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Service + Solidarity Spotlight: FLOC Petitions Reynolds American to Comply with CDC Guidelines on COVID-19

Working people across the United States have stepped up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our regular Service + Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.

The Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) is demanding tobacco company Reynolds American comply with the federal government’s health and safety recommendations to save farmworkers in North Carolina from the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Now is the time to stop allowing wealthy corporations like Reynolds American to continue making billions off of the labor of farmworkers while refusing to do anything to support our communities during a crisis,” said FLOC President Baldemar Velasquez. “All of the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)] recommendations require significant investments of money to comply with in agriculture, and these corporations have failed in their responsibility to save lives in the supply chains they created. Reynolds could meet with farmworkers and...

Service + Solidarity Spotlight: Labor Movement Leads Recovery From Hurricane Laura

Working people across the United States have stepped up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our regular Service + Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.

Early in the morning of Aug. 27, Category 4 Hurricane Laura roared through the border of Louisiana and Texas as one of the most powerful storms in history to hit the area. In the wake of significant damage to parts of Louisiana, Louis Reine (SMART), president of the Louisiana AFL-CIO, reported union members from across the Gulf Coast have stepped in to help. The state federation, along with the United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters (UA) Local 198 and Teamsters locals 270 and 968, hosted a milk giveaway on Saturday for those in need. A relief staging location has been established in Lake Charles, Louisiana, at Local 198.

“Even though Baton Rouge and New Orleans came out fairly well, Lake Charles still had some significant damage, and millions are still without power. Our Electrical...

Shuler at March on Washington: We Must Do Better

On Aug. 28, the 2020 Virtual March on Washington was held to honor the 57th anniversary of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream Speech." Among the distinguished speakers in the lineup of the 2020 march was AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler (IBEW), who spoke to labor's commitment to continue the work of the 1963 march and to do better for our Black members, friends and neighbors. Watch Shuler's speech:

An excerpt:

Whether it’s in professional sports...or in our communities...we in the labor movement are feeling excruciating pain, anger and grief. We will do our part to end racism in our economy, our politics, our workplaces and our union halls. 

And on top of the widespread racism throughout our country’s institutions, COVID-19 is exposing the cracks that were already poisoning our system. A system that denies housing and health care and opportunity to far too many people of color. That’s why Black and Brown people are more likely to lose their jobs or get sick and die in this...

Bishop John Stowe's 2020 Labor Day Mass Homily

When Kentucky legislators proposed anti-union “right to work” legislation in 2017, Bishop John Stowe of the Lexington Diocese spoke out boldly in defense of Catholic social teaching on unions and worker justice. The following remarks were delivered by Bishop Stowe at the Catholic Labor Network’s first annual livestreamed Labor Day mass:

The beautiful account of creation found on the first pages of Scripture demonstrates God’s work and artistry. It reveals God’s generosity: God gives humanity dominion over all He has made. By giving us fertility and the command to multiply, God invites us to work as co-creators. Just as in the Eucharistic liturgy we offer up “what earth has given and human hands have made”; there is a partnership into which we have been invited by the All Powerful and All-Loving creator. When the work of our hands and minds, when our skills and training engage our intelligence and our sense of wonder and curiosity, when we truly partner with God to share in the ongoing work of creation-we can celebrate work, celebrate accomplishments, celebrate advances in technology and the increase of...