Free Republic

The dynamics of the farm labor population have changed since César Chávez and others began organizing workers in California's fields. In the early 1960s, a guest-worker program that had imported workers from Mexico since the days of World War II was drawing to a close. Those who were left picking crops were largely legal residents or U.S. citizens of Mexican and Filipino descent, along with working-class white and black Americans. “Back then, probably 80 percent were documented, and about 20 percent were undocumented. Today it would be just the reverse,” said Arturo Rodriguez, president of United Farm Workers, the nation's...

Contrary to union leaders’ expectations, the vast majority of workers have no interest in joining a union. A Rasmussen Reports survey finds 81 percent of non-union workers do not want union representation. That compares to just 9 percent of workers who say they do want to join a union. Even among workers whose employers are laying off employees, interest in joining a union is low: Only 9 percent want to be members of a union. The results were based on surveys of 1,000 adults conducted March 13-14. The Rasmussen findings come as proponents of Big Labor prepare to introduce “card...

Paid Parental Leave Urge Senators to Support This First StepAsk your senators to support upcoming legislation to guarantee federal workers four weeks of paid parental leave for a new child, as a first step toward universal paid leave.Action Needed:Providing paid leave to parents is only fair to working families who need to both care for a new family member as well as maintain an income. Most industrialized nations have provided paid parental leave for decades.Paid parental leave for 2.7 million federal workers can be the model that we can work to achieve for the rest of the country. This important...

GM workers just don't get it(video)GM is facing almost sure bankruptcy. UAW members fail to accept any responsibility. They feel they have given "concession after concession" over the last twenty years. This flies in the face of a current contract worth over $70 thousand a year per employee. They feel they have given up everything they can in spite of refusing to take a base wage pay cut during the recent negotiations. The truth is the UAW failed to give any serious concessions in the recent bailout negotiations. They actually blame their fellow Americans for not buying their overpriced, poorly...

I probably should have just listened to Paul Harvey. Though it wasn’t actually Paul Harvey. It was Ron Chapman. And that’s probably the problem. I understand Ron Chapman is a radio legend somewhere, but I don’t live there. So, to me, he’s just an insufferable bore. But I should have been listening anyway. Instead I got an idea. An idea that had been kind of simmering in my head for a week or so. I was trying to think of a way to show that I wasn’t happy. That I was tired of bailouts. That I didn’t want to pay...

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 prohibits employers from offering workers paid time off as compensation for their overtime work. However, government and other public sector workers have long been privilege to this flexibility. Rep. Cathy McMorris has introduced the Family-Friendly Workplace Act so workers can find a balance between work and family

State law requires individuals (not corporations, LLCs or partnerships) who work as independent contractors in the building construction industry to obtain from the Department of Labor and Industry an Independent Contractor Exemption Certificate (ICEC). For purposes of the state workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, wage and hour, occupational safety and health laws, and state and federal tax withholding, individuals doing residential and commercial construction work without an ICEC will be considered employees of the contractor for whom they are working. These businesses are characterized as contracting, performing work and receiving compensation from another contractor. The ICEC is only required for independent...

While everyone is distracted with the Pelosi Reid Obama artery–choking, cardiac arrest, Pork Barrel Spending Bill, congress is sneaking-ly trying to pass the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009. Left-wing environmentalists are behind this bill to purposely undercut current progress toward affordable domestic energy. Essentially they will be stealing 300 million barrels of proven oil and 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from any future use.

Senate approves restriction on foreign hires The Senate voted Friday to restrict the hiring of foreign workers by banks that are receiving government bailout funds while undergoing vast layoffs. The legislation by Sens. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, would require the banks to seek American workers before turning to foreign nationals when they're hiring. It aims to prevent replacement of Americans by foreigners working under the H-1B visa program, which allows employers to bring in workers for high-skilled and advanced-degree jobs. The measure has a two-year life and if signed into law would apply to the...

“We know from polling that 77 percent of Republicans, 82 Percent of Democrats believe in protecting private ballots,” …. “The difference is, are these federal Senators and Representatives going to stand-up for workers rights in their state, or will they simply be pandering to the unions that gave over $600 million to the left this past cycle.”

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama, commencing face to face consultations with congressional leaders Monday, is embracing an unexpectedly large tax cut of up to $300 billion. Obama said the country faces an "extraordinary economic challenge." Besides $500 tax cuts for most workers and $1,000 for couples, the Obama proposal includes more than $100 billion for businesses, an Obama transition official said. The total value of the tax cuts would be significantly higher than had been signaled earlier.

Farm worker advocates and opponents of illegal immigration are blasting one of President George W. Bush's "midnight regulations" that will make it easier for agricultural employers to hire foreign workers. They say the changes undermine worker protections, exploit immigrants and set wage levels so low that domestic workers cannot compete with foreign workers for jobs. The regulation,which makes changes in the U.S. Labor Department's H-2A Temporary Agriculture Worker Program, allows agricultural employers to hire temporary foreign workers if not enough domestic workers are able or willing to fill farm jobs. The changes also promise to reduce paperwork and make processing...

Farmers would have an easier and cheaper time securing foreign guest workers under pending Bush administration rules. The controversial changes to the so-called H-2A guest-worker program could cut wages and speed worker recruitment. They also would relax requirements for providing foreign workers with housing and transportation. "The Department of Labor is going to weaken oversight and enforcement," Bruce Goldstein, the executive director of the Farmworker Justice Fund, charged Wednesday. A Labor Department spokesman said Wednesday night that the final rules would be made public Thursday and published in the Federal Register on Dec. 18, which means they'd take effect two...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5, 2008 – The Defense Department has launched a year-long pilot program to recruit about 1,000 non-U.S. citizen health care workers and language and cultural specialists for service in America’s military, a senior DoD official said here today. The new program targets people who don’t have “green cards” but do have visas and work permits. Those the military hopes to attract legally live and work in the United States and have capabilities highly valued by the military, Bill Carr, deputy undersecretary of defense for military personnel policy, told Pentagon Channel and American Forces Press Service reporters. “These are...

This is old but........We need a chuckle today! Video: Pelosi hired illegal immigrants for Napa Valley vineyard...

Indianapolis - Lines were long and tempers flared Wednesday not to vote but to get paid for canvassing for Barack Obama. Several hundred people are still waiting to get their pay for last-minute campaigning. Police were called to the Obama campaign office on North Meridian Street downtown to control the crowd. The line was long and the crowd was angry at times. "I want my money today! It's my money. I want it right now!" yelled one former campaign worker. A former spokesman for the Obama campaign said 375 people were hired as part of the Vote Corps program and...

The Alliance for Worker Freedom is dedicated to combating anti-worker legislation and promoting free and open labor markets. Their researchers and policy analysts have compiled a matrix that compares the two candidates.

Corporate India is in shock after a mob of workers bludgeoned to death the chief executive who sacked them from a factory in a suburb of Delhi. Lalit Kishore Choudhary, 47, the head of the Indian operations of Graziano Transmissioni, a manufacturer of car parts that has its headquarters in Italy, died of severe head wounds on Monday after being attacked by scores of laid-off employees, police said. The incident, in Greater Noida, followed a long-running dispute between the factory’s management and workers demanding better pay and permanent contracts. It is understood that Mr Choudhary, who was married with one...

Corporate India is in shock after a mob of sacked workers bludgeoned to death the chief executive who had dismissed them from a factory in a suburb of Delhi. Lalit Kishore Choudhary, 47, the head of the Indian operations of Graziano Transmissioni, an Italian-headquartered manufacturer of car parts, died of severe head wounds on Monday afternoon after being attacked by scores of laid-off employees, police said.

The chief executive of a company in Greater Noida, just outside Delhi, was on Monday beaten to death by a group of dismissed employees inside the office premises after a meeting called to resolve dispute between them and the management failed. L K Chaudhury, the CEO and managing director of Italian electronics company Gradiano, in Udyog Vihar, Greater Noida, was beaten to death by the agitating workers, senior superintendent of police (Noida) R K Chaturvedi said. Chaudhury was rushed to Kailash hospital where he was declared brought dead. About 34 people, all from the company's management, were injured in the...