Archive for March, 2008
40 Years After King’s Death, Unions Still Best Route to Better Life for African Americans
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 40 years ago this week in the midst of a campaign to support striking Memphis sanitation workers who were trying to gain better pay and working conditions by joining a union.
Now, a new report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) shows that four decades after King's death, union membership is still the best route to a better life for African American workers. Unions and Upward Mobility for African-American Workers found that black union workers earned, on average, 38 percent more than their nonunion peers. Click here to read the entire report.
Hawaii Legislature Passes Employee Free Choice Measure
With passage of the federal Employee Free Choice Act a major issue for working people in the 2008 elections, lawmakers in Hawaii last week passed their own version of the bill. Union members were key to passage of H.B. 2974, which levels the playing field for workers considering a union. The legislation, which applies only to agricultural workers in the state, passed in both chambers by veto-proof margins with Republicans casting all the “No” votes.
If the bill become law, employees could join a union by signing a card saying they were in favor of the union. If a majority of the employees sign up, the union would be authorized to bargain with management.
Minnesota Nurses Join UAN
For the third time in three years, nurses at a hospital owned by Allina Hospitals & Clinics gained a voice on the job by voting to join the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA), an affiliate of the United American Nurses (UAN). The 140 registered nurses at Buffalo Hospital in Buffalo, Minn., overwhelmingly supported the union at the end of last month.
Noting that this was the fourth time Buffalo nurses had tried to vote for a union, Gale Syverson, a 22-year RN at the hospital, says:
This was the right time.
Tune in: Telemundo Spotlights Construction Worker Safety
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On Tuesday night, Telemundo's hit telenovela "Pecados Ajenos" will spotlight construction worker safety. CPWR—The Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR) worked with the show's writers and producers to help develop a storyline that has real life impact on the Latino community.
CPWR's latest edition of the Construction Chart Book (available online beginning tomorrow, see more information below) reports Hispanic construction workers are killed on the job more frequently than non-Hispanic workers and when injured, they receive far less in workers' compensation.
The show's safety theme is timely, just weeks before Workers Memorial Day, an annual commemoration that honors those killed and injured on the job (click here for Workers Memorial Day materials and more information).
CLEAN Car Wash Campaign Picks Up Steam
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Hundreds of union members and community activists marched to three Hollywood car washes Saturday to let car wash owners know they will not quit until car wash employees are treated fairly. More than 200 union members, day laborers, students and union and immigrant rights leaders rallied at the Vermont Hand Wash, the flagship location of the Pirian family, which owns up to eight car washes in Los Angeles County.
Launched on Thursday, the Community-Labor-Environmental-Action Network (CLEAN) Carwash Campaign already is showing results. On Saturday, the owner of the Vermont Hand Wash invited representatives into the car wash for an inspection of the facilities. Since the announcement of the CLEAN Carwash Campaign, he has purchased some safety equipment, time clocks and a water cooler. One Vermont Car Wash worker, Pedro Guzman, told the Los Angeles Times many workers were paid $40 a day for more than 10 hours of work. Others got tips only.
Houston Nurses Vote For Union
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While most Texans are mourning the Texas Longhorns’ loss in the NCAA basketball tournament yesterday, nearly 300 nurses in Houston are celebrating their own enormous victory. The registered nurses at Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center are the first in the Lone Star State to win collective bargaining rights. They gained their voice on the job March 27 and 28 by voting for the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) Texas, an affiliate of California Nurses Association/NNOC.
Says Josie Jupio, an RN at the hospital:
Finally our voice will be heard. This victory of the nurses' unity will bring a change for the better, impacting patient care, improving the benefits and assuring an open door policy that is fair to all.
13,000 Delta Air Lines Flight Attendants Get Date to Vote on Union
The National Mediation Board (NMB) set April 23–June 3, 2008, for the mail/telephone ballot elections in which 13,000 Delta Air Lines flight attendants will vote on whether to join a union, and more 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
AFA-CWA, Delta Air Lines: The National Mediation Board (NMB) notified the 13,000 Delta Air Lines flight attendants and the company that the voting period for a union election is scheduled for April 23–June 3, 2008. On March 18, the NMB notified the of Flight Attendants (AFA), an affiliate of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), that it authorized a mail/telephone ballot union representation vote, but at that time did not specify dates for a voting period. Delta management responded to the news by sending a written statement to its attendants asserting they would be better off without a union.
As Jobs Disappear, So Does Health Insurance
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A big part of the American Dream is based on the premise that if you work hard, you can provide for yourself and your family. But in today’s economy, good jobs are disappearing.
To survive, America's workers are forced to take low-paying jobs that rarely offer health care or retirement security—and that's not right, says Constance, a 59-year-old single woman from Illinois. If you work in the United States, you should be able to do more than just scrape by.
I left a job in a neighboring state two years ago to come back to help take care of my last immediate family member. I am single. I moved to Illinois, accepting a position with a small insurance company, who downsized, and within six months I was out of work. You can't afford health insurance on unemployment wages.
Cool Tools Highlights ‘Workingman’s Death’
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With the annual Workers Memorial Day commemoration coming up next month, the AFL-CIO Cool Tools selection is highlighting "Workingman's Death," a movie documenting six of the most dangerous, deadly and exploitive jobs on the planet. Filmmaker Michael Glawogger says he
"wanted to make a movie where you sit in the cinema and actually feel the weight on your back."
That's exactly what he did with "Workingman's Death," a harsh documentary about manual labor around the world. He shows us Ukrainian miners digging for coal in mine shafts only 16 inches wide, Nigerian slaughterhouse workers surrounded by animal blood and stench, and Pakistanis who dismantle an abandoned oil tanker for scrap metal with little more than their bare hands.
Exposing McCain’s ‘Free Ride’
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Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is running for president, and he’s running on a Bush-style platform that won’t turn America around for working families. In a time of economic crisis, this could stop his candidacy cold—because the last thing we need is more of McSame.
There’s one problem, though: The national press, whose job it is to talk about the policies and priorities of candidates, hasn’t given McCain any scrutiny on the real issues. The media elite decided long ago that they like him too much to look too closely.
As a corrective to this media bias, Media Matters for America has released Free Ride: John McCain and the Media in which authors David Brock and Paul Waldman detail exactly how the senator has been able to manipulate the press over his decades-long career in Washington.
