Labor Union Blog

By Doug Cunningham

The United Steel Workers says almost 9,000 retirees, spouses and surviving spouses will get lump sum payments of up to $600 this year from a health benefits trust fund. The fund was established for former employees of Kaiser Aluminum when Kaiser went bankrupt. The benefit is about equal to $50 monthly Medicare Part B premiums. The trust fund was set up in 2004 to restore prescription drug coverage for Medicare-eligible retirees. The retirees were represented by the USW, the UAW, United Food and Commercial Workers and the International Association of Machinists.

By Doug Cunningham

A perfect storm of outdated equipment, short staffing and a hostile management is engulfing air traffic controllers who are struggling to maintain air travel safety and efficiency. It’s beginning to look like 1980 all over again, when the old PATCO union went on strike and was smashed by former President Ronald Reagan.

[Church]: “It’s a carbon copy. They’ve decided t put their foot down on this union. They’ve done that to the point of driving away their best, their most loyal, their most dedicated, their most highly skilled controllers in this country.”

By Doug Cunningham

UAW GM workers will wrap up their voting on the new tentative contract by October 10th. So far the new contract is winning approval as UAW locals vote around the country. One local that rejected the tentative contract, though, is New York Local 465. Workers there will see their plant close under the agreement. Workers at UAW Local 163 in Romulus, Michigan also rejected the deal, even though the contract promises future work for that plant. Locals representing at last 13,000 of the UAW’s 73,454 GM members have voted so far. The new contact spells out which plants will get future work. The new tentative deal with GM includes a union-managed health care trust fund that will take on all of GM’s future retiree health obligations in return a payment of roughly 70 percent of that liability. It will also let GM replace more than 16,000 current UAW members with much lower paid new hires. The UAW is currently in negotiations with Chrysler and once that contract is settled will sit down with Ford Motor Company.

U.S. workers opposed CAFTA because it would destroy good jobs here and in Central America.

Today, the people of Costa Rica will go to the polls for a historic vote on whether their country will ratify the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement, (DR-CAFTA).

Costa Rica is the only one of the seven signers that has not ratified the deal, which is modeled after the seriously flawed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Supported by the AFL-CIO and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), a strong coalition of workers’ unions, farmers, human and civil rights activists and community leaders are leading a massive campaign to vote “no” on the deal. On Sept. 30, more than 100,000 people marched in the capital San José to protest CAFTA, one of the largest protests in the history of Costa Rica.