EDUCATION
CBS News
By Caitlin O'kane
July 8, 2021
As the debate over how race is taught in schools continues to be a hot-button issue in many school districts, the president of one of America's largest teachers unions is speaking out against efforts to ban critical race theory. In a speech this week, Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), said critical race theory it is not even taught in elementary schools — and she vowed to fight "culture warriors" who are "bullying teachers." v During the AFT conference on Tuesday, Weingarten called the movement against critical race theory a "culture campaign" by Republicans and Fox News that attempts to suppress the truth, "limit learning and stoke fears about our public schools."
POLITICS
Exclusive: Union flexes muscle for internet funding
Axios
By Margaret Harding McGill
July 8, 2021
The union workers who build the nation's internet networks have a huge stake in how Congress decides to divvy up infrastructure funding— and they want strings attached to make sure they're not left on the sidelines. Why it matters: The telecom workers' union sees an ally in President Joe Biden for its pressure campaign to ensure union members will play a role in infrastructure-funded jobs.
Business groups, unions join together on infrastructure plan
Westport News
By Kevin Freking and Lisa Mascaro
July 8, 2021
Major business and union groups have formed a new coalition designed to add momentum for a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package that the Senate is expected to take up this month. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO, along with trade groups representing manufacturers and retailers, announced the coalition Thursday. The group’s formation comes as a bipartisan group of senators tries to craft a bill from a blueprint that aims to dramatically boost public works spending over the next five years.
LABOR AND ECONOMY
Robots were supposed to take our jobs. Instead, they’re making them worse.
Vox
By Emily Stewart
July 2, 2021
But we often spend so much time talking about the potential for robots to take our jobs that we fail to look at how they are already changing them — sometimes for the better, but sometimes not. New technologies can give corporations tools for monitoring, managing, and motivating their workforces, sometimes in ways that are harmful. The technology itself might not be innately nefarious, but it makes it easier for companies to maintain tight control on workers and squeeze and exploit them to maximize profits.
Jobless workers fight back against Republican governors’ unemployment cutoffs
People’s World
By Mark Gruenberg
July 8, 2021
Two successful lawsuits so far, in Maryland and Indiana. Another filed in Austin, Texas, by two Facebook groups representing more than 31,000 workers combined. A Florida AFL-CIO social media campaign. And a “we’ll remember next November” promise from the Tennessee AFL-CIO President Billy Dycus. That’s how unemployed workers in those states are combatting Republican governors’ callous cutoffs of $300 federal unemployment aid checks. The checks, from federal pandemic unemployment aid, go to two groups of workers. One includes “Independent contractors,” “gig economy” workers, home health care aides, port truckers and other workers not covered by regular state jobless aid programs. For those workers, the $300 checks were their only income once the coronavirus pandemic, and the closures it forced to prevent “community spread” of the modern-day plague, threw them out of their jobs.
JOINING TOGETHER
Workers agree to union contracts with Twin Cities grocers
Star Tribune
By Nicole Norfleet
July 8, 2021
The United Food and Commercial Workers said Twin Cities unionized grocery workers will have expanded benefits and protections, as well as more pay, under a new contract agreement. UFCW Local 663 — which represents more than 13,000 frontline food and retail workers in Minnesota and Iowa, including about 6,000 Minnesota grocery employees — negotiated for two-year contracts that deliver pay increases every six months, no increases in health care costs and hazard pay that has already been paid by many grocers or will be paid in one-time bonuses, it said on Thursday. Several grocery chains — including Kowalski's Markets, Jerry's Foods and Lunds & Byerlys — have agreed to the contract.
IN THE STATES
Video: Democratic Leaders, AFL-CIO, CWA Blast Glenn Youngkin’s Record of Killing American Jobs
Blue Virginia
By Blue Virginia
July 8, 2021
See below for video and a press release from the Democratic Party of Virginia, about “press conferences [held this week] in Roanoke and Richmond highlighting Glenn Youngkin’s track record of offshoring American jobs while harming working people and discussed Democrats’ work building a strong Virginia economy.” As Virginia AFL-CIO President Doris Crouse-Mays said: “The offshoring that Youngkin spent his career advancing has been devastating for communities across Virginia and the country — and we know it all too well right here in Roanoke.” “There’s no two-ways about it: Glenn Youngkin’s so-called leadership led to American jobs being shipped overseas.”
WORKPLACE SAFETY AND HEALTH
Labor Unions Seek Appellate Review of OSHA COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard
National Law Review
July 8, 2021
The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, AFL-CIO, CLC (UFCW), and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) have filed a petition for review of OSHA’s recent COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) in the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals. The ETS covers only healthcare settings where COVID-19 patients are treated. According to the petition, UFCW and AFL-CIO have requested review on the grounds that the ETS “fails to protect employees outside the healthcare industry who face a similar grave danger from occupational exposure to COVID-19.” A June 10, 2021, statement issued by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka indicates that the union is particularly concerned about workers in industries with high rates of COVID-19 infections and deaths, such as meatpacking, grocery, transportation, and corrections. UFCW and AFL-CIO’s statement of issues is due to the court on July 26, 2021.