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AFL-CIO Now

Showing blog posts by Mike Hall

Mike Hall

I’m a former West Virginia newspaper reporter, staff writer for the United Mine Workers Journal and managing editor of the Seafarers Log. I came to the AFL- CIO in 1989 and have written for several federation publications, focusing on legislation and politics, especially grassroots mobilization and workplace safety. When my collar was still blue, I carried union cards from the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, American Flint Glass Workers and Teamsters for jobs in a chemical plant, a mining equipment manufacturing plant and a warehouse. I’ve also worked as roadie for a small-time country-rock band, sold my blood plasma and played an occasional game of poker to help pay the rent. You may have seen me at one of several hundred Grateful Dead shows. I was the one with longhair and the tie-dye. Still have the shirts, lost the hair.

UA Member Leads 'Brotherhood Outdoors' Elk Hunt

Dan Reyes (left and "Brotherhood Outdoors" co-host Daniel Lee Martin. "Brotherhood Outdoors" photo.

A new season of the Union Sportsmen’s Alliance’s (USA's) award-winning hunting and fishing TV show, “Brotherhood Outdoors, is under way, and the next episode features Plumbers and Pipe Fitters (UA) Local 412 member Dan Reyes on a New Mexico elk hunt. It airs at 11 a.m. EST on Sunday, Feb. 10, on the Sportsman Channel.

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Levin Calls for End of Corporate, Hedge Fund Tax Loopholes

As Congress gets ready for “Round 2” of the Fiscal Showdown—yet another manufactured budget crisis that will unfold during the month of March and over the course of this year—Republicans are resisting proposals to make this crisis go away once and for all by closing tax loopholes for Wall Street and the richest 2% of Americans.

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Path to Citizenship Vital to Immigration Reform, San Antonio Mayor Tells House Panel

Photo by j valas images/flickr

Putting the nation’s 11 million aspiring citizens on a path to citizenship is not—as many Republican House lawmakers have characterized—the “extreme” option for immigration reform, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro told a House Judiciary Committee hearing today.

Putting them on a path to citizenship, that’s the best option.

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NNU Nurses Call for Safe Staffing Ratio for D.C. Hospitals

Washington Hospital Center RN Rajini Raj. NNU photo

When nurses are forced to carry a heavy patient load because of understaffing, the first to suffer are the patients. Several speakers at a Washington, D.C., City Hall press conference Monday said that legislation to establish a nurse-to-patient safe staffing ratio would protect patients’ safety and care.

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Longshoremen Reach East Coast Port Deal

ILA photo

The Longshoremen (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance have reached a tentative agreement covering some 14,000 workers in 15 East Coast ports, the Federal Mediation Service and Conciliation (FMCS) announced late Friday. The two sides had faced a Feb. 6 strike deadline.

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SPEEA Members to Vote on Boeing Pact, Strike Authorization

Thousands of engineers and technical workers at Boeing Co. plants in the Pacific Northwest will begin voting next week on the latest contract offer and whether to authorize a strike, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA)/IFPTE Local 2001 announced Thursday.

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Get a Union, Get a Ticket to the Middle Class

Credit: Ove Overmyer, AFSCME/CSEA Local 1000, Rochester, N.Y. 2009. Photo courtesy of CSEA Monroe County, N.Y., Local 828.

We’ve said it for years. Because of the “Union Difference”—fair wages and better benefits for workers who belong to a union—unions are the ticket to the middle class. Even if you don’t belong to a union, there is a spillover effect to the whole economy. In other words, when unions are strong, everyone benefits. But don’t take our word for it, here’s what Time magazine contributor Eric Liu says:

The fact is that when unions are stronger the economy as a whole does better.

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Union Members Play Big Part in Super Bowl Game Plan

Union Members Play Big Part in Super Bowl Game Plan

In New Orleans this Super Bowl week, there are plenty of fans sporting 49ers' red and gold caps and jerseys and Ravens' purple and black gear. But there also are thousands of union members—including many from unions in the Greater New Orleans AFL-CIO (GNO)—who proudly display their union label and are making the game possible and the fan experience in the Crescent City run smoothly.

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Bush’s Corporate Education Group Operates from ALEC’s Playbook

Illustration from In The Public Interest

The American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC's) long history of influencing state legislators—sometimes even writing legislation for them—to pass laws and promote policies that advance a corporate profit agenda, and at times an extreme conservative agenda, is well documented.

Now a new report shows another group—led by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush—is following the ALEC blueprint in pushing state education policy backed by for-profit education corporations.

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Suit Seeks to Strike Down Michigan 'Right to Work' Law

Photo by Ann Savage: www.eclectablog.com

A coalition of Michigan labor unions—including the UAW—and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) asked a judge Thursday to strike down the recently passed "right to work" for less law because it was enacted while the public was locked out of the Capitol, which is a violation of the Open Meetings Act, the First Amendment and the Michigan Constitution.

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