Today's AFL-CIO press clips
MUST READ
Punching In: No Retreat, No Surrender in $15 Per Hour Wage War
Bloomberg Law
By Rebecca Rainey and Ian Kullgren
March 7, 2022
The labor movement won’t compromise on a minimum wage less than $15, largely because rampant inflation has made that number less significant than it used to be, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in an interview with Bloomberg Law. “Fifteen dollars, when we were fighting many years ago, sounded high,” Shuler said. “But today it’s continuing to lose value if we don’t index it to inflation, so we think that’s the baseline.”
JOINING TOGETHER
Minneapolis Teachers Announce They Will Go on Strike
The New York Times
By Jacey Fortin
March 7, 2022
Teachers in Minneapolis are set to go on strike on Tuesday morning, shuttering classrooms for about 30,000 public school students. For weeks, the teachers’ unions and school district officials have been negotiating over salaries, hiring and resources for students’ mental health. The talks in Minneapolis failed to reach a resolution by their Monday evening deadline, with the district saying that it could not afford to meet teachers’ demands. Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said that the unions in both cities had been especially concerned with securing fair pay for educational support staff. She also criticized Minneapolis’s approach to negotiations. “The difference between the bargaining this weekend in St. Paul and Minneapolis were night and day,” she said.
USW and other unions begin returning to work at ExxonMobil after contract approval
KFDM
By KFDM/Fox 4
March 7, 2022
Members of the United Steelworkers Union and other workers represented by the USW are beginning to return to work at ExxonMobil. The union members ratified a contract last month and later approved a return to work agreement setting March 7 as the date to begin going back.
Wexner Center for the Arts workers want to unionize
The Columbus Dispatch
By Sheridan Hendrix
March 7, 2022
Staff at the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University have announced plans to form a union with the hope of making the museum an "equitable, transparent and sustainable workplace." Wex Workers United sent a letter to Wexner Center and university leaders Friday asking them to recognize their new union, formed in collaboration with AFSCME Ohio Council 8, according to a news release. "We believe our endeavor is inextricably linked to the center’s stated mission and ongoing commitment to social justice and institutional transformation," according to Wex Workers United's letter to leadership. "These goals can only be realized through deep structural change."
Grocery workers contract with Southern California supermarkets expires
ABC10
By City News Service
March 7, 2022
Grocery store workers and Southern California supermarkets have let their labor contract expire Monday morning and a strike could be in the future. Contract negotiations between the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 770 and Southern California's major supermarkets broke down over the weekend. The existing contract expired at midnight.
IN THE STATES
Essential workers kept Connecticut going. This session lawmakers will debate how to thank them.
Connecticut Public Radio
By Ali Oshinskie
March 7, 2022
“Essential workers are sick of being called essential and just getting a thank you, rather than being compensated for their sacrifice,” said Ed Hawthorne, president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO. His group supports H.B. 5356, and not the governor’s plan. The AFL-CIO joined with Recovery For All, a coalition of organized labor, social justice advocates and progressive faith organizations, to propose a pandemic premium of $1 an hour for all essential workers. Hawthorne said under those calculations, most full-time workers would have gotten $2,000.