Building Star Can Create 185,000 Green Jobs This Year

by Mike Hall, Jun 13, 2010

In the current recession, no sector has been harder hit than the construction industry, which has lost more than 2 million jobs. The unemployment rate in the construction industry is a staggering 27 percent, almost triple the overall unemployment rate.

You can help put building and construction trades workers back on the job by contacting your senators and representatives and urging them to support Building Star-H.R. 5476 and S. 3079. The legislation would provide building owners rebates and low-cost financing options for energy-efficient renovations in existing buildings.

It would, says the Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA):

mobilize building owners, construction firms, the building trades and manufacturers and distributors of building supplies to create jobs NOW in 2010, not later. Building Star will put sheet metal workers back to work retrofitting existing buildings, and would do so fast.

Young Workers Summit: NFL Players Call for Union Solidarity

by James Parks, Jun 12, 2010

When an offensive or defensive line of a football team stands shoulder-to-shoulder, it is almost impossible to move it. Today, two National Football League (NFL) players came to the AFL-CIO Young Workers Summit to invite their fellow union members to stand with them in one of the toughest battles they face on or off the field.

The 32 super-rich owners of the NFL teams terminated the current collective bargaining agreement two years early because they say “it isn’t working for them,” Domonique Foxworth of the Baltimore Ravens and a member of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) executive committee, told the young union activists.

47 Years After Equal Pay Act, Women Still Paid Less Than Men

by James Parks, Jun 10, 2010

Forty-seven years after President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, women still are not being paid the same as men for equivalent work. On average, women earn about 78 cents for every dollar earned by men. For women of color, African American women and Latinas, the gap is even wider. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median wages of full-time, year-round workers in 2008 stood at $35,745 for women and $46,367 for men. That’s $10,622 less per year for women and their families in a difficult economy.

The U.S. Senate is considering the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would give employees the tools they need to close the wage gap between men and women and provide the government with enforcement power to correct pay inequities. The U.S. House passed the bill last year. The advocacy group MomsRising has an action here to urge your senator to close the wage gap and back the Paycheck Fairness Act.

Minnesota Nurses Stage 24-Hour Strike for Patient Safety

Workday Minnesota editor Barb Kucera sends this account of yesterday’s one-day strike by 12,000 Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) nurses over patient care issues in contract negotiations. In California, a similar strike by some 13, 000 California Nurses Association (CNA) nurses was blocked by a court order. Click here for more. Both MNA and CNA are affiliated with National Nurse United (NNU).

Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association walked the picket lines at 14 Twin Cities hospitals, in the largest nurses’ strike in U.S. history.

Alliance for Retired Americans - Friday Alert, June 11, 2010

Obama Talks to Seniors, including the Illinois Alliance President, at Tele-Town Hall
The Alliance continues its involvement in the implementation process of the health care reform that President Obama signed into law in March. On Tuesday, the Alliance, along with several other organizations, helped the White House and President Obama organize a tele-town hall meeting to explain the new health care law to seniors. The president emphasized that his administration has already started to send out $250 rebate checks for those who fall into the Medicare Part D "doughnut hole" prescription drug coverage gap. Yesterday (Thursday, June 10th - three weeks earlier than initially scheduled), checks from the federal government began to go out to some 80,000 seniors who hit the doughnut hole earlier this year. The President went on to remind seniors that in 2011, those who fall in the doughnut hole will receive a 50 percent discount on brand name drugs, and that by 2020, the doughnut hole will be eliminated. Alliance members joined Obama in person at his Wheaton, Maryland forum.

Pelosi Says Job Creation Is Economically and Ethically Right

by Mike Hall, Jun 8, 2010

Creating jobs and forging an economy that breaks out of the boom-and-bust cycle that always leaves working families busted is both good policy and morally right, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told the hundreds of progressive activists at the America’s Future Now conference this morning.

“We have an ethical responsibility to create good jobs and economic necessity to create good jobs.”

She said it is imperative that lawmakers, policymakers and especially voters work to “achieve an economic prosperity that not only puts people back to work,” but opens the doors of economic opportunity that have been shut for the millions of people at the bottom of the economic ladder.

Mexican Federal Police Move in on Strikers in Cananea

IMF alarmed by reports that federal and state forces have moved into Cananea on Sunday night to execute arrest warrants against the union leaders of the Mexican Miners' Union.

MEXICO: IMF has received reports that federal and state forces arrived in Cananea on Sunday night, June 6, to execute arrest warrants against union leaders the National Miners' and Metalworkers' Union of Mexico (SNTMMSRM) at the Cananea copper mine in Sonora, Mexico,

Spain's Labor Reform Could Sideline Unions: Report

Civil servants protest over planned pay cuts in front of the economy ministry in Madrid May 20, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Andrea Comas

(Reuters) - Spain may make it easier for companies to bypass unions to lower workers' pay and conditions if they can prove they are in financial difficulty, El Mundo newspaper reported on Sunday, citing government sources.

Companies in financial difficulty can currently only negotiate down wages and conditions to below those established by the collective bargaining procedure if they have the approval of unions, which is rarely given.

But El Mundo said one of the Socialist government's drafts of labor reform due to be handed to unions on Wednesday says independent government commissions would be created to negotiate salary cuts between workers and employers in such cases

Wall Street Reform a First Step to Taking Back America

by James Parks, Jun 7, 2010

Even though Congress is poised to pass the strongest Wall Street reform in recent history, the current bill is just the beginning of the broad reforms we need to take back the country from the Big Banks, a panel of experts said today at the America’s Future Now! conference in Washington, D.C.

The conference is sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future (CAF). (If you haven’t signed up and are in the Washington, D.C., area, up you can register onsite at the Omni Shoreham Hotel [2500 Calvert Street, N.W.]. Click here for more information.)

For the first time in decades, Main Street has a chance to rein in the Big Banks, said Heather Booth, director of Americans for Financial Reform.

Got Health Care Reform and Medicare Questions? Ask President Obama!

by Mike Hall, Jun 7, 2010

Are you a Medicare recipient with questions about the new health care reform law, or do you know someone who is? Tomorrow, you’ll have a chance to get those questions answered by President Obama and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.

They are hosting an hour-long, live tele-town hall meeting Tuesday, starting at 11:15 a.m. EDT. Health care advocates and senior activists will discuss the key provisions and expanded benefits that the new health care law provides for Medicare participants. The meeting will focus on the $250 “donut hole” rebate checks that will soon be in the mail and the efforts to combat some of the commercial scams and schemes aimed at seniors