More U.S. workers go union
AMERICAN UNIONS SAW the biggest jump in membership in nearly 30 years in 2007, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported. A total of 311,000 workers joined or organized unions, raising the total of all union members to 15.7 million. The health care sector accounted for the largest increase — 142,000 members. The construction industry pulled in 96,000, raising union density in that sector from 13.0 percent in 2006 to 13.9 percent last year. Manufacturing, however, continued to bleed, losing 287,000 more jobs, 93,000 of them union positions. Women accounted for two-thirds of the 2007 union growth and now make up 44 percent of all union members, a new record.
Foreign labor costs on rise
A NEW REPORT shows the average hourly compensation costs for manufacturing workers in 33 foreign economies increased to 82 percent of what U.S. companies paid in 2006, up from 79 percent in 2005.
No future for FutureGen?
FUTUREGEN, A PUBLIC-PRIVATE alliance that declared last December it would build “the world’s first coal-fueled, near-zero emissions power plant,” has run out of fuel itself. On Jan. 30, the U.S. Department of Energy announced it was pulling out of the project, taking with it $1.3 billion in federal funding. The decision leaves the dozen private energy companies that had partnered with DOE with insufficient funds to proceed. The project was to have been located in Mattoon, Ill.
DOE says its decision was based on escalating project costs and doubts about the commercial viability of the project, which would have used integrated gasification and combined cycle (IGCC) technology to convert coal into a gas and remove impurities. Plans also called for separating carbon dioxide and pumping it deep below ground for permanent storage.
The Illinois congressional delegation has vowed to fight the DOE decision.
Welders may lose smell
WELDERS WORKING IN confined spaces without adequate ventilation may lose their sense of smell, according to a new study by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
The study’s author, Richard Doty, PhD, gave “scratch and sniff” tests to 43 professional welders. Nearly 90 percent of the welders scored lower than a control group of non-welders. The sniff tests revealed that three welders had lost their sense of smell completely. Blood tests showed that 40 percent of the welders had abnormally high levels of manganese (Mn). Interestingly, those with the highest Mn levels “smelled better” than those with the lowest.
Judge balks at Delphi bonuses
HOW BIG SHOULD your bonus be for leading your corporation into bankruptcy? Executives at Delphi Corp., the world’s second-largest auto supplier that filed Chapter 11 in 2005, proposed $87 million for 500 of their top managers as part of the company’s reorganization plan.
The United Auto Workers and other unions representing Delphi workers protested vehemently, having suffered through plant closings, job cuts, and slashed wages and benefits. A bankruptcy judge said he would approve the reorganization plan provided the execs reduced their bonuses to $16.5 million.
Perhaps the judge should have fined them rather than giving them any reward at all?
9/11 still claiming lives
EMERGENCY MEDICAL TECHNICIANS who worked at Ground Zero following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York continue to die from illnesses they contracted at the site, according to the Public Employees Press, a publication of AFSCME District Council 37. EMTs and other first responders breathed toxic air, laden with asbestos and fumes from burning chemicals, dust, and human bodies. Some EMT victims are developing respiratory illnesses and cancer and are dying in their early 40s.
Stimulate this!
AS THE WHITE House and Congress debated how much money citizens should receive to stimulate the slumping economy, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernake offered this bit of wisdom: “You’d hope that [consumers] would spend it on things that are domestically produced so that the spending power doesn’t go elsewhere.”
CNN’s Lou Dobbs, writing about the economy on Jan. 23, offered this bit of wisdom in response: “Just what would you have us spend it on? The truth is that consumers spend most of their money on foreign imports, and any stimulus package probably would be stimulating foreign economies rather than our own.”
Dobbs may be right, but perhaps consumers should consider quality U.S. products made by Boilermakers, such as McGregor golf clubs, a Whirlpool refrigerator, or a Conn-Selmer band instrument.
Peruvians work most hours
MORE THAN HALF (50.9 percent) of all employed Peruvians work over 48 hours a week, tops among the 50 countries included in a recent study by the International Labour Organization. Norway had the lowest percentage, at 5.3; the United States came in at 18.1 percent.
