California Labor Group Asks National AFL-CIO Labor Union to Back Abortion

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.lifenews.com/nat2481.html

California Labor Group Asks National AFL-CIO Labor Union to Back Abortion

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 7, 2006

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- When California's state labor coalition voted to oppose a parental notification measure on the ballot this November, they did more than just take a stand on a one-time vote. The group, which represents 2.1 million workers affiliated with 1,100 unions, approved a policy statement calling on the national AFL-CIO to endorse abortion.

The national labor union has not typically weighed in on the abortion debate but the California Labor Federation voted to ask the AFL-CIO ''to reconsider its position of neutrality on the issue.''

The most recent version of the AFL-CIO policy statement on abortion, adopted in 1990, leaves it up to individual union members to arrive at their own conclusions on the matter.

It says it leaves opinions on abortion ''to the good and sound judgment of union members.... Sincere and dedicated trade unionists can be found on both sides of these issues.''


Also see BN related article: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2441825

[Mojambo]

1. Lifenews.com

Sounds like a very non-biased news service there...

[Gman]

2. Labor needs to stay out of this

there's nothing to be gained for labor to take a position on this and it will only piss off a lot of members that are anti-abortion. This issue has nothing to do with job security, working conditions, wages or benefits.

[Omaha Steve]

4. Maybe it does

Does a company (union or not) offer maternity benefits? If a single mom has one or two kids and can't afford unpaid time off, does she consider an abortion? Does her health plan cover her delivery if she isn't married? Does the company promote women that may be gone for a birthing and follow up period of time? Does her plan offer full reproductive expense coverage? There is always NOW pushing equal pay too. There are many cross over issues. Then there is the millions of $ (labor is spending over $50 million total this mid term cycle) mostly Democrats are getting. Ben Nelson here in Nebraska got $280,000 in one night from labor for what was really an uncontested primary. I'm sure you know he is anti womens reproductive rights. There could be a lot to be gained for women on this issue. The Union Pacific was taken to court on womens rights a few years back. I don't remember the particulars, but women won. The company had been paying for men to get ED meds, but not for women on a feminine issue. Just a discussion, I'm not looking for a fight.

[Gman]

5. All very good questions

Company benefit plans don't even cover birth control pills, yet they cover maternity benefits. Never understood that. But in all my years in organized labor, and representing a membership that was predominantly women, I never once had anyone approach me with a bargaining proposal on abortion coverage. Yes, there are all kinds of women issues that cross over when labor supports Democrats. But the fact remains that the membership is as polarized as the rest of the country over abortion. Labor doesn't need to put someone in a position of dropping their membership in right to work states, or going to agency payee in others over a disagreement over abortion. When labor pumps $50 million into Democrat races, as part of the package of issues that come with supporting a Democrat, comes strong support for women's issues including abortion. But labor doesn't need to talk about it.

[Omaha Steve]

6. The Omaha police union bargained for same sex benefits

Then the MEMBERSHIP got it dropped before ratifying the contract. So yes abortion could really cause a lot of problems.

[Crowdance]

3. It's about time!

Reproductive rights play a key role in women's ability to work, support their families and engage as fully human beings in society. The AFLCIO's reticence to stand up for the women it represents has made it look callous and cowardly. I hope national hears its members' call.

[iverglas]

8. absolutely

The trade union movement was once about social justice for working people, and solidarity with oppressed and exploited people and peoples of all kinds.

CUPE (the Canadian Union of Public Employees) is one of Canada's largest unions, representing non-government public sector employees (school support staff, non-professional hospital workers, etc.). It has always been active in many aspects of women's rights, including reproductive rights. Here:
http://www.cupe.bc.ca/index.php4?do=printer&id=275
it links to this webcast:

Webcast of author Ann Thomson June 7, 2005 at the Vancouver Public Library, as part of the library's "Women's Lives - Facts and Fiction Series", reading from "Winning Choice On Abortion: How British Columbia and Canadian Feminists Won the Battles of the 1970s and 1980s". Also with Joyce Arthur from the Pro-Choice Action Network.

http://tao.ca/~cupe3903/web/?q=node/22

Trans Feminist Action Caucus

Our History:
Trans Feminist Action began in 1986 as the Women's Caucus. The Women's Caucus was formed to improve the situation of women and to combat sexism at York (University), within CUPE 3903, in the trade union movement, and in the broader community.

On July 17, 2003, the Women's Caucus was renamed the Trans-identified, Women-identified Caucus (TIWI) in order to better reflect our opposition to all forms of gender oppression and its intersections with other forms of oppression.

Three years later, at the TIWI AGM on February 23, 2006, the membership of the Caucus expanded to include all gender queer and gender variant members of the local. We simultaneously decided change our name in solidarity with this broadening of mission and mandate. We are now the Trans Feminist Action Caucus.

Over the past twenty years the Caucus has initiated and been involved with many campus and community activist campaigns. These have included:

... Initiation of a "Feminist Flying Squad" to provide support and solidarity at actions including escorts at abortion clinics, and picket solidarity with striking locals.

http://www.unb.ca/par-l/milestones2.htm

1976
The Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) <Canadian counterpart of AFL-CIO> opens a Women's Bureau.

http://www.cbctrust.com/history_law_religion.php
(an excellent article in all respects: "Abortion Law, History & Religion")

In 1869 Parliament enacted a criminal law which prohibited abortion and punished it with life imprisonment. In 1892 came the first statutory prohibition against the sale, distribution and advertisement of contraceptives. These laws were to remain virtually unchanged until 1969.

Contraception and abortion in Canada went underground for the next century, and women’s reproductive health suffered greatly as a result. For example, 4,000-6,000 Canadian women died as a result of bungled illegal abortions between 1926 and 1947.

In the 1960’s a push to legalize abortion came from the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Bar Association, women’s groups, some churches, social welfare agencies, the Canadian Labour Congress, and the Humanist Fellowship of Montreal (whose President was Dr. Henry Morgentaler). ...

For a labour organization not to stand up against assaults on its members' fundamental human rights should be unthinkable. And if the organizations' member unions, and their membership, have problems with this, then the organization has some serious membership education to be doing.

[Kokonoe]

7. Why is the phrase "they want to back abortion" used?

I thought it was the right to choose up to each person.

[iverglas]

9. it's a right-wing anti-choice publication

-- but it's still a useful source for otherwise confirmable facts. I suspect that the anti-choice brigade was just all over the story before the mainstream media were.

I'm no expert on AFL-CIO history and the evolution of its policy positions. But here's an interesting bit (again, from an anti-choice scumball, but worth reading!) from 1999:

http://www.catholiclabor.org/higgins/higgins-49.htm

At the end of my testimony the committee, meeting in executive session, advised the AFL-CIO executive council to remain neutral on abortion, and the council subsequently so voted. So at the present time the AFL-CIO as an organization remains neutral on the issue.

If my irate caller thinks the AFL-CIO has no ethical right to remain neutral on an issue of this importance, I strongly disagree. The American labor movement has always been a neutral movement in the best sense of the word -- a movement in which men and women of different ideologies, religions and ethical convictions have been able to unite around basic labor issues and work together in solidarity. No other trade union movement in the world has a better record in this regard.

Heh. If an anti-choice scumball thinks that an organization has a good record on abortion, I think I'll just knee-jerk-ly say it has a bad record.

I think it would be a serious mistake for the federation to depart from this tradition, which has served it so well. Even a casual review of the history of European labor movements, which until recently have gotten involved in all sorts of religious and ethical problems, suffices to show that the U.S. tradition has been advantageous not only to the movement but to religion.

The practice of the European movements led to an almost fatal estrangement between the church and labor on the continent. We are blessed that this did not happen in the United States.

Bring it on?

More from the same sort of source:
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/facts/abortiontimeline.html

1990
Aug. 1: The AFL-CIO Executive Council rejects a proposal for the union to abandon its traditional neutrality on abortion and take a pro-abortion stance.

and the same story from the NYT:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE7D7123CF932A3575BC0A966958260

Here's what we're looking for, from yesterday:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-abortion7aug07,1,2148998.story?coll=la-headlines-california&ctrack=1&cset=true

In a Shift, Union Group Backs Abortion Rights

... In a policy statement, the labor federation also urged the national AFL-CIO "to reconsider its position of neutrality on the issue."

... "As unions become weaker, as traditional allies fall away, unions can rely increasingly on the liberal left and the radical left," said Nelson Lichtenstein, a leading scholar of labor history at UC Santa Barbara. "Abortion rights are key issues for American liberals, and these are their allies."

The most recent written version of the national AFL-CIO policy, adopted in 1990, says that though union members "resent and resist government intrusion into matters that are essentially private," the AFL-CIO yields on the subject of abortion "to the good and sound judgment of union members…. Sincere and dedicated trade unionists can be found on both sides of these issues."

But of course there are still dinosaurs:

"We take positions only on things that directly affect working people," said Bob Balgenorth, president of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California. "We don't intrude into their personal lives."

Nah, that's the state's job ... and we aren't going to object. After all, women aren't really "working people", and violations of women's rights aren't anything for real working people to get worked up about.