LABOR AND ECONOMY
CNBC
By Courtney Connley
July 27, 2021
“We saw Liz Shuler from the AFL-CIO comment on social media that one job should be enough and I think that’s absolutely right,” says Burke.
IN THE STATES
Tampa Bay lawmakers and workers call on Republican senators to expand labor protections
Creative Loafing
By Mckenna Schueler
July 26, 2021
Tampa Bay lawmakers joined workers with the West Central Florida Labor Council and advocates outside the Tampa offices of Senators Mark Rubio and Rick Scott for a rally last Friday, to call upon the two Republican Senators to support the Protect the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, a proposed labor law that would expand labor protections, if passed, and make it easier for workers in Florida and across the country join unions. “The PRO Act is the most significant worker-focused legislation since the Great Depression and is designed to create a balance between the rights and needs of working people and those of their employers,” wrote the West Central Florida Labor Council of the American Federation of Labor (AFL-CIO) in a press statement. “This legislation empowers workers, enhances civil rights, and will help us build a stronger, more just economy for all.”
Support for Alaska's workers (LTE)
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
By Scott Eickholt
July 27, 2021
To the editor: It’s time to restore the American Dream for workers.
Stories from the session: Labor leader says workers made gains, must organize for deeper change
Maine Beacon
By Dan Neumann
July 27, 2021
In a year that has seen a record number of low-wage workers walk off the job, fed up with being overworked and underpaid, Matt Schlobohm, executive director of the Maine AFL-CIO, believes there were several legislative victories in Augusta this session that Maine workers should celebrate. But he also stressed that it will take much deeper movement organizing to push policymakers to tip the power-imbalance toward workers in a more structural way. He said the goal then becomes how to build a labor movement that can agitate and mount enough pressure to push through policies locally and federally that redistribute economic and political power downward — policies such as the PRO Act, which would substantially expand the ability of workers to organize a union and pursue collective bargaining. “I think that would mean building strike-ready unions that can build super-majority support for their fair contracts. Unions that are highly participatory and engage lots of members and feel more like a labor movement and less like organized labor,” Schlobohm said.
Advocates, Baker admin. officials press for stimulus spending on housing, job training
Boston Globe
By Jasper Goodman
July 27, 2021
Steven A. Tolman, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, called on stimulus dollars to be used to support public education, transportation, front-line workers, among other programs to help workers.
POLITICS
Leveling the playing field between workers and corporations
Wilmington News Journal
By Sherrod Brown
July 27, 2021
It’s simple: unions make Ohioans’ hard work pay off. Union workers earn higher wages, on average, and have better benefits, more retirement security, and more control over their schedules. It’s why I’m leading the fight to pass the PRO Act – the Protecting the Right to Organize Act. The bill would start to level the playing field between workers and corporations, so workers can bargain for higher pay and better health care and more opportunities for career advancement.
VOTING RIGHTS
Poor People’s Campaign hearse spotlights death of voting rights
People’s World
By Mark Gruenberg
July 27, 2021
When the Poor People’s Campaign completes its 27-mile four-day trek through the Texas heat on July 31, an ends at the state capitol building in Austin, a hearse will lead the way. In its coffin will be copies of 400-plus GOP bills bills from radical rightists, filed in 48 states, killing voting rights –including the draconian measure Texas’s ruling Republicans seek to impose on Black and especially Brown people in the Lone Star State.