Don’t miss out on an opportunity to participate in an online seminar on health and safety. Diane Brown, an AFSCME health and safety specialist, and the AFSCME Education Department will offer two classes, one for child care providers and another for home care providers.

The first in a series of these online classes will be held on Monday, Sept. 27th, at 6:30 PM (ET) for independent family child care providers interested in receiving a helpful review of infection control, first aid principals and learning about common hazards in the home and how to avoid them. Visit AFSCME.org for more information.

On Wednesday, Sept. 29th, at 6:30 PM (ET) home care providers can attend an online seminar to learn how to avoid occupational injuries, handle food and chemicals safely, and get advice on other home care safety and health concerns. Get instructions and sign-in information on our website.

If you aren’t able to participate during the above dates, these seminars will be offered again in November and December. Questions? Email AFSCME’s Education Dept. at education@afscme.org.

A union member participates in the woman-to-woman GOTV postcard drive.

Women have power. Women have even more power when they vote! Join the 2010 Women’s Get-Out-The-Vote Postcard Campaign so we can make a difference on Election Day. Here’s how:

• Invite other union women and friends to your union hall, home, local coffee shop, office or other gathering place on any day from September 6 through October 10.
• You will be given postcards, a list of names and addresses, information sheets on important issues to get the conversation going during your gathering and sample postcard messages.
• As you talk with your friends, ask them to fill out (in their own handwriting) 20 postcards. You and your guests will write messages and address the cards.
• You don’t even need to worry about stamps. At the end of the event, you place the cards in a special stamped envelope and drop them in the mail.

That’s all it takes!

The postcard campaign is a coordinated effort by the AFL-CIO Civil, Human and Women’s Rights Department and Working America, AFL-CIO’s community partner, to increase voter turnout among union women.

By sending handwritten postcards to union women who are infrequent voters urging them to get out and vote on November 2nd, we will make a difference!

If you want to want to hold your own postcard parties or events to help increase voter turnout by union women voters in key states, contact Vivian Smith at vsmith@aflcio.org or at 202-637-5131. The deadline for completing events is Oct. 10.

For more, see this post on the AFL-CIO Now Blog.

Daniel Morris of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy had an important piece in the New York Daily News this week, stressing that workers are being attacked in ways that don’t make sense.

Morris says:

“The truth is hardly tabloid material: Most public-sector workers earn a modest middle- class living and are as worried as anyone else about the economy.  But the perverse argument gaining traction is that what public-sector jobs provide – fair compensation, adequate benefits and dignified retirement options – sets the bar too high for everyone.”

He’s not alone: New York Times columnist Paul Krugman recently pointed out that attacks on state and local government employees don’t make sense, because they don’t earn more than those in the private sector with similar education and experience.

Two years ago, our nation came together and elected Barack Obama President of the United States. We did so in the hope that we’d get meaningful change and take back our country from the previous administration and its disastrous legacy.

In these last two years, we have accomplished a lot, but there is still much more to be done.

This is why on Saturday, October 2, 2010, hundreds of thousands of Americans from across the country will gather at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC to demonstrate our re-commitment to change.

The One Nation March will feature human and civil rights leaders, labor leaders, environmental and peace activists, faith leaders, celebrities and sports figures – all marching together to help put America back to work and to pull America back together.

As progressive talk show host Ed Schultz recently said while urging Americans to put aside their differences and come together at the Lincoln Memorial:

“Activists will gather and march to make a statement about what really matters in this country: It’s jobs, it’s economic justice… Let’s turn this country around. Support our President, support what has to be done for this country, let’s overrun the obstructionists with our passion and our vision.”

Let us hear your dreams for America. Will you join us on October 2?

In memory of the nearly 3,000 people lost on September 11, 2001, including some 600 union members and nine of our AFSCME sisters and brothers: Yvette Anderson, Florence Cohen, Harry Goody, Marian Hrycak, Dorothy Temple, Chet Louie, Rev. Mychal Judge, Ricardo Quinn and Carlos Lillo.

We Were There.

We are the fire fighters, police officers, EMTs, health care providers, social and emergency workers, 911 operators, highway crews and others who responded on September 11th.

We Will Always Be There.

Whether it’s making our communities safe or protecting our children, we are Americans dedicated to doing our jobs and keeping our country strong.

Now more than ever —

We Are In the Public Service.

We Are AFSCME.

The Bush tax cuts are set to expire at the end of 2010, and while President Obama wants to extend those cuts for all but the very rich, some lawmakers want to extend them for everyone. A new Gallup poll released today shows the majority of Americans are in favor of letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire as scheduled.

How would these proposals affect you? Our friends at Citizens for Tax Justice have built a tool that lets you calculate the income tax cut you would receive under different scenarios.

Use CTJ’s new online tax calculator to find out how much you would pay in federal income taxes in 2011 under three different scenarios:

1. Congress does nothing and the Bush tax cuts are allowed to completely expire;
2. Congress enacts Obama’s proposal to extend some of the Bush tax cuts and some additional tax cuts (the Making Work Pay Credit and expansions of the Child Tax Credit and EITC that were included in the Recovery Act);
3. Congress extends all of the Bush tax cuts but none of the tax cuts included in the Recovery Act.

Unless you are among the richest 2 percent of taxpayers, you’ll find that President Obama’s tax proposal would benefit you as much as, or more than, an extension of all the Bush tax cuts.

Unlike other online tax calculators you may have seen, this one also tells you how much of the proposed tax cuts go to people at your income level or below, and how much go to people at higher income levels.

Use CTJ’s online tax calculator now and find out how these proposals will affect you.

On Labor Day, we celebrate the social and economic achievements of American workers. However, during years such as this one, Labor Day also marks the start of election season.

You might be wondering what politics has to do with Labor Day.

The answer is: EVERYTHING.

These days, when the middle class is under attack and public employees are the target of a vicious campaign of lies and misinformation, the ballot box gives us a chance to send a clear message.

Yes, it is about standing up for the legacy of those who marched, went on strike and, most importantly, organized workers in the historic fights for safe working conditions, decent pay and the 40-hour workweek.

But it’s also about today’s pressing issues, such as creating more jobs at a time when nearly 25 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed. It’s about supporting those who fought to pass a crucial Jobs Bill that will provide $26 billion in federal aid to protect hundreds of thousands of jobs instead of those like Minority House Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) who called this job-saving legislation a “bailout” for “special interests”.

It’s about protecting Main Street instead of extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich that would cost $680 billion in revenue over the next ten years – only to benefit the richest one percent of Americans. It’s about funding the vital public services AFSCME members provide in this time of need, when one out of every six Americans is in a government anti-poverty program. It’s about saving Social Security from Republicans like former Sen. Alan Simpson, who calls retirees “greedy geezers,” and his allies on Capitol Hill who want to dismantle and privatize a proven program that runs a surplus and has no impact on the federal deficit.

During these last two years, despite the distortions and obstructionism of almost every Republican in Congress, working families won some real victories. We secured more than $230 billion in the American Recovery and Revitalization Act to keep state and local governments afloat. We finally passed health care reform that reins in the insurance industry, closes the donut hole for seniors and lets kids stay on their parents’ insurance until they’re 26. We put through the most significant Wall Street reform since Franklin Roosevelt was President. It restricts predatory mortgage lending, eliminates hidden credit card fees and creates a Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

This November, we’ve got a choice. We can let those who ruined our economy push their agenda of tax breaks for wealthy CEOs and perks for corporations; or we can be true to labor’s history and fight for more jobs and government accountability.

What is it going to be?

Just in time for Labor Day, AFSCME has released a new video reminding voters of the critical choice they face in the November elections.

You see, this summer Congress handed American workers a huge victory by passing a bill to save hundreds of thousands of jobs without adding a cent to the deficit. After months of delay, Democrats finally overcame a GOP filibuster in the Senate and passed a jobs bill that to help states deal with with budget shortfalls and save both public and private sector jobs.

But only four Republicans in Congress voted for the important bill. You guessed it, while Democrats voted to save our struggling economy and protect jobs, virtually every Republican chose to play politics with the lives and jobs of American workers.

Republicans threw American workers and their families under the bus. We’ll remember that.

This entry by AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Lee A. Saunders is cross-posted from Huffington Post and Firedoglake.

Last week, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission did something it has never done before. It charged the state of New Jersey with fraudulently misleading investors about the health of the state’s pension plan. From 2001 to 2007, the SEC charged, the state gave out false information about the state’s retirement funds. They cooked the books. Now investors, taxpayers and retirees are left to clean up the mess.

Robert Khuzami, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, said: “The State of New Jersey didn’t give its municipal investors a fair shake, withholding and misrepresenting pertinent information about its financial situation.

It is not just investors who are not getting a fair shake. Taxpayers and retirees are being abused as well. While the state failed to adequately invest in their retirement funds and misled investors, New Jersey’s public employees faithfully made their payments into the funds. Public employees in the Garden State contribute 5.5 percent of their compensation to their retirement fund, and earn an average annual benefit of $20,349.

Now the state’s policy of underfunding the retirement security of state employees has been exposed. As The Wall Street Journal noted this week: “The problems go back nearly 15 years, to when the then-relatively healthy state decided to borrow $2.8 billion and stick it in its pension funds in lieu of making contributions from tax revenues.”

The state compounded the problem by using accounting gimmicks, giving investors the false impression that everything was fine. And governors from both parties failed to make required payments into the funds. Earlier this year, for example, Governor Chris Christie failed to make the state’s required $3.1 billion payment.

No one should be surprised that New Jersey’s fraud against investors, retirees and taxpayers began with tax giveaways for the rich. Lost revenue from income tax cuts enacted from 1994 through 1996 – under GOP Governor Christine Todd Whitman – totaled $14 billion, and sales tax cuts totaled $10 billion. That’s more than enough to fill the hole in the state’s pension funds.

We have every right to be angry with irresponsible public officials in New Jersey. If anything, they got off the hook easy, with the SEC failing to name names or fine the officials who conducted the fraud. Sadly, other states have been just as irresponsible. Many have lost revenue by passing unwise tax cuts, then underfunded their pension plans and used accounting gimmicks to hide their inadequate investments. Investors, taxpayers and retirees all benefit when there is accountability and transparency in pension funds.

USA Today reported late last week that according to three recent polls, Americans continue to have dramatic misunderstandings about the health care reform law passed earlier this year.

According to the article, many Americans are unclear on what the law means for them and still believe that it will cut Medicare or ration health care, neither of which is true.  Nearly half of those surveyed even persist in believing the myth that “death panels” will make end-of-life decisions for people.

“The level of ignorance and misinformation is sort of astounding,” says Humphrey Taylor, chairman of the Harris Poll. “It seems people are still reacting to the rhetoric, not the substance of what is in the bill, because they don’t actually know what is or is not in the actual legislation.”

As the country moves toward a huge transformation of the health care system that will lower costs, expand coverage options, offer free preventive care services for seniors, help small businesses with tax credits for providing health care, and prevent insurance companies from denying coverage, too many Americans continue to be in the dark about the details.

That’s why AFSCME put together an online Guide to Health Care Reform, to show members what is in the new health care law and when changes will begin. The online program shows how health care reform will help members and their families.