Labor & Employment Law

Combating HIV/AIDS in Africa: Worksite Education and Testing

Posted on February 11, 2010
In this cross-post from Huffington Post, Bernard Pollack, who is taking a leave of absence from the AFL-CIO to travel through Africa, and Danielle Nierenberg describe how the Solidarity Center in South Africa is training and educating workers on HIV/AIDS protection...

NASA Budget Cuts Could Cost 1,200 Jobs

Posted on February 10, 2010
      The members of Transport Workers (TWU) Local 525 have a front-row seat to America’s space program. The local represents 1,200 ground crew and emergency support staff of both manned and unmanned rockets on Cape Canaveral . But proposed budget cuts threaten those good union jobs and endanger the space exploration program overall...

AFL-CIO/NEA Labor Solidarity Partnership Agreement Extended

Posted on February 10, 2010
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and National Education Association (NEA) President Dennis Van Roekel have agreed to extend the NEA/AFL-CIO Labor Solidarity Partnership until June 30, 2010. As a result of the historic agreement, signed in Feb. 2006, 20 NEA local associations–representing more than 30,000 members in five states and the District of Columbia–have directly affiliated with the AFL-CIO and its state and local bodies...

Disneyland Hotel Workers Fast For Safer Work

Posted on February 09, 2010
Disneyland hotel workers plan to begin a water-only fast today to protest what they describe as life-threatening safety issues on the job. The more than 2,000 bellmen, dishwashers, room attendants, and cooks, members of Unite Here! Local 11, have been working without a contract since February 2008...

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Snow? Oh, No. It?s Still the Economy

Posted on February 09, 2010
Here are a few tidbits worth noting from around the nation's economic scene. Bob Herbert at the New York Times puts the sorry U.S. unemployment rate in clearer--and more painful--perspective today, pointing out how the workers losing jobs are those who had almost no income to begin with...

Senate Dem. Nelson Joins Republican Filibuster Against Obama?s NLRB Choice

Posted on February 09, 2010
With the nation's capitol under two-plus feet of snow, Nebraska's Sen. Ben Nelson (D) appears to have come down with a case of snow madness--a delirium that sometimes manifests itself in bizarre and illogical actions and speech. Nelson announced yesterday that he would back a Republican-led filibuster against President Obama's nominee to the National Labor Relations Board, Craig Becker...

Mass. AFL-CIO Futures Convention Spotlights Young Workers

Posted on February 09, 2010
John Drinkwater, organizing and mobilization coordinator for the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, sends us this report on how the state federation is helping build the future by tapping into the skills of today's young workers. Continuing its ongoing mission to develop young union leaders in the Commonwealth, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO's Third Annual Futures Convention elected a new Futures representative to a serve on the Massachusetts AFL-CIO Executive Council and head the Futures Program for the coming year...

LabourStart Sponsors Labor Video Contest

Posted on February 09, 2010
Have a video that depicts the plight of today's workers? LabourStart, the global online labor news service, is sponsoring a Labor Video of the Year competition, open to trade unionists and film-makers from around the world. The videos must be on the web and run less than 10 minutes...

Judge to Pratt & Whitney: Keep Work in U.S.

Posted on February 09, 2010
A federal court issued an injunction Feb. 4 against Pratt & Whitney, preventing the company from moving work and equipment out of their Cheshire and East Hartford, Conn., plants and keeping 1,000 hourly and salaried workers on the job. Machinists (IAM) District 26 had filed suit, saying the decision to move the work violated their contract...

?Undercover Boss?: A Fairy Tale That Ignores Grim Reality

Posted on February 08, 2010
      As kids, we all loved the sugar-coated fairy tales of handsome and brave princes rescuing beautiful princesses from despotic kings. The new CBS “reality” show “Undercover Boss” that debuted last night after the Super Bowl is a 21st century sugar-coated fairy tale...

Job Creation Key to Ending Economic Crisis

Posted on February 07, 2010
       As Congress considers whether to renew unemployment insurance (UI) for long-term jobless workers and extend COBRA to help unemployed workers maintain health care, they should take time to find out about the experiences of workers beyond the Washington, D...

Labor On the Air Around the Nation and World

Posted on February 06, 2010
      Looking for the latest in international labor news? Now it’s just a click away with the launch of RadioLabour.net and its Solidarity News program. The weekly podcast will focus on union and workers’ activities and issues from around the world with special emphasis on emerging market and developing countries...

U.S. Jobless Rate Now 9.7%, but Millions Fear Losing Unemployment Insurance

Posted on February 05, 2010
The U.S. unemployment rate fell from 10 percent to 9.7 percent in January, with 14.8 million workers now without jobs. Employment continued to decrease in construction and transportation and increase in retail, health care and temp work, according to U...

New Union Plus Book Club Announces First Selection

Posted on February 05, 2010
      Our friends at Union Plus have just launched the Union Plus Book Club that will delve into the latest publications by leading experts on vital working family and workplace issues. The books will be available at the AFL-CIO’s The Union Shop OnlineTM and chosen every two months by union leaders based on their interest and expertise in a subject...

Jobless Construction Workers to Delaware Lawmakers: ?Walk in Our Shoes?

Posted on February 05, 2010
      Staging a symbolic soup and bread line and carrying shoes to encourage state legislators to walk a mile in a jobless worker’s shoes, some 500 Delaware Building and Construction Trades Council (BCTC) workers rallied for jobs legislation in Dover last week...

Danger: Falling Middle Class

Posted on February 05, 2010
      Jack Cafferty at CNN this week asked viewers one of his seemingly routine questions. But the responses to: “How has definition of ‘middle-class American’ changed?” reveal a cataclysmic shift in our nation’s economic identity...

Senate Confirms Smith as the Nation?s ?Workers? Lawyer?

Posted on February 04, 2010
By a 60-37 vote, the U.S. Senate this afternoon confirmed M. Patricia Smith as the solicitor of labor. The solicitor of labor oversees enforcement of the nation’s most important labor laws and sets enforcement priorities that have a major impact on workers and their lives...

Don?t Forget Haiti?s Workers

Posted on February 04, 2010
    Fire Fighters members of Fairfax County (Va.) Urban Search and Rescue conduct a rescue operation at the Montana Hotel in Port-au-Prince.         Despite reports of improved conditions in Port-au-Prince, two weeks after the earthquake hit Haiti, workers still lack basic shelter, food, water and medicine, reports Cathy Feingold, the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center representative in the neighboring Dominican Republic...

UMass Researchers Choose UAW

Posted on February 04, 2010
A majority of the 300 postdoctoral researchers working at three University of Massachusetts campuses in Boston, Amherst and Dartmouth have signed cards to join a union to negotiate better wages, health care and working conditions. A delegation of the workers filed a petition yesterday asking the Massachusetts Division of Labor Relations (DLR) to certify their union, UMass Postdoctoral Researchers Organize/UAW (UMass PRO/UAW), as their representative for collective bargaining...

Health Costs Take Historic Chunk of Economy in Biggest-Ever Jump

Posted on February 04, 2010
      Earlier this week, we noted a new study that predicts health insurance premiums will jump between 10 percent and 11 percent this year. Now a new government report says health care costs last year took the biggest bite ever out of the nation’s economy...

Republicans First Slime, Then Maneuver to Block Labor Board Nominee

Posted on February 04, 2010
Republican Senate leaders are so frightened that a member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) might actually have an open mind about workers’ rights, that in two purely partisan maneuvers, they’ve blocked a majority vote on one of President Obama’s nominees for an NLRB seat...

Wisconsin NEA Local Partners with State Fed in Solidarity Agreement

Posted on February 04, 2010
The 840 members of the Janesville (Wis.) Education Association (JEA) voted to affiliate with the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO and the Rock County Central Labor Council. JEA President David Parr calls the affiliation “an exciting new partnership.” Through the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO and the Rock County Central Labor Council, Janesville educators are standing in solidarity with other working people on the issues that impact our community...

Solis Backs Employee Free Choice, Strong Enforcement of Wage, Safety Laws

Posted on February 03, 2010
   Labor Secretary Hilda Solis says workers face increasing obstacles when they try to form unions and “we need to restore their freedom to do so.” In testimony before the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee today, Solis looked back at the department’s actions in 2009 and forward to its 2010 agenda...

UI and Health Care Clocks Tick for Jobless Workers, Congress Must Act

Posted on February 03, 2010
Time is rapidly running out for Congress to keep a vital lifeline available for jobless workers and their families. Both unemployment insurance (UI) for the long-term jobless and the COBRA extension to help unemployed workers maintain health care coverage expire Feb...

Report: Union Membership Benefits Workers in Every State

Posted on February 03, 2010
Joining a union would be good for workers in every state in the nation because union members receive better pay and benefits than nonunion workers, according to a new report. “The Unions of the States,” released today by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), studied union membership rates, size of the union workforce and wage and benefit advantages for union workers in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia...

Minnesota AFL-CIO Calls for Bold State Action to Create Jobs

Posted on February 03, 2010
Workday Minnesota editor Barb Kucera reports on the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s job creation strategy unveiled Monday. For more on how unions and their allies on the state and local levels can mobilize for legislation and policies that create jobs and boost the economy for working families, click here...

Republican Health Care Stall Means Higher Health Costs

Posted on February 02, 2010
The longer that congressional Republicans roadblock health care reform, the more it is going cost the American people–and the bigger the bite health care costs will take out of a reeling economy.  A new poll by Buck Consultants shows that costs for all type of plans–from PPO’s to high deductible plans–will jump by 10 percent to 11 percent this year...

AFT, NEA Offer Black History Month Teaching Tools

Posted on January 31, 2010
      AFT and the National Education Association (NEA) have compiled a variety of resources to help educators celebrate Black History Month, which begins Feb. 1. The AFT site here highlights key facts and figures about African Americans, important historical events, influential figures and the continuing contributions of African Americans...

Winners Picked in IBEW Photo Contest

Posted on January 30, 2010
      The image of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 369 apprentice Sam Simms climbing to the top of an electrical pole, as a cloud-breaking sun provides a ragged pink halo above, was the top vote-getter in the 2009 IBEW Photo Contest. Nearly 4,000 online votes were cast for the 15 finalists?out of more than 300 submissions...

U.S.: Bottom of the Pack for Bread-and-Butter Basics

Posted on January 29, 2010
  Dr. Jody Heymann is a professor in the Faculties of Medicine and Arts at McGill University, where she is founding director of the Institute for Health and Social Policy and founding chair of the Project on Global Working Families. She also is an adjunct associate professor at the Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School...

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