Ironworkers Training For Green Energy Jobs
Ever see a construction worker hanging off a bridge while making essential repairs and wonder what it takes to do a job like that?
Wanted Economic Patriots to Save American Dream
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka yesterday described the upcoming elections this way: This election is about economic patriots, and it’s also about corporate traitors. Economic patriotism resonates among working people and […]
We Couldn’t Have Said It Better
AFL-CIO Now blogger Mike Hall lets President Obama tell it like it is. After President Obama finished delivering his speech to the AFL-CIO Executive Council this morning, AFL-CIO President Richard […]
Trump: Tax China, Create Jobs in America
Donald Trump knows a few things about making money. The first step: You need a job. But a job is something more than 17 million of America’s […]
NUMMI Closing Highlights Need for U.S. Manufacturing Policy
Closing the New United Motors Manufacturing Inc. automotive plant in California will eliminate 25,000 jobs in the state and cost taxpayers $2.3 billion to replace the jobs lost, according to […]
Danger: Falling Middle Class
Jack Cafferty at CNN this week
Republicans First Slime, Then Maneuver to Block Labor Board Nominee
Mike Hall on our AFL-CIO Now Blog staff wrote about the latest Republican maneuvering to kill a qualified nominee for the nation’s Labor Board and I want to share it […]
The Working Class Has Spoken. Will Democrats Listen?
Massachusetts voters sent a strong signal to Washington lawmakers Tuesday that they want results—and aren’t seeing any. Not on health care reform, not on job creation and not on fixing […]
China and the U.S. Housing Bubble
We often write about how China’s policy to devalue its currency, the yuan, has been a key factor in the U.S. trade deficit. It’s not an easy […]
We Are All Steeworkers
So I took a tour of a steel plant today. There was a lot of hot, molten steel, but also high-tech computerized systems running the show, making sure just enough […]
Jobs Don’t Live Here Anymore
The unemployment data is due tomorrow, and it’s likely to be bad, with an expected 300,000 to 320,000 jobs
Findlay, Ohio, Chamber of Commerce Kills Buy America Parade Because Unions Backed It
The Chamber of Commerce–that’s the U.S. Chamber of Commerce–proved once again how anti-American it is when it comes to supporting U.S. industry. In Findlay, Ohio, unions had been organizing a […]
Chamber of Commerce Sides with Foreign Embassies Against Buy American
There they go again. Those running the show at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are attacking again the Buy American provision in the economic stimulus package. Ignoring, once more, that […]
Made in America: Corporate PR, Not Practice
Big Business wants it both ways: It wants to wrap itself in the ol’ red, white and blue while feeding the decline of the U.S. economy through its actual […]
Tell Bill O’Reilly to Buy USA-Made T-Shirts for His Patriot Store
We heard Bill O’Reilly is having trouble finding American-made T-shirts to sell in his Patriot Store. We know he’s heartbroken because, after all, what good is a Patriot Store if […]
Broken Dreams and Cookie Crumbs
When Brynwood Partners in 2006 took over the Stella D’o
Take the Pledge: Buy America
So, the world isn’t flat after all. Not that some of us ever bought into Thomas Friedman-speak. But many in this country did, especially those running the political show, and […]
Big Business Likes Arbitration–If It Can Control the Process
Opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act, desperate in their
Can’t Ship Out Those Green Jobs
We’re giving up Styrofoam cups here at our building in Washington, D.C. Also doing an energy audit and taking a few other steps as a start toward making our building […]
Her Son’s a Quadriplegic. That’s the Least of Her Worries
It was tragic enough that her 11-year-old son became a quadriplegic after gunshots hit him while he was playing outside. But now Alberta, a single mother, worries every day because […]
Economic Terrorism
Corporate opponents of workers’ freedom to form unions repeatedly have shown they are not interested in the welfare of their employees or any of the pseudo-lofty ideals they cite while […]
Remembering Studs Terkel
What bitter irony. Studs Terkel, who gave voice to working people throughout his life, passed away yesterday, just days before a potentially historic presidential election. Should Sen. Barack Obama win on […]
Meet Joe the REAL Plumber
Sen. John McCain, meet Joe the plumber. Unlike Samuel Wurzelbacher, Joe’s given name is…Joe. And, unlike Wurzelbacher, he’s a licensed plumber. Joe Moenck, a plumber in Zumbrota, Minn., is a […]
CEOs Get Bailed Out. Workers Get Sold Out
Before she became the first female Labor secretary in 1933, Frances Perkins had seen firsthand the tragedy of Manhattan’s 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Locked in by their employer, 146 mostly […]
Working Harder for Less Mocks the American Dream
Worsening unemployment. Millions of home foreclosures. Two-income households unable to support families. America’s workers are facing economic disasters so severe, even the national media is paying attention. But the current […]
In This Election, It’s the Economy–and Race
The issue of race in this presidential campaign is one we talk around, or whisper about, or don’t discuss publicly at all. Or, as with some McCain supporters, the issue […]
Chamber of Commerce Staff Gets Drunk, Blames Workers
They may be party animals when chugging $8,204 worth of booze but, after the hangover is over, the staff at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce goes back to being their […]
McCain’s Flea-Market Economy
George W. Bush’s solution to our nation’s economic mess—that his failed policies helped create—is to applaud people who must work three jobs to make ends meet. Sen. John McCain colors […]
Take It–The 2008 Ask a Working Woman Survey
A woman who spends years in medical school emerges to take her place alongside a panoply of male physicians—who, on average, make 38 percent more than she does. Female […]
Electrocuted at Age 22
Every day, most of us go to work and then come home. Next day: Rinse, repeat. But some U.S. workers go to work and never come home. In April 2005, […]
Colombia Trade Deal Is Derailed. Let’s Keep It Off the Tracks
In August 2004, Hector Alino Martinez and three other Colombian trade unionists were dragged out of their homes and assassinated in the streets of Caño Seco. The men were among […]
Greedy Troglodytes Attack Teachers
What is it about teachers that reactionaries don’t like? Maybe it’s because an educated electorate poses a threat to those who seek to control the public—”Danger: Educated Union Member” is […]
Green, the Color of Good Jobs
The union movement is turning green. Not with envy, but with an escalating sense that the nation must work to address climate change and that we must be part of […]
Who’s Really Sick?
Anyone can get health care in the United States. Just ask George W. Bush. Last year in Cleveland, he had this to say to the 47 million Americans without health […]
