labor

The New Faces of Day Labor

It sounds like a George Lopez joke.

“Times are so bad that I saw an Anglo day laborer standing outside Home Depot the other day.”

Except it’s true.

In the latest sign of the Las Vegas Valley’s economic free fall, U.S. citizens are starting to show up in the early mornings outside home improvement stores and plant nurseries across the Las Vegas Valley, jostling with illegal immigrants for a shot at a few hours of work.

Experts say the slow-starting but seemingly inexorable trend is occurring nationwide.

Posted in Economy/Trade, immigrants rights, labor

Stalled Agenda Irks Labor Leaders

WASHINGTON - With Democrats in control of Congress and the White House, organized labor had hoped to be celebrating a long list of legislative successes this year. Instead, labor's agenda has been pushed down on the priority list by the very lawmakers they helped elect, leaving some union backers frustrated.

Labor is eager to win passage of a "card check'' bill, a measure that would make it easier for workers to form unions, but the White House and Congress took up a Wall Street bailout plan first.

Posted in EFCA, labor

Hey Rahm: Twist An Arm in Support of the Public Option, Not Against It

We hoped it wasn't true. We hoped that when Richard Trumka committed to back a public option and threatened to withhold support from Democrats who wouldn't vote for one that it wasn't just pre-convention rhetoric.

Posted in healthcare, labor

Crystal Lee Sutton, Dead at 68: Union Activist Inspired 'Norma Rae'

$Textile factory worker Crystal Lee Sutton pauses during an interview in Los Angeles March 15, 1980. Sutton died Friday in Burlington, N.C. She was 68. As a representative of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile union, she struggled to organize workers at the J.P. Stevens company. The movie \"Norma Rae\" was based on her story. (AP Photo/Lennox McLendon)$

Crystal Lee Sutton, whose fight to unionize Southern textile plants with low pay and poor conditions was dramatized in the film "Norma Rae," has died. She was 68.

Sutton died Friday in a hospice after a long battle with brain cancer, her son, Jay Jordan, said Monday.

"She fought it as long as she could and she crossed on over to her new life," he said.

Actress Sally Field portrayed a character based on Sutton in the movie and won a best-actress Academy Award.

Posted in Activism, labor

Labor Day 2009 - Change and Opportunity

The parades, picnics and breakfasts that once marked this end-of-summer holiday have faded some in recent years, but one Labor Day tradition that seems to have survived intact is that on this one day of the year it is allowed to mention such a thing as the "working class" and raise the question of just how well America's economic system treats the people who work for someone else - and perhaps even to also dream about something better. This, of course, is what the American labor movement does 365 days a year - or at least is supposed to.

Posted in healthcare, labor, singlepayer

Why Honor Organized Labor?

Labor Day, to most people, is little more than the end of summer. Labor Day commemorates the labor union movement, the demand for an eight hour work day, better working conditions, fair wages and an end to child labor.

In 1894 Labor Day became a federal holiday celebrated as a “workingman's holiday” on the first Monday of September honoring the contributions of working men and women to America.

Posted in labor

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 3, 2009
10:20 AM

CONTACT: International Labor Rights Forum

Eva Seidelman, eva@ilrf.org, 202.347.4100 x 105

Freedom to Organize at Work Worldwide Recognized on Labor Day

ILRF releases “Freedom at Work” toolkit focused on one of the most widely violated human rights

WASHINGTON - September 3 - Across the country as people celebrate Labor Day, workers around the world continue to face obstacles as they try to create a better life for themselves and their families. The global economic crisis has deeply affected workers who face massive job losses, plunging millions of families into poverty and leading to questions about the sustainability of our economic policies. At the same time, many workers are experiencing violations of their right to organize labor unions to protect their interests.

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ILRF is an advocacy organization dedicated to achieving just and humane treatment for workers worldwide. ILRF serves a unique role among human rights organizations as advocates for and with working poor around the world. We believe that all workers have the right to a safe working environment where they are treated with dignity and respect, and where they can organize freely to defend and promote their rights and interests.

International Labor Rights Forum Links:

Posted in labor

The Minimum Wage and the Coup in Honduras

The coup in Honduras - and the at best grudging and vacillating support in Washington for the restoration of President Zelaya - has thrown into stark relief a fundamental fault line in Latin America and a moral black hole in U.S. policy toward the region.

What is the minimum wage which a worker shall be paid for a day's labor?

Posted in foreign policy, labor, minimum wage, honduras

Global Trend for Sit-Ins and Occupations as Mass Redundancies Continue

Trade union leaders warned tonight that the direct action seen at the Vestas factory was likely to be repeated elsewhere as workers refused to "bend their knee and accept their fate" in the face of mass redundancies caused by recession.

The sit-in at the Isle of Wight wind turbine plant was the latest in Britain, they said, and was part of a wider trend of militant tactics being used as far afield as the US, South Korea and China.

Posted in direct action, financial crisis, labor

Minimum Wage Stuck in the 1950s

Are you better off than you were 40 years ago? Not if you're a minimum-wage worker.

It would take $9.92 today to match the buying power of the minimum wage at its peak in 1968, the year Martin Luther King died fighting for living wages for sanitation workers.

In today's dollars, the 1968 hourly minimum wage adds up to $20,634 a year working full time. The new federal minimum wage of $7.25 comes to just $15,080. That's $ 5,554 in lost wages.

Posted in inequality, labor, minimum wage