 | |
Via Eve Thoson |
December 30, 2024
WORKERS
Labor Notes - Union workers broke open the cookie jar in 2024, after years of stagnant wages and rising prices. With strikes and the threat of strikes, workers did more than forestall concessions: They gained ground. Union workers in the private sector saw 6 percent real wage rises for the year.
Just the fear that workers would organize drove up wages at non-union employers like Delta Airlines, Amazon, and Mercedes.
Meanwhile, unemployment rates of around 4 percent made strikes easier to maintain. For instance, many Boeing workers were able to get side jobs during their 53-day strike this fall. Relatively plentiful jobs have also made it easier for workers to organize new unions, since the threat of getting fired is less daunting.
Nearly 28,000 school employees in Virginia and 10,000 nurses in Michigan joined unions in the two biggest organizing victories of the year. At the first Southern auto plant to organize in decades, Volkswagen in Chattanooga, Tennessee, 5,000 workers won a union in April by a decisive 73 percent...
After a strike that shut down production in the Pacific Northwest, Boeing Machinists bagged a 38 percent general wage increase over four years. A three-day port strike netted 20,000 Longshore (ILA) workers 61 percent over six years. It was the first East Coast-wide longshore strike since 1977.
Continuing the uptick in strikes since the onset of Covid, 2024 is on track for as many strikes as 2022, though it didn’t match the huge walkouts of 2023 in Hollywood, at Kaiser, and at the Big 3. Johnnie Kallas of the Cornell Labor Action Tracker reported 34 strikes in manufacturing through November.
Workers gained just by threatening a strike. At Daimler Truck in North Carolina, 7,400 workers chanted “Tick tock” as the contract deadline approached. They defeated tiers and won a 25 percent increase, with more for lower-paid workers.
After a vigorous contract campaign and 99.5 percent strike vote, American Airlines flight attendants (APFA) secured an immediate 20 percent pay increase, back pay from their 2019 contract expiration, and boarding pay for the first time. (Most flight attendants aren’t paid till the aircraft door closes.) Southwest flight attendants (TWU) won big wage gains; United flight attendants (AFA) voted 99.9 percent to strike, and may still do so. Airline workers have to navigate a lengthy obstacle course sanctioned by the Railway Labor Act, if they want to strike.
Teacher strikes yielded gains for teachers and students. In Massachusetts, where reformers lead the statewide union, but strikes are illegal, teachers in several districts struck anyway. They won more student services, time to plan classes, and raises for the lowest-paid aides—60 percent in 10 schools in Andover in January.
Gains from 2023’s strikes raised expectations for 2024. Unions that pushed sub-par contracts on their members faced revolts. Machinists leaders at Boeing backpedaled furiously when a contract they recommended was voted down by 95 percent in September. Letter Carriers are organizing a vigorous “vote no” campaign after union leaders submitted a contract with 1.3 percent annual wage increases.
PRIVACY
Epic - The California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) has released a new website with privacy resources for Californians. The website includes information for consumers about state and federal level privacy rights and information for businesses about how to comply with the privacy rules and regulations. It shares instructions for Californians to opt out of the sale or sharing of their personal information and how to submit a complaint to the CPPA if their privacy rights have been violated. The CPPA is currently accepting comments on its ongoing rulemaking focusing on CCPA Updates, Insurance, Cybersecurity Audits, Risk Assessments, and Automated Decisionmaking Technology Regulations. Comments are due on January 14, 2025.
PRISON
Solitary Watch -Kwaneta Harris, an award-winning incarcerated journalist and our newest
Contributing Writer, delves into her experience of coping with solitary
confinement-related trauma. After eight and a half years of living in
solitary, Harris returned to the general prison population. Riddled with
survivor’s guilt, and without the benefit of any kind of transitional
programming, she struggled to teach her body and mind to exist in a less
confined space. In the end, she concludes: “Now I realize the only
solution for coping with the trauma from solitary isn’t a program. It’s
never to go there in the first place.”
DONALD TRUMP
NY Times - President-elect Donald J. Trump on Monday failed to overturn a $5 million judgment that he sexually abused the writer E. Jean Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s and later defamed her.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued to a federal appeals panel that a lower court in Manhattan had erred by allowing two women to testify in the Carroll trial that he had also sexually assaulted them. The lawyers also argued that the court should not have allowed Ms. Carroll’s lawyers to play the recording of the “Access Hollywood” conversation in which Mr. Trump bragged in vulgar terms about grabbing women by the genitals.
The appeals court rejected Mr. Trump’s request for a new trial in the case, which produced the smaller of two defamation judgments against him. “Mr. Trump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings,” the opinion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said. It was unsigned but issued by a panel that included the judges Denny Chin and Susan Carney — appointed by President Barack Obama — as well as Myrna Perez, appointed by President Biden.
Newsweek - A new Gallup poll released on December 27 showed Trump has a positive approval rating going into the new year, with 51 percent of Americans approving of how he's handling his transition into power versus 44 percent who disapprove.
Donald Trump backs H-1B visa program supported by Elon Musk
Daily Beast - President-elect Donald Trump’s social media posts about annexing Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal startled America’s allies and delighted foreign foes. In Russia, the statements were interpreted to mean that Trump isn’t really opposed to foreign wars of conquest after all.To them, Trump’s tirades revealed that—just like Russian President Vladimir Putin—Trump would be delighted to invade any country that couldn’t fight back. He would expect accolades and a lavish victory parade after seizing foreign territories, just like the fallout from Russia stealing Crimea in 2014.Trump infamously described the annexation of Crimea as a “genius” and “savvy” move.
ENVIRONMENT
Reuters - New York state will fine fossil fuel companies a total of $75 billion over the next 25 years to pay for damage caused to the climate under a bill Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law on Thursday.
The
law is intended to shift some of the recovery and adaptation costs of
climate change from individual taxpayers to oil, gas and coal companies
that the law says are liable. The money raised will be spent on
mitigating the impacts of climate change, including adapting roads,
transit, water and sewage systems, buildings and other infrastructure.
"New
York has fired a shot that will be heard round the world: The companies
most responsible for the climate crisis will be held accountable," New
York Senator Liz Krueger, a Democrat who co-sponsored the bill, said in a
statement.
Fossil
fuel companies will be fined based on the amount of greenhouse gases
they released into the atmosphere between 2000 and 2018, to be paid into
a Climate Superfund beginning in 2028. It will apply to any company
that the New York Department of Environmental Conservation determines is
responsible for more than 1 billion tons of global greenhouse gas
emissions
IMMIGRATION
AP News - Republicans made claims about illegal voting by noncitizens a centerpiece of their 2024 campaign messaging and plan to push legislation in the new Congress requiring voters to provide proof of U.S. citizenship. Yet there’s one place with a GOP supermajority where linking voting to citizenship appears to be a nonstarter: Kansas. That’s because the state has been there, done that, and all but a few Republicans would prefer not to go there again. Kansas imposed a proof-of-citizenship requirement over a decade ago that grew into one of the biggest political fiascos in the state in recent memory.
The law, passed by the state Legislature in 2011 and implemented two years later, ended up blocking the voter registrations of more than 31,000 U.S. citizens who were otherwise eligible to vote. That was 12% of everyone seeking to register in Kansas for the first time. Federal courts ultimately declared the law an unconstitutional burden on voting rights, and it hasn’t been enforced since 2018.
HEALTH
NPR - Several people have fallen seriously ill in North America due to bird flu, and fears that a strain of the flu could unleash a pandemic go back decades. Here’s what the latest research says about protecting yourself and your pets.
MIDDLE EAST
NPR - A high-ranking Syrian official told NPR he wants his country to have
cordial ties with Israel and wants the U.S. to help facilitate them. This
is not commonly heard from an Arab-led government, especially one made
up of rebels who once had ties to al-Qaida. The statement made by the
newly appointed governor of Damascus, Maher Marwan, sent shockwaves
throughout the region. In the interview with NPR’s Hadeel Al-Shalchi, Marwan said it was
natural that when rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham took power Israel
felt some fear. Marwan continued by saying Syria couldn’t be an opponent to Israel and wanted co-existence.
The U.S. has relayed the message to Israel. The Israeli foreign
ministry said it rejected any overture from HTS. Syria and Israel have
been in a state of war since Israel’s creation in 1948 and have never
had diplomatic ties. Marwan has since issued a video distancing himself
from the comments he made to NPR.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)