Latest news with #laborrights
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Tyson Foods to invest in Kentucky facility; faces strike in Texas
Tyson Foods will invest nearly $23.5m in a facility in the US state Kentucky facility to meet 'increased market demand' for protein. The US meat giant is planning to expand its site in Robards, Henderson County. The project involves adding new equipment and upgrading the current facility to boost production capacity and expand product variety. Construction is slated to begin this year and finish by spring 2026. Tyson, meanwhile, is facing worker discontent further south in Texas where a workers at a beef-processing site are preparing to strike. Staff at the site in Amarillo who are members of the Teamsters union, representing 3,200 workers in slaughtering and processing, voted 98% in favour of strike action, demanding 'higher wages and improved benefits'. Union president Al Brito said: 'Last year, Tyson's CEO made 525 times that of the median worker. This facility is essential to the beef supply chain but if Tyson's corporate leadership doesn't start demonstrating some basic humanity, we will be forced to take action.' Just Food has approached Tyson for comment. The union said it lodged several unfair labour practice (ULP) charges against Tyson, accusing the company of breaching labour laws. It claimed that over the past month, Tyson's management had coerced injured workers into withdrawing claims. The union also alleged the company misled workers by stating workers would lose their jobs for participating in a strike over claims of unfair labour practices. In January, Tyson was part of a nine-member group of US poultry processors that had agreed to settle a wage dispute stretching back more than two decades. The meat giant and the eight other defendants agreed to pay $180.8m to plaintiffs in the latest settlement round, although Tyson Foods and the rest of the group have not admitted liability. According to the court document, the nine processors 'conspired to suppress the compensation paid to workers at poultry processing plants, hatcheries, feed mills and complexes over a nearly twenty-year period'. "Tyson Foods to invest in Kentucky facility; faces strike in Texas" was originally created and published by Just Food, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Labor rights groups seek to put $20-per-hour minimum wage on Olympia's fall ballot
Two labor rights groups rallied outside Olympia City Hall last week before handing in nearly 10,000 signatures toward qualifying the Workers' Bill of Rights, including raising the minimum wage to $20 per hour, for the election ballot in November. According to a June 23 news release from United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 367, the labor group partnered with Washington Community Action Network and the Olympia and Tacoma chapters of Democratic Socialists of America to gather signatures from registered voters in support of putting the issue to a vote. UFCW 367 president Michael Hines said the labor group is proud to stand with the community and push for policies that benefit as many workers as they can. 'Working families are long overdue for a raise and the security of predictable schedules and safe workplaces,' he said. The Workers' Bill of Rights would raise Olympia's minimum wage to $20 per hour for large employers. It would also gradually increase wages for medium and small businesses, with adjustments tied to inflation. The plan also calls for protecting workers' right to fair scheduling, requiring advance notice of shifts and first offering additional hours to current staff, rather than hiring more. The Workers' Bill of Rights also would help improve workplace safety, especially in high-risk settings, through required safety plans and protections such as panic buttons for isolated workers. Lastly, it would hold employers accountable through enforceable penalties ranging from $500 to $5,000 per violation, including for retaliation. Christine Fergus, who has been a grocery worker for nine years, said in the UFCW release that she collected nearly 1,000 signatures in Olympia mostly to improve staffing and scheduling. 'My mom's been battling cancer, she doesn't drive, and I'm trying to schedule her medical appointments sometimes months in advance,' Fergus said. 'It's really frustrating when I only get my schedule four days before my week starts and it's hard to reschedule this appointment, because my shifts can change every week.' The city last discussed the possibility of adopting a Workers' Bill of Rights in May, when the council landed on the research they wanted done by Assistant City Manager Stacey Ray and staff to inform their decision. City Manager Jay Burney said that the first batch of signatures was received by the City Clerk. He said their understanding is that the labor groups will be making further submissions this month. He said those signatures will need to be validated by Thurston County Auditor Mary Hall's staff. 'Once we receive notice that the proper number of valid signatures has been reached, the Council will need to act within 20 days to vote on whether to enact the ordinance as submitted or place it on the ballot,' Burney said. Hall said to qualify, the initiative requires signatures from 15% of the total number of registered voters in the city at the last preceding general election. For Olympia, that's just 5,788 signatures out of 38,591 registered voters.
Russia Today
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
How the woke left abandoned feminism, labor, and the planet to globalism
What do Greta Thunberg, Simone Biles, and the American anti-ICE protesters have in common, besides a flair for theatrics and a knack for setting fire (sometimes literally) to the causes they claim to champion? The latest chaos gripping California like a leftist would a reusable tote bag containing oat milk and guilt, started at Home Depot in California. Immigration authorities raided one of the chain's parking lots in Los Angeles, which quickly escalated from 'can I help you find a hammer?' to full-blown urban dystopia. The next thing you know, someone's standing on a flaming car waving a Mexican flag like they just unlocked a Grand Theft Auto achievement. But let's rewind. Why Home Depot? Because, according to the Wall Street Journal, the White House instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to target undocumented workers hanging out in those parking lots. Think of them as the gig economy's open-air waiting room, just like the food delivery platform guys perched outside McDonald's, only with more drywall experience. They're trying to land quick jobs from people who'd rather pay under the table than decode a Swedish or Chinese manual to assemble one. And just like that, the entire progressive apparatus decided this was the next hill to die on. 'These are hardworking members of our community!' they cried. 'They do the jobs Americans won't do!' Hold up. When did defending a labor underclass become progressive chic? Didn't the left used to rage against this kind of exploitation? Corporate America must be thrilled that the revolution now comes with a free supply of cheap, compliant labor and a hashtag campaign to promote the idea that if you're against it, then you're a fascist. So congrats, leftists. You've handed the working class over to the pro-Trump populists like a party favor. Want to actually help undocumented foreigners in America? Try opposing the foreign policy dumpster fire that helped displace them: sanctions, economic sabotage, CIA meddling, and those 'extraterritorial legal tools' that make doing any business with them back home feel like pulling the arm on a Vegas slot machine. Your activist forebears knew this. Cesar Chavez didn't just fast for farmworkers; he opposed the Vietnam War, because he understood exploitation doesn't stop at the border. Tom Hayden fought for unions and against war. Dorothy Day started the Catholic Worker Movement and still managed to call out empire. Today's left, meanwhile, is acting like unpaid NATO interns on social media, slapping flags on their bios and cheering military adventures in the name of 'human rights.' In 1999, if you protested globalism, you were a leftist. Today, you're more likely to get tackled by Antifa. Nowhere is this ideological faceplant more obvious than in modern feminism. Take the recent online cage match between Olympic legend Simone Biles and former swimmer turned women's sports defender Riley Gaines. It kicked off when a Minnesota girls' softball team won a championship with a male pitcher. Gaines tweeted, 'To be expected when your star player is a boy.' Biles vaulted into the culture war and landed face first: 'You're truly sick, all of this campaigning because you lost a race. Straight up sore loser. You should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding a way to make sports inclusive OR creating a new avenue where trans feel safe in sports. Maybe a transgender category IN ALL sports!!' Then she added, 'Bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male.' And just like that, one of the most decorated female athletes on Earth decided that women's sports are too exclusionary. Simone Biles, icon of women's physicality, now dunking on other women to make room for men in their lanes. How very empowering. Simone Biles somersaulted right over feminism and landed in patriarchy's lap. Second-wave feminist icon, Gloria Steinem, who once dedicated a chapter to female physical strength in Moving Beyond Words, lamented how she 'spurned sports' and felt 'angry for and at myself' for denying her own physical potential. Now imagine what Steinem might have said if her shot at athletic expression had been stomped out by a guy in a ponytail and jock strap lapping her on the track. No one's saying trans-identified males can't enjoy sports. But sacrificing women's opportunities so Chad can pitch for the varsity women's team on a full scholarship isn't exactly progress. Even Biles once joked, back in 2017, 'ahhhh good thing guys don't compete against girls or he'd take all the gold medals !!' Well, now they do. And Biles is cheering them on. What a win for feminism. Look, this isn't complicated. It's not feminism if you need a prostate to qualify. Seems that the most fragile thing about a women's sports record these days is the ego of a man in a wig trying to beat it. How long before uterus-free 'women' decide abortion's not a women's issue? Or take women's seats in government or society? Or tell insurance companies to deny coverage for ovarian cysts because they don't personally have them? The slippery slope here is basically a gender neutral waterslide. Meanwhile, guess who just got deported from Israel? Greta Thunberg, the climate's poster child. 'We were 12 peaceful volunteers sailing on a civilian ship carrying humanitarian aid on international waters. We did not break laws. We did nothing wrong,' she said after landing in Paris. Turns out climate change, which tragically supplanted tangible environmental problems like water and air quality, isn't the media darling that it once was. Maybe because people are too busy surviving economic policies crafted by the same technocrats Greta once marched beside. Maybe she's realized that saving the planet from carbon means even less when the people on it are starving and getting bombed. So now Greta's gone from scolding world leaders at Davos to helping to ferry aid under siege. You know things are off the rails when she's one of the only ones on the left with the logical sense to ditch a nonsense globalist cause for a real one. Too bad she couldn't just ride around on Greenpeace ships and actually do useful things for the environment like document actual environmental crimes. Those causes have now been upstaged by hot air. Which brings us to the bigger picture of those real causes. Labor, feminism, and the environment have been hijacked, gutted, and replaced with mindless vibes, slogans, and slacktivist online moralizing. No wonder so many average voters with these leftist sensibilities feel politically orphaned, or have gravitated to the anti-establishment and anti-globalist Trump camp. Ask yourself how we got here. It didn't happen overnight. It was a slow, steady march, backed by the very establishment that now pretends to loathe itself. That is, until Trump wandered in and tipped over the whole display. Instead of fighting for their own interests, people are applauding their own decline, gaslit into believing that protecting labor rights is racist, defending women's spaces is bigotry, and questioning foreign military interventions makes you a fascist. The activism that used to scare the establishment has long since become it. The real revolution won't be televised — it will probably just be shadowbanned.
Washington Post
24-06-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
Oregon bill providing unemployment pay for striking workers signed into law by governor
SALEM, Ore. — Democratic Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek on Tuesday signed into law a bill that provides unemployment benefits to striking workers, following neighboring Washington state in adopting measures spurred by recent walkouts by Boeing factory workers , hospital nurses and teachers in the Pacific Northwest. Oregon's measure makes it the first state to provide pay for picketing public employees — who aren't allowed to strike in most states, let alone receive benefits for it. It makes striking workers eligible to collect unemployment benefits after two weeks, with benefits capped at 10 weeks.
Associated Press
24-06-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Oregon bill providing unemployment pay for striking workers signed into law by governor
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Democratic Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek on Tuesday signed into law a bill that provides unemployment benefits to striking workers, following neighboring Washington state in adopting measures spurred by recent walkouts by Boeing factory workers, hospital nurses and teachers in the Pacific Northwest. Oregon's measure makes it the first state to provide pay for picketing public employees — who aren't allowed to strike in most states, let alone receive benefits for it. It makes striking workers eligible to collect unemployment benefits after two weeks, with benefits capped at 10 weeks. Only three other states — New York, New Jersey and most recently Washington state — give striking workers unemployment benefits. Washington's bill, which passed in April, pays striking private sector workers for up to six weeks, starting after at least two weeks on the line. Democratic Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont on Monday vetoed a bill that would provide financial help for striking workers, after vetoing a similar measure last year. The final passage for Oregon's bill proved tumultuous. It first passed the state Senate in March and then passed the state House earlier this month. But a majority of senators did not concur with amendments added by the House, which sent the measure to a conference committee to resolve the differences between the two bills. It ultimately received final approval following a compromise on the 10-week benefits cap. The bill sparked debate among lawmakers as well as constituents, with over 1,000 letters of written testimony submitted. Supporters said it would level the playing field between workers and wealthy corporations that can wait until union strike funds run out to pressure employees under financial distress to accept deals. Opponents said it could incentivize strikes and hurt employers, particularly public employers such as school districts. Private employers pay into the state's unemployment insurance trust fund through a payroll tax, but many public employers do not, meaning they would have to reimburse the fund for any payments made to their workers. In response to those concerns, the bill requires school districts to deduct the benefits received by an employee from their future wages. Some argued it wouldn't cost public employers more than what they have already budgeted for salaries, as workers aren't paid when they are on strike. Also, those receiving unemployment benefits get at most 65% of their weekly pay, and benefit amounts are capped, according to documents presented to lawmakers by employment department officials. Oregon has seen two large strikes in recent years: Thousands of nurses and dozens of doctors at Providence's eight Oregon hospitals were on strike for six weeks earlier this year, while a 2023 walkout of Portland Public Schools teachers shuttered schools for over three weeks in the state's largest district.
