Posts tagged United Steelworkers
Julie Su: ‘Unions were built for big fights’
February 23, 2025 // In four years at the U.S. Department of Labor under President Biden, including two as acting secretary of labor, Julie Su ’94 helped to implement the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, extend overtime pay for salaried workers, and facilitate agreements between employers and unions for autoworkers, longshoremen, school bus manufacturers, and airplane machinists. In those contract negotiations, Su, a labor rights activist, often heard from employers that the wage increases demanded by workers were too high because they were “above the market wage.” She pushed back on that premise, she explained in remarks at the Feb. 14 graduation of the Harvard Trade Union Program (HTUP).
Labor unions call on Trump to boost US shipbuilding against increasing Chinese dominance
February 20, 2025 // Last year under President Joe Biden, the unions filed a petition seeking to address China’s shipbuilding under Section 301 of the 1974 U.S. Trade Act, hoping to start a process by which tariffs and other measures could be enacted. The letter notes China manufactured more than 1,000 ocean-going vessels in 2023, while the United States made fewer than 10 ships. It adds that the Chinese shipbuilding industry received more than $100 billion in government support from 2010 to 2018, such that Chinese shipyards accounted for the majority of worldwide orders last year.
Sanders and Hawley’s Interest Rate Cap Would Ban Their Union Allies’ Credit Cards
February 10, 2025 // They should have checked with their union boss pals before taking such a position. Many major labor unions have deals with banks to offer branded credit cards as a member benefit. Some of them can charge interest rates in excess of the 25 percent rate Sanders finds extortionate, and nearly all of them charge higher than 10 percent. One of the most common credit card partnerships for unions is with Capital One, which offers a Union Plus Mastercard. It is marketed as “Built for Union Members. Backed by Union Members,” and accounts are limited to active or retired union members or their families.
US Steel Launches ‘Longshot’ Attack on Union in Merger Fallout
January 16, 2025 // While a union’s support or opposition doesn’t guarantee an outcome, it can be used to extract concessions or secure agreements from merging employers, Posner said.
US Steel Boss: Biden’s Block of Sale Shameful, Corrupt
January 5, 2025 // Pres. Trump Sees China as #1 Threat, See More Here Home | Newsfront Tags: bien | steel | sale | corruption US Steel Boss: Biden's Block of Sale Shameful, Corrupt By Michael Katz | Friday, 03 January 2025 07:51 PM EST facebook sharing buttontwitter sharing buttonlinkedin sharing button Comment|Print| A A David Burritt, the president and CEO of U.S. Steel, said Friday that President Joe Biden’s decision to block the company’s sale to a Japanese rival was “shameful” and “corrupt.” Biden’s long-awaited decision on the deal came in a presidential order posted Friday on the White House website, declaring Nippon Steel’s $14.9 billion bid for the U.S. steelmaker “prohibited.” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Biden was acting on a recommendation by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States that the acquisition “would place one of America’s largest steel producers under foreign control and create a risk for our national security and our critical supply chains.” “President Biden’s action today is shameful and corrupt,” Burritt said in a news release. “He gave a political payback to a union boss out of touch with his members while harming our company’s future, our workers, and our national security.”
Steelworkers Union Applauds as Biden Blocks Sale of US Steel to Japanese Giant
January 4, 2025 // The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a federal committee that has the power to review certain transactions involving foreign investment in the United States to evaluate a deal's impact on national security, decided to forgo making a formal recommendation about whether the deal should be allowed to proceed last week. The proposal also became ensnared in election year politics, with both presidential candidates saying that U.S. Steel should remain a domestically-owned firm. Rust Belt lawmakers in both parties, including Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio)—both of whom lost re-election in November—and Vice President-elect JD Vance, an Ohio Republican, expressed opposition to the deal.
SEIU’s longest strike with Essentia Health workers in Deer River
January 3, 2025 // 70 Essentia Health workers in Deer River have been on strike for the past three weeks. The Service Employees International Union is representing the healthcare workers at the bargaining table. Currently this is SEIU’s longest strike that they’ve been involved with as they negotiate for a market wage increase.
Hundreds of U.S. Steel workers rally in Clairton in support of Nippon deal
December 14, 2024 // Some speakers took aim at United Steelworkers union leaders, who have maintained opposition to the deal. USW president Dave McCall has continued to say that there aren’t enough guarantees in writing for the company’s union workers. Kurt Barshick, the vice president of U.S. Steel’s Mon Valley Works, said that the hundreds of workers who showed up for the rally were the true voices of the company’s union workers, and that they favored the deal. He suggested that union leadership was overly focused on a separate, less generous acquisition offer made by Cleveland Cliffs Steel.
Five years after failed vote, Pitt grad students unionize
November 30, 2024 // From 2021 to 2023, nearly 64,000 U.S. grad student workers joined unions. By comparison, only 20,394 students unionized from 2013 through 2020. Today, four in 10 grad student employees belong to labor groups. This trend was, experts say, driven in part by the pandemic and by the administration change from Donald Trump to Joe Biden in 2021, which ushered in a National Labor Relations Board more amenable to organizers.
On a roll: Clinic nurses and others vote to join USW
November 5, 2024 // Nearly 80 Squirrel Hill Health Center workers voted Thursday to join the United Steelworkers union, the latest victory for the Pittsburgh-based labor organization that has been expanding membership in recent years to university faculty, librarians and professional football players. The newly unionized workers serve as nurse practitioners, physician assistants, registered nurses, medical and dental assistants, therapists, front desk staff and others who work at the center’s four Pittsburgh area clinics.