The AFL-CIO Union Label and Service Trades Department has issued the following news release:Buy Union Week Enables Union Families
To Focus Their Holiday Shopping
On Union Goods/Services
For the third year in a row, America’s union families will focus their holiday purchases on union-made goods and union-provided services to observe “Buy Union Week” – November 24 through December 3 – during America’s busiest shopping season.
The AFL-CIO Convention last year designated the 10 days following Thanksgiving as “Buy Union Week” as a means of harnessing the considerable buying power of union wages. Delegates to that convention unanimously adopted a resolution setting that time aside and urging affiliates to use “all available means” to promote the purchase of union-made goods and services.
In 2006 consumers will spend upwards of $60 billion for holiday gifts. Much of that money is earmarked for apparel, computer and related equipment, consumer electronics and books, according to government sources and commercial polling firms. There are union-made, competitively priced sources for all of the items on the typical shopper’s wish list.
“Yes, it gets harder every day to seek out union products and services. It’s a moving target with some goods that were produced here last month bearing a Made in China label this month,” conceded UL&STD President Charles Mercer. However, he added, “it does make a difference when union families tell merchants they want to see a union label before they buy.”
In 2006, as in previous years, the department is circulating certificates for shoppers to leave with merchants saying: “I shop for union goods because I care about America.” Copies of the certificates can be downloaded from the Union Label website (unionlabel.org) or from state federations or central labor councils.
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