Archive for February, 2007
Same Song and Dance: Senate Republicans Roadblock Minimum Wage Hike
As they have been for the past 10 years, congressional Republicans remain the last hurdle before a minimum wage increase can become law.
With Senate Republicans holding out for huge tax breaks for businesses and threatening to block a conference on minimum wage bills passed by both chambers, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) says:
"I don’t know how much more [Republicans] want. We haven’t had a minimum wage increase in 10 years."
‘Tomorrow, Working People Will Have Their Day’
For a dozen years, corporate America has had its way on Capitol Hill. Tomorrow, when the House votes on the Employee Free Choice Act, America’s workers finally will be heard in the halls of Congress, House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) told a press conference today. Predicting that the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 800), which has 233 co-sponsors, will pass the House, Miller said:
Big Oil has had its day in Congress. The big defense contractors have had their day. And the pharmaceutical companies have had their day. For America’s workers, tomorrow is your day.
Miller praised the “unsung heroes” in America’s workplaces who daily stand up against the coercion and harassment meted out by employers to prevent workers from enjoying their fundamental freedom to decide for themselves whether and how to join a union.
Holding China Accountable Through the Fair Currency Act
It’s time for the Bush administration to hold the Chinese government accountable to its international obligations on trade, currency manipulation and human rights and provide U.S. businesses the import relief they are entitled to under the law, says AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard L. Trumka.
Trumka spoke today at a Capitol Hill press conference to reinforce the AFL-CIO’s strong support for the Fair Currency Act of 2007 (H.R. 782) that would give the United States new tools to deal with China’s currency manipulation—a major factor in the huge trade deficit with China and the loss of U.S. jobs.
Lessons from NAFTA Should Stop Bad Korea Trade Deal
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been a disaster, failing workers in Mexico, Canada and the United States. Yet the Bush administration continues to use the same flawed model to negotiate its trade deals, including the proposed deal with South Korea. Known as KORUS, the pact with South Korea could be the largest U.S. trade agreement since NAFTA took effect Jan. 1, 1994. Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) Vice President Heo Young-koo told a Capitol Hill briefing Tuesday that KORUS in its present form will significantly hurt U.S. and Korean workers, just as NAFTA hurt workers in North America.
Heo says the Korean government negotiated the deal out of public view—and like NAFTA, the proposed Korea-U.S. pact does not protect workers’ rights. Without such protections, Korea will continue its current policies of repressing workers.
Kentucky Turns Its Back on Strong Coal Mine Safety Rules
Last week, Kentucky legislators turned their backs on pleas to pass a strong mine safety bill from several widows whose husbands were killed in coal mines in recent years (see video).
On Feb. 22, the day after the women, miners and union leaders rallied on the Capitol steps in Frankfort, a mine safety bill that had won the backing of the Mine Workers (UMWA) and mine safety experts was “hijacked” and “gutted,” says the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Brent Yonts (D).
Yonts charges that without his knowledge and without an opportunity to argue against it, the House committee with jurisdiction over the bill substituted a far weaker version, deleting many key safety provisions.
‘Time to Do the Right Thing and Pass Employee Free Choice Act’
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Building trades workers in Arizona and Nevada organize for justice.
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With the U.S. House of Representatives poised to vote Thursday on the Employee Free Choice Act, working families are reaching out to deliver the message that when workers join unions, the nation benefits.
Calling the Employee Free Choice Act “the most important change in labor law in decades,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney explained in a telephone press conference today why working people need this legislation.
The single best opportunity for working women and men to get ahead economically is by coming together with their co-workers to bargain with their employer for a better life—through a union.
How Retirees Can Stand Up for Today’s Workers
George J. Kourpias is the president of the Alliance for Retired Americans, a 3 million-member grassroots advocacy organization for current and future retirees. Kourpias is a former president of the Machinists.
Unions built the middle class. By standing together, we fought for and won better wages, health care and pensions and rights and safety on the job.
But these things are quickly becoming a relic of the past. Why? There are many reasons, but I think workers and retirees have been badly hurt by a corporate and government assault on our freedom to form and join unions.
Health Care Spending: $1 of $5 in 10 Years
During Bush’s State of the Union address last month, we all found out Bush’s solution to the nation’s health care crisis: Take away the employer-provided health care from the few in this country who have decent coverage by taxing it out of existence. Oh, and kill Medicare.
Meanwhile, the crisis continues.
In fact, health care is expected to account for $1 of every $5 spent in the United States in another decade, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Associated Press.
Employee Free Choice Act: No More Fear in Workers’ Eyes
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The North Dakota Democratic Caucus passed a resolution supporting the Employee Free Choice Act. From left, State AFL-CIO President David L. Kemnitz, U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan, State Senate Minority Leader David O'Connell and State House Minority Leader Merle Boucher.
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The Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 800) is set for its first full U.S. House vote March 1.
Working family activists from Buffalo, N.Y., to Olympia, Wash., have used the last few days of the congressional recess to tell the general public and their lawmakers that a strong middle class depends in part on workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life free from employer intimidation and harassment.
During the past week plus, workers in more than 100 cities met with members of Congress and community leaders to push for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. Actions included conferences, worker roundtables, rallies and other gatherings, with workers and union and community leaders meeting with at least 130 members of Congress.
On Friday in Buffalo, several dozen workers from unions in the Western New York Area Labor Federation held a news conference with Rep. Brian Higgins (D), one of the bill’s 233 co-sponsors. He says support for the bill is growing and that despite President Bush’s veto threat:
It will be enacted sooner rather than later…Now because the Democratic Congress is standing up for working folks, the president is all of sudden going to be aggressive with his veto pen?
Missouri Bills Aim to Silence Workers and Their Unions
In Missouri, working families and their unions are fighting back against a trio of bills that threaten their wages, their political voice and their unions.
The bills have been introduced by Rep. Steve Hunter (R), a long-time anti-worker lawmaker whose ties to a business lobbying group that strongly supports the bills—Associated Industries of Missouri—are under fire. State disclosure records show Hunter earns about $12,000 a year as a part-time recruiter for the organization.
The first bill (H.B. 439) would change long-standing Missouri law and ban workers and their employers from deciding together to have a union-security clause at the workplace. A union-security clause doesn’t force anyone to join the union. Rather, it requires that all workers—union members and nonmembers—pay representational costs.
