Archive for October, 2006
‘Don’t Let Marriage Issue Distract Us from the Real Issues in Election’
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) union members are warning working families not to allow our opponents to distract workers from the real issues in this election by using wedge issues such as marriage equality to divide them.
This past week, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled the state legislature must provide the same rights and benefits to same-sex couples that married couples currently receive. The court left it to the legislature to determine how to ensure equality.
7 Days @ Minimum Wage: ‘On the Borderline of Homelessness’
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In Cleveland, Amanda struggles to take care of her basic, everyday needs on the $5.15-an-hour minimum wage she earns. But she says that she dreams one day she’ll be able to “live a regular life”—if the minimum wage is finally raised for the first time in a decade.
Amanda, who is featured in the sixth installment of the video blog (vlog) “7 Days @ Minimum Wage,” says earning minimum wage means:
You’re barely, barely making it. You’re on the borderline of homelessness or not having enough food.…It’s hard, it’s real, real hard, by the time I get the stuff I need and have to have—like get my clothes washed and groceries, my bus passes to get back and forth to work, I don’t have enough to do stuff to my house…lot of repairs need to be done to my house. I don’t enough money to do it.
Sponsored by the AFL-CIO and ACORN, the vlog will run through Election Day at http://sevendaysatminimumwage.org/. The 7 Days vlog event was scheduled to end Oct. 30, but we’re extending it after getting an overwhelming response. The stories have received more than 10,000 video views, won daily honors on YouTube and have been picked up by the mainstream media and the blogosphere alike.
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@Work.
With the Tigers and Cardinals in the World Series, baseball fans will be pleased that negotiators have worked out a new five-year tentative deal that, if ratified, will keep baseball strike free.
Days Before the Elections, Bush Announces New Job Training Program
After years of cutting job training funds and promoting trade deals that kill U.S. jobs, yesterday, with great fanfare, and just a little more than a week before an election where job security is a top issue on voters’ minds, the Bush administration announced a new eight-state job training initiative.
Take Time Out to Volunteer in the Volunteer State
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They call it the “Volunteer State.” And just last Saturday in Tennessee more than 200 Labor 2006 working family volunteers knocked on union households doors from Knoxville in the northeast to Memphis in the Southwest.
And come Election Day weekend (Nov. 4–Nov. 7), hundreds more will be knocking on doors, making phone calls to union members, handing out fliers at nearly 400 worksites and knocking on more doors to get out the vote for Rep. Harold Ford’s (D) bid for a seat in the U.S. Senate, along with mobilizing support for Gov. Phil Bredesen’s re-election and other endorsed candidates.
7 Days @ Minimum Wage: ‘I’m Just Working to Survive’
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For some people, life on the minimum wage is a constant struggle to keep from having to sleep on the streets. Meet Chris Peters, who goes out every morning at 3:30 or 4 to try and find a day job that will pay him enough to eat and pay for the $35-a-night hotel room he lives in.
Peters tells his story in the fifth installment of the video blog (vlog) “7 Days @ Minimum Wage.” He says he spends most of the day at temp agencies that specialize in hard labor waiting to get a job. On the vlog, he relates what happened on one job:
Last night I worked for a Starbucks truck unloading milk and pastries for nine hours and I brought home $39. My hotel room costs $35 a night. Usually when I go to work, I hope I can get eight hours. Basically, I’m just working to survive, mostly just to have someplace to sleep so I ain’t gotta be on the streets.
The vlog, which is running at http://sevendaysatminimumwage.org/ from Oct. 23–30, is sponsored by the AFL-CIO and ACORN. Hosted by comedienne Roseanne Barr, it features interviews with seven workers describing life at or near the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour, which has not been raised since 1997.
Working America Takes Cues from Dick Armey to Get Out the Vote
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| Working America members in Pennsylvania (above) and in states like ohio are getting out the vote among America’s working families. |
Here at Working America, we’ve had enough of a Congress that acts like a rubber stamp for the Bush administration. We’re fed up with a Congress that doesn’t work for working families. So we’re doing something about it in the states that matter most. One of the key battleground states this election is Ohio.
The state’s 20 electoral votes decided the 2004 presidential election in favor of George W. Bush. This year, there is an important senate race, a governor’s race and six separate congressional races that are a dead heat. Many of these may be decided by just a few hundred votes.
Mesaba Airlines Plan Could Mean Near Poverty Wages for Workers
Flight attendants at Mesaba Airlines today are telling travelers and the general public that the airline’s plan to impose wage and benefit cuts could bring their wages to near poverty level.
The informational pickets at Detroit Metro Airport, Memphis International Airport and the U.S. District Courthouse in Minneapolis also are protesting a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge’s Oct. 24 rule barring members of the Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) from exercising their right to strike.
APALA Mobilizes Asian and Pacific Islander Working Families to Vote Nov. 7
There are 614,000 Asian and Pacific Islander American union members in the United States and their votes could be critical in deciding some close races on Election Day. To educate and mobilize these voters, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), one of the six AFL-CIO constituency groups, has joined forces with other union and community organizations.
Two Florida Lawmakers, One Record Opposing Workers’ Interests
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| Florida union members hear the details of state Rep. Gus Bilirakis’ anti-worker record. |
U.S. Rep. Clay Shaw and state Rep. Gus Bilirakis, both Republicans in Florida, share one thing in common: a long record of opposing almost anything that would help working families.
Shaw, who has represented Florida’s 22nd District for more than a quarter of a century, has voted against working families 88 percent of the time he’s been in office. He helped write the flawed Medicare prescription drug bill that penalizes seniors and gives billions to the health care industry, the same industry that has given $210,486 in campaign contributions to Shaw.
