Bill Bumpus an injury to one is an injury to all

Millions of hardworking Americans will be cut off from the emergency lifeline of federal unemployment insurance, unless Congress acts to fully renew the program before it expires at the end of February.

Congress has never cut back or allowed these programs to expire when unemployment was anywhere near this high for this long.

Yet, as a Congressional conference committee takes it up, House Republicans have pushed for drastic benefit cuts and harsh new requirements—slashing federal unemployment insurance by more than half in the highest unemployment states, and stigmatizing jobless workers with mandatory drug testing.

Their plan would erect harmful new barriers to benefits, making it harder for ordinary Americans to access their unemployment insurance—and force an early cut-off of UI for nearly 3 million Americans this year.

Please call your Members of Congress toll-free at 1-888-245-3381—and tell them to reject cuts and harsh barriers to unemployment insurance benefits—by fully renewing unemployment insurance through 2012.

Or, click here to use the click-to-call tool at www.UnemployedWorkers.org.

And email Congress to extend unemployment benefits for a full year—with no strings attached, no barriers to benefits and no brutal humiliation.

 

 

There are two problems with right-to-work laws as simple solutions for our manufacturing woes: They aren’t right and they don’t work.

 

A vital part of union contracts is protection against unfair discipline or firing. When union workers are disciplined, management has the burden of proof. Workers should never have to prove that they didn't do something - management has to prove that they did it.

Discipline must be:
• progressive
• corrective
• for just cause

"I hear you talking about the people who work just six hours, that they don't have to take a lunch hour," said Rep. Herbert Richardson of Lancaster. "What about the person who works four 10-hour shifts? They could be required to work 10 straight hours with no break at all if this law were to be repealed. Is that not true?"

"I'm not a labor expert," Hoell responded, "so please forgive me."

The next states to lose Extended Benefits eligibility will be Massachusetts, Missouri, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina and Tennessee, according to an analysis by the National Employment Law Project, a worker advocacy group. In those states the program will stop in Aprl

Among the controversial provisions were changes to labor law for rail and airline workers -- backed by the airline industry -- that would count anyone who did not vote in an election for a union as voting against it, making it much more difficult to certify attempts to organize new unions.

That's what's on the rise: Management attempting to exercise control over their workers—in a brutal display of power. Give in to us or lose your paycheck right now.

“We need to make big, fundamental, permanent structural changes. It’s why we did what we did in Wisconsin,” declared Walker, who at the annual dinner of the right-wing Goldwater Institute said that compromising with unions was “bogus.”

Romulo de Oliveira Santos’s first night on a demolition job at a Walmart in Walpole was also his last. Santos’s death is now the subject of a lawsuit that seeks to hold Walmart Stores Inc. accountable. According to MassCOSH, “[Santos] death highlights a ‘gaping hole’ in a regulatory system that sanctions contractors, but shields their corporate clients from responsibility for safety…”

Confused about how the new health reform law really works? This short, animated movie -- featuring the "YouToons" -- explains the problems with the current health care system, the changes that are happening now, and the big changes coming in 2014. Learn more about how the health reform law will affect the health insurance coverage options for individuals, families and businesses with the interactive feature "Illustrating Health Reform: How Health Insurance Coverage Will Work."

On Thursday, February 9th the New Hampshire House of Representatives has scheduled a hearing on yet another "Right to Work" bill (HB 1677). The assault continues on working families in our neighbor to the north.

Let’s take a look at the rights that you have, as a union member, to participate in the democratic workings of the collective bargaining representative.  The primary law setting forth your legal rights to participate in your union grows out of a federal statute passed in 1959, known as the Landrum-Griffin Act.

I have just received this from the Zeiterion Theater. See the attached PDF

 

MItt Romney cares about American jobs? This victim of a Bain Capital take over begs to differ.

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Bucking his party's leadership, Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) Wednesday expressed his support for President Obama's decision to name Richard Cordray head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in a recess appointment that evaded a Republican blockade of the nomination.

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After more than two decades building a business, starting with six employees and creating more than a thousand jobs, making payroll and making decisions that impact my community as well as my company, I’m blessed to be able to bring a hands-on, real-world perspective to my work as state senator.

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Postal Service managers held a meeting Tuesday night on a proposal to move mail processing operations from a Wareham plant to the processing and distribution facility in Providence.

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Verizon fired 40 union members for activities they engaged in during our recent strike, including five from local 2222.

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