Labor Union Blog

div class=flexinode-body flexinode-1div class=flexinode-textarea-2div class=form-item labelHeadlines:/labelbr / ul lia href=http://www.laborradio.org/node/9744IAM Boeing Workers To Vote Saturday On Tentative Deal Ending Strikea//li lia href=http://www.laborradio.org/node/9747SEIU Strikes Several California Hospitalsa//li lia href=http://www.laborradio.org/node/9748UAW: John McCain Is Shockingly Ignorant About U.S. Auto Industry's Needsa//li lia href=http://www.laborradio.org/node/9749Economic Report: Can You Invest A Day Off Work To Vote?a//li /ul /div /div/div

pEconomic Report:/p pDoes your state allow you time off to vote? You may want to check and find out. For example, the state of Wisconsin has a law that allows workers to take up to three hours off from work so they can go to the polls on Election Day. Employers are not required to pay workers for the time they take off, but if arrangements are made in advance employers must allow up to three hours in a row. Employees are also allowed to determine the three hours they get off. /p

pBy Doug Cunningham/p pUAW President Ron Gettelfinger says John McCain is out of touch and uninformed about the U.S. auto industry. Gettelfinger says the McCain campaign’s comments about not bailing out the auto industry to “save it from its own bad bets” reveals a shocking ignorance about the true state of the auto industry and how the economic crisis is affecting it. By contrast, the UAW leader says, Barack Obama will support the auto industry and help create a sustainable future for the industry./p

pTen northern California hospitals are the targets of strike action today. Jesse Russell reports:/p pAt 6 a.m. this morning nearly 6,000 hospital workers in Northern California walked off the job. Represented by the Service Employees International Union the workers are taking the action to protest slow moving negotiations by hospital management over the new contract. The union is seeking retirement health care, but also the opportunity to provide input concerning staffing levels and patient care. Negotiations started in May prior to the contracts expiration on June 30. The contract was extended to September 30. The strike will impact ten hospitals in northern California. California Nurses Association members have reached contract agreements, but will take part in informational pickets out of solidarity. SEIU represents nutrition aides, nursing assistants, housekeeping employees and others./p

Even the McCain campaign says its health care plan stinks.

A senior McCain adviser told CNN that "younger, healthier workers likely wouldn't abandon their company-sponsored plans" for the health care tax credits McCain has been touting.

"Why would they leave?" said [Douglas] Holtz-Eakin. "What they are getting from their employer is way better than what they could get with the credit."

As Newsweek economics correspondent Jane Bryant Quinn points out, a $5,000 tax credit in the McCain plan falls far short of the cost to replace most workers’ employer-provided coverage, especially for older workers who could face annual premium costs of $12,000 or more.

This is a cross-post by Carl Davidson from the Huffington Post.

Organized labor has set its sights on winning western Pennsylvania for Barack Obama.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney came to the Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 712 hall in Vanport on Oct. 25. He was joined by United Steelworkers (USW) top officials, as well as members of the Pittsburgh Steelers football team who were scheduled to be at the afternoon rally. In between, the unions deployed more than 2,200 rank-and-file union members to knock on the doors of some 31,000 union family homes across the state in a single afternoon, an effort that will become even more earnest over the next several days.

 

After a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker and Rep. John Conyers reflect on Martin Luther King Jr.'s support for workers.
Workers in Miami rally to get out the early vote for Barack Obama.

The AFL-CIO is mobilizing for the largest get-out-the-vote effort in its history. All 250,000 union volunteers are working extra hard to make sure union members make the difference next Tuesday and turn this country around. AFL-CIO top officers are spending these last days reminding union members across the country of what is at stake on Nov. 4—good jobs, affordable health care and the future of the middle class.

Last weekend, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker was joined in Youngstown, Ohio, by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), who urged union members to keep working hard right through Nov. 4 to ensure that worker-friendly candidates are elected. Holt Baker also traveled to Mississippi, Georgia and Florida. In Miami, she joined with union members in a rally to boost early voting.

Describing this as the most important election in our lifetimes, Holt Baker told the workers that union households can decide this election.

We cannot take four more years. We have to win. There is no alternative.

With so little time left, we have to shift into higher gear. This is an election where voters need a personal touch from people they know and trust—nobody has more respect and credibility among your members than you.

 

The UAW is stepping up its election efforts as Nov. 4 approaches, and the union is looking to score a big win for workers by sending new pro-worker voices to the U.S. Senate.

In three key states—Kentucky, Minnesota and North Carolina—the UAW’s political arm is airing radio ads in support of pro-worker Senate candidates in tight races. These ads focus on trade, jobs and Social Security.

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger says winning more Senate seats is essential to passing a worker-friendly agenda that turns around our economy in 2009 and beyond.

Members of our union will be working hard to elect Sen. Barack Obama as the next president of the United States. We want to be sure he has a strong team of legislators working with him to implement his progressive agenda: tax cuts for working families, affordable health care for all Americans and revitalizing our economy with good jobs, good wages and strong support for U.S. manufacturing industries.

 

Just today, Sen. John McCain said it would be "very, very, very unfortunate," if the nation's workers had a level playing field and smoother path to higher pay, better health care and pensions, a place in the nation's middle class and the other advantages that come with the union difference.

Today, in an interview with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo, McCain made clear once again his anti-worker, anti-union outlook. Asked about the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation that would level the playing field for the 60 million workers who say they would join a union if they could, McCain said he'd veto it "in a New York minute."

I will do everything in my power to block such legislation. And imagine, Sen. Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid pushing the union agenda, it would be very, very, very unfortunate.

 

Union volunteers around the country are putting a bigger effort than ever in these final days before the elections to reach out to every union member through the union movement's Labor 2008 political mobilization. In New Hampshire, Minnesota, Michigan and other key states, the union vote will be critical to victory next Tuesday, and now is the time to get involved to help elect Sen. Barack Obama and other pro-worker candidates. (Find out how you can get involved here, through the AFL-CIO events tool.)

Terry Stapleton, the secretary-treasurer of the Postal Workers (APWU), appeared at a New Hampshire rally to get out the vote for Obama, Senate candidate Jeanne Shaheen and the state’s two pro-labor U.S. House members. Stapleton said that while there’s momentum for victory, it can’t happen without a strong get-out-the-vote volunteer effort.

We are making history in this country right now, and with just a week to go we can't let up. There is something happening in this country. There is a change that is about to occur. We are riding a wave. We are going to carry on because we can't stop now. It's going to take more energy from here on out; whatever you are giving you have to give more.