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Written by Tom Campbell
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I recently had the pleasure of meeting Jomo Akono when my group, Campbell & Associates Public Relations, was videotaping and producing the Buffalo Building & Construction Trades Council’s new television commercial, We Are The Buffalo Building Trades!
A number of Building Trades unions had each provided a member that day to voice a portion of the overall commercial script and the Empire State Regional Council of Carpenters Local 289 brought Jomo, who agreed to take part in a second commercial shoot.
I had never met Jomo before, but as we sat and discussed the commercial, he began asking a number of questions as to why the Trades were doing this. He also wanted to know more about what the unionized construction trades were doing to make young people – including those in the inner city – aware of the many career opportunities in unionized construction.
Jomo told me his father worked as a union carpenter and turned him on to a career in the unionized trades as Buffalo’s $1 billion public schools improvement project was beginning to materialize, and as it was becoming harder and harder to run Jomo’s small African-American cultural business in downtown Buffalo.
“In Buffalo, there’s very limited income and I had to make some decisions. I took the test and only had two questions answered incorrectly. I became an apprentice in 2005 and have been working in a couple of schools since then. It’s a learning experience, but I really love it,” said Jomo, who now makes a combined wage, health benefit and a pension contribution of more than $27 an hour.
After I answered his questions, I asked Jomo why he was so interested in all of this and he began to tell me why. Jomo, a 37-year-old, third year apprentice with the Carpenters, has seen what the lack of good-paying jobs has done to young people on Buffalo’s East Side, many of whom have fallen into gangs and drugs and have become the victims of violence. That’s why Jomo, a Rastafarian who grew up on Goodyear Street on Buffalo’s East Side, has gotten involved in his community in order to help turn, as Bob Marley might say, negatives into positives. |
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Written by Administrator
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Statement by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney on McCain/Palin’s personal attacks on Sen. Obama in the midst of this country’s financial crisis:
The Dow is plummeting. We are in the throes of an historic financial meltdown because Wall Street and George Bush gambled with our future. Families are struggling with a long-running economic squeeze, the totality of which is still unknown. So what is John McCain's response? He thumbs his nose at the real issues facing working people - issues for which he has no good answer because his record of support for the Bush financial agenda is indisputable. He turns to Bush fear-mongering tactics to try to change the subject.
The McCain/Palin tactics are not just false, they're offensive. Sadly, they're more of exactly what we've come to expect from the Bush White House - neglect of the economic issues that are reshaping working families' lives. Perhaps it should not come as a surprise from the presidential candidate who voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time.
We have entered a genuinely scary time, but not because of the McCain/Palin scare tactics. Working people aren't buying them. And here's why. Three days ago, Americans woke up to the news that in August, we lost another 159,000 jobs - 760,000 since the beginning of the year. That same day, it became clear that the taxpayers who took on the burden of bailing out Wall Street would not get extended unemployment benefits or a job-creating stimulus package - measures George Bush said he would veto. Nearly 50 million are without health care. In August alone, more than 300,000 Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. Families are worried about putting food on the table, putting gas in the tank and being able to retire with the security that few feel these days.
John McCain has no good answers to these painfully real problems. He supported the Bush policies that have run up one of the worst jobs records of any president. His solution to health care is to tax our health benefits and push us into the private marketplace to buy insurance on our own.
But working people are not just offended because our problems are being ignored - again. These attacks are a deep offense to our belief as Americans that we can make things different. Millions of us are ready to believe we can turn our country into something better than it has become under Republican control. We're ready to elect leaders who'll work for an America that works for all, with decent wages and benefits and good jobs that can support a family. What we don't believe is that a candidate for president is willing to go as low as McCain and Palin to distract us from what is actually happening in our lives.
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Written by Tom Campbell
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WNYLaborToday.com would like to welcome aboard Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1122 as a supporter of our Labor News website and personally thank CWA Local 1122 President Jim Wagner, the union and their members for their vote of support.
CWA Local 1122, whichrepresents around 1,000 Verizon workers, from clerical to operators to technicians, also represents members who work at a variety of other employers including: ADT, the American Red Cross, AT&T Wireless, Avaya, Citizens, Idearc, Jewish Family Services, Manchester Cable, Northwest Buffalo Community Center, P.M. Savvy, the Visiting Nurses Association (VNA), VNA Advanced Home Health Care.
On another front, many area unions – including CWA Local 1122 – are also taking the time to link WNYLaborToday.com to their individual websites in order to make their members aware of our Labor News Site, including: The Western New York AFL-CIO Area Labor Federation, The Buffalo Teachers Federation, Painters District Council 4, The Buffalo AFL-CIO Council, IBEW Local 41, AFSCME Council 35 and OPEIU Local 212, to name just a few.
In addition, WNYLaborToday.com is also seeing traffic coming from a number of other websites, including: New York State Senator William Stachowski’s website, Buffalo Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Local 36G, OPEIU Local 212, and the National Association of Letter Carriers/Branch 3.
In addition, many Western New York Labor Unions are further helping spread WNYLaborToday.com’s message by either e-mailing their members directly to make them aware of our site or placing announcements in Union Newsletters that are mailed directly to their members. On that note, Thank You all for doing that.
Since WNYLaborToday.com embarked on an advertising campaign in the Business and now Sports sections of The Buffalo News’ on-line newspaper on Labor Day Weekend where our can site can now be directly accessed, our readership has been steadily increasing and has exposed Organized Labor’s positive accomplishments to a number of individuals who necessarily would have never discovered for themselves what Labor Unions and their members bring to the table and are positively accomplishing in the many communities their members work and live in.
WNYLaborToday.com looks forward to continuing to work with Organized Labor across Western New York and spreading the positive word of what Labor Unions and their members are doing to make our region and our communities a better place to work, live and raise their families. |
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Written by Administrator
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A record 1,200 high school students from across Western New York are scheduled to take part in the 4th annual Western New York Construction Career Days, which educates young men and women to a potential career in the unionized construction trades and allows them the chance to get an array of hands-on experience, ranging from operating heavy equipment to welding to tile-setting and working with cement.
The two-day event is scheduled for this Wednesday and Thursday (October 8th and 9th) at the International Union of Operating Engineers’ sprawling 400-acre training facility in Lakeview. Its aim is to help replenish the construction workforce, which needs an infusion of at least several million workers across the United States over the course of the next couple of years due to the retirement of many older workers. The Buffalo Building & Construction Trades, which represents 18 individual member unions, is hosting the event in conjunction with the Construction Industry Employers Association, Inc. and the state chapter of the Associated General Contractors. Alfred State Technical College and Erie Community College are also partnering with organized labor and management in order to help spread the message of opportunity in the construction industry.
“We have an aging workforce and it’s very important to recruit new workers into the construction business,” said New York State Laborers/LECET (Laborers-Employers Cooperation and Education Trust) Field Representative Gary Bernardo, who also serves as CEO of the non-profit, 5013c New York State Construction Career Days, Inc. organization.
John Magney, chairman of the steering committee of the Western New York Construction Career Days event and a representative of Empire State Regional Council of Carpenters Local 289, added: “This is a huge event for many kids who need to be made aware of the real possibilities of having a great career in the unionized construction trades. It’s also a very good thing that high school counselors understand what’s also available to their students.” |
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Written by Administrator
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It's been brought to my attention this morning that the direct link I provided to the ArtVoice story concerning Erie County Executive Chris Collins and the Apprenticeship Law does not work. So, I've taken the liberty of bringing it directly to our readers.
But first WNYLaborToday.com's introduction to the piece:
And speaking of nice jobs, take a moment – if you haven’t already – to read The Sorcerer’s Apprentice that was written by John McMahon in ArtVoice on Erie County Executive Chris Collins decision to suspend the county’s Apprenticeship Law. It was right on the mark and very interesting, at the same time. ArtVoice/McMahon made the point for the Building Trades and the Apprenticeship Law by pointing to an out-of-town contractor who was subcontracted by a local low-bidder during the October Surprise clean-up work. In the end, the work was performed by out-of-town workers instead of local workers. |
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