Labor News Feed

Throughout National Hispanic Heritage Month, the AFL-CIO will be profiling labor leaders and activists to spotlight the diverse contributions Hispanics and Latinos have contributed to our movement. Today's profile covers Dora Cervantes.

In nearly 30 years in the labor movement, Cervantes has participated in nearly every aspect of the fight for the rights of working people, and she has a distinguished career that is still going stronger than ever. Cervantes joined the labor movement in 1989, when she became a reservations agent for Southwest Airlines in Houston. Before long, she was an active member of Machinists (IAM) Local 2198, serving as an organizer, shop steward, recording secretary and then vice president.

After a decade of dedicated service, she was chosen to serve as an apprentice organizer for Air Transport District 142 and then became a general chairperson for the district the following year. Tom Buffenbarger, then-IAM international president, later appointed her to serve on IAM's 2002 Blue Ribbon Commission. In the following years, she served as a special representative in the Transportation Department of the IAM Grand Lodge and then Grand Lodge representative.

In 2012, Cervantes was chosen to serve as assistant secretary to then-IAM General Secretary-Treasurer Robert Roach Jr. The next year, she became the first Hispanic woman to serve as a general vice president for IAM. In 2015, she became IAM's 12th general secretary-treasurer, the first woman to direct the union's finances. She continues in this capacity today.

She also serves as a national board member for the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, is an active member of the Coalition of Labor Union Women, is a member of United Against Human Trafficking and is a trustee for the National IAM Benefit Trust Fund and the IAM National 401(k) Plan.

Cervantes holds a bachelor of arts degree in labor studies from the National Labor College and helps teach the Spanish leadership series for the William W. Winpisinger Education and Technology Center and the IAM-Aviation High School Partnership Program.

Cervantes spoke to IAM's ViewPoints program in 2015:

This post originally appeared on the AFL-CIO blog in 2018.

More than six months have passed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., and more workers across America are joining together in solidarity to create changes in our workplaces. Minneapolis is one city that has seen a wave of worker actions and organizing wins in the hospitality sector, and the labor movement’s successes there will undoubtedly inspire workers in other parts of the country who are looking to form a union

As the Minneapolis hospitality sector moved to reopen this past spring, many service workers began to harness their collective voice to protect their health and safety on the job. Workers at Tattersall Distilling (pictured above) were the first to announce their intention to unionize in June, citing concerns over coronavirus protections as well as pay and benefits. After a series of well-attended community rallies in support of their organizing attempt, Tattersall’s front-end and bottling workers voted to form a union with UNITE HERE Local 17. Employees at Stilheart Distillery, Lawless Distilling and Fair State Brewing followed shortly after, announcing earlier this month that they too had voted to form unions at their respective workplaces.

Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou (UFCW), president of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation (MRLF), pointed out that the murder of George Floyd and the nationwide grief over his death prompted many of these workers to fight against disparities in their workplaces. Despite words of condemnation about Floyd’s death from local restaurant and bar owners, workers in many establishments believed that not enough action was being taken to foster equality at work. “What I’m hearing from workers, it’s not just about health and safety. It’s about disparities in our workplaces as well,” Glaubitz Gabiou explained. “These bosses would pay lip service, but their words weren’t living up to their actions.”

The renewed effort to organize workers in the Minneapolis hospitality and entertainment sectors was started in part by a unique program to support laid-off workers. The MRLF-led community services program uses organizers to help workers in need access unemployment benefits and health insurance, while also engaging them in organizing conversations and developing potential organizing leads. The relief effort for laid-off workers in the hospitality and entertainment sectors is a partnership between the labor council and its affiliates, including Local 17.

The Minnesota AFL-CIO has also been involved in these campaigns, sharing its expertise and working behind the scenes to help drive turnout in support of workers’ actions. “Worker safety is community safety,” said state federation Organizing Director Todd Dahlstrom (SEIU).

UNITE HERE Local 17 has taken the lead on these organizing wins, and the local and state labor bodies have been working closely with the union’s officers and members. Local 17’s secretary-treasurer, Sheigh Freeberg, said that working in partnership with the MRLF and the Minnesota AFL-CIO has allowed his union to extend its resources. “It’s been really helpful to brainstorm with them on safety provisions and keep each other updated,” Freeberg said. “What we’ve been able to accomplish can be attributed to them, too.”

Last weekend, workers at Spyhouse Coffee went on a one-day unfair labor practice strike over their safety concerns. Organizers on the ground report that progress is already underway at their cafes across the city. Further organizing leads are being pursued, and with such outstanding progress across Minneapolis, there are likely to be more victories for workers in the days and weeks ahead.

As a candidate, Donald Trump promised to protect workers and fight for us. President trump hasn't lived up to that noble rhetoric. The Economic Policy Institute reports on 50 ways that the Trump administration has been bad for workers. 

The authors of the study said:

The Trump administration’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic marks the administration’s most glaring failure of leadership. However, the administration’s response to the pandemic is in no way distinct from its approach to governing since President Trump’s first day on the job. The administration has systematically promoted the interests of corporate executives and shareholders over those of working people and failed to protect workers’ safety, wages and rights.

Read the full report to find out all 50 of the ways Trump has been bad for working people.

Working people across the United States have stepped up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our regular Service + Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.

On a Thursday in March, when much of the country was being told to shelter in place due to the effects of COVID-19, members of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART) Local 24 in Ohio were beginning to modify and transform Critical Care Decontamination System (CCDS) units to disinfect personal protective equipment (PPE), including N95 masks for health care workers. By Monday, SMART members at Wolf Metals had created four units, with more created since then, to help combat the spread of COVID-19 among front-line health care workers. Local 24 Business Manager Rodney French credited the local union’s partnership with Wolf Metals and noted, “This is the kind of work sheet metal workers were built to do as we stand on the leading edge of the response to this deadly pandemic.” He added, “No matter what the consequences, the men and women of this organization will stand ready to serve our local communities through thick and thin.”

In a partisan 3-2 vote, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved rule changes that will make it harder for investors to hold corporate CEOs accountable by filing shareholder proposals on environmental, social and governance issues. The AFL-CIO strongly opposed these rule changes as a threat to shareholder democracy.

"Corporate CEOs are rejoicing in reaction to Trump’s SEC vote to restrict the ability of investors to file shareholder proposals,” explained AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka (UMWA). “As a result, working people’s retirement plans will be disenfranchised from having a voice for corporate accountability. This will not stand!”

Today’s SEC vote is not the only effort by the Trump administration to undermine the voting rights of working people’s retirement plans. Earlier this month, the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration proposed new regulations to suppress proxy voting by retirement plans in corporate elections.

Proxy voting is the right to vote at shareholder meetings. It includes voting on important issues such as the election of directors, executive compensation and shareholder proposals on environmental, social and governance issues. For more than three decades, the Labor Department has recognized that the right to vote is a valuable asset.

If adopted, the Labor Department’s new proposed rule making will require that retirement plans first conduct an expensive economic analysis before casting any proxy vote. In effect, the proposed rule’s cost-benefit analysis requirement will act as a deterrent to proxy voting by retirement plans—a form of voter suppression.

Even more radically, the proposed rule encourages retirement plans to always vote with corporate management or to refrain from voting altogether. Such a rule will effectively urge retirement plans to violate their fiduciary duty to cast votes in the best interests of retirement plan participants and beneficiaries.

The AFL-CIO strongly believes the retirement savings of working people are our deferred wages and should be voted in our long-term interests. As the corporate scandals of the Enron and WorldCom era showed, the corporate governance of a company is arguably just as important as a company’s financial performance.

Comments on the Department of Labor’s proposed rule on Fiduciary Duties Regarding Proxy Voting and Shareholder Rights are due on Oct. 5.

Working people across the United States have stepped up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our regular Service + Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.

Last Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a package of bills to expand worker protections. The new state laws will provide a workers’ compensation presumption for front-line workers who are afflicted with infectious diseases on the job and a requirement for employers to give timely notification of COVID-19 cases in the workplace. The California Labor Federation, under the leadership of Executive Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski (IAM), took charge of the fight for these new policies. “Since the pandemic began, the California labor movement has strongly advocated for the most robust worker protection policies in the country. Today’s signing of a package of bills to bolster worker protections as the COVID-19 crisis continues shows our commitment as a state to policies that put the health and safety of workers first,” Pulaski said. “While more work must be done in 2021 to strengthen protections to ensure essential workers putting their lives at risk return home safely to their families after each shift, today the governor gave a much-needed boost to all workers across the state.”

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finally acknowledged airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 disease. But this long awaited recognition was promptly retracted from its website Monday morning with the message, “Posted in error.”

The initial, quiet posting on Friday was not an error; they were facts, based on evidence that reflects our current state of knowledge and supported by scientists and occupational safety and health professionals throughout the world. Early in the pandemic, evidence suggested SARS-CoV-2 spread distances through the air, and the current science is now overwhelming. 

In basic terms, “airborne” transmission means that small virus particles we emit when we cough, speak or breathe can travel distances through the air, linger in the air and make others sick, compared to person-to-person contact and “droplet” transmission, which refers to the large, heavy particles that fall down after they are exhaled. Airborne viruses can spread rapidly throughout groups and are much more contagious than those limited to droplet transmission. Environments that put workers at greater risk of airborne viruses include: 

• Indoor environments.
• Poorly ventilated spaces.
• Crowded conditions.
• Settings with individuals known to be infected (e.g., health care).

Viruses like the one causing COVID-19 can be transmitted through contact, droplet and airborne routes, which have very important implications for protecting workers on the job. Cleaning measures are useful to protect against “contact” and some simple personal protective equipment like face shields and gowns are useful to protect against “droplet” splashes, but the airborne aspect requires stronger workplace protections, including: 

• Reducing the number of people in a setting.
• Spacing people far apart.
• Reducing the time that people spend in the same spaces.
• Ensuring adequate ventilation.
• Reorganizing the workplace, break times and schedules.
• Using certified respirators that filter small aerosolized particles for workers in high-risk settings.

In addition to elements that are critical for workers no matter the transmission:

• Early identification and reporting to local health authorities of COVID-19 cases in the workplace.
• Notification of COVID-19 cases to employees and non-punitive leave protections.
• Adequate training programs.

The CDC is ignoring airborne transmission because they don’t want to admit there is evidence that:

1. Soundly supports strong, comprehensive and enforceable safety protections that go beyond sanitation recommendations, generic masks and the “six-foot rule.”
2. Soundly supports the critical need for certified respiratory protection that filters out small, aerosolized particles for many high-risk workers.

The labor movement has been advocating for these strong workplace safety protections throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. We will continue calling on the Donald Trump administration to issue a strong, comprehensive OSHA emergency temporary standard for COVID-19 to require and enforce those safety protections, and to use the Defense Production Act to produce more certified respirators needed to protect workers in high-risk settings since there is a continuing shortage. The Trump administration's CDC has once again let working people down, caving to Big Business pressure instead of issuing clear information on transmission that would save lives and improve livelihoods. More than six months into the pandemic, workers still do not have the protections we need and the Trump administration is still playing political games with workers’ lives.

Working people across the United States have stepped up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our regular Service + Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.

Nurses bring their healing touch with them wherever they go, and on Thursday members of Shore Nurses Union/NYSNA in New Jersey added a touch of sweetness to the Operation Feed Atlantic City food-distribution program with a donation of 500 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies that will help lift the spirits of laid-off union members and the Atlantic City community. Operation Atlantic City, hosted by the New Jersey State AFL-CIO and now in its eighteenth week, is one of the largest labor-sponsored food relief efforts in the United States. “We’re proud that our unions are part of the largest continuous food-distribution program in the state since the pandemic started,” said state federation President Charles Wowkanech (IUOE). “We're here because the need is still great. We still have thousands of people out of work, struggling to keep the roof over their heads and food on the table.”

Throughout National Hispanic Heritage Month, the AFL-CIO will be profiling labor leaders and activists to spotlight the diverse contributions Hispanics and Latinos have contributed to our movement. Today's profile features Ernesto Galarza.

Ernesto Galarza was born in Jalcocotán, Nayarit, Mexico, in 1905 and immigrated to California with his family after the Mexican Revolution began. As a youth, he assisted his family during harvest season, gathering his first experience as a farmworker. Because he had learned English in school, other Mexican migrant workers asked him to speak to management about polluted drinking water, providing him with his first experience in organizing and activism.

Galarza attended Occidental College on a scholarship and worked summers as a farm laborer and cannery worker. After graduation, he attended Stanford University and earned a master's degree in history and political science. He continued his graduate studies while on a fellowship at Columbia University, where several of his research reports were published. 

Because of his experiences and education, he began to focus his efforts on improving the living conditions of working-class Latinos. This led to him being hired by the Pan American Union (later the Organization of American States) as a research associate. When the union created a Division of Labor and Social Information, Galarza was chosen to lead it. 

In the late 1940s, he was recruited by the National Farm Labor Union, which later became the United Farm Workers, to be director of research and education. Over the next several years, he helped direct numerous strikes and fought back against "right to work" laws. He became a leading figure in exposing abuse of Mexican American workers in government. 

In the ensuing years, Galarza became a leading writer on the plight of Mexican and Mexican American workers and the abuse of farmworkers. During his career, he wrote more than 100 publications and was a professor at the University of Notre Dame, San Jose State University, University of California, San Diego, and University of California, Santa Cruz. 

As an activist, scholar and organizer, it is hard to overstate the impact Galarza had on working-class Mexican American families and our broader culture.

This post originally appeared on the AFL-CIO blog in 2018.

Next up in our series that takes a deeper look at each of our affiliates is the United Steelworkers.

Name of Union: The United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union (USW)

Mission: The values upon which the USW was founded in 1942 still guide the organization today. These include: 

• Uniting in one organization, regardless of creed, color or nationality, all workmen and working women eligible for membership.
• Increasing the wages and improving the conditions of employment of members by legislation, joint agreements or other legitimate means.
• Securing equitable statutory old-age pension, workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance laws.
• Enforcing existing just laws and to secure the repeal of those which are unjust.
• Securing, by legislative enactment, laws protecting the limbs, lives and health of members, protecting their right to organize and other legislation as will be beneficial.

Current Leadership of Union: Thomas M. Conway has served as the international president of the USW since July 15, 2019. Prior to that, he served as the international vice president (administration) since 2005. Born to a New Jersey union household, Conway began his union career in 1978 after serving in the U.S. Air Force.

John E. Shinn serves as international secretary-treasurer, David McCall as international vice president (administration), Fred Redmond as international vice president (human affairs), and Ken Neumann as national director for Canada. Roxanne Brown and Leeann Foster also serve as USW international vice presidents.

Number of Members: 850,000.

Members Work As: USW members work in the steel, aluminum, iron ore, cement, glass, rubber, paper and paper products, oil, chemical and manufacturing industries, as well as in mining and other metals. They work as health care workers, professors, bank workers,  grocery workers, security guards, electricians, pharmaceutical workers, public servants and much more.

Industries Represented: Atomic, chemical, education, energy and utilities, glass, molders, pottery, plastics, health care, pharmacies and pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, metals, mining, oil and petroleum, paper and forestry, public employees, rubber and tires, transportation and more.

History: Watch this video or read more at the USW website.

Current Campaigns/Community Efforts: Solidarity Works Podcast, USW @ Work and Other Publications, Fair Trade and various ways to engage in activism with USW.

Learn More: Website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube.