Unions help build a better life for working people, but outdated laws have hampered our basic right to join together and negotiate for better pay, benefits and working conditions. A new bill, the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, would modernize our nation's labor laws.
Despite its setbacks, or perhaps because of them, organized labor has an energy level that AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka says he hasn’t seen before in his 50 years with the movement.
On May 7, while recovering from an illness, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) International President Larry Hanley died suddenly. In a brief statement, his family,
Paul Ryan and Donald Trump are running scared. After the Republican candidate who ran with the ardent backing of the Republican Speaker of the House and the Republican president lost a special election for a Pennsylvania congressional seat in a district that was so Republican-friendly that Donald Trump won it by 20 points and the former GOP congressman regularly ran without opposition, the men who define the Republican Party as it now exists had to explain their loss.
Rep.-elect Conor Lamb made national waves with an improbable win last week in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District. He faced down $10 million in outside money funneled to his opponent by corporate and right-wing interests. He fought through a barrage of incessant, hyperpartisan attacks blanketing the airwaves. He was abandoned by his own party’s national infrastructure in a district that hadn’t elected a Democrat in nearly 15 years. And he still came out on top.
Nearly two centuries ago, a group of women and girls—some as young as 12—decided they'd had enough. Laboring in the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, they faced exhausting 14-hour days, abusive supervisors and dangerous working conditions. When threatened with a pay cut, they finally put their foot down.
The mill workers organized, went on strike and formed America's first union of working women. They shocked their bosses, captured the attention of a young nation and blazed a trail for the nascent labor movement that would follow.
Members and leaders of the union that represents hotel and hospitality workers gathered Monday evening to discuss the workers’ experiences with sexual harassment by guests and what the union is doing to create safer workplaces for its members.
The meeting of national and local leaders of the AFL-CIO, Chicago Federation of Labor and employees that the union represents — which includes hotel and hospitality workers — came less than a month after an alderman sponsored a loophole into the city’s sexual harassment ordinance that would weaken the legislation.
The Senate will vote on a bill Tuesday that’s being touted by supporters as much-needed regulatory relief for small community banks — a sales pitch that conjures images of tellers greeting longtime customers by name as they kick farm dust off their boots at the door.
The #MeToo movement has challenged our nation to confront pervasive sexual harassment in the workplace. Women of every age, every background and every profession have faced harassment, and for too many perpetrators there has been no accountability. According to a study conducted by the nonprofit Stop Street Harassment, 81% of women (and 43% of men) report experiencing sexual harassment or assault.
Sen. Bernie Sanders calls her “very tough” and “an invaluable ally.” Longtime consumer advocate Ralph Nader praises her as “the greatest labor organizer of her time.” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka admires her “iron will.” Filmmaker Michael Moore says she is “the pain-in-the-ass labor leader all workers need fighting for them.”
The Trump tax cuts aren't tickling everyone's fancy, despite a little more money in your check. State Sen. David Niezgodski (D) and State Rep. Karlee Macer (D) were part of a town hall in Indianapolis, on what they say is the "TrumpTax’s disastrous impact on Indiana’s working families."
The town hall is part of a nationwide tour they say will shed light on the "devastating repercussions of Republican tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires and wealthy corporations at the expense of working families."
