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Honeywell has locked out 340 workers at its South Bend Indiana plant rather than allow them to continue to work while labor contract talks continue.
UAW Local 9 President Adam Stevenson says the union was open to negotiating with Honeywell the whole time talks were going on, but when the workers rejected the latest Honeywell contract proposal, the company locked them out.
The union is citing at least two issues in the company proposal they don’t like—changes to their healthcare and the use of outside contractors.
Honeywell claims its offer was “competitive and comprehensive.” But nothing but the company’s own decision keeps it from allowing the union workers to keep working while they continue to talk with them about a new contract. Honeywell is trying to lock the workers out and keep the plant operating.
Chicago Teachers Union Urges Mayor to Implement Its Revenue Recovery Package
The Chicago teachers Union says it has a $502 million Chicago Public Schools revenue recovery package that Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago City Council should implement.
“They’ve painted a picture where either teachers suffer draconian cuts and classrooms see their budgets slashed or Springfield comes to the rescue. And there’s no other alternative besides those two pathways to the following school year. And what we’ve contended in our revenue package, our recovery package, is there are in fact alternatives. They are misrepresenting reality,” said CTU’s Jackson Potter. “In the meantime children shouldn’t suffer, Chicago Public Schools shouldn’t be handed over to private interests.”
CTU and the district have been in negotiations for more than a year on a new labor contract for teachers.
The Chicago Teachers Union says the problems city public schools are facing revolve around the failure of leadership, the consistent, troubling disregard of community, parent and educator voice and the lack of equitable funding.
UFCW: 100 Organizing Wins in 100 Days in 2016
The United Food and Commercial Workers union says it’s had its 100th organizing win in 2016.
UFCW President Mark Perrone says, “A national conversation about wealth inequality is occurring in packing houses and on the floors of retail stores all over the country.” He says UFCW has “100 examples of how these conversations are moving workers to form a union and take action.”
Perrone says, “workers are realizing that partnering with an established union can help secure the wages and benefits that put them on a path to a better life.”