POLITICS
House OKs $3.5 trillion budget plan, allowing massive social change
People’s World
By Mark Gruenberg
August 25, 2021
With reconciliation and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, “The House has taken a critical step forward for working families,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said. She called both “another victory” for them. The reconciliation bill puts the U.S. “one step closer to providing major new funding for good jobs and our care infrastructure—including the first-ever federal paid family and medical leave benefit, affordable health care, education and enhanced enforcement of our labor laws…With discriminatory voting laws also proliferating across the country, the passage” of the John Lewis Act “could not come at a more critical time,” Shuler added.
JOINING TOGETHER
Colectivo employees respond after successfully forming worker union
CBS 58
By Kim Shine
August 25, 2021
"Now, when we go into a coffee shop we know we're vaccinated. Do our servers know that? Do they know what protections they have in the workplace, as we see the numbers rising again?" asked Pam Fendt, Milwaukee Area Labor Council president. "This is not only a victory for the Colectivo workers all across Wisconsin and in Illinois, this is also a victory for workers everywhere who want to join a union," said Stephanie Bloomingdale, WI AFL-CIO president. -
Nabisco workers on strike in 5 states over pensions, outsourcing
The Washington Post
By Aaron Gregg
August 25, 2021
The walkout began on Aug. 10 at a biscuit factory in Portland, Ore., where a contract had expired in late May. They were soon followed by workers in Aurora, Colo., Richmond, Chicago and, as of Monday, at a Norcross, Ga., distribution center. They are represented by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, which also was involved a 19-day strike at a Frito-Lay plant in Kansas earlier this summer. Union leaders say Nabisco is seeking unnecessary contract concessions at a time when snack demand is high. They are also raising concerns over two recent factory closures in Georgia and New Jersey, which the union says is part of a broader campaign by Nabisco to move its low-wage factory jobs to Mexico. Workers “are telling Nabisco to put an end to the outsourcing of jobs to Mexico and get off the ridiculous demand for contract concessions at a time when the company is making record profits,” BCTGM president Anthony Shelton said in a statement recently.
Workers making Oreos and other Nabisco snacks are on strike in five states.
The New York Times
By Coral Murphy Marcos
August 24, 2021
Unionized workers who make Oreos, Chips Ahoy!, Newtons and other Nabisco snacks are on strike in five states over what they say are unfair demands for concessions in contract negotiations. Members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union in Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Oregon and Virginia have rejected management’s call for changes in shift lengths and overtime rules.
Met Opera Reaches Deal With Orchestra, Paving Way for Reopening
The New York Times
By Julia Jacobs
August 24, 2021
The Metropolitan Opera has struck a labor deal with its orchestra, officials announced Tuesday, paving the way for its musicians to return to work and for the company, the largest performing arts organization in the nation, to resume performances next month after being shut down for more than a year by the pandemic. After months of uncertainty, and talks that grew contentious at times, the Met said that the players had ratified a labor deal reached with the union representing the orchestra, Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians. The musicians were scheduled to return to work on Monday for their first official rehearsal since the pandemic closed the opera house in March 2020.