Today's AFL-CIO press clips
POLITICS
Biden Warns That Trump’s Election Could Jeopardize Health Care for Millions
The New York Times
By Peter Baker
Oct. 22, 2024
President Biden warned on Tuesday that if former President Donald J. Trump returned to office by winning next month’s election, he would enact policies that could deprive tens of millions of Americans of health insurance coverage and explode the price of prescription drugs. During a speech in Concord, N.H., Mr. Biden assailed Mr. Trump for repeatedly trying to repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act, and he mocked the former president for offering only ephemeral and unspecified “concepts of a plan” to replace it. “My predecessor, the distinguished former president, he wants to replace the Affordable Care Act with what he calls the ‘concept of a plan,’” Mr. Biden told an audience at NHTI — Concord’s Community College. “I’ve heard that ‘concept of a plan’ now for almost eight years. Concept of a plan. What the hell is a concept of a — he has no concept of anything! No plan!”
Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su Criticizes Donald Trump’s Labor Record at IOP
The Harvard Crimson
By Cam E. Kettles
Oct. 22, 2024
Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor Julie Su slammed former President Donald Trump for “faux populism” and hypocrisy on labor issues ahead of the 2024 presidential election at a Harvard Institute of Politics forum on Monday. Though Su declined to address the former president by name, she argued that “hypothetically,” opposition to overtime pay, sexual harassment, and support for Elon Musk are incompatible with a “pro-worker” position. “I don’t care how many McDonald’s drive-throughs you pretend to work at,” Su said, referencing Trump’s Sunday visit to a Philadelphia McDonald’s where he served fries and answered questions through the drive-through window. Su was joined by Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO to discuss the future of the American Labor Movement. Brett Story and Stephen Maing, directors of “UNION”— a documentary film that followed the unionization of Amazon workers in Staten Island, New York — were also on the panel.
Prominent Black union leaders warn about Trump’s Project 2025 platform
People’s World
By Mark Gruenberg
Oct. 22, 2024
Two prominent Black union leaders, Communications Workers President Claude Cummings and James Curbeam, chairman of the Teamsters Black Caucus, are warning African-American voters—and everyone else–about the threat of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, and specifically about his platform, Project 2025. Their cautions were part of a wide-ranging discussion of that tome, created by the radical right Heritage Foundation, an ideological think tank which hates workers, women, LGBT people and people of color, among others. A former Trump regime official led the project and others of his ilk, plus GOP President Ronald Reagan’s Attorney General, Edwin Meese, populated it with their recommendations.
President Biden to visit New Hampshire to discuss health care cost
WJAR
By NBC 10 News
Oct. 22, 2024
President Joe Biden is making a stop in New England on Tuesday to discuss health care costs. Biden will be in Concord, New Hampshire to discuss how Republicans are committed to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Harris and Trump differ on style and substance while wooing Michigan union workers
Michigan Advance
By Susan J. Demas
Oct. 22, 2024
Before Vice President Kamala Harris addressed a couple hundred union members in Lansing Friday evening, she was introduced by Benjamin Frantz, who described his journey going from a “poor kid to Local 652 president.” He leads the union local that has a lot on the line this election, as it represents workers at General Motors’ Lansing Grand River Plant that netted a $500 million federal grant from the Biden administration to transition to electric vehicle production to keep the plant open and save 650 jobs. But former President Donald Trump’s running mate, Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, won’t say if their administration would uphold the funding. “I am a union autoworker, but I am an American first,” Frantz said. “… That’s why it is my honor and it is my privilege to announce to you all someone who believes in workers’ rights, who believes in the reason I wake up, believes in the reason that you guys are here.”
Harris to hold a rally in Texas on Friday focusing on abortion rights
The Washington Post
By Tyler Pager
Oct. 22, 2024
Harris will travel to Texas, which her campaign calls the “ground zero of the nation’s extreme abortion bans,” to warn Americans about the threat she believes former president Donald Trump poses to women and those who support women’s reproductive rights, officials said.
Las Vegas-raised Jimmy Kimmel joins culinary workers to encourage early voting
KTNV
By KTNV Staff
Oct. 22, 2024
Las Vegas-raised talk show host, Jimmy Kimmel, is making a push in his hometown with Sen. Jacky Rosen. Kimmel was joined by the Senator and the Culinary Union on Monday to kick off the first week of early voting in Nevada. Channel 13 caught up with Kimmel, who said he has a personal connection with the Culinary Union that drives his goal of getting people to the polls.
Fast Company
BY Bryce Covert and Capital and Main
Oct. 22, 2024
Though former President Donald Trump presents himself as a champion of the working class with promises to cut taxes on overtime, his record as both a businessman and president paints a different picture. Trump and his businesses have faced multiple accusations of failing to pay workers overtime they were owed. Once he was in office, Trump’s Department of Labor issued a rule that reduced by millions the number of workers who would have become eligible for overtime pay under an Obama era rule. Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation blueprint for a potential second Trump term that the former president has alternately embraced and distanced himself from, goes even further. The 900-page document outlines plans for a sweeping overhaul of overtime protections that would give employers ways to avoid paying overtime to workers who have long qualified for time-and-a-half pay after 40 hours.
LABOR AND ECONOMY
GM’s profit nears a record a year after UAW strike
ABC 12
By Chris Isidore
Oct. 22, 2024
General Motors reported much stronger than expected third-quarter earnings and gave an outlook that puts it on the path for record earnings in 2024 – just a year after a costly strike by members of the United Auto Workers union. The company reported it earned an adjusted profit $3.4 billion in the third quarter, up from $3.2 billion for the year ago period, which was impacted by the first two weeks of the strike that lasted more than six weeks. Adjusted earnings for the first nine months of the year reached $9.9 billion.
ORGANIZING
St. Louis University graduate students launch unionization effort to improve conditions
St. Louis Public Radio
By Chad Davis
Oct. 22, 2024
St. Louis University graduate students who work for the university are trying to form a union that would allow them to improve working conditions. In a petition filed Monday with the National Labor Relations Board, the Graduate Workers St. Louis University Union-UAW aims to include all enrolled graduate students who receive financial stipends greater than tuition remission or housing and are graduate assistants who work for the university. Organizers stated that the union also would include graduate students at SLU who work as fellows or trainees and are required to work for the university.
Return-to-office mandates are causing more federal workers to unionize (Opinion)
The Hill
By Gleb Tsipursky
Oct. 22, 2024
The push for unionization in response to return-to-office mandates is not limited to the Justice Department. The National Science Foundation is facing similar challenges from its employees, who are represented by the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3403. Following the announcement of new return-to-office plans, the union conducted a survey that revealed significant employee dissatisfaction. Many employees expressed concerns about the impact of increased in-office requirements on their productivity and work-life balance.
Providence charter school teachers vote to unionize
Rhode Island Current
By Alexander Castro
Oct. 21, 2024
Teachers at Providence charter Paul Cuffee Upper School voted to unionize on Monday morning, the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals (RIFTHP) announced. The vote makes the Elmwood Avenue charter school for grades 9 through 12 the first charter school in Rhode Island to join the labor organization and the second in the state to unionize. Elementary school teachers at Highlander Charter School, also in Providence, voted to unionize in August, according to data from the National Labor Relations Board. Highlander unionized with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2323.
NEGOTIATIONS & STRIKES
WHYY workers get better wages and protections against AI in new contract
The Philadelphia Inquirer
By Ariana Perez-Castells
Oct. 22, 2024
Workers at WHYY, Philadelphia’s public media organization, have ratified a new three-year contract with improved benefits and wages. The group of roughly 80 unionized workers is represented by SAG-AFTRA, a union with about 160,000 members in entertainment and media, which includes actors, journalists, editors, puppeteers, and other professionals. The most recent three-year contract for WHYY employees expired on Oct. 1, and negotiations for a new contract began in June, confirmed a spokesperson for SAG-AFTRA.
Kansas City nurses say their new contract will mean higher pay and better patient care
The Kansas City Star
By Suzanne King
Oct. 22, 2024
Registered nurses at two HCA-owned Kansas City hospitals get “substantial” pay raises under new three-year contracts ratified in October. National Nurses United, the union representing registered nurses at Research Medical Center in Kansas City and Menorah Medical Center in Overland Park, said in a press release that the pay bump will make it easier to recruit and keep nurses.
Newly formed union accuses NIH of slow-walking bargaining negotiations
Government Executive
By Sean Michael Newhouse
Oct. 22, 2024
The newly formed union of research fellows at the National Institutes of Health is facing a tight timetable this week for negotiating a labor contract with agency management and is alleging that those managers are trying to run out the clock. Negotiators have been told that if an agreement is not reached by Thursday, the last scheduled meeting, then the next bargaining session won’t be until February 2025.
Employees At South Charleston Union Carbide Plant Strike
WV Public Broadcasting
By Jack Walker
Oct. 22, 2024
Nearly 80 employees at a Kanawha County chemical plant have gone on strike over pay and benefits concerns. Workers at the South Charleston Manufacturing Site Plant voted to strike Monday, according to a press release from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM). The South Charleston-based IAM Local 598 chapter represents workers on site.
Union Carbide plant workers go on strike; cite failed negotiations
WOWK TV
By Blake DeJarnatt and Riley McIlmoyle
Oct. 21, 2024
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) and Union Carbide Corporation have both released statements regarding the ongoing strike at the Union Carbide plant in South Charleston. Machinist and aerospace workers at the plant went on strike after their contracts expired at midnight. According to Union Carbide Corporation’s website, the company is “a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company.” The 77 IAM Local 598 refers to the company and plant as “Dow Chemical” in its statement.
CSX, Norfolk Southern reach tentative pacts with IBEW
Progressive Railroading
By Staff
Oct. 22, 2024
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) announced today that it has reached new five-year tentative collective bargaining agreements with CSX and Norfolk Southern Railway. The tentative agreements include: • a 18.77% compound wage increase for over the next five years; • changes to vacation benefits that allow workers to gain vacation time earlier in their careers; and • the option to carry over up to four unused paid sick days per year to a maximum of 20 days.
JOINING TOGETHER
CarePoint Hospital Workers To Rally In Hoboken Park Tuesday
Patch
By Caren Lissner
Oct. 22, 2024
As CarePoint's three Hudson County hospitals undergo management changes and potential layoffs, health workers and local legislators will attend a rally in Church Square Park in Hoboken on Tuesday afternoon, a union spokesperson said. The rally is being coordinated by three unions representing hospital employees:JNESO District Council 1, IUOE-AFL-CIO, the professional health care union, District 1199J National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees AFSCME, AFL-CIO, and the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR) SEIU Healthcare.
SPORTS UNIONIZATION
WNBPA opts out of CBA as players prepare for delicate negotiation, potential work stoppage: Source
The New York Times
By Mike Vorkunov, Ben Pickman and Sabreena Merchant
Oct. 21, 2024
The Women’s National Basketball Players Association opted out of the WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement Monday, setting up a delicate negotiation that will help determine the league’s economic system just as it is taking off. The decision was no surprise, and the union made it official only a few hours after the conclusion of the WNBA Finals. The players’ union, or the league, had until Nov. 1 to do so, and the players’ association was widely expected to seek a new CBA. The current CBA is set to expire on Oct. 31, 2025.
WNBA players union decides to opt out of current collective bargaining agreement
Inquirer
By Doug Feinberg
Oct. 22, 2024
The WNBA players union has decided to opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement, two years before its expiration. The league and players union had the option to do so before Nov. 1. The early opt-out marks a crucial juncture for the league. The WNBA signed a historic 11-year media rights deal worth $200 million a year. The league had record attendance and viewership this year that culminated in the WNBA Finals that saw New York beat Minnesota in overtime on Sunday in a decisive fifth game.
NLRB
Scoop: NewsGuild files unfair labor practice charge against NYT
Axios
By Sara Fischer
Oct. 22, 2024
The NewsGuild of New York has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board against the New York Times, claiming management violated the National Labor Relations Act by interrogating employees about their strike sentiments within the past six months. Why it matters: The complaint adds to growing tensions between the unions the NewsGuild represents and the Times' management as the Tech Guild threatens to strike, possibly around the election.
EDUCATION
Rutgers faculty unions host teach-in to discuss academic freedom at U., national level
The Daily Targum
By Nazli Mohideen
Oct. 21, 2024
On Friday, the Rutgers American Association of University Professors and American Federation of Teachers (AAUP-AFT) and the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union (PTLFC) hosted a virtual teach-in to discuss the state of academic freedom. The "Academic Freedom Under Attack: How We Can Fight Back Together" event featured four speakers: Ellen Schrecker, Sahar Aziz, Donna Murch and Elyla Huertas. Their presentations were followed by a private session, during which attendees asked questions and shared their experiences.