Posts tagged work stoppage
Republican legislative staff move first to unionize under new WA law
May 3, 2024 // Legislative assistants for GOP members of the state House and Senate want the recently formed Legislative Professionals Association to represent them. Petitions on behalf of workers in each chamber were filed with the Public Employment Relations Commission, which will certify the bargaining unit and conduct an election. Legislative assistants want to ensure their concerns are heard in a workplace where they are in the minority, Lund said. The workers don’t want to risk living with a contract they disagree with and have no say in negotiating. Nor do they want to be pulled into a union and see their dues funneled outside the state to a national group.
Sesame Workshop Writers Authorize Potential Strike
April 18, 2024 // In the negotiations for a new contract, which began on Feb. 13, the union is seeking to institute “industry standard” annual raises and fixed residuals for re-use on streaming platforms, as well as a performance-based bonus when their work does well on streaming platforms. They are also looking to expand their contract to cover writing for animation and social media work, which would add members to the existing bargaining unit. They are further working on regulating the use of AI within the contract and establishing a paid parental leave fund. “No one wants to see a picket line on Sesame Street,” WGA East president Lisa Takeuchi Cullen said in a statement. “Millions of parents and families around the world are going to have a lot of questions. They might ask why the bosses at Sesame Workshop are ignoring their company’s own messages of kindness and fairness.”
ALABAMA: Brightspeed union workers picket for better benefits
April 16, 2024 // Sain says if there is a strike or work stoppage it could be detrimental for customers — he says there are not many contractors out there who could step in and do the job. “When you take that much experience out of the office and put them in the street striking it’s going to be hard to fix troubles,” Sain said.
Gannett journalists in the solar eclipse’s path go on strike
April 9, 2024 // Both Austin and Rochester are in the path of totality, and journalists at the two newsrooms say their outlets have devoted considerable resources to covering the eclipse. Democrat and Chronicle education reporter Justin Murphy said his newsroom has already published dozens of stories about the eclipse and has a “major” print issue planned for the event. “We see the eclipse as the exact sort of news event that demands experienced local reporters who know where to be, who know who to speak with, who know what to ask,” Murphy said. “We’ve put a huge amount of thought into where … all the different reporters are going to be set up to capture not only the eclipse itself, but all the different geographies and demographics of our community — the different experiences that people are going to be having.” But after the Newspaper Guild of Rochester failed to reach an agreement on a contract with Gannett Friday night, workers decided to launch an open-ended strike.
Parents suing Chicago Teachers Union over COVID-19 strike
March 30, 2024 // Teacher strikes are illegal in eight of the 10 largest school districts in the nation, with Chicago being one of the two districts where strikes are allowed. Los Angeles Unified School District is the other, according to the Illinois Policy Institute. A spokesman from the Hughes and Suhr LLC law firm said in Chicago Public Schools, 76% of all students are classified as low-income. They said teachers earn nearly twice the average income of the families they serve and the timing and length of the strike was particularly egregious. Kugler said, in his opinion, CTU deserves punitive consequences. Before he left his position, Kugler was employed by the CTU for over 10 years, where he was part of the union while strike preparation was happening. He said there’s a process to strike.
Ramping up pressure: Molson Coors strikers slow traffic at Fort Worth facility
March 15, 2024 // The union behind workers striking at Fort Worth’s Molson-Coors brewery said they started stalling vehicles from entering the campus this week, resulting in traffic delays on South Freeway. Rick Miedema, secretary and treasurer for Teamsters Local 997, said they hope it increases the pressure on the company to meet their demands. “Molson Coors refuses to go to the table with us... All that’s hurting here now is the public because every day we’re shutting this freeway down with the amount of traffic out here,” Miedema said.
DTNA union okays work stoppage as labor negotiations continue
March 13, 2024 // More than 7,000 United Auto Workers (UAW) union workers at Daimler Truck North America (DTNA) manufacturing sites in three states have voted to authorize a strike if necessary if-or-when their current labor deal expires April 26.
Union president says Massachusetts commuter rail workers will strike if needed
March 2, 2024 // The Railway Labor Act, Flaherty responded, makes it harder for rail workers to strike, but it doesn’t prohibit a work stoppage if the situation is bad enough. “Keep in mind, we do not want to strike. But when we’re legally able to, we will,” he warned. A Keolis spokesperson pushed back on Flaherty’s assertions, pointing to pay raises that came out negotiations in six of the last seven years. She also said that its not fair to say the union is without a contract, as those agreements exist perpetually under the law, but instead is more accurate to say a consensus hasn’t been reached on a future wage increase.
United Auto Workers Divided Over Biden Endorsement
February 20, 2024 // On Wednesday, January 24, 2024, Fain announced Biden’s endorsement at the UAW National Community Action Conference in Washington DC, only to be interrupted by shouts of “ceasefire now,” from UAW members in protest. Leading up to the endorsement, hundreds of rank-and-file UAW members had signed a petition, pressing union leadership to only endorse candidates that are publicly and vocally supportive of a ceasefire. In December of 2023, the UAW International Union endorsed a ceasefire in Gaza. Soon after, Fain himself joined a group of lawmakers outside of the state Capitol to demand a ceasefire. Now, members say Fain’s actions feel dissonant and disconnected from members’ principles.
The number of striking U.S. workers more than doubled in 2023
February 15, 2024 // While the overall number of strikes only ticked up a bit in 2023, many more workers were involved in stoppages.