Greeting from the Burgh, where it’s been a very busy day of fundraising as we cover the Writers Guilds strike.
$705 Raised to Cover the Writers Guild Strike
Good news, today we raised $705 to cover the Writers Guild Strike.
Donate to help us keep the momentum going. Please, if you can, sign up as one of our 751 recurring donors today.
Largest Nurses Strike in UK History
In the United Kingdom, half of all nurses are out on strike in what is being described as the largest nurses’ strike in UK history. The strike, which will only last for one day and not affect ER trauma services, is part of a growing wave of public services strike in the U.K.
While other unions in the UK have shown a willingness to agree to bargaining terms of the conservative UK government, RNC nurses union president Pat Cullen says the strikes of her union won’t stop till all the demands are met. Their union has already started organizing to continue the strikes through Christmas.
“It will end when our government will do the decent thing for nurses, does the decent thing for the people of England and actually does the decent thing for the NHS,” Cullen told the Guardian. “What our members are saying to the secretary of state of this government is we are not going to go away.”
For more, check out the Guardian
Some Canadian Union Settle, Others Continue on Strike
After nearly two weeks on strike, nearly 100,000 members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) have reached a tentative agreement and returned to work. However, 35,000 members of the Union of Taxation Employees, a division of PSAC, have decided to continue to stay on strike.
“Our members are strong and we’re out here and will continue to be out here,” Sharon DeSousa, PSAC’s national executive vice-president told the Ottawa Citizen.
For more, check out the Ottawa Citizen.
Chat GPT Workers Unionize in Africa
In Nairobi, Kenya, over 150 content moderation workers employed by a third-party contractor working for Facebook, TikTok, and ChatGPT have decided to unionize.
The victory marks the first time that workers employed by ChatGPT have ever unionized. The workers were the first tech place in Africa to unionize as part of the African Content Moderators Union.
“I never thought, when I started the Alliance in 2019, we would be here today—with moderators from every major social media giant forming the first African moderators union,” union founder Daniel Motaung said in a statement. “There have never been more of us. Our cause is right, our way is just, and we shall prevail. I couldn’t be more proud of today’s decision to register the Content Moderators Union.”
Could Front Office MLB Employees Unionize Next?
Last year, over 5,000 minor league baseball players unionized in one of the largest union victories in the U.S. last year. Now, underpaid administrators in baseball who work in the “front office”, are considering unionizing. From CBS Sports:
Unlike in most other fields, front-office employees are not free to shop their labor or entertain competing offers in a meaningful manner. Teams must request permission to interview another club’s worker while they’re under contract; teams are under no obligation, however, to say yes, or to even inform the employee of outside interest. There is a tacit understanding that workers will be given the option to interview if the job is a clear promotion, yet the industry’s rampant title inflation doubles, in a sense, as a control mechanism.
“[We’re] going to make you Super Senior Director of X, we’re going to make up that title for you,” a former front-office member who worked in baseball operations told CBS Sports. “And then that backfires on people.”
A lofty title, no matter the actual significance of it, makes it easier for teams to dismiss opportunities as lateral moves, denying their employee the chance to choose.
Baseball is a lot of things, including a collection of unions: from the players and umpires to the concession workers and broadcast technicians. Front-office workers are one of the industry’s few prominent groups to not be organized. The “promotion in title only” trick is just one of the ways that baseball’s inconsistent, one-sided, and oft-shrouded practices have put front-office employees — scouts, analysts, database programmers, business directors, HR administrators and others — at a disadvantage in workplace affairs.
“We’re not protected at all,” a current front-office worker said.
For more, check out CBS Sports.
Alright, folks, that’s all for today. We will have more tomorrow.
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See yinz,
Melk
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