Labor & Employment Law

Barbara Easterling to Seniors: You Continually Amaze Me

Posted on December 11, 2009
      Alliance for Retired Americans President Barbara Easterling looks at the fight for health care reform and other battles union retirees fought in 2009 and tells Alliance members: “You continually amaze me.” As 2009 draws to a close, I want to say thanks for all you did this year to educate and mobilize your fellow union retirees on state and national issues...

Egyptian Workers Seek Good Trade Deals

Posted on December 11, 2009
Dan Heck, Midwest regional director for Working America, recently visited Egypt as a member of a three-person delegation sponsored by the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center. This is his second post about his impressions of that country’s emerging independent union movement...

Got a Question on the Jobs Crisis? Ask Richard Trumka

Posted on December 11, 2009
      Per-plexd wants to know: What ever happened to those infrastructure jobs? Not the supposedly shovel-ready ones but the long-term ones. The ones that were going to help rebuild our roads, bridges, storm and sewages water systems ad nausem? You know, WPA, CCC, TVA style...

Human Rights Day: Freedom to Form Unions Being Denied

Posted on December 10, 2009
      Dec. 10 is International Human Rights Day, the anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Although much progress has been made to ensure human rights in the past 61 years, Sheldon Friedman, research coordinator for the AFL-CIO’s Voice@Work campaign, reminds us that much more remains to be done, especially to protect workers’ freedom to form unions...

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Trumka: Open for Questions on the Jobs Crisis

Posted on December 10, 2009
On Dec. 15, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will host a live online conversation on the nation’s jobs crisis–and you can take part. Starting today, you can submit questions and vote on other ones submitted to the AFL-CIO’s “Open for Questions About the Jobs Crisis...

Bill Would Create Agency to Protect Consumers from Big Banks

Posted on December 10, 2009
The global financial meltdown demonstrated how vulnerable workers and consumers are to abuses in consumer lending practices and Wall Street’s recklessness. A package of reforms now on the House floor would help protect Americans from a laundry list of risky Wall Street practices from predatory lending to unregulated derivatives...

Shuler: Unions Need Young Workers?and Young Workers Need Unions

Posted on December 10, 2009
   AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler spoke at the winter conference of Union Plus, where she focused on the special challenges faced by young workers who are at risk of becoming the first generation to be worse off than their parents...

Labor Department Says Focus is on Worker Safety, Fair Wages

Posted on December 10, 2009
New rules to improve workplace safety, monitor employer compliance, track ergonomics injuries, bring union-busting consultants out of the shadows and ensure fair wages and overtime pay top the U.S. Department of Labor’s regulatory agenda. Says Labor Secretary Hilda Solis in a video statement on the department’s website: Protecting wages and working conditions is the key mission of our department...

Human Rights Day: Fighting for Domestic Workers

Posted on December 10, 2009
Today, International Human Rights Day, the National Domestic Worker Alliance is joining with domestic workers around the world to launch a campaign to call for improved labor standards for their industry. Domestic work, which includes housecleaning, child-care and elder care, is not covered by many basic labor laws, leaving those who perform this work extremely vulnerable to abuse and exploitation on the job...

Workers? Rights Message Taking Hold in Copenhagen

Posted on December 10, 2009
Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council and co-chair of the AFL-CIO Energy Task Force, sends us this report from the second day at the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, where 40 U.S. union members are part of a 400-member global union movement delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)...

A Tax on Health Care Benefits: The Wrong Policy

Posted on December 10, 2009
  Members of Congress, union members and working family activists rallied in Washington, D.C., today in support of health care reform?and against funding it with a new tax on health benefits. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)?who has introduced an amendment to remove a benefits tax from the Senate bill?and Rep...

Fighting for Real Reform on Capitol Hill and Across the Country

Posted on December 09, 2009
Today and tomorrow, more than 100 union leaders and activists from around the nation are visiting their senators and representatives to let them know they urgently need to pass health care reform?the right way.  The exact shape of the Senate’s bill is in flux right now, and the union leaders are pressing members of Congress on three key issues: ? Inclusion of a public health insurance option; ? Making sure employers do their part in providing health care for employees; and ? Stopping a new tax on working family health benefits...

Report: T-Mobile Mistreats U.S. Employees

Posted on December 09, 2009
T-Mobile USA and its parent company, German telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom (DT), have waged a systematic campaign to prevent employees from forming a union, according to a new report. “Lowering the Bar or Setting the Standard? Deutsche Telekom’s U...

Young Workers: Hit Hard, Hitting Back

Posted on December 09, 2009
  As the newly elected secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, I traveled the country this fall, talking with workers and hearing their concerns. The economic crisis is causing a lot of pain. So many people have no jobs, no health care?and many are losing their homes...

Look for Union Label at iPhone App Store

Posted on December 09, 2009
Elana Levin, communications director for the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), announces the first-ever app organizing victory. The writers of iLarious have just become the first writers of content for an iPhone app to form a union?joining the Writers Guild of America, East...

Jobs Now: States and Cities Need Our Help

Posted on December 09, 2009
      During an economic crisis like the one we’re in now, the squeeze on state and local budgets is brutal. Even as the revenues that are coming in from citizens and businesses decline, residents’ demands for services and assistance increase...

Nurses Union Rallies, Picks DeMoro as Executive Director

Posted on December 09, 2009
Members of National Nurses United (NNU) yesterday wasted no time in raising their voices in support of patients, nurses and working people. Just hours after formally creating the largest union and professional organization of registered nurses in U.S...

Win-Win: Create Good Jobs, Rebuild Nation?s Infrastructure

Posted on December 08, 2009
      As part of the AFL-CIO’s five-point plan for job creation, we’re making concrete proposals to address the nation’s immediate jobs crisis while keeping an eye on creating a sustainable economy in the future.  Investment in rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure can put millions of people to work now and improve our country for the long term...

Pro Athletes Take Field to Help Native Children

Posted on December 08, 2009
Members of the Professional Athletes came together in a benefit for Native American children at the union’s recent 14th annual “Evening With the Stars” gala in Washington, D.C. The gala featured a silent auction and a live auction of sports memorabilia and Native American art...

Signs of Hope for Concrete Action at Climate Change Talks

Posted on December 08, 2009
Jim Hunter, director of the Electrical Workers (IBEW) Utility Department, sends us this report from the first full day at the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, where 40 U.S. union members are part of a 400-member global union movement delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)...

Workers Mobilizing to Get Bargaining Rights for Screeners

Posted on December 08, 2009
    AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler hears firsthand about TSO working conditions from Farzal Ahmed, a member of AFGE Local 1442, along with Frank Sylvester and Vanessa Moseley from AFGE.         More than 120 workers from nine unions braved cold weather in Phoenix yesterday to rally and show solidarity with Transportation Security Agency (TSA) workers who are seeking a union...

Obama: Let?s Invest Now to Create Jobs, Rebuild Economy

Posted on December 08, 2009
      In a speech today at the Brookings Institute, President Barack Obama said restoring job growth and putting people back to work is a top priority of his administration. Obama noted that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, enacted this past spring, prevented an even deeper crisis and added jobs at a critical time, but with unemployment at a 26-year high, more needs to be done to replace the millions of jobs lost as a result of the recession and of years of failed economic policy: Our work is far from done...

Deck Stacked Against Airline, Railroad Workers

Posted on December 08, 2009
Proposed rule changes for airline and rail union elections are overdue and will make the current process more democratic, transportation union leaders say. Yesterday was the last day for comments on the new rule, and workers are urging the agency to act quickly to correct the unfair election process...

Freshman Senators Fight for Lower Costs in Health Care

Posted on December 08, 2009
    Sue Conrad, an AFSCME retiree, is one of the thousands of union members fighting for health care reform.         Today in the U.S. Senate, 11 first-term senators are introducing a package of amendments that will improve the Senate’s health care bill by getting health care costs under control...

Nurses Unions Merge to Gain Greater Voice in Health Care

Posted on December 08, 2009
    Delegates to the founding convention of National Nurses United vote unanimously for the merger.         Delegates to the founding convention of the National Nurses United (NNU) yesterday created the largest union and professional organization of registered nurses in U...

Renewing Unemployment Insurance: A Moral, Economic Must

Posted on December 07, 2009
      To tackle our nation’s ongoing jobs crisis, the AFL-CIO has put forth a five-point plan to put people back to work and restore our economy. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka presented this five-part plan at the White House Jobs Summit last week...

Responsible Investing = Profit and Jobs

Posted on December 07, 2009
    Thomas Croft         Global union pension funds and investments are worth $17 trillion and are a major force in the global capital markets. But often those funds are run by Wall Street managers who invest workers’ money in ways that actually destroy jobs...

Study: Extending Benefits for Jobless Helps Us All

Posted on December 07, 2009
      With 26 million people either unemployed or without fulltime work, labor commissioners and officials from eight states joined with workers and union and civil rights leaders in calling for Congress to extend unemployment insurance and health care assistance for  jobless workers, benefits that will expire for many in a few weeks...

Detroit Teachers Reach Tentative Deal?and More Bargaining News

Posted on December 07, 2009
Some 7,000 Detroit public school teachers, members of AFT, will receive a 1 percent raise in the third year of a contract agreement reached last week?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 1,200 subscribers...

Seeking Security in Copenhagen

Posted on December 07, 2009
Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council and co-chair of the AFL-CIO Energy Task Force, is in Copenhagen, Denmark, to ensure that labor’s input helps shape a global climate treaty. This report follows up on his first blog from Copenhagen here...

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