400 religious leaders urge passage of PRO Act. Saying that protecting and expanding workers’ right to organize is a moral imperative, and a boost to workers who most need it, more than 400 religious leaders signed an open letter to senators, urging them to pass the Protect the Right To Organize (PRO) Act.
For 40 years “the middle class has been squeezed and families have been thrown into poverty,” said Methodist minister C.J. Hawking, director of the Chicago-based Interfaith Network for Worker Solidarity.
“Just like the New Deal was a mighty economic reset [during the 1930s Depression], the PRO Act will protect workers who want to lift themselves out of poverty,” she said.
Poor People’s Campaign’s “Third Reconstruction” to last a year. Workers’ rights are at the forefront of a movement to serve the nation’s 140 million poor and near-poor people – and the drive is now planned to last until next June.
The organization wants Congress to finally face up to, and act to reverse, the plight of the poor and near-poor, said the Rev. William Barber, PPC co-chair.
“We don’t have a scarcity of ideas. We have a scarcity of social conscience,” Barber said.
Teamsters vote to help Amazon workers unionize. The Teamsters, one of the country’s largest and most powerful unions, voted 1,562 to 9 (not a typo) to embark on a campaign to help workers unionize at Amazon.
“The Teamsters will build the types of worker and community power necessary to take on one of the most powerful corporations in the world and win,” said Randy Korgan, the Teamster’s National Amazon Director.
The Teamsters created its “Amazon Division,” an ambitious effort to organize the fiercely anti-union retail giant.
With 1.4 million members in the United States and Canada, the Teamsters plan an approach outside the traditional National Labor Relations Board process. Instead, the union will use a campaign of work stoppages, petitions, and other collective action to push Amazon to recognize a union and bargain. That’s how the Teamsters first organized horse drivers, haulers, and wagon drivers without labor rights in the early 20th century, using job-site strikes, city-wide strikes, and other mass actions.
Teachers protest bans on history, impact of racism. Thousands of educators and supporters last month gathered in more than 20 U.S. cities to stress that they will resist efforts in Republican-led states trying to restrict what teachers can say about racism in America.
Since police killed George Floyd last year, sparking national protests, Right-wingers have attacked the decades-old Critical Race Theory of studying how past racism affected the country. Although CRT is taught in some grad and law schools, lawmakers want to censor K-12 teachers – or make a 2022 campaign issue out of education.
Teachers say it’s impossible not to discuss race in any honest discussion about U.S. history.
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, said the restrictions on teaching racism are dangerous.
“No matter our color, background or Zip code, we want our kids to have an education that imparts honesty about who we are, integrity in how we treat others, and courage to do what’s right,” she said. “But some lawmakers want to play politics with the truth
Union lawyer named to labor board. President Biden has nominated a top union lawyer to serve on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB): David Prouty, general counsel for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Labor 32BJ. He previously worked as general counsel for the MLB Players Association and before that for the union UNITE HERE.
He was chosen to replace William Emanuel, a Trump nominee whose five-year term is expiring this month.
In May, Biden nominated labor lawyer Gwynne Wilco to fill another vacant seat on the board. Both nominees must be confirmed by the Senate; if they are, Democrats would have control of the five-member NLRB.
New OSHA standards on COVID welcomed. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration Agency (OSHA) has issued mandatory guidelines to protect nurses and health-care workers from COVID-19, an important step for safer health-care settings.
“After more than a year of the Trump administration’s refusal to require employers to provide enhanced infection control protections in health-care settings in the face of the worst pandemic in a century, this is a monumental message that they will be held to account,” said NNU President Zenei Triunfo-Cortez, RN.
The new rules cover health-care workers, but unions are urging the Biden administration to provide emergency standards for other workers.
Ex-UAW prez sentenced to prison. Former United Auto Workers International president Gary Jones was sentenced to 28 months in prison and to repay $550,000 to the union and $42,000 to the Internal Revenue Service for his crimes.
Federal prosecutors said Jones, 64, planned to steal more than $1 million in union dues and had already made extravagant purchases.
Before his sentencing, Jones apologized, saying, “I failed the UAW that elected me as president. All I can say is I’m sorry I let them down.”
Sterling nurses win long fight to unionize. Nurses and other hospital employees at CGH Medical Center in Sterling, Ill., have won their union, overcoming management’s two-year campaign of intimidation. The union was certified by the Illinois Labor Relations Board last month.
The nearly 850 new members of AFSCME Council 31 are the largest newly unionized group of workers in Illinois this year. The unit includes registered nurses, certified nurse assistants, medical assistants and others.
“We’re thrilled to finally have our union certified,” said RN Jodi Thompson. “As front-line health-care employees, it’s more important now than ever to have a real voice to advocate for our communities, our patients and our coworkers.”
News briefs courtesy of The Labor Paper