Folks,
Greetings from the Burgh, where I am recovering from a respiratory infection after filming near the US Steel Works.
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5,000 Kansas Private Jet Workers Strike
In Kansas, 5,000 Machinists employed making private jets for Textron Aviation are now on strike. Despite the company offering a 29% raise, workers say they are upset about a retirement system that leaves some workers with pensions while others without.
“We’ll never be equally fair and just if you give a retirement to your westside workers, which are originally Cessna, and you don’t give one to your eastside workers, which is Hawker-Beechcraft,” union leader Kevin Hill told KWCH.
Duke Football Players Aid NC Amazon Union Drive
After two and half years of organizing in Garner, North Carolina, workers with the group Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Economics (CAUSE) are now seeking union cards.
Duke football players even joined them at the plant gates to help gather support.
“A union got NFL players the right to collectively bargain and get 48% of revenue that the league makes. Makes sense considering the players put their bodies on the line to make the product. We are next,” CAUSE tweeted with a video of Duke players at the plant gates.
For more on the drive, check out the Raleigh News & Observer.
Boeing Strike Enters 2nd Week
The strike of 33,000 workers at Boeing in the Pacific Northwest has now entered its second week. It doesn’t look like it's ending anytime soon. Given skyrocketing housing costs in Washington State, many skilled mechanics say they are fighting for survival.
“I can’t afford [to own] a home,” Jake Meyer, a Boeing mechanic told CNBC.
John Miller Pays Tribute to Neil King, Jr.
Finally, over at Moundsville, my friend John Miller pays tribute to his friend Neil King, Jr, who passed this past week:
“It was after we both left the Journal at the end of 2016 that we became friends. Shortly after he left the paper, he received the diagnosis of a nasty esophageal cancer with a very low survival rate. The crisis launched him on a journey of trying to understand himself, his God, America, and the nature of life itself in the time he had left.
In 2021, he walked from Washington to New York City and wrote a book about American Ramble. It was a hit. CBS Sunday Morning did a feature. Documentary film superstar Ken Burns called it a “nearly perfect book”. In its obit, the Post wrote that Neil “roamed the world for adventures and stories before one day stepping out his front door for a pilgrimage of discovery on a walk from Capitol Hill to Manhattan.”
At the same time as Neil was bravely fighting cancer and suffering through endless treatments, I was going through a professional crisis accompanied by a painful breakdown. Unlike Neil, my crisis was not life-threatening, but it was an invitation to go on a journey, and, as many of his many, many friends did, I found myself leaning on Neil as a mentor. I sent him drafts of stories, blog posts, and pitches. He helped me craft and sell a book of my own. He was one of the first people to see the Moundsville documentary.”
Check out John’s moving obituary at Moundsville.
Links & News Elsewhere
- Philly Sports Complex concession workers are on strike
- National Symphony Orchestra musicians unanimously authorize a strike
- Inside Annapurna Interactive's mass walkout: Internal Politics, the surprise remedy deal, and why it all happened
- Michigan lawmakers could help 35,000 homecare workers form statewide union
- Some Fort Collins city employees formed a union, but the city manager isn't recognizing it
- Central Valley effort aims to train farmworkers to master the technology replacing fieldwork
- Finally, an Explosion at a coal mine in eastern Iran kills dozens of workers
Alright folks, that’s all for today. Keep sending comments, tips, story ideas, complaints and cooking recipes to melk@paydayreport.com
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Love & Solidarity,
Melk
