Idaho AFL-CIO

 

Tefere Gebre’s American journey: From refugee camp to labor leader

Gebre was still a boy when he was forced to flee Ethiopia, a country that suffered political turmoil and famine during the 1980s.

Trump’s Power to Fire Federal Workers Curtailed by Judge

A federal district judge in Washington struck down most of the key provisions of three executive orders that

Executive Paywatch: The Gap Between CEO and Worker Compensation Continues to Grow

CEO pay for major companies in the United States rose nearly 6% in the past year, as income inequality and the outsourcing of good-paying American jobs have increased. According to the new AFL-CIO Executive Paywatch, the average CEO of an S&P 500 Index company made $13.94 million in 2017—361 times more money than the average U.S. rank-and-file worker.

‘We Are All Immigrants’

Tefere Gebre came to the United States in 1984 as a teenager. He and four friends had left their home in war-torn Ethiopia and walked nearly 500 miles across the desert to a refugee camp in Sudan.

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Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect, 2018

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Midterms Labor Candidates are Shaking Up the Status Quo and Standing Up for Workers

Labor has always held electoral power, especially when wielded by women. Former Secretary of Labor Francis Perkins’s lifelong dedication to workers’ rights was sparked by witnessing the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911, in which 146 people — predominantly young Jewish immigrant women — died, most as a result of locked factory doors. Though they shunned the ballot box, legendary political radicals like Lucy Parsons, Emma Goldman, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn were all labor organizers.

Listen to Liz Shuler on Women Rule Podcast

Labor union leaders Liz Shuler and Mary Kay Henry discuss how they rose up through the union ranks and what they’re trying to do to increase the number of women in the labor movement. Shuler, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, and Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, also weigh in on recent Supreme Court decisions, Brett Kavanaugh's nomination, and what that all means for the future of the labor movement.

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In Labor-friendly Seattle, Unions Push for New Territory

As Labor Day approached, the movement that created the holiday flexed its muscle in Seattle, where the landscape has been transformed in the last few years by labor-backed measures protecting and compensating people like in few other places across the country.

Is Trump a Champion of Workers? His Anti-union Policies Indicate Otherwise

President Donald Trump has presented himself as a champion of the American worker and vowed to restore factory jobs.

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Lyndon Baines Johnson Signs the Medicare Bill

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