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| Human Rights Watch: Employee Free Choice Is a Human Right TheWordsmithCollection | ||||
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Resources for Labor Union Organizing
Union Activism!
Union
Quotes! Oregon House sides with labor on workplace communications!by Janie Har, The OregonianFriday June 19, 2009, 1:09 PMSALEM -- Organized labor scored a fat win on Friday when lawmakers gave final approval to a bill allowing workers to opt out of meetings where employers talk about unions, ballot measures and other political speech. The House voted 34 to 24 to endorse Senate Bill 519, with Democrats and unions praising what they call the "Worker Freedom Act." Republicans and businesses protested fiercely, saying that the employer "gag rule" is an unnecessary regulation that tilts the landscape toward unions. The bill now goes to Gov. Ted Kulongoski, who is expected to sign it. Oregon would join New Jersey in extending such protection to workers. Democrats say businesses are overreacting and that the bill doesn't silence anyone's right to speech -- it just frees workers from having to listen. The provision also applies to religious speech. "This is a policy that makes sense and will be good for business," said Rep. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, an English instructor at Portland Community College who has served as president of the faculty union there. Added Rep. Mitch Greenlick, D-Portland: "All this does is protect the natural rights of employees; it doesn't hinder employers in any way." ...The Senate approved the bill 16-14. On Tuesday it is expected to take up a proposal that expands the number of public workers eligible to join unions. -Janie Har |
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| The fine folks at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) have released a series of one-page reports summarizing what unions mean for workers all around the country. | ||||
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Reading, Writing, and Union-Building Monthly Review - Herndon,VA,USA In labor circles, the percentage of recent readers may be even smaller. ..... catalogue and Powell's, the unionized book-seller in Portland, Oregon. ...it's long past time for progressives in labor to find new methods of encouraging rank-and-file reading -- or to revive some of the old-fashioned ones |
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The Iraqi Teachers
Union has issued an emergency appeal for support - the union faces a government takeover. |
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A.F.L.-C.I.O. to
Support Nationalizing Banks
The
labor federation, a lobbying powerhouse that represents 10
million workers, will thus become one of the first groups —
and certainly the most powerful — to call for moving more
aggressively on nationalization, both to counter Republican and
business cries against it and to press the Obama administration
not to vacillate over such a move. A.F.L.-C.I.O.
officials asserted that the administration’s practice of
giving billions of dollars in dribs and drabs to distressed
banks had failed to restore their solvency, leaving them as
zombie banks that largely refrain from lending, thereby
contributing to the economy’s decline. The
executive council is scheduled to approve a statement that
criticizes the Obama administration for indulging shareholders
of distressed banks by not nationalizing the banks to speed the
cleanup of their balance sheets. “We
believe the debate over nationalization is delaying the
inevitable bank restructuring, which is something our economy
cannot afford,” a draft of the council’s statement said. The
labor leaders also asserted that the Obama administration, like
the Bush administration, had failed to obtain fair value for the
tens of billions it had invested in distressed banks. “By
feeding the banks public money in fits and starts, and asking
little or nothing in the way of sacrifice, we are going down the
path Japan took in the 1990s — a path that leads to ‘zombie
banks’ and long-term economic stagnation,” the draft
statement said. The
statement makes clear that the group wants to add its political
and lobbying muscle to calls by Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nouriel
Roubini and other economists in favor of nationalization. Labor leaders said the administration appeared to be vacillating on nationalization partly out of fear of Republican attacks that it was adopting socialist policies... |
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 The social networking site for trade unionists. Now with 1820 registered users. If this is your first visit to the site, please click here. |
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| Resolution Format How to take action at your state convention. | ||||
For the second year in a row, the percentage of workers who belong to a union grew, according to the annual survey of union membership released this morning by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). In 2008, union membership grew by 428,000, increasing the percentage of union members in the workforce to 12.4 percent, up from 12.1 percent in 2007. Overall, 16.1 million workers carry union cards. Union membership, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says, is especially valuable to working families as the nation’s economy is in the worst recession in decades.
The BLS survey also reports on the union advantage workers receive on payday. In 2008, full-time union workers earned a median weekly salary of $886 while nonunion workers were paid 28 percent less per week, $691. Some 60 million workers say they would join a union if they had the opportunity. But when workers try to form unions through the flawed National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) process, employers routinely respond with threats, intimidation, firings and harassment. Of the 311,000 new workers who joined unions in 2007, the latest year for which such figures are available, only 70,000 workers were able to form a union through the NLRB process. Today, most workers who form new unions do so after their employer has agreed to recognize their union through a majority sign-up process—a major provision of the Employee Free Choice Act. The Employee Free Choice Act would restore the freedom of workers to form unions and bargain for a better life. While some 78 percent of the public support the legislation, Big Business is waging a multimillion-dollar disinformation campaign against the bill. On top of that, congressional Republicans are vowing to kill the workers’ rights legislation. They have even gone so far as to threaten to block President Barack Obama’s choice of Hilda Solis as secretary of labor. Says Sweeney:
Union growth was broadly shared across demographic lines and occupations. Growth was strongest in the public sector, among Hispanics, and in Western states. Click here for the full report, including a demographic breakdown of union membership by occupation, race, gender, state and more.
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Oregon Carpenters'
Local Endorses HR 676 |
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Church maintains that labor movement can help everyone
By SDACT(SDACT)
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Act Activism AFL-CIO Portal Alternatives Breaking News Critical Issues Support UNIONS Jobs With Justice: Turn up the Heat JWJ Organizing JWJ Update Join Local 2277 Links Union Bashing Union Trends Where to go from here? Archives |
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Current News!
The Wordsmith
Collection's
Union News Alternative
News |
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Google News Alert for: Portland Oregon Labor Unions
AFL-CIO Portal www.aflcio.org - America's Union Movement www.writingresource.info/election2008.html PCCFFAP Summer Newsletter (Vol. 8 #3) Past issues |
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As reported by WWire on Friday, the 40-member Professional Staff Organization of the Oregon Education Association is at an impasse with the OEA board. Normally, a strike by a 40-member labor group wouldn't be big news. But the OEA staff does much of the organizational work for the powerful 47,000-member statewide teachers' union, especially during the election season when the OEA is mobilizing on statewide measures and trying to organize for candidates it's supporting. Here's the text of a release OEA staff sent out announcing the strike: OREGON EDUCATION ASSOCIATION PROFESSIONAL STAFF ON STRIKE Portland, September 14, 2008 – The
Professional Staff Organization (PSO) of the Oregon
education Association (OEA) is on strike as of 12:01
A.M., Monday, September 15. Pickets will begin
Monday morning at all OEA offices throughout Oregon.
All union members are expected to honor those
pickets.
The Asian
Reporter
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| Oregon has voted against him, but Sizemore fights on The Oregonian - OregonLive.com - Portland,OR,USA And because Sizemore has not gone away, a coalition that stretches from labor unions to civic, religious and environmental groups to business organizations ... See all stories on this topic | ||||
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The Who, What, Why, When, Where, and How of Employee Free Choice! |
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| Oregon Ballot Measure for November 2008! What's up? Where do unions stand? How should we vote? Get the Skinny! | ||||
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Register to Vote!
 AFT ACTION: Had Enough of Bush’s Anti-Worker Agenda?
Click here to volunteer
The Bush administration and
its
congressional allies are
determined to destroy
About
Big Brother,
wiretapping, torture,
betrayal,
delusions, denial,
destruction, cynicism,
arrogance, hubris,
death, disaster,
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