Posts tagged cost of living
Union autoworkers won big after striking. A year later, some face an uncertain future
September 15, 2024 // Now, workers are wondering how committed the trans-Atlantic automaker is to remain in the U.S. at all. For years, Cooper says, old-timers at his plant in Toledo have warned that if wages rose too much, the company would move jobs to Mexico. It's a threat he's always shrugged off, given how profitable the Jeep plant has been for Stellantis.
Union workers at Detroit Marathon refinery go on strike
September 4, 2024 // This strike comes after the teamsters' contract expired on January of this year, with Teamsters authorizing a strike with a 95 percent vote. Teamsters Local 283 includes more than 800 workers, including board operators, field operators, chemists, laboratory technicians, electricians, and mechanics.
Strike On Time: Cornell UAW Workers Strike on Student Move-In Day
August 19, 2024 // As students and their families arrive at Cornell for the start of the academic year, the strike threatens to disrupt essential campus operations, including dining services, facilities maintenance, and other critical functions. The decision to strike follows a strike authorization vote that passed with 94% approval from the union's approximately 1,200 members, including custodians, groundskeepers, cooks, food service workers, greenhouse workers, gardeners, and mechanics. The last time UAW workers at Cornell went on strike was 43 years ago in 1981, when the union and the university ratified their first contract.
Crooked Media Union Stages Walkout After More Than A Year Of Contract Negotiations
August 6, 2024 // The WGAE accuses Crooked Media of excluding several staff members from the bargaining unit “in an effort to undermine the union and deprive those workers of their collective bargaining rights.” Founded in 2017 by former President Barack Obama staffers Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor, Crooked Media produces podcasts including Pod Save America, What a Day, Hall of Shame and Lovett It or Leave It.
Cornell workers threaten to strike amid stalled contract negotiations
August 6, 2024 // Over 1,000 Cornell University workers represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2300 may strike on student move-in day if their contract demands are unmet. The UAW has filed seven unfair labor practice lawsuits against Cornell, accusing it of retaliation and failing to bargain in good faith as the deadline approaches, according to The Ithaca Voice.
Hard labor No, American conservatism shouldn’t move leftward on unions
July 30, 2024 // “The Teamsters recently stated the ‘S’ in ESG is ‘a critically important tool for advancing worker interests in the 21st century,’” he wrote. “Similarly, the AFL-CIO has said ESG investing ‘advance[s] the causes of working people.’” The “end game is to give unions more power,” Vernuccio concluded. “Yet while unions win, workers lose — and so do the investors whose money is being used for political purposes.”
CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION CONTRACT COULD COST AT LEAST $10.2B TO $13.9B
June 6, 2024 // CTU wants massive pay raises, stipends and additional personnel – all of which are within the traditional scope of bargaining. It also wants the city to create new housing, levy new taxes, construct new parking garages, undertake new environmental initiatives, divest pension funds from fossil fuels, fully fund infertility and abortion care for members, subsidize weight-loss surgery and drugs such as Ozempic, add new members to the bargaining unit, offer free CTA passes for all students and employees, among many other things. The new contract also mandates certain positions to be staffed at every school, regardless of enrollment. The new positions include: librarian, librarian assistant, social worker, newcomer liaison, case manager, restorative justice coordinator, reading specialist and interventionist (elementary schools), three elective teachers (middle schools), technology coordinator, “Climate Champion,” and gender support coordinator and/or LGBTW+ lead/specialist and option to expand LGBTQ+ faculty support teams at each school. Because of the minimum staffing requirements laid out in the contract, this would constitute a minimum of 4,650 new hires. Based on the current average compensation for each type of employee, hiring the additional personnel would cost an estimated $1.7 billion.
Op-Ed: Many federal public union employees remain AWOL
May 28, 2024 // "I'll get these people back to work if I have to send in troops to get them." – Joe Biden In response to Biden's plans to end "federal work at home offices" last week, the White House Office of Management issued a time sensitive guidance for agencies to “substantially increase productive in-person work at Federal offices, particularly at headquarters and their equivalents.” Biden's mandate went over like a lead balloon with federal unionized employees who were told that Biden's harsh decree to return to work possibly violated their union contract.
Jeffco Public Schools, teachers union strike deal for 5% cost-of-living raises
May 24, 2024 // The deal was reached two months before the union’s contract expires on July 31 and includes an additional one-time payment for educators that will equal 2% of their salary. Jeffco Public Schools will pay the one-time payment using money from its $211 million in reserves, according to the union’s news release.
Postdocs Unionize at Albert Einstein College of Medicine
May 23, 2024 // The new union, Misra said, “will allow us to advocate strongly for long-overdue improvements to workplace rights, benefits and family-friendly policies, and create a supportive work environment where our contributions are truly valued.”