Workday Magazine (https://workdaymagazine.org/category/unions/page/16/)
For decades, hourly school employees in Minnesota have been fighting to change a state law that restricts their access to unemployment insurance benefits, but to no avail.
The COVID-19 crisis hit airline workers with speed and devastation. Passenger flow through TSA checkpoints fell 97 percent in March compared to a year earlier. In the months since, travel demand has only barely recovered, to 20 percent of a year ago.
The labor movement is split on the question of cops. While union officials have signaled their tempered support for police unions, the push to expel law enforcement from the movement has grown quickly in the rank-and-file.
MNA is urging state and local lawmakers to make face coverings mandatory in public places, calling it a “necessary measure to protect the public and stave off a resurgence of the vicious COVID-19 virus that has ravaged this state.”
The Movement for Black Lives is encouraging union members to plan “Labor for Black Lives” actions in their communities on Friday, June 19—Juneteenth.
In These Times spoke with Ryan Timlin, the president of ATU Local 1005, about the impact of the union’s actions on the lives of its members, and on the political climate.
‘To me, addressing the harm of policing is certainly a labor issue and we should be fighting for a labor movement free from jobs that harm and dehumanize us as workers as well as those with whom we interact. We have that opportunity in Minnesota right now.’
At 9 a.m. on Tuesday, ports across the U.S. West Coast ground to a halt as longshore workers stopped work to mourn the death of George Floyd.
The calls to separate the labor movement from police unions are now coming from inside the house of labor.
Yesterday, former Minneapolis Police Chief Janeé Harteau published a letter penned by Minneapolis Police Federation President and notorious local villian Bob Kroll. The response was swift, angry and righteous. Unions are calling for his resignation.