Labor & Employment Law

Laborers Rejoin AFL-CIO

Posted on October 01, 2010
Today, the Laborer?s (LIUNA) officially rejoined the AFL-CIO. The 500,000-member LIUNA brings the AFL-CIO?s total membership to 12.2 million workers in 57 unions, including the 3.2 million members of the AFL-CIO community affiliate Working America creates a strong and powerful voice for working families...

A Long-Term Road Map for One Nation

Posted on October 01, 2010
Amanda Tattersall is an Australian union and community organizer and author of Power in Coalition and Honorary Associate Work and Organizational Studies, University of Sydney It?s difficult times for progressives in the United States with Tea Party reaction, state budget deficits, escalating foreclosures and unemployment...

Hanley Takes the Wheel as New ATU President

Posted on October 01, 2010
      Larry Hanley, who began his union career in 1978 as a 21-year-old bus driver in Brooklyn, was elected president of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) yesterday at the union?s convention in Orlando, Fla. He succeeds Ronald J. Heintzman...

Screen Actors: Join Fellow Union Members for One Nation March Saturday

Posted on October 01, 2010
This is a crosspost from the Screen Actors Guild. Screen Actors Guild (SAG) is proud to support the One Nation Working Together March in Washington D.C., and in cities across the country, this Saturday, October 2. For those not able to be in Washington, D...

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McMahon Body Slams Minimum Wage in Conn. Senate Race

Posted on October 01, 2010
Connecticut?s Republican U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon said yesterday Congress should consider lowering the federal minimum wage. She made the remarks at a press conference where day she received the endorsement of the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), a group that has long battled against the minimum wage...

Trumka Talks to Wisconsin Union Members One-on-One

Posted on October 01, 2010
National AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Cindy Kropp of USW Local 2-213   Karen Hickey, assistant director for Labor 2010 Political Field Communications in Wisconsin, sends us this crosspost from the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO Blog...

Banks Should Follow Chase and Declare Moratorium on Foreclosures

Posted on September 30, 2010
      The rest of the banking industry should follow JPMorgan Chase?s example and declare a nationwide moratorium on home foreclosures, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker said today. Chase has announced it is temporarily halting the processing of home foreclosures...

Republican Senators Kill Jobs Program

Posted on September 30, 2010
Senate Republicans turned their backs on workers one more time before they left town for the Nov. 2 elections when they refused to allow a vote to keep alive a jobs program that has created nearly a quarter of million jobs. Many of those jobs were in some of the communities hardest hit by the nation?s unemployment crisis...

Could Simpson, Boehner et al Pass the Social Security Test?

Posted on September 30, 2010
AFSCME President Gerald McEntee has a great idea for a reality television show. He suggested it as part of a conference call today where participants outlined efforts to strengthen Social Security and combat attempts by the federal budget deficit commission and others to raise the retirement age, cut benefits or even privatize Social Security...

Workers Around the World March for Jobs

Posted on September 30, 2010
    More than 100,000 people marched in Brussels, Belgium, yesterday to demand a priority on creating jobs.         With nearly 200 million people jobless across the globe, working men and women face a worldwide economic crisis and are speaking out on both sides of the Atlantic to change it...

Senate Confirms Former ALPA President Woerth

Posted on September 30, 2010
The AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department (TTD) today praised the Senate?s confirmation yesterday of former Air Line Pilots (ALPA) President Duane Woerth as U.S. ambassador of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The ICAO is an United Nations agency that fosters the planning and development of international air transport to ensure safe and orderly growth...

Reports Show Paid Sick Leave Helps Everybody

Posted on September 30, 2010
  Despite claims from business groups that paid sick leave for employees is bad for business, two new reports show everyone benefits from sick leave, including workers, the public and employers. When workers cannot take off of work to recover from illness, or to care for a sick child or other relative, they are more likely to go into work when sick or to send a sick child to school...

Chamber Out of Touch on China Currency Manipulation

Posted on September 30, 2010
It?s not every day a majority of Republicans in Congress thumb their noses at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But yesterday, 99 Republican House members, many with an eye on Nov. 2,  voted for H.R. 2378, the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act. The day before the vote, 36 business groups, led by the Chamber, sent a letter to Capitol Hill denouncing the bill...

Countdown to One Nation

Posted on September 30, 2010
In less than 48 hours, tens of thousands of union members and civil rights, human rights, community and faith activists will be in the nation?s capital for the historic One Nation Working Together march and rally. The Oct. 2 march will call for renewing the American Dream for all people?the antithesis of the fear-mongering dominating too much of the national conversation...

House Acts to Stop Currency Manipulation

Posted on September 29, 2010
The House of Representatives today took a step toward leveling the global trade playing field by passing H.R. 2378, the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act. Passed by a bipartisan vote of 348-79, including 99 Republicans, the bill gives the U.S. Treasury Department more tools to enforce rules against currency manipulation by our trading partners...

House OK?s 9/11 Health Bill, But Senate Action Uncertain

Posted on September 29, 2010
The  House today passed the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act (H.R. 847) to provide long-term medical care and monitoring for the first responders, recovery workers and others exposed  to the Ground Zero toxic mix of chemicals, jet fuel, asbestos, lead, glass fragments and other debris...

Wake Up Washington: Workers? Retirement Deficit Hits $6.6 Trillion

Posted on September 29, 2010
If you are between ages 32 and 64 and hope to maintain your current standard of living when you retire, you are part of a group that is $6.6 trillion in the hole. That is the nation?s retirement deficit according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College...

Rand Paul to Workers: ?Hell, No,? I Won?t Talk to You?

Posted on September 29, 2010
   When Senate Republican candidate Rand Paul made the rounds in a local Middlesboro, Ky., diner, he went out of his way to avoid talking with workers sitting at one table (see video). And when they followed him outside to ask if he’d talk with them, his response: Hell, no...

AFSCME Wisconsin Next Wavers Demonstrate Commitment

Posted on September 29, 2010
    AFSCME’s young activists in Wisconsin participated in service work during their first Tri-Council Next Wave Conference in September.         This is a crosspost from AFSCME. Check out the AFL-CIO Next Up, where young people come together to find out about the union movement...

?Save The Dream? Workshops Could Help Save Your Home

Posted on September 29, 2010
       The mortgage crisis has hit working families hard and the AFL-CIO is working with the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) to help union members keep their homes. NACA, a nonprofit organization that provides assistance to homeowners facing foreclosure, will  host two “Save-the-Dream” workshops?one in Los Angeles, Sept...

Restoring Manufacturing Key to Saving American Dream

Posted on September 29, 2010
A much larger and more robust manufacturing sector is the key to rebuilding the American economy and restoring faith in the American Dream, political, business and labor leaders said yesterday.   At the Conference on the Renaissance of American Manufacturing in Washington, D...

Delta Flight Attendants Union Vote Begins Today

Posted on September 29, 2010
       More than 20,000 flight attendants at Delta and Northwest Airlines began voting today on forming a union with the Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA). As in past campaigns, Delta is running an anti-union drive with fear and misinformation as the focus...

From D.C. to San Diego, Workers Choose Unions

Posted on September 29, 2010
Capitol Hill tour guides, power plant workers, law enforcement and municipal employees and auto and jet mechanics all won a voice at work with AFL-CIO unions recently. In Montgomery County, Pa., 245 county employees voted to form a union with AFSCME Council 13...

Dan Rather Report: Employers Use Guest Workers to Keep Wages Low

Posted on September 29, 2010
In the midst of a recession and nearly 10 percent official unemployment, thousands of workers are being brought from overseas to work at jobs that employers say no American wants. In a hard-hitting report, veteran journalist Dan Rather takes a look at the H-2B visa program and exposes how employers use it to avoid hiring American workers?and keep wages low...

Whose America Is That?

Posted on September 29, 2010
      Nothing about the content of the Pledge to America is surprising?it’s the same Bush-era economic agenda that got us into the mess we’re in today: deregulate business, starve government services, starve the middle class and starve the working class so corporate special interests and the wealthy can feed on the spoils...

House OKs 9/11 Health Bill, But Senate Action Uncertain

Posted on September 29, 2010
The U.S. House today passed the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act (H.R. 847) to provide long-term medical care and monitoring for the first responders, recovery workers and others exposed  to the Ground Zero toxic mix of chemicals, jet fuel, asbestos, lead, glass fragments and other debris...

Wake Up, Washington: Workers? Retirement Deficit Hits $6.6 Trillion

Posted on September 29, 2010
If you are between ages 32 and 64 and hope to maintain your current standard of living when you retire, you are part of a group that is $6.6 trillion in the hole. That is the nation?s retirement deficit, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College...

UAW To Withdraw Funds From Chase In Support Of Tobacco Workers

Posted on September 28, 2010
    UAW President Bob King, left, and FLOC President Baldemar Velasquez         The UAW has joined forces with the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) and Detroit-area faith and community groups to take on JPMorgan Chase Bank. Last Friday, UAW President Bob King and several faith leaders announced their intention to withdraw hundreds of millions of dollars from the bank over its refusal to declare a moratorium on foreclosures in Michigan and its continuing ties with RJ Reynolds Corp...

Senate Republicans Block Bill to Curb Outsourcing

Posted on September 28, 2010
Senate Republicans showed their true colors again today by blocking debate on a bill that would help create jobs and push forward toward economic recovery. The Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act would encourage companies to create jobs here at home and end tax breaks for companies that shipped jobs overseas...

Outsourced: No Laughing Matter

Posted on September 28, 2010
Sarita Gupta is the executive director of Jobs with Justice. Last week, NBC launched a new show that tries to find comedy in the all-too-real conditions of outsourcing. While the first episode was witty?making light of age-old cultural clashes and stereotypes, there is nothing funny about the reality of outsourcing and the impact it has both on the American worker and their counterparts around the world...

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