Posts tagged election.
She made history as Chicago mayor. Reelection may be harder
January 24, 2023 // Elected as a reform-minded outsider who would rid the city of pay-to-play politics, Lightfoot was criticized when a campaign staffer sent out an email to public school teachers seeking students to volunteer for the campaign in exchange for class credit. Lightfoot apologized, calling it a mistake. Inspectors general are reviewing for possible policy violations. Some of Lightfoot’s biggest battles have been with the Chicago Teachers Union, which backed her opponent in Lightfoot's first run for mayor. The two sides butted heads during an 11-day teachers strike in 2019 and bickered over returning to in-school instruction during the pandemic. This year, the teachers union has endorsed Lightfoot rival Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner and former Chicago teacher and union organizer.
Philly’s largest municipal union has endorsed Jeff Brown for mayor in a surprise vote
January 18, 2023 // Garrett said the union invited all of the mayoral candidates to speak before the board except former Councilmember and real estate magnate Allan Domb. Garrett said Domb’s record was not in line with his members’ values. Although many of the other candidates, as veteran city officials, have more experience with the union, Brown won the board over during the interview process, Garrett said. Jeff Brown, mayor
The UAW’s Candidates for President Are Making Their Case
January 18, 2023 // Ballots for the UAW’s runoff officer and board elections began to be mailed out on Thursday, to be completed by members and mailed back by February 17 to get in before the February 28 deadline. At stake is exactly how much members want their union, which was mired in a corruption scandal for years, to change.
Dates set for Ultium Cells to vote to join UAW
November 28, 2022 // Dates have been set for workers at Ultium Cells in Lordstown to vote to join the United Auto Workers (UAW) union. This voting comes after months of efforts from Ultium Cells workers to unionize. In August, 85% of Ultium Cells workers signed union authorization cards. 94% of workers have voted to strike should General Motors not recognize them as a union.
California teachers union spends over $2.8 million on school board elections
November 13, 2022 // This year, unions backed multiple ballot propositions on topics such as the “Clean Water, Clean Air, and Green Jobs Environmental Bond” in New York or Colorado’s Proposition FF to raise taxes to fund a school meal program. The trend of union involvement in politics is nothing new. Unions bankrolled over $1.8 billion in political lobbying and political activities in the 2020 election cycle, $1.4 billion of which came from union dues. AFFT offers detailed breakdowns of union spending on our website.
Teachers union spends $1M on Michigan governor’s race
November 2, 2022 // Yet the MEA, along with its parent organization, the National Education Association, is heavily funding Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s reelection campaign, as well as some Michigan school board races. The NEA is spending $1 million in Whitmer’s favor. The MEA is also endorsing nearly 200 candidates in local school board races and giving more than $1,000 each to many candidates across the state. This amount goes a long way in local school board elections. The NEA and MEA are supporting candidates who will back the status quo. The Washington Examiner reported April 7 that the NEA spent $66 million on political activities and another $117 million on political contributions, gifts, and grants for the 2020-21 reporting cycle. MEA’s total spending for 2022 is not yet available.
An election to watch, before November hits
October 26, 2022 // So far, six unions, representing less than 20 percent of the freight rail workforce, have ratified their contracts. Two unions have voted theirs down, sending their leadership back to the negotiating table to try again. At issue for the rail workers is benefits like time-off policies, not pay.
Union members rally for Democrats in Dorchester ahead of midterm elections
September 27, 2022 // On Saturday, hundreds of unionized workers gathered in Dorchester to show their support for gubernatorial candidate Maura Healey and attorney general candidate Andrea Campbell, two Democratic women who, if elected, will make history at the polls. The event was held in the parking lot of IBEW Local 103, where Healey and Campbell addressed the crowd while standing on a flatbed trailer. After the rally, some in the crowd planned to canvas door-to-door and ask voters to cast ballots for Democrats running for statewide office. Republican, Geoff Diehl, Donald J. Trump
Dollar store workers are organizing for a better workplace. Just don’t call it a union.
August 18, 2022 // But among the high profits and skyrocketing stock prices, workers are protesting. Around 100 protesters gathered outside a Dollar General shareholder meeting in Goodlettsville, Tennessee last May. Most of them came with the organization Step Up Louisiana. Jackson has been training as an organizer with the group, specifically to work with dollar store workers. Yet the group is careful to clarify that it’s not a union. It has been organizing workers and supporting unions, but doesn’t see unionizing as the best way to improve dollar stores. “We’re not a union,” Jackson said. “I don’t know if we ever will be but I do know we have momentum right now.” Kenya Slaughter, Cedric de Leon, University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Labor Center Mary Anne Trasciatti, Hofstra University, Mississippi Public Broadcasting, WBHM in Alabama and WWNO and WRKF in Louisiana and NPR
The Atlantic’s Tech And Business Workers Intend To Unionize
July 25, 2022 // The organizing campaign is the latest sign that collective bargaining within media isn’t just for newsrooms in the digital era. The proposed union would include some 130 members in New York and Washington who are employed in revenue-driving jobs like data analysis, software engineering, graphic design for sponsored content, sales, marketing and customer service. The workers intend to join the NewsGuild of New York, the same union that now represents Atlantic writers and editors. Tech workers at The New York Times voted overwhelmingly to join the NewsGuild in March after a public fight with their employer; the Times had opposed the union effort despite the fact that other Times jobs had been union for decades. business workers, Erin Boon, data scientist, Michal Anderson, graphic designer, Range Rover, Netflix, declining ad revenue, fossil fuel companies, Jeffrey Goldberg,