Unions help build a better life for working people, but outdated laws have hampered our basic right to join together and negotiate for better pay, benefits and working conditions.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.
After a quarter century of suffering under the failed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and 18 months of hard-fought negotiations, the American Federation of Labor and
House Democratic candidates in town this week for training at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Washington got a visit from AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka for some tips on how they can win back working-class voters.
“I don’t have to tell you that you can’t count on the D next to your name to gain our support,” Trumka told Democratic leadership and a room full of candidates on Red to Blue, the DCCC’s program for its strongest candidates.
Sarah Jaffe and Michelle Chen
on Monday, July 16 2018 - 2:01pm
In the belly of the political beast in DC, grassroots organizers gathered at AFL-CIO headquarters to discuss collective action under Trump, beyond the beltway. Activists representing teachers, housekeepers, graduate students, and airline workers talked about union power in the wake of the Janus decision and keeping hope alive for the next generation of young labor leaders.
The moment you may have been dreading arrived June 27, when the Supreme Court imposed the open shop on the public sector nationwide with its decision inJanus v. AFSCME District 31.
Nicholas Riccardi
on Friday, June 29 2018 - 1:02pm
Their membership has been declining for decades. They’ve been bedeviled by crippling new laws, and by a devastating U.S. Supreme Court decision just this week. From all appearances, it would seem that labor unions are an endangered species.
But here’s the surprise: Organized labor is showing new signs of life.
In Janus v. AFSCME, the US Supreme Court's conservative 5-4 majority held that public employees cannot be required by state law to pay a fair share of the cost of services that unions must provide members and nonmembers alike.
Janus comes a month after Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, where the same majority decided employees can be required by companies to submit all workplace grievances to private arbitration and waive their rights both to go to court and join together in class-action lawsuits.
The radical conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court have twice now in two months ganged up on working Americans, denying them their right to band together to achieve mutual goals.
Through all the celebration of LGBTQ Pride this month, there’s been a valuable opportunity to reflect on the hard-fought victories, brutal setbacks, and tenacious struggles that have ultimately delivered so much for so many. And just as importantly, there has been time to think about what lies ahead in that fight for justice.
Six months afterPresident Trumpand Republicans in Congress jammed through massive tax cuts mostly for corporations and the wealthy, it has become clear that working families are suffering while billionaire GOP campaign contributors luxuriate in a tax windfall.
