Archive for March, 2007
Student Week of Action to Shine Light on Workers’ Freedom to Join Unions
This year, thousands of students will not spend their spring breaks on the Florida beaches. Instead, students at more than 300 universities will be standing outside McDonald’s restaurants, university buildings and other unlikely spots--rallying and marching in support of workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain with their employers for better lives.
The March 28–April 4 week of action sponsored by the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP) takes place between the anniversaries of Cesar Chavez’s birth and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
During the week, students from New York City to Los Angeles will draw attention to schools and corporations that value the bottom line more than people. Through films, rallies and other demonstrations of solidarity, students hope to help workers win concrete victories in their efforts to form and join unions.
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.
Members of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) are not allowed to strike Northwest Airlines under a federal appeals court ruling Thursday affirming a lower court decision.
The ruling by the Federal Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit prohibits a strike threatened by AFA-CWA after Northwest voided its contract last year with bankruptcy court permission. The union could appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Red State, Blue State—We’re All Caught in the Health Care Hustle
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| Listen to Working America's Karen Nussbaum talk about the Health Care Hustle on Workers Independent News. | |
No one who saw the grace and dignity with which Elizabeth and John Edwards dealt with the recurrence of her treatable, but not curable, cancer last week could help but be moved.
Then, just a few days later, White House press secretary Tony Snow told us the colon cancer thought to be cured two years ago had spread to his liver.
Both Snow and Edwards have tough, tough times ahead of them. Americans across red and blue states wish them both well. After all, who hasn’t been touched by cancer through our own experiences or a loved one’s?
But millions of other Americans will face similar diagnoses and many of them will lack one advantage Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow surely have: good health insurance.
Many Sources, Same Message: Trade Policy Must Be Changed
It’s been a busy week on trade issues.
While the Bush administration is scrambling to get Congress to renew Fast Track trade promotion authority, which expires June 30, two key congressional leaders let President Bush know that new principles must apply to trade deals. The next day, union leaders and a top national news commentator told Congress the trade system is fundamentally flawed and must be changed.
Legislation Enhances Protections for Skilled Workers
Guest worker legislation introduced this week by Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) would enhance protections for skilled U.S. and foreign workers and give the federal government more authority to enforce program requirements.
The H-1B and L-1 Visa Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act of 2007 would overhaul the H-1B high-skill visa program and L-1 intra-company transfer visa programs.
Current law gives the Department of Labor inadequate authority to review employer H-1B applications for fraud or abuse. Current law also constrains the department’s authority to investigate and penalize employers that fail to comply with H-1B program requirements. As a result, unscrupulous employers could take advantage of the H-1B program to exploit foreign workers and deprive willing and qualified U.S. workers of high-skill jobs.
Sweeney Addresses Historic Meeting Between Financial Institutions, Iraqi Trade Unions
For Iraqi workers, poverty, unemployment and chaos are spiraling out of control. At the same time, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are proposing economic reforms that would fundamentally change how the Iraqi government has historically structured public sector wages and pensions, aspects of the oil industry and social safety nets. Barbara Shailor, director of the AFL-CIO’s International Department, provides this update as part of an AFL-CIO Executive Council delegation to Amman, Jordan.
In a historic two-day meeting in Amman, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney addressed representatives from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, along with 17 top leaders from five Iraqi trade union federations. The first-of-its-kind meeting, organized by the International Trade Union Confederation, was chaired by ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder and ITUC Washington, D.C., Director Peter Bakvis.
The meeting gave Iraqi unionists an opportunity to begin a constructive and transparent dialogue with international financial institutions, or IFIs, which have been actively engaged in Iraq without input from unions or other civil society organizations.
Can’t Discount Corporate Greed: Circuit City Axes 3,400 Workers
It’s one thing to discount flat-screen televisions and computer software, but when a company discounts its workers the way Circuit City did this week, it is simply immoral and offensive.
The electronics retailer whacked 3,400 of its hourly workers simply because the company thinks they were being paid too much. Didn’t ask them to take pay cuts to keep their jobs at lower salaries. Just “goodbye.”
The company, based in Richmond, Va., is not eliminating the jobs, mind you. Circuit City says it will immediately hire new workers to fill the jobs at lower pay.
Bishop G.E. Patterson, Friend of Working People
Working families and people of faith who support workers are mourning the death of Bishop G.E. Patterson, who was presiding bishop of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), the nation’s largest African American Pentecostal denomination with more than 6 million members.
Patterson, 67, died last week in Memphis, Tenn., where COGIC is headquartered. He was a strong supporter of workers’ rights and had spoken out in favor of the Employee Free Choice Act and the freedom of workers to join unions. Patterson also spearheaded COGIC Charities, which raised more than $1 million to help the survivors of Hurricane Katrina.
Fight for Employee Free Choice Act Moves to Senate
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| Errol Hohrein testifies before a Senate committee in support of the Employee Free Choice Act. Credit: Joe Kekeris |
Working families moved closer today to changing the nation’s labor laws to give workers greater freedom to make their own decisions about joining a union and bargaining for better wages, benefits and working conditions. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), along with 46 co-sponsors, introduced the Employee Free Choice Act, S. 1041, in the U.S. Senate.
The House passed the Employee Free Choice Act, the most important labor law reform in more than 70 years, on March 1 by a margin of 241–185. The legislation would rein in the employer harassment, intimidation and anti-worker tactics tens of thousands of workers encounter every year when they try to form unions.
Meeting Garment and Textile Workers in Jordan’s Qualified Industrial Zones
Heba El Shazli, director of the Solidarity Center’s Middle East and North Africa Department, reports on the AFL-CIO Executive Council’s delegation to meet with garment workers in Jordan.
On March 27, the AFL-CIO Executive Council delegation visiting Jordan traveled to the northern Qualified Industrial Zone (QIZ), known as the al Hussein Industrial Estate, to meet with organizers and workers from the General Trade Union for Workers in the Garment, Textile and Apparel Sector. We toured QIZ factories and dormitories to observe the workers’ living and working conditions. QIZs are industrial parks that grant immediate tariff and quota-free access to the U.S. market to goods produced in the QIZ that meet specific rules of origin requirements.
