New: Finish Your Degree Online at Labor College
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Whether you need one more class to get your degree or two years’ worth, now is the time to look into the National Labor College’s (NLC) online bachelor’s degree programs. This year NLC is offering a new degree program just for union members and their families.You can earn a degree in Labor Studies, Business Administration, Construction Management or Emergency Readiness and Response. Register today for the fall semester at www.nlc.edu/new-students/degree.
These new programs offer union members the convenience and flexibility of online study. Union members get a big discount on tuition and Union Privilege also sponsors a number of scholarships to help with tuition. By taking advantage of the special union member rates and scholarships, NLC students can complete their degrees for less than $10,000 in two years. Additional learning from work experience and apprenticeships can earn union members credits toward completing their degrees.
Toilet Paper Drive Collects 115,000+ Rolls for Sacramento Area Nonprofits
AFL-CIO Community Services Director Will Fischer describes union volunteer efforts to stretch the limited dollars of Sacramento area nonprofit organizations.
Every year local nonprofit agencies spend thousands of dollars on toilet paper for families in need. That’s money they could be spending on much-needed services that benefit the community. Since 2009, the Sacramento Central Labor Council and the local United Way have partnered to create Toilet Paper Drives to help local nonprofit partners offset costs and redirect the money saved into vital programs.
This year the partners collected 77,227 rolls of toilet paper (compared with 50,000 rolls last year) that were matched by a local company, bringing the total to an impressive 115,000 rolls.
With Union Volunteers, Rebuilding Continues in New Orleans
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AFL-CIO Community Services Director Will Fischer sends us this report from New Orleans.
In the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Southeast Louisiana Building and Construction Trades Council and the Greater New Orleans AFL-CIO have regularly pitched in to repair and rebuild the community.
Last week, union members joined with the St. Bernard Project’s Rebuilding Program to work on a house in New Orleans East at the home of a retired disabled Electrical Workers (IBEW) member from the embattled Avondale Shipyard. The work included re-wiring the electrical of the entire home and plumbing. Volunteers included members from IBEW Local 130, Plumbers and Pipe Fitters (UA) Local 60 and United Steelworkers (USW) Local 13-447.
After inspections are passed, volunteers will hang sheetrock and paint. Says Tiger Hammond, president of the Greater New Orleans Central Labor Council:
We’re always ready to extend a hand to someone in need. This last project was especially important, though. Any time we can help one of brothers or sisters out, we’ll always be there…that’s what the union is all about.
Green Bay Union Members Help Build Home for Injured Vet
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AFL-CIO Community Services Director Will Fischer sends us this report on Green Bay, Wis., union volunteers helping make life more accessible for an injured war veteran.
Green Bay union volunteers are working alongside community groups, Heroes at Home and Rebuilding Together of Greater Green Bay, to build a new home for retired Army Staff Sergeant Forrest Perez.
Perez, a former 82nd Airborne paratrooper, served both in Iraq and Korea, and aided in the clean-up efforts following Hurricane Katrina. Last September, Perez was seriously injured in a hit-and-run accident in North Carolina, and now has to spend much of his time in his hospital bed and a specially designed wheelchair.
His home wasn’t designed to accommodate the needs of someone in a wheelchair. It was demolished, and in its place the volunteers are building a new custom and accessible home for Perez.
Union Support Helped Win ‘Open Fields’ Hunting and Fishing Access
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Union sportsmen and all hunters and fishing enthusiasts will soon find tens of thousands of new acres of land to explore, thanks to a new Open Fields program that union support on Capitol Hill helped push to the finish line.
Last week, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced the release of $50 million for the Open Fields program, which provides states with federal funding to create or enhance voluntary hunter-access programs that encourage private landowners to open their lands to the public for hunting and fishing. Says Vilsack:
This program will not only help achieve conservation goals, but also increase opportunities for hunting, fishing and other outdoor recreation by providing greater access to privately held lands for wildlife-dependent recreation.
Plumbers and Pipe Fitters President Hite Named to Export Council
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President Obama has named Plumbers and Pipefitters (UA) President William Hite to serve on the President’s Export Council. Hite is the only labor representative on the council, which advises the president on strategies for expanding U.S. exports to promote American business and jobs. The council develops recommendations to strengthen U.S. trade agreements to ensure they are fair to American companies and workers.
“I am truly honored that President Obama has appointed me to this important body,” Hite says.
American-made products—whether machinery, equipment, computer technology, agriculture, raw materials and many, many other goods—represent some of the finest products in the world. Every single global market we can open or expand for American companies will create more jobs here in the U.S.A. Today’s economy, being what it is, demands that jobs should be our number one priority.
Settlement of 20-Year-Old Anti-Union Hiring Cases Shows Need for Employee Choice
In a case that clearly illustrates the need for real labor law reform, four construction unions have reached a settlement with Fluor Daniel over the company’s practice of discriminating against union organizers who apply for work. It took nearly 20 years for the cases to be resolved and some of the original workers in the cases have died.
Fluor, one of the nation’s largest engineering and construction companies, will pay $12 million in back pay and interest to 167 union members who were denied jobs. Each member will receive between $8,000 and $217,000.
The settlement ends several cases before the National Labor Relations Board, brought by three of the unions—Boilermakers, Electrical Workers and Plumbers and Pipe Fitters. The United Brotherhood of Carpenters is also a party to the litigation. Some of the cases date back to the early 1990s.
U.S. Army Reserve and National Guard Join Helmets to Hardhats Program
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The U.S. Army Reserve and the National Guard have joined the Helmets to Hardhats program, founded in 2003 by AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) unions, together with employers with union workforces. The Army Reserve and National Guard now join the current partners of the Helmets to Hardhats program: the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard.
Helmets to Hardhats has helped more than 5,000 military vets find new careers as electricians, plumbers, roofers and other skilled trades. BCTD President Mark Ayers told Workers Independent News (WIN) that the new agreement presents
an extraordinary opportunities for all the military folks. And it’s an opportunity for us because these are the kind of people that we are seeking. They’re the best of the best in America as far as we’re concerned.
Helmets to Hardhats helps match vets and soon-to-be vets with apprenticeship and training programs offered by the BCTD’s 15 unions. Veterans can use their G.I. Bill education benefits as they complete the certified apprentice programs. Darrel Roberts, executive director of Helmets to Hardhats, says the program
is unique in that it was created with the singular intent of helping National Guard, Reservists and transitioning active-duty military members connect to career opportunities in the construction industry, one of the last bastions of solid middle-class wages for working Americans. Helmets to Hardhats recognizes this and is committed to placing veterans in careers that provide family-supporting wages, good benefits and a decent chance at realizing the American dream.
Vets: Employee Free Choice Affirms Freedoms We Fought For
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This Fourth of July, there will parades, picnics, family gatherings and speeches about what it means to be an American and a patriot.
For the men and women who have served in the military, being a patriot means fighting at home to protect the freedoms they defended in conflicts abroad. And for millions of them, that means belonging to a union.
Take Brett McElfresh, a member of Plumbers and Pipefitters (UA) Local 94 in Canton, Ohio. McElfresh served four years in the U.S. Army, including a tour in Iraq. He is the first member of his local to join the Helmets to Hardhats program sponsored by by the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD). The program has helped more than 5,000 military vets find new careers as electricians, plumbers, roofers and in other skilled trades.
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.
