Invest in paras | Building 737 Maxes | Defanging the NLRB

Tuesday, December 10, 2024

STRIKES

► From News 3 Las Vegas — Culinary Union workers strike enters 22nd day with senator’s support — Genesis Knipping, a room service order taker at Virgin Las Vegas and Culinary Union member for nine years, shared her gratitude for the senator’s support. “Her support means so much—it shines a light on what we’re doing. My co-workers and I are united, and we’re here on strike fighting for better wages and for fairness,” she said.

Editor’s note: if you’re traveling to Vegas (or anywhere) during the holidays, use UNITE HERE’s FairHotel site to make sure you’re not crossing a picket line. 

► From the Culinary Union (UNITE HERE 226):

🪧Dispatch from the Strike Line: Day 2️⃣6️⃣
Culinary Union condemns @VirginHotelsLV for hiring temporary scab workers – off the street – to clean guest rooms, work in the hotel, cook meals, and serve guests drinks during the strike. Stay at a union hotel: https://t.co/MuVrucKJoh pic.twitter.com/v4ovwzmS1h

— Culinary Union (@Culinary226) December 10, 2024

LOCAL

► From Public News Service — As concerns in WA schools mount staff calls for greater investments — Melissa Roach is a peer inclusion preschool paraeducator in Tacoma who works with special education students. She said behavioral incidents are increasing across the board in schools. “We’re concerned every day that there could be a serious injury,” said Roach, “because there’s no staffing to get us the appropriate bodies in the room to help us.” Unfortunately for Roach, she said the pay doesn’t feel commiserate with the job she’s doing – especially as violent behaviors have become worse after the pandemic.

► From the Tri-City Herald — Nationwide milk testing ordered for bird flu. Why isn’t WA first on the list? — There was no sign of the virus in Washington in two rounds of voluntary testing by members of the Northwest Diary Association, state officials said. The USDA testing, announced Friday, is national in scope but will start in just six states: Oregon, California, Colorado, Michigan, Mississippi and Pennsylvania. While Washington isn’t in the first round, Oregon’s dairy industry is closely connected to the Mid-Columbia. Five of its top 10 dairies are in Umatilla and Morrow counties, south of the Tri-Cities, according to The Oregonian.

► From the Hechinger Report — Forget FAFSA, says one state. We got you — To try to reverse enrollment declines, Washington in 2026 will start automatically guaranteeing effectively free tuition at all its public colleges and universities to students from low-income families that receive food benefits from the federal supplemental nutrition assistance program, or SNAP. Students will find out as early as 10th grade whether they qualify, which is meant to get families thinking about college earlier.

AEROSPACE

► From the Seattle Times — Boeing resumes 737 MAX production in Renton after end of Machinists strike — Boeing has resumed production of the 737 MAX in Renton after a Machinists strike left its factories in the Puget Sound region idle from September to mid-November. The company expects to resume production of the 767 and 777/777X planes in Everett in the days ahead, Boeing said Tuesday in a monthly announcement detailing orders and deliveries of its aircraft.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From Travel Pulse — United Airlines Flight Attendants Claim Carrier Asking For Unprecedented Concessions — “Recently, management set up a website containing misleading information about negotiations, including dramatically inflating the number of hours Flight Attendants fly,” the [Union’s] statement said. “As a pointer to management, if you have to assume a Flight Attendant flies 125 hours every month to make your proposals look good, perhaps you need to go back to the drawing board. In addition to being factually incorrect, it attempts to directly negotiate with individual Flight Attendants rather than engage in their legal obligation to negotiate with our union.”

► From Trains — Railroad bargaining group announces deal with dispatchers’ union — The National Carriers Conference Committee, the negotiating arm of the organization representing Class I railroads in labor matters, has reached a tentative agreement for a new contract with the American Train Dispatchers Association. It is the fifth such agreement reached by the national group since the latest round of national bargaining, building on several agreements reached by individual railroads before national bargaining began.

ORGANIZING

► From NBC DFW — Fired dancers reach $500K+ settlement with Dallas Black Dance Theatre — Ten dancers who were fired by the Dallas Black Dance Theatre in August will receive more than $500,000 in compensation and a personal apology from the dance company’s leadership, the union representing the dancers says. The American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) called the settlement agreement with DBDT “historic in its scope.” The National Labor Relations Board largely brokered the agreement over the last month after the same agency found merit in complaints against the legacy dance company over unfair labor practices, including firing the entire dance company in August.

READY FOR A VOICE AT WORK? Get more information about how you can join together with co-workers and negotiate for better wages and working conditions. Or go ahead and contact a union organizer today!

NATIONAL

► From Washington Post — Most federal workers are not in D.C. See where they live. — Federal employees are 17 percent of the workforce near the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Southern Maryland. Likewise, federal civilian workers are 16 percent of the workforce in Warner Robins, Georgia, near the Robins Air Force Base, and 15 percent of the workforce in the Bremerton-Silverdale, Washington, metropolitan area near a naval base.

► From NC Newsline — Coalition demands protection from excessive heat for NC workers — This falls in line with action at the federal level. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has established a public comment period open for the first-ever federal workplace heat standard, with a deadline of Jan. 14 to submit comments. “No life should ever be cut short because employers cut corners in workplace safety,” Jeremy Sprinkle of the North Carolina State AFL-CIO said.

► From Reuters — US Supreme Court won’t review Broadway producer’s union boycott case — Labor unions long have enjoyed some immunity from federal antitrust law. Siding with the Actors’ Equity Association, the 2nd Circuit ruled in July that that the exemption from liability applies in cases where a union’s conduct promotes “legitimate labor goals.” The union put Drabinsky’s name on a boycott list amid claims by cast members that they did not receive wages and health and retirement benefits during his Civil War-era “Paradise Square” production last year.

► From the New York Times — U.S. Investigating Child Labor Claim at HelloFresh Subsidiary — At least six teenagers, including some from Guatemala, worked night shifts at the facility, Cristobal Cavazos, the executive director for Immigrant Solidarity, an immigrant rights advocacy group that helped report the claims to federal regulators, told ABC News, which reported on the investigation.

► From the New York Times — Nvidia Faces Antitrust Investigation in China — China’s antimonopoly regulator announced on Monday that it was investigating potential violations of antitrust law by Nvidia, the American company that makes a vast majority of the computer chips that power artificial intelligence systems. China’s State Administration for Market Regulation said on Monday that it was investigating Nvidia for violating commitments made during its acquisition of Mellanox Technologies, a company that makes computer networking equipment. The Chinese regulator approved Nvidia’s acquisition of the company in 2020 with conditions to prevent anti-competitive practices and ensure supplies to China.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From Truthout — Unions Brace Themselves as Trump Prepares to Defang Labor Board — It’s hard to know exactly how long the process of realigning the NLRB will take, but most labor experts and leaders expect Donald Trump, upon arriving in the White House, to sack General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, who steered the board in a pro-worker direction via 26 issued memorandums. The Washington Post has reported that multiple Trump advisers have discussed the possibility of firing all the Democratic members of the board.

► From Axios — Schumer’s race to protect NLRB majority from Trump — Senate Democrats and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders —have privately pressed Schumer to grandfather McFerran in as chair until August 2026, when vacancies will give Republicans a shot to create their own NLRB majority. With two weeks left in session, time is running out, raising concerns in the labor movement that the vote isn’t a top priority for Schumer. Without reconfirmation, the board will likely tip in favor of Republicans early next year when Trump starts filling open seats after his inauguration. McFerran’s term expires next week.

► From the Washington State Standard — No expansion of military IVF coverage included in final defense policy bill — Washington state Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said in a written statement she was “disappointed that the final NDAA didn’t include the provisions I pushed for to expand IVF access for veterans and servicemembers because of Republican opposition—women and men in uniform sacrifice so much for our country and should never have to sacrifice their right to start a family.”

► From the Seattle Times — Three WA members of Congress talk strategy ahead of Trump presidency — Jayapal said she and allies have also been urging Biden to use his pardon powers as broadly as possible in federal death penalty cases. And she said they’ve been working with immigration officials to issue or extend as many protections as possible, including asylum, work permits and renewal of two-year permits for people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

► From the Washington State Standard — Lawmakers return to Olympia for meetings ahead of 2025 session — Starting Monday, legislators convene in Olympia for their annual “committee days,” a chance to get up to speed on issues that may arise during next year’s session and to get situated with any committee changes. And with 20 new faces roaming the halls following last month’s election, it’s also an opportunity for lawmakers to meet their colleagues. This week is just a preview of what’s to come Jan. 13, when the Legislature will officially gavel in for their 105-day session.

► From the Olympian — Trump is threatening mass deportations. What would that mean for ICE lockup in Tacoma? — If President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his promise to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, the privately-run detention center in Tacoma could play an important role in the feds’ Northwest operations. The Northwest Immigration Processing Center is among the largest detention centers in the United States with 1,575 beds, and it’s the only detention facility Immigration and Customs Enforcement has in the Pacific Northwest.

► From the Cascadia Daily News — Skagit school leaders say state underfunds districts by millions — Over the last four years, districts have been collectively underfunded by $47 million for special education, $8 million for transportation, $22 million for materials and supplies, and $13 million for utilities and insurance, Mount Vernon Board President Larry Otos told legislators on Thursday, Dec. 5. District superintendents all shared similar stories: Budget cuts have resulted in negative impacts on students’ access to education.

INTERNATIONAL

► From the AP — US officials to investigate labor and human rights abuses in Nicaragua — The investigation, authorized under section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, will look into not only allegations of abuse but also the extent to which they affect commerce with the U.S. Only after that determination is made will retaliatory actions, if any, be taken. The U.S. trade representative, in her statement, cited credible reports by several watchdog groups against Ortega’s government, including politically-motivated arrests, forced labor, human trafficking and repression of freedom of association and collective bargaining.

The Stand posts links to local, national and international labor news every weekday morning. Subscribe to get daily news in your inbox.