AMR, parent of American Airlines and American Eagle, filed for bankruptcy last week even though the company is sitting on $4.1 billion in cash and is able to pay its bills. AMR’s ads in USA Today and the poor excuse for news coverage on network television last Tuesday would lead an average person to conclude that this bankruptcy is no big deal because the planes will still fly, passengers won’t lose frequent flyer miles and for all intents and purposes, business will run as usual.

Unfortunately, bankruptcies are a big deal. The federal bankruptcy courts are being used to bail out a failed management strategy for a company with lots of money in the bank. The public and members of Congress should be up in arms.

Furthermore, if we are to learn anything from earlier airline bankruptcies, the Pension Benefits Guarantee Corporation (PGC) will likely be loaded down with billions of dollars in employee pensions to cover, thousands of workers will lose their jobs and thousands of others will be affected as a result of broken contracts. Passengers will fly on planes that are less safe. Shareholders, including many seniors and charitable institutions, will lose their investments. Municipalities will lose their tax base. Meanwhile, the executives who concocted this scheme will self-deal themselves a king’s ransom in newly issued shares.

This failure by both business and government makes you want to go out and “occupy” something.

Tens of thousands of TWU members who maintain, repair and service planes that carry millions of passengers on American Airlines and American Eagle deserve better from this company and the government. Our members are part of the 99 percent, working every day to take care of their families, and pay their bills and taxes.

We have been trying to do our jobs and more. In 2003, TWU members at American and American Eagle agreed to concessions of more than a billion dollars. We boosted productivity and brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in outside work to help AMR’s bottom line.

Why did we do this? Air travel -- and airline profits -- fell dramatically after 9-11, and many carriers were forced into bankruptcy. TWU members decided it was better to control their own destiny. With labor costs cut dramatically outside of bankruptcy court, we reasoned, management would take the necessary steps to put the business on a sustainable path.

TWU members lived up to their part of the bargain. But management blew it. They didn’t modernize their fleet, missed merger opportunities, got stuck with higher fuel costs, lost money year after year – and rewarded themselves with hundreds of millions in executive bonuses.

Steven Gandel, writing the “Curious Capitalist” column at Time.com, asks: “Where was the cash crisis that pushed the company over the edge?” The answer: “It doesn’t appear there was any... Other airlines have used bankruptcy as a way to force its workers to take lower paychecks and benefits. American Airlines wants the ability to do that too.”

Members of our union will fight hard to make sure that front line workers don’t pay an unfair price for management’s failings.

Until now, American Airlines has done more maintenance in-house and in the United States than any other major US-based airline. Other airline bankruptcies have led companies to send aircraft overhaul and other repair work to poorly regulated, largely unsecured maintenance facilities offshore.

The dirty little secret of the U.S. airline industry is that most passengers – subject to rigorous security screenings before they get on a plane – have no idea where the aircrafts on which they fly are maintained or under what conditions. The Federal Aviation Administration is supposed to inspect overseas repair facilities, but they don’t have enough staff to do the job properly. This problem existed before the FAA became Congress’ ping-pong table, with back and forth partisan matches, 22 temporary funding extensions, one embarrassing shutdown and no agreement in sight for a permanent budget for this critical safety agency.

What kind of risks will passengers face if American sends its maintenance overseas?

• In 2003, according to the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Transportation, a member of Al Qaeda was discovered working at a maintenance facility in Singapore.

• In 2009, according to an investigation by National Public Radio, workers at U.S. Airways discovered crossed wires in the cockpit of an aircraft about to take off. The crossed wires could have given pilots the wrong signal about whether or not their engines were actually working.

• In Beijing, where a company called AMECO repairs planes for United, five licensed mechanics supervise 2,500 unlicensed workers – a ratio of 500 to one.

The outsourcing of aircraft maintenance is a disaster waiting to happen – and we’re determined that it won’t happen at American or American Eagle.

Bankruptcy should not be an excuse to lower standards for airline workers or passengers. The AMR bankruptcy is what The New York Times has rightfully termed “a moral failing.” This bankruptcy is a very big deal. This bankruptcy is a very bad deal for an airline that likes to be called “American.”

Off-year elections are often sleepy affairs with low turnout and not much voter enthusiasm.

Nobody’s sleeping in Ohio in 2011. After an intense campaign, the state’s eight million registered voters will have a chance to vote on Issue Two. A “yes” vote supports SB 5, Gov. John Kasich’s controversial ban on collective bargaining for public employees. But if a majority votes “no,” the law will be repealed.

SB 5 was pushed through a Republican-dominated legislature in March of 2010, despite energetic protests at the state capitol by tens of thousands of workers and citizens. For every protestor – including many of our TWU members – who came to Columbus, there are thousands more who agree that restricting basic workplace rights for public employees is unfair and has little to do with Ohio’s budget problems.

According to the Washington Post/Pew Research Center Poll, “Occupy Wall Street” protests are more popular than the Tea Party movement. People just aren’t buying what the wealthy elite and their political cronies are selling.

Police officers, firefighters, teachers, transit workers and other public employees didn’t cause the financial meltdown of 2008 and 2009 which has crippled state and local budgets and drained billions from pension and retirement funds. Reducing pay and benefits for the middle class, whether in the public or private sector, won’t create a single job or solve America’s unemployment crisis. In fact, taking money out of workers’ paychecks will have the opposite effect.

By every indication, voters in Ohio are not convinced that bashing public workers will help ordinary families in tough times. In July, We Are Ohio, a non-partisan civic coalition, turned in 1.3 million signatures in favor of the repeal of SB 5, six times the number needed to qualify for the ballot.

In the face of this massive citizen mobilization and public opinion polls, which show a majority favoring repeal, Kasich belatedly offered to “negotiate” the terms of the bill.

The idea was laughable. First, the GOP-controlled House and Senate rejected any meaningful attempt to debate the bill when it was first rushed through the legislature. Second, the very purpose of the bill is to eliminate the right of public workers to negotiate terms and conditions of employment.

Kasich claims the bill doesn’t ban collective bargaining but merely “reforms” it. Some reform. Under the terms of SB 5, public employees can no longer bargain over health care, pension contributions, vacation, sick time or privatization of public services. What’s left? We can negotiate over pay, I suppose. Except, as the New York Times reports, if labor and management disagree on contract provisions, the terms of SB 5 let “management decide which side’s final offer would prevail.”

As Ohio Republican State Senator Bill Seitz points out, it’s like “going to divorce court and finding out your wife’s father is the judge.”

Supporters of SB 5 seem to be afraid of a fair fight. We Are Ohio, backed by TWU and other labor unions, released a list of campaign donors and the amounts we’ve contributed. But Building a Better Ohio, the Kasich-backed group supporting SB 5, has used a loophole in the state’s campaign finance law to avoid full disclosure.

Building a Better Ohio also released a blatantly dishonest campaign ad, twisting the words of an Ohio grandmother who opposed SB 5 to make it appear that she supports the bill. Dozens of TV stations refused to run the spot, which violates basic principles of truth in advertising.

In Ohio and elsewhere, ordinary workers and citizens are getting tired of being told that they’re to blame for the actions of a privileged few, who nearly wrecked our economy through greedy and corrupt trading practices. That’s why the Occupy Wall Street movement is resonating throughout the country -- and that’s why politicians who attack the middle class will have a lot of explaining to do in 2012.

It all started with an email.

Back in July, the staff of AdBusters, a small Vancouver-based magazine, proposed an idea: A demonstration on Wall Street to show disgust with economic inequality, lack of action on jobs and growing corporate control over the levers of our democracy.

Talk about an idea whose time has come! Thousands answered the call to Occupy Wall Street, and the movement has now spread to more than 1,000 cities across the country.

Members of Transport Workers Union Local 100, representing New York transit workers, were early supporters. On October 5th, the International Executive Council of TWU voted to endorse the protests, calling on local union members beyond New York to join the effort.

Union members are right at home in this grass-roots effort. Every day, we sit across the table from employers, fighting for decent jobs, good wages, and secure health care and pensions for ordinary working people.

Our work has gotten harder in recent years. Wealthy corporations believe they can ignore our nation’s labor laws, restrict our rights in the workplace and pay little or no penalty. The same is true when it comes to environmental laws, consumer safety or tax regulations. It’s obvious the system is broken when successful companies like General Electric, Bank of America, and Chevron can earn billions and pay not a penny in taxes. Other companies like American Airlines award their executives outrageous bonuses while freezing worker wages.

It’s refreshing to see a growing citizen’s movement, which – unlike the Tea Party and its radical anti-government rhetoric – is focused on the real problem: The financial elites whose shady and corrupt trading and business practices nearly wrecked the global economy.

Wall Street firms got government bailouts in 2008 and 2009 to prevent an overall collapse of credit and lending, but they’ve given us precious little in return. The same executives who approved subprime loans and other questionable financial instruments that caused the mess in the first place got to keep their jobs and their obscene bonuses. The rest of us got the shaft: Foreclosure on our homes, a catastrophic drop in our savings and retirement accounts, and cutbacks in public services like transportation and education that are the life blood of the middle class.

You don’t have to be in the middle class, however, to realize it’s time for our country to change direction.

• Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has called for higher taxes on the wealthy to help balance our budget and pay for essential services.

• Google CEO Eric Schmidt told ABC News that it’s time for public investment “in income and growth producing things like highways and bridges and schools, new opportunities for the private sector to go then build businesses."

• Consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren, running for the Senate in Massachusetts, became in Internet sensation when she told supporters “nobody gets rich on their own,” pointing out the role that public infrastructure, public education and other public services play in creating and protecting private sector wealth.

Some Republicans in Congress, sadly, have not gotten the message. In a truly disgraceful move, they recently used a filibuster to prevent President Obama’s American Jobs Act from coming to the floor for a vote.

It’s an odd spectacle: An unlikely army of street demonstrators in cities across the country are talking about the issues that really matter -- while the U.S. Senate refuses to debate a jobs bill in the middle of a recession.

An unlikely trio, the president of the AFL-CIO, the president of the Chamber of Commerce and the President of the United States of America last month stood in the White House Rose Garden and called for the reauthorization of the Surface Transportation Act. President Obama again drew the link between transportation and jobs this past Thursday in his speech before a joint session of Congress.

The big question is, will Congress join the trio and a growing chorus across the country who believe that economic growth and employment are dependent on the transportation bill being reauthorized by the September 30th deadline, or will they instead do to ground transportation what they did to the last FAA extension and cause government dollars to stop flowing and thousands to be thrown out of work?

Sadly, Rep. John Mica, who chairs the House’s Transportation Committee, seems committed to clashing with Democrats over the 18.4 cents collected in gas taxes on every gallon of gas -- Mica opposes any increase on a tax that has not been increased since 1993. The gas tax also expires on the last day of the month. Will Mica create a highway crash the same way he crashed the FAA?

If it wasn’t so tragic it would be comical. I’ve literally heard Mica on the floor of the House say, “Where are the jobs?” He should know. Many of these jobs are private sector positions in construction and road paving. Some of the gas tax funds also are directed to public transportation jobs. Allowing more of those transit funds to go toward operating costs could further boost employment. Tens of thousands of transit operators and mechanics, along with construction workers, employees of asphalt plants and surveyors eat in restaurants, buy clothes, appliances and cars. Federal transportation dollars travel throughout the economy.

“Historically, studies have shown that for every dollar spent on investments in transportation and infrastructure the gross domestic product grows by $1.59,” according to Rep. Lou Barletta, a Republican member of the House from Scranton, Pennsylvania, in remarks made on the House floor.

In the Senate, Barbara Boxer, Chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, has proposed a two-year compromise plan that would keep existing funding levels adjusted for inflation. The Boxer plan calls for $109 billion over two-years that would maintain existing funding levels plus $12 billion to cover the gap that the gas taxes leave after inflation.

In stark contrast, Mica has proposed a $230-billion, six-year Surface Transportation Bill that would freeze government spending at less than the $34 billion a year that it now receives from existing FY2011 levels. This would result in the LOSS of 141,000 transit jobs and 360,000 highway jobs.

Congress must act. We need jobs. We need to keep public transit running and to keep the roads and bridges from falling apart.

If Congress does not reauthorize the Surface Transportation Act this month and if they don’t do anything to update the law by allowing a higher percentage of funds to be directed toward public transit operating costs or to adjust the gas tax to account for inflation -- they should never say the word “jobs” again.

It’s put up or shut up time.

While the nation and the news media have largely been focused on the debt talks, and everyone hopes for a soft landing, the GOP has demonstrated how far they’re willing to go if their demands are not met: They’ve crashed the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

When its authority to collect revenue from airport taxes expired at midnight on July 22, the FAA laid off more than 3,500 federal workers. Air traffic controllers are still on the job, but the agency has stopped work on vital airport construction projects, including installation of new runway lights and construction of new control towers. More than 86,000 construction workers are going without paychecks, but taxpayers won’t save any money. The costs of delay – cancelled contracts, equipment rental -- will add to the final bill (and to the federal deficit).

How did this happen? Republicans object to a rule issued earlier this year by the National Mediation Board (NMB), which supervises labor relations in the transportation sector. Workers at railways and airlines can now vote to unionize by a simple majority; previously, any worker who didn’t return a ballot was counted as a “no” vote. House Transportation Chair John Mica (R-FL) and GOP members of his committee – prodded by Delta Airlines -- are insisting the rule be overturned, or they won’t re-authorize funding for the FAA.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who heads the Transportation Committee in the Senate, doesn’t agree. Neither does President Obama, who has stated he will veto any bill that overrules the NMB’s even-handed reforms.

If Mica and House Republicans can’t have their way, they won’t appropriate a penny for the FAA. Even if it means taking revenue away from hundreds of construction companies, throwing thousands of people out of work, and stalling vital efforts to modernize our airports.

Sound familiar? It’s the same flight path Republicans in Congress are taking to raise the nation’s debt ceiling – a routine measure that passed 18 times during the Reagan Administration and seven times during the Clinton Administration. It’s hard to remember now, but there was a time—dating back to Alexander Hamilton-- when honoring our nation’s debts was viewed as a solemn responsibility, regardless of party or partisan advantage. There was also a time – in 2001 – when the U.S. government had a $128 billion budget surplus.

Since then, the Republican program of irresponsible tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans has drained the U.S. Treasury. Now, Boehner, Cantor and McConnell are insisting on more of the same. They demand drastic cuts to childhood nutrition programs, education, Social Security and Medicare. They refuse to raise a penny more in revenue from taxes on corporate jets, closing loopholes for oil companies, or by letting the Bush tax cuts for millionaires expire – they refuse to even tax hedge fund managers at the same rate as other millionaires. If they’re demands are not met, they are willing to risk chaos in global financial markets, throw millions more people out of work, and damage the long-term credit rating of the United States.

As of this writing, it’s not clear how the debt crisis – or the standoff over FAA funding– will be resolved.

The hard work of compromise appears to be a lost art in Washington – but it’s the work that needs to be done to keep people employed, our planes flying, our airports safe, and our fiscal house in order. On final approach you don’t want to behave erratically– you need steady hands at the controls.

A question for GOP governors: How’s that “bash-the-workers” thing working out for you?

Not so well, according to public opinion polls. Republican governors leading the charge to cut health care, gut pensions, and cancel bargaining rights for public employees have seen their approval ratings tank.

Rick Scott, who cut $8 billion from Florida’s education budget and is attacking workplace rights for classroom teachers, has a rock-bottom 29 percent approval rating.

Ohio’s John Kasich, prime mover of a law banning the right to strike and preventing workers from bargaining on health care, now has a 33 percent approval rating. He’s tied with Michigan’s Rick Snyder, who pushed a bill allowing “emergency managers” to rip up contracts – including labor agreements -- in any city or school district experiencing “financial stress.”

The mother of all union-bashers, Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, isn’t doing much better. Months after a controversial anti-worker bill led to weeks of protests in the state capitol and a series of court challenges, Walker has a 43 percent approval rating. Surveys show that if an election were held today, he’d lose by a ten-point margin. Some honeymoon period –huh?

What went wrong for the Republicans? For one thing, they had power to enact their programs. Scott, Kasich, Snyder and Walker lead states where the GOP controls the governorship and both branches of the state legislature. They’ve slashed state budgets, delivered fat tax cuts to corporations, and handcuffed the ability of workers to bargain for wages and benefits.

CNN political analyst William Schneider looked at eight battleground states where Republicans control all three branches of government. Approval ratings for GOP governors have dropped sharply in seven of them. (The eighth, Indiana’s Mitch Daniels, isn’t necessarily doing better; it’s just that no polling data is available.)

Some Democrats, by the way, have also joined the bandwagon, backing anti-worker legislation in New Jersey, Massachusetts and elsewhere. Whichever party they are from, politicians have a tough sell convincing voters that transit workers, teachers or firefighters are to blame for the financial problems facing state and local governments.

We’ll soon know more about just how frustrated voters are. Recall elections are scheduled this month and next in Wisconsin; early surveys suggest that support for Walker’s attack on public workers could cost Republicans control of the State Senate.

In Ohio, a grass-roots coalition is petitioning to repeal Kasich’s controversial anti-worker legislation. Organizers collected nearly 1.3 million signatures, almost six times the number needed to put repeal on the ballot. TWU members who circulated petitions in Akron, Cleveland and Columbus said they could barely keep up with the flood of signatures from friends, neighbors and co-workers. Winning Connections, a telemarketing firm with a long track record of political advocacy, reports a more enthusiastic response for the repeal effort – and higher rates of volunteer sign-up – than for any campaign they’ve ever worked on.

Bashing workers is unfair. It’s bad for business, because it takes money away from consumers who drive the U.S. economy, and it’s bad politics. Attacking the middle class is always a losing strategy. As the gap in incomes widen between working families and the very rich, the enthusiasm gap also will widen for the hare-brained idea of punishing the middle class while further enriching the wealthy during an economic downturn.

In the airline industry, we like to fix our problems on the ground. Tow trucks can’t help at 30,000 feet.

Mechanics and other ground workers employed at U.S. airlines take great pride in making the U.S. air transportation system the safest and most reliable in the world. Airline workers have a very personal stake in doing things right -- our families fly on the planes we fix.

But do the executives who run our airlines share the same concerns about safety? What about members of Congress?

Earlier this spring, the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) released a report, “Aircraft Maintenance in America,” to members of Congress and the media. Among its key findings:

• As much of 40% of airline maintenance at seven major carriers is now outsourced to contract operations in the United States and overseas – up from just 26% in 1999.


• Aircraft flown by major U.S.-based carriers are now being maintained and repaired in overseas facilities, including locations in China, El Salvador, Singapore, Mexico, the Philippines and Chile.


• The FAA has authority to inspect these overseas facilities – but doesn’t have enough people to do the job.


• Many facilities outside the U.S. have not been inspected for five years or more.


• Workers in overseas facilities are not subject to routine drug and alcohol tests or background screening.


• At least one member of Al Qaeda was found working at a maintenance facility used by U.S. airlines in 2003. The faulty procedures that allowed this lapse in security have not been addressed.

Hundreds of millions of airline passengers have no way of knowing when or where the aircraft on which they are flying was maintained or repaired, or under what conditions. This lack of transparency undermines the trust that is essential to commercial aviation.

An alarming number of U.S. carriers are taking advantage of legal loopholes to outsource overhauls and other maintenance functions to thinly regulated facilities overseas. Between 2004 and 2009 the number of overseas facilities performing work on U.S. aircraft reached 731, more than double its 2004 level. As a result, we know less than we should about who is fixing our planes. Making matters worse, the proposed FAA reauthorization does next to nothing to address the loopholes that led to this shift to overseas maintenance.

Moreover, the overall figures for outsourced maintenance would be even higher if not for the large share of repair work still done in-house at American Airlines. At American almost all maintenance is performed by U.S.-based mechanics employed by the airline.

Operations at American, however, run counter to industry trends. The surge towards outsourcing began following the nightmare of 9-11, when major air carriers were desperate to save costs. It has continued, however, for a different reason: Airline companies want to avoid, at any price, the rigors of inspection by the FAA.

William McGhee, who served as the consumer advocate on the Department of Transportation’s Future of Aviation Advisory Committee last year, recently wrote in a New York Times guest editorial, “… safety transcends party politics. White-knuckle moments onboard stricken commercial airlines shed light on the dangers of unsupervised maintenance — particularly if that light is shining through a gaping hole in the fuselage of a Boeing 737.”

Airline executives have demonstrated that they are unwilling to fix this problem. It is imperative for Congress to fix it for them and for all of us. We can’t afford to wait for a flying tow truck.

The approaching New Year provides a moment to reflect on the past year and what lies ahead. In 2010 our union had many victories to celebrate, from securing leading contracts and organizing new workers to mobilizing for national movements. We have banded together to fight for justice at our workplaces and in our communities.

Local 721, representing dealers at Wynn Casino in Las Vegas, secured a historic first contract for dealers in Las Vegas while the railroad division negotiated an unprecedented contract with Amtrak. We organized flight attendants at Allegiant Air, workers at a train assembly plant in Philadelphia and have ongoing campaigns at several airlines.

Along with our union allies at the ATU and Jesse Jackson, we led the nation-wide Save Our Ride campaign to fight transit cuts and held rallies across the nation. We also joined with thousands of union members and civil rights and community activists for the massive One Nation rally in Washington for good jobs, education and healthcare.

Despite setbacks for working people in the 2010 elections, we expanded our political clout through the active state conferences and our growing network of political activists who knocked on doors and made thousands of calls.

More than ever we will need this political muscle to hold politicians accountable to working people in 2011 and to push for issues important to us, such as jobs, transit funding and protecting social security. Our thousands of letters to Congress helped pressure them into extending unemployment insurance- lets be ready for the next fight. If you haven’t already done so, please take the time to sign-up for e-activist alerts and to stay up to date on legislation and to make your voice heard in 2011 and beyond!

As we look forward to 2011 there are challenges ahead, but by working together and standing strong we can preserve our rights. While our Transit agencies across the country are living under the threat of service and job cuts, our Brothers and Sisters at American Airlines are still without a contract, but will continue to fight for an equitable agreement that recognizes our sacrifices. There will be struggles ahead, but united we stand, divided we fall.

The holidays are an occasion to give back to others and spread generosity. Many of our Locals donate to those in need and take time to give back to the community, the ATD Veterans Committee recently led an effort to donate gear to American troops which inspired participation across all of our divisions and beyond the TWU. Truly, an example of what we can achieve when we come together as one! If you haven’t already done so, click to watch the video. I am proud of our success this year and excited about what’s to come in 2011.

Make sure your contact information is up to date so that we can continue to move forward a United, Strong, Invincible TWU. You are the TWU and together, WE MOVE AMERICA!

I want to wish you and your families a joyful and safe holiday season from all of us at the TWU and I look forward to working with all of you as we continue to make our union stronger!

On October 2 in Washington D.C., the labor movement and its allies
showed their determination to get our nation back on track. Called “One Nation, Marching for One Dream,” this 10-2-10 mobilization served notice that we’re prepared to use this election and the ones going forward to create a better economic environment for working people and all citizens. I’m proud that TWU members played a major role in this demonstration and will do so in the election next month.

Although it came a month after the Labor Day weekend, 10-2-10 was really Labor’s big day this year. For some time now, the official holiday has come to mean picnics, days at the beach and other end-of-summer outings. Working people, who the day was meant to honor, are pretty much forgotten.

As long as working families were doing okay, it was less of an offense. But as working men and women continue to be forgotten the other 364 days of the year, it’s fair to ask if a day honoring those who helped build our nation and economy isn’t something of a sham.

As our battered economy slowly recovers from the years of financial shenanigans, once again workers are being left behind. Those of us with long memories know that a so-called “jobless recovery” has become the norm, not an unusual event.

It can’t really be any other way as long as employers continue to shed jobs at every opportunity, sending them overseas to low-wage havens and making fewer workers do more – all in the name of greater productivity and international competitiveness.

Wall Street salutes these leaner and meaner companies with higher stock prices, then nosedives when high unemployment rates raise the question of who will buy the goods and services that keep the economy moving.

A similar dynamic afflicts our public sector workers when cash-strapped state and local governments cut back as tax revenues decline. Just as workers are consumers, they are also taxpayers with less and less ability to pay for needed public services.

Whether in the public or private sector, it’s a vicious downward cycle that our politicians are unable, or unwilling, to stop.

In a recent op-ed piece in the New York Times, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich noted that this trend has been going on for decades as workers get a smaller and smaller share of the economic pie. The harmful effects were partially offset by the unprecedented entry of women into the labor force (i.e. two wage earner households) and people working more hours. When American families couldn’t squeeze any more income out of these two coping mechanisms, they borrowed more money on their homes – until the debt bubble burst.

Reich, an economist, says that even if everyone was employed, the middle class still won’t have enough money to buy what the economy is capable of producing. As proof of this growing income inequality, he points to a study showing that in the late 1970s the richest 1% of American families had 9% of the total income. By 2007, the top 1% took in 23.5% of total income.

Dr. Reich’s prescription for this is a national policy that gives workers a bigger share of the pie. I couldn’t agree more and it’s a point to reflect on as we go to our polling places on Election Day.

Workers have always needed to fight for a better life. When Labor Day was first observed more than 125 years ago, workers were also getting the short end of the stick. Things only got better when they took concerted action through their unions and at the ballot box. That’s why I strongly urge you to vote for labor-friendly candidates on November 2. And, continue to be involved in politics year-‘round.

As AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka puts it: “The elections this year come down to a choice between leaders who will stand with working people or those whose right-wing agenda will choke off economic recovery and put corporations back in the driver’s seat.”

That’s the real Labor Day message.

I always say that we must evolve, or we will dissolve. In reference to climate change, this saying resonates particularly strong. After careful consideration of ample research on climate change and its effect on our current and future environment and our members lives and jobs, and consultation with TWU leaders, We sent a letter to all United States affiliates of the International Transport Federation (ITF) on July 26, 2010 in support of the work of the ITF Climate Change Working Group. The letter states that the TWU is a proud member of more than 60 ITF affiliates from around the world that supports Resolution 1 submitted to the 42nd Congress of the ITF.

In our letter we wrote that to protect our members and the planet we share, we must have the courage and vision to lead. Organized labor must join with other social movements in seizing the opportunity to make the changes climate science demands of our species. In short, we must evolve or dissolve.

We emphasized several major points in order to explain the TWU's support of Resolution 1. Read the summary below, or click here to download the complete letter sent to the ITF. Click here for Appendix B and here for Appendix A of the letter.

Summary of TWU's position on climate change:

1. Organized labor's survival requires, among other things, that we change as the world and the nature and the very definition of work change.
2. We must consider how we can address jobs affected by climate and technological changes.
3. The just demand for and inevitability of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission reduction must be approached as an opportunity to re-tool and re-engineer the economy and secure just futures for our members and organized labor.
4. We must begin to act now to save our planet and our movement. Because union members moving coal and oil are unlikely to be affected for many years to come, we have the opportunity to carry out our duty to protect jobs by engineering robust "just transition" policies that maintain income and benefits for the workers who will be transitioning to safer and more sustainable work.
5. Cutting emissions by reducing the level of unsustainable and low-wage transport will lead to more unionized jobs in freight and passenger rail, also in public mass transit, even assuming there is a reduction in the tonnage of coal transported by rail.
6. As organized labor confronts a near fatal decline in labor market density and in popularity among communities of working people, this dictates a need to preserve and build partnerships with other social movements. The movement to protect the environment is probably the greatest emerging popular front, well aligned with the interests of transport.
7. The massive public investments in public transport required to address both climate change and people's need for accessible and affordable transport will only occur if we push our countries and our movement to adopt an aggressive and science-based approach to emission reductions.
8. Climate change is a reality we must face and plan for. To do otherwise is to acquiesce in our future destruction to preserve our present comfort.

Read the full letter that was sent to the ITF here.