Labor Union Blog

In a statement released this afternoon supporting the growing Occupy Wall Street movement, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says:

Occupy Wall Street has captured the imagination and passion of millions of Americans who have lost hope that our nation’s policymakers are speaking for them. We support the protesters in their determination to hold Wall Street accountable and create good jobs.

This evening in New York City, union members joined the Occupy Wall Street protestors—now in their third week camped in the heart of the financial district—and other activists for a Wall Street march and rally drawing several thousand.  Says Trumka:

We are proud that today on Wall Street, bus drivers, painters, nurses and utility workers will join students and homeowners, the unemployed and the underemployed to call for fundamental change.

With the Occupy Wall Street mobilization gaining steam in cities across the country, Trumka says the labor movement “will open our union halls and community centers as well as our arms and our hearts to those with the courage to stand up and demand a better America.”

Click the video above for Trumka’s full statement.

Colombia’s Labor Action Plan that was billed as a major step to ending violence against trade unionists and protecting the right of workers to come together in unions “has failed to achieve improvements on the ground for Colombia’s working families,” a new AFL-CIO report finds.

As a result, workers who wish to better their lives by forming a union and bargaining collectively continue to be the victims of threats and violent acts, including murder. Moreover, Colombian law continues to provide broad avenues to deny workers the ability to exercise their most basic rights.

With Congress expected to vote on a free trade agreement with Colombia this month, the AFL-CIO has distributed the report—”The Ineffectiveness of Colombia’s Action Plan”—to key lawmakers. Click here to download the report.

The action plan was agreed to between Colombia and the United States in April in hopes of swaying opponents of the trade deal. The Colombian government said it would issue new laws, regulations and other measures aimed at ensuring workers’ rights, stopping the violence against trade unionists and bringing those behind the deadly violence to justice. But there was nothing in the action plan that required Colombia to show improvements in workers’ rights and a reduction or end to the violence before a trade agreement could be approved.

Twenty-three union leaders have been killed so far this year in Colombia, including 16 since the labor action plan went into effect.

The report also finds that workers  are forced to join cooperatives or cooperative-like structures to prevent workers from forming a union. Workers also are illegally fired for legitimate union activity and threatened and even killed.

Yesterday, hundreds of union members from around the country were on Capitol Hill telling Congress to vote “No” on the Colombia trade agreement and proposed trade deals with Korea and Panama. Call your members of Congress at 1-800-718-1008 and tell them to stop these job-killing trade deals. You also can send your message via e-mail by clicking here.

Actors’ Equity (AEA)  and the Broadway League—the national trade association for the Broadway and touring industry—have reached a tentative four-year contract, both sides announced today.

AEA Executive Director Mary McColl says the tentative deal is “a win for Equity members, League members and the theater-going public.”

“What we achieved at the bargaining table recognizes issues important to both sides, correcting issues that have not been addressed for decades while also acknowledging the fast-changing world we now live in.”

Broadway League Executive Director Charlotte St. Martin says, “We are pleased that both Producers and Equity members received worthwhile and important benefits in this agreement.”

Terms of the agreement have not been released. After AEA’s National Council reviews the contract, it will be sent to members for ratification and those results are expected by December.

AEA is the oldest performing arts union in America and represents more than 49,000 professional stage actors and stage managers nationwide.

Jon Ross of Union Privilege sends us this.

The new iPhone 4S will be available from AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint on Oct. 14. Here are three reasons why you should buy your new iPhone 4S—or any wireless device—from AT&T:

 1. AT&T is the one and only unionized wireless carrier. Some 45,000 members of the Communications Workers of America work as AT&T technicians, customer service representatives and retail store personnel. Both Verizon Wireless and Sprint are nonunion.

 2. 15 percent union member AT&T discount. Union members save 15 percent off the regular monthly rate for individual and family wireless plans with the Union Plus AT&T discount. That means you could save $116.98^* annually on an AT&T iPhone plan (based on a monthly $39.99 Nation 450 individual talk plan and $25 DataPro 2 GB data plan).

Visit UnionPlus.org/AT&T to save.

 3. AT&T’s fast network. Your iPhone will perform better on AT&T because AT&T has the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network. And, only AT&T’s network lets you talk to someone and surf the Web at the same time on the iPhone.

The new iPhone 4S is faster, offers a new eight-megapixel camera and comes with a virtual assistant. Plus, a new app that turns iPhone and iPad photos into greeting cards that are sent through the mail will help to support union postal workers. 

For union members, AT&T is the clear choice for wireless service and the new iPhone 4S.

To learn more and save on AT&T wireless service, visit UnionPlus.org/ATT.

Like millions of jobless and underemployed Americans, Tom Rutherford wants to work.  The jobless, 22-year veteran licensed electrician and Electrical Workers (IBEW) member has a college degree, has continually improved his skills with special training and is currently taking another upgrading course.

I’m doing my part to get back on the job. But sadly, Congress is not making the same amount effort to help create jobs.  They would rather play political games than find sensible solutions to the jobs crisis, like rebuilding the infrastructure. They need to stop playing these games with the lives of millions of American families like mine.

Today, Rutherford joined AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Minnesota Working America member Kim Watkins in a press conference call outlining the AFL-CIO’s upcoming America Wants to Work mobilization and the union movement’s backing of the growing Occupy Wall Street protests.

Trumka says the spreading Wall Street protests show the growing anger and outrage over an economy with 25 million people out of work or underemployed—with a brutal impact on the communities  of color—millions of families losing their homes and health care.

But the bonuses keep flowing. And Wall Street wants to hold onto the tax cuts that help the top one percent and undo the financial reform that was passed last year.  Like the protestors on Wall Street are saying, we have an economy and a political process that isn’t serving the 99 percent of our country.

So yes, there’s anger.  There’s outrage.  We’re seeing it on Wall Street and in actions in cities across the country.

Beginning Oct. 10, the AFL-CIO’s America Wants to Work initiative will bring working people together in hundreds of week of action events to demand action from Congress to promote a real jobs creation agenda. Says Trumka:

Hundreds of thousands of people are standing up together by joining in this week of action and they will continue to call for passage of President Obama’s American Jobs Act and a just economy—and they’re not going away. They’ll be back and back and back until lawmakers finally listen.  Every elected leader will be held accountable for creating the jobs we need and putting America back to work.

Click here to find an America Wants to Work action near you next week and here for information on the Oct. 12 America Wants to Work National Teach-In. You also can sign anAmerica Wants to Work petition to Congress here.

Watkins, the mother of 16 year-old daughter, has worked since she was 15. But now she says:

I’m really struggling lately working part time and going back to school. I’ve had to use emergency food banks and other help.

I feel like we are very much under attack. I see people being fired and having their wages reduced. There are common sense solutions to create jobs. We can start by rebuilding bridges, roads, the infrastructure. I’d really like to see politicians focus on making investments to create jobs so we can all work because we all want to work so we can make a decent living.

Click here for a map of the nation’s 69,223 structurally deficient bridges and send a message your members of Congress to pass legislation like the American Jobs Act to fix the nation’s crumbling infrastructure and put American back to work.

With Big Business pushing Congress to pass legislation granting a “tax holiday” for hundreds of U.S. corporations, a new study shows that despite a similar tax holiday in 2004, corporations slashed nearly 600,000 jobs through layoffs even as they collectively saved $64 billion from what they otherwise would have owed in taxes. Under a tax holiday, corporations could bring trillions in overseas proft back to the United States in exchange for a hugely reduced tax rate on that profit.

The Institute for Policy Studies report shows the 2004 tax holiday enabled 843 companies to reduce their tax rate from 35 percent to just over 5 percent. These companies repatriated $312 billion in profits—and avoided $92 billion in federal taxes. The corporations include Big Banks like Citigroup and Bank of America.

Wall Street firms currently are lobbying for another tax holiday on an up to $1.5 trillion in overseas profits. Legislation in the Republican-controlled House would let them repatriatethose profits at 5.25 percent, the same tax rate given to them under a similar tax holiday during the Bush administration.

Big Business is billing the tax holiday as a way to create jobs. Right. Because Wall Street firms, which now are sitting on $2 trillion in cash and creating virtually no jobs, need more incentive?

As Chuck Collins, co-author of the report, puts it:

History shows that many “tax holiday” companies use repatriated profits to reward executives and other shareholders, then lay off workers. Corporate tax holidays have resulted in precious few U.S. jobs.