Listen: The Audubon Society’s Link to Slavery and More
Bird Union (CWA Local 1180) members rally in New York City this past May to challenge the pay disparities facing women and BIPOC workers at the Audubon Society . Photo courtesy of CWA
By Bob Hennelly
This week’s edition of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour comes to you as outrage continues to grow over the fatal police shooting of Sonya Massey, a Black 36 year-old mother of two who was unarmed, but fatally shot in the face by a Sangamon County deputy sheriff in her home in Springfield, Illinois on July 6.
Massey had called 911 because she was concerned about a possible prowler outside her home.
The now terminated deputy sheriff, Sean P. Grayson has been charged with first degree murder. CBS News is reporting that Grayson has an extensive disciplinary file that included accusations of bullying behavior and abuse of power while he was working as a Logan County in central Illinois. CNN reported that Grayson had also been discharged for serious misconduct and had a record of driving while under the influence.
There was a strong showing in Newark yesterday at a rally coordinated by Larry Hamm’s People’s Organization for Progress to protest Massey’s shooting. Similar protests were held at dozens of locations around the country. Federal police accountability legislation that was introduced after the May 2020 police murder of George Floyd has stalled in Congress.
In the first half of this week’s show, we have a conversation with Matthew Crocker from CWA’s Local 1180 Bird Union which represents hundreds of workers from Main to Alaska who staff the Audubon Society—one of the nation’s oldest and most prominent environmental non-profits. The union won official recognition over two years ago after Audubon refused to recognize the bargaining unit voluntarily. Since then, the union has been trying to negotiate its first contract while management has been slow walking the process. In the meantime, Audubon continues to flout labor law and has been cited by the National Labor Relations Board for doing so. We also discuss the fallout related to Audubon’s namesake being a slave owner.
In the second half of the show, we get an update from Carol Tanzi, a registered nurse and the chief shop steward for United Steelworkers Nurses Local 4-200. The union went out on strike for several months last year to fight for safer staffing. You may recall, we had their union president Judy Danella on every Monday from August through December when the union eventually won their contract fight. That was over a half-year ago. It’s now clear from the recent contracts that New Jersey HPAE recently secured without striking that USW Local 4-200’s sacrifice benefited the entire profession in New Jersey.
Back in May, rank and file members of HPAE, New Jersey’s largest nurses’ union, working at three different hospital systems, voted to authorize strikes if they didn’t get provisions in their contracts guaranteeing safer staffing ratios.
It looked pretty grim. HPAE was a small union compared to the United Auto Workers which managed to have a successful strike against all three of the nation’s biggest automakers simultaneously reversing a generation of concessions.
Contracts at Englewood Hospital Medical Center, Cooper University Health Care, and HMH Palisades Medical Center expired on Friday, May 31. Within a matter of days, HPAE managed to win and ratify new contracts at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, as well as Cooper University Health Care.
In the Englewood Hospital and Cooper University Health Care pacts, a resolute HPAE won both substantial wage gains, as well as enforceable safer staffing ratios.
Listen to the entire show below: