Organizing/Bargaining
Blog Posts
In the biggest strike yet in the growing fast-food/low-wage workers’ actions demanding a voice, thousands of workers making the minimum wage or just slightly more walked off the job in several cities today, demanding a living wage, no retaliation for striking and the right to join unions.
For the past several months, the AFL-CIO has been asking you how we can create momentum around the commitment to building a stronger future for working people.
In mid July , we examined what people have been telling us in our in-person listening sessions and online . To date, more than 4,700 people attended in-person listening sessions, including four regional state federation and central labor councils and more than 950 comments were posted to www.aflcio2013.org .
Leaders of the labor movement are looking at how to create a re-energized movement that’s even more relevant to working people’s lives—and we need your advice. When it comes to making a difference for women today, what’s working and what do we need to change? What are the most important issues for working women? How can we make the biggest impact on those issues? How can we swell the ranks of women leaders—and why does it matter? As we put together recommendations for action at the AFL-CIO Convention in September , we need your voice, your ideas and your perspective on all this and more.
Baldemar Velásquez, founder and president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), appeared on "Moyers and Company" July 19 to discuss farm workers fighting for a voice on the job and fair treatment from North Carolina tobacco company giant R.J. Reynolds.
Watch the entire show after the jump.
Mark Bittman never steers you wrong when it comes to ideas and advice on food. Now the with a strike by fast food and other low-wage workers set for Monday in several cities, Bittman, Time magazine’s lead food columnist and a New York Times columnist has a question for politicians and corporate execs who oppose paying workers a decent wage and some advice for the rest of us. He’s on the money with both.
The median age of today’s fast-food worker is over 29, and many are trying to support families. One estimate claims that a family of four needs nearly $90,000 a year to get by in the nation’s capital. That’s six minimum wage jobs. Explain to me, please, how you can be pro-family and anti-living-wage simultaneously? (Many Republicans in Congress seem to manage.)
Low-wage workers in seven cities Monday will walk off their jobs in several prominent fast food chains and retail outlets to demand a living wage, the right to form unions and an end to what they say are unfair labor practices.
The strike will come on the heels of a new report released by the National Employment Law Project ( NELP ). The report says although companies claim these low-wage jobs are a step toward good careers, opportunities to advance are limited for front-line workers in the fast-food industry.
industry.
Workers at the WCA Car Wash in Soundview in South Central Bronx, N.Y, voted unanimously to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union ( RWDSU ). Their victory builds on the momentum that has seen workers at seven New York City carwashes vote for a voice at work and two recent successful contract ratifications as part of the WASH New York campaign.
At 5 a.m. local time, workers at a Mira Loma, Calif., warehouse that ships goods for Walmart launched a two-day strike to protest alleged unsafe working conditions and retaliation against workers who are exposed to those conditions. The warehouse is owned by Olivet International, an apparel and luggage company. Some 70% of the products that move through the warehouse are shipped on behalf of Walmart.
More than four in 10 private-sector workers and 80% of low-wage workers do not have paid sick days. This means people, especially women who are more likely to work in low-wage jobs , constantly have to choose between their health and a paycheck.
Overtime, Over State Lines? is a cross-post from Working America ’s Dear David workplace advice column .
My son works part-time at a shipping/receiving business. He was hired by an outside trucking company to work there. His co-workers who are actual employees of the shipping/receiving business are full-time. They are told that they cannot receive time and a half for overtime because the company is from Tennessee and the contract (not a union contract) was signed under Tennessee rules. The company is in Georgia. (My son is not affected because he is hired from the outside and only gets about 32 hours at most per week.) I’ve never heard of this before. Is that true, or is the employer ripping them off?
—Concerned Parent, Georgia
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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