Labor & Employment Law

Five SAG Lifetime Achievement Winners Featured in Film Marathon

Posted on December 24, 2009
    Ruby Dee and Sidney Poitier starred in the 1961 movie “A Raisin in The Sun.”         One night before the Screen Actors (SAG) honor Hollywood’s finest performers, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will pay tribute to five actors who won SAG’ s highest honor: the Life Achievement Award...

Senate Passes Health Care Bill

Posted on December 24, 2009
      The Senate passed health care reform by a 60-39 margin shortly after 7 a.m. today. While passage of this legislation continues the momentum for health care reform, the Senate bill itself doesn’t live up to the kind of reform we need...

New Report : Employers ?Gaming? Guest Worker Programs

Posted on December 23, 2009
      Alexis Spencer Notabartolo, researcher for the AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees (DPE), writes about a new report, which calls for reform of the nation’s H-1B guest worker program. The introduction of major comprehensive immigration reform legislation last week has rekindled the debate over our nation’s immigration policy...

Lie of the Year: ?Death Panel? Attack on Health Care Reform

Posted on December 23, 2009
This year, opponents of health care reform hit new lows in promoting misleading, inaccurate or flat-out dishonest information. The worst of these lies was the scam that health care reform would create “death panels” whose members would judge whether to end seniors’ lives...

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Labor History Now Part of Wisconsin Public Education Standards

Posted on December 23, 2009
In this cross-post from the International Labor Communications Association (ILCA), Dick Meister, a San Francisco-based columnist, highlights the successful effort of Wisconsin unionists to make labor history part of the state’s model public education standards and highlights the need for action to ensure similar laws are passed elsewhere...

Copenhagen?s Legacy: Future in the Balance

Posted on December 23, 2009
Roger Toussaint, international vice president and director of strategic planning of the Transport Workers Union (TWU), sent us a final report from the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, where 40 U.S. union members were part of a 400-member global union movement delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)...

Union Members Join in Solidarity with Transportation Security Officers

Posted on December 22, 2009
At 23 major airports across the country, transportation security officers (TSOs) and union members working in the airline industry and airports held rallies and showed their support last week for TSO bargaining rights, which these employees have been denied since 2001...

L.A. Drivers: Carwash Workers May Live on Tips

Posted on December 22, 2009
Drivers in Los Angeles are getting the message: Carwash workers often are being exploited by their employers. As KCET-TV reported in recent days: “The next time you visit a carwash, think twice about how much you tip the person who wipes down your vehicle...

AFTRA Members Making Opportunities in Changing Media

Posted on December 22, 2009
    AFTRA President Roberta Reardon         The old landscape of daytime entertainment is changing. The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), which represents daytime performers, is stretching out to make sure there are jobs in the new emerging media...

Stanford: Don?t Believe the Spin on Unions in Canada

Posted on December 22, 2009
      In a new column in the Globe and Mail, economist Jim Stanford looks at the way Big Business lobbyists use myths about Canada to block policy changes in the United States.  While much of this disinformation is aimed at health care reform, Stanford notes, corporate front groups and pundits also are using the same tactics to oppose the Employee Free Choice Act...

The Gift America Needs Most: Manufacturing

Posted on December 22, 2009
In Columbus, Ohio, a 5-year-old girl jumped onto Santa’s lap last month and asked if he could give her dad a job as an elf.  Mike Smith, who works the Santa station at the Polaris Fashion Place in Columbus, asked why, the Wall Street Journal reported...

Chamber the Bah-Humbuggiest in JwJ?s Scrooge of the Year

Posted on December 22, 2009
Do you hear chains rattling? That’s the ghost of Christmas Past tracking down the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber is the 2009 winner of the annual contest by Jobs with Justice (JwJ) to spotlight the greediest, most cold-hearted organization or person that personifies the spirit of Ebenezer Scrooge...

Unemployment Insurance Extended, But States Face UI Disaster

Posted on December 22, 2009
In the “good news, bad news” category: President Obama on Saturday signed an extension of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits that were set to expire Dec. 31. The two-month extension of the emergency UI also extends health insurance subsidies so that individuals now have 15 months to pay the reduced premiums related to the COBRA extension...

Combating HIV/AIDS in Africa: Soccer Instead of Unsafe Sex

Posted on December 22, 2009
In this cross-post from Huffington Post, Bernard Pollock, who is taking a leave of absence from the AFL-CIO to travel through Africa, and Danielle Nierenberg report on the transport union’s HIV/AIDS prevention centers in Uganda and Rwanda. About 20 men sat on chairs at the HIV/AIDS Resource Center in Katuna, Uganda, intently watching a match between Manchester United and Chelsea on a small television...

Working More, Getting Paid Less

Posted on December 21, 2009
Productivity rose 8.1 percent in the third quarter, the largest gain since 2003, as employers pile more on their staff. Meanwhile, pay is stagnating and worker stress increasing because of the larger workloads and the constant fear of being thrown out of a job to join the more than 15 million workers officially unemployed...

AFSCME Report Recommends Best Practices for Public Pension Plans

Posted on December 21, 2009
      A new report by AFSCME outlines best practices and makes recommendations on improving the governance of the nation’s public pension plans. AFSCME’s 1.6 million active and retired members participate in more than 150 public pension systems with assets totaling more than $1 trillion...

Two Union Voices Challenge Climate Change Summit

Posted on December 20, 2009
Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council and co-chair of the AFL-CIO Energy Task Force, sent us this report from the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, where 40 U.S. union members were part of a 400-member global union movement delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)...

?As the World Turns? Ending Its 54-Year Run

Posted on December 20, 2009
    Maura West and Michael Park star in the daytime drama “As The World Turns.”         For more than 50 years, millions of fans have followed the lives of the residents of the fictional town of Oakdale, Ill., on the CBS soap opera “As The World Turns...

Utility Workers Speak Out in Copenhagen

Posted on December 19, 2009
    Participating in a Blue Green Alliance panel in Copenhagen were, from left, Carl Pope of the Sierra Club, Amalgamated Transit Union Executive Vice President Ronald Heintzman, UWUA President Mike Langford, Blue Green Alliance Executive Director Dave Foster, Frances Beinecke of the Natural Resources Defense Council and AFT Vice President Dick Iannuzzi...

In Climate Change Talks, Decisions Frozen on Key Issues

Posted on December 18, 2009
Lauren Aspen of IUE-CWA sends us this report from the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, where 40 U.S. union members are part of a 400-member global union movement delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). Read our previous blogs on the climate change talks here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here...

Union Leaders Tell President?s Economic Advisory Board: Worker Training Key to Job Creation

Posted on December 18, 2009
    Steven Horsford         Daniel Marschall, AFL-CIO Legislative and Policy Specialist for Workforce Issues, reports on union participation in this week’s meeting of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Unionists from manufacturing, high technology and services industries this week urged the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB) to integrate innovative education reforms and best practices in worker training into the Obama administration’s approach to creating jobs and recovering from the recession...

Confusion and Anxiety Over Climate Change Negotiations

Posted on December 18, 2009
Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council and co-chair of the AFL-CIO Energy Task Force, sends us this report from the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, where 40 U.S. union members are part of a 400-member global union movement delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)...

Seattle Workers Rally to Support TSO Union

Posted on December 18, 2009
    Port of Seattle Commissioner-elect Rob Holland expresses his support for Sea-Tac Airport TSO’s effort to form a union with AFGE.         Dozens of union members, elected officials and community supporters gathered at Seattle-Tacoma (Sea-Tac) Airport this week in solidarity with tens of thousands of transportation security officers (TSOs) who want to form a union with AFGE...

Learning and Doing in Copenhagen

Posted on December 18, 2009
Barbara Byrd, secretary-treasurer of the Oregon AFL-CIO and co-chair of the Oregon Apollo Alliance, is taking part in climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, where 40 U.S. union members are part of a 400-member global union movement delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)...

New Materials Tell Story of H-1B Visa Program

Posted on December 18, 2009
The nation’s guest worker system is flawed and needs to be reformed. But sometimes, it’s hard to find hard information about the extent of the program. The AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees (DPE) has obtained copies of previously unavailable U...

International Migrants Day: Protecting Workers? Rights

Posted on December 18, 2009
    Unemployed migrant workers often lose their residence permits and end up in dire straits.         Migrant workers are the first to suffer as a result of the global economic crisis because they work in some of the most dangerous and unprotected jobs...

Traffic Controllers Take the Stress Out of Holiday Travel

Posted on December 18, 2009
Want to know the best times to travel to avoid delays during the holidays? Who better to ask than the nation’s air traffic controllers? In order to make holiday air travel less stressful, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) has set up a website, http://www...

Peggy Shorey Named Pride At Work?s Executive Director

Posted on December 17, 2009
    Peggy Shorey         Pride At Work (P@W), the AFL-CIO’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) constituency group, has selected longtime activist Peggy Shorey as its new executive director. Shorey has been an organizer and community leader in Connecticut for the past 17 years...

House Passes Jobs Bill?Tell Senate to Act NOW

Posted on December 17, 2009
      Last night, the U.S. House passed a critical bill to assist our struggling economy and create jobs. By a 217-212 vote, the House passed a package that would extend unemployment insurance, aid state governments and fund important infrastructure projects...

It?s a Small World: Disney and the H1N1 Virus

Posted on December 17, 2009
      For workers at Disney in Anaheim, Calif., getting sick?even with the H1N1 (swine flu) virus?means an awful choice: Stay home and risk being disciplined or go to work and spreading the illness to co-workers and the public. Millions of hospitality industry workers in this country have no paid sick leave?like the more than 1,500 workers at Disney?and worse, actually could lose their jobs for staying home to get well...

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