Harkin: We Will Pass the Employee Free Choice Act
Today, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) gave a video message to the 2009 AFL-CIO Convention and said that he’s committed to passing the Employee Free Choice Act.
Harkin thanked former AFL-CIO President John Sweeney for his years of service and leadership and thanked union members for their hard work. Because of that work, Harkin said, we’re closer than ever to real health care reform and labor law reform. He’s been working hard meeting with key senators and says he’s confident we’ll be able to restore the freedom to form unions:
When you ask if we can pass the Employee Free Choice Act, the answer is three words: Yes. We. Can.
Harkin also offered a tribute to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy and pledged to uphold his legacy as chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Unions Call for Action for a Fairer Global Economy
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The 2009 AFL-CIO Convention is ending today, but the global union movement is keeping its attention focused on Pittsburgh, as world leaders will soon arrive for the G-20 summit. Today, AFL-CIO members expressed solidarity with workers around the world and recognized that we can’t solve the international economic crisis alone.
Convention delegates approved a resolution calling for a coordinated effort by the AFL-CIO and our brothers and sisters around the world to seek international solutions to the challenges facing the world’s workers.
Resolution 9, “A Labor Movement Agenda for a Stronger, Cleaner and More Just Global Economy,” lays out principles to bring together unions across national borders, to counterbalance the power of multinational corporations, encourage international cooperation to recover from the financial crisis and protect the lives and rights of workers around the world.
Colombian Activist Yessika Hoyos Receives AFL-CIO Human Rights Award
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Seven years ago, Colombian union leader Jorge Dario Hoyos was assassinated. But his death did not silence his family’s search for justice. His daughter, Yessika, followed in her father’s steps, risking her life in pursuit of workers’ rights and challenging the power of corporations and a government that does little to protect the rights and lives of workers.
Today, the AFL-CIO presented Yessika Hoyos with the 2008 George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award for “her extraordinary courage, her dedication to the cause of workers’ rights in Colombia and her commitment to ending impunity for those responsible.”
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, a friend of Dario Hoyos, praised Yessica as “an incredible woman.”
As a lawyer, she has fought tirelessly to bring her father’s killers to justice and to end the cycle of violence in her native land. Even though the low-level trigger men responsible for her father’s death have been prosecuted, the masterminds who ordered Dario Hoyos’ death have not been found—an all-too-common scenario in the deadliest country in the world for union members.
UNITE HERE Rejoins AFL-CIO
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The last day of the AFL-CIO Convention opened with a big bang as newly elected AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka stood on stage with UNITE HERE President John Wilhelm to make the dramatic announcement that UNITE HERE is reaffiliating with the federation. The 250,000-member UNITE HERE was one of the unions that left the AFL-CIO in 2005 to form a new federation.
Trumka, who said he developed a special bond with Wilhelm around the struggle for Horse Shoe and Frontier Hotel workers in Las Vegas more than 15 years ago, hailed the reaffiliation, saying:
The solidarity of the American labor movement is about to grow.
It pained me personally when UNITE HERE left this federation four years ago—and I can’t think of a more uplifting way to begin this day than by welcoming UNITE HERE back to our union family as an affiliate of the AFL-CIO.
AFL-CIO Delegates Elect Trumka, Shuler and Holt Baker
Today is a great day at the 2009 AFL-CIO Convention: Delegates just elected a historic ticket. Our new President Richard Trumka will be joined in leadership by two women, Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler and Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker. Shuler, 39, is the youngest person ever to become an officer of the AFL-CIO. The dynamic team will lead the union movement into an exciting future.
Trumka, who previously served as AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer, Shuler, formerly the executive assistant to Electrical Workers (IBEW) President Edwin Hill, and Holt Baker, who was re-elected as executive vice president, were voted into office by acclamation this afternoon.
Trumka reflected on his upbringing in a union family in western Pennsylvania and talked about the changes and challenges that we as a union movement are facing:
Even though the face of the American labor movement has changed, one thing hasn’t: It’s that the surest, the fastest, most effective way to lift workers and our families into the middle-class is with the strength, that can only, only come with a union contract.
And, sisters and brothers, that fundamental truth hasn’t been more critical to the future of this country than it is right now because, today, the American middle-class isn’t being squeezed—we are being crushed.
Executive Council Welcomes New Vice Presidents
Of the 51 vice presidents elected today to the AFL-CIO Executive Council, there are nine new additions, who are expanding the range of voices that will be heard. We congratulate the following new vice presidents of the AFL-CIO:
- Patrick D. Finley, Plasterers and Cement Masons (OP&CMIA)
- M.B. “Mike” Futhey, United Transportation Union (UTU)
- Newton Jones, Boilermakers (IBB)
- D. Michael Langford, Utility Workers (UWUA)
- Robert McEllrath, International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU)
- Roberta Reardon, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA)
- John Ryan, Glass, Molders, Pottery, Plastics and Allied Works (GMP)
- DeMaurice Smith, Professional Athletes
- Baldemar Velasquez, Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC)
Taking the Next Steps to Build Strength Through Diversity
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The diversity of the union movement is its strength. Building on the success of the historic Resolution 2 passed in 2005, the AFL-CIO Convention adopted a far-ranging policy to create more inclusive unions and a more diverse leadership.
The resolutions, “A Diverse and Democratic Labor Movement” and “Unions Should Give People with Disabilities a Voice and a Face,” call on unions to reach out at every level to build diversity.
The resolutions require every state federation and central local bodies to establish concrete goals for expanding diversity in their leadership. We also will increase our commitment to include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers and workers with disabilities at all levels. And to secure the future of the union movement, we will actively recruit, train and include young workers in all activities and programs and provide opportunities for leadership.
AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer William Lucy said the union movement stands on the threshold of a crusade to rebuild the middle class. The progress made in including new workers in union leadership has chipped away at one more source of divisiveness in our movement. He praised the unions for successfully carrying out the mandate of Resolution 2 to make convention delegations more inclusive—43 percent of delegates are women or people of color.
Helping Women Workers Helps Us All
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Delegates to the AFL-CIO Convention today took steps to further secure basic workplace rights for working women, who make up 40 percent of the global workforce, but suffer a disproportionate amount of discrimination on the job. Women also are sexually assaulted on the job and denied the time to take care of family responsibilities.
Resolution #14, ”Women, Work and Family,” says equal treatment of women is essential on the job and throughout society.
United Steelworkers (USW) Vice President Fred Redmond put it this way:
“Employers must provide equal pay for work of equal value and ensure that women have safe workplaces free of violence and sexual harassment. Government must abolish discrimination against women. Every segment of society shares the duty to respect and protect maternity and parenting.”
The resolution calls on the U.S. government to ratify several International Labor Organization (ILO) standards on organizing and bargaining, equal pay, abolition of forced labor, prohibitions of gender discrimination, ending child labor, maternity protection and protecting workers with family responsibilities.
It also commits the federation to work to pass the Healthy Families Act to provide paid sick leave, expand the Family and Medical Leave Act, enact the Paycheck Fairness Act and reduce financial and other barriers to higher education for women.
These are not actions that just help women, said Flight Attendants-CWA President Patricia Friend.
The resolution speaks to decent work for women and men. All workers should be able to work without fear of discrimination. There is no better time to move forward to bring fairness to the workplace.
State and Local Bodies: The Heart of the Union Movement
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Today’s theme at the 2009 AFL-CIO Convention is “The Power of Many,” and in support of a strong movement across the country, members approved a resolution to step up involvement with state federations and central labor councils.
Resolution 8 encourages leadership development and training, attention to diversity, alliances with community organizations, accountability and transparency at the state and local levels, as well as the continued pursuit of solidarity charters to keep all unions engaged and unified in pursuit of a pro-worker agenda.
AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker said everyone in the union movement benefits from the strength of state and local bodies:
Today we’ll discuss the power of many at the grassroots level—what it means to us and how we make the most of it.
One of the unique and most powerful advantages of the AFL-CIO is that we have a presence in every state and in more than 500 communities across our country—nobody can match that…at the grassroots, there may be no more important work than this.
AFL-CIO Thanks Sweeney for His Service as President
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During the 2009 AFL-CIO Convention, President John Sweeney will be stepping down after more than five decades in the union movement and 14 years heading the AFL-CIO. Today, the AFL-CIO Convention unanimously approved a resolution honoring Sweeney and pledging to carry on his values and his hard work.
Union leaders and activists from across the movement stood in support of the resolution, praising Sweeney as a leader and as a person.
As president of the AFL-CIO, Sweeney has fought to strengthen local union organizations and get them involved in their communities, and he also has strengthened the global union movement and increased the role of America’s unions in fighting for workers around the world. Through the creation of Working America, Sweeney helped mobilize and educated 3 million workers without a union. Through the founding of the Alliance for Retired Americans, he gave a voice to 4 million retirees and kept them actively engaged. It’s a record to be proud of and a legacy that will keep the union movement strong in the future.
