Labor & Employment Law

Letter Carriers Honor 2010 Heroes of the Year

Posted on October 23, 2010
    NALC’s National Heroes of the Year, seated, from left, Deborah Czarny, Penny Bell, James Dupont, Larry Gunkel, Jeffrey Vollmar. Standing, from left, J.D. Stewart and Jack Hayes, Salli Hislop (not pictured: Thomas Nehlen).          James Dupont had just finished delivering mail on his rural Arkansas route when he saw a truck and car collide head-on...

Trade Commission Orders Duties on Paper Imports

Posted on October 22, 2010
The Obama administration today continued to support American workers by deciding to apply tariffs to subsidized and dumped coated paper imports from China and Indonesia.  The unanimous vote by the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) clears the way for the U...

NFL Owners Threaten to Force Players to Pay Own Health Care in Lockout

Posted on October 22, 2010
      The National Football League (NFL) just announced it will suspend players who intentionally injure another player with a helmet-to-helmet hit. But what about owners who intentionally deliver what could be crippling blows to players?   NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell recently announced players would be responsible for any health care costs incurred during a league lockout...

100 Systems Specialists Join NATCA

Posted on October 22, 2010
Some 100 aviation technical systems specialists employed at the Federal Aviation Administration?s (FAA’s) three largest regional offices voted yesterday to join the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA). The employees work at the FAA air traffic organization?s service centers in Atlanta; Fort Worth, Texas; and Seattle...

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Straight Facts About U.S. Economy Show Clear Choice on Nov. 2

Posted on October 22, 2010
    It’s a fact. More private-sector jobs have been created in the last year alone than in the previous eight years.         The economy and jobs are the top issues in the Nov. 2 elections. But with all the rhetoric and hot air filling the airways, it?s hard to get the straight facts...

If Jobless Benefits End, Cold Holidays in Store for 1.2 Million

Posted on October 22, 2010
If Congress allows the extended unemployment insurance benefits program to expire, Nov. 30, 1.2 million jobless workers will lose their benefits by the end of the year according to new analysis by the National Employment Law Project (NELP) released today...

Corporate Front Group Accuses N.Y./N.J. Firefighters of ?Mediocrity?

Posted on October 22, 2010
      Recent well-publicized efforts to smear public employees haven?t just come out of nowhere. They?re part of a well-orchestrated campaign brewed up by the reactionary likes of the Heritage Foundation in advance of this year?s midterm election...

Whitman Makes Money the ?Old-Fashioned Way??Tax Breaks for the Rich

Posted on October 22, 2010
      One thing you?ve got to say about Meg Whitman, California?s Republican gubernatorial candidate, she sure knows how to make money. She amassed more than a billion dollars despite a not-so-shining track record as CEO of eBay, board member of Goldman Sachs and other corporate stops...

Join Oct. 27 Forum to Learn How Factory in Developing World Pays Living Wage

Posted on October 22, 2010
   Alta Gracia is the first known apparel factory in the developing world to pay a living wage. For the first time, the 120 workers at the factory in Villa Altagracia, a small impoverished town in the Dominican Republic, are being paid enough to support themselves and their families...

?Tenthers? Would Abolish Wage and Child Labor Laws, Social Security, Medicare and More

Posted on October 21, 2010
Most cults are a based in some sort of skewed spiritual vision or the worship of a charismatic leader, but there is a reemerging cult that bows down at the feet of the 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Many of them want to bring their cultish beliefs to the halls of Congress and are running for election this fall...

Insurance Commissioners Refuse to Bow to Insurers on Health Care Rule

Posted on October 21, 2010
State insurance commissioners today beat back efforts by big insurers to gut a proposed new rule that requires they spend a certain amount of premium dollars on actual medical care, not wasteful administration, marketing or executive pay and bonuses.  The insurance industry sent more than 1,000 executives and lobbyists to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) meeting in Orlando to try and get the rule changed, according to the coalition, Health Care for America Now (HCAN)...

Union Activists Getting Out the Vote Around the Country

Posted on October 21, 2010
    In Ohio, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka urges union members to get out the vote Nov. 2.         Here?s a quick look at some upcoming AFL-CIO Labor 2010 actions in Nevada, Connecticut and Florida and reports on recent activity in Wisconsin, Ohio, Kentucky and Pennsylvania...

Activists Tell Pa.?s Toomey, ?Hands Off Social Security?

Posted on October 21, 2010
      At a rally last night, Pennsylvania senior, community and worker activists condemned Republican Senate candidate Rep. Pat Toomey?s call to privatize Social Security. Pat Worrell of the community group Action United says the action, outside Philadelphia?s National Constitution Center prior to a debate between Toomey and Rep...

Latino Leaders: ?Don?t Vote? Ad Is Irresponsible, Dangerous

Posted on October 21, 2010
With less than two weeks to go, a Republican operative has been roundly condemned for trying to suppress the Latino vote, this time through a TV ad that Latino leaders say is both irresponsible and dangerous. The Spanish-language network Univision on Tuesday pulled an ad funded by the front group, Latinos for Reform, urging Latinos in Nevada not to vote in the upcoming election, supposedly because Democrats had not reformed immigration laws...

Clean Energy Trade Deficit with China: 8,000 Jobs Lost this Year

Posted on October 20, 2010
      The U.S. trade deficit with China in clean energy products more than doubled in the past two years alone and will cost more than 8,000 U.S. jobs in 2010. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) analyzed trade data through August 2010 and found that the trade deficit with China soared at a time when the overall U...

Dems Urge McConnell, Republicans to Take Social Security High Road

Posted on October 20, 2010
When Democratic congressional leaders introduce emergency relief legislation for a $250 supplemental Social Security payment, they will offer Republicans?who have blocked emergency help in the past?a chance to take the high road. The supplement would help recipients who are not getting a cost of living adjustment for the second straight year...

Rebuilding U.S. Transportation Could Create 3.7 Million Jobs

Posted on October 20, 2010
      By rebuilding our nation?s transportation infrastructure, we could create 3.7 million jobs, 600,000 alone in manufacturing, according to a new action plan released today by the Apollo Alliance. The Clean Transportation Manufacturing Action Plan (TMAP) calls for an investment of $40 billion a year over the next six years to modernize and shore up our nation?s roads, bridges, mass transportation and advanced vehicles...

Rand Paul: Bloodhounds on His Trail

Posted on October 20, 2010
      Rand Paul is sticking to his new campaign strategy: Head for the hills when you see union folks with video cameras. Kentucky’s tea party-tilting Republican U.S. Senate candidate recently stopped in Paducah and Princeton for ?meet and greet? sessions with voters...

Join Forum on Appropriate Use of Science in Public Policy

Posted on October 20, 2010
      We’ve all heard the spin from extremist groups slamming the veracity of scientific findings by the federal government?like what constitutes a health hazard at work. But such charges have shaken the public?s already-tenuous faith in the regulatory process...

Asian Workers Expose Exploitation on Highway Project

Posted on October 20, 2010
Cassady Fendlay and Cara Kurtz of the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center report on serious labor violations discovered by a workers? group on a highway project in Indonesia partially funded by the Asian Development Bank. More than 200 workers on the Trans-Kalimantan Highway construction project in Indonesia spend long hours toiling in the hot sun and end their day in a company camp, bathing in a dirty pond and sleeping on the floors of cramped barracks...

W.Va. AFL-CIO Demands Apology from Raese for Hick Ad

Posted on October 19, 2010
West Virginia working families have long been fed up with the stereotyped, out-of-state image that they are backwoods hicks or hillbillies. The recent revelations that Republican National Senatorial Committee sent out a casting call for ?hicky? looking blue-collar types for a television campaign ad for Republican U...

Millions Face Bleak Winter When Jobless Aid Ends Nov. 30

Posted on October 19, 2010
More than a million long-term unemployed workers a  month will lose their unemployment benefits?the weekly check that helps keep a roof over their families? heads and food on the table?if Congress doesn?t act by Nov. 30. That?s the date the extended unemployment insurance (UI) benefits program expires...

Dems Vow $250 Boost in Social Security Payment

Posted on October 19, 2010
      While Republican congressional leaders like Rep. John Boehner (Ohio) and others push raising the Social Security retirement age, cutfinv benefits or privatizing Social Security, Democratic leaders have a different plan when Congress returns to work in November...

Guffey Elected New Postal Workers President

Posted on October 19, 2010
New Postal Workers President Cliff Guffey Postal Workers? members (APWU) elected Cliff Guffey as the union?s new president in mail balloting that concluded last week. He has served as APWU vice president since 2001 and succeeds the retiring William Burrus, who held the office since 2001...

Ky.?s Paul: If Boss Doesn?t Want Union, Workers Shouldn?t Have Union

Posted on October 18, 2010
Just in case any Kentucky voters didn?t know where Republican U.S. Senate candidate and tea party darling Rand Paul stands on workers’ rights, he made it clear in a recent debate he doesn?t care much for the rights of workers. And a new television ad shows that Paul doesn?t have much use for federal mine safety laws, either...

600 Hilton Chicago Employees on Three-Day Strike?and More Bargaining News

Posted on October 18, 2010
Some 600 Hilton Chicago hotel employees are waging a three-day strike, 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...

So-Called Education Manifesto More Rhetoric Than Solution

Posted on October 18, 2010
Last week, a group of big city school superintendents offered a so-called ?manifesto? to fix the nation?s schools. AFT President Randi Weingarten says that although the manifesto?s goals are lofty, it offers few concrete solutions. The manifesto, wrote Valerie Strauss, a Washington Post education reporter, was long on rhetoric and short on substance?views charter schools as a big answer to urban school failure, bashes teachers unions and supports market-driven ?fixes? to schools...

The Summer Soldiers of School Reform

Posted on October 18, 2010
Diann Woodard is president of the School Administrators (AFSA). The hype about “Waiting for Superman” has given leaders of the business model of school reform an opportunity to promote their cause with renewed vigor, as evidenced by an opinion editorial in the Washington Post on October 10...

Don?t Let the Chamber and Big Biz Gut Workers? Say on CEO Pay

Posted on October 18, 2010
With trillions of dollars in pension funds, the collective power of working people?s money can begin to rein in the out-of-control CEO pay that is hurting shareholders and the economy as a whole. But a new law to hold the financial industry accountable is already in danger...

Ky.?s Paul: Keep Feds out of Mine Safety; Bosses Should Decide on Unions, Not Workers

Posted on October 18, 2010
      Just in case any Kentucky voters didn?t know where Republican U.S. Senate candidate and tea party darling Rand Paul stands on workers’ rights, he made it clear in a recent debate he doesn?t care much for the rights of workers. And a new TV ad shows that Paul doesn?t have much use for federal mine safety laws, either...

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