by Frank James

The presidential election is getting most of the attention but there are obviously a lot of congressional elections this year too. And a battle between employers and labor unions over workplace unionizing efforts is figuring in some of them.

Democrats and a few Republicans with a lot of union members in their congressional districts support the idea that workers should be able to openly sign cards in the workplace authorizing a union to represent them.

by Jill Zuckman

Labor leaders will host a reception tonight in Chicago for Senate Democratic candidates from across the country as part of the AFL-CIO's semi-annual Executive Council meeting.

"The presidential gets a lot of attention, but in fact, the Senate races are very high on our priority list as well," said Karen Ackerman, political director for the AFL-CIO.

Union officials nationwide will mingle with Bruce Lunsford from Kentucky, Tom Allen of Maine, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Jeff Merkley from Oregon.

The council meeting will begin Tuesday with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the assistant Senate Majority Leader, and Ted Kennedy Jr., the son of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, addressing the gathering.

Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, is expected to speak to the council by phone that morning as well. Campaign manager David Plouffe and strategist David Axelrod plan to speak in person on Tuesday.

Union leaders will discuss their work defining Obama for their rank-and-file members, especially in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, where union households make up as much as 25 to 35 percent of the electorate.

The discussion, said Ackerman, will be about "how we mark out our campaign plan so they go into the voting booth with as much information as possible about who John McCain is and how President Obama will stand with workers."

The meetings will include finalizing details for the AFL-CIO's get-out-the-vote program, which begins in September, as well as its joint voter protection program with the NAACP. Benjamin Jealous, president of the NAACP, will speak to the council on Wednesday to discuss plans to protect voters against intimidation efforts.

Brochures are seen on display at a state unemployment office in Sunnyvale, Calif., July 30, 2008. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

by Mark Silva

The government's monthly jobs report is out, and guess what? It's not good.

Another 51,000 jobs were lost last month - which raises the number of jobs lost so far in 2008 to 463,000.

And the unemployment rate rose to 5.7 percent, one percentage point higher than it was a year ago, the Department of Labor reports this morning.

Manufacturing, construction, employment services, wholesale trade and the information industry are taking the hits, while employment actually is up in health care - could be a lot of whiplash cases in this economy - and in mining (oil and gas).

Both the number of unemployed (8.8 million) and the rate of unemployment (5.7 percent) rose in July. The numbers of jobless Americans have risen by 1.6 million in a year.

The picture was better for whites (unemployment at 5.1 percent) than it was for blacks (9.7 percent) and Hispanics (7.4 percent). Summer jobs are scarce too: Teenage unemployment at 20.3 percent in July.

The numbers of people working part time for economic reasons has grown by 308,000 - to 5.7 million. That has grown by 1.4 million over the past year. This includes people who say they would like to be working fulltime but their hours have been cut.

For more on the jobs picture, see the report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

by Matthew Hay Brown

Another jobs report: another opportunity for Republicans and Democrats to trade blame for the stumbling economy.

"It is highly disconcerting that the nation has again lost jobs for the sixth month in a row," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said. "These job losses, coupled with the rising cost of living and a continuing housing crisis again highlight the failed economic policies of the Bush Administration."

House Minority Leader John Boehner called the report "the clearest evidence yet of the destructive impact the Democrats' economic policies are having on American jobs."

"Since taking the Majority 18 months ago, Democrats have refused to increase production of American energy, costing our economy jobs and sending gas prices soaring," the Ohio Republican said.

"They have saddled stressed-out taxpayers with the largest tax hike in American history, putting even more pressure on families and small businesses. And they've stood flat-footed while corrupt trial lawyers have run rampant with job-killing lawsuits against American employers, driving jobs overseas and appeasing their big donors by refusing to even hold hearings on evidence of industry-wide corruption in the trial lawyer business."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sees a very different story.

"Under Democratic leadership, Congress has passed extended unemployment benefits that will help 3.5 million Americans pay their bills as they look for a job, and provide much needed stimulus to our economy," the California Democrat said.

by Jill Zuckman

Jim Wasser, an electrician from Kankakee, Ill., stands defiantly, hands on hips, wearing a bright orange International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers T-shirt with a message from the AFL-CIO to 400,000 of its union members in key swing states.

"John McCain? War hero? Absolutely," says Wasser, a Navy veteran who served in Vietnam with Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). "Voice for working families? No way."

Worried about McCain's appeal among its members and even more worried about Sen. Barack Obama's difficulty attracting white, non-college-educated working-class voters, the AFL-CIO is spending $53.4 million to reach 13 million of its members and their families. The plan is to try to peel them away from McCain by persuading them to vote their economic interest, which they say would be hurt -- not helped -- by McCain.

As soon as he seemed to be closing in on the Republican nomination for president this winter, organized labor began polling its members and holding focus groups to find out what people thought about the Arizona senator.

"They had a lot of respect for his service to the country, but were unclear about his positions on unions and unclear about his positions in general," said Karen Ackerman, political director for the AFL-CIO. "They felt he was a maverick and took positions different from the Bush administration. They had a favorable view of him."

Support of Democrats

At the same time, McCain has spoken frequently about his desire to find support among "Reagan Democrats" -- the white, blue-collar voters in industrial sections of the country who helped Ronald Reagan win the White House in 1980.

"He's probably in the best position of anybody since Reagan, just looking at his popularity, his favorable ratings," said Charles Black Jr., McCain's chief strategist, adding that McCain shares similar views on social issues and national security with many blue-collar workers.

Defense Department Press Secretary Geoff Morell. (Pentagon photo.)

by Frank James

At today's Pentagon briefing, Defense Department press secretary Geoff Morrell, was asked about the preparations his agency is making to continue operating in the event Congress doesn't pass the war-spending bill.

He answered by saying that officials within the department were working now to figure out who the "essential" employees are who would have to work even if the department shutdown:

...And so we are, as you know, I think, taking some prudent planning measures just in case that money doesn't come through. Deputy Secretary Gordon England sent a memo throughout the department earlier this week asking for all the departments to begin planning for a possible shutdown, and all the departments are due to report back to him by June 30th with a plan as to what they would do to shut things down. And he's additionally, I think, asked that we figure out who sort of the essential civilian personnel is that would have to remain working even without pay in the event of a shutdown.

Morrell's use of the word "essential" would likely send shivers through some at the Pentagon and cause painful flashbacks for federal employees who lived through the government shutdowns of 1995 and 1996.

That's because all federal workers like to be regarded as essential. Otherwise, maybe federal managers will get it in their heads to start downsizing their agencies.

by Don Frederick

Having Hillary Clinton get behind his presidential candidacy may have been the easy part for Barack Obama, as he now moves to both buttress his campaign's brainpower and unite the notoriously fractious Democratic Party.

The two tasks aren't necessarily complementary, as Obama discovered Tuesday when labor leaders and others expressed surprise and chagrin over his choice of Jason Furman as his chief economic advisor.

For the presumptive presidential nominee, Furman's selection is part of a process of tapping into heavyweights who weren't part of his initial band of loyalists but whose talents he can now call upon. Furman, 37, served a similar advisory role for the party's 2004 White House nominee, Sen. John Kerry, and has worked closely in recent years with Robert Rubin, the guiding force behind President Bill Clinton's economic agenda.

There's the rub, for the union officials and some liberal activists.

As The Times' Tom Hamburger reports, criticism of Furman includes the charge that, as a promoter of the benefits of economic globization, he overlooks the trend's negative effects.

Marco Trbovich, a top aide to the head of the Steelworkers Union, told Hamburger: "We are very much taken aback that Furman has been put at the head of this team. ... He is a very bright fellow but he is an unalloyed cheerleader for the trade policies that have been very destructive to manufacturing jobs in this country."

That's not exactly ...

... the type of reaction that is going to help Obama improve his standing with the large pockets of working-class white voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio and elsewhere that he needs to win over.

A spokesman for Obama, Hari Sevugan, stressed that it will be the candidate, not the advisor, calling the shots.

"Staff who work for Sen. Obama implement his ideas and his vision, regardless of their own," Sevugan said.

Hamburger's story on the dispute can be read here.

Don Frederick writes the Top of the Ticket blog for the Los Angeles Times

A large crane lies in this intersection on Manhattan's Upper East Side after it collapsed Friday, May 30, 2008 in New York City just before first responders arrived. (AP Photo/Seth Holladay)

by Frank James

It's still too early to know what caused today's deadly construction crane collapse in New York City, the second this year.

But it's safe to say this--the accident is likely to increase calls for the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to play a more active role in helping to prevent such accidents.

That's what happened following this year's earlier collapse of a crane in Manhattan which killed seven people.

A May 2, 2008 editorial in the Baltimore Sun noted that the deadly accident in March spurred state and local officials into action to retrain their construction inspectors. That wasn't enough, however, said the newspaper which added this:

... The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration should really take the lead in this area to ensure that training for crane operators coincides with changes in the industry. About 80 workers each year die from crane-related incidents, according to OSHA.

It just so happens that OSHA has been working on an update of federal crane safety rules which apparently haven't been revised in more than 30 years despite numerous advances in crane technology--the equipment being more hydraulic and computerized now than they were decades ago, according to this piece from this Seton Alerts for Safety newsletter.

by Steve Franklin

An official from Sen. Barack Obama's campaign today rejected the suggestion that his endorsement by the Teamsters came as a trade for his vow to lift the government's supervision of the union.

"It's completely ludicrous," said Bill Burton, chief spokesman for the Obama campaign. "His position is that the consent decree has run its course.''

To avoid a government takeover to stem rampant corruption, the union had agreed in 1989 to the federal supervision.

Teamsters spokesman Bret Caldwell said Obama had told the union's leaders in March 2007 that he thought the union "deserved to find a way to end the consent decree." The union also made its endorsement after consulting its members, he added.

by Matthew Hay Brown

A day after Congressional Hispanic Caucus members blasted Democratic leaders for failing to take on comprehensive immigration reform, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she appreciates their frustration.

"I am frustrated, too," the California Democrat told reporters today. "And as I have said since the day we took over here, we're not going to have an immigration bill unless the president takes the lead on it. There is no way to have a partisan immigration bill. And we saw what happened in the Senate on it."

An immigration reform package collapsed last year in the face of Republican objections. Democrats this year have attempted to pass individual bills focusing on highly skilled and seasonal workers, but the all-Democratic Hispanic caucus has blocked what members call piecemeal legislation.

Rep. Joe Baca of Texas, the caucus chairman, called such efforts "nothing more than a Band-Aid being used to cover up a gaping wound," in comments reported by the Associated Press.

"My party wants to do what is easy, not exactly what is right," added Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois. "The leaders in our party who are arguing for consideration of helping just a few immigrants are risking the future of all immigrants."

Rep. Raul Grijalva called fellow Democrats "spineless."

by John Riley

(It didn't take long for the newly sworn-in Gov. David Paterson of New York, succeeding a disgraced former Gov. Eliot Spitzer ensnared in the federal probe of a prostitution ring, to admit that he has had a number of affairs in his time -- including at least one with a woman on the state payroll.)

(See this report from Newsday's Spin Cycle:)

Early reports out of Albany indicate that Gov. Paterson, at his news conference, says he was actually involved with more than one woman, including someone who was on the state payroll.

"I was involved with someone on the state payroll...An employee I may have inherited. This was known to my wife."

Helpfully, however, Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno have preemptively cleared him, without waiting for actual facts,

Bruno: “I think his personal life is his personal life.”

Silver: "It’s not an uncommon occurence in people’s lives when marriages are failing. This is how they worked it out....I think it’s a media story, depending on how you play it, and that’s it, and the story should be over.”

In Albany, of course, it's pretty predictable that mere adultery would be waved off. Too many of those buns have been toasted by too many players for anyone to make a fuss, state payroll or not. The other point is to contrast it with Spitzer.

They didn't like Spitzer, he wasn't one of the boys, so when he was caught with a prostitute it was, 'We don't care about the facts, you gotta go.' But they like Paterson, so no one's really interested whether he used the taxpayers' dime to help his gal, it's just, 'We don't care about the facts, Dave's OK.'

Further developments to come.

Update: Apparently, Paterson says there was more than one woman on the state payroll, never anyone he supervised but one person whom he has now inherited in the governor's office.

by Frank James

As has been widely reported, the Air Force stunned almost everyone yesterday by deciding to award its huge, $35 billion contract for new airborne refueling tankers to a partnership formed by Northrop Grumman, the Los Angeles-based company, and EADS Inc., the European maker of Airbus airliners.

Boeing, headquartered in Chicago but with a large workforce in Washington State, was the big loser. Boeing had said that if it got the contract to build the new tanker based on its 767 airliner, it would provide enough work to keep 40,000 U.S. workers busy.

But Boeing lost. So the aircraft will be built in Europe, with the conversion work being done in Mobile, Ala. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Mobile operations would employ far fewer people than Boeing says it would have, apparently 1,200 to do the modification work.

Aerospace workers protest in Everett, Wash. after the Air Force announced it chose Northrop Grumman Corp. and Airbus parent EADS over Boeing to supply air-refueling tankers, on Friday, Feb. 29, 2008. (AP Photo/Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Dan DeLong)

This is obviously not making people in Washington State happy. The Seattle P-I puts it this way:

Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., a senior member of the House panel that oversees military spending, predicted "a firestorm of criticism about this decision." He said many lawmakers "don't want Airbus building this plane."

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., told reporters she was "frustrated, angry and in shock at this announcement."

The state's senior senator said she couldn't understand the choice of giving a massive contract to a foreign-based business, considering that the U.S. is teetering on a recession.

"You can put an American sticker on a plane and call it American, but you can't call it American made. They are clearly going to be made overseas, and that is a factor we all have to be thinking about, whether we want American planes built overseas."

Murray said Boeing will be debriefed by the Air Force later this month on why it lost out, and the company could then appeal the decision. The Government Accountability Office then has 100 days to examine the appeal, Murray said. She said it was premature to speculate on a congressional inquiry, but added, "We clearly want to be supportive of Boeing and find out the facts."

by Frank James

It's the holiday season, not necessarily the best time to be told that you're not going to get the pay raise you had hoped for.

But that's exactly what President Bush is telling federal workers as he gets very Scrooge-like, announcing a reduction in their expected pay raises, in some cases quite substantial, just in time for the holidays.

For workers who live in pricey metropolitan areas, like Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles or Chicago, the president is pretty much doing away with a cost-of-living adjustment meant to narrow the gap somewhat between what federal workers and private-sector workers earn in such areas.

In a letter the president sent congressional leaders, he essentially says federal workers must take one for the team, as it were, since giving them the raises they expected would hurt the nation's war on terror.

In a formulation Bush himself might appreciate, we must cut the bureaucrats' pay raises here, so we can fight the terrorists over there. You really can't make this stuff up.

Here's how the Associated Press reported the story:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush ordered Wednesday that federal workers living in more expensive regions of the country will get smaller pay raises than expected, citing what he called unacceptably high costs to the nation.

Current law provides that federal civilian workers will get a 2.5 percent across-the-board raise in January. That will not change under Bush's order.

By David Nitkin and Hanah Cho

The Democratic National Committee is relocating its fall meeting from Baltimore to Virginia to honor a planned union protest at the city hotel where 400 rooms had been booked.

The move is a disappointment to political activists in Maryland, who viewed the meeting -- considered the first of its kind in Batlimore -- as a reward for the state's Democratic performance in recent years. Sen. John Kerry one of his highest vote percentages in 2004, and Gov. Martin O'Malley, a former Baltimore mayor, defeated Republican incumbent Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. last year.

 But city and state party leaders said it was more important to support union members -- stalwarts of the Democratic Party -- than to convene a high-profile national event in an election year with picket lines on the sidewalk outside. The meeting was to be held at the Sheraton City Center on Fayette Street from Nov. 29-Dec. 1, but has been moved to the Sheraton Premier at Tysons Corner in Vienna, Va.

 Union employees at the Baltimore hotel have been working without a contract since last year, and are locked in struggle with owners Columbia Sussex Corp.of Kentucky, which purchased the property in 2005.

 Workers with Unite Here Local 7 are planning on setting up a picket line next week, said Quincey Gamble, executive director of the Maryland Democratic Party. "If they have the courage to step out and fight for better rights, we are going to honor that," Gamble said.

 Gamble said that many of the Democratic candidates for president were expected to attend, and the DNC confirmed that presidential contenders usually attend such meetings, in part to secure committments from national committee members who are unpledged delegates, sometimes called "super delegates," and play a key role in selecting the party's nominee.

Sen. Barack Obama greets supporters in Spartanburg, S.C., Saturday, Nov. 3, 2007. (AP Photo/Spartanburg Herald-Journal/Tim Kimzey)

by Frank James

In a speech he delivered Saturday in Spartanburg, S.C., Sen. Barack Obama repeated a vow that as president he would walk a picket line on behalf of organized labor.

“When I am President, I will end the tax giveaways to companies that ship our jobs overseas, and I will put the money in the pockets of working Americans, and seniors, and homeowners who deserve a break. I won’t wait ten years to raise the minimum wage – I’ll raise it to keep pace every single year. And if American workers are being denied their right to organize when I’m in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes and I will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States.”

Obama made a similar pledge during the summer in Iowa before a labor audience. John Edwards, another presidential candidate, has said essentially the same thing.

These extraordinary promises from Obama and Edwards haven’t received the amount of attention in the media they deserve but that doesn’t make them any less significant.

The notion of a president walking a picket line is really nothing short of mind-boggling. Let us count the ways.

For one, it would represent a president placing the entire weight of his executive-branch authority on one side of the labor-management scale.

Richard Stickler. Mine Safety
and Health Administration photo.

Andrew Zajac

Richard Stickler, the assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health, and the Bush Administration's man on the scene at the Crandall Canyon mine collapse in Utah, was a controversial choice for the nation's top mine safety post.

Stickler couldn't win confirmation in the Republican-controlled Senate, so President Bush last year used a recess appointment to install him as head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

During periodic updates on progress, or lack of it, in reaching six trapped miners, Stickler frequently has been overshadowed by the bellowing of mine co-owner Robert E. Murray. His failure to rein in Murray and assert a take-charge presence perhaps is indicative of weaknesses cited by his critics.

Below are two takes on Stickler.

The first is from Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy and the second is from Stickler's boss, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.

by John McCormick

The Associated Press is reporting that Democratic presidential candidates will appear at Chicago's Soldier Field next month for an AFL-CIO presidential forum.

The nation's largest labor federation originally planned to hold its forum at the McCormick Place convention center, but more than 12,000 union members wanted to attend, so the Aug. 7 event is being moved outside to Soldier Field to ensure there is enough room.

The AFL-CIO represents about 10 million workers in more than 50 unions. Its executive council will decide after the debate whether to start its endorsement process during the Democratic presidential primaries or wait until later.

The AFL-CIO's web site is still listing McCormick Place as the location of the forum, but this link has the details.

Posted by William Neikirk at 9:45 a.m. CDT

The U.S. economy slowed to a virtual crawl in the first quarter, rising at an annual rate of only 1.3 percent, the government said today.

The housing correction was responsible for much of the slowdown, and that is likely to continue for many months into the future.

It was the slowest quarterly growth in four years. In the fourth quarter of last year, the economy rose at a 2.5 percent annual rate.

Posted by David Lightman at 12:52 pm CDT

Connecticut is one of the key states targeted by organized labor in this fall's election. It's got 3 sizzling races where Democrats are trying to topple incumbent Republicans, or one-fifth of the 15 seats Democrats need to retake control of the House. Here's my story from today's Hartford Courant on organized labor's plans.

$40 Million Plan Targets Races In Connecticut And 20 Other States

AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney and political director Karen Ackerman methodically detailed how unions would blitz the targeted states with phone calls, volunteer recruitment, e-mail pleas and special efforts to talk to union family members about candidates.

Posted by William Neikirk at 6 a.m. CDT

One of the biggest stories I ever covered began on Aug. 15, 1971, exactly 35 years ago, on a quiet Sunday in Washington. After spending the weekend at Camp David, Md., with his top advisers, President Nixon announced he was freezing all wages and prices for 90 days, with wage-price controls to follow.

It was a decision that I--and many others--would rank as one of the worst ever made by a sitting president. But we didn't know that at the time. After they got over the shock, most people thought it was just the right move. Nixon and members of his administration assured the public it would work. The press wasn't as skeptical as it should have been. Sound familiar?

Good morning.

Here are a few Washington events of note for Monday, August 7, as compiled by the Associated Press.

9 a.m. NURSING HOMES-REPORT — Consumer Reports holds news conference on its Nursing Home Quality Monitor, a national database of facilities to choose -- or avoid.
Location: Kaiser Family Foundation, 1330 G St. NW


1 p.m. WORKING WOMEN SURVEY — AFL-CIO teleconference to release preliminary results of biannual ``Ask a Working Woman’’ survey of 20,000 women. Participants include Linda Chavez-Thompson, exec-vice president of AFL-CIO, and Meagan Jeronimo, a working mother from Houston.

Posted by Cam Simpson at 12:40 pm CDT

We can't find any evidence in the official Department of Defense bio for Thomas Gimble, the principal deputy in the DoD's office of inspector general, that he was once a track star or a Golden Gloves champ. But Gimble made an impressive dash from a hearing room in the Rayburn House Office Building Wednesday after
successfully ducking a question from your trusty scribe.

As we reported in the Tribune today, Gimble is the author of a previously undisclosed memo, dated April 14, regarding some of the specific findings in the Tribune's award-winning series, "Pipeline to Peril."