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AFL-CIO Press Clips: June 17, 2022

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AFL-CIO Support For AMFA

Radio Ink

By Radio Ink

June 15, 2022

“We applaud the AFL-CIO for standing by artists and music creators and lending the strength of its 12.5 million members to the fight for passage of the American Music Fairness Act,” said Congressman Joe Crowley, Chairman of the musicFIRST Coalition. “This legislation will benefit artists across the country — including the tens of thousands who are members of SAG-AFTRA, the American Federation of Musicians and other AFL-CIO unions — by correcting a decades-long injustice fueled by corporate greed that has left artists uncompensated for the use of their songs on AM/FM radio.”

STUDENT DEBT
It's Not Rich Kids Who Take Out Student Loans. Forgiving Debt Will Boost the Middle Class

Time

By Randi Weingarten

June 16, 2022

This summer President Joe Biden has the rare opportunity to take a single meaningful action that would rebuild the American middle class, help close the racial wealth gap, and restore trust in both the federal government and in higher education: canceling student debt up to $50,000. Canceling student debt would make real the promise of equal access to higher education.

 

JOINING TOGETHER

Mechanics vote for union at Jim Fisher Volvo

Northwest Labor Press

By Colin Staub

June 16, 2022

Mechanics and lube technicians at a Portland Volvo dealership voted 7 to 3 to be represented by the Machinists District Lodge W24 in ballots counted June 1. The vote count came just over four months after workers announced their intent to unionize. It was attended by Machinists rep Jon Irvine, mechanic and union supporter Connor Hogan, dealership owner Jim Fisher, Jr. and attorney Alex Wheatley from management law firm Fisher Phillips.

 

Atlantic City Casino Union Authorizes Strike, July 4 Walkout Threatens Busy Season

Casino.org

By Devin O'Connor

June 16, 2022

Members of the Atlantic City casino union Unite Here Local 54 have authorized their leaders to call a strike at any time after July 1 unless new labor agreements are reached with the nine resorts. The collective bargaining agreements that dictate minimum pay and an array of working conditions for some 10,000 hospitality service workers employed by the Atlantic City casinos expired June 1. Unite Here Local 54 officials are negotiating new terms with casino reps, but the two sides are seemingly far from signing new contracts. Unite Here said about 96% of the “several thousand” union members who voted yesterday during the strike authorization lent their backing to such a protest.

 

Support workers at tiny house villages for homeless vote to join AFSCME

Northwest Labor Press

By Colin Staub

June 16, 2022

In ballots counted June 2, a group of 46 employees who operate tiny house villages for the homeless in Portland voted 15-3 to unionize. In April, workers sent a letter to managers of All Good Northwest declaring their intent to be represented by Oregon AFSCME. The nonprofit, headquartered in Southeast Portland’s Revolution Hall, operates three tiny house villages (Old Town Village, Queer Affinity Village and BIPOC Village) and recently opened an indoor shelter in the Central Eastside. It’s also in the process of opening another village and shutting its Old Town site. All Good declined to voluntarily recognize the union, so the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) scheduled a mail ballot election.

 

Washtenaw Community College hosts training for 4,000 union trainers in Ann Arbor

Detroit Free Press

By Navya Gupta

June 16, 2022

Ann Arbor’s Washtenaw Community College (WCC) will host training events for union trainers from four national skilled trades organizations this summer.  Training sessions will be held on the WCC campus between June to August, according to a news release. Trainers from the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers, Operative Plasterers' and Cement Masons International Association, International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers Union and United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters are expected to attend. Trainers will spend a week on campus taking classroom credit classes and participating in hands-on laboratory instructional training in order to stay updated with the latest skills and technological developments in their fields, the release said. Following the program, trainers will be able to impart their learning to union members across the country.

 

IN THE STATES

A proud moment for Oregon labor

Northwest Labor Press

By Graham Trainor

June 16, 2022

June 12 was the day that a daughter of Oregon, a champion for workers everywhere, and our friend, Liz Shuler, was re-elected as AFL-CIO president at the 29th AFL-CIO Convention in Philadelphia to her first full term in office. She was unanimously elected alongside her partner and trailblazing leader in his own right, Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond with a clear, progressive and bold vision for our future. For the entire American labor movement, this historic leadership team marks many firsts. The first woman to hold the office of AFL-CIO president and the first Black man and person of color to hold the office of AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer.  But for the Oregon labor movement, June 12, 2022, will always hold extra special meaning as well.  

 

Is $30 million enough for pandemic pay for Connecticut private sector? ‘I think that’s a drop in the bucket,’ lawmaker says

Hartford Courant

By Keith M. Phaneuf

June 16, 2022

“We believe that anyone who took on a risk during the pandemic should be compensated for the risk,” said Connecticut AFL-CIO President Ed Hawthorne. The approved $30 million “probably won’t be enough. We hope that the governor and the General Assembly will recognize that.”

 

NJ Unions Hit the Bricks for Hazard Pay

Insider NJ

By Bob Hennelly

June 16, 2022

On June 16, union members, a couple with their toddlers in tow, snaked through the Capitol complex looking to present a letter making the case for hazard pay. It was signed by several union presidents, including Charles Wowkanech, president of the New Jersey AFL-CIO and was addressed to Senate President Nicholas Scutari and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin.  The letter was also addressed to Gov. Phil Murphy. “We had within New Jersey Transit we also represent ATU, which represents 5,000 bus drivers—they had a lot of fatalities and a lot of sicknesses—the United Food & Commercial Workers who were on the frontline—just as the nurses and everybody else,” said Wowkaneck during an interview in his Trenton office. “They were in the Shop Rites and the ACMES keeping food on the shelves in the very beginning before vaccination, before PPE, there was a lot of sickness,  a lot of loss of life across all of these unions. And even now, quite frankly with the uptick and spike [it remains an issue]. I have two people out of my office right now that have it.”