Archive for July, 2006
Find out How Your Members of Congress Voted with the AFL-CIO Interim Congressional Voting Record
Get ready. Election season is heating up. Already on TV screens across the nation, congressional candidates are popping up between ads for hair care products and insect repellent.
But all too often, there’s a lot more behind the high-priced commercials and simple sound bites that portray each candidate as a friend of working families, one who supports good jobs with good wages and believes we all deserve great health care and fair taxes.
Scapegoating, Racism, All in Play in Legislative Attacks on Immigrants
With multiple military conflicts and other disasters around the globe—and as Republicans in Congress fiddle with issues designed to appeal to their extremist base—the nation’s debate over immigration seems to have been muted.
Failed Trade Talks Offer New Chance to Get It Right This Time
Now that the top-down global trade talks have collapsed, maybe the world’s political leaders will finally get the message: You can’t have a successful trade scheme unless workers are included from the beginning.
Fear-Based Government: Bush Attacks Workers’ Freedoms Under National Security Guise
Did the Bush administration use the fear generated by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to try to win public support for creating a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that demolished long-standing civil service and collective bargaining rights for some 170,000 federal workers?
‘Marshall Plan’ Needed for U.S. Auto Industry
We all know U.S. manufacturing is under siege from cheap imports from countries such as China. Now, a major sector of the nation’s manufacturing, autos and auto parts, is in jeopardy of being pulled under by Chinese imports.
Stillwater (Minn.) Ran Deep with Outrage over Opponent of Minimum Wage Hike
Rep. Mark Kennedy (R-Minn.) who has voted against raising the minimum wage—while voting to raise his own congressional pay—probably thought he was in for a little old-fashioned, glad-handing at the Stillwater, Minn., Lumberjack Days parade Sunday.
But, according to reports, Kennedy was not too glad when union members and Working America activists began handing out leaflets detailing Kennedy’s votes and waving America Needs a Raise signs as they marched alongside his parade pick-up truck.
Mass. Governor to Low-Wage Workers: Tough Luck
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) hit the state’s low-wage workers directly in the wallet July 21 when he rejected a minimum wage bill that won unanimous approval from the state legislature.
The bill would have increased the state’s minimum wage from $6.75 an hour to $8 in two steps. Romney sent the bill back to the legislature and proposed a miserly 25-cent an hour increase in the Bay State’s minimum wage, last raised seven years ago.
Workers Join AFSCME and Machinists in Oklahoma, Pennsylvania
Municipal employees in Oklahoma and Rhode Island and defense and aerospace workers in Pennsylvania and Mississippi recognized the power and protection a union can provide and recently won a voice at work with AFSCME and the Machinists (IAM). (Check below to finds out why people want to join unions.)
Following a two-year legal battle, some 280 city employees in Enid, Okla., became the first group of workers to win their union voice under a new state law allowing municipal workers in cities of more than 35,000 residents to join unions.
Bad Boss #4: You Want an Office Chair? Pay for It
What do you do with a boss who charges you for the flowers the company sent to your father’s funeral?
Have his car towed. Five days in a row.
Working for America Institute: Building a High Road Economy
From the AFL-CIO’s Legislation Department, Jane McDonald-Pines, workforce issues specialist, reports on a recent High Road Network conference sponsored by the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute.
