Sherman A1
Sherman A1's JournalMore than 400 union workers at Washington Post demand raise
More than 400 unionized employees of the Washington Post have signed a public letter asking its multibillionaire owner for a raise.
Jeff Bezos, who is at the top of Forbes magazine’s latest list of richest Americans at $112 billion. is accused in the letter of not offering “fair wages; fair benefits for retirement, family leave and health care; and a fair amount of job security,’’ Britain’s Daily Mail reported.
The Washington Post Guild said contract negotiations have been going on for more than a year.
It added “the Post has doubled the number of digital subscriptions and increased its online traffic by more than half,’’ along with meeting or exceeding its advertising goals.
https://nypost.com/2018/06/16/more-than-400-union-workers-at-washington-post-demand-raise/
C-Span Facebook Poll on the zero tolerance policy
Is running 72% opposed with 450 votes at this time.
If you are on Facebook, might want to join in with your opinion.
Lawsuit alleges blacklisting of Mexican farmworkers who joined 2017 orchard strike
Seventeen Mexican guest workers who went on a six-day strike at a Central Washington apple orchard have been blacklisted, alleges a lawsuit that says their exclusion from work this year violates an agreement that settled the labor dispute.
Columbia Legal Services filed the lawsuit Thursday in state Superior Court in Yakima on behalf of Familias Unidas Por La Justica, a Northwest farmworker’s union that assisted the Mexico workers in negotiating their settlement.
The strike at orchards near Quincy, Grant County, followed a series of complaints ranging from a scarcity of toilet paper to verbal abuse from a supervisor. It represented a rare flexing of bargaining muscle by an increasingly important part of the Washington farm-labor force: Foreign guest workers who come to the U.S. under temporary H-2A visas and generally have been reluctant to protest for fear of being sent back home.
The defendants named in the lawsuit include Larson Orchards and the Washington Farm Labor Association (WAFLA), a Washington organization that assists growers in bringing H-2A farmworkers to the Pacific Northwest.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/northwest/lawsuit-alleges-blacklisting-of-mexican-farmworkers-who-joined-2017-orchard-strike/
Drivers' union: Broke NYC yellow cabbie killed himself
A New York City taxi driver who spent 30 years behind the wheel hanged himself after running out of money to lease a vehicle.
The New York Taxi Workers Alliance said Abdul Saleh, 59, was found dead on Friday in his rented Brooklyn room.
The alliance, a union that represents the city's taxi drivers as well as black car and app-hailed professionals, said the Yemeni immigrant is the sixth driver to kill himself in the past six months amid financial struggles while often working 12-hour shifts — at night, in his case. Saleh was short by $300.
Drivers lease the yellow cabs that are now competing with growing numbers of car services such as Uber and Lyft.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/business/article213300979.html
Nashville Painters Aim To Build Immigrant Base
How can building trades unions organize workers in an area where they don’t have much of a foothold? You’ve got to become a fixture in the community, and be in it for the long haul.
That’s the commitment the Painters are making in Nashville, Tennessee, where they just launched the Alianza Laboral (Spanish for “labor alliance”) Worker Resource Center.
Local 456 is small. Most of its 100 members work for contractors with the Tennessee Valley Authority, the federal agency that provides electricity and manages water resources throughout the region, or in auto plants or other industrial jobs. The local doesn’t have its own union hall.
But Nashville is a boom town. “You look out over the skyline and you see cranes everywhere,” said shop steward Mary Jo Parker.
http://www.labornotes.org/2018/06/nashville-painters-aim-build-immigrant-base
Kinder quits federal post on Delta Regional Authority, bows out of politics
CAPE GIRARDEAU • Former Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder has resigned from a leadership position on the Delta Regional Authority, a federal agency focused on economic development in Mississippi Delta region, including the Missouri Bootheel.
Kinder said he concluded his position was not needed and a waste of tax dollars, the Southeast Missourian reported Saturday.
President Donald Trump named Kinder as alternative federal co-chairman of the DRA in August 2017. He resigned June 1, but didn't publicly disclosed his resignation until Friday, the newspaper said.
The DRA, modeled on the Appalachian Regional Commission, was created by Congress in 2000.
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/kinder-quits-federal-post-on-delta-regional-authority-bows-out/article_a9d55c6d-14f5-5a88-8810-f0a5177e1f7f.html
The article indicates that he has no plans to return to politics..... we will see? 
Sudden Whittier Street Health Center staff cuts raise concerns
Twenty employees at a Roxbury community health center were abruptly laid off Thursday, less than one week before a scheduled vote on unionizing.
Frederica M. Williams, president and CEO of the Whittier Street Health Center, said no patients were turned away due to the layoffs, only nine of which entailed people who would have been in the collective bargaining unit; the others were supervisory, fundraising, public relations and administrative positions, as well as vacancies.
The layoffs were necessary, Williams said, because the center had been denied two crucial grants: one from a foundation that had supported the center’s medical program for several years, the other from MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid program.
Together, this lost grant money totaled $680,000, further compounding a projected loss of more than $1 million by the end of the fiscal year, she said Thursday in an email to staff she confirmed to the Herald she sent.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_coverage/2018/06/sudden_whittier_street_health_center_staff_cuts_raise_concerns
Museum of Sex ads driving female MTA bus drivers crazy
They want to pick up passengers — not the other way around.
The city’s female bus drivers are being harassed by sleazebag passengers over new Museum of Sex ads splashed across the front of their vehicles — and the problem’s gotten so bad, the MTA now concedes the saucy signs need to go.
“Guys walk onto the bus and say to me, ‘Is this Museum of Sex?’” Catherine R., 50, an 11-year driver from Staten Island who didn’t want to give her second name, told The Post.
“How am I supposed to respond? I just look at them and roll my eyes up, I can’t really say anything. At night, I’d feel strange because there are more weirdos out. Don’t put the ad smack in front of the bus.”
https://nypost.com/2018/06/15/museum-of-sex-ads-driving-female-mta-bus-drivers-crazy/
Greitens resignation changes little; Missouri's wounded workers still have a war to fight
Missouri Governor Eric Greitens’ resignation amid a flurry of scandals stemming from his extramarital affair, alleged campaign finance violations and the operation of his dark money “charitable” organization A New Missouri was a small victory for Missouri workers who have been under constant attack since he took office.
His resignation speech at a hastily arranged press conference on May 29 was full of the usual “I’m the victim here” vitriol one would expect and the same deceptive dressing he used throughout his 17-month term to cloak the real harm he has done to workers.
Greitens set the tone for anti-worker legislation in the Missouri Legislature, letting it be known that any bill that boosted businesses, no matter how harmful to workers, would win his support.
In his resignation remarks, he said proudly that during his 17 months as governor his goal was “taking Missouri in a new and better direction.”
https://labortribune.com/greitens-resignation-changes-little-missouris-wounded-workers-still-have-a-war-to-fight/
Shut it Down! On The Recent AT&T Strikes
A striker writes on what the AT&T strike wave means, and proposes next steps in developing a direct action workers movement in North America.
Our workplace went out on strike Friday, June 1st 2018. It was the second time in two weeks. Earlier that morning CWA union stewards and mobilizers gathered with (working) union officers in the cafeteria break room. We were anxious to strike again after months of daily workplace actions designed to show our determination to resist the concessions being demanded by the Company in contract negotiations with the Union.
At 12 Noon workers on four separate call center floors stood up and announced we were going on an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike for the rest of the day. The vast majority of workers filed out, including for the first time AT&T Technicians and workers in the Teleconference department. A loud and energetic picket line replaced the drudgery of answering calls and emails from AT&’s business customers. We were not the only place to strike. AT&T workers in Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Dayton OH, Muncie IN, Syracuse NY, and several other locations all went out. A week later members of the CWA struck for the day in Georgia. All of these locals are under 2 expired contracts between AT&T and the CWA – one for the old “Legacy T” AT&T (long-distance), and one for the Midwest – the old “Ameritech” area.
These strikes have been for one or two days only - around Local grievances and ULP’s and not around the overall terms of a contract. The short strikes allow the Local unions to test their organization and morale without having their members face huge holes in their paychecks. In some areas the strikes are organized exclusively by the Local leadership, in others there is strong pressure from the ranks – in my workplace and probably in most of the other strikes, there was some combination of both. The International and District union leaders have taken a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” approach to the strikes. For legal reasons the bureaucracy does not want responsibility for Local grievance strikes, but they are not trying to stop them either.
https://libcom.org/news/shut-it-down-13062018
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