Dueling Letters: Chafee to Raimondo and Her Reply
Gov. Linc Chafee first floated to Treasurer Gina Raimondo the idea of negotiating with labor on pension reform just three days after the November election, over a pastrami sandwich, during a working lunch between the two political leaders. A letter from the governor to Raimondo dated November 13 thanks her for joining him for lunch [...]
Happy Labor Day, RI
Happy Labor Day, Rhode Island. Here’s to all the workers, and all the people and events that helped make life a little easier for those who management hasn’t always treated so good. For some good Labor Day journalism, please read the Providence Journal editorial this morning, in which they make some surprising statements for the [...]
Union Grievance Filed Against NK Outsource Co.
The SEIU filed a grievance against the private sector custodial business hoping to ink a deal with the North Kingstown School Committee. The union says the company violated their New England-wide contract when it failed to apprise them of the deal it entered with the school district. According to the grievance, GSA, the outsource company, [...]
Why In-House Custodians Matter to Residents
It’s a growing trend among the anti-organized labor movement and those who worship at the church of small government: fire public school custodians and outsource their jobs to Corporate America. North Kingstown is the latest town to consider this very draconian move but other local municipalities have as well, such as East Greenwich and Portsmouth [...]
NK School Custodians Fight to Save Their Jobs
NORTH KINGSTOWN — Custodians, teachers and other union members from around Rhode Island rallied at the school department here in an attempt to save the jobs of the school custodians whose jobs are in imminent danger of being outsourced to a private company from Tennessee. The custodians and their union representatives say they have met [...]
Progressives Should Care About Pension Security
I suspect if that if named a United States Senator tomorrow (might as well give the right-wing immediate heartburn at that prospect) my committee assignment of choice would be the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, the so-called, and when run correctly, aptly named HELP Committee. Putting four important issues so remarkably interlinked [...]
Solidarity, For Now? The Many Costs of Labor’s Decline
When I moved to RI in 2003 from Washington, I was rather stunned to hear many of my liberal friends repeat the media meme that organized labor was too powerful in the Ocean State [note: I will use the term 'liberal' rather than 'progressive,' because in my experience people on the left my age and [...]
Progress Report: Labor vs. Legislature, So Long John Tassoni, Central Falls Leans Toward a Mayor
Organized labor claims they are big winners in this year’s legislative session because they beat back Gov. Chafee’s municipal aid bill that earlier in the year they said would have destroyed collective bargaining rights in Rhode Island. So this is how we measure success for unions in 2012, victory means mere survival. By such logic, [...]
As Legislature Spends Money, Cities Feel Pinch
I see from the Providence Journal that the new state-appointed budget commission has decided that the city council and Mayor Fontaine were exactly right to request permission from the state to impose a supplemental tax increase on their citizens. Last week, after an impassioned speech by Rep. Lisa Baldelli-Hunt, the House rejected Woonsocket’s request. This [...]
General Cable Lauds Employees, Then Cuts Benefits
Greed, pure and simple. How else can one describe what’s taking place at General Cable in Lincoln, RI right now? A company that is making money hand-over-fist for its investors, because of the hard work of its employees; decides those employees are owed nothing in return when it comes to raises, and even feels they [...]
RI Progress Report: Netroots Preview, Myth of Union Power, Abortion Politics, 38 Studios and Scott Walker
Netroots Nation comes to Providence this week … you can expect a ton of coverage from us, both previewing the big progressive networking event and covering all the action on the panels, the keynote speakers, the parties and the protests. The Phoenix put together a great Netroots preview story last week (still on news stands [...]
May Day: Haymarket and the 8-Hour Work Day
May Day, or International Workers Day, is a holiday celebrated in more than 80 countries around the world. But not so much in the United States, even though it started here and, for a brief time served as this country’s de facto Labor Day – a holiday to remember and honor the working class and [...]
Providence Poised for Annual May Day Holiday
May Day, it’s the original Labor Day and it’s been celebrated with direct action since the first one in 1886 when more than a quarter million workers across the country went on strike to fight for an eight-hour workday. Tomorrow in Providence, the numbers may well be smaller but the issues are no less important. [...]
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