Labor Union Blog

Economic Report

According to a study from the Center for American Progress the definition of a "bad job" is one that pays less than $16 per hour and offer no health insurance or pension. In 1979 the number of 18-34 year olds in a so-called bad job was 34.7 percent. That percentage has slowly increased during the past two decades and now 40.8 percent of that age group are in bad jobs.

How fast can you surf the web? Jesse Russell finds out.

The Communications Workers of America want to know how fast you can surf the web as they push for national and state policies that promote affordable, universal high-speed broadband networks. They are encouraging internet users to visit speedmatters.org to find out if you’re upload and download speeds are as fast as providers say they are. According to a report issued by the CWA last year the United States lags internet speeds when compared to the rest of the industrialized nations in the world landing in 16th place. Of those nations the US is the only one without a national policy to promote high-speed broadband.

By Doug Cunningham

It took more than a year of hard work, protests and a public campaign, but the Coalition of Immokalee Workers will be able to deliver improved wages and working conditions now for workers picking tomatoes used by Burger King. The giant fast-food chain has agreed to pay a penny more per pound of tomatoes harvested. Similar efforts won higher wages for farm workers from McDonald’s and taco Bell.The Immokalee Workers say the long struggle to get Burger King to pay more for tomatoes has been trying, but he union is prepared now to move forward toward a future of full respect for the human rights for workers in Florida’s tomato fields.

By Doug Cunningham

In a bid to deal globally with multinational corporations the British union Unite says details are complete on a merger with the United Steel Workers. The merger has long been in the works. Unite has two million members, primarily in British transport, the public sector and energy. The USW represents 850,000 workers in the U.S. and Canada. Unite says details on the merger deal have been worked out, with the finishing touches done in a meeting last week. Economic globalization is hurting both unions. So to counteract the damage done by global corporations, the two unions are merging into a global force.

Right now, our Cool Tools section—the AFL-CIO’s pick of recent books, DVDs and more—features books that examine the way the extreme right has taken and held power in American politics.

This edition of Cool Tools features one of the most impressive and illuminating books that’s ever been written about American politics in the 1960s and 1970s: Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. Rick Perlstein, a sharp historian, examines these turbulent years in America through the lens of the rise of Richard Nixon, from his defeats in the early 1960s, to his landslide 1972 victory, to his disgrace and fall in the Watergate scandal.

Nixonland traces the breaking of the American social contract and asks how it was all possible. America went from the triumphant passage of Medicare and the Voting Rights Act to a divided nation in which the social contract was re-written to leave workers on their own.