JOINING TOGETHER
Knights, queens and strippers are helping fuel the spike in US unionizing efforts
CNN
By Natasha Chen
Aug. 6, 2022
Christian Sweeney, deputy director at the AFL-CIO, says it's notable that more white-collar professions —like the museum curators and video-game developers — are forming unions. And the Starbucks and Amazon efforts show employees aren't just organizing at workplaces that pay the least, but also at leading companies. "What a union does is give people an opportunity ... to come together, to negotiate with management, to have some say over wages, benefits, working conditions," Sweeney said. "There's really nothing that can replace that."
Deadline
By David Robb
Aug. 8, 2022
SAG-AFTRA’s national board has voted overwhelmingly to approve a new three-year contract with Netflix. The contract now goes to the guild’s membership for ratification. “We got a darn good deal,” said SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher, who chaired the guild’s negotiating committee. “We advanced significant improvements to exclusivity terms, allowing actors with short pickups to have more freedom to work other jobs and ensuring shorter hold periods between pickups.”
POLITICS
Senate OKs $739B climate action and healthcare cost reduction bill
People’s World
By Mark Gruenberg
Aug. 8, 2022
The measure “will transform the lives of working families at every level, and we urge the House of Representatives to pass this bill swiftly and send it to President Biden’s desk,” federation President Liz Shuler tweeted on August 6.
IN THE STATES
Program for $1,000 ‘Hero' Pay for Essential CT Workers to Launch This Week
NBC CT
Aug. 8, 2022
Up to $1,000 in pandemic pay will be available for eligible, private-sector essential workers in Connecticut who were employed during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. There was a soft launch on Friday and the website for applications went up that morning. While there has been significant interest in the program, officials from the office of the state comptroller said there is more behind-the-scenes work to be done to accommodate that level of demand before the program officially kicks off. Union officials in Connecticut have said more money is needed to compensate all of the essential workers who risked their lives during the pandemic. The Connecticut AFL-CIO, an umbrella federation of unions, voted last year to recommend roughly $218 million in unallocated federal pandemic funds be spent on pandemic pay.
TRANSPORTATION
Rail workers rally to demand new pact
People’s World
By Mark Gruenberg
Aug. 8, 2022
“What was inspiring was not just the rail workers there, but the members of other unions who came” in solidarity to the July 30 event, added AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department President Greg Regan, one of a lineup of speakers that day. Members of the Communications Workers, municipal workers unions and others came from near and far, Regan told People’s World in a telephone interview. “One BCTGM member drove all the way from Chicago,” 197 miles. “The core of the contract is wages” the rail unions proposed to the board of three professional board of arbitrators named to try to work out a solution, Regan added. The unions’ proposal, summarized on their website, calls for a 28% gross wage increase—6%, 6%, 8%, 4%, 4%–spread over its five-year term. Its website also summarized the railroads’ offer.