Rich’s Label Blog

Speakers at the Union Label Convention in St. Louis uniformly cited the key role played by solidarity in their various campaigns. Among the speaker were APWU President Mark Dimondstein, BCTGM Secretary-Treasurer Steve Bertelli and Missouri State AFL-CIO President Mike...

Atrocious working conditions in non-union auto parts plants are described in a scathing article in Bloomberg Businessweek called “The New Detroit” from its March-April cover story. The cover photo was of a one-armed victim of an industrial accident beside this line:...

The body politic is crawling with dissent. Town meetings with legislators are uproarious with citizens of all political persuasions who are deeply concerned about their healthcare, Medicare, and Medicaid. Scientists are marching in defense of unbiased inquiry....

The body politic is crawling with dissent. Town meetings with legislators are uproarious with citizens of all political persuasions who are deeply concerned about their healthcare, Medicare and Medicaid. Scientists are marching in defense of unbiased inquiry....

Labor Day has great meaning to many. Yes, a three-day weekend filled with family gatherings, last-minute end of summer trips, barbecues and fun, but it means so much more to those of us in the Labor Movement. It’s a call to action. For the Union Label Department, it...

Social Security has a Union Label. The 1935 passage of the original Social Security act was preceded by long-term labor movement activism. Every subsequent improvement and extension of social security protection was moved forward by labor movement action. Protections for disabled workers, Medicare and Medicaid, all part of the Social Security program, were the result of pressure from the labor movement and its allies in government and beyond.

The split decision in the Friedrich’s case, an unveiled attack on public unions by rightwing opponents  to collective bargaining, produced a stalemate which leaves those rights as they were. In the event that the Supreme Court cannot reach a decision, the lower court...

If health care is a human right, then clean water is no less so. The two are closely intertwined. Yet, from Flint, Michigan, to Hoosick Falls, New York, to Fresno, California and hundreds more cities and towns nationally, water supplies are polluted and dangerous. The...

Some of our affiliates are using their union label to gin up business. The Bakery, Tobacco, Confectionery and Grain Millers Union has its label on baked goods, for example. The Painters union maintains a digital database of its business managers to encourage...

Labor Day falls on September 7, 2015, this year, and is also the day in history when the United States got its nickname Uncle Sam. “Uncle Sam” is linked to Samuel Wilson, a meat packer from Troy, New York, who supplied barrels of beef to the United States Army during...