Labor Secretary Solis: ‘Level the Playing Field’
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We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Elections have consequences. Speaking today in an interview with The Washington Post, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis re-affirmed the administration’s commitment to passing the Employee Free Choice Act and restoring workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain.
Here’s what Solis had to say about why we need the Employee Free Choice Act:
I think it helps to level the playing field because, in many cases, workers have been disadvantaged. They’ve been intimidated, they’ve been harassed, and we have case after case after case that we can look at. And you probably hear from the opposing side, that they will say, “Well, no, there have been successes where people have been able to organize, and they have been able to push forward a unionization.” But when you look at the attempts that have been made over the past few years…there have been barriers that have been put up. And I think that the past administration was not very favorable for unions. They were not supportive in many ways.
IBEW, OPEIU Members Honored at Labor College Graduation
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Among the 103 union members who received their college degrees in ceremonies at the National Labor College (NLC) today, two were singled out for special recognition.
Ken Erdman of the Electrical Workers (IBEW) received the 2009 Seidman Award, given to students whose senior paper best focuses on aging and retirement issues. Cathy Merkel, a member of the Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU), was honored with the President’s Award for Outstanding Scholarship, her contribution to labor education and exemplary service to her union, the NLC and the union movement.
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka told the graduates that the campus is one place we put aside our differences of occupation, geography or union.
Here we focus on what we all have in common: A legacy of great struggle and a deep commitment to build a better future for working families across the nation and everywhere in the world.
All totaled, 101 students received B.A. degrees and two others were awarded M.A. degrees as part of the Labor College’s 11th graduating class in a ceremony on the Silver Spring, Md., campus. The graduates are members of 23 different unions.
The Labor College enables adults working full-time with families and other commitments to break the barriers they face in pursuing higher education.
U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis delivered the commencement address.
Click here to read more about the NLC graduation and the graduates.
California Veterans, Union Members Want Employee Free Choice
A coalition of veterans who are union members and other supporters of the freedom to form unions are gathering today in Los Angeles to send a strong message: Pass the Employee Free Choice Act now to give veterans the chance they need for a better life.
Organized by the L.A. County Federation of Labor, these union veterans will rally outside the office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, urging her and all of California’s members of Congress to vote for the Employee Free Choice Act to restore workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain.
As part of the rally, these veterans and workers will debut a new video that shows why veterans need the Employee Free Choice Act. This video includes testimony from a number of veterans who spoke at an April town hall meeting in Los Angeles attended by Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis.
Interfaith Worker Justice: We Can Change the Nation
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The nation’s economic crisis presents an opportunity for those who believe in justice to create long-lasting, fundamental changes, says Kim Bobo, executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ).
In her keynote address last night before hundreds of participants at IWJ’s 2009 Leadership Summit in New Orleans, Bobo used the biblical story of Jonah as an illustration of the difficulties coalitions of faith-based groups and unions face in trying to ensure that workers are paid a decent wage and treated fairly. Just as Jonah was called to help save the sinful city of Ninevah, we are called, Bobo says, to help save our nation.
The nation’s economy is in turmoil. No one believes Big Business has our best interest at heart. No one thinks trickle-down can work. No one will be fooled into putting Social Security into the stock market. No one trusts the bankers. Oh yes, it is a new day. Ninevah will never be the same.
As a nation, we are going through a period of mourning, grieving. It is an economic moment like none other in my lifetime. We have the opportunity to change Ninevah, to save Ninevah–and frankly, just in the nick of time.
June 12: World Day Against Child Labor
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Around the globe, workers and human rights activists are spending World Day Against Child Labor by focusing on this year’s goal: Give Girls a Chance. Of the estimated 218 million children who work worldwide, the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that 100 million are girls. More than half of those girls work in hazardous jobs in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, domestic services and commercial sexual exploitation.
Workers from Albania to Bangladesh will hold rallies, seminars and exhibits to mark the day and increase awareness of the plight of the world’s children. Click here for a list of events around the world.
The ILO says the global economic crisis could lead to an increase in the number of children, especially girls, who are forced to give up school and go to work to support their families. The ILO’s new report, “Give Girls a Chance: Tackling Child Labor,” found that the combination of poverty and the tendency to place a higher value on the education of male children will result in many families in poor countries taking girls out of school and forcing them to enter the workforce.
IBEW Training Program Preparing for Green Future
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With hundreds of thousands of its members employed by construction and utility companies, the Electrical Workers (IBEW) is working with electrical union contractors to create a comprehensive green jobs training program that weaves practical experience with classroom instruction into the union’s apprenticeship programs.
IBEW’s training program highlights the commitment of union members to transform the nation’s struggling economy through a range of environmental investments in green technology, energy efficiency and renewable energy.
IBEW locals across the country are retooling and upgrading their training facilities to prepare workers for the rapidly growing clean energy revolution. Just this month, Local 494 moved its headquarters to a new office in suburban Milwaukee, which includes a state-of-the-art training center. The center’s spacious interior will enable union members to learn how to install solar panels and work with wind turbine companies and energy utilities that supply a growing amount of electricity to Wisconsin residential and commercial power consumers.
Pelosi: Congress Committed to Passing Employee Free Choice
Congress is “committed to passing the Employee Free Choice Act” and President Obama is “ready to sign it into law,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today told more than 3,000 union members and leaders from 13 unions at the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) in Washington, D.C.
According to The Hill blog, Pelosi told delegates to the BCTD’s 2009 Legislative Conference:
Our work in Congress is based on two truths: America’s economy is only as strong as America’s middle class; America’s middle class is only as strong as America’s unions.
Labor FY 2010 Budget Will Protect Workers. What a Concept
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis told two congressional committees this week that the Department of Labor’s fiscal year (FY) 2010 budget will
restore capacity in our worker protection programs, which have languished for years.
Appearing in separate hearings before the Senate and House Appropriations committees’ Labor, Health and Human Services and Education subcommittees, Solis said the department’s budget—including a 10 percent increase for worker protection programs—will fund three priorities:
- Renewed capacity of programs that protect workers’ safety and health, pay and benefits;
- New and innovative ways to promote economic recovery and the competitiveness of our nation’s workers; and
- Carrying out programs in a way that is accountable and transparent to the public and our stakeholders.
Biden to AFSCME: America’s Workers Should Get a Union If They Want One
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The Obama administration is committed to leveling the playing field for workers and giving them the bargaining power they need to rebuild the middle class. That was the message Vice President Biden and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis brought to the 2009 AFSCME legislative conference in Washington, D.C., this week. Biden said current labor law isn’t protecting workers’ critical freedoms:
You’ve got to climb up a hill with so many roadblocks on the way to organize that it’s just out of whack.
If a union is what you want, then a union is what you should get. Labor built this country and labor should get a share of the benefits.
On the economy, Biden said the Obama administration will not consider itself a success simply by restoring the gross domestic product (GDP), a benchmark of economic growth.
From 2001 to 2008, the economy grew, but middle class Americans-they actually lost over that period $2,000 in income. If we’re not creating good, sustainable jobs, we’re not meeting our obligations.
Labor Department Budget Strengthens Worker Protection Enforcement
The Obama administration today unveiled its plan to fulfill a promise to make America’s workplaces safer and protect workers’ rights.
During the Labor Department’s first-ever online discussion about its budget, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said the department’s fiscal year 2010 budget, which totals $104.5 billion, will:
- Promote a “green” economic recovery;
- Begin to restore worker protection programs;
- Ensure that programs are transparent and accountable; and
- Promote diversity and stakeholder inclusion in every aspect of the department’s work.
As an example of the importance of worker protections, the budget allocates $1.7 billion in discretionary funds for worker-protection programs, a 10 percent increase from the prior year’s budget.
