Brandon Rees, acting director of the AFL-CIO Office of Investment, sends this report from today’s shareholder meeting of Mondelēz International (formerly Kraft Foods) near Chicago.

At today’s Mondelēz International’s shareholder meeting, the IUF, the international union body representing food workers worldwide, and unions representing the company’s North American employees, raised concerns about human rights abuses in the company’s overseas operations. Many Mondelēz-branded cookies and crackers are produced by union members, including Oreo, Chips Ahoy, Ritz and Triscuit.

In North America, some 3,500 Mondelēz International workers are represented by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM), which is a member of IUF.  BCTGM locals 1 and 300 represent nearly 1,000 workers in the Chicago area.

The IUF has launched a worldwide Screamdelez campaign to hold Mondelēz International accountable to international human rights standards. Ron Oswald, general secretary of the IUF, spoke directly to shareholders because Mondelēz International corporate management has so far refused to acknowledge evidence of these abuses:

“In both Tunisia and Egypt, Mondelēz has attempted to squash independent and democratic union representation by firing union leaders. It has refused to bargain in good faith with its workers. These workers are seeking the same universal human rights that employees of Mondelēz have elsewhere, including here in the United States.”

BCTGM Local 1 Secretary-Treasurer John Howard expressed solidarity with workers in Tunisia and Egypt who have faced termination for exercising their right to join a union:

“Mondelēz ought to be a leader in countries like Egypt, where people have risked their lives for democracy. In a democracy, companies respect the rights of their employees to form a union and have a voice in their workplace.”

In Egypt, workers at the Cadbury Alexandria plant were inspired by the promise of a new era of democracy to found an independent trade union last year. Management refused to recognize their union and eventually arbitrarily fired the five founding union leaders. In Tunisia—the country that launched the “Arab spring” fight for democracy and human rights—two union leaders also were terminated from SOTUBI, where Mondelēz International products are manufactured.

At the meeting, other shareholders, including Oxfam America, Domini Social Investments and As You Sow, raised concerns about sustainable business practices, including gender equality in Mondelēz International’s supply chain and protecting the environment. Outside the meeting, union members holding banners and passing out leaflets brought attention to the human rights concerns being raised inside the meeting.

It remains to be seen whether Mondelēz International will respond to the IUF’s request to dialogue.

PAWA works to address workplace injuries, illnesses and deaths. Specifically, PAWA would expand OSH Act protections to include state, county, municipal and U.S. government employees; increase whistleblower protections; and improve OSHA reporting, inspection and enforcement. These improvements will help OSHA ensure safe and healthful work environments in industries that have outpaced decades old government regulation, Murray says.

In addition, the current version of PAWA would require a minimum penalty of $50,000 for a worker’s death caused by a willful violation, and would make felony charges available for an employer’s repeated and willful violations of the OSH Act that results in a worker’s death or serious injury.

The most significant changes would be increasing the statute of limitations period from 30 days to 180 days for filing a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor and providing a private right of action to all complainants. It would further mandate that the Department of Labor (DOL) investigate all death or serious injury cases and would require that employers inform workers of their rights under the OSH Act. The bill would also give workers and their families a right to meet with DOL investigators.

“Every worker, in every industry, deserves to be confident that while they are working hard and doing their jobs, their employers are doing everything they can to protect them,” notes Murray. “That is why I am so proud to reintroduce the Protecting America’s Workers Act.”

According to Murray, PAWA:

• Covers more workers. More than 8.5 million American workers are not covered by OSHA’s protections.
• Increases penalties for those who break the law. Under current law, an employer may be charged – at most – with a misdemeanor when a willful violation of OSHA leads to a worker’s death. The bill makes felony charges available for an employer’s repeated and willful violations of OSHA that result in a worker’s death or serious injury. It also updates OSHA civil penalties and sets a minimum penalty of $50,000 for a worker’s death caused by a willful violation.
• Protects whistleblowers who report unsafe workplace conditions. OSHA whistleblower provisions have not been updated since their adoption in 1970; this bill updates those protections by incorporating successful administrative procedures.
• Enhances the public’s right to know about safety violations. The bill improves public accountability and transparency by mandating DOL to investigate all cases of death or serious incidents of injury, requiring employers to inform workers of their OSHA rights and more.
• Clarifies an employer’s duty to provide a safe worksite.  It amends the General Duty Clause to include all workers on the site and clarifies employer responsibility to provide necessary safety equipment. It also directs the DOL to revise regulations for site-controlling employers to keep a site log for all recordable injuries and illnesses among all employees on the work site.

The Protecting America’s Workers Act was sponsored by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy in previous Congresses, and has the support of the AFL-CIO. Original Senate co-sponsors of this legislation include Senators Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Frank Lautenberg ( D-N.J.), Jay Rockefeller ( D-W.Va.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Ben Cardin (D-Md.).

 In 2011, 3.8 million workers across all industries experienced work-related illnesses and injuries. The true toll is estimated to be two to three times greater, but lack of reporting in this area results in lower official figures.

 The job fatality rate had been declining steadily for many years, but in the past three years the rate has essentially been unchanged, at 3.5 fatalities per 100,000 workers. Similarly, for the past two years, there has been no change in the reported workplace injury and illness rate (3.5 per 100 workers). If we are to make progress in reducing job injuries and deaths, we will need more concerted efforts and additional resources.

 This year’s report comes on the heels of a horrific explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, which killed 15 people, injured hundreds more and caused widespread destruction, as well as the tragic collapse of a building that housed garment factories in Bangladesh, which led to the death of over six hundred workers.

 The report also examines the role of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) 43 years after its creation. It finds that OSHA remains underfunded and understaffed, and that penalties are too low to deter violations. Because of the underfunding, federal OSHA inspectors can only inspect workplaces once every 131 years on average, and state OSHA inspectors would take 76 years to inspect all workplaces.

 OSHA penalties are too low to be taken seriously, let alone provide deterrence. The average penalty is only $2,156 for a serious federal health and safety violation, and only $974 for a state violation. Even in cases involving worker fatalities, the median total penalty was a paltry $5,175 for federal OSHA and $4,200 for the OSHA state plans. By contrast, property damage valued between $300 and $10,000 in the state of Illinois is considered a Class 4 felony and can carry a prison sentence of 1 to 3 years and a fine of up to $25,000.

 Criminal penalties under OSHA are also weak. While there were 320 criminal enforcement cases initiated under federal environmental laws and 231 defendants charged in FY 2012, only 84 cases related to worker deaths have been prosecuted since 1970.

 In the face of an ongoing assault on regulations by business groups and Republicans in Congress, progress on many new important safety and health rules has stalled. The White House Office of Management and Budget has delayed needed protections, including OSHA’s draft proposed silica rule, which has been held up for more than two years.

 “In 2013, it is unacceptable that so many hardworking men and women continue to die on the job,” said AFL-CIO President and third-generation coal miner Richard Trumka. “No one should have to sacrifice his or her life or health and safety in order to earn a decent living. Yet, elected leaders, business groups and employers have failed to provide adequate health and safety protections for working families. At the same time, too many politicians and business leaders are actively working to dismantle working people’s right to collectively bargain on the job and speak out against unsafe, unjust working conditions. This is a disgrace to all those who have died. America’s workers deserve better.”

“Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect” was released after hundreds of Workers Memorial Day vigils, rallies and action were held across the country to commemorate all those workers who died and were injured on the job.

In addition to providing national and state-by-state information on workplace safety and health, this year’s report includes some new analyses and information:

• Profile of Latino Worker Fatalities
• Profile of Foreign-Born Worker Fatalities
• Profile of Workplace Homicides
• Analyses of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses to Women and Men
• Analyses of Workplace Violence Events leading to Injuries
• Review of OSHA’s Whistleblower Protection Program

The full report and individual files can be downloaded at: http://www.aflcio.org/Issues/Job-Safety/Death-on-the-Job-Report

Featured here are the dedicated and proud bakers of Local 85 (Sacramento, Calif.) in Safeway bakeries in Fairfield and Sacramento, California.

Debra Colvin decorates a special order cake at the Fairfield bakeryKristopher Brady (left) and Kent Costa (right) move bread into the proof box.

Kristopher Brady (left) and Kent Costa (right) move bread into the proof box.

Nancy Ledesma (left) and Debra Colvin (right) prepare cakes for the pastry case at the Fairfield bakeryHongxay Nhin prepares baguettes for the oven at the Sacramento bakery.

Hongxay Nhin prepares baguettes for the oven at the Sacramento bakery.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), crippled by a January court ruling against two recess appointees, has the potential to get back to full strength if the Senate confirms nominations President Barack Obama made April 9. Previous attempts to fill the NLRB have failed over congressional opposition to Board actions and Obama’s nominees.

The President’s move to nominate a full five members to the Board comes on the heels of a possible vote in the House of Representatives that would shut the Board down for all practical purposes until its members are confirmed by the Senate.

A functioning NLRB requires that all five nominees be confirmed as soon as possible. The unanimous opposition by Republican Senators to President Obama’s Board nominees since he took office has hindered an already underfunded and understaffed NLRB, the agency entrusted with enforcing the nation’s labor laws.

Contact your Senators and tell them to Confirm the President’s NLRB nominees NOW!

“MARKET GAINS PUMP CEO PAY – Corporate chiefs pull in $50 million or more” – USA Today, 3/21/13

“Last year I attended a Thanksgiving dinner at Harris Elementary School…in Decatur (IL), where I learned that 92 percent of the kids are on free or reduced-cost lunches.”  —Howard G. Buffett, leading advocate for U.S. and global hunger relief and son of  Warren Buffett, USA Today, 12/2/12

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Corporate CEO’s take home tens of millions of dollars a year and the children of working families in the heartland of America need food assistance. This jolting disparity speaks volumes about the economic and social condition of our nation. Left unchecked, the growing income gap between the wealthy and working families will result in greater and greater human hardship that will keep tearing at the social fabric of our country.

Income inequality is not simply the product of free market forces, as apologists in the corporate boardrooms would have us believe, or the result of an inferior and undeserving workforce, as right-wing, multimillionaire media personalities contend.

In fact, the enormous income inequality we are experiencing is largely derived from three developments: 30 years of federal tax policies that are severely skewed to benefit the wealthiest individuals and largest multinational corporations; low-wage economic policies; and a relentless and coordinated attack on the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively perpetrated by the hard core anti-union element of corporate America led and funded by the National Right to Work (For Less) Committee and far-right billionaire industrialists such as the Koch brothers.

While corporate profits and executive compensation have reached exorbitant levels, incomes for working families have not nearly kept pace. A low-wage economic strategy with “free trade” agreements such as NAFTA and CAFTA as its centerpiece has helped stunt wage growth as U.S. corporations have pitted workers in low-wage countries against American workers, primarily organized industrial workers. The BCTGM has experienced this situation time and time again in our industries.

At the same time, union-busting consultants have been taking full advantage of pathetically weak federal labor laws and an understaffed and underfunded National Labor Relations Board to intimidate, harass and coerce workers on behalf of their corporate clients. This has created an environment in which organizing through the Board process is more difficult than at any time since the passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935.

On top of this, these same anti-union forces have come together in states across the country spending tens of millions of dollars to enact “right-to-work for less” laws and laws limiting collective bargaining with the goal of depriving workers of the ability to improve their economic standing.

This decades-long assault on labor has led to a precipitous decline in union density and in turn a decline in the power of unions to raise wages and living standards for members and non-members alike. There is another course that offers a future with greater prosperity for more Americans.

Labor’s plan calls for discarding the failed low-wage strategy that has been pounding working families for far too long and replacing it with a high-wage strategy that: puts people back to work through massive public investment in education, new technology and infrastructure improvements; restructures the federal tax code so that the wealthiest pay their fair share, corporations are not rewarded for shipping good jobs overseas and working families are not left shouldering the tax burden; replaces “free trade” with “fair trade”; and restores workers’ ability to organize and bargain collectively by fundamentally reforming the nation’s labor laws.

The BCTGM is committed to being an active partner with the AFL-CIO and its affiliates and allies on this critical mission of creating an American economy that works for the middle class. We make this commitment for the well-being of our members and their families for generations to come.

- David B. Durkee, BCTGM Internatonal President

In response to Metropoulos & Co. CEO C. Dean Metropoulos’ statement to The Wall Street Journal that the company will not hire union workers when reopening four former Hostess Brands bakeries, BCTGM International President David B. Durkee issued the following statement on behalf of all BCTGM members:

The BCTGM is pleased to see that Hostess Brands LLC, the newly formed snack cake company created by Apollo Global Management and Metropoulos & Co, has announced that it will be reopening four Hostess bakeries to produce the iconic Hostess cake brands. Those four successful cake plants were represented by the BCTGM for many years under former Hostess ownership.

However, we are extremely disappointed to see negative statements from company executives about the union status of its future employees. Ideally, we would like to see as many of our members hired as possible. We believe their combination of experience, dedication and know-how will give the new owners the chance to get high quality snack cakes back in the marketplace.

Federal labor law governing the hiring process and the obligations for the employer and the rights of the future employees in this situation is quite definitive. We expect that the new owners will respect the statutory rights of all workers during the hiring, startup and future of this new company.

The BCTGM remains focused on ensuring that the new Hostess Brands ownership understands that the snack cakes at the center of this new company are inextricably linked to the hands that make them—and have made them for generations. We know that our workers have a critical role to play in protecting and enhancing some of America’s most valuable consumer brands. We all want the same outcome: that the brands should prosper and endure. This is what the next stage of this saga is all about—implementing a new ownership and manufacturing structure worthy of the brands themselves and America’s manufacturing prowess.

Our members provide immense value to the new ownership with decades of experience, expertise and training. Not only have our members produced these quality products for consumers for generations, they know these bakeries inside and out. Our members are eager and willing to return to these snack plants and help usher in a new period of prosperity for Hostess snack cakes. 

It is our sincere hope that the new owners will fully recognize the tremendous value of hiring back our members. If, however, they do not want us as part of the future of this company, we will continue to fight for our membership through other avenues.

In part one of this interview, Sosland focuses on Durkee’s background and the philosophy of the Union.

“The philosophy always was and remains, ‘It’s all about the members.’ That was drilled through us every single day.

“And retired BCTGM President Frank Hurt, to the very last day he was here in December, said, ‘This union’s done more for me than I could ever do for it.’ That sums up how we’re supposed to conduct ourselves,” Durkee said.

• Click here to read Part ONE: The BCTGM President, Background and Philosophy

In part two, Durkee discusses the tangled history that resulted in a complete impasse between the BCTGM and Hostess Brands management in the period leading to the liquidation of Hostess.

“We can hold our heads high because we had a very honorable dispute with Hostess.” Durkee said. “What our members wanted is what happened. I was taught many years ago in this business that when you go to bed at night you’ve got to be able to put your head down and go to sleep comfortably. And we’re able to do that here.”

• Click here to read Part TWO: Durkee sees 1990s origins to climactic Hostess clash

KALAMAZOO, MI – Daniel Wood used to carry extra baking tools in his back pack, but lately the Panera Bread lead baker dons a briefcase full of legal paperwork.

Wood, who works at the Panera Bread franchise on West Main Street, has become a leader of sorts of 17 bakers from six Panera Bread franchises in Kalamazoo, Portage, Battle Creek, Jackson and St. Joseph, who were the first in the country to unionize last year.

But a year after the bakers voted to join the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union, no one has yet been able to take a seat at a bargaining table…

Read the rest of this article at mlive.com

Hostess Brands Inc. is selling the Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Ho Hos brands, to Apollo Global Management and Metropoulos & Co. for $410 million. Metropoulos has said it hopes to have the snack cakes back in stores by this summer.

The judge also approved the sale Hostess bread lines to Flowers Foods. Flowers will obtain Nature’s Pride, Butternut, Home Pride and Merita as part of the $360 million deal.

The sale of Beefsteak, a regional bread brand, to Grupo Bimbo for $31.9 million was also approved.

In a statement to the media, BCTGM International President David B. Durkee noted:

“Throughout this arduous process, our membership has believed that the key to these brands’ survival was strong, new ownership and a sustainable business model.  Indeed, new ownership has signaled a clear intent to accelerate this process and return products back to the shelves as soon as this summer. We share the enthusiasm, energy and passions exhibited by new ownership, and believe our highly-motivated and skilled workforce will serve as indispensable partners in the seamless re-opening of factories.

“In this way, new ownership can proudly demonstrate their commitment to preserving middle-class jobs while delivering on their promise to consumers.”