HOTEL WORKERS RALLY VS. SEXUAL EXPLOITATION ON THE JOB

NEW YORK (PAI)—“There once was a union maid, who never was afraid,” begins the old song about activist union women. Well, members of Unite Here – real union maids – were not afraid when they spoke up the week of June 6-11 against sexual exploitation of maids and other hotel workers by hotel guests.

UNIONS SAVE LIVES
By Dick Meister

A miner's life is like a sailor's
'Board a ship to cross the waves
Every day his life's in danger
Still he ventures being brave
---Traditional labor song

A new study shows that unionization is a sure way to dramatically lessen the
many deaths and serious injuries that have been all too common in the
nation's coal mines.

That's the unequivocal conclusion of the independent study of coal mining
between 1993 and 2008 conducted by Stanford law professor Allson Morantz and

VERMONT TAKES FIRST STEP TOWARDS STATE SINGLE-

PAYER HEALTH CARE; NURSES LOBBY FOR NATIONAL LAW

By Mark Gruenberg

PAI Staff Writer

            BURLINGTON, Vt. (PAI)—The state of Vermont has taken the first step towards creating a statewide single-payer government-run health care system.  And one of the nation’s top nurses unions will lobby in early June for a national single-payer law.

NLRB: THE RAT IS LEGAL

WASHINGTON (PAI)—The labor movement’s giant inflatable rat is legal, even at demonstrations in front of secondary employers, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled on May 26.

In a case involving Sheet Metal Workers Local 15 and Brandon Regional Medical Center – which hired below-wage non-union temps to build its addition years ago – the board voted 3-1 that use of the rat on a flatbed truck parked in public more than 100 feet from the hospital entrances, is kosher. So is leafleting of passing patients.