MUST READ
Striking casino, health insurer and auto workers rally in downtown Detroit
The Detroit News
By Jordyn Grzelewski and Kalea Hall
Oct. 19, 2023
Detroit was hailed as "strike city" Thursday as striking casino, health insurer and auto workers marched downtown and rallied with labor leaders and other supporters of their movement. "Hey hey, ho ho! Corporate greed has got to go!" was one of several rallying cries that workers chanted as they marched toward Hart Plaza, where they gathered despite rainy conditions for a program featuring remarks from Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, UAW Vice President Mike Booth, Teamsters General Secretary Fred Zuckerman, striking workers and others.
JOINING TOGETHER
Culinary and Bartenders Union Members Picket after ‘No Progress’ in Negotiations
Las Vegas Weekly
By Shannon Miller
Oct. 19, 2023
Culinary and Bartenders Union members yelled from picket lines outside Park MGM on October 12. A chorus of car horns from Las Vegas Boulevard chimed in. “MGM, look around! Vegas is a union town!” the chants continued in a sea of red shirts and picket signs. According to Culinary Workers Union Local 226, thousands of members showed up before and after their shifts, some still in uniform, to picket at eight different properties on the Strip. The Culinary Union is urging the public, customers, elected officials and convention planners to not cross the pickets and to “stand in solidarity with workers by not eating, meeting or staying in a casino resort during an active picket line.” Since April, the Culinary Union, along with the Bartenders Union Local 165, has been negotiating with MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment and Wynn Resorts, the Strip’s largest employers, for a new five-year contract.
SEPTA strike looms as both sides prepare for marathon bargaining session
The Philadelphia Inquirer
By Thomas Fitzgerald
Oct. 19, 2023
Contract talks between SEPTA and its largest union, Local 234 of the Transport Workers, are “going nowhere fast,” said Brian Pollitt, the union’s president, with little progress despite regular meetings since mid-July. Starting Monday, negotiators for the transit agency and the union will sequester in a hotel conference room for marathon bargaining on a new contract for the operators, mechanics, cashiers and maintenance people who make Philadelphia’s transit run. The deadline is 11:59 p.m. Oct. 31, when the current contract expires. Local 234 members voted earlier this month to authorize a strike if no agreement is reached by then and union leaders decide it is necessary.
Wisconsin Bay Area nurses, health care professionals reach tentative agreement for new contract
Upper Michigan Source
By TV6 News Team
Oct. 19, 2023
Nurses and healthcare professionals reached a tentative agreement for a new contract with Aurora Medical Center executives late Wednesday evening. “We are proud of this deal. Thanks to the solidarity that union members showed at our hospital, we have been able to win fair wages, improved health and safety provisions, and new staffing language. This shows the power of workers coming together as a union,” said Emily Peretto, RN, and president of the local union. “We look forward to going over the details with members in the coming days and holding a ratification vote where union members will make the final decision on whether to accept this deal.” Nurses and healthcare professionals were able to make gains in negotiations after organizing a rally. According to a press release from the Michigan Nurses Association (MNA), now that a tentative agreement has been reached, the rally has been canceled and transformed into a celebratory gathering for union members. The agreement only becomes final if ratified by the membership. MNA says a ratification vote will be scheduled in the coming days.
Hollywood’s actors strike persists as it nears 100 days
PBS
By Andrew Dalton
Oct. 19, 2023
While screenwriters are busy back at work, film and TV actors remain on picket lines, with the longest strike in their history set to hit 100 days on Saturday after talks broke off with studios. Here’s a look at where things stand, how their stretched-out standoff compares to past strikes, and what happens next. SAG-AFTRA leaders said it was ridiculous to frame this demand as as though it were a tax on customers, and said it was the executives themselves who wanted to shift from a model based on a show’s popularity to one based on number of subscribers. “We made big moves in their direction that have just been ignored and not responded to,” Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s national executive director and chief negotiator, told the AP. “We made changes to our AI proposal. We made dramatic changes to what used to be our streaming revenue share proposal,” Crabtree-Ireland said.
Yamhill County Employees Association declares impasse, may strike
Northwest Labor Press
By Mallory Gruben
Oct 19, 2023
The union representing nearly 400 Yamhill County workers declared an impasse in negotiations on Sept. 26, citing insufficient cost of living raises proposed by the county. AFSCME Local 1422, also known as the Yamhill County Employees Association, is the largest of five unions representing Yamhill County workers. It covers workers in nearly every county department, including public works, information services, and planning. The union started bargaining for a new contract in March, and the previous agreement expired June 30. On Oct. 2, both parties made their “final offers” and entered a 30-day cooling off period, as required by the state law that governs public employee bargaining. (During that period, the parties can continue to meet and may even reach a tentative agreement, but workers cannot strike until after the cooling off period ends.)
IN THE STATES
Leaving Bend united and hopeful
Northwest Labor Press
By Graham Trainor
Oct. 19, 2023
The 58th Biennial Convention of the Oregon AFL-CIO ended on a high note in beautiful Central Oregon as we took to the streets of Bend to stand in unwavering solidarity with workers fighting for fairness and dignity. This was a fitting culmination to an action-packed few days of solidarity at an event solely focused on educating and inspiring Oregon labor. One delegate from Central Oregon said “it was the proudest she’s ever been” to see hundreds of union members in downtown reminding the public that Bend IS a union town.
Illinois joins lengthening list of states outlawing wage theft
By Press Associates
Oct. 19, 2023
By overwhelming votes in the Illinois legislature, the Land of Lincoln joined the lengthening list of states that outlaw wage theft. The measure, signed in September by Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D), shows, again, the importance of lower-level lawmakers and governors to workers. With gridlock bedeviling Congress, and likely to continue for the foreseeable future, the states then become “laboratories of democracy,” to quote famed pro-worker Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis. The wage theft bill, HB1122, was one of the top priorities of the state AFL-CIO. The State Assembly passed it 68-38 and the State Senate agreed 35-20. It’s effective next July 1.