AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka discusses why America needs a strong labor movement and how the Biden administration is committed to strengthening unions.
Half a century after Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act, labor advocates say the agency in charge of enforcing the landmark law is failing to protect American workers during the coronavirus pandemic. "We lag behind the rest of the world when it comes to health and safety on the job," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said this week in a conference call. "OSHA has been absent."
Joint employers are important. Temporary and other staffing agencies filled over 3 million jobs last year in the United States and it is estimated that 15 million temporary and contract workers interact with these agencies every year. These agencies do not only help find employment opportunities for workers; some help people learn skills that can assist them in eventually advancing their careers.
“The AFL-CIO is joining this lawsuit to force the Trump administration to do what it should have done months ago — protect American workers by dramatically increasing the supply of the PPE they need to work safely during this pandemic,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a news release. “The failure to do so is immoral and inexcusable, and we demand action now.
People's World
on Wednesday, October 7 2020 - 4:50pm
The GOP Trump administration’s massive job safety and health deregulation and its lack of enforcement have worsened the toll of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S., the AFL-CIO says. In a Zoom press conference on Death On The Job 2020, the federation’s 29th annual report on job safety and health, federation President Richard Trumka blamed GOP Oval Office occupant Donald Trump for that. He said Trump left “millions vulnerable to infection, and in far too many cases, death.”
The Washington Post
on Wednesday, October 7 2020 - 3:49pm
The complaint is another sign of the frustration over the treatment of workers under the Trump administration, and it places the United States in the realm of potential wrongdoing typically occupied by less-developed and less-democratic countries. “Covid has laid bare what we already knew,” Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO said in an interview. “It has demonstrated that not only is the U.S. violating workers’ rights, but those violations are resulting in people dying. It became so outrageous that we wanted to file a complaint.”
When companies conduct business overseas to avoid fees and taxes in a country, it is called ‘offshoring.’ The Trump Administration, through the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, has encouraged offshoring. Between 2016 and 2018 the United States lost 1,800 factories and since February 2020 alone we have lost 740,000 manufacturing jobs.
Bob Kutz leads a life in service to his Union sisters and brothers, the city of Altoona, the Blair-Bedford Labor Council, and our entire Nation.
After getting his degree in Electrical Engineering from Penn State, "Uncle Sam came knocking," Bob said. That led to a year of active duty during the Vietnam War and five years with the United States Army Reserves in Pennsylvania. When he was in the Reserves in 1970, he also began working as an Apprentice with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 5.
