AFL-CIO Press Clips: June 22, 2022
CIVIL, HUMAN, AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS
Poor People’s Campaign’s Moral March on D.C. is just the beginning
Wisconsin Examiner
By Isiah Holmes
June 21, 2022
Thousands assembled in Washington D.C. for the Poor People’s Campaign (PPC) Moral March on Washington Saturday. The march, the fruit of many months of organizing, gathered poor and low income people from over 40 states. They lined Pennsylvania Avenue, filling the streets with emotional testimonies of enduring the interlocking injustices underscored by the campaign. Alongside them stood faith leaders, union leaders, attorneys working in the realm of social justice, and other allies. Fred Redmond, secretary treasurer of the AFL-CIO, alluded to a still ongoing fight. “We all know that we should not have to be here,” said Redmond. “It’s a failure of the system and not of the people. Being poor is not the failure. Being poor is not the crime. The crime is in accepting a system that allows for poverty. Poverty exists because we allow it to exist.” Bernice King, the daughter of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and CEO of the King Center, encouraged the campaign to carry her father’s torch.
JOINING TOGETHER
AAUP Delegates Approve Partnership With AFT
Inside Higher Ed
By Colleen Flaherty
June 21, 2022
Delegates at the American Association of University Professors’ biennial meeting voted to affiliate with the American Federation of Teachers Saturday, forming an alliance of 300,000 college and university faculty members, the largest such network in the U.S. The groups say their partnership comes at time of increased legislative attacks on teaching and academic freedom, and they link what they describe as persistent underfunding for higher education to student debt levels and precarity for adjunct instructors. The AAUP’s governing council previously recommended the partnership with AFT, under which the AAUP will remain an independent, autonomous organization. This new alliance is an extension of a longer-term relationship between the AFT and the AAUP. Going forward, the AFT will contribute to the AAUP’s advocacy efforts, and AFT and AAUP union chapters will be affiliated with both groups. AFT president Randi Weingarten, who addressed AAUP members earlier during the biennial meeting, said after the vote that with the affiliation, “we double down on the work to make colleges and universities excellent places to teach and learn, and to join forces to battle the ongoing threats to academic freedom and democracy. We will marshal forces to better fight for the necessary resources for postsecondary education to thrive, and we’ll organize to make academic jobs more sustainable and the promise of higher education more accessible to all.”
Atlantic City casino workers push for a contract with strike wild card in hand
WHYY
By P. Kenneth Burns
June 21, 2022
Members of Unite Here Local 54 will try one last ditch effort this week to come to an agreement with five Atlantic City casinos to avert a strike that could happen as soon as the Fourth of July weekend. A strike was authorized last Thursday, with plans to use it as a wild card against management at the Borgata and Hard Rock casinos, as well as Caesars Entertainment’s three properties — Caesars, Tropicana, Harrah’s.
Workers want to protect their health care, pension, and severance benefits. More than anything, they want more money — a livable wage.e
Seven Stars owners voluntarily recognize new union
Uprise RI
By Steve Ahlquist
June 21, 2022
United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local Union 328, which represents 11,000 workers in a variety of industries in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, announced today that the hardworking baristas, counter staff, keyholders and re-stockers employed at all five Seven Stars Bakery locations in Providence, Rumford and Cranston, Rhode Island, won voluntary union recognition. On Monday, June 20, Seven Stars owners Bill and Tracy Daugherty announced to employees their decision to voluntarily recognize.
The announcement follows organizing efforts from employees at all five locations where an overwhelming majority of café workers delivered letters requesting union recognition.
ORGANIZING
Wisconsin union members speak on recent increases in strikes and labor organizing
WUWM
By Chuck Quirmbach
June 20, 2022
What is it like to be on strike? That used to be a very common question in the U.S., as the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports there were 470 major work stoppages in 1952. By 1980, that number had dropped to 187. There were just 16 major strikes last year, which was double the amount in 2020. Think tanks like the Economic Policy Institute argue there were many more work stoppages at smaller companies last year that the Labor Department didn't monitor.