Labor & Employment Law

Executive Council Focuses on Jobs, Election, Workers? Rights

Posted on August 06, 2010
    During the AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting, President Richard Trumka presented Labor Secretary Hilda Solis with a copy of the Labor Department’s employee rights poster signed by every EC member.         In the midst of the worst jobs crisis since the Depression, the AFL-CIO Executive Council laid out a road map for how the Obama administration and Congress can fundamentally revamp the nation’s economy so that it puts workers first...

AFSCME: Whitman?s $100 Million Finances ?Outright Lie?

Posted on August 06, 2010
      Meg Whitman, probably the deepest-pocketed candidate on any ballot in recent memory, has poured more than $100 million, according to recent campaign finance reports, into her quest to buy California?s governorship and impose her Wall Street agenda on the Golden State...

Now Is Time to Pass DREAM Act

Posted on August 06, 2010
In the highly competitive global economy, it doesn?t make sense to throw away the talents of our nation?s brightest and best high school graduates. But that?s exactly what we do every day by denying nearly 65,000 undocumented high school graduates a path to decent jobs and shutting the doors of higher education and the military to them...

Report Shows Social Security Is Strong for the Long Term

Posted on August 05, 2010
Despite the nation?s overall economic problems, Social Security is still in long-term strong shape, according to the most recent report by the Social Security Board of Trustees. The trustees project that after 2037, tax revenue will be sufficient to pay 78 percent of full benefits...

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One Nation Formed to Bring Back the American Dream

Posted on August 05, 2010
Working people are frustrated and angered by the inability of lawmakers to stop the massive loss of jobs and decline in living standards, while Republicans?and some Democrats?freely hand over the economy to corporations that are growing richer and more powerful each day...

Senate Sends State Aid, Teachers? Jobs Bill to House

Posted on August 05, 2010
By a 61-39 vote today, the U.S. Senate put its finishing touches on an aid to state and local governments bill 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...

The Best Job Training Is a Job

Posted on August 05, 2010
Millions of college graduates and displaced workers who go back to school are finding out that after years of hard work, all they are left with is hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. Employers say we need a more educated workforce, yet they use the excuse that they can?t find qualified workers here in the United States to ship jobs overseas or import foreign workers in a cynical scam to inflate their own bottom lines...

Law Student Union Summer Inspires Next Generation of Labor Lawyers

Posted on August 05, 2010
      The next generation of labor lawyers spent this summer learning firsthand what it?s like to work on the front lines of union organizing campaigns and the many problems workers face when they try to form a union. Nine law students spent 10 weeks as AFL-CIO Law Student Union Summer (LSUS) interns working with labor lawyers across the country...

Kentucky?s Rand Paul: Coal Mine Disasters ?Unfortunate,? Regs Don?t Matter

Posted on August 04, 2010
Was the deadly explosion that killed 29 coal miners at Massey Energy?s Upper Big Branch mine one of those ?accidents and unfortunate things that do happen no matter what the regulations are?? Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican U.S. Senate candidate, seemed to think so when asked this week about federal mine safety laws...

Labor Caucus at Netroots Nation

Posted on August 04, 2010
Elana Levin, communications director for the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), joined us at the recent Labor Caucus during the Netroots Nation 2010 conference of bloggers and online activists. We had a lot to cover at this year?s Labor Caucus at the Netroots Nation conference in Las Vegas last week...

We Couldn?t Have Said It Better

Posted on August 04, 2010
After President Obama finished delivering his speech to the AFL-CIO Executive Council this morning, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka had this question for the president. We?re going into a congressional election three months from today, and I think it?s fair to say that workers? hopes for congressional action to protect workers? rights and to create jobs have been frustrated by a Republican minority that has filibustered every matter in front of them, every single thing that?s been good for us...

Obama Says ?Made in America? at Heart of U.S. Recovery

Posted on August 04, 2010
President Obama today told the AFL-CIO Executive Council, “We are going to keep fighting for an economy that works for everybody, not just a privileged few.” He also said that with the help of working families and their unions, we are going to rebuild our economy stronger than before, and at the heart of it will be three simple words: made in America...

Election?s Choice: A Vote for the Wrecking Crew or Clean Up Crew

Posted on August 04, 2010
With just three months to go before this fall?s congressional elections, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka yesterday told more than 200 AFL-CIO state federation, central labor council and local union leaders and political activists: Sisters and brothers, in just three months, there’s going to be an election with an historic choice?Will America go back to the Bush years?with rising unemployment, shrinking wages, disappearing health care and dwindling retirement savings? Or will we move forward to a future where we generate jobs that pay middle-class wages and produce world-class products and services? The AFL-CIO Battleground States Conference combined training for the labor movement?s election mobilization with review of the issues at stake in the Nov...

Senate Breaks Republican Filibuster on State Aid, Teachers? Jobs

Posted on August 04, 2010
The Senate today voted 61-38, to end a Republican filibuster of 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 bill provides $16 billion for a Medicaid funding assistance program known as FMAP and $10 billion for teachers? jobs...

AFL-CIO, AFSCME Call for Removal of Dell Chairman

Posted on August 04, 2010
The AFL-CIO and AFSCME  are asking Dell Inc. shareholders to withhold their votes from Michael Dell, the company?s chairman and CEO, at the annual shareholder meeting Aug. 12. The AFL-CIO and AFSCME, which both own Dell shares, say the company would be better served by removing Michael Dell as chairman...

Five New Members Named to Executive Council

Posted on August 04, 2010
  Bob King     Lee Saunders   The AFL-CIO today elected five new members to the Executive Council. The Council also voted to add two seats to the council to promote and establishing diversity as well as giving a greater role to state and local labor leaders...

PG&E Engineers Get the Word Out At Work About Whitman?s Wall Street Agenda

Posted on August 04, 2010
(This is an excerpted cross-post from the California Labor Federation.) By Rebecca Greenberg Most of the scientists and engineers at PG&E know that their jobs are increasingly vulnerable to outsourcing?but they don?t all know about Meg Whitman?s long and devastating track record when it comes to sending US jobs overseas...

New York State Workers Fight Layoffs?and More Bargaining News

Posted on August 03, 2010
New York state employees are fighting unilateral layoffs, 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...

In Illinois, Wage Thieves Will Pay

Posted on August 03, 2010
Illinois employers who shortchange or don’t pay their employees will face felony charges for repeat offenses and, in all cases, will be forced to pay back wages plus interest and fines under a new law signed by Gov. Pat Quinn (D) last week. The new law, which experts say is the toughest anti-wage theft law in the country, goes into effect Jan...

UMWA Shows Support for Pulte Workers

Posted on August 03, 2010
    Delegates to the Mine Workers convention showed their solidarity with Pulte worker. Shown, from left, are IUPAT organizer Norma Uribe, IUPAT DC 15 Business Manager John Smirk and UMWA President Cecil Roberts.         June Rostan, AFL-CIO lead organizer for the Pulte campaign, reports on the support delegates to the Mine Workers (UMWA) convention showed for the Building Justice Campaign...

House Democrats Push ?Make It in America? Agenda

Posted on August 03, 2010
With the economy tanking, jobs as scarce as a real U.S.-made product in Wal-Mart and an election in three months, Congress has finally begun to pay attention to the massive decline of American manufacturing. In the past week and a half, the U.S. House passed a handful of bills to boost domestic manufacturing...

House OKs Whistleblower Protections for Offshore Oil/Gas Workers

Posted on August 03, 2010
Workers on offshore oil and gas rigs who report their safety concerns or violations would have the same whistleblower protections as U.S. rail workers under a bill that won House approval last week. Currently, there is no federal law that protects oil and gas workers if they are retaliated against after they blow the whistle on workplace health and safety violations on the Outer Continental Shelf...

Film ?Entre Nos? Shows Human Side of Immigration Debate

Posted on August 03, 2010
       The most innocent victims of our nation?s broken immigration system are children. In 2008, four million U.S.-born citizen children had at least one undocumented parent. Each of those 4 million American children worry every day that one of their parents might not be home when they return from school...

For First Time Ever, U.S. Moves to Enforce Labor Rules in Trade Deal

Posted on August 03, 2010
      The U.S. Labor Department announced on Friday the United States will request consultations with Guatemala?s government under the labor chapter of the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA). This is the first such action by any U...

Senate Postpones Vote on Jobs-Saving Aid to States

Posted on August 03, 2010
The U.S. Senate yesterday postponed a vote on crucial aid to state and local governments that would save or create nearly 1 million jobs for teachers, public employees, police officers, firefighters and others. The vote is now expected Wednesday evening and Republicans likely will filibuster the bill, even though without such funding, the states that are facing huge budget shortfalls will be forced to begin massive layoffs that could cost nearly a million workers their jobs...

Massey, Sago Owners Set to Spend Big $$ to Defeat Pro-Mine Safety Candidates

Posted on August 02, 2010
Two of the nation?s most anti-union coal companies, which operated mines where the two worst 21st century mining disasters claimed 41 lives, are set to dive head-first with loads of cash in hand into this fall?s congressional elections, according to news reports...

UC Postdoctoral Researchers Reach Tentative Deal

Posted on August 02, 2010
    PRO/UAW members demonstrate for a new contract.         They are some of the smartest people in the nation. Proving just how smart they are, the 6,500 postdoctoral researchers in the University of California (UC) system became union members and negotiated a first-ever union contract even though Republican Gov...

Hurt Re-Elected BCTGM President

Posted on August 02, 2010
      BCTGM’s top officers, from left, David Durkee, Frank Hurt and Joseph Thibodeau participate in a rally and march last winter.         Delegates to the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) convention over the weekend unanimously re-elected the union?s top three officers: President Frank Hurt, Secretary-Treasurer David Durkee and Executive Vice President Joseph Thibodeau...

Obama to Address AFL-CIO Executive Council

Posted on August 02, 2010
President Barack Obama will address the AFL-CIO Executive Council during its meeting in Washington, D.C., this week. Obama will speak to the council on Aug. 4, the first day of the two-day meeting?and also the president?s birthday. Obama spoke to the AFL-CIO Convention last September in Pittsburgh...

Pioneering UAW Sit-Down Striker: Never Scared, Despite Tear Gas and Guns

Posted on August 01, 2010
    Ermon Harp         When AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka spoke recently at the UAW’s 75th annual convention, he paid tribute to many UAW pioneers?members like Ermon Harp, a tiny woman from Milburn, Ky. In his speech to the UAW convention in Detroit in June, Trumka said: “When the auto companies wouldn’t recognize your union, you sat down in the factories...

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