Labor Issue Page

Unemployment rose last month in the twelve most hotly contested battleground states in the presidential election, including Michigan, Florida and Ohio. Michigan's jobless rate rose to 8.9 percent, the highest in the nation, with the loss of more than 20,000 manufacturing jobs in August, the Labor Department reported yesterday. Unemployment in Florida has surged 2.3 percentage points to 6.5 percent over the last 12 months. News about swelling unemployment rolls capped a tumultuous week when the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression dominated the presidential campaign. With Republican President George W. Bush in the White House, Democratic nominee Barack Obama gained support as economic concerns monopolized political debate.

The U.S. bishops' annual Labor Day message calls the faithful to use Catholic social teaching to guide them as they cast their votes this November. "An American Catholic Tradition" marks Labor Day, celebrated Monday, Sept. 1, and calls for "renewed vigor as we seek to build together a society that cares for its own, reaches out to the poor and vulnerable, and offers true hope to all." Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, New York, chairman of the U.S. episcopal conference's Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, issued the statement. It highlights the needs of workers, economic inequalities and the responsibilities of all citizens to help improve working conditions.
Given the coming national elections, the Labor Day statement reminds Catholics to use Church social and moral teaching to assess issues of economic justice, human life and dignity.

Several of the country's most prominent labor groups are seeking an investigation into whether Wal-Mart Stores Inc. violated federal election laws by holding meetings with employees in which managers discussed the impact of electing Democrats on legislation that would make it easier for workers to unionize companies, including Wal-Mart. The labor groups are asking the Federal Election Commission to determine whether the company "made prohibited corporate expenditures" by organizing meetings across the country to warn employees that a Democratic president would back legislation known as the Employee Free Choice Act, which the company opposes. The groups say such statements amount to advocating the defeat of Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in the November election.

It’s rare, in the parched landscape of the immigration debate, to come across policies that are simple, realistic and humane. But here is one: The Los Angeles City Council is expected to vote on Wednesday on an ordinance requiring big-box home-improvement stores to protect order and safety when day laborers gather in their parking lots looking for work. The ordinance is primarily aimed at Home Depot, which has 11 stores in Los Angeles and would like to open at least a dozen more. It would require new or renovating stores to have a plan for what to do when the day laborers show up, as they almost always do when Home Depot moves in.

The Sisters of St. Joseph, as the formal sponsor of a health-care system covering 14 hospitals and 20,000 workers in three states, were the target of an organizing effort by the Service Employees International Union. After five years of escalation, the union had brought its campaign literally to the doorstep of the sisterhood, holding rallies and worship services. In practical terms, the stakes are about 9,000 employees of eight of the nine St. Joseph hospitals in California, essentially all the workers except doctors, nurses and operating engineers. The impasse between the union and the hospital system involves the rules for holding an election on whether, and by whom, those employees want to be represented in collective bargaining.

Planned layoffs at U.S. companies jumped 26 percent in July from June, depicting further deterioration in the labor market, a report showed on Monday. Planned layoffs at U.S. companies totaled 103,312 in July, compared with June's 81,755, employment consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc said. Announced job cuts at U.S. companies last month were the second highest total so far in 2008, more than double the 42,897 a year earlier, the report said. From January to July, planned layoffs totaled 579,260, up 33 percent from the same period a year ago. Financial companies, in particular mortgage lenders, have been slashing their payrolls, prompted by billions of losses and write-downs tied to soured investments on housing and mortgages.

The nation's employers eliminated 51,000 jobs in July, the seventh consecutive contraction in the labor market, as the unemployment rate reached a four-year high, signs that the pressure on business owners and consumers was likely to continue. Still, Friday's report from the Labor Department showed that the declines have softened since spring. The number of layoffs was less than the 75,000 that economists had expected, and the government said that businesses cut fewer jobs in June and May than first thought.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they'll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies -- including Wal-Mart. In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized. The Wal-Mart human-resources managers who run the meetings don't specifically tell attendees how to vote in November's election, but make it clear that voting for Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama would be tantamount to inviting unions in, according to Wal-Mart employees who attended gatherings in Maryland, Missouri and other states.

The number of Americans who have seen their full-time jobs chopped to part time because of weak business has swelled to more than 3.7 million - the largest figure since the government began tracking such data more than half a century ago. The loss of pay has become a primary source of pain for millions of American families, reinforcing the downturn gripping the economy. Paychecks are shrinking just as home prices plunge and gas prices soar, furthering the austerity across the nation.