Archive for August, 2008
Take a Virtual Tour and See What It’s Like to Work Hard—and Live in Poverty
 |
|
Service workers at the University of California’s (UC’s) 10 campuses and five medical centers have been trying for more than a year to negotiate a deal that would pay them a decent wage. The workers are paid so little that a recent study found as many as 96 percent of them can qualify for at least one form of public assistance.
Higher gas prices and stagnant wages are creating a crisis for many of these workers who must live paycheck to paycheck. Now, the workers are getting the message out about what it’s like to live in poverty. They invited elected officials and faith leaders into their homes to see for themselves the impact of poverty wages on their lives and their families. (Take a virtual tour of UC-created poverty through the video above or visit the Facing Poverty at UC website here.)
Cool Tools Highlights Political Challenges, Opportunities
 |
|
The AFL-CIO’s newest Cool Tools is featuring two books this month that point out what’s gone wrong with our politics and our economy and another book that illuminates the journey of a candidate running to change it: Thomas Frank’s The Wrecking Crew, Barbara Ehrenreich’s This Land Is Their Land and Sen. Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father.
It’s no accident, says The Wrecking Crew author Frank, that the people who claim government can’t help us solve our problems are the ones who are worst at managing it. Incompetence, cronyism and corruption aren’t a bug in the hard-right ideology of the Bush era—they’re the whole point. Look in almost any direction during the years of top-to-bottom Republican control and you’ll see serious failures that come straight out of indifference to people’s real problems. From the U.S. attorney scandal to privatization, from an anti-worker Department of Labor to the abandonment of New Orleans to Hurricane Katrina, Frank tells a compelling story of why the people we elect to office—and their philosophies—matter.
Don’t Miss Labor Day’s ‘Escape to the Wild’ Marathon
 |
|
Looking for something to do before you go out to the Labor Day picnic? The VERSUS TV network is honoring America’s workers and sportsmen and sportswomen with its second annual “Escape to the Wild” Labor Day marathon Sept. 1, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. EST.
“Escape to the Wild” is the union-sponsored television series of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP), which airs on VERSUS. The show rewards members of AFL-CIO unions with a hunting or fishing trips of a lifetime. The show is supported by the Union Sportsmen’s Alliance (USA), a joint venture of the TRCP and 21 unions to promote conservation and access for hunters and anglers.
Why Working Families and Our Unions Support Biden
As media pundits have noted, Sen. Barack Obama’s selection of Delaware Sen. Joe Biden adds many years of foreign policy experience to the ticket.
Less well-known is Biden’s long support for working families and their unions. America’s union movement, Biden has said, is
the only thing that keeps the barbarians at the gate.
But he doesn’t stop there.
There is a middle class in this country for one reason and only one reason: the union movement.
10 Things You Can Do to Celebrate Labor Day
Before you head off to the hot dogs and veggie burgers at the backyard barbecue this weekend (because who can afford the gas money to drive anywhere?), take a minute to celebrate Labor Day in a way that honors America’s working women and men.
1. Send a Labor Day e-card. Click here. (See how easy it is to take action?)
2. Help pass the Employee Free Choice Act by signing a petition here.
3. Get set to walk. What better way to mark Sen. John McCain’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Sept. 4 than by talking union-member to union-member about the important issues in this election? Stop by here to see video clips of union members describing why they’ll be walking Sept. 4 and here to read why AFL-CIO President John Sweeney is urging union members to walk Sept. 4. If you’re a union member, sign up to walk here.
Welcome to Ohio, Sen. McCain. Here’s What Workers Have to Say
 |
|
Today, John McCain is arriving in Dayton, Ohio, to announce his running mate. He’s hoping to arrive to great fanfare and win over southern Ohioans. However, working families have a message: It’s time to take a closer look at McCain and his record.
The AFL-CIO is reaching out to 45,000 union activists in Ohio with a new video. The video gives some workers in Dayton and southern Ohio the chance to have their say on McCain and where he’d take the country. Here are just a few examples:
John McCain is out of touch with the middle class worker in this country.
–Dale Herzog, St. Mary’s, Ohio
His ideas are just the same ones that Bush has had for eight years.
–Norma Schlosser, Kettering, Ohio
Everything that the American working man stands for, John McCain is against.
–Wesley Wells, Dayton, Ohio
DNC: Even Celebs Talk Up the Employee Free Choice Act
Alison Omens, AFL-CIO media specialist, is in Denver this week at the Democratic National Convention and shares this post.
People from across the country have converged on Denver this week—there are women wearing red, white and blue hats that remind me of the old movie “Easter Parade,” union members proudly displaying their union colors, politicians, leaders in the Democratic Party and even celebrities.
Bush’s Toxic Labor Day Gift to Workers
 |
|
Here’s an early Labor Day present from the Bush administration—a nice little package of workplace chemicals, toxins and carcinogens all neatly wrapped up with a new proposed rule that Bush’s Labor Department tried to keep secret earlier this summer.
The proposed rule, published today on the Federal Register’s website, could increase workers’ exposure to dangerous chemicals and toxins and make it more difficult for the next administration to enact new safety rules. The rule’s development was pushed by Bush political appointees over the objections of career health and safety professionals.
The Bush administration has just a few months left in office and faces the possibility that a Barack Obama administration would reverse many of the anti-worker policies and rules—including workplace safety—that have been a Bush hallmark and have been strongly backed by Big Business.
McCain Adviser: There’s No Such Thing as the Uninsured
 |
|
Are they kidding?
An adviser to Sen. John McCain made some revealing comments to the Dallas Morning News yesterday, showing the truly wrong-headed thinking that has shaped McCain’s health care policies.
John Goodman, who helped write McCain’s health care plan, said we can solve the problem of the uninsured by pretending they don’t exist. Really.
I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime….The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American as uninsured.
America’s Workers Joining AFL-CIO Unions
Workers holding a variety of jobs recently have joined AFL-CIO unions, including some 5,000 University of California (UC) postdoctoral researchers whose vote to join UAW was recently certified; shipyard workers in Mississippi who joined the Machinists (IAM); and workers at an Idaho Air Force base who chose the Electrical Workers (IBEW).
The new UAW members, known as “postdocs,” submitted their union authorization cards to the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) in July, and last week, the board certified their choice of the Postdoctoral Researchers Organize/UAW (PRO/UAW).
