Cal Winslow Z Net July 18, 2013 View the original piece It is forty years ago, in November, since striking United Parcel (UPS) workers, roving pickets, crossed from Pennsylvania into Ohio, closing UPS hubs as they went, including the company's big Northern Ohio center, Cleveland. It was an extraordinary episode, thinking back on it. Still, this event was in some ways not really so unusual; wildcat strikes were endemic in Ohio in 1973; in Cleveland,...

AP July 18, 2013 View the original piece Two veteran labor lawyers will be President Barack Obama's new picks to serve on the National Labor Relations Board as part of an agreement to win confirmation for several of his stalled appointees, two Democratic officials said Tuesday. Obama intends to nominate Nancy Schiffer, who retired last year as an associate general counsel at the AFL-CIO, and Kent Hirozawa, currently the chief counsel to the NLRB's chairman,...

Bruce Vail In These Times July 18, 2013 View the original piece The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) added its voice last week to the growing number of labor unions with complaints about how President Barack Obama is handling implementation of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA), better known as Obamacare. The 725,000-member IBEW released a white paper on July 11 calling for changes to how the law treats multi-employer plans (also known...

Annie-Rose Strasser Think Progress July 16, 2013 View the original piece McDonalds has partnered with Visa to launch a website to help its low-wage workers making an average $8.25 an hour to budget. But while the site is clearly meant to illustrate that McDonalds workers should be able to live on their meager wages, it actually underscores exactly how hard it is for a low-paid fast food worker to get by. The site includes a...

Mark Landler and Steven Greenhouse New York Times July 16, 2013 View the original piece WASHINGTON — At the heart of the rancorous showdown between Senate Republicans and Democrats over President Obama’s blocked political appointments is an unglamorous federal agency that polices labor practices and that has, for Republicans, become a reviled symbol of the Obama administration’s bureaucratic overreach. The agency, the National Labor Relations Board, has functioned without a full slate of five members,...

Teamsters Local 89 July 11, 2013 View the original piece Local 89 demand letter on contract extension - July 3, 2013 Text Ken Hall response - July 11, 2013

Nichele Fulmore Labor Notes July 11, 2013 View the original piece I have been fascinated with the Civil Rights Movement for a very long time. When I was born in 1971, the movement was over and the Civil Rights Act had passed, opening up many doors for me as an African-American woman. But now in North Carolina, the Republican-dominated administration is regressing the people of this state back to the days of Jim Crow. They...

Erin Meyer DNAInfo Chicago July 11, 2013 View the original piece Scabby is a mainstay of union protests in Chicago, a giant inflatable rat meant to shame companies that use nonunion workers. Scabby, however, met his match this weekend when an angry worker stabbed it with a box cutter and then ran over the deflated rodent with his car, prosecutors said. The worker was trying to get past the rat during a Downtown dispute with...

Michelle Amber BNA Daily Labor Report July 11, 2013 View the original piece Unity talks currently are taking place between the AFL-CIO and the United Food and Commercial Workers, but no agreement has been reached for UFCW to reaffiliate with the federation, a UFCW spokeswoman told BNA July 10. Asked about news reports that delegates to UFCW's convention in Chicago next month will be asked to vote on reaffiliation with the federation, UFCW spokeswoman Jill...

Julie Jargon Wall Street Journal July 09, 2013 View the original piece Craig Davis, a former forklift operator at a Hostess cake plant in Emporia, Kan., has been unemployed since November, when the Twinkies maker shut its factories and began liquidation proceedings. He could have applied to get his old job back now that the plant is churning out Twinkies, Zingers and Ding Dongs in preparation for a July 15 return to store shelves. But...