EDITOR'S NOTE: "Martin Luther King Jr. was right. Civil rights and labor movements natural allies | Opinion," A Louisville Courier-Journal article we cross-posted on Jan. 19 is the lead article in the CIVIL, HUMAN, AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS section of today's press clips.
POLITICS
Biden’s vow to be ‘most pro-union president’ tested in first year
NBC News
By Ahiza García-Hodges
Jan. 20, 2022
“President Biden has been as advertised,” said Tim Schlittner, the communications director for the AFL-CIO. “We feel we have a champion in the White House. It steels our spines. The confluence of worker activism and President Biden’s election has created an incredible opportunity for real change, for workers to finally have a say in our wages, our working conditions, our retirement, our quality of life.”
Georgia AFL-CIO endorses Democrat Abrams for governor
AP
Jan. 20, 2022
A major union in Georgia is endorsing Democrat Stacey Abrams’ campaign for governor. The Georgia AFL-CIO announced its endorsement at a news conference with Abrams in Atlanta on Wednesday. The union also endorsed Abrams early in her previous run for governor. Union President Charlie Flemming said Abrams would work to “fight our skyrocketing racial and economic inequities.” “She knows that working people and their families have needs that must be met, and she has done that work and will continue to do that work to address them,” he said.
Biden's Inauguration Anniversary: Has He Kept His Campaign Promises?
Teen Vogue
By Alexa Stevens
Jan. 20, 2022
Some labor leaders say the good outweighs the bad. Brittany Anderson, organizer, vice president of Machinist Union District Lodge 77, and member of Pride at Work’s National Executive Board — the AFL-CIO’s constituency group for LGBTQ workers — tells Teen Vogue, “President Biden is probably the most outspoken pro-union, pro-worker president in modern American history.”
CIVIL, HUMAN, AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS
Martin Luther King Jr. was right. Civil rights and labor movements natural allies (Opinion)
Courier Journal
By Berry Craig
Jan. 19, 2022
“The labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth,” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. aptly observed in remarks at the 1961 AFL-CIO convention. That's still true. Anyway, it’s no coincidence that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is clinging like grim death to the filibuster to derail the PRO Act and to stall legislation that would override GOP-sponsored state laws that deliberately make it harder for people of color to vote and vest control over vote counting and election certifying to partisan bodies such as appointed election commissions.
LABOR AND ECONOMY
Intelligencer
By Sarah Jones
Jan. 20, 2022
Over the last ten months, Brian Kelly has traveled, twice, from his home in Alabama to New York City. Kelly, along with roughly 900 of his co-workers, has been on strike since April 2021, a lengthy ordeal they pin on their employer Warrior Met Coal’s lackluster proposals for a new contract. In an unusual move for a labor strike, he and hundreds of workers came to protest the three hedge funds that own Warrior Met and pressure them to pressure the company’s management. It hasn’t been easy: Last November, the NYPD arrested Kelly and several others in front of the headquarters of BlackRock, the largest shareholder in Warrior Met.
We Know the Real Cause of the Crisis in Our Hospitals. It’s Greed. (Video, Opinion)
The New York Times
By Lucy King and Jonah M. Kessel
Jan. 19, 2022
We’re entering our third year of Covid, and America’s nurses — who we celebrated as heroes during the early days of lockdown — are now leaving the bedside. The pandemic arrived with many people having great hope for reform on many fronts, including the nursing industry, but much of that optimism seems to have faded. In the Opinion Video above, nurses set the record straight about the root cause of the nursing crisis: chronic understaffing by profit-driven hospitals that predates the pandemic. “I could no longer work in critical care under the conditions I was being forced to work under with poor staffing,” explains one nurse, “and that’s when I left.” They also tear down the common misconception that there’s a shortage of nurses. In fact, there are more qualified nurses today in America than ever before.
JOINING TOGETHER
Portland city trade workers vote to authorize strike
KOIN
By Sam Campbell
Jan. 20, 2022
Portland city trade workers in six unions voted to authorize a strike after contract negotiations with the city were stalled for weeks. The District Council of Trade Unions posted on Facebook that the unions saw a 91% member turnout with 86.17% voting to authorize the strike. A strike by the DCTU would likely be felt in all aspects of city life as it would include more than 1,100 city workers from the bureaus that handle Portland’s water, transportation, development services, policing and finances. DCTU is comprised of multiple unions, including AFSCME Local 189, IBEW Local 48, Operating Engineers Local 701, Machinists District Lodge 24, Plumbers Local 290 and Painters and Allied Trades District Council 5.
Salon Editorial Staff Unanimously Ratifies New WGA East Contract
Deadline
By David Robb
Jan. 20, 2022
The editorial staff at Salon, the digital news site, has voted unanimously to ratify their second collective bargaining agreement with the WGA East. The WGA East represents nearly 7,000 writers in film, television, news (broadcast and digital), and podcasts. In addition to Salon, it represents newsrooms at WINS-AM, ABC News, Audacy (WCBS-AM, WBBM-AM, KNX-AM), Bustle Digital Group, CBS News, CBSN, Chalkbeat, Committee to Protect Journalists, The Dodo, Fast Company, WNYW-TV, FT Specialist, Future plc, Gizmodo Media Group, Hearst Magazines, HuffPost, Inc., The Intercept, Jewish Currents, MSNBC, MTV News, NowThis, Onion Inc., Refinery29, Slate, Talking Points Memo, Thirteen Productions (Thirteen/WNET), Thrillist, Vice, Vox Media and WBBM-TV.
IN THE STATES
Pittsburgh snagged nearly 1/3 of infrastructure bill's funding for inland waterways
WESA
By Margaret J. Krauss
Jan. 19, 2022
The investment is just the first of many in the nation’s infrastructure, and will generate family-sustaining jobs, said Darrin Kelly, president of the Allegheny-Fayette Central Labor Council. Kelly estimates the work on Montgomery alone could create 1,000 jobs. “This is another artery that opens up for our great city,” he said. “Pittsburgh is one of the busiest landlocked ports in the world” and will hopefully soon be able to handle larger ships.
UNION BUSTING
Coffee Tree workers accuse management of union busting
Pittsburgh City Paper
By Jordana Rosenfeld
Jan. 20, 2022
On Jan. 18, the Coffee Tree Union Twitter account announced they have filed four new Unfair Labor Practice charges against their employer. An unfair labor practice is an action by an employer that violates the National Labor Relations Act, which protects one’s right to join, organize, or help a union. Workers at Coffee Tree Roasters have been campaigning since late last year to unionize with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776. Coffee Tree Roasters is a Pittsburgh-based coffee chain with five locations throughout the region and about 52 baristas, according to a union filing. Since then, workers who support the unionization campaign say Coffee Tree management has interfered with their right to form a union through intimidation, retaliation, and bribery.