Click to view the flyer
If you are concerned about film and tv production leaving the state of California, contact these elected officials and voice your opinion.
Rio Tinto, the biggest mining company in the world and the corporation that locked the miners out in Boron, is back. This time Rio Tinto has locked out steelworkers in Quebec at the world's largest aluminum smelter. On February 22, the LA County Fed will host a lunch and reception for three of these brave locked out workers from Quebec. Please give these brothers a warm LA welcome and learn about their struggle against Rio Tinto.
WHEN: Wednesday, February 22, 11:00AM
WHERE: LA County Federation of Labor
Please RSVP: 213-381-5611, ext 121
In 2008, when Cooper Tire & Rubber Company was losing money, workers at its Findlay, Ohio, plant gave up $31 million in pay and benefits to help the company stay afloat.
Thanks to the workers' sacrifices and productivity, Cooper has made more than $300 million in profits since 2009. Cooper paid its executives millions of dollars in bonuses and bought a new corporate jet.
What did its employees get? Locked out on Thanksgiving weekend.
Despite soaring profits, Cooper pushed a new contract on its employees with higher healthcare premiums and undisclosed wage terms. Do you think CEOs would accept a contract if they didn't know if they were getting a raise or a pay cut? Not a chance. Still, Cooper's employees were more than willing to keep working through negotiations to reach a fair deal after their contract expired last fall. But Cooper refused to budge – leaving 1,050 workers out in the cold since November 28.
http://act.aflcio.org/c/18/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=3641
Cooper can easily afford to set things straight and still turn a profit. Cooper CEO Roy Armes received $4.7 million in compensation in 2010. And the company has purchased a plant in Serbia for $17.3 million! Cooper wants to cry broke, but greed – not need – is driving this lockout.
Around the country, people are fighting back against corporate greed and standing up for the 99%. Will you stand up and fight for Cooper's workers too?
WHEN: Saturday, February 25, 9-11am
WHERE: Big O Tires, 9075 Artesia, Bellflower, CA 90706
http://act.aflcio.org/c/18/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=3641
The millions of Americans who buy food at Wal-Mart could soon be eating Monsanto GMO corn -- unmarked, unlabeled, and untested on humans -- with toxins built right into the plant's DNA.
Monsanto has released their first direct-to-consumer product, a genetically-modified (GM) sweet corn containing Bt toxin, designed to protect the plant by rupturing the stomach of any insect that feeds on it. Monsanto claims the toxin will break down before the corn makes it to your dinner table, but rats fed with the GM corn showed organ failure, and the toxin has been detected in the bodies of pregnant women.
Want to avoid this toxic product? Too bad – it will arrive on shelves unlabeled and untested on humans, starting with this year's corn crop.
Consumers are fighting back. Thanks to consumer pressure, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and General Mills have all agreed to not use Monsanto’s GM sweet corn in any of their products. But Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest organic retailer, is holding out.
Tell Wal-Mart to make a stand for consumer safety and turn down Monsanto’s GMO corn.
Biotech companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the past decade preventing the labelling of their products, and now Monsanto has decided to take advantage of that loophole to produce its first-ever consumer product which will crop up, unlabeled, in your local supermarket bin.
With more genetically-modified corn on the market and in the fields, the likelihood of cross-pollination is increased, making it even more difficult for consumers to find organic products. If Wal-Mart listens to our collective voice and shuts out Monsanto corn like Whole Foods and General Mills already have done, farmers will be much less likely to plant the toxic crop.
Thanks for helping keep our food safe,
As another round of behind-closed-door talks aimed at creating a massive new trade pact for the Pacific Rim took place in a posh Beverly Hills hotel on Wednesday, labor, environmental and public health advocates picketed outside to demand a voice for working people. During a press event and rally, they called on negotiators to release the negotiating texts, allow for greater public input and to ultimately deliver a "fair deal or no deal" on the Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement. Another rally is planned at the University of California – San Diego, the site of more negotiations.
Maria Elena Durazo, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO:
"It’s not right that Wall Street and big corporations have access to the negotiating documents, while the American public is kept in the dark. Past trade deals have put corporate profits ahead of working families both at home and abroad. Without more transparency, people are right to worry that this new pact will only deliver more of the same."
Over the past few weeks, the issue of online piracy has taken center stage. While there may be some disagreement over the legislative specifics, there is agreement on one thing: we need a solution to eliminate online piracy and protect American jobs.
With your help, Creative America has risen to become a meeting place for the entertainment industry, small businesses, working people, and other concerned citizens. Together, we have called and emailed Congress, written letters to our local newspapers, talked to our friends and neighbors, and lent our voices to this fight.
The discussion we’ve had over the past few months will continue in the halls of Congress and in communities around the country. But it’s crucial that we continue to educate ourselves about the issues, and ensure those around us understand what’s at stake.
We need your help to keep this conversation going. Take a minute to watch this short video.
Online theft threatens the livelihoods of cameramen in Los Angeles, CA, wardrobe stylists in Charleston, SC, tailors in Charlotte, NC, video editors in New York, and countless others in front of and behind the camera.
To some observers, it may seem like an innocent crime, but the reality is that billions of dollars are stolen every year -- revenue that supports small businesses, a time-honored American industry, and the lifeblood of those around us.
Watch this video and help us fight back today:
CreativeAmerica.org/showyoursupport
Trade negotiators from throughout the Pacific Rim are gathering in southern California next week to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement. Out of the public eye, trade ministers and corporate lobbyists (over 600 of whom have certified "corporate adviser" status) are pressing for a NAFTA-style deal that encourages offshoring, expands downward corporate pressure on labor and environmental standards, raises drug prices, and bans "Make it in America," among other problems.
The only way to ensure this deal doesn't become another anti-worker “NAFTA of the Pacific” is to bring it out of the shadows. Take action to demand a “Fair Deal or No Deal” by joining an informative teach-in on Monday at 6PM at USC University Club, or by coming out to a noontime rally at the Sofitel Los Angeles on Wednesday and at UCSD on Friday (both sites of the trade negotiations).
Learn more and find event details.
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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office just released a statement explaining that Protect IP Act (PIPA), a contentious, heavily-lobbied bill that was supposed to be debated and voted on in the coming days, has been postponed:
“In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday’s vote on the PROTECT I.P. Act.
“There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved. Counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs each year, with the movie industry alone supporting over 2.2 million jobs. We must take action to stop these illegal practices. We live in a country where people rightfully expect to be fairly compensated for a day’s work, whether that person is a miner in the high desert of Nevada, an independent band in New York City, or a union worker on the back lots of a California movie studio.
“I admire the work that Chairman Leahy has put into this bill. I encourage him to continue engaging with all stakeholders to forge a balance between protecting Americans’ intellectual property, and maintaining openness and innovation on the internet. We made good progress through the discussions we’ve held in recent days, and I am optimistic that we can reach a compromise in the coming weeks.”
PIPA had been losing momentum in recent days. Reid said earlier this week that he would not whip Democratic votes for the bill. At least 14 Republicans announced their opposition to the bill, and Sen. Mitch McConnell called for a postponement. At last night’s presidential debate, all four GOP candidates denounced the Protect IP Act.
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Workers in New Hampshire took over the floor of the New Hampshire House chamber yesterday to testify against a spate of anti-collective bargaining bills debated in the House Labor Committee. The hearings were relocated to the people’s chamber after the hearing rooms were flooded past their capacity by more than 600 firefighters, state workers, truck drivers, teachers, and community members protesting the most recent anti-worker onslaughts in the Granite State.
Barely a month after right-to-work was definitely beaten down in the House, the House Labor Committee held a hearing on a slew of anti-worker bills ranging from dues deduction and other attempts to dismantle aspects of the labor relations law, to HB 1645, an outright repeal of collective bargaining for public employees.
In 2001, Oklahoma passed a so-called right to work (RTW) law and its backers made the exact claims Hoosiers are hearing today. RTW proponents painted a picture of a booming economy with huge job creation as companies would swoop into Oklahoma like the Boomer Sooners of the 1889 land rush. None of that ever materialized, two Oklahoma workers told an Indiana statehouse news conference this morning.
Jesse Isbell worked for 36 years at the Bridgestone Tire plant in Oklahoma City before it shut down 2006 and the jobs were shipped to Mexico.
"There is absolutely no anecdotal or empirical evidence that RTW has benefitted Oklahoma’s state economy in any way. The company made the decision to outsource our jobs even though the proponents of the right-to-work legislation claimed it would prevent such departures and even attract new businesses to locate in the state."
by Kevin Stea, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA)
I have danced in more than 50 music videos, with artists such as Michael Jackson, Madonna, Janet Jackson, Lady Gaga, Prince and many, many others.
Every dancer’s worst work experience, I can guarantee you, has happened on a music video. It is a crapshoot for each video we accept. The music video industry is the dance world’s lawless Wild West. That is why we have decided to stand up for ourselves.
It’s About Time music video dancers have a fair union contract. If you see me or my fellow dancers on the Grammys, we are working under a union contract. If you see us in movies, commercials, or Dancing with the Stars, for example, we have a union contract. But when you watch dancers perform in music videos, we are working without a union contract and without basic protections on the job and no hope of insurance or pension benefits.
Every wonder why it’s so hard to get a millionaires’ tax passed?
We all know that the gap between 1 percent and the rest us has grown to obscene proportions. Their wealth has soared while ours has stagnated or fallen over the past decade and more.
We picture Wall Street stockbrokers, bankers and CEOs as the top winners in our out of whack economy. But new figures from the University of Michigan and the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) show that members of Congress—where 250 lawmakers are millionaires—are doing better than anybody.
In a story on the new data in The New York Times, Eric Lichtblau writes:
"Members of Congress are getting richer compared not only with the average American worker, but also with other very rich Americans.
While the median net worth of members of Congress jumped 15 percent from 2004 to 2010, the net worth of the richest 10 percent of Americans remained essentially flat. For all Americans, median net worth dropped 8 percent, based on inflation-adjusted data from Moody’s Analytics."
Ever wonder where to buy American made clothing made in American union shops? Check out these sites:
You'll be surprised to find that the prices are competitive with clothing made elsewhere in the world. You can also get discount coupons from
http://www.unionplus.org/coupon-center/union-made-clothing
as well as many other offers only available to union members!
Teresa Casertano in the AFL-CIO Organizing Department’s Global Campaigns section sends us this report.
T-Mobile USA workers were not surprised to learn that a recent report by the Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) to the OECD revealed that T-Mobile owner, Deutsche Telekom, had failed to meet its own claims about corporate social responsibility. Under the corporate social responsibility reporting standards set by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Deutsche Telekom gives itself an A+ rating, yet it provides little evidence to justify granting itself such superior marks.
The TUAC report details the company’s failure to report on global standards and finds that Deutsche Telekom highlighted its practices in its home country of Germany while failing to disclose its labor and human rights record in its non-German operations. The company claims 14 core labor and human rights indicators are “covered completely” in its GRI Report, while a fifteenth is “covered partly.” In fact, the TUAC report shows that only two are covered completely, seven are covered partly, and six are not covered at all. The TUAC report also finds that Deutsche Telekom disproportionately focuses its employee reporting on management employees while making little reference to its policies for tens of thousands of non-management employees. According to the report, only one of Deutsche Telekom’s 17 reported sustainability “Key Performance Indicators” relates to workers at all.
In his struggle to organize Walmart's workers, Philip Meza spends a lot of his time in chain restaurants. On a recent morning on the outskirts of this city, the soft-spoken 41-year-old was drinking a Diet Coke at a Carl's Jr. with a 22-year-old Walmart worker named William Fletcher, a new recruit to OUR Walmart, a labor organization conceived by Meza's union, United Food and Commercial Workers.
Meza wanted to check up on Fletcher: Had he had any run-ins with management recently? Could he recommend any potential recruits? Fletcher, who wears his hair in a low ponytail, has a thin red mustache and proudly wears a green OUR Walmart bracelet around his wrist, said he'd been trying to sign up fellow employees for months with little success.
After more than four years without a contract, last week UNITE HERE Local 11 hotel workers at the Disneyland Resort ratified a new, five-year collective bargaining agreement by an overwhelming majority. The contract will be in effect for five years, and applies to 2,100 workers at the Resort’s three hotels and the Central Bakery.
More from Alabama, where a delegation of African American labor and civil rights leaders is investigating the state’s recently passed anti-immigrant law.
A grade school child is there one day and gone the next. Dependable laborers don’t show up to pick crops on a farm.
“It’s incredible,” said local AFT President Vi Parramore.
I have teachers tell me that kids are disappearing overnight. Not unenrolling and leaving. Just all of a sudden gone, just gone! Crops are rotting in the fields!
Parramore shared what she knew at a roundtable at the Beloved Community United Church of Christ in Birmingham, Ala. The roundtable was part of a tour by national African American labor and civil rights leaders to help shed a light on one of the harshest immigration laws in the country and how it invokes inhumanity reminiscent of the Jim Crow South. The delegation has investigated firsthand the impact of Alabama’s H.B. 56 on the lives of Latino working families.
Early in the day, the group toured a trailer park. Later, they met with small business owners. Alabama’s punitive anti-immigration law has cast a chill over the state’s Latino population. According to news reports, the new law says that police must report to federal authorities anyone they detain if they have a “reasonable suspicion” the person may be in the country illegally.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
A few months ago I asked you to participate in our online campaign against digital theft by sending a message to your Senators asking them to pass legislation – the PROTECT IP Act – to help us protect the jobs of IATSE members who are hard at work every day creating the best creative content in the world. As I noted then, digital theft is the single largest threat ever faced by our industry. It has a corrosive effect on reinvestment and job creation. It undermines our pension and health benefits. Left unchecked, it will have widespread and profound economic repercussions on our members and their livelihoods.
Due to your support, and that of many other members of the creative community, the PROTECT IP Act has been moving steadily through the Senate. It passed unanimously through the Senate Judiciary Committee, has garnered 35 Senators as co-sponsor, and now awaits a vote on the Senate floor.
However, as you know, both the Senate and House of Representatives need to act in order to move any legislation. And I am happy to report that The Stop Online Piracy Act (H.R. 3261) was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives as a companion bill to the Senate’s PROTECT IP Act.
I am asking that you take action now to support this new legislation – The Stop Online Piracy Act.
We must join together to fight back against those who seek to wrongfully profit from our work. The IATSE has been working closely together with the Obama administration and Congress to assure the government continues the fight against digital theft. We are also collaborating with the industry and our sister unions and guilds to make sure our concerns are heard in Washington and beyond. Now I call upon you to join the battle.
The Stop Online Piracy Act (H.R. 3261) would help shut down these rogue sites, cut off their stolen revenue and protect both our jobs and the American consumer. Your representative needs to hear that you support this critical piece of legislation in the war against content theft. Similar to the Senate’s PROTECT IP bill, such legislation will provide more effective methods to stop the operators of websites dedicated to stealing content.
Today, I am asking every member of the IATSE to send a message to their Congressmen and Congresswomen and ask them to support the passage of a strong bill that will slow the onslaught of digital theft and help to protect our jobs.
For your convenience, I have included a link to an analysis of the bill (PDF) and the bill itself (PDF). Please click on the “Take Action” link to contact your U.S. Representative about this important issue.
I will continue to update you on the growing threat of digital theft and provide you with opportunities to make your voices heard in Washington D.C. on the important matters affecting you and your family.In Solidarity,
Matthew D. Loeb
International President
We need jobs. Not unfair trade agreements.
Millions of people who are ready, willing and able to work are unemployed or underemployed. But instead of focusing on job creation, Congress is getting ready to take up unfair, job-offshoring trade deals.
With more tha.n 25 million people desperately searching for full-time jobs, the last thing our leaders should focus on is these unfair trade deals. It’s the wrong thing to do, and it’s a huge distraction from our jobs crisis.
Pick up the phone and call 1-800-718-1008 right now to stop three unfair trade deals.
With your help, we can make our voices heard by flooding Congress with calls and messages.
Here’s why the three pending trade agreements are a bad deal for working families:
The Korea agreement is the biggest trade deal since NAFTA. It would displace an estimated 159,000 net U.S. jobs, mostly in manufacturing.
Colombia is the most dangerous place in the world for trade unionists. So how can we reward it with a free trade agreement? In 2010, 51 trade unionists were assassinated in Colombia— more than in the rest of the world combined. So far in 2011, another 22 have been killed, despite Colombia’s heralded “Labor Action Plan.” Would we reward a country where 51 CEOs were killed last year?
And Panama, with a history of failing to protect workers’ rights, is known as a tax haven for money launderers and tax dodgers.
Past trade deals like NAFTA have been miserable failures for working people—and these new deals follow in NAFTA’s footsteps. Working people need to make our voices heard.
Please call Congress now at 1-800-718-1008. It only takes a few minutes.
You can also send an e-mail to your member of Congress here.
With your help, we’ll flood Congress with calls and messages to make our voices heard.
In Solidarity,
Richard L. Trumka
President, AFL-CIO
If you are motivated to encourage Governor Brown to either sign or veto pending legislative action, click here. The link will take you to a page on the Govenor's web site. There you can click "pro" or "con" and you can also write a brief message.
The AFL-CIO announced it has invested more than $150 million in job-creating infrastructure projects and registered 8,000 more apprenticeships in clean energy training.
During the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) meeting in Chicago last June, the AFL-CIO outlined plans to work with member unions, pension funds, investment professionals and the government to invest at least $10 billion in job-creating infrastructure projects. The federation also committed to invest at least $20 million in specific energy retrofits over the next year, to retrofit our headquarters building, and to train tens of thousands of workers in the skills necessary to work on 21st century infrastructure.
A new international comparison makes it clear just how weak protections are for working people in the United States. University of Missouri-St. Louis associate professor Kenneth Thomas reviewed numbers from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and found that in 21 categories,
U.S. workers are more vulnerable than workers in any [OECD] members (rich industrialized democracies) or even the so-called growing BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China…to being fired unfairly, to not getting severance pay, to getting the least notice on mass layoffs or being fired, to being stuck on a mouse wheel of temporary positions.
Thomas also compared the United States labor protections with those in Estonia, Indonesia and South Africa for good measure. The result, in every case, Thomas says on his blog Middle Class Political Economist, is that not only is the United States in last place, it isn’t even close.
Check out the numbers here.
We don’t have time to waste on the same old failed policies that drove our economy off a cliff in the first place. Tell Congress: Working families will judge our elected leaders by whether they act with integrity and energy to create good jobs now.
The nation’s ailing economy needs a prescription powerful enough to heal the jobs crisis and America’s working families need an independent political voice that’s not beholden to parties or politicians, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
At a Labor Day press conference this afternoon, Trumka unveiled a six-point “America Wants to Work” jobs and economy initiative “that is serious and reflects the scale of the crisis we face.” The plan includes:
- Rebuilding the nation’s transportation and energy infrastructure;
- Reviving U.S. manufacturing and ending the exportation of U.S. jobs;
- Putting people to work in local communities;
- Helping states and local governments to prevent layoffs and cuts to public services;
- Extending unemployment insurance (UI) benefits and helping homeowners keep their homes; and
- Reforming Wall Street so it helps Main Street create jobs.
Click here for a detailed look.
Four workers joined Trumka, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler and AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker at today’s press conference. They told reporters their personal stories about struggling to find work and fighting back against the attacks on workers and workers’ rights being waged by extremist politicians in states across the nation.
by Katie Gjertson, Cal Labor Federation
Three days following the 76th birthday of the creation of Social Security, 1,000 seniors, students, and community members rallied in front of Senator Feinstein’s San Francisco and LA offices yesterday, urging the Senator to be a champion on protecting Social Security.
Members of the California Alliance of Retired Americans (CARA) have been meeting with Senator Feinstein’s staff to stress the importance of protecting Social Security. To put a human face on the importance of Social Security, CARA asked its members to submit stories to share with the Senator and her staff.
The nation needs to spend $1.7 trillion by 2020 to shore up its infrastructure, or it could lose more than 876,000 jobs, and hold back the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth by $3.1 trillion in the next nine years, according to a new report by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).
Investing in infrastructure, especially highways and transit systems, would also create and save jobs and rejuvenate manufacturing, the ASCE said in the report released earlier this month. Download the full report, “Failure To Act,” here.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka agrees:
This report confirms what we have known for some time: If we do not substantially invest in infrastructure soon, we will put our economy, American business and American working families at risk.
by Mike Hall, AFL-CIO Blog
With Congress out on its August recess and working families set to hold lawmakers accountable for their lack of action on the job, it’s a good time to check out the AFL-CIO online interim voting record for this session of Congress.
The scorecard lists House and Senate votes on key issues so far this year, including Republican attacks on health care reform, the National Labor Relations Board, workers’ rights and construction workers wages. It also looks at votes on budget bills and spending cuts that would slash vital working family programs while continuing tax breaks for the wealthy and big corporations.
Click here for the interim record.
The quickest way to find out how your representative and senators voted is to search by ZIP code. If your ZIP code is split across two congressional districts, you’ll be asked to enter your street address to get the right representative.
Imagine this. You pay into an insurance fund for years but never use its benefits – even when you need it the most – because you are not aware of your rights! That’s the case with many California workers.
Almost all California workers pay into the California State Disability Insurance (SDI) fund – an insurance plan that provides workers partialwage-replacement for pregnancy related and other disability leaves as well as the Paid Family Leave (PFL) program. The PFL program pays workers up to six weeks of their partial wages (55%) when they take time off to bond with a new child (including adoptive and foster children) or care for a seriously ill family member (parent, child, spouse or domestic partner).
