Labor & Employment Law

Oct. 29: Student Day of Action Against Rite Aid

Posted on October 29, 2010
      In eight cities across the country today, college students will visit their local Rite Aid drug store, not to pick up toiletries or prescriptions but to picket and protest the company?s persistent pattern of worker rights abuse. The protests are part of the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) national day of action against Rite Aid, the country?s third largest retail drugstore chain...

NY Times: Nation?s Labor Laws Weak and Irrelevant

Posted on October 29, 2010
    It took a decade before registered nurses at the Research Medical Center in Kansas City, Mo., were able to join National Nurses United using the NLRB voting process.         The New York Times reports that the 75-year old National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the nation?s main labor law, is not getting better with age, but has become irrelevant for most workers and employers...

SMWIA?s Panvini Honored by Women?s eNews

Posted on October 29, 2010
Vincent A. Panvini, Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) governmental affairs director, will be honored tomorrow night by the Internet-based daily news service Women?s eNews for his work over the years in building union support for progressive women candidates...

Longtime Union Women Get Out the Vote with Food and Phones

Posted on October 28, 2010
          Frances Willey (top) and Martha Wiggins (below with AFSCME Local 2821 President David Burnett) have spent decades helping get out the union vote in western Kentucky.         Jeff Wiggins thinks he might have the best fed volunteers in the Kentucky Labor 2010 campaign...

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Silvers To Treasury: Can?t Resolve Foreclosure Crisis and Save Banks

Posted on October 28, 2010
      How can a housing advocacy group like the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) with a budget of less than $20 million, CORRECTLY process 20,000 people seeking mortgage modifications in one week in one city, and the United States government with a budget of $50 billion can only do 20,000  modifications a month across the whole country? Damon Silvers, policy director of the AFL-CIO and a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel never got a straight answer to that question from U...

Boehner to Rally with Republican Candidate Photographed in Nazi Uniform

Posted on October 28, 2010
Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner will be keeping company this weekend with an Ohio Republican congressional candidate whose main claim to fame is participation as a Nazi SS Officer in World War II reenactments. Boehner is scheduled to join Rich Iott in a rally Sunday in Toledo...

Young Workers Can Help ?Restore Sanity? Vote by Vote

Posted on October 28, 2010
On Saturday, John Stewart and Steven Colbert will provide a comic break to the election campaign with their ?Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear? on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Tens of thousands of young voters are expected to attend what is being described as get out the youth vote rally just days before the Nov...

Vote Nov. 2. Don?t Let Corporate Investment in GOP Pay Off

Posted on October 28, 2010
      Throughout this election season, we?ve chronicled here, here, here and elsewhere, the flood of secret corporate cash aimed at buying the U.S. House and Senate for Republicans. What is it about the Republican candidates and policies that makes these tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions such an attractive investment? Well, how about that tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas that Republicans support or their call to revive the Bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires? Maybe it is the chance for the Big Banks and financial firms to get their hands on hundreds of billions of dollars if Social Security is privatized...

Glenn Beck?s Halloween Demons: Unemployed Workers

Posted on October 28, 2010
       Glenn Beck wants you to be afraid. Very afraid?of unemployed workers. Rather than championing an unemployment insurance extension for these workers, rather than being outraged that Republicans in Congress have blocked, time and again, extension of unemployment insurance for what has become the largest number of workers who have been jobless for the longest period since the Depression, he raises the specter of an Unemployed Army...

W.Va. Senate Candidate Raese Gets His Victorian Conservatory

Posted on October 28, 2010
       Proving once again that he is a man of the West Virginia people, Senate Republican candidate John Raese just got approval by the Palm Beach Architecture Commission to build a 100-square-foot conservatory. That’s Palm Beach, FLORIDA, the site of Raese’s mansion, replete with its pink marble driveway...

Obama: Union Members the ?Back Bone? of Final Election Push

Posted on October 27, 2010
This election, President Obama told thousands of union activists and leaders on a teleconference call last night, “is as important as anything we did two years ago.” Obama praised the efforts of Labor 2010 activists across the country, and said: The labor program you guys have put into place is the backbone of the ground program...

NLRB Orders New Hearing on NYU Grad Students Union Vote

Posted on October 27, 2010
   One of the most egregious decisions of the Bush-era National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was the 2004 ruling in the Brown University case that graduate teaching and research assistants were not employees and could not form a union...

Alta Gracia Could Be Model for Apparel Industry

Posted on October 27, 2010
       Alta Gracia, the first apparel factory in the developing world to pay a living wage, is a big step toward setting a new standard for apparel manufacturing around the world. But consumers must  be energized to buy the new brand in large numbers before other manufacturers will follow suit, several experts said today...

Obama: Infrastructure a Top Priority

Posted on October 27, 2010
This is a cross-post from Edward Wytkind, president of the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department. At the President?s Columbus Day meeting, I was proud to be at a White House that wants to transform the way we think about and invest in transportation...

Nurses Protest Short Staffing at Washington Hospital Center

Posted on October 27, 2010
          MedStar Health executives spent nearly $175 million on a new patient care center at Franklin Square Hospital Center in Baltimore County, Md., complete with fireplaces. But nurses say short staffing has led to problems in patient care at the MedStar’s Washington Hospital Center (WHC)...

Californians Urged to Vote and Avoid a ?Meg Moment?

Posted on October 27, 2010
       One of the worse things that could happen next Wednesday would be for Californians to wake up and find out they?re having a ?Meg Moment??the awful realization that you should have voted, but didn?t.    To make sure Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman doesn?t buy the election after spending $163 million of her own money, the California Labor Federation has launched a new TV ad urging Californians to “Protect Yourself from a Meg Moment” by voting...

Anti-Union Ballot Measures Target Workers? Rights

Posted on October 27, 2010
This is a cross-post from the Electrical Workers (IBEW). Under the guise of protecting the secret ballot, right-wing groups have placed anti-union measures on the ballots of four states?Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah?that would outlaw majority sign-up as a means for union recognition...

Rand Paul Supporters Attack Satirical Protester

Posted on October 26, 2010
Looks like Rand Paul supporters can?t take a joke, but they sure can stomp somebody in the head. Last night before a debate between Paul, who has the strong backing of corporate interests and corporate money, and Democratic Senate Candidate Jack Conway, Lauren Valle attempted to present Paul with an ?Employee of the Month? certificate from ?Rebublicorp...

Our Votes Versus Corporate Cash Can Decide Election

Posted on October 26, 2010
A week from today we?ll have a chance to counter the hundreds of millions of dollars of secret corporate campaign cash that is blowing campaign spending records through the roof this election season. Vote. Get your family to vote, your friends, your neighbors and your co-workers to vote...

Global Union Leaders: G-20 Need to Focus on Jobs

Posted on October 26, 2010
    More than 100,000 people marched in Brussels, Belgium, last month to demand a priority on creating jobs.         The finance ministers of the world?s top 20 economies (G-20) should stop catering to the same banks and financiers who caused the global economic crisis and start focusing on the millions of people who are still losing their jobs and suffering from cuts to public services, global union leaders said yesterday...

Airbus Contract Delayed Until After Election?50,000 Jobs at Stake

Posted on October 26, 2010
      When some voters cast their ballots next week, their decisions will determine whether  nearly 50,000 jobs in 40 states are created. The U.S. aerospace company Boeing is locked in a competition with European-based EADS, which builds the Airbus, for what is the largest contract in Air Force history...

Work Till 70? Yes, if Boehner and Republicans Have Their Way

Posted on October 26, 2010
      If Republicans take over Congress, House Republican Minority Leader John Boehner says he will move to raise the Social Security retirement age to 70. That might not seem to be a big deal to someone who has spent his life in cushy offices with fancy perks, luxury cars, good health care and not much heavy lifting...

Tanker Contract Delayed Until After Election?50,000 Jobs at Stake

Posted on October 26, 2010
      When some voters cast their ballots next week, their decisions will determine whether  nearly 50,000 jobs in 40 states are created. The U.S. aerospace company Boeing is locked in a competition with European-based EADS, which builds the Airbus, for what is the largest contract in Air Force history...

Trumka?s Message to LBGT Teens: It Gets Better

Posted on October 25, 2010
The union movement has long been in the forefront of the fight against discrimination in the workplace and throughout society. Spurred by the reports of bullying and suicides of gay students in schools, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka joined President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other leaders who are filming videos for the It Gets Better Campaign...

Social Security Dept. ?Flagrantly Violated? Contract in Firing

Posted on October 25, 2010
Saying the Social Security Administration (SSA) showed ?reckless indifference? and ?flagrantly violated? its contract with AFGE, an independent arbitrator ordered the agency to reinstate a 13-year employee who was fired last year. She also will receive her back wages with interest and $200,000 in compensatory and punitive damages...

Obama Labor Dept. Stresses Law Enforcement?Big Change from Bush Era

Posted on October 25, 2010
The U.S. Labor Department is committed to stronger enforcement of labor laws and is determined to reverse a ?culture of noncompliance?? that developed during the anti-worker years of the Bush administration, Labor Solicitor Patricia Smith said. Smith told a labor law conference at Suffolk University Law School last week that the Bush administration emphasized voluntary compliance by employers while investigations and enforcement of labor laws declined, according to the Daily Labor Report (subscription required)...

AirTran Pilots Reach Tentative Pact?and More Bargaining News

Posted on October 25, 2010
After five years of negotiations, some 1,850 pilots at AirTran Airways have reached a tentative agreement with the airline, 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...

This Halloween, Go with Union-Made Treats

Posted on October 25, 2010
      When the hordes of Halloween trick-or-treaters?from tiny Lady Gagas to younger-than-Justin-Biebers, along with the traditional pirates, witches and ghosts?come knocking on your door, you can treat them to union-made Halloween candy. It?s the good stuff, too...

AFL-CIO Nevada Flier: Don?t Let Them Silence Your Voice

Posted on October 25, 2010
      The AFL-CIO and Nevada?s unions reacted quickly to efforts by a Republican operative to suppress the Latino vote in that state. Late last week, union activists began distributing fliers in English and Spanish with the message: ?Outside groups are trying to silence our voice...

MSHA?s Tough New Inspections Making an ?Impact?

Posted on October 24, 2010
    ? Following the April coal mine explosion at the Massey Energy Co.?s Upper Big Branch (W.Va.) mine that killed 29 miners, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) developed a targeted inspection program for mines with troubling safety records...

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