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.
Liz Shuler: Harms to Working People in One Year of the Big Ugly Bill: “Since the passing of the Big Ugly Bill, the U.S. economy has had one of the worst years of job growth in decades. Black workers have been hit the hardest, with an unemployment rate now more than double the rate for White workers. Millions of Americans have lost their health care and access to the food programs they rely on, all while dealing with higher costs on everything from gas and groceries to electricity. With even bigger cuts going into effect after the midterm elections, states’ budgets are getting blown up and local lawmakers are planning devastating cuts to even more essential programs to cover their residents’ SNAP and Medicaid costs.”
Roxanne Brown: How Unions Keep the American Dream Alive for Working Families: “Union members across the country make significantly more money than their non-union peers. They’re also more likely to have family leave, paid time off, and work-life balance. This all adds up to cars in the garage, summer vacations, and sports leagues for the kids, along with all of the other pluses that make life worth living. This is what independence looks like. Marcelo simply calls it the ‘union life.’”
Both University of Chicago Press and Hachette Book Group Have Voted to Unionize: “As of this afternoon, the University of Chicago Press Workers Guild (UCPWG) has won their union election, with a majority of the group’s 134 members voting to become a unit of the Chicago News Guild. In this decisive victory, 89% of workers voted in favor of union representation. Which should create the conditions for the first union in the press’s 130-year history. But wait, it gets better! (And how often do you get to read that, these days?) This effort is part of a nationwide labor movement that’s currently gunning for the publishing industry—and gaining huge wins. For just yesterday, employees at the Hachette Book Group also voted (388 to 130) to unionize with the Washington-Baltimore News Guild.”
Columbus Metropolitan Latest Among Central Ohio Libraries to Form Union: “More than 80% of Columbus Metropolitan Library's eligible staff voted to form their union—to be called CML United—now the largest of among five other local library systems in recent years to do so. According to secret ballot election results released July 7 by Ohio’s State Employment Relations Board (SERB), 86% of valid ballots agreed to unionize. The new union includes about 600 librarians, customer service specialists, youth engagement specialists, materials services associates, drivers, sorters, and other library workers.”
Roxanne Brown: We Pay Our Fair Share. Why Don’t the Rich?: “United Steelworkers (USW) retirees in Granite City, Ill., held a birthday celebration of sorts on Aug. 14 to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s signing of the Social Security Act. These activists, members of the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR), delivered a birthday cake to a local member of Congress and posed for photos, all to send a message about Social Security’s importance and the need to protect this lifeline for seniors. It’s a message that gets more urgent each year, with this vital program hurtling toward insolvency and the Republican-led Congress refusing to take the common-sense measures needed to sustain it.”
Longtime Nashville Labor Leader Vonda McDaniel Dies at 60: “According to a biography published by the CLC, McDaniel joined the United Rubber Workers in 1992 at the Bridgestone plant in La Vergne. In addition to her local roles, she spent nearly a decade on the national executive council of the AFL-CIO. She was also a longtime member of the Convention Center Authority. Tributes to McDaniel poured in from around the country. AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond called her ‘a trailblazer and true champion of working people.’”