Labor Union Blog

The union movement in the United States is working to turn the country’s economy around—and the best way to do that is by electing Sen. Barack Obama as president in November, says AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker.

In an interview on Congress TV, a worker-oriented network in the United Kingdom, Holt Baker says (see video):

Union households are very excited about this election. We see it as an opportunity to start turning around our economy. We are really focused on passing the Employee Free Choice Act, which will give workers the freedom to join and form unions if they so choose.

Hollywood made a movie the big moguls don’t want you to see—at least not in movie theaters. Instead, the big producers would love for it to go straight to DVD—maybe because the events it depicts show how union members and activists in the environmental, human rights and religious communities can successfully join together to challenge a bottom-line-only global economy.

The “Battle in Seattle,” which is being released in limited markets on Friday, tells the story of how those who came to Seattle in 1999 challenged the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial summit in Seattle, changing the course of history.

We need to ensure it is shown in theaters across the nation. If it does well in its first weeks, the film will get national distribution. (See movie trailer.)

Here’s a shout out to the men and women of UAW Local 744 in Tonawanda, N.Y., who helped combine the 70th anniversary celebration of the town’s General Motors Corp. (GM) plant and the carmaker’s 100th birthday with a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society (ACS). The event raised several thousands dollars for ACS.

The local union leaders worked with plant management to organize Friday night’s $100-a-ticket gala fundraiser at the power train plant, where more than 400 people took in a display of 100 cars from GM’s history—the oldest from 1915.

Most of the damage from Hurricane Ike came from surges and flooding.

Ed Sills, director of communications for the Texas AFL-CIO, sends us this report from the areas of Texas devastated by Hurricane Ike.

The good news from Hurricane Ike is that the death toll is not commensurate with a storm that literally left some communities in Texas under water. For the most part, Texans took the advice to evacuate. The storm, while huge and violent, was not as strong as some had feared.

The bad news is that it could be weeks, months or years for victims of the storm to re-establish their lives.

So how does the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the fire-sale purchase of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America—not to mention the Bush bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and Bear Stearns—relate to those of us who aren’t hedge fund billionaires?

First, the economic shock waves caused by the financial and housing crisis will impact every American—and many others around the globe—through slower growth, lost jobs and lost wealth in housing, financial assets and pensions. Second, the stunning collapse of these major institutions is a direct result of a fairly recent development in the current U.S. economy—the deregulation of the nation’s financial markets.

Anna Brelje, a staff member in Minneapolis, outlines the issues at stake in the November election.

Barb Kucera, editor of Workday Minnesota, follows up her coverage yesterday of the Minnesota AFL-CIO convention where union members are revving up for the final political mobilization push.

Most of the activists who are leading the Labor 2008 election effort in Minnesota were in grade school when John Sweeney took the helm of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation. But on Monday, young and old came together to challenge workers to elect Sen. Barack Obama and other labor-endorsed candidates in November.

Speaking at the biennial convention of the Minnesota AFL-CIO in Duluth, Sweeney condemned the policies of Republican candidate Sen. John McCain and praised the positions of Obama.

Here’s the ultimate measure of the choice before us. Barack Obama has a 98 percent AFL-CIO voting record. McCain has voted with Bush 90 percent of the time. He voted against working families 90 percent of the time. Those votes have taken us down a road of economic destruction.