Obama budget: A 180 degree turn on how workers will be protected
“If we expect our workers to come to work, every day, we have to protect them,” declared Jordan Barab, acting head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, when he spoke to union nurses at their legislative gathering in Washington D.C. last week.
17,000 banana workers go on strike in Colombia
BOGOTA - Colombian banana farm workers in the country's key growing region went on strike May 8 over pay and benefits, threatening hundreds of thousands of boxes exported a day, union leaders and producers said.
Union gains as Hyundai India strike ends
INDIA: Indian autoworkers at Hyundai Motor India Limited (HMIL) and members of the Hyundai Motor India Employees' Union (HMIEU) ended their work stoppage and hunger strike after management agreed to a number of worker demands, mediated by the Tamil Nadu District Commissioner of Labor.
Iran rights group urges world pressure to free labor, women detainees
Human rights and trade union organizations across the globe are combining to call for the release from prison of participants in the May Day rally in Iran’s capital, Tehran, this month.
Safeway, workers agree to continue labor talks
DENVER (AP) — With the threat of a strike looming, Safeway agreed to resume negotiations with its union workers a day after they authorized a strike, a company spokeswoman said Sunday. The labor contract between Safeway and its workers expired Saturday night without a new labor agreement and workers were planning to walk off their jobs as soon as Monday.
Netroots Nation Salon: The fight for Employee Free Choice, online and off
Online organizers and progressive activists from inside and outside the union movement met today at the AFL-CIO for a frank conversation about the state of the Employee Free Choice Act and how online activism can help push the bill forward. Sponsored by the AFL-CIO and Netroots Nation, a nonprofit organization for the advancement of online political activism, the event, titled “Can the Netroots help make the Employee Free Choice Act law,” was part of Netroots Nation’s ongoing Salon Series.
May Day celebrated in Philly, again
Philadephians, for the second year in a row, celebrated International Labor Day at Elmwood Park in the city’s southwest section. The site has historical significance in part because of its history in the heart of what was once a major industrial area for the Delaware Valley. It will soon be the home of a memorial monument to the labor movement.
Hartmarx workers prepared to sit-in if Wells Fargo closes their factory
Des Plaines, Ill. — Six-hundred union workers at the Hart Schaffner & Marx’s manufacturing plant here, which is one of the last and largest U.S. suit makers, are demanding it’s time that they, and not the banks, get bailed out. The workers are fighting to keep their jobs after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January. The filing followed reductions in its credit line by the bank.
Labor moves quickly into showdown on health care
The labor movement, determined to be heard as Congress and President Obama hammer out changes in the U.S. healthcare system, is insisting that any new plan include the four features of cost controls, a public option to compete with private insurers, a ban on taxation of employer-based plans, and a choice of doctors and hospitals.
In Pa., even Republicans want Specter to support Employee Free Choice Act
The latest Quinnipiac Poll in Pennsylvania helps explain what may be Sen. Arlen Specter’s second switch on the Employee Free Choice Act.
