Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy

Analysis:

This story is one example of the numerous stories that appear int he local news whenever the price of gas rises significantly. In the three days from Aug 15 through Aug 17, the three local TV stations ran a combined total of seventeen stories on gas prices. Despite the large number of stories dedicated to this topic, very little information is usually offered as to why prices are rising. In this particular piece, a few possible reasons are offered, but with no elaboration. The viewer is told that gas prices are going up because of the London bombings and nuclear power plants in Iran but no clear linkage of these factors is provided. An expert is sourced as the president of IRN, but it is never explained what IRN is. Would it matter to the viewer to know that IRN is a local consulting firm serving the automotive industry? No other independent voices are presented representing consumer advocacy, environmental or alternative energy perspectives. Viewers should ask themselves why does the local news dedicate so much time reporting on gas prices, something that anyone that drives a motor vehicle is certainly aware of.

Story:

WXMI Newsreader – How high will they go? Rising gas prices with no relief in sight. The average cost for unleaded in Michigan is now $ 2.71, that’s up 67 cents from a year ago. Fox 17’s Rachel Calderon is live in Grand Rapids to show how people are coping with it.

Reporter – Amy, the cost for regular unleaded gas at some stations around town earlier today was about $2.55 a gallon, that’s a steal compared to where they are now $2.79 and it also looks like the cost to run a business is on its way up.

The sign at J Morello’s Pizzeria used to say fast and free delivery. Owner Jeff Murell says six months ago that had to change.

Murell – We went from free delivery to a dollar charge per delivery which I give straight to my drivers because of the gas issue with increasing prices.

Reporter – the added fee isn’t sitting well with customers. Explaining why doesn’t get him much sympathy.

Murell – But these guys are driving their own cars and paying their own insurance, I have to charge a dollar to give them something otherwise it cost them money to come to work.

Reporter – Grant Dubridge spent $ 84 filling up his carpet cleaning van. He said raising his rates isn’t something he wants to do.

Dubridge – It’s cutting into my costs, my profits, my ability to pay for my family, my home, my food.

Reporter – High gas prices are keeping kids at Shannon Franklin’s daycare center indoors this summer.

Franklin – We take the kids on outings and stuff like that but we try to cut it down because it’s high.

Reporter – The price around Grand Rapids, $ 2.79 a gallon. On May 27th gas was under 2 bucks. Economy experts say the hikes are a combination of what’s happening around the world, attacks in London, nuclear power plants in Iran, and what those events might do to the worlds oil supply. Key words: might.

Kim Kourth (IRN President) – Nothing Real. Nothing that actually has happened as yet. And then you have some industry structural issues where there are a fair number of refineries that were taken down for repair and maintenance.

Reporter – Kim believes the prices could come down soon but at the BP gas station, another problem.

Elayne Durham (BP Cashier) – You’re busy working at the register and you glance up to check the pumps and they’ll look you right in the eye and get in their car and drive away.

Reporter – The person that did got away with $ 63 in gas. With prices going up, stations say they are seeing more and more drive offs. And driving off is a larceny, if you do get caught you could spend up to 93 days behind bars, a second offense, you could lose your license. Live in Grand Rapids, Rachel Calderon, Fox 17 News at 10.

News reader – thanks Rachel, and we have all been on a roller coaster lately, gas prices going up and slowly falling. A few months ago we found prices for unleaded in Grand Rapids under two dollars, that was back in May. Compare that with today. Some stations jumped more than 30 cents in just a few hours. Last December it was at $ 1.65. and back in 2002 a gallon of unleaded was going for a dollar twenty. The all time high after figuring inflation, way back in 1982 a gallon of gas was over three dollars.

Analysis:

This story is problematic on many levels. First, the language that is used frames the story in such a way as to negate or minimize the fact that the land being “Handed over” to the Palestinians was their land to begin with. This fact is down played since there is only one reference to the 1967 War, which began the 38 year occupation of Palestinian land, an illegal occupation as stated in the United Nations Resolution 242.

Second, the only voices viewers hear are that of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and former Israeli Cabinet Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. No Arab perspectives or independent voices are heard.

Lastly, while it may be true that Ariel Sharon is now receiving death threats, this point is taken out of context. To be fair, there would have to be some mention of the historical treatment and abuse of Palestinians under the occupation.

Story:

WXMI 17 News reader – Israeli troops bracing for most certain trouble tonight. The deadline for settlers to leave Gaza has come and passed. Now the Army is waiting for sunrise to move in a force them out. Handing over the land to the Palestinians.

Reporter – Israel took this land in 1967 during the so-called 6-day war. The man who helped lead that campaign is the same man who is telling his countrymen they have got to give up their homes and get out. The land is being given back to the Palestinians.

Ariel Sharon – We are taking this step with great anguish. We can not hold on to Gaza forever.

Reporter – But Prime Minister Ariel Sharon knows many of these residents are about to leave peacefully. Some are burning their homes and cars, shouting curses at the soldiers who have come to lead them away. Their determination buoyed by outside activists who snuck into the area. They claim they are anxious to take part in a last stand if that is what it comes to. Over the next few days Israeli troops will go house to house. They say they will be gentle at first but they will result to brute force if necessary. There have already been a few dozen arrests. Those who continue to defy the evacuation orders stand to lose roughly half of the compensation they have been offered by the government. No matter they say, this isn’t about money. They don’t want Palestinians to ever live on their land.

Former Israeli Cabinet Minister Netanyahu – I think this will in all likelihood this will become a base of terror.

Reporter – That is one opinion. Others in the government hope that Israel’s withdraw will help jump start the peace process, but it is really too soon to know what will come of all this upheaval. As we understand only roughly half of the 9,000 settlers that have been told to leave have complied. Now five times that many soldiers are on the scene. They’ll spend the next three weeks clearing out the area before the empty homes are bulldozed and the land is handed back to the Palestinians.

WXMI 17 News reader – Sharon support among Israeli’s is way down tonight and he is not going anywhere without body guards surrounding him at all times. He has apparently received numerous death threats.

Total Time: 2 minutes and 2 seconds

Analysis:

First, the story doesn’t say who organized the protest, which sort of implies that it is this one woman crusade. You can see in the video b-roll the name of one of the groups, Bring Them Home Now, yet this group not any of the other organizations involved were never mentioned in the story. Second, the reasons for the protest are not provided other than to simply say that Sheehan’s son was killed in Iraq in 2004. Sheehan did provide the more substantive reasons for her protest, but channel 8 did not run those. Here is an excerpt of those comments “I want him to tell me is ‘just what was the noble cause Casey died for?’ “Was it freedom and democracy? Bullshit! He died for oil. He died to make your friends richer. He died to expand American imperialism in the Middle East. We’re not freer here, thanks to your PATRIOT Act. Iraq is not free. You get *America out of Iraq* and *Israel out of Palestine* and you’ll stop the terrorism. There, I used the “I” word, imperialism, and now I’m going to use another “I” word, impeachment because we cannot have these people pardoned. They need to be tried on war crimes and go to jail.” A question for listeners to consider is, if comments like these are included in the story, does that change how the public understands what is going on? What we have found in our news monitoring is that while protests might be reported on from time to time, the reasons for the protest are rarely given.

Story:

WOOD TV 8 News reader – President Bush spoke publicly today about the California mother who has been protesting outside his Texas ranch. The woman’s son died in Iraq a year ago.
Reporter – Cindy Sheehan says her grief turned to anger, but feels the two demands she brought from California to a tent in Crawford. Sheehan – This is George Bush’s accountability moment and we are not leaving Crawford until we hold him accountable.
Reporter – Accountable for the deaths of US troops, including her oldest son Casey, an Army specialist, killed in Iraq last year. Sheehan met the President then, but wants another meeting now turn urge Mr. Bush to withdraw from Iraq. Sheehan – He is on vacation here for 5 weeks. I don’t understand why he can’t take an hour to speak with somebody who’s life he has devastated. Reporter – Other military families joined her here. Demonstrators planted hundreds of crosses to line the dusty road. While senior advisors said the President understands and respects her position he does not plan to meet Sheehan and says a full pull-out of troops would be wrong. Bush – Listen, I sympathize with Mrs. Sheehan. She feels strongly about her position and she has every right in the world to say what she believes. This is America, she has a right to her position.
Total Time: 1 minute 22 seconds

Analysis:

This is a rather short news clip, being less than half a minute long. It starts out with the newsreader stating that “US forces on a major offensive to route out insurgents in Iraq, Operation Quick strike is unfolding north west of Baghdad where 22 marines were killed just last week.” Rather than providing any more information about this operation, the rest of the story is some grainy aerial footage of what is described as insurgents firing a mortar and then being destroyed by a missile fired by a US drone. In the report it is noted that the footage is provided by the pentagon. This footage is available online at the DVIDS website, which is a site run by the military providing news stories and footage to news agencies. On the DVIDS website this same footage is available but it is identified as “Aerial Imagery of insurgents detonating a car bomb”, a very different description than what is offered in the story. Looking at the footage it’s hard to tell which is the accurate description of events. Also worth noting is that according to the DVIDS site, this clip was filmed on Aug 2. Operation Quick Strike, which is what the story is supposed to be about, was launched on August 5th, three days later, so this footage actually is not related to this operation.

Story:

WXMI 17 Newsreader – US forces on a major offensive to route out insurgents in Iraq, Operation Quick Strike is unfolding northwest of Baghdad where twenty two marines were killed just last week. Tonight the Pentagon is releasing some video from one of those UAV remote control spy planes. It spots some insurgents firing mortar rounds from a school yard. They escaped in a car but the unmanned drone then follows them to a safe house and then launches a hellfire missile at the building, killing all the terrorists inside.

Total Time: 25 seconds

Analysis:

This story was basically framed as a continuation of the official US government position, which basically says that the bombing of Hiroshima & 3 days later Nagasaki, were necessary to end the war and that it saved American lives. The main perspectives were that of 2 local WWII veterans, both of which state that the Hiroshima bombing was the right thing to do. The veterans also made claims about what was happening in the Pacific war at the time and that the Japanese Army “were the most barbaric fighters imaginable.”

The only other perspectives provided were that of 4 people who were randomly asked the question “Was it the right decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima?” This is a pretty meaningless exercise for the Press, since these people have no apparent knowledge or expertise about this important historical event, it was just a person on the street perspective. The great omission here however, is that no where do other facts appear about the first atomic bombing. For years much of the internal documentation about the Hiroshima bombing had been classified, but now is available for the public to read. The National Security Archives has recently posted much of this documentation online. In reading these documents it becomes clear that the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had more to do with sending a strong message to the Russians at the time and that Japan was on the verge of surrendering, thus few America soldiers would have lost their lives had the bomb not been used.

Story:

Local WWII vets back using atomic weapon
By Ted Roelofs
The Grand Rapids Press

Like a lot of guys on the USS Indianapolis, William Mulvey was curious about the big wooden crate they took on board in San Francisco. He shrugged it off as just another secret of war.

He learned later in a hospital on Guam he had helped deliver the bomb 60 years ago that exploded over Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.

“I think it was a good thing to do,” the 87-year-old Wyoming resident said. “That’s what ended the war, the bomb.”
Cascade Township resident Bernard Link was stationed in Hawaii, preparing with other members of the 5th Marine Division to invade Japan. He figured there was a good chance he and thousands of grunts like him would die in the effort.

Then he heard about Hiroshima.

Link, 79, never questioned President Harry S. Truman’s decision to unleash that terrible weapon. “I think in the last analysis it was the most humane thing that he could have done,” Link said. “It spared tens of thousands of Japanese lives, and it spared tens of thousands of our lives.”

The bomb incinerated 4 square miles of Hiroshima and killed about 140,000 people instantly or within a few months. Including those initially listed as missing or who died afterward from a loosely defined set of bomb-related ailments, including cancers, Hiroshima officials now put the total number of the dead at 237,062.

The Japanese agreed to surrender Aug. 14, five days after a second bomb decimated Nagasaki. That bomb killed about 80,000 people. Officials now link 137,339 deaths to that attack.

The explosion over Hiroshima ignited a debate with us today about the ethics of war and the use of weapons so potent they could obliterate humanity. Was it a necessary evil to cut short a brutal war? Or did it open a door through which there is no going back?

Link believes that those who pass judgment on Hiroshima gloss over the realities of combat in the Pacific. He learned those lessons first-hand, when he was part of the U.S. invasion of Iwo Jima in February 1945.
Link was a 19-year-old private who came ashore with the first wave of Marines. On the third day, he took shrapnel to the face and jaw that barely missed his carotid artery.

In some of the most vicious fighting of World War II, American forces suffered 25,000 casualties on just 8 square miles of volcanic terrain, including 6,800 killed. Most of the 22,000 Japanese on the island fought to the death, many in night-time bayonet suicide attacks.

“They were the most barbaric fighters imaginable,” he said. “In my mind, they were so fanatical in their devotion to their emperor and their country, and they were absolutely fearless fighters.”

Link sometimes wonders which is worse — the death suffered by the Japanese on Iwo Jima, where soldiers dug into caves and tunnels were incinerated by napalm — or death by atomic bomb. “I have seen people who have been incinerated by napalm, and I would take death by atomic bomb any time,” he said.

In April, American forces reached Okinawa, the last island step before invading Japan. That battle cost 12,000 Americans killed and 36,000 wounded. The Japanese suffered 107,000 soldiers killed and an estimated 100,000 civilian deaths.

War planners used Okinawa as a model to project the number of American lives invasion might cost. Japanese troop strength on the southern island of Kyushu — a likely invasion target — was projected to be at least 350,000. Casualty estimates ranged as high as 220,000.

Truman got word the evening of July 16 the atomic bomb had been successfully tested at Alamogordo, N.M. He never hesitated in approving its use over Japan.

By then, Chief Master at Arms William Mulvey was on a speed run aboard the USS Indianapolis toward the Pacific island of Tinian, near Guam. On board the battle cruiser, inside a black canister and large wooden crate that was sealed and guarded 24 hours a day, lay the components for the bomb.

Mulvey watched as a crane unloaded the crate July 26 on Tinian, while a contingent of high-ranking officers stood by.
“This thing here seemed a little unusual,” Mulvey remembered thinking.

The cargo later would be transported to the airfield on Tinian and loaded onto a B-29 called the Enola Gay. A few days later, a Japanese submarine happened upon the Indianapolis as it steamed toward the Philippines. A pair of torpedoes slammed into the ship, splitting it in two. It slipped to the bottom a few minutes after midnight July 30.
Of 1,196 men aboard, nearly 300 died in the explosion or were trapped when the ship went down. About 900 escaped into the sea, including Mulvey. Four-and-a-half days later, rescuers plucked Mulvey and 320 others from the sea.

The rest had drowned, died of dehydration or were eaten by sharks.
Mulvey was transferred to a Marine hospital on the island of Peleliu, then transported to a hospital on Guam. He dimly recalls a priest administering last rites as he hovered near death.
As he regained strength on Guam, he finally learned about the bomb. He thought then what he thinks today: They did the right thing. “It’s war,” he said.

Analysis:

Large private businesses, corporations, and even non-profit organizations employ thousands of public relations personnel for disseminating information about company policy, news, and products to the public with the primary goal of maintaining a positive public image. One of the most common and effective tools used by these professionals is the Video News Release (VNR). Television and print news media receive dozens of these VNR’s per week, sometimes per day, often using the footage, pictures and/or quotes to supplement their stories.

This particular story aired by WXMI FOX 17 is a textbook example of how not to serve the public interest when using VNR’s. The piece, running exactly 60 seconds without the anchor’s tag at the end, is a news release advertising a new feature available on new cell phones (Nextel was the name mentioned in the story). It features a young couple with a small child using this wonderful new technology to stay in touch while the husband is away at work. This family is non-regional, thus viewers often assume that they are locals. The anchor for the local news is the voice over for the piece, a common feature in VNR’s since they are often sent out without sound tracks for the parts where a reporter is supposed to speak, making it easy to overdub the voice later.

Whenever presented with a story that prominently features a business, corporation, or product, audiences need to ask questions while they are watching to determine if it is a VNR. Pay attention to the footage in the story; are you to believe Mr. Hill had a local camera crew in his hotel with him “thousands of miles” from home just to capture his expression when he hears his daughter’s voice? What purpose does the story serve besides advertising a product? Why would a news station run a pre-packaged VNR instead of producing their own news segment?

Story:

WXMI Newsreader – It’s a new feature that allows a voice message to be sent from a mobile phone directly to a computer. Here’s how it works; you just hit a special button on the phone, say whatever you’re going to say, then type in an email address. It keeps Brian Hill close to his family, even when he’s thousands of miles away from home on business.

Brian Hill – I do travel frequently across time zones, and so to have an option where they can leave voice messages for me that doesn’t cost a lot is a wonderful thing and it just helps me stay connected to home, just to hear their voices, to hear “I love you.”

Newsreader – For the Hill family, this special feature has other applications.

Mrs. Hill – Sometimes, even if he’s at work and I just need him to pick something up from the store on the way home, I can just click my button, leave him a message to bring something home, and then I don’t have to disturb him at work and make him answer the phone.

Newsreader – Even if they’re just down the street from each other, of on the other side of the globe. Nextel and other wireless companies offer the service for about $10 a month.

Time: 1:05

Analysis:

In the Friday July 29 edition of the Grand Rapids Press, this article appeared in the business section under the title “CAFTA victory could spur larger trade zone.” This article is partly written by an Associated Press reporter and partly by a Grand Rapids Press reporter. The first half of the article gives a very cursory description of CAFTA and frames it as a part of the effort to create the much larger free trade area of the Americas. The second half of the article titled “Michigan likes it.” This section quotes several Michigan people such as Steve Van Andel, Former governor John Engler who is now chairman of the national Association of Manufactures, and Tom Reardon, executive director of the Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturers Association. The only voice quoted as critical of CAFTA is Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. No Michigan voices critical of CAFTA are put forth, despite the fact that CAFTA was opposed in Michigan by labor unions, environmental groups, some agricultural sectors as well as many citizens in general.

Story:

Washington — Free trade supporters cheered the Central American trade pact’s passage Thursday, but said the narrow victory may provide little momentum for reaching their larger goal: a trade zone spanning the Western Hemisphere.
The Republican-controlled House barely approved the agreement known as CAFTA on a 217-215 vote early Thursday morning. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney made a rare joint visit to the Capitol to lobby for the bill, and Republicans held the floor vote open beyond its allotted 15 minutes until they had secured a majority.
The senate already has approved CAFTA, which will end most tariffs on goods traded among the United States and the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, El Salavador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.
Both supporters and opponents agreed that Bush’s more ambitious goal of creating the Free Trade Area of the Americas would have become unthinkable without passage of the much smaller CAFTA.
While CAFTA covers a region that purchased only $15 billion worth of U.S. goods last year, the Free Trade Area of the Americas would turn 34 countries in the Western Hemisphere into a single trading zone encompassing about 800 million people. It also could deliver a gem to Atlanta: The city is bidding to become the headquarters of the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
“The importance of CAFTA all along has been that it would serve as a wind-up to give [the Free Trade Area of the Americas] momentum,” said Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington-based research group.
Michigan Likes It

Tom Reardon, Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturers Association executive director, said it is “tough to predict” what effect, if any, CAFTA’s passage will have on the office furniture industry.

“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if some West Michigan companies did business in Central America,” said Reardon, who oversees the industry trade group based in Grand Rapids. “Still, it’s going to represent a relatively small percentage of sales.”

The trade agreement made sense to Alticor Chairman Steve Van Andel. “As an American manufacturer and exporter, we support CAFTA, because tariff reduction makes our products more competitive and helps us keep jobs here at home,” he said.

The National Association of Manufacturers applauded the vote, calling it “a big win for the United States, for Central America, and for the world.”

The group is led by former Gov. John Engler.

“The House rejected isolationism,” said Engler, NAM president, in a prepared statement, “and it affirmed that America’s economic future lies with open markets and a level playing field for international trade.”

Looking ahead, the obstacles to the FTAA are immense, particularly because of disagreements between the United States and Brazil. For example, Brazilians “feel wounded by our sugar subsidies and very, very high tariffs on orange juice,” said Edward Gesser, director of the Progressive Policy Institute’s Project on Trade and Global Markets.

At the same time, U.S. citrus growers and sugar producers fear being wiped out by cheap Latin American imports. Indeed, the stiffest opposition to CAFTA came from sugar producers and processors, who objected to the provision allowing a 50 percent increase in U.S. sugar imports over 15 years.

Gresser said another problem is growing anti-Americanism in Latin America. For example, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, in his weekly radio and television show, last month labeled FTAA “a perverse proposal of the Americans to turn us definitively into a colony.”

In light of such sentiments, FTAA “is not an easy puzzle to put together,” he said.

Analysis:

At two minutes and forty seconds, this story is rather long by local TV standards. Despite this, the story fails to give the viewer any information regarding the candidates that participated in this forum. Not even the names of the candidates are provided. The article does note that much of the forum is available online. While this is true (although the clips were not posted online at the time the story ran), the online resources do little to inform viewers without access to the internet.

Story:

Newsreader #1 – Well the city of Wyoming could have very different political leadership after the primary election next week. There are a total of eleven candidates for the mayor’s office and for three council seats. WZZM’s Phil Dawson joins us from Wyoming city hall where change is coming.

reporter – Lee the eleven candidates for the four jobs here at city hall include some new faces as well as some familiar names and tonight all the candidates were together for a forum to explain why they should win on election day.

Many of the citizens who crowded into the Wyoming library say they wanted to see and hear the candidates in person.

Citizen # 1 – It’s the only way you can compare one to the other, you can read all of his literature until the cows come home, you just don’t know until you see them face to face.

Citizen # 2 – This is a way that the public gets to really know the candidates I think.

Reporter – Next Tuesday Wyoming residents can either narrow down the number of candidates or make final their choices by giving one candidate for mayor over fifty percent of the vote, one candidate for 3rd ward council over fifty percent of the vote and two candidates for at large council seats over 25 percent of the vote. The Chamber of Commerce organized the forum.

Chamber of Commerce – Our government works because we have informed citizens casting valuable votes, and if they’re not informed, it’s not going to work well.

Reporter – New leaders have important issues to face in Wyoming. Twice voters have turned down tax increase requests for public safety and fire services. One fire station was closed and fire fighters were laid off. The candidates at the forum were asked to offer their solutions to these and other problems.

Citizen # 1 – They helped me make my decision about who I am going to vote for.

Citizen # 3 – And you may not agree with their opinion, that’s true, but everyone’s entitled to there own view.

Citizen # 4 – It’s a real important election because there are a lot of seats up right now, it could be a whole new council, a new mayor, it could be a whole new government here.

Reporter – If you miss tonight’s forum you can hear long excerpts from the candidates for mayor on our website WZZM.com, and Comcast cable station 26 will rebroadcast their entire televised coverage of the forum four times between now and election day next Tuesday. In Wyoming, Phil Dawson, WZZM 13 news.

Newsreader – And there are a number of other races in Grand Rapids. Voters in the first, second and third wards will choose candidates to represent them in the city commission. In Muskegon people are choosing a new mayor and in Grand Haven people are choosing two new council members. Again, the primary is next Tuesday, August second.

Total Time: 2:40

Analysis:

On Saturday July 30, the Grand Rapids Press ran two articles in the business section about the split between the AFL-CIO and UFCW. The first article is a summary, noting some of the reasons for the split and quoting some of the union leadership. One of the points made in this article is that the union split could somehow be beneficial; noting that competition between the unions could spur both to increase membership. The article notes that when the AFL and the CIO were separate in the 1930’s they saw increases in membership. This idea that the split might lead to more powerful unions rather than less is continued in the other article entitled “Labor Rift could mean increased competition.” This article further explores this theme of the labor rift as a potential positive for introducing competition between unions.

This frame of “competition is good” is a rather simplistic way of looking at this issue. To say that the unions did better in the 1930’s when separate, compared to later when united ignores a great deal of historical context. So for example, the depression was going on in the 30’s, a fact which might have more to do with explaining labors successes in that period than simply internal competition. Also, different eras have seen different levels of corporate and governmental hostility toward labor. These factors have to be taken into account for explaining the relative amount of success or failure that unions have experienced over the last century. Additionally, it seems rather ironic to frame this discussion about unions in the language of the market, i.e., that competition is good. Given that unions were created in large part to protect workers from the excesses of the free market system, it seems odd that this issue is being described in terms of competition rather than the traditional labor motto of solidarity.

Story:

UFCW bolts AFL-CIO

Departure means loss of more than 4 million members
Associated Press

WASHINGTON – The United Food and Commercial Workers on Friday joined the Teamsters and Service Workers in abandoning the AFL-CIO, depriving the labor federation of three of its largest unions and close to $28 million of its estimated $120 million budget.

The departure of the 1.4 million member UFCW from the labor federation means the AFL-CIO is losing more than 4 million of its 13 million members.

Grand Rapids-based UFCW 951, one of the state’s largest unions with 33,000 members, endorsed the move and said in a statement it “looks forward to working with its coalition partners in building a new, vibrant labor movement in the United States and Michigan.”

Earlier this week, the UFCW joined the Teamsters, Service Employees International Union and Unite Here – a group of textile, restaurant and hotel employees – in boycotting the AFL-CIO convention in Chicago. The Teamsters and service workers announced then that they were leaving the AFL-CIO. Unite Here is still considering its next step.
During the convention, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney was re-elected to another term and he pledged to make changes to address the woes of organized labor. But the departing unions say those changes are insufficient.

“The world has changed and workers’ rights and living standards are under attack,” UFCW President Joe Hansen said in a letter delivered to Sweeney on Friday. “Tradition and past success are not sufficient to meet the new challenges.”
The departure of the unions has frustrated labor federation officials.

“The UFCW leadership decision to leave the AFL-CIO, especially when working people are up against the most powerful, anti-worker corporate and governmental forces in 80 years, is a tragedy for working families,” said Lane Windham, spokesperson for the AFL-CIO. “Only union’s enemies win when unions split our strength.”

The unions breaking away from the AFL-CIO want to commit more money to recruiting new members and complain that the federation has committed too much money and placed too much emphasis on backing political candidates – particularly Democrats.

Hansen of UFCW said during a conference call that his union is healthy financially and that its alliance with the Teamsters and service workers is about cooperation, not money. Hansen said leaving the federation was not about saving money, adding: “I plan to devote as much money as I can to organizing.”

Hansen noted that “politics are extremely important. We might be more selective in some ways, searching out politicians who will support workers.”

At the same time, he said politicians who support labor will still see “a broad front of support” from unions.
“While our affiliation ends, our commitment to work with the AFL-CIO and unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO on issues and programs where we share common goals remains unchanged,” Hansen said in his letter to Sweeney. “I believe our movement is united in our basic principles and values, even if we pursue different strategies.”

The departure is part of the biggest rift in organized labor since 1938, when the CIO split from the AFL. Supporters of the breakup note that labor made big gains while the two groups competed.

When the AFL-CIO merged in the 1950s, one of every three private-sector workers belonged to a labor union. Now, less than 8 percent of private-sector workers are unionized.

Labor rift could mean increased competition
by Adam Geller
Associated Press

An angry rift between union leaders filled the spotlight when big labor gathered this week in Chicago. But to figure out what labor’s divide might actually mean for workers and employers, look beyond the dueling press conferences and listen to the union talk at Grandma’s House, a child care center Angenita Tanner runs from her basement apartment on the city’s South Side.

Tanner is one of Illinois’ 49,000 home child care workers, many self-employed, who voted overwhelmingly this spring to be represented by the Service Employees International Union.

The vote capped a nine-year campaign by the SEIU, and a bitter fight with a rival union for the low-paid service workers. The workers, nearly all women and most minorities, once would have been far outside the muscle and manufacturing mainstream of organized labor.

“There’s power in numbers,” said Tanner, trying to keep her voice in check as the seven children in her charge nap. “You cannot go to (the state Capitol in) Springfield by yourself and talk to senators and representatives and get heard … but if you go as part of a group, being represented as part of the masses, they’re going to listen.”

The unions’ drive to sign up the child care providers – and another recent campaign in Illinois for home health aides -turned on winning higher pay and health insurance. But they also reflect the split in organized labor, one experts say could fuel increased competition by unions for workers, particularly in service industries that are becoming the economy’s mainstay.

“The story of home care workers and child care workers in Illinois is a nice sort of case study of what’s been writ large in Chicago this week,” said Robert Bruno, an associate professor of labor and industrial relations at the University of Illinois’s Chicago campus.

The SEIU leads the group of unions breaking away from the AFL-CIO umbrella federation, arguing it is past time for the struggling labor movement to focus on signing up new workers. Its rival in the Chicago campaign was the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, one of the loudest voices for maintaining labor solidarity.

The national fight is partly about the egos and ambitions of their leaders, and control of the money and power held by the AFL-CIO. It is also about how each camp would strike a balance between building membership and politicking.

But the union drive in Illinois was awash in politics, proof that the split is not simply a disagreement about whether to spend money on activism or organizing. And it offers a window into the battling between unions that could give some workers not just a choice over whether to bargain as a unit, but of which union to join.
Some experts say the split reminds them of 1930, when a similar rift occurred. The fierce competition between unions that followed took membership to record highs in the mid-1950s, but growth stalled following the merger of the AFL and CIO in 1955.

With the new split, “the constraints will come off and they’ll be in direct competition for a lot of those same people,” said David B. Lipsky, a professor at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
Employers may interpret the labor infighting as disarray. But some experts say the divide could actually create more challenges for companies.

The labor rift “should be a huge wake-up call for employers,” said Philip Rosen, who leads the labor practice group at Jackson Lewis LLP, a law firm representing companies in workplace cases. “They really need to look at it and say: ‘The fight is coming to my worksite tomorrow.'”

Unions are already locked in scrums for some workers, although most of those have been in the public sector.
In Iowa, for example, the SEIU and AFSCME have also been competing vigorously for the right to sign up child care workers. The workers are not state employees, but run businesses paid by the state for caring for the children of lower income working parents.