Senate Rejects Move to Bar TSA Workers from Bargaining Rights
Good news from the Senate: Today, senators voted 51-47 to reject a measure that would have prohibited transportation security officers (TSOs) from gaining collective bargaining rights.
I got my first union card while I worked my way through college as a banquet bartender for the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee (we were represented by a hotel and restaurant local union—the names of the national unions were different then than they are now). With a background in journalism—covering bull roping in Texas and school boards in Virginia—I started working in the labor movement in 1991. Beginning as a writer for SEIU (and OPEIU member), I now blog under the title of AFL-CIO managing editor.
Good news from the Senate: Today, senators voted 51-47 to reject a measure that would have prohibited transportation security officers (TSOs) from gaining collective bargaining rights.
Several disturbing items out now as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner gets set to meet next week with Chinese President Hu Jintao.
Here’s a statement from Rebekah Friend, executive director and secretary/treasurer of the Arizona AFL-CIO, about today’s tragedy in Tuscon, Ariz., in which a gunman shot Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the head as she met outside a grocery store with constituents. The gunman, who is in custody, also allegedly shot and killed Chief Judge John Roll of the U.S. District Court for Arizona and an unidentified nine-year-old girl.
With the barrage of orchestrated extremist attacks on public employees, the Economic Policy Institute ( EPI ) reminds us today of a study it commissioned last year that disproves one of the biggest lies by anti-workers–that public employee make excessive pay. In short, public employees are paid less than private-sector workers, even when factoring in employer-provided benefits.