Archive for May, 2007
180 Working America Canvassers Set to Contact Members in Nine States
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It’s going to be a busy summer for some 180 Working America canvassers. They will be knocking on tens of thousands of doors in Oregon, Ohio, Minnesota, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, Iowa, Pennsylvania and New Jersey to give working people a chance to make their voices heard on important national issues—especially health care—and to give working families a chance to swim against the tide of downward mobility that’s sweeping away too many hard-working Americans.
Working America—the AFL-CIO’s community and grassroots affiliate for people who do not belong to a union—provides members with a powerful new way to make themselves heard on the issues most central to their lives. Says Working America Director Karen Nussbaum:
Our members are the working people whose interests and needs have long been ignored by those who craft the economic policy of our country. As the rich have gotten richer, many of these Americans have been left behind—without health insurance, pensions or wages that can support a family. Joining Working America gives them an opportunity to make a real difference in the policies that shape their lives.
FLOC: Confession by Alleged Murderer of Organizer ‘Doesn’t Ring True’
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One man has been detained in northern Mexico after allegedly confessing to taking part in the April beating death of Santiago Rafael Cruz, an organizer for the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC). Police say they are searching for two others.
But FLOC officials say the police accounts of a supposed confession don’t ring true. Says FLOC President Baldemar Velasquez:
This case is far from being solved.
He also told the Toledo Blade that FLOC attorneys who reviewed the reported confession “didn’t believe a word of the government’s case.”
Cruz was found bound and beaten to death in FLOC’s Monterrey, Mexico, office April 9. The union opened the office in 2005 to help guest workers obtain legal visas to work in North Carolina.
Are You a Union Member in Elected Office? Let Us Know
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Along with being members of unions, Dan Poling of the Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) and Ralph Caraway Sr. of the IUE/CWA have something else in common: They are new lawmakers with a focus on working family issues.
Caraway was just elected to the Tyler (Texas) City Council and Poling is serving his first term in the West Virginia House of Delegates.
(If you are a union member who holds public office and would like to share your experiences on the campaign trail and in office, submit a comment or drop us a line at aflcio@blognews.org.We’d love to hear from you).
Putting the U.S. Union Movement Back in Our School’s Lesson Plans
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A few years ago, a national survey found that 54 percent of Americans said they knew nothing or just very little about unions and the American labor movement. Paul F. Cole, executive director of the American Labor Studies Center (ALSC), says what really stands out about that survey is people said that what little they knew they had learned from the media.
They didn’t even ask the question, “Did you learn anything about unions and labor in school?”
Many schools don’t teach, or barely touch on labor studies and Cole says the ALSC is trying to remedy that. Earlier this month, some 40 teachers explored the resources available from the center to teach labor studies and labor history from kindergarten through grade 12 at a daylong symposium at the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) headquarters in Latham, N.Y.
Air Traffic Controllers Make Summer Air Travel a Little Easier
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| Courtesy NATCA |
Just in time for the summer travel season, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) offers two resources to help you avoid delays and ease your stress.
To access the first resource, click here to find tips on avoiding delays at major airports from the folks who know the intricacies of the nation’s air traffic control system better than anybody—NATCA’s controllers. As part of the service, which covers nearly two dozen airports, NATCA members offer tips on the best time of day to fly out of a specific airport and the best airports to connect through.
Leaving from San Francisco? You should try and depart between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m., when there are fewer flights. If you head to Indianapolis, avoid evening arrivals and departures because of heavy traffic from the East Coast.
Black Trade Unionists Call for Building Political Strength
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| Sen. Barack Obama, shown here at an AFL-CIO forum in Trenton, N.J., spoke at the CBTU convention on Friday. | |
As the nearly 1,500 union members meet in Chicago this weekend for the annual convention of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU), they are focusing on how black workers have been especially hit hard by the economic policies of the Bush administration and are strategizing to ensure the next administration is accountable for improving the lives of all America’s working families.
All workers have suffered in the six years that George W. Bush has been president. But black workers, even those in unions, have been affected the most. According to a recent study, a whopping 55 percent of the union jobs lost in 2004 were held by black workers. More stunningly, African American women accounted for 70 percent of the union jobs lost by women in 2004.
At the same time, the percentage of African American workers who are union members is dropping substantially. The percentage of African Americans who are either members of or represented by unions fell from 31.7 percent of all black workers in 1983 to 16 percent in 2006, according to a report by the Center for Economic Policy and Research.
Upward Mobility Today: Only an American Dream?
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We all know America’s working families are struggling to make ends meet. But you know the economic scenario for working families really must be in dire straits when pro-business think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute (AEI) co-sponsor a report showing men’s income is worse off today than 30 years ago. (For a perspective on women’s income, take a look at yesterday’s report on balancing work and family.)
In fact, the data show in 2004, median income for a man in his 30s, a good predictor of his lifetime earnings, was $35,010, 12 percent less than for men in their 30s in 1974, adjusted for inflation. So today’s sons will be worse off than their fathers.
By Holding Minimum Wage Hostage, Senate Republicans Cost Workers $750
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On Jan. 10, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to raise the federal minimum from $5.15 an hour, where it had been stuck since 1997, to $7.25 an hour. But Senate Republicans killed the bill Jan. 24 and set off a 134-day minimum wage hostage crisis.
Finally yesterday, Senate Republicans released their hostage when they approved a supplemental Iraq war spending bill that included the wage hike. It’s estimated the increase will raise the pay of some 13 million workers who earn less than $7.25 an hour and another 7.4 million who earn a bit more but are likely to see their pay increase.
Comcast Workers Get Cold Shoulder at Shareholder Meeting
Jose Hill, a member of the Electrical Workers (IBEW), who served in the Army in 2003, works for the telecom giant Comcast. But at $17 an hour, he says he can’t afford a house in a Chicago neighborhood that would be safe for his children.
Meanwhile, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts got a total pay package of $27.8 million last year.
When Hill and others tried to discuss CEO pay at yesterday’s Comcast shareholder meeting, they got a cold shoulder.
Find out more here.
