Latest news with #LizShuler
Fast Company
2 days ago
- Politics
- Fast Company
AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler on the value of Trump: 'The best organizer is a bad boss'
Liz Shuler has a tough job. It's not just tough to do. It's tough even to define. As the president of the AFL-CIO, a 70-year-old federation of 63 national and international unions representing more than 15 million workers, she is the leader of the American labor movement. But 'labor' is not a monolith. She represents NFL players, government workers, Hollywood writers, hotel janitors. Shuler, who became the first woman to run the AFL-CIO when she was elected in 2021, doesn't negotiate pay rates or mediate disputes between workers and management. Her mandate is much broader: Grow the ranks of unionized workers across industries, lobby policymakers to pass pro-worker guidelines and remove barriers to unionizing, make the labor movement more inclusive to all people, and stand up to powerful anti-union forces at the highest levels of business and government. She's been busy lately. On January 20, one of the most labor-friendly presidents in U.S. history moved out of the Oval Office and one of the most anti-labor presidents moved back in. Two months later, Trump signed an executive order (EO) that amounted to 'the bombing of Pearl Harbor against the labor movement,' in the words of the labor activist and author Hamilton Nolan. Under the guise of national security, the EO stripped the collective bargaining rights of workers at more than 30 federal agencies. Shuler does not think Nolan was being hyperbolic. The final deadline for Fast Company's Next Big Things in Tech Awards is Friday, June 20, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
State and national labor leaders highlight outsized impact federal cuts have on veterans
Maine AFL-CIO President Cynthia Phinney (center) and National AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler held a listening session with Maine workers on April 30, 2025. (Photo courtesy of Andy O'Brien/ Maine AFL-CIO) When Scott Surette left the U.S. Marine Corps after serving in the Gulf War, with tours in Iraq and Kuwait, he took a job at the U.S. Postal Service. Like millions of other veterans, he was drawn to the stability of federal employment and benefits, including the military buy back program that allows veteran workers to count military service as a credit towards their retirement. Now, he says, 'the contract we make as a country with veterans is currently being broken.' During a news conference in Augusta on Tuesday, Surette, who serves as president of Branch 122 of the National Postal Mailhandlers Union Local 301, spoke alongside state and national union leaders who highlighted the disproportionate impact that federal cuts will have on veterans. National AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said she's travelled the country to hear from workers impacted by federal cuts. Asked about what she's heard from union members who supported President Donald Trump, she said that his recent executive order that ended collective bargaining rights for federal unions was a wake up call for many. 'And so whether you're in the federal sector, public sector, the private sector, this injury to one is an injury to all is really starting to take hold within our labor movement,' Shuler said. 'And I think working people broadly see what's on the horizon.' Cynthia Phinney, president of the Maine AFL-CIO, pointed out that with an estimated 106,000 veterans, Maine has the highest concentration of any state in the nation. And nationally, roughly one in three federal workers is a veteran. She said widespread federal worker layoffs, including the Trump administration's reduction in force plan to return staffing at the Department of Veterans Affairs to 2019 levels, which could cut more than 80,000 jobs, is a 'betrayal of the promise we made to men and women in uniform.' Pointing out those layoffs would amount to 15% of the total staff of the VA, Surette said, 'We know what that will mean. It'll mean delays in veterans seeking care. It will mean delays in receiving benefits. It'll mean harm to veterans. It'll mean a decline in the quality of care veterans receive. It will mean a promise broken. And as a veteran, that is just plain wrong.' Liz Harkins, who works in the Veterans Benefits Administration and serves as tri-state president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 2604, representing more than 1,600 employees across New England, said VA employees are 'essential workers' who deliver critical health care, essential benefits and other services to 'ensure that every veteran receives what they have rightfully earned.' She said since the 2022 signing of the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxins (or PACT) Act, which expanded health care coverage and benefits for veterans exposed to toxic substances like Agent Orange and open-air burn pits, the agency has seen an 'unprecedented surge' in the number of veterans being served. Noting that VA staff are 'already operating under staffing constraints,' Harkins said the proposed layoffs 'will have devastating consequences,' causing further delays in both health care and processing services. The event Wednesday came on the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. It also marked the conclusion of a two-week long listening session organized by the national AFL-CIO. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
The Hill
26-02-2025
- Business
- The Hill
Agencies told to prep for mass layoffs
Business groups cheered the budget resolution that cleared the House Tuesday night after a stop-and-go vote orchestrated by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) while labor groups hurled tomatoes. Hundreds of businesses and trade associations on Wednesday applauded the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), which Republicans are trying to extend or make permanent through the legislative reconciliation process, which Tuesday's budget resolution unlocked. Reconciliation bills can be passed with a simple majority, allowing for a party-line vote in the Senate that avoids the filibuster. 'The individual, business, and estate tax provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act ('TCJA') … should be made permanent,' the American Chemistry Council, the Mortgage Bankers Association, the Plastics Industry Association and many others wrote. AFL-CIO labor federation president Liz Shuler said that Republicans' tax agenda amounts to a 'massive tax giveaway to giant corporations' at the expense of public food assistance and healthcare programs, which Republicans are seeking to cut. 'The Republican budget bill that the House is aiming to pass this week would slash programs like Medicaid and food assistance for children, taking away care from grandparents in nursing homes, premature babies in the NICU, and leaving kids hungry,' she wrote in a statement.
