFSCME International where it split from AFGE.  There has been much talk about the issue of Collective Bargaining Rights for Public Employee Labor Organizations.  However, this is not what the real issue is at the root of this blatant misleading struggle as portrayed by the media.  In politics I have learned always to look deeper at any Political Campaign that comes in the form an apparent truth and as a savoir, protector and enforcer of rights.  Its very easy to be mislead by these type of campaigns because it uses as it hook something that maybe true and people can indentify with.  Almost all of us love a good drama when some great good seeks to expose the bad or evil empire. 

Proper understanding of the Collective Bargaining concept will allow anyone to see through this marketing campaign which has come across as a blatant effort to mislead the public.  Collective Bargaining has to be tied to an issue.  It does not exist unless there is an issue to be bargained.  The issue in Wisconsin is centered and based on your BENEFITS.  Your employer wants the right to determine benefits, cost of benefits to employee and/or employer.  For example, your employer decides it wants to increase your insurance premium by 50% they want do so without bargaining.  Their entire marketing campaign is based on demonizing public sector workers as over paid, lazy and expendable.  Despite their insistence on building a negative campaign against Public Sector Employees, we all know for a fact the same people hating on Unions are either gladly living off the benefits (that your employer aim too curtail) or will with open arms accept a good government union job.

Another area where more control is sought is in the area of pensions and retirement programs.  You employer wants to set the terms of retirement contributions.  A great example of this would be a notification from your employer that it will no longer contribute to your retirement account.  Your hard earned benefits and the cost associated with those benefits is the issue.  Your employer seeks to strip your right to NEGOTIATE YOUR BENEFITS.  This is of concern to us here because D.C. is one of the few jurisdictions that allow us to negotiate a compensation agreement every three years.  If the opposition is victorious that will throw up in the air many benefits we take for granted.  Stay tuned fore more post on this topic.  Next post will go into the media hype campaign against the Unions.

And never forget, for the Union haters, your very own US Constitution is based on the concept of Union.  The preamble of the US Constitution plainly states "WE THE PEOPLE, IN ORDER TO FROM A MORE PREFECT UNION".

FURLOUGHS UPDATE

No words can describe how the City has fumbled the ball on this one.  As Friday, February 25, 2011 the Department of Transportation is still not certain on how to deal with the recent furlough with repsect to how employees will be paid who worked on 2/21/11. I literally received more than enough revised updates from DDOT and DCHR on Friday.

There is also the matter of the deeply flawed notification process which may cost the City millions in anticipated savings.  We advise any employee who has a problem with notification to enter time has holiday Union pay and have mangement do its job and engage the employee.

We are looking into the prospects of filing a grievance over our right to bargain for pay on Holiday's.  However, lets be mindful that in all circumstances we will do 32 hours of furlough.  Our foucs should be the tornado called DC Budget Deficit coming in April.  At least the furloughs guranteed us that NO RIF's will happen between now and upon passing of next budget.  Going into the FY12 budget all bets are off and we are looking at a definite impact.

Point of Interest

The City Councl Meeting was attended by Tianeka Downing, Chief Shop Steward, Wanda Pinn-Mills Secretary, Thomas Bell First Vice President, Donna McCrea Second Vice President, Clifford Lowery, President, James Ivey, President AFSCME Council 20.

While we were leaving we were able to run across a few people and you hear things.  One thing for certain is DDOT's Director status is a topic.  A lot of names are being thrown around, but there is no clear decision from the administration on which direction it intend on taking with repsect to stable and permanent leadership at the Department. 

Also the Navigator "old" news is just a tip of the iceberg.  Add up all those new iphones the managers are playing with all day, across the government that is another huge area of waste (especially mobile technology).  And since were on that topic lets add up the monthly phone charges and I gurantee you hands down managers would be charged near triple the amount all the Union employees put together would pay if charged for excessive usage.

Do you have a City cost saving suggestion?  Submit your idea of cost savings to the city AS FOLLOWS;  Click on title above to post.  We ask that you please stay on topic with your suggestions.

POST YOUR SUGGESTION ON WHAT WE CAN OFFER THE CITY AS SAVINGS THAT SUBTRACTS FROM THE OVERALL IMPACT ON UNION EMPLOYEES CONSIDERING THE UPCOMING PROJECTED MULTI HUNDRED MILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT.

Furlough Update

By now we all are familiar with the mandated 32 hour furlough days for all D.C. Government Employees.  We are currently working on the issue(s) of improper notifications, proper notifications, and the selection of alternative days for those not furloughed.  We are also pursuing the issue of furlough on Holidays.

Furloughs is something that is going to happen under all circumstances simply because it was in Former Mayor  Fenty's budget for this fiscal year FY 2011 to close a 198 million dollar budget shortfall.  The furlough represents about 20 million savings from Labor's end. 

By far DDOT represents the worst case scenario with respect to administering furloughs for its employees.  It seems that the Agency for some odd reason is refusing to request an exemption for DDOT employees and allowing them to pick (and rotate among employees) furlough days throughout the designated furlough period to end in July 2010.  To date over 190 DDOT employees has been exempted from the first furlough day and they will pick an alternative day.

We are still waiting for the City to provide a detailed report from all Agencies to include a copy of notification, mail certification receipt, furlough schedule.


ANY EMPLOYEE ASKED TO WORK ON A FURLOUGH ISN'T UNDER ANY OBLIGATION TO WORK UNLESS SPECIFIED IN WRITING AT LEAST FIVE DAYS IN ADVANCE OF FURLOUGH DAY.  EMERGENCY EMPLOYEES MUST BE NOTIFIED IN ADVANCE OR PLACED IN AN ON CALL STATUS PRIOR TO BEING MANDATED TO WORK.

Meeting With Tommy Wells

Local 1975 met with DPW/DDOT/DMV/DCTC Council Committee Chairman Tommy Wells Ward 6(D) on 2/23/11.  The groundwork was laid for a continued relationship between the Union and Mr. Wells.  It was agreed to work towards a working relationship between the parties.

We talked in detail about the leadership at the Department of Transportation.  The Local offered its views and will be publishing our view on the direction of DDOT soon.  

Meeting With Councilman Tommy Wells

The City gears up for the FY 2011 budget oversight hearings.  The hearings will begin on Monday February 28, 2011.  Tune into DC channel 13 to view hearings live or through dc city council website for live computer link.

AFGE Local 1975 will be meeting with committee Chairman Tommy Wells on February 23, 2011 at 1pm to offer our views prior to DMV/DDOT/DPW/DCTC oversight hearings.

WELCOME

Welcome to the AFGE Local 1975 Blog.  This site is designed to provide a way for updated information that affect the employees in our Local.  It is our hope to generate enough traffic to eventually expand this site to accommodate a contract page, current case page, case history page, and a page for you to let us know what is going on in your Agency.  This site is free of charge and can be expanded at no additional cost depending on visitors to this page.  Please click any advertisers link to the right and below to register traffic numbers. NO PURCHASE IS NECESSARY, JUST A CLICK WILL RECORD OUR TRAFFIC.  ALSO IF YOU WANT TO SEARCH THE WEB AFTER VISITING THIS SITE, PLEASE USE THE SEARCH THE WEB BAR LOCATED ON THIS PAGE, THIS WILL ALSO RECORD OUR TRAFFIC.

As this site continue to grow we hope to attract advertisers of interest to our members.  The vision is eventually have a one stop site for our Local.