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lia href= http://www.laborradio.org/node/10016UAW: Millions Of Jobs Will Be Lost If U.S. Auto Industry Is Losta//li
lia href= http://www.laborradio.org/node/10017U.S. Steel Cutting 3500 Jobs As Jobs Hemorrhage Continuesa//li
lia href= http://www.laborradio.org/node/10018Wal-Mart Worker’s Family Sues In Black Friday Trampling Deatha//li
lia href= http://www.laborradio.org/node/10019Economic Report: U.S. Service Sector Posts Worst Slump Everbr /
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pEconomic Report:/p
pThe U.S. service sector posted its worst job slump in recorded history. The index compiled by the Institute for Supply Management fell from 44.4 in October to 37.3 in November. According to the organization an index under 50 means the sector is contracting. The service sector accounts for 80 percent of U.S. economy so the number is startling to economists. Hotels, restaurants, banks, retail and more make up the sector. /p
pThe family of a Wal-Mart contracted worker trampled to death in shopping the day after Thanksgiving is suing asking unspecified damages for wrongful death. New York City’s Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union has called the incident a “tragedy” and is calling for an investigation of the company’s safety protocols./p
pOn the heels of new numbers showing a drop of 250,000 jobs in the United States in October through November, Wednesday brought yet another day of mass layoff announcements. Jesse Russell reports:/p
pAccording to the ADP National Employment Report 250,000 U.S. jobs were lost in the United States from October to November. Since August 2006 the construction industry alone has shed 521,000 jobs. So it didn’t come as a surprise Wednesday when the country’s largest steelmaker, U.S. Steel, announced plans to cut 3,500 salaried and union jobs. There has been a major drop in steel orders as new home construction continues to stall and the auto watches sales plummet. The layoffs amount to 13 percent of the company’s North American workforce. The job cuts will come at three locations: one in Minnesota, another near Detroit, and a third near St. Louis. /p
pBy Doug Cunningham/p
pOn the verge of collapse, the U.S. auto industry returns to Congress seeking more than $30 billion in emergency federal loans to survive into the New Year. It’s a high-stakes drama for domestic autoworkers and the millions of U.S. jobs dependent on the auto industry./p
p[Gettelfinger]: “Millions of jobs will be lost in this country if we lose this industry.”/p
pThat’s United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger in an emergency meeting of the UAW in Detroit where the union is considering more concessions to get those federal loans for the auto industry. GM, Ford and Chrysler employ roughly 250,000 people. And more than a million retirees get auto company pension checks. Gettelfinger says these federal bridge loans are critical to the industry’s survival in the United States. And he says workers and their unions are not to blame for the auto industry’s crisis. /p
A new study confirms the union advantage for working women. After controlling for several factors apart from union membership (education, age, industry and state), women who belong to unions earn, on average, 11.2 percent more—about $2 an hour—than their nonunion peers. That’s equivalent to what a woman worker would gain by spending a year in college.
In addition, women in unions in 2007 “were about 19 percentage points more likely to have employer-provided health insurance and about 25 percentage points more likely to have an employer-provided pension,” according to the study, Unions and Upward Mobility for Women Workers, by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR
If Congress does not soon approve emergency loan legislation to keep Detroit’s Big Three automakers operating as they ride out the nation’s financial crisis, job losses will ripple not just through the auto industry but through the entire economy, warned UAW President Ron Gettelfinger.
At a news conference today following an emergency meeting with UAW local and regional leaders, Gettelfinger said the union is willing to “take the extra step” to aid the industry. Union leaders, he said, have agreed to delay automakers’ payments to a union-administered health care fund and to modify the union’s job banks program that provides laid-off workers with a portion of their wages and benefits.
But he reiterated that UAW members already have agreed to wage and benefit concessions that have lowered labor costs at the Big Three.
In yesterday’s runoff election for Georgia’s U.S. Senate seat, working family-friendly candidate Jim Martin made a strong effort but wasn’t able to unseat incumbent Sen. Saxby Chambliss. Chambliss won with 57 percent of the vote, while Martin took 43 percent.
Martin’s presence in the runoff and the votes he won last night are thanks, in part, to the efforts of hundreds of union volunteers who have been working hard contacting active and retired members around the state. Union volunteers knocked on 100,000 doors, sent 300,000 pieces of union mail and leafleted more than 150 worksites. Union phone bankers made more than 300,000 phone calls, and Martin himself took part in a union phone bank as the election approached.
Throughout the race, union volunteers identified and mobilized union voters. Though they weren’t successful this time, they’ll be ready to turn out votes in future Georgia races.
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Félie and thousands of children like him work every day and are not in schools. |
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On a typical day, more than 400 workers younger than 18 are hurt on the job in the United States and one is killed every 10 days. At the same time, the number of federal child labor investigations has declined by half since the Bush administration took office eight years ago.
In a two-part series last week, the Charlotte Observer revealed that employers are ignoring federal child labor laws and getting away with it. As part of its investigation, the Observer interviewed more than 20 current and former House of Raeford Farms workers who said the North Carolina-based poultry company often hired underage workers. Click here and here to read the series.
North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley (D) told the Observer:
It’s hard to believe that’s going on in this century and in this state….You’re really talking about a form of child abuse here.
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