Economic Report
By Jesse Russell
The United States isn’t the only country facing a slowdown in their housing market. Europe’s second biggest economy – Britain – saw prices decline at the fastest rate in two years last month with the number of people seeking out new homes dropping for the 10 months in a row. Like the US, the UK is also suffering from issues in that country’s subprime mortgage market. The difference is in the UK those mortgages are only 8 percent of the market while in the US they are 25 percent.
By Doug Cunningham
The Coalition of Labor Union Women is meeting for its fourteenth convention in Las Vegas. Delegates will deal with issues like Fair Pay, Fair Trade, Health Care and Toxic Imports. The coalition was founded in 1974 by women mobilizing for equal pay, rights and opportunity.
By Doug Cunningham
Teamsters UPS workers – some 230,000 of them – are voting on the tentative contract with UPS that will take UPS workers out of the Teamsters Central States pension fund in return for a $6.1 billion payment from UPS to the fund. Voting is being done by mail and results are expected in December.
By Doug Cunningham
The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees says it won’t sign a concessionary labor contract in a time of prosperity for Broadway – a billion dollar industry. The League of American Theaters and Producers met Thursday to talk about the labor issues on Broadway after giving what it said was its last and best offer to the union. The union countered with an offer of its own. There could be a lockout or a strike that would darken Broadway’s theater lights. The stagehands union is meeting Saturday in New York to organize strategy in the event of a lockout.
A judge has frozen a key part of the president’s plan to have employer’s fire illegal workers. Jesse Russell reports:
Judge Charles R. Breyer suspended the key part of President George W. Bush’s immigration plan that would have forced employers to fire workers if Social Security numbers could not be verified in three months. Breyer said the Department of Homeland Security had caught employers off guard by not properly conducting a survey that would have analyzed the impact and cost of such a move, as well as by not giving a proper legal explanation. The judge wrote that if implemented, the new rule could cause “irreparable harm to innocent workers and employers.” A big concern expressed by both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL CIO, was that legal workers could have been accidentally fired under the rule. There was also a concern of mass lay-offs in the low wage service, manufacturing, and farm sectors. As a result the Social Security Administration will have to continue sitting on a reported 141,000 no-match Social Security letters intended for employers.
By Doug Cunningham
Ford Motor Company and the UAW are talking now to try to reach the last of three U.S. auto industry labor contract deals. The UAW says it hopes to avoid a strike or any “altercations” with Ford and just move forward to get an agreement. Ford has said it can work with the framework of the agreement reached and ratified with GM. The UAW has some 58,000 active workers at Ford. Job security and new investment in U.S. plants are among the issues important to the UAW in the Ford talks.
A new report shows Wal-Mart—the world’s largest retailer, which made nearly $12 billion in profits last year—is squeezing money out of local communities by trying to reduce its property taxes, the main source of revenue for schools, roads, police and fire protection.
The giant retailer has sought to reduce the property taxes it pays on 35 percent of its stores and 40 percent of its distribution centers, according to a report by the nonprofit research group Good Jobs First. In fact, Rolling Back Property Tax Payments, estimates the company has filed more than 2,100 property tax challenges nationwide. Click here for the full text of the report.
By a 2–1 margin, UAW members ratified a new four-year contract with General Motors Corp.
The workers reached a tentative agreement with GM on Sept. 26, following a two-day strike against the company. The new contract covers more than 73,000 GM workers and more than 269,000 GM retirees and 69,000 surviving spouses. It expires Sept. 14, 2011.
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger says:
We entered these negotiations with a clear mandate from our membership. With their help and solidarity, we were able to achieve our goals. We protected jobs, wages and benefits for both active and retired General Motors workers—and we helped protect middle-class manufacturing jobs in communities throughout the United States.
A federal judge yesterday issued a preliminary injunction stopping the government from enforcing a new rule that would have caused U.S. citizens and legal residents to lose their jobs because of errors in the Social Security Administration (SSA) database.
The order prevents any implementation—until the court makes a final ruling—of a Department of Homeland Security rule punishing employers if they do not take action after receiving Social Security “no match” letters.
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