The Contract Cycle Begins Again

From WTOV9.com, Steubenville, Ohio:

Utility Workers Ratify Contract With FirstEnergy

Sammis Plant Employees Avert Strike

August 10, 2007

STRATTON, Ohio -- By a vote of 202 to 75, union utility workers at the Sammis power plant in Stratton have accepted a new contract offer from FirstEnergy.

Union president Dennis Waldron told NEWS9 the results of the vote speak for themselves.
Earlier in the day, Waldron told NEWS9 the third contract offer was different from two previous offers union members had rejected.

Waldron said the third offer did not allow FirstEnergy to change the shares of the cost of employee health care.

Had union members rejected the third offer, they would have walked off the job and begun picketing at 11 Thursday night.

FirstEnergy officials told NEWS9 they had a contingency plan in place to continue making electricity at the Stratton plant.

The contract covers employees for the next three years.

Making less than Dad

CNNMoney.com reports that American men in their 30s earn less than their fathers did, "Making less than dad did".

American men in their 30s are earning less than their father's generation did, challenging a long-held belief that each generation will be better off than the one that preceded it, according to a new study published Friday.

The report, the first in an ongoing 18-month study on economic mobility in the United States, also revealed that the income growth of the median American household is declining.

Relying on Census Bureau figures, the study's authors found that after adjusting for inflation, men in their 30s in 2004 had a median income of about $35,000 per year, for a 12 percent drop compared with $40,000 per year for men in the same age group in 1974.

That stood in stark contrast to men in their 30s in 1994, who earned 5 percent more than their fathers did.

Similarly, American families, which experienced a 32 percent increase in income levels between 1964 and 1994, saw household income growth slow to 9 percent between 1974 and 2004, according to the report.

"There is clearly some story here that [U.S.] productivity gains are not trickling down to the median family," said John Morton, a co-author of the study and the managing director of economic policy initiatives at the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Electricity in Baghdad

According to a May 31, 2007 Asssociated Press article, "Iraq power shortages spur black market", black market power sources supply more than one third of Iraq's power supply.

With Baghdad's electricity network in tatters after years of corruption, neglect and attacks, a thriving black market in power has sprung up across the capital. In nearly every neighborhood, multicolored bundles of wires flow from private generators that have all but replaced the national power grid.

Power shortages in the capital have been a persistent complaint since the U.S.-led invasion more than four years ago. But Baghdad residents say the problem has never been this bad — not under crippling U.N. sanctions during Saddam Hussein's reign and not even during the opening rounds of the war in 2003

Power Industry News - Mergers

From EnergyBiz Insider:

June 1, 2007 - Future Mergers

Groupings of mammoth super-regional utilities in the United States won't happen any time soon. But analysts expect mergers in other forms to keep occurring as power and gas companies here seek new efficiency gains.

Help Working Families Strike a Balance

The National Organization of Women (NOW) urge you to support The Balancing Act, H.R. 2392, introduced in congress by Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.)

Most working families struggle to balance the competing responsibilities of work and family -- whether it's finding affordable quality child care or taking time off to care for an elderly relative, or any of the many other concerns facing today's caregivers. Recognizing the many difficulties facing caregivers, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) introduced a bill in Congress called, appropriately, The Balancing Act, H.R. 2392. This bill aims to "improve the lives of working families by providing family and medical need assistance, child care assistance, in-school and after school assistance, family care assistance, and encouraging the establishment of family-friendly workplaces."

• Read more about it...
• Encourage Your Representative to Co-Sponsor The Balancing Act
  

Democracy in the USA

How much influence do you have on who becomes the next president in the United States, and more importantly, how important will the interests and needs of ordinary Americans like you and me be to this person?

One way to answer this question is to look at the "money primary" that is currently under way in the race for the 2008 presidential election. According to an article on the WSWS web page, "US big business funnels hundreds of millions into presidential campaigns,"

Largely concealed from public view, Democratic and Republican candidates have been touring the country at a hectic pace, holding lavish fundraising dinners and meeting with wealthy individuals in state after state. Each candidate must work first and foremost to convince the richest layers in American society that their interests will be defended if he or she is elected. The interests and needs of Americans of ordinary means hardly impinge on the process.

Lobbyists, financial firms, investment banks, law firms and corporations are shelling out cash to the respective candidates at rates unprecedented for this stage in the campaign—often hedging their bets by funding multiple candidates from both parties. There have been predictions that the nominees from each party will need to raise as much as $500 million apiece by election day in November of 2008.

The selection of "serious" candidates is being done by a very small group of wealthy individuals who are determined to protect their own interests. The likelihood that a candidate who represents the working people of America will emerge from this selection process is nil. Although the public campaigns may seem to center on important issues that divide the two parties, the primary agendas of all the candidates, democrat and republican, is to protect and add to the advantages of the corporations and wealthy individuals who run and profit from them at the expense of ordinary working people.

• US big business funnels hundreds of millions into presidential campaigns
• opensecrets.org - Race for the White House 2008
  

New Jersey Family Leave bill

The New Jersey State AFL-CIO has been supporting the "Paid Family Leave legislation " which was just approved by the New Jersey Senate Budget Committee by an 8-6 vote.

According to the Star-Ledger,

Under the amended bill (S2249), workers could be required to use up two weeks of vacation before becoming eligible for up to 10 weeks of family leave. While on leave they would collect two-thirds of their salary, up to a maximum of $488 a week.

Benefits would come out of the state's temporary disability insurance fund. Workers would start paying the increased payroll tax in January 2009 and could begin collecting benefits that July, which would make the state the second in the nation to provide paid family leave. A recently approved family leave law in Washington State does not go into effect until October 2009.

Federal law already entitles workers in companies employing 50 or more people to take 12 weeks of unpaid family leave and be guaranteed their jobs back. In smaller businesses, workers who take family leave might lose their jobs, but in either case the proposed state law would pay the 10 weeks of benefits.

Please contact your New Jersey state legislators (you can use Congress.org) and let them know you want them to support this legislation that benefits working people.