Folks,
Greetings from the Burgh, where Payday is preparing for a major strike of 1,400 locomotive workers brewing at Wabtec just up the road in Erie.
Donate to help us travel to cover this strike.
1,400 UE Members Move Closer to Strike in Erie at Wabtec
Earlier this week, The executive boards of UE Local 506 and 618, representing 1,400 locomotive workers employed at Wabtec’s plant in Erie, voted unanimously against recommending the contract. (Full details of Wabtec’s proposed contract can be viewed on UE Local 506’s website here)
UE members plan to meet all Thursday in three shifts to vote on whether or not they want to reject or accept the contract. If members reject the contract, UE members could be on strike this weekend.
“It’s a vote to approve or a vote to strike,” UE Local 506 President Scott Slawson told the Erie Times-News. “We have some of our own members saying we cannot have four more years of this,. The company has made no good faith effort to change.”
For more, check out the Erie Times News.
Donate to Help Us Travel to Erie to Cover the Strike
With the UE increasingly appearing like they will strike this week, Payday hopes to head up to Erie to cover this exciting strike. (Check our story from Erie in May previewing the strike)
Donate to help us pay for gas, food, hotels, and other travel necessities. Please, sign up as one of our 751 recurring donors.
1,800 Oregon Nurses Strike
On Monday. over 1,800 nurses and other healthcare workers are on strike in Oregon against a half-dozen facility Providence Healthcare around the state. The workers say they are determined to continue fighting to improve conditions at the Pacific Northwest healthcare giant.
“We want wages that are comparable to other metro area or other locations,” Molly Burtchaell, a nurse at Providence, told KATU. “We are asking for provisions in our contract to ensure that we are not working short on the floor, that we have enough nurses to provide excellent and safe care for our patients. We are asking, in addition, additional time off to both care for ourselves and care for our family.”
UPS Teamsters Agree on All Noneconomic Issues
As the newly elected President of the Teamsters, Sean O’Brien has garnered much publicity calling for a potential strike of 340,000 Teamsters when their union contract expires at the end of July.
However, this weekend, O’Brien and the Teamster’s negotiating committee announced they had agreed on 40 noneconomic issues.
“We have reached tentative agreement on well over 40 noneconomic issues that affect all our members at UPS, and we did it as a team. The Teamsters haven’t sacrificed a single concession in these negotiations,” Teamsters General Secretary-Treasurer Fred Zuckerman said in a statement. “Very soon we will review the language, changes and improvements in all articles with the entire membership. Plus, the fun part now begins to fight for significant wage increases for everyone — full-timers, part-timers, long-timers, everyone.”
For more, check out Freight Waves.
5,000 Writers Guild Members & Supporters Rally in LA
As the Writers’ Guild Strike enters its second month, workers continue to rally and show support in what is expected to be a long strike. Yesterday, over 5,000 Writers Guilds members and their supporters rallied in LA.
“Carol [Lombardini, the President of the AMPTP] didn’t plan for how strong we are. She did not plan for the fact that eight weeks in, we are bringing the same energy as on day one. She didn’t plan that our picket lines are being joined by workers from every union in town.” filmmaker Boots Riley told a rally yesterday. “They’re scared of what’s going on. They’re scared of how militant, how ready to fight we’ve become.”
For more, check out the Hollywood Reporter.
Historic UK Nurses Strike Cannot Continue.
Finally, since last winter, the UK has been rocked by the largest nurses’ strikes in the country’s history, going on major strikes that involved over 100,000 nurses on at least three significant occasions.
However, Royal College of Nursing union president Pat Cullen said she doubts for the first time if her union can gather the support to go on strike. From the Guardian:
Under the 2016 trade union laws, at least 50% of union members must vote in a ballot for its result to stand – equivalent to more than 150,000 of the RCN’s membership.
Speaking to the Guardian during a visit to a hospital in Guildford, Surrey, Cullen said the union laws and the lack of an online voting option could bring the nurses’ strikes over pay and conditions to an end.
She added: “Talking to nurses today, it is clear that they are unhappy with how they’re being treated and feel the NHS is on a precipice. After nurses said they needed better from government, they can vote again on whether to take more strike action until December. There are only a couple of days left to vote by post and it is starting to look like the government’s rules on postal voting could get the better of us.”
Cullen, who is seeking a double-digit pay rise for nurses, said she believed the vote would indicate support for further strikes, but the 50% voting threshold may still need to be reached.
She said: “Nursing staff can still post their ballots back, but unless 150,000 people get their votes sent back in the post, then the strike has hit the end of the road. Secure online voting was used to select a new Conservative prime minister last year, so it is clear they just want to make it harder for working people to have their voices heard.
For more, check out the Guardian.
Strikes & News Happening
- A week into a Reddit moderator strike, ⅓ of all subreddits are down
- For 2nd Time, Mayo Clinic successfully gets a union to decertify
- Election workers are already being threatened. They’re worried about 2024
- Unionized Union Kitchen workers call for a boycott of their DC stores
- Many states decline to require water breaks for outdoor workers in extreme heat
- Finally, the San Diego Union-Tribune has a look at efforts by Billie Jean King to unionize women’s tennis.
Alright, yinz, I am gonna crash tonite. Keep sending story ideas, tips, and complaints to [email protected]
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See yinz tomorrow.
Melk
