AFL-CIO President Trumka Joins over 100 Calling for A "Race To The Top"

April 27, 2012:  AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka joined employees and the WGAE today to demand that Atlas Media, a major non-fiction television production company, join the "Race to the Top" and to provide health care for its employees. Writers and producers gathered outside of Atlas' midtown Manhattan offices, staging an actual race along the street to demand that the company not settle for "last place" when it comes to employee health benefits.

"These writers and producers are doing what workers have always done. They're doing a great job in the TV industry, and now they're joining together in a union to turn these jobs into great jobs with health care. I'm proud to stand with them," Richard Trumka said.“If you consider a workplace fraught with violations of wage and hour laws, long hours, unfair pay and zero benefits to be a sweatshop, then any number of television production companies in New York City fit that bill,” said Lowell Peterson, Executive Director, Writers Guild of America, East. “Nonfiction is almost entirely non-union, but it will change as the WGAE continues to organize and bargain on behalf of writers and producers in this part of the industry. Creative professionals understand the importance of banding together to make their work lives better.”