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Today's AFL-CIO press clips

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JOINING TOGETHER

Daniel Boone Regional Library workers vote on unionization

KRCG

By Margaret Stafford

May 17, 2022

Workers at a public library system based in Columbia are voting this week on whether to become the only active public librarians union in the state. If employees at the Daniel Boone Regional Library, which has branches in Columbia, Fulton, Ashland, and Holts Summit, ratify the union, they would join a growing movement toward unionization across the country, sparked in part by the coronavirus pandemic. Employees, who are voting Wednesday through Saturday, would be represented by the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. If the union is formed, the Missouri workers would join more than 2,000 cultural workers who have joined AFSCME since 2019, including employees of museums, zoos, and science centers along with library workers from Ohio, Illinois, Oregon, Massachusetts, Washington, and Maryland.


Architects Draft a New Blueprint for a Labor Movement

Bloomberg

By Kriston Capps and Sarah Holder

May 17, 2022

In December, workers at SHoP pushed the envelope again: Architects with the 135-employee firm announced a bid to unionize. Under the banner Architectural Workers United, the workers mounted the first significant labor push in the building design industry since 1971. “When architectural workers first reached out to us, my first question was, what is the standard now?” says David DiMaria, an organizer with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the global trade union that Architectural Workers United hoped to affiliate with. DiMaria describes feeling a “holy s--t moment” as he surveyed the field: “This is a professional trade that is completely not unionized.”


IN THE STATES

New Jersey State AFL-CIO Labor Candidates Program Wins Reed Award for Best Use of Digital Display Communications

Insider NJ

May 16, 2022

Last year, the New Jersey State AFL-CIO produced 540 unique internet protocol ads in support of 60 endorsed labor candidates, which were viewed more than 6 million times in the final weeks of the campaign. Internet protocol ads are targeted advertisements displayed on a computer, laptop, smartphone or tablet connected to a union member’s home internet network. The New Jersey State AFL-CIO pioneered this approach, which no other labor organization has used as extensively in a political campaign. As campaigns have evolved, our political program has changed over time to maximize our labor movement’s power and effectiveness. The New Jersey AFL-CIO’s Labor Candidates Program recruits, trains, and supports union members to run for election to public office. Since the program’s inception in 1997, the Labor Candidates Program has elected 1,186 union members to office at all levels of government, including the House of Representatives, the New Jersey State Senate and Assembly as well as county and local government across our state.

It’s Dangerous to be a Latino Worker in Texas

Texas Observer

By Stephen Franklin and Abel Uribe

May 17, 2022

In Texas, unions and worker advocacy groups have called for the state to set up its own OSHA, as 22 other states have. They say a state plan would do a better job than the federal government’s, and some research shows this to be the case. At best, they say the federal government isn’t doing the job. The effort, however, has gone nowhere in the legislature, according to the Texas AFL-CIO. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has about 99 inspectors in Texas, according to estimates from the AFL-CIO. Dean Wingo, a former OSHA inspector in Texas and currently a public-health consultant, says the federal effort there is overwhelmed and unable to do preventive work. “It is like a doctor trying to practice preventive medicine in an emergency room.”


TRANSPORTATION 

Unions critical of BNSF’s new adjustments to attendance policy

Freightwaves

By Joanna Marsh

May 17, 2022

Two unions are still critical of BNSF’s controversial attendance policy, saying recent adjustments aren’t enough to overcome its shortcomings. “BNSF’s proposed changes to its HiViz attendance policy are unimpressive. These changes do nothing to address the policy’s fundamental flaws,” said Greg Regan, president of the Transportation Trades Department, which is affiliated with the AFL-CIO. BNSF implemented the “HiViz” policy, which stands for high visibility, on Feb. 1. The railroad has said the policy aims to provide more transparency on absences as well as more predictability for crews around when they will go to work. But union members contend that the policy shortchanges rest time and penalizes employees for time off.