Dan Harrington has been a business agent for Teamsters Local 853 since 1985, but it wasn’t until 1999 that he was assigned to the City and County of San Francisco.
After four long years of empty infrastructure promises from the previous administration, the U.S. Senate passed Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill on August 10 following months of negotiations to secure Republican support for the funding package. The bipartisan infrastructure framework deal still has to pass another hurdle in the House, but if it does, it’ll represent the largest federal infrastructure investment in U.S. history.
Social housing — public or nonprofit-managed housing that accommodates a mix of household income ranges — might be a new addition to the empowered union worker’s toolkit. The concept is gaining popularity thanks in part to the development of Ventana Residences.
Property owners are starting to demand mandatory vaccination as a requirement to work on sites. In response, union attorneys and business managers are negotiating to ensure union members have alternatives such as testing and masking. With general contractors trying to push the cost onto subcontractors, union attorneys are also clarifying who will be responsible for the cost and record-keeping requirements of testing.
Labor Day can mean different things to different people, but for the hardworking folks in the Building Trades, it’s more than just another national holiday. To workers, Labor Day isn’t simply a convenient date to mark the end of summer, and it isn’t merely an excuse to fire up the grill and toss back a few cold ones on an otherwise random Monday afternoon.
Wage theft, which can take many forms, is becoming a big problem for non-union San Franciscans who work in residential and commercial construction. But union workers aren’t immune from these exploitative practices, either. The pandemic has only made the problem worse, thanks to the many shutdowns, slowdowns, and lost opportunities suffered during the past 16 months.
SF Labor Council Community Services Director Tom Ryan and Program Director Carlos Porras founded We Rise SF six years ago because they wanted to help immigrant workers have more of a place in the labor movement. The center conducts outreach to help immigrant workers understand their rights and the steps they can take to enhance their status, security, and stability in the United States.
After years of nebulous discussion about achieving a “just transition” for workers shifting from laboring in a fossil fuel-based economy to a green energy-based one, a new report from the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s (Umass) Political Economy Research Institute now gives a clearer of view of what it will truly take to achieve such a transition in the Golden State.
