Our ability to make good decisions is predicated on having good information. Harry Kelber has been involved in Labor for 70 years, and he knows something you don't. Find out what it is in this series of columns orignially penned for Harry's laboreducator.org.
March 26, 2009
It is amazing that, with the AFL-CIO convention less than six months away, there has been no public challenge to a clause in the AFL-CIO Constitution that gives each international union thousands of convention votes while it limits affiliated state federations and central labor councils to one vote each.
March 24, 2009
It may seem strange that in the 123 years since the founding of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), no officer or member of either an affiliated state federation or central labor council has ever been elected to the policy-making AFL-CIO Executive Council.
March 19, 2009
The presidents of big international unions hold down some of the cushiest jobs in America and, although many of them are getting close to eighty, have health problems and have had to cut down on their activity, they don’t want to give up their jobs.
March 17, 2009
On March 11, I spotted a full-page ad in The New York Times that featured a statement by Larry Summers, President Obama’s chief economic adviser, which said: “Another cause of long-term unemployment is unionization
March 12, 2009
One day after the Employee Free Choice Act was introduced in both the House and Senate, Larry Summers, President Obama’s chief economic adviser, was quoted in a full-page ad in The New York Times as saying: “Another cause of long-term unemployment is unionization.
March 10, 2009
There is nothing illegal about the AFL-CIO officers and Executive Council spending their March 3-5 meeting at the Fontainebleu Hotel in Miami Beach, where a single room goes for $324 a day plus tax
March 5, 2009
The AFL-CIO Executive Council, sounding an upbeat note at its winter meeting in Florida on March 3-5, issued a statement that said “the labor movement is poised to make significant strides in turning around decades of decline.
March 3, 2009
President Obama and Democrats in Congress have assured the nation’s labor leaders that they are in favor of enacting the Employee Free Choice Act, but nearly six weeks have passed since the January 20 inauguration without a sign that the EFCA will become law in the near future.
February 24,2009
There is no rulebook on trusteeships. The subject is not even mentioned in the AFL-CIO Constitution. In decades past, it was hardly used.
February 19, 2009
The presidents of the nation’s largest unions, representing both the AFL-CIO and the rival CTW, met in January to decide under what terms and conditions the American labor movement could be reunited.
February 10, 2009
The financial damage coming out of the Bernard Madoff investment scandal is now spreading from charities and wealthy individuals to labor union pension funds. In recent days, several union leaders have confessed to being caught up in Madoff’s investment scheme, which will result in massive pension losses to their members.
February 5, 2009
How does a union fight a tough employer who demands concessions before he negotiates in good-faith bargaining for a contract? Frankly, the union has only three options, none of them attractive: it can exist without a contract; it can make some concessions, keeping them to a minimum, or it can take its members out on strike.
February 3, 2009
It’s safe to say that just about every member of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win would like to see a united labor movement. So how and why did the split in labor’s ranks develop? Why did the leaders of seven international unions decide to break away from the AFL-CIO and form their own labor federation? Let’s begin by reviewing the past that can shed some light on labor’s future.
January 29, 2009
In 1997, the AFL-CIO established the American Center for International Labor Solidarity by merging its four regional institutions that had operated around the world. Solidarity Center stated its mission: “to help build a global labor movement by strengthening the economic and political power of workers around the world through effective, independent and democratic unions.”
January 27, 2009
The questions will not go away: Why are our workers the only group in America that doesn’t have the right to join a union without serious personal risk? No matter what your occupation, you have the right to form or become a member of any organization — as long as it’s not a trade union!
January 22, 2009
After years of national debate, health-care insurance remains one of the most pressing problems facing our nation.While there is a consensus that the health insurance system needs to be reformed and that every American should have coverage, there is no agreement about which plan to choose, how comprehensive it should be, how it would be operated, and what it would cost.
January 20, 2009
Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States at noon on Jan. 20, in a ceremony that was watched — and applauded — by people around the world. The event was the climax of an extraordinary journey that Obama undertook, starting out as an African-American community organizer in Chicago, then surmounting a series of incredibly daunting obstacles and finally defying the Washington Establishment, to win the presidency with a near-landslide majority. As one pundit put it: “Obama climbed the Mount Everest of American politics.”
January 15, 2009
You should feel comforted that you’re being protected by people you’ll probably never see, who are supposed to be looking out for your interests. Surely, you must have heard about the AFL-CIO Executive Council. But who are its members, how do they get elected and what do they actually do?
January 13, 2009
The national and international unions that founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1886 made sure they would retain total control of the organization and never face an internal challenge from a state or local affiliate.
January 8, 2009
Immediately after winning the AFL-CIO presidency in 1995, John Sweeney and his allies on the Executive Council developed a strategy to expand their control over the labor federation and avoid any possible challenge to them in a future election.
January 6, 2009
After nearly five years of failing to get Congress to approve the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), the leadership of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win hope to reach their goal early in 2009, mainly because President-elect Barack Obama and a majority in both houses of Congress are pledged to vote for it That’s the least they can do for the unions that spent $300 million to help getting them elected, not counting the tens of thousands of volunteers who worked in their behalf.