Archive for July, 2008
Obama Supports Pro-Worker Policies—and Union Members Support Obama
In his video introduction submitted to last year’s AFL-CIO Presidential Candidates Forum, Sen. Barack Obama laid out some of his personal history and connected it to why he’s running for president. It’s worth watching again now that he’s the Democratic presumptive presidential nominee. As he said:
I worked as a community organizer for a group of churches, helping to turn around neighborhoods that were devastated by the closing of steel plants. By bringing people together, we set up job-training and after-school programs, and we taught people to stand up to their government when it wasn’t standing up for them. That’s the kind of organizing we need today.
In the video, Obama said health care, good wages, a secure retirement and the freedom to form unions are at the heart of the change the country needs, and he’s continued to focus on these issues in the general election campaign.
Around Country, Union Members Keep Up the Pressure on McCain
As John McCain tours the country, wherever he goes, he’s met by his biggest fear: a contingent of educated, mobilized union members who know his record. Over the past week, he’s been greeted again and again by union members demanding real answers to the issues facing the country.
In New Mexico last week, more than 150 members turned out to protest McCain’s visit to Hotel Albuquerque, reports Don Manning, Labor 2008 director for New Mexico. The protesters took turns on the bullhorn voicing their disgust with Bush-McCain failed policies on the war, health care and the economy, among other issues.
Pennsylvania Seniors Tell McCain: Don’t Mess with Social Security
If John McCain had a chance to take a break from his presidential campaign stop in Wilkes-Barre yesterday and put his feet up to watch a little TV, he would have gotten an earful and an eyeful over his recent remarks calling Social Security a “disgrace” and his support of privatization.
The Alliance for Retired Americans bought a three-day ad blitz for airing on area stations during shows popular with older viewers. The ads show the reaction of several Dupont, Pa., seniors to McCain’s remarks at a July 7 town hall meeting in Denver where he called Social Security an “absolute disgrace…it’s got to be fixed.”
Says one senior, “What do you mean–fixed?” Another warns, “Don’t mess with it.”
Women Achieve Workplace Equality—Now as Likely to Lose Jobs as Men in Recession
With the U.S. economy sputtering toward recession, working women and their families will feel more pain than in past downturns.
According to a report by the congressional Joint Economic Committee, women are now working in jobs and industries that are more likely to lay off workers than they were in most previous recessions:
In recessions prior to 2001, women could buffer family incomes against male unemployment because they did not experience sharp job losses. However, this changed in the 2001 recession as women lost jobs on par with men in the industries that lost the most jobs.
Bush Labor Dept. Secretly Writes Rule on Worker Exposure to Toxins
For seven and a half years, the Bush administration has delayed and sometimes just refused to act on workplace safety and health rules that could save lives and prevent serious injuries. Had the administration acted on those stalled rules, it may have prevented the deaths of 13 workers in a Georgia sugar plant explosion in February and the more than a dozen crane accident deaths this year in New York City, Las Vegas, Miami and Houston.
Now, with time running out on the Bush White House, it is fast-tracking a secretly written rule—long sought by the business community—that could increase workers’ exposure to dangerous chemicals and toxic substances on the job and tie the hands of future administrations trying to improve workplace safety.
Minnesota Activists Tell Coleman: No Bandage Fix for Health Care
Bandages may work OK for scraped knees, but as Working America members and union activists in Minnesota told Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) today, the nation’s broken health care system needs serious and comprehensive reform—not a “Bandage Solution.”
The activists marched to Coleman’s St. Paul office and at a press conference outside the office delivered a long roll of “No Bandage Solution” petitions strung together by colorful bandages and signed by more than 23,000 Working America members in Minnesota.
Letter Carriers Endorse Obama
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The Letter Carriers (NALC) union has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president.
More than 8,000 delegates at the NALC Biennial Convention voted unanimously to endorse Obama and mobilize the union’s more than 300,000 members to help elect him and other working family-friendly candidates.
Obama’s name was presented to the convention for the endorsement vote by Sen. Hillary Clinton, whom the NALC endorsed in September of last year.
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Rally Demands Free Elections, End of Zimbabwe Government Violence
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| Transafrica Forum’s Mwiza Munthali |
Nearly 100 trade unionists and other worker justice activists marched outside Zimbabwe’s embassy in Washington, D.C., yesterday demanding fair and free elections and an end to government-sponsored violence against opponents.
The demonstration was sponsored by the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, the Transafrica Forum, the AFL-CIO and several other groups.
Members of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party have waged a violent and deadly national campaign of intimidation, with union members as major targets, to ensure he remains in power. Mugabe has ruled the country since 1980.
At Worksites and Doors, Union Members Get Out the Message
In key states around the country, the union vote will make the difference this fall. As part of the Labor 2008 program, the largest union voter mobilization in history, union volunteers are working hard to educate other members about why they support Sen. Barack Obama and intend to elect a pro-working family Congress this fall.
Worksite leafleting is just one of the ways Colorado union members communicate with fellow members about Obama’s record of supporting working families, says Phil Hayes, Labor 2008 state director. Last week, SMWIA Local 9 President Scott Jorgensen and NATCA staffer Chris McKeever spent hours at Denver construction sites talking to IBEW, SMWIA and UA members, Hayes reports.
TCU Endorses Obama for President
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The Transportation Communications Union (TCU/IAM) has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president.
In the announcement, Robert Scardelletti, president of the TCU/IAM, pledged to mobilize the 55,000-member union behind Obama and a pro-working family Congress.
Scardelletti said that on wages, health care, taxes, Social Security, worker safety and particularly the issues important to transportation industry workers, there’s no comparison between the candidates.
Obama supports workers and will fight for them, while Sen. John McCain will take the country in the wrong direction, Scardelletti said.
