Steamfitter Searches for Striped Bass on Tonight’s ‘Brotherhood Outdoors’
The next episode of “Brotherhood Outdoors,” the unique hunting and fishing series of the Union Sportsmen’s Alliance (USA), features Jay Rodriquez, a steamfitter with Plumbers and Pipe Fitters (UA) Local 638 in New York City. He takes show host Tom Ackerman to his favorite fishing spot, Montauk Point on Long Island, to fish for stripers, blues and false albacore.
But there was one catch that didn’t have fins. Hurricane Earl was heading up the East Coast. Says Rodriquez:
It was kind of nerve racking. I felt like we had to go out right before it came. It had the ocean stirred up and brought the fish to the top and I guess that’s why we had such great fishing.
The show, which airs July 28 at 8 p.m. EDT on the Sportsman Channel, puts union members in the spotlight, giving them the opportunity to join Ackerman for a quality outfitted North American trip of their choosing or, as Rodriquez does, act as his guide, taking him to their favorite hunting or fishing location.
Pipeline Project Creates Thousands of Skilled Construction Jobs
More than 13,000 American workers will build the U.S. portion of a 2,000-mile oil pipeline running from Alberta, Canada, to Port Arthur, Texas, under a project labor agreement (PLA) signed this week by four U.S. unions and pipeline builder TransCanada Corp.
Mark Ayers, president of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD), says:
At a time when corporations and industries are seeking to ensure maximum efficiencies and a proper return on their investments, America’s building trades unions are pleased that TransCanada Corporation has recognized that a project labor agreement is a valuable tool to assist them in achieving those important objectives.
PLAs are pre-hire agreements between labor and management. The agreements require all construction jobs to be filled by local workers, include diversity requirements, establish wages and work rules covering overtime, working hours and dispute resolution and ensure that safety guidelines on the job site are enforced.
Impoverished Farm Workers Respond to Need in Haiti
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Union members and other working people across the country are digging deep into their hearts and pockets to provide aid to the victims of the massive earthquake in Haiti. You can take action now to help the Haitian survivors by clicking on the AFL-CIO Haitian Disaster Relief site here.
One of this country’s most impoverished areas—the farm worker community of Immokalee, Fla.—is doing its part. Enlisting its low-power radio station, Radio Conciencia, members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) launched a donation drive. They will send all donations to the Red Cross.
The CIW website says the response has been overwhelming.
Seeing farm workers—who are themselves suffering unemployment and economic crisis due to two weeks of freezing temperatures that destroyed crops across south Florida—stream into the office with water, clothes, and canned food is nothing short of inspiring.
Union Support Pouring in for Haiti
The support by union members continues to pour in to help the survivors of last week’s massive earthquake in Haiti. You can take action now to help the Haitian survivors by clicking on the AFL-CIO Haitian Disaster Relief site here.
As of yesterday, nearly $13,000 had been donated to the Solidarity Center’s Earthquake Relief for Haitian Workers’ Campaign. Several unions have pledged thousands more to the fund.
And in cities across the country, liaisons of the AFL-CIO Community Services Network are working tirelessly to organize volunteer efforts and donations to help Haitian workers in need.
Workers Rally to Shut Down School of Americas
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Hundreds of union members joined religious and human rights activists in a vigil and rally outside the gates of the School of the Americas (SOA) last weekend to demand that it be closed.
Graduates of the school, operated by the U.S. Department of Defense at Fort Benning, Ga., have been linked to human rights violations and suppression of popular movements in the Americas, according to the activist group SOA Watch.
Many targets of assassination and torture in Latin America are trade unionists. More union members are killed each year in Latin America than in the rest of the world combined, primarily due to extreme anti-worker violence in Colombia, according to the International Trade Union Confederation.
Union members, young activists and religious groups joined in a labor caucus Nov. 22 and heard Colombian trade union members describe the dangerous conditions they live under daily. When 14 Colombian unionists were in the United States receiving training through the AFL-CIO over the past two months, four of their union colleagues back home were killed.
UA Out Front in Building Green Houses
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As the green revolution picks up steam, more and more homeowners are either building new energy-efficient homes or retrofitting their current dwellings. The members of the Plumbers and Pipe Fitters (UA) are working hard to be among the unions in the forefront of residential green building.
When a homeowner in Minneapolis wanted to build an energy-efficient home recently, he called on the journeymen and apprentices of Plumbers Local 15 and Pipe Fitters Local 539 to create a showcase, an energy efficient house complete with all the latest technology.
According to the UA Journal, the entire house uses radiant heat. The sidewalks and driveway are equipped with snow melting capability—a big help in Minnesota. Twenty-seven roof drains send water into two pipes that empty into a 5,000-gallon cistern, which irrigates the 3,000 square-foot living roof. Plumbers installed nearly 4,000 feet of piping and tubing for the house.
