Today's AFL-CIO Press Clips
MUST READ
Labor leaders stand up, show out for Kamala at DNC
New York Amsterdam News
By Karen Juanita Carrillo
Aug. 22, 2024
The Democratic National Convention’s (DNC) nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris for president and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as the next vice president commenced with a wave of endorsements from the nation’s largest labor unions. On the very first night of the convention, an impressive gathering of union presidents took the stage. AFSCME’s Lee Saunders, SEIU (Service Employees International Union) President April Verrett, LIUNA (Laborer’s International Union of North America) President Brent Booker, Ken Cooper of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Claude Cummings Jr. of the Communication Workers of America (CWA), and Liz Shuler of the AFL-CIO stood on stage together, they displayed the power of unions.
Why Women’s Soccer Ditched Its Draft
Time
By Sean Gregory
Aug. 22, 2024
“This is, in Joe Biden's words, a big effing deal,” AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler tells TIME between meetings at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. “Women, especially women in soccer, have been fighting for years to be recognized, paid and protected the way they deserve to be. And this contract recognizes that they have a voice and control in their workplace.” “We're seeing women rising up in every field, including to run for President of the United States,” says Shuler. “This is emblematic of what's happening all across the country, with women rising up and demanding more.”
NWSL, players reach new CBA that includes elimination of draft
The Washington Post
By Ella Brockway
Aug. 22, 2024
The National Women’s Soccer League and its players agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement that will grow salaries and further expand player rights regarding free agency and trades, the sides announced Thursday. The deal includes the elimination of the college draft, a first for a major North American professional sports league. The new CBA will extend the current contract, which was negotiated in 2022 and was set to expire in 2026, through 2030. Some of the new terms, such as the elimination of the draft and free agency for all players when their contracts expire, will go into effect immediately; others will begin in 2025.
POLITICS
How Democrats at DNC are seizing on ‘freedom’ theme after years of GOP monopoly
WJBD
By Tal Axelrod
Aug. 21, 2024
“Are we fighting for freedom? That’s what I thought,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said at a meeting of the Democratic National Committee’s women’s caucus. “Freedom is not drowning in medical debt. Freedom is earning the same salary as a man does for doing the same job…Freedom is about making our own decisions about our own bodies.”
Alliance for Retired Americans: Data shows Harris closing the gap with senior voters
People’s World
By Richard Green
Aug. 22, 2024
Fred Redmond, the Executive Vice President of the ARA and the National Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, started his comments at the gathering by offering appreciation to Bea Lumpkin’s long history of working-class activism and then gave special recognition to her late husband, Frank Lumpkin, a steelworker and union organizer who helped initiate the famous Wisconsin steel strike and spent 17 years fighting to have pension payments “stolen by the bosses” returned to the workers that earned them. Redmond then said, “We all know that elections have serious consequences for working and retired Americans, but it is our job to make sure that the rest of America knows it, too. The labor movement is going to move heaven and Earth if we have to to keep the House and flip the Senate. “The retirement that you paid into, Social Security, and Medicare are not entitlement programs; they are promises owed to you for the many years you went to work every day. Now it is time for you to share the wealth you helped create,” Redmond continued.
Randi Weingarten (President of the American Federation of Teachers) speaks at day four of the DNC. (Watch)
C-Span
Aug. 22, 2024
Randi Weingarten (President of the American Federation of Teachers) speaks at day four of the DNC.
Harris prosecutes case against Trump and pitches herself as a middle-class champion
NPR
By Deirdre Walsh
Aug. 23, 2024
Kamala Harris used her first major address as the Democratic nominee for president to combine a personal recounting of her middle-class roots with a sharp prosecution of the case against electing Donald Trump to another term. She called Trump an "unserious man" but said the consequences of putting him back in the White House would have "serious consequences."
Harris makes case for ‘new way forward,’ attacks Trump in DNC speech
The Washington Post
By Toluse Olorunnipa and Tyler Pager
Aug. 23, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday, using the most consequential speech of her political career to cast herself as an avatar of America’s middle class and an avenue to usher the country away from the abrasive style of politics embraced by Republican nominee Donald Trump. “Our nation with this election has a precious, fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism, and divisive battles of the past,” she said in a speech that reflected on her unexpected journey to the top of her party and to the cusp of becoming the nation’s first female president. “A chance to chart a new way forward. Not as members of any one party or faction, but as Americans.”
Kamala Harris pledges to ‘chart a new way forward’ as she accepts nomination
The Guardian
By Joan E. Greve
Aug. 23, 2024
Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday with a sweeping, pointed speech in which she vowed to prosecute the case against Donald Trump and carry the country to a brighter and fairer future. In an address that balanced optimism with scathing criticism of her opponent, Harris acknowledged her “unlikely” path to the nomination and extended her hand to voters of all political ideologies who believe in America’s promise. Harris would make history if elected – as the first woman, first Black woman and first Asian American woman to serve as president – but she instead focused on the history that the country could change in November.
Watch Kamala Harris' full remarks at the DNC (Watch)
MSNBC
Aug. 22, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris delivered remarks on the final night of the Democratic National Convention, where she formally accepted her nomination as the Democratic nominee.
Harris prepares to take the stage at the Democratic convention in a history-making speech
NBC News
By Yamiche Alcindor
Aug. 22, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris is set to deliver what is arguably the biggest speech of her life Thursday night, when she will make history as the first Black woman and first Asian American person to accept a major party’s nomination for president. Harris intends to focus her speech on three areas: sharing her personal and professional background, contrasting her vision for America with the one offered by former President Donald Trump and rooting her vision in “a deep and abiding sense of patriotism,” according to a campaign official, who, like others for this article, requested anonymity to share details about the remarks.
How Kamala Harris Is Preparing for the Biggest Speech of Her Life
The New York Times
By Shane Goldmacher
Aug. 22, 2024
Kamala Harris often leans on a favored phrase to focus her team before beginning an important project: “What business are we trying to accomplish here?” In deciding what to say in the most important speech of her life on Thursday, the vice president’s answer has been threefold, aides said: tell her life story, frame her contest with Donald J. Trump as one pitting the future against the past and reclaim the banner of patriotism for the Democratic ticket. Ms. Harris has been taking her convention address so seriously that she has held rehearsals complete with teleprompters in three different time zones.
It’s Harris’ time to convince voters that she can be the 47th president
CNN
By Stephen Collinson
Aug. 22, 2024
Kamala Harris has helped America see joy and now she needs to make America see a president. Her speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night will represent her most exacting test yet in a dizzying month that rocketed her to the threshold of an historic presidency that could reshape American politics. The vice president will offer the country a new beginning and a chance to move to a different place — beyond the prolonged funk brewed by years of Donald Trump’s dark rhetoric and public exhaustion after a once-in-a-century pandemic and consequent and punishing high prices.
Kamala Harris to cap Democratic convention with historic speech
Reuters
By Nandita Bose
Aug. 22, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris will make the most important speech of her political life on Thursday when she accepts the Democratic Party's nomination for president a month after the party forced President Joe Biden to exit the race. Harris' own presidential ambitions were always clear but had been undermined by her own shaky 2020 campaign and bumpy vice presidential term. Since being thrust to the top of the ticket, she has tightened the race against Republican Donald Trump.
D.N.C. Live Updates: Kamala Harris to Seal Her Nomination With High-Stakes Speech
The New York Times
By Adam Nagourney and Neil Vigdor
Aug. 22, 2024
The Democratic National Convention will conclude Thursday night with what is, by any measure, the marquee event of the week: when Vice President Kamala Harris takes the stage to formally accept her party’s nomination to be president. The acceptance speech is historically a high-profile (and high-stakes) moment that provides candidates an opportunity to speak directly to the nation and offer a vision for their presidency. That’s particularly so this time.
DNC puts labor unions front and center with Teamsters endorsement undecided
The Blade
By Alice Momany
Aug. 21, 2024
“We know that there’s been historic policy because of the Biden-Harris administration,” said Tim Burga, president of the Ohio AFL-CIO. “When they came into office, they said it would be the most prounion presidency and vice presidency in our lifetime, and they delivered on the promise.”
Democrats conclude their convention Thursday with their new standard bearer, Kamala Harris
AP News
By Jonathan J. Cooper, Will Weissert and Zeke Miller
Aug. 22, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris closes out the Democratic National Convention Thursday night when she accepts her party’s historic presidential nomination and seizes one of her few remaining opportunities to appeal to an audience of millions. Harris will lay out her vision for the country and prosecute her case against Republican Donald Trump, capping a whirlwind month that began when President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid and endorsed her to replace him atop the Democratic ticket. Harris has three objectives for her speech, according to a campaign official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive speech preparations. She’ll share her background rising from a middle-class family to protect others as a prosecutor, contrast her “optimistic” vision with Trump’s “dark” agenda and evoke a sense of patriotism, the official said.
What We Know About Kamala Harris’s $5 Trillion Tax Plan So Far
The New York Times
By Andrew Duehren
Aug. 22, 2024
In a campaign otherwise light on policy specifics, Vice President Kamala Harris this week quietly rolled out her most detailed, far-ranging proposal yet: nearly $5 trillion in tax increases over a decade. That’s how much more revenue the federal government will raise if it adopted a number of tax increases that President Biden proposed in the spring. Ms. Harris’s campaign said this week that she supported those tax hikes, which were thoroughly laid out in the most recent federal budget plan prepared by the Biden administration.
Kamala Harris' roots reflect changing US demographics
Reuters
By Trevor Hunnicutt
Aug. 22, 2024
The daughter of a Jamaican father and Indian mother, both immigrants, Kamala Harris reflects the United States' changing demographics. When she steps onto the stage Thursday evening in Chicago to accept the Democratic Party's nomination as their presidential candidate, she will represent the country's fastest growing racial category. Some 42 million Americans now identify as multiracial, or 13% of the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That is up from 2% in 2000 when the census first allowed people to select multiple races.
Labor to Trump: You can’t be anti-union and claim you’re pro-worker
People’s World
By Cameron Harrison
Aug. 22, 2024
“Workers in their unions are the biggest exercise in democracy,” declared Julie Su, acting Secretary of Labor in the Biden administration, during the second Labor Council session at the DNC on Wednesday. The opposing ticket in the presidential race, Trump-Vance of the Republican Party, claimed that their platform represents the working families in the U.S., but the organized labor movement isn’t buying it. “You cannot be pro-Elon Musk and be pro-worker. You cannot be anti-immigrant and pro-worker. You cannot be against voting rights and pro-worker. You cannot be pro-sexual harassment and pro-worker,” Su continued. “You especially cannot be anti-union and pro-worker!” Kenny Cooper, the president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), went back to the previous administration to illustrate the point. During the last Congress under Trump, the trade union movement was attempting to secure funding for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), which is responsible for maintaining and continuing defined benefit pension plans. The Republicans offered up $3 billion on their end but then told workers and their unions that they’d have to come up with $4 billion on their own.
Tim Walz channeled grit and empathy at the Democratic national convention
The Guardian
By Ed Pilkington
Aug. 22, 2024
Friday Night Lights never had it so good. As thousands of Democratic delegates from all 50 states packed into the United Center chanted “Coach! Coach! Coach!”, he conjured up the nail-biting finish that the US is now entering. “It’s the fourth quarter,” he said, rocket-launching the crowd into a paroxysm of excitement. “We’re down a field goal. But we’re on offense and we’ve got the ball. We’re driving down the field. And, boy, do we have the right team.” Walz never got to tell the delegates the score at the end of the game, but then he didn’t have to. He had already won the contest for their hearts and minds.
Tim Walz, Accepting V.P. Nomination, Tells Democrats to ‘Leave It on the Field’
The New York Times
By Katie Glueck, Nicholas Nehamas and Reid J. Epstein
Aug. 22, 2024
Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota offered himself as a bridge to disillusioned Americans who regard the Democratic Party as a bastion of coastal elitism, in a high-stakes address formally accepting the vice-presidential nomination on Wednesday night. From the stage of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Mr. Walz completed his breathtaking transformation from little-known governor to leading party figure, accentuating his Midwestern roots and portraying the Democratic ticket as one that champions pragmatism and patriotism.
Convention Insider: This Union Leader Is a Hug Machine
The New York Times
By Jonathan Weisman
Aug. 22, 2024
Union presidents have been treated well by the Democrats at a convention celebrating the party’s new ticket. Mr. Saunders, who has led his union since 2012 and was just re-elected president last week for another four years, was one of six labor presidents who shared the stage on the first night of prime-time programming. Shawn Fain, the president of the United Automobile Workers, earned a whole separate address. Mr. Saunders also leads the umbrella A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s political committee. Of the nearly 4,700 Democratic delegates at the United Center, more than 100 come from AFSCME, and hundreds more are members of other unions, a built-in cheering section every time a union chief gets the microphone or a speaker mentions organized labor. But Mr. Saunders has particular reasons for working the convention hard, hugging as many politicians as possible, hosting a party at the Art Institute and holding a series of Democratic breakfasts to lure in allies and win friends. For many Democrats, the notorious “Project 2025” — the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a second term for former President Donald J. Trump — is a boogeyman mentioned over and over in dire political warnings and fund-raising appeals. But to the unions that represent government workers, from the federal “swamp” in Washington to the smallest municipalities, it is truly an existential threat.
Amid a ‘really, really big week for labor,’ Illinois unions, Democrats held up as model
WJBC
By Jerry Nowicki
Aug. 22, 2024
Organized labor has been everywhere at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week, from the main stage to the Illinois delegation’s morning breakfast gatherings. “This has been a really, really big week for labor and very, very much appreciated, and it’s heartwarming,” Illinois labor mainstay and state AFL-CIO President Tim Drea told attendees to the Illinois breakfast on Wednesday.
What Drives Kamala Harris: The Art of the Possible
The New York Times
By Lisa LererErica L. Green and Zolan Kanno-Youngs
Aug. 22, 2024
“The expectation of our community is that I’m going to fix all the havoc,” Ms. Harris said, according to Ms. Simon’s recollection. “They’re going to want me to fix all the racism, all the dysfunction, in the next four years.” But in reality, Ms. Harris said, change will happen “bit by bit.” The comment underscored the political philosophy that has guided Ms. Harris’s style of governance for decades. It is among the more striking contradictions of Ms. Harris’s candidacy: While she would bring about historic change if elected, as the first woman, the first Asian American and the second Black person to hold the office, she is not offering sweeping change in policy. She is at heart an institutionalist, defined by a deliberate style, focused on granular impacts over broad society shifts.
Kamala Harris, poised to make history tonight, will urge Americans to ‘move past the bitterness’
Los Angeles Times
By Noah Bierman and Seema Mehta
Aug. 22, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris is preparing to make history Thursday night as the first Black woman and first Indian American to accept a major party presidential nomination with a call “to move past the bitterness, cynicism and divisive battles of the past.” Her speech is expected to frame her vision as nonideological and “practical” as she courts moderate voters who have concerns about the economy but reservations about electing former President Trump. Her election offers “a chance to chart a new way forward,” Harris planned to say, according to excerpts of her speech released Thursday evening. “Not as members of any one party or faction, but as Americans.”
ORGANIZING
Hyatt Regency Crystal City Employees Vote Decisively to Unionize
Legacy
By Admin
Aug. 22, 2024
Workers at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City recently voted decisively to form their union as Grand Hyatt Washington remains under boycott over the same grievances. A formal vote supervised by the National Labor Relations Board saw 68% of the housekeeping staff of the hotel located next to the Reagan National Airport sign union authorization cards in July, prompting union elections. Despite weeks of aggressive anti-union campaigning from Hyatt as an employer, housekeepers who organized with UNITE HERE Local 25 sought union representation over overwhelming workloads, low pay, and lack of affordable health insurance.
All workers walk out of South Whitley business, complain of unsafe conditions
WANE
By Marcus Truscio
Aug. 21, 2024
All employees of Artistic Holiday Designs in South Whitley have been striking since Monday. They claim the building they work in is overrun with mold, has a leaky ceiling, pooling water and insufficient fire protection. They have been complaining for months but said Monday was the final straw. That was the day employees said crews came in and started doing work. But they said it didn’t seem like construction to solve the problem. Nevertheless, mold in the walls was being disturbed and the employees claimed that they were expected to complete their shift as usual with no protective gear. That was when every employee walked out.
NEGOTIATIONS & STRIKES
United Auto Workers holds rally near shuttered Stellantis plant in Belvidere
ABC 7 - Chicago
By ABC7 Chicago Digital Team
Aug. 22, 2024
United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain led a rally near the shuttered Stellantis plant in Belvidere Thursday. Union officials called on Stellantis to keep its promise to re-open the plant. Last fall, the automaker said it would make a nearly $5 billion investment to reopen the plant that closed in February 2023. The union says it intends to enforce the agreement to the fullest extent including threatening to strike. Under the contract, the union is able to strike once an issue goes through the full grievance procedure.
AT&T and Communications Workers of America enter federal mediation as strike continues
ABC 24
By Kim Chaney
Aug. 22, 2024
AT&T and the Communications Workers of America (CWA) have entered a federal mediation as workers in AT&T Southeast continue their strike against the company. The Communications Workers of America — the union representing the striking employees — also claims a striking worker in Eads, Tennessee was injured on the picket line by a vehicle driven by a contractor brought in to cover the work of those on strike.
WMATA Board of Directors approves new ATU contract
Mass Transit
By Staff
Aug. 22, 2024
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s (WMATA) Board of Directors approved a new four-year contract with the agency’s largest union, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689. The union represents more than 8,000 employees – including bus and train operators, station managers, maintenance workers and other support positions. The contract will work to enhance cost management, operational safety, recruitment and retention and system efficiency. “The board appreciates the work of the general manager and his team, as well as ATU Local 689 leadership to finalize this agreement," said WMATA Board Finance and Capital Committee Chair Matt Letourneau. "This new contract enhances system safety and improves cost efficiency and predictability for Metro [WMATA] and our regional funding partners while continuing to support our valued employees."
Striking Is in the Air at Boeing
Labor Notes
By Jenny Brown
Aug. 22, 2024
Mondays and Wednesdays are loud at the vast Boeing factory in Everett, Washington. As the Machinists’ contract campaign heats up, the workforce has been serenading management at lunch with air horns, train horns, and vuvuzelas—plus chants of “Out the Door in ’24.” Forty miles south, in Renton, where workers construct the moneymaking 737, second shift workers have used their meal breaks to blast Bluetooth speakers at top volume with ’90s rap, death metal, ’80s pop, and opera—all simultaneously, said Jon Voss, a 13-year mechanic in the wings building. The resulting racket “really drove management and HR nuts.” The Boeing contract expires September 12 for 31,000 members of Machinists (IAM) District Lodge 751 in Washington and 1,300 District W24 members in Gresham, Oregon. The last time a full contract was negotiated was 2008, with a 58-day strike.
Strike Averted as Brainerd & Public Utilities Union Agree to Arbitration
Lakeland PBS
By Lakeland News
Aug. 21, 2024
The City of Brainerd is saying a strike between them and union members at Brainerd Public Utilities has been averted. A press release from City Administrator Nick Broyles says that following labor negotiations between the city and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 31 public utility union, both parties agreed to certain contract terms. Issues that could not be agreed upon will be submitted to binding arbitration. The union and the city agreed to go to arbitration on August 16th, where both sides will receive a list of potential arbitrators from the Bureau of Mediation Services from which one arbitrator will be chosen. That arbitrator will identify dates when they are available and forward that to attorneys representing the city and the union.
HCA Osceola nurses picket as contract bargaining talks proceed
Osceola News-Gazette
By Ken Jackson
Aug. 22, 2024
Nurses at NHC Florida Osceola Hospital have been working since March to ratify a new contract with administrators. While the sticking point with the workers of National Nurses United is not so much wages, it is in staffing levels. They made that clear Thursday morning while picketing at the corner of Central Avenue and Oak Street, outside the hospital. The staff’s most recent contract expired on July 1, and hospital and National Nurses United leaders are working on a new one. The NNU has been asking hospital officials for a new contract that highlights safe staffing in every unit on every shift to ensure high-quality patient care, nurse recruitment and retention and guarantees nurses’ patients are cared for while they take meal and rest breaks.
SPORTS UNIONIZATION
Inside NWSL and the players’ union’s new CBA after 10 months of bargaining
The New York Times
By Steph Yang
Aug. 22, 2024
Over 10 months and more than 20 bargaining sessions, the National Women’s Soccer League and the NWSL Players Association have hammered out a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA). Bargaining committees from each group met in person in Philadelphia from July 8 through July 11 to finalize the deal. It was supposed to be time off for players as the league took a break before the Olympics. But five athletes forewent vacation to join the PA’s bargaining committee in person: Brianna Pinto (North Carolina Courage), Ashley Hatch (Washington Spirit), Dani Weatherholt (Courage), Haley Hopkins (Courage), and Nicole Barnhart (Spirit). Including those five, 43 players served on the bargaining committee, with those unable to make it to Philadelphia joining virtually. NWSLPA executive director Meghann Burke, NWSLPA president Tori Huster, two labor counsels, Deborah Willig and Jessica Caggiano, and an economist, Dr. Beth Paulin from La Salle University rounded out the team.
NWSL, players agree on new CBA with no draft, better pay, expanded leave
ABC News
By Jeff Carlisle
Aug. 22, 2024
The NWSL and the NWSL Players Association announced they have agreed on a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that is set to last through the 2030 season. Among the gains the players made are increased freedom of movement with total free agency upon the expiration of contracts, the elimination of player drafts, a higher salary cap, a sizable increase in minimum salaries and expanded parental leave and childcare benefits. NWSLPA executive director Meghann Burke added: "We saw this midterm, voluntary negotiation as an opportunity to expand on the rights and protections that we set the foundation for in our first CBA in 2022. This new deal achieves that. Players drew a clear, firm line that now is the time to accomplish what some have said could never be done."
NWSL, players agree on new CBA with no draft, better pay, expanded leave
ESPN
By Jeff Carlisle
Aug. 22, 2024
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