Labor Union Blog

The great thing about online rallies is you don’t have to worry about permits, weather, overzealous authorities or even time. Our friends over at the National Partnership for Women & Families kicked off their first-ever online rally for paid sick leave days on Feb 28, and it’s still going strong. That means you still have a chance to make it to the rally.

Nearly 50 percent of private-sector workers have no paid sick days, and low-income workers fare even worse—76 percent have no paid sick leave. Overall, 57 million private-sector workers in this country have no paid sick days, and 94 million cannot use their paid sick days to care for a sick child.

The virtual rally was designed to ignite broad support for legislation in Congress that will solve a real-world problem. The Healthy Families Act (S. 910 and H.R. 1542 ) would guarantee paid sick leave for workers to recover from an illness or take care of a sick family member.

George Halverson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals, says worker input boosts patient care quality.

When front-line workers are part of the team developing new strategies and techniques to improve health care quality and reduce costs, the results are effective and often innovative—from the easily implemented, like a reflective vest, to a top-to-bottom revamping of operating room procedures.

John August, executive director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, told a health care forum yesterday:

“You create the best quality care by having the front-line workers mobilized to find the innovations to do that.”

August, along with several other Kaiser Permanente labor and management representatives, union leaders, health care experts, lawmakers and others took part in the First Annual Health Care Forum presented by the Kaiser Permanente Health Care Institute at the National Labor College (NLC) in Silver Spring, Md.

Flight Attendants-CWA Vice President Veda Shook testifies before a House committee on the Delta-Northwest merger.

For the past several years, flight attendants, pilots and other airline workers have sacrificed pay, benefits and working conditions through a long series of bankruptcies, restructurings, mergers, layoffs and threatened liquidations. And on Thursday, airline unions told Congress workers must have a voice at the table when the biggest merger in the industry is being discussed.

The proposed merger between Delta and Northwest Airlines would create the nation’s largest carrier. But without key protections, the workers at both companies could suffer, and they urged Congress to send a strong message to the carriers that the merger cannot be an excuse to bust unions or abrogate contracts.

Union members from across Missouri attend political training in St. Louis.

Randy Kiser, director of the Missouri AFL-CIO, reports on Labor 2008 training in St. Louis.

More than 50 local union coordinators from across Missouri and nearly a dozen more from across the country are participating in a two-day political training for Labor 2008, the AFL-CIO union movement’s political program.

The local union coordinator training includes workshops on member-to-member organizing, volunteer recruitment and media training. With the presidential race, a governor’s race, contested congressional races and dozens of state and local races, working families in Missouri are facing high stakes in 2008.

Kevin Christensen, lead researcher in the AFL-CIO Center for Strategic Research, writes about a great victory for food service workers and custodians with AFSCME at the University of California-Davis.

AFSCME Local 3299 has won a four-year fight to end outsourcing of food service work in the 10-campus University of California (UC) system, after UC-Davis announced last week that nearly 200 workers currently employed by Sodexho will be eligible to apply for university employment, and so become AFSCME members.

More than 100 San Jose Guild members, dressed in black, rally in front of the Mercury News to show their support for laid-off workers.

Are you tired of reading about which celebrity is having a baby or who was eliminated from “Dancing With the Stars” in your daily newspaper—while critical issues like plunging wages and the rising cost of feeding a family is pushed to back pages? One big reason is there are fewer journalists around to write the news. The Project for Excellence in Journalism reported last month that newsroom staffs have been cut 7 percent overall since 2000, with some slashed as much as 40 percent.

The union movement has argued for years that increased consolidation of media ownership is leading to a lack of diversity and quality in the gathering and reporting of news. As more newspapers—facing stiff competition from TV and online news services—cut back on newsroom staff and coverage, the news quality likely will continue to deteriorate as hard news loses out in favor of covering celebrities.