Archive for October, 2007
Join the Global Call to Action for Decent Work for All
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Around the world, thousands of workers today are launching a Call to Action for governments and global leaders to keep the promises they made a year ago to create decent work for all.
The promise was part of a July 2006 United Nations ministerial declaration, and several international workers’ groups in Lisbon, Portugal, are sponsoring the Decent Work/Decent Life action.
The need for decent work is clear:
- Half of the world’s workers earns less than $2 a day.
- 12.3 million women and men work in slavery.
- 200 million children under the age of 15 work instead of going to school.
- 2.2 million people die due to work-related accidents and diseases every year.
Add to this massive global unemployment the lack of a social safety net for the majority of workers employed in the “informal economy” (work that is not taxed or regulated) and the violation of workers’ rights, and the need for decent work for all is evident.
Republicans Still Without a Candidate in Ohio’s 15th District
Leading Republicans are running from, not for, the U.S. House seat being vacated by the incumbent next year in Ohio’s 15th District.
The seat has been held for the past 15 years by Deborah Pryce, a member of the Republican leadership who barely made it back to Congress last year. She won re-election by just a tad more than 1,000 votes, despite years of easy victories. Pryce announced this summer she wasn’t up for another campaign and would retire at the end of her eighth term.
Ruling Vindicates Yale-New Haven Workers, Shows Ugly Employer Tactics
For the first time in a decade, a group of nurses aides, housekeepers, secretaries and other service workers at Yale-New Haven Hospital, Yale University’s teaching hospital, have something to celebrate.
Their struggle exposes how employers use union-busting tactics even after it has specifically agreed to a standard of conduct. And it shows how much we need the Employee Free Choice Act so workers can have a real choice.
Bush Set to Veto House-Passed Bill That Would Help America’s Workers
When American workers’ jobs are shipped overseas because of the flawed U.S. trade policies that encourage employers to move offshore, the workers’ primary helping hand to get back on their feet is the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program. But as Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, says:
The painful truth is that the current TAA program is not working.
Today, the House, by a bipartisan 264-157 margin approved a bill (H.R. 3920) that reauthorizes and overhauls TAA, makes improvements to current federal-state unemployment insurance (UI) system and strengthens the 1988 plant closing laws.
House Committee Passes Mine Bill but Bush Threatens to Veto Mine Safety Funding
New mine safety legislation aimed at preventing mine disasters, improving emergency response and reducing long-term health risks such as Black Lung was approved today by the House Education and Labor Committee.
But the Bush administration’s budget and staffing cuts have raised new concerns about the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s (MSHA’s) failure to conduct mandatory quarterly mine safety inspections in mines across the country, including one where a West Virginia coal miner was killed Sunday.
AFSCME Backs Clinton for President
AFSCME announced today the union has endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) for president.
With 1.4 million members, AFSCME is one of the largest unions in the country. The union engaged in an extensive 10-month process to choose a presidential candidate, one that included two nationally televised candidate forums and surveys by mail and phone of active and retired members.
Unsafe Toys: Report Says Conservative Trade, Regulatory Policies at Fault
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When children go trick-or-treating for Halloween tonight, parents want to make sure they are safe. But how can we be sure? Just last week, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recalled imported Halloween pails children might use for their treats because they contained high amounts of lead.
In the past two months alone, more than 13 million toys have been recalled after tests indicated lead levels that sometimes reached nearly 200 times the federal safety limit.
How did it get this bad? Today, the Institute for America’s Future released a eye-opening report, Toxic Trade: Globalization and the Safety of the American Consumer, pinpointing the problem. The report shows how the double mantra of free trade at all costs and little or no regulation at home have combined to make the products we buy toxic and unsafe.
Maine AFL-CIO Endorses Rep. Allen for Senate
At their state convention last weekend, members of the Maine AFL-CIO unanimously endorsed Rep. Tom Allen (D) in his campaign for a seat in the U.S. Senate.
With the union movement in Maine committed to fighting hard in the 2008 elections, the Maine AFL-CIO’s endorsement is the beginning of a large-scale mobilization of the state’s 30,000 union members.
Eddie Gorham, president of the Maine AFL-CIO, says:
Congressman Allen has consistently championed the interest of Maine’s working families. On trade, jobs, health care and worker rights to organize, he has led the way.
Hungry for Change, Alaska Union Members Write Their Senators
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AFL-CIO Organizing Director Stewart Acuff joined 1,200 IBEW union leaders in Alaska, where he found lots of support for America’s union movement and our efforts to pass legislation that will level the playing field for workers seeking to form unions.
One of the most important keys to the passage and enactment of the Employee Free Choice Act is the ongoing mobilization of worksite activists, leaders and shop stewards.
Currently, several unions are either building or putting the finishing touches on their worksite activist structures to mobilize for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act—among them, the Electrical Workers (IBEW).
Last spring, AFL-CIO Voice@Work Director Fred Azcarate and I were happy to hold a steward’s training on the Employee Free Choice Act for 1,200 leaders in the IBEW. After that training, Larry Bell, business manager of IBEW Local 1547 in Anchorage, asked me to come to Alaska to train 250 shop stewards from across the state to discuss why the Employee Free Choice Act is the number one priority of America’s union movement and to outline steps we need to take to ensure its passage.
Bluegrass Express: End of the Road Is Just the Beginning for Ky. Workers
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Rachele Huennekens, AFL-CIO Media Outreach fellow, has blogged and leafleted her way through a 10-day bus tour through Kentucky, where former Lt. Gov. Steve Beshear (D) is challenging Gov. Ernie Fletcher (R), who has canceled bargaining rights for state employees and taken other anti-worker stands. Together with Kentucky State AFL-CIO President Bill Londrigan, Rachele sends us a final blog on the Bluegrass Express tour, in which dozens of local labor leaders and union volunteers have participated.
As the Bluegrass Express tour comes to a close in its second week, we put the remaining time to good use, squeezing in a few more stops and welcoming many new union members who volunteer to take part from a variety of unions at worksites across the state.
