UNIONS BUILD COALITION TO COMBAT

STATE GOVERNMENTS’ AGGRESSION

By Mark Gruenberg

PAI Staff Writer

WASHINGTON (PAI)—A wide-ranging coalition of unions, including the Fire Fighters, AFSCME, the Service Employees, the Teachers and the AFL-CIO, have created a coalition to combat state governments’ aggression against workers, their collective bargaining rights, their job protections and their pensions.

JOBS, SHOW OF POWER, POLITICS KEY THEMES
FOR LEADERS, WORKERS AT ‘ONE NATION’ DEMO
By Mark Gruenberg
PAI Staff Writer
 
            WASHINGTON (PAI)--Campaigning for good jobs with good benefits, a
show of power against the Radical Right and politics through Election Day and
beyond were key themes for both union leaders speaking at the mass “One Nation”
demonstration in Washington on Oct. 2, and for rank-and-file unionists
questioned there.
 

UNION LEADERS, OBAMA OFFICIALS
HAIL PASSAGE OF STATE AID BILL
By Mark Gruenberg
PAI Staff Writer

WASHINGTON (PAI)--Union leaders and Obama administration officials, including the president and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, hailed congressional passage of a stripped-down state aid bill, channeling $26 billion nationwide to help save jobs of teachers, Fire Fighters and other workers while also helping states pay for Medicaid for poor and recession-hit residents.

YOUNG UNION ACTIVISTS QUIZ TOP
FED LEADERS, PLAN NETWORKS
By Mark Gruenberg
PAI Staff Writer

       WASHINGTON (PAI)--In a scene that one Postal Worker from Chicago said was unlike any other union conclave he ever attended, more than 300 young union activists from around the country sharply quizzed top AFL-CIO leaders and started planning their own networking, organizing and communications campaigns.