Labor & Employment Law

Health Care CEOs Pocket Big Bucks, Still Fight Real Reform

Posted on August 13, 2010
      Republicans on Capitol Hill want to keep the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich. Never mind the nation lost nearly 8 million jobs under the Bush administration when the tax breaks were in place. Now, Ezra Klein points out why the corporate-backed Republicans  support tax breaks for the wealthy...

Join California Nurses to Celebrate Women?s Vote, Protest Whitman

Posted on August 13, 2010
    RN and suffragist Lillian Wald         On Aug. 26, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU) will host a 90th anniversary celebration of a woman?s right to vote with a huge march and rally in Sacramento...

Fox Admits It: Union Members? Work Is ?Awesome?

Posted on August 13, 2010
      Looks like we got the attention of Stuart Varney at Fox News. After we challenged as grossly false his assault on the ability of union workers to produce high-tech products, Fox this morning ran a list of the “awesome” things unions build...

Steelworkers Rally for Locked Out Nuclear Workers

Posted on August 12, 2010
Kids got a chance to take a few swings at a Honeywell bee piñata. What makes members of the United Steelworkers (USW) hop a bus at 6 a.m. and ride six hours so they can march in 95-degree August heat to show solidarity with their union brothers and sisters? Jim Robinson, director of Steelworkers District 7 in Gary, Ind...

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Thousands to Rally in Los Angeles Friday for Jobs

Posted on August 12, 2010
      With a critical election less than three months away and jobs foremost among voters’ concerns, thousands of working people will join community and labor leaders from across the country Friday in Los Angeles to let our elected leaders and political candidates know we need real action, not campaign rhetoric, on creating good jobs that can?t be outsourced...

Tell Fox: Union Members ARE Rocket Scientists

Posted on August 12, 2010
Amaya Tune, AFL-CIO Media Outreach specialist, is p’od. She’ll tell you why. Stuart Varney, a Fox blowhard, had a segment today hitting the AFL-CIO for pushing for a “No” vote on Michael Dell.  The Fox crew jested that we shouldn’t be weighing in because unions don’t create innovative technology and went so far as to say: ”Imagine if unions made an iPhone...

BP to Pay Record $50.6 Million OSHA Fine for Texas City Blast

Posted on August 12, 2010
BP agreed today to pay a fine of $50.6 million to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for violations related to the 2005 explosion at its Texas City, Texas, refinery that killed 15 and injured 170. The company also must pay another $500 million to protect workers at the plant, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said this afternoon during a press conference call...

Paychecks Higher for Asian Pacific Women in Unions

Posted on August 12, 2010
    Organizers like Maria Somma, health care organizing coordinator for the United Steelworkers (USW) and a board member of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), have helped thousands of Asian Pacific American women join a union...

Boehner Is Wrong. Americans Don?t Support Social Security Cuts

Posted on August 12, 2010
      Listen up, John Boehner: The public doesn?t like your plan to cut their Social Security so your rich friends can get another tax break. In fact, according to a poll released today by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, 68 percent of probable voters oppose cutting Social Security and Medicare to reduce the deficit...

Social Media: Tool for Balancing Work and Family?

Posted on August 12, 2010
      The union movement may have a new tool in its efforts to reach out to young workers who increasingly say balancing work and family is a top priority: social media. A new study finds that young workers may be especially receptive to union organizers who use social media...

Social Security Fearmongering

Posted on August 12, 2010
      When the report by the Social Security Board of Trustees came out last week, it found Social Security is strong for the long term. But that’s not what you’d hear from some corporate media outlets. Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) points out that CNN coverage has been especially egregious, with Wolf Blitzer asserting that Social Security has reached “the financial tipping point...

Ignoring Courts, Arizona Gov. and Legislature Move Anti-Union measure

Posted on August 11, 2010
Last week, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld a lower court?s July ruling that a proposed state constitutional amendment that sought to restrict how workers can vote in union representation elections was unconstitutional. Not surprisingly, it?s being pushed by opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act...

Extremist Media Steps Up Attacks on Workers, Unions

Posted on August 11, 2010
      In their attack on the union movement, extremist reactionary media outlets increasingly are depicting unions and workers as thugs, Communists and destroyers of free enterprise. Media Matters has compiled these recent attacks and we’re cross-posting some of  the watchdog group’s findings here...

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs Made in America

Posted on August 11, 2010
      * For months, we in the union movment have been calling for Congress to do more?much more?to create jobs. Now, the long-term jobless rate for workers is the worst since the 1930s Depression?some 45 percent of unemployed workers have been without jobs for more than six months?and calls for federal action on jobs are coming from across the nation...

Obama Signs Jobs Bill

Posted on August 11, 2010
      Just hours after the House put finishing touches on a state aid/jobs bill that will prevent the layoffs of hundreds of thousands of teachers, public employees, police officers and firefighters in cash-strapped states, President Obama signed it into law...

House Passes Jobs Bill for States, Obama Set to Sign

Posted on August 10, 2010
After months of Republican obstruction in the Senate, vital aid to states facing massive budget shortfalls and layoffs of hundreds of thousands of teachers, public employees, police officers and firefighters is on its way to the White House for President Obama?s signature...

PRI Highlights Migrant Workers? Rights Group

Posted on August 10, 2010
PRI?s The World featured the Center for Migrant Rights (CDM) on its Aug. 9 broadcast. The group, known as Centro de los Derechos del Migrante in Mexico, works with migrant workers who experience problems, such as unpaid wages or workplace injuries, with their employment in the United States...

US Student Association Hearts AFL-CIO DREAM Act Support

Posted on August 10, 2010
Cool. The United States Student Association (USSA) is tweeting about the AFL-CIO’s move last week to call on Congress to pass the DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) as a down payment on comprehensive immigration reform...

Chavez-Thompson: A Hug for the Prez

Posted on August 10, 2010
         Linda Chavez-Thompson, candidate for lieutenant governor in Texas, had the honor of introducing President Barack Obama to the state Democratic National Committee yesterday. But she refused to shake his hand. Instead, she walked up straight to him, stared him in the eye and greeted him with a warm abrazo [hug]...

Egypt?s Workers Struggle to Keep Unions Free

Posted on August 09, 2010
AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker congratulates Kamal Abbas, left, and Kamal Abu Eita. The two accepted the Meany-Kirkland Award on behalf of Egypt?s trade union movement.   The first recorded workers? strike was more than 5,000 years ago by the builders of the Pyramids in Egypt...

Call Your Rep. Now on State Jobs Bill

Posted on August 09, 2010
      The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted for a bill giving essential aid to state and local governments that would save or create nearly a million jobs for teachers, public employees, police officers, firefighters and others. The measure is fully paid for, in part because it closes tax loopholes for multi-national corporations  that send U...

South Florida Unions Kick Off Early Voting

Posted on August 09, 2010
      Ignoring a driving rain this morning, several hundred Florida union activists kicked off the two-week early-voting window for the state?s primary election with a rally and march for working family candidates in Miami. Following the rally at the Miami offices of Longshoremen (ILA) Local 1416, marchers?clad in ponchos and carrying umbrellas?headed to the Miami-Dade County Government Center to cast their ballots...

AFSCME Seeks to Block Furloughs of 9,000 Kentucky State Workers?and More Bargaining News

Posted on August 09, 2010
AFSCME is filing suit to block furloughs for 9,000 Kentucky state employees, and more news from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 1,300 subscribers...

USW Signs Wind Farm Deals with China Power Companies

Posted on August 09, 2010
The United Steelworkers (USW) is partnering with two leading Chinese power generation companies to work together on all aspects of the companies’ U.S. market strategies?including manufacturing, assembly, component sourcing, distribution and wind energy project development...

Reform Rabbis Support Hyatt Workers

Posted on August 09, 2010
Ross Hyman, a research analyst for the AFL-CIO Center for Strategic Research, shares this info. The world’s largest group of Jewish clergy, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), is calling on the owners and leadership of Hyatt Hotels to commit to the Jewish and universal obligations to treat workers fairly and to recognize the value of their labor...

Unions Texting for Jobs and Political Action

Posted on August 08, 2010
The next text message a Painter and Allied Trades (IUPAT) member might receive could be a job lead from the union. Members of the Transport Workers (TWU) and Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) get text messages about the latest actions in the unions? Save Our Ride campaign...

Join Labor in the Pulpits over Labor Day Weekend

Posted on August 07, 2010
      Labor Day is less than a month away and America?s workers find themselves mired in the worst economic crisis since the 1930s Depression. Some 26 million U.S. workers are without jobs or full-time work. Even if you are working, it?s hard to make ends meet...

131,000 Jobs Lost in July

Posted on August 06, 2010
Another 131,000 jobs were lost in July, and the U.S. unemployment rate remained at 9.5 percent, as in June. The new data out this morning from the Department of Labor reflects a lack of private-sector hiring and large numbers of jobless workers returning to the market...

ILWU Files Labor Rights Complaint Against Costa Rica

Posted on August 06, 2010
    Costa Rican police took over the SINTRAJAP union hall in May.         Jennifer Sargent, communications director of the  International Longshore and Warehouse Union’s (ILWU) Coast Longshore Division, reports on the union?s complaint against Costa Rica under the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA)...

Republican Leaders Boehner, Cantor Trash Workers

Posted on August 06, 2010
House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner has a few choice words for all the teachers, cops, fire fighters, and other workers who will be able to stay on the job because the U.S. Senate this week was able to break the Republican filibuster on the jobs bill...

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