NEWS ROUNDUP
IAM, Boeing negotiate | Hotel strikes | Musk’s GOTV hell
Thursday, October 31, 2024
MACHINISTS STRIKE at BOEING
► From Reuters — Boeing, striking union hold first meeting since latest contract rejection — The union, whose members have been on strike for nearly seven weeks, added it “will continue to engage with the company to secure the best possible outcome for our members.” A Boeing spokesperson confirmed the company met with the union on Tuesday for negotiations, assisted by Su.
► From IAM 751
Day 48 – Strike Update
October 30, 2024Today, we continue to have discussions with the company, facilitated by Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su. The Union will keep negotiating with the company until we have a resolution to present to the membership.
A lot of members are… pic.twitter.com/rl7CvTJM7H
— IAM Union District 751 (@IAM751) October 31, 2024
STRIKES
► From the San Diego Union-Tribune — Kaiser mental health worker strike reaches second week — The National Union of Healthcare Workers has called this an “open-ended” strike over a wide range of issues from pensions to the amount of time that workers are granted to handle preparation and administrative duties outside direct patient care. The union continues to demand that Kaiser also “restore pensions that it provides to virtually all of its 180,000-member California workforce other than its Southern California mental health caregivers.”
► From the WHDH — Boston Hilton, workers union reach tentative agreement — Hilton Hotel workers in Boston have struck a deal after being on the picket line for 24 days. Union members will now hold a vote to ratify the contract. If the contract does go into effect, about 600 hotel workers will return to their jobs Friday morning.
► From UNITE HERE Local 5 (Hawaii)
It is STRIKE DAY 37 here in Waikiki 🔥
Workers brought our picket line to the beach for a Floatilla Action where members of the community and guests from the Hilton Hawaiian Village helped us reflect on the greater purpose of this strike. #OnStrike #UnionStrong pic.twitter.com/UvUftxBTJY— UNITE HERE Local 5 (@uniteherehawaii) October 30, 2024
LOCAL
► From the Tacoma News Tribune — Person was declared dead at Tacoma immigration detention center on Sunday, officials say — A person was declared dead Sunday morning at the privately-run federal immigration detention center in Tacoma, according to police and fire officials. Few details about the person and the circumstances of their death were immediately available. It is the second death to occur at the Northwest ICE Processing Center this year. Charles Leo Daniel, a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, died at the NWIPC on March 7. The medical examiner determined he died of hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. The 61-year-old man spent 1,244 days in solitary confinement at the facility before his death.
► From the Washington State Standard — Legislators, educators seek fixes for WA’s struggling system to educate incarcerated youth — Despite all the challenges that come with institutional education, the field is woefully underfunded by the state. No state agency has a strong role overseeing the state’s 31 institutional education facilities, leaving a patchwork of school districts and educational service districts, which provide services to school districts, in charge of student outcomes.
► From the Spokesman Review — Providence agrees to move home health and hospice to joint venture with private company — The Catholic not-for-profit health system’s agreement is with Compassus, a for-profit, Tennessee-based provider of home care services in 30 states. The joint entity’s name is Providence at Home with Compassus. About 150 Providence employees work in the local home health and hospice services now, but they later will move in a “phased transition” to become employees of the joint venture, according to Providence. Compassus’ closest locations to the Northwest are in Montana. The company has more than 7,000 employees in over 270 locations, mainly in the East, Midwest, South and Southwest.
► From the Washington State Standard — Iowa AG leads multi-state opposition to court decision on Clean Water Act — The original case involved a citizen-led environmental group in Washington, Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, who sued the Port of Tacoma and its tenants for not implementing stormwater controls in accordance with the state-issued pollutant discharge permits. “We must not allow unelected, green activists to weaponize lawsuits to force woke mandates, hurt farmers, or threaten cities that are working hard to keep drinking water clean,” [Iowa AG] Bird said in a press release.
Editor’s note: ah yes, the pinnacle of “woke,” clean water.
AEROSPACE
► From the Seattle Times — How the revolving door at FAA spins Boeing’s way — Critics of the practice view the Boeing hearings of 2008 and 2020 as clear evidence that a “revolving door” — when ex-government officials move to jobs in industries they had policed, sometimes returning to government after their stints in the private sector — was undermining oversight. They claim the specter of more lucrative employment in industry sometimes drives regulators to conduct weak oversight in hopes that they can cash in on their government experience.
► From the Seattle Times — Congress protests ‘revolving door’ to Boeing while rushing through it — Boeing alone has hired 315 people formerly employed by Congress since 2000, primarily into lobbying roles, a Seattle Times review of federal data showed. Boeing’s deep relationship with government is evident on its board, which has included cabinet members, military leaders and elected officials. In 2019, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley accepted a job on the Boeing board of directors, soon after leaving her post as United Nations ambassador in the Trump administration. Haley collected about $250,000 for her Boeing role. When Haley was South Carolina’s governor in 2013, she signed legislation that granted Boeing $120 million in tax breaks and other concessions to pave the way for an assembly plant to open in the state.
CONTRACT FIGHTS
► From UNITE HERE Local 8
Workers at the Doubletree Seattle airport and Seattle airport Hilton and conference Center are fighting for real raises and fair work loads and staffing in new contracts. pic.twitter.com/KjNCZgacQa
— UNITE HERE! Local 8 (@UniteHereLocal8) October 30, 2024
Editor’s note: The workers are asking the public to not patronize these hotels until workers get fair contracts. You can use fairhotel.org to find alternatives.
► From the Sacramento Bee — Sacramento hotel workers reach labor deal with Sheraton Grand Hotel after strike, bargaining — The union chapter, Unite Here Local 49, said the deal will bring wages for housekeepers — the largest group of hotel workers — to $26 per hour over the term of the four-year contract, up from $19. “It provides for significant wage increases,” said union president Aamir Deen. “Overall, it just makes these jobs much more sustainable. And sets the Sheraton Grand up for success in the future.”
► From the Wichita Business Journal — Spirit AeroSystems, SPEEA back at negotiating table after pause — The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace confirmed negotiations between its Wichita Engineering Unit negotiations team and the major aviation supplier restarted Monday, as expected. The current six-year agreement expires Dec. 1, and a new deal would cover more than 1,000 engineers at Spirit’s Wichita plant.
► From CBS News — Philadelphia’s largest municipal workers union votes to authorize strike — Philadelphia’s largest municipal workers union voted to authorize a strike on Wednesday at City Hall. Hundreds of District Council 33 members marched through the streets around City Hall in Center City after the union authorized a strike. District Council 33 represents more than 9,000 blue-collar workers, including sanitation workers. They’re demanding a better contract and have been working without one since July.
NATIONAL
► From the AP — Inflation gauge closely watched by the Fed falls to lowest level since early 2021 — The Commerce Department reported that prices rose just 2.1% in September from a year earlier, down from a 2.3% rise in August. That is barely above the Fed’s 2% inflation target and in line with readings in 2018, well before prices began surging after the pandemic recession. Yet some signs of inflation pressures remained. Excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called core prices rose 2.7% in September from a year earlier for the third straight month.
POLITICS & POLICY
► From Wired — Workers Say They Were Tricked and Threatened as Part of Elon Musk’s Get-Out-the-Vote Effort — In Michigan, canvassers and paid door knockers for the former president, contracted by a firm associated with America PAC, have been subjected to poor working conditions: A number of them have been driven around in the back of a seatless U-Haul van, according to video obtained by WIRED, and threatened that their lodging at a local motel wouldn’t be paid for if they didn’t meet canvassing quotas. One door knocker alleges that they didn’t even know they were signing up for anything having to do with Musk or Trump.
► From KOIN — Her ballot burned, Clark County teen undeterred — “It’s really easy to get stuck in that mindset of one vote won’t change anything, but obviously if everyone thought that way, there wouldn’t be voting at all,” she said. “So just try not to think like that. Don’t let other people control your vote.” Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey said his office is busy getting new ballots in the hands of the voters affected by the arsons. “We’ll have one person at each ballot box 24 hours a day, seven days a week simply to observe what’s going on,” he told KOIN 6 News. “If they observe something suspicious they will be instructed to call 911. They’re not there to interact with citizens or to be confrontational in any way whatsoever, simply in a very low-key manner.”
► From USA Today — Trump reduced access to overtime pay as president. Project 2025 would weaken it further. — Trump and his businesses have faced multiple accusations of failing to pay workers overtime they were owed. Once he was in office, Trump’s Department of Labor issued a rule that reduced by millions the number of workers who would have become eligible for overtime pay under an Obama era rule.
► From Common Dreams — UAW President Calls for Working Class Unity Against Billionaire ‘Lap Dog’ Donald Trump — “We don’t engage in political activity because we like a candidate. We don’t do it for ourselves, as your union leadership. We don’t do it for the Democratic or Republican parties. We engage in politics as a union because it is core to our fight for economic and social justice.” Fain said that the United States is currently trapped in a “vicious cycle” in which the “ruling class has waged a one-sided class war on the working class, and they’ve been winning.”
► From the Yakima Herald-Republic — Community members criticize Jerrod Sessler’s comments about Muslim Americans as he doubles down — Salam Awad, a faculty member at Bellevue College, teaches political science and focuses on international relations, the Middle East and human rights, including media bias and the dehumanization of marginalized groups. Awad was born and raised in Yakima and previously worked as a lecturer at Central Washington University. “His interpretation is completely misguided, showing ignorance both about Islam and about Muslims who practice it,” she said in an email.
INTERNATIONAL
► From the Architects Newspaper — New documentary reveals that 21,000 laborers have died working on Saudi Vision 2030, which includes NEOM, since construction began — According to the exposé by ITV, more than 21,000 Indian, Bangladeshi, and Nepalese workers have died in Saudi Arabia since 2017 working on various aspects of Saudi Vision 2030. And according to The Hindustan Times, reports show that more than 100,000 people have “disappeared” during NEOM’s construction. Workers also say that, under current working conditions, they are “trapped slaves” and “beggars.” There’s also been reports of wage theft, illegal working hours, and human rights abuses.
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