Several unions are criticizing a Biden administration decision not to pursue accusations of labor abuses by a Mexican subsidiary of Caterpillar. Last month, the administration told a group of unions that it wouldn’t pursue a complaint that the subsidiary had retaliated against striking union members.
Cat workers in Mexico “face harassment and blacklisting for daring to stand up, with no help from the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement,” said Shawn Fain, president of the UAW, one of the groups that complained.
The labor advocates say that by declining to use its authority under the trade pact, the Biden administration risks encouraging companies to relocate work.
According to financial filings, the number of Caterpillar workers in Latin America increased to just over 20,000 last year, from about 11,000 in 2016.
WIU lays off about 1/4 of unionized faculty. Weeks before fall semester starts at Western Illinois University, its Board of Trustees authorized their administration to lay off 89 faculty and staff to cope with a budget shortfall. Those positions are on top of 35 others laid off in June.
Merrill Cole, president of WIU’s Chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois (UPI) Local 4100, an affiliate of the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT) representing more than 500 faculty, said WIU is dealing with a fiscal problem that developed over years but “all of sudden we have to solve everything in six months. That’s fiscal insanity. None of this is good for our students, for our faculty (or) the communities we serve. We are a major economic engine in west central Illinois, and to damage us means to damage everyone.”
AFL-CIO president slams GOP anti-worker ticket. Speaking at last month’s Illinois AFL-CIO Convention in Rosemont, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler criticized Donald Trump and JD Vance as a “real estate billionaire” and “a venture capitalist,” in contrast to Democratic achievements for workers.
Shuler also praised Illinois as a national model for workers’ rights, notably for voters making the right to organize and bargain part of the state constitution.
U of I nurses vote to authorize strike. Nurses at the University of Illinois Hospital & Clinics in Chicago last month voted to authorize a strike, with about 98% of 1,377 nurses who voted supporting letting their bargaining team call a work stoppage, according to the union, the Illinois Nurses Association. A strike date has not yet been set.
Besides seeking pay comparable to other area hospitals, they also want more security, said Eileen Fajardo-Furlin, a neurosurgical ICU nurse at University of Illinois Hospital. “There’s no reason for a nurse to be afraid to come to work,” she said.
Deere layoffs ‘kill good American jobs’: UAW. The United Auto Workers has blasted John Deere after a round of layoffs totaling more than 2,000 in the last 12 months, saying that’s insulting to the working class in Illinois and Iowa. The union said Deere is killing “good American jobs” in order to outsource them to Mexico for cheaper labor. Fears about that have grown since August 2022, when the corporation announced that Iowa jobs were heading to Mexico.
Elsewhere: Unionized Amazon delivery drivers — members of the Teamsters (Skokie’s Local 705) drove more than 700 miles from Skokie, Ill. to Doraville, Ga., to expand their Unfair Labor Practice picket line at the Amazon warehouse in Georgia. More than 100 Amazon drivers from Skokie have been on strike since late June. … After the NLRB alleged Portillo’s threatened employees with loss of benefits if they unionized and termination because of union involvement — plus illegally spying on them — the Oak Brook Portillo’s claims the NLRB is unconstitutional. … Gov. JB Pritzker signed the Child Labor Law of 2024.
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