The North Bay Labor Council, AFL-CIO is the Central Labor Council representing  30,000 members of 71 Labor Unions throughout California.

The mission of the North Bay Labor Council, AFL-CIO is to improve the lives of working families—to bring economic justice to the workplace and social justice to our state and the nation. To accomplish this mission, we work to...Read more...

Leading up to the AFL-CIO convention in September 2013, the AFL-CIO is hosting a crucial conversation about the future of working people and of unions—in union halls and online at www.aflcio2013.org.

Rana Plaza, the Bangladesh factory that collapsed three weeks ago, killed more than 1,100 workers, many of them young women. This tragedy adds to the more than 1500 Bangladeshi workers killed in preventable fires and building collapses since 2005. Documents found at the factory show that the workers produced for big names in global retail revealing the link between poor workers in Bangladesh and major retail brands.Obviously, the government must improve local laws and their enforcement to stop these tragedies, but brands must also take responsibility for their supply chains. They must be held accountable to the tragedy that happened in their supply chain. Read more >>>

Marcus Hedger will have to wait even longer to get his job back if Senate Republicans continue to block President Obama’s bipartisan nominees to serve on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Call your senators toll free at 1-888-264-6154 and tell them to confirm the board nominations now. Hedger was illegally fired in 2010 from his pressman’s job at an Illinois printing company for his union activities on behalf of his fellow union members in the Graphic Communications Conference of the Teamsters. Last September, the full NLRB—two Democrats and one Republican, at the time—ruled he should get his job back with back pay. Read more >>>

Most voters agree that big corporations and the wealthy should start paying their fair share in taxes. But, of course, big corporations and the wealthy don’t want to do that. They want to pay less, and they are used to getting their way. So what do you do? Some people in Washington think the answer is a “grand bargain.” In a “grand bargain,” Republicans agree to stop protecting millionaires from having to pay a single penny more in taxes. In return, Democrats agree to cut Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare benefits. Read more >>>

The partition that separates diners from the inner workings of the restaurant industry toppled for Saru Jayaraman shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Fekkak Mamdouh, one of the headwaiters of the restaurant housed on the top floor of the World Trade Center, approached Jayaraman seven months after the attacks. His former boss deemed him and his former crew “not experienced enough” to work in his new Times Square restaurant. Jayaraman, a 27-year-old organizer of immigrant women, took up the case to advocate for the displaced workers, organized protests and won—most of the workers were awarded the good jobs their former boss promised.

Jayaraman and Mamdouh formed Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) United in April 2002 and were flooded with stories of workplace atrocities in New York City and, eventually, across the country. We spoke with Jayaraman earlier this month about her new book on the ills of the restaurant industry, Behind the Kitchen Door.

For Lapronda Eason and the other building service workers at the Smithsonian Museum of American History, the link to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.--who died in Memphis in 1968 advocating for the rights of city sanitation workers to form a union--is as real as the job they do every day.

 

Read more >>>

The time for immigration reform is now, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. This will be a focus for labor in 2013 as the country needs to create a common-sense immigration process with a road map to citizenship. Read more >>>

Check out our North Bay Labor Council  Candidate Slate and  be sure to pass them on to your friends and family who are wondering how to vote! At the North Bay Labor Council, we have interviewed and examined all aspects of National and Local races to make sure that we are supporting candidates who support working people.We know how hard it is for voters to wade through the political ads, lies and misinformation that are out there and we do it all so you don't have to. All labor candidates have been put through a rigorous interview and questioned on all labor issues and then  voted on by councl delegates.

Proposition 32, a measure appearing on the November statewide ballot, is not what it seems. While it claims to be about “stopping special interests” the measure actually gives special exemptions to corporate special interests and Super PACs. It would do nothing to fix what’s broken in Sacramento. Instead, Prop 32 would give even more power to the wealthy and well-connected to influence elections, control government and weaken our state’s middle class.

The millionaire backers misleadingly call it “The Stop Special Interest Money Now Act,” claiming it would rein in campaign contributions by both unions and corporations. In fact, the deceptive wording of the initiative specifically limits the voice of union members like our local teachers and nurses and the firefighters and police that keep us safe.

This one-sided measure would make our system even more imbalanced and it does nothing to stop the flow of money from the wealthy in politics.

Read more >>>