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Today's AFL-CIO press clips

Berry Craig
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EDITOR'S NOTE: The LA Progressive story that tops the POLITICS section is largely based on an interview with Kirk Gillenwaters, president of the Kentucky Alliance of Retired Americans and a Louisville UAW Local 862 retiree.

MUST READ

Today’s hospitality union battle is over wages. The next one might be about tech.

Hotel Dive

By Noelle Mateer

Dec. 4, 2024

However, one group of CES attendees wasn’t there to marvel. Rather, the delegation from the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and Bartenders Union Local 165 — Nevada affiliates of national hospitality union Unite Here known collectively as the Culinary Union — was there to see which robots were doing their service jobs. “Everything I saw [at CES], I asked myself, ‘How is this going to impact workers and their jobs?’ No one is talking about that over at the convention center,” said Liz Shuler, president of AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest federation of unions, of which Unite Here is a part. 


 

POLITICS

Does Trump's choice for Labor Secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, really have working people's backs?

LA Progressive

By Berry Craig

Dec. 4, 2024

Nonetheless, some labor leaders, including AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, have praised Trump’s pick. In a statement, Shuler said "Chavez-DeRemer, has built a pro-labor record in Congress, including as one of only three Republicans to cosponsor the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act.” Shuler also said the congresswoman “is one of eight Republicans to cosponsor the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act.” But Shuler warned that “it remains to be seen what she will be permitted to do as Secretary of Labor in an administration with a dramatically anti-worker agenda.”

 

Trump’s union-friendly labor secretary choice sparks GOP anxiety
 

The Washington Post

By Lauren Kaori Gurley and Lori Aratani

Dec. 4, 2024

“Lori Chavez-DeRemer has built a pro-labor record in Congress,” the AFL-CIO, the country’s largest labor federation, said in a statement. “But Donald Trump is the President-elect of the United States — not Rep. Chavez-DeRemer — and it remains to be seen what she will be permitted to do as Secretary of Labor in an administration with a dramatically anti-worker agenda.”


 

Trump's Plan to End Working From Home Faces Roadblock

Newsweek

By Khaleda Rahman

Dec. 4, 2024

President-elect Donald Trump's plan to cut federal bureaucracy by forcing people to stop working remotely faces a roadblock after a union secured a work from home deal for Social Security Administration (SSA) employees until 2029. The American Federation of Government Employees, a federal employee union that represents 42,000 SSA workers, reached an agreement with the agency to lock in hybrid work protections until 2029, Bloomberg reported, citing a message to its members. The new deal, signed by SSA Commissioner Martin O'Malley before he resigned last month, will allow workers to "maintain current levels of telework," AFGE chapter president Rich Couture wrote in the message.


 

Column: Trump has named a pro-union secretary of Labor, but will she be able to do anything for workers?

Los Angeles Times

By Michael Hiltzik

Dec. 4, 2024

Will she fight to defend the Biden administration’s expansion of overtime eligibility? The Trump administration could act to challenge the court ruling that blocked the expansion, or let it ride. Will she act to preserve the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s new standard requiring employers to protect workers from heat-related injuries? Will she fight any effort to reimplement a Trump-era program that gave employers a free pass if they confessed when accused of wage theft, in which case penalties and damage assessments were waived?


 

U.S. looks to end subminimum wage for workers with disabilities

CBS News

By Kate Gibson

Dec. 4, 2024

Federal law currently allows the agency to issue certificates that let employers pay certain workers less than the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour based on the notion that their disabilities hinder productivity. Intended to help those with disabilities gain employment, the law currently has about 40,000 American workers laboring for half the minimum wage or less, according to the Labor Department. 

 

Trump’s Project 2025 May Not Be What It Seemed. It’s Worse. (Opinion)
 

The New York Times

By Thomas B. Edsall

Dec. 4, 2024

The social media excoriation of public sector employees is just one way that President-elect Donald Trump and his MAGA loyalists are using to destroy what they see as strongholds of the left in government and academia.


 

ENVIRONMENT, ENERGY AND CLIMATE

Machinists union provides national labor leadership in fighting climate change

People’s World

By Gil Netter

Dec. 4, 2024

Recent actions at the 2024 International Association of Machinists (IAM) Grand Lodge National Convention in New York City point the way to increased labor movement leadership in combating climate change and creating a more just society. The IAM passed a resolution to include “Just Transition” in any actions oriented toward fighting climate change, creating new sustainable energy-related jobs, and fighting for environmental justice. The notion of a just transition aims to address provision of jobs and assistance to workers and communities hurt by climate change and those workers and communities impacted by the move to sustainable energy production and conservation.


 

DOE invests $5M to create lithium-battery manufacturing workforce initiative

Plant Services

By Alexis Gajewski

Dec. 3, 2024

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler added, “President Biden has made the creation of good union jobs a cornerstone of his climate strategy. We applaud DOE for being proactive in pulling labor and management together as the domestic battery industry is being established, and we look forward to working with DOE and DOL to develop high-road training standards for the entire battery supply chain.” 


 

NLRB

Noncompete and Contractor Policies Set to Change in Trump's NLRB

Bloomberg Law

By Harriet Lipkin and Joseph Piesco

Dec. 4, 2024

A change in party control generally impacts the workings of federal agencies, but the National Labor Relations Board is particularly prone to partisan shifts. Given the aggressively pro-labor stance of the Biden-era NLRB, the pendulum swing in the second Trump administration is expected to be particularly dramatic.


 

ORGANIZING

32BJ staff looks to unionize with CWA, asks for neutrality

City & State New York

By Rebecca C. Lewis

Dec. 3, 2024

Staff with the powerful service workers union 32BJ SEIU are looking to unionize themselves and have officially requested that leadership remain neutral during the course of organizing. The staff union went public at the end of August with their efforts to organize employees up and down the East Coast with the Washington-Baltimore News Guild, which is part of the Communications Workers of America. That union also represents or has helped organize staffers at other unions – including 1199SEIU, a politically powerful union in New York representing health care workers. 

 

Ride-hailing drivers in Mass. moving to unionize under new law
 

WBUR

By Andrea Perdomo-Hernandez

Dec. 4, 2024

On Wednesday, Roxana Rivera, assistant to the president of the Local 32BJ, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, said the organization believes it has the necessary signatures to start the process… Rivera said once formed, the collective bargaining unit will be called App Drivers Union. She said the union is a “joint collaboration” between her group and a local chapter of  The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, also known as The Machinists.


 

Street Roots Staff Announce Intent to Unionize

Portland Mercury

By Taylor Griggs

Dec. 3, 2024

Staff members at Street Roots, the Portland nonprofit that publishes a weekly newspaper focused on homelessness and social justice issues, announced their plan to unionize with Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 7901. According to a union press release, 15 eligible staff members voted unanimously in favor of unionization.


 

Ohio County 911 Dispatchers Seeking To Join UMWA

The Intelligencer - Wheeling News Register

By Joselyn King

Dec. 4, 2024

Ohio County 911 dispatchers are wanting to unionize and join the United Mine Workers of America. Chad Francis, a representative from the UMWA, brought the request to the attention of Ohio County commissioners Tuesday night. Francis said a “significant number” of the 911 employees have reached out to the UMWA expressing a strong desire for union representation.


 

UNION NEGOTIATIONS

Nurses, doctors may strike at multiple Providence hospitals, clinics

KVAL

By Christina Giardinelli

Dec. 4, 2024

Multiple bargaining units at seven Providence hospitals and six clinics have voted to allow the Oregon Nurses Association (ONA) to declare a strike, if necessary, to reach satisfactory contract agreements with one of Oregon's largest healthcare networks.


 

Forbes employees walk out on ‘30 Under 30’ list release day to protest salaries

The Guardian

By Marina Dunbar

Dec. 3, 2024

The NewsGuild of New York confirmed it had been working with the Forbes Union to get a new deal for the past three years. The NewsGuild released a statement on Tuesday saying that Forbes employees have been “met with disrespect and illegal, union-busting tactics” by management during these negotiations.


 

Enoch Pratt Library workers reach wage settlement as talks on alleged poor working conditions continue

Baltimore Brew

By Mark Reutter

Dec. 4, 2024

The side agreement is set to be approved today by the Board of Estimates. A total of $1,264,861 in back pay and $421,620 in new wages will cover the salary increases that other unionized municipal workers received in fiscal years 2024 and 2025 but were not given to Pratt workers, who overwhelmingly voted to unionize in November 2022. The agreement covers over 240 librarians, library associates, circulation staff, custodians and security officers. Part of AFSCME Maryland Council 3, Pratt Workers United has slogged through a year of labor negotiations without reaching a contract.


 

What a difference a one-day strike makes (Audio)

NPR - The Indicator from Planet Money

By Stephan Bisaha, Wailin Wong, Angel Carreras and Kate Concannon

Dec. 4, 2024

From retail to fast food to nursing, one-day strikes have been a growing trend over the last decade. But what makes one-day strikes more or less effective than longer strikes? Do they achieve the same goals? On today's show, what do short strikes say about union power in the US and what can you accomplish with only 24 hours on the picket line.


 

STATE LEGISLATION

A Wisconsin Judge Just Ripped Up Scott Walker’s Anti-Union Law

The Nation

By John Nichols

Dec. 4, 2024

Wisconsin AFL-CIO President Stephanie Bloomingdale announced, ”Nearly 14 years after Scott Walker, in his own words, ‘dropped the bomb’ on Wisconsin public employees, Wisconsin workers can celebrate as the judicial branch restores collective bargaining rights to public employees in Wisconsin. Declaring Wisconsin’s union-busting Act 10 unconstitutional and void, over 60 sections of the 2011 anti-union law have now been struck down.”


 

IN THE STATES

From the airport to public safety, union details impact of Maryland government worker shortages

WYPR

By Rachel Baye

Dec. 3, 2024

The union that represents Maryland state government workers says staffing shortages are reducing the quality of services every state agency provides, from maintenance and repairs at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport to the monitoring of people on court-ordered home detention. Leaders with the state and local branches of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees union detailed the impacts of vacancies at state agencies during a press conference Tuesday morning in Baltimore.


 

Swifties urged by picketing workers to avoid Richmond hotel

Richmond News Now

By Maria Rantanen

Dec. 3, 2024

“Protesters are urging Swifties to use alternative accommodations to avoid encountering noisy demonstrations, reduced services, and skeletal staffing,” the union, Unite Here, said in a media release. The demonstrations will start at 5 p.m. this Thursday. The unionized staff have been on strike for about three and a half years. They went on strike after 143 of their co-workers were laid off during the COVID-19 pandemic.


 

Buttigieg visits South Bend on Wednesday, meets with union members. Here's what to know.

South Bend Tribune

By Rayleigh Deaton

Dec. 4, 2024

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg is visiting his hometown on Wednesday, Dec. 4, meeting with union and transportation workers in South Bend to hear about the impact of President Joe Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. On Wednesday morning, the former South Bend mayor toured the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 153 training facility, where he sat down with union members and apprentices earning their journeyman degrees.