Republican Party

By Julia Conley - Common Dreams, March 8, 2024

"We will see fatalities, because of what Florida Republicans chose to do this week," said one workers' rights advocate.

Displaying "punitive cruelty" toward Florida residents who work outdoors, the Republican-controlled state House on Friday approved a bill that would ban local governments from requiring that workplaces provide water breaks and other cooling measures.

The state Senate passed the measure on Thursday, with Republicans pushing the bill through as Miami-Dade County was scheduled to vote on local water break protections. If signed into law by the Republican governor, the proposal will preempt the county's vote.

Roughly 2 million workers are expected to be affected by the legislation in Florida, where parts of the state experienced record-breaking heat last year. Meteorologists found that last month was the hottest February ever recorded globally, and the ninth straight month to set such a record.

Miami-Dade County officials estimate that 34 people die from heat-related causes each year.

"Every single year, it's going to get hotter and hotter," Oscar Londoño, executive director of worker advocacy group WeCount!, toldThe Guardian. "Many more workers' lives are going to be at risk. We will see fatalities, because of what Florida Republicans chose to do this week."

Londoño called the bill a "cruel... bad faith attempt to keep labor conditions very low for some of the most vulnerable workers."

By Union Jake and Adam Keller - Valley Labor Report, February 20, 2024

By Union Jake and Adam Keller - Valley Labor Report, January 16, 2024

By Union Jake and Adam Keller - Valley Labor Report, December 28, 2023

By Steven Greenhouse and Shawn Fain - In These Times, November 8, 2023

When Shawn Fain won the presidency of the United Auto Workers last March as an insurgent candidate, promising to transform the union and take on Detroit’s automakers, he spoke with veteran labor journalist and Century Foundation senior fellow Steven Greenhouse for In These Times. Fain laid out a militant agenda.

“We need to run contract campaigns where we engage the membership and go after their demands,” he said. ​“We haven’t done this in my lifetime.”

Six months later, Fain led targeted strikes against Ford, GM and Stellantis that have secured tentative agreements that include a 25% wage increase — more than all the raises that auto workers have received over the last 20 years combined. As UAW members began voting on the agreements, Greenhouse spoke with Fain again on November 5.

By Cody Bloomfield - Truthout, November 5, 2023

In April, as the Atlanta Police Foundation erected high fences with razor wire around the site of the planned Public Safety Training Center dubbed “Cop City,” Atlanta organizer Jaye C. began photographing the construction, poking her camera through the chain link fence, documenting as 33 acres of forest became part of a barren expanse. In March, police chased, tasered and arrested activists on domestic terrorism charges until protesters were finally forced to cede the forest that they had occupied for the better part of two years. The fences went up, and Stop Cop City organizers pivoted. Protest continued at public buildings, neighboring parks, and the homes and businesses of contractors. Activists doubled down on legal challenges to the project and launched a campaign to put Cop City on the ballot. But the actual construction site became impenetrable.

A group of Stop Cop City activists aim to change that, to once again put their bodies on the line to block Cop City, to buy time before the Atlanta Police Foundation can destroy the remaining 50 or so acres of forest. A mere week after the RICO indictment of 61 activists, the newly christened Block Cop City wing of the movement issued a call to action to supporters around the country: Show up. Cause trouble (nonviolently, organizers clarify). We’ll see you in the forest.

The mass mobilization will take place in Atlanta from November 10-13. In the run-up to it, Block Cop City organizers embarked on a breakneck speaking tour, visiting over 70 cities in less than two months. They hope that at each place they visit, a few people will decide to come down to Atlanta, culminating in hundreds converging on November 13 to march on the construction site. Organizers have intentionally prioritized making plans for the protest public, and intend for the protest, described as mass nonviolent direct action, to challenge the legitimacy of the state through civil disobedience rather than sabotage. In the decentralized Stop Cop City movement, November’s action is but one tactic. But it’s an important one, particularly now, when Atlanta has ensnared dozens of activists in criminal proceedings while conspiring against democratic resistance.

By Chris Townsend - Marxist-Leninism Today, October 30, 2023

Any knowledgeable observer of the United Auto Workers Union (UAW) over the past 50 years would have inevitably been forced to note that over recent decades the union’s membership had been dramatically slashed by hostile employers and politicians, that both union activity levels and influence had declined massively, and in many quarters the auto union had been transformed into a particularly virulent company union.

So addled and company-captured was the UAW top leadership that by 2014 a series of federal government criminal investigations and prosecutions grew, expanded, and eventually led to the removal of more than 30 national UAW leaders. The resulting U.S. government-ordered union election which produced Shawn Fain as new President of the UAW in March of this year was an earthquake both inside and outside the union.

Auto union old guarders and employers alike both feared the election of Fain. But by the narrowest margins Fain was elected to the top spot, and in just several months the union is already well into an expanding process of renewal. It is still early, and only time will tell, but the current strike struggle is clearly solid evidence of the new leadership’s intention to restore the union to a serious trade union path.

By Laura Clawson - Daily Kos, October 30, 2023

“Record profits mean record contracts” sounded like an aspirational slogan as the United Auto Workers went on strike against the Big Three automakers. But it’s what the union made happen over a six-week strike that now ends thanks to a tentative agreement with General Motors. Ford and Stellantis had agreed to tentative deals in recent days. Workers still need to ratify those contracts, but workers are back on the job at Ford and Stellantis and will be heading back to work at GM.

The union made big gains on pay and ending the two-tier system that left newer workers making much less than their longer-tenured coworkers. But that’s not all: The agreements offer both hope for a more just clean energy transition and a rebuttal to the top Republican talking point about the strike.

By staff - Texas Climate Jobs Project, October 25, 2023

HyVelocity is poised to receive $1.2 billion to build Texas Gulf hydrogen hub

Houston, Texas – Today the Texas Climate Jobs Project, Commission Shift, Air Alliance Houston, West Street Recovery, the Coalition for Environment, Equity, and Resilience, Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter, Sunrise Movement ATX, Texas AFL-CIO, and the Texas Gulf Coast Area Labor Federation released the following statement in response to the Department of Energy’s decision to move forward and negotiate with HyVelocity to award $1.2 billion to build a hydrogen hub in the Texas Gulf:

“We are deeply distressed by the Department of Energy’s decision to advance the HyVelocity hydrogen application in Texas. Through the Department of Energy Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub program, the Biden administration is poised to transfer $1.2 billion in taxpayer dollars to HyVelocity, whose application sponsors include ExxonMobil and Chevron, and whose supporting partners include Amazon, Governor Greg Abbott, and the Texas Railroad Commission.” 

“Our organizations are on the front lines of environmental justice, labor organizing, and community work to reduce carbon emissions and improve living conditions across the Texas Gulf, and HyVelocity’s lack of transparency and refusal to make adequate concrete commitments leave us concerned. We urge the Department of Energy to compel HyVelocity to resolve its differences with our organizations before choosing to move the applicant further in the process.” 

“This includes, at a minimum: prioritizing projects that use renewable energy like wind and solar to help reduce overall carbon emissions; binding community workforce agreements for construction workers with strong Justice40 commitments; and binding labor peace agreements to ensure a just transition for fossil fuel workers.”

By Chris Townsend, Union Jake, and Adam Keller - The Valley Labor Report, October 12, 2023