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

Fighting Like Hell for Healthcare Now

At Upper Senate Park on the grounds of the US Capitol yesterday, on a hot, humid DC summer day, 10,000 people from across the country rallied for healthcare reform with a real public option.

They flew in from as far as Washington state, Montana, New Mexico and Nebraska; bussed in from Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York and New Jersey; and made the trip from Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri and Illinois.

Posted in healthcare, labor, public option

Unions and Migrant Workers Coalesce from Coast to Coast

SEATTLE, Washington - Up the Pacific Coast from California to Washington, through the heartland in Texas and Illinois, and over to the Atlantic Seaboard in New Jersey and New York, local trade unions and mainly immigrant workers centres are experimenting with new modes of cooperation.

In some places the form has been an organisational alliance through the local labour council. In others, they are joining forces on ad hoc projects that give both groups traction on common goals.

Posted in immigration, labor, migrant labor

Unions Embrace Street Corner Solidarity

SEATTLE - For Pablo Alvarado, the genesis occurred back in 1999 when janitors in Los Angeles were on strike. Some of the cleaning companies came to the corners and workers' centres where day labourers gathered and tried to hire workers to cross the janitors' picket lines, he recounted to IPS.

"The workers said 'Thanks, but no thanks, we won't do that.' And instead 260 day labourers joined 2,000 janitors who marched across the landscape of Los Angeles," he said.

Posted in labor

The 'New GM': Layoffs, Factory Closing, and Offshoring

The trouble with the whole "Nixon goes to China" theory -- which is grounded in the calculus that big progress is made when a politician goes against type to address a seemingly intractable challenge -- is that sometimes the "bold" gesture is really just more of the same.

Posted in auto bailout, globalization, labor