Greetings from the Burgh, where Allegheny County labor council President Darrin Kelly is upset that the state’s largest coal plant in Homer City, Pa, is closing.
PA Labor Protests State’s Largest Coal Plant Closing
Earlier today, it was announced that the largest coal plant in Western PA, located at Homer City, Indiana County, was closing. Many environmentalists and clean air advocates celebrated the decision to close the plant.
However, local Western PA AFL-CIO President Darrin Kelly blasted the decision to close the plant.
“It’s a sad day for western Pennsylvania to learn that the Homer City power plant, the largest coal-fired plant in the state, will be shut down this summer. It’s sadder still that some people will celebrate this as a victory,” said Kelly in a statement sent to Payday Report. “It is not a victory when hundreds of in-house workers and thousands of subcontractors — the majority of whom are members of our labor council — will lose good union jobs.”
Writers Guild Moves to Strike Vote
On May 1st, the Writers Guild contract covering thousands of TV writers is set to expire. With writers seeing their pay and jobs disappearing over the past decade, many see a strike as likely.
Right now, it appears that both sides are still far apart in contract talks.
“After two weeks at the bargaining table, they [the studios] have failed to offer meaningful responses on the core economic issues in any of the WGA’s primary work areas — screen, episodic television and comedy-variety,” Writers’ Guild leaders said in a statement. “They have listened politely to our presentations and made small moves in only a few areas, almost entirely coupled with rollbacks designed to offset any gains. In short, the studios have shown no sign that they intend to address the problems our members are determined to fix in this negotiation.”
For more, check out the LA Times.
BBC Journalists to Strike During Local Elections
On May 5th, a day of many local elections in the UK, BBC journalists covering local beats across the UK intend to go on strike. The strikes come as the BBC plans to implement a controversial plan that would slash local programming on BBC stations from 100 to 48 hours a week.
“Once local radio stops being local then it is the beginning of the end, and BBC bosses don’t have the right to destroy an institution that has existed for over 50
Strikes & News Happening Elsewhere: years,” the National Union of Journalists organizer Paul Siegert told the Guardian.
For more, check out the Guardian.
LA Times: “A Masked Mexican Man Fights for Immigrants Rights”
Finally, the LA Times has an excellent profile entitled “A Mexican masked man fights for immigrants workers rights, in the street and on the radio.” From the LA Times:
Two decades later, Valentan utilizes a curious pair of props to realize his goals as an immigrant labor activist: a microphone and a wrestler’s mask.
Every Friday morning at 11, he enters a radio booth at the Pasadena Community Job Center, turns on his transmission equipment, adjusts his microphone, and fires up his two-hour radio show, “Voces Jornaleras,” Spanish for “Worker Voices,” or “Journeymen Voices.” His show is a cornerstone of the lineup at Radio Jornalera, an internet-based streaming platform that is a project of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network
Wearing jeans, a red plaid shirt, and a baseball cap with a Mexican flag logo one recent day, Valentan, 50, leaned into the mike as he welcomed listeners as if they were old friends. His arms and face were tanned from perpetually toiling in the sun, his fingers callused.
“Buenos días, compas y compitas,” he began, before launching into a passionate oration on the persistent problem of wage theft.
For more, check out the LA Times.
Strikes & News Happening Elsewhere:
- Will Postal Service ride to the rescue if Teamsters strike UPS? Maybe
- Referred to as inmates by managers’: DHL workers push to unionize US hub
- Stanford graduate employees launch unionization campaign with UE
- Prominent scholars blast Rutgers president for calling looming faculty strike ‘unlawful
- Iowa Planned Parenthood fires two union leaders & disciplines entire bargaining team.
- Finally, the Ventura County Star has a look 1903 strike of Japanese & Mexican-American beet workers.
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Love & Solidarity,
Melk
