POLITICS
Former AFL-CIO Trade Chief Named Top White House Labor Adviser
Bloomberg Law
By Ian Kullgren
July 6, 2022
Celeste Drake, a former union official and trade expert, has been named President Joe Biden’s top labor adviser, a White House official said. Drake recently served as “Made in America” director for the White House Office of Management and Budget. She previously was a senior trade official for the AFL-CIO, helping influence the Trump administration’s negotiations for the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The deal—a rare point of agreement between the Trump administration and organized labor—seeks to strengthen union protections for Mexican workers to prevent corporations from undercutting US-made goods.
In Ohio, Biden says updated program will stop pension cuts for millions of workers
Spectrum News
By Austin Landis
July 6, 2022
Biden announced a final version of the Special Financial Assistance Program, which will help keep pension plans above water for nearly 30 years or longer, preventing cuts from plans that were at risk of drowning in debts. It will provide nearly $97 billion to dozens of eligible plans, according to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the agency that oversees the SFA Program. “People around the country wake up every day wondering whether they're saved enough to provide for themselves and their families before they’ve stopped working,” the president told union workers and retirees gathered at a high school in Cleveland.
Biden to tout plan to protect millions of workers’ pensions
CNBC
By Rebecca Shabad and Sally Bronston
July 6,2022
President Joe Biden will travel to Cleveland, Ohio, on Wednesday to announce a plan to prevent cuts to millions of workers’ pensions. The launch of the program, created under the American Rescue Plan, comes as Biden’s approval rating remains in the doldrums and consumer anxiety mounts over 40-year-high inflation. Under the final rule for the program, 2 to 3 million workers and retirees who faced pension cuts because of investment losses will get the benefits they were set to receive for their retirement, a White House official said.
JOINING TOGETHER
Denver’s Convergence Station could be the second Meow Wolf location to unionize
The Colorado Sun
By Marvis Gutierrez
July 6, 2022
More than half the people working at Convergence Station in Denver say they want to join the Meow Wolf Workers Collective and create a union bargaining unit for the massive immersive art installation. The workers of Meow Wolf Convergence Station announced their intention to join the Communications Workers of America on Tuesday, declaring “the age of the starving artist is over.” The union has not yet been formally voted on by Denver workers, but organizing committee member Seth Palmer Harris said they hope to vote to unionize in one to two months and expect the bargaining unit to be 228 people.
IN THE STATES
Illinois AFL-CIO launches Workers Rights Amendment drive
People’s World
By Bill Knight
July 6, 2022
Saying Illinois workers need a constitutional guarantee of their right to organize and bargain—and reminding workers of the war former right-wing Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner waged against them–leaders of the Illinois AFL-CIO and legislative allies began their drive for voters to pass a proposed pro-collective bargaining constitutional amendment this November. If approved, the measure would be one of four such guarantees enshrined in the 50 state constitutions. To win, it needs either 60% of the votes on the initiative itself, or an absolute majority–50% + 1–of all votes cast in the election. “Despite Illinois becoming a state more than 200 years ago, there’s nothing in the state constitution about workers’ rights,” state AFL-CIO President Tim Drea told the campaign kickoff in Peoria in June. That lack of protection and Rauner’s RTW crusade left workers open to depredations, State Sen. Dave Koehler, D-Peoria, reminded the crowd there.