Today's Liberal News

Laura Clawson

Unemployment aid cutoffs show who has the ear of Republican governors—and it’s not regular people

Republican governors don’t need a personal reason to cut off $300 a week in added unemployment aid for 4 million people. Making life harder for people struggling to get by is the Republican way. But some of the Republican governors who’ve announced they’re opting their states out of the federal unemployment supplement do have that personal reason, in the form of business interests.

West Virginia Gov.

Wage theft is a huge problem that requires a creative solution, this week in the war on workers

If a worker steals from their employer, they can be fired or even face criminal charges. If an employer steals their workers’ wages, they … usually get to keep the money with no penalties. Wage theft is outrageously common, and it’s rarely treated as a serious civil violation, let alone a criminal one, despite taking money from people who desperately need it to get by.

Essential workers worried about CDC’s honor-system mask guidance, this week in the war on workers

The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, which represents many grocery workers, is … not happy about the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions’ (CDC) new guidance that vaccinated people can go unmasked indoors. Food and retail workers, after all, have been contending all along with people who refused rules about masks, and are now guaranteed to have to contend with people who may be lying about being vaccinated.

President Biden addresses joint session of Congress

President Joe Biden is addressing a joint session of Congress—the traditional replacement for a State of the Union address in a president’s first year. This year, of course, the format of the speech is also shaped by COVID-19. There will be a limited audience.

Biden has serious legislative priorities to advocate for, including the $1.8 trillion American Families Plan, which he unveiled Wednesday morning, along with the American Jobs Plan and immigration reform.

Maker of Sinema’s ‘f*** off’ ring supports $15 minimum wage, this week in the war on workers

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is definitely operating on the “any attention is good attention” theory lately, and she got the attention she craves when she posted a picture of herself drinking sangria and flaunting a ring with the message “fuck off.” Truly, it was her own Melania Trump “I don’t really care, do you?” moment.

Well, turns out the maker of that ring is not on board with Sinema’s project.

Biden administration is foot-dragging on a COVID-19 safety standard, this week in the war on workers

In January, President Joe Biden ordered the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to release an emergency temporary standard on COVID-19 safety in the workplace by March 15. Well, March 15 has come and gone, as has April 15, and there’s no emergency standard, despite what Dr. Anthony Fauci described this week as “an unacceptably high level” of COVID-19 cases every day in the United States.

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar launch ‘America First Caucus,’ and it’s as bad as you imagine

Do not—Do. Not.—dismiss this as just a handful of Republicans: Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar are starting an “America First Caucus” in the House of Representatives, and they might as well go ahead and call it the You Will Not Replace Us Caucus or get real honest and call it the White Supremacist Caucus, because the introductory description of the group’s purpose, as reported by Punchbowl News, is breathtaking.

Three reasons the decline of collective bargaining hits everyone, this week in the war on workers

You want to know why it matters to everyone that the percent of workers covered by a collective bargaining contract has dropped from 27% in 1979 to 11.6% in 2019? The Economic Policy Institute’s Lawrence Mishel offers three reasons:

“For the ‘typical’ or median worker, declining unionization translates to a loss of $1.56 per hour worked, the equivalent of $3,250 for a full-time, full-year worker.

Judge tosses Trump-era pork processing speed-up, this week in the war on workers

Line speeds in meat processing plants are a classic example of something that’s simultaneously a worker safety issue and a consumer safety issue. And this week, both workers and consumers got a major victory when a federal judge threw out a Trump-era rule allowing pork processing plants to operate at higher speeds.

According to U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen, the U.S.

Some states vaccinating essential workers, but in others ‘It’s like we’re being pushed to the side’

We called huge numbers of workers essential but didn’t raise their pay or respect their safety in the coronavirus pandemic, and it’s only now that most “essential” workers outside of health care are starting to get vaccinated. But that process is finally happening in more states, after just a few prioritized those workers in the early phases of the vaccine rollout.

Meatpacking workers are a key case.

Watch out for Republicans trying to claim credit for American Rescue Plan’s state and local aid

State and local governments hemorrhaged jobs in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, and the damage remains: Employment in that area remained at 1.4 million jobs, or 7%, lower in February 2021 than it was in February 2020. Three states—New Hampshire, Nevada, and Maine—have seen state and local government jobs drop by 10% or more. In a majority of states, it’s 5% or more.

Tate’s Bake Shop threatens workers with deportation, this week in the war on workers

Workers attempting to unionize at Tate’s Bake Shop are getting hit with an all-too-common, and totally vile, union-busting message: They say they’re being threatened with deportation. 

Yes, Tate’s—now owned by Mondelez International—hired an anti-union consultant, who apparently looked at the company’s many undocumented workers and went for the threat that would scare them the most.

Union organizing Amazon workers emphatically disavows social media calls for boycott

Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, are still voting on whether to join a union, in a mail vote that ends March 29. The company’s ongoing harassment campaign aimed at defeating the organizing effort has many workers looking forward to that date, when the barrage will end—much as Republican negative campaigning is aimed at turning people against politics and good governance.

Tipped workers face added sexual harassment during the pandemic, this week in the war on workers

In the fight for a $15 minimum wage, don’t forget about tipped workers. While the federal minimum wage has been $7.25 an hour since 2009—and Congress hasn’t passed an increase since 2007—the tipped worker minimum wage has been at $2.13 an hour since 1991. The theory is that workers get at least minimum wage thanks to tips, or else employers make up the difference.