Tag Archives: current news

Recent News

Chicago Teachers Reach Tentative Agreement

Chicago’s cash-strapped schools—the third largest public school system in the country—and its teachers’ union agreed to a contract proposal, narrowly averting a strike set for October 11.

The four-year agreement, which the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) will recommend to its 28,000 members, includes provisions on pensions, classroom sizes, and layoffs, says Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis. The teachers have been working without a contract since June 30, 2015.

Chicago schools are grappling with escalating pension payments that will jump to $720.2 million this fiscal year from $676 million in fiscal 2016. The city had initially pledged to give teachers an 8.75% raise in exchange for a shift pension payments to teachers.

Under the deal the existing 21,000 teachers will continue to contribute 2% to their pension, with the school board chipping in an additional 7%. However, new hires will not get the 7% “pension pickup,” but will get a salary adjustment to compensate for that, Lewis says.

 

Recent News

Quincy Jones’ Royalty Trial Delayed

 Legendary producer Quincy Jones of Local 47 (Los Angeles, CA) was set to go to trial over royalties he says he’s owed from albums released after Michael Jackson’s death. A recent development means defendants Sony Music and MJJ Productions can no longer share a legal team. Until now, Sony and MJJ have shared counsel, but because this will pit the two against each other on at least one argument, Sony will have to retain separate legal counsel. 

A judge gave Jones the green light to pursue damages claims related to payment from permanent digital downloads. The producer argues he was shorted because Sony was underpaying MJJ, a song company controlled by the late artist’s estate. Jackson’s biggest hits were re-edited, and Jones says MJJ breached his contract by allowing third parties to exploit the works without first offering Jones the opportunity to perform the remixes himself. 

The issue boils down to whether Sony should have been treating those downloads as licenses instead of as sales—which would have given both Jackson’s company and Jones more money. Artists get half of net revenue from licenses, but only a 15% royalty on sales.

Recent News

Help Stop the Billionaire Tax Loophole

Some Wall Street millionaires and billionaires pay less taxes than hardworking teachers, nurses, and musicians through a practice known as “carried interest loophole.” This election cycle, we need to tell our members of Congress it’s time for them to make a commitment to stand up for the best interest of working families, not Wall Street millionaires and billionaires.

This loophole has real consequences for our families and our communities. It has meant that billions of dollars that could have gone to fund education for our kids and fix our crumbling bridges and schools has, instead, gone into the pockets of Wall Street billionaires.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle recognize that closing this ridiculous loophole is common sense. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have all been calling to end it. Even Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate, who has supported other tax breaks for the wealthy, agrees that this practice has to stop.

But there are still far too many politicians—both Democrats and Republicans—who don’t want to take action on this. It’s up to us to make sure our members of Congress hear from working families now, more than lobbyists and wealthy campaign contributors, that ending tax breaks for Wall Street billionaires is the right thing to do.

The AFL-CIO has set up a petition so you can let Congress know that it’s time to close the carried interest loophole and stop the special treatment of Wall Street billionaires.

 

Recent News

Gord Downie’s Last Act to Benefit First Nations Project

The Tragically Hip’s final Man Machine Poem tour generated a staggering US $1.85 million per show. According to the Canadian Cancer Society and the Sunnybrook Foundation, ticket sales helped raise more than $1 million for brain cancer research.

Gord Downie of Local 518 (Kingston, ON) announced he will be doing two additional special benefit shows for the University of Manitoba-based National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR). The project highlights the story of Chanie Wenjack, a 12-year-old Ojibway boy who died in 1966 after fleeing one of the notorious state-run residential schools. “Chanie haunts me. His story is Canada’s story,” Downie says. The multimedia project includes a solo album, animated film, and a graphic novel, The Secret Path, by award-winning author Jeff Lemire.

Day schools or industrial schools, which forced First Nations children to assimilate into the dominant Canadian culture, devastated native communities. Nearly 150,000 or 30% of native children were taken from their families, deprived of their language, and exposed to abuses in the government schools. Last year, a truth commission described the schools as a tool for “cultural genocide.” The last school was closed in 1996.   

Recent News

Our Revolution Aims to Topple TPP

Bernie Sanders has launched a full on attack of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pack through his new organization, Our Revolution. The organization is hoping to generate 50,000 calls to the US House. The group is urging people to call 1-844-311-2016 to be connected with their representative at the capitol. It is expected that President Obama will ask Congress to vote on the pact before his term of office ends.

“If TPP passes Congress, that’s it. It can’t be changed. TPP can’t be canceled unless all 12 nations pull out,” says Our Revolution Chair Larry Cohen.

TPP is opposed by Americans across the political spectrum. Donald Trump supporters dislike its impact on domestic jobs, while Hillary Clinton supporters dislike its corporate-friendly secret tribunals that can overrule national laws that protect the public. Our Revolution highlighted five problem with the agreement: 1) Outsourcing more jobs overseas; 2) US courts will be overruled; 3) Prescription drug prices will go up; 4) Environmental protection will be set back; 5) The agreement cannot be repealed.

Recent News

Right to Work (for Less) Amendment on Virginia Ballot

This November Virginians will vote on a proposed amendment that would put the provisions of the Virginia right to work (for less) law into state constitution. Passage of the amendment would make the right to work more permanent. While the General Assembly can change a law, a constitutional provision can only be changed by another constitutional amendment. The Virginia AFL-CIO says the proposed amendment is unnecessary and would make the law almost impossible reverse, adding that the amendment “is designed by a handful of powerful corporate interests to silence the voices of working Virginians.”

Carlos Santana
Recent News

Carlos Santana Holds Benefit for Mexican Medical Facilities

Carlos SantanaPRS Signature artist and AFM member Carlos Santana of Local 6 (San Francisco, CA) is holding a unique fundraising event at to benefit healthcare facilities serving two areas in Mexico. Through Santana’s nonprofit Milagro Foundation, funds will support the Santana Telehealth Project and benefit both the Santuario de Luz pediatric medical clinic in the town of Autlan, Mexico, and the Hospital Infantil de las Californias in Tijuana. Santana was born in Autlan and his family moved to Tijuana when he was a child.

“The Ultimate Experience with Carlos Santana” at the House of Blues is co-sponsored by PRS Guitars, the House of Blues, and Casa Noble Tequila. It includes a concert and private cocktail reception with Santana. Each couple attending with get an autographed, limited edition PRS “Corazon” SE Santana electric guitar, as well as enjoy luxury hotel accommodations and front and center seats for the show. Plus their names will be added to the Santana Telehealth Project donor wall in both medical facilities. A limited number of tickets, priced at $7,500 (couple) or $4,000 (individual), are available for the September 24 event.

Santana recently released Santana IV: Live At the House of Blues Las Vegas, available in DVD/CD and digital formats. This release captures the reunion of Santana’s band of the late ’60s and early ’70s. He has a series of shows lined up at the House of Blues.

Recent News

Bakers End 50-Year Business Relationship with Wells Fargo

Oregon and Washington unions are under attack by the Freedom Foundation, a business-funded organization targeting government employee unions. The anti-union group has filed numerous lawsuits against unions and has campaigned vigorously to get workers to drop union membership, even producing a weekly anti-union radio show.  

One of the group’s largest funders is Vancouver-based M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust, led by three trustees, one of whom is Wells Fargo senior executive Jeffrey T. Grubb.

In a counter move, the union established Northwest Accountability Project, which has publicly criticized Murdock, a big funder of other right-wing groups such as the anti-gay-rights legal group, Alliance Defending Freedom.  

In his rebuke to Wells Fargo, Local 114 Secretary-Treasurer Terry Lansing says, “We feel strongly that Mr. Grubb’s support for these groups, through his paid role as one of three trustees, undermines many of the values we hold dear as labor activists in the Pacific Northwest.” Opened in 1963, the union’s Wells Fargo account has now been transferred to IBEW and United Workers Federal Credit Union.

Recent News

Union President Says American Airlines Pushing Limits

The president of American Airlines’ pilots union says he’s alarmed by a new management initiative to speed up some flight plans, stating in a letter to union members that it could “compromise the margin of safety.” Some of the union’s pilots report flight plan manipulation to keep crews under Federal Aviation Administration caps that restrict time spent on duty, a practice called “pilot pushing.”

Capt. Dan Carey, newly elected president of the Allied Pilots Association, says American Airlines’ operations are clearly over-scheduled. He alleges management is now resorting to improvisation and cautions that pilot pushing leads to “rush to comply” behavior. This includes instructing pilots to increase air speeds, including in some cases where there is forecasted turbulence, using different flight routing, and decreasing taxi times by using paths and speeds that deviate from “what would normally be considered rational.”

American Airlines refuted the claim, noting that any attempts to speed up flight plans are done within federal limits and with the consent of the plane’s captain.  

 

Recent News

Gig Economy Workers Legal?

According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), workers misclassified as independent contractors can now be found in nearly every industry, and the phenomenon has grown considerably with the rise of the gig economy. Uber, the ride-hailing company, has become the poster child for worker misclassification, with numerous lawsuits alleging Uber wrongly classifies its drivers as independent contractors.  

By assigning the misclassification employers avoid paying payroll taxes and workers’ compensation insurance, are not responsible for providing health insurance, and are able to bypass requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act

Worker organization has been effective, especially in Los Angeles, where port truck drivers waged a multi-year campaign to expose the practice of misclassification. That effort, which has included multiple strikes, has been supported by a broad coalition of community groups, a potent combination that has played a crucial role in challenging the trucking industry’s “independent contractor” business model. The state’s labor commissioner alone has issued more than 300 decisions on misclassification in Southern California, and drivers have prevailed in every decision, winning over $35 million in back pay.