ThinkProgress Logo

Stories tagged with “AFL-CIO”

Immigration

How The Business-Labor Immigration Deal Will Help Immigrant Workers

By Rebecca Leber on Apr 1, 2013 at 12:49 pm

This weekend, the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce reached an agreement on how to address the future flow of non-agricultural guest workers in construction, janitorial work, and hospitality.

The agreement helps immigrant workers by providing additional protections and independence through a new visa program. Unlike the H-2B visa, workers would not be wholly dependent on their employers to remain in the U.S. And the new system also allows workers to petition for permanent residency.

One of the shortcomings of the current guest worker system is that it rewards poor employer practices, according to AFL-CIO. Guest worker lawsuits spotlight the range of abuse and exploitation: For example, separate lawsuits alleged H-2B visa-holders were cheated out of fair wages and subjected to “slave-like conditions.” The W-visa allows for workers to look for a new employment without having their visa revoked, and the AFL-CIO-Chamber deal also creates certification for foreign labor recruiters in order to cut down on the extortion of applicants.

A new Bureau of Immigration and Labor Market Conditions, part of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, will determine the number of these visas based on the state of the economy — the unemployment rate, the number of job openings for American searching for work, and the number of visas requested the previous year — after year five. Workers will be paid either the wage level for U.S.-born workers with similar experience or “prevailing industry wage,” a similar system to the previous guest worker program.

Starting at a minimum of 20,000 visas in year one (2015), the program will gradually increase to 75,000 visas in year four. Then, the new bureau will adjust the number of visas depending on the economy. Capped at 200,000, a third of the visas will be reserved for small businesses with fewer than 25 employees, with visas for the construction industry limited to at most 15,000 per year.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka characterized the agreement as “a new model, a modern visa system that includes both a bureau to collect and analyze labor market data, as well as significant worker protections.” Slate’s Matt Yglesias writes that the deal is, overall, a win for labor.

Immigration

Immigration Reform Deal Close Senators Say, Could Be ‘Rolled Out Next Week’

By Sy Mukherjee on Mar 31, 2013 at 12:24 pm

Key lawmakers involved in ongoing bipartisan discussions on a comprehensive immigration reform bill signaled optimism on the Sunday morning talk show circuit, with Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) — two members of the Senate’s “Gang of Eight” negotiators working on the reform bill — telling NBC’s Meet The Press that a bill could be introduced as soon as next week in light of a tentative deal on guest worker programs struck by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO.

“With the agreement between business and labor, every major policy issue has been resolved on the Gang of Eight,” said Schumer. Flake was a little more cautious, stressing that senators still have “a ways to go in terms of looking at the language and making sure that it’s everything we thought it would be,” but that they were “closer, certainly.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) echoed those sentiments on a separate appearance on CNN, stating that business, labor groups, and the senators themselves have reached a “conceptual” agreement that still needs some details to be filled, but that a bipartisan deal “will be rolled out next week.”

Disagreements over the guest worker program were one of the last remaining sticking points in negotiations between business and labor groups. Under the tentative deal struck Friday, the U.S. would issue anywhere from 20,000 to 200,000 guest worker visas annually, with the number of visas issued in any given year “to grow and shrink according to economic needs.” According to the New York Times, the number of guest workers allowed in to the country would “increase as the nation’s unemployment rate fell and the number of job openings increased,” and a federal commission would be established to “assess the need for guest workers, with an eye to shortages in specific industries and communities.”

Labor and business groups also reached a tentative agreement on wage levels for guest workers, with negotiators agreeing that “guest workers would be paid the prevailing industry wage previously used in the guest worker program.”

Resolving the guest worker issue provides a much-needed boost to Senate efforts, as bipartisan negotiators had already reached agreements over other challenging aspects of a comprehensive immigration reform bill, including border security and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. But despite the senators’ optimism, the politically-charged nature of many of the bill’s provisions could present snags as actual legislation works its way through the committee process. On Saturday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) — another Gang of Eight member — urged caution against moving too fast to pass legislation, taking exception to Senate Democrats’ push to get a bill onto the full Senate floor as fast as possible. In a letter sent to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Rubio suggested that he would slow down upcoming immigration legislation by calling for committee hearings on the issue.

Climate Progress

AFL-CIO Head Rich Trumka: ‘Congress Is Effectively Controlled By Climate Change Deniers’

By Brad Johnson on Jan 12, 2012 at 4:11 pm

Speaking at the 2012 United Nations Investor Summit on Climate Risk & Energy Solutions, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka blasted climate deniers in Congress for threatening the free enterprise system and the future of civilization. Trumka began his speech laying out the stark challenge of global warming: a “stable climate is the foundation of our global civilization,” and thus “the prerequisite for a profitable investment environment”:

Today, as we meet together, scientists tell us we are headed ever more swiftly toward irreversible climate change—with catastrophic consequences for human civilization. We must have a stable climate to feed the planet, to ensure there is drinking water for our cities but not floodwaters at our doors. A stable climate is the foundation of our global civilization, of our global economy—the prerequisite for a profitable investment environment.

Because “Congress is effectively controlled by climate change deniers,” crucial national policy to fight greenhouse pollution has been killed, but we “must take action ourselves,” Trumka said. The AFL-CIO has worked with other unions to build a green jobs infrastructure:

But it is clear that as long as Congress is effectively controlled by climate change deniers, all of us—investors, companies, workers and the broader public, must take action ourselves. So a year ago, as the climate bill failed in Congress, as the jobs crisis deepened, and as workers’ pension funds continued to suffer from microscopic fixed income yields, the American labor movement decided we couldn’t wait—we had to act to help advance profitable, risk weighted investments that would create jobs and address climate change.

Trumka also recognized that the crippled economy and our strong ties to fossil fuels make the necessary change difficult, especially for workers in coal and oil regions. In that context, he talked about the Keystone XL pipeline, which some of AFL-CIO’s unions support and some oppose.

“The AFL-CIO has not taken a position on the Keystone pipeline,” he said, “unions don’t agree among ourselves. But we cannot have a trust building conversation about it unless opponents of the pipeline recognize that construction jobs are real jobs, good jobs, and supporters of the pipeline recognize that tar sands oil raises real issues in terms of climate change.”

Trumka’s speech acts as a strong rebuke to the polluted vision of the global economy presented this morning by US Chamber of Commerce president Tom Donohue.

Read the transcript of Trumka’s speech: Read more

Climate Progress

Washington Examiner Portrays Keystone XL Fight As ‘Big Labor’ Against ‘Big Green’

By Brad Johnson on Nov 8, 2011 at 11:22 am

Billionaire Philip Anschutz, American Petroleum Institute board member and owner of the Washington Examiner

An editorial in the Washington Examiner, owned by oil billionaire Philip Anschutz, claims that the fight whether President Obama will approve the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline pits environmentalists against labor:

The pipeline creates opposition between two of Obama’s most important groups of political supporters: environmentalists who want to force Americans to stop using fossil fuels, and Big Labor, which wants the construction jobs.

In reality, this is a fight with environmentalists, climate activists, progressives, ranchers, farmers, and unions on one side and the oil industry on the other. The environmental movement is unified against the tar sands pipeline, whereas labor is split — AFL-CIO’s member unions are in disagreement about the project, with the Building Trades in favor and the Transit Unions opposed. The Building Trades signed a labor agreement with TransCanada in 2010, and were promised 13,000 jobs. Now independent analyses expect about 1,000 temporary construction jobs to be created, a meager benefit for civilizational risks.

Climate Progress

CGI: Unions Build Green Jobs Infrastructure For American Workers

By Brad Johnson on Sep 20, 2011 at 1:23 pm

ThinkProgress Green is reporting live from the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York City.

Labor leaders Richard Trumka and Randi Weingarten stand with Bill Clinton.

America’s labor unions are banding together to accomplish what Wall Street bankers and multinational corporations have chosen to ignore and Republicans have fought to prevent — putting people back to work rebuilding the United States. A billion-dollar collaboration between unions and public pension funds is spearheading a nationwide effort to invest in energy efficient infrastructure projects, labor leaders announced today at the start of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) annual meeting.

With his initial announcement of the unions’ accomplishments, Bill Clinton praised their willingness to seize an opportunity the nation’s bankers have ignored — figuring out innovative ways to make money by putting more people back to work, instead of increasing profits by laying off employees. “They are America’s employment banks,” Clinton said of the union-pension fund partnership. “This is a huge deal.”

Watch it:

This summer, at CGI’s first meeting dedicated exclusively to challenges within the United States, the AFL-CIO and the American Federation of Teachers established the goal of using union pension funds to invest in American infrastructure, particularly energy efficiency projects, with the goal of creating good, long term jobs for American workers:

This commitment, made by the AFL-CIO and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and developed in collaboration with the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) and Center for American Progress (CAP), encourages union pension fund managers and trustees to invest up to $10 billion in assets of working families into energy efficient infrastructure as an opportunity for America to create hundreds of thousands of jobs, develop new industries, enhance our global competitiveness, and reduce the threat of climate change.

In less than three months, these unions have made great strides. The AFL-CIO and AFT are now working with many other employee unions, including SEIU, AFSCME, NEA and the Firefighters. In California, the public pension funds CalPERS (public employees) and CalSTERS (teachers) have already pledged $1.1 billion for specific green infrastructure investment projects. Moreover, CalPERS hopes to expand its $800 million investment in California green infrastructure to a $4 billion nationwide effort.

AFL-CIO has surged past their initial $20 million commitment for energy retrofit projects, as the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust (HIT) has funded a $134 million dollar energy efficiency and asbestos removal project in New York City. The union has committed several hundred million dollars towards projects around the nation, working with Fannie Mae and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to renovate homes and businesses.

This project represents not just an investment in cleaner infrastructure, but also a smarter workforce, with a deep commitment to worker training.

NEWS FLASH

Minnesota AFL-CIO Comes Out Against State’s Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment | The Minnesota AFL-CIO became the first labor group to come out against the state’s proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, following a unanimous vote yesterday to oppose the measure. “The labor movement is, and has always been about protecting and advancing the rights of all people,” Minnesota AFL-CIO President Shar Knutson said in a statement on Monday. “We will not stand by and allow discrimination to become part of Minnesota’s constitution.”

Alyssa

Culture Diary: AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Takes Life Advice From Bossypants, Love DC Food Trucks, And Mourns Amy Winehouse

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Jul 25, 2011 at 5:23 pm

On Mondays, progressive leaders from all parts of the movement, from the blogosphere to the Hill, take a break out of their schedules to tell us what they’re watching, reading, and listening to. Suggestions or requests? Email AlyssaObserves (at) gmail (dot) com.

As AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer, Liz Shuler’s the second-highest ranking person in the American labor movement — and she’s just 40. She helped lead the coalition that blocked an Enron-lead push to deregulate the electricity industry in 1997, trained election observers during the 2000 presidential election recount, and was elected secretary-treasurer in 2009. Last week, Shuler took lessons in assertiveness away from Tina Fey’s memoir Bossypants, saw analogies to state-level fights over collective bargaining in a performance of Wicked at the Kennedy Center, and considered the plight of freelance artists, most of whom don’t have benefits, as she met with members of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

Monday, July 18

I started my week by finding advice from a somewhat unlikely source: Tina Fey. Little did I know that when I was looking for some “escape” reading on my Monday flight to Albany, New York, I would end up finding some truly insightful guidance from a woman who made it in the cut-throat business of stand-up comedy.

I laughed all the way through the first chapter of Bossypants. And as I read through Ms. Fey’s early years, and how she got her start in Chicago with Second City, I stumbled upon what was a rather profound insight for me: The rules of improv can help you in life. She talks about the importance of “respecting what your partner has created, and to start from an open-minded place;” saying “yes, and…” so no one is afraid to contribute; and sharing in the responsibility to find solutions by “making statements instead of just asking questions,” especially for women.

Sticky situation in the workplace? Draw on the rules of improv to lighten the tension. Forget your membership card at the gym? Don’t hesitate at the front desk — make a proactive, and perhaps offbeat statement, and move on to the kickboxing! Co-worker making some risky suggestions for the annual conference? Say, “yes, and… let’s talk about how that will double attendance,” and stay in that open-minded place (at least until you get burned). Great perspective to start the week.
Read more

Alyssa

Making Bad Bosses Funny Is Easy, Making Unionization Look Appealing Is Hard

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Jun 20, 2011 at 1:38 pm

The AFL-CIO debuted a new series of comedy videos at Netroots Nation as part of a website they’re launching about collective bargaining. They’re a useful illustration, I think, of how to strike a comedic balance in critiquing corporate power—and of how much harder it is to use comedy to sell ideas rather than to criticize bad ones. Take this first video, with a Snidley Wiplash-esque corporate board discussing how to implement a new “Maximum Fun Workday” with extended hours and declaring, “We are discriminating against Americans under the age of 12 who should have the right to work should they so choose.” You can practically hear the moustache-twirling:

Now, contrast that with Portia di Rossi’s performance as Veronica on Better Off Ted:

The things the character is saying are much, much more ridiculous than the evil executives in the AFL-CIO’s video, and they’re funnier because of the utter sincerity of di Rossi’s delivery. She isn’t aware that she’s an avatar of corporate evil, and the juxtaposition of her evident conviction with the craziness of her ideas is simultaneously disconcerting and hilarious. It’s the same thing with Jack Dongahy on 30 Rock: his conviction that inventing dangerous microwave ovens or turning children orange is part and parcel with the American dream is a lot scarier than if he didn’t believe any of it and was just pure evil.

But any negative depiction of corporations is a lot easier to make funny than it is to make union organizing look wacky and hilarious. For a long time, the union narrative was essentially a dramatic one: life or death stakes, organizing as a means to reclaiming human dignity. That’s still the brand. Wacky things might happen along the way in a union campaign, whether it’s sexier-than-intended signs in Made in Dagenham or Pilar Padilla sneaking Adrian Brody out of an office building in a giant wheeled recycling bin in Bread and Roses. But the mechanics of the story are essentially dramatic ones, the power of the brand in stuff that’s tear-jerking.

Switch to Mobile
ThinkProgress Signup Overlay Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress

Sign Up