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AFL-CIO Press Clips: June 21, 2021

Berry Craig
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MUST LISTEN
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka joined Bloomberg Radio to discuss the path forward on infrastructure and the state of the economy.
Bloomberg Radio
June 18, 2021
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka joined Bloomberg Radio to discuss the path forward on infrastructure and the state of the economy.

JOINING TOGETHER
MSNBC employees are forming a union.
The New York Times
By Michael M. Grynbaum
June 17, 2021
Employees at MSNBC, the 24-hour cable news channel with a slate of prominent liberal anchors, said on Thursday that they planned to form a union representing about 315 workers including producers, bookers, writers, and fact checkers. The announcement is the latest example of a workers’ rights movement that has swept major media organizations, as print, digital and broadcast journalists seek to unionize amid a precarious outlook for their industry. Recently, employees at The Atlantic, The Daily News of New York and Insider, as well as tech workers at The New York Times have announced their intent to unionize.


Pope Francis champions right of workers to organize in unions
NBC News
By The Associated Press
June 17, 2021
Pope Francis has championed the right of all workers to unionize, as economic activity is poised to increase when the pandemic threat eases. The pontiff stressed the needs of the most vulnerable workers, including migrants, in a video message Thursday to participants at a conference organized by the International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency based in Geneva. Francis said efforts to rebuild economies after Covid-19 setbacks must aim at a future with "decent and dignified working conditions," originating in collective bargaining. He called the "right to organize in unions" one of the fundamental protections for workers.


MSNBC News Writers & Producers Unionize With WGA East
Deadline
By David Robb and Ted Johnson
June 17, 2021
MSNBC’s newsroom employees have unionized with the WGA East. The organizing effort includes the news writers, producers, booking producers, fact checkers and planners at every program airing on the cable news outlet including The Rachel Maddow Show, Deadline Whitehouse, All In with Chris Hayes, The Reidout, Morning Joe, Politics Nation, The Beat with Ari Melber, MSNBC Reports, MTP Daily, The 11th Hour with Brian Williams, The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell and Way Too Early with Kasie Hunt.


MSNBC says it won't voluntarily recognize new union effort
The Hill
By Thomas Moore
June 17, 2021
Some 200-plus MSNBC workers are forming a union, but the network, known for its progressive politics, said it won’t recognize the effort until a majority of workers vote in a secret ballot election. The MSNBC Union made the announcement Thursday that it was organizing to become a local chapter of the Writers Guild of America, East. “We are the editorial staff of MSNBC and The Choice. Over 200 of us have signed a union petition to join the @wgaeast,” the group tweeted Thursday.


IN THE STATES
In The Moment: How We Talk About Labor After The Pandemic
SDPB
By Steven Zwemke, Jackie Hendry, Chris Laughery and Lori Walsh
June 18, 2021
Smithfield Foods and the union (UFCW Local 304A) are closer to reaching a contract for meatpacking workers, potentially avoiding a work stoppage. We talk with Kooper Caraway, president of the South Dakota State Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO about how the pandemic has shifted the statewide conversation about organizing.


'Put patients first': Mission nurses picket over contract; union negotiates with HCA
Citizen Times
By Derek Lacey
June 16, 2021
Hundreds of nurses and community members noisily took to the sidewalks in front of Mission Hospital June 15, as Asheville nurses continue contract negotiations with hospital owner HCA Healthcare. Chants of "Put patients first!" and near-constant horns from supportive passersby echoed off the hospital walls and around the corner of Biltmore Avenue and Hospital Drive as members of the nurses' union marched the sidewalks. At issue are three main points of the contract: safe staffing, safe floating and compensation focused on retention and recruitment, nurses said. Nurse-to-patient rations are at unsafe levels, they said, and nurses are floating, or moving between departments, to places they aren't trained or equipped for, as nurses leave in droves. "We are all here today because we are tired of going to work and not having the resources or staff that we need to do our jobs to keep you all safe," said Claire Siegel, a registered nurse with Mission's adult medical surgical unit and member of the negotiating team for National Nurses United.


Unemployment benefits soon coming to end for Floridians
WPTV
By Matt Sczesny
June 17, 2021
Rich Templin of the Florida AFL-CIO, said the loss of unemployment payments "will devastate people who are still getting the $300 in benefits." "They're not getting rich," he said. "They're getting food." Templin said ending the federal benefit is estimated to affect about 120,000 people, as well as end a $700 impact on Florida's economy. "It's unfair to Florida taxpayers that our money is going to other states instead of back here to Florida," he said.


NC Department of Labor continues to resist workplace safety rules for COVID-19
NC Policy Watch
By Yanqi Xu
June 17, 2021
Even though rulemaking can take as long as a year — and vaccines are available — some workers have yet to be vaccinated. COVID-related workplace complaints continue to be filed and found valid, according to federal OSHA data. “Whether it’s COVID or some future virus, workers need OSHA to pass enforceable standards so that companies take steps to protect workers from airborne diseases,” said MaryBe McMillan, president of the NC State AFL-CIO.


N.J. unions would gain power under new plan pushed by top lawmaker
NJ.com
By Samantha Marcus 
June 20, 2021
Fran Ehret, area director of the Communications Workers of America, which represents more than 50,000 state and local public workers in New Jersey, told lawmakers last week the bill “allows more opportunity for the parties to explore cost-effective and creative solutions to problems and to ensure the efficient delivery of public services.”


Unemployed Georgians face cutoff of federal benefits
Clayton News-Daily
By Dave Williams
June 20, 2021
While business owners say the weekly federal checks are acting as a disincentive for unemployed Georgians to go back to work, labor advocates say other factors are keeping otherwise willing workers from coming back. Charlie Flemming, president of the Georgia AFL-CIO, said many women are being forced to stay home because they can’t find child care workers. Others aren’t going back to their jobs for fear of COVID-19, he said. “We lag behind a lot of states in getting people vaccinated,” Flemming said. “Why would people want to go out and risk their lives?”

LABOR AND ECONOMY
Tight Labor Market Returns the Upper Hand to American Workers
The Wall Street Journal
By Eric Morath and Greg Ip
June 20, 2021
William Spriggs, chief economist to the AFL-CIO labor federation, said unions’ support for a $15 minimum wage and their efforts to organize companies like Amazon deserve some credit for spurring changes in low-wage workers’ pay and working conditions.