Labor Union Blog

A federal appeals court yesterday threw out two lawsuits that sought to overturn the Affordable Care Act. The suits are part of a coordinated move by Republican governors, state and federal lawmakers and right-wing groups to kill 2010 health care reform law.

Since its inception, the Affordable Care Act has benefited tens of millions of people, including parents of children with preexisting conditions, women getting mammograms with no out of pocket cost, seniors saving thousands of dollars on their prescription drugs and young adults now getting covered on their parents’ plans.

In Thursday rulings, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed challenges from the state of Virginia and Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., that claimed the health care reform law was unconstitutional.

Several more suits are in the pipeline and Republican presidential  candidates and congressional leaders have vowed to kill the Affordable Care Act if they win the White House and a Senate majority and retain their majority in the House.

Click here and here for more on the rulings.

Margaret Espinoza, left, with former student Becky Zang this summer. Zang was one of the two students carried to safety on Sept. 11, 2001, by Espinoza and Julia Martinez.

As the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack approaches, the union movement remembers those who lost their lives, those who risked their lives to get others to safety and those who took part in the cleanup and rebuilding efforts that followed.

On the AFL-CIO website here, you can find a video we produced after the attacks of union members describing their efforts. Also on the site is a message from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and links to union websites about 9/11.

A member of AFGE Local 2004, Jeffrey Matthews was employed as a federal police officer with the Defense Protective Service (now called the U.S. Pentagon Police) on 9/11. His and other AFGE members’ stories are featured here. He says when he saw the TV broadcast of a plane flying into the World Trade Center, he jumped into his police uniform, grabbed his weapon, ran to his car and headed for the Pentagon.

While Matthews was on his way, Margaret Espinoza, a paraprofessional in a school two blocks from the World Trade Center, was already trying to get students safely out of the building. A member of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), an affiliate of AFT, Espinoza remembers the dust and noise, the confusion and fear. She and a colleague, Julia Martinez, partly wheeled and partly carried two wheelchair-bound students to safety through streets choked with debris.

Across New York City, teachers, school staff and administrators helped secure safe passage home for 8,000 students without a single serious injury. You’ll find Espinoza’s story and those of other AFT members here. She  says:

They did just an awesome job, a wonderful job in the aftermath. At school, everyone was like family, and we came together in kindness and decency.

Meanwhile, as Matthews approached the Pentagon, the smoke was still billowing from the building.

There were helicopters taking the injured away. It was pure chaos.

He was assigned a location to scan the crowds and onlookers for snipers. Later he was  assigned to guard the morgue tent. He spent the next 26 hours helping the U.S. Marshals Service provide scene security and helping the FBI collect and document evidence.

Witnessing the carnage of the attack, he thought:

I have stared into the face of Satan, and I still remain to fight another day.

Bud Biscardo from United Way Worldwide reports on the kickoff of the 2011 United Way campaign.

Across the country, the AFL-CIO Community Services Network is kicking off the 2011 United Way campaign with union-sponsored events—rallies, golf outings, kickoff lunches and dinners. All these events have one goal: to show union members’ strong support for the United Way.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says the partnership between the AFL-CIO and United Way provides a valuable service:

At a time when working families across this country are facing a job crisis and unprecedented hardship, our partnership with the United Way is more valued that ever. Workers and their communities are hurting and the services of the United Way are vital to the very survival of so many. The vision of “Live United” could not be more appropriate for these times.

For nearly six decades, the union movement and United Way have worked together to make our communities better places to live, work and raise families. The annual fundraising campaign allows the United Way to provide vital services to people in need across the country. Union volunteers play a key role in seeing that the charitable dollars raised are put to the best use possible.

Brian Gallagher, CEO of United Way Worldwide, adds:

The labor movement and the United Way movement have a long history of partnership and dedication to community. We not only have a passion for improving lives but we have a shared commitment to bringing people, organizations and resources together to create opportunities for a better life for all.

Andy Richards on our Field Communications staff files this report on Maine working families’ action to protect voting rights.

Another grassroots effort to overturn the partisan political agenda of extreme politicians scored a major victory in Maine today.  The Coalition to Protect Maine Votes reported this morning that Maine Secretary of State Charlie Summers verified more than enough signatures to allow Mainers to put a measure on the November ballot to overturn legislation that eliminates same-day voter registration.

In a statement, the Maine AFL-CIO, part of the coalition effort, says:

After an incredible effort by more than 1,000 volunteers to collect more than 70,000 signatures, our campaign moves into the next phase: winning the election in November. This is great news for working families in Maine.  We know that working people don’t need one more thing on their plates right now. For workers who do shift work, it is an additional barrier to voting to have to get more time off from work to go in and register to vote the week before an election.

Mark Gray, campaign manager for Protect Maine Votes, praises the effort of the signature gatherers.

More than a thousand volunteers worked tirelessly to protect a system that has worked well for more than 38 years. There’s no reason to change it.

Maine voters, like those in Ohio working to veto S.B. 5, which eliminates the collective bargaining rights of 350,000 public employees, will decide the fate of the issue on Nov. 8 at the polls.

The Maine law is just one of many examples of voter suppression bills being pushed across the country by corporate interests and extreme lawmakers.  Many of these bills have been strikingly similar to model legislation provided by the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

But working families are standing up to these attacks on voters’ rights. A similar community and labor effort is under way in Ohio to gather signatures to allow Ohioans to veto a measure that would change early voting rules and other policies that would disenfranchise thousands of young people, seniors, people of color, people with disabilities and the poor.

The New Hampshire Senate this week also sustained a veto, after pressure from Granite Staters, of a voter photo ID bill, although House and Senate leaders have vowed to bring a new bill up for a vote next year.

Unions and progressive organizations are calling the American Jobs Act that President Obama presented to a joint session of Congress last night a vital and essential step to restoring the nation’s economy and putting America back to work.

They are urging Congress to put aside partisan politics and pass the legislation as a major tool to solve the nation’s jobs crisis. At the same time, the groups are urging Obama and Congress to maintain and strengthen Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Click the links below for full statements.

AFSCME, AFT, Alliance for American Manufacturing, BlueGreen Alliance, Communications Workers of America, Economic Policy Institute, Electrical Workers, United Food and Commercial Workers, Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, Laborers, National Employment Law Project, NEA, Sheet Metal Workers, Transport Workers, United Steelworkers.

Several groups have issued statements that are yet to posted.

AFGE President John Gage says: 

President Obama has laid out a sound strategy to get millions of Americans back to work…For months, I have been saying that we have a jobs crisis, not a debt crisis. Congress needs to set aside the partisan bickering and pass this jobs bill now.

AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) President Mark Ayers says:

Nowhere is the jobs crisis being felt more than in the construction industry….Our members are tired of politics and demand action.

AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department (TTD) President Edward Wytkind says: 

President Obama’s call to lawmakers to finally begin the long overdue job of modernizing our transportation system was a blunt warning that America is standing still while nations around the world are making the investments necessary to win in the global economy.  

The Center for American Progress (CAP) says the plan’s:

boldness matches the size of the challenge. It is pragmatic and sharply focused on the biggest obstacles holding back economic growth. And it is fiscally responsible.

Fire Fighters (IAFF) President Harold Schaitberger says:

President Obama proved to the public safety community that he gets it. His jobs proposal will put fire fighters back to work and prevent layoffs.

Plumbers and Pipe Fitters (UA) President William P. Hite says:

Jobs, jobs, jobs—was the key theme of the president’s address and in his message he once again demonstrated his unwavering support for and commitment to American workers.

School Administrators (AFSA) President Diann Woodward  says: 

We are especially pleased that the president’s plan will invest $35 billion to prevent up to 280,000 layoffs for all K-12 educators. This will help already squeezed state and local budgets avoid further cuts that could have a significant impact on children’s education, such as increased class sizes, and the elimination of critical programs and services

UAW President Bob King says: 

We call on Congress to put creating good jobs above more tax cuts for the wealthy. It’s time for those who constantly call for tax cuts to support Obama’s plan to provide tax cuts to those who need them the most: working families.

Working America says President Obama:

laid out some proposals tonight that represent a starting point for reversing the devastating jobs crisis that our nation continues to endure. But if we are to truly dig ourselves out of this hole, we have much more work ahead of us.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka issued the following statement on President Obama’s jobs and the economy proposal that he presented to a joint session of Congress tonight.

The President took an important and necessary step tonight: he started a serious national conversation about how to solve our jobs crisis. He showed working people that he is willing to go to the mat to create new jobs on a substantial scale. Tonight’s speech should energize the nation to come together, work hard and get serious about jobs.

As the President explained, we can no longer delay putting Americans back to work and rebuilding our nation’s schools, roads, bridges, transit, ports, rail, communications and energy systems. And we need to help state and local governments avoid layoffs that are dragging down the economy—rejecting the pernicious myth that the only way to address Wall Street’s crisis is to punish firefighters, teachers and others who perform critical public services. 

We call on Congress to act and look forward to working with the President and Congress on all elements of this proposal. 

The plan announced by the President is only the opening bid. We expect to see more proposals in the next weeks and months to put America back to work. President Obama understands that this economic crisis was not created overnight, and it will not be solved overnight. The middle class has been under attack for decades.  He understands that we need to rebuild our economy for the 21st century and rebuild our middle class. But doing this will require a revolution in the way Washington takes on these questions.  Republicans are going to have to stop blocking bills that sustain or create millions of jobs and start offering credible solutions. We don’t have time to waste on the same old failed policies of deregulation and lower taxes that drove our economy off the cliff in the first place. All our elected leaders will be judged by whether they act with integrity and energy to create good jobs now.

Politicians need to recognize that America’s best days are still before us. We will not accept the disappearance of the American middle class or several more years of crisis-level joblessness. We can and must solve the jobs crisis and we must start now. Our country is too good and too rich to weaken our commitment to safety net protections such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Unemployment Insurance.