Free Republic

Backers of the movement for higher pay point to studies saying that the average age of fast-food workers is 29 and that more than one-fourth are parents raising children. Simon Rojas, who earns $8.07 an hour working at a McDonald’s in South Central Los Angeles, said he would join Thursday’s one-day strike. “It’s very difficult to live off $8.07 an hour,” said Mr. Rojas, 23, noting that he is often assigned just 20 or 25 hours of work a week. “I have to live with my parents. I would like to be able to afford a car and an apartment.”...

The Obama administration has found a way to give unions relief from an Obamacare tax nearly three weeks after Republicans rejected a Democratic push to include the labor carve-out in the latest budget deal.The Department of Health and Human Services quietly released a final rule last week that includes an intention to exempt some union insurance plans from a substantial new tax known as the reinsurance fee.As part of Obamacare, the tax was supposed to be levied against all insurance plans to share the risk for insurers taking on the sickest patients next year.But unions, which were among the strongest...

In a shot across the bow of political moderates, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka threatened Monday to use Big Labor's resources to unseat any Democrat who supports entitlement reform. Trumka made the comments in a speech at the annual meeting International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans in Las Vegas. He was reacting to reports that lawmakers may pursue some type of restraint in the ever-rising costs of programs like Social Security and Medicare. "Let me just say this one for the record. No politician — I don’t care the political party — will get away with cutting Social Security, Medicare or...

In prepared remarks given in advance to the Huffington Post, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka warns Democrats against accepting any budget deal that includes cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, and even goes so far as to threaten to end the career of any politician who fails to heed his call. “No politician … I don’t care the political party … will get away with cutting Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits. Don’t try it,” Trumka says, according to the Huffington Post. “This warning goes double for Democrats,” he continues. “We will never forget. We will never forgive. And we...

A looming federal government shutdown is slated to take effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka released the following statement on the House Republicans' hostage taking: As of today, it is clear that the Republican Party and the Tea Party have become one and the same when it comes to federal fiscal policy. House Republicans have decided that they will shut down critical public services, stiff public servants, hold America’s credit rating hostage and kill off jobs because they are upset that President Obama decisively defeated Mitt Romney last November. That some Republicans are participating in this fiasco...

In six weeks there will be a little-followed election that could help determine the path for education reform in the United States for a long time to come. At issue is whether a local school board has the authority to tell the government employee union—you know, the forces of darkness that are preventing commonsense education reform in our schools? -- to take a hike. In July 2012, that’s exactly what Douglas County, Colorado school board decided. After months of negotiations the school board reached an impasse with the union as their contract expired. Previously the union has demanded that the...

The AFL-CIO has demonstrated again its penchant for forcing its members to support social causes...This time ...sex-change surgery and therapy. As The Washington Times notes, last week’s vote could result in mandated employee insurance coverage for such things as hormone therapy and sex-change surgery. ...creates a dilemma for the majority of the union's members, forcing them "to endorse a delusion." “Nobody is advocating that people who suffer from gender confusion be discriminated against ...but ...people who recognize biological reality should not be compelled to entertain an irrefutable biological delusion.” “Even Johns-Hopkins University, which was kind of at the forefront of...

With immigration legislation stalled in Congress, advocates are intensifying pressure on the Obama administration to act unilaterally to stop deportations or grant legal status to some of the 11 million people now living in the U.S. illegally. Activists are stepping up acts of civil disobedience like one last month in Phoenix, where they blocked a bus full of immigrant detainees. And labor leaders plan to press the issue with a top White House official in an upcoming meeting. … “If Congress doesn’t move, the president has a duty to act,” said Ana Avendano, director of immigration and community action at...

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says he hopes the White House will act within a week to address the growing concerns that labor unions have over the new health care law. … Unions want members to be eligible for the same federal subsidies available to low-income workers in the new health exchanges. …

The AFL-CIO needs to stick with representing workers and stop trying to take on social causes for the far left, said the union head for the International Association of Fire Fighters. Harold Schaitberger, who presides over the IAFF, said there is “great value” in aligning with political groups — but only as a secondary mission, he told The Hill. And the AFL-CIO’s recent push to bring in environmental groups and progressive-minded organizations to the union cause is leading the IAFF to express concerns about politics becoming the priority, over the representation of members. “To say that we are going to...

labor’s renewed anger over Mr. Obama’s health care law and decisions surrounding it, especially the postponement of an employer mandate to ensure coverage for workers and the potential effects of the coming health insurance exchanges on existing plans. “If the Affordable Care Act is not fixed and it destroys the health and welfare funds that we have fought for and stand for, then I believe it needs to be repealed,” said Terence M. O’Sullivan, president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America. “We don’t want it to be repealed. We want it to be fixed, fixed, fixed. “We’ve had...

Capitol Hill Republicans are trying to stop the Obama administration from offering labor unions a sweetheart deal on ObamaCare, as the White House tries to quell a simmering rebellion from Big Labor over the health care law. President Obama and White House officials reportedly have called union leaders to try and persuade them to tone down their complaints, pledging an accommodation. The AFL-CIO, though, on Wednesday approved a resolution anyway calling the law "highly disruptive" to union plans. But reports have surfaced on a plan that would give union workers -- and only union workers -- subsidies to help pay...

The AFL-CIO approved a resolution saying that President Obama's health care overhaul will drive up the costs of union-sponsored health plans to the point that workers and employers are forced to abandon them. In a strongly worded resolution released Wednesday, the federation said that labor unions still support the Affordable Care Act's overall goals of reducing health costs and bringing coverage to all Americans, but added that the law is being implemented in a way that is "highly disruptive" to union health care plans. Some individual unions have complained about the law's impact for months, but the resolution marks the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The AFL-CIO on Wednesday approved a resolution critical of parts of President Barack Obama's health care law in spite of efforts by White House officials to discourage the labor federation from making its concerns so prominent. The strongly worded resolution says the Affordable Care Act will drive up the costs of union-sponsored health plans to the point that workers and employers are forced to abandon them. Labor unions still support the law's overall goals of reducing health costs and bringing coverage to all Americans, the resolution says, but adds that the law is being implemented in a...

LOS ANGELES — White House officials have been calling union leaders about a resolution critical of ObamaCare that is set to pass on Wednesday at the AFL-CIO convention. Union leaders have been tight-lipped about the calls coming from Washington, but at least one labor official said he understands that the Obama administration has been watching the resolution’s progress and expressing a desire that it not move forward.

The AFL-CIO on Monday opened the door to becoming a group that is more representative of the left than of its members. Facing what AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka called a “crisis” of membership, officials took the dramatic step at their annual convention of adopting a resolution that invites anyone in the country to join, regardless of union affiliation. The move faced stiff resistance from union officials who fear the AFL-CIO’s primary mission of representing workers will be left behind if the federation becomes a mouthpiece for liberal and progressive groups. Despite the resistance, the resolution was adopted without a single...

The AFL-CIO needs to stick with representing workers and stop trying to take on social causes for the far left, said the union head for the International Association of Fire Fighters. Harold Schaitberger, who presides over the IAFF, said there is “great value” in aligning with political groups — but only as a secondary mission, he told The Hill. And the AFL-CIO’s recent push to bring in environmental groups and progressive-minded organizations to the union cause is leading the IAFF to express concerns about politics becoming the priority, over the representation of members. “To say that we are going to...

You better at least get ready. There’s a buzz being fed. Warren gave a speech to the AFL-CIO today, and the “draft Warren” talk is starting. Elizabeth Warren is totally wowing @AFLCIO convention, Wonder if she'll enter the race if Hillary, for some reason, doesn't run. #AFLCIO13— Steven Greenhouse (@greenhousenyt) September 8, 2013 @greenhousenyt Outstanding speech. I would not be surprised at all if Draft Warren groups sprung up in Iowa, New Hampshire. — Mike Conrad (@mikeconrad1) September 8, 2013 @greenhousenyt @AFLCIO DEAR GOD YES, PLEASE, YES, OMG, THAT'S WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN #DRAFTSENWARREN (sorry for the caps!) — Organize...

In the past several months, the left and their media minions have pushed back against claims businesses are trimming worker hours to avoid ObamaCare. During a recent interview, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said employers are "restructuring their workforce to give workers 29 and a half hours so they don't have to provide them healthcare."

First came the news that 40,000 Longshoremen have quit the AFL-CIO because they have finally figured out that Richard “Fifth Amendment” Trumpka and his gang has been screwing them. The final wakeup call came with Trumpka’s support of both Obamacare and amnesty disguised as “immigration reform.” The dockworkers have come to recognize this two headed monster will destroy them and they opted to vote for a break from union control with their feet. While the official reasons for the mass pull out sound like these men are leaving because the AFL-CIO isn’t liberal enough, don’t believe it for a minute....