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One-Day Strikes Are In: The Working People Weekly List Every week, we bring you a roundup of the top news and commentary about issues and events important to working families. Here’s the latest edition of the Working People Weekly List. Pittsburgh Community Broadcasting Workers Finalize First-Ever Union Contract: “After nearly two years of negotiations, Pittsburgh Community Broadcasting Corporation and its unionized employees have reached an agreement. ‘Pittsburgh is a union town, and we are proud to serve it as a unionized station,’ workers said in a press release. ‘We believe this is a strong first contract that rewards the dedicated professionals at WESA and WYEP with immediate wage increases, while also helping to shape the stations' direction for years to come.’”Danbury Firefighters Get 2.85% Raises, City Residency Stipend in New Union Contract: “The city’s firefighters union has a new contract, giving firefighters a new 2.85% annual general wage increase that starts in the current fiscal year and continues over the next three years. The City Council approved funding for the city’s new four-year pact with the Local 801, International Association of Fire Fighters, AFL-CIO, union Tuesday night. The vote was unanimous, with Democratic City Council member Jeffrey Tomchik, who is a city firefighter, abstaining.”U.S. Looks to End Subminimum Wage for Workers with Disabilities: “Federal law currently allows the agency to issue certificates that let employers pay certain workers less than the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour based on the notion that their disabilities hinder productivity. Intended to help those with disabilities gain employment, the law currently has about 40,000 American workers laboring for half the minimum wage or less, according to the Labor Department.”A Wisconsin Judge Just Ripped Up Scott Walker’s Anti-Union Law: “Wisconsin AFL-CIO President Stephanie Bloomingdale announced, ‘Nearly 14 years after Scott Walker, in his own words, "dropped the bomb" on Wisconsin public employees, Wisconsin workers can celebrate as the judicial branch restores collective bargaining rights to public employees in Wisconsin. Declaring Wisconsin’s union-busting Act 10 unconstitutional and void, over 60 sections of the 2011 anti-union law have now been struck down.’”One-Day Strikes Are In: Why Unions Are Keeping It Short on the Picket Line: “Strikes can be long, grueling wars of attrition to see who blinks first—the workers or the employer. They can also be a party. Nurses from LCMC Health System’s University Medical Center New Orleans went with the latter in October. Their picket line included a stage, live music and a DJ in front of the university hospital’s campus. ‘It’s multiple holidays rolled into one,’ said Terry Mogilles, a nurse at the hospital’s trauma orthopedic clinic. ‘Mardi Gras. Christmas. Birthday.’ Another way strikes can be different? Keeping them brief. This strike was scheduled to only last 24 hours. While long-running strikes have dominated the headlines in the Gulf South region in the past few years, short strikes have become the norm. Since at least 2021, most strikes have lasted less than five days, according to the labor action tracker run by Cornell University and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The majority of those short strikes last no more than a day.”Rigging the Tax Code: “Of all the attacks working people can expect from the incoming Trump administration, none will come as fast and furious as their attempt at ‘tax reform’—their code for further rigging the tax code in favor of billionaires. On Nov. 20, I testified before Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s banking subcommittee and told our elected officials what working-class people already know: A repeat of Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 would be a disaster for families across America. Let’s be clear: Our tax code is already massively unfair. While 60 percent of workers live paycheck to paycheck and 100 million of us are being crushed by medical debt, billionaires in this country are paying a lower tax rate than most teachers and retail workers. Trump’s 2017 law did nothing but expand the gap between the uber-rich and the rest of us.”Maryland Video Game Studio Reacts to Volatile Industry by Unionizing: “Welling said that in addition to the personal devastation of layoffs, there are also ‘downstream effects’ for the industry. ‘People who are trying to get into the industry are now finding it hard to get their foot in the door because they have to compete with people who have a bunch of experience. So that’s difficult for them, but then it’s also difficult for the people who don’t get laid off, because… they’re expecting us to do the same amount of work in the same amount of time with fewer people involved.’ Bethesda then became a leader of another burgeoning trend in the video game industry: unionization. Unionization efforts at Bethesda began in November 2023 following management’s decision to require three in-person work days, Welling said. By July 2024, Bethesda was recognized as ‘the first wall-to-wall union at a Microsoft video game studio,’ Communications Workers of America (CODE-CWA) said in a news release.”Culinary Union Hosts Thanksgiving Dinner for Virgin Las Vegas Strikers: “On the 16th day of the ongoing strike, the Culinary Union hosted a holiday dinner for Virgin Las Vegas strikers on Saturday. Some Virgin Hotel employees spent Thanksgiving protesting in front of the resort. ‘Tonight is different because it’s the holidays so the Union brought us all together, showed us that we could all be strong together and we just all enjoyed a meal all together,’ said culinary union strike worker Alaia Lopez. ‘It gives us reassurance to see people like Dina [Titus] and other senators come out here and support us.’” Kenneth Quinnell Fri, 12/06/2024 - 10:04Continue reading→