AFL-CIO Blog

  • Path to Power Is Clear in the Ocean State
    Path to Power Is Clear in the Ocean State Rhode Island AFL-CIO The Rhode Island AFL-CIO has been busy in 2019, leading the fight on a number of important legislative initiatives. There are numerous union members who have been elected to the state legislature and that has provided an opportunity to pass legislation that will make a huge difference for our members and for working people across the Ocean State. Earlier this month, the state legislature passed, and Gov. Gina Raimondo signed, a continuing-contract bill that would indefinitely lock in wages and benefits in expired public-employee contracts. The law now prevents cities and towns from unilaterally slashing pay and making employees pay more for their health insurance during deadlocked negotiations. The state federation also was involved in passing a bill that established fairness in the overtime laws to firefighters and relieves them of burdensome shift scheduling practices. A top priority for the Rhode Island State Association of Firefighters/IAFF, the new law sets the overtime threshold at 42 hours per week, bringing firefighters’ overtime protections more in line with other industry workers. The Rhode Island AFL-CIO is also advocating for the passage of an increase in the minimum wage to $15 per hour for care providers for developmentally disabled individuals in the state. The legislation has broad support in the legislature and will end the discriminatory minimum wage disparity for these essential care workers. All of these advancements were made possible through an unrelenting advocacy effort that coordinated many union members elected to the Rhode Island state legislature, including state Senate President Dominick Ruggerio (LIUNA). Ruggerio was instrumental in guiding these initiatives through a complicated political effort and ultimately passed the bills with overwhelming support. The Rhode Island AFL-CIO is proving that the path to power runs through the labor movement. Kenneth Quinnell Mon, 05/20/2019 - 11:24 — May 20
  • Get to Know AFL-CIO's Affiliates: Farm Labor Organizing Committee
    Get to Know AFL-CIO's Affiliates: Farm Labor Organizing Committee AFL-CIO Next up in our series that takes a deeper look at each of our affiliates is the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC). Name of Union: Farm Labor Organizing Committee Mission: To challenge the deplorable conditions of the broader workforce that remains voiceless, powerless and invisible to mainstream America by giving farm workers a voice in the decisions that affect them and bringing all parties to the table to address industry-wide problems. Current Leadership of Union: Baldemar Velasquez is the founder and president of FLOC. Justin Flores serves as vice president and Christiana Wagner serves as secretary-treasurer. Members Work As: Farm workers. Industries Represented: Agriculture throughout the United States. History: Baldemar Velasquez and a small group of migrant farm workers in northwest Ohio came together in the mid-1960s and FLOC was formally established in 1967. In the ensuing years, FLOC expanded its membership beyond Ohio, organizing thousands of new members.  After successfully leading a strike in Ohio in 1978, the largest agricultural work stoppage ever in the Midwest, FLOC held its first constitutional convention as a labor union. They began a boycott of Campbell's Soup that year, and in 1983, Velasquez led a 600-mile march as part of the boycott. After eight years of the Campbell's fight, FLOC successfully negotiated the first tri-party agricultural contract between the workers, the company and the growers associations. The success of the Campbell's boycott led to improvements in working conditions, wages and benefits and the end of exploitative sharecropping arrangements at Heinz and other food-processing corporations in the Midwest.  In the 1990s, FLOC began organizing farm workers in the South. Thousands of farm workers were organized during a five-year boycott of Mt. Olive Pickles that led to a 2003 contract with the farm workers, Mt. Olive and the North Carolina Growers Association. These contracts changed the way the agricultural system works and brought H-2A guest workers under union contracts for the first time. Today, FLOC is working to organize tens of thousands of tobacco farm workers in North Carolina and throughout the South. Current Campaigns: The Reynolds campaign calls upon tobacco company R.J. Reynolds to create a written agreement guaranteeing the collective bargaining rights of farm workers and calls for a boycott of Reynold's e-cigarette brand VUSE. FLOC focuses on organizing efforts in the Midwest, the South and Mexico. Community Efforts: We Are FLOC compiles the stories of how FLOC has affected the lives of farm workers. The FLOC Homies Union provides a democratic, unified collective voice for the Latino community in Toledo, Ohio. The Black/Brown Unity Coalition works to empower black and brown communities.  Learn More: Website, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. Kenneth Quinnell Mon, 05/20/2019 - 10:51 — May 20
  • Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Profiles: Arlene Inouye
    Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Profiles: Arlene Inouye UTLA For Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, the AFL-CIO is spotlighting various Asian Americans and Pacific Americans who have worked and continue to work at the intersection of civil and labor rights. Our next profile is Arlene Inouye. Arlene Inouye was born and raised in Los Angeles and has spent her life working for the students and teachers of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Her grandparents immigrated from Japan, and they and her mother were placed in internment camps during World War II. Inouye went on to earn a bachelor's and a master's degree from Long Beach State University and she has been a Spanish bilingual speech and language specialist for 18 years. She has also worked as an adult education teacher, master teacher, mentor, multicultural and human relations trainer, school reform trainer, and financial manager. After she began working in education, Inouye quickly got in her union. She ascended to leadership roles, including treasurer for the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA), as well as various positions with the AFT, the National Education Association and their affiliates. She also serves on the executive board of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance. Most recently, Inouye served as the lead negotiator in the contract talks between UTLA and the LAUSD during the January 2019 teachers strike. Inouye has a history of activism. In the 1990s, she was working on building peace-based organizations and helping refugees when she launched the Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools. Unions were among the supporters that made up the coalition and she eventually focused her activism more on collective bargaining rights.  As UTLA's lead negotiator during the weeklong strike, Inouye helped plan strategic efforts that prepared teachers for the work stoppage, built community coalitions and achieved significant gains. She spoke about the value of community:
    But what really moved the dial was the fact that we had thirty-two thousand members picketing at every single school, together with fifteen thousand parents and community members. And we had fifty thousand members and supporters out here rallying almost every day. That’s real power. So they knew that if they didn’t meet our demands, we’d prolong the strike—and they didn’t want that. We had tremendous leverage and that’s why we were able to get everything we thought was critical—and more.
    And about what it took to win:
    We’ve really been building over the past years. I learned that there’s nothing that can stop you when you’re very organized, when you have the structures, the internal systems, the rank-and-file participation, the staff, and when you’re working together for a common agenda. I’m still amazed about what we as a union have been able to accomplish. We were able to motivate our members and to walk them through the steps of overcoming their real fears and doubts; we were able to help them take a big risk. We stood strong for the issues of all our members, not just our teachers. When you’re inclusive like that you really experience unity. We were all able to come together.
    In the end, the teachers won significant victories on behalf of themselves and their students and: a full-time nurse in every school, additional counselors and librarians, smaller class sizes, pay increases without health care concessions, increased oversight for charter schools, and political momentum for a moratorium on charter schools, among other gains. Not only did Inouye help secure victory for the teachers of Los Angeles, she set a standard for other trade unionists to follow. Kenneth Quinnell Fri, 05/17/2019 - 13:24     — May 17
  • Murdered Trade Unionists: The Truth Behind Colombia’s Trade Agreement
    Murdered Trade Unionists: The Truth Behind Colombia’s Trade Agreement Rhett Doumitt, Solidarity Center Any mention of Latin America has become a synonym of mass migration, autocratic governments and unstable economies. Yet, Colombia continues to shine as the exception. This week marks the seventh anniversary since the United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA) entered into force. It can be argued that during these years this South American nation has become a haven of economic and social stability. Or not. One only has to look behind all the fanfare and a “parallel reality” appears. Violence in Colombia is still harrowing. From the oil to the sugar to the flower sector, workers and trade unionists report a deterioration of their rights at the workplace, continued labor intermediation that weakens the power of workers, and an increase in the culture of violence and impunity. From January 2016 through April 2019, 681 social leaders and human rights defenders have been murdered; and between 2016 and 2018, 70 trade unionists have been killed. In fact, from the year the TPA went into force until today, 172 trade unionists have been murdered. When the United States and Colombia began negotiating their trade agreement, we already saw the negative effects of the original NAFTA—from mass migration and a spike in violence in Mexico to widening inequality in the United States. After pressure from labor and human rights organizations, in April 2011, the U.S. and Colombian governments agreed to an “Action Plan Related to Labor Rights” (Labor Action Plan) that outlined specific steps to be taken by the Colombian government within a concrete timeline. Colombia made commitments, both under the trade agreement and in other global fora, to improve worker rights, end attacks and murders of trade unionists, and bring perpetrators of violence to justice. The country also signed a peace accord with the FARC that committed to ending the conflict and addressing many of the core factors that continue to lead to high levels of inequality and violence. But despite these ongoing commitments by various Colombian administrations and President Iván Duque Márquez, the situation for Colombian workers and trade unionists continues to deteriorate.   As a side agreement, the Labor Action Plan had no effective enforcement mechanism, and in May 2016, the AFL-CIO and Colombian unions submitted a complaint under the FTA documenting ongoing egregious violations of the agreement’s labor commitments. Currently, the agreement remains inadequately implemented with new policies like the recently passed National Development Plan that actively undermines its implementation.   Today is the third anniversary of the submission of the labor complaint, and the AFL-CIO and Colombian unions continue to demand real action toward compliance with all international commitments that include full respect for and implementation of International Labor Organization’s  fundamental rights that are critical to not only securing rights, but the ongoing transition to an inclusive and lasting peace. In the context of the ongoing peace process, on May 2 the Colombian Congress approved the National Development Plan, a four-year plan that includes changes to labor rights. The plan contradicts many of Colombia’s commitments under free trade agreements with both the United States and Canada and with the European Union, as well as commitments made at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the ILO. It undermines efforts to redress broader problems such as the exclusion and poverty and violence faced by Afro-Colombians, indigenous people and rural workers. Seven years after the trade agreement went into force, neither the Colombian nor U.S. government are in a position to speak of progress. The ongoing failure to address egregious worker rights violations and violence against trade unionists in Colombia underscores the lack of effective enforcement mechanism in our current trade model. We must inform the current debates around the need to develop a new trade model that creates an effective enforcement mechanism, mandatory monitoring, reporting and assurances that actions will be promptly taken when workers' rights violations occur. Guaranteed funding is needed to ensure monitoring, enforcement and technical assistance happen. The United States must address the vain attempts by the Colombian government to uphold its commitments outlined in the TPA and ensure that any future trade agreements, including the renegotiated NAFTA, incorporate an effective mechanism that ensures that working families’ lives can benefit from trade. Kenneth Quinnell Thu, 05/16/2019 - 12:23 Tags: Colombia — May 16
  • ‘State of the Unions’ Podcast: Confronting the Health Care Crisis
    ‘State of the Unions’ Podcast: Confronting the Health Care Crisis AFL-CIO In the latest episode of "State of the Unions," Tim talks to National Nurses United Executive Director Bonnie Castillo, RN, about the growing movement of registered nurses organizing for better jobs, a more just society and health care as a fundamental human right.  "State of the Unions" is a tool to help us bring you the issues and stories that matter to working people. It captures the stories of workers across the country and is co-hosted by two young and diverse members of the AFL-CIO team: Mobilization Director Julie Greene and Executive Speechwriter Tim Schlittner. A new episode drops every other Wednesday featuring interesting interviews with workers and our allies across the country, as well as compelling insights from the podcast’s hosts. Listen to our previous episodes: “State of the Unions” is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and anywhere else you can find podcasts. Kenneth Quinnell Wed, 05/15/2019 - 10:08 Tags: Podcast — May 15