[Excerpt] The U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement is the wrong trade model at the wrong time. Instead of helping workers here or in Colombia, the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement would reward a country with a history of extreme violence that has utterly failed to protect workers’ rights. This agreement, negotiated by the Bush Administration before the financial meltdown of 2008 and the current unemployment crisis, contains too many flawed trade policies of the past. Instead of wasting valuable time and effort advancing this inadequate agreement, President Obama should instead focus on effective job creation measures (including currency rebalancing, infrastructure investment, and robust training and education) and reforming our trade model (so that it strengthens labor rights protections for all workers, safeguards domestic laws and regulations, and promotes the export of goods rather than jobs).

The AFL-CIO Legislative Guide for the 112th Congress covers the following issues as they relate to labor and public policy:

The Economy

Freedom to Form a Union

Health Care

Retirement Security

Core Labor Laws, Labor Standards and Workplace Protections

Education, Civil and Human Rights, Fair and Open Elections

The Global Economy

[Excerpt] This fact sheet tells how to set up an infection control program that will make workplaces safer during a pandemic flu.

A pandemic flu will have a huge impact on workers in the United States. During the worst part of a pandemic flu, 40% to 60% of workers may have to stay home. Some workers are more likely to get sick, like health care workers and those who respond to an emergency. Workers who have a lot of close contact with the public are also in danger. Whenever workers are at risk of getting the virus, employers must take steps to prevent it from spreading. This is called infection control.

[Excerpt] On March 20, 2001, President Bush–in his first major legislative action–signed legislation repealing OSHA’s ergonomics standard. This important worker safeguard, issued in November 2000, was ten years in the making and would have prevented hundreds of thousands of workplace injuries a year. But, bowing to Big Business groups who opposed any ergonomics regulation, after the 2000 election, the Republican controlled Congress and the Bush Administration joined together to kill this worker protection measure.

Last March, as Congress contemplated the repeal of OSHA’s ergonomics standard, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao stated, “Repetitive stress injuries in the workplace are an important problem.” She promised that if the standard was repealed, the Department would “pursue a comprehensive approach to ergonomics, which may include new rulemaking…This approach will provide employers with achievable measures that protect employees before injuries occur.”

This flier prepared by the AFL-CIO provides a side-by-side comparison of health care proposals of the 2008 presidential candidates.

This fact sheet produced by the AFL-CIO Working Women’s Department and the Labor Project for Working Families presents examples of alternative work schedules along with sample contract language.

[Excerpt] In October 2007, the Colombian government issued a report on labor rights titled Colombia: A Progress Report—Strengthening the Rights, Benefits and Security of Unions. Unfortunately, that report does not provide an objective and accurate analysis of labor rights and labor relations in Colombia. It fails to include serious criticisms by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Organization of American States (OAS) and ignores the findings of such highly credible human rights organizations as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. This document attempts to complete the picture so policymakers have a better understanding of the reality workers face in Colombia.

[Excerpt] Over the past three years, the U.S. trade deficit has exploded and hundreds of thousands of jobs have disappeared overseas. President Bush has not been an idle bystander in this process—he has actively abetted it. Nearly every time George W. Bush has had an opportunity to fix the flawed international trade, tax and investment policies that destroy good jobs, he has refused.

[Excerpt] The results of the online 2009 Health Care for America Survey, sponsored by the AFL-CIO and Working America, reveal deep problems that must be fixed. A total of 23,460 people responded to the survey, which was conducted between April 1 and May 31, 2009. And more than 6,000 people took the time to tell heart-wrenching stories about the toll of health care costs, lack of insurance, systemic flaws in our health care system and the economic downturn.

The survey confirms that every day, people are being forced to make life-and-death decisions: Pay the health care premiums or buy the life-saving prescription? Chip away at credit card debt or skip the required care for a serious chronic condition? Nearly everyone is dissatisfied with health care costs—including almost three-quarters of people with insurance. As one woman wrote, “My insurance deductible equals four to five months of take home pay each year. My insurance bill is split with my employer but equals two days of pay each month. How am I supposed to go to a doctor?”

[Excerpt] More than two-thirds of working Americans—68 percent— say workplace rights need more protection today. Most workers feel improvements are needed in their own job situations. For nearly two thirds of today’s workers, employers inspire little or no trust that they will treat workers fairly—corporations, workers say, are more concerned with profits than people and have too much power. As a result, 56 percent of workers surveyed say new laws are needed to hold corporations responsible for the way they treat employees, a number that has risen sharply. The survey documents a 10 percentage point increase in the past five years alone in workers’ view that management has too much power and a 12 point increase in those saying new laws are needed.

The Hart survey reveals stark differences between the importance workers place on workplace rights and how they say employers treat those rights.