February 2008 Archives

February 29, 2008

Providing a Bridge to the Middle Class

A few days ago, the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) released a fascinating report that confirms a lot of what we've been seeing in our American Dream Surveys -- namely, that disturbingly large numbers of working men and...

February 26, 2008

National Commission on ICE Misconduct Holds First Hearing

The UFCW, along with leading labor and civil rights specialists held the first in a series of nationwide hearings in Washington, D.C. on Monday to examine the enforcement tactics used by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE): At...

February 21, 2008

Fired Up, Ready to Go: Change to Win Endorses Sen. Barack Obama for President

In a few minutes, we will make the official announcement to the media that Change to Win is endorsing Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States.  Here are some excerpts from the remarks that Change to Win...

February 20, 2008

It's Past Time to Protect Workers from Combustible Dust

On Friday, February 8, the Imperial Sugar processing plant in Port Wentworth, Georgia, exploded. The explosion killed at least eight workers and sent dozens more to the hospital. It took firefighters a week to put out the fire. What caused...

February 19, 2008

Teamsters Rally to Fire Mary Peters

Remember when I told you last week that the Teamsters were going to be rallying in San Francisco last week as part of their campaign to Fire Mary Peters? Well, the rally was a big success. Nearly 600 people turned...

February 14, 2008

The Glass is Half Full! OF DEBT

Anyone following the op-ed pages of the New York Times over the last few days would have been treated to two diametrically opposed perspectives on the state of the average American worker's finances. For the sake of convenience, let's...

February 13, 2008

"One Day I Will Never Forget"

The House of Representatives' Committee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law is hearing testimony right now on misconduct by ICE -- the border security agency whose sweeps through meatpacking plants last year ended up infringing the...

A Question For You

If you had to guess what each of the dots on the map above represented, what would you guess? Here's the answer: each dot represents a worker who was killed on the job in 2007. And here's the even...

February 12, 2008

Shame on Elaine

The always-excellent American Rights at Work has launched a new site today titled "Shame on Elaine" that exposes the questionable leadership of Elaine Chao, George Bush's Secretary of Labor: Have you ever wondered who Elaine Chao is? As the...

New York Cracks Down on Misclassification

We told you back in September about a task force set up by New York Governor Eliot Spitzer to investigate "misclassification" -- the scam where employers weasel out of paying for their workers' health care and benefits by claiming...

February 11, 2008

Montreal Cintas Employees Form First Union in Company History

A group of Cintas employees in Montreal have become the first ever Cintas workers to successfully join together in a union: After years of enduring harsh working conditions for low pay, Cintas employees in Montreal have become the first in...

Green Jobs are Good Jobs

We've probably all heard somebody assert at some point that there's a tradeoff between economic prosperity and environmental friendliness. But why should that have to be? Refitting the American economy to run "green" will be an enormous task --...

Rally to Fire Mary Peters Tomorrow in San Francisco

If you're in the Bay Area and you want to protest Transportation Secretary Mary Peters' disregard for the law and for the safety of American motorists, here's your chance! Tomorrow morning, the Teamsters will be holding a rally outside the...

February 7, 2008

Improved Stimulus Package Fails in Senate By Single Vote; Chamber Passes GOP Alternative Instead

Well, the Senate voted last night on the improved stimulus package I've been posting about, and thanks to obstructionist Republican senators who threatened to filibuster (which meant the bill needed a 60-vote supermajority to pass) it failed by a single...

Sure, We Might Fire You Suddenly to Cut Costs. But We Gave You a Pair of Black Jeans!

I've blogged before in this space about the continual flailing of Circuit City ever since they decided last spring to axe 3,400 of their most productive workers and replace them with cheaper labor in a boneheaded cost-cutting maneuver. Now...

"A Hopeful Year for Unions"

In reference to the 2007 uptick in union membership that we noted on January 26th, there's a good editorial in the New York Times this morning: The Labor Department reported that the number of workers belonging to a union...

February 6, 2008

Fire Mary Peters

How could we make America's highways safer? The Teamsters have one suggestion: Fire Mary Peters. Peters is George Bush's Secretary of Transportation -- and she has overseen the introduction of unsafe Mexican trucks onto the nation's highways, despite protests from...

February 5, 2008

Take Action: Tell the Senate to Fix the Stimulus Package

Speaking of the need for a real stimulus package, you can help make it a reality. The Senate will be voting over the next couple of days for a much-improved version of the stimulus that includes several provisions the House...

February 4, 2008

From the "Truth is Stranger than Fiction" Department

Courtesy of the OSHA Underground blog, I discover that you can buy OSHA compliance training from none other than... Cintas: Your Cintas First Aid & Safety representative understands the OSHA regulations that pertain to your particular industry and can tailor...

Real Stimulus, Please

There was some good sense being made in the pages of the nation's newspapers over the weekend. One example could be found on the editorial page of the New York Times, which explained why extended unemployment benefits need to be...