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NEWS ROUNDUP

Line workers | REI board | Georgian strike

Thursday, November 21, 2024

 

STRIKES

► From KEZI — Benton County strike ends as government and workers approve labor agreement — At about midday on November 20, Benton County employees voted in favor of approving a tentative contract that was reached in overnight negotiations with the county government, signaling and end to the strike that started earlier in the month. The contract agreed upon by the county and workers will be in place for the next three years and includes a $2,500 ratification bonus. Workers will also see raises of up to 13.4% over the course of the contract as well as studies that may lead to further raises in the future.

► From the Times of San Diego — Thousands of Patient Care, Service Workers at UC Campuses and UCSD Medical Center to Strike This Week — According to the AFSCME Local 3299 union, the strike will include roughly 37,000 UC workers “at every UC campus and medical facility across the state…The University’s serial lawbreaking at the bargaining table means that the epidemic of understaffing at UC facilities, and the related cost of living and housing affordability crises plaguing frontline UC workers are only getting worse,” AFSCME Local 3299 President Michael Avant said in a statement.

►From AFSCME Local 3299

 

LOCAL

► From the Seattle Times — Between cyclones, WA line workers bear burden of keeping lights on — The cyclone left behind a daunting mess for line workers in the region’s patchwork of utilities: 432,000 Puget Sound Energy customers lost power, plus 135,000 more in Snohomish and Island counties, and another 112,600 served by Seattle City Light. Amid blustery, cold and wet conditions, dozens of crews from public and private utilities fanned across Western Washington.

► From the Tacoma News Tribune — Pierce County workers alleged culture of racism inside their department. They’ll get $1M — The workers sued the county in January, accusing department managers of failing to address open and commonplace hostility toward minorities. The lawsuit claimed that the plaintiffs had been subjected to racial slurs, compared to animals and faced other race-related harassment.

 

AEROSPACE

► From Yahoo Finance — Boeing’s CEO tells staff to stop ‘bitching by the water cooler’ and focus on beating Airbus — Ortberg urged staff to focus on beating its French planemaker competitor Airbus instead of navel-gazing at its own issues. “We spend more time arguing amongst ourselves than thinking about how we’re going to beat Airbus. Everybody is tired of the drumbeat of what’s wrong with Boeing. I’m tired of it and I haven’t been here that long,” he said.

► From Astronomy.com — The past, present, and future of Boeing in space — Boeing is tasked to fly six more Starliner crew-rotation flights before the ISS retires and is deorbited after 2030. But as engineers dig into what went wrong and delays continue to mount, the program’s future is left hanging precariously in the balance.

► From the AP — Airline CEOs and Transportation Secretary Buttigieg fight over regulations even after election — “I know that some airline CEOs have expressed hopes that the next administration will be less passenger-friendly and more corporate-friendly than this administration,” Buttigieg responded during a news conference to discuss Thanksgiving travel. “The passenger protections that we have put in place deservedly enjoy broad public, bipartisan support. I just don’t run into a lot of people who are against the idea that you ought to get an automatic refund without any hassle, for example.”

 

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the Willamette Week — Negotiations Between City of Portland and Three Labor Unions Stall — Three labor unions representing 2,000 employees at the city of Portland, including plumbers, park rangers, 911 dispatchers and financial analysts, have reached an impasse with the city over contract negotiations. The contract for two of the unions—the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 189 and the District Council of Trade Unions—expires Dec. 31. The third union, the City of Portland Professional Workers, which represents 770 office workers, is newly formed and therefore does not yet have a contract.

► From NBC Philadelphia — SEPTA, union for Philly workers reach tentative deal that avoids strike — The one-year deal was struck between SEPTA and the Transportation Workers Union Local 234 on Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024, a SEPTA spokesperson told NBC10. SMART Local 1594, the union that represents SEPTA workers in Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties, also reached a tentative deal with SEPTA on November 20. Hundreds of workers who keep buses and trolleys rolling in the suburbs and the Norristown High Speed Line on track also authorized a strike if they didn’t reach a deal with SEPTA.

 

ORGANIZING

► From the Drivers Union

► From REI Union

 

NATIONAL

► From Inside Higher Ed — BU suspends admissions to humanities, other Ph.D. programs — The university didn’t announce its decision in a news release and hasn’t fully explained it, but two deans blamed a new grad workers’ union contract for the cutbacks to a dozen programs including English, history and sociology.

► From the Washington State Standard — Boise Airport now powered by 100% clean energy through Idaho Power program — The move to powering its facilities by renewable energy represents Boise moving forward on climate policies at a time when the Idaho Legislature is actively pushing back against environmental and climate programs. While the Idaho Legislature has not established formal climate goals, the city of Boise has specific goals it bases climate policies around.

► From the AP — What you need to know about the proposed measures designed to curb Google’s search monopoly — The sweeping set of recommendations filed late Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice could radically alter Google’s business, including possibly spinning off the Chrome web browser and syndicating its search data to competitors. Even if the courts adopt the blueprint, Google isn’t likely to make any significant changes until 2026 at the earliest, because of the legal system’s slow-moving wheels.

 

POLITICS & POLICY

► From People’s World — How the labor movement built a coalition to transform politics in Portland — In a dramatic show of working-class power, Portland’s labor movement has achieved what many deemed unattainable: the election of 11 labor-friendly candidates to the city’s new 12-member council. The road to victory was paved with strategic planning and unprecedented coalition-building among the city’s labor organizations. The Northwest Oregon Labor Council – representing the largest public-sector unions, including Oregon AFSCME, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and LIUNA – endorsed eight candidates who would ultimately win seats on the council. But these endorsements were just the beginning of a well-thought-out strategy.

► From the Washington State Standard — Expecting challenges, blue states vow to create ‘firewall’ of abortion protections — Meanwhile, anti-abortion groups released a “Make America Pro-Life Again Roadmap” last week, outlining their plans to hammer away at abortion access at federal and state levels, including an emphasis on challenging mifepristone access. “We have a siege engine ready for these legal walls that we’ll face at some state legislatures and legislative levels, and also at federal levels,” said Kristan Hawkins, president of the anti-abortion organization Students for Life Action, on a media call last week.

► From the AP — Gaetz withdraws as Trump’s pick for attorney general — Matt Gaetz withdrew Thursday as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general following continued scrutiny over a federal sex trafficking investigation…Gaetz’s withdrawal is a blow to Trump’s push to install steadfast loyalists in his incoming administration and the first sign that Trump could face resistance from members of his own party.

► From the Olympian — WA Sen. Patty Murray warns of ‘chaos’ as Trump picks Dr. Oz to run Medicare, Medicaid — She wrote on X Twitter that Oz has “zero qualifications, pushes alarming pseudoscience, and holds extreme anti-abortion views.” In a statement sent Wednesday to McClatchy, the senator elaborated: “No one should doubt that Dr. Oz and the Trump administration pose a very real threat to Medicare, Medicaid, and health coverage as we know it.

► From the New York Times — Automakers to Trump: Please Require Us to Sell Electric Vehicles — In fact, most automakers don’t love the more stringent rules Mr. Biden put in place. But they have already invested billions in a transition to electric vehicles, and fear that if Mr. Trump made an abrupt change as he has promised, they could be undercut by automakers who sell cheaper, gas-powered cars. They argue it would harm an industry that is a backbone of American manufacturing and employs 1.1 million people.

 

INTERNATIONAL

► From Labor Notes — Will International Solidarity Turn the Tables in Favor of Striking Gaming Workers in Georgia? — Four thousand workers at the online gaming company Evolution in Tbilisi, Georgia, walked off the job in July protesting low wages, dangerous working conditions, and harassment. Four months in, their strike is one of the largest and longest that this Eastern European country has ever seen. In August, some strikers sewed their mouths shut with a needle and thread in a hunger strike that resulted in multiple hospitalizations. Striker Nanuka Abramashvili-Nadiradze said her pitiful earnings went from $1.18 an hour when she was hired two years ago to $1.40 now. Evolution made $1.7 billion in revenue and $1 billion in profits last year.

► From the New York Times — Spain Looks to Grant Residency to Nearly 1 Million Undocumented Migrants — The government said new rules could give legal status — and work permits — to about 300,000 people a year over the next three years to address gaps in the labor market.

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

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