Teamsters: Roger Williams Medical Center Teamsters Unanimously Ratify First Contract
Skilled maintenance workers at Roger Williams Medical Center represented by Teamsters Local 251 in East Providence, R.I. unanimously ratified a first contract following more than a year of fighting for improvements on the job.
AFL-CIO: Working People Stand Together Against Sexual Harassment
The AFL-CIO brought allies and union leaders together yesterday with the aim of ending sexual harassment in the workplace. When working people join together in union, we can listen to each other, mobilize our co-workers, speak with a unified voice and fight together to win justice in the workplace.
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler said, “Unions have an important role to play in ending sexual harassment because fighting for dignity and respect on the job is fundamental to the work we do in the labor movement.” –READ MORE
Bloomberg: Now Arriving at America’s Airports: Unions
Service employees from Boston to Los Angeles are winning raises and gaining leverage in a bright patch for organized labor.
During the first weeks of 2018, subcontracted service staff at Virginia’s Reagan National and Dulles International airports got a raise. So did baggage handlers, cabin cleaners, and wheelchair attendants at Boston’s Logan airport, who also staged a 36-hour strike to defend their right to organize.
Soon, under laws passed last year, workers at other airports across the country, from Chicago to Los Angeles, will be getting wage bumps, too. -READ MORE
MSN: Her Ticket to a Life She Loves: A Hard Hat
Scrolling through Erin Lakenen’s Instagram inspires instant wanderlust. In one photo the 23-year-old is in Vietnam with a burly snake wrapped around her neck. In another, she overlooks a lush mountain in Ecuador. There’s a shot of her skydiving with her head thrown back in laughter, and one of her hair streaming in the wind as she soars on a picturesque swing.
In between adventures, she returns home to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to kayak and surf in Lake Superior — even in winter — and renovate the home she recently bought. -READ MORE
Now This in Politics FaceBook: This is why unions are essential to so many American families. WATCH VIDEO
KITCHEN TABLE ECONOMICS
Full workers’ freedom: That’s the law of the Navajo Nation, which says, in part, “Employees shall have the right to form, join or assist any labor organization for the purpose of collective bargaining without interference, restraint or coercion by a public employer or any other person.”
FREE income tax services for families and individuals earning $55,000 or less.
Unions, please inform your members and share on websites and social media. Thank you!
UPCOMING EVENTS:
The Janus Decision: An historic opportunity to organize, energize and fight back.
When: Monday, February 26 @ 6-8:00 p.m.
Where: UFCW, 278 Silver Spring St., Providence, RI
Details: A multi-union forum exploring the impact of JANUS and how we face the challenge together and come out stronger.
THIS WEEK IN LABOR HISTORY
1918 – Faced with 84-hour workweeks, 24-hour shifts and pay of 29¢ an hour, fire fighters form The Int’l Association of Fire Fighters. Some individual locals had affiliated with the AFL beginning in 1903.
1950 – The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) expels the Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers; the Food, Tobacco & Agricultural Workers; and the United Office & Professional Workers for “Communist tendencies.” Other unions expelled for the same reason (dates uncertain): Fur and Leather Workers, the Farm Equipment Union, the Int’l Longshoremen’s Union, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Worker
THIS WEEK ON LABOR VISION:
Rhode Island AFL-CIO 