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St. Vincent Hospital nurses in Worcester, Mass. in second week of strike for safe staffing ratios Nurses at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts, have entered their second week of an ongoing strike. They are demanding that Tenet Healthcare, which owns St. Vincent Hospital, agree to establish strict ratios for safer patient and workplace conditions. The roughly 700 nurses on the picket line, members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, have been joined by other health care workers, including personal care assistants (PCA), pulmonary technicians and housekeepers, who face similarly dangerous conditions at the hospital. On February 10 the nurses gave 89 percent approval to authorize a strike. Negotiations resumed the next day but quickly stalled again, as hospital management refused to address their central concern: assignment limits of four patients to every nurse on medical-surgical floors. ....
Kroger closes more Los Angeles grocery stores in response to “Hero Pay” The grocery store giant Kroger is planning to close three of its stores in Los Angeles, two Ralphs and one Food 4 Less, after the passing of a local “Hero Pay” ordinance that would grant grocery and pharmacy workers a $5 raise for the duration of the pandemic. These “Hero Pay” laws, which have been adopted by a number of cities around the country now, have met with obstinate resistance from the employers. The California Grocers Association has initiated lawsuits against several cities in the state for passing these laws. ....
Tyson says third of Waterloo, Iowa plant workers vaccinated March 14, 2021 FacebookTwitterEmail WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) Tyson said about a third of workers at the company s Waterloo, Iowa plant have received the COVID-19 vaccine, the Quad-City Times reported Sunday. The virus has already sickened about a third of the site s nearly 3,000 employees, and Waterloo Tyson is linked to at least six worker deaths from the coronavirus. The company this month hosted vaccination clinics for Waterloo workers and partnered with grocer Hy-Vee to provide shots to Independence, Iowa employees. About a third of the 265 workers at the Independence plant have been vaccinated, according to Tyson. ....
Dozens of groups sign onto letter pushing to extend Seattle s eviction moratorium through 2021 Sign In FacebookTwitterEmail Eviction notice in the postPeter Dazeley/Getty Images Dozens of organizations are urging Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan to extend Seattle s eviction moratorium through the end of the year to prevent people from losing their homes during the coronavirus pandemic. In a letter, nearly 50 organizations in the city including Be:Seattle, El Centro de la Raza, Housing Justice Project, Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness, UFCW 21 and Working Washington / Fair Work Center asked Durkan to extend the moratorium on evictions for residents, nonprofits and small businesses through 2021 and warned of the disproportionate impacts the pandemic has had on BIPOC communities. ....
S.F. approves hazard pay increases for grocery, drugstore workers FacebookTwitterEmail Juan Salazar checks out a customer from behind plexiglass at Rainbow Grocery in November in San Francisco.Amy Osborne / Special to The Chronicle Many San Francisco grocery and drugstore workers will see a $5 per hour bump in pay after the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an emergency ordinance Tuesday. The pay increases are to compensate them for doing dangerous, in-person work during the pandemic. Unions representing the workers, including the United Food and Commercial Workers, have cheered the move as a fair increase for workers whose in-person work has allowed thousands of city residents to do their jobs from home with less risk of getting the coronavirus. ....