Every week, we bring you a roundup of the top news and commentary about issues and events important to working families. Here’s the latest edition of the Working People Weekly List.
Local Tradeswoman Works to Better Women's Work Lives: "A global nonprofit has partnered with trade unions in two countries to help women working in construction, and it's having an impact here in Oregon. LeanIn.Org, North America's Building Trade Union, and Canada's Building Together have launched LeanIn Circles for Union Tradeswomen, a peer mentorship and training program that helps women break new ground in an industry historically dominated by men."
The Myth of Labor Shortages: "The idea that the United States suffers from a labor shortage is fast becoming conventional wisdom. But before you accept the idea, it’s worth taking a few minutes to think it through. Once you do, you may realize that the labor shortage is more myth than reality. Let’s start with some basic economics. The U.S. is a capitalist country, and one of the beauties of capitalism is its mechanism for dealing with shortages. In a communist system, people must wait in long lines when there is more demand than supply for an item. That’s an actual shortage. In a capitalist economy, however, there is a ready solution."
Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect: "April 28 marked 50 years since the law creating the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) took effect. Since then, the agency has prevented hundreds of thousands of workplace deaths. But lately progress has slowed. Every year since 1992 the AFL-CIO—the federation most unions belong to—has published a report on workplace fatalities, looking at causes, trends, and the resources dedicated to keeping workers safe. The 2021 edition of the Death on the Job report shows OSHA resources have been declining."
The Senate Cannot Be the Graveyard for Labor Law Reform Again: "For months, the eyes of our nation were transfixed on a small suburb near Birmingham, Alabama. Warehouse workers authorized the largest union election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The name of their employer is on over 5 billion packages sent annually: Amazon. As a U.S. senator and the president of the AFL-CIO, America’s labor federation, respectively, we called on Amazon to refrain from intimidation and interference in this union election. Nevertheless, the company sent grossly misleading text messages, inundated workers with anti-union propaganda and even installed a mailbox on the premises to surveil the casting of ballots. These tactics are, sadly, not new."
'This Is a Huge Step for Law Enforcement.' Police Unions Shift Stance on Protecting Bad Officers: "In response to the police killing George Floyd, 15 unions that represent law enforcement officers across the U.S. have endorsed a blueprint for policing that includes an unprecedented shift in the way unions protect bad police officers, according to a copy of the plan obtained by CNN ahead of its release this week. A committee convened by the AFL-CIO, Teamsters and Service Employees International unions Friday approved the plan that calls on more than 250,000 law enforcement members and more than 100,000 members in police-adjacent professions to intervene when another union member is doing something wrong. Unions still have a responsibility to represent members they believe are wrongfully accused, but the framework challenges local unions to look at the merits of an officer's actions when considering whether to defend them."
Working Women Need the PRO Act: "When D’Angelo learned about the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which recently passed the House and is currently in the Senate, she wondered if it could have helped her at Comcast many years ago. The legislation would make it easier for workers to form unions by making captive audience meetings and other employer intimidation illegal; it also essentially makes “right to work” laws a thing of the past. But it would do more than that, too: It attempts to fix the immense employee misclassification that plagues millions of workers across the country—workers like Jeanne D’Angelo."
U.S. Labor Leader Calls for Human Drivers in Automated Vehicles: "A senior American labor union leader will tell U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday that the government should require human operators in all self-driving passenger services to take over in the event of an emergency. Greg Regan, president of the Transportation Trades Department for the AFL-CIO, will tell a U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce subcommittee that autonomous vehicles place 'millions of jobs at risk' and any legislation to speed deployment of self-driving cars should not apply to commercial trucks weighing 10,000 pounds or more, according to his written testimony released by the panel on Monday. 'We do not allow passenger airplanes to operate without pilots or passenger rail to run without engineers, and we should use a similar approach with AVs that operate on our often-congested roadways and in complex transit networks,' Regan says in his testimony."
A Major Nurses’ Union Condemns the CDC’s New Mask Advice for Vaccinated People: "The nation’s largest union of registered nurses condemned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday for lifting mask recommendations for vaccinated people and called on the agency to 'do the right thing' and revise its guidance. Bonnie Castillo, a registered nurse and executive director of the union, National Nurses United, said the most recent guidance, which was issued on Thursday and rolled back mask recommendations and other precautions for those who are fully vaccinated, 'is not based on science.' Ms. Castillo said the new guidance would jeopardize the health of frontline workers and the general public and would disproportionately harm people of color. 'This is a huge blow to our efforts at confronting this virus and the pandemic,' said Ms. Castillo, whose union represents 170,000 nurses nationwide. 'The mask is another lifesaving layer of protection for workers,' she said."