The months-long tug of war within UNITE HERE continued in March as UNITE leaders seceded from the union, embraced a partnership with SEIU, and signaled they would form a new union to compete for members in HERE’s hotel and gaming jurisdictions—while snatching as many members as possible on the way out. . . .
With the two economies firmly interlocked, the United States’ biggest export to Mexico nowadays is economic meltdown. Mexico’s largest sources of revenue are oil sales, factory exports, remittances, and tourism. All are hit hard by the crisis north of the border. . . .
Billionaire fraudster Bernie Madoff may be behind bars, but his business model is alive and well. How can we keep high-flying bankers from pulling the same kind of bait-and-switch with taxpayers? Experts — from Nobel Prize-winning economists to Alan Greenspan, the libertarian former Federal Reserve chairman — admit that some kind of nationalization for failing banks is the best way out of this mess. . . .
The future of health care unions came into focus in March, with three major nurse unions combining, and bitter rivals SEIU and California nurses announcing a truce. But other state nurse groups decided to throw their own party . . . .
Just as worker centers are reporting an increase in calls and drop-ins, and ripe potential among members, some are facing funding shortfalls that jeopardize their work. . . .
As town leaders in Wallingford, Connecticut, grudgingly lined up to approve health care benefits for the school district’s paraprofessionals, they complained they felt browbeaten into taking their toughest vote ever.
Leaders of an independent union at the Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane Plantation and Industry Company were arrested by Iranian authorities in late February. The arrests come after the union’s successful protest of the election of the Islamic Labor Council at the plantation February 22. Only 30 of 5,000 workers voted. The government-controlled Councils are set up in every workplace in Iran, with employers’ help.
Reza Rakhshan was arrested at an intelligence office after being summoned by the government. His home was then raided and many of his personal and union possessions were confiscated. Two leaders had their homes raided and possessions seized; one, Rahim Boshagh, also was arrested earlier in the week. The officials are charged with acting against national security, the usual accusation leveled against social, political, and labor activists in the country. Their trials were hastily conducted and verdicts are pending.
The U.S. Department of Justice reports a new case of forced labor in Florida agriculture. This is the seventh confirmed case of forced labor in the last decade in the state.
The report describes poor working conditions as well as workers being chained to poles, beaten, robbed, and locked inside trucks. A 17-count federal indictment outlines how a dozen workers living on a farm were forced to sleep in trucks and shacks, went unpaid for their work, and had to pay for food and showers. The cases were reported at the Six L’s and Pacific Tomato Growers farms. Both the farms are certified by the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange Socially Accountable Farm Employers program, which is supposed to prevent labor abuses.
