Posts tagged Seth Harris

    The small pro-labor news site that has the Biden White House’s ear

    October 3, 2023 // Ahead of the announcement that Biden would join the striking workers. More Perfect Union’s executive director, Faiz Shakir, helped connect the White House and United Auto Workers leaders, smoothing the way for Biden to address a crowd of striking workers. “We had a number of conversations with the White House,” Shakir, a former campaign manager for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said of the planning for the Biden trip. “We’re also on the ground covering UAW and building relationships there. So that’s where we gave a little bit of help on the sidelines.” With a tone that is often serious but always conversational, More Perfect Union highlights the struggles of workers from disparate sectors; one post on social media might be about striking railway workers, while the next might be about exploitation women face in the modeling industry. It also dabbles in memes, jokes and commentary familiar to anyone who spends time online.

    The ‘pro-union’ president risks the support of a key constituency to avert a rail strike

    December 5, 2022 // Biden faces a backlash from a core of rail workers and allied groups, as some of them see his push for a measure to avoid a strike as a betrayal. He signed the measure, which passed with bipartisan support, at the White House on Friday, giving rail workers a significant raise, but denying them the paid sick leave that had been a sticking point in some of the contract talks. Hours later, he arrived at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston and was met by scores of protesters objecting to his handling of a labor dispute that threatened to halt rail service at the peak of the holiday season.

    Railroad workers aren’t the only Americans without paid sick days

    December 2, 2022 // While the vast majority of union members have paid sick days, the freight railroad workers do not. Among other demands, they have been threatening to strike in order to get paid sick days that are not in the current contracts. The railroads say that workers can use personal time if they need a sick day. But the unions argue that with current staffing levels and scheduling rules, it’s difficult for workers to have personal days approved, and they are likely to be penalized or even fired if they call in sick anyway.