Posts tagged cost of living
Vox Media Union Pledges to Strike Without New Deal Addressing AI, Rising Costs
June 4, 2025 // Vox employees are threatening to strike unless they are given a new media contract that includes better pay and protections against artificial intelligence taking their jobs. The strike threat was made on Tuesday by the Writers Guild of America East, which said 95% of its bargaining members approved of the plan. Vox is the parent company of outlets like New York magazine, The Verge and Vulture.
Okonite union workers continue strike after health coverage cut following contract rejection
May 28, 2025 // Okonite’s website says 186 people are employed at the Santa Maria facility. According to Reynolds, about 160 of those are union members and they’re the ones currently feeling the fallout from the rejected contract, the sudden insurance loss, and the termination notices.
Dozens of UC Workers, Labor Leaders Arrested While Protesting Understaffing, Unfair Wages
May 20, 2025 // Lorena Gonzalez, the president of the California Labor Federation, and Teresa Romero, the national president of United Farm Workers, joined about 20 union-backed UC workers who were zip-tied and removed from the William J. Rutter Center at UC San Francisco’s Mission Bay campus just after 9:30 a.m.
Workers at Pratt & Whitney, Electric Boat consider strikes
May 5, 2025 // The company has acknowledged it has been “actively preparing a business continuity plan in the event of a work stoppage,” adding it will “not waver from our commitment to continue building submarines, the nation’s top national security priority.”
CT Electric Boat workers OK strike option, as UAW President Fain tells company ‘clock is ticking’
April 17, 2025 // Among Local 571’s demands are record wage increases, pensions for all members, a cost-of-living adjustment, profit sharing and better health care benefits. In the meantime, Local 571 members are working under the terms of their expired agreement. Electric Boat officials were not immediately available for comment on Monday night. Company officials said in a statement last week that they had “presented our best and final offer” to the union in the previous week. They added that their offer “provides historic wage growth, a continuation of our premium benefits package and retirement enhancement for all employees.”
Higher minimum wage levels help many workers, but there are tradeoffs
April 7, 2025 // At the same time, a lot of supporters of the increase at the time were hoping this would be really a dramatic, life-changing thing for a lot of workers that would really help reduce income inequality in Seattle. And we see that income inequality is still a big issue. Wages went up, but so did the cost of living. And it's still pretty hard to make ends meet out here for people, even with that increased paycheck.
U of Washington Research Coordinators, Consultants Unionize
April 4, 2025 // “They are responsible for running clinical trials, liaising with patients and scientists, and ensuring that research results are grounded in rigorous science,” the release said. “Despite the critical role they play at the university, many report job insecurity, a lack of transparency around career advancement and workload, low compensation relative to cost of living, and more as their reasons for forming a union.”
Inside The Now-Shuttered Federal Agency Where Employees Lived ‘Like Reigning Kings’
March 20, 2025 // The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) occupied a nine-story office tower on D.C.’s K Street for only 60 employees, many of whom actually worked from home, prior to the pandemic. Its managers had luxury suites with full bathrooms; one manager would often be “in the shower” when she was needed, while another used her bathroom as a cigarette lounge. FMCS recorded its director as being on a years-long business trip to D.C. so he could have all of his meals and living expenses covered by taxpayers, simply for showing up to the office. FMCS is a 230-employee agency that exists to serve as a voluntary mediator between unions and businesses. As an “independent agency,” its director nominally reports to the president, but the agency is so small that in effect, there is no oversight at all
Unionized Grocery Workers Are a Sleeping Giant
February 5, 2025 // A coalition of UFCW Locals 7, 324, 770, and 3000 helped defeat the largest proposed grocery merger in US history between Kroger and Albertsons. Now these locals are collaborating on contract negotiations and sending support to the King Soopers strike in Colorado
An embattled Adams gathers his union allies at Gracie Mansion
January 31, 2025 // Mayor Eric Adams, who has been laying low with a reported medical condition this week, hosted two union presidents at Gracie Mansion on Monday night as he contemplates his political future. The meetings — confirmed by two people with direct knowledge of them, who were granted anonymity to freely discuss a private event — come as Adams grapples with an upcoming corruption trial, sagging poll numbers and dire financial problems.