Archive for January, 2007
They Did What? Outrage over Senators Who Voted to Repeal the Minimum Wage
It’s bad enough the Senate is twiddling and diddling over literally dozens of amendments some lawmakers want to add to a bill that would raise the federal minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 over two years. House lawmakers earlier this month, with no similar hesitation or amendment-adding, passed a clean bill to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour.
But when 28 senators voted Wednesday to repeal the minimum wage entirely, many across the country expressed outrage. As a commenter said on The Carpetbagger Report, which was among several blogs to cover the issue:
Suddenly they’re for state’s rights again. Impeach all 28.
New AFL-CIO Recruitment Service a Big Boost for Union Employment Outreach
Charles Taylor from the AFL-CIO Center for Strategic Research describes a new service the center launched to enable affiliated unions to rapidly recruit top-notch researchers and campaign staff for organizing efforts.
The AFL-CIO recently launched an expanded résumé posting service that makes it easier for affiliates seeking to hire campaigners and researchers to find promising prospects. Says Ken Zinn, director of the AFL-CIO Center for Strategic Research:
Research plays a crucial role in union strategic campaigns to support organizing and bargaining, and there is growing demand for strategic researchers and campaigners across the labor movement. We’re doing our part to help fill that need.
AFT Report Debunks Myth of Liberal Bias in Academia
David Horowitz and his band of censors are at it again. Horowitz, you’ll recall, is the liberal turned ultraconservative who is making a career of trying to kill free speech on the nation’s college campuses. He would muzzle college professors for fear they’ll say something he and his conservative allies don’t want students to hear.
Horowitz also is pursuing a legislative agenda. Last year, he pushed for introduction of the so-called “Academic Bill of Rights” in 24 states. If enacted, the proposal would limit the speech of college and university professors in the name of “intellectual diversity.”
Penelope Cruz, Will Smith Among Actors Spotlighted at 13th Annual SAG Awards
Back in 1933, a courageous bunch of character actors in Hollywood met clandestinely and joined together to fight for their rights. So it was that the Screen Actors (SAG) union was born. Things have changed since then. Today, SAG is America’s largest union representing working actors, with 120,000 members in film, television, commercials, video games, music videos and other new media. When they get together this Sunday evening, the gathering will be anything but clandestine. This time, there will be red carpets, an orchestra, champagne, press conferences, plus a cadre of TV cameras to broadcast it all.
28 Senators Vote to Repeal Minimum Wage. 2008 Elections, Anyone?
Maybe in 1938, the idea of a federal minimum wage was controversial. But not so much so that a majority of the House and Senate couldn’t approve the Fair Labor Standards Act that set the federal minimum wage at 25 cents an hour.
So in 2007, how can anyone with a shred of common sense, let alone an ounce of empathy for men and women who bust their tails day in and day out for $5.15 an hour, say it’s time to scrap the federal minimum wage?
Irena Kirkland, Widow of Lane Kirkland and Fighter for Human Rights
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| Always an activist, Irena Kirkland joined in an AFL-CIO phone bank during the 2004 election. | |
The union and international human rights movements are mourning the loss of Irena Kirkland, widow of AFL-CIO President Emeritus Lane Kirkland and a major fighter for democracy and freedom in her own right.
Mrs. Kirkland died early Wednesday at the age of 81. For 22 years, Mrs. Kirkland was a familiar figure in the union movement. After her husband’s death in 1999, she was instrumental in the creation of the National Labor College’s Lane Kirkland Center, which opened its doors late last year.
Noting that Mrs. Kirkland “was a compelling figure in her own right in the struggle against authoritarianism in every form,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says even though she was a witness to some of the greatest atrocities in human history,
Irena Kirkland’s commitment to human dignity and freedom never wavered. Everyone who knew her as a friend and colleague in some of the noblest struggles of this generation will miss her deeply.
IBEW Signs Three-Year Pact with CBS
We thank David Roscow for letting us know the Electrical Workers (IBEW) and CBS Broadcasting have reached an early contract to extend their current agreement for three years. The current contract was supposed to expire July 31.
The new pact includes a unique pledge by CBS to actively look for opportunities to assign IBEW technicians to perform work for the Internet and emerging media. The company’s efforts already have paid dividends with an arrangement to use IBEW employees to work at a facility that CBS will establish at its headquarters in Los Angeles to distribute programming on its MediaFlo mobile entertainment service.
World’s Unions Demand ‘Decent Work for a Decent Life’
The supporters of globalization claim unfettered free trade would create sufficient prosperity to raise the living standards of just about everyone. But the reality is that while some—mainly the rich—have profited from globalization, millions of workers still are living in poverty.
So when the world’s political and economic elite gather for their annual World Economic Forum Jan. 24–28 in the Swiss resort of Davos, union leaders from around the world will be there to remind them that globalization doesn’t work unless it works for everyone.
A Dirty Deed: Senate Rejects Clean Minimum Wage Bill
Fifty-four senators voted to raise the federal minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour, without giving any more lucrative tax breaks to business. But because of the mostly Republican opposition to a clean minimum wage bill in the form of a filibuster, that was six votes too few for passage.
The 54–43 vote on cloture this morning (it takes 60 votes to end debate on a filibustered bill) means the Senate now will take up a minimum wage bill (S. 2) that, along with the $2.10 wage hike, will include the tax breaks and other giveaways that President Bush says he wants added to the bill before signing a minimum wage increase. With the gifts to business, that bill is likely to pass.
State of the Union or State of Denial?
The question on a local Washington, D.C., radio call-in show today asked: State of the Union or State of Denial?
As an analysis by the non-partisan Drum Major Institute for Public Policy puts it:
When one looks past the State of the Union’s middle-class window dressing, one cannot help but notice the speech reflects a view of America and an approach to government that is at odds with the reality lived by average Americans.
State of the Union or State of Denial?
You decide.
