As a key public sector union cuts ties with United Negro College Fund over Koch funding, the right strikes back
New leadership, a Membership Action Team organizing plan, and a 22 month contract campaign that included two strikes, produce a strong bargaining agreement covering 22,000 hospital and campus workers at the University of California. The new contract offers protections against subcontracting, limits on temporary workers, wage increases, and "strong benefits," among other items.
Once again, Wisconsin is ground zero for the future of the labor movement — the catalyst for a new, disassembled, fitting-and-starting labor movement.
The UC health-care system boasts nearly $7 billion in operating revenue, but management wants to create a two-tier pension system for workers, while executives get yearly pension payouts of as much as $300,000.
The union is demanding stronger protection against subcontracting. Workers also want more of a voice in staffing and patient care matters.
Forty-five years after King was killed supporting their historic strike, some of the same men who marched with him still pick up Memphis' garbage - and now they are fighting to hold on to jobs that some city leaders want to hand over to a private company.
How otherwise progressive unions stand in the way of a more humane correctional system.
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