Labor Union Blog

Economic Report:

A federal report released on Monday revealed construction deaths in New York City falling by nearly half. Twenty four construction workers died on the job in 2007. The total so far this year is 20, still below the shockingly high number in 2006 of 43. 2008 has seen the addition of more construction safety rules resulting from two deadly crane collapses that killed eight workers and one tourist.

By Doug Cunningham

Four hundred professors are calling on California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to reverse his line item veto hit job on the University of California’s Labor Studies Program. Chris Tilly is Director of UCLA’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.

[Tilly]: “There was only one thing that he vetoed. Out of $3.3 billion in programs, he veoted one $6 million program. So we have to conclude that this is politically targeted.”

UC’s Labor Studies program has long been a target for elimination by California Republicans. But Tilly says the work that it does if far too important to let the program be destroyed.

Another day and another plant closure. Jesse Russell has the report:

This week has been filled with bad news for auto workers. ON Monday GM announced it was moving up the closure date for a plant in Janesville, Wisconsin from the year 2010 to December 23, 2008. Wednesday morning Portland, Oregon received similar news when Daimler announced it would be shuttering a plant by the year 2010. Nine hundred workers will lose their jobs as the company shifts the work to Mexico and South Carolina. The Mexican plant is expected to start taking on some of the work from the Portland plant in February of 2009 when the company begins production of Freightliner’s Cascadia.

The Institute for America’s Future has launched a discussion to explore long-term solutions to the critical problems the nation faces. The campaign kicked off last month, with experts writing about issues such as trade and the economy, and includes ads in the op-ed section of The New York Times demanding a debate worthy of our great nation. The latest looks at the nation’s health care crisis. Join the discussion online at the Institute for America’s Future.

Everybody out there who believes that what this nation’s failing health care system needs is the deregulation-at-any-cost, free market, unfettered system that’s worked so well with our financial markets, raise your hands.

Just guessing, but it’s a good bet there aren’t a lot of hands pointing skyward. Yet there is a gang of conservative, far-right think tanks, groups and individuals, including Sen. John McCain, who wants to replicate the Wall Street/financial recipe for disaster to reform our nation’s health care system.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) union is reaching out to thousands of members this fall to let them know that Sen. Barack Obama will fight for working families—while Sen. John McCain will leave them behind.

A new mailer, going to 120,000 CWA households in key states, contrasts Obama’s Senate record and proposals with McCain’s on the most important issues facing working families. The mailer is part of a large-scale union mobilization effort that includes phone banks and member-to-member neighborhood walks.

In the midst of a presidential campaign marked by misleading ads, trivial coverage and under-the-radar smear campaigns, CWA is asking its members to look past the noise and pay attention to the facts.

Forget the pundits. Forget the attack ads. Just compare their records.

With fewer than three weeks to go before the election, thousands of union members across the country are talking with union voters and working to send Sen. Barack Obama to the White House and pro-working family candidates to Congress. Through door-to-door walks, worksite visits and other actions, union members are doing the hard work necessary to win in November.

Virginia and Ohio are just two of the states where union leaders and volunteers are making the difference this fall. (If you’re a union member, find out how to get involved in walks, phone banks and worksite leaflets with the AFL-CIO event finder here.)

Across the country, pro-worker candidates are standing alongside the union members who will make the difference in this election. From Sen. Barack Obama to congressional, state and local races, working family-friendly candidates say the AFL-CIO Labor 2008 political mobilization program will be essential to victory in November.

Rep. Jason Altmire, who won his first race in 2006 in Pennsylvania’s 4th District in large part because of the strong support of union members, and Jill Long Thompson, a candidate for Indiana governor, are two candidates who know the importance of the Labor 2008 political program.

Magicians often talk about how they use diversion to trick audiences—keep them focused on something on the side while the real action they don’t want you to see is going on somewhere else. That’s what John McCain and the Republican Party are up to with their latest charges against the grassroots group ACORN.

Here are the facts:

• ACORN and Project Vote registered 1.3 million poor people, persons of color and young people, groups that generally vote for Democrats. To register this number of new voters, the groups hired 13,000 canvassers who went door to door in their neighborhoods. The Republicans especially don’t want these groups to vote in large numbers and are doing everything they can to suppress what could be a huge vote for the Democrats.