Search Results for 'Consolidated Biscuit'
Legislation & Politics, Organizing & Bargaining |
Nov 20 |
Six-Year Ordeal to Get Job Back Shows Why Employee Free Choice Is a Must
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Here’s another clear example of why we need the Employee Free Choice Act. For more than six years, Russ Teegardin and Bill Lawhorn have fought to get their jobs back after they were fired for supporting a union at Consolidated Biscuit Co. (CBC) in McComb, Ohio. Even though the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ordered the company to rehire the workers, CBC all but ignored the order.
Finally, justice will be done at CBC after a federal appeals court on Nov. 14 ordered the company to comply with the labor board’s decision and reinstate the two workers with full back pay with all wages lost, plus compounded interest. If CBC, which makes Nabisco cookies and Kraft products, does not comply with the order, it could face thousands of dollars in fines. Check out Lawhorn talking about his firing in the video above and speaking before Congress here.
Organizing & Bargaining |
Oct 5 |
Resurrection Health Care Cited as Major Violator of Workers’ Rights
We reported earlier on the International Trade Union Confederation’s (ITUC’s) annual survey of trade union rights violations, which listed the most dangerous countries for union members. The report also pointed out there is growing government hostility to fundamental workers’ rights in some industrialized countries, including the United States.
In the United States, the report says many employers launch fierce union-busting campaigns to defeat workers’ desire to form a union. It mentions that more than 30 million workers are still denied basic collective bargaining rights by law, including 40 percent of all federal public-sector workers.
Organizing & Bargaining |
Sep 24 |
Un-American: Employers’ Dirty Tricks at the Workplace
Polls show most Americans are unaware of the extent to which some employers will go to stop workers from exercising their freedom to form a union. But a chilling new article, by journalist Art Levine, exposes the dirty details of these often sinister actions.
In the October issue of In These Times, Levine gives us a blow-by-blow account of a seminar he attended in Las Vegas led by two attorneys from Jackson Lewis, one of the major law firms in the field of union-busting. Union-busting—the so-called “union avoidance” industry—is a multibillion-dollar industry involving more than 2,500 lawyers.
In “Unionbusting Confidential,” Levine exposes the techniques these lawyers teach their clients to keep unions out of their workplace. The first suggestion to employers: Act respectful of workers’ concerns to prevent union sympathies from growing. They even suggest writing out—but not adhering to—a mission statement that includes treating workers with dignity.
Legislation & Politics |
Jul 21 |
Kucinich Takes on Both Parties’ Candidates
Steve Smith of the AFL-CIO Media Affairs Department joined union members in Ohio for the seventh AFL-CIO town hall forum for 2008 presidential candidates co-sponsored by the Ohio AFL-CIO.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich is known for his biting criticism of the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress on the war in Iraq, the economy and trade policy. However, today at a Working Families Vote 2008 AFL-CIO town hall meeting in Columbus, Ohio, Kucinich went after the Democratic presidential candidates with equal vigor, attacking (without mentioning names) both parties’ presidential hopefuls for their ties to corporate America, health care proposals and positions on the Iraq War.
Speaking about health care, Kucinich told an audience of union members and their families at the Pipefitters and Plumbers Local 189 that he is “the only candidate in this race who says it time to end [the private insurance] system.” Kucinich went on to chide members of both parties for supporting free trade agreements such as NAFTA that have decimated American manufacturing.
Legislation & Politics, Organizing & Bargaining |
Mar 1 |
House to Vote Today on Employee Free Choice Act
The U.S. House of Representatives is set today to pass the most important change in labor law in 70 years. The Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 800), supported by a bipartisan coalition in Congress, would level the playing field for workers and employers and help rebuild America’s middle class.
Beginning at noon, AFL-CIO Now will be live blogging the Employee Free Choice Act floor debate on Capitol Hill.
The bill would strengthen America’s middle class by ensuring that workers who want to form unions and bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions can do so without employer harassment.
Legislation & Politics, Organizing & Bargaining |
Feb 7 |
AFL-CIO Ads Highlight How Nation’s Labor Laws Are Skewed Against Workers
Millions of readers of The New York Times, The Washington Post and a trio of influential Capitol Hill publications are learning what happened to Bill Lawhorn when he tried to form a union.
The day after he and his fellow workers narrowly lost an election to join a union and bargain for better wages and working conditions—after the employer’s intense anti-union campaign—Lawhorn was fired. Five years later he is still without a steady job.
His story is part of an AFL-CIO advertising campaign to bring to the public and lawmakers stories like his and the thousands of other workers who are harassed, intimidated and too often fired simply for wanting to join a union.
Legislation & Politics, Organizing & Bargaining |
Feb 6 |
Employee Free Choice Act Needed to Save Our Middle Class
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| Bill Lawhorn joined with his co-workers to form a union at Consolidated Biscuit Co. and was fired after he spoke in favor of the union. | |
The nation’s middle class is being squeezed and one critical reason is the difficulty workers experience when they want to exercise their right to bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions.
That’s why Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) says he, along with 230 other House members—a clear majority—introduced the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 800) last night. Click here to see if your representative is a co-sponsor. At a Capitol Hill press conference this morning, Miller said:
Today the procedures for forming a union and bargaining for better wages and benefits are stacked against the workers. The Employee Free Choice Act is very simple. It says that if a majority of workers in a workplace sign authorization cards in support of a union, they get a union. That’s it.
Legislation & Politics, Organizing & Bargaining |
Feb 6 |
Employee Free Choice Act Introduced
For the first time in nearly 50 years, working families have a real opportunity to make major changes in the nation’s labor laws that will give workers greater freedom to make their own decisions about joining a union.
Last night, a bipartisan coalition in the new Congress introduced the Employee Free Choice Act, maybe the most important labor law reform in nearly 50 years.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says the bill brings “fresh hope to millions of America’s workers who desperately want and need the free choice to join or form a union to improve their families’ lives.”
The best opportunity for working women and men to get ahead economically is by coming together with their co-workers to bargain with their employer for a better life through a union. In fact, government statistics show that working men and women who have a union today make 30 percent more than workers who do not have a union, and they are far more likely to have health insurance and retirement plans.
Organizing & Bargaining |
Feb 5 |
‘America Needs Employee Free Choice Act’
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If you want to know what really happens when America’s workers try to form a union and why the Employee Free Choice Act is so important, listen to the stories of workers featured in an AFL-CIO audio report.
Kathy Ancil, a member of the Utility Workers (misidentified in the audio as Operating Engineers) in Michigan, will tell you she was followed at work after she began speaking out for a union:
I was actually shadowed until I had to go down to our Human Resources Department to complain about it before it was actually stopped. They also had one-on-one meetings, tried to intimidate me and threaten me. When we attended group meetings, someone was watching from across the road. These are things that are illegal in a campaign. But when you file an unfair labor practice with the NLRB [National Labor Relations Board], it takes so much time. In the meantime, all these things were still going on.
