Archive for April, 2008
Union Members Ask McCain: What About Workers’ Rights?
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John McCain completed a swing through the South on Friday with yet another high-dollar fundraiser in Little Rock, Ark. As they have in the past few weeks, union members were there to raise the issues of concern to working families in this election year.
The more than 20 AFL-CIO union members who gathered outside the Little Rock Convention Center wanted answers from McCain on issues like trade and health care—and they wanted to know why McCain voted to block the Employee Free Choice Act.
20,000 Pennsylvania Child Care Providers Gain a Union
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Some 20,000 home-based child care providers in Pennsylvania now have a voice after they overwhelmingly voted for representation by Child Care Providers UNITED (CCP), a joint effort of AFSCME and SEIU.
Gov. Ed Rendell (D), who was elected with strong union support, signed an executive order last June granting providers the right to join a union if they care for no more than three unrelated children in their homes. The executive order called for an election to take place after a union collected signed authorization cards from at least 30 percent of the providers.
Moroccan Factory Fire Kills 55 on Eve of Workers Memorial Day
The deaths of 55 workers in a fire at a mattress factory in Casablanca, Morocco, over the weekend, is a chilling reminder of how dangerous our workplaces can be. Today is Workers Memorial Day, the day workers around the world honor those who died on the job and reaffirm their commitment to make all workplaces safe.
The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) reports that more than 14 million people are taking part in some 13,000 activities today to highlight the plight of the more than 2.2 million workers who die every year and the 160 million more who become ill due to unsafe work and unsustainable forms of production.
Global Unions Condemn Murders of Honduran Union Leaders
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The global union movemnent is strongly protesting the murder of Rosa Altagracia Fuentes, the general secretary of the Workers’ Confederation of Honduras (CTH), trade union leader Virginia García de Sánchez and motorcyclist Juan Bautista Gálvez.
The three were killed early morning on April 24 on the highway between El Progreso and San Pedro Sula by six masked persons, according to eyewitness acccounts. Altagracia Fuentes was shot 16 times.
In a strongly worded letter (in Spanish) to Honduran President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), called for
a full investigation to establish, as quickly as possible, the motives for the murders and identify those materially and intellectually responsible for these crimes, to punish them with the full weight of the law.
700 Oklahoma AFSCME Members Win First Contract and More Bargaining News
Some 700 AFSCME members in two Oklahoma cites won first contracts and more news from “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.
Settlements
AFSCME, Enid & Lawton, Okla.: Some 700 municipal workers in Enid and Lawton, Okla., represented by AFSCME locals 1136 and 3894, respectively, won first contracts, after the passage of a 2004 state law that requires cities of 35,000 people or more to recognize non-uniformed workers’ unions. Enid’s employees won a 12 percent across-the-board wage increase over the duration. The Lawton employees’ new contract includes a 3 percent wage hike through 2009 and improved benefits.
Atlantic City Casino Workers Fighting for First Contracts
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Despite overwhelming votes by workers at four Atlantic City casinos in favor of forming a union with UAW, management at the four casinos continue to stall and delay negotiations to avoid granting the nearly 4,000 workers a voice at work.
At a press conference last week, New Jersey State AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech said:
The casino dealers and slot technicians fight to organize and management’s opposition to the workers’ freedom to form a union clearly illustrates that the current system for establishing a union in America is broken and is skewed in favor of employers. It is a system that is in desperate need of reform and thousands of workers in Atlantic City are unfortunately victims of this failed system.
Since March 2007, a majority of casino dealers, dual-rate dealers and other workers at Caesars, Tropicana, Bally’s and Trump Plaza in Atlantic City have voted in favor of UAW representation. Bargaining is under way at Caesars and Tropicana; the union at Bally’s has just been certified; and Trump Plaza is still trying to delay certification before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
New Bill Would Allow Graduate Assistants to Join a Union
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The folks who teach a lot of college undergraduate classes, grade the papers and do much of the same work as full-time teachers could soon catch a break and get paid what they deserve.
The two chairmen of the congressional education committees—Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.)—have introduced a bill that would include graduate teaching and research assistants at private colleges and universities as employees under the National Labor Relations Act, which would give them the freedom to join a union.
The Teaching and Research Assistant Collective Bargaining Rights Act (H.R. 5838 and S. 2891) could overturn a 2004 ruling by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that university graduate assistants are not employees and are not protected by the National Labor Relations Act.
Blame the Little Miss
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This is a cross-post from the Firedoglake blog.
If you’re a U.S. woman and aren’t getting paid for doing the same work as men, it’s your fault.
If you’re a woman and are overweight or smoke, you’re personally responsible for contributing to the sinking U.S. life expectancy rate.
If you’re a woman and you ask for the same pay for doing the same job as your male co-worker, you only have a small window of time to do so. Otherwise, you’re to blame if you don’t figure out real fast the game is rigged against you.
A Virtual Rally for a Real-Life Need: Paid Sick Leave
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The great thing about online rallies is you don’t have to worry about permits, weather, overzealous authorities or even time. Our friends over at the National Partnership for Women & Families kicked off their first-ever online rally for paid sick leave days on Feb 28, and it’s still going strong. That means you still have a chance to make it to the rally.
Nearly 50 percent of private-sector workers have no paid sick days, and low-income workers fare even worse—76 percent have no paid sick leave. Overall, 57 million private-sector workers in this country have no paid sick days, and 94 million cannot use their paid sick days to care for a sick child.
The virtual rally was designed to ignite broad support for legislation in Congress that will solve a real-world problem. The Healthy Families Act (S. 910 and H.R. 1542 ) would guarantee paid sick leave for workers to recover from an illness or take care of a sick family member.
Best Health Care Solutions Come from Nurses, Others Doing the Work
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When front-line workers are part of the team developing new strategies and techniques to improve health care quality and reduce costs, the results are effective and often innovative—from the easily implemented, like a reflective vest, to a top-to-bottom revamping of operating room procedures.
John August, executive director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, told a health care forum yesterday:
“You create the best quality care by having the front-line workers mobilized to find the innovations to do that.”
August, along with several other Kaiser Permanente labor and management representatives, union leaders, health care experts, lawmakers and others took part in the First Annual Health Care Forum presented by the Kaiser Permanente Health Care Institute at the National Labor College (NLC) in Silver Spring, Md.
