Today's AFL-CIO press clips
MUST READ
Workers are voting to join unions at record high rates
Axios
By Emily Peck
June 20, 2024
Why it matters: It's a reflection of increased grassroots momentum behind organizing — helped along by a strongly pro-worker National Labor Relations Board, under Biden appointee Jennifer Abruzzo. Zoom in: Workers voted in favor of a union 74% of the time this year (through April) — a jump from 2019 when it was 69%. In 2023, there were 1,777 union elections — the highest number since 2010, when there were 1,942.
Gwen Mills Elected President of UNITE HERE, First Woman to Lead the Union in its 130-Year History
Business Wire
By Staff
June 20, 2024
"On behalf of the 12.5 million union members in the AFL-CIO, I am thrilled to celebrate the election of Gwen Mills to her first full term as President of UNITE HERE. President Mills is a visionary leader who has helped guide UNITE HERE through some of the hospitality industry’s most challenging and transformational moments. When the pandemic devastated the hospitality industry and nearly all UNITE HERE workers lost their jobs, President Mills put members to work and created one of the country’s most powerful and effective get-out-the-vote operations, unleashing victories up and down the ballot in the 2020 and 2022 elections,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. “Under her leadership, UNITE HERE is delivering historic new contracts for workers, expanding into new workplaces and regions, and bringing in more women and people of color—not only to be a part of the movement, but to lead it. President Mills and UNITE HERE show us every day what a modern, inclusive and resilient union looks like — a union that empowers its members to fight and win. We look forward to continuing our fight together to improve the lives of hospitality workers—and all workers—across this country."
LABOR AND TECHNOLOGY
New Jersey unveils resources for educators using AI in schools as state aims to pioneer innovations
Chalkbeat
By Jessie Gómez
June 20, 2024
As part of Gov. Phil Murphy’s call to create an “artificial intelligence moonshot” in New Jersey, the state’s department of education unveiled a set of resources last week aimed at helping educators understand, implement, and manage artificial intelligence in schools, state education officials said. The resources range from articles about teaching and learning on artificial intelligence to a webinar that explains the history of the technology and how it is used in education. The materials do not outline strict regulations on how to use AI in education but they are New Jersey’s first guidance for school districts to “responsibly and effectively” integrate AI-powered technology in the classroom, and incorporate tools to facilitate administrative tasks in schools, according to a state department of education press release.
POLITICS
Project 2025 Would Undo the NLRB’s Progress on Protecting Workers’ Right To Organize
Center for American Progress
By Staff
June 20, 2024
As autoworkers, baristas, package carriers, Hollywood writers and actors, and thousands of other workers fight for and win new unions and new union contracts, Biden administration appointees to the nation’s front-line labor law enforcement agency—the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)—are helping prevent anti-union employers from undermining worker organizing. Workers in the United States face an uphill battle in their fight to unionize and bargain, as broken federal labor laws and rampant lawbreaking undermine their efforts, but workers today are organizing and winning union elections at a growing rate. New analysis from the Center for American Progress shows that the NLRB is helping ensure that workers can exercise their legal right to come together in unions, with more workers winning their elections and more workers getting help to get back on the job when fired illegally for protected organizing activity. However, these gains are under threat from The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025—a playbook with strategies for eroding checks and balances across the government that offers instructions for gutting the NLRB’s enforcement capacity. This would threaten workers’ ability to come together in unions to bargain for better wages and working conditions.
How Donald Trump Worked to Destroy America’s Labor Unions
Counter Punch
By Lawrence Wittner
June 19, 2024
In addition to relying on his appointees, Trump took direct action as president to undermine American unions. Kicking off Labor Day in 2018, he denounced the nation’s top labor leader, Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, stating that Trumka’s policies explained “why unions are doing so poorly.” In 2020, after the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act―billed by the AFL-CIO as “the most significant worker empowerment legislation since the Great Depression”―Trump blocked the legislation from moving any further by threatening to veto it.
ORGANIZING
Alamo Drafthouse workers hopeful ownership change will favor newly formed union
The Colorado Sun
By Parker Yamasaki
June 20, 2024
It’s rare to find workers at a medium-sized company relieved by their employer’s corporate buyout, but that is what’s happening at two of Colorado’s Alamo Drafthouse locations. Last week, the Austin, Texas-based theater company, known for its in-seat dining and cinephile events, announced that it would be sold to Sony and lumped into a new division, Sony Pictures Experiences, helmed by Alamo’s chief executive, Michael Kustermann. This is the first time in more than 20 years that a major studio has owned a theater chain. The news came just a few weeks after employees at the Sloan’s Lake and Westminster locations held union elections. Sloan’s Lake unequivocally voted for a union on May 31, while Westminster is awaiting a ruling from the National Labor Relations Board on two challenged ballots. Colorado’s third location, in Littleton, has not filed for union representation.
Faculty Form AAUP Chapter, Decry ‘Structural Problems’ in Harvard’s Governance
The Harvard Crimson
By Tilly R. Robinson and Neil H. Shah
June 20, 2024
A group of Harvard faculty formed a chapter of the American Association of University Professors on Wednesday, the latest move by professors to organize in support of shared goals following a year of heightened faculty activism at the University. The chapter’s creation comes after a year of student protest, leadership turnover, and political pressure forced Harvard’s leaders to make consequential choices — whose outcomes left many faculty feeling shut out of the University’s decision-making process. In response, faculty have informally lobbied top administrators and pushed for a greater formal role in governance. The AAUP — which has more than 500 local chapters — includes faculty, lecturers, researchers, and graduate students. Although Harvard’s chapter is not a collective bargaining unit, the AAUP is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers and advocates for scholars’ labor interests.
JOINING TOGETHER
IBEW 46 Limited Energy strike ends
The Stand
By Staff
June 20, 2024
IBEW 46 Limited Energy electricians voted to accept a tentative agreement with NECA on Wednesday. The contract offer was approved by 85% of voting members and includes $12.50 in raises and a memorandum of understanding to continue discussing PTO, a core demand of the workers. “It has been a long journey,” said Business Representative Megan Kirby in a statement posted to Twitter/X. “I cannot express how proud I am of this unit with their commitment and solidarity.”
Minneapolis park employees vote overwhelmingly to authorize a strike
Star Tribune
By Zoë Jackson
June 20, 2024
The labor union representing more than 200 Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board employees voted to authorize a strike this week. LIUNA Local 363 employees cast ballots with 94% in favor, the union said in a Facebook post. Employees have for years called for improvements to wages, healthcare and safety precautions, AJ Lange, Business Manager of LIUNA Local 363 said in a statement. "Despite our endless hard work, skill, and dedication that makes Minneapolis' parks the best in the nation, management continues to treat us with contempt," Lange said.
Deadline
By Katie Campione
June 20, 2024
Members of the Hollywood guilds are throwing their weight behind IATSE and the Basic Crafts as the below-the-line unions continue to chip away at new three-year deals with the studios. Deadline has obtained a letter of solidarity signed by nearly 400 members across the WGA, PGA, DGA and SAG-AFTRA. Signatories include Alan Ritchson, Amy Schumer, Lily Waschowski, Boots Riley, Connie Britton, Chelsea Handler, Mark Ruffalo, Lamorne Morris, Gina Prince Bythwood, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Charlie Kaufman, Kerry Washington, Quinta Brunson, Natasha Lyonne, Ryan Coogler, Will Forte, and Sarah Polley.
Union workers back at 18 construction sites around Milwaukee as 3-week strike ends
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By Ricardo Torres
June 20, 2024
Nearly 500 construction union members are back to work at 18 sites after being on strike for nearly three weeks. On Wednesday evening, members of International Union of Operating Engineers Local 139 and employers with the Allied Construction Employers Association and the Association of General Contractors for Greater Milwaukee came to an agreement ending the strike that started on June 1. Terry McGowen, IUOE Local 139 president, said workers would not have gotten this contract “had they not struck.”
Beat the Heat: How Workers Are Winning Fans, AC, and Even Heat Pay
Labor Notes
By Keith Brower Brown
June 20, 2024
If you’re dreading summer on the job this year, you’re not alone. Every month last summer was the most scorching on world record. Trapped under heat domes, dozens of metro areas busted their longest streaks ever of highs over 100 degrees. Phoenix afternoons were over 110 for a month straight. On asphalt yards nearly hot enough to melt, bonus-hungry managers forced workers to keep up the usual pace. The results were lethal. In 2022, the latest year for which we have data, 43 U.S. workers lost their lives to heat on the job. That’s up from 36 in 2021, and we can expect this cruel number to keep climbing. But from warehouses to coffeehouses to construction sites, workers using solidarity and creative action—even without the protection of a union contract—have won shop floor fights to keep their co-workers safe and cool.
Franz and Bakers union far apart in bargaining
Northwest Labor Press
By Don McIntosh
June 20, 2024
Bakers Local 114 and Franz Bakery are pretty far apart in bargaining over a new contract covering about 150 production workers at the company’s Portland bakery. Their current five-year contract expired June 8. Local 114 is proposing raises totaling 29% for a new three-year contract, and Franz is proposing 12.9%. Workers are looking to make up lost ground from several years of high inflation. Franz is also balking at a Local 114 proposal to end last-minute schedule changes. Union negotiators are asking for at least a week’s notice. Local 114 secretary-treasurer Taylor Almond says managers post weekly schedules on Thursdays but often change them with as little as two days notice.
MyMichigan Medical and nurses' union reach agreement on new contract
Up North Live
By UpNorthLive News
June 20, 2024
MyMichigan Medical Center in Sault Ste. Marie and the Michigan Nurses Association have reached an agreement on a new contract. A public relations manager for MyMichigan Health provided the following statement to UpNorthLive News: "After significant discussion and collaboration, MyMichigan Medical Center Sault and the Michigan Nurses Association (MNA) reached an agreement late Wednesday, June 19, regarding a new contract for its 120 employed nurses represented by the MNA. The agreement will not be final until ratified by a vote by union nurses. The vote is scheduled to take place Tuesday, June 25."
Workers at Two Arizona Dispensaries Become First in the State to Ratify Union Contracts
Ganjapreneur
By TG Branfalt
June 19, 2024
Workers at Zen Leaf Local Joint in Phoenix, Arizona and Zen Leaf in Chandler on Tuesday ratified their union contracts, becoming the first cannabis industry workers in the state to unionize. The ratification vote came nearly two years after workers at both dispensaries voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) Local 99.
LABOR AND COMMUNITY
Community members call out Blue Oval City, make public demands for fair wages and long-term benefits
Action News 5
By Tarvarious Haywood
June 19, 2024
A coalition of faith, labor, and community members near Blue Oval City is taking their demands public after they say they were ignored by Ford. They say they want an agreement with Ford to ensure long-term benefits, among other things, from Ford’s electric plant in Haywood County.
Blue Oval Good Neighbors are tired of being ignored by Ford privately and it’s now time to call them out publicly on Juneteenth. Friday, a press conference was held and it’s no coincidence that it was held on Juneteenth, they say they don’t want history repeating itself.
LABOR LEADERSHIP
Unite Here union elects its first female president in 130-year history
Reuters
By Doyinsola Oladipo
June 20, 2024
Labor union Unite Here on Thursday elected its first female president in its 130-year history, as 2024 shapes up to be an important year for the union representing 275,000 workers, a majority of whom are women, across the United States and Canada. Gwen Mills was elected president uncontested to a five-year term by roughly 1,000 union delegates from 45 local chapters of workers across industries including hospitality, gaming and transportation.
Hotel Workers' Union Gets First Woman President
HuffPost
By Dave Jamieson
June 20, 2024
The leading union for U.S. hotel workers has elected its first woman president ever, a big moment for a labor group that represents thousands of housekeepers across the country. Gwen Mills’ rise to the top of Unite Here caps a long career inside the union, from her early years as an organizer battling Yale University in Connecticut to a more recent stint running Unite Here’s political ground game against Donald Trump in the swing state of Nevada. The union’s delegates tapped Mills to lead them in a vote held Friday in New York City at its quinquennial constitutional convention.