Women gain by joining unions
Today is International Women’s Day and a new report points out that while all workers gain through union membership, women gain a lot more. A new report released by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) shows the global pay gap is 22 percent, but women who belong to unions earn more than nonunion women and receive better pay relative to their male co-workers. Click here to read the entire report.
Bread and roses 2009: Women need a union
March 8 International Women's Day was born of the struggles of women in the textile mills in our country at the turn of the last century. They fought and died for better wages and working conditions, an end to child labor, and the right to vote.
Bad, bad, bad jobs report: Unemployment at 8.1 percent
Stunningly bad news on the nation’s jobless rate today: Unemployment worsened to 8.1 percent in February, from 7.6 percent in January, the highest level in more than a quarter century, according to Labor Department data released today.
Vigil held to protest murder of undocumented worker
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A poster-sized photograph with flowers and votive candles formed a sidewalk altar in front of the Sacramento County Main Jail Feb. 26, as more than 40 activists held a press conference and protest-memorial for 22-year-old Evaristo Ramirez Ventura, an undocumented worker murdered Feb. 17 in a jail holding cell.
COMMENTARY: The Big Lie about employee free choice just keeps getting bigger and bigger
Human Events, the right-wing magazine that Anne Coulter describes as the place where she really feels at home, sent out alerts all over the Internet March 6 claiming that Vice President Joe Biden was meeting “in secret” with leaders of the AFL-CIO in Miami during their recent executive council meeting there. The alleged topic of these “secret” meetings was how they were going to “ram through” the “Card Check Forced Unionism Bill.”
Memo to Obamas auto task force: build mass transit
DETROIT — As the situation for autoworkers and all American workers continues to decline, stopping the hemorrhaging loss of jobs is clearly a top priority. So here’s a suggestion for President Obama’s auto task force: include the building and funding of mass transit in your plans.
National AFL-CIO calls on California Supreme Court to invalidate Proposition 8
MIAMI - As the AFL-CIO Executive Council gathers in Miami this week, hearing addresses from Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis dealing with the economic crisis and its impact on workers across the country, the Executive Council has spoken up again for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender workers by passing a resolution, in unanimity, calling on the California Supreme Court to invalidate Proposition 8.
AFL-CIO endorses talks aimed at labor unity
MIAMI — “Now is the time to bring the union movement back together,” the AFL-CIO declared in a March 4 statement authorizing discussions aimed at re-uniting its unions with those of the rival Change to Win federation. The Council voted to authorize discussions about re-unification that have already begun.
AFL-CIO backs reunification talks with Change to Win
MIAMI - (PAI) An AFL-CIO statement has given the green light to ongoing talks designed to reunify the nation’s competing union federations. As approved by the AFL-CIO Executive Council in Miami Wednesday, the statement says “now is the time to bring the union movement back together.”
Biden tells labor leaders Employee Free Choice Act is a must
MIAMI — Vice President Biden told the nation’s labor leaders here that passage of the Employee Free Choice Act is “the only way to restore what was the basic bargain in this country – in exchange for their productivity, and for being the spine of our economy, the workers get a piece of the action.” The presidents of 56 unions and several hundred others present rose to their feet in applause. They were gathered here March 5 on the closing day of the AFL-CIO’s executive council meeting.
