1,000 UPMC Nurses to Vote on Union
Greetings from the Burgh, where 1,000 nurses and hospital workers just received word that they will get a union election August 19th-23rd.
UPMC Nurses to Vote on Union August 19th - 23rd
Earlier this summer, Payday Report covered how the Trump NLRB was blocking a historic union vote of nearly 1,000 nurses at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) McGee.
With over 100,000 employees in Pennsylvania, UPMC is the largest employer in the state, but has been staunchly anti-union. A win at UPMC Magee could open the floodgates to more organizing at the healthcare chain.
Today, the National Labor Relations Board announced that a union election for 950 nurses at UPMC Magee Women’s Hospital would be held from August 19th-23rd.
The delay in setting up the union election has given UPMC time to run an anti-union campaign.
Earlier this year, Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato set up a “Right to Organize Incident Report” hotline for workers in the Pittsburgh region to report union busting abuses. She says that she has received disturbing reports about the anti-union campaign at UPMC.
“They report that UPMC’s anti-union efforts are taking precious time away from patient care, fostering a toxic work environment, and wasting valuable resources,” Innamorato told WESA yesterday.
Help Cover UPMC Magee Union Vote
If nurses win at UPMC Magee, it would be the largest union organizing victory during the Trump era. Stories of their success could help others to organize and we intend to cover this story thoroughly
ICE Offers $50,000 Signing Bonus for New Agents
Last week, Congress passed a bill that would more than triple ICE’s budget from $8 billion to $28 billion.
With ICE being one of the most hated organizations in the United States, it’s reported that it has had trouble meeting the deportation quotes set by the Trump Administration. Their recruiting woes have been so bad that they have had to offer $50,000 signing bonuses to hire as many as 10,000 agents.
“Want to mass deport illegals from Los Angeles?” Trump’s top adviser Stephen Miller wrote on social media last week. “JOIN.ICE.GOV today and get a 50K signing/retention bonus. Make your family proud and be the hero America needs.”
However, despite the large bonuses, the Trump Administration is still struggling to hire agents. Now, 404 Media reports that ICE is going on a sophisticated online campaign to target potential recruits:
Specifically, ICE wants the eventual contractor to find platforms with the highest potential for reaching recruits, including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and X, according to the documents. The list also includes Hulu, HBO Max, and Amazon Prime, according to the documents.
The documents say ICE is looking for more than 42 million impressions in its target audience groups. Impressions are essentially how many times an advertisement is seen, in this case by a particular demographic. What ICE sees as “high-value audience segments” include former military and law enforcement personnel, legal professionals, and “Gen Z and early-career professionals,” the documents say.
The documents add ICE wants the contractor to use all manner of advertising tricks and practices to target these people, including “geofencing,” which involves selecting a geographic area and delivering advertisements to devices at the location, and “behavioral” practices.
For more, check out 404 Media.
6 UAW Locals Begin Process to Remove UAW President
Over the weekend, two UAW Locals began the process to remove UAW President Shawn Fain from office. Fain has faced heavy criticism for retaliating against two of his running mates in the previous union election and running the union in totalitarian ways. (See Payday Report’s expose “UAW Prez Threatened to “Slit the Throats” of Critics as He Pushed No-Bid Contracts with DC Firms”)
5 of the 6 UAW locals to support the effort to remove Fain are at Stellantis, where Fain was a top organizer. Previously, the locals had been a base of support for Fain when he ran in 2021, but have grown disillusioned with him.
“I supported Shawn, but his spending is out of control and he’s retaliatory,” David Pillsbury, a worker at GM’s Flint, Mich., truck plant who started the petition to remove Fain, told Auto News. “The transparency Shawn promised hasn’t happened.”
News & Headlines Elsewhere
- Unemployment among Black Americans can be an early sign of economic strain. It’s rising
- 93% of striking Mass. garbage workers vote to continue strike
- Cinema Village union clipped by firings following strike vote
- Yosemite employees worked for weeks with no pay before the government hired them
- Republicans want to give Uber workers benefits. There’s a catch.
- How three simple labor laws helped unions organize Amazon and Uber in Canada
- Uruguayan public sector unions call nationwide strike over inadequate wage proposal
- Finally, Is Germany facing a döner shortage over workers’ rights?
Alright folks, that’s all for today. Keep sending tips, comments, and complaints to melk@paydayreport.com
