Archive for June, 2008
BCTGM Supports Obama for President
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The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) union has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president.
The union, with more than 100,000 members, announced its endorsement this morning.
BCTGM President Frank Hurt says Obama would be a strong leader, willing and able to address the needs of working families and the economic crisis they face:
With an extraordinary ability to inspire his fellow citizens and a comprehensive plan to rebuild our weakened economy, create good jobs, solve the heath care crisis and ensure retirement security for all Americans, we are confident that, as President, Barack Obama will restore hope, opportunity and prosperity for hard-pressed working families.
Yesterday, the AFL-CIO endorsed Obama and launched a new website, Meet Barack Obama, to educate and mobilize union members. This fall, the AFL-CIO is carrying out an unprecedented grassroots mobilization to elect a working family-friendly Congress and president.
Senate Votes to Extend Unemployment Insurance
Finally!
More than a half year after the AFL-CIO urged Congress to provide extended unemployment insurance (UI) benefits to jobless workers who exhaust theirs without finding new work, Congress passed a UI extension.
The U.S. Senate late yesterday passed a supplemental funding bill for the war in Iraq that includes an additional 13 weeks of UI benefits for the estimated 300,000 jobless workers a month who don’t find a new job before running out of benefits. The bill also provides new GI bill education benefits for Iraq-era military veterans.
Knock, Knock: Union Members at Your Door
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Over the past week, union members in key states around the country have gone door to door to talk with their fellow union members about the economy and the election.
These volunteers are getting the word out about the Employee Free Choice Act, an essential bill that would protect workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain. Good union jobs are a necessary part of an economy that works for everyone.
Unfortunately, Sen. John McCain was one of a minority of senators who blocked a vote on the bill last year, and he hasn’t proposed solutions that address the economic crisis facing working families.
The door-to-door walks are a key part of the AFL-CIO Labor 2008 political program, an unprecedented grassroots effort to educate, energize and mobilize millions of union members to elect a working family-friendly Congress and president. AFGE Secretary-Treasurer J. David Cox explains the importance of member-to-member walks in this video.
AFL-CIO Solidarity Center Honors Liberian Rubber Workers
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The AFL-CIO honored the rubber workers’ union, the Firestone Agricultural Workers Union of Liberia (FAWUL), with its 2007 George Meany–Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award for courage, innovation and leadership.
Winning the award gives hope to the Liberian workers, says FAWUL President Austin Natee:
From here to Africa is 5,000 miles. For you to care about workers on a farm so many miles away is amazing. We will take the message back to the workers that we are not alone in this struggle.
The 4,000 workers at Liberia’s largest rubber plantation—for the first time in 82 years—are now running their own union. To gain an independent voice, the workers staged several strikes, which succeeded in getting the government of Liberia to require new elections at the Firestone Plantation. Yes, that’s its real name. During the strikes, workers were intimidated and beaten. Several were killed.
AFL-CIO Endorses Obama, Launches ‘Meet Barack Obama’
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The AFL-CIO today endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president.
The AFL-CIO General Board, which voted to endorse Obama, includes presidents of all 56 unions in the AFL-CIO, as well as Executive Council members and representatives of state and local federations, trade departments and constituency groups. The General Board votes by per capita membership. In conjunction with the endorsement, the AFL-CIO launched a new website: Meet Barack Obama.
In its endorsement statement, the General Board noted that Sen. Barack Obama “secured the nomination of his party in a campaign that has energized millions of Americans and spoken to the hopes and dreams of people from every corner of our nation.”
His leadership can re-engage disenfranchised Americans and bring our country together. Sen. Obama has advocated a change of direction for our nation that mirrors the priorities of the labor movement.
Nurses Union, IBEW Give Support to Obama
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Two unions, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) and the Electrical Workers (IBEW), have endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president.
The 725,000-member IBEW offered an endorsement today, and IBEW President Edwin Hill committed to “an all-out push” to get members involved in the election.
The issues are clear. We as a people face difficult choices on health care, energy policy and building jobs and opportunity in a world increasingly bound by economic and environmental issues. Barack Obama offers positive leadership to navigate our way into the future instead of continuing the failures of the past.
CWA Re-Elects Cohen as President, Picks Rechenbach as Sec.-Treas.
Delegates to the Communications Workers of America (CWA) convention in Las Vegas re-elected Larry Cohen as president of the union and elected two new officers.
Jeff Rechenbach, who served as CWA’s executive vice president for the past three years, is the union’s new secretary-treasurer. He succeeds Barbara Easterling, who has retired. Delegates also elected Annie Hill, a vice president for CWA District 7, as executive vice president to succeed Rechenbach.
Retirees to McCain: Don’t Destroy Social Security
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John McCain arrived in Henderson, Nev., yesterday, and was met by people asking for answers on the issues that really affect them. (Wherever he goes, union members are there to greet him and ask him to define his position on key working family issues.)
Organized by the Alliance for Retired Americans, seniors came out to ask McCain to protect Social Security, not undermine it.
McCain has spent the campaign season giving mixed messages on Social Security, the nation’s most successful social safety net, but the record is clear: He has supported privatizing Social Security. He’s voted in the Senate for privatizing this crucial retirement program and he campaigned alongside George Bush
Oregon AFL-CIO’s Unity Team Moves Forward
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Oregon AFL-CIO union leaders have embarked on a program to transform the role of state federations in organizing—and Oregon Unity Team organizer Graham Trainor sends us the latest on the project.
In September 2007, leaders from more than 20 Oregon unions convened in Portland at what was the largest Organizing Summit ever held in the state. The goal was to build Oregon’s union movement by providing cross-union support for one another’s organizing efforts and by maximizing the union movement’s ability to link politics and organizing in unprecedented ways. We call ourselves the Unity Team.
Two ‘Turn Around America’ Video Contest Winners Named
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The Grand Prize and Young Activist winners of the AFL-CIO’s “Turn Around America Online Video Competition” have been selected and you can see them here.
Michael Newman, 19, of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., takes the Grand Prize with his video, “What’s Wrong with America,” which focuses on soaring gas prices, Detroit’s auto industry and Michigan’s devastated manufacturing economy.
The Young Activist award goes to Jean Carlo Penaloza, 22, of Brandon, Fla., whose Spanish language video explores how immigrants are drawn to America and find a nation of lost dreams, with expensive housing and soaring food and fuel prices. The Young Activist award winner was selected from entrants 14 to 25 years old.
