Audobon TA | Public worker walkout | Trump’s plans

Monday, September 9, 2024

STRIKES

► From the Bird Union via Twitter/X

After more than 2.5 years of bargaining and mounting a nationwide strike threat, we have come to a tentative agreement with Audubon management. The 3 year deal is a direct result of the dedication and hard work of our membership. We will proceed with a ratification vote. pic.twitter.com/6slDrLawq2

— The Bird Union 🪶 (@thebirdunion) September 7, 2024

Editor’s note: the strike set for this week has been called off as the workers vote.

► From News 4 JAX — Community members join AT&T workers in strike over ‘unfair labor practices’ — “[AT&T is] unable to send people to the negotiating table who have the ability and authority to bargain in good faith,” Joshua Denmark, vice president of CWA Local 3106 said. “There are also charges for service bargaining for going back on agreements they’ve already made in bargaining.”

LOCAL

► From The Stranger — Cherry Street Workers Shut Down All Four Locations after Boss Advocated for Subminimum Wage — Workers at Cherry Street Coffee House shut down all four cafe locations Friday morning to put pressure on their boss, Ali Ghambari, to meet their demands for improved working conditions and better pay. Michael Pablo, a worker at the Pioneer Square location, told The Stranger that it felt so good to close down the fourth and final store this morning that he could cry. He and his fellow workers hope to meet with Ghambari to continue negotiations soon, this time with their boss more aware of their collective power as workers.

► From FOX 13 Seattle — WA public service workers to strike for fair contract — Nearly 50,000 public service workers in Washington state, represented by AFSCME Council 28 (The Washington Federation of State Employees), are set to walk off the job on Tuesday, Sept. 10, at 12 p.m., to demand fair wages, safe staffing levels and better working conditions. According to AFSCME Council 28, the state has proposed terms that effectively amount to a pay cut for workers’ 2025-27 union contracts, despite evidence and personal testimonials presented at the bargaining table.

Editor’s note: Previously at The STAND — Walkout for Washington (locations and details)

► From the Seattle Times — WA has become an ATM for the nation — mostly for Trump country — It turns out Washington state now is the No. 3 donor state in the nation, behind only California and Massachusetts. (New York fell to a tie for fourth.) People and companies here paid $22.5 billion more into the federal treasury in 2022 than we got back in spending, according to the Rockefeller Institute of Government.

Editor’s note: Washington’s large contributions to the federal treasury are a result of the progressive federal income tax. Imagine what the immense wealth of Seattle’s richest resident’s could do for underfunded parts of this state if we had tax fairness here at home. 

► From the Spokesman Review — Hundreds lose out on $200 energy credit after Spokane Valley utility rejects state program  — Modern is one of only six utilities that declined to take part, including three headquartered in Idaho with limited service area in Washington, and its customers had by far the most to lose, passing up on nearly four times as many credits as the other five utilities combined. At the top of the member-owned utility’s website, Varallo believes he found the reason Modern declined to take part: political opposition to the program that funds the credits.

► From the Washington Post — Aysenur Eygi, American killed in West Bank, remembered by loved ones  — Eygi graduated from the University of Washington, where she studied psychology and minored in Middle Eastern languages and culture. In high school, Eygi helped organize student walkouts in Seattle after Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election, amid similar marches in D.C. and elsewhere as students who were too young to vote gathered to voice their concerns. “This election has sparked a flame,” she wrote at the time in an article in the publication Socialist Alternative, “and we are the fire, we are burning for a future to believe in.”

► From the union-busting Columbian — WA prisoners pay millions in fees to the state. Most of the money isn’t being used  — Washington is sitting on millions of dollars collected from incarcerated people for phone calls and other fees – money that is supposed to be spent to improve prisoner welfare. Advocates, prisoners and their family members say much of the money in the fund is collecting dust. And many believe the account shouldn’t exist at all, arguing the state should bankroll programs the fund is supposed to support.

AEROSPACE

► From CNBC — Boeing and union reach a labor deal, potentially averting a strike — The current agreement was set to expire after Thursday and a strike could have started immediately if no deal was reached. The union had been pushing for more than 40% raises.

Today at The STAND — Machinists TA with Boeing

► From Investor’s Business Daily — Boeing Nails Landing, Labor Deal; Grounded BA Stock Lifts Dow Jones  — JPMorgan analysts said the tentative agreement suggests the company appears more likely to “avoid a prolonged strike that Boeing cannot afford.” Even if workers vote down the agreement, incremental concessions could close the deal.

NATIONAL

► From the AP — Biden signs ‘common sense’ order prioritizing federal grants for projects with higher worker wages — “Economists have long believed that these good job standards produce more opportunities, better outcomes for workers and more predictable outcomes for businesses as well,” he said from an Ann Arbor, Michigan union training center where he made the announcement. “A good union job is building a future worthy of your dreams.”

► From the AP — Google faces new antitrust trial after ruling declaring search engine a monopoly — The regulators contend that Google built, acquired and maintains a monopoly over the technology that matches online publishers to advertisers. Dominance over the software on both the buy side and the sell side of the transaction enables Google to keep as much as 36 cents on the dollar when it brokers sales between publishers and advertisers, the government contends in court papers.

► From ABC News — Texas sues to stop a rule that shields the medical records of women who seek abortions elsewhere — Texas has sued the Biden administration to try to block a federal rule that shields the medical records of women from criminal investigations if they cross state lines to seek abortion where it is legal. Liz McCaman Taylor, senior federal policy counselor at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said federal law has long provided enhanced protection for sensitive health information. “But Texas is suing now, not because of its concern with state sovereignty, but because of its hostility to reproductive health,” she said.

Editor’s note: Washington is a common destination for people who can’t get care in their home state. In 2023, we secured a shield law to protect providers and patients from the government overreach that Texas is attempting to enforce.

► From the AP — SEC settles with 7 companies it says violated whistleblower protection rules — Seven companies settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission over charges that they violated rules protecting whistleblowers who report potential misconduct. Among other actions, the companies required employees to waive their right to potential whistleblower monetary awards, according to the SEC.

POLITICS 

► From PBS News — Harris and Trump offer very different visions for the economy ahead of Tuesday’s debate  — Trump on Thursday promised to lead what he called a “national economic renaissance” by increasing tariffs, slashing regulations to boost energy production and drastically cutting government spending as well as corporate taxes for companies that produce in the U.S. Harris this week called for increasing corporate tax rates, not taxing tips and Social Security income and expanding tax breaks for small businesses to promote more entrepreneurship.

► From NBC News — Harris is preparing for potential volatile moments in her first debate against Trump — Harris’ aides are adamant that if a moment occurs in which Trump speaks derogatorily of her, Americans should see and hear it. That is partly why Harris’ aides continue to urge the debate host network, ABC News, to open the candidates’ microphones whenever there is over-talk or exchange between them. Currently the debate rules are that the candidates’ microphones will only be live for the candidate whose turn it is to speak and muted when the time belongs to the other.

► From the New York Times — Trump Lays Out Vision for Bending the Federal Government to His Will — He pledged to ultimately eliminate the Department of Education, redirect the efforts of the Justice Department and fire civil servants charged with carrying out Biden administration policies that he disagreed with. And he told his supporters that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading vaccine skeptic who recently endorsed him, would be “very much involved” in a panel on “chronic health problems and childhood diseases.” Mr. Kennedy rose to prominence as a vaccine skeptic who promoted a disproved link between vaccines and autism.

► From the New York Times — Congress Returns for Another Big Spending Fight — House Republicans have named a politically charged price for agreeing to continue funding the government — legislation that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. It is their latest salvo in a monthslong effort to push the unsubstantiated idea that a swarm of undocumented immigrants is poised to vote illegally and swing the election to Democrats. But with a Sept. 30 shutdown deadline looming and a presidential contest on the line, lawmakers also are haggling over the calendar itself.

The Stand posts links to local, national and international news of note for working people every weekday morning. Subscribe to get daily news in your inbox.