AFL-CIO UNION OPPOSES MILLER

Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO





February 6, 2006

Doris Crouse-Mays
Secretary-Treasurer
Virginia AFL-CIO
5400 Glenside Dr.
Suite E
Richmond VA, 23228

Dear Doris,

Sincerest congratulations on your elevation to the new leadership position at the Virginia State AFL-CIO. If ever the Department for Professional Employees DPE) can be of assistance, please don’t hesitate to call on us.

As a follow-up to our recent conversation, we wanted to provide you with some more details about an announced Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate from Virginia—Harris Miller.

Over the last decade DPE has frequently encountered Mr. Miller—in his former capacity as President and CEO of the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA)—leading the charge against us, the AFL-CIO and many of our affiliated unions on many, many legislative issues.

For your information, I have attached a brief outline of what we could find out from a cursory review of available information. I’m sure that there’s probably a lot more out there, but the specifics we have uncovered thus far should be sufficient.

On the issue of the Bush Overtime regulations, we could not specifically find information relative to the ITAA’s position. Documentation is made nearly impossible since the U.S. Department of Labor doesn’t provide an index to the organizations that filed public comments during that phase of the rulemaking process. It is hard to imagine however, that—given the ITAA’s proclivities regarding other worker-related matters—that the organization sat this fight out when in fact the final rules exempted an even greater number of IT professionals that had been excluded previously.

Finally, as to his views on unions, the appended article from the 6/4/01 edition of Network World says it all. Entitled “IT workers don’t need to unionize”, Miller launches into a typical anti-union screed replete with references to union bosses, attacks on seniority systems, and snide references to collective bargaining agreements and job security. He concludes his rant against unionization of tech workers with the following quote:

Unions have their place. But for today's high-tech workers, union membership would minimize job flexibility, reduce the ability to negotiate wages and stifle the creativity that has made the U.S. IT industry the world leader. High-tech workers have consistently rejected efforts to organize them and will continue to frown upon unions as a useful or desirable move.

Needless to say Miller is truly one of the bad guys. Over and over again on core issues like trade, immigration, overtime protections and privatization of federal jobs, he’s not only been on the wrong side, he’s been galvanizing corporate efforts against us.

As the state AFL-CIO and the labor councils throughout the state embark on their candidate assessment process, I hope they will take into consideration Miller’s anti-labor, anti-worker activities and find him unfit for any kind of labor support.

Feel free to give this letter the widest possible circulation throughout the labor movement in the Commonwealth.

In closing, please also extend my best wishes to Brother Jim for a long and successful tenure as the new President of the Virginia AFL-CIO.

In solidarity,

Michael W. Gildea
Executive Director

1025 Vermont Avenue, N.W.
Suite 1030
Washington, D.C. 20005
Phone: (202) 638-0320
Fax: (202) 628-4379
Website: www.dpeaflcio.org

Note: This letter was transmitted to me with permission to publish by Marcus Courtney, President of "WashTech", the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, Communications Workers of America, Local 37083, AFL-CIO. As Michael Gildea, the Executive Director of the DPEA, AFL-CIO makes clear, Harris Miller is the enemy of American labor. Harris Miller is not a "good Democrat". --Info_Tech_Guy