Jobless workers and members of the faith and labor communities visited lawmakers in Congress yesterday to urge them to extend unemployment insurance (UI) for the long-term unemployed. Hundreds gathered for a rally on Capitol Hill before fanning out to talk with individual lawmakers.
Brenda Loya in AFL-CIO Media Affairs sends us this from North Carolina, where she is on a fact-finding trip to witness the brutal conditions endured by tobacco workers.
We joined a diverse delegation of 25 activists, students, labor and community leaders and traveled to farm labor camps in Dudley, N.C.., to witness firsthand the appalling and abusive conditions of tobacco farm workers.
In North Carolina, the tobacco industry is running roughshod over workers’ rights—and their most fundamental human rights, according to a recent report, “ State of Fear: Human Rights Abuses in North Carolina’s Tobacco Industry ,” issued jointly by the Farm Labor Organizing Committee and Oxfam, the global relief organization. FLOC represents more than 6,000 farm workers in the state.
Farm workers who toil in the tobacco fields of North Carolina often spend hours in the blistering sun and get paid less than the minimum wage. They are exposed to toxic chemicals just to do their jobs, according to a new report issued yesterday.
Like so many of their colleagues around the country, North Carolina Republican legislators are pushing an agenda that attacks workers ’ rights, undermines voter protections, blesses corporations with tax breaks and budget-slams education, vital working family services and environmental protections.
More evidence that Republicans are determined to grab as much power as they can at the expense of everyone but the rich. Not satisfied with attacking the rights of workers, Republicans in 36 states are going after the most sacred American right—the right to vote. The We Party reports that through a myriad of proposals, they are trying to suppress the votes of traditionally Democratic voters, including minorities, the poor, people who live in rural areas, seniors and students.
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