AFL-CIO says PRO Act support is political litmus test. The AFL-CIO at its recent convention reiterated that candidates’ support for the Protect The Right To Organize (PRO) Act shall be a litmus test for labor’s endorsements. “The time is now for fixing America’s broken labor laws,” said delegates’ Resolution 7. “No candidate or elected official who fails to endorse and fight for these fundamental reforms should receive the support of working people.”
Women labor leaders react to abortion decision. Women who lead some of the country’s unions were outraged but determined to fight the right-wing Supreme Court ruling criminalizing abortion. Presidents of the nation’s two largest unions, Becky Pringle of the National Education Association and Mary Kay Henry of the Service Employees, noted the linkage between the court’s ruling and the aims of the right-wing corporate class. And AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler called the court’s ruling “a devastating blow to working women and families across this country.
“This is just the latest in a harmful string of attacks on our fundamental rights, including the right to vote and to collectively bargain in the workplace, and points to an alarming trend that other well-settled rights like marriage equality may be taken away,” she said.
Indeed, Justice Clarence Thomas said the court should now revisit prior decisions for gay marriage, contraception and same-sex marriage.
AFA-CWA President Sara Nelson said, “The right for each of us to make our own choices about our jobs, our bodies, and our futures is fundamental. That includes the right to protect safe, legal options to anyone who seeks reproductive health care. The justices will not stop here. They already gutted the right to vote, and our right to fair elections free of corporate influence. Our union will continue fighting for equality and freedom for all.”
National Nurses United President Jean Ross, RN, said, “Abortion is health care. Plain and simple. It’s outrageous and completely unacceptable to single out this one healthcare service, that’s only needed by people who can get pregnant, as illegal.
“Abortions will not stop. They will simply become more expensive, harder to access, and in many cases unsafe. Those with money and resources will continue to be able to get safe abortions, and those without will not.”
Federation to dedicate money, staff to young workers’ causes. Recognizing today’s young workers are more pro-union than their elders — and need unions even more — AFL-CIO convention delegates voted to dedicate more money and people to young workers and their causes. Young workers realize “our economy makes them work twice as hard for half the pay” and are turning to unions to change that, Steelworkers Vice President Roxanne Brown said. “The future of the labor movement is forming right before our eyes.”
The fed’s Young Workers Rising initiative will emphasize unions as a route to well-paying jobs, including apprenticeships in the building trades. And it will recruit them for leadership posts and “support legislation addressing young worker concerns,” notably the student loan weight, Brown added.
Amazon and Starbucks are law-breakers, according to the NLRB. The National Labor Relations Board says Amazon repeatedly violated federal law at a Staten Island warehouse where the Amazon Labor Union won its vote, forcing workers to attend anti-union meetings, threatening workers with lost pay or benefits, and more. The union’s lawyer, Seth Goldstein said the NLRB complaint “is going to reverse decades’ worth of anti-union decisions.”
The agency cited Starbucks with more than 200 violations preventing workers from unionizing at one Buffalo, N.Y., location (where the vote failed). The corporation harassed workers, from intimidation attempts to 19 sections of an employee handbook (“Starbucks’ Partner Guide”) that constitute ‘interfering with, restraining, and coercing employees in the exercise’ of their right to unionize under federal law,” the NLRB said.
News briefs courtesy of The Labor Paper