PARIS – SEIU and CGT, one of France’s largest unions, filed an official complaint today with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on behalf of workers in Colombia and the United States charging Sodexo with repeatedly viol…

1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East has teamed up with AFSCME to launch a new radio commercial on an important jobs bill creating and protecting jobs in both the private and public sectors. The radio ad, beginning tonight, calls on Senator…

Gov. Quinn poses for a pic w/ SEIU Healthcare Illinois nursing home members after the bill signingAfter months of trips to Illinois’s capitol to talk with legislators, hearings and negotiations, the nursing reform legislation SEIU Healthcare I…

After facing double-digit premium increases three years in a row, the Early Learning Child Care center in New Bedford, MA, dropped their employee health coverage and started paying a mandated fine to the state under the the Massachusetts unive…

Home Care Council Coordinator

originally appeared on

SEIU.org

on Friday, Jul 30, 2010.

A new poll shows more people support health reform than oppose it, but some misconceptions persist.

Statement of AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee on the Senate’s consideration of H.R. 1586

(WASHINGTON)-The Federal Labor Relations Authority today granted the American Federation of Government Employees application for review of a May denial of the union’s petition for a union election, stating that AFGE’s “application demonstrates that review of the RD’s decision is warranted.”

FLRA Chicago Regional Director Peter Sutton on May 28 denied AFGE’s petition for exclusive union representation. AFGE appealed that decision to the full FLRA on June 4.

“AFGE wasted no time in filing our appeal to the full FLRA, and we are pleased they have granted our application for review,” AFGE Membership and Organization Deputy Director Cathie McQuiston said. “We are sure when the FLRA reviews the RD’s decision, and in doing so reviews the 2003 question of jurisdiction, they will find there is jurisdiction and will quickly remand the petition back to the RD for election.”

In dismissing AFGE’s petition, Acting RD Peter Sutton cited AFGE’s 2003 petition to be the exclusive union representative, and in which the FLRA ruled that it had no jurisdiction over which to process the petition. AFGE believes that FLRA majority confused the issues of allowing for an election without collective bargaining rights, but that the current Authority members may now understand the distinction. Significantly, in 2003, FLRA member (and current FLRA chair) Carol Pope dissented from the majority opinion, asserting that there are many things a union representative can do for workers absent collective bargaining.

“While AFGE has encouraged swift action on its petition, it is unfortunate that there now is an interruption in the FLRA’s ability to issue a ruling because of delay tactics by the treasury union,” McQuiston said. “That union argued that a vote for union representation before collective bargaining is granted would be confusing to Transportation Security Officers. Those actions have the direct impact of denying the TSOs the right to elect the union they want to represent them once the bargaining rights are granted. In so doing, it also delays an end to PASS, a further delay to dignity on the jobsite, and has the very real impact of keeping the wages of all TSOs depressed.”

AFGE is the only union to represent TSOs since the agency’s inception, and currently has more than 12,000 dues-paying members in 38 AFGE Locals across the country.

For more information on AFGE’s election petition, please visit www.tsaunion.net.

Originally appeared in the July 26th edition of the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Are you unemployed? Are you receiving unemployment compensation? Are you about to lose your unemployment benefits? Do you care about people who are unemployed?

If your answer to any of these questions is yes, then you most certainly will want to join Kentucky Jobs with Justice on Sept. 15, along with allies from organized labor, community groups, faith leaders, student activists and progressive elected officials, as we hold a day of direct action on full and fair employment.

This day of direct action stems from energy generated at the July 7 march and rally in downtown Louisville at Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office and the U.S. Social Forum, which drew over 25,000 national activists to Detroit (including more than 125 from Kentucky) for issue awareness and massive networking to solve social ills on the principle of: “Another world is possible, another U.S. is necessary.”

A month before the Sept. 15 day of direct action, we will begin building relationships with individuals who are directly impacted by the jobs crisis by visiting the unemployment office located at Sixth and

Continue reading Kentucky JwJ Challenges Community to Call for Full Employment

Sometimes we learn about a fantastic person after his or her death and wish that we could’ve known that person while he or she was still alive. When an ordinary American makes a massive impact on society with a call for fairness and equality …