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Albertsons v. Kroger | 32 hr week | Apprenticeship

Wednesday, December 11, 2024

 

TODAY’S MUST READ

► From NPR — Albertsons sues Kroger and ends failed grocery megamerger — On Tuesday, both a federal district court in Oregon and a state court in Washington blocked the $24.6 billion deal, saying it would reduce competition, which would harm shoppers. By Wednesday morning, Albertsons abandoned the merger and filed a lawsuit against Kroger, alleging a willful breach of contract for not doing enough to win regulatory approval for the merger. Kroger, in a statement in response, said Albertsons is deflecting its own responsibility.

 

STRIKES

► From KVTU Fox — Striking hotel workers in San Francisco ask major healthcare conference attendees to stay away — “I can’t believe anyone who works in health care would try to cross our picket line when we are fighting to keep our insurance,” Ester Yuliani, a buffet attendant at the Westin St. Francis, said in the union statement. “Marriott’s proposals are so extreme that they are trying to phase out our union health care, but I’m not going to let that happen.”

 

LOCAL

► From Cascade PBS — San Juan County adopted a 32-hour workweek. Here’s what happened — A one-year report, issued to the citizens of San Juan County jointly by the employee Union Local 1849 and county leadership, states that the 32-hour work week resulted from negotiations between the county and the employees’ union. The union’s executive committee wrote, “Our team worked hard to secure a fair, yet progressive, contract for our colleagues. The 32-hour work week win has been significant for our members. Our members are dedicated to continuing to work with the County to ensure the success of the 32-hour work week and to see it as the new standard for public servants throughout the state.”

► From Cascade PBS — Bird flu is spreading at PNW farms — among animals and workers — But efforts to test and monitor the disease among workers are spotty and inconsistent, and leave the responsibility for getting tested with the laborers themselves, many of whom are undocumented and can’t afford to take time off if they test positive. Meanwhile, the virus is spreading rapidly among cows and chickens, raising concerns among epidemiologists that the avian flu could merge with the regular flu and cause a pandemic, making it even more urgent to try to limit the spread among people.

► From the Seattle Times — Edmonds School District cancels immigrant rights event after threats — Anticipating mass deportations promised by President-elect Donald Trump, the Edmonds School District planned an event aimed at educating immigrants about their rights and preparing for raids. Then, a conservative social media account called attention to the event, prompting a flood of hostile and threatening posts. “I live close to that school and am prepared to help ICE agents do their job,” said one commenter, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “We’ll be watching and taking pictures,” said another. A third noted: “This meeting sounds like a great place to start a roundup.”

► From the Spokesman Review — Washington Department of Natural Resources sues Inland Power, claiming company has refused to reimburse costs related to Gray Fire — The lawsuit, filed by the Washington State Attorney General’s Office in Spokane last week, claims the power company was “negligent” and the department should be paid following its large-scale investigation, which concluded this year that sparks from an Inland Power security light caused the fire. The fire spread to 10,000 acres, burned 240 homes, displaced thousands of people and killed an 86-year-old man.

 

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From Supply Chain Brain — Teamsters Give Amazon Ultimatum — The International Brother of Teamsters has given Amazon until December 15 to agree to bargaining dates for a union contract with delivery drivers and warehouse workers, or “face the consequences of its inaction.” If Amazon does not come to the table, the national union and its 1.3 million members will be “ready to take the fight directly to the company’s doorstep in every state,” Teamsters Amazon division director Randy Korgan vowed.

► From Amazon Teamsters:

NATIONAL

► From the Washington Post — Impasse deepens over U.S. Steel takeover as government review nears end — “We recognize the offer is a good deal for [U.S. Steel] CEO David Burritt and some of his top executive management team and the institutional stockholders,” McCall said in a Dec. 3 video. “However, the union does not think it’s a good deal for workers.” Union leaders say they believe that Nippon Steel plans to eventually shift production from U.S. Steel’s unionized mills in Pennsylvania to its nonunion electric arc furnaces in Arkansas

► From Politico — A federal union pushes back after congressional leaders and DOGE call out teleworking — The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 800,000 federal and Washington city workers, said assertions that staffers are abusing work-from-home flexibility are serving as cover for Republican lawmakers to try to tear down the government. “Exaggerating the number of federal employees who telework and portraying those who do as failing to show up for work is a deliberate attempt to demean the federal workforce and justify the wholesale privatization of public-sector jobs,” AFGE said on its website.

► From Construction Dive — How pre-apprenticeship programs benefit contractors and the industry — Upon entering the apprenticeship program at District Council 5 (covering Washington, Alaska, Northern Idaho, Oregon, and Utah), these veterans started with 12 months of credit, giving them a significant head start in their careers. Pre-apprenticeship programs prepare students for direct entry into registered apprenticeships and employment.

► From the Economic Policy Institute — Measuring diversity in construction apprenticeship programs: Data show higher rates of participation of women, Hispanic workers, and workers of color in union-based apprenticeships than nonunion programs — Women, Hispanic workers, and workers of color have higher participation and completion rates in union-based registered apprenticeship programs compared with nonunion programs. Across the entire industry, the share of women and Hispanic workers in registered apprenticeship programs grew from 2015 through 2021, though the share of apprentices of color declined during this period.

 

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the New York Times — Bipartisan Lawmakers Seek to Break Up Giant Health Care Conglomerates — A group of prominent Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday introduced federal legislation that would prohibit companies that own drug middlemen or health insurers from also owning retail pharmacies or those that mail prescriptions to patients. If enacted, the legislation would break up giant health care conglomerates like UnitedHealth Group and CVS Health.

► From Cascade PBS — WA Democrat flips state Senate seat long held by Republicans — Adrian Cortes will become the first Democrat to hold the seat in Washington’s 18th District, encompassing Vancouver, Battle Ground and Clark County, in nearly three decades. Cortes won over his Republican opponent, Brad Benton, by 173 votes. The recount picked up another vote in his favor, Cortes told Cascade PBS in a text Tuesday.

► From the Hill — Democrats, advocates urge Biden to sign ERA before end of term — “President Biden and Democrats warned of the threat posed by Donald Trump on our bodily autonomy and on our democracy, a threat that is about to become reality very soon. President Biden has the power to do something about this,” the Missouri Democrat [Cori Bush] continued. “He has the ERA. The ERA is one sentence that has the power to protect our future.” The Equal Rights Amendment, first proposed in 1923, reads that, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

► From the Washington State Standard — Wildland firefighter pay raises could vanish without action by Congress within days — Finding the political will to increase spending for any purpose in such an environment could be challenging, though increasing the pay of wildland firefighters — who work to manage the increasingly severe and costly fires that particularly ravage the rural areas known as the wildland-urban interface — has support from across the political spectrum in Congress, including leading GOP members.

► From the Washington State Standard — Replacement picked for longtime Washington senator — [Democrat Tina] Orwall was appointed by the King County Council on Tuesday to be the next senator representing the 33rd Legislative District, which covers communities in south King County, including SeaTac, Des Moines and Kent. Orwall replaces outgoing [Editor’s note: labor legend] Sen. Karen Keiser who is retiring after 30 years in the Legislature.

 

INTERNATIONAL

► From NALC:

► From France 24 — Tens of thousands strike at Volkswagen’s Germany plants — IG Metall and the works council have fought to protect jobs since VW announced in September that it was weighing the unprecedented step of shutting some plants in Germany, where it has around 120,000 employees. Thousands of workers marched alongside a line of new electric cars leaving the Zwickau plant as part of the industrial action, with walkouts also observed at plants from Hanover to VW’s historic headquarters of Wolfsburg.

 

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