On August 24, Carol Tomé, the CEO of UPS, decided to grace the Reno UPS hub with her presence. She was greeted with a rally by Local 533 drivers who were protesting the lack of air conditioning, both in the building and in the package cars.
“We have had drivers go down to heat-related injuries in record numbers,” says Secretary-Treasurer Debbie Calkins. “One driver had to go to the ER three times in less than a month;
Keep reading
It might have taken ten months, with the union soliciting support from local city officials while simultaneously filing charges of unfair labor practices through the Labor Board, but Local 315 business reps and members who work at Republic Services in Richmond finally have a contract.
The agreement includes strengthening seniority provisions and adding a bi-monthly scheduled arbitrator within the grievance language who will hear and protect the members’ rights for years to come.
Keep reading
Joint Council 7 was proud to host IBT General President Sean O’Brien at its quarterly Delegates Meeting held in Monterey on September 17. A full house was in attendance to meet the recently-elected head of the International Union.
“We thank President O’Brien for his message of unity and for his leadership in building the strength of our union for the great battles ahead,” said JC7 President Jason Rabinowitz. “Our number one task is unity,
Keep reading
Teamsters won a great legal victory on June 30, when the Supreme Court refused to hear the trucking industry’s protest of AB5, the law passed in 2019 to end the misclassification of workers as “independent contractors” and rein in the “gig” economy.
As soon as the law was passed, the California Trucking Association sued, alleging that they should be able to continue to misclassify truck drivers as independent contractors even though those drivers work at the beck and call of the companies.
Keep readingEvery year, local, state, and federal government agencies give out billions of dollars to corporations through procurement contracts, tax credits, subsidies, grants, and more. These are our tax dollars “at work.” This raises two questions: does it work for us? And if not, what can we do?
Sadly, the answer to the first question is “not enough.” However, the answer to the second question is “we can do a lot.”
For decades,
Keep reading
The fight against Amazon is huge, but Alejandro Negrete is not daunted. Negrete, as he is called, joined Joint Council 7 in July as Amazon Lead Organizer.
Founded in 1994, Amazon is now the third largest public company by revenue in the world. The company employs more than 1.6 million workers—double the number it employed before the pandemic. With more than 1,100 distribution centers, Amazon surpasses the total number of facilities run by its
Keep readingVisalia
City Council District 1
City Council District 3
City Council District 4
City Council District 5
Liz Wynn
Brian Poochigian
Bob Ainley
Steve Nelsen
Keep readingCity of Chico
City Council – District 2
Chico City Council – District 4
Kasey Reynolds
Nichole Nava
Keep readingWhile California still has thousands of new COVID cases each day, the law requiring special paid time-off for COVID is set to expire on September 30, 2022. This article discusses the state of the law with regard to paid COVID leave and the new vaccines.
Supplemental Paid Sick Leave
In California, employers of 26 employees or more are required to provide up to 80 hours of supplemental paid sick leave to full-time employees who are unable to work (or telework) because of symptoms of COVID-19 or a COVID-19 vaccine,
Keep readingThere is an old adage under the state’s capitol dome that nothing big happens in the Legislature during an election year. It appears that bit of wisdom no longer holds true, as we saw groundbreaking deal after groundbreaking deal take shape this summer culminating in potentially huge policy shifts sent to the Governor’s desk. Some of these include healthcare malpractice reform, new recycling requirements on single-use packaging, ambitious climate change and clean energy rules, measures to address mental health and addiction for the homeless,
Keep reading