Labor & Employment Law

Unique Philadelphia Monument Honors Workers

Posted on October 17, 2010
      A new monument, the Labor Monument: Philadelphia?s Tribute to the American Worker, was unveiled in a ceremony earlier this month at the city?s Elmwood Park. Created by artist John Kindness, the monument?seven table-top sized ?work buttons? (see photo)?memorialize the contributions of  labor nationwide and Philadelphia?s working-class history...

Reverse Trick-or-Treaters Call Attention to Child Labor in Cocoa Fields

Posted on October 16, 2010
      Don?t be surprised if the ?trick-or-treaters? at your front door this Halloween give you something in return for the candy or fruit you hand them. This year on Oct. 31, children, students and adults across the country will hand out fair trade chocolates attached to an informational card about child labor abuses in the cocoa industry...

NFLPA?s Smith Gives Solidarity Shout Out to Machinists

Posted on October 15, 2010
      During a recent fan appreciation event in Green Bay, Wis., DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), told fans the NFLPA has had a long relationship of solidarity with the union movement, especially with the Machinists (IAM)...

Landmark Deal Sets Standard in Tomato Industry

Posted on October 15, 2010
    CIW’s Lucas Benitez announces the agreement with Pacific Tomato Growers. Pacific’s Jon Esformes, right, looks on.         The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), spearheading the Campaign for Fair Food, signed a landmark agreement this week with Pacific Tomato Growers (PTG), one of the country’s largest tomato producers...

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USSA?s Cendana Named New Asian Pacific Labor Alliance Executive Director

Posted on October 15, 2010
Gregory Allan Cendana, former president of the United States Student Association (USSA) and a labor, student, and community activist, has been appointed Executive Director of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA). Cendana succeeds Malcolm Amado Uno, who served as executive director since March 2008 and who now is working at the Department of Labor as a  Special Assistant to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis in the Department?s Office of Public Engagement...

Air Line Pilots Elect New Leaders

Posted on October 15, 2010
    Capt. Lee Moak         Capt. Lee Moak, a Delta Air Lines captain, was elected Air Line Pilots (ALPA) president Oct. 13 at the union?s 43rd regular biennial Board of Directors meeting. He succeeds Capt. John Prater who served as ALPA president since January 2007...

Obama Administration Accepts USW Complaint Against China?s Clean Energy Subsidies

Posted on October 15, 2010
President Obama showed once again he is willing to enforce U.S. trade laws. Today, his administration accepted the United Steelworkers? (USW’s) petition under Section 301 of the trade law claiming China?s government has used hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, performance requirements, preferential practices and other trade-illegal activities to dominate the renewable energy market...

Middle Class Must Organize to Take Back America from the Rich

Posted on October 15, 2010
      A recent Pew Foundation poll shows 53 percent of Americans believe government is helping Wall Street and the rich, while only 3 percent believe it is helping the middle class. Those figures are not a coincidence, but reflect what is really happening in our political system today, says Jacob Hacker...

Washington Labor Council Flier ?Best? on Secret Corporate Cash

Posted on October 15, 2010
      When it comes to politics, campaign advertising, candidate endorsements and all other forms of electioneering, the union movement has nothing to hide. Our name is right there, out front on fliers, leaflets, television commercials. We don?t hide behind election laws and made up patriotic names...

Chamber of Commerce Gets $$ from Big Offshoring Corps.

Posted on October 15, 2010
    Ugh. It’s that dirty Chamber $$ pot again.         It’s long past time for the Chamber of Commerce to take ”U.S.” out of its formal name. Because  calling itself the “U.S.” Chamber of Commerce implies it backs the interests of job creation in the United States...

Boehner: No Reason for Unions

Posted on October 15, 2010
       Well, this is ugly. But then, look at the messenger…. From today?s New York Times profile of House Minority Leader John Boehner (R): ?We were self-insured, so we were anxious to see our people wear seat belts, and at that point John was in the ?Let?s leave the government out of things? stage,? Mr...

Social Security: Hands Across Generations

Posted on October 14, 2010
In Oakland, Calif., yesterday, hands reached across generations in the fight to strengthen Social Security for young and senior alike. At the Laney College campus, 100 California Alliance for Retired Americans were joined by students for a lunchtime rally and discussion of Social Security and its importance for future generations...

Workers Strike at Two Hilton Hotels

Posted on October 14, 2010
    Striking hotel workers picket the Hilton Union Square in San Francisco.         Hilton hotel workers are getting gored twice by their Wall Street employer. First, the private equity firm Blackstone Group, which owns the hotel chain, received a $180 million debt bailout from the taxpayers–like hotel workers...

Shareholders Object to Fox Donations to Chamber/Republicans

Posted on October 14, 2010
Even shareholders in Rupert Murdoch’s media empire says he?s gone too far. In August, News Corp.?the media company owned by Murdoch and the operator of Fox News?gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association. Several weeks later, it donated another $1 million to the U...

Beck Shills for Chamber

Posted on October 14, 2010
Right-wing radio zealot Glenn Beck apparently has decided that all that foreign money coming into the Chamber of Commerce?s kitty just isn?t enough to buy an election. Today he announced he was donating $10,000 to the Chamber and urged his listeners to chip in, too...

The Chamber?s False Claim on Union Political Funding

Posted on October 14, 2010
Magicians call it misdirection. Get the audience to focus somewhere else so they don?t see the obvious trickery in front of them. The Chamber of Commerce, in the spotlight earlier this month for allegedly using contributions from foreign corporations and other overseas entities to fund its U...

AFL-CIO Shifts Young Worker Outreach Into High Gear

Posted on October 13, 2010
       A  new survey shows young workers are worse off this year than they were last year. And the AFL-CIO is ratcheting up its outreach program to connect with the next generation of workers.    The survey, commissioned by the AFL-CIO to update a 2009 study, shows young workers are more likely to be working part time, if at all, and have fewer resources to fall back on than they did just last year...

In its 10th Year, DC Labor FilmFest Opens Friday

Posted on October 13, 2010
      The 10th annual DC Labor FilmFest kicks off Friday night at the American Film Institute in Silver Spring Md., with the French black comedy Lousie-Michel featuring workers at suddenly shuttered toy factory who decide to seek the ultimate revenge...

Public Employees Under Attack

Posted on October 13, 2010
    State and local budget crunches have led officials to cut back on necessary public jobs, including firefighters.          The people who teach our children, protect us from crime, put out fires in our homes and make sure our water is clean are under attack...

Union Activists Counter Unprecedented Election Cash from Corporations, Front Groups

Posted on October 13, 2010
              West Virginia Fire Fighters (IAFF), California Ironworkers and Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) and AFGE members across the country are fighting back against the hundreds of millions of dollars Republicans, corporations and phony front groups are pouring into the November elections...

Domestic Workers Seeking Rights Need Unions

Posted on October 13, 2010
    Domestic workers in New York City marched for justice in 2007.         Jenya Cassidy of the Labor Project for Working Families reports on the importance of unions joining the campaign for domestic workers? rights. Many workers have a hard time balancing work and family, but the workers who take care of other people’s families have the hardest time of all...

Union Members Getting Out the Vote in Critical Central California

Posted on October 13, 2010
      Rachel Johnson, California Labor Federation Communications intern, sends us this cross-post from the Labor?s Edge Blog on union members mobilizing to get out the vote. The Central Valley could be the California equivalent of Florida or Ohio in presidential politics?a critical battleground that may determine the fate of an election...

Rescue of Chilean Miners a ?Rare Blessing?

Posted on October 13, 2010
At 12:11 a.m., Florencio Avalos, the first of 33 miners trapped for 69 days in Chile?s San Jose mine, emerged to the embrace of his family and friends. And workers, especially those who work deep in the earth in mines, let out a cheer and a deep sigh of relief...

Hundreds of Union Members Try to ?Save the Dream? of Home Ownership

Posted on October 12, 2010
      Even though JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America have declared temporary moratoriums on foreclosures, millions of Americans still face the prospect of losing their homes. And union members are not exempt. Last week, hundreds of union members in danger of foreclosure attended two workshops sponsored by the nonprofit Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) in hopes of being able to continue the American Dream of homeownership...

Rebuilding the Infrastructure is a ?No-Brainer?

Posted on October 12, 2010
When President Obama announced his plan to rebuild our nation?s transportation infrastructure, he was affirming what the AFL-CIO and the union movement have been saying for years: Our crumbling infrastructure needs rebuilding and doing so would put thousands of people back to work...

Oakland Nurses Begin Three-Day Strike?and More Bargaining News

Posted on October 12, 2010
Some 700 nurses at Children’s Hospital in Oakland, Calif. began a three-day striek today 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 1,300 subscribers...

Tomato Workers? Struggle for Justice Moves to Supermarket Aisles

Posted on October 12, 2010
       The fight for justice for tomato pickers is headed to grocery store aisles across the country now that the top three food service companies and the four largest fast-food companies have signed agreements to improve wages and working conditions in the Florida tomato fields...

Actors with Disabilities All but Invisible on TV

Posted on October 11, 2010
    Robert David Hall plays Dr. Albert Rollins on “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”         About one in eight Americans is disabled, but you wouldn?t know it from watching TV. In the new fall TV season, only six characters out of 587, about 1 percent, will have a disability...

Writers Guild Will Honor New Media Work

Posted on October 10, 2010
      The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) and Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) announced last week the first WGA New Media Writing Awards. WGAE President Michael Winship says the digital media is “an exciting new stage for writers, a platform from which we can present our work instantly to the entire world...

Website Offers Loads of Information on Today?s Manufacturing Challenges

Posted on October 09, 2010
      Did you know that North Carolina lost 241,900 manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2008 and more than 94,000 of those jobs were lost because of the U.S. trade deficit with China? Or that you can sign up to participate in the “Keep It Made in America” tour, which kicks off Oct...

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