Bakery union follows Nabisco settlement with Kellogg strike. Almost 1,400 workers at four Kellogg Co. plants went on strike two weeks after settling a five-week work stoppage at Nabisco/Mondelez Members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers work at four Kellogg plants in Battle Creek, Mich., and other U.S. cities.
“For more than a year throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Kellogg workers around the country have been working long, hard hours to produce Kellogg ready-to-eat cereals,” said BCTGM International President Anthony Shelton, adding that the company is threatening to send jobs to Mexico if BCTGM members don’t accept management’s proposals.
Organizing matters: 80% of Americans earn at least $15/hour. About 80% of U.S. workers earn at least $15 an hour, according to the Washington Post – up from about 60% in 2014. That said, the national minimum wage remains a paltry $7.25 an hour, so “Fight or $15” organizing still has work to do.
CWA demands safety against unruly airline passengers. Association of Flight Attendants- Communications Workers of America President Sara Nelson told the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Aviation that the huge increase in disruptive passengers in the last year is a major threat to the safety and lives of both passengers and workers.
Unions demand humane treatment for refugees from Haiti. In response to the humanitarian crisis for Haitians and other forced migrants, Steelworkers vice-president and AFL-CIO leader Fred Redmond said, “As a labor movement fighting for democracy, racial justice, the rule of law, and human and trade union rights, our unions will continue to push our governments to do right by the Haitian people and by all working people in the Americas. We will also continue to organize for mutual aid and defense, and take action to help Haitians and other forced migrants access the support and protections they need and deserve.”
Elsewhere, the Texas AFL-CIO blasted Texas’ Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick as taking a “radical step into the gutter on Fox News” by calling their fleeing chaos as an “invasion.”
“Dan Patrick’s remarks are the essence of white supremacy, and we condemn them.”
Teamsters presidential race revolves around UPS, Amazon. Next year’s bargaining with United Parcel Service and plans for nationwide organizing at Amazon have become key topics in the race for the Teamsters presidency, with leading candidates Sean O’Brien of Boston and Steve Vairma of Denver.
Teamsters president Jim Hoffa is retiring after 22 years. He backs Vairma, the international vice president who heads the union’s Warehouse Division. O’Brien is president of Boston Local 25 and an international VP for the union’s Eastern Region.
Organizing Amazon is important because it threatens to ruin UPS, the union’s largest employer, with 250,000 Teamsters there.
The Teamsters is one of the few unions with direct election of top officers and board members by one-member, one-vote. Mailed ballots went out Oct. 4 to all 1.4 million union members.
Women’s professional soccer players join AFL-CIO. The 200-plus members of the National Women’s Soccer League Players Association, the newest AFL-CIO member union, is exposing what they go through as they demand fair pay. League owners pay so little the women have to take second or third jobs to get by.
“This is truly a historic moment for the NWSL Players Association,” said its Executive Director, Meghann Burke. “As we negotiate our first contract, solidarity is our strength. Through this affiliation, we are formally united with workers who have come before us to demand respect and dignity in the workplace.”
Teachers, retirees, Latino groups sue to stop Texas’ voter suppression. The Texas Federation of Teachers, the labor-backed Alliance for Retired Americans, Mi Familia Vota and the League of United Latin American Citizens are suing to stop the state’s new voter suppression law.
Filed minutes after the law’s chief sponsor, Right-wing GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, signed it, the suit seeks injunction to stop it.
“The blatantly partisan and disenfranchising considerations that fueled the suppressive provisions are not legitimate, much less compelling, governmental interests,” the suit says. “The suppressive provisions thus cannot be justified under any standard of scrutiny.”
News briefs courtesy of The Labor Paper