ILO Takes Big Step Toward Domestic Workers’ Rights

Domestic workers in New York City marched for justice in 2007

by James Parks, Jun 17, 2010

The International Labor Organization (ILO) this week took a giant step forward in the fight to create workplace justice for the millions of housekeepers, nannies and other domestic workers around the world. At its International Labor Conference, which ends in Geneva tomorrow, the ILO began the process to establish a first-ever international standard (”convention”) to protect the rights of domestic workers.

If the convention is passed at the ILO’s meeting in 2011, it would require governments that ratify it to ensure domestic workers are covered by the fundamental rights and principles of the ILO, which include the freedom to form unions, elimination of forced labor, abolition of child labor and the elimination of discrimination.

UAW Members Rally for Good Jobs Now

UAW President Bob King, fourth from the right, Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO President Saundra Williams and Teamsters President James Hoffa lead a Good Jobs Now! rally in Detroit yesterday

by James Parks, Jun 18, 2010

On his first day in office, UAW President Bob King sent a clear message that the union movement is ready and able to fight as long as necessary to gain economic and social justice for all.

After delivering his acceptance speech at the UAW convention in Detroit, King joined Teamsters President James Hoffa and Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO President Saundra Williams to lead a Good Jobs Now! march and rally in downtown Detroit. Delegates to the convention and other workers joined the march that filled a city block.

Nevada Alliance Members Mobilize Against Angle’s Attack on Social Security, Medicare

by Mike Hall, Jun 18, 2010

Nevada Republican U.S. Senate nominee Sharron Angle made many extremist statements during her primary campaign, and some of the most egregious involve her goal to eliminate Social Security and Medicare and privatize those two vital senior safety nets.

During a May 2010 debate on the public affairs show “Face to Face with John Ralston” Angle said, “We need to phase Medicare and Social Security out in favor of something privatized.” She repeated these views around the state

Peyton Warns Against Union-supported Candidate for Mayor

Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton

Posted: June 18, 2010 - 5:35pm

By Matt Galnor

The same man who rode the police and fire unions into the Jacksonville mayor’s office seven years ago told a political group Friday to be wary of any 2011 mayoral candidate with the backing of cops and firefighters.


Mayor John Peyton blasted the unions in a speech to about 50 people at the First Coast Tiger Bay Club, whose membership includes elected officials and active voters.


Peyton has been publicly feuding with the unions, unable to get a 3 percent pay cut and pension reform during labor negotiations. He said Friday the city has gotten to the point where the union’s agenda is not in the best interest of the taxpayers.

Alliance for Retired Americans - Friday Alert, June 18, 2010

Senior Issues take Center Stage in Nevada Senate Race
Nevada Alliance members rushed to Republican/tea party Senate candidate Sharron Angle's office last Friday to protest her position on privatizing Social Security. "She's extreme. She's dangerous," said NARA President Scott Watts. Her opponent is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D). Watts called emergency meetings in Las Vegas on Wednesday and Sparks, Nevada on Thursday about Angle's positions, and scores turned out to exchange warnings about her ideas for privatizing Social Security. Emotions ran high. Other sources of concern for retirees include Angle's stated desire to privatize Medicare and the Veterans Administration. Despite numerous attempts by television stations to reach Angle for comment and clarification, no one from her campaign returned their calls and e-mails over the past few days.

Wichita Machinists Rally for Aerospace Jobs

IAM members in Wichita, KS, held a rally to support their negotiators and to oppose additional outsourcing of work to Mexico

Thu. June 17, 2010

Gathered in the heat outside the hotel where negotiations are taking place between District 70 and Spirit AeroSystems, workers and their families carried ‘Jobs Worth Fighting For’ signs and cheered as union leaders praised Spirit as the only aerospace company in Wichita, KS, that has refused to outsource work to Mexico.

Bombardier and Cessna have both outsourced work from Wichita to Mexico, while Hawker Beechcraft has closed its Salina plant and recently notified the union it intends to outsource more work.

Machinists Call For Airline Re-regulation

Transportation GVP Robert Roach, Jr. testified before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and called for re-regulation of the airline industry.

Thu. June 17, 2010

“It is clear that airline deregulation has failed to deliver on its promises of a stable and profitable industry,” said Roach. “Airline business plans today focus on lowering standards, eliminating services and reducing ticket prices to the bone to put competitors out of business, making a profitable industry impossible.”

Roach cited Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates that median ticket prices have dropped nearly 40 percent since 1980, while the costs of aircraft, airport leases and fuel have increased dramatically.

“Some industries are too critical to the United States to be allowed to regulate themselves,” said Roach. “The airline industry drives $1.4 trillion in economic activity and contributes $692 billion per year to the Gross Domestic Product. It is too vital to the nation’s commerce to be ignored, taken for granted or left to its own destructive ways.”

Alliance, IUPAT Members Ask Obama About Health Care Reform

by Mike Hall, Jun 15, 2010

Barbara Franklin was worried that under the new health care reform law, seniors who receive their Medicare coverage from the privately-run Medicare Advantage program would see their coverage and benefits reduced because the law eliminates some government subsidies the private insurers receive.

So she called President Obama.

Franklin, the president of Illinois chapter of the Alliance for Retired Americans, was one of several callers and in-person questioners who took part in last week’s tele-town hall meeting exploring the new law’s impact on seniors and Medicare. The Alliance hosted more than two dozen watch parties for the tele-town hall.

President Obama reassured Franklin that the law’s new rules for Medicare Advantage will protect seniors and ensure that Medicare Advantage is “not just a big giveaway to the insurance companies.”

Young Workers Call for More Communication, Larger Role in Unions

by James Parks, Jun 14, 2010

The more than 400 participants in the Next Up conference, the AFL-CIO’s first-ever Young Workers Summit, developed a game plan for the future that focuses on making sure young union leaders and activists are taken seriously and their ideas are heard at all levels of the union movement.

Following three days in workshops and breakouts, student activists, community allies, a couple of political comedians and professional athletes and young workers generated several key ideas on the best ways to reach younger workers and build the movement.

In reports to the conference’s closing session yesterday (see video), the breakout groups recommended and called for increased mentoring programs to help young union members grow into leadership roles and establishing a national youth mobilization effort as an AFL-CIO priority.

Protestors Demand Fair Deals at Hyatt Hotels

by James Parks, Jun 14, 2010

Hundreds of hotel workers and community allies protested in front of Hyatt’s first annual shareholder meeting last week in Chicago and in simultaneous demonstrations in Vancouver, Honolulu, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The protesters are outraged that despite increases in the hotel chain’s revenue and share prices, Hyatt is cutting staff and squeezing workers with more work and lower pay. All this at a time that Hyatt’s majority stockholders, the Pritzker family, cashed out more than $900 million as part of Hyatt’s initial public offering last November.

Four hundred workers at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco are out on strike and the protests in Chicago come just days after hundreds of workers at the Hyatt Regency Chicago walked off the job to draw attention to the worsening working conditions at Chicago’s largest downtown hotel. In the San Francisco area, more than 9,000 workers, members of UNITE HERE! have been working without a contract since August 2009 at several Hyatts.