Labor Union Blog

Economic Report:

Services were up for the first time since December in April. According to the Institute for Supply Management the index for non-manufacturing businesses crept up to 52. Economists consider anything above 50 to be positive and in march the number was at 49.6. Service sector employers added 90,000 jobs in April, while the building sector saw a loss of 61,000.

A 19-day strike at Chile’s state run copper producer sent copper prices to a new record during the past month. That strike ended Monday with what the Confederation of Contract Workers is calling a “big victory.” The Chilean workers went on strike for bonuses and increased benefits. The contract workers walked off the job at mines across the South American country. They blocked roads and tried to prevent busses from getting through that were carrying non-contract employees to the mines.

By Doug Cunningham

An immigrant coalition called the Transnational Institute for Grassroots Research and Action says it has a deal with Virtual Money, Incorporated to provide money transfer services for migrant workers. The deal ensures fair pricing, responsible investing and genuine community reinvestment, according to the group. The coalition had launched an international boycott against Western Union, alleging unfair corporate practices. The coalition is demanding that Western Union cut its fees, provide what the group considers a fair exchange rate, commit a dollar from every transaction to a transnational community reinvestment fund and adopt human rights screens in its investment practices.

By Doug Cunningham

ACORN – the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now –is conducting a voter outreach program that will reach 2.8 million low and moderate income voters this year. Toni McElroy is ACORN’s Texas State Chair.

[McElroy] “We are targeting African-American, Latino, new immigrant and other underrepresented groups to make sure that we register them to vote, to get out and vote and that we keep them engaged in the process.”

ACORN’s goal is to register and mobilize voters who will then support candidates sensitive to the needs of low and moderate income w

By Doug Cunningham

ACORN – the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now – is conducting a voter outreach program that will reach 2.8 million low and moderate income voters this year. Toni McElroy is ACORN’s Texas State Chair.

[McElroy] “We are targeting African-American, Latino, new immigrant and other underrepresented groups to make sure that we register them to vote, to get out and vote and that we keep them engaged in the process.”

ACORN’s goal is to register and mobilize voters who will support candidates sensitive to the needs of low and moderate income w

The Canadian Auto Workers have approved a new three-year contract with Ford Motor Company avoiding a two-tier wage structure. Jesse Russell reports:

The new contract negotiated between the workers represented by the Canadian Auto Workers union and Ford Motor Company avoids the two-tier wage model agreed on last year by the United Auto Workers. Under the two-tier structure, new hires wouldn’t benefit from the same pay rates as senior workers. Instead, the Canadian workers gave up a week of vacation and agreed to a wage freeze. The CAW now moves on to negotiations with Chrysler and then GM. The CAW hopes to use the Ford contract as a model for negotiations with those two companies.

The Canadian Auto Workers have approved a new three year contract with Ford Motor Company avoiding a two-tier wage structure. Jesse Russell reports:

The new contract negotiated between the workers represented by the Canadian Auto Workers union and Ford Motor Company avoids the two-tier wage model agreed on last year by the United Auto Workers. Under the two-tier structure new hires wouldn’t benefit from the same pay rates as senior workers. Instead the Canadian workers gave up a week of vacation and agreed to a wage freeze. The CAW now moves on to negotiations with Chrysler and then GM. The CAW hopes to use the Ford contract as a model for negotiations with those two companies.

Here’s one more reason that the Bush administration’s refusal to push China to respect workers’ rights is wrong. This week, Chinese police rescued 167 village children sold to work as slave laborers in a city in the booming southern province of Guangdong in the Pearl River Delta. The children all came from poor families who lived more than 600 miles away.

The Guardian newspaper in London credits Southern Metropolis Daily, an underground Chinese newspaper, for revealing that more than 1,000 children, some as young as 7, had been sold “like cabbages” at a street market in southwestern China. Many had fake papers certifying they were adults, and more had documents saying they were in their early teens.

Chinese officials also said they were investigating reports that hundreds of other rural children had been lured or forced into captive, slave-like conditions for minimal pay.

The mortgage foreclosure crisis, fueled by years of unchecked predatory lending practices and a speculative bubble in real estate prices, has resulted in a disaster for millions of America’s homeowners. Not since the Depression of the 1930s have so many U.S. homeowners owed more on their mortgages than their homes are worth

Defaulting on the Dream, a new report by the Pew Charitable Trusts, projects that one in 33 current U.S. homeowners may be headed toward foreclosure in the coming years because of subprime loans. But the crisis affects not just homeowners. Communities suffer as families move out, decreasing the tax base that funds vital local services.