New Mexicans Up, Up and Away to Highlight Jobs Crisis
 |
|
 |
Andy Richards on our Field Communications staff files this report.
Wow! Take a look at these photos from the America Wants to Work event in New Mexico over the weekend!
The jobs crisis is so urgent that working families in New Mexico are literally going to new heights to get the message out that lawmakers need to be focused on creating and protecting good jobs. This weekend, as part of the huge Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, jobless New Mexicans and workers from across the state will launch a hot air balloon every day during the nine day festival draped with a 40 foot banner brandishing a message all Americans agree upon: “America Wants to Work: Good Jobs Now.”
LeRoy Apodaca, an unemployed Working America member and active participant in New Mexico Wants to Work—a program that has been organizing unemployed workers since January—will be one of the dozens of jobless New Mexicans who will be there Saturday.
I have been unemployed for over 2 years. I want to work, but finding a job these days is difficult. We are asking our elected officials to focus on job creation and make that their most important issue.
Sadly, Apodaca’s story is similar to millions of other jobless workers across the country. Read the rest of this entry »
New Mexico Unemployed Workers Organize to Fight for Jobs
Don Manning from New Mexico Wants to Work sends us this report.
New Mexico Wants to Work, an organization that advocates for the needs of the unemployed in central New Mexico, held a meeting with dozens of jobless workers in Albuquerque to launch a statewide “Where Are the Jobs?” campaign. Together with the New Mexico Federation of Labor, Central New Mexico Labor Council, Working America and AFL-CIO Community Services, we kicked off our statewide program in which unemployed workers and their community partners will ask New Mexico’s citizens to sign petitions and ask elected officials to focus their efforts on finding and creating good jobs.
Albuquerque City Council member Rey Garduno addressed our group and pledged to help organize public round table discussions and gather petition signatures before the progressive members of the City Council put these issues on the agenda and ask the mayor for a meeting with them. Says Garduno:
Your elected officials have to focus all of their energy on finding work for the unemployed. We can’t fix the budget, we can’t fix the economy, we can’t fix the state, until we put our hardworking families back to work.
Court Slaps Down N.M. Gov.’s Labor Board Firings
A unanimous New Mexico State Supreme Court said Wednesday that tea party Republican Gov. Susana Martinez overstepped her authority when earlier this year she fired two members and the executive director of Public Employee Labor Relations Board. The New Mexico Federation of Labor (NMFL) filed suit against Martinez’s action.
The court ordered Martinez to reinstate the two fired board members.
The three-person labor board enforces the state’s public employee collective bargaining law and consists of one member chosen by state employee unions, one member chosen by state department heads and one member chosen by the other two members. Although the governor makes the official appointments, the selection process is performed by unions, management and the board itself. Read the rest of this entry »
Working America, Union Members Speak Out on Need for Jobs
 |
||||
|
||||
While top leaders from government, business and labor gathered yesterday at the White House, grassroots union members and struggling families held their own job summits across the country.
In roundtable discussions in Ohio, Minnesota and New Mexico, members of the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate, Working America, joined union members to discuss the continuing challenge of high unemployment and the need to start creating new jobs.
Working America member Pablo Trujillo hosted a roundtable discussion at his home in Albuquerque and said the jobs crisis must be addressed for today’s workers so we can build a stronger economy for generations to come:
We need to be vigilant in the actions we take as a community. The economy is one of those actions we need to focus on, not only for the present but for the future of New Mexico. I want to see my grandchildren grow up with opportunities and be able to prosper.
1,800 Boeing Workers Ratify Pact with Pay Increases—and More Bargaining News
Some 1,800 Boeing workers ratify pact with pay increases, and more news from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 1,200 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
SETTLEMENTS
UAW, Boeing: Members of UAW Local 1069 at Boeing’s Rotorcraft plant near Philadelphia ratified a new five-year contract yesterday, after their contract expired Oct. 1. The new pact covers nearly 1,800 workers and includes annual raises between 2 percent and 4 percent and improves pension benefits.
Holt Baker in New Mexico: Protect the Most Vulnerable
 |
||||
|
||||
Around the country, states are getting squeezed by the economic crisis, and state budgets are feeling the pressure. It’s imperative that we fight to make sure state budgets are not balanced at the expense of children and the services they need.
Today, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker is in New Mexico, leading a rally of more than 2,800 people to ensure a just budget that protects children and vital public services.
Standing with New Mexico Federation of Labor president Christine Trujillo, Santa Fe Mayor David Coss and four state legislators, Holt Baker said the proposal for big cuts in the education budget will cost the state jobs and competitiveness in the future.
New Mexico’s schools, universities and state agencies could face 3.5 percent cuts in funding, and employees could face pay cuts as well, as legislators seek to avoid a $650 million deficit. Holt Baker said the cuts to education will fall most heavily on families already reeling from the economic crisis.
Working America: Mobilizing and Winning
 |
|
As AFL-CIO President John Sweeney noted yesterday, one of the most important developments in the union movement over the past few years is the introduction of Working America, the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO that organizes, educates and mobilizes people across the country who don’t have a union at work.
Today at the 2009 AFL-CIO Convention, union members honored Working America and thanked Working America staff for their tireless efforts to reach out and sign up—in less than six years—more than 3 million members, who are getting critical education on the issues that matter.
Working America regional director Jenn Jannon and assistant national field director Tahir Duckett led a delegation of Working America staff onto the convention stage and explained the great successes they’ve had across the country. Said Duckett:
Working America organizers fan out in working class neighborhoods across the country every single night. And in those neighborhoods, we talk one on one to every household that doesn’t have the benefit of a union on the job, and we give them an alternative point of view on the economy—one that is not shaped by right-wingers or the corporate media.
Obama, Union Members Nationwide Focus on Employee Free Choice
 |
||||
|
||||
Yesterday, at a town hall meeting in New Mexico, President Obama reaffirmed his support for the Employee Free Choice Act, capping off a busy week of grassroots activity around the country in support of this critical bill.
Obama acknowledged there’s a tough fight ahead, but expressed his concern that current labor law isn’t fair to workers and needs to be changed if we’re going to rebuild the middle class.
…the scales have been tilted to make it really hard to form a union. So a lot of companies, because they want maximum flexibility, they would rather spend a lot of money on consultants and lawyers to prevent a union from forming than they would just going ahead and having the union and then trying to work with—and collectively—allow workers to collectively bargain.
So there’s a bill called the Employee Free Choice Act that would try to even out the playing field. And what it would essentially say is, is that if a majority of workers at a company want a union then they can get a union without delay—and some of the monkey business that’s done right now to prevent them from having a union.
