Labor & Employment Law

It?s the Jobs, Stupid

Posted on June 01, 2010
      So the U.S. Senate ran off on vacation and left the House to pass a jobs bill that the august body won’t consider for another week, when up to 1.2 million jobless workers will have lost their unemployment insurance (UI) because the Senate failed to act...

Nurses Set 1-Day Strike for Patient Safety

Posted on June 01, 2010
Some 25,000 registered nurses in California and Minnesota will conduct a one-day strike June 10 over patient care issues in contract negotiations at 15 health systems and hospitals. The nurses are members of the California Nurses Association (CNA) and the Minnesota Nurses Association(MNA), both affiliated with National Nurses United (NNU)...

A Tribute to Ironworker Bill Hack?and all U.S. Veterans

Posted on May 31, 2010
Chester W. “Bill” Hack had survived bloody air combat and the fiery crash of a B-17 bomber into the English Channel. The Kentuckian was stateside teaching aerial gunnery when he volunteered to fly combat missions again. Nazi fighters and anti-aircraft fire forced Hack’s bomber to crash into the sea on May 29, 1943...

America?s Vets Fought for Our Future

Posted on May 31, 2010
      As chairman of the AFL-CIO Union Veterans Council, Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) President Mark Ayers salutes America’s veterans. Memorial Day is a time to reflect upon those fallen American heroes who have given their lives and health to keep this nation safe...

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Domestic Workers Unite Nationally, Globally

Posted on May 30, 2010
Not covered by U.S. labor laws?and until 1974, denied even minimum wage protection?domestic workers are among the most vulnerable. But in recent years, they, like other workers, have found innovative ways to organize, mobilize and spread their message...

Tens of Thousands Protest Arizona?s Immigrant Law

Posted on May 29, 2010
Tens of thousands of people of conscience from across the nation converged on the Arizona state capitol today in Phoenix for a national day of action against that state’s infamous anti-immigrant law, also known as S.B. 1070. Chanting “Stop Racism in Arizona,” protestors marched five miles in the hot desert sun to the capitol in one of the largest demonstrations yet against this law...

House Passes Watered-Down Jobs Bill, Too Late to Help Jobless

Posted on May 28, 2010
By 215-204, the U.S. House today passed a watered-down version of H.R. 4213, “The Promoting American Jobs, Closing Tax Loopholes and Preventing Outsourcing Act of 2010.” The bill extends unemployment insurance (UI) for six months. But the Senate, now on vacation, will not even consider the bill until the week of June 7, a week after UI expires for millions of jobless workers...

ILWU Vows to Fight Police Takeover of Costa Rican Longshore Union

Posted on May 28, 2010
    Police at the SINTRAJAP union hall stand below a sign that says the port funds are for everyone, and the workers won?t give that up.         Jennifer Sargent, Coast communications director at the ILWU, sends us the latest on the struggles by longshore workers in Costa Rica...

The Assault on Public Employees

Posted on May 28, 2010
      In this cross-post from the Huffington Post and Seminal, AFSCME President Gerald McEntee writes that attacks focusing on public employees are misdirected: the real culprits for the nation’s economic mess are Big Banks and Wall Street...

Emergency Transit Funding Protects Riders and Workers

Posted on May 28, 2010
    TWU President James Little addresses thousands of transportation union members at a Capitol Hill rally.         Unless the U.S. Senate passes emergency funding introduced in legislation (S. 3412) this week, working families who count on public transportation systems in communities across the country will face even more severe fare increases and service cuts and transit workers are looking at further layoffs...

Electric Car Maker Buys NUMMI Plant, Former Workers ?Should Be Hired First?

Posted on May 28, 2010
When electrical car maker Tesla Motors begins ramping up operations in the now-shuttered New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) plant in Freemont, Calif., the company should hire the workers “who give it the best chance for success,” says UAW Region 5 Director Jim Wells...

Assassinations of Unionists in Colombia Unabated

Posted on May 28, 2010
      Jeff Vogt, an AFL-CIO global economic policy specialist, reminds us that Colombian trade unionists continue to pay with their lives in their struggles for justice on the job. The Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Colombia( CUT) has reported the assassination of Francisco Antonio Abello Rebollo...

Jobs Bill Stuck in House, Economists Say UI Is Key to Rebooting Economy

Posted on May 27, 2010
The U.S. House decided not to vote on the jobs bill today?and that’s really bad news for America’s jobless workers, especially the millions of long-term unemployed. They desperately need the jobs bill because it extends unemployment insurance (UI) for those who have been without a job for 26 weeks or longer...

Lexington Institute Finds Tanker Bidder EADS Breaks Trading Rules

Posted on May 27, 2010
      If the U.S. Defense Department awards its $35 billion air tanker contract to European-based EADS over U.S-owned Boeing, it would reward a company that breaks international trading rules, says Loren Thompson of the nonpartisan Lexington Institute...

Unions, Shippers Demand Action to End Somali Piracy: Sign the Petition

Posted on May 27, 2010
    Discovery Channel re-enactment shows pirate takeover of the Maersk Alabama.       A coalition of international unions, shipping associations, insurers and other maritime groups are demanding “concrete action” to end the increasingly violent and brazen Somali piracy “that is putting lives at risk and threatening world trade...

Progressives Set for America?s Future Now Conference, June 7?9

Posted on May 27, 2010
      More than a year into the Obama administration and with November elections just ahead, progressive activists will gather June 7?9 in Washington, D.C., to forge a strategy to build a majority for real change in America. The America’s Future Now conference, sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future (CAF), traditionally is the largest gathering of progressives in the country...

Lost Gen?

Posted on May 27, 2010
      Did the so-called Great Recession create a lost generation of workers? In this short video clip from the May 26-27, 2010, forum of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka points out how lawmakers should not back off now on creating jobs?because nations’ economies still are at risk of deeper economic troubles...

Wall Street Propaganda: Blame Social Security

Posted on May 26, 2010
The President’s Fiscal Commission is holding its second pubic meeting today and when commission members say “everything is in the table,” the biggest things they are talking about are Social Security and Medicare. The commission was created by an Executive Order from President Obama in February after a move to create a commission with much broader powers failed in the Senate...

Klein, Cohn, Cobble Win Major Journalism Prizes

Posted on May 26, 2010
    Ezra Klein         Dorothy Sue Cobble         Jonathan Cohn     A newspaper reporting team for Bloomberg News, two Washington, D.C., bloggers and a labor historian are among the winners of the 2010 Sidney Hillman Foundation Journalism Awards...

Working Class Anger: Tip to the Right or Left?

Posted on May 26, 2010
      The angry working class?the good folks between the two coasts who live in what elitist pundits dub as ”Fly-Over Land”?are certainly getting a lot of TV face time, dead tree ink and blogosphere attention. Most of the conventional wisdom paints them as part of a populist uprising, angry at the economy, distrustful of the government and, if not members of the ”Tea Party,” firmly planted on the right side of the political spectrum...

Jobs Bill = 1 Million Jobs. Tell Congress, Pass It Now!

Posted on May 26, 2010
      While the U.S. House is still hammering out a timetable for a vote on the Promoting American Jobs, Closing Tax Loopholes and Preventing Outsourcing Act of 2010 (H.R. 4213), lawmakers might move a little faster if they take a look at the latest report on the jobs bill...

New Brochure on Health Care Reform and Medicare Available

Posted on May 25, 2010
Seniors around the country who count on Medicare for their health coverage and have questions about how the new health care reform law impacts their coverage can find many of those answers in a new brochure that will be in their mailboxes soon or by downloading a copy here...

Work. Family. Conflict. Resolution?

Posted on May 25, 2010
The realities of our workplaces have not changed to meet the new realities of our economy and society, says AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker. Employers and political leaders must create new policies that help working families deal with their basic needs of feeding their families, caring for their elderly parents, paying the mortgage...

Mott?s Workers Strike Applesauce Plant

Posted on May 25, 2010
      Workers at Mott’s upstate New York applesauce plant launched an unfair labor practice strike against the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group (DPS) subsidiary Sunday after earlier rejecting a concessions-laden contract from the food and drink conglomerate, which, last year, made a $550 million profit...

Jobs Bill Vote Nears, Call Now!

Posted on May 25, 2010
      Word from Capitol Hill is that tomorrow is the day lawmakers will get a chance to prove they are for creating jobs by voting for the Promoting American Jobs, Closing Tax Loopholes and Preventing Outsourcing Act of 2010 (H.R. 4213). We still have time to build support for the bill...

California Fines Carwashes $700,000

Posted on May 25, 2010
      Chloe Osmer of the Community-Labor-Environmental Action Network (CLEAN) Carwash Campaign reports on a series of enforcement actions last week by California’s Labor Commissioner Angela Bradstreet at more than 200 carwash operations in the state...

NBC Must See TV Workers? Right to Fair Contract

Posted on May 24, 2010
    The fall line-up on NBC’s “Must See TV” could end up featuring keyboard playing cats, video fishbowls and turtles doing things you’d rather not see turtles do, if the network doesn’t reach a contract agreement with its 3,000 technicians and news writers...

Tell Congress: Vote for Jobs Now!

Posted on May 24, 2010
      If members of the U.S. House of Representatives support creating jobs and putting Americans back to work, as they so often claim, they’ll vote this week for a bill that creates jobs and makes Wall Street pay, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka...

35,000 Rally Against New Jersey Budget Cuts

Posted on May 24, 2010
       More than 35,000 people?including workers from dozens of unions and activists from more than 100 community groups?last Saturday told New Jersey’s Republican Gov. Chris Christie that he cannot balance the state’s budget on the backs of the middle class...

Labor History Month All Year Round

Posted on May 24, 2010
The month may be nearly over but union leaders, students, teachers and activists are taking advantage of new resources to keep telling our story and building our future beyond May, which is officially Labor History Month. The American Labor Studies Center, www...

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