Labor & Employment Law

Hotel Workers Gain Recognition of Rights in Palestine

Posted on January 11, 2011
HRWU members unfurl their banner in preparation for a May 1 march in Ramallah, Palestine. This is a cross-post from the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center. Palestinian hotel workers ended 2010 with a major victory, gaining important rights and protections after more than a year of negotiations with the Arab Hotel Association...

1,300 Public Employees in Wisconsin Back New Pacts?and More Bargaining News

Posted on January 11, 2011
The 1,300 Dane County, Wis., workers approved new contracts effective through 2014, 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...

New House ?Workforce? Committee Highlights Anti-Union Goals

Posted on January 11, 2011
Last week, we highlighted a move by House Republicans who are so incensed at the word “labor”?because some folks might complete the phrase with the word “union”?that they ripped out the word “labor” from the name of the House Education and Labor Committee...

Tucson Shooting is A Warning to Tone Down Violent Political Speech

Posted on January 10, 2011
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says that Saturday?s Tucson, Ariz., assassination attempt against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) and the murder of six of her constituents serves as a terrible reminder to all of our political and civic leaders about the need to end the use of appeals to violence in our political rhetoric...

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Workers to House Republicans: ?Health Care Reform Works?

Posted on January 10, 2011
In Florida, Gloria?s daughter like so many young people today, returned home from college, ?with a BA degree and no job.? But her daughter does have health care coverage–and Gloria has peace of mind–because the new health care reform law allows young adults to remain on their parents? health care plans until they are 26...

Canadian Farm Workers March Wins LabourStart Photo Contest

Posted on January 09, 2011
      LabourStart subscribers from around the world selected Gerardo Correa?s photo of a Canadian farm workers? march as the winner in the news service?s 2010 Labor Photo of the Year contest. Correa?s submission depicts migrant farm workers as they embark early Thanksgiving morning for a ?Pilgrimage for Freedom...

Arizona Union Leader Says Today?s Shooting ?Has No Place in a Democracy?

Posted on January 08, 2011
Here’s a statement from Rebekah Friend, executive director and secretary/treasurer of the Arizona AFL-CIO, about today’s tragedy in Tuscon, Ariz., in which a gunman shot Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the head as she met outside a grocery store with constituents...

Lack of Paid Sick Leave Is Family and Public Health Concern

Posted on January 08, 2011
      More than 44 million private-sector workers in the United States?­42 percent of the private-sector workforce­?don?t have paid sick days they can use to recover from a common illness like the flu, according to new research by the Institute for Women?s Policy Research (IWPR)...

Public Employees Paid Less than Private-Sector Workers

Posted on January 07, 2011
With the barrage of orchestrated extremist attacks on public employees, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reminds us today of a study it commissioned last year that disproves one of the biggest lies by anti-workers–that public employee make excessive pay...

Health Care Reform Is Personal for Longtime Trade Unionist

Posted on January 07, 2011
       Max Hall has seen the fight for health care reform from both sides?as an advocate and a patient. In a Point of View (POV) guest column at the AFL-CIO website, Hall (no relation to me) writes how he first saw passing health care reform as part of the principles of fairness he believes in...

Locked-Out Iowa BCTGM Workers Fight Locally and Globally

Posted on January 07, 2011
      The French-based sugar and starch maker Roquette Frères opened its production plant in Keokuk, Iowa, 20 years ago, and its promise to create high-quality jobs was a key factor in winning support from local workers and local and state governments...

Jobless Rate Falls, But Job Creation Falls Short of What Nation Needs

Posted on January 07, 2011
The new year started with better but not great news on the jobs front. The latest figures from the U.S. Department of Labor released this morning show that unemployment dropped from 9.8 percent in November to 9.4 percent in December. Even with the expected holiday season hires, only 103,000 net new jobs were created last month...

An Open Letter to Calif. Rep. Darrell Issa

Posted on January 07, 2011
California Labor Federation Legislative Advocate Mitch Seaman points out how California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa is busy catering to his rich corporate donors rather than representing the people in his congressional district. Dear Rep. Issa, Politico reported Tuesday that last month you delivered letters to more than 150 corporations, trade associations and conservative think tanks, requesting a list of their least favorite ?existing and proposed regulations? that you, as House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chair, could help eliminate...

The Shameful Attack on Public Employees

Posted on January 07, 2011
In this cross-post from http://robertreich.org/, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich shames those who attack public employees and questions why Republicans never include the richest people in America when they talk about sacrifice? In 1968, 1,300 sanitation workers in Memphis went on strike...

Tell Us the Real Story of Health Care Reform: Yours

Posted on January 06, 2011
      House Republicans are now officially in charge and their very first item of business is their move to repeal health care reform. Of course, these Republican lawmakers will never have to worry about where their health care is coming from...

TWU ?Newsreel? Warns Viewers on Republican Goals

Posted on January 06, 2011
Our friends at the Transport Workers (TWU) have taken a light-hearted video look at rather serious subject: how Republicans might use their new found congressional strength and powers. The black-and-white mid-century newsreel/educational film style is complete with deep voiced narrator and swelling music...

Budget Office: Health Care Repeal Would Add $230 Billion to Deficit

Posted on January 06, 2011
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just released numbers that should make any deficit-fearing Republican stop dead on his or her way to vote to repeal health care reform. If the Affordable Care Act is repealed, says the CBO, it would increase the federal budget deficit by $230 billion over the next decade and by $1...

In Oregon, Labor?s Next Gen Redefines Union Member

Posted on January 06, 2011
       Nora Frederickson, AFL-CIO Media fellow, sends us this profile of the Oregon Young Emerging Labor Leaders program. One week, Oregon?s young workers might be speaking out on the radio. Or they might be dishing up food at a Portland homeless shelter...

Will New Lawmakers Keep Campaign Trail Job Promises?

Posted on January 05, 2011
Last fall, the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) conducted a 12-city ?Keep it Made in America? town hall tour that brought candidates and voters together to talk about the tough issues revolving around reviving American manufacturing, lowering unemployment and getting the U...

Republican-Hood: Steal from the Workers; Pander to the Rich

Posted on January 05, 2011
Robin Hood, the guy who robbed the rich and gave to the poor, wore a short frock and tights. From the get-go, the guy serving the disadvantaged while sporting gay attire would fail the entrance exam required to become a card-carrying Republican. The GOP is, after all, the anti-gay marriage, anti-repeal Don?t Ask Don?t Tell crew...

Small Biz Owners Say Health Care Reform Helps Cover Workers

Posted on January 05, 2011
       Here?s something that certainly isn?t going to be highlighted when Republicans begin their let-no-facts-get-in-the-way show trial of health care reform. Small business owners say the Affordable Care Act will spur them to provide health insurance for their workers...

Right-Wing Noise Machine Aims at Public Employees

Posted on January 04, 2011
New Republican governors, old right wing radio windbags, Fox News and extremist hacks continue to stoke the noise machine that?s belching blather about public employees. As Dave Johnson at the Campaign for America?s Future writes: The right’s propaganda machine begins with a simple narrative, repeats it endlessly, and then ties current events to the narrative to drive the point home...

Republicans Go ?Nah, Nah, Nah? and Ban Word ?Labor? from Committee

Posted on January 04, 2011
Petty. Petty. Petty. With major issues like jobs and the economy straining for attention, House Republican leaders took a big step to solving the nation?s problems when they boldly acted?drum roll, please?to change the name of the Education and Labor Committee to the Education and Workforce Committee...

Online Organizing Key to Workers? IBEW Win

Posted on January 04, 2011
       When workers decide they want to come together and form unions, it?s a well-documented fact that management is none too happy about it. Talk with your fellow workers in the lunchroom, speak out at a forced, closed-door meeting with the boss, or?heaven forbid?wear a pro-union shirt, hat or sticker and you?re sporting  a bull?s-eye for retaliation...

With Jersey Deep in Snow, Gov. Christie had Fun in Sun

Posted on January 03, 2011
Meaning no disrespect to the world?s most famous and lovable rodent, but New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie?s (R) response to last week?s massive snow storm that hammered the Garden State and other east coast states, was literally Mickey Mouse...

Inspiration for World War II Rosie the Riveter Dies

Posted on January 03, 2011
The 17-year-old  Michigan factory worker who was the inspiration for the iconic World War II Rosie the Riveter, ?We Can Do It?  poster, died Dec. 26 in Lansing, Mich. Geraldine Doyle was  86. According to a Washington Post obituary, Doyle was on the job in a metal factory just a few weeks after graduating from high school in 1942 when a United Press International photographer shot a picture of  her leaning over a piece of machinery and wearing a red and white polka-dot bandanna over her hair...

As Republicans Vow Repeal, More Health Care Reform Benefits Kick In

Posted on January 03, 2011
House Republicans have put repealing health care reform at the top of their to-do list.  Their fight  fight against the Affordable Care Act is not only pure partisan politics, it is also an attack against the millions of regular working people and seniors who benefit from the new law...

Transportation Dept. Launches Buy American Website

Posted on January 03, 2011
When the Apollo Alliance released its Clean Transportation Manufacturing Action Plan (TMAP ) in October (click here for detailed coverage) one its key job-creating recommendations was ensuring that American manufacturers and U.S. workers supply the rail cars, tracks and other mass transit equipment to modernize the nation?s mass transportation system...

Happy New Year from the AFL-CIO

Posted on January 03, 2011
   Happy New Year from the 12 million members of the AFL-CIO. I wish all the best for you and your family, for our unions and for our nation in 2011. And I know you share that wish. We?re all going to have to work hard?and together?to make it come true...

Poll: More Manufacturing Can Stop Economic Slide

Posted on January 02, 2011
       In the global economic race, the United States is coming in second?and one of the major reasons is that we have stopped making things in this country. A recent poll shows the public thinks it?s going to be that way for awhile. Only one in five Americans say the U...

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