Today's AFL-CIO Press Clips
MUST READ
The ‘Year of Labor’ in 2023 was just the beginning (Opinion)
Labor Tribune
By Liz Shuler
Jan. 22, 2024
When people ask me why the Labor Movement just had its most dynamic and successful year in a generation, I tell them about workers like Alicia — people whose lives changed because they stood together with their co-workers. For all the talk about macro trends and economic factors, the driving force behind the “Year of Labor” was simple: Being in a union makes your life better. We’re in a moment of profound uncertainty and disillusionment across this country. Americans are fed up with politicians, institutions and the status quo. Approval ratings for Congress and most major institutions have plummeted to well below 50 percent. The Labor Movement is the one exception. Polling shows 71 percent of Americans believe in unions — more than two-thirds of people in this country, the highest number in the past 60 years. Unions are where people seem to have increasingly placed their hopes, their dreams and their aspirations for a better future.
LABOR AND TECHNOLOGY
What labor advocates want from AI policy
Politico
By Olivia Olander
Jan. 22, 2024
Ask AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler what she wants from the federal government on artificial intelligence, and her first answer isn’t a surprise: Strengthen collective bargaining rights, like, generally. “Through every industrial revolution, labor has been the force that has harnessed the technology and channeled it in a way that’s productive and safe,” Shuler said in an interview this month, speaking from a summit alongside the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. But Shuler is also laying out some more specific asks. For one: She’s lasering in regulations and investments related to training workers for jobs in the event of displacement.
ORGANIZING
Feb. 2 strike deadline: Las Vegas hospitality union works on new contracts
Nevada Public Radio
By Kristen DeSilva
Jan. 22, 2024
Ahead of their Feb. 2 strike deadline, the Culinary Union has reached tentative deals with two properties. On Saturday, the union negotiated a tentative agreement with Westgate for 1,000 employees. "I’m really happy that we got this contract. I’m excited that the working people of Las Vegas are going to get the money they need to live fruitful lives," said Brian Torres, a food runner for Westgate, in a written statement.
Exclusive interviews: Pay hikes don’t deter Maximus workers’ unionization drive
People’s World
By Mark Gruenberg
Jan. 22, 2024
Small pay increases Maximus management recently doled out—including 19 cents an hour to one worker and a dollar to the other—aren’t stopping the hundreds of workers at that top federal contractor from continuing their union organizing drive. After all, the two said in interviews with People’s World after the group of representative workers received recognition and an award at the AFL-CIO’s Martin Luther King conference, the Democratic Biden administration wants all federal contractors to pay their workers at least $15 an hour. Maximus workers, aided by the Communications Workers, have been campaigning for union recognition for months. Maximus employs approximately 10,000 workers, most of them women of color, at call centers to handle and direct callers seeking to enroll in the Affordable Care Act’s state exchanges, Medicare or Medicaid. It has a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract to do so.
Condé Nast Union Members Launch 24-Hour Walkout Amid Layoff Talks
The Hollywood Reporter
By Katie Kilkenny
Jan. 22, 2024
Union members who work at Condé Nast brands including Vanity Fair, Vogue and GQ will be walking off the job on Tuesday to protest negotiations conduct that they claim violates labor law. More than 400 Condé Nast Union members at those three publications as well as Allure, Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, Condé Nast Traveler, Epicurious, Glamour, Self, Teen Vogue and Condé Nast Entertainment are set to strike for 24 hours on Tuesday and hold a rally in front of the company’s offices in New York. The action stems from labor negotiations that have turned sour since Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch announced the company’s intentions to cut 5 percent of its workforce on Nov. 1.
As Musicians Start Talks With Studios, Hollywood Labor Leaders Lend Support In Picket
The Hollywood Reporter
By Katie Kilkenny
Jan. 22, 2024
The leader of the American Federation of Musicians proclaimed that Hollywood labor is “in a new era” as dozens of members of various entertainment unions came to the doorstep of studio labor negotiators in support of the start of his union’s contract negotiations on Monday. As an early drizzle that morning turned into driving rain, members of the Writers Guild of America, SAG-AFTRA, IATSE and Teamsters Local 399 rallied in front of the Sherman Oaks offices of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers with picket signs, and a few umbrellas, in hand. To AFM‘s chief negotiator and international president Tino Gagliardi, this kind of unity for musicians was unlike anything he’d seen in his time in union leadership. “We’re in a new era, especially in the American labor movement, with regard to everyone coalescing and coming together and collaborating in order to get what we all need in this industry,” Gagliardi told The Hollywood Reporter. “Together we are the product, we are the ones that bring the audiences in, that controls the emotion, if you will.”
STATE LEGISLATION
GOP-sponsored bill to axe tenure is 'fiscally unsound'
Forward Kentucky
By Berry Craig
Jan. 21, 2024
Tenure at the state’s public universities and community colleges is under fire in the General Assembly. House Bill 228 would require university and community college boards “to approve a performance and productivity evaluation process for all faculty members by January 1, 2025.”
So-called ‘right-to-work,’ unemployment benefit cuts are back in the Missouri Legislature
Labor Tribune
By Sheri Gassaway
Jan. 22, 2024
The Missouri AFL-CIO is closely monitoring a host of bills filed in the state legislature that would negatively impact Labor, one of which would enable counties to enact phony so-called “right-to-work” laws. This, even after Missouri voters overwhelming defeated so-called “right-to-work” in 2018. “Missouri voters were clear in 2018 when they defeated so-called “right-to-work” in 99 of Missouri’s 114 counties and the City of St. Louis,” said Missouri AFL-CIO President Jake Hummel. “Missourians rejected Proposition A by a better than two-to-one majority, 67.5 percent to 32.5 percent.”
IN THE STATES
Workers in this NYC union get pay increase, flexible work schedules in new contract
Silive.com
By Paul Liotta
Jan. 22, 2024
Mayor Eric Adams has made a series of deals with municipal labor unions, and on Monday, he announced the latest agreement with 911 operators and supervisors. Over 1,000 operators and supervisors, represented by District Council 37 (DC 37) and Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1180, will receive pay increases and the opportunity for flexible work schedules as part of the agreement.
WAGE THEFT
Uber, Lyft drivers to receive big payouts from historic AG settlement
NY State of Politics
By Nia Clark
Jan. 19, 2024
Uber and Lyft drivers who will receive a payout from a $328 million wage-theft settlement joined New York Attorney General Letitia James for a press conference after James’ office secured the settlement recently.
PAYWATCH/CEO PAY
'Outrageous' CEO Pay Targeted in New Bill From Bernie Sanders, US Democrats
U.S. News & World Report
By Reuters
Jan. 22. 2024
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and a group of Democratic lawmakers are pushing to raise taxes for companies that pay their chief executives at least 50 times more than their typical worker's salary, saying the bill was needed to limit corporate greed. The union-backed proposal, which could impact some of the nation's biggest companies and largest employers, would also require Treasury Department guidelines to prevent companies from avoiding the tax by using contractors rather than employees, the senators said in a statement on Monday.