Legislative Update

Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) Across the country, union members are mobilizing to collect one million signatures in support of the Employee Free Choice Act—national legislation that will break down the barriers faced by workers when forming unions and bargaining for better wages, benefits and working conditions. It's called the Million-Member Mobilization for the Employee Free Choice Act, and the International Longshoremen’s Association, AFL-CIO is pledging to get at least 10 percent of our members to sign up. Here's why.

AFL-CIO site

With an economy in recession, mounting home foreclosures and skyrocketing costs for health care, gas and groceries, working families are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. Union members know a union card is the best ticket to the middle class and a bolster against tough economic times. After all, union members average 28 percent higher wages, are 62 percent more likely to have employer-provided health coverage and are four times more likely to have defined-benefit pensions than workers who don’t have unions.

Collective bargaining is the best opportunity that working men and women have to achieve individual opportunity, restore economic fairness and rebuild America’s middle class.

But when workers try to form unions to improve their lives, many companies do everything they can to stop them. The current company-dominated system for forming unions allows corporations to coerce, intimidate and even fire workers who try to form unions. Today, 60 million workers say they would join a union now if they could—but corporations are stopping them cold.

EFCA was introduced in the House and Senate during the 108th, 109th, and 110th Congress. It passed in the House on March 1, 2007 for the first time, but was filibustered by Senate Republicans in June 2007.

The more union members who take on these fights together, the stronger we are.

Please register your support for EFCA at www.employeefreechoiceact.org and help give power back to workers by allowing them to form unions once a majority has signed authorization cards.

Labor 2008 Millions of union voters across the country will be turning out and voting this November for Barak Obama and change. Through the AFL-CIO Labor 2008 program working families will hear from their unions about the candidates on the pocketbook issues they care about most. The Labor 2008 program is focused on battleground States were more than 500 races will be targeted. The labor movement has a historic opportunity to grow and win groundbreaking legislation for working families. We are at a unique and exciting moment in our country’s history.

AFL-CIO Site

ILA members on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, Great Lakes and Puerto Rico also have a historic opportunity to not only to send Barak Obama to the White House but also help win a veto-proof U.S. Senate, expand the Democratic majority in the U.S. Congress, and take back State Chambers across America.

With these victories on November 4th, the labor movement will ensure passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, expand access to health care for all Americans, and ensure that future trade agreements contain strong worker protections.

http://www.aflcio.org/issues/politics/

ILA endorses S. 3174, the “Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Port Security Task Force Implementation Act of 2008”.

Senators Lautenberg and Menendez of New Jersey introduced legislation following recent testimony from federal officials who stated that they would not be able to meet a 2012 deadline to scan all containers coming into the United States.

America’s international waterborne trade is the fuel that propels our nation’s economic engine. Our ports provide hundreds of thousands of direct and indirect jobs and generate billions of dollars in economic and tax revenue.

Each year millions of containers from all parts of the globe arrive at our docks and move through our ports on trucks and rail to their final destination. Unfortunately, only a very small percentage of them are adequately scanned for weapons of mass destruction.

The International Longshoremen’s Association, AFL-CIO (ILA) has always had a vital interest in, and commitment to the enhancement of America’s maritime security. ILA members work daily on the front lines of America’s war against maritime related terror and would be among the first affected if there were an incident our breach in security at any of our commercial seaports.

S. 3174 would fill critical security gaps in the cargo supply chain by establishing new minimum security standards and protocols for containers entering the US.

The Lautenber/Menedez bill would require cargo to be monitored through the entire cargo supply chain; from the point and time the container is loaded until its arrival in the US.

The legislation would also require all port regions to have in place a response and recovery plan in the event of a terrorist strike or emergency.

ILA applauds introduction of S. 3199; legislation that would amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to exempt certain shipping from the harbor maintenance tax.

The ILA has long supported efforts to develop a viable US marine highway (Short sea shipping) system.

With international freight volumes growing and America’s land based transportation infrastructure capacity squeezed, the development of a US marine highway system would provide an additional efficient and environmentally sound transportation option.

The introduction of S. 3199 by Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey mirrors legislation, H.R. 1499, previously introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland.

Both the Lautenberg and Cummings bills seek to eliminate a major impediment to the development of a short sea shipping system by exempting waterborne transportation of cargo between US ports from the Harbor Maintenance Tax (HMT). The HMT is the responsibility of the shipper. Multiple taxation of waterborne cargo not only increases cost but serves as a deterrent to shippers who are seeking more cost efficient ways to transport their goods to consumer markets.

The establishment of a short sea shipping industry is in our national interest. It would not only offer an additional option to move our ever increasing volume of cargo, it would also ease landside congestion and create new employment opportunities in the longshore industry.

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