BlueCollarWriter Labor News Update
Labor News Update - 02/20/2023
TOP STORY
Warrior Met Coal Responds to UMWA
United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) International President Cecil E. Roberts issued the following statement today:
“We received a response from Warrior Met Coal to our unconditional offer to return to work late on February 17. We have replied to the company, asking several questions that we need to know the answers to before we can discuss the next steps with our members and be responsive to the company’s letter.”
https://umwa.org/news-media/press/press-release-warrior-met-coal-responds-to-umwa/
'Huge': Nationwide Federal Order Bars Starbucks From Firing Workers for Union Activity https://www.commondreams.org/news/starbucks-firing-union-workers
A slaughterhouse cleaning company paid a $1.5 million fine for illegally employing more than 100 children https://finance.yahoo.com/news/slaughterhouse-cleaning-company-paid-1-103700949.html
Upholding Qantas’s decision to sack staff would weaken workplace rights, union warns
The airline is seeking to overturn in the high court a finding that it illegally outsourced 1,700 ground handlers jobs
Thomas Donahue, who vied with John Sweeney over labor's future, dies at 94
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/19/obituaries/thomas-donahue-dead.html
In a few days Austin Locke will walk back into the Queens, New York, Starbucks store he was fired from seven months ago. He’ll also get a wad of back pay, and money from civil penalties.
https://www.labornotes.org/2023/02/how-get-un-fired
IL poised to mandate paid leave for nearly all workers
Since the late 1970s, strike action and union membership have been declining steadily in most Western democracies. New research finds that one key reason is the working class’s increasing dependence on credit.
https://jacobin.com/2023/02/wage-earner-household-debt-strike-union-decline
A recent proposal to ban noncompete agreements begins to reverse the erosion of worker power in America
https://prospect.org/labor/2023-01-30-restoring-worker-freedom-noncompete/
Resident physicians and fellows at Philadelphia-based University of Pennsylvania Health System are asking the health system to voluntarily recognize their union, the Committee of Interns and Residents.
https://ky.aflcio.org/news/beckers-hospital-review-penn-medicine-physicians-seek-union-0
A recent victory over wage theft shows what workers everywhere need to claw back their stolen pay—support, resources and enforcement. https://inthesetimes.com/article/wage-theft-union-labor-biden-iupat
This Day in Labor History
Appalshop: The Pittston Coal strike finally came to an end on this day 33 years ago, almost a year after it started.
Pittston terminated health care benefits for 1,500 UMWA Union miners and their families — so people walked out, protested, and rallied.
video: https://fb.watch/iPIOq9FOqa/
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Matt Alley - Blue Collar Writer
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