Archive for November 13th, 2008
Building on Election Success, AFL-CIO Executive Council Calls for Economic Mobilization
The new Obama administration and the new Congress must urgently address the nation’s growing financial crisis and long-term structural economic decline with a wide range of actions, including an immediate and meaningful economic recovery package, an overhaul of our broken health care system, reform of financial regulations and significant investments in infrastructure, clean energy and workforce development.
But, says the AFL-CIO Executive Council in a statement approved today:
Unless we restore the power of working people to bargain with their companies for a better life, economic growth will not be broadly shared and income inequality will not diminish.
Chronically Ill Who Forgo Care Highlight Need for Health Care Reform
Reforming the nation’s failing health care system was a key concern of voters on Nov. 4 and will be a major focus of the new Congress and Obama administration. Yesterday, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) unveiled his blueprint for health care reform, and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) is expected to offer his plan before Inauguration Day.
Highlighting the desperate need for comprehensive health care reform, a new survey by the Commonwealth Fund finds more than half of U.S. adults with chronic illnesses went without recommended medical care because they were unable to afford the costs.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says Baucus
has rightly sounded the urgent plea to get comprehensive reform done early in the next Congress and recognizes that the failure to act has dire and unacceptable consequences for working families, businesses and our national economy.
Who’s Your ‘Mean One?’ Nominations Open for Grinch of the Year
You know it’s the holiday season in the world of labor when the Grinch rolls around. Jobs with Justice (JwJ) kicks off its ninth Grinch of the Year contest with open nominations for a CEO, corporation or politician who is greedy and mean and with a heart that is at least “two sizes too small.”
Last year’s Grinch of the Year was Smithfield Foods Inc. Chairman Joseph Luter III. He took the title, says JwJ, because the company’s slaughterhouse—the largest pork killing floor in the world—is one of the most dangerous worksites in the United States, and workers are routinely injured, harassed, intimidated and threatened by Smithfield management.
In 2006, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. wore the Grinch crown after it forced 15,000 United Steelworkers (USW) members out on strike at 16 plants across North America, despite concessions given by retirees in 2003 to ensure that Goodyear remained in business.
