By Jesse Russell
Organized labor and Democrats are reeling in Iowa where the state’s Democratic Governor Chet Culver vetoed a bill last week that would have given public employee unions the right to negotiate on issues such as uniforms and class size. Nearly all Democrats in Iowa’s legislature voted in support of the union-backed collective bargaining bill.
Lede: Two big unions are uniting to make New Hampshire labor law reform real for university employees. Doug Cunningham has the story.
By Doug Cunningham
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is joining forces with the United Auto Workers to help workers at the University of New Hampshire form unions. Labor law reform passed in 2007 allows public employees to form unions whenever a majority of those workers at a workplace sign union cards. Lonn Sattler, a veterans’ coordinator who has worked at the University of New Hampshire for 26 years says that with two great unions working together for employees, the university will become a better place to work. This will be a coordinated effort by AFSCME, and the UAW, which together represent 2.6 million active and retired members nationwide, including 250,000 workers at 300 universities across the U.S. AFSCME will organize clerical, technical, skilled trades, administrative employees and certain supervisory workers. The UAW will focus on service and professional staff, adjunct faculty and certain supervisory employees. The UAW and AFSCME both say that by combining resources they can more effectively help workers to join unions.
By Jesse Russell
The UAW has reached a tentative agreement with American Axle after an 11-week long strike. The agreement that workers saw for the fist time during meetings on Sunday offers buyouts of $140,000 to workers that have been with the company for 10 years or more. American Axle will also pay workers up to $105,000 over the next three years as a lower pay scale is put in place. The contract will be voted on by UAW members in Michigan and New York today. In order for the 11-week long strike to end the workers must approve the contract. More than 3600 workers went on strike after American Axle demanded deep wage cuts and an end to future retiree pensions and health care benefits.
America is the richest nation in the world, yet nearly 40 million Americans, about the population of California, live below the poverty line and millions more struggle to get by every month. Over the past seven years, the number of poor Americans has increased and inequality has increased.
A major study last year by the Poverty Task Force of the Center for American Progress (CAP) took a look at the extent of poverty and outlined a pragmatic plan to reduce it by half over the next 10 years. The plan included passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. Click here to read the study.
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