Today's AFL-CIO press clips
POLITICS
In swing states that once went for Trump, unions organize to prevent a repeat
Michigan Advance
By Erik Gunn
Sept. 25, 2024
When Biden dropped out July 21, the national executive council of the 12.5 million-member AFL-CIO endorsed Harris the next day “because we knew that the administration that has been fighting for working people for the last three and a half years, we know what they’ve delivered, and we knew that her record spoke for itself,” said Liz Shuler, national AFL-CIO president, in an interview with NC Newsline. Union messaging to members has emphasized the document and its ties to Trump, despite his repeated disavowal of the agenda and claims of ignorance about its contents. “It is absolutely his plan,” the AFL-CIO’s Shuler told NC Newsline. “He’s had over 100 former administration officials and the Heritage Foundation basically writing the blueprint for his next term, which would eliminate unions as we know it.”
The Guardian
By Steven Greenhouse
Sept. 25, 2024
ven as Donald Trump seeks to disavow Project 2025, he and the rightwing effort’s authors have voiced similarly hostile plans for the US’s 2 million-plus federal employees – to replace many of them with political appointees. These plans are stirring alarm among federal employees, with many warning that “politicizing” the civil service will hurt not just them, but also millions of Americans across the US by undermining how well the US government provides services and enforces regulations that protect the public.
'That's the ballgame': Town hall with Michigan union workers reveals key to 2024 success (Watch)
MSNBC
By Alex Wagner
Sept. 25, 2024
Following Alex Wagner's town hall with Michigan union workers in which they discuss their views of the 2024 election and the issues that matter most to them, Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow and Jon Favreau, co-host of the Pod Save American podcast, join to discuss what the audience answers show about how the candidates should strategize to appeal to these crucial voters.
Ohio state AFL-CIO goes all out for Harris and Brown
People’s World
By Cameron Harrison
Sept. 25, 2024
“We must get involved in electoral politics. For the sake of our movement, for the sake of workers, we must reject MAGA and corporate extremism in the 2024 elections,” Tim Burga, president of the Ohio state AFL-CIO declared to hundreds of delegates and labor activists assembled here last week at the labor federation’s state convention. In addition to calling for the election of Kamala Harris as president, labor activists In Ohio’s Senate race are taking aim at and working to defeat big business supporter Bernie Moreno who is spending millions of dollars to defeat labor-backed incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown.
Congress passes bill to avert a shutdown before the election, sending it to Biden
NBC News
By Scott Wong and Sahil Kapur
Sept. 25, 2024
Congress overwhelmingly passed a funding bill Wednesday to avert a government shutdown next week after House Republicans removed a proposal demanded by Donald Trump that would require Americans nationwide to show proof of citizenship to register to vote. The Senate voted 78-18 Wednesday evening, shortly after the House passed the same measure on a 341-82, with all opposition in both chambers coming from Republicans.
Harris calls Trump 'one of the biggest losers ever' on manufacturing in crucial Pennsylvania
ABC News
By Fritz Farrow, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, and Will McDuffie
Sept. 25, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday contrasted her economic agenda and that of former President Donald Trump, in a high-profile speech in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. Harris told an audience of about 400 people, including billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, at the Economic Club of Pittsburgh that her economic philosophy is "rooted in her middle-class upbringing" while Trump's comes from a "gilded path to wealth." “For Donald Trump, our economy works best if it works for those who own the big skyscrapers. Not those who build them. Not those who wire them. Not those who mop the floors,” she said.
Trump is losing his edge on the economy among voters
The Washington Post
By Abha Bhattarai
Sept. 25, 2024
Americans are finally starting to feel better about the economy, invigorating Vice President Kamala Harris’s pitch for the presidency as she narrows her Republican opponent’s longtime lead on an issue that is foremost on voters’ minds.
Unite HERE knocking on 4.5 million swing state doors for Kamala Harris
People’s World
By Mark Gruenberg
Sept. 25, 2024
Unite HERE has set an ambitious target for its 1800-and-counting canvassers in this fall’s election campaign: Almost 4.5 million door-knocks, virtually all in swing states, starting with Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona. They’re a quarter of the way to that total already, with half of the initial million door-knocks occurring in Pennsylvania alone. So says new union President Gwen Mills, and her union has the track record to back its plans. There are two motivations for the Unite HERE members on the campaign trail. One, of course, is the wide and spreading enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket of pro-worker Vice President Kamala Harris for president and Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Gov. Tim Walz, a union member, for VP. The other is fear of what could happen to worker rights, voting rights, women’s rights, LGBT rights and the U.S. Constitution if their Republican foes, former president and convicted felon Donald Trump for president, and hate-Haitians Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, for VP, win.
Harris says Trump needs to trust women to make their own reproductive decisions
NBC News
By Megan Lebowitz
Sept. 25, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday criticized former President Donald Trump's recent comments about reproductive rights, saying he needs to trust women to make their own decisions. "I don't think the women of America need him to say he's going to protect them," Harris said during an interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, referring to previous comments from Trump. "The women of America need him to trust them."
Union voters were never a monolith. This election season is no different
South Carolina Public Radio
By Andrea Hsu
Sept. 24, 2024
Union workers make up 1 in 5 voters in swing states, according to the AFL-CIO. And the 2024 presidential race is so close that their votes could make a real difference in the outcome. While the unions themselves historically support Democrats, many of their rank-and-file members do not. NPR's Andrea Hsu explains.
LABOR AND ECONOMY
WGA East Slams “Shameful” CBS Broadcasting Layoffs As “A Blow To…Already Stretched-Thin Newsrooms”
Deadline
By Katie Campione
Sept. 25, 2024
The WGA East issued a scathing statement Wednesday, slamming the latest round of Paramount layoffs that saw 12 of its members cut across CBS broadcasting divisions. “These shameful layoffs are a blow to CBS’s already stretched-thin newsrooms, impact people who worked tirelessly through the pandemic and come in the midst of a Presidential election cycle, and the entire industry is keenly aware that the company plans to execute further draconian staff reductions in the near future,” the statement said.
ORGANIZING
SAG-AFTRA Launches Bid to Organize Intimacy Coordinators
The Hollywood Reporter
By Katie Kilkenny
Sept. 25, 2024
Two years after SAG-AFTRA indicated that it wanted to bring intimacy coordinators into the union, the labor group has taken a first step toward making that goal a reality. On Wednesday, the performers union said it had filed a petition for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board. SAG-AFTRA is seeking to bargain nationally on behalf of intimacy coordinators employed by Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers member companies, the entertainment industry’s top studios and streamers.
Journalists at The Journal Times in Racine, Wisconsin, announce plans to unionize
Editor and Publisher
By Racine Newsguild
Sept. 25, 2024
Journalists at The Journal Times newspaper in Racine, Wisconsin, have announced plans to unionize as the Racine NewsGuild, seeking a partnership with the newspaper’s ownership to protect quality local journalism and to demonstrate a joint commitment to improving services in the Racine area. Reporters and other newsroom employees at The Journal Times have signed authorization cards and agreed to seek representation by The NewsGuild, a sector of the Communications Workers of America. The Racine NewsGuild will operate as a unit within the Kenosha Newspaper Guild Local 34159, which already represents employees at our sister paper, the Kenosha News in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
SAG-AFTRA looks to unionize intimacy coordinators
Los Angeles Times
By Samantha Masunaga
Sept. 25, 2024
Actors’ union SAG-AFTRA is making a bid to represent intimacy coordinators employed by companies in the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists said Wednesday that it has filed an election petition with the National Labor Relations Board to represent the Hollywood workers whose job is to help actors safely navigate nude or simulated-sex scenes on set. The move comes four years after SAG-AFTRA set rules for the use of intimacy coordinators on film sets in the wake of the #MeToo movement. The rules, which define the role of intimacy coordinators in all stages of production and provide training standards, were an effort to help eliminate sexual harassment in the entertainment industry.
NEGOTIATIONS & STRIKES
Striking Boeing workers would like the company to stop negotiating in public
Quartz
By Melvin Backman
Sept. 25, 2024
The union representing striking Boeing machinists is criticizing the company’s efforts to rally support for a contract that workers deem insufficient. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) says that it wants to work toward an agreement at the bargaining table or nowhere.
GE Appliances and IUE-CWA union gear up for labor contract negotiations. What that means
Courier Journal
By Olivia Evans
Sept. 25, 2024
As October rolls in, so does another high-profile local labor contract negotiation in Louisville. GE Appliances, the Louisville-based home appliance manufacturer, and IUE-CWA Local 83761, the union representing some 5,000 workers at GE Appliances, are entering negotiations over a new multi-year labor contract.
Union workers at Hawaii's largest hotel go on strike
ABC News
By Jennifer Sinco Kelleher
Sept. 24, 2024
About 2,000 workers went on strike Tuesday at Hawaii's largest resort, joining thousands of others striking at hotels in other U.S. cities. Unionized workers at Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort — the largest Hilton in the world — began an open-ended strike at 5 a.m. They are calling for conditions including higher wages, more manageable workloads and a reversal of cuts implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic such as limited daily room cleaning.
UAW members at Ford's River Rouge tool and die unit reach tentative agreement
Reuters
By Reuters
Sept. 25, 2024
The United Auto Workers union said on Wednesday its members representing Ford's (F.N), opens new tab tool and die unit in the River Rouge Complex reached a tentative agreement with the company.
Amtrak conductors ratify new contract
Trains.com
By Trains Staff
Sept. 25, 2024
Amtrak conductors and assistant conductors have approved a new seven-year contract agreement by a three-to-one margin, the union representing those more than 2,100 workers has announced. “Our members are a major part of the experience passengers have aboard Amtrak,” said Jeremy Ferguson, president of the Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers-Transportation Division (SMART-TD), in announcing the results of ratification balloting.
Chattanooga Volkswagen workers launch first UAW contract campaign
News Channel 9
By WTVC
Sept. 25, 2024
Chattanooga Volkswagen workers have outlined their demands in their first UAW contract negotiation campaign. The UAW released a new video outlining the priority demands of Volkswagen workers as contract negotiations begin between the union and VW.
JOINING TOGETHER
As San Diego hotel workers strike, healthcare union pulls event from Hilton Bayfront hotel
CBS8
By City News Service
Sept. 24, 2024
Following weeks of striking by employees at San Diego's Hilton Bayfront hotel, a medical union Tuesday announced it has moved venues for its biennial convention as a show of solidarity. The United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals had scheduled its convention from Oct. 6-9 at the hotel, bringing around 1,000 union delegates from California and Hawaii. But hotel housekeepers, cooks, dishwashers, bellhops and other employees have been on strike since Labor Day with Unite HERE Local 30 -- San Diego County's hotel and food service workers union.
Postal workers rallying October 1
The Stand
By Staff
Sept. 25, 2024
For too long, postal workers have been stretched thin, making miracles happen in understaffed facilities. Now, the workers are bringing their fight for a better USPS to the communities they serve. Seeking a voice for both postal workers and the public, better staffing and better service, and a good contract, the workers will rally across the U.S. on Tuesday, October 1. Every community deserves quality postal service; the law requires it. But APWU points out that chronic short staffing is impacting USPS services. Per the union, service standards have been slowed over the years, and that the USPS routinely fails to meet service performance standards, especially for 3-5 day letters. In the most recent fiscal quarter, USPS hit its performance target for single-piece first class letters just 72.5% of the time.
IN THE STATES
Coalition: Immigrants needed for Nebraska economy, communities
WJAG
By Deborah Van Fleet
Sept. 25, 2024
Sue Martin, president and secretary-treasurer of the Nebraska State AFL-CIO, added the citizenship process for immigrants needs to be streamlined. "To create stability for our friends and co-workers who contribute so much to Nebraska workplaces and yet continue to live with daily uncertainty, so they can stay in Nebraska and continue working," Martin urged.
CIVIL, HUMAN, & WOMEN’S RIGHTS
JBS Meat Giant Abused US Immigrant Workers, Union Alleges
Yahoo! Finance
By Gerson Freitas Jr.
Sept. 25, 2024
A labor union is calling on US authorities to investigate JBS SA over allegations of abuse and crimes against immigrant workers just as the world’s largest meat producer seeks to trade its shares in the US. The United Food and Commercial Workers said workers at the JBS plant in Greeley, Colorado, have been subject to human trafficking, paying rent for squalid conditions, dangerous work conditions, threats and intimidation. As many as 500 Haitian and Benin workers may have been impacted, the union said.
LABOR AND COMMUNITY
‘We Still Have a Lot of Work to Do’: Female Plumbers on Overcoming Barriers and Finding Community
WTTW
By Eunice Alpasan
Sept. 25, 2024
Juliet Silvestre and her peers stood in a parking lot sandwiched between the plumbers’ union hall and training center in the West Loop on a recent Thursday afternoon. The group of first-year plumber apprentices buzzed with chatter as they awaited their 3:30 p.m. dismissal. One of the reasons Silvestre, 24, was inspired to go into plumbing was because of the way she saw her single mother being treated by male contractors, she said. “There were a lot of situations where she was taken advantage of by men contractors,” Silvestre said, “and I want to be part of that change and be able to provide a service to other women and them know that they’re not gonna get screwed over.” Silvestre is one of 10 female apprentices in her class of 134.
Dozens of union workers attend Central Labor Council's citizenship drive
The Chief Leader
By Nate Wolf
Sept. 25, 2024
When Luz came to the United States from Barranquilla, Colombia, roughly 40 years ago, she thought she might become an American citizen at some point. But “always I said ‘later, later, later,’” as she put it. “Time flies away here.” Now nearing retirement and wanting to more easily travel between New York and Colombia, where her 90-year-old father still lives, Luz said the time had come. A hotel housekeeper and a member of the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, she turned to the union for help.