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NEWS ROUNDUP

Immigrant solidarity | Physicians prepare to strike | Medical debt

Tuesday, January 7, 2025

 

STRIKES

► From Yahoo News — Skiers Chant “Pay Your Employees” as Patrol Strike Continues — The Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association’s (PCPSPA) unfair labor practice strike is entering its tenth day, and the public outcry has reached a fever pitch. Vacationers and Park City locals have shared countless videos of long lift lines that have allegedly formed due to the limited open terrain. One video in particular, however, is making waves amongst the skiing community.

► From the Pittsburgh Union Progress — Supporters step up to fill our bellies — and those of our pets — People sometimes ask us, “How do you survive a strike that’s now gone on for more than two years?” Our answer: “With lots of help.” This has certainly been the case the past month. We’ve already written about the New York Times Tech Guild’s donation to our strike fund. Other efforts are more local. In early December, we received a phone call from a former newspaper writer and editor named Cris Hoel.“Do you need any food?” he asked. “Certainly,” we responded. So Hoel brought us a carload of groceries, just in time for our holiday meals. Our furry friends ate well, too, thanks to the volunteers who maintain a pet food pantry for Pittsburgh LGBTQ Charities. They figured strikers have pets, so they organized a food drive for our cats and dogs.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From Oregon Business — In Rare Move, Some Providence Physicians Prepare to Strike Alongside Nurses — “Providence released a press release to OPB, who wrote an article saying Providence now wants to bargain with the physicians only. They say they’re not struggling to replace the nurses but are not able to replace the hospitalist providers and doctors. So now they want to invite us back to the bargaining table. But they didn’t communicate this directly with our union. And they failed to communicate that we never left the bargaining table. On Dec. 23 and Dec. 27, they received proposals from both the Providence Women’s Clinic and the hospitalists union. So they have them and we are waiting for their responses. We haven’t left the table. We know that they likely did this … to split off the doctors from the nurses. And we stand in solidarity together.”

► From Yahoo News — US port labor talks resume with spotlight on automation — Contract talks covering 45,000 dockworkers on the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts are set to restart on Tuesday in a labor dispute that will help set the pace of automation at ports stretching from Maine to Texas. The International Longshoremen’s Association wants to eliminate past labor contract concessions on automation – notably the use of semi-automated cranes that stack containers on docks – arguing they pose a threat to jobs.

 

ORGANIZING

► From the Washington Post — Journalists for the Athletic push to join the New York Times union — The editorial staff of the Athletic, the sports-media outlet owned by the New York Times, signed cards signaling its intention to unionize. Staffers sent a letter to Times management Monday asking the company to recognize them as part of the Times Guild, the same union that represents the Times newsroom. It’s unclear whether the Times, which shuttered its own sports desk after buying the Athletic, will fight the journalists’ effort to join the bargaining unit.

► From the OPB — Nurses at 3 Legacy Health hospitals in Portland push to unionize — The union says more than 70% of the nurses from Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center, Legacy Emanuel Medical Center and Randall Children’s Hospital have signed union authorization cards, triggering the right to hold a union election per federal law. Nurses are seeking voluntary recognition of the union by Legacy management. “We respect our nurses’ rights to determine union representation through an election to be held by the National Labor Relations Board,” a Legacy spokesperson wrote in a brief statement emailed Monday.

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 the Washington State Standard — Health Insurers Limit Coverage of Prosthetic Limbs, Questioning Their Medical Necessity — The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has proposed a rule that would prohibit lenders from repossessing medical devices such as wheelchairs and prosthetic limbs if people can’t repay their loans. “It is a replacement limb,” said White, whose organization has heard of several cases in which lenders have repossessed wheelchairs or prostheses. Repossession is “literally a punishment to the individual.”

► From the AP — Louisiana person is the first US bird flu death — Health officials have said the person was older than 65, had underlying medical problems and had been in contact with sick and dead birds in a backyard flock. They also said a genetic analysis had suggested the bird flu virus had mutated inside the patient, which could have led to the more severe illness. Since March, 66 confirmed bird flu infections have been reported in the U.S., but previous illnesses have been mild and most have been detected among farmworkers exposed to sick poultry or dairy cows.

► From Reuters — US opens probe into 2.6 million Tesla vehicles over remote driving feature — The new investigation comes after the U.S. auto safety agency in October opened an investigation into 2.4 million Tesla vehicles equipped with Full Self-Driving (FSD) software after four reported collisions, including a fatal 2023 crash. The vehicles failed to detect posts, or parked vehicles, when they were operating on Actually Smart Summon, NHTSA said, adding it had reports where users “had too little reaction time to avoid a crash, either with the available line of sight or releasing the phone app button, which stops the vehicle’s movement.”

 

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Wenatchee World — WA bolsters protections as NCW immigrant communities brace for potential mass deportations under Trump administration — The Keep Washington Working Act is a statewide policy enacted in 2019 to prevent local police from assisting federal authorities with civil immigration enforcement. The law banned police from detaining people based on immigration warrants and barred police officers from asking people about immigration status in noncriminal cases. The Act also shut down information sharing between state, local, and federal agencies regarding one’s legal status. All individuals, regardless of immigration status, have constitutional protections if confronted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

► From the AP — Biden administration bans unpaid medical bills from appearing on credit reports — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule will remove $49 billion in medical debt from the credit reports of more than 15 million Americans, according to the bureau, which means lenders will no longer be able to take that into consideration when deciding to issue a loan. The change is estimated to raise the credit scores by an average of 20 points and could lead to 22,000 additional mortgages being approved every year, according to the bureau.

► From the People’s World — Retirees flex muscle to win Social Security Fairness Act — Although many groups have advocated for the Social Security Fairness Act, kudos for the main victory goes to organized labor, and particularly to its retiree organization, the Alliance for Retired Americans. ARA, based in the AFL-CIO’s Washington, D.C., headquarters, has active chapters and supporters all over the nation who planned, lobbied, and carried out actions for the bill.

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