COVID-19

By Union Jake and Adam Keller with Michael Bailey - Valley Labor Report, July 20, 2023

By Jessie MacInnis - La Via Campesina, July 6, 2023

By Jessica Corbett - Common Dreams, May 19, 2023

"The BLET is currently working to secure similar sick leave agreements with the other Class 1 railroads," said the union's national president, "and I hope this settlement will help bring those negotiations to a positive conclusion."

A leading railroad workers' union this week struck a landmark deal with industry giant Norfolk Southern to provide more than 3,300 employees up to seven days of paid sick leave each year.

"This is a big day for the BLET," declared Scott Bunten, a Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen general chairman. "Our members are the heart of the railroad, and this agreement is a major win in our tireless efforts to improve the quality of their experience on and off the job."

Similarly describing the union's engineers as "the hardest-working folks on the railroad," fellow BLET chairman Jerry Sturdivant said the agreement "recognizes the critical contributions our members make to keep the railroad and the American economy running."

Under the deal, Norfolk Southern engineers will get five paid sick days annually, plus they will be able to use up to two additional days of existing paid time off as sick leave. The new policy will take effect once union members ratify an accompanying quality-of-life agreement, which they are expected to vote on within the next month.

By staff - International Labour Organization, July 13, 2023

Since the General Conference of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 1919 adopted the Anthrax prevention recommendation- R003 calling upon Member States to make arrangements for the disinfection of wool infected with anthrax spores there have been significant advances in the knowledge about biological hazards, their prevention, and the treatment of diseases they cause. However, despite many improvements including the eradication of smallpox and the regional elimination or control of other infectious diseases, the threat from biological hazards continues to be a global challenge. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that the world of work needs to anticipate and be prepared for known and emerging biological threats. SARS-Cov-2 has also highlighted the importance of the community-workplace interface and the need of strengthened collaboration between occupational health services and public health institutions.

The objective of the Technical Guidelines on Biological Hazards adopted by the 346th Session of ILO’s Governing Body in November 2022 (GB.346/INS/17/3) is to provide governments, employers, workers, and their organizations with key principles for the effective management of biological hazards in the working environment, in line with ILO standards and principles. The guidelines were drafted by a group of international specialists and were adopted by a tripartite meeting of experts from different countries that met in Geneva from 20 to 24 June 2022.

Through the dissemination and promotion of these guidelines, the ILO is committed to continuing to
respond to its constitutional objective of supporting its constituents in managing current, emerging, and re-emerging biological hazards in the working environment to ensure the protection of health and life of all workers.

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

By Tracy Scott - Newsweek, May 3, 2023

When John Bayer got the call that the Marathon Martinez oil refinery was shutting down, he was sound asleep after his graveyard shift at the facility, where he worked a union job as a health, safety and emergency response resource. For John, the phone call did more than wake him up after a night of hard work. As an employee at the Marathon refinery for nearly two decades and as the sole provider for his wife and two kids, it shook the foundation of his life and career.

John was just one of nearly 350 workers represented by United Steelworkers Local 5, the union I lead, who lost their jobs when the Marathon refinery shut down in October 2020. John's story echoes that of thousands of oil and other workers across the country who are facing an uncertain future amid the changing energy landscape.

To be clear: In California and across the country, working people support addressing climate change and transitioning to renewable energy. But when refineries like the former Marathon facility shut down without a clear plan in place that involves unions from the outset, workers and the community inevitably get left behind.

In order to guarantee that California has an economy that works for everybody, impacted workers must be at the center of planning for the ongoing transition to clean energy, and they must have access to union jobs that guarantee financial security, strong protections, and good benefits.

By Luis Feliz Leon - Labor Notes, May 1, 2023

A hundred immigrant seafood processing workers in New Bedford, Massachusetts, lost their jobs March 31 when their employer abruptly terminated its contract with the temp agency that placed them. Workers say it was retaliation for organizing.

Their fight will be a test case of new protections for immigrants who organize on the job. The company invited the fired workers to apply for their old jobs, but only a handful were actually rehired.

“When the workers got the news, they started crying, worried about how they are going to pay their rent and bills,” said Ruth Castro, who has worked for five years at the plant and almost 20 years in the industry. “I felt so sad that when I got home all the tears I held back poured out of me.”

At the job site, though, Castro remained dogged. She rallied the workers and proposed a march on the company bosses. “What they did isn’t just. They are playing with the livelihoods of us workers,” she said in Spanish.

Forty workers marched into the Eastern Fisheries processing plant on April 3 to deliver a letter to upper management—demanding that it reconsider using E-verify to screen workers for eligibility to work in the U.S. and alleging that the reverification was retaliation for exercising their legal rights to organize for mutual aid and protection.

They have filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board and an investigation is pending.

By Kenny Stancil - Common Dreams, May 1, 2023

A new analysis catalogs alarming facts about the destructive private jet industry, which is emblematic of runaway economic and carbon inequality.

Research published Monday details how the working class is paying the price, in more ways than one, for the "jet-owning oligarchy" to hop around the globe in their personal luxury planes.

It's well-established that private jet travel by the super-rich is worsening the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis. Adding insult to injury, this conspicuously carbon-intensive consumption is being subsidized by ordinary taxpayers, as the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and Patriotic Millionaires make clear in their new analysis.

Entitled High Flyers 2023: How Ultra-Rich Private Jet Travel Costs the Rest of Us and Burns Up Our Planet, the report catalogs alarming facts about the private jet industry and makes recommendations about how to rein in this potent symbol and manifestation of escalating inequality.

To begin with, "private jets emit at least 10 times more pollutants than commercial planes per passenger," the report notes. "Unsurprisingly, approximately 1% of people are believed to be responsible for about half of all aviation carbon emissions."

Amid a surge in wealth inequality since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, "private jet use has increased by about a fifth, and private jet emissions have increased more than 23%," the report points out. "The private jet sector set industry records with regards to transaction and dollar volume in 2021 and 2022."

While a coronavirus-era boom is evident, the industry has been growing steadily alongside wealth inequality since the turn of the century. As the report states: "The size of the global fleet has increased 133% in the last two decades from 9,895 in 2000 to 23,133 in mid-2022. This bonanza was accompanied by an unprecedented number of business jet operations, 5.3 million in 2022."

By Aleksandra Baranska, Aislinn D'hulster, Joanna Maćkowiak-Pandera, Stephen D. Thomas, Ludovic Voet, and Willy De Backer - European Trade Union Institute, April 27, 2023