Disneyland Hotel Workers Fast For Safer Work
Disneyland hotel workers began a water-only fast Tuesday to protest what they describe as life-threatening safety issues on the job. The more than 2,000 bellmen, dishwashers, room attendants, and cooks, members of Unite Here! Local 11, have been working without a contract since February 2008. They say new work requirements at three resort hotels and the villas at the Grand Californian Hotel have led to serious health problems among workers, including heart attack, stroke and musculoskeletal injuries.
Disney management also is demanding to make drastic cuts in workers’ health insurance.
During the fast, eight Disneyland hotel workers, two Los Angeles International Airport food service employees–who also are members of the local–and one adult son of a Disneyland hotel worker will refrain from eating and consume only water. Fast participants will remain, 24-hours a day, in front of the Grand Californian Hotel, sleeping in tents on the sidewalk and surrounded by a large shrine to injured workers.
Part of the shrine will pay tribute to Grand Californian housekeeper Rosario Casas, who is out of work on disability after suffering a heart attack on the job in October. Casas said her doctor said the heart attack was due to stress.
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Mass. AFL-CIO Futures Convention Spotlights Young Workers
John Drinkwater, organizing and mobilization coordinator for the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, sends us this report on how the state federation is helping build the future by tapping into the skills of today’s young workers.
Continuing its ongoing mission to develop young union leaders in the Commonwealth, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO’s Third Annual Futures Convention elected a new Futures representative to a serve on the Massachusetts AFL-CIO Executive Council and head the Futures Program for the coming year.
This year, delegates at the Feb. 5 and 6 convention voted among a group of three candidates nominated by their fellow delegates and chose Daniel Manning of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 2325 as their new rep. Ben Sherman of Sheet Metal Workers Local 17 and Christopher Deane of Iron Workers Local 7 also ran for the Futures seat.
Manning will be the third young union member to hold the one-year term Futures seat, taking over for Allison-Doherty-LaCasse, a member of the Boston Teachers Union/AFT who served for the past year and led the Futures program through its successful second year. Jeremy McKeen, a member of the Lynn Teachers Union/AFT, served as the first Futures Representative in 2008.
Union Movement Works to Halt AIDS/HIV Pandemic
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Today is World AIDS Day, and global union members are reinforcing their commitment to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS, which has infected 33 million people worldwide and more than 1 million in the United States. Around the world, the pandemic has devastated workers and their families, shattered communities and reversed the rise in work and living standards.
Among the most vulnerable of those with the disease are some 2 million children worldwide, with 1,000 more becoming infected every day. In the United States, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) is teaming up with the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and the producers of the fun children’s DVD “Sockville—A New Pair of Socks” to help fight pediatric HIV/AIDS.
For every DVD purchased at a special $9.99 price, $3 will go to the Elizabeth Glaser Foundation, CWA’s charity of choice for nearly 20 years. Click here to buy the DVD at this special rate and help children with AIDS. This special offer is only good until Dec. 15, 2009.
The Time Is Now for Health Care Reform, Safe Workplaces
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The nation’s health care system is broken and now is the time to act to gain real health care reform. With a vote on health care reform coming soon to Congress, delegates to the AFL-CIO Convention today passed two strong resolutions to provide quality affordable health care and another to ensure safe and healthy workplaces.
They also took immediate action on the floor to mobilize against the insurance industry that is profiting by denying health care to patients who need it and raising premiums.
Both AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka and Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) told the convention the Senate will vote on a health care bill in the next few weeks. After passing the resolutions, delegates signed pledges to work for real health care reform when they get back home. Many used their cell phones to call their locals to march on the major health insurers between Sept. 22 and Oct. 2. AFT President Randi Weingarten, who was presiding over the debate, called the chief lobbyist for the United Federation of Teachers in New York City, her home local, while on the podium, and with the entire convention listening, convinced him to hold an action.
The mobilization is part of an AFL-CIO campaign to hold insurers accountable, Trumka said,
for denying care and shutting people out and using our members’ premium dollars.
103 Students Set to Graduate from National Labor College
Rachelle Honeycutt works at an oil refinery in Washington State. Sam Schaffer is a skilled sheet metal worker from West Virginia. Javier Almazan organizes workers in south Florida and Cathy Merkel is a registrar in Maryland. They’re all union members. And in a few days, all four will be graduates of one of the crown jewels of the labor movement: the National Labor College.
With a 46-acre campus just outside Washington, D.C., the nation’s only labor college is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and grants bachelor’s and master’s degrees. The college evolved from the George Meany Center for Labor Studies, created in 1969, and now partners with the University of Baltimore and George Mason University for its graduate degree programs.
On Saturday, 101 students will receive B.A. degrees and two others will be awarded M.A. degrees, as the Labor College graduates its 11th class in a ceremony on the Silver Spring, Md., campus. U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis will give the commencement address.
Labor Secretary to Honor Fallen Workers on Workers Memorial Day
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Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, who has made worker safety and health a priority, will join workers, union leaders, elected officials and college staff to commemorate Workers Memorial Day by helping break ground for a new national workers memorial at the National Labor College (NLC) campus in Silver Spring, Md.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, Mine Workers (UMWA) President Cecil Roberts and NLC President William Scheuerman will Join Solis at the ceremony. The public also is invited to attend.
The April 28 ceremony will be followed by a traditional candle-lighting ceremony and honoring of all fallen workers. Workers Memorial Day, April 28, is the day workers in the United States and around the world honor those killed and injured on the job and call for improved workplace safety.
Jordan Barab Named Acting OSHA Chief
Health and safety activist Jordan Barab was appointed today as the acting head of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Barab, a senior policy adviser for the House Education and Labor Committee, is well-known as a strong advocate for health and safety in the workplace.
Barab will lead the agency until a permanent director is chosen and then will become OSHA’s deputy assistant secretary on a permanent basis.
Peg Seminario, the AFL-CIO’s director for safety and health, says Barab is an “excellent choice” for OSHA deputy assistant secretary.
He has decades of experience in safety and health working in the labor movement, at OSHA and in the House of Representatives on a broad range of issues. He has a deep commitment and dedication to protecting workers and will bring to OSHA the kind of energy and leadership that is sorely needed to move the agency in a new direction.
Economic Blackmail
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Corporate opponents of workers’ freedom to form unions repeatedly have shown they are not interested in the welfare of their employees or any of the pseudo-lofty ideals they cite while fighting the Employee Free Choice Act.
Now, they’ve made clear they will do anything—even destroy jobs, communities and harm the U.S. economy—to ensure that more American workers do not have a voice on the job. (And this just in—they’re now using Joe the Plumber as an anti-Employee Free Choice Act spokes-idiot. That guy can’t seem to keep a job.)
