Workers Across Nation Choose a Voice with AFL-CIO Unions
 |
||||
|
||||
County workers, professional employees, bakery workers, airborne pilots and “ghost” pilots and sheriff’s deputies are among the latest workers to choose a voice at work with AFL-CIO unions.
In Utah, more than 400 Salt Lake County workers won a union voice with AFSCME Local 1004. The 408 county employees—skilled trades, maintenance and service workers—could vote for union representation only after AFSCME fought and won passage of a county collective bargaining ordinance last year.
John Farrer, a Highway Department worker, says:
This is definitely a positive thing for workers, and that’s why they voted it in. With all that’s happened, the wage cuts, benefits going down and insurance going up, we need a strong union voice to represent the interests of working families.
NFFE’s Richard Brown Dies at 47: ‘A Trade Unionist at Heart’
 |
||||
|
||||
Richard N. Brown, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), died yesterday in Arlington, Va. He was 47 years old.
Brown served as president of the 100,000-member NFFE since 1998. The union represents blue- and white-collar federal workers in more than 30 federal departments and agencies. The NFFE was founded in 1917 and affiliated with the Machinists (IAM) in 1990.
NFFE Secretary-Treasurer Bill Dougan says Brown was “a strong leader, a dedicated trade unionist, and a friend.”
Rick was a trade unionist at heart. He came from a union family and maintained membership in NFFE-IAM and the Laborers Union (LIUNA), the latter being a membership he maintained after leaving construction to become a machinist. Rick was a strong advocate for federal employees. Never one to back down, Rick was a strong presence in the fight against several federal workforce initiatives aimed at contracting out federal government jobs and eliminating federal employees’ unions.
In his passing, we have lost a strong voice and champion for working men and women. We will mourn his loss greatly.
