]> http://www.laborradio.org/taxonomy/term/37/0 en http://www.laborradio.org/node/8443 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>Despite efforts by employers to stop it, longshore union workers in California are going ahead with their planned work stoppage Thursday to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Jack Heyman of ILWU Local 10 expects the ports to be shut down during the day shift May 1st.</p> <p>[Heyman]: "This action on May Day is a culmination of our internationalist perspective, and we’re really proud that we’re actually going to be doing this."</p> California San Francisco Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:24:30 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/8298 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>The California Labor Federation is releasing a new study today that it says shows paid sick days benefit employers as well as workers. Nearly six million California workers – one in six –have no paid sick days. The California Labor Federation says the new study from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research shows tremendous benefits for employers when paid sick days are provided to workers. The study uses U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistic numbers to evaluate the impact on California employers if paid sick days are guaranteed by law to all the state’s workers. The Healthy Families, Healthy Workplaces act before the state legislature there would do just that.</p> California Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:42:02 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/8082 <p>By Doug Cuningham</p> <p>A construction trades policy about to be adopted in Los Angeles will hire more low-income and local residents in projects worth $15 billion over five years. The Los Angeles and Orange County, California Building and Construction Trades Council is leading a coalition of labor, community, and business groups to get it done. Kevin Norton is Organizing Director and Political Coordinator for IBEW Local 11.</p> <p>[Norton]: "By having an opportunity for people to get into the building trades apprenticeship program, it really gives a ladder up into the middle class for a lot of kids that haven’t had opportunities in life."</p> California Los Angeles Sun, 09 Mar 2008 14:25:43 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/8002 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>The California Labor Federation and ACORN are backing a bill that would guarantee paid sick leave to all workers in the state. Jeremy Smith is a legislative advocate for the federation.</p> <p>[Smith]: "This has already been passed in San Francisco, so we know that it can work, that it does work and that our studies have shown that this is supported by a great many people in California."</p> <p>About six million California workers, roughly 40 percent of the state’s workforce, have no paid sick days. Maine, Ohio and Washington, D.C. are also considering guaranteeing paid sick days.</p> California Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:36:18 -0800 http://www.laborradio.org/node/7617 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>The New Year has brought new nurse-patient ratios in California to help insure safe patient care. After years of advocacy by the California Nurses Association, the state’s safe hospital staffing law is on the books and completes its phase-in period in 2008. The law requires minimum nurse to patient staffing levels in several different hospital units in California. It’s a national issue as well, with nurses’ unions around the country advocating that other states adopt minimum nurse-patient ratios for safe and quality care. The CNA says the nurse staffing law is working to save lives, allowing nurses to be strong advocates for patients and is bringing more nurses into the profession in California. The CNA has proposed similar laws in Texas, Illinois, Ohio, Maine, and Arizona.</p> California Nurses Association Wed, 02 Jan 2008 18:46:02 -0800 http://www.laborradio.org/node/7501 <p>Blue Shield is under fire in California for allegedly violating laws that knocked more than 200 people off of medical coverage. Jesse Russell takes a look:</p> <p>California’s Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner is seeking $12.6 million in fines against Blue Shield. He is accusing the insurance company of violating claims-handling laws 1,262 times. The result of those violations, according to Poizner, has been more than 200 individuals losing medical coverage. This is the first time in California history that the Department of Insurance has taken legal action over cancellation policies. Blue Shield issued a strongly worded statement on Wednesday saying the company is “outraged by the excessive penalties for nonsubstansive issues” and that the company is being fined for practices that have been “approved” for years by the department. Blue Shield of California Life and Health covers 167,000 individuals in the state.</p> California Thu, 13 Dec 2007 15:50:36 -0800 http://www.laborradio.org/node/7371 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>For four years a handful of workers with the help of UNITE-HERE have fought to organize a union at the Monterey Travel Lodge in California. They’re rallying today to protest the continuing anti-union actions of the lodge’s owner. UNITE-HERE 43’s Mark Weller:</p> <p>[Weller]: “We need to lift these hospitality jobs into the middle class, not drag them into poverty. And so, this is a three-year boycott, it's a four-year fight, and it's thirteen workers. But these thirteen workers are as important as any others in the United States, so we're going to continue to fight for them."</p> California Tue, 27 Nov 2007 17:41:44 -0800 http://www.laborradio.org/node/7019 <p>Nearly 5,000 nurses in Northern California have begun a two-day strike against 15 Hospitals. Kellia Ramares has more from Oakland, California.</p> <p>By Kellia Ramares</p> <p>Nurses represented by the California Nurses Association have struck hospitals belonging to the Sutter chain in the San Francisco Bay Area. They are also striking two hospitals belonging to the Freemont Rideout chain in the Sacramento area, where nurses are seeking their first contracts. CNA spokesperson, Chuck Idelson speaking from a picket line, outlined the main issues:</p> <p>[Idelson] "Make sure the patients get what they need when they need it. There is also concerns about Sutter proposals to reduce healthcare coverage for registered nurses, we’re also concerned about continuing hospital care in underserved communities."</p> California Nurses Association Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:13:22 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/6660 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>As teachers and students prepare to return to the nation’s classrooms a California teacher’s rock band called the Angry Tired Teachers will be taking their “Stick It To The Man” attitude with them. The ten-year-old band played live on the Hayward, California teacher’s strike picket lines and at protest rallies before the strike. Band member Andy Knight.</p> <p>[Knight1]: “The union got this idea of getting the band a flat bed truck to go around and play at the different schools to boost morale and get teachers fired up on the strike line. So we did a little tour. We called it the Stick It To The Man Tour." </p> California NEA Wed, 22 Aug 2007 15:33:57 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/6511 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>California workers have legally mandated lunch and rest breaks - but Gov. Schwarzenegger has tried to take them away. The California Labor Federation's Caitlin Vega says those rights are being threatened again in a series of forums conducted by the state's labor commissioner. Vega says organized labor wants to be sure that workers without unions can continue take lunch and rest breaks without fear in California.</p> <p>[Vega]: "Our members get lunch breaks, it's in their contracts. What we're concerned about is workers who don't have unions, who don't have the ability to demand their rights at work, who fear getting fired - and who often are fired - when they assert themselves and when they say that they feel they have rights and their rights have to be respected. And so we really are trying to protect the most vulnerable workers in California."</p> California Thu, 02 Aug 2007 19:36:09 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/6259 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>The Kroger, Safeway and Super-Valu giant national grocery chains are playing hardball as contract talks resume with the United Food And Commercial Workers union in southern California. The hugely profitable companies are balking at providing fair wages and good health insurance benefits to 65,000 workers. The UFCW's Mike Shimpock represents southern California grocery workers.</p> <p>[Shimpock]: "Combined they had $8.3 billion in profits last year. They paid their three CEO's $27 million combined in salaries and bonuses. These are huge corporations that could very easily afford to give their employees a fair wage increase and adequate health care."</p> California UFCW Thu, 28 Jun 2007 15:50:47 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/6209 <p>Is a strike coming for Southern California grocery workers? Jesse Russell reports.</p> <p>With negotiations breaking down between Southern California grocery workers and major grocery chains workers will cast votes Sunday to determine if they should go on strike. A strike vote would authorize United Food and Commercial Worker leadership to call a strike if the impasse continues. The union is upset with proposals from the companies concerning healthcare and wages. 65,000 grocery workers went on strike in 2003 resulting in the longest grocery strike in history. </p> California UFCW Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:56:08 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/6189 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>The United Food and Commercial Workers union says its membership in California could begin voting as soon as Sunday on whether to authorize a strike against two southern California grocery chains. A strike has already been authorized if needed at a third chain. Very little progress has been made in contract talks. Roughly 65,000 UFCW workers are employed at Ralph’s, Von’s and Albertson’s. How to utilize a jointly held union-company health care fund to cover increasing health care costs and wages for new hires are among the unresolved issues. A lockout and strike that lasted 141 days happened three and a half years ago when negotiations broke down. </p> California UFCW Tue, 19 Jun 2007 16:28:10 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/6056 <p>An invitation to an American Indian forum in California is causing some Democratic Presidential candidates to make some tough decisions. Jesse Russell reports.</p> <p>Presidential contender Hillary Clinton has turned down an invitation to speak at a forum at the Morongo Casino Resort and Spa in California. The former first wife cited a on going labor dispute between the Morongo Band of Mission Indians who run the casino and Unite-HERE. That union represents service workers who oppose a deal that would expand the number of casinos in California because it would make it more difficult to organize workers and the casino owners are already against unionization. Currently only New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel have accepted the invitation that would bring tribal leaders from across the country to California. Event organizers say that who attends and who doesn’t will determine who receives the support of the deep pocketed casino tribes. </p> California UNITE-HERE Thu, 31 May 2007 18:03:56 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/5995 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>Fifteen people were arrested at UC-Davis this week in a protest against outsourcing of food service jobs on campus. Activists, including the public employee union AFSCME, are demanding that UC-Davis end the outsourcing and make food service workers university employees. To support them in this effort to end outsourcing at UC-Davis, you can call Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef at (530) 752-2065. That’s area code (530) 752-2065.</p> AFSCME California Thu, 24 May 2007 15:27:59 -0700