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Boehner and Republicans: ‘Stop Picking on BP’ |
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It’s no secret that House Republican leader Rep. John Boehner (Ohio) and his colleagues are tight with their corporate chums. They even defend poor little old BP from the meanies working to hold petroleum giant accountable for the Gulf oil spill.
One of Boehner’s trusted lieutenants, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), even went so far as to claim the Obama administration’s efforts to persuade BP to establish a $20 billion recovery fund for Gulf Coast residents was a “shakedown.” How dare they pick on BP like that?
To remind voters in Boehner’s home district of his loving relationship with BP and Big Oil, our friends at Act Blue have erected a second billboard, with our help and that of People for the American Way, that notes the golf-loving Boehner’s affection for BP is “Par for the Course.” Click here for more on Boehner and his golf jones. Read the rest of this entry »
Labor Day 2010: Workers’ Rights Here and Around the Globe |
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Corporations that lead the way in creating fair working environments prosper—but too many employers and governments around the world are abusing workers’ rights, according to the findings of several reports released in time for Labor Day. You can check out all the reports on our Labor Day 2010 webpage here.
- “Labor Day List: Partnerships that Work,” by American Rights at Work, profiles eight companies that promote positive labor-management relationships in the clean energy industry. The companies and union employees featured in the report are leading the way toward a sustainable economy in which businesses thrive, the planet prospers and workers share in the success they help create.
‘Too Much at Stake in This Election to Stay Home’ |
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Trent McNutt and Laura Jackson are hitting the streets and going door to door to make sure that candidates who will create real jobs are elected this fall—and they say every worker should join them because there’s too much at stake to stay home.
McNutt, an unemployed member of the Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), and Jackson, a Communications Workers of America (CWA) member, told a press conference at the AFL-CIO yesterday that working people have a lot at stake in this election to stay at home.
McNutt lost his job last November when the company in Toledo, Ohio, where he had worked for 11 years went out of business. Now the married father of two young children has to make due working occasionally with a local contractor.
This year I’m on pace to make a third of what I’ve made in years past. You never really expect something as drastic as what we’re going through—we’ve worked so hard for everything we have. But we know a lot of other families are worse off. Over the past few months work has started to pick up, but I’m fearful it will taper off again.
Oklahoma Laborfest Conquers All |
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Stuart Elliott from the Wichita/Hutchinson Labor Federation of Central Kansas reports on the Oklahoma Laborfest, Aug. 26-28 in Oklahoma City.
Oklahoma City rocked for three days with the sounds of a celebration of working people. The big show: the premiere of “Oklahoma Speaks,” a performance that brought the state’s dramatic labor history to life.
The production spotlighted the tremendous impact of the union movement in Oklahoma. The state’s motto is ‘Labor Omnia Vincitÿ”—“Labor Conquers All”—a phrase commonly used by former AFL President Samuel Gompers. Union members, in alliance with tenant farmers, won majority support for 24 demands at the state’s constitutional convention in 1906. Oklahoma’s legislature eventually passed laws prohibiting child labor and mandating compulsory school attendance, established state mining and factory inspectors, regulated the use of strike breakers during labor disputes and outlawed the blacklisting of union sympathizers by employers.
The dramatic readings in “Oklahoma Speaks” were matched by musical selections and featured the voices of both leaders and everyday people who lived through powerful historic changes.
‘Apathy Is Our Biggest Adversary in This Election’ |
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Kathy Cummings, communications director for the Washington State Labor Council (WSLC) sends us this video of House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) rallying union activists yesterday to ramp up their election action enthusiasm.
“You need to be fired up, and you need to feel it, and you need to convey it to your bothers and sisters. Apathy is our biggest adversary in this election….The issue in this campaign is are we going to put the car in R? When you put the car in R, you go backwards and we have a lot of work left to do.”
He told the crowd that the two congressional candidates sharing the podium, Suzan DelBene and Denny Heck, are “two extraordinary candidates.”
I want you excited about them because they will make a difference….The character of our country is at issue in this election….Our priorities are at issue in this election.
Take a few minutes and watch the full video. Learn more about Labor 2010 in Washington State here.
Unions Say No to Tea Time in Alaska Senate Race |
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Alaskan voters couldn’t be facing two more different candidates for the U.S. Senate—Scott McAdams, endorsed by the 49th state’s working family unions, and Joe Miller, backed by the Tea Party and endorsed by Sarah Palin.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says McAdams is a union person.
He understands what union workers go through, he understands what workers go through, period. And I think that he’d be a great voice and a great asset to workers, in Washington, D.C.
Thanks to our friends at The Mudflats for providing this video.
Miller, on the other hand, reports TPM’s Christina Bellatoni:
wants to eliminate the Department of Education, believes the government shouldn’t pay for unemployment insurance and says of climate change on his campaign site that it “may not even exist.”
Trumka: Labor Day a Defining Time for Working People |
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The elections this year come down to a choice between leaders who will stand with working people or those whose right-wing agenda will choke off economic recovery and put corporations back in the driver’s seat.
With that said, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka outlined plans for an aggressive and massive mobilization of working people this Labor Day weekend and for the fall election. During a press conference this morning at the AFL-CIO, Trumka also announced the federation will run TV and radio ads Labor Day weekend in key markets around Major League Baseball games, NASCAR and college football games. (See video above.)
“This is a defining Labor Day for working people—and the kick-off to the final round of a defining set of elections,” Trumka said.
We will either rebuild a fundamentally different economy that values hard work and a strong middle class—or turn back toward one that puts corporate interests before people.
Solis Labor Day Message Focuses on Jobs |
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In a Labor Day video message (also available in Spanish here) for America’s workers, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis says that in her travels around the country, “Many of you have told me you want an America that ‘produces things again.”
But more than anything else, no matter where I go and who I talk to, you’ve told me: “We need jobs.”
“In the cities and towns I’ve been to this past year, I’ve never once heard working people—or people who need and want work—demand special treatment. Americans don’t want a hand out . . . they just want a level playing field with clear rules, an opportunity to work hard, and a fair chance to provide for their families and get ahead.” Read the rest of this entry »
Ohio’s Kasich has Long Record as Job Killer |
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It shouldn’t come as any surprise that Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate John Kasich wants to outsource and privatize state government jobs (click here for more from Labor 2010 in Ohio). While he was in Congress, Kasich voted to send tens of thousands American jobs overseas.
Kasich voted for NAFTA and trade deals with China that, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), cost more than 140,000 Ohio jobs. But when Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland was in Congress, he voted to no on those bills because as he said: “I felt they take jobs out of Ohio and America.”
Just as devastating to the workers who saw their jobs outsourced, Kasich, while a member of the board of directors at Invacare, signed off in 2006 on sending 225 Elyria jobs to China and Mexico.
Check out more on the Invacare job loss here .
California Latino Voters Say Fiorina ‘No Es Mi Amiga’ |
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Carly Fiorina, California Republican U.S. Senate candidate, shares a wide range of skewed views straight out of the Sarah Palin manifesto. But there is one key Palinesque policy she embraces that she’d just a soon the state’s Latino voters didn’t dwell on.
Fiorina, who casts herself as friend of Latinos, is a strong and strident supporter of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law that civil rights groups denounce as discriminatory and an open to door to racial profiling. As a U.S. senator, Fiorina very well could back a national anti-immigrant law patterned after Arizona’s.
Today the California Labor Federation, Brave New Films and SEIU California unveiled a new bilingual video, “Carly No Es Mi Amiga” (Carly is Not My Friend) that exposes her anti-immigrant agenda and close ties to Palin’s radical and inflammatory immigration rhetoric. Says Art Pulaski, California Labor Federation executive secretary-treasurer: Read the rest of this entry »
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