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Arrests of Zimbabwe Union Leaders a ‘Flagrant Violation’ of Human Rights |
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Yesterday, the two top officials of Zimbabwe’s union movement were arrested by Zimbabwe police and charged with “inciting people to rise against the government and reporting falsehoods about people being killed.” Arrested were Lovemore Matombo, president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), and Wellington Chibebe, ZCTU general secretary.
Zimbabwe and its president Robert Mugabe have a long record of worker and human rights violations. In the aftermath of the controversial presidential election in March, which observers say Mugabe lost, but which he is contesting, the Mugabe government has unleashed a new wave of violence and arrests against unions and other opponents in the past several weeks.
Adjunct Faculty Gains a Voice by Joining AFT |
The nearly 600 adjunct faculty at Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, Mich., made a strong statement this week for better pay and benefits by voting for the Adjunct Faculty Organization (AFO), an affiliate of AFT.
The faculty members are concerned about low pay scales that maxed out at $1,700 a course, lack of job security and health insurance and no access to office space for preparation work or to meet with students.
Even though AFT represents regular faculty at the college, Henry Ford officials fought the adjunct faculty’s desire for a voice, says Mary Beck, AFO’s interim president. But the workers overcame the school’s anti-union campaign the old-fashioned way: with shoe leather and door knocking.
AFGE Backs Obama for President |
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The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president.
The union, which represents 600,000 federal and District of Columbia government employees, made the endorsement after extensive member polling and a meeting of its national Executive Council.
John Gage, president of AFGE, says Obama’s energetic campaign and support of working families will mobilize voters around the country and help pro-working family candidates up and down the ticket in the fall. Gage said Obama would tackle the challenges facing the federal workforce and all working families, including job privatization and underfunding and understaffing of Social Security and veterans’ programs.
No Housing Crisis for Bush, McCain’s Got No Plan to Improve Economy |
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- Housing crisis? What housing crisis? Looking out the White House window, Bush can't see one, so it must not be there. Because why else would he threaten to veto Democrats' housing rescue plan, aimed at preventing foreclosures and stabilizing the housing market? Even congressional members of his own party are signaling support for the measure (not that it's an election year or anything). Yet the Lame Duck-in-Chief is calling the plan to help troubled homeowners "a burdensome bailout that would open taxpayers to too much risk." Unlike the $5 trillion experts predict we'll spend on the Iraq war. Or the $30 billion bailout to Bear Stearns.
- If Bush doesn't think the nation's homeowners and consumers need help getting by, maybe he should talk with retiree Josephine Powe, a member of the Alliance for Retired Americans. Says Powe: “An extra dollar or two per gallon may not seem like a lot of money to a big oil executive, but to a senior on a fixed income, it is everything. When our costs go up and our income does not, that dollar means you don't know if you're going to have enough money to buy food after you fill up the tank.” Powe testified this week on Capitol Hill in favor of the Consumer-First Energy Act, introduced by Senate Democrats, which would lower prices by placing a 25 percent windfall profit tax on any energy company that doesn’t invest in new energy sources and end $17 billion in tax breaks for Big Oil.
Report Says Crandall Canyon Managers Should Face Charges |
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The mine manager and other senior staff at the Crandall Canyon coal mine in Utah hid information from federal mining officials that could have prevented the disaster and should face criminal charges, a congressional committee said today. Last August, six miners and three rescue workers died after the mine collapsed.
In a report released today, the House Education and Labor Committee says the mining company’s plan to remove coal was flawed and should never have been submitted, and that the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) should never have approved it.
The committee referred its findings to the U.S. Department of Justice for possible criminal prosecutions. Click here to read a summary of the report by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the committee chairman.
McCain to 14-Year-Old Girl: ‘No Fair Pay for You’ |
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Sen. John McCain is used to getting softball questions from his fans in the media. At his town hall meeting yesterday in Michigan, however, he finally took a tough, smart question from an unexpected source.
When a 14-year-old girl attending the meeting got to ask a question of a presidential candidate, she took the opportunity to ask why he skipped out on voting on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
McCain said he agreed with the minority of senators who filibustered the bill, which would give targets of workplace discrimination the chance to fight for equal pay. He claimed it wouldn’t help women. Here’s what he had to say:
I don't believe that this would do anything to help the rights of women, except maybe help trial lawyers and others in that profession.
Score 1 for Darwin, 0 for Wal-Mart |
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Fatigue, Short Staffs ‘Recipe for Disaster’ in Summer Flying Season |
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With the busy summer travel season fast approaching, the nation’s air traffic controllers are alerting the public that a combination of short-staffing, fatigue and faulty equipment in control towers is a "recipe for disaster."
Just this week, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) issued warnings about several near misses at two of the country’s major airports—Atlanta and Cincinnati. In Atlanta, the world’s busiest airport, the number of incidents when planes have gotten too close has already exceeded last year’s total—and the situation is getting worse. In Cincinnati, three such serious incidents have occurred in the past six weeks.
Laid-Off Flight Attendants Need Your Help |
Jeremy Bishop, executive director of Pride At Work, describes how we can assist laid-off flight attendants at Aloha and ATA airlines.
Recently, thousands of flight attendants at Aloha Airlines and ATA Airlines have been laid off after their respective companies went out of business. As any working person can attest, this is a terrible time to be unemployed.
Once covered by contracts negotiated by the Flight Attendants-CWA, these flight attendants were forced to leave stable wages, health care benefits and a path to retirement behind for the unemployment line.
Tell Us What You Think: The 2008 Working Woman Survey |
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If you are a working woman, are you worried about finding a job that pays your bills and provides benefits? Or concerned about the rising cost of health care? Maybe you're frustrated you can't find time to do your job and spend time with your family. Or are you tired of working as hard as your male counterparts and not getting paid as much?
The AFL-CIO and Working America’s just-launched online 2008 Ask a Working Woman survey enables you to share workplace concerns about issues such as equal pay and stronger family and medical leave laws. Click here to take the survey and here to share it with other working women.
Pride At Work Helps Blow the Whistle on Special Counsel |
The recent headlines about an FBI raid on the U.S. Office of the Special Counsel (OSC) finally validates the yearlong campaign by Pride At Work (P@W) to highlight the alleged mismanagement of the office that was created to enforce the civil rights rule and protect whistle-blowers in the federal workforce.
In March 2007, the AFL-CIO constituency group created a special campaign, “Blow the whistle on Bloch” aimed at letting the public know how agency chief Scott Bloch had weakened the office’s mission. Instead of protecting workers’ rights, the office had become a launching pad for partisan attacks on civil and workers' rights, says P@W Executive Director Jeremy Bishop.
In Michigan, Union Members Challenge McCain on Economy |
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Brent Gillette, Labor 2008 director for Michigan, sends us a report on Sen. John McCain’s visit to Michigan.
When Sen. John McCain visited Rochester, Mich., this morning, he was met by a contingent of union members asking him for solutions to the crisis facing the economy.
Some 28 union members gathered in front of the hall where McCain was set to speak and distributed fliers on McCain’s anti-worker record on trade, health care and jobs.
Mark Gaffney, president of the Michigan State AFL-CIO, says McCain’s votes on trade and the economy are proof that he’s out of touch with working families.
John McCain will not likely have a government and an administration that does enough or cares enough about creating good-paying manufacturing jobs here in America.
Failure to Enforce U.S. Labor Laws Fuels Exploitation of Workers |
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The failure to enforce even weak U.S. labor laws has created an incentive for many employers to hire undocumented immigrant workers, several experts told a House committee earlier this week.
Bill Beardell, director of the non-partisan Equal Justice Center, told the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee some unscrupulous employers actually prefer to hire undocumented workers. In the absence of effective federal enforcement of worker protections, they know they can easily exploit and silence such workers, he says. During the hearing, Beardell played a chilling audiotape of an employer’s phone message to an immigrant worker who simply wanted to be paid for the work he had done. (See video.)
During the hearing, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), committee chairman, said that with more than 7.6 million unemployed workers in this country, some employers insist they cannot find workers to fill unskilled jobs. Miller makes it clear that Congress needs to enact stronger labor protections to protect the rights of guest workers and U.S. workers. (See video.)
McCain Would Appoint Justices Like Anti-Worker Alito and Roberts |
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Yesterday, Sen. John McCain gave a speech about his vision for the U.S. Supreme Court and the kind of nominees he’d choose if elected.
McCain said that when it comes to looking for a Supreme Court justice, extremist conservatives John Roberts and Samuel Alito meet his standards “in every way” and “would serve as the model” for his nominees if he were elected president.
When you look at the record, though, Roberts and Alito have failed to look out for the rights of workers. Check out some of the cases where Roberts and Alito have provided decisive votes:
- Alito was the author of the May 2007 opinion that ruled against Lilly Ledbetter’s right to challenge the pay discrimination she faced on the job. Roberts joined that opinion, which fundamentally changed the way workers could fight discrimination at work.
Help Provide Relief to Burmese Workers |
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With more than 22,000 people reported dead and as many as 1 million homeless after a tropical cyclone that struck Burma over the weekend, the Federation of Trade Unions of Burma (FTUB) has issued an urgent plea to the global union movement for aid in launching rescue, relief and rehabilitation work for victims of the storm.
The cyclone was the worst to hit Asia in almost 20 years, according to weather experts.
FTUB, a partner of the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, plans to use relief fund contributions to distribute clothing, medicine, and non-perishable food for displaced workers and their families, build temporary shelters and assist in providing needed counseling and health clinics. Click here to contribute to help Burmese workers.
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