Today's AFL-CIO press clips
MUST READ
AFL-CIO leader confident on Harris
Semafor
By Morgan Chalfant
Nov. 4, 2024
The leader of a labor union knocking on doors for Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania is feeling optimistic about her chances ahead of Election Day. “We are feeling very confident,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler told Semafor. “We try to make sure that we’re not getting overconfident.” Shuler, who has spent the last week crisscrossing Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to reach out to working-class voters, said she detected a surge in energy among women voters.
Biden Left the Presidential Race, but His Legacy Depends on It
The New York Times
By Zolan Kanno-Youngs
Nov. 2, 2024
“Donald Trump would absolutely eviscerate it,” Liz Shuler, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said of Mr. Biden’s agenda. “These investments are under threat.”
POLITICS
To turn out Pa. voters this weekend, Harris and Trump are using very different tactics
The Philadelphia Inquirer
By Anna Orso
Nov. 1, 2024
They include the presidents of the national unions that represent teachers, government workers, and service workers, as well as Liz Shuler, the president of AFL-CIO, the groups’ massive umbrella union. They’ll gather in West Philadelphia Saturday morning along with 600 door-knockers, then rally in South Philadelphia Saturday evening. Jimmy Williams Jr., president of the national union that represents painters, will also be in Philadelphia to campaign for Harris Saturday, capping a nationwide get-out-the-vote bus tour here.
Rank and File Union Gender Shift a Boon to Harris
Insider NJ
By Bob Hennelly
Nov. 3, 2024
“Access to healthcare without fear and intimidation is every person’s right,” tweeted Shuler. “We must be able to control our own bodies—which has a direct impact on economic justice and the ability of working people to make a better life for themselves and their families.”
Unions focus ground game on turning out their own for Democrats
Minnesota Reformer
By Max Nesterak
Nov. 1, 2024
Chris Shields, spokesman for MN AFL-CIO, said they’ve organized labor-to-labor door knocking efforts every Saturday since September. In 2022, they were able to engage with workers at all 114 affiliated unions in the state and make direct contact with over 220,000 voters. He said statistics on this year’s efforts would be released after the election, but said they’re on track to meet their goal.
Trump and Harris host dueling rallies in the Milwaukee area in a final push to win Wisconsin
WUWM
By Chuck Quirmbach, Associated Press: Scott Bauer and Aamer Madhani
Nov. 2, 2024
Speakers at the rally included Jacob Flom of the Milwaukee Area Labor Council, who commented on Trump recently working at a McDonald's during a campaign stop. “I’d like to see Trump work that job, working the fryers, sweating his butt off for eight-plus hours a day, five days a week for forty years. And he’ll come to us crying for a union.”
As Election Day looms, Harris makes pitch to Wisconsin union members
Wisconsin Examiner
By Erik Gunn
Nov. 2, 2024
If the speech Vice President Kamala Harris delivered one week before Election Day on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., was her presidential campaign’s closing argument, her talk Friday to a packed Wisconsin union hall was a sequel — a closing argument directed at the working class. Harris made an unapologetic pro-union message that equaled the one President Joe Biden has delivered throughout his four years in the White House. In the process, she set herself — and the Democratic ticket — apart from Republican former President Donald Trump.
Democrats' strong ground game has won them tough Nevada races before. Will it still work?
The Nevada Independent
By Tabitha Mueller, Gabby Birenbaum and Eric Neugeboren
Nov. 3, 2024
The Nevada state AFL-CIO literature with which union members papered neighborhoods focused on economic issues, highlighting Democrats’ votes for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that has brought thousands of union jobs to Nevada, allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs and efforts to take on price-gouging. In the presidential race, it includes Harris’ support for a domestic workers’ bill of rights and votes to save workers’ pensions. And it warns members about Project 2025, the right-wing policy document created by former Trump officials that proposed gutting the right to collectively bargain, eliminating overtime pay and ending public sector unions.
Campaigns Go West, Job Numbers and the Election, Union Canvassing Push (Audio)
NPR
By Staff
Nov. 1, 2024
Vice President Harris and former President Donald Trump visit Arizona and Nevada, reports offer a picture of the economy ahead of Election Day, and labor unions deploy thousands of canvassers.
In Bucks County, Walz touts pro-union agenda
Pennsylvania Capital-Star
By Tom Sofield
Nov. 1, 2024
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, was met with applause and cheers at the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers Local 13 Union Hall in Levittown on Thursday where he made the case for the Harris-Walz ticket just days before the election. Addressing union members and local Democrats, Walz touted achievements in labor relations and job creation, pointing to Vice President Kamala Harris’s role in spearheading the White House’s Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment. As part of what Democrats have said is the most pro-union administration in history, Harris helped create millions of good-paying jobs and has been an ally in the fight for fair wages, Walz stated.
Facing the Prospect of Losing Our Democracy
LA Progressive
By Bill Londrigan
Nov. 1, 2024
The prospect of losing our democracy and the resurgence of interest in labor unions have recently been the focus of much attention. Absent, however, from conversations about the fate of America’s democratic experiment and the explosion of interest in and support for unions is that democracies and free trade unions are symbiotic—one cannot exist without the other. The blueprint for dismantling and undermining America’s unions and collective bargaining has been mapped out on the pages of the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025,” which envisions amending federal labor law to allow employers to establish company unions to supplant actual trade unions; to let states opt out of federal labor laws such as the Fair Labor Standards Act and National Labor Relations Act and generally tilt the scale even further towards employers who already capitalize on numerous methods to thwart unions and undermine collective bargaining.
Here’s where Trump and Harris stand on 5 issues affecting workers
NPR
By Andrea Hsu
Nov. 1, 2024
Where the two candidates perhaps diverge the most is on their view of unions. Harris wants to strengthen unions and has vowed to get the PRO Act passed. The legislation, aimed at making it easier for workers to organize, has been stalled in Congress for years. She called on the federal government to be a model employer, by giving federal employee unions a bigger seat at the table and directing agencies to make sure their employees know they have a right to join a union. Under the Biden-Harris administration, the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that hears labor disputes, has taken an aggressive approach to protecting workers' rights to organize and collectively bargain.
Kamala Harris rallies labor support at a Janesville union hall, first of three Wisconsin stops
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By Laura Schulte
Nov. 1, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris rallied supporters at a small private event Friday afternoon, where she promised support to unions and laborers if handed the nation's highest office. Harris spoke to a packed room at the IBEW Local 890, where she thanked workers and said her campaign was "about the dignity of work." With only four days until the presidential election, she said there was still time to "turn the page on a decade of Donald Trump," saying the former president has worked to divide the country.
Harris slams Speaker Mike Johnson for saying the GOP may repeal CHIPS Act
NBC News
By Alexandra Marquez and Sahil Kapur
Nov. 2, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris tore into Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Saturday for his comment that Republicans might seek to repeal the CHIPS and Science Act if they take control of Congress in the upcoming election. “I also want to speak to the comments that have been recently made by the speaker of the House,” Harris told reporters in Milwaukee. “It is just further evidence of everything that I’ve actually been talking about for months now, about [former President Donald] Trump’s intention to implement Project 2025.”
VP Kamala Harris in Milwaukee says bringing costs down would be 'highest priority' as president
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By Mary Spicuzza and Alison Dirr
Nov. 2, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris left Milwaukee Saturday with a message to voters here who feel prices are too high to make ends meet. "My highest priority as president will be to bring down the costs because to that point, look, I know the cost of groceries is too high still," Harris said. "Everyone knows it."
CBS News
By Josh Sanders and Nate Sylves
Nov. 1, 2024
"I'm honored to be considered the most pro-union president in American history and I'm proud to be the first president to walk a picket line. Kamala is proud to have walked a picket line as well," Mr Biden said. "The other guy looks for picket lines to cross. But we've always had your back."
AOC rallies with the UAW in Detroit, says a Harris victory will be delivered by the working class
Michigan Advance
By Anna Liz Nichols
Nov. 2, 2024
The United Auto Workers Union (UAW) is a fighting union, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said Friday night while rallying with members in Detroit. Speaking outside Solidarity House, the international home of the UAW, Ocasio-Cortez looked out at the crowd of a few hundred union members, thanking them for all the doors they’ve knocked for Vice President Kamala Harris and for the work they’ve done to protect the working class. “UAW is going to be the union that protects women’s rights in America. UAW is going to be the front line in defending our democracy in America,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I’m here because if there’s any place that I want to be on the precipice of such an important moment, it’s with you all.” The UAW is raising the bar for every working American, Ocasio-Cortez said, not just for autoworkers.
What would a second Trump term mean for federal workers in D.C.?
WAMU
By Sarah Y. Kim
Nov. 1, 2024
Ashaki Robinson has been employed with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for about 18 years. For most of that time, she didn’t see much difference between working under either Republican or Democratic administrations. But that changed under former President Donald Trump. “It was definitely an us against them mentality,” she says. (Robinson clarifies that she is not speaking on behalf of HUD, but as an individual and president of union AFGE Local 476, which represents HUD workers.) When Trump was in office, he issued executive orders that attacked workers’ rights. For example, in 2020, he signed Schedule F, which would have enabled him to replace civil servants perceived as insufficiently loyal to him in a second term.
What a Trump presidency could mean for American workers and unions
The Washington Post
By Lauren Kaori Gurley
Nov. 3, 2024
Former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are locked in fierce competition for American workers, but experts say their respective approaches to labor and workplace policy would be miles apart. A Trump victory would likely result in the reversal of numerous policies enacted over the past four years aimed at making it easier for workers to join unions, labor experts say. If elected, Trump is also expected to try to loosen workplace safety rules, limit access to benefits and rights for workers in the gig economy and other low-wage sectors, and drop a ban on noncompete agreements that prevented workers who left their jobs from jumping to competitors. Meanwhile, Harris would continue the Biden-era labor agenda, experts say, considered one of the most pro-union in modern history.
ORGANIZING
Workers at Shedd Aquarium vote to unionize
Chicago Sun-Times
By Sun-Times Wire
Nov. 3, 2024
Employees at the Shedd Aquarium have overwhelmingly voted to unionize, making it the latest cultural institution in the city whose workers have decided to form a union. More than 75% of employees voted in favor of union representation, according to a news release from Shedd Workers United, which is part of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31. “We formed our union because we care about our co-workers, we love the aquarium and we want to make it better for all. We won by overcoming management’s divisive anti-union campaign,” the Shedd Workers United organizing committee said. “With our victory, we urge management to take a new approach and respect us as equals as we take our seat at the table to negotiate our first contract.”
NEGOTIATIONS & STRIKES
Faculty union at Pa. state universities to affiliate with AFT
Penn Live
By Jan Murphy
Nov. 1, 2024
The union representing the faculty and coaches who work at the 10 universities in Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education announced on Friday that its members voted to affiliate with the AFT. The voting by the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties members took place Monday through Wednesday. The affiliation with AFT - formerly known American Federation of Teachers – takes effect on Jan. 1.
Dow machinists end strike after agreeing to new deal
WCHS
By Staff
Nov. 1, 2024
The strike involving 77 union machinists at Dow Chemical/Union Carbide in South Charleston is over. Members of International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) Local 598 accepted the deal Thursday evening. The new contract ends a 10-day strike. “Congratulations to the membership of IAM Local 598 for standing strong for the contract they deserve,” IAM District 54 President T. Dean Wright Jr. said in a news release. “Thanks to their solidarity, we have won a victory for our members, their families and the entire community. I would like to thank the District 54 staff, Local 598 officers, our members and their families, the South Charleston community, and International President Brian Bryant for all of their support.”
After stalled negotiations, OSU graduate students ready to strike
OPB
By Tiffany Camhi
Nov. 1, 2024
Earlier this week, 93% of voting members represented by OSU’s Coalition of Graduate Employees union said yes to authorizing a strike. About 90% of the union’s members participated in the strike authorization vote, according to CGE. The union plans to send a 10-day notice of its intent to strike on Nov. 2. Such notices are required before the union can legally take to the picket lines. A CGE strike could occur as early as Nov. 12. The union represents more than 1,700 OSU graduate employees, including teaching and research assistants. CGE is an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers.
Spirit AeroSystems presents Wichita engineering union with four-year contract offer
Reuters
By Reuters
Nov. 1, 2024
Spirit AeroSystems (SPR.N) has presented its engineering union in Wichita with a four-year contract offer, the labor group and the aero parts supplier said on Friday. The new offer provides for an average wage increase of about 24% over the life of the contract, Spirit said in a statement. The SPEAA union said it recommends that members accept the contract offer, which would cover more than 1,000 engineers based in Wichita.
Boeing’s striking machinists union will vote Monday on a new contract offer
NPR
By Joel Rose
Nov. 1, 2024
Boeing’s machinists union leaders are endorsing the company’s latest contract offer, setting the stage for a vote on Monday that could end the seven-week strike. “It is time for our Members to lock in these gains and confidently declare victory,” the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751 said in a statement announcing the agreement late Thursday.
More hotel strikes possible in Boston amid ongoing negotiations
NBC Boston
By Isabel Hart
Nov. 1, 2024
Unionized workers at two Boston hotel groups have now reached agreements with their employers and ended their strikes, but picket lines may be coming to more local hotels. Workers at more than 20 hotels in Greater Boston are still in negotiations to reach a new contract, according to the union that represents them, Unite Here Local 26. Strikes are authorized at all hotel properties where contracts have expired. The union represents more than 4,000 workers at 35 Boston area hotels.
SF Opera Orchestra Reaches Contract Agreement Through End of This Season
San Francisco Classical Voice
By Janos Gereben
Nov. 2, 2024
In San Francisco Opera’s upcoming production of Georges Bizet’s Carmen, the title heroine may fear the jealous Don José, but she will be safe from a strike by the SF Opera Orchestra. As the orchestra’s temporary contract extension ran out on Oct. 31, the SF Opera administration and American Federation of Musicians Local 6 have now settled on another extension, this one longer-range and slightly modifying the current terms. The agreement is good through May 30, 2025, just before the company’s summer season begins on June 3, 2025.
Greenwich reaches new contract with managers union with raises, higher health care contributions
Greenwich Time
By Andy Blye
Nov 3, 2024
The Representative Town Meeting approved a new contract for roughly 280 town employees, granting most of them a 2.5 percent raise annually for the next three years. Laborer’s International Union of North America, Local 136, AFL-CIO has employees in most of the town departments, including managers, assistant town attorneys and some nursing staff at the Nathaniel Witherell, the town-owned nursing home.
Hilton hotel workers' strike tentatively over
KITV
By Diane Ako
Nov. 2, 2024
After 40 days of being on strike, the hotel workers' strike at Hilton Hawaiian Village could be over. Saturday night, UNITE HERE Local 5 - the union representing more than 1,800 hotel workers at the Hilton Hawaiian Village - said it reached a tentative agreement on a new contract. Workers are expected to hold a ratification vote on Monday, November 4, with workers returning to work on Tuesday, November 5. Once ratified, the 40-day strike would officially come to an end.
NLRB
Dallas Black Dance Theatre works to settle with NLRB, fired dancers could be reinstated
KERA News
By Elizabeth Myong
Nov. 1, 2024
Dallas Black Dance Theatre said it is working on a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board and the American Guild of Musical Artists, the labor union representing 10 dancers who were fired earlier this year. Georgia Scaife, the president of the dance company’s board, said Dallas Black is discussing reinstatement of the fired dancers and back pay as part of the settlement.
RETIREMENT SECURITY
Biden delivers remarks in Philadelphia on protecting union workers’ pensions (Watch)
PBS
By Associated Press
Nov. 1, 2024
Days ahead of the 2024 election, President Joe Biden highlighted the benefits of the Butch Lewis Act in Philadelphia on Friday, as “the most significant investment of pension security for union workers and retirees in over 50 years.” Democrats are keen to remind union voters in Pennsylvania that pensions for many workers have been preserved as part of a coronavirus pandemic-era aid package that keeps on giving. “We’ve already protected the pension over 1.2 million workers and retirees,” Biden said. “That includes over 65,000 workers and retirees across Pennsylvania alone.” The law, enacted as part of Biden’s American Rescue Plan, will ultimately stop cuts to the retirement benefits of 2 million workers and retirees across the country.