Labor Union Blog

Economic Report

By Doug Cunningham

The share of total income going to workers has dropped since 2000. The Wall Street Journal reports that half of all American workers combined are making just 12.8 percent of all income in the country while the richest one percent are pulling in a whopping 21.2 percent of total income. What does that mean for the median taxpayer? It means your real income after being adjusted for inflation fell two percent between 2000 and 2005. A small boost in incomes lately has not made up for that shortfall.

By Doug Cunningham

Eight hundred Appalachian Regional Healthcare nurses in Kentucky and West Virginia are striking for stronger patient care protections. The AFL-CIO says it’s supporting the striking nurses. The nurses say the hospital’s management is understaffing the facilities and overworking nurses, allegedly putting patients at risk.

By Doug Cunningham

The United Food and Commercial Workers says it won’t be bullied by a lawsuit filed against the union by Smithfield Foods. The suit accuses the union of conducting a public smear campaign to injure Smithfield economically with the goal of getting the company to recognize the union. The UFCW says the suit is baseless. The union for years has aged a union organizing campaign at Smithfield. The UFCW says it’s well documented that Smithfield has abused the law in its treatment of workers for more than a decade. The UFCW says Smithfield is using what it calls this frivolous

By Doug Cunningham

UAW workers at Chrysler appear to be just saying no to a concessionary tentative agreement. Several locals, many of them among the larger ones, have rejected the deal that would pay new hires as little as half of what current UAW Chrysler workers earn. Bill Parker, the UAW’s national Chrysler negotiating chairman, is against the tentative deal. He says it undermines years of UAW gains and breaks faith with the union’s traditions. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger says the union did the best it could, but the tentative contract does give up much of what the UAW has won in generations of bargaining and struggle. Sam Gindin is a former Çanadian Auto Worker’s official. He says these concessionary contracts hurt workers, weaken the union and will spread out to auto parts plant workers, too.

Sixty-five years ago, some people considered the 6 million “Rosie the Riveters” a temporary blip in the Great War’s home-front workplace mobilization. Today, they’re a collective cultural icon, now memorialized with their own national historical park.

During World War II, these women worked in defense plants as blacksmiths, shipfitters and clerks, while male workers left their jobs to fight in Asia and Europe. Says Betty Reid Soskin:

It was a heroic generation. And the heroes weren’t only on the battlefield.

Soskin was one of those heroes. These days, she’s a park ranger at the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, Calif.

The 2.5-acre park covers the site where the colossal old Kaiser Shipyard #2 once stood. It’s the right place for this memorial. During the war, the four Kaiser shipyards in Richmond produced more than 740 ships, more than any other shipyard in the country—and thousands of women helped make that happen. The park’s centerpiece is a memorial that is the same length and width as an old Liberty ship. It includes an imposing steel sculpture designed to look like a ship hull under construction. When it was dedicated in 2000, some 200 Rosies took part in a parade along a special walkway. Soskin was there.