More than 4,000 Georgia education workers who have been wrongfully denied unemployment insurance benefits since a 2011 ruling by the state’s labor commissioner will collect more than $8 million in back payments.
More than 1,500 people rallied Tuesday on Capitol Hill in support of working families and to tell Congress not to make any benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. They also told Congress to close tax loopholes for big corporations and the wealthiest 2% and to prevent the sequester from going into effect and harming the country. Throughout the rally, working families spoke with a unified voice calling for "jobs, not cuts."
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.
It could have been a pretty bleak and hungry holiday season for the families of the 1,300 American Crystal Sugar workers who have been locked out of their jobs since August 2011. But thanks to the combined efforts of the unions of the St. Paul (Minn.) Regional Labor Federation and the American Income Life Insurance Co., there’ll be presents under the trees and food in the pantries.
Finding that perfect gift this holiday season doesn't have to be a headache. Check out this Made in America, union-made gift guide. Here are some highlights from the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor's resource site, Labor 411 . Gifts include those made by members of UNITE HERE , Boilermakers ( IBB ), Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers ( BCTGM ), Machinists ( IAM ), United Steelworkers ( USW ), Teamsters ( IBT ), UAW , United Food and Commercial Workers ( UFCW ), the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union/UFCW ( RWDSU /UFCW) and United Farm Workers ( UFW ).
Jon Israel, a Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) member, didn’t plan on falling off the roof of a house he was working on in Barrington, R.I. a few weeks ago. He also didn’t plan on the local labor movement organizing a holiday fundraiser to help his family get through his recovery from the serious injuries he sustained from the fall.
Yet there is a long history in the labor movement of stepping up community service during the holiday season. In Rhode Island, local labor unions are starting early with the holiday cheer this year. In addition to the fundraiser for Jon Israel, union members in Rhode Island are organizing a wide variety of community service opportunities.
More than 1,300 Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers in Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa have been locked out by American Crystal Sugar for more than a year and a half. These working families are being denied incomes and health care benefits.
After reviewing unilateral changes Georgia made to its unemployment insurance (UI) rules, the U.S. Department of Labor has declared that the state has no “adequate statutory basis” for denying UI benefits to seasonal employees who work for private contractors providing services to schools. The strongly-worded guidance to Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler came in an Aug. 2 letter obtained by the Atlanta Constitution Journal and publicized in their front page story: State ordered to reverse itself on some unemployment claims .
Relying upon a bogus interpretation of federal law and regulations, the state of Georgia has begun to deny seasonal workers the unemployment insurance (UI) benefits they have received for 16 years during their off seasons. Thousands of workers are affected—contract school bus drivers, bus monitors, longtime crossing guards, cafeteria cooks, janitors, landscapers and teachers in private religious schools.
Donald Cohen, founder and executive director of In the Public Interest , a national resource center on privatization and responsible contracting, sends us this.
It seems there’s no public service or piece of property that private companies are not eyeing as potential revenue streams. While funding anti-government think tanks like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), companies like Corrections Corporation of America, Waste Management, Maximus, Intuit, Laidlaw, Northrup Grumman, Koch Companies, Macquarie Capital Advisers, Pinnacle West, and UnitedHealthcare are hoping to use government as their candy store.
It’s been four years since low-wage workers got a raise. Sign the petition to tell Congress it’s time to raise the minimum wage.
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