Labor unions – The News Desk

Actors vote to approve deal that ended strike, bringing relief to union leaders and Hollywood

6Dec

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Entertainment

Actors vote to approve deal that ended strike, bringing relief to union leaders and Hollywood

LOS ANGELES -- Hollywood’s actors have voted to ratify the deal with studios that ended their strike after nearly four months, leaders announced Tuesday. The approval of the three-year contract from the members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists was no certainty, with some prominent members voicing dissent on the deal for which the union leaders bargained.The 78% yes result in voting that began Nov. 13 and ended Tuesday was a far cry from the near-unanimous approval and widespread enthusiasm members of the writers guild gave to the deal that ended their strike in September.But the outcome is a major relief for SAG-AFTRA leaders and an entertainment industry that is attempting to return to normal after months of labor strife. And it brings a fina...

Hollywood actors union board approves strike-ending deal as leaders tout money gains and AI rights

11Nov

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Entertainment

Hollywood actors union board approves strike-ending deal as leaders tout money gains and AI rights

Board members from Hollywood's actors union voted Friday to approve the deal with studios that ended their strike after nearly four months, with the union's leadership touting the gains made in weeks of methodical negotiations. Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists' executive director and chief negotiator, announced at an afternoon news conference that the tentative agreement was approved with 86% of the vote. The three-year contract agreement next goes to a vote from the union's members, who are now learning what they earned through spending the summer and early fall on picket lines instead of film and television sets. That vote begins Tuesday and continues into December.Crabtree-Ireland said the deal “will keep the motion pictur...

Hollywood’s strikes are both now over as actors reach deal with studios, return to work with writers

9Nov

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Entertainment

Hollywood’s strikes are both now over as actors reach deal with studios, return to work with writers

LOS ANGELES -- On Thursday, for the first time in more than six months, neither Hollywood's actors nor its writers will be on strike. The long-awaited clearing in the industry's stormiest season in decades comes as a deal was reached late Wednesday to end what was, at nearly four months, the longest strike ever for film and television actors. The three-year contract must be approved by the board of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and its members in the coming days. But union leadership declared that the strike will end at 12:01 a.m. on Thursday, putting all of the parts of production back into action for the first time since spring.Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA's executive director and chief negotiator, said the gains made in the deal justi...

31Oct

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Entertainment

What the U.A.W. Won | The New Yorker

The six-week rolling strike by members of the United Auto Workers union seems to be at an end. After making deals with Ford and Stellantis last week, U.A.W. leaders reached a tentative agreement with General Motors on Monday, opening the way for a full return to work. Although some details of the agreements haven’t yet been made public, it’s clear that the U.A.W. has achieved a historic victory for its members. Capitalizing on the industry’s high profits, a tight labor market, and support from President Biden, the union forced the Big Three automakers to make big concessions not just on wage rates but in other areas, too.Shawn Fain, the leader of the U.A.W., has hailed the outcome of the strike as a major win for the entire labor movement, and he’s right. Like the recent deals between the...

America’s Business Community Is AWOL in Local Politics

27Oct

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Health

America’s Business Community Is AWOL in Local Politics

Oct. 27, 2023 12:22 pm ETNew YorkAmerica’s business community directs most of its political efforts at the national level, which it perceives to be the most relevant to its interests. But in many cities, particularly in the Northeast, local government leads the charge to regulate business, particularly with respect to employment.Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Dozens of union workers arrested on Las Vegas Strip for blocking traffic as thousands rally

26Oct

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Entertainment

Dozens of union workers arrested on Las Vegas Strip for blocking traffic as thousands rally

LAS VEGAS -- Thousands of hotel workers fighting for new union contracts rallied on the Las Vegas Strip on Wednesday evening, halting rush-hour traffic before dozens were arrested for sitting in the street. The stepped-up labor unrest aimed to draw attention to negotiations with three major casino companies.Seated in two separate circles, workers in red T-shirts blocked cars in both directions for roughly 30 minutes as the sun sank in the west, casting golden rays across one of the most recognizable stretches of the Strip near the Bellagio fountain, the Eiffel Tower replica and Caesars Palace. Police officers with zip ties eventually started taking protesters into custody, leading them to a white police bus with flashing red and blue lights.Las Vegas police said 58 people were cited for a...

Stellantis to put second EV battery plant in town where EVs threaten current jobs

11Oct

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Technology

Stellantis to put second EV battery plant in town where EVs threaten current jobs

New York CNN — Stellantis and Samsung plan to build a second EV battery plant in Kokomo, Indiana, a town where many current Stellantis workers see such plants as a threat to their current jobs. EV battery plants are a critical part of the plans of traditional automakers to transition from gasoline-powered cars to electric vehicles in coming decades. But they could be a threat to existing jobs building engines and transmissions, which are not needed in an EV. Stellantis has four plants in Kokomo alone building engines and transmissions, employing more than 5,000 hourly workers between them. Stellantis, which builds cars under the Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler brands, along with unionized rivals Gener...

Why Obama’s “Car Czar” Thinks Biden Should Stay Out of the U.A.W. Strike

4Oct

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Entertainment

Why Obama’s “Car Czar” Thinks Biden Should Stay Out of the U.A.W. Strike

Last Tuesday, President Biden joined members of the United Auto Workers on a picket line in Belleville, Michigan, as part of the union’s strike against Detroit’s big three automakers: General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis, which owns Chrysler. Biden was the first American President to ever appear on a picket line, a signal that the Democratic Party, under his Administration, is increasingly willing to embrace labor unions, which in the past several years have reached their highest levels of popularity in more than half a century. (The next day, former President Donald Trump also travelled to Michigan, and gave a speech castigating the Biden Administration at a non-union manufacturing shop.)Biden’s support for unions, especially compared with other recent Presidents, has not been met with u...

Joe Biden’s Visit to a U.A.W. Picket Line Was a Powerful Political Gesture

27Sep

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Entertainment

Joe Biden’s Visit to a U.A.W. Picket Line Was a Powerful Political Gesture

At lunchtime on Tuesday, Joe Biden became the first sitting U.S. President to join a picket line. Outside General Motors’ Willow Run Redistribution Center, in Belleville, Michigan—not far from Detroit—Biden greeted a group of striking members of the United Auto Workers union. He told the workers that they had saved the automobile industry during the economic crisis of 2008-09 and made a lot of personal sacrifices. (These included taking wage cuts.) Now that the auto industry was doing “incredibly well,” Biden said through a bullhorn, “you should be doing incredibly well, too.”It wasn’t a new message. The day the strike began, Biden said that record profits at the Big Three U.S. automakers—Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis—should mean record pay contracts for the U.A.W. workers. But it’...

Writers’ union reaches tentative deal with Hollywood studios to end historic strike

25Sep

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Entertainment

Writers’ union reaches tentative deal with Hollywood studios to end historic strike

LOS ANGELES -- The union representing screenwriters reached a tentative agreement with Hollywood studios to end a historic strike after nearly five months, raising hopes that a crippling shutdown of movie and television filming could be near an end.Actors remain on strike, but the deal with writers might help them find a resolution soon as well.The Writers Guild of America announced the deal Sunday in a joint statement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the group that represents studios, streaming services and production companies in negotiations. The agreement must be approved by the guild’s board and members before the strike officially ends. That could happen this week.The pact “was made possible by the enduring solidarity of WGA members and extraordinary sup...