NLRB Ruling Hurts Nissan Union Effort in Tenn. – Asbury Park Teachers Sickout Strike – Austin EMS Struggles to Fill 100 Job Vacancies

Workers assemble cars at Nissan's plant in Smyrna, Tenn (Luke Sharrett /Bloomberg)

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100 New Jersey Teachers Wildcat Strike over Selection of New Superintendent

Last week, over 100 teachers in New Jersey’s Asbury Park chose to participate in a “sickout’ strike on Friday to protest a decision the school board made last Wednesday. 

Teachers say the selection process failed to include an in-depth survey that teachers conducted which ranked which superintendent they would like to see selected. Instead, the school board chose to hire the candidate that teachers in the survey said was the “least liked” of all the candidates

“They (teachers and staff) are so pissed off at the board’s action on Wednesday evening,” Asbury Park Education Association President John Napolitani told the Asbury Park Press.

For more check out the Asbury Park Press.  

NLRB Ruling Hurts Nissan Union Effort in Tennessee 

Earlier this year, the Machinists Union filed to unionize 87 heavily skilled maintenance workers at Nissan’s plant in Smyrna, Tennessee. With such a small group of workers, the Machinists focused for months and months on organizing, thinking they would have a realistic chance of winning a toehold to larger organizing at Nissan. 

However, on Friday, the NLRB ruled that the Machinists Union would have to hold a union election for all of its 4,000 workers in the plant from July 7 to 8. 

With the Machinists having done very little organizing among other workers, such a large election would be very difficult for the union to win. 

It’s unclear at this point if the Machinists will move forward with the election and risk a likely loss at the plant, or, move ahead. 

The Machinists did not return requests for comment at time of publication. 

For more, check out the NLRB ruling here. 

Austin EMS Department Struggling to Fill Over 100 Job Vacancies

During the pandemic, the Austin EMS (Emergency Medical Services) Department saw a huge turnover in EMS workers with many leaving the profession. Now, the Department says they have 100 openings they’re struggling to fill and it could lead to more lives being lost. 

The Austin-American Statesman has the story: 

Austin-Travis County EMS medics struggled to reach victims of the mass shooting on East Sixth Street in downtown Austin early Saturday, and the head of the EMS union worries that the same problem could happen again without a dedicated downtown team. 

Sixth Street was barricaded to vehicle traffic and was crowded with foot traffic, when medics responded to the shooting at 1:25 a.m. They took four wounded people to the hospital via ambulance, and Austin officers shuttled six other victims in police vehicles, EMS officials said. Three victims got to the hospital in private vehicles. 

“We should never have police officers transporting victims,” Selena Xie, Austin-Travis County EMS union president, said. “But because we don’t have an established downtown group, it makes it really hard to get enough ambulances in and also get them into a position where they can transport patients.”

For more, check out Austin-American Statesman

Alright folks, that’s all for today. 

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Love & Solidarity,

Melk

About the Author

Mike Elk
Mike Elk is an Emmy-nominated labor reporter who covered everything from Lula & the Brazilian labor movement to major league baseball. He spent years covering union organizing in the South for The Guardian and was labeled by the New York Times as an "abrasive gadfly" for exposing within the labor movement. Raised in a UE union family in Pittsburgh, Elk was illegally for union organizing at Politico in 2015 and used his NLRB settlement to start the crowd-funded Payday Report. He lives in his hometown of Pittsburgh and is fluent in both Pittsburghese and Portuguese, which he learned when attending journalism school at PUC-Rio de Janerio. Email: [email protected]

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