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Representing manufacturing, production, maintenance and sanitation workers in the baking, confectionery, tobacco and grain milling industries.
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East Grand Forks, Minn.—Thirty-four representatives of 11 BCTGM local unions met April 14 to discuss issues of importance to union members employed in the sugar industry. Chief among those issues was American Crystal Sugar’s (ACS) lockout of 1,300 BCTGM members in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Iowa nearly nine months ago. Participants in the sugar meeting included representatives from Locals 167G (Grand Forks, N.D.), 267G (Crookston, Minn.), 372G (Hillsboro, N.D.), 283G (Twin Falls, Idaho), 369G (Renville, Minn.), 282G...

18 April, 2012

AFL-CIO Theresa Brown, a United Steelworkers (USW) member at Cooper Tire's Findlay, Ohio, plant says in this election year, “Everybody is in the same fight. It doesn’t matter if you are a union member or not, this is about saving the middle class.” Brown was speaking at a press conference at AFL-CIO headquarters today where plans were announced to activate and energize networks of working families—both online and offline—around political campaigns, legislative issues and holding elected officials...

13 April, 2012

STEELEVILLE, Ill. – The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited Gilster-Mary Lee Corp. for six safety violations – including three willful – after two maintenance employees conducting welding operations sustained serious burns to their upper bodies as the result of an explosion within a dust collector at the company's Steeleville pasta manufacturing plant on Oct. 6, 2011. "Gilster-Mary Lee Corp. has a responsibility to protect workers conducting welding operations from known...

09 April, 2012

Following the lead of the AFL-CIO Executive Council, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) announced today that its General Executive Board has unanimously voted to endorse President Barack Obama for re-election. In announcing the Board’s decision, BCTGM International Union President Frank Hurt explained, “After assessing the positions of the Republican candidates for President on the issues that matter most to our members and their families, and comparing them with those of...

05 April, 2012

AFL-CIO Who says economic policy has to be wonkish and dry?  Not John Schmitt, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).  He gets right to the point in his new report, “The Minimum Wage Is Too Damn Low.” The minimum wage was last increased—to $7.25 an hour—nearly three years ago.  He writes that the minimum wage is now far below its historical level by all of the most commonly used benchmarks—inflation, average wages...

04 April, 2012

Kalamazoo, MI. – If you drive by a Panera Bread Café on any given morning, you will be treated with the decadent smell of freshly baking bread and sweet goods, thanks to the artful skills of Panera Bread bakers. These bakers work from 10:00 p.m. each night to 6:00 a.m. each morning making sure fresh bread, rolls, cakes and other baked goods are carefully molded and baked in time for the early morning Café opening....

23 March, 2012

Earlier this week, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) -- Chairman of the House Budget Committee -- unveiled the GOP budget plan and simply put, it's a disaster for working families and a boondoggle for insurance companies and the wealthiest one percent. Ryan's budget would end Medicare as we know it, eliminate the Affordable Care Act, drastically reduce Medicaid payments to states and increase tax breaks and handouts for wealthiest ONE PERCENT of America. The Ryan budget threatens...

22 March, 2012

CLC OTTAWA – CLC President Ken Georgetti met on March 14th with Francisco J. Barrio-Terrazas, Mexico’s ambassador to Canada. Georgetti and other Canadian union leaders expressed concern about the continuing abuse of trade union rights by the Mexican government. Georgetti was accompanied by Dave Coles, President of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, John Gordon, President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, and Ken Neumann, Canadian Director of the United Steelworkers. Georgetti provided the ambassador...

22 March, 2012

From the Roquette corn milling facility in Keokuk, Iowa, to American Crystal Sugar in the Red River Valley of Minnesota and North Dakota and Cooper Tires in Findlay, Ohio, employers are turning to lockouts as a tactic to force union workers to accept major concessions when contract negotiations deadlock. For the BCTGM, the lockout of 1,300 workers at American Crystal Sugar is the most glaring example of the lengths to which employers will go to bust...

20 March, 2012

AFL-CIO-- The House Republican budget, crafted by Rep. Paul Ryan (R- Wis.) and unveiled today, provides a blueprint of what America would like look under Republican control, “a government of, by and for the 1%,” says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. House Republicans have dropped all pretenses and laid out their plan to destroy Medicare and Social Security….The Republican plan would not only keep Bush tax cuts for the wealthy from expiring,...

20 March, 2012

[caption id="attachment_2068" align="alignleft" width="243" caption="Photo credit: Lauren Casey, The Statehouse File"][/caption] On February 1, Indiana became the 23rd state—and the first manufacturing state—to institute a “right to work-for-less” law. Across the United States, these laws have depressed wages for union and non-union workers alike, and have contributed to unsafe working conditions. And the attacks on workers and their unions that began in full force in 2011 continue with several other states attempting to follow Indiana’s lead. In Ohio On...

13 March, 2012

BCTGM Local 492 (Philadelphia) members take tremendous pride in Tasty Baking Company’s rich heritage and bright future. Tasty Baking products have been well known throughout the company’s nearly 100 year history for consistent taste, quality, and freshness. And in 2010, the BCTGM Union Label brought added quality to every product made at the company’s Philadelphia bakery.     In 1914, a Pittsburgh baker, Philip J. Baur, and a Boston egg salesman, Herbert T. Morris, went into business in...

12 March, 2012

Mike Hall, AFL-CIO The nation’s economy added 227,000 jobs in February, but the unemployment rate remained steady at 8.3 percent according to the latest figures released this morning by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The jobless rate has dropped by 0.8 percentage points since August and remains at its lowest point since February 2009. The New York Times reports that are about 1.6 million more jobs now than were last April and the new jobs were...

09 March, 2012

  As we begin the new year, the immediate challenges that lie ahead for the BCTGM are as daunting as any this Union has faced in its long and proud history. Many employers in our industries are pursuing a destructive strategy of "my way or the highway" in their relationship with our Union. Tragically, the 1,300 BCTGM members at American Crystal Sugar remain locked out of the jobs they want to return to; jobs they so ably...

08 March, 2012

The Best Selling Cookie of the 20th Century In 1898, several baking companies merged to form the National Biscuit Company (NaBisCo), and opened a large industrial bakery in New York City on Ninth Avenue between 15th and 16th Streets at the Chelsea Market Building. By 1902, the company had its first nationwide success in Barnum’s Animal crackers, which were sold in boxes painted as animal cages. In 1912, Nabisco had an idea for a new cookie –...

06 March, 2012