By Michael Messin, cross post from Labor 411
With the new year comes the obligatory question: Do you have any resolutions? And we tend to give the obligatory answers: Go to the gym more; eat healthier; laugh more often. And here at Labor 411, our answer tends to be the same each year, too. And for good reason; it’s an ongoing resolution: to make the American middle class stronger than it was the year before.
Read Moreby Kenneth Quinnell
The Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) held it's 18th Biennial Convention in November. Among the wide array of activities during the convention, the delegates passed numerous resolutions related to issues that affect and concern women in the workforce.
by Paul Burton, Managing Editor, San Mateo Labor
In the city of San Mateo, close to 10,000 service workers, including food prep, janitors, personal care and moving/transportation workers earn a median wage of $21,860—which is at the federal poverty level for a family of three. San Mateo County Central Labor Council Community Services Director Rayna Lehman told the San Mateo City Council November 16, “The minimum wage is too low. A household with two full-time workers earning the minimum wage will take home well under $38,000 per year. Our workers and our children are suffering.”
Read Moreby Kenneth Quinnell
A new tax on health care plans is threatening to hurt working people and their families. The 40% tax on many health care plans will lead to increased out-of-pocket costs for workers. You can go right now and add your name to a petition to members of Congress asking them to keep the Affordable Care Act affordable by supporting a repeal of the health care benefits tax.
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Shuttle drivers who transport Facebook employees to and from work have joined Teamsters Local 853 in San Leandro, Calif., and ratified a strong agreement providing for significant wages, benefit improvements and gains mirroring or exceeding the Facebook/Loop Transportation contract already in place. These drivers with WeDriveU, Inc., will supplement the drivers who work for Facebook contractor Loop Transportation.
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It's not too late yet to find that perfect holiday gift that carries a union label and is made in America!
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Passenger service workers with American Airlines, who are members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) and Communications Workers of America (CWA) Association, have voted to ratify a groundbreaking five-year agreement.The contract covering nearly 15,000 workers provides for initial average wage increases of 30 percent and improved benefits, among a number of other industry-leading gains.
Read Morecrosspost from AFSCME In an extraordinary roundtable conversation with AFSCME Pres. Lee Saunders, women who lead three of the nation’s largest unions described how they became president, and the path forward for our partnership in fighting the attacks on public service workers, including the Supreme Court case in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. The comments by Lily Eskelsen García, president […]
Read MoreInternational events have led to talk of refugees dominating recent news cycles. In a new video, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Tefere Gebre explains that refugees look like him.
Gebre expanded on these ideas in a recent interview with The Huffington Post.
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In the dystopian world of the popular book and movie franchise “The Hunger Games,” working people out in the districts are starving. They work all day, some in dangerous coal mines without proper safety gear and some out in the fields all day with no breaks, to provide food, clothes, goods and technology that all goes to the Capitol…the ultimate 1 percenters (think of President Snow as the long-lost third Koch brother).
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