Labor & Employment Law

Join Us Today for the K Street Showdown

Posted on May 17, 2010
      Congress is poised to vote on Wall Street reform?the most important to our financial system in decades. We are taking our message “Good Jobs Now! Make Wall Street Pay” to K Street, the power corridor in Washington, D.C., where Big Bank lobbyists plot to kill real financial reform and peddle corporate influence on Capitol Hill...

Activists Brave Rain, Tell K Street Lobbyists: ?We?re the Face of Democracy?

Posted on May 17, 2010
      Under a sea of bobbing umbrellas, some 2,000 union and community activists?clad in a colorful array of T-shirts covered by rain ponchos, many improvised with trash bags?showed K Street lobbyists and Wall Street’s Big Banks “the face of democracy” today in Washington, D...

We?ll be at the Massey Shareholder Meeting Tomorrow?Join Us Live on Twitter

Posted on May 17, 2010
We’re heading to Massey Energy Co.’s shareholder meeting tomorrow morning to protest the company’s shameful safety record and demand that CEO Donald Blankenship be held accountable and the three board members up for re-election be ousted...

D.C. Teachers Can Vote on Pact After Long Delay?and More Bargaining News

Posted on May 17, 2010
Some 4,000 Washington, D.C., teachers finally get to vote on the contract reached weeks ago, 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...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Live! K Street Showdown!

Posted on May 17, 2010
    We are live tweeting the showdown on K Street. As Congress considers Wall Street reform, thousands of working families will march in the rain to take our message “Good Jobs Now! Make Wall Street Pay” to K Street, the power corridor in Washington, D...

Fired Central Falls Teachers Keep Jobs in New Agreement

Posted on May 17, 2010
Teachers at Central Falls (R.I.) High School will keep their jobs under a new tentative agreement with the school system. The teachers will vote today on the new pact. Under the agreement, which was reached Saturday, the school system will implement a plan to turn around Central Falls High School for the 2010-2011 school year in a way that involves all stakeholders?administrators, teachers, students and parents?to create a pathway toward excellence for everyone at the school...

Sing a Union Song, Win $2,000

Posted on May 16, 2010
      If you’re a union member with a passion for music and the labor movement, and have a little Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Joe Glazer or Billy Bragg running through your veins, check out the Union Plus Union Song Contest. The just-launched contest is looking for union-themed songs?you can write about your union, the labor movement or your Union Plus benefits...

Former Baltimore Sun Employees Find Voice Online

Posted on May 15, 2010
    John McIntyre bids farewell to his colleagues in the Baltimore Sun newsroom.         A new website gives voice to the more than 60 Baltimore Sun writers and staff who were laid off in massive cuts during the spring of 2009. At Telling Our Stories: The Days of the Baltimore Sun, launched May 12, the former Sun employees share their stories and bittersweet memories...

Solidarity Results in Tentative Pact for Rio Tinto Miners

Posted on May 14, 2010
The combination of worker solidarity and the strong support of their neighbors helped workers at Rio Tinto’s borax mine in Borax, Calif., take on one of the world’s largest mining companies. Today, they won a tentative agreement on a new six-year contract that protects their jobs, calls for raises and maintains protections against discrimination and favoritism...

Health Industry: Shameless Profit-Making at Consumer Expense

Posted on May 14, 2010
While the country debated health care reform in the first quarter of 2010, the nation’s five biggest insurance companies saw their profits soar, raised consumers’ premiums, offered fewer benefits and lost 2.8 million customers, mostly because consumers could no longer afford their plans, according to a new report from Health Care for America Now (HCAN)...

Westin Workers Gain Nationwide Support

Posted on May 14, 2010
Rhode Island state Rep. David Segal yesterday delivered petitions with 3,600 signatures from around the country to management at the Westin Providence in support of the 200 workers there who got the shaft during contract negotiations. The petitions urged the hotel to negotiate a fair contract with the workers, members of UNITEHERE! Local 217...

Mine Workers to Lead Prayers, Protest at Massey Shareholder Meeting

Posted on May 14, 2010
Members of the Mine Workers (UMWA) and other union members and activists will march and rally in Richmond, Va., Tuesday, May 18, at Massey Energy Co.’s annual shareholder meeting to protest the company’s shameful safety record and demand that CEO Donald Blankenship be held accountable...

AFL-CIO: Federal Government Must Cut Ties with Arizona Law Enforcement

Posted on May 14, 2010
      The AFL-CIO and the nation’s largest civil rights coalition issued a strongly worded call for the Obama administration to sever its ties with law enforcement officials in Arizona or be complicit in the state’s racial-profiling anti-immigrant law, also known as S...

In Pa. 12th District, Critz Backs Keeping Jobs At Home

Posted on May 14, 2010
      Democrat Mark Critz is the only candidate in the May 18 special election in Pennsylvania’s 12th congressional district who believes it’s time to stop tax breaks for companies that move overseas and give them to companies that create jobs here in America...

Women Taking on Arizona?s Anti-Immigrant Law

Posted on May 13, 2010
    Immigrants marched in Phoenix this past weekend to protest the state’s new anti-immigrant law.         Arizona’s new anti-immigrant law has “paved the way for assaults on the basic human rights of women and created an environment in which violence against women and children has been state-sanctioned...

1,000 Nurses Rally for Safe Staffing

Posted on May 13, 2010
    Members of National Nurses United rallied on Capitol Hill yesterday for safer patient care.         Some 1,000 registered nurses from around the country rallied on Capitol Hill yesterday to show their strong support for legislation to establish minimum nurse-to-patient ratios for all hospitals in the country...

Telecom, Satellite TV Workers, Police Officers and More Join AFL-CIO Unions

Posted on May 13, 2010
Telecommunications workers, satellite television installers, police officers and freight handlers are among the latest workers to win a voice at work with AFL-CIO unions. In Indiana and Michigan, 315 AT&T Mobility workers joined the Communications Workers (CWA)...

Join Us at the K Street Showdown May 17

Posted on May 13, 2010
      We’re getting set for the Showdown on K Street, the Washington, D.C., power corridor where Big Bank and corporate lobbyists scheme and scam to kill Wall Street reform and peddle corporate influence on Capitol Hill. On May 17, at 11:45 a...

Halter: Vote Pits Working Families Against Lincoln?s Corporate Campaign Cash

Posted on May 12, 2010
Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter (D) says the state’s working family voters can send a message to Washington when they go to the polls May 18 to choose between Halter or Sen. Blanche Lincoln in  the Democratic U.S. Senate primary. That message: “It’s time for people in the Democratic primary to stand up and support progressive Democrats, and not to support those folks who are coming in with the biggest campaign contribution from a PAC...

Global Union Leaders: Open Trans-Pacific Trade Talks

Posted on May 12, 2010
Trade union leaders of nations involved in talks to create the latest international trade deal?the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement (TPPTA)?are calling for the negotiations to be inclusive and open, not conducted behind closed doors with a few corporate players, as too many other deals have been...

America?s Future Now Conference June 7-9

Posted on May 12, 2010
  Join progressive activists next month at the America’s Future Now Conference to help forge a battle plan that takes on corporate power brokers, Wall Street banks and obstructionist Republicans and moves the economy into a job-creating mode...

Sign Up Now for Union Plus Webinar: ?New Reality of Credit?

Posted on May 12, 2010
      The Credit CARD Act, which went into effect in February 2010, provides important new consumer protections. But many consumers still are facing credit challenges. Union Plus is sponsoring a free online seminar by consumer credit educator Gerri Detweiler to help you navigate the new reality of credit...

Miners? Families, UMWA Sue to Open Investigation

Posted on May 11, 2010
The Mine Workers (UMWA) union and families of victims killed in the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster filed suit in federal court to open to the public interviews of safety officials and others now being conducted behind closed doors by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA)...

?Show Us the Tax Breaks? Debuts in Washington

Posted on May 11, 2010
      We’ve all seen big corporations dangle the promise of jobs and economic nirvana over the heads of competing local and state governments, demanding they roll over and offer up big tax breaks, subsidies and other “incentives.” Whoever offers the best corporate welfare, wins the corporate “treat...

U.S. Companies Talk Family Values, But Deny Benefits

Posted on May 11, 2010
    Fewer U.S. families have time for family dinners as workers put in longer hours on the job.         While the United States claims to support family values, the reality is that the American workplace is not family-friendly. The challenge is to move from the best practices of a few companies to decent working conditions for all, says author and scholar Jody Heymann...

Going Gaga Over Workers? Rights

Posted on May 11, 2010
      Lady Gaga recently made an unexpected appearance at the Westin Saint Francis hotel in San Francisco?in the form of a flash mob singing a pro-worker version of lyrics to her “Bad Romance.” Replete with tuba, trombone, snare drum and a couple dozen dancing activists, the group materialized in the hotel’s lobby to denounce the chain’s poor treatment of its employees and urge people to “Boycott, boycott,” this “bad, bad hotel...

1,000 Nurses to Rally, Lobby for Safer Patient Care on Capitol Hill

Posted on May 11, 2010
       Nearly 1,000 members of National Nurses United (NNU) are in Washington, D.C., today and tomorrow, where they are meeting with their lawmakers in support of legislation that combats the nursing shortage and makes patient care safer. They are calling for a more ambitious overhaul of the nation’s health care system...

2010 Census: Be Counted

Posted on May 10, 2010
       The 2010 U.S. Census is easy, quick and only 10 questions. Yet a lot is at stake for all of us. The final count will determine many important issues in our communities, including the location and number of congressional seats in each state and federal and state aid for vital services in our schools, senior centers and critical infrastructure projects...

More Regulation the Solution, Not the Problem

Posted on May 10, 2010
The governors of the Gulf Coast states, all Republicans, asked the federal government for help dealing with the BP oil spill?yeah, the government, the very organization that their hero and mentor Ronald Reagan described as “the problem,” not the solution...

For Air, Rail Workers, NMB Rule Means ?Democracy Won Today?

Posted on May 10, 2010
A new rule issued this morning by the National Mediation Board (NMB) means airline and rail workers will now be able to choose whether to join a union under rules that are more fair and more in line with democratic principles. For decades, the deck has been stacked against workers covered under the Rail Labor Act (RLA) because every worker who did not cast a vote in a representation election was automatically counted as a “No” vote...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.