May 13, 2008

 National Door-To-Door Canvass Targets

McCain Policies This Saturday

The AFL-CIO Political Department is coordinating a door-to-door canvassing campaign to let Americans know about John McCain's anti-worker policy proposals. 

ILCA members can attend and cover these media events for their union publications. Please contact your Central Labor Council for details.

Here is today's announcement:

On Saturday, May 17, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka and  Executive VP Arlene Holt Baker will join 6,200 union volunteers going door- to-door in 125 locations nationwide to discuss John McCain's anti-worker  record on key issues including health care, job creation and trade policy.   The massive door-to-door canvass, the only large-scale door-to-door  mobilization in the country targeting McCain’s wrongheaded plans and  proposals, will reach more than 200,000 union swing voters in 22  battleground states. 

Volunteers will focus on McCain’s health care proposals when visiting union  voters at the door, highlighting his intent to tax employer-based health  care, which would elevate costs and drastically reduce coverage.  McCain’s  plan also would push workers into the private market to fight big insurance companies on their own.

Door-to-door canvass locations open to media include:
Philadelphia, Pa. (10 a.m. -- AFL-CIO Sec. Treas. Richard Trumka attending)
Seattle, Wash. (9 a.m. -- AFL-CIO Exec. VP Arlene Holt Baker attending)
Miami, Fla. (9:30 a.m.)
Indianapolis, Ind. (9 a.m.)
Louisville, Ky. (9 a.m.)
Lewiston, Maine (8:30 a.m.)
Minneapolis, Minn. (9 a.m.)
St. Louis, Mo. (9 a.m.)
Manchester, N.H. (9 a.m.)
Albuquerque, N.M. (9 a.m.)
Cincinnati, Ohio (9 a.m.)
Cleveland, Ohio (9 a.m.)
Youngstown, Ohio (9 a.m.)

Indian Workers to Launch Hunger Strike May 14

Hundreds of Indian workers will launch a hunger strike this Wednesday to demand that the federal government investigate the guest worker program and abuse of post-Katrina Gulf Coast workers. The hunger strike follows a march from New Orleans to Washington by the workers, who escaped labor camps in Texas and Mississippi in March. "Guest workers from across the world are systematically exploited under the federal H2B visa program," says the New Orleans Worker Center for Racial Justice (NOWCRJ), which is supporting the workers. "They suffer abuses that routinely rise to the level of labor trafficking, forced labor, and involuntary servitude.  If they organize, they face violence and deportation."

The workers paid $20,000 to Indian and US recruiters for false promises of work-based permanent residency in the US, and instead the workers received ten-month H2B guest worker visas and worked in deplorable conditions.

“What happened to these workers wasn’t the exception—it was the rule,” said Tracie Washington, an attorney from the Louisiana Justice Project and a member of the workers’ legal team. “While hundreds of thousands of African-American workers were locked out of the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast, the guest worker program has locked workers like these in.”

Saket Soni of the NOWCRJ, said, “It’s time for Congress to wake up to the fact that the guest worker program is a path to an American nightmare.”

You can follow the workers' activities, sign up for a newsletter, and make financial contributions to the workers' cause on a new blog.  DC-based union activists will attend a rally to launch the workers' hunger strike on Wednesday in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House.
 

Solidarity Center Partnering With Burmese Unions To Provide Cyclone Relief

The Solidarity Center, the global nonprofit outreach arm of the AFL-CIO, already partners with the Federation of Trade Unions of Burma (FTUB) as part of its ongoing work to support unionization efforts worldwide. Now Burmese people are in desperate need of medicine, clothing, and non-perishable food following the devastating cyclone that ripped apart Rangoon and Irawaddy. The Solidarity Center is collecting donations for these and other items to be distributed through the FTUB's union and community contacts.

Please direct union members wishing to help this relief effort to the Solidarity Center's secure online donations page.

For members wishing to connect with an international non-governmental relief organization, OxFam America is committing $750,000 to the crisis relief efforts in Burma. Their online donation page is here.

The Kids Are All Right: New Survey Shows

18-29 Year Olds Largely Pro-Union

At the Better Deal conference in DC last week, ILCA Vice President Jason Lefkowitz learned something astonishing about 18-29 year olds: they think unions are a good thing. Lefkowitz reports on the conference and a new survey from the Center for American Progress which shows how much more progressive this generation--dubbed the Millenials--is than the preceding generations. 

5 Tips to Keep Your Wits (and Your Home)

ILCA Vice President Jennifer Wright of Union Privilege offers these tips for working families being hit by the mortgage crisis:
 
The home mortgage crisis has affected millions of working families. Here are five strategies you can use to protect your home.

• Be proactive. If you have an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM), call your lender now to find out when your rate will adjust, by how much, and how often this can happen. If your rate has already gone up and you may not be able to make your payment, contact your lender and ask if they will work out a plan that works for you.
  
• Worried you’re at risk of losing your home? Call the Union Plus Save My Home Hotline at 1-866-490-5361 for free, confidential advice from HUD-certified housing counselors. Face-to-face counseling is also available at more than 100 local offices in 22 states and the District of Columbia.
  
• The state you’re in. Many states have been moving faster than the federal government in offering assistance to homeowners in crisis. Contact your state government and ask what programs may be available.
  
• Give yourself credit. If your mortgage situation is part of an overall credit problem, call 1-877-733-1745 to schedule a free credit counseling session.
  
• Go union. The Union Plus Mortgage Program offers low closing costs and other benefits for union members and families. It’s the only program in the country with the Mortgage Assistance Program, which can cover your mortgage payment in the event of disability, strike, lockout or layoff. Call 1-800-848-6466.

For more of Union Privilege's well-researched information and resources on mortgages and avoiding foreclosure, click here.