Labor & Employment Law

New Health Care Rule: You Get More Care for Your Money

Posted on November 22, 2010
       Big insurers spent millions to try to gut a proposed new rule that requires they spend a certain amount of premium dollars on actual medical care. But American families and businesses are coming out on top.   The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today issued a new rule?known as ?medical loss ratio??that will require health insurance companies to spend 80 percent to 85 percent of your health care insurance premiums on making you healthier instead of overhead costs like advertising or executive pay...

After Nine Years, 9/11 Heroes Get Some Help

Posted on November 22, 2010
       Nine years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, more than 10,000 heroes who were exposed to toxic debris during the cleanup of the World Trade Center will receive between $625 million and $712 million under a settlement agreement negotiated with New York City and its contractors...

Report: The Real Story Behind Disney Toys Not Suited for Children

Posted on November 21, 2010
    As many as 12 children who work at a Disney supplier sleep in dirty, cramped dorms like this one.         Thousands of children will see Disney?s new movie ?Toy Story 3,? but few will know the real story behind some of the toys they get from the fairy-tale world that Disney creates...

Union Steward?s Guide Is Survival Manual for Labor?s Front Line

Posted on November 20, 2010
Being a union steward is one of the toughest jobs there is. The Union Steward?s Complete Guide 2nd Edition book has become invaluable for tens of thousands of union stewards and members across North America. First published in 1997 and updated and expanded in 2006, the 404-page, fully indexed guide is a survival manual for the labor movement?s front-line troops...

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Help Long-Term Jobless Workers Beat the Clock

Posted on November 19, 2010
            Failure by the House yesterday to act on legislation that would maintain unemployment insurance (UI) for long-term jobless workers highlights how much work we need to do to get Congress to do the right thing. If Congress does not act by Nov...

Michigan Nurses Avoid Strike, Reach Tentative Agreement with Sparrow Hospital

Posted on November 19, 2010
Registered nurses and health care professionals at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Mich., reached a tentative agreement yesterday with management on a new three-year contract, avoiding both a strike and lockout set for Monday morning. The 2,100 employees, members of the Michigan Nurses Association/Professional Employees Council of Sparrow Hospital (MNA/PECSH), an affiliate of the National Nurses United (NNU), had voted to strike Nov...

McConnell Leads Republican Opposition to 9/11 Health Care Bill

Posted on November 19, 2010
What?s holding up Senate action on the 9/11 health care bill that passed the House by a vote of 268 to 160 with bipartisan support in September? Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell?s opposition to the bill is the major stumbling block. McConnell has taken no public position, but in private, according to published reports, he has voiced opposition to the bill...

Wall Street Journal Profiles Calif. Nurses? Political Success

Posted on November 19, 2010
The California Nurses Association?s (CNA’s) summer and fall battle to defeat Meg ?Wall Street? Whitman?s bid for the California governorship and elect Jerry Brown, got the attention of the Wall Street Journal. In a recent profile, the Bible of business news called the CNA, “One of California’s most powerful political players...

Health Care Giants Spent $86 Million in Effort to Kill Reform

Posted on November 19, 2010
We reported that Big Insurance funneled millions of dollars to the Chamber of Commerce to fight health care reform and millions more to try and water down the law once it was passed. Now Bloomberg Business News reporter Drew Armstrong has put a price tag on the effort to kill the bill...

ALPA?s Prater Honored by American Labor Museum

Posted on November 19, 2010
ALPA President Capt. John Prater Air Line Pilots (ALPA) Capt. John Prater was honored last night as an outstanding labor leader at the annual Sol Stetin Awards Gala. The awards are presented every year by the American Labor Museum, located at the historic Botto House in Haldeon, N...

Poll: 80 Percent Say Don?t Cut Social Security

Posted on November 18, 2010
Congressional Republicans listen up. In a new poll, more than eight in 10 likely voters across the political spectrum say they oppose cutting Social Security to reduce the national deficit. Reducing the deficit through raising the retirement age for Social Security and other cuts are  key proposals by the incoming Republican congressional leadership...

House Republicans Block Unemployment Benefits Extension

Posted on November 18, 2010
    Last week, members of Working America delivered thousands of job applications and signatures on jobs petitions to incoming House Speaker John Boehner?s district office, urging him to extend crucial jobless benefits for millions.         House Republicans today blocked an effort to extend federal unemployment insurance (UI) benefits, making a lapse in benefits all but certain when they expire at the end of the month...

Caesar?s Casino Dealers Ratify First Contract with UAW

Posted on November 18, 2010
    Three years after joining the UAW, dealers at Caesars casino voted overwhelmingly in favor of their first contract, the second such pactl approved by Atlantic City dealers in three months. In August, casino dealers at the Tropicana Casino and Resort approved an historic first-ever contract for dealers in Atlantic City...

Congressional Report: China?s WTO Membership Doesn?t Help U.S. Workers

Posted on November 18, 2010
China?s government has failed to live up to the claims its backers made in 2001 to help it gain entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), according to a congressional commission. In its 2010 annual report, released yesterday, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) details the multiple ways the Chinese government has flooded the United States with exports while shutting its doors to imports and costing millions of U...

Washington Hospital Center Agrees to Recognize Nurses? Union

Posted on November 18, 2010
      The Washington Hospital Center has agreed to recognize the National Nurses United (NNU) as the collective bargaining representative of the hospital’s registered nurses. The NNU has canceled a planned one-day strike originally scheduled for Wednesday, Nov...

Today: National Day of Action to Stop Wage Theft

Posted on November 18, 2010
      At a time when Congress is considering whether to give the nation?s wealthiest people a holiday gift by extending their Bush-era tax breaks, workers, religious leaders, public officials and others will come together in more than 35 cities across the country to fight for those who have been cheated and left behind...

Global Unions Demand Rights for Migrant Workers

Posted on November 17, 2010
    Domestic workers in New York City marched for justice in 2007.         Many countries around the world, including the United States, depend on immigrant labor to boost economic development, but do not protect the rights of their immigrant workers...

Sweeney to Receive Presidential Medal of Freedom, Highest Civilian Honor

Posted on November 17, 2010
      President Obama today named AFL-CIO President Emeritus John Sweeney as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation?s highest civilian honor. The award is presented to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors...

Senate Republicans Block Paycheck Fairness Again

Posted on November 17, 2010
      Just three days into the lame-duck Congress, Republicans returned to their obstructionist ways. Today, all the Senate Republicans voted in lockstep to prevent the Paycheck Fairness Act  (S. 182) from coming to the floor. The final vote, 58-41, fell two votes short of the 60 needed to break the Republican-imposed logjam The House passed the bill last year...

Loyola University Chicago Dining Workers Join UNITE HERE

Posted on November 17, 2010
    Loyola University Chicago dining workers celebrate after voting to join UNITE HERE.         After months of organizing, more than 200 campus dining workers at Loyola University Chicago voted for a voice on the job, choosing to join UNITE HERE Local 1...

Shuler: Unions Can Play Critical Role in Training Nation?s Workers

Posted on November 17, 2010
      To be more competitive in the global economy, U.S. business and government must greatly increase their investment in education and skills training. Unions can play a critical role in making sure our workers have the skills and knowledge they need, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler said today...

Tomato Workers, Growers Sign Historic Agreement

Posted on November 17, 2010
    Lucas Benitez of the CIW, left, and Reggie Brown of the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange sign the historic agreement, as Gerardo Reyes of the CIW looks on.         After more than 15 years of struggle, justice may be just around the corner in the Florida tomato fields...

100,000 Petition Congress to Renew UI

Posted on November 17, 2010
      Workers today delivered petitions with 100,000 signatures to the Senate demanding that Congress extend unemployment insurance (UI) benefits to millions of long-term jobless workers.   In a telephone press conference this morning, Sens. Jack Reed (D-R...

Unemployment Insurance Boosts Entire U.S. Economy, Study Finds

Posted on November 16, 2010
A new study shows that the economic impact of unemployment insurance (UI), especially for long-term jobless workers, has a huge positive effect on the economy, not only for the jobless, but by keeping millions of other workers on the job. With Republican lawmakers balking at maintaining UI for millions of jobless workers out of work for more than six months in an economy that has nearly five job seekers for every opening, the new research bolsters the case for maintaining the programs...

Health Coverage Declines But Companies? Profits Soar

Posted on November 16, 2010
The number of working-age Americans who get their health care coverage through work dropped for the ninth year in a row in 2009, according to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). The main reason, says the report, is the lousy economy and an unemployment rate that jumped from 5...

Tell Congress: Maintain Jobless Aid. Call TODAY

Posted on November 16, 2010
      Join today?s national call-in to Congress (1-877-662-2889) and tell your senators the very first item on their agenda must be maintaining emergency unemployment insurance (UI) benefits program that is a lifeline for the millions and millions of long-term jobless workers...

Mourning in America: Death of the Middle Class

Posted on November 16, 2010
The deficit commission report issued last week is another Saturday night special pressed to the temple of the American middle class. ?Turn over your money and your benefits or your country will die,? the report screams at workers. ?You want your country to go bankrupt? No? Then you gotta delay retirement, get less from Social Security, pay more for health insurance and lose your precious few income tax breaks like the one that helps pay your mortgage while the banker is breathing down your neck right now...

BlueGreen Alliance Calls for Green Jobs Agenda Now

Posted on November 16, 2010
      Congress has an opportunity to put in place essential policies to create jobs, reduce carbon emissions and make America more energy independent. In its clean energy agenda for the remaining weeks of the 111th Congress, released yesterday, the BlueGreen Alliance outlines seven key policies it says could jump-start the clean energy economy and create hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country...

550 Florida Nurses Join NNU

Posted on November 16, 2010
The 550 registered nurses at Osceola Regional Medical Center in Kissimmee, Fla., voted overwhelmingly for a voice in patient care and dignity on the job last night by deciding to join National Nurses Organizing Committee-Florida (NNOC-Florida), an affiliate of National Nurses United (NNU)...

Apollo Alliance Honors AFL-CIO?s Baugh

Posted on November 16, 2010
    Bob Baugh         The Apollo Alliance?s Right Stuff Award honors outstanding individuals whose work exemplifies the group?s mission to catalyze the new clean energy economy. Last night in San Francisco, Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council,  joined the list of Right Stuff honorees whose work is creating a new green economy...

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