Wal-Mart’s Low-Wage Jobs Not Worthy of Praise
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Representatives from Wal-Mart and other retailers attended a White House event today to recognize grocery chains and other corporations for expanding their businesses into underserved areas.
But, say AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) President Joe Hansen in a joint statement, including Wal-Mart in the event:
undercuts the message of the need for good jobs that can rebuild our middle class.
The administration’s focus, say the union leaders, should be on the importance of a strong middle class and protecting and creating good jobs on a scale big enough to right the economy.
We ask the administration to stand with communities that have called on Wal-Mart to strengthen the communities it enters rather than drive standards and wages down.
Work and Walk in Union-Made Boots with Discounts for Union Members
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With apologies to Nancy Sinatra, these boots are made for working. And, they’re made by union members in Wausau, Wis.
The American-made, union-made boots by United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) locals 668 and 717 members at the Weinbrenner Shoe Co., are available online at TheUnionBootPro.com—and union members get a 27 percent discount. Walter Brown, owner of BootPro Solutions LLC, says roughly 98 percent of the work boots sold in the United States are made overseas, primarily China.
“As other well-known brands move operations offshore, the UnionBootPro has become the go-to website for union members to find the work boots they demand—boots made by American workers.”
The three brands at TheUnionBootPro.com, Thorogood®, HellFire® and Work One®, are job fitted for virtually every professional trade in construction, manufacturing, metal works, mining, utilities, assembly, firefighting and law enforcement.
You can order online at www.TheUnionBootPro.com or call toll free 1-800-723-5384, Monday to Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. CDT.
Red Cross Workers Strike over Stalled Talks, Blood Safety Concerns
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More than 1,000 Red Cross workers in seven cities launched a three-day unfair labor practice strike against the American Red Cross this morning. Contract negotiations between the Red Cross and the workers—members of several unions—have been stalled, in some cases, for more than a year.
One of the key issues, the unions say, is blood drive staffing practices that workers believe are key to protecting donor and blood safety. Workers say the Red Cross is putting donors and workers at risk by understaffing blood drives, replacing nurses with unlicensed supervisors, forcing employees to work unrealistic schedules and turning blood collection into an assembly line/fast-food process.
Wyden Wants to Tax Health Care Benefits
Last year, in his failed run for the presidency, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) proposed taxing working families’ health care benefits as part of his deeply flawed plan for health care reform.
The reaction was direct and swift. “No!” said unions, health care reform advocates and consumers. Candidate Barack Obama blasted the McCain proposal.
But today, the idea of taxing health care benefits has resurfaced, and from an unlikely source: Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who for most of his career has been a good friend of working families. His call to tax your health care benefits is buried in legislation (S. 391) that he introduced this year and is now being considered by the Senate Finance Committee as one of several possible ways to finance health care reform.
