Pennsylvania

Will Plant Workers Strike For The Right To Strike Over Grievances?

June 15, 2023 Alex Press, Labor Notes. Resist! Pennsylvania, Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs, Workplace Safety

Erie, Pennsylvania - “What do you think of the company’s contract proposals?” asked a man at the head of a contingent of workers marching through the mile-long, mile-wide Wabtec locomotive factory. “F— you!” responded members of United Electrical Workers (UE) Local 506, their voices echoing off the walls. A few blocks down at Irish Cousins, the bar across from the union hall, one patron’s “How are you doing?” was answered by another with “Waiting on the word.” It was the afternoon of Friday, June 9, and 1,400 workers were preparing for the possibility that when their contract expired at midnight, they would be on strike.

In Erie, 1,500 UE Members To Walkout Over ‘Right To Strike’

June 6, 2023 Mike Elk, Payday Report. Resist! Pennsylvania, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Erie, PA – “Pile on,” yells UE Local 506 Business Agent John Miles as the Erie Sea Wolves right fielder Daniel Cabreba hits a fast-hit groundball to shallow right field. “Pile on boys, Pile on,” Miles shouts as Andrew Navigato rounds the base to score the second run of the inning for the hometown Sea Wolves, the AA affiliate of the Tigers. The Sea Wolves, backed by the cheers of scores of union members, who attended Erie’s “Labor Night at the Ballpark” last week, would score four runs in the bottom of the 4th inning. Using the momentum of the 4th inning explosion, the Sea Wolves would go on to win 7-3 and reclaim first place in the Eastern League’s Southwest Division.

The War Over No Strike Clauses Has A New Front Line

June 3, 2023 Hamilton Nolan, In These Times. Resist! Corporatism, Pennsylvania, Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

“Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains,” philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau said in the 18th century. Likewise, the right to strike is the fundamental source of a union’s power, and everywhere they have signed that right away. “No strike clauses,” which ban workers from striking during the course of a union contract, have been ubiquitous for decades — the price, companies argue, of having a contract at all. Breaking out of this power-sucking bargain is a vital task for the labor movement, if it ever wants to be able to stand up to corporate America in a meaningful way. The good news is that at least one union is actively trying.

Penn Medicine Doctors In Philadelphia Vote Overwhelmingly To Unionize

May 11, 2023 Committee of Interns and Residents, Portside. Organize! Doctors, Health Care, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - After a months-long organizing campaign, the resident and fellow physicians at the University of Pennsylvania overwhelmingly voted to unionize with the Committee of Interns and Residents. With 88% of participants voting in favor, the frontline Penn Medicine doctors are the first statewide to gain union representation. Working at one of the region’s largest healthcare providers, Penn’s frontline physicians look forward to advocating for the conditions they need to provide top-quality care without compromising their mental, physical, or financial wellbeing. Despite working at one of the wealthiest university systems in the country, residents often struggle to make ends meet.

March To Save Philadelphia’s Chinatown

April 27, 2023 Joe Piette, Workers World. Resist! Chinatown, Gentrification, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - A show of force and unity will take place in Philadelphia April 29 with the message, “No Arena in the Heart of Our City.” Marching from Chinatown to the much-criticized proposed site of a new basketball arena and then on to City Hall, Chinatown residents and allies will be telling the City Council and the mayor that the people are united in opposing the blatant land grab by billionaire developers. In the words of the Save Chinatown Coalition: “The event will be a demonstration of joy, creativity and the power of connecting across communities. It will be a demonstration of fierce resistance to those who seek to tear apart communities and disrupt and distort the Heart of our City in their boundless drive for profits.”

The Buy Nothing Movement Is Restitching Our Social Fabric

April 4, 2023 Saira Bajwa, Next City. Create! Circular Economy, Community organizing, Mutual Aid, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Fresh out of an abusive relationship, Andrea O’Reilly was ready to give her twin boys a new life. But facing a cost of living crisis atop a personal crisis, the prospect of buying the basics they would need — clothes, bottles, bouncers, a changing table, a baby monitor, car seats, strollers and more — was daunting. That’s when the Philadelphia mom decided to try her neighborhood Buy Nothing group, where hundreds of locals gave away and exchanged items for free. “I went to the Buy Nothing [Facebook] page and the compassion and generosity of everyone was amazing,” says O’Reilly, who asked to be quoted under a pseudonym amid a legal battle for custody of her children.

Crypto Mining At Gas Wells Sparks Outcry In Northwestern Pennsylvania

March 29, 2023 Audrey Carleton, Desmog. Educate! cryptocurrency, Energy, Fracking, Pennsylvania

Longhorn Pad C is located about half a mile south of a small cemetery and a little over a mile north of a Methodist church in Elk County, in northwestern Pennsylvania. With a population of around 30,000, this county sits squarely in the center of the path the Marcellus Shale formation takes as it curves through the commonwealth. The lonely well pad houses four natural gas wells that records show were initially drilled in 2011 but sat inactive for years after that. Now, it also houses infrastructure designed to mine cryptocurrency, which, according to a comment filed by the surrounding township’s Board of Supervisors, hums loudly enough to have solicited numerous noise complaints from residents.

Acrylate Water Safety Emergency Hits Philly

March 27, 2023 Dan Feidt, Unicorn Riot. Educate! East Palestine, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Water, Water Pollution

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - A warm and sunny Sunday afternoon was suddenly interrupted by an emergency phone alert: Philadelphia authorities warned the city water supply could be endangered and everyone should cease using drinking water after 2 p.m. Eastern time. Within minutes, people headed to grocery, corner and beer stores to grab water jugs and bottles. By 4 p.m. a couple stores Unicorn Riot checked were mostly picked over. City authorities warned at a Sunday morning news conference that ethyl acrylate, methyl methacrylate and butyl acrylate spilled into Otter Creek from a pipe rupture at the Trinseo PLC chemical plant near the Delaware River late Friday night.

Temple’s Graduate Worker Strike Ends With Important Victories

March 19, 2023 Jason Koslowski, Left Voice. Resist! Higher Education, Labor Union, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Strikes, Victory, Worker Rights and Jobs

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - It’s official. The Temple University Graduate student Association (TUGSA) has voted; and by a margin of 344-8, the six-week-long strike of grad workers in Philadelphia is over. It ended in important victories. As a teacher looking in from the outside — I’m an adjunct in the faculty union here at Temple — it seems to me one of the most important wins is: TUGSA defeated a brutal anti-union campaign. Early on in the strike, Temple’s administrators stripped grad workers of healthcare and tuition remission. They returned healthcare to the workers before the strike even ended, a sign that the bosses saw they were losing.

One Philly Neighborhood Fights Gentrification — Block By Block

February 27, 2023 Daniella Heminghaus, Next City. Resist! Drexel University, Gentrification, Housing, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Walking around the blocks near the University City Townhomes in West Philadelphia, resident Rasheda Alexander, a single mom who works with the city’s unhoused community, pointed out the changes that had been made. “There used to be a hair store on the corner. And [there] was a cafe…they tore it down. They sold it, they tore it down” Alexander to the Capital-Star during a recent interview. “That used to be a corner store over there. Then somebody bought that. That was a lounge, like a bar and grill that we used to go to. They bought that.”

Temple’s Grad Students Say ‘Hell No’ To Bad Deal From University Bosses

February 23, 2023 Jason Koslowski, Left Voice. Resist! Education, Graduate School, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Protests, Temple University, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Grad workers in Philadelphia just decisively rejected an offer from Temple University’s administration. The vote was overwhelming: by a margin of 92 percent. TUGSA, a union of 750 teaching and research assistants at Temple University in Philadelphia, is entering the fourth week of its strike. TUGSA members make $19,500 a year in a city where annual rent alone runs about $23,000. The union is fighting for a 50 percent raise in wages. In earlier rounds of negotiating, the university’s offer was 2 percent, later raised to 3 percent. Just after the strike started, the administration escalated the fight in an unprecedented way, revoking the grad workers’ health insurance and their tuition remission.

2,000 Temple Students Walk Out To Support Grad Strike

February 17, 2023 Jason Koslowski , Left Voice. Resist! Education, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Protests, Temple University, Worker Rights and Jobs

All last week the whole campus was whispering about the student walkout. How big? Will it flop? It could be massive. Are you going? Are you canceling class? I’d been touching base with my union siblings and talking to my students the whole week. Our union leaders sent us all an email to remind us, with a wink, that only teachers create attendance policies; we can decide whether or not to cancel class; and let’s get ourselves to the rally. More than one ominous email from the bosses told faculty to keep away and warned the undergrads to do the same. But they’re almost laughably incompetent. My phone dings.

Temple’s Undergrads Are Taking On The University Bosses

January 31, 2023 Jason Koslowski, Left Voice. Resist! Education, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Temple University, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Coast to coast, the biggest labor struggles happening today are happening at universities. We’ve seen it with grad workers at the University of California and adjuncts at The New School in New York. That movement has spread to Temple University in Philadelphia, too, where I teach. Just a few weeks ago, graduate workers voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike. But it’s not just grad workers who are organizing. Last semester, Temple undergrads formed the Temple University Undergraduate Workers Organizing Committee, or TUUWOC. And TUUWOC is moving aggressively to unionize the thousands of undergrad workers. Temple relies on about 4,100 undergrad workers. They do the kinds of mostly menial tasks that keep the university running from the honors center and student center to the IT offices, residence halls, and beyond.

The First Big Strike Of 2023 May Happen Behind Prison Walls

December 31, 2022 Kim Kelly, Truthout. Resist! Pennsylvania, Prisoner rights, Strikes, Worker Rights

All in all, 2022 was a banner year for organized labor. Thousands of workers in a wide variety of industries unionized; they pushed back against union-busting campaigns from oligarchs and corporate hit men; they went on strike and protested unfair treatment, from California to Alabama and everywhere in between. Public support for unions shot up to 71 percent, and the worryingly under-resourced National Labor Relations Board was inundated with more union election petitions than it could handle. Members of Gen Z, the youngest generation of workers, are even more pro-union than their millennial parents, and they aren’t shy about speaking up. All of that combined momentum isn’t slowing, either. The coming year is already poised to be another big moment for the working class.

Pennsylvania Prison Strike Letter For Fellow Incarcerated People

November 27, 2022 PA DOC Strike. Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Pennsylvania, Protests

We at SPARC [Subaltern Peoples Abolitionist Revolutionary Collective] have been organizing in PA prisons for years. We’ve been building our movement with focus on addressing the struggles going on right now. It’s clear from the failure to return to pre-COVID normal procuedure that the administration intends to keep us under elevated restrictions indefinitely. Not only that, but there are many problems with the Pennsylvania injustice system that are not being remedied by politicians and lawyers. We intend to do our part. Prisons are modern day slave plantations which only make profits for our exploiters if we do work. The more of us who refuse to labor for the slave master, the less the system can function. We have the power to shut it down and change conditions for the better.

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