Today's AFL-CIO press clips
POLITICS
This Once-Undecided Pennsylvania Union Leader Is Backing Harris. Here’s What Made Up His Mind.
Capital & Main
By Kalena Thomhave
Oct. 29, 2024
In early September, Ryan Sanders, the president of the Erie-Crawford Central Labor Council, said he would likely make his presidential pick when he walked into the voting booth. But in the last few weeks, he decided to cast his vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. Sanders is just one Pennsylvania voter, but he represents a key constituency that former President Donald Trump and Vice President Harris are both vying for: union members.
Biden announces $3 bln investment for US ports
Reuters
By Reuters
Oct. 29, 2024
U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced a $3 billion investment from his Inflation Reduction Act to improve the country's port infrastructure. The investment includes $147 million in awards for the Maryland Port Administration, which owns the Port of Baltimore, the White House said in a statement. The funding will be used to create union jobs and upgrade port infrastructure to cleaner equipment, the statement added.
Broadway actors come to Philly to knock doors for Harris, Walz, and Casey
The Philadelphia Inquirer
By Bedatri D. Choudhury
Oct. 29, 2024
Allen, who lives in New York, arrived in Philadelphia with a bus full of his union colleagues to add to the efforts of the Philadelphia chapter of Actor’s Equity and AFL-CIO, who have been knocking on doors of union members to get the vote out for Harris and Walz, since August. After Monday’s round of canvassing in Port Richmond, the Actors’ Equity will have knocked on an estimate of over 10,000 doors in the Pennsylvania region. The 51,000-plus-member union is also organizing canvassing efforts around the country.
The Oakland Press
By The Associated Press
Oct. 29, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris courted Michigan’s working-class voters on Monday, highlighting the administration’s work to bring more factory jobs to the state and her support for labor unions. “I’m here, I’m here for you,” the Democratic presidential nominee told workers after she toured an International Union of Painters and Allied Trades training facility in Warren. She contrasted her support for labor unions to former President Donald Trump, her Republican rival. “He’s not working for or concerned about working people, middle-class people,” Harris said of Trump.
Biden unveils $3 billion investment in U.S. ports
CBS News
By Kate Gibson
Oct. 29, 2024
President Joe Biden announced a $3 billion investment to upgrade ports across the U.S. during a Tuesday stop at the Port of Baltimore. The investment from his Inflation Reduction Act includes $147 million in grants for the Port of Baltimore to decarbonize its cargo handling operations, the White House said in a statement.
Nebraska Senator Duels Ex-Union Leader in Unlikely Tight Race
Bloomberg Government
By Maeve Sheehey and Diego Areas Munhoz
Oct. 29, 2024
Deep-red Nebraska is the unexpected home to a competitive race that’s complicating Republicans’ plans to flip the US Senate. Incumbent Sen. Deb Fischer (R), who’s served for over a decade, is being outspent by a first-time candidate, mechanic-turned-union-leader Dan Osborn, running without a party’s backing though with lots of help of a deep-pocketed super PAC. Their contest will help determine who controls the Senate while testing whether a pro-labor message from a blue-collar populist resonates in a state with a recent history of choosing only Republicans. “The Fischer-Osborn race is more competitive than it should be,” said Randall Adkins, a University of Nebraska Omaha professor who has written four books on congressional campaigns. “There’s just a lot being spent in Nebraska that one would not expect to be spent here normally.”
Harris gives closing argument speech at the Ellipse, offering "a different path" than Trump
CBS News
By Caitlin Yilek
Oct. 29, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday night delivered her closing argument against former President Donald Trump at the same site he encouraged his supporters to "fight like hell" on Jan. 6, 2021, before they marched to the U.S. Capitol and tried unsuccessfully to halt the certification of President Biden's victory. "We know who Donald Trump is," Harris said. "He is the person who stood at this very spot nearly four years ago and sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol to overturn the will of the people in a free and fair election, an election that he knew he lost." "America, we know what Donald Trump has in mind. More chaos. More division. And policies that help those at the very top and hurt everyone else. I offer a different path. And I ask for your vote," she said.
Kamala Harris pairs anti-Trump attack with economic pitch at packed DC rally
NBC News
By Sahil Kapur
Oct. 29, 2024
Kamala Harris called on Americans to “turn the page” on the Donald Trump era at a rally Tuesday, rallying thousands of voters at the site where the former president addressed the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. On a chilly fall evening one week before Election Day, the Democratic nominee criticized her Republican rival as “unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance and out for unchecked power.” She vowed to govern as a pragmatist by listening to everyone, including “people who disagree with me.”
AFT Leaders On Trump Rally’s Racist Attacks On Puerto Rico, Latinos
Black Star News
By Blackstar
Oct. 28, 2024
AFT President Randi Weingarten and Executive Vice President Evelyn DeJesus issued the following statement after speakers at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally insulted Puerto Rico and attacked Latinos. The AFT’s affiliate Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (AMPR) represents more than 40,000 educators on the island. “The Trump campaign’s racist hate was on full, disgraceful display tonight. Dark, narcissistic smears and rank fearmongering have no place in America—and should be disqualifying for any candidate for office. “There is a pattern and a practice of Trump and his allies attacking people and cities of color: The disparagement of Puerto Rico and Latinos comes after similar insults and lies leveled at Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and on Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. “Let’s show each other, and the world, that divisive, dehumanizing, discriminatory and dangerous rage is not who Americans are—and cast our votes accordingly.”
Kamala Harris, at Trump’s pre-insurrection rally site, casts him as dangerous chaos agent
Los Angeles Times
By Noah Bierman, Kevin Rector and Jenny Jarvie
Oct. 29, 2024
But that was not the only message. Speakers before Harris spoke about the threat another Trump term would pose to abortion access, and emphasized her economic agenda, saying it would help the working class. Harris promised she would offer average Americans a leg up while Trump would help only the wealthy and his “billionaire donors,” that she would fight price gouging on groceries and prescription drugs, allow Medicare to cover the cost of home care for seniors and help young parents better afford child care, and confront companies that are “jacking up rents” and spur new affordable housing projects. She reiterated her promise to restore women’s access to abortion care, and said she would make the progress she is promising by reaching across the political aisle and engaging in good faith with independents and Republicans — including on immigration and border security.
ENVIRONMENT, ENERGY AND CLIMATE
US Steelworkers union looks to clean energy to replace job losses at oil refineries
Reuters
By Erwin Seba
Oct. 29, 2024
The United Steelworkers union is counting on clean energy projects to spur membership growth, offsetting losses at oil refining and petrochemical plants, a union official said, even if Donald Trump wins the presidential election on Nov. 5. The USW, which represents about 30,000 crude oil refinery and petrochemical chemical plant workers in North America, said major growth may be coming as projects backed by the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act are built and provisions supporting union-jobs deployed. "We anticipate it being a time of growth," said Larry Burchfield, director of USW District 13, which includes four U.S. oil rich states, at a regional meeting in Louisiana last Friday. He said there is a potential for 17,000 new union jobs through projects backed by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Republican candidate Trump has vowed to gut the Biden administration's signature climate law that provides tax breaks for clean energy projects, but Burchfield said he is confident that will not happen as it was backed by both Democrats and Republicans. Any changes would need Congressional approval.
ORGANIZING
Explaining Young Workers’ Support for Unions
Center for American Progress
By Aurelia Glass
Oct. 29, 2024
Unions are at the forefront of how young workers think about their careers and their ability to support themselves with decent jobs. For the past several years, support for unions has reached an all-time high among American workers. More workers are voting in union elections, and nearly half a million workers went on strike in 2023 to push for better wages, including from automakers, studios, hospitals, and other employers. Throughout this time, young workers—members of Gen Z and younger millennials—have shown the highest support for unions out of every generation, consistently rating union approval higher than any other age group and leading in major organizing campaigns. New data from Gallup shows that more than three-quarters of young Americans approve of unions.
U.S. Has Certified Unions for 50,000 Student Employees
Inside Higher Ed
By Doug Lederman
Oct. 29, 2024
The list of ways next week’s presidential election could affect higher education is long, with Trump and Harris administrations likely to differ significantly on issues such as student loans, accreditation, diversity and Title IX, to name just a few. One less visible area that could also be reshaped is around labor policy, with a second administration for former president Donald Trump likely to take a very different approach regarding the National Labor Relations Board than the relative continuity that would probably follow if President Biden passes the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris. The NLRB released data Monday that underscored one way that could manifest itself. The federal agency said that it has certified 54 bargaining units for more than 50,000 student employees since 2022, in the wake of its 2021 withdrawal of a rule proposed by the Trump administration that would have made it much harder for graduate students on private college campuses to form unions.
NEGOTIATIONS & STRIKES
Workers at pet food factory in Buffalo go on strike
Syracuse.com
By Geoff Herbert
Oct. 29, 2024
Workers at a pet food factory in Western New York are going on strike. WIVB reports employees at the Milk-Bone plant in Buffalo, N.Y., began a strike Monday after the company rejected a new union contract, according to BCTGM Local 36G, which represents 165 workers there. Chief negotiator and BCTGM International Vice President Roger Miller accused the company of threatening and intimidating workers while moving “backwards in negotiating.”
Wheatland Tube Co. contract expiring Saturday, Warren workers considering new offer
WFMJ
By Jeena Cadigan
Oct. 28, 2024
Workers at the Wheatland Tube facility in Warren are considering a new contract offer from the company. The 140 workers are a part of the Steelworkers Union who has been negotiating with the owners of the facility since early September. “This is a different labor market,” Jose Arroyo, the United Steelworkers Union Representative said. “...Our members having to take on more tasks with shrinking places due to automation and other problems of course we’re looking for income security and job security.”
Workers at Milk-Bone plant in Buffalo on strike
WGRZ
By WGRZ Staff
Oct. 29, 2024
More than 100 workers are on the picket line in Buffalo. According to the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union (BCTGM), 165 members who make Milk-bone dog treats at the JM Smucker plant are fighting back against increased health care costs, low wages, and their treatment by the company.
JOINING TOGETHER
Disney Springs worker allegedly fired for pro-union activity, speaking up about sexual harassment
Orlando Weekly
By McKenna Schueler
Oct. 29, 2024
More than two dozen restaurant workers at Disney World in Orlando, plus a Democratic state representative, gathered at a local union hall Tuesday morning to call out a subcontractor at Disney Springs that allegedly fired a young worker of color last week who publicly spoke out about alleged sexual harassment by a supervisor. She’s also become a leader in an ongoing unionization effort with the hospitality union UNITE HERE. After the 2004 merger of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union, UNITE HERE now represents, among its many members, thousands of hotel and service workers employed by the Walt Disney Company.
NLRB
Decision on PG strikers status after Monday’s 10(j) hearing: To be continued
Pittsburgh Union Progress
By Pittsburgh Union Progress
Oct. 29, 2024
Striking Post-Gazette workers rallied in front of Pittsburgh’s Joseph F. Weis Jr. U.S. Courthouse on Monday morning and expressed hope that their issues with the company would move one step closer to a resolution by the end of the day. Shortly before 2 p.m., however, they learned they’d have to wait a bit longer. A federal judge granted a National Labor Relations Board attorney’s request for more time to present witnesses and evidence during Monday’s hearing on an injunction that would have ordered the PG to follow federal labor law and return striking workers to their jobs.
IN THE STATES
Clark Atlanta University launches new Black Southern labor institute
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Mirtha Donastorg
Oct. 29, 2024
Clark Atlanta University has launched a new institute focused on labor issues and training a new generation of leaders to help Black Southern organizing and collective bargaining efforts. Jobs With Justice, a nonprofit network of labor unions, community groups and activists, is partnering with Clark Atlanta on the new Institute for the Advancement of Black Strategists, which was announced in late September.