Archive for May, 2008
AFSCME, UAW Join Forces in New Hampshire
Employees at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) are seeking a voice on the job through a historic coordinated effort by two unions—AFSCME and UAW.
Kelly Hinton, an eight-year financial support specialist, says:
This is great news for all UNH employees. We feel that the two unions working together will be a good fit for the University alongside of the faculty union. Working together with AFSCME and the UAW means we are united and stronger.
Hunger Striker Hospitalized, Others Rally on Capitol Hill
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This morning, Christopher Glory, in the eighth day of a water-only hunger strike to demand the U.S. government put an end to the abuses in a visa program that workers’ rights advocates liken to human trafficking, was rushed to a Washington, D.C., hospital for strike-related health problems.
A spokesman for the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice (NOWCRJ) says that Glory’s condition was improving and he could be released soon.
Several hours later, his four fellow hunger strikers and about 100 other Indian welders and pipe fitters who were lured to the United States with promises of good-paying jobs in Gulf Coast shipyards and permanent residence status, went to Capitol Hill to urge Congress to halt moves to expand the H-2B guest worker program.
McCain Evades South Florida Union Members
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John McCain showed up in Miami yesterday for a speech, and southern Florida workers came out to challenge him to address the issues that matter to working families.
The McCain event attracted 35 union members, who asked the Republican presidential candidate for answers on health care, Social Security and trade.
Unfortunately, just like the last time McCain had a chance to talk to Florida union members, he ignored them—and their real concerns. McCain claimed people think the country is on the wrong track because the Colombia Free Trade Agreement didn’t pass.
Mine Workers Back Obama for President
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The Mine Workers (UMWA) union has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president.
The National Council of the Coal Miners’ Political Action Committee of the 105,000-member union voted unanimously today to back Obama and mobilize its members in support of his campaign.
UMWA President Cecil Roberts said Obama will fight for issues important to miners and all working families, such as health care, Social Security and safety on the job.
We are extremely proud to make this endorsement today. Sen. Obama shares the values of UMWA members and our families. He understands and will fight for the needs our members have today and the hopes our members have for a secure future for themselves and their families. Most of all, Sen. Obama will implement the clear change in direction UMWA members—indeed, all American working people—must have if they are to once again move forward and have a true opportunity to realize the American dream. After eight years of being pushed aside by an administration, which neither respects nor values the contributions American working families make to our society, we are looking forward with great anticipation to a new era in our nation starting with the inauguration of President Barack Obama on January 20, 2009.
McCain: Out of Touch on Trade
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At a speech in Florida yesterday, Sen. John McCain made a baffling pronouncement: The rising discontent in our country is not due to job losses, home foreclosures or the health care crisis, but rather the fact that we aren’t passing a bad trade deal with Colombia.
Here’s what McCain had to say at yesterday’s event:
We have made progress toward this vision by expanding the benefits of free commerce, through [the North American Free Trade Agreement], the Central American Free Trade Agreement, and our free trade agreements with Peru and Chile. But the progress has stalled; our longstanding bipartisan commitment to hemispheric prosperity is crumbling. We see this most vividly in Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s opposition to the free trade agreement with Colombia. The failure of Congress to take up and approve this agreement is a reminder why 80 percent of Americans think we are on the wrong track.
‘Going Down Jericho Road’ Receives RFK Book Award
NOTE: Going Down Jericho Road is available from The Union Shop Online™ in hardcover and paperback.
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Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s Last Campaign, by labor historian Michael Honey, has been named the first-prize winner of the prestigious 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award.
House OKs Bill Bringing Flight Attendants, Pilots Under FMLA Umbrella
For 15 years, some 200,000 flight attendants, pilots and other air crew members have been denied the protection of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) because of a loophole in the law. Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to close that loophole.
The FMLA requires employees to work a minimum of 1,250 hours a year to qualify for coverage. But air crew hours are calculated on “flight hours”—only from the time a plane pulls away from the gate until it arrives at its destination. Flight attendants and pilots receive no credit for time spent working on the ground. Few flight attendants meet the requirement, and safety rules even prevent pilots from exceeding more than 1,000 hours of flight time a year.
‘Grant Domestic and Farm Workers Same Rights as Other Workers’
Hundreds of workers, faith and union leaders, community activists and elected officials rallied yesterday in Albany, N.Y., to demand respect and workplace justice for domestic and farm workers in the state.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, himself the son of a domestic worker, told the crowd:
Then as now, domestic workers were mostly women, isolated in the homes where they worked, not covered by most major worker protections, vulnerable to minimum wage and overtime violations. Then as now, domestic workers were legally excluded from the right to collectively bargain. Then as now, domestic work was at best a form of genteel slavery, in many cases not so genteel at all.
Report: Unemployment Insurance System Faces Funding Crisis
As the Senate takes up the issue of extending unemployment insurance (UI) benefits this week, a new report shows the UI funds of several states are not solvent enough to weather a recession.
With the Bush economy in freefall, more workers are being forced to apply for jobless benefits. In fact, as the number of U.S. workers filing first-time claims for benefits rose last week, the total receiving benefits climbed to the highest level in more than four years.
On top of that, some 200,000 jobless workers a month exhaust their UI benefits without finding new jobs, and about 3.5 million unemployed workers will lose jobless benefits this year.
The report, Unemployment Insurance Financing: Examining State Trust Funds Facing Recession, by the National Employment Law Project (NELP), finds that overall, state UI solvency is worse now than it was prior to the 2001 recession.
Turn Around America Video Contest Deadline Extended
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You still have time to enter the AFL-CIO’s Turn Around America Online Video Competition. The deadline has been extended to June 10.
Most people believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. They tell pollsters that a failing health care system, stumbling economy, stagnant wages, disappearing jobs and an endless war show we are on the wrong track.
