Labor Union Blog

Economic Report:

The National Retail Federation is projecting a cold Christmas shopping season, and they don’t mean the weather. Economic and financial chaos could create the worst holiday shopping season in six years for retailers. With housing down, fuel prices up, and consumer confidence flat, American consumers are likely to tighten their belts. If sales rise this year, the Federation projects a slight increase of 2.2 percent in growth, below the ten-year average of 4.4 percent.

The Wall Street bailout lit a fire on the floor of the House yesterday and many Congressional Democrats stepped up to express anger that the bill was being pushed through behind the secrecy of closed doors and with little regard for the millions of Americans struggling to pay for mortgages or facing foreclosure. Democrat Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Toledo brought to the floor her own proposal which calls for securing real assets and property, equity in bailed out companies for the American people, modernized banking reform, a path for returning a share of profit from the companies to a social security and medicare lockbox and a commitment to job creation through rebuilding the county’s infrastructure:

By Doug Cunningham

The Economic Policy Institute’s Josh Bivens says while working people are angry about the idea of a $700 billion Wall Street bailout, doing nothing would definitely hurt working families.

[Bivens1]: “And if we get complete meltdown in the credit markets the way people fear, essentially what that means is that no bank trusts any other bank. And even things like operating loans and lines of credit, you know, the instruments that firms just use to meet their payroll every week will not go through. And you're just gonna see even more layoffs and more distress in the job market than we're already seeing."

By Doug Cunningham

The Economic Policy Institute’s Josh Bivens says while working people are angry about the idea of a $700 billion Wall Street bailout, doing nothing would definitely hurt working families.

[Bivens1]: “And if we get complete meltdown in the credit markets the way people fear, essentially what that means is that no bank trusts any other bank. And even things like operating loans and lines of credit, you know, the instruments that firms just use to meet their payroll every week will not go through. And you're just gonna see even more layoffs and more distress in the job market than we're already seeing."

IUPAT member Lonnie Tinder (right) takes the keys to his new bass boat.

Lonnie Tinder, a Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) member in Phoenix, was an avid and dedicated fisherman with a slight problem. He had no boat. Tinder, also a member of the Union Sportsmen's Alliance (USA), would cast his lines from the banks and in trout streams. For a day of bass fishing, he had to count on friends with a boat.

But not anymore.

Tinder, this month, took possession of a brand-new Triton 18 bass boat—powered by a Mercury engine—and trailer. Triton Boats and USA sponsored the $25,000 bass boat giveaway—one of several ongoing giveaways for trips, hunting gear, firearms and more that are open to USA members (click here to learn how to win a NASCAR weekend at Texas Motor Speedway in November). Says Tinder:

USA-made and union-made is something I always try to support because I know it is excellent quality.

Some 33,000 Washington State employees win a new pact, and more news from the "Bargaining Digest Weekly." The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 900 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.

SETTLEMENTS

AFSCME, Washington State: Some 33,000 Washington State workers, represented by the Washington Federation of State Employees-AFSCME, reached agreement on a new two-year tentative agreement. Specific details have not been released, but there also would be additional raises for workers in high-turnover jobs such as juvenile rehabilitation officers and an extra day off each year in 2009 and 2010.

Edwin Hill, IBEW president

Barb Kucera, editor of Workday Minnesota, sends us this report from a recent meeting of more than 300 Electrical Workers (IBEW) activists mobilizing in key Midwestern states to help elect Barack Obama.

To ensure Sen. Barack Obama wins the White House, IBEW and other union members need to talk with co-workers and "take a personal stand," says IBEW President Edwin Hill.

In a Rochester, Minn., meeting with 300 IBEW leaders and activists from Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, Hill described the union's nationwide mobilization strategy in the weeks remaining before the Nov. 4 election. The worksite is the bull's-eye of the mobilization target.

Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) and AFL-CIO Executive Board member, recently published the following on Huffington Post.

For advocates of improvements in health care, retirement security, and such fairness issues as pay equity, there's a lot at stake in the November election.

Amidst the worst economic crisis in this nation since the 1930s, the prospect of a John McCain-Sarah Palin administration hardly offers much confidence for the future. Here's 10 reasons why.