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NEWS ROUNDUP

Audobon Strike | Nurses rally for kids | WA GOP sues

Friday, September 6, 2024

 

STRIKES

► From CWA — Birds of a Feather: Audubon Joins Elon Musk in Challenging Constitutionality of Labor Law After Violating Workers’ Rights

Editor’s note: strike actions will be running in Washington. Find one near you.

► From Reuters — AT&T makes final offer to striking CWA union — The CWA union said the proposal was made on Wednesday and it made a counteroffer later in the day. “What the company is not telling our members and the public is that their healthcare proposal raises the upfront cost for our members, especially those with family coverage. We have made it clear to the company from the start that raising our members’ cost share percentage is unacceptable,” the union said.

► From Venture Beat — SAG-AFTRA union announces deal for AI protections on 80 video games – Eighty games have signed SAG-AFTRA’s tiered-budget or interim agreements, a sign that the entertainment union said proves that its provisions — which include common sense AI protections — are fair and achievable. The union has been on strike against the major game developers since July, and these interim and tiered agreements provide employment opportunities to members during the work stoppage. This deal will allow members to work, but it does not mean the strike is completely over. The actual AI protections were also not described in any detail yet.

LOCAL

► From the Spokesman Review — Providence’s children inpatient psychiatric center to close this week; Sacred Heart nurses protest — The union representing Sacred Heart nurses claims adolescents will not be able to find the services they need in Spokane. During a protest Thursday evening, the Washington State Nurses Association chanted “Shame on you, Providence” to the hospital system. “Our behavioral health system is not accessible. It’s not there for the patients when they need it, and any time we’re closing doors, it really is a travesty for the community,” WSNA President Justin Gill said at the rally.

► From the Washington State Standard — Migrants held at Tacoma facility spend longer in detention  — Despite Washington’s progressive reputation, migrants held at Tacoma’s Northwest ICE Processing Center are less likely to receive relief from detention and deportation compared to the national average. Northwest ICE Processing Center is a for-profit, privately-run facility with a long history of human rights abuses, many of which have been recorded by the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights, including inadequate food, rampant use of solitary confinement and mistreatment from staff. Hunger strikes to protest conditions at the facility, which is run by a Florida-based company called GEO Group, are common.

► From the Salish Current — Battery farms, energy industry’s new darling, lining up to enter Pacific NW — The first urban, large-scale battery farms in the Northwest are on track to enter service by the end of this year in Troutdale, Oregon, and just over a year later in Arlington in Snohomish County. Energy developers have proposed dozens more projects to follow in 2025 to 2027 from near the Canadian border in Whatcom County to the outer suburbs of Portland. Transmission planners at Puget Sound Energy alone have 15 to 20 interconnection requests for major battery storage projects in their queue for evaluation.

► From Cascade PBS — No end in sight: Filipino fishermen still wait on abandonment case — It’s been nearly a year since Dagalea, Cabrera, Zambales and 21 of their crewmates docked in Washington after fishing a tuna season for California-based McAdam’s Fish. Cascade PBS previously detailed the crews’ three months in the Westport Marina in late 2023, leading at least six workers to accuse their employer of abandonment and wage theft.

► From the Seattle Times — Nearly 200 people sue WA, alleging sex abuse in juvenile detention — “The sexual abuse was neither the result of a momentary lapse in supervision nor a matter of a few ‘bad apples’ among detention staff,” states the lawsuit filed Thursday in King County Superior Court. The lawsuit says what happened was instead an “institutional failure”: That the state’s disregard for the children’s well-being was “willful, and at times even nefarious.”

 

AEROSPACE

► From the Seattle Times — As strike looms, Boeing pushes 777 jets through chaotic production in Everett  — For months, Boeing’s leadership has claimed repeatedly that slowing the pace of jet production and renewing the focus on inspections will ensure production quality. As a potential strike by 33,000 machinists looms next week, that’s not the reality mechanics see inside Boeing’s widebody jet plant in Everett. Mechanics are chasing airplanes through the Everett factory to install systems that should have gone in earlier and to complete rework of defects on 777 cargo planes that have traveled far down the assembly line and even outside onto the Paine Field flight line, said a veteran 777 mechanic who works on fuselages. Managers are “shoving the airplanes through the factory causing this mess.”

Editor’s note: the latest update from IAM 751…

 

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From Business Wire — Following Labor Day Strikes, UNITE HERE Launches “Resort Fee Ripoff” Website  — Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, and Omni face customer complaints, press scrutiny, and legal actions as a result of their resort fee policies. “While hotel workers are struggling for higher wages and fair workloads, rising fees and hotel service cuts are hurting guests too,” said Gwen Mills, President of UNITE HERE. “The future direction of the American hotel industry, and the standards that guests have come to expect, are on the line.”

Editor’s note: check out the website here. 

► From Market Watch — Norfolk Southern Reaches Deal with Largest Labor Union — Norfolk Southern has reached a tentative agreement with its largest labor union, meaning the railroad has now nailed down early agreements covering nearly 65% of its total union workforce. The railroad operator said Wednesday that it has reached a deal with the final general committee of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers’ transportation division, better known as SMART-TD.

 

NATIONAL

► From the Washington Post — NCAA’s landmark deal to pay college athletes on hold after hearing — The first settlement draft calls for the NCAA and its members to pay $2.78 billion in damages to past and current athletes, who are suing over various restrictions on compensation. It also creates a landscape-altering model in which schools could directly share up to a certain amount of revenue with athletes starting in the fall of 2025. The cap would be somewhere between $20 million and $23 million that first year, then continue to rise.

► From the New York Times — Live Updates: U.S. Jobs Report Shows Hiring Has Shifted Into Lower Gear — Ahead of a key Federal Reserve meeting to set interest rates, employers added 142,000 jobs in August, fewer than economists had expected, and previous months were revised downward.

► From the Oaklandside — Oakland sues Southwest Airlines for allegedly denying workers their paid sick leave — Oakland is suing Southwest Airlines for allegedly depriving its workers paid sick leave, and for breaching a 2020 settlement over the same issue. According to the complaint, Southwest has been denying some of its workers in Oakland the right to use earned paid sick leave. The city claims that Southwest has also retaliated against workers who tried to use their leave and discouraged them from filing complaints with the city.

► From WSHU Public Radio — Union support high among younger workers — Labor unions have seen a surge of support according to a recent Gallup poll, with Gen Z and millennial workers showing the highest levels. About 70% of Americans are in favor of union protections for workers overall. That number rises to 71% for those aged 30 to 49 and to 80% for those aged 18 to 29.

 

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Tacoma News Tribune — Efforts to confuse and intimidate Washington voters must stop for democracy’s sake | Opinion — In Washington, some commentators attacked Ferguson for defending the integrity of our elections, conveniently ignoring who created the problem in the first place. This is akin to accusing firefighters of arson while the arsonist walks free. With democracy truly on the ballot this year, we need to exercise our rights and use our mailboxes and our drop boxes — with pride, confidence and free of intimidation. We must remain vigilant against attempts to confuse voters, intimidate citizens or roll back the voting rights we’ve fought so hard to secure.

► From the Seattle Times — WA GOP suing King County Elections over commissioner of public lands primary results  — The state Republican Party says it has filed a lawsuit challenging King County’s use of an online tool to allow voters to fix their challenged ballots, mostly with signature issues. Stuart Holmes, director of elections for the Office of the Secretary of State, said state law allows for electronic ballot curing. He said it is unclear what relief King County could offer, even if a judge ruled that the lawsuit is valid. Once a challenged ballot has its signature verified and has been counted, “there is no way to go back and say how that voter voted,” he said.

► From Cascade PBS — The Newsfeed: Examining faith & politics in the Yakima City Council — Hoang tells us about the major political shift Yakima’s city council underwent in the past year. For example, in 2023, the council voted to support a Pride Month proclamation. Now, less than a year later and under a new conservative majority, the new council has made an about-face to vote against a similar proclamation in 2024. We also discuss how the national conservative strategy played a role, including the influence of President Trump’s former administration official and surrogate Steve Bannon.

► From the Washington Post — The rules, how to watch the presidential debate between Trump and Harris  — As noted in Vice President Kamala Harris’s CNN interview last week, she and former president Donald Trump have never met face-to-face. That will change on Sept. 10, when the two will share a stage in their only scheduled presidential debate, which will be held in Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center.

 

INTERNATIONAL

► From Global News — Air Canada, union head to key talks as strike looms: ‘Completely stalled’ — “One quarter of our pilots have a second job, with almost 80 per cent of those needing the job out of necessity. We are trying to change that. Additionally, due to our latest 10-year contract, our compensation has not kept up with inflation, nor the levels of our peer carriers.”

► From the AP — Soccer players’ union publishes study on workload that supports legal cases against FIFA — The latest player workload report switches focus from the numbers of games and minutes actually played toward time spent on work duty. This included selection in match-day squads and for national team training camps which added the same stresses on travel and preparing for games, the union said. Players who went to the 2024 European Championship spent 17% of their working time last season with national teams, the report suggested, adding those players had as little as 42 days rest and recovery over the year.

► From the New York Times — Nurses Win a Bigger Role as Doctors Strike in South Korea — “It may look from the outside that the system is intact because we have a strong medical infrastructure, but it’s actually struggling to get by,” Professor Jung said. Experts predict the strike could go well into next year. The Korean Nursing Association said the passage of the act, which will take effect in June 2025, follows 19 years of campaigning by nurses.

 

JOLT OF JOY

Washington’s labor movement is impressive for many reasons, not least of which that we spend nine months out of the year organizing in the rain, the cold, the dark — or all three. The Big Dark is fast approaching, but today is a beautiful day to kick ass for the working class. Stay hydrated, stay cool, stay safe — and keep fighting the good fight.

The Entire Staff of The STAND’s sunset view from her evening walk Thursday.

The Stand posts links to local, national and international labor news every weekday morning. Subscribe to get daily news in your inbox. 

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