Today's AFL-CIO press clips
MUST READ
US unions step up efforts to make case that Trump is no friend of workers
The Guardian
By Steven Greenhouse
Oct. 8, 2024
“Trump has found ways to break through with working people,” Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s main labor federation, told the Guardian. “He has the rhetoric down, but he doesn’t have the results to back it up. That’s why it’s important that we, as messengers, combat that with facts.” The AFL-CIO is urging the nation’s 14.4 million union members to look at its “candidate comparison” website, which makes the case that Trump is anti-union. He crossed a union picket line, praised the idea of firing workers who are on strike, and often used non-union workers at his construction sites.
POLITICS
AFL-CIO leads union women in massive mobilization for the election
People’s World
By Mark Gruenberg
Oct. 8, 2024
Quoting Trump’s saying “I have the concepts for a plan” to replace the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, Shuler deadpanned “That’s the equivalent of saying ‘The dog ate my homework.’” Junking the ACA and turning health back over to rapacious insurers who reap workers’ dollars through high premiums and co-pays while denying care has been a longtime Republican goal.
Harris Proposes a Medicare Plan to Provide Home Care for Seniors
The New York Times
By Reed Abelson and Margot Sanger-Katz
Oct. 8, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris outlined a new proposal for home health care on ABC’s “The View” on Tuesday, a plan for expanding Medicare coverage aimed at helping what is called the “sandwich generation” take care of their aging parents. Many adults find themselves straddling the dual responsibilities of rearing their children at a time when their parents need more assistance to stay at home. And millions of Americans struggle to find affordable home care for themselves or their loved ones as they become older. Medicare, the federal insurance program for older Americans, does not cover long-term care and will generally pay for a home aide only if a patient is recovering from an acute medical condition, like a stroke, and only for a short time, often just a few months.
Harris proposes help for the 'sandwich generation': a Medicare benefit for home care
NPR
By Deepa Shivaram
Oct. 8, 2024
Vice President Harris on Tuesday will lay out a new proposal to expand Medicare coverage to help cover the costs of home health care aides for seniors. Her campaign said Harris plans to discuss the measure on ABC’s The View, a daytime television talk show popular with middle-aged and older women. The proposal is squarely aimed at “sandwich generation” women who take care of aging parents as well as their own kids.
Kamala Harris says America needs more homes. Here’s why that’s different.
The Washington Post
By Rachel Siegel, Michael Scherer and Sabrina Rodriguez
Oct. 8, 2024
The core of Kamala Harris’s housing platform is a simple idea: America needs more houses. But the vice president’s pitch — to help build 3 million homes and incentivize local governments and builders to join in — stands apart from how major political candidates typically talk about housing, if they do at all.
Kamala Harris proposes Medicare pay for more in-home health care during appearance on "The View"
CBS News
By Kathryn Watson
Oct. 8, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris said Tuesday that she intends for Medicare to pay for long-term, in-home health care for a broader group of seniors, something she says the program will pay for through negotiating lower drug prices. Harris described the outline of her proposal on ABC's "The View," saying the proposal will particularly help people in the so-called "sandwich" generation — those simultaneously caring for children and aging parents. "Basically what we will do is allow Medicare to cover in-home health care," the Democratic nominee for president said.
Biden sets a 10-year deadline for US cities to replace lead pipes
PBS Wisconsin
By Associated Press
Oct. 8, 2024
A decade after the Flint, Michigan, water crisis raised alarms about the continuing dangers of lead in tap water, President Joe Biden is setting a 10-year deadline for cities across the nation to replace their lead pipes, finalizing an aggressive approach aimed at ensuring that drinking water is safe for all Americans. Biden is expected to announce the final Environmental Protection Agency rule on Oct. 8 in the swing state of Wisconsin during the final month of a tight presidential campaign. The announcement highlights an issue — safe drinking water — that Kamala Harris has prioritized as vice president and during her presidential campaign. The new rule supplants a looser standard set by former President Donald Trump’s administration that did not include a universal requirement to replace lead pipes.
JD Vance criticizes $500M grant for EV project in Michigan as 'table scraps'
The Detroit News
By Craig Mauger
Oct. 8, 2024
Several hundred people attended the event, including more than a dozen who were wearing "auto workers for Trump" shirts. However, six of the people in the shirts told The Detroit News on Tuesday they were not actually auto workers. For a third time in less than a week, Vance was asked by a reporter about whether a future Trump administration would honor investments in EV manufacturing that have been planned for Michigan and didn't directly answer the question.
ORGANIZING
Chippendales Dancers Look to Unionize With Actors’ Equity
The Hollywood Reporter
By Caitlin Huston
Oct. 8, 2024
The Chippendales Dancers are seeking to unionize with Actors’ Equity Association, which has been expanding the union’s representation of 51,000 professional actors and stage managers on Broadway and in live theater. The dancers are part of the all-male revue known for their strip teases, based out of the Rio hotel and casino in Las Vegas. They also regularly tour and perform domestically and internationally. The dancers chose to unionize in an effort to gain higher wages and benefits.
Anchorage Daily News staff votes on unionization, results to come in November
Alaska Beacon
By Claire Stremple
Oct. 8, 2024
Non-management news staff at Alaska’s most widely read newspaper voted on whether or not to form a union on Tuesday afternoon. Former Anchorage Daily News staff handed out doughnuts in the parking lot, and members of the employee group that is asking to be recognized as the Anchorage News Guild wore t-shirts to show their support for the cause. Anchorage Daily News reporter Tess Williams said that contributed to a sense of excitement around the vote. “We’ve all been working pretty hard at this for a decent amount of time now, so it’s really exciting to kind of see this finally happening,” she said.
Cleveland Institute of Music unionizes
Cleveland Jewish News
By Staff
Oct. 8, 2024
Faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music at 11021 East Blvd. in Cleveland have joined the Cleveland chapter of the American Federation of Musicians Local 4, the Cleveland-based union that includes all of Cuyahoga, Lorain and Erie counties and other parts of Northeast Ohio, according to an email from the institute. The 56-25 vote in favor of joining the union came during the Cleveland Institute of Music faculty union election, which began Sept 25 and ended at 5 p.m. Sept. 26, according to Crain’s Cleveland Business.
A first: Chippendales at the Rio to unionize
Las Vegas Review-Journal
By John Katsilometes
Oct. 7, 2024
In a twist, the men of Chippendales want coverage. The famed adult revue at the Rio has announced plans to unionize with Actors’ Equity Association. Union reps made the move official Monday. The production is the first all-male revue ever in Las Vegas to attempt to unionize. A supermajority among the two-dozen or so cast members signed union authorization cards last week. That move reinforced the cast’s intention to hold a formal vote to unionize with Equity.
NEGOTIATIONS & STRIKES
Boeing, striking union to continue negotiations on Tuesday
Reuters
By Reuters
Oct. 8, 2024
Boeing and its largest union said they would continue contract talks on Tuesday, as both sides seek an agreement to end a strike by around 33,000 U.S. West Coast factory workers. he company and the union, whose members have been on strike for 25 days, had resumed contract talks on Monday in the presence of federal mediators. Although we met with Boeing and federal mediators all day, there was no meaningful movement to report. We will be back at it tomorrow," The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers said late on Monday.
‘GENU-UAW does not give up’: Grad workers rally amid negotiations for their first contract
The Huntington News
By Devyn Rudnick, Siera Qosaj and Zoe MacDiarmid
Oct. 8, 2024
More than 40 members of the Graduate Employees of Northeastern University rallied on Centennial Common Oct. 2 to mark the one-year anniversary of their union election and 10 months since contract negotiations began. The graduate student union, part of the United Auto Workers union and known as GENU-UAW, was established at Northeastern in 2015 and currently represents approximately 1,200 graduate workers. The union was certified to begin bargaining with the university following a landslide vote in favor of union certification in September 2023, when 94% of voting graduate workers elected to certify themselves as a bargaining unit. Since then, the bargaining committee has met 13 times with the university, according to Niki Thomas, a doctoral candidate in bioengineering and member of the union’s nine-person bargaining committee.
Union representing Skowhegan’s Sappi Paper Mill workers has authorized strike
WABI
By WABI News Desk
Oct. 8, 2024
A union representing workers at the Sappi Paper Mill in Skowhegan has authorized a strike. The union says it’s due to excessive forced overtime, proposed reductions to vacation time, and other problems. The workers are planning a rally starting at 3:00pm Tuesday. Members of United Steelworkers Local 4-9 voted on September 20th to authorize the strike. In a release, the union says they’re also strongly opposed to the company’s move to scale back their earned paid leave. The steelworkers are also calling for contract language to ensure they receive their wage adjustments for taking on additional duties. The union is planning to hit the streets this afternoon for a rally at the union hall on Waterville Road in Skowhegan.
Machinists in Milwaukee Molson Coors brewery strike
People’s World
By Mark Gruenberg
Oct. 8, 2024
It doesn’t have the breadth, depth or impact of a 17-year boycott, which began with a year-long strike in Colorado, pitting the Brewery Workers, the AFL-CIO and gay and Hispanic groups against the radical right-wing Coors brewery empire, but 43 mechanics and repair workers, members of two Machinists locals, went on strike against Molson Coors in Milwaukee on October 3.
West Linn employees, city agree to new contract
West Linn Tidings
By Holly Bartholomew
Oct. 7, 2024
A month after unionized employees of the city of West Linn told members of the City Council that many of them could not afford to live in the city, their union and city leaders have agreed to a new employment contract that guarantees a raise in pay. The council approved ratification of the new three-year contract with the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees at a meeting Oct. 7. The new contract includes a 5% cost of living adjustment for fiscal year 2025, 4% for fiscal year 2026, and 3.5% for fiscal year 2027, West Linn finance director Lauren Breithaupt said. Additionally, she said the contract spells out an increase of payment to theemployee’s Voluntary Employees Beneficiary Association account to assist with rising health care costs. Breithaupt told the council that the city’s bargaining team began negotiating with the local chapter AFSCME, which represents 63 city employees, in April.
SMART-MD ratifies 5-year labor pact with BNSF
Progressive Railroading
By Staff
Oct. 7, 2024
BNSF Railway Co. late last week announced members of the International Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART)-Railroad, Mechanical and Engineering Department voted to ratify a new five-year agreement with the Class I. The contract calls for a 3.5% average wage increase per year over the next five years, offers employees more vacation earlier in their career and enhances health-care benefits, according to a BNSF press release.
IN THE STATES
Voting Wars Open a New Front: Which Mail Ballots Should Count?
The New York Times
By Michael Wines
Oct. 8, 2024
As Pennsylvania voters begin casting perhaps two million-plus mail ballots, Democrats and Republicans are in furious legal combat over a once-overlooked aspect of voting remotely: which ballots are counted, which are rejected as defective and which ones voters are allowed to correct. Simple math explains why. In the 2020 presidential contest, Pennsylvania election officials rejected more than 34,000 mail ballots. In a tight 2024 election in the most coveted swing state, even a fraction of that many rejections could spell the difference between victory and defeat — not just in the presidential race, but also in any number of others.
WORKPLACE SAFETY AND HEALTH
Construction groups look to prevent heat-related injuries on the job
Daily Independent
By Lilly Roseburrough
Oct. 7, 2024
It was a swelteringly warm day on the Phoenix worksite with temperatures well above 110 degrees Fahrenheit. With heavy machinery and gravity-defying heights, accidents will always happen. Thousands of construction contractors work through these often risky conditions every single day. What local officials are dealing with mostly are now heat-related incidents, and its up to the state to monitor that for a massive industry in the Valley.
DIVERSITY & EQUITY
Empowering women of color in labor unions: A rising force for change
Rolling Out
By Serena Summer
Oct. 8, 2024
The rise of Black and Latina women in union leadership roles marks a significant shift in the American labor movement, reflecting broader changes in workforce demographics and societal expectations. This trend is reshaping labor negotiations and priorities, with far-reaching implications for workers across various industries. Prominent leaders like Liz Shuler (AFL-CIO), Becky Pringle (National Education Association), and April Verrett (Service Employees International Union) are breaking barriers and advocating for diverse worker needs.
LABOR AND COMMUNITY
Still Lives of Workers in Motion
Workday Magazine
By Isabela Escalona
Oct. 8, 2024
“Archive in Motion: The ATU Workers of Metro Transit”, a photography exhibition, is on display at the East Side Freedom Library, in St. Paul, Minn. featuring the photographs of Leslie Grant and Jeffrey Skemp of the workers of Metro Transit. The exhibit features film photographs of various transit workers, represented by Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1005, honoring the essential work they do and the importance of public transit in bringing people together in a shared public space.