Labor Union Blog

Economic Report

By Jesse Russell

When it comes to home sales, it was an August of discontent. According to new numbers released from the National Association of Realtors pending home sales dropped 21.5 percent since this time last year and hit the lowest level since January 2001. The West is being hit the worst with a 27,1 percent drop year-to-year. The Association insists that the situation in the housing market is temporary.

By Jesse Russell

Executive diners could soon be going without lunch if workers for Aramark follow through with strike action. Workers in the cafeterias for companies including CBS and Goldman Sachs and also at the United Nations, could join a strike as their contracts expire over the next few months if the company doesn’t commit to improvements concerning wages, health care, and retirement. Currently workers at Citigroup and New York Life have already approved strike action if necessary.

By Jesse Russell

A Los Angeles based farm labor contractor is learning that it doesn’t pay to discriminate.

Jesse Russell reports.

A class-action lawsuit against filed against Global Horizons, Incorporated will award $317,000 to workers. The suit alleges that the company violated labor law by firing them and replacing them with workers from Thailand. The contractor was able to do so by abusing a portion of the H-2A guest worker program that allows foreign farm workers ot be brought in if there is a lack of a local labor force. The company has since had its right to operate in Washi

By Doug Cunningham

UAW workers voting on a tentative contract agreement with GM could legally move to stop the ratification vote because they aren’t getting legally required disclosures about the financial risks of the new health care trust fund created in the agreement. That’s according to Santa Clara University Associate Law Professor Stephen Diamond.

[Diamond]: “My personal view is that it’s perfectly appropriate for workers to challenge this right now to stop the vote. Go into federal and obtain an injunction or other kinds of relief that are available. I think the SEC itself should step in and stop this.”

Paul Clark

It is time firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians and other first responders who form the backbone of the nation’s post-Sept. 11 homeland security have a basic workplace right—the right to join together in unions and bargain, says Paul Clark, professor and head of the Penn State University’s Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations.

In 21 states, public safety workers do not have collective bargaining rights. In a new Point of View (POV) column at www.aflcio.org, Clark says the Public Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, now before Congress, would give first responders:

…a voice in their workplace by granting them the right to organize a union and to engage in a limited form of collective bargaining. Congress should move quickly to enact this legislation, not only because it will provide our public safety workers with a right they deserve, but also because giving these employees a greater voice will likely have a positive impact on the safety and security services they provide.

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows what many of us already know—Bush and his allies in Congress are “on the wrong side of public opinion on upcoming foreign and domestic policy battles.”

Specifically, the poll finds Bush and other opponents of covering 10 million children through the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) flying squarely in the face of public opinion. The Washington Post reports:

More than seven in 10 in the poll support the planned $35 billion spending increase, and 25 percent are opposed. About half of all Americans “strongly” support the increased spending; 17 percent are firmly against the additional funds. Eighty-one percent of Democrats, 69 percent of independents and 61 percent of Republicans are in favor.

Tim Ryan at the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center was among hundreds of Washington, D.C.-area activists taking part in Friday’s rally in support of Burma’s pro-democracy movement.

Chanting “Burma, Burma, must be free! Freedom, justice, democracy!” hundreds of union members, students and our allies gathered Friday afternoon at 23rd and S streets in Washington, D.C., at the Burmese Embassy—as we have many times over the past several years in support of the Burmese public.