MUST READ
Biden is ‘proudly pro-union.’ Can he reverse labor’s long decline?
Los Angeles Times
By Noah Bierman and David Lauter
June 2, 2021
As Joe Biden launched his presidential run, he made an early stop at the Washington headquarters of the AFL-CIO to meet with its president, Richard Trumka. The former vice president talked about economic inequality and sluggish wages, analyzing them as a product of the outsize power corporations have over workers, Trumka said. In other words, he said, Biden talked like a union guy.
CORONAVIRUS
For Many Workers, Change in Mask Policy Is a Nightmare
The New York Times
By Noam Scheiber
June 2, 2021
The Kroger supermarket in Yorktown, Va., is in a county where mask wearing can be casual at best. Yet for months, the store urged patrons to cover their noses and mouths, and almost everyone complied. “People don’t like to wear masks here,” said Janet Wainwright, a meat cutter at the store, “but very few people would go without it.” That changed in mid-May after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised vaccinated Americans that they could go maskless in most indoor settings. The next week, the store told employees that they could no longer ask customers to cover their faces. So mask use plummeted, and the anxiety of Ms. Wainwright and other workers shot up. More than a dozen retail, hospitality and fast-food workers across the country interviewed by The New York Times expressed alarm that their employers had used the C.D.C. guidance to make masks optional for vaccinated customers.
TRANSPORTATION
Labor unions have a new point man on infrastructure
Roll Call
By Jessica Wehrman
June 2, 2021
Greg Regan took the helm of the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department in the worst of circumstances but with the best possible preparation. When the pandemic broke out, Regan, 37, was secretary-treasurer for the TTD, a coalition of 33 unions representing transportation workers. As a key policy staffer for the union, Regan, along with Willis, worked carefully to lobby for the March 2020 COVID-19 relief package that included paycheck protection for airline workers. He also fought for protective equipment and other provisions aimed at protecting a workforce that had no choice but to be public-facing.
LABOR AND ECONOMY
Stimulus Checks Substantially Reduced Hardship, Study Shows
The New York Times
By Jason DeParle
June 2, 2021
In offering most Americans two more rounds of stimulus checks in the past six months, totaling $2,000 a person, the federal government effectively conducted a huge experiment in safety net policy. Supporters said a quick, broad outpouring of cash would ease the economic hardships caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Skeptics called the policy wasteful and expensive.
AMAZON
Amazon workers have highest warehouse injury rate, labor groups say
CBS News
By Irina Ivanova
June 2, 2021
The groups based their analysis, released Tuesday, on injury statistics reported by Amazon to federal regulators and by surveying the company's warehouse workers. According to their findings, Amazon workers are twice as likely to be injured on the job as e-commerce workers for Walmart, Amazon's closest retail competitor. The injury rate for Amazon's delivery drivers — who are classified as contractors rather than full company employees — also have an injury rate that is 50% higher than drivers for UPS, the groups found. "The company's obsession with speed has come at a huge cost for Amazon's workforce," reads the report from the Strategic Organizing Center. (The SOC, formerly called Change to Win, is a coalition of four labor unions: the Service Employees International Union, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Communications Workers of America and United Farmworkers of America.)
WALMART
Civil rights leader Barber presses Walmart to ‘uplift’ employees during shareholders meeting
The Washington Post
By Abha Bhattarai
June 2, 2021
Walmart shareholders shot down employee safety and wage initiatives on Wednesday despite a prominent civil rights activist’s insistence that the retailer has a responsibility to “uplift the voices” of employees living in poverty. The Rev. William J. Barber II, noting the coronavirus outbreak’s disproportionate toll on Black Americans, pressed Walmart to create a worker-led committee on pandemic issues and raise its starting wage to $15 an hour. “Perhaps thousands of your workers suffered with this disease, spread it to family members, or had to endure terrifying isolation, gasping for breath, all because they were too poor to stay home from work, too afraid of retaliation to get the time off, too beaten down by this system to be truly supported by this company and by our government in this dire hour for our nation,” said Barber, chair of the Poor People’s Campaign.
JOINING TOGETHER
Schenectady County Legislature to vote on 5-year labor contract
The Daily Gazette
By Shenandoah Briere
June 2, 2021
The Schenectady County Legislature will vote June 8 on a five-year labor agreement with the three unions representing county employees. According to a press release from the county, if approved, the agreement would cover from Jan. 1, 2021 to Dec. 31, 2025 for members of the CSEA Local 1000, and the Schenectady units of the AFL-CIO and the ASFCME. The proposed contract includes making June 19 – Juneteenth – a county holiday. It also stipulates that employees will receive a 2% increase with a $1,000 bonus for 2021 and 2.25% annual pay increases thereafter.
At Portland-area construction sites, union painters are primed for ‘Summer of Chaos’
NW Labor Press
By Don McIntosh
June 2, 2021
At 5:45 a.m. Friday, May 21, painters started assembling outside under-reconstruction Madison High School in Northeast Portland, and picked up picket signs instead of paint sprayers. For the first time in over 40 years, members of Painters Local 10 were on strike. On the picket line were the 21 members scheduled to work there that day plus others who came to back them up. Painters District Council 5 field rep Scott Oldham says at first there was fear, not knowing what to expect. But when other union trades started to arrive in twos and threes, the mood shifted. But the strike wasn’t a one-off. It was a shot across the bow, a warm-up exercise amid a week-long mail-in strike vote by Local 10 members who work under the SPCO contract. On May 24, ballots were counted: 95% said they’re prepared to strike. The same day, delegates at the monthly meeting of the Northwest Oregon Labor Council, AFL-CIO, approved unanimously a resolution put forward by the stagehands union IATSE Local 28—to stand in solidarity with Local 10 members.
CIVIL, HUMAN, AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS
Unions are essential to racial justice (Opinion)
Bangor Daily News
By Jennifer Dorning
June 2, 2021
The events of the past year, from the many high-profile police killings of Black people to the COVID-19 pandemic’s disproportionate impact on communities of color, drive home the need for all of us to play a more active role to combat racial inequity and white supremacy. And one venue where real change can occur is in the workplace. As the president of the Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO, I lead a coalition of 24 national unions representing more than 4 million professionals. Through bargaining for pay, benefits and working conditions, our affiliates’ members have created sustainable, family-supporting careers in their industries. While these workplace improvements have raised standards for all professionals, employees of color tend to see some of the greatest gains from union membership.
IN THE STATES
Trainor: Protect Oregon workers from perils of extreme heat, smoke exposure (Opinion)
Portland Tribune
By Graham Trainor
June 2, 2021
In 2020, Oregon's essential workers faced unfathomable challenges, many of which continue to this day. We need to see strong protections on the books for workers exposed to extreme heat and smoke during wildfires, just like we need strong worker protections from COVID-19. The past 14 months have undeniably shown us the vital connection between the health of workers and that of our communities. That connection was visible when we saw frontline healthcare workers sleeping in tents to avoid exposing their family to COVID-19, when grocery workers demanded vaccination priority, and as wildfires ripped apart our state starting in August 2020.