Over the past few weeks, the hardworking public service unit of Duval County Public School employees represented by AFSCME voted by mail for the recertification of their union.
In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy battered the east coast of the United States, causing billions of dollars in damage across 24 states. The hurricane quickly became known in the impacted region as “Superstorm Sandy.”
Shileen Shaw knows firsthand how the storm got that name.
“We had never seen anything like it,” says Shaw, recalling the damage her East Orange, New Jersey, home suffered at the time.
Workers Memorial Day is this Sunday, April 28, when we honor workers killed or injured on the job. On this day in 1971, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was formed.
For almost half a century, OSHA has been charged with helping to ensure safe and healthy working conditions for men and women across this country. But under the Trump administration, OSHA is failing us. As we observe Workers Memorial Day, it’s clear that we can do more – much more – for worker safety.
Megha Desai is a public defender in Multnomah County, Oregon. In a given week, she might work upwards of 60 hours. Right now, she has about 145 open cases.
“It's like a conveyor belt. Every day you work on your assigned cases, new ones roll in,” said Desai, a member of Local 2805 (Council 75). “There's a joke in the office: If you don't come in on the weekends, you’re screwed for the next week.”
The first weekend of April was an exception: It was her wedding.
All-knowing sources of information. Tour guides to the highways and byways of history. The friendly voice of a morning story time. If that’s all you think of when you think of your library staff, you’d do well to meet some of AFSCME’s library workers, whose reach goes far beyond their libraries’ walls.
Today is National Library Workers Day, when we honor those professionals who keep our libraries running: librarians, technicians and other staff, including custodians, security and maintenance workers.
Fifty-one years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. traveled to Memphis to help rally the community around 1,300 AFSCME sanitation workers who had gone on strike.
In the 1980s, I was living and going to school in Minnesota when women who worked for state government won a big victory. They got the state to increase the pay of women in “female dominated jobs” by passing a pay equity bill. In other words, they put a dent in the gender pay gap. As a student, I researched and wrote about the process of crafting, passing and implementing that legislation. And I learned something that I have never forgotten: the union made it happen. And not just any union. Our union: AFSCME.
Orlando – The men and women of AFSCME Florida Council 79 elected new officers at their convention, held March 29 to March 30 in Orlando. The new officers are as follows:
For almost four years, as attacks against organized labor reached a fever pitch nationwide, AFSCME members in Florida responded by launching a fierce and unprecedented organizing campaign unlike any the Sunshine State had seen before. Today, members started writing a new chapter in their union’s proud history by ratifying a new constitution on the first day of the AFSCME Florida Council 79's convention.
