Today's AFL-CIO Press Clips
MUST READ
The Case For Business Leaders to Work Collaboratively with Unions
Time - Charter
By Michelle Peng
March 19, 2023
Democrats in Congress have reintroduced the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, a bill that would create new protections for workers seeking to unionize. Last week, witnesses appeared to testify to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, including Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO. Speaking in favor of the PRO Act, Shuler’s testimony also included an invitation to workplace leaders: “Unions and the labor movement stand ready and willing to work together with businesses all across this country: innovating together, becoming more skilled and efficient, and creating better outcomes for everyone,” she said. As interest in unions among professional and desk-based workers continues to rise, navigating the relationship with organized labor is an increasingly important skill for leaders in industries like tech, media, and education. And amidst this groundswell of union organizing, employers have an opportunity to rewrite the traditionally adversarial relationship between labor and management, argues Shuler. We spoke with Shuler about what that shift might look like. Here are excerpts from our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity.
JOINING TOGETHER
Tens of Thousands of LA Teachers to Strike in Solidarity With Support Workers
Common Dreams
By Julia Conley
March 20, 2023
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, noted that LAUSD has a $4.9 billion surplus and said the district must use those funds to "invest in staff, students, and educators."
Reality TV Workers Launch Union Drive at ‘The Kitchen’ and ‘Trisha’s Southern Kitchen’ Producer
The Hollywood Reporter
By Katie Kilkenny
March 20, 2023
A group of producers at BSTV Entertainment, the shingle behind Food Network projects like The Kitchen and Trisha’s Southern Kitchen, is attempting to unionize. A majority of the collection of 19 workers (who the Guild is calling writer-producers) at the Montclair, New Jersey-based development and production company have signed union cards in an attempt to join the Writers Guild of America East, the union announced on Monday. The WGA East is calling on management at the company to voluntarily recognize the group, a means of unionizing that avoids a formal National Labor Relations Board election. Eater was the first to report the news.
NJ Nurses Say They're Overworked, Demand 'Safe Staffing' Law
Patch
By Eric Kiefer
March 20, 2023
New Jersey AFL-CIO President Charlie Wowkanech – “Our nurses are the backbone of our health care system. But current staffing levels are threatening our health care system's ability to provide the level of care we need, and it is taking its toll on already strained health care workers. Unfortunately, some hospitals are opposed to improving staffing ratios because they are choosing to prioritize profits, even as we reach a post-pandemic health care staffing crisis point. S-304 would establish the fair patient-to-nurse ratios we need to improve our health care system.”
600 Nurses Issue Strike Notice to CA-Based MarinHealth Medical Center Hospital
Nurses.org
By Chaunie Brusie
March 20, 2023
Another California hospital has received a 10-day strike notice from its employed RNs over a host of issues that the nurses say are unacceptable, including unsafe staffing levels, a lack of a “fair contract,” and impaired patient care. National Nurses United (NNU), in conjunction with the California Nurses Association (CNA), stated that the 600 registered nurses it represents at MarinHealth Medical Center in Greenbrae, CA, issued the strike notice to the hospital over “deep concerns about patient care, safe staffing, and retention and recruitment of nurses.” The proposed strike will last one day and take place on Tuesday, March 28, 2023. The CNA and NNU also explained that the strike notice was issued because MarinHealth administration had refused to address the nurses’ concerns.
IN THE STATES
Michigan adds LGBTQ protections to anti-discrimination law
AP News
By Joey Cappelletti
March 16, 2023
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation Thursday codifying LGBTQ protections into the state’s civil rights law, permanently outlawing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in the state. The legislation follows a state Supreme Court ruling last year that the Michigan’s Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act, which outlaws discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations and education on the basis of sex, extended to sexual orientation as well.
Retired Missouri AFL-CIO President Mike Louis honored by Ancient Order of Hibernians
Labor Tribune
By Tim Rowden
March 20, 2023
Mike Louis, retired president of the Missouri AFL-CIO who spearheaded the fight to defeat so-called “right-to-work” in 2018, was honored March 9 by the St. Louis Chapter of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) – the oldest and largest Irish Catholic lay organization in America. The 21st Anniversary “Hoses, Handcuffs and Hard Hats” Judge James Dailey Wahl Memorial gala honored seven St. Louis City and County police officers, fire fighters, public safety personnel, civic and Labor leaders and named Louis Labor Leader of the Year for his long history with Machinists District 9 and the AFL-CIO.
Stonewalled, Disrespected and Dismissed
The Chronicle of Higher Education
By Maximillian Alvarez
March 17, 2023
At colleges and universities across the country, from Duke to the University of Maryland, from Johns Hopkins to Santa Clara University, a heated battle is playing out right now over workers’ right to unionize. The administrative class is often openly antagonistic to the very notion that students, graduate students, and faculty have the right to collectively bargain. In Maryland, that antagonism has been on full display in recent weeks as members of the Maryland State House and Senate held hearings on and deliberated a collective bargaining bill that would dramatically reshape labor relations at the University System of Maryland campuses, Morgan State University, and St. Mary’s College of Maryland.