Archive for February, 2008
Cleveland Families Challenge McCain’s Ties to Subprime Housing Corps.
Ben Waxman, national AFL-CIO Ohio state director, sends us this report from Cleveland.
Union activists from the North Shore Federation of Labor gathered outside a campaign event for Arizona Sen. John McCain (R) this morning to deliver a clear message to attendees: McCain is doing nothing to solve the housing crisis and help families in trouble keep their homes.
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In the past two years, more than 14,000 Cleveland families have lost their homes to foreclosure, leaving entire city blocks abandoned. But this morning, McCain came to town peddling the same corporate-friendly, anti-worker agenda President Bush has been pushing for seven years.
Former UAW President Doug Fraser Dies at 91
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Douglas Fraser, who went to work in a Detroit auto plant in 1934 and rose through the ranks of the UAW to lead the union from 1977 to 1983, died Sunday in Southfield, Mich. He was 91 years old.
Says UAW President Ron Gettelfinger:
Doug was a friend, a mentor and a counselor to so many within the UAW and the larger labor movement. His integrity and his enduring commitment to protecting the rights of workers will continue to inspire us. He never forgot that we were working for our active and retired members.
An Associated Press obituary notes that UAW members held Fraser in high regard.
With his mischievous smile and gregarious, easygoing manner, Fraser was popular with the union’s rank-and-file, who appreciated his candor and accessibility. Everyone called him Doug.
Workers Sign Up with AFSCME in California and South Dakota, and More Bargaining News
Workers sign up with AFSCME in California and South Dakota and more highlights from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 900 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
Organizing
AFSCME, Park View Community Hospital: Some 260 nurses at Parkview Community Hospital in Riverside, Calif., voted to join the United Nurses Associations of California (UNAC), an affiliate of AFSCME. Marlene Burnett, spokeswoman for Parkview Community Hospital, said the facility’s administration respects the nurses’ decision and would negotiate a contract with them.
What if Deadly Dust Explosions Were Airplane Crashes?
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If a certain kind of plane kept falling out of the sky, killing and maiming hundreds of passengers, the public would be outraged if the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ignored the advice of aviation experts calling for new safety standards.
Surely the outrage would boil over if the FAA instead told industry: “Hey are some voluntary safety guidelines. See what you can do, OK?”
That’s a ludicrous scenario the federal government and the aviation industry would never allow to happen in real life, writes longtime workplace safety advocate Les Leopold. However, substitute dust explosions for crashing airplanes and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for the FAA—and that is the reality in our nation today, he says.
King’s Legacy: ‘We Get More Organized Together Than Apart’
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With the issues of economic equality and immigration high on the agenda in this election, author Michael Honey reminds us that the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. carries some important lessons for today’s political leaders and activists.
Honey, humanities professor at the University of Washington-Tacoma, is author of Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s Last Campaign.
In an article first published in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, he says King’s life demonstrated that labor rights, human rights and civil rights are indivisible. He quotes King as saying, “We can get more organized together than we can apart.”
Green, the Color of Good Jobs
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This is a crosspost from Firedoglake
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The union movement is turning green. Not with envy, but with an escalating sense that the nation must work to address climate change and that we must be part of the effort to create good jobs that also are green jobs.
Last December, an unprecedented delegation of unionists traveled to Bali, Indonesia, for the U.N. climate change conference. Of the 90 union delegates, more than 20 were from North America.
Why Not Health Care?
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Andy, an IUE-CWA Local 201 member, looked at his pension check from General Electric as he sat in my office at the union hall. The local vice president and the president of the retirees association usually respond to benefit questions like this. But they were both on vacation, and I was struggling to catch up and be of some help.
“I got the $40 raise you told us about in December” he told me. “Then in January, I lost it again, plus another $6. What good was it? What happened?”
A conference call or two later, and we both knew three things had happened. In December, his pension went up $40. In January, his health care went up $46. So when the dust settled, his pension check dropped by $6. And keep in mind that he is one of the lucky ones: The share of employees offering any group health insurance at all to their retired workers dropped from 66 percent in 1988 to 33 percent in 2007.
Unemployment Hits Katrina-Level High
Just three weeks after the unemployment figures showed the first overall loss of jobs in years, we learn that joblessness is the highest it’s been since the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in October 2005.
The Labor Department reported yesterday that the four-week average for initial jobless claims reached 360,500. The four-week average for the week ending Feb. 16 was 30,000 higher than this time last year. The total number of workers actually drawing an unemployment check also peaked at post-Katrina levels at 2.784 million workers, increasing by 48,000 in one week.
Win Hunting or Fishing Trip of a Lifetime
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Union members have an opportunity to win a hunting or fishing trip in exotic locales—and appear on the national television program “Escape to the Wild.”
The winners will venture to Argentina to hunt majestic red stag, join professional angler Byron Velvick for Texas bass fishing or trek Canada’s expansive tundra to hunt caribou and upland bird—just a few of the trips that will be awarded.
Russell Delaney, a member of Electrical Workers Local 2320 in New Hampshire, traveled to Nebraska in December to hunt waterfowl in the Central Flyway courtesy of the TV program.
AFL-CIO, U.K. Unions Join Forces Against Union-Busters
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U.S. corporations are exporting more than consumer goods these days—they’re increasingly exporting their anti-workers practices as well. In countries such as the United Kingdom, which still enjoys a high rate of union membership, more and more employers there are beginning to use American union-busters.
In one of the first concrete steps to continue the global solidarity of the historic Global Organizing Summit in December, the AFL-CIO and the British Trades Union Congress (TUC) are joining forces to try to eliminate the vicious intimidation practices employers use to prevent workers from seeking a better quality of life.
