Advocates for a government-run healthcare program applauded U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna for pushing back during a Sunday morning interview in which ABC News anchor Martha Raddatz casually dismissed Medicare for All as a proposal that has no chance of ever being implemented. Khanna (D-Calif.) spoke to Raddatz days after the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City — an…
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Driven largely by the accumulation of massive wealth by the richest people in the United States, the Swiss wealth manager UBS said Thursday the assets of billionaires around the world more than doubled over the past decade. Between 2015-24, the total wealth of billionaires increased by 121%, from $6.3 trillion to $14 trillion. Meanwhile, the MSCI AC World Index of global equities…
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In the coming weeks, as President-elect Donald Trump’s second term approaches and his pledge to dismantle key agencies potentially comes closer to fruition, 4.3 million consumers are set to receive checks from one of the agencies the incoming administration wants to “delete.” The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced Thursday that it will soon begin distributing a historic $1.
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President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to run the Internal Revenue Service, former Rep. Billy Long, didn’t serve on the House committee tasked with writing tax policy during his six terms in office, and his lack of relevant experience is likely “exactly what Trump was looking for,” according to one economic justice advocate. Progressive lawmakers joined advocates on Wednesday in…
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Nearly two years after it was first proposed by Republican lawmakers, an Idaho law that, as one rights advocate said, essentially “traps” people in the state to stop them from getting abortion care, was permitted to go into effect on Monday after a federal appeals court ruling. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Idaho can prohibit people from “harboring or transporting” a…
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The country’s largest Muslim civil rights group on Thursday called for added protections for U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar after Florida state Sen. Randy Fine issued an apparent threat against the two Muslim lawmakers. Fine, who has the endorsement of President-elect Donald Trump in his candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives, called himself the “Hebrew Hammer” in a post on…
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If confirmed to be the next U.S. secretary of health and human services, anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could be working “closely” with another official who’s infamous for his questionable health guidance: Dr. Mehmet Oz, who President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday nominated to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Trump said in a statement that if confirmed…
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As the deadline set by the Biden administration last month for Israel to step up aid deliveries to Gaza passed on Tuesday, human rights groups demanded that the U.S. stick to its commitment to holding the Israeli government accountable for what one advocate called “a campaign of ethnic cleansing.” But the White House’s refusal over the last 13 months to follow U.S.
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Education advocates implored voters to take Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s latest comments on public schools on Friday seriously after his appearance on the Fox News morning show “Fox & Friends,” where he explained how he would punish schools that teach students accurate U.S. history, including about slavery and racism in the country. Trump was asked by a viewer who called…
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Decades of mismanagement of water resources, deforestation, and the fossil fuel-driven crisis of global warming have put “unprecedented stress” on the Earth’s water systems, according to a new report, and have thrown the world’s hydrological cycle out of balance “for the first time in human history.” The Global Commission on the Economics of Water, affiliated with the Dutch government and…
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For the second time in 24 hours, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney struck down a Georgia election rule proposed by allies of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, with pro-democracy advocates applauding the decision for blocking the “administrative chaos” that, as one critic said, was “exactly the point” of the rule. The judge temporarily blocked a rule passed by the…
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Democratic officials and voting rights advocates on Tuesday celebrated “a victory for voters” in the crucial battleground state of Georgia after a county judge ruled that local officials must certify results regardless of claims of “election fraud” — an occurrence experts have found to be “vanishingly rare” despite Republican claims to the contrary. Fulton County Superior Court Judge James…
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A progressive policy group in North Carolina was among those expressing alarm on Sunday as news spread that federal emergency workers were forced to evacuate an area hit hard by Hurricane Helene late last month after officials warned that “armed militias” were “hunting” hurricane response teams. But the news didn’t come as a shock to Carolina Forward, an independent think tank…
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Calling for peace in war zones around the world and an end to the proliferation of nuclear weapons, a grassroots group organized by survivors of the United States’ atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. Nihon Hidankyo was established in 1956 after a number of local organizations of hibakusha, the Japanese name for “bomb-affected people,”…
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As Banned Books Week kicked off, a leading free expression group in the U.S. announced Monday that the number of books that were pulled from shelves or “challenged” by right-wing groups and Republican lawmakers skyrocketed to at least 10,000 over the last year with state legislatures passing new censorship laws. PEN America found that the number of banned books tripled from the 2022-23 school…
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This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Sep. 18, 2024. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
For the first time in decades—and in a break with other major unions and many of its own local bargaining units—the International Brotherhood of Teamsters on Wednesday announced it would not endorse a candidate in the U.S. presidential election.
The union’s decision came two months after its general president, Sean O’Brien was widely criticized by labor proponents for speaking at the Republican National Convention, with advocates noting that GOP candidate Donald Trump had spent his presidential term from 2017-21 appointing anti-union federal judges and key agency leaders, undermining collective bargaining rights, and making it harder for workers to hold their employers accountable for unfair labor practices.
The Teamsters General Executive Board said its 1.3 million members had expressed no majority support for Vice President Kamala Harris and no universal support for Trump.
Prior to President Joe Biden’s announcement in July that he was stepping aside in the presidential race and endorsing Harris, the Teamsters’ rank-and-file members had backed Biden over Trump, 44.3% to 36.3%.
Harris met with the union’s leadership earlier this week, reminding officials that Trump had named anti-union members to the National Labor Relations Board, while the vice president had cast the Senate’s tie-breaking vote on the American Rescue Plan, which shored up the Teamsters pension fund with $35.6 billion. She also pointed to Trump’s comments in an interview with billionaire Tesla founder Elon Musk that striking workers should be fired.
“Listen to the guy when he’s told you who he is,” she reportedly told union leaders.
O’Brien said Wednesday that the union “sought commitments from both Trump and Harris not to interfere in critical union campaigns or core Teamsters industries—and to honor our members’ right to strike—but were unable to secure those pledges.”
The union objected to Harris “not preemptively saying the White House would play no role in settling the Teamsters’ dispute with [the United Postal Service],” according to The New York Times.
But a number of union locals and the Teamsters National Black Caucus endorsed Harris before the union’s announcement Wednesday, and the California Teamsters Public Affairs Council announced its support for the vice president shortly afterwards.
“The 250,000 who work across California are fundamental to the American economy, not only producing and transporting goods, but also providing essential services throughout the private and public sectors,” said Joint Council 42 president Chris Griswold. “They deserve an administration that will put working people first.”
Harris has won endorsements from the United Auto Workers, the Communications Workers of America, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, and other key unions.
“The vice president’s strong union record is why Teamsters locals across the country have already endorsed her—alongside the overwhelming majority of organized labor,” Harris campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt said Wednesday. “She will look out for the Teamsters rank-and-file no matter what—because they always have been and always will be the people she fights for.”
John Palmer, a vice president at large for the union and member of its executive board, acknowledged that Harris had sent that message in her meeting with the Teamsters this week, telling the Times that she said, “I want your endorsement, but if I don’t get it, I will treat you exactly as if I had gotten your endorsement.”
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This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Sep. 13, 2024. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
“We’re fighting for every family,” said the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the union that represents about 33,000 workers at commercial plane manufacturer Boeing, on Friday, after its members voted to reject a tentative contract offered by the company and go on strike. “We’re fighting for the future of Boeing.”
The work stoppage began just after midnight on Friday after 95% of workers represented by IAM District 751 voted to reject the proposed contract and 96% authorized the strike. The support of just two-thirds of the members was needed to initiate the walkout.
On Sunday, IAM District 751 President Jon Holden had expressed optimism about the tentative deal, which included a 25% raise for workers over the life of the four-year contract, a reduction in healthcare costs for employees, and an increase in Boeing’s contributions to members’ retirement plans.
But Holden said the union’s leadership would “protect and support” however members chose to proceed with the contract, whose terms fell short of the 40% raise they had originally demanded.
The last strike at Boeing lasted 57 days in 2008, and the contract that ended the strike has been extended twice since then—with the union making concessions that resulted in higher healthcare costs and an end to unionized workers’ traditional pension program.
“Workers are extremely eager to claw back lost ground on wages at a moment of crisis for Boeing,” said Lauren Kaori Gurley, labor reporter for The Washington Post.
The work stoppage comes as Boeing is working to increase airplane production amid questions about its safety standards and manufacturing capabilities following an incident in January in which a door panel blew out of a 737 Max jetliner when the plane was mid-flight.
The Federal Aviation Administration required Boeing to limit its production of 737 Max jets after the accident, until it could meet quality and safety benchmarks, but output at the company’s Renton, Washington factory “is far behind where Boeing wants,” The New York Times reported.
Joe Philbin, a mechanic at the Renton facility, told the Post that unionized workers have “a lot of leverage—why waste that?”
“This is about respect,” Holden told members Thursday night. “This is about addressing the past, and this is about fighting for our future… Boeing has to stop breaking the law, has to bargain in good faith, and we will be back at the table whenever we can get there to drive forward on the issues that our members say are important.”
In addition to federal investigations into Boeing’s manufacturing and safety standards after the January incident, the U.S. Department of Justice in May said the company had failed to meet conditions of a deal that shielded it from criminal prosecution over two deadly plane crashes in 2018 and 2019.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said Boeing’s ability to maintain workplaces that are safe for employees—and the public that relies on the comnpany’s planes—hinges on its treatment of workers.
“There are no safe planes without union machinists. If Boeing wants to restore its safety culture, its first order of business should be ensuring its workers are fairly compensated and protected from retaliation,” said Markey, expressing solidarity with the striking machinists.
The United Auto Workers and the Communications Workers of America also expressed support for IAM District 751.
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The international climate group Greenpeace on Friday called on European leaders to “reciprocate” the courage shown by first responders in several countries over the weekend by forcing fossil fuel giants to pay for climate damages. Calling out leaders including Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, and Romania Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu…
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“We’re fighting for every family,” said the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the union that represents about 33,000 workers at commercial plane manufacturer Boeing, on Friday, after its members voted to reject a tentative contract offered by the company and go on strike. “We’re fighting for the future of Boeing.” The work stoppage began on Friday after 95%
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In cities and towns across France on Saturday, more than 100,000 people answered the call from the left-wing political party La France Insoumise for mass protests against President Emmanuel Macron’s selection of a right-wing prime minister. The demonstrations came two months after the left coalition won more seats than Macron’s centrist coalition or the far-right Rassemblement National (RN)…
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Campaigners who last month celebrated the success of their effort to place an abortion rights referendum on November ballots in Missouri faced uncertainty about the ballot initiative Friday night, after a judge ruled that organizers had made an error on their petitions that rendered the measure invalid. Judge Christopher Limbaugh of Cole County Circuit Court sided with pro-forced pregnancy…
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Leading U.S. Senate Democrats on Friday accused House Republicans of “wasting precious time catering to the hard MAGA right” as House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled a stopgap funding bill tied to a proposal that would require proof of citizenship in order to vote in federal elections. The proposal — the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act — has been pushed by Republican…
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This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Sep. 4, 2024. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
“The new jobs of the South will be union jobs,” said Tim Smith, a regional director for the United Auto Workers, after the union announced Tuesday that 1,000 workers at Ultium Cells in Spring Hill, Tennessee had voted to form a collective bargaining unit.
The vote made the electric vehicle battery plant the second Ultium Cells workplace to join the UAW, and the second auto industry plant in the U.S. South to vote in favor of unionization following the launch of a major $40 million organizing effort in the region this year.
Anti-union companies such as EV automaker Tesla have eyed the South as a region to make a manufacturing push, due to its historical antagonism toward labor and low levels of unionization.
But Smith said the vote at Ultium Cells proves that “in the battery plants and EV factories springing up from Georgia to Kentucky to Texas, workers know they deserve the same strong pay and benefits our members have won. And we’re going to make sure they have the support they need to win their unions and win their fair share.”
The first Ultium Cells battery plant to join the UAW was the Lordstown, Ohio location, where employees ratified a contract in June that included a 30% raise over three years for production workers, an immediate $3,000 bonus, and health and safety protections.
“Being unionized will help us reap the benefits as far as better healthcare, better pay, and overall, just having decency within the workplace—not just for us, but future generations,” said Tradistine Chambers, a worker at Ultium in Spring Hill.
General Motors, which jointly owns Ultium Cells with South Korean company LG Energy Solution, voluntarily recognized the new union on Tuesday.
“The workers organized without facing threats or intimidation and won their union once a majority of workers signed cards,” said the UAW.
Trudy Lindahl, a worker at the plant, said it was “a great day for Ultium workers and for every worker in Tennessee and the South.”
“Southern workers are ready to stand up and win our fair share by winning our unions,” said Lindahl. “And when we have a free and fair choice, we will win every time.”
Two months after the UAW launched its organizing drive in the South, workers at a Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee overwhelmingly voted to join the union. A vote at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama in May failed even though a majority of workers had signed union cards, and the UAW filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board that the automaker had launched a union-busting campaign.
Despite that setback in Alabama, organizer Keith Brower Brown of Labor Notes said the union in Spring Hill could serve as “a potential union anchor for massive factories under construction for the emerging Southern battery belt.”
Tens of thousands of new EV battery jobs are expected to come online across the South in the coming months, including at plants owned by Ford in Tennessee and Kentucky.
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As U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller was telling reporters on Tuesday that assessments regarding whether Israel is abiding by international humanitarian law in Gaza are ongoing, more than two dozen rights groups were telling the Biden administration that it need look no further than its own memo released months ago to see that the U.S. must end its support for the Israeli military.
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Among the world’s wealthiest countries, the U.S. leads the way in spending public money on so-called climate “solutions” that have been proven to “consistently fail, overspend, or underperform,” according to an analysis released Thursday by the research and advocacy group Oil Change International. The group’s report, titled Funding Failure, focuses on international spending on carbon capture…
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Immigrant rights advocates said Monday that they were “deeply troubled” by Trump-appointed judge’s ruling that brought the Biden administration’s protections for undocumented spouses to a grinding halt, just a week after officials began taking applications from couples who wanted to take part in the Keeping Families Together program. Siding with 16 Republican-led states that sued over the…
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A decision by the National Labor Relations Board on Thursday marked “the beginning of the end for Amazon’s favorite legal loophole,” said one grassroots labor group, as the board ruled that Amazon is a joint employer of its drivers — making it legally required to recognize and bargain with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union that represents dozens of the delivery workers.
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Abortion rights defenders in Arkansas said Thursday it was “a dark day” after the state’s Supreme Court ruled a ballot measure that would enshrine stronger reproductive rights protections for people in the state was ineligible for November election ballots. The court ruled 4-3 in favor of arguments presented by Republican officials including Secretary of State John Thurston and Attorney…
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With countries set to focus heavily on climate finance for the Global South at the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference in November, the Tax Justice Network on Monday offered a proposal that could raise double the amount of money needed to help developing countries transition to clean energy and adapt to extreme weather — and there’s already proof the idea is effective and politically…
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