The battle over postal reform legislation now moves to the House of Representatives after the Senate yesterday passed (62-37) a bill (S. 1789) that postal union leaders called flawed. They vow to fight the House version (H.R. 2309) that is even more damaging to postal workers and the communities they serve.

Letter Carriers (NALC) President Fredric Rolando says:

The legislation embraces a downsizing strategy and fails to fully lift the onerous burden to fund decades of future retiree health benefits decades in advance. If it were to become law, it would be almost impossible to save Saturday mail delivery for the American people and their businesses. But this fight to Save America’s Postal Service is far from over.

Postal Workers (APWU) President Cliff Guffey says:

We will now take our fight to the House of Representatives where we hope to improve the bill. We call on our members, small businesses, individual customers and lawmakers to re-double our efforts to save America’s Postal Service.

In a statement, the National Postal Mail Handlers Union (a Laborers affiliate) called the House bill, “the epitome of anti-union, anti-worker legislation.”

The Senate bill preserves six-day delivery for now but gives the Postmaster General the authority to cut back to five-day delivery after two years, at the cost of 80,000 jobs, according to the NALC.

A number of amendments backed by the unions failed to get the 60 votes needed for passage. But an amendment from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) that preserves door-to-door delivery was approved. The USPS has proposed installing new group boxes, like those in apartment complexes, for entire neighborhoods or streets with residential homes. An amendment by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) to protect workers’ health benefits also was approved.

The Senate passed a non-binding “Sense of the Senate” amendment to extend the moratorium on USPS plans to close about half its mail processing plants and about 3,600 post offices, costing as many as 100,000 jobs. It is due to expire May 15. It approved an amendment placing limits on the closings of rural post offices.

The Senate bill also provides for greater community input and allows for an independent review before post offices or mail processing centers are closed. The bill establishes—for the first time—service standards, which will help protect service and jobs.

It is unclear when the House bill will come to the floor.

Over the past few years, dozens of states have passed restrictive voter ID and other voter suppression laws, mostly based on model legislation from the extremist American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). An estimated 21 million eligible voters, mostly people of color, young voters and senior citizens, could be disenfranchised this fall.

The United Steelworkers (USW) just posted three videos of people—including a former congressman—who have recently been denied the right to vote because of new state laws.

Former U.S. Rep. Lincoln Davis (see video above) from Tennessee, who was turned away from a polling place where he had cast his ballots for years, says:

With all the legislation we’ve passed in Tennessee, we have a proud heritage of being sure we make it easier, and encourage people to vote in our elections. That’s the American way. Unfortunately I think what’s happening now is there appears to be legislation which actually suppresses that right and discourages voting. That to me is something Tennessee cannot be proud of.

Click here and here to see military veterans Gil Paar and Clifford Glass tell how they were denied the right to vote, even though they possessed valid, federally issued Veterans Affairs photo IDs.

Find out what your state’s voting requirements are by clicking here, and click here to sign up for the USW’s Voter Suppression Fight Back program.

Richard Trumka, President, AFL-CIO

This week’s reports from the New York Times about Walmart’s practices in Mexico are breathtaking. TheTimes found “credible evidence that bribery played a persistent and significant role in Walmart’s rapid growth in Mexico.” The Times interviewed an executive of Walmart’s Mexican subsidiary who “bought zoning approvals and reductions in environmental impact fees.” According to the New York Times, when lawyers for Walmart discovered this activity and informed senior management, then Walmart CEO Lee Scott ordered Walmart’s internal investigative protocols revised to give the targets of internal investigations more control over those same investigations. The specific reports about conduct in Mexico were ignored, the executives involved were promoted and a senior in-house lawyer who objected subsequently left Walmart. The apparent result was that Walmart grew dramatically in Mexico at the expense of its Mexican competitors, leading to Mexico becoming Walmart’s second largest market after the United States. The executive identified in Walmart’s in-house investigator’s notes as “most responsible” was promoted to head of all U.S. Walmart stores.

Under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, it is a crime for a U.S. company to bribe an official of a foreign government — just as it is a crime to bribe an official of the United States government. It is also a crime in Mexico to bribe an official of the Mexican government. And bear in mind that theTimes story does not describe the acts of isolated individuals — it describes conduct and elaborate efforts to suppress the results of internal investigation of that conduct involving multiple top executives over a period of years. In other words, the New York Times story describes “credible evidence” of criminal activity and the willful neglect of criminal activity involving individuals at the highest levels of one of America’s largest corporations.

Nothing like this has happened since the collapse of Enron and Worldcom in 2002. And Walmart is of course a more important company than either Enron or Worldcom. Walmart is the largest private employer in the United States. And in the days since the Times story appeared, the Washington Post has reported that Walmart has participated in an aggressive lobbying campaign to weaken the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act which makes bribing foreign officials a crime.

Breathtaking, yes. Yet not a total surprise to Walmart employees in the U.S. or Mexico. Walmart workers know that Walmart is indifferent to the law — that is the lesson of a trail of employee harassment and fired union activists in the U.S. and Canada. And in Mexico, employees work under protection contracts with company-controlled “unions” that ensure the company will maintain low wages and prevent workers from organizing a legitimate union.

But this story has a number of other lessons that all Americans need to understand, lessons about even more than Walmart.

First, the Walmart episode shows the utter futility of expecting large corporations, their boards and their law firms to police themselves. Over the last 10 years, Walmart has spent many millions of dollars trying to persuade investors and policy makers that it is a responsible corporate actor — with internal checks on improper behavior. The Times report reveals all of this as so many fairy stories — behind which is a strategy for corporate growth that appears to have relied on bribery.

Second, this episode reveals the tragic folly of NAFTA. When NAFTA was passed in 1994, many in Mexico hoped NAFTA would lead to their country shedding a legacy of public corruption and becoming more like the United States in terms of rule of law. This expectation was right in that it flowed from an understanding that a free trade agreement means economic and legal integration. But it naively assumed that rule of law would win out. Instead, NAFTA has been a race to the bottom in every respect — including rule of law. U.S. firms like Walmart did not want a North America where the rule of law applied to big corporations — they wanted a legal system that was for sale both in Mexico and the United States. And so far that’s what it appears they got.

Third, who were the losers in Walmart’s Mexican business-as-bribery strategy? It appears the losers were Mexicans — Mexican retailers who could not outbid Walmart, Mexican citizens who saw their environmental laws ignored. The inevitable next question is: Are we too going to be losers in that the rule of law will be undermined in the United States when we decide Walmart is too big, too powerful, too influential to have to obey the law?

That question is now before the bodies responsible for enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act — the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department — and ultimately the courts. The federal statute book is clear — it is a crime for a U.S. corporation to bribe an official of a foreign government. The U.S. code is also clear that it is illegal to fire a worker for trying to form a union. Walmart has gotten away with violating our labor laws en masse for decades. Will they be able to similarly ignore our criminal laws and get away with it? If they do, we will know that NAFTA has succeeded not only in lowering living standards on both sides of the border, but in destroying the rule of law.

The average CEO pay of companies in the S&P 500 Index rose to $12.94 million in 2011. Overall, the average level of CEO pay in the S&P 500 Index increased 13.9 percent in 2011, following a 22.8 percent increase in CEO pay in 2010.

Visit http://www.aflcio.org/Corporate-Watch/CEO-Pay-and-the-99/ to read more and to take action.

More than 100,000 postal workers and their supporters called on their lawmakers to “Save America’s Postal Service” in demonstrations Thursday in more than 200 cities organized by the Letter Carriers (NALC).

Many actions took place outside the home offices of U.S. senators who are expected to vote next week on a bill (S. 1789) that could push tens of thousands of workers out of their jobs and cripple the mail service America relies on.

Cynically called the 21st Century Postal Service Act, the bill would end six-day mail delivery, phase out door-to-door delivery and close hundreds of local post offices, taking away thousands of jobs and crippling one of America’s vital institutions.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) announced it would shut more than half its mail processing plants and some 3,600 post offices, costing as many as 100,000 jobs.

The Save America’s Postal Service campaign is a joint effort of the NALC, Postal Workers (APWU), National Postal Mail Handlers Union (NPMHU), an affiliate of the Laborers (LIUNA), and the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association (NRLCA).

Meanwhile, the APWU is airing an ad that points out that APWU members handle more than 165 billion letters and packages a year that do not cost taxpayers a single penny. Click here.

In addition, the union is continuing its series of ads featuring postal workers and customers talking about the importance of the Postal Service to our nation—and the devastating effect closing post offices and consolidating mail processing plants would have on our communities and our economy.

IT’S TAX DAY!

You Pay Taxes…but Does Eagle?

Join Us in Calling for Corporate Tax Disclosure
and the Closure of Corporate Tax Loopholes!

When: April 17th • TIME: 4:30 p.m.
WhERE: Giant Grocery Store 1502 W. Chester Pike West Chester, PA 19382

Background: Hardworking Pennsylvanians are struggling to make ends meet in this tough economy but they still pay taxes. Meanwhile, profitable corporations like Carlisle, Pennsylvania-based Giant Food, are taking advantage of tax loopholes to shift income earned in Pennsylvania to tax-haven states like Delaware, thus avoiding to paying their fair share. This is unacceptable and has a huge cost for Pennsylvania’s economy.

Gov. Corbett says Pennsylvania doesn’t have enough money for education, critical social services, and infrastructure. But Gov. Corbett is giving large corporations like Giant a free pass. Companies that dodge their responsibilities, and Gov. Corbett who enables them, must be put on notice.

If you make money in Pennsylvania, you should pay taxes in Pennsylvania!

This is the 99% Spring and you can join with more than 100,000 activists from unions, community, faith and other progressive groups to take the economy back from the 1% and challenge corporate greed.

Starting Monday, April 9, and running through April 15, hundreds of training sessions around the country are set for activists to learn how to take back the economy. The sessions will prepare you to tell the story of what happened to our economy and who’s responsible and learn nonviolent direct action tactics. Click here to find a training session near you.

Participants in the training sessions will focus actions on Tax Day (April 17), when across the nation they’ll raise their voices to demand the 1% pay their fair share. To find local Tax Wealth not Work events, go to www.americawantstowork.org.

The 99% Spring activists will focus on at least 40 companies, including Verizon and Wells Fargo. In what’s been dubbed Shareholders’ Spring, activists will protest at shareholder meetings—including Bank of America’s annual meeting in Charlotte, N.C.

Other actions will include home occupations to prevent foreclosures and student-led protests against Sallie Mae and other entities that have profited from student loan debt.

The coalition of unions and progressive groups points to the Occupy movement and the fight for workers’ rights in Madison, Wis., that drew hundreds of thousands of ordinary people to the streets as inspiration for the 99% Spring. Jake Lake, a member of Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1111 in Washington, D.C., says:

We definitely need to have people power and grow our coalition. That’s key to our future as middle-class Americans and the 99%. There are already a lot of commonalities between the groups, which is cool.

Justin Ruben, executive director of MoveOn.org, says history is already on our side.

From the labor movement to the struggle for civil rights, we have this incredible shared history in America of everyday folks using their own power and using nonviolent, direct action to create change at the moments that our country most needed it. And we think that’s what has to happen now, again.

Click here to find a training session near you.

Did you know Jelly Belly’s, Peeps and Jelly Beans are union-made?

When you’re searching for something for an Easter basket, why not buy union-made-in-America treats.

Here’s a brief list of choices of candy products made by members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM); snack foods by members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW); or fruit and nuts from members of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW).

Fruit & Nuts

Members of the United Farm Workers (UFW) help produce various fruits and nuts with the UFW label, including products from: Coastal Berry Co., Swanton Berry, Montpelier Almonds, Brown Date Gardent Dates, Mann’s California Apples, and cirtus fruit from Sunkist, Sunworld, Airdrome and Big Jim.

*Some products made in Mexico; check the label for country of origin.

Ignoring warnings from current and former financial market regulators, law professors, institutional investors and consumer advocates, the Senate today passed (73-26) the cynically named JOBS Act and, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, “We are disappointed and angry.”

The bill will do nothing to create good jobs and stabilize the U.S. economy. Instead, it will deregulate Wall Street—voiding investor protections put in place after Enron and the 2008 financial crisis to protect the retirement savings of America’s workers from fraud and other risks.

Earlier this week, a package of  amendments that would have reduced the JOBS Act’s damage to investors, pension funds and the U.S. economy by adding more federal oversight and investor protections to the billfailed to get the 60 votes need for passing. Today one amendment to the bill that added some investor protections was approved, but, says Trumka:

It is not sufficient to counterbalance the vast harm that the JOBS Act will do to our economy.

Click here for his full statement.