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Reverse Trick-or-Treaters Call Attention to Child Labor in Cocoa Fields |
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Don’t be surprised if the “trick-or-treaters” at your front door this Halloween give you something in return for the candy or fruit you hand them. This year on Oct. 31, children, students and adults across the country will hand out fair trade chocolates attached to an informational card about child labor abuses in the cocoa industry.
The Not For Sale Chocolate Campaign is sponsoring “Reverse Trick-or-Treating” to call attention to the abuse of some 3.6 million children in the cocoa fields of West Africa. Not For Sale’s mission is to recruit, educate and mobilize an international grassroots social movement that effectively combats human trafficking and slavery.
For more information on the Not For Sale Chocolate Campaign, click here.
NFLPA’s Smith Gives Solidarity Shout Out to Machinists |
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During a recent fan appreciation event in Green Bay, Wis., DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), told fans the NFLPA has had a long relationship of solidarity with the union movement, especially with the Machinists (IAM). The Players face a lockout next year by owners.
Smith, who was raised in a union family, said he was wearing a jacket from “the fighting Machinists” that day because
not only have they joined us in this fight, but what most people don’t know is that when our union was founded and we couldn’t take care of ourselves, the fighting Machinists took care of us, they gave us an office, they gave us a loan they took care of our football players union when we couldn’t stand on our own two feet.
Earlier this year, several NFLPA players appeared at an IAM conference in Florida in support of NASA workers who were facing layoffs because of the end of the U.S. manned space program. At the event, IAM President Thomas Buffenbarger put it this way: Read the rest of this entry »
Landmark Deal Sets Standard in Tomato Industry |
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The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), spearheading the Campaign for Fair Food, signed a landmark agreement this week with Pacific Tomato Growers (PTG), one of the country’s largest tomato producers. This new deal sets new standards for social responsibility and accountability in Florida’s tomato industry.
Not only is this the first formal agreement between the CIW and a major tomato grower, but the new accord establishes several practical steps to ensure the key principles of the Campaign for Fair Food’s code of conduct are followed. Those principles include a joint complaint resolution system, a health and safety program and a worker-to-worker education process.
The agreement also provides for third-party auditing of compliance with the code. Like CIW’s other agreements, it adds a penny more per pound payment for tomatoes picked. For more information on the deal, click here.
USSA’s Cendana Named New Asian Pacific Labor Alliance Executive Director |
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Gregory Allan Cendana, former president of the United States Student Association (USSA) and a labor, student, and community activist, has been appointed Executive Director of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA).
Cendana succeeds Malcolm Amado Uno, who served as executive director since March 2008 and who now is working at the Department of Labor as a Special Assistant to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis in the Department’s Office of Public Engagement.
APALA President Luisa Blue says Cendana, who was raised in an immigrant and union family,
is grounded with strong values that are in line with our mission and vision and has a proven track record of success. Read the rest of this entry »
Air Line Pilots Elect New Leaders |
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Capt. Lee Moak, a Delta Air Lines captain, was elected Air Line Pilots (ALPA) president Oct. 13 at the union’s 43rd regular biennial Board of Directors meeting. He succeeds Capt. John Prater who served as ALPA president since January 2007.
Moak, who joined ALPA in 1988, is a former Marine Corps fighter pilot and currently flies as a B-767 300 ER captain. A 22-year veteran at Delta, he is currently serving his third term as the chairman of the Delta Master Executive Council (MEC), which represents the more than 12,000 pilots of Delta Air Lines. Says Moak:
Our union has faced many challenges throughout its long history. Our successes have been most evident when we have worked together for the common good. I look forward to working with the many talented ALPA pilots and union staff as we proactively engage with each and every party that has the potential to influence the careers and professional lives of the pilots we represent.
Sean Cassidy, an Alaska Airlines pilot, was elected ALPA’s first vice-president, Capt. Bill Couette was re-elected for a second term as vice-president—Administration and Capt. W. Randolph Helling was re-elected vice-president–secretary/treasurer. The new officers begin their terms Jan. 1.
Obama Administration Accepts USW Complaint Against China’s Clean Energy Subsidies |
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President Obama showed once again he is willing to enforce U.S. trade laws. Today, his administration accepted the United Steelworkers’ (USW’s) petition under Section 301 of the trade law claiming China’s government has used hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, performance requirements, preferential practices and other trade-illegal activities to dominate the renewable energy market.
The 5,800-page petition, filed with the U.S. Trade Representative, identifies five major areas where China’s government’s protectionist and predatory practices helped develop that nation’s green energy sector at the expense of production and job creation here in the United States. The actions violate the terms China’s government agreed to when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, the petition says. Click here to download a copy of the executive summary.
USW President Leo Gerard said accepting the petition,
sends the message that America is not going to stand by while our jobs get outsourced. China and all of our trading partners need to understand that we want fair trade and that we’re not going to allow unfair and illegal trade practices to deny our farmers, workers and businesses of the opportunity to compete on a level playing field.
Middle Class Must Organize to Take Back America from the Rich |
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A recent Pew Foundation poll shows 53 percent of Americans believe government is helping Wall Street and the rich, while only 3 percent believe it is helping the middle class. Those figures are not a coincidence, but reflect what is really happening in our political system today, says Jacob Hacker.
Hacker spoke yesterday evening at the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., in a book event that featured introductory remarks by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Hacker, co-author of “Winner-Take-All Politics,” said the nation’s wealthiest people and Big Business colluded with conservative ideologues in the late 1970s to hijack the political process and change government regulatory and tax policies.
By concentrating large amounts of resources and money in political action groups and lobbying, they changed the political climate in Washington, causing every Congress and president, Democrat and Republican, to adapt. As a result, taxes for the wealthiest Americans were cut, deregulation took hold in a big way and unions still face major obstacles getting legislation passed.
Washington Labor Council Flier ‘Best’ on Secret Corporate Cash |
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When it comes to politics, campaign advertising, candidate endorsements and all other forms of electioneering, the union movement has nothing to hide. Our name is right there, out front on fliers, leaflets, television commercials.
We don’t hide behind election laws and made up patriotic names. Our spending and contributions are a matter of public record, unlike the well-hidden and top secret money trail that leads to the Chamber of Commerce and the radical right groups that don’t have to reveal from which corporation, front group or extremist millionaire their campaign cash is coming from.
That caught the eye of author Paul Loeb. In a recent column on Huffington Post, Loeb points to a recent flier from the Washington State Labor Council (WSLC) on the U.S. Senate race between Sen. Patty Murray (D) and Wall Street waterboy Dino Rossi (R). Read the rest of this entry »
Chamber of Commerce Gets $$ from Big Offshoring Corps. |
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It’s long past time for the Chamber of Commerce to take ”U.S.” out of its formal name. Because calling itself the “U.S.” Chamber of Commerce implies it backs the interests of job creation in the United States. And proof emerges again that it does not.
While funding $75 million in political ads to attack the jobs record of lawmakers who support creating good jobs in this country, the Chamber is pushing to send jobs overseas to outsourcing companies that are funding its political attack ads.
This from Think Progress:
While it tells the American public it cares about American jobs, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce actually works to send jobs overseas on behalf of its corporate members, which include some of Asia’s top offshoring companies. As ThinkProgress previously noted, the Chamber has repeatedly sent out issue alerts attacking Democratic efforts to encourage businesses to hire locally rather than outsource to foreign countries. The Chamber has also bitterly fought Democrats for opposing unfettered free trade deals.
The Chamber’s anti-American jobs agenda serves…the profit-seeking of right-wing corporate executives in the United States….
Those in Washington, D.C., might want to go by the Chamber’s HQ, across from the White House, to view the “Jobs” banners hanging ostentatiously off its marble facade.
It’s worth the laugh.
Boehner: No Reason for Unions |
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Well, this is ugly. But then, look at the messenger….
From today’s New York Times profile of House Minority Leader John Boehner (R):
“We were self-insured, so we were anxious to see our people wear seat belts, and at that point John was in the ‘Let’s leave the government out of things’ stage,” Mr. [Jim Webb, Boehner's business associate] recalled. (Mr. Boehner did eventually vote for a law requiring seat belt use.) Mr. [Bob] Hagan, the [Ohio] state legislator, who served with Mr. Boehner on a Labor and Commerce Committee, said, “He thought there was no reason for organized labor.”
Boehner knows one big reason unions exist: To protect America’s workers from lawmakers like Boehner, who dance to the tune of their corporate paymasters like Goldman Sachs, the American Bankers Association and Big Pharma.
And that’s why he opposes America’s unions.
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