Labor & Employment Law

Nationwide Worksite Actions Kick Off Labor 2010

By Mike Hall

In California, union workers are learning about Republican U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina’s support of shipping jobs overseas, or as she calls it, ?right shoring.? In Illinois, the word is going out about Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady?s opposition to boosting the state?s minimum wage.

In those and 21 other states today, union members at worksites across the nation are kicking off a nationwide grassroots campaign with a call for creating good American jobs now and backing the candidates that support them.

The worksite actions, which run through July 25, are the first wave of the AFL-CIO?s Labor 2010 mobilization. Says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:

If politicians want the support of working families in November they need to create good jobs here in America now. People aren?t interested in campaign slogans or promises, they want results.

Union members will distribute fliers at worksites and talk with their union brothers and sisters about candidates for national state and local offices and their stances on jobs and the economy. Among those candidates, Tom Corbett, Pennsylvania Republican candidate for governor, parroted the ?lazy? jobless worker myth spread by some Republican politicians and candidates.

In a radio interview over the weekend, Corbett suggested that some Pennsylvanians would prefer to continue collecting unemployment insurance (UI) to getting a job and that extending UI (blocked four times in the U.S. Senate this year by Republicans) is a disincentive to return to work.

The jobs are there. But if we keep extending unemployment, people are just going to sit there.

What world does he live in?

Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Richard Bloomingdale says that Corbett must be completely out of touch with the economy and the plight of jobless workers, who, he says,

would rather be working, feeding their families and paying the mortgage than living with the uncertainty of not having a job, earning less than half their wages and going without health care and pensions….Unemployed workers are looking for work every day. The problem is that for every job opening there are many unemployed workers.

Trumka says the message workers want candidates to hear from now until Election Day is that they need to  be on our side when it comes to creating jobs in America, holding Wall Street and Big Business accountable and ending unfair trade practices.

If politicians are fighting for working families then we will work our hearts out for them. If they aren?t delivering and think they can take our support for granted, then they may be awfully lonely come November.

Today, tune in to hear United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo W. Gerard on “The Ed Show” on MSNBC at 6 p.m. EDT. He will discuss unemployment and jobs.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on July 12, 2010 (boomark / email).