MUST WATCH
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler Talks about the UAW Mercedes Vote (Video)
MSNBC
May 18, 2024
President Liz Shuler spoke with Alex Witt on MSNBC on how the deck has been stacked against workers and unions in the South for generations – and why the Mercedes UAW vote won't stop the incredible momentum for worker power.
APPRENTICESHIPS
New Efforts to Train Technicians for Telecom and Industrial Machining
Alaska Business
By Staff
May 20, 2024
The partnership of Matanuska Telecom Association (MTA) and Alaska Communications is meant to address the need for telecom workers across Alaska. The companies are supporting the Alaska Joint Electrical Apprenticeship and Training Trust (AJEATT) administered for the National Electric Contractors Association and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union. Commonly referred to as an electrical apprenticeship school, the trust provides hands-on classroom and on-the-job training for a variety of electrical jobs, including telecommunications. “With a surge of new projects coming to our state, it’s a critical time to grow the telecom workforce in Alaska,” says Matt McConnell, president and CEO of Alaska Communications. “By teaming up with MTA to promote AJEATT, we aim to boost interest and grow the number of highly skilled professionals.”
LABOR AND ECONOMY
U.S. Steel merger postponed to December as USW accuses Nippon of ‘empty promises’
Labor Tribune
By Elizabeth Donald
May 20, 2024
United Steelworkers (USW) fired more shots at Nippon Steel after U.S. Steel (USS) stockholders approved the controversial sale, even as the merger is delayed. USW sent a message to its members on May 3 warning them that U.S. Steel management would be inviting – or ordering – them to its “Nippon propaganda meetings.” USW states that the steel company and Nippon continue to maintain the merger will be a good thing, but that it’s important to remember who benefits. Stockholders get $55 a share, which is a significant premium over current prices, and CEO David Burritt will receive a $72 million departure bonus.
ORGANIZING
Some Disneyland Employees Vote to Unionize
Los Angeles Magazine
By Sam Youngman
May 20, 2024
Disneyland workers who walk the park in costumes as beloved characters have voted overwhelmingly to unionize. They will be represented by the Actors’ Equity Association. While many of the Anaheim park’s employees are already represented by unions, the vote, which finished on Saturday, is a new development for the Disney characters visitors see walking the park and posing for pictures.
Postdocs Unionize at Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Inside Higher Ed
By Ryan Quinn
May 20, 2024
Postdoctoral researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, a private nonprofit institution in the Bronx, have unionized with a 152-to-32 vote. Einstein Researchers United, the new union, said postdocs voted Wednesday and Thursday. It said it will represent about 230 workers. The union is affiliated with the UAW. Brandon Mancilla, director of the UAW region that contains New York City, said in a news release that the postdocs “overcame intense opposition from the Einstein administration to win their union.”
Flight attendants union meets in Atlanta amid push to unionize at Delta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Kelly Yamanouchi
May 20, 2024
Leaders of the Association of Flight Attendants are holding their national convention this week in Atlanta, the hometown of Delta Air Lines — the union’s white whale it has sought for decades to organize. The airline industry is highly unionized, and the AFA represents cabin crew members at more than a dozen carriers. But Delta, nestled in the more union-averse South, has remained an anomaly among the nation’s largest carriers with pilots as Delta’s only major unionized group. Holding the convention in Atlanta was a decision “to go somewhere meaningful,” said Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA). “We’re all here to support Delta flight attendants” in their organizing campaign, Nelson said outside the Hilton Atlanta downtown, where the convention is being held. “This was a great place for us to come together and show that labor is serious also about rising up in the South.”
JOINING TOGETHER
REI Chicago Union Workers Disrupt Anniversary Sale, Walk Off Job
SGB Media
By SGB Media
May 20, 2024
In the middle of REI‘s Annual Anniversary Sale, which runs from May 17-27, got a bit of a disruption in Chicago on Day 2 of the sale. REI Union Chicago, represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), walked off the job in an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike protesting REI’s failure to bargain a contract in good faith. The walk-out occurred on Saturday, May 18. The REI Union Chicago workers were joined by fellow union members, State Senators Robert Peters and Lakesia Collins, Secretary-Treasurer of the Chicago Federation of Labor, Don Villar, and other leaders and workers from Chicago’s labor movement.
Politicians lobby REI to reach contract with Pinecrest workers
Signal Cleveland
By Olivera Perkins
May 20, 2024
Elected officials presented management at the Pinecrest REI Co-op today with a letter calling on the national retailer to reach its first contract with employees. Workers at the recreational equipment and apparel store in the upscale mixed-used development in Orange Village unionized in March 2023. They are represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), which says that REI has not been taking the necessary steps to reach a contract.
Resident Assistants at Tufts, Barnard Form Unions to Improve Their Jobs
Teen Vogue
By Andrew Menjin
May 17, 2024
As my sophomore year at Tufts University comes to a close, I’ve been reflecting on enjoyable moments and my accomplishments that have occurred over the course of the school year. One of the achievements I’m most proud of is that my union — the United Labor of Tufts Resident Assistants, part of OPEIU Local 153 — ratified our first contract. The union contract was the result of about seven months worth of negotiating with the Tufts administration over resident assistants’ pay, benefits, and working conditions, and we ratified the contract with 96% “yes” votes. What excites me the most, though, is knowing we’re part of a wave of resident assistants organizing at campuses across the country.
Flight attendants to rally in Atlanta over pay, benefits
Fox5 Atlanta
By FOX 5 Atlanta Digital Team
May 20, 2024
Hundreds of flight attendants are expected to gather at a conference on Monday to rally for better pay and benefits. The rally, part of the 51st annual Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) Board of Directors convention, will take place in front of the Hilton Atlanta on Courtland Street on Monday afternoon.
Fain: Despite Mercedes loss, UAW to keep campaigning in the South
People’s World
By Mark Gruenberg
May 20, 2024
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler was optimistic about the future fight at Mercedes in particular and the South in general, despite the result. And she lauded the Mercedes workers. “They put their heart and soul into the fight to join a union, resisting every union-busting tactic in the book—and they made huge strides,” Shuler said. Like the VW workers, the Mercedes workers “built a foundation that will only grow stronger in the coming months.
RETIREMENT SECURITY
Campaign aims to bolster Social Security’s workforce, strengthen its benefits
Wisconsin Examiner
By Erik Gunn
May 20, 2024
Several times a week this spring a band of union representatives and retiree activists has been popping up at Social Security offices around the state. Their target isn’t the Social Security Administration or the people who work there, but rather the U.S. Congress. The advocates contend Congress hasn’t done enough to support either the Social Security program or the people whose job it is to help the nearly 90-year-old national retirement plan keep going. A surge in retirements in the aging Baby Boom generation has ballooned the number of people submitting claims for Social Security. Meanwhile, staffing for the Social Security Administration has not been able to keep up. Jessica LaPointe, president of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Council 220, said that’s because Congress has been underfunding the agency’s administrative expenses for years. The AFGE council represents Social Security field office, teleservice and other employees across the country.
UNION BUSTING
Why Corporations Choose Lawlessness to Fight Unions
Counter Punch
By Sonali Kolhatkar
May 20, 2024
Workers in Towson, Maryland, have earned the distinction of becoming the first Apple retail workers in the nation to vote to strike over failed union negotiations with their employer. The approximately 100 Apple workers were also the first in the nation to successfully form a union. They did so in 2022, as the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees (CORE), joining the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM). Two-thirds of the store’s workers voted to join the union, a resounding success at a company that has long staved off union activity. Apple could have embraced the Towson store union, respecting the legal right of its workers to bargain collectively for their rights. Instead, the company chose a depressingly familiar path of using its economic power to break labor laws and resist the union at all costs.