IAM negotiates | Bill Lucy | Rail worker leave

Friday, September 27, 2024

TODAY’S MUST-READ

► From the Tennessee Tribune — We mourn the passing of William Lucy, AFSCME secretary-treasurer emeritus, and a revered labor, human rights and civil rights leader — Lucy was a heavyweight of the American labor movement in the second half of the 20th century and a fierce defender of civil and human rights. In 1968, he traveled to his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, to help resolve the sanitation workers’ strike, marching shoulder to shoulder with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as the workers sought the city’s recognition of their union, AFSCME Local 1733. He was the co-founder and longtime leader of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) and a co-founder of the Free South Africa Movement(FSAM) that launched the successful anti-apartheid campaign in the United States.

MACHINISTS STRIKE at BOEING

► From the Seattle Times — Boeing, Machinists back at the negotiating table as strike enters third week — Boeing is eager to end the strike as it burns through cash and work in its factories remains halted. Analysts from Jefferies estimated the strike could cost Boeing $1.3 billion of free cash flow per month, largely due to lost income from 737 deliveries. The analysts forecast Boeing will use $9.7 billion of free cash flow this year.

► From the Hill — Boeing strike costs top $1.4 billion as pressure on company mounts — “The company’s large backlog of orders, and the fact that it is losing both current production and future parts and service business, mean that Boeing shareholders are effectively incurring losses every day this strike continues,” said Patrick Anderson, principal and CEO of Anderson Economic Group. “Boeing workers on strike are also losing, and as the strike goes on, more of Boeing’s suppliers will be forced to cut wages and hours.”

How to support striking Machinists — The STAND

STRIKES

► From the Washington Post — National Symphony Orchestra on strike for the first time since 1978 — “For the first time in 46 years, the 90+ musicians of the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) have called a strike against their employer, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,” read a statement released Friday morning by the Metropolitan Washington, D.C. Federation of Musicians, Local 161-710, American Federation of Musicians. “The parties have been in negotiations since May, but they remain far apart on wages and other important issues.”

► From MSN — Thousands more US hotel workers continue to strike: What travelers can expect — Since negotiations haven’t concluded, strikes could happen at any moment across all cities involved with the labor union, including Baltimore, Boston, Honolulu, Kauai, New Haven, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, San Mateo County and Seattle, UNITE HERE said. “Hotel workers are going to strike for as long as it takes to restore respect for our work and our guests,” said Gwen Mills, International President of UNITE HERE, in a press release.

LOCAL

► From the Washington State Standard — WA Supreme Court is told cutting public defender caseloads could incite ‘vigilante’ justice — Supporters of reducing caseloads say the change is needed to stabilize the system. Washington’s high court asked the Washington State Bar Association to weigh in on whether the cap needs adjusting. The association responded in March with the recommendation now under public review for new maximums of 47 felony or 120 misdemeanor cases in a year, depending on the severity.“Attorneys are resigning from the public defense profession in droves because they cannot continue the work given the volume of cases,” bar association members wrote in the summary of the requested amendments to the Court’s Standards for Indigent Defense Services.

► From Cascade PBS — The Newsfeed: Labor & Industries interpreters file wage-theft suit — Unpaid wage complaints have stacked up against the state’s worker protection agency after a group of interpreters say they’re owed hundreds of thousands of dollars for their services. We take a look at details from the lawsuit.

► From the Tacoma News Tribune — Tacoma Police Chief Avery Moore placed on administrative leave. City provides no reason — One Police Department source, who has been granted anonymity for fear of retaliation, told The News Tribune on Thursday that Deputy Chief Paul Junger has been assigned as the department’s interim leader. City spokesperson Maria Lee confirmed to The News Tribune on Thursday that Moore was placed on administrative leave effective Wednesday. Lee provided no reasons as to why.

► From Cascade PBS — Whatcom probe on harassment investigation shows ‘systemic failure’ — An investigative report released last week shows some Whatcom County employees view the county’s handling of an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment by former county manager Jon Hutchings as “a systemic failure of process.” The former Public Works Director was at the center of a county probe and a $225,000 settlement paid in November 2023 to a female employee who alleged a pattern of harassment from Hutchings for more than two years. Internal records revealed multiple women had accused him of inappropriate conduct.

AEROSPACE

► From the AP — Safety board says pedals pilots use to steer Boeing Max jets on runways can get stuck  — The National Transportation Safety Board issued the recommendations Thursday following its investigation of an incident earlier this year involving a United Airlines plane. The FAA said United is the only U.S. airline affected by the recommendations, and it believes the parts susceptible to jamming are no longer in use.

NATIONAL

► From BNN Bloomberg — Biden Administration Presses Big Railroads to Offer More Paid Sick Days — US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su urged the railroads to reach agreements “immediately” with their employees’ unions to provide paid sick leave, without waiting for renegotiation of their broader collective bargaining agreements. The request came in the form of letters sent Wednesday to the chief executives of CSX Corp., Canadian National Railway Co., and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd.

► From the AP — Kentucky sues Express Scripts, alleging it had a role in the deadly opioid addiction crisis — The lawsuit Attorney General Russell Coleman filed this week in state court claims St. Louis-based Express Scripts and its affiliated organizations colluded with opioid manufacturers in deceptive marketing schemes to increase sales of the addictive drugs. The result was an epidemic of “overdose and death caused by an oversupply of opioids flooding communities from powerful corporations who sought to profit at the expense of the public,” the suit says.

► From the New York Times — Justice Department Details Wide Pattern of Abuses by Mississippi Police Force –It cited examples including breaking down the door of a 63-year-old man to arrest him for calling a woman a “bitch” in a public place, and slamming a man with an open container of alcohol against a car. The report offers multiple examples of what it called illegal use of Tasers, including Chief Henderson’s shocking a man in the heart when he responded to a command too slowly, multiple officers using Tasers like cattle prods on a Black woman, and using a Taser nine times on a man who had a behavioral health disability and was accused of disturbing a business. “In all the incidents we reviewed, we never saw L.P.D. use force against a white person. We only saw L.P.D. use force against Black people,” the report said.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the AP — Biden signs temporary funding bill that avoids a shutdown before the election –The bill generally funds agencies at current levels through Dec. 20, setting up the prospect of a government shutdown fight just before the holiday season. Lawmakers did agree to add $231 million to bolster the Secret Service after the two assassination attempts against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Money was also added to aid with the presidential transition.

► From Common Dreams — Harris Rips Trump as ‘One of the Biggest Losers of Manufacturing in American History’ –“Yet it was Trump’s trade deal that made it far too easy for a major auto company like Stellantis to break their word to workers by outsourcing American jobs,” Harris continued, pointing to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). “As one of only 10 senators to vote against USMCA, I knew it was not sufficient to protect our country and its workers. Many who voted for this deal conditioned their support on a review process, which as president I will use.”

► From the Cascadia Daily News — What counts as a vote in elections? — But what counts as a vote on a ballot in Washington? Is a dark coffee stain going to cause your vote to be counted incorrectly? What about if you check a box or put a cross in it or don’t fill it in all the way? What if a stray mark enters a bubble of a candidate you don’t want to vote for, or you use an odd-colored pen?

► From the New York Times — Winning the Electoral College: Trump’s and Harris’s Possible Paths to 270 — Explore possible outcomes in the battleground states to see how Harris or Trump could reach 270 electoral votes and the White House.

INTERNATIONAL

► From In These Times — Feminism, Debt and Organizing Against Argentina’s Far Right — As part of the Ni Una Menos (Not One Less) Collective in Argentina, we have been organizing feminist strikes and actions against the far Right’s austerity plan and its attacks on the rights of women and LGBTQI+ communities. For the first time in our history, the Argentine state spends more on debt payments than pension payments. Under Milei, household debt has also intensified alongside the deregulation of prices for basic goods and services.

JOLT OF (bittersweet) JOY

We lost a legend today, beloved and infinitely talented actress Maggie Smith. In memory of one of the wittiest women to grace the stage and screen, please enjoy one of her funniest line deliveries — and one very appropriate for a union publication:

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