Archive for November 14th, 2008
Help for U.S. Automakers Is a Good Deal for Everyone
The U.S. auto industry “cannot succeed in today’s unstable economic environment without immediate help from the federal government. And the costs of failure are unacceptable,” UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said in a Washington Post op-ed today.
If even one U.S. automaker fails, he warned, it would cost the entire country millions of lost jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars in lost sales and revenue.
The auto industry crisis, exacerbated by stalled consumer spending and lack of credit, affects much more than the Big Three automakers and the 240,000 people who work for them, Gettelfinger said. It also endangers thousands of car dealerships, small and medium-size businesses that provide parts and services to the auto giants and more than a million retirees and dependents who receive pension and health care benefits from Chrysler, Ford and General Motors.
New Bush Rules Narrow Family Leave for Workers
As part of its last-minute move to push dozens of pro-business regulations onto the books before it leaves office, the Bush administration today issued new finalized rules for the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) that will make it tougher for some 77 million workers to use leave when they need to take care of themselves or family members.
Jocelyn Frye, general counsel for the National Partnership for Women & Families, says the new rules:
Will make it more difficult to take leave when they needed it.
G-20 Unions: Time to Change Direction of Global Economy
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Trade union leaders from the G-20 countries today called on world leaders to take urgent action to prevent a deep and long-lasting global recession, to make fundamental changes in the way the global economy is run and to turn back decades of deregulation policies that have caused the current crisis.
The union leaders also say a fresh push for development and decent work is needed, as well as a “Green New Deal” to tackle climate change effectively.
The AFL-CIO is hosting the meeting of the union leaders in conjunction with the financial crisis summit of G-20 leaders this weekend in Washington, D.C. The meeting is sponsored by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (TUAC-OECD) and Global Unions.
