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IAM endorses Boeing offer | Noncompetes | 4 days to go

Friday, November 1, 2024

 

MACHINISTS STRIKE at BOEING

► From the IAM

► From the Seattle Times — Boeing Machinists to vote on new contract offer meant to end strike — A simple majority will determine if the contract is accepted, bringing the Machinists back to work, or rejected, meaning the strike will continue. The strike has idled Boeing’s plants in Renton, Everett and elsewhere. “In every negotiation and strike, there is a point where we have extracted everything that we can in bargaining and by withholding our labor,” the union said. “We are at that point now and risk a regressive or lesser offer in the future.”

► From the New York Times — Boeing Reaches New Deal With Union in Hopes of Ending Strike — The new contract offer represents a slight improvement over the recently rejected proposal. It would raise wages cumulatively by more than 43 percent over the four years of the contract, up from nearly 40 percent in the last offer, according to details shared by the union. The deal also includes a $12,000 bonus for agreeing to the contract, which can be diverted in any amount to employee retirement plans. That figure combines a $7,000 ratification bonus and a $5,000 one-time retirement contribution in the previous offer.

 

STRIKES

► From the San Francisco Business Times — Dozens arrested at hotel union protest in Union Square — The rally massed at Union Square where dozens of protesters, including Unite Here local president Lizzy Tapia and former president Anand Singh, occupied the cable car tracks on Powell street between Post and Geary streets in an act of civil disobedience. “(The hotels) are trying to take our health insurance,” said Mario Cuellar, a banquet waiter at the Grand Hyatt San Francisco for 36 years, sporting a cartoon character mask and roving through the crowd.

 

LOCAL

► From Cascade PBS — WA law restricts noncompete agreements. They keep popping up anyway — Washington state placed significant restrictions on the enforcement of noncompetes in 2019, passing a law that included a ban for workers making under $100,000 per year. But Permobil has sidestepped that law by filing suit in a federal court in Tennessee, where the company’s U.S. operations are headquartered, and where a judge agreed to hear the case, even though Washington law explicitly voids labor contracts that force adjudication in other states.

► From the Seattle Times — Amazon employees challenge 5-day-a-week office return — “By taking this action, AWS is not living up to its full potential and is creating a bleak outlook for its future,” read the letter shared with The Seattle Times. “While it is absolutely true that there are challenges with flexible and remote work, we have always been a company that solves problems in new, exciting and innovative ways, rather than relying on antiquated approaches that happened to work well some time in the past. “The cloud computing industry that we now base our work and livelihoods on might not exist today if we had adhered to that restrictive thinking in our early days.”

► From the Olympian — Providence to cut 55 jobs tied to outpatient physical therapy — Providence Swedish South Puget Sound, the operator of Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia, will reduce its outpatient physical, occupational and speech therapy services early next year, affecting sites in Lacey and Tumwater, the health care provider says. The clinics or services will close Jan. 17, resulting in 55 layoffs.

► From the Tri-City Herald — Richland ‘pausing’ paraeducator layoffs announced this week. Here’s the new plan — In a Wednesday evening letter to staff, the board wrote that it and Superintendent Shelley Redinger were “developing a plan to align expenses with our available resources.” This comes after administrators delayed phone calls it planned to make Tuesday to affected employees.

 

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the Northwest Labor Press — UFCW 555 reaches agreement with Kroger — United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555 reached agreement on a new set of three-year contracts covering around 4,500 Portland-area Fred Meyer grocery and meat department workers. The terms will apply throughout Oregon and Southwest Washington at Fred Meyer and QFC stores, which are owned by Kroger. The settlement comes two months after the previous contracts expired, and six weeks after a six-day strike.

► From FOX 12 Oregon — Nurses at Providence St. Vincent authorize 2nd strike this year — Nurses at Providence St. Vincent gave permission to their bargaining team to call for a strike for the second time this year. According to the Oregon Nurses Association, nurses authorized the strike because of Providence’s failure to make necessary investments in its staff and patient care. In June, nurses at St. Vincent and five other Providence hospitals walked off the job for three days, the largest nurse strike in Oregon history.

► From the Wrap — John Oliver, Seth Meyers Among 1,250 WGA Members Calling for PBS to Reach Deal With Writers — “For writers, PBS has always been a cherished friend and teacher,” WGA East president Lisa Takeuchi Cullen said in a statement. “Its programs taught us to love words and develop values like trust, kindness and empathy. So we expect PBS to use the remaining time before the contract deadline to live up to those values.”

 

NATIONAL

► From the New York Times — From AI to Musk’s Brain Chip, the F.D.A.’s Device Unit Faces Rapid Change –Medical device technology is now deeply entrenched in many patients’ health care and can have a stunning impact on their lives. As advancements become more tangible to millions of Americans, regulation of the devices has commanded increasing attention at the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Michelle Tarver, a 15-year-veteran of the agency, is stepping into that spotlight at a critical time. She is taking the reins of the F.D.A.’s device division from Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, who forged deep ties with the device industry, sped up the pace of approvals and made the agency more approachable to companies.

► From Game Developer — CWA claims Sony looking to further ‘monopoly position’ with latest studio closures —“Collective bargaining not only allows workers a seat at the table to bargain for fair compensation, but also a voice on the job to have a say over how workers will be impacted by job cuts,” reads a statement. CWA described the two PlayStation Studios closures as “devastating” and claimed “highly-insulated video game CEOs are creating perilous working conditions for video game workers by eliminating their job stability.”

 

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the AP — Trump and Vance make anti-transgender attacks central to their campaign’s closing argument — His rally speeches now feature a spoof video mocking trans people and their place in the U.S. military. The montage, interspersed with clips of the Vietnam War movie “Full Metal Jacket,” typically draws loud boos at his rallies, as do Trump’s false claims about female athletes and his mocking impression of what he says is a trans woman lifting weights.

Editor’s note: as I wrote in June, “trans people are our compatriots, and our comrades. The same wealthy elites who push anti-trans rhetoric also demonize unions as greedy, anti-American institutions. You are not evil because you understand that you deserve respect as a human being. That holds true whether you’re a union member, trans, or both.”

► From Working to Live in Southwest Washington — Convening To Solve Problems — You may be familiar with a lot of the offices up for election this year… but do you know the full scope of what Washington’s Attorney General does? Nick Brown (https://nickbrownforag.com/) sits down with Harold to discuss what goes into being the lawyer for every citizen of Washington, the Attorney General’s ability to solve problems for everyday working people, and the power of “convening.”

► From the Guardian — The women ‘cancelling out’ their Trump-loving partners’ votes: ‘No one will ever know’ | US elections 2024 — “Women often give deference to the presumed expertise of their husbands on politics, and then the men reinforce that presumption and express their intensity and so-called greater expertise,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster. That’s a sentiment echoed in a new ad, narrated by Julia Roberts, from the progressive evangelical organization Vote Common Good. In the ad, a woman whose husband appears to be a Trump supporter enters the voting booth to cast her ballot for Harris. “In the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want and no one will ever know,” Roberts says in the voiceover. The Fox News host Jesse Watters said that if he found out his wife had secretly voted for Harris, “that’s the same thing as having an affair … it violates the sanctity of our marriage”. This, despite the fact that Watters had an affair with his current wife while still married to his first wife.

 

INTERNATIONAL

► From the AP — As summers get hotter, Greece’s seasonal firefighters protest for permanent jobs — Seasonal firefighters clashed with police in Greece’s Civil Protection Ministry during a protest Thursday to demand permanent positions after their contracts expire following a grueling wildfire season. The protesters represent some 2,500 firefighters whose short-term contracts ended Thursday, leaving them unemployed with the opportunity to be re-hired next May. Union representatives argue that climate change has extended Greece’s fire risk beyond the traditional summer months, requiring a year-round firefighting capability.

 

JOLT OF JOY

The Big Dark is here, but worker solidarity burns bright. Stories keep coming in of labor leaders and unions refusing to do business at DoubleTree Seattle Airport or Hilton Seattle Airport & Conference Center while the workers continue to fight for a fair contract. Love to see it!

 

P.S.

So many of us are racked with nerves thinking about the results of the Presidential election, so much so that a lot of us just want it to be over. Four days left, and we’re counting down. I get it.

But we can’t give in to that apathy, because we need to show up to defeat anti-worker initiatives here in Washington State. So put down the phone, stop doom scrolling, and head out to knock doors with fellow workers to get out the NO vote on harmful statewide initiatives.

We don’t just have to wait it out; we can make a real difference. Sign up for tomorrow’s walk.

 

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