AFL-CIO
Representing manufacturing, production, maintenance and sanitation workers in the baking, confectionery, tobacco and grain milling industries.
bctgm, bakers union, tobacco union, candy union, food workers, food workers union, grain millers, grain millers union, mondelez, nabisco, snack union,
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by Celeste Drake, AFL-CIO Trade and Globalization Policy Specialist By now, you’ve probably heard of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). You might have heard that some businesspeople think it’s a great deal, while average working families—and those who stand with us—think it only works if you’re already at the top. If you’ve been reading our blog regularly, then you know NAFTA is being renegotiated. That means working people like us have an opportunity to fix it. And we laid out the...

23 August, 2017

Statement by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on his and Thea Lee’s resignation from President Trump’s council on manufacturing: We cannot sit on a council for a President who tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism. President Trump’s remarks today repudiate his forced remarks yesterday about the KKK and neo-Nazis. We must resign on behalf of America’s working people, who reject all notions of legitimacy of these bigoted groups. It’s clear that President Trump’s Manufacturing Council was never an effective...

16 August, 2017

Five years ago, President Barack Obama started a program protecting immigrants who came to America as children. Today, thousands of hardworking aspiring citizens have been able to reach their dreams thanks to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, known as DACA. “We need everyone in our country to be able to live and work without fear,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. 95%: That’s how many of the nearly 1 million DACA enrollees are employed or enrolled...

16 June, 2017

Posted by Celeste Drake on the AFL-CIO Blog The North American Free Trade Agreement is typically called a "trade deal," but in reality it’s not much about trade. Its hundreds of pages of set rules for how the United States, Mexico and Canada can run their economies. Those rules give global corporations strong rights and privileges but don’t contain a single provision to ensure more jobs, better wages, clean air and water, affordable medicines, or any of the...

14 June, 2017

When President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act on June 10, 1963, women made only 60 cents on the dollar for doing the same job as a man. The gap has narrowed in the intervening years, but pay is not yet equal and wages have been held down for women and men alike. We must erase the wage gap by raising pay for all working people. Lift All for Equality The pay gap narrows when...

09 June, 2017

Yale University won’t negotiate with its workers. Graduate teachers at Yale voted to form a union with Local 33–UNITE HERE in February. Instead of coming to the negotiating table, Yale is trying to run out the clock until President Trump appoints his own anti-worker picks to the National Labor Relations Board who can take back the teachers' rights to organize and crush the union. The graduate teachers are fighting back and participating in an indefinite fast in protest...

15 May, 2017

Avoiding corporate income taxes is one way CEOs boost their companies’ profits and thereby increase their own pay. This corporate tax avoidance reduces the amount of money that is available for public goods like roads and schools. As a result, our economy increasingly has become out of balance. BCTGM Local 300 member and laid off Nabisco/Mondelēz worker is highlighted on the AFL-CIO's 2017 PayWatch site as an example of the human cost of offshoring jobs. Mondelēz International,...

09 May, 2017

Nobody should be in danger for a dollar, but 4,836 people died in 2015 at work from machine malfunctions, equipment failures, falls from construction equipment, and other deadly and preventable causes. More than 50,000 people died from those work-related injuries and illnesses. These are mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, folks who simply worked for a living. Safety has been losing the tug of war with profits for years. Death is the result, and the danger is...

26 April, 2017

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka gave a major address before the National Press Club in Washington D.C., calling upon leaders of both parties to not only pursue an agenda that benefits working people across the country, but that strengthens the right of every American to negotiate for better wages and benefits. As part of President Trumka's formal address on American jobs, Nabisco/Mondelez worker Michael Smith was invited as a special guest. President Trumka urged action on behalf of...

05 April, 2017

Guest Post by J. David Cox, Sr., National President, American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), AFL-CIO Over the last several years, anti-union lawmakers and their corporate allies have waged a relentless battle against working people. Now, the campaign to dismantle collective bargaining rights has arrived squarely at the steps of the federal government and the public workers who keep our country healthy, safe, and strong. On March 16, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that...

27 March, 2017

The AFL-CIO Executive Council has approved a new National Good Jobs campaign that will expose and challenge the corporate outsourcing of jobs by American companies, choosing Mondelēz International as its first example of greed over good. The AFL-CIO has issued the following press release: March 14, 2017 Mondelēz (Nabisco/Oreo)Will Be the First Solidarity Campaign (San Antonio, March 14, 2017) – The AFL-CIO Executive Council came out of its annual winter meeting reinvigorated and reorganized around the principle that every worker...

15 March, 2017

The withdrawal of Labor Secretary nominee Andrew Puzder is being hailed as a victory for America's workers. From coast to coast, workers made thousands of calls, attended mass rallies and demonstrations and met with their Senators to expose Puzder's record of driving down wages, harassment and worker intimidation. Puzder’s anti-worker views are no secret. He railed against a meaningful increase in the minimum wage, opposed expanding overtime pay and advocated replacing working people with machines. Of...

16 February, 2017

Workers at the Franklin Street Bakery in Minneapolis have struggled for years with poverty wages, unaffordable health insurance, lack of time off to care for family members, little opportunity for advancement and raises, favoritism, and unfairly applied work policies. When the bakers decided to exercise their legal right to form a union and improve their conditions, management launched an aggressive anti-union, anti-worker campaign against the workers. The owner of Franklin Street Bakery,  Wayne Kostroski,  is also the...

20 January, 2017

by Tefere Gebre, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of convenience and comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We’re coming off of an election that reminded us we still have considerable work ahead in the struggle for freedom and civil rights, and on the eve of Martin Luther King Jr. remembrance day, Dr. King’s quote is deeply relevant. I...

13 January, 2017

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka advises all Americans to pay close attention to President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet nominations. The vast majority of Americans, no matter their candidate of choice, voted to rewrite the economic rules that have for too long left working people weaker and poorer. When it comes to the economic security of our families and communities, one of the most important decisions every incoming president must make is choosing who will serve in his or...

19 December, 2016