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Texas Teachers Unions Marches for Gun Control
Yesterday in Austin, Texas, members of the Texas Federation of Teachers marched on Ted Cruz’s office to protest his opposition to gun control. The march was part of national mobilization by the American Federation of Teachers called “Enough is Enough.” The teachers called on legislators to pass gun control measures.
“Two of our fallen colleagues will never go home. Nineteen children will never graduate and see their parents again,” AFT Texas President Zeph Capo said during the Texas march. “When is it going to be enough? When we say, ‘Our children are more important than someone’s right to own a weapon that should only be used for one reason, and that is to take human life.’ It’s unnecessary.’”
For more, check out the Austin-American Statesman
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1,200 Residents Walking Out at 3 LA County Hospitals
There has been an uptick in the organizing of resident physicians across the US, with actions this year at Stanford, the University of Vermont, and the University of Washington. Now, 1,300 resident physicians employed at LAC+USC Medical Center, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Outpatient Center have voted to strike. A full 98% of the votes cast were in favor of the strike authorization.
The workers are calling for a pay raise and overtime limits.
“We’re doctors, and people see us with white coats, so they think we make what you would think a doctor makes,” Camila Alvarado, a second-year family resident at Harbor UCLA, said during a news conference earlier this month. “But in residency, if you divide by the number of hours we work, which is about 80 hours a week, we actually make about minimum wage, if not less than minimum wage.”
New Jersey Amazon Workers Walk Off the Job
Yesterday, workers at Amazon in Bellmawr, New Jersey walked off the job to protest the closing of the warehouse and being transferred to other facilities. In addition, many tenured workers are being denied their long-promised raises as a result of the transfers.
Local Amazon management is taking the walkout very seriously.
“All of the managers were here at 1 or 2 in the morning today, and they usually don’t come in until 7 or 8 in the morning,” Amazon worker Paul Bundell told WHYY. “We got them trying to figure out what to do to try to blunt the impact of us stopping these packages, because they know we’re the ones who move them.”
North Carolina Amazon Workers Launch Union Drive
Workers at the Amazon warehouse in Garner, North Carolina are launching their own independent union effort under the banner of the group Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment (CAUSE). They say they were inspired to organize after seeing workers on Staten Island win an independent union with the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) under the leadership of Chris Smalls.
Currently, the Garner facility employs approximately 3,000 workers.
“The inspiration from Small and ALU was that you can actually do it. You can actually beat these guys, you can actually win,” one Amazon worker named Rev Ryan told More Perfect Union.
The workers don’t yet have enough signatures to file for a federal labor relations board election but expect to in the coming months.
For more, check out More Perfect Union
News & Strikes Happenings Elsewhere
- NBC union members refuse to work for 13 minutes to protest going 13 months without a contract
- ‘Indoor rain’ prompts staff at Boston Starbucks to strike over working conditions
- Orlando nurses walk out in protest after understaffing led to unnoticed patient suicide
- Durham teachers and principal joined students in gun safety walkout on Thursday
- After strike, Cedars-Sinai workers approve 3-year contract: 17.42% raise, $21 an hour minimum by 2024
- ‘I’m pretty tired’: Miami University’s painful journey toward a bargaining union
- Finally, the Texas Standard has a look at how a walkout by students in Uvalde in 1970s helped to launch the Chicano rights movements.
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