Folks,
Greetings from the Burgh, where allergy season is hitting me like a ton of bricks.
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SMART Protests Illegal Deportation of Union Member
This week, The Atlantic broke the story that the Trump Administration had illegally deported an immigrant from El Salvador, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia. In 2019, a federal judge had granted him protected status, preventing him from being deported.
In a historic first, the Trump Administration admitted that they erred in deporting him. However, the Trump Administration argued that they could not bring him back because he was in administrative custody.
Kilmar’s union, SMART, is now mobilizing its members to demand his release.
“In his pursuit of the life promised by the American dream, Brother Kilmar was literally helping to build this great country," SMART General President Michael Coleman. "What did he get in return? Arrest and deportation to a nation whose prisons face outcry from human rights organizations. SMART condemns his treatment in the strongest possible terms, and we demand his rightful return.”
For more on his deportation, check out CNN.
Help Cover 1 Million Immigrants Striking on May Day
More than a million people are expected to participate in the “Day Without Immigrants” strike on May 1st. Efforts are underway to prepare for these strikes, but they are getting little attention in the mainstream media.
While Payday Report tracked smaller “Day Without Immigrants” strikes in 120 cities and 40 states in early February, neither The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, or any of the big three media networks did.
Donate to help us cover the growing movement for May Day Strike. Please, if you can, sign up as one of our recurring donors today.
60,000 University of California Employees Strike
Today, more than 60,000 employees represented by the University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE) and AFSCME went on strike at the University of California. The unions say the strike is in protest of “bad faith bargaining” and unfair labor practices (ULP) by the unions.
"The latest ULP charge against UC centers on UC forcing newly organized groups of workers into their own separate negotiation process to render the bargaining process hopelessly impractical and ineffective—a classic "divide-and-conquer" strategy that violates the law. They have also doubled down on their plans to unilaterally and unlawfully increase health insurance costs for some of the most vulnerable union members outside of the bargaining process," UPTE said in a statement.
For more, check out CBS Bay Area
Kenyan Workers Take on Meta
Finally, Al Jazeera has a long look at how Kenyan workers are taking on Meta:
To justify the company’s decisions to do away with fact-checking and scale back content moderation on its platforms, Zuckerberg and Meta have appealed to the United States’ constitutional protection of the right to freedom of expression. Fortunately, for those of us living in the countries Meta has vowed to “push back on,” we have constitutions, too.
In Kenya, for example, where I represent a group of former Meta content moderators in a class-action lawsuit against the company, the post-independence constitution differs from those in the US and Western Europe with its explicit prioritisation of fundamental human rights and freedoms. The constitutions of a great many nations with colonial histories share this in common, a response to how these rights were violated when their peoples were first pressed into the global economy.
We are now beginning to see how these constitutions can be brought to bear in the global technology industry. In a landmark decision last September, the Kenyan Court of Appeal ruled that content moderators could bring their human rights violations case against Meta in the country’s labour courts.
Few in the West will have understood the importance of this ruling. Meta, for its part, surely does, which is why it fought against it tooth and nail in court and continues to use every diplomatic tool at its disposal to resist the content moderators’ demands for redress. Meta has shown interest in appealing this decision to the Supreme Court.
For more, check out Al Jazeera.
Headlines & Links Elsewhere
- Migrant workers hired to build jail turned in to ICE, sheriff says
- Silicon Valley transit workers end their strike
- UAW grew slightly in 2024 amid organizing push
- The push to unionize doctors at Mass General Brigham
- Trump’s cuts will make coal mining more dangerous
- Farmworkers march against ICE raids on César Chávez Day at historic Delano grape strike site
- Hundreds of Philly stadium-food workers win health insurance in ‘historic’ contract agreement with Aramark
- Finally, a long look at how blacklisting of law firms is affecting workers
Alright folks, that’s all for today - send story ideas for tomorrow to melk@paydayreport.com
Donate to help us cover the fight for immigrants rights. Please, if you can, sign up as one of our recurring donors today
Thanks,
Melk
