Today's AFL-CIO Press Clips
MUST WATCH
What's ahead for the labor movement in 2024? (Video)
CNBC Television
By Staff
Jan. 17, 2024
CNBC's Kate Rogers on the gains workers saw in 2023 as a result of union activity, and what's ahead this year for companies, including Starbucks, on the labor front.
ORGANIZING
Schoolhouse Electric signs first union contract with IBEW 48
Northwest Labor Press
By Mallory Gruben
Jan. 18, 2024
A unit of about 50 electrical manufacturing workers at Schoolhouse Electric in Portland started 2024 with their first union contract as members of IBEW Local 48. The three-year agreement sets starting wages at $20 an hour, up from $18 an hour. Workers with at least nine months experience immediately received a 3% wage increase or 50 cents per hour pay bump, whichever was higher.
Culinary contracts: Tracking the latest union-resort negotiation progress
The Nevada Independent
By Howard Stutz
Jan. 18, 2024
A 5 a.m. strike deadline was set by Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and its affiliated Bartenders Union Local 165 on Jan. 8 for any property that didn’t reach a tentative agreement on a new five-year contract.
The strike date coincides with the nine-month anniversary of when the previous agreements expired. It would also take place on the weekend before Las Vegas begins to host festivities surrounding Super Bowl LVIII.“There needs to be a deadline,” Culinary Secretary-Treasurer Ted Pappageorge told The Nevada Independent. Setting a strike date came nearly three months after the unions and the “big three” Strip companies — MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment and Wynn Las Vegas — agreed to new five-year contracts in November that included 32 percent salary increases.
Machinists 1432 wants end to two-tier at Clarios
Northwest Labor Press
By Don McIntosh
Jan. 18, 2024
“Will strike if provoked.” That’s the message that went out this week on workers’ backs at the Clarios auto battery factory in Canby — on T-shirts emblazoned with a rattlesnake emerging from behind the union logo. About 180 members of Machinists Local Lodge 1432 work at the plant, and their current five-year union contract expires Feb. 16. Bargaining is set to take place the first two weeks of February. Members voted 94% to tell their bargaining team they’re ready to strike if no deal is reached, and more than 40 of them signed up volunteering to be strike captains if it comes to that. Among the union bargaining demands this year: They want to eliminate “two-tier” terms agreed to in 2013. Workers hired since then got a 401(k) savings plan instead of a guaranteed pension, and they have only one choice, Regence, for health care, unlike more senior workers, who can choose Kaiser Permanente.
Culinary Union members planning to picket Sahara, STRAT on Friday
KTNV
By Jarah Wright
Jan. 18, 2024
As labor negotiations continue with properties across Las Vegas, Culinary Union members are preparing to pick at the Sahara and STRAT on Friday. Culinary Union officials state they will be picketing from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Those are two of the properties that have not agreed to terms on a new contract for hospitality workers.
Another 600 employees unionize at OHSU
Northwest Labor Press
By Don Mcintosh
Jan. 18, 2024
Oregon Nurses Association (ONA) announced Jan. 5 that another unit of employees at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) is ready to join. The unit consists of over 600 nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, and physician associates (conventionally known as physician assistants). Collectively the workers are referred to as “advanced practice providers.” They work at OHSU locations across the state, including Portland, Eugene, The Dalles, and Klamath Falls. ONA already represents more than 3,000 registered nurses at OHSU.
WSU student worker strike lasts 2 hours before university makes these concessions
Tri-City Herald
By Eric Rosane
Jan. 17, 2024
Unionized student workers were on the snow-covered picket lines for only a couple hours Wednesday morning at several Washington State University campuses before reaching a tentative agreement on their first labor contract. The announcement from the WSU Coalition of Academic Student Employees-United Auto Workers (CASE-UAW) marks an end to a year of collective bargaining between the university and employees.
Unionists protest plans for postal hub that would increase driving by letter carriers
Northwest Labor Press
By Mallory Gruben
Jan. 18, 2024
About two dozen union supporters rallied outside the East Portland Post Office Jan. 8 to denounce a recent decision to consolidate mail sorting in Oregon. Last fall, American Postal Workers Union (APWU) leaders in Oregon learned that as part of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s 10-year “Delivering for America” plan, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) will convert the Evergreen Post Office at 3685 NE Aloclek Dr.,in Hillsboro, into a massive sorting and delivery “hub.” The hub will open in June 2024 with the North Plains Post Office feeding into it as a “spoke.” However, APWU expects it will eventually handle mail for multiple spoke offices across the Portland metro area.
JOINING TOGETHER
L.A. Times Guild calls for one-day strike to protest looming staff cuts
Los Angeles Times
By Meg James
Jan. 18, 2024
Los Angeles Times newsroom guild leaders called for a one-day walkout Friday to protest planned cuts to offset steep financial losses that owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong and his family have absorbed since acquiring the paper nearly six years ago. The Times disclosed Thursday that substantial layoffs were coming due to a widening budget deficit. The one-day strike represents the newsroom’s first union-organized work stoppage in the paper’s 142-year history. “After so many decades of falling short, we are finally making real strides toward accurately reflecting our city and region,” L.A. Times Guild Caucus leaders wrote in a letter to Soon-Shiong and his wife, Michele Chan Soon-Shiong, earlier this week. The group includes caucuses representing Black, Latino, Asian American, Middle Eastern, South Asian and LGBTQ+ staff members.
Union workers laid off, allege unfair labor practices
Latrobe Bulletin
By Joseph Bell
Jan. 18, 2024
A small group of union workers has been picketing outside a Latrobe plant for the past week after Westmoreland Plastics Inc. failed to recall them back to their jobs. According to information provided by Bob Wagner, president of the International Union of Electrical Workers-Communications Workers of America Local 88667, the company laid off its union workforce of roughly 14 employees after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy late last year. “At the beginning of December, they laid us all off and then they called back a handful of people and didn’t follow the CBA (collective bargaining agreement) of callbacks by seniority,” Wagner said while on the picket line Tuesday afternoon, Jan. 16, outside of the 135 Gertrude St. facility. “They’re trying to break the union here. They called back a few people and they have management doing the work, and they canceled our health insurance.”
NLRB
Trader Joe’s Illegally Closed New York Store To Stop Union Organizing, Feds Say
HuffPost
By Dave Jamieson
Jan. 18, 2024
Federal labor officials allege in a new complaint that Trader Joe’s shut down its wine shop in New York City in 2022 in order to blunt a union organizing effort. The general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board argues that the grocer’s decision to close the store amounts to unlawful retaliation, and that Trader Joe’s should have to reopen the store and make the affected employees “whole” for any wages they lost. The Jan. 12 complaint also accuses Trader Joe’s of illegally “interrogating” pro-union workers and threatening to take away benefits if they unionized, according to an NLRB spokesperson. The group that was organizing at the store, the United Food and Commercial Workers union, said in a statement Thursday that the complaint brings workers “closer to getting the justice they deserve.” “Trader Joe’s shamelessly and illegally engaged in union busting to scare Trader Joe’s workers across the region and stop these workers from having a voice on the job,” the union said.
IN THE STATES
Panel votes to ease youth employment restrictions
Indiana Capital Chronicle
By Niki Kelly
Jan. 18, 2024
Shawn Christ, secretary treasurer for the Indiana State AFL-CIO, called the bill “an attempt to roll back child labor protections that have been fought for for generations after generation.” “We believe that children should focus on improving their education and obtaining skills transferrable to the workplace,” Christ said. “We believe that removal of the work hour restrictions for children who are 16 to 17 makes them vulnerable to potential abuse of being overworked by unscrupulous employers at the expense of their education.”
In 2024 it’s still better in a union
Northwest Labor Press
By Graham Trainor
Jan. 18, 2024
What lies ahead for labor in 2024? Will the momentum gained by working people in 2023 continue into the new year? Was last year just the beginning of even more exciting and powerful wins for the working class? Much has been discussed about 2023 being such a historic year for working people and the labor movement, and now all attention has turned towards the coming year and what it will hold. And just as we saw historic gains made in 2023 – including nearly a million workers winning a more than double-digit and life-changing pay increase due to the strength and the effectiveness of the labor movement – it’s fair to say that we’re indeed, just getting started. At a time of great disillusionment and precarity in society and across our nation’s economy, working people are looking around to see what might help them find some stability and some progress in an ever-changing and challenging world. And as Americans are increasingly fed up with institutions, politicians, and the status quo, and with approval ratings for most major institutions – including Congress – plummeting, strong and growing support for the labor movement helps to showcase what we’ve said for years – life is better in a union.