AFL-CIO Day 2024 is on Thursday, December 5, 2024: CIO Day - How involved in organizing, negotiating, and grievance procedures in local unions is the AFL-CIO?

Thursday, December 5, 2024 is AFL-CIO Day 2024. AFL-CIO May Day 2014 Facebook Graphic AFL-CIO May Day 2014 Facebook

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Not at all, in most cases. It is the local's responsibility to handle those duties on a day-to-day basis. The AFL-CIO may provide support during negotiations if necessary, but locals usually have labor lawyers to help them out.

The AFL-CIO typically works at the national level for working families.

labor day?

Labor day is for celebrating the achievements of labor unions.

Back in the bad old days, there weren't a lot of protections for workers. They could be fired for any reason--fair or unfair; people worked in dangerous conditions without safety equipment; they slaved for terrible wages and if they asked for better pay they were fired. We can thank labor unions for: child labor laws, the weekend, the 8-hour workday, overtime, worker's compensation, fire escapes in factories, maternity leave, the minimum wage, and a lot more.

Of course, now big companies send the jobs to China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Guatemala and other developing nations where they don't have labor unions. People over there get screwed just like American laborers got screwed eighty years ago. If labor unions in those places can get a foothold, maybe some of those jobs will come back to U.S. soil. And the U.S. government could stick up for those foreign labor unions a lot more than they do now. It would really be in the best interest of U.S. workers.

You might want to watch the movie Norma Rae. It's based on the true story of a woman who helped bring the union into textile mills in S. Carolina. It won an Oscar and is very entertaining. Another good movie about American labor is Matewan, directed by John Sayles.

So today, thank unions like the AFL-CIO for much of your quality of life!

Why did Obama tell the AFL-CIO yesterday that the GOP has not offered any Health Care solutions?

Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know the Republicans have offered two ideas. One is tort reform to prevent malpractice suits, the other is to allow insurance companies to operate interstate. Other than those two things, Republican policy is simply to oppose Obama's plan.

Like Clinton (and Carter too, for that matter) Obama tried hard to be a post-partisan president, to bring both parties to the table to hammer out a compromise, to build a consensus. For their own political purposes the GOP refused to cooperate. Republicans have a longstanding policy of -never- cooperating with a Democratic president, even if it's for something they want themselves.

As I say, correct me if I'm wrong. And while you're at it, give me a list of all the ideas Republicans have had over the years to reform health care. HMOs. Medical savings accounts. I think that's about it.