JOINING TOGETHER
BIW drafters union approves new contract with wage gains
WGME
By Christopher Burns
March 23, 2022
A union representing drafters at Bath Iron Works has ratified a new contract with wage gains. The four-year contract won 72 percent support from the members of the Bath Marine Draftsmen’s Association, Local 3999 of the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, during a Saturday meeting, according to the Maine AFL-CIO.
'On the right side of history': Worker describes end to strike at Davenport defense supplier
Quad-City Times
By Tom Loewy
March 23, 2022
Krystle and Rickey Kuster spent Tuesday night together with friends at Gypsy Highway for dinner and a few drinks. After 33 days on strike, Krystle was on her way back to work. But the gathering really wasn't a celebration. Perhaps it was simply chance to exhale. Just a few hours earlier the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers announced the end of the strike against Eaton-Cobham Mission Systems. More than 400 members of Local 388 and Local 1191 returned to work Wednesday with a new five-year contract.
One-day strike averted at Tri-City Medical Center as nurses sign four-year contract
San Diego Union-Tribune
By Paul Sisson
March 23, 2022
One year after collective bargaining began, 500 nurses who work at Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside have signed a four-year contract they say will improve patient safety and also increase wages. In a statement, the California Nurses Association, a union that represents about 100,000 workers in more than 200 facilities across the state, indicates that compliance with nursing ratios was a big part of the negotiating process.
IN THE STATES
Virginia, the first state to set Covid workplace rules, drops them.
The New York Times
By Emma Goldberg
March 22, 2022
The president of the Virginia A.F.L.-C.I.O., Doris Crouse-Mays, said the state had “opted to abandon safety protections for working people” and that “the Covid-19 crisis is still a pandemic.” States with their own workplace safety agencies must have rules that are at least as effective as those set by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Labor Department will steer job seekers to job help via 'navigators'
Maine Biz
By Jessica Hall
March 23, 2022
A$1 million pilot program from the Maine Department of Labor will provide "navigators" to help more than 3,000 job seekers get education, training and social services they need to join the workforce. Selected through a competitive proposal process, the partner organizations include the Maine AFL-CIO, Maine Equal Justice, Food and Medicine, Prosperity Maine, and Gateway Community Services. Those groups will work with the Labor Department to reach underserved populations who have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and help them get into the workforce. “As thousands of Maine workers evaluate what comes next in their work lives, we look forward to directly connecting them with good jobs, registered apprenticeship and training programs and the supports, like childcare or unemployment insurance, they need to achieve economic security and dignity,” said Matt Schlobohm, executive director of the Maine AFL-CIO. “Peer workforce navigators, rooted in their communities, will help build the workforce and high wage economy Mainers need.”
RAISING WAGES
Report: Here’s how raising wages would benefit workers in Oregon
KOIN
By Gabby Urenda
March 23, 2022
With inflation at its highest in 40 years, a new report highlights how raising wages and ending subminimum wages would help working Oregonians. According to Oxfam America, an organization that “fights inequality to end poverty and injustice,” 634,735 workers in Oregon make less than $15 per hour. However, it added that about a half million of workers in Oregon benefited from an increase in the state minimum wage in 2022. When it comes to gender, 36.4% of working women in Oregon earn less than $15 per hour compared to 22.8% of working men, said the organization.
WORKPLACE SAFETY AND HEALTH
OSHA Schedules Public Hearing on Healthcare Worker COVID-19 Protection
Healthcare Innovation
By Janette Wider
March 23, 2022
According to a March 22 news release, the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has partially reopened the rulemaking record and scheduled an informal public hearing for comments on the development of a final standard to protect healthcare and healthcare support service workers from exposure to COVID-19 in the workplace. We reported on Jan. 6 that labor organizations National Nurses United (NNU); AFL-CIO; American Federation of Teachers (AFT); American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); as well as some of the nation’s other major nursing unions, including the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) and Pennsylvania Association of Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP) petitioned the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to order the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to issue a permanent standard that requires employers to protect healthcare workers against COVID-19.