Posts tagged screenwriters
Why Biden’s Pro-worker Stance Isn’t Working
March 19, 2024 //
The Year of the Union…Corruption?
February 1, 2024 // According to an annual report by the Office of Labor Management Standards (OLMS), over 155 criminal investigations into union-related activity were completed over the past year. As a result, the OLMS distributed 39 indictments and collected 57 convictions for numerous offenses ranging from petty theft to labor racketeering. While these findings are certainly disturbing, they likely only represent a drop in the bucket of national union corruption. This is because, according to the Department of Labor, it is simply “not feasible” to audit every union. Instead, forced to optimize limited resources against widespread corruption, the OLMS has developed an auditing methodology for unions whose “metrics suggest the possibility that there may have been criminal activity.” In 2023, the OLMS conducted 222 of these targeted audits, ultimately finding that 18.3% of these cases warranted criminal action. With nearly 1/5 of audits uncovering some form of wrongdoing, even in the limited sampling size permitted by OLMS resources, it is fair to say that corruption is entrenched within the American labor movement.
COMMENTARY: Good news: 2023 won’t mark a union revival
January 3, 2024 // The decline of union membership has been remarkably steady over the last four decades. Since 2000, the year-to-year change in the unionization rate has been positive only six times, and those small gains have quickly been reversed. Moreover, the latest data show that unionization is increasingly concentrated in the government sector, especially local services such as K-12 education and public safety. Only 6% of private sector workers are union members.
More than 330K striking Americans help unions flex power
October 19, 2023 // More than 330,000 American workers — from Hollywood actors to medical technicians — have participated in strikes since the start of September, according to Cornell University's labor tracker. Why it matters: Labor unions enjoying their highest approval ratings in generations are deploying hardball tactics in far-reaching sectors of the economy.
Opinion: A rebirth of the union movement in the US
September 28, 2023 // Biden’s action is consistent not only with his career, but with the current environment of discontent. Winning back Democratic enclaves in the industrial belt, which Donald Trump won by surprise in 2016, was essential for the current president’s victory in the 2020 elections. And it will be so again in 2024. The capacity for union organization and mobilization explains a good part of the progressive shift by large cities and industrial centers towards the Democratic Party. These are places without whose support one cannot reach the White House. The UAW has not yet endorsed Biden for 2024.
Here’s why the US labor movement is so popular but union membership is dwindling.
September 6, 2023 // Labor laws in the US make it more difficult for employees to form unions: Around 27 states have passed "Right to Work" laws, making it more difficult for workers to unionize. These laws provide union representation to nonunion members in union workplaces– without requiring the payment of union dues. It also gives workers the option to join a union or opt out. Workplace sectors that were traditionally union strongholds, now make up less of the workforce, such as manufacturing, transportation, and construction.
From Strikes to New Union Contracts, Labor Day’s Organizing Roots Are Especially Strong Across the Country This Year
September 5, 2023 // The first U.S. Labor Day celebration took place in New York City on Sept. 5, 1882. Some 10,000 workers marched in a parade organized by the Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor. A handful of cities and states began to adopt laws recognizing Labor Day in the years that followed, yet it took more than a decade before President Grover Cleveland signed a congressional act in 1894 establishing the first Monday of September as a legal holiday.
Actors and writers on strike rally in Philadelphia and Chicago as union action spreads
July 24, 2023 // While Los Angeles and New York are the epicenters of strike actions, there are dozens of mid-sized and small locals across the country representing performers and writers. “We have the same issues,” said Nikki Izanec, president of the Philadelphia SAG-AFTRA local, on her way to Thursday’s rally. “Lots of people pay attention to L.A. and New York, but our issues are the same as theirs.”
Hollywood actors’ union SAG-AFTRA votes to strike. ‘We are the victims here.’
July 14, 2023 // The studios said the union walked away from an offer that included “historic” increases in pay and residuals, as well as a “groundbreaking” proposal for AI protections. The group said its offer included a requirement for a performer’s consent for the creation and use of digital replicas or for digital alterations of a performance.