Workday Magazine (https://workdaymagazine.org/category/policy/page/62/)
The devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, especially on African-Americans in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, briefly opened the nation’s eyes to issues of race, class and poverty, a panel in Washington said.
More than half the workers at the Smurfit-Stone Container plant here will lose their jobs when the company eliminates its corrugated cardboard line later this month.
Media reports that Ford has decided to shut down the Twin Cities Assembly Plant are speculative and probably unfounded, Rob McKenzie, president of UAW Local 879, said Friday.
United Auto Workers members were hit with a one-two punch in late November, as bankrupt Delphi Auto Parts disclosed its latest wage proposals – which would put its lowest-paid workers’ wages slightly above Wal-Mart’s average – while GM proposed shutting plants and cutting 30,000 jobs by 2007-2008.
Low-wage earners and people on fixed incomes will be especially hard hit by soaring prices for natural gas and heating oil this winter. State Senator Ellen Anderson, DFL-St. Paul, is holding special hearings of the Jobs, Energy & Community Development Committee to gather information about this impending crisis.
The state’s Apprenticeship Advisory Council opposes a proposed rule change that construction unions say would enrich contractors but reduce wages for apprentices.
More than one-third of U.S. families, who now list themselves among the nation’s “haves,” fear becoming poor, a new survey shows. And that fear, along with virtual unanimity that poverty is a problem, should spur wide dialogue on what to do about it, survey sponsors contend.
It’s bad enough that 180 people will be out of a job when Diamond Products shuts its manufacturing plant in downtown St. Paul.
What makes it worse, some workers say, is that Mayor Randy Kelly seems more interested in the redevelopment potential of the site than he does in keeping good manufacturing jobs in the city.
Social Security is the only form of life insurance covering most American children, an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute has found.
Minnesota citizens need to lead America in a renewable energy revolution that rejects unsustainable policies favoring fossil fuels, Congresswoman Betty McCollum said in a keynote speech Saturday at the St. Paul Labor Center.