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Today's AFL-CIO press clips

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LABOR AND ECONOMY

‘This is a crisis point’: Job training deficit leaves critical jobs unfilled

Politico

By Eleanor Mueller

May 26, 2022

“Employers have actually been putting less and less money in training over the course of time, and offloaded onto the government,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said. “The government has been under-resourcing it; they offloaded it onto the individual. And so that means that they’re taking on more of the risk.”


TRANSPORTATION 

Freight railroad slowdowns under microscope amid supply crunch

The Hill

By Karl Evers-Hillstrom

May 25, 2022

“The most important reason why the railroad leg of the supply chain failed over the last year and a half is the fact that they did not have the workforce or the equipment to be able to deal with the demand for goods,” said Greg Regan, president of the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department, which represents several railroad worker unions. 

JOINING TOGETHER

Alaska Air pilots authorize strike amid contract negotiations

Reuters

By Rajesh Kumar Singh

May 25, 2022

Pilots at Alaska Air Group Inc (ALK.N) have voted to authorize a strike if agreement on a new employment contract cannot be reached, their union said on Wednesday. The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), which represents over 3,000 pilots at the Seattle-based carrier, said 99% of those who cast their ballots backed strike-authorization. Alaska pilots, however, cannot walk off the job until the National Mediation Board grants them permission. The board will first have to determine that both the parties are at an impasse and further bargaining would not be productive.

Culinary, Resorts World Las Vegas ratify a labor contract covering 2,000 workers

The Nevada Independent

By Howard Stutz

May 25, 2022

Culinary Workers Local 226 announced Wednesday it reached a three-year labor agreement with Resorts World Las Vegas, marking the first all-new union contract at a major Strip resort since 2015. Union negotiators representing the Culinary and its affiliated Bartenders Local 226 reached an agreement with Resorts World management on contract language following a negotiating session on May 17. Three days later, the contract covering more than 2,000 non-gaming employees was ratified by 99 percent of the workforce.

School bus drivers ratify new contract with Boston Public Schools

Boston Herald

By Marie Szaniszlo

May 25, 2022

After a year of negotiations, Boston Public Schools and the school bus drivers’ union have reached an agreement on a new contract that will give them a 9.1% pay raise over three years. The proposed contract bus drivers ratified Tuesday night includes pay increases of 5.2% the first year and 2% increase each of the last two years. “This agreement is a victory for our students and families,” Superintendent Brenda Cassellius said in a statement. “This contract achieves several operational changes we need to increase our on-time bus performance and driver attendance.” Boston Public Schools and the city, working in partnership with Transdev, the district’s school transportation contractor and negotiator, have spent the last year negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement with the school bus driver’s Union, USW Local 8751.

Workers at call centers serving Medicare stage two-day strike

People’s World

By Mark Gruenberg

May 25, 2022

No wonder they want to unionize with the Communications Workers—and staged a two-day strike May 23-24, in some cases virtual and others actual, demanding union recognition and much higher pay, worker La Keisha Preston told a Poor People’s Campaign rally in Memphis, Tenn. The workers, most of them women of color, have been battling Maximus for recognition, and against its exploitation for several years, even as they handle phone calls from clients of Medicare and the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchanges. CWA’s files include past reports on the conditions at call centers in Hattiesburg, Miss., where Preston toils, Bogalusa, La., Phoenix, Brownsville, Texas, Lawrence, Ky., and Tampa, Fla.