Archive for March, 2007
MINER Act Not Enough—Mine Safety Laws Must be Enforced
Last year, while coal miners were being killed on the job at a pace that hadn’t been seen in more than a decade, Congress passed the MINER Act, the first new mine safety and health bill in 30 years. But Deborah Hamner, whose husband George Junior Hamner was one of 12 coal miners killed in a methane blast at the Sago Mine in West Virginia, says the bill isn’t enough.
I am here today to stress to you that our work is not done. It is very important that Congress oversees MSHA [Mine Safety and Health Administration] to ensure the improvements you intended with the MINER Act of 2006 are being accomplished.
2008 Candidates Hammer Home the Message That America Needs Unions
As the nearly 3,000 building and construction trades union members left the huge hall where seven Democratic presidential candidates stated their cases for the White House earlier today, cement mason Cameron Hall said he felt good, real good.
Said Hall, a member of Cement Masons Local 886 in Toledo, Ohio:
It’s good to see they know about us, about unions…that they recognize what we did and realize the potential we have to make changes in 2008. It reflects an attitude that too many other politicians don’t have. It makes you feel good.
There was a lot of feel good to go around as the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) wrapped up its three-day legislative conference in Washington, D.C., with a presidential forum.
UAW Vows to Resist More Concessions
UPDATE: The UAW media site has been updated with new video clips and photos from the union’s Special Convention on Collective Bargaining. Check it out here.
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger opened a two-day auto bargaining conference Tuesday in Detroit with a vow to hold steady against concessions and a promise of worker unity and determination in negotiations, particularly on the issues of job security, wages, health care and pensions.
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.
In Mississippi, the Electrical Workers (IBEW) and metal trades unions, representing 8,000 striking workers at a Northrop Grumman shipyard, surveyed their members about contract demands prior to the March 21 mediation session, which was just one day short of the two-week mark for the strike. The company could be feeling pressure to meet government contract deadlines or face fines. Survey results reveal that strikers want higher wages. The striking shipyard workers at Northrop Grumman told shipyard owners they want raises of $4 per hour over the term of a new contract, with $2 up front at settlement.
Appeals Court: Labor Board Supervisor Ruling ‘Fatally Flawed’
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A recent National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling that a registered nurse was a supervisor so that the Missouri nursing home where she worked could lawfully fire her for circulating a petition “borders on the frivolous” and contains “blatant flaws,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled March 23. Supervisors are not protected by the nation’s National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
2008 Candidates on Workers’ Freedom to Form Unions
The Communications Workers of America (CWA) hosted a presidential candidate forum this week in Washington, D.C., with the three leading Democratic contenders: former Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).
The Washington Post is featuring a video clip of each candidate discussing workers’ freedom to form unions. It’s great stuff—check it out.
Rangel-Levin Free Trade Agreement ‘Significant Step Forward’
Lots going on in the U.S. House of Representatives on trade issues this week. Yesterday, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) unveiled a Democratic proposal that would include more safeguards for workers’ rights and the environment in trade deals as well as dealing with other sensitive trade issues such as currency manipulation and providing low-cost drugs to poor countries.
Building Trades Workers Take It to the Hill: ‘Now Maybe We Can Do More Than Fight to Protect the Things We Have’
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Chicago Bricklayer Susan Huyke says the new Democratic-controlled Congress has to focus on one major issue during the next two years: rebuilding the middle class after years of corporate-centric legislation that created the largest gap between the very rich and the rest of the nation.
“We’ve got to close the gap in income and support the middle class, because without a strong middle class the country could well fall,” Huyke says.
The tile and trim worker from Bricklayers Local 67 is one of the nearly 3,000 delegates to the annual legislative conference in Washington, D.C., of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD).
In bright T-shirts—Bricklayers orange, Ironworkers red, Electrical Workers green and Sheet Metal Workers black—they gathered today on the sunny West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol to rally and hear a series of senators and representatives pledge their support for vital working family legislation—the Employee Free Choice Act, fair trade, affordable health care, prevailing wage laws and more.
Senate Hears Testimony on Employee Free Choice Act
After management at the Front Range Energy ethanol plant ignored workers’ complaints about safety procedures and dangerous working conditions and reneged on the promises of wage increases and improved health benefits, Errol Hohrein says he and other workers decided they wanted to form a union to bargain for a better life.
Ninety percent of the workers, based in Windsor, Colo., signed cards through a majority verification process saying they wanted to join the United Steelworkers (USW) but were harassed and threatened with job loss by their employer, says Hohrein. He spoke this morning at a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee this morning on the Employee Free Choice Act, which would level the playing field when workers try to form unions.
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: Still Relevant Today
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Ninety-six years have passed, and still the horror of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire is vivid. It was the second-deadliest workplace disaster in American history, exceeded only by the World Trade Center in 2001.
In the space of a half-hour, the Triangle fire took the lives of 146 workers, mainly Italian and Jewish immigrant women in their teens and early 20s. It changed the union movement and shocked the country.
The story has been told in countless books, articles, plays and photographs. On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the top floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in Greenwich Village. Fire fighters arrived at the scene, but their ladders weren’t long enough to reach the upper floors of the 10-story building.
