This everyday guide to being a smart shopper is hot off the press and chock-full of helpful tips about preventing identity theft, understanding credit, filing a consumer complaint, and much more. In the 2009 edition, you'll find updated information about filing for bankruptcy, finding a lawyer, and planning a funeral, along with many other useful topics.To find out more about the Consumer Action Handbook, visit www.ConsumerAction.gov
Your Local 1284 Consumer Affairs Committee has a large number of the 2009 Consumer Action Handbooks available.If your interested in receiving one, contact any member of the Consumer Affairs Committee.They will also be available at Local 1284 Monthly Membership meetings starting in May.
Thanks in large part to the efforts of union volunteers around the country, working families won a strong victory on Nov. 4 , sending Barack Obama to the White House and also electing a stronger pro-worker majority of senators and representatives.
However, winning an election isn’t the end of the fight. Now, our elected leaders need to tckle the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. They have to keep their promises to the people who voted for them – and we have to give them the support they need to make the tough choices. We need an economic recovery package that will turn around this broken economy for working families with good jobs, green jobs, and re-regulation of our financial system and health care that works for all of us. But no matter what else we do, it won’t result in real shared prosperity unless we restore workers’ benefits. That’s what this proposed legislation, the Employee Free Choice Act, will do. The Employee Free Choice Act will:
·Put real teeth in the laws that are supposed to bar companies from intimidates, harassing – even firing – workers who want to form unions.
·Allow workers to form their union when a majority signs cards indicating that’s what they desire.
·Require arbitration to end corporate foot-dragging when workers try to get a first contract.
·Lets the workers, the employees decide if they want a secret ballot election for union organizing or if they want the faster card check method.
The Employee Free Choice Act will level the playing field that today leaves all the power in the hands of the corporation. It allows the workers to decide.
Big Business and the front groups set up by corporations are preparing an all-out, $200 million propaganda and lobbying war to block it. We must engage this fight!
Unions have made passage of the Employee Free Choice Act a top priority for this year because it is the key to good wages, benefits, a voice in the workplace and the amplified political voice unions bring workers. In 2007, the U.S. House passed the measure and it had majority support in the Senate, but a minority killed it with a filibuster, emboldened by President George W. Bush’s promise to veto the legislation. Now we have elected a new Congress that has promised to be beside us in this fight and a president who has promised to sign the Employee Free Choice Act.
Attached below is a short video from the AFL-CIO talking about the Employee Free Choice Act. For more information on the Employee Free Choice Act, talk with someone from the Citizen and Legislative Committee.
After being employed for more than 35 years, (25 of them as a Union member), I have a lot to look back on. In the non-union shop, I watched one of the best employees get fired just because the boss didn't like the appearance of the young man’s hair style. It was well kept and shoulder length. In the union shop, I have seen the union fight to get an employee’s job back more times than he deserved. He was an alcoholic, and ended up drinking himself to death. So, I've seen the good and the bad from both sides, and I'll tell everyone, that the union way, is the only way. I worked in a union plant for 9.5 years, when they closed the doors on us. Back then you needed 10 years to be vested. I'm telling you this because I want everyone to understand that my experiences are what are behind my thoughts today.
I want to know why the rank and file has to be on the cutting edge of today's economic recovery. We have witnessed the slap in the face the union took when they gave concessions to save jobs, only to see the upper management get that big bonus later, and more or less laugh in the face of the union. I want to know how many politicians own foreign cars. The union gathers support to help put them in office, and they should be supporting the union's “Made in America” products. I think the Solid House should do some research on this and report it out.
This union was built on solidarity, and it's time for us to show the world what solidarity is all about. The fact is, our union is losing strength and the membership is diminishing, and now is the time for us to roll up our sleeves, do our work to the best of our ability, and at the same time show our union strength. The only way this will happen is for all union dues paying employees to put some time into working with the union. The dues we pay is not enough, we need everyone to at least attend the local meetings, and put some time into helping out with the local committees. The union needs every member’s input to help up through theses hard times.
It seems to me that most people think when they pay their monthly dues the union will be satisfied and take care of their jobs and work environment, as well as, protect the benefits we all enjoy. Everyone should participate so the union can be most effective; this is what solidarity is all about.
We owe this not only to ourselves, but our future generations. We need to preserve what we have, to be sure that they will have it tomorrow.
This concludes my report.
In Solidarity, UWW Region 1-A Veterans Council Chairman Tony Keezer
