Labor & Employment Law

AFGE Files for TSA Election; Rally for Workers? Rights Set for Tomorrow

Posted on February 22, 2010
      The 41,000 transportation security officers (TSO) at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are a step closer to winning the collective bargaining rights they have been denied since 2003. Today, AFGE filed a petition with the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) for an election to allow the TSOs to vote on union representation...

Obama Releases Revised Health Care Reform Blueprint

Posted on February 22, 2010
      President Obama this morning released his version of health care reform legislation that combines elements of the Senate and House bills passed late last year. The new plan was unveiled in preparation for Thursday’s televised bipartisan White House health care summit...

Fast-Acting IUPAT Member Rescues Five from IRS Plane Crash Attack

Posted on February 22, 2010
      Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) member Robin De Haven is being hailed as hero for his role in rescuing five people from the blazing Austin, Texas, building where a man with a vendetta against the Internal Revenue Service crashed his fuel-laden plane Thursday...

AFTRA to Honor Five for Excellence

Posted on February 21, 2010
    Robin Roberts         Robin Roberts, co-host of ABC-TV’s “Good Morning America,” is one of five leading figures in entertainment and media who will be honored Monday by their peers in the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA)...

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Tell Whirlpool: ?Keep It Made In America?Save Our Jobs?

Posted on February 20, 2010
      The Whirlpool Corp. makes a big deal of its concern for the environment and the poor. But now, the company is about to throw 1,100 workers at its Evansville, Ind., refrigerator plant onto the streets and move their jobs to Mexico, where labor and environmental laws are weaker...

HHS Report Slams Insurers Premium Hikes While Pocketing Record Profits

Posted on February 19, 2010
      Profits for the nation’s 10 largest health insurance companies increased 250 percent between 2000 and 2009?10 times faster than inflation?but that hasn’t stopped the private insurance industry from trying to reach even deeper into consumers’ pocketbooks with huge premium increases...

World Day of Social Justice, Feb. 20

Posted on February 19, 2010
The global union movement will mark Feb. 20 as the World Day of Social Justice by calling for a new economic model that emphasizes jobs, not profits. The current system of globalization has created the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression...

Trumka: Creating Jobs Is Best Way to Fix Deficit

Posted on February 19, 2010
The best way to reduce the growing federal deficit is to create 10 million jobs now?the number of jobs needed to close our jobs deficit?not to cut vital programs such as Social Security and Medicare, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said. President Obama yesterday signed an executive order creating an 18-member National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform to propose ways to reduce the growing national debt...

Miami-Dade County Commissioners Pass Historic Wage Theft Ordinance

Posted on February 19, 2010
    Miami workers told a press conference in December about wage theft in the county.         With more than 100 supporters in the audience, the Miami-Dade County (Fla.) Board of County Commissioners yesterday approved the first countywide wage theft ordinance in the country...

Most Workers Hurt by Tax on Health Benefits Are Not in Unions

Posted on February 18, 2010
A new study shows that a proposed tax on workers’ health care benefits goes far beyond union workers’ plans. In fact, at least 80 percent of the workers hit by the tax would be nonunion. The study by the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education looked at both the excise tax on so-called Cadillac plans in the Senate health care bill and the revised version reached Jan...

One Year Later, the Recovery Act Is Working

Posted on February 17, 2010
If there’s one thing Americans agree on, it’s that we need more jobs now. That reality is often twisted by conservatives, who say the one-year-old economic recovery plan has failed. But they are just wrong.  The AFL-CIO is pushing for much greater investment to create the millions more jobs we need to get us out of our current hole...

Sweatshop Report Throws Personal Foul Flag on NFL Jersey Maker

Posted on February 17, 2010
    Chi Fung worker’s home         Some of the fancy replica jerseys bearing the names of NFL stars like Peyton Manning, which fetch upwards of $80 each in U.S. sporting goods stores, were sewn by workers in El Salvador who made about 10 cents for each jersey, according to a new report by the National Labor Committee (NLC)...

Union Leaders Praise Obama?s Support for Nuclear Plant

Posted on February 17, 2010
Union leaders praised President Obama’s announcement yesterday of federal loan guarantees for the construction of two advanced reactors at the Plant Vogtle nuclear power station in Georgia. They said it is a major step forward in addressing the nation’s energy needs as well as creating badly needed jobs...

AFSCME Teaches Students Organizing Skills

Posted on February 17, 2010
    Eight college students and recent graduates are the latest participants in AFSCME?s Alternative Union Break.         Eight college students and recent graduates traveled to Delaware last month for training to become union organizers...

Lack of Paid Sick Leave Sped Swine Flu Spread

Posted on February 16, 2010
In 2009, nearly 26 million workers were likely infected with the H1N1 (swine flu) virus. The spread of the virus may have been aided by lack of paid sick leave, which prompted more than 8 million of those workers to take no time off from work, according to a new study...

Solidarity Center?s Union-to-Union Relief Effort Helps Haitian Workers

Posted on February 16, 2010
    Dominican union truck drivers carry supplies to Haitian workers in Port-au-Prince.         In the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center acted quickly to send needed supplies and support to its Haitian partners through a union-to-union effort that provides short-term emergency aid and builds toward long-term reconstruction and strengthening of Haiti’s union movement...

Arkansas Workers: We Need Jobs Now

Posted on February 16, 2010
       Workers across the country are sending a strong message to state and national political leaders that jobs are priority No. 1. Yesterday, activists in Arkansas told a press conference at the state capitol in Little Rock that drastic cuts in state services could come unless Congress approves a jobs bill that gives aid to cash-strapped state and local governments...

Restaurant Industry Serves Up too Many ?Low Road Jobs?

Posted on February 15, 2010
With 13 million workers, the U.S. restaurant industry is the nation’s largest private employer. But far too many restaurants provide “low road” jobs with low wages, hazardous working conditions, long hours and few benefits.  A new report by Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC), an advocate group for restaurant workers, reveals that up to 90 percent of restaurant staff is not offered health insurance or sick days and, as a result, many report to work sick...

Celebrate Valentine?s Day by Remembering Colombian Flower Workers

Posted on February 14, 2010
Take a minute this Valentine’s Day to send a gift to the women who cut and trimmed the flowers you give to your loved one. Six days a week, thousands of workers at flower plantations in Colombia cut and trim at least 350 flowers an hour. In the weeks before holidays like Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day, the work extends deep into the night?all for about $8...

Let Union Plus Double Your Donation to Haitian Earthquake Relief

Posted on February 13, 2010
Rebuilding Haiti and restoring any semblance of normal life for Haitian workers and their families devastated by the earthquake is a long-term effort. If you haven’t yet had a chance to help, or wish to donate again to relief efforts, Union Plus will double the good your dollars will do...

Oakland Rally Backs Bargaining Rights for Transportation Workers

Posted on February 12, 2010
Steve Stallone, International Labor Communications Association (ILCA) president and secretary/treasurer of the California Media Workers Guild, joined activists rallying today at Oakland’s airport. Some 100 labor activists and supporters stirred up the normal bustle of Oakland International Airport on a Friday before a three-day weekend, rallying in support of Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) who work there and at airports around the country...

Trumka: No Deal on NLRB Nominees

Posted on February 12, 2010
President Obama must act immediately to restore the ability of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to protect the rights of American workers by giving recess appointments to two nominees who are being blocked by Senate Republican obstructionists, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said today...

AFL-CIO: Mexican Court Ruling Eliminates Right to Strike

Posted on February 12, 2010
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka today condemned the Feb. 11 decision by a Mexican appeals court to allow the Grupo Mexico mining company to fire 1,200 striking workers, members of the National Union of Mine and Metalworkers (SNTMMSRM), at its Cananea copper mine...

Black History Month Challenge: A Youth-Led Jobs Revolution

Posted on February 12, 2010
By Leo W. Gerard and Fred Redmond On Feb. 1, 1960, when four African American college students sat down at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., they ignited a youth-led movement to challenge racial segregation and injustice in the South.  The freshmen refused to stand and eat at the F...

No Republicans Whined When Bush Made 171 Recess Appointments

Posted on February 12, 2010
Earlier this week, Republicans proved the lesson we all learned in school, “the majority rules,” doesn’t apply to the U.S. Senate. With every single Republican vote and two from defecting Democrats (see below), Republicans sustained a filibuster against Craig Becker’s nomination to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)...

Schwarzenegger?s Jobs Record ?As Bad as His B Movies?

Posted on February 12, 2010
       California Labor Federation Communications Director Steve Smith joined a rally in Sacramento, where more than 700 demanded job creation for the state’s hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers. Hundreds of workers rallied at the California state Capitol on Thursday with a clear message to legislators in both Sacramento and Washington, D...

Wanted: Jobs for 25.5 Million Americans

Posted on February 12, 2010
There’s a lot more that’s frozen in D.C. this week than the usual fallout from a blizzard. The brains of many Senate Republicans are on ice as well. The House passed a jobs bill in December, but the Senate is dawdling, and worse?threatening to pass bits and pieces, taking apart what should be a comprehensive approach to jobs and turning it into minced cabbage...

Record Profits Don?t Stop Health Insurer?s Record Rate Hikes

Posted on February 11, 2010
There's a theory that trends happen first in California before spreading to the rest of the nation. If that's true in health insurance, we're all in deep trouble. Last week, Anthem Blue Cross--whose parent company WellPoint posted a record $4.7 billion profit in 2009--announced it was gouging even more money from its 800,000 California customers by raising premiums as much as 39 percent...

Combatting HIV/AIDS in Africa: Worksite Education and Testing

Posted on February 11, 2010
In this cross-post from Huffington Post, Bernard Pollack, who is taking a leave of absence from the AFL-CIO to travel through Africa, and Danielle Nierenberg describe how the Solidarity Center in South Africa is training and educating workers on HIV/AIDS protection...

ILCA Labor Media Contest Open

Posted on February 11, 2010
The annual Labor Media Contest sponsored by the International Labor Communications Association (ILCA) is now open for submissions. If there’s reporting you’re particularly proud of from 2009–whether you uncovered new facts in an investigative piece, or made an awesome campaign video, or painted an especially exquisite portrait of a worker in words or images–submit it to the contest...

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