Political Action

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case on mandatory arbitration agreements. Workers are being forced to sign mandatory arbitration agreements that waive their rights to go to court as conditions of employment nationwide.

These agreements take away worker rights to file lawsuits or in come cases to take disputes with the employers to the National Labor Relations Board. Federal labor law protects worker rights go to court or the NLRB when employers are violating the law.

After Republican legislators in Kentucky passed several anti-worker laws, Kentucky State AFL-CIO President Bill Londrigan made the following statement:

The Republican-controlled House and Senate passed some of the most extreme anti-workers bills in the nation today, slashing wages and silencing working people across the state.

42 non-union workers in the North Dakota Bakken oil field got stiffed nearly three quarters of a million dollars in wages and other compensation by WCE Oil Field Services going into receivership.

Laborers District Council of Minnesota and North Dakota along with Laborers Local 563 went to work on behalf of these non-union workers. The Laborers ultimately got an anonymous oil field investor to pay between $3,000 and $20,000 each in partial compensation to the workers.

When Republicans take government power in state houses they attack labor unions and worker rights - time and again that has proven true over many years now.

The latest example is in Kentucky where Republicans have been trying to ram through an anti-union law with the misleading "Right To Work" name.

The AFL-CIO says Congress should abandon plans for the "reckless repeal of the Affordable Care Act without providing an immediate replacement. Approximately 20 million people have insurance through the Affordable Care Act that they will lose if its repealed.

Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of labor—fast food CEO Andrew Puzder—would be a disaster for working Americans. He’s railed against a meaningful increase in the minimum wage, opposed expanding overtime pay and supported replacing working people with machines. Of his Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s restaurants that were investigated for labor law complaints, 60% were found to have violated the law. Most of these complaints were for failure to pay workers minimum wage or overtime.

Now, this guy could be in charge of enforcing our nation’s labor laws.

With an incoming U.S. federal government likely to be hostile to organized labor, states like California could play a greater role in trying to advance labor rights.

Los Angeles, for example, has adopted a $15 an hour minimum wage.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti says workers still have allies in states and cities across the country who are not giving up the fight to improve workers' lives, whether they are in unions or not.

The fight for social justice is a full-time job.  That’s been the driving philosophy behind the Davis Putter Scholarship Fund for more than half-a-century.  The fund provides grants to students actively working for peace and justice.

Andrea Flores is a University of Texas student involved in worker rights advocacy group United Students Against Sweatshops: