Union Members Share with Those in Need
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The unemployment rate among building and construction workers in Los Angeles County is nearly 40 percent, which means many families face a bleak holiday. But one thing the workers can be thankful for is that they belong to a union and their union brothers and sisters will be there for them.
The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor selected unemployed construction workers and their families as this year’s recipients of its annual holiday “Turkeys and Toys” campaign, which helps out working families in need. The federation and its affiliated unions bought the makings of Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings, including a turkey, for 4,000 unemployed building trades workers.
More than 40 different unions contributed to the Thanksgiving turkey and food distribution, including grocery workers, truck drivers, hotel workers, sanitation workers, teachers and school employees, firefighters, college faculty, costume designers, telecommunications workers, courtroom clerks and more. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) also helped distribute food to the workers.
Screen Actors: Join Fellow Union Members for One Nation March Saturday
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This is a crosspost from the Screen Actors Guild.
Screen Actors Guild (SAG) is proud to support the One Nation Working Together March in Washington D.C., and in cities across the country, this Saturday, October 2. For those not able to be in Washington, D.C., rallies are also being held in Los Angeles and other cities across the country.
We represent the most diverse membership of any labor union on earth. We have members who are months-old, others in their nineties and every age in between. We are conservatives, moderates, progressives and liberals, non-believers and people of every faith, members of every ethnic group and national heritage, gender identity, sexual orientation, and physical ability. In short, we are a microcosm of the rich diversity of the United States and the U.S. Labor Movement.
Join a Labor Day Tweet-a-Thon
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We’ve got a long Labor Day weekend in front of us and that means plenty of time to join American Rights at Work’s first-ever Labor Day Tweet-a-Thon along with celebrity union members—including actors, recording artists, Broadway performers, baseball players and broadcasters.
American Rights at Work’s Liz Cattaneo says the tweet-a-thon is a chance to “send a positive message about the value of unions.”
To showcase the strength, solidarity, diversity of our unions, we’re asking celebrities—along with anyone else who wants to show their union pride—to join us by sending a tweet with the hash tag #unionmember during Labor Day weekend. It’s a great opportunity to have well-known public figures frame unions in a positive light through a fun and influential medium.
Unions Back New Plan to Battle Intellectual Property Pirates
Intellectual property theft—anything from pirated copies of Hollywood blockbusters and popular music to counterfeit brand-name airplane parts—steals American jobs and hurts the economy. This week, the Obama administration outlined a new strategy to stem the global flood of pirated property.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and other union leaders applauded the new battle plan. Says Trumka:
Intellectual property fuels some of the most vibrant sectors of the U.S. economy. When digital thieves steal entertainment, or counterfeiters make cheap copies of quality products, they rob American workers of jobs and income.
International Women’s Day, March 8: Time to Recommit to Equal Rights
Women make up more than half the American workforce and are approaching half of union members. On International Women’s Day, March 8, the AFL-CIO is recommitting itself to continue the struggle for equal rights, dignity and respect for all working women.
This past week, the AFL-CIO Executive Council pointed out that much needs to be done for women workers to gain equal footing. For example, the council cites a United Nations report, which shows the majority of the world’s 1.3 billion absolute poor are women. On average, women receive between 30 percent and 40 percent less pay than men earn for the same work. Women also continue to be victims of violence, with rape and domestic violence listed as significant causes of disability and death among women worldwide.
Executive Council: Piracy Costs Good Jobs
The AFL-CIO Executive Council unanimously endorsed the entertainment industry unions’ campaign to stop the theft of intellectual property, often called piracy.
The council noted that each year, digital theft of sound recordings costs the U.S. economy $12.5 billion in total output and costs U.S. workers 71,060 jobs. Feature film piracy results in an estimated $5.5 billion in lost wages annually, and the loss of an estimated 141,030 jobs that would otherwise have been created.
The council statement said, in part:
Motion pictures, television, sound recordings and other entertainment are a vibrant part of the U.S. economy. They yield one of its few remaining trade surpluses. The online theft of copyrighted works and the sale of illegal CDs and DVDs threaten the vitality of U.S. entertainment and thus its working people.
‘Inglourious Basterds,’ Bullock and Bridges Top SAG Award Winners
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The cast of “Inglourious Basterds” took home the top honor for best performance by a cast in a motion picture as members of the Screen Actors (SAG) honored their own at the 16th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® show Sunday.
Sandra Bullock and Jeff Bridges won the awards for best performance by an actress and actor in a leading role for their performances in “The Blind Side” and “Crazy Heart,” respectively.
Other winners included Mo’Nique who won best performance as supporting actress for her role in “Precious” and Christoph Waltz as best supporting actor for his role in “Inglourious Basterds.”
On the TV side, Michael C. Hall (“Dexter”) and Julianna Marquiles (“The Good Wife”) were honored for their performances in a drama series and the cast of “30 Rock” took two of the three top awards in the TV comedy category, with Alec Baldwin winning best actor and Tina Fey best actress. The cast of “Glee” won the award for best ensemble. You can check out all the winners here.
For the first time, SAG honored stunt performers in TV and movies, with the stunt ensembles for the movie “Star Trek” and the “24″ TV series taking home the honors.
Betty White received the Lifetime Achievement Award, the union’s highest honor. White joins an all-star cast of previous winners, who include Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee (2000), Edward Asner (2001), Clint Eastwood (2002), Shirley Temple Black (2005), Julie Andrews (2006), Charles Durning (2007), James Earl Jones (2008).
Union Members Mobilizing to Help Haiti
The union movement is mobilizing its members to provide assistance and calling for a massive global relief effort. You can help Haitian workers in distress by donating to the Solidarity Center’s Earthquake Relief for Haitian Workers’ Campaign. Click here to make a donation and here to learn more about how the center is working to help Haitian workers.
The TransAfrica Forum, a longtime ally of the union movement, also suggests donations to two organizations already providing aid on the ground in Haiti: Partners in Health (click here to donate) and Doctors Without Borders (click here).
SAG President Joins AFL-CIO Executive Council
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The AFL-CIO Executive Council today welcomed a new member, Ken Howard, president of the Screen Actors (SAG). Howard, who was elected to lead the actor’s union in September 2009, replaces former SAG President Alan Rosenberg.
Convening for a one-day meeting in Washington, D.C., the council heard from Ron Bloom, senior counselor to President Obama for manufacturing policy and a former staff member at the United Steelworkers (USW). The council and union leaders have repeatedly called on the Obama administration to quickly enact a national industrial policy to foster and sustain growth in the nation’s manufacturing industries. Increasing our manufacturing capacity is critical as the world prepares to move toward a green economy.
Pollster Celinda Lake also shared the results of polling on the economy and the political implications of a protracted jobs crisis.
Screen Actors to Honor Betty White
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Although best known for her role as Rose Nylund on the 1980s “Golden Girls” TV series and as Sue Ann Nivens on the “Mary Tyler Moore Show,” Betty White has for six decades been a beloved comedienne, pioneering television producer, host, author and animal rights advocate.
Often called “America’s Sweetheart,” White has won six Emmys, including the first and only Daytime Emmy for Best Game Show Host for a woman. In 1952, she became a Hollywood pioneer when she and two colleagues formed their own production company, creating the nationally televised comedy series “Life with Elizabeth.” The series made White one of only a few women with creative control before and behind the camera in television’s early years.
Now, her colleagues and co-workers plan to honor her with the Screen Actors (SAG) Life Achievement Award for career achievement and humanitarian accomplishment. White will receive the award at the 16th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards—the nation’s largest and only-nationally televised all-union awards show—which premieres live on TNT and TBS Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010, at 8 p.m. ET/PT, 7 p.m. CT and 6 p.m. MT. SAG represents nearly 120,000 actors in film, television, industrials, commercials and music videos.
