Labor Union Blog

Buffalo, New York based New Era Cap Company announced plans Thursday to close two plants. The company will shutter a Jackson, Alabama plant by February and is currently negotiating with the Communications Workers of America to determine if they will close plant in Demopolis, Alabama or Derby, New York. The company says consumer demand for the ball caps has dropped over the last 18 months and the company projects producing five million less caps in 2009 as compared to 2008.

Last week rallies were held across the country to highlight the continuing issue of wage theft. Independent of those events the New York Department of Labor released a list of 21 restaurants in the Park Slope Neighborhood of Brooklyn that have allegedly underpaid workers. The list comes from an investigation by the department earlier this year where payroll documents were checked for wage law compliance. According to the department 207 workers were underpaid at a combined total of nearly $1 million.

Lede: In the wake of President Obama’s China trip, a report to Congress reveals the depth of China’s threat to U.S. workers. Doug Cunningham reports.

By Doug Cunningham

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The United States plans to audit thousands of firms as it opens a new front on illegal workers. On Friday, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said the organization is specifically seeking hiring audits of firms that are tied to “public safety and national security.” The classified list of firms includes those that contract with the government, as well as those that deal with the food system and health care. The Obama administration has been heavily targeting firms as it seeks an overhaul of immigration laws.

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Alaska state troopers and AFSCME members (from left) Aileen Witrosky, Honie Culley and Anne Sears.

State trooper Ann Sears patrols 15 villages from an off-road post in Nome, a western Alaskan city of 35,000 residents. Riding in a boat or a snowmobile or flying a small plane, she responds to all calls—from drunkenness to domestic assaults—frequently without backup. 

“I’m often out in the middle of nowhere by myself. Law enforcement is tough enough but it’s a lot tougher in a state where just about every resident is armed, the weather is treacherous, and wild animals are always nearby.”

Sears is among 400 state troopers the National Geographic Channel profiles in its series on Alaska State Troopers—members of Public Safety Employees of Alaska (PSEA)/AFSCME Local 803. 

Each Wednesday at 10 p.m. EST, the show highlights those whom it describes as “the first line of defense on the last frontier,” women and men who often travel hundreds of miles over the rugged and unforgiving terrain of the nation’s largest state to enforce the law where nearly every resident is armed. The next episode is Dec. 2. 

The series captures a mixture of raw nature and criminal activity throughout the Alaskan wilderness and its remote village.

Sears says the television series—filmed over 10 months last year—gives viewers “a glimpse of the reality of what we do serving the people of Alaska.” 

Because of the unusual challenges we face every day, we are unlike any law enforcement agency anywhere else in the U.S. 

Click here for more information, photos and video clips. A tip of the hat to AFSCME webmaster Clyde Weiss for alerting us to the show.