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Watch Mary Beth Maxwell Discuss Employee Free Choice on C-SPAN |
On Friday, Mary Beth Maxwell, executive director of American Rights at Work, appeared on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” for a great interview about the importance of quickly passing the Employee Free Choice Act.
In the half-hour interview, Maxwell described our badly broken system for forming unions, how it has undermined workers’ bargaining power and the economy, and how the Employee Free Choice Act will restore workers’ freedom to form unions without corporate harassment and intimidation, allowing them to bargain for a better life. Maxwell took questions from viewers around the country and cut through the misconceptions about the Employee Free Choice Act.
Don’t Be Fooled: ‘SOS Ballot’ Another Corporate Front Group |
Another day, another shady front group trying to confuse and mislead workers. This time, a new group calling itself “SOS Ballot” is waging an under-the-radar state-level campaign to lock in corporate domination and prevent workers from exercising the freedom to bargain for a better life.
In five states—Nevada, Arizona, Missouri, Arkansas and Utah—SOS Ballot is gathering signatures, hoping to put initiatives on the ballot to prevent workers from opting to form unions through majority sign-up.
“SOS Ballot” is yet another misleadingly named corporate front group, with a secret funding base, aimed at keeping a firm corporate lock on workers and their ability to form unions and bargain.
Who’s behind it? A glimpse at their priorities: The group is chaired, according to its website, by former U.S. Rep. Ernie Istook (R-Okla.). Istook had a consistently anti-worker voting record in Congress, voting to block collective bargaining rights, eliminate overtime and block the enforcement of workplace safety and mine safety rules. The big-money donors behind this effort are hoping that hiding behind a clever name will convince us that this time, they only have workers’ best interests at heart.
Right.
New Look for Sheet Metal Workers’ Website |
When you get a chance, cruise on over to the Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) revamped website. The just-launched site offers several new features—for visitors and SMWIA members—along with a clean and streamlined look.
The site’s new News section brings you a wide variety of worker-orientated labor and political news from the blog world and the mainstream press. The new Multimedia Resource Center gives you access to a wide range of SMWIA news, videos, podcasts and photos. Check out the video gallery here and photo gallery here.
New social networking features include SMWIA Facebook, the Sheet Metal Network and Sheet Metal Twittering.
The site’s Action Center provides information and the chance to join in the union’s and the labor movement’s latest campaigns, including the fight to win the Employee Free Choice Act.
AFL-CIO Groups Highlight Cervical Cancer Awareness Month |
January is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month, and as part of its campaign to raise awareness about how to prevent this deadly disease, the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) is teaming up with the Metropolitan Washington Council’s Community Services Agency (CSA) at one of the largest health and fitness expos in the nation.
The two groups will take part in the NBC4 Health and Fitness Expo in Washington, D.C., Jan 10-11 at the Washington Convention Center. The Expo—with more than 200 exhibits, health screenings, demonstrations and more—promotes good health and provides advice in making healthy lifestyle choices.
The CLUW/CSA exhibit will focus on cervical cancer prevention, women’s health and how unions can have an impact on women’s health by bargaining contracts with strong health care provisions. The first 1,000 visitors who show a union card or union label will receive a “Pearl of Wisdom” pin, symbol of a new cervical cancer awareness program set to launch later this month.
FAA Fails to Reach Performance Goals for 2008 |
With a record number of air traffic controllers retiring early or simply leaving the towers and radar facilities after the Federal Aviation Administration unilaterally imposed new work rules and pay cuts in 2006, trainees make up more than one-quarter of the controller workforce.
That, says the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), is at the heart of critical safety shortcomings in the FAA.
Burdened by an increasingly inexperienced workforce and a continuation of failed staffing and labor relations policies, the FAA has admitted that not only did it fail in fiscal year 2008 to meet its own performance goals for one of its most critical safety issues—incidents involving planes getting too close—but the agency is off to a poor start to the new fiscal year as well.
Ignoring Murders of Colombian Unionists, Bush Set to Honor Uribe |
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| President Bush couldn’t reward murder with a trade deal. Now he’s rewarding Colombian President Uribe with a medal. |
In a final flip-off to human rights activists, international trade unionists and Colombian workers, President Bush will award the United States’ highest civilian honor—the Presidential Medal of Freedom—to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. Colombia is the deadliest nation in the world for trade unionists.
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said Bush was awarding Uribe and two other honorees for:
their work to improve the lives of their citizens and for their efforts to promote democracy, human rights and peace abroad.
How’s this for Uribe’s work for “human rights and peace”?
Nearly 500 trade unionists have been murdered there since he took office in 2002. Since 1986, more than 2,600 Colombian trade unionists have been murdered: however, only a small fraction of those responsible for the crimes have been arrested, prosecuted and convicted.
Bush has long sought to win a U.S. Colombia-Free Trade Agreement for his close ally Uribe. But the AFL-CIO and a broad coalition of unions, human rights, environmental, religious and other groups have been able to mobilize enough opposition to derail Bush’s plan to Fast Track the agreement through Congress.
We all agree there should be no trade agreement until real progress is made to protect the rights and lives of trade unionists. In other words: Don’t Reward Murder.
Retired Americans’ Letter to Editor Program Continues in 2009 |
Alliance for Retired Americans President George Kourpias encourages union retirees to contact their local newspapers about key issues—and get a union-made Retirees with the Write Stuff free pen.
In 2008, all of you who are members of the Alliance for Retired Americans took action on the issues, asking tough questions of candidates and policymakers, unafraid to tell others in your community what was on your mind.
And because of you we achieved a great victory on Election Day. We will have many new faces in public office, from the White House down to our city and town halls. This is a historic opportunity to advance a pro-retiree agenda at all levels of government, one that improves the quality of life for millions of seniors.
That’s why the Alliance for Retired Americans’ letter to the editor program, Retirees with the Write Stuff, is continuing through 2009. The Letters to the Editor page is often the most widely read section of a local newspaper, and January is a good time to share your retiree perspective on the events of 2008 and what you hope to see in the coming year.
Boston-Area Congress Members Back Employee Free Choice Act |
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| U.S. Reps. Barney Frank, Stephen Lynch and Mike Capuano joined Greater Boston Labor Council President Lou Mandarini and Vice President Patricia Armstrong in supporting the Employee Free Choice Act. |
Richard Rogers, executive secretary-treasurer of the Greater Boston Labor Council, reports on the campaign to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
Union members from the Boston area met with members of Congress yesterday to press for quick action on the Employee Free Choice Act, a critical bill to restore workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life.
U.S. Reps. Barney Frank, Michael Capuano and Stephen Lynch attended the meeting at Plumbers and Pipe Fittters Local 12 in Dorchester. Some 75 union leaders and activists of the Greater Boston Labor Council took part, as all three members of Congress publicly pledged their support for the Employee Free Choice Act, the first viable effort to reform America’s broken labor laws in over a generation. (U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, another Boston-area member, also is a supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act.)
Owner of N.Y. Crane Rigging Co. Indicted on Manslaughter |
The owner of the crane rigging company who was involved last March in New York City’s high-rise crane collapse that killed six workers and a woman in a nearby building was indicted yesterday on multiple charges of manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, assault and reckless endangerment.
The crane collapsed as workers were “jumping” the crane or installing new sections to the crane so it could extend higher as construction work continued. Workers were attaching a six-ton collar to the crane to anchor it to the 18th floor of the building.
Before installation was complete, the slings holding the collar broke and the collar fell, pancaking two other support collars and leaving the crane unattached to the building. The crane then toppled backward across the street, damaging a 19-story apartment and demolishing a four-story town house.
Obama, Congress Put Working Families at Heart of Economic Plan |
President-elect Barack Obama and Congress aren’t wasting any time setting the tone that the nation’s working families are at the center of their efforts to revitalize the economy and rebuild the middle class.
Obama is meeting today and throughout the week with congressional leaders to shape an economic recovery package that focuses on job creation, tax relief for middle-class families, help for the unemployed and aid for states caught in the grip of a tightening fiscal crisis.
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives will vote on two bills to ensure equal pay for women and reverse the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that severely restricted the rights of women to combat pay discrimination through the courts.
In his weekly radio address, Obama said the economic package—The American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan—aims to
not only create jobs in the short-term, but spur economic growth and competitiveness in the long term….We must make strategic investments that will serve as a down payment on our long-term economic future. We must demand vigorous oversight and strict accountability for achieving results. And we must restore fiscal responsibility and make the tough choices so that as the economy recovers, the deficit starts to come down. That is how we will achieve the number one goal of my plan—which is to create 3 million new jobs, more than 80 percent of them in the private sector.
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