About 2 million Americans get a raise today as the federal minimum wage rises 70 cents. The bad news: Higher gas and food prices are swallowing it up, and some small businesses will pass the cost of the wage increase to consumers.The increase, from $5.85 to $6.55 per hour, is the second of three annual increases required by a 2007 law.

Next year’s boost will bring the federal minimum to $7.25 an hour, giving more than 5 million workers a raise, said Lisa Lynch, dean of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass.

The increase, however, is “a drop in the bucket compared to the increases in costs, declining labor market and declining household wealth that consumers have experienced in the past year,” said Lehman Brothers economist Zach Pandl. The new minimum is less than the inflation-adjusted 1997 level of $7.02, and far below the inflation-adjusted level of $10.06 from 40 years ago, according to a Labor Department inflation calculator.

Last week, the Labor Department reported the fastest inflation since 1991 — 5 percent for June compared with a year earlier. Energy costs soared nearly 25 percent. The price of food rose more than 5 percent. And the increase could push food prices even higher by raising the pay for agricultural workers, said Brian Bethune, chief U.S. economist at consulting firm Global Insight.

But he said he did not expect the change to have a major impact on the economy because recent increases in productivity, which enables companies to produce more with fewer workers, are keeping labor costs in check. And 23 states — covering 60 percent of U.S. workers — have laws making the minimum wage higher than the new federal requirement, said the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank. Minnesota is not included among those states.
ASSOCIATED PRESS

By Audra Ang

Hundreds of migrant workers attacked a police station in eastern China after one was allegedly beaten while trying to get a residence permit, highlighting enduring tensions between temporary workers and authorities.The three days of unrest in coastal Zhejiang province began Thursday when a crowd gathered in front of the Kanmen town police station to protest the treatment of the beaten worker, with some demonstrators throwing rocks at officers, the official Xinhua News Agency said Monday.

The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said the crowds burned police cars and motorcycles, demanding the release of the worker who was detained after complaining that police allegedly beat him over a quarrel about his application for a temporary residence permit.

“The government employees told me that I could not be registered without my identification card. I quarreled with them and they hit me on my head,” Xinhua quoted the worker, Zhang Zhongfu, 34, as saying.

Police, however, said the Sichuan resident bumped his head against a wall while drunk.

The unrest underscored abiding tensions over China’s tens of millions of migrant workers who have left the poor countryside to look for work in cities. They often settle in urban areas in violation of the nation’s strict household registration - or “hukou” - system, which technically bars rural residents from moving to cities.

The riots came just two weeks after a crowd of 30,000 people in southwest China set fire to a police station over what many believed was an official cover-up of the circumstances surrounding the death of a teenage girl.

Such incidents, often triggered by allegations over corruption and official abuses, have been an embarrassment to the leadership, especially before next month’s Beijing Olympics.

Chinese officials downplayed the violence in Zhejiang, saying an investigation was under way.

A woman who answered the telephone at Kanmen’s public security bureau said she saw the demonstration but denied that the workers broke into the police station or burned vehicles. The woman, who did not give her name as is common with officials in China, said they only gathered on the streets, shouting.

Three policemen were injured in the unrest, which continued on Friday and Saturday, according to Xinhua.

The agency reported, however, that order had since been restored and 23 of the protesters were detained. The Hong Kong rights organization put the number at 30.

Three hundred military police arrived in Kanmen Sunday, said the chief of the propaganda department of Yuhuan County, which oversees Kanmen. He gave his family name as Yan.

He said Zhang was drunk when he was trying to get his residence permit and “knocked his head on the wall by himself.”

Yan said Zhang has been freed but gave no details.

China imposed the residency rules shortly after the 1949 communist revolution as part of tight controls on where people could live, work, and even whom they could marry.

The system required migrants to carry their residency papers and exposing them to police abuse and extortion. The rules were reformed after the 2003 beating death of a young college graduate who was detained for not having a residence permit.

Migrants no longer have to carry residency papers on them, police can no longer forcibly detain them and temporary residency fees have been slashed, although abuses are sometimes reported.

But Phelim Kine, an Asia researcher with New York-based Human Rights Watch, notes that traveling workers do not enjoy social benefits, such as unemployment services and accesnt illustrates the types of abuses that migrant workers in China are prey to; that they lack legal status, and in this case, an attempt to gain this legal status results in physical violence,” said Kine.

Human rights groups have also said while migrants are allowed to apply for temporary residency, they must pay extra for schooling and rarely receive insurance or access to subsidized housing.

Also Monday, Xinhua said police in Guizhou province had detained 100 people, including 39 members of local gangs, for their role in last month’s protest over the death of the teenage student.

Peng Dequan, vice director of provincial public security, was quoted as saying they were still looking for other “gangsters” who were in hiding.

Authorities have accused local gangs of fomenting the unrest, and have urged offenders to surrender and encouraged local residents to give information on others suspected of organizing it, Xinhua said.

Associated Press writers Cara Anna in Shanghai, China, and Carley Petesch in New York contributed to this report.

By Howard Kurtz

THE AD: “He worked his way through college and Harvard Law. Turned down big-money offers and helped lift neighborhoods stung by job loss. Fought for workers’ rights. He passed a law to move people from welfare to work, slashed the rolls by 80 percent. Passed tax cuts for workers, health care for kids.

“As president, he’ll end tax breaks for companies that export jobs, reward those that create jobs in America. And never forget the dignity that comes from work.”

ANALYSIS: The key image here is the last one: Barack Obama throwing his arm around one of several older female workers in hairnets and aprons. The picture conveys the message that the senator from Illinois cares about working-class folks and, in particular, women over 50 — a demographic he had little success with in the primaries.

The commercial, like an earlier biographical ad, is designed to neutralize perceptions of Obama as an Ivy League elitist by playing up his background as a Chicago community organizer. Obama did, however, work as a New York financial consultant before that, and by his own admission he had little success helping Chicago neighborhoods cope with plant closings.

While Obama sponsored or co-sponsored measures involving welfare, health care and tax cuts in the Illinois legislature, to say he “passed” the laws, as if he were in a leadership post, overstates his role.

Obama has proposed eliminating tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas and a tax credit for firms that boost their U.S. payrolls. The goal of marrying such proposals to his modest background is to sell Obama as being on the side of average workers.

(The Washington Post)

The International Labour Organization (ILO) welcomed the Seoul Declaration on Safety and Health at Work adopted here today by some 50 high-level decision makers from around the world as a major new blueprint for constructing a global culture of safety and health at work. Meeting prior to the XVIII World Congress on Safety and Health at Work, the first high-level Safety and Health Summit gathered international leaders, government ministers, CEOs of major multinational companies, social security leaders and senior safety and health experts, and representatives of employers and workers.

“The Declaration marks a major step in the establishment of a preventative safety and health culture,” said Mr. Assane Diop, Executive Director of the International Labour Office’s (ILO) Social Protection sector. “The ILO, in partnership with the International Social Security Association (ISSA) and the Korean Occupational and Safety Health Agency, are determined to continue tangible progress towards reducing the number of occupational accidents and diseases.”

Recognizing that improving safety and health at work has a positive impact on working conditions, productivity and economic and social development, the Declaration also emphasizes that the right to a safe and healthy working environment should be recognized as a fundamental human right.

The Declaration also states that promotion of occupational safety and health and the prevention of accidents and diseases at work is a core element of the ILO’s founding mission and of the Decent Work Agenda.

The Declaration encourages Governments to consider the ratification of the ILO Promotional Framework for Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 2006 (No. 187) as a priority, as well as other relevant ILO Conventions on safety and health at work and ensure the implementation of their provisions - including by a strong and effective labour inspection system - as a means of improving national performance on safety and health at work in a systematic way.

Noting that high safety and health standards at work go hand in hand with good business performance, the Declaration calls on employers to ensure that prevention is an integral part of their activities, to establish effective occupational safety and health management systems to improve workplace safety and health, and to guarantee that workers are consulted, trained, informed and involved in this process.

The Declaration also states that workers should follow safety and health instructions and procedures, including those on the use of personal protective equipment, participate in safety and health training and awareness-raising activities and cooperate with their employer in adhering to measures related to their safety and health at work.

Through the Declaration, the signatories committed to taking the lead in promoting a preventative safety and health culture, placing occupational safety and health high on national agendas, and agreed to review progress at the XIX World Congress on Safety and Health at Work in 2011. (ILO news)

By Kester Kenn Klomegah

First deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov acknowledged at the 12th International Economic Forum held early this month in St. Petersburg that shortage of skilled labour is holding back growth. He said that given the right combination of labour and capital resources, Russia could become the world’s sixth largest economy. At present France is in sixth place, after the U.S. Japan, Germany, China and Britain.

But the Federal Migration Service (FMS), the state agency responsible for labour issues, has brought in a quota system that would drastically reduce the number of foreign workers, especially from the ex-Soviet republics, who seek employment in Russia.

Labour experts say such strict measures will harm economic growth. “An enormous contribution is made by a lot of migrant workers from the ex-Soviet republics towards Russia’s economy. Many migrants are filling a niche in the domestic labour market by doing odd jobs that local citizens don’t want,” Nilim Baruah, chief technical advisor to the Regional Migration Programme of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Moscow told IPS.

The ILO expert agreed, however, that “there is a need to regulate the labour market to reduce the demand for irregular migrant workers in certain sectors of the economy. There is also a need to encourage internal labour mobility.”

Russia has annual quotas for visa-free (Commonwealth of Independent States except Georgia and Turkmenistan) and for other countries. There is also provision in the legislation for introducing a priority list of occupations above the quota.

The ILO is now working with Russian authorities and employer and workers’ federations on methods to more accurately assess the demand for foreign workers so that employers find it easier to recruit migrant workers in labour shortage occupations while jobs are protected for nationals in professions where there are no shortages.

The number of migrant workers allowed to work legally in Russia was reduced from around six million in 2007 to less than two million in 2008. Non-Russians were banned from working in markets and retail trade.

“If the annual quota is not in line with labour market needs, the risk is that migrant workers from visa-free countries will enter and find unauthorised employment over and above the quota,” Baruah said. “Unauthorised employment places the worker in a vulnerable position with regards to entitlements, besides loss of tax revenue for the state.”

Up to five million irregular migrants currently live in Russia, a top interior ministry official recently suggested.

According to Federal Security Service data, more than 21 million people officially enter Russia each year for transit, tourism and work. “Some of these travel into European and Asian countries, while some, without obtaining the required documentation, settle in Russia and become illegal immigrants,” says Gennady Ivanov, deputy head of the ministry’s criminal investigation department.

Many people coming from the Central Asian Republics Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are not familiar with Russian laws and customs, and do not speak Russian. The FMS has now made knowledge of Russian of intermediate level standard necessary for an employment permit.

The FMS announced in May that it was no longer accepting applications for work permits in some Russian districts, including Moscow.

“Although Russia obviously needs migrants to accelerate economic growth, we have stopped obtaining and processing applications for permits because the quota set for this year was exhausted,” FMS spokesman Konstantin Poltaranin told IPS.

But he granted that “despite the fact that the government has set limitations for hiring foreigners, the country would continue to experience an influx of illegal labour due to the worsening economic situation in the economies of the ex-Soviet republics.”

Elena Tyuryukanova, a senior researcher on labour policy at the Institute for Socio-Economic Studies of Population under the Russian Academy of Sciences described the 2008 quota as too small. Her institute has estimated the flow of labour migrants to Russia at seven to nine million in the peak season.

“The exact statistics of people crossing borders is difficult to find because the greater part of labour flow comes for other purposes (like short business trips, official trips and private visits). According to FMS statistics and our surveys about 50 percent migrants are employed in the shadow economy because their employers do not notify the migration service,” Tyuryukanova told IPS.

“The use of migrant labour could be a useful vehicle for development. But quota should be real and necessarily reflect real demand in the labour market. The restrictive character of quotas would negatively affect the economy or hamper growth.” (IPS)

Workers in China do not have the constitutional right to strike. Yet, every day in the Pearl River Delta alone there is at least one major strike involving over a thousand employees and dozens of smaller strikes and stoppages.

This continuous wave of industrial action has forced the national and local governments in China to reassess the legal framework of labour relations and introduce new legislation that seeks to address workers’ needs and bring the law into line with social and economic reality.

On 5 June 2008, Chen Yu of the Shantou Federation of Trade Unions, wrote in the New Express (Xinkuaibao) that new draft regulations issued by the Shenzhen municipal government effectively brought the largely taboo subject of strike action within the scope of legal regulation. As a result, Chen argued, the legal right to strike was now “only one step away.”

The article is significant for its candid assessment of the current balance of power in labour relations, the ineffectiveness of the All China Federation of Trade Unions in organising workers (”an embarrassing joke”) and union’s inability to support strike action. The article demonstrates that, in some union branches at least, officials are taking their responsibilities towards workers seriously and are actively seeking ways to both empower employees and protect their legal rights.

China Labour Bulletin has translated the article below.

Shenzhen is One Step Away from the Right to Strike

The Shenzhen Municipal People’s Congress Standing Committee recently published the Draft Regulations on the Growth and Development of Harmonious Labour Relations in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. The Draft Regulationsare are of groundbreaking significance, both because it is reportedly China’s first legislative document on “harmonious labour relations,”and because the Standing Committee actively solicited public opinion before publishing it.

The most impressive aspect of the Draft Regulations is that it lays down more reasonable standards on the respective status and responsibilities of employees, employers and the government. It clearly asserts that to build harmonious labour relations, employers and workers have to engage in consultation on the basis of equality, abide by the law and exercise self-discipline, the government has to coordinate and supervise the process, ordinary citizens have to participate in it, and fairness and justice has to be maintained.

In view of the fact that in today’s China employers are beyond any doubt the strongest party in the labour relationship, the establishment of more harmonious labour relations must begin by adjusting the balance of power between employers and employees. An individual worker within a big company is as powerless as a tiny ant before a big tree. The only way for workers to get things moving and solve their problems is to team up and join forces.

China’s trade unions have the world’s best organizational framework and largest membership roster, but their real status is an embarrassing joke. Political meddling throughout the system has prevented genuine and effective union organizing. Therefore, when the government takes its responsibilities seriously, trade unions need to do so too.

After the Chinese Constitution was amended in 1982, the word “strike” (bagong) became taboo in Chinese legislation. It was replaced by references to “shutdowns” (tinggong) and “slowdowns” (daigong). Most lamentably, the (amended) Trade Union Law of 2001 stipulates: “When a work-stoppage or slow-down occurs in an enterprise or institution, the trade union shall … assist the enterprise or institution in its work so as to enable the normal production process to be resumed as quickly as possible” (Article 27). Rules of the game that deny workers the right to collective action effectively reduce them to collective begging.

The fact that trade unions are not only unable to stand clearly with workers but must also perform thankless tasks on behalf of employers manifestly shows that they remain in a subordinate position.

Although the Draft Regulations does not go so far as to call a strike a strike, and continues to refer to work stoppages, slowdowns and lockouts, it no longer insists that when such incidents occur, trade unions have to help enterprises resume production as quickly as possible. This fact in itself gives trade unions some room for manoeuvre. What makes the Draft Regulations even more groundbreaking is that it stipulates that when a major strike occurs, the government may issue an order prohibiting management and workers from taking any action for a period of 30 days that is liable to exacerbate the dispute. By clearly stipulating the rights and obligations of employers and workers, the Draft Regulations have, in fact, brought industrial strike action within the scope of legal regulation.

We are only a step away from the right to strike. This paper-thin barrier can be breached. These regulations fully embody Shenzhen’s pioneering spirit.

We can safely assume that if the Draft Regulations are approved, it will quickly prompt employers, workers and the government to assume their respective responsibilities to jointly build harmonious labour relations.

The ITUC has joined the European Trade Union Confederation in calling on the European Union to respect the fundamental rights of migrants. The ETUC has written to the members of the European Parliament in the lead up to a vote on 18 June on the so-called “Returns Directive” which, if adopted, would introduce a number of measures which the trade union organisations deem unacceptable.

Amongst these are provisions concerning the length of detention of “irregular” migrants, a 5-year ban on re-entry to Europe of persons who have been removed, and forced returns of migrants to countries other than their country of origin.

“Globalisation, economic liberalisation and deregulation have and will continue to drive workers to leave their countries to seek employment elsewhere due to the lack of economic development, unemployment and poverty. It is critically important that migration policies are in line with ILO Conventions and the United Nations migration convention,” said ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder.

For the full text of the ETUC statement, please click here

by Jonathan Tasini

Yesterday, Sen. Obama made comments to a business reporter that leave the impression that he is already shifting his stated position on NAFTA and, by extension, so-called “free trade”. It is worth looking at as a sign where Sen. Obama really intends to lead us on trade if he wins the White House.

A few overall observations to try to steer the discussion in a productive way:

1. This isn’t a debate about whether you are for Sen. Obama or for a third George Bush term. That’s a no-brainer.

2. If elected, Sen. Obama has the potential to be a great president–not principally because of his abilities and vision but because of the expectations he has created from millions of people who are really pissed off and are ready to get behind deep, systemic change.

3. The issue of so-called “free trade” and, by extension, how one views the power of corporate America to shape our economic lives is, from my little vantage point, THE deep, systemic change question on the economic vision side. Sen. Obama’s economic solutions, at least those embodied in his proposals to date, are inadequate, some seriously so, in meeting the expectations he has raised–which raises for him, and the Democratic Party, a very serious political dilemma. No more so than on the question of so-called “free trade”.

4. Some would say, “let’s not have these debates before November”. That is a legitimate position with which I respectfully disagree. Whatever mandate Sen. Obama comes into office with (and I believe the election will not be close, Electoral College-speaking) has to be shaped by agreements and views shaped now.

So, yesterday, here is what Sen. Obama said to Fortune Magazine:
The general campaign is on, independent voters are up for grabs, and Barack Obama is toning down his populist rhetoric - at least when it comes to free trade.

In an interview with Fortune to be featured in the magazine’s upcoming issue, the presumptive Democratic nominee backed off his harshest attacks on the free trade agreement and indicated he didn’t want to unilaterally reopen negotiations on NAFTA.

“Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified,” he conceded, after I reminded him that he had called NAFTA “devastating” and “a big mistake,” despite nonpartisan studies concluding that the trade zone has had a mild, positive effect on the U.S. economy.

Does that mean his rhetoric was overheated and amplified? “Politicians are always guilty of that, and I don’t exempt myself,” he answered.

Here is what Sen. Obama says on his website about trade and NAFTA:

Obama believes that trade with foreign nations should strengthen the American economy and create more American jobs. He will stand firm against agreements that undermine our economic security.

* Fight for Fair Trade: Obama will fight for a trade policy that opens up foreign markets to support good American jobs. He will use trade agreements to spread good labor and environmental standards around the world and stand firm against agreements like the Central American Free Trade Agreement that fail to live up to those important benchmarks. Obama will also pressure the World Trade Organization to enforce trade agreements and stop countries from continuing unfair government subsidies to foreign exporters and nontariff barriers on U.S. exports.
* Amend the North American Free Trade Agreement: Obama believes that NAFTA and its potential were oversold to the American people. Obama will work with the leaders of Canada and Mexico to fix NAFTA so that it works for American workers.

Here is what Sen Obama said on the campaign trail:

“Sen Clinton has gotten mad at me, because I said she supported NAFTA,” Obama said at a rally in Toledo. “She said, ‘Well, that’s misleading.’ And I had to say, ‘Well, hold on a second.’ The Clinton administration championed NAFTA, passed NAFTA, signed NAFTA. She’s saying that part of the experience that makes her the best qualified to be president is all the work that she was doing in the Clinton administration. You can’t take credit for everything that’s good in the Clinton administration and then suddenly say you don’t want to take credit for what folks don’t like about the Clinton administration.”

Here is what Sen Obama said back in 2004 when he was running for the Senate:

Obama said the United States benefits enormously from exports under the WTO and NAFTA. He said, at the same time, there must be recognition that the global economy has shifted, and the United States is no longer the dominant economy.” [emphasis added]

I do not want to go down the road of the hoo-hah over what, if anything, was said to the Canadians by Sen. Obama’s campaign because that is a black hole, with people still arguing whether it was true or not. I think the record, in his own words, is much more useful.

And what does that show? Believe it or not, I think this is complicated–and complication is not the stuff of political debate these days. Here is what I would say:

First, Sen. Obama believes in so-called “free trade”. He has said so, on numerous occasions.

Second, during the campaign, he took a very hard, negative line against NAFTA, in large part because it was a useful–and correct–criticism of Sen Clinton’s support for NAFTA (she simply lied about her past position but that is not the topic of this post so I’ll just leave it at that).

Third, of more concern, he found it now necessary, as the nominee, to “moderate” his views on so-called “free trade”, particularly to a business readership–the Fortune magazine interview. Instead, he could have co-sponsored a ground-breaking piece of trade legislation offered by fellow Democrats–but he has not. This should raise concerns about how he would conduct his presidency on the topic of trade, rhetoric aside. If even as the nominee he feels a need to appease the business community, what can be expected when he is president?

Fourth, I think he is somewhat conflicted. I think the community organizer in him comes out when he speaks to union audiences or listens to the policy arguments that make a persuasive case about the damage of so-called “free trade”. He understands oppression and corporate power. But, I think he also has deeply ingrained a faith–misguided, I would add–in marketing phrases like “free trade” and “free market”. I think those faiths have been ingrained in him not the least of which comes from his Harvard education, an institution where the belief in these marketing phrases is almost a religion.

From the beginning of his campaign, I have been concerned about the contradiction I see between Sen. Obama’s calls for change, on the one hand, versus his continued advocacy for so-called “free trade” and the “free market”, which, as I have argued before, are just marketing phrases. We need to keep asking questions (like these questions) now. I believe asking those questions will make Sen. Obama a better, stronger and, yes, a truly change president.

By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN
AP Political Writer

Joe Heston tends to vote Republican, but after listening to Barack Obama speak on Monday, he may vote for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. “I like his ideas, especially on the economy and education,” said Heston, a 23-year-old Kettering University senior from Monterey, Calif., who attended Obama’s speech at the Flint school. “I’m going to take a long look in this election.”

Obama, making his third campaign swing through Michigan since mid-May, said Monday he wants to move America to a place where workers can compete in a global economy.

“Not only is it impossible to turn back the tide of globalization, but efforts to do so can make us worse off,” the Illinois senator told the crowd of more than 1,000.

The audience cheered loudly when Obama talked of his plans for universal health insurance, grants for students to attend college and more support for research and development.

“I know as well that more than anything else, success will depend not on our government, but on the dynamism, determination and innovation of the American people,” Obama said, giving a decidedly local twist to his remarks. “Here in Flint, it was the private sector that helped turn lumber into the wagons that sent this country west; that built the tanks that faced down fascism; and that turned out the automobiles that were the cornerstone of America’s manufacturing boom.

“But at critical moments of transition like this one, success has also depended on national leadership that moved the country forward with confidence and a common purpose.”

Obama’s message about putting in place policies that would help Americans cope with high prices for gasoline, food and education was especially well-suited for Flint, where the metropolitan area had a seasonally unadjusted April unemployment rate of 9.3 percent.

It also was expected to resonate well when he spoke Monday evening in Detroit, where the April area unemployment rate was 6.9 percent, the same rate as the state’s seasonally adjusted rate. Michigan has had the nation’s highest unemployment rate in recent years.

One of those on hand to hear Obama at Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena said he hoped the candidate would give more attention to international issues.

“Obama should focus on foreign affairs,” said Aaron Mestel, 36, of Ann Arbor. “He needs to look at what’s going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think whenever you have a stick you also have to have a carrot. We don’t have a carrot.”

Michael McGonegal, an industrial products sales representative from Brighton who attended the Flint speech, said he thinks Obama is reaching voters with his comments on the importance of leveling the economic playing field.

“It’s like Monopoly. If you get all the money in Park Place and Boardwalk, you have to close up the board and go home,” the 59-year-old said. “Right here in Flint is where the middle class started. … (But) the middle class is evaporating.”

During his speech, Obama repeated his claims that Republican rival John McCain simply will re-warm the policies of President Bush if elected.

“President Bush’s policies have put us in the hole, and John McCain’s policies will keep us there. I want to get us out of the hole,” Obama said. “I’ll double federal funding for basic research and make the R&D tax credit permanent. We can ensure that the discoveries of the 21st century happen in America — in our labs and universities; at places like Kettering and the University of Michigan; Wayne State and Michigan State.”

But U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, in a teleconference set up by the Michigan Republican Party, said Obama’s policies would hurt the state’s middle class. Rogers said those policies would raise taxes on coal and natural gas and lead to higher gasoline prices.

“This guy is completely out of touch with the average Michigan family,” said Rogers, a Brighton Republican.

In a statement, Republican U.S. Rep. Dave Camp of Midland also criticized Obama.

“Sen. Obama failed to mention his plans to increase energy taxes, especially those levied on coal and natural gas. Increasing these taxes will halt our recovery before it ever begins,” he said.

Obama met before the event with Flint residents Nicholas and Candis Letterman and their children. They make less than $40,000 a year and are having trouble making ends meet, let alone save for retirement or their children’s education, according to the Obama campaign.

Nicholas Letterman left his job in property management to go back to school to retrain as a medical assistant. He graduated Friday and is looking for a job in his new profession. His wife is a health care technician. The Obama campaign said McCain’s policies would offer the Lettermans $113 per year in tax relief, while the Obama plan would provide $1,400, plus additional savings on their health insurance.

But McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement that Obama’s proposals would hurt American workers, not help them.

“Barack Obama’s agenda to raise taxes and isolate America from foreign markets will not get our economy back on track or create new jobs. Even Barack Obama admits that it’s poor economic judgment to want to raise taxes while our economy is struggling,” Bounds said. “To help create jobs in America, we need to lower taxes and open up foreign markets to American goods.”

Obama was joined at the event by Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Lt. Gov. John Cherry and other top Michigan leaders in Congress and Democratic political circles.

Later, he greeted workers at one of Flint’s auto plants.

Obama stood outside the doors of GM’s Flint Engine South plant as workers were leaving for the day. As dark clouds gathered overhead, he shook hands and posed for photos with workers, sometimes standing under an umbrella.

“These guys do great work,” Obama told reporters. “What we need … is to make sure we’re making investments in the kind of technology and innovation that will help this plant compete.”

The plant employs around 600 people and makes 1,800 six-cylinder engines a day, according to plant manager John Freeman.

Obama said his tax plan would save the average American family three times what McCain’s would.

“If you’re making over $250,000 a year, you’ll see your taxes increase modestly,” he said. “That’s not the average person in Flint.”

He also was to attend a Monday evening fundraiser at the Renaissance Center in Detroit, where tickets ranged from $1,000 to $4,600.

The senator also has a planned stop Tuesday morning in Wayne County.

——

Assocated Press reporter Corey Williams in Detroit contributed to this story.

By Cara Buckley and Annie Correal

The women’s stories seemed to come from a backward country, or from a shameful time in the United States that many would sooner forget. One woman, too scared to give her name, told of being struck by her employer in Bethesda, Md., as she scrubbed her hands raw polishing the floor. Another woman, Violet Anthony, who is 29 and from Mumbai, said her face became marbled with bruises after her employer in Queens slammed her into a wall and slapped her.

Araceli Herrera said some of her employers inspected her bags before she left their homes and refused to drive her to or from the bus stop, a half-hour’s walk away. One employer, she said, fired her after she had a gallbladder operation and needed a month’s rest.

“With each job, I was exploited more. The thing is, the more you suffer, the harder it is to defend yourself,” said Ms. Herrera, 48, who trained to be an optometrist in her native Mexico and now works as a housekeeper in San Antonio. “We come from an atmosphere of violence, of blows, and we think we have to tolerate that.”

All three women were in Manhattan over the weekend for the first National Domestic Workers Congress, four days of workshops, meetings and a rally to demand rights for a work force that organizers describe as splintered, almost invisible, and staggeringly difficult to organize.

“Collective bargaining is not possible,” said Ai-jen Poo, an organizer with Domestic Workers United, an advocacy group for nannies, caregivers for the elderly, and housekeepers in New York. Workers usually achieve rights through strength in numbers, Ms. Poo said, banding together to pressure an individual employer to change. But in the New York City area, she estimated, there are 200,000 domestic workers working for perhaps as many employers.

“The power dynamics are different,” Ms. Poo said. “If you try to negotiate, you’re out.”

The conference drew about 100 women, most of them representatives from domestic workers’ groups in about 10 cities. Nearly all of them were immigrants, from Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, the Philippines and India. They came together to build alliances and hone strategies to demand benefits that many of their employers almost assuredly take for granted: paid vacations and holidays, cost-of-living wage increases, health benefits and advance notice of termination. The workers threw their support behind a proposed New York State Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, which, if passed, would be the first in the nation.

“Right now, it’s like the wild, wild West - anything goes,” Ms. Poo said. “Our point is that there needs to be a basic standard of protections, because the majority fall under employers who abuse, and everyone is vulnerable.”

Ms. Anthony said she was duped into working for next to nothing after responding to an ad in India that promised her $600 a month for baby-sitting in the United States. Instead, she said, her employer took away her passport after she arrived in 2004, paid her $100 a month for her first job, in New Jersey, and later forced her to work without pay from 7 a.m. to midnight at his home in Queens, cleaning, cooking and baby-sitting. The man also threatened to tie her up in the basement, she said. After his wife beat her, she said, she fled to a neighbor’s home. Ms. Anthony later learned of a group for South Asian workers that helped her move on to a better job as a mail clerk at a law firm.

The woman who said she was beaten by her employer in Maryland has been living at a shelter. At the conference, she drew small hearts on her name tag, but fearing repercussions from her former employer, asked that her name not be made public. She is 37, a slight woman with small hands and a stud adorning her nose. She is from Kanpur, India, and arrived in Bethesda in December 2007 to work, she said, for a man who worked at the Indian Embassy. Her days started at 6 a.m. and lasted well into the night, and she said she was paid $200 for three months’ work. Exhausted, sickened by the chemical cleaning solutions that seared her lungs and burned her hands, she ran away in April and was placed in a shelter. “At first I had many dreams,” she said. “But I have let go of so many dreams.”

Casa de Maryland, an immigrants’ advocacy group, and its Committee of Women Seeking Justice took on her case and sent her to the conference.

Other women told less harrowing tales that still evinced how little their work was valued, and how little recourse they felt they had. One woman, who wore a yellow T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “Tell Dem Slavery’s Done,” said she used to baby-sit full time in New York City for $275 a week, and was pushed to work for less. Georgia Danan, a 76-year-old who works as a caregiver for the elderly, said an agency in California paid her $70 for working a 24-hour shift; she is fighting for several months of back wages. Martha Alvarado, who is 41 and from Peru, said that in her first housekeeping job in the United States, in 1994, she was forced to live in a basement and work six days a week, until 11 p.m. at night.

Ms. Alvarado, like many of the women at the conference, said she considered herself lucky to be there because untold thousands of domestic workers remained exploited and deeply isolated.
“Many women feel they are alone,” she said, “and don’t dare come out in the light and speak.”

(The New York Times)