AFGE Member a Hero in Fort Hood Tragedy
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Sgt. Kimberly Munley, a civilian police officer at Fort Hood and an AFGE member, is being hailed as a hero for shooting the alleged gunman in yesterday’s bloody rampage at the Army base in Texas.
Today, AFGE released a statement honoring Munley’s “service, courage and commitment.” AFGE President John Gage said Munley “acted with great heroism.” Added Gage:
We offer our thoughts, our prayers, our support and our strength to our brave soldiers and their families, and our brothers and sisters, who are affected by this senseless and pointless tragedy.
Munley, 34, is a member of AFGE Local 1920 and the mother of a 3-year-old. She and her partner were the first to arrive at the Soldier Readiness Center, where Maj. Nidal Hasan allegedly opened fire, killing 13 and injuring 31.
Defense Employees Celebrate Repeal of Anti-Worker Personnel System
After a tough six-year battle, U.S. Department of Defense employees are celebrating a major victory today. The 2010 Defense authorization congressional conference committee yesterday repealed the anti-worker National Security Personnel System (NSPS).
Created by the Bush administration, the NSPS was fatally flawed from the beginning. The personnel system took away Defense Department workers’ right to collective bargaining and personnel appeals. After the last Republican-led Congress refused to block the NSPS, the United Department of Defense Workers Coalition (UDWC) worked tirelessly to restore fairness and equity to the workplace. Members of the coalition, made up of the 36 unions that represent Defense Department workers, helped get out the vote to ensure a Democratic majority in Congress and that majority restored the Defense workers’ collective bargaining rights as part of the 2009 Defense authorization bill.
Veterans Council Is Newest Constituency Group
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Recognizing the service of the millions of veterans in the union movement, the AFL-CIO today voted to add the Union Veterans Council as the seventh AFL-CIO constituency group.
American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada (AFM) President Thomas Lee, a Marine Corps veteran, said the establishment of the constituency group will bring together union members who are veterans to speak out on veterans issues and support the appointment of labor-friendly veterans to government agencies.
J. David Cox, secretary-treasurer of AFGE and a former VA nurse, said we owe our freedoms to those veterans who protected our freedoms.
Union Political Mobilization Has Turned Around America
Four years ago, an anti-worker majority in Congress and the Bush administration were conducting a corporate-funded assault on workers and the programs that supported America. They were implementing policies that steered the economy toward the very wealthiest and leaving everyone else behind. What a difference four years makes. Now in the White House, we have Barack Obama, the first African American president and a supporter of unions and working families and pro-worker majorities in both houses of Congress.
Today, at the AFL-CIO Convention, attendees got a chance to examine the successes of union political mobilization and look forward to continuing the fight to elect pro-worker candidates and passing a pro-worker legislative agenda. Delegates adopted a strong resolution in support of continuing an active political program.
Organizing for the Future
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Today’s theme at the 2009 AFL-CIO Convention is “Organizing for Our Future,” and the effort to build worker power and improve workers’ lives through organizing is at the heart of everything that unions do.
This morning, top union leaders presented a report on the state of organizing in America, and workers who are fighting the difficult battle for a voice on the job testified about their struggles. And at noon today, the convention passed a strong resolution in support of the Employee Free Choice Act.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said that over the past decade and a half, unions have made great strides in the capacity to organize, against vicious opposition from corporate interests and the politicians they fund. We’ve introduced the Employee Free Choice Act and elected new members of Congress who support it and a president who will sign it into law. Said Sweeney:
Brothers and sisters, everything we do—electing leaders, passing legislation, fighting in every field for economic and social justice—rests on our ability to organize.
Screeners Closer to Long Overdue Bargaining Rights
Some 43,000 airport screeners at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) yesterday moved another step closer to winning “long overdue” collective bargaining rights and other workplace protections.
By a 19-10 party-line vote, the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee approved legislation (H.R. 1881) restoring the workers’ rights that the Bush administration stripped away in 2003. In addition, the bill grants the screeners—also known as Transportation Security Officers (TSOs)—and other TSA workers “whistle-blower” rights and the same civil service protections enjoyed by other federal workers.
Committee chairman Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) says the restoration of collective bargaining rights is “long overdue” and will help the agency
deal with the high attrition, low morale and severe workplace injury rates that have plagued the agency since its creation in 2001.
Williams, Gage, Sullivan Re-Elected, Urge Fast Action to Rescue America’s Workers
Saying the best is yet to come for working people, three affiliated unions called for teamwork and urged their members to take advantage of the new political landscape in Washington to help working families.
Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) President James Williams, AFGE President John Gage and Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) President Michael Sullivan, who all were re-elected at their unions’ conventions, echoed AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka’s call for union members to work together to take back the country. Trumka spoke at all three conventions.
Williams said the challenges facing working families will require unity and teamwork.
It’s all about team…we can’t overcome the challenges ahead of us all alone, we need each and every one of you to help us.
AFL-CIO Executive Council Calls for Round 2 of Economic Recovery
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The nation’s working families and the economy desperately need a second installment on the Obama administration’s economic recovery plan. That plan, says the AFL-CIO Executive Council,
must focus like a laser beam on job creation.
Along with approving an economic policy statement outlining the urgent need for more economic recovery initiatives, the council, convening for a one-day meeting yesterday in Washington, D.C., also welcomed two new members, Letter Carriers (NALC) President Fredric Rolando and AFGE Vice President Rogelio Flores.
The council honored former council members William Young, who recently retired as NALC president, and AFGE Vice President Andrea Brooks, who died in April. To help support the work of the Alliance for Retired Americans, the council proposed the creation of the Preserving Union Values Charitable Foundation.
Although the first round of economic stimulus has made huge strides is shoring up our economy, the council pointed out in its statement that the Bush administration’s economic legacy created such “economic devastation—in finance, housing and jobs,” that
The challenge of fixing this economic mess is enormous—and urgent. Creating good jobs that cannot be outsourced is central to the solution.
Unemployment is expected to hit 10 percent later this year and remain high in 2010. So far 6.6 million jobs have disappeared since the beginning of the recession in 2007, including 1.9 million manufacturing jobs and 1.3 million construction jobs. For those with jobs, wages are stagnant or shrinking and many workers face forced furloughs. As the council statement says:
It is crystal clear that urgent action from the federal government is needed to boost economic growth and jobs, and invest in America’s future.
Short-Staffed Federal Prisons Endanger Communities, Guards
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The union that represents correctional officers at the U.S. Bureau of Prisons says federal prisons—including the famed Supermax facility—are not safe and major steps must be taken soon to protect prison employees and the communities near the prisons.
Testifying before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security yesterday, Bryan Lowery and Phil Glover told lawmakers that budget cuts and short staffing increasingly pose a danger to officers, inmates and the 115 communities and small towns which surround the facilities.
Lowery is president of AFGE’s Council of Prison Locals, and Glover is the council’s legislative coordinator.
Prison Staffing Hazard: Take Action Today
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Every day in the nation’s woefully understaffed and severely overcrowded federal prisons, correctional officers face hazardous and sometimes deadly conditions. In 2008, a correctional officer was murdered by inmates in a California federal prison. A look at AFGE’s Council of Prison Locals website shows that assaults against officers and inmate violence are almost a daily occurrence.
Yet, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is refusing to use tens of millions of dollars appropriated by Congress to hire more officers to help bring the prisons under more secure control and reduce the violence for both correctional officers and inmates.
AFGE’s Council of Prison Locals is circulating an online petition urging U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to order BOP management to use the appropriated funds to hire more officers, fire Bush-era BOP Director Harley Lappin and hire 9,000 additional correctional officers.
