Rich’s Label Blog

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...

President Obama has Fast Track Authority legislation in hand this will empower him to rush the Trans Pacific Partnership, a massive trade deal, through Congress to an up or down vote. And other trade deals lurk nearby. But he can disprove Lord Acton's aphorism,...

By Rich Kline, Union Label and Service Trades Department, AFL-CIO Ah, Labor Day. Picnics and parades, sales and vacations, what more could one ask for to celebrate the end of summer. Only, that isn’t what Labor Day is about. Labor Day, which originated in the late...

The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) threatens more than American jobs, its full impact could undermine the quality of life for all Americans. This free trade agreement, if signed by the US, will undermine food safety, Wall Street regulation, Buy American requirements...

Penny Pritzker's nomination by President Obama to serve as Secretary of Commerce is a slap in the face to the Labor Movement. Maybe the stinging blow will serve as a wakeup to the Administration's hypocritical stand on labor issues. Penny  Pritzker is a billionaire...

The Obama administration is pushing for passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with 11 Asian nations not including China. Meanwhile, the  ten-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations is pushing its own regional FTA and would...