Archive for May, 2009
For Father’s Day, Give Dad Sportsmen’s Alliance Membership
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Father’s Day is just three weeks away and if your dad loves the outdoors, get him a special gift: a membership in the Union Sportsmen’s Alliance (USA). As a USA member, he will enjoy top-notch reading material with a subscription to In-Fisherman, Petersen’s Hunting or Guns & Ammo, as well as the USA newsletter.
He also can create, customize and print maps for every need with an online mapping subscription. And he can take advantage of the USA member deals and discounts or a Beretta gift certificate on the gear he needs.
Your gift of a USA membership also might earn your father a brand-new gun in the USA Gun-a-Month giveaway or other great prizes. For more information on how to join USA, click here or call 1-877-872-2211.
‘Walk In My Shoes’ June 11
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Here’s your chance to tell the world what the workday is really like for workers. The AFL-CIO Union Label and Service Trades Department (UL&STD) wants to know what it’s like to walk in your shoes. If you work on an auto assembly line, in a hospital emergency room, classroom, coal mine, mailroom, office, grocery store or one of a million other locations, Union Label wants to hear your story of what it is really like on your job. It doesn’t matter if you’re laid off, unemployed or retired—your story is important as well.
Here’s the idea. Tell Union Label what your workday was like on “Walk in My Shoes Day”—Thursday, June 11, 2009. Union Label wants to hear it all—whether you faced a tough commute, dealt with a grumpy boss, took on a big challenge or had a great success. The best submissions will be posted in the Label Letter and on the UL&STD website.
UAW Members Ratify GM Agreement
Members of the UAW overwhelmingly ratified an agreement with General Motors (GM) Corp. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger told a Detroit press conference today that 74 percent of GM’s U.S. production and skilled-trade workers voted in favor of the deal.
Under the agreement, the union-run retiree health care trust will gain 17.5 percent ownership of a post-bankruptcy GM, with an option to buy another 2.5 percent.
“UAW members have once again stepped up to make necessary and painful sacrifices to preserve U.S. manufacturing jobs,” Gettelfinger said.
This settlement agreement will give GM a chance to survive the worldwide collapse of industry sales and return as a viable company once the economy recovers and consumers begin purchasing vehicles again.
Iraq Veteran: My Union Gives Me a Chance in a Tough Economy
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As one of the millions of America’s workers who have been laid off in recent months, Brandon McGuire knows it’s tough going in the current economy. He also recognizes that as a union member, he is better equipped than his nonunion counterparts to survive an economic downturn. That’s why he supports the Employee Free Choice Act: so millions more workers can have a better chance at their freedom to form a union and bargain for a better life.
McGuire, an Army veteran, served a year in Iraq, where his duties included welding projects. He moved to Anchorage, Alaska, after his military service and signed on as an apprentice with Plumbers and Pipe Fitters (UA) Local 367.
A native of Texas, where union membership is relatively low, McGuire had no firsthand knowledge or experience with union workplaces before joining his local union. He now describes himself as 100 percent pro-union and pro-Employee Free Choice because of the job training and financial security union jobs can provide.
Workers Tell Red Cross: Safety First
Workers and their supporters held informational pickets at Red Cross locations across the country today to tell the organization that donor and recipient safety must come first. The actions spotlighted the Red Cross’ plans to boost profits by jeopardizing the safety of our nation’s blood supply and mistreating workers.
Carrying signs proclaiming “Donors Before Dollars” and chanting “We are the Red Cross,” some 200 people joined a giant inflatable rat to “blow the whistle” on the Red Cross at its national headquarters in Washington, D.C. The marchers picketed in front of the building during the busy lunch hour, just blocks from the White House.
Working America Takes Us to Main Street
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Take a stroll down Working America’s new Main Street…Main Street Blog that is.
The just-launched blog by the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate for workers who don’t have a union, features news and information about the issues that Working America’s 2.5 million members say they are most concerned about—the economy, health care, jobs, education, retirement security, the mortgage and housing crisis and other issues.
Broken Dreams and Cookie Crumbs
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When Brynwood Partners in 2006 took over the Stella D’oro factory in the Bronx, the Wall Street private equity firm had every reason to believe it would be easy to slash the wages, pensions, holidays and sick pay of the 136 bakery workers.
But the takeover brainos forgot one important fact: The workers are represented by a union, Local 50 of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM). And throughout their more than nine-month strike, the workers have been strongly supported by their union brothers and sisters and by members of the community as they walk the picket line every day outside the plant where Brynwood now employs strikebreakers.
Investors to Corporations: Do You Stand with Workers—or Against Them?
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A coalition of major investors who oversee more than $750 billion in assets is joining the fight for workers’ freedom to form unions by asking major corporations what they’re doing to protect and enhance the ability of workers to form unions.
These investors want to know about these corporations’ workplace policies and whether these companies are lobbying for—or against—the Employee Free Choice Act, a critical bill to protect workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain. They’ve sent a letter to 100 CEOs asking for answers.
Investment leaders representing 36 investment funds and pension funds signed on to the letter, which they’ve sent to each company listed on the Standard & Poor’s 100 index, including major corporations like Bank of America, McDonald’s and Lowe’s.
Project Labor Agreements Benefit Communities, Contractors and Workers
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A new study finds that project labor agreements (PLAs) “make sense for public works projects” and debunks attacks by anti-union groups and contractors on such agreements, which set wages, benefits and working conditions on large multicontractor and multi-union public construction projects.
The study by the Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, “Project Labor Agreements in New York State: In the Public Interest,” details what PLAs do, how they have been used and the benefits they offer—benefits that extend to workforce and economic development.
PLAs have been demonstrated to be a very useful construction management tool for cost savings, for on-time, on-budget, and quality construction. PLAs make sense for public works projects because they promote a planned approach to labor relations, allow contractors to more accurately predict labor costs and schedule production timetables, reduce the risks of shoddy work and costly disruptions, and encourage greater efficiency and productivity.
Here Come the Big Lies About Health Care Reform
We noted a few days ago how the private insurance industry was set to unleash its attack dogs on health care reform to try to kill a public health insurance plan option as part of President Obama’s health care reform initiative.
Those dogs have started to bark.
Yesterday, the fake group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP)—another one of those astroturf names meant to appeal to All of Us—launched a $1.7 million TV ad campaign claiming we may all die if Obama’s health care reform proposals are enacted.
