February 2012
113 posts
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Van Halen returns with new album, union shout out →
by American Rights at Work on February 22, 2012
Van Halen has really got us going. The legendary rock band has reunited with original lead singer David Lee Roth and their first studio album in 14 years has shot to the top of the charts nearly as fast as Eddie Van Halen’s fingers fly up and down the fretboard. We’re jumping for the hit record’s first single, “Tattoo,” which features this...
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No kids in public school? You still benefit →
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Quality public schools benefit everyone – including those without school-aged children – and therefore everyone should play a role in maintaining them, according to a study by two Michigan State University scholars.
Senior citizens and others who don’t have children in school often argue they should be exempt from paying school taxes because they don’t benefit from...
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America’s last hope: A strong labor movement →
To achieve economic justice in the 21st century, we need to fight for democracy in the workplace
By Dorian Warren
Topics:The 99 Percent Plan, The Labor Movement, American Spring
The 99 Percent Plan is a joint Roosevelt Institute-Salon series that explores how progressives can shape a new vision for the economy. This is the third essay in the series.
The fate of the labor movement is the...
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Freep: Democrats, UAW want to ensure Romney's... →
Democrats and their union allies are squarely focused on derailing one Republican in Michigan’s Tuesday presidential primary: Mitt Romney.
In new ads, news releases and a UAW protest rally atop a Detroit parking garage, Democrats targeted Romney, born and raised in Michigan, the son of an auto executive (and governor). Their ammo: his November 2008 New York Times’ op-ed titled...
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Arizona Workers Mobilize As Legislators Debate... →
Wednesday, 22 February 2012 16:49 Written by Pamela Powers Hannley | Huffington Post
With six anti-labor bills winding their way through the Arizona Legislature, union workers are gearing up for a fight.
During a standing room only public forum with a panel of Democratic Party Legislators, workers representing several unions voiced anger and frustration with Republican Governor...
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Hershey’s Packer Is Fined Over Its Safety... →
By JULIA PRESTON
Published: February 21, 2012
After a six-month investigation prompted by the protests of student workers on an international exchange program, the Labor Department on Tuesday issued fines of $283,000 for health and safety violations against a company that operates a plant in Pennsylvania packing Hershey’s chocolates, saying it had covered up serious injuries to ...
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Window factory sit-in ends with 90-day reprieve... →
February 24, 2012|By Alejandra Cancino | Tribune reporter
The president of the union at a window factory in Goose Island said he is hoping to find new owners or raise funds to purchase it.
Armando Robles, president of United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America Local 1110, said his vision is for workers to own and operate the plant.
Dozens of workers locked themselves inside the...
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Daily Kos: Unions contributed to Mitt Romney's... →
(Click the link to see the video)
—These days, Mitt Romney can hardly find enough hours in the day to bash unions enough. But as the video above shows, it was a different story in 2002, when he was thanking the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers for making a 500-foot mountainside light sculpture of the Olympic rings possible:
We thought it was going to take three weekends...
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Healthcare workers union and machinists union... →
In a move that’s fascinating if you’re at all into union inside baseball, the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) have agreed “to pursue a formal relationship between our two unions and to work toward a potential future affiliation.”
NUHW has its roots in an SEIU local; when the...
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Pennsylvania Saves Prevailing Wage →
February 21, 2012
Republican legislation aimed at weakening Pennsylvania’s prevailing wage law hit a major bump in the road February 16 after supporters failed to garner enough support from fellow party members in the state house.
Despite their 112-91 majority in the state House of Representatives, Republican leaders couldn’t bring the bill – which would have squeezed construction...
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Can Labor Organize the Unemployed? →
Wrenching testimonies from laid-off workers are overflowing the internet, crying out from the pages of policy reports, and popping up in commercial media. But unions are still grappling with how to organize the unemployed, including their own ex-members, into a political force.
Department of Labor figures for December showed 13.1 million unemployed and actively looking for work, almost...
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Italy: Stop victimization of anti-fascist trade...
Brother and sisters please stand up for Matteo Parlati, send your message of protest via the article link.
Matteo Parlati stood up to the fascists. Now, he needs us to stand up for him.
Matteo Parlati is a shop steward who works for Ferrari Auto in Italy. He’s an activist in FIOM-CGIL, the Italian metal workers union.
Last October, when local neo-fascists decided to celebrate...
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Website: UAW behind protests →
Says union to train 100K for ‘99%’ campaign
A conservative-leaning news website says it has obtained documents from the United Auto Workers’ Internet server that show the union is behind a new, nationwide campaign to train 100,000 Americans for “sustained non-violent direct action” on behalf of “the 99 percent.”
The Daily Caller says the documents...
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Right to work law won't be good deal for Michigan →
There’s a lesson to be learned from Indiana, where politicians rammed through so-called right-to-work legislation despite overwhelming public opposition: Right-to-work laws have nothing to with the priorities that matter to the middle-class (“Right-to-work issue could become battle in Michigan,” LSJ, Feb. 4). Nor are these bills intended to put people back to work or safeguard their rights on...
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“I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire...”
– Tyler Durden, Fight Club
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Mother Jones: Mother Jones: Why Screwing Unions... →
IN 2008, A LIBERAL Democrat was elected president. Landslide votes gave Democrats huge congressional majorities. Eight years of war and scandal and George W. Bush had stigmatized the Republican Party almost beyond redemption. A global financial crisis had discredited the disciples of free-market fundamentalism, and Americans were ready for serious change.
Or so it seemed. But two years later,...
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Mother Jones: Most Red States Take More Money From... →
Click the link to see all of the maps
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Even as Republicans gripe about deficit spending, their states get 30 cents more federal spending per tax dollar than their Democratic neighbors.
—By Dave Gilson
| Thu Feb. 16, 2012 3:00 AM PST
States receiving the most federal funding per tax dollar paid: 1. New Mexico: $2.63 2. West Virginia: $2.57 3. Mississippi: $2.47 ...
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Mother Jones: Who Actually Benefits From Federal... →
—By Kevin Drum
| Fri Feb. 17, 2012 3:00 AM PST
Roger Ippolito, a 74-year-old Korean War veteran, receives $450 a month in social security benefits. Amanda Voisard/ZUMA
Republican candidates have lately been parroting Charles Murray’s argument that our “entitlement society” has created a nation of deadbeats who would rather live off government benefits than find a...
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Talking Union: AFSCME & SEIU Could See Leadership... →
Posted on February 16, 2012 by dsalaborblogmoderator
by Mike Elk
Current AFSCME Treasury Secretary Lee Saunders. (Photo Courtesy of CSEA N.Y. Local 828)
AFSCME showdown certain and SEIU challengers rumored, as union conventions approach
This summer could offer some of the biggest union leadership shake-ups in the recent history of the labor movement. The incumbent leadership teams of two...
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Michigan Unions Look to Amend Constitution to... →
Jane Slaughter
| February 20, 2012
Michigan’s top union leaders are meeting behind closed doors to decide whether to attempt to amend the state constitution to block emergency managers and a “right to work” law through a ballot initiative this November. Photo: Jim West.
Governor Mitch Daniels received a bouquet of roses after he signed Indiana’s right-to-work law in...
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The New Republic: Stop Talking About the ‘Catholic... →
@CatholicDems - The idea that we Catholics all vote the same way is almost some old school backwards thought. Some would have you believe that the Pope sends us all a brain message and we all vote one way. The article talks about there being a time when Catholics voted in a mostly conservative democratic block way back when, but now we’re just as divided as the general populace. On...
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Labour Start: Is it right to sack someone for... →
From Labour Start:
Ten union leaders - eight of them women - have been fired because they dared to organize.
They work for Euro S.A. in Ica, Peru, a profitable agricultural export plantation. Euro S.A. is owned by Agricola Athos, which operates in five different regions in Peru and supplies produce to countries in Europe, Asia, and North America.
The firings of these workers is part of...
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Kicking Underdogs When They’re Down →
Submitted by Sarah on Thu, 02/16/2012 - 1:09pm.
By Leo W. Gerard USW International President
Americans love an underdog. Maybe it’s an artifact of the American Revolution, when a rag-tag rabble of farmers and frontiersmen defeated the disciplined and well-provisioned military of the most powerful nation on earth.
Even though the United States has usurped most powerful status, Americans...
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New Hampshire Republicans Propose Bill To... →
By Pat Garofalo on Feb 8, 2012 at 3:00 pm
New Hampshire’s GOP legislature has come up with all manner of absurd bills recently, including a proposal making public school curriculum optional, another to prevent police from protecting domestic abuse victims, and even a measure mandating that new laws be based on the Magna Carta. Some of the Granite State’s GOP lawmakers have even proposed...
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TPM: Fox Guests Discuss ‘Nightmare’ Of Paying... →
Classic Faux News union bashing. Click the link to see the video.
Michael Lester February 8, 2012, 12:46 PM 17260 117
If you weren’t watching Fox Business Network this morning, you may have missed today’s dose of outrage from Fox’s English money-man Stuart Varney.
Varney, who was on Fox & Friends after the State Of The Union to rail against the President “beating up” on millionaires...
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The Nation: Twenty-Two Faces of an American... →
When Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker announced on February 11, 2011, that he would use a bureaucratic “budget repair bill” as a vehicle to attack collective-bargaining rights, civil-service protections and local democracy, he expected a reaction. The governor went so far as threaten to call out the National Guard to prevent protests from getting out of hand. But Walker and his aides were...
Payroll Tax Deal Would Allow Drug Testing, Reduce... →
WASHINGTON — The maximum duration of unemployment insurance would gradually fall from 99 weeks to 73 weeks over the course of the year under the payroll tax deal sought by congressional negotiators, according to an outline of the proposal. And the deal would allow states to drug test those applying for unemployment benefits, according to Democratic and Republican congressional sources.
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Mother Jones: Ron Paul vs. Birth Control →
Paul has sponsored legislation that would gut the Supreme Court decision that made birth control legal.
—By Kate Sheppard
| Tue Feb. 14, 2012 3:00 AM PST
Ron Paul 2012
Last year, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul introduced a bill in Congress that would allow states to ban contraception if they choose.
Paul’s “We the People Act,” which he introduced in...
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