Freedom ride seeks road to rights
OAKLAND PARK, Fla. – “Across America we’ll be getting on buses to dramatize the need for a road to citizenship for millions of America’s immigrant workers,” declared John Wilhelm, president of the 265,000-member Hotel and Restaurant Employees union (HERE).
UFW: No war on Iraq honors Chavez legacy
Cesar Chavez’s legacy is all about peace and non-violent action. If there was ever a time for Cesar’s legacy to come alive it is now.
AFL-CIO renews health care campaign
After a long silence, the AFL-CIO has weighed in on the campaign for comprehensive health care reform. In their resolution, “Renewing the Drive for Comprehensive Health Care Reform,” the February meeting of the AFL-CIO executive council said, “Now, even more than in the past, the AFL-CIO believes strongly that universal coverage is the best and ultimately only way to achieve the goal of extending affordable, high quality health care to all Americans.”
There is no good news
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ unemployment report for February reminds one of the nightly radio broadcast by the London correspondent of CBS News in the early days of World War II. “There is no good news, tonight,” he would intone, as German armies roared from victory to victory on both the Western and Eastern fronts.
WOMENS HISTORY MONTH: I helped organize the CIO
In the summer of 1937, the labor movement was exploding with the energy of a prairie fire. Millions of workers were flocking into the new CIO and millions more wanted in. I was not quite 19 but I answered the call to help organize the laundry workers of New York City.
Labor leader wins Los Angeles Council seat
LOS ANGELES – Former Speaker of the State Assembly Antonio Villaraigosa made history on March 4 when he won an East Los Angeles seat in the 14th council district of the nation’s second largest city.
Hotel workers fired for organizing
DETROIT – “We all signed union cards, the whole department. I thought if we stuck together, we could win. Surely they couldn’t get rid of the whole department? I was wrong,” testified Charles Hardin to the Southeast Michigan Workers’ Rights Board in Detroit on Feb. 26.
Airline employees face extortion
Talking with airline employees in America can be an unsettling experience right now. They are being pushed for salary and work-rule concessions under threat of losing their jobs.
Rural union leader under threat in Colombia
Trade unionists in Colombia continue to face threats to their very lives as they fight an uphill battle to protect the rights of both urban and rural workers. Last week the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers Associations (IUF) reported that Guillermo Rivera Zapata, vice president of the Colombian rural workers union SINTRAINAGRO, was suddenly deprived of the security measures, including bodyguards, previously provided by the government.
Report takes aim at sweatships
Two British organizations recently released a report that paints a grim picture of working conditions on cruise ships, tarnishing the fun, romantic image that the cruise ship industry has cultivated.
