Archive for September, 2006
Screen Actors to Honor Julie Andrews with Life Achievement Award
She made “supercalifragilisticexpialidocius” a household word in the 1960s and brought the hills alive with the “Sound of Music.” In the 1980s, she played a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman in “Victor/Victoria.” Now she is best known as the voice of Queen Lillian in the movie “Shrek 2″ and as the queen trying to train her teenaged granddaughter to be a princess in “The Princess Diaries.”
In more than 50 years as an actress, Julie Andrews has won three Academy Awards, two Golden Globes and two Emmys.
Bargaining Digest Weekly
The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 800 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining at Work.
As we wait for a Kentucky River ruling by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), other developments in the courts will affect the freedom of workers to form unions.
What Is Paycheck Deception and Why Should Working People Care?
So many issues that significantly impact the lives of working families are so difficult to explain.
Paycheck deception is one of them.
We noted this week the Supreme Court will consider the constitutionality of anti-union “paycheck deception” measures aimed at silencing workers’ voice in politics—one of nine cases the court recently added to its docket from among the nearly 2,000 submitted for review.
Freedom to Join Unions: A Key Working Family Issue in 2006 Vote
For Donna Green, the 2006 election boils down to an issue critical for working families: whether a congressional candidate supports the Employee Free Choice Act. Green, who works at a nonunion Peabody Energy mine, told a rally in Evansville, Ind., on Tuesday:
Even though it’s not as visible as it once was, the anti-union attitude at Peabody Mines hasn’t changed. Safety is an issue only when it doesn’t interfere with production. We want the same benefits as the workers in Peabody’s union mines. We do the same work, but work longer hours for less pay and no benefits.
We have to support candidates for Congress who will get this bill passed.
More Bad News About the Nation’s Health Care Crisis
We’ve seen a spate of reports in recent days highlighting several aspects of the nation’s health care crisis. In the wake of the U.S. Census Bureau report last month pointing to an increase in America’s uninsured—more than 46 million people went without health coverage at some point in 2004—this new data further highlight the urgent need to elect candidates this fall who will address the problem head on. Stephanie Taylor, an online writer for the AFL-CIO community affiliate Working America, pulled together some of these recent reports.
Health care is the fastest rising cost for working families, concludes a study conducted by the Health Research Educational Trust.
When it Comes to Minimum Wage, Republican Congress Can Run—But Not Hide
It looks like members of Congress will run out of town this weekend, on their way back to campaigning for re-election after a two-week session. But while they can run, Republican leaders can’t hide from voters their repeated efforts to prevent an increase in the nation’s $5.15-an-hour minimum wage.
Now, 10 years after Congress approved the last raise, the federal minimum buys less than it has in more than half a century—fewer groceries, far fewer gallons of gasoline, less medicine and less for rent.
Not Too Late to Stir the Pot with America’s Working Women
Yesterday, we told you about President Bush’s rosy, campaign-stop pronouncement that we are all basking in the sunshine of a glowing economy. Not so, says Phyllis Yount, a Branford, Mo., aviation school flight dispatcher.
The current economy isn’t good right now even though politicians say it is. If someone makes $5.15 an hour, how can they afford gas that’s almost $3?
Zimbabwe Hiding Truth Behind Attacks on Trade Unionists
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Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) President Lovemore Matombo and First Vice President Lucia Matibenga were among trade unionists badly injured during the government’s Sept. 13 attack on a peaceful demonstration by the nation’s unionists. AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer William Lucy, who traveled to Zimbabwe says “the police just went crazy” in their attack in the capital Harare.
Lucy described his experience today during a meeting with union members at the AFL-CIO building in Washington, D.C., where he showed a 12-minute video of the Sept. 13 assault given to him on their trip. (Note: The date of the attack is incorrect on the video. The attack occurred Sept. 13.)
Ela Bhatt: Empowering Hundreds of Thousands of Impoverished Women
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| Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Ela Bhatt, winner of the AFL-CIO Meany-Kirkland Human Rights Award. | |
Although thousands of U.S. jobs go to nonunion workers in India, India’s economic boom is leaving most of the country’s workers behind. In rural India, for example, it is common for women to work on their own farms and, when times are tough, to work as laborers on other farms. When the agricultural season is over, they work in the forest collecting gum. All the while, they produce embroidered items either at piece rates for contractors or for sale to traders who come to villages to buy goods.
Because they work in so many occupations just to make ends meet, these women do not easily fit into any single occupational category and have not been covered by India’s worker protection laws. For generations they had no benefits and no voice.
That ended in 1972, when Ela Bhatt, a diminutive labor lawyer with India’s textile union, founded the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA). With some 792,000 members, SEWA now is the largest union for informal workers in India and the largest union led by and for women in the world. Last night, the AFL-CIO honored SEWA and Bhatt with its 2005 George Meany–Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award for courage, innovation and leadership.
The annual award, created in 1980 and named for the first two presidents of the AFL-CIO, recognizes outstanding examples of the international struggle for human rights through trade unions. Previous winners have included Mikhail Volynets of the Ukraine, U Maung Maung of Burma, Nancy Riche of Canada and Wellington Chibebe of Zimbabwe.
Lots to Say
Catching up with all your comments—and looks like there’s lots to say about a new study on workers’ comp and the need for universal health care and a note that a video clip of “Solidarity Forever” is posted at youtube.com.
Got news? Send it to blognews@aflcio.org.
