Teaching and Research Assistants Call on NLRB to Issue Decision
 |
Christian Sweeney, AFL-CIO deputy organizing director, sends us this.
A busload of teaching and research assistants from New York University (NYU) traveled to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) headquarters in Washington, D.C., in recent days to call on the board to affirm their right to form unions. The NYU TAs and RAs, members of the UAW, filed a petition seeking a union recognition election in the spring of 2010 but are still waiting for a board decision.
Chanting “Two years is too long to wait,” as they rallied outside the NLRB, the TAs and RAs are among tens of thousands of private university graduate employees seeking their legally protected right to form a unions. That right was taken away by a ruling from the George W. Bush-appointed NLRB in 2004.
More than 1,500 Workers Join AFL-CIO Unions
 |
Warehouse workers, school, bus drivers, teachers, mechanics, telecommunication and manufacturing worker all have recently won a voice at work with AFL-CIO unions.
More than 350 employees at IKEA Distribution Center in Perryville, Md., voted by an overwhelming margin to join the Machinists (IAM ) despite opposition from IKEA managers who hired Jackson-Lewis, the well-known union-busting law firm. District 4 Business Representative Joe Flanders says the workers, “were able to see through the scare tactics.”
Last year, the Danville, Va.-based employees at Swedwood, a wholly-owned subsidiary of IKEA, voted to join the IAM.
In DuPont, Wash., more than some 350 workers who repair military helicopters and do site maintenance site maintenance and repair work for defense contractor URS Corp. Wash., voted to join IAM District Lodge 751. The workers have been without a pay or cost of living increase for more than four years, says new IAM member John Davis, and “a bunch of people got fed up.”
In Avon, Ky., 219 workers (see photo) at Allsource Global Management at the Bluegrass Station base voted to join the IAM. They are material coordinators for the distribution of military equipment. Read the rest of this entry »
AFT Joins Partnership to Improve Schools, Lives, in Rural West Virginia
 |
AFT and West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin announced they are leading an unprecedented public-private partnership to improve educational opportunity and address complex social and economic problems in the Central Appalachia community of McDowell County, W.Va.
Gov. Tomblin and AFT President Randi Weingarten announced the “Reconnecting McDowell” initiative, which includes more than 40 partners in a comprehensive effort that will take place over the next three to five years. Says Weingarten:
McDowell County is an American story that deserves a new chapter. Given the challenges, being conventional won’t be good enough. We will be flexible, creative and entrepreneurial, and will take risks.
McDowell is the southernmost West Virginia county and has suffered devastating economic and social problems due to the decline of the coal economy in recent decades. As reported by the Washington Post, 80 percent of the students in the county’s Anawalt Elementary School meet the state’s definition of poor. Read the rest of this entry »
Unions Take Up White House $4 Billion ‘Better Buildings Challenge’
At a White House event today featuring President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton, AFT President Randi Weingarten represented labor leaders in joining university presidents and corporate executives in support of the presidential Better Buildings Challenge initiative.
President Obama announced that nearly $4 billion of investments have been committed already, including $2 billion by workers’ pension funds, CEOs, mayors and university presidents for energy-saving upgrades. The labor movement committed to work to invest $150 million in energy-efficient retrofit projects in the coming months.
The goal of the initiative, which builds on work begun by the AFL-CIO earlier this year with the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), is to spur job creation by harnessing private sector investment in energy upgrades in commercial and industrial buildings.
Working with the AFT, a broad coalition of public-sector unions, and the Read the rest of this entry »
Teaching Children About Child Labor
Around the world, some 215 million children—nearly one in seven—go to jobs or labor at home rather than attend school. American history, too, is rife with the stories of children made to work in factories and mines.
Even as one presidential candidate is making the case for a return to child labor, the story of child labor, present and past, and labor’s role in addressing it, is only half-told in the nation’s textbooks in schools.
To help teachers educate their students on the current scourge of child labor, as well as its oft-forgotten chapter in the story of America, the American Labor Studies Center (ALSC) and its AFT Child Labor Project offer a cache of teaching resources on its website, ranging from a Read the rest of this entry »
Fear of Anti-Immigration Law Leaves Empty Classrooms, Idle Farms
More from Alabama, where a delegation of African American labor and civil rights leaders is investigating the state’s recently passed anti-immigrant law. Follow the delegation here.
A grade school child is there one day and gone the next. Dependable laborers don’t show up to pick crops on a farm.
“It’s incredible,” said local AFT President Vi Parramore.
I have teachers tell me that kids are disappearing overnight. Not unenrolling and leaving. Just all of a sudden gone, just gone! Crops are rotting in the fields!
Parramore shared what she knew at a roundtable at the Beloved Community United Church of Christ in Birmingham, Ala. The roundtable was part of a tour by national African American labor and civil rights leaders to help shed a light on one of the harshest immigration laws in the country and how it invokes inhumanity reminiscent of the Jim Crow South. The delegation has investigated firsthand the impact of Alabama’s H.B. 56 on the lives of Latino working families.
Early in the day, the group toured a trailer park. Later, they met with small business owners. Alabama’s punitive anti-immigration law has cast a chill over the state’s Latino population. According to news reports, the new law says that police must report to federal authorities anyone they detain if they have a “reasonable suspicion” the person may be in the country illegally.
African American Delegation Arriving Now in Alabama
Brenda Loya in AFL-CIO Media Affairs sends us this from Alabama, where she will report on the delegation of African American labor and civil rights leaders as they investigate Alabama’s recently passed anti-immigrant law. Follow the delegation here.
With the passage of H.B. 56, Alabama has taken a huge step backward, into the 1950s. Today, an African American delegation of labor and civil rights leaders traveled to Birmingham, Ala., to help shed a light on what is seen as one of the harshest immigration laws in the country and how it invokes inhumanity reminiscent of the Jim Crow South.
The delegation will investigate first-hand the impact of Alabama’s H.B. 56 on the lives of Latino working families. National, state and local leaders will hear from the families directly impacted by the law, document the impact of the law on Latino communities, acquire a better understanding of the civil rights implications of the legislation and assess the impact of the law on workers and businesses.
Unions’ Partnership with Oregon’s Cool Schools Means Green Schools and Jobs
 |
The labor movement, the union-owned financial services company Ullico and the state of Oregon are partnering in a $15 million “Cool Schools” initiative that includes repairs, rebuilding and energy retrofits. Says AFT President Randi Weingarten:
We’re gratified that in working together, we can ensure that our children have access to facilities which help them reach their potential.
The partnership of government, unions and businesses will work with to identify appropriate investments in Oregon public schools and infrastructure of up to $15 million.
Already the Cool Schools initiative—launched by Gov. John Kitzhaber (D)—has:
- Performed state-of-the-art audits of nearly 400 schools
- Negotiated with 12 school districts on up to $11 million in low-cost energy retrofit financing
- Made commitments to lend $4.7 million to eight school districts, improving 28 individual schools. Read the rest of this entry »
Ohio Union Volunteers Turning Up the Heat on Issue 2
 |
| AFT President Randi Weingarten joined hundreds of Ohio union volunteers to mobilize to defeat Issue 2. |
AFL-CIO Field Communications Coordinator Andrew Richards files this report on the fight in Ohio to defeat Issue 2.
From small towns like Portsmouth on the banks of the Ohio River in the south to big cities like Cleveland bordering Lake Michigan in the north and all around the Buckeye State, union members are hitting the doors and the phone banks to make sure working families cast a “No” vote on Issue 2 Nov. 8.
Issue 2 would repeal S.B. 5, the law passed this spring that takes away the right of public employees to collectively bargain for a middle-class life.
In Cleveland, AFT President Randi Weingarten told the more than 800 members from dozens of unions who volunteered Saturday:
[Ohio Gov. John] Kasich, [Wis. Gov. Scott] Walker, [Fla. Gov. Rick] Scott, [Ind. Gov. Mitch] Daniels and many others are trying to strip working people of their rights, that’s their goal. But we’re not going to let that happen. We are going to fight back, give workers and the community their voice back and in the next 10 days do everything we can to bring Issue 2 home.
Steelworkers Ratify New Contract, End 11-Month Lockout—and More Bargaining News
Some 750 United Steelworkers (USW) members ratified a new contract, ending an 11-month lockout, and more news from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 1,400 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
SETTLEMENTS
USW, U.S. Steel: In Canada, members of USW Local 1005 ratified a new contract, ending an 11-month lockout by U.S. Steel. The pact, covering some 750 workers, will run until Oct. 15, 2014.
