Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/914212
96 CINEMONTAGE / Q4 2017 LABOR MAT TERS NC'S LABOR FEDERATION ELECTS FIRST WOMAN PRESIDENT MaryBe McMillan became the first woman to lead the AFL-CIO in North Carolina after being unanimously elected president of the state's AFL-CIO during its 60th annual convention in early September. She had served as secretary-treasurer of the state labor federation since 2005, and was a leader in the cause of getting national and international unions to invest in and organize in the South — no small task. Before starting her career in the labor movement, McMillan worked with housekeepers trying to organize at North Carolina State University and, after receiving an advanced degree in sociology, did public policy research for a number of progressive non-profits. In 2004, she was chosen to work at the AFL-CIO's Union Community Fund, where she got to know North Carolina State AFL-CIO President James Andrews. There, she began a 12-year partnership fighting for working families in the state. AVIATORS WARN OF PRIVATIZING AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL The leader of an association representing more than 11,000 aviation-related businesses is telling its members to oppose a House of Representatives bill that would effectively privatize the air traffic control industry in the United States and put it under the control of major commercial airlines, writes William Westhoven in USA Today in early September. "We are a good industry, we are an essential industry and we are under attack," said National Business Aviation Association President and CEO Ed Bolen, speaking at an NBAA Regional Forum at Morristown Municipal Airport in New Jersey. "We need to make our voices heard." The forum, which took place at a "general-aviation reliever airport" favored by President Trump for weekend flights from Washington to his golf club in Bedminster, attracted about 2,100 attendees with ties to the business- aviation community for a day of networking and presentations by 140 exhibitors. It also provided a platform for NBAA president Bolen to rally opposition to HR 2997, also known as the 21st Century Aviation Innovation, Reform and Reauthorization Act, which would reassign the operation of air traffic services currently provided by the Federal Aviation Administration to a separate not-for-profit corporate entity. SUMMERS: BALANCE WORKERS' AND EMPLOYERS' POWER "The central issue in American politics is the economic security of the middle class and their sense of opportunity for their children," writes Lawrence Summers in The Washington Post. "As long as a substantial majority of American adults believe that their children will not live as well as they did, our politics will remain bitter and divisive." Middle-class anxiety is clearly related to the slow growth of wages in this, the ninth year of economic recovery. The Phillips Curve — which suggests that tighter labor markets lead to an acceleration of wage growth — seems to have broken down. Unemployment is at historically low levels, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that average hourly earnings in August rose by all of three cents — a little more than a tenth of one-percent bump. For the past year, earnings rose by only 2.5 percent. In stark contrast, profits of the S&P 500 are rising at a 16 percent annual rate. How does that make sense? Economists don't know. In part, there are inevitable year-to-year fluctuations (profits have declined in recent years). And in part, BLS data reflects wages earned in the United States, even though a bit less than half of profits are earned abroad. Some of these profits have become more valuable as the dollar has declined compared to other currencies. And finally, wages have failed to rise because a strengthening labor market has drawn more workers into the labor force. "I suspect the most important factor is that employers have gained bargaining power over wages while workers have lost it," adds Summers. f MaryBe McMillan has become the first woman to lead the North Carolina labor movement when she was elected President of the North Carolina State AFL-CIO in September. Courtesy of North Carolina State AFL-CIO