After 10 Years, Consolidated Biscuit Workers Will Vote on Union
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After a decade of struggle, workers at cookie maker Consolidated Biscuit Company (CBC), now Hearthside Food Solutions (HFS), in McComb, Ohio, are a big step closer to joining a union. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced the 825 workers will vote May 5–6 on whether to join a union.
Fed up with low pay, minimal benefits and hazardous working conditions, workers at CBC approached the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) about joining the union in 2001.
For Selena Smith Packer, a 15-year veteran at the plant, the issue is consistency.
Every time a new manager or a new owner takes over, they make changes for their interest, not ours. We have no vote or say in the matter. As a union, we’ll get to vote on changes and even make some demands that are in our best interest.
Report: Latino Workers Face Roadblocks on Path to American Dream
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Latinos face tremendous challenges that threaten their prospects for a better life, according to new report.
The report, “Latino Workers in the United States 2011,” released this week by the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA), provides an in-depth look at the state of Latino workers.
The recession has hit Latino workers hard, the report says. The unemployment rate among Latinos last month was 11.3 percent, compared with 7.9 percent for white non-Latino workers. Employed Latinos disproportionately work in low-paying jobs. The median weekly income for Latinos in the most recent quarter available in 2010 was $532, while white non-Latinos earned $774. In fact, one in every four Latinos lived below the poverty line in 2009.
Latinos also have the highest high dropout rate, the highest percentage of people without health insurance, the highest occurrence of wage theft and are the most in danger of being killed on the job.
Read the full report here.
To correct these alarming trends, the report calls for a series of policy changes by Congress and the White House. It should begin with a massive jobs program that targets the Latino community. According to the report:
Workers will need training programs in order to full advantage of the good jobs, high wages and career opportunities presented in a new economy. In states and localities with limited English proficient populations, these programs must provide both job and language training. Legislation that better protects the lives and health of workers is a priority.
Finally, the report also calls for the President and Congress to: Read the rest of this entry »
Corporate-Backed, Anti-Union ‘Secret Ballot’ Measures Pass in Four States
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While most voters were focused on the economy in Tuesday’s elections, a corporate front group slipped in constitutional amendments in four states—Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah—in an orchestrated attempt to pre-empt the proposed federal Employee Free Choice Act. If enacted, the Employee Free Choice Act would give workers more options when they consider joining a union.
The four so-called “Secret Ballot” Amendments all contained similar language. For example, the Arizona measure, known as Prop. 113, would “guarantee” the right to vote by secret ballot in “elections for public office or public votes on initiatives or referenda, or designations or authorizations of employee representation.”
Anti-Union Ballot Measures Target Workers’ Rights
This is a cross-post from the Electrical Workers (IBEW).
Under the guise of protecting the secret ballot, right-wing groups have placed anti-union measures on the ballots of four states–Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah–that would outlaw majority sign-up as a means for union recognition. These groups are hoping to spike the Employee Free Choice Act, the legislation which would remove many of the obstacles to workers exercising their right to join a union.
Says Sioux Falls, S.D., Local 426 member and South Dakota Federation of Labor President Mark Anderson in a statement from the “No on Amendment K” campaign:
The so-called “secret ballot” amendment was written to trap voters in to supporting a measure designed to undermine workers’ rights to form unions. Only 6.6 percent of South Dakota are represented by a union….Still the supporters of Amendment K are asking voters to help them make it harder for workers to form unions and bargain for better wages.
Ky.’s Paul: Keep Feds out of Mine Safety; Bosses Should Decide on Unions, Not Workers
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Just in case any Kentucky voters didn’t know where Republican U.S. Senate candidate and tea party darling Rand Paul stands on workers’ rights, he made it clear in a recent debate he doesn’t care much for the rights of workers. And a new TV ad shows that Paul doesn’t have much use for federal mine safety laws, either.
In a debate with Paul, Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway (D) said he backs the Employee Free Choice Act and that workers should have the right to form a union when a majority sign up to join a union.
But as Pat Garofalo at the Think Progress Wonk Room reports, Paul wants to make sure that if any employer doesn’t want workers to belong to a union, than by golly, he should not have to put up with a union, even if they vote for one.
Paul says he is against the Employee Free Choice Act—which Conway supports—because it “creates and allows unions to be formed and forced on businesses that don’t want to have unions.”
Anti-Union, Far-Right Groups Push and Pay for Republican Agenda
They come with patriotic-, populist- and even progressive-sounding names and deep, deep pockets. But Americans for Job Security, FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity and other groups whose election ads are strangling the airwaves are part of a far-right, anti-union, special-interest group cadre trying to buy the election.
These organizations—nothing more, really, than a hit team for corporate and extreme conservative Republican interests—are spending tens and tens of millions of dollars to enact an agenda that would set working families back by decades:
- Attacking collective bargaining rights and opposing the Employee Free Choice Act.
- Privatizing Social Security and Medicare.
- Enacting job-killing “free” trade deals like NAFTA and CAFTA.
- Cutting taxes for millionaires while leaving the rest of us behind.
A new report by American Rights at Work lifts the curtains and shines the spotlight on who is really behind these groups, how much they are spending, their track records and corporate connections.
AFL-CIO Leaders: We’re Building a Movement from the Grassroots
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Between now and Nov. 2, the nation’s union members will mount the largest-ever non-party-based political mobilization to elect candidates who will fight for working families—especially when it comes to jobs and continuing to fix an economy broken by the failed polices of the past, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a live webcast this afternoon.
The State of Our Unions webcast with Trumka, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler and AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker came on the first anniversary of their election to the AFL-CIO’s top leadership posts. (Watch the full replay here.)
Human Rights Report Highlights Discrimination, Inequality in U.S.
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The land of the free is not so free if you are poor, a person of color or an immigrant, says a new report. As a result, the U.S. government must aggressively work to eliminate discrimination and disparities throughout society and in the workplace and to ensure that international human rights standards are enforced inside its borders.
The report, compiled by the U.S. Human Rights Network, a coalition of human rights, academic and civil society groups, is part of the United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of human rights around the world. This is the first time the U.S. government has participated in the review, which occurs every four years. As part of the review, the U.S. government will have to defend its human rights record before a U.N. panel in November 2010.
The report on human rights conditions in the United States highlights the nation’s significant shortcomings in complying with international human rights standards and makes recommendations on how the United States can better meet those standards.
Ignoring Courts, Arizona Gov. and Legislature Move Anti-Union Measure
Last week, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s July ruling that a proposed state constitutional amendment that sought to restrict how workers can vote in union representation elections was unconstitutional. Not surprisingly, it’s being pushed by opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act.
But that hasn’t stopped Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) and the Republican-controlled state legislature from taking a swing at workers and their unions. Brewer called a special session of the legislature and the state Senate and House today passed a measure to put the anti-union amendment on the November ballot.
Talk about fear of unions and real worker rights, even if passed, the amendment wouldn’t go into effect unless Congress passes and the president signs the Employee Free Choice Act.
Executive Council Focuses on Jobs, Election, Workers’ Rights
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In the midst of the worst jobs crisis since the Depression, the AFL-CIO Executive Council laid out a road map for how the Obama administration and Congress can fundamentally revamp the nation’s economy so that it puts workers first. President Barack Obama, who addressed the Council on Aug. 4, seemed to get it when he said that making things in America is at the heart of the economic recovery. The Council also laid out plans for the critical fall elections.
In a series of statements, Council members reaffirmed the need for immediate adoption of the AFL-CIO’s five point plan to create new jobs and warned that reducing the deficit must come after we create more revenue-producing jobs. You can check out all the new Executive Council statements here.
