Labor Union Blog

By Doug Cunningham

Pilot unions at both Delta and Northwest Airlines have said yes to a collective bargaining agreement that helps clear the way for a merger of the airlines. Delta is set to take over Northwest later this year. The deal includes 12,000 pilots at the airlines. MOre than 61 percent of the pilots voted for the agreement.

By Doug Cunningham

The U.S. isn’t gaining any on the rest of the developed world when it comes to high-speed internet. Debbie Goldman of the Communications Workers of America says the survey shows the U.S. continuing to fall behind other nations. Japan’s median download speed, for example, is thirty times faster than in the U.S.

[Goldman]: “We think it’s long past time for the U.S. to adopt a national broadband policy so that we can have affordable, quality, high-speed internet available to everybody in America. this is the infrastructure of the 21st century. In the same way that the government helped build roads and canals and railroads and assured that every American has affordable telephone service, it’s now time to make sure that every American can participate in the information age.”

By Doug Cunningham

About 70,000 workers at Verizon represented by the CWA and the IBEW are in the process of deciding whether or not to ratify the new tentative agreement that averted a strike at Verizon. CWA President Larry Cohen says this is a breakthrough agreement that creates new union jobs and takes a big step forward on health care. Union workers at Verizon will get roughly an 11 percent raise over the three years if the agreement and the company will continue to pay for all health care for active workers. For newly hired workers after they retire Verizon will pay just a fixed amount for their health care. The agreement also gives about 600 Verizon business workers the union representation they wanted. The CWA says the agreement will create about 2500 new union jobs. Both the CWA and IBEW expect their members to approve the agreement.

By Doug Cunningham

The SEIU is sending a team of investigators to California to look into allegations concerning possible financial irregularities at the United Long Term Care Workers Union – SEIU Local 6434. the Los Angeles Times reported that the union spent a six-figure amount to a video company and a day-care company run by the wife and mother-in-law of Locl 6434 President Tyrone Freeman.. The paper also said the local spent $300,000 on a Four Seasons Golf Tournament, a Beverly Hills cigar club, and restaurants. Freeman says members of the union have benefitted from the money spent on the video and day care companies that his wife and mother-in-law operate.

Most corporations, including a large majority of foreign companies doing business in the United States, pay no income taxes, according to a report released today.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that two-thirds of both American and foreign companies doing business here end up avoiding all income tax obligations to the federal government, despite corporate sales totaling $2.5 trillion.