ARCHIVED SOLIDARITY NOTICES

AUGUST 2021: Ohio Redistricting Commission Meetings Near You

We all know the importance of redistricting to the political landscape.

We encourage you to show up at a meeting near you (listed below) and let the commission members know you want fair maps, fair districts and fair elections. It is time to stop the partisan bickering and gaming the system. It is time for communities of voters to pick who will represent us and not the other way round.

More Complete Information on Locations Parking and How to Submit Testimony:

https://redistricting.ohio.gov

Here is a list of the public hearings, places and times for our Labor Council:

• Tuesday, Aug. 24 from 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.: Sinclair Community College, 444 W. Third St., Dayton.
• Thursday, Aug. 26 from 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.: Ohio State University – Lima, Life Science Building, Room 100, 4240 Campus Drive, Lima.

COVID-19 guidelines encourage masks and social distancing. Your voice is your power. Stay informed, involved, and #ProtectTheRightToVote.

MAY, 2021: The University of Akron Chapter of the AAUP has recently set up a Faculty Care Fund to provide support to the 66 faculty whose jobs were lost as a result of reduction-of-force measures.Support their cause by donating to the Faculty Care Fund.

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Support Striking GM Workers!

16 Sep. 2019+

This GIG is from the UAW.

Photo by Jim West for Labor Notes

Sarah Elms and Jon Chavez have written a fairly substantial article on the early hours of this nationwide strike for the Toledo Blade: https://www.toledoblade.com/business/automotive/2019/09/15/uaw-says-strike-will-happen-if-gm-holds-firm/stories/20190915139.

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Support Rutgers Chapter as Strike Looms

08 Apr. 2019

After thirteen months of bargaining without gaining equal pay for equal work for women faculty, adjuncts, and graduate employees and an 88 percent strike authorization vote, more than 4,800 full-time faculty and grads represented by the Rutgers AAUP-AFT chapter may strike this week.

In an attempt to avert a strike, union members will picket a board of governors meeting on Tuesday, April 9. The picket will be an appeal to the top administration to invest in their students’ learning conditions and fund the first graduate employee raises since 2013 as well as providing equal pay for equal work across all of Rutgers’ campuses and job titles.

If you can, please send a simple message of support ahead of the picket for use at the event. Solidarity messages are also welcome throughout the week! You can send them by email for the chapter to place on their website or post on social media (or both).

By email:

Please send to chapter president Deepa Kumar at guernica1968@gmail.com and staffer Sherry Wolf at swolf@rutgersaaup.org.

Here’s a sample text that you can personalize:

We stand in solidarity with the Rutgers AAUP-AFT faculty union. Your fight is our fight: for gender and race equity, quality higher education, job security and fair wages for the lowest paid teachers. Should you strike, we will support that action – as a renewal of the promise of genuinely public higher education for everyone.

On social media:

Please use these hashtags for social media: #FairContractNow #EquitySecurityDignity #RUReady2Strike

Website: http://equitysecuritydignity.org/

Twitter: @RUaaup

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RUaaup/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ruaaup/

In solidarity,
Paul Davis, AAUP-CBC chair

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Support the Part-Time Faculty Union at the University of San Francisco

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Support Workers Affected by Lordstown Plant Closure

04 Apr. 2019

General Motors shut down production at its Lordstown, Ohio plant even earlier than expected — putting the people who have made this company a success out of a job. It is unacceptable. The workers deserve better than this.

Hundreds of workers have lost their jobs. And President Trump is choosing to rub salt in those workers’ wounds.

The Lordstown plant has built cars for over half a century. There used to be so much work here, they needed three shifts. A few years back, those working the third shift lost their jobs. A couple months ago, the second shift was put out of work. And now, the first shift is gone, too.

Trump repeatedly promised that jobs would come back to these factories. He promised that the tax cuts he gave to billionaires and corporations would trickle down to hardworking families. Trump broke both of those promises, and if that makes you as angry as it makes me, then I hope you’ll sign this petition.

People might not know this, but the Lordstown plant has a long history in the fight for the dignity of work. As early as the 1970s, Lordstown workers were organizing not only for better wages and a safer workplace, but also for a say in the operation of the plant. They wanted the dignity that comes with being seen, heard, and valued.

So, once again, the Lordstown plant and the people who once worked there are at the center of something big in America. And if the president wants to tell these laid-off workers that the massive tax cut he handed big companies like GM — incentivizing them to send jobs overseas — was actually a good thing, I’d invite him to visit northeastern Ohio and say it to our faces.

President Trump is giving tax breaks to corporate bosses and leaving American workers out in the cold. Sign my petition and stand up for the people Trump has forgotten.

With gratitude,

Sherrod

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Marathon Negotiations Resume at Community College of Philadelphia

3 April 2019

Marathon negotiations to hammer out a contract with faculty and support staff at Community College of Philadelphia and avoid a strike resumed at 11 a.m.

After three years of largely stagnant negotiations, it’s the fourth consecutive day of intense efforts to get an agreement at the 27,800-student college. . . .

Tuesday was the third consecutive day of marathon bargaining with a mediator, as the union and college try to avert a strike.

City Council President Darrell L. Clarke urged the parties to reach an agreement.

“It is imperative that students enrolled in CCP continue to receive their education without interruption, and as such I urge both sides to remain at the bargaining table in order to reach a fair contract as soon as possible,” he said in a statement issued Tuesday.

If a strike occurs, the college said it would try to keep classes running but would suspend them if not enough faculty showed up. Offices and buildings at CCP would remain open, the school’s president has said.

Pressure at the college has been building for months, with escalating demonstrations, public statements and posturing. CCP president Donald “Guy” Generals said the college was considering imposing its last best offer, details of which were released in May. That proposal, retroactive to Sept. 1, 2016, and running through Aug. 31, 2021, would give union members more than a 10 percent cumulative raise, but also would require heavier workloads for newly hired faculty, as well as health-care contributions.

The minimum starting salary for a full-time faculty member is $50,529, with the average below $70,000. Some support staff earn less than $13 an hour.

Last Wednesday, members overwhelmingly voted to authorize union leaders to call a strike.

Faculty and support staff have been operating under the terms of a contract that expired in August 2016. The sides have been divided over faculty workload, health insurance, and compensation.

The complete article written by Susan Snyder for the Philadelphia Inquirer is available at: https://www.philly.com/education/community-college-strike-faculty-philadelphia-20190402.html.

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UIC Grad Workers Strike for Living Wages, Respect

20 Mar. 2019

On March 19, after a year of unsuccessful contract negotiations, UIC’s 1,500 graduate student workers went on strike. They’re seeking a salary increase and fee relief.

The graduate employees are currently paid about $18,000 a year and given free tuition for two semesters of 20-hour work weeks. UIC Graduate Employees Organization co- president Jeff Schuhrke says teaching assistants are often the primary instructors in undergraduate classes of up to 60 students. At UIC and elsewhere, this arrangement is justified as an apprenticeship, but it’s long been exploited to the university’s advantage.

GEO is asking for a significant raise: 22.6 percent over three years. Schuhrke, who notes that “we can’t pay rent or buy food with a tuition waiver,” said in an interview last week that this would just bring UIC closer to the salaries paid by other major urban research universities. That’s an observation backed up by letters of support from faculty, noting the increasing difficulty of recruiting talented graduate students.

UIC says it has offered a raise of 11.95 percent over three years. . . .

GEO is also concerned about rising fees that it says now amount to as much as $2,000 annually. These include a fee that singles out international students, whose visas, Schuhrke notes, don’t allow them to seek outside work. (How important are international students to the finances of the University of Illinois system? It was revealed last fall that the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is now paying $424,000 annually for a $60 million insurance policy that protects it against a drop in enrollment of business and engineering students from China.)

Then there’s the hefty “General Fee,” applied to all students; it’s increasing $50 per semester, to $962 for the next two-semester academic year. According to the university website, the General Fee supports the fixed costs “of operating fee-supported facilities on campus,” including housing.

The complete article written by Deanna Isaacs for the Chicago Reader is available at: https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/uic-grad-student-strike/Content?oid=69382847.
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Chicago Symphony Orchestra Goes on Strike

15 Mar. 2019

Only hours after performing a concert of Beethoven and Dvorák on Sunday afternoon, the musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra announced a strike saying they had “no choice.”

After nearly a year of contract negotiations with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, the chair of the players’ negotiating committee, Stephen Lester, said the two sides remained “very far apart in both wages and pension” issues.

“This is about maintaining the standards of our orchestra,” said Lester. “We have achieved a level of artistic accomplishment that must be sustained.”

Negotiations between CSO management and the orchestra, which is represented by the Chicago Federation of Musicians, Local 10-208, began last March. The musicians’ contract expired in September but the two sides agreed to a six-month extension to continue talks. The new deadline was 11:59 p.m. March 10, 2019. With no new contract in sight, the players said they will begin picketing outside Orchestra Hall on Monday morning. . . .

The CSO strike is the second walkout by a major Chicago orchestra this season. Last October the Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra staged a two-week strike that resulted in a pay increase but a reduction in the number of musicians in the orchestra.

The complete article for WTTW Chicago is available at: https://news.wttw.com/2019/03/11/chicago-symphony-orchestra-goes-strike-contract-talks-collapse.

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11 Mar. 2019

Minnesota has become a hotbed of labor unrest within Amazon’s ranks, where a contingent of workers organized via local East African community group Awood Center first pressured the company’s brass to sit in on negotiations in November and staged a mass protest outside their facility a month later.

Now, Awood is claiming another victory: rallying together a three-hour strike of the “a majority of workers in the stow department” at the MSP1 facility in Shakopee, Minnesota.

The workers’ complaints—written on a legal pad and posted to Facebook this afternoon—remain consistent from last year: over- reliance on temp labor, lack of self-determination, and crucially, a brutal pace of work that they feel does not take into account the need for bathroom and prayer breaks. (Minnesota is home to a considerable population of Somalis, many of whom are devout Muslims.)

At the rally last December, which included a speech from freshman Representative Ilhan Omar, workers described themselves as disposable to Amazon, with one sharing a story of nearly miscarrying while on the job. At the conclusion of those speeches, a number of workers left their shifts early to join the group of protesters. It is, as far as we’re aware, the first protest of its kind at one of the ecommerce company’s gargantuan fulfillment centers. Likewise—although they’re common in Europe—this may be the first strike at an Amazon facility in the U.S.

The complete article for Portside is available at: https://portside.org/2019-03-10/amazon-workers-minnesota-hold-overnight-strike-better-conditions.

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Request for Help from Wells Fargo Workers