July 4, 2008 Wobbly Shares Of GM Recover Slightly by Katie Merx/The Detroit Free Press Analyst calls cash level manageable. Shares of General Motors Corp. rebounded by 1.4% to $10.12 Thursday from a Wednesday low not seen since 1954 as an analyst waved off the threat of bankruptcy but said the automaker may need to raise $10 billion to [...]

July 4, 2008 NLRB Says Foxwoods Union Vote Stands Up by Heather Allen/The Day News Mashantuckets again defy ruling, set sights on U.S. Court of Appeals. The National Labor Relations Board released a long-awaited decision Thursday, certifying a union election held at Foxwoods Resort Casino in which a majority of table-games dealers voted in favor of representation by the [...]

This July 4, there will be lots of speeches about freedom and patriotism. Politicians will talk about the nation's struggle for independence and how we must fight to defend what we have achieved. But especially since the terrorist attacks in 2001, such talk has defined patriotism as fighting terrorism and standing up for the flag—yet it goes no further.

But it should.

Among those in the country embodying patriotism are the women and men who make up our nation's unions.

Union members demonstrate their patriotism by taking on the most fundamental of roles: Defending our nation. Thousands of union members have joined the National Guard and the military. Union members—firefighters, police, medical technicians—were the first to respond on Sept. 11, and hundreds more risked their lives to help recover bodies from the rubble. These union members put their lives on the line on Sept. 11—as they do every day.

July 4, 2008 Ford Truck Plant To Lose Shift by Jere Downs/The Courier-Journal Layoffs will affect some 300 workers. Ford Motor Co. will take the Kentucky Truck Plant from three shifts to two by late next month, resulting in layoffs of at least 300 United Auto Workers members, company spokeswoman Angie Kozleski said yesterday. “We told employees this morning of [...]

Barack Obama is the only candidate in the presidential race who is on the side of working people, and we must defeat attempts to divide workers by race and put him in the White House, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka says.

Speaking to the United Steelworkers’ (USW) convention in Las Vegas this week, Trumka said:

[At] the end of the day, what people are going to need to hear is that when it comes to protecting jobs, when it comes to protecting pensions, when it comes to health care, child care, pay equity for women, Social Security, Medicare, seeing to it that people can afford to go to college and buy a home—and restoring the right to collective bargaining—Barack Obama has always, always been on our side.

First McCain said he doesn't know much about the economy. Lately, he's saying he never said it. Which is it?

George W. Bush's solution to our nation's economic mess—that his failed policies helped create—is to applaud people who must work three jobs to make ends meet.

Sen. John McCain colors his solution to working families' financial struggles with similar crayons: He encourages us to make a living selling stuff on eBay. As reported on Bloomberg:

McCain, seeking to address voter anxiety about the economy, uses eBay to signal that he is "fundamentally optimistic about the capacity of the U.S. economy to innovate, for that innovation to give new opportunities for jobs,'' said Doug Holtz-Eakin, the candidate's senior economic adviser. "We shouldn't be obsessed with looking backwards all the time, and saying, 'Gee, where did those jobs go?' "

Tax cuts for corporations, coupled with tax hikes and higher health care costs for working families? That’s no way to turn around the economy and the country. Yet, it’s the likely result of John McCain’s economic agenda, according to analysts.

This week, the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF) hosted “McCain U.,” a daylong session with economists and policy analysts who say a McCain presidency would be a third Bush term.

McCain’s agenda, these experts say, is quite extreme, taking Bush’s economic theories and pushing them even further, leaving working families behind.

Voting is now open in Consumerist’s “Worst Company in America” semi-finals! Wal-Mart is facing formidable competition from subprime mortgage king Countrywide, so get out there and VOTE!

Countrywide:

Countrywide Invents Evidence In Foreclosure Hearing 38,583 views
Countrywide CEO Accidentally Emails Homeowner, Calls His Plea For Help “Disgusting” 19,631 views
Congress To Subprime CEOs: How Come You Got Paid Millions To Wreck The Economy? Hm? 9,306 views
Countrywide Home Loans Has Over 15,000 Repossessed Properties For Sale 8,895 views
Countrywide Is About To Foreclose On Ed McMahon 7,542 views

Wal-Mart:

Walmart “Junior” Panties Suggest That Your Genitals Are Better Than Credit Cards134,786 views
Walmart Nazi Tshirt Watch: Week 62 111,664 views
Detained And Harassed At Walmart For Not Showing A Receipt101,075 views
Walmart Tries To Steal Shopper’s Baby 91,364 views
Woman Receives Severe Chemical Burns From Flip Flops, Walmart Tells Her To Complain To Manufacturer 80,547 views

Jobs tanked again in June, with U.S. employers cutting 62,000 jobs, for a sixth consecutive monthly decline, according to the Labor Department today.

The jobless rate remained at 5.5 percent after jumping in May by the most in two decades.

The Labor Department today also issued a report showing initial claims for jobless benefits rose by 16,000 to 404,000 last week.

According to Bloomberg:

The total, higher than economists forecast, brought the four-week average to the highest since October 2005, just after Hurricane Katrina. The total number of people collecting benefits dropped to 3.116 million from 3.135 million.

Wall-E, the new Pixar movie about romance between two robots hundreds of years from now in a post-Earth future, is earning rave reviews and even some Oscar buzz. It scored a huge opening weekend last week, looks to keep the momentum going into the holiday weekend.  Only one member of our staff (that I know) has gone to seen it yet- but brought back a good report.

Needless to say, what initially caught our attention was the plot:

“As the film tells it, humans abandoned Earth sometime around 2010 when the planet became uninhabitable due to mounds and mounds of waste from consumer goods purchased from the gigantic megastore BnL (which, wittily, stands for “Buy ’n Large”).”

Sound familiar? And it doesn’t stop there. Apparently BnL not only destroys the earth with garbage, but sponsors an exodus on the deathstar-like “Executive Starliners,” where humans are now forced to live. That’s...not being very subtle.

Of course, none of the overt criticism of its business model is preventing Wal-Mart from trying to cash in on the movie craze (HT - Jonathan Rees).

All Wal-Mart issues aside - you’ve got to appreciate director Andrew Stanton’s audacity. The main characters of the movie speak no English, and the first 45 minutes of the movie are completely nonverbal - and mainstream audiences are loving it. That doesn’t sound easy.

Sounds like a good time for the whole family. Happy Independence Day!

Charles Clark, Labor 2008 state director for Indiana, reports on union members’ response to a McCain appearance this week.

When John McCain arrived in Indianapolis on Tuesday morning, he was greeted by dozens of union members chanting “Shame on McCain” and “McSame as Bush” in protest of the presidential candidate’s visit to the state capital.

Protesters from AFSCME Local 661, OPEIU Local 1, IUPAT Local 47, UAW Region 3, UFCW Local 700 and USW Locals 1999 and 715 blasted McCain for his plan to tax health care.

With its two leaders still awaiting trial, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has condemned the continuing violence and intimidation of union members in the country as the government of discredited President Robert Mugabe tries to hold on to power. The violence against union members is taking place within a countrywide surge of brutality against Mugabe opponents.

The AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, along with the international labor movement, is supporting Stand Up for Zimbabwe, a global campaign to end violence in Zimbabwe and show solidarity with its people.

The ZCTU says members of Mugabe’s ruling party orchestrated a national campaign of intimidation, with union members as major targets, to ensure he would win the June 27 presidential runoff. Mugabe was the only candidate in the race. His opponent had withdrawn, saying the election could not be fair because of Mugabe’s reign of terror.

July 3, 2008 The Struggles Of Detroit Ensnare Its Workers by Tim Parker/The New York Times A Chrysler plant near St. Louis is expecting layoffs. “We’d been led to believe we’d have a future.” JOE WILSON A worker at Chrysler’s minivan plant in Fenton, Mo., for 14 years. With more than 15 of their assembly plants across the country set [...]

July 3, 2008 Thoughts Turn To Life After Chrysler Layoff by Christopher Boyce/The St. Louis Post-Dispatch Scott Crawford knows there is life after the auto industry. He was laid off in March 2006 after working 12 years at the Ford Motor Co. assembly plant in Hazelwood. Crawford accepted a severance package and, in August 2006, opened Little Shop of [...]

July 3, 2008 Embezzler Must Pay Back $41,000 To UAW by Rebecca S. Green/The Journal Gazette Ex-union official put on 2 years’ probation. A former United Auto Workers official was ordered to pay back more than $41,000 he admitted embezzling from the union. Norman K. Brown pleaded guilty in March in U.S. District Court in Fort Wayne to a single [...]

July 3, 2008 Ford’s Truck Plant To Lose Jobs by Jere Downs/The Courier-Journal Local UAW members will receive bulletin today. As the bottom falls out of the market for pickup trucks, more job cuts are afoot at Ford Motor Co.’s Kentucky Truck Plant on Chamberlain Lane. But Ford officials aren’t talking about how many workers will be furloughed or how [...]

82,000 square feet: it’s a lot of room, and it might mean a lot of trouble to the environment and local businesses in Tracy.

Wal-Mart is looking to tack an extra 82,000 square feet onto its already existing 125,000 square foot store in the mid-sized California town just east of the Bay Area. Most ominously for local businesses, the proposed expansion includes 30,000 square feet of grocery space, which looks to threaten long-time Tracy grocery stores Save-Mart and Safeway, both of which are largely unionized and bring higher-wage and jobs to Tracy.

On top of that, the new supercenter looks to bring more crime, traffic, noise and water pollution to Grant Line Road - and possibly violates the California Environmental Quality Act.

The Lodi News tells us a little about the opposition effort in Tracy:

The law firm of Herum, Crabtree and Brown of Stockton, on behalf of the group Tracy First, appealed that decision to the City Council. Steve Herum has successfully fought a Wal-Mart store in Lodi on behalf of a group called Lodi First.

Herum’s firm says the planned Tracy Supercenter, as Wal-Mart calls its stores that sell groceries, “violates state planning and zoning laws” and the California Environmental Quality Act.

After a heated council meeting on the subject of the expansion, the City Council decided to send the matter back to staff and postpone the vote until August 5th - leaving residents plenty of time to let the Council know how they feel.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

If you live in the area, email the Tracy City Council and let them know that you value your local businesses and that 125,000 square of Wal-Mart Supercenter is more than enough.

Wal-Mart rolled out a new logo this week to help fix its sinking public image, but the new look falls short. Not only does the new logo fail to address the real problems with Wal-Mart, but it just doesn’t look very good, either. In fact, we think YOU could do a much better job designing a new logo than Wal-Mart’s multimillion-dollar marketing company did. Not only would it look better, but it would truly reflect Wal-Mart’s poor business decisions.

Design your own Wal-Mart logo in our Wal-Mart Logo Redesign Contest. The top 10 submissions will win a custom printed t-shirt, and maybe even catch Wal-Mart’s eye. Click here to submit your design.

We’re not sure how Wal-Mart’s new logo is supposed to represent the company. It doesn’t reflect the company’s poor treatment of its workers, dismal environmental policies, or detrimental impact on American communities. Nor does it reflect Wal-Mart’s poor health care plan, the toxic toys for sale on its shelves, or the company’s continued use of sweatshop labor.

Let Wal-Mart know what you really think of the company by designing your own logo. We’ll display the top submissions on our web site and make t-shirts featuring the best one. The designers of the top 10 logos will win one of the shirts, as well as the pride of seeing their anti-logo prominently displayed on our website.

In a global economy where multinational companies operate across borders, unions are developing global strategies to better represent their members and sustain the middle class.

Today, the United Steelworkers (USW) and Unite, Britain’s largest union, took a giant step in that direction by formally joining together to form the world’s first global union.

The new union, dubbed Workers Uniting: The Global Union, will draw on the energies of the two unions' more than 3 million active and retired workers from the United States, Canada, Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland. The members work in virtually every sector of the global economy, including manufacturing, service, mining and transportation (see video).

Top row from left: Ed Wright, Ironworkers Local 7; James McCallum, former alderman and retired president of Sheet Metal Workers 17; Alderman Robert Trane, Ward 7; Alderman Bill Roche, Ward 1; Dennis Sullivan, president, Board of Alderman; Tony Perrone, business agent, Laborers Local 22; Reese Thornton, member, Painters and Allied Trades District Council 35; Reese Thornton's son. Botton row from left: Rich Rogers, executive secretary-treasurer, Greater Boston Labor Council; Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone; and Frank Callahan, president of the Massachusetts Building Trades Council.

If construction contractors want to do business with the Boston suburb of Somerville, they must show they are "responsible employers" as a result of new contracting standards. The city's Board of Aldermen passed the new contacting standards after Boston-area unions pressed for the legislation.

The new "Responsible Employer" ordinance, passed earlier this month and signed into law Monday, requires all contractors bidding on city construction work to provide worker health benefits, maintain a state-certified apprenticeship program and classify their workers as employees, not independent contractors.