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Get to Know AFL-CIO's Affiliates: Train Dispatchers
AFL-CIO
In this weekly series, we take a deeper look at each of the AFL-CIO's affiliates. Next up is the American Train Dispatchers Association.
Name of Union: American Train Dispatchers Association (ATDA)
Mission: To provide representation for train dispatchers and other railroad employees in contract negotiations with railroads both individually and collectively with other rail unions, discipline and grievance handling and contract enforcement, and to engage in legislative activities and regulatory processes on behalf of its craft and rail labor in general.
Current Leadership of Union: Leo McCann currently serves as president of the ATDA, a post he has held since 1999. Ed Dowell has served as secretary/treasurer since 2015. Paul E. Ayers, John Salvey, Rory Broyles and Barry Cross hold the positions of vice president. The organization also has a board of trustees with three members and a support staff of four full-time employees at its headquarters in Cleveland.
Members Work As: Train dispatchers, assistant and chief train dispatchers, power...
Just, Inclusive and Sustainable: The Working People Weekly List
AFL-CIO
Every week, we bring you a roundup of the top news and commentary about issues and events important to working families. Here’s the latest edition of the Working People Weekly List.
A Just, Inclusive and Sustainable Economy: "This week, labor leaders from across the country descended on New Orleans to map out the path ahead for our movement. From trade and public education to equal pay and paid leave to back pay for federal contract workers and bargaining power for all, the AFL-CIO Executive Council tackled the issues that will define working people’s fight for economic justice in 2019 and beyond."
omen's History Month Profiles: Dolores Huerta: "For Women's History Month, the AFL-CIO is spotlighting various women who were leaders and activists working at the intersection of civil and labor rights. Today's profile is Dolores Huerta."
‘State of the Unions’ Podcast: A Conversation with House Blue Collar Caucus Co-Chairs: "In the latest episode of 'State of the Unions,' Julie and Tim talk to the co-chairs of the House Blue Collar Caucus....
Women's History Month Profiles: Maida Springer Kemp
Kheel Center
For Women's History Month, the AFL-CIO is spotlighting various women who were leaders and activists working at the intersection of civil and labor rights. Today's profile is Maida Springer Kemp.
Maida Springer Kemp was born in Panama, but moved to Harlem at the age of 7. Her mother, Adina Steward Carrington, listened to the messages of Marcus Garvey and passed the lessons she learned to her daughter, teaching her to be hopeful and to value education.
She joined the labor movement during the Great Depression, when she became a member of the Dressmakers' Union, Local 22 of the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union. Her interest in unions spiked after hearing a 1929 radio address by A. Philip Randolph. According to Springer Kemp biographer Yevette Richards, Randoph's speech helped her realize that there were larger forces that hindered working people.
In 1933, Local 22 launched a successful general strike of dressmakers. Afterwards, Springer Kemp quickly moved up the union's ranks. In 1938, she began serving on the executive board and in...
Women's History Month Profiles: Dolores Huerta
Wikimedia Commons
For Women's History Month, the AFL-CIO is spotlighting various women who were leaders and activists working at the intersection of civil and labor rights. Today's profile is Dolores Huerta.
Huerta was born in 1930 to Alicia and Juan Fernández in Dawson, New Mexico. Her father was a farmworker and miner who became a state legislator after her parents divorced and Huerta moved with her mother to California. There, her mother worked as a waitress and cannery worker before eventually buying a small hotel and restaurant. Huerta learned her compassion from working people and her dedication to community activism from her mother.
After graduating from the University of Pacific's Delta College, Huerta taught school. After witnessing many hungry children of farmworkers in her classes, she decided she could do more good by organizing farmworkers than she could teaching their children. In 1955, she co-founded the local chapter of the Community Service Organization. While registering Hispanic voters and fighting for economic rights for farmworkers, she also...
‘State of the Unions’ Podcast: A Conversation with House Blue Collar Caucus Co-Chairs
In the latest episode of "State of the Unions," Julie and Tim talk to the co-chairs of the House Blue Collar Caucus. Reps. Brendan Boyle (Pa.) and Marc Veasey (Texas) both come from union families and formed the caucus in the aftermath of the 2016 election to better connect with blue-collar workers. They say the path to a stronger America runs through the labor movement and any plan to rebuild our economy must include the working people who make it go.
"State of the Unions" is a tool to help us bring you the issues and stories that matter to working people. It captures the stories of workers across the country and is co-hosted by two young and diverse members of the AFL-CIO team: Mobilization Director Julie Greene and Executive Speechwriter Tim Schlittner. A new episode drops every other Wednesday featuring interesting interviews with workers and our allies across the country, as well as compelling insights from the podcast’s hosts.
Listen to our previous episodes:
A conversation with Kim Kelly, a labor columnist for Teen Vogue.
A...
Disgraceful: The Working People Weekly List
AFL-CIO
Every week, we bring you a roundup of the top news and commentary about issues and events important to working families. Here’s the latest edition of the Working People Weekly List.
Obama Expanded Overtime Pay to 4 Million Workers. Now Trump Is Scaling That Back: "Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO labor federation, called the new rule 'disgraceful.' '[This] is part of a growing list of policies from the Trump administration aimed at undermining the economic stability of America’s working people,' he tweeted on Friday. The public can comment on the rule proposal for 60 days before the Department of Labor sends a final version to the White House for review. If the White House approves the new rule, which is likely, it will be the Trump administration’s latest victory in its quest to undo Obama-era regulations meant to benefit workers."
Organized Labor Opposes Proposed New NAFTA Deal: "The AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest federation of labor unions, won’t support the USMCA trade agreement if an early vote is pursued, the organization announced March 14. The...
Get to Know AFL-CIO's Affiliates: Actors and Artistes
The AFL-CIO is taking a deeper look at each of our affiliates in our regular weekly series. Next up is the Actors and Artistes (4As).
Name of Union: Associated Actors and Artistes of America
The 4As works to advance and protect the welfare of the people who work to entertain and inform others in person and through every medium of recording and transmission. There are five member unions that make up the 4As. Actors' Equity (AEA) and SAG-AFTRA are directly affiliated with the AFL-CIO. Three other unions are part of the AFL-CIO through their membership in the 4As: the Musical Artists, the Variety Artists and the Italian American Actors.
AGMA
Musical Artists (AGMA)
Mission: To represent members and to guarantee that our nation's artistic institutions adhere to fair labor practices, securing both gainful employment and quality of life for our artists.
Current Leadership of Union: John Coleman serves as president. The other officers are: Gregory Stapp (first vice president), George Scott (second vice presiden), J. Austin Bitner (third...
A Just, Inclusive and Sustainable Economy
AFL-CIO
This week, labor leaders from across the country descended on New Orleans to map out the path ahead for our movement. From trade and public education to equal pay and paid leave to back pay for federal contract workers and bargaining power for all, the AFL-CIO Executive Council tackled the issues that will define working people’s fight for economic justice in 2019 and beyond.
Sending waves through Washington yesterday, the Executive Council’s most notable decision was its announcement that, “if the administration insists on a premature vote on the new NAFTA in its current form, we will have no choice but to oppose it.” Here are a few highlights from the statement:
Trade policy must be judged by whether it leads to a just, inclusive and sustainable economy....By that measure, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which has driven the outsourcing of so many good jobs, has been a catastrophic failure.
By design, NAFTA distorted power relationships in favor of global employers over workers, weakened worker bargaining power and encouraged the de-...
Women's History Month Profiles: Frances Perkins
AFL-CIO
For Women's History Month, the AFL-CIO is spotlighting various women who were leaders and activists working at the intersection of civil and labor rights. Today's profile is Frances Perkins.
Perkins was born in Boston in 1880, descendant from a long line of Maine farmers and craftsmen. At Mount Holyoke College, she studied the natural sciences and economic history and was exposed to a variety of works and lectures who exposed her to new ways of thinking about the social problems she witnessed.
After graduation, she learned more about the plight of working people when she volunteered in New York's settlement houses. She heard stories directly from workers about the dangerous conditions of factory work and the desperation of being unable to collect promised wages or secure medical care for workplace injuries. She left her teaching career, just as it was beginning, to earn a master's degree in economics and sociology.
In 1910, she became secretary of the New York Consumers' League and was part of a team that lobbied the state legislature for a bill...
Steelworker Wins Election to Local Maine School Board
Maine AFL-CIO
United Steelworkers (USW) Local 9 member Kathy Wilder won a write-in election for school board in Maine School Administrative District (MSAD) 54 on March 4. Wilder, who works as a chemical prep operator at Sappi Fine Paper in Skowhegan, says that her priorities will be student achievement, fiscal responsibility, clear communications and social justice.
"Being elected to the school board is really exciting for me because I grew up in Norridgewock and attended K-12 in MSAD 54," said Wilder after finishing a night shift at the mill. "Now I have to give back to the community by working to make the future a brighter and stronger place for today’s youth."
Wilder worked with the Maine AFL-CIO in 2018 as part of our labor candidates training program to elect more union members and working class people to elected office at all levels. She previously ran for the Maine State Legislature in 2018.
Kenneth Quinnell
Tue, 03/12/2019 - 12:42
