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Tag: Strike
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Some 7,000 nurses at two of NYC’s largest hospitals go on strike
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Nurses at two of New York City’s largest hospitals walked off the job Monday morning in a dispute over pay and staffing levels after a weekend of negotiations failed to produce deals for new contracts, with talks falling apart overnight, CBS New York reported.
The walkouts began at 6 a.m. and involve as many as 3,600 nurses at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan and 3,500 at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.
The New York State Nurses Association, which represents the workers, said it was being forced into the drastic step because of chronic understaffing that leaves nurses caring for too many patients.
“Nurses don’t want to strike. Bosses have pushed us to strike by refusing to seriously consider our proposals to address the desperate crisis of unsafe staffing that harms our patients,” the union said in a statement late Sunday.
At around the time the strikes began, the union tweeted a message saying, “To all of our patients, to all New Yorkers, we want to be absolutely clear: If you are sick, please do not delay getting medical care, regardless of whether we are on strike. In fact, we invite you to come join us on the strike line after you’ve gotten the care you need, adding that seeking care wouldn’t constitute crossing the picket lines.
The hospitals had been getting ready for a walkout by transferring patients, diverting ambulances to other institutions, postponing nonemergency medical procedures and arranging to bring in temporary staffing.
Gov. Kathy Hochul urged the union and the hospitals late Sunday to take their dispute to binding arbitration.
Montefiore’s administration said in a statement that it was willing to let an arbitrator settle the contract “as a means to reaching an equitable outcome.”
The union didn’t immediately accept the proposal. In a statement, it said Hochul, a Democrat, “should listen to the frontline COVID nurse heroes and respect our federally-protected labor and collective bargaining rights.”
Mt. Sinai tweeted overnight that talks with its union members had broken off:
CBS New York says Montefiore then put out a statement of its own, saying the strike would begin at 6 a.m. and calling it “a sad day for New York City.”
“We remain committed to seamless and compassionate care, recognizing that the union leadership’s decision will spark fear and uncertainty across our community,” the hospital said.
Montefiore and Mount Sinai are the last of a group of hospitals with contracts with the union that expired simultaneously. The Nurses Association had initially warned that it would strike at all of them at the same time – a potential calamity even in a city with as many hospitals as New York.
But one-by-one, the other hospitals struck agreements with the union as the deadline approached.
Nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital ratified a deal Saturday that will give them raises of 7%, 6%, and 5% over the next three years while also increasing staffing levels. That deal, which covers 4,000 nurses, has been seen as a template for the negotiations with other hospital systems.
Nurses at two facilities in the Mount Sinai system also tentatively agreed to contracts Sunday. But negotiations continued at the system’s flagship hospital on Manhattan’s east side.
Mount Sinai’s administration said in a statement that the union’s focus on staffing-to-patient ratios “ignores the progress we have made to attract and hire more new nurses, despite a global shortage of healthcare workers that is impacting hospitals across the country.”
If the nurses strike, patients are likely to see disruptions in care such as emergency room visits and childbirth.
Mount Sinai moved babies from the neonatal ICU, CBS New York reported.
The station said the tense situation left patients and their families feeling anxious.
“They don’t need this type of distraction,” Sabrena Geborde, the wife of a patient at Mount Sinai, remarked to CBS New York..
Geborde came to Mount Sinai last week with her husband, Troy, who has end stage ALS.
“My husband almost went into cardiac arrest, and when we got here the nurses and doctors did a wonderful job on him,” Geborde said.
The potential strike forced their normal hospital to divert patients, which is how they ended up at Mount Sinai.
“That’s something that you never expect to have to deal with, and having to think of, deal with that, he’s clinging. He’s clinging to life as we speak,” Geborde said, “and they’re saving my husband’s life in there and they’re inside right now helping him.”
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Some 7,000 nurses at two of NYC’s largest hospitals poised to go on strike
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Nurses at two of New York City’s largest hospitals were set to go on strike Monday in a dispute over pay and staffing levels after a weekend of negotiations that has yet to produce a deal for a new contract.
The walkout, set to begin at 6 a.m., would involve as many as 3,600 nurses at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan and 3,500 at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.
The New York State Nurses Association, which represents the workers, said it was being forced into the drastic step because of chronic understaffing that leaves nurses caring for too many patients.
“Nurses don’t want to strike. Bosses have pushed us to strike by refusing to seriously consider our proposals to address the desperate crisis of unsafe staffing that harms our patients,” the union said in a statement late Sunday.
The hospitals have been getting ready for a walkout by transferring patients, diverting ambulances to other institutions, postponing nonemergency medical procedures and arranging to bring in temporary staffing.
Gov. Kathy Hochul urged the union and the hospitals late Sunday to take their dispute to binding arbitration.
Montefiore’s administration said in a statement that it was willing to let an arbitrator settle the contract “as a means to reaching an equitable outcome.”
The union didn’t immediately accept the proposal. In a statement, it said Hochul, a Democrat, “should listen to the frontline COVID nurse heroes and respect our federally-protected labor and collective bargaining rights.”
Montefiore and Mount Sinai are the last of a group of hospitals with contracts with the union that expired simultaneously. The Nurses Association had initially warned that it would strike at all of them at the same time – a potential calamity even in a city with as many hospitals as New York.
But one-by-one, the other hospitals struck agreements with the union as the deadline approached.
Nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital ratified a deal Saturday that will give them raises of 7%, 6%, and 5% over the next three years while also increasing staffing levels. That deal, which covers 4,000 nurses, has been seen as a template for the negotiations with other hospital systems.
Nurses at two facilities in the Mount Sinai system also tentatively agreed to contracts Sunday. But negotiations continued at the system’s flagship hospital on Manhattan’s east side.
Mount Sinai’s administration said in a statement that the union’s focus on staffing-to-patient ratios “ignores the progress we have made to attract and hire more new nurses, despite a global shortage of healthcare workers that is impacting hospitals across the country.”
If the nurses strike, patients are likely to see disruptions in care such as emergency room visits and childbirth.
Mount Sinai moved babies from the neonatal ICU, CBS New York reported.
The station said the tense situation has left patients and their families feeling anxious.
“They don’t need this type of distraction,” Sabrena Geborde, the wife of a patient at Mount Sinai, remarked to CBS New York..
Geborde came to Mount Sinai last week with her husband, Troy, who has end stage ALS.
“My husband almost went into cardiac arrest, and when we got here the nurses and doctors did a wonderful job on him,” Geborde said.
The potential strike forced their normal hospital to divert patients, which is how they ended up at Mount Sinai.
“That’s something that you never expect to have to deal with, and having to think of, deal with that, he’s clinging. He’s clinging to life as we speak,” Geborde said, “and they’re saving my husband’s life in there and they’re inside right now helping him.”
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NYC Hospitals Prep For Nurse Strike Amid Negotiations
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NEW YORK (AP) — Negotiations to keep about 10,000 New York City nurses from walking off the job headed into a final weekend as some major hospitals were already preparing Friday for a potential strike by sending ambulances elsewhere and transferring some patients, including vulnerable newborns.
The walkout could start early Monday at several private hospitals, including two of the city’s biggest: Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan and Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, each of which has more than 1,000 beds.
They and a handful of other hospitals are bargaining with nurses who want raises and an end to what they say are untenable staffing squeezes, nearly three years into the coronavirus pandemic.
“New York City hospitals have violated our trust through years of understaffing, and that understaffing has only gotten worse since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic,” nurses’ union President Nancy Hagans said at a news briefing Friday. “It’s time they come to the table and deliver the safe staffing standards that nurses and our patients deserve.”
Mount Sinai’s chief nursing officer, Fran Cartwright, acknowledged nurses are stretched thin. But she pointed to the pandemic’s disruptive sweep through people’s working lives, at bedsides and beyond.
“Our nurses are working with patients 24/7, so they’re feeling it, and I’m feeling it with them,” she said in an interview. “It takes years after a pandemic to add stability.”
FILE – Medical workers enter Montefiore Medical Center during the coronavirus pandemic, Friday, April 24, 2020, in the Bronx borough of New York. Negotiations to keep 10,000 New York City nurses from walking off the job headed Friday, Jna. 6, 2023, into a final weekend as some major hospitals braced for a potential strike by sending ambulances elsewhere and transferring such patients as vulnerable newborns. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File) After shouldering health risks and huge workloads at the peak of the virus crisis, the profession is facing burnout that has driven many nurses into other jobs, or at least away from full-time hospital work.
Nurses at a Massachusetts hospital went on strike for nearly 10 months ending last January, marking the longest nursing walkout in state history. Thousands of nurses at two California hospitals were on strike for a week in May.
Talks took an acrimonious turn at Mount Sinai, where the union — the New York State Nurses Association — said management had walked away from the bargaining table shortly after midnight and called off negotiations Friday.
“Shame on you, Mount Sinai,” Hagans said.
The hospital retorted with a statement accusing the union of being “reckless” and “jeopardizing patients’ care.”
Mount Sinai said it offered a three-year series of pay raises totaling 19%, matching what the union recently achieved in tentative contract agreements reached with some other hospitals.
Cartwright said the talks hit a roadblock when management tried to move on to staffing and the union still wanted to discuss salaries. She said management was ready to resume talks once the union was willing to address other issues.
Mount Sinai said it started canceling some elective surgeries, diverting most ambulances and transferring some patients — including newborns in intensive care — from its flagship hospital and two affiliates, Mount Sinai West and Mount Sinai Morningside. Each has about 500 beds.
Cartwright said the flagship was “heartbroken” about having to transfer patients, particularly the infants, but would ensure the right care for them and patients who remain.
Negotiations also continued at Montefiore and the roughly 850-bed BronxCare Health System, while Flushing Hospital Medical Center reached a tentative agreement with nurses Friday evening. Spokespeople for the union and for Flushing Hospital, a 300-bed facility in Queens, confirmed the deal but didn’t immediately release details.
Spokespeople for Montefiore and BronxCare had no immediate comment Friday.
BronxCare said Thursday it was confident about eventually reaching an agreement, while Montefiore Senior Vice President Joe Solmonese said nurses were rejecting a “generous” offer. He said it mirrored raises the union had agreed to elsewhere, while also adding 78 more emergency room nurses and making other increases in pay, benefits and staffing.
On Dec. 30 — a day before their contracts expired — the nurses gave 10 days’ notice of an intended strike. Such notice is legally required so hospitals have time to line up temporary replacements.
One big medical center, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, reached a tentative agreement with the union the next day. Maimonides and Richmond University medical centers struck tentative deals Jan. 4.
But “it’s not just about compensation,” Hagans said at a briefing Thursday. “It’s about caring for our patients. It’s about safety.”
The nurses are pressing for commitments to what they consider gold-standard staffing levels, such as having at least one nurse for each of the sickest patients in intensive care, and one nurse to about four patients in a typical medical-surgical unit.
Meanwhile, negotiations also are ongoing with four Brooklyn private hospitals. Nurses there have yet to authorize a strike, though votes are in progress, Hagans said.
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Uber drivers strike in New York City after company blocks pay increases
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Thousands of Uber drivers in New York City are on a 24-hour strike after the company blocked pay raises they were set to receive this month, the protestors say.
The strike began at 12:01 a.m. Monday and ends at midnight, according to the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, the union that represents about 15,000 Uber, Lyft and taxi cab drivers. The union is asking riders to boycott using Uber until the strike ends. Drivers are also scheduled to protest in front of Uber’s New York headquarters Monday afternoon.
The strike comes after New York City’s Taxi & Limousine Commission approved pay raises for Uber drivers last month. Uber has since then sued the commission, arguing that enacting those raises would cost the company between $21 million and $23 million per month and force Uber to increase fares by 10%, the company said in the suit.
The $21 million is an amount “Uber would never be able to recover from New York City or anyone else,” the company argued in its lawsuit filed earlier this month. Uber asked a New York judge to temporarily halt the raises until the case is settled, which a judge granted last Tuesday.
The taxi commission’s proposed pay increases would have allowed drivers to charge $1.34 per mile, up from $1.16 in March and $1.08 in February 2019, just before the coronavirus pandemic began.
Uber said its drivers in the Big Apple already get pay increases after their annual performance review. The increases are “tied to the rate of inflation” and “that’s one reason why driver pay has gone up 38.4% since 2019,” the company said Monday.
Lower gas prices
Uber said it’s challenging the taxi commission’s additional pay increases because they were proposed months ago when gas prices soared in New York City, “but gas prices have dropped substantially since their high earlier this year.”
“Drivers do critical work and deserve to be paid fairly, but rates should be calculated in a way that is transparent, consistent and predictable,” the company said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch on Monday.
Still, drivers told WCBS in New York that showing up en masse will hopefully push the company to rescind its legal fight against the raises.
“We expect thousands of drivers to show up today to say, ‘Uber, it’s Christmas,” Uber driver Michelle Dottin said. “Why would you stop a raise? Why would you just want to hold a raise?’”
Uber’s claims are about “a business model where workers work double the hours and get half the pay,” alleged Bhairavi Desai, the taxi union’s executive director.
“The bottom line is, Uber wants to pay nothing more to the drivers whose labor creates the company’s profits,” she told CBS MoneyWatch. “New York City drivers are mostly full-timers who invested in cars just for the job and who depend on this income to feed their families.”
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Some workers could see as much as 66% raise as University of California and striking union reach agreement
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The University of California reached an agreement Friday with some 36,000 graduate student teaching assistants and other academic workers for increased pay and benefits that could potentially end a monthlong strike — the largest of its kind in the nation — at the prestigious state system.
The strike disrupted classes at all 10 of the university system’s campuses. The agreement still needs to be ratified before the strike officially ends.
The bargaining units said some workers could see raises of up to 66% over the next two years. The contracts would go through May 31, 2025.
“In addition to incredible wage increases, the tentative agreements also include expanded benefits for parent workers, greater rights for international workers, protections against bullying and harassment, improvements to accessibility, workplace protections, and sustainable transit benefits,” Tarini Hardikar, a member of the union bargaining team at UC Berkeley, said in a news release Friday.
The pay hikes and boost in benefits could have an impact beyond California. For several decades, colleges and universities have increasingly relied on faculty and graduate student employees to do teaching and research that had previously been handled by tenured track faculty – but without the same pay and benefits.
“These agreements will place our graduate student employees among the best supported in public higher education,” Michael V. Drake, president of the University of California, said in a news release Friday. “If approved, these contracts will honor their critical work and allow us to continue attracting the top academic talent from across California and around the world.”
The 32-day UC strike was being closely watched around the country, in part because it is the largest strike of academic workers in higher education, said William A. Herbert, executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College in New York.
The strike at UC, like the others, is “providing guidance to indicate that strikes are very forceful means of accomplishing goals,” he said.
The agreement comes weeks after the UC system reached a similar deal with postdoctoral employees and academic researchers who make up about 12,000 of the 48,000 union members who walked off the job and onto picket lines Nov. 14. That agreement will hike pay up to 29% and provide increased family leave, childcare subsidies and lengthened appointments to ensure job security, according to a statement from United Auto Workers Local 5810.
The academic workers had argued they couldn’t afford to live in cities such as Los Angeles, San Diego and Berkeley, where housing costs are soaring, with the current salaries.
The strike was notable for its size and scale, but also because of what it could mean for other universities, said Tim Cain, associate professor of higher education at the University of Georgia. If graduate employees and researchers ratify the contracts, it could prompt similar changes at colleges that compete with UC or where graduate workers are organizing unions.
Union organizing nationwide also stems from long-term changes at America’s universities, which have increasingly come to rely on graduate students to teach classes and handle other duties traditionally done by tenured faculty.
“There’s a fundamental shift in who’s doing the academic work in higher education,” Cain said. Wages for graduate students haven’t kept up over time, he added, and many face increasingly tough competition for full-time faculty jobs.
The strike came at a time of increased labor action nationwide, not just in higher education but among workers at Starbucks, Amazon and elsewhere and a groundswell of unionization efforts among graduate student employees at other universities.
Just this year, graduate student employees at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Clark University, Fordham University, New Mexico State University, Washington State University and Worcester Polytechnic Institute all voted in favor of unionization.
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Eye Opener: COVID surge in China
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Eye Opener: COVID surge in China – CBS News
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“The Sulzbergers Must Hate This”: Scenes From The New York Times Picket Line
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A sea of red shirts filled the half block outside The New York Times headquarters in Manhattan, spilling out onto the street; Scabby, the 12-foot inflatable rat with bloodshot eyes and a festering underbelly sat next to a cardboard box of extra signs: “NEW YORK TIMES WALKS OUT.” On Thursday, after months of building newsroom frustrations over stalled contract negotiations, the Times Guild walked off the job, a historic act of protest not seen at the paper in more than 40 years. Workers in the union told their readers to keep off the Times website, forgo the crossword, and break their Wordle streaks. Reporters clarified that any articles published today with their names on it were written in advance. Outside the office, photographers and cameramen hung from the scaffolding with eyes over the crowd; union members shouted for a $65,000 salary floor and improved health care benefits, erupting into cheers any time a truck honked in solidarity. Taking in the scene, a reporter from another magazine muttered, “The Sulzbergers must hate this.”
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The union, which represents about 1,450 employees, threatened a work stoppage last week if they could not come to a contract agreement with management before December 8. The Guild said some progress was made during a 12-hour session Tuesday: Management agreed to keep pensions (a key concession to the union after executives attempted to move members to the company’s 401(k) plan) and to expand fertility benefits, but “there was negligible movement” on wages, said finance reporter and bargaining committee member Stacy Cowley, “the issue every single one of our members considers a priority.” On Wednesday, management agreed to meet for a sidebar, a less formal session without observers, but failed to come to an agreement. Their next scheduled session is this coming Tuesday. “We stand ready to bargain sooner if they will,” said Cowley.
“Hey, AG, I’ve got a hunch, give us raises, not a lunch box” ralliers chanted Thursday, referencing the branded lunch boxes the Times gave out in an attempt to get people back to the office. “Hey, Gray Lady, time to pay me.” It’s a “bittersweet day,” Bill Baker, unit chair of the Times guild, told the crowd. “We are not happy to be here, but we are here. We are here nonetheless in solidarity—that is the sweet of the bittersweet.” Guild members said more than 1,100 staffers had signed the pledge to withhold labor for 24 hours. “We organized a small town,” said sports reporter Jenny Vrentas.
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As I reported earlier this week, the company’s top brass began executing a contingency plan for the walkout after receiving the Guild’s threatened action; managers had asked writers to file stories early, and looked into how to pull more stories off the wires to fill in anticipated gaps in coverage. “We will produce a robust report on Thursday. But it will be harder than usual,” executive editor Joe Kahn wrote in an email Wednesday evening, as the walkout became official. To an outside observer, the Times’ digital product may have appeared to be humming along on Thursday. But there were some signs of disruption; stories were authored “By The New York Times”—including the paper’s own story about its one-day strike. The liveblog posts were primarily written by international staffers, who are not part of the Guild. Though two prominent journalists in the paper’s DC bureau, chief White House reporter Peter Baker and White House correspondent Michael Shear, refused to participate in the one-day work stoppage, as Semafor reported, and contributed to Thursday’s report.
During Thursday’s rally, several speakers talked about the financial health of the Times, while remembering sacrifices that staffers made in the past for the company, like furloughs and pay cuts during the financial crisis, to help the Times get through. “When this paper struggled, all of us had to share in its austerity. So when the paper is doing well, the people who work here everywhere to make this place a global phenomenon deserve to share in its success,” said 1619 Project founder Nikole Hannah-Jones. “If you compare the cost of our proposal to the $150 million approved for stock buybacks this year, then we know that we have the money to do this for our lowest paid employees.” The company has also increased compensation for some top officers and increased its dividend payout to shareholders this year. “We don’t begrudge them that—at least I don’t,” said longtime staff editor Tom Coffey. “We are just asking the company merely to give us what we deserve and what we have earned over the years.”
Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha said in a statement to Vanity Fair that the Guild’s proposal “would add more than $100 million in additional costs over the life of the contract” and “make it difficult to sustain our investment in journalism.” Cowley said the company “spent $3.4 million increasing the total compensation of four top executives” in 2021, money that “would cover 2% raises for a year—for our entire membership. Our chief executive’s 2021 raise alone would fully cover the cost of the $65,000 salary floor we are seeking.”
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Charlotte Klein
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Bitcoin App Strike Launches Instant, Cheap Remittances To Africa
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Bitcoin payments app Strike said in a statement Tuesday that it had launched Send Globally, a new feature that lets U.S. users instantly and cheaply send money to Africa.
“With exorbitant fees to transfer funds in and out of Africa and incumbent providers halting services, payments companies are struggling to operate in Africa and people cannot send money home to their family members,” said Jack Mallers, Strike founder and CEO, in a statement. “Strike offers an opportunity for people to transfer their US dollars easily and instantly across borders.”
The remittances service is initially enabling people in Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana to receive money from the U.S. and instantly convert it to their local currency. The feature is made possible thanks to a partnership between Strike and local Bitcoin app Bitnob.
“The current financial system isn’t set up in a way that ensures equal access for people and institutions from Africa,” said Bernard Parah, founder and CEO of Bitnob, in a statement. “What we have built reduces the pressure on our financial institutions in sourcing USD liquidity. People can now easily exchange value from the US to people in Africa in the cheapest way possible. We can now save people sending money back home to Africa billions of USD in transfer fees.”
Strike and Bitnob bridge the two continents by connecting local financial institutions with the universal Lighting network, Bitcoin’s overlay protocol for cheap and fast payments.
“Now, using Lightning rails under the hood, Strike’s Send Globally feature provides users in the U.S. a cheaper, faster, and more innovative way to instantly send payments to Africa,” per the statement. “Payments are instantly converted into naira, cedi, or shillings, and deposited directly into a recipient’s bank, mobile money, or Bitnob account.”
Strike said it plans to enable Send Global in more African countries in the future.
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HarperCollins Workers Fight to End Cycle of Unfair Wages
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When Rachel Kambury, 31, started working at publishing house Hachette six years ago, her manager sat her down and said, “I’m so happy you’re here.”
Courtesy of Rachel KamburySupporters sent bagels and assorted snacks to strikers on the picket line. She was flattered. “I was certainly happy to be there,” Kambury recalls. “But then he said, ‘You actually beat out 400 other people for this job.’”
At the time Kambury was honored and felt validated that she was chosen instead of hundreds of others for one coveted spot. Though the role was her dream job, the salary was less-than-desirable. It was 2016, and Kambury was earning around $33,000 — before taxes.
“I quickly came to this realization of, Oh, that’s how they justify these salaries, because there were 400 people who were ready and willing to take my spot,” she says. “They know that and take it for granted.”
Kambury has since moved on to other publishing companies; she’s currently an associate editor at HarperCollins. She’s now well into her career, has worked on hundreds of bestsellers and has bid on books for up to $500,000 — and yet, “I’m only making about $13 an hour after taxes,” she says.
Kambury is one of the hundreds of unionized HarperCollins employees currently picketing for fair pay and better working standards. Kambury says that the strike, which started on November 10, will continue until the employees negotiate a fair contract. The union represents about 250 employees, who have been working without a contract since April, according to the New York Times.
Day 2: Picketing in the rain. Thank you to everyone who cheered, honked, and donated food to keep us going today! #hcponstrike pic.twitter.com/YmtMC9V9Gw
— Erika DiPasquale (@ErDiPasquale) November 11, 2022
Related: 3 Lessons Employers Can Learn From the ‘Great Unionization’
The movement has garnered support from others in the publishing industry, world-renowned authors and online supporters voicing their solidarity. The widespread attention has brought to light, as Kambury points out, that it’s not just HarperCollins — it’s pretty much all of publishing.
“I would call it a combination of hazing and the process of elimination,” Kambury says. “This goes for all of the major publishers and some of the smaller ones — they’ve built their business over the years more and more on the exploitation of labor. They take passionate kids right out of college as much as possible.”
Kambury isn’t referring to “hazing” in the traditional sense, but rather subtle manipulation by those in power who reinforce the problematic systems that have made publishing a cutthroat industry for decades.
“You hear things like, ‘This is the way it’s always been,’ and, ‘When I started I was at $14,000 a year,’” she says. “So there’s this sort of top-down treatment of young employees where it’s like, ‘You should be grateful to be here. Don’t complain about the salary. Don’t care about the workload.’”
Kambury points out another key problem in the publishing industry today: The generational difference wherein higher-ups who have been in the industry for decades will now “pat themselves on the back” for approving overtime or granting paid time off. Kambury says she’s been “lucky” enough to have managers who approve her overtime, but she has friends in the industry whose managers do not even let them log it — but that doesn’t mean they aren’t working 10-15 extra hours a week, because Kambury says that’s a given.
Day 3 of picket line! @hcpunion #hcponstrike pic.twitter.com/Pj30lbOTwG
— Courtney Stevenson (@courtney_ps) November 14, 2022
The strikers are asking for three major changes. First, a raise in base salaries and then an adjustment to certain ranges after that to ensure there isn’t wage compression. Second, a commitment to codifying language in the contract to essentially make sure that the company’s commitment to diversity isn’t just words — that it follows through on what those words mean.
And third, stronger union protections.
Related: An Apple Store in Maryland Is the First to Unionize in the U.S.: ‘We Did It Towson!’
When they started this process back in December 2021, the union stewards put together about six pages of proposals Kambury says were “very doable, nothing crazy. And now we’re down to three — not even pages — we’re just down to three demands.”
What frustrates Kambury and so many others currently on the picket line is that they believe what they’re asking for is relatively standard. However, because the publishing industry has been built on systems of low-paid labor, it’s more of an uphill battle than one might expect. “The company has made it very, very clear that they consider us expendable, disposable and replaceable,” Kambury says. “And that’s an incredibly horrible feeling.”
Despite the circumstances, Kambury says the energy on the picket line — and online — is “electric and inspiring.”
“If I could bottle it and turn it into a perfume, I would,” she says. “I would wear it every day. It’s just so comforting.”
The strikers have been picketing since November 10 and intend to press on, rain or shine. HarperCollins did not immediately respond to request for comment.
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Madeline Garfinkle
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48,000 University of California workers go on strike
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Nearly 48,000 unionized academic workers at all 10 University of California campuses walked off the job Monday, calling for better pay and benefits.
The strike by researchers, postdoctoral scholars, tutors, teaching assistants and graders threatens to disrupt classroom and laboratory instruction across the statewide university system just weeks ahead of final exams in December.
Picket lines went up at 8 a.m., with workers saying they need significant pay raises to afford to live in cities like Los Angeles, San Diego and Berkeley where housing costs are soaring.
The students and employees involved are represented by the United Auto Workers. Rafael Jaime, president of UAW Local 2865, which represents 19,000 of the 48,000 academic workers, joined protesters at UC San Diego.
Union officials say some of the employees make as little as $24,000 per year, according to CBS Los Angeles. Along with higher salaries and greater annual raises, the workers are demanding free public transit passes, improved child care benefits and greater job security.
“After months at the bargaining table and 26 unfair labor practices filed, we have no choice but to move towards a strike,” Jade Moore, a bargaining team member, said in a statement.
“Too many people are being forced out of UC because they aren’t paid enough to afford the rising cost of housing, on or off campus,” Mai Do, a bargaining team member of UAW 2865, told CBS LA. “I’ve had to take on credit card debt while working at UC just to cover my necessities, because over 60% of my salary is spent on rent alone.”
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“We are negotiating with the university around the clock and listening to all their offers,” Jaime told the Los Angeles Times. “We’re going to be out here as long as it takes.”
Demonstrators were also out in force at UC campuses in Santa Cruz, Merced, Santa Barbara, and Irvine. Some 300,000 student attend the 10 schools that make up one of the nation’s most prestigious state university systems.
In a statement, UC said it had entered the talks with a “genuine willingness to compromise,” adding that “many tentative agreements” on issues such as health and safety had been reached.
“UC’s primary goal in these negotiations is multiyear agreements that recognize these employees’ important and highly valued contributions to UC’s teaching and research mission with fair pay, quality health and family-friendly benefits, and a supportive and respectful work environment,” the statement said.
In addition to pay raises, the unionized workers are demanding child care subsidies, enhanced health care for dependents, public transit passes, lower tuition costs for international scholars and better accessibility for workers with disabilities.
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France orders striking oil workers back to refineries amid
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Geoffroy Van der Hasselt/Anadolu Agency/Getty
Paris — France’s premier ordered striking oil workers back to their refineries on Wednesday, as long lines persisted at gas stations across the country. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne told France’s parliament that the situation had become “unbearable” in some parts of France, as drivers lined up for hours and many gas pumps ran dry.
Her decision to order the requisition of essential workers came after a deal was negotiated Monday between oil producer Esso, the French branch of ExxonMobil, and two workers’ unions. Other unions voted to continue the strike at two Esso refineries, despite the order from the government in Paris.
The striking workers said they would continue their action despite the government’s move. The workers are demanding a pay rise, arguing their salaries cannot keep up with inflation that has soared to almost 6% in France this year. The strike action began two weeks ago, shutting down refineries across much of the north and east of the country.
Angered by the requisition order, another union joined the strike on Wednesday, extending the blockades.
LOU BENOIST/AFP/Getty
Government spokesman Olivier Véran warned that the requisition of essential workers could be extended to strikers at four other refineries, owned by France’s TotalEnergies.
Officials have said that more than 30% of gas stations across France are now having trouble getting fuel supplies. Véran said, however, that once essential workers were ordered back to an Esso plant in Normandy, it should free up supplies and prompt “a real improvement” in the situation at gas stations.
There have been some raised tempers in the long lines for gas, but most station owners have said people are trying to make the best of the situation. Riders were seen pushing scooters and motorcycles, rather than wasting precious fuel, and most drivers seemed more worried about the levels in their tanks than the high cost of the gas.
Christophe Ena/AP
In Vincennes, just outside Paris, drivers waited in line patiently, hoping their turn would come before the pumps ran dry.
Najat Hakem, 36, said she had already tried several gas stations that day. “Every time, it says they have diesel, and when it’s my turn they run out, because people jump the queue,” she said. “People on scooters, cars like Ubers, they all say they have a valid reason to jump the queue. But I work, too.”
She said the minimum wait was around an hour. “This is my third attempt; I’ve been up since 6.30 a.m.,” she said.
Odette Libert, 81, said she was in favor of requisitioning the refinery workers and was against the strike.
“This is not acceptable in France, just because a few people want to annoy everyone. It’s their problem, not the problem of all the French people,” she said. “They have jobs, there are many people who can’t get work. If they don’t want to work there, they should leave and go elsewhere. So, requisition.”
Six of France’s seven refineries have been hit by the strikes. Only the Lavera refinery near Marseille was still operating normally on Wednesday. It is one of the largest refining sites in southern Europe, with the capacity to process 210,000 barrels per day.
The war in Ukraine has hit energy supplies in Europe hard, and prices have soared since it began. That, in turn, has pushed inflation higher and raised the general cost of living. Inflation in France is currently at 5.6%.
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Allina mental health workers begin 3-day strike
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MINNEAPOLIS — More than a hundred mental health workers with Allina Health are on the picket line Monday.
The newly unionized group says they continue “to face anti-union tactics and deliberate delaying at the negotiation table.”
The three-day unfair labor practices strike had been announced at Abbott Northwestern, Mercy and Unity Hospitals. Workers at Fairview Riverside are not on strike, but instead they’re negotiating to avoid a work stoppage.
“Unfortunately, Allina Health did not do the same. They came to the table and they say, ‘No, we are not going to give you any benefits in your contract. We are not going to give you guarantees on health insurance or on paid time off or on retirement plans or on the health and safety issues that matter to youand your family,’” Jamie Gulley, SEIU Healthcare MN & IA president, said.
In a statement, Allina Health says in part: “While we have reached agreement with the union on most non-economic issues, including many workplace safety items, the union continues to push for wage and benefit increases that are unrealistic and unsustainable at a time when Minnesota health systems are facing significant financial challenges.”
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