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SALEM — Local youth recently completed a five-week pilot employment program in which they gained hands-on experience working at a variety of city departments.
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By Michael McHugh | Staff Writer
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Republic Services Inc. and the striking Teamsters Local 25 have still not scheduled any new negotiations sessions as of Sunday afternoon.
The two parties last negotiated on July 18, without reaching a new contract that would end the now 28-day strike of local waste collection workers.
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By Caroline Enos | Staff Writer
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Republic Services Inc. has filed an injunction against the striking Teamsters Local 25 and the union’s president, Thomas Mari.
The announcement came after another round of negotiations on Tuesday failed to bring about a new contract.
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By Caroline Enos | Staff Writer
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BEVERLY — The School Committee is requesting a mediator join stalled contract negotiations with the Beverly Teachers Association.
The mediator would be a neutral third-party assigned by the Massachusetts Department of Labor, School Committee President Rachael Abell said in a prepared statement Wednesday.
The move comes nine months after negotiations began. While the School Committee and the union are close on tentative agreements for issues like personal days and supply reimbursement, that’s not the case for wage increases and paid parental leave.
“While we know the BTA members share our desire to reach an agreement, it is difficult to make progress without meaningful responses to the School Committee’s proposals and with continued uncompromising demands from the BTA,” Abell said in the statement.
“Members of the School Committee believe this lack of progress on issues our educators identified as critical elements, especially well-deserved wage increases, will benefit from the experience of the DLR resources.”
The School Committee has “made good faith and strong proposals and counter proposals,” Abell said.
“This does not mean we will not continue to negotiate and engage in the conversations and collaborative work with our educators, just that we recognize the frustration in the present meeting format is not moving us closer to resolution,” she said.
BTA Co-President Julia Brotherton said the union is disappointed in the committee’s decision to bring in a mediator and wants to continue to meet them at the table as they are “making slow progress,” she told The Salem News.
“It is true that we’re sticking to our positions on wages and salaries,” Brotherton said. “We especially feel that a living wage for paraprofessionals is a moral issue the School Committee has to address.”
This is the first time the School Committee has requested a mediator in Brotherton’s time on the BTA, she said.
Beverly teachers have been working-to-rule since last week. This means they arrive and leave work at the exact times their current contract calls for (and not stay for after-school or extracurricular duties) as a way to protest the lack of a new contract. The teachers planned to implement the tactic at one or two schools each day until a contract agreement was reached.
On Oct. 4, teachers across the district stood outside of their schools before classes began with signs demanding a new contract.
The School Committee presented the BTA with its most recent wage increase proposal in August. Under that proposal, each teacher at the top step of the salary scale would receive a raise of nearly $14,000 over the next three years while all other educators would see an increase of 4% to 12.1% during that time.
The BTA is requesting more lower-paid positions be moved into higher-paid columns, the hourly curriculum rate be increased to at least $50 per hour and that a teacher with a master’s degree earning the maximum salary make no less than $105,000, among other requests.
The union is also calling for 12 weeks of paid parental leave that is completely funded by the district.
The lack of paid-parental leave for public school teachers in Massachusetts has been an increasingly hot-button issue since 2018. That year, the state passed the Paid Family Medical Leave Act that excluded coverage for municipal employees, including teachers.
The School Committee’s current proposal would allow educators 12 weeks of paid parental leave with two of those weeks funded by the district. The other 10 weeks would be covered by an educator’s accumulated leave and/or a proposed parental leave bank.
Contact Caroline Enos at CEnos@northofboston.com
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By Caroline Enos | Staff Writer
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BOSTON — A union backed proposal to pay tipped workers the state’s minimum wage goes before voters in November, but critics say its passage would hurt Main Street bars and restaurants and drive up consumer costs.
Question 5 asks voters in the November election to decide if the state should require bars, restaurants, hotels and other hospitality venues to pay tipped workers the state’s $15 per hour wage floor, in addition to gratuities.
The plan calls for phasing out the tipped wage for workers over five years, allowing workers to earn up to $15 per hour and keep their tips. It would also allow restaurants to “pool” tips and distribute them equally among all workers, such as cooks, dishwashers and others who don’t interact with customers.
Supporters of phasing out the tipped-wage law — which includes labor organizations and worker advocacy groups — say it would improve wages for underpaid workers who are struggling to survive with the state’s high cost of living.
Saru Jayaraman, president of pro-Question 5 group One Fair Wage, said its passage would ensure that tipped workers “finally receive fair wages, giving them the financial stability they need to support themselves and their families.”
“Since the pandemic, restaurant workers have left the industry in droves. Many of them are tired of barely scraping by on poverty wages and tips that are unpredictable at best,” she said. “It’s time we end the injustice of the subminimum wage and create an industry that truly values and compensates its workers with dignity.”
But critics, like the Massachusetts Restaurant Association and “No on 5” Committee to Protect Tips, argue the plan would increase costs for bars and restaurants that already operate on narrow margins, and lead to higher prices for consumers.
“This would put a massive increase on the costs of small businesses at a time when they are still recovering from COVID,” said Chris Keohan, a spokesman for the “No on 5” opposition group. “This would increase the costs of the average restaurant by about $300,000 a year.”
He said the increased labor costs would push some bars and restaurants out of business or accelerate the shift away from full-service establishments, as employers hire less staff and move to automated operations like McDonald’s and Dunkin’s new self-serve kiosks.
Municipal leaders representing communities including Newburyport, Methuen, Haverhill and Gardner also oppose the proposal, arguing it would devastate Main Street restaurants that are still recovering from the economic effects of the pandemic.
Massachusetts law requires workers to be paid at least $15 an hour — under the “grand bargain” package the Legislature brokered to avert a proposal to cut the state’s sales tax and other proposals. But the 2018 law also allows bars and restaurants to pay tipped workers $6.75 per hour.
The state is home to some 50,000 waiters and waitresses, 20,000 bartenders, and 5,000 manicurists and pedicurists, according to the latest labor data.
If Question 5 is approved, Massachusetts would be the first state in decades to eliminate its tipped minimum wage, which observers say makes it hard to know how the transition will play out in the post-pandemic economy.
The closest example is the District of Columbia, which is two years into a five-year phase-out of its tipped wage, the report noted. Some Washington, D.C., restaurants have set-service fees — ranging from 3% to 20% — to offset the higher labor costs. Critics point to data showing some restaurants have closed in the law’s wake.
A recent report by Tufts University’s Center for State Policy Analysis said restaurants and other tip-dependent businesses will face higher costs from having to cover the full minimum wage, and will likely compensate for that with a mix of price increases, new fees, reduced hiring, and potentially lower profits.
But phasing out the state’s tipped wage will translate into higher pay for most service employees who currently depend on the extra money, according to the report.
In June, the state Supreme Judicial Court tossed out a challenge by restaurant groups alleging the proposal violates a requirement in the state Constitution that initiative petitions must contain only ‘related or mutually dependent’ subjects.
The justices unanimously concluded that Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office correctly certified the question for the November ballot.
The Massachusetts Restaurant Association and Committee to Protect Tips filed a complaint with the state Ballot Law Commission alleging that backers of the ballot question submitted “fraudulent” signatures from people who aren’t registered to vote, among other claims.
But the groups withdrew their objections at the last minute, citing a lack of time to conduct a thorough review and make their arguments before the panel.
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By Christian M. Wade | Statehouse Reporter
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BOSTON — A union-backed proposal to pay tipped workers the state’s minimum wage goes before voters in November, but critics say its passage would hurt Main Street bars and restaurants and drive up consumer costs.
Question 5 asks voters to decide if the state should require bars, restaurants, hotels and other hospitality venues to pay tipped workers the state’s wage floor of $15 per hour, in addition to gratuities.
The plan calls for phasing out the tipped wage for workers over five years, allowing workers to earn up to $15 per hour and keep their tips. It would also allow restaurants to “pool” tips and distribute them equally among all workers, such as cooks, dishwashers and others who don’t interact with customers.
Supporters of phasing out the tipped-wage law — which includes labor organizations and worker advocacy groups — say it would improve wages for underpaid workers who are struggling to survive with the state’s high cost of living.
Saru Jayaraman, president of pro-Question 5 group One Fair Wage, said its passage would ensure that tipped workers “finally receive fair wages, giving them the financial stability they need to support themselves and their families.”
“Since the pandemic, restaurant workers have left the industry in droves. Many of them are tired of barely scraping by on poverty wages and tips that are unpredictable at best,” Jayaraman said. “It’s time we end the injustice of the subminimum wage and create an industry that truly values and compensates its workers with dignity.”
But critics, like the Massachusetts Restaurant Association and “No on 5” Committee to Protect Tips, argue the plan would increase costs for bars and restaurants that already operate on narrow margins, and lead to higher prices for consumers.
“This would put a massive increase on the costs of small businesses at a time when they are still recovering from COVID,” said Chris Keohan, a spokesman for the “No on 5” opposition group. “This would increase the costs of the average restaurant by about $300,000 a year.”
He said the increased labor costs would push some bars and restaurants out of business or accelerate the shift away from full-service establishments, as employers hire less staff and move to automated operations like McDonald’s and Dunkin’s new self-serve kiosks.
Municipal leaders representing communities including Newburyport, Methuen, Haverhill and Gardner also oppose the proposal, arguing it would devastate Main Street restaurants that are still recovering from the economic effects of the pandemic.
Massachusetts law requires workers to be paid at least $15 an hour — under the “grand bargain” package the Legislature brokered to avert a proposal to cut the state’s sales tax and other proposals. But the 2018 law also allows bars and restaurants to pay tipped workers $6.75 per hour.
The state is home to some 50,000 waiters and waitresses, 20,000 bartenders, and 5,000 manicurists and pedicurists, according to the latest labor data.
If Question 5 is approved, Massachusetts would be the first state in decades to eliminate its tipped minimum wage, which observers say makes it hard to know how the transition will play out in the post-pandemic economy.
The closest example is the District of Columbia, which is two years into a five-year phase-out of its tipped wage, the report noted. Some Washington, D.C., restaurants have set-service fees — ranging from 3% to 20% — to offset the higher labor costs. Critics point to data showing some restaurants have closed in the law’s wake.
A recent report by Tufts University’s Center for State Policy Analysis said restaurants and other tip-dependent businesses will face higher costs from having to cover the full minimum wage, and will likely compensate for that with a mix of price increases, new fees, reduced hiring, and potentially lower profits.
But phasing out the state’s tipped wage will translate into higher pay for most service employees who currently depend on the extra money, according to the report.
In June, the state Supreme Judicial Court tossed out a challenge by restaurant groups alleging the proposal violates a requirement in the state Constitution that initiative petitions must contain only ‘related or mutually dependent’ subjects.
The justices unanimously concluded that Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office correctly certified the question for the November ballot.
The Massachusetts Restaurant Association and Committee to Protect Tips filed a complaint with the state Ballot Law Commission alleging that backers of the ballot question submitted “fraudulent” signatures from people who aren’t registered to vote, among other claims.
But the groups withdrew their objections at the last minute, citing a lack of time to conduct a thorough review and make their arguments before the panel.
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.
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By Christian M. Wade | Statehouse Reporter
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Instead of heading straight to their classrooms Friday morning, about 60 teachers and paraprofessionals at West Parish Elementary School on Concord Street gathered by the front entrance in a show of solidarity as they and educators in three other North Shore communities signaled the start of a work–to-rule job action.
Standouts were held at all of Gloucester’s public schools Friday, Gloucester Teachers Association Vice President Matt Lewis said in an email.
With the teachers union and the School Committee failing to reach a new contract by the end of August when the old deal expired, the teachers union voted Sept. 30 for work-to-rule at all of the city’s public schools for the foreseeable future, but not every day.
To ease the burden on families and educators, the Gloucester Teachers Association staggered the days when work-to-rule will be in place, Lewis said. The schedule is:
Monday: Preschool.
Tuesday: O’Maley Innovation Middle School.
Wednesday: Beeman Memorial and West Parish elementary schools.
Thursday: Gloucester High School.
Friday: Plum Cove and East Veterans elementary schools.
Friday’s standout as a kickoff to work-to-rule. Educators wore crimson union T-shirts and stood out to the strains of Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” and Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna to Take It” playing over loudspeakers.
“When we fight, we win,” they chanted.
They lined up for a photo and at 8:30 a.m., as paraprofessionals were scheduled to report, the educators filed into the school.
“Work-to-rule is to show solidarity and to show the public and some administrators exactly what it is that we do outside of our contractual hours,” said West Parish fifth-grade teacher Beth Parkhurst. She is the school building’s representative for the Gloucester Teachers Association and serves on the union’s negotiations team. “Normally we are in the building now getting ready for school but we are staying outside to show people that these are the extra times and hours that we give the school district and our students.”
Teachers are working under the terms of a three-year agreement that expired in August. Work-to-rule means educators will withhold or refuse to perform voluntary activities not set forth in their collective bargaining agreements according to a schedule.
In a statement Thursday, the School Committee said it was “blindsided by this GTA and MTA’s decision because negotiations are proceeding at a pace very similar to all prior teacher contract negotiations.” The School Committee disputed the claim by the teachers unions “that negotiations recently stalled.”
A negotiation session is scheduled for Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. at Gloucester High in a meeting that is open to the public with negotiations sessions scheduled through December, according to the School Committee.
The School Committee’s statement said that work-to-rule “means that teachers will withhold or refuse to perform activities that are not set forth in their collective bargaining agreement such as answering family emails after the end of the school day, or grading papers and exams.”
In an email, Lewis rebutted the School Committee assertion regarding grading papers and exams.
“That is totally false and they know it,” Lewis said.
The Massachusetts Teachers Association said in a statement Friday “grading, lesson planning, and emailing families” are customary responsibilities that fall within teachers’ contractual responsibilities.
“Entering work-to-rule, educators will cease performing non-customary duties outside contractual responsibilities,” the statement said. “Educators plan to cease non-customary duties one day a week, which may include offering extra help outside of required hours, chaperoning, writing letters of recommendation, and other additional voluntary responsibilities outside of the contractual day. The action demonstrates how much educators routinely give beyond what is required of them.”
“To set the record straight, we are fighting for a fair contract to improve our students’ learning environment, which is our educators’ working environment,” Rachel Rex, a Gloucester High teacher and Gloucester Teachers Association president, said in a prepared statement.
“When our veteran educators leave for better pay and better working conditions at neighboring school districts, it harms students,” Rex said. Unfilled “paraprofessional positions harm our students and create unsafe schools. Educators are at a breaking point, and our work-to-rule action is us collectively saying: enough is enough!”
North Shore Educators United said 99% of educator unions in Beverly, Gloucester, Marblehead and Revere voted to enter into work-to-rule.
In addition, the Gloucester Association of Educational Paraprofessionals have been working under the terms of an expired contract for more than 400 days. Negotiations started in March 2023 and the contract ran out in July 1, 2023. Paraprofessionals are seeking a “living wage” among other things, and talks have gone to mediation.
In April, teachers’ and paraprofessionals’ unions voted to combine.
“So we are now negotiating on everyone’s behalf,” Parkhurst said, “and trying to streamline this process so that we can get this done.”
Both unions are affiliates of the Massachusetts Teachers Association and represent more than 400 educators in Gloucester Public Schools.
Contractual hours vary from school to school, Parkhurst said. At West Parish, teachers report at 8:48 a.m., and paraprofessionals at 8:30 a.m. “so we are going in with the paras,” Parkhurst said about when teachers would enter the building.
When asked about sticking points, Parkhurst said: “They have rejected almost every proposal that we’ve given them and many of them without any discussion. Many of them without any research and a lot of it has to do with school safety, hours for teachers to prep … and that’s all we are asking for is time to do our jobs on our own.”
When asked if wages were the major sticking point, Parkhurst said they had not discussed wages until their most recent negotiations on Sept. 23.
“They didn’t give us a wage proposal until our last negotiations,” she said.
“We are in mediation,” said Margaret Rudolph, a veteran special education paraprofessional at West Parish. She said there were a variety of reasons for the impasse “but really living wage is a big one for us because we really make very little money.”
“My message is that we want a fair contract and we want to be treated as educators just like the teachers and we do as much as they do,” she said.
According to an update on the School Committee’s website on the exchange of opening salary proposals by the negotiations teams, “GTA leadership is proposing that teacher salaries increase by a minimum of 28% and a maximum of more than 50% over four years.”
The School Committee said the Gloucester Teachers Association/Massachusetts Teachers Association proposal would raise the top salary from $97,500 to $125,000 annually and increase other teachers’ salaries from $80,000 to $125,000.
The School Committee’s opening salary offer would increase the top teacher pay to $104,800 in three years while less veteran teachers would receive increases of 15% to 25%.
The School Committee team said it “is committed to working with the GTA to come to agreement on important and complex issues such as increasing teacher salaries, expanding leave benefits, and ensuring we agree to a contract that helps improve student learning, engagement, and achievement.”
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By Ethan Forman | Staff Writer
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BEVERLY — Nearly 200 people rallied in support of Beverly teachers Thursday outside Beverly High School. Inside the school, negotiations on a new contract remained apart.
School Committee President Rachael Abell said Friday that the Beverly Teachers Association proposed a compensation package that represents a $4.3 million increase over the most recent proposal by the committee.
In a post on the district’s website, Abell said the School Committee will take time to assess the financial impact of the proposal and will provide an update to the community “as soon as possible.” The next negotiating session is scheduled for Oct. 3.
The Beverly Teachers Association and the School Committee have been negotiating a new contract since February. Thursday marked the 11th time the two sides have met, the first since school began Sept. 4.
Teachers’ previous three-year contract expired Aug. 31, but they are continuing to work under terms of that prior deal.
The latest negotiation was preceded by a rally outside the high school, where teachers and supporters, including several children, wore red T-shirts saying “I love Beverly teachers” and holding signs such as “Safe Schools Now” and “Living Wage Now.”
Parent Matt Davidson, who has three children in the schools, told the crowd that teachers are leaving Beverly because of a lack of support and low pay.
“They are overworked, they are underpaid with case loads that are too large,” Davidson said. “It is not working. It is not working.”
Davidson also said students on individualized education plans are not getting all of the help they need due to a lack of resources.
“This is not fault of the teachers, but a clear lack of support for them,” he said.
Another parent, Travis Shultz, said he and his wife have three children in the Beverly public schools but decided to send another of their children to private school because the city is “continually investing less in our kids than the average of the state.”
“Part of why we moved to Beverly I thought was because of the excellence of the schools here,” Shultz said. “But then after seeing how little we were investing in our kids and our teachers I was embarrassed.”
Parent Kim Blyth said the fact that negotiations continue to drag on is “embarrassing.”
“These delays are not just bureaucratic hurdles. They are unfair and unjust,” Blyth said. “Our educators work tirelessly, often going above and beyond to ensure our children receive the quality education they deserve.”
According to the update posted by Abell, the union’s proposed compensation package equates to an 8% increase per year for the next three years. She said that represents an approximately $4.3 million increase beyond the district’s most recent offer.
The School Committee has proposed an immediate salary increase of between 4% and 12.1%, followed by 4% and 3.5% cost-of-living increases in the next two years. According to Abell, 61% of teachers would make more than $90,000 per year under that proposal.
“Our goal remains to provide our students a high-quality education that fits within our city’s fiscal means,” Abell said.
Beverly Teachers Association President Julia Brotherton said the two sides are “getting pretty close” on the raises for the first year of the contract. But, she added, “the problem is that 4% and 3.5% will never get us anywhere near parity with neighboring districts (like Salem and Danvers).”
“We need the School Committee to return to the mayor and find a way to give our paraprofessionals a living wage and a competitive salary for our teachers,” Brotherton said.
Mayor Mike Cahill has said that the $5.6 million budget increase for the schools this year is “very possibly the largest one-year increased city investment in our schools in Beverly history.”
Apart from salary, Brotherton the two sides are “getting close” on issues such as personal days and the creation of a health and safety committee.
“I feel like we’re making good progress,” she said.
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By Paul Leighton | Staff Writer
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CNN
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Here’s a look at the Screen Actors Guild. In 2012, a merger was completed between the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA). The SAG-AFTRA labor union has more than 160,000 members.
June 30, 1933 – Articles of incorporation are filed. The guild is formed to get better working conditions for actors.
1935 – Granted an American Federation of Labor charter.
May 1937 – In order to prevent a strike, producers sign a contract with the guild ensuring minimum pay and recognizing the guild.
1943 – Actress Olivia de Havilland sues Warner Brothers studio for extending her contract. She later wins her case.
1945 – The US Supreme Court hands down the “de Havilland decision,” which declares that studios may no longer hold contract players for more than seven years. This breaks up the system of the studio maintaining control over an actor’s career.
1952 – The Guild signs its first contracts for filmed television programs.
December 1, 1952-February 18, 1953 – The first SAG strike is over filmed television commercials. The strike ends with a contract that covers all work in commercials.
August 5-15, 1955 – SAG holds its second strike. This time for increased television show residuals.
March 7, 1960-April 18, 1960 – Third strike over residuals for feature films sold, licensed, or released to television.
December 19, 1978-February 7, 1979 – SAG strikes for better residuals on television advertisements.
July 21, 1980-October 23, 1980 – SAG strikes with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA). This strike centers on the distribution of profits from pay television and video cassette production.
March 21, 1988-April 15, 1988 – SAG and AFTRA television commercials strike. The strike is over payment for commercials appearing on cable TV.
February 25, 1995 – The first annual Screen Actors Guild Awards show is held.
May 1, 2000-October 30, 2000 – SAG and AFTRA strike against the advertising industry over commercial work compensation for basic cable and internet.
July 1, 2008 – SAG’s TV/theatrical agreement expires.
November 22, 2008 – Talks between SAG and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP) end after federal mediation fails to jumpstart a five-month stalemate.
January 26, 2009 – SAG chief negotiator Doug Allen is fired in a bid by the union’s moderate faction to re-enter contract talks with the studios.
April 19, 2009 – SAG leadership split 53% – 47% to accept a new two-year contract with AMPTP.
June 9, 2009 – Members ratify the two-year contract covering television and motion pictures.
January 29, 2012 – Ken Howard, president of the guild, announces during the SAG Awards, that the merger between SAG and AFTRA has been approved by both groups.
March 30, 2012 – The merger of SAG and AFTRA is completed with more than 80% approval from both unions. The one union is named SAG-AFTRA.
January 27, 2013 – The first SAG Awards are held under the union banner “SAG-AFTRA One Union.”
March 23, 2016 – SAG-AFTRA President Ken Howard dies. Executive Vice President Gabrielle Carteris assumes his duties until the regularly scheduled national board meeting April 9.
April 9, 2016 – Carteris is elected president. She will serve the balance of Howard’s unexpired term, which ends in 2017.
August 24, 2017 – Carteris is elected to a two-year term as president.
February 10, 2018 – SAG-AFTRA introduces new guidelines for members, called “Four Pillars of Change,” aimed at fighting sexual harassment in the workplace.
September 2, 2021 – Actress Fran Drescher is elected to a two-year term as president.
July 14, 2023 – SAG-AFTRA goes on strike after talks with major studios and streaming services have failed. It is the first time its members have stopped work since 1980. On November 8, SAG-AFTRA and the studios reach a tentative agreement, officially ending the strike.
Ralph Morgan 1933, 1938-1940
Eddie Cantor 1933-1935
Robert Montgomery 1935-1938, 1946-1947
Edward Arnold 1940-1942
James Cagney 1942-1944
George Murphy 1944-1946
Ronald Reagan 1947-1952, 1959-1960
Walter Pidgeon 1952-1957
Leon Ames 1957-1958
Howard Keel 1958-1959
George Chandler 1960-963
Dana Andrews 1963-1965
Charlton Heston 1965-1971
John Gavin 1971-1973
Dennis Weaver 1973-1975
Kathleen Nolan 1975-1979
William Schallert 1979-1981
Ed Asner 1981-1985
Patty Duke 1985-1988
Barry Gordon 1988-1995
Richard Masur 1995-1999
William Daniels 1999-2001
Melissa Gilbert 2001-2005
Alan Rosenberg 2005-2009
Ken Howard 2009-2016
Gabrielle Carteris-2016-2021
Fran Drescher 2021-present
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CNN
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Chris Evans has traded in his Captain America shield for a more sentimental accessory.
The Marvel actor was sporting a wedding band on Saturday during an appearance at New York Comic-Con (NYCC), where he publicly confirmed for the first time that he recently wed actress Alba Baptista.
“I got married,” the Marvel star told the audience, adding that his recent nuptials were “really, really great.”
He shared that he and Baptista had two ceremonies – one in Portugal, where Baptista is from, and another ceremony on the East Coast, which reportedly took place last month in Cape Cod.
“They were wonderful and beautiful,” he said of the dual ceremonies, later adding that since then, he and Baptista have “been relaxing and enjoying life and reflecting” as newlyweds.
Evan admitted that he felt the weight of planning a wedding, joking, “It’s a lot.”
“For those of you who are married, it takes a lot out of you but now that we’re through that, we’ve kind of just been enjoying life,” he said.
Evans and Baptista have been romantically linked since 2021.
The actor’s appearance at NYCC comes just days after contract negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and the major studios and streamers were suspended amid the ongoing strike. The union supporting actors and performers has been on strike since July.
Hollywood writers in the Writers Guild of America, who had been on strike since May, agreed upon a new contract with the studios and streamers in September. The new contract was ratified last week, putting thousands of people back to work.
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UAW President Shawn Fain said the union would not expand its strike against the Big Three automakers on Friday, but that the UAW stood ready to add more workers to the picket lines at any time as its labor action enters a new phase.
“We are prepared at any time to call on more locals to stand up and walk out,” Fain said in a livestream update on negotiations. He later added: “We changed the rules. Now there is only one rule – pony up.”
The announcement marks a tactical shift, Fain said. Previously the UAW had announced strike expansions on Fain’s weekly Friday updates. But now, as part of the union’s strategy to keep the automakers off balance, Fain said strike expansions could come at any day of the week, at any time.
This past Wednesday for the first time it announced an expansion midweek, and without warning, when 8,700 UAW members went on strike suddenly at Ford’s largest factory, the Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville.
“We’re entering a new phase of this strike, and it demands a new approach,” Fain said. “We’re done waiting until Fridays to escalate our strike.”
Fain said that the companies had started to wait until Fridays to make progress in their bargaining positions, and that the union is changing it strategy in order to speed up progress in negotiations.
“A negotiation requires both sides making movement. If they’re not ready to move, we’re going to give them a push in a language they understand – dollars and cents,” he said.
This is the first time that the union has gone on strike against GM, Ford and Stellantis at the same time. But rather than shut down any of the companies’ US operations completely, the union has targeted its strike against specific facilities, and then expanded the strike gradually in order to increase pressure at the bargaining table.
The Kentucky Truck Plant is a key money maker for Ford, assembling heavy duty pickup trucks and full-size SUVs and producing $25 billion in annual sales, or about one-sixth of its revenue. It also produced an estimated $150 million in profits a week, according to an estimate from Colin Langan, auto analyst at Wells Fargo.
Ford officials told reporters Thursday that the company has gone as far as it can on the additional money it can offer members.
“We have reached our limit. We’ve actually stretched ourselves to get to this point,” said Kumar Galhotra, president of Ford Blue, which is the unit that sells most of Ford’s gasoline-powered cars to consumers. “We are still working to get this done. We’re open to moving some money around within the deal that might fit the union’s needs better, but in terms of cost of deal, we’re there. We have been very clear, we’re at the limit. Going further will hurt our ability to invest in the business as we need to invest.”
Fain mocked that statement from Ford, saying that while Ford has recovered well since the Great Recession, its workers have seen only modest pay increases, which were outweighed by rising prices.
“I found a pathetic irony in that statement,” he said on Friday. “You know who stretched themselves? The Ford workers who didn’t get a single raise for a decade.”
Fain said the union is in a strong bargaining position and has already achieved a lot in negotiations, but not enough to make up for past concessions by workers.
“We’re at the point in this process where we’re looking for one thing only – a deal,” Fain said. “We’re not giving these companies an extra hour, or an extra day. They know what needs to happen, and they know how to get it done. Taking out Kentucky Truck sent a very clear message not only to Ford, but to GM and Stellantis as well. Don’t you dare slow walk us or low ball us. We will take out whatever plants you force us to.”
The companies are on record as offering members an immediate 10% raise to union members and additional raises totaling 10 percentage points or more during the life of the contracts, which are likely to run through the spring of 2028.
The companies are also agreeing to some kind of return of the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to union pay scales to protect workers from rising prices. The union gave up the COLA in 2007, as well as traditional pension plans and health care coverage for retirees for workers hired after the concession contracts reached that year.
In addition, a week ago, Fain announced that GM had agreed to a major union demand to place workers at new and planned EV battery plants under the national master agreement at the company.
GM, Ford and Stellatis have all announced plans to shift from traditional gasoline-powered vehicles to electric vehicles, or EVs. That would end the need for the jobs in their current plants that build engines and transmissions.
All three are in the process of building at least three plants each, almost all in joint ventures with Asian battery makers, that will be used to power EVs. All are expected to pay significantly less than UAW members at those engine and transmission plants are now paid.
Going into negotiations, the companies had insisted the battery plant workers would be employees of the joint ventures, not the companies themselves, and that their pay scale would not be included in this contract.
Details of what GM has agreed upon in relation to workers battery plant workers is not yet known, as GM has not confirmed the tentative agreement on the issue. Ford officials have said they also have been negotiating with the union on the battery plant issue and that progress had been made, without giving details.
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New York
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Comedian John Oliver returned to his HBO show “Last Week Tonight” on Sunday, becoming the latest late night host to air a new program following the end of the writers’ strike.
“We missed so much that it would take a whole new version of Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ to cover it,” Oliver joked following a 15-minute recap of everything his show missed since going off air in April. (Oliver’s show airs on HBO, which like CNN, is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.)
“I wish so much that I could have told you these jokes at the time, but I couldn’t because our writers — the people who wrote those jokes — were forced to strike for a fair contract for the last five months, and it was an immensely difficult time,” he said. “Not just for them, but for everyone else working on this show and many others who could no longer do their jobs.”
Oliver said that the strike happened for “good reasons” and said the writers “thankfully won” after being “severely squeezed in recent years” referencing reports that some writers don’t make enough for health insurance.
“So the writers’ guild went on strike and thankfully won, but it took a lot of sacrifices from a lot of people to achieve that, and while I am happy that they eventually got a deal, and I’m proud of what our union accomplished, I’m also furious that it took the studios 148 days to achieve a deal that they could have offered on day f–king one.”
He continued that he hopes the success of the writers strike encourages others, including auto workers and Starbucks employees, to “find power in each other.” Oliver said that actors, who are also currently on strike, are “able to take what the writers achieved and leverage it to win fair contracts too because the truth is it takes many people working really hard to make film and TV, all of whom deserve a piece of the pie.”
“For the actors guild, in particular, they can not come back to work soon enough, especially as we’ve all now seen what happens when non-professionals are trusted with the written word,” he said.
Last week, the Writers Guild of America unanimously voted to authorize its members to return to work following a 148-day strike with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) that paralyzed the industry and halted production of several shows, including Oliver’s. Bill Maher returned to his show last Friday and the network hosts, such as Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon, will air new programs Monday.
The contract, which will expire in May 2026, includes pay increases, better benefits, protections against the studios’ use of artificial intelligence, guarantees for streaming compensation, longer-duration employment terms and other perks.
Now the focus turns to negotiations between SAG-AFTRA, the union representing about 160,000 actors, and the AMPTP. The two sides are expected to begin negotiating again Monday and hopefully get closer to ending their strike, which has been happening since mid-July.
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