NewsTrust - Labor - Most Recent Stories: News (Mainstream)

State Democrats facing revolt by labor

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Seattle Times - By Andrew Garber - Nov. 14 (News Report) - The Washington State Labor Council, the Service Employees International Union and unions representing teachers and state workers have either stopped or sharply reduced donations to Democratic caucus political-action committees that back candidates for the state House and Senate.

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Obama: Health Plan Will Boost Economy - WSJ.com

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - Oct. 04 (News Analysis) - Obama used his weekly radio address to tout a health-insurance overhaul making its way through Congress, calling it a critical step toward reducing the nation's deficit and boosting an ailing economy.

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On Labor Day, support for unions plunges to all-time low

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Examiner.com - By Byron York - Sep. 07 (News Report) - Before this year, American support for unions had remained remarkably stable for nearly four decades. In August 2001, in the first months of George W. Bush's presidency, Gallup's results for the same question were 60 percent approve, 32 percent disapprove. In August 1997, in Bill Clinton's second term, they were 60-31. In 1985, during Ronald Reagan's presidency, the figures were 58-27. In 1978, during Jimmy Carter's time in the White House, they were 59-31. And in 1972, during Richard Nixon's, they were 60-27.

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Health complaints linked to former NASA site in Downey

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Richard Verrier - Aug. 02 (Investigative Report) - A toxic cleanup paved the way for Downey Studios. But people who worked on films there say they developed conditions from which they haven't recovered. The source of their problems remains a mystery.

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Geithner Says Unemployment May Peak in Second Half of 2010

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Bloomberg - By Steve Matthews, Sue Decker - Aug. 02 (News Report) - The U.S. unemployment rate may not peak until the second half of 2010, possibly necessitating another extension in unemployment benefits, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said. “I think that is something that the administration and Congress are going to look very carefully at as we get closer to the end of this year,” Geithner said in an interview today on ABC’s “This Week” program. The U.S. economy contracted at a better-than-forecast 1 percent annual pace in the second quarter, the Commerce Department reported July 31. Stabilization of housing markets and consumer spending, a lessening of financial turmoil and increased government spending all suggest the longest recession since the 1930s may be close to ending.

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Conservative group offers to sell endorsement for $2M

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Politico - By Mike Allen - Jul. 17 (News Report) - The American Conservative Union asked FedEx for a $2 million check in return for the group’s endorsement in a bitter legislative dispute, then flipped and sided with UPS after FedEx refused to pay. In return for the $2 million, ACU offered a range of

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Iraq's Weakened Unions Fight Foreign Oil Firms

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Reuters - By Aref Mohammed - Jul. 14 (Special Report) - The Federation of Oil Unions of Iraq and the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq have condemned the Oil Ministry's decision to award a foreign consortium the contract to develop Rumaila, the country's largest producing oilfield.

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U.S. Engineers At Record Unemployment

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Investor's Business Daily - By Brian Deagon - Jul. 09 (News Report) - Unemployment for U.S. engineers is at modern-day highs, fueled by the recession, big layoffs at tech firms and more U.S. firms moving operations offshore, according to industry data and analysts. Equally troubling, says Ron Hira, professor of public policy at Rochester Institute of Technology, is that unemployment among all computer professionals also is near a high.

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Obama's curiously close labor friendship

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Peter Nicholas - Jun. 28 (News Analysis) - They led the most powerful forces in healthcare -- the trade groups representing doctors, insurance companies, hospitals and drug makers. Any one of them could stall, if not derail, President Obama's hopes of overhauling the U.S. healthcare system. Instead, they stood with Obama before TV cameras at the White House and pledged their cooperation. For Obama, the show of unity gave momentum to perhaps his most ambitious domestic goal.

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G.M., Detroit and the Fall of the Black Middle Class

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Jonathan Mahler - Jun. 28 (Special Report) - The Pontiac Assembly Center in Pontiac, Mich., is a massive, low-slung structure of concrete and corrugated green steel that squats conspicuously among the many strip malls that line one of the city’s main thoroughfares, South Opdyke Road. Locals refer to the three-million-square-foot factory, which makes Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks, as Plant 6, because when it opened in 1972, it was the sixth General Motors manufacturing facility in this city, 25 miles north of downtown Detroit. At the time, General Motors was the world’s largest automaker. It dominated the American market, manufacturing half of the vehicles sold in the U.S. As recently as 2003, Plant 6 was running three consecutive eight-hour shifts, employing 3,000 people and making 1,300 trucks a day.

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Bill gives in-state tuition to foreign professionals, families in Washington on visa

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - By Lornet Turnbull - Jun. 22 (News Report) - A little-noticed measure passed by the Legislature and signed into law by the governor will extend in-state tuition rates at Washington colleges and universities to some foreign professionals working at companies like Microsoft and Amazon, as well as to their children and spouses.

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U.S. Gets Majority Stake in New GM

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Peter Whoriskey - Jun. 01 (News Report) - The court filing will mark the end of financial independence for the 100-year-old industrial leviathan that once conflated its interests with the country's and that employed well over 1 million people, counting jobs at the company and at its suppliers.

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Other firms survived this and succeeded

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Detroit Free Press - By Brian Tumulty - Jun. 01 (News Analysis) - Can General Motors Corp. file for bankruptcy and reemerge from Chapter 11 as a profitable and viable automaker?

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The Case for Working With Your Hands

Sun, 24 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Matthew B. Crawford - May. 24 (Special Report) - The television show “Deadliest Catch” depicts commercial crab fishermen in the Bering Sea. Another, “Dirty Jobs,” shows all kinds of grueling work; one episode featured a guy who inseminates turkeys for a living. The weird fascination of these shows must lie partly in the fact that such confrontations with material reality have become exotically unfamiliar. Many of us do work that feels more surreal than real. Working in an office, you often find it difficult to see any tangible result from your efforts. What exactly have you accomplished at the end of any given day? Where the chain of cause and effect is opaque and responsibility diffuse, the experience of individual agency can be elusive. “Dilbert,” “The Office” and similar portrayals of cubicle life attest to the dark absurdism with which many Americans have come to view their white-collar jobs.

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Early retirement claims increase dramatically

Sun, 24 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Mike Dorning - May. 24 (News Report) - Instead of seeing older workers staying on the job longer as the economy has worsened, the Social Security system is reporting a major surge in early retirement claims that could have implications for the financial security of millions of baby boomers. Since the current federal fiscal year began Oct. 1, claims have been running 25% ahead of last year, compared with the 15% increase that had been projected as the post-World War II generation reaches eligibility for early retirement, according to Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration.

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With Jobs Scarce, Age Becomes an Issue

Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Dana Mattioli - May. 20 (Special Report) - Employees in their 20s and 30s are finding themselves more at risk of a layoff, according to labor lawyers, as employers look to avoid age-discrimination lawsuits by adopting a "last one in, first one out" policy and turn to tenure as a means of conducting layoffs. In some cases, young, childless professionals say they feel they're being targeted in layoffs, while employees who have families to support are given special consideration.

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Study Says Antiunion Tactics Are Common

Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Steven Greenhouse - May. 20 (Special Report) - A new study by a Cornell University professor of 1,004 union organizing drives has found that employers threatened to close plants in 57 percent of the campaigns and threatened to cut wages and benefits in 47 percent. The study, to be released Wednesday, also found that employers fired pro-union workers in 34 percent of the campaigns. And it asserted that management’s antiunion tactics had helped pushed down the unionization rate to 12.4 percent, from 22 percent three decades ago

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Agree or else, Globe tells unions

Tue, 05 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Boston Globe - By Robert Gavin, Keith O'Brien - May. 05 (News Report) - Boston Globe management was continuing to negotiate concessions with its major unions well past a midnight deadline, but said it was prepared to file a plant closing notice with the state today if they failed to reach agreement. That would allow the paper's owner, the New York Times Co., to follow through on its threat to shutter the 137-year-old newspaper.

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U.S. Workers' Wages Stagnate As Firms Rush to Slash Costs

Sun, 03 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Annys Shin - May. 03 (News Report) - In December, Timothy Owner, a trombone player with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, called his landlord to tell her he might have trouble paying rent around May. He and the orchestra's 53 other full-time members, many of whom are paid less than $30,000 a year, had agreed to a month-long furlough. The furlough, which ended yesterday, was rough, Owner said. But he and other musicians acknowledged that the alternative could have been worse. "We're less unhappy if this means the orchestra will survive," he said.

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Joblessness Probably Rose to 25-Year High: U.S. Economy Preview

Sun, 03 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Bloomberg - By Shobhana Chandra - May. 03 (News Report) - Unemployment in the U.S. probably climbed in April to a 25-year high, showing the labor market will be one of the last areas to emerge from the worst recession in at least 50 years, economists said before reports this week. The jobless rate jumped to 8.9 percent last month from 8.5 percent in March and employers cut at least 600,000 workers from payrolls for a fifth straight time, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey ahead of a May 8 Labor Department report. Other figures may show service industries shrank at a slower pace.

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House Panel Says West Virginia Chemical Firm Withheld Information About Explosion

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Matthew L. Wald - Apr. 22 (News Report) - When a huge explosion occurred last August at a West Virginia chemical plant, managers refused for several hours to tell emergency responders the nature of the blast or the toxic chemical it released, and they later misused a law intended to keep information from terrorists to try to stop federal investigators from learning what had happened, members of a House subcommittee said Tuesday

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Employers apply for fewer skilled guest-worker visas

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - By Lornet Turnbull - Apr. 13 (News Report) - Conroy is working with members of Congress on legislation that would give U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents first crack at jobs that go to H-1B candidates. "The biggest misconception that the American public has embraced is that employers have to seek local talent first," she said. "We want to create an opportunity so that U.S. workers can at least compete for these jobs."

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Benefits widen public, private workers' pay gap

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

USA Today - By Dennis Cauchon - Apr. 10 (News Report) - The pay gap between government workers and lower-compensated private employees is growing as public employees enjoy sizable benefit growth even in a distressed economy, federal figures show.

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Autoworkers tired of the "tough love"

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Jeff Karoub - Mar. 31 (News Analysis) - when it comes to auto manufacturing and middle-class jobs and people that don't matter on Wall Street, there are certainly different standards that we have to meet — higher standards — than the financials. That is a double standard that exists and it's unfair," Fredline said.

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Union Bill's Declining Chances Give Rise to Alternatives

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Alec MacGillis - Mar. 29 (News Analysis) - With the prospects for a landmark pro-union proposal looking increasingly shaky in Congress, senators in both parties are seeking other ways to reform labor laws, potentially reshaping what many expected to be a defining showdown of Barack Obama's presidency. The Employee Free Choice Act, also called "card check," was dealt two blows last week. Whole Foods, Costco and Starbucks proposed a "third way" to reform labor laws that threatened to draw away conservative Democrats from card check. More damaging was the announcement by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) that he would reverse his support for the bill.

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