Unions

Bill Scher's picture

CAF STAFF

At the Netroots Nation Labor Caucus

Individualistic "netroots" bloggers are at the forefront of new media technology, and are looking for ways to improve coordination and broad the reach of their ideas. Labor unions have been organizing and coordinating for decades, and are looking for ways to maximize the potential of new media technology. more »

Armand Biroonak's picture

CAF STAFF

Workers Face Challenges When Unionizing

Without legal protections such as the Employee Free Choice Act, workers when trying to organize unions are subject to routine intimidation, harassment, coercion and firings. more »

Source
"Employer Interference by the Numbers," AFL-CIO. January 2007. http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/how/employerinterference.cfm
Armand Biroonak's picture

CAF STAFF

More Than Half of Workers Want Unions

Recent findings suggest that more than half of all U.S. workers—nearly 60 million—say they would join a union right now if they could.

Source
Peter D. Hart Research Associates, “Employee Free Choice Act,” December 2006. http://www.ourfuture.org/public-pulse/americans-believe-employee-free-choice-act
Armand Biroonak's picture

CAF STAFF

Unions Provide Higher Wages and Benefits

Wages for union workers are 30 percent higher than for non-union workers ($863 median weekly earnings vs. $663). Union workers are 63 percent more likely to have health insurance (78 percent of union workers have employer-provided health insurance vs. 49 percent of non-union workers). And union workers are four times more likely to have pensions.

Source
AFL-CIO, http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/why/uniondifference/

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, Donald Wilcher Smith was one of them. The 22-year-old central Texas man was electrocuted at the Sanderson Farms processing plant. more »

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 96 unionists killed in Colombia that year. more »

Unionization Improves Pay and Benefits of African Americans

The increasing wealth gap between the rich, the middle class, and the poor has become too obvious too ignore. The top 10% of income earners in the United States now own 70% of the wealth, and the wealthiest 1% own more than the bottom 95%, according to the Federal Reserve. In 2005, the top 300,000 Americans enjoyed about the same share of the nation's income - 21.8% - as the bottom 150 million. more »

Worker Ownership

This Mondragon in the Basque Region of Spain, where the Workers do own the Banks, is now the 8th largest Company in all of Spain. The Unions could make it work here in the States, and time D.C. had the Brains to let let the Unions work out the details, on city, county and state levels.
http://www.justpeace.org/mondragon.htm

Source
http://http://www.justpeace.org/mondragon.htm

Greedy Troglodytes Attack Teachers

 TCM Hitchhiker

What is it about teachers that reactionaries don't like? more »

Robert Dorst2's picture

Americans Disapprove of Employers Conducting Anti-Union Campaigns

Americans disapprove of employers conducting anti-union campaigns (67 percent disapprove, 36 percent strongly), an 11-point increase in opposition since 2001.

Source
Peter D. Hart Research Associates, “Employee Free Choice Act,” December 2006.