Folks,
Greetings from Pittsburgh, where Payday is filing from a Coffee Tree Roasters in Squirrel Hill that moved to unionize last month.
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360 Iowa Machinists Strike in Iowa
In Davenport, Iowa, 360 aerospace workers, members of the Machinists Union, went on strike today at Eaton, an aerospace parts supplier.
After the company proposed that workers cut their pension plans as well as their health care plans, Machinists union members voted to strike with 98% of voters in favor.
The strike in Davenport comes after workers at a nearby John Deere factory went on a strike that received national attention.
“When you take a look at all the PR behind the John Deere strike, the Kellogg’s strike, KONE strike, I think that that plays an awful lot and it has kinda changed the mindset of the normal worker. They’re tired, they’re fed up with not getting a fair share,” John Herrig, directing business representative for Machinists District 6, told WQAD.
Washington State Legislative Staffers Strike
In Washington state, over 50 legislative staffers went out on a sickout strike on Thursday as the legislation granting them the right to collectively bargain stalled in the State Senate.
“For many decades, the State Legislature has diligently expanded the right to collectively bargain to many in our public workforce,” State Representative Marcus Riccelli told MyNorthwest. “These staff deserve the same rights.”
For more, check out MyNorthwest.
Colorado Springs Teachers Hold Sickout Strike
In the conservative bastion of Colorado Springs, hundreds of teachers went on a sickout strike today.
The strike is to protest the school district removing teachers’ planning periods with the teaching of another class. Meanwhile, the school struggles to find staff.
Teachers say they are fed up and have had enough.
“We are already experiencing an exodus of veteran, highly-skilled teachers due to poor pay and benefits,” their union said in a statement. “We are already unable to fill math and science positions with a qualified candidate, and the district is eliminating one of its last compelling benefits – increased plan time.”
News & Strikes Happening Elsewhere
- East Palo Alto school bus drivers went on a sickout strike yesterday.
- In the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, Sherwin Williams workers enter their second week of striking.
- Workers seek to unionize at Hershey factory in Stuarts Draft, Virginia. Worker Janice Taylor said she worked 72 days without a day off.
- After a 9-month strike at St. Vincent’s hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts, nurses brought in as scabs during the pandemic are now seeking to decertify the union.
- Three new Catholic Worker community centers say pandemic was the perfect time to open.
- Workers “stunned” to find a noose hanging in a Canton steel and iron plant at the start of Black History Month.
- The University of New Mexico has agreed to bargain with the UE and drop its anti-union appeal.
- Finally, the Special Metals Strike in Huntington, West Virginia, entered its sixth month.
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Love & Solidarity,
Melk
