labor

Tell NC lawmakers to drop their draconian, hurtful, immoral unemployment insurance proposal.

Republican legislators in North Carolina are pushing an extreme package of cuts to unemployment insurance.

The Senate committee in charge of the issue, the Revenue Laws Study Committee, voted to move the proposal forward on Tuesday. It will come to the General Assembly for a vote when they reconvene on January 30.

The proposal cuts the weekly maximum benefit by 35 percent, (even though the statewide average benefit is much less). It also reduces the number of benefit to a sliding scale between 12 and 20 weeks, even though the average length of unemployment is at an all-time high of 40 weeks.

Take action now – tell the North Carolina legislators to keep unemployment benefits strong

Thankfully, earlier this week Congress fulfilled its (minimum) obligation to the long-term unemployed by passing an extension of federal unemployment benefits as part of the “fiscal cliff” deal.

Pro-CLT is a new coalition formed to raise awareness of potential pitfalls for the Charlotte economy should US Airways merge with American Airlines. Airport businesses are airing their concerns.

Here's a quick video to give you guys a look at what you missed today if you did not show at the NCGA for the AFL-CIO sponsored Pots & Spoons Rally. Turn your speakers up to 11 for the full effect. Americans For Prosperity tried to respond by handing out ear plugs, which only perfectly symbolized the failure of their elected leaders to listen to anyone but their own base and helped publicize our cause, so that kind of backfired on them.... I suspect a better video will be forthcoming soon from Jeremy at AFL-CIO NC.

About the cacerolazo

A form of popular protest that originated in Latin America which consists of a group of people creating noise by banging pots, pans, and other utensils to call for attention. In cacerolazos from Chile and Argentina to Iceland, Ireland, Greece, and even Syria, people have come together to challenge power and affect change.

It is time to bring the spirit of the cacerolazo to North Carolina, where our out-of-control state legislature has busied itself since the 2010 election with catering to corporate interests and right-wing ideologues, gutting funding for public education, endangering women’s health care, putting the rights of unmarried couples up for popular vote, and attempting to lock some groups of voters out of the political process.

Let's welcome them back to an unforgettable protest!

When lawmakers return to town on Wednesday, May 16, North Carolinians outraged and disappointed at actions taken by our General Assembly to enrich the few at the expense of the rest will converge on Bicentennial Mall at 10 A.M. for a cacerolazo – a Pots & Spoons Protest – the first-of-its-kind protest of our out-of-control state legislature.

In 2010 SEANC (State Employees Association of North Carolina) pumped quite a bit of money into the NC-81 House race to help defeat Hugh Holliman to the benefit of Rayne Brown. Well, the 2011 NC Free Enterprise Foundation rankings are out (2011 Rankings) and Brown scored a 89.3 compared to Holliman's 2009 ranking of 57.8.

The American Conservative Union, an anti-union, anti-worker organization has ranked Brown as a "Defender of Liberty" (American Conservative Union) and Civitas gave her a 90% Conservative Effectiveness Score.

Bet she is not casting too many votes to help out labor so I will ask again: How's that working out for you SEANC?

I apologize for the length, but this was a note that I first posted on facebook last weekend. It may rile some feathers, but sometimes a good spring cleaning is needed:

Since last January, I have been watching and listening very closely to many of the elected officials, activists and hanger-ons after the Republicans gained complete control of the General Assembly; a feat unseen in over 120 years. With this historic win come the fruits of victory, and in this case it meant the ability to redraw the state's legislative and congressional maps.

After a three judge panel refused to delay the 2012 primary date (and in essence the filing period), we have seen scores of veteran democrats dropiing like flies. This is in NO WAY an attack on them-I thank them for their willingness to step up and serve! However, this has given me pause to think about the bigger picture, and despite of the incoming fire that will surely follow, my thoughts:

As the next Congressional fight over payroll tax extensions and unemployment benefits and pipelines gets set up in the next few weeks for either its final chapter or to be kicked down the road a bit farther, one or the other, you’re going to hear a lot from our Republican friends about how much they value work and workers; most especially, they’ll tell you, they value American jobs for American workers.

After all, they’ll say, creating American jobs is the most important thing of all.

But if we were to look back over just the last few months, some would tell us, we could quickly find examples of how Republicans promote ideas that don’t seem to value work or workers at all, much less American jobs.

Well as it turns out, “some” seem to be right; to illustrate one of those examples we’ll look back a month or two or three to a time some Republicans might wish was long, long, ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

After doing a bit of mountain hiking a few days back, I had a chance to get involved in a great afternoon conversation with the Alliance for American Manufacturing’s Mike Wessel, who also serves as a Commissioner with the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission; the conversation was about how we’re doing when it comes to our relationship with China.

As it turns out, the two events went well together, because what I’m hearing from these guys is that we have a great big ol’ mountain to climb if we hope to get back to a level playing field in our interactions with this most important country.

There’s news to report across a variety of issues; that’s why today we’ll be talking about trade, human rights, cybersecurity, poverty and development, and the methods by which you can apply “soft power” to achieve hard results.

The entirely unanticipated result: all of this will reveal the naïveté of Ron Paul when it comes to foreign policy; we’ll discuss that at the end.

Workers from all walks of life walked a picket line outside Rep. Renee Ellmers' (R-2nd) district office in Dunn, NC, today. We walked to remind the Congresswoman that North Carolina, like the rest of America, wants to work! Ellmers needs to focus on what matters - fixing our JOBS CRISIS. The top 1% can take care of themselves. We need Ellmers to represent the Other 99% for a change.