The Snohomish County Labor Council and Its Purpose

The Snohomish County Labor Council is a federation of 63 unions in Snohomish County. Those unions represent 42,000 working families for the purpose of bargaining wages/salaries and working conditions with their employers.

The Labor Council and its member unions are dedicated to helping workers organize their workplaces so that they are ensured economic justice and dignity.

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Letter Carriers Food Drive is Sat., May 11th

Each year, letter carriers collect food from citizens across the nation on the second Saturday of May. Local food banks rely heavily of these donations; the Letter Carriers Food Drive accounts for approximately 50% of the food that food banks receive for the entire year!
Please participate in the annual Letter Carriers Food Drive by filling the yellow bag you’ll find in your mailbox with nonperishable food items and leave it for your letter carrier.

People can register to volunteer on the day of the event at the Volunteers of America web page. IAM District 751 members will be volunteering at the Everett main post office located at 3102 Hoyt Avenue.

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The Snohomish County Commission on Human Rights Presents

Humanity not Hatred

Please join us for a community event in honor of Brisenia Flores and in support of humanity and human rights.

When: Saturday, May 29th, 5:30 - 8:30 pm
Where: Snohomish County Flag Pavilion/Amphitheater

There will be comments by county and community representatives, and a presentation on militias by Chris Neiwert, local author of And Hell Followed With Her: Crossing the Dark Side of the American Border.

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Published 5-2-13 at www.huffingtonpost.com

We Decide How to Share Gains

by Stan Sorscher

Labor Representative, Society for Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace

Last summer, a respected policy expert from the Brookings Institution spoke at a large meeting. He introduced himself, saying that he works with a lot of brilliant economists who can't understand why the recovery is so slow.

Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman has an explanation, "...corporations use their growing monopoly power to raise prices without passing the gains on to their employees."

Whoa! There's a shocker. Corporate profits are at historic highs, and workers are not sharing gains. Read entire article

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Friday, April 12, 2013

Who's Hiring H-1B Visa Workers? It's Not Who You Might Think

The tech industry wants more skilled workers -- from overseas. Companies are lobbying hard for Congress to raise the — visas for people with specialized skills -- researchers, for instance, or software engineers.

Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, recently told NPR that more H-1B visas can't help but be good for the country.

"We need to continue to attract some of the best and brightest people in the world to come and join us in world-leading [research and development] efforts," Smith said.

But that "best-and-brightest" argument doesn't quite match up with reality -- especially when you look at which companies are using the most H-1Bs. Read entire article

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