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Here is your weekly news from the Texas Labor Movement.

Striking UAW Workers at Prysmian Group in Marshall Fight for a Fair Contract

About 200 members of United Auto Workers Chapter 3057 in Marshall have been on strike for the last week-and-a-half after contract talks with Prysmian Group broke down.

The plant manufactures cables for power lines and telecommunications systems. It has been exceptionally busy during the pandemic, a sore point for employees who have worked in trying circumstances and are advocating for a substantial raise. The strike has caused the first plant shutdowns in years.

As always, the Texas AFL-CIO stands in solidarity with striking workers and calls for the company to engage in good-faith negotiations toward a fair contract.

The Marshall News Messenger recently pointed up the issues between workers and the company. Hat tip to Chapter President Chris Hodge and Union Chairman Earl Roberts, whose leadership shines through in the article, and to the union members who are enthusiastically keeping the picket line going around the clock:

Local UAW chapter 3057 Chairman Earl Roberts said that the strike has been going on 24/7 since it first began, with 200 employees participating in the strike, which is now coming up on the fifth consecutive day.

UAW chapter President Chris Hodge and Roberts explained that the employees are on strike for fair wages and benefits, as well as appropriate compensation for the work employees did during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The union representatives also expressed issue with the amount of overtime work expected of employees, the scheduling of employees on multiple holidays a year, and the desire by company representatives to lower the number of “refusals” or days the employee is allowed to refuse to work a scheduled shift.

Marching for a Raise, Union Members across Texas Encourage Change

Texas AFL-CIO President Rick Levy saluted the Texas State Employees Union on its Lobby Day at the Texas Capitol.

TSEU held a car caravan and visited lawmakers in a quest for a general raise and resources to shore up the Employees Retirement System. The union is seeking a $6,000 across-the-board raise after seven years, and counting, with no raise whatsoever.

“Your demands are just,” Levy said. “Your demands are right.”

The TSEU Lobby Day was an amazing success with members and activists engaging legislators statewide.

VIEW LOBBY DAY PICS

Texas AFT: Stop the Swap! Get Federal Pandemic Relief Funds Directly to Public Schools

That rallying cry by the Texas American Federation of Teachers applies to more than $17 billion in federal relief funds that the State of Texas is supposed to deploy for education.

Texas AFT President Zeph Capo posted a video demanding the state stop calculating how to divert the money to other uses.

The Senate debate on SB 1, the state budget, left many matters involving federal relief unresolved. Texas AFT is asking us to send a letter to our legislators saying that the money needs to move to schools:

If this funding doesn’t reach our schools, school employees will feel the impact in their everyday lives. This isn’t meant to substitute for state funding for public education — it’s meant as extra funds to help our public schools thrive amid the challenges we’ve faced throughout the past year.

This funding is how we can afford pay raises. How we keep healthcare costs low, or at least the same. How we afford school supplies. How we make our schools safe.

This funding is how we keep investing in COVID-19 testing. It’s how we pay for technology needs in the future. It’s the funding we need to make sure our schools are safe for our students, colleagues, and ourselves this coming fall.

We need our legislators to commit to sending these funds directly to Texas schools, with no funny business.

TAKE ACTION - #STOPTHESWAP

Register for the Texas AFL-CIO ‘Week of Action’ and Help Us Contact Legislators on Issues That Matter to Working Families

Do Something! Next week, the Texas AFL-CIO will hold a Virtual Week of Action to promote a fair shot for working families at the Texas Legislature.

This will be a chance to help the United Labor Legislative Committee by contacting lawmakers on important pieces of legislation.

We have watched a virus spread throughout workplaces and families, seen our entire state infrastructure collapse with a winter storm, and are currently witnessing an attack on basic voting rights at the state Capitol. The Texas AFL-CIO and our affiliated unions are committed to ensuring the 2021 Texas Legislature tackles these challenges while defending the progress our state has made for working people and families.

Texas Joins National Blitz for PRO Act Digital Day of Action

The Texas ALF-CIO joined over 200 unions, allies, and community organizations for a "Digital Day of Action" in support of the PRO Act. Over 3,000 calls where in made to U.S. Senators urging them to support this legislation.

The PRO Act is the most significant worker empowerment legislation since the Great Depression because it will:

Empower workers to exercise our freedom to organize and bargain.
Ensure that workers can reach a first contract quickly after a union is recognized.
End employers’ practice of punishing striking workers by hiring permanent replacements. Speaking up for labor rights is within every worker’s rights—and workers shouldn’t lose our jobs for it.
Hold corporations accountable by strengthening the National Labor Relations Board and allowing it to penalize employers who retaliate against working people in support of the union or collective bargaining.
Repeal “right to work” laws—divisive and racist laws created during the Jim Crow era—that lead to lower wages, fewer benefits and more dangerous workplaces.
Create pathways for workers to form unions, without fear, in newer industries like Big Tech.

It is never to late to call Cruz and Cornyn. Click Below to make a call! or Dial 866-832-1560

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The Central South Carpenters Regional Council will hold a webinar on construction industry tax fraud said to be costing Texas $8.4 billion a year.

The Council refers to the behavior by certain contractors as “a raging epidemic” that is stealing funds that could be sued for local education, senior services, First Responders, infrastructure and economic development.

The one-hour online event takes place 11 a.m. Wednesday, April 14. Among the guests: State Reps. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin; Austin City Council member Ann Kitchen; Ava Dejoie, Executive Director of the Louisiana Workforce Commission; Jackie Wood, director of the Public Integrity Unit and Criminal Prosecution Division of the Travis County District Attorney; and Victoria Rodriguez, Supervisor of the Premium Fraud Unit, Texas Mutual Insurance.

Report: GOP Has Big Plans to Deploy Newly Empowered Poll Watchers in Houston Minority Precincts

One of the big issues in the Texas AFL-CIO’s opposition to the big GOP voter suppression bills is the weaponization of poll watchers.

SB 7, which has passed the Senate, and HB 6, which won approval in a House committee, gives poll watchers special privileges, including the right to make videos of voters who need assistance to cast ballots, with the possibility those videos could become evidence in criminal prosecutions. No one would be able to make videos of the poll watchers, because use of cameras is otherwise prohibited in polling places.

The measures would criminalize removal of poll watchers for anything less than actual election fraud. The Senate bill was amended to require poll watchers to swear not to disrupt the election or harass voters, but pointing a camera around in a polling place sure looks like both those things.

Then there's a story in the Washington Post, which passes along a video from Common Cause Texas showing a GOP official in Harris County — a major target of the bills because our largest county made accommodations that helped boost turnout during the pandemic without a hint of irregularities — calling for an “election integrity brigade” at polling places where persons of color cast the most votes.

The elevation of the status of poll watchers is a walking example of how a false assumption that fraud is rampant can become a tool for voter suppression:

In a leaked video of a recent presentation, a man who identifies himself as a GOP official in Harris County, Tex., says the party needs 10,000 Republicans for an “election integrity brigade” in Houston.

Then he pulls up a map of the area’s voting precincts and points to Houston’s dense, racially diverse urban core, saying the party specifically needed volunteers with “the confidence and courage to come down here,” adding, “this is where the fraud is occurring.”

The official cites widespread vote fraud, which has not been documented in Texas, as driving the need for an “army” of poll watchers to monitor voters at every precinct in the county.

Now, the government accountability group Common Cause Texas — which published the footage Thursday — is raising alarm that such an effort could instead serve to intimidate and suppress voters in metro Houston.

Job Opening: Labor Seeks Texas Climate Jobs and Renewable Energy Project Director

An initiative of the Texas AFL-CIO revolving around climate change and good jobs is looking for a director.

This is an exciting position on the ground floor of a cutting-edge arena for the Texas labor movement:

The Texas Climate Jobs and Renewable Energy Project seeks a dynamic and passionate Project Director who will seize this opportunity to build out and develop a groundbreaking, labor led climate initiative based on the needs and experiences of Texas workers and Texas communities.

APPLY HERE

Song of the Week - "Voter Suppression" - My Politic //Duo Kaston Guffey and Nick Pankey

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Have a great weekend...After all, we fought for it.