"The question is why are we bringing a guy in from Honduras, paying him $17 an hour, and not giving that job to a kid from New Bedford or Fall River?" said Paul Harrington, an economist at the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University. "It's a failure of the system, plain and simple."

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One of the Bush administration's final gifts to American workers is a rule to make it even more difficult to prove the dangers of workplace chemicals. Instead of regulating a chemical based on basic human risk to its exposure, the administration would add a requirement that risk data must first be compiled industry-by-industry. The New York Times reported this week that "Administration officials acknowledge that such data did not always exist."

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This was sent to me by an outside union member who understands this to be true. Though I do not often post anti-union articles I felt this needed to be addressed. His sentments are common among people who only here the facts presented to them by mainstream media.

Editor

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What the news media fail to report is that the UAW made significant concessions over the years, including wage cut-backs at Chrysler and a 2007 contract for all three auto makers that created a "second tier" wage level of $14.50–$16.23 per hour ($30,160–$33,758 per year, still below U.S. average wage of $40.405, according to the Census Bureau), reduced benefits, and a retirement plan now administered by the UAW not the Big Three.

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The union sponsored a Hazelwood Park cookout last summer for the PCAs and their clients, and kept in touch with them as the union vote neared.

"They make you want to join," she said.

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The Labor Department is racing to complete a rule, strenuously opposed by President-elect Barack Obama, that would make it much harder for the government to regulate toxic substances and hazardous chemicals to which workers are exposed on the job.

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He credited Teamsters Union Local 59 and Longshoremen's Union Local ILA 1413 for supplying a capable labor force that helps make the port competitive.

"We have a good setup with them," he said. "They do a really good job."

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In between violin and voice lessons, teachers at the Conservatory Lab Charter School in Brighton have organized into a union, the first-ever at a Massachusetts charter school.

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