Texas AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Montserrat Garibay will lead a union delegation in a meeting with the staff of U.S. Sen. John Cornyn tomorrow at his Austin office.
The Texas AFL-CIO COPE rounded out its pre-primary endorsement list by adopting recommendations from central labor bodies across the state to go with endorsements made at the COPE Convention.
“Speaking through Central Labor Councils and the Area Labor Federation, our affiliates have carefully vetted candidates and endorsed, by at least two-thirds vote, those they believe will build a better Texas for working families,” Texas AFL-CIO President Rick Levy said.
The Texas AFL-CIO COPE Convention approved statewide endorsements on Jan. 21.
President Trump's chief trade official Monday offered a modicum of optimism about the ongoing talks to revamp the North American Free Trade Agreement, even as he shot down two key Canadian proposals and blasted a recent trade action by Canada as a "massive attack on all of our trade laws."
The Donald Trump Labor Department is proposing a rule change that would mean that restaurant servers and bartenders could lose a large portion of their earnings. The rule would overturn one put in place by the Barack Obama administration initiated, which prevents workers in tipped industries from having their tips taken by their employers. Under the new rule, business owners could pay their wait staff and bartenders as little as $7.25 per hour and keep all tips above that amount without having to tell customers what happened.
Last week, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual report on union membership, which found that the number of union members rose by 260,000 in 2017. This reflects critical organizing victories across a range of industries, which have reaped higher wages, better benefits and a more secure future for working people around the country.
Of the report, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said:
The Mexican government has filed legislation that would substantially weaken rights for working people. In response, the AFL-CIO filed a complaint alleging that Mexico is violating the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation, the NAFTA labor side deal.
