Today's AFL-CIO press clips
MUST READ
Groups urge FEMA to recognize extreme heat, wildfire smoke as a ‘major disaster’
The Hill
By Miranda Nazzaro
June 17, 2024
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), one of the petition’s signatories, pointed to the need for more labor protections for those called in to assist with these weather events. “Too many workers are exposed to extreme heat and wildfire smoke on the job without adequate safety measures in place. Not only do we need to develop strong worker protection standards to meet the demand of the changing environment and intensifying climate disasters, we need the federal government to take action now to release resources,” Liz Shuler, president of AFL-CIO, said in a statement.
POLITICS
Biden's Cabinet to tout economic accomplishments ahead of debate
NBC News
By Mike Memoli
June 18, 2024
President Joe Biden’s Cabinet is fanning out nationwide this week to promote ways the administration has worked to reduce costs, a coordinated effort targeting a top issue for voters. As part of the tour, 18 Cabinet members and senior White House officials will hold more than two dozen events in 15 states in the days leading up to the first presidential debate between Biden and former President Donald Trump. The stops include presidential battleground states such as Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada and Pennsylvania, and will feature local officials in tough districts.
Fire Grants and Safety Act receives Senate approval
International Fire & Safety Journal
By Iain Hoey
June 19, 2024
The U.S. Senate has passed the Fire Grants and Safety Act (S. 870), as reported by the IAFC. This legislation aims to extend and fund the Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) program and the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant program. Edward Kelly, General President of the IAFF, highlighted the impact of AFG and SAFER grants: “Lives in every state have been saved by AFG and SAFER grants, including the lives of firefighters.” He also praised the IAFF’s Government Affairs team for their efforts in advancing the bill.
How anti-union southern governors may be violating federal law
Los Angeles Times
By Michael Hiltzik
June 19, 2024
“We have one federal labor policy, not 50 different state policies, when it comes to union organizing and collective bargaining,” says Benjamin Sachs, a professor of labor and industry at Harvard Law School and the author of a recent article examining how the actions of anti-union politicians may have illegally interfered with employees’ right to “a free and untrammeled choice for or against” a union.
ENVIRONMENT, ENERGY AND CLIMATE
Dozens of Groups Push FEMA to Recognize Extreme Heat as a ‘Major Disaster’
The New York Times
By Manuela Andreoni
June 17, 2024
The support of major labor groups like the A.F.L.-CIO and the Service Employees International Union is part of a broader strategy from unions to create protection for the tens of millions of people working outside or without air-conditioning during heat waves. Unions want the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to require employers to protect workers from extreme temperatures. The White House has pushed officials at the Labor Department, which oversees OSHA, to publish a draft heat regulation this summer. But major business and industry groups, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are opposed to any new requirements.
Breaking: Biden officials complete climate law labor rules
Axios
By Ben Geman
June 18, 2024
The rules, a priority for organized labor, cover solar, hydrogen, carbon capture and many more types of projects. They fill in more details on complying with prevailing wages for laborers and mechanics and use of registered apprenticeship programs. North America's Building Trades Unions president Sean McGarvey told reporters that, based on his discussions with investors and developers, the final rules will prompt a number to "hit the go button" on projects.
Environmental Groups Push for FEMA to Classify Heat Waves as Major Disasters
Environment + Energy Leader
By Staff Writer
June 19, 2024
Liz Shuler, president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, stated, “FEMA has the power to save lives—and we urge them to use that power to meet this emergency with the urgency it deserves.”
ORGANIZING
Teachers in the South Go Union
The American Prospect
By Harold Meyerson
June 18, 2024
A great deal of attention has been paid to the labor movement’s recent breakthrough organizing victories in the historically anti-union South, and rightly so. The triumphs of the United Auto Workers in Tennessee and the United Steelworkers in Georgia showed that the combination of workers’ growing understanding of their own power, and unions’ investment in long-term organizing can overcome the entrenched opposition of the local and regional power structures. That said, the largest successful organizing campaign in a once-Confederate state has largely gone underreported. Last week, the school employees in Fairfax, Virginia’s largest county, voted by decisive margins to join the Fairfax Education Unions, which is a district-wide alliance of the nation’s two teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA). The new local will represent 27,000 district employees—both teachers and support workers such as school bus drivers.
Workers at Daniel del Prado’s Restaurants Colita and Café Cerés Plan to Unionize
Eater Twin Cities
By Justine Jones
June 18, 2024
Workers at Minneapolis restaurants Colita and all four locations of Café Cerés have announced their intent to unionize, delivering petitions to management on June 18. It’s the second major labor action in the Twin Cities restaurant industry this summer, following a unionization push at Uptown restaurant Kim’s in late May. Workers at both restaurants are organizing with Unite Here Local 17, the broad hospitality union that represents more than 6,000 workers around the metro, including those at First Avenue, Indeed Brewing, and Kim’s. The two staffs organized in tandem because they are both a part of chef Daniel del Prado’s group of restaurants, though if they successfully unionize, they’ll function as two separate units, according to organizers.
Workers at Hyatt Regency Boston vote to join union
Boston Globe
By Staff
June 18, 2024
A group of 72 banquet servers, front desk agents, cooks, and other employees at the Hyatt Regency Boston voted Monday to join Unite Here Local 26, citing heavy workloads and the high cost of health insurance. Previously, the property was the second-largest non-union hotel in Boston, after the Boston Marriott Copley Place. The Hyatt Regency was the site of a major controversy in 2009 when the hotel and two other local Hyatt properties simultaneously fired their housekeepers and replaced them with temporary workers making much lower wages. The housekeepers, 98 in all, said that they had unknowingly trained their replacements before they were let go.
Two Alamo Drafthouse Locations Vote in Unionization Attempts
Westword
By Catie Cheshire
June 19, 2024
In January, employees at two of the Denver area’s three Alamo Drafthouse Cinema locations announced their intention to unionize, filing for elections with the National Labor Relations Board. After months of waiting, both locations held their elections, with Westminster employees voting May 31 and those at the Sloan’s Lake location voting June 7, to mixed results. The election delay came because Alamo Drafthouse argued that all three Colorado locations should have to vote together, which union leaders believe the company wanted because employees at the Littleton outpost were further behind in organizing efforts. The NLRB ruled in early May that each location would vote separately.
JOINING TOGETHER
Union Strikes Outside U.S. Office of Oxford University Press
Publishers Weekly
By John Maher
June 18, 2024
Members of the Oxford University Press USA Guild held a strike outside OUP’s U.S. headquarters in Manhattan on June 18. The union has been organized with News Guild TNG/CWA 31222 since September 2021, and represents approximately 150 U.S.–based employees of the university press. Scott Morales, unit chair of the OUP USA Guild, estimated that about 25 or 30 workers rallied outside the headquarters, starting at 8:00 a.m., and that a further 60 joined a livestream of the picket line, intended to accommodate remote workers who could not join the strike in person. “It's been a tremendous sign of collective strength thus far,” Morales told PW. “I've never felt so right and justified in doing an action like this until this morning.”
Minneapolis park workers vote to authorize strike
CBS News
By Aki Nace
June 19, 2024
Workers with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board voted to authorize a strike on Tuesday evening. Roughly 94% of the ballots cast were in favor of strike authorization. "Our members have reached a breaking point after years of disrespect and neglect from the Park Board. Despite our endless hard work, skill, and dedication that makes Minneapolis' parks the best in the nation, management continues to treat us with contempt." said union business manager AJ Lange. The union — LIUNA Local 363, which represents more than 200 park board workers — is fighting for fair and competitive wages, worker protections, more affordable health insurance, and streamlined grievance procedures among other demands.
Via Christi nurses hold rally in support of fired co-workers, patient safety
KSN
By Daniel Fair
June 19, 2024
Nurses at Ascension Via Christi in Wichita held a rally Wednesday to highlight their concerns with patient safety, as well as a protest of the firing of several surgical intensive care unit registered nurses. National Nurses United said in a news release the nurses were fired for “daring to stand up for the safety of their patients.” “The hospital is trying to silence nurses from advocating for our patients,” the news release reads in part. “But as nurses, our first obligation is to our patients, and we have a responsibility to speak out when we see patient care being jeopardized.”
Guild, Gannett agree on two-year contract
Rochester Beacon
By Henry Cramer
June 19, 2024
After two and a half years of bargaining and a 19-day strike, the Newspaper Guild of Rochester reached an agreement with Gannett Co. on a new two-year contract for editorial employees at the Democrat and Chronicle and the Daily Messenger in Canandaigua. The agreement is a win for the union, which achieved most of its goals. The contract terms call for wages to increase by an average of 15 percent, with some of the lowest-paid (and longest-working) workers receiving pay hikes between $10,000 and $20,000 a year. A new minimum salary scale and ratification bonuses for each union worker also are part of the agreement. “We’re very pleased with the contract we achieved.” says Justin Murphy, a D&C reporter and Guild vice chair.
N.J.’s largest school district approves raises for 6,700 teachers, staff
NJ.com
By Steve Strunsky
June 19, 2024
The Newark Board of Education on Tuesday nightapproved a five-year contract with the 6,700-member Newark Teachers Union that includes raises averaging 4.5% a year, boosts starting pay, and gives teachers a say in their curriculum. For example, under the deal, teachers will be allowed to select materials and design curriculum within their subject areas, a bottom-up approach applauded by Randi Weingarten, national president of the American Federation of Teachers, the NTU’s umbrella group. Weingarten was quoted in last month’s announcement referring to the contract as “a transformative document.” “Teachers will have a genuine voice in classroom and even school operations,” Weingarten stated in last month’s announcement of the deal. “No doubt all of this will benefit kids.”
NLRB
Federal labor agency orders Station Casinos to negotiate with Culinary Union
The Nevada Independent
By Howard Stutz
June 18, 2024
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has affirmed a previous ruling that Red Rock Resorts violated national labor laws when it successfully tried to persuade workers not to unionize and has ordered three of the company’s Las Vegas casinos to negotiate collective bargaining agreements with employees represented by Culinary Workers Union Local 226. In an 81-page decision released late Monday, the NLRB unanimously agreed with an administrative law judge’s 2022 decision that Red Rock — through its Station Casinos operating division — violated the National Labor Relations Act by interfering in union organizing efforts. The company’s tactics included threats that new benefits would go away if workers unionized and steaks served to employees imprinted with the phrase “VOTE NO!”
Casino Served Workers Steaks Branded 'VOTE NO!' Ahead Of Union Election
HuffPost
By Dave Jamieson
June 18, 2024
Officials at the National Labor Relations Board have ordered a group of Las Vegas casinos to bargain with a union even though the union lost its election, finding that the company’s illegal behavior spoiled the vote. The decision against Station Casinos marks the first time the labor board has issued what’s known as a Cemex order, so named for a landmark case it ruled on last year. The new process makes it more likely that employers who break the law during an organizing campaign will be required to recognize the union regardless of the election’s outcome.
IN THE STATES
Insider NJ
By Staff
June 18, 2024
Calling on corporations to pay their fair share to support New Jersey Transit, the New Jersey State AFL-CIO, and the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), representing nearly 10,000 New Jersey Transit drivers, mechanics, and operational staff, announced their support for Governor Murphy’s proposal to place a fee on corporations earning over $10 million in profits to provide critical funding to New Jersey Transit. “New Jersey Transit has never had dedicated funding, and there is no more appropriate source than the billion-dollar corporations profiting off of the state’s workers,” said New Jersey State AFL-CIO President Charlie Wowkanech. “New Jersey Transit is the economic lifeblood of our state, with hundreds of thousands of residents dependent on its transportation services.”
Best Of Hawaii 2024: IBEW 1260 (Video)
Island News
By Staff
June 19, 2024
IBEW 1260 represents more than 3,000 members and advocates for workers throughout the Pacific. They were awarded as a finalist for best local union!
LABOR AND COMMUNITY
Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive to Help Provide more than 678,000 Meals for Oklahomans
1600 KUSH
By Staff
June 19, 2024
The Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma received more than 554,268 pounds of food donations and $72,303 as part of the National Association of Letter Carriers’ Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive, presented by OG&E Energy Corp., on Saturday, May 11. During the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive, Oklahomans were asked to leave a bag of nonperishable food donations by their mailbox. On May 11, letter carriers across central and western Oklahoma collected the donations along their routes and transported them back to their local post office for volunteers to sort. In the Oklahoma City metro, 491 volunteers helped sort donations at 20 post offices.
WAGE THEFT
Wages stolen from hundreds of construction workers in D.C.
The Washington Post
By Jenny Gathright
June 18, 2024
Mayorga, 35, is one of an estimated 370 workers denied the proper minimum wage, overtime and paid sick leave under the contractor that built City Ridge and its various subcontractors, a new lawsuit against the companies from the D.C. Office of the Attorney General alleges. The suit alleges that the companies systematically misclassified workers as independent contractors instead of employees, violating D.C.’s labor laws in pursuit of cost savings. The attorney general’s office and local construction-worker union officials said contractors in D.C.’s construction industry routinely use “labor brokers” -- smaller companies that find workers and typically have no broader say in the project — to hire independent contractors so they can cut costs. The lawsuit filed Tuesday in D.C. Superior Court seeks penalties against the five companies, as well as restitution and back pay for the affected workers. Rolando Montoya, an organizer with the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation (SMART) Workers Local 100, says he heard complaints from workers at the City Ridge site about not getting paid, and then worked to connect them with resources to fight for proper compensation.
CIVIL, HUMAN, AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS
Lift every voice and sing (Opinion)
The Stand
By Cherika Carter
June 19, 2024
These powerful words open “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a song that has become known as the Black National Anthem. Written by James Weldon Johnson and his brother John Rosamond Johnson, this anthem resonates deeply within the Black community, celebrating resilience, hope, and the enduring struggle for equality. Today, these words take on even greater significance and will be sung at many Juneteenth celebrations throughout the day.
AMAZON
Amazon fined nearly $6 million for violations at Inland Empire warehouses
Los Angeles Times
By Suhauna Hussain
June 18, 2024
California has fined Amazon nearly $6 million for violating a law meant to protect warehouse workers from misuse of production quotas, state officials announced Tuesday. The $5.9 million in penalties, which were issued last month, stem from demands that the behemoth e-commerce company placed on thousands of workers at two of its Inland Empire fulfillment centers. The California Labor Commissioner’s Office found that managers at the facilities failed to provide employees with adequate explanations of quotas that they were expected to meet as they prepared orders for shipment.