People,
Greetings from the Burgh where I returned to Pittsburgh as the Amazon vote count continues. We couldn’t afford to keep three reporters down any longer, so I came back.
Help keep Alexander Richey grounded in Alabama to fill the number of votes on Amazon
Fortunately, Alexander Richey, Bill Greider Grant’s first fellow, lives in Birmingham and will be staying to continue reporting.
It will take almost two weeks for the votes to be counted on Amazon. If you can, please donate today so we can keep paying Alexander to stay on site and report back to Bessemer.
Remember, the best way to support us is to sign up as a recurring donor today.
Alabama Coal Miners Strike As Warrior Met Reaches Preliminary Settlement
As the Amazon census continues, we hope to cover the final days of the Warrior Met Coal Miners’ strike, which saw more than 1,100 miners on strike in the hills around Brookwood, Alabama last Thursday evening.
Yesterday the union announced that it had reached a preliminary agreement with Warrior Met Coal. However, the strike will not end until the union has a full chance to debate and decide whether to accept the deal. This process is expected to take at least until Friday.
“The decision to start this strike was mine,” Cecil Roberts, president of United Mine Workers of America, said in a statement yesterday. “The decision to end the strike is now up to the membership of the union at Warrior Met. If they ratify this draft agreement, the strike will end and they will have a new contract. If they don’t ratify, the strike will continue and we will seek further negotiations with the company. “
Please visit AL.com for more information.
With 1,300 steel workers strikes in Pittsburgh, Conor Lamb urges Congress to give strikers COBRA
Back here in Pittsburgh, ATI has had a steel worker strike with 1,300 people for almost a week.
According to the union, the two sides are still far apart when it comes to reaching an agreement with ATI that does not improve their last offer in late March, causing the union to go on strike.
The Steelworkers had a bitter relationship with ATI (Allegheny Technologies Incorporated) when ATI suspended the Steelworkers Union for six months in 2016.
“The negotiators have had several conversations and discussions since the strike began and it is more than insincere for the ATI website to say otherwise,” the union said in a statement posted online earlier this week. “During these discussions the position of management has remained unchanged and … the last management response to the union was that they would contact us.”
Earlier this week, Congressman Conor Lamb picketed the workers. He is now calling on Congress to pay for full COBRA coverage for striking workers because ATI cut the health benefits of steel workers. (Under the American Recovery Act, Congress pays the full amount to COBRA for every worker who loses their health insurance.)
In a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh, Lamb urged them to extend the full COBRA benefits to workers on strike.
“These workers shouldn’t put their health care – for themselves and their families – at risk during a strike,” Lamb wrote. “The American rescue plan provides protection for workers, and we need the administration to ensure that these protections are put in place immediately.”
For more information on the strike, see the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.
Odessa Kelly, organizer of the Nashville Labor community, is running for Congress
Nashville Democratic representative Jim Cooper is one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress and still routinely brags about how proud he is to vote against the bipartisan law on Americans with disabilities.
However, he represents Nashville, a city that has grown tremendously and has become far more cosmopolitan and progressive since he was first elected in 1983.
Now he faces the challenge of 39-year-old black organizer Odessa Kelly of the labor community group Stand Up Nashville, an organization whose efforts to win agreements on benefits, workplace improvements and wage increases have been extensively covered in the Payday Report since 2017 .
Alex Sammons took a look at the American Prospect to see what her choice might mean:
Kelly also has a proven history of making meaningful change for Nashville workers. When Major League Soccer selected Nashville as the newest city for a professional franchise in 2018, a decision came with a $ 275 million city contribution to build a new stadium for the team, Kelly’s Stand Up Nashville organization, a coalition of work and community leaders persuaded the owners group to sign a binding welfare agreement that sets a new standard for equitable development in Nashville. As part of that commitment, Nashville Soccer Holdings agreed to hire stadium workers directly and pay them all at least $ 15.50 an hour with a targeted recruitment program that dedicated 4,000 square feet of development space to a childcare facility, and promised to reserve 20 percent of the housing units, that were built on the development site as affordable housing and housing for workers cost a maximum of 30 percent of the indexed household income. The deal was a “historic”, “unique” deal for a government-led project, according to local news.
Stand Up Nashville was also active in battling a proposed satellite headquarters for Amazon in Nashville, which is part of the company’s HQ2 sweepstakes. Amazon received $ 102 million in government and local economic development subsidies to build Nashville offices for 5,000 workers. At the same time, the fast-growing city wept so badly that it had promised $ 38 million in cost of living increases for 9,300 city workers. A “Do Better” ordinance that helped Stand Up Nashville force companies like Amazon to disclose information about wages and local attitudes that the coalition uses to hold companies accountable for their promises.
See the American Prospect for more information.
Beloved Washington teachers’ union Prez Elizabeth Davis dies in a car accident at the age of 70
Finally, Payday mourns the President of the Washington Teachers’ Union, Elizabeth Davis, who died in a car accident this week. Davis led her union at a time when DC Democrats attacked the teachers’ union and turned their corruption-ridden union into an armed force.
The Washington Post has a moving obituary for her:
Davis was a no-nonsense and tireless old-school organizer who helped renew the beleaguered union when it took over and gave it a broad mandate for social justice.
Teachers were often frustrated with Davis allowing everyone to speak at union meetings, which dragged them into the late evening hours. It was known that she gave every teacher her cell phone number and asked them to contact her about any problems, no matter how small.
But Davis said she believed democracy is at the core of any union, and the Washington Teachers’ Union must have the support of its members and the public before taking drastic action like a strike.
For more information, see the Washington Post full obituary.
Okay guys, that’s all for today. Keep sending ideas, tips, and complaints about stories to [email protected]
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Love & solidarity,
milk
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